Dave Eggers (writer and publisher)

welcome welcome welcome to armchair expert experts on expert i'm dan shepherd i'm joined by lily padman hi we have um one of my favorite authors on today dave eggers uh dave eggers is a best-selling author and founder of mcsweeney's uh his books are the circle a heartbreaking work of staggering genius the every and of course my favorite book what is the what he has a new novel out now contra posto please enjoy dave eggers we get support from quince you know what i think about a lot the stuff in my closet i actually wear like not the trendy pieces the sweater that goes with everything or the pants that fit perfectly the tea you kind of just throw on without even thinking that's what quince does they make those pieces that's right they have a hundred percent mongolian cashmere sweaters starting at sixty dollars organic cotton merino wools quality you'd expect from a luxury brand luxury without the luxury price tag we love that they skip the middlemen go direct to ethical factories and 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yeah that's what i'm working on and that's where better help comes in you know how i feel about therapy it's just necessary in fact sometimes i know i'm not supposed to say this i judge you if you've never tried it better is a feeling defined by you and for better help it's a better help therapist who really gets you it's a focus on global emotional well-being with thousands of therapists and millions of members in over a hundred countries it's progress and it's getting better at letting the small stuff stay small that's my better sign up and get 10 off at better help.com slash dax that's better h-e-l-p.com slash dax he's in our chair we have not so monica nice to see you amanda made me want to give you guys these this is a new mcsweeney's in the form of a trapper keeper monica did they have trapper keepers yeah of course i've been telling you i've been telling you i've been telling you i've been telling you testing people and you're the first like are you more millennial 1987 yes 87 nobody's had any idea what a trapper keeper is yet no i loved trapper keepers yeah which one did you have you know what's funny is that i did not have it because i didn't like the artwork i was such a snob i thought it was too gaudy you were already bratty about you're already pretentious i was i had to have like a leathery one in detroit you grew up in illinois yeah in detroit you aged out if you were a boy of a trapper keeper very early third grade and beyond you were a target if you had a trapper yeah for sure anything velcro on your shoes yeah you're dead kangaroos with velcro with us you wore watch or calculator watch or anything like casio you're done cheating it was really uh no it's just anything i'm gonna guess it has to be the same anything could flag you as being girly or gay it's just like or nerdy that's why like when the rise of tech it freaked me out because i was like well these were all the kids that always got beat up if you had like on your wrist or whatever and now those yeah why aren't they more benevolent i know you were born in boston but moved pretty soon i never lived in boston my grandfather was an ob-gyn in boston general so we were all born there under his now that's an interesting dynamic did your grandfather deliver your mother's children no oh okay but his colleagues so he's nearby but he was fascinating like he was the gyno to all the nuns in boston and also all the unwed mothers he ran a hospital for unwed i mean fascinating stuff that we have been uncovering more and more lately is that your mom's dad yeah mcsweeney daniel j mcsweeney so he's delivered half of boston yeah probably 10 000 babies you know it's a cool job in that way that if you've been in practice for many decades you really you've been in practice for many decades and you've been in practice for many decades have effectively delivered or brought a significant percentage of the population into the world in your area yeah and you're part of everyone's best day of their life well that's where the mcsweeney came from like there was a guy that was adopted in this home for unwed mothers and he was adopted by a different mcsweeney family but he saw my grandfather's name on the birth certificate and later in life he went he thought that was his real father so he would seek us out and write crazy letters to us all my childhood whoa saying he was coming any minute on this train he's going to come and reunite with his long lost sister my mom so that was timothy mcsweeney and that's why we named this whole thing after him sort of this lunatic screaming from the woods which we thought we were at the time like as a magazine but i just found a bunch of more of his stuff like it got a little scary here yeah that sounds it that's an intense feeling if you're like oh my father's there waiting for me that's a very motivating right i'm coming home prodigal son yeah i've been looking for me yeah yeah some of these relationships are just too intense or they make them intense so what kind of attorney was your father what kind of law did he practice commodities law commodities because of the exchange is there yeah so at the time there was only a handful of people that did what he did so he never went to court it was just a brief letter i trust this settles the matter john eggers yeah you had some unique experiences early on that really i met you could acknowledge set you up for the life you ended up having just this notion that i learned mrs right second grade first first grade assigned you to make a book i still have this book it's cardboard cover yellow line sheet paper where we wrote the story and then illustrations above bound with yarn blue yarn that it still holds up and we spent months on it these books were perfect they had no typos no errors were allowed we had to redraft redraft and then draw the pictures very carefully and on the back it says copyright i'm like oh david eggers would have been 1978. oh my god that's worth so much money right now i don't we then i had a teacher mrs dunn that had us do it again in fifth grade or did another book in eighth grade so by the time i was in eighth grade we'd written and illustrated and produced three books and then in high school we did the first literary magazine with our computer so they were brand new it was 1986 or something first max first desktop publishing and so i learned design and all of that stuff when i was 16 and then i was just you were set hooked when you made the first two first grade and fifth grade were you more into and proud of the illustration portion or the writing part i only saw myself being a cartoonist like that was all i did 24 hours a day till i was maybe 13 or so and i thought you know i started the disney animators or i wanted to be you know calvin and hobbes came about i was gone peanuts i studied and all i did was draw all day what about like far side were you into the notion that you could communicate comedy through this for sure i might have been 14 or so when he popped up what's his name gary larson yes i listened to the weirdest interview with oh really kim on sam harris oh wow he has studied the art of persuasion okay to an insane degree where i'm like who are you trying to persuade to do what so weird you know what is the science of persuasion it's his big hobby but isn't it weird like you have these amazing cartoonists him berkeley breathed and bill watterson from calvin and hobbes and they all retired at like the very top of their game like bloom county just went away like what age were they 40s 50s it's so weird because i go to the charles schultz museum up in santa rosa which is incredible yeah you go to his desk and you see all of his stuff and he worked till the very end and he was really good till the very end but uniquely it's a job that people tend to knock off and quit at a certain point and just go out on their best note i guess but i do miss the far side still there's nothing as good as it i have a theory about comedians Comedians don't tend to age all that well. I do wonder if it applies to these cartoonists. Comedy is about being shit on and calling out the powers that be and the injustices and the grievances and the friction of being a shithead at the bottom of the ladder. And with success comes a much more frictionless existence. You're not getting angry at the boss. You ever heard Dana Carvey talk about this? No. On the Conan podcast about like the billionaire comedian that's still trying to find things to be upset about? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have to see it. You cry laughing. It's so funny. It's like, yeah, there's another fucking thing. And he just like tries to manufacture this outrage about tables and about forks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so good. Private air travel. Yeah. Yeah, I get it. But I wonder if that's the same. Cartoonists generally have a chip on their shoulder, right? Some of them, yeah. There's some strange folks in that medium. You're friends with Kimmel. Yeah, in part because he's been really supportive of our nonprofits and he's hosted some events and then just a very normal guy. And he's a cartoonist. Yeah. I bet you, yeah, yeah. That's his big hobby. He's right there behind you in a statue. Yeah, he's one of the best boy awards. We figured this out. He did a comic when he was a kid that they featured on the show and sort of fleshed out with everybody in costumes and stuff. All these ridiculous characters. And I asked him if we could have a copy of it for this international library of young authors. So we feature like books written by well-known people, but when they were under 18. I'm amidst all of our books by young authors. And he gave us a copy of it. And it's so ludicrous, but you got to keep these things. And that's why we publish so many young authors because their minds are untethered. There's no structure. Characters will pop up and disappear and narratives. No rules. No rules. And they're still really fun to read. You got to remember how unhinged narratives can and maybe should be because all of the rules and constraints and everything, it's applying sort of an accountant's brain to what should be an anarchist. An anarchic process. But anyway, but yeah, he was a good cartoonist. I'm going to campaign to get a yellow limousine put in here. Did you write a book when you were a kid? In junior high, they put out one little zine at the end of the year. And it was all short stories from kids. Mine was in there. And I fucking thought I had won a Nobel Peace Prize. Well, that's why we publish kids. We have kids that are like 14 and they've been published every year since they were six. And they stand 12 feet tall. They're not like so grateful. They really feel like it's the right, it's the right thing to have happened. I worked hard on it. Of course, I'm going to be published. Well, in the truest sense, if you succeed at getting the thing in your head out, whether that's in a movie or a clay or a drawing, there is a intrinsic pride that can't be matched by any other external validation. Right. And yeah, you should feel like your shit doesn't stink. To some degree, if you executed exactly what was in your brain, that's the moment to be happy. Well, and also I'm going to do a little twist on that. And that's telling the kids that like, all right, you're going to be a good kid. You're going to be a good kid. I, suffered from epileptic seizures as a kid or my mom did or whatever then that makes perfect sense there's so many people like that that are into it or they become law enforcement teddy roosevelt right he had terrible asthma he couldn't play with other kids then he has this period where he goes to a ranch and he finds out he's actually strong and virile and it like changes his whole life or the people that are sickly kids and they make plays at home because they're in bed for so long yeah yeah come into theater because they have to entertain themselves there's so many of those the polio generation all ended up really interesting because of that they all had that time in bed and alone or yeah these people the gore phobia that were writing looking out their window this is pretty fucking relevant emily yeah yeah yeah suffice to say i must note you went to school with vince fawn were you in the same grade we were same grade from uh fifth grade through high school no way so you like truly saw the young he was exactly the same guy he was he was hilarious from day one we had a uniquely cohesive class and there were two people that were really key to that everybody was great but rob palenka was also in our class he's the gm of the lakers oh okay and so rob was like the best basketball player in illinois at the time we all went to his games and then vince hosted the talent show every year and uh with my buddy paul bazey who lives down the street still and then they were in the plays vince was but he was also hanging out with the football people but vince was cool with everybody and especially the artists and the theater people so he united a lot of different people by saying it's cool to be with the football guys but if you're theater that's very cool too so we had a weird class in that everybody kind of cheered everybody on for whatever they were good at that's very unique it's unique but you got to teach it it's teachable you need leaders the captain the football team the quarterback was in all my ap english classes right next to me super smart guy interested in faulkner and heller but i think that you could say like listen a rising tide lifts all boats if all the basketball people support the mathletes and the mathletes travel to see the football team when they're in quarterfinals or something which all happened in our school we were so cohesive everybody was okay with everybody dave that's impossible especially in the 80s and 90s i'm blown away but we also had john hughes making movies about our area that we were in a charmed period and vince worships him were you also yeah i was into all those movies they're so special they were in our town and ordinary people was filmed in our town when we were kids and there was a lot going on and then the bears practiced in lake forest so we could go see the bears practice and the refrigerator perry and super bowl shuffle was that 84 that was 80 45 so yeah it was a really great time but i give a lot of credit to those guys for being really nice to everybody everybody had to be in the talent show in our school oh really it was required no but all the cool kids did it and even if you're just dancing to a beach boy song which vaughn did and all of his friends it was pathetic some of these acts but we all put on something i did a thing with peewee herman's song tequila we all did yeah our group did that and we would do monty python did you go on your toes like peewee had in those platform boots i would have thrown tomatoes if you hadn't what's weird is it didn't seem risky because everybody was doing it so i was like oh my god i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do this so there wasn't like you're facing this wall of unbelievers everyone's like i don't know talent show of course you do the talent show so were you stereotypically kind of an art kid or no no i was on the soccer team four years and tried out for tennis got cut twice but we were all sporty our group was a little different than the football guys we tended to be a little artier my friends did the filmmaking telecom classes i was in art classes and good at english class and stuff did the literary magazine columnist for the newspaper wrote the yearbook that kind of stuff but we played football every weekend down at the end of my street there was a park and we played all year round like in the winter we played you know three on four all-time quarterback you know how that yeah and tackle we were really into that so what called you to berkeley i mean it seems obvious it's a very literary oh no i mean that was where my sister was in law school so when my parents died she had deferred a year so we went to berkeley that was that was the nearest support it wasn't a choice for the people who didn't read a heartbreaking work of staggering genius you were taking care of your little brother from 21 years old on i think is a pretty unique scenario yeah and now looking back i would have been in the bay area i'd never been there before i moved there i don't think so i really spent my life in chicago and then we would go out east to boston to the mcsweeney clan and so one of the first times i'd ever been on a plane was going to to live we were a family of six with a ford pinto driving around vacations were kentucky you know to see a cave mammoth cave or the lesser caves a lot of a lot of them but you know i've been in the bay area what more or less 34 years now it really is to me the colors the palette of a place is really important the topography and the landscape it's an incredibly dramatic city it's so dramatic and then you really only have to go if you go over the bridge and into the headlands it's exactly three and a half miles from basically the center of the city and you are in wild open land all the way up to oregon basically there's nothing there's redwoods directly on the other side of the golden gate near woods the oldest trees there are and i never thought i would stay in one place for so long it's not really my way of thinking about moving through the world but i haven't been to a prettier urban environment how quickly do you find your footing as a writer there you put out mike pretty quickly after yeah day one no one will tell you no in the bay area that's the great thing and the burden of it every stupid idea happens because there's no friction you already knew you were gonna write when you got there no oh i had no clue i got there in the first summer i spent painting furniture i thought maybe i would decorate furniture for a living sure and then i worked as a temp until i was 28 more or less you know if you needed a graphic design if you wanted somebody to make a lawn sign i would do your graphic design for that we had clients all over the city and then we put out might at the same time but i didn't make a living as a writer till i was 30 so not berkeley the school no but the area okay i got a little confused i think you went to berkeley the school yeah let's pretend i did let's say okay yeah we can blur that line a little bit yeah but we put out that magazine there's five of us nobody ever made a living but we had a blast doing it and then at that moment had it changed at all i mean i know you have a degree in journalism but was it still art first at that moment no when do you remember changing like no no it's gonna be writing it was probably college because i worked at the daily paper every day for four years and i did graphic design and illustration for that paper but i did a little bit of art school and realized like the immediacy and the impact you can have in journalism you know front page paper there's a strike there's two i'm gonna sit alone in a studio and maybe sell a painting 10 years from now and maybe nine very wealthy people that'll put it in their bathroom you know so that to me i was like ah that doesn't sound like what i want to do journalism's instant gratification and just impact every day you write it you're finished at sometimes 9 p.m goes through copy editing call it the slot they write the headline you're there pasting it up because i was a paste up guy and you send it off at midnight and then two hours later or three hours later you're done it's like on the street that rush you could never yeah some guy's taking a dump reading it within hours sure that's the goal yeah that's a high watermark of journalism if a guy yells to his wife from the commode honey you're not gonna believe what i just read that's the real nobel and it goes away pre-internet if it wasn't good it's completely forgotten and then you're on to the next thing but every so often there'd be something that would really make an impact and then i edited different sections of the book and i was like oh my god i'm gonna do this and i'm gonna do this and i'm gonna do this and then i edited different sections and magazines of the paper and you get to bring up other voices and maybe discover somebody in your little way and help them get a platform i guess so that was what i'm still doing now it's much more fun publishing other people than publishing your own stuff always because there's no complication it's like producing a movie where a you're not on the masthead or on the marquee so it's not your fault if it's not good but you can take all the credit if it's you can just sort of you know be in the wings and say it's egoless it's totally egoless and it's such a pure celebration we had a writer for the believer magazine win a award a couple nights ago for the national magazine awards we've only met this writer a few times but it was way more pure joy than any other thing that we can do as a company because we're so tiny it's like really six full-time people but every so often we have a chance to kind of elevate a voice in our little way how old were you when you started writing for salon probably 24 is that your first kind of pay yeah and was it enough to live on support i was a cartoonist so i had salon graphic design work and then i had a weekly cartoon in the sf weekly those three things combined i was making decent money we had this little design company where i looked at these invoices that we used to send looking through all this old stuff lately our main client was the sf chronicle we'd do like their in paper ads like read the chronicle but you know what i mean it's always i mean in journalism it's that way an ad would take us half an hour to make but we had to just make up some number that sounded like so it'd be like five hundred and seven dollars and 32 cents no all these numbers that I saw us make up were so ludicrous no math or consistency but we were undercutting the real businesses an established place would charge 10 times that much so we made really good money by being nimble and quick and cheap and so I always tell anybody like out of school if you undercut the bigger companies in any business you'll do incredibly well whether it's making rugs or landscaping or temping or design or whatever it is there's a very easy way to just be a little cheaper a little faster than anybody else stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare we are supported by allstate checking allstate first could save you hundreds on car insurance not checking that your keys are actually in your hand before you close the car door you have ever stood in a parking lot full of sun staring at your keys sitting right there on the seat four inches away and completely useless to you it's a very specific kind of humbling yeah checking first is a good idea so check allstate first for an auto quote it could save you hundreds and for fast reliable help when you need it add an allstate roadside plan today you're in good hands with allstate potential savings vary insurance and roadside assistance plans are subject to terms conditions and availability insurance provided by allstate insurance by allstate north america insurance company northbrook illinois roadside assistance plans provided by 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might editors we were offered a gig writing for letterman like the two of us no kidding as a team i guess and it was rodney rothman who was the head writer at the time and he was younger than us we were like 27 i think he was 24 wow and the producer was kate adler and we all met and it was like the most exciting thing that you could ever imagine this is when he just went to cbs it would have been i think so yeah we worshiped letterman as growing up and chris elliott and had everything taped and we watch everything over and over but the hours and the uncertainty you'd get like a 12-week contract i think at the time and then you had to renew i was not in a place where i had that kind of uncertainty i had a dependent and then the hours you can't be a parent and right as a young person yeah trying to be a parent and you can't be a parent and you can't be a parent you're trying to prove yourself but then i took this magazine job and i really learned quickly that i was not meant to i had never had a nine-to-five anything i never had to wear clothes of any kind to any job in the bay area it was all shorts every day nobody cared so to have to wear pants and a button-down shirt and then try to get things published and they say no i was like these are all brand new ideas to me you were just doing whatever you wanted prior to in the bay area no one says no so suddenly it was 90 percent no it's not their fault like there's only so many pages in a magazine so we started mcsweeney's it was all stuff that was rejected from other corporate magazines uh-huh and it was like the land of misfit writings and so we did that published it out in my apartment in brooklyn and just a couple of us oh so you had moved to new york at that yeah how did you do in new york manhattan was not my thing but once i moved to brooklyn it was much calmer it was really oaklandy and great near prospect park which is a beautiful park i just have to be there and i'm like oh my god i'm gonna be close to some kind of open space so suddenly you know we had a ball putting out mcsweeney's was just everything you want it to be you go from this corporate constrain everything to just being back in your kitchen with a couple friends doing anything you want to do printing the book in iceland which we did i got to go to reikovic for each press check and spend a week there going back and forth to the printer among all the blonde press men in their blue jumpsuits the whole thing was so surreal yeah but so much fun was it always like this was it always like in a fun oh okay the first three were just white paperbacks like black and white they were really nicely made but just black and white for the most part and then the fourth one was a box with a bunch of booklets in it and we made that it was the first time there's no boxes in iceland they have no pulp they can't make anything like that there's no trees so were they it was such a big thing it was a big meeting how are we going to make a box you know and like all these icelandic guys trying to figure out how to make a box for this so much fun but that started this thing where i thought well why don't we reinvent the form every time because if you're going to pay us and subscribe to us maybe we'll surprise you each time with what it looks like so we've done a lunchbox in the last few years we got a lunch yeah that was what we got yeah there's definitely the archetype of the lone wolf writer but you clearly like the communal aspect yeah yeah i can only think of a handful of actual lone wolves in the visual arts too it's a it isn't born out that often in real life bukowski is one of those guys right and you have van gogh john fonte probably there's a handful but the people that i've known or met i don't know a lone wolf writer i can't think of one i would feel so comforted yeah if i had surrounded myself with other people who are just like banging their head against the wall fucking getting that rejection se fucking postcard well or you know i tell this to students and mfa programs all the time i was like there was two of us in a kitchen that started mcsweeney's for twenty five hundred dollars that was the print bill for the first one you sell those two thousand copies you have enough money to print the next one and print five thousand copies you sell those you can certainly print seventy five hundred which was our trajectory it's such simple math i can't add anything together i cannot balance a checkbook but i could do that simple math and so we just published everybody we wanted to publish so that built up this little community of people and you start something the magnet you know you just everybody's drawn to it whether it's upright citizens brigade or the ground you know it's the same kind of thing everyone's like looking for somebody to start that thing and then they're like thank god because not everyone is necessarily a starter i guess or ambitious or organized a little bit you need people to fill a little gas yeah like melissa mccarthy this would crack people up but like melissa mccarthy and ben and i we had this comedy troupe nobody came we did shows it was like melissa was the manager she told us where to be she negotiated the theater rentals she delegated you're bringing beer someone has to get the space and do this she was organizing on it and we were like okay i'll bring beer ask melissa what we're supposed to do well if she has you there to help do those things then yeah you only need two or three people i saw a student of mine that was at a crossroads he's 35 now but i knew him when he was in high school and i was like just find a couple people it's just sad and lonely or whatever but a couple people you're like a little cadre of people and you're going to buck them up if they're down, they can buck you up if you're down, and together you can get, you know, a lot more done in a given day, and it's going to be a lot more fun. So the idea in any art form of being that lonely person in the cabin throwing crumpled up sheets of paper in the corner is a canard. I don't know it very often to be true, and also it's so unnecessary. Sometimes you need isolation. I can only write when I'm alone, but then I can send a draft to all the different writers, mostly in the Bay Area, like, hey, what do you think? Is this anything? And then you're in community with people that are like, yeah, keep going, and then you feel, okay, you have jet fuel, but the idea of like, I'm not going to show it to you for seven years, and then you create some mangled Frankenstein novel that nobody wants, it's such a mistake on so many levels. I think that always trying to figure out, is this the way I want to do it where it's fun, or is there some other way to do it, is like worth the moment that you can spend? I worked in my garage for years. It was exactly like this except for one window in the corner, but it was the only space that was free and big enough to have all the stuff I needed in it, but it was really kind of grim, and I was like, boy, I really don't want to be inside in a dark garage eight hours a day. Like, there's something wrong here, so I just had to like think about it finally after 30 years or however long it was, and I was like, well, what if I had a friend? It's funny to say this, but she's a ship captain. I don't have any ship captain friends. Yeah, that is. She sails in the bay, and I was like, would it be possible to get like a little sailboat that I could work in, and I'd find a slip in one of the marinas in the bay, and she like guided me through this process and helped me buy this boat. So now I've been working in this boat, which is, you know, not so much bigger than this table, really. Was it moored in Sausalito? It's moored like right under the Golden Gate Bridge on the north side. It's an old Air Force based marina, but it's a rickety, ridiculous marina. And I'm outside more, you know, I'm like, there's so much more going on, and you get mad thinking like, why didn't I do this 20 years ago? And I think sometimes just to take that moment, whenever you're at a transition moment, and I don't know about you, but a lot of my friends at our age are like in between jobs right now. So there's like a thing that's going on in the business world in particular, where they get priced out, maybe they're too expensive for their company, they get laid off, and they're looking for the next thing. But we're all talking about it. Maybe it's an opportunity to like, think hard about exactly what you'd like to do, how you'd like to do it. How do you want to spend your days and hours? And sometimes if you can get a little bit like, I definitely don't want to do that again. I don't want to commute an hour. And so you can get a little bit closer to something that can never be ideal, but you can get closer to an intentional way to live a life. Well, I definitely think for me that comes with age and that the motivation at the beginning is like, you're a piece of shit. You're a failure if you don't do this. You know, it's just hatred. It's like self-loathing, right? Self-loathing, you need a little bit. And then at some point you go, well, what's the point of all this if I don't learn to enjoy the process? This is all a waste. So I'm going to die with like a bunch of posters hanging. That's the proof of this thing. You realize this isn't worth doing if I don't enjoy the process. It can't be about the reward. Well, are you enjoying the podcast? Oh, absolutely. This is the greatest job I've ever had. This is all process. Yeah. You've had, I guess, periods, right, where you've taken breaks. For sure. Every three years, I'm like, what if I instead? There's so many other things to do. Nature photographer, wouldn't that be cool, right? Sit there looking for the snow leopard all day. Like, I really honestly see that as a thing. But then you also have to pay the mortgage and stuff. I do have a question about the heartbreaking work of Staggering Genius. You had so much going on at that time. Was it hard for you to carve out the time and the commitment to sit down and finish that book? I had to quit the job at Esquire to do that. To do it. Because I couldn't do both. Yeah. I would need eight hours a day of writing time to get anything done. I just have to get my head clear. That's like the first half. And then the self-loathing kicks in at hour five. Like, what are you doing? Like, you've been here four hours. You find that little wind in your sails. And you're like, oh, I gotta get as much out as I can. The afternoon, you're more urgent about it. And maybe you could hit a word count that makes you feel like you've done something that day. What a life. It's still there, right? I'm trying to make it a little bit more fun. And then there are books that just come out a lot easier than others. Now, The Eyes and the Impossible was a couple of years ago. That was like the most fun I'd ever had. And I was like, how do I stay in that zone where it's fun? And a lot of it has to do with voice and it has to do with writing about something that you love. And so Contra Costa was like, I love talking about and thinking about the art world and these characters. And so I was like, okay, that book too was just pretty much joy all the way through. But as a journalist, that's not as fun because you feel a duty to like cover Trump or to cover a disaster or go to Ukraine or whatever. And then you have to write it out and you have to get every last word right and check every fact over and over. It's a slog that you are happy to have done at the end. And you feel like maybe you enlightened a person or awakened somebody, but it's really no fun in any point of the process. Yeah. How did you take on the success of that book? That was new to you, right? I mean, you were a finalist for the Pulitzer for that book. The main thing, I mean, I'm looking at McSweeney's stuff because McSweeney's was brand new too. And so we were able to kind of take that new readership and sort of channel a lot of them. And so we went on the road because I was finding all of these show runs. We went on the road with They Might Be Giants. And it was like me, writers like Arthur Bradford, Zadie Smith, some others, and we would do a variety show. And there'd be, you know, sometimes have like exotic dancers, doing stuff, and then there'd be the band. And then Arthur would smash a guitar on the stage. He did this whole act. It was like to try to enliven what at that point was the most boring thing you'd ever could imagine, which was going to a bookstore to see a reading. You know, people would just get up and read for an hour. And we were trying to sort of shake that up. And I saw Arthur, who's like a filmmaker the other night, and we were just reminiscing. He would buy an acoustic guitar in every town we would tour in. And then he told the story while he played. And then he would, during a crescendo of the story, he'd raise it up above his head and then smash it as like the punctuation mark of the story. And then a stagehand would come out and hand him a new guitar. And then he'd finish the story with his acoustic guitar. So he had to buy two guitars in every town we went to, but it was ridiculously fun time. But to think that at this point, like, I don't love getting on stage. I don't love having to follow They Might Be Giants or anything like that. It's like, I can't believe that we did that because these days I'm much more confused. to be in a smaller setting, a bookstore setting, not a big hall. But at the time we thought, well, maybe we could make books slightly less sedate and slightly less predictable. Have you ever been to a Sedaris reading? Yeah, sure. That was right then. Naked had come out. 1,500 people would come and he would just read his work. Sarah Val was in our little coterie and she was really tight with Sedaris. And Sedaris did benefits for our nonprofit in New York, 826 New York. And so he was always a hero to us. And a mentor. What he's done though, like reading literature out loud is insane. I currently can't stop listening to the live recordings. Barrel Fever was how I met my editor, Jeff Klosky. He was the editor of Sedaris' first collection. He made humor literary. Before that, there was always the picture of like the, you know, the humorous mugging on the front. But then he put it in sort of a literary format, Jeff Klosky, this editor did. And I thought, okay, whoever did that, I want to meet. And so that's why he became my editor. It's a fun evolution too, to watch. Cause like Naked, you can tell is written without any real notion that it'll be read out loud. And then now his writing is done like a standup by doing a draft, reading it out loud, rewriting. His workflow is so fascinating. Well, it really, I mean, it started with the Santa Land Diaries. That was a This American Life thing first, I think. And that was performed from minute one. And that was just like a thunderclap. Everybody was like, what the hell? Yeah. You could do that. Wow. Because there used to be something in the New Yorker called casuals. They were like long format, literary humor, kind of like that. And then it sort of went away. And then Sedaris started that up again, where you could have like a 20 page essay slash. Comedy show. Yeah. And then people would go out to it. But you know, what's funny is that he's still, there's him, there's Sarah Val, there was David Rakoff for a while. There's not that many people that still do it. And it just shows how hard it is to do. And he's gotten better. He's gotten better and better. There's points where it's like, I'll listen to the most recent ones, like maybe Calypso on tape. And I'm like, I don't know, man, you put him up against Chappelle laugh for a laugh in a fucking one and a half hour show. It's the precision of the writing. It is. Yes. Everything is about extra syllables. And Chappelle's really good at that. Seinfeld's talked about it, but one extra word and there you don't get to laugh. You've got to be there at the end of the sentence before they're ready. And Sedaris is unique in that he never puts on extra verbiage or whatever to sort of make it lean. It's really yet it's so full. And then he's funnier in person, even then on the page. Yeah. It's just his voice and his attitude. And then if you go to one of those events, he's signing books for six hours afterwards. He sings every single person and he's writing wild shit in there. He's like the amount of creative output just to write in their fucking. He's connecting with each person. Well, to me, that's my favorite part too. And I would much rather just be signing books and chatting with people because of the high wire act of being up there with a microphone is a lot different. So to me, I'm always looking forward to the sitting and signing. But I do feel for the people that are waiting. Hours. So there it's waiting hours, but they go in knowing it and the venue knows it. But the times that you're there and there's like a union venue and they're like, you got to get out of here. So then you're on the street and then the cops come. You got to get out of here too. You can't be there. That's happened to me. But to me, that's the most fun part is just the reader to reader. Because in person, all people are normal. If you're just talking to an actual person with enough time, human to human, eye to eye, this solves everything. This is our conclusion after a thousand plus episodes is like, we have guests semi-regularly that I don't like, that I've had interactions with around town. I'm like, I don't like this person. And Monica's like, we got to have them. They're a great guest. And 100% of the time, Dave, at the end of two hours, I'm like, I fucking love this person. And I'm like, literally, I challenge someone to sit for two hours with someone and be sincerely curious. And I just challenge you to not like the person. Well, the body. The body wants to find common ground. Just chemically, we want this. So I covered a lot of Trump rallies as a journalist. And I would embed. I never presented myself right away as a journalist. So I would just wait in line with everybody, get to know people. Hope you take this as a compliment. You could blend in. You're not coming across as like some lofty professor. You should see my full uniform. Because I've got the trucker hat and I have my flannel. These are clothes I own. So it's not like. It's not a costume. It's not so much a costume. And, you know, I sort of believe hate the sin, love the sinner. The folks that you meet, the people that you've seen on TV are usually the fringiest fringe. Oh, yeah. But in the middle, I mean, I do think it's so misguided and he's by far the worst president that has ever been or could be conceived on so many levels and certainly the most corrupt that we're seeing recently. But the people voting for him, I would find common ground with everybody and they would have some reasonable explanations for supporting him for the most part. Out of every hundred people, there'd be one true lunatic. Sure, sure, sure. Wow, that person. But as a journalist, you really, especially if you're listening and not like hit and run journalism, but like I'm going to give you as long as you want to talk. I'm going to learn an explanation that I wouldn't have thought about. And sometimes they're voting in very narrow. My 401k went up last time he was elected and I need that money. Okay. Can't really argue with that. My parents waited 17 years to immigrate from the Philippines. I want everyone to wait the same amount of time. I live in a border town. 250,000 people have come over this month. That scares me. Well, I did cover the El Paso rally. So that was Beto O'Rourke on one side of the street having a rally when he's running for the Senate. About 4,000 people came to that one. Crossed the street, 90 feet, 15,000 people to Trump in El Paso. A week after he said that El Paso was a dump and whatever, doesn't matter. 50, 60% of that crowd was Latino. They laugh at this idea. I've interviewed so many. People that like the border. People are going up and down, back and forth every day from El Paso. It's very porous. There's underground tunnels. There's all these different things. But then you have that conservatism of recent immigrants, right? So it was a family where the mom came over from Mexico illegally, got her green card. One daughter is a cop and is a Trumpy and won't talk to the mother anymore because she broke the law to come over. But she's an American because her mother. Yeah. And so now. No one's talking to each other because she's iced out the mother. The sister won't talk to this other sister, and it's all because of one guy. Yeah. And so, you know, you got to back up and say it wasn't this way for so long. The border was much more porous. You'd work in the U.S. because wages are higher than go back home because it's cheaper to live in Mexico. It was just back and forth for farm workers, for construction, for a lot of different things. And then suddenly it wasn't Trump that did this. But everything. Everything became much more heightened and sort of you have to pick a side and choose. And it's wildly mismanaged. I don't have the solution in this podcast, but I will say that. If you drop the solution. I know. Hey, why were you sitting on that score? We're on year 10 of this. Yeah. I do want to say this. I cannot remember, but I bet it had to be Kimmel who told me to. But what is the what was the first book of yours I read? OK. And I talk about it here all the time. I just love that book. It's just outstandingly beautiful. You know, Valentino. And I we went to Kimmel's taping a year or two ago. Jimmy Kimmel and Molly have given money to Valentino schools in South Sudan. He has a foundation. And so it was really weird. There was a guy doing crowd work before and he was like, where is everybody from? I want to see who's from the furthest place away. And he happens to find Valentino sitting next to me. And he's like, where are you from? South Sudan. You won. He got it. After the book came out, we went back to South Sudan and all the money from the book went to this foundation. And then he had the decision to make, like, what do you do with it? And he decided to build a high school in this town. He was so successful. But he became the minister of education for his whole region. So basically New England size. And now he's running his own schools in a town close to Mario by where he grew up. You read about him till he was probably 22, I guess. Was it Atlanta that they got sent to the heartbreaking part of this book? If you haven't read it, I really encourage one of my very favorite books. But, you know, what these kids went through to cross the desert. I mean, there's literally lions picking guys off, which is just unimaginable. They have this notion of getting to America and then they go to Atlanta and just the violence that's happening in the motel that they're at. And this speed of life. Like when I met Valentino, he just just got in an accident like two days after getting his driver's license, they had three months of aid from USAID or whatever group it was, maybe it was the UNHCR. But then they're on their own and it's like independent nonprofits and churches that supported the Lost Boys all over the US. But to the credit of the churches and our ability to absorb refugees and people from the toughest post-conflict zones, they were absorbed and did quite well almost everywhere. And it was mostly the churches that did it because most of the kids were brought up Catholic. The churches reached out, whatever you need, come to us, you're part of our family. And then in Atlanta, it was Mary Williams who started the Lost Boys Foundation and got in touch with me. But you had a thousand mostly boys, all unaccompanied, 18 to 25, sent to Fargo, sent to Omaha, cheaper places to live, San Jose, never in the middle of the city. And suddenly after three months, it's like, well, you got to pay that electrical bill. What's an electrical bill? OK, well, and you've got to get to school now. You have to have a job within three months. You have to know everything. It took all of us 18 years to figure out. You have to know it in the next three months, three months. Most of them, if they were lucky enough to sort of have a family that takes care of them, they would have a family that takes care of them. And then you have to figure out how to do it. leg or your hips are one way your shoulders are another way as opposed to a stock still kind of rigid pose so most poses we know could be qualified as contraposto but it's something you learn in art school and you ask of the model and i like the word always and i felt like it applied to the relationship between cricket and olympias where there's sort of balanced imbalance between them stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare we are supported by hp my mental to-do list is already full uh fix something around the house refill prescriptions remember to text someone back keep track of a million little life things the last thing i want on that list is oh don't forget printer ink no it's horrible it's the bane of everyone's existence what if you could just take that off your list for you It's built to be simple the easiest tank printer you'll ever use with the best print quality period it's the last printer you'll ever need i've definitely been in this situation where something that should take two minutes turns into a whole thing like i need to print a whole thing to print tickets and get out the door but then i realize i'm out of ink and have to deal with it right then with the hp smart tank that's just not something you're dealing with all the time it's one of those things that just works when you need it to if you want to take one more thing off your mental to-do list search for hp smart tank we get support from zip recruiter oh get recruited you know what i love when someone shows up in a way you didn't expect like i've had people come up to me out in public and pitch themselves for a job on the pod no email no formal application just pure confidence and conviction and honestly i respect it when you're hiring it's always helpful to know who really wants the job but you don't need unusual stunts you just need zip recruiter on zip recruiter qualified candidates can add a personal note to tell you why they're 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apple card today and unlock the tools for a productive school year subject to credit approval apple card is issued by gold we get support from instagram teen accounts so we talk a lot on this show about how the world is different now than when we were growing up and one of the biggest differences is obviously social media and i think a lot of people wonder okay what's actually being done to make it safer for teenagers which is a fair question yeah so instagram has got something called teen accounts and they come with automatic protections built in by default so any one between 13 and 17 is automatically placed into this experience they get age-appropriate content settings contact limits so that by default only people they're already connected to can message them and time management tools daily time limit reminders and also sleep mode that mutes notifications from 10 p.m to 7 a.m sleep mode is genius right and here's the thing for anyone under 16 a parent has to give permission to change any of those settings to be less strict the guardrails are on and instagram keeps building new safety features to create age-appropriate experiences for teens i am really glad instagram's helping to give parents peace of mind with teen accounts learn more about teen accounts and instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online at instagram.com slash teen accounts so the book starts a little boy robert and he ditches that name because he is a shitty not a stepdad but mom's boyfriend is terrible you're not gonna let me draw any parallels i never had a stepdad he sounded very familiar to me but cricket gets this name because he doesn't want to be called rob because it's now associated with robert who's upstairs right yeah the book starts with like this sanctuary this little boy has do you want to describe it a little bit yeah his grandfather lives at home in the basement and then it's created kind of like a botanical garden almost in the middle of a indiana basement in the middle of winter it's frozen outside and white and probably below zero but down there it's humid and full of plants and green and and spiders he likes spiders yeah insects so it's this humid sort of fertile kind of womb-like world almost that cricket spends most of his time down there with his grandfather who's pretty old and not super mobile he doesn't really leave the hall listening to records and his father reading above him and i think that those early sections about the grandfather i just wanted to establish that when you're a kid and you can draw or if you can write or whatever you're doing there's this like incredible piece that comes over a kid that he's got all this chaos going on upstairs but on that page he controls everything can create any universe or world he wants to he has validation from this grandfather that loves everything he does which is what grandfathers are supposed to do or grand parents well he treats them seriously which is like this huge gift that someone can give you when you're a kid for sure it's different as mother's working full-time and is under all kinds of stresses but down there you know i think every kid needs that sort of place where you're validated i guess you're competent you're good at something everybody's got to find something that a kid is good at and that's the parent's task it's like go to karate tai chi i mean anything you can do but until you find that it's tricky once that kid finds that he's really good at something then that competence carries over into everything else like all right good i have a place i can do this one thing well but then you know that leads into him taking more and more sort of art classes around and leaving home grandfather doesn't last too long but has taught him i guess the skills well also this thing he's good at becomes a bridge also to friendship and to potential romantic interest right he's encouraged it's kind of discovered that he's a good drawer and he's encouraged to graffiti yeah everybody knows that kid right that can draw the angel guy and the led zeppelin cover right so hey can you do that for me too or eddie from iron maiden there's a couple kids in every high school that could draw eddie same in prisons right if you can draw those guys make money doing it like i've met a lot of those guys but yeah for cricket it's really just like he's a quiet kid but he meets olympia who recognizes that he has a talent and then of course uses it to have him deface a public play structure using some form of calligraphy via a giant sharpie and so i wanted to take it away from being like too cute they say horrible things on this play structure but in an ornate kind of almost old english sort of font but he's madly in love instantly with this girl who's maybe a year older yeah she's very worldly and provocative and dangerous right yeah not to spoil it but the rest of the book is a little bit more dramatic than the rest of the book i think it's about them together over the years but i think that she's so captivating and at every stage she's captivating in different ways she morphs and shapeshifts a bit but she's always infinitely more sophisticated than he is and more verbal and more worldly and she knows how to sort of navigate through the art world whereas like he generally doesn't have a clue and doesn't seek to we get into your kind or i'm assuming your take on art we're exploring a lot this kind of tension we're exploring a lot of this kind of tension we're exploring a lot of this kind of tension between it's pretentious it's exclusionary it's inclusionary like it has all these dynamics what were you able to get off your chest about art well it was fun because i don't think i would ever write a book about the book world because i'm in it and that's to me maybe just too close and also for me being adjacent to it like i paint and make prints and i draw and sell them and stuff and i have a little gallery that sells them for the last 15 or so years so i have like a little bit of a foray into that world used to write about art and everything there is something really unique in all art forms like music you go to a concert and well it used to be 20 and you'd see your favorite band as 15 for the cd and you could take it home and own it and look through the booklet and it's very democratic the art world and the visual art world in the last 100 years or so is incredibly exclusive and very hard to like just experience as a regular person you can't really own much you could tear out a piece of paper from a magazine with your favorite pieces you can get well even like the banks he rises so fascinating right because it starts as like incredibly democratized it's for all to see on the side of a building and then I have been to Billionaire's House who has an enormous Banksy in his. Oh, is that right? Yeah, in his hallway. Somebody tore it off a building, maybe. No, Banksy does artwork for sale. Oh, I didn't know that. Oh, yeah. He did a piece on the side of the McSweeney's building years ago. Oh, really? So he got in touch when he was coming in San Francisco and he said, I'd like to do something on the roof and one of our staffers let him in at midnight and led him up to the roof. Did he have to sign anything? That's a good question. Or did he have to be blindfolded when he let him in? I mean, that's funny. I always want to ask. They've just discovered who he is, right? Yeah. Have you been following these guys? It's like an English dude? Yeah, it's always been an English guy. We didn't know. It was Chris Ying who was on our staff. He led him up and then he did this really cool mural, sort of, I don't know what you call it, picture on the side of what he would consider the roof or the wall on our roof. But we have a flat roof and he did it there and we were so happy. We wake up, we see it. People were stopping on the street for a week in the middle of traffic. It was a big deal. Everybody knew that he'd done it. It was before social media, though, so it was like just word of mouth. And then one day we wake up and it's gone. And we realized it was on the building next to us. So our roof is flat, but then there's an apartment building next to us. They painted over it? And we didn't even think to tell this guy because we. Anyway, so it was painted over within a week and we could have. I don't know if you've seen a picture of it in years. It was tragic. There's a few other pieces in San Francisco, one in the port. They're trying to figure out what to do with and authenticate because he won't authenticate either. I really like his work. I always have. I like the way he goes about things on his own. He's so fucking punk rock. I don't love the secondary or tertiary people making money off of his stuff, but I was always looking for and I think trying to explore in this novel, like how do you bring it to that democratized kind of level that music and even books. Books are so simple. You buy, it's 25 bucks. You take it home. That's the experience. Anybody can access it. There's no. It's a so exclusive part of the book world, but art is mostly exclusive, meaning like if you want to own anything and that person is really making a living doing it, it's incredibly expensive. That's where I've called bullshit on art a little bit, which is like, why is the print to you not valuable? I love the prints. Yeah, I'm just saying most people. Yeah, like if what you love is this image, you can't tell the difference. What are we talking about? Why is that not desirable? Or the lithograph versus the. The real thing. They make comparatively so few. So if an artist is doing 40 paintings a year, they only make a couple prints or lithographs of those works and then maybe a book at the end of a show. I did different series of prints that looked exactly like the original so no one could tell. And I would sell them in a portfolio. You see them anywhere in people's houses and you cannot tell the difference. And I did that on purpose. Did you mark the original? No, I just signed it, you know, so it has the original signature in the corner. So if you were going to really look closely. I like the idea of someone has the original. Yeah, you don't know who. Right. It's kind of fun. That takes place in the real world all the time. What you think is an original in certain museums is not the original. There's often a fake there because of wanting to preserve it or rest it or the danger of theft or whatever. So you don't always know. But I do think that this sanctification of these certain little objects and Mona Lisa must be so much better than the painting next to it and this sort of hierarchy. All of these things are very unique, I think, to the art world. Whereas there's so much phenomenal work being done every day by people that we live among. And L.A. is obviously such a fantastic art city. But there's something intrinsic to it that's snooty and that really attracts kind of a snobby sort of person, unfortunately. And at all twists and turns, we've got to try to favor the artists, the curators, the gallerists, the museum directors, everybody that makes it accessible, makes it more fun, explains things. Why is that on the wall? Why is that Barnett Newman on the wall? Why am I supposed to like that? If you can't explain that, then you shouldn't be doing the job. You know, you should explain why a white square is on the wall and it's worth $6 million or whatever. And I think that for so long, it's getting a little bit better now. It's a pretty pluralistic atmosphere now. Like if you go to LACMA, you'll see every kind of work imaginable, which is how it should be. But for a while, 60s, 70s, 80s, it had gotten so exclusive. And so narrow where it was all about abstract work and abstract expressionism, little conceptual art. But anything outside of that, representational figures, anything like that was like really frowned upon. Passé. Yeah. And it was like an art form uniquely susceptible to that. And you would never find that in music where it's like, well, now from now on, John Cage has brought us to this place where only silence and- Stones are over. Yeah. Yeah. We don't like the rolling stones anymore. Everything else is invalid, but we had reached that place with visual art for a while. It was a tough place and very unaccepting and very close-minded. Yeah, my grievance is like, it's the apex of arbitrary. I just moved into a house and I was like, okay, I need art for my house now. And this has been crazy. Similarly, my parents bought me a housewarming present and it was a painting and it's not a cheap painting. And then I got it and I love it. I do love it. But when I'm staring at it, I'm like, why is it- Why was it that much? So do you like the painting? I do. Oh, okay. I love the painting. And I look at it and I look at this print that's much cheaper that's framed next to it and I'm like, yeah, none of this makes any sense. Yeah. I was talking to a friend. She just had a show. All of her prices are super random. She has a formula that's actually based on like area, you know? Based on what you were charging the San Francisco Chronicle for your- I mean, that's the same. It's exactly the same. It just came to mind. So is it like by square footage that you're doing this? Like, why would this be $412 and that one's $600? And if it's by actual area, isn't that seem weird? Like you're charging by the foot. But I think that that goes again toward how they've created a sort of a self-seriousness about it and a little bit like I could explain it to you but you wouldn't understand that kind of thing. Well, it reeks of elitism the whole thing. It reeks. You don't find that in any other medium. Even classical music. Like the first thing they want to do is explain it to you. You know? Like, okay, here's why. This movement is about this. Not like, well, I don't know. You have a- You have a degree in music theory and then maybe I could talk to you. Yeah, it's like if you don't get it, that's on you. So you kind of have to be like, no, I get it. We should add, too, the world is filled with more criminals than any other. There are more paint salesmen who have gone to prison than any other art medium. They're just riddled with crooks who are selling paintings they don't have. They're selling fake paintings. There you go. And why is that? Why does it attract so many charlatans? And it's always been fascinating to me because you really just don't see as much of it in any other form. But the art, the art of painting, the art of forging stories, I do love those, like watching those. And also, you'll see the gallerist in between who's sort of winking and nodding like, does she or doesn't she know that she's selling a fake for five and a half million dollars to this gullible couple? And is she just running out the string before putting that in a Swiss account or whatever and then somebody's going to get caught but she's just the pass-through? It's fascinating but there is no equivalent in music or writing or whatever where you could defraud one person out of five million dollars based on pictures you know? Like a bunch of paint on a four by four canvas which the intrinsic value of that is like a hundred and fifty dollars right? Of like materials. And everything else is about this sort of suspension of disbelief or this shared illusion that we are all going to dream together that this is worth something now. It's comforting weirdly to go like, oh, there's a handful of things that are so beautiful they're invaluable. Something about that story is appealing. Well, and also there are people in between like art consultants that will say this one's appreciating and that one's not. This one's on the downslide and that artist's star is rising. Yeah. So a lot of it is sort of stock market like it's like vaporware or crypto or whatever where if we all believe together that this person is on the rise then we can justify that and then you do have a lot of manipulation. You'll find the same buyer buys a painting for a million dollars shows it in some gallery or traveling show which raises its profile sells it to some friend for 10 million who sells it again for 20 and everybody's sort of in on this creating the marketplace. There's a famous story of the Christopher Wool painting that says whatever that quote from Apocalypse Now and it's just type and it's like a long tall painting within a handful of years it went from $800,000 to like $22 million and it was just like this churning. Also there's no sympathetic victims in any of these cases. You don't really feel bad for someone who has an extra $22 million to get taken. Right. Advantage of. Right. Now I do want to bring it back to the book for one second to say though although Cricket's obviously observing all that madness Cricket's also experiencing the real value of art in two kind of pivotal moments in the book. One being he gets singled out in high school for this painting of a weasel right? Even before I think they're like 10. And that is extremely hurtful to Robert. He puts his stepdad or whatever's face on a weasel that's been hit by he's roadkill. Police put on an art fair and it's sort of like a PSA about careful on the road or something. So he uses it as a way to get back. Yeah. So he experiences the power of it. And then he's working at this store. He makes a painting of someone that's dear to two people in his life. Well said. And it gets hung up and he experiences the love of art, right? The transmission of love. Yeah. So he's felt the power of it. Yeah. He's felt the love of it. - So there are these glimpses of what it's really about. For sure. I mean, I think at every step, Cricut, in the moment, and I don't know if you've had this experience, but with any art form, I certainly have painting where you're painting and in the moment, there's nothing better in the world than moving color around a canvas. And you think you're doing some masterpiece every single time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Especially if you're really up close to it and you're inhaling the fumes and stuff. And so on every level. And then you back up and it's a piece of garbage. It does not look like anything like what you intended to do and it's not working in any way. But how can you sort of like stay in that moment when you were in love with the process and what you were doing? And Cricut always is struggling with transferring that moment of being in it to like the result, which is never what you want it to be. And then there's that second stage, that artwork being put out into the world, which is often a miserable process that you don't want to have anything to do with. So I think he never masters it, whereas. Olympia would and most people or a lot of people would master like, okay, well, I'll figure this out. But he never can transfer the love of what he wants to do in that moment or a tribute to his friend or drawing spaceships on the floor of his grandfather's basement, but to something else and do something in public or make a living at it or master the business side of it. Because the teacher Carpenter at one point is like probably the most talented guitarist in the world is playing for a Journey cover band. And I think that's what he's doing. I love it. And so Will Ferrell gets up and Ben Stiller and like Foo Fighters all in one night. Like, you know, we're so proud of you, Seth, for considering possibly in the future doing something for somebody. And then he gets up and he's like, I have no idea who these people are. I mean, I don't know what 826 is. I don't know any of this stuff. I don't know what I was talking about. But Judd charged like $1,000 a plate. And so all the people in L.A. came. He had the 10-day-old flower arrangements from the Golden Globes. He had like Rocky V decorations. But it was a really fun night to parody all of that. And then he raised enough money to build the entire center in Echo Park. Oh, wow. Which is like, you know, $250,000 in a night by parodying L.A.'s, you know. Self-indulgence. Yeah. Self-congratulatory indulgence. So that one's been open almost 15 years now. It's a beautiful spot. After-school help, publishing. It's been home to a couple generations now of kids that have grown up there. And they publish these kids' work. These kids get to have published work. And the books are solid. They're fucking, yeah. It's the coolest. We've got a library of 2,000 of these books now up in San Francisco. So if you're ever up there. Yeah. But come by there because it looks like a 7-Eleven. You walk right past it because it's exactly a 7-Eleven. Like Bad Robot helped decorate it. And then Mac Barnett, who's a children's book author, he's the ambassador for children's literature right now from the Library of Congress. But he was the guy in charge. He was the executive director at the time. They all built it. So you'll walk right past it. But then if you go in, there's a secret door that leads to the back. And then that's the tutoring. So for kids that get extra help, there's no stigma about it. You know, it's like going into this cool place as opposed to the sterile after-school help for kids falling behind sort of spot. So all of the centers around the country have different themes. Yeah, you don't want to be behind a glass window with classmates like fucking looking in. I mean, these places exist. Yeah. It's horrifying. And usually you're paying for that tutoring. And to be seen, I won't name these ones that I know of, but it is horrifying. This is all free. Everything's free. If people want to support 826, 826 Valencia, is there a website? 826 Valencia, 826 LA is the one down here, 826 Boston, whatever city you happen to live in. We accept money. Yeah. People wanting to donate it, we still accept it. That's so awesome. It's very cool. I watch a lot of footage of these kids, and they have these assignments, like go out on the street and interview people right now. And like these little kids bump into someone who's like, this woman's the very first test tube baby. That was my class. Okay. That was your class. In San Francisco. I sent my kids out to interview the most interesting person they see. And they went to a bookstore and they met the woman that says, well, I happened to be the first test tube baby, you got lucky. So they interviewed them, came back, wrote this up. I mean, the other thing is you end up, we have about a thousand tutors down here. So you end up meeting kids that you share the city with. And these kids meet all these caring adults that give a few hours a month. So it sort of tightens the fabric of a city, especially a vast one where you can feel disconnected, by roads and neighborhoods, but there it's like, oh, I saw you live around the corner in Echo Park. You see the kid at the grocery store, you were both there. And it's like, you know, get to know the parents, everybody and those kids, especially right now when they're being villainized and like ostracized because their parents or their immigrants, this is like a way to say, no, you belong. You have all of us, we're all behind you. You got thousand advocates, you got a thousand allies come to us. And so these are real safe havens, especially in the last 10, 12 years, the work has been a lot more urgent. Okay, the last thing that's very frivolous and not philanthropically motivated is, do you go to the Jetpack Academy? Yeah, in Moorpark, California, you've been there? I have not, I didn't know one could receive training for jetpack flight. So it's still there. I mean, you're only like an hour away, you got to go. Okay, it's in an avocado farm. What's the propulsion system? Jet fuel. It is an actual jet engine. It looks exactly like the cartoon of a jetpack. Okay. He's modeled it after every image you ever saw in sci-fi and a version of it was in the Olympics back in like 1980. The guy came in and landed in the opening ceremony. So it looks the same, there's this crazy Australian guy that made his version of it and you've got whatever, 12 pounds of jet fuel or however you measure it on your back in the two things, but you're on a tether, so you're testing it in the middle of this avocado farm and there's a landing strip, you pull the throttle, you do a little bit of this and that, and then you're on a tether, which makes it extremely difficult because it. It catches. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're like, and then blah. So it's. You can't really get a feel for it. No, it's not as romantic as you want it to be. And then it burns the absolute shit out of your feet because like there's got jet fuel coming and it's spreading out on the concrete where your feet are. So it's not a super romantic process. I really like experimental flight. I've tried a lot of different weird. Yeah. Are you into. The drones are going to work. I'm watching people fly drones around. Any minute. Those are the most promising. Yeah. The problem is fuel. How do you carry enough to take you really as far as you want to go? They all have pretty limited scopes. What I almost did up in Ventura is the motor paragliding. Yeah. That interests me, and you can do that in a weekend. I've done ultralights. Oh, okay. So that's more like a motorcycle with a hang glider on top of it. Yeah. But my friends that know what they're talking about say that the. They're called parasailing. No, it's not parasailing, but that's the better vehicle. It's like motor and paragliding mashed up somehow. It's got that sort of fan in the back. Yeah. When I was on the beach in Malibu and I started talking, I'm like, "Where did you take off?" He's like, "Oh, I took off from Thousand Oaks." Yeah. And I'm like, "What is this?" This isn't that thing where you're in the bat suit and all these people die? No, that's a wingsuit and those are deadly. That's very. Yeah. Everyone that does it dies. This is. You have a paragliding parachute above you, and then you have a gas engine on back with a fan. Yeah. And it propels you, and you can fly. Oh, another. I was doing this movie without a paddle, and the stunt coordinator had shipped us to New Zealand, and we had to go into this jungle. It was either an hour and a half drive, or they started helicoptering us because it took so long. And this dude was flying from his hotel, his motorized paraglider, to work. And I'm like, "What a stud. Look at this." You have a field that can land on any kind of field. You see a lot of it in Nebraska. That's where they fly a lot of those. Yeah, yeah. And you don't even need a license because it's ultra light. It's below the category where you need a license. But I check every time they get a little bit closer to one of these. They're super expensive. Yeah. I mean, the real drone technology is like half a million dollars or something. And I need a really good self-deploying parachute that noticed I'm falling quicker than I would want to fall. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's fun to go see the jet pack. The other problem with it is that you can only carry enough, even if you knew how to fly it. The problem is you can only carry enough fuel for two, three minutes. Right, right, right. So that's why you never see them anywhere because it's like, "Whoop," you know? You're back, but it's kind of fun. Well, Dave, even though you don't like talking about yourself, we got through it. I want to applaud you. We did it. Yeah. It was just enough for us. So gentle. I think you're just a beautiful writer and Contra Posto is in keeping with all of your really wonderful work. So I hope everyone checks that out. What a delight to meet you. I've been hearing about you from Kimmel and you deliver. Thanks so much. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Absolutely. See you guys. Just a quick reminder that as part of our summer break, here's a rerun of one of our favorite fact checks. From your picture board? No. This one's on my board. This one's impromptu? Oh, wow. Improvised? It's great. You know what's funny? As I was in the shower today, and I've been ordering a lot of slacks. You've seen me in them. There's new slacks. Yeah. Drawstring, little bag ear. Trousers. Trousers, pantaloonists, multiple colors. All this to say, I get them, I like them, I put them in my closet, and they're gone forever. You forget about them? Well, I wear the same two that are in front of me, and I actually was thinking in the shower, like, "I need to do what Monica does." Exactly. Or just another thought I had is like, "Let's do this." Yeah. I lay out seven outfits, and that's what I'm going to wear that week. Over the week. Have you ever tried that technique? Yeah, that's a common technique. It's very common. Okay, so I didn't discover anything new in there. No, you did. You're on the brink. You're on the precipice. You should, because it's stupid to buy clothes and not wear them. I know. And then I think I don't have any, because I wear the same two pants that I like, and then I get more, and then as I'm putting those away, they're next to brand new other pants I bought that I like. That's a guy thing, because I'm the same way with my pants. Oh, you are? Yeah. Okay, that's reassuring. I don't think it's a guy thing. I think it's an everyone thing. People have their go-to jeans and their go-to. You forget when you buy new stuff to mix it up, unless you commit yourself, like I have, to fashion. Yeah. Did you see my closet video? This could be. No. Oh my gosh, I posted a closet video. Oh, and does it include your photographs? Yeah. Oh, wow. It's a bit regretful, because it was also impromptu, improvised, very random. Jess came over. Okay. I was telling him about my fashion endeavors, and then I was like, "Oh, I should show you my closet." So then I was doing that, and then he was filming. So you didn't even realize it was something that you might post, but then you saw, and you're like, "I'm gonna post it." Yeah, I was like, "Oh, it's funny," but it is funny. Uh-oh. It's not fashion. Aspirational? Yeah. Oh. I know. I know. It's sad. Well, you gotta stay a little relatable. That's true. You know? I am relatable, because right now, my clothes smell bad. This outfit smells bad. Oh, God. What kind of stink? I don't know if it's from the dry cleaning. Uh-oh. I did walk, so the sweat probably made it worse. Oh, it smells like sweat. Well, no, it doesn't. That's great. Pheromones? It doesn't. It smells like a weird smell, and the sweat, I think, exacerbated it. Okay. If you had to compare the smell to something, could you? Well, then I wondered, like, is it moth smell? Mm-mm. But then I don't know what moth smell is. Do they smell? No. Are you thinking of moth balls? No. No. They smell like moth balls. Yeah. Yeah, moths don't smell. Moth balls smell to repel moths. Oh. Yeah. That's the thing about moth balls. Yeah. And I was curious about, there's always kids in school whose mothers just chalk their closets full of moth balls, and then they reek like moth balls, but guess what, it's human repellent as well. 'Cause it's nasty. Okay, well that makes me feel good, it's not moths. I thought moth balls were made from moths. Oh, okay. I thought they were-- Sure, left behind little balls. Like spiders, you know, like they leave webs. Little eggs, ew. Anyway, so it's not that, so it's the dry cleaner. Oh. Fuck. Well, okay. It definitely is, I've noticed it on a lot of my clothes lately. This makes me think of something that I don't think I should share, but I'm going to. So I was in my Miami trip, and I have a system when I travel, I throw all my dirty clothes in the corner of whatever room I'm inhabiting, and at the end of the trip, I have two sides of my suitcase, I keep all the fresh ones on one side, and I put all the dirties in a ball in the other side. Then when I get home, I just take that ball, I put it in the hamper, and then I put away my fresh clothes. So I had showered, I did very minimal things, and I went to work out, and then I, you know, I peed next to the garage about seven. Today? No, no, this is maybe a week and a half ago. Oh, a long time ago. It was after Miami. Okay. This resulted from Miami. Okay. I think I know. You do. I think I can continue. Okay, well, take a guess, that could be fun. Okay, so you peed by the garage. And when you peed by the garage, you took your underwear down. And when you looked at the underwear, it was definitely dirty, 'cause one of the dirty clumps moved into the clean clump. Okay, close. You know, it was poopy. No, it was poop stains. No, okay. Okay, so I guess it's not that bad. Oh. I don't, in general, have shit streaks. I wouldn't guess that about you. Yeah. You're pretty clean. I'm pretty meticulous. Well, just specifically, I don't even think I'm that clean. My anus is an obsession of mine. You know, I have the-- Bidet. I have the brondle, and I squirt water in there, and I'm just, yeah. And you put your fingers in. I do rub my finger on that. People don't like that, but I do. You know, fuck it, I put my finger on it in the shower, I clean it, and then I use toilet paper, toilet paper to dry off, and then I wash my hands. Yeah. Okay, so. Okay. Okay. So I pee next to the garage, and then I went in, and then I sniff my fingers, as you do. Yeah. I thought, oh my god, there's a little bit of, like, ball smell, like I would, which I don't, again, I also don't really ever get stinky balls. I have to not shower for a few days to get that. Okay. But I just showered that morning. I was like, what the fuck? How could I already have, you know, a stinky undercarriage when I just showered? Okay. It was driving me bonkers, right? And then I peed another time, and I'm like, goddammit, it's there, maybe it's even worse. Oh. Now I'm consumed with it. So when I finish my workout, I'm like, I'm gonna have to shower. Well, actually, I didn't think I'm gonna have to shower, again, I thought, I'm gonna have to wash my testicles and penis in the sink, which I sometimes do. Okay. And so I went upstairs, and I was about to do that, and all of a sudden, I just thought, oh my god, I'm gonna smell my underwear. Mm-hmm. I took off my underwears, lordy lord, what's obvious is they were not clean. Yeah. So although I was very clean, I put on my undies, and it contaminated my testicles and my penis. So it was half right. Dirty one made its way into the clean section. That's exactly right. Okay. And I'll add, I can't remember having pantaloonies undercarriage on men's unmentionables that even smelled that bad. Right, why would it smell that bad? Well, Miami, okay. Sweat. Very hot, very humid. Sure. Then take 'em off, and they're, god knows, you know, and they're just not getting any better smelling, and then they're in the-- Okay. Oh god, anyways, what a humiliation. What a humiliation. Well, you were by yourself, at least. Yeah, that's true. That's true. I'm like you, I go to the worst place. Like, I have a headache, okay, I got a tumor. So I'm like, oh my god, now I'm someone whose balls stink three hours after they shower. That's scary. What's happening with me hormonally? Yeah. You know, I'm going to all these crazy explanations, never even thinking, maybe my panties smell, and they did. Wow, well, that's an easy fix. Best case. Yeah, I haven't experienced it since. But now I'm a little shook about that pair of panties, and I love that pair of panties. They're dark black with very colorful hearts on them. Uh-huh. So I wore them the other day, and I sniff, sniff, 'cause I was like, were they clean? And they're permanently, something's wrong with them. But then I sniff, sniff, sniff, clean as a cucumber, but I had some anxiety all day. I was like, every time I peed, I was like. You thought maybe it was gonna get released? Yes, I just, 'cause I had had that traumatic experience with that. Sure. Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, there's reason to fear, because sometimes when pheromones get crossed, weird stuff can happen. I think you're referencing when you borrow a girlfriend's shirt. That's right. And the girlfriend doesn't have BO. Zero. And you don't have BO. I hope I don't. You don't. I've known you for quite a while. Yeah. Never smelled BO on you. And then. But when I wear the shirt, I do have BO. I have like a, it smells crazy, but it's the mixture of the pheromones. Yeah, and you have a, you know which friends you can't share tops with. Callie's one of 'em, right? No. Is she one of 'em? No, she's not. No, okay. It's not gross, 'cause neither of you have BO. I know, but it's not her. Okay. Ding, ding, ding, Callie. This is relevant. So I had dinner with her, and she just got out of COVID. Okay. And during COVID, she got really into Drive to Survive. She did not. Yes, so. Oh, her MX? Yeah, they've been watching it. And so she was, you know, cross-referencing with me a lot. Like, okay, do you like this person? Do you like this person? Who do you like? You know, that type of thing. And then she had probably a whole new jealousy that you're friends with Daniel Ricciardo. Okay, this is what I'm getting at. Oh my gosh. No, you're not gonna like it. Okay. Okay, 'cause she said, what teams? And I said, I just like whatever Danny's on. He's my favorite. And she was like, really? And I was like, yeah, what do you mean? I was like, I love Danny, he's the best one. And she was like, oh, he seems a little full of himself. And then I said, oh my God, that's the thing Dax was talking about on the show where some people think he's-- Sincere about that. I guess, or something. And I was like, oh, that's that thing. But then I told her that he's perfect and lovely and very nice, and she said, oh, I was wrong. Yeah, nicest manners in the world, gentle boy. Yeah. Not arrogant at all. No. That's his character. I am, I had to correct that, I had to right that wrong. She was receptive to it. Oh, good, good. I'm glad she was flexible in her-- She was. Judgment. Who does she love? She likes Sanes. Okay, sure. When you look at Sanes, you go, this guy is dirty. I do think that when I see him, but I think the same thing about Leclerc, like, they all stink bad. No, not stink, no, no, no, stop saying that. You're perpetuating a false rumor. I'm saying, like, nasty. Like, get in the bedroom, he's throwing you all around, moving your body, doing all kinds of advanced things. Like, advanced Spanish lovemaking techniques. That's what I think. Okay. I think she's responding to his carnal sex appeal. Okay, maybe. Like, Leclerc is much better looking than Sanes. Well, that's all in the eye of the beholder. To me, I'm only speaking for myself. Okay. I think Leclerc is much cuter than Sanes. But if I had to guess, there were 10 volunteers who slept with both of them, my guess would be Sanes comes out as the better lover. That is my spidey sense of humor. My spidey sense intuition. Okay, and you're worried about me perpetuating rumors? That he's a good lover? Well, also that Leclerc is not. Didn't say that. No, basically. Did not say that. That's what he's gonna hear. No, he's not. What he's gonna hear is I think he's better looking, and that I think that Sanes is a little bit better of a lover, although Leclerc is a very generous lover. Although, no, last time I was talking about Leclerc, I was hypothesizing that he was a two-pump chump. Exactly. For fun. You've really made it clear you think he's bad. He's not bad. No, I love Leclerc. Anyway. He's in my top three drivers. What if I said, you know, Dax is obviously better looking, but I would much rather have sex with. Oh, yeah, well that's true. Yeah, you'd hate that. Well, hold on, though, let's just be real, that was really good. It was kind of a cheap shot, kind of a cheap shot. But also Bradley Cooper would be mad that I said the other part. Well, so what you would need to say, though, it's gotta be identical, you'd say, you're much better looking than Bradley, but I think if you and Bradley had sex with 10 women, the women would prefer having sex with Bradley. Okay. And that's still rough. I guess pretend I said that. That's rough. But not as bad as what you just said before. Well, I say. He's way better than you. Yeah, that's what you're saying. I didn't say that, stop putting words in my mouth. I said that Sines is preferred, not way better. You are splitting hairs. Uh-huh, I am. I am. Okay. That's what we do here. We're nuanced. Okay. Non-binary. Okay, preferred. I'll change my verbiage to preferred. Okay, okay. 10 girls would prefer sleeping with Bradley over you. They preferred the experience. Preferred the experience. They had sex with both of you and they preferred the, you'd hate it, of course. Well, of course I'd hate it. You know what a good question is? We're getting somewhere good. We're actually, we're approaching something good. Okay. So here's an option. You only get one of these two. Great looking or great in bed. What would you rather be known for? Oh, known for. Mm-hmm, I know for me what it is. Well, I know for you what it is. What is it? Good in bed. Oh yeah, of course. 'Cause that's where the rubber meets the road. I think every, I think everyone would rather be good in bed. I don't know. I think some people who don't really give a fuck about sex, they're not super sexual. They'd rather just walk through the world being super attractive and people smiling at them and buying them drinks and whatnot. And they're like, I don't care if I'm good in bed. I'm good enough. Now, what would you rather be, Robbie? Good in bed. Yeah. Yeah. Good, three for three. The hard thing is if you're not good looking, it's hard to prove you're good in bed. This is the conundrum. Right. Anyway. So does she want to start watching, is she going to start watching races and shit, Kelly? She wants to, I think. She does. Now she's in, she loves it. Great. Yeah. Owen might have to have him over for a race day. Oh, they would love that. Max asked if I liked Pierre Gasly. That's my brother's favorite. Really? Yeah. He loves him. I said he looked greasy. But then Max said no, it was just the sweat from driving. They're playing a sport, basically. Like, you would never call a basketball player sweaty. No, I didn't call him sweaty. Greasy. Oh, greasy. That's a different one. That's got a little bit of a potentially a racist connotation. Why? He's white. I know, but there are certain populations of white people that have a reputation of being greasy. Who? I'll tell you off the air. But I'm not going to do it here. Tell me. No. Anyway. Okay. So, Max likes Pierre. Does anyone like Max? No. Oh. That's pretty. Ah, universal. Yeah. Wow. He's so arrogant, Dax. You know that. He's not even arrogant. That is not the word I would use to describe him. Okay. Like, he never says he's great. That's not, for me, required. First of all, he's the best driver in Formula One. I don't disagree. Yeah. And he doesn't even really say that. I don't love him. I love a fuck-off attitude, in general, in life. I'm not attracted to anyone who's like that. Right. He carries himself like that, so he's not for me. I know, but you love Michael Jordan. Like, Michael Jordan was punching his teammates in practice. But Michael Jordan does not have a fuck-off attitude. He's not like. Go ahead. If someone who doesn't know as much as him tells him what to do, he has a very fuck-off attitude. And that's what you see with Max quite often. But he would. But even just the way he talks to, like, interviewers, he. He refuses to play the game even a little bit. And I don't like that. I'm like, these are fans. These are people who are paying a lot of money to see you. Can you cut him a little bit of a cultural break that he's Dutch? They don't do the pleasantry thing. Everyone in the Netherlands, in the North, they don't believe in the little small talk, the pleasantries. They get right to it. I don't believe in small talk, either. I hate it. But you are a popular sports figure. You're making a ton of money, doing exactly what you love. You have a great life. Just be a little. Just be a little nicer. Okay. I'm just going to make an argument for him. Okay. Which is, he's not paid to do any of that stuff. He is paid to win races for Red Bull. Hold on. You said your piece. Okay, go on. He has one job, win races. That is his job. And that's why he gets paid more money. If you wanted a PR guy, you should have hired a PR guy. If you want a guy that thinks about nothing but winning races, is a psychopath about winning races, then hire me and I'll go win races. But if you need a guy to go sell Red Bull as a beverage or sell Formula One as a sport, I'm not the dude. I care about a single thing, winning races. I respect that. Okay, that was my piece. I get it. I get what you're saying. It's not attractive to watch someone be rude or. Short with everyone. Could care less when people are excited. It's, to me, very off-putting. Even when he wins, though, do you ever listen on the radio when he wins? Like, when he comes across the finish line and they'll go like, that was P1 max, and I'll go, oh, all right, that was a good race. That's it. The other people are, like, doing backflips in the car and screaming and stuff. He's just a very, you know, robotic, yeah. Yeah. I'm not trying to convince you to not like him, you know? Like. I don't think you are. Love him. You can keep loving him, but not my preferred personality. Yeah. Great. I like Danny, who's nice and kind and always looking out for the little guy and who's conscientious. I like that personality. That's what I'm drawn to. One of the questions lobbed my way was, what do you think of Will blank, I forget his last name, the journalist on Drive to Survive? Back up. What now? That was a question from Callie to me. Oh. You know, like, what do you think of this person? What do you think of this person? What do you think of Will Buxton, the journalist? Oh, that's great. He's handsome. The English dude, right? Yeah. Yeah, he's very handsome. He kind of looks like a driver a little bit. She's deep if she wants to know what you think of Will Buxton. Yeah. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. We are supported by Nordic Naturals. Okay. Here's something that surprises me. More than 80% of Americans don't get enough Omega-3s in their diet. And Omega-3s, they're vital for your heart, brain, eyes, skin, joints, and the list goes on. That's where Nordic Naturals, the number one selling Omega-3 brand in the U.S., comes in. Their Omega-3s are made from the purest ingredients. Exceptionally fresh, purified fish oil with a clean lemon taste. No fishy taste, no fishy burps. I take these every night. I do three right before bed. I've never had any kind of issue with a burp. They're pleasant to consume. Tens of thousands of studies link EPA and DHA to significant health benefits, including heart, brain, immune, eye, mood, prenatal health, and more. And every Nordic Natural supplement is carefully crafted to meet or exceed the strictest international quality standards and third-party tested to ensure exceptional purity and freshness. Use promo code DAX for 15% off your next order at Nordic.com. And discover the power of Omega-3. Omega-3 with Nordic Naturals, the number one selling Omega-3 brand in the U.S. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Okay, what does Ashante mean? Ashante means nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. I can't really say it to you because I met you a long time ago. I know. It also does. It does say enchanted. Oh, good. Maybe we get enchanted from that. It's a very elegant word. It is. Yeah. It's greasy. Farts on an airplane. Like snakes on a plane? Farts on a plane? Mm-hmm. Why you fart so much on planes. Is that how I was going to say it? Why you fart? Not why do you? Yeah. Oh, it's why you fart. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's an answer, not a question. Yeah. This says, as it turns out, there's a scientific reason people often fart more while traveling. Raffling on planes or climbing high mountains. And it's even got a name, high-altitude flatus expulsion. Ooh, flatus expulsion. The gastrointestinal syndrome was described in a 1981 study as characterized by an increase in both the volume and the frequency of the passage of flatus, which spontaneously occurs while climbing to altitudes of 11,000 feet or greater. I've never heard flatulence just shortened to flatus. Oh, my God. Excuse me. Excuse my flatus. Enchanté. That study found that as air pressure decreases at higher altitudes, gases inside your body expand and need to be let out. Oh. Although it was based more on being up in the mountains than inside a pressurized plane. But additionally, a 2013 study that had participants record how often they farted while driving up an Australian mountain hypothesized that quickly moving from a low altitude to a higher one draws more carbon dioxide into your gut. Oh, wow. Isn't that great? It is. You know, and if you think about it, it's the reverse of the bends. Yeah. So you have less pressure on you, so the gas comes out. But when you have extra pressure, it condenses it so much and get in your bloodstream. Wow. Less pressure in your asshole, more pressure in your bloodstream. Keep it in your asshole, folks. Oh, man. Oh, Jesus. Okay, this is the trans-ish. Okay, so backstory. Almost the second after I said that the bends is on the opposite side. It's on the opposite side. Okay. So we had a really cool interview. And then we stopped down, as we say in the biz. What did we call it? Stopped down. Oh, wow. Okay, I'll tell you some things. Cool. Stopped down, and we did a really cool interview. Uh-huh. And then things got cray. Then we stopped up, and all of a sudden the kids were home from school. Yes. So this next section of the fact check includes some guests. It's chaos. Please enjoy the chaos. We had just finished farts on an airplane. Can we get him out of class? I was listening, and I don't know who it was, but I was suspecting him. Hey, sit over here, love. So someone ripped in class. Mm-hmm. And you were trying to figure out who it was? Yeah. This is a ding, ding, ding to our fart story, because what happened today? But I was just sitting there, and everything was normal. We were redoing our multiplication unit, and then I just smelled something in the air. And I was like, oh, it's just a small one. And then it came at me. It came at me. It was so hard. Oh, no, it grew and grew. It grew? Yeah, I had to stand up and pretend to stretch. Oh, really? Yes. Did you look around the classroom to make eye contact with other people? Like, are you smelling this, too? I have farted in weird places, so I know what position I love to sit in when I fart. So it just is silent. I saw the people sitting next to me, and I looked at Harper, and she was sitting on her knees. And I said, that's not a good place to fart. It would have, like, skinned against your feet, so it would have made a loud sound. all right really good sleuthing yeah And then I looked at Draven and she was sitting in the criss-cross applesauce and I was like-- - No way. - No, you're just sitting on too much weight. So then-- - That'd be thunderous. If you farted during criss-cross applesauce, it would be like a trumpet in your pants. - And then I looked at Dylan and he was sitting, like he was hugging his knees tactically. I was like, that's not a good place to fart. That's also a blast, that'd be a trumpet. - Unless you rolled up a little bit. - You're right. - You know? - No, imagine pulling your knees tight to your chest. It would be like. Yeah, it would fucking rip. What you're trying to get is like your buns as pushed together as possible, no pressure anywhere in your body so you can let it leak out, exactly. You want it to leak out. - Wait, you guys, I have a much, this is fascinating, I have a much different tactic for a silent fart. Yes, I want the butt cheeks to be spread. - Splayed open? - Yeah. - Oh, so you'll what, do the splits? - No, I mean, I guess I don't really fart in public anymore. - Have you bent over and spread your butt cheeks and then it smelled a minute later? You might as well have just made a noise. - Okay, normally I do this if I'm in like a public bathroom. - Oh, okay. - So I can use my hands. - And you spread your butt cheeks apart physically? - Yeah. - Oh my God, that's great. - Oh, wow. That's wonderful. - Was anyone doing that, Lincoln? - Not that I saw, and then I identified the culprit. - Okay, and what, was it a male or a female? - It was a female. - Okay, and how was-- - Good for her, I will say. - Me too. I was afraid you were only gonna blame it on a dude 'cause we're gross, but-- - You are. - Yeah, I'm the worst. What kind of position was she in? - I'm just slowly lifting up my butt. - Oh. - Oh. - But her butt, her butt-- - Oh. - Her butt was like high, so-- - Oh, wow. - Mm-hmm. - Okay. - Yeah. - Wow, I'm impressed. You figured it out. - Yeah. - And then did she ask to go to the bathroom like five minutes after that? - No, but then I actually had to pee during that time, so maybe I thought, oh no, did somebody think it was me? - Were you scared? - Oh, 'cause you-- - Yeah, I was like-- - I would've thought that. - I actually had to go to the bathroom before the fart came. - Sure. - And TJ said I can't go right now, so like two minutes. - Oh boy. - And then the person started just letting it, air out, it was like load and load and load. - Oh, wow. - There was this one time where I thought I was gone, and I was like, fresh air, and then-- - New round. - Second wave. - And it was even worse than the first. - Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. - And I feel like it was another person. This was also a female. She always points out farts when somebody farts, and she did not point at that. So-- - Oh, that's a-- - Never smelt it, doubt it. - But-- - Oh no, that's the other one. - That's the opposite. - But, she was sitting with criss-cross applesauce. So, maybe she lifted up her butt. - She might have a different technique like Monica, but I have to say, that's really good proof. If she's always busting people about farting, and it stunk in there like a dead raccoon, and she was quiet, that's very incriminating. - Unless the teacher pulled her aside at one point and said, please don't do that anymore, it's embarrassing for the students. And I wish the teacher would do that, 'cause that's me. - Well, you should be embarrassed for farting and stinking at the classroom. - No, sometimes you have to. - Sure, but we must agree, some things are embarrassing in society. 'Cause this is what I think I feel bad for you kids, is like, you're in your home, you've been farting since you were born, we don't care at all, we think it's funny, and then we send you to this box that you sit in with other kids, and we haven't even told you it's not cool to fart in public, and you gotta learn the hard way, right? Like, did you ever get embarrassed at any point? Like, did you rip one at any point? Did someone busted you? - No, nobody caught me. - You just knew somehow to keep 'em on the down low. - Nobody caught me. Unless, I accidentally didn't know it was coming. - Yeah, sure. - A surprise fart. - Yeah, sure. - That was a good fart noise. - That was good. - I agree. - I'm proud of that. - I'm impressed. - Okay. - I do think maybe it's evolutionary that we know not to do that in front of strangers. We'll get removed from the group. - Yeah, you'll be exiled. - 'Cause of stinkiness. - Yeah, it's a good reason. - You look like Zazie today, Zazie. - Oh, thank you. - Okay, last question. - Yes. - How frequently do you smell farts in the classroom? Is it every day? - There's only been, I don't know, three or four or five farts this month. - That's not bad at all. - So people have been holding them in, or just haven't had to fart. - Okay. - Do you think it correlates to the school lunch? - Great theory. Like, whatever hot lunch is, like cabbage, kimchi. - The weird thing is, a lot of people fart before. - Before lunch. - Oh. - That's interesting. Breakfast farts? - Well, maybe they didn't evacuate in the morning. - Oh, they're not on a good sketch. - Who's there? - Delta. - Hi, D-Money. - Oh, she fell. - Oh my gosh. - No, she left. - Oh my gosh. - She left. - Purple hair? - Yeah, we did this party. - Hi, beautiful purple hair. - Purple hair. - It looks so good. - Oh, and it matches your sweater. - You look like a little rock star. - You look like a little rat. - Delta, did you smell any farts in your class today? - A coffee thingy called teddy bear? - Yeah, that's a Starbucks teddy bear, but it has to stay in here, 'cause David brought it for the attic. - It's okay. - You can come up here and play with it. - It's also, that's fine. - She don't have to have every single stuffy. - She does. - That's from New Zealand, my love. That's from a far away country, like 17 hours in an airplane away. But you can come up here and play with it. It'll give you something to look forward to when you come up here. But did anyone fart in your class today, Delta? Oh, criminy, now you got chocolates. Yes, those come from New Zealand as well. - They're not that good. - They're not good at all. They're terrible. Don't tell David. It's like a Skittle, a chocolate Skittle. - Those smell bad. - Mikey likes it? - You wanna take it? - Oh, boy. - Wow. - When's the last time you smelt a bad fart? - A Thursday. - A Friday. - And what happened? - I just smelled a toot. - Oh, you did? - When you smell a toot in class, do you say, "Ew, somebody farted," or do you just keep it to yourself? - I just keep it to myself. - That's nice. - 'Cause that's nicest. - Yes, exactly. - How often do you fart in class? - 20 times a day. - That's 20 times a day. So it does smell like farts in the classroom, just your farts. - Yeah, pretty much. - Yeah. Well, you're making a real name for yourself 'cause you got purple hair in your farts. - I'm not farting 20 times a day. I think the sky's the limit for you. - Wait, what is this? What are we on? - We're on television right now. - They can see us. - Come on, television! - We're doing a podcast, and then Lincoln was up here, so we invited her to chit chat. - No, after the interview is a fact check, so just Monica and I talk. Monica busts me on what facts I got wrong. - A fart check. - Fart check. - This has become a fart check, yeah. - But why'd it end? - Oh, I do have like-- - Yeah, well, listen. Why don't you guys shut up and listen to Monica, and you guys will learn. - Oh, wow, so now you're shutting me up. You know, this is what boys do, I think, because I was explaining a math problem today, and Draven didn't get it. And then Dylan said, "Don't worry, I'll explain it." And I said, "Excuse me, this is my problem. "I can explain it." - Oh, there you go. - I'm proud of you for doing that. You can explain it. You're capable. - Boys are the worst. That's why you guys don't want-- - No one wants to sleep with dad. - No one wants to snuggle daddy. - No one absolutely wants to sleep with dad. - 'Cause of the farts? - No. - No, those are bad also. But I feel so bad for dad. He has to sleep with his snuggles. - That's what they, no one wants to sleep with me. And I had a fight to sleep with mom, and I said, "You guys, how do you think I feel? "I always have to sleep with daddy." - Let's just be practical about it. What about sleeping with mommy is better? - Mommy, I don't know. - She's just not daddy, which is enough. Link and you were so little, three, maybe, or four. And I was carrying you, and you said that-- - Did I poop my pants? - No, well, sure, I cleaned up lots of your poop, but I was carrying you, and you said something like, "I can't hold you like a mom holds you." And I was so sad, but it was also the truth, I know. - These kids are heartbreakers. - This is very recent, well, not very recent. This was when we were in the old house, and I was in the back. - I was in the bathtub. I didn't know why, but this fart just came up, and said, "Hello." And I turned around to grab the shampoo, and I found that I pooped in the bathtub. - Oh, yeah, that'll happen. - These things happen from time to time. - Link, did you name your poop? - You had a baby. - A poop baby. We have a pee baby, Monica, and I have a pee baby, so why not have a poop baby? - Yeah, that's right. A pee baby is I peed in a toilet, and there's no flush, and then Daddy had to pee, so he peed, so then our pees were in the same toilet, and never flushed, so they turned into a baby. - He said it turned into a pee baby. - Lives at my house. - It's probably still there. - Just getting out of kindergarten at this point, I think. Can I tell the one story about you, Delta? - Yeah. - I'm ready. - I love this story. - I was putting you guys to bed. Delta, you were probably three, and you said, "Oh, I gotta poop." I said okay, you went in and you took a poop and it was the size of a moose's poop. Like, I thought a moose had pooped in the toilet. And I said, oh, my God, honey, when's the last time you pooped? And you're like, I don't remember. That was the biggest poop you'd ever taken. So then I put you in your diaper, and then I put you in bed, and I put Lincoln in bed, and we read a book, and we snuggle. And then I go outside, I shut the door, and I just turned on the TV, and all of a sudden I heard, Daddy, I farted. It's diarrhea. And then I went in there. I thought, how could you have possibly just had diarrhea? You just had an entire evac. I went in there, I picked you up. Your diaper was completely ruined. I took you into the bathroom, if you remember, and you had poop on your back and your butt crack. Full blowout. Full blowout. And I was like, where did all this come from? Daddy, I farted. Okay, this is the last time you're going to get to talk, Delta. Will you do your song? Okay. Okay. Dee-da-dee-do-do. Dee-da-dee-do. Dee-da-dee-do-do. Dee-da-dee-do-do. What is this song? She just learned this. Do you want to do it one more time? This is my favorite new thing in the whole world. Dee-da-dee-do-do. Dee-da-dee-do. Dee-da-dee-do-do. She did that 1100 times this morning before school. Dee-da-dee-do-do. Dee-da-dee-do. Dee-da-dee-do-do. Dee-da-dee-do-do. Wait, where'd you learn that? That's what Mommy does that. Oh, wow. Oh, I love you. Thanks, Dee-Money. Oh, my God. All right, now you guys have to be quiet so we can do our business. We got a great fart story and we got a great Dee-da-dee-do-do. Yeah, oh, that was great. Yeah, let's hear the fact. They got to see how the sausage is made. Okay, we have one fact left. The fact is. Oh, and actually, this is relevant. Lincoln loves F1. Excuse me, everybody. Eyes on Monica. Okay, the fact is about how many employees work on the Mercedes team. Oh, God. Okay, more than 950 employees. An F1 team, but this isn't specific to Mercedes, but an F1 team directly involves between 300 and 1,200 people, depending on whether it's at the front or back, depending on whether it's at the front or back, Depending on whether it's at the front or back, Depending on whether it's at the front or back, Depending on whether it's at the front or back,