Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert I'm DAX Shepard, I'm joined by Manicka Mouse. Hi, how are you doing? Great. First of all, what am I even saying? Fuck this whole show.

Today is Monica's birthday. Oh, yeah, birthday. Thank you. Twenty three.

Thirty three. It's a little uncomfortable because, you know, we're recording this before my actual birthday.

I know your birthday's not for a day to day. You know what? I was trying to make it even seem closer, like we're really on top of it.

So there's a little white lie. But you're right to two.

It's two days. Yeah.

And it feels kind of Jinksy, to say happy birthday before your birthday. Yeah. That's kind of a thing in a day like let's say you're meeting on a Tuesday in your your birthdays on Wednesday. You kind of want to celebrate that Tuesday. Yeah.

But you're not allowed to. I get that. Yeah.

Anyway, happy birthday. Thank you. Yeah. I'm really happy you were born then. Yeah. I was just thinking about that picture of you in the white dress. Could we post that.

Yeah, it's my profile pic. Oh OK.

Look we posted on this episode. Sure. OK, great. OK, anyways, Ellen Pompeo, she is a wonderful actress.

She's also a director and a producer, you know, from Grey's Anatomy. She's been on for seventeen seasons. She was also in Catch Me If You Can, and one of my favorite comedies of all time old school, and I love talking to her.

So please enjoy Ellen Pompeo and send Miniature Mouse a happy birthday greeting on Instagram, which she hates that I said, but do it.

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I got to say, that's probably my favorite part, because so often I want to play it on the airplane where I'm baldest. I've been playing for so long, the game has gotten harder. So I definitely have to pay more attention to the goals now, because when you need to match Fifty Greenleaf's and defeat five slugs with only twelve moves, you can't really waste your moves matching the yellow flowers or you'll never hit the green leaf.

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He's in our chat. Hello, where we are. Finally, this is so silly, isn't it? What are we, seven hundred feet away as the crow flies?

Listen, if you say anything to piss me off, I'll throw eggs at your roof.

You are close enough to, like, come confront me in person. Even my husband was like, wait, you're doing DACs podcast's from the dining room? And I was like, Yeah, it's covid babe. And he was like, oh, right.

I did have fantasies of maybe just like coming to your backyard with a mobile recorder. How would that have landed on your your ears had I suggested that?

Well, how it would land on the ears is sound like children jumping on a trampoline. Oh right, right, right. We have the same problem.

I'm not sure what I've done in my life. I guess I do talk sort of loud. I am half Italian. Let the Italian American community go nuts now because I said that they're going to take your award back.

But my kids scream. They scream. I don't get it.

I got to say, you know, my wife, when we first started dating, she used to say to me all the time, Where is your volume knob? Because I would like to turn it down. And, you know, I have to take responsibility.

I think they inherited that from me. They seem to not have a volume knob either, and it's just set to full tilt. How old are your kids?

They are three six in 10. Wow. I guess you had two girls. Was that the motivation for number three to try to get a boy? Yes, for sure. And you're from Massachusetts? I am.

OK, the word gives me great anxiety pronouncing it. How do you say it?

Massachusetts. It's the U.S.. I think that I stumble upon the Massachusetts. You can always say Boston. OK, so you are from a Boston suburb? I am, yeah. And like, what kind of background? Middle class.

Very blue collar Italian Irish town called Everet, which is literally right next door to Boston, would be like the equivalent of Brooklyn. You go over a bridge and there you are. It was actually in the opening scene of some Affleck movie. The town, maybe the town. Yeah, a sketchy place. But now it must be so surreal because that neighborhood where they shot that movie, Steve Wynn, built a giant casino there. So the town is based off of stories from Charlestown, Mass.

Which is also next door to Boston. Yeah. Which has the highest amount of bank robbers in the United States. Per capita. Yeah.

Fifty percent at one point of all armored car robberies were happening in an eight block area.

But now there's this giant casino there. Oh, no kidding. Yeah. Yeah, I worked there and my driver was from Boston and he was newly out of prison.

I became obsessed with him and we became buddies and it kind of delivered on all my expectations.

What was your drivers named? You know? Yes, it was Jimmy. Jimmy, Jimmy. Yeah. As you would expect, you know, it's controversial there because most of the Teamsters do have felony convictions. So they get out of prison and they get these amazing union jobs. Yeah. Which some people have a problem with. I happen to personally love it. Me too. Yeah. I feel like I relate more to a guy like that than maybe other folks.

But what did Dad do?

My father was a cigarette salesman and then he went to many different stores and whatnot and he had a root and he would go to the different convenience stores and take their orders for what cigarettes they were ordering, you know, thirty cases of morals or whatever it was. Yeah. And he was the one who supplied the cigarettes to the stores. And then his side hustle was I think he supplied the wiseguys with their tobacco as well.

Wonderful, wonderful. Wonderful.

Which I, I don't really have any real confirmation of that, but I kind of it with a street smart enough to be able to see what was going on. Yeah.

Yeah. I think in Boston in general, everyone's like Max, two degrees of separation away from some criminality. And again, I love it. So it's I mean I don't say that with any judgment.

I'm actually developing it lets everybody cross their fingers that, that I can sell the show. But I'm actually developing the most amazing show right now that takes place in Boston. But we always see everything from the male point of view. We've never seen a story from the female point of view. And this is a story from the female point of view. And it's it's true story. It's so parallel to my own life. I'm super excited about it. And I just I pray that all the planets align.

Yeah. I don't think people understand the actual odds like. So it just starts with there's a development period where the networks buy a bunch of shows, they buy so many shows and then they develop them.

And then of those I don't know what it is, maybe three percent get shot into a pilot. Enough of those pilots, maybe five. Percent or 10 percent of those get an order. And then of those, maybe five percent get a second season. It's really staggering.

Yeah, it really is. And that's why it should be so celebrated when anyone has any kind of success, because the odds of it I mean, you're better off at the roulette table, honestly. Yeah.

I read your Hollywood Reporter article, which was really great about negotiating the last time around for Grey's and deciding like what you felt you deserved, and rightly so.

So I just wonder, did you have to break ranks and go like, no, no, I'm sick of the pace everyone set out for this. I'm ready.

You know, a couple of things we didn't set out for that article to be what it was. Mm hmm. So that was interesting is many experiences with the press often diverge into different roads that you didn't expect. Yeah. You never know what's going to happen when you do an interview, really. And so I think, you know, I have negotiated several times on Grey's obviously now. And like I say in the article, the only real power you ever have is if you're truly, really willing to walk away.

Yeah. You have to get to a point where you have to do something several times and that's the only way you learn and people can tell you all day long. But you have to do it yourself before you can really learn the lessons. And I think that I was just so beat down and sort of meant to feel that they could do the show without me and everything. They had always said, you know, Patrick Dempsey leaving the show was that for me?

I was like, oh, I have a window here now. How are they going to tell me they don't need me?

Because they were probably I have to imagine they were at least behind closed doors insinuating that they could do it without one or the other of you.

Right. Probably one one left. You're like, oh, now what's your game plan?

Yes. Where are you going to tell me now you don't have him. So now you can't use him against me. Yeah. And again, I think that it's another very interesting experience now, having lived my life after that article came out, is the feedback from people. And I was in such a unique situation because I had a real dollar number that I could see how much Grey's Anatomy had made. Charite Yeah. You can see how much a TV show or a podcast generates.

So you have the real number. I can base my ass off of that number. A lot of girls come up to me and say, well, I go in and I tell them that I want this. And it's like, OK, but can you prove that you actually make any money for their company? You know, it's kind of like a weird thing. Like I was so grateful that so many women felt empowered by that article. But then I found myself in a weird situation because they felt empowered in a way that was sometimes unrealistic for them, because if you can't quantify your worth with a literal number, they can't go in there with that kind of bravado.

It's a little tricky. So I was really had had a lucky sword.

In your case, the show's syndicated, right? You'll read, oh, this thing just sold the cycle for I don't even know what that show sells for half a billion dollars or something.

I don't know. I think to date is generated five billion.

But oh my God. Also, you know, also we have to mention that I didn't create the show.

Shonda Rhimes created the show. And it's always an ensemble cast. Right? I mean, we had brilliant talent. Sandra oh. Is brilliant. We have so many brilliant actors. The list goes on. So it wasn't just me all the time. There was a lot of contributing factors. But it's interesting when you talk about what's interesting about that is I'm using a real dollar number, right? Whether this is white privilege or not, we can examine that because the awards don't really translate into money.

You know, it's interesting because the first couple seasons of Grey's Anatomy, all the people that were getting Emmys, their shows, I was like, wait, that actor got an Emmy, her shows off the air. She got canceled, that she got an Emmy for her shows off the air, but he got to weight his shows off the air.

And it was like all these people who won awards, their shows weren't even making it five or six seasons. And so it's also another interesting thing to look at that and say, well, you know, awards don't really translate into dollars. Awards are a popularity contest and feed your ego and make you feel great and give a shiny object for them to distract you from, which is also what I say in that article, which is I think they do that to a lot of actors because they know the ego is the ID.

Yeah. And and they can dangle this shiny object. You'll get an Emmy and here we're just going to pay you ten dollars, but you'll get an Emmy. And so we're just like, oh, I'll get validated. I mean, obviously you want to do things that are associated with being good quality and high art and all of that. But I think that's another interesting component.

Well, kind of infantilized. Yes. Which I was never going to go for that. I was never going to. All for that banana in the tailpipe, I'd rather go do a cable show for 30 dollars and get an Emmy. Yeah, no, because when I'm older and you don't hire me because I'm old and then I'm going to be broke. And Alan Alda said, you don't want to be famous and broke. Did you ever see the interview with Alan Alda?

I think the key to some sort of mental health is to sort of maintain stability. And with acting, you get these highs in these lows, you're super hot, you're on top, everyone sending you gifts, everyone's inviting you to things. People are sending you dresses. People are telling you you're amazing. And then two years later, someone else comes up and the dresses aren't coming. The gifts aren't coming, you know? And then you're like, oh, my God, you know?

So keep a steady and not be wooed by all that. Those shiny objects, I think, is is much, much healthier in the long term.

Well, it's uniquely harder on females, which are a you'll never get paid. So of course, you want that trophy because, you know, at best someone's getting paid 60 cents on the dollar. So really, the that award becomes the only thing that will be equal in that white women.

Sorry to interrupt you, but white women are getting paid 60 cents on the dollar. Black women are being paid. I don't want to misstep here and say, but I think it's 40 cents on the dollar and Latino women are being paid less than that in our industry. And so.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're uniquely penalized financially. And then let's just be honest. And the shelf life is like you might as well be in the NFL historically. It's like thirty eight SEIA and that is uniquely harsh. You know, I live with an actress, we joke regularly. We'll be like just horsing around and I'll go, tick tock motherfucker.

It's true.

I said I say in the article, first time I was up to renegotiate on Grey's six years after I started the show when I was thirty three. By the time my first contract came up, I was thirty nine years old and so I was had just had my first child and I was terrified. I was like, I'm super typecast on this show. The show is a monster and I'm thirty nine like I'll never work again. I better just stay here.

And how, how amazing the strides that actresses have made in the past ten years. I'm so impressed with all of these women who have gone into business, who are entrepreneurs, who are acting, producing whatever it is. There's so many actresses that have found a way to be entrepreneurs and do other things. I think it's so inspiring and I'm really proud to be amongst them.

So I guess you've been on the show for 15 years now, 16, 16. You've got to be closing in on a record now, are you?

We're entering into season 17 and there's a few records I think we've broken.

So I just wonder what your journey was over going like. OK, I'm going to stay on this. It's going to come at this price, but it has this benefit and and I want to do it.

Yeah. I mean, you go through obviously 16 years and you at different points in your life when you want to get off the rollercoaster, you actually can't you're not in a year where you can get off. Yeah. And then in a year when you can get off, you're like, well, wait, this is amazing. My commute is six minutes. I mean, at this point, I'm so blessed that the the executive producers of the show make my life so fantastic that I have a very set amount of hours.

I don't you know that I know exactly where I'm going to be. I know exactly what time I'm going to come home. I'm home for dinner with my kids every night.

It's all where you are in your life. And kids have a huge part to play in that. Do I want to be in a trailer in Atlanta at midnight and be face timing my kids? Good night. Yeah, I don't want to do that to them. You know, my mother died when I was four. I grew up without a mother and I want to be home with them every single night. And yeah, I once I really brought them into this world, it really became about them.

I was thirty nine years old when I had my first kid, so I've done what I needed to do. I made my choices and now I really just want them to have sort of the most structure that they can have and the most stability. If that's not to say that I'm going to go forever, I'm not definitely not going to go forever because there's another element to staying at a job for a long time that I'm sure you'll recognize, I asked.

Denzel Washington directed an episode of Grey's Season twelve, Episode Twelve or nine Sound of Silence. I didn't say one word to the whole episode. It was taken from a true story of a nurse who had been beat up by an epileptic patient who. And so in the episode I had my jaw wired shut so I couldn't really speak. And so Denzel came in and I said to him, How long did you stay on St. elsewhere? And he said, too long.

And he was literally only on it for like two seasons or something.

Oh, really? Yeah, not. Everybody can do it. You have to have a certain constitution to be able to say, this is me, I like the stability, I like punching a clock, because then with that comes, you have to make sure you're not boring. You have to make sure your performance isn't boring. You have to make sure you're not phoning it in. You have to make sure you're not aggravated because as much of a blessing as these things are, it is much as we can recognize that it is a blessing.

There's still this biological component that sort of takes over. We're like familiarity breeds contempt, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's things that you loved about a person. Now suddenly you can't stand or just just that phrase is one that always comes up in my mind. It's just like year after year after year of doing something. I still love that person. Now, all of a sudden, the way she flicks her hair drives me nuts.

And that's like a really real thing. And I've watched actors literally lose it, like they just go nuts. Yeah. There's an element to staying in the same environment that also can drive people crazy. And that's very real, too. And that doesn't mean they're bad people. It just means that the repetition of that and the lack of new things. Yeah. Now that does something to you, to your mental health also. I've definitely seen it and doesn't mean people are bad people.

It just means that their brain has had enough of that hamster wheel.

You're playing a character and that character is an archetype and that archetype is going to drive all these stories. So you're pretty bolted into who you are. They're going to let you grow a little bit. But I found myself many times. Just being frustrated, like, wow, he's going to make this mistake again, didn't he make that in season two and didn't I learn something? It's like it gets blurry.

You were kind of defending yourself or I would be or I'll tell you, I had a storyline where I had my first baby and I wasn't connecting to it. I was like, why am I that guy?

I loved my baby. Like, I loved my fucking babies from day one.

And this other story where dads aren't this, aren't we perpetuating that like I should be head over heels for this kid, you know, and I'm fighting for my own identity, my own ego, and I'm trying to recognize that and respect the show creator. But it gets more complicated than one would maybe think.

It's definitely challenging, you know, and I think the storyline has something to do with it. And it's interesting because did you at any point do you feel like the writers were just fucking with you?

Oh, no, they did. Once I had my daughter, we named her Lincoln. And then as soon as that next season started, I had a girlfriend named Lincoln, like there was another girl named Lincoln.

Yeah, it's I won't expound too much on this because I'll get in trouble because there's definitely some crazy shit that goes on with respect to people who experience things in their real life. And then all of a sudden on the show and the character is going through something and it's torturing this poor person in real life. Do you guys think it's OK to do it on the show because you're going to get some amazing performance out of it? There's some sort of sadistic thing that goes on.

And I have so many writer friends and I love writers. And let's just say that they're brilliant genius, but they have heavy lifting to write. Yeah, on shows. They have heavy lifting because they have to come up with these storylines week after week after week for these characters. They're boxed in to writing for archetypes as well. So I think that some buttons get pushed just because there's some sort of control and performance thing that they think they're going to elicit, but they're not getting bored and not phoning it in is definitely, you know, it's like it's a marathon, not a sprint.

And you got to know when you can slow down and when you can speed up. And I have to just try to check myself all the time. There's been whole seasons where if there was too much on set drama going on, my mind mechanism is really just to check out, you know. Aha. Which is definitely frustrating for other actors because all actors work in a different way. Right. You have some actors who is super prepared. They'll sit all night and study and think about the way they're going to walk in the room and where they're going to put their hand.

And it's never my style. I'm sort of I need to be more in the moment.

We'd be great scene partners. I want to get scared in it. And I want to get surprise and I want to get confused and find my way out of it.

Exactly. And so for me to answer your question about how I stay in it at this particular moment, being engaged in the story and having some control over my storyline and talking about things that I think are interesting is kind of what helps. You know, last season we did a lot of talking about health care and big pharma, food deserts and big pharma, you know, is is an area that I'm super passionate about. And so if my character got to advocate a little bit for that, we did a human trafficking storyline, which was very important.

That's the great thing about Grey's. And what at this juncture keeps me going is because the show is such a monster, we have this enormous platform and we have some sort of leeway to talk about human trafficking, to talk about sexual assault, to talk about big pharma. And so if if we can impart some ideas, you know, I think it's an important platform. So so I try to stay in a place of gratitude.

Now, when you got the show, as you said back in 2005. Right. What were your expectations at that time?

Well, of course, you know, I hated medical shows. I had watched two episodes of E.R. and both times I thought I was dying.

So and it wasn't you know, it wasn't an audition. It was an offer. OK, you know, I had been doing movies. I'd been doing small parts. I've been trying to do really good movies. But in good movies, I can only get really tiny parts. Right.

Old school came out at that time, right? Yeah. And I did a movie called Moonlight Mile and I did Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Daredevil and some other things. But I kept getting cut out for the most part.

Well, let's earmark for one second. Yes. Eternal Sunshine is one of my favorite movies of all time. Whether or not it can make me cry, I can't imagine how heartbroken I'd be if I had filmed that movie and wasn't in. That would be soul crushing to me. Yeah.

And what's worse is they don't really tell you that they cut you out, right? They invite you to the premiere. Oh. And you're sitting there with your agent and you're just like, wait, I can't I've been cut out of so many movies that I can't remember. I can't keep straight now.

It's a long time ago. But but it definitely it definitely did. All my part was not big to begin with, but my part definitely got completely cut out. I'm in it for like a second. The lighting is so bad my skin looks terrible. It was like this weird, shadowy lighting on my scar on my face. And it was just like the worst. This is like they left me in Daredevil for like seven seconds and it was literally the worst seven seconds I've ever seen him turn the knife in your stomach.

Yeah, it was brutal. So I needed money. So my agent was like, you know, Ellen, just do this pilot, get the money. These things never go.

And I was like, I don't want to be stuck in a show pictures. And he was like, Ellen, you're not going to start a show for six years because this thing will never go because none of them go. And I was like, oh, OK.

And he reminded you of the odds we talked about earlier, which is probably an accurate thing to say, but not in this case for sure. Now, what's it like when you're in the mix?

And as you said, it's always I'm sure there's like just a lot of come to Jesus moments where you, like, reevaluate, like, do I want to do it?

And if I want to do it for this amount and all these different things, how does when someone leaves the orbit, how does that shake all those convictions?

Well, you know, to be honest, when Sandra left the show, I was like, oh, how do I go on without Sandra? Because as amazing as Patrick is, he wasn't really in the show that much. His impact is so huge. Obviously, such an iconic part of the show. But more of my work, my day to day scenes were with Sandra. And she was such an amazing scene partner then. I was like, is there a show without Sandra?

Right. I also had to weigh my options and like, listen, typecasting is a very real thing. I mean, I think that our counterparts have done an amazing job in this town of breaking out of molds. And if you would ask me 15 years ago, was I proud to be an actor, I wasn't really that proud to be an actor. I didn't think it was that noble a profession. Yeah, but I'm pretty impressed with a lot of strides that particularly women have made in the last ten years.

But, you know, Sandra's a different kind of actor. She was on a super successful show before Grey's. She was on a show called Arless on HBO. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Literally like the best thing about that show, I agree. And you never doubt whether Sandra is going to work again. She'll work forever. Right.

But me, I was like, you got to think like, am I going to work again or am I just going to be so typecast? When Patrick left, it was different because when Patrick left, I had something to prove, because now we circle back to that negotiation conversation. He left season 11 and then I was renegotiating season 12 so I could have left because the man left, which is not a story that I want to tell, like he's not here anymore.

So I have to go. Right. So I had to say that that story then becomes, you know, what can I do without the man? Because they had put that in my head for so long that I was no good without him. So then I had to then rewrite the ending of that story and say, well, who's right? Are they right or am I right? Am I actually good without him? Yeah, I had to take over that script and rewrite that story and prove to myself that they were wrong in all the things they put into my head.

Oh, yeah. All of those years also. The other thing was when I talk about rewriting the end of the story, and I've said this before also was it was important to me that we did have and I've said very publicly before, we had a lot of issues with toxicity on the set. Listen, as every set does, because actors in the environment is ripe for it. It's not anybody's fault. It's never one person's fault. There are many contributing factors that factor into a toxic workplace.

It's never just one person or two people. And it's like a virus. It spreads. It catches. You see someone else acting bad. So you think, oh, well, they got that. So I'll do that. Drus, you got to stop your hand on the table. That's what you do. You slap your hand on the table. I get on the table. So, you know, it's it's like a virus. Right. So also after Patrick left, I said, OK, I am going to stay.

I am going to prove that they need me. But then also, I really wanted to change the story of the experience of the show, and I wanted to see if we could turn the culture around and we could make the set a happy place because it really had never been it was a lot of bad behavior being taught, being shown, being copied. So that was another challenge for me to see. Well, listen, I had this opportunity to make this bundle of money because the studio needs me.

But what else can I do? What else can I do for me? What other challenge can I present myself with? And that was that was that.

Yeah. So all those decisions, I think are brilliant. I would hope I'd make all the same ones.

But your ego ever fuck with you and you go like I don't want to be the last person to leave a party like the.

Of course. Of course. All the time. Sean and I talk about this all the time like. Listen, I do not want to be the grapes dying on the vine, like already to watch myself age from thirty three to 50 now on screen, that's not so fun because you really see it because I'm in the same clothes, right? I'm in the same character. So the way I see myself aging is, you know, that's a motherfucker.

Oh yeah.

And then how about the storylines that the new storylines come your way and you start going like, oh I guess so. I have an 18 year old in this. All right. Yeah. Yeah. I guess mathematically that makes it like it keeps making you confront how old you are, like, oh, I got a grandkid on the way while we're there.

OK, but at the same time, I think the overall goal of my life is to always keep my ego in check, you know, and it's like I don't want to tell myself lies. Like I don't lie about my age. I don't put anything in my face. Uh huh. I don't want to tell myself any lies. I'm not doing myself any favors. Right. But certainly I think to dip out sooner rather than later at this point, having done what we've done to leave while the show is still on top is definitely a goal.

I'm not trying to stay on the show forever. No way. OK, all right. The truth is, if I get too aggravated and I'm no longer grateful there, I should not be there. Yeah.

Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

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OK, now, you already mentioned that your mom died when you were four. She was only thirty three. And I wonder what your relationship with your mother dying was, what your story was, what your narrative was, and then what it was when you finally had a four year old and you looked at the little four year old, you're like, holy shit, you need me, you need me so fucking bad right now.

I needed someone so fucking bad. Did it shine a different lens on the whole experience?

For sure. I think my mother was thirty nine when she died. I don't think she was. Oh I think she was thirty nine.

This is not the first time the Internet's wrong, you know, because I think there's a story about my mother was so psychic supposedly and I think there was a story about them sitting around a table with her brother and sister. And I think they were eating dinner or something. And and I think it was my mother's birthday next. I think they said it was going to be your fortieth birthday next. And the story was told to me that she shook her head like she wouldn't make it to forty.

So she she was an addict. And I say that as an addict. Yes. As it was told to me, my mother was involved in it in a car accident when she was 16 years old. She was hit by a drunk driver and thrown 90 feet in the air and pretty much broke every bone in her body. She was coming from church to go meet my dad, and she was crossing the street and got hit by this drunk driver and was in the hospital for almost a year, I think.

And she was put on morphine in the hospital. And so the hospital had her addicted to morphine. And I saw that. I think when she got out, she had chronic back pain. She had three slipped disks and pain management was what the system gave her. And I think the overdose was accidental.

Now, did you have any resentment towards her as a kid? Where were you constructed this story where she chose something over you?

For sure. For sure, yes. When I was a teenager, also coming from an Italian Irish Catholic family, no one talks about anything.

Yeah, right. Feels shame. The whole thing. Yeah.

I didn't grow up hearing stories about her or her or hearing her name is only if I ask people tell me stories. Where did people tell me stories is very, very painful for everybody involved. My brothers and sisters were really formative ages. They were teenagers and they had it really, really hard. But yeah, I definitely, when I was a teenager, was super angry at her for leaving. Not understanding addiction, not understanding pain, not understanding any of that, just coming from a completely ignorant place.

Just anger. Yeah, sure. And then once you get older and you understand. Oh well there was actually no help for addiction because no one back then talked about addiction. So she probably had zero help.

Yeah. The same scale was off the charts at that time.

Yeah. In the seventies for sure. Nineteen seventy four. So then it turns to compassion and feeling really bad that she had nowhere probably to go for help when having five children and probably being not able to care for the kids all the time. And she didn't feel good. So then you feel compassion and sadness and then all my milestones like when I turned forty or thirty nine or the age she was when I think she passed. Yes. Then you feel forty one when you were outliving her.

You. Oh yeah. Aha. What would she have been able to accomplish had her circumstances in life been different. Yeah. And then I have this other thing where psychiatrist would have a field day with this shit. It's like thinking that I'm going to die when my kids are four. I have that thing too. Of course I kind of am obsessed with death. I think about it all the time. I think about my own death all the time.

I think I always think I'm going to die. You know, I always think something bad is going to happen. I'm working on that.

Is that driven out of knowing what a hole was in your life and how you just would not want your children to experience that or your own fear of mortality?

I think it's all of it. Yeah, it's all of it. I just if I'm not playing, I think honestly, maybe a psychiatrist would break it down to this is the first memory of my life is seeing my mother dead. Yeah. That's my first memory that tells you that people are quite vulnerable in the world.

That's the lesson you take away, I think. Yeah. I mean, that's I think impacted my senses and that's immediately the pathway that my brain made.

And then your dad got remarried and that was all fine. No, I wouldn't say fine.

No good. I would be mad if you took to it like fish in water. Yeah. No, no, no. My dad, bless his heart, really not the deepest guy. OK, sure. He's not with us anymore.

And he had his hands, fucking six kids, but he also still lived in the house with his parents like a classic Italian.

I'm making Sunday dinner and doing exactly my grandmother making Sunday dinner. Treating him like he's say he never left his parents. But, you know, my parents got married and had five kids in my dad's parents house at their own house. So, you know, of course, my dad needed someone else to tuck him in at night immediately after he married like nine months after my mom died, which was really devastating.

You know, he probably needed comfort. He probably couldn't regulate the feelings without the addition of someone helping him regulate the feeling.

I mean, I'm sure it was survival on some level.

Of course, that that's like such a traumatic thing. Yeah. You know, it's not like my mother was in the hospital with cancer and they knew the end was coming.

You know, this gorgeous, vivacious woman with this personality, everyone probably left a lot of stuff unsaid, which is haunting and sometimes unexpected, totally.

So I think that that came out of nowhere, was so traumatic for him, too. And you can't really I mean, you can, but it's not productive to judge how people respond to trauma. Yeah. I mean, certainly should have done a lot of things differently. Absolutely. And I felt like also like, oh, my kids need a mother. Oh yeah. Yeah. Survivor, you know, so there's that kind of weird backwards 70s mentality was like, oh, let me just get someone else in here.

I mean, you should check and make sure that that person is ready to be a mother to five children who just lost their mother. That must have been for that babe.

He must have been so good looking because how he landed a check with six kids is a miracle.

Yeah, well, he had five kids and she had a son who was my age. He my brother Dean, who I love. My dad was super handsome, really tall, really handsome. Kind of look like a combination of Sean Connery and Tom Selleck.

I'll bring in Andy in the 70s. That's the idea. Look. Yeah, the mustache, the clothes, the whole thing. My sister and I used to drive to the beach and we used to see my dad. A standing at the beach and we knew it was him because he had super dark tan and he was in full clothes, he always he dressed really well and there was always a circle of women around him in bikinis.

He must have had the perfect job because he just drove around all these different areas. He probably like eighty five sets of friends at the different stores and people he flirted with.

And the whole thing must have been a real ideal thing for him. Yes, my dad was a car salesman, which just worked out beautifully for him as well. Right. Right.

Now, when you you eventually left Massachusetts and then you went down to Miami first what was going to be in Miami?

The goal was a bunch of my friends had moved down there. All my gay friends had moved down there. And they were like, this is the next place. It's amazing. It's hot, it's gorgeous. The rent is super cheap. You should come down here. So my friend and I went down there and it was before, you know, it hadn't gentrified yet at all. It was still like that scene in Scarface. All the buildings were dilapidated and we were staying at the Fountain Blue Hotel.

And just giant scorpion like walked across the floor and I was like, I can't stay here, I can't live here, but really there was nowhere for me to work, right? There was one bar. Uh huh. There was nowhere for me to work. So I went back to Boston. And then my friend called me up again six months later and he said a straight bar opened up, you can get a job as a cocktail waitress there.

You should come back. And then it was the winter. It was the dead of winter. You know, there was definitely some things in Boston that I was involved with. It was not a good place. So it's like, you know, what? If I stay here, I'm going to end up dead or in jail or something bad is going to happen. So then I went to Miami and there was one club. It was called rebar.

I had a lot of cocktail waitress experience from Boston and I got that job and then I stayed. I stayed there for three years and then I left and then right when I landed, you know, obviously it started gentrifying. Right. There was the one club. And then in two years, it was just like a completely different place. Right. And then by year three, it was really crazy. That's when, like, the Versace mansion was completed and all that stuff.

And it was just that was getting crazy. And then I thought, I need to sort of figure out what I'm going to do with my life and go after it. I can't sort of be down here.

And then so when you went to New York, where you just aiming to model, where you aiming to act?

Well, I was really just aiming to act. But in Miami, a couple of scouts, I don't know if they still have them, but then they used to have modeling scouts and a bunch of people would always walk up to me and say, hey, you know, I want you to be a model. And I was really I'm really short. I'm only five, six and a half. I'm like, yeah, and modeling is not my thing.

I'm really not interested in it. I'm not tall. And but I did get a few free trips up to New York City. The agencies brought me up to New York a bunch of times to go on castings and meet photographers and stuff. And I got to get a little bit comfortable hanging out in New York and being in New York on my own. I would go into these rooms and there'd be like 12 girls in the room. They're all nine feet tall and gorgeous.

And there's me. You know, you go in the room and they look at the pictures that you have. They don't like talk to you at all or, you know, anything. It was just like and I was like, hey, what's up? You know me.

I'm like, Yeah, you don't want to buy a watch. Yeah.

It was just like based on like what you look like in a photograph. And I was just like, I don't think this is really for me. I have way too much to say. Yeah. Then I went back to bartending. I got a job soon after that and I was kind of doing the same thing, going on castings in the day and bartending at night. And then I met an agent when I was bartending. Then she sent me on some auditions and I got them and started booking stuff.

Yes, yeah. You got to know how to party if you're a bartender. I've got some of my best friends have, you know, been bartenders and bars and that you got to walk the walk in that line of work, don't you?

Not really, because if you're inebriated, you can't count and you can't you don't know how much people are tipping you. And you have to stay super clear and focused so that you can take all the money from the guys that are just passing you. Yes, I had a completely different hustle going on. It was not male oriented. It was not finding a boyfriend oriented. It was money. Yeah, of course. I guess I have an M.O..

Right. I guess I kind of always did, but I grew up around wiseguys, so, you know, I'm really like Ray Liotta in Goodfellas, like I grew up, you know, enamored with these wise guys who seem to have all this money and power. They drove nice cars. They were beautiful suits. They had beautiful girlfriends who wore fur coats. I grew up enamored with the power that money gave them. What I probably didn't realize is they probably killed people, too, which gave them a lot of power, but I wasn't really cognizant of that fact.

OK, so I very similarly obsessed with powerful criminals my whole life. I've given it a lot of thought, like, why am my first thing is this.

I'm I'm impressed with people that through the sheer power of their will can make something happen.

But I do think I'm more honest with myself.

I felt less than and that I was not going to be invited to some fancy school or some fancy anything.

And I think I wrongly evaluated like I want that shit. I'm going to get that shit and I'm going to have to get it through hook or crook. Like, that's just it's not I didn't see the path. There was no one in my family that had done it.

I just thought, I will not leave this planet without a fast car that I own. So how am I going to get it? Like, I wonder what yours was rooted in.

I don't know. I think maybe the death of my mother, that's a very powerless situation you're in. You have absolutely no control over that aspect. Right. Is something that you want more than anything in the world that you can never have. Yeah. So, you know, maybe there's a sense of control that you need or I definitely knew I did not want to stay in Boston and I definitely knew that everybody around me was either sort of drug dealers, drug addicts, criminals.

I didn't grow up with doctors and lawyers. That's right. You're right. You know, so I didn't grow up with those examples. I don't think I was. Looking for better role models, I think I just knew there was more to life and there was more out there in the world than to be behind A, B or C, and so I definitely wanted to get out of there. I knew the only way to get out of there was to make money.

Yeah. I am curious, having lost your mother, what would you say that impact had on how well you do with other women? Is that an easy mix for you or is it been challenging or. No, no effect whatsoever?

I don't know that the loss of my mother has anything to do with my relationship to other women. I will say that I'm not competitive with other women necessarily. I'm competitive with myself and I put a lot of pressure on myself. I really love women and I find more so than not, I think women don't like me, OK? I don't feel a lot of love from a lot of women. And that's not to say I've never been competitive with women.

Of course I've been competitive.

Like it or not, you're in a competitive field. But like I would say, like in scenes on the show, you know, not to say that I would never have tension with women or be competitive with women. Of course, there's always natural stuff. Yeah, but but by nature, I'm not like a catty funny enough, I'm a pretty dominant person. My husband will tell you I'm a type personality and I'm pretty bossy and all that stuff.

And I guess I'm not maybe the best person to sort of judge myself. I don't feel threatened by other women necessarily. Yeah, that's not really my thing. I really want to be friends with other women. I don't think that has anything to do with losing my mother or not.

Well, by the way, I want to tell you, I didn't ask that because I've ever heard anything. I have no idea. Like, I'm not circling some feud that I don't know about. I don't know, I guess because I didn't have a dad around. So I have an intense authority, complex issue with men.

So you have conflict with men? Well, well, men in authority positions. OK, and then through not having a dad around, I searched out so much approval from my peers, my male peers. I was looking for someone to say, you're a man, it's happened. You're doing the things that a man does. And I was very susceptible to wanting the approval of my male peers because I wasn't getting it elsewhere.

So I just think it it's certainly impacted, again, a lot of it for better. I think ultimately like stuff I love about myself as a result of that. And also I've been difficult if you're an older dude trying to tell me what to do, I've made it miserable for people.

And I, you know, it's my fault. But at the same time, I think it is rooted in that for me.

It's interesting your opinion of yourself and your self aware of that trait that you have and where it comes from. I think that for me, I hope I'm self aware, but I think that a lot of his perception is not actually who I am. And I think with many women, we're super tough and strong and have to be because we've been through so much so than other women perceive us as something that we're not. Because I had a hard outer shell, because I've had to protect myself for so long.

But then inside I'm really a super softy. Yeah. Know. So I think sometimes I'm perceived in a way that isn't really who I am inside.

Well, I don't think just men are misogynistic. I think the whole society and the whole culture and all of our software is misogynistic. So I think even women are misogynistic in that they will easily, like men do, file someone who is strong and self-determined as a bitch. If you speak up for yourself, you're a bitch. Right?

So I think even women, unfortunately, succumb to that same categories.

If you speak up for other women, that's also considered I've learned to be a sort of trigger.

Sure, we're not boohooing you, but I am going to add one element. This is the last question I have, which is OK.

You have those things we just talked about, right, where if you stand up for yourself on set, you're not assertive, you're a bitch, and that's a bummer. You're going to age out quicker than men. That fucking sucks. You're going to not get paid as much. That blows. And then I would say the final aspect, and this is when I can speak to very personally and intimately is it is a very tricky dynamic for a woman to be making more money than their husband.

If they grew up when we all grew up, I imagine maybe millennials it's easier for.

But I think the male ego and being the provider and that's all I know for me, it was quite an evolution of like I'm not comfortable with the notion that she makes more than me. It's it's hard for me, as stupid as that is, some category that got unchecked of manhood and it took for us.

For me, it's not her problem having children and actually recognizing like, oh, this is all for all of us.

We're all safer because of this.

Like, check your fucking ego and enjoy this amazing gift. But, you know, I've been sober for 16 years and go to meetings every week, and it took me seven years to get comfortable with that.

Right. Well, I'm super lucky for the fact that we're from the same area, Chris and I. Oh, you are? Yeah. OK, so although we didn't really know each other growing up, we had mutual friends. Oh. So she really knows the cloth that I'm cut from. Yeah. She gets it. So he really understands that my sort of hustle mentality and he also had to scrap coming up to. So we don't really have any issues thankfully in that area.

Like probably once a day he'll look at me and say, are you talking to me? Who are you talking to? You're talking to me.

But you know, so because my tone, I guess I get kind of you know, I have a few people that work for me and my tone. I'm just like, you know, that Bush can you just cut that Bush? Just cut it. No, don't cut it on an angle. Yeah. And then, you know, life is very similar.

I'll just get you know, you got to get shit done. And I like to get shit done. And sometimes I have a certain tone when I need to get shit done. And it's not all I'm not in my feelings about it. I am have that hard exterior and I just need to get through some things. And I need you to do that and I need you to do that. And you know, in that, yes, sometimes I talk to him in the wrong tone.

But our thing is, has he ever said to you?

Because I've said to my wife, and it's caused great fights for weeks at a time, I'll I'll just go, oh, hey, you know, I don't work for you. Right?

For sure.

It's been said to me and I know other women who also make a lot of money, whose husbands say that to we really have to be careful not to emasculate.

Well, and it's embarrassing that you would have to tiptoe around our fragile egos. I'm owning it. But also I have I have had that feeling where I'm like, oh, no, no, no, no, no.

We're Rose. We have these kids together. But I don't get a list from anybody in life. I've earned the right to not be left the list anywhere.

Yeah, for sure. It takes are really confident man to be able to deal with us. I think that relationships are more healthy than not being in a relationship because it's someone to hold a mirror up to your own behavior and say, hey, do you realize you do this. Yeah. Which he has that too. He tends to the same way. It's that Boston has it, too. He has a tendency to talk to people in a certain way.

And I have to say to him, I know you don't know how you sound, but when you talk on the phone with a woman, you have to really be careful not to say that.

My wife, my wife, I bet that's the most common sentence said in our household is I don't I don't think you recognize that you're much taller than everyone in your voice is louder and deeper. You need to check in with that a little bit.

And I'm like, I'm just a person like every other person who wants to fucking state their needs. I'm sorry. It's coming from higher up off the ground.

Then also, I now really feel like I'm from a different generation where these kids are amazing. Also, you know what it is another interesting thing, as much implicit bias as there is and systemic racism and systemic sexism and all of that. Right. And this new generation of kids and I personally am in awe of them. And so inspired by their ability to call things out and say that's not OK and we didn't do it, they do have to sort of understand that it's all we knew.

You know, it's like say, you know, I've said things in the past, which I'm not going to repeat because I don't want to start shit again. Yeah, but, you know, the truth is, we grew up in a certain time and things were a certain way and we came up in a certain way. Doesn't mean it. All right, but for all we know, it's like in on Twitter, they're like you used a fax machine, you use a fucking fax machine.

It's like, yeah, I use the fax machine. It's all we had. I'm sorry.

I use a fax machine, you know. Yeah, but what's interesting is cancer culture is what these kids are doing now. It's actually I would like to think in 20 years or in 30 years, I know this is pretty unrealistic, but I would like to think that human beings are so involved in 20 or 30 years that we're like, wow, you used to cancel people. You used to get online and bully people. We get in so much trouble for the practices of our past and things that we let slide and things that we never called people out on and yet ignore a lot.

We had to ignore a lot and we didn't. We know any better. That was the societal norms. Well, their societal norm now is bullying. These young kids want to point out all of our flaws and everything that's been wrong with us, you know, and there's a lot. Yeah, but yeah, you got to check yourself. I mean, Willow Smith came out and was so brave and amazing and said something about cancer culture and how there's no teaching moment and cancel culture.

And I think the cancer culture in online bullying with social media is our sexism and racism of 20 years ago.

Yeah, well, there's a great two parter on The Daily about cancer culture.

And what's really interesting that I just learned from it was it is resoundingly if you look at poll, it's very unanimous that people don't like it. That expression in itself, cancer culture elicits a negative reaction from the vast, vast majority of people. But what's interesting is it means different things to different people. Right.

So the right might be objecting to one aspect, but it has some pretty left leaning journalists on there.

And one of the points they made, which, of course, I valued, was in an attempt at progress in progressive values, which we should have and in calling out the errors, it is also uniquely unprogressive to be the judge, jury and executioner.

We, like the progressive values, actually value a due process system and values that we prioritize, never putting an innocent person away at the cost of letting some guilty people go.

That's our system. That's the progressive system we all fought for. So there is something inherently not progressive about the progressive cancer culture, which is very relevant. But I will say with my own, I'm also a comedian, right.

And I and I talk too much and I say bad things. So I have lived in, you know, very specific fear of the whole thing.

But I, I do have to recognize that a lot of people have pointed out to me, you're not going to get canceled if they find out you were in blackface in nineteen eighty two when you were seven at a birthday party, you're going to get canceled. If they point that out and you don't say, yeah, that's regrettable and a bummer. And that's what was happening back then. And I look back on it and embarrasses the shit out of me and it should have never been acceptable.

And the whole thing's embarrassing. And I'm sorry.

I do think that is a part that's missing. I do think when the people get canceled, generally, they haven't just owned it, apologized and moved on. I don't think we're seeing a ton of people getting canceled who own the mistake and apologize.

I'm hopeful. I do think in general, it's generally people digging in and the other people are like, fuck, yeah, I got nukes, let's do it right.

So, you know, I think I've overreacted out of fear of it a bit. But then I think about this. When you and I were 16 and 18, there were people I hated in the media, hated David Duke.

I hated all these people. But what was I going to do?

Tell my friends? You don't even know who David Duke is? No.

So then I just stopped thinking about it because there was no outlet. If I could have got online and said, David Duke, you're a fucking coward. I'd love to meet you at Arby's.

I would love there's no question we didn't have a voice. Who are we playing to? The local newspaper, right?

Yeah. Kids are so lucky they have this platform. Yeah. And then I would have used it, too. So I'm trying my hardest to stay non fearful about it all and also pointing out when it's it's totally unprogressive and illiberal to be doing this. Well, listen, I've had a ton of fun talking to you. I'm so excited. Now, when we finally bump into each other, we know virtually everything about one another.

And it should be just like, hey, bro, hang immediately for sure.

This was fun. DAX, thank you so much. I'm glad we got to make it happen. We go back to home schooling now.

Yes or not? I'm not. All right. Well, good luck. Can't wait to bump into you.

OK, thanks. Bye. Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

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We are supported by State Farm, the good neighbors at State Farm. You know, I love an excuse to talk about the Midwest, Monica.

I absolutely love it. Yeah, you talk about it all the time.

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State Farm is there. And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate, Monica Padman.

Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday.

What's that from again? I think it's Stevie Wonder. It is. I think so.

Oh, man, I love Stevie Wonder. Yeah, me too. I just thought it was from like a parody show. Sketch show.

Oh, you did? Oh, happy. But no, I think it's Stevie Wonder. It's a real song. Do you think his closest friends call him Stevie Wonder? I think they call him Stephen. Stevie Wonder, yeah. Do you have a favorite Stevie Wonder song? Happy Birthday.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That one you're just saying is my favorite.

I don't know. What's your fave ribbons in the sky. How does that ribbons in the sky for love.

I ran on, you know, it it it it it it it it it, it, it, it it it it moved. Wow.

Yeah. I don't think I've ever heard it. I always had a dream that I had the weirdest dream in junior high. I wanted to have a daughter named Epiphanny, but that was because that was Lisa Bonis name.

And of course. Yeah but I wanted to hold her hand and walk through the park and hear ribbons in the sky.

Oh, I did. I have done quite a bit of dancing with Lincoln to ribbons in the sky. That's lovely. Yeah. Let me let me play for it.

It's beautiful man. You really play piano. So embarrassing for all of us who can see. You can cut all this out this way. Yeah, what do you. Also, long before this night, I pray that a star would guide you my way to share with. This special day, well, with. Yes, a lot. May I touch your hand in there, please? May I once again, so that you. Understand, that's a ribbon in the sky for us, and that's pretty nice.

Yeah, I really don't think I've heard in God I'm so jealous to be able to use your mouth as an instrument.

Like, that's amazing. I see. I think you could do it.

I think you have enough skill that if you. I need to take lessons. Yeah. If you took some lessons I think you could scout. Maybe you can get me some lessons for my birthday. Yes, I will.

How's your birthday going? Well, let's say it's going great. It's a great birthday.

All my wishes came true when I blew out my candles today. Oh, they all came true.

So I'm really lucky the PBB get you anything. No, I don't accept gifts from my baby.

Well, no, it's cute when your babies make you like a drawing.

Oh, if she, like, makes me macaroni salad. Yeah. Hey, painting or something. Yeah. Yeah.

OK, you know what?

All she could really give me is like a P. Yeah. Some stainless flash. She could probably drip like a smiley face on some construction paper.

Would be sweet. I'd hang that up on my fridge. Yeah. I don't want her to feel limited by the fact that she can't very well or no she can't do much stuff.

Just kind of sits in the toilet bowl. Yeah. But you're right. Maybe it's like there's hidden talents we don't know about when we're acting like she has limitations.

Maybe Stevie Wonder. Exactly. Yeah.

Not to compare Stevie Wonder to our people, but. No, no, no. She might surprise us.

Yeah. You know, I bet a lot of people were like, Stevie Wonder can't be a musician. Have you ever seen this stuff?

There's there's like a conspiracy theory online that Stevie Wonder can see any of this. Yes, I've seen I actually went down the rabbit hole once. And I got to say, there is one freaky moment where like a mike stand falls and he catches and he catches it.

I know, but it's because there's sensitive sonar. Yeah, well, you don't know about sonar. Oh, hearing like echolocation. Yeah.

Well, you know that amazing radio lab. Oh my God. I have to find the name of it.

I look it up. OK, so the podcast is called How to Become Batman. It's a bizarre Bilia podcast, which is an NPR podcast, but it's such a good episode.

It's about expectation, basically, that physicians we put on people and how people meet those expectations. Right. But he's a blind man and he rides his bike everywhere. Oh, wow. He basically learns. Oh, he collects stuff.

Yes. That's so cool. And then he just teaches all these other blind kids and there's like some controversy because he can be like, hard on, you know, it's like scary.

And he really expects them to like I feel like one part of it was he was teaching this one kid and they got to the point where, like, he had to cross the street. I know. And then the parents, like, kind of jump in. He doesn't like that, I think. Yeah.

It's such a good I have not heard it. I'm going to listen to that as one of the best episodes of right now, OK, by your bedroom and listen to it. OK, bye bye.

Yeah, we're at my house right now because of the heat wave heat wave and we have numerous issues in the attic.

There's been electrical issues and the lights don't go on.

A couple of the plugs work. Most don't motorcycle accident, Azeez, stop work. And then I work for a minute. Yeah. Yeah. So we've just moved camp back over to Monika's.

When I got here, she offered me, I guess, water. Is that what you offered me. But I heard. Would you like would you like some onions.

Oh I think I said, I think I said very quickly, are you OK?

Oh, and and then you thought I asked Onion when we just thought, oh, great to if when you went to people's homes they offered you some onions, would you like some onions or some water or no one.

No one offers anyone onions anymore.

Maybe in Washington, in Walla Walla they have the Walla Walla Sweet Onion Festival and people go up there and they eat the onions like an apple.

They're sweet. Yeah. Have you ever had one now?

Are you one of those people who eats tomatoes like an apple? I've never done that. No. No. Would you. No, no. Because I know. Well, don't you think it would just collapse and turn to mush?

I could see that. Yeah, that would be my fear.

But you love the taste. I love tomatoes to love them so much.

I used to really be into making an heirloom sandwiches on white bread with some miracle whip and pepper.

What a good sandwich. Should I make you one of those for you? This week is Monica's birthday week, so I'm going to be making every night of the week. I'm going to make something special. Oh, my God.

What's on that? What's on the menu? Well, the twelve chicks for canned chicken sandwich. Yeah. Yep. Tuna and being a member of the. The scramble I've been telling you about that I never got around to love that the schallert. Can I tell you, I don't know if I can accept this because you're crippled right now, but I'll do I can do it.

I'm fine. I can make it happen.

I'll feel guilty, don't feel guilty, feel loved. Well, I do feel love, OK? And I also feel a little guilty. This is what you feel right now. Yeah.

Oh, man. I'm going through so many things. Yeah. Let's talk about it.

Well, you know, I was as you would, was hesitant to even say it on here that I had been injured because I don't like by the way, I figured out really what was at the root.

Remember, I said I didn't want to be someone who got attention for getting injured. And I realized a couple of days later it was because my father this is a very funny story. The first time my father and Kristen ever met, she was home for Christmas in Michigan and she took it upon herself to ask him if he wanted to hang out.

And he picked her up at her house and she got in the car and he goes, Oh, look at these.

And he reached in his back seat and he pulled up X-rays, handed her X-rays. And she thought, this is so interesting that the first thing he did upon meeting was show me some X-rays, sir.

So I think that's a little bit where it comes from.

Oh, he got in a lot of accidents and you get a lot of attention. And I just was worried he kind of would manifest these accidents because it's a source of attention.

But anyways, after we spoke about it, then some people were concerned and then so I want to show them I was OK.

And I certainly appreciate that. But then I posted a picture to show like Ormoc.

Yeah, but he looked hurt. Yeah.

But I was, like, smiling to show everyone I was in good spirits that got misinterpreted.

I think almost like I was like cocky. Oh really. I didn't care. I don't know. Oh, there was some news headlines like Fox News.

So this really ugly picture of me and they took the quote when we were talking that said, well, it was entirely my fault. I should have assumed that someone writer could turn in early.

Right.

And so all it says is just it was my fault in this ugly picture. Me. Oh, my God.

And is that it was my fault there. Oh, my God.

So you know, what they're trying to do there is just get people to like not like me, know that like to click on it because they probably think that article is about you cheating.

Oh yeah. Maybe they are so sneaky.

I, I don't like Fox News. Well here's what I thought I was thinking. I'm a little offended by that because I think I'm pretty fair to Fox News. I say that I watch it when I'm in hotel rooms so that I can understand how other people are feeling about the same topics I learned about on CNN.

Like I try to give it a shot. Yeah, I know.

And so for them to kind of throw me under the bus, I was a little bit annoyed by. But then it just kind of ended up in a lot of news outlets.

I just have such complicated feelings about that and then people reaching out to me. It's hard for me to, um.

I don't know. There's a lot of layers. One is if I'm in control of being vulnerable, I like it. And then when I'm not in control of being vulnerable, I don't like it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, yeah, I just have no control over it started as something tiny. And then, you know, I got a lot of emails from a lot of people I haven't spoke to in a while. And then they're worried about me and then I feel guilty. And then some people are you know, they're taking me to task about riding motorcycles like it's their chance to tell me to stop. And I don't love that. And and also I feel very loved.

So it is very complicated. It is complicated. It is. It's OK. It's more complicated than it really is. It's not very complicated. People are concerned about.

But it's a it's emotionally complicated for you and that's OK. And it's good to recognize that. I think that vulnerability part is a good thing to recognize.

What I've decided is that clearly there's a big lesson for me to learn because I should just be receiving this is love and people caring about me, which would be the nice way. Yeah, but the lack of control or feeling powerless over at all or that it just got away from me. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't know. It's hard. It's only a baby. No, OK.

But I think it's good because you know, this podcast is about vulnerability and we expect that from people and we expect that from ourselves and each other.

And you're right, it's a sort of a different thing when the vulnerability is practiced or like you've already come to terms with something and then you're expressing.

Well, yeah, I think I've admitted that I'm guilty on this podcast of sharing things I was vulnerable or that I've overcome. Yeah.

And that I realize that I'm not as transparent about current issues I have, which I think everyone does, but is.

Yeah, I have a goal of being better at that, you know. So I guess yeah. It's just that it's like real time vulnerability. I haven't licked it. I'm not all better. I can't say oh was no big deal and I'm fine.

Yeah. Which by the way I'm fine, I'm totally fine. I had a great doctor.

Magaro, I love you. He put my shoulder back together on Thursday. Yes. It feels all good now. Feels stable. Yeah.

And you're healing nicely. Nicely.

I'm nervous about. I feel like people have leverage against me now to say like stop riding motorcycles which I don't want to stop.

Do you think it's that or do you think it's every time they say it, it forces you to have to think about whether or not you should stop or how reckless was it? Or, you know, I think I don't because I don't think, well, maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like if a stranger tells you you really shouldn't be riding motorcycles, like normally you'd be like whatever like this person has. No. Well, that's a great point.

Like, as I always say, if it bothers you, there's something behind it. If if if it does if they were just saying, I'm too short, I wouldn't even think about it.

But yeah, well, there's a really weird parallel, which is my hero, Valentino Rossi.

Last week in the GOP race, there was this crazy accident that I've never seen, one of this variety and ten years of watching motorcycle racing where two guys crashed behind him on the straightaway and he was in a turn and they both came off the bike. So the bikes just continued forward at like one hundred and thirty miles an hour. And then they got airborne. And so he's just going through a turn. It probably like sixty in these two bikes come flying, one behind them, one in front of them.

And if you pause it, there is a moment where there's like it's crazy.

There's one, two feet in front of him on TV from behind them, bolts would have been lights out, deadly, very scary. And it's funny because I guess I immediately thought, oh, here's Valentino, he's forty two.

He's the best rider of all time. He's won nine championships.

He's in the least significant part of his career in what if something had happened.

That's tragic. Yeah. And then I saw him in the press conference and they're like, did it make you think about retiring? And he said, well, and retire and what? When I retire, I'm going to go into car racing like I want to continue to race.

It's what I love to do or be on my farm riding horses, which is dangerous, or be riding the motorcycles at my track at home.

So, no, I don't really think things like this is my life. Yeah, and that's that. And I thought he can say that because that's his profession.

So he has like this cover fire, you know. Yeah. And I can't say that because it's not what I earn a living on.

Right. I think he can say it because, of course, he has people who love him and who would be incredibly devastated and heartbroken if something happened to him. But he doesn't have a family. Right. So the people who would be devastated probably don't need him.

They're not dependent on him. Yeah. So he can make kind of more reckless decisions. And I think the difference is maybe I mean, I know you love it so much, but there's other things you love. Like, you know, when we were talking to a tool, you were saying you want to be able to talk and you wanna be able to communicate.

You want to be able to do this. The rest of your life, yeah. And so you could still do all that and give up the dangerous things, you know? Yeah, totally.

Do you think there's any validity to people really don't die at the track now.

People die in the street of someone saying, like, you should stop riding on the street. You've got a pretty good argument to make, you know, people do die on the street, but in general people don't die in the motorcycle track.

It's crazy rare, you know, rarer than other benign sports that people do horseback riding. More people get paralyzed and stuff doing that.

So part of me is like on the track. Yes, you people break bones and I broke some bones, but you have a helmet on and people don't really they just generally don't die.

Yeah, yeah. I'm not winning you over on this year. Yeah, I believe you. It just I don't know.

You know, I've got months to think about it. I have committed to not riding in twenty twenty.

Oh, this is the other thing I was going to say just in my defense. And then I'll concede everyone you don't know if they concede. I have been riding on the track for 16 years and that's that's my first accident track.

And I think that's relevant to cause, you know. Yeah.

Maybe one thing of like every year I went down, but I did get hurt twice now within six months, which is you could make an argument.

My my faculties are.

No, they're not. Which sucks is I was actually getting much better. I think I had plateaued as a rider on the track. But over the last year I've gotten better and I've been really into it.

I've been taking more instruction. I've been listening better and I've gotten much better. And I was like, oh, I'm getting better at this. It feels great. Yeah, yeah.

I don't know. I'm not telling you what to do, by the way. Yeah, I know you're not ever. I just care about you. Yeah. And it's my birthday. It's your birthday. So you have to listen to me. OK, I will, I won't ride today. OK. OK.

Ellen Pompei, Ellen Pompeo. Well this is like far down the list but I just want to start with it.

She was talking about how like sometimes things from your real life end up in the show and.

Oh yeah, I felt like fucking with her. Yeah. Yeah. Well because OK, so you said that you had Lincoln and then there was a girlfriend character named Lincoln. Yeah.

The very first episode back at Season five, Episode one versus So Bad 2013. And there is a girl named Lincoln, but she's not related to you. Sarah has a new tenant or something and he's like young and hot.

And it's like foreshadowing that they're probably going to be right. Yeah.

He comes in to play or something and his girlfriend comes in and is all drunk. And her name's Lincoln. Oh, is that what it was. Yeah. She's just in it for a scene.

Yeah. I'm sure I was being, just being too sensitive about it. There was probably like they thought they were doing a cute nod that was in the phase where I was still like putting a blanket over our head when we left the house because there was paparazzi on the front yard. Right. And I think I was trying to like downplaying. I was also in a period where I was not going to tell anyone her name like all this. I was like, oh, I was feeling very yeah, of course, protective.

I'm much more chill now. Now I would recognize it as probably a cute nod.

Yeah. OK, so how many seasons was Denzel on St. elsewhere. Six times on it for six seasons.

And what did she say. He said he hated it or get off or something.

No, she asked him how many seasons did you do St.. Elsewhere and he said too many. Oh OK. Something like that.

I don't even know if I knew he came from St. elsewhere. Me either. I don't even know. Were you born then. Let me see.

Well you're thirty three today. Happy birthday. Yeah he's twenty seven.

He was on it from eighty two to eighty eight.

He was one years old. Yeah. Oh I was just one years old but I do know how that show ends.

Oh you do. Yeah. Because I don't, you don't know, you know how St. elsewhere ends. Yeah. It's like one of the big. Yeah. Oh I know so little about St. elsewhere.

Oh this is historic. Historic finale.

OK, so St. elsewhere as a hospital. Yeah it's about a hospital and the last episode is a kid in the in the hospital I think. I don't know if he's in hospital but I think he is and he's playing with the snow globe and they look into the snow globe and it's St. elsewhere. So this whole thing was happening in his mind.

Oh my gosh, I don't like that. You don't know because that tells you everything you saw.

It didn't happen. I know, but it did happen in his mind. This is like my the only episode of Sopranos I didn't like was Tony Soprano had food poisoning. Yeah.

So the whole episode was him having these weird, like terror nights, wet, delusional dreams. And I was like, none of this happened. But you knew that the whole time, right?

I can't remember if you did. I just remember like it feels like a cop out. Oh, I don't know.

I love it. I love that you've been watching for so well. And I think it's tied in for St. elsewhere because I don't you know what I'm going to have to look at until we get it exactly right.

We don't want to get sued by the people of St. Olaf now. Yeah, this served as a series final episode and is noted for having one of the most memorable moments in television history. Oh. You got it right. I just want to know with the kid if he, like, is the kid God, well, that's what I want to know.

OK, I guess if you find out who God is at the end, that that's kind of worth it. You'd feel OK about that. Yeah, but if he's just a normal kid. OK. This has led to he imagined all those weird storylines, so this is what I wanted to check before I said it. OK, he's autistic, OK? He's an autistic boy. But also this was an eighty eight. That's like early to be talking about.

I had never wanted.

Well, I guess the first time I heard about autism was Rain Man. Oh right. That kind of shine a light on that.

But do they even call it autism. They did. They did OK. Yeah, they used to use the term idiot savant. I don't think they do anymore right now, but.

But not anymore. Yeah but yeah. And you know, Raymonds based on a real person and they've done two 60 minute specials on the real life Rainman. And he lives in Utah and his dad takes him to the library every day and he reads two pages at the same time, one with his left eye and one with his right eye.

And he's read virtually every book in the library, really, and he can tell you anything. You can ask him what the weather was like on any given day in history. You can ask him about the subway system. I mean, it's insane what his brain can hold. That's amazing.

And his first interview versus the next one is like a 20 year gap.

He learned all these social cues because Lesley Stahl did the piece and she said he seems like he's more, you know, I don't know what you'd call it. And he goes, well, you know, he's observed what he should do. He doesn't necessarily he's not feeling the same thing you are, but he knows what to do. Yeah.

I mean, God, how do I say this without it being bad? Just circling it back to Stevie Wonder and the baby, OK, that you can try to tie all these things together.

Well, they are tied together.

And Stevie Wonder, sometimes you when you think there are limitations, you're actually gaining something, you know?

And I think it's important to remember that instead of just like classifying, oh, this person has this, so they just can't do X, Y and Z. That's not necessarily true.

Well, yeah, I've brought that up in reference to the guy that there was the Vanity Fair article about who became the big fund manager, predicted the bubble saw in the big short.

Yeah. Christian Bale's character. Yeah. That guy had a glass eyeball from a young age. So he attributed all of his social awkwardness to that glass eyeball. And so he became a surgeon. Then he became a traitor. And yeah, you do wonder if he had been labeled something, if it would have limited what he would have tried.

Yeah. Or his parents would have steered him away from things.

Well, that's the how to become Batman. Yeah. You know, this all ties together so nicely on purpose.

You did an artful job. Thank you. I didn't even know I was walking into this whole thing. I know I played my role just like a dumdum. Well, it's my birthday. OK, so.

So Denzel directed The Sound of Man.

I'm doing such a good job connect and I'm so impressed with you. Oh, so Denzel directed The Sound of Silence episode where she has her jaw wired shut so she doesn't speak. And that's based on, she said, a real life situation that happened where a guy beat up a nurse post seizure.

He had a post epileptic and he beat up a nurse and she kind of said it very quickly. And I was like, why is it like that's a thing that happens with epilepsy? Because, you know, I have it. Yes. Beat us up. I mean, that was my fear. So then I started looking up. You can have like post aggression.

Oh, seizures. What if you injure me and it becomes news and people tell me to stop hanging out with you, like riding motorcycles. Look and watch me bring it all back.

I think that's fair.

What if you beat me up really bad in your post epileptic rage and I had my mouth wired shut and then people go, you got to stop and I'm gonna go, go.

No, no, it's worth getting my jaw wired shut occasionally. Yeah, I'll keep at it just like the motorcycle.

I don't like this comparison very much, but yeah, there's post seizure. Hyper aggression. Mm. It's kind of scary. I wonder if I had any. I don't think I did, but that reminds me of something crazy I saw. I think I've told you about it when I lived in the one bedroom apartment in Santa Monica, my neighbor on the ground floor, one apartment over odd. I heard all the paramedics and everything, so I am nosy.

So I went and looked in. The window was wide open. So I watched the whole thing.

He was on the ground and he was kind of like he was greenish or yellow, like it really his skin was had become a different color. And then they gave him a shot and they said, All right, put your knees on his chest. They basically prepared the paramedics that he's going to get wild. Right. Comes out of this.

And so they had him pinned down when they did it. Wow. And he didn't really get wild.

He just was like like when he came to I was very much like, what is going on? Where are these people in my heart?

Yeah. I wonder if that's similar to this. I bet, because I think you're confused. You're very I do remember that like being so disoriented. And if you're in a weird place and you feel like it's life or. Yeah. Fight or flight or flight, then you might I guess, have aggression or if you to beat Molly up in bed.

Luckily, all the people that were there are much stronger than me. Well, I don't know about that.

I did carry some heavy stuff yesterday. No state champs in that room, I don't think. Nope, nope. Just only one.

OK, so a few of the Grays Records longest running scripted primetime show currently airing. How many episodes of they done three hundred or something. That's your guess.

That must be more than that. Well, you normally hit around a hundred season five, right.

If you're doing twenty four year. Yeah. For season four or five. I don't know how many they do year. They probably do like twenty two or twenty.

They used to. I know well but the first season was less so.

Might be closer to like three seventy or something.

Three hundred and seventeen. Three seventeen. Yeah.

And it's an hour long. Yeah. So it's like doing one hundred and sixty movies so I.

I have done 17 years of parenthood. I could have watched 17 years. That's a good show. OK, so you guys talked a little bit about the pay inequity. Women get paid 60 cents on the dollar an hour.

Yeah, yeah. The thing is like eighty seven cents just across the board or something like that. Right. What I found was compared to men in most professions, women make 80 cents to the dollar. But then I guess Natalie Portman said in a twenty seventeen interview, and I assume she did research on that. She's pretty bright. Yeah, exactly. She went to have it in Hollywood.

We're making 30 cents to the dollar, is what she said. Hmm. So that was in twenty seventeen.

But that's not very long ago. That's bad. It is bad.

It's a really complicated it's more complicated.

One aspect is misogyny, that's for sure. And feeling like women should just be grateful. That's a big part of it. But also the job requires negotiation. It's not like a normal job or every single job. You're negotiating the contract. Yeah. And I have observed lots of female friends of mine versus lots of male friends of mine, again, because we're this is an extension of misogyny.

But I think because men are taught to, you know, know their value or something or or just be more disagreeable, it's more acceptable for men to be disagreeable. At any rate, I have found that men are far more willing to just say no to projects or walk away, which is ultimately how you get your quota up.

You know, no one no one does just give it to you out of the kindness of their heart.

So that's what makes it a little tricky.

Yeah, but I also think what's a deeper issue is the roles for women are easier to replace.

Yes. Yeah. If you've got if you're playing the girlfriend and you try to stand your ground, they're going get someone else to play the girlfriend.

Exactly. Which is very true. Yeah.

But there are people like Kristen, like if she's the lead of the movie, they're not replacing her.

And I've noticed when we first met, she was a lot more acquiescent, like she wouldn't risk, which is healthy. It's one she'd rather do the job than not get that money, which I think is a good perspective.

But at the same time, everyone has to say no until they get what they think they deserve. Yeah. Yeah.

Like Otim had to Leslie. Yeah, he was great.

OK, so she kept referring to her family and the people that they hung out with. They hung out with the wise guys and I didn't know what that was.

Wise guys is a is a euphemism for people in the Mafia family. Right. OK, made guys, wise guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys.

Five guys. Oh my God. It's five guys. Five guys is mafia owned.

Yeah. Yeah. So if you want to support little known the mafia. OK, so I worked backwards today. That was interesting. This is going to be how you do it in your 30s. I think so. Thirty third year. Yeah.

Especially because I was able to do lots of tie ins.

How do you feel about thirty three as a number. I can live with it because it adds up to six. I know.

Look you don't care. I don't love it.

You don't love it. OK, but I'm going to be positive because I don't want to jinx myself or self-fulfilling prophecy and say let's cool to the same number.

Yeah but if I'm being honest I'm scared. Yeah. Glossaries.

So the most bank robberies that quote is from the town. Oh it is, yes.

There are over three hundred bank robberies in Boston every year and a one square mile neighborhood in Boston called Charlestown has produced more bank and armored car robberies than anywhere in the US.

So that's the quote in the town, huh? Now, it's not really corroborated anywhere, but mainly because I don't think they want it to be OK.

Boston police say they can't verify it. OK, I feel good about that number. OK, yeah. Yeah.

I just think they're not releasing data very much. Yeah.

And that just circles back to the town. My boyfriend. Your boyfriend.

My birthday. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

Boy did you use so that up beautifully. Put a big old bow on it for boy. Well happy birthday. Thank you. Yeah. I'm going to go visit my baby now.

OK, you're going to hold your baby.

I guess this is a mother's job, right.

To do I think the much gross babies and stuff. I think the move in order to snuggle baby would be to put the baby in a Ziploc bag and a gallon size Ziploc bag like I do.

When I was a little. I told you about that right. When I was younger, I would fill up baggies with water and pretend they were my babies. And I did carry them around and sometimes I would draw faces on them. I don't think I knew that. Yeah, that was. Oh, well, then my mom really it because it was just bags of water all over the house and you probably became emotionally attached to course. Yeah, I mainly did it in the bags at like, OK, if you're getting produce and you tear off those bags, the kind you.

Yeah, there are long.

Yes, they are. So that was good for holding a baby but probably pretty and break.

I lost a few. Yeah.

I guess they didn't have the did they have the Gallant's I ziplocs at that time or you just they weren't at your disposal.

I don't think they were at my disposal. My mom would have been really mad if I wasted those. Yeah.

That's money down the toilet. Yeah. So it had to be a grocery bags but I could do that with my baby. Yeah.

All right. I love you. I love you. Happy birthday. Thanks.