Welcome.

Welcome to armchair expert. Experts on Expert. I'm Dan Rather, and I'm joined by Lily Padman.

Good morning time.

We have a legend today as our expert.

Yes.

Rob Reiner. He's an award winning actor and filmmaker. Of course, as an actor. All in the family. Meathead.

Yeah.

Jeez.

Classic textbook.

Seventy s. Eighty s tv. Seventy s, I guess. But as a director, he's directed, like, an impossible amount of incredibly seminal movies that everyone holds dear. This is Spinal Tap, the first mockumentary. Stand by me. When Harry met Sally, the Princess Bride, one of the greatest, most rewatchable movies of all time. He has a documentary out right now that was very, very good. I watched it and loved it. I would have watched it on my own even if he hadn't been a guest. God and country about the rise in christian nationalism. And we get to it right out of the gates with him. But this is a very pro christian. This isn't anti christian. This is anti christian nationalist. So big, big difference. And this is in no way a takedown of Christianity.

This is such a treat of an episode. We get some really fun stories out of Rob.

It's a very Hollywood episode in a fun, fun way.

Very fun.

Yeah.

Enjoyed it.

Please enjoy. Rob Reiner.

He's an object. He's an object.

So we just started in here and there wasn't a door. And then once in a while, you get hit by lightning. You've been hit by lightning a few times.

Six or seven times.

Yeah. And then you get superstitious. I don't know why this worked. It's working beyond all expectations. Let's not tamper with anything. And even that building you saw, that's almost done. That was being built to be the new studio, and this was going to get torn down. And Monica was like, I don't think we should.

Are you going to stay here forever?

Yeah. Do you have any of those superstitions or have you?

Over the years, I've noticed that I have some OCD. Yeah, I think everybody does.

Yeah.

You do certain things in certain orders and you just get used to that. And then you think, if I don't do that, something bad could happen. Absolutely.

The shoe will drop. And I also think if you endeavor on anything that has a low probability of you controlling the outcome, this is most present in athletes. Right. You'll see these pitchers and they've got, like, a twelve minute routine.

Okay, so here's a great story. I was playing in one of those celebrity baseball games prior to an all star game. This is in Pittsburgh a few years ago, and we're in the locker room before the game is starting, and there's Bill Mazarovsky. He was a second baseman for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He hit a very famous home run in the 1960 World Series against the Yankees. He was not a home run hitter. He was a singles hitter. But he got up in a critical situation, and it won the World Series for the Pittsburgh Pirates. I come up to Bill Mazarovsky, and I said to him, I'm responsible for you hitting that home run in the 1960 World Series. He says, really? Tell me how. I said, I was 13 years old. I was in high school, and they let us listen to the World Series on the radio during gym class. And I was rooting for you guys, because the Yankees always won. They won every year. And if you looked at that series, the games, the Yankees won four. And then all of a sudden, I get into this position, the Pirates start to come back.

They're coming back. They're coming back. They're coming back. And I say to my friend Bob Lowe sitting next to me, Bob, get in this position. If you get in this position, it's going to do. He gets in the position. Pirates still coming back. He starts to move. I said, don't move. Get back in that position. I stayed in the position. Mazarovsky hits the homer. I tell him the story, and he says to me, thank God you didn't get out of that position. He says, no way do I hit that homer. If you get out of that, that's the kind of superstition that gets if you're supine.

I can relate so much when I used to be super into basketball. What has happened on more than one occasion is same thing. They're down. I go to the bathroom. They hit two three pointers in a row, and they're back. And then I sit down and I'm watching, and then I go to the bathroom a second time, and they have another run. I have sat in my bathroom listening to games.

Oh, no, you have to do that. There have been super bowl games. I was a big new york giants football faN, and there were times when I wouldn't let my wife back in the room. She could not come back in the room.

You got to protect the team.

Yeah, you got it.

Did you have any kind of routines, though, that you. Or let me ASk you This is a better question. You've DOne a bunch of different things. You've done a lot of writing. You've done a lot of acting. You've done a lot of directing of those three, which one is prone to give you the most anxiety?

Directing, and also the most pleasure and the most satisfaction? Acting is fun, but you don't have the responsibility. I remember years ago, Ron Howard called me up and said there was a part in a movie that he thought I'd be good for. It was called Ed TV with Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey. I said, okay, I'll do it. And he said, well, I'm going to send you the script. DOn't you want to read the. I said, no, no, I don't have to read the script. I said, if it stinks, it's not my fault. I'm just acting in it. You don't have responsibility for the director. You have responsibility for everything. But it is most satisfying.

I bet you've had the experience I've had, too, where it's like, I had just directed a movie, and then I had a very marginal role in another movie. And I'm sitting there and I'm watching the sun go down, and I'm like, they're fucked. They're going to have to kick two of these scenes to God knows when NExT week. And I wasn't know, and I'm starting to think about all the stress and anxiety of that, and then all of a sudden I was like, oh, not my problem. I literally gotta stand on this dot and say some fucking words.

I did a part in a Woody Allen movie called Bullets over Broadway, and I show up on the set. The first day was an outdoor scene at night at a cafe, an outdoor cafe down in the village. And I'm looking around and I'm seeing, ooh, I don't know if there's enough light here, right? I said, unless they've invented a new film stock that I'm not aware of, it's not going to show up, but I'm not going to say anything. I don't want to say anything. It's Woody Allen. It's Carlo de Palm, this great cinematographer. So I don't say anything. I just do the scene. Then I get a call the next day at the hotel. We looked at the dailies. It's a radio show. It's totally black. We can't see a thing, right? We got to redo it.

Oh, my God. If you were acting on a movie, it'd be so stressful for the director to know you're there.

Well, that's what I was going to ask. They know you're a great director, and so I think they've been inclined to want to maybe include you more, or they feel like they want to be respectful. Like, I know you understand how this works, but you're actually going like, oh, I love that. None of this is my problem.

Yeah. But I'm also aware of the fact that they're the boss and I have been in their position. I don't want to do anything that's going to cause them any more anxiety than they already have. And for me, it's fun because I get to see how other directors work. I did a part in Wolf of Wall street with Martin Scorsese was directing. You get to be around Martin Scorsese and he does it the way he does it. I'm not going to tell him what to do. He's a great director. You just watch people and let them do what they want. And even ones that don't have as much experience, you say, I don't want to cause them grief. I just want to be a team player. I want to do what they want me to do.

Yeah, I don't want to lower their confidence. Now, to Scorsese, I've watched all those movies. There is this weird magic that exists in all of them. How does it come about?

I could care less if they cut.

Me out of the movie. I would love to just see what does happen that has this most predictable outcome.

First of all, he's got incredible eye and incredible composition, and he knows how to use the camera better than just about anybody.

Technically, he's one of the masters.

He's absolutely brilliant. Then with the actors, he lets you go. If you look at scenes from Raging Bull, there's improvisation. It's not exactly scripted that way. And he lets you go if he knows you can do it. And I remember seeing that I did. I played Leonardo DiCaprio's father in it. And Jon Favreau, the director, he was playing the lawyer, Leo's lawyer in this thing. And Leo's character, Jordan Belfort, he was going to get arrested and sent to jail because of all the stock manipulations. And we're looking at his beautiful estate, and there's his wife and the little daughter on a horse. I said, what are you doing? You don't want to throw this away. You got a great life. And the lawyer, Favreau, is telling him, you make a deal, a plea deal, two years, I can get you off. And I said, listen to him. And this is what Leo says, I hear you. And that was the scene. And then I said, I don't think you do. I don't hear you. Hearing know, I felt like I was in a Scorsese movie because I'm saying that line and I actually said, I feel like I'm in a Martin Scorsese movie.

He said, all cut, cut. That's enough. That's enough. That's enough out of you.

That couldn't be more perfect. You actually had the experience where it's like. It felt like you would hope it would feel.

Yeah, I felt like I was. And then the scene where Jonah Hill, they're talking about Spence account and they got $20,000 for dinner. And he says, well, we ordered sides. This is. I said, what? $20,000 of sides? I said, what do these sides do? They cure cancer? And he says, yes, these sides do.

Pretty wild to have both you and Favreau in one.

I know.

Frame. While Scorsese is directing, do you also have this? If I am on a set as an actor, I'm wondering when we're getting out of here. I want to know if we're moving. I have that sense that I'd like to go home at some point. And when I'm there as a director, I'm like, I wish this day were 55 hours. You're making the same thing, but the point of view is so different. And I'm so grateful to have had it simply because to your point, I think it's made me a lot easier with directors.

Yes, it does. I did a couple of movies with Michael Douglas, but what I love about working with him is that he had produced movies, so he knew what was at stake. So not only did he not cause any problems in that way, but he would often have ideas of how to skin the cat, in other words, how to make the day. He said, wait a minute. What if we do this, that and the other, and it would be good creative ideas that you could get everything you needed within the day and not go over budget and all that stuff. It was like having an ally.

Yeah.

When you were younger, were you singular set on any one of these? I'd imagine having the dad you had, you would have intuitively known that all were an option, that you wouldn't have to pick, per se.

When I was very young, I didn't think about any of this stuff. When I became a teenager, I started going with my dad to the Van Dyke show when I was off for the summer at school. But when I was little, I didn't think about that.

What were your fantasies?

I love sports. I thought, wow, I'd love to play baseball. My dad told me this story I don't really remember it, but he told me that when I was, like, eight years old, I came up to him and I said, I want to change my name. And he thought, oh, boy, this poor kid, drowning the shadow, shadow of he has to live up to and all of that. And he said, well, what do you want to change your name to? And I said, carl.

Rob.

I wanted to be like him.

I just loved. Yeah, you had a great, stern interview, by the way. So much of it I have memorized. But you tell a bunch of different stories along that period. One of them being your dad, didn't see that. You were really funny. But weirdly, Norman Lear happened to watch you interact with his own child.

Yeah, I was about eight years old. Norman had a daughter, Ellen. She was nine. And we were at the beach house, and I'm teaching her how to play jacks. For those of you may be too young, it's a game. You throw up a rubber ball and you pick up these metal things. And I was teaching her, showing her how to play. I don't remember, but he said, boy, you were so funny explaining the rules to her. And he told my dad, he said, your son, he's a funny kid. And my dad said, that kid, he's sullen. He sits in a corner. He's a mopey kid.

Yeah. Melancholy.

Yeah.

So he was the first guy that said, okay, that kid's funny.

And then when you're going to the Van Dyke show, you are witnessing that this hill, should you try to climb it is so hot. You said he's writing, like, 25 scripts.

A year, 20 to 25 scripts every year by himself. And I remember at age 13 or 14, they'd be down on the stage and they'd be staging stuff, and I wanted to be so much like him. I snuck up to his office one time, and I sat at his desk, and it was all alone. And there's scripts laid out, and I'm looking at them, and I'm thinking, I can't do this. And I felt so bad. I mean, I was only 13, so how am I expect to do it? But I thought, I'll never be able to do what he does.

Yeah, it's quite intimidating.

Yeah, it was. Except I did grab Mary Tyler Moore by the ass.

Oh, you did?

I was actually 14 years old, and I'm not telling things out of school because Mary put it in her book, and she told the story on the Letterman show. So it wasn't like I'm telling it, but I was 14, and she must have been 24, 25. She was gorgeous. And she wore these really tight capri pants. My hormones were raging like crazy, for sure. And I don't know, the devil, something. And I just went up and I.

The devil moved your hand, grabbed her tush. What was her response?

She went and told my father on me because he called me into the office. He said, did you grab Mary Tyler Moore by the tush? I said, yeah. He said, don't ever do that again. Now, there's a great payoff to this. You have to know the Van Dyke show to know what the payoff is. But if you know the Van Dyke show, she used to go, oh, rob. All the time with Rob Petri, played by Dick Van Dyke. So now they're doing a reunion show, and I've already now made some movies. I've directed. I've done all the family and stuff. And I walk onto the set, they had finished a scene, and I said to the camera, I said, just keep rolling, keep rolling. And I walk out there, and there's Mary. She's in an evening gown, dick is in a tuxedo. They had just come from some affair. And I go up to Mary, and I said, mary, I just want to apologize to you. I feel so bad that when I was a kid, I grabbed you by the tush. And I just really feel bad about it. But I was young, and you were so beautiful.

Not that you're not beautiful now. I said, if I wouldn't get arrested for sexual harassment, I would do it now. She then bends over. She bends over, I grab her by the tush, and she goes, oh, rob. And the place went nuts. They started screaming. Yeah, it was a good payoff.

Many years later.

Yeah, you set that seed a long time before.

Pay it off.

I wonder if some part of that interaction for you was that she was on tv. There's something very abstract about her being a thing on tv and then her being in front of you. Confusing.

Yeah.

We share this in common. We're both bruins.

Oh, you went to UCLA?

I did.

Okay.

I graduated in 2000.

Were you in the theater arts program?

Anthropology.

Oh, anthropology. Interesting.

Yeah.

What year did you. I was there 64, 65, 66, and part of 67.

So selfishly, I'm so curious what it was like then, because I obviously had an experience that was 23 years removed from that.

Yeah, I was in the theater school, so the film school, Coppola had already done his master's. There was a lot of heavyweight people. My friend Phil Mishkin, who I wind up writing with, and we started an improv group together. He was getting his master's degree, MFA, and he was directing a play, El Camino real. It's a Tennessee Williams play. And Jim Morrison was there at UCLA.

Attending UCLA, yeah.

And Ray Manzerick, they were both there at UCLA. And Jim auditioned for that. And he auditioned facing away from the director with his face, and he's just reading the book. And Phil said, maybe you want to turn around? And I could see. I remember one time I went to see the doors. They were playing at this club on Sunset Strip. Halfway through the show, Jim Morrison just walks off. He just leaves. And I go backstage. I said to Ray, I said, ray, what's the story here? Well, he says, we finished the show a lot of times without Jim these days.

Oh, wow.

He used to perform also with his back turned to the audience, right?

Yeah, he did that a lot.

It's kind of his signature. It was his Kramer entrance. So between graduation in 69, I actually didn't graduate.

I left. What happened was I started an improv group at UCLA myself. Larry Bishop, who was Joey Bishop's son, was in it, and Richard Dreyfus, he was in a movie called Inserts and Inserts was kind of an indie movie where Dreyfus played a vundergin director who was down on his luck, like Orson Welles. And he was doing these softcore porn movies. And my mother and father went to see the movie, and my mother turned to my father and said, carl, I don't want Robbie playing with Ricky anymore.

I guess that's a testament to how believable he was in the movie.

Anyway, it was this improv group called the Session. We rehearsed in the basement of Royce hall until the cops found us. They kicked us out. But then what happened was we got auditions, and we got our own theater up on sunset. So I was already doing what I wanted to do, so I left school.

Did you have any writing directing aspirations at that point?

Well, that's what I did. I directed the show. Okay? I directed and I was in it. That's what I always wanted to do from the get go, right?

Funny you would say that. Not to be self indulgent, but I was in the groundlings. I was making tons of video bits. That was, like, my favorite, and that was before YouTube and before people made that. And I was like, oh, this is very stimulating. It's funny how it's always been there, but you don't know it's always been there.

I was 19 when I started that, but I also directed a play, was Roxbury Playhouse or something in Beverly Hills. And Dreyfus was in that, too. I did a production of no exit. My father came backstage and saw that. That was the first time I ever got a real compliment from him. I was 19. He looked me in the eye and he said, that was good. No bullshit. That was a cool thing because he said, whatever you want to do, you're going to be okay. So I always wanted to direct.

You have many layers of these moments with dad. There are stepping stones, right? There's never the complete one. There's the. You pitch a joke at 16 that they like, that's a moment for you.

That was a moment.

He sees you at 19 and he says that we have this fantasy, right? That one magic thing will be said. But it is a long run.

Yeah. And it doesn't work that way. And people always ask me, did he give you advice? There was never a moment where he sat me down and said, son, you just watch the way people live their lives and how they behave. That's the advice you're getting.

He modeled the.

I mean, but it's not intention. It's just who he is.

Right?

And I was lucky enough to have him and Norman Lear as role models. As models that I could say, okay, this is the way you conduct yourself and live your life.

It's almost chicken or the egg. You were so impressed by your dad, so maybe that made you more interested in directing and acting. Or were you impressed by him because of his prowess at that?

I was around it. I saw him doing it. The people that came to the house, Mel Brooks and Norman Lear and Larry Gilbert. I mean, it was funny people. So I think I was around that, and that seemed fun. People always ask me, what was it like at your house? And I say, well, I thought it was normal until I went to my friend's house. And so it wasn't so funny over there. He is a little funnier here.

Well, I was going to say it's a two sided coin, because on one hand you're exposed to all this greatness, which is informative and helpful, and at the same time, you start in the tiny pond. You're not the kid who goes and sees another shitty band and goes, well, fuck, if they're up on stage, I could be up on stage. Right? So it's really two sided because I also would imagine as you're, like, defining your identity and you're trying to build, muster your confidence, and the people you're comparing yourself to in the living room are like your father becomes a father figure to Steve Martin.

Yes. And if you look at the people that were the writers and the performers on your show of shows in Caesar's hour, which is where my dad got his start, it was a satire show. Everything that you ever laughed at in the second half of the 20th century was probably generated by one of those people because it was Mel Brooks, it was Woody Allen, it was Neil Simon, it was all these brilliant people. And these are the people I saw, and it's hard to live up to. So when I, at 16, came up with an idea for a joke for them, it was like, wow, they took it and they went on the Ed Sullivan show with it or with ballast. I mean, wow, that was a big deal for me.

They created a paradigm that we still live in. Basically, they wrote the original format and blueprint for all that.

Yes. I mean, when everybody talks about now, Saturday Night Live has been around since 1975. It's been around forever. But show of shows, that was the. I mean, yes, there was comedia before that, and there was punch and Judy shows and stuff, but for television, that was the first time anybody did satire and really took off on political things, or mostly they did on social things and art of the day.

Yeah, after college, you start writing on the Smothers Brothers show.

Right?

Again, that was before my time, but I am around people nonstop. That, too, was very informative for a whole generation.

Well, yeah, I mean, we were cutting edge like crazy. I mean, after I did my own improv group, I got into another improv group called the Committee. The committee was out of San Francisco. It was an offshoot of Second City. And they came and did a production in Los Angeles. And I was asked to come and be part of the company. And I was part of that company for a while. And Tom Smothers came one day and he plucked me. And Carl Gottlieb, who was one of the writers on Jaws, they were actually doing a summer show. It was for Glenn Campbell. It was called the Summer Brothers Smother show, and Glenn Campbell hosted it. And we were hired as writers. But then you're around these great writers, and you're on this cutting edge, and listen, I didn't know. I was an idiot. I was like 21 when I started working there. And it was the movement. There was a war in Vietnam going on. There was a women's movement. All these things were happening. And Tommy wanted to be cutting edge, and he was. And we, as young people, saying, come on. I couldn't understand why he didn't get this sketch on or that sketch.

I didn't realize the pain that he went through with the sensors and with the network people. But we did some amazing things. We had the Pete Seeger anti war thing. We did religious stuff. We did all kinds of things.

And did you feel like because you were participating in that aspect of it, that you were participating, or did you have some sense that you should have been at more rallies or been more involved?

No, because we were always a politically active group, but we felt we were doing what we could do to call out the wrongness of the war in Vietnam and all those racial inequalities that we were trying to get across on the show. Yeah.

So, 1971, all in the family comes along, and I'm curious, at that stage, what was your fantasy of what that thing might be and then the reality of it, and how much dissonance was between those two things? People that don't know it was the number one show in America for five years straight.

And I've always said it's odd because you couldn't tape anything. There was no DVR TiVo. So if you wanted to watch the show, you had to watch it when it was on. That was the only time. So here we were, a country of, maybe at the time, 200,000,040 to 45 million people every week. Oh, my God, watch the show. So you had this communal, shared experience, one in four people, and people were talking about all the issues that we got into. Now you've got a country of 335 or whatever. If you get 10 million, 15 million.

Smash.

That's a smash. That's a smash. And they don't all watch it at the same time. I can't tell you how many dinner parties I've been. I'm sure you have, too. Where you start to talk about a show that you're watching, and they said, don't tell me. I'm only on season one. I don't know. So you can't talk about any.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Game of Thrones? What are you talking about? A decade ago?

Yeah. I didn't see that. But when we came on, we thought, this is two hips of the room.

Had Norman had a lot of success before that? Forgive my ignorance.

Well, he had some say. He wrote. He was a writer for Jerry Lewis for many years, and he had some shows that he worked on. This was the big thing, though.

He wasn't a Larry David yet.

No, not yet. But he was partnered with Bud York, and they found these two projects. They were both british shows. One was steptoe and son, which became Sanford and son, and the other was till death us dupart, which became all in the family.

I had no idea those were first.

Yeah, they acquired the rights to that and they did american versions of it.

They feel so american, both those.

Yeah, but we had no idea. We thought, this isn't going to succeed. Nobody's ever done anything close to what we were doing then. And CBS put a disclaimer when it first came on that said, the views expressed on this show are not the views of the. Basically saying, you want to watch this show? Fine, but we don't know how it got on. We don't want to have anything to do with it.

Take your complaints elsewhere. We, too, don't want it on the show.

Yeah, but it's.

But you're coming out of an era where husband and wife slept in separate beds on tv.

Right.

There's a completely different landscape before that show arrived.

In the first episode, there was a toilet flush, which was the first ever, because nobody went to the bathroom on sitcoms.

So wild. How much. True.

The actors that played in sitcoms in those days didn't have assholes, so they didn't have to go to the bathroom.

That's right.

That's a little known fact.

Behind the scenes, assholes were not adopted.

No. Very late, much later, the screen actors guild had a whole thing about, hey, come on, go to the bathroom. What are they going to do?

Yeah, the assholes wanted representation. They did. And they got it.

They did.

So we've talked to a few people that have been in the situation, but generally, people ramp up a little bit. They were third on the call sheet in a movie, and four people said hi to them that month. I have to imagine if ever there was a light switch that happened in someone's career, in life, I mean, what a fucking light switch.

It was weird because I had done a number of shows. I had been on that girl and Gomer Pyle and Andy Griffith and hay landlord and all these shows. But like you say, guy number five, and then this comes on, and the first 13 weeks, nobody really watched that much, so it wasn't a big deal. Then they played the first 13 again. So we were on 26 weeks in a row. And after that period, you couldn't go anywhere.

It might have been the first. What do they call it?

Water. Yeah. Water cooler probably was.

Right, because it was provocative.

People talked about it, and everybody discussed what happened on all the family last night. What did you see, and do you.

Think part of the premise was a bit of a cake and eat it, too, which is, if you were conservative and watched it, you were delighted. And if you were super liberal and watched it, you were delighted.

That's true. And I think that's why it was successful, because people tuned in to see Archie's point of view, the bigot, or Mike's point of view, the liberal. And Norman Lear had said this, and I've mentioned this a number of times, but he said that one of his favorite plays was major barber, which was by George Bernard Shaw. And George Bernard Shaw was a liberal. But if you didn't know he was a liberal and you went to that play, you would say that the hawk and the dove positions were equally presented, and you'd leave discussing. And that's what Norman wanted to do with all in the family.

Yeah.

Who was?

Were you reading the paper? And you say, like, oh, my God, so many such and such people were stabbed this year. And he goes, would you rather they was pushed out of windows? RG bunker? Would you rather they was pushed out of windows? Like, as a little kid, I remember these lines.

That's funny. Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

How did you respond to the immediate loss of anonymity? And did it give you any compassion or understanding for an experience perhaps your father had had, or people in your life had had?

Well, the lucky thing is that my father, because of doing the Sid Caesar show, was famous. I saw how people would come up to him, so it wasn't so alien to me, and I saw how he handled it. Always very gracious to people. So I thought, okay, that's part of what you do. So it wasn't that big of a shock. Although I must say, there was a moment where Jean and Sally and I were at the airport, and we walked into one of the restaurants at the airport, and the whole place stood up and cheered.

Wow.

That was a weird feeling, that everybody in that place stood up.

Okay, so to your point, 45 million people are watching that. I was on a show that 5 million people watched on MTV. They were all my age. And again, I hadn't done anything. All of a sudden, I was on the show and I was in every episode. And so on a hugely reduced scale, I was at a fuddruckers. And I have the very, very visceral memory of going, seven or eight tables are staring at me. I no longer can watch. I'm going to be watched. And that felt very claustrophobic. And I had a very panicked feeling of like, wow, I hadn't anticipated this. In fact, the great joy of my life was watching.

Yeah, you get recognized. People are seeing. They come up to, you want an autograph, you go back to your home, your life, and then time goes by, and then you go out in public again. You forget that you're somebody that they know. Right? Because you're just you. So you just walk out there and then you go, oh, yes. You remind that guy that they know. So that's a weird thing for me every time.

It is. And that was the thing that caused the panic attack, is that I have lost control of the decision. Like, the horses are out of the barn. I can't choose to be famous when it's fun, right? And then not when I feel awkward that I'm eating solo at a fat burger in Austin, Texas, and they're thinking, this guy's a loser. I thought he was on tv. Those kind of thoughts, right? But then I'll add something that's even grosser to admit. That show was 20 plus years ago. The experience has infected my memory in a way that now I actually don't remember not being that way. In some bizarre way, I feel like I've always been.

It's interesting you say that, because I was having lunch one day with Warren Beatty. This is many years ago, but he said to me, you know, I've been famous longer than I've been a person. I thought, wow, what a statement. It is a statement, but that means he's had to be this person that's a famous person.

It also means being famous is contradictory to being a person. That's an interesting framing of it.

Those are two different things. Yes, and in so many ways they.

Are, because the fact of the matter is, nobody is anything other than a person. But if you do something that causes fame, because Johnny Carson once said this, he was from Nebraska, and he'd go back to his hometown and they would say to him, do you feel like you've changed? He said, I haven't changed. The people around me change. They change in the way they behave around me. I'm the same guy, but now they're acting differently around me.

And by the way, both things are true. The thing I'm more interested now is acknowledging clearly I've changed. How could I not? I react to things. My world has changed.

Well, you might be more guarded. I find myself a little bit more guarded than I used to be. But as I get older, you don't get to recognize as much. But it's always weird to me that somebody still will come up to me at the airport or wherever. And say something. Oh, yeah, I'm that guy again. Of course.

When this show ends, do you have. I'll give my own experience. I was on a show for six years, and both things were true. I never wanted it to end because it was the most wonderful family, and I'm a factory worker at heart. I love going to the same place. And then also, I was very excited for it to end, to see what was next. And I was very scared for it to end. Where were you at as it was ending?

I had always wanted to direct.

Did you direct any of those episodes?

No, because I'm in them. You can't direct because it's done a.

Different day with tape cameras. You can't watch playback?

No. But I wrote on four of the episodes with my partner, Phil, Michigan. So I got to do that. And I hung around the writer's room a lot. But since I wanted to always direct after the first two years, I was like, oh, no, I'm going to be doing this for the rest of my life.

You got scared?

A little bit. I got a little scared. By season four, I made a peace with myself, and I said, okay, you're going to be doing this for a while. Let's go to school. Let's learn as much as you can. Hang around the writer's room, go up into the broadcast booth, look and see what they do.

And I did.

But I still. When it was time to leave, it was good, and I was ready to become a director. But then they don't want you to be that because you've now established this character, and they throw a lot of money at me and Sally Struthers to keep doing those characters. And I'm saying, no, I don't want to do that. I want to do something else.

Is that why the show ended?

Carol wanted to end the show. Initially, carol said, this is enough. And then when we did this final episode where they have Mike and Gloria move to California, he then said, well, maybe we'll do some more. He wanted to do more. So I think they did two more years of Archie Bunker's place or something like that.

Oh, you just said something that cued you. Learn it. I lost it. I lost it.

It'll come back.

It'll be a week from now, but it'll come back. Can I have your phone so I can ask you this question next week?

Here's the thing. You're way younger than me, but trust.

Me, I know what I wanted to say.

It's going to get worse.

It's accelerating. I can feel it already, as is time.

I know.

What I wanted to say was that you, maybe more than any other, I don't know who matches it, but Meathead. You said if I lived to win a Nobel prize prize, they would say.

The headline would be, meathead wins Nobel. I still get that. I still get it.

Meathead wins. Okay, so the show ends in 79. You don't do spinal tap to 84. What happens in those five years?

Well, we shot spinal tap at the end of 82. It came out in 84, but from 78 till 82, I did a special on television called the tv show, which was satire of just a guy sitting in his chair, flipping the channels, and we'd cut in little bits and pieces of every show. Telethons, half hours, drama.

And they were all parodies of parody things.

One of the things we did was a parody of a show called Midnight Special, which was a late night rock and roll show, and it was hosted by Wolfman Jack. And I played Wolfman Jack. And that was the first time spinal tap ever appeared. Chris, Harry and Michael, we created this thing. They were doing a song called Rock and Roll Nightmare, and Russ Kunkel played the drums, who was Jackson Brown's drummer and Linda Ronstadt's drummer. We had a band, and they started improvising in characters, these british rockers, and we just didn't think much of it. Then Harry and I said, hey, maybe we can make something out of a rock and roll tour. We had an idea called Roadie. It was all about road managers behind the scenes. Then a picture called Roadie came out, which was with Meatloaf. And then we said, okay, forget that. But meanwhile, Chris and Michael had done this little sketch about two rockers who run into each other in a hotel or something. And they remember vaguely that they used to play in a band together, really funny characters. So we came back together and decided, okay, let's see if we can do something together.

And the idea was to do a fake documentary. I got a studio to fund a script, but then we realized we can't write this thing, because it has to be improvised. It has to feel like it's really happening. So I went to the guy and we had $60,000. I said, give me the money, and I'll make some of the movie for you backstage, some performance bits, some interviews. And I added some money of my own. The boys, we all add, and we made, like, 20 minutes. And then we couldn't sell it anywhere. Nobody wanted it. It went on for years. We would get close, and then they said, no. And they would scrap it. And then one day they were making a movie at AFCO embassy called take this job and shove it.

Oh, yes.

And Robert Hayes, who had been an airplane, was going to star in this thing, and they were looking for a director. And this agent who wasn't my agent, he had seen this 20 minutes thing floating around town. He suggested me to the executive, her name is Lindsay Duran at Africa embassy. And she said, well, what has he directed? He hadn't directed anything. Well, here's this 20 minutes thing. Maybe take a look at it. She looked at it and she said, well, forget this. Take this job and shove it. What about this? Let's do this. I said, well, I don't have any money. I don't have anything. She said, well, I think I can convince the head of the student video to distribute it, and maybe that'll help you find some money. Which it did. And I found some money. I went to put it together. They were ready to go. And then Jerry Parentio and Norman Lear bought AFCo embassy, and they scrapped every project that they had, including this. And I went to Alan Horn, who's a dear friend, and Alan and I and Andy Shyman and Martin Schaver and Glenn Patton. We started Castle Rock together years later.

Alan later became the president of Warner.

Brothers, then the president of Disney. He's like a brother. He's a great guy. So Alan says, I'm sorry, we can't do this. I said, alan, please let me talk to Norman. Please. So they get a meeting, and there's Jerry Frenchio, Norman Lear, and Alan and a couple of other people from the company. And I'm making this insane pitch about how this. You got it? It's going to be the thing. And I'm screaming like this, and I leave. And what I'm told after I left is Norman turned to everybody and said, who's going to tell him he can't do it? Right?

This guy's lost his.

So they let me do it.

Well, now, this is where you enter my life, basically, because when it comes out, I am nine years old. My brother loves it. We're now in an era we're approaching vhs, we're approaching cable, maybe on tv, it's on.

Did you dig it? Did you understand it?

I totally did. But it was the kind of. Get it. The only thing I can compare it to is watching raising Arizona, where I was like, why is this movie so different than everything I've seen? And what are the mechanics of what's happening?

Well, very few people did get it.

Well, this I loved learning. I would have never guessed this. Well, first of all, you're inventing a genre in the mockumentary. The improv movie is not a thing. You're doing a lot of firsts.

Yeah, we did. We improvised the whole movie. And people say, I can't believe your first movie. You do it as an improv. I said to me, that's the easy part. It's a scripted movie. Where's the camera going? This was easier for me.

And you had hired a real documentarian that had made some rock films.

Yeah, Peter Smokeler, who shot a bunch of rock and roll films, including the horrible Altamont with the Rolling Stones, where somebody died. But we're making the movie, and he says to me at one point, I don't understand what's funny about this is what they do. I said, yeah, but it's a little. We're twisting it a little bit. And then we screened it in Dallas. That was the first place nobody got it. They didn't understand what the hell was going on. People come up to me, why would you make a movie about a band that nobody ever heard of?

They thought it was real, and one.

That'S so bad, do something about the Beatles or the Rolling Stones or something.

And I don't mean to be disparaging to anyone, but I will say similarly, my wife just did this Netflix show a few years ago that was called, like, the woman in the house across the street from the woman in the window. It's like. It's clearly a parody of all these psychological. Right girls. And it's preposterous. There's a 20 minutes set piece where she fights a six year old, and people will come up to her and go, I really like that thing that twists, and I'm like, some significant percentage doesn't see that this is a parody stuff. And you don't want to be disrespectful, because, especially, what if they liked it on its own merit? But I'll tell you, it's funny you.

Ask, did I get it at first?

You don't. It's dead real. I don't know these people. I'm young. The rock stars I'm seeing are old, and I don't know who they are. It's the cocoon, right? Him getting trapped in the cocoon on stage, where all of a sudden I start going like, well, this couldn't possibly be what happened, right? This is clearly stupid as hell. And then it kind of took off for me. And then it's one of these things that you just watch over and over.

We're talking about doing the sequel now. And we go to New Orleans at the end of the month and we start shooting in March.

Oh, you are doing the sequel?

Yeah.

Oh, my God. This is such wonderful news. A lot of sequels are bad ideas, but aging rock stars couldn't be more.

We have an idea. For years people said, do another one. We never had a good idea, but now I think we have an idea. And one of the things is they are old. There's no getting around it. They are old and we'll see what happens. I think it'll be good. We have some good people in it.

Fun.

You then go on to direct. Stand by me. I mean, look, I want to get to your new movie, but I just want to touch down on a couple of these. There's only a few people that went on a run like this. There's just one after another that's just memorable. It's in the canon. But stand by me. Of course, I'm probably most curious in. Because as a young man I just was so drawn to River Phoenix.

Well, you were right around that. Stand by me came out in 86. Yeah.

So I'm like eleven years old. I'm the age of.

The age of the kids.

Absolutely. And not only that, I'm wrestling with the thing. I imagine the way you describe yourself as a young boy, which is like, I have all these emotions and they are unacceptable. I don't know where to put them, but I know I can't have them on the playground. I can't have them when talking to a friend. What am I fucking going to do with these?

There's a great moment in the movie where they're walking on the tracks and Gordy turns to Chris Chambers, played by River Phoenix, and he says, do you think I'm weird? And river says, yeah, but so what? Everybody's weird. And it's that feeling that you're talking about, which is something's happening in your body and you don't know what it is and you feel od and out of it.

And if anyone sees it, I'm going to be excommunicated. Which is like my greatest fear. Yeah, it's the outcast story and it's incredible. I have, of course, as you have. I've been around a few actors. One example would be Heath Ledger, where I came to know him a little bit. And obviously he was so exceptionally talented.

Incredible actor.

But that was obvious since just being around him, there was a depth and weight he was carrying around that was palpable.

You could sense it.

It made me insanely compassionate towards him. Even when things were going well, I just could acknowledge I don't have as much weight on my shoulders. I can feel it. And I just am curious, is there anything about that experience with river where you just felt like, this is a very special human?

Well, yeah, because he had a very strange kind of background, upbringing. His father had struggled with alcohol, and they lived out of a vw microbus. Like, they were hippies.

They were members of communes.

Communes and culty things. And the whole family was. I mean, Joaquin Phoenix. I don't remember his name, but there was river, there was sky, there was summer, there was leaf. I think he was leaf.

Oh, then, yeah, they all.

I used to make the joke all the time, because I was introduced to two people, and this really said, this is sky and this is oxygen. So I said, well, then you're 80% of her, 20%, whatever. But they were all from that world.

I would be totally guessing, but my hunch is the stability of that experience must have been very appealing. You must have sensed that, and you had to have some compulsion to rescue.

Well, yeah, but the weird thing about it, Dax, was that the film came out and did very well. And then a couple of years later, river must have been 17 at the time, and we hung out at a hotel in New York. I could tell he was using, and it was not good. And I thought, he's going off the rails here. And then when I was doing that Wolf of Wall street and Leonardo DiCaprio told me that he saw river that night before he was at the viper room, and he said it was a strange thing to see a guy go in that direction. And then the horrible thing of him dying, because when I saw him, I thought, this could be another James Dean here. I mean, he's like this kind of.

Talented guy you could sense.

And I said to said, you know, when I first saw you, the first couple of things, this boy's life and what's eating Gilbert? Great. I thought, oh, my God, this guy has got insane talent. I hope that he has some kind of stable background. And he said, yes. Even though his mother and father got divorced, they were stable with him, and he was okay, and he didn't get into drugs or anything like that. But when I saw river doing that, I said, oh, my God, here we go. He's off the rails. And you try to talk to the mother. I mean, you can't really. And then this happens to him, and you look at the film now, in the film, he disappears out of the film. He's the only one that dies.

It's a bizarre foreshadowing.

Well, we don't know.

Yeah, I know.

Just a weird thing to look at the film now.

I guess all that just to say that we are in a business where you get to interact with some very special artists. It often comes with quite a bit of weight, and it can be heartbreaking and then so special. And you just got to be grateful for the time. You got to see what they do.

And I saw this kid, there's a scene there at the campfire, and he has to tell the story about how he was accused of stealing the milk money, even though the teacher had taken the milk money. And the first couple of times we did it, he didn't get to it. And I just took him aside. I said, I want you to think about a time in your life when an adult let you down. Just think about that.

And he only had to go back till that morning.

I said, I don't want to. You don't have to tell me what it is.

Just do.

And the take that you see in the movie is right after that. Princess Bride.

Have you ever met Seth Green, the actor?

I have, but only briefly.

Okay. I hope this will be yet another feather in your cap. But I went to his wedding. His wedding was at Skywalker Ranch. He's the nerdiest of all nerds in the most beautiful way. They say I do, and they literally go, now, please join us in the theater. We went from I do directly into a movie theater and watched the Princess Bride.

No, that's so amazing.

That is his soul, his religion.

We've had stories about people building their weddings around Princess Bride, where they have on their wedding rings, it says as you wish and all of that stuff.

Yeah. So I just thought, oh, this is the most special thing. And it was so fun. And then we went to the reception, but the very first order of businesses, we all watched this movie together.

I've had a million princess bride stories, but one of the best was two stories. One was Nora Efron. And Nick Peleggi took us to this restaurant in New York, an italian restaurant. And it was known that John Gotti, the mobster, every Thursday would come in, and sure enough, at 08:00 in walks John Gotti with like six wise guys around him. And I look over there and I don't really want to pay too much attention to hello, how you doing? Don't look at know. We finish eating we go outside, and there's a big limousine parked outside with a guy that looks like Luca Brazi from the godfather standing right in front of him. And he looks me in the eye, and he says, you killed my father, prepared to die. And I almost went on the sidewalk because I thought, oh, he says, I love that movie, the princess Bride.

I did miss one thing. I just wanted to point out, because, again, we already talked about the kind of steps in your life, but stand by me for you was very formative. It was a moment where you actually said, okay, I am my own man. I am not in a shadow, right?

And it's true, because people have asked me all the time, what's your favorite movie of the movies you made? And they always say they were all like all your children. You love them all the same, even the rotten ones. But this one meant the most to me, because it was the first time I ever did anything that was so far field from anything my father would have done, spinal tap. Even though he probably wouldn't have satirized heavy metal, he certainly was in the world of satire. And the sure thing was a romantic comedy for young people. This was the first time that it was something really reflective of my personality. It had humor in it, but it also had some melancholy and nostalgia. And so I thought, this is really the kind of thing I want to do. And then the fact that it became successful, it validated, okay, I can relate some of these things.

And then just great shit just starts flying. When Harry met Sally, which is so incredible, what I was shocked with in hearing you talk on Stern is just how many of these movies the lead was the 9th choice, not maybe because of your doing, but maybe because of studio pressure or whatever else. I love hearing these stories.

It's true for every director.

Yeah.

I've had conversations with Steven Spielberg about he didn't get his first choice on number of movies. That's so happens, you know, they're not available. They don't like the script, whatever the reasons are. But then I always say that when the movie starts and the cameras start to roll, now they don't have cameras rolling, but they put the chip into the. Whenever the start, there'll be somebody in front of the camera, and then what's.

Even crazier is this thing happens where that's who you got. And then on the backside of it, you're like, I can't imagine that it would have been anybody. When I read the list of people he had to go to, Tom Hanks, Michael Keaton, Albert Brooks, Richard Dreyfus, all these people for when Harry met Sally. And of course, in my mind, this movie only works as Billy.

Oh, my God.

It works with Billy because he can play the edgy part, but he's sweet. It has a mixture, and he's great. And I didn't go right away to Billy because he was, like my closest friend at the time. And I thought, oh, man, what if this doesn't work?

It's a complication you might not want when you already have so much on your plate.

Yeah. But then I'm so unbelievably happy that he did it because not only is he great in the movie, but he gives you freebies. You get little gifts. I'll have what she's having. That's a line that Billy wrote.

And that's his mom, though, as well.

That's my mom. That's your mom.

Someone's mom. And then Scorsese has his mom.

And the Goodfellows, the last speech in the film where Billy runs in to see Meg and says, when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.

Yeah.

And that was Billy.

Billy wrote that movie. All these movies, you're like, it's impossible. They've also stood the test of time. When Harry Met Sally is still a huge movie.

Yeah.

You're not even born yet or you're just born.

What year were you born?

87.

Well, yeah. When Harry met Sally came out in 89.

You were two years old. But it was and you know it inside now, for me, I think one years old.

I was one years old, but it's carried through now.

Would you intentionally pursue projects that were mirroring what was going on in your real life? Because I know misery for you was one of these moments where the lead character, again, James Khan, who's like the 15th choice as well. This is a writer who's been defined by something and wants to escape it, and no one will let him to the degree that they'll break his ankle.

Right. And that's what I wanted. I didn't want to be a sitcom actor for the rest of the life. I wanted to direct. So I did relate to that character. I try to find my way into a movie. I can't be a traffic cop. I have to have some kind of emotional connection.

You got to anchor it.

Yeah.

Somehow.

All these questions you get into when you're directing where it's like it's 51% to 49, you don't know, but you need that tether.

Well, what draws you to something? You feel connected.

Yes, exactly. That makes your decision for you. You ultimately go, well, what would I.

Which is helpful.

And then, of course, just a few good men. You told one story about this that I think is incredible. At the table read of a few good men. Nicholson does it nearly identical to how he does it.

Yeah, he came to play, as they say, he sat down and you had all these great actors, young actors, Kevin Bacon and Demi Moore and Tom Cruise. And when he starts to do the table read and it's full out performance, it sends a signal to everybody else, we're here to do this thing. It brought everybody's game up. I always liken him to somebody like magic Johnson, because they know that if the other people are doing their best, it's going to make him look better. He's definitely out there to make everything better.

Talk about some lines and scenes and performances that just get completely stamped into our shared consciousness.

You can handle the truth.

People who don't even know where it's from know it.

Here's my favorite thing of all. That is I'll have what she's having and you killed my father. Whatever. The things are from the spinal Tap. This goes to eleven.

Elon made it into Tesla.

I dm'd him today because when he first Tesla came out, he showed me, he said, look, the radio goes to eleven because he loved the movie.

Oh, my.

Did you not know that about.

I did not know that.

Yeah. And, yeah, for any spinal tap freak like me, I was like, oh, this is fucking incredible. This thing made its way into a real product.

The thing that gets me more than anything is I did this film called the Bucket List, which was Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. And they're both guys who would.

Sean Hayes, a friend of mine, right.

Dying from cancer, and they're going to do all these experiences. They have a bucket list. Everybody thinks that that's a term that's been around for a million years. It was made up for the film.

That is crazy. I mean, I saw the movie, but in my head it was just a ubiquitous.

But no, I only have one thing like that, which is people will go, are you punking me? That's like, in the vernacular, I'm getting punked. It wasn't a thing.

Yeah. It wasn't a thing until it was a thing. And everybody says, well, it's on my bucket list.

Yeah.

Okay, we're off of your incredible movies, by God.

Literally. Just.

Thank you. Those are, like, some of my favorite experiences in life sitting and watching those movies. We're both obsessed with Russia, I think.

Yeah. I had a website during the 2016 election. It was called the committee to investigate Russia. When we had heard that the Russians were playing in the 2016 election and we found out that they were, and Trump was fine with that. And so that was the beginning of a real string of corruption that he started and continues to this day.

Have you watched any of the frontlines on him? Because they are among my very favorite docs I've ever seen in my life. In particular, there's like a three hour one about how he came to power.

Oh, you mean Putin.

Putin, how he came to power.

Yeah, he was a functionary KGB guy. He was Yeltsin's right hand man.

And Yeltsin brought him in because he had been the right hand man of the St. Petersburg governor. And the long history in Russia is every time these guys step down from power, they get tried on embezlement and they all end up dying in prison. And Putin masterminded an exit of this St. Petersburg governor. He got him out of the country, they faked a medical episode, he put him on a plane. And Yeltsin said, I want to step down. I don't want to rot in prison. I need this guy. I'll just add it because it's so fascinating, but that Yeltsin very much wants to be able to hand over the power to Putin. And so he funds this huge campaign to raise the awareness of Putin, and it's getting nowhere because Putin has no personality. It's not working. And then, lo and behold, mysteriously, three apartment buildings get destroyed and blown up by, quote, the Crimeans, I don't know what we call the Chesneyans. And later revealed some of the armaments didn't go off in a fourth apartment building, and they were all discovered to be russian armaments. So they blow up these three buildings with their own civilians, and then he puts Putin in charge of the invasion of Crimea.

And then all of a sudden, the people want him to be president.

Like what?

You couldn't write an origin story for a bad guy.

I know. And Yeltsin was struggling with alcohol and he was a mess and later came.

To regret this and had spoke out about some of the antidemocratic things he was.

And if you look at what happened in the 2016 election, it didn't take very much to swing it, because all it took was three cities, Milwaukee, Detroit and Philadelphia. And the aggregate of those three cities of 79,000 votes. And all you had to do is suppress the black vote in those three cities, which they did, and then you flip. And all of a sudden, even though Hillary has 3 million more votes, she loses. Yeah, and that's what I'm afraid of now. Yes.

And that's what your new documentary is about, God and country. Okay. I think the most important thing that we say up front is that this movie is not anti christian.

Oh, no, it's the opposite. It's pro Christian.

It's very pro Christian. It has included many, many trusted, outspoken members and leaders of Christianity.

That was important because my name being associated with it. First of all, I'm jewish. Second of all, I'm a Hollywood libtard. That's where I am. Right. So we wanted to make sure that this movie, which is about christian nationalism, in no way diminishes Christianity. And so we have the most respected, conservative, devout christian leaders talking about not only the danger that christian nationalism poses to the country, but to Christianity itself, that this is not a religious movement, it's a political movement, and it is basically destroying Christianity in that it completely negates the teachings of Jesus. Yeah.

So quickly, I think people have heard the term white nationalists. Everyone's pretty clear about that. Those are people that would like to see an America that is just white. It's their birthright to be here and no one else's.

Christian nationalism is by and large white. It's over 90% white people. And that element of racism that you're talking about is there.

As we'll find out, it's foundational to the formation of the christian nationalists. But what I didn't really know, and I think I'm up on this stuff, is that christian nationalists are people who believe truly that this should be a christian nation. We should have biblical laws like I'm talking. If you think Sharia law is bad, this is sharia law, but this is anti gay, no marriage. This is anti abortion, this is anti books, this is anti secular education. This is a dramatic, draconian approach.

Yeah. They don't believe in separation of church and state. They will tell you that there is no separation of church and state in the constitution. Well, the words separation of church and state are not per se in the constitution. But the idea of separating church and state is mentioned three times in the constitution.

In fact, it's so fully articulated that we use the term separation of church and state to just condense what is written in there.

That's exactly right. And the reason for that is the founders of the country, many of whom came from Europe and were running away from religious persecution, wanted to make sure that the country would not have a religion, that you could pray however you wanted. And it's in the Bill of Rights that there's no test for a religion into holding public office. All of that was very intentionally done, so much so that the first words in the constitution are, we the people, which was revolutionary. Revolutionary. They'd never been done. It's all divine. They were saying, we the people will govern ourselves, self rule. And so they don't believe in that. They don't believe in separation. They'll tell you there is no separation. And they believe that we should be living toward, whatever their ideas are, the rules of God. But it certainly isn't Jesus's teaching, because nowhere do I see Jesus saying, take up arms and kill somebody who doesn't believe what you believe. Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

Okay, so it starts. I think, on the surface, people, myself included, would have assumed that this got organized in the wake of Roe v. Wade. But there's an interesting history that actually predates Roe v. Wade. And the kernel of this movement really gets started with the beginning of desegregating schools.

That's exactly right. In 1954, you had brown versus the board of education, which said that we have to make the schools desegregated. We have to make sure that blacks and whites can go to the same school. Well, that wasn't liked very much by a certain group of people. So they decided to make these religious schools and not allow black people to come to their schools. And that became the galvanizing issue for the beginnings of this white christian nationalist movement. Problem they had is. It's really ugly to say we're going to base a movement on racism.

It wasn't going to work even in 1954.

Well, that was the thing. And they resisted it. It's an extension of the civil war that was fought over blacks not being allowed to be free. And so all of a sudden, in 1972 73, Roe v. Wade comes along and they went, ah, here's something we can build a movement on. And they use that and they built this movement, and it's gotten incredibly powerful. It's very well funded. It is not. The majority of Christians, the vast, vast majority of christians don't like this and don't believe in this. But as you know, any political movement, if you can get 25, 30% of a country, particularly with a system that we have here in America, of the electoral college, only have to pick off five or six states, and you can win an election, even though you may lose a popular vote by 10 million votes.

Well, and this is in the documentary that of the 15 most populous states, only 30% of the citizens live in a rural setting, yet they control 70% of that Senate outcome.

That's right.

It's enormously lopsided, and it's inherently antidemocratic, in a sense.

When the founders formed the country, they gave two senators to every state, and that's okay. But the constitution has been amended many, many times, and it's time to amend the Constitution and have the electoral college done away with and have a popular vote. Whoever gets the most votes wins.

Yeah, we have the technology. Yes, it's plausible.

Yeah. But the problem you have in order to do that is very difficult, because you have to get two thirds majority in the House, two thirds majority in the Senate, and then it has to be passed by simple majorities in three fourths of the state legislatures. That's a big, heavy lift, because Republicans, the way they are now, they know that if you change that system and let the best man win, best woman, whoever gets the most votes, they'll never win an election based on the ideology that they have.

It also ignores the demographics of 1776. I don't know the numbers, but I know that far more people lived in rural areas than lived in cities.

Right.

And so it really ignores this enormous migration and where the actual citizens live.

Yeah. Well, you got, let's say, Maine or Vermont. Vermont, they got a million people. Or Rhode Island. Montana. They got a million two senators. California, 40 some OD million two senators.

It's kind of crazy. So I grew up, obviously, post this movement, coalescing around Roe v. Wade. Obviously, Jerry Falwell is a big figurehead in this movement.

Right.

So I grew up in an era where evangelicals were outspokenly against abortion. But I was shocked to learn in the documentary when Roe v. Wade, that was a very split thing, even among evangelicals back then.

Well, evangelicals, there's no mention of abortion in the Bible. And the people who believe that religion should be practiced freely don't feel that you should impose your ideas on other people. You can make the arguments if you want, but you should not use religion as a way of imposing your will. And so most evangelicals, they may believe, and they have heartfelt beliefs that you should not have abortion. And you have to respect that. I respect that. But they're saying, don't impose that will on somebody else.

That's the distinction, is that although they still were dramatically majority pro life, they didn't believe at that time that that should be the rule of law.

Right. And what they felt was, it's a decision a woman makes with her doctor and her family and her God, and that's a decision that's up to her. They would say, think twice about it. Maybe you want to put a child up for adoption. Maybe we can find a way of providing. But they don't say that. They're just saying, you can't have an abortion. So you wind up with a ten year old girl having to leave Ohio in order to get an abortion. And now you're seeing is the dog that caught the car. All of a sudden this issue, which played very well for them as a wedge issue, is playing well the other way, which is people are saying, we don't want somebody was raped by their uncle or their father.

One of the experts you have in the documentary says, I personally held this position until I represented a ten or twelve year old girl who had been raped by her uncle and was carrying a baby. And she said I had to really confront what this really is. In some cases, that's right. So this movement gets more and more fervent and more violent by nature. It's really fascinating to watch you show the progression of the sermons and this very popular notion in christian nationalists of Jesus as a warrior. They really home in on revelations. You're showing the covers of these books in the dock and it looks like a spinal tap. Yeah, there's like a ripped Jesus and he's out hell bent for blood.

The muscular Jesus. And it's explained perfectly by Russell Moore, who's the editor of Christianity today, one of the most respected people in that field. He says, jesus believed you fight with the gospel. You don't fight with weapons and guns. You fight by convincing people. That's how you fight, not killing people.

Right now, I guess I wouldn't have made this connection until I saw this movie. When I looked at the Capitol riots, I looked at the people that were attending, my first thought was like, what's binding this group together? I can't figure out. There's so many different signs. You've got like, don't tread on me. You got this over here. What I was kind of missing is how many Jesus saved signs, how many crosses were being held. And I didn't know this part, that all of that was preceded the day before by the Jericho marches of January 5. You know about those?

I don't.

That's really what this film is about, is that the Capitol six riots or insurrection was fully organized by these christian nationalists and that there was steps to this. And the Jericho marches, which was recreating the storm of Jericho where the walls fell. They had been advertised and promoted. And this was all part of the same thing. They got on busses. They got Roger stone preaching at that thing. All the piety in Jesus is like, what? I didn't know that connection. My assumption was they were mostly Christians, but not that they were christian nationalists first.

Yes. And we're not saying that all the rioters of January 6 were christian nationalists, but they formed the nucleus and the foundation for what happened on January 6. I mean, you had Alex Jones out there screaming about, God is on our side, we're going to war.

We're going to go to battle. And you see the amount of people that were at the January 5 Jericho march. It's a lot of people. It's clear to me that certainly a good deal of those people hung around for.

Right. And you see them praying on the floor of the Senate. Yes.

When they seize control, in quotes, in.

The name of Jesus and speaker of.

The house, where he sits or she sits, there's a bullhorn and he's leading a prayer.

I don't feel like people talked about this much.

Well, I think the problem is there was a January 6 committee that looked into all of this. But if they had talked about christian nationalism, first of all, it's a term that not a lot of people understand. They think if you're saying that, you're bashing Christianity in some way.

Right.

And I think that the January 6 committee understood that. That if they put that there was a fervent fight from christian nationalism, then it would have made people not listen.

It would have further perpetuated their own narrative that Christianity is under attack.

Under attack, exactly. And you notice all the people that spoke there and all the witnesses, they were all Republicans, and they consciously did that, but they left out this part of it. And I think there was right to do it because we have to spend an hour and a half in this film explaining to people what christian nationalism is and why it's a danger not only to the country but to Christianity.

Yeah. It's very comforting to hear so many of the leaders in the christian world be so outspokenly against this.

And a lot of people are starting to understand that now. There are even people in the film, Robert Jeffries, he's gung ho christian nationalist. I've read some things where he's starting to back away and say, maybe I didn't think this through because they want abortion to be overturned. And that's the thing. That they feel they achieved. But what are we doing now to people? And how far have we gotten away from the true teachings of Jesus?

Well, and you also acknowledge that because their story about Trump was. He was the chosen one.

Right.

You have so much news footage of these people, right, in public saying he's the chosen one. And so if the chosen one doesn't win the election, clearly God wanted him to. There has to be a conspiracy. You have no other choice. If God's backing this candidate, then what choice do you have but to believe? It's like they painted themselves into a corner.

That's right. And it also gives you permission to do anything if you're doing it in God's name. What's interesting is this movement has been around for a long time. It's grown, it's gotten more powerful, it's more well funded, but it all of a sudden had a mouthpiece.

He's pandering like a motherfucker.

Yeah, because he knows that this point, it's his ticket to get out of prison, get out of jail free card. I mean, that's what he's looking to do. So it's been amplified by his voice. And he's more than happy to keep saying, I'm the chosen one. I'm your retribution.

They just believe it when he holds the Bible upside down and when he's, like, saying the craziest stuff and just his history, why are they so susceptible to believe it just because he says it?

Because he's saying out loud, christianity is under attack and needs to be saved. I'm a true believer. He is playing to the audience.

Yes. And I'm going to be the one who is going to make this a white, christian nation. I'm going to shut the borders down. I'm going to have a muslim ban. I'm going to make sure that there's a wall. All of those things are to feed that. But think about this for a second. The guy wins the Iowa primary, wins it handily, and the next day he goes to a trial where he was found that he had raped a woman. This is the person that these christian nationalists are all in favor of, a guy who raped somebody.

Yeah. Weirdly, the Doc did answer a question. Because let me just say, I don't.

Think the right's crazy.

I don't think the right's bad. I don't hold that.

I don't either. Nationalism is a different thing.

I totally agree with you, but I was genuinely perplexed how people were buying into the stolen vote narrative. You have republican governors saying, no, there's been no fraud. You have the makers of the machine going, here's the data. So what was missing for me was answered by this, which is if God picked Trump, that's how I can overlook all this stuff, because I'm like, how are they perpetuating this belief?

Right. And it's amplified by the fact that you have some very spineless republican elected officials who know. They know Tucker Carlson, but they feel this is their ticket to maintain power and they'll stay with them.

The funding for this is a billion dollars. There's a billion dollars on the table to fund this.

Well, more. They just gave this guy Leonard Lee. He got a billion six. The money is there, but you have.

To tip your hat to this group because they're explicit about it. They're not hiding it. They're like, here's how this system can be exploited by us.

Right?

They know they're a minority, and they know that they could be in power and they have the playbook and they're not hiding it.

No. And the way our system is set up, they can be in power with a minority.

Yes.

Because all you need to do is get that guy in the White House, and then he starts firing all the civil servants, putting in political loyalists. And then there you have it.

Yeah. Well, it's a really well made documentary. I loved watching it so much.

Good. Well, it's going to be in theaters February 16.

And then we have a spinal tattoo coming.

We can get it.

What a discovery today.

All right.

The last thing I want to end on is I'm listening to many interviews of you last night laying in bed.

I'm sorry.

And no, I enjoyed every moment of it. And my wife's walking back and forth throughout the bedroom, going to the here, going to the here. And at some point she goes, why are you having Kimmel on again? You just had him on. And all of a sudden I went, oh, my God, that is your voice.

You mean I sound like Kimmel?

Yes.

Oh, my.

Kimmel sounds like you. You're older.

Wow. I gotta listen to Kimmel a little bit more.

I'm trying to hear crazy.

I was curious if you ever had gotten that prior to this.

No, this is the first Kimmel reference, and I'm going to now know, compare and contrast.

You should be calling people and saying, this is Jimmy Kimmel, and just make a mess of his life. I think that's what you should do. Well, Rob, it's an incredible pleasure to meet you. So fun. You're a great interview and prolific.

And an icon. I know you know it, but it's so fun for us to get to have people.

Truly, truly, truly.

You guys are good at this. Think about doing it for a living.

Okay.

Thanks for coming. Everyone should check out God and country. It's a very, very well made documentary.

Timely.

Love it. I hope we get to talk to you again soon.

Great.

Maybe you'll come back for spinal tip, too.

All right.

Stay tuned for the fact check so you can hear all the facts that were wrong.

Hello.

Hello, stormy night. It's 01:00 p.m. But it would appear to be 08:00 p.m. Right now.

Lightwise, it's dark.

It's a dark and stormy night. That's what I was trying to think of.

And it's rainy as hell.

There's a new blouse.

I got a new blouse.

Anything you want to tell me about it?

It's very cozy.

Okay, great.

And I love it. Well, sure. I went shopping.

Okay.

When?

On Saturday. I did a quick shop. I just did a stop in is.

After you brought steaks.

It was before I brought steaks.

It was, yes. So you were already the owner of this garment at that point?

I was. It. I seemed different.

Well, I would have expected you to have a little more spring in your step.

I know. Okay.

Knowing that was in the trunk.

Well, yeah, I've been having a little bit of a tough time.

Mentally.

Yeah. Mentally, yeah.

You've been blue.

And I think for the most part there are things that have contributed, but also I think so much of it is just truly hormonal.

Right.

But rough, like worse than a normal pms or something. I've been combating that a little bit. And one of your tried and true tools is shopping. But I was trying not to because I know what that's all about.

Right.

But then I was driving by it.

Okay. And you thought we got to do it.

Yeah, had to do it. And so I did a little.

Well, that must mean you were out on the streets early.

Yeah, because I had my witch at ten.

Okay.

Oh, yeah, that's in Beverly Hills. It's rough.

It's rough for you. It would be like if I had a dentist next to a crack house.

Exactly 20 years ago.

It's not a great location. You need to probably find a witch somewhere with no shopping.

I'll always find shop.

You're right.

But, yeah, I stopped in. It did help for like an hour. 15 minutes.

Oh, only 15?

Well, it helped the whole shopping time. And then 15 minutes after I also got some intel that I can't share it.

Then you shouldn't say it. I found out a secret. I'm not going to tell you.

Sorry.

Right. Or will you tell me? I can tell you and then cut it out.

Yeah, I can tell you. I just can't share that publicly. It wasn't about you.

I got you.

So anyway, so that was that. And then I brought some steaks over to your house.

They were delicious. My father in law cooked them up. He travels with his meat thermometer, which I got to tip my hat to him for doing that. You're serious about barbecuing when you travel with a meat thermometer?

Yeah, big time. So he made them and they were delicious.

They were delicious. He cooked them to absolute perfection.

Great.

I cooked them differently. I like how I do it, but his are different, and it's great. He's more of a medium heat, and he gets that center at the perfect temp. I like to blast it, time it.

Okay.

And then wrap it in tinfoil so it does some more cooking once it's off the grill.

Oh, and where'd you learn that technique?

I read about it online, I think.

Nice.

Yeah.

Do you have a chef? Like I do.

Google.

Yeah, Google's my. Yeah. You know, like when you type in a question, it brings up a box. You're not even sure where it's from.

That's my whole fact check.

I bet. Yeah, just whatever that box is. How long should you cook a ribeye to be medium? Now, the tricky part is these ribeyes fluctuate so much in how thick they are, right. But now I've done enough of them.

That's why the meat thermop. That's the whole point of it.

Right, right. But I won't use it. He got me one for Christmas, and it was a thing I kept hiding from him. And then finally I just said to him, I haven't used it and I'm not going to.

Oh, my God.

I had to be honest with him. It was not easy for me to deliver that news.

It's a hill you want to die on.

Well, just.

I don't want to do it.

Wow. I use one all the time.

You do?

And I love it.

And it's a wireless one that goes to your phone? No, you mean you just slide it.

In when everything's done well to check if it's done right. Like, I do it for chicken. I do it for everything.

No, you insert the probe in long before you start cooking it, and then it's on your phone, and it tells you the temp. It's awesome. There's no reason I shouldn't use it other than I don't want to figure out how to. And I have a system that I love.

Sure.

So I'm not trying to fix anything that's not broken.

I get that.

Yeah, you can relate.

I have an update.

Let's hear it.

On the last fact check, I had vaguely remembered that someone's housekeeper built a replica of their. I mean. And even as I was saying it, I thought, that can't really be. And then, as you recall, I text Jimmy about.

Yeah.

He then responded like, I totally know that story, but I don't know who it's about. I can't remember. So I took to Google, as we were just discussing, and this is what I found. Jeanette di Cordova spent her years in Beverly Hills throwing lavish soirees for the biggest names in film. Among the names said to have attended her parties are Billy Wilder, Gary Cooper, Frank Sinatra, and fellow rat Packer Dean Martin. Her opulence outdid her income, and she was forced to sell her home upon the death of her husband, who, by the way, this is my voice now. He was a producer of the Carson show.

Oh.

Upon his death, leaving her with nothing. With all the friends of her wealthy days gone, she turned to a hard name for me, Kovarubias, who is said to have performed many duties beyond the call of a housekeeper, including steering her drink for her as she walked around. In an ending that is stranger than fiction, Di Cordova winds up living in Mexico in a replica of her home that her housekeeper built with her earnings.

Wow.

That's got to be the craziest story ever.

That's so strange. Did Jimmy know it?

Yeah. He's like, oh, my God. Right? It was the wife of the producer of the. Yeah.

Crazy.

When I searched the Internet looking for it, it was part of. Of course, it was in, like, either the Hollywood Reporter variety because it was reporting on the fact that HBO had optioned that story.

Oh, got it.

Which I wish they would make.

Although I'd like to see if you.

Know where it's going.

Spoiler.

You're just waiting to see the replica of the house, I guess, in Mexico.

What?

That's a beautiful segue. I am on episode, I guess, probably seven of Mr. And Mrs. Smith. There's only eight, right? I hate that. I hate that there's eight.

I know.

I hate it. It's awesome.

And you, you.

I can see that you weren't inflating it at all.

Thank you.

Yeah, it's incredible.

It's so good.

Fuck.

Is it fun?

I know.

To have a budget. Like, like, I gotta say, when they first were in Austria, I assumed they were using stock footage of exteriors, and then they were in a ski lift. I'm like, oh, they're not really in a ski lift. Oh, they're at this hotel. They're not really in. They're everywhere.

They're really.

They're at. And they're in Austria. It's so cool and sexy.

It's very sexy. They have such a good banter.

Yeah. What? Chemistry.

Chemistry out the wazoo.

She's incredible.

I know. I love her.

Oh, I love her.

Amazon prime.

If people want to check out Amazon.

Prime, please watch it.

We got to support shows like this. Shows like this have to win.

Yeah, I agree.

Because I don't think even though Atlanta was insanely brilliant, it wasn't like a don't. I don't meet people who watched Atlanta. And I want shows like Atlanta in season five of Fargo and Mr. And Mrs. Smith to be rewarded. So they keep getting made for me, selfishly. So I have great content.

But I think networks are doing a good job for the most part of having shows that they know aren't going to be like everyone's cup of tea, but they still put money in and they make it up on other shows that are other people's cups of tea. And it's just so different than old school network tv.

Yes. But then I will say this. I was watching it, and this is why I want everyone to watch it, because, and I hope that Donald Glover would not be offended by this observation, but I would say he got that show from cachet. Atlanta is so respected. Everyone recognizes the genius and the brilliance. But this show is clearly $150,000,000 show. So he gets one cachet show of this variety, but it has to be profitable. You're only going to get so many shows from cachet if you're great, but nobody watches your shows. Streamers and networks will stop spending $150,000,000 on it. They need to work. And so I want everyone to watch this because it deserves to work. And I want him to go on to do 100 more shows.

Me too. There's an interesting business history to that.

Show because being the daughter writing it.

No. Donald and Phoebe Waller Bridge. This was their project.

Right.

What happened?

Do we know the.

Oh, you've done some research.

Yeah. And he's come out and said that basically they just had creative differences.

They did not make the same show.

And, yeah, he said that he's used to working in a specific way and he felt like he couldn't basically, he felt like he couldn't really be honest with his feedback and kind of said, like, it was essentially a divorce and it was who gets the cat?

Oh, right.

So he got it. And then he brought on a different.

Co showrunner who's the daughter of the original author of Mr. And Mrs. Smith.

I didn't know that because at the.

End of the first episode, it's dedicated to somebody. And I immediately was like, that has to be the father of this woman. So, yeah, her dad wrote the original feature film.

Got it.

Yeah.

Oh, that's fun.

So that's cool, I think. Francesca.

Yeah.

Something.

Yeah. Sloan or something.

Sloan, yeah. Good job.

Something like that.

From the Sloan and Kettering foundation. Every time I listen, I watch frontline. I hear about the Sloan. It's always brought to you.

That's your ad.

Well, they're philanthropic. That's what's so weird about PBS, is like, there's no advertisements, but they tell you who the show is. Brought to you by through a philanthropic endowment of the Sloan and Kettering. Yeah, it's great, but I don't know the line between an advertisement, not an advertisement. Right.

Yeah. Okay. Well, we love it. And then I have a new thing I love.

Oh, already? Okay.

I watched this weekend. Well, I watched two things.

I'm nervous you're going to say one of them. I hope you don't.

I know what you're thinking I'm going to say, and I did see that, and then I saw anatomy of a fall.

Okay. That's not what I was thinking of. I know, but you saw that.

Yes.

And you loved it.

Yeah.

And I tried to see it yesterday, but we have eight house guests, right? Yeah. Three different families.

Yeah. I sense you're a bit on edge right now. Yeah.

Oh, no.

Okay. And I thought maybe that was why.

No, I'm in hog heaven. I think maybe I just raced to Sherman Oaks to be on someone else's podcast and then came back and there was this horrific accident in the left lane. And so I was kind of trying to rush to get here, so maybe I drank too much caffeine there.

Oh, okay.

But no, I'm delighted.

Okay.

But it is stressful when you have three families at your house to make everyone happy, and many of the members are kids with their own individual opinions. So there was no point this whole weekend where all the kids were all happy with any one thing. And I had some crazy fantasy that I was going to get them to watch a movie, and then I'd be able to watch that as an adult with the other adults in theater in the daytime. Now, instead, we went to a park, and my kids hated the park, and there was an epic tantrum. And sometimes you're just getting through. Yeah, sometimes not just for parents, but in life, I guess you're just getting through.

Yeah, that's right. It's also two and a half hours, so that would be a hard one.

To pair with a kid. It all worked out because I watched Barbie for the fourth time.

Yeah, you've seen it. So.

Which was also my idea. So I didn't feel too bummed out because I got to see also the other movie I wanted to see. It just keeps delivering. I can't believe how rewatchable that movie is.

That's great.

The pacing of that movie is just sublime. It's so quick. Things are happening. Story is just unfolding every 30 seconds.

Yeah.

Okay, so you loved anatomy of the fall.

Anatomy of a. So it's so good. It is so good. It is very small. Like, it's a small story. It's like the opposite of Barbie. Right? Like, there's no spectacle. Exactly. But it was so intense, I almost turned it off, like three times.

Wow.

That's a good sign.

It was hard for me to get.

Through awkwardness or too riveting or too stressful.

So stressful. And the injustice. Yeah. Because the premise is this is in the first scene or second scene, there's this wife and a husband and a son. And the son goes on this walk. He comes back and his dad is dead.

Oh, boy.

Yeah. Like, outside the window. Like outside. He's bleeding from the head and he's dead.

Okay.

He's dead?

Yeah, we lost him. His fight is over.

He passed.

Yeah.

The whole story is essentially like, who's to blame for this?

And stop there.

Okay.

Yeah, because you've got me intrigued.

It's really good.

I want to see it. Then what was the second thing you watched?

Well, I don't want to say if you're going to be upset.

What was it?

The JLo thing.

Oh, what's that?

Oh, that.

Rom.com with J Lo?

No, she has a big thing that came out this weekend. It's kind of this, like, long, hour long music video. Oh, I thought that's what you were talking about. No, what are you talking about?

True detective.

Oh, I didn't watch that.

Okay, great, because I think that's something we could watch at the same time. It's supposed to be spectacular. People keep telling me to watch it, like, don't miss it. So that's exciting to have another show, because when Mr. And Mrs. Smith ends, I'm going to be completely crestfallen. So that's going to be the next.

Okay, yeah. Well, great. No, this is Jlo's hour long special. It's called this is me now.

Okay. What's it on? Because while I'm on prime for Mr. And Mrs. Smith, I'm seeing something advertised from her, but it looks like a movie.

It kind of is. It's an hour long movie music video. There's dancing, and she's singing multiple songs that maybe are on a new record or something.

Okay.

And there's all these cameos, fun cameos pop out. Fun pop outs and cameos. And it starts and stops with the music. Like, she's, like, in therapy, regular, and then she'll go into.

And is it real therapy or reenactment of therapy?

Reenactment.

Okay.

Although it's about her journey, and so it's very autobiographical.

Right.

And it's interesting because sort of the whole journey is about her being a love addict, which is, I thought, like a very brave thing to put out there.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

That's so funny. I just was on a podcast this morning and that was a big topic.

Love addiction.

Yeah. And how I feel like, sadly, sex and love addiction is in a place, societally that AA was in the 70s, where it's like you really wanted to hide it and there was still a lot of shame surrounding it.

People don't understand it. Really.

They don't understand it. I think they think it's a cop out.

Right. Definitely. Sex addiction. People think that.

Yeah. They certainly thought that when Tiger.

Yeah.

They did not accept that.

No, they didn't.

Yeah.

So I'm glad she's addressing that. I think a lot of us are love addicts.

Yeah. I mean, I think probably, like all addictions, it's a spectrum and it depends on. I don't know, I think you can be a love addict in certain relationships or with certain types of people and not across the board.

Sure.

And sex addiction, too, probably, yeah.

I just think if someone has experienced the euphoria and elation and distraction and cure all nature of attraction, and that's something that they can prolong, curate and start to use very heavily as a regulator, I think a lot of us can relate to that.

Yeah.

Of the things we've been sold in America, on television, we used to be sold Budweiser, beer nonstop and cigarettes at some point. But really, I think above all those things, every single thing we watch is a love story.

Yeah, definitely.

There's almost no. I mean, why do we like Mr. And Mrs. Smith? Sure, the fucking James Bond stuff's cool, but no, them farting in front of each other is fun.

I know. Yeah. Connection. I mean, that's really what it is.

But it definitely has been Hollywood eyes. It's been productized.

It's what fairy tales were about. So, yeah, we're very programmed.

Yes. And it's very heightened and overly romantic. And holding the jambox above the head and all this stuff, all these images we have.

Yeah.

No one had a chance.

I wonder if I should talk about this. Okay. There's been a series of events lately, I think, on top of the bases, that I just don't feel good about myself right now.

Right.

At all. So then there's just been this series of events that have happened in succession, almost comically, that are reiterating that.

Okay.

And it's so hard to come back from that feeling.

Yeah.

It's rough.

Yes.

Then you continue to see it. Right. Like, it keeps popping up places or reminding you that you're ugly, unattractive, you're not attracting people.

Yeah. That's a terrible feeling.

Yeah. Which I'm sure a lot of people feel.

A lot, I think. Yeah. Most humans.

Yeah.

Because even if people are attracted to you, you'll just signal out the group. That's not like all humans will do that.

And then you start caring about things. You wouldn't care. This, I guess I'll say this. This morning I was on Instagram and Chad Sanders, who we do a show with, he does, like, amas or whatever, and I was just watching them, and then all of a sudden, one pops up and it's, do you have a crush on Monica? And then it's choosing to answer this. Right. So, of course for me, I'm like, I guess he's inundated with this question.

Oh, really?

He must be. Because why? I think he. We wouldn't even answer it. Right.

Yeah.

And he said, you guys, you keep asking me this or you keep insinuating. Yeah. And then he said a lot of very nice things about me. And then he said, basically, but no.

Right.

And he doesn't. I know that. I know he doesn't. And this is just my fragility and my fragile ego, but I didn't like it.

Right.

Why are you not publicly saying you don't have a crush on me.

Right.

And I know I don't want him to have a crush on me.

Right.

But it hurt my feelings.

Right. Which, again, on a different day in time and space, wouldn't it?

Probably not.

Yeah.

Anyway, okay, so you have all these house guests. Anything else from the house? Any pop outs or big surprises?

Oh, Kenny.

And we did the six mile hike on Saturday morning, which was lovely.

That's nice.

I fucking love that. Goddamn. I just. It's intoxicating.

If you guys want to see Dax in the wild, you should probably just go on.

I think people know that one of two things is happening. Either our core fanbase hikes in Griffith park, like, somehow our exact demo is hikers of Griffith park, which I don't know is possible, or maybe they know I'm there and they want to say hi regardless. I like it. I love it. I love meeting them, especially on the hiking trail, because there's this, like, built in. Everything's great. They're generally going downhill. I'm going uphill, so we're going different ways. We're not going to walk together.

Okay. Yeah. Because that's where fear.

It could just be like, how long can we keep doing small talk all the way to the top? I don't know, but that's not even a fear of mine. I guess I would call it elevator fear. It's like you say, hi, everything, or you say goodbye, blah, blah. And then you get an elevator together and I don't care how much you like the person. You're like, oh, this is rough.

Yeah. Everyone can relate to this.

Yes. But anyway, so everyone knows they're on a mission. They're trying to keep their heart rate up, but I always like it. I've met a bunch of really lovely armchairries out there.

Fun.

They're the best out there.

They really are.

I've had a lot of different people consume stuff I've done, and this is it.

The best group by far. That's nice.

Yeah. Parenthood folks are quite nice as well.

Yeah. I was a parenthood fan.

Yeah. There's a huge overlap, I think, between Arb cherries and parenthood.

Yeah. Okay. Real quick, though, just because I don't think we talked or did we talk about american nightmare? I don't know if we talked about it and we don't have to give anything away, but the combination of seeing american nightmare and then anatomy of a fall, which is fiction, I am feeling very perturbed by the justice system.

Oh, sure.

It feels crazy.

Yeah, I know. It's really hard to know if it's a false negative. Like it's hard to know because obviously what makes it across our desk is the huge miscarriages of justice.

Yes, of course.

And so we don't really know. Is it one in every 2000 cases that has some diceiness? Is it 10%, is it 15? So it can be very misleading.

Yes. We have some stats around false confessions and stuff, but we don't have enough. We don't know.

Right. I mean, there is this, obviously there's a dedication I remember reading in a Malcolm Gladwell book or maybe freakonomics. Something about the difference between conviction rates and sentencing from right before lunch and right after lunch for like that's highly variable on whether they're hungry or scary.

That is so bad. And it's so dependent on who you get. Who's your judge, who's your jury.

I used to think of this kind of stuff, like when I'd have to test a movie for the studio.

Yeah.

And they would pitch like, what about Tuesday? This day the theater is open. And be like, I want to be halfway to the weekend.

They're excited.

Well, everyone feels different between Monday and Thursday. Your baseline excitement and happiness level is affected by whether the weekend is two days away or it just finished.

Yeah.

I don't know that you get a fair shake. I mean, probably most neutrals to test on Wednesday, I guess hump day. Yeah, but of course I'm going to push. I mean, ideally Friday night test the movie. That's when I want audience because that's when they're going to see it. Let's find out how people going on a Friday night feel about this movie.

That's interesting.

People aren't going Monday night to go see any movie.

God. Okay. I don't know. If I had a movie, I don't know that I'd want to test on a Friday night.

Because expectations.

Yeah. Like they're competing with. They could do. They could have been singing on Friday night. They could be seeing a different movie. They could be going to a club, they could be going to a fun dinner. There's so many things better.

Movie came out that night, not better, which is one they've been already advertised or something.

Yeah. And then they get there. So maybe their expectation or maybe they're looking to be sort of mad at it.

I don't think they ever do it because it's way more costly, obviously, to rent out theater on a Friday night. But for me, Thursday is the sweet.

Thursday sounds good.

Yeah. People can just smell the weekend around the corner.

Thursday used to be my favorite day of the week. Yeah, that's when friends ran.

Oh, musty tv.

Yeah, musty tv. Thursdays. Love them. Yeah. All right, well, this is.

I'm going to take one request from an armchair.

Oh, great.

It might be hard for you to get through, but I'm going to cover my face.

Oh, hermium.

Yep. Someone asked that they would really like to hear Hermium Permian sing. Way down yonder on the Chattahoochee.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Very specific request. I screen grabbed it.

Okay, great.

So I'm going to try it.

Okay, great. Okay.

Way down yonder on the Teddy hoochie it gets hotter than the hoochie coochie we laid rubber on the Georgia as well that got a little crazy. But we never got caught down by the river on a Friday night a pyramid of cans in the pale moonlight talking about girls and dreaming about women never had a plan just living for the minute all the way down yellow on the jetta hootsie. Never knew how much that money Walter meant to me. Well, I learned who I was and I learned who I was a lot about living in a little by. Oh, you messed up one of the lyrics. But that's. Well, I think I said I learned about living, and I learned about living.

I didn't hear it. I didn't notice it.

He was nervous. He doesn't love the lion. Pyramid of cans in a pale moonlight.

Why?

That's drinking. That's excessive drinking.

He doesn't like that.

That's scary.

I get nervous when people over imbibe.

Oh, yeah.

They get really unpredictable. I prefer to be able to predict people.

Wow.

That's why I spend a lot of time in my. Oh, yeah, I know what's going to happen there.

Oh, no, he's getting sad. He's turning into Elmer fudge.

No, I'm very happy over there in my apartment, I got all the things a young man would. Middle aged or older man, however you see me, would.

Cute. Cutie pie. Cutie pie.

Yeah. Elmer is very sad. I'm so.

Sad. Oh, boy. Well, this is all a ding ding ding.

Okay.

Because you talked a lot about movies and film and television. That's right. This is for Rob Reiner.

Oh, this was so fun.

I know. He's old Hollywood, baby.

He is. And he's like, of the ilk that can tell a goddamn story.

I know. He has a story after story. It's so fun to listen to.

And there was kind of like a rat packy tradition where these people would do late night shows, and they could hold your attention. They could tell a whole tale.

Yeah.

And I feel like as editing got quicker and attention spans got shorter, that skill is a little bit lost.

Yeah, I think that's.

But he told some long ones, and I was, like, on the edge of my seat.

Same. Okay, so a couple facts. One. Well, also, we talk about Russia and.

Oh, yeah, right.

That was before Navalny's death announced, so.

Maybe keep that in mind if we're not giving the.

We're not mentioning that. What percentage of sky is oxygen? That's because we were talking about River Phoenix, and he was saying all their names, and he said something like, one of them sky, one of them's oxygen. And I said, well, that means you're 70% of her or something. 21% oxygen.

21%.

78% nitrogen. The earth's atmosphere.

Neuroscarbon.

Small amounts of other gasses, too, such as carbon dioxide, neon, and hydrogen. Methane, if there are farts.

Oh, yeah, a lot of cow farts.

Yes. Okay. And then on that same thread, he wondered if Joaquin's name was Leaf prior to mean. His name is Joaquin. He born Joaquin.

Okay.

But then for a while, he went as Leaf.

Okay, do we have all the names of the Phoenix children? I'd love to hear.

Okay. River, rain, liberty. Summer.

Summer.

And then there's another child.

Well, I know Summer.

Yeah.

She is wonderful. And she's so stunning.

Yeah. Jodian is a half sister.

Okay.

What a life. This, like, cult and the whole.

The early life.

Yeah. Anyway, maybe he should call into armchair anonymous cult stories.

What if he did?

That'd be so cool. His real last name is bottom.

I would have named one of my kids less so that when they read the roll call, last name first, it'd be bottomless. That's cool, because I love bottomless salad or bottomless breadsticks or bottomless soup.

Yeah, everyone loves bottomless. Yeah, but then they changed it to Phoenix. Okay, I found the clip. You said a quote from all in the family, and I found the clip.

Oh, you did?

Oh, good.

Also, it wasn't him. It was this woman.

Oh, by the way, people pointed out to me. I was just remembering this. Chris Rock does end up talking about the janitor. Had we listened longer?

Oh, really?

Yes.

Did you know that 65% of the people murdered in the last ten years were killed by handguns?

Would it make you feel any better.

Little girl, if they was pushed out of windows?

That's it. I used to love on the feeling. My mom and I would watch it together.

Oh, really?

God, I would have thought you were way too young to have seen any of that.

I was, sort of. But she loved it.

It was nostalgic for her, so we.

Would watch it in her bed.

Oh, fun.

Yeah.

They had a tv in their bedroom.

Oh, yeah, definitely.

Well, I guess my dad did. My mom didn't.

No.

Did she watch a lot of tv?

No.

Where I grew up, you had antennas. You would have had to have had a big aerial antenna on your roof to get the signal from Detroit. We didn't. So it was unwatchable, what we got.

Yeah.

She loved movies. She loved going to the movies. And now she's addicted to Netflix, like all of us. But, no, we didn't have. There was no investment made. We never had a good tv. I think my sister kind of grew up with cable, but I was living with my dad by that point, so.

Interesting. I just grew up on tv.

Right. Can you imagine it not even being an.

For me, it wasn't even an even. No, I can't.

I had to go hang out with a kid I didn't like to watch. Duke's a hazard so that I could see it. Because he had an antenna on his roof.

Lucky him.

Well, you know, there is something about wanting stuff when you're a kid. Like the people you'll hang out with just so you can have access to stuff I don't even know. That certainly doesn't exist for my kids, but I kind of think it might be a good skill to have.

Oh, to adapt.

Yes.

Because you don't have everything and you want stuff.

Yeah.

I mean, you're using the person, let's call it like it is, but that person's also using you for whatever thing you provide. So hopefully it's an even exchange, but it's just not a dynamic my kids would ever be able to relate to.

It's funny. I mean, I can relate to it in a. I wanted white people approval, but I can't relate to wanting something specific, like to ride this person's bike or to have snacks. A lot of people would go to other people's friends house because they had better snacks.

Me?

Yeah. I mean, luckily, my friend Trevor Robinson, I genuinely loved him, but damn straight we're sleeping at his house every single sleepover. We would never go to my house.

Because of the snacks.

Yeah, because he had unlimited snacks and frozen pizzas and cable and all this stuff. Think about this one. This might feel a little more understandable. No one had a pool, right? So the couple kids who had pools will come summertime, you want to be.

At the pool party.

Like, everyone's going to be there. So you got to have some kind of rapport with the person with the pool.

Interesting.

Or you're going to be left out of this thing that happens.

Yeah. You guys didn't have neighborhood pools?

No neighborhood pools. Now, mind you, we had a lake, which is great. And that's actually. Pool is not a great example for me, but I think an example that all the kids I knew that lived more in the city they can relate to.

Okay.

Yeah. We were just all in the lake, luckily. Very democratizing.

Yeah, very.

Everyone had access to the lake.

Yeah. We just had so many neighborhoods because, know, the suburbs, that's what it also specifically southern.

Right. Because we hear all these stories about black folks not being able to swim in these public pools and stuff. That doesn't even make sense to me. In Michigan, we don't have any public pools, but it sounds like all these little southern towns, even when they were small, had a little public pool.

There are public pools in the city, but then there are in your neighborhood subdivision.

The hoa.

Exactly. There's a pool. Many, most neighborhoods had one. Like, we have one. My parents in Duluth, and my subdivision has a pool.

And would you go there in the summer?

Yeah, all the time.

And was it just chocked full of kids?

Yeah. I mean, me and my friend Ashley went every day. We ordered Papa John's pizza to the pool.

Oh, my God. What a life you had.

Well, that is the site of the teddy incident. Oh, I saw that pool.

Interesting. I had placed it in someone's home pool.

No.

Wow. Maybe it's a weather thing, because we didn't have a ton of public pools. There was, like, one pool that you could pay for, but it was closed half the year because of the. Well, it's not really a thing in Michigan. I mean, there are some, but there was none in Highland or.

Yeah. It's just funny what you think is normal.

Yeah, exactly.

And ubiquitous. Yeah. And it's not even the people I.

Knew who had pools. No one had an in ground pool. Everyone had an above ground pool. Like, their dad had bought this thing totally at a hardware store and filled it up, and then they inevitably broke.

Yeah. My neighbor had one of those for a little bit. And then Anthony. Shout out, Anthony. His family had an in ground pool they had installed or whatever. And my friend Kim, very wealthy friend, they had in grounds, and they were so nice.

I told you, I constantly look at my kids and went, so weird that they have a pool.

You have an in ground.

Yeah, it makes sense that I do because I set out to have one or whatever.

Yeah.

But they just don't know. They've not ever lived in a house without a pool. That's so bizarre to me.

I know. And most of their friends, a lot of their friends have pools. That's also.

The majority of their friends have pools. Well, I wouldn't say they're classmates, but definitely in our.

Yeah, yeah.

Literally everyone.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's weird.

Yeah.

I mean, California obviously is over indexed for sure.

Can you do, like, per capita pools?

I want to guess. My guess is going to be that Phoenix has the most per capita.

Yeah. Do you have a say? I want to say here.

LA, Los Angeles.

Good old Los Angeles. Phoenix is a good guess, though. It's so hot.

You want to buy can most pools per capita per city? That whole section of Barbie, when they're gonna distract the men so that they can deprogram the other barbies.

Oh, yeah.

And she's like, I just don't know about money. I have all mine in the bank. Is that okay? No, you should have it in cds, blah, blah. And then some barbies on the computer. And she's like, I don't know how to select. What's the select tool? He's like, you have to have it highlighted.

Good.

I'm not interested at all in talking about snubs at all, but I wish Greta had.

It's. It's.

Nominated.

What I like.

I'm not making some misogyny claims, some racial claim. It's not even that. It's just like any human that had directed that movie and didn't get nominated, I'd be outraged for.

Yeah. Let's hear it.

Number one is Phoenix.

Good job.

32.7% of properties with pools.

Wow.

A third of the pop has pools. You don't have to make friends with anybody you don't like.

No.

What a place to grow up.

Wow.

Then Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Vegas, la, Riverside, San Diego, Sacramento.

Wow. Okay.

La has 19%. Okay.

Wow. Phoenix. Good job. Okay, let's see. Archie Bunker's place, which was the show, after all, in the family, ran for four seasons.

Okay, that's great. Yeah, I know we've talked about it before, but I'm constantly in a situation where I'm doing research for someone we're interviewing, and they were on a show that I liked in the certain had to have run for eight years.

Right. I know.

So many of these shows that I thought ran for eight years, ran for.

Like, three or four I know. Like, full house. It's shocking.

How many years did that run?

Like, not that many.

Really?

Yeah. Yes.

I would think that was on for 8910 years. Eight seasons, 87 to 95.

Damn. Yeah.

That was a real shocker. You did get me.

She was eight. By the end of that, they were eight. I want to add them to my illuminati list.

Oh, wow.

But they're going to take up two.

No, they can be once. Can we make them one spot? Well, they would if they come up with one full house.

It they can swap out. They can never both be there at the same time.

Okay, that's fine, because they're busy. So that actually is probably better for their schedule.

It'll probably increase the chances of them accepting their invitation into the Illuminati. Yeah, I'm a little nervous. We have a little too many artists, but we do need women, so that's good, too.

Yeah. I thought of a bunch of people, and then I forgot them all.

You did?

Yeah.

You're going to need a note.

Oh, the woman. Who? The CRIsPR woman.

Oh, for sure. I know her name. Wait, don't tell me yet. Rob.

Fuck. I know her name.

I totally forget.

Give me the first letter. Rob J. That didn't help. All right. What is it? Jennifer Dunda. Is that right? D-O-U-D-N-A biochemist work. Crispr. Yeah.

I'd like to add her.

Absolutely. We could even kick someone out for her.

Yeah, I'd like that.

Great thinking.

Thank you. Okay. Anyway, I looked up where the phrase skin the cat comes from because he said it. And then I wanted to know that.

I feel like I just learned one. Well, certainly out of pocket or in the pocket.

Okay.

Don't know if I realize that comes from football, but that's not the one.

Out of pocket, like paying out of pocket.

No. When you say, like, you're out of pocket, you're not in the place you should be. In fact, it was in Mr. And Mrs. Smith.

Oh, interesting.

Whereas if you're in the pocket, like, oh, yeah, she was super in the pocket. That's where she's supposed to be. But that's the little zone that the defense is. The bubble that the defense is creating around the quarterback is the pocket. So you want to be in the pocket. If you're out of the pocket, you're going to get tackled.

Oh, that's interesting.

Yeah.

I didn't know that. I know. In the pocket, but I've never heard out of the pocket.

Well, they'll say out of pocket. He was out of pocket on that. Or she was out of pocket.

Okay, skin the cat. Humorous Siva Smith indicated as much in her short story the money diggers, when she wrote, as it is said, there are more ways than one to skin a cat. So there are more ways than one of digging for can do.

I can think of several ways you would dig for money. Gold, oil, rare earth metals.

Well, at that point, they probably sold animal skin, would be my guess.

Sure.

So maybe it was cat.

Why were people skinning cats so frequently? That says it was spread through UK. Because wild felines were hunted and bred for furs. Oh, gross. What kind of fur? That's cat fur, the cheap substitute for wild options. So domesticated cat was then used. Isn't it crazy that you could get. Beaver pelts were like a huge industry and people were rich.

Yes.

The Beaver Trading company and all this stuff.

We did a whole flightless bird on it. You did crazy.

Yeah.

That was like jackpot. That was like a gold rush.

Yeah, people got really. What's the guy? Astoria.

Waldorf Astoria? That Astoria?

No, not Astoria. The one. It's on Aster place. Like something. Yeah. He was big in the beaver trade.

Yeah.

Crazy.

I know I've already said this on here before, but it's been a very long time. And do you remember how Waldorf Astoria became one thing?

No.

Because that's two different families, the Waldorfs and the Astorias.

Okay.

And at one time, they were two rich families in Manhattan, and one had a brownstone and the other one built one that was taller. So the other family responded and built taller, and they got in an arms race of building their apartments bigger and bigger, trying to block each other's view. And then at some point they came together and it became the Waldorf Astoria.

So they made a truce or something.

I don't know how they ended up mending their differences, but I want to say also, they had a train stop in the bottom of their house. That's how fucking gangster they were.

Oh, my God. Okay, I just looked up origin stories of phrases.

Oh, great.

Okay, get on a soapbox.

Oh, yeah. This is where people would make political speeches.

Yes. Would be motivators of crowds would use them to stand on as makeshift podiums to make proclamation speeches or sale pitches. So it became a metaphor for spontaneous speech making or getting on a roll about a favorite topic.

Oh, she was on her soapbox.

Okay, I'm going to tell you them. You tell me which ones you want to know about.

Okay, great.

Tom foolery. Go bananas. Run of the mill. Read the ride act hands down. Silver lining.

I want hands down.

Okay. Hands down comes from horse racing, where if you're way ahead of everyone else, you can relax your grip on the reins and let your hands down when you win. Hands down, you win easily.

Oh, see that one? That's the kind I like, where it's super literal, and it makes a ton of sense.

Yeah. Okay. We have silver lining. Have your work cut out.

I want that one. Have your work cut out for you.

Okay. The expression you've got your work cut out for you comes from tailoring to do a big sewing job. All the pieces of fabric are cut out before they get sewn together. It seems like if your work has been cut for you, it should make jobs easier. But we don't use the expression that way. The image is more that your task is well defined and ready to be tackled, but all the difficult parts are yours to get to. That big pile of cutouts isn't going to sew itself together.

Oh, I like this.

Okay.

Tailoring, it's quite literal.

Cut out.

Yeah. Through the grapevine. The whole shebang. Push the envelope.

Whole shebang.

Okay.

That's a good one. I love that term.

The earliest uses of shebang were during the civil war era, referring to the hut, shed, or cluster of bushes where you're staying. Some officers wrote home about running the shebang, meaning the encampment. The origin of the word is obscure, but because it also applied to a tavern or drinking place, it may go back to the irish word shabeen, for a ramshackle drinking establishment.

I'll take the whole shebang as a weird offshoot of that. Like what it means versus what it. I don't even know why someone think they want the whole encampment.

You take over encampments in war.

The whole shebang.

You take the whole.

We got the whole shebang.

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah.

All right.

We got them all.

It's like a little territory.

Okay. Push the envelope. Can't hold a candle.

Push the envelope.

Push the envelope. Pushing the envelope belongs to the modern era of the airplane. The flight envelope is a term from aeronautics, meaning the boundary or limit of performance of a flight object. The envelope can be described in terms of mathematical curves based on things like speed, thrust, and atmosphere. You push it as far as you can in order to discover what the limits are. Tom Wolf's the right stuff. Brought the expression into wider use. That's cool. Can't hold a candle. The acid test. I don't know what that is. Go haywire called on the carpet.

Let's do haywire. Let's end on haywire.

Okay. What kind of wire is haywire? Just what it says. A wire for baling hay. In addition to tying up bundles, Haywire was used to fix and hold things together in a makeshift way. So a dumpy, patched up place came to be referred to as a haywire outfit. It then became a term for any kind of malfunctioning thing, the kind that the wire itself got easily tangled when unspooled, contributed to the messed up sense of the word.

Everything went haywire.

Those were interesting.

I like. Yeah. Yeah. That was similar to acorns.

Yeah. I love acorns.

We're doing a lot of new segments on the show, acorns.

And now colloquial phrase origins.

Yeah.

Jim Morrison did turn his back to the audience a lot because he was shy.

Yeah. Shy guy. That's a fourth category we hadn't thought of. Sexy man, shy guys, best boy, shy guy. Although we already used guy. Cool guy.

Right. So we can't.

Sorry. Shy guys.

A lot of crossover between shy guys and best boys.

That's possible. Of the Venn diagram of overlapping. Of those four categories, they probably have the most overlap, although cool guy and sexy guy also probably have quite a bit of overlap.

Definitely, yeah. The least amount of overlap. Unfortunately, best boy and sexy guy, although.

Kimmel is very sexy.

I know. Well, remember, he's all big old anomaly. Well, this is why we definitely can't have shy guy, because he's not shy guy and we need him to check all the boxes.

That's true. We can only introduce new categories that he fits.

All right, well, that's it for Rob Reiner.

Okay.

Well, I loved Rob Reiner.

Me, too.

What a treat.

So fun.

Love you. Love.