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All right. All right, now, let me let me let me face myself in front of you. All right, let's do the show.

Lock the gate. All right, let's do this, how are you? What the fuck is what the fuck buddies? What the fuck is what's happening? Marc Maron, this is my podcast. Welcome to it. I don't know how many people are new anymore. Are there new people? Welcome. If you're new, just sit over there and you'll get the hang of it. All right. I'm going to talk to some of these other people. They've been here for a while, and then I'll talk to maybe someone, a celebrity of some sort, maybe today it might even be Matthew McConaughey.

I'll be talking to Matthew McConaughey in a few minutes. But now just hang out if you're new here and let me talk to some of the people that that have been here for a while. All right. I'm not trying to exclude you. I just want you to get the hang of what's going on. So what's going on with that thing?

Do you get it fixed? What's going on with your kid's arm? What's going on with your kid's foot? What's going on with your kid's rash? What's going on with your kid's hair? Who did that? Was that on purpose? How are you holding up, though? Seriously? Did you get that thing done? How's as how's working from home? Did you stop masturbating during meetings? Because I think you should I think that you need the vigilance necessary to get away with that.

It seems challenging to some people. So and also we have to make the adjustment. It's just time to make that adjustment. All right.

The one thing that this pandemic has showed us is that a lot of us, if you're if you're fortunate now, look, I've been working from home a long time, at least this part of my life that you're hearing I've been doing from my house for a long time and back in the day, pre plague, I would always I would require people to come over.

I would require the engagement to be live and in person. But you can't require that much. And every once in a while now, I can make a pretty safe situation out here. I've got a plexiglass divider, I've got hand sanitizer, I've got masks. But I've done a few people, mostly comics and Wayne Coyne, live. But it's a lot to ask somebody and I understand that it's slightly dangerous. But I guess my point is what some of us have grown to realize is that you really can if your job allows you to work from home and work from home in a fairly efficient way.

And I think people have adjusted to people working from home to such a degree that our major talk shows on television are now just kind of guys sitting on their couch.

Now, the vulnerability of that is a bit much for me. We can definitely see it's all the sort of machinations of show business have now been laid bare and you can really see who's got the juice and who doesn't, who requires more artifice than the next guy. But I guess we're seeing that everybody's human now. I don't want to get away from the point here.

The point is making the adjustment to knowing that your workplace is now your home means pants.

It means no dicks. It means, you know, make sure at the very least that, you know, if you're trying to protect your privacy, you've engaged that properly.

You know, I think that we've seen the fall of of a fairly public person because the adjustment hadn't been fully made yet, that you are working from home, even if it's the same chair that you jerk off in when your family's away or during that special work time, that's not really work time that when you're working, you're working.

And the repercussions of mixing work and whatever else you do in that chair can be disastrous. That's a public service announcement.

Now, before I forget, I fairly frequently right now I'm going on Instagram live in the mornings and I have coffee.

I do about an hour of riffing and thinking and answering questions, thinking out loud. I do a lot of what I used to do on a stand up stage. I engage in the moment and I kind of riff it doesn't cost anything, but I'm doing a new hour every few days, that's for sure. But I'm on Instagram live a lot and I seem to have gotten this hook going where I say I kind of move my face into the camera.

I say use whatever options you have at your disposal to maintain your sanity without hurting yourself or other people. And then I say too close to my too close. You can come and watch and enjoy. You can also usually post them so you can enjoy them later in the day. But the bottom line is we're going to have a T-shirt, there's a T-shirt. We've go we've got the Marrin to close T-shirt. It was inspired by a photograph by a guy named Steve Rose, who grabbed a bunch of shots from the live stream and put them together in a grid.

And then a fan named Kat Rhodes put them on a shirt. And it was like, wow, that's a good design. So it's tweak it a little bit and we tweaked it a little bit. And you can get them now with pod swag, dotcom slash, WTF, or click on the merch tab at WTF podcast for the too close t shirt. It's a good one.

Yo it's official WTF merchandise, but it's, it's kind of a spin off because it's a big live tag to close. Can't really do that with audio, but if you want to see what I'm doing over there. Come on, come on over. Come on over. Well are you going to. What are you doing. I bring it over. Come on over to Instagram. My God. What do you give them over here?

What are you doing? You know, Mike Binder, the comedian who I used to watch when I was a kid, was on this show, and I don't know if you remember when he was on this show, but he's he's part of the Comedy Store history. He was always sort of a presence in all the stories about the old Comedy Store in the 70s. So I wanted to have him on. But when I had him on, he didn't want to talk about the Comedy Store, and he had closed the door to that part of his past.

And I kept pushing him and pushing him into it. And now he's like following Born Again Comedy Store guy fully embracing the past and made a doc about it with the support of Peter Shaw producing. And he's in it. But it's a fully sanctioned comedy store doc. It's on Showtime. They've showed three episodes. I think there might be six.

But this last episode, Episode three, it was a lot about Kinnison. I had some experience with Kadison, some dark, weird drug experiences with Kinnison. But but and I tell the story that you all know. But I'll tell you, there's a beautiful moment in there where Tennyson's old best friend.

The after he died, they definitely not we're not best friends. Carl Lebow has been on this show and talked about the fact that posthumously Carl learned that his wife gave birth to Sam's baby, his best friend's baby.

And it's it's some it's a bit what's the what's the word I'm looking for. Sorted maybe.

But Carl tell Carl has found peace with it and Carl is also ill, sadly.

There's a go fund me for Carl if you want to help out, Carl has terminal cancer. And he needs some equipment and he's dealing with other stuff, back issues, but you got to go fund me dotcom slash F Slash Carl CRL Dash Lubov L.A. Bovey. Now, it was it's weird, I'll explain.

I've had some emotions about this because that Comedy Store period for me, which didn't last long, which would blew my mind out on drugs and I would say was a fairly traumatic time for me in that, you know, I did lose myself in cocaine and lack of sleep and cocaine psychosis, and I had to leave in a very fucking compromised state.

I ran away from Hollywood in the late 80s, hearing voices in my head being chased by things I only understood, though Kuhnen seems to understand them now. Fortunately, I was able to get rid of the hallucinations and the massive universal conspiracy that was had my number and now it seems to have manifested itself as a political tool for fascists. But I found out it wasn't true because it wore off, took a year and a half.

But anyway, so there was a it was a traumatic time out of tremendous amount of resentment against Sam Kinison and against Karl. But over time, I sort of started to let some of that go and process it and whatever. And Sam died. Of course, you know, I think me and Karl make up on the podcast I did with him.

But the bottom line is, if you watch this third episode of the Comedy Store Doc and you watch Karl, there's bits and pieces of his stand up. And then he tells the story of Sam dying in his arms. And it's truly profound and moving. But he was such a fucking unique comedian and such a great talent and such a such a present fucking dude in terms of how he acted things out and personified things and the space he created on stage as truly unique.

And it was weird because, you know, out of nowhere.

I get this email from Dan Pasternack, who's a guy who's been involved with comedy for many years, as in development, but also was a comic early on and spent some time at the Comedy Store. And I get this email from from Pasternack about the Go Fund Me and about the tragic situation that carleson in terms of his health.

And on the link, there's a comedy bit and I and I watched it. And it's about it's a bit about being a designated driver and just watching Carl do the work.

It was moving to me. I left and I thought about, like what that guy what I went through with these fucking guys back in the day, how they hurt me, but then how we made up. But I just realized how how exciting it was to be around funny people and how funny he fucking was and how much laughter I got out of that guy.

He was so fucking funny, he still is and he's sick and, you know, I pitched in. But it was out of gratitude.

And it was out of gratitude, you, after all that, after all the darkness and all the weirdness and all the resentment, all the judgment and all the trauma, what what really transcended even watching this special about that time in my life was how fucking fun it was.

And how much laughter I got out of these fucking people, I mean, the one thing about being a comic and coming up in it and spending your whole fucking life in it is you're around the funniest fucking people that ever lived.

If you walk into and it's different for everybody, but everyone's got their crew. And I've been through a few crews and I've had the honor of spending a lot of time with some of the funniest people that ever lived throughout different points in my career. Some people you don't even know, some people you do. At the Comedy Store before the Comedy Store, Boston, San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, different lives. I've lived a lot of lives and I've spent a lot of time with a lot of fucking hilarious people.

And what a fucking gift.

What a fucking gift to remember just how much you fucking laughed. I mean, I'm a comic. I'm an angry idiot. You know, I've been through my own shit, but one of the great fucking perks of working in this fucking racket. As being around the funniest fucking people that ever lived and laughing your fucking ass off, I'm grateful for that and I hope Carl is OK in terms of comfort in this time. But I hope that people can help out and make it as comfortable as possible for him because he was a funny fucking guy and he probably.

Probably gave me a couple more years. So Matthew McConnachie, he is here and this was interesting because I didn't know what it would be like to talk to him, he's awfully excited and he seems excited all the time, almost to the point of like, is that even real? But he wrote this book called Greenlights, which is available wherever you get books. And I get books by my guess, I don't I don't usually have the time to read them or feel the need to.

But some reason I started reading this and I fucking read the whole book. I think I said to him at the beginning and like, I think if anyone else had written this, I don't know if I would have finished it, but because I could picture you saying it, it all made sense to me.

It's very excited. It's very positive, proactive, a little bullshitter, a little self mythologising, a little entertaining, a little moving.

It's all in there. But, you know, there is a part of me when I'm talking to Matthew McConaghy, where I'm like, is this guy for real? All right, all right, all right, come on, what's going on in there? But this is me talking to Matthew McConaughey.

Hey, Mark, Mark, Mark, what's up, buddy? A whole lot. Oh, yeah, yeah. Even if I didn't want it to be, you're just you're locked down with three kids and a wife and everything's going great.

And an 80 year old mother. Your mother's, they're too damn right.

We got the whole crew, man. We're bunkered in and trying to protect a few susceptible lungs and outrun this old covid, which I got my Piggly Wiggly shirt on to honor Texas and New Mexico.

And maybe that's up in East Texas. We got those Piggly Wiggly sman. You moved down to Central and Austin, these jagged achieves. But yeah, Piggly Wiggly going Bible Belt, barbecue barbecues and Baptist churches, parts of Texas.

Yeah, I got I grew up in Albuquerque, so there was a Piggly Wiggly or two there. Albuquerque managed. We shot gold there. Yeah. A fan of Albuquerque. It's great. I've never seen so many cases. I got to new to me.

I mean, you know, back when I like you grew up in Texas and where I mean, I'm older than you I think. But there was no CVS's when I was there, maybe a Walgreens or two.

Well, the Walgreens and CVS is and I and I was guessing my inside joke in my head was it was about Breaking Bad being around there.

But Albequerque reminds me of it was a sister of the sister city of what Austin, Texas was twenty five years ago. Right. And also Tucson, Arizona. Yeah. Albuquerque, Houston, Austin. Like, there's less curbs down the road, just kind of pull off the side. It's just everything's a little bit more of a merge around Albuquerque, right?

Yeah. And they were big. Those are college towns. Like I work at a place across from the college. I loved it. I was just out in Taos a few weeks ago trying to run away from something it kind of worked for a week.

Let me ask you this. Talk about running away from something and run into something.

Do you know the monster across the desert there in you know, but I read about it in your book. If you get there to those are some some radical dudes, man. Those are some righteous radical dude. I met that guy, Brother Christian there. There's thirteen different people. There's monks from 13 different countries there and there, like the Oakland Raiders of Monks. They didn't fit in at the very formal Benedictine monasteries. And so they were sort of outcasts.

And they all go there because it's in the desert and you're just surrounded by the river and where George O'Keeffe was doing her paintings and other natures there. It's it's a beautiful spot.

I mean, you got it like. But what is there what's what's their deal? I mean, you know, I'm a Jew and as a wandering Jew, do I just go in and go, OK, help me out.

You got this ring. That bell, ma'am. You ring that bell, they find you. I promise you, wandering Jews are welcome, sir.

But this guy is the guy who gave me a room the second time I went showed up, there were no rooms. And this guy gave me his gave me his room. He gave me his card and he slept on the floor. I mean, they welcome welcome, everyone.

Well, we can get to that because I like how you got there is sort of interesting. I ended up reading the whole book. I don't I don't know how. I don't usually do that. But I ask you that.

What if I read it? Well, yeah. If you really read it. I mean, it's a lot. It's a big ask. No, I did read it throws a book on me and says, hey man, we read my book. I'm not going damn it. Better be good man, because I got a lot of stuff to do. I know.

Well I. Well, fortunately there is time now to do things, this little guy.

So, so I was able like I just sort of locked in. The weird thing is like with with the sort of philosophical bent in the yamey at the beginning, you say this is a self-help book, but you do have a you have sort of constructed retroactively a functioning philosophy of life and sort of a hero's journey for yourself.

And, you know, like I think if anyone else had done it, I would have been annoyed.

But for some reason, because you something and it's so it's so in your voice, I'm like, man, this guy would be annoying if it wasn't Matthew McConaughey. Well, let me ask you this.

Would it have been annoying if I didn't step in shit so much myself? No, I don't think it's annoying.

Like, I think the humility of it is fine. And I think all of it's it's pretty good.

But it's your passion, you know, that comes through it, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm not I'm not being critical because I read the whole thing. And there's a couple of things that you wrote down, like you're going to post it and shit we're not aware of. Yeah, I, I enjoyed the book, but there was a couple. I was like, come on man. Really.

Come on, come on. Give me one. Give me one. Give me one. Well here's one. Sometimes we have to leave what we know to find out what we know. You're repeating it. Yeah. No I get it. Absolutely.

But but are these all things that you've written. Yeah, and you just like but these are things you've written your whole life, what do you put them on post? It's around your house. I mean, I have little notebooks everywhere, too, but my none of my posts are notes to myself or proactive in any way. They're always grim and dark.

Well, you see, my a lot of my early stuff was grim and dark and absolutely. Looney Tunes. I was imploding on myself. Yeah. But the opening, you know, who, what, where, when, how, why. That's the greatest question. Well, wow, that's a great existential question. Is an 18 year old, you know, no one to watch that independent movie. So, you know, they started off just complete seeking without answers.

And as that went on through life, I'm still interested in the same stuff. I was interested. Yeah, me too. I just have I'm trying to make them a little more proactive. And today, OK, enough with the the mental meditation. Makana Hey, let's get proactive and see if we can get some affirmation to move forward with some of this shit that your is on your mind. Right. And so that when that one came to me, just very simple, very simply, it's kind of like that one in Peru.

And all I want is what I can see. What I can see is in front of me. Very simple. Yeah. But it came to me that that one came to me about Liebich, not in Australia the year that I was thrown out of. Yeah. How about that story?

You get together because I gonna do some shit then. No, I mean it's just like one of those horrible things where you're young and you're sort of like this sounds interesting being an exchange student. Australia, the biggest nightmare of being an exchange student is being with a family that's creepy or weird.

And it was a lot. And I again, I wasn't criticizing the book. I enjoyed the book or I wouldn't have read the whole thing because, you know, you have a you know, you kind of call yourself out on a lot of stuff. You do sort of set up at the beginning that, you know, you're you can be a bit of a bullshit artist like, you know, like the one thing a couple of things stood out to me.

It's like, yeah, I understand you stole the wood in the middle of the night to build the tree house, but you didn't tell me that tree house was 13 stories high. I stories.

Stop it. Come on. Started there. It was thirteen stories high. Matthew Ponderosa.

There are two stories.

You built a tree house in the middle of the night over a series of months. That was I mean, that's like a three month Swiss family. Robinson big though. Nobody knew.

Exactly. Nobody knew I was. And like I said, I had that shamy tied around my waist. Yeah.

And I had, you know, the you know, the baby going, oh, the nail gun.

The nail guns. Yeah. Those straps. Yeah. You want to be attractive? No, I was yeah. Now was it a hundred and fifty feet high. That might have been a tad of an impression but it was thirteen stories and I would cut around and it was a great tree to do it all the time when I was done.

And you never went back to see if it was still there. No, but you bring that up. I've had two people bring it up going back, oh, you should go back or someone should go back and see if there's relics of that in that tree out there, because I bet you it's been developed by now.

I mean Africa twice based on dreams. You can't go back to that dream town. I know the town in Texas to see if your childhood tree house is still there.

I don't even know if I can find it. The area I'd have to go back to my old family and find out where where was that doublewide Dad and I were living in that time.

I'm not even sure what was.

That's the interesting thing about like some of this stuff, like he started out the whole book opens with like a pretty, you know, aggressive scenario of domestic violence.

And you kind of move from there.

You know, you're like you just want to set the bar real quick to say, OK, we're not just we're not just completely joking around here and we better have some thick skin.

Well, you know, like how much of that how much of that was there? I mean, how old were you when you were born in Texas or.

No, yeah. Boy is going to tell you about the nineteen sixty nine.

So you've got one biological brother and one adopted brother.

Exactly. My oldest brother, 16 years older than me. That's that's Mike. That's my rooster. And Pats. Pats in the middle. Yeah.

And so you're born in Texas and you're dad now. Like I just got to ask why.

Because there's a there's a process in the book where, you know, you're kind of putting yourself together. You challenge yourself and you're kind of like there's the type of self-awareness you have around becoming the person you want to be.

Right.

Sort of has to come from a place where, you know, obviously, you know, you had the wherewithal to think about that. So you were conscious of that, which means that, you know, there must have been enough drama in the house with your parents and your and your dad. They must have been selfish enough to somehow leave you kind of longing for a sense of self.

Oh, that in the way I saw it. I mean, the way the way I saw it was, look, all those those stories that that on paper are what I call it, beauties of brutality. On paper, you go, oh, my gosh, call the cops. He must have been he must have been in therapy for the rest of his life to get over that stuff he saw. No, that's not. It's not. It's not.

No, no.

I get that love. I didn't we were at Supertight Family and you get the humanity right through those stories. Yeah. Why? When someone asked me about the love in our family, the things that turn me on and make me feel so much from the way I grew up, I always tell those stories, this discipline that people go through with their hand over their mouth.

They're the ones that turn me on, you know, that show the love. That's how my mom and dad communicate. That's not how I communicate now with my wife. I don't choose to do. That's not how I raised my kids with this discipline.

You mean you guys don't I don't stand off with tools and knives and forks and blades, ketchup about each other and and then make love on the kitchen floor in front of your kids. Well, that's the other thing. Yeah, there was no that's another thing. They were not checking. If you look at that story, beautiful part about how they how they perceived each others. You didn't neither one of them had one iota of a thought of like, oh, wait a minute, our son who's whatever four years old is over there.

Maybe we should make this all right. Instead of NC 17, there is no objectified situation. They were the subject there in if you're there to witness it and you're in the seat. Well, Satullo, not big boy. And then I chose to leave once the love picture for you chose to leave because it got weird.

No, because I was crying. It was the fight was finally over. I was so happy the fight was finally over.

And the knife had been dropped and the ketchup bottle had been dropped, and all I know is whatever they were doing before, they weren't fighting. But like on some, I get it.

But on some level, I mean, you have to look like I just read a whole book of you sort of constructing who you were and who you are and being hyper aware of of a system to be put in place so you can become the man you want to be. And you're going to tell me that four year old that was sitting there watching shit being thrown in ketchup everywhere and crying wasn't sort of like these people aren't going to help me. Exactly.

No, I thought I come home. One hundred percent said these people never even in context. One hundred percent. These is my mom and dad that love me. This is a wild rodeo. And wow, I guess this is this is this is one way to do it. I mean, I didn't contextualize it, so it wasn't something that I got to be Oldham's like, you know, I really got to go talk that out about what that meant to me.

I kind of immediately saw it as like I brought it up to Mom after that. What the hell was that about.

She just straight up like said that's how I needed that to communicate. Yeah. My fingers broken four times because I needed that to communicate. She started on fights. She admitted to this day. Right.

I'm not leaning on the therapy angle. I'm just leaning on the angle. I just think it's sort of interesting that you present all this chaos, which is their love. And however you want to find that, it's hard to explain relationships. But also alongside of that, you know, this book is really about self parenting, dude. I mean I mean, there's no I mean, it's not about pathology. It's not like I have problems.

But it's really about like these are like I look back at my life and this is how I became the man I'm going to be. And, you know, you credit your phone card, you know what I mean?

Yeah. Yeah, I heard. I hear you. I mean, self parenting, self determination. I'm going to talk about not being reliant on fate at the same time. Yeah. That is going to happen with or without a snap. It happens. It's a science, but yeah. You know, and and look. And the constant recalibration. Right. Just how many times through the story I think I've got my shit all together and I and I about face step and shit and spit the little guy in my face.

Proverbial lluvia in my face right when I think I'm in the cradle of God, you know. I mean, so part of the humor and the in the in the leaning into the are my own impermanence and our own impermanence of humanity is part of. The identity said, there's not that I'm never going to we're never going to find it. That's that's the point. So let's let's let's dance through this son of a bitch as best we can forgive, where we can persist, where we where we need to and and put ourselves through hell, but also shake hands on something, say, hey, I'm stuck with you.

You're the only person that get rid of the guy. You're the only person you can't get rid of Mark to help. But since we're here, shit. Might as well try and get along. Yeah.

With the guy inside. So like, where are you in Austin now. Yeah. You ever go out there to OPIS Barbecue and Spicewood Love OPIS.

One of my favorite three taste in my mouth ever is that sausage dipped in that happy unicorn.

Oh oh. So so, you know, Christine, that gang out there, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's my place, I always go out there, they kill it. They sent me a bunch at the beginning of the quarantine. She sent me a big package.

They came out and cooked it. We had my my to fiftieth birthday party for me out and Marfa, where we we we flew in from the West Coast and friends from Austin. And we all spent three days camping out in tents out there. And Oki's opening night, we had them. They did the barbecue. Yeah. I love it.

And a lot of people don't know about it, but I talk about it constantly. I think I've definitely spent a lot of people over there. I've never heard about it.

I just recently got turned on to it. Yeah, just about a year and a half ago from from from neighbor friend of ours.

It's nice because it's still off the beaten path and it's not crazy, you know what I mean? And it's like that level of barbecue. I mean, it's all pretty good, you know, but but they do some stuff that's the real good. Their sausages are real good.

That sauces don't dunk in that corn. I'm with you. I'm with you. And the cobbler, the cobbler, they go, ha ha ha ha. If you can ask the cobblers what gives me if I want to go take a nap, have the cobbler after eating all that.

I mean with that vanilla ice cream with that BlueBell's. Oh yeah.

Get home on man. So do you hang out with Willie.

Not that often. And I see him and and Annie and Lucas from time to time. Right. I mean last time I saw Willie, Woody and I went out there it is Tuzer is ranch there in Austin. Played cards all night.

Yeah. So it's not a regular thing. I just I'm just trying to think of people I know in Austin.

It's not I mean, not not not a regular thing, you know. I mean, if he comes in town, he's going to play a show and sometimes I'll go introduce him. Or like I said, we played card a couple of times. Yeah, I have not ever seen him in Hawaii, which I which he spends a lot of time out there.

Yeah. Now, Linklater, do you guys hang out. Yeah.

Actually just like that this morning he just read the book and wrote back what it what, what he, what he thought of it. What do you think of it. He, he loved it. I got the dog on eyes got wet after reading what he thought of it. Oh yeah. Because I really value his opinion and he's a guy who chooses his words carefully and he had so much to say that that he that he liked about it. And he actually then he ended it with saying, look, it's a great living object to be dropping into the world at this time.

And he also said this. He goes, One of my favorite things about the book is what it is NOT because it's not a gossip. Tell our industry, you know, oh, I should have had this part, You should have give me this. And it's just like it's not that at all.

Yeah. You kind of avoid that almost. Yeah.

I mean, those people know who they are. I don't need spend I don't spend time on a page trying to call them. I call it one person and I don't name them with the Ring of fire story when I shave my head. Oh but no, I was never my goal going into it. I was like, OK, here I am kind of going to write a book. I, I want to go see what all my diaries. I think there may be something worthy in there, but I know that coming out is kind of, hey, I'm going to share the book.

I'm not some people that are going, oh, I want to read it right away because he wrote, I got other people, I've got to go. I'm not reading a book. I don't need to read a book by celebrity. What's he doing writing a book? Yeah, guy's got a family success record and he's got it right. Come on, get that side.

So I said, look, I told the publishers early on, the first thing that I wrote, I said, look, this should never be end up being between hard covers, any kind of hardcover, if the words. Are not worthy to be signed by Anonymous, but at the same time, when you read it, it should be only guy he wrote this.

No, it definitely feels that way. I mean, I think that's what drives you. The experience is that, like, it's definitely you. So that comes through. That's what that's what makes you finish the book is because. All right, you're talking like you and you can picture you doing the shit.

I did it. I tell you this man, I tell you this. I've been, you know, as a performer, I perform the stories around many campfires. Or should I tell stories? Yeah. And I thought, hey, I'm going to go put them to the page. Why don't I just record my best version of the story and dictate that? Put it on the page. Well, guess what? That don't work. The writing has to be like, for my experience, 30 percent shorter than the telling.

Right. You got to transcribe it, though, like like it's good to have those transcripts and then tighten it up. Exactly.

The transcripts helped, but then I did have to do a lot of time.

Oh yeah. Yeah. That's the way I did a book. And you know, it was taken from a lot of talking and and yeah, you got to tighten it up better because it gives you a framework and then you can get in there and you can sort of reflect a little bit within it. Right. You know, you got the story and then you're like, oh, but here I could kind of go back to this, you know, which you wouldn't do in the telling, but in the writing you can kind of draw it out a little longer.

Well, in the telling you can you can you don't get this intonation that I'm leading up to a certain fact. And you see my raised eyebrow, my my voice is a little higher.

And you up for the punch line. Yeah. But in the end, in the writing you don't get all that.

So you have to choose your words more carefully. And like you said, go back, because I would also write something down and I'd have my editor read it and they miss the story. They missed the moral of the story. They didn't get that it was a joke or they didn't get that it was had the humanity. And they'd be like, oh, my God, this is so this is so mean. Oh, no, no. Yes.

I was like, oh, I took for granted. I was giving you the Cliff Notes version of what I've already known. So I go back and remember you're reading it for the first time.

Describe it. Yeah. So now like talking to Linkletter, I mean, that guy is really it must mean a lot. I mean, he's the guy that that started this whole journey for you. Really? Yeah.

And you had that faith in you at the beginning. Right. And then, like, I didn't know I didn't realize until that that how much of that story of how that happened, you know, and then being on set in the improvising because you approach that thing. You had no acting. Training, really, right?

No, I've been in the middle like commercial for about that long, a million like commercial. But that was a background background model.

But you always had a certain amount of swagger. The swagger carried you.

Yeah, I walked my shoulders are usually somewhat back.

Yeah. Yeah. You were never a wallflower. You're not some you weren't hiding from anything. I would say that probably if I knew you in high school, you know, I would be with a group of guys that would turn and go like fucking McConaghy.

Now, there's no that's the thing. Here's the thing, though. Do you think I here's who I was in high school. Yeah, I got two fights in high school. They were both for taking up for an underdog. I was getting picked on. One guy was named Ronald Hadley, who was the nerd who sat on the front row. Yeah. And he was getting picked on. Another was a short, short black kid. It was getting picked on.

I got in fights defending those. I was the only friend I was. I was in the most I was I was popular. I was in student council. I had straight A's. I had a four handicap. I had a truck. I was good looking. I was a fluent. But at the same time at the same time, I was the only one that was really I was really good friends with Betty Wright, the first Gothic. Everyone thought she was the lesbian in high school and Betty was cool.

It yeah. Betty and I got along so I didn't have I was cool with the in and out groups.

I really was. I was cool with the nerds. I was cool with the non athletes. Yeah. I was cool with I was, I was cool with most everybody.

Not a dick. I was never. No, no, no. I was not, I was not a man. I had fun with all guns.

And I also like guys like Bender, who is the guy who Rob Bender, who I met in art class, who got me, gave me the courage to even pursue going into film career. He was the artistic guy whose dad was an interior decorator. And the Jewish kid is kind of, you know, cut to his own.

Well, I would bring him out on the Friday night to the to the truck at the dead end with the CAGAR and then, yeah, with all my popular friends that drinks beer and chase girls. Yeah, I'd bring him into that group and I was always with him and they're like, well what are you doing around until they met him that. Oh he's really cool. Right, exactly. And then on Saturday night he introduced me to something I've never done.

Yeah. I want you to come over to my house and let's watch a movie.

Yeah. And do some writing, what, Saturday night we got two nights ago, Chase Chase girls. He was like, let's try this. And so that was the first time I got. Introduced any sort of introversion through him or that type of creativity, but you are open to it for some reason, which is interesting. I wonder why that was. I mean, I guess you don't have to question it. You just had a big heart for people, I guess.

I guess also, you know, I've always had that side to me, like I say about my dad. I mean, look at my look at my dad, football player, Green Bay Packers, 64 to 60 bear of a man, work your way up through a job. So and that's how we do it. Hard work that gets us. Well, at the same time, the guy took ballet. At the same time, he was a painter.

After he passed away, I found paintings of his I found sculptures of his. I'm like, when was he doing that? Finally, after I went to bed, yeah. He'd go off in the garage and that never showed us.

So we had it in us. It just wasn't something that was out in front. Or like I said, when I decided to go to film school, the idea of going to film school and my 18 year old 19 year old head was, well, that's too avant garde in hippy dippy. You can't do that. You know, it's like you've got to work your Jetsunma attitudes. I told him, want to go to film school? And he said.

Don't half ass it, he was he was so happy in our family. This is it. And I think this goes this way for society in general. And a lot of ways you set up rules.

Here's the rules, the laws. And until you break them and you go, I'm not asking permission to break them. And guess what? Consequences be damned. That's what my dad was like. Yeah. You broke out and went your own way. You look at look at society as a private sector, Steve Jobs, as somebody goes and goes their own way and Elon Musk, all the rules say you can't do that until you do it and you play so well that you're on the starting five just because you've done it.

And then everybody, the government is built. OK, Rob, good job. You went far enough to break the mold.

Do you think your dad like that, like like saw himself in you in the way that he couldn't quite, you know, manifest that part of himself? So he was, you know, like because it seems like there was a lot tied up in your own sense of masculinity and, you know, wanting to be approved by your dad in a sense of your manhood.

But him having this sort of secret creative life that he kind of kept hidden that like because it was a very interesting and emotional turn for you to to say you're going to film school and thinking that, you know, he would, you know, at least be hard on you about it. And instead, he just wants you to do the best that you can speak to his, you know, to maybe that part of him, that sort of like, you know, I got a garage full of paintings and I never had the courage to do that.

Yeah, I don't know if it's that may be two two levels too deep for the way he was thinking. I think it's more like he was he was he appreciated my independent, rebellious spirit to go against everything that was expected of me, even by him in an immediate ten seconds. He was already inside mine going, there we go, paving his own path there himself. You damn right I'm for it. And we have acid.

Yeah, it's too bad, man.

He didn't eat and he passed away during five days, five days and my first day of shooting days and views and it was a complete surprise.

You didn't complete surprise.

I got a call. I always find out about death and the damn kitchen. Yeah. I'm always in the kitchen when I get the phone call that somebody close to me.

That's good for that cinematic. You know, you're right. You're doing some stuff in the kitchen. The phone rings. Hello. And they stand there. Yeah.

Yes. Got something now is it my knees too. And I remember I got the call. It was it was the night. It was the Monday night. So he had he had made love to my mother climax and had a heart attack that morning at six thirty. Mom didn't call me until seven o'clock that night. I never asked her why she waited, but she called me that she I could tell she was getting bed because. Matthew there. Tammy Yeah.

You want to go? Yes, man. What's up? Up. Your dad died now shock hit my knees while compose myself, got a cup of coffee, a jug of water and hit the road and drove home. Yeah, that was a complete surprise. Complete surprise. Now, we had found out, you know, dad, dad smoked like two, three packs of philatelist camels a day. Oh, really? So he had gone to like Baylor Medical where they did this experiment.

They put the dye in you to see how your aorta and everything's running. Yeah. And and he come back and the next day will be on the golf course.

A cigarette. Michael Popi should be smoking at his Oyarzun doc says I got the heart of a twenty two year old Heidler.

So boom, he has a heart attack and we're like, oh family. We're going, we're going to get that doctor. We're going to get his ass. We barge down, they're going. You didn't tell our dad had a heart of a twenty two year old. How are you? Son of a bitch. You said he's like, what? No, look at these crowds. I told them, don't ever smoke again.

You're all clogged up and blocked completely bullshit. But you guys ready to go? Oh, we were ready to take that guy out. So we was like, oh, shit.

Well, of course. OK, yeah, he want to change now.

He's going to go out and he went out fucking that's something. Called The Shot, I always tell his boys, when I get out, when I move on, I get out of this place. I'm making love to your mother, you son of a bitch. He didn't come off.

He said the call. He said that when I go. Boys, I mean, Megan loved your mother and then sure enough, you know, and he went his other still parts of the story that aren't even in the book, he evidently I found out later because when the ambulance came to get in the house, obviously all the neighbors came out in the street. Right. And and the neighbors that were somewhat friends came and told me later that mom in her negligee nightie that she had woke up in.

Wouldn't let the the paramedics cover him. She kept ripping the sheet off, going on the world to see why his nickname was Big Jim, don't cover him.

That's how he went to Looney Tunes Tunes. Carney is all get out. Well, it's funny because that sort of ties into you being busted and refusing to put the blanket on because you wanted to prove maybe point.

I got it from you to prove my innocence. My birthday suit is obvious. Obvious. A picture shows that I was minding my own business. Yes. Yeah, that is it in my mind.

Runs in the family. So when you're shooting dazed and Confused, you're like, are you paralyzed with grief or are you able to just kind of move past it or use it or what? What was what was the feeling?

Definitely more grounded. So here this first thing happens. I get my first acting job. I love it. People tell me I'm good at it. I'm getting by the back. I said I'm I get paid three hundred twenty bucks a day. I'm just legal. Can I get away with this? I'm having a great time on a high of my life band that happens. Well what had just become the most important thing in my life. Getting my first job and acting that I loved, I became an obvious, distant second.

And so I came back and. We're very thoughtful, I remember walking around the football field in that final scene, dazed, confused, it was just before sunset, Rick Linklater and I walking around. I just got back from my dad's wake and we were just talking about, hey, what's it all about? Life. And I and I said, you know what? It's about you to just keep living, man. I mean, like my dad, he's now gone.

But I have an opportunity to keep alive in me what he taught me about what I loved and why I loved him. And if I keep that alive, he may physically not be here, but spiritually, he's still alive. So I have that opportunity. So I think I just got to keep living, man. And then. That night in that scene, I said it to Randall, Pink Floyd, yeah, you know, we had to sign the drug contract.

You know what you do when you are you can do a whole lot more rules when you get older. Whatever you do just got to keep living, man. And then that sort of just sat on me as I do, is I'll find a phrase or a bumper sticker and everything, and I'll test it in life and take it into life and see does it apply or where does it not apply? Can it hold up and look? It's a simple one, but just keep living.

Even Chekhov said, what else are we here to do? Should is I've never found a place where it's not applicable.

And I like that. I like that. All right. All right, all right. I was just sort of a throwaway. And then it became the defining phrase of your life.

The three affirmations of the things my character had at that time, Wooderson. He had his car. Seventy Chevelle. He had his weed slaters ride shotgun and he had Ted Nugent in the eight track. So he had his rock and roll. And he was going to get the fourth thing that he loved, which was go pick up chicks. Yeah. And calling out put in drive. I said those three words. I didn't. There was also I'd been listening to a lot of the doors at that time.

And there's Jim, there's a there's a recording of Morrison and a live concert where he barks to the crowd, four times.

All right, all right. All right, all right.

So maybe that was somewhere in the back of my mind to do it and Wooderson sort of way and then just lay down the three affirmations, what I had. And those are the first three words I ever said in film. So the reason I don't I love it when people say it or tattoo it on their face or whatever and walk down the street and say know and say half of it. And I say the other half.

Yeah. Those are the first three words I said ever on film. Twenty eight, whatever. Twenty eight years ago. Now, I didn't know at that time if that was going to be a one off hobby, where I got to work for a week in the summer of nineteen ninety two and never did it again. But it turned out to be a career. So I'm like, please.

Oh yes I'm in. Thank you. Yeah that was it. All right. That was the baptism. That was it. Come on.

But I think it's interesting that the one part of whatever you do to, to, to to sort of identify with these characters, like, you know, you talk about that was one line.

He said that, like, you know, launch that line. Right.

And that's that's something you that's your tool.

Yeah. A launch pad line like Wooderson. It was. What was it like? I'm going to get older.

That's what I love about those high school girls, man. I get older. They say the same age. And you're like, I read that.

I'm like, who's that guy? Yeah. That guy really believes that that line is not an attitude. Yeah. That's like part of his constitution. There's an encyclopedia on that guy. Right, in that belief.

It's like the wolf of Wall Street. Right. I was able to riff on that was one of the lines that was written. One is that he tells the Jordan Belfort of the Leonardo DiCaprio character, The secret to Stockbroking's is cocaine and hookers. I'm like, what? Who's that guy? Yeah, right. There's a book on that guy, if that's truly his perspective. And he really means that a launch pad lot. Right.

But that like, that's how you start because you refer to these guys as your man, you know, like in and so you're going to take that that's that's your window into them. To put that together.

To write that book, you got to write that book. Then the rap starts. I can write I can write that song now, hundreds, thousands of pages based off of that one liner. Unpack that. Deconstruct that guy. Right.

And right after you do like, you know, like dazed and confused and you have this kind of run. Like you work with like you work with the sales, right, John Sales jon sales on Lone Star, because that was an interesting movie. Yep. And like so like you're working what you work with Linklater and you work with with sales.

And they seem pretty organic about their process. I mean, those those are kind of movie makers. It's a good, good way to start.

Oh, yeah. What a great what a great way to start. I mean, they weren't huge budget studio films where the machine is kind of leading the personal side of things. They weren't huge, you know, studio movies that you had money to pay for everything. Right. So you had to get more creative and independent. You have to sort of be able to adapt quicker and both have a story.

They got a vision. Yeah, they had a vision.

And they're more they're more personal. They're not spend the spend on. Those are not for the star in the movie or the special effects. So it's just a dinner. The story's got to be written. Well, and let's see how let's see how we what story we tell on the ground through human interaction. So I saw collaboration is what I what I saw. And I went into days confused, thinking that that like directing was a dictatorship. And like, if you didn't know something, you're obviously failing as a director or and I saw and I said to Linklater, pick up an idea from a P.A. I'd see Linklater go to a spot like that night when he came to me, he just told me this about a month ago.

And he came to me that night, my very first night. I was not supposed to be in the movie. I had not been in the movie at all yet. I've just done a wardrobe and makeup test. And he came up and he goes, I look at you. Yes, you look like Waterson. And then he goes, Hey, man, you know, I figure Watterson's kind of guy has been with the typical hot chicks, you know, the cheerleaders majorette and stuff gay because you think you have an interest in the redheaded intellectual.

I'm like, oh yeah. What are some, like, soft adjectives, man? And he goes, well, you know, masterpieces ever play? You think maybe pull up and pick her up? Yeah, well, I said, yeah, but I found that two months ago that actually fifty minutes before that Rick was on the set and noticed without having anything to do with me that, oh, I've got a story hole in our story right now.

Nobody who's going to tell everyone there's a party tonight, no one knows there's a party tonight.

I didn't want to go guns as he says he sees me. He goes like, well, maybe Wooderson could be the one that says there's a fiesta in the making tonight. So he gave that to me because he needed a story, but he didn't tell me that. So two months ago.

Yeah, I know, because the stories in the book about would you pick up, would you hit on the redhead? But now he tells you like, oh, yeah, I just need I need I need you to fill a story on it.

You move my narrative along, man.

So the big break is a time to kill, right? That's the bit yeah, and that's the big what was that what was Joe Schumacher, right? Well, what was that? What was that guy what was the what was the line that got you into that guy?

The line that got me into that guy? Well, with that character. Yeah. I mean, look, I'll say this. I knew even at that point that if that final summation doesn't get absolutely nailed, the truth right, then it doesn't matter how, what, how, what the rest of my performance is like that that the turn. And that story depends on Jake Brigance delivering that final summation and hitting and getting the jury into that world and then making the flip where he goes.

Now, imagine she's quite right. Akiva Goldsman wrote that. And I knew early on, like, this summation is the thing that has to work. This is if this doesn't work, no matter how good you do, doing the rest of the movie, the movie doesn't work and your performance won't work unless you nail this and that. That summation I had that day flagged in my calendar for four months. And once we got to it, I remember going in.

I was very, very calm that day. I was prepared. I was very calm. I knew it was a big moment for me. Right. And I remember Joel Schumacher going, OK, so Matthew, we're going we're in there in the rehearsal because we're going to shoot shoot the jury first. We do the wide shot. You can warm your way up into it. And I wasn't even looking at him. I was kind of just kind of gays and I was already in my zone.

And you say that and I was not agreeing with them. And I just kind of glanced at my and. And he goes without missing a beat, he goes, and we're going to shoot the wide no, I take that back. We're shooting Jake bring this close up first. Everyone get ready. Everyone came in to cover me first one. Take them long.

Oh, so you did. That was it. You did that close up first because you don't want to you don't want to do.

I didn't. I said he could tell I was locked in. I let him know that saying I was locked in. I was locked in. And so he said, we're not going to shoot everything first and let you warm up. We're going to cover you right now first because you're ready, right?

And then that was it, man. Then all of a sudden, I remember I remember the press. It's like the the new Paul Newman is here. Yeah. This is the guy I say saves the movies.

What the fuck, dude? Right. Oh, it was wild.

It was wild. I remember going through hell, going to the supermarket and my groceries. Yeah. Looking at three magazine covers and I'm on the cover of them going like I think I'll purchase a bit of that.

Yeah. But then I remember it was and I write about in the book, The World Became a Mirror. Everything got inverted the Friday before it came out. The Friday afternoon of the day it came out. Yeah, like I said, I was there. One hundred scripts out there I would have said yes to. And there were ninety nine no's and one yes. Bam, it opens up Friday night, it has a good opening weekend that Monday, it inverted scripts I want to do.

Ninety nine yes is one no. And I was like, whoa, three days ago I would have done any of these. And now it's on me. And the last time I checked, there's only twenty four hours in a day. It's on me to be discerning through ninety nine of these scripts to decide what I want to do. Let me catch my breath here right now.

And if you've been with the same agent forever.

No that was at the time I was with.

That was right around transition I think when I went from from William Morris over to the CIA a I believe that was a transition done because like those decisions, I mean, it's interesting because in the book, when you talk about the career and you talk about like how white kids, you didn't take a lot of acting classes, but once you got to L.A., you felt like you should.

So you did and you felt like it fucked you up somehow.

Did you know that you know that transition when you learn a new craft, something if you have an instinctual understanding of something and you kind of do it pretty good and then you go, let's go get learned. Right. Let's get the intellect and let's learn something. There's a bridge you have to cross where there's an awkward period there where for the first time you're conscious of what you're doing and you're learning how to do what you were just doing naturally.

But it's also, according to this one person you decide to trust with the education. Right. So you go to this class and all of a sudden because you have an instinct for it and you're good at it, but you want to get better at it. So it's like, who's this guy? Well, these people told me, this is the guy. And then you go listen to the guy now.

And it did. It didn't work. I was too tight. I had an awkward couple of years there where I was not not getting the parts because I was thinking too much really. Later on in my career, I did get with a wonderful lady, my one of my great mentors like Penny Allen, and really delve into what acting was, what my rights were as an actor, what movie was that started right before MTV and went up to two years ago.

And she she just passed away from cancer. That's one of those important people in my life. I was with her for 19 years as a coach.

As a coach. Yeah. She wouldn't call herself a coach, but she she was what she was I don't even know what to call her. She was a people that worked with her know that she's like no other she had no connection to the business. She had no connection, like, oh, this movie, it's got a studio behind it. This could be a big deal. She didn't care if it was getting offered a dollar or ten million dollars.

You just only about the role. What was right. What was true is for me. And she just pushed me, pushed me. Now that she did, as Don Phillips says, lower my handicap as an actor that first Farai did not.

Well, it's interesting because like your instinct around the idea of the line, would you call it the launchpad line, you know, in building out from that, you know that I mean, that's teachable.

You know, I got, you know, right. That's like any actor. I think most great actors are naturally half 80 percent of it is just a gift, you know, and then.

Right, right. And the other twenty is some education and also just doing it over and over again. But I mean, that's as good a tool as any acting coach is going to give you, is like here's your launch pad line. So figure out what the book of the character is, you know what I mean?

Yeah. Yeah. But also I learned more from her, like, there's a lot more to go. You don't just rely on the one launchpad line that you think your character takes literally. Let's see who he is, but let's also see who he is not. Let's see what they need. What is their obstacle. They got to get over it, right. Get what they need. So it's not all just easy street. What the who am I?

There's the launch pad line helps a lot with the who am I. Yeah. In character. But also I learned a lot about how to get out of trouble and I got in trouble. If I got stuck, if I got, if I got tight, if I had tension, tensions and actors worst enemy tension on set up, I wasn't that I learned how to get out of trouble. I learned how to, when to go walk off and take a moment when to go shake it out much.

OK, ok, come back. Let's reapproach this situation right. And I learned how to arm myself so to speak, how to come to a set with like I got four versions in the truth in my holsters are loaded so you can let's call the audible press record. You can tell me whatever you want. I want to be able to just I can go, I can dance with whatever you give me. And that's when it's really fun. When when I as actors were really hit on the screws is when it's like, don't even say cut.

If you got a million hours, if you've got a million hours of film video, press record right now and and put me put a blindfold on me wherever you want to go, keep the recorder on. I'll be I'll be my guy.

That's when it's like that's when you're like always happen. But that's when it's like, oh yeah, yeah. That's what makes it worth it.

That in the money. Yeah. So when did the. The two primary, it seems like there were three primary kind of like. Necessary recalibrating spiritual journeys that you had to take because of some existential crisis, right, and that there's that's a lot of the book in a way, it kind of hangs on these things.

And they're interesting to me. I mean, outside of the fact that they were all sort of, you know, driven by wet dreams that were non-sexual, which that's nice.

Good for you, but good for you. Good for you to be the one you can expect. Yeah.

When did the first one to Africa, when did that happen? Because I mean but also like I think the living in the trailer thing, it's hard for me to sort of see in the context of the career and time. Like, you know, you took two trips to Africa, a trip to a monastery, but you also lived in a mobile home for what, years?

Months, four years. Four years.

So you brought the business to you when it needed to come to you, you know, and you were I drove my Airstream to Vancouver, but you were in demand at that time. It wasn't like you were on the outs at that time. This was a life I was in. I was in somewhat demand. Yes. That because that was a lifestyle choices.

And I'm going live to make me me. I'm going to be out on the road with my dog, living life, meeting real people.

So. What, what, what what happened when you hit the wall enough to, like, you know, really check out and go to Africa the first time? Well, so the first I had the. The nocturnal emission, the nocturnal emission handsfree, Shokri, nocturnal emission, the first one was an. I think in ninety six, and that one sent me to Peru, as I knew in the dream, there are two things I knew to be back in the day.

There was the Amazon River and African tribesmen on the left, on the left bank.

As far as two separate dreams right now, the same drink, that's the first one. That dream, 11 frames, 11 second snapshot. I'm floating down the river on the Amazon River on my back, wrapped up in Anaconda's freshwater sharks are swirling crocodiles and piranhas on my back naked. There's African tribesmen with shields and spears all on the left bank above me, all the way as far as the eye can see. Then it came right, it was not a nightmare, I go, oh, jeez, I wake up from that.

What is that? That's got to be someone. Tell me something here. What do I know about those? I know it's the Amazon. I know it's African tribesmen. So as I say in the book, I go to the Atlas for Africa looking for the Amazon wrong continent. So I didn't find the Amazon. So I'm going there. I go for a two day trip to the Amazon. That story's in there, I think. OK, I fulfilled it.

I have the dream again. I had it again in ninety nine.

I know, but like when you go down there like OK so you know it's only 21 days but it's, it's a pretty big journey and like what was it.

Because all these times you know, you have these existential crisis and you know, you seem to feel like you have to pay some penance for something. I mean, what was what was the cleansing thing? What did you have to do? What was it that you had to reconfigure to go down there? Like, what were you like, I got to fucking do this because. Why?

Well, well, look, it was a celestial suggestion to me that I took quite seriously. OK, OK. Yeah. And I did not know exactly what I was going needed to go find, but I was like, this is a wonderful excuse to get the fuck out of here and go off on your own. And you know what I'm going to say, that's probably a good idea anyway for somebody any time they can do it. But right now, since you've got that celestial suggestion through this wet dream, this one may have a higher hand.

And let's go chase down and see what we get out of it. So then I had that dream, same dream again over three or three years later. And I'm in I'm in the northern side of the living. The Morrison Hotel just finished writing a fire in Ireland. Yeah, I had the exact same dream. Eleven frames, 11 seconds wet dream. And I'm like, whoa, I hadn't had that in three years, but it's the same one I had then.

Well, maybe it's calling me out to do the second half. Whats the second half. The other thing that I know about the drink geographically African tribesman.

OK, I guess I need to go to Africa now that I got the river part done. I have to do in there.

So so I go. I got to chase down the second half. Yeah. Now I'm going mighty big continent.

What's my coordinate over there baby. Listening to music. Ali Farka joining me. That guy everybody from check him out. He's from near Funk. Where's Neil Funk. Oh it's in Mali. OK, I'm going to go find Ali. Yeah. I didn't know anything more than that. And headed off found Ali about five days into the trip and ended up taking the rest of the greatest trip of my life for the next seventeen days after that.

So these weren't these were just sort of like impulsive, cosmically informed journeys that you had the wherewithal and the financial freedom to take. And he wanted to just see what would happen.

Damn right. And felt like and like I said, always looking for an excuse to go take an adventure or solo to chase chase down a mystery. Sure.

And they all feature character. I mean, like that whole story in Africa, you know, around the rescuing that was exciting and fun. And you developed a friendship with the guy who drove you like your guide. You know, that's exciting.

OK, so then getting to the monastery that we started the conversation with, it seemed to me that you you would somehow because like what's interesting about the book is that you have these events in your life that you read together as defining events.

Right.

But but but there are definitely periods in your life and moments in your life that you either. You kind of move through by going like, you know, there's a couple of references to, you know, I got to cleanse myself of these sins and also like, you know, like like this an intensity of loathing. So, like, you know, like. Yeah. And and but, you know, you don't write about either those things. Well, I mean, but I didn't look my my threshold, I have a pretty short threshold for my own feeling of self guilt and my own feeling of self significance, my threshold is pretty quick.

I mean, I'm a pretty sensitive wire when I'm feeling. Whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on. McConaughey you're not you're not being all you right now. You're not grounded. Your mind and your heart, your spirit do not have an auto bond between them right now. You've got some blocked roads here and you need to clear this up. And oh, why you been thinking that, jeez you been kind of looking down on things.

You're thinking negatively. I didn't like what you said last night. I said that was constructive about that McConaughey who you what are you trying to be somebody else. So those triggers, let me know. Hey, my spider senses go off and go. You need to check in. You need to bend a knee boy. Yeah. You need you need to go check out to check in and whether that is going to the monastery and brain or going off into nature.

Those are all boogerman these as my as my brother Christian friend Monk calls that are walkabouts which are to say, I'm going to go to a place where I can listen to myself. I'm in a position of fame at that time in my life where there's a lot of frequencies coming at me. A lot. Twenty four hours day. I got a lot coming at me. A lot of voices, a lot of things I'm listen to a lot of things I think I am.

And I want to be all of a sudden and you can start objectifying your life and go, wait, where's the subject? And so I'm feeling like, I'm feeling like I'm living on an object in my life and going, wait a minute. But I don't feel my own feet on the ground. You go somewhere where I can hear myself think I need to go somewhere where memory can catch up with me, where I can go. OK, let's have this out.

Mekonnen Hey, let's go back over that docket here and see what we've been doing over the last year. And let's measure amount and let's figure out which ones we're going to forgive and which ones we're going to say. I'm fucking tired of that.

No more. Right. And and I want to do and I'm going to have that out with myself. Let's go to let's go have that wrestling match until we get to a point. Which is usually around day 12. That there's a purge, there's a forgiveness period where I go, OK? All right. Right. Stuck with the one person I can't get rid of so let's shake hands on this McCoaughey and see how we can do from here on out and we'll screw up again and need another one of these soon.

But for now, let's have a good time and be more present right now in that works, you know, because you go deep with it, like, you know, you don't. So you most of the time it's it seemed like that that first time it was about, you know, that line that you cross where you no longer defined by yourself, but by the business's expectations, other people's expectations, the, you know, whatever the fans expectations.

Yeah.

And but but but alongside of that, you got all this bread and you can do whatever the fuck you want. And there's no way you're not going to get into a decadence hole because you've lost your way.

That's what they want to get into. All I can say, I write about the the the value of resistance right in in my life a lot. I yeah. You just said it got all this dough can do whatever the fuck I want. Well, that's a prescription for becoming a tyrant, a tyrant or your kid or dead.

You know what I mean. Yeah.

And I didn't want those. So I'm going. Wait a minute, man. What's what's you know, how can I. So I needed to many ops. I needed to decrease options. I needed to hear myself again. I write about it with the press jeans.

Oh yeah. That's a good that's a good analogy when you can ask yourself if you want to before you do so with success becomes all of this I can for the first time I can. So shit. Yeah. I want to. Well all of a sudden you go, wait a minute, some of this stuff, it really feed me back. It's not really good for me. So let me check in. I was just saying yes because I'm just happy to be here.

Yeah. Look, they're giving me free jackets. They're going to look at these hats. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I need to find a little discernment. What was it?

Where were you what were you shooting when that happened? They put you up and where was it? In Arizona with the with the made in the. Yeah, yeah. That was always on the side. Right.

Yeah. And what was that story. That friend of yours comes up.

So I get this little great little Adobe guesthouse on the edge of this like real national forest there. I mean coyotes howling right outside my door, great little one bedroom loft, got a nice kitchen and it comes with a right, the housekeeper.

I've never had one before, man. She's making me great food breakfast and scrambled eggs and leaving me a dinner at night and having to set out and making my bed and all this stuff, leaving water next to my bed, cleaning stuff up.

And she also just press in my right, like with that little fine line right down the front line. And I have my friend over Beth Alexander, who's now moved on. And I'm like telling her this stuff. Like I like its my birthday, like I just told you.

And I went and I said, this Beth she even presses my jeans. And she was just laughing. And she goes, so that's great, Matthew. I said, Right? She goes. If you want your jeans pressed, I hate that fucking line on my jeans, i never thought of that before. The worst.

But I like that that that became this sort of point of wisdom, you know, where, you know, that was the click, you know, like.

Yeah, the click to go. Yeah. What do I have to take everything. Even though I don't have to take everything, even though for the first time in my life I can get all these things I never got before. So yeah, they did a little with you when you when you can ask yourself if you want to before you do. What we brought up with Jesus.

Yeah. We were brought up Methodists, which is heavy on the New Testament. Yeah. Heavy on the thanks. Yeah. Heavy on the gratitude. Not so much the the Baptist Old Testament. If you don't do this then you're going to hell. It was a lot of forgiveness and gratitude. Yeah.

And do you stay with that when you do these walkabouts and stuff?

Is that who you go to generally or is it I mean, it's one it's one of the places I go to because I read a lot of groups. I've read a lot of wonderful stuff that I appreciate through Jesus teachings. But I go more to the mystics have done a lot of doing a lot of Meister Eckhart. Yeah. I'd call myself more of an optimistic mystic and then I'm over. You know, I'm obviously learning Islam when I'm over in Africa and respecting how at any time they just lay a map down and pray through the day how it's a part of the daily language.

It's not like a separate thing that you go on a Wednesday night or a Sunday morning. It's a daily ritual. And so picked up some things about that, about through the day, how you can pray through the day, whether it's meditation or what have you at the monastery. They're out there in the desert. Part of their view is, look, we're in the desert and when our mind wanders, we have we bended knee and look right at our feet, the dirt, rock, whatever, and go.

That's that's of God. Yeah. That's everything around us is of God. So that's where they pray because they're surrounded by it. So I'm more of a mix and, you know, different things. And I've gone to Thailand with the Buddhist as well. So I'm trying to take in what I can.

I like in the book that like there was a point where, you know, you kind of hit the wall with with the movies that were kind of making you a lot of money. You know, I was telling my friend I was funny.

I was talking to my friend Sam Lipsyte, who's who's a writer in New York. He's a novelist. I said, I'm reading this Matthew McConaughey book, and it's sort of like this hero's journey.

And I said, like, I'm might add this part where he he just decides he's not going to do rom coms anymore.

And he says, yeah, there comes a point in the hero's journey where they have to say no to rom coms, you know, yeah, there's across the board and everyone has to do it at some point. I mean, yeah, like I wrote in the book there Saturdays.

Yeah, Saturday characters. They're fun, they're easy, they're flipflop. They're short, it's sunny. They're built to be buoyant, to bounce from cloud cloud. But you can do great values and you and you had a skill for it.

Yeah, and it's about the job, it's about. It's about the vibe and you get the right male and female leads and those coaches that I've been and that's that's it. Look, I mean, the rom com, it's not about what my vocation is. You know, how to lose a guy. I'm in an advertising agency. Who cares? It's just about the guy and the girl. They're going to get together. They're going to break up somehow.

They're going to get mad. And then the ball takes the girl at the end. And then we're going to roll credits. We're all going to go, hey, but didn't that build on that? But that's the same story over and over and over. We people just want to sometimes go and escape and not act.

So you're only working your charm muscle now.

It's working more charm muscle because they wouldn't have it. I don't think they would have been successful. Only work on charm us again. I what I was one of the things I did in the romantic comedies I tried to do is try to not you know, a lot of times the male is so emasculated in those meaning they come back at the end. I'm just like, woe be me, please take me back. I'm nothing without you. Right?

Right. And I always try to give at least some dignity to that and go, look, I screwed up.

Right, OK, yeah. And I really want you back, and if you forgive me, I think we could really do something great together, but I'm not going to walk in here and just go, whoa, if you don't take me back, I'm a nothing good. I was always like, I would have these conversations with the directors. I was like, that guy that you're talking about that comes back and goes, whatever, just take me back.

I'm nothing without you. What girl wants that guy?

Yeah, it's a load to put on a lot of walking away going, oh jeez. Yeah. You know, stand up for yourself a little bit. So I was doing those having a great time doing it. But as I said in the book, I felt like I wanted to challenge myself in a different way. I felt like, OK, this is easy. I got the script today. I can do this tomorrow morning. That was fun and easy, but I was like, I want something that I go, I can't do this tomorrow.

Yeah, but you work, right? But yeah, I mean, you turn down a lot of money. You had a wife at that point. You had a kid, you know. Right.

And you know, and that helped me. I mean, look, I called my money manager when I said I don't want to do rom coms anymore. I'm a money manager. How to save my money because you save your money? Well, I said because I'm about to take off from the work that's been coming my way. I call my agent. He says, great. I said, Really? I'm bringing in a nice 10 percent with rom coms to your company.

You sure it's just great Jim Tof image, since I don't work for them or work for you, then I go to Comilla. I've here and I've been talking about it. I shed tears over trying to figure out what it was I want to do in my career, what I wanted to do, and about making this full stop about as I said, what I wanted to do was not coming my way.

So which were meatier parts, more interesting, deeper characters, drama dramas. Right. So they weren't coming my way. So if I couldn't get what I wanted, I'd said my decision was, we'll stop doing what it is you don't want to do. Process of elimination. So I said no to the rom com and it took Hollywood quite a while to to say, OK, we get the message. And then there was just nothing that came in.

I had nothing came.

You were taking a risk and you said no more rom coms and there was nothing you weren't getting. So we're there for those nights with your wife where you're like, what the fuck am I going to do, man?

What did I do?

Oh, yeah, there was there was, man. There was some wobbly nights for sure, man. Am I going what have I done?

And then my family's going, what are you doing, man? You turn down that money. God damn, buddy, you're going to go just go nail it. Hey, you know, I'm like, no, not then.

And they understood, but they were like, cheeseboard. Sure. You take you take this to seriousness, acknowledge what I got to do. And my wife said to me very early on when we agreed to take the sabbatical, she said, all right, we're going to do this. We're doing it all the way and we're not going half assed. She repeated my dad's words to me. It's a twenty months later after nothing is when a killer Joe first and then those drums that I want to start coming my way.

And I'm like, well, killer Joe. What with Friedkin?

Yeah, the Tracy, let's play. He's a great guy, Tracy. And so is Bill Friedkin. That trip, right?

Yeah, he got me over there. What was he doing? Orchestrating some symphony in Czechoslovakia today. Talk about stories, dude.

Oh, my God. I talked to him for like two and a half hours and it all came together.

It was crazy. Absolutely.

He does what he does. One take kills everybody right off the bat. You get you get one take. He's at that shoot, you get one. Take that Det. And everyone goes, oh, shit, one take. But what happens when you only know you only have one take is you just don't hold anything back on. Take one use, go fuck it. Let's let it rip. It's actually a great exercise that you can't as an actor rely on.

Oh well I'll fix it or I'll do something different. Now you got one. Here you go. It's like down.

So you were able so that was your, your, your kind of reentry into acting.

It was Davíð, it was paper boy. It was like it was when was Tropic Thunder.

Because that's a great one man. Tropic Thunder was before. So I think yeah. The re-entry for me I think was Lincoln Lawyer a few years ago.

Ish.

Did you have fun in Tropic Thunder. Oh shit. Yeah, we shot that. And Kawhi, that was so much fun. You could tell that that was something when we were doing it.

I think it was a genius and I think it's a genius, fucking satire and so fun to watch over and over and over. It is not a dead is no dead weight in the movie.

The whole thing is a romp and a ride and originally fun when he's when he's having the crisis of identity, you know, with the wooden statue and with the little.

The kid made him an Oscar and he's putting that guy's teeth in to do that. Oh, my God. So you're a dark man.

So OK, so that so killer Joe gets you back in mud, gets you, gets you some recognition iron.

So what did I do in that to you. That twenty months I didn't rebrand unbranded meaning I was not on the beach getting shot shirtless. Yeah. I was not doing rom com. So the proverbial seat where you were like whereas McConaughey in the world it got to a point. Where nobody knew where I was, it was like this where I don't know where I think he says, I knew I became a new good idea. Oh, interesting. So I was away long enough that I became a new year.

Hey, you don't be an interesting idea where two years before that, that would not have been an interesting idea. Yeah. So these movies are coming my way. Those magic, my paper boy. I had had control of Dallas Buyers Club. But nobody want to make it with me, but I started I made a few movies that were critically successful and made some made some some bank, they were original characters. And all of a sudden somebody might be able to get Dallas Buyers Club on it.

Still, no one wanted to finance a nineteen eighties period age drama.

But how do you what do you mean? So you had you were attached to it for years. Yeah, I was tested.

How did that happen. How did you like you know, what was the fad that came to me.

I read it, loved it and said there's something here. This is an unsentimental way to tell this story. I want this. So attach myself to it. Now, that's just a that means. No mechanise attached, we can go out to look for directors. There were plenty of times other people tried to come swipe it from me and I was like to my age, do not let that one go. That, I believe will see its day with me somewhere down the line.

And thankfully, it did.

It's interesting how it came together. But what I found, like in reading the book that, you know, you got to know what was his name? Woodson. What's the character's name, Ron Woodroof Woodroofe like that, you got to know his daughter and his his mother, his sister, and they gave you the his diary.

The diary. Yeah. Yeah.

So you were really able to kind of like, I imagine, the depth of that when you're working with Penny Wright. Yeah, working with Penny and he had all that information. Now I'm seeing the guy from the inside out right now I'm seeing the guy that's not written about in the script. I'm seeing the guy before he got HIV.

Right. All right, so now I've got this whole story, and it's in his words, as a you know, I saw this sort of this this dreamer and I said this guy who, you know, really he had these doodles, you know, you could tell when he was getting high or whatever doodle in his diary. And then he'd write things about like, I'm going to go tomorrow morning, you know, 7:00 a.m. I'm going to install these speakers for the Johnsons across town.

And I've got speakers. I've got to go to Monster Cable. And he did real tiny writing and add it all up to the penny. That means I'll have like six dollars and forty two cents worth of gas to get me back and then he'd get up. On a second cup of coffee, ironing a shirt for goes to work and his pager would go off and he'd be like, Oh, I'm sorry, Ron, we don't need that. We're going with somebody else who can insure themselves.

But now, as he do his days, is that his ambition for the day was kind of gone. So now he's going to head over to Sonic and see old Nancy Blankenship and maybe go shake up a little bit and get him a double cheeseburger and can call it Golladay. And Friday night's coming early, right?

Is just like mundane details of this guy who, you know, becomes kind of like the arc and the hero of this this tale, like you were able to humanize him to a depth that's not usually available because you had you had his own words, you know.

Yeah. Well, what also allowed me not to go in and play a guy who has HIV, but who's the man before he had HIV, I played that guy who actually gets it. Yeah.

He also, you know, you saw how extravagant he would dress up for Halloween and stuff. And he loved jazz and he liked to go to the Northeast.

And it was kind of a kind of corny performer, you know, and he is family talking about things he would invent, but he wouldn't get like he didn't quite follow through. He didn't. And then all of a sudden they go get the patent he got. No, no, no. And then two years later, someone would get the patent on his idea and steal it. And it's like he never quite followed through on certain things.

And there was a certain humanity and loneliness to that of a guy who was kind of drifted that told this, told me a lot at the inside track on it.

Yeah, it was. Yeah, it was such a great character, great movie, great job. You know, and it's like one of those it's nice. Like it was one of those years where, you know, you win best actor and you say he deserved it. Get out of it.

You know what he was doing. How the fuck did that, you know? Right. Right, right. Yeah, yeah. And you were pretty lit up that night. You went with your mom. Oh, yeah. You went with your mom, right?

With my mom and Carmella like, yeah, that was yeah. That was a real connection. I remember, you know, I was getting pretty numb as the category came up and kind of the whole room kind of went like this.

And I remember just looking at the names again, no one else's name starts with an M. So if you hear it, it's you. And I remember laying my head back and I and I was like, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. And then I look around me, my mom stands up, my friend Kevin Moore stands up. So that's like that. But I'm like I started with him and they called my name.

It's interesting that, you know, something that you put that much work into and that was that personal for you and that you champion the thing all the way through. Were you a producer on it or.

No, no. But it was but your collaboration with the director was kind of tight, right? You go.

Yeah, yeah. Like we were John Marclay, who's now gone on to direct so many more things. And if he had done a film called Crazy, which when I saw that film called Crazy, and if you ever see, I'll check it out. It's wild, it's fun and really well told. And again, I write the book. I don't know how he got the money to get that soundtrack. That guy gets music and I don't know how he gets the music for the budgets.

Anyway, he was the right guy for it.

And what was it like? Because I have to also assume that you have given I mean, the fucking vulnerabilities of I've been watching a lot of old movies and quarantine and were kind of noticing, you know, what really makes a scene or performance work is a vulnerability.

You know, let's let's let's open up that word, because I've had I've had not the best relationship with that word through my life.

But what that means, OK, I'm with you and I'm I have a more evolved I like the word now and I understand it well, like an example that I was heading towards.

Well, I mean, I think that, like, it seems to me that vulnerability to you would somehow be somewhere in the the area of weakness.

It used to be right? Yeah, but but I imagine it's primarily because you didn't recognize it and your definition was tight.

I think that's correct.

Yeah, like for me, like, you know, the ability for you to engage in the character that, you know, was being humiliated by this disease and also find strength with it. And also, you know, you'll have to reckon with the judgment reserved for people that he wasn't, you know, that he could not get away from and then develop a relationship with Jared Leto character that you surrendered to.

I mean, that's as vulnerable as you can get on screen. Really?

Yeah, I mean, maybe I mean, it's just I mean, it's just super human.

I mean, you know, what was always in my pocket was in my pocket as as as Ron wound up as an actor was. It's got to do whatever it takes to stay alive. That's the I mean, that's like the ultimate talk about the ultimate obstacle to overcome. I mean, that's like the baseline, what you're trying to stay alive. And you know what? The other thing I'm going to by I'm not going I said earlier the sentimentality of that film dealing with that subject matter.

Ron was a businessman. He was trying to make money. So that sort of undercut he was never the guy who wave the white flag for the cause.

No, no, I get that.

But but when when his humanity got so stripped down, yet he couldn't help but feel empathetically with the humanity of somebody else, 100 percent, 100 percent.

So that you know, that that's a vulnerability that's earned despite the character's intentions.

Right. Right. Yep. Huh. Yeah.

I mean, I think the word to me means that, you know, whether you mean to or not in the character or whether the character means to or not, where, you know, the human heart is exposed, you know, so so everybody can feel it, right?

Yes. Yeah. Yes. And that that I mean, look. I say this in a script written, well, yeah, a character that goes through real things like that, those are the you you listed a few the relationship with Leto's character, a world that's ostracizing him. I mean, those are great obstacles to overcome and engage it. If that's if those scenarios are not there, those are dynamic. That's not we talk about rom coms floating across the cloud.

That's not rom com stuff. That's like the basement. That's what that's what's great about dramas. The basement of your lowest base, levels of pain and rage and everything. It is low as an actor is you want to go. It's up to me. It's up to me in that character. I can go as far deep as I want to go. Now, to the extent the ceiling of joy, of life, the vitality that is is high is I want it to be in rom com.

You're compressed the ceiling can't be too high or too low. You sink the ship if you go too low. Right. You get a good drama. It's like it's up to the ceiling, there's no roof and there's no basement. You go tell me how you feel about what you show me your rage. Right? Tell me your ecstasy. Right.

And you don't have to analyze it. You know what that means. You know, it's just, you know, you can feel the character. Well, it's interesting that the character that that your relationship with the idea of vulnerability because like, that's another thing that was noticing the book that, you know, you definitely, you know, keep some shit to yourself and, you know, and some of it is emotional shit.

And, you know, you kind of give short shrift to certain things where you like even, you know, whatever that journey was to that 20 months, you must have been, you know, just a pain in the ass and a wreck in a panic in some ways.

Right. But you at times. At times, I sure was. And then like, there's this other thing where we had to go back to Texas for personal reasons. So there's obviously struggles and real shit that, you know, you're like, keep this to me, because I got to you know, I got to own that as my own car.

And here's why I spent let's bring up the family deal that if I bring up what it was that I came back for the family deal, a family crisis, if I go into details of that. I'm not interested in opening up my profile into my and so now people want to ask that and that's that's that's not the profile on me in my mind. Something happened in my family. That's a different book. That's and that's why I say that's why bedrooms have doors on.

I get it. I you I'm not saying that I'm not you. I'm saying there certain things are it's like. No, you know what, I'll leave that up to you.

But for me, you know you now and talk to me now, I'm like, I wonder how he handled this shit, you know, well, whatever the fuck it was, because, like, you know, I know how you handle, you know, like you're your decision to to go to Africa because you came in your bed, you know, like your life.

Life had ended up some shit. And you're like, yes. How do you deal with that shit? Oh, yes. There was there were nightmares amongst the wet dreams. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. But I get that's a different book but I think that's also has like I don't know that you'll ever write that book. It has something to do with your aversion to the idea of vulnerability.

Look, we've got twenty four hours a day. You and I sit here and talk. We got an hour, hour and a half. I'm one for.

You know, I still have a little bit of that. Survival mechanism. I don't like to hear. I don't want to hear all of your big ideas. I like to hear how you overcome and go through them. But I'm going to go look that part happen. It's not constructive to the story of how I got out of it. I don't like. I'm like I'm a little bit of that. I got something good to say. Don't say at all.

There's plenty of times I don't say I'm not. I'm not. I'm doing stuff and saying stuff that's not right. According to the most constructive. I step in plenty of shit myself, but I'm not going to I don't want to open that up to someone's armchair psychoanalysis of the world. So you went through that with your family and they were going through that another situation. So did you I mean, I talk, you know, I mean, I talk about non-observant, complex at times and feeling insignificant and and all those things.

But that's my family business. I I'm in the same way.

I'm not talking. It's not a tell all book. No, I don't go in and tell you things about people I worked with that are negative to the end or make you go, oh, that's juicy. And I'm like, that's nobody else's business. It's just decency. I mean, maybe decent. Sure.

And it's also protecting the people you love on another level. Sure. Right. Yeah, but so I like the list at the end. It's nice you know that like.

And I love that. I believe you. I believe you. How about that. I believe that.

But I believe that that's a list that you wrote when you were nineteen ninety two or three, ten, ten goals in life. Become a father, find and keep the woman for me, keep my relationship with God, chase my best self, be be an egotistical, utilitarian, utilitarian. Yeah, yeah.

Well, that's that's sort of that's the system in the book I take it is take more risks, stay close to mom and family, win an Oscar for best actor.

Look back and enjoy the view. Just keep living so that that's nice when you because you like. I know that about myself like and you didn't know this list was around until you started going through the shit to write the book.

I forgot where that list the day after I wrote it, right? Like, there's things in my mind where I'm like, I want to manifest that, but I don't want to talk about it too much.

And I just know write it down on a note and then years later, you're like, OK, I don't know how I did it, but I did it right.

Right where subconsciously, if what we write down is true, it's in our lineage and it's the things that I notice that I'll write down. I go, I'm chasing if I'm playing grab ass with my thoughts or grab ass with my memory trying to chase it down, I'm like, oh, you didn't quite mean it. I'd say this. I write thing, I write everything down so I can forget it, you know what I mean? I write it down because I go, Oh, I don't want to forget that.

So I write it down so I can write it.

I definitely relate to that. So how's your level of loathing these days?

I'm happy to say it's pretty low and it's good. I'm more loathing for. What do we can we get through this year? Can we get through we can get through the Cultural Revolution, can we get through the election?

Yeah. Without having a civil war, I don't know, can we constructively turn a page here? When is that balance? When when can that proverbial hand on the clock that was maybe pressed to the four swink and it's six is justice. And right now it's swung over to eight and bypassed straight up, winking at level out we can go OK, right.

Yeah. Where we go. Right. Where are we. Right. It's about us. Where we go. And for me, I'd like to meet you in the middle and I'd like to meet you in the table like this. And let's talk about let's have some conversations that kind of nations. Let's see how this covid time with this invisible enemy we had. How can we what what what are the positives? What are the assets this time? Well, I've been forced to do more inventory.

I've been spending more time with my kids. I've been doing what I could with the kids. My kids are taken up on their creative hobbies more than they were before. I even pet my dogs longer. Yeah, there are some assets to it. So where do we get it? What's the way we're going to work? We doing this? Is this the way you and I talk for the rest of our life.

Maybe. Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. You. Yeah maybe.

And it's got its assets too because there's a lot of people that I'm doing, I talk with on Zoome. Yeah. But I'm like I prefer this.

Yeah. The easier you know. So I my love is more about and look I'm in no place. I can't, I don't, I'm not opposed to that. I've got my own stress going on to keep our ship afloat here, keep our head above water as a family, which is my first priority, but I'm or I'm in a position my pantry school. Yeah. I don't have to work today to pay my rent tomorrow. So I'm going to put in this position that a lot of people are not.

My loathing is more for those people that cannot. And what are we going to do, as you mentioned, on behalf of turn the page out of this? Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I you know, it's really hard to say, man. You know, it's a lot to carry every day because depending on, you know, I'd rather have your brain than mine in times like this in the sense that, like, it's hard not to get, you know, weighted down with the darkness of it.

It is, but. I think we've got to believe me. Yeah, I mean, what's our alternative? We've got to believe that there's a light out of this where we're going to evolve.

We have to if not if we don't believe that it is the end of the world, then we might as well believe we can get out of it anyway or just have a fighting chance to enter the country.

Ireland's nice. You spent time in Ireland. Could you live in Ireland? Singapore is nice.

I mean, right now, I think more than ever it's a time where it's like, where do you want to live on the planet Earth? And I'm even thinking about for the first time my life. Was it all too to earth only? Oh, right here.

You know what I mean? Where, you know, Branson getting the rocket done. I'm ready.

But where on the planet do you would you really like to live? Yeah. For you and your family. Your kids and you're with this is an example. These discussions like this, this remote living. Did you not like where the hell you want and be and know that that's that's the weird thing.

It's like, yeah, it is a privileged place to be to make those kind of decisions, to be able to make those kind of decisions.

But but to realize but, you know, we I don't know.

You know, we got to I guess it's like hope for the best is one thing, but obviously something has shifted kind of permanently. And there is an adaptation to make, you know, whether or not we fall on, you know, the you know, on the side of sustaining life on the planet or we don't. It's tough. It's a tough call right now, but we'll see.

Yes, OK. Yes, we will see and we will see. And I hope that that we we don't it's so easy right now. You know, you've got the perfect Bermuda Triangle, you've got unemployment. You've got this invisible murderer called covid, who is also in our psyche because, you know, Americans, we want to meet the enemy at the gate. This is one of those ones that says, yeah, that's why I want him. I want you to meet me.

Come on out. Sure.

So so you can take it back in your home so or you can choose to deny it. Yeah, we've got we deny it even exists.

Yeah. We've got the Bermuda Triangle of of covid, you know, of environmental problems and a tremendous kind of chaotic lack of leadership that's making exacerbate. It's it's crazy town. And so and so what do we do?

And this is why part of the reason we're getting even more extreme right now, people don't have an identity. They've lost purpose. They're wonder what the fuck's going on in the world. I don't know what the next step is. I'm unemployed. Well, I want to cling on to something to feel like my feet are on the ground. How about so what are they clinging on to these tribes that are well, but hate the hate?

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what I want. I don't know what I don't want. That's whatever you're selling. Yeah, you know what I mean. I got somebody said the other day, I said they said where you sit because I'm aggressive with said I'll meet you in the middle man. I'm not getting nothing in the middle but yellow ain't nothing in the middle of a highway but yellow lines and dead armadillos.

And I said, well, let me tell you something. But I said, I'm walking down the middle here and the armadillos are running free because the left and the right are so far to the left and right. Their tires ain't even on the fucking pavement.

They're in the dirt. Yeah, I got free right here. The shoulder. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Open road. Well we'll see what happens man. But you know, I enjoyed the book. I'm glad we talked, you know, I enjoy them too.

Enjoyed it. I was looking forward to talking to you. I'm glad we did. And I enjoyed the I enjoy your work. I didn't talk about true detective. That was great. And I think you. I miss that. Yeah. It's always good to see you, buddy. Good to see you. Carry on if you ever get past Abakua to go over there. Oh, brother Christian's the abida. Well, maybe I'll see it. All right.

OPIS sometime. Dayal OK man. Sausage and happy meal corn. I'm in the next body later.

There you go. There's a moment in there, and I'm not going to tell you which one it was where I think you you get a window into what's behind. All right. All right, all right. You see a little wet behind there. His book is called Greenlights. You can get it wherever you get books. And don't forget to catch HBO. Max's new comedy special, Chelsea Handler, Evolution, now streaming Chelsea shares hilarious experiences about her family friendships and her first foray into therapy.

This is Chelsea on Chelsea as she reflects on her personal journey toward self-awareness. Assisted by her reliable companion, cannabis, never one to hold back, Chelsea bravely takes the stage to face herself in front of everyone. Chelsea Handler Evolution now streaming only on HBO Max. OK, now I will play some distorted, loud guitar for you.

Yeah.