2024-01-22 01:54:11
Hi, I’m Dax Shepard, and I love talking to people. I am endlessly fascinated by the messiness of being human, and I find people who are vulnerable and honest about their struggles and shortcomings to be incredibly sexy. I invite you to join me as I explore other people’s stories. We will celebrate, above all, the challenges and setbacks that ultimately lead to growth and betterment. What qualifies me for such an endeavor? More than a decade of sobriety, a degree in Anthropology and four years of improv training. I will attempt to discover human “truths” without any laboratory work, clinical trials or data collection. I will be, in the great tradition of 16th-century scientists, an Armchair Expert.
Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert! I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Dave Padman.
Hello.
We have an incredible guest today.
Do you think my name would be Dave if I was a boy?
Ooh. No, it'd be Neil if you were a boy. That's already been proven by the fact that your kids-
That's too easy.
Okay, so back up to Neil.
I think your name would be Samantha.
Ew.
Well, I love that!
Well, no, I know it's the best name in the world.
People would call you Sam!
If I was a gal, that's not what's being asked, but if I was a gal, what name would I want?
Lincoln, obviously. I gave it to my daughter.
You're just going through the people we already know.
No, obviously. Oh, pardon.
Obviously, my favorite name for a girl is Lincoln. That's why I gave it-
That's why you did it.
Yeah.
But it can't be your favorite. It's who you are.
Bernadette. And you'd call me Bernie.
Oh. No, you're not a Bernie.
All right, well.
See, you have probably the association of Sex and the City with Samantha.
Oh, I didn't even think about that.
But don't you think it's in there, deep recesses of your-
That's exactly where I went.
You did too.
That's a male thing that you guys think that.
I don't. I think of Samantha as, it's like a beautiful name, often shortened to Sam, which is like playful.
Playful, fun.
Yeah.
Cat and Sam.
Yeah.
Okay, so our guest today, you probably, well, there's many different ways you might know him.
You might know him as Lil Dicky, his rap name.
Yes.
And you might just know him as Dave from his incredible show on FX.
Yep.
But his name is Dave Bird.
Yeah.
And there is a funny little thing that happens that we'll address immediately into this episode.
But Dave is a rapper, a comedian, and an actor.
And his show is called Dave.
His past album, Professional Rapper, was hugely successful.
Well, he has some videos that have 750 million views.
Crazy.
Which is mind-boggling.
But he has a new album out that took me the entire episode to finally learn how to pronounce.
But alas, I can do it.
Peanuth.
You did it.
Which is the Dave soundtrack.
He's had numerous songs on the show Dave, and he's whittled that down to his favorites,
and is releasing them as a full album called Peanuth.
Please enjoy Dave Bird.
He's an armchair experiment.
He's an armchair experiment.
He's an armchair experiment.
Hey guys.
Where are you coming from?
Venice.
Do you got a squirt?
Squirt?
Go pee-pee?
No, but I am thirsty.
Yeah, so we've got all kinds of options for you.
We've got different kinds of water.
We've got honey beer.
We've got a diet coke.
We have coffee.
We have spearmint tea.
We have a really nice olive oil.
All right, I have all the fluids.
You came all the way from Venice and you don't have to go pee, but okay.
And that scares me.
We can always stop.
We can stop, yeah.
There's just no door on it, so generally we allow the guests to...
To the bathroom?
Yeah.
So what if I said I had to pee?
You'd all leave?
Yeah, we would leave.
Unless we were invited to stay.
Do you have the same thing I had when I was a young man?
Where it's like if I was at someone's house and there were girls with an earshot of the
bathroom, I really hope my pee sounded really thunderous when it hit the toilet.
I haven't thought about that, but I believe in that line of thinking.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, then I have to ask you the big question about peeing.
Sit down.
We need to get this all on film.
You guys don't have a blanket.
Yeah.
Yeah, there's one behind you, or you can use this quilt of our faces.
It's not that comfortable.
Why is it colder in here than it is outside?
I know, it's freezing in here.
No, you can.
It's freezing in here.
Listen, you're too young to have gotten to do Letterman, so let this be your cold experience.
Because the Ed Sullivan Theater, when he was there, was famously 59 degrees.
Why do they do that?
He likes it crisp.
It makes him sharper.
You can relate to that, right?
It's never like when it's sweltering, you're fucking popping sharp ideas.
No.
I'm already going to go down that way.
Or greasy.
Right.
When I'm cold, I'm less greasy.
Well, at the Golden Globes, everyone was freezing because it was so windy, and on the red carpet,
people were not sharper.
I'll just say that.
Oh, they weren't.
They were flying past sharpness.
They were in pain.
You can be too cold.
Yeah.
Well, then that kind of veers into maybe high-altitude sickness, kind of oxygen deprivation,
not thinking clearly as you're freezing to death.
Wind.
If there was any sort of fan on, I wouldn't be able to do this.
You wouldn't.
No.
If I felt the wind graze me.
Because it would distract you.
I don't like the feeling.
When I'm cold.
Yeah.
When I'm hot, it's a nice feeling.
It's a breeze.
Is this the right distance?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You sound great.
Okay, wait, the question.
The big question.
The big question.
Because we were talking about peeing, and my friend Liz and I have a question about
men peeing outside.
You know where she's going with this?
I do, yeah.
Because he's been asked.
Oh, okay.
Two questions.
One about men peeing outside, and I wanted to know if that was American.
You know how men just pee a lot outside?
So we were talking to some British and Australian people.
They said it's less so there.
Well, we agree there's less privacy there.
Are you talking about people in London?
If you ask people in New York City if they pee outside, no one's peeing outside.
People in the yards pee outside, I think.
Yeah, but they're at a barbecue, and then they just go in the corner and pee.
It's still in front of everyone.
It's definitely a cultural thing.
But also, when you have friends over or girls over.
Hold on now.
Can he answer that part about the peeing?
What's the question?
Do you pee outside a lot?
I know that's more of an experiment.
It was probably, do you pee outside a lot?
Do you pee outside a lot?
Yeah, I don't know what a lot means.
Like at a barbecue, would you do that?
Well, especially if it was a nighttime barbecue.
But I feel like there are plenty of times that I've noticed in the past decade
where I'm at a gathering, we're outside, and I ask the homeowner,
I say, can I go pee anywhere out here?
It feels weirdly more respectful, doesn't it, to keep pissing in the toilet?
I don't want to go inside.
Other guests will be like, why don't you just use the toilet?
I like peeing in mulch.
You do?
You like the sensation?
Because it dampens the sound when it hits?
It's not transcendently better than peeing inside.
I just don't like inefficient movement.
Yeah.
So why walk more?
I'm already out there.
It's just pee.
I wouldn't shit out there.
Well, in a pinch you would.
If you had.
But I think it's considerate because I'm neurotic about my plumbing.
Even though it's new, I'm like, I don't love the idea of having a party
and the toilet flushes every nine minutes.
I think something's going to break.
I've never even thought about plumbing.
You haven't?
Not once in my life.
It's the first time I've ever thought about plumbing.
Did you grow up with a septic tank or on city sewage?
No idea.
I never even thought about it.
Functional toilet, for sure.
Okay.
One of the key ways I would not get my allowance as a child was
I used to always forget to flush.
My parents, they said, that's how we knew you had ADD.
It's also a kid thing.
I have two daughters.
They don't have ADD, and I find shits in the toilet nonstop.
I'm like, of all things you could remember, you just did.
It's take a dump.
Is there at least toilet paper?
They're remembering to wipe?
Well, listen, yes, at this age.
But trust me, early on, first thing I'd be like, fuck, you didn't flush.
And I'm like, side note, where's the toilet paper?
You got to get back in here and wipe.
Because that's a little kid thing to do, too, to forget.
Child entitlement.
There's a lot of that in this world.
Okay, wait.
The second part of the question is if you have a girl over,
do you pee with the door open?
Within the first three dates, would you pee with the door open ever?
No.
Just because I know social etiquette would say that's kind of inappropriate.
Exactly.
I wouldn't be uncomfortable, but it's not worth it.
I don't care enough.
I would just close the door.
Okay.
I like that.
But back to your original claim that you hate inefficient movements,
that certainly is an extraneous thing to open and close a door.
That's true.
Keep me straight.
Love 15.
Do you live in Venice?
I do, but I just got a new house.
I'm moving.
Where are you moving to?
Studio City.
Okay, perfect.
So you're coming this way.
Yeah.
I've always lived on the west side of LA since I've lived here.
Santa Monica, Venice area.
How many years?
2014, so 10.
So I lived in Santa Monica.
First 10 years I lived here.
Had no idea what was happening.
That's where I landed and I stayed.
Yeah, kind of similar.
And then I found a house just a thousand feet that way.
And then I moved here and I was like, what was I doing there for 10 years?
I didn't even look around.
I like this so much more.
Why?
Just so I know.
Well, Santa Monica.
Now Venice is different.
But I lived in Santa Monica for like five of the 10 years.
Right.
And by the way, it's gotten better since you've lived there than when I was there in 95 to 05.
Sure.
Which is no young people, no good restaurants, no pop-up stuff, no vibe.
This is like East Village.
Santa Monica lacks a vibe.
It does.
But Venice is really vibey.
Maybe too vibey.
Maybe, but I've never been to like South America, but I just imagine that's what it feels like.
When I walk around Venice, it feels like I'm in a different land.
It doesn't feel like LA.
I find a lot of LA, even though it's beautiful weather, I just find a lot of it to be unsightly.
Like I don't want to live in West Hollywood.
So Venice is really charming.
Now the plots of land in Venice.
They're like 7,000 square feet.
You can't really expand.
I don't have the yard to pee in.
I'm peeing in potted plants.
Exactly.
You have to go to the actual toilet.
It's so embarrassing.
Okay, well that's going to be great Studio City because you've got-
We love Studio City.
The lodge.
Sportsman's Lodge.
I live near that lodge.
Oh, it's wonderful.
I can walk to that lodge.
I'll tell you, the thing that I am the least good at in life is geography, sense of direction,
knowing where things are.
You could plot me down in my hometown of Cheltenham, Pennsylvania.
If I didn't have a GPS, I would just be sleeping in my car.
Even if I'm like eight minute drive away from my home.
I have no idea where anything is.
I know that where I live is the West because it's close to the water.
Other than that, I don't know where Pasadena is compared to West Hollywood.
I know Silver Lake is like right, more towards the interior of America.
East and West and North and South are a little confusing here because you're on the one-on-one
going North and South and then all of a sudden you're going East and West.
I don't know anything about highways.
I Uber everywhere.
Oh, you do?
Yeah.
Do you own a car?
I do.
It's a waste of money.
I'm not a good driver.
Because of the direction thing?
Maybe.
I mean, if there is a correlation between spatial-
I actually thrived in school in every subject except geometry.
Could not succeed.
I had a tutor two times a week.
Poured my heart into geometry and the best I could do was get a C.
I was getting A's everywhere else.
Right.
Well, you were a summa cum laude.
Yeah.
Spatial recognition is not my-
If you're like moving a table into a room, I cannot help navigate how the doorway-
I'm the same.
Yeah.
I don't have any of that.
You have a ton of that.
You guys would be fucked if you lived together.
You'd have to invite a third person into the marriage to handle these things.
Luckily, there's AI and tech that handles all of this for us.
It's the right time for us.
It might be.
I guess you could maybe get through.
I've yet to see the AI model that moves a couch into a room.
I have a huge fear of just maps and the GPS system just going down one day.
Of course.
And what I would do.
There's no way I could get in a car from here without maps and get home.
Yeah.
I would have to sleep at a hotel.
You might not ever get home.
Until the maps were restored.
Okay.
Can I tell you the most embarrassing thing?
It's an embarrassment for me.
Yeah.
I was looking at the schedule.
I know you as Dave.
I know you as Lil Dicky.
And I didn't know your last name.
Bird.
So in my schedule for the last week, I've been seeing Dave Bird.
And for me, we do experts, right?
We do professors.
Yeah.
Yes.
You thought it was a physicist.
I did.
All last night, I'm like, I got to get on that pretty early tomorrow because it's probably
some topic I don't know a ton about.
That's funny.
And then when I realized it was you, I was elated.
I sent both of them a text just cheering for joy.
I was so happy that it was you.
I'm happy that it worked out.
I mean, I love Dave so much.
Thank you.
We have the same affinity for Brad Pitt.
I've dedicated most of my life to worshiping him.
Have you met him?
Yeah.
He's better than you imagine.
Really?
Tell us.
Takes your breath away.
When he walks on set, I'm not kidding.
Like literally, he takes my breath away.
Walks around with such a sense of purpose.
He treats everyone so well, but he does it in a cool way.
Yeah.
He's not placating.
No, he's just like cool.
No pandering.
No.
Yeah, it's legit.
It's so legit.
Yeah, the circle in which I met him,
what I noticed is that he almost instinctually
spent the most amount of time learning the names
of the people that were on paper lowest status.
Yeah.
And I was like, this is a very cool move.
He was really inspiring.
I can't say enough good things about the man.
And we're going to get to how on earth that ended up coming.
Yeah.
But I like everyone else.
I just fucking love the show so much.
Thank you.
It's just so incredible.
I appreciate it.
I'm just tickled to get to hear your story.
Nor did I know it.
I'm kind of embarrassed as well.
It's good.
Isn't that better?
Well, it is for me because now it's exciting
and I'm not regurgitating shit I knew a long time ago.
But you already mentioned Pennsylvania,
a suburb of Philadelphia.
Yep, Cheltenham.
What did mom and dad do?
My mom is a therapist.
Wonderful.
Yep.
My dad is a teacher.
What variety?
Business administration.
My childhood, he had two jobs.
One, he was doing pension plan stuff,
and then he transitioned into teaching.
Does he manage your money for you?
He doesn't manage it, but he's certainly looped in.
Okay, good, good, good.
That's nice.
He's aware.
That's Monica's dad.
Yeah.
He's not the business manager, but he's all over it.
He has to know everything.
Yeah, how could he not?
Because he was the business manager
until you got a business manager.
Is that fair to say?
He was doing your taxes and stuff.
Well, I don't like to look at my finances.
Me neither.
It's overwhelming.
It's like geometry.
It's like I can't understand it,
so I just have to ignore it.
And then when you have a dad,
they're like, you can't ignore it.
Oh, yeah.
And so they take that on.
And you guys are virtually the same age, so.
Oh, wow.
I'm inclined for anything you guys agree on
for me to chalk it up as your generation,
which would be really a ridiculous way to proceed.
Are you not a millennial?
No, I'm 75.
Yeah.
I'm old.
You're 88?
He's born in 75.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, that was confusing.
Yeah, I think so.
Oh, I thought you were just making a good joke.
Yeah.
No, I hope to make some of those for you,
but that wasn't one of them.
1975, I was born.
My birthday was last week.
I'm 49 years old.
You're 13, 14 years older than me.
That's significant.
I could have had you.
Wow.
I only had a single pregnancy scared in my life,
and it was in junior high.
Oh, my God.
It was the only one I ever had.
You were fucking a 13?
I was.
I wasn't even close.
When were you?
Now let's just jump in.
That was like my second spit take of this.
Don't make that a thing.
I know, I don't want to exploit it.
I was like 1920.
In college.
But it wasn't even in college.
It was the summer after freshman year of college.
Didn't you go to Jewish camp every year?
Mm-hmm.
Why didn't you get laid there?
Oh, my God.
Laid?
What do you mean?
Are people not having sex at these camps?
They're not having sex.
Blowjobs.
Fingering, all that.
But you got to understand,
me until age 18, 19
was like a total non-starter for any girl or woman.
Okay.
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