Tom Hansen
2023-11-06 02:22:11
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 Dax Shepard. I'm joined by Lily Padman.
Hi there.
How you doing?
Pretty good.
Did you have a good Halloween?
The best.
Oh, perfect.
The best ever.
The best of all time. Good, good, good. This is a sweet episode. This is kind of like when I got to interview my mom. This is my idol, my hero, my best friend, Tom Hanson.
I talk about him a lot on here.
Comes up all the time.
He even came up with other people. Robert Downey had a lot to say about Tom Hanson.
Yes, he came up on Kimmel's. He comes up, and you guys get to meet him today.
It's pretty universal. when he comes up, too. Everyone loves him. Always makes me happy. Yes, Tom is one of the greatest entertainment lawyers to ever live, to ever do this.
He's just as good as it gets at that job. And, of course, he's my best friend. It was so fun to get to talk to him and hear, you know, new stuff.
That's fun.
It was. I didn't know. all that immigrant stuff was really fascinating.
Yeah, we got a good history.
Yeah. Well, I hope everyone enjoys, as much as I do, Tom Hanson.
He's an armchair expert.
He's an armchair expert.
He's an armchair expert. You got to scoot all the way to the corner. I know. We have the rules. I know.
The technical joy for the people in charge. I know. And the mere guests.
Tom, you came in Eric Richardson style with your iPad. Eric doesn't travel anywhere without his iPad.
I didn't know if I would want to do any research about my, you know, copious life and all of the things I've forgotten in the last six months.
Is some of it a blessing? Some of it a curse?
It's a little bit of both, you know? Why do you have all those warships on there just to keep making sure you don't accidentally torpedo the wrong aircraft?
That's right. I don't want any friendly fire to happen on my watch.
It's a cheat sheet.
Are we recording?
Yeah, we're always recording.
The mysterious part is why in the world anyone would want to interview me? Other than the fact that I'm your pal and you seem to mention me from time to time, which is my only claim to fame.
That's not your only claim to fame, for starters.
Certainly among young people.
Listen to me, Tom. I know you don't listen to the show, but do you know on Thursdays is experts, so we regularly talk to attorneys and professors and academics, so it's not people that are just losers like me in film and television. You're very par for the course, and I wouldn't even say more because you are a famous lawyer.
Except, so we. did, that was the plan.
Oh, but you are Monday.
But we have now moved you to Monday, our celebrity slot.
Oh, wow. You must have been a dearth of good... It is a strike. What exactly? Penny Youngman was not available?
No, because Dax's mom came on the show, and now Dax's dad is on the show.
That's right. Chosen Dad.
That's very charming. I think maybe the real dad was probably more amusing.
I mean, I have heard some stories.
I've only met him a couple of times. You got to meet him! I did.
He came to his house, to the meeting.
He came to my house, and he was hilarious.
You can be, you know, fully honest.
You can be rude. Well, no, I'm trying to remember exactly the context, but he was asking questions that were completely unrelated to what we were all doing. In the middle of sharing, where did you get that watch?
I know exactly what you're thinking of. And by the way, this is a little bit common in Michigan AA. People chat a little bit while you're sharing, because in Michigan AA, or at least all the meetings I went to, you come in, they read all the stuff, and then you break off into tables. And what's really cool about that is often the tables are set up like that's a step one table, step two. If you want to talk step four, you sit at a step four table.
And then each table has a leader. This is where it got confusing for my dad. I see. So the leader shares first, and then it's tons of crosstalk.
Just a little chat-a-thon there?
Yes, which, suffice to say, is not how our meeting works at all, but you're right in remembering that he was abnormally engaged conversationally with people he had never met. I think I brought my uncle, too. And he did the same thing.
It's always interesting to meet someone who's as legendary as Bob's name, right? Dave. Dave. I always screw up his name.
Well, you always call Barton Bart, which amuses me to no end. My stepdad.
Yeah, whose also name was Dave.
We'll talk about him later.
I know exactly who you are.
Oh, I can't wait. So many pins.
It's always interesting.
I don't want to forget this one. I'm sorry. But this is the funniest joke Tom has ever made. I think about it once a month. I laugh.
As you know, I assisted Barton in his passing. Yeah, yeah. Heavily assisted. And so my mom had a boyfriend for a minute that I didn't really love, and I was kind of venting to Tom about this new boyfriend that I didn't like. And he says, well, does he know what you did to the last guy?
I actually said, does he know you killed the last guy?
Yes. Oh my God. And then I think the next day you called me and you were like, was that an okay joke? I was like, oh my God, I'm still laughing about this.
It wasn't exactly appropriate, but part of what has bound us together in this bizarre friendship is that we can be somewhat inappropriate at times, but we're smart enough to do it in the correct environment.
Until today.
Well, no.
You're easing your way out of this job, right? You're softly retiring. I still have a bit to go, so the stakes are a little higher for me.
The speculation is significantly more...
It's treacherous.
Serious. You clearly have to spend a lot of money to finish this house. So, just in deference to Monica, who has to look at this shit pile here, just being able to finish it someday, so she can look out of her glorious window and not see 1,800 disabled vehicles.
The clampets.
Yeah, definitely the clampets. What would you be? the, it's not the Beverly Hillbillies or the... A little bit.
I think so, yeah.
Yeah, but it's not the neighborhood, so it'd be the last... Oh, right. The feel is we have to come up with a...
Degenerate title for you.
Hillbillies, pigs. But what's great about it is you're a hillbilly, but you can function okay. Like Jed, never really made the leap. You know what I mean? You're right.
He never became self-actualized.
No, he never was able to have an interview with Bill Gates. You know what I mean? Right. He always lived in doggies. It was always the same thing.
And he continued to drive that old pickup truck around Beverly Hills. Correct. He never upgraded the way I did.
And you know, he had so many opportunities to do. so. He did. You're a little bit more like Jethro, I think. Sort of got with the program and you got a cool car.
One foot in Kentucky, one foot in LA.
Nice haircut.
He spent the summer at Martha's Vineyard, so... I know.
Definitely losing my hillbilly status.
That is not a hillbilly... That's points off of hillbilly.
That's not a hillbilly hangup, but you are reasserting your hillbilly credentials with the Tennessee place. Aren't you going to have like a go-kart track?
Enormous pyrotechnic display on Fourth of July.
Are you going to have a pontoon boat?
Oh, God, yes. Way too much motor on back is the plan.
You're kind of... And the great thing about it is, I think they modeled it on you in the beginning of Idiocracy. You know, the parallels between the highly educated family. You could have been... Had it gone a different way, the model for that other side.
The football player. Yeah.
With the truck and the 400 children and the whole thing. Somewhere along the line, there was a strange evolutionary break. that sort of took both of us to some degree out of this kind of protozoan stream that would have ended us up living. If we were lucky in that Quonset hut that we long for. You know, it's evolutionary.
It's genetic. We're like salmon that want to return to our river. We want to return to a Quonset hut. We want to go home. In Palmdale.
That's right. And start a religion. We'll get into that. In fact, maybe we'll hopefully get some recruits. Let's start at the beginning, because you just mentioned it, which is, I think, when we first met, we wouldn't have known this about one another.
Right? I met you. You just mentioned, before we started recording, that you're two days away from 20 years.
Correct.
Congratulations.
Thank you. It's impossible. Amazing. It's impossible. It is.
Yeah. And you rolled up to this meeting and I want to say you were driving an S-Class at the time.
Of course I was.
Yes. And I thought, look at this rich asshole.
How old were you?
20 years ago. I was 28.. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.
28 years old, and he rolled up and his hair is so thick. as you're now looking at, Monica. His hair was so thick.
Gorgeous. Darker then too.
To be envied. And he is in this S-Class Mercedes, kind of like a tycoon's car. And I was like, oh, this is a rich guy. But then, slowly, as I heard you share over the years, I was like, hold on a second. This guy's also a clamp it.
Yes, a clamp it from a different part of the Southern San Fernando Valley.
You're from Reseda? Correct.
I was born in Van Nuys. I never lived in Van Nuys. I was taken home to the house that I grew up in.
And never left?
Not until my parents moved out and left me there. That was a whole different story.
But I mean, you had the house the whole childhood. Yeah. And what was Reseda like in the 50s?
Working class. Very white. Most of the dads worked in the defense plants because there were all the aircraft plants. Douglas, Lockheed were all over the place. There were car plants.
They had a Chevrolet plant. They made Chevelles in Van Nuys.
They made Chevelles in Van Nuys? They sure did. I had no idea.
Right on Van Nuys Boulevard, in kind of Sherman Way, Roscoe. And there was a rail line. And they would actually take the Chevelles out to various parts of the world.
Dropped one off in Livonia, Michigan, to my father. Senior year, 68 Chevelle.
Probably did. They were still making them. I think they made Camaros there at one time. Oh, really? It was a very working class environment.
Most people owned their little houses.
They were kind of post World War II bungalows?
100%. Ours was tract houses. That was the beginning of tract housing. We lived in a 1,500 square foot house that my father bought on the GI Bill because he was in the military. The reality there was.
the dominant events of most everybody's parents' lives were the Great Depression and World War II. Most parents were born in 1918 to 1923, so they were all eligible for military service. They all ended up scraping through the Depression. A lot of people, not as many as in the Central Valley, but a lot of people who I grew up with, parents were from the Dust Bowl. Wow.
Were from Arkansas and Oklahoma and came out because there was farming in the San Fernando Valley.
Isn't this unimaginable, Monica?
Yeah, it feels like, yeah.
It is. And to add to it, it's kind of inconceivable to me even to think about it. I don't have a grandparent who was born in the U.S.
Oh, really?
My grandfather was named Rangwald Hansen, born in Norway.
Oh, wow.
Came here with his brother and sister when he was four. It was interesting because I tried to find him on the Ellis Island website. I figured, how many Rangwald Hansens? Couldn't find him. Oh, really?
And my great-grandfather's name was John, and there were a bunch of John Hansens. And then there was my great-grandmother's name was Caroline. So, I looked that up and I found her. And she came in in like 1902, with my grandfather, who was four, and his two younger siblings by herself.
Oh, my Lord.
And I then saw the ship she'd come in. She was from the town of Arendelle.
No, no way.
From Frozen? Yeah.
Oh, my God.
They grew up in Arendelle. And so, I traced the ships. And about a month later, my great-grandfather came. And I asked my uncle, who was the last surviving member of that generation. I said, was there some story about them not being able to come together?
And he said, yeah. Selling their property, and there was a hang-up, and he had to stay. Ship only ran once a month, so he had to stay an extra month. And you think about, she was 28,, spoke not a word of English, and came into the U.S. by herself.
They ended up in Chicago. My great-grandfather was a coffin maker, so he was a master carpenter. My grandfather grew up in Chicago. He met my grandmother on a wrong number.
Which back then was like G-18 or something weird.
They were in Chicago, and they started chatting. And she was the youngest of her family. She was actually just barely born in the U.S., conceived in Sweden, and came over. And their story was their boat hit an iceberg and sank. And everybody got off, but her father came off only with his money belt and nothing else.
So they had to start completely over in Chicago. So they met in a wrong number. She was 16.. He was like 20..
But 16 back then was like 31.. Let's just be clear. She was like behind that she didn't have any kids yet.
They met, and they kind of got married secretly, and all these stories. And he died in her arms. That's my romantic story that brings tears to my eyes.
How did everyone get to California?
Well, during the war, my grandfather, he was a milkman. He started with a horse and wagon, and the horse would know where to stop. It was like that. And then he also sold railway tickets as a part-time job in the lobby of the Drake Hotel, which, if you've ever been to Chicago, it's like the Miramar downtown or the Biltmore downtown. And they had a ticket office for the railroad.
So he saved money, and he was pretty industrious. And at some point, when the boys were in the war, my uncle and my dad, dad, was in the Navy, my uncle was in the Air Force, they heard about California. So my grandfather at that point was probably about 45, and he and his brother-in-law decided they were going to go to California and buy some property, and they were going to farm it. And this California was going to be good someday. It's going to be a good investment.
So right near the end of the war, they moved lock, stock, and barrel with my uncle, who was younger, and my aunt, who was younger, bought about 80 acres. together. They built two houses. The boys came back from the war. My dad had a job in Chicago.
He was a machinist. And my mother, who was from Sydney, Australia, they met during the war, spent one winter in Chicago and said, we can either move to California, where your parents are, or I can move back to Sydney. So my sister was born in Chicago, and then they moved to California in 1946.. And the boys and my grandfather, my great-grandfather, built the house. And this house was there until 1977..
And I could pace the floor. I can tell you where everything was. I can describe every wall in it, because it was this magic place.
Oh, yeah.
And I would go help my grandfather in the chicken ranch, and he would scrape the poop and get the eggs. And my grandmother was the grandma that every single one of her grandchildren will tell you, I was her favorite. Every one of them. She was that grandma.
Isn't that the goal for everyone to think that about themselves?
She was just the greatest. I can't even begin to describe.
It's so common. My affinity is for my Papa, Bob, right, and my Grandma, Yos. They were just saviors. And they were, as I think grandparents get to do, it's kind of a second chance. Like they got to raise my brother and I in a way that maybe they were harder on my dad and my uncle.
Yeah, it's weird. As time went on and I got older and more perceptive and paid more attention, I became very close with my father's youngest brother, who passed away last year. The best one of the bunch, in my opinion. It sort of reaffirmed some of my senses that my grandma was not crazy about my dad. He was not her favorite.
And I think he knew it and kind of felt it. There was one daughter who was completely doted over and took advantage of it and created some resentment within the family. But it was such a magical place for me. I could ride my bike from where we lived. It was ten minutes away by bike.
And there were geese and ducks and sheep and boarded horses.
It makes me think of when you're reading the Cornelius Vanderbilt biography or the Titan John D. Rockefeller, and that these guys had stables in Manhattan.
Well, Vanderbilt used to love to race them.
Oh, he sure did.
He was really competitive and he was one of the fastest horses.
He and Rockefeller. And Rockefeller almost killed himself a few times racing randoms with his fucking racehorses. It's kind of funny because it's the original car. Well, of course. The rich dudes have always wanted it.
Of course.
When you read some of the Sherlock Holmes novels, when somebody comes to Baker Street, he looks out the window and he sort of judges them by how fine their carriage is. Oh, right. A fine pair of sleek rones. Clearly a man of means.
I wonder what it was like for your dad, if he felt that, growing up, to then see your grandmother so affectionate towards you. Yeah. I wonder if that was-.
Triggering.
Either good or bad. I don't know.
It's hard to tell. Trying to review your parental scenario, even when you're an old geezer, is complicated. Yes. You know, my parents had a complicated relationship. Everybody has a complicated relationship.
But my mother came from poverty in Australia. She was one of five kids. She was the oldest. She had to quit school when she was like 14, go to work. And they got divorced when I was in my 30s.
Like, oh, the light went on. That answers the question. Right. Because they were never terribly affectionate. They didn't fight a lot, only a couple of times.
But there was always like, this doesn't feel quite right. Yeah. And sort of, the light went on. And, you know, unfortunately, when your parents get divorced, one of them, at least, has to tell you a lot of stuff you'd really prefer not to know. Right.
Like, your father wouldn't pay to have the dog you loved fixed and put her down. He's supposed to pay for the, it's like, I don't really need you.
I don't need more ammo.
I don't need more ammo.
The chamber is locked.
But my mom, I think one of her big motivations was to escape this bad situation. she was in, in Australia, where she really had a heavy burden for a woman of her age. And she was very smart, very attractive. And my dad, I think, promised her the moon. You'll never have to work.
And my dad couldn't keep a job until he got a job at the post office. Never was ambitious until my mother drove him to it. So I think he lived in a constant state of someone being disappointed in him. And I think that wore on him as time went by. You know, and he drank.
And can you tell if your parent was an alcoholic? I think so. He drank every day and he got weird sometimes. And I would occasionally have to go out the back gate over to the bar, the Mountaineer, the beer bar, and drag him out of there.
You could support or shatter. I have this weird stereotype about postal employees.
Sincerely. And a lot of it comes from reading Bukowski. And he, for years, worked at the Postal Service. And his explanation of it, and I probably have just bought into it, was. it was a place that people that were very smart but not ambitious went.
Because you had to pass this test. There was a pretty lengthy test of your intellect to become a postal employee. So a lot of people found their way there that were inordinately smart to have a job that wasn't going to have any real growth to it. Do you think that's consistent at all? Because your dad had to be fucking smart as hell.
He showed no interest in any intellectual pursuits whatsoever. Really? None. Didn't read.
So do you attribute all of your curiosity to your mom?
And I don't even know most of them, because they stayed in Australia. A phone call to Australia was a huge deal in the 50s. It was really expensive. It was like 7 or 8 bucks. And that was a lot of money for people in the 50s.
So I don't really have that much contact. My dad just was not ambitious. He was a guy who just wanted to get along. And, by the way, so many people of that generation, having lived through the Great Depression and World War II, I just want to get along.
Yeah, I don't want any fucking action.
It was the 50s. There was no reason to raise your head above anybody else's. I think they were just so happy to be okay.
But I think the really relevant thing, because this is one of the many things I've kind of looked to you for guidance on, is suffice to say you had a tough relationship with your dad. for whatever reason. You guys butted heads a lot.
Yes, we did.
I guess what was your reaction to that? You were insolent.
What word would we use? I would say I was more than that.
Insufferable, would we use that word?
Yeah, I was insufferable. It was this weird thing. And it was this combination of things, which is I was the worst listener the world has ever known. as far as I can tell. I didn't want to hear anything from anybody.
Because you knew it already?
Because I decided I knew it already. And I was busy talking. And I was so, which I still am to a large degree. I don't know if it's clinical ADD, but my attention span is very short. I was a good student.
I don't know if I'm any smarter than anybody else.
You are. You're not going to be able to say it, but you're insanely smart.
But I was really, really good. This is what distinguished me from my derelict friends, who I've told you about, is I was really good at doing what school was asking you to do. Right. I was very good at that narrow curve of learning, which involved some memorization, some analysis, some logic. I was really good at it, and I finished work very quickly.
And I was bored as hell, so I disrupted everything. And that was my MO.
And you were drawn. So this is another similarity. We love other shitheads. We love other scumbags, right? All of my friends are the same as me.
They're all divorced kids. They like to get into some shit and get into an alley. You had that too, right?
You're drawn to. Yeah, but that came later. In the early days, I was not big. I was a petite individual. And I was very emotional.
And I was very poor at accepting criticism. And I would react violently to things I didn't like. And I did a fair amount of stalking of other kids when they sort of represented something that was standing in the way of what I wanted to do. that very second. From like the third grade on, I was always in trouble because I just couldn't do it.
I was just too wound up. And since they'd had all those tests, they decided being smart wasn't my problem. And so they had me tutoring other kids, and it just didn't work. And finally, this one teacher, again, thanks, Mom, for telling me all this shit, said either he goes into the next grade or he has to get another teacher. I can't do it anymore.
So they skipped me in the middle of the year.
Oh, they moved you up a grade. This is a bad idea. And you were already small.
And I was already young. My birthday was like two days ago, so I was at the end of October. So then they moved me up a grade, so I was a year younger than most of the people. And the real difference was between 11 and 13.. That was later on, because, you know, the girls are mature, and I was this pipsqueak.
So they moved me up in the middle of the year, and I got bullied for a while until I reacted. And the way I would react to bullying was ranting and raving.
Eviscerating people verbally?
Yes. They put me into this class, and I'm sure they did it on purpose. It was a man teacher, first man teacher I ever had, and he was tough. And he made me write on the blackboard thousands of times, I will not. He made me take it home, so I would write, I, I, I, I, I, I, will, will, will, will, will, will.
Yeah, yeah. Not, not, not, not, yeah. Talked a little.
Had the same strategy. The assembly line. Henry Ford.
They were harassing me on the schoolyard shortly after it, and I went into a tirade of profanity that was, like, unbelievable. Uh-huh. So, the teacher hears me, brings me back in, and he gets out a piece of paper, and what he used to do was write on a piece of paper, this is what you're going to write 10,000 times. But no, dear Mr. and Mrs.
Hanson, I was a combat marine in Okinawa, and I never heard language coming out of a, of a wounded soldier like I heard. I was a couple. Like I heard out of your son today.
Oh, my. Because I'm sure I used some of my choice or things. But, you know, then I ended up deciding it was easier to be a bully. So, I found some bullying techniques. And once I got out of that particular grade, it was okay.
The theory with everybody was, once I got into middle school, which was seventh grade, in those days, called junior high, they had periods. So, you'd have an hour of class. They figured that that would help me. Yes. And it did.
Yeah. Because I got to get up and have a different look, et cetera, et cetera. And it was a big change in me getting in trouble with the teachers, because I wasn't as wired.
And they weren't spending eight hours with you. They were spending an hour.
Yeah. And what was really different is, in those days, they put you in these limited classes with a bunch of other smart kids. Right. So, I was in the same academic classes with the same 20 kids, from the seventh grade, virtually to the twelfth grade.
These were not obviously the bullies. These were the eggheads.
No, these were mostly the eggheads and the socias, you know. Oh, yeah, yeah. I don't know if they had that expression.
Yeah, greases and socias.
Yeah, who were the cool kids and ran for public office. They wore sweaters. Wore sweaters and were polite and stuff, you know.
Yeah, yeah. Drove Thunderbirds.
No, not in my school. Nobody drove Thunderbirds in my school.
In Outsiders, they do the socias drive Thunderbirds.
There was only one guy in high school, and I was thinking about this not too long ago, his name was Ed Reed. And he was like a grade ahead of me. He was a very handsome guy, very stylish. Wore kind of continental clothes and everything, pointy shoes. And he drove two different cars to school.
What?
In high school. One was a 62 Impala convertible. Oh, baby. And the other one was a XKE. No!
He drove a Jaguar to high school? He did. Oh, my God.
And occasionally, he would ride into school with a female teacher in a little Porsche.
No! No, no, no, no.
This guy was so cool. No. He was the coolest.
I wonder where Ed Reed is. He was just very suave. Oh, fuck. He was like very Italian looking, Ed Reed. That was much later.
That was so funny. How did you... Oh, Monica, were you watching this?
No, yeah, I was, but I keep asking dad questions, but I'm just curious. Do you think he was jealous of your intellect?
He was intimidated by me to some degree, but he was mostly angry because my mom loved me and didn't love him.
God and his own mom. Yeah. Yeah, I would have hated your guts. You kind of deserve this, Ralph.
And neither one of them... Look, it's funny, because how refrains, your parental refrains come in. I supported my mom for the last 15 years of her life, and she lived in a place. When I was over there one time, this was not long before she passed away, and she said, oh, you were such a difficult child. And I said, mom, I've been hearing that shit for the last 60 years.
I don't want to ever hear it again. And she was like, wow. I don't think your parents even know the kind of impact. Yeah, what they're doing. So I was branded in my own mind as this difficult kid.
Yes.
And that's how I looked at myself still to some degree. And, by the way, I'm sure I was.
But you needed help. You're a child.
I'm sure they would have riddled the holy crap out of me.
Oh, you would have had the whole pharmacological toolkit at your disposal.
Believe me, I did.
You found it?
Well, we laugh at that, but it's fucking true.
It's part of the recipe. You needed relief. By the time you're in high school, probably, you're ready for some relief.
Well, my high school career, I told you I went into all these cool kids. And I really tried to be a cool kid. I tried to run for student office, always defeated. Tried to have a girlfriend, always rejected. And I would act out my rejection.
So the end of junior high school, I didn't get invited to one graduation party. And I was really bummed because I had tried so hard to be one of the cool kids.
Really quick, this is unimaginable to me. Because I've known you for 20 years and everyone's so attracted to you. It's really hard to make peace with that.
I was probably four inches shorter than I am now. Maybe five inches shorter than I am.
And more to prove.
Well, just a child. So I've mentioned my friend Jim Titus. before. Jim Titus was one of the celebrity junior high school kids because he was a child actor.
Oh, wow.
And he was very smart. But in the eighth grade, he was in The Twilight Zone, which was the most popular show for kids of that age. And he had to have long hair because he had a letter from his agent.
And it was bleached blonde. And so he was quite a celebrity. He was always in trouble. And he took great joy in being in a troublemaking exhibition. I had one class with him.
So I was in Carpinteria State Park camping in our trailer, in our family trailer. And he was there, too. And I kind of recognized him. And that's when we became...
Both from TV and school.
Well, really quick. This was one of my questions that I don't think I've ever even asked you. But what was it like growing up in the shadow of Hollywood? Because, A, you love movies. And it was so close.
But I have to imagine it also felt like it was in another fucking planet.
Completely other. Hollywood, it was a foreign country. I mean, it was so far away. You didn't go beyond your little town. Right.
But you were enamored with it already.
I didn't know anything about it. I was enamored with the product. I loved movies. And, interestingly enough, you watched him at the Reseda Walk-In, which is the star of Boogie Nights. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Which I've talked to PTA about it a bunch in the day. And at one point he wanted to sort of buy it and turn it into like a new Beverly. But my movie diet was that. and what 30s and 40s movies were shown on television.
I am curious at what point you decide you might have a role in show business. But certainly not then.
Very, very much further on.
You just had this weird kid who was a movie star at a campground.
He wasn't really a movie star.
Well, when you're in that grade, that's a fucking movie star.
Twilight Zone? Yes. The episode was called The Crazy World of Horace Ford. There was one year of Twilight Zone, one season, where there were hours. And this particular show was about a toy designer played by Pat Hingle.
He was a character actor. He's enamored of his old childhood neighborhood. So he keeps going back there and then he goes back there and he sees a kid that he knew. He says, hey, Joey, and tries to chase him and can't get him. So he goes back a couple of times, keeps seeing the kid.
And the final scene, he goes back and he reverts to his kid person, and that's Titus. And then the other kids knock the living shit out of him. They beat him up. He imagines he was one of the guys and in reality he was an ass bite, and they kicked his ass. And so it was very famous.
He was my key. You know, he smoked and hitchhiked and all this stuff.
And also now, is hippie culture starting to bubble up? Not yet. Not yet.
Just gangster culture at this point. So he had a whole other group of friends who were in my school. And so by the time I got to high school, I had been so rejected by all the smart kids. But I was still in class with them. And I really started hanging out with Titus and these other guys.
He's your, Aaron Weakley. 75% of your stories involve Jim Titus.
Some of them are horrifying and some of them are hilarious. And most are both.
There was a very charismatic bad kid who had a 1935 Ford panel truck with a Chevy V8 in it. And he was very charismatic, very criminal. And you know, that sort of began. I was sort of law-abiding and my parents were very law-abiding. And that was not part of the deal.
First time my parents got really bad at me, we went to a surf movie in the panel truck. We didn't get back till like 1 in the morning. My parents were so pissed. No cell phones, no nothing.
Yeah, what are they going to do?
So that was the beginning of my parents maybe concerned. And then, shortly after that, I had my first real drink with those guys, with this group of guys. I thought it was terrible. I blackout drunk, threw up on my father. And you know, that was that.
And I didn't like it. I didn't like the lack of control. Then I had to live this dual life, which was went to school every day. I got good grades. I like school.
I like learning. It was fun. And had no social contact with any of these kids in my classes. You know, as time went on in high school, my friends got deeper and deeper in the shit. Most of them got kicked out.
They would kick you out to another high school. And you'd go there for a while. And if you made it great, then they'd kick you to another high school. And after that, they'd make you go to something called continuation school, where you just sat. Because you had to go to school until you were 16 or 18..
So I got more and more isolated in school, where I would go to class, but my friends weren't there. It was the beginning of that dual life for me. I was this kind of bad kid in some ways. But I was a smart kid as far as the school was concerned. And on the few occasions that I got in trouble with my derelict friends, you know, I'd get dragged in.
And they'd basically say, you're one of our success stories, so don't let us catch you.
Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.
When does drug use start?
Shortly after I get my driver's license, in October of 1965.. And needless to say, I'm with Jim Titus. I'd been hearing talk of it. It was just weed at that point. And it was really illegal.
It was a felony. They put people in jail for just having a joint. And our idols, of course, were Gene Krupa and all the other big drug addicts. So I was over at this older guy's house. And they had weed.
And I was very nervous about smoking weed because I only had alcohol. And I didn't like to drink. I didn't like the taste of beer. And they had some pot. I took a couple of hits.
And it was like, wow, this is cool. I'm not out of control. I drove home. I really enjoyed driving home. I only had my license for about a month.
But it really was a cool sensation.
And I liked it. Move your mic a little. You're a little off mic.
I want to have rational deniability.
And they were playing the table. That's not what I said. About all this drug stuff. If you listen closely, what I actually said was.
It was very interesting. Because here's a generation of kids who's been raised by parents who are law abiding, who cut their grass, paint their houses, don't turn left on a red light. And all of a sudden, into this comes drugs. It starts seeping in, not just into the pop culture, but into their kids' lives.
For the first time.
Absolutely. And at the same time, you've got the Vietnam War starting to percolate. Some of the anti-war movements are just beginning to trickle out. You have a completely different attitude about sex.
Liberated, we might say.
Yeah. The sexual revolution in some ways preceded the women's movement of equal rights. But the beginning was, well, you know, this is kind of fun. Right. And it's kind of harmless.
And I don't know what the big fucking deal is.
I don't know why we go to hell over this.
Yeah, and the slut shaming and everything, which exists to a degree these days, was, you know, if a girl had sex with her boyfriend, she was a slut.
Right.
That was all happening kind of at the same time. And my parents, most of the parents, had no clue how to deal with this. There was no idea that maybe this was the new normal. This was bad. There was no question.
they thought it was bad. And look, from an actual point of view, the problem in my area, in my generation, and then particularly in my working class environment, was that there was no education about drugs. No one knew shit about it. Right. And, you know, everybody started smoking pot and said, hey, this is pretty cool.
I don't have a hangover. Don't crash the car.
I don't punch anyone at a bar.
Yeah. Maybe I should try some pills.
Yeah. Uh-huh. This is all right.
The progression was pills. People were taking uppers, and then they started taking downers. Then the psychedelics. And LSD was sort of in the news. And it was legal.
For a short period of time, it was not a controlled substance. Uh-huh. So it's such a classic. There's a famous first episode of the new Dragnet TV show. And it was totally right wing.
And it was all about LSD, about, wasn't it legal? Blue Boy. And the great story is that Titus and I were watching it in my room with my TV, and my parents were watching it in the next room on their TV. And we were like hooting and hollering and laughing our asses off. My parents were like, what were you watching?
Oh, we were watching a comedy special. It was a big divide. We didn't know how to deal with it with our parents. We were also 15,, 16, and 17.. And our parents had no idea how to deal with it.
One of my best friends, he was older because he was in the right grade, and his mother found a bag of weed, and they turned him into the police. No. Oh, my God.
Yeah.
He was 18, but we were still in high school. But that was not considered insane. Yeah.
If they murdered someone, I guess we have to turn him in.
They didn't know what to do.
Well, they're terrified. Yeah. Don't know what to do.
So for me, it was a breach that I never could return from, particularly with my father. It was so dire, and it lasted longer than it should have, because they threw me out, and then I moved back. And I wasn't very sympathetic about it. One of the things about getting sober is you look at your side of the street. Yeah.
I was not an easy piece of work.
No, I would hate to argue with you. If you were fucking 17,. no one wants to argue with you. That's why you're a great lawyer. It must have been torturous.
And I went from their valedictorian kid to this tattooed Harley riding junkie. Yeah, that's scary for them. Yeah.
Let's fast forward to that really quick. So we start with marijuana. We get into psychedelics. We end up shooting dope.
Yeah, we do. Which is crazy. Crazy.
What was working when it worked? Just hearing your story, it's like, well, obviously you wanted companionship, so fucking bad. Sure. And this was the group that brought you in.
They thought I was funny.
Yes. They're even protective of you.
Very much so. Several times my ass was not kicked when it should have been. When it should have been, because of my wise mouth.
Yes. So that's so obvious to me. But then also the drugs themselves are probably giving you some relief or some comfort.
So here's my life. I am a really smart kid. And I am working as a junior high school janitor. My boss is a recently retired warrant officer from Vietnam who does not care for my hair length. And I am working from two in the afternoon to ten at night.
And I have become a zombie. And I am living in this world where nothing looks good. I'm just waiting to get drafted to go to Vietnam because I wasn't going to school anymore. I went to college for a year and a half. And I'm living with my parents and I have no hope.
And the dope makes everything good. You're protected. More than tolerable. I mean that's the great thing about opium. You don't care.
You could be hanging upside down from a flagpole somewhere.
In a state of elation. Yeah.
It's a wonderful drug. There's a reason that people do it. I was just miserable. I was completely unfulfilled.
You were not living up to your potential. You had no purpose.
I didn't even care about my potential. And then I had another job where I worked during the day. And I drove a little delivery van from North Hollywood to where the Beverly Center is now. Three times a day through Laurel Canyon. And I picked up Frank Zappa hitchhiking.
Oh, my god.
And it was like 1968. so it was hippier than shit.
This is like Laurel Canyon's golden era.
It was the absolute golden era. I would park the truck in San Vicente Park, behind West Hollywood. And I'd go back and lay on the mailbags and shoot dope. And when I crashed the truck for the third time, they kind of let me go. The third time.
So my level of companions dropped and dropped and dropped and dropped. And by the time I was getting close to being done with all this stuff, I was hanging around with some really raspy individuals. And I was in a house. And they had been selling dope from the house. And the cops came.
Took everybody to jail, including me. And charged me with possession of heroin.
What age are you at this point?
I'm 19.. Just turned 19.. And a couple of days in Van Nuys Jail. And there wasn't any there. They found cut, so they were really mad.
And there was a tiny bit of a reefer in one place. And they basically charged about four or five people who were in the house, including me. I think I was charged with being in a place where marijuana was being used. Which was a felony.
Oh, my god.
I went to trial. My parents, God bless them, paid for a lawyer. I got out of it. And that was kind of the wake up call that this is not what I want. I didn't want the establishment.
But I didn't want this. This was criminal, low life. It was just dark and weird.
And hopeless. Yeah.
Nobody was going anywhere good in this group. My sister by that time, who had had a failed marriage, had moved down to the marina. And was living on a boat with some hippies. And there was a vacant boat in the neighborhood. So I moved down.
Just disappeared.
Geographical cure. Correct.
Still smoked pot. Still took psychedelics.
But no more junk.
No more skag anymore. And met some fairly interesting people. The most interesting of which was a woman who was older than I. We started fooling around. She asked me if I wanted to go to Europe with her.
And I was 20 at this point. I'd lived down there for a while. And she was the interior designer for a big home builder. So she would design the interiors of all the model homes. And she was well educated and artistic and all that stuff.
And she basically said to me, just pay for your ticket and I'll take care of everything else. So I dropped everything. I went to Europe. I was there for a year with her.
Wow.
She was 30.. I was 20.. Turned 21 there.
Oh, I love this.
Yeah. Good for her. I'm really waking up to this.
She also liked girls too. Okay.
I see that all. She was way ahead of her time. That's a lot of woman for a 20 year old. Yeah.
She was called Marianne Day. I lost track of her. I hope she hears this and will reach out.
And I can testify that I've heard many times fondly of this year in Europe.
Well, it completely changed my life. I had no idea the world that existed out there. Outside of Reseda and outside of dope and outside of cars and dumb shit. And so she was very well educated. And we would go to every museum, go to opera in Vienna.
No TV. No radio. Books. Everywhere you could get a book. I bought a full set of Dickens in London, a used set.
Read like every Dickens book. And if we were going somewhere, like we were going to Spain. So I read Michener's Espana, or I'll Dress You in Mourning. All these bullfighting things. Yeah.
Never went to a bullfight. But I just had no idea.
You woke up.
Completely woke up.
Yeah.
Lots of people were traveling. English, Aussie, Americans. But different kinds of people than I had been exposed to. People who were well educated, came from big cities, lived big lives. So I got really, really, really motivated.
So I realized that the best thing for me to do was to come back. One of my closest friends. I was the best man at his wedding. He was a fabulous guy and it breaks my heart every day. Died in Vietnam.
right before I came to Europe. I was already scheduled to go. So when I left, I did not want to come back. This bad knee had been the reason I didn't go. So I was cool, but I didn't want to come back.
He was dead and he overdosed. And he was one of my bad buddies, but who was one of the smarter. It was bad. But I figured at some point I could come back, get an education, and then go live somewhere else. Yeah.
So I came back. I moved into a big old rundown house in the San Fernando Valley. Had no money. I went to a junior college, Pierce College in the valley. Rode my bike every day.
At 22,, having had the year I'd had, was like I was a different kind of creature. Right. Than most of these 18-year-old kids who were going to junior college because their parents wanted them to. And I zipped through that place and then transferred to UC Santa Barbara and became a film student. So that was the beginning of me even having an inkling that there could be a career.
Not as a business person, but I'm so sorry.
That's okay. Oh, that's so spooky. For Halloween.
Yeah, my happy Halloween.
I love it.
Spooky setting. Yeah.
So that was just the beginning of, oh, there's actually a world out there where people pay attention to movies? But it was French movies of the 30s and Italian neorealism and all this stuff. I had a ball. I had started dating this woman up there whose father was a lawyer down here. So we were pretty serious and lived together for a while and stuff.
So I got to know them pretty well. And he said, have you ever thought about being an entertainment lawyer? And I said, well, what in the world is that?
Yeah, yeah.
And he said, well, you know, you're an asshole and you like to argue and you like movies.
This is made for you. It's a good combo.
So he said there's a whole group of lawyers who represent actors and writers and directors and they negotiate deals. He wasn't one, but he was a West Side lawyer, so he knew all about that. So that was the first inkling that maybe there was a career there.
It's funny, I want to pause to just say we all love this story, that we're self-made, but it's just so crazy. You think without the trip to Europe, where the fuck are you? You don't date a woman whose father advises you. I mean, it's nuts. how many things drop into your lap.
And I've tried to, over the last five or six years, reach out and acknowledge that. For example, one of the only good jobs I had during this period of time was I was the maintenance man's assistant at what is now the W Hotel on Hilgar. It was a co-ed dormitory for UCLA.
Oh, wow.
1970.. And I lived in the marina then and rode a motorbike every day and had really long hair. And I was very popular there and really had a good time. Yeah. And that was a great job.
I really enjoyed that. Sure, of course. How good, do you not like it?
I enjoyed that job. And the irony is, years later, a young lawyer came to interview with us to get a job. And I'm talking to her. Yeah, what did your parents do? He's an accountant.
He just got his own business. And where did they meet? Oh, they were working at this dormitory in Westwood. And I said, yeah, I was the maintenance man there. No way.
I thought there was a certain amount of joy of hiring somebody who's the daughter of somebody who was a student there.
Yes, absolutely.
Anyways, there was a young woman there who I was friendly with, and her father was a doctor. And he really gave me great advice about the draft. I looked him up. He was in Santa Barbara. He's a psychiatrist.
And I sent him a note. He was very respectable. I was a hippie. Couldn't have been a nicer guy about it. And I sent him a letter.
It meant a lot to me and blah, blah, blah. And like three days later, the daughter calls me, who was visiting, and said, my dad just got out of the hospital. He's like in his 90s. And it really meant the world to him. Oh.
And I did it with the lawyer who got me out of the wrap. Yeah. And he didn't remember me.
You were one of 700.. Of course.
And a woman who gave me a scholarship in law school, same thing. It takes a village. And so many things happened that any one of which had gone the other way. We're not talking.
We're not talking.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, debt. Yeah. I mean, I put myself in a bunch of ridiculous situations.
And sometimes my feeling of a higher power is that there was something that was saying, maybe there's something worthwhile. So many others more deserved than I ended up on the pile.
You go to USC. You go to law school. You pass the bar in 78.. And then you start working as an entertainment lawyer. And I'm going to fast forward through what you would be uncomfortable acknowledging, but one of the very best careers one's had in this.
You've had an incredible career. And, as Downey said when he was on here, you're the only person he knows that no one has a bad word to say about. You represented Robert Downey Jr. through quite an exciting ride. I have.
I have.
Oh, yeah. You've been on the whole. I've been on the whole ride.
Stephen Colbert, John Wells, who wrote and show ran ER for years. Steve Kloves, which wrote every one of the Harry Potters.
Not all but one.
Sorry, all, but one. Wait, wrote all.
Yeah, the scripts. The screenplays.
Oh, I was like, excuse me. I have a phone to pick.
We thought it was maybe, Joe.
Yeah, something about that.
But you know, I didn't know much about him until I was reading about you today. But forget, he wrote those Harry Potters. He wrote Racing with the Moon.
The greatest. Which is like my favorite. Wonder Boys.
And he wrote and directed The Fabulous Baker Boy.
Yeah, which was great.
But John Waters, like you, either in life you get Robert Downey Jr. or you get John Waters. You don't get both. You don't get the two most psychedelic, exciting.
Well, David Lynch, too. David Lynch. For years and years and years. So when I was in law school, going to the movie place, on midnights, it would either be Rocky Horror Picture Show, Eraserhead, or Pink Flamingos. And I thought, well, I got two out of three.
Wow. Totally. If you would have said to me, well, I'm watching these trailers for these movies that someday I'd represent these directors. And not just represent them, but know them pretty well. It's an intimate relationship of a different kind.
Yeah. You're very involved in their whole lives.
And specifically at moments of great fear.
It's interesting, obviously, with Robert having gone through his ups and downs. Unfortunately, some people in the entertainment business have encounters with the criminal justice system. And it's terrifying. And the only lawyer they know is you. For you not to be there, to be the liaison between them and the criminal justice system, even though you're going to hire a lawyer for them.
You know, it's really important. Yeah. Because that's a terrifying experience that you face the possibility of going to jail or having trouble. And the impact now that it has on your career. Yeah.
So a lot of the stuff we did with Robert, which was interesting, was really finding a way to get him back to work. That was some of the satisfying stuff I've done.
You must be absolutely heartbroken watching this kid. Well, I love him. Who has unlimited talent. And he's such a beautiful kid. I mean, it's got to be fucking heartbreaking when that all goes down.
It is.
But like anything else with addicts, at some point you've got to say to yourself, I can't.
I've got to get off this ride.
Or I can't change it. Right.
I'm powerless in this.
I had one of his agents call me once and said, oh, he's really off the rails and you've got to go over there and get him to stop doing it. I was like, huh?
Number one.
Number one, I'm fucked up.
Or number two. Get it in the bag. Someone needs to come over here first.
Well, that was one of the ironies, which I've talked about, is being in these meetings and sort of coming up with all these plans and being all self-righteous and having to slip into the bathroom and pop a bike. God, what a mess.
Okay. Wait. Yeah. So hold on. Yeah.
How'd we get there? Yeah. So that's great. So you're successful from whatever it is, 70 on with opiates. You're off those.
You drank a little bit.
Didn't like cocaine.
Maybe smoked weed or whatever. occasionally. The genie was back in the bottle for a very long time.
Because I substituted the roar of the crowd, the peer group love, the name in lights, the money.
Yeah. Validation.
The beautiful wife. Yeah. The kids. Nice house.
While you're building this incredible career in law firm, you partner up with Judy, your wife, who's also a fucking gangster. Gangster. Talent manager.
First woman in the CAA mail room.
Wow.
That's crazy. She was Ron Meyer's assistant. Left CAA at the height of its power with Mike Ovitz and started Intertalent, which was the precursor to Endeavor. Ari was there. Yeah.
Patrick Weitzel was her assistant. Oh my God, no. So she's a badass.
She's a bad motherfucker.
She's much tougher than I am, as we all know.
Of all these similarities, you and I both picked...
Tough ladies. Little, deceptively.
Same with Monica. It's like, oh, look at this little creature, this little woodland creature. What is she, five foot? And then next thing, you know, you're like, oh, fuck. You can be feisty.
Yeah, and we all know that it's the right thing.
It is the right thing, especially for you and I. It is the only thing. But yes, you have this incredible wife and partner, and then you have these two beautiful kids, and this very enviable career. You should feel great, right?
I did, for a good period of time. And you wake up one day, and I don't know if you had these kind of fantasies. When I was in law school, I'd imagine being at a party and saying, well, I was a film student, but now I'm an entertainment lawyer, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that would make you feel great. Yes, yes.
And you would be fulfilled. I am a combination podcaster and car mechanic, and I feel absolutely fabulous. And so you had this fantasy that you would feel differently. And it's not conscious when this is going on. And probably 20 years in, I'd certainly hit a level of success that was so beyond anything I could have ever imagined.
growing up in Reseda, California. I remember so distinctly being a kid and looking in the mirror and saying, the year 2000, I'll be 51.. What could possibly happen? And I remember year 2000,. it was like, great.
I could have never imagined this, but why do I still have this longing? Why am I not ridiculously satisfied with everything? Why am I still searching?
What is it I'm searching for?
Around the same time this started happening, I had a back injury, and I started taking Vicodin, and it was like, yeah, baby, this is my old friend. Completely manageable. I'd go to work every day, and I would take them for a while, and then I'd stop for a while. I'd take them for longer, take them less. And then I found out you can get them on the internet.
That was the problem. Once I found out I could get them on the internet, and I didn't have to go beg every fucking doctor. I knew, then it was easy. My poor receptionist at the office probably signed for thousands of Vicodin.
So it just became my medicine. I drank a little bit. But the problem, of course, is that it may keep out the pain, but it keeps out the joy, too. You live in this cocoon, and I had these beautiful daughters, and this big life, and I was so dissatisfied. I was so soul dead.
And the more I withdrew, the more Judy wanted, and it was this really difficult time in our marriage, because the more she would reach out, I would pull in, and she's the child of alcoholics, and her pattern was to really engage with her mom, and have a big fight, and then make up, and that's how they felt better. And for me, I would just get more and more withdrawn. So a few crisis ensued.
And then, 20 years ago, coming up in a few days.
And I just thought, maybe this marriage isn't going to last. And I have these little kids.
Yeah. How old were the kids?
They were 12 and 9.. They knew that shit was happening. Right. I moved out for a while, and said to myself, I probably need to at least get this shit out of my system.
To evaluate your life.
To at least evaluate what I'm doing here. It's not just me. It's these kids, too.
The most beautiful, too, little girl. They're pretty good girls. I love my girls. Now I have a granddaughter, so it's even better.
Aww. That was sort of when I met you.
Yeah.
And I was still in rehab, and they brought me to this outside meeting, and here was this tall, gangly, wise ass. His name was fucking Dax.
What the fuck a name is that?
Yeah, strange.
Stage name?
I just think it's like a porn name. Maybe because of these tattoos, I'm sure.
On a motorcycle.
The motorcycle would have been a killer.
That was the only thing I had to check in, the positive, probably.
Well, you didn't talk about motorcycles.
When we met, I think I had about three months, and I went away to do Without a Paddle.
And you got fucked up again.
And at the end of that movie, I went out for a while.
And then you didn't come back in for a while.
It was like maybe three weeks, then I came back and got another couple, three months. Then I went out to do the press tour for that movie, Without a Paddle. Then I went off again. So, right, when you entered, I was kind of ahead of you. Yeah.
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