James Patterson

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert Experts on Expert. I'm Dak Shepard and I'm joined by Monica Padman. We recently heard So funny, we heard this. Nev Campbell, after being on the Fact Check, decided to check out the show.

No Dak Shepard and Monica Padman.

A.k.a. Dan Rather and Duchess of Duluth, today's guest is James Patterson. He's one of the world's best-selling authors, hundreds of millions of books.

It's very prolific.

Very prolific, very successful. His books include Along Came a Spider, The Angel, Experiment, School's Out, Forever, 10th Anniversary, The People Versus Alex Cross. Bunch of movies have been made out of his books and he has a new book out right now. Which is super interesting because in a way, it is co-authored with Michael Crichton.

Yes.

Because this is a book that Michael Crichton was writing on, and James was brought in by Michael's wife to finish it and bring it to fruition. It's called eruption, and it's a very Crichton-esque story about a huge volcano on the big island of Hawaii and a military secret that this will expose eruption. Out now.

He's an object spider.

He's an object spider.

He's an object spider.

How are you?

I'm good, how are you?

Welcome, hi, I'm Maggie Maggie. dash. nice to meet you.

I'm a little irreverent, so I joke a lot. Good, we love that. You just taught me to shut the fuck up.

You're in a very safe space for irreverence. I would say that's our goal. A reigning tone here. Ah, so many drinks. Where will I start?

Just today and tomorrow, we're doing a thing with Sherry Crichton, Michael Crichton's widow, because I have the book coming out, the eruption, eruption. So we're doing that Sunday morning CBS thing. Oh, you are, and they're gonna shoot. It's actually a pretty cool story because she was pregnant with her son when Michael died.

Yeah, do you feel bamboozled? Yeah, No, we're gonna do that thing. Okay, fine, we have a saying in here old trick No, it's not Robert Durst style.

We're of it. But I did not, and, you know, he didn't know he was Mike. I do know that.

Okay, what do you watch if you're not watching the jinx, which all of America watch like slow horses?

Okay, you love slow horses, slow horses, right? My wife and I. I'm always bad when I'm trying to remember, like, what do we watch? A series will grab us? What was the Englishman, the gentleman? Oh, I like that.

Are you more prone to watch nonfiction or fiction fiction? I did the Epstein thing.

Yeah, filthy, rich, and it's a four-hour. I mean, Netflix is amazing. 110 million people saw that in the first 10 days. I was one of them. I'm bored by it.

You're locked into the formatting of your brain. And yeah, whatever it is to be this length, I don't criticize other people.

It's just that's my style, which just tends to be very tight. Some paragraphs could be a single sentence. Yes, absolutely, actually. I'm doing a book now and I think it's a good thing to do. It's about how to be a better dad, and that is single sentences, because I want dads to feel very comfortable reading it, I want it in their style.

Well, okay, you were born in 1949.

47 47.

I will always be with you and James. Isn't it funny to watch how you evolve? Because I'm imagining that if you tried to forecast a day when being mistaken for 70 would be great news. It makes you recognize, like, Oh, yeah, we're here now, where I'd be delighted that you thought I was 70. Yeah, I know.

Well, it happens. I can remember when Jack was a little kid, I had Jack when I was 49 or 50 and my beard was coming in white. And I wanted to cut down a number of people that would ask me if I was his grandfather.

Yes, so by conventional standards. I was late into the game. Our first kid we had, I was 38 and then I was 40. I have enormous gratitude for having done it later because of the patience required.

Yeah, the big pro for us is, look, at that point we're financially fine. That's huge because the finances, I think of all the things that screw people up and make it hard.

It's that I would imagine. To the attention that you're paying to climbing the mountain, you've climbed the mountain at least far enough that you can focus. Yeah, I never worried too much about climbing.

The mountain has never really been a problem with me. I just don't think about, I just do shit.

Well, whether you thought about it or not, you know it was there a couple different. Yes. Still climbing.

Yeah, my grandmother's line. Hungry dogs run faster, yes.

That's good, but starving dogs run a little slow, they're malnourished. You gotta okay. Back to the patience element. Well, let me ask you, because maybe I'm assuming incorrectly, I would imagine for you at 51.

Yes, to me, it's always been you do your work and then you come home, the work, this isn't there. I've always been okay.

Then it's lucky at the apex of your output. What was the our allotment in a day that went towards? In the beginning? I'm working in advertising, right?

You do 25 years, but I've been clean for over 25 years. But I really like to think about those days and that was the real balancing act. I would figure out a way to carve out a couple of hours, like lunchtime, I would shut my door and write for half an hour. Can't be a coincidence.

You retire from the advertising job and maybe 96, you get married in 97. Some space was made when you step down from that CEO role. I was with a woman for seven years.

She developed a brain tumor and died. You know, not selective memory, but it just was a wonderful, wonderful relationship. At a certain point, it occurred to me that the best thing that ever been in my life, I hadn't tried to do that again. Maybe I was afraid. Who knows what the scars are?

Whatever that was, and writing books, but once you were liberated from the advertising job, and you were just writing.

I like that liberated from the job thing. Yeah, that's right, it's true. How many hours a day were you actively writing and?

So he'll just do a thousand words, obviously, when you're writing a column, you know the way you're doing 1500 words.

I've just kind of never been that way, I just do it.

Is there a time in the evening where you generally are like, Okay, that's that I'm shutting this down, mostly.

Yeah, but occasionally I want to go up for another hour or so, but there's no pressure on it. I don't feel any pressure.

I read a New Yorker article about how hard it is to pin down your approach to writing, and I'm now finding it real-time. Yeah, and I wonder, Do you have a run like this? Don't have it, okay, but James, is it that you literally can't figure that out or think about it, or you're just really reluctant to? I can't figure.

It out, your brain doesn't work. I don't think about it that way. That's one of the interesting things about journalists, and they think that you're gonna think the way they think. And I don't. And I don't praise myself for that. I don't pat myself in the back, but no, I just don't process stuff the way most people do.

I guess I would feel a little worried if I figured it out, it might go away. I mean, that's my own. Well, that's what I'm saying. You guys have spent too much time with Shrink.

No, I'm a writer and I'm obsessed, as most writers are with process, the hardest part of writing is starting to write. Wouldn't you agree? Not for me, I love it.

I outline and outlines, there's never any pressure, you just kind of keep writing shit down. Eventually, I'm gonna organize all the bullets, all the thoughts, all the possible scenes, the chapters. Okay, pause right there, because that's fascinating.

So is it just free-form, conscious of the bullet points? This could happen, and I want this happen. There's seen here and I can see this, I can see that.

Well, the first thing I'll do is there's some concept that I'm kind of excited about doing. I'm actually out here because we're in the process of selling this. Sherry Crichton, Michael Crichton's widow, Michael did Jurassic Park and Westworld and, er, and all that stuff. He died 13 14 years ago and his widow came to me and she said Michael had started. This project, was a pet project. He'd been messing with it because he loved Hawaii for a long time.

Yeah, so he left behind a partial manuscript and a ton of notes, notes.

Yes, a lot of research, and what was the total of that? There was a fair amount of material, there was a lot of research. Most of the research that he had done had to do with what he had already written.

He had said On the big island of Hawaii, there's an enormous volcano that has the potential to flatten.

But there's something worse than a volcano there, and that's pure Crichton. And I loved it. The other challenge, which I didn't really think about at the time. I wanted people to read this and really not know where Michael stopped and I started. Also that it would feel like it had some organic unity, to which I think it does. Yes, and this isn't Michael's voice, but I think it reads like a book that he might have written. Well, let me ask you this Michael Crichton was defined by his.

Incredible, comprehensive knowledge of science, be archaeologically or medically, he really had a pretty keen scientific mind. Obviously, the writing doesn't intimidate you, but did the technical savvy intimidate you at all?

No, because I thought I could research it. There are certain things that I look at and go like a Tom Clancy, I couldn't do that. I don't know how generals think in general, how they talk, how generals think in general, there's a sense, their dialogue.

So I thought I could do this. When you're reading, do you tend to read fiction or nonfiction? both?

Actually, I'm reading which I hadn't read before, Travels, which is Michaels, it's a book about his years in Harvard Medical School, Michael Crichton, and then the way he sort of used travel as, I guess, therapy. He would go to these places and really stretch, stretch, stretch. In terms of what he could do, what he couldn't do, what he could be frightened of, but would scare the hell out of it, etc, etc, etc.

And that's interesting to me. Very alpha energy, him like a go tackle everything. Yeah, our can we start at the beginning a little bit in Newburgh, New York, Newburgh. yeah, Newburgh, how far out of the city?

Is that Newburgh's about 60 miles north of New York City? People just go, you're from New York. Upstate New York is not like New York the way people think of Upstate, It's more like Michigan. It's a lot of farms. And dad was an insurance broker.

But he had no confidence in himself when we think of maybe what his potential shortcomings as a father were.

Obviously he's taking a guess at it now. Totally good human being, smart guy, but he didn't have the confidence he came out of. Hamlet's a really good school, and then he started driving a bread truck and drove a bread truck for six, seven years. He could be very engaging, no reason other than just a lack of confidence.

Would you be in high school at the same time as all of them? No, it's a Catholic school.

I went, it was all boys, the oldest was three years younger, and then they went down to ten years younger, the youngest. And what was your relationship with your dad? Like? Mixed bag.

My family was the same way, really. What kind of boy were you in school?

Smart, but no interest in any of it. I just wanted to get out of Newburgh. Okay, you were about to get out of, get me out of here. Not that it's a bad city, but I just know I don't want to do this and I don't want to raise that.

Okay, and the Catholic school? how did you get on there? Smart and a good jock, you were athletic.

Here's my highlight reel. Nine holes in one and I could dunk in high school now.

I don't know which one you find more unbelievable. The nine holes in one. Yeah, for sure, that sounds like Kim Jong-un's record at golf.

My wife has six. Oh, she's my wife is a jock. she's a four-time All-American swimmer, so she's a legit jock.

Okay, great. So Jack had a real chance. He's pretty good tennis player.

He had no interest in athletics at all, which is fine, and our thing was always just open doors, that's all, and we never pushed them. And he's a bright dude. But it was never like with me, I'm supposed to be first in my class. That was a deal.

Okay, so you go to Manhattan College, you get a B.A. and then you go to Vanderbilt for your master's. What did you think of Nashville?

Well, it was a whole different thing then one. They loved me because I was like a Northerner and it was so cool. And I must know all this stuff because I went to school in New York City and in those days it was just beginning. And down there, it wasn't as bad. With dope, so I walk across the campus, like smoking wine and stuff. They wouldn't even know the smell.

Yes, when did you first, though, start writing? Family moves up to Massachusetts.

That's when I got the job at McLean, the mental hospital. I didn't know if I mentioned that before. That was interesting to like. James Taylor was there as a patient. Yeah, and this is before he was famous. But they had a coffee shop and he would sing at the coffee shop, like three times a week.

I know he wrestled with addiction. Is that why he was in there? To begin with? Because they didn't know what to do with us.

I don't know the whole thing, I think that was a piece of it, I don't want to analyze. Yeah, no deal, but yeah, there was more than that.

So I know when a junkies in a mental war, that's typically why they're there. I don't think that was the main problem.

I think there were other things that he was working through and his family wasn't. Well. I think the father was a shrink. Oh, I think he taught at North Carolina. Well, that's a biography I want to read.

I didn't want to be one either, but it happened anyway.

It just scared the shit. I mean, I just didn't want to do that, I didn't want that to run my life, and it worked for me. Even smoking you never did either. No, and they were doing like three packs a day, both of them. And also writers over Index, for sure.

Smoking is a dirty habit. So she helped a lot. Okay, so you have your master's in literature in English and you get out of grad school and you immediately go to work for this agency, yeah.

I'm living at that point in this little hotel room in the Washington Jefferson Hotel, which is still there, I believe. And this room that I'm in is about like this third of the eye. Oh, no, nothing. And it has about maybe 11 foot ceilings, and that's creepy wallpaper. No, it gets creepier.

So you got the job and then you remain there for 25 years and you rose to CEO. I did CEO of North America, of North America. So what, that was an English ad agency, I'm guessing.

U.S. kid Oh, I did the line.

Really flip your lid, I don't think you unders, well, maybe you do understand. For anyone born post 75, that song might be more seared in our brains than my friend.

Kaplan wrote the song in the jingle. She's great. What a hit.

I think in general, these big corporations come to an ad agency and they want something creative and wonderful. Yeah, and then they're presented with that and then they're terrified and they want to lean back on whatever worked for them 15 years ago.

It's a mixed bag part of it and it shouldn't happen this way because they should at least figure this out. It's very hard for a lot of people, even people who think they're creative, to look at a raw idea. I mean, look at Hollywood, you sit there and go, like, Really, I just had a thing. I don't get too much into it because I don't want to expose these people, but the notes come in and they're all about how.

Okay, okay. So I can definitely imagine, with your creative spirit that you would have been a great copywriter. But were you surprised that you had managerial skills? Obviously, I think, to rise to the CEO position.

I didn't want to do any of it, except that every time I took a job on the way up, I would go like, Wow, I know, have to listen to myself instead of that asshole used to have to listen to. I'm overstating it. Yeah, but yes, it was one more person I didn't have to listen to. And then eventually it just comes down to the clients, and some of the clients are quite good, some of them get it and that's what it's supposed to be.

But it's not for us, that's fine. And over this 25 year run, what ones pop out to you that you're most proud of?

I mean, the Toys r Us thing is fun, fun things for Kodak, because that was mainly memories. I remember we did one with Mike Tyson, it was fun to do where he was remembering. It was kind of cool because you don't think of him as being a very emotional.

No, if I had not landed in show business, I think my second pick would have been advertising. You get to dabble in a lot of creative stuff, meet a lot of people, take a lot of field trips, there's different elements. It stays pretty novel and interesting, yeah.

You?

You're writing the whole time, your first book you publish is 76, but you remain in that job for another 20 years while you're already publishing books. It was comfortable.

I didn't want to screw it up. Yes, like, I don't have any pressure. Initially, it wasn't like I was making a fortune writing, right?

Along Came a Spider is the first of that. So Alex Cross is a series that you wrote 30 books, 30 plus the first big one being Along Came a Spider. But Alex Cross is in, though the very first book, the Thomas Berryman number. Now, that's its own time.

I'm wondering, had you adjusted your expectations? I just kind of sat down and I said, Okay, let's get real here. What do you do? well, what don't you do? So? Well? You know, I always say, like everything, but the kitchen sink.

All right, so from 93 until now, you create a number of series, with an impossible amount of books in each series. You've had 114 New York Times bestsellers, and you have the record for the It's higher, Okay, right? And a record for the most New York Times Number One Bestsellers 67 books. At number one, I'm sold.

Something that's very unusual. We've got a lot of murder mysteries. The kid stuff is generally funny. How old are your kids? 9 and 11? Okay, so this would be the maximum ride.

Series Which? Two of the memorable ones from that is A long-game spider. And then Kiss the Girls, then Women's Murder Club. 24 books in that series. yeah, the Michael Bennett series, a few 16 books in that series, the Private series, 15 books in that one. Maximum ride, 11 books. Of all these crazy.

I'm sorry, yeah, you're right. That's why I'm on the couch. I'm sick. Please help me.

What was it like seeing a movie version of these books? You wrote? Mix bag, Yeah, I bet. Morgan Freeman.

Can't argue with that. Stories, Okay? The new Alex Cross series on Amazon with Aldous Hodge. That's good. That's the first one where I really can look at and go like, Yep, it's edgier.

Well, you didn't go all the way through with Bukowski. But there is a great book called Hollywood, where it's him telling the experience of having one of his books turned into the movie Barfly. And I think it's such an interest. Yeah, make you are, and I think it's got to be such an interesting experience for a writer. Because in some ways, it represents the theoretical finish line for something like, Well, this thing really was it, because now it's become a movie.

I'm not gonna go there with it because they're separate, the book, it's a book and they can't mess with it. And I always loved the idea that the movie's even better, the movies is good, or something like that, and I hadn't had that experience.

Yeah, were you friends with Michael Crichton? Did you ever talk to him? Had you met him? never met him?

No, cuz I don't like tall people, I don't like you that much because you're like, what six, three? I have the same issue.

I want to be the tallest person in the room and Michael's six, nine, he was six.

Did okay? I think he did. Yeah, yeah.

Okay, now, with this enormous success, 400 million books sold, I'm sure it's north of that at this point.

I see it's still the pieces to have created Cross initially. Women's Murder Club. Okay, sure, some of the standalones, the one I mentioned with Renee Zellinger, the idea of it, I think, is pretty cool. It's a trilogy. 12 months to live the following year sounds like a joke.

No, but the reason I bring up the success is it's an interesting experience to transition from an underdog to one of the legendary, most successful. And tell me what comes with that.

I still feel the underdog part of it in your heart, you still identify as an under. Yeah, I go to England and you know, James, you're terrific out here, not so much, so I'm still an underdog out here.

But you've taken a lot of ridicule, like Stephen King has been pretty this going, now, you know where it's going.

Oh yeah, Stephen King has said some No. He only said one particularly bad thing. He said. I'm a terrible writer. That's not nice. Here's my question.

All right, well, listen, when I want to know is envies a given? It's gonna exist in any domain? Do you think it's uniquely rough in the literary world?

It's certainly a deal, I think it's a deal anywhere. Here's Taylor Swift boom. All of a sudden, people are banging her.

He didn't die.

He doesn't get killed, but his people came and he said, Oh, you don't understand, because Tabitha was attacked in the house. Once I'm going like, that means he should stop writing. Because they write her based on his books, not a based on Michael, which hasn't been out. And Little Ben burned a hundred thousand copies. Anyway. They said, Okay, fine, we won't do it, it's okay, it's cool.

I'm only curious. It would hurt my feelings greatly that because I have done well at something now, all of a sudden I have a lot of detractors. I'm very sensitive. That would be really hard for me and I'd feel like, why do you care what I'm doing?

I try to avoid it for the most part. I think right in the beginning, the King thing bothered me. I thought, that's just silly. If you read my autobiography, you go like, No, this guy's not a terrible writer. That's hard to make my life interesting.

Well, I do think when peers are critical of you, it's more hurtful. Yeah, for sure, but if another actress says, I'm a terrible actor, that's more hurtful than, yeah. Someone who's not in the trade.

Anyway, as I said in the beginning, people write stuff and you go, Yeah, they got a point there. My strength is probably, I keep the pages turning, It's probably my weakness. I always had this theory greatest strength, that's greatest weakness. I should dig deeper.

And did you like digging? or did it feel really slow? fuck digging? yeah.

Yeah, it was a little slow, but it was okay. And that's why I don't really like the nonfiction so much. I have one series of nonfiction, which I love and I do. With a friend of mine, Matt Eversman, Matt was the actual sergeant who was portrayed in Blackhawk Down. Yeah, he was a real guy and he and I become good friends in Florida. And he did a documentary with another friend of mine and I saw him doing the interviews. And he could get people to talk about combat and the way you go, like, Wow, because he's been through it, and the title came to me, walking my combat boots.

Yeah, they're my favorite people to talk to because they have the best stories. Oh, my God, completely desensitized by everything.

Yeah, and Matt did most of the interviews, he said. I can only do one a day. This is a guy who's been through hell yeah, he said. You know, it's just too much now.

When did you get the idea to start collaborating on books?

I was with a friend that we'd gone golfing and I had this thought run through my brain about a golf novel. Advertising. You collaborate, Yeah, yeah, you tend to be with another writer, or usually an art director. And I said, let's try to do it together, do a little golf.

I think dealing with some envy have been critical of the collaboration. But I guess I would point out. You've also written a book with Bill Clinton, you've written a book with Dolly Parton, and my hunch is you did most of the writing, but you shared credit equally.

So it feels like, perhaps, from your point, why should they be criticizing anyway? Fuck them seriously, what's the deal?

Well, I think the people who are being critical, they're imagining the worst case scenario. Which is, you had nothing to do with a book and you put your name on it and claim to be the right.

Anybody that is involved with, I mean, Maggie who's here, yeah, don't work that way. I'm not accusing you.

No, I know I get it, I like it. I think it's ego less to collaborate.

It's just a thing in life, so what? It's fine, you don't have to do it that way, but don't make fun of it. It's a way and it happens to work for me. Actually. The great thing about the Clinton and the Dolly collaborations is we really become good friends with Clinton.

There might be an Android in there in the mix. As a kid who grew up in a blue-collar and very modest upbringing, you must have had the same fantasies. I had about having money. Yeah, I was very actively imagining.

Oh, my first thing was, and I remember, I don't know how old I was 10, 11. And I found out that the millionaire who owned the New York Daily News, his last name was Patterson. And I had a fantasy that he was gonna show up one day and claim that I was his son, take me back to his mansion. Yeah, okay.

So of the fantasies which under delivered, and which thing have you gotten great joy out of?

I tend to just look this way, I don't have you, don't read what I can think of. Was the autobiography the hardest thing to write? It wound up to be the most joyful thing to write. Initially, it was like, Oh, I don't know if this is a good idea, and I did it during Cove it.

Well, I think of all the collaborations, this one has got to be the most unique in so many ways. For Eruption, because you're collaborating with someone who passed in 2008. The.

Responsibility there to me was I knew how important it was to Sherry. Soon. I had dinner with her and her mother four or five times already, and I knew it was special.

It's rumored she had met with a lot of different writers. She hasn't fessed that up to me. So I think it's flattering the notion that maybe she met with a lot of writers and for whatever reason, she felt.

Safest with you taking it on. I'm gonna get her on that tomorrow, I'm gonna find it.

See who else she met with? Yeah, okay, so eruption comes out soon. What still keeps you?

Passionate to work that the next one will be the best or one of the best. That was the thing with eruption, and then I mentioned is 12 months to live in eight months. I think that really turned out great and the relationship with Loop because terrific.

You famously have a basket of ideas on your desk, the clever title Ideas on it, it says, Ideas on the basket. Yeah, and there are, I imagine, hundreds of ideas, and that's correct, and they've been accumulating over the years.

Yeah, I should sort through them a bit, but I don't. And how often do you go digging? Every time I'm thinking about a new book, I'll go through and I'll jot down.

Do you generally get the idea of a scene that intrigues you and build around it, or do you get more the idea of a full?

Story you want to tell, it won't be the full story, but it could be the makings of. I'll give you an example. No, I won't give you this one because somebody will steal it. I actually like this book and it didn't do as well as I thought it would have. Called Woman of God. And it opens with a pope has died and all the cardinals are going into the little room. And there's a rumor out there that a woman is being considered.

I'm aware of, so who knows, you may see that in your life.

But anyway, so there was that notion, and, to me, the hook of how the hell would a woman get to be?

I want to see what she does. I got to figure this out. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Which I like about this thing is the idea of getting to read another. Crichton I've read a lot of this stuff. It's like, man, I would love to hear that there's another Hitchcock, Yeah, you know? Or that Jack Nicholson is gonna do one more where he's actually gonna, you know?

I know you're not a Bukowski fan, but I'm an enormous one. So I have intentionally left out a single book of his I've not read. Because I don't want to be alive. Knowing I finished them all, I need to know that there's still one waiting for me, all right?

The Crow, that's like when I was in grad school, somebody I was with said that everybody should read Henry James before they die, preferably just before they die.

Well, James, thank you so much for coming in to tell us about this. I doubt we'll ever talk to somebody with a more successful writing career than yours. It's almost beyond comprehension.

I sure don't understand.

This is great, great meaning you thanks so much for putting us on your busy schedule, everyone. Check out eruption on June 3rd. Be well, stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare.

Should we? What's the? They're basically the exact only are calling out that this feels like some sort of weird racism.

No, I'm not gonna let this be racism.

ISM No, no, I just mean, like, like, we've decided one is bad, sure.

Same one spread the bubonic plague, but maybe mice did to a long time ago.

Yeah, no one talked about the mice, but they've done bad stuff. I wonder if biologically or zoology, Lee.

There's even a difference, they're just different sizes, literally a mouse and one a rat. They got to be the same thing, right?

I think they're the same with like one or two differences, like the pigeon and the dove, you know?

Those are the same bird, sure, different colors, speaking of which we saw brown doves or brown pigeons and lisbon. Oh, you did, yeah, and Lincoln was very drawn to them, and they were. they were very handsome. Yeah, they're doves.

They're just brown or pigeon black.

No cuz, there were black pigeons, right?

But I'm saying, like, the reason we like we. We find pigeons disgusting, like as they're always picking on trash cans, that's right, but doves are the same bird. No, I know, I know, but they're all white, white privilege, it's white privilege.

Rat and the mice, yeah.

Oh, rats have 21 pairs of chromosomes, and mice have 20 chromosomal pairs, but they're both descended from a single ancestor species. Okay, I feel weird that you put me in a position to defend rats.

I know I'm kind of shocked and feel a bit betrayed. I hate rats and but I also hate mice. What if one ran out? So for people who don't know? I was putting trash in the trash can and I was barefoot in. This fucking rat ran out from under the trash can. And it was inches from my toes, my gross, mangled toes.

Do you think that maybe I was right about saying? I thought I saw a mouse rat run under the attic and you were like, Are you sure it wasn't a lizard? It was a lizard? Well, now I got more.

Information that would definitely bolster your argument. So my gym is done, yeah, so I'm moving stuff out of the old gym. Black Mold Paradise.

R.

I'm gonna take some equipment and some of the rubber flooring, whatever, and then I move the treadmill out of there, well, when we move the treadmill out of there.

Like, I think there's spray like, like rat raid, there has to be the equivalent of raid for rat.

You know what? Surely someone's upset that I'm entertaining the idea of killing the rats, but but um, if my dogs killed them, that people be fine with that. What I need to do is get whiskey out in the yard more. He's a rat dog, that's the kind of dog he is, even with his three legs.

Well, I feel validated. It was definitely a rat mouse that I saw. Yeah, but you know.

The problem is, I had never seen a rat. I've seen a lizard come out of there a bunch of times, I don't mind lizards being there at all. And your eyes are they suck.

Okay, I just wish you'd trust me once or twice. Could it be about something that doesn't involve your eyesight? It feels like a lot to ask, no, because it was more a feeling I had.

Okay, it was an intuition, good instincts. Okay, all right, you gotta try well. I'm really sorry I didn't jump on it, something I didn't believe you, I just was like.

Also, the reason you should trust me and believe me is because I could have saved you like half of that rat poop. This was a long time ago that I said that, but what again? What would I do?

I'm gonna get a humane rat trap and release that in your backyard. Here's your options. Some snakes I need to get a rat spray. there's gotta be some. There's no such thing as rat spray. Of course there is.

Stop, I feel so in rat station, there's rodent repellent. Yes, thank you.

Um, I got a fun update for the people who listened to the Chris Pine episode and really liked the kind of burgeoning, uh, friendship that was developing real time. And I guess people were shipping us.

Oh, wow, yeah, and I want how come no one was shipping me and him? Well, because he's a attractive single man.

There were people in the. The problem is is, ever since you talked about ghosting, I know everyone is, oh my god, yeah, the comment section is just like one after another.

Well, they might be. But also Jake is very kind to me. yeah, in every time we interview him, like he does include me a lot. Yeah, so I don't know why that Jake is. I'm in a relationship for people who it's not Jake.

Um, but for the folks that were shipping, Chris and I, we went to the motorcycle track on Saturday. It was really fun. He showed up at 7 30. We hopped in the truck. Did you hug?

Yeah, it was great. Oh my God, so I learned about a new game.

Okay, kind of.

It's very, very similar to two of our previous games, one being the game we used to play. Where I was like, I think you're either sexy, cute, and then there was one or pretty. Remember we used to play this? No, how did it go? It was a huge game for us, sorry.

Well, just remind me a little bit more and I bet it'll come to me. Well, that's it, that's so. Give me an example, though. So so you what say someone's name?

It was like, I think people are either, Oh, I think you can only be two of the three. Oh okay, sexy.

Cute or pretty? So every boy is by de facto sexy and cute. They can't be pretty, of course. Brad Pitt's so pretty. Okay, great counterpoint. okay, Johnny Depp.

Yeah, okay, okay, so we used to play that you forgot. Okay, I don't remember if that's exactly what it was, but it's something like that, but I think it was.

Launch a million ships.

But I also had a friend hang that was like a new friend hang this weekend, a date, yes, a date. And we were chatting about all kinds of things. And she told me that her friends, well, Jed, invented this, Jed, oh, friend of the pod, Jedi Jenkins, you are either.

Cool.

Hot.

I have to look it up, oh, wow.

You wrote it in a folder or I'm, I think they texted.

Okay, I want some follow-up texting. That's a really great time.

I know there are people who you hang out with and you feel like you have known them a long time. Yeah, yep, which is always fun, okay, TBD. There's a third one, and then the game is you. You place people in the categories. It's like, Best boy, cool guy, sexy man. Okay, sounds like it.

But do I know them?

Yeah, um, who, bizarrely, is none of them.

Interesting? Yes, yes, yeah, for sure, it's correct.

It's a fun game. Do we want to play? sure.

But how do we do it?

Walk us through it. I think maybe we say a person and then we categorize them.

Okay, but we don't know the third option. I'm gonna have to wait till that comes. Okay, so this is a TBD and we'll play the game TBD. Oh my god, generous Sally's facetiming me.

Sally from Argent, I'll pick up, Hi, you're on air.

First time caller where you calling from? Hey?

Sally from Argent is facetiming, but Argent's not a city. I know you are super red. Is it time sensitive?

Sorry to interrupt, happy recording bye.

You guys buy suits. Oh, I wore. I wore Argent to the my interview with Jason when I interviewed Jason, Oh, okay, and it was a pink suit.

I bet you did. Pink is fun, it's a blast, yeah.

Um, oh funny. oh cool, hot, funny. hmm, cool hot, funny. It's more like, What's your order? Some people are nothing.

Would you say I think we would agree on what my order is? I'm not my order, but the top two, for sure, we would go funny and cool, Rob.

Who he didn't know, I know what happened, he didn't know if he was supposed to answer for himself or if he was supposed to answer about you.

About me, of course, yeah.

I don't know, I don't well.

But let's just because here's what I'm curious about, yeah, which one's higher, funny or cool?

Well, to me, I know it's hard.

I want them all. And there's a it's overlap. This is like the DSM and trying to label like, but that's why it's a fun game. Yeah, it has to be hard, but I'm wondering if my defining characteristic is being funny or being cool.

Funny.

Okay, I guess I was flattering myself there for a second, well.

You are cool.

But you know what's funny, though, and I guess I'm. I'm grateful for it. Because you know, so much of your identity is is all just what happened to you when you're young and you're stuck with it? Well, not necessarily, but, but you know what I'm saying, you're trying to overcome a non-stop. Like I was dyslexic, so I'm constantly triggered if someone thinks I'm dumb.

But I just held on. You put a lot of value on, like, cool, no on, like pre-high school times.

Yeah, because I didn't like high school, so if I'm gonna select which one, I know, but I don't think we get to select.

It's like, a lot happens past adolescence, right? And like, mostly you're formed past that, although I was already through adolescence in junior high.

Anyways, anyways.

Bogged down Yeah, okay, I think I would say, you're yours is tricky, you're all three.

Congratulations, Oh my God, thank you. I would have never made you say it.

But I was already indulgent enough that I'm asking, I think I honestly would order you. Funny, hot, cool, but the hot and cool are the. It's just a margin. If there's any chance that I'm hot, it's just because I'm cool. No, that's not true, but I know what you mean.

Great.

It's it's in the top four, I would. if we're picking one, yeah, I would say, Rob's cool.

Okay, and I might say, he's hot. I'm always overwhelmed with how good looking Rob is, but Rob's cool.

He, like, listens to cool music. yeah, he's a hipster, right? goes to cool restaurant, eats cool bagels, drinks cool coffee. Yeah, yeah.

Okay, my turn. okay, hot, cool, funny.

Funny third.

Well, I was trying to give you the order I thought you'd want just be, and then you were offended.

No, you wouldn't, no.

That's such a healthy self-esteem. Funny is everything, funny's money, that's what they say in film and television, funny is.

To me, ultimately, the most important thing.

Well, certainly, that's why all these things are context specific for a long-term relationship. Yeah, uh, for a fun night out on the town. Not necessarily these, they're different.

But it's just who I am, it's not who I want to be or who I wish I was, it's who I am. Okay, then I'm gonna be do it.

Okay, I'll go funny, hot, cool.

Okay, yeah, what would you say, Rob? Same, really cool third.

I think there's no matter what right now, there's no, there's no permutation where she's not offended. I, I know I was flattered. Like, just if. Even if all three of those are in play, I actually don't care what order they're, I know my real order. Oh, what's your real funny cool?

Hot that is I'm, I am cool.

Do you think the pink?

More people think I'm cool than think I'm hot.

That's how do you know that? Usually that's true, like you read it, you read an analysis info.

Okay, the pink suit is is cool it is, it's a hot see.

I don't know how you're knowing the difference between if everyone's coming to you and going like, Wow, you look great. What a cool outfit. I don't know because they just said, what a cool outfit. But because they can't say you look hot, why can't they? It's off the table these days because you guys ruined it for everyone. Oh, fuck you.

Oh my God, no, I I know me. Of those I I think cool is above and I I like, I'm okay with, that's fine, okay.

Shoot that over, I can't see that shit.

Okay, I sent, I sent it. Oh, here we go, look at me, not the girl in the back.

Oh wait, let me see the girl now is first.

You're going for cool instead of hot, right? Exactly? Yeah, exactly, yeah, that's a cool outfit that is not a hot outfit outfit will be like low cut.

It's also a tighter, but it's a sweater. It's not a midriff. Well, it's tucked in. It looked like a midriff for a second. But, but. But it is in fact a very low cut. It's a button-up and it's a sweater.

You know, okay, anyway. This works on a lot of levels, but Rob said it before you said it, so he can't unsay it and that's his opinion.

That Rob voted, That's true for Cool.

I mean, I also said, I think you're going for cooler more than you're like, that you're gonna put a tight, short dress on.

100 Listen, if I see. So let's take you out of it for cool, I'm not going, I want to take you out of this. So it's not you. Personalize it and keep it from being workplace. Sexual harassment. Okay, I see a gal like this with those knockers in a low-cut thing.

How could that not? Well? And coolness is part of hotness, too. Like, Yes, yeah, you, yeah, yeah, go on.

But then a little bit of what's this going on? Sure, that's, that's really where you go, what's going on here? We've got a very low cut.

But I wouldn't say very low, okay?

The lizard is probably getting so annoyed because they can't see this picture, but is it on your Instagram? It was on stories. Oh, okay, you missed it all right. Even more frustrating, but I agree.

With Rob that, I think the classic version of Let me just let's break this down for a second.

If you, if I'm in a suit and I and it's it's very tight and you can see my hog running down my leg.

That's not hot, but that's like, what's he doing? uh, why is he doing that? Well? okay?

Yeah, this is complicated, you have to assume that, like, I don't know when it's an accident. But the point is that you're evaluating the off the outfit. But then you also are met with this huge the body. Yeah, the huge hog. And so okay, hotness is on the mind now because you're seeing a sex organ. I know what you mean.

I know you mean, but okay, hold on, it's more essence. okay, like my essence. Mm-hmm is cooler rather than hot.

That's by design. I am not walking around, How can you you? I just bumped into you without any pants on.

Yeah, that was later that day.

And then you'll be in like a see-through tank top with suspenders like, you're, I don't know what you think. you're. see-through tank top. Whenever you wore the suspenders, you're. It's like, Oh yeah.

That's cool. Suspenders Okay, all right, I mean, it's both.

I've been nervous since it started. I do think it's it's just it's great at, uh, dinner, yeah, big time, because then you can let her rip.

I'm letting it rip. But what is your preferred order for you?

For me, yeah, sexy and hot. I've said this a million times. Like, Really, though, yes, because that's what I haven't had, so that's what I want.

I'm over it like that, maybe for a long time in life. Yes, but no, why?

Well, again, I have the luxury of I am funny, so I don't have to like when I. You have to imagine that you then don't have, well, then we don't have a career. Exactly that's my point.

I used to, but I really don't think I'm really putting myself, I'm really trying to think like, if also, though.

So again, this is where our dynamic is literally diametrically opposed. Which is, you're looking for a partnership. So in that case, you do want the person you're meeting that likes you to think you're funny. Because that's a sustainable and long-term thing. I've been in a relationship for 17 years, so the thing that seems exciting to me, yeah, if someone just thinks I'm hot and is attracted to me.

Yeah, would you also like if they were attracted to you for being funny or no? You don't care about that.

Well, again, I don't. I think that's the only reason people have been attracted to me, so I don't. I have a very interesting relationship with that right craving novelty at this point.

Yeah, well, he'd probably pick something different, too. Exactly. Yeah, it's like, who? whatever you have, blah, blah.

Yes, if someone's super hot, they'd rather be funny. you see, hot guys try to be funny all the time.

Yeah, I think I've grown. Congratulations. I really do. Yeah, I don't know why.

That's good, by the way, it's it's the appropriate thing for you to do because it's where you have more confidence. Yeah, and if what you hope is that people think you're funny, you know, pretty damn well you can deliver that.

I mean, I guess, I, I guess the highest compliment is sort of sexy, because that's all of it. Like, I don't think you could be sexy without having the other parts. Sexy is like, hot and cool and and funny, like, I think for me, that's what I find smart.

Wow.

Okay, a couple facts. Is the Washington Jefferson Hotel still there? Yes, oh, great, they made it. James Taylor and the mental hospital. Yeah, he went, and then his family, like some family members, went as well.

Months at 16.

He said When I jumped the tracks and went to McLean, it's like they thought, Yeah, that's right, we need this help. It became an option. Yeah, wow. And then he was an addict publicly, yeah, he was a heroin addict, right?

I'm gonna read, do it.

Okay, in principle. The function of the first draft was to select dates within a calendar year at random, with men whose birthdays matched those dates being drafted according to the sequence the dates were selected. The 366 days of the year, including February 29th, were printed on slips of paper. These pieces of paper were then each placed in opaque plastic capsules, which were then mixed in a shoebox and then placed in a deep glass jar. Capsules were drawn from the jar one at a time and opened.

Valentine's Day.

October 18th and so forth, the last number drawn corresponded to June 8th. All men of draft age born January 1st, 1944 to December 31st, 1950, who shared a birthday would be called to serve at once the first.

You know, it's a weird outcome of that no one even probably thought about is like, they would all be deployed ultimately. And they'd all have their birthday at the same day. Like, you'd probably be in a platoon with like nine other guys with your birthday. Yeah, weird, but you know, this is such a sidebar. But when I was on Synced and we were talking about the Roman Empire and I was saying like, Yeah, men are gonna be fascinated with all war stuff because it's a real thing. It was researching somebody recently and or maybe it was even doing finding my roots. And I really. I'm the first generation that wasn't drafted in a long time, because my dad was drafted. My grandpa was drafted for World War II. The great grandpa was drafted for World War One, so it's like three generations in a row.

That is weird.

Yeah, that's five seconds ago, yeah.

Okay, he said. 20 people painted the Sistine Chapel, it says. Prior to Michelangelo's contribution, the walls were painted by several leading artists of the late 15th century, including Sandro Botticelli.

Botticelli?

Domenico Giraldeo.