Jimmy Kimmel Returns

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Rather and I'm joined by Diane Sawyer.

One day.

One day. If only. What a powerhouse. I know. Learning a lot about Diane Sawyer by proxy from reading the Mike Nichols book.

I know. Does she have a biography or an autobiography? Because then you could cross-reference.

I would love that. I'm now very interested in her.

Yeah.

What a beast.

What a beast.

She's not our guest. Sorry.

But close.

Same world.

Yeah.

Jimmy Kimmel. Oh. Old friend Jimmy Kimmel.

Nice, nice boy.

The person I want fatherly validation from.

Sure.

I love him so much. It's been five and a half years since he was here. I can't believe it. It's crazy. I feel like I've probably done his show like 13 times in that five years, but somehow he's only had to do this one twice.

That's a group right there.

What a group. Good luck in that group. You better fucking have a sharp sword if you want to enter that.

Oh God. Right? No thanks.

Well, I think he has the sharpest of all swords, Jimmy Kimmel. My idol. My hero. Please enjoy. He's an object spitter.

He's an object spitter.

He's an object spitter.

Yeah, because that's going to be a nightmare for a female to come in and like, oh, this is it.

I know. It's going to get fixed.

We have to get better about offering the other bathroom as a just in case.

Okay, in the pool house?

Because remember, when Jenna Ortega came on, she said she thought she had to poop on her way here.

She's like, I thought I was going to shit my pants. And I was like, well, do you want to go in and take a shit? And she's like, no, I can't do that.

She's like, it's gone. It went away. It's gone. Sucked back in.

I absorbed it.

Yeah.

It made me like her immediately.

I agree. It tells you you're going to be dealing with somebody who's not pulling any punches.

Yeah, they're going to be honest and tell you what they're really struggling with.

To a point, of course. There is a point at which it becomes a little bit.

You think it's too much?

Sometimes, yeah.

We don't have that line.

Well, I wonder, though, if in a group of girls, like, certainly when a group of guys, it's getting fouler and fouler. And at some point, you're like, I'm out on that. That got too gross, even among dudes. I wonder if her women pushing it like that, or someone finally steps over the line. Verbally?

It might be me. If I think there's no one, it's probably me. That's a good point. Because I hang out with you too much.

If you haven't recognized the fish at the table. Yeah, that's right.

My wife does not like any real discussion of any of that.

Oh, she doesn't.

She doesn't. No, at least from her.

Have you drilled down into it? Like, have you said, do you think I'm going to not be attracted to you?

I've gone even farther and I'd say, do you think that I believe this story, that you never move your bowels? Yeah. You are the only human on the planet. In fact, the last two women I've dated in a row are the only two women in the world who do not move their.

Wow, lucky you. Wow.

Yeah, isn't that great? It is just self-cleaning.

Maybe something about being with you really tightens things up. Like you're perpetually on vacation.

For someone like that, I'd be the last person you'd want to meet, right? Yeah. But opposites attract. That's right.

They sure do. How long have you guys been together?

Molly and I have been together, well, we just had our 10 year anniversary this summer.

Of marriage.

Of marriage. But you were dating for a couple of years before that.

Okay, so 12 plus years.

She hasn't gone once. It's incredible.

Is that the longest relationship you've had?

No.

How long were you married?

Oh, my mother, I thought you meant, no. Well, I was technically married for 15 years, the first time, but we were married, but trying to get unmarried for the last two years of that.

I guess you're coming up on a tying year record.

Yeah, I'm gonna tie.

And or passing it.

She'll be thrilled to hear that.

You're almost tied. May I host the party?

Yeah, we should have it here. Although I do want to point something out, because I have to say I'm a little bit surprised. I've been to your house from time to time. Usually it's nighttime when we come over here. I got an email from you the first time I was on the show, which was like five and a half years ago.

You were the third episode. Okay, yeah, yeah, over five and a half years.

And the email said, this is a construction zone, and I got the identical email five and a half years later. I mean, it wasn't word for word identical, but you're working on the same project.

Well, you know, they say the journey's more fun than the destination. Why finish? Like, this is so fun. There's strange dudes at my house all the time. Often I go to take my kids to school and there's three work trucks behind me, and then I blow my gasket.

Not this long.

Okay, it worked five and a half years.

Also this attic, it was in a state of disrepair and it seemed to be, you were finishing the attic. It seems to be less finished now than it was five plus years ago. There are things hanging out. I mean, this place is a mess.

It's a junkyard, yeah.

It's awful.

As you can see, we've added so many knickknacks around that we hope all those distract you.

You've added chairs that look like somebody. put them out on the curb.

I think you have good aesthetics and I want you to be very honest about what this chair looks like to you.

It looks comfortable is what it looks. It's also the single biggest chair that Lily Tomlin was not sitting in that I've ever seen.

I'm so glad you noticed that because when it arrived, I bought it off the website, lazyboy.com. And I'm like, oh, I love that print. And I couldn't sit in there anymore because my back was sweating too much against the leather. So I'm like, I need fabric. And then it arrived and I'm like, this is a big and tall.

Yeah, this is a TLC reality show chair.

Yes, maybe even a shark tank chair as well. Like 16% of Americans can't fit in a Lazy Boy.

I'll give you $2 million.

And I want 89% of the company. I get so stressed when they want that percentage of the company.

Yeah, yeah, I know. It's like, oh, these people have been working. You're just gonna write a check and take almost the whole thing? You pig, it should be called pig tank. It is, it should be.

Oh, my Lord. So I listened to Strike Force Five this morning.

Our new podcast?

Your new podcast.

You're in the podcast game now.

Yeah, temporarily.

Well, that's gonna be a bigger conversation I wanna have with you regardless. First and foremost, about Strike Force Five, I feel like it says something really nice about our current culture that the five of you get along and have, like come together. We wouldn't be able to imagine this scenario between Leno and Letterman.

Even going back to when I was on the radio, and you'd go into a market and you would instantly hate everyone you competed against. You didn't even know these people, but you hated them. You thought they were terrible. If something bad happened, you would cheer.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You pray one of them get arrested the night before.

You know what happened is the first one was kind of a mess. When I say the first one, I mean the strike. And there were a few of us who were around back then who remembered that. There were like two factions of hosts. There was like a West Coast and an East Coast, and only Jon Stewart was communicating with both of us.

Yes. That's very nice.

And that's been successful.

It has, people seem excited about it.

Yeah, it's wonderful. And I had heard about it before. it was a podcast because I had been, as was talked about on the first episode, I had been on Seth's family trips podcast. Right. And when I was hanging with him, because we were in Martha's Vineyard, he was telling me that he does a weekly Zoom with you guys.

It's fun. At first it was like, how are you gonna handle this? And then there became no reason for it at all. There was no reason, there was no business discussed. I first was thinking, I wonder if we could put this on TV.

It's a little confusing, though, what breaking the strike is. Would you agree?

I have a pretty good sense of it. You can't promote stuff that's on TV or can't promote a movie. Okay, so the coming out makes total- hysterical lunatics who love to stab you as much as they possibly can. We're not promoting anything, we're just friends chatting here. That's right.

That's what we urge people.

But you can listen to your podcast.

Yes, that's in a different category.

I guess the confusing part for me is, well, there's many confusing parts, but one is I totally get not promoting a new movie. That makes sense, you gotta punish these. But I'll be talking to someone who's like, we're gonna pretend, I don't know. We're gonna pretend. friends didn't happen?

I think. if it's not in the release window, I think you're probably okay.

That's kind of what I feel like the spirit of it should be. And then I was also saying, are we pretending that we're not streaming every night? Like, am I supposed to come in here and pretend I haven't seen every doc on Netflix in the last eight weeks?

If you didn't make them, I think you're okay.

I know, but ironically, I am kind of promoting the streamer, which is, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. It gets a little confusing.

Yeah, maybe by the time this is released, it will all be settled.

Oh, wouldn't that be lovely? That would be nice. Had you heard the rumor I had two weeks ago, like from high up, it's done. They're gonna announce it right after Labor Day.

I did, but I didn't believe it. You didn't. And I never do, because I don't think anyone actually knows what's going on. And when I say that, I don't think even the people negotiating know, because they only know their half of it. So how would anybody know?

Yes.

Well, you can't watch it right now, right? Or are there reruns?

There are reruns, yeah.

Oh, okay, okay. Yeah, check those out. One time on the show? Yeah.

Guillermo got an inside tip from a friend that the strike was gonna end on Tuesday of this week. And then it didn't end on Tuesday of this week. And of course, we all went to Guillermo's. Guillermo, what's your buddy saying? He's like, I guess he was wrong.

That would be great. In almost plausible, because you can imagine the person going like, oh, I can tell this guy. Who does he know, right? You could underestimate, Guillermo.

Almost plausible, but not in any way plausible.

Still wouldn't happen.

It was someone who worked for Disney, he said. I said, was it Goofy?

Was it Goofy?

Was it Cinderella, maybe?

Was it Mickey? You wouldn't have said it. You wouldn't have broke the ranks, would you?

Wait, I have a question, because we talked about your faux pas outside. How's your temper?

I don't have much of a temper. Every once in a while, if I feel I've really been wronged,

I will get upset.

I shouldn't say I don't have a temper. I do, but I don't indulge it. I just get mad and then I internalize it.

I just stash it away. Take it out on your body in some weird way.

Eat something naughty. Go right to the refrigerator.

Consume some things.

The maddest I've been this month, though, I went to the doctor and I'm in the parking lot. You know, these doctors' parking lots are $2.50 every 15 minutes. It's insane. You talk about healthcare,

that's where they're really killing you is the parking.

So there's the gate and the machine and the machine's not working. You know, I try to swipe my credit card and do the thing where you press it up against, the thing which I can never do.

The tap, yeah, it's hard.

It's not working and I call them and they go, oh, let me take your card and I'll go to the booth and swipe it. So the guy takes my card. He doesn't come back for like nine minutes. Now there's a line behind me. And now there are two women behind me who take pity on me, think I don't have money.

I'm like, no, no, no, come back. I gotta be honest. You got exactly what you deserved in that moment.

Yeah, probably.

On a karmic level, yes.

And it had been $5 more. Turns out. my manager said no. And of course now you can't get out.

Then I would have assumed my cousin Sal was in the building somewhere.

At some point you would drive through the gate. I also would imagine.

I have done that. I did that at the hospital. once. I was so sick. I went into the emergency room and I realized I was not gonna be seen for hours.

I have done it once, but I didn't have the pleasure of making the decision to do it. And then probably what you felt afterwards.

It was an accident?

Yeah, it was at Warner Brothers. I was in a truck that was too big. The little lever was below the hood. I couldn't really see it. And so I'm talking with the guy at the guard shack and we're getting along great.

You know, they have a collection of those, because it happens all the time.

I was relieved to find out that this was like a daily occurrence.

They also, at the gas station, people drive off every single day.

Which is why they now have the breakaway ones.

They have the breakaway ones, but they will charge you like $150 or something. I think so, yeah.

Okay, back to not believing Guillermo's source, or even bigger than that, that no one actually knows. I think this is where you and I share a very similar disposition, which is why I kind of was shocked when you believed a lot of this JFK conspiracy stuff. Oh, because I thought you and I processed things the same way, which is like, no one keeps any secrets. Everyone's a blabbermouth. There's no real secrets.

Right. You're talking about that thing. we talked about that. that guy told me that I was supposed to never tell anybody. Yes, yes, yes.

It confirmed all of your JFK theories.

Somebody killed him, right? So is it even a conspiracy at that point, or is it just a poorly unsolved murder?

Well, you don't think it was Lee Harvey Oswald.

Honestly, I just think it's a great story. It is. And it seems just as believable to me as Lee Harvey Oswald. I'm not a great student of the JFK assassination. In the same way, I know every bit of minutiae about the OJ trial, because I lived through it and I was watching it.

Oh, Dax.

I promise, but I mean, I broke the promise.

Someone had access to classified information, read the classified information, said everything you thought was true is true, virtually. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It wasn't anything new.

Yeah, and it wasn't Guillermo's informant. This was a legitimate.

It may have been one of Guillermo's guys. It's got a lot of people on the inside.

We don't know. Okay, now back to the podcast. Strike Force Five. I'm listening to it and I'm like, this is great. I'm enjoying this so much.

Yeah, I didn't see it because Matt Damon's in it, but yeah.

But you're aware of who's in it. Yeah.

Or like Ocean's 11. Ocean's 11. Also with Matt Damon, so you also probably haven't seen it.

We are the world.

We are the world, exactly. Who's gonna hit that right note and kind of blow everyone else away?

Who's Lionel? Who's Michael?

Yes, yes. Who's Bruce?

Who's Ray Charles?

My conclusion on Departed was Nicholson is unbeatable. If you put Nicholson in a two shot with a fucking chimpanzee on fire, you'll probably be watching Jack's face to see how he reacts to it. Right. I mean, he's just so charismatic. So, in some weird, perverse way, I'm kind of excited to hear all of you guys who in theory are competitors, I guess, and you have a similar job, but listening to who's gonna land where, who takes the lead, that's all very fun for an audience member.

It is, and I think you might have a different conclusion at the end of each episode of the show.

Fun, I like that.

What we decided, because we are broadcasters, we know how this works, is that it was gonna be a big mess if there wasn't a host, right? There has to be a host. And so we decided each one of us will take each episode and kind of follow it all the way through. So we'll prepare the episode, we'll host the episode, that person will edit the episode.

And then you hand it off.

And then you hand it off, right.

Okay, so you were obviously the first host.

I was the first host. Seth was the second host. Okay. Stephen was the third host. I could have it wrong.

And I'm breaking the spirit of it, because what I already said, what's really cool about it, is that everyone's getting along, and I think it's very encouraging. But anyways, the point is, I was having a really fun time listening to all this until I got to this part where you go like, oh yeah, you know, what I fucking hate is when people come to my fishing lodge and they don't fish. Right. It irks me.

That's right.

And I, of course, immediately was like, fuck, I've been there four times now.

But we've talked about this. I told you about it.

That you're mad.

I'm not mad. I shouldn't have said mad.

Well, irked is a dark word.

No, but your explanation to me, which I remember very well, was good enough that you're off the list. And here's what it was. Listen, there are some people who don't fish because their six-year-old daughter is a vegetarian and doesn't want them to go fish. Okay, okay. That's unacceptable.

That's irksome.

Yes. You explained it to me in the best possible way. I don't know if you remember, but you said, I've seen what has happened to you and I've seen what has happened to our mutual friend, Tom, and I've seen what has happened to et cetera. And I know that this is going to happen to me also, where I become obsessed with fly fishing, and I want to wait a few years until I do that.

I don't think you have the bandwidth currently.

To me, that's like, okay, that makes sense.

And I'll go further. Maybe I didn't say it out loud to you, but I have said it on here. I think, maybe when Jake was on or something, why I don't fish. It's even deeper than that, which is also two dudes. I idolize, Tom Hanson and you.

It's like you're saving your virginity. You're waiting for marriage.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I could commit to you publicly that the first time I go fishing, I would like to go with you.

Well, that I would actually be furious. if you do fly fishing with someone. Yeah, who would I go with? That's okay. You guys have known each other longer, but I really love taking people fly fishing for the first time.

Okay, so he's not fishing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He just doesn't like it. It's just not his thing.

We talked about this on one of the fact checks and Dax gave an explanation, but we were waiting for you to come to give the actual explanation of what is the psychology behind why you like it.

I would love to explain that.

Good, because Monica, I think rightly, was like,

well, A, I don't get it.

Right, like, oh, this seems boring.

Well, first of all, you haven't done it, right? So that's probably the main reason why you don't get it. But in the particular way that we are fly fishing on the Snake River, you're on a slow moving boat with two other people. You are mostly quiet, but also having conversations. You're getting direction from your guide and you're watching a fly on the water.

Yeah, it's like the proverbial shower for musicians or driving, yeah.

It's just like that. The day goes by like that. And sometimes you haven't looked around for hours. Like you will look up and go, oh, wow, it's beautiful here.

Oh, there's moose.

Which is pretty crazy, because most of the time, that's what you'd be focused on, you know? It's just that particular point of focus. When you do that, it frees the rest of your brain. And for me- It's euphoric. Yeah, it is, it's euphoric.

Okay, then that's a little different than what my guess was. Here was my guess, because my very favorite thing is going to the track on the motorcycle, simply because it is the only moment in my whole life where I actually can't focus on another thing or I will crash. It's like that cut and dry. I can't like wander to, do. I have enough money for the rest of my life?

That makes me laugh, because I know that's a real thought.

Oh, of course, every 12 minutes. So for me, it's forced presence, which is kind of hard for me because my mind's always all over the place. My guess was like, you're trying to hit this certain spot, but everything's moving. It's not bobber fishing. I was trying to explain.

And you're casting, you're hitting targets. And then there's that moment of drama. when that fly that you've been looking at, sometimes for 40 minutes straight, a big trout comes up from under the water and attacks it. And then, if you're not paying attention, you're not going to die, but you're going to wish you, because you're going to be the same if you lost it. You know, you just take your eye off or you're watching the other guy.

It also sounds like nature's video game.

Yeah, that is what it is. Sure. Yeah, there's that just like element of surprise and achievement. And also it rings some, I think, caveman bells. I could catch fish if I needed to in a pinch.

You can survive.

I'm safe somehow.

And then we release the fish right into the...

Although there is a fish up there that you're encouraged to keep.

The rainbow trout is considered to be an invasive trout. It's a very controversial and gets people very fired up, but they're trying to protect the cutthroat trout from being displaced, because rainbow trout and cutthroat will breed together. They become cut bows, whereas brown trout will not breed with the other trout. And so the browns, even though they're not supposed to be there, they're okay.

That's going to be the clip. we pull out. The browns, even though they're not supposed to be there.

It's interesting.

It'd be better if the browns weren't here, but they're here, but luckily you can ignore them.

In this world, everybody's thumbs up on the browns. Nobody gets the rainbows.

Everyone loves the browns.

Oh, the rainbows.

It's the LGBTQ plus fish.

Okay, that makes sense. They're taking it on the chin, even down there. Yeah, yeah. It's tough.

It's Idaho, you know? That's true.

They need to get those fish over to the LA river.

Yeah, but it's fun. I love it. And I love knowing just little quirks and the things that get people going.

And do you see a time limit? Probably not, right? Because we have people like Tom Hanson.

Well, there are very old men fishing, so that's another great thing about it.

Yeah, and do you- And women. Are you ever doing it and have that slight fear in the back of your head? Like, God, I hope I don't ever stop liking this.

No, I don't think I will ever stop liking it.

You feel very confident.

Yeah, I feel pretty confident. It's funny, because I got my dad into it. I said, you know, usually the father will take the son fishing for his first time. But, you know, we're from Brooklyn. You were a good idea.

Look at this. The father will take the son.

Yes, yes, yes, I can't wait. I did that with Bateman. I took him out.

Yeah. Well, everyone that returns loves it. Not everyone. Throw someone under the bus.

Adam Carolla doesn't like it. He doesn't hate it. But either you love it or you secretly don't really like it. It's kind of one of those things.

Right. You're not half in on it.

A couple of my friends were just not into it.

I guess my other concern is, it's not like you guys go fishing for an hour.

No, no, it's the whole day.

It's the whole day, yeah.

That's part of what's great about it. Because you get to have a conversation with, first of all, one of your friends or family members for a whole day. And then there's a guide. You get to know a complete stranger in detail.

Well, it would be like driving in an Uber up to Portland. Yeah, right. You'd really know that person.

And be real chatty with the driver. Yeah, yeah. I know fishing is interesting, certainly to me, but you keep going. I gotta find something. I gotta tell you something about my wife and you.

Oh, okay, great, great. I really look forward to that. I have one last question about the fishing, though, but now I've completely lost it. Oh, you took Billy for the first time this year, right?

Yeah, I took him out on the boat for the first time. Oh, he didn't fish? Yeah, he fished. We'd fished in the pond, but it was his first time fishing in the boat.

And he liked it, right? You sent a picture of him holding the fish.

You know, it's funny.

It's a long time, I'd imagine, at that age.

My son, Billy is a real character. He sits on my lap, and I hold the rod, and then we catch fish, right? And we caught a bunch of big fish, and then he kinda had enough. And we get back to the lodge, and everyone's like, oh, Billy. They're looking at the pictures.

Well, good, he's got integrity. That's what you learned. He's six years old.

I was like, you. gotta play along with the game like your sister does. Come on, now.

Yeah.

So my wife, I mean, you are probably her number one favorite. I don't know if you're aware of this.

No, but I'm delighted.

In life, and also the podcast as well.

Oh, wow.

And I think the podcast has really fueled it, because, obviously, you don't spend a tremendous amount of time together, or, if you do, just keep that quiet.

Right, right.

One night, Molly is going on and on and on about how evolved and vulnerable you are, which, of course, these are also veiled insults. Of course.

Directed at me. Of course. Megging, megging.

She's going on about how funny and all this stuff, to the point where, and I rarely do this, I start to get a little jealous. Yes, okay.

This is the best day of Dax's life.

I said, well, did you hear the nice things Dax said about me? Like, now looking to basically get her approval based on the approval of somebody.

The guy you're in love with is in love with me. Exactly. That's what all roads lead to me.

You're already with the guy. I'm embarrassed to say, I actually said this, and I wrote it down, because I didn't want to forget it. And I said, honestly, I was getting jealous, you know, listening, and she said, don't be jealous, just be more like Dax.

Oh, no.

Yeah, oh Molly, let's do it. Let's get the fuck out of here. Let's just take all this and get out.

She has no idea what she's just done.

Kristen and Jimmy will be happy together. That's a great callback.

I think we would be very compatible.

I think we could switch her room.

It's a bad deal for Kristen, let's be honest,

but you know, we can figure it out.

You know what she says? She says, hey, Jimmy's so even keeled, and have you ever noticed he's so kind and generous and nice?

No, she's in love with him as well.

Well, you know, that's what you say about, like a grandparent.

No, no.

As you're leaving the convalescent home. So even keeled. All the other seniors are throwing their food all around, not Jimmy.

Not Jimmy.

I will tell you another thing. I was starting to defend myself by attacking you when she was talking about how evolved you were. And I said, Dax is evolved. Dax is sitting in his house, wearing military fatigues, waiting to kill his robber.

Exactly.

That's not evolved. And she goes, you'd be right in there with him.

I was like, yeah.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Yeah, I was in underwear and running shoes. I went to sleep in, and I also have my gloves when I ride motorcycles with the Kevlar knuckles.

Well, you have to have those.

I don't want to hurt my hands as I'm pummeling these guys to death in the doggie door. But you remember? the punchline of the story is that people don't remember you. The house was robbed three times. We came back from vacation.

Oh, yeah. It's like a Liam Neeson movie.

It's like my fantasy versus what happened. It's like I ran like a cartoon straight into the wall trying to defend the house.

You're like Oprah, you know, in a lot of ways. I remember when Oprah was at her Zenith in the 90s, and I'd come home from work, and my now ex-wife would be yelling at me about something she saw about men on Oprah. And I was like, I don't know who this woman is, but she is causing me a lot of problems.

Yes. This brilliant dude in Michigan made a video that made its way to me, and it's just him in his front yard, and he goes, I want to know who this Dax guy is. My wife's always telling me, this Dax guy drives a fucking Pacifica. My wife thinks this guy's so cool. He's just going crazy because I drive a Pacifica.

Yeah, yeah, it is happening to me. It really has. It's interesting. It's never really happened to me before.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

Yeah, I did want to retire.

You were, like certain, right? When I talked to you, it was going to take a miracle to get you.

I was very certain.

When was this?

This was about two years ago, a year and a half ago.

The first time, yeah, you told me was in Idaho two summers ago.

I thought that was it. All right, I've had enough. And I know this sounds ridiculously trivial, but you start looking around your office and you go, do I really want to clean all this out? Oh, am I really gonna now go through these closets and box them? And that's step one on the I might stay journey.

I believed you, but I had-.

I believed me too.

Well, exactly. So I believed you in the same way. I believe myself, which is, I make declarations like this all the time. I was very relieved that we had Jake Johnson on the other day. You must've had him on.

Oh, yeah, right.

Yeah, he looked insane with the shaved head. We were just bonding over the fact, like these declarations, like I'm done acting. You know, why do I have to say that out loud? Why do I have to declare that? I can't just go like, well, just leave it at today.

Usually what happens is you get forced to answer the question. Like somebody will ask you in an interview. Every interview, people are like, it's gonna be 20 years. I started to feel like people wanted me to leave.

Right, it's like time.

You got to dance around the question because you don't want everybody at work.

to be bumped out. Especially if they phrase it like, how much longer are you gonna do this? Yeah. How much longer do you think you're gonna stick around?

Well, don't you think yours is a little, and we all do this, but a little ego. where you are worried, people are thinking, why hasn't he done any acting? I haven't seen him do any acting in a long time. So you have to be ahead of it. And I've decided I'm not doing that anymore.

I'm in charge of this.

I'm in charge, I'm in control, yeah.

That's always a part of your life, right? Do you remember when Larry King had Jerry Seinfeld on at the end of the Seinfeld show, and he was like, Seinfeld's being canceled after, you know, he was like, how do you, and Jerry lost his mind? Oh, he did. You know, in a funny way, but he was like,

oh, why are we, it's not, you can't call it canceled.

That one person thought that the show had been canceled was so inflammatory.

And what a beautiful example, because this is the person with the most successful show of all time. And even that person isn't inoculated from that.

No one is questioning what his status was at NBC, except for one very old man who's still hosting a talk show.

Who used the wrong word, unintentionally.

Maybe not, but I don't know.

That is comforting though. It is. I think that's what I always like when Stern has legends on and you get to hear say, Dave, the whole time was fearful. That's so comforting.

I know it is. Billy Crystal once told me, oh, I get so nervous before doing something. And I was like, oh, it was comforting. Also, I went, oh no, it's going to be like this always.

Right. Right, but I actually think it helps you go, okay, this is how everyone feels. And now I can get over it, because there's no merit to it. It's like human nature.

It was one of just those little things someone said to me that really helped me in a weird way.

Oh, also, this has had to have happened to you. I won't say the person's name, but someone I absolutely worshiped growing up and was a comedian that I thought, well, if I had what they had, I would be so happy. And then, when I came to meet them and they were very, very unhappy, I wanted to say like, you've just given me the biggest gift imaginable. I can see that that's not going to make me happy.

I'm sure that made them even happier.

I didn't say that to them, but I remember thinking, I'm actually grateful. I now can see.

It's funny because it's a lesson that is needle pointed on the wall of like many houses, you know, whatever. And you don't really buy it until you see it.

Well, you can know things intellectually and you can know them emotionally, and you can maybe know them both ways. I've heard a lot of sayings and I could explain a lot of sayings, especially from AA. But until the one moment you were like, oh, right, one day at a time is very profound.

It's like, as an American, you think we have it better and we are in a better spot and happier than everyone, every place else. And then you go to a second or third world country and you go, why do these people seem so much happier than we are? They seem to be having a lot more fun. Who's winning?

Well, for me, that was moving to LA, living in a one bedroom apartment above another one bedroom apartment where six, seven people lived. And initially I was like, oh my God, where are they sleeping? So concerned about them. But I lived above them for 10 years. The amount of laughing that was happening all day long.

There are little lessons that we're taught and we don't learn.

Or you just learn the same lesson over and over again every six months. That also happens to me. Same epiphanies.

Yeah, it's almost like I need a special file where I write the important things down that I review on a regular basis, but it's all fleeting, always.

Wait, what are yours? Molly will love to hear it. It'll be so vulnerable of you.

There's this song by James Taylor called The Secret of Life, or Secret O Life, for whatever reason, he gave it a funny title. That's not a funny song. It actually is The Secret of Life. And it's very simple. It's The Secret of Life is enjoying the passage of time.

Well, on the podcast, you kind of alluded to another reason why you wanted to work again, which is you had an abundance of time off, which also happens, right? When you're working at time, you want time off. Then when you have time off, you're like, I'm built to work.

Yeah, I got the summers off, which none of the other hosts have.

You said. it makes it that much more enjoyable, knowing everyone else doesn't have the summer. Yeah, of course, of course.

I get something for being the one doing this the longest.

That's right, you earned it.

That was a big thing for me. If ABC hadn't said, what if we give you the summer off, I wouldn't still be doing this. Because it takes everything. There are many jobs that are harder. I would never compare it to a manual labor job or even some of the jobs I've had in the past, but it requires all of you.

Yeah, for sure. Kristen did it once. She guest hosted when I was working for her, and it was so full on. We did both leave, and she was like, I don't know how he can do this every day.

This is insane.

The next day, and the next day, and you see something, or you notice something, you're like, oh good, I have a nugget that I can fill four minutes with. Those little things.

Great, I'm gonna ask you some advice, which is, I did the math, and so, we'll just say you've been on for 20 years. At the time this was printed, 2,694 episodes. If you average two interviews an episode, you've done 5,388 interviews. Now, we've done about 700, and it feels preposterously too much. And then I look at this number, I'm like, oh my god, it's like fucking 10x.

You've also done it in a much shorter period of time, and your interviews are much lengthier, so they're pretty close, I think.

Well, probably the thing I'm guessing, or I pray you've had the experience of, is it just happened to me. Beautiful guest on, beautiful interview, and I come out, and I go, these are so boring now. I'm so boring. I'm out of everything. I cannot get anything exciting out of everyone.

I do, I try to be aware of patterns that I fall into, and then try to make an effort to vary from them. The best thing you could do, which is also the worst thing you could do, is listen to yourself, because you learn so much. if you go back and listen, but it's so painful. You do get to a point where you're good enough at it that you don't have to do that. You can still be pretty good, but if you listen to yourself, you will learn, and that's the best tip I think anyone could ever give as far as interviewing or broadcasting goes.

Yeah, I was reading this Rolling Stone interview with you from maybe March or something, and you were saying how grateful you were that the first three years of the show were total chaos. No one knew what they were doing, and you say, even in the interview, you guys didn't truly figure out how to make this show until year 12 or 13..

I believe that. No. It's not a joke.

It's so encouraging.

Yeah, it is.

What do you think were the last bits?

I think for me, what I realized over the course of the show is, it's almost like golf in some ways, and I'm not a golfer, but I recognize the elements that with golf, when you're a novice and you play a round and you hit two good shots that round, you're like, oh, those two good shots I hit were great. You focus on those things, and then, as you get better, you start to focus more on the things that you've done wrong. It's almost like a coping mechanism in some ways. And then, as you get even better, consistency becomes what's most important, and not the highlights, and that's what you value and that's what you admire. in others is the consistency.

Yes, yeah. Instead of a 10 and a three, a 10 and a three.

Yeah, yeah. So that's the way I look at it. It's like, can you be consistently good? Because I did radio for a long time. What I noticed that the listeners appreciated more than anything, because I did sports casts at 6 a.m., 6.30,, 7,, 7.30,, 8 and 8.30, every morning on KROQ Radio here in LA.

Yeah, because I think any kind of performance whatsoever elicits some anxiety in the listener or the viewer. You're aware of the stakes somehow in the back of your mind.

Especially if you like the person.

Yes, but it's like you go see stand-up and there's four people. For me, the anxiety is almost too much.

Same here.

But then someone steps on stage, they exude just confidence, and you go, oh, I'm safe, and their pace is calm, and whatever the whole thing is. It's almost like McDonald's. You know what you're gonna get, and that's why you keep going. And you go like, oh, this person never makes me feel very nervous that they're collapsing in front of me.

I never thought of it that way, but it's all about how it makes you feel, I guess. And an open mic night, that sort of thing is an absolute nightmare for me, because you're rooting for each person, and it doesn't go well for almost any of them. But then you go see Dave Chappelle, or Bill Burr, or a guy like Chris DeStefano, or whatever, and you're like, they're good at this.

Have you watched this stand-up special that just came out?

What, Shane Gillis's?

Yes.

I haven't seen it yet, but I heard it's great.

Okay, I can't wait for you to watch it, so we can talk about it. Oh, you saw it? Yeah, yeah, Chris, and I watched it two nights ago.

I've heard it's on a very high level.

It's on a very high level, and it is the most dangerous set you can imagine. Someone doing it in 2023, and just for that alone, it's like watching Nitro Circus.

But of course, we're not promoting Netflix.

No, no, no, you should definitely cut that. Well, I guess that's cable, you cut the cord, but definitely cancel your Netflix and every other thing.

Download, cancel, you'll be fine.

One of my points was like, I grew up in Detroit, a lot of UAW strikes, I've witnessed a ton of them. They still drove their Chevys to the plant to pick it. They didn't stop driving their Chevy when it broke, they still took it to the dealer.

Well, that's a matter of transportation.

Yeah, if I don't watch my entertainment, my one and a half hours without kids each night, I'll die.

No, but the truth is, if everyone stopped watching the streamers for a month, which is obviously never gonna happen, but if that happened, immediately, they would figure it out.

I had this thought, this is crazy, I'm sure it's low percentage, but it did cross my mind. just yesterday, I was driving around, I was like, humans. just by nature, they fatigue of things. I think, even like the polarization, I don't think there'll ever be a leader that unites us all. I just think slowly people have become fucking fatigued with the fighting left and right.

Yes.

That's my only hope for it. It's just too exhausting, you get bored of it. All these movements we have, they have a beginning, they have an end. It's conceivable that we stopped making all this entertainment. It's a long enough break for people to stop watching TV and they go like, oh fuck, we've been watching TV for eight years, all day, every day.

Oh yeah, absolutely. It used to be when you were a kid, TV was like, oh, you can't put your kids in front of the TV, you know, it's bad. Now it's like, TV is books.

Is life. Yeah. Yes.

And YouTube is now the thing we don't want the kids watching, and the video games.

Yeah, I really do have that distinction and I'll catch Delta watching YouTube a lot. You know YouTube.

I do too.

I mean, mostly because I'm afraid it's gonna bring them down a rabbit hole.

I don't like the pacing of the videos. I noticed that when my kids watch YouTube, their behavior is worse.

Yes.

When's the last time you have your kids watch movies that you watch when you were a kid? Oh. The credits are insane. The opening credits go on forever and you're like, oh, I don't know if I'm gonna make it through this.

I know.

Nevermind them, they're gone.

Even classics like Chitty, Chitty, Bang Bang, you're watching 17 minutes of fucking titles.

It was like they were trying to fill space. Yes. They're trying to make the movie slow.

It's like, we're not making our two hour and 18 minute runtime. We gotta add more people to the crew. Yeah. Give them each their own title card.

It's so different. Started with cutting out the TV theme songs and now it's like you see, that little Pixar lamp.

They drop you in the middle of the second act. Yeah. And then the cuts are coming hot and fast.

Well, we had someone on, he's big on TikTok, and he was talking about how quickly you have to get people's attention on that and how you do it. You can have like a really close up of someone's face so that they will stop and watch. That's how fast people wanna get through. You have to have something major and quick.

These TikTokers know too much about our brains.

They do.

Okay, I got some rapid fire questions for you. In the 5,388 interviews, and again, that's my own estimation.

I think I've done well over 3,000 shows. Oh, you have, okay.

Yeah. I'm not surprised that the numbers are on. Nearly everything I read on the internet once the guest is here is not true. Have you had the experience where it's like the person that's been booked, you're certain you dislike? And then they're on your show and you kind of fall in love with them?

Or you understand them better, for sure. I have had that. I've had that with comedians that I feel are hacky comedians. And then you sit down with them and you go, oh, this is a person who's a pro, who knows how to make the audience laugh. And it might not be my particular taste, but I can't say this is not funny, because these people are laughing.

So, first of all, I have that pretty often. There's like guests I don't think I want. And thus far, a hundred percent of the time I end up loving them. Right, yeah. Like you're talking to anyone long enough, I'm like, yeah, yeah, everyone's fucking doing.

the best they can. I've also had people who, especially men, I didn't think much of them physically. And then you see them in person, it's like, oh my God, this is a handsome guy.

Sure, sure, sure.

Now I understand.

Yeah, or how about Momoa dancing in front of you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. You're like, how can you not get sucked up into that?

Yeah, we haven't had that much commotion on our show in many years than when he did that.

It's cool when someone has that kind of power. It's good to just witness.

Just that raw,

Magnetism. Animalistic magnetism, yeah.

A lot of people, you feel it. It's really interesting. when you go, oh, I get it. You know who I got it from? George Bush.

Well, you probably go like, he didn't fall into that.

Yeah, because you go, oh, his dad was president. His name basically got him the gig. And then you go, oh no, it didn't. It's his way.

But that's also weird, because that didn't translate when he would do speeches and stuff.

It didn't at all. And that's part of why I was surprised by it. But you sit and have a chat with him, and it is different.

My story, and it's very unpopular to say anything positive about George Bush, but here I'm gonna go as well. When Chris and I went to Africa and we stayed at this incredible hotel, Singita, George Bush had just been there within six months and totally unsolicited. Mind you, Bill Gates had been there. A bunch of people have been to this place.

I've been there. I proposed to Molly there.

At Singita? Yes. Which one? In South Africa?

Yeah, in South Africa.

We were at one in Tanzania. There's like three of them on the Kermadei Reserve. But yeah, beautiful, incredible hotel. Every single person that worked there over the course of the 10 days we were there just couldn't help but tell me how much they loved George Bush. He had been there.

Well, he also did a lot for Africa. I mean, one of the good things that he did, and of course did a lot of things that I don't agree with at all.

You didn't wanna go into Iraq again?

He did a lot to fight HIV in Africa, more than probably any single human being. Oh, of course, I say that like I know.

Like, any other human being.

I know what Bono said. Bono said that.

I'm taking this from Bono. We disagree, take it up with him. Have you ever pulled the plug in the middle of an interview?

I've not pulled the plug. I once was interviewing Bruce Willis, who seemed very unhappy to be there. And I just said to him in the middle of the interview something like, is everything okay? And he snapped right out of it and was great. after that.

Wow, that's interesting.

That was interesting, yeah.

It's very weird. I had almost the identical experience with him. Really? Yeah, working in Austin, doing Idiocracy 19 years ago. He's there doing a movie, staying at the same hotel.