Rerelease: Roy Choi
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Welcome, welcome, welcome. That scared me. I didn't know what he was going to do. Me neither. I got scared. I had nothing planned. I winked it. I got scared. What's your name? You got to introduce us. Yeah. I'm Rob. Have you ever heard the show? AKA Wobby Wob. This is Monica Padman. Thank you. And Dex Shepard. Thanks for having us. We're all here. Yeah, thanks for having us. We're picking our favorite episodes of the past.

And my pick is Roy Choi. I want to add it's always Roy Choi. Like when we did Best of that year, you were like, I don't really care who you guys pick. We got to have Roy Choi. So I'm just curious. Great pick. I just loved him. Yeah. The like Asian-American journey he takes us through and kind of his outlook on food and making food.

making it kind of attainable for people and not just this high end level of elitism. Yeah. It's an incredible addiction story. Gambling addiction. That is...

It's an awesome episode. It is. It is. That gambling thing for me. I know. That's one that you don't forget. Yeah. I think about it often. Like I'm constantly talking about addiction to people and occasionally we'll be talking about gambling and it's like half of what I understand about the whole thing is from him. The notion of looking in the mirror and going, we just have to get even. Get even is such a metaphor, but no spoilers. No spoilers. Here's Roy Choi.

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He's an armchair expert. He's an armchair expert. He's an armchair expert.

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, Experts on Expert. I'm Dan Rathers and I'm joined by Minister Mouse, the Duchess of Duluth. Oh, let's bring, yeah, let's bring that guy in. Yeah, the sex chinchilla. Okay, okay. Great. That's grown on you a little bit, hasn't it?

I guess with time, things will just wear away at you, you know? Yeah, you're right. Like they make you really angry for a while and then just who has the energy? You don't have the energy. Yeah. I think we've talked about it, but like when you catch yourself putting energy into staying mad. Oh, sure. Like a lot of times it's just a runaway freight train in your head, right? And then I did this and then I did this. For some reason I can see it in my mind when I'm like, well, now I'm actively trying to remember. Oh.

That's a good thing to catch yourself on. Oh, yeah. All of us. Someone who doesn't do that, a nice, nice boy. Oh, who? Roy Choi. Roy Choi.

Roy Choi is a restaurant entrepreneur and acclaimed chef and a bestselling author. It's one of my favorite interviews. Yes. It was one of these heart connection ones. Yes. I think. He has several restaurants, Kogi Barbecue and incredible restaurant, best friend at Park MGM in Las Vegas. But most importantly, he has this tremendous show called Broken Bread and it is amazing.

out now season two that's an Emmy award and James Beard award winning series that looks at food and how interwoven it is with culture and it's fascinating and it's kind of he uses it as a route into healing connection wonderful stuff is it dare I say anthropological absolutely aren't all things yeah please enjoy Roy Choi

I have virtually the same Jordans in that color scheme. It came as a set with Dunks and Air Force Ones from Undefeated and they did like a whole series where they're doing kind of like a Godzilla battle between a Godzilla King Kong battle. I had a

There was a pair in high school that I just want more than anything. Do you remember the Air Escapes? Yeah. Yeah, they were kind of like Air Force, I guess. And mine were kind of a gray and a blue and a white. I just keep waiting for them to come out with those. Too bad you don't have the original pair.

I know. It's even hard to find a picture of those things because they also came in brown and white, and I really would love the brown ones. I've looked for them many times. I got some friends in the street. Let me drop a little seed for the air decks. Ha ha.

Release. I want to ask you about it because I imagine we're coming from a semi-similar situation, which is like, I wanted Jordan so fucking bad. Of course, we couldn't afford him. And I was in an interview in Detroit five years ago. The person interviewing me had on a brand new beautiful set of fours. And I was like, oh my gosh, you've kept those that beautiful? I'm sorry, they were fives. And he goes...

no they're like a month old they just came out and I was like hold on a second I literally had no idea he goes oh yeah go to this thing and in the interview I hit send and bought like three pairs of the ones I always wanted and now I just can't fucking stop there you go do you have a ton of sneakers I don't I only wear what's given to me

For free. Smart. I'm not like as big a shoe fiend as most people are. I'm not like a sneaker head. I just like, I like wearing shoes. I don't like collecting them, you know? So like as soon as I get them, I wear them and then I go on to the next one. I do too. I've never really been a collector of many things. I don't know. I've never had attachments to like material items. Was there anything though as like a junior high kid that you wanted that you couldn't have that you've now gotten?

No, that's pretty weird. Yeah. I mean, I've had addictions and I've gone down really deep holes and I've stayed attached to many, many things like just where I won't let it go. And I've written like horrible love letters on the back of pizza boxes, like the Jon Favreau scene, the swingers like on the first date.

So I've gone down dark holes. Not that I'm perfect in that way, but I've never been attached to material items. So interesting. I don't know why. But I think it might have been a foreshadowing or precursor to who I ultimately became, which is creating businesses that make no money. Right.

That's pretty much, pretty much what was my destiny from childhood. Well, yeah, you and I share the addiction thing and I can't wait to talk about that. It's not often that my guest has also smoked crack, so it's like, right? Yeah. I can't imagine you get interviewed by a ton of people that have smoked crack.

a good deal of crack either. No, no. Well, they're not open about it. Or they may not have ascended to a level where they're actually in a position to... To look back on it. Because that really weeds out the recreational users in the attics. It does. There's not a lot of like recreational crack smokers. And I feel like I moved to the front of the classroom with crack.

Because it was one week. It was just a burner of seven days, just complete roller coaster all the way through. The lips are burnt to fucking oblivion. To oblivion, walking through the fucking Hell's Kitchen. That's where all the crack was being sold in New York. I went so far through that I came out the other end and I was like, this shit sucks. I'm done. So that's it. You just had a nice seven day run. Yeah. Oh.

It was like a vacation in Cancun. That's incredible. I have to say you found yourself in the perfect environment because you do not want to be like day six of smoking crack in the wilderness. You want to be around other zombies. And New York was really like that at that time. I'm from here. Speaking of pizza boxes and love letters, I went to go visit a girl that I met in Korea and

Without warning her, I showed up at her doorstep in Providence, Rhode Island. Women love that. They love it. You guys love that, right? It doesn't feel dangerous at all. This was before texting. This was just a knock. Sure. You had an address, a hard address. And a hard address. Show up. And then I knock on the door and then obviously it didn't go well. So then I ended up in New York at the YMCA. It was $7 a night in Times Square. And that whole street that I stayed on,

It was like Crack Avenue, man. It was zombies. Like, it was crazy. What year was this? It was 94. I was just going to say, I was living in downtown Detroit in 94. And yeah, it was just ubiquitous. Yes. It was rare to see somebody not struggling with addiction out on the street. It was heartbreaking. But I didn't feel so bad because I was partaking, so who cared? Yeah.

I think we should just start first and foremost with you were born in Seoul. Mom and dad met here, but mom's North Korean, dad's South Korean. Then they moved to South Korea, had you, and then you now come to LA at two? Yeah. So they both came here for college. Yeah.

Graduate school. So my mom was from a well-to-do family. My grandfather was a gangster. He was Tony Montana. Oh, really? My maternal grandfather. Can you just tell me the timeline? The Korean War is 50s? 50 to 53. Right. Up until 50, they're living in North Korea. And the war happens. They all flee. My grandpa's a geek. He figures things out. He gets to Seoul. I mean, Seoul at that time was basically dirt roads and buildings all blown up. It was just crazy at that time. The war was coming off of the Japanese occupation.

because it's the peninsula in the pacific ocean we were at the brunt of the whole cold war between you know communism and the u.s right and korea was the pawn in between it all because that was the foothold into asia yeah and so most north koreans came down across the border it closed he's in seoul and it's like tony montana in the detention center washing dishes you know in miami tony montana's a scarface reference just so you know i actually did know that even though i haven't seen scarface i didn't want to insult you but i also didn't want you to be left behind but it's

I'm one of those Zach guys. I'll update my references. Yeah, and so he figured things out. He was hustling the whole time and he eventually took over kind of like what you would call Midtown Manhattan. Like he took over and owned pretty much all the real estate. So my mom's family was very well to do, but that's a whole nother story because they lost everything. They had nine sisters, two brothers.

both brothers got addicted to gambling and lost the whole fortune. So you come by this addiction stuff, honestly. It's crazy, yeah. And so they sent her here to art school. Dad came from the total opposite. He came from the country in the South, ended up in the city. His father was just, you know, a normal everyday banker, but he figured it out and became like the head of his class.

So he came on a scholarship to America. They met and then they decided to go back. I always make fun of them. I'm like, why the fuck'd you go back? - Sure, sure, yeah, yeah. - And so they went back and they realized, 'cause for a lot of immigrant families, once you taste America, it's hard to go back to where you're from. - Yeah, but I also understand the desire, and I don't know that this was theirs, but to like make it where you're from.

I think part of it's Korea comes from a very Confucius model, very like male dominated, very respect your elders, respect your parents, always pay tribute to your family. So I think they were going back to do things right. But once you taste American, they were here in the 60s. They were driving like beautiful cobalt blue Impalas, wearing Ray-Bans, smoking cigarettes, drinking scotch. And they go back and I think they realized as soon as they step back in Korea, they're like, we got to get back.

Well, also they have a new thought, which is you. I forgot about this. This is probably the reason why they came back. I was born with a deformity. Oh my goodness. I totally forgot about that. What was the deformity? I was born with a cleft palate. Oh, okay. Yeah, a pretty bad one. So cleft palate is when your whole top,

part of your lip is ripped open when you're born. So you're born with a hole in your face. But back then in Korea, like they were stitching people together with duct tape, you know? So like, I don't think they saw me come out and they're like, they didn't know what to do. I'm assuming that it comes out kind of sealed where the crack is. So you can just lace those together and hope for the best. It's a surgery. It's a surgery. Yeah. But there weren't many of them in Korea, I think at that time. And again, like you're talking about a industrialized country, you know,

Coming off of war, mainly built around textiles, not the most advanced medical equipment and training in the world. They stitched me together. It was all messed up. But the thing is, because Korea or any country outside of the United States is so homogenous, what happens is if you have anything that is just slightly different, as little as being bowlegged, bucktooth, whatever, you stick out and you can't make it.

Yeah, if you're fucked up looking, this is the spot for you. America is the spot for ugly ass motherfuckers. Somehow you put all these ugly freaks together and there's some beautiful people. Absolutely. I forgot that's why they came back. Okay, and then in your childhood, they own a liquor store. They had a restaurant. They had a dry cleaning spot.

They ultimately went into jewelry, starting with door-to-door and then becoming a successful business. And you also move nonstop, is that? Absolutely, every couple years. Because again, when you're an immigrant in this country, the whole folklore or tale of coming with nothing in your pocket is a true story. Yes. It's a real thing. I took an LA geography class in college.

The Koreans have a pretty damn good network once you're here, right? Like the whole Alhambra area, they loan within their community and they help people start businesses. And there is a nice network for Koreans. Asians did that with each other, especially Koreans, because no one else would take care of us. We're the forgotten minority in many ways. Big time. Because you're the model minority. Or people think or assume that we're getting benefits that other minorities aren't. Right. But in many cases, we're not. We're just invisible and forgotten minorities.

We're still getting the no's and the closed doors and the racism. It's just coming in ways that aren't so overt. There's a few different minority groups that America doesn't seem to have much compassion for. Jewish folks, because in general, the Jewish folks they know were their doctor or they've done well in this country. A lot of people have those experiences with Asians as business owners or classmates, and

And then they ignore this whole other section. And they seem to have a lack of compassion, which we extend to everyone else who's a minority group. Absolutely. And just because a certain sector of a certain race or population or culture is successful, that doesn't mean that everyone else is successful. Right. Or that everyone else has opportunities. If you look statistically, and I know this podcast is about like nerding out and getting the details and info. If you look at the economics behind a lot of Asian communities within the United States, right?

we rank as probably the poorest. Right. We're only thinking, and I'm going to be speaking way too broadly and generally, but we are only thinking of the Japanese student visa. We're not thinking of the Hmong or the Southeast Asians. We're not thinking of any of those people. Absolutely. And every country and every culture is so different from each other, but we all get grouped into one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if you've traveled Asia...

that each place is different as imaginable, really. It's very different. The food, the culture. I mean, we don't even look the same. But again, it's just the ignorance sometimes of anyone that's not from that part of the world. It's just easier to broad stroke things and put everyone into one box. What's funny is, is that most people that get subjugated to that type of stereotype or that type of broad stroking, we don't think that way about anyone else. Although I do have a friend who's Chinese who moved here when she was 10 and she was like,

I could not fucking tell one white person apart. So that's also the thing. Oh, is that a thing? Yeah, in fact, we even had a female black professor who studies this, and she said all in-groups can't recognize out-groups. Really? Yeah, so black folks think white people all look the same. White people think Asians look the same. Asians, when they first get here, think we all look the same. And by we, I mean white people I'm speaking for. Looking at Matt Damon right now behind you. Right? How would you know? Is that me or is that Matt Damon? Yeah.

I did think it was you when I first walked in. But that was just at a glance. But anyway, yeah, it is a phenomenon that we all experience. It's like we get really, really acute wisdom of differentiating our group because we're around it nonstop.

and then we don't have much experience with other groups. Maybe the only difference is sometimes white people just take it to the next level. Oh, they certainly do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're the worst offenders because we then take that and then we build a whole system off of it. Well, also because you don't have to know what it feels like to be marginalized. So if you're on the other end of someone just grouping you in, you're just intellectually aware that that's wrong. Well, you pay a different price because the white people are the...

key holders to every opportunity, whereas it's not reversed. Like we have to know the difference. Exactly. And white people don't have to. Yeah, well put. The other thing I found really, really fascinating, and again, I was in this class in 99, so we were not very far off the LA Rodney King riots. Yeah. And so much of that, I feel like was explained in this class. One of them being this...

intense tension between often Korean store owners and black customers in these neighborhoods.

And they broke it down in the simplest ways. Like the way you show respect in Korea is to not engage eye contact, is to be quiet, is to basically answer when asked a question. Like that's how they would show respect to a customer that comes in the store. And then for the black community, it's literally the opposite. It's just a tinderbox of cultural differences. Yeah, but again, that was only a microcosm, a little sliver that the media blew up and that...

even professors and teachers and curriculums blew up

into representing the whole relationship between the Korean community, the Asian community, the black community. If you really go down to the streets, if I could take you guys to Watts right now, Compton, South Central, anywhere, we can go all the way back to the 80s and early 90s to now. There's always a Mrs. Lee, a Mr. Park, a Mr. Kim, whoever that runs a store that has great relationships with the neighborhood. And what you mentioned about the cultural differences, yeah, that existed. But

But there was also nonverbal acts of love that were shared amongst each other, whether that was tab systems also being just included in the neighborhood, brought to family picnics and gatherings, stuff like that. I mean, it went both ways, but there were certain cases where people were stubborn against each other. And so you were in that. You lived for periods in South Central. And what was your personal experience out there?

I just get along with people. And so there were times where I hated my family or my culture for treating certain people certain ways. And there were times where I had to stick up for certain things. And there were times where I was caught in the middle of it. Yeah. Where I was doing beer runs or stealing stuff. And then the store owner's Korean. But I'm just an American kid hanging out. Yeah. You know, you grew up in the Detroit area. I'm just a street kid hanging out in L.A. Right. With a bunch of other knuckleheads. Doing hood rat shit. Doing hood rat shit. That's right.

Not even thinking about any connections to your family or anything. That you're betraying your family. Confucius don't mean shit to me. I'm just going in there grabbing shit and I'm running out and then all of a sudden I see the face of disappointment behind the counter. And to have to

have to carry the weight of that. It sucks. Those kids were being kids and you were betraying your people. The stakes are so different. And then you got to go out the store and then just continue to be a kid. But then you're carrying the weight internally. Especially when you're Asian, you kind of have to maneuver...

through that where you're carrying a lot of this silent guilt or the silent shame yeah yeah when you're just doing american shit that's right like just growing up how many places did you live do you think between arriving at two years old and then let's say going off to the military school eight to ten yeah now here's a really easy theory to concoct i moved a ton as well and i

I crave control like you can't imagine. Do you think cooking was like, oh gosh, here's this eight by eight area that I am in total control over. And I know what the outcome will be if I do it correctly. I didn't consciously confront that because I was so immersed within cooking. So sometimes cooking is all we have as families and especially my family and my extended family. So as Asian immigrants, especially in the era that I grew up, we took a lot of shit.

man. It was part culture, part language, part just not knowing how to react. But a lot of that stuff, you just keep quiet and you just put your head down and you just keep going. People yelling horrible things at you, throwing things at you. A ton of the hip hop that I love that came out of L.A. in the late 80s, early 90s is just chock full of negative Asian stuff.

Oh, yeah. It was hard for me to grapple with, especially when like Cube made Black Korea. Yeah. You know, it was hard for me because those were my heroes. Yeah. And then all of a sudden they're saying these really horrible things about my family. And it was really hard for me to reconcile the two for a very long time. And I think ultimately, I think that came to define the philosophy of Kogi.

the truck, instead of reacting in road rage towards it all, I kept it with me and it took me a long time to figure out what will my reaction to it be. It's so cool. Because I think the majority of people are going to feel at least the pressure to commit to one side or the other. Yeah.

As opposed to thinking like, I insist on weaving these together. Building bridges, yeah. But sometimes those bridges can take 30 years, like for me, you know. But ultimately, I'm just so happy that I stayed alive long enough to be able to build that bridge. But we ate a lot of shit, so that's just the way it was. But part of it is language, too, language and culture. Because when things get pushed too far...

I've seen my uncles kick nine people's asses at one time. So it's not that we can't fight back or that we won't. It's just that in many cases, the first wave of immigrants, Asian immigrants, didn't know what the proper protocol was. Let's add that the normal system to deal with that, you're not included. Nor were black folks were included. Absolutely.

a white person instinctually they know to call the cops and you got to remember a lot of countries that these people come from the cops are corrupt the governments are corrupt that's the whole reason they're here in the first place so then you have that you have the language barrier you have the cultural incomprehension of what you're supposed to do so that's why food is so important because during the week it's so hard that the only time that we had together was through food and all my extended family my aunts my uncles my parents

They would just be cooking all the time, like all the time. And I don't mean like making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I mean like making stews, broths, dumplings, like full blown restaurant shit, you know, in their apartments. And then we would all meet on the weekends and have these like tremendous potlucks every single weekend. It was like growing up with Quincy Jones as your dad or something or like Steph Curry, like how Steph Curry grew up like on the NBA field.

arena right you know like that's how it is for us with food so i never really used it as a space of here's my little private idaho type thing it was a given yeah yeah i'm curious what owning the restaurant in anaheim was like were you like oh great this is a gateway to peace or were you ever like fuck you you're the same fuckers that are yelling and saying shit behind my back and now you want to come and enjoy this insane food and act like that ain't the case

I love how you just put it all because for people that are marginalized, we never hold any grudges in many cases. Well, again, you don't have a luxury. And in many cases, when we do have opportunities, we're just giving back because we're survivors and we know our self-worth and we know ourselves, whether that's the African-American culture all the way to Asian-American to whoever.

We know where we come from. We know what we represent. And so you can't just stop it. It just keeps growing and mushrooming. And so for us, it's just about sharing. So no, we don't hold those grudges at all. I am totally shame-ridden to report that in Michigan in the 80s, if people went out for Chinese food, you'd hear several of the families trying out their Chinese accent. You'd see people taking pictures that were offensive. The sad part is you go outside of LA, it's still like that. Anywhere that's not like New York,

L.A., San Francisco, it's like that. But we saw during the pandemic, even New York, L.A., San Francisco had to deal with Asian violence too in that same pattern that you just described in the 80s, which is so bizarre. I always equate it to the world that you come from, Hollywood. Well, let's make clear, I don't come from... You come from Detroit. The place you found yourself is because we don't have enough stories and representation within Hollywood. So

People are still living off of this idea of who we are. This representation through Mickey Rooney or 16 Candles of who we are. We don't have Asian addicts. We don't have Asian people who fail. We don't have the euphoria of Asians that are dealing with sexual problems because we don't have any stories told about us in those manners.

what happens is the image of who we are is still trapped. It's almost like trauma. It's trapped within this era and this age. Well, where I'm from in Michigan, my introduction to someone speaking in an Indian accent is a cartoon version, which we've actually had a lengthy, yeah, we had Hank on to go through that whole thing. And I, again, I'm embarrassed to say that I

had I not had a best friend who was Indian and really learned the story and really learned how few people represent her until Mindy arrives. It's like, who's Monica on TV, the studios networks, all these people, they had a market driven assessment of everything, which is like,

well who's gonna go see this and they were wrong john chu's a friend of ours crazy rich agents enormous everyone was wrong as it turns out there's just room now for more niche stories like when it was just the network tv shows like yeah that's a big risk being realistic about who people are like they want tropes i agree with that but i also don't agree with it only in the fact that with all the streamers out there and all the content

And all of the shows being bought every single day. Right now, someone's Zoom pitching a show. The proportion of Asian storytelling is still not represented. Yeah. What percentage do you know of the U.S. population we could consider Asian? Well, when you say Asian, you have to consider Pacific Island. You have to consider India. I will not consider India. That's a longstanding debate. He always wants to separate that. I know.

I carve them out. I include. I argue with that as well. Y'all make it in Hollywood. Y'all got big eyes, features, everything. Us Asians, you know, no eyelids. You got to deal with, you still got to deal with the racism and stuff. But yeah, you got to consider all that. I don't know. Can you Google percent of AAPI? Rob is an eighth Asian.

Yeah, he's an eighth. No, he's not. An eighth Filipino. So his, what is it? Twelve and a half. Twelve and a half. Twelve and a half. His wife is half Filipino. So his son is 25%. And since he's his dad, he's 12.5%. I hate this. That's not how it works. And I'm scared that some people will really think that's how it works. That's like contact high. Exactly. We said,

maybe Rob, he has enough kids, he'll be actually over 100% Asian. More than his wife. More than his wife. Then you'll be truly Asian because you'll be overachieving. He has seven or eight kids. He's going to be like 200% Filipino. It's going to be so fun. 5.7%. Okay. And I think that includes Indian. So only 5.7% of the country is Asian according to the 2019 Census Bureau.

That's because probably like 25% more didn't fill out. There's no way there's only 6%. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

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So in your really interesting story of moving everywhere, having all these different interests, making dumplings at eight, mom selling her own signature brand of kimchi around. Yeah. You first go to Korea out of college or before college? Well, first time I went was in high school. My parents took me there when I was 16. That was the first time I ever went back. Did you speak Korean? No.

I have never really spoke that good Korean. I understand it because, you know, parents speak to me in it, but I don't speak that well. I always say like I'm like a LA Chicano, but in Korean. My Mexican homies, like, they don't speak Spanish, you know, but they understand everything that their mom's yelling at them. They don't speak it. Once mom hits that certain pitch in her voice, you start understanding whether you know the words or not. You're pretty sure on what's being said. So when you went to Korea, though, you taught English there? Yeah, that was later on. That was in college.

I don't know if they're still doing it now, but there was a whole era for us as like second generation Koreans where we just like were fuck ups here. And then we're like fucking gods over there. Like we're like intellectual savants over there because we speak English. Okay, okay. Oh, fun. Yeah, but it was great because you go there and you'd make like a ton of money and you'd have a class that was just completely into you and you could say whatever you want. I think the whole time I taught English, I don't even think I really taught English.

Sure, he's never had any swagger. Yeah, I just talked. And they just kind of took the class to like hear the words and hear the lingo and the rhythm. This sounds like a dream job for me because I just love to talk. It was the podcast before podcast, you know?

It sounds like you were already so immersed in the culinary culture that going there must not have been that big of, or was there still another level that you were made aware of once you were there? No, I think once I got to Korea, what amazed me is just how fluid and affordable food is, but it's still the same food. Here in the States, the difference between nutritional food, delicious food, and

and processed food, it's all an economic barrier, right? And so anything that is below a certain price is usually fast food in most cases. But in Korea, it's not that way at all. Right. There's no system for that. When I first started going there, that just really opened my eyes to like, you know, food being so cheap yet so delicious. It's like more democratized. And just...

filled with nutrients, chili paste, ginger, garlic, green onions, different herbs. And so that opened my mind because it made food a part of culture. I was young. I was in my early 20s.

And here, when you're in your early 20s, you go out of the club or whatever, all you're doing is just debauchery or going through the drive-thru and yelling into this fucking intercom and eating fries and Big Macs and this and that. My order, I can tell you right now, there was a Jack in the Box at my house in Santa Monica. And five nights a week, I was in their order in the Ultimate Cheeseburger.

And then six of those tacos with the fucking buttermilk dipping sauce. And I go sit in my Lazy Boy and just get myself into a food coma and pass out. That's it. But over there, it opened my mind to like food is a part of it all. Right. So it's not just complete.

destruction of your body and soul and everything and then lazy boy and conk out and then wake up. Like I'm hating yourself and have to get drunk again to deal with it. It's like you can sometimes have the best meal of your life and feel good afterwards and spend like five bucks and

and stay there till like 4.30 in the morning. That almost doesn't exist in this country. It's getting better now, obviously with the street food that's evolved, but also just food culture has evolved in the last 20 years here. What do you think is happening with the younger generation? Because I have a theory on it. People love to write these articles like, the millennials care more about avocado toast than owning a home. And on the surface, you're like, okay, so I guess the implication is they're economically irresponsible. But the older I get, I go like,

Oh, no, no. These are people who have chosen experiences over objects. Yes. And that's what's scary to everyone, actually, is because our economy runs on selling objects, not experiences. I know you had Dave Chang. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He started it all. He started this wave, you know, and Kogi came on the heels of that. But really, it was Momofuku that kind of broke the mold and really...

a pathway for this millennial generation to really have something to connect that experience to. Yeah, it was like the first punk rock Asian food offering. Yep, and it became a part of culture and he became culture and the restaurant became culture.

And that just led to so many things to where now food is probably more in demand than sneakers. It's harder to get sometimes than sneakers. We've definitely come a long way. Now that we're in it, it's hard to imagine a world where it wasn't like this. Even 20 years ago, people weren't going from city to city and having lists of like, okay, where's the best place to eat? When I grew up, there was a class aspect to it that of course I rejected. So it's not just that I didn't think that was a good use of my money.

It also represented to me elites. Like, oh, these fucking idiots are spending $600 on dinner. Like, there was a whole chip on my shoulder about it. I agree with you on that, but also the reality was that way too. You had to spend that much. Because food was separated. So anything that was chef-driven or ingredient-driven or market-driven or even considered to be a part of whatever is the hottest thing in that city at that moment...

was all driven by price. Price and experience and your parents or an older generation going. And that's why I say it was Dave who broke that mold. By opening Momofuku, what he did was it broke the levy to where the salt water and the fresh water merged together, you know, and created a whole new thing. Came an estuary. Came an estuary.

became an issue exactly yeah so like we would have the once a year nice meal and then of course when we would go there I would feel less than the whole time and yeah I've never felt that way walking up to Momofuku or any of these places I don't get that anymore the feelings you had were real because that's exactly how they looked at you and the staff I sometimes would be like got this fucking waiters treating us like we don't belong here that was another in my I don't know that was in my head or it was happening or a combination of both it's real I wrote about it in the book too like

We've always been a family of food, right? So like we would go to restaurants and as I got older, I would like research these restaurants and try to take my family. So when we had family visiting, I would go to the hottest restaurants in town and you know, you get treated as if you don't belong there. And you know, this waiter's fucking, he doesn't

He doesn't know anything either. He's a victim too. Yeah, he's not the upper class or he wouldn't be working there. He wouldn't be working there. But he somehow, he's developed this language and this style and they're just trying to get you out of there. Now things can not only be tailored, but they're also meeting you where you're at versus you having to put on a nice suit and go to a fancy place.

And I think the staff has increasingly felt cool that they're doing it. Not that they're like, they too should be blue chip family, third generation wealth. Absolutely, yeah. Like they've got a different swagger, which is cool. They don't have to wear all the same uniform. You know, they can come to work with what they're wearing and have their own style. And there's just been an evolution of what service and style is in America and what is considered to be

And not just in food, I think across the board and everywhere you see it with fashion, you see it with everything. But I think there's been an evolution of, again, what excellence is. Before excellence was defined by that, what you just said. The rich, blue chip, third general, all that. But now excellence can be defined in any way. And you're seeing that in food. I think before it used to be, it was hard to have, it was limited because it was fancy. But now...

I still think there's something to be said about wanting something limited or that you can't have but now it's like you make a reservation and you go pick it up in an alley and they drop it off to you and you have to it's like a secret thing and it's not fancy but it's still like exciting and exclusive like I think

But for the right reason. Yeah, exactly. What you're touching on is the exclusiveness is cool because it's like nerdy exclusiveness. Yeah. And there's real scarcity because there's only so much that can be produced, you know? Yeah, yeah. And so it's a beautiful thing right now. Boy, I've really kind of under, I don't want to say undervalued, but under-recognized how much of our culture is driven by food. Of course, I always think of film and music and fashion, but...

I don't think I've really incorporated as much how food drives so much of this. Well, I come from a foodless cultures, probably. Why? Yeah, you're Midwest. Grew up in an era where you were being infiltrated by the fast food advertising frozen food system. That was all deliberate. You are a product of that experiment. I just spoke with Alice Waters, who is the godmother of this movement of organics, of eating sustainably to the ground. What happened in the 70s

is that this was a deliberate act by the advertising and food corporations to feed us this idea that things need to be fast. Fast, disposable, our time is money. We need to keep it moving. There's no time for food because all the time should be focused on

what you need to do to push your upward mobility. To get rich, basically. To get rich. And so food was the casualty. And there was millions and billions of dollars behind that, that fueled that advertising to get us to that point where we were completely desensitized and numbed to even caring about food.

And it took until probably like the early 2000s for us to break out of that cocoon. I'm just so glad because we could have never evolved beyond that. I see the picture in my mind of everything that was from the 70s until the year 2000,

And it's so bizarre. It is so bizarre for a country to completely devalue food to the lowest level to where it actually you are being told that you don't even have to eat. Ideally, yeah, you'd eat a capsule at the beginning of the month that would nourish you for the next 30 days. Because there's no time for it. There's no time for it. And none of it matters. And flavor doesn't matter. Nutrition doesn't matter.

Nothing matters within this realm of food. Growing it, wasting it, eating it, cooking it, nothing. Oh my God. This is so fascinating. So will you please tell us about how you started watching Emeril?

On the Food Network? Yeah, on the Food Network. And that kind of like changed the course of your life? It wasn't really an obsession more than it was a last cry for help. So I was here in Los Angeles. This was 1995, basically.

I had just come off of a four-year deep addiction dive into gambling. What was your game of choice? It went from this game called Pan 9, which is kind of a card interpretation of Pai Gao. And it's similar to Baccarat, but you use four cards. You use three in the hole and you can pull one. Are you getting chills right now explaining that? Yeah. Getting nine, pictures are zero, it's the whole thing. And then it eventually led to poker and then high limit poker.

Texas Hold'em? Texas Hold'em. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then playing like... At Commerce every day? At Commerce every day, yeah. Bicycle Club, Commerce. Back then, it was before the whole World Series of Poker Day, so it was like... Just Doyle Brunson was popular. It was me against Doyle Brunson. And Stu Unger. Yeah, Stu Unger and Telly Savalas. That was basically it.

There was no like real no limit games. It was all structured. And it was a big game. I eventually made it to like 2040, which is a pretty big game. Yeah, you can get into thousands of dollars of trouble. And in your 20s, you know, losing $10,000, $20,000 is a lot of money. And a lot of that money sometimes is borrowed. So I burned a lot of bridges over those four years. And I was basically couch surfing. And I didn't have many other options left. The only other options were...

were pretty much being a rail bird at the casino. That was all I had left. And a rail bird is they toss you a $5 chip to get a water or coffee or something like that. Oh, wow. Did you have the obsession? I read Dostoevsky's The Gambler. Now, I have had every addiction, but that one, for whatever reason, blew over me. You're lucky.

I'm so fucking lucky. Because it actually not only destroys you, but it's a forest fire. It will destroy everything around you. In The Gambler, the component I was missing that I couldn't latch on to was, at least the book claimed, this obsession with getting even. Yeah. Did you have that? I have it every day still. You don't even think about the money. There is no value in the currency at all. And all you do every single day when you look in the mirror is just promise yourself when you get even that you'll quit. Quit.

They've done all these adrenal studies too that gamblers are getting their biggest high when they're losing the most. Yes. Which is fucking so abstract for a non-addict. It's so crazy, yeah. What happens is because it's all dealt in chips, the amount of money that you go through, $10,000 feels like $10. So that's where the adrenaline from losing comes into play because you're desensitized. The other thing that I think that addiction has over all others is...

financial pull. It's like there's no way in which I can construct some fantasy where I'm going to go get the money back I spent on Coke. I agree with that. But also just the magnitude of what you're spending on it will never equal gambling. Right. I can't do 10 grand of Coke in a day. In a day. Right. In an hour. I think what's also tricky about gambling specifically is if you're a successful person or you have the brain of someone who pushes themselves and is motivated and wants to be a successful person,

You are gambling. Like we've all gambled with our lives. We moved to L.A. with no money to try to be an actor. Like that's a gamble. That's a straight flush for sure. Yeah. And I mean, so it's that balance, right, of knowing when to gamble and when you can't. Also, you're in the judgment business. So you sit down at these tables. You have this added ego going like, well, five of these guys are much dumber than I am.

Yeah. You always sit down and say, I could take them. Everyone around you is a loser. That's a big part too. And everyone has their 15 seconds somewhere or another. And so what happens is you're swimming in this kind of lagoon of losers. And then all of a sudden you pop up.

And then you're the hero. And you confirm the story. Everyone flocks to you and you're in this room and it's the best fucking feeling in the world. I'm not going to not admit it. It's the best feeling. All of a sudden, all these dreams that we have in the real world get condensed and clarified into that moment for you. So it becomes more than just the gambling. It's like,

there's something poetic about it. And so for four years, I was on that roller coaster. Oh my God, that's an eternity. Yeah. It probably went by like this for you. Went by like that. And I was on my last couch just like this in the middle of the afternoon, just like this. And Emeril came on and,

I had an out-of-body experience. This was 1995, so this was before the Emeril Live. People don't talk about out-of-body experiences that much anymore. I know in the 80s and 90s they used to talk about it a lot. Oh, everyone was having one. Yeah, everyone was having one. Yeah, David does it. But I had one and he came out the TV and yeah, he came and kind of slapped me around. He's like, what

You know, what are you doing? And I kind of woke up. I have that tendency too, to where I can like drop things on a dime. It happened with crack. Like we were talking about on the seventh day, God created. Yeah. There's sometimes I'm just done with shit.

This was like before the internet was popping. So like this is when you went to bookstores to research shit. So like I was at bookstores all day just researching, you know, I knew what it meant to cook food, but I really didn't know what it meant to be a chef. And I enrolled in night school here in LA. It was a culinary night schools on Robertson and Melrose, you know, right across from Ciccone's. Learning and then the whole time I was selling at my lowest points. I'm a bit of a Mr. Magoo. I always end up in this huge pool of luck.

The Kogi truck was no different. At this point, I had spent the next year and a half basically working, selling mutual funds, which is basically a used car salesman selling... Packaged securities. Packaged securities. I had a briefcase. I had one suit. Yeah.

I had like three ties, one suit. I was going around and I was really good at it. Well, this is in the era where most of those were generating like 10%. Yeah. Mid-90s. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was really good. I had no idea what I was doing. But I was like at the racetrack, I would close my eyes and I would pick one and it would fucking hit. It's kind of like gambling 2.0. It's like gambling 2.0. And I made a bunch of money. I paid everyone back. Oh.

I mended all my bridges as much as I could. I went off to culinary school. You kind of got even. I kind of got even. I'm really big on like...

I like to tidy shit up spiritually and also physically. Like the whole philosophy of when we started Kogi, I wanted to be like a graffiti artist where no one would even know we were there other than the fact that they could see what we just did. Cause we would crush it here on the streets, like 2000 people just flash mobbing on the streets. But I would always say like, when we leave here, it has to be as if we were never here. And,

And it's just a big thing for me to like tidy things up like that. Leave the world as you found it or better. And just so people understand the power of the Kogi truck who don't live in Los Angeles. On Parenthood, basically we all took our turn ordering the Kogi truck. Everything was commemorated with the Kogi truck. I remember you guys on my calendar. Yeah.

Oh, really? All the time. Parenthood, yeah. I remember those days. Yeah, Parenthood. Probably driven by Mae Whitman. I bet she brought us to the Kogi. Yeah, I would drive so far. I would just be on social media or the website or something like find out where it's going to be that day and go. It's so...

Oh, good. We have a few shows that were very loyal to us, just like Parenthood. Brooklyn Nine-Nine is another one. It's insane. Just if you've not had one, I'll put this up there with the Emily Burger, which is you're eating these tacos because it's Mexican-Korean fusion. Yeah. You're having this beef that's been marinated in a way you're not expecting in a taco. The onions taste different. Like, yeah, when I'm eating that, and this was before I was really even into food, this part of me starting to be into food is like...

Holy shit. Everything that's on this thing isn't there to look like something. I can taste each thing. That's new. That's one of my favorite moments when I see folks that aren't expecting anything. When they first bite into a Kogi burrito or taco or quesadilla and their eyes just open and there's a holy shit. Yes, it is. I love it. I've seen so many of those moments over the last 10 years. That all happened because of that out of body experience from Emeril.

If I wouldn't have been on that couch in that moment, obviously maybe something else would have, but I believe in these like kind of like intersections of life. Because of that, everything unfolded for me in the second part of life. How old were you when that? I was 25 and then I went off to culinary school when I was 27. Okay, so I once watched you with Favreau. You made him a grilled cheese. Mm-hmm.

I'm assuming it was on the Chef show. The first time I made a grilled cheese with him was on set of Chef the Movie in 2013. And he had the clip rolling. So I was John's customato, right? And so we were always by each other's side. I was in his ear. I was his corner man. And even before... That's a Rocky reference. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Even before shots, like I would be like just behind camera and it would be like, put your elbow up a little bit or make sure you bend down and look at the cheese from this and that. And so we would be doing that all the time. It would just be natural. But one time he just kept the camera rolling and then he put that in the credit scene. Oh, right, right, right, right. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert. If you dare.

I got to say, I've had this moment twice. Monica and I had it while watching Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. Where they were in the Italy episode. And we started looking at each other like, we're going to do this, right? We need to get on an airplane tonight. Yeah. And then that grilled cheese, I was like, I think I'd cut my pinky off to taste that grilled cheese right now. Oh, my God. And the care that went into it and the amount of butter.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's the number one thing is most people don't put enough butter on anything. Right. Or salt. Or salt. And again, going back to the conditioning of us not enjoying flavor, the amount that we somehow got to the point of convincing ourselves was enough is like, ooh.

way, way below anything substantial. But I can see the connective tissue, which is for 35 years, we eat all this processed garbage food. Everyone's putting on weight. So now we're on this mad grab to figure out how to not get so overweight. And then butter becomes the... So then butter's ruled out. Yeah. Salt's going to lead to hypertension. All these things, it's like, no, no, eat shit with real ingredients. You can probably have that much butter and things will be okay. Yeah. We were so deranged that we would eat all of that processed food. And then the

The things that are supposed to be delicious, we would make undelicious because we're compensating. Whereas really the key to life is eat delicious food from the start. And then you can indulge because it's actually good for you all the way through. So yeah, that grilled cheese, that was the anchor to the whole thing. I imagine that was what was shown to pitch the show. Yeah, it wasn't just me. It was John too. He did all the sound mixing for the grilled cheese at Skywalker Sound. Oh!

So the same thing, the same machines or whatever they use for lightsabers was used for grilled cheese. Yeah, Dolby Atmos. The grilled cheese is cooking in all corners of the room. Yes. Yum. It was just all those little things that, you know, John. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's just such a genius and he's just thinking about every little nuance and every little thing and it was just,

all the points of the universe coming together into that one grilled cheese. John is like the most willing pupil in the world and he's fucking been rewarded so greatly for it because he can go to you and say like, I don't know shit. Teach me how to do this right. Have you ever witnessed how fast John can synthesize something? Have you witnessed it yourself? Yes, it's incredible.

He was going to do a project at one point and he actually called me, which was great because I got nothing to teach him. Yeah. But he was doing something based on early hominids and he knew I was an anthropology major. So he's basically like, what textbooks do you have? And let's chat. And this was the first time I kind of got to have that role for five minutes. But yeah, within 10 minutes, like he's got it. He's got it. Yeah. Almost annoyingly so. Well, this was four years of my life. I'm glad you got it. Yes. Same thing with cooking. It was 20 years of my life.

20 years of my life and he got it within five minutes. And so he did come in with what you had described of, I don't know anything, teach me everything. I'm completely a sponge, but he would be proficient at it within minutes. Yeah, it's very impressive.

Oh, fuck him. All right, let's talk about your show. You are in second season of Broken Bread and your show has a really kind of noble pursuit in what you're covering and what things you want to expose. And we've touched on a few of them, but right out of the gates of the first episode, you

You go down to, is it 26th Avenue? Night Market. And I guess just if you could really quick, what happened in the pandemic to the restaurant business? Completely folded. Do we know what percentage of restaurants went out of business? I don't know what percentage, but my armchair guess at it, it would be 30, 40%, you know, of small businesses. Wow, wow. And those are the ones we want most to be out there. Because it was a game of charades this whole time. I think that's what the pandemic exposed is like,

One, a lot of the reasons people are opening restaurants, including my family back in the day, is because there's no other outlet. No one's hiring you. There are no jobs available for non-English speaking people. But what we saw in the pandemic is that the restaurant model itself is so flawed because it doesn't allow anyone to get any step forward. But the illusion of it actually hurts the industry more than it helps it because every restaurant looks like it's busy. So the

meeting in the alleyway for the sandwich or going to the noodle spot or the Thai joint down the street, you know, here in Hollywood and you can't get in. People are waiting in the parking lot. It's so packed. Mindy's outside of Jitlada, you know, she can't get in. Whatever, you know, it looks like something amazing is going on.

But behind the curtain, maybe Chitlada can last a week without money. It's hard to fathom that because usually when something looks good on the outside, it means it's probably pretty good on the inside. I remember having this in the early 2000s when Roscoe's had declared bankruptcy. I was like, I've never been there where there wasn't a 30 minute wait. Yeah. So what happened is it's the energy, it's the action that keeps things afloat. And then once everything stopped, everything was exposed. Yeah.

And literally within the first week of the pandemic, you saw restaurants just say, I can't, I have no more money. And then it turned where people lost everything, but then started a cart or street food. And that's how Avenue 26 started to really blossom and emerge. What is the side of the equation that's so fucked up? Is it that we don't pay enough for food? Or is it that the food, I kept hearing in the episode that the food is really expensive. Yeah.

What part is broken in the equation? There's multiple. Part of it is we don't pay enough as consumers for food or certain types of food. Again, going back to racial marginalization and stereotypes and things like that, we will go to an Italian restaurant on the West side and pay $42 for pasta because of all of the folklore and storytelling behind it, which helps a restaurant thrive. But we won't pay more than $6 or $7 for pho

or for chow mein. We're not paying enough. There are no loans really for a lot of people. So a lot of this money is self-generated money. It's check to check money that they're using to keep their business afloat. And I'm right in that. I think restaurants are the highest fail rate of any business people start. Highest fail rate. The dangerous loan. Absolutely. And then just the mathematical equation of opening a restaurant makes no...

Wow.

Even the big boys? If you're doing well. The big boys are different because they're able, the larger you become, the more you're able to leverage your pricing with your purveyors. Right. And you're able to compromise decisions based on qualities. And a lot of times they have investors that give them runway to make it up. But if you're a small business, okay, so the basic numbers are about 30% food cost. It's about...

20 to 30% labor cost. So that's 70% right there. And then you have fixed costs, rent. I know this is not the most exciting podcast information, but you have cost utilities, paper goods, toilet paper, plumbing, all that stuff. A squirrel system, internet. POS system, point of sale system, taxes, all that. And that's another 20, 25%.

That's 95% right there, just off the top of my head. That leaves you with 5% profit. Yeah, that's wild. So what's the fix? It's all those things. It's all those things. And on top of this, because the profits were so little, the industry itself was living off of exploitation. We don't have any safety nets. We don't have insurance. We don't have healthcare. We don't have sick pay. We don't have PTO. We don't have vacation time. None of that stuff. So

There are a lot of changes that need to be made. I don't know if they're going to be made because now that things are getting back open and stuff, everyone's kind of rushing back to the same things. This was an opportunity for us maybe to take a step back, put value into food again, raise some prices a little bit, maybe put a surcharge on certain things, maybe a certain form of like kind of like a tax in a way, but like a good tax, you know, where it's shared amongst people.

And I think it's also a philosophy and a mindset of like, we shouldn't want people to live less than. And I think that's the most important thing to think about, whether it's farming or restaurant business or any service business. The entry point is also the ending point, you know, and that's the problem with the system. There's no way to progress within it. Right. You have to change stations. And who's the guy who owns Shake Shack and those other restaurants? Danny Meyer. Danny Meyer.

Yeah, so what do you think of his approach? I remember seeing a 60 Minutes on it where he got rid of tipping at the things and the food just cost more. Yeah, it's the right idea. A lot of big restauranteurs like that, the problem is it doesn't trickle down to the mom and pop. So I think that we need those leaders like Danny Meyer or Thomas Keller or whoever the case may be

to create the systems and then use their power to demand that these systems trickle down to everyone and become a model for the whole industry itself because they're the leaders of our industry. I'm glad you're here to talk about this because I also don't think this is a problem many people are just aware of.

to be honest. Yeah. I watched this 60 Minutes just a few weeks ago and it was about 20 million Americans quitting their job between January and February. And the number one was hospitality. That was the biggest sector that lost employees and then construction oddly was in there, which is generally pretty high paying. But do you think that we're at a kind of unique time where...

no one wants to fucking do these jobs anymore and that the leverage is going to shift a little bit to the employees. A lot of employees are holding out for that right now, hoping that the industry itself will change. I'm just fascinated by what's potentially on the table for everyone right now. What I want to just state also is that it doesn't mean that there shouldn't be affordable food because there should, right? Right.

But the argument right now that we're facing because of the pandemic is that the reason why it's so flawed is the only answer is not just that we as a consumer need to pay more for food. The reason why we need to either pay more or look at the whole system is because it's not that everyone is not making enough. It's just that all of the costs around them, what you're making in a restaurant doesn't allow you to live within a city.

Right where the restaurant is. Yeah, everything is just too high right now. And so the only thing that is being forced to continue to be low or cheap is food, whereas everything else is being raised. Yeah, inflation's hit everywhere. Inflation hits everywhere. You can't expect the restaurant industry to just stay stagnant while everything else continues to multiply. And all we're arguing in the restaurant industry is that just let the restaurant industry multiply with everything else.

So if you don't want your noodles or your burger to be $30 or $20 or whatever, and a third of that goes to the staff to help them, then let's lower some of the other things around it. Or, you know, like what LA Unified does, and I might have this wrong, at least when my ex-girlfriend started teaching at Crenshaw High, was you get some mortgage deals. For teachers, there's some help.

from the government to live in the areas where they teach. Otherwise, no one in LA that's teaching could live in LA. Can't afford it, yeah. You just wonder if like that could fan out to a lot of things we value and we want. Well, things are so unbalanced now that I'm like the least political person in the world, but I think that

we need some form of like democratic socialism. We still need to be a capitalist country. There still needs to be the opportunity to make it big at any moment in life. Just tripping over a rock, you could become a star or whatever, you know, we need that. But things are just so way out of whack right now that we need something in the middle to be able to sustain at least just a basic form of life. People can't even get to sea level right now. And that's the problem. Well,

I'll tell you, as a staunch capitalist, the part that makes a ton of sense to me is Apple made the best mousetrap. They should be worth a trillion dollars. Yes. I'm for that. But they couldn't have made that mousetrap in India. They couldn't have made it almost any other country. That's why we have 80,000 of those companies and most countries don't have any. So this...

is a place where that can happen because it has an infrastructure, it has a university system, it has employees, it has all this stuff. That needs to be recognized. On some level, it would just be dishonest to not say that the system itself helped create this trillion dollar company and that some part of that trillion dollars

needs to continue to nurture the system that can allow more apples. That's exactly it. That's that democratic socialist, whatever you want to call it. I don't want the government owning fucking chip manufacturers, but I do want the people who have profited from this amazing system to keep the system working. Mm-hmm.

in a healthy manner because I think without it we won't have those companies. We won't. They could do whatever they want to do to trick the IRS and save money. Take that money and then create a fund that will balance things out just a little bit because right now it's just too imbalanced. Well, I want someone to do some hard science of what the earned credit would be. Like if they wanted to launch Apple anywhere else in the world, what incurred expenses would they have also generated? And I'm not even asking for all that, but like maybe half of that we put back in the system.

My last question on this is, have there been any movements so that multiple restauranteurs can co-op themselves so that they can have the leverage when they're ordering the beef and they're ordering the vegetables? I think we're heading towards that. I think the reason why it hasn't existed, because the restaurant industry has been so fractured. And your competitors. Your competitors, there's ego. It's almost a sport. It's almost a sport. There's a lot of ego involved. You want to be the best restaurant.

You don't want to share your secrets. But then there's also this other factor of fast food and conglomerates and chains. Well, that's who you're competing against. They've done it. They've gotten together to create a baseline of pricing. So that's existing. And then you have the individual restaurants that are all fighting for whatever crumbs are left and not sharing information with each other. But now, since the pandemic happened, I think

There's a move towards that. The last thing I think that needs to change is the tipping system. What I think is unfair about the tipping system is that we live in a restaurant system where certain people within the restaurant can make $1,000 a night, you know, servers, work four hours.

And then most of the people working in the restaurant, the other 80, 90 percent are only making minimum wage. Even the cooks, you would think, like before this was told to me, I would have assumed they were the highest paid people. Because this is a bootleg of a European system that was brought into here that lives off of this kind of

that we're all living in Downton Abbey or Bridgerton. Things have to be presented in a certain way. There has to be a language that's used. There has to be a face that is synonymous with the illusion of what service is. But I hope that we can move to an era where

it doesn't matter how you look or how you speak or whatever the case may be that everyone makes the same. If that could happen, that could help a lot because these restaurants where servers sometimes are coming in and again, just literally walking in at 4.45pm

right? They start at five, they leave at nine when the last table is served and they're walking out with a thousand dollars. If that money was distributed evenly across to everyone, I think there could be a lot more balance just on a micro level with each restaurant. Yeah. There's, I think there's been lawsuits about that when, when people have tried to do that. Yeah. Because again, it's a draconian system that exists that if you mess with it, there's grounds for people to bring lawsuits against you because you

you're taking money out of people's pockets and this and that. We were talking to Dan Savage kind of privately and he was talking about servers in Austria for some reason. And that when you just pay those people an appropriate hourly wage and they have healthcare and they have leave and they can have children, you stop being patronizing to them. Oh,

Oh, you know, this kind of fake niceness that people have because we all can feel the guilt of it. We know. So it's just like, you know, would it be crazy if just everyone got paid a real thing and it wasn't like each table was this do or die. They like me. They don't like me. I'm going to make no money or a ton of money like any other job. Just like every time you did your job, every time I did a line acting, they came over. I don't know. It's a little cool.

It is. Yeah. You hit it right on the head. Like if every line you said and someone had a wad of cash and tipped you. Yeah, Favreau either gave me nothing or he gave me a 20 at the end. And then so your mind is like, do I kiss his ass? Do I do better? Do I tell him to fuck off? That's a whole nother podcast. The amount of things people say about you in the water station. Yeah.

Well, I worked at CPK for a while. Oh, you know. I've said those things. You've said those things, right? Yeah. Well, I just want to say your show has a ton of great episodes that explore all kinds of fun things from seed to table. We talk about the sovereignty of seeds, which is so fascinating. That's, I think, a topic you would really enjoy on this podcast. Get some specialists in here. We're on the verge of losing seeds.

And is this where, as I understood, I saw some 60 Minutes on it or something, where it was like Roundup has a seed that Roundup works perfect for. I'm sure a lot of companies do this, so I'm not singling anyone out. But then some of that seed will blow into another farmer's field, and that seed actually has a trademark on it. Yes. And so now they sue them for that. Yes. This is how it works. Not only that, but we're also losing the diversity and the dynamic nature of the seeds there.

Seeds are only being built and constructed to survive and be durable in a very specific weather pattern, very specific growing pattern and style. Again, going back to minimizing flavor and individuality and dynamic nature into just something that is indestructible.

Right, right, right. We're 50% there as a human race. The world's seeds are owned by four corporations. 50% of them are. This is actually a great sci-fi movie. There's a whole network of young farmers and individual farmers that are fighting against this in the way farmers do with a smile and really a beautiful heart and saving these seeds in their pockets. Are they heirlooms? Heirloom seeds. If you're listening and you've never had an heirloom tomato like a real one,

It looks grotesque. It looks like a spoiled brain out of an elephant maybe. It's not going to draw you in with its convolutions.

fucking taste one of those things. Oh my God. You can't even say that that's a tomato and the other thing I get is a tomato. And so the world that a lot of the seed protectors are trying to save is that world. And the world that the corporations want is the gas flush tomato where all tomatoes are round and red and look the same. And if we're not careful, we will get there. I know, again, it doesn't seem that realistic, but if we start eating all the same foods regularly,

If we're only all eating one tomato or one seed of a tomato that's engineered, if we're all only eating one form of broccoli or only one form of onion, what will happen to us is we will all eventually become somewhat of an android. We will all become the same. Well, the same microbiome. Same microbiomes. We're eating the same thing. And all those things are controlled and they can be moved like a joystick to however they want us to be.

Well, as we're finding out, like we're having all these autoimmune diseases as a product of a lot of this stuff. So now that'll get confronted. Eventually they'll acknowledge, oh, this gives it. And then so they'll steer it to, you know, we'll have another product to solve the first problem. Absolutely. And that's what the seed protectors are fighting. Oh my God. So cool. And then you got Chuck D in Lamerit Park, which is so cool. Yeah. And that's about...

Mm-hmm.

is one of the most detrimental. And we focus on that in the episode. In this capitalist economy, if you don't own any land, you're always at the mercy of someone else. Yeah, and then your children are born without any of that generational wealth. Any generational wealth. Yeah, it has to start there in many ways. It has to start there, and that's what we address in that episode. We show examples, and we show arguments, and all this stuff. What network is the show on? It's on Tastemade and KCET. Tastemade, that's where my tiny... Tiny kitchen, yeah. Tiny kitchen was on.

Oh my God, I forgot that you guys are... Cohorts. Yeah, yeah. Peers in the food space. Well, listen, man, I'm so happy for you that as a man with many addictions, you've somehow figured out the same thing I figured out, which is you just get to go hang out with all these people you're probably super fascinated with. And that's your fucking quote job. So tip of the hat to you and to me and to Monica. Yeah. So great to finally meet you and hang. And I wish you a ton of luck and everyone should find and record and watch...

you might have an Auduboni experience. Don't rule it out. Broken Bread Season 2. Check it out now. And if you want to learn more, please go to brokenbread.tv. That's so simple to remember, brokenbread.tv. I think you can go there and get activated if you want to get involved in some of these issues you cover. And Roy, what a fucking delight. Thank you. I hope next time we meet, we're eating something. Yeah, please. Yes.

And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate, Monica Badman. I can't believe you dress as a teddy bear now. This is your new look, teddy bear. Every now and then. Do you know the history of teddy bear? Oh my God, no. It's called a teddy bear? No. It's very mean. Oh my God.

Canceled? No, Theodore Roosevelt, who was a hunter. He was on a big hunt and he didn't have the heart to kill this certain bear they had cornered. Okay. And then the newspapers made fun of him. And they said, Teddy's bear got away or whatever. And then they started making adorable little bears as if to say like, it was so cute he couldn't shoot it. So that's why they're called, they were Teddy's bear. Oh my.

Oh my God. Isn't that wild? That's crazy. You know so much. Well, I read it. I'm trying to think where I just found this out, but I did tell the girls that. And then it led to a little six minute history of Theodore Roosevelt. And at the end of it, Kristen said, you just know that much about Teddy Roosevelt? I was like, no, no, I read a great biography on him. In fact, I only remember six minutes of what was an incredibly...

25-hour biography. But incredible life, Theodore Roosevelt. Yes. He was a sickly boy. Oh. He was very sickly. He had asthma quite bad. And he wasn't allowed to play with other boys. And he was weak. And he became a learned man. He went to college and whatnot. And at some point, he was like, I hate this. And he went out to a ranch in the West. Oh.

And he became a cowboy for years. Oh, my God. First he was a sickly boy, then a learned man, and then a cowboy? Yes, and then a cowboy, and then very strong and gained his confidence. And when he came back, people could not believe what happened to Teddy Roosevelt. Three times gains? Yes. Well, maybe six times. Wow. He was a sickly boy. And he completely got over his asthma, and he was strong as an ox, and a very principled man, and very strong, and he'd overcome that. Wow.

No one could build the Panama Canal. Oh my gosh. Three countries had given up. Many different companies had gone bankrupt. And Teddy said, we're fucking doing this through hell or high water. And he did it. Speaking of strong boys. Yeah. We have a big announcement. Oh, you're right. Go ahead. A little baby at home. We have a new armchair baby. A new armchair submarine sandwich. Right.

Rob had his little baby boy. Can we know his name? Yeah, it's Vincent Gregory. After Vincent D'Onofrio. D'Onofrio, if you're listening, congratulations. Big fans, big fans. Vincent's an awesome name. It is. I love it. It's very strong. It was two of my great-grandfather's names. Really? No brainer. Also, legendary motorcycle company from England, the Vincent Black Shadow, the most valuable motorcycle in the world. Also...

Vince Vaughn's name. Yes. And Vin Diesel. Oh. Okay, and how's it going? Doesn't like to sleep much, but...

He's a good boy. Good boy. Good little boy. Also, Rob, now 17.5% Filipino. Exciting. Exciting stuff. No, wouldn't it be 24? I can't read. My math is off. He's 12.5. I'm up to 25. Okay. Yeah, because he was 12.5 with Calvin.

and then another 12.5. You're right, he's 25. So now he's matching Calvin and Vincent. This is a ding, ding, ding because we actually talked about that in this episode. Oh, we did? Yeah. Oh, right, of course we did because he and Roy are both Asian. And me. No. See, that's what's weird. You're not, Rob is. Well, does Vincent get more since I was 12 and a half years old?

when I had him. Great, great point. Yeah, so mom was 50, you were 12.5, so I don't know. So 62.5, so he's 30? But then do I gain more? Oh my God, you're right. Yeah, then you're more than 12.5, then you're... Oh my God, someone needs to crunch these numbers. Like 25?

Yeah, so Robbie's now up in the 28%, 30. All right. You're closing in on Natalie. I love it. You're going to leave her in the dust. I just want people to know that none of this is real, just in case. Hold on, though. Hold on. I just found an error in that. He does not, Vincent did not get your 12.5%, okay? Okay. Because, see, because Natalie cannot be made more Asian by the children.

So if you were 12.5 and then you made Vincent 28%, then that would make Natalie, we can't have her going up. Okay. Yeah. Well, why? Why is it only the dad that gets to move up? Well, because it's only fun if the Chicagoan becomes Filipino. Okay. It's not fun if the Filipino becomes more Filipino. I mean, I think it's great fun. It's all great. It's really great. Yeah.

We should get Vincent a teddy bear. Ding, ding, ding. Ding, dingle. Oh, my gosh. I got more news. What? You know what? My animal, the one that represents me from a child. Crow.

Oh, fuck. I know polar bear. Yes, polar bear. Yeah. Crow's my favorite animal. I thought you were going to tell a crow story. Close. Polar bear. Okay. Polar bear is what my mom's always called me because my hands and feet were so big. And I had lots of posters of polar bears and a polar bear stuffy that I loved. Okay. Guess what I read the other day? What? You're going to fucking shit your little polar, your little teddy bear outfit. My polar bear outfit? Yeah. All polar bears are left-handed. Oh.

No. Yes. Yes, it's in this great book. Lincoln's got this series of books. It seems like something I would have bought her, but I didn't. She found this on her own and she ordered all of them. She's her dad's daughter. It's versus versus. So Komodo dragon versus King Cobra. Oh, cool. Polar bear versus grizzly bear. Who would win in a fight? Oh, boy. And then in route to this hypothetical fight, you learn all about the animal. That's right.

Yes, and we learned in that book that all polar bears are left-handed. That's so sim. It's crazy. Oh, my God. That just got added to the sim. That wasn't a thing. You're right. I knew a lot about polar bears before. Like two weeks ago, my dad put that in there. I wonder what if I read a thing that says they're all dyslexic.

What did it say? Would a polar bear be a grizzly? I can't even remember who they gave it to. I think they gave it to the polar bear, but they fucking gave the victory over the Komodo dragon to the King Cobra, which is preposterous. Really? Yes, absolutely preposterous. A fucking Komodo dragon is like 600 pounds. Yeah. Are they slow? No, they're quick. But more than anything, their skin, they're nearly a pachyderm. Oh, my God.

Oh my God. Pussy pack? Pussimus pachydermis. That king cobra is not even going to penetrate that scaly skin. Also, the fucking Komodo dragon has poison of its own. Its whole mouth is poisoned. You can smell them for so long away because their poison's bacteria in their teeth. They let all the meat they eat rot into a gross poison so that when they bite an animal, it goes septic. Wow. Wow.

So anyways, I do think they gave it to the polar bear. It's a really interesting matchup. Do you want to know why? Yeah. Now, the polar bear is the tallest bear on Earth. Okay. Standing at 10 feet tall. Grizzly bear, good-sized grizzly, is about 8 feet tall. Still, imagine that. Shaquille O'Neal is 7 foot 2. So, like, its back is 10 feet? No, it's on its hind legs. Oh, got it. Which they do. They go up there. Sure. Look at me. Say hi.

So the grizzly is eight feet tall. The polar bear is 10 feet tall. But the grizzly, because it hibernates, they can get up to, I forget what it is, maybe 1,400 pounds or something. Oh, God. Whereas the polar bear is like maybe 900 or something, whatever. It's not as heavy. So the grizzly bear is more mass, but the polar bear is taller. But now what you have in the polar bear's arsenal is that it only hunts. It doesn't eat foliage and shit like a grizzly bear.

It just kills things. Okay. The grizzly eats salmon. It'll eat a caribou if it gets hands on one. But mostly it's eating a ton of berries, honey. Oh. Right? Less of its life is spent in combat killing. Got it.

Now, on the other hand, grizzlies' claws are much bigger. There's so much stuff to consider. Wow. And grizzlies are brown, right? Yeah. Like me. Yep. They're all brown bears. The brown bear can go by brown bear, grizzly bear, kodiak. Oh. Polar bear is just polar bear. But its name, Ursula, it's like Ursula Maritimus or something. It's the water bear. But polar bears are white. Beautifully white. In fact, Monica, they're translucent.

That was in the book. Really? Their hair is actually translucent. It is? Yeah, but when all the light... And their skin's black. Nuh-uh. I'm not lying to you. These are the facts from the book. So, would you say that if you're a polar bear, I'm a grizzly bear? No, I wouldn't. Okay. But I have big claws. You do. And brown. You're brown. That's right. And I...

In your bear. Yeah. You're a teddy bear. So polar bear, grizzly bear, teddy bear. Okay. If you were in the Ursula genus. What would I be? A black bear. Really? Yeah. Why? Because they're so cute. They roll down the hills. They're smaller. What about a panda? They eat almost all berries. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert. If you dare.

Pandas are too boring for you. They're not playful enough. But they're so cute. They go down to the babies, go down to the slide. At the zoo, you're right. They're very active at the zoo. Oh, I love them. Okay, but you're the bear expert. You're the bear expert. So I'll take your word for it that I'm a black bear. God, is it a boy thing?

To be into bears? Yeah, or just animals. Well, I mean, I hate to do this, but stereotypically, you said you changed it to animals. And that makes me think, no, it's actually not a boy thing. Because girls love animals. They do. They love cats. But I guess I'd love to know the demographic of these discovery shows about lions. Like, I want to know male versus female. Who's watching? I have no interest in watching that. Right. Okay, speaking of like...

stereotypes and gender. I have a sad story. Oh, good. It's kind of, I guess it's unethical because I'm really just going to tell a story that The Daily told. Oh, okay, great. But we love The Daily. We love The Daily. Also, people were like, when we had our Birds Aren't Real, Arm Shared and Dangerous, people were like furious. Why? In the comments. This was already on The Daily. It's like, okay. We also have guests that are on other shows.

Yeah. Are you sure they were mad or were they like, oh, this was also because when I told Erica, she was like, oh, I heard that on the daily. That's so awesome. I'm excited to listen. Some were just like that. OK. And then others were like, get real, guys. We already know this is fake. It was on the. Oh, you know, it's more of like an angry. What was clear is that the people who commented, as always.

Had not listened to the episode. Yeah, true. That became very obvious by the time. I love that episode. It's my favorite, maybe. Armchair Endangered. Okay. So there was a very powerful daily from last week about Ukraine. And they spoke to a few different men involved. And it's just like, it is so heartbreaking, the whole thing. And just regular people who just have to like, one guy was just like working and bringing food to his office. And then he had to go and then,

But for me, like the saddest one was this guy who is gay and is like, I never picked up a gun. I don't want anything to do with that. I'm not violent. He like tried to get to Poland and they said no because he was a man. And he's like, but I don't want it. I can't do it. I don't have the constitution for it. And it made me just so sad that it was like, well, you're a man, so...

Oh, right, right, right. It's interesting. Okay, good. Let's do this. Let's dance. You know, I'm the first person to be really critical of men. So much of what we do is toxic. It's controlling. We've been the dominant force.

and women have paid the price. They sat at home and cleaned and gave us kids and we did whatever the fuck we wanted. And as long as we were making money, that was the deal. Yeah. Terrible. But when it's time for the men to show up, we also need them. For sure. And it's time for the men. And this is the thing we do good. Like it's our time. Unfortunately, the world isn't such that everyone can stop having that role. There's still Russia. There's still North Korea. Yeah.

So this is the part of my opinion. It's like, yep, the...

there's a bunch of terrible shit that go along with men. Also, when there's a bobcat in the house, it's time for us to do our thing. This is what we evolved to do. But I, yeah, I disagree. I mean, I think if you are a man who has evolved to do that, then yes, please. Like now is the time, please stand up, please help. But not everyone has. I guess I'm speaking more broadly as like, I don't totally disagree with the policy that yes, women and children, I believe should leave.

And I believe the men should stay to defend the country. I think people should stay to defend the country if they believe they can. That's good. You know, because I think some women also are like, yeah, I fucking can. And they are. Some are. But also, I don't think it's fair to classify all men as capable of that. Like,

Well, no, but they should be running supplies. They should be grabbing the other guys who want to kill people, ammunition. They should be pulling people out of rubble and helping with medical stuff. Like there's a role for many, many people in a war other than shooting people. And just like I would say to a woman, like, well, here's the shit deal of being a woman. You got to pass a child through your groin. Well, you don't have to. You don't have to.

But if you're going to have a child... It's on you. That's one of the downsides of being a woman. It's like you're going to have to pass this thing through your body. Yes, correct. And the downside of being a man is when your village is being attacked and they are trying to steal all your women and children, you are the person that's got to fight. You're physically bigger...

you've evolved to do this. This is your time to do your thing. I really do see what you mean. But I'm probably not saying it well. No, no, you are. I just think it's too complicated to put a blanket on it and say men. Well, you're right, because I don't mind that there's women staying to fight. I think that's radical. There's many women staying to fight. Right, but I think it's okay if you're a man who's like, I'm too scared for this. I don't know. My thought, though, is this. If they did that, right, they're like,

Men who aren't into it, bail. And now there's the 1% who literally don't think they can run water to people.

But they may just not want to get killed. And that's okay to be a man who doesn't want to get killed. And I'm not judging. I don't know what I would do. I'm not in judgment. But I'm saying let's start with saying the person doesn't want to go to Russia and live in Russia. If they don't want to live in Russia or be under Russian rule and they want the Ukraine to remain an independent state, they have to participate in that. Right. Right.

Or surrender and move now to Russia. Does that make sense? Yeah. I mean, I'm harsh. I'm trying to get this a little black and white so we can proceed. No, I just don't think it's black and white. I think that's exactly what I'm saying. But I'm only getting to the point where if you do believe Ukraine should be defended, it's not okay for you to bail. So you're the 1% who's decided absolutely there's no service you can provide or you're too scared. Now, when they let that 1% out,

One strata up from that, that thinks they mostly don't want to be there. They see all these dudes running. There's kind of no shame to it. They join. Now everyone's running away from the thing. And then Russia got Ukraine. So...

That's what I'm saying. You're working backwards from do you want to keep Ukraine independent? If you do, I think there's probably only one way for them to have a shot, and it's not half the men deserting the country. And I think as soon as you let some of the men desert the country, just more will follow because they won't be embarrassed anymore. It's the worst of all options, which is a fucking human conflict with death and weapons.

But if you're even going to do it, you must work backwards from how it could possibly be successful. And it's not to willy nilly let some people decide and some people not.

There's like a certain reality to the situation, I guess. No, no, I get that. I mean, I guess a small part of me is like, why don't you let the people leave who want to leave? And then there are people here who want to go. Like, let them go. There are people going, yeah. I don't know. It's sad. It's just so sad. I hate it. I guess the other option, let's look at all the options. You could say like everyone in Ukraine should just get up and leave. They should go to all these other countries so that no one dies and say to Russia, here you go. Now you have Ukraine. Yeah.

We don't want to live under your rule. We'd rather live in Poland or Hungary or all these places.

Now all those countries have a deal with that. That's a side note. Those people now, they had a life in Ukraine and we don't know that they'll have a life elsewhere. Sure. So they're not just maybe giving up this piece of real estate. They're giving up like their whole life. I don't like this option. Like I agree. I don't think this is a good option. Right. So what's the other option? The other option is try to resist and make it go on so long that the sanctions have enough time to truly cripple the place. That just involves everyone's got to fucking get ugly now. I don't know. I don't know.

It's my personal disposition to be like, there's a big bully and we're a strong person on the playground. Yeah. And like, we got to do more to help the vulnerable person. Right. So like you wish we were doing more. I wish we could. I wish we could. I know. If they didn't have nukes, we can't initiate even, I mean, you want to be as dark as you can get. Yeah.

You have to let Russia take over Ukraine before we have nuclear genocide. Yeah, I agree. I agree. But I do think, I think this is the strategy, which is hopefully goes on long enough. It's embarrassing enough that the will of the Russians becomes very obvious. They don't want anything to do with this. This was a huge mistake. Everyone's fucking broke. And they fucking, they revolt and they get rid of that bozo. Yeah, I know.

Oh, did you hear this cool thing that Elon Musk did? He brought internet to the Ukraine? Yes. Someone from the Ukraine trolled him. He's like, wow, you're going to space and you can't give us internet? Ah. He responded, Starlink will be up in five hours. He had already been working on it. No way. So fucking Elon Musk is put internet in there. That's awesome. Also, there's like all these...

small independent ventures people are doing. Like you can like put money in Airbnb. I gave some money. It can go directly to the people. Yep. In fact, no one's touching it. And I think Etsy is the same. Etsy shops and stuff like that. Yeah. Ashton and Mila have a really cool thing. They're matching up to $3 million for people who will go and do that for the humanitarian side of it. Wonderful. She's Ukrainian. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure this is hard.

All right, switching gears. Yes. Roy Choi. This is one of my favorite interviews in a long time. A mix of things, like so fun, like a great,

person to be around, but also very vulnerable and open and so smart. I just really enjoyed it. The part that blew my mind was the gambling thing. It was so fun to get to talk to somebody that had a gambling addiction. I don't really have, I have zero experience with it. And it was illuminating. The whole like, just needing to get even. Even, waking up in the morning, looking in the mirror. Yeah.

And saying, I hope today's the day I get even. So I can quit. Yes. And also all I need is five bucks to do it. The endless belief that that could happen again. And like, we do talk about this, but it's, I guess it's hard to do when someone's sitting there. Like the Kogi truck is huge. Like you don't know, you don't live in LA and you don't know him. You might not, you might just say, oh, this is just like a chef who has a food truck. Like it's an enormous institution here. Yeah, yeah.

Anyway, okay. I said last time we did the fact check. Oh, Sedona. I was in Sedona. Oh, yeah. We had a heartbreaking situation. We did. That was painful. I didn't like that. We recorded and we lost half. More than half. Okay. We lost most. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you're wondering what happened on the fact check last time, because it starts kind of abruptly, we lost half. Yeah. My unit shut off.

But yes, we were going to get a Sedona update from you. Oh, yeah. It was incredible. It was for Laura's bachelorette party and we stayed at Enchantment Resort, which is enchanting as ever. I saw a picture of you. There's now a treasure trove of pictures of you that like should be posted but won't be.

Oh. So I saw one last night. What? It was a little mouse asleep on a bus with a white claw on her hand. Oh, it was posted. Oh, it was? Yeah. I didn't post it. Who posted it? One of the girls, Liz. Okay. Well, mom didn't. Mom has it on her phone. Okay. And I said, this would be a great post, but money wouldn't like it. There's a couple of things going on there.

Go ahead. Wait, I want to hear from you what is... You look six years old. You are... Because you're curled up with your head on the window sleeping. And for whatever reason, the angle, you look so tiny. It looks like a kitty cat sleeping on the bus. And then you have a white claw in your hand. I do. It's so adorable. I...

I don't like that picture because my neck looks bad, really bad. And also it's deceiving. It looks like I drank so much White Claw that I like passed out. Right. And that is not what happened. There was like three sips out of that White Claw. And really that whole time I was like trying to sleep and trying not to puke. Right. Because you were having a little bit of motion sickness. Yeah. On that bus. Yeah.

It wasn't my favorite ride, two and a half hours of my life, but that's okay. Which says a lot because you were riding with me the last time you went up that mountain and I was driving a quadrillion miles an hour. True. Yeah. I think it was because we just got off the plane. Like something about all the different motion and I don't know. Because I was actually fine on the ride back. Mm-hmm.

Anyway, so the last fact check, we didn't have time to go through the Playboy article, but I said we would do it this time. Oh, okay, okay, okay. So I'm going to read it. Oh, geez. This is, by the way, you're not going to let us post this thing. You're going to read a 20-year-old article of me, and I'm embarrassed already. Do you want me to not? I don't have to. No, do it, do it, do it, do it. Okay, 20Q, Dax Shepard.

Oh, God. The headline is, oh, this is a nine-minute read. It tells you. That's cool. The comic turned actor, parentheses, and drugged out bad boy turned vegan gentleman on failure and success. They caught me in the one year I was vegan. Yeah. 2012. Is success what you thought it would be?

Oh, God, no. What if I try to do an impression? Do it. No, I can't. Oh, God, no. I go to movies. I see meself. Me not feel better about meself. Me think we will feel good, but feel bad.

Oh, God, no. But it's impossible to know until you've had success that it doesn't alter your daily struggles. When I was a struggling groundling, I thought if I had the life I have now, I wouldn't have to brush my teeth anymore and I could eat cupcakes all day. I'm still saying that. I need some new material. It's just your truth. I thought I'd eat cupcake all day.

In fact, I have to do the same shit I've always had to do to not feel miserable, which is work out, journal, eat well, do something for somebody other than myself at some point every day, even if it's just the dogs, those little fuckers. Okay. Not bad yet. That's cute. Okay.

So was that really you driving like an outlaw in Hit and Run? Oh, yeah, this is to promote Hit and Run. That's why. Okay. 100%. I'm from Detroit, and my life has been driving cars. In high school, it was drag racing. Then I worked for GM because my mother had a company that put on big car shows for journalists. We'd rent out Michigan International Speedway, and I got tons and tons of seat time in these crazy cars that a 16-year-old should never be allowed to drive. I fucking love cars, and I've wanted to do a car chase movie all my life. Okay, interesting.

It's like weird to say fucking knowing it's in an article. Playboy. But it's Playboy. Ding, ding, ding, boing, boing, boing. Okay, three. Correct us again, but it also appears that your super hot, super famous co-star and fiance, Kristen Bell, was actually buckled in alongside you for every bit of it. Naturally, the producer had booked a stunt double, but Kristen said to me, no, if you're driving through a barn and jumping other cars, I need to be there with you. We're going to go out together.

Sweet. Romantic. Yes. She sounds like a keeper. Kristen's a good girl. She grew up very Christian, went straight to college, did great in school, and started work immediately. She's charitable and philanthropic and rescues dogs. So when we met, our backgrounds were opposites. All the things I'd done were terrifying to her, and she had a hard time believing I would ever be able to stay married, a monogamous, and a father, and all those things. For the first year and a half we were together, that's what we battled over almost weekly. How terrifying were you exactly?

It's so weird when you turn 18 and are released into the world and then just start piling on terrible habits. From 18 to 29, I was a heavy smoker, heavy drinker, drug addict, terrible eater, and philanderer. The past eight years since I got sober have honestly been about trying to peel back each of those habits to get back to the 12-year-old kid inside who was tremendously excited about life. Six. Give us a snapshot of you in your party years. Oh, boy. I just loved to get fucked up. Drinking, cocaine, opiates, marijuana, diet pills, pain pills, everything.

White privilege. That was before I knew it was white privilege. Yeah.

Yeah. How much you've grown? Yeah, kind of. I think these are all the same stories I just still say. I got lucky and I didn't go to jail or worse, says the person. And you said, oh God, yeah, my nose is completely sideways from a drunken altercation. I'm missing a knuckle because of a drunken altercation.

somehow I was usually able to get sober for work I got sober for my first movie without a paddle but then I was fucked up I got sober for idiocracy but then I was fucked up for three months then right before I started Zathura I knew I would get sober for that so I went to Hawaii to relax and that's when things went from bad to worse I ended up in a car accident with a local on the way to get coke which didn't stop us from going to get coke then it wasn't coke it was crystal meth but I did it anyway eight how exactly did you get a big Hollywood career yeah and

And sum that up in four lines. Yeah, exactly. Well, I spent many, many years unemployed. I was 20 when I moved to Los Angeles. I went on probably 600 commercial auditions and couldn't book any of them. I went through the groundlings. Everyone there had agents but me, and it was a ridiculously amazing group. I was there with Melissa McCarthy, who was nominated for an Oscar, Octavia Spencer, who won an Oscar, Tate Taylor, who directed The Help. Success is just a war of attrition. Sure, there's an element of talent you should probably possess, but if you stick around long enough, eventually something's going to happen, you know? Yeah.

You first got people's attention as a pretend IRS agent who made Justin Timberlake cry on MTV's Punk'd. What was that like?

That makes sense. Yeah.

10. You studied anthropology at UCLA. Ding, ding, ding. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Oh, this is interesting. What's your anthropological assessment of Ashton Kutcher's success? Oh, see, he's trying to get me to shit talk. Oh. All these, see, this is what I'm talking about print. He's, right now, he's like, how do you explain Ashton's success? A, why does that need explaining? You're not asking me to explain Brad Pitt's success. I guess I'm asking you.

that's true, but like when we get interviewed, they ask us all the time, like, can you explain the success of this show? Like, what is it about this show that's made, you know? Yeah, but why are you asking me about Ashton Kutcher? Well, people ask about you to me. They ask you my, how I got successful? Like, what is it about

And maybe they'll say y'all. Yeah, I don't think. But I always answer with you. This was a thing. The people wanted to hate Kutcher, especially these journalists. They wanted to say he was only there because he was good looking. They wanted to catch me doing that. Yeah. Well, this is what you said. He's only here because he's good looking. What if I said that? We are incredibly social animals and we're constantly searching. Well, see, this is, you went anthropological. That's good. Oh, okay, good. You followed the rules.

Right.

When Ashton and Demi broke up, I felt bad. These are people I eat dinner with. Brad and Angelina, that's another story. I don't actually know them, so I'm as curious as the next person. Will they get married? What's their life like? And of course, I would love to see them engaged in coitus. Well, some things never change. Oh, man. Okay. Okay. You realize people have said that about you and every famous, beautiful woman you've dated. I get that. People want to see us bang. Yeah.

The people want to see us bang. But here's the funny thing about the response I've been aware of to my dating famous people. It's been very negative. I'm either not good looking enough, not a good enough actor or not successful enough for these people. It's ironic really. Guys should be excited that I got Kristen Bell. If Brad Pitt gets Kristen Bell, it's like, well, of course he did. With me, it should be, oh good, a normal looking guy got her. Maybe I'll get me a Kristen Bell. But guys hate my guts for always dating women I have no right to be with. What's your secret?

I attribute it to being funny and a good dancer. And I'm tall, which will get you places as well. I'm also wired for it. The times my brain works fastest are when I'm doing improv on a stage or meeting co-eds in a bar. Co-eds. Co-eds. Yeah, I haven't heard you say that. No, I've lost some stuff. Yeah. Most of it, I'm just embarrassed with how much I'm recycling shit from nine years ago. That just means it's real. Okay, well, okay, that's a positive thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Thank you. You picked a career in which you're surrounded by gorgeous women. Okay, also this is Playboy. Let's just remember that. There is a reason perhaps that a lot of the questions skew this way. Well, that's a nice way to look at it, but I think I'm right about this. Yeah. There was a moment where I was more famous for having dated famous people. Yeah. Which, I get it. And that's why Stern wanted me on. That's why Stern was willing to have me on. I was this guy like, why was he dating her and her and her?

And that hopefully I'll come on and talk about those people that are much more famous than me. So that's also happening. Sure. Luckily, I got on the stern and he just liked me and was fascinated by my drunk log. Yeah. But this guy, that's why I got a story. That's interesting. Playboys, they want me to dish on...

And I know it too going in. So it's like I'm being protective and that's why it infuriates me. Well, you'll get to that. Yeah. It's interesting for me because I don't know you as that. I don't know you as someone who's famous because of who you dated. Right. You saw me first in Parenthood. Well, I saw you in Punk'd but I didn't like know you. Right, right, right. But yeah, yeah, you got popular. And that had changed by Parenthood. But if you're the quote dude from Punk'd,

Who's dating Kate Hudson. People are like, what the fuck? It's definitely changed. You picked a career in which you're surrounded by gorgeous women. Does the urge to merge ever go away? I think he's saying, do you want to fuck your co-stars? Oh, no, it doesn't. I wish it did magically. This is overly deep, but I have to put women in the same category. I put drugs and alcohol. It's an outside thing that I try to use to make my insides feel better. And I've learned that it just doesn't work. I have to keep my urges in check.

He wasn't expecting that. He didn't want me to be like, no, I find it damaging because I'm unhappy. Because I'm in touch with myself. What's your relationship like with Craig T. Nelson, your TV dad on Parenthood? Craig T. Nelson is the coolest person I've met. My identical twin only were separated by 30 years or whatever. He's raced cars forever. We both have big noses. We're both tall. We're both goofy. We've both been around a lot of craziness. He's a guy I super fan at work the way I super fan Burt Reynolds, whom I got to work with on Without a Paddle.

Burt Reynolds? All the way. My house is a living shrine to Burt, much to KB's chagrin. I have a urinal. You do? I had one, yeah. Kristen tore it out.

You had his urinal? The old house, when it was four bedrooms, had this really small bathroom that when you sat on the toilet, I couldn't sit on the toilet. My knees would hit the wall. So I'm like, I was a bachelor. So I ripped that fucker out. And I've always wanted a floor-length urinal. So I had a floor-length urinal. And when my buddies would come over, I'd fill it with ice like they do at nice restaurants. Oh, my God. And it was auto-flush and everything. Oh, my God.

Doesn't that sound great, Rob? It sounds nice. Yeah. Okay. I have a urinal and above it is a poster of Gator with a personal message that says, to Dax, you're a hell of an actor, but more important, a hell of a man. Love and respect. I would go to his trailer every day just to hound him for stories because I had so many unanswered questions. Like Jackie Gleason was a very well-known and admitted functioning alcoholic, yet 80% of Smokey and the Bandit is him traveling at high speed. It's clearly him driving and it begs the question, why?

What were the safety protocols when Gleason was driving? Bird's answers were implausible. The physics of what he told me couldn't happen, but who gives a shit? They were great stories. I love that man. Did you feel that way about John Travolta? See, again, why are you bringing up Travolta? Go ahead. Did you feel that way about John Travolta when you were in Old Dogs? No.

Well, they say you shouldn't meet your heroes, and that's probably good advice unless you employ the strategy of hanging on to your daydream of who they are. Urban Cowboy is in my top five dramas of all time, so Travolta could have been lighting other cast members on fire, and I would have just seen Bud climbing off the oil rig or the guy from Pulp Fiction. I'm like those female fans who saw Elvis on his last tour. They didn't see the 300-pound beached whale on the stage. They were cheering and crying for the guy from 1956 swaying his hips.

So I didn't even really answer. No, you did a good job of aiding that. I like Travolta though, for the record. He's a sweetheart. Yeah. 17, Beau Bridges looks pretty good in your new movie and he's no spring chicken. What's he like?

When I saw his age was 70, I almost crapped myself. I would go, Jesus, Bo, you're not supposed to be able to punch somebody out in a scene at 70. My grandpa couldn't have done that. What's your secret? And he goes, I've been a vegan for 12 years. I was like, damn, I need to think about this. And then I saw Forks Over Knives, that documentary, and I was like, I'm in. I've been a vegan since January.

I feel like I'm time traveling. 18. And how are you feeling? It's nothing like the pill in the matrix, but damn good. Like 15% across the board in every respect. I sleep 15% better. My allergies are at least 15% better. I have fewer body aches. My skin looks better. I'm never starving and I never need to ride the couch feeling completely full and disgusting. 19. So your vices are pretty much under control.

I think I have a pretty good handle on my isms, but it takes a long time. Each third or fourth bad thing you give up, you still have to hold on to one. I'm still on nicotine. I pound about a dozen of those comet throat lozenges a day. I still drink gallons of coffee. 20. And you still drive like a maniac. I'm still super into driving too fast on motorcycles. Yes, I have a Suzuki...

GSX-R1000. That was hard to read. That's just for the racetrack and I can get up to 190 on that. When you're going that fast, you're thinking only about what you're doing in the moment. It's the closest I could ever get to Deepak or God or something like that. You can't think about tomorrow or what happened yesterday. You just absolutely have to be thinking second to second to second about what you're doing in that moment. I don't think I could survive without doing something like that.

So I imagine the part. I don't see it. Or maybe you. Oh, maybe they took it out. Maybe. Or maybe they asked you. No, maybe they took it out for this because it's now online. Maybe. The printed version. Has it? Yes. Shit, I need the printed version. That's weird. Unless they just asked you and it was annoying when they asked you.

No, no, my issue is they didn't say those names. And then he put, you've been with, whatever question it was about stars. Yeah, yeah. Go back to that question. It was like maybe 12. Yeah.

It was... What's your secret? It was around that. Oh, what's your secret? 12. Yeah. Oh, wow. That's weird. So what is that question? Well, also you picked a career in which you're surrounded by gorgeous women. Does the urge to merge ever go away? Also, you realize people have said that about you and every famous beautiful woman you've dated. Comma. And then he listed three names. Oh, interesting. And then I just go like, well, I guess my secret's dancing and blah, blah. So it looks like I didn't correct...

Oh, I see. That was taken out. I know I went apeshit and my publicist called and was apeshit. So I wonder if in subsequent things. They probably retracted it. Okay. Interesting. That's the only explanation. All right. Well, now I'm fine now. But that was a fun journey. Was it? Yeah, for me. I'm not too embarrassed by that. Good. We didn't learn one thing about me, though. We already know this about me, right? Well, you said co-eds. Yeah.

Yeah, and I said... So you used to say coeds. And coitus. I used to say coeds. You still say coitus. I still say coitus. Okay, so just coeds. I got to get that back in. Oh, you want to bring that back. Okay. Okay, so I looked up the Asian population. Well, Rob looked it up real time and said 6%. But then I was looking at the breakdown in America. Of the 6%. Okay. And 24% are Chinese Indians.

21% are Indian. Okay, so we don't have 6% Asian. We have about 4% Asian and 2% Indian. 19% Filipino, 10% Vietnamese. Filipino is number three. 19, yep. Ding, ding, ding, Rob. Congrats. I got two of the top three in here. That's right. Okay, 10% Vietnamese, 9% Korean, 7% Japanese,

All others, 15%. Wow, Japanese are that... Small. Yeah. Yep. Huh, that's interesting. I thought Hawaii is very...

High concentration of Japanese people. Maybe all of that is in Hawaii. All there. Yeah. Oh, wow. Did you think it was higher? I don't know why I thought that. No, because... I know why I thought that. Okay, go ahead. No, you go. No, I don't have... I think because Japan was so talked about in the 90s as being this economic power. So I think just...

Oh, I see. You know, it's like a lot of you don't hear about Myanmar ever. Former Burma. Right. When was the last time you heard about, you know, you don't hear about a lot of these countries. These don't make headlines. But we were obsessed with Japan the way we're obsessed with China in the 90s. Well, but I think that's actually a reason why there's less here because it was a successful country. They're not escaping. They don't need to leave. Yeah. Really good point.

Okay, Asians now make up about 7% of the nation's overall population. This is according to 2021. Minus 30% of that for me. Nope, we're including us. Nope, we're going to include us. Okay. I looked up poorest Asian communities in U.S. Asian Americans had a poverty rate of 10% in 2019. Okay.

Three percentage points lower than the overall U.S. poverty rate, 13%. Mongolian and Burmese have the highest poverty rates among all Asian origin groups at 25%, more than twice the national average and about four times the poverty rates among Indians, 6%. Okay. So Indians are at 6%. Says so. I'm just overachiever, overachiever. Well, always. Okay.

I guess we're going against what stereotype we're trying to break, which is the model minority. You shouldn't feel bad for them, which is not the case. But also, no, I've had an explanation for this that my dad came up with, which is they learn English in school there, so it's easier. Yeah, yeah. And I think there's really something to that. But also they came... It's all about, too, what we let in, right? Exactly. So like the Philippines, the reason they're all nurses is because we said we'll let all the nurses in from the Philippines. And y'all...

Indian people. Focused on engineering. And professors and stuff like that. Yeah, we said you can come on in if you can do that. Okay, I wrote my mom used to love Emeril on Food Network. Uh-huh. Bam. Bam. Did I tell you I got the bam? What's that mean?

On that trip, so much happened on one trip. What trip? When I was famous for 30 seconds and they invited me down to the Sugar Bowl to go out on the field for Nokia. Uh-huh. And do the Nokia halftime thing. Uh-huh. They said, you can come down first class tickets for you and friends. So I brought Aaron and Adrian. Uh-huh. And Bree and I went. And this is, remember, on my birthday. And I went to a slot machine. Not a slot machine, a video poker. And I got a Royal Flush.

We're right out of the gates. This is not ringing a bell. And then we were all staring at it like, oh my God, Royal Flush. This is like three grand or whatever. And then we just stared at it and stared at it like, why isn't it paying us? Oh no. Why isn't it paying us? And then I hit the button. I didn't save them all. I didn't think to save them all because it was already the perfect thing. None of us thought so. Oh no. And it just redoubted me a shit hand.

So that's a once in a lifetime occurrence. You'll never forget that. Then Aaron and I were on the balcony and we were throwing the beads, but we were purposely throwing them in the horse poop because all the horse cops were pooping all over the thing. Purposely throwing them in the horse poop to see if people would pick them up and wear them. And they did. Oh my God. And it was a great entertainment for us. But back to part of the thing was like, would you want to eat at Emeril Lagasse's restaurant? I forget the name of it.

And we said, of course we'd like to go. We went and I said, can I get the bam? And he fucking came out of the kitchen and dropped our dishes and gave us the bam. What do you mean what? What do you mean he gave you the bam? Bam! You just said it. Oh, you're saying he said it. He said it. He dropped our food. Emeril. Oh my God, he was there working? Yes, well, it's because it's a big, big week there and he was at his own restaurant. Oh, shit. And he came out of the kitchen. Wow.

And he put our chowder down and bammed us. That's cool. Yeah. That's a sim moment. This was all in like three days. What year was this? Whenever Punk came out.

By the way, I'd never seen them say bam. I just knew, you know how you know things. Sure, it was in the zeitgeist. It was in the zeitgeist. Okay, about restaurants, 60% of new restaurants fail within the first year. And nearly 80% shutter before their fifth anniversary. Oh, man, that's why it's so hard to get a loan for one.

You do look like a cosplay person. I know I said that the last time you wore this, but you really look like a furry. Is that what they're called? Sure. They go to a convention. Rob, you know all this stuff. Okay. Furry's a sexual thing. Yeah. Right, yeah. But they go as creatures, right? And they rub up against each other? Furries? I think it's separate. I mean, people dress for cosplay for like comic books. And for furry play, I think. Yeah, I guess. Why do you think it's called furries?

Because they're wearing little bear outfits like this. Well, I think they're wearing like hood. They're like really in a costume. Oh my gosh. This is Skims. I know. Okay. Over 110,000 eating, drinking establishments in the U.S. closed for business temporarily or permanently in 2020. Wow.

with nearly 2.5 million jobs erased from pre-pandemic levels. Ooh. Yeah. Woo, woo, woo. Yikesies. That has to be the sector that was hit the hardest. Yeah, and then they don't want to come back. And they're done. That was a big one. Yeah, it was juicy. Okay, great. Love you. Love you. ♪♪♪

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