Malcolm Gladwell: Only in Malibu
01:04:44 Share

Art in your home can instantly transform your space and bring you joy. Saatchi Art makes it easy for you to discover and buy one-of-a-kind art that you'll love. Whether you're looking to complement your home decor, fill a blank space on your walls, or start an art collection, you can find the perfect piece for your specific style and budget at Saatchi Art. Go to SaatchiArt.com today to bring the beauty of art into your home. Plus, listeners get 15% off their first order of original art with code ROB.

That's 15% off at SaatchiArt.com. S-A-A-T-C-H-I-Art.com. Ever wish your favorite TV show had twice as many episodes? Everyone knows that feeling. And so does Discover. Everyone wants more of their favorites. That's why Discover doubles another favorite thing. Cash back.

That's right. Discover automatically doubles the cash back earned on your credit card at the end of your first year with Cash Back Match. Now that's a real crowd pleaser. Everyone knows how it ends. Double the cash back. See terms at discover.com slash credit card. I had a trainer who was a world champion. His name was Milan Tiff. Milan Tiff? Yes. That was your coach? Yes.

Hello, everybody. Welcome to Literally. It is not every day that we get a fantastic author on the show. We spend a lot of time with actors. We spend a lot of time with musicians and maybe a sports figure here and there. But when we have the authors on, I put on my big boy pants because I got to compete with really smart people. And I want to live up to my next guest's

intellectual firepower, Malcolm Gladwell, who wrote a book that changed how I saw the world, certainly, The Tipping Point. It is many years ago, and he's written many amazing things since then, which we will get into. So I'm super excited to have Malcolm Gladwell. Welcome.

Thank you for being with us. I'm a huge fan. I've read almost every one of your books. I've read every one of them, but I've read pretty damn much of them. I've read all the Rob Lowe books. You have not, you big liar. No, no, no. I'm not lying at all. My friend, Charles Randolph, the screenwriter, said to me, you know, Rob Lowe's audiobook is one of the great audiobooks. And I was skeptical. I'll admit, I was

And I listened to it and I was like, I have told so many people to listen to that audiobook. It's so good. Really? I mean, coming from you in particular, I take totally great pride in that. No, it's this... That picture of Malibu in that era is so...

it's so fascinating and kind of creepy and unrecognizable. And, you know, everyone's dying. And it's like, it's just like, it's nuts. It's really nuts. And, you know, it's like, I still feel like there's so much more to tell. And it's kind of my, the great white whale of life

of my storytelling career of how to really crack that more. Is it a, is it a book about that? Is it a, is it a mini series? It is a movie. Is it a series? That's just the sizzle reel for what it really, really was. I mean, and when I, when I run into people like Sean Penn, who grew up with me and we kind of clutch each other, like,

Dude, do you remember? And like, right? Like we have to like make sure we're not crazy about our childhoods. Yeah. And taking the bus into the city and like all that sort of, and then the, the audition story from the West Coast, East Coast auditions, which one was that for? For the outsiders, which is like one of my favorite Hollywood stories of all time. Like who wasn't invited to that audition?

It's like, it is a phenomenal, it's a phenomenal moment in Hollywood history. There's never been anything like it as far as I can tell. For the Outsiders audition, it was literally any male from, I think Tommy Howell was, who ended up playing Ponyboy, was phenomenal.

barely 14. So from 14 to probably 30, probably 30, 14 to 30. So think about it. It'd be like Scott Baio from Happy Days next to Sean Penn, next to Dennis Quaid, next to Mickey Rourke, next to, I mean, and on and on to an unknown Tom Cruise. Yeah. It's unbelievable. And then there's that whole thing of

oh, this guy's going to be a huge star and then maybe they weren't. Or this guy, I don't get it, and he becomes a huge... I mean, I'd love for you to do, with what you do so brilliantly, is do a deep dive on what, why, and how of that group or of all of them. I'm tormenting that in the Malibu story. Because L.A. in the 70s and 80s is so...

It's such a specific moment in the city's history. And I read the book that I pair yours with is Flea's autobiography. Yes, yes. But he's talking about Hollywood, not Malibu.

That's right. And I feel like it might be a little bit later. It's a little bit later, but it's the same thing, which is Hollywood is completely unrecognizable. Oh, unrecognizable. It's like crazy dangerous. It's like outlaw country. And he's basically feral. I mean, he's growing up on the streets. Yes. And all of his friends are growing up on the streets. It's just like, I can't wrap my mind around the fact that like,

L.A.? In those years, L.A.? Is L.A. more interesting or less interesting in those years? I can't figure that out. Oh, L.A. is way more interesting in those years. And it's like, what do I always say? Malibu in the 70s was like Ice Storm meets Lord of the Flies meets Boogie Nights, Dirtbag

directed by people on blow. It's like, okay, so I went to a junior high, had 715 students. Remember the reason I'm so specific about it because I was the parliamentarian of the school council knowing full well that I wasn't cool enough to be elected president of anything, but knowing enough to know I could probably squeak by with the nerdiest job I could do. And it was three years, seventh, eighth, ninth grade. And we had eight kids die over the three years I lived there. Now, if that happened now,

If that happened now, it would be international news. Yeah. Oh, yeah. They'd be like, what is wrong with this school? And each death was creepier than the other. There was one kid who went diving to free lobsters because he believed in animal rights. And he got his hand caught in the lobster trap. And his girlfriend died.

had to like, had a choice to either keep trying to get him out or to leave him. I mean, that's one of them. There's, there's the, it just goes on and on and on. Everything creepier and weirder than the next. There was something in the, in the air. Yeah. The water. Nice. Yeah, no, it's an amazing, it is, it is absolutely amazing. There's been all, there's all these books now that are coming out. There's a book that's coming out about

The year 1974 in LA came out a couple months ago. It's just focused on all the stuff, the crazy stuff that happened. And then someone else just wrote a book about Brooke Hayward and this is earlier, it's the 60s. And what's his name? Dennis Hopper. Yeah, that's a whole other era. And that was on the Wayne. Those guys were running around the colony. Yeah.

in those days. You'd see Dennis. Dennis was super, super, super crazy high in those. And you'd see famous actors who were just openly nuts, like David Carradine, you know, like walking the Pacific Coast Highway on LSD. And it's just like, it was, it was, it was, you'd see Nick Nolte with his, you know, no shirt and pajamas in the market buying beer. It was just nuts. It was so crazy. How did you, how did you end up normal? Uh,

Well, I was from Ohio, so I had my first 12 years of Midwestern values and normalcy. So when I got to L.A., I already had an outsider's perspective of observing. So I think that really helped. And that I was driven by wanting to do what I wanted to do. I never fell victim to...

the surf culture or even really the drug culture, at least not yet. I look back going, I'm so glad that they didn't buy the surfers were so fucking mean. They would light industrial tractor tires, huge, like twice the size of you and I, they would douse them in gasoline, light them on fire and then roll them down the Hills into unsuspecting kid trick-or-treaters. This is like a visual. That's a visual. I really want to put in a movie one day. Um,

But they were so mean to anybody that I was prevented from learning how to surf, and it saved my life. Because if I had fallen in love with surfing then as I have now, I don't think I'd have been successful. I would have been like, I don't need to go to that audition. There'll be another one. Yeah, yeah, the drug. Yeah. Now I feel like, the more I'm thinking about it, I feel it needs to be a kind of find all the voices from that era and just do a kind of ensemble history of Malibu and the…

Do you go back? What happens when you go back to Malibu? Now, it took years for me to go back without feeling emotionally hungover because everywhere I looked, I

I had a story. That's the bush that I passed out in after X, Y, or Z. And here's the garage where my friend accidentally shot a shotgun and blew his stomach out and bled out. I mean, it's just nuts. Crazy. Crazy stuff. And now enough time has gone on and it's unrecognizable. It's all families and studio executives and

rock stars and you know it bears no the only person famous there was Bob Dylan and Johnny Carson and Johnny Carson started the descent into what it is now oh it's Carson

Carson started it in my Dylan was the first one, but Dylan was a recluse. He was off the grid, recluse, weirdo, iconoclast. Carson was, you know, like the entertainment industry with industry in all caps. Yeah. And so he started like then the agents came and then the studio executives and now the tech people and everything.

On my, where I lived on Point Doom now, a lot of them, it's weird because a lot of them are second homes for people. So it's kind of deserted and it's really weird because there are people who, you know, people who live there, like regular people live there when I lived there. Like, you know. In Bud Schulberg, you know, the screenwriter Bud Schulberg's autobiography tells a smell of a story. His dad, who was very wealthy, but was gambled away all of his money and just, you know, was completely irresponsible. Yeah.

So they never had any money, even though they were really rich. And they had this butler who turned out to be a criminal and who stole all of the family jewels. And his mom, who was like getting desperate because there's no money, gets the insurance settlement and is determined to keep it out of her husband's hands. And so she takes this wild gamble and buys half. This is in 1940, 35. Buys half of what would be Malibu Colony.

Oh my God. Just like on a lark to kind of like keep the money out of Papa's hands. She just plunks down the cash and that's how the family survives the 50s and 60s and 70s.

And the colony in and of itself is a microcosm within the microcosm. Like just the colony is a story. I've never been inside the colony. It's a gate. It's a guard gate that you cannot get in. There's only one road in. And the way the beach works, only at specific tides can you even walk past it. So it truly, truly is secluded. And the houses are one on top of each other.

And you would famously, you know, on big summer days or 4th of July or whenever the parties are, you would just walk from house to house to house to house to open a refrigerator, take something out of this person's refrigerator. I can remember walking into a house and walking up to a bedroom and a couple's having sex. It was like a big free for all. Larry Hagman would every night at five o'clock dress in a headdress and a speedo and bang a gong and walk.

up and down the beach for a sunset ceremony. And, you know, it'd be like Linda Ronstadt in one and Diane Cannon in another and Peter Asher who produced Linda and the Beetle. It was insane. Yeah. Oh my God. You're right. So much better back then. What are we doing in 2022? It's like such a downer. It's,

Such a downer. We missed the fun. Well, I didn't miss it. You didn't miss it. I mean, I could have maybe been a little older, but it was the last moment of

to really just live your life to the fullest. And it was great. Right into never coming back, never coming back. And I look at the young, famous people today and I just don't know. I kind of go like, what, what is, look, there's so much about being famous is, is, is difficult, but it was always counteracted by some of the really cool, fun stuff that you got to do. And a lot of that's gone away.

So I go, I don't know if I'd want to be, you know, Justin Bieber today. I was thinking about this, you know, I'm a big fan of running and follow international track. And, you know, you always, if you're a runner, have a fantasy of being one of the world's great runners. And for the first, I was thinking about this the other day and I realized if I was 22 right now and a great runner, I would not want to be one of the world's best. I'd want to be one tier down. I'd want to run because you can still have the kind of fun, anonymous life. You go to Europe and you do all the second tier races and there's,

a thousand people in the stands and if you lose it's fine you go out and you go out for beers with your friends and you stay in a bad hotel and if you're a top tier runner it's just madness it's like every people are you know it's like you have that that's running it's not even a big deal right imagine that times 10 if you're a truly famous person it's just not I think you want to be for the first time my fantasy got readjusted and I realized I wanted to be pretty good in my dreams and not great

Yeah. It makes perfect sense to me. Have you ever seen the Michael Douglas movie, Running? I don't think I have seen it, but I... It's really obscure. I had him on the show and we were talking about it. I said, I'm a fan of your movie, Running. He just almost fell over because it's

He doesn't think it's a great movie, but I remember it being great. I'm curious as a runner. I mean, it's a movie about fucking running for God's sakes. How many of them are there? I mean, even Marathon Man isn't even about a guy running a marathon. Yeah. Well, that's Dustin Hoffman running badly around the reservoir. Runners look at that and they win. So like, Jesus. Isn't it amazing? Isn't it amazing? Dustin running on the way.

Has the man ever run before? No. He couldn't last 800 yards running like that. He's in such obvious pain. The only person who runners think, he's not a great runner, but he's the best runner

of a battle log. Tom Cruise's running is actually not bad. It's over energetic and mannered in a way that you would expect it to be from him. And it's too obviously effortful. He doesn't understand that to run well, you have to be relaxed. But you can't act relaxed

and act, I guess, in that instance. He needs to show, if he's running from, you know, bad guys and bombs blowing up, I suppose he needs, he can, he's allowed to be tense. But he's not, he's got pretty good form and actually, I suspect that on the track, he would be fast, legit fast. I,

I had a period of my life where I trained at the UCLA track three days a week. So I had a moment in my life where I was very focused on running. What kind of – were you racing at the time? I had a trainer who was a world champion – was it triple jump? Right? That's what it is. There's the triple jump, right? Who was your – what was the name of your trainer? His name was Milan Tiff. Milan.

Milan Tiff? Yes. That was your coach? You know Milan Tiff? Growing up, I've never met him. Milan was like an artist, a renaissance man. Milan was like one of those- Wait, wait, get the fuck- Wait, you know Milan- I know Milan Tiff. That's why I asked you. Milan is one of the- I was a little kid growing up in Canada, and I'm a track nut.

I've never, I can't, you know, I've never, we don't have television. I can't watch any of this stuff. And I'm reading about Milan Tiff and I'm thinking, oh my God, this guy is the most interesting person in track and field.

He's clearly unbelievably smart, kind of like weird, eccentric. And of course he's a triple jumper. Of course. All those guys are. That's what they do. They're like, the triple jump is the hard, like it's the famously, it's the complicated, conceptually difficult, challenging. And he was whatever happened to Milan to. I, I need now I'm now you've piqued my interest because I've been thinking about it. Cause I, I mean, he traveled with me as my coach when I would go on location and

and his workout. He had a philosophy, and like you said, he's super, super interesting and a little nuts, and I'm going to butcher it because it's not my philosophy and it's been years, but he had a philosophy that based on when one was born, with the time and the astrology, whatever, there was a window in every day within which if you worked out, you not only had the best success, but it never, your body didn't age. Right.

Because he also famously looked 30 years younger than he was. So he would, based on the time, literally wake up and go to the track from 3 o'clock in the morning to 3.45 in the morning. Or whatever that time was in his thinking, that's when he trained. It was insane. This is the single most fantastic fact about you that I've ever... The idea that he was your... I might remember he was...

Insanely skinny. Didn't he have the skinniest legs? They looked like they were indented above the knee. How he jumped, man, the man was one of the finest triple jumpers in the world. And it was completely unclear how he generated any power from his body. He would run behind me and place his feet under my feet while I was running.

To get me to like hurry up or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he had all these amazing philosophies about the energy of being on the rail versus it.

It was, I mean, what made me think of it was Tom Cruise's form because he had his very, um, Malama's very specific about hand. It was, uh, it was an amazing, amazing time in my life. And I, so yeah, we did all kinds of things. I used to dread Mondays cause Mondays was the, whatever the half mile is. And, and it was, I think once around the track and I never know the distances, I'm terrible at math.

400 meters. In under 60 seconds. Gee, that's fast. Yeah, yeah. And we had to do that. I mean, I was consistently at 58 and 56 and 57. Rob, you're a proper runner.

No, I was for real training. And in fact, it probably kept me from getting sober. I should have probably gotten sober earlier than I eventually did because I always thought how much of a problem can it be if I can go out there tomorrow and get around that track in 56 seconds.

Wait, but what happened to Melantif? Did he die? I don't know. I don't know. I just, we just, you know, you lose track. I moved away. Yeah. I moved to Santa Barbara. I stopped training in LA. Yeah. And I stopped going to the track.

And that's a whole culture, right? You know, as you know, the track culture. I've worked out on that track many a time. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I'm surprised we didn't see each other. I don't know what era you were there, but I'm telling you I was there three days a week. Easy. Yeah, I was there. Well, I was there much more recently. I was there in like

The last time I trained there was probably three or four years ago. I can't believe you know Milan Tiff. I truly do. I mean, I know of him. I was fascinated by him as a kid. Think about it. And he's an amazing artist. Wikipedia says he's still alive. Go Milan. Yeah, he was in like classic 70s kind of psychedelic. Oh, and you know, Henry, and only in Malibu, who introduced me to Milan Tiff was Martin Sheen. Oh, really? Martin Sheen collected his art. Oh, really? Yeah.

You just, you can't, you can't make it up. You cannot make this up. You cannot make this up. Yeah. I need to get, I need to get back to running. I, I think it's super important that everybody be able to run. Oh, here's the other thing. Milan's great thing. And he's right. He goes, when people talk about aging, not aging, he says, what are the, in terms of being physical, what are the hallmarks of youth and children? They all run and they all jump and they're all physical. And, and,

So he believed that it's super important for us always to be able to run, not jump, like run, run, run, and jump. Yeah, he's right. I still do my Melanta frog leaps as part of my workout regularly. Yeah. And I used to do the triple jump, which was super fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's not wrong. He's not wrong. I do think the, you know, the...

I was having this conversation with someone recently about how the way competitive sports is set up in schools, public schools, is all wrong because they're way too interested in elite participation and not interested enough in mass participation. And I was thinking, we were talking about how cross-country teams should have a rule that the team has to have 50 runners on it. And if you don't have 50 runners, you're disqualified.

And then your time is, your score in any team race is the sum total of all of your runners, right? So if you enter 50, it's the, so in other words, the team success depends as much on the 50th runner as it does on the first runner. And things like that, it reorients us to understand, like, we're trying to lay down habits and practices that people can do for the rest of their lives. It's not about

It's not about winning the age 13 race at the county championships. That's not... The good ones will surface eventually. They don't need our help. But what we're trying to do is to help the kid who's never going to race anything, but we want to make sure that they're moving when they're 45 years old. Absolutely. And I mean, you've written a lot about what you think schools do right and wrong. And I'm curious because...

My kids are now just, you know, they're now out of the whole line. And they did great. I mean, they went to all the quote-unquote right school. One went to Stanford. One went to Duke. One went to law school. So they did all the things. But watching it, you really realize this doesn't seem right to me, the way it's all set up. Yeah. Yeah.

All set for your flight? Yep. I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel. ♪

Qualifying plan required. Wi-Fi were available on select U.S. airlines. Deposit and Hilton Honors membership required for 15% discount terms and conditions apply. In Revisions History, my podcast, we return obsessively to what's wrong with American education. And every time I think, oh, am I boring my listeners? The answer is no. There's an infinite capacity for... My favorite one was...

A couple years ago, we had this long thing on the LSAT and how absurd it is that it's timed. There's just no possible reason why they should care that you finish the legal reasoning section in 35 minutes, particularly since in the profession, the last thing you want is a lawyer who's in a hurry.

Imagine you call your lawyer and your lawyer is like, you're like, you know, you send the contract over, you call your lawyer, your lawyer's like, yeah, I looked at it over lunch, it's fine. Yeah. No, you want the lawyer who says, get back to me in a week, I'm reading every line. But the profession accepts people for entry by encouraging people to be as quick as possible, right? Which is, it's that kind of repeated nonsense in the American school system that drives me nuts. But also the bar is...

itself that they that you have to pass is insane yeah I mean it puts it puts a as you know a premium on test taking ability over everything else which you will never need again again never the SAT how about the whole SAT tutor industry no you did you you must have gone through that I can imagine

West side of LA. I went, I went through it and I literally, a great guy named Kumani, he was great. And I'm telling, he literally did do is I promise you I can raise your kids scores 200 points. And he did both of them at least, but, but, but, but it wasn't that he made them any smarter. It was 100%. What we're tutoring is the strategy of how to take this test period. Yeah. Yeah. Literally. And by the way, listen, if that's how you're going to be judged, you're,

Spend time on figuring it out. But I mean, you think it should be about just being smarter and not just a strategy on how to take a test that's never going to mean anything else in your life once you're done. You know, when I was growing up in Canada, I never once took a standardized test. I completed my education without ever having one. So I don't, I never, we never did the SAT. We never did IQ tests. We never did standardized assessment tests. I remain completely, the first standardized test I ever took was for my podcast when I took the LSAT at the age of 55.

That was the, and it was such a kind of, it was me in a room full of 23 year olds. It was hilarious. And it was such a revelation. I was like, oh my God, this is like, I'm doing an American rite of passage here. I'm submitting to the arbitrary ludicrousness of this pointless test.

like everyone else has to do. But I managed to survive, as did many Canadians of my generation, without ever doing one of those tests. So it's unclear to me what their function is. I mean, I guess it's to make sure that... I mean, the theory is to make sure the kids have learned what they're supposed to have learned, and this is the only way we can test it, I guess, right? It changes. So originally the idea was...

that it was a way to spot diamonds in the rough. So you could be a kid. This is the original theory. So you would say, well, suppose you're a kid. If we devise a test that really measures raw ability and doesn't measure how much you've learned during school, then we'll catch a kid who's in a really bad school environment, but who's just...

super brainy and who can like do a logic puzzle in no time and they were like oh that kid needs help but as you correctly point out over time the test has been gamed so spectacularly by the upper middle class that it's not really catching diamonds in a rough anymore it's really catching kids who have been prepared for taking the test

And it turns out that there are probably other better ways of catching diamonds in the rough. I mean, but the problem of catching diamonds in the rough is a real one. Like, you do want to have some strategy as a society to figure out which kid has a lot of promise that's being overlooked. I'm just not sure that's the way to do it. Well, let me ask you this philosophically. Let's say you have a kid who clearly has an above average at a minimum ability in a specific area. And then maybe also additionally underperforms in another area.

Is your philosophy to try to raise it all up to being equal or be like, bro, there are plenty of people who can do the things that you're not great at. Not everybody has what you have. Focus on that. Would that be the way to do it? I mean, I suppose it would depend on the kid and the circumstance. But yeah, in general, I think...

There are a group of students for whom pursuing strategies of well-roundedness is probably self-defeating. Do we need our brilliant programmers to be able to recite poetry? It would be nice, but not absolutely necessary. This is exactly what I'm saying. I am horrible. And I mean horrible.

quantitatively, I made the mistake once of taking an IQ test. I should never have done it. If I had taken the IQ test and gotten back the results, I'd be like, oh, well, I'm going to be a ward of the state. But I'm off the charts on a very narrow area. Happily, that area is where I chose to make my living. And I guess what I'm getting at is if you have a kid like that,

Do you, like if you have a kid who's a sports freak, a phenom, do you also want to go, well, you could blow out your Achilles, so you really better work on those terrible math grades? Yeah, particularly when you look and see. It's funny, the things that most interest me now that I started this Pushkin Industries, this audio company with my friend Jacob Weisberg.

And they produce my podcasts and a bunch of other ones. We have many, many employees. And I'm working for the first time in my life closely with a team with many kind of younger people. And what's interesting to me is I'm coming to realize what other people who've started companies realized a long time ago, which is what you really care about is someone's

Temperament. You care about whether they work hard, whether they get things done, whether they're cheerful, whether they can recover from mistakes, whether they get... All these kind of things like these super soft, hard-to-measure stuff, that's what you're interested in. I could care less what their SAT score was. It doesn't matter to me. I need somebody who...

When we have a meeting, it's like gung-ho to do X, Y, and Z, or who doesn't mind working late on some project that we're overdue on or something. It's weird how the minute you leave the academic environment, your priorities shift dramatically, and you start to value different things. And I suspect everyone who hires people really is interested in that set of things.

personal qualities. That's really what we care about. Do you feel like there, I mean, you've written about it a little bit. Have you thought to design a question? I don't mean to be so like, you know, base, but like a questionnaire for interviewing people and asking the kind of questions to get at the answer to the kind of things you might not otherwise know? I wrote a tongue in cheek piece.

recently for I do this Facebook bulletin. And for the longest time when I was hiring assistants, I would always ask them if they drove a manual transmission. And I would only hire them if they said yes. And my reasoning was to drive, if you're 22 in the year 2010, if you know how to drive stick, it means that you have taken the time to master something that's interesting but not essential.

And you're also someone who's looking to turn a relatively rote activity, driving, into something that's more interesting. Those two qualities are things I'm really interested in. People who want to find joy in routine activities and people who are willing for the hell of it to master stuff that's not essential.

If you don't know how to drive stick, you have the ability to control a car and exert your agency over a car in a way that someone who just drives a car passively does not. I love people who want that feeling, right?

right so I started and sure enough it worked brilliantly I was I would hire I could never predict who would say yes you know you I would interview these you know weirdly four of the people who knew how to drive stick were women so I wasn't discriminating against women to the contrary turns out lots of women knew how to drive stick and they all their reasons were different one guy my I heard this guy Jacob he was like

Of course I do. I drive, I park cars in the summer in Long Island. That's how it, what was my job growing up? The minute I heard that, I was like, dude, the job is yours. You're in. That's the double whammy. Yeah. Who doesn't want that guy, you know? Yeah, right. And it turns out he's still working with me today. He's a brilliant employee. But no, it was like that sort of sense of, I like people, I

I like questions, I guess, that get at someone's level of interest in the world and level of interest in engaging with the world. Like, do I want to fix something, know something, master something, control something? That's that.

That makes perfect sense. I just want to talk to you about The Tipping Point because that was obviously a big deal for you. It's the first book I ever read of yours. I loved it. I have two books that I recommend to people. Most people have read The Tipping Point, I think.

I mean, I haven't looked at the financial returns on it, but it feels like everybody's read it. Well, you're being very kind. Of a certain age, Rob. The book's coming on 25 years old. I know. I don't know how many 20-year-olds have read it. Well, they should. If you're listening to it, it's a game changer. And the other one I always recommend, particularly to parents, is Gavin DeBecker's book, The Gift of Fear. Oh, right. Yes. I met Gavin DeBecker once when I – I interviewed him for one of my books.

What an interesting, complicated... I mean... The best thing about a Gavin DeBecker book is to read the acknowledgments. They are phenomenal. They're like, holy mackerel. Like...

President Bill Clinton. Yeah, they go on for pages. Boutros Boutros Ghali. Yeah. Meryl Streep. Alanis Morissette. All of a sudden, there's like two paragraphs on Alanis Morissette. You're like, wait, wait. How did she get dropped into this? I don't mean to, I'm not dissing him. He's someone who just, he knows an astonishing array, cross-sectioned,

He knows a cross section of people that no one else knows, right? That's right. He somehow manages to have a foot in every single LA world. The reason I bring them both up is everybody talks today about crime in big cities. And, you know,

And when you write in The Tipping Point about New York City and how the crime was turned around in the early 90s, I guess it was, I'm wondering now that we've cycled another 25 years, we're back to having the same conversations. And if you feel like the stuff that you gleaned writing The Tipping Point could be used again today. Well, the one thing that I remember saying this all the time when I would talk about The Tipping Point years ago was,

which was, I would always say, you know, my takeaway from what happened in New York and other big cities, where they basically took their murder rates from

In New York City, it went from two... These are rough numbers. 2,000 murders a year to 200 within 10 years. And I would always say, well, if it can come down that dramatically in 10 years, it can go up that dramatically in 10 years. In other words, we used to think of the murder rate as this thing that was just a product of a lot of longstanding, deeply rooted social and structural forces in a city. I was like, actually, it's not. It's an incredibly volatile thing that...

it can go out of control in no time and it can come plunging down in no time. So we should, we need to be on our toes and understand there are certain, this thing could very quickly go back to the way it was. And I think what's happening now is that we forgot that cities turn themselves around by paying attention to really basic kind of behavioral things. And when I go to LA now, I was just in LA.

And, you know, the homeless problem in L.A. is out of control. And that's for a whole bunch of complicated reasons. But you cannot have a safe city when people don't feel safe walking down the sidewalk.

And if you can't, if cities turn, if no one will walk the streets of LA after eight o'clock at night on the summer, I have a friend who got knocked down walking home on Sunset Boulevard in a relatively nice stretch of Sunset Boulevard at nine o'clock at night, like last week. That's the way it is.

starts to trend because people start retreating. The streets get empty. When streets get empty, they get more dangerous. And it's this cycle that very, very quickly will spiral out of control. And the other thing, but the tipping point is literally about epidemics. And now we are living in a world of

Yeah.

But I spend a lot of time with people who study epidemics. And the fundamental thing that they tell you is that every person involved in an epidemic is not equal. A small group of people do all the spreading and a small group of people bear all the risk.

And so the task of fighting epidemics is not about changing everyone's behavior or getting everyone to do a certain thing. It's about finding who are the most important figures, the small number of people who are doing all the work.

and deal with them. And we saw that with COVID. In COVID, there's a huge difference between being in a crowded, unventilated room that's too dry and too hot and being outside. And yet in LA, there were all these rules about being outside in the middle of the epidemic. We know that there's a huge difference between your weight is an incredible predictor of your COVID risk.

It's an incredible predictor. Incredible predictor. And yet we did not have that conversation. It was very, very frustrating to people who study epidemics to look at this at how kind of unsophisticated. But you must have talked to – I mean, Fauci was around in those days. That's the first time I ever heard his name. Oh, I knew him back in the 40s. I knew him in the 80s. Of course you did. Of course you did because he was –

one of the leaders in trying to figure out HIV and AIDS. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, he was, he... So you'd think they would be like, look, there's no reason you need to drive in your car alone wearing a mask. I see it all the time. I see people alone in their car.

their cars with masks on. Yeah. Yeah. It's a mess. Right? I guess they're afraid of infecting themselves. I think we should understand that this activated a lot of anxiety people have about their health and about the world. There's a lot of things to be scared of in the world, and this was sort of a symbol of it. Right. And I think

All this showed is that our society is a lot more fearful than we realized. That ought to kind of humble us a little bit. Do you think we're living in an era now where that kind of thing is the...

Now it's monkey pox. Like it's the new normal that we're going to have to, like that's just the price of doing business today now. Although we're also living in an era where we can respond to these things way faster. You know, polio, it took 50 years from the moment the polio virus was identified to when we had a good polio vaccine. 50 years.

It took us six months from when we identified COVID to when we had a really good COVID vaccine. So, yes, the threats are getting greater, but our ability to counter the threats is also getting more sophisticated. So I think it's an arms race. Actually, because I'm an eternal optimist, I would say I think we're winning the arms race. And we should always win the arms race. I don't think nature should ever kind of outpace our – we forget how bad –

I mean, you were just talking about Malibu in the 70s and how eight kids in your high school died. How is that possibly better than today, right? That's right. Right? It's like, it's a world of difference in how much we value life. That's very true. That makes me feel so...

This interview has been worth it just for that, to make you feel good. No, Mill and Tiff is the... This interview is just... In fact, I would like you to edit out everything except for our discussion of Mill and Tiff. You mean the very part where all the listeners are like, I don't know who this guy is, and just turning it off and going to listen to Jason Bateman's podcast or whatever. Everyone, M-I-L-A-N-T-I-F-F. Everyone, just Google it right now and see what we're talking about. Oh, my God. ♪

All set for your flight? Yep. I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I'll never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel. ♪

For over 130 years, McCormick has helped you make mom's lasagna to keep her secret recipe alive. Take over taco night, no matter how chaotic your day is. Conquer the bake sale, even if you get to it last minute.

And craft the perfect Sunday brunch when it's not even Sunday. Because with McCormick by your side, it's going to be great. So just, I want to say one last thing about Mellon so people understand.

He's not some anonymous dude. There was a time in the 70s where he is one of the two or three greatest triple jumpers in the world. He is a world-class, capital W, capital C, world-class athlete. He's a serious deal. What are the Olympics for him?

above a certain age called well the masters the senior the masters so he's he's and he's crushed that i mean for in the in the era i was working with him he was crushing that like there's nobody even coming close to him and the masters it's called well because he's training at a time of day where he doesn't age yeah literally i'm not kidding you madness

I'm like, are we going to train tomorrow? Let's train together. No, no, man. No, no, man. I got to train it. And he had this great way of talking. I got to train at 1.47 in the morning. I'm like, okay. Where was he from? I don't know. He's this amazingly beautiful skin with bright blue eyes. Yes. He was enhanced and he was beautiful. Yeah, he's totally striking. Yeah. I don't know. If aliens live among us, if there are starseeds...

He for sure. For sure. Yes. No, he's not. Not even a doubt. Yeah. Is one. But is he is he Southern? He has a twang. You'd think I would know this. Is it possible? He's I don't. We're going to work. I'm going to I'm going to find I literally am going to find after this. I got to ask you about your Rick Rubin podcast because I love music and I love your Paul Simon podcast.

project you did. Miracle and Wonder. Please tell me a little about, please, I was listening to Paul Simon last, I was listening to Only Living Boy in New York last night. One of my, when I do my one man show, I end it with that song. I absolutely love him. I love him and I called him up one day and I said, can I have lunch with you? He said, sure. And I go and have lunch with him in the back of some little Italian restaurant in Times Square. By the way,

It's like not even a good restaurant. It's like, but he's the kind of guy who would, it's just a place he's probably been going for like 25 years. There he is in the back with his Yankees cap on and no entourage, no nothing. It's unclear, did he take the subway there? I have no idea. And he is, he's so chill and so interesting and so kind of,

in the best possible way, complicated. He will never tell you something. He'll never take the easy way out conversationally. And he, I said, I want to do this thing where I just want to come and sit down and talk to you. Me and my friend Bruce, who's a big music lover, we just want to go and come down, sit down, tape as many hours of conversations with you as your game, and then see what we can do with the tape. And he's like, to my surprise, said, sounds great. And so we went

to Hawaii where he was. We started in Hawaii, ended up in Connecticut and we went 10 times to his house for like four hours, five hours at a time and had these crazy, fascinating conversations about his entire career. He played for us. He, you know, held forth on various things and then we took all that tape and we

distilled it and I wrote essays around it and it's this book called this audio book called Miracle and Wonder and Paul who is you know he is the toughest judge in the world so he will never ever ever say he likes something he says I get a little email one day after it came out he goes

You know your... He called it my audiobook. He wouldn't even call it his. You know your audiobook? It's pretty good. That's all I needed to hear. Wow. But he's so like... The thing that got me, I couldn't get over this fact that he was...

musically relevant in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and aughts. There are legit musicians who think his best album was done in the early 2000s. So the idea that there is no rock, almost no other rock musician who has that kind of longevity. Almost no other artist who, you know, there are artists who do their old stuff over and over again for years and years and years, but he was producing, you know, his two creative peaks are

Bridge Over Troubled Water in 69 and Graceland in 86. You know, do the math. Like, that's 17 years difference between your two... Name another rock musician who has two creative peaks 17 years apart. He's just remarkable. I think he's got to be the greatest musician

songwriter of all time. Has to be. Yeah, I actually, I agree with that. It surprises me that I've always been amazed that he's not bigger than, it seems weird to say, bigger than he, he's, I think maybe it's because he's so talented and has done so many different kinds of things that people can't, you can't, you can't categorize him. Well, you know what it is? He's had too many hits. It's like, you can talk about Leonard Cohen and even Dylan.

You know, Dylan, you didn't turn on the radio for an entire decade or two or three or four and have that be the soundtrack of your life. You know, Elton's like that, too, where you're like, Sting, isn't it? I think that, like, Sting could write an American classic every day if he wanted to. Do you know, we did this thing for the book where we interviewed

We did what we call cameos. We called up other rock stars and asked them to tell Paul Simon stories, which were fantastic, by the way. So I called up Sting. I had a Zoom with Sting. And it was the first time in my entire life where I was completely, 100% intimidated. I had never... I'd met him before.

in person and that was intimidating but some reason him on the zoom right in front of me he's so insanely handsome he's ridiculous unbelievably articulate he is twice as smart as like either of us are he gives you this sense that he's always one step ahead of you and he told this

absolutely perfect story like a perfect story like a kind of you couldn't have if you edit you couldn't edit it you couldn't make it better than it was he was just like such a rock star experience I was like oh my god like this is how it's done

Yes. It was all about coming to New York with the police, his band, in the early, whenever it was, 80s. And the theme song of their, they drove across country, their first New York tour, and their theme song was America. We all come to look for America. Wait, what's your favorite Paul Simon song?

I think it's Only Living Boy in New York. That's why you closed your show. Yeah, and I love the story behind it. When John gets your plane on time, I know your part will go fine, is Artie going to film Catch-22. That's right. Yes, leaving him behind. And leaving him.

And then let your honesty shine like it shines on me. It's like the greatest, it's just the greatest, sweetest friendship story I've ever heard. But also it's bittersweet. Yes. Artie's abandoning him. Yes. For what does not seem to Paul like a good reason.

Yes. There, by the way, we got into this a little. I mean, that is a complicated friendship. Oh, my God. It's amazing. I've seen him. I'm a freak for Paul Simon. So there's a great thing where he does, I think he's on with Dick Cavett. Oh, yes. Oh, the brilliant Dick Cavett sessions. Yes. Yes, they're so good. They're so good. They're so good. And then there's another where he talks about Artie walking across Japan. By the way, Art Garfunkel, you forget, is, I mean, crazy.

Carnal knowledge. Yeah. Yeah. Catch-22. Catch-22. Yeah. He was like knocking on the door of big movie stardom, if not already through the door. Yeah. Yeah. No, there's a story that Paul, I didn't have the guts to tell, to ask about, but I read it in one of his books because it really broke my heart, which is, you know, he writes Bridge Over Troubled Water for Artie.

He can't sing that part. He writes it. It's his gift to Artie. And the first time they play it publicly, he's standing in the, watching Artie. Is Artie alone on stage? I'm messing up the stories of my life. But he's watching Artie sing it. And Garfunkel is just making this masterpiece just incredible. And the audience goes nuts at the end. And Paul waits and waits and waits for Artie to say, that was written by my friend Paul Simon, and he never does.

And it's just like he gives his best friend this gift. Not just any gift, by the way. The gift of one of the greatest gospel songs ever written. And the audience is going nuts. And all Artie has to do is to say, is to return the favor. And he doesn't do it. Now, how can a friendship survive that? Dude, that's so deep and powerful.

It is. I read, I couldn't, I can't even, even thinking about that, just like. But you just know it's one of those things also that has such the ring of truth to it that you just know it's true. So I had Clive Davis on the podcast and he was in shepherding the label when that album came out. Simon Garfunkel, I think it's the first album. Yeah.

And they wanted Cecilia as the first single because, you know, it's poppy and, and Clive was like, let's go with bridge over troubled water. It was the longest song ever as ever released as a single at that time. Yeah.

And it's just such an amazing, Oh, it's a masterpiece. I was thinking about hearing, I was thinking about what it's like to hear something like that for the first time. Like there's that great video, which I don't know is stage or not of John Lennon playing imagine for the band. You know, I'm sure you've seen that. Yeah. And it's after he finishes, it's just dead silence. And he goes, I don't know. I think it's kind of good myself. You're like, fuck. Like I always like to think about what it's like to have heard, uh,

those type of songs for the first time yeah yeah no to be i mean yeah i didn't watch that beatles documentary i wanted to i want to i do want to watch i haven't watched it yet though oh you have to oh really is it really astonishing i heard incredible things about it here's why it's astonishing the drudgery and the boredom of it because it is long yeah and and it is

If you're not a Beatles fan, I don't think you make it. I don't think anybody who's not a Beatles fan will make it through it. But that's the beauty of it because it's the truest thing I've ever seen about creating. Because it is the boredom of it. The just sitting there. And they eat a lot of toast. They drink a lot of tea. And they fart around.

Yeah. Yeah. It's re it's a revelation. You go, Oh, John is the goofy, unendingly frustrating teenage fuck up boy genius. And Paul is sting or Bruce or, you know, I'm lucky enough to know a lot of these guys and they're, they're all have one thing. Com Mick, they have their, they have the fucking eye of the tiger. Yeah. He's, you gotta have some, someone has to have his act together.

And it's just so patently obvious. And it's the best thing in the world. Yeah.

We felt, you know, in doing Miracle and Wonder, the Paul Simon one, we thought there was a big advantage in doing it as an audio book as opposed to a documentary. Because something about taking away, what you really want with Paul Simon in particular in that book, you really want to listen. Listen in a way you've not. And I think sometimes when people do documentaries about musicians, you get distracted by that.

you know, their body language or the images on the screen. And it can be interesting, but it's not

With Paul, it is just about the music. That's what he cares about. And he wants you to turn off your phone and listen. And the only way to do that, the audiobook is a beautiful way of doing that, I think, of kind of forcing you to zero in on his... Like, when I listened to Miracle Wonder after we were done with some, you know, when I finally had some separation from it, it really does feel like he's sitting next to you.

just talking to you about what it means to create music. Did you talk to Artie? No. No? Well, wait a minute. Okay, that's a story. No. I had to pick sides.

Even today, you had to pick sides. It's not that Paul said I couldn't. It's not that Paul would have had a... I think he would have been fine. But I didn't want to... What I told Paul the first time we met, and what I was very clear, I wanted Miracle and Wonder to be a musical biography. In other words, I didn't want to get into his marriages. I didn't want to get into tablet stuff. I didn't want to get into the whole... And the minute you bring up Artie, then you get into this...

This long dissolution of their friendship. And that's, has been done so many times. You don't want to say, what is it like to stand six inches from this man and create the greatest harmony since the Everly brothers? Like, what is that? I mean, I guess for that question, you then get into the other. Now you make me feel bad. Should I have done it?

Maybe. Because I'm not interested in any of it. I just want to know because I've heard these things about what it's like to stand within six inches of them when they do the harmonies. Yeah. And it's insane. Yeah. Yeah. Did you see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame where they performed together? It must have been. It's probably five or six years old by now. Oh. It's the HBO did the big. Yeah. And it's super great. Yeah.

Yeah. Paul would play for us when we were doing, when we met with him on those sessions, you know, the minute you got a guitar into his hands...

He would relax, and then he would start to play around with it, and those were the most magical moments. And I've noticed this now, because for Broken Record, you know, I don't do a lot of them now, but when I was doing lots of interviews, you have to introduce, have to interview a musician with their guitar in their hands. You can't, they have to have their instrument with them, because that's their mode of communication.

being and creating and thinking that it's it's as simple it's like a simple obvious trick but like it's why would you know the minute it's there they're a different person because the you know someone like Paul Simon the guitar is part of him and

It's like an appendage. It belongs to him. It's what he thinks with. You know, he thinks with his guitar. So, like, why would you talk to him without the thing that he thinks with? Who's your, not favorite, but if I want to go back and look at the stuff with Rick, who, my brother sent me Chic. Oh, that was a good one. The Niles Rodgers one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I heard, my brother's like, bro, you have to.

listen to this the i did one with patty smith that was really amazing well her book by the way talk about a book oh oh my goodness i mean the first they're all good she's great but just kids is just forget it is forget it i told her you know if i if i ever wrote a book as good as just kids i would stop i would that's it you can't like your work is done she you know she's done a she's made an album that's as good as an album as you could make

horses she's written a memoir that's as good of a memoir as you can write that's just kids like how many different areas can she master like it's like an extraordinary accomplishment to be to have an A plus thing in two very different fields here's one of the things I'm kind of obsessed with is why when Bruce does Because of the Night does he not sing her lyrics you ever notice that what's the difference what does he not sing

Love is a ring, a telephone, that verse. Oh, really? I didn't know that. Bruce doesn't do it. He has a different verse. And that's for sure. I mean, again, I'm a huge Springsteen person. Huge, huge, huge. Yeah.

And when people, when they've talked about who did what with that song, how Jimmy Iovine, and we all know all that stuff, her iteration of it was her waiting for the phone for a boyfriend to call her. And that's in the song. And, um, and it's the one everybody knows. And when Bruce says in concert, he doesn't do that. He has a whole other verse. Super interesting. We interviewed him, a broken record, me and Rick, and he was not like I imagined at all.

Oh, tell me, tell me everything. I was so pleasantly, not that I thought he was going to be a horrible person. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't he was good, I thought he was going to be bad or the reverse. It was he was in a different place. He was this much softer, more reflective. And I, you know, and he talks about, you know, he has a persona that he created and is inhabited for years.

that is exhausting and taxing, but that's his persona. And we got him outside of his persona. And the beautiful thing was that he was, there was nothing, not even a smidgen of jadedness to him. So he was talking about the music he had just written and playing some of it for us. And it was as if it was the first song he'd ever written. Wow. I was like, that's amazing. Like, he was like a kid. Yeah.

like in the kind of enthusiasm he was bringing to them and he was just, he was like a you know, I mean how many interviews does Bruce Springsteen do? A lot. You know, so it wasn't like he, you know, had been shut away for four years and we were the first. So in the other sense it was exactly like out of thought because he understood that it was a

that he had to perform in a sense that he was to do a good job at this thing of giving an interview requires enthusiasm and engagement. And he's the kind of person who can bring enthusiasm and engagement to any, to any task he puts his mind to. That's the heart of why he's, but it was just a different Bruce Springsteen bringing this up. You know what I mean? It was this kind of like warm, I never thought of him as being like so approachable and,

He wasn't. He wasn't for years. He's the first to tell you. He's totally in terms of who he is, the space he occupies in people's lives. Yeah. Yeah. I think it would be a lot easier to be Paul Simon than Bruce Springsteen. Yes.

Yes, you put on your Yankees cap. And you can hide. And you can hide. Tell me about Revisionist History. It's coming, it's what season are you on? This is season seven. Wow. It's all about experiments. Every episode is devoted to a different kind of experiment. And we have a lot of fun. Give me an example. What kind of experiment? What's the one that's piqued your interest the most? Well, we have a three-part series on a real-life experiment, which was a group of conscientious objectors during the Second World War

willingly submitted themselves to a one-year-long starvation experiment so that scientists could learn about what happens when people starve themselves. It's still the research we use when we try and treat people with eating disorders and try and revive people who have been malnourished, but it's an unbelievable story of what they went through. Healthy young men go to Minnesota and

slowly their calorie levels are reduced and they look like they're concentration camp and they keep a running diary of what happens to them and they are completely transformed. Not just during the one year, but when they come back, quote unquote, to health, their whole lives are transformed in both good and bad ways. They're not the same person afterwards. It's super interesting. And what...

where's the connection to them being conscientious objectors? How does that... Well, because conscientious objectors were allowed to stay out of the war if they did something of value to the

So some of them fought fires. Some of them were emergency room nurses. These guys volunteered for this science experiment. By the way, it's one thing to conscientiously object to Vietnam, but you've got to be some sort of conscientious objector to not want to go fight the Nazis. Well, that's part of the reason why I thought the story was so interesting. So hearing their reasons why they were...

I mean, people, and there's not a lot of them, but they were people who had an absolute philosophical objection to taking another life. But they made up for it by very bravely, these guys did, volunteering for this experiment. And we tell that story. It's an amazing story.

Wow. Awesome. Yeah. All right. Now I know what I'm going to be doing in my car for every commute to L.A. for the next foreseeable future. Keep making all your stuff, man, because you're going to make my drive time as much as anything. This has been very, very fun. Yeah, right? I mean, Milan Tiff, ladies and gentlemen. Milan Tiff. I am going to get this Paul Simon audiobook pronto.

But can you imagine the guy didn't talk to Art Garfunkel? Come on. And I hope he stays up late at night tossing and turning going, I never should have been on that Rob Lowe podcast because now I feel like I should have talked to Art Garfunkel. What a guy. What a fascinating man. I mean, and what a great life. That guy might be living his best life. Out of all the guests I've had on the show, he might be living his best life. Just completely following his own curiosity and making a living at it and crushing.

Very inspiring. I hope you guys were as inspired as I was. All right. You know what time it is. It's time to check the lowdown line. Hello. You've reached literally in our lowdown line where you can get the lowdown on all things about me, Rob Lowe. 323-570-4551. So have at it. Here's the beep.

Hello, Mr. Rob Lowe. My name is Trish Kane, and I live in southeastern Michigan. My friend Andy just shared with me a very interesting link to a video from the Go-Go's.

The song was Turn to You, and I See You in that video. It was very entertaining. Could you please tell us more about that experience? Thank you, and have a good day. Well, Trish, thank you for calling me. You know, the question is,

What rating do we want this story to have? Do we want the NC 17 version or the G rated version or the PG rate? Those are old ratings. I don't even know if they have those in movies anymore. They had them when I was buying my tickets at $8. The Go-Go's. So when I was single and running my game, I very much loved me a good pop star. That was kind of my jam.

And the Go-Go's are a great band and super talented. And I was more than happy to be the boy toy of the Go-Go's. So amongst hanging out with all the Go-Go's, they were like, you need to be in this video with us. And I did. And we shot it at the Greystoke Mansion.

which is a very famous location in LA, a big haunted old mansion right off the Sunset Strip. Lots of movies have been filmed there. There Will Be Blood, the famous ending in the bowling alley, is Greystoke Mansion. I don't know what was happening with that hair. I should have been paying more attention to it. It's a lot of hair. It's a lot of hairspray. And I think it was the Go-Go's were working out their own real psychodrama with...

the Kathy Valentine character and the Belinda character fighting over me in the, in the video, I think was a little bit of real life. Um, but it was super, super fun. And that is more information than I was planning on giving you when I started to answer this question. But you know what? I don't edit myself. It's all truth here on literally. Um, thanks for calling in. Don't forget to please come back. Um, next week we have another great episode of literally, um, don't forget my

my other podcast, Parks and Recollection. If you're a Parks and Rec fan and you haven't checked it out, please do. It's basically a love letter to the show, co-hosted by Alan Yang, who wrote on every single episode and knows where all the bodies are buried. I only know what happened in the makeup and hair trailer, but he really knows what went on. And with that, I sign off. I bid you adieu, and I will see you next week on Literally.

You've been listening to Literally with Rob Lowe, produced by me, Rob Schulte, with help from associate producer Sarah Begar. Our coordinating producer is Lisa Berm. Our research is done by Alyssa Grahl. The podcast is executive produced by Rob Lowe for Low Profile, Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and Joanna Salatara for Team Coco, and Colin Anderson at Stitcher. All of the music you hear is by Devin Bryant. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week on Literally with Rob Lowe.

This has been a Team Coco production in association with Stitcher.

All set for your flight? Yep. I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I'll never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers, passport. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel. ♪

Reese's peanut butter cups are the greatest, but let me play devil's advocate here. Let's see. So, no, that's a good thing. That's definitely not a problem. Reese's, you did it. You stumped this charming devil.