The last time we spoke, Dax, your wife seemed
under the impression that the dog that you rescued,
that you both rescued, looks at her with a sexual energy.
Carnal desire, carnal desire, yeah.
It's like watching fatal attraction in real life.
The dog definitely thinks something's
going on emotionally and romantically.
Yeah, there they are.
There they are.
My response was Pat--
that's not even the dog's name.
Frank, have at her.
If she leaves you a to do list on the counter at home,
then it's a big victory for all of us.
By the way, that picture, she looks a little more
like with sexual energy than he.
I mean, he just looks like he's a dog cuddling.
Yeah, and you might conclude I'm not pleasing her
or satisfying her sexually.
And you would be right, Ellen.
Well, first of all, I wasn't even going there,
but thank you.
I was.
Well, yeah, let's talk about your wonderful podcast Armchair
Expert.
It's doing very well, and you're having a great guest.
And you're still enjoying it, I assume.
I love it so much.
And I got to say, with the many challenges of COVID
and being isolated, this has been a real bright spot.
Because I get to check in with people.
I get to feel productive.
I get to connect with experts who
know a lot more than I do about what's going on
and get perspective.
And it's been just, for me, the greatest outlet of feeling
still plugged in, and then, also,
having this wonderful time with my family.
Because you know, I think all of us, I think, all of us
are learning a lot in this quarantine.
I think my comparison's been I love watching movies.
I like watching them for two hours.
I wouldn't want to watch movies for 12 hours.
And likewise, my wife and I had a great system ironed out
when we saw each other three hours a day, man.
It went like this.
I clear my throat a lot.
It's annoying.
But for three hours, she can handle it, you know?
But when it gets into the 16 hours
of hearing me clear my throat, and then likewise, there's
some stuff she's doing that-- you know,
it's just we've quintupled the volume of interaction.
And that first few weeks, I started thinking, OK, well,
they're moving to the new house I built.
My sister's getting our current house.
I need to look for a new residence,
because I will not be invited to the new place.
Where am I going to live in the city?
And I started thinking, you know,
this time around, I'm going to get a small house
with a big piece of property.
So I can park cars at it.
I mean, I lost my mind as did she, and then we had it out.
And then we came back together, and now, it's gravy.
But boy, what a readjustment, and I think so many of us
are finding out what non-stop interaction entails.
Yeah, well, all I want to say is Portia
and I have not had one incident.
We love each other dearly, and we don't have any problems.
Let me ask you this.
I did not know how-- you know, Melissa McCarthy
is a friend of mine.
I mean, I know her.
I have known her, obviously, just from the show,
and we've become friends.
But you have known her--
I didn't know you were in The Groundlings.
I didn't know how long y'all have been friends.
Yeah, we've been friends for 20, maybe 22 years or something.
You know, it takes a while to go through The Groundlings, which
is a comedy theater in LA.
And in the meantime, you want to kind of stay busy.
So we had a comedy troupe that was Melissa,
was Nat Faxon, who wrote The Descendents
and was nominated for an Academy Award.
It was this guy Tate Taylor, who directed The Help.
Now all this in retrospect is blowing.
There was a moment--
Octavia Spencer used to do our crappy little comedy show.
And many of them were nominated in the same year,
and it was kind of mindblowing.
Because we used to rent theaters.
We were all obliged to invite like 20 people,
so we could fill it.
And Melissa got the idea that we should definitely do two shows.
I think there's the demand, so we did two shows.
And there was a single human being at the second show.
And it fell on Melissa's shoulders
to go on and explain to the gentleman
that it would be even more awkward for him than for us,
if we were to do this show, and he was not having it.
And it was a real debate for him to concede.
We refunded the money, and that wasn't enough for him.
But yeah, we've had some really fun scrap days together.
Wow.
Dax, it's great catching up with you.
I miss you.
Say hi to Kristen and those children of yours,
whatever their names are.
Catch new episodes of Armchair Expert
every Monday and Thursday, wherever
you listen to podcasts.
Thanks, Dax.
Thanks, Ellen.
Bye, Dax.