Our first guest is one of our favorites.
He's the host of the very successful podcast the Armchair
Expert.
Please welcome our friend, Dax Shepard.
How long does it take most guests
to get used to Andy over your shoulder?
I don't know he is the devil or the angel.
Have you figured that out?
Well, yeah, he's a little bit of both.
First of all, I want to talk about everything
that's going on right now in the country as we tape this.
This is airing later, so who knows what's happening?
But I think it's important to address it,
because we don't know what's happening as this airs.
But you and Kristen have always been open and honest
about everything.
Do you want to share your thoughts?
Yeah, you know, similarly, I, too,
put out a show twice a week, so we
had a regular thing scheduled.
Alanis Morissette was going to be on.
And then we were contemplating whether that was appropriate
and then deciding, well, what should we put out?
And then scrambling to find someone
that could help us navigate what the productive outcome of all
this would be, so looking for experts
that specialize in race, and then
just taking a ton of inventory personally
as I'm sure we're kind of all doing.
And I have a lot of thoughts on it.
We've talked about it a ton on the podcast, which is--
the initial phrase white privilege kind of triggered me.
Because when you look at that great video of the people
on the line in the race and take a step forward, take a step
forward, if your parents were married,
take a step forward, if you have food security,
take a-- all these things.
Well, I certainly wasn't taking a step forward
for a lot of those as were a lot of my friends growing up.
So I thought, well, I'm not advantaged.
I had a food insecurity, violent stepdad, all these things,
and I really missed what my privileges were.
And I've come to really understand it, and accept it,
and try to explore more and more what that means.
And I'd say the most obvious thing
is I'm super open and honest about being an addict.
For years and years, I traveled around LA
with drugs on my person, high.
I bought drugs.
I was drunk often.
I've met hundreds of other guys in the program
I'm in that are black, and those guys went to jail.
And I would have gone to jail.
I would have gone to prison.
There is no question about it.
You can't drive through Beverly Hills
and know you're not going to get pulled over if you're black.
You know, just recognizing like, oh, I
have a much different life.
I would have definitely spent time in prison,
and then it doesn't stop there.
Sure, I could have had a rough beginning
and a ton of challenges.
But ultimately, my safety is not at risk because of it,
and I can transcend it.
If I go to interview at a company,
it's still going to favor me, you know?
We all have challenges, but being black
is never going to be a challenge I have and many of us
will never have.
And we led into this problem and are
in the problem of COVID-19, where black and brown people
were sick and dying from it at a level higher than white people.
Everything is not a level playing field.
There isn't a metric that doesn't drastically punish
black folks for being black.
I worked one time with the Prostate Cancer Foundation.
Black folks die of prostate cancer
at twice the rate white folks do.
You can just go through the list.
There isn't really a metric where
it's not glaringly obvious.
Yes, absolutely.
That is what we are talking about on the show
on a regular basis, and we don't want to stop talking about it.
Because there's a lot of change that
needs to happen in every single area.
When you're talking, and you're doing this,
I notice that you don't have the cast on your hand anymore.
It's gone, so tell us about your accident from your--
we heard her perspective.
But tell us what happened.
Yeah, so I went off roading.
And when I bring people off roading, the very first thing
I tell them, it's rookie 101.
Keep your hands inside the vehicle.
I broke rookie rule number one, and I broke my hand.
I'd say the pain was a four.
The embarrassment was an 11.
I then had to get surgery.
I think she showed maybe that one of the pins came loose,
so we got rid of that one.
Eventually, I got them all out.
I think two weeks ago, I got all the pins out, got the cast off,
and I'm back in the saddle.
Good for you.
I do a lot of that stuff too.
Yeah, yeah, you're so macho.
Now was it the same hand that a seal--
didn't you get bitten by a seal?
Yeah, as earlier discussed, I used to consume drugs,
and I was one time on ecstasy with a friend
Kaitlin Olson, who's on television.
And I won't say whether she was on anything or not.
I'm just saying, I was on ecstasy,
and we were at a beach.
And low and behold, there was an adorable seal
on the beach that had just swam up to shore.
And there were a bunch of different people
kind of checking the seal out.
And in my state of mind, I thought,
I know exactly what to do.
It's just like a dog.
You get it to smell your hand, and then we're
going to be snuggling.
And I'll be scratching its belly behind the ears,
and I was certain of this.
And I just knew I'd be cuddling this thing on the beach.
And I got closer, and closer, and closer,
and all systems were pointing to go.
And I got into that last minute, and I put my hand out.
And the seal sniffed it, and I thought, oh, here we go.
And then it just went [SEAL NOISES] and then bit
my thumb twice pretty bad and opened it up.
And then what was really funny is
it was very polarizing for the bystanders.
Half the people were shouting, you
got what you deserved, which is true.
And then the other half were going,
that's how they say hello.
Like some of the people didn't want me to lose
my faith in the animal.
Oh, so when you're on ecstasy, and it seems like a good idea
to pet a seal, and then it doesn't let you cuddle it,
but bites it and opens up your-- now
is it still a pleasant experience,
because you're on ecstasy?
You're like, oh, blood.
I'm 100%, 100%.
You know, I would do it, again, if I weren't an addict.
Well, I guess we don't need to really say it, but we should.
Don't try this.
Kids, if you're watching at home--
Don't try ecstasy and pet a seal.
It's rare that you can tell a story
where every element should be avoided, so don't take ecstasy.
Don't try to pet a seal, or maybe
go to the beach with Kaitlin Olson.
That's fun.
But other than that, just skip the whole thing.
Other than that, the rest of it is stuff you shouldn't do.