Dave Eggers (writer and publisher)

Summary

Armchair Expert: Dave Eggers (July 8, 2026)

Host: Dax Shepard
Guests: Dave Eggers (writer & publisher), Monica Padman, Lincoln
Theme: The messy, joyful, and communal aspects of artistic life—writing, publishing, nonprofit work, and the purpose and absurdity of art in society

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Episode Overview

This episode welcomes acclaimed author and publisher Dave Eggers (founder of McSweeney’s, author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, The Circle, The Every, and the new novel Contrapposto). The conversation spans Eggers’ creative life, his philosophies about writing and publishing, the importance of supporting young voices, the quirks of the art world, his nonprofit work with 826 Valencia, and how personal history and community shape artistic success. Lively, funny, and reflective, the episode delivers both wisdom and humility about what it means to create and connect.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Nostalgia & Creative Beginnings

[03:13 – 13:39]

• Warm banter about ‘Trapper Keepers’ and childhood culture segues into Eggers’ early creative life:
  • He credits elementary teachers for assignments making bound books out of cardboard and yarn.
  • “We spent months on it. These books were perfect. They had no typos, no errors were allowed. We had to redraft. Redraft and then draw the pictures very carefully. And on the back it says, copyright David Eggers. Would have been 1978.” (Dave Eggers, 07:04)
• Eggers aspired to be a cartoonist, drawing constantly and idolizing artists like Bill Watterson and Gary Larson.
• Discussion about how many cartoonists and comedians burn out early, and how success softens the edge central to both comedy and cartooning.
  • “Comedy is about being shit on and calling out the powers that be… and with success comes a much more frictionless existence.” (Dax Shepard, 09:32)

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2. The Value of Early Validation and the Role of Publishing Young Voices

[11:43 – 15:07]

• Eggers describes why McSweeney’s and related nonprofits publish young writers' works:
  • “Their minds are untethered. There’s no structure. Characters will pop up and disappear. And narratives, no rules... You got to remember how unhinged narratives can and maybe should be...” (Dave Eggers, 11:24)
• The act of writing their story gives kids agency and self-possession.
• Pride in execution trumps external validation; the creative process itself is the reward.

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3. Memoir, Biography, and the Sanctity of the Creative Illusion

[13:39 – 19:44]

• Eggers is notably uninterested in public discussion of his own life or biographies of other writers.
  • “I know enough about any writer by reading their work. And then if I peek behind the curtain... it diminishes the fun.” (Dave Eggers, 17:43)
• Dax counters that learning about someone’s background informs perspective and can lend context to their opinions or outputs—but agrees only if it’s self-disclosed.

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4. The Uniquely Supportive Culture of Eggers’ Upbringing

[20:14 – 22:51]

• Eggers reminisces about his Illinois school where Vince Vaughn and Rob Pelinka were classmates, discussing the unusually cohesive and mutually supportive environment.
  • “It’s unique, but you got to teach it. You need leaders... a rising tide lifts all boats.” (Dave Eggers, 21:17)
• The impact of pop culture (John Hughes movies shot in town) and local sports on community identity.
• Reflecting on transitions after parental loss and moving to Berkeley, emphasizing how location, colors, and topography impact one’s creative sensibility.

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5. Path to Writing and Publishing: From Temp to Esquire to McSweeney’s

[24:49 – 39:12]

• Eggers’ unorthodox path: painting furniture, temping into his late 20s, gradually moving into journalism and graphic design, and co-founding the renegade magazine Might.
• The creation of McSweeney’s was inspired by the rejection of work from mainstream magazines:
  • “We started McSweeney’s. It was all stuff that was rejected from other corporate magazines. And it was like the land of misfit writings.” (Dave Eggers, 35:50)
• Eggers dismisses the ‘lone wolf’ artist myth in favor of community and collaboration.
  • “The idea of being that lonely person in the cabin... is a canard. I don’t know it very often to be true.” (Dave Eggers, 40:53)

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6. On the Writing Process & Artistic Survival

[43:05 – 48:57]

• Dax and Eggers discuss shifting motivation with age—from self-loathing to an emphasis on learning to enjoy the process itself.
• Completing A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius required Eggers to quit his day job:
  • “I would need eight hours a day of writing time to get anything done…” (Dave Eggers, 44:02)
• On success, touring with They Might Be Giants, and efforts to “make books slightly less sedate and less predictable.”
• The evolution of literary performance with references to David Sedaris and the power of reading literature aloud.

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7. Interconnectedness, Reporting, and Finding Common Ground

[50:36 – 54:09]

• Eggers’ journalist background includes embedding at Trump rallies, prioritizing listening and blending in without “costuming” himself to find real stories and common ground:
  • “The folks that you meet … are usually the fringiest fringe. But in the middle… I would find common ground with everybody...” (Dave Eggers, 51:41)
• Describes reporting at the El Paso border, the complexity and fractured nature of immigrant families, and the former porosity of U.S.-Mexico border culture.

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8. Art, Democracy, and Contrapposto

[59:38 – 79:07]

• The discussion pivots to Eggers’ new novel, Contrapposto, which explores the world of art, inclusion/exclusion, and ambition through the story of Cricket and Olympia.
  • Contrapposto as an art term: “Michelangelo’s David would be the best-known example, where the pose is off-balance a bit… but it’s also the balance/imbalance between characters.” (Dave Eggers, 59:53)
• The art world, compared to music or literature, is uniquely exclusionary and subject to arbitrary valuation:
  • “Art is mostly exclusive… if you want to own anything… it’s incredibly exclusive.” (Dave Eggers, 68:57)
• Eggers values prints as much as originals, intentionally blurring lines between them.
• The market-driven hierarchies and susceptibility to fraud and elitism are called out, while the real value of art is found in the process and its use as a vehicle for love, healing, or protest.
  • “At every step, Cricket in the moment… there’s nothing better in the world than moving color around a canvas… And then you back up, and it’s a piece of garbage…” (Dave Eggers, 76:53)

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9. Artistic Success, Privilege & Humility

[79:07 – 85:37]

• Discussion about “survivor’s guilt” in creative success; Dax wonders if Eggers is motivated by the knowledge of how precarious any artistic livelihood is.
• Eggers emphasizes relentless revision, community, and humility—as well as the unprecedented democratization of literary and artistic opportunity due to global literacy and new platforms like Substack.
  • “What Cricket learns... is that the ambition and the gap between where you want to be and where you reasonably should or could be, that’s where misery comes from…” (Dave Eggers, 84:02)
• Teaching, hybrid careers, and the value of lowering misery by intentionally reevaluating what to keep and what to cut as one ages.

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10. Philanthropy & 826 Valencia

[85:37 – 90:20]

• Overview of 826 Valencia: Tutoring center for youth behind a quirky storefront (pirate or time-travel themed, e.g., “Echo Park Time Travel Mart”).
  • “So all of the centers… you walk right past it. But then if you go in, there’s a secret door that leads to the back, and that’s the tutoring center… There’s no stigma about it.” (Dave Eggers, 87:52)
• Fundraising stories—Judd Apatow’s “Night of Good Intentions”—and how humor and creativity foster philanthropy.
• Publishing kids’ work builds community, bridges generations, and provides belonging for immigrant and marginalized children.

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11. Joyful Digression: Experimental Flight, Jetpack Academy & Miscellanea

[90:20 – 93:41]

• Eggers shares his love of experimental flight: jetpacks, paragliding, ultralights.
  • Jetpack Academy: “You’re only like an hour away. You gotta go… it’s in an avocado farm.” (Dave Eggers, 90:26)
• Playful, light-hearted exchange as a coda on exploration and novelty in life.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On letting go of perfection: “All practice till you’re 30, especially in writing. Reluctant writer, they always think that they're gonna be judged in a biblical sense on their first draft... It's one of like 10 drafts you're gonna do. We’ll get there either way.” (Dave Eggers, 13:39)
• On success and ambition: “The ambition and the gap between where you want to be and where you reasonably should or could be, that's where misery comes from.” (Dave Eggers, 84:02)
• On community over isolation: “The idea of being that lonely person in the cabin... is a canard. I don't know it very often to be true.” (Dave Eggers, 40:53)
• On the ineffable value of art: “At every step… there’s nothing better in the world than moving color around a canvas... But then you back up, and it’s a piece of garbage. How can you sort of, like, stay in that moment when you were in love?” (Dave Eggers, 76:53)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Creative childhood & early influences: 03:13 – 13:39
• Publishing young voices/McSweeney’s philosophy: 11:43 – 15:07
• Memoir, biography & preserving mystery: 13:39 – 19:44
• Unique school environment / Vince Vaughn era: 20:14 – 22:51
• Bay Area move, path to Might & McSweeney’s: 24:49 – 39:12
• Writing process, motivation, and literary performance: 43:05 – 48:57
• Reporting, common ground & border stories: 50:36 – 54:09
• Art world, Contrapposto & artistic value: 59:38 – 79:07
• Survivor’s guilt, humility, and modern publishing: 79:07 – 85:37
• 826 Valencia & philanthropy: 85:37 – 90:20
• Jetpacks, aviation, life digressions: 90:20 – 93:41

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Language & Tone

The episode blends sincerity, humor, and warmth. Eggers is humble, reflective, and community-minded—delighting in collaboration over ego. Dax injects candid self-deprecation, irreverence, and curiosity, while Monica and Lincoln add warmth and playfulness.

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For Listeners New to Dave Eggers or McSweeney’s

• Key takeaways: Eggers values collaboration and process over fame; he is dedicated to democratizing art and writing, supporting young voices, and leveraging the power of story to build community.
• His new book, Contrapposto, uses the frame of the art world to explore issues of self-worth, ambition, love, and the tension between creation and commerce.
• 826 Valencia is a philanthropic project that combines humor, clever storefronts, and real educational support, proving that books, stories, and quirky communities can change lives.

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“There’s intrinsic joy available in creating—if you do it in community, forget about perfection, and stay open to surprise.”
—Dave Eggers (summary, throughout episode)

Transcript

[Dax Shepard]

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert Experts on Expert. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Lily Padman.

[Lincoln]

Hi.

[Dax Shepard]

We have one of my favorite authors on today, Dave Eggers. Dave Eggers is a best selling author and founder of McSweeney's. His books are the Circle, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, the Every, and of course my favorite book, what is the what? He has a new novel out now, Contrapposto. Please enjoy. Dave Eggers. We get support from Quince.

[Monica Padman]

Have you been wearing the Quince linen shirts?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, I've been wearing them a suspicious amount. Yeah, European linen ones. They're 34 bucks, which is genuinely insane for how nice they are.

[Monica Padman]

It doesn't even make sense.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, here's the deal. They work directly with the factories, cut out all the middlemen. So you're paying for the actual quality and not some brand's marketing budget. Everything's 50 to 80% less than comparable stuff. I love it because it's all very classic and traditional and I know I'm going to be able to keep it for a very long time. And the quality's off the charts.

[Monica Padman]

That's true. The style is very consistent. Whatever you get there, you walk down the street, you're going to look good. They have these lightweight cotton sweaters which I love for when it cools down at night. It's nice. Drape around your shoulders in the summer and then throw it on when it gets a little cool. And it's not just clothes. They do home stuff. Ding, ding, ding. Travel stuff, everyday essentials. It's all the same model quality without the markup.

[Dax Shepard]

Make your summer wardrobe easier. Go to quints.comdax for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada too. That's Q U I n c e.comdax for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.comdax this episode is supported by Helix. All right, let's talk about something we both really care deeply about. Sleep.

[Monica Padman]

It's the most important thing. I've had my Helix mattress for years now and I genuinely. It's one of the best investments you can make for your home. Mine still feels just like it did when I first got it.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, that's the thing. It's not one of those mattresses that caves in after six months. These things are built to last. And you know, I'm a side sleeper. I ordered a side sleeper and I get hot so I have cooling and I can't tell you how much more comfortable it is to be in there not sweating and tossing and turning.

[Monica Padman]

Cooling is really important. I've read that you're supposed to sleep a little bit cold, so I also have cooling. And they have over 20 models, so it's not a one size fits all situation. You just go take their quiz and they match you to what actually works for your body.

[Dax Shepard]

Plus they've got cooling upgrades which, heading into summer, non negotiable.

[Monica Padman]

Truly.

[Dax Shepard]

Go to helixsleep.comarmchair for 20% off. That's helixsleep.com armchair for 20% off. Make sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know we sent you helixsleep.com armchair he's an armchair expert Transfer.

[Monica Padman]

We have not. So, Monica, nice to see you.

[Dave Eggers]

Amanda made me want to give you guys these. This is a new McSweenies in the form of a Trapper keeper.

[Dax Shepard]

Trapper Keeper? Monica, did they have trapper keepers?

[Lincoln]

Of course.

[Dave Eggers]

I've been testing people. You're the first. Like, are you more millennial?

[Dax Shepard]

1987?

[Monica Padman]

Millennial, yes, 87.

[Dave Eggers]

Nobody's had any idea what a trapper keeper was yet?

[Monica Padman]

No, I loved trapper Keepers.

[Dax Shepard]

Which one did you have?

[Dave Eggers]

You know what's funny is that I did not have it because I didn't like the artwork. I was such a snob. I thought it was too gaudy.

[Dax Shepard]

You were already bratty about. You're already pretentious.

[Dave Eggers]

I was. I had to have, like, a leathery watch.

[Dax Shepard]

In Detroit. You grew up in Illinois.

[Dave Eggers]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

In Detroit. You aged out. If you were a boy of a trapper keeper very early third grade and beyond. You were a target. If you had a trapper keeper.

[Dave Eggers]

Yeah, for sure. Anything Velcro on your shoes? Yeah, you're dead. Velcro.

[Dax Shepard]

Kangaroos with Velcro.

[Dave Eggers]

With us. You wore a watch or calculator watch or anything like Casio.

[Dax Shepard]

You're done cheating.

[Dave Eggers]

It was really a no.

[Dax Shepard]

It's just anything. I'm gonna guess it has to be the same. Anything could flag you as being girly or gay. It's just like.

[Dave Eggers]

Or nerdy.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dave Eggers]

That's why, like, when the rise of tech, it freaked me out because I was like, well, these were all the kids that always got beat up if you had, like, on your wrist or whatever. And now those.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Why aren't they more benevolent? I know you were born in Boston, but moved pretty soon.

[Dave Eggers]

I never lived in Boston.

[Dax Shepard]

Never lived.

[Dave Eggers]

My grandfather was an OB GYN in Boston General, so we were all born there under his.

[Dax Shepard]

Now that's an Interesting dynamic. Did your grandfather deliver your mother's children?

[Dave Eggers]

No.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, okay.

[Dave Eggers]

But his colleagues nearby. But he was fascinating. Like, he was the gyno to all the nuns in Boston and also all the unwed mothers. He ran a hospital for unwed mothers. I mean, fascinating stuff that we have been uncovering more and more lately.

[Dax Shepard]

Is that your mom's dad? Yeah.

[Dave Eggers]

McSweeney. Daniel J. McSweeney. So he's delivered half of Boston at some point. Probably 10,000 babies.

[Dax Shepard]

You know, it's a cool job in that way that if you've been in practice for many decades, you really have effectively delivered or brought a significant percentage of the population into the world in your area.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dave Eggers]

That's wild.

[Monica Padman]

And you're part of everyone's best day of their life.

[Dave Eggers]

Well, that's where the McSweeney came from. Like, there was a guy that was adopted in this home for unwed mothers, and he was adopted by a different McSweeney family. But he saw my grandfather's name on the birth certificate, and later in life he went. He thought that was his real father. So he would seek us out and write crazy letters to us. All my childhood. Whoa. Saying he was coming any minute on this train, he's going to come and reunite with his long lost sister, my mom. So that was Timothy McSweeney. And that's why we named this whole thing after him. Sort of this lunatic screaming from the woods, which we thought we were at the time, like, as a magazine. But I just found a bunch more of his stuff. Like, it got a little scary here.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, that sounds it.

[Dax Shepard]

That's an intense feeling. If you're like, oh, my father's there waiting for me. That's a very motivating.

[Dave Eggers]

Right. I'm coming home. Prodigal son. You've been looking for me. Relationships are just too intense. Or they make them intense.

[Dax Shepard]

So what kind of attorney was your father? What kind of law did he practice?

[Dave Eggers]

Commodities law.

[Dax Shepard]

Commodities. Because of the trade.

[Dave Eggers]

Yeah. So at the time, there was only a handful of people that did what he did. So he never went to court. And it's just a brief letter. I trust this settles the matter. John Eggers.

[Dax Shepard]

That was really.

[Dave Eggers]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

You had some unique experiences early on that really I met you could acknowledge. Set you up for the life you ended up having. Just this notion that I learned. Mrs. Wright, second grade first.

[Dave Eggers]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

First grade assigns you to make a book.

[Dave Eggers]

I still have this book. It's cardboard cover, yellow lined sheet of paper where we wrote the story and then illustrations above, bound with yarn, blue yarn, that it still holds up. And we spent months on it. These books were perfect. They had no typos, no errors were allowed. We had to redraft. Redraft and then draw the pictures very carefully. And on the back it says, copyright David Eggers. Would have been 1978.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God, that's worth so much money right now.

[Dave Eggers]

Then I had a teacher, Mrs. Dunn, that had us do it again in fifth grade. I did another book in eighth grade. So by the time I was in eighth grade, we'd written and illustrated and produced three books. And then in high school, we did the first literary magazine with a computer. So they were brand new. It was 1986 or something. First Macs, first desktop publishing. And so I learned design and all of that stuff when I was 16, and then I was just.

[Dax Shepard]

You were set booked. When you made the first two, first grade and fifth grade, were you more into and proud of the illustration portion or the writing part?

[Dave Eggers]

I only saw myself being a cartoonist. Like, that was all I did 24 hours a day till I was maybe 13 or so. And I thought, you know, I started the Disney animators, or I wanted to be, you know, Calvin and Hobbes came about, I was gone. Peanuts. I studied, and all I did was draw all day.

[Dax Shepard]

What about, like, Far side? Were you into that notion that you could communicate comedy through this?

[Dave Eggers]

For sure. I might have been 14 or so when he popped up.

[Dax Shepard]

What's his name?

[Dave Eggers]

Gary Larson.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. I listened to the weirdest interview with him on Sam Harris.

[Dave Eggers]

Wow.

[Dax Shepard]

He has studied the art of persuasion.

[Dave Eggers]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

To an insane degree, where I'm like, who are you trying to persuade? To do what?

[Dave Eggers]

So weird.

[Dax Shepard]

He knows the science of persuasion. It's his big hobby.

[Dave Eggers]

But isn't it weird? Like, you have these amazing cartoonists. Him, Berkeley Breathed, and Bill Watterson from Calvin and Hobbs. And they all retired at, like, the very top of their game. Like, Bloom county just went away.

[Dax Shepard]

Like, what age were they?

[Dave Eggers]

40s, 50s? It's so weird because I go to the Charles Schulz Museum up in Santa Rosa, which is incredible, and you go to his desk and you see all of his stuff. And he worked till the very end, and he was really good till the very end. But uniquely, it's a job that people tend to knock off and quit at a certain point and just go out on their best note, I guess. But I do miss the Far side still. There's nothing as good as it.

[Dax Shepard]

I have a theory about comedians. Comedians don't tend to Age all that. Well, I do wonder if it applies to these cartoonists. Comedy is about being shit on and calling out the powers that be and the injustices and the grievances and the friction of being a shithead at the bottom of the ladder. And with success comes a much more frictionless existence. You're not getting angry at boss.

[Dave Eggers]

You ever heard Dana Carvey talk about this on the Conan podcast about, like, the billionaire comedian that's still trying to find things to be upset about. You have to see it. You cry, laughing. It's so funny. It's like, yeah, there's another thing. And he just like, it tries to manufacture this outrage about tables and about

[Dax Shepard]

forks and like, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's private. Private air travel.

[Dave Eggers]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it.

[Dax Shepard]

But I wonder if that's the same. Cartoonists generally have a chip on their shoulder, right?

[Dave Eggers]

Some of them, yeah, there's some strange fol in that medium.

[Dax Shepard]

You're friends with Kimmel?

[Dave Eggers]

Yeah, in part because he's been really supportive of our nonprofits and he's hosted some events and then just a very normal.

[Dax Shepard]

And he's a cartoonist. Yeah, I bet you. Yeah, yeah, that's his big name.

[Monica Padman]

He's right there behind you in a statue.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, he's won the best boy award.

[Dave Eggers]

We figured this out. He did a comic when he was a kid that they featured on the show and sort of fleshed out with everybody in costumes and stuff, all these ridiculous characters. And I asked him if we could have a copy of it for this International library of young authors. So we feature like books written by well known people, but when they were under 18, amidst all of our books by young authors. And he gave us a copy of it. And it's so ludicrous. But you got to keep these things. And that's why we publish so many young authors, because their minds are untethered. There's no structure. Characters will pop up and disappear. And narratives, no rules. No rules. And they're still really fun to read. You got to remember how unhinged narratives can and maybe should be, because all of the rules and constraints and everything, it's applying sort of an accountant's brain to what should be an anarchic process.

[Lincoln]

Uh huh.

[Dave Eggers]

But anyway. But yeah, he was a good cartoonist.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm gonna campaign to get yellow Limousine put in here.

[Dave Eggers]

Did you write a book when you were a kid?

[Dax Shepard]

In junior high? They put out one little zine at the end of the year and it was all short stories from kids. Mine was in there and I fucking Thought I had won a Nobel Peace Prize.

[Dave Eggers]

Well, that's why we published kids. We have kids that are, like, 14, and they've been published every year since they were 6 and they stand 12ft tall. They're not, like, so grateful. They really feel like it's the right thing to have happen. I worked hard on it. Of course, I'm already published.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, in the truest sense, if you succeed at getting the thing in your head out, whether that's in a movie or a clay or a drawing, there is a intrinsic pride that can't be matched by any other external validation. Right. And, yeah, you should feel like your shit doesn't stink to some degree. If you executed exactly what was in your brain, that's the moment to be happy.

[Dave Eggers]

Well, and also, I'm gonna do a little twist on that, and that's telling the kids that, like, all right, fifth draft. Sometimes they do have this perfectionism where they're like, shit, it's not ready yet. But we're like, it's really good. It's ready to let go of it. We're gonna put out this book being humble enough to know that somebody else's opinion, that it's ready or it's okay or it's good enough. So it's like, it's okay. We're gonna publish this, and we're gonna put it in a nice paperback book. It'll be read for decades. It relieves that so many different things of a reluctant or hesitant kid or an English language learner. Doesn't have to be 100% perfect, but we're gonna work on it draft after draft. We're gonna honor it and put it in this platform that other people will see it, and then we're gonna do something else. It's not just the one chance, one bite out of the apple, you can keep creating. And again, I always say it's all practice till you're 30, especially in writing. Reluctant writer, they always think that they're gonna be judged in a biblical sense on their first draft. Like, you're either unworthy and cast down, vulnerable, or you're Jesus, and it's like, no, you're Hemingway. It's one of, like, 10 drafts you're gonna do. We'll get there either way.

[Dax Shepard]

Do you not like talking about your life? Because generally in the show, we go through your life that leads to your work.

[Dave Eggers]

No, I've always prefer talking about anything but my life.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, really?

[Dave Eggers]

Oh, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Even though you've written about it.

[Dave Eggers]

Did it 26 years ago. That was like, no, it was just like, you know, you find this with a lot of memoirs or somebody that wrote it that was like, that was why I wrote it. So that it's like, never have to

[Monica Padman]

talk about it again.

[Dave Eggers]

You tell it. That's truthful. And this is again what we teach for kids that have like chaotic lives in any way, or every kid feels that the world around them is not under their control necessarily. They're not controlling every part of their experience. But on the page, it's all yours. And you can write this linear narrative that makes sense and no one can mess with it. And so once they write these stories out, or mini memoirs or just a diary entry, there's like a calm that comes over the kids. And especially if they've done it every year, those are the sort of most self possessed, self knowing kids you'll ever find are the ones that have been asked every year, write your story. Who are you this year? And I always say that should be the first thing of every school year the first two days is write your story on day one. And then the other kids get to read each other's stories. Day two, teacher knows all the students far better. And the kids are like, all right, now everyone knows who I am, my truth. And it's really different on the page than if you have to verbalize it to a bunch of kids you don't know in front of the class. You wouldn't ask them to do that.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Dave Eggers]

But just you pass them around and they get to know each other so intimately and there's just like a confessional safety on the page that isn't there in any other place. I was trained as a journalist and we've had oral history series Voice of Witness for years. And it's quite clear that there's seven and a half billion more interesting people than me out there. So it just feels like nonsensical to talk about my stupid boring life. You know, it just doesn't make any sense.

[Dax Shepard]

There is no stupid, boring life. I mean, that prime, I just like

[Dave Eggers]

would never bore people with it because I did pass two people on the way here. Like on Franklin, I think was like a guy shooting a film with his iPhone and there was a woman in a grocery cart and they were careening down the street. He's filming and she's bouncing up and down. I mean, and I really, I was so desperate to stop.

[Lincoln]

Yeah.

[Dave Eggers]

As a journalist, you get an excuse to ask questions of people.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. What's going on here?

[Dave Eggers]

What are you all up to?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Dave Eggers]

And so it always pains me when I don't have the time or the window to do that because we've always had like a press pass and a reason to do it.

[Dax Shepard]

Did you have, though, favorite authors that you are not really interested in?

[Dave Eggers]

I've never read a biography of a writer. I'm not interested in any writer's private lives. And I also really want to preserve the sanctity of the illusion. And then again, biographers of writers, unless they're authorized and the writer's talking to them directly, most writer biographies are horribly mistaken. They make connections that don't exist.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, it goes through their filter.

[Dave Eggers]

Their filter?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Dave Eggers]

So one of my favorite writers was another Chicago guy, Saul Bello. You guys read Saul Bello? Can't get anyone to read Saul Bellow anymore. But anyway, won the Nobel Prize. He was the man for a long time. But nobody's reading him right now. But I do recommend him. Start with Herzog, which is a fantastic book. And there's never been a better sentence writer in the English language, in my opinion. But there was a big biography of him, I think, in the 90s, and the biographer just spent the entire time just green with envy about why he's not Saul Bellow. So the entire book was about, I went to Harvard, he only went to University of Chicago. Why does he have a Nobel and I don't? And this whole thing, everything is filtered through this twisted lens that he's looking through. And so I know enough about any writer by reading their work. And then if I peek behind the curtain and find out that they're left handed or lactose intolerant or whatever, I'm like, it diminishes the fun.

[Monica Padman]

You don't want to know.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, interesting.

[Dave Eggers]

And I'm like, I know plenty by reading their body of work and I don't need to know anything more. And I think it's sort of like peeking behind any curtain or knowing how a magic trick is done. Why? You know why?

[Dax Shepard]

I have an answer to that. But I will say I can relate to you in that I loved Bukowski. That was my gateway into even liking writing. Then after he died, someone put together some biography of him and it was all about how he was a communist. And I was like, what the where the fuck? Like he's the most anti political person period that ever lived, much less communist.

[Dave Eggers]

The writer was a communist. Ye. And they're always trying to get people into that.

[Dax Shepard]

Terrible or bad. But I love biographies. One of my favorite books of all time is Titan, the John D. Rockefeller biography. It's astounding.

[Dave Eggers]

I'll read Churchill biographies left and right. I mean, there's a lot of people that I'm interested in in that way, but not artists of any kind.

[Dax Shepard]

The reason I like it is that all of these things, even our hard sciences, there are very few binaries. It's like, at best, Someone got it 60% right. We'll have another expert on from another university. They pitch the other side of it, and it's very compelling. And you're. The world is, at best, you're, like, 60% certain. And that is why it is entirely relevant to know what someone carries into it, because you, as someone trying to discern reality, it's like you need these other plot points so that you can give it its right weight. So. Well, this person was abandoned by their family and grew up with bikers. Of course, there's, you know, like, I need to keep that in mind when I'm reading their research or when I'm just hearing their point of view. It feels very relevant if it comes from them. Yes.

[Dave Eggers]

I would put that very important distinction. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Posthumously telling us how someone was originally.

[Ad]

Yeah.

[Dave Eggers]

If they're telling you themselves. I always think you don't know anything about anyone until they tell you. Any assumptions that you make otherwise are going to be false or misguided. But if they say, you know what? I was always curious about the human mind because I suffered from epileptic seizures as a kid, or my mom did or whatever, then that makes perfect sense. There's so many people like that that are intuitive or they become law enforcement.

[Dax Shepard]

Teddy Roosevelt, right, He had terrible asthma. He couldn't play with other kids. Then he has this period where he goes to a ranch and he finds out he's actually strong and virile, and it, like, changes his whole life.

[Dave Eggers]

Or the people that are sickly kids and they make plays at home because they're in bed for so long, come into theater because they have to entertain themselves. There's so many of those. The polio generation all ended up really interesting because of that. They all had that time in bed alone or.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. These people with agoraphobia that were writing, looking out their window. This is pretty fucking relevant.

[Dave Eggers]

Emily.

[Dax Shepard]

Emily. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Suffice to say, I must note, you went to school with Vince Vaughn. Were you in the same grade?

[Dave Eggers]

We were same grade from fifth grade through high school.

[Dax Shepard]

No way. So you, like, truly saw the young.

[Dave Eggers]

He was exactly the same guy.

[Dax Shepard]

He was.

[Dave Eggers]

He was hilarious from day one. We had a uniquely cohesive class and there were two people that were really key to that. Everybody was great, but Rob Pelinka was also in our class. He's the GM of the Lakers.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, okay.

[Dave Eggers]

And so Rob was, like, the best basketball player in Illinois at the time. We all went to his games. And then Vince hosted the talent show every year with my buddy Paul Basie, who lives down the street still. And then they were in the plays. Vince was. But he was also hanging out with the football people. But Vince was cool with everybody, and especially the artists and the theater people. So he united a lot of different people by saying, it's cool to be with the football guys, but if you're the, very cool, too. So we had a weird class in that everybody kind of cheered everybody on for whatever they were good at.

[Dax Shepard]

That's very unique.

[Dave Eggers]

It's unique, but you got to teach it. It's teachable. You need leaders. The captain of the football team, the quarterback, was in all my AP English classes right next to me. Super smart guy. Interested in Faulkner and Heller. But I think that you could say, like, listen, a rising tide lifts all boats if all the basketball people support the mathletes, and the mathletes travel to see the football team when they're in quarterfinals or something. Which all happened in our school. We were so cohesive. Everybody was okay with everybody.

[Dax Shepard]

Dave, that's impossible. Especially in the 80s and 90s. I'm blown away.

[Dave Eggers]

But we also had John Hughes making movies about our area. We knew that we were in a charmed period.

[Dax Shepard]

And Vince worships him. Were you also.

[Dave Eggers]

Yeah, I was into all those movies.

[Dax Shepard]

They're so special.

[Dave Eggers]

They were in our town, and Ordinary People was filmed in our town when we were kids. And there was a lot going on. And then the bears practiced practice in Lake Forest so we could go see the bears practice and the Refrigerator Perry

[Dax Shepard]

and Super bowl shuffle. Was that 84?

[Dave Eggers]

That was 84. 85. So, yeah, it was a really great time. But I give a lot of credit to those guys for being really nice to everybody. Everybody had to be in the talent show in our school.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, really?

[Monica Padman]

It was required?

[Dave Eggers]

No, but all the cool kids did it. And even if you're just dancing to a Beach Boy song, which Vaughn did and all of his friends, it was pathetic, some of these acts. But we all put on something. I did a thing with Pee Wee Herman's song Tequila. Our group did that. And we would do Monty Python.

[Dax Shepard]

Did you go on your toes like Pee Wee had in those platform booths? I would have thrown tomatoes if you

[Dave Eggers]

hadn't what's weird is it didn't seem risky because everybody was doing it. So it wasn't like you're facing this wall of unbelievers. Everyone's like, oh, and talent show. Of course you do a talent show.

[Dax Shepard]

So were you stereotypically kind of an art kid or.

[Dave Eggers]

No, No. I was on the soccer team four years and tried out for tennis, got cut twice. But we were all sporty. Our group was a little different than the football guys. We tended to be a little artier. My friends did the filmmaking telecom classes. I was in art classes and good at English class and stuff. And we did the literary magazine columnist for the newspaper, wrote the yearbook, that kind of stuff. But we, we played football every weekend. Down at the end of my street there was a park and we played all year round. Like in the winter we played, you know, three on four all time quarterback. You know how that tackle. We were really into that.

[Dax Shepard]

So what called you to Berkeley? I mean, it seems obvious. It's a very literary.

[Dave Eggers]

Oh, no, I mean that was where my sister was in law school. So when my parents died, she had deferred a year. So we went to Berkeley.

[Dax Shepard]

That was the nearest support system.

[Dave Eggers]

It wasn't a choice.

[Dax Shepard]

For the people who didn't read a heartbreaking work of staggering genius. You were taking care of your little brother from 21 years old on I think is a pretty unique scenario.

[Dave Eggers]

Yeah. And now looking back, I would have been in the Bay Area. I had never been there before I moved there. I don't think so. I really spent my life in Chicago. And then we would go out east to Boston to the McSweeney clan. And so one of the first times I'd ever been on a plane was going to California to live. We were family of six with a Ford Pinto driving around. Vacations were Kentucky, you know, to see a cave, Mammoth Cave or the lesser caves, dude, a lot of them. But you know, I've been in the Bay Area, what, more or less 34 years now. It really is to me, the colors, the palette of a place is really important. The topography and the landscape.

[Dax Shepard]

It's an incredibly dramatic city.

[Dave Eggers]

It's so dramatic. And then you really only have to go if you go over the bridge and into the headlands. It's exactly 3 and a half miles from base, the center of the city. And you are in wild open land all the way up to Oregon. Basically. There's nothing on the side.

[Dax Shepard]

There's redwoods directly on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge near Woods,

[Dave Eggers]

the oldest trees there are. And I never thought I would stay in one place for so long. It's not really my way of thinking about moving through the world, but I haven't been to a prettier urban environment.

[Dax Shepard]

How quickly do you find your footing as a writer there? You put out Mike pretty quickly after he asked.

[Dave Eggers]

Day one, no one will tell you no in the Bay Area. That's the great thing and the burden of it. Every stupid idea happens. There's no friction.

[Monica Padman]

You already knew you were going to write when you got there?

[Lincoln]

No.

[Dave Eggers]

Oh, I had no clue. I got there and the first summer I spent painting furniture. And I thought maybe I would decorate furniture for a living. Sure. And then I worked as a temp until I was 28, more or less. You know, if you needed a graphic design, if you wanted somebody to make a lawn sign, I would do your graphic design for that. We had clients all over the city, and then we put out might at the same time. But I didn't make a living as a writer till I was 30.

[Monica Padman]

So not Berkeley the school?

[Dax Shepard]

No, but Berkeley the area, yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, I got a little confused. You went to Berkeley the school?

[Dave Eggers]

Yeah, let's pretend I did.

[Dax Shepard]

Let's say, okay, yeah, let's rewrote.

[Dave Eggers]

Let's blur that line a little bit. Yeah, but we put out that magazine. There's five of us, nobody ever made a living.

[Monica Padman]

But.

[Dave Eggers]

But we had a blast doing it at that moment.

[Dax Shepard]

Had it changed at all? I mean, I know you have a degree in journalism, but was it still art first at that moment?

[Lincoln]

No.

[Dax Shepard]

When do you remember changing? Like, no, no, it's going to be writing.

[Dave Eggers]

It was probably college because I worked at the daily paper every day for four years and I did graphic design and illustration for that paper. But I did a little bit of art school and realized like the immediacy and the impact you can have in journalism. You know, front page papers, there's a strike, there's a protest, there's a war going on, whatever. Compared to I'm gonna sit alone in a studio and maybe sell a painting 10 years from now. Very wealthy people that'll put it in their bathroom, you know, so that to me, I was like, ah, that doesn't sound like what I want to do.

[Dax Shepard]

Journalism is instant gratification and just impact.

[Dave Eggers]

Every day you write it, you're finished at sometimes 9pm goes through copy editing, call it the slot. They write the headline, you're there pasting it up. Cause I was a paste up guy. And you send it off at midnight and then two hours later or three hours later. It's like on the street, that rush. You could never.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, some guy's taking a dump, reading it, within hours of you finishing.

[Ad]

Sure.

[Dave Eggers]

That's the goal.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, that's the high water mark of journalism. If a guy yells to his wife from the commode, honey, you're not gonna believe what I just read. That's the real Nobel.

[Dave Eggers]

And it goes away pre Internet. If it wasn't good, it's completely forgotten and then you're onto the next thing. But every so often there'd be something that would really an impact. And then I edited different sections and magazines of the paper and you get to bring up other voices and maybe discover somebody in your little way and help them get a platform, I guess. So that was what I'm still doing now. It's much more fun publishing other people than publishing your own stuff. Always because there's no complication. It's like producing a movie where a. You're not on the masthead or on the marquee. So it's not your fault if it's

[Dax Shepard]

not good, but you can take all the credit if it's.

[Dave Eggers]

You get to just sort of, you know, be in the wings and say it's egoless. It's totally egoless. And it's such a pure celebration. We had a writer for the Believer magazine win a award a couple nights ago for the National Magazine Awards. We've only met this writer a few times, but it was way more pure joy than any other thing that we can do as a company because we're so tiny. It's like really six full time people. But every so often we have a chance to kind of elevate a voice in our little way.

[Dax Shepard]

How old were you when you started writing for salon?

[Dave Eggers]

Probably 24.

[Dax Shepard]

Is that your first kind of pay? Yeah. And it was it enough to live on, support yourself?

[Dave Eggers]

I was a cartoonist, so I had Salon graphic design work and then I had a weekly cartoon in the SF Weekly. Those three things combined. I was making decent money. We had this little design company where I looked at these invoices that we used to send. Looking through all this old stuff lately, our main client was the SF Chronicle. We'd do like their in paper ads like read the Chronicle, but you were

[Dax Shepard]

on the inside and the outside a little bit always.

[Dave Eggers]

I mean in journalism it's that way. An ad would take us half an hour to make, but we had to just make up some number that sounded like. So It'd be like $507 and 32 cents. No. All these numbers that I saw us make up were so ludicrous. There was no math or consistency. But we were undercutting the real businesses and Established place would charge 10 times that much. So we made really good money by being nimble and quick and cheap. And so I always tell anybody, like out of school, if you undercut the bigger companies in any business, you'll do incredibly well. Whether it's making rugs or landscaping or temping or design or whatever it is, there's a very easy way to just be a little cheaper and a little faster than anybody else. Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare.

[Dax Shepard]

We are supported by Allstate. Checking Allstate first could save you hundreds on car insurance. Not checking that your keys are actually in your hand before you close the car door. Have you ever stood in a parking lot full of sun, staring at your keys sitting right there on the seat, 4 inches away and completely useless to you? It's a very specific kind of humbling. Yeah, checking first is a good idea. So check Allstate first for an auto quote. It could save you hundreds. And for fast, reliable help when you need it, add an Allstate roadside plan. Today, you're in good hands with Allstate. Potential savings vary. Insurance and roadside assistance plans are subject to terms, conditions and availability. Insurance provided by Allstate North American Insurance Company, Northbrook, Illinois. Roadside assistance plans provided by Allstate Motor Club Incorporated and Allstate Affiliate. Yet this episode is brought to you by ServiceNow. Look, I have my dream job. I get to talk to folks I admire like crazy and ask them virtually any question that I want to. I can't imagine a better way to spend my time. But even dream jobs have some not so dreamy parts. The stuff that gets in the way of the actual work. Now that's where ServiceNow's AI specialists come in. They don't just tell you what you should do about your busy work. They actually do it. Start to finish requests handled, no extra work for you. So you and your team can focus on what matters most, which for me is are they obsessed with male bodies on the same level as I am?

[Monica Padman]

They never are.

[Dax Shepard]

To learn how to put AI to work for people, visit servicenow.com we get support from skims. Monica has been on a whole kick lately.

[Monica Padman]

I really have. When I get new skims, it is like Christmas. I get so excited. I love skims. And they have skims. Cotton, which I literally reach for every single day. The fabric is really soft, but it also holds its shape. There's nothing worse than Sagsville. Exactly. It's really bad. Skims never does that. Every single piece I've gotten from them still looks brand new after a lot of washes. There's no stretching, they lay perfectly and they support in all the right places.

[Dax Shepard]

You're pretty particular about that stuff too, which is saying something.

[Monica Padman]

It is, and I'll just say it. The lightweight cotton thong is the best one I've ever tried tried. I also have their cotton jersey T shirt. I have it in black and I really love it. It is a tight fit, but it is very flattering sometimes. I don't love a tight fit shirt, but Skims just does everything right. I really don't know what they're doing over there. The T shirt is perfect for summer. It's a great summer shirt. Go get yours. Shop Skims, cotton and all of my favorite [e-mail] after you place your order, be sure to let them know we sent you select podcast in the survey and be sure to select Armchair Expert in the dropdown menu that follows.

[Dax Shepard]

This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. We've talked before about Rob building our website on Squarespace, and I bring it up again because it's a perfect example of what they do well. Rob had all the pieces, the content, the vision, the ideas, but he needed something to actually take all that and make it public facing. And Squarespace was that bridge. Maybe you're in the same spot, you've been developing something, a business, a skill set, a body of work, and it's been private, it's been yours. But at some point you're ready to put it out there and that transition from private to public can feel like a huge leap. Squarespace makes it feel like a step. Beautiful templates built in, SEO, email, campaigns, scheduling, analytics, everything you need to go from I've been working on this to here it is, come find me. All in one place. No code, no stitching together a bunch of different tools. So if you've been sitting on something and waiting for the right moment, this might be it. Head to squarespace.comdax for a free trial trial and when you're ready to launch, use offer code DAX to save 10 off your first purchase of a website or domain. In98 you start McSweenies right? What prompts that I was working at

[Dave Eggers]

Esquire, big corporate magazine for the first time. Mike got us all jobs in real industries for the first time. So we were offered different jobs. Like buddy of mine, one of the other mite editors. We were offered a gig writing for Letterman. Like the two of us.

[Dax Shepard]

No kidding.

[Dave Eggers]

As a team, I guess. And it was Rodney Rothman who was the head writer at the time. And he was younger than us. We were like 27, I think he was 24.

[Dax Shepard]

Wow.

[Dave Eggers]

And the producer was Kate Adler. And we all met and it was like the most exciting thing that you could ever imagine.

[Dax Shepard]

This is when he just went to cbs. It would have been, I think so.

[Monica Padman]

Wow.

[Dave Eggers]

We worshiped Letterman as growing up and Chris Elliott and had everything taped. And we watch everything over and over. But the hours and the uncertainty. You'd get like a 12 week contract I think at the time. And then you had to renew. I was not in a place where I had that kind of uncertainty. I had a dependent and then the hours. You can't be a parent and write as a young.

[Dax Shepard]

Late night talk.

[Dave Eggers]

Yeah. Trying to prove yourself. But then I took this magazine job and I really learned quickly that I was not meant to. I had never had a 9 to 5 anything. I never had to wear clothes of any kind to any job in the Bay Area. It was all shorts every day. Nobody cared. So to have to wear pants and a button down shirt and then try to get things published. And they say no. I was like. And these are all brand new ideas to me.

[Dax Shepard]

You were just doing whatever you wanted prior to that.

[Dave Eggers]

In the Bay Area again, no one says no. So suddenly it was 90% no. It's not their fault. There's only so many pages in a matter of. So we started McSweeney's. It was all stuff that was rejected from other corporate magazines. And it was like the land of misfit writings. And so we did that. Published it out of my apartment in Brooklyn and just a couple of us.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, so you had moved to New York at that point.

[Ad]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

How did you do in New York?

[Dave Eggers]

Manhattan was not my thing. But once I moved to Brooklyn, it was much calmer. It was really Oaklandy and great. Near Prospect park, which is a beautiful park. I just have to be close to some kind of open space. So suddenly, you know, we had a ball. Putting out Sweeney's was just everything you want it to be. You go from this corporate constraint, everything to just being back in your kitchen with a couple friends doing anything you want to do. Printing the book in Iceland, which we did. I got to go to Reykjavik for each press check and spend a week there. Going back and forth to the printer. Among all the Blonde pressmen in their blue jumpsuits. The whole thing was so surreal, but so much fun.

[Monica Padman]

Was it always like this? Was it always like in a fun.

[Dave Eggers]

The first three were just wonderful white paperbacks. Like, black and white. They were really nicely made, but just black and white for the most part. And then the fourth one was a box with a bunch of booklets in it, and we made that. It was the first time. There's no boxes in Iceland. They have no pulp. They can't make anything like that. There's no trees. So they. It was such a big thing. It was a big meeting. How are we going to make a box? You know? And all these Icelandic guys trying to figure out how to make a box for this. So much fun. But that started this thing where I thought, well, why don't we reinvent the form every time? Because if you're gonna pay us and subscribe to us, maybe we'll surprise you each time with what it looks like. So we've done a lunchbox in the last few years.

[Monica Padman]

We got a lunchbox recently.

[Dax Shepard]

That was what we got. Yeah. Lunchbox. There's definitely the archetype of the lone wolf rider, but you clearly like the communal aspect of it.

[Dave Eggers]

I can only think of a handful of actual lone wolves in the visual arts, too. It's a trope that isn't borne out that often in real life. Bukowski is one of those guys, right? And you have Van Gogh. Whoever. There's a handful. But the people that I've known or met. I don't know a lone wolf writer. I can't think of one.

[Dax Shepard]

I would feel so comforted if I had surrounded myself with other people who are just, like, banging their head against the wall, fucking getting that rejection se. Fucking postcard.

[Dave Eggers]

Well, or, you know, I tell this to students in MFA programs all the time. I. I was like. There was two of us in a kitchen that started McSweeney's for $2,500. That was the print bill for the first one. You sell those 2,000 copies, you have enough money to print the next one and print 5,000 copies. You sell those, you can certainly print 7,500, which was our trajectory. It's such simple math. I can't add anything together. I cannot balance a checkbook, but I could do that. Simple math. And so we just published everybody we wanted to publish. So that built up this little community of people, and you start something, the magnet, you know, you just. Everybody's drawn to it, whether it's Upright Citizens Brigade or the Ground you know, it's the same kind of thing. Everyone's, like, looking for somebody to start that thing. And then they're like, thank God. Because not everyone is necessarily a starter,

[Dax Shepard]

I guess, or ambitious or organized a little bit. You need people to fill little gaps, like Melissa McCarthy. This would crack people up. But, like Melissa McCarthy and Ben and I, we had this comedy troupe. Nobody came. We did shows. It was like, Melissa was the manager. She told us where to be. She negotiated the theater rentals. She delegated. You're bringing beer.

[Monica Padman]

Someone has to get the space and do this.

[Dax Shepard]

She was organizing on it, and we were like, okay, I'll bring beer. Ask Melissa what we're supposed to do.

[Dave Eggers]

Well, if she has you there to help do those things, then, yeah, you only need two or three people. I saw a student of mine that was at a crossroads. He's 35 now, but I knew him when he was in high school. And I was like, just find a couple people. Because alone, it's just sad and lonely or whatever. But a couple people, you're like a little cadre of people, and you're gonna buck them up. If they're down, they can buck you up if you're down. And together, you can get a lot more done in a given day, and it's gonna be a lot more fun. So the idea in any art form of being that lonely person in the cabin, throwing crumpled up sheets of paper in the corner is a canard. I don't know it very often to be true. And also, it's so unnecessary sometimes you need isolation. I can only write when I'm alone, but then I can send a draft to all the different writers, mostly in the Bay Area. Like, hey, what do you think? Is this anything? And then you're in community with people that are like, yeah, keep going. And then you feel, okay, you have jet fuel. But the idea of, like, I'm not going to show it to you for seven years, and then you create some mangled Frankenstein novel that nobody wants. It's such a mistake on so many levels, I think that. Always trying to figure out, is this the way I want to do it, where it's fun, or is there some other way to do it? Is, like, worth the moment that you can spend? I worked in my garage for years. It was exactly like this, except for one window in the corner. But it was the only space that was free and big enough to have all the stuff I needed in it. But it was really kind of grim. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like, boy, I really don't want to be inside in a dark garage eight hours a day, like, there's something wrong here. So I just had to, like, think about it finally, after 30 years or however long it was, and I was like, well, what if I had a friend? Funniest say this, but she's a ship captain, has a giant.

[Dax Shepard]

I don't have any ship captain friends.

[Dave Eggers]

Yeah, that is, she sails in the bay. And I was like, would it be possible to get, like a little sailboat that I could work in? And I'd find a slip in one of the marinas in the bay. And she, like, guided me through this process and helped me buy this boat. So now I've been working in this boat, which is, you know, not so much bigger than this table. Right. Really?

[Dax Shepard]

Was it moored in Sausalito?

[Dave Eggers]

It's moored, like, right under the Golden Gate Bridge on the north side. It's an old air force base marina, but it's a rickety, ridiculous marina. But I'm outside more, you know, I'm like, there's so much more going on. And you get mad thinking, like, why didn't I do this 20 years ago? And I think sometimes just to take that moment whenever you're at a transition moment. And I don't know about you, but a lot of my friends at our age are like in between jobs right now. So there's like a thing that's going on in the business world in particular, where they get priced out. Maybe they're too expensive for their company, they get laid off and they're looking for the next thing. But we're all talking about it. Maybe it's an opportunity to, like, think hard about exactly what you'd like to do, how you'd like to do it, how do you want to spend your days and hours? And sometimes if you can get a little bit like, I definitely don't want to do that again. I don't want to commute an hour. And so you can get a little bit closer to something that can never be ideal, but you can get closer to an intentional way to live a life.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, I definitely think for me, that comes with age in that the motivation at the beginning is like, you're a piece of shit. You're a failure if you don't do this. You know, it's just hate, self loathing, self loathing.

[Dave Eggers]

You need a little bit.

[Dax Shepard]

And then at some point you go, well, what's the point? All this if I don't learn to enjoy the process. This is all A waste. So I'm gonna die with like, like a bunch of posters hanging. That's the proof of this thing. You realize this isn't worth doing if I don't enjoy the process. It can't be about the reward.

[Dave Eggers]

Well, are you enjoying the podcast?

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, absolutely. This is the greatest job I've ever had. Yeah, you've had, I guess, periods, right, where you've taken breaks for sure.

[Dave Eggers]

Every three years. I'm like, what if I instead, there's so many other things to do. Nature photographer. Wouldn't that be cool, Right? Sit there with Looking for the Snow leopard on, like, I really honestly see that as a thing. But then you also have to pay the mortgage and stuff.

[Dax Shepard]

I do have a question about the heartbreaking work of staggering genius. You had so much going on at that time. Was it hard for you to carve out the time, the commitment to sit down and finish that book?

[Dave Eggers]

I had to quit the job at Esquire to do it because I couldn't do both.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Dave Eggers]

I would need eight hours a day of writing time to get anything done. I just have to get my head clear. That's like the first half. And then the self loathing kicks in at hour five. What are you doing?

[Dax Shepard]

Like you've been here finding little wind in your sails and you're like, oh, I got to get as much out

[Dave Eggers]

as I can in the afternoon. You're more urgent about it. And maybe you could hit a word count that makes you feel like you've done something that day.

[Dax Shepard]

What a life.

[Dave Eggers]

It's still there, right? I'm trying to make it a little bit more fun. And then there are books that just come out a lot easier than others. Now the Eyes and the Impossible was a couple years ago. That was like the most fun I'd ever had. And I was like, how do I stay in that zone where it's fun? And a lot of it has to do with voice and it has to do with writing about something that you love. And so Contrapposto was like, I love talking about and thinking about the art world and these characters. And so I was like, okay. That book too was just pretty much joy all the way through. But as a journalist, that's not as fun because you feel the duty to, like, cover Trump or to cover a disaster, go to Ukraine or whatever, and then you have to write it out and you have to get every last word right and check every fact over and over. It's a slog that you are happy to have done at the end, right? And you feel like maybe you enlightened a person or awakened somebody, but it's really no fun in any point of the process.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

How did you take on the success of that book? That was new to you, right? I mean, you were a finalist for the Pulitzer for that book.

[Dave Eggers]

The main thing, I mean, I'm looking at McSweeney's stuff because McSweeney's was brand new, too. And so we were able to kind of take that new readership and sort of channel a lot of them. And so we went on the road because I was finding all these showruns. We went on the road with they Might Be Giants. And it was like, me writers like Arthur Bradford, Zadie Smith, some others. And we would do a variety show, and there'd be, you know, sometimes have, like, exotic dancers doing stuff. And then there'd be the band. And then Arthur would smash a guitar. Guitar on the stage. He did this whole act. It was like to try to enliven what at that point was the most boring thing you'd ever could imagine, which was going to a bookstore to see a reading. You know, people would just get up and read for an hour. And we were trying to sort of shake that up. And I saw Arthur, who's like a filmmaker, the other night, and we were just reminiscing. He would buy an acoustic guitar in every town we would tour in. And then he told the story while he played. And then he would do. During a crescendo of the story, he'd raise it up above his head and then smash it as, like, the punctuation mark of the story. And then a stagehand would come out and hand him a new guitar. And then he'd finish the story with his acoustic guitar. So he had to buy two guitars in every town we went to. But it was ridiculously fun time. But to think that at this point, like, I don't love getting on stage. I don't love having to follow they Might Be Giants or anything like that. It's like, I can't believe. Believe that we did that. Because these days, I'm much more content to be in a smaller setting, a bookstore setting, not a big hall. But at the time, we thought, well, maybe we could make books slightly less sedate and slightly less predictable.

[Dax Shepard]

Have you ever been to a Sedaris reading?

[Dave Eggers]

Yeah, sure. That was right then.

[Dax Shepard]

Naked had come out.

[Dave Eggers]

1500 people would come, and he would just read his work. Sarah Vowell was in our little coterie, and she was really tight with Sedaris. And Sedaris Saras did benefits for our nonprofit In New York, 826 New York. And so he was always a hero to us and a mentor.

[Dax Shepard]

What he's done though, like reading literature out loud is insane. I currently can't stop listening to the live recordings.

[Dave Eggers]

Barrel Fever was how I met my editor, Jeff Klosky. He was the editor of Sedaris first collection. He made humor literary. Before that, there was always the picture of like the humorous, you know, the humorous mugging on the flop. But then he put it in sort of a literary format. Jeff Klosky, this editor did. And I thought, okay, whoever did that, I want to meet. And so that's why he became my editor.

[Dax Shepard]

It's a fun evolution too, to watch because like naked you can tell is written without any real notion that it'll be read out loud. And then now his writing is done like a standup by doing a draft, reading it out loud, rewriting his workflow is so fascinating.

[Dave Eggers]

Well, really, I mean, it started with the Santaland Diaries. And that was this American Life thing, verse, I think. And that was performed from minute one. And that was just like a thunderclap. Everybody was like, what the hell, you could do that. Wow. Because there used to be something in the New Yorker called casuals. They were like long format literary humor, kind of like that. And then it sort of went away. And then Sedara started that up again where you could have like a 20 page essay slash comedy show. Yeah. And then people would go out to it. But you know what's funny is that he's still. There's him, there's Sarah Vowell, There was David Rakoff for a while. There's not that many people that still do it. And it just shows how hard it is to do.

[Dax Shepard]

And he's gotten better and better. There's points where it's like, I'll listen to the most recent ones, like maybe Calypso on tape. And I'm like, I don't know, man. You put him up against Chappelle laugh for laugh in a one and a half hour show.

[Dave Eggers]

It's the precision of the writing.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Dave Eggers]

Everything is about extra syllables. And Chappelle's really good at the Seinfeld's, talked about it. But one extra word and there you don't get to laugh. You've got to be there at the end of the sentence before they're ready. And Sedaris is unique in that he never puts on extra verbiage or whatever

[Dax Shepard]

to sort of make it's lean it's really lean, it's so full.

[Dave Eggers]

And then he's funnier in person even than on the page. Yeah, it's just his voice and his attitude. And then if you go to one of those events, he's signing books for six hours afterwards.

[Dax Shepard]

He seems every single person and he's writing wild shit in there. He's like the creative output just to write in their fucking.

[Monica Padman]

He's connecting with each person.

[Dave Eggers]

Well, to me, that's my favorite part too. And I would much rather just be signing books and chatting with people because the high wire act of being up there with a microphone is a lot different. So to me, I'm always looking forward to the sitting and signing, but I do feel for the people that are waiting hours. Sedara is waiting hours. But they go in knowing it and the venue knows it. But the times that you're there and there's like a union venue and they're like, you gotta get out of here. So then you're on the street and. And then the cops come, you got to get out of here too. You can't be there. That's happened to me. But to me that's the most fun part, is just the reader to reader, because in person, all people are normal. If you're just talking to an actual person with enough time, human to human, eye to eye, this solves everything.

[Dax Shepard]

This is our conclusion after a thousand plus episodes is like, we have guests, semi regular, that I don't like, Mike, that I've had interactions with around town. And I'm like, I don't like this person. We gotta have them. They're a great guest. And 100% of the time, Dave, at the end of two hours, I'm like, I fucking love this person. And I'm like, literally, I challenge someone to sit for two hours with someone and be sincerely curious. And I just challenge you to not like the person at the time.

[Dave Eggers]

Well, the body wants to find common ground. Just chemically, we want this. So I covered a lot of Trump rallies as a journalist and I would embed, I never, never presented myself right away as a journalist. So I would just wait in line with everybody, get to know people.

[Dax Shepard]

Hope you take this as a compliment. You could blend in. You're not coming across as like some lofty professor.

[Dave Eggers]

You should see my full uniform because I've got the trucker hat and I have my flannel. These are clothes I own.

[Monica Padman]

So it's not like, it's not a costume.

[Dave Eggers]

It's not so much a costume. And you know I sort of believe hate the sin, love the sinner. The folks that you meet, the people that you've seen on tv, are usually the fringiest fringe.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, yeah.

[Dave Eggers]

But in the middle, I mean, I do think it's so misguided. And he's by far the worst president that has ever been or could be conceived on so many levels and certainly the most corrupt that we're seeing recently. But the people voting for him, I would find common ground with everybody and they would have some reasonable explanations for supporting him. For the most part, out of every hundred people, there'd be one true lunatic.

[Monica Padman]

Shout out.

[Dave Eggers]

Yeah, that point. But as a journalist, you really, especially if you're listening and not like hit and run journalism, but like, I'm going to give you, as long as you want to talk, I'm going to learn an explanation that I wouldn't have thought about. And sometimes they're voting in very narrow. My 401k went up last time he was elected and I need that money.

[Lincoln]

Okay.

[Dave Eggers]

Can't really argue with that. My parents waited 17 years to immigrate from the Philippines. I want everyone to wait the same amount of time.

[Dax Shepard]

I live in a border town. 250,000 people have come over this month. That scares me.

[Dave Eggers]

Well, I did cover the El Paso rally, so that was Beto o' Rourke on one side of the street having a rally when he's running for the Senate. About 4,000 people came to that one across the street. Ninety feet, 15,000 people to trump in El Paso. A week after he said that El Paso was a dump and whatever, doesn't matter. 50, 60% of that crowd was Latino. They laugh at this idea. I interviewed so many people that like the border people are going up and down, back and forth every day from El Paso, Paso. It's very porous. There's underground tunnels, there's all these different things. But then you have that conservatism of recent immigrants, right? So there was a family where the mom came over from Mexico illegally, got her green card. One daughter is a cop and is a trumpy and won't talk to the mother anymore because she broke the law to come over, but she's an American because her mother. And so now no one's talking to each other because she's iced out the mother. The sister won't talk to the other sister because. And it's all because of one guy. And so, you know, you got to back up and say it wasn't this way for so long. The border was much more porous. You'd work in the US because wages are higher, and then you go back home because it's cheaper to live in Mexico. It was just back and forth for farm workers, for construction, for a lot of different things. Things. And then suddenly it wasn't Trump that did this, but everything became much more heightened and sort of. You have to pick a side and choose, and it's wildly mismanaged. I don't have the solution in this podcast, but I will say that he dropped the solution.

[Monica Padman]

I know.

[Dax Shepard]

Hey, why were you sitting on that song? We were on year 10 of this.

[Dave Eggers]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

I do want to say this. I cannot remember, but I bet it had to be Kimmel who told me to. But what is the. What was the first book of yours? Iron Read.

[Dave Eggers]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

And I talk about it on here all the time. I just love that book. It's just outstandingly beautiful.

[Dave Eggers]

You know, Valentino and I, we went to Kimmel's taping a year or two ago. Jimmy Kimmel and Molly have given money to Valentino schools in South Sudan. He has a foundation, and so it was really weird. There was a guy doing crowd work before, and he was like, where's everybody from? I want to see who's from the furthest place away. And he happens to find Valentino sitting next to.

[Lincoln]

To me.

[Dave Eggers]

And he's like, where are you from? South Sudan.

[Dax Shepard]

And I was like,

[Dave Eggers]

you won. You got it. After the book came out, we went back to South Sudan, and all the money from the book went to this foundation. And then he had the decision to make, like, what do you do with it? And he decided to build a high school in his town. He was so successful that he became the minister of education for his whole region. So basically New England size. And now he's running his own schools in a town close to Mariel Bay, where he grew up. You read about him till he was probably 22, I guess.

[Dax Shepard]

Was it Atlanta that they got sent to? The heartbreaking part of this book, if you haven't read it, I really encourage one of my very favorite books. But you know what these kids went through to cross the desert. I mean, there's literally lions picking guys off, which is just unimaginable. They have this notion of getting to America, and then they go to Atlanta and just the violence that's happening in

[Dave Eggers]

the motel that they're at and the speed of life. Like, when I met Valentino, he just got in an accident, like, two days after getting his driver's license. They had three months of aid from USAID or Whatever group it was, maybe it was the unhcr. But then they're on their own. And it's like independent nonprofits and churches that supported the Lost Boys all over the US but to the credit of the churches and our ability to absorb refugees and people from. From the toughest post conflict zones, they were absorbed and did quite well almost everywhere. And it was mostly the churches that did it, because most of the kids were brought up Catholic. The churches reached out. Whatever you need, come to us. You're part of our family. And then in Atlanta, it was Mary Williams who started the Lost Boys foundation and got in touch with me. But you had 4,000, mostly boys, all unaccompanied, 18 to 25, sent to Fargo, sent to Omaha. Cheaper places to live. San Jose. Never in the middle of a city. And suddenly after three months, it's like, well, you gotta pay that electrical bill. What's an electrical bill? Okay, well. And you've gotta get to school now. You have to have a job within three months.

[Dax Shepard]

You have to know everything. It took all of us 18 years to figure out. You have to know it in the next three months.

[Dave Eggers]

Three months. Most of them, if they were lucky enough to sort of have a family that takes care of them. Valentino had this couple, the Mazes that are still in Atlanta, that became sort of surrogate parents and guiding them through all these questions. And you realize, like, whether it's the Lost Boys or whether it's first in their family to go to college in this country, you just need an advocate. You need somebody to pick up the phone and be like, okay, no, that's not what you do. Pick up this form. You gotta fill this out. I'll help you do it. I'll file that for you. Go to this website, because otherwise it's just reading Sumerian and at the speed of light. And if you don't do it, you're on the street, like all of those things at once. And you realize, like, I've been to Kakuma, which is the refugee camp that they grew up in. And for the most part, there's not electricity or running water in a lot of these camps. They were lucky to have a meal a day for years. These refugee camps are still there because they become cities unto themselves, right? And they're still called refugee camps, even though they've been there at this point 34 years or something like that. But there's a simplicity sometimes, or with a system, you know? And our lives here in this country are so complex, we don't even realize how complex and needlessly complex they are and how irrational so many of our systems are until you go to somewhere else. These cities in South Sudan, now that there's been relative peace for some time, are growing exponentially. Like Juba, the capital, when we were first there, maybe 20 years ago, I think it was maybe 20,000 people. Like you could really get across it in an hour or two. And now I think it's two and a half million. And it just grows out. And there's entrepreneurship everywhere and things popping up in schools. And if people have anywhere, whether it's this country 200 years ago or South Sudan, just if there's relative peace for a little bit of time, everything can happen. People will flourish, they'll figure it out, they'll flock to these centers, they'll solve problems. And it's the job of the international community to just invest, not aid, invest in businesses there. So you have Ethiopian Eritrean restaurants and businesses and places from Uganda that are going to South Sudan to make money, which is good. Right. They employ people, they're selling them phone plans. This is the way that countries get out of a post conflict situation. It's like actual living, not just aid, but actual investment. Valentino's doing a lot of that. That too.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. Well, we. I've eaten up way too much time. I would have loved to have talked about the circle a little bit in the every. Because I like hearing you talk about the post apocalyptic cyber age we're in. Find it. You're fun to listen to talk about this. But at last, your newest book, which is what we're here to talk about, is Contra Posto.

[Monica Padman]

That's the name of my Botox place, by the way.

[Dax Shepard]

Is it really?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

I didn't know this term before the book.

[Dave Eggers]

Oh, I've never seen it anywhere else.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, it's the first time I had heard it.

[Dax Shepard]

It's a form, right, in painting where a portrait subject is holding two positions that are intentional.

[Dave Eggers]

Yeah, it's like the Michelangelo's David would be the first or best known example where the pose is off balance a bit. You're putting weight on one leg, or your hips are one way, your shoulders are another way, as opposed to a stock still, kind of rigid pose. So most poses we know could be qualified is contraposto. But it's something you learn in art school and you ask of the model, and I like the word always. And I felt like it applied to the relationship between cricket and Olympias, where there's sort of balanced imbalance between them. Stay Tuned for more armchair expert if you dare.

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[Dax Shepard]

So the book starts with a little boy, Robert, and he ditches that name because he is a shitty. Not a stepdad. But Mom's boyfriend is terrible. You're not going to let me draw any parallels?

[Dave Eggers]

I never had a stepdad.

[Dax Shepard]

He sounded very familiar to me. But Cricket gets his name because he doesn't want to be called Rob because it's now associated with Robert, who's upstairs.

[Dave Eggers]

Right? Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

The book starts with like this sanctuary this little boy has. Do you want to describe it a little bit?

[Lincoln]

Yeah.

[Dave Eggers]

His grandfather lives at home in the basement and then it's created kind of like a botanical garden almost in the middle of a Indiana basement in the middle of winter. It's frozen outside and white and probably below zero. But down there it's humid and full of plants and green and spiders.

[Dax Shepard]

He likes spiders.

[Dave Eggers]

Yeah, insects. So it's this humid sort of of fertile kind of womb like world almost that Cricket spends most of his time down there with his grandfather, who's pretty old and not super mobile. He doesn't really leave the basement, but he draws on the floor in front of him while listening to records and his father reading above him. And I think that those early sections about the grandfather, I just wanted to establish that when you're a kid and you can draw or if you can write or whatever you're doing, there's this like incredible peace that comes over a kid, that he's got all this chaos going on upstairs, but on that page he controls everything, can create any universe or world. He wants to he has validation from this grandfather that loves everything he does, which is what grandfathers are supposed to do, or grandparents.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, he treats him seriously, which is like this huge gift that someone can give you when you're a kid.

[Dave Eggers]

Kid, for sure, it's different. His mother's working full time and is under all kinds of stresses. But down there, you know, I think every kid needs that sort of place where you're validated, I guess, you're competent, you're good at something. Everybody's got to find something that a kid is good at, and that's the parents task. It's like, go to karate, tai chi. I mean, anything you can do. But until you find that, it's tricky. Once that kid finds that he's really good at something, they. Then that competence carries over into everything else. Like, all right, good, I have a place I can do this one thing well. But then, you know, that leads into him taking more and more sort of art classes around and leaving home. Grandfather doesn't last too long, but has taught him, I guess, the skills.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, also, this thing he's good at becomes a bridge also to friendship and to potential romantic interests. Right. He's encouraged. It's kind of discovered that he's a good drawer. And he's encouraged. Encouraged to graffiti.

[Dave Eggers]

Yeah, everybody knows that kid, right, that can draw the angel guy and the Led Zeppelin cover, right? So, hey, can you do that for me too?

[Dax Shepard]

Or Eddie from Iron Man? There's a couple kids in every high school that could draw Eddie.

[Dave Eggers]

Same in prisons. Right. If you can draw those guys, make money doing it. Like, I've met a lot of those guys, but, yeah, for Cricket, it's really just like, he's quiet kid, but he meets Olympia, who recognizes that he has a talent, and then, of course, uses it to have him deface a public play structure using some form of calligraphy via a giant sharpie. And so I wanted to take it away from being like, too cute. They say horrible things on this play structure, but in an ornate kind of almost old English sort of font. But he's madly in love instantly with this girl who's maybe a year older.

[Dax Shepard]

She's very worldly and provocative and dangerous, right?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dave Eggers]

Not to spoil it, but the rest of the book is about them together over the years. But I think that she's so captivating, and at every stage, she's captivating in different ways. She morphs and shape shifts a bit, but she's always infinitely more sophisticated than he is and more verbal and more worldly. And she Knows how to sort of navigate through the art world, whereas, like, he generally doesn't have a clue and doesn't seek to.

[Dax Shepard]

We get into your kind, or, I'm assuming, your take on art. We're exploring a lot. This kind of tension between. It's pretentious, it's exclusionary, it's inclusionary. Like, it has all these dynamics. What were you able to get off your chest about art?

[Dave Eggers]

Well, it was fun because I don't think I would ever write a book about the book world because I'm in it, and that's, to me, maybe just too close. And also, for me, being adjacent to it. Like, I paint and make prints and I draw and sell them and stuff, and I have a little gallery that sells them for the last 15 or so years. So I have, like, a little bit of a foray into that world. Used to write about art and everything. But there is something really unique in all art forms, like music. You go to a concert and, well, it used to be $20, and you'd see your favorite band, and it's $15 for the CD, and you could take it home and own it and look through the booklet, and it's very democratic. The art world and the visual art world in the last hundred years or so is incredibly exclusive and very hard to, like, just experience as a regular person. You can't really own much. You could tear out a piece of paper from a magazine with your favorite painting. That's as close as you can get.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, even, like, the Banksy Rise is so fascinating. Right. Because it starts as, like, incredibly democratized. It's for all to see on the side of a building. And then I have been to Billionaire's House, who has an enormous Banksy in his.

[Dave Eggers]

Oh, is that right?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, in his hallway.

[Dave Eggers]

Somebody tore it off a building, maybe?

[Dax Shepard]

No, Banksy does. Does artwork for sale.

[Dave Eggers]

I didn't know that.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, yeah.

[Dave Eggers]

He did a piece on the side of the McSweenies building years ago.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, really?

[Dave Eggers]

So he got in touch when he was coming in San Francisco, and he said, I'd like to do something on the roof. And one of our staffers let him in at midnight and led him up to the roof.

[Dax Shepard]

Did he have to sign anything?

[Dave Eggers]

That's a good question.

[Dax Shepard]

Or do you have to be blindfolded?

[Dave Eggers]

I mean, that's funny. I always want to ask.

[Dax Shepard]

They've just discovered who he is. Right. Have you been following? It's like, an English dude.

[Dave Eggers]

Yeah, it's always been an English guy, but we didn't know it was Chris Yang who was on our staff. He led him up, and then he did this really cool mural. Sort of. I don't know what you call it. Picture on the side of what he would consider the roof or this wall on our roof. But we have a flat roof. And he did it there. And we were so happy. We wake up, we see it. People were stopping on the street for a week in the middle of traffic. It was a big deal. Everybody knew that he'd. It's before social media, though, so it was like just word of mouth. And then one day we wake up and it's gone. And we realized it was on the building next to us. So our roof is flat, but then there's an apartment building next to us,

[Dax Shepard]

and they painted over it.

[Dave Eggers]

And we didn't even think that. Tell this guy. Because we. Anyway, so it was painted over within a week and we could have. I haven't seen a picture of it in years. It was tragic. There's a few other pieces in San Francisco, one that they're trying to figure out what to do with and authenticate, because he won't authenticate either. I really like his work, always have. I like the way he goes about things on his own. I don't like secondary or tertiary people making money off of his stuff. But I was always looking for. And I think, trying to explore in this novel, like, how do you bring it to that democratized kind of level, that music and even books. Books are so simple. You buy, it's 25 bucks, you take it home. That's the experience. Anybody can access it. There's no exclusive. Exclusive part of the book world. But art is mostly exclusive. Meaning, like, if you want to own anything and that person is really making a living doing it, it's incredibly exclusive.

[Dax Shepard]

That's where I've called bullshit on art a little bit, which is like, why is the print to you not valuable?

[Dave Eggers]

I love the prints.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. I'm just saying, most people. Yeah. Like, if what you love is this image, you can't tell the difference. What are we talking about? Why is that not desirable?

[Monica Padman]

Or the lithograph versus the real thing?

[Dave Eggers]

They make comparative few. So if an artist is doing 40 paintings a year, they only make a couple prints or lithographs of those works and then maybe a book at the end of a show. I did different series of prints that looked exactly like the original so no one could tell. And I would sell them in a portfolio. You see them anywhere in people's houses and you cannot tell the difference. And I did that on purpose.

[Dax Shepard]

Did you mark the original?

[Dave Eggers]

No, I just signed it, you know, so it has the original signature in the corner. So if you were going to really

[Dax Shepard]

look closely, I like the idea of someone has the original, no one knows. It's kind of fun.

[Dave Eggers]

That takes place in the real world all the time. What you think is an original in certain museums is not the original. There's often a fake there because of wanting to preserve it or rest it or the danger of theft or whatever. So you don't always know. But I do think that this sanctification of these certain little objects and Mona Lisa must be so much better than the painting next to it. And this sort of hierarchy, all of these things are very unique, I think to the art world. Whereas there's so much phenomenal work being done every day by people that we live among. And LA is obviously such a fantastic art city, but there's something intrinsic to it that's snooty and that really attracts kind of a snobby sort of person, unfortunately. And at all twists and turns we've got to try to favor the artists, the curators, the gallerists, the museum directors, everybody that makes it accessible, makes it more fun on explains things. Why is that on the wall? Why is that Barnett Newman on the wall? Why am I supposed to like that? If you can't explain that, then you shouldn't be doing the job. You know, you should explain why a white square is on the wall and is worth $6 million or whatever. And I think that for so long it's getting a little bit better now. It's pretty pluralistic atmosphere now. Like if you go to lacma, you'll see every kind of work imaginable, which is how it be, should, should be. But for a while, 60s, 70s, 80s, it had gotten so exclusive and so narrow where it was all about abstract work and abstract expressionism, little conceptual art. But anything outside of that, representational figures, anything like that was like really frowned upon, passe.

[Ad]

Yeah.

[Dave Eggers]

And it was like an art form uniquely susceptible to that. And you would never find that in music where it's like, well now, from now on, John Cage has brought us to, to this place where only Silence

[Dax Shepard]

and Stones are over. Yeah, yeah, we don't like the Rolling Stones.

[Dave Eggers]

Everything else is invalid. But we had reached that place with visual art for a while. It was a tough place and very unaccepting and very close minded.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, my grievance is like, it's the apex of arbitrary.

[Monica Padman]

I just moved into a house And I was like, okay, I need art for my house now. And this has been crazy. Similarly, my parents bought me a housewarming present. And it was a picture painting and it's not a cheap painting. And then I got it and I love it. I do love it. But when I'm staring at it, I'm like, why does it cost?

[Dax Shepard]

Why was it that much?

[Dave Eggers]

So much money. Do you like the painting?

[Monica Padman]

I do, I love the painting. And I look at it and I look at this print that's much cheaper, that's framed next to it, and I'm like, yeah, none of this makes any sense.

[Dave Eggers]

Yeah, I was talking to a friend, she just had a show. All of her prices are super random. She has a formula that's actually based on like area, you know, based on

[Dax Shepard]

what you are charging the San Francisco Chronicle for your.

[Dave Eggers]

Exactly the same just came to mind. So is it like by square footage that you're doing this? Like, why would this be $412 and that one's 600? And if it's by actual area, isn't that seem weird, like you're charging by the foot? But I think that that goes again toward how they've created a sort of a self seriousness about it. And a little bit like, I could explain it to you, but you wouldn't understand that kind of thing.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, it reeks of elitism, the whole.

[Dave Eggers]

You don't find that in any other medium, even classical music. Like, the first thing they want to do is explain it to you, you know, like, okay, here's why this movement is about this. Not like, well, I don't know, you have a degree in music theory, then maybe I could talk to you.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, it's like, if you don't get it, that's on you. So you kind of have to be like, no, I get it.

[Dax Shepard]

We should add too. The world is filled with more criminals than any other. There are more paint salesmen who have gone to prison than any other art medium that's just riddled with crooks who are selling paintings they don't have. They're selling fake paintings.

[Dave Eggers]

There you go. And why is that? Why does it attract so many charlatans? And it's always been fascinating to me because you really just don't see as much of it in any other form. But the art forging stories, I do love those, like watching those. And also you'll see the gallerist in between who's sort of winking and nodding like, does she or doesn't she know that she's selling a fake for five and a half million dollars to this gullible couple. And is she just running out the street before putting that in a Swiss account or whatever? And then somebody's gonna get caught. But she's just the pass through. It's fascinating, but there is no equivalent in music or writing or whatever where you could defraud one person out of $5 million based on picture, you know, like a bunch of paint on a 4x4 canvas, which the intrinsic value of that is like $150, right? Of like, materials. And everything else is about this sort of suspension of disbelief or this shared illusion that we are all going to dream together, that this is worth something.

[Dax Shepard]

Now, it's comforting, weirdly, to go like, oh, there's a handful of things that are so beautiful, they're invaluable. Something about that story is appealing.

[Dave Eggers]

Well, and also there are people in between, like art consultants, that will say, this one's appreciating and that one's not. This one's on the downslide and that art artists star is rising. So a lot of it is sort of stock market. Like, it's like vaporware, crypto or whatever, where if we all believe together that this person is on the rise, then we can justify that. And then you do have a lot of manipulation. You'll find the same buyer buys a painting for a million dollars, shows it in some gallery or traveling show, which raises its profile, sells it to some friend for 10 million, who sells it again for 20 and every. Everybody's sort of in on this, creating the marketplace. There's a famous story of the Christopher Wool painting that says whatever that quote from Apocalypse now. And it's just type and it's like a long tall painting. Within a handful of years, it went from $800,000 to like $22 million. And it was just like this turning.

[Dax Shepard]

Also, there's no sympathetic victims in any of these cases. You don't really feel bad for someone who has an extra $22 million to get taken advantage of right now. I do want to bring it back to the book for one second to say, though, although Cricket's obviously observing all that madness, Cricket's also experiencing the real value of art in two kind of pivotal moments in the book. One being he gets singled out in high school for this painting of a weasel, right?

[Dave Eggers]

Even before I think they're like 10.

[Dax Shepard]

And that is extremely hurtful to Robert.

[Dave Eggers]

He puts his stepdad or whatever's face on a weasel that's been hit by his roadkill police put on an art. And it's sort of like a PSA about careful on the road or something. So he uses it as a way to get back.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. So he experiences the power of it. And then he's working at this store. He makes a painting of someone that's dear to two people in his life, and it gets hung up. And he experiences the love of art. Right. The transmission of love.

[Dave Eggers]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

So he's felt the power of it. He's felt the love of it. So there are these glimpses of what it's really about, for sure.

[Dave Eggers]

I mean, I think at every step. Cricket in the moment. And I don't know if you've had this experience, but with any art form, I certainly have painting, where you're painting and in the moment, there's nothing better in the world than moving color around a canvas. And you think you're doing some masterpiece every single time, especially if you're really up close to it and you're inhaling the fumes and stuff, and so on every level, and then you back up, and it's a piece of garbage. It does not look like anything like what you intended to do, and it's, like, not working in any way. But how can you sort of, like, stay in that moment when you were in love with the process and what you were doing? And Cricket always is struggling with transferring that moment of being in it to, like, the result, which is never what you want it to be. And then there's that second stage, that artwork being put out into the world, which is often a miserable process that you don't want to have anything to do with. So I think. I think he never masters it, whereas Olympia would. And most people, or a lot of people would master, like, okay, well, I'll figure this out. But he never can transfer the love of what he wants to do in that moment, or a tribute to his friend, or drawing spaceships on the floor of his grandfather's basement, but to something else and do something in public or make a living at it, or master the business side of it. Because the teacher Carpenter at one point is like, probably the most talented guitarist in the world is playing for a Journey cover band in Reno. But there's many different reasons why that person isn't heading up some innovative band. But there's so many other things that you have to do to sort of achieve whatever kind of success, however you might define it. But it's not just talent, and there's a lot of other things showing up on time. There's Having or being burdened by ambition. And Cricket really doesn't have any. Olympia applies this ambition to him. Come on, do this thing. Show up at this one thing. Do more of that. People will buy this. At no point can he do it. And I'm fascinated by those people. And I can't say I know a lot of them. But, like, every so often, you will find some artists in a little town off the beaten path in Alaska, and they just do this brilliant work, but never want to go anywhere else or do anything else here. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

I often ruminate the stories I consider telling. They're my fears. Right. Like, I think about writing a movie about something with children because I'm so afraid of that.

[Dave Eggers]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Do you think some part of you recognizes how fucking precarious the whole thing is? What an improbable result that you have made a living and a good one out of pursuing something artistic in that, you know, somewhere in the back of your mind, like, I could also be cricket.

[Dave Eggers]

Sure. For anybody that has the luck of being able to do this for a living, and it's really just about a publisher saying they'll publish the next thing. That's all there is. That's the hundred percent of the success of it. It's like, really, you're gonna do. Oh, all right, good. And if you can pay the bills, doing it. Won the lottery. But these days, even though not everyone's reading as much as they used to, there are more readers by a factor of a million new people every day than there have ever been in the history of. Of the world. 1900. How many literate people were there? Right. It's a tiny percentage of the globe. And then suddenly we have almost universal literacy around a globe of 8 billion people. So even where some things are getting a little harder, probably the best time ever to be trying to make a living as a writer, because there's just more people, more ways to do it. The Internet gets the books out in different ways. You can get the word out.

[Monica Padman]

There's substack. Now everyone can have their own substack.

[Dave Eggers]

Yeah. If you can make that work, that's income. But in terms of publishing and in terms of it being a time to do this for a living, it's really the very best time in the history of human evolution to try to be a writer making a living. There's more people making a living at it than ever before. Because 1900, you could probably count a few dozen people. Right. As novelists.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. My other last just curiosity is, is I went through this Program the groundlings. I think 3,000 people enter for every 15 that get to the Sunday Company was the number that was given to me. Maybe that's right or wrong. The point is I saw and worked with and met so many people that were better at doing characters than I was. They were better writers than I was. They didn't have some combination of ambition or show up and do whatever. The thing was, I have this kind of weird survivors game guilt. And I could imagine myself writing this book motivated out of that a little bit. In my travels, I met crickets and it's not fair. And I want to honor a cricket.

[Dave Eggers]

Yeah. I mean, I always say to my students, I've met a lot of brilliant first draft writers that will not revise. They do the one thing and that's it. Enjoy my.

[Dax Shepard]

I offer to read it multiple times.

[Dave Eggers]

I. I honor you with my first draft and I'm going to lunch. Those people, we know what happens to them, right? They can't do the work. So humility is a real thing. And I'm not endorsing cricket's way because I don't live that way myself. I'm happy to take feedback. I'm happy to like do the 20 drafts. I want to learn. And I also know how bad my first drafts are. And so when you come up through newspapers, you're beaten down. You have no choice but to be humble. Is they chop every single thing you do. But then it makes you a little bit less precious and a little bit stronger. And you meet deadlines and you work a little harder, you can do an all nighter without a problem. But I think there's so much humility involved. And also knowing. I don't know, I mean the guilt part, I feel bad that.

[Dax Shepard]

That you don't have it?

[Dave Eggers]

That I don't. Well, because I always see it. Anybody that does the work, I see. And I always believe every good book will be published. Published. We're all looking for them as publishers. So if you put in the work and do the 10 drafts or 12 or 15 like the rest of us do, and you listen and there's maybe some spark there, that's something unusual, it'll get published. We're all looking for those books. So I think again, it's the most democratic medium because you don't need a degree in anything to be able to do it.

[Monica Padman]

The problem is people's bar isn't just to get published. It's to be a you, you know, to be a household name. And then that's ego really.

[Dave Eggers]

Depends on who. Then we get into. Like, how do you measure success? For a lot of people, it's publisher will put out your next book, and then they spend a lot of time teaching. Maybe, you know, they're teaching at ucla. That's a great life to have. The luckiest life anybody could ever have is being able to convey what you know to the next generation. You get your books out every few years. Yeah, I have so many friends doing that, and they are unbelievable teachers. Couple at usc. USC has an incredible department. You know, there's so many people making a living at Garden. We have Rita Bullwinkle, the editor of McSweeney's, is a novelist, too, and she's balancing those two things. But that's a very lucky life, too. But there are way more options than there ever were before. Do a little advertising writing. You do a screenplay there. Maybe there's a this, there's that. There's a substack, there's a podcast.

[Dax Shepard]

People are probably writing tweets and they're writing Instagram copy, you know, as a side hustle. People are managing other people's accounts.

[Dave Eggers]

One of the funniest writers I've ever met has been at Facebook for, like, 20 years, writing, like, internal stuff a little brighter, but raising kids on it and doing great. And she's been treated very well. And if she wants to do side stuff, then that's great. What Cricket learns early when he's working at this gallery is that the ambition and the gap between where you want to be and where you reasonably should or could be, that's where misery comes from, is like, I should be this, but I'm not realistic about getting there, or I'm not willing to do the work to get there, or maybe I just don't belong there. Whatever it is, that's where you get the torture to heart artists. And so trying to find, like, where's my equilibrium? What don't I love about this? Cricket learns he can't possibly be at an art opening with his paintings surrounding him, people pouring wine on him or whatever. So how do you rule out. You've probably done this a hundred times. Like, how do you rule out. The thing I really don't like to do is audition, stop and say, okay, well, how do I gravitate to this and put together a different mosaic of the things I really like? And it might be on a different scale. Might not live in New York, but you'd live in Indiana. Whatever. Cut your expenses by 90%. You know, all of these different things, you sort of have to think about it at so many stages of life to be like, well, now that the kids are out of the house, what does life look like for us and how are we happiest as opposed to just moving along at the expected rate of things. But I'm not saying I successfully do this all the time, but periodically you can assess. What do you need to cut out? What miseries can you cut out of your life? They're no longer obligations.

[Dax Shepard]

I just want to say, I just love 826Valencia. I got to see, like, what you've done with these places. The first one, I guess, in the mission, right, to have the lease that you guys had to sell. Shit.

[Dave Eggers]

Yeah. Zoning obligation.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. So they sell pirate stuff, Monica. And it's really just a place for.

[Monica Padman]

Explain that.

[Dax Shepard]

826 Valencia is where kids can come and get tubes tutored and they can get help writing and they get mentorship. But you can't just open up a mentorship clinic in certain zones. You have to sell products in the storefront. So a lot of these locations. Now there's one in Echo park, right?

[Dave Eggers]

Yeah, there's Echo Park Time Travel mart.

[Dax Shepard]

It's a 711 from the way back.

[Dave Eggers]

Do you know how that place was funded?

[Dax Shepard]

How so?

[Dave Eggers]

Judd Apatow's been a supporter. He had an idea one time, he's like, let's do a fundraiser. He had been giving money for years, but he's like, let's do a fundraiser where we parody LA's tendency to pat themselves on the back for any sort of charitable stuff that they do. He's like, let's do a night of good intentions where we honor Seth Rogan. This was a long time ago. He had only done Freaks and Geeks. We're going to honor Seth Rogen for the philanthropic work he's considering doing in the future.

[Dax Shepard]

I love it.

[Dave Eggers]

Will Ferrell gets up and Ben Stiller and like Foo Fighters all in one night. Like, you know, we're so proud of you, Seth, for considering possibly in the future doing something for somebody. And then he gets up and he's like, I have no idea who these people are. I mean, I don't know what 826 is. I don't know any of this stuff. I don't know what anyone's talking about. But Judd charged like $1,000 a plate. And so all the people in LA came. He had the 10 day old flower arrangements from the Golden Globes. He had like Rocky 5 decorations. But it was a really funny night to parody all of that. And then he raised enough money to build the entire center in Echo Park.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, wow.

[Dave Eggers]

Which is like, you know, $250,000 in a night. By parodying LA's self indulgence.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, Self congratulatory indulgence.

[Dave Eggers]

So that one's been open almost 15 years now. It's a beautiful spot after school help publishing. It's been home to a couple generations now of kids that have grown up

[Dax Shepard]

there and they publish. These kids work. These kids get to have published work. And the books are solid. They're fucking. Yeah, it's cool.

[Dave Eggers]

You got a library of 2,000 of these books now up in San Francisco. So if you're ever up there. Yeah, but come by there because it looks like a 7 11. You walk right past it because it's exactly a 7 11. Like bad robot helped decorate it. And then Mac Barnett. Who, the children's book author, he's the ambassador for children's literature right now from the Library of Congress. But he was the guy in charge. He was the executive director at the time. They all built it so you'll walk right past it. But then if you go in, there's a secret door that leads to the back back and then that's the tutoring center. So for kids that get extra help, there's no stigma about it. You know, it's like going into this cool place as opposed to the sterile after school help for kids falling behind sort of spot. So all of the centers around the country have different themes.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, you don't want to be behind a glass window with classmates like looking in.

[Dave Eggers]

I mean, these places exist. It's horrifying. And usually you're paying for that tutoring and to be seen. I won't name these ones that I know of, but it is horrifying. This is all free. Everything's free.

[Dax Shepard]

If people want to support 826Valencia. Is there a website 826Valencia?

[Dave Eggers]

826La is the one down here. 826Boston. Whatever city you happen to live in, we accept money. People wanting to donate it, we still accept it.

[Monica Padman]

That's so awesome.

[Dax Shepard]

It's very cool. I watch a lot of footage of these kids and they have these assignments like go out on the street and interview people right now. And these little kids bump into someone who's like this one. The very first test tube baby.

[Dave Eggers]

That was my class.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, it was your class in San Francisco.

[Dave Eggers]

I sent my kids out to interview the most interesting person they see and they went to a bookstore and they met the woman that says, well, it happened to be the first test tube baby. You got lucky. So they interviewed them, came back, wrote this up. The other thing is, you end up. We have about a thousand tutors down here, so you end up meeting kids that you share the city with, and these kids meet all these caring adults that give a few hours a month. So it sort of tightens the fabric of a city, especially a valley, vast one, where you can feel disconnected by roads and neighborhoods. But there it's like, oh, I saw you live around the corner in Echo Park.

[Dax Shepard]

You see the kids, grocery store. You both there. Yeah.

[Dave Eggers]

It's like, you know, get to know the parents, everybody. And those kids, especially right now when they're being villainized and, like, ostracized because their parents or their immigrants. This is like a way to say, no, you belong. You have all of us. We're all behind you. You got thousand advocates, you got a thousand allies. Come to us. And so these are real safe hate havens. Especially in the last 10, 12 years, the work has been a lot more urgent.

[Ad]

Yeah.

[Dave Eggers]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

The last thing that's very frivolous and not philanthropically motivated is. Did you go to the Jetpack Academy?

[Dave Eggers]

Yeah, in Moore Park, California. You've been there?

[Dax Shepard]

I have not. I didn't know one could receive training for jetpack flight.

[Dave Eggers]

So it's still there. I mean, you're only like an hour away. You gotta go.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Dave Eggers]

It's in an avocado farm.

[Dax Shepard]

What's the propulsion system?

[Dave Eggers]

Jet fuel.

[Dax Shepard]

It is an actual jet.

[Dave Eggers]

It looks exactly like the cartoon of a jetpack.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Dave Eggers]

He's modeled it after every. Every image you ever saw in sci fi. And a version of it was in the Olympics back in, like, 1980.

[Dax Shepard]

The guy came in and landed in the. Yeah.

[Dave Eggers]

So it looks the same. There's this crazy Australian guy that made his version of it. And you've got whatever, 12 pounds of jet fuel or however you measure it on your back in the two things, but you're on a tether. So you're testing it in the middle of this avocado farm. And, you know, there's a. You know, a landing strip. You know, you pull the throttle, you do a little bit of this and that, and then you're on a tether, which makes it extremely difficult because it. It catches.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Dave Eggers]

And then.

[Dax Shepard]

So it can't really get a feel for it.

[Dave Eggers]

No. It's not as romantic as you want it to be. And then it burns the absolute shit out of your feet because, like, this got jet Fuel coming and it's spreading out on the concrete where your feet are. So it's not a super romantic process. I really like experimental flight. I've tried a lot of different weird.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Are you into the drone are going to work? I'm watching people fly drones around any minute.

[Dave Eggers]

Those are the most promising. The problem is fuel. And like how do you carry enough to take you really as far as you want to go? They all have pretty limited scopes.

[Dax Shepard]

What I almost did up in Ventura is the motor paragliding. Yeah, that interests me. And you can do that in a weekend.

[Dave Eggers]

I've done ultralights, so that's more like a motorcycle with a hang glider on top of it. But my friends that know what they're talking about say that with the. They're called parasailing. No, it's not parasailing, but that's the better view.

[Dax Shepard]

It's like motor and paragliding mashed up.

[Dave Eggers]

It's got that sort of fan in the back.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. I watched a dude land on the beach in Malibu. I started talking to him like, where did you take off? He's like, oh, I took off from Thousand Oaks.

[Monica Padman]

And I'm like, this isn't that thing where you're like in like the bat suit and all these people die?

[Dax Shepard]

No, that's a wing suit. And those are deadly. Yeah, Everyone that does it dies. This is. You have a paragliding parachute above you and then you have a gas engine on back with a fan and it propels you and you can fly. Oh, another. I was doing this movie without a padd. The stunt coordinator had shipped his to New Zealand and we had to go into this jungle. It was either an hour and a half drive or they started helicoptering us because it took so long. And this dude was flying from his hotel his motorized paraglider to work. And I'm like, what a stud. Look at this.

[Dave Eggers]

If you have a field that can land on any kind of field, you see a lot of. In like Nebraska. That's where they fly a lot of those.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dave Eggers]

And you don't even need a license because it's ultralight. It's below the category where you need a license. But I check every time they get a little bit closer to where one of these. They're super expensive still. I mean the real drone technology is like half a million dollars or something.

[Dax Shepard]

And I need a really good self deploying parachute that noticed I'm falling quicker than I would want to fall.

[Dave Eggers]

Yeah, yeah. I mean it's fun to go see the jetpack. The other problem with it is that you can only carry enough. Even if you knew how to fly it. The problem is you can only carry enough fuel for two, three minutes.

[Dax Shepard]

Right, right, right.

[Dave Eggers]

So that's why you never see them anywhere. Because it's like, you know, you're back, but it's kind of fun.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, Dave, even though you don't like talking about yourself, we got through it. I want to applaud you. We did it. Thank you very much. You revealed just enough for us.

[Dave Eggers]

So gentle.

[Dax Shepard]

I think you're just a beautiful writer and contra posto is in keeping with all of your really wonderful work. So I hope everyone checks that out. What a delight to meet you. I've been hearing about you from Kimmel and you deliver.

[Dave Eggers]

Thanks so much. Thanks for having me.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Dave Eggers]

See you, guys.

[Dax Shepard]

Just a quick reminder that as part of our summer break here's a rerun of one of our favorite fact checks from your picture board.

[Monica Padman]

No, this one wasn't on my board.

[Dax Shepard]

This one's impromptu.

[Dave Eggers]

Oh, wow.

[Dax Shepard]

Improvised. It's great. You know, it's funny. As I was in the shower today and I've been ordering a lot of slacks. You've seen me in them. There's new slacks.

[Ad]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Drawstring. Little baggier trousers. Trousers. Pantalunas. Multiple colors.

[Lincoln]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

All this is say, I get them, I like them. I put them in my closet and they're gone forever.

[Monica Padman]

You forget about them.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, I wear the same two that are in front of me. And I actually was thinking in the shower, like, I need to do what Monica does. Or just another thought I had is, like, lay out seven outfits and that's what I'm gonna wear that week. Have you ever tried that technique?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, that's a common technique.

[Dax Shepard]

It's very common. Okay, so I didn't discover anything.

[Monica Padman]

No, you did. You're on the brink.

[Dave Eggers]

You're on the press.

[Monica Padman]

You should, because it's healthy stupid to buy clothes and not wear them.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, and then I think, I don't have any because I wear the same two pants that I like. And then I get more. And then as I'm putting those away, they're next to brand new other pants I bought that I like.

[Dave Eggers]

And it's a guy thing because I'm the same way with my pants.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, you are?

[Ad]

I don't care.

[Monica Padman]

I don't think it's a guy thing. I think it's a everyone thing. Like, people have their go to jeans and their go to. You forget when you buy new Stuff to mix it up unless you. You commit yourself. Like, I have to fashion. Did you see my closet video?

[Dax Shepard]

This could be. No.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my gosh. I posted a closet video.

[Dave Eggers]

Oh.

[Dax Shepard]

And does it include your photographs?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, wow.

[Monica Padman]

It's a bit regretful because it was also impromptu, improvised. Very random. Jess came over.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

And I was telling him about my fashion endeavors, and then I was like, oh, I should show you my closet. So then I was doing that, and then he was filming, and so you

[Dax Shepard]

didn't even realize it was something that you might post, but then you saw, and you're like, I'm gonna post it. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

I was like, oh, it's funny, but it is funny. It's not aspirational. Yeah, I know. I know. It's sad.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, you got to stay a little relatable.

[Monica Padman]

That's true. You know, I am relatable because right now, my clothes smell bad. This outfit smells bad.

[Lincoln]

Oh, God. God.

[Dax Shepard]

What kind of stink?

[Monica Padman]

I. I don't know if it's from the dry cleaning.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, I did walk, so the sweat probably made it worse.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, it sounds like sweat.

[Monica Padman]

Well, that's great.

[Dax Shepard]

Pheromones.

[Monica Padman]

It doesn't. It smells like a weird smell. And the sweat, I think, exacerbated it.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. If you had to compare the smell to something, could you.

[Monica Padman]

Well, then I wondered, like, is it moth smell? But then I don't know what moth smell is.

[Dave Eggers]

No.

[Dax Shepard]

Are you thinking of mothballs?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Moths don't smell. Mothballs smell to repel moths.

[Dave Eggers]

Oh, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

That's the thing I always curious about. There's always kids in school whose mothers just chalk their closets full of mothballs, and then they reek like mothballs because

[Monica Padman]

it's human repellent as well, because it's nasty. Okay, well, that makes me feel good. It's not moths. I thought mothballs were made from moths.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, okay.

[Monica Padman]

I thought they, like, were sure left behind little boys, like spiders, you know, like, they leave wet legs. Anyway, so it's not that. So it's the dry cleaner.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, well, okay.

[Monica Padman]

It definitely is. I've noticed it on a lot of my clothes lately.

[Dax Shepard]

This makes me think of something that I don't think I should share, but I'm going to. So I was in my Miami trip, and I have a system. When I travel, I throw all my dirty clothes in the corner of whatever room I'm inhabiting. And at the end of the trip, I have two sides of my suitcase. I keep all the fresh ones on one side, and I put all the dirties in a ball in the other side. Then when I get home, I just take that ball, I put it in the hamper, and then I put away my fresh clothes. So I had showered, I did very minimal things, and I went to work out, and then I, you know, I pe next to the garage. About today. No, no. This is maybe a week and a half ago. It was after Miami.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

This resulted from Miami.

[Lincoln]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

I think I know you do.

[Monica Padman]

I think I can continue.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, take a guess. That could be fun.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, so you peed by the garage, and when you peed by the garage, you took your underwear down. And when you looked at the underwear, it was definitely dirty because one of the dirty clumps moved into the clean clump.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, close.

[Monica Padman]

There was poop stains. No.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. Okay. So I guess it's not that bad. Oh, I don't, in general, have shit streaks.

[Monica Padman]

I wouldn't guess that about you. Yeah, I mean, you're pretty clean.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm pretty meticulous. Well, just specifically, I don't even think I'm that clean. My anus is an obsession of mine. You know, I have the bidet, I have the Brondel, and I squirt water in there, and I'm just.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, you put your fingers.

[Dax Shepard]

I do rub my finger on that. People don't like that, but I do. You know, it. I put my finger on it in the shower, I clean it, and then I use toilet paper to dry off, and then I wash my hands.

[Ad]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so, okay, so I peed next to the garage, and then I went in, and then I sniffed my fingers, as you do.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

I thought, oh, my God, there's a little bit of, like, ball smell like I would, which I don't. Again, I also don't really ever get stinky balls. I have to not showered for a few days to get that.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

But I just showered that morning. I was like, what the fuck? How could I already have stinky undercarriage when I just showered? It was dry, driving me bonkers. Right. And then I peed another time, and I'm like, God damn it. It's there. Maybe it's even worse. Oh, Now I'm consumed with it. So when I finish my workout, I'm like, I'm gonna have to shower. Well, actually, I didn't think I'm gonna have to shower again. I thought, I'm gonna have to wash my testicles and penis in the sink, which I sometimes do.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

And so I went upstairs, and I was about to do that, and all Of a sudden, I just thought, oh, my God, I'm gonna smell my underwear. I took off my underwear. Underwears. Lordy Lord. What's obvious is they were not clean.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

So although I was very clean, I put on my undies, and it. It contaminated my testicles, and my dirty

[Monica Padman]

one made its way into the clean.

[Dax Shepard]

That's exactly right.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

And I'll add, I can't remember having pantaloonies, undercarriage, men's unmentionables that even smelled that bad.

[Monica Padman]

Right. Why would it smell that bad?

[Dax Shepard]

Well, Miami. Okay. Sweat, very hot, very, very humid.

[Monica Padman]

Sure.

[Dax Shepard]

Then take them off. And they're. God knows, you know, and they're just not getting any better smelling. And then they're in the. Oh, God. Anyways, what a humiliation.

[Monica Padman]

What? You were by yourself. At least.

[Dax Shepard]

That's true. That's true. I'm like you. I go to the worst place. Like, I have a headache. Okay. I got a tumor. So I'm like, oh, my God. Now I'm someone whose balls stink three hours after the shower.

[Monica Padman]

That's scary.

[Dax Shepard]

What's happening with me hormonally. You know, I'm going to all these crazy explanations, never even thinking, maybe my panties smell. And they did.

[Monica Padman]

Wow. Well, that's an easy fix. So, best case.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. I haven't experienced it since. But now I'm a little shook about that pair of panties. And I love that pair of panties. They're dark black with very colorful hearts on them. So I wore them the other day, and I sniff, sniff. Because I was like, were they clean? And they're permanently.

[Dave Eggers]

Something's wrong with them.

[Dax Shepard]

But then I sniff snow. Sniff, sniff. Clean as a cucumber. But I had some anxiety all day. I was like. Every time I peed, I was like.

[Monica Padman]

You thought maybe it was gonna get released?

[Dax Shepard]

Yes, I just. Cause I had had that traumatic experience.

[Dave Eggers]

Sure. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Well, you know, I mean, there's reason to fear, because sometimes when pheromones get crossed, weird stuff can happen.

[Dax Shepard]

I think you're referencing when you borrow a girlfriend's shirt. That's true. The girlfriend doesn't have bo0. And you don't have bo I hope.

[Monica Padman]

I don't.

[Dax Shepard]

You don't. I've known you for a few. Quite. Quite a while. Never smelled B.O. on you. And then.

[Monica Padman]

But when I wear the shirt, I do have B.O. i have, like a. It smells crazy, but it's the mixture of the pheromones.

[Dave Eggers]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

And you have a.

[Dax Shepard]

You know, which friends you can't share tops with. Callie's One of them, right? Is she one of them?

[Monica Padman]

No, she's not.

[Dax Shepard]

It's not gross because neither of you have be.

[Monica Padman]

I know, but it's not her. Ding, ding, ding. Callie, this is relevant. So I had dinner with her.

[Dave Eggers]

Her.

[Monica Padman]

And she just got out of COVID And during COVID she got really into Drive to survive.

[Dax Shepard]

She did not.

[Monica Padman]

Yes. So her mx, yeah, they've been watching it. And so she was, you know, cross referencing with me a lot. Like, okay, what do you like this person? Do you like this person? Who do you like? You know, that type of thing.

[Dax Shepard]

And then she had probably a whole new jealousy that you're friends with Daniel Ricardo.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, this is what I'm getting.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my gosh.

[Monica Padman]

No, you're not gonna like it. Okay, okay. So she said, what teams? And I said, I just like whatever Danny's on. He's my favorite. And she was like, really? And I was like, yeah. What do you mean? I was like, I'd love Danny. He's the best one. And she was like, oh, he seems. He seems a little full of himself. And then I said, oh, my God. That's the thing Dax was talking about on the show where some people think. Think he's sincere about that, I guess, or something. And I was like, oh, that's that thing. Then I told her that he's perfect and lovely and very nice, and she said, oh, I was wrong.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, nicest manners in the world. Gentle boy, not arrogant at all. No, that's his character.

[Monica Padman]

I am. I had to correct that. I had to write that wrong. She was receptive to it.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, good. And I'm glad she was flying flexible in her judgment. Who does she love?

[Monica Padman]

She likes sayings.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, sure. When you look at sayings, you go, this is. This guy is dirty.

[Monica Padman]

I do think that when I see him. But I think the same thing about Leclerc. Like, they all stink bad.

[Dax Shepard]

No, not stink.

[Dave Eggers]

No, no, no.

[Dax Shepard]

Stop saying that. You're perpetuating a false rumor. I'm saying, like, nasty. Like, get in the bedroom. He's throwing you all around, moving your body, doing all kinds of advanced Spanish lovemaking techniques. That's what I think, okay? I think she's responding to his carnal sex appeal. Okay, maybe, like, Leclerc is much better looking than signs.

[Monica Padman]

Well, that's all in the eye of the beholder.

[Dax Shepard]

To me. I'm only speaking for myself, okay? I think Leclerc is much cuter than signs. But if I had to guess, there were 10 volunteers who slept with both of them. My Guess would be Signs comes out as the best.

[Ad]

Her lover.

[Dax Shepard]

That is my spidey sense intuition.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, you're worried about me perpetuating rumors

[Dax Shepard]

that he's a good lover.

[Monica Padman]

Well, that also. That leclerc is not.

[Dax Shepard]

Didn't say that.

[Monica Padman]

No, basically did not say. That's what he's going to hear.

[Dax Shepard]

No, he's not. I. What he's going to hear is I think he's better looking. And then I think that Signs is a little bit better of a lover. Although leclerc is a very generous lover. Although. No, last time I was talking about like Clark, I was. I was hypothesizing that he was a two pump chump.

[Monica Padman]

Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

For fun.

[Monica Padman]

You've really made it clear you think he's bad.

[Dax Shepard]

No, I love Leclerc. Anyway, he's in my top three drivers.

[Monica Padman]

What if I said, you know, Dax is obviously better looking, but I would much rather have sex with. Oh yeah, you hate that.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, hold on now. Let's just be real. That was really good.

[Dave Eggers]

It was kind of a cheap.

[Monica Padman]

But also Bradley Cooper would be mad that I said the other part.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, so what you would need to say though, it's got to be identical. You'd say you're much better looking than Bradley. But I think if you and Bradley had sex with 10 women, the women would prefer having sex with Bradley.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

And that's still rough.

[Monica Padman]

I guess.

[Dax Shepard]

That's rough, but not as bad as what you just said before. When I say she's way better than you.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, that's what you're saying.

[Dax Shepard]

I didn't say that. Stop putting words in my mouth. I said that Signs is preferred, not way better.

[Monica Padman]

You are splitting hairs.

[Dax Shepard]

Uhhuh. I am. Okay, that's the. That's what we do here with nuance.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Non binary.

[Lincoln]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

Preferred. I'll change my verbiage to preferred.

[Dave Eggers]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

10 girls would prefer sleeping with Bradley over.

[Dax Shepard]

You preferred the experience.

[Monica Padman]

The experience. They had sex with both of you and they prefer the. You'd hate it.

[Lincoln]

Of course.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, of course I'd hate it.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

You know what a good question is? We're getting somewhere good. We're actually. We're approaching something good.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

So here's a. Here's an option. You only get one of these two. Great looking or great in bed. What would you rather be known for?

[Monica Padman]

Oh, known for.

[Dax Shepard]

I know for me what it is.

[Monica Padman]

Well, I know for you what it is.

[Dax Shepard]

What is it?

[Monica Padman]

Good in bed.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh yeah, of course. Because that's where the rubber meets the road.

[Monica Padman]

I think every. I think everyone would rather be good in bed.

[Dax Shepard]

I don't know. I think some people who don't really give a fuck about sex, they're not super sexual. They'd rather just walk through the world being super attractive and people smiling at them and buying them drinks and whatnot. And they're like, I don't care if I'm good in bed. I'm good enough. Now, what would you rather be, Robbie? Good in bed?

[Ad]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Good. Three for three.

[Monica Padman]

The hard thing is, if you're. If you're not good looking, it's hard to prove you're good in bed. This is the conundrum.

[Dax Shepard]

Right. Anyway, so does she want to start watch. Is she going to start watching races and Cali?

[Monica Padman]

She wants to. I think now she's in. She loves it.

[Dax Shepard]

Great.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, I might have to have him over for a race day.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, they would love that. Max asked if I liked Pierre Gasly.

[Dax Shepard]

So also, here's my brother's favorite.

[Monica Padman]

Really?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, he loves them.

[Monica Padman]

I said he looked greasy, but then Max said, no, it was just a sweat from driving.

[Dax Shepard]

They're playing a sport basically. Like, you would never call a basketball player sweaty.

[Monica Padman]

No, I didn't call him sweaty. Greasy.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, greasy.

[Monica Padman]

That's a different.

[Dax Shepard]

That's got a little bit of a potentially a racist connotation.

[Monica Padman]

Why? He's white.

[Dax Shepard]

I know, but there are certain populations of white people that have racial reputation of being greasy.

[Monica Padman]

Who?

[Dax Shepard]

I'll tell you off the air, but I'm not going to do it here.

[Monica Padman]

Tell me.

[Dax Shepard]

No.

[Monica Padman]

Anyway, okay, so Max likes Pierre.

[Dax Shepard]

Does anyone like Max?

[Monica Padman]

No. Oh, that's pretty universal. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Wow.

[Monica Padman]

He's so arrogant.

[Dax Shepard]

Dax, he's not even arrogant. That is not the word I would use to describe him.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Like, he never says he's great.

[Monica Padman]

That's not for me.

[Dax Shepard]

First of all, he's the best driver in Formula one.

[Monica Padman]

I don't disagree.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. And he doesn't even even really say that.

[Monica Padman]

I don't love a off attitude in general in life. I'm not attracted to anyone who's like that.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Monica Padman]

He carries himself like that. So for me.

[Dax Shepard]

I know, but you love Michael Jordan. Like Michael Jordan was punching his teammates in practice.

[Monica Padman]

But Michael Jordan does not have a off attitude. He's not like, go ahead.

[Dax Shepard]

If someone who doesn't know as much as him tells him what to do, he has a very off attitude. And that's what you see with Max. Quite.

[Lincoln]

But he would.

[Monica Padman]

But even just the way he talks to, like, interviewers he refuses to play the game even a little bit. And I don't like that. I'm like, these are fans. These are people who are paying a lot of money to see you.

[Dax Shepard]

Can you cut him a little bit of a cultural break? That he's Dutch. They don't do the pleasantry thing. Everyone in the Netherlands, in the north, they don't believe in the. In the little small talk, the pleasantries. They get right to it.

[Monica Padman]

I don't believe in small talk either. I hate it. But you are a popular sports figure making a ton of money, doing exactly what you love. You have a great life. Just be a little. Just be a little nicer.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay? I'm just going to make an argument for him, okay, which is he's not paid to do any of that stuff. He is paid to win races for Red Bull. Hold on. You said your p. Okay. He has one job, win races. That is his job and that's why he gets paid more money. If you wanted a PR guy, you should have hired a PR guy. If you want a guy that thinks about nothing but winning races, is a psychopath about winning races, then hire me and I'll go win races. But if you need a guy to go sell Red Bull as a beverage or sell Formula one as a sport, I'm not the dude I care about a single thing when winning races. I respect that. Okay. That was my piece.

[Monica Padman]

I get it. I get what you're saying. I. It's not attractive to watch someone be rude or short with. Everyone could care less when people are excited. Like, it's. It's to me, very off putting.

[Dax Shepard]

Even when he wins, though. Do you ever listen on the radio when he wins? Like when he comes across the finish line and they'll go like, that was P1 max. And I'll go, all right. Whoa, that was a good race. That's it. The other people are like doing backflips in the car and screaming and stuff. He's just a very, you know, robotic.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, yeah, I'm. I'm not trying to convince you to not like him.

[Dax Shepard]

You know, like, I don't think you are.

[Monica Padman]

Love him. You can keep loving him, but not my preferred personality.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, right.

[Monica Padman]

I like Dan Danny, who's nice and kind and always looking out for the little guy and who's conscientious. I like that personality. That's what I'm drawn to. One of the questions lobbed my way was, what do you think of Will Blank? I forget his last name. The journalist on Drive to Survive back Up.

[Dax Shepard]

What Now?

[Monica Padman]

That was a question from Cali to me.

[Lincoln]

Oh.

[Monica Padman]

You know, like, what do you think of this person? What do you think of this person?

[Lincoln]

What do you think of this?

[Monica Padman]

Think of Will Buxton, the journalist.

[Dax Shepard]

That's great. He's handsome. The English dude, right?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, he's very handsome. He kind of looks like a driver a little bit. She's deep if she wants to know. Will Bu.

[Dave Eggers]

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. What does Ashante mean? Ashante means nice to meet you.

[Dax Shepard]

Nice to meet you. I can't really say it to you because I. I met you a long time ago.

[Monica Padman]

I know. It also does. It does say enchanted.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, good. Maybe we get enchanted from that. It's a very elegant word.

[Monica Padman]

It is.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

It's greasy. Farts on an airplane.

[Dax Shepard]

Like snakes on a plane. Farts on a plane.

[Lincoln]

Mm.

[Monica Padman]

Why you fart so much on planes? And how is that?

[Dax Shepard]

How? I was saying, why you fart? Why do you.

[Monica Padman]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, it's why you fart. It's an answer, not a question.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. This says. As it turns out, there is a scientific reason people often fart more while traveling on planes or climbing high mountains. And it's even got a name. High altitude flattest expulsion. Flatis expulsion, the gastrointestinal syndrome, was described in a 1981 study as characterized by an increase in both the volume and the frequency of the passage of flatus, which spontaneously occurs while climbing to altitudes of 11,000ft or greater.

[Dax Shepard]

I've never heard flatulence just shortened to flatus. Oh, my God. Excuse my flatus.

[Monica Padman]

That study found that as air pressure decreases at higher altitudes, gases inside your body, body expand and need to be let out. Although it was based more on being up in the mountains than inside a pressurized plane. But additionally, a 2013 study that had participants record how often they farted while driving up an Australian mountain hypothesized that quickly moving from a low altitude to a higher one draws more carbon dioxide into your gut.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, wow.

[Monica Padman]

Isn't that great?

[Dax Shepard]

It is. You know, and if you think about it, it's the reverse of the bends.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

So you have less pressure on you. So the gas comes out, but you have extra pressure on you. It condenses it so much. And get in your bloodstream. Less pressure in your asshole. More pressure in your bloodstream. Keep it in your asshole, folks.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, man.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, Jesus. Okay, this is the transish.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, so backstory.

[Dax Shepard]

Almost the second after I said that the bends is on the opposite scale,

[Monica Padman]

we stop down as we say in the biz, what do we call it? Stop down.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, I didn't know that.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, wow. Okay. I taught you some things.

[Ad]

Cool.

[Monica Padman]

Stop down. And we did a really cool interview, and then things got cray.

[Dax Shepard]

Then we stopped up, and all of a sudden, the kids were home from school.

[Monica Padman]

Yes. So this next section of the fact check includes some. Some guests.

[Dax Shepard]

It's chaos. Please enjoy the chaos.

[Monica Padman]

We had just finished farts on an airplane,

[Lincoln]

and I don't know who it was, but it was suspecting.

[Dax Shepard]

Here, sit over here, love. So someone ripped in class, and you were trying to figure out who it was.

[Lincoln]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

This is a ding, ding, ding to our fart story, because what happened today?

[Lincoln]

But I was just sitting there, and everything's normal. We are redoing our multiplication unit. And then I just smelled something in the air, and I was like, oh, it's just a small. And then it came at me. It came at me so far.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, no. It grew and grew.

[Lincoln]

Yeah, I had to stop, stand up, and pretend to stretch.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, really?

[Lincoln]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Did you look around the classroom to make eye contact with other people? Like, are you smelling this, too?

[Lincoln]

I have farted in weird places, so I know what position I love to sit in when I fart. So it just is silent. I saw the people sitting next to me, and I looked at Harper, and she was sitting on her knees, and I said, that's not a good place to fart. It would have, like, skinned against your feet, so it would have made a loud sound. Sound. Oh, right.

[Monica Padman]

Really good sleuthing.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Lincoln]

And then I looked at Draven, and she was sitting in the crisscross applesauce.

[Dax Shepard]

I was like, no way.

[Lincoln]

No, you're just sitting on too much weight.

[Dax Shepard]

So then that'd be thunderous. If you farted during crisscross applesauce. It would be like a trumpet in your pants.

[Lincoln]

And then I looked at Dylan, and he was sitting. Sitting like he was hugging his knees. Technically, I was like, that's not a good place to farm.

[Dax Shepard]

Also a blast. That'd be a trumpet.

[Monica Padman]

Unless you. Unless you rolled up a little bit.

[Lincoln]

You're right.

[Dax Shepard]

You know, imagine pulling your. Your knees tight to your chest. It would be like. Yeah, it would fucking. What you're trying to get is like your buns is pushed together as possible. No pressure anywhere in your body so you can let it leak out.

[Dave Eggers]

Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

You don't you want to tell them?

[Lincoln]

Wait, you guys.

[Monica Padman]

I have a much. This is fascinating. I have a much different tactic for silent fart.

[Lincoln]

Yes.

[Monica Padman]

I Want the butt cheeks to be spread, splayed open?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Oh, so you'll what, do the splits?

[Monica Padman]

No, I mean, I guess I don't really fart in public anymore.

[Dax Shepard]

Have you bent over and sprayed your butt cheeks and then it smelled a minute later? You might as well just made a noise.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, normally I do this if I'm in like a public bathroom.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, okay.

[Monica Padman]

So I can use my hands.

[Dax Shepard]

And you spread your butt cheeks apart physically. Oh my God, that's great. Oh, wow, that's wonderful. Was anyone doing that? Lincoln?

[Lincoln]

Not that I saw. And then I identify the culprit.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, and what was it? A male or a female?

[Lincoln]

It was a female. Female.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, and how.

[Lincoln]

Good for her.

[Dax Shepard]

I will say, me too. I was afraid you were only going to blame it on a dude cuz we're gross. But you are. I'm the worst. What kind of position was she in?

[Lincoln]

I'm just slowly lifting up my butt. Her butt was like high, so.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, wow. Okay. Wow. I'm impressed. You figured it out. And then did she ask to go to the back like five minutes after that?

[Lincoln]

No, but then I actually had to pee during that time, so maybe I thought. Oh no. Did somebody think it was.

[Monica Padman]

Were you scared?

[Lincoln]

I actually had to go to the bathroom before the fart came. And TJ said I can't go right now, so wait, two minutes.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh boy.

[Lincoln]

And then the person started just letting it air out. It was like load and load and load.

[Monica Padman]

Wow.

[Lincoln]

There was this one time where I thought it was was gone and I was like, fresh air.

[Monica Padman]

And then new round, second wave.

[Lincoln]

And it was even worse than the first.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, oh, oh, oh.

[Lincoln]

And I feel like it was another person. This was also a female. She. She always points out farts when somebody fart and she did not point at that.

[Monica Padman]

So whoever smelt it dealt it. Oh no, that's the opposite.

[Lincoln]

But she was sitting in crisscross applesauce, so maybe she lifted up her butt.

[Dax Shepard]

She might have a different technique like Monica, but I have to say that's really good proof. If she's always busting people about farting and it stunk in there like a dead raccoon. And she was quiet. That's very incriminating.

[Monica Padman]

Unless the teacher pulled her aside at one point and said, please don't do that anymore. It's embarrassing for the students. And I wish the teacher would do that because I.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, you should be embarrassed for farting and stinking up the classroom. Sure, but we must agree some things are embarrassing in society because this Is what I think I feel bad for you kids is, like, you're in your home, you've been farting since you were born. We don't care at all. We think it's funny. And then we send you to this box that you sit in with other kids, and we haven't even told you it's not cool to fart in public. And you gotta learn the hard way.

[Monica Padman]

Right?

[Dax Shepard]

Like, didn't. Did you ever get embarrassed at any point? Like, did. Did you rip one at any point that someone busted you?

[Lincoln]

No, nobody caught me.

[Dax Shepard]

You just knew somehow to keep them on the down. Down low.

[Lincoln]

Unless I accidentally didn't know it was coming.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, sure.

[Dax Shepard]

Surprise. Fart.

[Lincoln]

Yeah, that was a good fart. Ho.

[Monica Padman]

That was good of that. I'm. I'm impressed.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

I do think maybe it's evolutionary that we know not to do that in front of strangers. We'll get removed from the group.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, you'll be exiled because of stinkiness. Yeah, it's a good reason. You look like zazzy today, Zizzy.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, thank you.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, quick last question. How frequently do you smell farts in the classroom? Is it every day?

[Lincoln]

There's only been, I don't know, three or four or five farts this month.

[Dax Shepard]

That's not bad at all.

[Lincoln]

People have. When you're holding them in or just haven't had to fart. Okay.

[Monica Padman]

Do you think it correlates to the school lunch?

[Dax Shepard]

Great theory. Like, whatever. Hot lunch is like cabbage, kimchi.

[Lincoln]

The weird thing is, a lot of people fart before lunch.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, that's interesting. Breakfast farts.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, maybe they didn't evacuate in the morning.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, they're not on a good sketch.

[Dax Shepard]

Who's there?

[Lincoln]

Delta?

[Dax Shepard]

ID money.

[Lincoln]

Oh, she fell.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, no. She left.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. Purple hair. We did this beautiful purple hair.

[Dax Shepard]

So good. Oh, and it matches your sweater.

[Monica Padman]

You look like a little rock star.

[Dax Shepard]

You look like a little rat. Delta, did you smell any farts in your class today?

[Lincoln]

Coffee thingy? Teddy bear.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, yeah, that's a Starbucks teddy bear. But it has to stay in here because David brought it for the attic. You can come up here and play with it.

[Monica Padman]

It's also. That's fine.

[Lincoln]

She does.

[Dax Shepard]

That's from New Zealand, my love. That's from a far away country. Like 17 hours in an airplane away. But you can come up here and play with. It'll make you. It'll give you something to look forward to when you come up here. But did anyone fart in your class today, Delta? Oh, cry mini. Now you got chocolates. Yes. Those come from New Zealand as well.

[Monica Padman]

They're not that good.

[Dax Shepard]

They're not good at all. They're terrible. Don't tell David. It's like a skittle. A chocolate Skittle.

[Lincoln]

Those sound bad.

[Dax Shepard]

Mikey likes it.

[Lincoln]

You want to take it?

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, boy. When's the last time you smelt a bad fart?

[Lincoln]

Friday.

[Dax Shepard]

Friday. And what happened?

[Lincoln]

I just smelled a toot.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, you did?

[Monica Padman]

When you smell a toot in class, do you say, ew, somebody farted. Or do you just keep it to yourself?

[Lincoln]

I just keep it to myself.

[Monica Padman]

That's nice.

[Lincoln]

That's nicest.

[Monica Padman]

Yes, exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

How often do you fart in class?

[Lincoln]

20 times a day.

[Dax Shepard]

20 times a day. So it does smell like farts in the classroom. Just your farts?

[Lincoln]

Yeah, pretty much.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Well, you're making a real name for yourself. Cause you got purple hair and you're farting 20 times a day. I think the sky's the limit for you.

[Lincoln]

Wait, what is this? What are we on?

[Dax Shepard]

We're on television right now.

[Monica Padman]

They can see us. We're doing a podcast. And then Lincoln was up here, so we invited her to chit chat.

[Dax Shepard]

You know, after the interview is a fact check. So just Monica and I talk. She and Monica bust me on what facts I got wrong.

[Monica Padman]

A fart check.

[Dax Shepard]

This has become a fart check.

[Lincoln]

Yeah, but why did it end?

[Monica Padman]

Oh, I do have, like.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, well, listen. Why don't you guys shut up and listen to Monica and you guys will learn.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, wow.

[Lincoln]

So now you're shutting me up. You know, this is what boys do, I think, because I was explaining a math problem today and Draven didn't get it. And then Dylan said, don't worry, I'll explain it. And I said, excuse me, this is my problem. I can explain it.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, there you go.

[Monica Padman]

I'm proud of you for doing that. Yeah, you can explain it. You're capable.

[Dax Shepard]

Boys are the worst. That's why you guys don't want.

[Lincoln]

No one wants to sleep with dad.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. No one wants to snuggle.

[Lincoln]

Daddy absolutely wants to sleep with dad

[Monica Padman]

because of the farts.

[Lincoln]

No, no, those are bad also.

[Monica Padman]

But I feel so bad for dad.

[Lincoln]

He has to sleep with his stuff.

[Dax Shepard]

That's what they. No one wants to sleep with me at night. They're fight to sleep with Mom. And I said, you guys, how do you think I feel? I always have to sleep with Daddy.

[Monica Padman]

Let's just be practical about it. What about sleeping with Mommy is better?

[Lincoln]

Mommy, I don't know.

[Dax Shepard]

She's just not Daddy, which is enough.

[Monica Padman]

Lincoln, you were so little. Three, maybe, or four. And I was carrying you and you said, did you poop my pants? No. Well, sure I can't. I cleaned up lots of your poop. But I was carrying you. And you said something like, I can't hold you like a mom holds you. And I was so sad. But it was also the truth.

[Lincoln]

I know.

[Dax Shepard]

These kids are heartbreakers.

[Lincoln]

This is very recent. Well, not very recent. This was when we were in the old house and I was in the bathtub. I didn't know why, but this fart just came up and said hello. And I turned around to grab the shampoo poo and I found that I pooped in the bathtub.

[Monica Padman]

That'll happen.

[Dax Shepard]

These things happen from time to time.

[Lincoln]

Linka. Did you name your poop?

[Monica Padman]

You had a baby?

[Dave Eggers]

A poop baby.

[Dax Shepard]

We have a pee baby. Monica and I have a pee baby. So why not have a poop baby?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, that's right.

[Lincoln]

What's a pee baby?

[Monica Padman]

A pee baby is I peed in a toilet and there's no flush. And then Daddy had to pee, so he peed. So then our pees were in the same toilet and never flushed. So they turned into a baby.

[Dax Shepard]

You said it turned into a pee baby.

[Monica Padman]

Lives at my house.

[Dax Shepard]

Still there. Just getting out of kindergarten at this point, I think. Can I tell the one story about you, Delta?

[Lincoln]

Yeah. Are you ready? I love this story.

[Dax Shepard]

I was putting you guys to bed. Delta, you were probably three, and you said, oh, I gotta poop. I said, oh, okay. You went in and you took a poop and it was the size of a moose's poop. Like, I thought a moose had pooped in the toilet. And I said, oh, my God, honey. When's the last time you pooped? And you're like, I couldn't. I don't remember. It was the biggest poop you'd ever taken. So then I put you in your diaper, and then I put you in bed, and I put Lincoln in bed. And we read a book and we snuggle. And then I go outside, I shut the door and I just turned on the tv. And all of a sudden I heard, daddy, I farted. Is diarrhea. And then I went in there, I thought, how could you have possibly just had diarrhea? You just had an entire evac. I went in there, I picked you up, your diaper was completely ruined. I took you into the bathroom, if you remember, and you had poop on your back.

[Dave Eggers]

Butt crack.

[Monica Padman]

And you had a blowout.

[Dax Shepard]

Full blowout. And I was like, where did all this come from? Daddy. Okay, last thing. I'm. This is the last time you're gonna get to talk. Delta, will you do your song?

[Lincoln]

Okay,

[Dax Shepard]

She just learned this. Do you want to do it one more time?

[Monica Padman]

Favorite new thing in the whole world.

[Dax Shepard]

She did that 1100 times this morning before.

[Monica Padman]

Wait, where'd you learn that?

[Dax Shepard]

That's what mommy does that. Oh, I love you. Thanks, D money.

[Monica Padman]

Oh my God.

[Dax Shepard]

All right, now you guys have to be quiet. So do our business. We got a great fart story and we got a great Dee D. All Dee Dee do.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Oh, that's great.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Let's hear the fact. They gotta see how the sausage is made.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, we have one fact left. The fact is. Oh, and actually this is relevant. Lincoln loves F1.

[Lincoln]

Excuse me, everybody. Eyes on Monica.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, the fact is about how many employees work on the Mercedes team.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh man.

[Monica Padman]

More than 950 employees. An F1 team. But this isn't specific to Mercedes. But an F1 team directly involves between 300 and 1200 people, depending on whether it's at the front or back of the grid and how much in house manufacturing it does and whether it produces an engine or buys one in.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

And then how many people work at Mercedes? More than 700 employees. Employees work 24 hours a day.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, wow, that's confusing because that would have to be 1400.

[Monica Padman]

It makes me wonder if they're talking about Merce. Even though the thing is, no.

[Dax Shepard]

Mercedes has a million employees.

[Monica Padman]

Right. Okay, then yeah, it is saying that. And then the Other one said 950 more than 24 hours a day, seven days a week on the Brackley site.

[Lincoln]

Maddie, do you think my daddy dodo is better than mommy's? T. Dad need it down there.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh boy.

[Dave Eggers]

This is.

[Dax Shepard]

This is the tough question. Mommy's is technically better cuz she's got control of her instrument. Yours is 20 times more entertaining. So how do we know? How would I decide?

[Lincoln]

Wait, what do you mean?

[Dax Shepard]

Like mommy sounds identical to the actual Jib Jab song, right? Cuz she's a mimic. And yours so cute is yours. And it's incredible. So I'm. I would say say I would rather hear yours than mommy's. And I got a hunch I'm gonna tonight.

[Lincoln]

Can I do it one more time For a goodbye?

[Dax Shepard]

For a goodbye, yes. Is there anything you want to say

[Lincoln]

before we go farting in public? Should be weird.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, great. Good to end on and then we're gonna go out with a song. This is not an original. This is a cover song from the artist formerly known as Delta. Beautiful.

[Monica Padman]

You did it.

[Dax Shepard]

You look like a chipmunk when you do it. All right. I love you guys. I love you, love you, love you, love you.