Rerelease: Roy Choi

Summary

Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Episode: Rerelease: Roy Choi

Release Date: January 3, 2025

In this compelling episode of Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard, host Dax Shepard reunites with his guest, renowned chef and entrepreneur Roy Choi, to delve deep into Roy's personal journey, his cultural heritage, and the intricate dynamics of the restaurant industry. Co-host Monica Padman also joins the conversation, adding her insightful perspectives.

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1. Introduction to Roy Choi

The episode kicks off with Dax expressing his admiration for Roy Choi, highlighting Roy's significant contributions to the culinary world and his unique approach to making food accessible. Dax remarks, “It’s always Roy Choi” (00:40), underscoring Roy's consistent impact on the podcast.

2. Roy Choi's Cultural and Family Background

Roy shares his rich Korean heritage, detailing the tumultuous history of his family, which mirrors Korea's own struggles post-Korean War. He recounts, “My maternal grandfather... eventually took over, kind of like midtown Manhattan” (10:20), illustrating the resilience and entrepreneurial spirit ingrained in his lineage. However, Roy also touches upon the dark side of his family's past, including addiction issues that plagued his relatives: “Both brothers got addicted to gambling and lost the whole fortune” (11:36).

3. Personal Struggles with Addiction

A candid discussion unfolds as Roy opens up about his battles with addiction. From gambling to crack addiction, Roy paints a vivid picture of his descent and eventual recovery. At (08:08), Roy states, “I went so far through that [crack addiction]. I came out the other end and I was like, this shit sucks. I'm done.” His honesty provides listeners with an unfiltered look into the challenges he faced and overcame.

4. The Turning Point: Embracing Cooking

Roy credits a pivotal moment in his life to an inspirational encounter with TV chef Emeril Lagasse. Describing an out-of-body experience, he shares, “Emeril came on, and I had an out of body experience... he slapped me around. He was like, what the fuck are you doing?” (46:12). This surreal moment galvanized Roy to pivot his life towards cooking, leading him to culinary school and ultimately founding the Kogi Truck.

5. Founding the Kogi Truck: A Culinary Revolution

Roy delves into the philosophy behind Kogi, emphasizing the democratization of food and the fusion of Korean and Mexican cuisines. He explains, “He uses it as a route into healing connection” (05:18), highlighting how Kogi became more than just a food truck—it became a cultural bridge fostering community and healing through shared culinary experiences.

6. Asian American Experiences and Stereotypes

The conversation shifts to broader societal issues as Roy and Dax discuss the model minority myth and the diverse challenges faced by different Asian communities in the U.S. Roy asserts, “Just because a certain sector of a certain race... doesn't mean that everyone else is successful” (15:20), challenging the oversimplified perceptions of Asian Americans and shedding light on the economic disparities within these communities.

7. Challenges in the Restaurant Industry

Roy provides an in-depth analysis of the restaurant industry's precarious nature, citing high failure rates and slim profit margins. At (59:01), he breaks down the financial struggles: “Food cost is about 30%, labor is about 20-30%, fixed costs take another 20-25%, leaving only about 5% profit.” This financial squeeze is exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which Roy explains led to widespread closures and exposed the industry's vulnerabilities.

8. Proposing Solutions: Fair Pricing and Cooperative Models

In addressing these challenges, Roy advocates for systemic changes, including reforming the tipping system and exploring cooperative models among restaurateurs. He remarks, “If every table was this do or die, and we shift towards a model where profits are distributed more evenly... it could create a lot more balance.” (66:00). Roy emphasizes the need for industry leaders to implement and advocate for these changes to ensure sustainability for small businesses.

9. Evolution of Food Culture

The discussion broadens to the transformation of food culture, contrasting the past dominance of fast food with the rise of experiential and quality-driven dining. Roy highlights, “Dave Chang started this wave, you know, and Kogi came on the heels of that. Momofuku really broke the mold.” (35:24). This shift has led to food becoming a significant part of cultural identity and personal experiences.

10. Roy Choi's Current Endeavors: "Broken Bread" Season 2

Concluding the episode, Roy shares insights about his Emmy and James Beard award-winning series, Broken Bread, which explores the profound connections between food and culture. He states, “It's fascinating and kind of... a route into healing connection.” (04:45). Roy expresses his commitment to continuing this narrative, aiming to shed light on the intertwined relationship between culinary practices and societal healing.

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Notable Quotes:

• Roy Choi (10:20): “My maternal grandfather... eventually took over, kind of like midtown Manhattan.”
• Roy Choi (08:08): “I went so far through that [crack addiction]. I came out the other end and I was like, this shit sucks. I'm done.”
• Roy Choi (05:18): “He uses it as a route into healing connection.”
• Roy Choi (15:20): “Just because a certain sector of a certain race... doesn't mean that everyone else is successful.”
• Roy Choi (59:01): “Food cost is about 30%, labor is about 20-30%, fixed costs take another 20-25%, leaving only about 5% profit.”
• Roy Choi (35:24): “Dave Chang started this wave, you know, and Kogi came on the heels of that. Momofuku really broke the mold.”
• Roy Choi (04:45): “It's fascinating and kind of... a route into healing connection.”

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This episode of Armchair Expert is a deep dive into Roy Choi's life, his resilience in overcoming addiction, and his visionary approach to redefining food culture. Through candid conversations and insightful discussions, listeners gain a comprehensive understanding of the complexities within the culinary industry and the broader societal challenges faced by Asian Americans. Roy's journey serves as an inspiring testament to the power of vulnerability, cultural identity, and the relentless pursuit of passion.

Transcript

[Dax Shepard]

Wondry subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad free right now. Join Wondry plus in the Wondry app or on Apple podcasts or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome.

[Monica Padman]

Scared me.

[Dax Shepard]

I didn't know what he was gonna do. I had nothing planned. I winked it.

[Monica Padman]

I got skilled.

[Dax Shepard]

What's your name? You gotta introduce us. Yeah, I'm Rob. Have you ever heard.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Wobby Wob. This is Monica Padman.

[Monica Padman]

Thank you.

[Dax Shepard]

Dax Shepard. Thanks for having us.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, thanks for having us.

[Dax Shepard]

We're picking our favorite episodes of the past and my pick is Roy Choi. I want to add, it's always Roy Choi. Like when we did best of that year, you were right. You're like, I don't really care who you guys pick. We gotta have Roy Choi. So I'm just curious.

[Monica Padman]

Great pick.

[Dax Shepard]

I just loved him. Yeah. The like Asian American journey he takes us through and kind of his outlook on food and, and making it kind of attainable for people and not just this high end level of elitism. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

He also has an incredible addiction story. Gambling.

[Dax Shepard]

Gambling. It's an awesome episode. It is, it is. That gambling thing for me, I know.

[Monica Padman]

That'S one that you don't forget.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. I think about it often. Like I'm constantly talking about addiction to people and occasionally we'll be talking about gambling. And it's like half of what I understand about the whole thing is from him. The notion of looking in the mirror and going, we just have to get even.

[Monica Padman]

Get even. Get even is such a metaphor. But no spoilers.

[Dax Shepard]

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[Monica Padman]

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[Dax Shepard]

Oh, really?

[Monica Padman]

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[Dax Shepard]

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[Monica Padman]

Oh, let's bring, yeah, let's bring that.

[Dax Shepard]

Guy, the sex chinchilla.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

That's grown on you a little bit, hasn't it?

[Monica Padman]

I guess with time things will just wear away at you, you know?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, you're right. Like they make you really angry for a while and then just who has.

[Monica Padman]

You don't have the energy.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, I think we've talked about it. But like when you catch yourself putting energy into staying mad.

[Monica Padman]

Oh sure.

[Dax Shepard]

Like a lot of times it's just a runaway freight train in your head. Right. And then they did this and now I did this. For some reason I can see, see it in my mind when I'm like, well, now I'm actively trying to remember.

[Monica Padman]

Ah, that's a good thing to catch yourself on.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

All of us.

[Dax Shepard]

Someone who doesn't do that. A nice, nice boy.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, who?

[Dax Shepard]

Roy Choi. Roy Choi is a restaurant entrepreneur and acclaimed chef and a best selling author.

[Monica Padman]

It's one of my favorite interviews.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. It was one of these heart connection ones.

[Monica Padman]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

I think he has several restaurants. Kogi Barbecue and incredible restaurant Best Friend at Park MGM in Las Vegas. But most importantly, he has this tremendous show called Broken Bread and it is out now, season two. That's an Emmy award and James Beard award winning series that looks at food and how interwoven it is with culture. And it's fascinating and it's kind of. He uses it as a route into healing connection. Wonderful stuff.

[Monica Padman]

Is it, dare I say, anthropological?

[Dax Shepard]

Absolutely. Aren't all things.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Please enjoy. Roy Choi. I have virtually the same Jordans in that Color scheme.

[Roy Choi]

It came as a set with dunks and Air Force ones from undefeated. And they did like a whole series where they're doing kind of like a Godzilla, you know, like, battle between a Godzilla, King Kong battle.

[Dax Shepard]

I had a pair in high school that I just want more than anything. Do you remember the air escapes?

[Roy Choi]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

They were kind of like Air Force, I guess. And mine were kind of a gray and a blue and a white. I just keep waiting for them come out with you.

[Monica Padman]

Bet you don't have the original pair.

[Dax Shepard]

I know. It's even hard to find a picture of those things because they also came in brown in white. And I really would love the brown ones. I've looked for them many times.

[Roy Choi]

I got some friends in the street wear last. Let me drop, let me drop super hard Drop a little seed for the air Dax release.

[Dax Shepard]

I want to ask you about it because I imagine we come from a semi similar situation, which is like, I wanted Jordan so fucking bad. Of course we couldn't afford them. And I was in an interview in Detroit five years ago. The person interviewing me had on a brand new, beautiful set of fours. And I was like, oh, my gosh, you've kept those that beautiful. I'm sorry, they were fives. And he goes, no, they're like a month old. They just came out. And I was like, hold on a second. I literally had no idea. He goes, oh, yeah, go to this thing. And in the interview, I hit send and bought like, three pairs of the ones I always wanted. And now I just can't fucking stop.

[Roy Choi]

There you go.

[Dax Shepard]

Do you have a ton of sneakers?

[Roy Choi]

I don't. I only wear what's given to me for free. Not like as big a shoe fiend as most people are. I'm not like a sneaker head. I just like. I like wearing shoes. I don't like collecting them, you know? So, like, as soon as I get them, I wear them, and then I go on to the next one.

[Dax Shepard]

I do, too.

[Roy Choi]

I've never really been a collector of many things. I don't know. I've never had attachments to, like, material items.

[Dax Shepard]

Was there anything, though, as like a junior high kid that you wanted that you couldn't have, that you've now gotten?

[Roy Choi]

No. That's pretty weird. Yeah. I mean, I've had addictions when I've gone down really deep holes, and I've stayed attached to many, many things, like, just where I won't let it go. And I've written, like, horrible love letters on the back of pizza boxes. Like the Jon Favreau scene in Swingers, like on the first date. So I've gone down dark holes. Not that I'm perfect in that way, but I've never been attached to material items, so.

[Monica Padman]

Interesting.

[Roy Choi]

I don't know why, but I think it might have been a foreshadowing or precursor to who I ultimately became, which is creating businesses that make no money. Well, it's my destiny from childhood.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, yeah, you and I share the addiction thing, and I can't wait to talk about that. It's not often that my guest has also smoked crack. So it's like, yeah, right.

[Roy Choi]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

I can't imagine you get interviewed by a ton of people that have smoked a good deal of crack either.

[Roy Choi]

No, no.

[Monica Padman]

Well, they're not a little bit about.

[Roy Choi]

It, or they may not have ascended to a level where they're actually in position to.

[Dax Shepard]

To look back on it. Because that really weeds out the recreational users in the attics.

[Roy Choi]

It does.

[Dax Shepard]

There's not a lot of, like, recreational classes.

[Roy Choi]

And I feel like I moved to the front of the classroom with crack because it was. It was one week. It was just a burner of seven days. Just complete rollercoaster all the way through.

[Dax Shepard]

The lips are burnt to fucking oblivion.

[Roy Choi]

To oblivion. Walking through the fucking Hell's Kitchen. That's where all the crack was being sold in New York. I went so far through that. I came out the other end and I was like, this shit sucks. I'm done.

[Dax Shepard]

So that's it. GS had a nice seven day run.

[Roy Choi]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, wow.

[Roy Choi]

It was like a vacation in Cancun.

[Dax Shepard]

That's incredible. I have to say, you found yourself in the perfect environment because you do not want to be like, day six of smoking crack in the wilderness. You want to be around other zombies.

[Roy Choi]

And New York was really like that at that time. I'm from here. Speaking of pizza boxes and love letters, I went to go visit a girl that I met in Korea, and without warning her, I showed up at her doorstep in Providence, Rhode Island.

[Dax Shepard]

Women love that.

[Roy Choi]

They love you. Guys love that. Right.

[Dax Shepard]

It doesn't feel dangerous at all.

[Roy Choi]

This was before texting. This was just a knock.

[Monica Padman]

Sure, yeah.

[Roy Choi]

The text was the knock.

[Dax Shepard]

You had an address. A hard address.

[Roy Choi]

A hard address show up. And then I knock on the door. And then obviously it didn't go well. So then I ended up in New York at the YMCA. It was $7 a night in Times Square. And that whole street that I stayed on was like crack Avenue, man. It was zombies. Like, it was crazy.

[Dax Shepard]

What Year was this.

[Roy Choi]

It was 94.

[Dax Shepard]

I was just gonna say I was living in downtown Detroit in 94. And, yeah, it was just ubiquitous.

[Roy Choi]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

It was rare to see somebody not struggling with addict out on the street. It was heartbreaking, but I didn't feel so bad because I was partaking, so who cared? I think we should just start first and foremost with. You were born in Seoul. Mom and dad met here, but mom's North Korean, dad's South Korean. Then they moved to South Korea, had you, and then you now come to LA at 2.

[Roy Choi]

Yeah. So they both came here for college, graduate school. So my mom was from a well to do family. My grandfather was a gangster. He was Tony Montana.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, really? Really.

[Roy Choi]

My maternal grandfather. So can you just tell me the timeline?

[Dax Shepard]

The Korean War is 50 to 53.

[Roy Choi]

Right up until 50, they're living in North Korea, and the war happens. They all flee. But my grandpa's a geek. He figures things out. He gets to Seoul. I mean, Seoul at that time was basically dirt roads and buildings all blown up. It was just crazy. At that time, the war was coming off of the Japanese occupation because it's the peninsula in the Pacific Ocean. We were at the brunt of the whole Cold War between, you know, communism and the US Right. And Korea was the pond in between it all. Because that was the foothold into Asia.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Roy Choi]

And so most North Koreans came down, crossed the border, it closed. He's in Seoul, and it's like Tony Montana in the detention center washing dishes in Miami.

[Dax Shepard]

Tony Montana is a Scarface reference. Just so you know, my.

[Monica Padman]

I actually did know that. Even though I haven't seen Scarface.

[Dax Shepard]

I didn't want to insult you, but I also didn't want you to be left behind.

[Monica Padman]

But it's kind of one of those Zach guys.

[Roy Choi]

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

[Dax Shepard]

So you come by this addiction stuff, honestly, it's crazy.

[Roy Choi]

Yeah. And so they sent her here to art school. Dad came from the total opposite. He came from the country in the south, ended up in the city. His father was just, you know, a normal, everyday banker. But he figured it out and became, like, the head of his class. So he came on a scholarship to America. They met and then they decided to go back. I always make fun of them. I'm like, why the fuck you go back?

[Monica Padman]

Sure, sure.

[Roy Choi]

And so they went back and they realized because for a lot of immigrant families, once you taste America, it's hard to go back to where you're from. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

But I also understand the desire, and I don't know that this was theirs, but to, like, make it where you're from.

[Roy Choi]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Well, also they have a new thought, which is you.

[Roy Choi]

I forgot about this. This is probably the reason why they came back. I was born with a deformity.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my goodness.

[Roy Choi]

I totally forgot about that.

[Dax Shepard]

What was the deformity?

[Roy Choi]

I was born with a cleft palate.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, okay.

[Roy Choi]

Yeah, a pretty bad one. So cleft palate is when your whole top part of your lip is ripped open.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, yes, when you're born.

[Roy Choi]

So you're born with a hole in your face. But back then in Korea, like, they were stitching people together with duct tape, you know, so, like, I don't think they saw me come out. And they're like, they didn't know what to do.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm assuming that it comes out kind of sealed where the crack is. So you can just lace those together and hope for the best. It's a surgery.

[Roy Choi]

It's a surgery.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Roy Choi]

But there weren't many of them in Korea, I think, at that time. And again, like, you're talking about an industrialized country coming off of war, mainly built around textiles, not the most advanced medical equipment and training in the world. They stitched me together. It was all messed up. But the thing is, because Korea or any country outside of the United States is so homogenous. What happens is if you have anything that is just slightly different, as little as being bow legged, bucktooth, whatever, you stick out and you can't make it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. If you're fucked up looking, this is the spot for you.

[Roy Choi]

America is the spot for ugly ass motherfuckers.

[Dax Shepard]

Somehow you put all these ugly freaks together and Some beautiful people pop out.

[Roy Choi]

Absolutely. I forgot. That's why they came back.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. And then in your childhood, they own a liquor store, they had a restaurant, they had a dry cleaning spot. They ultimately went into jewelry, starting with door to door and then becoming a successful business. And you also move non stop. Is that.

[Roy Choi]

Absolutely. Every couple years. Because again, when you're an immigrant in this country, the whole folklore or tale of coming with nothing in your pocket is a true story, you know? Yes, it's a real thing.

[Dax Shepard]

I took an LA geography class in college. The Koreans have a pretty damn good network once you're here. Right. Like the whole Alhambra area. They loan within their community and they help people start businesses. And there is a nice network for Koreans.

[Roy Choi]

Yeah. Asians did that with each other, especially Koreans, because no one else would take care of us. We're the forgotten minority in many ways, big time.

[Dax Shepard]

Because you're the model minority.

[Roy Choi]

Or people think or assume that we're getting benefits that other minorities aren't.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Roy Choi]

But in many cases we're not. We're just invisible and forgotten. We're still getting the no's and the closed doors and the race, racism. It's just coming in ways that aren't so overt.

[Dax Shepard]

There's a few different minority groups that America doesn't seem to have much compassion for. Jewish folks, because in general, the Jewish folks they know were their doctor or they've done well in this country. A lot of people have those experience with Asians as business owners or classmates, and then they ignore this whole other section and they seem to have a lack of compassion which we extend to everyone else who's a minority group.

[Roy Choi]

Absolutely. And just because a certain sector of a certain race or population or culture is successful, that doesn't mean that everyone else is successful or that everyone else has opportunities. If you look statistically, and I know this podcast is about, like nerding out and getting into details and info. If you look at the economics behind a lot of Asian communities within the United States, we rank as probably the poorest.

[Dax Shepard]

Right. We're only thinking, and I'm going to be speaking way too broadly and generally, but we are only thinking of the Japanese student visa. We're not thinking of the Hmong or the Southeast Asians. We're not thinking of any of those people.

[Roy Choi]

Absolutely. And every country and every culture is so different from each other, but we all get grouped into one.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if you've traveled Asia, each place is different as imaginable. Really.

[Roy Choi]

It's very different. The food, the culture. I mean, we don't even look the same. But again, it's just the ignorance sometimes of anyone that's not from that part of the world. It's just easier to broad stroke things and put everyone into one box. What's funny is, is that most people that get subjugated to that type of stereotyp or that type of broad stroking, we don't think that way about anyone else.

[Dax Shepard]

Although I do have a friend who's Chinese who moved here when she was 10 and she was like, I could not fucking tell one white person apart.

[Roy Choi]

So that's also a thing. Yeah, we.

[Dax Shepard]

In fact, we even had a female black professor who studies this and she said all in groups can't recognize out groups.

[Roy Choi]

Really?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. So black folks think white people all look the same. White people think Asians look the same. Asians, when they first get here, think we all look the same. And by we, I mean white people.

[Roy Choi]

I'm speaking for, looking at Matt Damon right now behind you, how would you know?

[Dax Shepard]

Is that me or is that Matt Damon?

[Roy Choi]

I did think it was you when I first walked in, but that was just at a glance.

[Dax Shepard]

But anyways, yeah, it is a phenomenon that we all experience. It's just like we get really, really acute wisdom of differentiating our group because we're around it non stop and then we don't have much experience with other groups.

[Roy Choi]

Maybe the only difference is sometimes white people just take it to the next level.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, they certainly do.

[Roy Choi]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

We're the worst offenders because we then take that and then we build a whole system off of it.

[Monica Padman]

Well, also because you don't have to know what it feels like to be marginalized. So like, if you're on the other end of someone just grouping you in, you're just intellectually aware that that's wrong.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, you pay a different price because the white people are the key holders to every opportunity, whereas it's not reversed.

[Monica Padman]

Like we have to know the difference.

[Dax Shepard]

Exactly.

[Monica Padman]

White people don't have to.

[Roy Choi]

Yeah, well put.

[Dax Shepard]

The other thing I found really, really fascinating and again, I was in this class in 99, so we were not very far off. The LA Rodney King riots.

[Roy Choi]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And so much of that I feel like was explained in this class. One of them being this intense tension between often Korean store owners and black customers in these neighborhoods. And they broke it down in the simplest ways. Like the way you show respect in Korea is to not engage eye contact, is to be quiet, is to basically answer when asked a question like that's. How they would show respect to a customer that comes in the store. And then for the black community, it's literally the opposite. It's just a tinderbox of cultural differences.

[Roy Choi]

Yeah, but again, that was only a microcosm, a little sliver that the media blew up and that even professors and teachers and curriculums blew up into representing the whole relationship between the Korean community, the Asian community, the black community. If you really go down to the streets, if I could take you guys to Watts right now, Compton, South Central, anywhere we can go all the way back to the 80s and early 90s to now, there's always a Mrs. Lee, a Mr. Park, a Mr. Kim, whoever that runs a store that has great relationships with the neighborhood. And what you mentioned about the cultural differences. Yeah, that exists. But there was also non verbal acts of love that were shared amongst each other. Whether that was tab systems also being just included in the neighborhood, brought to family picnics and gatherings, stuff like that. I mean, it went both ways. But there were certain cases where people were stubborn against each other.

[Dax Shepard]

And so you were in that you lived at for periods in South Central. And what was your personal experience?

[Roy Choi]

I just get along with people. And so there were times where I hated my family or my culture for treating certain people certain ways. And there were times where I had to stick up for certain things. And there were times where I was caught in the middle of it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Roy Choi]

Where I was doing beer runs or stealing stuff. And then the store owner's Korean. But I'm just an American kid hanging out, you know? You grew up in the Detroit area. I'm just a street kid hanging out in LA with a bunch of other.

[Dax Shepard]

Knuckles, doing hood rat.

[Roy Choi]

Doing hood rat shit. That's right. Not even thinking about any connections to your family that you're betraying, that you're betraying anything, you know? Yeah. Confucius don't mean shit to me, you know, so I'm just going in there grabbing shit and I'm running out. And then all of a sudden I see the face of disappointment behind the counter.

[Monica Padman]

And to have to carry the weight of that, it sucks. Like that's.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, those kids were being kids and you were betraying your people.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

The stakes are so different.

[Roy Choi]

And then you gotta go out the store and then they just continue to be a kid. Yeah, but then you're carrying the weight internally, especially when you're Asian. You kind of have to maneuver through that where you're carrying a lot of this silent guilt or this silent shame when you're Just American shit.

[Dax Shepard]

That's right.

[Roy Choi]

You know, like, just growing up, how.

[Dax Shepard]

Many places did you live, do you think, between arriving at 2 years old and then, let's say, going off to the military school?

[Roy Choi]

Eight to 10. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Now, here's a really easy theory to concoct. I moved a ton as well. And I crave control like you can't imagine. Do you think cooking was like, oh, gosh, here's this eight by eight area that I am in total control over. And I know what the outcome will be if I do it correctly.

[Roy Choi]

I didn't consciously confront that because I was so immersed within cooking. So sometimes cooking is all we have as families, and especially my family and my extended family. So as Asian immigrants, especially in the era that I grew up, we took a lot of shit, man. It was part culture, part language, part just not knowing how to react. But a lot of that stuff, you just keep quiet and you just put your head down and you just keep going. People yelling horrible things at you, throwing things at.

[Dax Shepard]

A ton of the hip hop that I love that came out of LA in the late 80s, early 90s is just chock full of negative Asian stuff.

[Roy Choi]

Oh, yeah, it was hard for me to grapple with, especially when, like, Cube made black Korea.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Roy Choi]

You know, it was hard for me because those were my heroes.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Roy Choi]

And then all of a sudden they're saying these really horrible things about my family. And it was really hard for me to reconcile the two for a very long time. And I think ultimately, I think that came to define the philosophy of Kogi the truck. Instead of reacting in road rage towards it all, I kept it with me. And it took me a long time to figure out what will my reaction to it be.

[Dax Shepard]

That's so cool, because I think the majority of people are going to feel at least the pressure to commit to one side or the other.

[Roy Choi]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

As opposed to thinking like. I insist on weaving these together, building bridges.

[Roy Choi]

Yeah. But sometimes those bridges can take 30 years, like for me, you know. But ultimately I'm just so happy that I stayed alive long enough to be able to build that bridge. But we ate a lot of shit, so that's just the way it was. But part of it is language, too. Language and culture. Because when things get pushed too far, I've seen my uncles kick nine people's asses at one time. So it's not that we can't fight back or that we won't. It's just that in many cases, the first wave of immigrants, Asian immigrants, didn't know what the proper protocol was.

[Dax Shepard]

Let's add that the normal system to deal with that, you're not included, nor were black folks who are included. So a white person, instinctually, they know to call the cops.

[Roy Choi]

And you gotta remember, remember a lot of countries that these people come from, the cops are corrupt, the governments are corrupt. That's the whole reason they're here in the first place. So then you have that, you have the language barrier, you have the cultural incomprehension of what you're supposed to do. So that's why food is so important. Because during the week it's so hard that the only time that we had together was through food. And all my extended family, my aunts, my uncles, my parents, they would just be cooking all the time. Time, like all the time. And I don't mean like making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I mean like making stews, broths, dumplings, like full blown restaurant shit, you know, in their apartments. And then we would all meet on the weekends and have these like tremendous potlucks every single weekend. It was like growing up with Quincy Jones as your dad or something. Or like Steph Curry, like how Steph Curry grew up, like on the NBA arena. Right, right. You know, like that's how it is for us with food. So I never really used it as a space of here's my little private Idaho type thing.

[Dax Shepard]

It was a given. Yeah, yeah. I'm curious what own owning the restaurant in Anaheim was like, were you like, oh great, this is a gateway to peace or were you ever like, fuck you. You're the same fuckers that are yelling and saying shit behind my back and now you want to come and enjoy this insane food and act like that ain't the case.

[Roy Choi]

I love how you just put it all because for people that are marginalized, we never hold any grudges.

[Monica Padman]

In many cases, well, again, you don't have a luxury.

[Roy Choi]

And in many cases, when we do have opportunities, we're just giving back because we're survivors and we know our self worth and we know our whether that's the African American culture all the way to Asian American, to whoever. We know where we come from, we know what we represent. And so you can't just stop it. It just keeps growing and mushrooming. And so for us it's just about sharing. So no, we don't hold those grudges at all.

[Dax Shepard]

I am totally shame ridden to report that in Michigan in the 80s, if people went out for Chinese food, you'd hear several of the families trying out their Chinese accent. You'd see people taking pictures that were offensive.

[Roy Choi]

The sad part is you go outside of LA, it's still light anywhere. That's not like New York, LA, San Francisco, it's like that. But we saw during the pandemic, even New York, Louisiana, San Francisco had to deal with Asian violence too, in that same pattern that you just described in the 80s, which is so bizarre. I always equate it to the world that you come from Hollywood.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, let's make clear, I don't come from.

[Roy Choi]

You come from Detroit. The place you found yourself is because we don't have enough stories and representation within Hollywood. So people are still living off of this idea of who we are, this representation through Mickey Rooney or Sixteen Candles of who we are. We don't have Asian addicts. We don't have Asian people who fail. We don't have the euphoria of Asians that are dealing with sexual problems because we don't have any stories told about us in those manners. What happens is the image of who we are is still trapped. It's almost like trauma. It's trapped within this era and this age.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, where I'm from in Michigan, my introduction to someone speaking in an Indian accent is a cartoon version, which we've actually had a lengthy. Yeah, we had Hank on to go through that whole thing. And I again am embarrassed to say that had I not had a best friend who was Indian and really learned the story and really learned how few people represent her until Mindy arrives. It's like, who's Monica? On tv, the studios, networks, all these people, they had a market driven assessment of everything, which is like, well, who's gonna go see this? And they were wrong. John Chu's a friend of ours. Crazy rich agents, enormous. Everyone was wrong. As it turns out, there's just room.

[Monica Padman]

Now for more niche stories. Like when it was just the network TV shows. Yeah, that's a big risk. Being realistic about who people are. Like, they want tropes.

[Roy Choi]

I agree with that. But I also don't agree with it only in the fact that with all the streamers out there and all the content and all of the shows being bought every single day, right now, someone's zoom pitching a show. The proportion of Asian storytelling is still not represented.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah. What percentage do you know of the US Population we could consider Asian.

[Roy Choi]

Well, when you say Asian, you have to consider Pacific Island. You have to consider India.

[Dax Shepard]

I will not consider India. That's a long standing debate.

[Monica Padman]

He always wants to separate that.

[Dax Shepard]

I carve them out Yeah, I argue.

[Roy Choi]

That as well because he. Y'all make it in Hollywood. Y'all got big eyes, big features, everything. You know, us Asians, you know, no eyelids. You gotta deal with. You still gotta deal with the racism and stuff. But yeah, you gotta consider all that. I don't know. Can you Google percent of AAPI?

[Dax Shepard]

Rob is an eighth Asian.

[Monica Padman]

No.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, he's an eighth. No, he's not an eighth Filipino. So his. What is it, 12 and a half. 12 and a half.

[Roy Choi]

So 12 and a half.

[Dax Shepard]

His wife is half Filipino, so his son is 25%. And since he's his dad, he's 12.5%.

[Monica Padman]

I hate this. That's not how it works. And I'm scared that some people will really think that's how it works.

[Roy Choi]

That's like contact tying.

[Monica Padman]

Exactly. We said maybe Rob, he has enough kids, he'll be actually over 100%.

[Dax Shepard]

More than his wife. More than his wife.

[Roy Choi]

Then you'll be truly Asian because you'll be overachieving.

[Dax Shepard]

He has seven or eight kids. He's gonna be like 200% Filipino. It's gonna be so fun. 5.7%. Okay. And I think that includes Indian.

[Roy Choi]

So only 5.7% of the country is.

[Dax Shepard]

Asian, according to the 2019 Census Bureau.

[Roy Choi]

That's because probably like 25% more didn't feel like there's no way. There's only 6%.

[Dax Shepard]

Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare. We are supported by Allstate. Some people just know they could save hundreds on car insurance by checking Allstate firsts. Like, you know, check that you have all the ingredients for a recipe before you start cooking dinner. Or checking if you need to use the bathroom before you start recording so you don't need to take a break mid show. Checking first is smart, so check all state first for a quote that could save you hundreds. You're in good hands with Allstate. This content is intended for audiences in the US Only. Savings vary. Terms apply. Allstate Fire and Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates Northbrook, Illinois.

[Roy Choi]

The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist whether you're running, swimming or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10 available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum compared to previous generations. IPhone XS are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary.

[Dax Shepard]

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[Roy Choi]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

You first go to Korea out of college or before college?

[Roy Choi]

Well, first time I went was in high school. My parents took me there when I was 16. That was the first time I ever went back.

[Dax Shepard]

Did you speak Korean?

[Roy Choi]

No, I have never really spoke that good Korean. I understand it because, you know, parents speak to me in it, but I don't speak that well. I always say like, I'm like a la Chicano, but in Korean. My Mexican homies, like, they don't speak Spanish, you know, but they understand everything. Their grandma or mom's yelling at them, but they don't speak.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, once mom hits that certain pitch in her voice, you start understanding. Understanding whether you know the words or not. You're pretty sure on what's being said. So when you went to Korea though, you taught English there?

[Roy Choi]

Yeah, that was later on. That was in college. I don't know if they're still doing it now, but there was a whole era for us as like second generation Koreans where we just like were fuck ups here and then we're like fucking gods over there. Like we're, we're like intellectual savants over there because we speak English.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. Okay.

[Roy Choi]

Oh, wow. Yeah, but it was great because you go there and you'd make like a ton of. And you'd have a class that was just completely into you and you could say whatever you want. I Think the whole time I taught English, I don't even think I really taught anything.

[Dax Shepard]

Sure he's ever had swagger.

[Roy Choi]

Yeah, I just talked and they just kind of took the class to like hear the words and hear the lingo and the rhythm.

[Dax Shepard]

This sounds like a dream job for me. Cause I just love to talk.

[Roy Choi]

It was the podcast before podcast.

[Dax Shepard]

You know, it sounds like you were already so immersed in the culinary culture that going there must not have been that big of. Or was there still another level that you were made aware of once you were there?

[Roy Choi]

No, I think once I got to Korea, what amazed me is just how fluid and affordable food is. But it's still the same food here in the States. The difference between nutritional food, delicious food, and processed food, it's all an economic barrier. Right, right. And so anything that is below a certain price, usually fast food in most cases. But in Korea, it's not that way at all.

[Dax Shepard]

Right. There's no system for that.

[Roy Choi]

When I first started going there, that just really opened my eyes to like, you know, food being so cheap yet so delicious.

[Dax Shepard]

It's like more democratized and just filled with nutrients.

[Roy Choi]

Chili paste, ginger, garlic, green onions, different herbs. And so that opened my mind because it made food a part of culture. I was young, I was in my, you know, early 20s. And here when you're in your early 20s, you go out of the club or whatever, all you're doing is just debauchery or going through the drive through and yelling into this fucking intercom and eating fries and Big Macs and this and that.

[Dax Shepard]

My order, I can tell you right now, there was a Jack in the Box, my house in Santa Monica. And five nights a week I was in there ordering the ultimate cheeseburger. And then six of those tacos with the fucking buttermilk dipping sauce. And I go sit my La Z boy and just get myself into a food coma and pass out.

[Roy Choi]

That's it. But over there, it opened my mind to like, food is a part of it all right? So it's not just complete destruction of your body and soul and everything. And then lazy boy and conk out.

[Dax Shepard]

And then wake up hating yourself drunk again.

[Roy Choi]

It's like you can sometimes have the best meal of your life and feel good after, feel good afterwards and spend like five bucks and stay there till like 4:30 in the morning.

[Dax Shepard]

That almost doesn't exist in this country.

[Roy Choi]

It's getting better now, obviously, with the street food that's evolved. But also. So just food culture has evolved in the last 20 years.

[Dax Shepard]

Here what do you think is happening with the younger generation? Because I have a theory on it. People love to write these articles like, the millennials care more about avocado toast than owning a home. And on the surface you're like, okay, so I guess the implication is they're economically irresponsible. But the older I get, I go like, oh, no, no. These are people who have chosen experiences over objects.

[Roy Choi]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

And that's what's scary to everyone, actually, is. Cause our economy runs on selling objects, not experiences.

[Roy Choi]

I know you had Dave Chang.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Roy Choi]

He started. He started this wave, you know, and Kogi came on the heels of that. But really, it was Momofuku that kind of broke the mold and really allowed a pathway for this millennial generation to really have something to connect that experience to.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, it was like the first punk rock, Asian food offering.

[Roy Choi]

Yep. And it became a part of culture, and he became culture, and the restaurant became culture. And that just led to so many things to wear now. Now food is probably more in demand than sneakers. Harder to get sometimes than sneakers. We've definitely come a long way now that we're in it. It's hard to imagine a world where it wasn't like this even 20 years ago. People weren't going from city to city and having lists of like, okay, where's the best place to eat?

[Dax Shepard]

When I grew up, there was a class aspect to it that, of course, I rejected. So it's not just that I didn't think that was a good use of my money. It also represented to me elites like, oh, these fucking idiots are spending $600 on dinner. Like, there was a whole chip on my shoulder about it.

[Roy Choi]

I agree with you on that. But also the reality was that way.

[Dax Shepard]

Too, you had to spend that much.

[Roy Choi]

Because food was separated. So anything that was chef driven or ingredient driven or market driven or even considered to be a part of whatever is the hottest thing in that city at that moment was all driven by price, Price and experience. And your parents or an older generation going. And that's why it was Dave who broke that mold by opening Momofuku. What he did was it broke the levee to where the saltwater and the fresh water merged together, you know, and created a whole new thing.

[Dax Shepard]

Became an estuary.

[Roy Choi]

Became an estuary.

[Dax Shepard]

Exactly. Yeah. So, like, we would have the once a year nice meal, and then of course, when we would go there, I would feel less than the whole time. And, yeah, I've never felt that way walking up to Momofuko or Any of these places. I don't get that anymore.

[Roy Choi]

The feelings you had were real because that's exactly how they looked at you and the staff.

[Dax Shepard]

I sometimes would be like, got this food waiters treating us like we don't belong here. That was another. I don't know if that was in my head or it was happening or a combination of both.

[Roy Choi]

It's real. I wrote about it in the book too. Like we've always been a family of food. Right. So like we would go to restaurants as I got older, I would like research these restaurants and try to take my family. So when we had family visiting, I would go to the hottest restaurants in town. And you know, you get treated as if you don't belong there. And you know, this waiter's fucking. He doesn't know anything either.

[Dax Shepard]

He's a victim too.

[Roy Choi]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

He's not the upper class or he wouldn't be working there.

[Roy Choi]

He wouldn't be working.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes, yes.

[Roy Choi]

But he somehow he's developed this language and this style and they're just trying to get you out of there now. Things can not only be tailored, but they're also meeting you where you're at versus you having to put on a nice suit and go to a fancy place.

[Dax Shepard]

And I think the staff has increasingly felt cool that they're doing it. Not that they're like. They too should be blue chip family, third generation wealth. Absolutely.

[Roy Choi]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Like they've got a different swagger, which is cool.

[Roy Choi]

They don't have to wish all the same uniform. You know, they can come to work with what they're wearing and have their own style.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Roy Choi]

And there's just been an evolution of what service and style is in America and what is considered to be excellence. And not just in food, I think across the board and everything. You see it with fashion, you see it with everything. But I think there's been an evolution of again, what excellence is. Before excellence was defined by that, what you said, the rich, blue chip, third generation, all that. But now excellence can be defined in anyway and you're seeing that in food.

[Monica Padman]

I think before it used to be it was hard to have, it was limited because it was fancy. But I still think there's something to be said about wanting something limited or that you can't have. But now it's like you make a reservation, you go pick it up in an alley and they drop it off to you and you have to. It's like a secret thing and it's not fancy, but it's still like exciting and exclusive. Like I think exclusive, but for the right reason. The right reason, exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes.

[Roy Choi]

What you're touching on is the exclusiveness is cool because it's like nerdy exclusiveness.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Roy Choi]

And there's real scarcity because there's only so much that can be produced, you know?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah.

[Roy Choi]

And so it's a beautiful thing right now.

[Dax Shepard]

Boy, I've really kind of under. I don't want to say undervalued, but under recognize how much of our culture is driven by food. Of course, I always think of film and music and fashion, but I don't think I've really incorporated as much how food drives so much of this. Well, I come from a foodless culture is probably why.

[Roy Choi]

Yeah. You're Midwest grew up in an era where you were being infiltrated by the fast food advertising frozen food system. That was all deliberate. You are a product of that experiment. I just spoke with Alice Waters, who is the godmother of this movement of organics, of eating sustainably to the ground. What happened in the 70s is that this was a deliberate act by the advertising and food corporations to feed us this idea that things need to be fast, fast, fast, disposable. Our time is money. We need to keep it moving. There's no time for food because all the time should be focused on what you need to do to push your upward mobility.

[Monica Padman]

To get rich, basically.

[Roy Choi]

To get rich. And so food was the casualty, and there was millions and billions of dollars behind that that fueled that advertising to get us to that point where we were completely desensitized and numbed to even caring about. About food.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Roy Choi]

And it took until probably like the early 2000s for us to break out of that cocoon. I'm just so glad because we could have never evolved beyond that. I see the picture in my mind of everything that was from the 70s until the year 2000. And it's so bizarre. It is so bizarre for a country to completely devalue food to the lowest level to where actually you are being told that you don't even have to eat.

[Dax Shepard]

Ideally, yeah, you'd eat a capsule at the beginning of the month that would nourish you for the next 30 days.

[Roy Choi]

Because there's no time for it. There's no time for it. And none of it matters. And flavor doesn't matter. Nutrition doesn't matter. Nothing matters within this realm of food. Growing it, wasting it, eating it, cooking it. Nothing.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my God, this is so fascinating. So will you please tell us about how you started watching Emeril Lagasse on the Food Network?

[Roy Choi]

Yeah, on the Food Network, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And that kind of like changed the course of your life.

[Roy Choi]

It wasn't really an obsession more than it was a last cry for help. So I was here in Los angeles. This was 1995. I had just come off of a four year deep addiction dive into gambling.

[Dax Shepard]

What was your game of choice?

[Roy Choi]

It went from this game called Pan9, which is kind of a card interpretation of Pai Gow. And it's similar to baccarat, but you use four cards, you use three in the hole and you can pull one.

[Dax Shepard]

Are you getting chills right now explaining it?

[Roy Choi]

Yeah. No, getting nine, pictures are zero. It's the whole thing.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Roy Choi]

And then eventually led to poker and then high limit poker.

[Dax Shepard]

Texas Hold'em or Texas Hold'em?

[Roy Choi]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And then playing like at Commerce every day.

[Roy Choi]

At Commerce every day. Bicycle club. Commerce. Back then it was before the whole World Series of Poker days.

[Dax Shepard]

So it was like just Doyle Brunson was popular.

[Roy Choi]

It was me against Doyle Brunson and Stu Ungar. Yeah, Stu Unger and Telly Savalas. That was basically it. There was no like real no limit games. It was all structured and it was a big game. It was like I eventually actually made it to like 2040, which is a pretty big gain.

[Dax Shepard]

You can get into thousands of dollars.

[Roy Choi]

Of trouble and in your 20s, you know, losing $10,000, $20,000, a lot of money. And a lot of that money sometimes is borrowed. So I burned a lot of bridges over those four years and I was basically couch surfing. And I didn't have many other options left. The only other options were pretty much being a rail bird at the casino. That was all I had left. And a rail bird is they toss you you a $5 chip to get a water or coffee or something like that, you know.

[Dax Shepard]

Did you have the obsession? I read Dosky's the Gambler. Now I have had every addiction but that one, for whatever reason, blew over me.

[Roy Choi]

You're lucky.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm so fucking lucky because it actually.

[Roy Choi]

Not only destroys you, but it's a forest fire. It will destroy everything around you.

[Dax Shepard]

In the Gambler, the component I was missing that I couldn't latch onto was at least the book claimed this obsession with getting even.

[Roy Choi]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Did you have that?

[Roy Choi]

I have it every day still. You don't even think about the money. There is no value in the currency at all. And all you do every single day when you look in the mirror is just promise yourself when you get even that you'll quit.

[Dax Shepard]

They've done all These adrenal studies, too, that gamblers are getting their biggest high when they're losing the most.

[Roy Choi]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Which is fucking so abstract for anonymity.

[Roy Choi]

So crazy. Yeah. What happens is, because it's all Delta and chips, the amount of money that you go through, 10,000, feels like $10. So that's where the adrenaline from Los comes into play, because you're desensitized.

[Dax Shepard]

The other thing that I think that addiction has over all others is the financial pull. It's like there's no way in which I can construct some fantasy where I'm going to go get the money back I spent on coke.

[Roy Choi]

I agree with that. But also, just the magnitude of what you're spending on it will never equal gambling.

[Dax Shepard]

Right. I can't do ten grand of coke in a day.

[Roy Choi]

In a day.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Roy Choi]

In an hour.

[Monica Padman]

I think what's also tricky about gambling specifically is if you're a successful person or you have the brain of someone who pushes themselves and is motivated and wants to be a successful person, you are gambling. Like, we've all gambled with our lives. We moved to LA with no money to try to be an actor. Like that's a gamble.

[Dax Shepard]

That's a straight flush, for sure.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. And I mean, so it's that balance, right. Of knowing when to gamble and when you can't.

[Dax Shepard]

Also, you're in the judgment business. So you sit down at these tables, you have this added ego going like, well, five of these guys are much dumber than I am.

[Roy Choi]

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

[Dax Shepard]

And you confirm the story.

[Roy Choi]

Everyone flocks to you. And you're in this room, and it's the best fucking feeling in the world. I'm not going to not admit it. It's the best feeling. All of a sudden, all these dreams that we have in the real world get condemned, condensed and clarified into that moment for you. So it becomes more than just the gambling. It's like there's something poetic about it. And so for four years, I was on that roller coaster.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my God, that's an eternity. But it probably went by like this for you.

[Roy Choi]

Went by like that. And I was on my last couch just like this, in the middle of the afternoon, just like this. And Emeril came on, and I had an out of body experience. This was 1995. So this was before the Emerald. People don't talk about out of body experiences that much anymore. I know in the 80s and 90s.

[Dax Shepard]

They used to talk about, oh, everyone was having them.

[Roy Choi]

Everyone was having them. Yeah, Daiwa does it. But I had one and he came out the tv and, yeah, he came and he kind of slapped me around. He's like, what the fuck? You know, oh, wow, what are you doing? And kind of woke up. I have that tendency, too, to where I can, like, drop things on a dime. It happened with crack. Like we were talking about on the seventh day, God created. I click crack. And yeah, there's. Sometimes I'm just done with shit. This was like before the Internet was popping. So, like, this is when you went to bookstores to research shit. So, like, I was at bookstores all day just researching. You know, I knew what it meant to cook food, but I really didn't know what it meant to be a chef. And I enrolled in night school here in la. It was a culinary night school. It was on Robertson and Melrose, you know, right across from Ciccone's Learning. And then the whole time, I was selling at my lowest points. I'm a bit of a Mr. Magoo. I always end up in this huge pool of luck. The Kogi truck was no different at this point. I had spent the next year and a half basically working, selling mutual funds, which is basically a used car salesman, selling package securities. Packaged securities. I had a briefcase. I had one suit. I had, like, three ties, one suit. I was going around and I was really good at it.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, and this is in the era where most of those were generating like, 10% mid-90s.

[Roy Choi]

Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Roy Choi]

And I was really good. I had no idea what I was doing, but I was like, at the racetrack, I would close my eyes and I would pick one and it would fucking hit.

[Dax Shepard]

It's kind of like gambling 2.0.

[Roy Choi]

It's like gambling 2.0. And I made a bunch of money. I paid everyone back. I amended all my bridges as much as I could. I went off to culinary school.

[Dax Shepard]

You kind of got even?

[Roy Choi]

I kind of got even. I'm really big on, like. I like to tidy up spiritually and also physically. Like, the whole philosophy of when we started Kogi, I wanted to be like a graffiti art where no one would even know we were there other than the fact that they could see what we just did, because we would crush it here on the streets. Like 2,000 people just flash mobbing on the streets. But I would always say, like, when we leave here, it has to be as if we were never here. And it's just a big thing for me to, like, tidy things up like that.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Leave the world as you found it or better. And just so people understand the power of the Koji truck who don't live in Los Angeles. On Parenthood, basically, we all took our turn or ordering the Kogi truck. Everything was commemorated with the Kogi truck.

[Roy Choi]

I remember you guys on my calendar all the time. Parenthood. Yeah, I remember those days. Yeah. Parenthood.

[Dax Shepard]

Probably driven by Mae Whitman. I bet she brought us to the Kogi.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. I would drive so far. It would just be on social media or the website or something. Like, find out where it's gonna be that day and go. It's so good.

[Roy Choi]

We have a few shows that were very loyal to us. Just like Parenthood. Brooklyn. Nine. Nine is another one.

[Dax Shepard]

It's insane. Just if you've not had one, I will put this up there with the Emily Bur, which is. You're eating these tacos because it's Mexican Korean fusion.

[Roy Choi]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

You're having this beef that's been marinated in a way you're not expecting in a taco. The onions taste different, like. Yeah. When I'm eating that. And this was before I was really even into food. This part of me starting to be into food is like, holy shit. Everything that's on this thing isn't there to look like something I can taste each thing that's new.

[Roy Choi]

That's one of my favorite moments when I see folks that aren't expecting anything when they first bite into a Kogi burrito or taco or quesadilla and their eyes just open and there's a holy shit moment.

[Monica Padman]

Yes, it is.

[Roy Choi]

I love it. I've seen so many of those moments over the last 10 years. That all happened because of that out of body experience from Emeril. If I wouldn't have been on that couch in that moment, obviously, maybe something else would have. But I believe in these, like, kind of like intersections of life. Because of that, everything unfolded for me in the second part of life.

[Dax Shepard]

How old were you in that? You were What?

[Roy Choi]

I was 25. And then I went off to culinary school when I was.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so I once watched you with Favreau. You made him a grilled cheese. I'm assuming it was on the Chef show.

[Roy Choi]

The first time I made a grilled cheese with him was on set of Chef the movie in 2013. And he had the clip rolling. So I was John's customato. Right. And so we were always by each other's side. I was in his ear. I was his corner man. And even before.

[Dax Shepard]

That's a rocky reference.

[Roy Choi]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, right, right. Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare. We are supported by Happy Egg. Happy Egg believes in spreading happiness through the simple ple. High quality and delicious eggs. Happy Egg hens are raised on over 8 acres of land by family farmers. Their free range farming model coupled with the humane treatment of their hens leads to absolutely delicious eggs. Happy hens. Happy eggs. It just makes sense, doesn't it? You can see the difference with Happy Egg because the egg yolks have an incredible orange color that's not only beautiful, but also packed with flavor. I live for the orange egg yolk.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, it's really nice.

[Dax Shepard]

I've become an orange connoisseur.

[Monica Padman]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

And these happy eggs deliver. So taste the difference and crack open Happy with Happy Egg. You'll find them in the yellow carton. Visit happyegg.comdax to find a store near you. I got to say, had this moment twice. Monica and I had it while watching Salt Fat Acid Heat where they were the Italy episode. And we started looking at each other like, we're going to do this right? We need to go. Like, we need to get on an airplane tonight.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And then that grilled cheese, I was like, I think I'd cut my pinky off to taste that grilled cheese right now. Oh, my God. And the care that went into it. And the amount of butter. God bless the amount of butter that was used.

[Roy Choi]

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

[Dax Shepard]

But I can see the connective tissue, which is for 35 years, we eat all this processed garbage food. Everyone's putting on weight. So now we're all in this mad grab to figure out how to not get so overweight. And then butter becomes so Then butter's ruled out. Salt's gonna lead to hypertension. All these things, it's like, no, no, eat shit. With real ingredients, you can probably have that much butter and things will be okay.

[Roy Choi]

Yeah. We were so deranged that we would eat all of that processed food, and then the things that are supposed to be delicious, we would make undelicious because we're compensating. Whereas really, the key to life is eat delicious food from the start and then you can indulge because it's actually good for you all the way through. So, yeah, that grilled cheese, that was the anchor to the whole thing.

[Dax Shepard]

I imagine that was what was shown to pitch the show.

[Roy Choi]

Yeah. It wasn't just me. It was John, too. He did all the sound mixing for the grilled cheese at Skywalker Sound. So the same thing, the same machines or whatever that you. They use for lightsabers was used for grilled cheese? Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Dolby Atmos. The grilled cheese is cooking in all corners of the room.

[Roy Choi]

Yes.

[Monica Padman]

Yum.

[Roy Choi]

And it was just all those little things that, you know John.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Roy Choi]

He's just such a genius, and he's just thinking about every little nuance and every little thing, and it was just all the points of the universe coming together into that one grilled cheese.

[Dax Shepard]

John is like the most willing pupil in the world, and he's fucking been rewarded so greatly for it because he can go to you and say, like, I don't know shit, teach me how to do this right.

[Roy Choi]

Have you ever witnessed how fast John can synthesize something? Have you witnessed it yourself?

[Dax Shepard]

Yes, it's incredible. He was going to do a project at one point, and he actually called me, which was great because I got nothing to teach him.

[Roy Choi]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

But he was doing something based on early hominids, and he knew I was an anthropology major, so he's basically like, what textbooks do you have? And let's chat. And this was the first time I kind of got to have that role for five minutes. But, yeah, within 10 minutes. Like, he's got it.

[Roy Choi]

He's got it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, almost annoyingly so.

[Roy Choi]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, this was four years of my life. I'm glad you got it.

[Roy Choi]

Yes. Same thing with cookie. It was 20 years of my life. 20 years of my life. And he got it within five minutes. And so he did come in with what you had described of, I don't know anything, teach me everything. I'm completely a sponge. But he would be proficient at it within minutes.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, it's very impressive. Oh, fuck. Him. All right, let's talk about your show. You are in second season of Broken Bread, and your show has a really kind of noble pursuit in what you're covering and what things you want to expose. And we've touched on a few of them. But right out of the gates, the first episode you go down to, is it 26th Avenue Night Market? And I guess just if you could really quick, what happened in the pandemic to the restaurant?

[Roy Choi]

Business completely folded.

[Dax Shepard]

Do we know what percentage of restaurants went out of business?

[Roy Choi]

I don't know what percentage, but my armchair guess at it, it would be 30, 40%, you know, of small businesses. Wow.

[Dax Shepard]

Wow.

[Roy Choi]

You know, just those are the ones.

[Dax Shepard]

We want most should be out there.

[Roy Choi]

Because it was a game of charades this whole time. I think that's what the pandemic exposed is like. One, a lot of the reasons people are opening restaurants, including my family back in the day, is because there's no other outlet. No one's hiring you. There are no jobs available for non English speaking people. But what we saw in the pandemic is that the restaurant model itself is so flawed because it doesn't allow anyone to get any step forward. But the illusion of it actually hurts the industry more than it helps it because everybody, every restaurant looks like it's busy. So the meeting in the alleyway for the sandwich or going to the noodle spot or the Thai joint down the street here in Hollywood, and you can't get in. People are waiting in the parking lot. It's so packed. Mindy's outside. Ichitlada. She can't get in. Whatever. It looks like something amazing is going on. But behind the curtain, maybe CIT la da can last a week without money. It's hard to fathom that because usually when something looks good on the outside, means it's probably pretty good on the inside.

[Dax Shepard]

But I remember having this in the early 2000s when Roscoe's had declared bankruptcy. I was like, I've never been there where There wasn't a 30 minute wait.

[Roy Choi]

Yeah. So what happened is it's the energy, it's the action that keeps things afloat. And then once everything stopped, everything was exposed. And literally within the first week of the pandemic, you saw restaurants just sitting. I can't. I have no more money. And then it turned where people lost everything, but then started a cart or street food. And that's how Avenue 26 started to really blossom and emerge.

[Dax Shepard]

What is the side of the equation that's so fucked up? Is it that we don't pay enough for food. Or is it that the food. I kept hearing in the episode that the food is really expensive. What part is broken in the equation?

[Roy Choi]

There's multiple. Part of it is we don't pay enough as consumers for food or certain types of food. Again, going back to ratio marginalization and stereotypes and things like that. We will go to an Italian restaurant on the west side and pay $42 for pasta because of all of the folklore and storytelling behind it, which helps a restaurant thrive. But we won't pay more than $6 or $7 for pho or for chow mein. We are not paying enough. There are no loans really for a lot of people. So a lot of this money is self generated money. It's check to check money that they're using to keep their business afloat.

[Dax Shepard]

And I'm right in that I think Restauran highest fail rate of any business.

[Roy Choi]

People, highest fail rate.

[Dax Shepard]

The dangerous loan.

[Roy Choi]

Absolutely. And then just the mathematical equation of opening a restaurant makes no fucking sense to the capitalist system that we want to thrive upon. For example, if we were to sell just product, like this bottle right here, we have what's called margins, right? Which is very simple math. You buy this product, you create a certain quantity, you leverage your purveyors to give you a certain price, you maximize efficiencies and you make 30, 40% percent profit. Restaurant business has 5% profit if you're doing well. Wow. Even the big boys, the big boys are different because they're able. The larger you become, the more you're able to leverage your pricing with your purveyors.

[Dax Shepard]

Right?

[Roy Choi]

And you're able to compromise decisions based on quality. And a lot of times they have investors that give them Runway to make it up. But if you're a small business, okay, so the basic numbers are about 30% food cost, it's about 20 to 30% labor, labor cost. So that's 70% right there. And then you have fixed costs, rent. I know this is not the most exciting podcast information, but you have cost, utilities, paper goods, toilet paper, plumbing, all that stuff.

[Dax Shepard]

A squirrel system, Internet POS system, point.

[Roy Choi]

Of sale system, taxes, all that. And that's another 20, 25%. That's 95 right there. Just off the top of my head, that leaves you with 5% profit.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. That's wild. So what's the fix? It's all those things.

[Roy Choi]

It's all those things. And on top of this, because the profits were so little, the industry itself was living off of exploitation. We don't have any safety nets, we don't have insurance, we don't have health care, we don't have sick pay, we don't have pto, we don't have vacation time, none of that stuff. So there are a lot of changes that need to be made. I don't know if they're going to be made because now that things are getting back open and stuff, everyone's kind of rushing back to the same things. This was an opportunity for us maybe to take a step back, put value into food again, raise some prices a little bit, maybe put a surcharge on certain things, maybe a certain form of like, kind of like a tax in a way, but like a good tax, you know, where it's shared amongst people. And I think it's also a philosophy and a mindset of like, we shouldn't want people to live less than. And I think that's the most important thing to think about. Whether it's farming or restaurant business or any service business, the entry point is also the ending point, you know, and that's the problem with the system. There's no way to progress within it.

[Dax Shepard]

Right. You have to change stations. And who's the guy who owns Shake Shack and those other restaurants?

[Roy Choi]

Danny Meyer.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. So what do you think of his approach? I remember seeing the 60 minutes on it where like he got rid of tipping at the things and the food just cost more.

[Roy Choi]

Yeah, it's the right idea. A lot of big restaurateurs like that. The problem is it doesn't trickle down to the mom and pop. So I think that we need those leaders like Danny Meyer or Thomas Keller or whoever the case may be to create the systems and then use their power to demand that these systems trickle down to everyone and become a model for the whole industry itself. Because they're the leaders of our industry.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm glad you're here to talk about this because I also don't think this is a problem many people are just aware of, to be honest. Yeah, I watched this 60 Minutes just a few weeks ago and it was about 20 million Americans quitting their job between January and February. And the number one was hospitality. That was the biggest sector that lost employees. And the construction, oddly, was in there, which is generally pretty high paying. But do you think. I think that we're at a kind of unique time where no one wants to fucking do these jobs anymore and that the leverage is going to shift a little bit to the employees.

[Roy Choi]

A lot of employees are holding out for that right now, hoping that the industry itself will change.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm just fascinated by what's potentially on the table for everyone right now.

[Roy Choi]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Right. Where the restaurant is.

[Roy Choi]

Yeah. Everything is just too high right now.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Roy Choi]

And so the only thing that is being forced to continue to be low or cheap is food, whereas everything else is being raised.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Inflation's hit everywhere.

[Roy Choi]

Inflation hits everywhere. You can't expect the restaurant industry to just stay stagnant while everything else continues to multiply.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Roy Choi]

And all we're arguing in the restaurant industry is that just let the restaurant industry multiply with everything else. So if you don't want your noodles or your burger to be $30 or $20 or whatever and a third of that goes to the staff to help them, then let's lower some of the other things around it or, you know.

[Dax Shepard]

Like what LA Unified does. And I might have this wrong at least when my ex girlfriend and started teaching at Crenshaw High was. You get some mortgage deals for teachers, there's some help from the government to live in the areas where they teach. Otherwise no one in LA that's teaching could live in la.

[Roy Choi]

Can't afford it. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

You just wonder if, like, that could fan out to a lot of things we value and we want.

[Roy Choi]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Well, I'll tell you as a staunch capitalist, the part that makes a Ton of sense to me is Apple made the best mousetrap. They should be worth a trillion dollars. Yes, I'm for that. But they couldn't have made that mousetrap in India. They couldn't have made it almost any other country. That's why we have 80,000 of those companies in most countries don't have any. So this country is a place where that can happen because it has an infrastructure, it has a university system, it has employees, it has all this stuff that needs to be recognized. On some level, it would just be dishonest to not say that the system itself helped create this trillion dollar company and that some part of that trillion dollars needs to continue to nur the system that can allow more apples.

[Roy Choi]

That's exactly it. That's that democratic, socialist, whatever you want to call it.

[Dax Shepard]

I don't want the government owning fucking chip manufacturers. But I do want the people who have profited from this amazing system to keep the system working in a healthy manner. Because I think without it, we won't have those.

[Roy Choi]

We won't. They could do whatever they want to do to trick the IRS and save money, take that money and then create a fund that will balance things out just a little bit because right now it's just too imbalanced.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, I want someone to do some hard science of what the earned credit would like. If they wanted to launch Apple anywhere else in the world, what incurred expenses would they have also generated? And I'm not even asking for all that, but like maybe half of that we put back in the system. My last question on this is, have there been any movements so that multiple restaurateurs can co op themselves so that they can have the leverage when they're ordering the beef and they're ordering the vegetables?

[Roy Choi]

I think we're heading towards that. I think the reason why it hasn't existed because the restaurant industry has been so fractured and your competitors, your competitors, there's ego. It's all almost a sport. It's almost a sport. There's a lot of like ego involved. You want to be the best, you don't want to share your secrets. But then there's also this other factor of fast food and conglomerates and chains.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, that's who you're competing against.

[Roy Choi]

They've done it. They've gotten together to create a baseline of pricing, so that's existing. And then you have the individual restaurants that are all fighting for whatever crumbs are left and not sharing information with each other. But now, since the pandemic happened, I think there's a move towards that. And the last thing I think that needs to change is the tipping system. What I think is unfair about the tipping system is that we live in a restaurant system where certain people within the restaurant can make $1,000 a night. You know, servers work four hours, and then most of the people working in the restaurant, the other 80, 90%, are only making minimum wage.

[Dax Shepard]

Even the cooks, you would think, like, before this was told to me, I would have assumed they were the highest.

[Roy Choi]

Paid people, because this is a bootleg of a European system that was brought in into here that lives off of this kind of fantasy that we're all living in Downton Abbey or Bridgerton. You know, like, things have to be presented in a certain way. There has to be a language that's used. There has to be a face that is synonymous with the illusion of what service is. But I hope that we can move to an era where it doesn't matter how you look or how you speak or whatever the case may be that everyone makes the same. If that could happen, that could help a lot, because these restaurants where servers sometimes are coming in and again, just literally walking in at 4:45. Right. They start at 5, they leave at 9 when the last table is served and they're walking out with $1,000. If that money was distributed evenly across to everyone, I think there could be a lot more balance just on a micro level with each restaurant.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, I think there's been lawsuits about that when people have tried to do that. That.

[Roy Choi]

Yeah. Because again, it's a draconian system that exists, that if you mess with it, there's grounds for people to bring lawsuits against you because you're taking money out of people's pockets and this and that.

[Dax Shepard]

We were talking to Dan Savage kind of privately, and he was talking about servers in Austria for some reason. And that when you just pay those people in appropriate hourly wage and they have health care and they have leave and they can have children, you stop. Stop being patronizing to them. Oh, you know, this. This kind of fake niceness that people have, because we all can feel the guilt of it. We know. So it's just like, you know, would it be crazy if just everyone got paid a real thing? And it wasn't like each table was this do or die. They like me, they don't like me. I'm gonna make no money or a ton of money like any other job. Just like every time you did your job, Every time I did a line acting, they came over. I don't know It's a little cuckoo. It is, is. Yeah.

[Roy Choi]

You hit it right on the head. Like if every line you said and someone had a. A wad of cash and tipped you.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Favreau either gave me nothing or he gave me 20 at the end.

[Roy Choi]

Gave me 20. And then so your mind is like, do I kiss his ass? Do I do better? Do I tell him to off? That's a whole nother podcast. The amount of things people say about you in the water station. Yes. You know.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes, yes. Well, I worked at CPK for a while.

[Roy Choi]

Oh.

[Dax Shepard]

You know, I've said those things.

[Roy Choi]

You've said those things, right?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Well, I just want to say your show has a ton of great episodes that explore all kinds of fun things from seed to table. We talk about the sovereignty of seeds, which is so fascinating.

[Roy Choi]

That's, I think, a topic you would really enjoy on this podcast. Get some specialists in here. We're on the verge of losing seeds.

[Dax Shepard]

And is this where, like, as I understood, I saw some 60 minutes on it or something where it's like, Roundup has a seed that Roundup works perfect for. I'm sure a lot of companies do this, so I'm not singling anyone out. But then some of that seed will blow into another farm and that seed is. Actually has a trademark on it.

[Roy Choi]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

And so now they sue them for that.

[Roy Choi]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

This is how it works.

[Roy Choi]

Not only that, but we're also losing the diversity and the dynamic nature of the seeds. Seeds are only being built and constructed to survive and be durable in a very specific weather pattern, very specific growing pattern and style. Again, going back to minimizing flavor and individual and dynamic nature into just something that is indestructible. We're 50% there as a human race. The world seeds are owned by four corporations. 50% of them are. This is actually a great sci fi movie. There's a whole network of young farmers and individual farmers that are fighting against this in the way farmers do with a smile and really a beautiful heart and savings. These seeds in their pockets, are they heirlooms? Heirloom seeds.

[Dax Shepard]

If you're listening and you've never had an heirloom tomato like a real one. It looks grotesque. It looks like a spoiled brain out of an elephant. Maybe it's not going to draw you in with its convolutions. Fucking taste one of those things. Oh, my God. It's like you can't even say that that's a tomato. And the other thing I get is a tomato.

[Roy Choi]

And so the world that a Lot of the seed protectors are trying to save is that world. And the world that the corporations want is the gas flush tomato where all tomatoes are round and red and look the same. And if we're not careful, we will get there. I know, again, it doesn't seem that realistic, but if we start eating all the same foods, right. If we're only all eating one tomato or one seed of a tomato that's engineered, if we're all only eating one form of broccoli or only one form of onion, what will happen to us is we will all eventually become somewhat of an Android. We will all become the same.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, the same microbiome.

[Roy Choi]

Same microbiomes. We're eating the same thing. And all those things are controlled and they can be moved like a joystick to however they want us to be.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, as we're finding out, like, we're having all these autoimmune diseases as a product of a lot of this stuff. So now that'll get confronted. Eventually they'll acknowledge, oh, this gives it. And then so they'll steer it to, you know, we'll have another product to solve the first problem.

[Roy Choi]

Absolutely. And that's what the seed protectors are fighting.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my God, so cool. And then you got Chuck D in Le Mert park, which is so cool.

[Roy Choi]

Yeah. And that's about black entrepreneurship, which is not the topic a lot of people talk about in the uprising, in racism and resistance here within America is that there is the stuff that is up front that is very important. Brutality, violence, lack of access, lack of upward mobility. But the fact that the African American community doesn't own any property or land is one of the most detrimental. And we focus on that in the episode. In this capitalist economy, if you don't own any land, you're always at the mercy of someone else.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. And then your children are born without any of that generational wealth.

[Roy Choi]

Any generational wealth.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah. It has to start there. In many ways.

[Roy Choi]

It has to start there. And that's what we address in that episode. We show examples and we show arguments and all this.

[Monica Padman]

What network is the show on?

[Roy Choi]

It's on Tastemade and kcet.

[Monica Padman]

Tastemade. That's where my tiny, tiny kitchen. Yeah, Tiny Kitchen was on. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my God, I forgot that you guys are cohorts.

[Roy Choi]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Peers in the. Well, listen, man, I'm so happy for you that as a man with many addictions, you've somehow figured out the same thing I figured out, which is you just get to go hang out with all these People you're probably super fascinated with. And that's your fucking quote job. So tip of the hat to you and to me and to Monica. So great to finally meet you and hang and I wish you a ton of luck. And everyone should find and record and watch. You might have an auto body experience. Don't rule it out. Broken Bread, Season 2. Check it out now. And if you want to learn more, please go to Brokenbread tv. That's so simple to remember. Brokenbread tv. I think you can go there and get activated if you want to get involved in some of these issues you cover. And Roy, what a fucking delight.

[Roy Choi]

Thank you.

[Dax Shepard]

I hope next time we meet we're eating something.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, please.

[Dax Shepard]

And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate Monica Padman. I can't believe you dress as a teddy bear now. This is your new look.

[Monica Padman]

Teddy bear every now and then.

[Dax Shepard]

Do you know this? The history of teddy bear?

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God, no.

[Dax Shepard]

Why? It's called a teddy bear. No, it's very mean.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, no. Canceled.

[Dax Shepard]

No. Theodore Roosevelt, who was a hunter, he was on a big hunt and he didn't have the heart to kill this certain bear they had cornered.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

And then the newspapers made fun of him and they said Teddy's bear got away or whatever. And then they started making adorable little bears as if to say, like it was so cute he couldn't shoot it. So that's why they're called. They were Teddy's bear.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my teddy bear. Oh my God.

[Dax Shepard]

Isn't that wild?

[Monica Padman]

That's crazy. You know so much.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, I read a. I'm trying to think where I just found this out. But I did tell the girls that. And then it led to a little six minute history of Theodore Robert Roosevelt. And at the end of it, Kristen said, you just know that much about Teddy Roosevelt. I was like, no, no. I read a great biography on him. In fact, I only remember six minutes of what was an incredibly awesome 25 hour biography but incredible life. Theodore Roosevelt. Yes. He was a sickly boy. Oh, he was very sickly. He had asthma quite bad and he wasn't allowed to play with other boys. And he was, was weak and he became a learned man. He went to college and whatnot. And at some point he was like, I hate this. And he went out to a ranch in the west and he became a cowboy for years.

[Monica Padman]

Oh my God. First he was a sickly boy, then.

[Dax Shepard]

A learned man, then a cowboy, and then a cowboy. And then very strong and gained his confidence when he Came back. People could not believe what happened to Teddy Roosevelt.

[Monica Padman]

Three times gains.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. Well, maybe six times. He was a sickly boy and he completely got over his asthma. And he was strong as an ox and a very principled man and very strong. And he'd overcome that.

[Monica Padman]

Wow.

[Dax Shepard]

No one could build the Panama Canal.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God.

[Dax Shepard]

Three countries had given up. Many different companies had gone bankrupt. And Teddy said, we're doing this through hell or high water. And he did it.

[Monica Padman]

Speaking of strong boys.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

We have a big announcement.

[Roy Choi]

Oh, you're.

[Monica Padman]

Go ahead.

[Dax Shepard]

A little baby at home.

[Monica Padman]

We have a new armchair baby.

[Dax Shepard]

A new armchair. Subwing sandwich.

[Monica Padman]

Rob had his little baby boy.

[Dax Shepard]

Can we know his name? Yeah, it's Vincent Gregory, after Vincent D'Onofrio. D'Onofrio, if you're listening. Yep. Congratulations. Big fans. Big fans. Vincent's an awesome name.

[Monica Padman]

It is. I love it. It's very strong.

[Dax Shepard]

It was two of my great grandfather's names. Really?

[Monica Padman]

No brainer.

[Dax Shepard]

Also, legendary motorcycle company company from England, the Vincent Black Shadow. The most valuable motorcycle in the world.

[Monica Padman]

Also Vince Vaughn's name.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. Vin Diesel.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, okay. And how's it going?

[Dax Shepard]

Doesn't like to sleep much, but he's. He's a good boy. Good boy. Also, Rob now 17.5% Filipino siding stuff.

[Monica Padman]

No, when it be 24, I can't really.

[Dax Shepard]

My math is he's 12.5. I'm up. I'm up to 25.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, because he was 12.5 with Calvin. And then another 12.5.

[Dax Shepard]

You're right, he's 25. So now he's matching Calvin and. And Vincent.

[Monica Padman]

This is a ding, ding, ding. Because we actually talked about that in this episode.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, we did. Oh, right, of course we did. Cuz he and Roy are both Asian.

[Monica Padman]

And me.

[Dax Shepard]

No, see, that's what's weird. You're not. Rob is. Well, does Vincent get more? Since I was 12 and a half when I had. Great, great point. Yeah. So mom was 50, you were 12.5, so I don't know.

[Monica Padman]

So 62.5. So he's.

[Dax Shepard]

He said.

[Roy Choi]

But then do I gain more?

[Dax Shepard]

Oh my God. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Then you're more than 12.5. Then you're.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh my God. Someone needs a crunchy 25. Yeah. So Robbie's now up in the 28%. 10:30.

[Monica Padman]

All right.

[Dax Shepard]

You're closing in on Natalie. I love it. You're going to leave her in the dust?

[Monica Padman]

I just want people to know that none of this is real. Just in case.

[Dax Shepard]

Hold on though. Hold on. I just Found an error in that. He does not. Vincent did not get your 12.5%. Okay. Okay. Because, see, because Natalie cannot be made more Asian by the children.

[Monica Padman]

Right?

[Dax Shepard]

So if you were 12.5 and then you made Vincent 28%, then that would make Natalie. We can't have her going up. Okay.

[Roy Choi]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Well, why. Why is it only the dad that gets to.

[Dax Shepard]

Because it's only fun if the Chicagoan becomes Filipino. It's not fun if the Filipino becomes more Filipino.

[Monica Padman]

I mean, I think it's great fun.

[Dax Shepard]

It's all great. It's really great.

[Monica Padman]

We should get Vincent a teddy bear.

[Dax Shepard]

Ding, ding, ding, ding, dingle. Oh, my gosh. I got more news.

[Monica Padman]

What?

[Dax Shepard]

You know what? My. My animal, the one that represents me from a child.

[Monica Padman]

Crow.

[Dax Shepard]

No.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, oh, I know. Polar bear.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. Polar bear.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Crow's my favorite animal.

[Monica Padman]

I thought you were going to tell a crow story.

[Dax Shepard]

Close Polar bear.

[Roy Choi]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Polar bear is what my mom's always called me because my hands and feet were so big. And I had lots of posters of polar bears and a polar bear stuffy that I loved. Okay. Guess what I read the other day? What? You're gonna. Your little polar. Your little. Yeah. All polar bears are left handed.

[Monica Padman]

No.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. Yes. It's in this great book. Lincoln's got this series of books. It seems like something I would have bought her, but I didn't. She found this on her own and she ordered all of them.

[Monica Padman]

She's her dad's daughter.

[Dax Shepard]

It's versus. Versus. So Komodo dragon versus king cobra.

[Roy Choi]

Oh, cool.

[Dax Shepard]

Polar bear versus grizzly bear. Who would win in a fight?

[Monica Padman]

Oh, boy.

[Dax Shepard]

And then en route to this hypothetical fight, you learn all about the animal.

[Monica Padman]

Fun.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. And we learned in that book that all polar bears are left handed.

[Monica Padman]

That's so sim, it's crazy.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my God.

[Monica Padman]

That just got added to the sim. That wasn't a thing.

[Dax Shepard]

You're right. I knew a lot about polar bears before.

[Monica Padman]

Like two weeks ago. My dad put that in there.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. I wonder. What? If I read a thing that says they're all dyslexic.

[Monica Padman]

What did it say? Would a polar bear beat a grizzly?

[Dax Shepard]

I can't even remember who they gave it to. I think they gave it to the polar bear, but they fucking gave the victory over the Komodo dragon to the king cobra. Which is preposterous.

[Monica Padman]

Really?

[Dax Shepard]

Yes, absolutely preposterous. A Komodo dragon is like £600.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Are they slow?

[Dax Shepard]

No, they're quick. But more than anything, their skin, they're nearly a pachyderm.

[Monica Padman]

Oh my God. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

That king cobra is not even going to penetrate that scaly skin. Also, the Komodo dragon has poison of its own. Its whole mouth is poison. You can smell them for so long away because the their poisons, bacteria, they let all the meat they eat rot into a gross poison so that when they bite an animal it goes septic.

[Monica Padman]

Wow. Yuck.

[Dax Shepard]

So anyways, I do think they gave it to the polar bear. It's a really interesting matchup. Do you want to know why?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Now the polar bear is the tallest bear on earth.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Standing at 10ft tall. Grizzly bear, good sized grizzly is about eight feet tall still. Imagine that.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Shaquille O'Neal, seven foot two.

[Monica Padman]

So like its back is 10.

[Dax Shepard]

No. And it's on its hind legs.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, got it.

[Dax Shepard]

Which they do. They go up there.

[Monica Padman]

Sure.

[Dax Shepard]

Look at me.

[Monica Padman]

Say hi.

[Dax Shepard]

So the grizzly is. Is 8ft tall. The polar bear is 10ft tall. But the grizzly, because it hibernates, they can get up to. I forget what it is. Maybe maybe 1400 pounds or something. Whereas the polar bear is like maybe 900 or something.

[Monica Padman]

Whatever.

[Dax Shepard]

It's not as heavy. So the grizzly bear is more, more mass. But the polar bear is taller. But now what you have in the polar bears arsenal is that it only hunts, it doesn't eat foliage. And like a grizzly bear, it just kills things.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

The grizzly eats salmon. It'll eat a caribouf and get hands on one. But mostly it's eating a ton of berries, honey. Oh, right. It's less of its life is spent in combat killing.

[Monica Padman]

Got it.

[Dax Shepard]

Now on the other hand, grizzly's claws are much bigger. Is so much stuff to consider.

[Monica Padman]

Wow. And our grizzlies are brown, right?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Like me.

[Dax Shepard]

Yep. They're all brown bears. The brown bear can go by brown bear. Grizzly bear, Kodiak. Oh, polar bear is just polar bear. But its name, Ursula. It's like Ursula Maritiminus or something. Something. It's the water bear.

[Monica Padman]

But polar bears are white.

[Dax Shepard]

Beautifully white in fact. Monica, they're translucent. That was in the book.

[Monica Padman]

Really?

[Dax Shepard]

Their hair is actually translucent.

[Monica Padman]

It is?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. But when all late and their skin's black.

[Monica Padman]

Nah.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm not lying to you. These are the facts from the book.

[Monica Padman]

So would you say that if you're a polar bear, I'm a grizzly bear?

[Dax Shepard]

No, I wouldn't.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. But I have big claws.

[Dax Shepard]

You do.

[Monica Padman]

And brown.

[Dax Shepard]

That's right. And you're a bear? Yeah, You're a teddy bear. So polar bear, Grizzly bear, Teddy bear.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

If you were in the Ursula genus.

[Monica Padman]

What would I be?

[Dax Shepard]

A black bear.

[Monica Padman]

Really?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Roy Choi]

Why?

[Dax Shepard]

Because they're so cute. They roll down the hills, they're smaller, they eat almost all berries. Stay tuned for more Armchair Extra Expert if you dare. Pandas are too boring for you. They're not playful enough.

[Monica Padman]

But they're so cute. They go down the babies go down.

[Dax Shepard]

The slide at the zoo. You're right. They're very active at the zoo.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, I love them. Okay. But you're the bear expert, so you're the bear expert, so I'll take your word for it that I'm black bear.

[Dax Shepard]

God.

[Monica Padman]

Is it a boy thing to be into bears?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Or just animals?

[Monica Padman]

Well, I mean, you know, hate to do this, but stereotypically you said you changed it to animals and that makes me think, no, it's actually not a boy thing because girls love animals. I don't.

[Dax Shepard]

They love cats. But I guess I'd love to know the demographic of these discovery shows about lions. Like, I want to know male versus female, who's watching.

[Monica Padman]

I have no interest in watching that.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. Speaking of, like, stereotypes and gender, I have a sad story.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, good.

[Monica Padman]

It's kind of. I guess it's unethical cuz I'm really just going to tell a story that the Daily told.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, okay, great.

[Monica Padman]

But we love the Daily.

[Dax Shepard]

We love the Daily. Also, people were like. When we had our Birds aren't Real Armchaired and dangerous, people were like, furious.

[Monica Padman]

Why?

[Dax Shepard]

In the comments, this was already on the Daily. It's like, okay. We also have guests that are on other shows.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Are you sure they were mad or were they like, oh, this was also. Because when I told Erica, she was like, oh, I. I heard that on the Daily. That's so awesome. I'm excited to listen.

[Dax Shepard]

Some were just like that.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

And then others were like, get real, guys. We already know this is fake. It was on the. Oh, you know, it was more of like an angry. What was clear is that the people who comment, as always, had not listened to the episode.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, true.

[Dax Shepard]

That became very obvious by their.

[Monica Padman]

I loved that episode.

[Dax Shepard]

It was my favorite. Maybe Armchair and Dangerous.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. So there was a very powerful daily from last week about Ukraine and they spoke to a few different men involved and it's just like, it is so heartbreaking, the whole thing. And just regular people who just have to. Like, one guy was just like working and bringing food to his office. And then. Then he had to go. And then. But for me, the saddest one was this guy who is gay and is like, I never picked up a gun. I don't want anything to do with that. I'm not violent. He tried to get to Poland and they said no. Cause he was a man. And he's like, but I don't want to. I can't do it. I don't have the constitution for it. And it made me just so sad that it was like, well, you're a man, so.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, right, right, right. It's interesting. Okay, good. Let's do this. Let's dance. You know, I'm. I'm the first person to be really critical of men. So much of what we do is toxic. It's. It's controlling. We've. We've been the dominant gender, and women have paid the price. They sat at home and cleaned and gave us kids, and we did whatever the we wanted. And as long as we were making money, that was the deal.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, terrible.

[Dax Shepard]

But when it's time for the men to show up, we also need them for sure. And it's. It's time for the men. And this is when. This is the thing we do. Good. Like, it's. It's our time. Unfortunately, the world isn't such that everyone can stop having that role. There's still Russia, there's still North Korea. So this is the part, in my opinion, it's like, yep, there's a bunch of terrible that go along with men. Also, when there's a bobcat in the house, it's time for us to do our thing. This is what we evolved to do.

[Monica Padman]

But I. Yeah, I disagree. I mean, I think if you are a man who has evolved to do that, then, yes, please, like, now is the time. Please stand up. Please help. But not everyone, I guess I'm speaking.

[Dax Shepard]

More broadly as, like, I don't totally disagree with the policy that, yes, women and children, I believe, should leave, and I believe the men should stay to defend. Defend the country.

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Like, well, no, but they should be running supplies. They should be grabbing the other guys who want to kill people ammunition. They should be pulling people out of rubble and helping with medical stuff. Like, there's a role for many, many people in a War, other than shooting people. And just like I would say to a woman, like, well, here's the deal of being a woman. You got to pass a child through your groin.

[Monica Padman]

Well, you don't have to.

[Dax Shepard]

You don't have to. But if you're going to have a.

[Monica Padman]

Child, it's on you.

[Dax Shepard]

That's one of the downsides of being a woman. It's like you're going to have to pass this thing through your body.

[Monica Padman]

Yes, correct.

[Dax Shepard]

And the downside of being a man is when your village is being attacked and they are trying to steal all your women and children, you are the person that's going to fight. You're physically bigger. You've evolved to do this. This is your time to do your thing.

[Monica Padman]

I really do see what you mean.

[Dax Shepard]

But I'm probably not saying it well.

[Monica Padman]

No, no, you are. I just think it's too complicated to put a blanket on it and say men.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, you're right, because I don't mind that there's women staying to fight. I think that's radical. There's many women staying to fight.

[Monica Padman]

Right. But I think it's. Oh, it's okay if you're a man who's like, I'm. I'm too scared for this. I don't know.

[Dax Shepard]

My thought, though, is this. If they did that right, they're like, men who aren't into it bail. And now there's the 1% who literally don't think they can run water to.

[Monica Padman]

People, but they might just not want to get killed. And that's okay to be a man who doesn't want to get killed.

[Dax Shepard]

And I'm not judging. I don't know what I would do. I'm not in judgment, but I'm saying let's start with saying the person doesn't want to go to Russia and live in Russia, if they don't want to live in Russia or be under Russian rule and they want the Ukraine to remain an independent state, they have to participate in that.

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

Or surrender and move now to Russia. Does that make sense?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

I mean, I'm harsh. I'm trying to get this a little black and white so we can proceed.

[Monica Padman]

No, I just don't think it's black and white. I think that's exactly what I'm saying.

[Dax Shepard]

But I'm only getting to the point where if you do believe Ukraine should be defended, it's not okay for you to bail. So you're the 1% who's decided you. Absolutely. There's no service you can provide or you're too scared now when that, when they let that 1% out, one strata up from that, that thinks they, they mostly don't want to be there. They see all these dudes running, there's kind of no shame to it. They join now everyone's running away from the thing. And then Russia got Ukraine. So that's what I'm saying. You're working backwards from do you want to keep Ukraine independent? If you do, I think there's probably only one way for them to have a shot. And it's not half the men deserting the country. And I think as soon as you let some of the men desert the country, just more will follow because they won't be embarrassed anymore. It's the worst of all options, which is a fucking human conflict with death and weapons. But if you're even going to do it, you must work backwards from how it could possibly be successful. And it's not to willy nilly let some people decide and some people not. There's like a certain reality to the situation, I guess.

[Monica Padman]

No, no, I get that. I mean, I guess a small part of me is like, why don't, why don't you let the people leave who want to leave? And then there are people here who want to go. Like, let them go.

[Dax Shepard]

There are people going. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

I don't know, it just, it's, it's sad. It's just so sad. I hate it.

[Dax Shepard]

I guess the other option, let's look at all the options. You could say like, everyone in Ukraine should just get up and leave. They should go to all these, these other countries so that no one dies and say to Russia, here you go, now you have Ukraine. We don't want to live under your rule. We'd rather live in Poland or Hungary or all these places. Now all those countries have to deal with that. That's a side note. Those people now, they, they had a life in Ukraine and we don't know that they'll have a life elsewhere.

[Monica Padman]

Sure.

[Dax Shepard]

So they're not just maybe giving up this piece of real estate. They're giving up like their whole lives.

[Monica Padman]

I don't like this option. Like, I agree. I don't think this is a good option.

[Dax Shepard]

Right. So what's the other option? The other option is try to resist and make it go on so long that the sanctions have enough time to truly cripple the place. That just involves everyone's gotta fucking get ugly now. I don't know. I don't know.

[Monica Padman]

It's my personal disposition to be like, there's A big bully and we're a strong person on the playground and, like, we gotta do more to help the vulnerable person.

[Dax Shepard]

Right. So, like, you wish we were doing more, but I. I wish we could.

[Roy Choi]

I wish we.

[Monica Padman]

I don't.

[Dax Shepard]

If they didn't have nuke nukes, we can't initiate even. I mean, you want to be as dark as you can get. You have to let Russia take over Ukraine before we have nuclear genocide.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, I agree. I agree.

[Dax Shepard]

But I do think. I think this is the strategy which is. Hopefully goes on long enough, it's embarrassing enough that the will of the Russians becomes very obvious. They don't want anything to do with this. This was a huge mistake. Everyone's broke and they. They revolt and they get Russia of that bozo.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, I know.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, do you hear this cool thing that Elon Musk did? He brought Internet to the Ukraine. Yes. Someone from the Ukraine trolled him, like, wow, you're going to space and you can't give us Internet? He responded, starlink will be up in five hours. He had already been working on it. So fucking Elon Musk gave. Is put Internet in there.

[Monica Padman]

That's awesome. Also, there's, like, all these small independent ventures people are doing. Like, you. You can, like, put money in Airbnb.

[Dax Shepard]

I gave some money.

[Monica Padman]

It can go directly to the people.

[Dax Shepard]

Yep. In fact, no one. Yeah, no one's touching it, but the.

[Monica Padman]

Etsy is the same. Etsy shops and stuff like that.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Ashton and Mila have a really cool thing they're matching up to $3 million.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, amazing.

[Dax Shepard]

Go and do that for the humanitarian side of it.

[Monica Padman]

Wonderful.

[Dax Shepard]

She's Ukrainian.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure this is hard. All right, switching gears.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes.

[Monica Padman]

Roy Choi. This is one of my favorite interviews in a long time. A mix of things like, fun, like a great person to be around, but also very vulnerable and open and so smart. I just really enjoyed it.

[Dax Shepard]

The part I. That blew my mind was the gambling thing. It was so fun to get to talk to somebody that had a gambling addiction. I don't really have. I have zero experience with it. And it was illuminating the whole, like.

[Monica Padman]

Just needing to get even, then waking.

[Dax Shepard]

Up in the morning looking. Looking in the mirror and saying, I hope today's the day I get even.

[Monica Padman]

So I can quit.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. And also, all I need is five bucks to do it. The endless belief that that could happen again. Oh, wow.

[Monica Padman]

And, like, we do talk about this, but it's. I guess it's hard to do when someone's sitting there, like, the Kogi truck is huge. Like, you don't know. You don't live in la and you don't know him. You might not. You might just say, oh, this is just like a chef who has a food truck. Like, it's an enormous institution here.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Anyway, okay. I said last time we did the fact check. Oh, Sedona. I was in Sedona. Oh, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

We had a heartbreaking situation.

[Monica Padman]

We did.

[Dax Shepard]

That was painful.

[Monica Padman]

I didn't like that we recorded and we lost half.

[Dax Shepard]

More than half.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. We lost most. So if you're wondering what happened on the fact check last time, because it starts kind of abruptly. We lost half my.

[Dax Shepard]

My unit shut off. But, yes, we were going to get a Sedona update from you.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, yeah, yeah. It was. It was incredible. It was for Laura's bachelorette party, and we stayed at Enchantment Resort, which is enchanting as ever.

[Dax Shepard]

I saw a picture of you. There's now. There's now a treasure trove of pictures of you that, like, should be posted but won't be.

[Monica Padman]

Oh.

[Dax Shepard]

So I saw one last night.

[Monica Padman]

What?

[Dax Shepard]

It's a little mouse asleep on a bus with a white claw in her hand.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, it was posted.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, it.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. I didn't post it. Who posted it? One of the girls. Liz.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, well, mom didn't. Mom has it on her phone.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

And. And I said this would be a great post, but Moni wouldn't like it. There's a couple things going on there. Go ahead.

[Monica Padman]

Wait. I want to hear from you. What is.

[Dax Shepard]

You look six years old. You are. Because you're curled up with your head on the window, sleeping. And for whatever reason, the angle, you look so tiny. It looks like a kitty cat sleep on the bus. And then you have a white claw in your hand.

[Monica Padman]

I do.

[Dax Shepard]

It's so adorable.

[Monica Padman]

I don't like that picture because my neck looks bad. Really bad. And also, it's deceiving. It looks like I drank so much white claw that I passed out.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Monica Padman]

And that is not what happened. There was, like, three sips out of that white claw. And really, that whole time, I was, like, trying to sleep and trying not to puke.

[Dax Shepard]

Right. Cause you were having a little bit of motion.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. On that bus. It wasn't my favorite ride. Two, two and a half hours of my life. But that's okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Which says a lot. Cause you were riding with me the last time you went up that mountain, and I was driving a quadrillion miles an hour.

[Monica Padman]

True.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

I think it was because we just Got off the plane, like something about all the different motion and I don't know, I just. Cause I was. I was actually fine on the ride back. Anyway, so the last fact check, we didn't have time to go through the Playboy article, but I said we would do it this time.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, okay, okay, okay.

[Monica Padman]

So I'm gonna read it.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, geez. This is. By the way, you're not gonna let us post this thing. You're gonna read a 20 year old article of me and I'm embarrassed already.

[Monica Padman]

Do you want me to not.

[Dax Shepard]

I don't have to do it. Do it, do it, do it, do it.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. 20 Q. Dax Shepard.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, God. This is.

[Monica Padman]

The headline is. Oh, this is a nine minute read. It tells you that's cool. The comic turned actor, parentheses and drugged out bad boy turned vegan gentleman on failure and success.

[Dax Shepard]

Mmm. They caught me in the one year I was vegan.

[Monica Padman]

Yes. Yeah. 2012. Is success what you thought it would be? Oh, God, no. What if I try to do an impression?

[Dax Shepard]

Do it.

[Monica Padman]

No, I can't.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, God, no. I go to movies, I see meself. Me not feel better about meself. Me think we would feel good but feel bad.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, God, no. But it's impossible to know until you've had success that it doesn't alter your dating struggles. When I was a struggling groundling, I thought if I had the life I have now, I wouldn't have to brush my teeth anymore and I could eat cupcakes all day.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm still saying that I need some new material.

[Monica Padman]

It's just your truth.

[Dax Shepard]

I thought I ate cupcake all day.

[Monica Padman]

In fact, I have to do the same shit I've always had to do to not feel miserable. Which is work out, journal, eat well, do something for somebody other than myself at some point every day. Even if it's just the dogs. Those little fuckers.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, not bad yet.

[Monica Padman]

That's cute.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

So was that really you driving like an outlaw and hit and run?

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, this? Yeah. This is to promote hit and run. That's okay.

[Monica Padman]

100%. I'm from Detroit and my life has been driving cars. In high school it was drag racing. Then I worked for GM because my mother had a company that put on big car shows for journalists. We'd rent out Michigan International Speedway and I got tons and tons of seat time in these crazy cars that a 16 year old should never be allowed to drive. I fucking love cars and I wanted to do a car chase movie all my life.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

It's like weird to Say fucking knowing it's in an an article.

[Roy Choi]

Playboy.

[Monica Padman]

But it's Playboy.

[Dax Shepard]

Ding, ding, ding. Boing, boing, boing.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, three, correct us again, but it also appears at your super hot, super famous co star and fiance Kristen Bell was actually buckled in alongside you for every bit of it. Naturally, the producer had booked a stunt double, but Kristen said to me, no, if you're driving through a barn and jumping other cars, I need to be there with you. We're going to together.

[Dax Shepard]

Sweet, romantic.

[Monica Padman]

Yes, she sounds like a keeper. Kristin's a good girl. She grew up very Christian, went straight to college, did great in school and started work immediately. She's charitable and philanthropic and rescues dogs. So when we met, our backgrounds were opposites. All the things I'd done were terrifying to her and she had a hard time believing I would ever be able to stay married and monogamous and a father and all those things. For the first year and a half we were together. That's what we battled over almost weekly. How terrifying were you? You? Exactly. It's so weird when you turn 18 and are released into the world and then just start piling on. Terrible habits. From 18 to 29, I was a heavy smoker, heavy drinker, drug addict, terrible eater and philanderer. The past eight years since I got sober have honestly been about trying to peel back each of those habits to get Back to the 12 year old kid inside who was tremendously excited about life.

[Roy Choi]

6.

[Monica Padman]

Give us a snapshot of you in your party years.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, boy.

[Monica Padman]

I just love to get fucked up. Drinking cocaine, opiates, marijuana, diet pills, pain pills, everything. Mostly my love was Jack Daniels and cocaine. I was famous for going out on Thursday night to have a couple of beers and that just led all the way to Saturday night. I would meet people here and there and then I'd be in a hotel room with four strangers. Oh, they're tapping out. Well, someone new showed up. Well, what's your name? Yeah, I'd love to go dancing. I lived for going down the rabbit hole of meeting weird people. Of course, come Monday, I would be tallying up all the different situations and each one got progressively more dangerous. I got lucky in that I didn't go to jail.

[Dax Shepard]

White privilege. I was refined, knew it was White privilege, huh?

[Monica Padman]

How much you've grown.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, kind of. I think these are all the same stories.

[Monica Padman]

I still say I got lucky and I didn't go to jail. Or worse. Says the person. And you said, oh God, yeah, my nose is completely sideways from a drunken altercation. I'm missing a knuckle because of a drunken altercation. Somehow I was usually able to get sober for work. I got sober for my first movie without a paddle, but then I was fucked up. I got sober for idiocracy, but then I was fucked up for three months. Then right before I started Zathura, I knew I would get sober for that, So I went to Hawaii to relax. And that's when things went from bad to worse. I ended up in a car accident with a local on the way to get coke, which didn't stop us from going to get coke then. It wasn't coke, it was crystal meth. But I did it anyway. 8. How exactly did you get a big Hollywood career?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. And sum that up in four lines?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, exactly. Well, I spent many, many years unemployed. I was 20 when I moved to Los Angeles. I went on probably 600 commercial auditions and couldn't book any of them. I went through the Groundlings. Everyone there had agents but me, and it was a ridiculously amazing group. I was there with Melissa McCarthy, who was nominated for an Oscar, Octavia Spencer, who won an Oscar, Tate Taylor, who directed the Help. Success is just a war of attrition. Sure, there's an element of talent you should probably possess, but if you stick around long enough, eventually something's going to happen, you know, you first got people's attention as a pretend IRS agent who made Justin Timberlake cry on MTV's Punk'd. What was that like? Because JT was such a marquee name, MTV was nervous. I would fuck up the bit and we'd have nothing to show for it. His garage was packed full of MTV brass telling me what to do. I wasn't nervous. It was pure adrenaline. What made Punk'd such a golden opportunity was that once the person arrived, I was directing the show, no one could yell cut or tell me I was going too far. I don't think I would have popped on a format other than that, you know, right out of the gate. That makes sense.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

10. You studied anthropology at UCLA. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Oh, this is interesting. What's your anthropological assessment of Ashton Kutcher's success?

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, see, he's trying to get me a talk.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, all these.

[Dax Shepard]

See, this is what I'm talking about. Print. He's right. Now he's like, how do you explain Ashen's success? Why a. Why does that need explaining? You're not asking me to explain Brad Pitt's success.

[Monica Padman]

I guess that's true, but, like, when we get Interviewed. They ask us all the time, like, can you explain the success of the show? Like, what is it about this show that's made, you know?

[Dax Shepard]

But why you asking me about Ashton Kutcher?

[Monica Padman]

Well, people ask about you to me.

[Dax Shepard]

They ask you my how I got.

[Monica Padman]

Like, what is it about? Maybe they'll say y'all.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, I don't think.

[Monica Padman]

But I always answer the thing.

[Dax Shepard]

And the people wanted to hate Kutcher, especially these journalists. They wanted to say he was only there because he was good looking. They want him to catch me doing that.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Well, this is what you said.

[Dax Shepard]

He's only here because he's good looking. I said that.

[Monica Padman]

We are incredibly social animals and we're constantly searching. Well, see, this is. You went anthropological.

[Dax Shepard]

That's good.

[Monica Padman]

You followed the rules. We are incredibly social animals and we're constantly searching for some order of who's alpha, who's beta, who's zeta. Ashton's definitely an alpha. People want to dislike him because he's gorgeous and successful. It's fair to hate somebody like that. I relate. If he wasn't a crazy driven hard worker, I would find it all offensive. But he's like Tyler Perry. How do you not respect Tyler Perry? It's easy to make jokes about the guy, but he writes, directs and stars on a TV show, then writes, directs and stars in a movie all in one year. And certainly once you actually get to know somebody, it demystifies them in everything they go through. When Ashton and Demi broke up, I felt bad. These are people I eat dinner with. Brad and Angelina, that's another story. I don't actually know them, so I'm asleep, as curious as the next person. Will they get married? What's their life like? And of course, I would love to see them engaged in coitus.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, some things never change.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God. Okay, okay. You realize people have said that about you and every famous, beautiful woman you've dated. I get that people want to see us bang.

[Dax Shepard]

Bang.

[Monica Padman]

People want to see us bang. But here's the funny thing about the response I've been aware of to my dating fans, famous people. It's been very negative. I'm either not good looking enough, not a good enough actor, or not successful enough for these people. It's ironic, really. Guys should be excited that I got Kristen Bell. If Brad Pitt gets Kristen Bell, it's like, well, of course he did with me. It should be, oh, good, a normal looking guy got her. Maybe I'll get me a Kristen Bell. But guys hate my guts for always Dating women I have no right to be with. What's your secret? I attribute it to being funny and a good dancer. And I'm tall, which will get you places as well. I'm also wired for it. The. The times my brain works fastest are when I'm doing improv on a stage or meeting co EDS in a bar.

[Dax Shepard]

Coeds.

[Monica Padman]

Coeds.

[Roy Choi]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

I haven't heard you say that.

[Dax Shepard]

No. I've lost some stuff.

[Monica Padman]

Thank God.

[Dax Shepard]

Most of it I've just embarrassed with how much I'm recycling shit from nine years.

[Monica Padman]

That just means it's real.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, well. Okay, that's a positive.

[Roy Choi]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Thank you.

[Monica Padman]

You picked a career in which you're surrounded by gorgeous women. Okay. Also, this is Playboy. Let's just remember that there is a reason perhaps that a lot of the questions skew this way.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, that's a nice way to look at it, but I think I'm right about this.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

There was a moment where I was more famous for having dated famous people.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Which I get it. And that's why Stern wanted me on. That's why Stern was willing to have me on. I was this guy. Like, why was he dating her and her and her. And that hopefully I'll come on and talk about those people that are much more famous than me. So that's also happening.

[Monica Padman]

Sure.

[Dax Shepard]

Luckily I got on the Stern and he disliked me and was fascinated by my drunk. A log.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And. But this guy. That's why I got a story that's interesting. Playboy is they want me to dish on celebrities. And I know it too, going in. So it's like I'm. I'm. I'm being protective and that's what. Why it infuriates me. Well, you'll get to that.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. It's interesting for me because I don't know you as that. I don't know you as someone who's famous because of who you dated.

[Dax Shepard]

Right. You saw me first in Parenthood.

[Monica Padman]

Well, I saw you in Punk'd, but I didn't, like, know you.

[Dax Shepard]

Right, right.

[Monica Padman]

But yeah, yeah, you got popular and.

[Dax Shepard]

That had changed by Parenthood. But if you're the quote, dude from Punk'd who's dating Kate Hudson, people are like, what the fuck?

[Monica Padman]

It's definitely changed. You picked a career in which you're surrounded by gorgeous women. Does the urge to merge ever go away? What's that mean?

[Dax Shepard]

I think he's saying, do you want to fuck your co stars?

[Monica Padman]

Oh, no, it doesn't. I wish it did magically. This is overly Deep. But I have to put woman in the same category. I put drunk and alcohol. It's an outside thing that I try to use to make my insides feel better. And I've learned that it just doesn't work. I have to keep my urges in check.

[Dax Shepard]

Hmm. He wasn't expecting that. He didn't want me to be like, no. I find it damaging because I.

[Monica Padman]

Cause I'm in touch with myself. What's your relationship like with Craig T. Nelson, your TV dad on Parenthood? Craig T. Nelson is the coolest person I've met. My identical twin. Only we're separated by 30 years or whatever. He's raced cars forever. We both have big noses. We're both tall, both goofy. We've both been around a lot of craziness. He's a guy. I super fan at work the way I super fan Burt Reynolds, whom I got to work with on Without a paddle. Burt Reynolds all the way. My house is a living shrine to Burt, much to KB's chagrin. I have a urinal. You do?

[Dax Shepard]

I had one, yeah. Kristin tore it out.

[Monica Padman]

You had a. His urinal?

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God.

[Dax Shepard]

Doesn't that sound great, Rob? Sounds nice. Yeah. Okay.

[Monica Padman]

I have a urinal. And above it is a poster of Gator with a personal message that says to Dax, you're a hell of an actor, but more important, a hell of a man. Love and respect. I would go to his trailer every day just to hound him for stories because I had so many unanswered answer questions. Like, Jackie Gleason was a very well known and admitted functioning alcoholic, yet 80% of smokey and the Bandit is him traveling at high speed. It's clearly him driving. And it begs the question, what were the safety protocols when Gleason was driving? Byrd's answers were implausible. The physics of what he told me couldn't happen. But who gives a shit? They were great stories. I love that, man. Did you feel that way about John Travolta?

[Dax Shepard]

See, again, why are you bringing up Travolta? Go ahead.

[Monica Padman]

Did you feel that Way about John Travolta when you were in Old Dogs. Well, they say you shouldn't meet your heroes, and that's probably good advice unless you employ the strategy of hanging onto your daydream of who they are. Urban Cowboys are my top five dramas of all time. So Travolta could have been lighting other cast members on fire and I would have just seen Bud climbing off the oil rig. Or the guy from Pulp Fiction. I'm like those female fans who saw Elvis on his last tour. They didn't see the 300 pound beach dwell on the stage. They were cheering and crying for the guy from 1956 swaying his hips.

[Dax Shepard]

So I didn't. I didn't even really answer.

[Monica Padman]

No, you did a good job evading that.

[Dax Shepard]

I like Travolta, though. For the record, sweetheart.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. 17. Beau Bridges looks pretty good in your new movie. And he's no spring chicken. What's he like? When I saw his age was 70, I almost crapped myself. I would go, jesus, Beau, you're not supposed to be able to punch somebody out in a scene at 70. My grandpa couldn't have done that. What's your secret? And he goes, I've been a vegan for 12 years. I was like, damn, I need to think about this. And then I saw Forks Over Knives, that documentary. And. And I was like, I'm in. I've been a vegan since January. I feel like I'm time traveling. 18. And how are you feeling? It's nothing like the pill in the Matrix, but Damn good. Like 15% across the board in every respect. I sleep 15% better. My allergies are at least 15% better. I have fewer body aches, my skin looks better. I'm never starving and I never need to ride the couch feeling completely full and disgusting. 19. So your vices are pretty much unique? I think I have a pretty good handle on my isms, but it takes a long time. Each third or fourth bad thing you give up, you still have to hold on to one. I'm still on nicotine. I pound about a dozen of those comet throat lozenges a day. I still drink gallons of coffee. 20. And you still drive like a maniac. I'm still super into driving too fast on motorcycles. Yes. I have a Suzuki GSX R1000 that was hard to read. That's just for the racetrack. And I can get up to 190 on that. When you're going that fast, you're thinking only about what you're doing in the moment. It's the closest I could ever get to Deepak or God or something like that. You can't think about tomorrow or what happened yesterday. You just absolutely have to be thinking second to. Second to second about what you're doing in that moment. I don't think I could survive without doing something like that.

[Dax Shepard]

So I imagine the part I don't see.

[Monica Padman]

Or maybe you.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, maybe they took it out.

[Monica Padman]

Maybe. Or maybe.

[Dax Shepard]

No, maybe they took it out for this because it's now online. Maybe the printed version has it.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, I need the printed version.

[Dax Shepard]

That's weird.

[Monica Padman]

Unless they just asked you and it was annoying when they.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, no, no. My issue is they didn't say those names. And then he put. You've been with whatever question. It was about stars. Go back to that question. It was like, maybe 12.

[Monica Padman]

It was, what's your secret?

[Dax Shepard]

It was around that.

[Roy Choi]

What?

[Monica Padman]

Oh. What's your secret? 12?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Oh, wow, that's weird. So what is that question?

[Monica Padman]

Well, also, you picked a career in which you're surrounded by gorgeous women. Does the urge to merge ever go away? Also, you realize people have said that about you and every famous beautiful woman you've dated, comma.

[Dax Shepard]

And then he listed three names.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, interesting.

[Dax Shepard]

And then I just go like, well, I guess my secret's dancing and blah, blah. So it looks like I didn't correct him.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, I see.

[Dax Shepard]

That was taken out. I know, I know. I went apeshit. And my publicist called and was ape. So I wonder if in subsequent things.

[Monica Padman]

They probably retracted it.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. Interesting explanation. All right, well, now I'm not. I'm fine now.

[Monica Padman]

But that was a fun journey.

[Dax Shepard]

Was it?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, for me.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm not too embarrassed by that.

[Monica Padman]

Good.

[Dax Shepard]

We didn't learn one thing about me, though. We already know this about me. Right?

[Monica Padman]

Well, you said coeds.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. And I said. So you used to say coeds and coitus. You say.

[Monica Padman]

You still say coed.

[Dax Shepard]

I still say coitus.

[Monica Padman]

Yep.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. So just coeds. I gotta get that back in.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, you wanna bring that back? Okay. So I looked up the Asian population. Well, Rob looked it up real time and said 6%. But then I was looking at the breakdown in america of the 6%.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

And 24% are Chinese, 21% are Indian. Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

So we don't have 6% Asian. We have about 4% Asian and 2% Asian.

[Monica Padman]

19% Filipino, 10% Vietnamese.

[Dax Shepard]

Filipino was number 19.

[Monica Padman]

Yep.

[Dax Shepard]

Ding, ding, ding. Rob, congrats. I got two of the top three in here.

[Monica Padman]

That's right. Okay. 10% Vietnamese, 9% Korean 7% Japanese, all others 15%.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, Japanese are that small. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Yep.

[Dax Shepard]

Huh. That's interesting. I thought Hawaii is very high concentration of Japanese. Japanese people.

[Monica Padman]

Maybe all of that is all there. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, wow. Did you think it was higher? I don't know why I thought. No, because I know why I thought that.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, go ahead.

[Dax Shepard]

No, you go.

[Monica Padman]

No, I don't have.

[Dax Shepard]

I don't really. I think because Japan was so talked about in the 90s as being this economic power. So I think just.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, I see.

[Dax Shepard]

You know, it's like a lot of you don't hear about Miramar ever. Former Burma.

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

When was the last time you heard about. You know, you don't hear about a lot of these countries. They just don't make headlines. But we were obsessed with Japan the way we're obsessed with China in the 90s.

[Monica Padman]

Well, but I think that's actually a reason why there's less here. Cuz it was a successful country.

[Dax Shepard]

They're not escaping.

[Monica Padman]

They don't need to leave.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, really good point.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, Asians now make up about 7% of the nation's overall population. This is according to 2021, minus 30% of that. We're including us. Nope, we're going to include us. Okay. I looked up poorest Asian communities in U.S. asian Americans had a poverty rate of 10% in 2019, 3 percentage points lower than the overall U.S. poverty rate. 13%. Mongolian and Burmese had the highest poverty rates among all Asian origin groups at 2025%. More than twice the national average and about four times the poverty rates among Indians. 6%.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so Indians are at 6%. Says so just overachiever. Overachiever.

[Monica Padman]

Well, always.

[Dax Shepard]

I guess we're going against what stereotype we're trying to break, which is the model minority. And you shouldn't feel bad for them.

[Monica Padman]

But also. No, I've had an explanation for this that my dad came up with, which is they learn English in school. They there so it's easier.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

And I think there's really something to that.

[Dax Shepard]

But also they came. It's all. It's all about too what we let in. Right. So like the Philippines, there's a re. The reason they're all nurses is because we said we'll let all the nurses in for the Philippines and y'all Indian.

[Monica Padman]

People focused on engineering and programs and stuff like that.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, we said you can come on in if you can do that.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. I wrote my mom used to love Emeril on Food Network.

[Dax Shepard]

Huh?

[Monica Padman]

Bam.

[Dax Shepard]

Bam. Did I tell you I Got the bam.

[Monica Padman]

Simeon.

[Dax Shepard]

On that trip. So much happened on one trip.

[Monica Padman]

What trip?

[Dax Shepard]

When I was famous for 30 seconds and they invited me down to the Sugar bowl to go out on the field for Nokia and do the Nokia halftime thing. They said you can come down first class tickets for you and a friend. So I brought Aaron and Adrian and Bri and I went and this is. Remember on my birthday. And I went to a slot machine. Not a slot machine, a video poker. And I got a royal flush.

[Monica Padman]

Why do.

[Dax Shepard]

Right out of the gate.

[Monica Padman]

This is not ringing.

[Dax Shepard]

And then we were all staring at like, oh my God, royal flush is like three grand or whatever. And then we just stared at and stared at like, why isn't it paying us?

[Monica Padman]

Oh no.

[Dax Shepard]

Why isn't it paying us? And then I hit the like the button. I didn't save them all. I didn't think to save them all because it was already the perfect thing. None of us thought so.

[Monica Padman]

Oh no.

[Dax Shepard]

And it just redelt me a bunch a shit hand. Oh, so that's a once in a lifetime occurrence. You'll never forget that. Then Aaron and I were on the balcony and we were throwing the beads, but we were purposely throwing them in the horse poop. Cuz all the horse cops were pooping all over the thing. Purposely throwing them in the horse poop to see if people would pick them up and wear them. And they did.

[Monica Padman]

Oh my God.

[Dax Shepard]

And it was a great entertainment for us. But back to part of the thing was like, would you want to eat at Emerald Lazi's restaurant? The name of it. And we said of course we'd like to go. We went and I said, can I get the bam? And he came out of the kitchen and dropped our dishes and gave us the bam.

[Monica Padman]

What?

[Dax Shepard]

What do you mean what?

[Monica Padman]

What do you mean he gave you the bam?

[Dax Shepard]

Bam. Oh, you just said it.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, you're saying he said it?

[Dax Shepard]

He said it. He dropped our food.

[Monica Padman]

Emerald.

[Dax Shepard]

Emerald.

[Monica Padman]

Oh my God.

[Dax Shepard]

He was there one cuz it's a big, big week there. And he was at his own restaurant. And he came out of the kitchen.

[Roy Choi]

Wow.

[Dax Shepard]

And he put our chowder down and bammed us.

[Monica Padman]

That's cool. That's a sim.

[Dax Shepard]

This is all in like three days.

[Monica Padman]

What year was this?

[Dax Shepard]

Whenever Punk came out, by the way, I'd never seen him say bam. I just knew, you know how you know things.

[Monica Padman]

Sure. It was in the zeitgeist.

[Dax Shepard]

It was in the Zeitgeist.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, about restaurants. 60% of new restaurants fail within the first year and nearly 80% shutter before their fifth anniversary.

[Dax Shepard]

Whoa.

[Monica Padman]

I know, man.

[Dax Shepard]

That's why it's so hard to get a loan. For one. You do look like a cosplay person. I know I said that the last time you wore this, but you really look like a. A furry? Is that what they're called? They go to a convention, Rob, you know all this stuff.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Furry is a sexual thing.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Right? Yeah. But they go as creatures, right. And they rub up against each other.

[Roy Choi]

Fur.

[Dax Shepard]

I think it's se. I mean, people dress for cosplay for, like, comic books and. And for furry play, I think.

[Roy Choi]

I guess.

[Dax Shepard]

Why do you think it's called furries? Because they're wearing little bear outfits like this.

[Monica Padman]

Well, I think they're wearing, like, hood. They're, like, really in a costume.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my gosh.

[Monica Padman]

This is skims.

[Dax Shepard]

I know.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. Over 110,000 eating, drinking establishments in the US closed for business temporarily or permanently in 2020, with nearly 2.5 million jobs erased from pre pandemic levels.

[Dax Shepard]

That has to be the sector that was hit the hardest.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. And then they don't want to come back.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, they're done. That was a big one, and I loved it.

[Monica Padman]

Juicy.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, great. Love you.

[Monica Padman]

Love you.

[Dax Shepard]

Foreignchair expert on the Wondry app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad free right now by joining Wondry plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short [e-mail] survey.