Mayim Bialik

Summary

Podcast Summary: "You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes" featuring Mayim Bialik

Release Date: November 6, 2024

Introduction

In this enlightening episode of "You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes," host Pete Holmes welcomes actress and neuroscientist Mayim Bialik. Known for her roles in "Blossom" and "The Big Bang Theory," Mayim offers a deep dive into her personal and professional experiences, exploring themes of personality, parenting, feminism, spirituality, and mental health.

Enneagram and Personality Types

The conversation begins with Pete and Mayim discussing the Enneagram, a personality typing system. Mayim identifies as an Enneagram Type 4 (the Individualist), highlighting her sense of uniqueness and deep emotional experience. Pete reveals he is a Type 6 (the Loyalist), emphasizing his commitment and reliability.

• Mayim Bialik [03:24]: "I'm an Enneagram 4. I feel seen in my specialness and my uniqueness."
• Pete Holmes [03:28]: "You decided what you edit out. Yeah, but it's your episode."

Parenting Styles and Attachment Issues

Transitioning to parenting, Mayim discusses her approach to attachment parenting, particularly co-sleeping with her children. She reflects on how her own upbringing influences her decisions, fostering a sense of closeness and security for her kids. Pete resonates with this, sharing insights into his partnership and the dynamics of parenting together.

• Mayim Bialik [06:03]: "I think we do well with nines."
• Pete Holmes [07:43]: "It's not just laziness. It's a passion for comfort."

Child Acting and "Blossom"

Mayim provides a candid look into her time as a child actress on "Blossom." She discusses the challenges of navigating the entertainment industry, especially regarding the objectification of women to boost show ratings. This experience ignited her feminist consciousness early on.

• Mayim Bialik [35:56]: "I was a very, like, strident second-wave feminist as a teenager."
• Pete Holmes [41:12]: "I didn't think those women should have to come and be in bikinis."

Feminism and Media Objectification

The dialogue deepens as Mayim explores the pressures to conform to beauty standards in media. She recounts instances where her feminist values clashed with industry expectations, leading to meaningful conversations with writers and producers about maintaining authenticity and resisting objectification.

• Mayim Bialik [35:56]: "I found that deeply problematic because I was like, this young feminist."
• Pete Holmes [41:12]: "These women are being objectified."

Spirituality and Jewish Heritage

Both Pete and Mayim delve into their Jewish backgrounds, discussing how their cultural and religious upbringing shapes their spirituality. Mayim shares insights into Kabbalah and the mystical aspects of Judaism, emphasizing the importance of storytelling, humor, and a connection to something greater than oneself.

• Mayim Bialik [130:28]: "It's the sefirot—that's part of how we understand emanations in Kabbalah."
• Pete Holmes [135:52]: "The breath is a subtle enough image that it's a great place to put an idea."

Mental Health and Therapy

The conversation shifts to mental health, focusing on managing rage and anxiety. Mayim opens up about her struggles with anger and how therapy, including Internal Family Systems, has been instrumental in her emotional regulation. Pete shares his own experiences with anger management, highlighting the significance of emotional repair and recovery in maintaining healthy relationships.

• Mayim Bialik [103:06]: "Therapy, being open to different kinds of therapy."
• Pete Holmes [70:32]: "Everything is the recovery."

Social Media and Dopamine

Mayim and Pete discuss the pervasive impact of social media on mental health, particularly how platforms like Instagram can drive dopamine-driven behaviors. They explore the addictive nature of endless scrolling and the challenges of maintaining mental well-being amidst constant digital stimulation.

• Pete Holmes [83:04]: "It's exactly like being drunk."
• Mayim Bialik [83:22]: "The dopamine hit is real."

Spiritual Practices and Mindfulness

The episode also covers spiritual practices such as meditation and breath awareness. Mayim emphasizes the importance of these practices in achieving a sense of peace and grounding, while Pete reflects on the role of spirituality in navigating life's uncertainties.

• Mayim Bialik [136:17]: "Therapy, something like meditation."
• Pete Holmes [135:52]: "Rupert Spira and Eckhart Tolle talk about how the mind imposes its limitations."

Notable Quotes

• Mayim Bialik [35:56]: "I was a very, like, strident second-wave feminist as a teenager."
• Pete Holmes [83:04]: "It's exactly like being drunk."
• Mayim Bialik [103:06]: "Therapy, being open to different kinds of therapy."

Conclusion

Closing the episode, Pete and Mayim share light-hearted moments and humorous exchanges, reflecting on their deep and meaningful conversation. They express mutual appreciation for each other's openness and insight, leaving listeners with valuable takeaways on personal growth, spirituality, and the complexities of human emotions.

• Mayim Bialik [145:38]: "You made it weird today."
• Pete Holmes [145:27]: "You nailed it with the Jewish fun fact."

Final Thoughts

This episode of "You Made It Weird" offers a profound exploration of identity, spirituality, and mental health through the lens of two insightful individuals. Mayim Bialik's experiences as a child actor and neuroscientist provide a unique perspective, while Pete Holmes' engaging hosting style ensures a rich and relatable discussion. Listeners gain valuable insights into balancing personal beliefs with external pressures, the importance of mental health, and the role of spirituality in everyday life.

Transcript

[Pete Holmes]

You made it weird. You made it weird. You made it with. Oh, yeah, you made it with. You made it weird with Pete Holmes. What's happening, weirdos? Mayim Bialik is here. I am thrilled. I just did her podcast, which is called Mayim Bialik's Breakdown. I had a wonderful time, and I'm so glad that she decided and agreed to come onto this podcast. And I'm so glad you guys are here. You know Mayim from Call Me Cat, maybe from Blossom if you're like me. Maybe from Big Bang Theory if you're like my parents or Jeopardy. I mean, she's everywhere. She's amazing, she's brilliant. And I'm so glad y'all are here to hear our conversation. Only a couple things to plug up top, just my tour dates. They're [e-mail] Raleigh, North Carolina, Indianapolis, Seattle, Portland, and Phoenix, Arizona. Go to PeteHomes.com for all of those. And in the meantime, enjoy this chat with my new friend Mayim. And check out Mayim Bialex Breakdown another time you're listening to another podcast. In the meantime, enjoy this one. Get into it. Can we talk about this? Can this be where we start? Because.

[Mayim Bialik]

Okay, so do I hold this?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

Did we just start?

[Pete Holmes]

Yes. Oh, but you can take all of this out. It's always your episode, and you're always safe.

[Mayim Bialik]

You can.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, I would, on your behalf.

[Mayim Bialik]

Thank you, but I don't know that we need that.

[Pete Holmes]

What do you mean? Yeah, we can leave it.

[Mayim Bialik]

This is your podcast. You decide what you edit out.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, but it's your episode. You don't ever tell your guests that. Sometimes the only way to get someone comfortable.

[Mayim Bialik]

This is why I'm doing it all wrong.

[Pete Holmes]

No, no, but we always say, like, sometimes in the pitch. Not with you, but I'll say it's not a gotcha show.

[Mayim Bialik]

Right?

[Pete Holmes]

Like, if you accidentally. And we've had it. We've had people accidentally say something, and they're just like, we've had a couple out.

[Mayim Bialik]

We've had a couple cases I won't name, but we've had a couple cases that have been impacted by news things after the fact that required them to say, please remove that.

[Pete Holmes]

I've had that with jokes. I've had people die and I've said, somebody's. Yeah, it's a bummer. It's a bummer. Have you ever not released an episode? This is podcaster to podcaster.

[Mayim Bialik]

One.

[Pete Holmes]

We're up to four, I think two. Yeah, we got a couple. It's pretty juicy.

[Mayim Bialik]

Five.

[Pete Holmes]

Katie just said five. I want to sell them as NFTs.

[Mayim Bialik]

Welcome to episode six that you will be not airing. Let's do this whole interview knowing I'm going to cut everything.

[Pete Holmes]

What I always want to do. And I know when I did your podcast and I really loved it and I love to meet you.

[Mayim Bialik]

A great time with you.

[Pete Holmes]

I really. Well, we talked a little bit about it. It felt like a fast friends. No pressure. You'll never see me again. Don't worry.

[Mayim Bialik]

I said sibling that I never knew I needed.

[Pete Holmes]

There you go.

[Mayim Bialik]

But it felt like that something weird happened.

[Pete Holmes]

One of the ways I felt instantly ingratiated towards you was that you said your first thing you said was, you're an enneagram 4. And you're an enneagram 4. And my mind was really blown. Cause I know people throw that expression around, but I really mean it. I was like, ah, it'll be. We talk about this. And you went, right. Not just my personality type. Look at. There's the Enneagram book right there. Yes, it is there. It's like knowing what I am, but also knowing that that's a language that I speak was a very nice way for you to start. And you're an enneagram4.

[Mayim Bialik]

I'm trying to return the I am. Thank you.

[Pete Holmes]

Welcome.

[Mayim Bialik]

I feel seen in my specialness and my uniqueness.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, your Sport is an Enneagram 4 frames. That's one of the ways the Enneagram 4 for everybody is the individualist. Now, I'm. I'm guessing you're not an enneagram4 even though you have peach colored hair. See, I wouldn't think you were an Enneagram.

[Mayim Bialik]

She's not a four.

[Pete Holmes]

Right. What are. What are you? I'm six. Yeah. Six. All right. Yeah, I always dis the six. And I'm quick to call anyone. I don't like an eight, which is just like troublesome.

[Mayim Bialik]

Trump.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, Trump's an eight. Trump's an eight. Trump's an eight. And I'm pretty sure every dad is an eight. I'm not positive, but I think that's not true. All dads just atrophy into no, that's not true. No, I don't think so either. But you're an individualist. That's why I say your. Your glasses frames are like a way of saying, hey, here I come.

[Mayim Bialik]

But also constantly wondering if they're the right frames because they're changing them. I can't quite find. Exactly. Also part of my forness. Valerie who's sitting on that couch does.

[Pete Holmes]

Not my Valerie.

[Mayim Bialik]

Not your Valerie.

[Pete Holmes]

Not that I own a person.

[Mayim Bialik]

Valerie does.

[Pete Holmes]

There was a dowry.

[Mayim Bialik]

Valerie does extensive research for guests.

[Pete Holmes]

You did that.

[Mayim Bialik]

So she. She does lots of research and she pulls out things that in particular, you know, will resonate. She probably put that there just so I would feel less alone. Meaning. Like, it's a comforting thing. She knows me well enough to know I'd want to know that.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Mayim Bialik]

But I also am just happy to open that up for you to share about, because I think. I mean, you are very eloquent about your stuff in ways that sometimes fours can struggle.

[Pete Holmes]

Fours aren't great.

[Mayim Bialik]

No.

[Pete Holmes]

I love being a four, but when I talk to a four, I tend to be, like, eyeing the exits. Yeah, you gotta get out of there. In that book, Richard Rohr's book about the Enneagram, you'd call that an unhealthy four, which is so condescending. I know, but I did a lot of work to try to, like, I'm. I'm. I'm out. I'm out here.

[Mayim Bialik]

Well, fours. And just to review, you know, fours. When you look at, like, who are the celebrities who have been fours, most committed suicide.

[Pete Holmes]

They're all dead.

[Mayim Bialik]

Like, true story. Is that. It's a very. I mean, I don't like the term melodramatic.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

Deeply feeling. Deep feeling highly sensitive. And feelings are very meaningful. And other people not understanding those feelings Is catastrophic.

[Pete Holmes]

Is a declaration of war. My wife is a 9, so she's the peacekeeper. And I love it. I think four is.

[Mayim Bialik]

I think we do well with nines.

[Pete Holmes]

I think if you don't love a 9, you're insane. It's someone who wants to get a pedicure. Someone who would love to turn our phones off and watch Love, actually. You know what I mean? But it's not just laziness. It's a passion for comfort. It's like a hobbit.

[Mayim Bialik]

It's an intentional laziness.

[Pete Holmes]

That's right. It's a mindful laz. Laziness that's like, let's build the Shire. Big round doors and I come in and I am Gandalf. I'm hitting my head. I don't exactly vibe with it. And if I do it for too many days, I'll get really itchy and uncomfortable. Like I need. I start to vanish, is what it is. Val doesn't vanish in comfort. I think she'd be pretty, just fine if we lived in Maui.

[Mayim Bialik]

Anywhere.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Pretty much anywhere. Yeah. That's absolutely right.

[Mayim Bialik]

What's that like to be anywhere?

[Pete Holmes]

But do you identify with your discomfort like I do? I love being like, this isn't. And Val knows that about me.

[Mayim Bialik]

Oh, I'll write like a book about it.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

I'll have a thesis. I'll do a painting.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm gonna wedge this in. Cause we feel similarly about sleeping with our kids. That sounds weird. Letting our kids sleep in our beds.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

Okay. And when I heard bed sharing. Bed sharing. Thank you. Yeah. That's why they made that phrase. So you don't.

[Mayim Bialik]

Because you don't have to keep saying all these.

[Pete Holmes]

Sleeping with my children.

[Mayim Bialik]

I sleep with my children.

[Pete Holmes]

No, wait, hold on. My.

[Mayim Bialik]

But I share a sleeping service.

[Pete Holmes]

I feel like as a four, that made instant sense to me.

[Mayim Bialik]

Oh, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Because I seem to remember the indignity and the injustice of being sleep trained. And I'm like, yeah. And there's still the sleep.

[Mayim Bialik]

It just feels like abandonment.

[Pete Holmes]

It is. We've talked about it before. You've come on where I'm like, as a mammal, you think there's a wolf. Why would you be chill? I mean, laying in the dark alone.

[Mayim Bialik]

Not to put my scientist enneagram4hat on. No other animal likes to sleep alone. And most adults don't like to sleep alone. We spend a lot of our time trying to find the person to sleep with.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes, that's right.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah. It's actually not evolutionarily beneficial. Agreed to sleep separate. And just the magic of what if.

[Pete Holmes]

Hugh Hefner just loved. He just hated sleeping alone.

[Mayim Bialik]

That's what it was.

[Pete Holmes]

I would.

[Mayim Bialik]

That is exactly what it was.

[Pete Holmes]

He didn't.

[Mayim Bialik]

He built an empire.

[Pete Holmes]

He's kind of holding his nose through the sex.

[Mayim Bialik]

He built an empire because he was. Just wanted to cuddle.

[Pete Holmes]

Bunnies love cuddling. Yeah, that's.

[Mayim Bialik]

That is true. Young people like cuddling.

[Pete Holmes]

Is there a scandal I'm not aware of?

[Mayim Bialik]

Oh, no. I just meant, like, if someone's 60 years younger than you. Oh, I see.

[Pete Holmes]

Just looking for the riff area. I wanted to join you, but I didn't know if there was a scandal.

[Mayim Bialik]

There probably is. Sorry, I don't want to be quoted as Mayim Bialik says, there's no scandal.

[Pete Holmes]

We don't know.

[Mayim Bialik]

We don't.

[Pete Holmes]

Let's be fair. Probably a scandal, but yes to.

[Mayim Bialik]

It's funny. I also. That kind of stuff makes me a little nervous when people are like, oh, people like attachment parenting or being close or nice to children because of their own wounds.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

And it's like, well, Maybe people who were wounded are just more in touch with kind of what feels good.

[Pete Holmes]

That's exactly right.

[Mayim Bialik]

Comfort and safety feels good. And maybe I just know it more than you do, because I didn't feel safe at one point in a way that you did.

[Pete Holmes]

That's the alchemy of suffering because you had that lack. You know what it feels like. That's like my whole life.

[Mayim Bialik]

But. But we don't want to over identify. Or what's it called? You know, transfer.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes, that's right.

[Mayim Bialik]

Or over identify.

[Pete Holmes]

You don't want it to get grotesque. Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

Or incestuous. Emotional or incestuous.

[Pete Holmes]

That's right.

[Mayim Bialik]

Just to bring up that word.

[Pete Holmes]

Are we both victims of that?

[Mayim Bialik]

What?

[Pete Holmes]

Emotional incest?

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah. Actually, you talked about it when you came on our podcast, I seem to remember. It's a phrase I like to pretend doesn't exist.

[Pete Holmes]

Emotional incest.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah, it's just like. It's very loaded. But, yes, it's a rough one. Jonathan actually was very. You very dialed into when you were talking about that, so. Yeah, I find you did that.

[Pete Holmes]

It's one of the weirder things that, like, when I go on. Instant pictogram.

[Mayim Bialik]

Oh, Instagram.

[Pete Holmes]

See, that's how a force says Instagram. I can't just say it the way you say it. Instant pictogram. Which I try not to. I'm sure as a neuroscientist, you also try not to. Well, yeah. Have a great. The Las Vegas quality of that. But anyway, I went on it recently, and I was shocked at how many posts were about boundarylessness. And my feed doesn't know me. It doesn't, like, have.

[Mayim Bialik]

No. But it knows most of Western culture.

[Pete Holmes]

Exactly. And stuff about parents and all these things that are difficult to address.

[Mayim Bialik]

Wait, everybody's talking about if you're a child of emotionally immature parents.

[Pete Holmes]

Is that the thing?

[Mayim Bialik]

It's like the thing. And everybody keeps sending me these things. And, I mean, it tracks for a lot of people, but I'm kind of like, what if we're not just children of emotionally immature. What if that's just being human? Is that no one really figures it out and grownups are just babies in grownup suits pretending like they know, but we're all kind of just muddling. And your parents are just kids, right?

[Pete Holmes]

Unfortunately, yes.

[Mayim Bialik]

And some of them are more immature than others.

[Pete Holmes]

I hold out hope that there is a type of. Again, Richard Rohr coming up, but he wrote Falling Upward, and it's about the second half of life, and all the myths are about achieving the Second half of life, it's like the hero's journey. It's like Odysseus.

[Mayim Bialik]

How do you know when the second half is?

[Pete Holmes]

But it's not time. It's not about time. And he goes, most people never achieve, reach, not achieve, they never reach. So what we have is a. Is sort of a lack of wisdom. And we do have old children. And I see what you're saying, you know what I mean? So I do. Maybe I'm naive, but I'm like, I think there is a standard of the elder that might maybe not do everything right, but would have an integration of like even me not doing it right is kind of right. It's just kind of what's happening.

[Mayim Bialik]

I think, you know, there are leaders and spiritual teachers and people who do that for us. If our parents weren't super skilled that way re parenting. But there's a lot on the gram about this.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, that's what I find fascinating, is if I try to talk about it in my standup. So you said your partner was.

[Mayim Bialik]

I don't know how to hold this microphone. Is that.

[Pete Holmes]

Hold it like an ice cream cone?

[Mayim Bialik]

I know, but it's like, I feel silly.

[Pete Holmes]

That looks right.

[Mayim Bialik]

Okay. Did you see I was like cradling?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah. What do I do with my hands? Kind of.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah. Is it on or you just like being people to hold it?

[Pete Holmes]

We want you to have like a, you know, give me a lever and a place to stand. You know what I mean? Give a microphone.

[Mayim Bialik]

Okay. Just.

[Pete Holmes]

You can be cash.

[Mayim Bialik]

Also, like, I don't hold an ice cream con.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, you honk. You honk it down. You're not holding it very long.

[Mayim Bialik]

So hold it like I'm holding it for someone else. And try not to think about it or be self conscious.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, real stand up comedian. If you put your hand here, you're ensuring the connection. Oh, you don't.

[Mayim Bialik]

Emotionally.

[Pete Holmes]

Literally, literally. You don't want to step on this and yank me.

[Mayim Bialik]

No, you don't.

[Pete Holmes]

Which just happened to me in Denver, actually. And then you kind of hold a little dainty.

[Mayim Bialik]

Okay, got it.

[Pete Holmes]

Dainty is good. That's weird. Okay, that looks weird. Sorry. That looked like a gang sign. I'm going to be honest with you. That looked like you were.

[Mayim Bialik]

My hands are not big like yours.

[Pete Holmes]

I know. Here.

[Mayim Bialik]

Cover my shame.

[Pete Holmes]

There you go.

[Mayim Bialik]

Microphone shame. Okay.

[Pete Holmes]

I actually thought you were doing a great job.

[Mayim Bialik]

I'm going to. Oh, that's.

[Pete Holmes]

Are you tracking your data with a ring?

[Mayim Bialik]

I am.

[Pete Holmes]

Do you find that useful?

[Mayim Bialik]

It is useful.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, I'm sorry, It is.

[Mayim Bialik]

I don't find it useful.

[Pete Holmes]

That's. You're so right. The implication. Do you find that useful? Is language.

[Mayim Bialik]

Did you learn that from we are attacking each other?

[Pete Holmes]

Yes, we're attacking each other all the time. That was. That was a microaggression.

[Mayim Bialik]

Hold on, hold on.

[Pete Holmes]

Do you find that useful? Is that important to you?

[Mayim Bialik]

It's actually. Right. Like, what's interesting is that we are so conditioned, like, for you to say, is that helpful would be implying that there is an absolute truth to helpfulness.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, you were.

[Mayim Bialik]

You were softening it by, like, do you find it.

[Pete Holmes]

I love that for you, but you are being a science person. It's more interesting. Your endorsement. Your endorsement. But you know what I mean.

[Mayim Bialik]

Is it accurate? Yeah, I believe so. And I think accuracy is helpfulness.

[Pete Holmes]

Is. Does it do your steps accurately?

[Mayim Bialik]

I mean, I'm not comparing. I'm not using it four steps and I don't have any other device to compare it to. You need to collect data to be able to see. But it is helpful for some things.

[Pete Holmes]

What is it?

[Mayim Bialik]

Well, for me, what I use it for is heart rate and heart rate variability, oxygen saturation. It does generally pretty accurately track sleep cycles. But I recently did a sleep study at home where they send you something even bigger than this, specifically that you wear for sleep. It looks like it's a tiny computer on your hand.

[Pete Holmes]

Really.

[Mayim Bialik]

I don't mean to sound 90, but it's like a thing and that does even more than this in terms of metrics.

[Pete Holmes]

And that's useful to know.

[Mayim Bialik]

That was very useful.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, did you make changes to your life so.

[Mayim Bialik]

Well, we were. We're trying, like, it can assess apnea properly. It's not just guessing. It has a different data collection and it's doing different metrics so it can assess. I think it's called, like, hypoxia. Like, where you, like, oxygen's not reaching your brain and therefore you're waking up. I don't remember what it is anyway. It assesses different things besides just being like, you were awake, you were asleep.

[Pete Holmes]

Did you get. Do you have app?

[Mayim Bialik]

You got the app, so maybe you.

[Pete Holmes]

Don'T want to talk about app.

[Mayim Bialik]

No, no, no. What I was going to say is it is mild, but doesn't seem to be what's actually going on with my. It's not the cause of what's actually going on with my sleep.

[Pete Holmes]

Are you getting lost in your sleep?

[Mayim Bialik]

I'm sorry.

[Pete Holmes]

Bad sleep.

[Mayim Bialik]

Oh, very bad.

[Pete Holmes]

Really?

[Mayim Bialik]

Well, do you know what happens if you don't get enough REM sleep, tell me you go crazy.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Sleep deprivation.

[Mayim Bialik]

Well, and REM sleep in particular.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Right.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah. Anyway. But yes, it is.

[Pete Holmes]

Have you tried. And not just because they're a sponsor, but have you ever done mouth tape?

[Mayim Bialik]

Wasn't.

[Pete Holmes]

We're not. This isn't the clip. This isn't an Instagram ad. I'm asking you, as I would say this off Microsoft. I do it and it's supposed to increase your oxygen by 18%.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah. So basically what it assessed is that there's something going on that's likely not apnea and not anything else bad. But just like I can't breathe and through my nose. Well, I am a mouth breather. Just going to put out there.

[Pete Holmes]

So if you put that tape on me, it'd be toast.

[Mayim Bialik]

Well, presumably I might die. I'm saying I think my body might try and compensate. But, you know, one of the neat things about the second half of life is that all of the, you know.

[Pete Holmes]

Not Richard Rohr, you just mean years.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah, well, I'm trying to. It's a play on what you said.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, I like that.

[Mayim Bialik]

But, yeah, that. Like, so there's the cartilage in your body and it grows. You know, like, ears get bigger and nose, they never stop. Right. And so inside of your body, things start falling differently. And so this is the notion of a deviate. Like, oh, I have a deviated septum. Well, things can keep falling in ways that you can't breathe properly through your nose. So I think I don't want to have surgery. But this sleep thing is basically like, you may want to. You could try and tape your mouth shut, but you may not be able to breathe through your nose. And then you're at the next level of sleep. Conversations of like, you know, Jonathan, my partner, wears a lot of things. I think we might be there. Or I could just ask him to hold myself. Skin open.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, that's what.

[Mayim Bialik]

I can breathe better.

[Pete Holmes]

What a lover needs to do all night, I would say. Does he use the intake, which is the hard plastic one?

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah, and he has.

[Pete Holmes]

He does.

[Mayim Bialik]

He has a prominent, beautiful nose. But he keeps getting a boo boo. Yeah, he keeps getting a boo boo. Because those things are not made for people with larger bridges to our noses. Oh, so this, like, talk about a niche market. Prominent nose airplane strips.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

Giant's a little harsh.

[Pete Holmes]

I. I just wanted to. Yes. And. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

Maybe a little more flexible.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, A flexible expand. But he does use the hard plastic one.

[Mayim Bialik]

Not this not the strip, but he always gets a. Like a boo boo. He puts on these scab from the hard one because it rubs. Oh, no, you don't know.

[Pete Holmes]

On the bridge.

[Mayim Bialik]

On the bridge. So anyway, I think he and I are now going to be twinsies.

[Pete Holmes]

Cute.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah. But I have.

[Pete Holmes]

That's a game change.

[Mayim Bialik]

He's done the. What's it? Mouth tape thing.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

Then I saw people saying, you shouldn't do that on the interwebs.

[Pete Holmes]

Really?

[Mayim Bialik]

I've just tried teaching myself. I will not breathe through my mouth. I sometimes will prop a hand up.

[Pete Holmes]

Under there like an inquisitive to see if I can keep it closed like the Thinker. That's how he's asleep. Actually. People don't know that, but that guy's taking a nap.

[Mayim Bialik]

Just propping it up.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah. It stays closed. I will say after you tape your mouth a couple nights, you do get like. If I take a nap without it, I'm just doing more nose breathing. Yeah. Because I'm just used to it.

[Mayim Bialik]

It trains you.

[Pete Holmes]

If this is a snooze, I apologize. But God, after 40 sleep talk, I'd talk all day about this.

[Mayim Bialik]

It's a separate podcast. We should.

[Pete Holmes]

It's a separate podcast now. Does that thing tell you, like, are you trying to wake up not in a deep sleep state?

[Mayim Bialik]

Oh, it's not like that.

[Pete Holmes]

It's not like that.

[Mayim Bialik]

Oh, I'm just trying to wake up and have any justifiable REM sleep so that I don't feel.

[Pete Holmes]

And you want to know you had it.

[Mayim Bialik]

Well, part of it is metrics for doctors. That's really. I really wear it more for them than me. And looking at those metrics sometimes creates a lot more anxiety. I just sometimes send a screenshot to Jonathan, my partner, so that he knows what he's dealing with on that day.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, deal with this.

[Mayim Bialik]

You say like, here's what happened while you were snoozing, while you were sleeping the movie, while you were in La La Land getting all the REM with.

[Pete Holmes]

Your big bridge scraping thing. He's got a sleep mask too. Oh, yeah. I look ridiculous. My daughter who sleeps in our bed, climbs on and I. She knows that I go like, like, I'm like talking to her with mouth. They on that one.

[Mayim Bialik]

Don't ask papa for anything until this comes off.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's also very. It's a real cue to my wife that there'll be no hanky pank. You know what I mean?

[Mayim Bialik]

I have so many things to say.

[Pete Holmes]

About this Nothing's happening tonight.

[Mayim Bialik]

My partner starts wearing goggles around 7pm to block out the. Can't even say.

[Pete Holmes]

He wears goggles to block the blue light. You know, you can wear glasses. There's, like, eyeglasses that block blue light. He goes, goggles.

[Mayim Bialik]

So for me, it's kind of like from 7pm on, I have to be, like, trying to think, do I feel attracted to this person? He's wearing these. Like, am I with. Look. You know what? I love him dearly, and I actually think that they're very useful. But you know when you see a dog in a sidecar of a motorcycle.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, my. Like, with the tongue.

[Mayim Bialik]

Goggles. He looks like he's wearing those goggles.

[Pete Holmes]

That's the sound of the tongue.

[Mayim Bialik]

But that's what I think of is those doggy goggles because they're very tight on your face.

[Pete Holmes]

Why goggles? Why not glasses? He wants 100% no blue light.

[Mayim Bialik]

It seals it.

[Pete Holmes]

What is it, Bono?

[Mayim Bialik]

The only reason I'm talking about this is that he's such a huge fan of yours that he'll be like, that's okay.

[Pete Holmes]

That you humiliated me with mortified look. We have blue light blocking stuff, too. I never use it, though. He finds it helps sleep.

[Mayim Bialik]

I'm just wondering if you were to put those on, if your wife would be like, oh, that's a clear message.

[Pete Holmes]

Nothing's happening tonight after a full day of parenting. I don't want to do any cardio. I don't care if it's sex.

[Mayim Bialik]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm not. I'm not here to be like, let's get moving. Like, I want to flop.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm a 9. I become an enneagram 9. I want to flop and chill. What is the best Opinion Nation joke has. Have you ever got a good one? Has there ever been one that you were like, thank you. That was excellent? This is like asking the guy from Malcolm in the Middle if he ever got like a in the middle joke that.

[Mayim Bialik]

No. I mean, it's usually pretty standard issue in my opinion. Asian. Like, that's literally like, this is a. This is a.

[Pete Holmes]

There's no way to do it.

[Mayim Bialik]

No, there's like a Blossom reference that's just right on the nose. And it's in my opinionation.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

I actually have an appearance on Night Court this season. This season where I say in my.

[Pete Holmes]

Opinionation as a little wink. Did you like it? You're at the table read. There's the line. How do you feel?

[Mayim Bialik]

I mean, I knew that it would be part of The. The shtick I see of I was playing myself, and so I knew there'd be a lot of kind of meta things. And Melissa. It's Melissa Rauch's show from Big Bang Theory. So, you know, I basically said to her, like, whatever you want. I'll be a fool for you.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

Anyway, so.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, okay. Yeah, I thought maybe.

[Mayim Bialik]

I mean, do you have a better opinionation joke you'd like to share?

[Pete Holmes]

I want to. I did want to slightly acknowledge that, like, whenever I see you, I'm busting, like, is there going to be a place where I can say, that's just my opinion?

[Mayim Bialik]

Were you a Blossom fan?

[Pete Holmes]

Val and I, like two old lesbians, watched Blossom during the lockdown, and we.

[Mayim Bialik]

What.

[Pete Holmes]

We really enjoyed it. We didn't get through all of it, but.

[Mayim Bialik]

But you revisited that.

[Pete Holmes]

We revisited. I watched it when it was on.

[Mayim Bialik]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

I mean, is that surprising? I guess it's more surprising that me and my wife.

[Mayim Bialik]

You knew I was a four from what's Happening. You're, like, back.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. You know, what I found very moving about Blossom, but also very sad for me as a child wasn't unique to Blossom. It was the way that your dad was so attentive and, like, you were flying your freak flag, and that was celebrated. And there were, like, frank discussions about sexuality, and your brothers were, like, protective, and everyone was allowed to be themselves. I actually feel pretty emotional as I say that. I'm like, everyone on the show is, like, allowed to be themselves, including the dad.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

She was, like, flawed. So the.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah. And I. I do think this is worth, like, a little, you know, a little mention. You know, back then, the notion that there would be a show where a dad was raising a family was, like, weird.

[Pete Holmes]

What. What is this? The Sci Fi Network?

[Mayim Bialik]

And the. The. The mother's character just up and left one day because she wanted to live her own life, which at the time was like, mothers don't do that. That's not even realistic. Why would a woman actually want to get her needs met and not want to just be cleaning and cooking all day with these children? Like, yeah, that was. People were freaked out that we thought this would work. The show was actually loosely based on Dion from Dion and the Belmonts. The guy who sang, like, Run around sue and the Wanderer and all. He was friends.

[Pete Holmes]

Who was his mom?

[Mayim Bialik]

No, that I don't know. But he was very close with Don Rio, who created our show. And Don loved seeing a musician dad who was, like, cool and close with his kids.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

And that was Part of the motivation of, like, we haven't really seen a family like this. What would it be like?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

And it was kind of sweet.

[Pete Holmes]

That dad was really touching.

[Mayim Bialik]

Sweet and young. You're supposed to be a young dad, you know, anyway.

[Pete Holmes]

And also creative.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

But the fact that, like, everybody was kind of a bunch of four. I mean, six seemed like a four as well.

[Mayim Bialik]

That's interesting.

[Pete Holmes]

I don't know if that's true, but, like, you definitely were both going, like, let's dress nuts today.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah. Or every day.

[Pete Holmes]

Let's dress nuts every day.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And even the. Even the dancing, it was so unembarrassed.

[Mayim Bialik]

You know what I mean?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

I mean, it started our show. Our first episode was Blossom talking straight to the camera in a video diary. It wasn't called a vlog then.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

And we were like. We've heard people say, was that the first instance of someone showing a vlog on television? It was 1989. We did our pilot.

[Pete Holmes]

Wow.

[Mayim Bialik]

And I was talking directly to a camera, and I said, this is my video diary.

[Pete Holmes]

Wow.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah. We just. I don't know.

[Pete Holmes]

You called it a selfie video. And everyone's like, can we go again? Mayim. It's a video diary. And not. And isn't the pilot, in true Blossom style, sort of like about the birth control pill or something? Like.

[Mayim Bialik]

Oh. So our first episode, Blossom gets her period.

[Pete Holmes]

That's what it is.

[Mayim Bialik]

And because her mother's not home, she has to, like, navigate this by herself. And she has a dream that the Cosby moment that Phylicia Rashad is explaining to her fallopian tubes and the uterus and the menstrual cycle.

[Pete Holmes]

And it is the woman from the Cosby Show.

[Mayim Bialik]

It is.

[Pete Holmes]

So it's a TV character.

[Mayim Bialik]

We premiered after the Cosby Show.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, shit.

[Mayim Bialik]

If you'd like to go back in, like, television history, we premiered after. That was our lead in.

[Pete Holmes]

But that's very meta, too, that this character watches the Cosby show just like us.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah. She was, like, everybody's favorite mom.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

So, yeah, that was our first episode. And there's also a scene where Blossom goes to the pharmacy to, like, buy protection, and she has this image that the box is, like, this big. It's, like, a flash and some fun things. Yeah, yeah. Vani Ribisi was the guy working behind the counter who then went on to do other acting things. Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

You said his name properly.

[Mayim Bialik]

Giovanni Ribisi.

[Pete Holmes]

I heard Vianney.

[Mayim Bialik]

Oh, no.

[Pete Holmes]

But I thought. I was like, I've been saying Giovanni. I'm A real.

[Mayim Bialik]

No, we used to call him what.

[Pete Holmes]

Are you New in this Town?

[Mayim Bialik]

By Vani.

[Pete Holmes]

Vani. You know, was he. I confuse him with the kid from Can't Hardly Wait. It doesn't matter. Did you like doing Blossom? I know that's a very vague question.

[Mayim Bialik]

But did you like it? I.

[Pete Holmes]

It's generic.

[Mayim Bialik]

No, I.

[Pete Holmes]

But I'm very curious.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah. So I was very new to acting, so the whole thing was kind of cuckoo pants. Like, I had never done a pilot. I had never, like, been in that scenario. It was all very.

[Pete Holmes]

You were living in San Diego?

[Mayim Bialik]

No, no, I was raised in la. Oh.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

I was born in San Diego, but I was raised here. But I didn't start acting till I was, like, 11 and a half. And I had done some commercials, a lot of voiceover work. But, like, character roles were fewer and far, like, between back in the 80s. Fewer and farther, but farther between in the 80s. So I didn't, like. I didn't have a lot of, like, I'm the girl selling you a car. Like, this is my happy family. Like, nobody looked like me. It was like, you know, they would. When they try and put, you know, kids together with people at auditions.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

You know, and they're like, oh, we're gonna group together. An African American family. We're gonna group together. And then they'd be like, she.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, right.

[Mayim Bialik]

Like, she's outlier. Like, Eastern European mutt.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

But, yeah, so I didn't have that kind of acting experience. A lot of kids do a ton of commercials. I did, like, a weird McDonald's commercial. I did a. You know, I played the voice of Peppermint patty in a MetLife commercial. And I was in Beaches when I was 12. It came out when I was 13. And from that, I got Blossom. So, like, I was pretty new to the industry.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

I had just started acting, so.

[Pete Holmes]

But they enjoyed it. Someone loved Beaches and was like.

[Mayim Bialik]

A lot of people apparently saw me in that.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. And then.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah. Different companies came to me with scripture of, like, we'd like to give you your own show. Which sounds crazy, and it felt crazy.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

And when I read this Blossom pilot by Don Rio, I was like, oh, this writing is different. This feels like. It reminded me of J.D. salinger in terms of the. The exploration into what was actually going on for this teenager instead of just surfacy stuff.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Mayim Bialik]

And it reminded me of the literature. I liked reading about young, rebellious young.

[Pete Holmes]

People as real people.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And that's. I know that sounds like we're doing a panel For Blossom, I felt that way.

[Mayim Bialik]

No, but. But I enjoyed that. I enjoyed creating television that showed a girl that was quirky.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

But also still dated and was smart. Like, you didn't have to pick. You didn't have to be, like, the girl who had boyfriends or the girl who didn't have boyfriends.

[Pete Holmes]

Right. You're not Screech's girlfriend.

[Mayim Bialik]

Right. It was all the charact. Right. Well, all the characters were, like, kind of like a bit more fleshed out.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, agreed.

[Mayim Bialik]

You know, being 14 to 19 and being on television is a different story like that.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, let's put a pin in there.

[Mayim Bialik]

That was hard.

[Pete Holmes]

Put a pin in that, because I'd love for you to step out. Isn't it fun or sort of worth celebrating that you are. When I say left of center, I consider myself to be a left of center. So please don't think I'm other. But, you know. Oh, I'm trying to remember Six's real name. Don't tell me. It's something. Jenna Von Oy.

[Mayim Bialik]

Very good. Oh, weird flex.

[Pete Holmes]

But, yeah, I know the weirdest flex. Don't tell me her name, but the actress that played Six is Jenna Vonoy. And Joey Tada played Nat, the owner of the Peach Bed. Different show.

[Mayim Bialik]

Different show.

[Pete Holmes]

Just fun names that you remember from credit sequences.

[Mayim Bialik]

You do?

[Pete Holmes]

I do. Joe, there's your clip. That's super fun for me. But so, Jenna, let's leave other people out of it. There's just something about what makes us feel strange when we're in junior high ends up being why they're like, let's give this person, like, you don't fit in at the casting call. In the same way that Joaquin Phoenix doesn't fit in, in the same way that Tom Petty's voice doesn't belong in a choir. Like, get that. There's someone ruining the choir. There's. There's front people.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And those front people are often kind of weirdos and a little bit ostracized.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

So isn't there something kind of nice about that?

[Mayim Bialik]

No, that's definitely kind of nice. And I think that felt special about being on Blossom. That felt really special that we weren't being asked to be different than who we were.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

You know, and even Joey Lawrence, who got to play this kind of, like, dopey, you know, character, had his moments of insight. He had his moments of complexity where you could see, oh, sometimes people choose to not operate in the cerebral world because it's not as fun or interesting for them.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Mayim Bialik]

And that doesn't mean that they're stupid. Right, Right. So I think all those things. And, you know, I don't mean to, like, Monday morning. Monday morning quarterback a sitcom, but for us, it was very meaningful.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

And it was, you know, it was not easy to be a leading lady on a show where nobody looked like me on television. Who was a leading lady. Like, it was. It was very surprising. You know, I was on, you know, I would do press tours and stuff with people like Christina Applegate and, you know, Jennifer Anne's, like, all these women who were, like, classically. Right. What was considered classically 1980s, you know, beautiful and like, Pamela Anderson and, like, you know, that was the aesthetic, especially at that point. 100.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm not saying it's not that way anymore.

[Mayim Bialik]

Correct.

[Pete Holmes]

I remember when Blossom came on being like, what? Yeah, not in a what, but like a what. Yeah, it was kind of exciting and interesting, but you must have felt the other side of that. Maybe like a little imposter, not imposter syndrome, but maybe like, what's going on here? Or something different is happening.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah. And I think that it's funny because we. I. On my podcast, we've talked with Jenna Von Oy, and she had a lot of really interesting things to say that she said there was a lot she didn't realize she was even processing at that time. You know, like, you kind of go through it and you put one foot in front of the other and you're making comedy and it's fun and you're getting all this attention, but there's a lot of complexity, you know, to what you're experiencing, especially as a young woman, you know, at that time, for sure. I think. When. I think also of, like, did I enjoy it? Did I have a good time?

[Pete Holmes]

Like, what did she mean by. Because I'm not going to forget to get to. Did you enjoy it? Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

I mean, I think what she and I talked about in particular, and this is, you know, on our episode, in the early days, in the early years of Blossom, there was a lot of fear that people wouldn't watch a show about a girl. In particular, boys wouldn't watch a show about a girl because the sort of industry standard was girls will watch girls and girls will watch boys, but boys will watch boys.

[Pete Holmes]

Wow. And that the kind of girls will tolerate a Topanga. But we're here for Fred's brother.

[Mayim Bialik]

Right. But the notion that the kind of girls that boys like to watch are Playboy bunnies was something that we kind of incorporated into our show as A request from the people who drive ratings, like, we'd like to get more ratings. And so we started featuring episodes with like, Playboy Bunnies. It was Joey fantasy sequences or like this, that. And it made for good publicity. Keep in mind, there was no in those days. And we were a family sitcom. Sitcoms were not cool. They were not, you know, cutting edge. So it was like, if we have Playboy Bunnies on, like, we take pictures and we post them on Us Weekly or whatever.

[Pete Holmes]

Right, right.

[Mayim Bialik]

It became a thing. And so Jenna and I were talking about how, like, I found that deeply problematic because I was like, this young feminist, and I was like, these women are being objectified, and don't you all see it? You know, and everybody was like, you're crazy and you're just a weird feminist. And Jenna said that she remembered at the time feeling like she was okay with it, but she said, looking back, we were these young teenage girls trying to, like, be creative and be appreciated. And what was happening was, like, we were frequently being surrounded by, like, men coming to our set to take pictures with women in bikinis. And, like, it wasn't a hostile work environment. But as a young, like, 14, 15 year old, it's like, what does this mean about value? And what is our show saying about that? Right. And so it was interesting that she said that at the time, she didn't realize it. And she's like, she sees now that all of my, like, this is wrong. She's like, now I get what you were saying.

[Pete Holmes]

So Even as a 12, 13 year old, you were like, this is wrong.

[Mayim Bialik]

Oh, I was like, I never shaved. Like, I didn't shave my legs. I didn't believe in it. Like, I was a very, like, strident, you know, second wave feminist as a teenager.

[Pete Holmes]

It's funny, I bring this up a lot because it's been something that I've had to unpack and process is like, I've kind of been called out in real life for, like, when I go, like. And strippers, they don't want to be stripping.

[Mayim Bialik]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

And people, it's. It's sort of the flavor of the day to be like, don't shame.

[Mayim Bialik]

No. Right. Choice feminism. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

What is that called?

[Mayim Bialik]

Choice feminism? That, like, all choices are part of the spec. Which is true.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. You know it's true.

[Mayim Bialik]

But yeah, some of us of. Of different generations, and not just. Yeah, some of us feel like, well, is the patriarchy telling us. Right. That. I mean, that's really what we're talking about.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Mayim Bialik]

That the patriarchy would say, oh, we're going to. We're going to make this an empowered thing. Look, and maybe that's true.

[Pete Holmes]

It's not a hot. I don't want to be on the record. I know. We are technically, literally on the record. I'm just saying. Boy, that sounds like us. And I'm speaking as the patriarchy.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah, it's. Yeah, but, like, what if we made it so that it's awesome to provide this service? And, like, I don't know.

[Pete Holmes]

Maybe it is Stupid Love where Ryan Gosling's character says, as soon as you guys started taking pole dancing class for exercise, we won.

[Mayim Bialik]

That's right.

[Pete Holmes]

And I was like, that's the same point.

[Mayim Bialik]

It's the same point. And I don't know. It's very confusing.

[Pete Holmes]

I don't know either. I used to think it was the easy feminist. Good. Forget feminists.

[Mayim Bialik]

Just.

[Pete Holmes]

Good choice.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And I remember I was on a podcast where there was a porn star, and she was talking about how much she liked it. And then I said, but if I gave you $100 million, would you keep doing it? And the face that she made, like, I'm not saying she was stupid, but she was young, and she had clearly never considered that. That, like, kind of high school guidance counselor question. And that enforced this idea that I was like, I don't think anyone. I don't know. I don't know if it holds up to the scrutiny. Some people are exhibitionists, and that really is their thing. They love it.

[Mayim Bialik]

But, I mean, look, I don't even know. I think. I mean, I don't even know if it's exhibitionism. Right. Like, for some people, it is. If you have a body that people want to pay to look at. Right.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

It's. Why wouldn't you want to make money that way? Well, and also, we live in a culture where you can make a lot more money doing that than doing just about anything else. And so, like, that's also, again, the structure of, you know, like, gosh, why is it that young people feel like that's, you know, what they would. But you're right. We should not shame strippers.

[Pete Holmes]

No. And I'm not. And I'm not trying to shame strippers.

[Mayim Bialik]

Oh, I know. I'm just wanting us to both acknowledge that.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Mayim Bialik]

In case anyone's like. But ultimately.

[Pete Holmes]

But yeah, yeah. And also to talk out the other side. Almost no one would keep doing their job if you gave them a hundred million dollars. You know what I mean? Like, I'll make that point. It's not just Sex work or erotic work.

[Mayim Bialik]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

It's most jobs. I just happen to be in one of the few jobs that you're like, I would keep doing comedy. That. And that's absolutely. Sir.

[Mayim Bialik]

But that's because you're doing something that accidentally you get paid to do.

[Pete Holmes]

That's exactly right.

[Mayim Bialik]

And like, you were like that when before you were getting paid to do it.

[Pete Holmes]

You're absolutely right. In fact, you could say it's a. It's an over overflowing of. I can't stop. Please help me. I can't stop.

[Mayim Bialik]

I can't stop speaking and thinking funny things while other people are talking and interrupting them. Can someone pay me?

[Pete Holmes]

Here's my favorite thing. If you're ever at a dinner party, and I hope you are with me, and I go, here's something I'd never say on stage, but I think it's funny. Like, please lean in, because those are my favorite, favorite bits. My terminal illness hour. The hour I'd only do if I die the moment we're done filming it.

[Mayim Bialik]

That's awesome, though.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

That's like, live every moment like it's your last. Not if you're a comedian. No.

[Pete Holmes]

And not if you're anybody. Dwayne Kennedy, a comedian, used to have a bit about that. He's like, you can't go in and tell your boss to fuck off. And like, no. Live every day like, it's just another fucking day. Please. That's the only way. Okay, so you're a child. Where did that feminism come from? It's interesting to me. Here are the Playboy Bunnies. You're literally. Who just loved to sleep. Yeah, Hugh loved to sleep.

[Mayim Bialik]

What did. A strong bed.

[Pete Holmes]

When he said, will you go to bed? He meant, I need some rem, baby. I'm trying to get that whole time I was trying to think of the lead singer of REM's name, Michael Stipe. Stipe. Anywho's all.

[Mayim Bialik]

See, like, why am I doing this?

[Pete Holmes]

I like it.

[Mayim Bialik]

All of a sudden, I like it.

[Pete Holmes]

It's a little cold in here.

[Mayim Bialik]

You can gesture because you have more space between the base of your thumb and the knuckle.

[Pete Holmes]

It's piano players, magicians and microphone artists.

[Mayim Bialik]

Okay, sorry, what were we saying?

[Pete Holmes]

I was saying, where did that feminism come from? And also, where did the chutzpah. I'm not just saying that come from that. You're like, this is, you know, the Yankee dollar. These people. It's the set, it's the stage. You've kind of been indoctrin To a certain level of money, fame, influence, power. I'm not saying that's you. That's anybody. You have a parking spot, you can't drive into it. You can just point to it. Your dad barks at it.

[Mayim Bialik]

That's right.

[Pete Holmes]

My mom. And you go, it's my fucking spot. So what I'm saying is, I've been in situations. Nothing comes to mind. But I know there have been times when I've been like, you know, maybe we'll just shut up, because this is someone's production. I don't mean anything horrible. I'm trying to shine a light on the fact that you were brave enough to be.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah, I mean, look, it didn't always go well or have any impact, but.

[Pete Holmes]

When did it not go well? It went badly.

[Mayim Bialik]

Well, I mean, like, if it were up to me, I didn't think those women should have to come and be in bikinis and take pictures with all these random dudes and be in an episode to try and get ratings. Do you know what I mean? Like, it didn't feel. Whatever. It's like, it didn't feel like a necessary thing. But I also. I don't understand the things that people who do ratings understand, you know, like, for them, if that was what they wanted to do. So, yeah, it's not like I was like, this is not gonna happen on my set. It wasn't like that at all. You know, I was kid.

[Pete Holmes]

Right. And you did try to voice your principles.

[Mayim Bialik]

Oh, yeah. And there was a lot. Yeah, there was a. And there was a lot of interaction with our writers about what felt comfortable. And so there was a lot of, you know, I mean, even as an adult, though, that stuff was still hard. I had a show, Call Me Cat. And even then, there's a lot of conversations. Three seasons with network and with this about, like, what should we do? And there's still. Even as a grown woman, it's still like, but do you really know what you're talking about? And I'd be like, a little bit.

[Pete Holmes]

What was something on that show that you were not sure about?

[Mayim Bialik]

Trying to think, you know, there was conversation after Roe v. Wade was overturned about doing an episode about abortion. And I was like, too soon. Our show took place in Kentucky. That was not a state where you wanted to talk about that. So that was an example of, like. I was like, yeah, that feels a little hard. Maybe we. And they agreed, like. But it was just like a conversation. But where it came from is that my mom was a very rebellious child. She was raised By Orthodox Eastern European immigrants from Eastern Europe. Sorry, I said Eastern immigrants twice. My mom was raised. Yeah, my mom was raised very, very religious. And she was the middle of three girls. For whatever reason, she was the rebel. And she wanted to wear short sleeves and she wanted to, you know, not go to synagogue and, like, not be kosher and, you know, all these things. So my mom, when she married my dad.

[Pete Holmes]

Judaism does offer a lot of opportunities. Catholics get all the, like, oh, we're repressed. But Judaism, you have a cheeseburger, you're in the. So you can rebel.

[Mayim Bialik]

Well, part of that is because of the ethnic peoplehood that it's like you're genetically Jewish. Meaning, like, that's your lineage. That's your. All the diseases that Eastern European Jews get, Like, those are your diseases. Even if you don't want to follow the rules.

[Pete Holmes]

Right, right. You can leave, but the diseases are coming with.

[Mayim Bialik]

Well, this is what I say when people are like, I don't really. I don't identify as Jewish. I'm like, do you have to get tested for day sacks and gauchers? You're Jewish, right? Like your genesis. Tell a different story. But you don't have to go to synagogue.

[Pete Holmes]

I don't care how to joke about. You know, in gym class as a kid, you take that big. What was that called?

[Mayim Bialik]

The parachute thing?

[Pete Holmes]

The parachute. And somebody goes, let all the blues run under and everyone wearing blue runs under. And then he goes, let all the Jews run under and he goes. And then the six most unathletic children just run under, like, slowly. I mean, he does it. It's completely different. I'm only quoting, please don't be mad, not me joke.

[Mayim Bialik]

But I do like that parachute game. I used to love that very much.

[Pete Holmes]

Me too. March birthdays. Let's go. So, yep, true story. I was going to a movie premiere this week for my new movie, the best Christmas pageant Ever. I was in the shower, I was getting ready, and I was like, oh, I should wash my hair. And I hesitated because I was like, wait. For years, using shampoo means your hair will look like garbage. It'll look like dried out, fried out, frizzy, poofy hay stuck to the top of my head. But then I remembered I discovered modern mammals. No joke. Now when I want my hair to look perfect, I take 15 seconds. I wash it with modern mammals. The non shampoo shampoo. It's essentially a shampoo. If I had five seconds to explain it to you, I'd be like, it's a shampoo. If I Have a little bit longer. I'd say it's a non shampoo shampoo, meaning it cleans your hair, but it leaves just enough of the natural oils in your hair to make it look perfect, manageable and just right every single time. It's got that flow. Looks perfect. Almost like you have a little bit of product in it afterwards. So I didn't have to use any product. Going to a movie premiere where I wanted my hair to look perfect. All I did was wash it. With modern mammals, you should check it out. Over 40,000 guys have switched to this instead of traditional shampoo. These people are losing their minds. Once they try it, they never go back. And I certainly am one of those people. For real. For real. I'm hooked for life. It's the only way to clean my hair for the rest of for the remainder of my days. And it's a small punk rock company. They're grassroots. These guys are were just fed up of the way shampoo is frying their hair. And they made a solution specifically for guys. They have no bar. They have bars. Excuse me. For a no plastic version with no fragrance or bottles, which is like a magic gray mud that I love the feeling of and gets your hair perfect every single time. Six seconds to perfect hair. Go to modern mammals.com weird where people can get a special combo deal and try both the bar and the bottle for $44. And those bars and those bottles will last you a really, really long time. They last modern mammals.com weird. We're also brought to us by our friends at ritual. Whenever I go to on the road, there's only one supplement that I absolutely make sure to take with me and that is my ritual multivitamin. The Essential for Men. I know a lot of people feel like you just pee out vitamins that they don't actually get into your system. Ritual is different. Has a delayed release capsule, which means it's gentle on your stomach. It won't upset your stomach, which is excellent. I don't know if you've ever taken zinc on an empty stomach, but it will make you feel ill. Ritual is safe even when you're fasting. And it breaks down when it's in your lower intestine, which is where it can actually be absorbed. So trust me, if supporting foundational health was a sport, you would want ritual on your team. They're Essential for men is a multivitamin that's based solely on science and designed to help fill the common nutrient gaps in your diet with 10 key nutrients. According to the CDC fewer men than women meet the natural daily intake for fruit and vegetable, and they're more likely to overvalue exercise and undervalue nutrition. So enter ritual to fix that. A multivitamin scientifically developed for men to help fill those gaps. And I can say for me personally, as a vegan, a mostly vegan, I've seen that effect in my life. When I get my checkup, these 10 key nutrients are getting into my system. They're gentle, it's traceable. It. It's vegan, it's non gmo, it's gluten, and major allergen free. Makes me feel ready to start my day. And I've seen the results in my own blood work. So Essential for men is a quality multivitamin from a company you can actually trust. Get 25% off your first month for a limited time at ritual.com weird. Start ritual or add Essential for Men to your subscription today. That's ritual.com weird for 25% off.

[Mayim Bialik]

So my mom was. My mom was a rebel. And so I was raised with this kind of, like, feminist rebellious spirit.

[Pete Holmes]

And she spoke up.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah, I mean, she. When she met my dad, like, she was like, I never want to, you know, have to participate in things again. But she did raise me in a Reformed synagogue. I was actually raised kosher. There was, like, a lot of remnants of my mother's former life, but I.

[Pete Holmes]

Think when I was remnants of chicken guts.

[Mayim Bialik]

Right. Well, when I was. I don't remember. I must have been like eight or nine. I only found this out later. We had been kosher. Like, I was raised in a kosher home. Two sinks and not two sinks. That's a luxury.

[Pete Holmes]

That is. I know, that's nice.

[Mayim Bialik]

But my mom at some point decided to stop being kosher. And I found out as an adult, she sent a letter to the whole family announcing, I'm no longer kosher. Wow. Like, fuck you. Which I think is kind of funny and very in my mom's spirit. So, yeah, my mom was kind of like, there are pictures of me as a baby wearing a Ms. Magazine T shirt. Like they were. And my dad also, like, they just.

[Pete Holmes]

You said that you're feminists. Like, your house was like the 1940s.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

And it seems to me like that would be your entertainment then. Like, your voice, your opinions, how you live is your television.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah, there was. I mean, in. In a lot of Jewish families, especially immigrant families, there's a lot of talk, there's a lot of conversation, there is a lot of joking, like humor and Sarcasm and, you know, a hyper vigilance about surroundings is very. It can be very funny. Right?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

So that is a lot of our. A lot of our kind of storytelling. And even if you're not religious, like, the culture of Judaism and, like, the Torah and all those stories, like Abraham and all these things, it's a culture of storytelling, and there's a lot of detail.

[Pete Holmes]

There's a lot of detail, a lot.

[Mayim Bialik]

Of humor, a lot of puns, a lot of puns. In the Torah, people don't know the.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, is that right? You got to know the Hebrew.

[Mayim Bialik]

You got to know the Hebrew and a lot of the. The rabbis, which was like, Jesus time, like, about 2,000 years ago. A lot of word play. A lot of. So it's like. It's a very, like in the weeds kind of language.

[Pete Holmes]

Mordecai Finley, the rabbi, on this podcast, and he was like, the Book of Job is a comedy. Like, he's like, you don't get it.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And I was like, I'm gonna stop trying to get it. And he's like, you should.

[Mayim Bialik]

I mean, it's also a great, tragic story for fours. Like, we are jobs, so I totally get the appeal of Job.

[Pete Holmes]

I don't want. This isn't. It's my podcast. It's not an overshare. I had to have my fertility tested this morning. Deal with it.

[Mayim Bialik]

It feels like too much information right now. No, go ahead. Keep going.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, this is how Jewish I feel. This is how I relate to Judaism.

[Mayim Bialik]

How do you relate to Judaism?

[Pete Holmes]

Close the door. It's my time to do this. I'm like, immediately, tell me this isn't Woody Allen scandal. Noted. But it's like a Woody Allen thing. I'm like, well, I don't want to be too fast, but I don't want to be too slow.

[Mayim Bialik]

Can you be a little more specific? You had to ejaculate into a cup.

[Pete Holmes]

I had to produce a sample.

[Mayim Bialik]

Okay, got it. That's how I'm like, testing your fertility. I'm like, are they doing a DNA test? Blood work?

[Pete Holmes]

Don't look in your ear, Mom.

[Mayim Bialik]

Okay.

[Pete Holmes]

Is this uncomfortable?

[Mayim Bialik]

So you. No, we're gonna trim it. You're a scientist. Exactly. I was gonna say that's why I use the word ejaculate.

[Pete Holmes]

Ejaculate. It's also for yelling. Something in very old books.

[Mayim Bialik]

Wait, so you didn't tell me that's. What. You didn't want to do this too fast?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

Why?

[Pete Holmes]

What's. What's this guy's deal he's turned on my doctor's offices, pal. I'm finished. As soon as they wouldn't occur to me. Close the door. Wouldn't occur to me if you walk out. 30 seconds. Wait.

[Mayim Bialik]

What are you afraid of? Hold on. So wait, talk to me. What are the fears? That they'll think you were aroused walking in.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Mayim Bialik]

That you're a premature ejaculator.

[Pete Holmes]

All of this. All of this. And that type of hyper vigilance over.

[Mayim Bialik]

Proves that you're a four. Because no one's thinking about you as much as you are.

[Pete Holmes]

Certainly not. But you also don't want to take too long. This guy can't do it. He can't do it.

[Mayim Bialik]

So what is the optimal timeframe for a period of ejaculation?

[Pete Holmes]

I did it this morning. I nailed it. I nailed it. It's about. It's about three minutes. You want a little time to be.

[Mayim Bialik]

I mean, you want sex to be longer than that on average.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. But this is just throwing the baseball in the air and hitting it in the backyard. It's totally different than a game. You want a game, there's a stretch built into the game.

[Mayim Bialik]

So you felt good with that.

[Pete Holmes]

That's Judaism, the framing. I'm really. I know that seems like I was trying to work it in, and I wasn't. In that moment, I was like, I've been this way my whole life. I know now. I'm old enough now to know that that's absurd. I don't need you to tell me that that's absurd. But as it's happening, I'm like, that's what a comedy brain is. Forgive me, but I know Woody Allen doesn't represent, and we don't want him to represent, but that style of humor of like, oh, yeah, you don't want to be too quick because what are you, turned on by skeletons? I mean, I know you like thin women, but it's ridiculous. You know, like, that sort of thing.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

Has its place in what you were just talking about.

[Mayim Bialik]

Well, and I think, you know, neuroticism is a very important component of a lot of observational comedy. Like, it's an important.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Mayim Bialik]

You know, I mean, Seinfeld brought it to the.

[Pete Holmes]

I was just gonna say Seinfeld could have done it, too. You don't want to be too fast.

[Mayim Bialik]

That's right.

[Pete Holmes]

You don't want to be too slow. You want to be just right. Three minutes.

[Mayim Bialik]

It felt a little bit like Trump.

[Pete Holmes]

Too slow, you go out. Too slow, you go. You go bang. Do it. Milan. Think about Milana. It's my wife. It's not cheating if you think about your wife. I produced a sample. Glorious sample. Overflowing.

[Mayim Bialik]

I'm trying. What was the link to Judaism and your. Premature.

[Pete Holmes]

I was trying to relate, as I always am.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

A lot of Jewish friends. I'm always trying to build a bridge and say, being raised by a Lithuanian. Also being some trauma. There's something about humor and vigilance. Obviously, humor and vigilance are responses to trauma. And then also. What was the other one?

[Mayim Bialik]

I mean, tragedy plus time is comedy, right?

[Pete Holmes]

Absolutely.

[Mayim Bialik]

You could say trauma plus time is comedy.

[Pete Holmes]

Trumpa.

[Mayim Bialik]

We've made a new word.

[Pete Holmes]

Are you guys ptsd? Post Trump. Post Trump Disorder.

[Mayim Bialik]

Too soon.

[Pete Holmes]

Too soon. I know you feel it. I've been doing shows and people are, like, waiting to see how they feel.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Very weird.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah. No kidding.

[Pete Holmes]

And this episode will come out after we feel that way.

[Mayim Bialik]

We will have felt it.

[Pete Holmes]

We will have felt it. And we will be alive and okay.

[Mayim Bialik]

And still feeling something.

[Pete Holmes]

And still feeling something. We just don't know. You don't know what you're gonna feel. Maybe you feel great.

[Mayim Bialik]

That's probably true. It's terrible.

[Pete Holmes]

You don't know how you feel. Okay. Sorry. I feel like I derailed you, but you were talking about growing up Judaism.

[Mayim Bialik]

Oh. You asked about how I got the way I was. Rebellious feminist, whatever.

[Pete Holmes]

You touched on Judaism as part of it, maybe.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah. Yeah. Correct. Yep.

[Pete Holmes]

And then.

[Mayim Bialik]

Did you want me to keep talking?

[Pete Holmes]

You could. I'll bring up other medical procedures.

[Mayim Bialik]

You know what? I just want to say. You brought in measuring your fertility.

[Pete Holmes]

I did. It's the podcast. This is.

[Mayim Bialik]

This is your podcast.

[Pete Holmes]

This is. You made it.

[Mayim Bialik]

Bring up whatever you want.

[Pete Holmes]

Here we are. I'm feeling so alive right now.

[Mayim Bialik]

I mean. Sorry. I'm also thinking. Never mind.

[Pete Holmes]

What?

[Mayim Bialik]

Nothing.

[Pete Holmes]

Go ahead.

[Mayim Bialik]

Like, what if a woman had to. I mean, this is. What if a woman had to do such a test?

[Pete Holmes]

Could she.

[Mayim Bialik]

That's what.

[Pete Holmes]

Let me model. Let me model.

[Mayim Bialik]

I need a. Like this.

[Pete Holmes]

Like an Amy Schumer. Ladies.

[Mayim Bialik]

This is an Amy Schumer bit, right? Like, she would destroy. Or Eliza Schlesinger would love to talk about this.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, you guys talk about pap smears.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

But I think the mammogram.

[Mayim Bialik]

But I think this notion of orgasm, which, you know, only 30% of women will experience, you know, from intercourse. And so anyway, there's just a lot that I'm thinking about that's kind of funny about if a woman had to go in there.

[Pete Holmes]

And, well, she'd get a long time, wouldn't she? It'd be a designated room with candles. There'd be a shade, a fainting couch. Perfect lighting.

[Mayim Bialik]

Evidence of all the presence and favors that had been done and since the last time.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes. Love and care. Like mutual respect.

[Mayim Bialik]

Just investment.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

He needs. There's an investment. Time to feel comfortable, to make it.

[Pete Holmes]

Be a mirror so you could go on a date with yourself for 45 minutes.

[Mayim Bialik]

Sorry.

[Pete Holmes]

See, this is why you bring these things up.

[Mayim Bialik]

It's just funny to me. Okay.

[Pete Holmes]

I love it and I need it. We are back to. Did you enjoy doing Blossom?

[Mayim Bialik]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

And I have to think. What year is it? 19.

[Mayim Bialik]

We premiere 90. Like 1995.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, you're right. In, like, a peak. Like, you're a child actor in 1990. Yeah, I bet there's a lot of speculation that people are like, it must have been horrible.

[Mayim Bialik]

Oh, well, we had a very clean set, and I think that's something that distinguished us from a lot of the stories that you hear.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

You know, I worked on Webster. Clean.

[Pete Holmes]

What does that mean?

[Mayim Bialik]

So I worked on Webster before I did, you know, Beaches or Blossom. I did, like, eight episodes of Webster. And this is not to denigrate anyone on that crew. Webster was a beloved show. I mean, I grew up watching that show. I did eight episodes, and I had a great time there. But it wasn't uncommon for people, like, for a crew to, like, drink during lunch.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, wow.

[Mayim Bialik]

And it was just, like, part of the sort of culture. And, like, we filmed at Paramount, and there was that restaurant, Nick Adele on Melrose. This is, like, super Inside Sports Hollywood. It was a nickel. Was like a very kind of famous Hollywood restaurant. And, like, you'd see people, like, in there, and then they'd, like, go back to work, you know.

[Pete Holmes]

I see.

[Mayim Bialik]

And so, like, it was those kind of sets had a different vibe, especially for young people. But on our stage, I never saw anyone drunk or drinking. There was no alcohol on our stages. There was no alcohol on the lot. I never saw people do drugs. It wasn't like the cocaine days. We didn't have that kind of room. We didn't have that writer's room of, like, everybody's coke. You know, you hear these, like, horror stories, you know, and especially for young people dealing with those personalities, like, you know, the things that I remember is smoking was still allowed inside when we started Blossom. And we had this unbelievable director, Zane Busby, who does beautiful, beautiful work. She runs. She runs an organization called the Survivor Mitzvah Project. Where they contact Holocaust survivors still living in Eastern Europe and bring them supplies and food. And she's amazing person, but she was our director on Blossom, and she used to smoke, like, in our face, like, on stage. It was just, like, a normal thing. And it was my mom and the other moms who finally, like, very gently were like, can we not have someone smoking in? But that's what the culture was like. So for me, like, that was, like, the worst of what I saw. And so I think that that made for a very different experience. Like, I had a sober crew, sober cast, like all, you know, Bill Bixby was our director. He was unbelievable. Like, we had these beautiful. We had a really safe atmosphere. You know, it was hard being a human and it was hard being me. But that, you know, that was kind of its own thing. It wasn't anything about work, per se. My parents also were very strict. I didn't party. I didn't go to things. But as, you know, like, given my personality, like, I wasn't the party kind of kid.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Mayim Bialik]

Like, I'd see all these teens. I'd go to events, like, with other teens. Like, Teen Beat would take us away. Like, let's go to Palm Springs and we'll film the whole thing and put it in the magazine. Like, that was those days. And it was like Danica McKellar and, like, the kids from Wonder Years and, you know, all these kids. And, like, I felt exactly like I did everywhere else in the world. I felt like. I don't get it. Why are people being silly and having fun? Like, why aren't we talking about serious things? And I wasn't snotty. I don't think I was snotty or standoffish. I just didn't fit. And it fit then in the same way that I don't really fit in a lot of places. But you find your people, you find your force.

[Pete Holmes]

Right? Yeah. No, I relate. I relate to that. Mine had a lot to do with not wanting to party and stuff. It sounds like it was your personality.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

It wasn't like a fear of Yahweh.

[Mayim Bialik]

Oh, well, I mean, I do think that a lot of my parents did have a very puritanical streak to them, and I think that was left over from my mother's orthodoxy. A real fear of sex, of partying, of. The Yiddish word is nourish, kite, foolishness, tomfoolery. Like, that was. I know. So it was a little bit such.

[Pete Holmes]

A serious word for.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah. And for. Seriously. So though there was. There. There was some of that. Also, my. My parents thought. My dad in particular thought that the way to, you know, teach me and my brother about safe sex was to tell us that everyone was lying and no one was having sex and that we just went to school with liars.

[Pete Holmes]

What?

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah. I mean, bless his memory. This was my dad's. And my dad and mom got married in 1964 when they actually were virgins. Like, people are like, no, they weren't. I'm like, no, no, no. They were like, this was the Jewish communities post Holocaust. Like, they were like, everybody was. It was a thing. This is not like my fanciful thinking, really. Oh, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Why was that a thing? What about fruitful and multiply?

[Mayim Bialik]

Well, they weren't married yet. You don't do that.

[Pete Holmes]

I don't remember that.

[Mayim Bialik]

Well, they got. My mom was 18 when they got married, so people also got married young. But what I'm saying is that, like, that was my dad's like, like, kids.

[Pete Holmes]

They'Re lying, they're lying. No one's having sex. Right?

[Mayim Bialik]

And I think my brother at that time probably was like, to the person that he ended up marrying. But, you know, like, for me, that was very confusing. And then the only thing I remember that. That broke step with that was when Rock Hudson died. And Rock Hudson died of eight. And I remember my parents. My parents had a lot of gay friends. Like, my parents were, you know, artsy and knew a lot of, like, I grew up with, like, gay couples, like, being friends of my parents. And like, it was very, like, normal to me that. That this is a part of reality. But my dad said gay men are dying of this disease and they don't know why, and we don't know what's happening, you know, and it was like a real. I remember that moment. And it was also. I was like, oh. So he's acknowledging people are. Some people are having sex.

[Pete Holmes]

Some people are.

[Mayim Bialik]

Some people are having sex. Because he said that, you know, they're telling us, like, you, you have to be careful. And at that point, I don't even think I had been kissed. I was like, what's he talking about? You know, but my brother was older, but that was kind of the first crack in the veneer of the puritanical.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Mayim Bialik]

There's also even more than kind of like the fear of God with sex. There was a real institution of one love, meaning that you get one chance to fall in love in your life. And my parents were that story. And so the notion of, like, have to find that one person that was. I Gotta find that one person mythology. That was the mythology. And I think it really carried on for me and then like, that's why getting divorced for me. I don't know what you're getting divorced. Like, even though I cognitively knew I.

[Pete Holmes]

Was not them, but it shattered something.

[Mayim Bialik]

It's so. Yeah, it like, it kind of like, kind of blew this notion wide open of like, oh, I guess I didn't do it right.

[Pete Holmes]

You know, that's hard.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Were they still living?

[Mayim Bialik]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

When you got divorced?

[Mayim Bialik]

Oh, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And were they?

[Mayim Bialik]

I mean, the funny response is like, guess you didn't find true love.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh my gosh.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah. And like I even say that about my mom. Like, you know, I went on to like get, I have, I have a PhD, you know, I've raised two children. I'm, I'm self supporting. I've, I've written two New York Times bestsellers. Like, I'm a, you know, and she's like, but are you gonna get married again? Like, wow.

[Pete Holmes]

Hard to get away from that one.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah. But to me, like, it's, it's an indication of, of the intensity with which. That was a really a fulcrum point of the community that I come from, you know, which I think you can relate to that.

[Pete Holmes]

I did. Yeah. I don't. Yeah. I'm more interested in yours. I'm not going to bring my divorce into it. We've covered it.

[Mayim Bialik]

No, I was thinking more about when you were saying like the fear of God with sex. You know, I'm saying this was all bottled up in.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

Like if you're only supposed to have sex when you're married.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

When you find the one person.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

That is your forever person. The only way to know that that's the person you should have sex with is if you get married.

[Pete Holmes]

Right, right, right.

[Mayim Bialik]

That's your person.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Mayim Bialik]

You get one shot.

[Pete Holmes]

Right. And then that. Why did that fall apart? Do you talk about that?

[Mayim Bialik]

My marriage.

[Pete Holmes]

Your marriage?

[Mayim Bialik]

I don't really talk about it.

[Pete Holmes]

I mean, if there was a category.

[Mayim Bialik]

I mean the category was I, I, I don't think I knew myself.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

You know, I don't know that. I do now, to be perfectly honest. I don't think I knew myself. Meaning not just like I didn't know what I needed. It wasn't that. It was like there was a lot of processing of where I came from that I think we both bore the brunt of, you know.

[Pete Holmes]

So you started doing some work.

[Mayim Bialik]

It started working me because one of.

[Pete Holmes]

The things we bonded your Issues will work you. Yeah. So it started showing up.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah. In retrospect, yes.

[Pete Holmes]

How does it show up?

[Mayim Bialik]

I mean, for me, I mean, like I said, I don't know that these things are like gone. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

They don't have to be gone.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

But I do think that's more fun.

[Mayim Bialik]

Just keep it going.

[Pete Holmes]

No, I think it's interesting that therapy and working on this stuff is viewed as like a luxury or like. Or just sort of. Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

No, it's. Look, it is a privilege, you know, to be able to afford a person to help unwind this. But it's emotions and trauma. It's like urine. You can try and hold it in.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

Eventually.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

It's going to come out.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Mayim Bialik]

Like it'll start leaking and then it will be beyond your control.

[Pete Holmes]

That's right.

[Mayim Bialik]

It will be like literally.

[Pete Holmes]

But that's what I mean for everyone. I don't think that's said often enough. Is it's not like you'll be a little bit more relaxed at the pool. You'll like stop sabotaging your relationships.

[Mayim Bialik]

You'll stop throwing things and breaking them.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

Not at people.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

Like I had the real rage. Oh, yeah. I'm a rager. I'm sorry, I shouldn't say that. Sorry. I'm a person who experiences rage. I wouldn't say I'm a rager. Like I'm a constitutional rager.

[Pete Holmes]

I understand.

[Mayim Bialik]

But.

[Pete Holmes]

But rage is there.

[Mayim Bialik]

Rage is there. Rage is there. And rage in the past has been there in ways that felt as out of control as I have heard addicts describe their addiction. Like going for the narcotic.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

Like it does not feel like it's in my control.

[Pete Holmes]

When did that start?

[Mayim Bialik]

Well, probably when I was a kid.

[Pete Holmes]

Kid raging.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, wow.

[Mayim Bialik]

I don't think I grew out of it. Well. And I think if, you know, if we look at. For me, you know, like, why do relationships not work? Yeah. I think I was still in many ways operating with the tools of a young frustrated person.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

In a grown up suit.

[Pete Holmes]

So rage is it just that there are all these like, not slights, but there are all these things that are activating to you and you're pushing them down and then it bursts.

[Mayim Bialik]

I mean, I think it's like it's death by a thousand paper cuts. And I do, I think, like what I'm told is that it's unprocessed grief. You know, it's like. Yeah, it's grief with a lot of energy. Exactly. It's like sadness and grief with A lot of energy.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

And I do believe that. That, you know, while our environment and meditation, all these things can impact us, I also believe that, like, for some people, physiologically, that's where we go. Like, when I meet people who are like, I've never experienced that. I'm like, what's that like, you know.

[Pete Holmes]

Is it existential grief or is it, like, circumstantial?

[Mayim Bialik]

No, it's usually circumstantial.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, really?

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah, it's you. And it's. It's some sort of buildup, you know, that feels like it needs a discharge, you know, And I've had people like, you know, freeze. If you freeze, like, paper plates with water in the freezer, and then you peel the paper off, you have, like, these, like, ice plates. So people have recommended, like, throw those instead. And I'm like, no, it doesn't do the same thing. It's really not the same.

[Pete Holmes]

I need a real plate.

[Mayim Bialik]

Like, punch a pillow. I'm like, no, not really the same thing. And my dad had rage. You know, I think that's. Yeah, yeah. I grew up. I grew up with things flying. That was like, a thing. And so that's also the thing. Right, Sorry.

[Pete Holmes]

There's a couple. Jewish breaking the glass. There's also, like, the. The very standard, like, the cost of the things that are being broken. Very standard.

[Mayim Bialik]

It's true. No. That when things broke, we could not replace them. There was duct tape involved with my father's rage. No, but I think, you know, the, you know, I think you. You and I talked a bit about this. Like, I didn't enjoy that. This is terrifying with the family as a child, like, as a child growing up with rage.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

And yet you would think that willpower alone should be like, I'm never going to do that.

[Pete Holmes]

Right, Right.

[Mayim Bialik]

Why would I, you know, and my children have seen me rage. You know, I mean, it's. It's brief. It is not as significant. I make a prompt amends. Like, I do things to try and blah, blah.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. But, like, the repair is.

[Mayim Bialik]

Seen me throw things, not at them. Miles says once I threw a pillow at him. I don't recall.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah. And it's a pillow.

[Mayim Bialik]

But, like, that's, you know, to me. And these are the things that, like, a lot of people don't want to talk about, and I don't love talking about it. But since we're here and we're talking about it, it's part of why I do my podcast the way I do it is because I am not the celebrity who's going to be like, here's the three tips. Have a great day with your kids.

[Pete Holmes]

Five, four, three.

[Mayim Bialik]

I mean, believe me, I want to do it. And also, like, the truth is that I have scared my children with my anger, you know, and I've had to.

[Pete Holmes]

To which I say. I don't know if you heard me say, it's all about the repair. The times that.

[Mayim Bialik]

Sure.

[Pete Holmes]

I think that just to join you.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I think our gait was.

[Mayim Bialik]

I mean, I've raged at your child, which is.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, I know. Leela's not cool with you. She can't watch Blossom with us. It's really. She can watch Call Me Cat, though. Cause that feels more measured. No, but the gate was starting to close on the car, and there was something about the dog was barking, and I'm trying to close the gate, and something went wrong with the car, and now it's in the way. And I was just like, fuck.

[Mayim Bialik]

Like that.

[Pete Holmes]

And Leela saw that. Then comes, like, the guilt and the shame.

[Mayim Bialik]

Oh, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And then Val, what I'm trying to briefly share with you is, like, Val goes. It's all the repair.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Everything is the recovery.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

It's just, in fact, you're kind of doing something wonderful. Meaning the world is filled with those moments, and people having moments, like, sure. And. And then, like, saying, like, you're giving them a safe. I said this on some other parenting podcast, but I was like, going to Disneyland is, like, a safe place to experience, like, fear. You know what I mean? But, you know, you're okay. But you go on Pirates and there's that dip that. So your parent, too, can be, like, a place where it's like, yeah, I thought the car was going to get wrecked and the dog was stressing me out, and you just kind of calmly. I got overwhelmed. But we know we're at Disneyland.

[Mayim Bialik]

Well, right. Well. And I think also, you know, being a parent is also being able to say, I. I did not handle that well because I clearly don't yet have the skills to know how to handle that moment. If I did, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Me telling you I didn't know how to handle that.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

Like, there's something there.

[Pete Holmes]

Right?

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

It's interesting also, you mentioning the sober set at Blossom. There's something about drunkenness that is very similar. I stopped drinking. One of the reasons I didn't realize I was stopping drinking is I've talked about it before. I was doing a corporate show. That's a whole Story. But it was a party and there was a dad and he had these red wine lips, and he was talking to his son in this way that I'm like, this kid doesn't know why his dad is act. I'm not saying all alcohol is evil. I'm just saying this guy was lit and was talking to his son. Like, dad splaining.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Like boozy dad splaining to his son.

[Mayim Bialik]

It feels like kids don't always know why, but it's like something. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Dude. When someone's. I hate. I don't like talking to drunk people. If someone's drunk and talking to me, I. I'll just be like, I'm gonna go sit over there. Like, it's over. Yeah, I have that.

[Mayim Bialik]

No, I have very low time tolerance for.

[Pete Holmes]

It's not happening.

[Mayim Bialik]

Even high people, they think they're hiding it well because, like, everybody smokes weed. And I'm like, no, I can tell when you're not holding your weed. Well.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

You're like that drunk person. I don't really want to engage with you.

[Pete Holmes]

That's right. Everything is being forgotten.

[Mayim Bialik]

Exactly. Everything's so funny. Like, no, she's really not. Just stop. I like to have a good time as much as the next person, but you got to read the room.

[Pete Holmes]

Absolutely.

[Mayim Bialik]

If I'm stone cold sober and you're super freaking high.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Mayim Bialik]

Just say hello and move on and find someone else who's stone. They'll think Ronald, Larry.

[Pete Holmes]

They'll love every. And here's the feeling of being stoned is you're both laughing. And then I go, he didn't know that there was a cat in the box. And then the other guy goes, there was a cloud that looked like Ronald Reagan. And I'm like, oh, we weren't even having the same experience. So so much of my stoned experiences is going like, you don't understand why this is funny. Like, it's. I don't like it. Not a good attention seeking drug.

[Mayim Bialik]

No.

[Pete Holmes]

Because everybody's having their own experience.

[Mayim Bialik]

No. Yeah, that's funny.

[Pete Holmes]

Even in California, it is getting a little bit colder here, which means I've been drinking my element lmnt. Element. My hydration super drink Hot. What does that mean? It means you can make element hot. They have chocolate flavors, and you can get their chocolate medley now, which means they have chocolate chai, they have chocolate salt, and they have chocolate raspberry and chocolate mint, which are incredible. I boil up some water. Really just heat it up, put it in a cup, stir it. It reduces My cravings at night when I might be reaching for a sleeve of cookies. That's right, an entire sleeve of cookies. And it also has magnesium, which helps me calm down and relax and get into my bedtime routine beautifully and sleep perfectly. I've also noticed when I drink element before bed, I don't get up to pee in the night. I don't exactly know what's going on there, but I think something about the sodium helps my body have something to do other than wake me up to use the bathroom. So what is element? Element is a zero sugar, zero bs hydration electrolyte drink which has the perfect blend of potassium, magnesium and sodium for health, performance and energy. Of course, being dehydrated can lead to lead to cramps, fatigue, brain fog. One of the things I love about it, it's been replacing my morning cup of coffee is it jumpstarts my brain. I feel that neuro connectivity. I feel that salt giving me that boost in that energy. I feel ready to start my day. It also tastes amazing and is awesome to ward off cravings when I'm fasting or like I said at night when I'm just trying to not eat something I'm going to regret in the morning. So many times your body's just sending you a signal, hey, I need something. And in my personal experience so often that thing is sodium. So drink lmnt.com weird and use promo code weird with your order. Try the Chocolate medley. You'll also get a free element sample pack with any order. When you order, you can also get their new sparkling 16 ounce Bold electrolyte water which I absolutely love and you sometimes see me drinking here on the show. If LMNT doesn't exceed your expectations, they have a no questions asked refund policy. You don't even need to send it back. So support your body, Support the show. Go to drinklmnt.com weird get that free sample pack. Try the Chocolate medley. Try it hot here in these colder months and thank me. Well, you don't even have to thank me. I was going to say thank me later but you don't have to do that. Just enjoy it. Support your body. Support this show. Drinklmnt.com weird we're also brought to us by our friends at Shakti Shakti Mats. I have a question. Have you ever laid on a bed of nails? Well, I do almost every day. Not entirely literally. I lay on my Shakti mat. My Shakti mat. Really? Why am I saying it? Shakti. I know the word is Shakti. It's a Spiritual word, Shakti. My Shakti mat is like a bed of nails. It's these very tiny pokey spikes, thousands of them on these discs on this mat that I lay out behind me and I lay down on it. I get my shakti pillow underneath my neck and I feel my stress melting away as I'm boosting circulation. Look, I like massage. I'm not going to say I don't like massage. Of course I do. But it costs a fortune. It's hard to fit into my schedule and I can't do it anytime, whenever I need it. But the Shakti mat, whenever I feel that tension, I feel that stress and that tightness in my muscles. I unfurl it. I have a lay, sometimes five minutes, sometimes 20 minutes. The first time I use it, I fell asleep and the pain and the tension just melts away. It has an extreme feeling up top. But I promise on the other side of that pokey poke is a wonderful and unbeatable, almost like sinking into a warm bath feeling. And you can feel the blood rushing into your back and you can feel your muscles melting away, relaxing away. It's intense, but it is wonderful. It's like cold exposure or deep tissue work or sauna. So many of the things that relax our body at first are a little bit freaky deaky. I'll also say this is just a hot tip coming up into the holidays. A Shakti mat is an awesome gift. Gift for your friend if they're like me, if they're a little quirky, they're a little hard to shop for. But they like to relax and they like to feel good. This is fun, it's interesting, it's different, it's unexpected, it's surprising. And it's a wonderful gift to give a friend that could use a little help relaxing. Deeper street, deeper sleep. Excuse me. Stress relief months. Muscle relaxation, better circulation, mental clarity and just a general sense of well being whenever you need it. It Shakti mats are my secret weapon. For reliable serenity and relief. Go to Shakti matt s h a k t I m a t dot com and use promo code weird30. And you will get 30 off any Shakti mat shaktimat.com use promo code weird30 at checkout. All right, back to the show. But the boozy detachment and also a rage detachment. They're these things that like, the thing that sucks about rage is it's booze you make.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

So it occurs as a spring inside of you, but you still have to deal with it. Has anything helped?

[Mayim Bialik]

I mean, yeah, I Mean, I think.

[Pete Holmes]

You know, the paper plate thing. That's dumb.

[Mayim Bialik]

No, that's not gonna work.

[Pete Holmes]

That's dumb.

[Mayim Bialik]

No. And to me, those are kind of like prophylactics, you know, the core is to learn to uncoil that spring in the first place. And that actually has nothing to do with what's happening in those moments. It's all the moments in between.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

You know?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, it's.

[Mayim Bialik]

It's what. It's what you wake up like, it's what the pace of your day is like. It's what activities you're doing that fill you up and which are draining you. It's learning that no is a complete sentence, you know, not being a people pleaser.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, I. Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

And I think that's the thing that, like, no one told me as a kid or teenager or young adult that, like, all that matters, I really piecemealed my life, you know, oh, I'll do this thing I don't want to do. I'll, you know, drink till I fall asleep. You know, I'll do all these things and I'll run around and then I'll get a PhD and also do that. No one. I didn't get those lessons. And people that I know who were raised in Buddhist traditions did get these lessons and other traditions as well. And maybe people learned it or, you know, but for me, like, no one ever gave me that tip of like, the entire way that you conduct yourself from like, the time you wake up till the time you go to sleep is actually ref. Reflecting a larger stress state.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

And anxiety regulation state. And it's not like, do this for six hours and think that it won't impact your sleep. It's not like, go to work, hate your job, or be in a marriage, hate your relationship. And then like, but it'll be okay because you go out with your friends on the weekends and drink.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Mayim Bialik]

Like, oh, it's all you.

[Pete Holmes]

I just. So it was Halloween yesterday, and my daughter got a full size KitKat bar and she's just honking into it immediately. And then of course later she's having, like, an extreme freak out and she's not quite old enough. But there's coming. We're getting ever so closer to me being, like, what we do leads to what happens. Like, and your hormones. I haven't read it, but there's a book called balance your hormones, balance your life. Anyway, Val read it and like, eating that much sugar is like jacking all these hormones being just like. In my opinion, obviously not the most accurate but, like, it's just, like, a word for the things that are happening.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

You know what I mean? Like, I know we can find them and isolate them. And I'm not science. I'm just saying a hormone is just a flood of an impulse, and it's crazy.

[Mayim Bialik]

It's a reflection of a lack of homeostasis, you know, when things are in flux like that.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Mayim Bialik]

And it's kind of funny because, you know, I always say this on our podcast and just in my life, like, the hippies were right about more things than we wanted to acknowledge.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

And, you know, people who were like, I don't feed my children red dye. Or, like, people who had that kid who they could tell when they ate an artificial dye, and we were like, you're fucking crazy. And your kid just. You think you're so fucking special with your kid who can't eat with the other kids. And then, lo and behold, we find out not only that those things that we've been putting in food are actually not great, they do spike things in your body that make your behavior change. Europe banned them decades ago because they're like, why would you eat this? It's like a rat poison. And we're just like. But that notion that that's a consequence, that we need to have science to explain the spike in the hormone and the thing where it's like, people have known this, we've known this, we know.

[Pete Holmes]

And you see it, you know when I. I think I already referenced that. I had my first Instagram real binge. It was, like, about an hour and a half, and I was loving it. It's so weird. I thought I would hate it, but I just got pulled in. It was all this trauma stuff. It was all this, like. I don't know how. I was like, how are you doing this? I love this. And I had tears streaming down my face. Of course, the next day, you watch any of those videos on its own, and you're like, this is nothing. This is nothing. But all of them together was all of them together. It's like being drunk. It's exactly like being drunk.

[Mayim Bialik]

It's Dopamine hit. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And then afterwards, I noticed I was dopamine seeking as soon as I. So I deleted the app. But at least I know that it's happening.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And I didn't act on it. That was a win for me. But I was like, I want ice cream. I want everything. I want. I want everything.

[Mayim Bialik]

I want to go prove my fertility in three minutes.

[Pete Holmes]

Could I please. I could have done it in. I could have done it in four seconds. But precisely, I wanted anything.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

And isn't that a weird little glimpse into just what we are? If you prime it.

[Mayim Bialik]

Just animals.

[Pete Holmes]

If. Yes. And if you prime it, just. I was doing a bit about that recently where I was like, smell dating. Like pheromone dating. If you, like, date someone whose smell you really like, the likelihood of sticking with them or having a success, whatever the metric is, is like through the roof. Like. And I'm like, I'm sorry, but we're apes. We're apes. We like a smell. And the smell has to be. Let's not even unpack the smell. But there's a lot of things going on that have nothing to do with anything.

[Mayim Bialik]

It's like an anchorman, right? When he's putting on the. It's like the Cougar. Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

55, 50% of the time. It works every time or whatever.

[Mayim Bialik]

Sorry.

[Pete Holmes]

It's absolutely true. Well, the bit that I'm doing is I think Viagra is leading to children that shouldn't exist. And I think that's true because if you can't perform with somebody, that's a sign. That's a real sign we had on. You might be related to them, Maya. You might. The fact that you can't function might be because you're smelling a distant cousin and Viagra is like, shut the fuck up.

[Mayim Bialik]

That's really funny. We had Sharon Malone, who's a obgyn and hormone specialist, on our podcast, and she was describing all the wonderful things that happened to women in perimenopause. And I was like, why is every. Is every man listening to this going to be like, I don't want to date anyone who's 42.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

I was like, is this what's happening? She's like, truth be told, that. And Viagra is leading to a lot of discomfort because. Because men who normally would be like, well, she's my lady, are now like, I can. Like a 20 year old. I don't need this.

[Pete Holmes]

And you're not supposed to, because you're supposed to be around the same age.

[Mayim Bialik]

Well, you're supposed to be like. Like, pet her back.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes. And your declining sex.

[Mayim Bialik]

Correct.

[Pete Holmes]

Is time correct? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

So that's what she was saying, is.

[Pete Holmes]

That like, Viagra's fucked.

[Mayim Bialik]

Well, she was like, for men and women, it used to be like, oh, we're in this phase of life and it's different. But you give men Viagra, which gives them a really, you know, overdeveloped. Sense of responsibility for perpetuating the species. And then they have basically, a motivation, meaning a chemical motivation to seek something that their partner may not be quite available for in the way that they want.

[Pete Holmes]

Right, right. I'm very unavailable. Also, the dating app said even after you change your status to dating, that's.

[Mayim Bialik]

What the pause is for. Menopause. Sorry.

[Pete Holmes]

I like pause. I like intercourse. Yeah, you pause the intercourse. Why is it called menopause? Men.

[Mayim Bialik]

OPA.

[Pete Holmes]

Menopause.

[Mayim Bialik]

Menopause. Sorry. It's like O'Leary. O Paw. Sorry.

[Pete Holmes]

That's a good lesbian drag name, too. The Irish men. Opaws.

[Mayim Bialik]

Sorry.

[Pete Holmes]

And you're also going through menopause.

[Mayim Bialik]

Okay, I'm done.

[Pete Holmes]

I loved every part of it, and I was here for it. And I saw you kind of going for, like, an Oprah, like, we were gonna, like, celebrate, and I was there for it. I was just thinking about my next riff.

[Mayim Bialik]

Oh, my gosh.

[Pete Holmes]

Because I think I lost it. We were talking about. So that. Oh, the dating apps, there's. They hack your dopamine as well. If you say to whatever it is. I don't know whichever app it is. I was trying to say Tinder, but I worry that that means Grinder. It's Tinder. Let's say you tell Tinder that you're in a relationship. It worked. You met somebody. It'll keep telling you who swiped on you and who checked your profile. That's another kind of Viagra. It's another, like, there are other people that want to have sex with you. Hacking into your sort of, like, crop dusting.

[Mayim Bialik]

Because what was missing from humanity was not enough choices, dude.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, that's one of my favorite studies. I've quoted this many times, but they give 15 people a painting, and I should have made it 16. And eight of them. They give them the option of returning the painting and exchanging it. And the other eight of them, they have to just keep the one painting.

[Mayim Bialik]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

The happiness with the painting is through the roof. It's like 5x on the people that just picked a painting.

[Mayim Bialik]

That's right.

[Pete Holmes]

So, like, yeah, no Viagra and no cologne. And also, why are you pretending you smell like a fucking cedar sauna? I smell like my cousin.

[Mayim Bialik]

Also, funny that you and I have some similarities to our religiosity in a younger time and a different kind of framework. And here we are kind of poo pooing the dating apps of, like, all the people who get to just.

[Pete Holmes]

It's true.

[Mayim Bialik]

Have that. I didn't have that. Didn't have to like a normal person.

[Pete Holmes]

Did you marry one of the first people you were with?

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah, I guess.

[Pete Holmes]

I guess I was just curious.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah, not the first, but. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, samesies.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah. And I think also. Yeah, I think it was the first person I dated that was the closest to my age. I had dated a couple people who were older than me.

[Pete Holmes]

That makes sense, right? I mean your growth was kind of.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah, but like when I look back.

[Pete Holmes]

I was physical growth. I meant that you were thrown into being a grownup.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah, but when I look back, I was like. And you know, I have a 19 year old and when I was 19 and I finished Blossom and I was going to college and I was dating someone older than me, like I really felt like that was appropriate. Meaning like, I'm older, I'm. But I was, I was that kid, you know, I look at my 19 year old and I see like, oh, he's like, I'm a big guy now. And it's like, sweetie, you're still meaning like so darling. So I think of myself like that, of like, gosh, that's, you know, that's the folly of youth. You have to believe so deeply.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

That you're competent. Right. That you're like functioning. That you can do all these things. But like in, you know, in the culture that we live in, it's still very young.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, of course. They're tall babies.

[Mayim Bialik]

Right. You're not like a 15 year old throwing arrows and you know, killing bison. Like you're not that teenager. Yeah, it's not our culture.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. It's kind of like I feel like being in show business is like being a Manhattan kid. Like you're a grown up in some ways. You can take the subway all the way to Coney island by yourself. Good for you. But like in other ways, you're still a friggin dope.

[Mayim Bialik]

Correct.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I have a science question for you. Are you ready? I hope it's fun.

[Mayim Bialik]

Is this about your semen? The last time you surprised me with something, it was about your semen.

[Pete Holmes]

Semen analysis. Look, it was today. Which made it better and worse. It made it better for why I brought it up. Oh, it just happened. It made it worse knowing that's how I spent.

[Mayim Bialik]

There's something different about you.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, I know, but that might be my four but like I'm. I crave something happening. Even if it's like, oh, my cheeks got a little flush. I spent a good while going like, should I have said that? Like, but at least we're alive.

[Mayim Bialik]

I Guess. Amen. What's your science question?

[Pete Holmes]

Well, I'm very interested in talking to a neuroscientist because I wonder, and I don't have to tell you this, but I am. This is in, like, an open and generous spirit. There's no like. But science is so beautiful and so amazing. And then there's this feeling that I wonder how you cope with it. Dr. Andrew Huberman. I know the world. Yeah. He's everybody's neuroscientist and the Internet's neuroscientist. And he's the one that got me looking at the sun in the morning.

[Mayim Bialik]

Oh, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

He got me delaying my caffeine and all these things that I really enjoy.

[Mayim Bialik]

He knows a lot of things.

[Pete Holmes]

He knows a lot of things. I take Apogen and magnesium and L Theanine to sleep. That's the Huberman cocktail. And all that stuff works. It's great. There's no shade here. What I found interesting was my YouTube, which knew that I was watching some Huberman videos, then got another video from another neuroscientist on the Internet. Another, you know, it's had a lot of views. He seemed legit. And he did a study to try and disprove the you need to delay your caffeine intake thing, which, of course, I was interested. I'm incentivized. I have a bias. I want that to be true because I'd like to have my coffee earlier.

[Mayim Bialik]

Got it.

[Pete Holmes]

So I watched it. And I. A person like you is going to want these details. I don't have them. But he had a control of 150 people. It was his staff. He said, we're going to. Some of you are going to delay it, some of you are not going to delay it. Meaning you're going to have your caffeine right away. The rest are going to follow the human protocol of waiting 90 minutes, and then we're going to test your midday fatigue. Right? And that came down to an aptitude test or something like that. That's how they do it. And now I don't have to tell you this. This is your life. I'm watching it going like, this isn't. This isn't good. It doesn't hold up to scrutiny. You can prove that it's accurate with this. And I just feel the humanity of it, and I feel great. You know, you're being tested. You want to prove that he's wrong. It'll be a better video. I know you take an aptitude test like, you just see how life is. So let Me, really make it very simple. Life is so amorphous and complicated, and there are all these psychological and subconscious factors that are constantly at play. And while I applaud this guy for trying to disprove it, at the end when he was like, so we've disproven it. I'm like, bullshit. He didn't prove it. You didn't disprove it. Nothing's happened. All we have is a likelihood that maybe you should. All you can get is maybe you should try delaying your caffeine and seeing how you feel. But even you're a bad.

[Mayim Bialik]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

You're a bad narrator. For your own experience, would you just address that uncertainty of all life and how you deal with that?

[Mayim Bialik]

As a scientist, Bro, you just asked me to analyze the uncertainty of all of life.

[Pete Holmes]

As a neuroscientist, how do you cope with it? Do you just put it to one side?

[Mayim Bialik]

I mean, I didn't expect this question, just like I didn't expect the other thing that happened about that. Don't say it. I won't, but it's very interesting. I mean, I want to know so many things about this question for you. So, I mean, the. The philosophical answer is exactly what you said. Like, we don't really know.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Mayim Bialik]

With any particular certainty what to do.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Mayim Bialik]

You know, as humans and we. The mind wants to make sense of things because that's what it does. That's what it does.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

It doesn't assess intuitive feelings. It doesn't assess transcendental connections. Like.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

The meaning it. It experiences all those things. But the job of the mind is to make sense of things and to find things that align.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

And also, I do believe we're governed, you know, by pleasure principle to some extent. Right. We want to seek the things that bring pleasure and we want to avoid the things that don't.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Mayim Bialik]

Like, very basic. The kind of court of public science opinion in some ways is amazing because it brings information to people in ways that can be very empowering and educational. There's a democratization, you know, of health that's happened because of people like Huberman, like, because of people bringing these things. And, you know, Andrew Weil's been doing it. You know, it's like the number of people who do this, It's. It's so significant. And people ultimately want to hear what they want to hear.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, that's right.

[Mayim Bialik]

There's so many ways that this kind of science, information is used to create conversations that don't need to happen. So when you talk about the Scrolling, like getting lost for 90 minutes. A lot of this stuff for me is just an extension of that.

[Pete Holmes]

It's entertainment.

[Mayim Bialik]

Right. Because we're constantly just trying to find the thing to make us feel better about the thing we're doing or help us believe that we can get better. Hope.

[Pete Holmes]

He's selling hope.

[Mayim Bialik]

He's selling hope.

[Pete Holmes]

If you delay, he's selling hope. And 90 minutes, you'll feel better. Correct.

[Mayim Bialik]

Well, and in terms of. Of second study, man, 150 people's not a significant enough n. Yeah, it's not a significant enough study for me. So, like, I have definite things about that study. The way he conducted it, it's not double blind. Especially, you know, if you're doing it with staff. Like even Joe Dispenza, who we've had on our podcast, and who. People lose their minds. And I think he's got a lot of great, you know, great things. A lot of Joe Dispenza studies also, they're very inside sports, you know, and so you're kind of like generating data. So anyway, that's sort of my concern with second study. But in terms of the Huberman stuff, like, it's also okay to trust people about certain. Right. Like, it's okay.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, that's why it's benign in the end of the day.

[Mayim Bialik]

Correct. And look, my personal sort of perspective on this is like, what scares me about people like Huberman, and I'm friends with him. So, like, this is not you what scares me, but what scares me about.

[Pete Holmes]

Valerie knows what shipped means.

[Mayim Bialik]

What scares me about that kind of information is that people think that it's always going to work.

[Pete Holmes]

Right. Right.

[Mayim Bialik]

And that even it's always going to work for you. And it's chasing the drag. It's like literally, it's chasing the dragon. Because if you have something happen in your life that is going to disrupt your sleep. No amount of magnesium. L Theanine.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Mayim Bialik]

And sunlight is going to pierce through that. Because we are complicated beings.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Mayim Bialik]

And we're the only beings like us. We're primates in a very special way. So, yeah, it's one of the reasons that I really don't follow science that way. And I feel like I'm being left behind in a lot of ways because this is where everybody's getting their science information. Right?

[Pete Holmes]

Right. Yeah. There's a lot of parallels to be.

[Mayim Bialik]

Made, but so many people see something on Instagram once, not knowing who the doctor is, not knowing anything about it. They're like, oh, this happened.

[Pete Holmes]

I saw something about Mouthwash. And I was like, goodbye, mouthwash. The biome in your mouth. You need it alive.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

And it was an ad for something.

[Mayim Bialik]

And God bless people like Huberman who are actually piecing through research in legitimate ways to try and filter it for all of us. But sometimes Jonathan, like, you know, my partner Jonathan, I mean, I hate being this science girlfriend, you know, Sometimes it's like my sleep was like this last night, and it must be because of the soybean that I ate, you know.

[Pete Holmes]

At 7pm Pretty much, that's how Val and I talked.

[Mayim Bialik]

And what I'll have to say is like a. That's one data point. And this is the problem is, like, we all want to make conclusions based on one data point.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

Your life is the data set.

[Pete Holmes]

I know.

[Mayim Bialik]

Your life's the freaking data set. This ring you're getting, it's a small data set. The full data set is like trauma, birth, spiritual experience. That's your data set. Like, you're living your data set.

[Pete Holmes]

And it's overwhelming and would rather, you know, well, and that's have an ice cream.

[Mayim Bialik]

And that's because we're raised to be human beings. We're raised to be human doings and not human beings.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

And that's like, just to, like, bring it all home. That's where, like in cultures where there is a spiritual solution built into the education system and the consciousness, which many of us are trying to learn as adults, that allows you to pull back for sure and not be so attached.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, there is something very scientific. Forgive me. I hope I'm not sounding pandering, like I'm scientific. I'm just saying what seems scientific to me about closing my eyes being a spacious field of awareness. It's observations. At least it's the first part of an experiment I'm observing. When I say I'm anxious, let's close my eyes. And where is that? And it really is like this asteroid belt of brown specks across my throat. And then you go. You get really curious about it. And Rupert Spira does this, like, can you make it bigger? Can you make it smaller? What's the size of it? Is it porous? Can you find it?

[Mayim Bialik]

If it had a color, what color would it be?

[Pete Holmes]

And all of this.

[Mayim Bialik]

Where are the edges of it?

[Pete Holmes]

Where are the edges of it?

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, don't get me started. Have you ever done, like, here's a feeling, here's a sound. Are they experiencing over one another? Are they separate? Is there distance?

[Mayim Bialik]

Oh, I like that.

[Pete Holmes]

Trippy is. I'll Send you.

[Mayim Bialik]

No, but I think. But what you said is that's. That's absolutely true. A curiosity and awareness. Those are the antidotes to all this stuff. It's like, it's really. It's like super complicated. And it's actually not that complicated at all.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Mayim Bialik]

And you know people who have psychedelic experiences or transcendental experiences, and you get that feeling of like, oh my gosh, like I'm held. It's love. Right. That's like, how do you bring it down from the mountain?

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Mayim Bialik]

You know, is really the question. And there was something else you said about.

[Pete Holmes]

I don't remember observing what we were talking about. Huberman and Data Points yous life is the data point Trauma.

[Mayim Bialik]

That was kind of nice.

[Pete Holmes]

I love that. I also was like, this applies to everything. Like, when you review a movie, I'd like to know what you ate for dinner. When you review a movie, I'd like to know the last time you had sex. I'd like to know if you fell in love that morning. There's Roger Ebert wrote some movie reviews and he had fallen in love that day. And it's like, this one isn't right. Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

You can't. You can't. Oh, that was the other thing.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. I knew it would jog it.

[Mayim Bialik]

You can't disentangle that stuff. But the other thing is, you know, I mean, in terms of the caffeine, this is a funny one. I am not. I don't drink caffeine.

[Pete Holmes]

Wow. Imagine if you did.

[Mayim Bialik]

Well, it doesn't feel good.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

You know, I'm one of those bodies that it doesn't feel good. And I also understand that, like, it makes people productive. But. And this is not just me being like, don't drink caffeine. If you condition your body to have that drug as a stimulant. Yeah. You're going to go into withdrawal when you don't have it. Right, Right. So also a lot of this stuff that we're dealing with, it's like, pick your poison and we all do. Right? We all pick our poison. Yeah. But yeah, those are things that also, like, we want to change our behavior. We want to feel different than we do well, and then we have to regulate the things that we do to feel different because they have consequences. Right. And then we're your four year old, you know.

[Pete Holmes]

Absolutely. That's the dopamine seeking after the scroll. I've never gotten this to work, but you'll appreciate it as an enneagram for us. Sometimes I say on stage, I Go like, you know, I wake up, and then I want coffee, and then I need to use the bathroom. And then I'm hungry. And then. And then I had a little too much, so I need some exercise. I'm like, you know how I want to feel differently?

[Mayim Bialik]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

I never go, like. And I arrived and I'm here.

[Mayim Bialik]

I don't know. Do you read Peter Kingsley?

[Pete Holmes]

No.

[Mayim Bialik]

Okay, so Peter Kingsley in. In a Book of Life, he talks about one day, he decided to follow every single impulse he had.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, wow.

[Mayim Bialik]

And see where it led him. And it led him from, you know, like a coffee shop in Paris to, like, this. And as soon as he ordered the thing that he thought he wanted, he was already thinking about the next place, and he would follow it. And he just kept following the impulse wherever it took him. And I was like, that's how our brains are constantly churning, right? They're constantly churning. And, yes, the more anxious you are, the more you churn.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

The less sleep you get. The more you churn, the less you have an anchor and something to keep touching base with throughout the day, the less you believe that something actually cares about you or is protecting you. You're going to churn faster, harder.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

It's like, that's the science.

[Pete Holmes]

What are you? And how do you prevent the churn? Just. I know you're not the three things person, but, like, I'm curious what you're doing.

[Mayim Bialik]

I mean, I think that is. It's the uncoiling of the spring, so therapy. What? Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, I'm sorry.

[Mayim Bialik]

If that's what you meant. Therapy. No, I'm just saying, like, getting to the root of it, you know? So for me, yeah, it's been therapy. Being open to different kinds of therapy, meaning psychoanalysis is not the only thing people talk about. There's somatic therapy, there's craniosacral therapy, there's movement therapy. All these different, like, being open to that expansion.

[Pete Holmes]

And we both started doing internal family systems.

[Mayim Bialik]

Internal family systems is a component. Yes. Of the therapy that I participate in. Yeah. I don't like to say meditation because it's too broad.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

Having something you do that you eventually look forward to that is as close to nothing as possible.

[Pete Holmes]

Wow.

[Mayim Bialik]

Is how I would categorize it. I've been using a biofeedback app where you can kind of track your heart rate variability as you do these meditations. That's been my thing, and I've started looking forward to that time when there's nothing else going on. So that's a big one.

[Pete Holmes]

I did one of those. Does it make a little bird chirping when you reached a certain state?

[Mayim Bialik]

Oh, yeah. I mean, I think they're probably similar. Mine's a little chime thing.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, then you get excited that you get the chime.

[Mayim Bialik]

I turned it off because I was too attached.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

To the outcome. And so that's part of it. So, yeah. Therapy. Something like meditation and, you know, for me, doing less.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

I think that we all think we have to do a lot of things. I'm astounded at the number of people who have coffees with people they don't want to, go to dinners with people they really don't want to.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

Go on vacation. Get married to people that stay with people they really don't want to.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

Like that for me. And I'm not advocating for, like Ayn Rand being like, fuck everybody and see what happens. But.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Mayim Bialik]

What if we all had an accurate understanding of what we actually wanted to participate in and then did those things?

[Pete Holmes]

Well, that's the curiosity. I think people don't really know what.

[Mayim Bialik]

I think people are terrified.

[Pete Holmes]

Want to do and feel and.

[Mayim Bialik]

Because it's terrifying.

[Pete Holmes]

It is terrifying.

[Mayim Bialik]

But yeah. I think as much as you can break out of the system.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

Whatever that looks like.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

You know, if it's the system of I must have dinner with my mother every three days, you know, like, whatever it is, you may have to examine that and be curious about it.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

And like, what if you actually did what was healthy for you?

[Pete Holmes]

Well, that's what Internal. Internal families is mind blowing for me. Which part of you.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Is asked. Is telling you. You have to. My. A pretty benign example is if my father texts me, I feel like I have about 1 minute to reply.

[Mayim Bialik]

That's the. This is why texting for me is like the downfall of my social interactions.

[Pete Holmes]

You can't do it. Wait, do you hate it?

[Mayim Bialik]

I do. I hate it.

[Pete Holmes]

I hate it. I spent like, no one understands.

[Mayim Bialik]

This makes me so.

[Pete Holmes]

I hate it. I go, what do I worry for you?

[Mayim Bialik]

Tried to switch. I've tried to switch to emails, but, like, then that's the thing. And then I'm like, if I wouldn't pick up the phone and talk to this person, why am I having like. And it's me. I'm like pouring out my life story to someone like, I haven't seen in three years who texted me. And I'm like, it's this format of communication that is my problem.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

It Lends itself over attached to the outcome.

[Pete Holmes]

It's just. It's just aim on our phone.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Remember, you just be like an idiot. That's what we're doing all day.

[Mayim Bialik]

I feel like the supreme obligation to answer. Yeah, it's really bad. It's not good for me. It's not good for the other people either.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, that's. The other thing is like. And then I'm.

[Mayim Bialik]

How many times has someone died and you didn't know because you didn't read the text? Never more than twice.

[Pete Holmes]

Really?

[Mayim Bialik]

Wait, tell me. You have too many texts without telling me you have too many texts. Two people dead, possibly three people were telling me that there was a death and the mass of texts was too much. That, like, in one case, it got buried. It had been months.

[Pete Holmes]

Buried. Two things were buried. That is.

[Mayim Bialik]

You're the worst.

[Pete Holmes]

I know. That is the worst.

[Mayim Bialik]

But I'm saying, like, that's a level.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

And then I had to be like. And also, like, to have that person think that you're not lying. Like, I was like, you don't understand. And then you don't want to make it about me. Somebody died. But I'm like, I literally did not read the te. Like, I don't want people thinking I read the text and ignored that someone died. Horrible.

[Pete Holmes]

But I go on Instagram and again I see the memes and the little posts. People know this feeling when there's a grouped text going and you get overwhelmed and you finally open it and you're like. You're like Indiana Jones with the maps. You're like, like, okay, what did I miss? And then sometimes you get to the bottom and people are like, never mind. Disregard. And you're like, jesus Christ.

[Mayim Bialik]

I was recently on a huge thread for something for my son's school. We had exchange students staying with us from Israel. And so all the parents, you know, and if you missed 10 minutes.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

The plans were changed four times, and you'd be at Lifeguard Station 14, and no one would be there because the thread had that. The plans changed.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

Like, don't blink.

[Pete Holmes]

I can't handle it. I remember Natasha Leggera did the podcast recently, and she was like, you don't like texting with your friends.

[Mayim Bialik]

And I was like, it's so hard. It's very hard.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. But to your point, if I am texting you, you know, I'm have, like, somehow I regulated myself. I am ripping through email. No.

[Mayim Bialik]

And that's the thing. When I realized that you can put an app on your lap Laptop so that you can type into the I'm. But only with people who have Apple phones, which is most people. But I'm the person who, like. I'll get tendinitis from texting too much and then I'll switch to voice text. And then I will start straining my vocal like that again. How many ways can God tell me? Shut the up.

[Pete Holmes]

Shut the up. Be still.

[Mayim Bialik]

Stop.

[Pete Holmes]

Be still and know that your phone.

[Mayim Bialik]

Correct. That's right.

[Pete Holmes]

As it says in the dilmurat.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

I don't. There's so many things I want to talk about. We're almost. Out of respect for your time, I could talk to you forever.

[Mayim Bialik]

She made a signal three hours ago and we're still going. I don't know what that signal was. Maybe that was just like. I gotta pee.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, you were early. You were early. So we're at 90 minutes. You're. You're a square on Blossom. We're going back just to your life, though.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

You're a square on Blossom square. Yeah. You're a dork. Which I just found out means whale penis. Did you know? You knew?

[Mayim Bialik]

I didn't know that.

[Pete Holmes]

I just found out a dork is out.

[Mayim Bialik]

Did you know schmuck also means penis?

[Pete Holmes]

Schmuck is the part of the foreskin that you cut off. The mole removes the schmuck.

[Mayim Bialik]

Oh, I didn't know that from the schmeckle.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, I was looking for it.

[Mayim Bialik]

Thank you, but okay.

[Pete Holmes]

So a dork is a whale dick.

[Mayim Bialik]

To know that.

[Pete Holmes]

How did we go so long without knowing that? It's quite filthy and it's on like family.

[Mayim Bialik]

I wouldn't call someone a dork now.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, I know, you dork. Yikes. Yikes.

[Mayim Bialik]

Also, a whale penis is, like huge. 8ft long or something huge. It's like very long.

[Pete Holmes]

That would be like. Like a Sex in the Sea and he had a dork.

[Mayim Bialik]

Let me tell you, I never seen.

[Pete Holmes]

Someone else was there. Me neither. I love that you don't watch television. I want to talk about it. Here's Joey Lawrence. Is this the counterpart to your experience? Is this the other side?

[Mayim Bialik]

I mean, Joey was raised in the industry by very meticulous parents, kind of similar to mine.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, really?

[Mayim Bialik]

So he actually. There's a real sweetness to him and a real kind of innocence to him.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, like his character.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah, like we. I remember we. I think one. One Halloween, if not more like we just hung out together because, like, our parents wouldn't let us, like, go out trick or treating because, like, famous children shouldn't Trick or treat. So, no, there was a real sweetness. No, there was a real sweetness. That's right. There was a real sweetness to him.

[Pete Holmes]

I just assumed he was like a sex symbol. Because of nothing my love can't do, baby.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah, but, like, think of what sex symbol was, like in 1993. Yeah, it's very different. It was. Let's Talk About Sex had, like, just come out and it was like, that's a scandalous song.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Okay.

[Mayim Bialik]

No one should talk about sex, much less sing about how we should talk about sex.

[Pete Holmes]

You're right. You're right.

[Mayim Bialik]

So much more innocent time. Yeah, it really was.

[Pete Holmes]

So it wasn't. There's. There's Mayam and there's Joey on a skateboard.

[Mayim Bialik]

No, no, not at. No, we were. We were kind of boring. Like, me, Joey and Jenna. We were all. I mean, Joey and I once went to. I think we went to Magic Mountain together. Like, we would do stuff kind of socially. And Jenna and I actually took dance classes together. Like, we were a sweet. Like, the two of them were more similar to each other just in terms of pop culture and, you know, knowing what bands existed. I was like, I love the Beatles and Bob Dylan. You know, that was what kind of. And I love Violent Femmes. And they're like, who's that? So they were more similar to each other. But no, it was not. It was. Nothing that exciting was happening.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

Really. In our lives. Which is kind of funny.

[Pete Holmes]

Tell me about not watching tv. That stood out to me as. As soon as you said. I was like, of course.

[Mayim Bialik]

You know, I have a. I think it's. I think it's part of my fourness. I have a definitely, you know, a hyper serious side. And if I have to choose how I spend three hours, I. I just tend to like to engage in something that's not brain.

[Pete Holmes]

Brainless.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah, it's. And I feel badly because I don't think of myself as an elitist that way. You know? Like, it's not like I'm too good for that. And I know that's what a lot of people think is like, oh, she's brainy and she's too good for that. It's not that it's that. It really is. It's not that it's not fulfilling. It feels confusing to me because I don't enjoy it. So. Because I'm a four, it's not just like they're enjoying something I'm not. It's like there's something wrong with me. And the more I try and engage and like, Gilmore Girls, I just. It doesn't work. And to me, that just then, like, starts this loop of, like, what's wrong with me?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

Like, why can they enjoy it and I can't?

[Pete Holmes]

And then it's like, you said Gilmore Girls. Because I was a guest on a podcast called the Gilmore Guys, and I didn't know the premise, if they were making fun of it or if they liked it. And I tried to watch an episode of Gilmore Girls to prep, and it was giving me such intense anxiety that I watched 10 minutes, and then I went on the show, and I was like, this show fucking sucks. I can't believe. And then they were like, you don't understand the vibe of this show. That's. But it was freaking me out. I had the real. Like, what's wrong with.

[Mayim Bialik]

And also, I know that I. I would say, like, oh, it's not good. You know, but, like, for me, when people say rom com, I'm like, no. Why?

[Pete Holmes]

You don't want it?

[Mayim Bialik]

No, I don't want that. I'm a romantic person, and I'm actually a funny person. But, like, I. And. And maybe it's also just, you know, I was raised on, like, Monty Python, like, you know, Faulty Towers. That was, like, the best thing that could happen in our house was an episode of Faulty Towers was on, you know, So I was also, like, raised with a kind of sense of humor than often a lot of a different standard girls are. And I know that there are women who have comedy tastes like I do, and I think that's awesome. But generally speaking, if you were to say to somebody, do you want to watch Step Brothers? And that person was a female, they'd be like, no. And meanwhile, like, I own that. Like, I want to watch that.

[Pete Holmes]

You want to watch Step Brothers?

[Mayim Bialik]

I love Step Brothers.

[Pete Holmes]

I was gonna say. Oh, I thought we just started.

[Mayim Bialik]

No. And, like, there's. Of course I do. No, I mean, like, to me. And. And I'm not saying, like, I defend every joke. It's like, I like to see testicles. I'm not saying. But generally fake. Which is funny to me, too. Thinking about that on the drive home yesterday, I don't know why that movie in particular, that scene.

[Pete Holmes]

Because they're the perfect amount of fake. They're fake enough that you know they're fake.

[Mayim Bialik]

Right? But I was like, that makes it okay. And I was like, it's funny, right? But I was just thinking about, like, what were the production conversations about that. But anyway, like, if that's your sense of humor, oh, of course, you know, Sex in the City is not really going to be your vibe. So it could just be that, like, I'm just a different kind of person and that's okay. But. But a lot of it is foreness also. There's a. There's a streak of differentness.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

You know, must be different. And, And I do think, and I do. I believe in this, that if you have, let's say, an over identification with one parent, a lot of your likes and interests are going to mysteriously be similar to the parent that you over identify with. So, like a lot of my dad's artistic taste, like, you know, and I wonder, gosh, was that a connection point that got so ingrained in me? Right. We like this. We don't like this. Right. Because he hated rom coms. Right. And my mom was always like, why can't we just watch something, Barry, and have a good time? You know? And I was like, oh, that sounds familiar. So I wonder how much of that. Like, my dad loved boxing. I was like, I love boxing. And then finally I got older and I was like, I don't like watching people hurt each other.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

I was like. But I always thought I like boxing, but certain things stand the test of time. When I'm alone, I watch Lord of the Rings and Gladiator.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

When nobody's around and I don't need to please anyone. Like, that's my jam, you know, so just like a different sensibility.

[Pete Holmes]

Excited for the seek.

[Mayim Bialik]

What'd you say?

[Pete Holmes]

Gladiator 2?

[Mayim Bialik]

I've been waiting for it. You don't even understand.

[Pete Holmes]

You didn't know men could build such things.

[Mayim Bialik]

I have been waiting for this sequel. It's like there. It makes me very emotional. That is my favorite. Gladiator is my absolute favorite movie. And stop. I can't. And just the cast, it's like, it's insane. Very big Ridley Scott fan here.

[Pete Holmes]

Is he doing the sequel?

[Mayim Bialik]

No, I'm just saying, like, that genre and like Exodus, Gods and kings, like that. That's my jam.

[Pete Holmes]

Okay.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And you think the sequel is going to be good?

[Mayim Bialik]

I don't care.

[Pete Holmes]

You're. You're in.

[Mayim Bialik]

It's going to be perfect because it's the sequel. No, I'm in. I'm in for the experience. I'm in for the nostalgia. I'm in for the Denzel. Like, I'm in for all of it.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

And you know, will I like it as much as Gladiator? Probably not.

[Pete Holmes]

It's peak Crow.

[Mayim Bialik]

It's so exciting. I can't explain what's happening. When it comes around Gladiator 2, I'm so excited. And I keep saying to my kid, it's coming. Do you. Are we going? What's happening? Can I go to the premiere? I don't even know if I could handle it. Like, I would go dressed as like, like a Greek princess if I got invited to the premiere. I want to look like that. Like with the high waisted with the ribbons and the crown. Very, very excited.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, my God.

[Mayim Bialik]

So, yeah, Sex and the City's not Grey's Anatomy. It's just not my thing.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

And also, I think being on a sitcom ruined television for me in many ways. I can't watch comedy. Like comedy shows meaning sitcoms, because I'm like, I feel the joke.

[Pete Holmes]

I was gonna say.

[Mayim Bialik]

And I love being on Big Bang Theory, but have I ever watched it? No.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, look would be remiss. The other surprise when I did your podcast was I was like, oh, well, I'm gonna be honest, because it didn't go this way. Oh, well. Oh, I'm talking to a science.

[Mayim Bialik]

Oh, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And I'm going to go on. And one of my fears is that even though I am a. We could call it the consciousness only model. We talked about it a little bit on your podcast. The idea that this is like God's dream, that only awareness exists, it's pretty far out. And I subscribe to it, but I'm not really the best at explaining it. I do okay. But you could back me into a corner and I'd be like, I don't know, you know, and I don't want to do that. I don't want to, like, dishonor the teaching almost. So I'm like, you really should just talk to the teachers about it. But then I went on your show and it was the warmest hot tub ever.

[Mayim Bialik]

Great.

[Pete Holmes]

I was. I appreciate that.

[Mayim Bialik]

No, I'm sorry, I shouldn't say that. That's not fair. That's like an understatement. You explained things. You explained things in a way that felt normal and approachable and clear, true to your experience, but also universal.

[Pete Holmes]

I really appreciate that.

[Mayim Bialik]

I mean, I was very impressed just for what I learned from you on.

[Pete Holmes]

The road of that conversation. It was all green light. So I was kind of, you know, I remember I had Neil DeGrasse on my pod and. And he was making a lot of faces. I'm not saying no shade Neil, but he was making a lot. He Made this face a lot.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah. He's an intellectual brain. It's. You know, he's a lot. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And intellectual brains, like, making the Come on now face. Like, what the fuck are you talking about?

[Mayim Bialik]

No, I feel comfortable with you in this area. Yeah. No, just in general. Like, even when you talked about the Huberman stuff, I was like, oh, what am I being asked to, you know, defend, explain, or.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then you saw. I was really just going, what do we do with.

[Mayim Bialik]

You went in a very. You literally said, can you please explain the uncertainty. The uncertainty of the universe.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, how we put that aside. We put it to one side and do our best is the answer.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

But with. With spirituality, I was very refreshed and excited that you. Well, I guess that's true. Maybe it shouldn't be true, but I was. I was excited that you seemed to be interested in spiritual things. Oh.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

So whenever I meet someone who's intellectual and brilliant. Oh, it makes me happy that they're also open to those things because it gives me so much meaning and purpose.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah. Like Sam Harris, for example, who I went to graduate school with. We went to neuroscience school together. You know, Sam Harris is one of these. You know, it's very, very clear to him that that's not a place, you know, that we don't go to Religion Land.

[Pete Holmes]

I see.

[Mayim Bialik]

We don't go to Squishy Wishy.

[Pete Holmes]

I don't really. Sam Harris comes up a lot in my world. Okay. So I would love.

[Mayim Bialik]

Oh, yeah. But. But it's a very different perspective from the way that you and I feel comfortable talking about, like. But God's love.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

Right, Right. But I think that there's ways, you know, there's. There are ways to have intellectualism also. Still be tender.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

And I. I do. I find Sam, you know, has a lot of tenderness, but. But I. I meet a lot of people of the scientific or intellectual, you know, realm who. Who simply, you know, think that it's poppycock.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

And that, like, I. Right. Not that. Right. That it's complete poppycock. So, you know, for me, my intellectual knowledge has only fed my appreciation for something greater than us.

[Pete Holmes]

Okay.

[Mayim Bialik]

And my understanding of the God of my understanding has only bolstered my belief that the intellect is the glory of God, which is a Maimonides quote. Like, for me, they've never. It's never been a problem. Maimonides on Netflix? No.

[Pete Holmes]

Maimonides series season one.

[Mayim Bialik]

Scholar.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, Maimonides is a scholar. Never heard of him.

[Mayim Bialik]

Oh, wow. Well, he said intellect is the glory of God. So, yeah, for me, those things have always existed. And I don't feel a need to pick because you don't have to.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, of course not. I would add to that what isn't the glory of God.

[Mayim Bialik]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

I mean, like, I understand their things.

[Mayim Bialik]

But in particular, this quote, you know, from, you know, I don't know if it was the 12th century, you know, was at a time when many people were being asked to choose between science and reason and floofy woofy, you know, like, do you want to, like, pray to not be killed by the invading troops? You know?

[Pete Holmes]

Right, exactly.

[Mayim Bialik]

So meaning if those are the choices. Right. You could see people saying, how about intellect? You know, like, how about. Yeah, but. But I believe in, like, the evolution of the human mind as, you know, our understanding. Like, you can also believe Galileo and Copernicus and, you know, you don't have to choose.

[Pete Holmes]

Right. And that's.

[Mayim Bialik]

The earth is round.

[Pete Holmes]

And all of my teachers say things that you would have been crucified for saying. And there's a one and talking about the earth.

[Mayim Bialik]

I mean, you're speaking to a Jew. It's kind of a funny person to use that example, but, yes, you could be crucified for all sorts of things. Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

Are you going with like a Jews killed Jesus riff?

[Mayim Bialik]

I wasn't going with Jews killed Jesus. I was going with.

[Pete Holmes]

Because I'm always.

[Mayim Bialik]

Crucifixion was the way that people were killed and Jesus was one of them.

[Pete Holmes]

Right?

[Mayim Bialik]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

And Jesus being a Jew because that's.

[Mayim Bialik]

Why I was the Romans.

[Pete Holmes]

The Romans. No, I know. I'm right there with you.

[Mayim Bialik]

Sorry. My joke that I thought you were making was like, ask a Jew. Like, you can be crucified for thinking the wrong thing. Like, you formed a whole new religion.

[Pete Holmes]

The most famous Jew. The last time we crucified a Jew.

[Mayim Bialik]

That's right.

[Pete Holmes]

It led. It led to a whole thing. The whole thing.

[Mayim Bialik]

But yes.

[Pete Holmes]

So yeses that, you know, people who.

[Mayim Bialik]

Are saying the things, let's say, that are guiding us would have been the.

[Pete Holmes]

Amount of freedom, the intellectual freedom we have. Also the danger of saying the earth revolves around the sun, and that being a deathable offense. Death.

[Mayim Bialik]

It's a new word.

[Pete Holmes]

Deathable. I'm sorry, sir. That is deathable. And then they kill you. And as they're killing you, the thing that annoys you most is that no one corrected that. He said deathable. That's neuroses. You're. You're dying and you're like, deathable isn't. He dies.

[Mayim Bialik]

That is. That will be my demise.

[Pete Holmes]

Me, too. Okay, so where. How would you categorize or describe your spiritual feeling as a haiku?

[Mayim Bialik]

The reason I'm pausing is because, like, I'm not afraid of being a person of religion. I guess I'm also a person of spiritual faith. Do you know what I mean? Like, a lot of people feel like I'm not religious, I'm spiritual. Like, I am a person of, like, I believe in, you know, the structure of religion. I believe it's also all, you know, a fabrication. And it's. We're just, like, creating stuff, but we can focus on, you know, the spiritual component of my religious identity, you know, being.

[Pete Holmes]

Or your religious fit, however.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah, no, I mean, I believe that there is something bigger than every individual, and it's not just a belief. It's like, there's a sense of comfort that comes from understanding that there's a unification of our existence that goes beyond state lines, country lines, religious lines, ethnic lines. And it's beyond the knowing. It's having a practice that honors that. So to me, like, you know, ritual provides us that opportunity. And I was raised with ritual that I find spiritual, you know, lighting candles and celebrating the holidays of my, you know, calendar that Jewish people follow, for example. But, yeah, for me, it's having an awareness that there is support beyond what my small human mind can try and gather. I do think that there is. There's a plane of existence that is understood in ways that humans can't. I see that in physics, like, when I studied physics and my understanding of quantum mechanics and these things. Yeah. To me, there's a divinity to that. And, yeah, being in touch with that can come from music, it can come from humor. It most certainly comes from love, because I think that is kind of our source. I mean, it is.

[Pete Holmes]

Or, like, the source, like a transrational. Have you ever played around with that phrase? No, I like it. What is it? The way I use it is, you're saying it's something like, kind of beyond. Like, there's what we can understand and there's something beyond it.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah. And that's not irrational. Yeah. And a lot of these things. Yeah. And the fact is, you know, for me, like, the kabbalistic traditions have a lot in common with mystical traditions of many, many peoples. So I find commonality when I learn about indigenous tribes in Central and South America, or I learn about, you know, Indian traditions or Eastern traditions beyond India. You know, there's a lot in common. And to me, that's not a coincidence because before there was the Internet, all of these communities all over the world were having ecstatic experiences that are very, very similar in. In essence.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Mayim Bialik]

And in some case in, you know, when you talk about plant medicine and stuff, there was. There's a lot of similarities of what the human brain and mind and body will conjure.

[Pete Holmes]

Yep. And it's like we're all having the same dream. Like, there's a.

[Mayim Bialik]

Correct. And so, like. So for me, you know, I do. I lean into the tradition that I was raised in, and there's a lot of beauty for that. But the notion, you know, in mystical Judaism is exactly when you think you know, you don't know. And that kind of notion, it's like a. It's a mind fuck. You know, I mean, that's not the word the Kabbalists use, but this notion that. What if you try to understand that there's something you can't understand?

[Pete Holmes]

Well, the mind, that's. Rupert would. Rupert Speir would say that the mind imposes its limitations on its interpretation. So the mind interprets eternity, which doesn't mean never ending in time. It means outside of time. Time. It interprets the now.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

As time.

[Mayim Bialik]

Correct.

[Pete Holmes]

And it interprets. It sees a body, and it imposes the limitations of the body into its own.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

The self.

[Mayim Bialik]

And when you said the word Yahweh for God. So in Hebrew. So that's actually. There's an acronym that we use that we don't even say. Other traditions turned it into this word that you say. But we believe that there's an utterance of even the name of this power that cannot be spoken.

[Pete Holmes]

Like a good Voldemort.

[Mayim Bialik]

Exactly.

[Pete Holmes]

And we have euphemisms, but that makes perfect sense. G D. Right.

[Mayim Bialik]

So that's part of it is G D. But there's dozens and dozens and dozens of names for God. In Judaism, there's a name for the female, kind of like the Eskimos. Sorry, you're not supposed to say that.

[Pete Holmes]

Inuits.

[Mayim Bialik]

The Inuits and ice. We have names for God that mean different iterations of the expression. It's what the sefirot are. If you've ever learned anything about Kabbalah. It's the kind of emanations. Right. There's female ones, there's male. Like there's all sorts of different things. But the notion is there are names that you don't even know how to pronounce, and we can use those letters and you can use your eyeballs, and it's gonna Be flipped on the back of your corner, right? You're gonna see these letters, and you still don't know how to say it. And you think you know how to say it, but you don't like. To me, that's the spiritual tradition I was raised in. Right.

[Pete Holmes]

I see.

[Mayim Bialik]

You don't even know how to say it, and that's okay.

[Pete Holmes]

It's profound. Yeah. Yeah, it's profound. Richard Rohr. I know. I'm talking to a Hebrew scholar. He tells a thing about the name Yahweh, mimicking the in breath and the out breath. And he's like, so it's your first word and it's your last word.

[Mayim Bialik]

And I was like, well, the acronym is, was, is and always will be. That's our acronym. So those letters.

[Pete Holmes]

But then the sound of yeah, right. Like that is very.

[Mayim Bialik]

Which in Hebrew, obviously, we don't know how to pronounce it, but yes.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Mayim Bialik]

And to me, like, the fact that that's an acronym for was isn't always will be. If you've ever done a psychedelic. If you've ever meditated so hard that you don't know where you are.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

It feels like was, is and always will be.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Mayim Bialik]

It feels like something that happened will happen and is happening. That's God.

[Pete Holmes]

That's exactly breath. The now isn't a moment in time. Correct. I was just reading again. This is Rupert Spira. Eckhart Tolle says similar things. We don't travel through time and space. Time and space travels through us.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yes, exactly.

[Pete Holmes]

And he goes, look to your experience. He's very scientific. He's like, just look at your experience. How long is a moment?

[Mayim Bialik]

Sure.

[Pete Holmes]

And do you really have the sense of all these moments strung together? And then he's like, and what is the through line? Of course, the through line is your being. He talks about all the moments in your life being like beads on a necklace, but it's your being. It's the was, is and always will be your beading. Get in touch with your beading. Like the condensation on a glass of iced tea. Beat it up.

[Mayim Bialik]

And I think, also, I love talking about this with you. I don't talk about it with a lot of people, but I think it's important for whoever might hear this. You know, this is not. Not elite talk.

[Pete Holmes]

No.

[Mayim Bialik]

This is the talk that Peasants.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes. Shepherds.

[Mayim Bialik]

And shepherds. And like, this is. This was the language of the vernacular when no one could read.

[Pete Holmes]

That's right.

[Mayim Bialik]

This was true then. It's not. This is not.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, the truth can't be an intellectual exercise. It's fun to get intellectual about it. Sure. It has to be available to everybody.

[Mayim Bialik]

It is and it is. And the fact that you have consciousness is the proof that it is available.

[Pete Holmes]

And that's what it is.

[Mayim Bialik]

And that's why people are trying to teach mindfulness to, you know, elementary school kids who nobody cares about in the government system. Right. Meaning, like, kids who are being left behind. You can teach them that they matter.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Mayim Bialik]

You can teach them to breathe, to bear their body.

[Pete Holmes]

I love recidivism. It's a fun word to say, but, like, the rates of recidivism are really low with inmates that are taught that sort of thing. And.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah. And for those of us who have an opening to understand that, like, hurt people hurt. And what's the. I mean, I'm just a liberal, so I can't help it, but, yeah, we all have the capacity to be in touch with something, like we do. It's just given to you. Whether you believe it or not, it's yours.

[Pete Holmes]

You know, that's right. Belief is really dumb to be a thing that's looking at another thing. Like, this is another Rupert thing I was listening to this morning. It's like, there is no union with God because that concedes a concession. That concedes a separation.

[Mayim Bialik]

That's right.

[Pete Holmes]

Where. And I used to believe that God was over here and I had to become united with him or when I died.

[Mayim Bialik]

Well, the better for him to observe.

[Pete Holmes]

You and judge you, of course. But then you go like. So you have this circle that we call God, and then you put in a circle called Mayim. That is not God. He's like, that's blasphemy. God is no longer eternal. God is no longer. And you're like. It seems so simple. So then you are like a sound. I don't know how to say it, but God is the screen and the movie is all the apparent separate things, but really, they all borrow their reality from this Old Testament ground of being.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah. One of my Kundalini teachers, Kundalini Yoga. It's a style of yoga. She once did this incredible meditation, and she was talking about breath, and she was like, you know, it's something that always exists, and you can tap into it at any time, meaning you can modulate it, you can watch it. Right. But it's going to keep going. There's an involuntary nature to it. You can voluntarily dip in, dip out, but it is involuntary. If you don't do it, if it stops, you Stop. And the consciousness that you have is no longer there. It can slow your heart down when you're anxious. It can bring delight when you take it in. You can catch your breath, you know, when you're feeling something deeply. And it can be a marker of how you are. And then she said, wait for it. Isn't that God? And I was like, what? And I went back through everything. She said, wow. It's involuntary, but you can dip in and out of it. Right? But it's still going to keep happening.

[Pete Holmes]

That's right.

[Mayim Bialik]

You need it to live. If it stops, you will not have consciousness.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

It can be a marker of your mental state. It can help calm you down. It can lift you up. It's an indicator of everything you're processing. She's like, why is that not.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

What you understand about God.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

I was like. And every time you breathe. Right. You can think about it. And it's in you all the time.

[Pete Holmes]

And the breath is a subtle enough image that it's a great place to put an idea.

[Mayim Bialik]

Correct.

[Pete Holmes]

We use the ocean, too. But the breath is so small.

[Mayim Bialik]

It's always there. The ocean. If you're landlocked, you live in the middle of the country. It's a distant dream and you can go in it. But to me, I'm like every time. And in yogic practice, in meditation, what's the first thing they say? Look at your breath. Like it's getting in touch with anyway.

[Pete Holmes]

Right. But it is something that's happening that you don't even really have to. You don't have to will it correct, but you can elect.

[Mayim Bialik]

It happens when you're sleeping.

[Pete Holmes]

That's right. And it's the first thing you do.

[Mayim Bialik]

And what, am I having trouble with breathing when I sleep?

[Pete Holmes]

You need to get one of those. Non.

[Mayim Bialik]

I need a God. A God bridge.

[Pete Holmes]

That's so funny. It kind of looks like a mezuzah. For your nose.

[Mayim Bialik]

Guarding me.

[Pete Holmes]

How, Pete? How does it look like a mezuzah?

[Mayim Bialik]

Well, it's.

[Pete Holmes]

It doesn't. I appreciate the. Yes, Anne.

[Mayim Bialik]

I'll go for it.

[Pete Holmes]

The Cavell end. I don't know. I'm trying to work in something. I loved all of that. And that was wonderful. And I need nothing else.

[Mayim Bialik]

Thank you.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. We've got all we need. Okay, let me look at this.

[Mayim Bialik]

Any pickups?

[Pete Holmes]

Old soul. You're an old soul. Blossom, Joey. Not popular. You were in a car accident.

[Mayim Bialik]

Not popular.

[Pete Holmes]

Neuroscientist. Coffee. That was a pre planned thing. No tv. You're four Internal Family systems, attachment parenting. We covered right away. We're not going to talk about veganism other than you are. We both are vegans and no one wants to hear why. One day you'll just go, I will have the vegan option and you'll be one of us and you'll know our burden. I'm trying to do a joke right now. I'm a vegan. It's the worst. And I don't mean it like it's.

[Mayim Bialik]

People don't. People still tease us?

[Pete Holmes]

I know, I know.

[Mayim Bialik]

They think we're funny.

[Pete Holmes]

I know, but what can you do? I can't make it funny, but the way I go it go. It's worth it to look down on all of you and even that is only funny to you.

[Mayim Bialik]

Exactly.

[Pete Holmes]

Two non vegs, not vegan. On, wait. Katie, you're a vegan.

[Mayim Bialik]

She's vegan.

[Pete Holmes]

Wait. If we touch pinkies, we open a portal where chickens are freed.

[Mayim Bialik]

Like even the beans are free.

[Pete Holmes]

Is that Old Testament?

[Mayim Bialik]

No.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh. Oh. We're non honey vegans.

[Mayim Bialik]

Oh.

[Pete Holmes]

Are you a non honey?

[Mayim Bialik]

I will eat it if it's in something, but I don't cook with it. No, I make a honey cake that has no honey for the Jewish New Year.

[Pete Holmes]

I mean the land of milk and honey. You're losing both ways.

[Mayim Bialik]

That's. That's. That is right.

[Pete Holmes]

And then the. I mean, there's so much going on. I do want to talk about Old Testament stuff, but we'll do it another time.

[Mayim Bialik]

I feel like we need another, like a different conversation. But I'd be very interested.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, you're welcome.

[Mayim Bialik]

I. I love. It's. It's a real love of mine.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

You know, is liturgy that way.

[Pete Holmes]

And I would love to learn from your brain.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And all that sort of stuff.

[Mayim Bialik]

Do you sing?

[Pete Holmes]

I only sing along. Little bit.

[Mayim Bialik]

Interesting.

[Pete Holmes]

I like singing. Is that what you mean?

[Mayim Bialik]

Well, yeah. I was thinking. Sorry, is. Separate.

[Pete Holmes]

Am I a cancer?

[Mayim Bialik]

No. Well, no, I was. I. I'm. I'm trained as a lay cancer. Like liturgical singing. And it's a very interesting. Like, music is so important to me and it's so interesting to be able to communicate that through my religious and spiritual experience. Because it's like I was at a. It's so many parts of me that get to be. And it's creative, which, you know, is a huge connection to something divine. So anyway, I was just wondering if it's in you somewhere.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, I love singing. There's so much singing and there's a lot of comedy singing. My daughter and I and my wife. There's a lot of dropping our pants, mooning each other and singing.

[Mayim Bialik]

More information than I needed.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, that's attachment parenting. No, I just mean there's like a lot of playing around. It doesn't have to be nudity based.

[Mayim Bialik]

My kids first concert was Weird Al. I think that's all you need to know about me.

[Pete Holmes]

Can I say what I was going to say? Slightly pandering to your Judaism, but I went to a wedding. Moshe. Natasha's actually.

[Mayim Bialik]

You were at their wedding?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

Were you jealous? No.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, there. It was a Jewish ceremony. Natasha took one for the team. I'm just kidding, jk. But there was a canter and if you have a barrel chested Fiddler on the roof style, hairy, armed, hairy handed, like a Robin Williams, almost bearded, but hyper masculine with the yarmulke and the shirts open a little bit and there's a star. No, I was totally juicing my jeans. And I also like, it was sexy. It was fucking beautiful. It was spiritual. I guess what I'm saying is it's stirring. And another Jewish compliment, Stephen Mitchell, who wrote the Gospel According to Jesus, which is an incredible book. Have you read it?

[Mayim Bialik]

No, but I've like circling in my. People keep mentioning it.

[Pete Holmes]

I think it's incredible. But the footnotes are incredible because it's all this like inside Judaism. And he talks, he said this thing that healed me so much. He was like, in the Jewish tradition, we don't have sex shame. It doesn't make sense. So if a man is seeing a beautiful woman, we. And he literally writes it. I could cry. He goes, we would say. L would say to life. That's life. It's the yearning, it's the attraction of itself towards itself. And I was like, like, oh God, I still need those messages. Yeah, I love it so much. But what I was saying is it specifically meaning women sing a little bit more freely in our culture. It seems to be more accepted. But like when, like a real. He looks like a street fighter character from Israel.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

You know, and he's singing loudly, no microphone. I'm just like, yeah. And then you bring in some Alan Watts. How everything he goes, oh, when you hear a word, it's, it's, it's a wave, it's an up and a down. And you go, the whole thing is there. Yeah, the whole thing is there.

[Mayim Bialik]

In traditional Judaism, women are not supposed to be heard singing oh, wow. Among men. Like a siren in traditional circles. And of course people turn that into like, it's an oppressive religion. And of course, there's many oppressive, horrible things, but there's good stuff. There's something to the. The power of voice, the power of a woman's voice. I mean, just like traditional cultures, women would cover their hair because it was seen as too much beautiful. Right. It's like. It was. It could be used as a. An attract. Right. I mean, again, this was thousands and thousands of years ago when, like, men also wore skirts and, you know, like, a lot of things were different. But. But yeah, singing is a very, very interesting.

[Pete Holmes]

I could see myself on LSD or something being like, we shouldn't be singing so much without, like, a warning. That's right. And, Val, you need to cover your hair. It's so glorious. You know what I mean? Like that. I can get into that.

[Mayim Bialik]

And it can also be completely oppressive and patriarchal. Blah, blah. But the notion that there's attractiveness and beauty to that, to a voice of any, you know, particular writing.

[Pete Holmes]

King David bathing.

[Mayim Bialik]

Bathsheba.

[Pete Holmes]

Bathsheba.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yes. Saw her bathing on the roof.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

Her beauty in the moonlight.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Mayim Bialik]

Overthrew you.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, I get it.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yep.

[Pete Holmes]

Got it. This is another episode. Next time you're on, if you come back, which I would love. No semen analysis.

[Mayim Bialik]

All Old Testament.

[Pete Holmes]

All ot. Older Testament.

[Mayim Bialik]

Old school.

[Pete Holmes]

They're both old OG ot. Will you one. Will you humor us? One? Give us one if you can. Or just tell me what it makes you think of. I remember when I learned about Hebrew and the Old Testament and they were like, there's a lot of interpretation just in the way that it's laid out. Because there's spaces. The example.

[Mayim Bialik]

Right. Well, there's breaks, but. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

All right.

[Mayim Bialik]

There's breaks between sections.

[Pete Holmes]

There's some interesting stuff going on.

[Mayim Bialik]

But there's no. Sorry, there's no periods.

[Pete Holmes]

No, that's what I mean. No periods.

[Mayim Bialik]

There's no. No exclamation points.

[Pete Holmes]

Menopause. All right, but, like, God is. Now, here is also. God is nowhere.

[Mayim Bialik]

That's right.

[Pete Holmes]

Does that light you up in any way? In your language, dork?

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

In your language, Wilder.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yes, again, in sort of. Of in. In Kundalini yoga circles, there's a lot of repurposing of words. You know, disease being. Dis. Ease is like the simplest one to.

[Pete Holmes]

Think of, but depression, Deep rest.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah. Wait, what was the other one? Sorry, I had one that was.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, there's a lot of them.

[Mayim Bialik]

There's a lot of them, like.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, recreate, Recreate.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah, exactly.

[Pete Holmes]

All those things.

[Mayim Bialik]

So. Yeah. I would say that the Old Testament in particular, like. Like, aspects of kind of like, the Hebrew language. It's a very ancient language, you know, super, super old school. Yeah. There is a lot of Yeshiva. That's right. There is a lot of. There's a lot of. There's a lot of word play. There's a lot of punness. And it really is a foundation of sort of the philosophy of Judaism is that there's always another side to something. When you think you know what it is, there's always another side to it. And, you know, the structure of the Talmud, which a lot of people like. Oh, the Talmud is everybody's different opinions about something. You know, the reason the mezuzah on our doors is to the side is because one rabbi thought it should be up and down and the other thought it should be this way, horizontal. And so it's a compromise, like, so.

[Pete Holmes]

A little bit more.

[Mayim Bialik]

I mean, depending on the home.

[Pete Holmes]

It's still pretty up and down.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah. There's always more than one side to it, for sure.

[Pete Holmes]

That was amazing.

[Mayim Bialik]

You did it. I did it, Mayim. Thanks.

[Pete Holmes]

You did it. I basically said, please wow us with some Hebrew. Jewish fun fact, and you nailed it.

[Mayim Bialik]

I have more, but we'll stop. We'll stop there.

[Pete Holmes]

Next time on you made it weird. We talk about ejaculate. We talk about.

[Mayim Bialik]

I think you made it weird today.

[Pete Holmes]

I know I did. It's been a while. Would you say there's no way to say keep it crispy in Yiddish or Hebrew, is there? Sometimes it has to be, like, fried. Like a cooking, Like a. Like a what?

[Mayim Bialik]

You want me to find it?

[Pete Holmes]

Could you say it? Is it possible? Keep it crispy.

[Mayim Bialik]

I don't know how to say that in Hebrew.

[Pete Holmes]

I can barely say it in English.

[Mayim Bialik]

Sorry.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, no, don't stress.

[Mayim Bialik]

I'm thinking.

[Pete Holmes]

No, no, don't do this. Don't panic.

[Mayim Bialik]

I don't know how to say crispy. That's not in my vocabulary.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, that's hard.

[Mayim Bialik]

What I thought of in Yiddish is there's a word for. You know when you fry onions so hard that they're crispy.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

And, like, black.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

It's called griveness.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Grifness.

[Mayim Bialik]

Keep it. Griffinous.

[Pete Holmes]

How do you say keep it?

[Mayim Bialik]

I don't know how to say that in Yiddish.

[Pete Holmes]

There's no commanding.

[Mayim Bialik]

There is, but my vocabulary is not big. And, like. I don't. I know. I don't know it. I'm not, like, fluent in Yiddish like that.

[Pete Holmes]

Look, I love it. What was the word again.

[Mayim Bialik]

Griveness.

[Pete Holmes]

It sounds like another house in Harry Potter. I'm grifinis.

[Mayim Bialik]

Keep it grivinous.

[Pete Holmes]

And now would you say, keep it crispy just for the completionist.

[Mayim Bialik]

Keep it crispy.

[Pete Holmes]

There it is. Now will you call my dad and say, this father from Boston, Massachusetts is much loved by his son or something? I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. They love Jeopardy. Oh, they love Jeopardy.

[Mayim Bialik]

We could record something for him.

[Pete Holmes]

No, that would be funny, Woody.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah, write it. Write me the clue and I'll read it.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, my God.

[Mayim Bialik]

You want the answer to be who is Pete?

[Pete Holmes]

Who is Jay Holmes?

[Mayim Bialik]

Oh, you want it to be him about them. Okay, then, yeah, write it out. I'll say it.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, my God.

[Mayim Bialik]

It's fine.

[Pete Holmes]

That's the correct response.

[Mayim Bialik]

Should do it now or do it into your phone.

[Pete Holmes]

We'll do it later.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah, I'll do it. I can send it to you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can. You can send me a couple tidbits about him. Oh, I'll write it and I'll record it.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, they'll flip out because they love Big Bang and Jeopardy.

[Mayim Bialik]

Oh, great. Whichever, however you want to do it. Just give me the clue and I can.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, I'll write it for you. You know, I've been a clue on Jeopardy. Twice. Isn't that fun?

[Mayim Bialik]

That's very fun.

[Pete Holmes]

Isn't that fun?

[Mayim Bialik]

What was it? Do you remember?

[Pete Holmes]

I remember one was comedian Pete Holmes, voices.

[Mayim Bialik]

Oh, okay.

[Pete Holmes]

This stock trading baby.

[Mayim Bialik]

Okay.

[Pete Holmes]

And the other one, I was the answer.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah, I was gonna say, that's a fun one.

[Pete Holmes]

It's better. But they didn't get it.

[Mayim Bialik]

Do you remember what the clue was? They didn't get it.

[Pete Holmes]

This piece of. But they didn't get it. So there's a specific humiliation to the.

[Mayim Bialik]

And you're like, God damn it. You could have been like all the other people they guessed.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, yeah, that's right.

[Mayim Bialik]

You know, it could have been, who's Jerry Seinfeld? Yeah, who's. I don't know. Name another person. Tom Sagura.

[Pete Holmes]

And then. And then you have to disappointedly go, who's Pete Holmes? Pete Homes. Pete.

[Mayim Bialik]

Correct response. Pete Homes.

[Pete Holmes]

Correct response. Thank you, Mayim.

[Mayim Bialik]

Thank you.