Blocks w/ Neal Brennan - Ron Livingston

Episode Date: November 21, 2024

Neal Brennan interviews Ron Livingston (Loudermilk, Swingers, Office Space & more) about the things that make him feel lonely, isolated, and like something's wrong - and how he is persevering despite these blocks. ---------------------------------------------------------- 00:00 Intro 00:56 Everyman 3:43 Swingers 8:16 Office Space 19:13 Sponsor: Uncommon Goods 20:29 Sponsor: The Perfect Jean 22:04 Executive Function 30:52 People Pleasing 43:53 Sponsor: Verso 45:40 Perfectionism 52:48 Fatherhood & Adoption ---------------------------------------------------------- Follow Neal Brennan: https://www.instagram.com/nealbrennan https://twitter.com/nealbrennan https://www.tiktok.com/@mrnealbrennan Watch Neal Brennan: Crazy Good on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81728557 Watch Neal Brennan: Blocks on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81036234 Theme music by Electric Guest (unreleased). Edited by Will Hagle ([e-mail])  Sponsors: https://www.uncommongoods.com/BLOCKS for 15% off your next gift. https://www.theperfectjean.nyc/NEAL15 for 15% off plus free shipping. https://www.ver.so promo code: NEAL to save 15% on your first order. Sponsor Blocks: https://public.liveread.io/media-kit/blocks ---------------------------------------------------------- #podcast #comedy #mentalhealth #standup Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, it's Neil Brennan, it's the Blacks Podcast. My guest today, you're gonna be glad he's here when you saw his name. You're like, oh, fucking, I like that guy. He's an extremely likable guy. And he's going on a, you're a lifer. You've been in shit. You've been in shit for a long time.

Yeah. Like shit that people like. Sometimes. Sometimes. Yeah. And... I like some of it. Yeah, sometimes. Sometimes. Yeah. And, uh... I like some of it. Yeah, well, you know, who's gonna like all of it?

Office space. What would you do if you had a million dollars? Two chicks at the same time, man. I would do nothing. The Sex and the City. I love you, Kerry. The Man of Brothers, Loudermilk. Fucking bunch of shit.

Ron Livingston, everybody. Ron Livingston, thank you for coming. Thanks for having me. Everyone in showbiz, like, I look at you and I go, he was also in Drinking Buddies. I look at you and I think like, ah, he's probably like, was in a bar near Wrigley Field and got discovered.

You just seem like a real regular guy. That's half true. Is it true? I was at a bar near Wrigley Field. No one discovered you. I used to live there. Yeah, I was not discovered. Okay. But then I, and it's like, oh, you went to Yale drama school.

Yeah. So like, oh, or not drama school? Not drama school. Aha! Alright, that's where the, that's the wrench. That's very, very, very helpful though when you're like 23 and you're like trying to break in. And people don't know the difference.

People don't know the difference. Yeah. And I never corrected anybody. Why would you? Now you'd be, they'd do a take down piece of how you lie. Yeah, and how I, right, I could never be president. This is the 90s where nothing is trackable. Also swingers, I wanna talk about swingers as well.

My point is everyone in show business is, even the people that are like character actor-y are still very good looking and intelligent and talented. Well, thank you. Meaning like Steve Buscemi is considered like a schlub, but Steve Buscemi's pretty good looking, if you've seen him in parts. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Yeah, he's like movie star schlub. but Steve Bacchini was pretty good looking if you've seen him in parts. You know what I mean? Yeah, he's like movie star schlub. Yeah, like if you're in an environment where everyone's beautiful, you are disgusting. But if you're on Earth, he's a pretty good looking guy. Yeah. And you're a, I would say you're a very good looking guy, but in movies you just seem like, hey, he's regular.

But you're not, right? He went to Yale, you're good looking, you gotta. Everyman. Yeah, you, he's regular. But you're not regular. You went to Yale, you're good looking, you gotta. Every man. Yeah, you're an every man. So I guess my question would be, let's just, we'll just go, I wanna, I have got questions about the stuff you've done and then we can get into your blocks.

So you move out here from Iowa. Yeah, by way of Chicago. I did three years in Chicago. Okay. After college. And what were you doing? You know, I was, Chicago. I did three years in Chicago. Okay. After college. And what were you doing? You know, I was, I think I was chasing like the Steppenwolf thing

that had happened a couple years before. Right. You were there in the late 80s, early 90s? Well, I got there in 1990. Okay. So it had kind of flown the coop. Right. Like Steppenwolf was still there,

but there weren't like opportunities. But Malkovich and Gary Sneese were not there yet. No, they were in LA. And I was chasing the John Hughes thing, because he had made a whole string of movies there. He wasn't there anymore. You know, it was great. And if I'm honest, it's because a good buddy of mine,

I just didn't have plans on where I was gonna go. And a good buddy of mine was like, you wanna go to Chicago? And I said, sure. That's kind of a trend in my life is lack of planning. A lot of times leads to opportunities that are sometimes dubious and then sometimes work out really well.

Okay, so you come out, then I heard of you in Swingers. Yeah. Part of the reason that I moved out here is because I saw how well you were doing and I figured that if you could make it, then I could make it too. I didn't make it. It's hard to explain to people how remote

making a movie was back then, but I remember hearing about the movie and then seeing it and it was a real low budget and it's basically just you guys all being charismatic. Story's pretty thin, but it's just, I don't know, it just worked. Yeah, it was lightning in a bottle. I thought they were all gonna be like that.

And it was kind of one of those just serendipity. I'd met Jon Favreau in Chicago at the very tail end while I was there. We worked one of those industrial gigs together, like in Captain Crunch suits. Then another buddy of mine, you know, like hilarious chapter. But we both happened to be moving

to LA kind of at the same time. And I knew maybe two people and he was one of them and he knew maybe two people and I was one of them. So we hadn't really been that close in Chicago. We just sort of knew acquaintances, but when we got to LA, we kind of connected and we're trying to help each other set up and stuff. And he knew Vince, Vince was the other person he knew, because he'd just done Rudy.

And the swingers, we first became aware of it in that John wrote this script and he was trying to sell it. And it was like, hey, I wrote a script, I'm trying to sell it. I wrote a script and it's kind of about our dynamic and that stuff and we spent about a year just helping him do readings for people that would potentially buy it. Yeah. Nobody bought it but we spent a year basically rehearsing it

and then Doug Lyman kind of discovered it on somebody's coffee table and said, oh, this isn't a $2 million movie. I can make this for a quarter of a minute. I can make this for $250,000. And I think I have a lead on where we can get some of that money. So all of a sudden it was happening.

But it was happening for scale. So sort of one by one, John was like, well, if that's all the money that it's gonna take and that's all the money that's available, we can't pay anybody to do anyway, so I'm gonna do the lead. And then one by one, he just got the rest of this into it. Yeah, so then it just, that one was one of those,

you can't, you know, when people go, so what do I do to get started in Hollywood? I'm like, well, you could do, I don't know what to tell them. Yeah, it's like I was in an accident. Yeah, I was in an accident. And that worked for me. So maybe we get into it, get into it.

I mean, but that happens kind of in a lot of cases, where it's just like, I don't know. Yeah, you want to do this? You stand in there, somebody says, can you do this thing? And you say yes. To me, that's the big lesson of it, is when somebody says, can you do or help me do

a reading of my script and read the stage directions, and there's no money in it for you and you can't possibly be, you know, you can say yes or no, and a lot of times, yes is the good answer, because why not? Yeah, and what else could you be doing? Right, you can sit at home. Yeah, play video games.

Play video games. We did that anyway. We did that after. And it was also great. Okay, so that does well, and Vince gets a massive explosion from it Yeah, Vince is like hello. Congratulations. You're a movie star, right? And I would also argue well deserved Oh, yeah, you see literally I watched a clip of it recently. I was like I

Can't believe how handsome he is and a fucking motor mouth No, no, no, no, she was smiling and how money I was. And it's like incredible to watch. It's like. He just jumps off the screen. Yeah. And then continued to do so and you know, and that's just him. Yep.

And it's John recognizing that like that, yeah, how can that not work? Yeah. Then do you get a pop from it? I got enough of a pop where it was like Okay. Yeah, I got that pop just being in a movie back then was something Yeah, you were in a movie and it wasn't I didn't want you to not be in it. Right? That's good Yeah, I had I had now a credit Uh-huh. So I kind of went from being on the list of people that could audition for things

But then ultimately you they couldn't actually hire you. Yeah. To you can audition for things and like, I guess if nobody else does it, we can hire you. Great. Which is huge. Well, that's an enormous jump. Office space.

Let me tell you something about TPS reports. Yes. Is that sort of a- Couple jumps. Yeah. Couple jumps later. And that was another similar thing. How many episodes of this podcast have you done? About a hundred.

Yeah. So there's a thing where if something lasts long enough, eventually it comes around to you because you run out of everybody else. Right. That's what happened with Office Space. Mike Judge had this movie, never done a live-action movie, wrote it, wanted to do it. Fox, he was making Fox a bazillion dollars

on King of the Hill. They wanted to keep him happy. They wanted to let him make this movie. They had two diametrically opposed ideas of what a movie was and what the movie should be. So, he wanted to cast sort of a nobody who didn't look like a movie star. Hello. Fox wanted to cast like a movie star. And those two circles did not intersect anywhere in the Venn diagram. They're just, they didn't. So they saw probably every male actor in Hollywood and one side or the other said, no, that's not the guy.

No, that's not the guy. No, that's not the guy. No, that's not the guy. And then by the time they got to me as like one of the very last people on the list of guys to look at, the Venn diagrams had like morphed just close enough together that Fox was,

they got to a point where they were like, all right, we don't care. We're just doing this to make you happy anyway, so go make your movie. And if you wanna use that guy, use that guy. Yeah, and it's small budget, right? I'm 12, 13 million. Not tiny.

Yeah. No, not tiny. It looks small budget because that's Mike's sensibility. Yeah. It looked a lot better until he walked around the set and tore all the decor. You know? It's so funny, yeah.

All the stories. But yeah, so that's again, that was just another really, on the one hand, it's serendipity because you happen to be in the right place at the right time. On the other hand, it's like, well, the reason you're in the right place at the right time is because you other hand, it's like, well, the reason you're in the right place at the right time is because you've been standing in that place

for 10 years now, like waiting for something to happen. Yeah, what year was that? It was 99? That came out in 99, so I think we made it probably 98. So 98. Okay. It's one of those long tale movies where it doesn't open especially well, right? Or did it? No.

It tanked in the opening. It was one of those where getting it was a huge coup. As it got closer to coming out, it was clear that Fox was just kind of dumping it. So that did nothing. And then it just started this slow ramp of returns where it just kept. I think what it was was home video really started

coming into its own and being a thing. Especially for comedies. Especially for comedies. Me and Chappelle made Half Bake back then and it didn't do well at all, and then slowly but surely. Sandler's first Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison didn't do well either all and then slowly but surely. And Sandler's first Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison didn't do well either. And then slowly and then a video was like,

have you seen this? Yeah, were you guys on Comedy Central? Cause that was another huge piece of it. Yeah, no, yeah, yeah, yeah. We got on Comedy Central like wallpaper and then we did Trample Show based on kind of like, well, this keeps doing well. So did you, and did you, how did you,

where did you resent that art? Cause it doesn't really help. It doesn't really help you. That, that, the only thing that works is like huge opening. It doesn't matter how it does on DVD or home video. It's like, did it open? Then you can do other stuff. So if it doesn't open what happens not a lot

You know, I mean you you've kind of You kind of realize the gains of like oh you have a better agent now based on yeah You booked it and they think something's going to happen. So you're still the spaghetti that's kind of getting thrown at the wall in some things I don't know, you know, I was naive to a lot of that stuff as it was happening. I wasn't really a student of the game of the game. Right.

So I didn't, a lot of times I didn't know that. By the way, it doesn't help. I, yeah, I mean some people it does. It doesn't help to know, but what can you, either people wanna watch it or they don't. Sure. So I think like knowing where to back packaging and all that stuff is kind of like, hmm.

Yeah, no, I just mean like the mogul part of it of like this and I can leverage that into this and I was just kind of a little oblivious to it. I was amazed when I saw the movie because I thought it was really good. Yeah. And I hadn't expected it was really good. Yeah. And I hadn't expected it to be good based on what it seemed like,

the fact that they were dumping it, I was like, I guess it must not have worked. Yeah. So, I was just really proud of it. Great, and were you like, oh, I was good? Yeah. Like, good. I was.

Yeah, because it's not, being the star of a movie, it's not like a, it's not... Being the star of a movie, it's not like a... It's not a hard, like, it's hard, like, you know, like, digging ditches or something, but it is a weird thing to be able to be in almost every scene. And like, cut to you, and you're like, what am I doing now? I'm interested in this guy, for some reason.

Yeah, it's, I mean, it's a little like getting shot out of a gun. Yeah. It's one of those things where it's like, yeah, as a kid you always dreamed of being an NFL quarterback, but I think if they stuck me next Sunday out there on the field and snapped you the ball, like that's kind of, I would, you know what I mean?

It's hard to know what to do now. You don't know what your body's gonna do. I don't know what I'm doing. Yeah. You's gonna do. I don't know what I'm doing. You know? Yeah. I don't know what I'm doing. So there's a lot of that feeling, even though a lot of it is like, you do know. Okay, what if somebody finds himself the lead in a movie?

Yeah. What advice would you give them? That's a very broad question, but to the point of like, you know, being an NFL quarterback, It's a very broad question, but to the point of like, you know, being an NFL quarterback, I actually direct commercials and I did one for Lowe's with a bunch of Dak Prescott and all this. So what's the coverage? Easy, two cans, Dallas Cowboys, Navy.

That's a big play. And I was asking Dak, like, during the game, do you, are you like monitoring yourself and like, are you going like, I fucked that up, I fuck that up? And he's like, no, there's no time. Because I will like on Monday or Tuesday, but during the game, you cannot, you can't really, the self-talk has gotta be forward moving.

What's the movie star version of that? I'd say, and it's gonna seem a little cheesy, but three parts. One, take a deep breath. Okay. Just take a deep breath, you know? You gotta take, you know, that's, cause then you go from like,

huh, huh, gotta start there. Uh-huh. Two is be yourself, you know, that's all you got right now. Uh-huh. Can't be somebody else, you gotta be yourself, you know, that's all you got right now. Can't be somebody else. You got to be yourself. And number three is just do whatever it is that got you in this position

right now to be doing this, whatever something you did, something to wind up here. Are you aware of what what that is? Not necessarily. Are were you aware back then what you like when you watched the movie? Were you like, oh, like when you watched the movie, where you're like, oh, I'm good at X. Yes, I knew, I understood, I just understood Mike's sense of humor.

I understood that. I understood that character. Did you see yourself as a Mike surrogate? Meaning like, I'm representing. No, sometimes I have, sometimes I have, but Mike's background was like completely, like Mike was a bass player, Mike was a, I had done, you know, like I was a computer guy,

so I understood a little bit of software engineering, but he'd actually like been a software engineer. The piece of it that I understand is that like my survival gig for all those years was I was a temp secretary. So I'd worked in every office you could imagine. I'd worked in law firms, I'd worked in like insurance firms, I'd worked for, you know, I did mail universe.

So like, I understood that in a way. And I kind of, and I just also understood that like, that humor of nothing works and everything. You know, like I grew up watching Oliver Hardy do those slow burns. Yeah. Of just, you know, just. I just knew that.

Yeah. So to me, that's the part of it that I understood and I just said I'm just gonna do that. Would you walk us through a typical day for you? Yeah. Great. Well, I generally come in at least 15 minutes late. Yeah, sitting with you, you are good at like, what's going on?

If you had a musical note, it would be like, so what, what's happening? What are we doing exactly? Why is this? Huh? I was just kind of like, you know, um, cause there's two things. There's like, what would I do, uh, if I were in this situation, even that kind of involves planning, you know, there's a lot of planning that goes, what would I do? Right. And if you don't have that capacity to kind of necessarily do that plan or remember that plan, you're sort of stuck just being like, okay, what's happening? You know? Yeah. And now you're just doing the thing that you would do because you don't have

anything else planned to do, so now you're just doing that. So was that a lack of prep? Do you see yourself as like, you didn't prep for that at all? Or was it in it like you would judge it except it worked? Yeah, I had a lot of things like preparation, the kind of preparation that like I think it takes to write a novel or... Outlining, an outline.

Yeah, an outline and time management and da-da-da-da-da. The only two things that have ever allowed me to... And I can deep dive, I can deep dive, but the only two things that have ever powered it are curiosity. Like, what's this? And I'm going to spend 10 curiosity, like, oh, what's this? And I'm gonna spend 10 hours like, trying to understand that, while people are, you know, telling,

yelling at me that I'm late for something. Or just sheer panic because something's doing an hour and a half and I forgot to do it. Yeah. And then I can like deep dive there. So- That brings us to one of your blocks by the way yeah yes spark something uncommon this holiday with just the right gift from Uncommon Goods the busy holiday season is here and Uncommon Goods makes it less

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Please support our little show here and tell them we sent you. Fuck your khakis and get the perfect gene. executive functioning. Oh, boy. The first time that's come up on the show, it's very exciting. We're about 100 episodes in. No one has specifically mentioned executive functioning.

What are your issues with exec? Explain to me what executive functioning is, because I didn't even really know what it was until a few years ago. Executive function is when you, you're sort of the CEO of your own mind and your own attention. And you get to decide, okay,

now I'm gonna pay attention to this. Next Thursday, I'm gonna block out two hours, I'm gonna pay attention to that, we're gonna get this done. I've got, you know, it's like multitasking, it's planning ahead. And sticking to the plan. Sticking to the plan,

remembering that there was supposed to be a plan, like kind of all of the things that, I don't know, I think people with good executive function don't even necessarily know that it's a thing. They just know how frustrated they get with those of us who can't do it. Yeah, and also, yeah, you're dealing with constant rejection or constant disapproval from people.

You feel like you're letting people down, like all the time. It's, oh, yeah, oh shit, oh God, I'm sorry, I didn't do the thing, oh, what, or even when I'm on it, there's a constant loop, it's exhausting, because there's a constant loop of like, what am I forgetting? And no, I'm forgetting something.

I have my keys, yes, I have my keys, I have my wallet. All right, aha, it's by my phone. All right, what did I, I have the, where am I, what did I come in this room to get? Yeah. I gotta walk back out of the room now. I gotta go, which room? Okay, what, I have my keys, I have my wallet, glasses.

I need my glasses. It's that constantly, even when there's nothing you forgot. Even when you have it. Well, you don't trust it. I'm bad with names and even if I'm good with names, I'm like, his name's not Ron. It's Don. Neil, what are you talking about?

It's Ron, you're sitting, yeah but you got that confused. Similar. Yeah. I have that too. Yep, great. Even better. By the way, you've looked like Antonio Banderas a couple times during this interview. Have you ever gotten that? When you look this way, I was like, fucking Antonio Banderas a couple times during this interview.

Have you ever gotten that? When you look this way, I was like, this fucking Antonio Banderas. I'm gonna take that. Don't call him Antonio. You're married and that's gotta be very frustrating for your wife more than anyone, I would assume. She loves me.

Sure, no, no, no. Say take nothing away. No, she loves me and she, I think she gets it and I think she gets it. And I think she gets it more over the years. And I think something here, like this is a hilarious one. We do this one. This is a little loop we do where she's like,

okay, I just want to go over the schedule for the week. And I'm like, all right, I got to go, let me get my computer because I got to type it into the thing. And she's like, no, no, no, not right now. I'm just really saying it for you so I can say it into the thing. And she's like, no, no, no, not right now. I'm just really saying it for you so I can say it out loud for me. And I've kind of learned to go, ah, ah, ah, ah, because you're gonna say it,

and then tomorrow when I ask, what are we doing, you're gonna say, we talked about it yesterday, and I'm gonna say, yeah, but I told you I wasn't gonna remember any of that. So now it has to, we have to set aside these times where she's like, okay, so tomorrow night, and I'm like, click, click click tomorrow click click click you know like that she's just got to wait for me it's like dealing with like did you did

you was there like a bottom a rock bottom for executive functioning what's the biggest one or is it just a lot of small ones no you know it's a lot it's a lot of small ones and some of them are good. Some of them are really good. Like, I used to have the student nightmare where you forget to prepare for the test. You get there, and you know, I haven't done it, I haven't done it. It happened to me in college. I got there for like, I don't know if it was a midterm,

but it was like maybe one of three tests for the semester. I got there, I realized I hadn't studied for it. I didn't. It was like in the count. Oh, sh-tada-da-da-da-da. All the all the nightmare things. I walked up to the professor. I said, got to say, I forgot the thing. I just didn't da-da-da-da.

And the guy was like, OK, come back and take it with the other section on Thursday. And I never had the nightmare again because it was like, oh, that's it? That's funny. That's all it is? That's funny. That'd be like a good therapy. Yeah.

Like what's your, because the truth of the matter is nothing's as bad as you imagine it will be. Yeah. And nothing on earth has ever been as bad as you would imagine. I mean, maybe a horrible accident. Right. But- Maybe being set on fire.

Yeah, that's gotta be, but maybe like you go into, you know, the thing where your body goes numb and you're just like, it's time slows down and you go, how do I put? Yeah. Because you hear those things and you're like, oh, this seems, your body figures out a way to manage it in those cases.

But also, the worst case scenarios are never, there's always like a reasonable person there. And it isn't dream logic of like, no, you're in trouble. Or they are. And then you're like, all right, I guess I'm gonna get a D in this class if I'm lucky. And I still am at Yale. What are you this class. Yeah, I'm lucky and I still met Yale

What are you gonna do? Yeah, that's interesting that you never had the nightmare again and did it with the wife It's just like you you've figured out how to manage it. Yeah, we figure out how to manage it Does it ever happen at on shows or movies where you don't here's the thing? Here's the thing that's so great I know that I can't be the only actor that I think it might be an actor thing because you are so micromanaged by somebody else. They don't let you walk to the bathroom without sending a 20 year old to like follow you there because they don't want you to disappear. It costs them tens of thousands of dollars if it takes an

extra 45 seconds for you to get back Your day is charted out There's a little piece of paper that says every single thing you have to do that day and in what order You're treated a little bit like a toddler with a little bit a little bit. Yeah treated exactly like a toddler and Yeah, so for that part, it's actually quite easy. Have you ever, like, studied, uh, prepared a scene and then you were doing it differently?

They switch schedule or... Yeah, oh, all the time, but that time, sometimes it's, usually when that happens, it's not on you, that's just because they switched the things and they do that. And then you just go like, I'm gonna try to get it together and... Yeah, when, and if you're bad at executive function,

chances are you've spent your entire life Scrambling to do things at the last minute and you've gotten pretty comfortable with in that sort of realm You know cuz it's just that's where that's where I live I live scrambling to do things at the last minute. So we're scrambling to do something the last minute Awesome, and it's not my fault this time. Yeah, like motherfucker. I live here. Yeah, I love it. Do you find that the more you prep? Well, is the is the is the amount of prep correlated with the quality of your performance?

Because it could it doesn't necessarily have to be. No, not all. No, not always. Not always. And, you know, not always. And granted there's like, there are performances that you see people do that it's like, oh, you know, Meryl Streep worked six months to do the Polish accent. I'm a Polish. Like that involved some planning and some foresight

and some work and that had to go. Or like, you know, somebody got a Marvel movie and then the next thing you know, they're like, they show up completely jacked. That involves a certain amount of, you know, you can't just, you can't do that at the last minute. Yeah, you can't, yeah. Well, let's hope you never get a Marvel movie, huh?

Yeah. Let this be the announcement that you're not interested. You know, that's not true. I am interested and like this podcast, it might be the kind of thing where they just, you know, that's not true. I am interested and like this podcast, it might be the kind of thing where they just, although you know what, they circled around, there's somebody that they like cast now in their second role in the Marvel universe.

I made it, I had a list of people, I had a list of people, you were on my list of people I wanted to speak to a year ago. By the way, I've also heard Meryl Streep did a crying scene and used fake tears. Okay. So like, there's no, there is like the six month thing and then there's also just like, yeah, I've also heard Meryl Streep did a crying scene and used fake tears. So there's no, there is the six month thing and then there's also just like,

yeah, I don't know, you got any of the fake tears? I would need to, I'd need to source that because, yeah, no shame on that. No, of course not, but I'm saying like, it surprises me if Meryl, if Meryl, I was shocked. Couldn't dial it up. But yeah, but some days you can't do it.

Yeah. One of your other blocks is a good one which we've had a few times. People Blazing. Yeah. Tell me about it. I think some of it comes from just like Midwestern, church going folk,

be a good person. A lot of it's like good person. Yeah. Which is kind of different from like enabling people pleasing. But there's certain kind of expectations that you're supposed to be. And sometimes, sometimes I get caught in that. Bending over backward.

Yeah. Or like, I am going to step in and put on the cape and take somebody else's thing on, even though it's clear that that's not gonna help anybody. It's not gonna help them. It's not gonna help you. You're not gonna solve it. Can you think of an example that wouldn't implicate anyone? People who just, like, can't figure their finances out. Mm-hmm. Can you think of an example that wouldn't implicate anyone? People who just like can't figure their finances out

Mm-hmm, and you kind of keep floating them. Yeah never has never worked Like I don't want to say it's never worked ever because clearly like sure take out loans and did it Yeah, but but if there's no Stick I can't get paid back. There's always like a healthy There's I think there's always a healthy bounded way to get it paid back. I think there's always like a healthy, I think there's always a healthy, bounded way to do it. And what I've come to is, alright, what's my relationship to this person?

Alright. What's the amount of money that I'm happy to flush down the toilet right now or set on fire in front of them as a, as just a gesture of how much I care about them. If it's somebody that I've met on the street, I've never seen them before. $20.

Yeah, I can, okay, I will set $20 on fire so that maybe this person can change their life around from where they are now with this $20. I don't know, maybe they can, maybe they can't. Maybe someone I've known a long time, so now that is $150 or whatever. And then I think you just say, okay, I'm gonna give you this.

If I don't get it back, that's the last, if I get it back, it's yours to, I'll loan it to you whenever you need it. And maybe if the relationship, if you seem really good at this, maybe that number will go up. I don't know. But I think you can't keep chasing it and you can't solve, you know, you can't fix the thing.

Have you gotten where you were like, let's co-do this. Like let's figure out your- Yeah, yeah. And that usually doesn't work. Especially when you got no executive functioning. No. I mean, you're the last guy. I mean, sometimes you can. Sometimes it's like, you know what?

I'm gonna try and, I'm gonna step in and I'm gonna parent this fully grown adult. You know? And we're together, they're gonna develop the ability. Besides my real parenting, my children who need to be. In the, you know. Yeah. And usually I realize that that's an inflated,

like it's two things, that's like, well this is what I was taught I was supposed to do. And it's also a very, very inflated sense of ego. That all they really need is 10 minutes with me. Yeah. You know, and all of my amazingness and my brilliant, I could teach them anything, you know, like, eh. Yeah.

It's silly. It's silly, and you look dumb at the end of it. Well, that's the funny, the older you get, the more you realize, like, I can't save or help. No. And it's, but it is ego. It also, when you said the Midwestern church going thing, yeah, part of me thinks like people are only good

cause they have to be. Like if there was no church, I mean, I almost think that's oddly like for someone who was an atheist for a long time, me, I believe that the lack of church has actually hurt the country in the last 30 years. Sure. In a weird way, in like insidious ways, but even though molestation, all the huge downsides

and all the stuff that was built into faith-based organizations, how good would you be without church? No, I... You know, and it's, again, it's like what part of it? I think the part of it that I would agree that we haven't found anything to necessarily replace it is the part where a community comes together to say there's stuff that would make all of our lives

better if we could just do a better job of doing it for each other. And we sort of are humble enough to know that it's maybe bigger than any one of us and maybe it's bigger than all of us. And we're gonna fail at it, but we're gonna keep trying. And you're also gonna belong.

We're gonna belong, and there's a piece of, it's belonging in the community, but it's also belonging in the universe. I think there's a piece of spirituality. There's just a way of connecting, I think, to the universe and life in general. It's not exclusive. It's not exclusive to, it doesn't have to happen

within like a dogmatic religious framework and then we have to go to war over who's right and all of that. It could happen over here, over this. It could happen, you know, it could happen, I think the flawed way that a lot of people accessed that over the years was through religion.

And as people move away from religion for some really, really good reasons, they haven't really necessarily found their way back into that from another back door. Yeah. And it just kind of leaves you to get preyed on by like some other values of like, I need nicer sheets, you know.

Yeah, sheets or literally podcasters. Yeah. Or. What do you rank in the? Well, yeah, well, but it's also, they become your spiritual leader. And then you believe everything that they believe more or less.

And also getting together, being together, is a big thing that I think is lost. Yeah. Thanks to Live Nation and people. Yeah. I think God is charging so much for anything getting together, any sort of concert, whatever. But there's fewer groups.

There used to be more, there's a documentary on Netflix called Join or Die, it's a bad name, but it's about the guy who wrote Bowling Alone, the book Bowling Alone, and about how like, they're just, civic groups used to be good for, are good for the fabric of society, and they're gone. We're a social animal, and I think we've been sold this bill of goods of rugged individualism, which is like, no, no, no,

you need a Sony Walkman. You get your own pods. You get your little glasses. You don't need all those other people. You're gonna go read your own books and strike your thing and be your island, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's just so profoundly lonely.

And I think the best piece of evidence that we need something more is, is the, all the crackpot shit that people get woo-woo about, the craziest shit people get woo-woo about. It's ridiculous. And none of it resembles each other. And it can be this and it could be that. To me, that's just evidence that like, wow, we really must need something in this that we're willing to contort ourselves this far to kind of seek some kind of connection to each other and the world and universe and existence at large. Like there's something there that we need.

It's not just like carbohydrates and oxygen and water and wifi. You know? Yeah, it's connection and belonging is the big, do you do anything in that regard? Yeah, I've got, I mean, I think it starts with, like again, I'm not great with a practice. I've got some practices that started with like artistic processes that once you start talking about

them, they sound a little crazy. Cause like words like Jungian and somatic. That's individual though, no? No, it's like group. Oh really? Well, the way I do it is in a group. You do it with other people. So everybody's kind of working on their individual stuff,

but you're maybe working on it next to somebody. Is it a therapy or it's a work thing? No, it's like a work, it's like a both. It's like a, it's not a medical therapeutic like that. No, yeah. But yeah, it's like a, yeah, it's like a dream work, it's like a dream work practice. And you guys get together?

And we get together and do it. My wife's at a retreat right now, actually I'm holding down the fort with the kids, but yeah, it's a way of working that that I kind of found myself in through my wife and maybe 15 years ago and it really it really opened up like the next chapter of the way I work and make it make it more personal and I was able to kind of, because it gets boring, you know what I mean? You do the same thing for the same reasons

and it gets boring. It's like I'm still trying to get girls to like me by, you know, I wanna, this is boring. I can't, this is dumb. This is dumb, it's really dumb. You realize what you're doing is dumb, but you still love doing it, so now you need a new reason to do it.

And also you're like, pretty, you're pot committed. You're like, I have no other way to do this. I have no other way to make a living. Yeah. You know, I'd like to, I gotta keep some of this alive. So I'm assuming it's not all actors. It's artists, it's writers. Yeah, there's actors, writers,

some of like musicians and stuff. But that's like a very sort very rarified version of it. I think there's little versions of it that are just like when you get your groceries, instead of just look the cashier in the eye, can you just hold their gaze? Not a creepy way or maybe in a creepy way. No, but yeah, but your little micro, just like little micro, micro connections with other people in the world, uh, I think go a long way towards healing

that, uh, that thing is like, Hey, you're, you're human. Yeah. You're human. I'm okay. I'm a human. Like, I don't know. Did you, did you guys do, do, to kick it back to church, I remember there was always the part of the service

where you turn to the person on the left and you shake their hand and go, you're in peace with the Lord with you and the peace of the Lord with you. And if you're like really showing off, you get out of the row and you go two rows up. You know, like you do that and it's like this weird, okay, we do it every week.

It's funny, because there was something about it that was like, you know, if you're in high school, it's like a fun time to kind of, it's like a little party. Yeah. But there is something nice about just, it's like introducing yourself to somebody. Yeah. Obviously it's church so you know everyone, but like if you're at a party, I was at a house party the other night and it was, it, and it was people I didn't know, but if you're at somebody's house party for their birthday,

you know that you are connected. Somehow. And then you're in the kitchen, you go, hey, I'm Neil, nice to meet you. And it's like, there's something fortifying about it. Now at the same time, I've had things where I've tried to do it and people are, it's so

rare now people are creeped out by it. Ah! This is maybe a bad example, but I was at grocery store and a woman was bought a thing and she was like futzing with her money and I knew her because she worked at the grocery store and she was there on her break, I guess, buying something and I was like, I was like, I'll buy, I'll pay for that. Oh, sure.

And she was like, she literally goes, what, why? And I was like, I don't, and the long story, the long answer was because I didn't like that you're spending money at your work. But I didn't have the like wherewithal, the presence of mind to tell her that. So I was like, I don't know, I just, and she ended up, she ended up paid and whatever

and she was kind of like put off by the whole thing. But which I understand. That's a boundary, that sounds like a boundary issue of the money, that wasn't necessarily just the fact you tried to connect with her. Yes, it was really just trying to connect with her though. But it was, I did it the wrong way. Yeah, we, yeah.

Yeah, we, you live a lie. You put the cape on. Yeah. And she's like, I don't need the cape. Yes. Take the cape off. There was a, do you remember the term Captain Save-A-Ho? Yes.

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Perfectionism. Yes. Is it similar to the people-pleasing thing or is it? Yes. You know, it was really important for my dad that I be excellent at things. That's how I got to Yale. Like I got there because that was something that was important to him. And he made sure you did your homework, he made sure? Yeah, he just, it was, I could just tell

that it was something that he was, and it wasn't like a family where like, that's what he did and you're carrying on the tradition. It was a family where, you know, it had this kind of social upward mobility piece to it. It had this, and a lot of it, I think, yeah, it was like his understanding of his own self-worth and self-value and what makes a person valuable.

And I think, you know, your parents, if you're in tune with them, and you're empathetic with them, and I think that's the superpower part of being like a people pleaser is to be a people pleaser. You have to be really in tune on like, what people are feeling. I just took that on. Did your brothers and sisters?

Yeah, too. I think they- Because they're pretty successful as well. Yeah, I think we all took a little bit of that on of like, and you just inherit the stuff a little bit and you're like, well, it's like, like second best is shit. We, we, that's a, that's a family value that I learned was that second, second best is like pathetic.

And it wasn't, was it ever explicit or was it just understood? It was explicit every day. Every day was explicit, you know? Yeah. And sometimes in that gentle way of, you know, we go around, you know, it's like I come home from wrestling practice. I was a pretty good wrestler.

I was a pretty good wrestler in Iowa, where a lot of people are really good wrestlers. And, you know, and there was this sort of daily debriefing at dinner of like house practice. And really what it came down to was, are you the best one in your weight class? And the answer was always no, I'm not. I'm again today, not.

And so it was something where, you know, once you internalize that, what I figured out was, oh, it's important to do the things that you're really good at, because those are gonna be your moments to shine, and the things where you're starting at the bottom, stay away from that shit. Right, stay away from that shit. So, to me, that's the perfectionism piece

and that shit. So to me, the perfectionism piece is really crippling because you just get cut off from so many avenues of things that would bring you joy or that you might actually develop. Yeah, you might end up being great. You can't weather the- And you're not gonna try it. Or you're gonna try it great you just you you can't weather the and you're not gonna try it or you're gonna try it take the six months of

sucking at it yeah and I've actually had some like there's been something this is my I'm in a dad band I'm gonna break yeah you know what I mean yeah I played piano lessons all my life not all my life I took piano lessons as a kid fits and spurts throughout the years I would come back to it, something I loved. It always, it wasn't performing, it was like me in a, you know, I don't remember, headphones on or something like that.

It didn't, and then in the last couple of years I kind of found, I got this opportunity to like join a elementary school dad band. And- When they asked you, you didn't have any kids, right? It was terrifying. You were like, I gotta have any kids, right? It was terrifying. You were like, I gotta get some kids. Right. That's what I'm talking about. Nineties comedy and stuff. Yeah. I gotta pretend. Yeah. So we got a couple,

I got a couple of those things where I find myself in completely new territory to circle back. And I think that's a good... That's a good sign, especially when it's something that I will always be profoundly mediocre at. I will be... And you know, and yeah, that's a funny thing that I think I'm... pretty guilty of, meaning I'm not... I said to my girlfriend, I was like,

I don't like doing shit I'm not good at. Yeah. I think that's why guys prefer work to relationships, because like, we know how to do work. Yeah. Relationships are like, wait, what do I have to do? It's like, it's, you know, it's like fish out of water. It's so hard and the rules keep changing and it's like,

you know, I don't know, yeah. So you've been in a relationship. I've been. Um, so, so yeah, and you've gotten as much joy from that stuff. More. Because the expectations are low. It's so great to be a fairly shitty keyboardist

in a dad band that our goal is to be surprisingly good. You know what I mean? We're better than you would expect us to be. That's our goal. You should do mediocre solos. On mediocre keyboard. Oh I do. Yeah. Ron Livingston. And then you just do like a kind of okay.

I'm trying to crush it every time and it's like at nine times out of 10, I'm gonna go down in flames. But it's like the, I don't know, there's something that's been, it's just, it's been really good for me. It's been really exhilarating. That's so cool. Yeah.

That's cool cool. Yeah. That's cool that you've like gotten over, I mean, does it still flare up? Oh yeah, and it doesn't go, it doesn't go, it's just like this one, you know when you get the package and it's got that cellophane wrapping and you spend 10 minutes turning it over, trying to find the corner to get it started

and you're too lazy to get up and get the scissors and actually get it started and you bite it, you know, and you do that lazy to get up and get the scissors and actually get it started and you bite it, you know You do that cut your finger. I feel like a lifetime in there's maybe three or four things where I've like started to get the corner of the cellophane up and And it's like and there's just something cool about that because I never thought I was gonna get this fucking thing open and now I feel like though I might actually get to open this box and see what's inside.

Are they, what are they? The dad band is one. Just being in an adult band that isn't supposed to be famous or good. Right. Great. That's the training wheels, right? Like that's kind of what allowed me to do it,

is like, there's an out. It's funny if we're only so good. Right. There's only so good. Right. There's only so good we can possibly expect, you know what I mean? Like it's, that's it. Yeah. But with those training wheels,

now you get to rehearsal and like, we all want to be really fucking good. Yeah. You know? And we indulge that and we're like, we're going to be as good as we can possibly be. Yeah. Well, that's every band.

Yeah, that's every, exactly. And then some of them, like eight of them were good. Yeah. But I wouldn't have, I wouldn't, for the, I would never have given myself permission to be in a band for the reasons that I could not guarantee going in that I would be successful, seen as cool, you know? Yeah. So like I wasn't, I didn't allow myself to do that for the first 55 years of my life.

I wanted to talk about the, that you guys adopt, you have two adopted kids? Yes. How did you come to that? And why didn't you torture your wife's body with IVF? We did. Oh, you did? Yes.

Great. Yes, we did for years. And we did until we could bear it. We could bear it no more. Yeah, and man that was a hard... It's funny being on the other side of it. Of IVF? Yeah, of like having tried it. Other side of IVF and having adopted kids and having having the family. There's like I'm of two very distinct minds. One is like what the fuck did we spend all of that energy and heartache and resources and time and misery, chasing that thing when this was available all along,

we could have just skipped all of that and just jumped to this, you know? And at the same part, you're very cognizant of like, because if we didn't, we wouldn't have gotten these two kids, we would have gotten two other kids. And it's so clear that like, oh, these are the kids that I was born to father.

These are those kids. And I guess somewhere somebody decided that while I was waiting for them to show up, I would have to spend, you know, my wife and I would have to spend seven years of our lives making ourselves miserable to get there. I guess that's just how it went. And then I look at it and go, you know,

well, I guess we learned some things along the way that are valuable. But man, that was hard. It was so hard. I have, it's funny. It's like that secret, because people call and they wanna ask you, they wanna talk to you about it,

and you have this secret, which for me, was that I know what you're going through is really, I just, I know where you are. I've been there, I know what that is. The sort of middle passage of, The IVF, the infertility stuff, the whole like, it's just not working, and you're doing everything you can. Self-judgment, all that, and you're doing everything you can. Self judgment.

Yeah. And the, you know. And having been on the other side of that grace of, cause I met both my daughters at the hospital, right? They're both adopted from birth. So with each of them, I have this crystal clear moment of just seeing them and having the thunderbolt, the flood. I don't know what it's like.

If you're biologically related, I can't, it's hard for me to imagine that there's another level beyond the one that I got to experience. Maybe there is, I don't know. I don't need it, I don't need it. This is extraordinary. But I also know that if you had told me that when I was two years into the seven years of misery,

I'd have been like, oh, that's nice, that's so nice for you, congratulations, thank you. So it's, yeah, so that's one where you just, again, you realize it's like you're going to go, people are going to go through what they're going to go through. They're going to decide what they decide. They're going to come out of it, how they come out of it. It's going to work. It's not going to work. I wouldn't do it any other way. We wouldn't do it any other way. And we went from, We wouldn't do it any other way. We wouldn't do it any other way. And we went from, I mean, it was pretty clear

we were not gonna conceive biological children together, but it went from a place of like, now we were worried that maybe we would because we didn't want that. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like we didn't want that for our adopted children to introduce a biological child into the mix

and now have to. You were so worried you moved out of the house, right? Yeah, exactly. Fortunately I didn't have to. So that's the wonderful thing about physical infertility is that it just usually stays with you. What a blessing. Yeah.

It's, well the funny thing, because I have a, my girl has a kid, and I gotta think that the, well, the mechanics of parenting are no different. No. So, and you wonder how much of this is just proximity. How much of attachment is proximity? Yeah.

Of just like, I always say like watching parents and kids, it's like they're cops on a stakeout, where they're just stuck together. Yeah. And you're just gonna bond, I think. I think what I realized was there's a system that the human animal has evolved to create new biological kids, to make sure that kids...

And there's a system that has evolved whereby those kids get raised and taken care of, you know, and treasured and valued and like whatever. I thought they were the same system. And so I thought if you didn't, if this system didn't happen, this system was not going to kick in. What I kind of came to realize, and it was incredibly sprawling, I was sitting in the hospital waiting for my daughter, resigned to the idea of like, yeah, this is gonna be good. Right. I mean, it's gonna be great, like I'm happy,

this is what I wanted and it's gonna, you know, and I just might not get to do, like, I might not get that and that, so I don't have that, but this is gonna be great. And then- Close second. Yeah, the flood of this made me realize, oh, these fucking systems aren't,

they're not connected at all. They're not, I don't even think, I don't think they're tethered. I don't think there's anything, maybe there's something. Cause I guess you hear stories where people come out and they find out like, oh, that's not my kid, and now they write the kid off, and they da-da-da, and they do that.

So maybe that's a piece, maybe that's a biological piece, maybe that's not just like a social piece. Because it happens the other way too, where people are like, oh I found out that's not my kid. But, yeah. That's my kid. Yeah. Yeah, that was my thing, is that I didn't, I realized I didn't understand it

as well as I thought I understood it. And I had gone through all the kind of rage, you go through the rage that you go through, say fuck you to God, and yeah, done with you. You're not even a good God. Yeah, you suck. You suck at being God. What are you even doing?

Yeah. And then to have God just kind of quietly shut up and take it, and then turn around and give you this gift. Yeah, it's fucking transformed. It was transformative in my life. and then turn around and give you this gift. Yeah, it's fucking transformed. It was transformative in my life. Like before and after? Yeah.

I think to put what you were saying another way, when you said they're not tethered, or they're not, aren't they the same system? I don't think they are at all. Meaning like it doesn't matter how you get there. Meaning like there's a system in your car that puts gas to the engine and there's a system in the car that tells the toll authority how much to debit your account when you drive through the lane with the things.

You would think those systems are connected and they have something to do with each other. But the truth is, if you're on a moped and you drive through the lane with a little transponder, you're gonna get a bill in the mail for the thing, whether the gas went into the car or not. Like, they're not, I just, to me, that's a really, that's a really extended, stretched metaphor, thank you.

Um, yeah, I was just, I was kind of amazed that it's like, oh, I was just, I was kind of amazed that it's like, oh, I only miss... The only part, the part that I feel like I miss out the most of is the part where I try and imprint myself on my kid because, god damn it, they should be just like me. Uh, in utero or in the first year and a half? Like, in my whole life. Like, now. Oh, yeah, and I guess you're not looking for,

you're not looking for what's you and what's your wife and that. I'm reminded at every single second, because also my daughter's Mexican American, my daughter's black, like every single second of every day of looking at them, I'm reminded of the fact that it's like, this person is their own person, this is not me, you know what I mean?

Which is probably better. Yeah. Than this person's being, I have to fight for the good stuff and the, yeah. Because I think that's actually the case with all kids and all parents. But it's not obvious. If my dad had been able to look at me

and maybe have a little more of that, I'd have six, you know, I might not be sitting here, but I might have six other blocks that I was working on instead of the ones that I'm working on. Do you feel as a person in the entirety of your life, like do you feel like you have a lot to work out? Do you feel like you have more to work out than most people?

Maybe I did, but I'm running out of time. Uh. Uh. You know? But yes, of course. But, and then you're like, well that wasn't a real thing anyway. No, I don't think more than,

I definitely don't think more than most people. Do you think everybody has about the same amount and you just, some people are aware of it and some people aren't? My kid's school had like, you know, this sort of, we're telling you third grade and this is what your kid's gonna learn in third grade and this was what your kids gonna learn in third grade this is the curriculum and this is how we're our philosophy and

I kind of realized cuz you do the homework with the key, you know It's unit one unit two unit three and there's like six things that your kid doesn't know how to do at the beginning of third Grade and at the end of the third third grade, hopefully they're gonna know how to do Most of them. Yeah yeah but for the kid it's kind of like they come home and there's this homework and there's I can't do this I don't know how to do it why are they making me to do this stuff that I don't know how to do and you know you you try to tell them well if your homework every night was like saying the ABCs and counting to ten then that's not a very good school. The whole point is you've got these chunks of things that you're going to struggle with

and you're just going to keep struggling with them until they either work out and you get it or they don't and you're going to be a sociology major. You know what I mean? Go do that. And I kind of think that your format here about the blocks is a little bit like that except over a lifetime. That you come up against five or six things that I guess in this lifetime I'm going to see how I do with these things. And then when it's time to go, I don't know, I either will have figured some of them out and replace them with some new ones or not peace out All you have to do is open, open up your hand, my man