Danny McBride Returns

Wait, it's thrilling, you feel thrilling. I feel thrilled. Actually, it's so cool that what you said it has nothing to do with me. It sounds to me like plausible tonight. Yes.

(laughs) Hey there, welcome to Conan O'Brien's A Friend. It's not just me. It does this podcast. I am the beneficiary of having very strong powerful independent voices joining me. One of those is Sonom of Sessian. Hello, Sonom.

Hi, hello.

“And how can I welcome you when you already are welcome?”

And you are an integral part of this whole mat. Goroly, good to see you as well. And I thank you for your service, no one gets there alone. So here we are together on Conan O'Brien's friend. Who are you?

My name is Conan O'Brien. No, you're not. And I'm someone who's just filled with gratitude. Glad to be here. Have you been body snatched?

I was body snatched. I was very tired last night. And I fell asleep next to a strange new plant I found. Oh, no. Well, I woke up this morning.

There was a decayed, beatied, carcass next to me. And then my body felt refreshed. Like this, whatever it is. If you ever got body snatched, I feel like we'd all know right away. And it would just be you being nice to us.

Yeah, yeah. Or not doing bits, just being normal. That's right. That's how you would know. I would just be, uh, hello, Sonom.

How are you? And how can you be interested in the answer? And you would wait for a response. You know, if you funny the minute I, if there were body snatchers out there,

if I came in and all I had would have to do is say, Hi, Sonom, how are you? And you would shoot me in the head of the shotgun. Yes, I would. And you'd be right.

Yes, I would. 100 percent. I would know immediately. I remember there was an episode of the Simpsons back in my time,

“where I think it was one of the Halloween episodes.”

There's zombies that are taking over Springfield and Homer's shootings zombies left and right. And then flanders pops up in a window and Homer shoots his head off. And someone says, how did you know that he was a zombie? And he went, he was a zombie? (laughter)

I just always loved that joke.

They blew fenders at us. Not even thinking about him being a zombie or not. You shot zombie flanders. Flanders is a zombie. Anyway, no, I just wanted to give credit where credit's due.

And I think this is village. He's still doing this. I know, it's really unsettling. What have you done with Go? I want to talk about something which is I always have ink on my hands.

I don't know if that comes up on the podcast, but I don't think it has. I write a lot with pens. And I'm constantly doodling and I always have a pen in my hand. And I'm constantly writing notes in a journal or on a scrap of paper.

And lately I've been using this fountain pen that Jeff Ross got me for my birthday, which is really nice. And I use it all the time. And, but it does bleed a little bit of ink. And I'm constantly...

Does it squirt? What's that? Does it squirt? Let me do novelty? No, not do...

I'm not doing anything. Why did you do that? It's just that when you're working around bottles of ink and stuff like that. And I kind of like it all my life. It's like an actual fountain pen.

Like there's a lot of ink. That's really nice. And I'm not this is not an ad. I think it's an Aurora. It's an Aurora.

It's really nice. It's a good pen. And he got it for me. And I really like it. And thanks again, Jeff.

And let me try that out. I use it all the time. But look at my hands. And I noticed when we were in... We were just shooting a travel show, son, and you're with me.

Or in all of my different travels,

I'm always about to go on camera.

And I see that there's ink over my right hand everywhere. And I just look like a little fly. First of all, feel how warm this is. Why are you doing with this pen? What's that?

Well, I keep it in a safe place. Why is it in the heat so much? No, no. And I said, I said, it's not where me. You guys got it.

This the Aurora pen. It's just that sometimes... No, no, no. You gotta... God, you're not.

We're just... I'm writing what the pen incorrectly. No, see whatever you do. You're like this.

“And with a fountain pen, you need to come out with an angle.”

You were coming out at straight down. And that's just stupid. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It was the morning.

You know what I mean? Yeah, well, you know, I think he's...

I always hold it and I flip it around in my hand.

Oh, okay. And I always do that with pens. Why are pens like that better than normal pens? I'm not sure. Well, they're beautiful looking.

Yeah, they are. And it's kind of nice. I've always been a little bit... Even when I was a kid, I told you.

I wanted office supplies.

Yeah. I mean, what a freaky kid. I wasn't asking for a baseball glove. I wanted a little stamp that said void. You know, I wanted ledgers.

I wanted ledgers. I wanted... Did you get them? I did. Yeah, my parents were very nice to me.

They were... They would indulge me. But I remember thinking... All they wanted to do was be able to sign forms and then stamp them. And then put them in a pneumatic tube.

Like in the 19... Yeah. 20s and... Home Depot. Yeah, exactly.

So I just... I was always into that. Okay. But anyway, I'm just getting a little self-conscious now that... You know, I go to these nice events or events from Swiss Beyond Camera.

And sometimes I look at the picture later on. And it's just...

It looks like I've crawled out of a grave.

Oh, yeah. I think you're doing it wrong. What?

“I think you're just writing incorrectly.”

You know what you need is like this from the person who... I'm not talking about the... I don't know what you're talking about. I'm not talking about the... I don't know what you're talking about.

I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what you're talking about.

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I don't know what you're talking about.

“You're talking about what you're talking about.”

I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what you're talking about.

I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what you're talking about.

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I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what you're talking about.

“Danny, as you know, I'm a massive fan of yours.”

I have been since day one. Well, the feeling is mutual. And I'm just thrilled that you're here. And we have a lot of stuff to talk about. And we'll talk more in depth about it in a little bit.

But you wrote a book of short stories called "Thrilling Tales of Modern Men." And you write so well. And the stories are great. And I'm very proud of you and also jealous. Because I like to write.

I haven't gotten my shit together to do something like this. And this is fantastic.

And the thing I'm most jealous of is the first quote, you know, you get, you know,

known people to write a nice quote on the back. Yours is from Sturgeon Simpson. And I love Sturgeon Simpson. And so much so that I have a band on the side. And I play Sturgeon Simpson.

And I've said to people, I'd like to get to know Sturgeon Simpson. And people said he was on your show. And I'm like, I know that it's not the same. Like I wish Sturgeon Simpson was my friend. He's such a good writer, such a good singer.

Well, I couldn't even have that happened. I could negotiate that meeting. You really? I could. It's going to end up with me a suitcase of cash in a parking lot.

Late at night where the deal goes down. We'll meet you around the world somewhere. One of your destinations for your show. I would love to hang with both of you at the same time.

But I want to start in some other stuff first.

Which is who the fuck do you think you are? Let me tell you. Come, let me tell you something. I don't like you. And I don't like your comedy.

I don't like your southern ways. I'm from Boston, see. You know, I was thinking about you reading up about you. And one of the things that we really have in common was how important Saturday morning cartoons were to us and sort of our comedic outlook.

You were watching, first of all, you took it really seriously. I remembered my brothers and I did too. We would study the Saturday morning lineup because it would refresh. It was a big thing back then.

“Well, I think new shows come and go all the time.”

But if you're like me, I'm older than you. But I remembered in the summer, you'd start reading about the shows that we're going to come out in the fall. What the schedule in the lineup was going to be. You'd circle the ones that were interesting to you in the TV guide. They'd be, you know, you'd talk about it.

And then you, we were there Saturday morning. I would like get up and have coffee. Oh, yeah. And that was like five. I don't think it.

I'd have coffee and a couple of cigarettes. Yeah. I got to make it to Smurf's. Yeah. And then I would watch these shows with real interest, you know.

So you were watching. Probably the thing that influenced me the most was not a new show. It was Warner Bros. cartoons. The, you know, Looney Tunes characters. They influenced my comedy timing, everything.

And you were into Daffy Duck. I was into Donald Duck. Donald Duck? Yeah. I like how I like how I angry was.

He was always so pissed off.

And it was just such a funny, so funny. Again, someone like Mickey, who just literally never loses his temper. Okay.

“And then he's just buddies with the angry guy.”

He's a racist. All right. Well, I got that one. So now we're talking about Daffy Duck is very cool too. I love Donald Duck because, I mean, Daffy Duck because he's,

he really is disturbingly insane. Yeah, he is. He can pull his beak off and put it around that. But I mean, just he needs to be medicated. He needs to go to McLean Hospital and Massachusetts.

And we're all laughing. But it's like, no, no, he's, we know what this is now. He was on TV now. He would get the care that he made. Yes.

Yeah. But so you, like, Donald Duck, Donald Duck is so pissed. Oh, so pissed. Yeah.

And everything, the whole universe is always shitting on him all the time.

Yeah, just like that. He just has a little blue shirt on. Just walking around pissed off. That awful blue shirt. And no pants.

And no pants. No pants. Baby, I think that's why he's pants. Yeah, he probably is. Walk around no pants for a while and you'll just be an angry guy.

Let's see, taught. Not that hot. It is when you're no pants. So you watch that. And you watch.

My line up was the Dungeon Dragons Cartoon Show. That was awesome. I mean, I'm trying to think of what else came in the, little. I don't know if you're.

I think you might see the same age. The little boy. I was born in '76. '73. Yeah.

Yeah, the little snow. You were a little too old to be watching the little snow. I mean, obviously. I was almost aging. I was a little older.

And what I believed to was disturbing. I just have to admit, I was watching saved by the bell when I was 45 years old. Those dudes were gone. Girls are pretty. Dude, you're 45.

You're here in an electronic store watching saved by the bell on nine televisions. You've been here every morning. Yeah. The little's were awesome. What are the little's?

I don't even know what that is. Their theme song was literally. We are the little's. They just said their name. Yeah.

They were just tiny people that lived in someone else's house. Normal people. Normal people. But they would like make their beds and stuff out of like matchboxes. And they would like design things like that.

You know, we're full size, but they would use it to their advantage. And they would like to cutesy animated. They kind of look like Elvis almost. Yeah. Somebody shouldn't somebody should remake that.

Then you mentioned shirt tails. I remember that. That was such a strange concept for show, which was just animals who their shirts said stuff. Right? That was the, that was the, that was the.

Animals that wear clothing. They wear shirts. They wear shirts. And their shirts say things. Yeah.

“I think they changed depending on their emotions and stuff, right?”

I believe so. The shirts are like a mood ring, but they have words on them. And they might not have warm pants. They might have it. Oh, there we go.

And see again, the trend of no pants. Yep. Just sure. You know what? I walked through them all, wearing a shirt that said hug me with no pants.

Not one person hug me. You know what? I want to see. Yeah. I guess the security guard.

Yeah. That counts. That counts.

That's what they were doing.

Yeah. So you're growing up. That's important to you. You're a raised Baptist. Yeah.

Yep. And your mom used to perform at the church. She would write out like skits and do the scripts and make puppets. And she would do a little show. Yeah.

That was to influence you. It definitely did. Yeah. I remember I was like surprised when she even took it on. You know, we just went to church.

And suddenly my mom is stepping up into this position where she's going to do puppet shows in front of the whole church. Right. How are you going to do this? Mom, you do know about puppets.

You know how to do puppets? She does.

But yeah, she would kind of like drum up these like two to three page little scripts.

And then she would, it was her. It was my dad sometimes. And then it would be other people from the church playing some of the other characters. And it was just like the children's sermon before the big sermon. They would, you know, so it would be something, you know, thou shalt not steal or whatever.

And it's just a little scared about a kid who steals my lunch money at school and why you shouldn't do it. Right.

“But it was, you know, I think what was cool about it was the idea of being able to see something created.”

And then like a few days later performed in front of people. And then, you know, from my point of view, I'm not doing the puppets. I'm not, I don't know anything to do with it. I'm just sitting there watching the process. Like I'm seeing her in our kitchen writing these scripts.

And like, you know, run in the lines. And then a few days later I'm at church like living around watching people watch it and respond to it. And, you know, I just thought it was cool. I think that was the beginning of me sort of like even understanding like, oh, this is like something you could do. You can, you can write things in your kitchen and people might respond to it.

Yeah. That's so cool. Were you quite religious them when you were a kid when you were baptized? I wouldn't say I was religious. I think I spent most of my time like, you know, doodling on the minister's face and the program or just imagining what I was.

I think we went to the same. I think whatever religion you are, I'm that religion. Yeah. But it's funny because now that, you know, we, I stopped going probably in middle school. But we went all the time.

But then you look back and I was actually kind of awesome that for like an hour. You had to just be forced to sit there and be quiet. Yeah. Well, you know, I think my imagination would run wild during that time. I was Catholic.

“So I went to Catholic mass, but you guys had to stand up and sit down a lot more.”

Stand up and sit down. We could just raise it. Yeah. We could just raise it there. I would now then clap along to a song.

Yeah. Yeah. Now, we had to stand up and sit down a lot. But there's still a lot of time to look around. I would just look around Saint Lawrence church and like, I would look up and just imagine all kinds of insane things.

Because you're not a lot. You weren't on a tablet. They didn't have tablets then. And you just, you had to, you were trapped with your mind. Yeah.

And I wasn't thinking about the stuff I was supposed to be thinking about. You said that you're, you have said that your, your parents got divorced and that also probably had an effect on whatever you questioning. Yeah. So that this thing. Yeah.

I just saw it as, you know, I don't think it was exclusive to like the Baptist church, but it was at that time in the 80s. It was sort of like, you know, people weren't getting divorced as much. And especially at the church, I think. So it was just, after it kind of happened, I felt like my mom didn't really feel like welcome there as much.

And so then she would drop me my sister off and we're like, well, we're only going because you were going. We ain't trying to go this far. You walk in, you peek the cars, laughs. And then you guys go out the back. Yeah.

And you know, the cool thing about that church, I went to is called Salem Baptist Church. It was in Spots of Virginia, Virginia. But it was actually a church that was around during the Civil War. So it was just kind of wild to go to some little church that was like, oh, this was like, this was like, standing.

Was it the same Spots of Virginia? Yeah. Is the battle? Yep. Someone got a lot of Civil War action in my hometown.

Yeah. Lots. Those are nasty battles too. That area too had some of the nastiest battles. I think it is.

It's known as the bloodiest ground in all of North America because of how many battles were there.

“But the Narlias one, I think, is that battle of wilderness that was there.”

And that's like this insane battle that happened over the course of a few days in the forest. The forest was on fire. And guys were literally like hatcheting each other. Yeah.

It was awful. It was insane. Yeah. It's killer. I used to go there all the time and just enjoy myself.

Watch. Think about that brutality. Yeah. Good times. So great.

That's a good. That's a good.

That's a good first date.

I've talked about this on the podcast. I'm a, you know, history buff and a civil war guy. And I remembered what my wife and I, it's people think it was our honeymoon. It was not. It was after we got married.

But just shortly after like a couple of months later.

That's a honeymoon. Is it not? No. We had our honeymoon. And then we came back from it.

“But then maybe two months later, I had a week off.”

And she said, let's take a trip. And I said, yeah, let's drive down through Georgia. And visit the different towns in Georgia. And, you know, she liked it. And then the next thing you know, I'm saying, she said, where we go into now.

And I said, Andersonville. Oh. And she said, what's that? And I said, that's the giant prisoner of work camp where the Confederates kept all the union troops. Didn't feed them.

And they all died of diarrhea. And she said, we're going to Atlanta to the four seasons hotel. We're going to have a routine. And get our diarrhea there. So we did that instead.

But I think you had a great idea. I think that would have great idea. Think about looking at a field. Think about the diarrhea. I do think one of the things that made the righteous gemstones just so great was you knew your subject.

You understood these, these people.

And also, I always sense there's affection there too.

Like, I don't think it works to make a comedy about people if you just think they're stupid and load some totally. And that's not what you did. You had a real understanding and affection for these people. And found them ridiculous, but also understood them at the same time. Does that make sense?

And I think we were, that is what we're trying to do. And I think we extended to a lot of the stuff from even, you know, eastbound device principles. It's sort of, you know, we know that we're not dealing with like the best examples of mankind. And, but I think that it's fun to treat them still with with a little bit of empathy and even giving them enough depth. So, you know, there's layers there.

I think it, I think when comedy is written where there is such a disdain for what you're joking about, it could kind of become boring. I think it comes more unexpected if you're confused as the audience of where you even kind of sit with this person. Yeah, I think, I mean, I talk about this now. I do think it's very tricky.

You always have to have a blend in comedy.

If you're just thinking about the comedy. And obviously, we're very divided right now in this country and people are yelling at each other a lot. And it's very vitriol like, and I think sometimes that, I don't know, it just makes comedy.

“I mean, if you want to talk about it or portray it in any way, the only way to do it is to show some nuance and empathy for a different point of view.”

But that's not what a lot of people are interested in. Do you think that makes sense? It totally makes sense. Then the thing is when everyone is kind of like on both sides or angry about the same exact stuff. It also just makes any comment you're making sort of feel redundant like people have, it's like well-traveled paths.

You know, so I do think when you can find that nuance, you probably have a better shot of actually like making people think. If it's not something that they've been shouted out about over and over again. What's interesting, I think it's interesting to me is that you came to be known through comedy and hugely successful in comedy. But you've also carved out time to do these other things. You were huge force behind the Halloween franchise, the reboots.

And it's so fascinating to me because I've always thought there's a weird, like sometimes they say people say or I've said many people said it.

There's a symbiosis between comedy and music, like a lot of comedians also love music and there's some kind of weird parallel. I also think there's something going on between comedy and horror. There's some, they're very different. But also there are things about them that aren't that different because it's all about surprise.

“Exactly, I think you're, with both of them, you're structuring an experience, you know, you're with a joke.”

You know, you obviously want to pace things out so that the punchline gets the biggest laugh and I think it's the same way with those scares. You think about how, you know, we'll make them a little scared here and then we'll let them off the hook here and then we'll hit them here. So I think there is a little bit of that is similar as the architecture of trying to make sure you get the result that you're going for. Also, I mean, if you look at Jordan Peel his work, if you look at obsession, if you look at weapons.

A lot of these people got their chops in comedy. And then, you know, when I was watching weapons last year and one of the reasons that I really wanted to do something with it on the Oscars was that that character of Ant Gladys is to me a comedy character. And there's so much of the movie that's kind of funny at the same time. And it's that weird, that's that razor thin line between this is hilarious, and this is horrifying.

But, but, and if I tried to, you know, frightened any guy, I think they would just start laughing. So, but there's something going on there, and so it must have been a great trade of outlet for you clearly it was.

It was a lot of fun, you know, that was Jason Blummit come to David Green about adapting that and, you know, David Green and I have gone to college, we went to college together.

“We've been on each other for a really, really long time, and, you know, he came to me and was like, I think I might do this. Would you want to help me in like, no way, we shouldn't relaunch all the weeds terrible idea.”

I love all the way. Don't do that. Yeah. But then as we were thinking about it, I was like, well, I mean, if someone's going to, why don't we give it a shot and let's see if we could. And yeah, it was, obviously, it was like unreal. It was so funny to be sitting there like writing on that script and you're just writing, you know, the shape walks into the room. You're gonna, I was formed with that movie. My babysitter made me watch it when I was five with the lights out.

And so to like, do away with all those sequels that in their own way, I love, but to come back the way you guys did. Oh, what did 2018 one? Oh, it was like closure for me. The whole experience was awesome, not only getting to do that, but even, you know, we had to go through steps or approval to do it. Like, David and I had to go to John Carpenter's house and pitch him what we wanted to do.

And it was sort of like, I, I've never really been nervous about pitching an idea ever.

“I was just like, I don't know if they don't like it, but suddenly as we're like knocking on his door, it's like, oh, God, I think I'll be crushed if it doesn't like what this idea is.”

This is insane. And so we, you know, I'm meeting him and pitching him this idea of like, we have an idea of what we want to do with something you've made. There's all the same like, what are the balls of us? What are we thinking? We should never have this great. It was awesome. But then, you know, once we got his approval, we sent it to Jamie Lee Curtis to, because obviously it wouldn't work with her and it. And yeah, when she called back and was like, yeah, I want to do this. I mean, creating an artist looking at each other like, what is going on?

I mean, it was, it was insane. And when it premiered at a, at Tiff, I think it might have been the most proud I've ever been of anything that we've done. I mean, I was so nervous of what that reception was going to be for that one because I'm there with them. I'm a fan of this. It's a lot. And I just really wanted it to work for the other fans. And I remember watching that and just my stomach was in knots. I was in like eating like two days, leading up to it. And we're sitting in there and when it got to the last half where they're like in the house with them.

And everybody in the theaters like cheering and applauding, I was like, oh god. Yes, yes. What a live. It was, it was awesome. It was so much fun. Yeah. How's it think writing how someone gets killed would be kind of fascinating because there is a real art to it. You know, just if, if a character just gets killed, well, that's, you know, gets gets shot.

It's boring. It's trying to think of these inventive ways that are sometimes 50% comedy. Yeah. The way someone, you know, and if you watch these movies as they're competing with each other to do it in a more interesting way, that is the scene at the rest. When Michael Meyer is teasing and just drops teeth on the ground from it's heroin. Well, I was I think that idea about the teeth dropping, it might have even, I might be remembering it wrong, but I feel like it was our location, our buddy who works in locations who had that idea.

“And so that's the other thing is you're working on, you know, if you're on a comedy, sometimes you'll get jokes from people sitting around like, oh, you should say this, like, it's not bad.”

When people suggest things like he should drop the teeth, you're like, great idea, but also keep it on the stage. That is fucked up. Yeah, yeah. Where'd you come up with that idea? Oh, I don't know, I don't want to talk about it. I mean, I want to take the credit.

Yeah. I spent the last thing. Yeah, I just occurred to me that it would be, I don't know, it'd be really funny to shoot a short thing where it's you going to John Carpenter's house to pitch him and he doesn't really like the idea, but you hang around. And then you use all the tropes from horror movies like he goes into the kitchen at night and opens the refrigerator and then when he shuts it, you're right there. And you're like, I just really think if I told you I don't want to do it.

The pitch. Yeah, it's just a pitch. It's called the pitch. Yeah, season of the pitch. Yeah, season of the pitch.

And you just keep, I don't let it go. Yeah, you know what? I've become his dog. And it's all the stuff. Yeah, it's all the stuff.

It's all the stuff. It has been used a million times.

I'm always amazed now when people use some of those tropes that have been used way too many times and they don't put a spin on it.

That's what we're talking about with us, Bay. There's a, there's a slasher episode in a moment with a shotgun that you wish you'd seen in Slasher movies for decades. And you finally see it. Yeah. Wonderful.

What does Bay is there, I mean, I can't wait to see it. Everyone I know loves it.

And here's what I have on my list.

Here's what I, they, they're doing something new on that show. Which is it's not a comedy. It's horror. And there's comedy, but they've got this ratio. It's like they invented this cocktail.

Yeah. It's kind of perfect. And I don't think anyone's done quite that yet. That's great.

“And they, they do, I think one of the real brilliant things about the show is they'll get the tension up to this highest pitch.”

And then they'll always deflate it and this kind of humiliating way, but then get the pitch right back again. And without giving in any way, but there's just one point where there's a, there's like a demon and the main character, Matthew Reese has gone in to, to talk to the demon. And this other woman says you gotta go in there and talk to the demon. So he goes in and he's starting to talk to the demon and it's like, knife-sedge tense and then the door just opens and she goes, I forgot my purse.

The demon and Matthew Reese wait a second while she gets her purse and she backs out.

You're like, who the fuck does that? Who does that? It's great. Anyway, I don't know why we're plugging this show that neither one of us is involved in. But widow's Bay, you're a genius.

I just have to give a shout out. Katie Dippel is the mind behind widow's Bay. I think she's brilliant and she's a former intern on our show and she's brilliant. She's done a ton of other work, but I think widow's Bay is her masterpiece. And also while we're talking about other people's work, I think Hyundai makes an incredible eye out boy. They come a long way.

“Let's talk about this book because throwing tales of modern men.”

I know that this is a theme you've worked on for a while in your work over the years, which is men kind of trying to confront maybe a world that's passed them by or men who feel, well, you're going to describe it better than I am. No, no, you keep going. I want to hear how you describe it.

No, you're totally right. Men like me who are masculine and never lose.

I'm going to do, I'll actually I can read from a New York Times review. Oh, okay. This is shit, it says. No, I'm Kelvin. It's a very hard time to read that one yet.

Oh, no, this is the New York Times. What a piece of shit. Shitty, shitty, shitty shit. What the hell? My mom wrote that.

“I thought this was in my toilet, but it was, no, it's a book.”

No, New York Times review. Some of the stories fit neatly into the canon of wounded protagonists who lash out. Others tip toward a quieter emotional depth. I'll be a laced with obscenity and the occasional violent outburst. They're all undeniably the work of a storyteller interested in entertaining.

Well, also poking at what makes men tick and then go boom. Which is, yeah, I'd buy that book. You'd write that book. I don't have to. I don't have to piss you, kid.

You won for free. Not for free. I need the Venmo. You know, it's coming. It's coming because I'm real good with tech.

But this comes out of, like, you're very, you're so good. And I'm going back to even if, you know, your first work, foot-fist way and through everything you've done at. And also, you know, Donald Duck. Like, people who are, you know, assertive male characters that are also pissed off and frustrated because things aren't working out. Yeah.

And that seems to be this area that you love exploring. And now you've got this really terrific book of short stories that tackles that. Yeah, it's just, you know, it's an extension. I feel like, like, what you were saying about the work I've done in TV, like, this kind of came to me because I really just want to see. Could I do that and deliver that same experience, that same vibe, the same level of story time.

And I do it in a totally different format. And that was kind of why I entered this. And, you know, even the way the stories are sort of structured like they start in essence with like a cold open and the title of the story like comes up later in the story. Yeah. And so it was kind of a way of me sort of trying to translate what I mean, I've written at this point like over 80 episodes of TV.

Yeah. And so it changed your brain to work in a certain way when it comes to storytelling and I was just trying to use some of the stuff I learned doing that to just put it into a totally new endeavor. Also, it feels to like, if you're writing episodic television as you have, you know, brilliantly over the years.

And then that's what you've got to work with over and over and over and over again. And with a project like this, you can have an idea explore it in a short story. Totally. And then pivot, say, okay, I'm done with that. Now it's going to be about a robot.

Now it's going to be about a magician who's suspended in a box in a mall and gets you an over his head. Now it's going to be about a sitcom actor who takes revenge on the coyote that killed his pet. Like you, you're working in a shorter form, but you can go, you can go nuts, which is great.

You can go nuts and, you know, gemstones, I was writing on that for, you know, seven years basically.

And it was so much fun and it was fun writing for all those characters and that world that we established was a ton of fun. And it's weird, you know, like when you've, when you've worked that long on something once it's over, it is like almost like a breakup. It's like getting over a relationship or something that I wanted to write more. But I felt like, I ain't trying to get into anything too serious. I just need, I need to get in and out.

I just need some short stories, you know. I felt like I couldn't like commit myself to telling a story that was going to take that much time, you know.

“And so the idea was like, I think there's just a lot of stories I want to tell.”

And this allowed that to happen where you didn't have to think of the story of like, well. Well, this have legs for four years. Well, this, you know, when you tell this one episode, it has to connect to six other episodes that tell a story. It's like you could enter it, start it and take it to completion and one sitting. Yeah, it was, it was a lot of fun.

And I think after writing so much TV was, yeah, it was sort of a cleanse that I needed. Well, now is this, what is your process? And that sounds like a boring question, but to me it's fascinating. Do you, do you write these stories here and there to just sit down to write a collection of short stories? You know, I started the, I think there's something like maybe one or two of them that are from this, but how I even began even writing in this format was when we were writing vice principles.

It was we wrote both of those seasons in one year. So it was one solid year of just working on that morning noon and night. And it was the, I was about, I think about five months in, I was feeling that thing. I'm like, oh, I love these guys, but fuck, I have to do more with these guys. You're like, you're locked in a room mentally with these few characters.

“And you're just trying it so becomes a puzzle figuring it all out.”

And I was just sort of like, the idea of anything else felt appealing. So I just start, I start this thing. We're in the morning before I go into the writer's room. I would just freehand right like anything I want it. And I would just get to about three or four pages and I would stop it.

I had no ambitions for what any of it would be. It didn't have to be anything. I didn't have to continue the same story. Just whatever idea I wanted to, I would just let myself write that. And I did that for the rest of that year.

I ended up filling up like four books full of just all this stuff. And I'd put it away and didn't go back to any of it. And it really did kind of help my brain as I was writing vice principles. To help me exercise different ideas and get things out and kind of stay excited when I would go into the writer's room.

And then I would guess it was around 2020. I just like pulled those books out and looked at him for the first time.

“Like, was there anything in here that was like worth anything?”

And most of it sucked. But there were a few things that just kind of got my imagination going. Or I was like, oh, it kind of been interesting if this thing continued. Or if I wrote more on this, I would do this with it. And so that was kind of the beginning of it.

I pulled out of those books probably about maybe like eight to ten of the little kind of like snippets of stories. And then sort of focusing on expanding those things. And then as I did that, I ended up getting rid of most of them. I kept like one or two. And then I just kind of was like, I want to do this.

I want to try to like create a book that I put this sort of level of thought into. And yeah, and then that just became, you know, I was kind of teaching myself how to do it. I've had the big difference between doing this and then writing a script is with the script.

There's always someone else really talented is going to come in to make it better.

You know, whether it's like actors going to come in or the DP is going to make it look cool. And it was kind of interesting to have it where you're like, oh, I'm just writing this. And then I really need to go, I need to do all that stuff myself. I need to make sure that this is translated to people the way I'm imagining. Yeah, Ernest Hemingway didn't say, I was like, what I got punched it up.

Yeah. Give it a little juice. The font will be really nice. Yeah. Yeah.

There's once, let's focus on this one story, Institute of Men. Mm-hmm. Because it's a fascinating idea. Do you want to talk about it a little bit? It's a story about a guy who is getting self-conscious about his, his hair line is receding.

He's losing his hair. And he's worried a coworker of his things that he has gollum-esque features. And that if he loses his hair, it really could be bad for him. Yeah. So yeah.

And he kind of, he sees this ad for this place called the Institute of Men.

And he decides to sign up.

“And he goes to this place and it's a little unorthodox there.”

There's some strange questions they ask him. And it's a very odd procedure that he has to kind of sign a way to. And then he, it's one of those monkey Paul situations. He gets hair, but there's a price. Yeah.

[LAUGHTER] When you also love this, there's little things in it that remind me of some of these sort of comedy slash horror things we've been talking about where, you know, he has to fill out, you know, when you're getting, going to get a medical procedure, you have to fill out a questionnaire. And the questions are just really.

Yeah. They're not things that you would normally see on a medical question. It should have been the first red flag, yeah. They're asking him things like how many friends he has in the last time he cried. When was the last time he cried?

Yeah. When it would have you been in a fight. [LAUGHTER] It's so funny because I've had ideas over the years for a little strange things. It's like it's not a comedy sketch.

It's just a concept. It's kind of freaky, but I'd like to expand on it more and write it out.

But, you know, I've never, I don't know, never, I've never done it.

It's why, I mean, I've been a massive fan of yours. And then when you did this, I was like, no, this man, this man did the thing. See, I have never been able to do it. It can idiot like me, you could do it, don't it?

“You have to, that is not how I think about it.”

Yeah, but it's, it's really exceptional. And, and also it has to just feel, they have a book on the shelf. I mean, there's, there's a lot of celebrity famous people toss off books. And it's, that's not what this is. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, I know I, I worked as hard on this as I would on any of the, any of the shows I've worked on. I mean, I was like living and breathing it for the last year. And, you know, the craziest part about it is like you, you finish it. And then you turn in and then it's like the rewriting it. Where it's like, you know, you rewrite an episode of TV.

It's 30 pages like, I can get through this in the day or two. You get the notes and you look at like, this is like a 400 page talk to me. And I got to rewrite this. What the hell do I even start? Yeah, I don't even know about going to read this fucking thing in a month.

You know, but then you, you do, you get down into it, where you do just start, it just happens. I just, I went away and just left my computer on and just sort of like, would just pace back and forth like, just approach it sentence at a time. And he liked, don't get intimidated by the way.

And then it does start to strip away. You do start to, like, you're like Neo in the matrix. Like get rid of that, put that in, change that. You could just start doing it. Yeah.

I've never had that. I'll show you.

I've never been Neo in that.

I'm Keanu in point break. That's who I am. So what is, okay, this, what are you working on now? Because this, this project is done. And I hate to say, okay, what else you got?

You know, what have you done for me lately? I've been working on something I'm pretty excited about. You know, I approached Paramount last year about trying to relaunch GI Joe for them as a feature. Yeah.

Talk about cartoons, dog. It's, uh, it's so, uh. Yeah, the guys I write gemstones with Jeff Rally and John Cachary. We jammed, uh, we jammed out this script that Paramount's excited about.

“And we're going to try to, that's what we're trying to make next year.”

Yeah. I can't say anything, huh? Yeah. I can't say, you know what? It's not a comedy.

It's like a rounded action movie. Oh my god. Um, you know, in the comics, there's, uh, this town Springfield. That is, like, secretly, cover lives there. I have that.

Yeah. Yeah. I loved it. And so our, our story takes place there. And, um, I mean, is it, that's going to follow you home.

Yeah. You got it. Make sure you watch the gate close behind you when you get home. Don't, don't just assume that no one's walking in and for you. But don't worry.

I'll be dressed like Duke from G.A. Yeah. You're going to go to shut the refrigerator in a night. That girl is there. That was like the Halloween thing of, like, feeling, like, insane writing the shape.

This was like, I, when I'm like right in the climax of it and we're sitting here. And I'm putting things like, cover commander and snake guys fighting. I just had a, like, stop and, like, go downstairs in my wife. And I'm like, this is nuts. I used to do this, but I was a kid every day.

Oh, I'd make these guys fight each other now. I'm writing that shit. You're living my life. I'm so excited. Wow.

Cheers of blood from that girl. Yeah. The, I, um, I do think that, and I chalk it up to pure luck. But there are so many times now where I'm doing something and I realize this is how I goofed around as a kid. Yeah.

And now I'm doing it and people are saying, and cut, nicely done. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're not telling you to clean up your toys.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's all fine. Let's get back to G.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, uh, won't dog ends. I, I have to ask you about won't gansk is, you know, I know him a bit. And he's been here.

He's just a fascinating creature. He really is.

“He really, I mean, uh, and, I mean, you must have the second you saw him do anything.”

Thought, like, oh, I got to know that guy. 100%. Because he's such a, he's like a won't gawkins. Is it character you would create? I mean, the person won't gawkins.

Yeah. The universe pushed us together. Yeah. I love him so much. He's one of my best friends.

And, uh, yeah.

I mean, since the very first time we worked together and by sprints, we'll, him and I have just had such a fast friendship.

And, you know, we went to, we took our families to Greece together last year and, uh, just hilarious. Yeah. Yeah. He's just so funny and so good. He was here to do the podcast.

I don't even remember this. But they, he got here a little bit early and then his one of his people said, well, it's very tired. He's going to take a power nap for five minutes. And he went into that little office where you were sitting, that little green room with the couches, uh, and the sliding door that goes outside.

And, um, I walk by and he's asleep on the couch. But he looked like Dracula sleeping in his casket. And he was like, like, this and his eyes were closed. And he slept really hard for exactly five minutes. Wow.

And then came in here and he gave us a full blast of the Goggins. I love it. Oh. He gave us full Goggins, full metal Goggins. Full metal Goggins.

Yeah.

When we went to Greece last year, it's like, you know, I mean, he is, he's a force.

And it was awesome walking around Greece. Everyone, uh, recognized him. He was a stellar year with white lotus. And everyone is coming up and Walton was dressed for it. I mean, what we would go out and Walton is like, in full white linens.

And then, you know, I'm there with my kids. They're wearing like crocs. You know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll take this boat. We'll take the boat of four years.

We go to these beach clubs and like, everyone in this family are just, like, finely dressed. It just looked like they're off the mat. A magazine. That's, yeah.

Yeah. My little red net kids and me. [laughter] Sometimes. [laughter] So he's like Aristotle, oh, NASA's, and Jackie O'Nath.

Yeah, it's walking around Greece off the yacht.

[laughter] And then you got like, you know, Randy Quaden, you know, vacation. [laughter] You're like, "I'm gonna get them, Duke Bois." [laughter]

Wow. [laughter] I wish I could have, again, I would just want to shoot that. [laughter] We just want to see the B roll.

You guys, walking around, having a killer time. Unbelievable. Well, I, uh, this has been a huge shot in the arm. I didn't even need a shot in the arm today, but I was, I do this sometimes.

“I'll be driving in and I think, "Hey, I get to see Danny McBride today,”

and I love his book. I'm so happy for him, and, uh, just, I just love talking to you and getting any time to hang with you, and I will take you up on your promise to, uh, just the three of us.

You can be a surgical Simpson. I'll coordinate it. I'll pay for the meal. You guys pick the outback steak house. I love that.

And, um, and we'll go there, and if Goggin wants to drop by at some point. Bring him to him. He might, we might have to change what we're wearing if he comes. [laughter]

Well, Danny, thank you, uh, for dropping in and congrats on the book. I love it thrilling tales of modern men. Awesome. Thank you. This won't air. Great.

That's fine. [music] Here we are. We're talking about Blaze Tax saga. This is part four, and maybe an ongoing series,

and hopefully it doesn't, you know, hopefully it ends well. Blaze, along with his mother, are part of a criminal gang, where Blaze was able to, um, write off his various, uh, nerd collections of swords, lightsabers, Darth Vader helmets, whatever you, whatever else he can think of.

Uh, he was writing them off because he was bringing them up on the podcast.

“And if the internal revenue services listening and I think they should be,”

um, I think he should be investigated. And now you were a stranger to all of this math. Because you were out on, I think, a nine-month paternity leave. Which is fine. You well, we began with conception.

Yeah. And then ended with delivery. And ended with her, uh, starting at a very good college in the Northeast. Yeah. Yeah.

But now you, so you'll have a fresh approach to all this. We haven't heard your opinion. So you speak. You listened to what Blaze was up to. What do you think? Well, God, you know, I love you, Blair.

Oh, boy.

You know, it's not going to be good when you heard that stuff.

Yeah. Jesus. I'm just concerned that you're doing things backwards. That, you know what I mean, that you're coming on and saying, that I should, after you've purchased these, like,

oh, I'm going to mention them now as opposed to having an actual solid reason

“for bringing them on the show, which I think would justify it right off.”

Uh-huh. Yeah. Well, how can I bring them up if I don't already own them? Well, I think they have to be organically-- This is organic.

Hmm. He talked about the paint. I know I needed to mention the paint. That's the same as the paint. You need to mention the brand.

Why'd you say, this is called, what's it called again? No, it's called it. It's called the, it's called the Kindle Scribe. Yeah. Uh, by Amazon.

Okay. Oh, boy. I find it suspicious. So you give lots of labels. You give a lot of, this is how, what is this, what it's called.

This is where it's available. I think it's a really reasonable place. I think it's a really reasonable price. Get yours now. Um, uh, click to proceed to cart.

Uh, you said what kind of pen you had. You said it's in Aurora pen. It's really nice. That you didn't you say the kind of pen? I did say that.

Okay. I don't think you're writing it off. I don't think you're writing it off. I don't think you're writing it off. I don't think you're writing it off.

It's a good right. It's a gift. No, I'm not writing it off. But I think the difference is, if I was to say, like, oh, I was taking out the trash last night, hefty trash bags.

Uh-huh. And they are a good trash bag. Oh, yeah. Right. Well, you know the difference.

Play. Play. You know the difference, which is, I just said this is a nice pen. I don't know. I'm not expecting anything from Aurora.

Were they to give me something? Which would be very nice if I got a free pen from Aurora. I would accept it.

But I would never mention it on air.

No, I know. Although I might. I probably would Aurora. But anyway, that's not what I would. Very good pen.

It's just a pen that I use. And it's a pen that I have right now on camera. You need to write with it normally.

“Uh, well, you have to write on an angle.”

No, a fence or whatever. The fuck. Don't know. What are you writing on that thing? Into a hefty trash bag.

So when I watched how you tried to write with this, I was appalled. Because listen, you just came right down. Straight. It was in 90 degree angle. It was completely perpendicular.

Uh, and I felt, I was like, Oh, my goodness. And 11 year old me was appalled. Oh, no. Yeah. The one who wants the stamp.

That 11 year old version of you. Oh, I want it was a void stamp. I really wish I could, you know, impress that 11 year old version of you. Won't it go out with me? Yeah.

Yeah. Hey, you will like stamp. A rubber stamp. It's really fun. And you get to like with real authority.

Oh, no. Remit. I wanted to remit stamp. Son of what? What me?

No, Blake. Remember. I get it. I get it. Yeah.

I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. And then onward to play.

“Wait, I just don't want to see anything happened to you.”

That's all. Thank you. I appreciate it. I do want to see something. Yes.

I would be delighted if you and your mother who does your taxes for reasons that still has gave me even though she's not a tax person. She got you on the phone. She can then she calls. What is it?

She's going to a turbo tax. She calls turbo tax and, you know, calls turbo tax. You know, I'm doing your part for it. Call turbo tax. Who calls turbo tax?

I did that for you as you get to you. Very much. Anyway, who calls turbo tax? I'm just showing you that I can do your role on this podcast too. With you.

You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right.

You mentioned all the products by Amazon readily available. I think it's a good price. I know what you're up to. I see what you're doing. And you leaned in and you also still do the thing.

We've talked to you about which is you put your mouth over the mic. Okay. But you're eating a giant killbasa. And you shout into it. He's grabbing it too.

He grabs it. What is the grabbing about what? Well, because Eduardo and I share it with you. No one likes you. We share a mic.

Oh, no. I was just saying we share a mic. I need to grab the mic to pull it over to me. Why are you yelling? I don't know.

I'm trying to take. Can I just in defense? The reason why I say what it is is not to write things off. I'm not going to write this off. It's in case people are like, oh, that's pretty cool.

Where can I get that? That's pretty. I like that product. I would like to buy it also. Uh-oh.

So that's where your role here is on the podcast. Just to direct people towards items that are in your life that they need. You're a affiliate link where you get a percentage. Yeah. We could have it affiliate link for the podcast to make a relationship to it.

I like paper. Yes.

And I like the idea that and I'm never going to be someone that wants to do it.

And then press a button and it goes into the cloud. Okay. Because guess what? You think you're saving paper. But now server farms have to handle my doodles.

And we're burning valuable energy.

Yes.

So that's somewhere a server farm can hang onto my little guy that's going.

Be mobile, mobile, mobile. But you can you can lose your doodles. And this is my notes are being saved. Yeah. That's important.

And you know what?

“It's important that your thoughts are saved.”

Play for all of time.

Well, I've never said anything.

It's more ridiculous. We're going to end there. But Blair. I've got my eye on you. I think you're up to no good.

And if the IRS is listening, his name is Aaron Blair. I think that's the thing. Those, the IRS has been gutted. So you're supposed to-- Yes, they are gutted.

We could all just do it. And you know what?

“The worst criminals like Blair are going to get away with murder.”

It's like tax fury road right now.

Just go for it. Go for it. Well, if you get-- that's the message of our podcast today. If you're thinking of cheating on your taxes, just go for it. Do it.

[MUSIC PLAYING] Conan O'Brien needs a friend. With Conan O'Brien, Sonom of Sessian, and Mac poorly. Produce by me. Mac poorly.

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