0:03

I come out of a situation where no one was there

0:05

to protect me multiple times. I

0:08

did go to a therapist. Two or three

0:10

sessions in, she's like, I'm going to give you this baseball

0:14

bat. It was like a yellow

0:16

wiffle bat. She was

0:18

like, I want you to let

0:20

out your anger. I

0:24

want you to beat the shit out of this couch. Just

0:27

beat this couch. I felt like, what?

0:30

Fuck that. I'm not beating this couch. I

0:32

felt stupid. I felt like stupid, even doing

0:34

that exercise. I was kind of

0:37

just doing it, but I couldn't

0:39

really manufacture it. What she

0:41

kind of tapped into was I had

0:44

this voice. I had this anger that

0:46

was there. She was really worked on

0:50

giving me that freedom to

0:52

find those levels. When

0:56

I say anger, that gets a part

0:58

of it, but it was also part

1:00

of self-respect. The idea

1:02

of I can stick up for

1:05

myself and it's

1:07

okay if people don't agree with me.

1:09

It's okay if this thing is

1:14

not popular. I could not go back to

1:16

therapy. I could do whatever I wanted. I

1:18

had autonomy. I had power. I think I

1:20

had been so used to doing

1:23

just what everybody else wanted to keep

1:25

everything even. Just

1:28

the acknowledgement that I had anger started this

1:30

process of healing that started me to be

1:32

able to speak about this thing, how I

1:35

felt about it, what's going

1:37

on, why am I mad? It's

1:39

okay to be mad. It's okay to have opinions.

1:41

It's okay. That was really the beginning of it

1:43

for me. Again, it wasn't like that. It was something that just

1:46

clicked and was like, oh, tomorrow I'm better. It

1:48

was years of experimentation. Being

1:50

in touch with that was the beginning

1:52

of just understanding who I

1:55

really was and not who I

1:57

was in reaction to other people. Y'all

2:00

it's breakdown. She's gonna break it down

2:02

for you because you

2:04

know, she knows a thing or two She's

2:07

gonna break down. It's a breakdown. She's

2:10

gonna break it down Hi,

2:13

I'm I'm the Alec and I'm Jonathan Cohen and

2:15

welcome to our breakdown This is the place where we break things

2:17

down so you don't have to you know, I think

2:19

today we're breaking down How

2:22

to be authentic if I had

2:24

to summarize what he's talking about how to

2:26

move away from people pleasing and find out

2:28

what you really need The

2:30

he being Paul shear. He's

2:33

a comedian a screen actors Guild

2:35

Award-winning actor filmmaker and podcaster You

2:38

might know him from his 14 year

2:40

podcast. How did this get made or

2:42

the numerous? appearances

2:44

on 30 Rock V fresh off the

2:46

boat the league Paul shear

2:49

has written a book a memoir

2:51

called joyful recollections of trauma and

2:54

I'll be honest. This was not the book that I thought

2:56

Paul shear was gonna write he's known

2:58

for telling awesome stories about his family and

3:00

his childhood and he decides

3:02

to really peel back a layer here and I mean

3:06

I feel like we get as close to

3:08

understanding how to transform yourself from a person

3:11

who cannot advocate for yourself To

3:13

someone who can in this conversation What

3:16

he said that I think really is the

3:18

essence of it is the idea of agency

3:21

Feeling like he could access agency at

3:23

a time Previously

3:25

in his life where he felt like he had none. Can

3:27

you tell us why agency is so important? I

3:30

think a lot of us struggle with

3:32

a notion of agency, you know I

3:34

think that it's something that if

3:37

you've been raised in any sort of

3:39

complicated house You probably picked up elements

3:41

of where can I insert myself? Where

3:43

can I advocate for myself? You

3:46

know over time not having agency or not

3:48

understanding your your own role in your own

3:50

agency Can

3:53

lead to a lot of unhealthy patterns It

3:55

can lead you to not advocate for yourself

3:57

in romantic relationships at work. You know, it

3:59

might To

12:00

fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with

12:02

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12:04

for no additional charge. Take a moment, visit betterhelp.com/break

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and every diet's gonna have some nutrition gaps,

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it out. to

16:00

in these moments of, you

16:03

know, chaos or

16:05

in these moments of, you know, fear

16:07

that would kind of bring me comfort. So I

16:10

kind of surrounded myself with this. And so, you

16:12

know, the book is in a

16:14

way like one of my boxes. If

16:16

you go in my garage right now,

16:18

there is a very organized garage and

16:20

a giant rack that has about, maybe

16:24

about like 25 boxes. And

16:28

it's everything that I've ever, you know, school

16:30

newspapers from when I was in fourth grade,

16:32

birth certificates, like report cards, movies, ticket stubs.

16:34

I have like my first concert in there.

16:36

It kind of like is a version of

16:38

my life, like in these boxes. And I'll

16:40

go through them occasionally and see things. And

16:42

it's just, oh, right, I remember that. Like,

16:45

and I think part of my process of writing this book

16:47

was finding these things and

16:49

talking about these things, things I haven't really talked about or

16:51

things I look back on. So yeah, I think it is

16:53

something that's very much, I have a box right here in

16:55

my house. I kind of fill them up and then I

16:57

bring them out to the garage. Like they get full up,

16:59

you know, now they get full up with like certain things

17:02

that my kids do that I really love that I don't

17:04

want to like throw in the trash. Cause let's be honest,

17:06

when your kids create a lot of art, I'm

17:08

going to keep one of eight of those, you know,

17:11

and really after about a year, you know,

17:13

one of 20. Yeah,

17:16

so it's like, you know, I think you got to keep on

17:18

calling it back. But

17:20

yeah, like I just love, I

17:23

think I just love having these like little ways to

17:27

kind of connect with my past. It

17:30

makes me feel good and weird, you know, if

17:32

it's a breakup journal. No, it's very

17:34

interesting. You're

17:37

kind of known for, you know, telling stories about

17:39

your family and that's something that people have enjoyed

17:41

hearing. And there was a

17:43

little bit of wondering if,

17:48

be careful what you wish for, you know, in terms

17:50

of people wanted more of you

17:52

and you were able to open up more

17:55

of you. And what this book is, is there's

17:58

a lot of funny in it. There's a lot of

18:01

interesting, there's a lot of how Paul became

18:03

Paul. And there's a lot of

18:05

really hard stuff in it. I

18:07

wonder, was there a version of this book where

18:09

you were like, let's just tell the fun stuff?

18:11

Or did you feel like if you're gonna open

18:14

it up, you wanted to really open it up?

18:17

I think the book that I wound up writing is

18:19

not the book that I intended to write in the

18:21

sense that, you know, for 14 years,

18:23

on how did this get made, I'll

18:25

launch into a story from my childhood, very

18:28

organically, not planned, just out there. And, you

18:30

know, it's, and I'll tell this thing about

18:32

like, oh yeah, my grandma told me

18:34

about this random butcher who, you know, would

18:36

break into people's houses and take kids and

18:39

chop them up into chop meat. And the

18:41

way they caught them was, you know, mom

18:43

was making a hamburger one night for dinner

18:46

and the chop meat looked up at her

18:48

and said, mommy? You know, and

18:50

I'll look at like June and Jason, I'm like,

18:52

wait, what? I'm like, yeah, it's just like, you

18:55

know, the butcher kills the kids into chop meat.

18:57

And they're like, that's horrifying. And I'm like, oh,

19:00

I guess, right? And, you know, so there was a

19:02

part of me, I was like, oh, like, you should just, kind

19:05

of just like really think and like, to your point, like

19:07

look in those boxes and kind of feel like, what is, you

19:09

know, what are some more of these

19:12

fun stories? But then

19:14

I realized like, anecdotes are fine and they're

19:16

fun and they're really good for a podcast

19:18

or whatever you're talking about, but a book

19:20

seems to need to carry a little bit more

19:22

weight. So I kind

19:25

of sat down and was like, let me write these stories in

19:27

a way that I've never really

19:29

done it before. Like reveal a little bit more

19:31

behind the story, tell a larger part of it,

19:33

because yes, there

19:35

are these things that people are horrified by. And

19:38

I'm like, no, that's the funniest thing. The

19:40

horrifying thing is over here, you

19:43

know? And so it started

19:45

very organically. I just was writing them.

19:47

And my first batch of stories that

19:49

I wrote before I even sold the book or even had

19:51

an agent, were just

19:53

that they were loose and they were just

19:55

fun. And my book agent was

19:57

like, I love these. He's like, but go do it.

22:00

I went about it very

22:03

much in a vacuum. I didn't talk to my wife, I didn't talk

22:05

to my parents, I didn't talk to anybody. I just kind of wanted

22:07

to see what I came up with. What

22:09

are these things that I remember? And in

22:13

that process, I could be as brutal as

22:15

I wanted in

22:17

the sense that I could talk about things

22:20

that aren't in the book. But

22:23

if I knew if I could put everything on the

22:25

page, then I could step back and start to pick

22:28

apart what needs to go in there,

22:30

what doesn't need to go in there. And

22:32

I made a decision very early on to be like,

22:34

this is my story, not my parents' story. So I'm

22:36

not gonna go and give you their, I

22:39

can tell you a little bit of what I think, but I'm not here

22:41

to analyze them. I'm not here to set

22:43

up their story. This is just

22:45

their side characters in mind. And that helped

22:47

me kind of not

22:51

feel like I have to tell everything, right?

22:53

I can let them be themselves. I am

22:55

also, you know, look, I understand that while

22:57

I had these conversations with my parents about

23:00

my childhood and all this sort of stuff that went

23:02

on, we've talked about this stuff,

23:05

but their friends might not know. And I think

23:07

at a certain point, you

23:10

have to ask yourself this question, like, well,

23:12

am I living my life or am I living the life that

23:14

my parents want me to live? And if I'm not

23:16

betraying them in a

23:18

way that's like, when my parents committed to, you

23:20

know, triple homicide, you know, I'm like, I'm not

23:22

like, you know, I'm just, I'm talking about like

23:24

this. And I think I'm looking at them with

23:26

this eye of respect

23:29

and questioning, but also

23:32

admiration too. It was a tough balance, but

23:35

I think that part

23:37

of this was just kind of taking back my

23:39

narrative and going like, oh, as I move

23:41

forward here, I want to be able to

23:43

have this be a part of my story. I don't want

23:45

to hide this anymore. I don't want to have to be like

23:47

skirt around it. It's okay for it to be known. One

23:51

of the most

23:53

interesting things that you talk about, about

23:56

the way you grew up, you

23:59

know, comes a hundred, and it's

24:01

about when your parents broke up. And you describe

24:05

the way your parents negotiated that. Can

24:09

you explain what your parents did after

24:11

they broke up? So

24:15

my parents got divorced when I was three years old,

24:17

but unbeknownst to me. What

24:20

they kind of did was they didn't want, I

24:23

think they felt very much aware that this could really be

24:32

a big blow to me as a kid. And

24:34

so what they decided to do was to

24:36

pretend to be married. I

24:39

don't know if they asked, did this to their friends, but

24:41

they did it to me. My parents

24:44

slept in different bedrooms. Every

24:47

now and then I have these memories, these small memories

24:49

of catching my dad in another room, asleep

24:52

in bed and like, well, what's going on? And

24:54

asking my mom, why was dad in that room?

24:56

She's like, oh, our bed is broken, so he

24:58

can't sleep in this bed. And while

25:00

that's a perfect metaphor for divorce, I was like,

25:03

oh, okay, but it did stick out weird

25:05

to me. And then it grew as the

25:07

years passed where my dad would actually be living in

25:10

an apartment and driving out in the morning to get

25:12

there by the time I woke up. And I started

25:14

to realize, I've never seen my dad in his pajamas.

25:16

I don't see my dad in his pajamas, you know,

25:18

and like, you know, these things. And I think in

25:20

a way, it was really beautiful that they did this.

25:24

They tried to protect me. They tried to make me feel

25:26

like I had this support system that, you

25:28

know, and they kind of a slow burn. But in

25:31

the other part of it, it kind of made

25:33

me feel like I was living this Truman show.

25:35

Like, I think that for a long time, the

25:37

effects of that were really weird. Like, oh, is

25:39

everyone telling me the truth? Like I'm used to,

25:41

I had for multiple years, this

25:43

lie. I was living in this complete lie.

25:46

And I think it made me distrust certain

25:48

things around me, you

25:51

know, which was interesting, you know, and I think as

25:54

I was reckoning with a lot of things, um,

25:58

as I was getting married and having, and kids, I

26:01

was looking back on these things. Like what was holding

26:03

me back from committing or what was

26:05

holding me back from wanting even

26:07

to talk about marriage? You

26:09

know, I came from this abusive household. My mom and

26:11

I escaped that and it was very triumphant. And it

26:13

was sort of like this idea like, oh my gosh,

26:15

we are out, good. Let's never talk about it again,

26:17

but not actually dealing with the

26:19

ramifications of that. And you know, this book

26:21

to me is representative

26:24

of the work that I've done as somebody

26:27

who has been to therapy, has done work on myself,

26:29

asked myself my own questions. I didn't want this book

26:31

to be therapy. I wanted the book to be like,

26:33

oh, this is kind of how I incorporated all this

26:36

sort of stuff. So it is a, you know,

26:39

it's interesting when you look back at things because

26:41

I make mistakes as a parent, I know I

26:43

do. And

26:45

what will stick out to your kids? What will be that

26:47

thing where your kid goes, you called me an idiot. You

26:49

called me a jerk, you know, whatever it is. I go,

26:51

I don't know what will be that thing. We're gonna mess

26:53

up our kids. I know that. I

26:55

try not to, but you

26:58

know, and then that's why I think I also have like a lot

27:00

of sympathy for them too. And

27:02

I just wanna give you an opportunity

27:04

to clarify the abusive situation was not

27:06

with your dad. Right,

27:09

yes. Yeah, your parents, so your

27:11

parents, at a certain age, your

27:14

parents formally separated. Yes.

27:17

And how old were you when

27:19

that happened? So basically my parents got divorced. My

27:21

mom and dad got divorced when I was three.

27:23

We kind of moved out of

27:25

that house when I was about five or six. And

27:28

then within those years, and

27:30

this is where like my kid logic, I'm always like, oh, how

27:32

do I pull this all together? Like we,

27:34

my mom got remarried to this guy, kind

27:37

of this commercial

27:40

truck driver who carried

27:42

himself in, they always

27:44

describe it as like, he looked like he

27:46

was coming off a bender. Like he was

27:48

always kind of permanently hungover. He had this energy

27:50

to him, a very heavy energy. And

27:52

so that was where my mom and I

27:54

existed in this like abusive relationship,

27:58

which, you know. Honestly,

28:00

for a long time too, I didn't even

28:02

understand to call it abusive because it

28:04

was so routine. And I think that's an

28:06

interesting thing too. We all get used

28:09

to the way that things work and as a kid, you

28:11

just go, oh, that's this

28:13

scenario. That's what I'm going through. So

28:15

kind of even talking about that and wrestling

28:17

with that a little bit as well. My

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36:01

I think that that's a part of that is the time that we lived

36:03

in. I

36:06

think people have much more, have an

36:08

ability to connect and find these things and understand how

36:10

to help. I think back then people were a little

36:12

bit lost about what to do. It's easy to go

36:14

back and say, you should have, you could have. And,

36:20

and, you know, my point of view on what I

36:22

would do is based on living through it. It's

36:24

just different. You know, my parents didn't live through it. So

36:27

I think, you

36:30

know, for me, it's, it's, it's

36:33

kind of looking at it in the most, in

36:36

the broad spectrum of kind of looking

36:38

at this time in

36:40

my life, seeing how

36:42

it affected me, but also really

36:46

like looking at it in a black and white way that

36:48

I didn't think I looked at it in the past. I

36:50

think if they talked to me 10 years

36:52

ago, I would have been like, I'm mad at

36:55

Hunter. I want to get my revenge on him,

36:57

you know, and, and, and I did

36:59

work on myself to not, to not do that. And

37:01

I think that that to me is what I'm

37:04

happy with. Like I

37:06

didn't come to this book to kind of wrestle with

37:08

where I'm at, but more to discuss like how I got there.

37:12

You speak about it now, Paul, with a lot of objectivity,

37:15

you know, like when

37:17

you talk about the therapist, for example, that

37:20

section as a reader

37:22

is really emotionally difficult

37:25

because like you're screaming to the therapist

37:27

with today's standards to be like, what

37:29

are you doing? Why aren't you intervening?

37:31

How are you giving these warnings? And

37:33

like, you know, just so to reflect

37:35

back of like someone who's just reading

37:38

this as an observer, it's like, what's

37:40

happening here? It's like, so it's very

37:42

hard not, not to be infuriated. I,

37:45

yeah, I think that like, I think, but this is,

37:47

I think there's a part of this

37:49

is, this is the world that we live in, not to

37:51

say that you can't trust anybody, but not sometimes

37:56

you just don't have all those tools at

37:58

your disposal. I

40:00

don't know. That's like the situation I see a lot.

40:03

Well, it's reflective of our larger experience,

40:05

meaning when

40:07

people are having very, or sharing something

40:09

very difficult, can we tolerate

40:11

our own feelings around it? Yeah.

40:15

Do we want to just fix it versus just like,

40:17

wow, I recognize that what you went through is

40:19

like enormously impactful.

40:23

And that, you know, just like to share that

40:25

with someone, to be like, you presented in this

40:28

way that is very objective. And

40:30

then it's going to bring up a lot of emotions in other

40:33

people. And then that's its own form of,

40:36

I don't know if it's healing is the right word,

40:38

but it is something to look at.

40:41

Well, I thank you for both of you

40:43

for being so nice about it. I think

40:46

that what I really found

40:49

in writing the book is

40:53

what I respond to in art or in literature

40:55

and film, whatever it may be, is this connection

40:57

to these stories. I

41:01

might not have lived your life. I read

41:03

this Paris Hilton book, which I loved, Hari Nari. And

41:07

in her book, she talks about her parents like sending

41:09

her away to this, essentially like bad kids camp slash

41:12

school, like

41:14

a boarding school. And I was never put in that

41:16

situation. But the way that she describes this world

41:18

is so raw, it's

41:21

so real. And I feel like, it

41:24

activates something in me, something I can

41:26

find. It may not be that I went to that same school. It

41:29

may not be that I had that same experience, but there are

41:31

these things. And I feel like when you have

41:33

these true conversations and

41:35

we're in a world of social media and in

41:37

quick bites and like get to the point as

41:39

quick as you can and that you don't often

41:41

have a chance to find empathy. And

41:45

going back to our kids and watching movies, I

41:48

was talking to David Lowry, who's his director,

41:50

great director. And I showed my kids E.T. for

41:52

the first time. And I watched him cry

41:54

when E.T. dies. And I'm like, oh, I'm

41:56

sorry. oh,

42:00

right, they're not gonna get this from despicable

42:02

me too. They're not getting

42:05

this moment of empathy and that's like what

42:07

made me me. Like I love these movies.

42:09

I love all this stuff because I cried

42:12

in Madam Web. Because

42:14

if there's something there, there's something that's giving

42:16

me some connection to emotion. And

42:18

I feel like it's important for us

42:20

as a society to do

42:23

this. And if I, I mean, I'm not saying I'm doing

42:25

that. I'm just saying, but in some little part, I think

42:27

that like when you put yourself out there in that way,

42:29

it may not be that you're connecting with

42:31

one person's exact same thing, but you give

42:33

people a chance to process. And

42:38

I love that. And one of the chapters I wanted to take

42:40

out was finding out that I did have ADHD as

42:43

I was an older person. I was like, ah, this feels

42:45

so stupid to me. I don't wanna talk about this. I

42:47

feel like this is, like everyone's gonna,

42:49

and I was like, I don't wanna, and I was so

42:51

upset about it. And my wife's like, you have to, please

42:54

leave that in. And it's been one of those chapters that

42:56

people talk to me about. Like, oh my gosh, my husband

42:58

is this. And I've been dealing with it and it's helped

43:00

me understand them. I'm like, oh, you know, it's

43:02

like, I was embarrassed to feel like that

43:05

felt too naked to me to share this

43:07

thing. And so I feel like what I've learned is

43:09

like, okay, it's, if I

43:11

can share it and it can be funny and

43:13

real, and I think it's worthwhile, but there are

43:15

things that like your instincts will

43:17

say, ah, I don't wanna be that person. I don't wanna

43:19

share that detail, but it's the stuff that brings you in.

43:23

This stepfather that I had, it

43:26

was like we were siblings. The difference was that

43:28

he was a 40 year old man who was

43:30

much bigger and stronger than me. And

43:35

after really this, these

43:38

years of just kind of say mercy,

43:42

for yourself and say mercy, this kind of

43:44

just, let me win. Let me win. I

43:47

decided to fight back. And that

43:49

kind of started a second stage of our

43:52

relationship, where I could get

43:54

in his face and feel

43:56

like I could fight back

43:58

verbally, physically. and he's still gonna kick

44:01

my ass because he's bigger, but I can at least get some

44:03

sucker punches in. And that

44:05

kind of energy, everybody

44:07

who was a threat, regardless

44:10

of what it was, would be like, I would

44:12

just go to that mode, which is unfair. It

44:14

would be like, oh, we're there? I'm

44:16

gonna fight you like I fight a 40-year-old man. And

44:19

I think people would see me on a playground

44:22

or something like that, and it would be like, whoa. And

44:25

luckily, I got away with a lot of it because

44:28

we were like, oh, you must have provoked him

44:30

in such a way, because he's a nice kid.

44:32

He's a good kid. But I

44:34

could switch really quickly, and I feel like wrestling

44:37

with that and kind of figuring out not

44:40

wanting to be that person who is

44:43

so quick to anger and violence, and

44:47

my first reaction was like, well, I won't ever be angry,

44:49

and I will never be violent. And

44:52

then it was kind of like learning how to make that

44:55

on-off switch into more of

44:57

a dial. I can have anger, not

45:00

violent, but I don't have to mute myself either,

45:06

but I think for a long time, I didn't

45:08

even have that tool, so I just wound up

45:10

muting myself after years of just

45:14

being that angry person. So I think

45:16

that stuff is hard to wrestle with,

45:18

and it takes a lot of time

45:20

to figure out that balance. I

45:23

wanted to ask you,

45:25

besides the anger which you talk about, there's

45:28

another kind of coping mechanism that you learned

45:31

from your family, and you talk about it

45:33

not just from the abuse that

45:35

you lived in with your mom, but just

45:37

sort of the, one of the kind of deals in

45:42

your family was to not make things a big deal. And

45:46

you write that your dad had

45:48

a pretty significant piece of information, and he said, oh, I

45:50

didn't tell you because I didn't want you to get

45:52

upset, and you say, it took

45:54

me a while to realize that getting upset

45:56

meant having any reaction at all. If

45:59

nothing is a big deal. then any emotional response

46:01

will seem out of place. And

46:03

then you don't have to live with the discomfort

46:05

of someone being upset. And you

46:08

write, my family's mentality taught me not

46:10

to insert myself into anything, to always

46:12

keep up appearances and decorum and not

46:14

really burden anyone with my feelings. And

46:17

you have this hilarious, but really,

46:19

really relatable, kind of

46:21

tragic breakup. It's your first

46:24

serious breakup. And

46:26

essentially you're about to go on like a

46:28

10 day vacation with your girlfriend at the

46:30

time and her parents. And she

46:32

basically like breaks up with you as

46:34

the vacation is starting, but she kind

46:36

of reinforced this, like let's pretend like

46:38

everything's okay. Can you talk a

46:40

little bit about that breakup and what tools

46:43

you had from your family that

46:46

allowed you to think that that was something you

46:48

could do? Yeah, you know,

46:50

as you read that, I

46:53

was just thinking about this

46:56

thing that always happened. It's a joke that we

46:58

always talk about that

47:02

my grandma who was,

47:04

you know, of course she's older, my

47:08

grandma would always answer the phone. And

47:11

when I was calling her as a kid, like a seven year old kid,

47:13

an eight year old kid, she'd be like, hello,

47:16

yes, how may I help you? And

47:19

whenever she answered the phone like that,

47:21

we knew, oh, she has company

47:24

over. Like she doesn't want to

47:26

be seen as being weak or like, okay,

47:31

well this I will get back to, thank you so

47:33

much. And it was like so

47:36

bizarre, right? It was like, I'm just a kid, like

47:38

I'm your grandkid, I'm calling my grandma. But like if

47:40

my kids called me like, hey, what's up? How are

47:42

you? I wouldn't be like here,

47:44

like pretending. She treated me like I was somebody

47:47

calling her like an affair, like

47:49

I was a mistress or something like that, you

47:51

know? And,

47:53

you know,

47:55

so there was this energy of

47:57

just like, we don't... You

48:01

know, we don't tell people, like, I wasn't

48:03

allowed to tell anyone that my mom was

48:05

remarried. You know, it was like, oh, my

48:07

mom married my dad, and then

48:09

my mom married this other man who is not

48:11

mentioned in the book, but who

48:13

she married years and

48:15

years later. You know, and I

48:18

think it was this idea of keeping,

48:22

keeping up appearances allowed

48:25

us to, like, control a narrative in a way.

48:28

You know, like, and I think that we probably

48:30

came from a family that judged each other pretty

48:32

harshly. Oh, my gosh, did you see that? Did

48:34

you see this? Like, I remember that one of

48:36

the biggest fights in my family was my

48:40

grandfather had passed away, and

48:44

I wore black sneakers

48:46

to the funeral. I

48:49

did a reading at his funeral, but

48:51

I wore black sneakers. And

48:53

my gosh, my mom was, like, put through the

48:55

wringer that I wore black sneakers. And her father

48:57

had just died, right? We're trying to go to

48:59

the thing. And now, I'm a kid

49:02

who watches Dana Carvey's Opportunity Knocks, and I'm like,

49:04

I'm gonna put on sneakers, like Dana Carvey in

49:06

this movie, I'm cool. You know, I can wear

49:08

sneakers with a suit, whatever, I was going on

49:10

my mind, you know? And my mom is blamed,

49:12

you know? So it's this idea, like, of knowing,

49:14

like, someone's gonna jump on you in any

49:17

point. So let's just try to, you

49:19

know, if we give them less, they can't attack us.

49:21

So I think that there is this energy all the

49:23

time of, you

49:25

know, the more information we can control, the

49:28

better off we'll be. Looking to stay stronger within

49:30

these walls. And I think with my

49:32

dad then also taught me this idea of, you

49:37

know, it's fine, it's fine, everything's fine, everything's fine.

49:39

And they actually had me a weird way of

49:41

dealing with emotions. And when this girl broke up

49:43

with me, and we're at her

49:45

parents' house in Florida on this 10-day trip, like,

49:47

her dad's like, oh, you're gonna ask

49:49

her to get married? And I'm like, I

49:52

don't wanna make these parents upset. Yes, well,

49:54

maybe, maybe, you know, and we are going

49:57

to bed in the same bedroom. And it's

49:59

like, because. It's more

50:01

important for these parents

50:03

not to be upset, for

50:06

me to do this and like, okay, I'm gonna respect

50:08

her wishes, but it really was, I

50:10

became so passive in my life that

50:12

I wasn't able to, just

50:14

be like, if that happened to me now, it'd be like, oh,

50:16

I'll just get on a plane and go back to New York,

50:19

or I'll just go somewhere else.

50:22

I don't need to be there. Who do

50:24

I care about these people? Who cares if

50:26

they are upset or angry? But

50:28

in my mind, I was like, I have to be

50:30

the perfect person. I can't disrupt anything. And I think

50:32

that that probably all stems from this

50:35

idea of like, in an

50:37

abusive situation, it's like, you don't wanna set anybody

50:39

off. You don't want, to your point,

50:42

like you don't wanna like, you

50:46

can make things worse by reacting to it. So let

50:48

me just sit back and take it, because

50:50

then it will be over quicker. It's easier for me to

50:52

spend 10 days here just going like, yes, we're so in

50:54

love. It's gonna be amazing. We're gonna have kids, it's gonna

50:56

be married. Let's go look at

50:58

wedding dresses, then to put anybody in

51:00

this moment. Did you look at wedding dresses? No,

51:03

she did not, she did not look at wedding. But like, it was

51:05

just like that idea, like, oh, I would have

51:07

done it all. I did it

51:09

all. I make it all. I mean, you might've gotten married

51:11

that weekend. Yeah, I mean,

51:14

I look at that and I go, like there's a part of me that's

51:16

like, at one point, I was like, I'll move to Florida. I'll move to

51:18

Florida and make it better. I'm like, but

51:20

why? Just because it was like, I thought that like,

51:22

yeah, ending a relationship was a failure. So

51:24

this is the question that I have. What

51:28

changed between that Paul

51:30

and later Paul? Because

51:34

also, and I don't mean

51:36

to make this a gendered issue, but as

51:38

a female person, I can really relate to

51:41

that bind of I just

51:43

need everything to be okay. And I think

51:45

like, not to bring it back to movies,

51:47

but like when you look at what culture was like, especially

51:49

for those of us who grew up in the 70s, in

51:52

the 80s, in the 90s, like that

51:54

was so ubiquitous, like especially for females

51:56

to be assumed to be just congenial

51:58

and like, okay, with everything even if

52:01

it's not. So I wonder

52:03

though, I think that's something that

52:05

men, women, everyone could kind of

52:07

benefit from. I'm curious, is

52:09

there a thing that you can pinpoint? This

52:12

took me from that person to the

52:14

person I am now. Was

52:16

it therapy? Was it just

52:18

getting older, being more mature?

52:21

What's the thing? Because I think a

52:23

lot of people wanna know what that

52:25

is. How would I know how to

52:27

step into my power when it's

52:30

something so clear, right? Like looking back

52:32

now, you'd say, well, of course I

52:34

should have said to her, wow, this

52:36

is awkward and unfortunate, but I'm not

52:38

gonna be comfortable pretending that we're dating

52:40

for the next 10 days. So what's

52:42

the thing? Like

52:44

what's the magic sauce here? I

52:47

think the answer is different, probably for everybody.

52:49

But for me, the beginning

52:52

of my journey,

52:55

but I went on for many a year.

52:59

And still to a certain degree, wrestling with, came

53:03

from trusting this

53:06

process of therapy. I

53:09

come out of a situation where no one was there to

53:11

protect me multiple times. I

53:15

did go to a therapist. I did these

53:17

things that no

53:19

one was there for the mess, so

53:23

I didn't wanna make a mess, right? So I had to deal with it

53:25

myself. So I didn't even realize

53:27

that I was doing anything wrong until I was

53:30

going through a breakup with

53:32

this woman and

53:35

we went to couples therapy to see if we could salvage

53:37

anything. We didn't.

53:41

She left and the therapist reached out to

53:43

me and said, would you

53:45

like to continue? And

53:49

whatever reason, I think part of it probably started

53:51

off from this idea of like, yes,

53:54

I wanna be the good, if

53:56

she's gonna pick her favorite in that relationship, I will keep

53:58

on going. Cause that's, you know, then I'm. but

1:12:00

you gotta get an app and you gotta download

1:12:02

the app. So it was really at a time

1:12:04

where there wasn't so much out there.

1:12:08

And everyone was

1:12:12

kind of trying to find their own little niche

1:12:14

in it. And when

1:12:16

we first started talking, it was Jason,

1:12:20

June and I were sitting at a party. We were

1:12:22

off in the corner and June and I had just

1:12:24

seen Wall Street 2, Money Never

1:12:26

Sleeps, great title. And

1:12:29

we were explaining this movie to

1:12:32

Jason and it was so insane. Wall

1:12:35

Street was such a great 80s movie and then you

1:12:37

bring it back and Shia LaBeouf is in it and

1:12:40

it's like, he's the new Charlie Sheen, but it's

1:12:42

a mess, it's a mess of a movie. And

1:12:46

we're explaining this bizarre

1:12:48

film that also ends like one of

1:12:50

those old school IMAX movies that I

1:12:53

just remember balloons going up into the

1:12:55

sky and it was kind of pretty

1:12:57

balloons. What is this movie? And

1:13:00

Jason says, as we were

1:13:02

talking, he's like, this is a podcast. I'm

1:13:04

like, oh, right, this

1:13:07

is what I do with my friends all

1:13:09

the time. It's like, well, it's only a podcast if you wanna do it

1:13:11

with us. And he's like, all right, let's do it. And

1:13:13

you know, cause to me growing up,

1:13:15

I would go see a movie, walk across

1:13:17

the street to like the Denny's or the

1:13:19

Bob's Big Boy cause it changed ownership twice.

1:13:21

And we would just sit there with our

1:13:23

friends and just talk about what

1:13:26

we saw, good or bad, right? Just as like

1:13:28

a place to like decompress and also just stay

1:13:30

out just a little bit later, because

1:13:33

as a kid, we weren't allowed to

1:13:35

do that much stuff. We could go see a movie and have french

1:13:38

fries. And

1:13:40

it really was something that

1:13:43

just started very organically. And you're like,

1:13:45

yeah, I love a Nic Cage movie.

1:13:48

I love movies

1:13:50

in general. And I think that Jason, June and

1:13:52

I, we all are writers and producers and actors

1:13:55

and directors. So we all have an appreciation for

1:13:57

how these things are made. We all know that

1:13:59

no. It's

1:18:01

tricky, but you could do whatever. It's

1:18:05

often not based on one person's

1:18:07

performance. But yeah, we've

1:18:09

luckily not gotten too many people

1:18:11

to get mad. As

1:18:14

a matter of fact, we talk about Fast

1:18:17

and Furious so much that the

1:18:20

whole Fast and Furious team apparently

1:18:23

was listening to our podcast to

1:18:26

cut trailers for the new movie, because I

1:18:28

think they understood, there's a

1:18:30

fun that we're not necessarily embracing enough of

1:18:32

here. You do approach it

1:18:34

with a lot of love, so I can understand

1:18:36

that people appreciate it. Yeah, we try to. I

1:18:38

mean, I do, I love, like you said, I

1:18:40

love a bad, I

1:18:44

love a movie that doesn't always make sense. And

1:18:46

there's difference between bad unwatchable and bad fun.

1:18:49

And bad fun is what I wanna watch.

1:18:51

I wanna put it on, like there's a

1:18:53

movie called Samurai Cop, which

1:18:55

is a German man, decided to make an

1:18:58

80s movie in the vein of Lethal Weapon, but

1:19:00

he didn't quite speak the language that well. And

1:19:03

so he kind of approximated

1:19:05

things, so

1:19:09

it would be like, Dana Glover and Lethal

1:19:11

Weapon would be like, I'm too old for this shit.

1:19:13

And in that movie, the line would be like, I'm

1:19:15

too old to take shit. So it's

1:19:18

like, take a shit. So it's like, it's

1:19:20

right, but it's wrong. And the actor said

1:19:22

that we could never change the lines. We

1:19:24

could never change them, so they had to

1:19:26

say these lines that were so kind of

1:19:29

weird and off and yeah,

1:19:31

so Samurai Cop is a highlight and

1:19:33

so is Miami Connection, a

1:19:36

movie made by a Orlando

1:19:38

Karate studio instructor. And

1:19:41

the film was lost for many years and they

1:19:43

opened up a storage facility and Alamo Drafthouse just

1:19:45

bought it on a whim. And then they screened

1:19:47

it and was like, this is genius. We must

1:19:49

release this movie. I've also

1:19:51

seen more Liam Neeson movies than I'm really

1:19:54

comfortable giving you the

1:19:56

number of. But- I

1:19:58

have a game where we just put all this

1:20:00

poster- They all look identical. Okay, so that's what

1:20:02

I was gonna say. So what I specialize in

1:20:04

when I sort of, you know, lock

1:20:07

into this world is

1:20:09

the similarities are astounding. I

1:20:12

mean, it's, you know, even, I

1:20:14

mean, I just watch, I mean, I love

1:20:16

a Kevin Costner movie also. So there's also,

1:20:18

there's a category of movies that you could

1:20:20

literally insert Nicholas Cage, Liam Neeson

1:20:23

and on a good day like Mel Gibson

1:20:25

or Kevin Costner into the same exact, Bruce

1:20:27

Willis. I mean, I've done them all. I've

1:20:29

really done them all. And this is just

1:20:31

in parallel to your existence, meaning I didn't

1:20:33

even know that I was creating my own

1:20:35

podcast in my head. You have your, yeah,

1:20:37

you have it. However, you

1:20:39

know, I have these two children

1:20:41

who are 15 and 18 now, and

1:20:45

I feel like I've really ruined

1:20:47

them because, you know,

1:20:49

they assume it's because mom is an

1:20:51

actor and mom is in the business

1:20:53

that I love pointing out

1:20:55

all the things that don't make

1:20:57

sense, meaning I raised them to

1:20:59

see continuity problems. I raised them

1:21:01

to see like lighting problems. So

1:21:03

for me, like when I watch

1:21:05

these, it's enjoyable to me

1:21:07

on a lot of levels, but I also love

1:21:10

to find that. But I think in a way

1:21:12

I've ruined it for them because, you know, they

1:21:14

now- Right, they get to see how the sausage

1:21:16

is made. Correct. And one of the

1:21:18

main things that an actress will do if she doesn't

1:21:20

know what to do in a scene is cross her

1:21:22

arms or put her hand on her hip. And I've

1:21:24

just raised these children who when we're watching a movie,

1:21:27

they'll be like, why is she, her only thing she

1:21:29

can do is put her hand on her hip? I

1:21:31

was like, yes. So

1:21:33

I wonder- It's so funny- Tell me if your

1:21:35

kids have inherited this from you. No,

1:21:38

we keep them away from these movies. I

1:21:40

have learned early on that I can't watch

1:21:42

the movies that I really love with my

1:21:44

kids because I don't know if they're gonna

1:21:47

like them. So I always kind of pick

1:21:49

it. I have a very, I try to

1:21:51

only subject them to things that

1:21:54

I think will be a win because I don't

1:21:56

want them to be like, oh, dad made

1:21:59

us watch us. and they get irritated with me.

1:22:01

There was literally a day my 10-year-old came

1:22:04

home and he

1:22:06

was like, you remind me of this kid on my

1:22:10

basketball team. I said, yeah, why? He

1:22:12

goes, because he likes movies. And

1:22:14

I'm like, yeah. And he's like,

1:22:16

yeah, you like movies. I go, well, there's nothing

1:22:18

weird about liking movies. And he's like, okay.

1:22:21

I'm like, wait, wait, why is that bad?

1:22:24

And he's like, yeah, all right. Like he

1:22:26

was so, like, my kids are so oddly

1:22:28

anti-movie. There are more YouTubers and not,

1:22:31

they watch a lot of those YouTubers and

1:22:34

they play video games. But

1:22:36

to me, movies were like my lifeblood, like getting

1:22:38

a VCR when I was a kid and DVD

1:22:40

players that get to watch these movies, it was

1:22:42

the best thing going to Blockbuster, all that stuff.

1:22:45

So I, you know, my kids, it's like,

1:22:47

I gotta be careful when I show them

1:22:49

a movie. I gotta make

1:22:51

sure I pick it right. I tried to watch

1:22:53

the first Bad Boys with my kids and like it didn't hold up

1:22:55

the way I thought it would because it was made in 1995. Like

1:22:59

I was already in college and like that was, this

1:23:01

is too long ago. It did not

1:23:03

hold up for their sensibilities. But- Bad

1:23:06

Boys II really kicks. Yeah. Like that's

1:23:08

the one. Yeah. So I was like, okay, we gotta

1:23:10

up it. But it was Mother's Day. And so they

1:23:12

just sort of like, they just grinned and bared it.

1:23:14

But I was like, I can tell that there's way

1:23:16

too many dead spots in this movie for them because

1:23:19

movie making was so different than, but

1:23:21

my favorite movie story of what not to

1:23:24

show your children. Well, I showed them Splash.

1:23:26

That doesn't hold up. There's a lot of

1:23:28

really weird things. It's Very Little Mermaids. That's

1:23:30

a mute woman who's highly sexualized. And I

1:23:32

was like, oh, this is not the message

1:23:35

I wanted to send. But my favorite movie

1:23:37

story that I do wanna share with you

1:23:40

is literally the week that we,

1:23:42

I've been divorced since my kids were four

1:23:44

and seven. And literally it

1:23:46

was probably the week after

1:23:50

like their dad moved out. Like it was a hard time.

1:23:53

And I was like, we're gonna watch a movie.

1:23:55

They hadn't watched a lot of television or movies

1:23:57

because like, were those variety of hippies? But I

1:23:59

was like, we're gonna watch a movie that I

1:24:01

remember just made me laugh. It's just like a

1:24:03

good movie. So what did I put on? Mrs.

1:24:06

Doubtfire. Now you may not

1:24:08

remember, Paul. Yeah, it's a great movie, but do

1:24:10

you know what it's about? It's about a couple

1:24:12

that gets divorced. And in

1:24:14

order to win back her love,

1:24:17

he disguises himself as the nanny,

1:24:19

becomes the mother they always wanted,

1:24:21

and wins back their mom. And

1:24:24

I look over at my children

1:24:26

and everyone's crying. And I was

1:24:28

like, this, they will never

1:24:32

let me forget it. Ever, ever,

1:24:34

ever. Oh my gosh, that

1:24:36

is amazing. And I will

1:24:38

say that, look, it's so

1:24:40

hard to

1:24:43

show your kids a movie

1:24:45

because you forget large chunks

1:24:47

of why they were what they were. Like, you

1:24:50

know, you just remember like a couple of funny

1:24:52

moments, you're like, oh, they'll like that. Like, for

1:24:54

example, I

1:24:56

showed my kids adventures

1:24:59

in babysitting, which I love. And it's

1:25:01

a great movie and they actually really

1:25:04

did like it. But

1:25:06

again, I have a seven year old, I

1:25:08

have a 10 year old. So they're still pretty young. And

1:25:12

I totally forgot that a major part of

1:25:14

that movie is that Elizabeth Shue

1:25:16

looks like a Playboy centerfold. And

1:25:19

throughout the entire movie, they

1:25:21

are in possession of a Playboy, they

1:25:24

lose a Playboy, they get a Playboy

1:25:26

back. People keep on recognizing her from

1:25:28

Playboy. Like, so there's that

1:25:31

going on, which is like, I'm like,

1:25:33

I'm trying to explain what that is.

1:25:35

And then, you know, then there's

1:25:37

a simple things that they did in these movies

1:25:39

that you forget. Like it's just not going on

1:25:41

in movies like this. Like, you know, Anthony Rappas

1:25:43

in it and he's like, oh, doesn't she have

1:25:45

big, and he's making like boob signs. I'm like,

1:25:47

I'm just like, I'm not ready for it all.

1:25:49

But the real, they love the movie. They're having

1:25:52

so much fun. It's, you know, and I think

1:25:54

that what I love about showing my kids these

1:25:56

movies is like, there's like some danger and adventure,

1:25:58

which I think kids movies now are. so muted

1:26:00

that they're just, they want to see that. End

1:26:03

of the movie, they're psyched, they're

1:26:06

racing home, the characters in the

1:26:08

film, to beat the parents home

1:26:10

from Chicago. And they've rescued

1:26:12

Elizabeth Shue's friend from

1:26:14

the bus stop, because she was gonna run away from home. And

1:26:17

in the backseat, the two boys are in

1:26:20

the backseat, the girl is passed out. And

1:26:22

Anthony Rapp literally for no

1:26:24

reason, just lifts up the

1:26:26

girl's jacket to like, check out her boob

1:26:28

as she's passed down. I'm like, oh yeah,

1:26:30

he's like, what is she doing? What is

1:26:32

she doing? I'm like, I think he's straightened

1:26:34

her jacket because she's cold. Like, I don't

1:26:36

know what to do. I don't know, like,

1:26:38

I'm like, why would you put that in?

1:26:40

In the last seconds, it plays nothing into

1:26:42

anything. Just like perv moment. And that's what

1:26:44

I think I find all the time, these

1:26:46

pervy moments in these movies that I love.

1:26:48

And you get, they all have them. It's

1:26:50

like, it's like, it's like every one of

1:26:52

these like male directors in the eighties is

1:26:54

like, we can make it a little pervy.

1:26:58

There's always this little thing that's like, oof, like

1:27:00

even like the breakfast club, like one of the characters

1:27:02

goes under the table. I didn't show this to them.

1:27:04

It's like looking up some girl's skirt. Come

1:27:07

on, why, why? There's so much other good stuff

1:27:09

around it. Well, that's,

1:27:11

you know, John Hughes. One

1:27:16

more funny thing that also is a real, is

1:27:19

really interesting about, you know, kind of showing

1:27:21

kids also movies from yesteryear,

1:27:24

is the difference in technology because

1:27:27

how many scenes do you

1:27:29

now see that involve texting or that

1:27:31

involve, you know, the use of cell

1:27:33

phones, meaning like even in bad boys, when

1:27:35

the, you know, sergeant wanted them to

1:27:37

come in, he had to call them

1:27:39

on a rotary phone to try and track

1:27:42

them down. Yes. And my

1:27:44

kids were like, this is so weird. Like

1:27:46

there's no cell phones. And I'm like, yes,

1:27:48

our whole life was like that. And it's

1:27:51

captured, you know, here on film

1:27:53

for you. Well, you know, what's so interesting is

1:27:55

that you constantly are the

1:27:57

reason why a lot of fun.

1:27:59

And well, the reason why

1:28:01

a lot of movies even happen is because

1:28:04

you can't get in touch with the person,

1:28:06

right? That was like such a major part

1:28:08

of everything, you know, whether it's after hours,

1:28:10

whether it's dumb and dumber, home

1:28:12

alone, there's all these that you can't get

1:28:14

in touch. And now we cannot not get

1:28:17

in touch with, you know, like you, it's,

1:28:19

you know, and it's, and that

1:28:21

to me is such a bummer because I almost

1:28:24

like, it's better to do a movie set in the

1:28:26

eighties. It's like, yeah, we need to, we need this

1:28:28

plot device just to make it like, we gotta get

1:28:30

the adventure started. We can't have everybody ready to text.

1:28:33

Well, and I think it's funny cause

1:28:35

I, as a writer, that's

1:28:37

also, it's something that we're so used to

1:28:39

using because it's so part of how we

1:28:42

communicate now. But anyway, the

1:28:44

book is joyful recollections of trauma. Paul Scheer, it's been

1:28:46

a real pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so,

1:28:48

so much. And if you ever need someone to talk

1:28:50

about shitty movies with I am your new best friend.

1:28:52

I would love to have you on the show. It'd

1:28:54

be so much fun when we do our show now.

1:28:57

Make sure we reach out. Oh, that would be awesome.

1:28:59

Thank you so much.