From Abbott Elementary to GET LOST: Justin Halpern with Bill Lawrence! Live at Zibby's Bookshop
[0:00]I'll start us off real quick, I actually did homework.
[0:03]So Justin and I worked together a bunch in the past
[0:06]and he will tell you the truth that I don't usually
[0:08]do my homework.
[0:10]But I did on this one, I read his book.
[0:13]And I don't know if you guys are ready or not,
[0:15]but it's really good, it's funny.
[0:18]And for me, that's not a good thing.
[0:20]It's so fucking annoying.
[0:22]When someone you know can do something that you can't,
[0:25]it's incredibly upsetting, you know, emotional level.
[0:29]But I remember being, it's okay.
[0:33]I felt the same way when I saw Book of Mormon,
[0:37]Trey and Matt, they wrote that musical.
[0:39]I was like, oh, fuck these guys.
[0:40]All right, no more language issues.
[0:42]So when I opened the book though, I remembered
[0:45]and I'm proving that I did it by memory.
[0:47]I think it was that Lio is sat in the bleach
[0:51]behind the home plate and thought about
[0:52]what it was like to be eaten by a bear,
[0:54]which I thought was just such kind of a sentence
[0:57]that immediately sucks you in to that kind of Carl Heiss
[1:01]and Elmore Leonard world, you know?
[1:03]And so I wanted to start by asking me two things,
[1:06]my jealousy aside.
[1:09]The Carl and Elmore, as if they're friends of mine,
[1:13]both wrote such regional stuff.
[1:16]How is there, I mean, I know this got to be personal ties
[1:19]A to why this is set in central Los Angeles
[1:21]because it felt like one of their novels,
[1:22]but I mean central California,
[1:23]it felt like one of their novels, but in this world.
[1:26]And B, what gave you the ego and hubris
[1:29]to think together and put together a book like this, you know?
[1:32]Well, first, I would you want to thank Bill for being here.
[1:35]Bill has 19 TV shows on the air and you were able
[1:39]to tear yourself away from them.
[1:41]I appreciate that.
[1:42]I know many different writers rooms are angry at me right now.
[1:45]They were not there.
[1:46]So I really appreciate it.
[1:47]And also Bill gave me my first real break in the business
[1:52]and quickly I do want to tell the story before I answer
[1:56]that question is, I was, I had written this book
[1:59]called, I psychic girls and I was trying to,
[2:02]my partner and I were trying to get somebody to produce it
[2:05]because we didn't know shit.
[2:07]And so our agent was like, I think I can get you a meeting
[2:10]with Bill Lawrence.
[2:12]So we were like, amazing.
[2:13]Great.
[2:14]So Bill, we're told meet Bill Laurel Tavern.
[2:18]I don't know if you remember that as a dude.
[2:20]So we built Laurel Tavern
[2:22]and we're talking to Bill and we're having this great breakfast.
[2:25]And in the middle of the breakfast,
[2:26]I see Bill look over and he goes,
[2:28]oh, this is about to be really cool.
[2:30]And I go, what?
[2:31]And I turn and Jennifer Garner, it comes up to you.
[2:33]And it's like, Bill.
[2:34]And then she goes like, hey, and they start talking.
[2:39]And then, and then she, then you have a great encounter
[2:42]when she walks off and Bill goes, man,
[2:45]I can't believe I wasted that on you too.
[2:46]So we're at Hollywood a moment.
[2:49]And that was how I knew Bill and I were
[2:51]going to be friends for a very long time.
[2:54]These are one of my favorite people.
[2:56]So really and truly the way that I chose Central California.
[3:00]My wife lives in the Bay Area, or my wife's family.
[3:02]I'll be weird when my wife lives in the Bay Area.
[3:04]I was here.
[3:05]My wife's family lives in the Bay Area.
[3:07]I've done that drive from LA to the Bay Area
[3:09]so many times up to five.
[3:11]And this one time, there's two instances
[3:13]that made me sort of think about the Central Valley.
[3:16]One was I was driving up the five,
[3:19]and there was all these almond orchards.
[3:21]And then there was this sign, this giant sign,
[3:24]that said, if you pass this neighborhood,
[3:28]there is a pretty decent chance you've eaten one
[3:31]of our almonds.
[3:32]And I just thought it was such a weird qualifier.
[3:34]Like, they didn't have the self-confident to be like,
[3:37]you've eaten one of our almonds, if there's a shot.
[3:40]Yeah, there's an outside shot.
[3:42]You might have eaten one of our almonds.
[3:44]I was like, wow, what kind of just like,
[3:45]self-doubt creeps in that you're making that sign,
[3:48]and you can't really get the confidence to say,
[3:50]we've eaten your almonds.
[3:51]And then, the other thing is I was driving,
[3:54]another time I was driving,
[3:55]and you know, it just tastes like almond orchards
[3:57]on if you made the drive,
[3:58]but it's just like almond orchards and agriculture
[4:00]and everything, and there's a lot of tractors.
[4:03]And one stop as we're driving through there,
[4:06]I see this flag flying, and it's like dark,
[4:10]and I can't see what sounds like a black flag.
[4:12]And it's huge, it must be like 25, 30 feet wide.
[4:16]And I say, it closer, it's for the band corn.
[4:20]And I was just like, listen,
[4:22]there's people who like bands a lot.
[4:24]Yeah.
[4:25]But that has a handmade flag, and it was gigantic.
[4:29]The person loves almonds and that.
[4:30]Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, all of them in the corn.
[4:32]It's like, hey, if you're gonna go, you know,
[4:34]if you're passing through here,
[4:35]I just want you to know what I like.
[4:37]And so I just got fascinated with that area of California,
[4:42]and I always, always love like weird CD small places
[4:46]in California too,
[4:47]because I think like, people think of the coast
[4:49]when they think of California.
[4:50]But if you drive just 20 miles inland,
[4:53]anywhere in California, you're like,
[4:55]you're in Arkansas.
[4:57]It is like a whole different, whole different place.
[4:59]I feel like.
[5:00]I'm still safe saying that here in Santa Monica.
[5:01]So it shows up on my Tana Boulevard, my friend.
[5:04]I don't do that part of the song.
[5:07]But it is just this weird place
[5:09]and so I just kind of became enamored with like the CD
[5:12]underbelly that exists and that world.
[5:14]Could you draw on any of your own kind of,
[5:16]I mean, look, it's completely different
[5:17]if you're on a coastal area, but could you
[5:18]draw on any of your own childhood in that town
[5:20]and just kind of, or is it just none of that vibes of all?
[5:23]Yeah, I think because I grew up in this,
[5:24]like my dad was in the military in the Navy.
[5:26]And so we grew up in this like little navel community
[5:28]in San Diego and it was like,
[5:30]even though San Diego was like very provincial
[5:33]and there was a lot of like pride within that area of town.
[5:37]And but we didn't really realize everyone outside
[5:40]of that area of town was like, nobody wants to live there.
[5:42]And so for us, we were just like, yeah,
[5:44]you can't move in here and I was like, we don't want to.
[5:46]We're good.
[5:48]Yeah. And so I feel like that is something
[5:50]I kind of tried to think about when I was writing it.
[5:54]The, so like the one of the things I love is Justin shows,
[6:00]but also books like this are on the surface.
[6:03]They're kind of fun, caper mystery type things,
[6:06]but they're really kind of character pieces, you know?
[6:09]So I tell you right now,
[6:10]besides kind of a huge eccentric cast of characters,
[6:13]this is at its core, a father daughter story,
[6:16]which it's me hard because to see those two us,
[6:19]ostracized, spoiler.
[6:20]Are you allowed to do spoilers in these things
[6:21]or do you not do spoilers?
[6:23]All right, but to me,
[6:24]when you're building characters like that in relationships
[6:26]like that, you know, are you starting with plot
[6:29]or are you starting with kind of a core character dynamic
[6:31]that you want to explore?
[6:33]Because no matter what the kind of narrative drive of this is,
[6:36]it's a father daughter story, you know what I mean?
[6:38]Yeah, I mean, I think like, you know,
[6:40]I think some of this I really learned from being in your rooms
[6:44]is, you know, when we do a show we,
[6:47]and I still do this on my shows,
[6:48]I remember the first show I worked on with you,
[6:50]we spent the first like week,
[6:52]and this was even the fourth season of Coubertown,
[6:54]we still spent the first week just talking about the characters.
[6:57]Like we weren't breaking story,
[6:58]we were just talking about them.
[7:00]And I was like, oh, this is so useful
[7:02]because stories will come out of that,
[7:05]but we need to like get to know who these people are
[7:07]and what they want.
[7:08]Otherwise we're just like breaking A to B to C,
[7:11]and it's like doesn't have any heart or soul into it.
[7:15]And so for me, I'd always start with like,
[7:17]there was really two things that started this one.
[7:19]It was, I was obsessed with sort of this idea
[7:22]of a guy who is like larger than life
[7:25]that everyone loves except for the one person
[7:28]who knows who's the best.
[7:30]Because I think that's a really hard thing, right?
[7:32]Of like, I remember one time I was,
[7:34]I love my dad dearly, this is not about my dad,
[7:36]but he was tough to live with.
[7:38]He was really tough.
[7:39]He was like, it was a tense house in Beech
[7:41]because you had to just every tee had to be crossed,
[7:44]every eye dotted.
[7:45]And I remember one time he was a,
[7:47]he was a cancer doctor.
[7:50]That's got an aim, I don't know what it is,
[7:51]but you're gonna wanna go with oncologists.
[7:54]Yeah, there you go.
[7:55]There you go, he was oncologists.
[7:56]And I had to come to his work one time
[7:59]and I blocked most of this out.
[8:01]So I had to come to his work one time
[8:04]and I was like, he would put me in his little tiny office
[8:07]and hand me a New England Journal of Medicine.
[8:09]I was like nine, he'd be like, read this.
[8:12]And so I was like, I would get bored
[8:14]and I remember one time.
[8:14]Cool, I always remember the good stuff.
[8:15]Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[8:16]I wander, there'd be a Snickers bar, too.
[8:18]Give me a Snickers bar, New England Journal of Medicine.
[8:20]So I wandered out one time and I saw him doing his rounds
[8:24]and I saw him and I know I was supposed to nod.
[8:26]I was nine and I walked into this room
[8:28]with one of his patients.
[8:30]Was there and he's like, what are you doing in here?
[8:32]And she was like, no, I don't know, come in.
[8:34]And she goes, what must, says to me?
[8:35]She goes, what must it be like
[8:37]to live with the nicest man in the world?
[8:40]And I was like, is he here in this world?
[8:43]There's someone else here?
[8:45]No, cool.
[8:46]What are you fucking talking about?
[8:48]Like, this man will let me be in the bathroom
[8:51]longer in a minute and 30 seconds.
[8:52]Like, this is crazy.
[8:54]And so I started thinking about that
[8:55]of just this character of like, okay, we have this guy,
[8:57]he's larger than life.
[8:59]Everyone loves him.
[9:00]Who's that hardest for?
[9:02]Someone who maybe is not,
[9:04]doesn't have that sort of like fastliness with people
[9:06]that the people don't really like,
[9:08]but is a good person.
[9:10]It's someone who's trying to do the right thing.
[9:12]And so if you're someone who's trying to do the right thing
[9:13]and still no one likes you.
[9:16]And your father is someone that everyone likes
[9:19]who he never does the right thing.
[9:20]He always takes easy way out.
[9:22]And he never seems to face any real consequences.
[9:24]Like, what must that be like to be in that relationship?
[9:27]Well, I mean, the ultimate consequence is it doesn't take
[9:30]long to get into the book that you know
[9:31]that what he needs the most emotionally he is,
[9:34]at least, you know, where we begin, he's lost it.
[9:38]Do you know what I mean?
[9:39]His inability to, or his efforts to get that back
[9:41]or kind of, it's very tough for me.
[9:43]I have a 25 year old daughter
[9:46]and I personalized all this
[9:47]and I read the beginning of the book.
[9:49]I'm like, oh, she hates me.
[9:50]But, no, we're cool, we're cool.
[9:52]But the other thing I would want to ask too
[9:55]is what I think made me enjoy this book so much
[9:57]in part of Justin Patrick shows too.
[10:00]is, if characters all sound the same, you know what I mean?
[10:03]There's no specificity.
[10:04]It doesn't feel authentic, but each one of the,
[10:06]even the peripheral characters in this,
[10:08]ranging from the smallest gangsters, you know,
[10:10]the shell to, to, everybody had such a distinct
[10:13]and original voice.
[10:14]You couldn't give anybody's lines
[10:15]and banter to anybody else.
[10:17]Do you draw from people that you actually know
[10:19]and you cross past with, or you could by the way,
[10:20]I steal and crib for people I've met all the time?
[10:23]Are these, any of these people real?
[10:25]Yeah, I would say, there are pieces, I mean,
[10:27]pieces of all of them down to a whole copy of them.
[10:30]Sure.
[10:31]You want to say names out well?
[10:33]Yeah.
[10:35]Yeah, I mean, sometimes, you know, I, I think,
[10:37]like, we both do this as writers.
[10:38]It's like, and I've been with you sometimes,
[10:40]we're both sitting and doing it.
[10:42]As we're looking out at people
[10:44]and talking to each other about what we're seeing, right?
[10:46]And it's some of the most fun parts
[10:48]about hanging around comedy writers.
[10:49]It's like, we are all just looking
[10:52]and people watching all the time
[10:53]because that's where you get so much of your stuff.
[10:55]And I feel like, for me, it's, and I would be interested
[10:59]if this, it's like this for you.
[11:01]But it's like, sometimes it's just like,
[11:02]someone will say one line to me.
[11:05]Somebody had me eat it like a coffee shop
[11:07]and I'm like, oh, I actually don't need to know
[11:08]anything more about this for me.
[11:10]So this one thing that they were doing,
[11:12]I know exactly who that human being is.
[11:14]And I think it's that moment I'm always craving as a writer
[11:17]is like, how quickly can we understand
[11:19]who somebody is by their actions
[11:20]without having to tell you?
[11:22]I randomly had a marriage summed up to me the other day
[11:25]I was playing tennis.
[11:26]The husband was just too sorry.
[11:27]The husband and wife were playing tennis
[11:28]and the court next to me.
[11:30]And the husband was serving his wife's partner
[11:32]and he had a serve and his own wife called the serve out
[11:35]for the other team.
[11:36]She goes, she goes, she goes, I just stopped.
[11:39]She goes out and the other team goes, no, was in.
[11:43]And to them she goes, I'm sorry.
[11:45]And then as they're walking back,
[11:48]the husband turns to her and goes, what are you doing?
[11:49]And she goes, I said I was sorry and he goes, not to me.
[11:54]Not to me.
[11:56]And I'm like, oh, I know that couple.
[11:58]I'm going to put them in every TV show.
[12:01]I have a question almost got ruined.
[12:03]I thought I was original, but your friend
[12:05]hit me up with it earlier too.
[12:06]So without trying not to do spoilers, OK?
[12:09]One of the cool things about this book
[12:10]is there are truly visual set pieces in it.
[12:14]If you have it read it, you'll get to them.
[12:17]If you have read it, you know what I'm talking about.
[12:18]There's one at the manian farm and there's one at the end
[12:22]when everybody, when Shelby.
[12:24]And by the way, I can never always pronounce the sheriff's name,
[12:27]like Brian Bosnell, because he's from, what is it?
[12:28]It's tonsil, right?
[12:29]It's tonsil, yeah.
[12:31]And Lila and Dix, the cool things
[12:36]are there so visual that you can imagine them unfolding
[12:39]on a screen?
[12:40]It's not a weird question to ask because who you are.
[12:43]Did you write this knowing or hopefully hoping
[12:46]that someday you'll get to make it into a movie
[12:48]or a streaming show?
[12:50]You know what's funny is when I start, so I can only
[12:53]break a story the one way, which is the way,
[12:56]essentially, you taught me to break a story.
[12:58]But it's so I outline it and I can, you know,
[13:02]I've been outlining TV episodes for now, 16 years.
[13:06]And so I outlined it in the same way.
[13:08]But the reason I decided to first start writing it as a book
[13:13]is I was like, you know what?
[13:14]Well, one, it was during the 2023 strike
[13:16]and I was walking the picket line every single day
[13:18]and hating everything.
[13:20]And also just left with only my awful brain
[13:23]to keep me company.
[13:24]And I was just kind of like, I started thinking about
[13:28]characters and things like that.
[13:29]And I was like, you know what?
[13:30]I'd love to try to write something that I could just
[13:34]like live in a little more.
[13:35]Because you know when we're writing TV,
[13:37]you know, there's the time constraints.
[13:39]You're getting tons of notes all the time.
[13:41]And even if you don't take the notes,
[13:43]it's like you're just, you're getting poked in product
[13:44]and you're kind of like subject to this other medium
[13:49]that has so many limitations.
[13:51]And so I was like, I just wanna write something
[13:53]where I don't have a deadline.
[13:55]I don't have anybody there to poke and prod me.
[13:58]And so, and I wanna be a little scared
[14:01]of like not having anyone to help me.
[14:03]And so, but then as I started writing it,
[14:06]just because of the job we both do, you know,
[14:09]it started to be more visual for me as I was writing it.
[14:12]How can that be?
[14:13]You've been working that way for so many years.
[14:14]Exactly.
[14:15]And so I think about halfway through it,
[14:18]I started to sort of visualize it a little bit more.
[14:20]And it's like, oh, this could be something
[14:22]I adapt as a movie after it's done.
[14:24]But it sort of started from a place of like,
[14:26]I just wanna live with these characters
[14:28]and not have anyone bother me for a while.
[14:30]Yeah.
[14:31]Well, look, the risk factor, just so you guys know,
[14:34]it must've been, look, I don't know how well
[14:36]you know Justin's workout side of his TV work,
[14:38]but he has written successful novels before.
[14:40]You wrote shit, my dad says,
[14:41]you're a nice suck at girls.
[14:43]But one of the things that struck me about this,
[14:45]because I was so, but that's as annoying as the fact
[14:48]that he's got a new book.
[14:49]I just want you guys to know.
[14:50]Having to say he's written successful books before
[14:52]is very hard coming out of my mouth.
[14:55]But this genre specifically,
[14:58]having like dabbled in it.
[15:00]in TV a little bit where you have to suddenly learn about body drops and clue trails and
[15:05]kind of crafting a mystery, you know, was it daunting at all to kind of enter into the
[15:09]world of, you know, at its core, it's a, you know, it's a banter driven action mystery
[15:14]thriller, you know what I mean? And that's not something that no criticism is just not a
[15:18]world that you've lived in before.
[15:20]Yeah, it was funniest because I had one conversation where I had to figure out how to
[15:23]wander money successfully in this one way. And so I called up a friend who works in finance
[15:29]and I was like, do you know what I mean? I go, hey, I'm doing this thing for a book and
[15:33]I need a really realistic way. Someone would wire transfer $250,000 and not, no, not
[15:39]have it be able to be tracked by anyone. And he goes, listen, I'm going to tell you how
[15:46]to do it, but I don't want to be thanked in the book because then I don't want, I don't
[15:51]want to use my name ever. And I go, okay. And then he laid out for me. He's like, here's
[15:56]how you do it if you did it. And, and so I, I would go down these sort of rabbit holes
[16:02]of, because it isn't something I do, you know, I mean, I think it's, similarly, I would
[16:06]pose a question to you, you know, you've adapted Carl Heisen for a TV show. And, and
[16:12]you know, I think that you maybe are a little bit more in that world than me, but that
[16:16]also wasn't your sort of bread and butter. So for adapting a mystery for you, I'd ask you
[16:20]the same thing, like what's there certain things that you knew, you know, I didn't understand
[16:24]the rhythm of them. You know what I mean? Because they're very percussive if you like
[16:27]that type of writing, you know, and there's a, a, a younger writer that's done a lot
[16:32]in the middle of Bell Heart. She's really talented. And she, we're outlining episodes. She's
[16:36]like, yo, you need a body drop. And I'm, I'm, you know, which me, it's really cool way
[16:41]to say someone's got to die. You guys know that? I know the wingo now, you know, and,
[16:46]but just her talking about the rhythms that they build these stories around both in books,
[16:51]you know, and, and streaming TV shows of people, keeping people intrigued and giving them
[16:54]a little taste. I found it fascinating. I found it harder than writing comedy. I thought
[16:59]the jokes part is easy. The, by the way, the banter part of this book must have been just
[17:02]like riding a bike for you. Like not. Yeah, that was the part that was the easiest for
[17:06]me to do, but that was, you know, I think also for that too was like, I don't know if
[17:11]you start like this, but I wrote 50 pages of conversations between these two that I knew
[17:15]were never going to be part of the book. So I was just like, I need to know how they
[17:18]talk to each other. I need to know how they think. I need to know how they speak. And I'm
[17:22]just going to like drop a topic and put them in a place and just write, write how they speak
[17:26]to one another. And then, but it's true, the mystery part, like I think for me, what
[17:31]I started doing as, as I was outlining is I started reading a bunch of heists and reading
[17:35]a bunch of Elmore Leonard. And I started watching like, you know, the nice guys over and
[17:39]over again. The original Greg McDonald books who guys have it read them are like this
[17:43]to the original Fletch books are not like the movie. Yes. No, totally. Absolutely. And so there
[17:48]are these sort of like commonalities and all these books like the body drop and like you
[17:52]need, you know, a clue and a red herring and how do you go from this to that? And I think
[17:57]that was what I was most nervous about it. It was like, am I going to write a book that
[18:01]on page 11? You're like, it was that guy. Yeah. Or by the way. No. The B side of it is
[18:06]that and this happened. The panic that this young writer Mille gave me was she said, just
[18:10]so you know, you're going to reach a point when all the roads are converging that you're
[18:14]going to look around and go, this makes no sense. Yes. Totally. No. I literally, that
[18:19]was the funniest part too, because I had like, you know, all the roads are starting
[18:22]to convert. And I'm like, I think this makes sense. And I gave it to a friend of mine
[18:27]who's a movie producer. And I gave him just the outline of it. And I'm like, what do
[18:32]you think? And he's like, this is amazing. I'm like, what really? He's like, this
[18:37]wouldn't happen. And this, why does he wouldn't have done this? And you set him up like
[18:39]then these things don't make sense. And so I had to tear apart the whole book and go back
[18:44]at it again and just keep doing it until I was like, okay, all these things make sense.
[18:50]They're all all these red herrings are logical. And at the very end, this is a conclusion
[18:55]that has, it's, it's two plus two equals four. It's going to make sense.
[18:59]I'll tell you in a TV vernacular, I have a rule in the writer's rooms of some of my shows
[19:06]that if writers complain about certain things, I say only backwards Johnson would recognize
[19:11]that. And that's a guy that watches TV shows backwards from the end of the beginning,
[19:15]because writers, which we, and we all nitpick, you know what I mean? Well, sometimes go
[19:19]like, this joke is it funny that I laughed at because 10 pages later we find out that
[19:24]character already knew that. Well, you can't take back that laugh. Only backwards Johnson's
[19:28]not going to laugh at that. But the problem is you have to write books like this for backwards
[19:32]Johnson. Because people, by the way, he's not a real guy. Because people dive into it that way.
[19:38]So look, one of the things that they wanted to make sure that we did on this too was open
[19:43]up to any questions about anything. I know Justin will answer him not only about the book,
[19:50]but about Abbott Elementary, about people's home phone numbers, anything you guys need to know.
[19:55]But I'm not afraid to ask Bill any questions about Bill's many, many TV issues. Let's
[20:00]to hit us up.
[20:01]Anybody got any questions about this stuff?
[20:02]So I am not going to vote, but it's inspiring me to read it, because I feel like you
[20:08]need to interview me, because in the last year I've been driving at least once a month
[20:13]to visit my daughter, when daughter in the central valley who desperately voted for
[20:17]me.
[20:18]Oh my gosh.
[20:19]Yesterday I kind of, I mean you did the fight, I usually do the 99, yesterday for the first
[20:25]time I said, no, I'm not driving down the night.
[20:28]The 99's are at times.
[20:32]You probably eat in some of their almonds.
[20:35]This is what they did, and now the stories are like, I need to tell my stories.
[20:42]The whole, yeah, I mean that, go read the book, and by the way, I found it inspiring
[20:49]and made me want to write, I mean I'm not going to write a book, but it made me want
[20:51]to write a book.
[20:52]I have started what I see, the sign, the thing that they attracted closely, I mean it's
[21:00]a whole world different from the coast of coming forward.
[21:03]Yeah, it's a completely different place.
[21:06]Yeah.
[21:07]So it's a different world.
[21:09]I mean, it's...
[21:10]California is like eight states in one.
[21:11]It's going to come on.
[21:12]It really is.
[21:13]It's like a fundamental, it's like, I feel I'm deep in your life now.
[21:20]I feel I'm very deep in your life now.
[21:22]Thank you so it's anybody else.
[21:25]Oh go, go, go, go.
[21:27]That's so kind.
[21:28]I was going to ask him, do you have a question right?
[21:31]Did you find was there any style of writing for television that you typically do that maybe
[21:36]got any like stuck writing in the book, or is there anything else?
[21:40]That's a good question.
[21:41]Yes.
[21:42]Yes, absolutely, which is that like so in writing comedy, a lot of times when you end
[21:48]the scene, you write the blow.
[21:49]And they were going to say that building to the joke at the end, right?
[21:51]Build to a joke at the end, you call it the blow to the scene, right?
[21:54]And when you're writing for a TV show and you don't have a blow to the scene, you feel
[21:58]it.
[21:59]It's like, yeah, right?
[22:00]When you write, I did that for the first part of the book and then I showed it to my editor
[22:03]and he's like, what the fuck is happening at the end of these stuff?
[22:06]Why does everyone really come and stand up comedian at the end of this stuff?
[22:09]Why does everyone have a joke at the end of one of these things?
[22:11]And I was like, oh, that's not how you do it.
[22:13]He's like, no.
[22:14]He's like, just tell the story.
[22:15]He's like, it doesn't have to be like, so that was one challenge.
[22:19]The other thing was when you write a script, you're trying to make the description as
[22:23]like, terse as possible.
[22:25]You do not want to have long flowery description because the reader, whoever's reading
[22:29]it is going to be like, no, just get to this.
[22:30]I want to see it.
[22:31]It's a visual medium.
[22:33]So when I wrote the first draft of the first 50 pages of this book, my description lacked.
[22:41]It was really, it was really, really sparse and there was just a lot left to the imagination
[22:47]or as my book agent said, everything was left to be mentioned.
[22:52]Yeah.
[22:53]By the way, I even just, you know, TV writers work.
[22:55]I left it out.
[22:56]I immediately thought about it when I was sent it when I gave it an opening line of
[22:59]his book.
[23:00]I left out that the bleachers were worn down to what ever, yeah, because the TV writer
[23:06]you just always go, hey, how can they say this in the fewest amount of words possible
[23:10]so we can keep it moving?
[23:11]Yeah.
[23:12]And the biggest thing was I, after I had finished the book and I handed it to my book agent
[23:16]and he was reading it and he liked it.
[23:18]He goes, I just have one question, what does the main character look like because you
[23:22]have never described it?
[23:23]And I was like, how can that be?
[23:26]That can't be possible.
[23:27]And then I read through it and I was like, I literally have not described what this woman
[23:31]looks like.
[23:32]And I described other people in the book, but I hadn't described what the main character
[23:35]of the book looks like because my job is like, you can just look at her.
[23:39]She's like, just right there.
[23:40]Yeah.
[23:41]She's like, 10 feet.
[23:42]Yeah.
[23:43]So that was a big adjustment for me.
[23:46]I have an elementary.
[23:48]So I just retired from 30 years of education.
[23:51]Oh, congratulations.
[23:53]Amazing.
[23:54]I feel like our job's just as important as yours.
[23:57]I thought I'd done.
[23:59]I thought I'd done.
[24:00]I thought I'd done.
[24:02]Yeah.
[24:03]And I was a principal for 20 years.
[24:05]Oh, my goodness.
[24:06]Oh, wow.
[24:07]And I just wonder, do you have teachers and principals working with you when you come up
[24:12]with that material?
[24:13]Well, I'm going to tell you the most dastardly part of Abid Elementary is we bring in
[24:17]teachers and administrators in the start of every year and they basically give us our
[24:22]season.
[24:23]Like we just talk to them and talk to them and talk to them for hours.
[24:27]And from talking to them and asking what they're going through and asking them things,
[24:31]that's those are the stories we start to use to build Abid Elementary.
[24:35]Like, people will always come up and be like, a teacher is will frequently come up
[24:39]and be like, I had something like that happen.
[24:40]And I'm like, I know.
[24:41]We took it from a teacher.
[24:42]Like, it's, it's.
[24:43]Yeah.
[24:44]Comedy, that's what we all do.
[24:47]Scrubs, the guy that the real JD is a cardiologist and heart surgeon.
[24:50]He lives three blocks from here.
[24:52]We stole his life.
[24:54]We didn't really pay him for it, but we get him a hug.
[24:58]Yeah.
[24:59]That's it.
[25:00]Yeah, no, I mean also that show like Quinta's mom was a elementary school teacher for four years.
[25:06]Yeah, she was so passionate about it right from the start.
[25:07]Well passionate and it was like two rules on that show where Quinta was just like I never
[25:11]want to have a teacher come up to me and tell me that they feel like the show is fake
[25:15]or that they feel that it's not authentic. She's like these people like dedicate their
[25:19]lives to education and we're not going to do them wrong. So I was like that was like
[25:23]mandate one when we started the show. She would rather not make it than then to do that.
[25:28]So it was really important in the writer's room and that's why we kept bringing in people.
[25:31]It was one of the coolest things about the show is even though it's consistently funny
[25:35]you never doubt that those people are there up-service. You know what I mean? Yeah, they're really
[25:40]trying. Yeah, so it's one of my favorite things about it. The thing about that is that you feel a lot
[25:44]of them again. That's the amazing thing about being in education. Yeah. I don't know if it's like that
[25:49]as a writer, but I have to change her. No, it's not. By the way, just so you know, I use it my
[25:55]family is buried in education. Justin does jokes like this too. When we're in a writer's room
[25:59]late and people are complaining, I enjoy saying you guys all could have been doing something
[26:03]that matters. You could be out teaching school. You could be to us. Yeah, my wife is a clinical
[26:09]psychologist who works with female veterans who have PTSD and I make silly jokes all day.
[26:15]So I try to keep those things in perspective. I wanted to say that shrinking has really been
[26:21]a life changing. Oh, thank you so much. That's so kind. That's based on a local guy too,
[26:25]I mean stealing stories. If you're interested, there's a documentary on Apple by the
[26:33]therapist named Phil Stuts. He's got a book that's probably here called The Tools and
[26:37]Harrison Ford's playing him. Not. Yeah. That's not the reality of the last year. I mean, I made
[26:43]some life changes because of that. Oh, that's too. That's too. I'm not good when people compliment
[26:47]me. I'll talk about it later, but I'm going to see him awkward and weird for a second. Somewhere
[26:50]else. Someone asked Justin a question. Thank you. It was so kind. Anybody else have any questions?
[26:55]What do you got, sir? Sorry. I'll get a guess. You wrote the book when you wrote the story. It was
[27:00]just like we also talk to you on the show. It was kind of funny, but I didn't teach you one, but
[27:04]you had a record story. You know, I think the first thing was to start with character and
[27:08]I think the thing that we always used to do on his shows is like, what is the character?
[27:13]There's everything in what the character wants and what the character actually needs,
[27:16]right? And to so that was the first thing I did is like, okay, I have this woman Lila who has
[27:23]basically her life has frozen. She's so angry. She cannot set aside this anger in order to move
[27:28]forward in her life. And all she wants to do is to never, ever, ever look internally in face any
[27:35]of that anger, right? And what she needs to do is actually go to the source of it, which is
[27:40]her father, right? And for him, for for Dix, that's a character who all he wants is for him to be
[27:48]able to live his life in his little town where everybody knows who he is and he was a huge baseball
[27:53]star and never be faced with any of the actual consequences of his actions. And so what ends up,
[28:01]what I wanted to do in the book is I was like, well, if he is literally faced a face with this
[28:06]consequence, which is the fact that he has no relationship with his daughter because he's ruined it.
[28:12]Then he would have to work through that. And so I started with that. And then a very
[28:18]Bill Lawrencey trick is we would always start with the act breaks, right? Like we know what we know
[28:23]what the characters want. And then we're like, okay, what are the turns in the story that are
[28:27]motivated by their actions? And so that was kind of how I broke it as I had. I knew I always kind
[28:32]of knew what the ending was going to be. And I knew the characters and what they wanted. And then
[28:37]I was like, okay, how are their actions going to send this thing into, you know, really dramatic
[28:44]tension. And so once I started to kind of like place those acts, because again, I broke it
[28:49]like a TV show had sort of like a movie, three acts. I was like, okay, I know where the first act is.
[28:54]I know what the inciting incident is. I know what the second act break is going to be. And from there,
[29:00]like let's let's let's I wanted to allow myself the ability to, and this was different than
[29:06]TV. I wanted to allow myself the ability to get lost in between so that I could find not pun intended.
[29:12]I know. Come on. You know he's done this before. That was solid.
[29:17]No, so that I could that I could find things in the story. I wouldn't normally have been able to find.
[29:24]I got to go here next to now. I'll give you a good.
[29:26]I'm from my cellium and that stuff. So I'm just a super offended.
[29:31]That's really funny. I would never write something disparaging about where
[29:36]you're welcome. How many times? Um, question for you, both of you are part of and create such
[29:42]beautiful deep stories of comedy in so many layers. They're so feel good, but there's just like
[29:48]depth, like emotional depth to them. I'm assuming that's intentional. Like, why is that
[29:52]important to you to be a part of or create something like that? Um, you want, you want me to go
[29:57]first? The, uh, it took.
[30:00]You know, I'm trying to pick up my voices, the shows and movies and books that I grew up
[30:04]on loving, or first TV show I love was MASH, and that was a show that could bridge
[30:10]tones between broad silly comedy and then moments that had like an emotional wallop.
[30:16]And I just always responded to books, to prayer for one meaning.
[30:20]One of my favorite books killed me, you'll be bawling at the end if you haven't read
[30:22]it, it's John Irving novel, so funny along the way, and then at the end it just crushes
[30:26]you, right?
[30:27]I think it's really important, you know, the actual answer to your thing is yes, it's
[30:32]important to me, but I found my voice, you know, probably in my 40s or whatever, and when
[30:37]you find it to stick to it is a good thing as a creator or an artist or writer.
[30:41]I still admire the crap out of, the shows I love the most are the ones I couldn't write,
[30:46]but I love this TV show, Veep, if you guys have ever seen it, and that is literally just
[30:50]different characters finding new ways to be awful to each other.
[30:54]I mean, not one of them has a redeeming bone in their body, I can't write that, but
[30:57]I just devour it, but no, for me, I'm a secret softie, I don't know about Justin.
[31:02]Yeah, I mean, for me, I feel like I want to have like an emotional connection to what
[31:07]I'm writing and I want to like, we start out every episode of Abbott with just like, what
[31:12]do we want to say?
[31:13]Like, what do we want to get to?
[31:15]What do we want to say about the characters, not even necessarily like some giant
[31:18]conditions statement, but like, I want to know people better, like, I want to know myself
[31:22]better.
[31:23]And so for me, like, a same as Bill, like, I'll watch 30 Rock all day, I'll watch
[31:28]Football Day, but similarly, like, I couldn't write either one of those shows.
[31:32]Those, it's just like a skill that isn't really in my skill set.
[31:38]And I just, I think that like, when I put out writing, I feel like, hey, here's a piece
[31:43]of me and I want to see you and you to see it and feel seen.
[31:50]And I want to like connect on some level.
[31:52]And it's like, that's something for me, like, growing up, like, was very hard for me.
[31:57]It was really hard for me to connect to people.
[31:59]I lived, you know, there was not like, I have a lot of emotion in my house.
[32:01]My dad has cried once.
[32:02]It's one secretary at one of the Triple Crowns.
[32:05]Sorry.
[32:06]True story.
[32:08]So like, the Halperons were not like real emotional.
[32:12]And so I was like, how do I like, you know, if you can't access some of those emotions,
[32:17]like, how do you connect with people, right?
[32:19]Because it just becomes surface.
[32:20]And so writing was how I did it.
[32:22]And so I never wanted to write anything that didn't have some emotional connection to somebody
[32:27]because that was how I was going to, like, basically live and feel good about myself.
[32:33]And so it's, I would say, I would ask you this too.
[32:35]It's sometimes a scary way of writing, like, I will say, like, when you write Veep and
[32:40]you write 30 Rock, you're not at risk, but it's also selfish.
[32:45]I would say, like, some might say the world's a shit show.
[32:50]I don't know where you guys lie politically, but we're not going to do that.
[32:54]The, wow, is awkward way to say it.
[32:58]To actually be writing about something that has an inherent backbone of kindness or optimism
[33:04]was a huge value to me personally, you know?
[33:07]And I can remember when we were writing the pilot of Ted Lasso, we had no idea if anybody
[33:14]would watch it, you know?
[33:15]But it felt really good to be writing about somebody that kind of the kindness, you know,
[33:20]shows through.
[33:22]So, you know, even though it sounds very altruistic, I think there's a selfish aspect of
[33:26]it.
[33:27]Absolutely.
[33:28]And I think, you know, the thing that you're always worried about when, especially
[33:30]you're in comedy writer rooms, like, these are the most jaded human beings in the planet.
[33:34]And some of the darkest human where you'll ever experience, like, in a room.
[33:38]And so it's an even scarier place sometimes to be like, hey, and here's my earnest feeling.
[33:43]Who wants to be vulnerable first, everybody raise your hands?
[33:46]Exactly.
[33:47]And, but it is like, I think for me, and I think for you too, it's like, it is where is
[33:54]some of the most satisfying stuff, even though you're opening yourself up to me, like,
[33:57]you're lame, that's lame, but it's like, okay, but this is just me trying to connect,
[34:02]you know, and I'm not going to connect to everybody.
[34:04]I have to circle it back, but that's why the father-daughter relationship in this book
[34:08]resonates so much, because it's super authentic to who Justin is as a guy, you know,
[34:13]and how opening is to being emotional on the page.
[34:15]By the way, I will say, at the end, it is a little bit of a love letter to central
[34:20]valley.
[34:21]You'll say that.
[34:23]You had a question, you.
[34:24]Well, your first book was based on a blog, right, and the second book was also familiar
[34:33]to you.
[34:34]The memoir as well, yeah.
[34:35]That's what I thought.
[34:36]And this was a novel, so being the third go-round being a novel other than the setting,
[34:43]like, how does one become a novelist?
[34:47]Well, I will say, because I know you the way I said it, I know you know what it does,
[34:51]right?
[34:52]Like, it is what will make you both feel better, is I, before this, I wrote two novels
[34:58]that I got probably like...
[35:00]80,000 words into like almost done and then I let them grow cold and I read both of them
[35:06]and I was like these are terrible and I threw them both away and never wrote them, never
[35:11]sent them to anybody would just like these suck.
[35:14]And so I was trying to find what Bill was talking about, trying to find my voice, I'm 45
[35:19]but I was still trying to figure out like what is my voice and I liked that challenge
[35:26]and I have a writing partner, we've been partners for 25 years in television and
[35:31]so I'm very codependent and I wasn't like to not have that guardrail.
[35:38]That's what that's kind of why I did this is to force myself to be like you have to
[35:43]get back in touch.
[35:44]I would ask you this actually because like the weird thing about being a writer is a TV
[35:50]writer is the more successful you get the less you write, it can be the case and I
[35:56]I was finding myself towards the end of Abbott it's like you're breaking stories
[35:59]but like the actual like sitting, clicking, clicking, you're not you're doing less and
[36:03]less of that as you move up and I sort of found myself missing just like being able to
[36:08]sit down and just write and so I was like I got to do it, I got to get back in touch
[36:15]with my voice and otherwise I feel like I'm going to lose it and so that was kind of what
[36:20]started with this and I think that this was just the third attempt at it and the first
[36:25]one where I was like oh I think there might be something here.
[36:30]Do you feel that though?
[36:31]Do you feel like...
[36:32]I'm so happy to lose my voice at this part of my life.
[36:35]But the actual sitting down and writing stuff.
[36:37]No everything you said is true I've just this is my own personal demons you guys I feel
[36:42]like I've had a term paper do every Friday for six years.
[36:48]It's one of the questions I teach a lot because I enjoy it at schools and I always say who
[36:52]here enjoys or who here enjoys writing and if your hand went up I'd say you're a
[36:56]sociopath because writing is awful having, having written something must be is the best feeling
[37:03]in the world.
[37:04]I mean to finish the book must been fucking euphoric, so I'm trying to get back to what
[37:10]I rewrite all my shows now on weekends and do it kind of on my own time instead of being
[37:15]there in the room in the same grind but that's why it's so annoying to me that you wrote
[37:20]a book.
[37:21]Everything over you know I mean everything he's saying is what I should be doing instead
[37:25]of going like maybe I should spend more time with my family.
[37:28]Any other questions?
[37:32]Can I ask anything?
[37:33]Yeah what do you got?
[37:35]Oh my family is super involved in education and my great great grandmother's name Sarah
[37:41]Lawrence so I teach it Sarah Lawrence.
[37:46]There's no help or university just that way.
[37:51]What's up?
[37:52]I'm from the mean streets of Ridgefield, Connecticut.
[37:54]I got out.
[37:55]I mean I pulled myself up by my bootstraps, but my dad grew up in Bronxville New York
[38:04]for Sarah Lawrence's.
[38:05]There we go.
[38:06]What's that?
[38:07]Is that where you're from?
[38:08]You from Bronxville?
[38:09]Yeah, yeah.
[38:10]That's Lawrence Hospital.
[38:11]That's right.
[38:12]I am William Van Duser Lawrence IV.
[38:15]I'm good.
[38:21]That's what I was hoping you would say.
[38:24]That's a blow to a scene.
[38:27]Absolutely a blow to a scene.
[38:30]My mother died there.
[38:34]Incredible line.
[38:35]Just right there for the picket.
[38:37]Absolutely.
[38:38]I hide that stuff a lot but of my family stuff but it's a great school, it's a great school
[38:48]for the arts.
[38:49]I did.
[38:50]I was too scared because there's a statue of William Van Duser Lawrence the original
[38:55]there that looks like me but he's bald and has mutton chops and I'm like, no boy not.
[39:01]I would have folded under the pressure.
[39:06]We only got time for a couple more.
[39:07]Anybody else want to hit something?
[39:08]You can get done.
[39:09]Can be TV.
[39:10]It can be a book.
[39:11]It can be anything or we can all say goodnight.
[39:14]What do you got, man?
[39:15]How do you ever work with yourself or I guess anybody else who's in more interactive
[39:21]writing?
[39:22]Game writing or other kind of like...
[39:26]I did work with a guy for a little bit on a movie and he was like a video game writer and
[39:35]that is like a tough job.
[39:37]Is that what you're into?
[39:39]Game stuff.
[39:40]He was basically like I have to write a story and then I have to write 80,000 possibilities
[39:45]where that story could go and I have to go every way through.
[39:48]Yeah.
[39:49]It definitely was like it's hard enough for me to just do one story but yeah I think
[39:54]it's a really...
[39:55]And it's funny too I think that that's you know now you're seeing like all...
[40:00]the different ways to apply it. It is definitely a really different skill.
[40:06]I was randomly talking about that today because the guy is an interesting, the guy that we share.
[40:11]Luke Tenney, who's on shrinking in Abaddon, I'm entering the pit. He's on every,
[40:15]he's like the mayor of Warner Brothers right now. Yeah, he just walks.
[40:17]But he's currently one of the leads of the video game Call of Duty that they're
[40:21]the next Call of Duty that they're doing. And so having to act that out and act out scenarios
[40:27]doesn't do up different things. He's like, it's definitely a weird, funky world method.
[40:34]Me or him? He's doing, by the way, we're doing something kind of thing.
[40:38]I get to say we're doing something together. And I am so gleeful, you see me light up because
[40:42]I'm not doing anything on it. And he's doing all the work. We have a show together. We have a show,
[40:49]it's going to be on Netflix next year. It's loosely based off of my second book. It's called
[40:57]I Suck at Girls. And it's sort of like a teen-arrated comedy. But it's so funny. It's really just
[41:03]yeah, it's about trying to figure out who you are in high school while everyone's trying to
[41:09]tell you who you are. And it's so good. All I want out of it is to be with Justin and somebody
[41:15]come to me and go, I love I Suck at Girls. And I'll just go, thank you. I'm really not written a
[41:20]world where it's, it's, but wait, and he didn't have to include me on this either. He's just really
[41:28]cool. You know, it's such a, look, the nicest thing that I can say that it shouldn't matter is
[41:36]you can't do what we do and necessarily quality control to type of people. You get to spend time
[41:42]and work with. So if you're lucky enough to work with someone that you would want to spend time
[41:47]with anyway, it is an absolute gift and his quality of character is so high. It's just going to
[41:53]so fun for me to still even get to drive here and have an excuse to use the writer's room and
[41:58]shoot the shit with him in front of you guys. The thing I will say that he will not take credit for
[42:03]is that the reason Bill has so many shows on the air is that writers know that they can do a
[42:10]a show with Bill and Bill will take all of the heat that's coming at you. Because when you're
[42:16]writing a show, there are so many people trying to mess with it. And it's not even ill intent,
[42:26]it's just a lot of people trying to come in. And what Bill will do is he uses his sort of
[42:31]cache of who he is to just basically be the flat jacket to take all that stuff so that you as
[42:37]the creator can just go make your show. You know, we have a mutual friend who actually Bill gave
[42:43]them their first job. Phil Lord, who is this incredible director, writer, Phil and Chris, they did
[42:48]Project Hill, Mary, 21 Johnson, they're brilliant guys. And Phil always will tell me the thing,
[42:57]he's like a movie or TV show, it's like a four-year-old. It's like always trying to destroy itself.
[43:04]It's always trying to be bad, it's not. And you have to constantly be like, nope, don't go over there,
[43:10]no, no, no, no, put that thing down. And so working with the reason so many young writers come
[43:15]and work with Bill and people like me work with Bill over and over and over again is because
[43:20]he will be there to make it a safe environment for you to do the work that you want to do. And I
[43:25]think as you get further in your career, I think that's the coolest thing you can do for younger
[43:32]writers is to help them make the stuff that they want to make. He does the same thing, by the way.
[43:38]I met that young writer who was just, you know, I met this young writer on his show recently,
[43:43]and I met her on a second girls. It was on Abbott that I think became a writer because she was
[43:49]someone on Sunny's school teacher. Yeah, Keanu. So it's always trying to find new voices. And
[43:55]it's hard right now, it's not a lot of people making stuff out there. So we both kind of believe
[44:00]in mentoring and helping out, you know, the kind of the next generation. Yeah. He's got a different
[44:08]blast. Yeah, no, no. Sure, sure, sure. Yeah. So your mom died at Leonard's Hospital.
[44:17]Anything else before we run away and we all eat dinner? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We want to
[44:23]like last question. We'll hit it. What's the last great book you're eating or what do you
[44:28]are right now? We're a bookstore or a recommendation. I just read this book called Angel Down,
[44:34]written by Daniel Krause. That is incredible. It's about this. It's like World War One,
[44:41]this group of, it's towards the end of the war. This small group of guys in the in the army
[44:49]hear this like scream out on the battlefield. This like wailing that keeps going on in the battlefield
[44:55]and they're like commanding officers, like go out there and just put it down. Like
[45:00]kill whoever that is, they don't have to be in misery anymore.
[45:03]And these four guys who kind of hate each other,
[45:05]go out there in the middle of the battlefield
[45:08]and find this woman who's there screaming
[45:11]and who they believe to be an angel.
[45:14]And I don't usually like books
[45:16]with a lot of like magical realism in it.
[45:18]It is an incredibly powerful book.
[45:21]It is so propulsive.
[45:24]I absolutely devoured it.
[45:26]This is a guy who wrote whale fall.
[45:29]I really, this book story made me think of it.
[45:33]Richard Russo's, he said daughter runs one of the last
[45:37]kind of independent bookstores up in Maine
[45:39]where he's in the town that he's from.
[45:43]And he wrote a book called Nobody's Fool
[45:44]that was amazing.
[45:45]He made a movie out of it with Paul Newman.
[45:47]He wrote a sequel to it, which kind of went
[45:50]under everybody's radar called Everybody's Fool.
[45:54]And just to revisit those characters in that world again,
[45:57]I found it simultaneously nostalgic
[46:00]and just an awesome read.
[46:01]I just finished it a couple of weeks ago.
[46:02]It's really good.
[46:03]Mr. and Strayman.
[46:04]What's that?
[46:05]Strayman and Rooster.
[46:06]Rooster is, here's how, by the way,
[46:08]when I tell you that we don't make up TV shows
[46:10]and he does, you know, Abedom entry is the teachers,
[46:14]is in Rooster, Steve Carell is playing Carl Heisman.
[46:18]So Carl and Steve both know that.
[46:21]I got to know Carl as a buddy doing bad monkey
[46:24]and he is unassuming and thinks that all these colleges
[46:28]are over his head and doesn't consider himself
[46:30]the literary force that he is.
[46:32]And so I said, you cool if I make a TV show about you?
[46:35]He said, who's playing me?
[46:37]I said, Steve Carell.
[46:38]He's like, I'm in.
[46:38]But yes, it's without a doubt, cribbing off of,
[46:41]I got to know Richard a little bit, you know, too.
[46:44]And that's his world, too.
[46:45]Because he taught up at a, how do you say,
[46:46]Bowdoin or Bowdoin, Bowdoin?
[46:47]Bowdoin, yeah.
[46:48]Okay.
[46:49]Thank you guys so much.
[46:50]We'll sign stuff if you want.
[46:52]That was fun.
[46:54]Yeah, of course it's fun, dude.
[46:56]Touch it.