Once We Had a Point | Episode 7

I found myself in a project recently and like the director was telling me to do it this way. And then one of the lead actors was telling me to do it another way. And I was like, sure, whatever y'all want. And I just did it the way that they told me to do it. And I honestly didn't care. And it was a moment for me. Like, I was like, when did I stop caring? When you became old, Alan, you just became an old man.

Is that it? Where you just don't care? Where this guy's telling me that I didn't come in and go, no, I have a process and I have a thing and I need to stand up. Yeah, I think the island of yesteryear would have been lit on fire at that moment and go, what? Yeah, I can't do that shit anymore. Let me tell you something, mister. I am trained. I went to Juilliard. You'd be all that. So glad I stopped talking like that, because that really limited me. once we were spacemen i tend to play weird people

Usually aliens and robots and things that don't have romance. I once didn't get a job where they were looking for a Nathan Fillion type. Once we were spacemen. Once we were spacemen. All right. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of We Once Hell Come On. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to... We once were spacemen, but now we are not spacemen. We are on Earth. We were spacemen because we are in space and we were men. It's Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk, the former spacemen.

Ah, that sounds... Former spacemen sounds so much worse. We once were spacemen. Respect it. Hey, Nathan, how you doing, buddy? Great. Great, that sounds... Can you elaborate, sir? Yeah, just kind of, that was real short, short and sweet. It makes me think that less than great. If your great doesn't say great, it doesn't have the emotion in it, then it feels like, I don't know, like you're lying. You're lying to me.

You're covering something up. I've actually been thinking lately about when people ask you, how you doing and how's things going? I go off about how great I'm doing. I'm thinking lately about tempering that a little bit. Give me an example. Let me ask you. Let me see. Hey, Nathan, how you doing? My God. You know, people say they're living the dream. I am literally living the dream. It's one thing to look back on your life and say, I was in the perfect position, but I am presently now.

In the perfect position. For the last two years, I've been in the biggest movie of the year. Deadpool Wolverine, Superman. huge, huge movies. There's my name up there in lights. I got buddies who are incredibly successful who call me up and say, hey, can you do me a favor? Like, I'm doing them a favor. I've got this boss at the most incredible job I've ever had. Firefly was the bar I sit.

everything too. And now it's the rookie. It is the best job I've ever had. And my boss says, we'll let you out so you can go do these other projects. There's not one asshole in the whole lot. I... Am the biggest asshole there. Are you saying this to like a barista? I feel like that might be, that is a lot. I want to say you're right. She shouldn't have asked. I said, did you want?

Whole milk or oat milk. Look, I think that is a lot. That is a lot. It's great to hear. Yeah. As your friend, that's fantastic. But that's a lot. That is a lot. You can just say, I'm great. You're right. That's what you did. And I called you on it. That's exactly what you said. You're right. I never hear that. Not enough, anyway. The temperature in town. Some people are saying, it's getting better, but...

Talking to a lot of guys who like, I live in Texas. Like I used to be an actor here in town, but it just dried up too much. So I go to Texas and I come back when I have an opportunity to work on something. Oh, I see. The temperature in Los Angeles, you mean? Yeah. I'm leaving. I mean, that's how bad it's gotten. They drove Alan Tudyk out. This is no longer a Tudyk town. You were always a New York guy, though. I talked about it a lot. I liked it a lot. And now you're a Vancouver guy.

Yeah. Now I talk about that a lot. Listen, if your experiences were slightly different, like if you had a really fun, amazing show that you were having a great time on, and it was based in Los Angeles, and you were living here and working here. Right. You'd feel differently. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Probably. Yes. You're right. We should be saving this for the show. We're recording it right now. We are recording. Oh, we are?

Yep. We have been recording ever since I said, we once were spacemen, and now we are not. We are Earthmen. But we are spacemen, and we are here right now. Alan? Yeah. Do you believe in aliens? Well, yeah, of course. Absolutely do. I definitely think our perspective of the universe and of consciousness and energy, we know so little.

We don't even know what we know. Like there's people who are the smartest of our species here on the planet that had no things and say things and tell us things. And we go, maybe. And we walk away and don't even accept. that is real. Like there's stuff that we know that we don't know, but imagine the stuff we don't know that we really don't know. It's so much. The Kruger-Dunning effect, if you've heard of this, where

If you don't know very much, you think you're a pretty smart guy. And the more you learn, the more you start to understand the scope of how much you don't know. Yes. And that's actually the journey to true. intelligence was kruger the smart one and dunning the stupid one or was it the other way around it was like kruger's like don't you get it you don't know anything

I think it was the two guys who came up with this concept, but it was born of a fella who went in and robbed a bank. Really? And he was caught on camera, and they arrested him almost immediately. And he said, I don't get it. I used the lemon juice. He rubbed lemon juice on his face before he robbed the bank, thinking it would render him invisible to the cameras. Wow.

Wow. Because if you write in lemon juice on a piece of paper and then you toast it, you'll see the lemon juice later. It's like an invisible ink. You're kidding me. Somehow, no. In his brain, these two guys were looking at this going, how can anyone be that stupid? And think... But I outsmarted the system. Wow. So they came up with this, the Kruger Dunning effect. Also known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. Which if you have not done a deep dive on this.

Please do, because it will help you in life deal with, and they're out there, people who may be not so smart. Yeah, I know. I know. I mean, they're all beautiful lots of consciousness on this planet, and I love them. But yeah, there's people who... whose their scope of their understanding of the world and their vision is limited.

So aliens, yes. Yes. Aliens, absolutely. Yes. Plus the guy who did a resident alien, Christopher Sheridan, who was our showrunner. And I say ours because you were on it. You played 42. But Chris Sheridan on his honeymoon, he saw. Space alien craft, alien spacecraft, a triangle shaped massive ship that made zero sound. It was on the horizon. He was on the beach with his new wife. They said, look at that weird light out there. And he said, in a.

instant. It was above them. It was a triangle shape. It shined a light on them and they were speechless. And then it shot off with no sound and was gone and no one was around. And they went, it ruined their honeymoon. Because they were just like beside themselves all the time. Like what? You can't process that. What does this mean now? What now? Here's something. I was visiting at home. I was visiting Edmonton.

It was a summer. It was beautiful. I'm having drinks with my family on the back deck, and I'm looking up into the sky, and we're having a fire. It was a beautiful night. And I look up into the sky, and I'm just thinking, wow, there's so many stars.

So many stars out. I don't see this many stars in Los Angeles. I was just thinking that. And in a triangle shape, there were three lights that looked like three stars. They were really high up there. No differentiating them from other stars. But it looked as though it was tumbling.

this thing in no rhythmical fashion, but just kind of tumbling over, tumbling over, tumbling over. And I was speechless for a moment. It had to be very high up. It was smallish, you know? And I didn't know what to say. And I heard my mother say, did anyone see that? I said, describe to me what you saw. She described exactly what I saw. And I'm just, it blew my mind entirely. And I hadn't discussed it with her in ages. And I, like, eight years later, I said, do you remember what we saw?

up in the sky. Do you remember that Titan? She goes, I don't remember what you're talking about. I went, oh my God. They got to her. She's a pod person. Either the deep state government cover-up. got to her or the aliens themselves. You never know. I have gone on some deep dives about pre-civilization civilizations. The idea that...

We have this concept that when man began and when civilization started and how long we've been here, but there are these anomalies that appear throughout our history that don't jive with the story we've concocted. Right. We're about 5,000 years old. With the exception of this, we found this is 12,000 years old. And clearly some people were doing some stuff here. Right. Yes. Yes. And it was advanced. Yes. That stuff's all over.

That stuff, I've gone some deep dives on that stuff. And I'm thinking, well, what if? What if? And the stuff they found under the pyramids of Giza now? Have you heard about this? That's one that I go, was that real? It happened, and then it just disappears. How are people not talking about this? Exactly, every day. I mean, because there's other shit to talk about, but yeah. Clearly, this is a big deal. Yes.

We found massive structures going two kilometers down under the pyramids of Giza. Yes. That doesn't interest anybody? Nobody's going, hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, we got to look into this. I found a crawl space in an apartment that I rented once. Same thing. I talked about it for months. Same thing. No aliens built it. There's nothing in it, but just, you know, roaches. So I have a theory. Here's my theory. We build these drones too.

fly off and investigate stuff. We put drones down into the ocean now and they're flying around and doing their thing down there. We talk about these little green men, these little gray men with big heads. I'm guessing to gather data with these big, big eyes. Tiny little mouths and noses and no genitals because they're only there to gather data. If you're looking at what their body is made for. What if some ancient civilization that was incredibly advanced, this was their form of drone?

And they're still out there somewhere. I don't know if it's out in space. I don't know if it's under the ocean. I don't know if it's underground somewhere. Sending out probes and they end up on Alan's camping trip. Yeah. I think about that stuff, Alan.

Here's what I think also. A lot of people that I talk to because I, you know, I was an alien, so people bring up aliens with me a lot. Aliens, they want the aliens to come. They're looking forward to their intervention in our lives. They're hoping for some form of savior species to come down.

welcome them. Bring it on. Save us. You know, take me with you. And I don't think that's not so good. Historically, an advanced civilization meeting a not so advanced civilization. Yes. Does not end up well for the not so advanced civilization. Exactly. Exactly. Marina Baccarin was in V. They came to eat us. I was in V. What? That's right. I just remembered that as you were saying it. I remembered that.

You were in V. You were a lizard person. I was a lizard person in the first episode. I remember being a kid in the 80s watching that show and just going nuts. Yep. That was just, it was. They ate like a guinea pig or something. Yeah, they're swallowing stuff and, yeah, that was groundbreaking stuff. We were 12 years old. That's so fun that you were in that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, the problem was when we were shooting the pilot, and I had a great time shooting it, I had fun.

We shot that in Vancouver. I remember going out to the theater and seeing District 9. Oh, I love that movie. And I went, oh, this is what we should be doing. Oh, this is a soap opera. We're making a soap opera.

And then I was so not into it after that. Well, that's too bad. V was not. V was a soap opera. District 9 was a great movie. Like, if you want to do an alien invasion or an alien, that's a way to tell a story. That was cool. I want to just add that. I knew you were in that. I forgot, clearly. Yes. But in my defense, you've done so much, you forget what you were in. I do. That is true.

I called you one time and I said, you're in this new thing. It's something, something you never told me about. You go, oh yeah, I forgot I was in that. Yeah. I don't record memories anymore. I think I'm going to do less acting. What are you going to do with the time? I don't know, right?

I'm going to go on vacation a lot. I'll see how long it lasts. I'm lucky enough that I do a lot of voiceovers and I can get a hit from voiceover and improv-ing in a voiceover setting. And so I get the acting itch scratched. I found myself in a project recently and like the director was telling me to do it this way. And then one of the lead actors was telling me to do it another way. And I was like, sure, whatever y'all want.

And I just did it the way that they told me to do it. And I honestly didn't care. And it was a moment for me. Like, I was like, when did I stop caring? When you became old, Alan, you just became an old man. Is that it? Where you just don't care? Where this guy's telling me that I didn't come in and go, no, I have a process and I have a thing and I need to stand up for my island of yesteryear.

have been lit on fire at that moment and go, what? Yeah, I can't do that. Let me tell you something, mister. I am trained. I went to Drillard. You'd be all that. So glad I stopped talking like that because that really limited me. Yeah, I have kind of like... Passive path of least resistance. Like, does it matter? I don't know. Your idea is just as good as mine. So is yours. Let's just do them both. Let's just do it. So that sounds almost like you.

gained patience? Or have you gained? I feel like as I grow older, maybe I kind of, for something, I've gained patience. For some things, I'm just an old man about it. It's like, nah, man, I'm too old to change. Yeah. You gain patience getting older, I hope. That's the hope, that you don't go the other direction. You have a sense of perspective on things that you didn't have.

And I definitely have perspective where I can go, yeah, when you're young and you're acting, every job that you get, and it does mean a lot more, when every job you get, it matters. Like you could, this job could make or break your career. And that's how you sort of get stuck in your head. Certainly when you're building something, you're going to have a different approach. Right. When I was doing Death at a Funeral, you came to visit.

You and the lads. And then we went to Amsterdam. It was the last days of death at a funeral. Went to Amsterdam, then came back to London and did a con. That's right. That was a crazy time. I was so spent. We were young, though. You spent and you keep going. That's just how that's youth. But what I did, this is how this is what I did. I don't know if I can tell this story. I don't know if I should tell this story. I'll tell this story. I was young. Listen, I was young.

And I don't recommend this. But when I went to Amsterdam, I took some mushrooms because they're legal there. And it was like, well, they're legal, so they must be OK. OK, so I did it. But I had just finished doing this movie, Death at a Funeral, where I had played somebody who was high on a mixture of acid, ketamine, speed. He'd been dosed. I'd been dosed. And so I had just spent all this time acting that.

And when I went to Amsterdam after and did some mushrooms, which have a similar effect as what I had just been portraying, instead of having a wee fun, good time, my brain went. You ruined the movie. You did it all wrong. This is how you should have done it. And I didn't realize. And so I remember I left that night. I'm like, I'm going back to the hotel. I went back to the hotel and went to sleep next time. I'm like, I should be fine. Now I've had more sleep, took mushrooms again. Same thing.

I went back to the hotel. I don't think mushrooms agree with you, Alan. Well, that's the last time I took them. Here's something I remember from that trip. I remember we indulged in the mushrooms as one. It was legal there. It's fine. It's lovely. It's a rite of passage. I remember...

We were having a beer at a little street side bar. We were packing up and getting ready to go. And I was just, I had just crossed the street. You're laughing because you know what I'm talking about, right? I just crossed the street and a young couple came up to me. Oh my God.

I can't believe we're meeting you. And blah, blah, blah. They were excited to meet you. And I said, oh, this is lovely. Can we take a picture with you? I said, absolutely. We took a little photo. And then they walked off and I thought, I hope I was coherent during that interaction. And I wonder how...

how do I look in that photo that they just took of me? So I had a little digital camera. Before phones were a thing, taking pictures, I had a digital camera when memory was a dollar a megabyte. If you had a... 18 megabyte card. I can't remember the megabytes they came in, but you get 18 photos that cost $18. Yeah. But that was the thing. It was a dollar a megabyte for memory, and I took a photo of myself with that camera to say, how high do I look at this moment?

out of it and in the photo over my shoulder was you yeah who i look i look pretty pretty okay i was clearly smiling with wide eyes And wide pupils. And my pupils, yeah, also very dilated. But you were over my shoulder, clearly having the moment you just finished describing. My eyes are half closed. I look like I'm in pain. I'm in the middle of a swallow. So my lips are together in a squinchy way. It was just, that's a terrible shot.

I got to find that. I'm fine. Please, please, please do. Yes. Go ahead. You know, you're going to say, I think we need to get back to the fact that you're having a great summer and a great time and you're. And the rookie is, it's like you're in an, you blow me away, man. Eight years on Castle. That's so long. I've never done anything that long. I don't know that I could do anything that long, especially because you were doing.

back when TV was 20-something episodes, what was it, 20, usually 22, and then... 22, but we did a lot of episodes of 24. Yeah, they did a lot of seasons of 24. They'd be like, yeah, keep working, guys. Don't go vacation. You don't need it. You... went from being around all the time to being gone because you were working and you'd have like around like a month, a month and a half off, and then you're back into it again for eight solid years.

And they weren't short days. They were all long. You'd move into the weekend. When you were shooting, you'd be working what we call fratter days because it would go Friday late, late, late, late, late into Saturday. You did that for eight years. And then you took off, what, two years? Yeah. Two years. And now you're on your eighth year of leading another show. People don't get this, have this in their careers. You've had two and.

You seem, you're in great shape. You're enjoying yourself. I'll tell you that a television program is a job. It's a business. And the way you run a business is very important as to the health of the business and the people who work for you.

I can tell you that now having had the experience of both those programs, that there's a right way to run a business and there's a not so right way to run a business. And the way that that first one was, Castle was a very difficult experience. It was a very difficult, it was. I had no life outside of Castle.

difficult just getting the job done sometimes. It was tough. But here I am on The Rookie and I am not needed there every moment of every day. It's a very humane schedule. They run a tight ship over there. It is a happy community. Cast is so incredibly talented. And that show will ride firmly on the shoulders of any one cast member at any time. Any one of those cast members can carry that show.

Wow. That's quite a statement. That's great. It really is. And to know it and just to look around and just watch people problem solve. Like I've worked with actors who, you know, they're working through a scene. They go, can't be done. There's a chair here. It can't be done. It can't be done. It's all really with your immense talent and all your training and all your experience, a chair is the end of it. Yeah. Whereas...

I watch these folks, these incredible folks on this show. I watch how concerned they are about doing a great job, about safeguarding their character, about safeguarding the jobs that their characters have. They want to be respectful to the policing of it. Their concern for quality and their ability to, I marvel at them. I marvel at them. And they get along so well. My God, they all get along so well.

How cool. I think we missed an opportunity there when you said that they police themselves so well. It should be there should be like a pun alarm that goes off there. Punny or something like that. that's a little like a siren there you go and then do you want to be respectful to the policing of it It sounds awful. It is an alarm. Like you'd want to turn that off. Stop that sound now. I do like puns. You do? Okay, I've been introducing this concept lately of master punchlines.

The classic is, you know, here's something that could be a sexual innuendo. That's what she said. It works for a great many things. So the master punchline there would be, that's what she said. That's correct. Okay. So. different punchlines that you have that you can use and pull out at any time. One that I really enjoy is, how dare you? Right, you can use it a lot.

One I just learned recently. Can I try an example just so that people can hear how that might be a punchline? I would say something to you like, man, you look great. How dare you? Is that, would that be it? Well, I don't know if, I don't know if I would. Where would you say that one? Actually, try this here. I have a different master punchline for that. Okay. Tell me again. Yo, man, you look great. Why do you sound surprised?

Master punchline. Master punchline. And can we get a punch sound on that? There we go. And when you start sharing these with people, they start going, oh, my dad always says this. When he does something mundane, he says, little trick I learned in the army. Oh, so like, ah, right? Yeah. So I think you have a bunch of these. You've got to pull this door really shut or it won't lock. Little trick I learned in the Army.

Exactly. That kind of thing. Exactly. And that's a master punchline. You just got punched. I don't know that I have any of those. That could actually work for the puns as well. Oh, you got punched. It's better than that because that is just annoying. I don't like, and I'm the one who keeps doing it.

Okay. Those are some good master punchlines. I'm going to now try to think of some in my own life. I don't know that I have them. I'm going to keep an eye out now. I'm sure there must be one or two that I abuse. Yes, my, instead of using that's what she said, you can use it synonymously with a that's what she said line. I like to say, leave it. Yes. Which, so again, and I mean to bring this right back to, leave it, sorry. You've been punched.

To bring that back to Amsterdam, leave it. You and I, this is the story I thought you were going to tell, not the picture story. We were in that bar or in a coffee house and there was a bloke in there. I remember this. And he was talking, he was going on and on and on about this and that and this and that. He was at the next table, but he was very interested in talking to us. Yeah. You know what I mean? Don't have to tell you. Yeah.

Don't you know what I mean? He kept always saying, you know what I mean? Don't have to tell you. Oh, Bob's your uncle. Bob's your uncle. Oh, don't have to tell you. That was his A. That was his little, it was his tag for near everything he said. Yeah, his light light. This city was built on concentric circles. You know what I mean? I don't have to tell you. This block was made 800 years ago, but you go another block that was made.

700 years ago. Concentric circles. You know what I mean? Don't have to tell you. Yeah. That weekend, it just kept getting longer and longer. You know what I mean? Don't have to tell you. Up your jacksie. Up your jacksie. Bums your uncle. That was the final. But I think I still have it in my phone. If I do some sort of a keyboard shortcut, it'll add. I mean, don't have to tell you.

So leave it, I guess wasn't in it. I just put it in it, but leave it. Leave it. Leave it. That is a good one. Right. So what would be something that you would say before leave it? Well, if someone says a sexual innuendo and then realizes it's a sexual innuendo, you come in with, leave it. So I'd say, it's a bit nippy this morning. Leave it. You've just been punched.

Boy, it was a long, hard one. Leave it. It's yours now. You can take that. Yeah, I'll use that. I think I already do, actually. I've got to tell you. Can we talk about something? This is just you and me just shooting the breeze clearly, but there's microphones gone. Thanks everybody for being here for this. Can we talk about handshakes? Handshakes. Yes. Handshakes. Like greetings. Handshakes.

This is I, in my, and you, in our industry, we meet a lot of people. Right. We shake a lot of hands. Yep. I would consider myself a handshake professional. Really? Oh, yes. Oh, wow. Because you've done so much, you should get paid for it. Oh, you probably have been paid for it. Let's not professional. How about expert? I'm a handshake expert. Got it. Got it. Okay. The purpose of a handshake.

The original thing was to show you that I'm not holding anything. I have no weapons. We can clasp hands. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm here. You're safe. That's the whole idea. Let me see your hands. Let me see your hands. Let's see those hands. All right. I'm not hiding anything that's going to hurt you. And we've now pushed that into a greeting. Hey, this is how we say, hey, nice to meet you.

The idea that it's a first impression is not lost on people, but I think it's maybe, this might be a Kruger-Dunning effect here, where someone says, oh, well, a firm handshake means... Is good. It's a good thing. Right. Right. But the fact is, people go a little too far with that. Oh, if a firm handshake is good, then a really hard handshake is even better. And that's not the case. Especially, gentlemen, even ladies. If you are out there.

And you work with your hands. If you are a bodybuilder or you would do a lot of work, if you're a carpenter, if you're working with large animals and you just, you work with your hands a lot and you have strong hands. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You have a responsibility. Because I'm going to tell you right now, you are walking around shaking people's hands too hard. And you think this is good. And it's not. Everybody hates you.

Nobody likes shaking hands with you. And you are hurting people left and right. So if what you're trying to say is, if you come to me and give me your hand, trusting that I will take care of you. I will betray that trust and I will hurt you. That is what's going on in the real world. There's some sadomasochists who really like being, you know, hurt.

So those people probably not on the list. If you're going out there gambling that these people probably like it when I hurt them, you're on the wrong track. Oh. The fact is, you want to tell people, hey.

I'm not here to hurt you. And you're doing the other thing. And sometimes people shortchange it. They'll go to grab your hand and they just grab you by the fingertips. You know, they kind of shortchange it. And I'll stop somebody. I go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. First of all, I didn't know this was a contest.

about the super squeeze. And if you're going to super squeeze me, you can't shortchange me like that and grab my fingertips. What is going on with your handshakes? These handshakes are... Nobody does this to you? Is it me? Is it me? People see me and they go, I'm going to have to squeeze this fucker's hand. You're more of a imposing figure. Maybe you're taller, you're broader. Maybe they're like, I got to step up. He's a captain. They don't want to hurt little Wash.

I'm going to tell you a little secret. I have the second softest hands in Hollywood. Hollywood secrets. Who's the softest? Andy Samberg. It's all that lotion. Why does he use so much lotion? I couldn't tell you about his moisturizing habits. When did you meet Andy Samberg? I...

I worked with him ages ago when he did the opening. He did the Emmys, and I popped in for a little cameo in his opening number. This is like a year ago, Raymond. Just famous stuff. This is just famous, you know. Recently, I was in a restaurant.

And I looked up and I was standing in the aisle of a kind of a busy kind of bar restaurant situation. I was talking to some people at the table. Some people were trying to get out. And as I move out of the way to get up, I look up and I go, oh, these are the gentlemen from Lonely Island.

And I'm a big fan. I go, wow, that's lovely. I'm not going to bother them. They're just leaving. It's crowded here. But then I lock eyes with Andy Samberg. And I go, hey. And he goes, oh, hey. And it's nice to see you. I give a little handshake. And I turn around, and I realize.

oh my God. And I turned back and he's turning back at the same time. And we both kind of say, you have the softest hands. And he says, I always say, I've never done a day of work in my life. And I said, that's what I always say. About my hands, but I'm telling you, that guy's got some soft, creamy, soft hands. I don't know why I'm aroused, yet that seems... Is it sexual? What? There's so much softness and it feels so good. You said creamy. They're like milk. They're like a...

Like a heavy cream. Now you're milking him. I can't help but... Leave it. You've been... You've... You've been creamed. You've been creamed all over. Yeah. Oh, wow. Well, that's good to know. One day, I'm going to, when I meet him one day, I'm going to test that out. I don't have soft hands. Back to the handshake.

Yes, the handshake. Here's the grip you should be going for. It is not as hard as you can, first of all. It is not, I'm going to do harder than this guy does. This is not a contest. You've lost the program if you're in the handshake to say,

I'm going to do it harder than him. You're on another planet here. The handshake is for telling people that they're safe with you. That is what it is for. If you do anything else, it's a betrayal of the social contract, that we're all here. We're all in this together.

Okay, if you betray a social contract, what happens? What do you open yourself up to? First of all, nothing. That's the shitter of it. When you go for a nice hike up in the hills and you're like, oh, this is such a beautiful day and someone's cranking music on their iPhone. Right.

That's the betrayal of the social contract. No one came up here to listen to your shit music on your crappy little iPhone speaker. Get some headphones. I have been betrayed. You want to listen to music, get some headphones, you son of a bitch. Betrayal. Sorcery. Betrayal. Yes, go on. The grip you're looking for is imagine you're holding an egg on the wildest roller coaster you've ever been on.

Oh, it's against sexual. You don't want the egg to break. You can't let it go. No. But you don't want it to break. Oh. That's a handshake grip right there. Wow, that's good. That's good. One to grow. Wow, dude, that is a good description. And I think going forward, I'm going to be doing that. I've been shaking lots of hands.

The one that I don't like is when you go to shake a hand and they start to close too soon. Yeah, they shortchange you. They grab your fingers. But they don't grip or squeeze anything. They're just like, you know, they go with it and they don't.

They give you the proper squeeze amount, but still you didn't get a good latch. I will always go, hold on, hold on. Let's do it right. And then we do it. And so then we have a good handshake. That's the only one I have. So, Nathan, let's talk about some getting to know you's. I know you and you know me. Let's get to know you better.

So, Nathan, what is something about you that I don't know? Alan, here's something. I've been thinking about it since the last time we chatted. You remember when telephones had a cord? Yeah. So this is something I developed when I was a younger man, and I would be on the kitchen phone, and we had one of those. I remember my dad got it, and he was, this is awesome. We can walk almost all the way around into the living room with this cord. It was so long.

Every once in a while, you'd go out to it and unspin it to make sure it wasn't all tangled up. I pace when I'm on the phone. When I'm talking on the phone, I will pace around. And I develop this weird OCD tick. as a child, that I do to this day. Oh. And it's the only time I do it is when I'm on the phone. I will pace and I'll be looking down at my feet and in my imaginations, every step I take.

I take an outline of my foot, of the floor material with me. It sticks to the bottom of my foot, and I take it with me, so there's a shape of a foot left behind, and a cutout.

You understand? And so that every step I take in my imagining gets taller and taller every step I go up. So I have to step evenly on different floor surfaces, be it linoleum, carpet, or... hardwood floors or tile what even to the point where if it's a hardwood my preference is to be walking either against the grain or with the grain but never kind of angular 45 this is

Mental. It's just very different. I mean, yeah, this says so much. You never knew this about me. I never knew this. I absolutely never knew this about you. And every time we've been on the phone together? I've been doing it. Wait a second. Okay. Now you also say that you started this when you were a kid, when you were, you were first checking the phone. So this began when you were on the phone going, let's build a fort and a tree.

Or something like that with somebody, like the earliest phone calls you ever had with people. Talking to grandma. Talking to grandma. You built a fort with your grandma? She was the queen of forts. Wow. Wow. Cool. That's a cool grandma. And so you, you would be having these conversations, whether you're probably prank calling people on the phone and you're walking and are you able to change your perception kind of, do you imagine a.

Almost like you're taller, or it just becomes part of you. Yeah, in your head, you're wearing like platform shoes that get higher and higher with every step. Very cool, man. I don't know how cool it is. No, I like it. I like it. I think that the people out there who are listening still haven't gone.

I have things to do. This episode, we're just going to fast forward this real quick. Fast forward. Do they get to anything important? I keep waiting for them to come to a point. This is the point, people. Nathan does this.

This is, this is really, and there's going to be people out there who have OCD and who have things like this neurodivergent tendencies, and they're going to be like, I do it too, or I do something very similar. So you just. I think the name of this episode should be, this one has no point. There you go. Yes. Here's something you don't know about me. I buy Q-tips with wood in them. I don't like using Q-tips that don't have a wood stick. That is the main thing.

So if you ever come over to my house and get a Q-tip, it's always going to be a wood one. Because when we were kids, Q-tips were made of wood. That's how old we are. Oh, so this is about habit and not about concern from the environment. No, it's probably worse for the environment. How many trees are they chopping down for these Q-tips? But I like a good wood Q-tip. It's how it used to be and it's the way it should be, dang it. That's the way I like them.

You got to have wood in there. That way you get in there and stick on it. How else can you grip it? How else can you grip it? You got all that slop up in your head. You just got to go in your head holes and switch it around. So I do that. Also, this is a twofer. I realized this also. Butterflies are my favorite trans species. The transformative start as one. End is another. Yeah, I think, well, I think they're just, you know, butterflies are trans. I think that should be a bumper sticker.

Butterflies are trans because they're so beautiful. And I was realizing the other day, as an insect, they are probably the most trans of any insect. But then I also am a big fan of the clownfish. And the clownfish all start out as males. And then the biggest male then is like, I'm the biggest one around here. Anybody got a problem with that? And they go, no, no, you're the biggest. He goes, fine, I'm turning into a female. And then female. And then they all have sex with their buddy. Jim.

So clowning around with Jim. That's my second favorite trans animal or species. My third human. I like trans people, but butterflies are super magical and clownfish are just a little bonkers. And then humans make more. Do you have a favorite?

Butterfly, like when you think of this transformation, do you say, and this particular one is in your mind? I guess it's the monarch. It's the classic orange and black. That's something that you would see in Southern California. That's something you'd see. I'm going to change your mind on this. I'm going to take you to Costa Rica.

And you're going to see the blue morpho. And you're going to go, oh, what? Oh, that's a thing? Yeah. And you're going to change. And in your mind forever, it will be the blue morpho is your favorite. Wow. The blue morpho. It sounds... That's really cool. It sounds like a super villain. Or maybe a superhero. A heist is about to happen. Blue Morpho. Yeah. We're going to take the Blue Morpho. Oh, it's a gem. The Blue Morpho.

It's a flawless blue diamond. Yes, they found it in Ghana. Some say it carries a curse. Yes. Let's ride it up. Let's ride it up. Well. This has been a wonderful, pleasant experience as always. Yes. Hopefully they can sift through this and find something for others to, you know, maybe this is something you guys listen to where you're like, I just need more. And this is just some more, you know, I don't know that it's.

good but it's more sometimes it's that it's that extra 20 you just supersized it you just it's the same french fries it's just more of them But you can't be French fries, man. Come on. Come on. Can we get a fryer sound? French fried. You've been French fried. French fried. All right, brother. I love you, man. Later, buddy. Until next time, we have been Spaceman. Hello, and thank you for listening. This is Nathan Fillion.

Now is the part where I read aloud the credits for our show in my best telephone voice. So put on some headphones, lay back and relax because this is our time. If you haven't yet. You can always head over to our Patreon to get bonus content, longer episodes, and a chance to get your hands on some incredible crap. If you loved the show, please leave us a review, and feel free to tell all your friends. If you didn't love the show...

Now is the time for quiet contemplation. Once We Were Spacemen is a Collision 33 production. Some of the names I will mention are my favorite people in the world. And some of them have room for improvement. You know who you are. If you hear your name being read, please stand up. This show is produced by Siobhan Homan, Michelle Chapman, and Josh Lebby of Collision 33. We are edited, mixed, and produced by Resonate Recordings.

with special thanks to Courtney Blomquist and Adam Townsill. Our theme music is done by Carlos Sosa and Joshua Moore. Artwork by the incredible and incomparable Louis Jensen. But I'm going to tell you right now, I think he faked his accent. until next time do you know what i mean don't have to tell you