Armchair Anonymous: Las Vegas

4:02Dax Shepard:And I've been enjoying it.

4:04Monica Padman:Yeah, well, of course. I didn't realize.

4:06Dax Shepard:I'm on Sudafed. And it's nice.

4:10Monica Padman:But you already realized that, Monica. I have to tell you. I just haven't done it in a while. Yeah, you've had a layoff. But you've always enjoyed the tea. I relapsed. Yeah, yeah. Okay, great. So we have a little cocaine. Not to get bogged down in the drugs, but of course I'm going to. Did the boys score the Coke at the bar they were drinking at or had they brought it with them?

4:25Dax Shepard:They brought it from somebody we know and trust here. Sure, sure.

4:28Monica Padman:Trusted source. Okay.

4:29Dax Shepard:Yes. So that's the night we're having a good time. I don't remember all of the details, but I'm sure I was not babying my toe the way I should have been if I wanted it to get better. I felt invincible. It was great.

4:39Monica Padman:Now, another pervy question. The drugs was part one. Is there any talk about anyone having sex out on that balcony overlooking the fountain?

4:46Dax Shepard:There was no talk about it.

4:47Monica Padman:Okay. You're smiling. Oh, wow, wow, wow, wow. Okay, I might have jumped to that. Okay. Okay. So, okay, that's night one.

4:53Dax Shepard:We wake up the next morning and it's not better. It's probably worse. You know, I'm in no shape to be walking around. So that day is my birthday. And we decided to call the front desk and they sent up a medic.

5:04Monica Padman:Oh, okay.

5:05Dax Shepard:And he came up and he wrapped my toe for me and gave me crutches. Was he hot? Oh, nice.

5:09Monica Padman:He had crutches too.

5:10Dax Shepard:I don't remember, honestly. Yeah, strange. I don't even know. I would have never thought to call a medic from the hotel.

5:16Monica Padman:I would have just dealt with it. Thought it was my fault and I deserved it.

5:19Dax Shepard:Yes. It was so embarrassing too. So I quickly realized like there's no way I'm going to be able to get around the strip on crutches. So we decide to rent, you know, those little motorized wheelchairs.

5:28Monica Padman:Little rascals. Yeah.

5:30Dax Shepard:So we rent one of those. I don't look like I need it, first of all, unless you like look at my foot. Right. And it beeps every time you reverse and you're always reversing. You're never not reversing at these things. You know, you're in the bathroom. You got to reverse out of the stall. We had to call handicap accessible taxis. and I had to ride the scooter up in the back, sit there, and then reverse out. It was incredibly embarrassing, but it was what it is. Got me around the strip. We had a great day and we had already planned. So with doing the Coke, we also brought ecstasy.

6:00Monica Padman:Okay, great. Yeah, we'll shift gears for the next night.

6:03Dax Shepard:That night, we're going to roll. We're going to have a good time. So we get back to the hotel. We get in like our cozy clothes. There's a nice big couch in the living room. We're going to all kind of just pile on there, watch music videos for a little while. and at the time you know the song by Justin Bieber called Holy yes yes so the music video is incredibly emotional and sad and why we thought this would be a good idea to put this music video or not skip it or whatever I'm not sure so I should also mention that up until this point I had done ecstasy just a handful of times and each time I'd only done a half a pill at a time so responsible congratulations well not tonight I took the whole pill and basically the last thing I remember is the music video playing.

6:45Dax Shepard:After that, I have two snapshot memories. One of them was I was in like the corner of one of the bedrooms on the ground and I threw up and I proceeded to go right into the throw up. Oh, face down into the throw.

6:59Monica Padman:Yeah.

6:59Dax Shepard:For the listener face plant. Yeah. Not sure what possessed me to do that. And then the other memory I have is at some point I'm looking in the mirror in the bathroom and seeing bruises on my face and like not understanding where they came from. Oh my God. So because I don't remember all of this, I got with Taylor, Eric and Chris the other night to get all the details because basically the rest of the story is like them retelling it to me. When I told Taylor like, oh, I have these snapshot memories. She was like, Brian, those were six hours apart.

7:29Monica Padman:Wow. Hold on one second. I just got to say something. First of all, anyone listening, don't do drugs. Secondly, what I think is hilarious about drugs is it does make you like six years old again. You can't handle your shit. And it's funny because you're an adult. You throw up like a baby does and then you fall in. Then you're bruised up. It's like a time machine back to being incompetent. I like that part.

7:49Dax Shepard:It's not fun for the people around you who aren't on it. And they have to take care of a baby.

7:54Monica Padman:Well, that's why you do it all together. Everyone has to do it. Yeah, yeah, all in. All for one, one for all.

7:59Dax Shepard:We all took it. I guess what happened is the video played. I got hot, as you do, when you're coming up. And one, it was like, let's go out on the balcony. which is why we got this room to specifically like enjoy our trip watching everything pretty quickly upon getting out there i like started rolling around on the ground kicking my feet flailing my arms it's a cement balcony my toe is in no shape to be being kicked onto the ground they couldn't get me to stop so they're like running into the room to get pillows to put under my legs under my feet unsure why i'm doing all this they finally got me to come inside because they're like this can't keep happening.

8:32Dax Shepard:And that is when I started throwing up again on the floor, rolling around. Oh my God. Being like violent, not like trying to hurt anybody. I think other than myself, I was like hitting my head on the wall, hitting my head on the floor. This sounds not fun.

8:46Monica Padman:You're not making a great case for MDMA for Monica, which I keep trying to convince to try to.

8:51Dax Shepard:The only bad time I've had. I promise you that. They were like, okay, we need to get her on the bed. So they pick me up, they put me in the bed. And at this point, their mission was to just physically restrain me. So Chris is holding my legs. Taylor has one arm. Eric has another arm. And I'm fighting. I'm like trying to get away from them. And I must have been going through like some turmoil at the time. Because the only thing they could make out me saying was like, I'm not a good person. And then gibberish. So that took about an hour, hour and a half. I must have calmed down enough that they were like, we got to get out of this room.

9:20Dax Shepard:It smells like throw up in here. It's hot. It's sweaty. I had like cut myself at some point. So there's like blood. and apparently we get outside and I like that snap right off it.

9:30Monica Padman:You just needed to change the venue.

9:31Dax Shepard:That's exactly what Taylor said. She was like, we need to get her out. She needs fresh air. She needs a new scenery situation. Oh my gosh.

9:36Monica Padman:Yep, yep. Let's do a hard reset. It was like me taking you on that walk, Monica.

9:40Dax Shepard:Oh yeah, that did help. Yeah. During the craziness of it all, Chris got really scared and looked at Taylor. He was like, do we need to call 911? Is she overdosing? Yeah, sure. Taylor was like, she's just having a bad come up. That's all this is. Come up for eight hours?

9:55Monica Padman:No, no, it was only an hour and a half in.

9:57Dax Shepard:That's a long time.

9:58Monica Padman:No, that time clicks by when you're... Really quick, this is all really telling. Like, I love what's happening right now. It's all about what your comfort level is with chaos. That's just from your childhood. You're hearing this stuff with good reason, Monica. You're like, this sounds terrible. And I'm like, oh yeah, this is novel and interesting.

10:16Dax Shepard:Yeah, didn't stop me from doing it again in the future. But yeah, so we stayed outside. Where the dog was when this was happening, I have no idea. We got all the clean blankets and pillows we could and took them back out onto the balcony, brought like a speaker out and then just spent like four or five hours all just like kind of cuddled together watching the lights. It was a great time. Wow.

10:37Monica Padman:And I did send pictures.

10:39Dax Shepard:Oh, great. The aftermath.

10:42Monica Padman:Oh, yes. That fourth toe is definitely purple. Although it could have been fatter. Okay. Your legs are much worse for the wear. Oh, my God. It's like you took a ball ping hammer to your. Oh.

10:53Dax Shepard:Oh, my God.

10:56Monica Padman:Oh, yeah. You got a purple eyelid. You really went through it, Marie.

11:02Dax Shepard:Oh, shit.

11:03Monica Padman:Oh, wow. Yeah. Had you guys driven there or flown there?

11:06Dax Shepard:We drove.

11:07Monica Padman:How was the drive home?

11:08Dax Shepard:Not great. I didn't have to go to work. I had all these bruises on my face. How am I going to explain this to my job?

11:14Monica Padman:You guys say you got jumped or you crashed your little rascal, one of the two. Yeah.

11:19Dax Shepard:So that was my story.

11:20Monica Padman:The time you lost your marbles inside of the really nice hotel room. Did we get the vomit cleaned up? Did you guys incur any costs?

11:28Dax Shepard:I'm sure we did. I'm sure we had to pay. I can't imagine if we were cleaning that up on our way out. We just needed to get out of there. These hotel rooms have seen so much.

11:36Monica Padman:They have. When you're walking around barefoot, you got to really consider all the action that's going down in there.

11:42Dax Shepard:You don't want to consider.

11:43Monica Padman:Okay, so no one had sex on that balcony. That was the long and short of it.

11:46Dax Shepard:Not at that trip, no.

11:47Monica Padman:Okay. Not on that trip. Well, that's good.

11:49Dax Shepard:We returned to the hotel one time. Did you request the same room? Same style. Maybe it was a room number.

11:55Monica Padman:Yeah, they didn't want to touch that room. Yeah, exactly. It's like a hundred foot floor.

11:58Dax Shepard:No, yeah, that one should be hazmat.

12:00Monica Padman:Oh, that was great. That was wonderful.

12:03Dax Shepard:If I could just give a little shout out to Taylor. She was actually supposed to be here with me today to say hello. But she went into labor yesterday and had the most beautiful baby girl early this morning. Congratulations, Taylor.

12:17Monica Padman:Yeah, congrats.

12:18Dax Shepard:What's the baby's name? Do you know? Her name's Indigo. Oh, cute. Indigo. I love it.

12:24Monica Padman:What if she said Marie?

12:25Dax Shepard:Shout out. Cute little baby. You got to hold her for a little bit. Sweet.

12:29Monica Padman:Is she the first in the friendship group to have a baby?

12:31Dax Shepard:Yes. Oh, it's the best.

12:33Monica Padman:They hit the lottery because everyone's going to be really, really excited. And then when the fifth person in the group has a kid, you're like, okay, we've been through this a bunch of times. Yeah. Okay. Well, shout out, Taylor.

12:43Dax Shepard:Yes. And thanks for sharing that story. Thank you guys for having me. This was so great. We love listening to you guys. Me and Taylor actually consider ourselves like the Dax and Aaron because we've been friends our whole lives since we were babies.

12:55Monica Padman:By the way, from that story, it sounds very similar to some Dax and Aaron antics.

12:59Dax Shepard:Yeah, we get into some crazy things.

13:02Monica Padman:If you can pull it off, it's good. All right. Well, lovely meeting you.

13:05Dax Shepard:Lovely meeting you as well. Bye bye. Okay, bye. Can I have a tissue, please? Oh, yeah, yeah.

13:11Monica Padman:The transformation's complete. You're me. You're late.

13:14Dax Shepard:I hate it.

13:15Monica Padman:You're late. You're blowing your nose and you love meth.

13:18Dax Shepard:I hate blowing my nose. I feel so vulnerable. Also, this morning, I hit my head so hard right here on a wall that I wasn't ready for.

13:31Monica Padman:You don't know your surroundings. Yeah.

13:32Dax Shepard:And I was like, CTE. Oh, yeah. So I just want to let you know that I have CTE.

13:40Monica Padman:Okay.

13:41Dax Shepard:Oh, my goodness. Hi. Hi.

13:44Monica Padman:Hello, Madison. How are you?

13:46Dax Shepard:I'm good. How are you guys?

13:48Monica Padman:Good. You have an enormous shoe collection I'm seeing. We got 60 to 70 pair of shoes behind us.

13:54Dax Shepard:This is a ding, ding, ding. So I have a new closet. My shoes are displayed. Now you can see them. And Jess was like, oh my God, you have 80 pairs of shoes. And I was like, I roll. You're exaggerating so much. And then he was like, we're going to count. And I had in the 70s.

14:13Monica Padman:Oh my God.

14:15Dax Shepard:I said, I was like, I have 40. Oh, wow. And those things add up. They do. I actually can't take credit for any of the fabulous things in this room. This is actually my sister's office slash closet. And she is quite possibly the most fabulous person I know. Good for her. She's got 100 to 200. She's a wizard when it comes to style, everything. So I'm very grateful for her very fashionable background.

14:41Monica Padman:We thank her on our behalf as well. Madison, where are you?

14:44Dax Shepard:I am in Raleigh, North Carolina. Oh, nice. I love it there.

14:48Monica Padman:I'm hearing so much about Raleigh because I'm going through a lot of the old Sedaris books on tape all over again. And of course, Raleigh comes up quite a bit.

14:56Dax Shepard:It's a quality spot. I just moved back here nine months ago. So happy to be back.

15:01Monica Padman:And is he the pride of Raleigh? Do people know that David Sedaris hails from there?

15:05Dax Shepard:Maybe. I'm not from here originally. I'm a military kid. So I call a million and 10 different places home. But I'm sure some Raleigh locals would love to weigh in on that one.

15:30Monica Padman:Okay, so you have a crazy Vegas story.

15:32Dax Shepard:I do. So to give you a little bit of context, when I was in high school, I was in a nationally recognized high school show choir. So just about the coolest group of kids you could possibly imagine. It was for everybody from third grade to 12th grade. And the closer you got to high school, the more it kind of became a little bit intense. And my sophomore year, I had made it into the elite high school choir group. So it was a big deal. Not that many sophomores get to have that moment.

16:00Monica Padman:And can you tell me what happens when you're in an elite choir? Do you travel around? Is there competitions or do you just perform? What happens?

16:08Dax Shepard:So we gave multiple performances throughout the year. We did a Christmas show. We did a choral production. And then in the spring, we did a Showtime show, which was like kind of anything goes. So we do different Broadway sets. One time we did like a British Invasion number with all of these different songs and mashups. Think Glee, but with more sparkles and like a very weird obsession with red lipstick. Oh, okay.

16:32Monica Padman:And are there competitions or no?

16:35Dax Shepard:No, but every summer we would go on tour, which is how my sophomore year, we found out we were going to Las Vegas. and it was pretty exciting. And that for me was like a peak year. I would say maybe as close to my seventh grade year as I could get.

16:50Monica Padman:Okay, 10th grade was it.

16:52Dax Shepard:So I had just moved to Florida to this little panhandle town, joined this choir. I had my first boyfriend.

16:58Monica Padman:Are you going to the beach?

16:59Dax Shepard:So much, yeah. Town is on the beach. It was the height of life. All year, we were so excited to go to Vegas. It was all anybody could talk about. And sure enough, summer came and everything fell apart. My boyfriend broke up with me the week before the trip and I was not looking forward to this. But here we were, 40, 50 kids on a flight to Vegas about to have the best week of our lives. How many chaperones?

17:24Monica Padman:Like how many adults per?

17:26Dax Shepard:I think about six or seven. And then plus the two choir directors. For 50 kids?

17:31Monica Padman:I'd want max three kids per chaperone.

17:34Dax Shepard:You would think. I don't know how they did it, but it was chaos nonetheless. So naturally you have a breakup. I'm heartbroken. Friends are picking sides. Tensions are high. And if you know anything about the show, Quire Life, Quire Kids are competitive. We're all friends, but we're all, like, upset you got the solo. We're upset you got that part.

17:53Monica Padman:Limited real estate.

17:54Dax Shepard:Dog eat dog. So all week, it had just been a disaster. Girls were fighting. The boys are just, like, having a great time, and they're enjoying all the attention that the girls are giving them. And that was the week that my boyfriend, or my ex-boyfriend, decided that he wanted to have a little rebound fling with one of my friends on the trip. Oh, he's also in choir. Oh, yeah. He was senior in the choir. Extra tense.

18:18Monica Padman:Oh, I had no idea he was on the trip.

18:21Dax Shepard:Yeah, the chaperones and the moms are just as in all the dramas, all the kids. Oh, no. We're doing workshops for a masterclass in church choirs for people. Like, we're performing to teach these church choirs in Nevada how to choir. Then at night, we're going to see different shows. So we saw like Celine Dion one night. We went to Phantom of the Opera. And then during the day, we're hanging out. We're seeing all the sights.

18:45Monica Padman:What hotel do they have you guys at?

18:46Dax Shepard:We were in the Venetian, which is going to be the location of the pinnacle of the drama. So all week drama, all week chaos.

18:57Monica Padman:Do you have words with the gal that he hooked up with? Are you guys ignoring each other?

19:02Dax Shepard:Had to stay as far away. I was like, I'm not even going to be around you. I'm going to go hang out with another group of girls. At one point, we're like, we can't shop anymore. We have no more money. We are so over it. We just want to go have fun. So the chaperones against the rules were like, yeah, just go ahead without us. Just don't cause trouble. So we went off on our own for the day and had a lovely time. Well, that afternoon, texts come bombarding in. And this is 2011. So there's no real social media yet. So everything had to be done by like mass text. And my boyfriend, ex-boyfriend decided that they were going to do like a whole makeout on the strip and they were going to send photos.

19:38Dax Shepard:And so photos got sent to me. I'm crying.

19:40Monica Padman:Now I've transferred into he's a dick. It's okay if you don't want to be with somebody, but now this is a dick move.

19:45Dax Shepard:You couldn't have waited. Also not to mention my 16th birthday was the last day of this trip. Let me have fun. So my friends and I had gone down this trip. All this happens. I start crying. And my friend, Mary, who we're still very close to this day, looks at me and says, we need to do something big. We need to like show everybody that you don't care. And so what are 15 and 16 year olds to do when you're alone in Vegas? We decided to go into the nearest CVS and buy a box of hair dye. And we were going to dye my hair. Oh, okay. Big change.

20:14Monica Padman:Okay. Okay. A big revamp.

20:16Dax Shepard:We were not cool by any means, but this was as edgy as we could get.

20:20Monica Padman:I keep thinking like, how are they going to get booze?

20:22Dax Shepard:You would think. So we grabbed the box of hair dye. We raced back down the strip. We have to be at the taxi line by 6 p.m. So my friend is dyeing my hair in the sink of the Venetian hotel bathroom. I went from like a very sandy blonde, like beach blonde hair to as dark brown as I could get without it being straight Megan Fox black. And I thought I was hot shit. Oh good, you liked how it turned out. Yeah, I was like, this is amazing. I had texted some friends. I was like, wait till you see what I did. Of course, rumor spread. People were thinking I went and found a way to get an underage tattoo or I had gone drinking at one of the dayclubs or I had gone gambling.

21:01Dax Shepard:I don't even know how all these rumors got out of control, but they were spreading so much so that the moms were upset because they thought that something real no-no had happened. So sure enough, I show up at six o 'clock with my friends in the taxi line and we are like, look at her. She is fabulous. I'm feeling good. And not a single person notices because they're like, How dare you go to the club? How dare you drink? This is not okay. What are you doing? And my one friend just could not be more upset with me. And as I am trying to calm her down, she says something and I see this thing behind her, just like a blur.

21:38Dax Shepard:And I hear this giant sound, trigger warning. The next part of the story gets a little sad.

21:43Monica Padman:Oh, no. Okay, okay, we're going to take a big turn here.

21:48Dax Shepard:The whole area just went still and silent. My friends and I all turned. I had witnessed it. It turns out that a drunken selfie had gone wrong. Somebody had fallen from the parking garage.

22:01Monica Padman:You saw a body fall out of the parking garage?

22:04Dax Shepard:Ryan Murphy could not have written this glee line. It would have never happened.

22:09Monica Padman:But he didn't land on any other people, though.

22:12Dax Shepard:No.

22:13Monica Padman:Was it he or she?

22:13Dax Shepard:It was a man.

22:14Monica Padman:See, really quick, I'm just going to add. So I'm getting nervous. A big fixture fell off of the ceiling and killed a very innocent. person from the choir. That would be the worst case. Okay, well, we don't need to do what's worse. No, I'm going to, you get yourself into it doing a selfie by trying to be a daredevil. I'm feeling less bad. And then when it's a boy over a girl, even less bad. So as bad as it is, there were a few things that lessened it for me.

22:37Dax Shepard:I also thought someone was trying to die by suicide.

22:39Monica Padman:Okay.

22:39Dax Shepard:We all just start panicking and we're looking around and plus we're all 15, 16. There's one mom standing there like, oh fuck. And people start frantic. They're like running up to him. They're calling 911. And some of us are just in shock. Some of us start sobbing hysterically. We get pushed into a cab because we were next in line. When I tell you this was all within a very close space. So they push us into the cab. We're all sitting there. People are sobbing. People are calling other moms. People are freaking out. I'm just sitting there like, what the heck? I text my mom and I'm like, what did you send me to?

23:12Dax Shepard:Where am I? This is the worst week of my life. And she's like, I don't understand what's happening. You come home tomorrow. Just hold on one more day. I haven't cried yet because you're 15. How do you even mentally process something like that? And we don't even have all the details. So we just know what we saw. They rush us down the strip. We get to the next hotel. We're at the MGM. We see all of our friends who have now heard from all the frantic calls. My boyfriend's looking at me like, are you okay? And I'm like, please don't talk to me. Oh yeah. Now he wants.

23:38Monica Padman:I love your new hair. What happened?

23:40Dax Shepard:No one notices my hair. No one notices anything. People are asking me what I did that day. I'm Something terrible just happened. And it is just a frenzy. And so the choir director gets up and he's like, everyone needs to shut up. Everyone needs to get over this. We have got to keep this ball rolling. Show must go on.

23:57Monica Padman:Get your shit together.

23:57Dax Shepard:So they're like, let's go into the theater. Everybody sit down. We'll watch the show and it will take your mind off of everything and you'll be okay. Except we were seeing The Lion King. And if you've never seen The Lion King on stage, act one ends when Mufasa is thrown off of the cliff. Oh, fuck. Okay. A little sim moment.

24:15Monica Padman:Yeah, a little PTSD.

24:17Dax Shepard:So everyone starts crying.

24:19Monica Padman:I'm so sorry. I'm trying not to laugh a lot, but I had just said to Monica the other day, I don't know what it is about Vegas, but girls be crying in Vegas. Well, they saw something very traumatic. They did, but they were crying even before that, Monica. There's been a lot of crying in this story. And I'm just saying, I hope it doesn't sound sexist, but they have to have a good cry in Vegas.

24:38Dax Shepard:Yeah. Yeah. Not to mention we're choir and theater kids. So like, we just like to cry anyway. Yes. Yes. Oh, yeah. Double whammy.

24:46Monica Padman:Like she was saying, the boys are having a good time. All the girls are crying. That's what I observe.

24:49Dax Shepard:They're having a good time and they're falling off buildings.

24:51Monica Padman:No, no. I'm talking about the group.

24:53Dax Shepard:I know. But I'm saying that's the difference of what's happening in Vegas. Yes. The girls are crying, but the boys are falling off buildings. Yeah. The boys are having a great time. The boys are wearing matching fedoras.

25:04Monica Padman:It works for our gender. I don't know why. We go to Vegas and we're fine. Okay. So you're in the show and everyone's now crying all over again.

25:10Dax Shepard:The last one ends, we're all sobbing, and everybody is just like, this is just too much. After The Lion King, we actually had to stay and do a meet and greet with the cast. And so it's just this group photo with these incredible performers, and then all these kids who are red-faced and puffy.

25:26Monica Padman:New hairdos.

25:27Dax Shepard:Yeah, and so the next day, they were like, don't talk about it. Don't bring it up. We don't want to hear about it. Everyone just keep moving forward. We're going home tonight. But now tensions are too high. The next day, I get reprimanded because they're like, you went to a club. I was like, that was a rumor? There's no evidence to wrap it all up on the very last night. Of course, we hit all of the flight delays. It was like every possible terrible thing that you could imagine on a trip went wrong. We're stuck in the Atlanta airport flying home. And that's when our choir director decides, you know what we should do?

25:55Dax Shepard:We should have you guys get up and cheer up all these travel weary soldiers.

26:00Monica Padman:You guys have a superpower.

26:02Dax Shepard:Flash mob. So a predominantly all white choir got up and they insisted that we do our African tribal

26:08Monica Padman:number complete with dance in atlanta too yeah yeah you could have gotten away with that north

26:13Dax Shepard:dakota but that's not gonna no they would have been like take this shit out of here we do it not a single clap not a single that was good nothing everybody looked at us like they wanted to just end us right there and we got on the plane i got home and i looked at my mom when i got in the car and i was like that was quite possibly the worst way to turn 16 i could ever imagine.

26:35Monica Padman:We would call that an unmitigated disaster the whole trip. Although it sounds like you went to a lot of cool shows seeing Celine Dion. We did.

26:42Dax Shepard:Did you go to the O show? No. We did Celine Dion, Phantom, Lion King, and then we got to go to the oldest burlesque show on the strip. We went to the show where they covered the nipples because children cannot see that.

26:56Monica Padman:More crying probably.

26:58Dax Shepard:Yeah. So it was the choir trip from hell. Wow.

27:02Monica Padman:Oh, well, that was enjoyable for us. Now for you. Lovely meeting you.

27:06Dax Shepard:Yeah, thanks for sharing. Thank you guys so much. It was so fun to share this story. All of my friends were so excited. And if I could just give a quick shout out to my mom, Elizabeth, and to my friend, Allura. They are my fellow arm cherries because we've been listening since day one.

27:19Monica Padman:We love having you. Thank you. Yes, thank you all. All right. Bye. Take care.

27:24Dax Shepard:Have a great one, y 'all.

27:26Monica Padman:Here's Jack. This one's gross. There's photos. Oh. Oh, good. Severed penis? thing we haven't had a severed penis should we have that as a prompt hello jack hi tell me about this side piece headphone here this is new for me i'm actually visiting a friend in los angeles and i'm borrowing his equipment is that a gaming headphone or something you know what i have no idea okay great great i'm gonna be honest that doesn't look like a closet in los angeles that looks like a closet in the midwest it's in santa clarita okay that helps i do call santa clarita the Midwest of LA. I really do.

28:02Dax Shepard:You do?

28:03Monica Padman:Yeah. What? I do. I've said that a million times. It's like normal.

28:07Dax Shepard:You definitely. You haven't said it a million times.

28:11Monica Padman:Well, I'm not saying anything a million times, but I've said that a lot because I used to shoot out there.

28:16Dax Shepard:I remember that. Yeah.

28:17Monica Padman:And I'm always like, yeah, I feel like I'm going back to the Midwest when I come here.

28:21Dax Shepard:Wow.

28:21Monica Padman:It's like all chain restaurants. A lot of people that are in the labor side of the show business.

28:27Dax Shepard:Yeah, definitely more suburban.

28:28Monica Padman:Where are you visiting from? Currently in Tucson, It turns out winter, but I'm semi-nomadic, mostly in Northwest Bellingham, Washington, and Squamish, Canada. So I'm snowboarding right now. And that's what you're chasing? And in the summer, do you go like whitewater rafting or anything? What do you transition into? I'm actually a climber, which feeds into the story. Oh, okay. I'm excited. Okay, set us up. Tell us everything. So this happened at the end of 2017. I was going to a music festival with two people that I knew through rock climbing. And at the time I was living in Tucson, Arizona. So we were traveling.

29:04Monica Padman:We got a hotel and we went to this festival called Life is Beautiful. Blank 182, Muse, some big names. We were really excited. The first night went without a hitch. Everything was great. And we had a ton of fun, made it back to the hotel. The second night is where things went a little sideways. Can I ask what kind of things we're consuming on this trip? Is this a group that just drinks? Are we doing drugs and drinking? What's happening? Just drinking. And alcohol is one hell of a drug. It sure is. It's probably the worst one. Yeah. The stupidest mistakes are probably on alcohol. Yeah. And you're losing your equilibrium.

29:38Monica Padman:Everything's getting downgraded. Absolutely.

29:57Monica Padman:So the start of night two, we pre-gamed a little too hard. I think we might have consumed anywhere from like seven to ten drinks, even before we made it through the gate. I think we were just trying to save money because the drinks at the festival were like$15. In the end, it didn't save money. It was penny wise and pound foolish. We go to the festival. We have a great time up until the last set. And at this point, I'm pretty drunk and I'm also hungry. So I go off and I do a little solo adventure. and I find some carne asada fries. They were probably like$22. Oh, gosh. And as I'm waiting for my food, I see this art sculpture and this art sculpture spells out the word love in 3D letters.

30:42Monica Padman:It's a metal sheet and it has these cutouts and the cutouts are the shape of a bird. So being an avid climber, that was like my identity at the time. I said, I want to climb this. Oh, sure. It's taunting you. Yeah, exactly. And everybody else was climbing the easy letters, the L. And I wanted to climb the V, which was overhanging. And what's the height of this thing? Can you give us a ballpark? It's about 12 feet. It's not awfully tall. So in my drunken state, I essentially am sticking my fingers in these metal cutouts. I put two of my fingers in this metal cutout. And it's the shape of a bird.

31:23Monica Padman:and my ring finger slots into the wing of the bird. Oh my God. Hold on, I'm going to tell the listener. I'm going to tell the listener because I'm looking at you and you have all your fingers. I think because I would be on pins and needles that he doesn't have fingers. Please continue. So as I'm climbing, my feet slip and this finger is slotted in. Essentially the flesh of this finger is removed through the bone about three-fourths of the way around.

31:54Dax Shepard:Oh, my God.

31:55Monica Padman:So this injury is called a degloving injury. Oftentimes it happens with wedding fingers. It happened to Jimmy Fallon. How did Fallon do his? Drinking-related, I think. I think it was on a countertop. Yeah, it sounds drinking-related. Okay. Yeah. Degloving, what a terrible... I hate that word. Yeah, I mean, it's so... It's an onomatopoeia. Yeah, it is really a great word because we know exactly what it means, but it's rough. Is your whole body weight now hanging from just that one finger? Essentially, yeah. I was able to get it out. I was able to make it to a first aid station. And at the time, I didn't know how bad it was, but I knew I was bleeding and I knew it was quite bad.

32:33Monica Padman:And I looked down and I just see most of the finger hanging off. And at that point, I knew I needed medical care. I knew it was pretty serious. But also a blessing that you didn't leave the tip of your finger back at the art installation. because that could have easily got hung up in the wing and stayed, right? I'm very fortunate. So they took me off to the ER, and I got several different pain blocks in this finger, and they stitched it up as best they could. I think it was an intern at the time, which I wasn't so happy about. Although you kind of deserved an intern, if I'm being honest. Yeah, your standards are too high.

33:12Monica Padman:Two days later, I got reconstructive surgery from a hand specialist. Okay. In Vegas or back in Tucson? It was back in Tucson. Okay, we have photos. Is this a good time for us to look? I'm scared. I think it is. If there were ever a good time. Okay, oh, great. So we get... Oh, we got good pics. Wait, how do we have such great... Oh, no, no, no, no. Wait, how do we have such good photos of the finger in the bird thing? Did you go back and recreate this? I actually found that art installation about five years later in Las Vegas. No way. I cringed when I saw the art installation because it just brought me back to that memory.

33:53Dax Shepard:Wait, so you put your fingers in it again?

33:56Monica Padman:To show what had happened, right? Yeah.

33:58Dax Shepard:You guys.

33:59Monica Padman:Well, he was probably standing on terra firma at that point, right? You weren't climbing. I was very sober at that point and I was not climbing. Okay. I don't really know how anyone was climbing any part of this. Seriously. Were the people climbing the L also putting their fingers in these? No, I think they were doing photo shoots and that's about it. But they weren't putting fingers in dark metal holes. When you had the reconstruction, did they have to like attach any tendons or anything or they were just getting the glove back?

34:26Dax Shepard:I hate that picture.

34:28Monica Padman:Yeah, it does look like a penis a little bit because it's such a demarcated head. What was the extent of the reconstruction? I'm going to cover this so you can think, Marco. Yeah. I know that they attached the nerve together through a nerve bridge. I think the tendon was mostly okay, but the arteries needed reconstruction. But as a climber, that's the number one tool right there, right? You must have been a little panicked. Absolutely. In resolution, I actually have good strength in this finger. I just have sort of weird feelings, pins and needles, but that's to be expected. Yeah, I have on my shoulder where all the metal is.

35:03Monica Padman:The mobility is fantastic. I can lift weights. I can do everything. But I have some nerve between the metal in my skin. and you can just graze it. And it's like you stabbed me there with an ice pick. It's just shocking. Yeah, similar for my finger. Yuck. Oh, wow. That is yuck. Well, that's a bummer. But also, it sounds like it could have gone a lot worse. It could have. Also worth noting, the two friends that I went with, they were brothers. One of them, he, on that same night, this was separate after my injury. He went and climbed a bus stop. He did what's called a bat hanging climbing, where you essentially flex your feet and you try hanging from your feet with no hands.

35:43Monica Padman:Guys, what? He ended up falling, obviously. Oh my God, what if this was the guy? I know, from last time. From the other call that watched the body come off of us. Yeah. Okay, so he fell. You're right, Monica.

35:55Dax Shepard:Did he go to the emergency department too?

35:57Monica Padman:He didn't, no. I think he went to urgent care.

35:59Dax Shepard:Dax is obsessed with the idea that women cry in Vegas and like, come on.

36:05Monica Padman:You're right, you're right. I'm conceding to. Thank you. Yeah, my point is I can't tell you how many elevator doors have opened when I'm in Vegas and there's like two or three girls on the ground of the elevator just bawling. She said, well, also, you have got guys jumping off stuff and doing this shit. So it's like, yeah. Yeah. Wowie. Oh, Jack, this was delightful. It was really great meeting you guys. Thank you for hearing my story. Yeah. Thanks for listening. Are you listening while you're driving back and forth? Is that it? You're in the car a lot. All the time. It makes the drives much more bearable.

36:32Monica Padman:That makes me happy. Well, great meeting you, Jack. I hope you have a great rest of your trip. Thank you so much. All right.

36:37Dax Shepard:Bye.

36:38Monica Padman:Take care.

36:40Dax Shepard:Handsome man.

36:41Monica Padman:Fucking gorgeous.

36:42Dax Shepard:We like when our arm cherries are hot.

36:44Monica Padman:They always are. Oh, oh, oh, O 'Reilly. I don't know if it'll be a boy or a girl.

36:51Dax Shepard:I think it's a girl because, yeah, the way it's spelled.

36:56Monica Padman:Very feminine with all the whys. It's a boy. It's a boy. No, you were wrong. You said a girl.

37:02Dax Shepard:I know, but I wanted it to be a boy.

37:04Monica Padman:The spelling makes it seem like it's a girl, hey? Yeah, a little bit, right? You're in Canada? I am in Canada. Alberta, Canada. Got it really quick that time. The accent gives it away. You threw an A in right out of the gates, which I appreciate. Tell me about this background. I see maybe an electric drum kit. What's going on? Yeah, so I'm in my basement here. This sounds kind of the best. I have a five-year-old daughter, so she creates a little bit of noise. Sure.

37:25Dax Shepard:Is she right there?

37:25Monica Padman:No, so this is my wife here with me. So here's a fun one. We're both named Riley. Oh, fun. How's hers spelled? R-I-L-E-Y? No, R-A-I-L-I. Wow. And do you manufacture candles? My wife does. So she wanted to put that in the background to hide what I had going on back there. So she thought that was a good idea. It's cute. Wren candles. So does your house smell great? All the time. Our business is named after our daughter, Wren. Oh, lovely. And what do you do? You assist in the manufacturing of these or you just play the electric drums all day? Just all day down here, just wasting time. I have a construction company that I run and then help with the candles as needed.

38:05Monica Padman:Okay, great.

38:06Dax Shepard:Family biz.

38:07Monica Padman:Let's first start with when you're a Canadian, you're up in the great north and you're thinking of visiting the States. I got to imagine Vegas is one of these places where you must visit at some point. Is it up there with New York or LA? Yeah, I've been to Vegas many times, even after my Vegas mishap. It's one of my favorite spots, Vegas, LA. I've been to New York once, but yeah, it's a top destination for us here up in Canada. Okay, so walk us through the year, whatever backstory we need. Let's hear it. So I was 19. It was in 2014. I had just got a notice in the mail saying that due to excessive speeding in my car, I was going to have my license suspended starting November 1st.

38:47Monica Padman:So I reached out to my buddy who, funny enough, got the same letter within a couple days saying that he also was going to get his license suspended for speeding for 30 days. So we had like a two week window where we could still drive, which doesn't make any sense. If you think about it, it makes a ton of sense. You got to get as much driving in as you can. We're like, you know what? Let's just leave. Let's go to Vegas, go to Vegas, LA up the West coast, do a whole like 10 day, two week thing. We pick up a friend of ours along the way. And so from where I live, Vegas, if you drive straight through, it's 21 hours.

39:20Monica Padman:We left at about six o 'clock. I think it was a Thursday. PM or AM. p.m sorry yeah that sounds like the kind of decisions you guys are making so we drive straight through we get to salt lake city which was about 16 hours it's now like the sun's coming up kind of thing in salt lake we hit the parking lot and the three of us driver's seat passenger seat backseat we say you know what we're gonna sleep for a couple hours so we sleep there get up and we head to vegas and then the first thing we do is like well we need a place to stay we got no accommodations no planning whatsoever so circus circus seemed like a great idea oh can i add one thing too you at that time were allowed to drink legally in canada at 19 right yeah but not now when you get to the states so what the fuck's the game plan for booze that's a big part of the story okay okay okay okay i'm just immediately nervous for you that you've left a place you can drink and now you can't and naturally we didn't tell our parents either in alberta we can drink when we're 18 so we get there and we're like well we need to get a hotel which comes into play here with the being 21 thing you need to be 21 to get a hotel room yes okay so i'm like well we brought some dress clothes.

40:21Monica Padman:We brought a suit, right? I told my buddy and our friend there, I said, go park the car and I'll go check us in. So I go in and I start talking to the front desk. Like, yeah, you know, my pregnant wife is in the parking lot. She's very pregnant and she has her 18 month old son with her as well.

40:38Dax Shepard:Okay.

40:39Monica Padman:Need a place to stay for three nights. Riley, I must pause you because there's so many great details. I'm not even sure that you're picking up on, which is like, you said her, which implies like not only you've got your hands full, but you've got a woman with her own kid and then presumably one in the oven. Yes. Just say whatever I need to, to get a room. I hand them my ID. Again, you need to be 21 to check into the hotel. And I just kind of catch me if you can, like the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio, right? Just talk my way through it. He scans the ID, doesn't look at it once. And here, sir, have a good stay.

41:09Monica Padman:So we're there for three days. Vegas starts fairly normal. We just hit the strip, go from resort to resort. Just look at all the pretty lights kind of thing. We learned quickly that we couldn't get booze inside the casinos. But the slushy stands, Fat Tuesdays, no questions asked. No problem. I'll give you whatever you want. Oh, wonderful. Every 300 meters, those things are available. We just hit them up. Day one was fine. Day two was fine. But day three, we're kind of bored of that. Like we want a little bit more. We put the suits on again. That apparently solves all our problems. We walk around the strip.

41:41Monica Padman:We have dinner. It's 9, 930 kind of thing. The cosmopolitan was under renovations at the time. And so it's all boarded up on the sides there. We're walking from one end of it to the other to get to the rest of the strip. A lady comes out of nowhere and she's got a guy with her. And she says, hey guys, this is kind of weird, but they love the suits. Your buddy's suit jacket would make a perfect backdrop for some photos we're making. And we're like, what photos are we making here? She's like, oh, we're just making some fake IDs for a couple people. And we're complete idiots. And we're like, that could work for us.

42:14Monica Padman:Now we hold all the cards in our eyes, right? Oh, no. We'll give you the suit jacket, but we also want fake IDs. She's like, yeah, no problem. It's just off the strip. It's come with us and we'll make that happen for you. And keep in mind, I'm 120 pounds at this point. Like, I'm not saving anybody from any problems. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We think that we got them right where we want them. It's one guy who's younger and then this older lady, she's probably 40-ish. We follow them off the strip. Rule number one, don't do that. Don't go to a second location. Yeah. Yeah. Next thing you do, you certainly don't get into their car.

42:46Monica Padman:Oh, goodness. Okay. Yeah. We're so pumped. We're getting in the car and they take us to like an off strip mini resort kind of thing. So there's a hotel with a mini casino. It's got a parkade. We go to the top of the parkade and we park there. We walk down, go into the thing and they're like giving us food, getting us drinks and spending money for gambling. What? Oh, yeah. Having a great time. We think we've hit the jackpot, right? Like next best friend right here. So what I didn't realize is that one of the people we were with, the buddy we picked up, it was a girl. So her name is Sam. They drugged her.

43:19Monica Padman:Oh, my goodness. Oh, my God. I didn't know it at the time. I don't know what that looks like. I'm like, oh, she's just really drunk. But like she couldn't see. She couldn't stand. Like they messed her up. Yeah. We wait there for like an hour and a half, like having the best time. Right. Other than, you know, she's been drugged. Didn't know. So we get back in their car. She says the fake IDs are ready. So we go to another location. We get to this motel. And it's out of a movie. I kid you not. The car that we're parked beside has bullet holes in the side of it. And the car, a couple cars over, the windows are smashed out.

43:54Monica Padman:The motel doors are like a couple of them are knocked off the hinges. Oh, wow. Okay. And I'm from a small town, Alberta. Yeah, you're in over your head. Oh, absolutely. We park and she's like, I just got to go into the room and get the IDs. And so she leaves and there's the one guy in the front left. I kind of start looking around and he sees me looking around. and that's when problem number one starts. So he looks at me and says, put your fucking head down. If you look up again, I'm going to put a bullet in the back of your skull. No! And then he lifts up his shirt and shows me his gun. And I'm like, oh, shit.

44:23Monica Padman:Oh my God. I do what I'm told. And now I think there's probably a pretty good chance we're not getting fake IDs. Yeah. Keep in mind when they did the fake ID thing, it's illegal. So they took our phones, our credit cards, our cash, right? Because that's like, oh, just to make sure we're good. 19. Stupid, right? She comes back out and doesn't have ID. Shocker. We drive around some more and we're just going from location to location and I'm not really getting it. Now I understand that we're doing drug deals. Like she's going and dropping off drugs and stuff. Okay. And we've picked up a third person in the process.

44:56Monica Padman:So now she's driving. There's a muscle number one in the passenger seat. And now we got muscle number two in the back and three more in the back. Oh my God. Crucial to the story because now there's four people in the back seat. So we do this all night. At one point, she gets me out of the car and sends me into a very sketchy gas station to go get them supplies, which I can see now was a test to see if I'm willing to like come back. So now the sun is up. We're just held hostage in the backseat of this car. There's tears. We're shaking. We're not saying a word. And full daytime, it's 6 a.m. So we get to a point where we're at a red light.

45:32Monica Padman:No one else is on our side of the intersection. There's a bus stop to the right. And so I speak up and I say, hey, you got our credit cards. You got our IDs. You got cash. I don't know who you are. Just drop us off. The two muscle guys don't say anything. And she just nods. And then light turns green. Instead of turning right to the bus stop, she turns left. And we're on the outside of Vegas. There's like three lights remaining. And then it turns into a gravel road. Then it's just desert. That's where we're heading. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. I'm focused on that. And I'm thinking, now's a good time to pray, do whatever we need to do.

46:05Monica Padman:and be prepared, right? What I didn't see, there was a cop on the other side of the intersection facing us. So we turn left and he can see in the car. Four people, not enough seatbelts. Yeah, so he sees that, lights on, pull her over. And this is where I learned everything. So this lady, in the time that the cop pulled us over, she called someone and it was on speakerphone. She put the phone in the middle console. She starts screaming to this guy and turns out she had just got out of prison a month ago. she had three guns in the trunk, three bricks of cocaine in the trunk.

46:37Dax Shepard:Oh my God.

46:38Monica Padman:And she's screaming at the guy wondering what to do. And the guy says, shoot everybody and get the fuck out of there.

46:44Dax Shepard:No. No.

46:47Monica Padman:That's his pro tip. Advice 101. So at that point, though, the cops, they were quick. That's what saved me. There was one guy on the passenger side, one guy on the driver. And the passenger guy had his little baton. He taps the window. And then the other guy is kind of already looking in. So she pulls her window down a couple inches. He doesn't even ask her. He looks in the backseat to us and he's like, do you know these people? Oh, wow. And we're just wide eyed like, no, it's out of the movie. They pull their guns, they draw them and they're like, get the fuck out of the car right now. We get out.

47:16Monica Padman:The one cop pulls us aside. He gets our IDs and stuff from the car. We're like, hey, like they have our stuff. So he looks through them. These were underage and he's like, you didn't know them? We're like, no, no chance. And he's like, do you know what was happening to you? We were getting fake IDs. So we're 19. We're thinking the cops are better than option A. You think you're in trouble. They're like, they take people like you. They bring you in. They love you. They make you feel like you're part of the group. And then when it comes down to it, they take you out to the desert. And they say you either work for them now.

47:48Monica Padman:Your old life is gone. You got new names.

47:51Dax Shepard:What?

47:52Monica Padman:You're never leaving. And if you don't say yes to that, they kill you. And you're never to be heard from again. Like, that's it. He gave us money to get on a bus. And he said, go back to your hotel and just leave Vegas, man. Like, come back when you're 21. Wow. Oh, my God.

48:07Dax Shepard:So I assume they arrested those people.

48:09Monica Padman:Yeah, we didn't stick around for that.

48:11Dax Shepard:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

48:12Monica Padman:You made your way back to the bus stop. He said that they knew who she was. Like, she was a big time player, I guess. Yeah. Woof. Scary. Reminds me of Justin Long's story. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Being kidnapped. Oh, God. So when you got back to the hotel room, do you guys go like, all right, let's nap? or do you go, let's get in the car and leave immediately? The issue we had was that it was like 9.30 at this point. Our checkout was 11. Guess we're hitting a breakfast. We didn't go home. We continued on to LA and did three days there and then went up the West Coast. Sure, played it a little tighter to the vest the rest of the trip.

48:48Monica Padman:There was no hunting for fake IDs. The reason I'm here talking about it right now is because my wife loves you guys. She's been for years been like, you got to submit your Vegas story. They do it the Friday. You got to submit it. And I'm like, no, I'm not going to do that. And then you guys put the prompt. We curtailed it exactly to you. That's right. So you had to. Yeah, I've become a fan over the last six months specifically. We spent a lot of time together. So I listened to a lot of you guys' stuff. I love what you do. Oh, thank you. Thank you. That was exceptional. We love that, Riley.

49:18Dax Shepard:I'm so glad you guys made it out.

49:20Monica Padman:I didn't tell my mom for a while. Let's just put it that way. Yeah, that's best told like 10 years later. Great meeting you, Riley. That was great. Thank you so much for this. This is awesome. Take care. wow scary stuff scary stuff vegas is scary lots of bodily injury and harm oh my god true oh wow well that was a good prompt it sure was i bet there's more water in that well that's right yeah sure okay more ink in the well all right love you love you Do you want to sing a tune or something? We don't have a theme song. Oh. Okay, great. We don't have a theme song for this new show, so here I go, go, go.

50:04Monica Padman:We're going to ask some random questions, and with the help of our cherries, we'll get some suggestions. I'm a flyer, I'm a fish. I'm a flyer, I'm a fish. Enjoy.