by Seth Rogen
What happened next shocks me to this day and, if you’re a movie fan like I am, is really quite special and miraculous: Steven Spielberg came into the room with George Lucas. The two people responsible for most of the cultural touchstones of my childhood, together. I’m meeting my HEROES! I thought, not remembering the apt saying about just such an occasion.
The first thing that struck me was that George Lucas was wearing a denim shirt and jeans, which is a red flag. A lot of billionaire dudes seem to adopt this look, and I find it appalling. And perhaps the most painful insult toward my countrymen is that people call this a “Canadian tuxedo.” We have real tuxedos in Canada, and they’re lined with the finest narwhal blubber and lubricated in the most sugary of maple syrups.
Steven introduced us to George and rattled off some of our credits, none of which George had heard of.
I asked George what he’d been up to, and he took a seat across from me and Evan, looked us dead in the eyes, and said, “Well, things have been pretty busy, considering we’re nearing the end of 2012.”
Hmmmmm…this sounded vaguely familiar to me. “What do you mean?”
“Well,” he said, adjusting his denim shirt, “you know the world is going to end this year, right?”
I mean, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. The notion that a dude who conceived of an entire science-fiction universe, complete with its own religion, mythology, technology, and hairstyles, would be a true weirdo seems obvious. But it was shocking, nonetheless.
“Uh…are you serious?” Evan asked.
“Very.” George settled in. “What do you know about the San Andreas Fault?”
At this point, I noticed Spielberg at the desk behind George rolling his eyes, like, “Here we go again.”
Me: What should we know about the San Andreas Fault?
George: That it’s gonna fracture and everything west of it is gonna sink into the ocean, reshaping the world as we know it.
Me and Evan scanned his face, looking for any shred of irony, like Mandalorians scanning the cargo hold of the Millennium Falcon for stowaways (sorry). There was none.
Evan: You really think that’s gonna happen?
George: I know it’s gonna happen.
Me: How?
George: It’s science. And I know science.
Now, I don’t doubt that once you’re super-duper-duper rich, you get access to all sorts of shit that people who are not super-duper-duper rich don’t get. Could it be that somewhere within that wealth of access to scientific facts was the knowledge of the inevitable fracturing of our continent? Who knows? If anyone knew, maybe it would be him.
Or maybe he meant “I know science fiction.” Which he does, very well! And I get that if you know how to do a fake version of something well enough, you maybe start to think you can also do the real version of that thing. I remember being so good at the Rock Band videogame that I was almost convinced I could actually play drums on a Weezer song. But whether it’s true or not, it was a fucking weird conversation to dive into. We just met this dude. It was essentially: “How’s it going?” “Not bad, except the fucking world is gonna end soon, you stupid moron,” which is, in my opinion, an awkward way to start a general meeting.
We tried to plow onward.
Me: Good thing Skywalker Ranch is east of the fault line!
George: It IS a good thing, and it’s not a coincidence.
Oh, man.
Evan tried to make a joke. “Well…if you’ve got a spaceship hidden there somewhere, maybe save us a couple spots for after the Big One hits.”
George then gave us a look that clearly articulated two things:
He does in fact have a fucking spaceship.
We cannot have seats on it.
Spielberg came over and tapped George on the shoulder. “Alright, we got a movie to talk about.”
“I used to make those,” George said. “Now I’m just a humble toymaker.”
He left, and we all shared a look that very clearly said, “Sure, he’s strange, but he came up with lightsabers, so I guess we’ll cut him some slack.”
Then the Spielberg portion of the meeting commenced.
“I have an idea about a kid who’s a loser in his real life but he’s amazing at playing videogames, and then he learns that his videogame skills actually allow him to save the world.”
Evan and I looked at each other.
Me: Uh…like The Last Starfighter?
Steven: You’ve heard of The Last Starfighter?
Me: Of course we have! We’ve been trying to get the rights to remake it, but the dude who owns the rights won’t give them up!
Steven: I KNOW! It’s so annoying! It’d be so good as a remake!
Evan: We know!
Steven: Well, if you guys want to write a version of that idea, we’d love to make it at DreamWorks.
We left the meeting in a daze. I remember Evan saying in the car, “If we’re gonna rip off The Last Starfighter, I’m not sure we need Steven Spielberg to do it with us. We can probably just rip that shit off by ourselves.”
* * *
Years later, we helped create the show Future Man, which is about a loser who’s amazing at playing videogames and realizes his skills will allow him to save the world. That very same year, Spielberg released Ready Player One, about a loser who’s amazing at playing videogames and realizes his skills will allow him to save the world.
I sometimes think about what an uncomfortable day December 12, 2012, must have been at Skywalker Ranch. George and his friends all strapped into his spaceship, ready to feel the first tremors of the Big One as they hit the ignition button and launched into space. Was he happy when it didn’t happen? Was he disappointed? Either way, my guess is he funneled all that paranoid skepticism into becoming a flat-earther.
They say never meet your heroes. I say meet them, just be ready for them to not invite you onto their spaceship.
I obviously tell a huge amount of drug-related stories throughout this book, and while most of them were events I look back on fondly, I feel like I should include a few exclusively cautionary tales about the devil’s lettuce, reefers…MARIJUANA!!!
TALE 1
Flying sucks. Flying early in the morning on no sleep sucks even more. And flying early in the morning on no sleep while incredibly hungover is something that so obviously fucking sucks, if you find yourself doing it, you really only have yourself to blame.
A few years ago, I found myself doing this for the billionth time, wondering how I could be so stupid again. But this time…I had a plan. Someone had given me a weed brownie. A very strong weed brownie.
Some of the only times in my life where I truly thought, Wow, I am TOO FUCKING HIGH, have come after eating weed food. Once I ate a weed lollipop at the Golden Globes and got so high, I had to leave early. Weed brownies, in general, are wildly unpredictable. They range from being bad-tasting brownies that do nothing to heavy narcotics that make you feel like a character in Trainspotting.
I ate the brownie on the way to the airport, which would ultimately be the first of a few bad decisions.
I went through security as the brownie was starting to kick in. I then found myself hungover and incredibly high, and I was starting to panic a little. I had a three-hour flight to Vancouver ahead of me. I needed to come down and normalize in some way. I needed food.
The LAX terminals are a crazy crapshoot as far as what’s available where. Some terminals have five-star French restaurants; others have people grilling dead rats over flaming garbage cans. And they have the nerve to charge twenty-four dollars for them, when dead rat is like thirteen dollars tops outside of the airport.
And then…I saw it. A place firmly nestled between nice eatery and dead-rat grillery: Burger King.
As far as fast food goes, I rank
it like this: There’s the better-than-normal fast-food chains, like Shake Shack and In-N-Out Burger, which are at the top. Chick-fil-A is delicious, but they’re religious bigots, so we’ll just put them in their own bucket. There’s “fried chicken–based fast food,” which Popeyes dominates, followed by Church’s and KFC. Then there’s the “normal” ones, which go:
McDonald’s: You can’t fuck with McDonald’s. Once they added the McFlurry and became more liberal with their breakfast hours, they were unstoppable.
Wendy’s: The square burger is fucking great, their buffalo sauce is good with their nuggets, and a Frosty with French fries shoved inside it is arguably one of the greatest desserts on the planet.
Jack in the Box: Controversial third place, I know. Their late-night menu is fantastic. The “tacos,” or whatever they are, are delicious. Between 2002 and 2005, I actually thought the Chicken Fajita Pita was healthy and ate about five of them a week. But it’s their seasoned curly fries that earn them this spot.
Carl’s Jr.: They have a burger with onion rings on it.
Burger King…
It was my only option, and I was resigned to having a Whopper, when something on the menu caught my eye: the Angry Whopper.
It was a Whopper with jalapeño peppers, pepper jack cheese, and spicy chipotle. My incredibly weakened brain thought, Perfect.
I ordered it, and even the guy behind the counter gave me a look like, “Really? You want that? Now?!” I gave him a nod, like, “Yeah…I do want that. I know it sounds crazy, but maybe I’m just crazy enough to get myself out of this hungover, weed-brownie stupor. And maybe this bizarre, insane burger that for some unexplainable reason is being offered up at 7:45 a.m. will knock my system back to normal.” Like the grilled meat sandwich version of electroshock therapy.
I ate the Angry Whopper VERY FAST. I’m a very fast eater, to the point that Lauren is still amazed by it. She’s eaten thousands of meals with me and is still like, “You take such big bites!” For something to be astounding for seventeen years, it must really be something. It actually tasted pretty good, because the spiciness carpet-bombed most of the natural Burger King flavors.
Right after I finished, I boarded the plane, and the Angry Whopper and weed brownie did what I’d hoped they’d do and knocked me unconscious before the plane even took off. I was hoping for an “asleep before takeoff, awakened by landing” situation, but that’s rare. It’s really the holy grail of sleep-flying. But that did not happen.
About two hours later, I was violently shaken awake by one of the flight attendants. I opened my eyes, scared and disoriented. The attendant yelled, “Sir! Be calm! You’ve just had a seizure!!!”
My first thought was That’s strange. I really don’t feel like I had a seizure—not that I’d ever had a seizure, so I didn’t know what it felt like. But I actually felt way better than I did when I got on the plane. I was absolutely drenched in sweat, but that wasn’t exactly a remarkable event for me. Still, I wasn’t sure I hadn’t had a seizure, and the flight attendant seemed VERY sure I had.
Then the flight attendant yelled, “Is there a doctor on the plane?!”
A hand shot up. “Yes! I’m a doctor!”
Flight Attendant: This man has just had a seizure!
Doctor: Oh no!
He ran over and pulled out one of those little flashlight pens that only doctors seem to have access to.
Doctor: Are you sore? Do you feel okay?
Me: Uh…I think I feel okay.
Doctor: This amount of sweat is not okay!
It was all happening so fast. I was following his finger as he was waving it around, and it occurred to me, Maybe I didn’t have a seizure. Maybe it was the Angry Whopper trying to escape my body through my pores. I didn’t want to name-drop the Angry Whopper specifically, and the doctor seemed to be wrapping up his checkup, so I thought I’d ride it out.
Doctor: Just keep drinking water until we land. Let me know if you feel off.
He left and I noticed a woman in a velour tracksuit beside me who had been silently watching the whole thing from her seat. I turned to her.
Me: Hi. I’m not sure you’ve seen what’s been playing out over here, but…do you think I had a seizure?
Velour Tracksuit: I do not think you had a seizure.
Me: I don’t, either.
Velour Tracksuit: I think you were just sleeping in a funny position, with your head kind of cocked back, and your mouth was open, and we were hitting a bit of turbulence, so your head started bouncing around in a weird way, and with all the sweating, I think the flight attendant was confused.
Me: Okay, me, too.
I sipped a bottle of water throughout landing, and as the plane started to make its way to the gate, the flight attendant came up to me.
Flight Attendant: Be calm. I’m going to tell everyone to stay in their seats. You can deplane and meet the paramedics who are waiting for you at the gate.
Oh god. I didn’t want to cause a huge scene, so at this point, in my head, I’m like, Okay, just go, talk to them, they’ll see you’re fine, they’ll let you go, it’ll be cool.
I walked down the Jetway and saw a paramedic standing there with a wheelchair.
Paramedic: Hello, please sit down, sir.
Me: Look…I really—
Paramedic: Please sit down. You might be in shock. Let us check you out.
I reluctantly sat down in the wheelchair and started being pushed through the terminal. I’m thinking, Okay, we’ll just get to the street, and I’ll explain to them—
Another paramedic ran up. “Okay, I see you got him. The ambulance is waiting at the curb! We’re ready for transport to the emergency room!”
This had gone too far. I had to fess up.
I stood….They were shocked. It was like a scene in a movie where a paralyzed person is suddenly able to walk.
Me: This must stop! It has gone too far! I did not have a seizure! I am hungover, I ate a very strong weed brownie and an Angry Whopper!
I fled from the scene. I can only assume the paramedics were standing there, watching me go, thinking, Yep, that makes sense.
TALE 2
Lauren’s father loves magic, so, not that long ago, we got tickets to see a magic show in Beverly Hills with her father, Scott, and his lady friend, Gaye, which is an old lady name if I’ve ever heard one. When we picked them up, Scott mentioned that he hadn’t had anything to eat or drink all day, which isn’t that uncommon for him. Like a lot of older guys, he takes a huge amount of pride in not taking good care of himself.
The magic show was at the Waldorf off of Wilshire. We got there a few minutes early and ordered drinks from the makeshift bar that was set up. The second after we got our drinks, they opened the doors to the theater and told everyone that seating was first come, first served, and that drinks weren’t allowed. We wanted good seats, so we all chugged our drinks and sat down.
The show was great, but for me, the better the magic I’m watching, the more I’m distracted by what a weirdo this person must be to have spent that much time alone in front of a mirror to get that great.
After the show, we were all starving. We were in Beverly Hills, and Mastro’s Steakhouse was nearby. Mastro’s is kind of a bizarre mix of old-school steakhouse and nightclub. It’s loud and packed, but they serve grilled meat, so it works out. They also have an amazing seafood tower. I love a seafood tower and think more food should be served in tower formation. Sometimes pizzas get a little platform, but they’re really not living up to their potential.
As we were driving over there, Lauren started smoking a joint. Gaye asked for a hit, so we passed the joint back and she took a drag. We asked Scott, “You want a hit, too?”
He took a BIG
hit and instantly started coughing his ass off. And kept coughing…and coughing. About five minutes into the eight-minute ride, he was still coughing. I turned to Lauren: “He’s gonna be reeeeeeeeal high.”
We pulled into the valet and he was still coughing. We walked up to the host stand—still coughing. He was hacking up a lung. As we were being walked to our table, he was able to turn to me and wheeze out, “That was a big hit!”
We sat down, Lauren and Gaye taking the bench against the wall facing the dining room, and Scott and me taking the two chairs opposite them. Scott finally stopped coughing, but now the weed was starting to hit him. He was looking around the restaurant like a newborn baby taking in a dazzling environment. (I will now switch to PRESENT TENSE because books about writing say it “adds immediacy to the story.”)
Scott: Wowww…
Lauren: You okay, Dad?
Scott: Yep, fine.
Lauren: You don’t look fine.
Scott: I think I just need to use the restroom.
Scott shoots up from the table and starts making his way through the restaurant. Then I see a look of terror sweep across Lauren’s face. “Seth, go! Go get him! He’s going down!”
I turn to see Scott in the middle of the dining room, wobbling. I leap up from my seat and run across the restaurant, hooking my arms under his armpits just as his legs completely give out from under him. His body goes limp and I struggle to hold him up. I see an empty chair beside me and plop him into it.
I can now see that he is basically unconscious, his body balanced in the chair shockingly well. He’s propped up in kind of a Weekend at Bernie’s–esque way. If he had sunglasses on, he would almost look normal.
