Full Transcript for TrustFall Hollywood Hookup: Albert Hughes

film school 'cause he was young and in love and knocked some girl up. ⁓ And so we got hired it was a two year program, it was Los Angeles City College, you know? ⁓ wow. ⁓ which has a a great film program. And I wasn't able to take the second year because we were making music videos which during the period that would have been my second year. And then developing a script to our first movie called Minutes to Society. And next thing you know, we're on the set making a movie. And we're all thinking this is normal. Nothing about that was normal. Yeah, when you're twenty, you really don't know how the world works yet, right? You're just kind of on the ride and that really is unheard of. I mean Yeah, like the best thing about that age is you don't know what you don't know. And so there's a brashness. You have kids, you said, right? Yes, yes. Or one or two. I have two boys, yeah. Yeah. Like that age, especially boys, that like girls are more smart about it. They're more measured. boys are just like brash and arrogant and bold and doing stupid shit and sometimes it helps and most times it doesn't. Yeah. But in that case it helped you because you just jumped right in. Yeah. Yeah. We were doing a lot of silly stuff back then that actually helped us. That was a huge movie, if I'm remembering it correctly. Yeah. Yeah. But it it outperformed ⁓ all the major films that summer, including ⁓ Jurassic Park, Philadelphia. And one other big one, ⁓ the fugitive in all the major markets we outperformed ⁓ We didn't outgrows them, but we we outgrossed them ⁓ compared relatively to our budget, which was like three million dollars. ⁓ and it won the ⁓ T V movie award that that year which is a funny story because we refused to go because we thought we were gonna lose to Jurassic Park of Shamlers List. Really? And yeah, our publicist kept calling saying, You guys gotta go. We're like, We're we're not going and she called the next day and said, You guys gotta go. And we're like, We're not going. The third day she goes, Okay, T V just talk to me and ⁓ you guys gotta go 'cause you won. And we're like, Okay. my God. ⁓ That is a great story. That's a great story and it shows what a twenty year old is thinking. Like that is such an great example of a twenty year old's thought process. And we had to act naive. You know, I put the camera on you like, and the winner is we're like, ⁓ my god, we're in shock and I think we had the probably the record on the shortest acceptance speech. I'm gonna look that up. I know it has to be on YouTube. I have to look that up. I'm gonna do that. Yeah, well w watch out for the dated jean shorts that I'm wearing. That's even better. Apparently it's very popular in Eastern Europe still, the jork. ⁓ Well look. Hopefully you kept him. No though th those what was the the word you would know because we're the same generation. Didn't they used to call those like those cutoff shorts like culottes or something like that? ⁓ yeah. Coulots were like 'cause I had a

few pairs and I wore them with long socks socks. Yes, for women. And yes. Coulots, gauchos, they called them gauchos and then But they weren't denim. They did the it was just the cut, the the style of Yeah, that was the cut. I don't know. Hollister wasn't big on style. Let me just tell you that. Like we didn't we didn't have the irony is now there's a a st a store with clothing called Hollister. I know. And when that first came out, I would see somebody like in, you know, San Francisco. Are you from Hollister? And they would look at me like, What? Who are you? Like What are you talking about? Because hollows are so small, you know everybody from there. Okay, so I cannot wait to see you in your shorts. ⁓ god. Yeah. Those cause they were baggy those are the baggy style. Now now with the Europeans, it's the the you know, the ones where they cuff up the bottom and they're tight they're tighter and ⁓ they're they're just disgusting. You're trash as we call them. I love it. Okay. So you guys win these awards and then you just kind of think, ⁓ this is what happens, you know, when you go to film school and you start making movies and this is normal. Yeah. Right? Yeah, this is a great life. Yeah. I think we were prepared for it because we were already freaks to begin with because we were biracial twins that looked identical and we still don't know if we're identical. We were raised in Detroit for the first part of our life and we were stared at most of our life and pointed at and picked at and you know, people touching our cheeks, our hair, or this or that. And so by time we do the first film there there was a paranoia that set over us because we used to always walk in a room and I think most twins can relate to this, we'd be like, Why is everybody looking at us? And like, duh, they're looking at us 'cause we're twins but a twin never knows they're a twin until it's told to them. You know, you forget it seconds later. And so the first part of our life we were wondering why are people staring at us. Right. The second part after the twenties, not the second part, but our adulthood was, okay, are they looking at us because they recognize us from the fame that we got early on? Yeah. Are they looking at us 'cause we're twins, or are they looking at us because they want to hurt us? Right. And so that that this kinda trifecta put us in kind of a a little bit of a paranoid state. Well, in your twenties you're still so impressionable, you're still trying to figure stuff out. That must be Really, really interesting. Especially in Hollywood, right? Hollywood is its own world of its own. It's almost like its own universe. Yeah, and we we kinda insulated and isolated ourselves. Like we lived fifty miles I think it's fifty fifty to thirty five miles east of of Los Angeles and in Claremont Pomona area. And we had offices on Sunset Boulevard, right? We had offices at a certain time on in Santa Monica, but we would always drive back inland. And we would never go to parties, we would never hang with celebrities. And that lasted for a while until drugs were introduced to the partnership and then all hell went loose. Okay. I think that's such unfortunately the story of Hollywood too, where or success. I don't know about Hollywood, but for sure success. And so I'm gonna assume that it wasn't you that went the drug route. He's talked about it openly so it's not a b a b a big secret. It is basically like I mean, with what your subject is, and your podcast is where the big pivot happened for me. b but it's been building, you know, and outside of the working relationship or the r relationship with my twin brother, the kind of disillusionment of of America had been building. Okay. And then on top of it you have this other thing going concurrently. ⁓ starting in two thousand two that was devastating to me, you know? Yeah. And I'm not a twin, I can't imagine, but you're talking about kind of this like youth and young adulthood as kind of a unit, right? I in most ways. And then here comes something that is just gonna cleave that union completely apart. And what a what a shock it must be I would say similar maybe to a divorce where you think this is your person forever and then something happens that i am I kind of on the right side? Yeah, you're totally right. It's it's I think it's even deeper in a lot of ways 'cause you know, here's the joke coming three, two, one. He was my womb mate. Okay? Yeah. So I like it. And twins have a a bond that normal siblings don't have and then you got a couple like the personal life with the work life, which complicates things, but There's that. And there's the things that he was doing for me that I I I I couldn't do for myself because I wasn't diagnosed and we'll get into that ⁓ Okay with with until a year and a half half ago. I just recently got diagnosed with ASD, which to your listeners is autism spectrum disorder. Doesn't mean you're full blown rain man, but it can be anywhere on the system or the chart. and what he was doing for me was Like I was very lucky 'cause I had a a progressive mother that was thinking ahead for us and she was laying the groundwork for us and protecting us and helping us, you know, deal with life in America. And then I had a brother who was running interference for me. So I wasn't a typical like spectrum kid that, you know, had the problem o of bullies and you know, we had our fair share of bullies, but I didn't I didn't have to walk alone and right deal with the struggles that a normal ASD kid would have to deal with. So in in my diagnosis I realized ⁓ it's a a football turn but my brother and my mother were basically like full back. You know, they'd punch a hole in the wall and I just walk right through it, you know. Because they recognized your need for that. The twin thing is like it's more he went off instinct, you know. My mom didn't pick up on she she's a strange lady in a lot of ways but ⁓ Like when I I texted her I was going into my first

diagnosis, I got a second opinion by the way, which was a six month long process. Like I wasn't gonna buy it. So I texted her when I was going into the first process and then texted her when I got the results and her first reaction to it was I need time to process this. Right. How are you feeling? And I go, Yeah, my mom might low key be a narcissist, right? like you I I would think if my kid did that I would go, ⁓ that explains a lot in in the childhood and why I you know, this was that way or he w he was looping on something or you know, disruptive or what's the word like you've seen it as a teacher. It's like sometimes those kids can get in a like a creative loop or they can get in a loop where they're they're obsessing over being wronged, you know. I don't know. I just I feel like it you know, it's opened up a whole can of worms. Yeah, yeah. It is interesting and I I'm assuming she's in her seventies or eighties. Yeah, seventies, yeah. Yeah. You know, that diagnosis wasn't around when we were kids. We didn't have it was that's the kid that sits in the corner and just everybody leaves him alone and lets him sit in the corner. Whatever it was, right? Like it wasn't Yeah, whatever version of it was. Whatever we called it, it didn't have that name and so I think Our parents just kind of don't understand a lot of it. But I also have witnessed that parents for sure get more narcissistic as they age. So I wanna I want to honor your statement of that that I think it's kind of a natural progression of just aging where you just go, ⁓ what's what about me though? Right? Yeah. They they revert back to child to child. They start start out self centered, they end up self centered, yeah. One hundred percent. I told somebody like, you know what the best prep for me for having elderly parents is was having teenagers because they both will just look right at your face and lie and as if there's absolutely no Yeah. No, I'm fine. No, I didn't fall. No, I the doctor said everything's fine, I'm perfect. Like, ⁓ that's not what I heard. Yeah. So anyway, okay, another tangent. Let's go back. No, it's all good. Okay, so you're in your twenties, your brothers, you guys are kind of going your own way and Well, that happened when we were thirty. That happened when we were thirty. Yeah, so full ten years after our first film, yeah. Okay. And so you you did multiple films after that together? Yep. Okay. And what happened was the the fissure was happening before the so called addiction came out, right? Okay. ⁓ I don't know why I said so called it. ⁓ or it was. ⁓ it it started at work and I think it's 'cause we we were so intertwined and it becomes an id identity thing. I think that he just wanted his own thing, his own identity. I never felt that way. I liked hiding behind a partnership. You know, I I was really comfortable in that. ⁓ and I think that also goes back to that fullback thing. I liked having a a mouthpiece, a face that that was in front of us and You know, we can strategize in in closed doors where you know, back then I was definitely not the easiest. and I think the the rupture started on ⁓ did I think we did we did four films, five including a documentary. The third one was called From Hell, which we did with Johnny Depp, and Prague, which is where I live now. ⁓ I see where the thing happened. Your your subject matter happened. Okay. The change. Yeah, the change. That's where the the awakening happened. Yeah. So you were in Prague and that's how you well, we'll get there, but that was one of my questions. Like of all the places in the world, how did you end up in Prague? But that makes sense. So that was you were filming that movie there and got to experience that that place. Okay. But There's two things about it. One is had the studio said you you know, they're chasing the dollar, you know, they that's what they they always do. You know, they're they're chasing where you can make it the cheapest. Had they said you have to shoot this in Siberia, I probably would be living in Siberia right now. You know. ⁓ the second part of it is like I ⁓ once I did that movie I vowed never to come back because I I hated some of the cultural clashes I was having with work. Okay. And you know, you know, there were there were only Literally like ten, eleven years out of communism and I was feeling a lot of their communist ways. Which is y if you tell a communist ⁓ to to nail ten ⁓ nails into the wall to fix the wall, they'll nail two in and walk away. Then you come back and reprimand ⁓ and said, I wanted ten. Come back, there's five. You know, that so this repeats itself four times, right? And then you might smell alcohol in their breath or some shit, right? And you know what the thing that always boggled my mind about communism is like I'm talking about in the versions of Eastern Europe. I'm not talking about in its truest sense or whatever. I don't want to offend any communists out there. I do have a s a very small but opinionated communist No, I don't. Yeah. A rabbit fan base. the thing that the thing that amazes me about it is that there's two things that come out of it that I've seen is that there's no logic. The logical mind d ⁓ just doesn't think 'cause of the brain drain that went on back then they got rid of all the thinkers, the rebels, the this, that, and they just started fucking each other and making stupid babies basically. and there's no logic and there's laziness. So that person that's repeatedly going back to put the nails in the wood, had they just done it right the first time, that would be the more efficient way to use your time. Instead of going back four or five days, you don't they didn't they don't learn the lesson of like, Jesus Christ, my boss keeps on telling me to to do this over and over again. Like, maybe if I just do it right the first time. You know? So that was the thing that made me go, I'm not coming back here. Fuck this place. Okay. And that was that mostly because your crew, like

the people working for you on the set, were it was restaurants, it was crew, it was everything. Okay. It was service industry. It was it was a lot of things, you know. But I gotta be fair, I gotta be fair here. It's like all ⁓ my brother and I dealt with it differently. Like my brother stayed the ugly American. I decided not to be the ugly American and I'm not complimenting myself, I'm just saying that. Right. I I had to take a different tact on because I was dealing with a lot of the crew which was just accept what comes to you, don't try to force things. Okay. And and once I did that they loosened up and were less cold and I kinda folded into the the social part of getting something done a lot easier and I learned how to film that runway basically, right? Okay. So I leave I leave and this recently happened with my daughter who turned the exact same age in Europe working on a project with me, the one with Kirk, right? Yeah. she turned Twenty-eight in Budapest, which is a kind of sister like city. I turned twenty eight in Prague. And her first night in my apartment, she was busy online trying to get her facial products or hair products or th that she was just driving herself crazy. I I said I said, Adrian, let me tell you something I learned ⁓ when I was your age in Europe. Said, you're not gonna beat Europe. Europe's gonna beat you. So I fly back to the States, we finish the film, and I realized, ⁓ my God. That's what I've been missing. But all this time I I'm I'm in America and I'll I'll I I have to double back to my childhood to make you understand what this feeling that is that that built was because we're you you have to direct me at a certain point. I'm a meander and get back to the point. It's okay. I I'm fascinated. And let me just tell you my master's was in psychology. So I love that you're doubling back to your childhood. It makes me so happy. So I'm doubling back because of the city of Detroit, right? Okay. And the city of Detroit at that point in the seventies was considered a a a chocolate city. It was predominantly black, right? ⁓ just like Atlanta is, just like ⁓ Chicago is in certain parts where and the reason why Detroit is predominantly black is because ⁓ the auto work back then before the auto factories and companies went bust, right? And all the blacks from the south had a great migration north for the jobs. And y you can make good money, you could buy a house, even you know, during discrimination, like and what happened was white flight. And white flight sent the the white Detroiters out to the suburbs and they fled the city. It became like a dangerous city, a crime ridden city. It you know, it it's like the the ultimate city for the decline of a great city in the seventies basically. ⁓ The reason why I'm giving you that context is ⁓ because something happened on the on the way to school one day which was you remember pitcher day. Yes, I do. Get your best shirt on, you get your hair right, you put a necklace on if you want,

and you stand in line and you're getting ready for your s your class picture. I think it was first or second grade. And I'm standing online and what they do is they hand out combs to the kids. Yep. I remember that vividly. So So they're handing out combs to us. And I get the comb and I have an afro and I'm looking at this comb and I'm like, this comb is not meant for my hair. And that's the first click that went off of me. I go, this society is not built for me. Yeah. And I go, I'm I'm in a predominantly black city and they're still handing out white combs to black kids. No one at the mayor's office or the school board or whoever thought, you know what, maybe we should just start handing out pics or whatever. Right. I don't know. They just didn't think. But that was the first awakening. I'm like, okay. Some ain't right. Some ain't right here. ⁓ my gosh. Like what a that really is a revelation. Yeah. That's when you you're at the age of like seven or eight and you start to realize there's things that are bigger than your family. Yeah. start realize about sexism, racism, all that other stuff, right? If you're a conscious human being with a with somewhat of a ⁓ empathetic ⁓ stroke, which thirty-three percent of society is not. I like the number. I'm sure it's an an official count that you've I'm sure it's ⁓ I'll give it to you. You want to hear my breakdown? Not yet. Not yet. Let's save that Wow, okay. I love stories like that because it drives something home where, you know, you can tell somebody the society isn't meant for me, but when you tell a story like that, it it's such a small little thing, a comb, and everyone can understand that. And then like you said, like here's a whole classroom full of kids that cannot use this comb. Yeah. And you're still gonna hand it out, no matter what. And and the peeling the layers back of like having to think later in life. I wasn't thinking this deeply when I was that young, but like how the hell did the school board not adjust to the racial makeup of this city? And ⁓ and if I look at the picture that I took that day, there's this shy little smirk I have on my face. Mm-hmm that you know, it it's uncomfortable a little bit. And so if I'm fast forwarding back to the Prague experience, a lot of things led up to that, but when I when I settled back into the States I thought to myself, well, there's things about Europe and the bordering countries that I've been to, ⁓ whether it was Holland, whether it was Germany, whether it was Austria, whether it was Hungary. That there's a simplicity to to life and there's things to to appreciate. You can't get everything you want when you want it. You know, the the there's no supersize me bullshit going on. So now every time I go back to the States, the thing that blows me away the most is I'm I'm in awe of like ⁓ Whole Foods or Ralph's Or something like that. I'm like, ⁓ my God, there's like ten thousand different types of cheese. Like Jesus Christ. If I want to make bolognese, I can buy all my ingredients in this one store. I don't have to go to five different stores. Yes. Yes. So out here you have to think about what you want to do, where the specialty stores that has the tomatoes. Right. So it kind of peeled things back and there was a second thing that happened in Prague before I left, which was why do I feel creatively better here? And and it was, ⁓ it's because I don't speak the language. And all the people talking, all that's not sensory overloading my head. Yeah, it's not extra noise for you. It's not extra noise, exactly. So I go, Well shit, I'm not gonna learn this language. I still to this day haven't learned it. Like you haven't. No. No. I mean I I know my little words to get around and if I pay close attention I know what they're talking about, but I I refuse to have them in my head because Czechs are talkers too, they're big talkers. And sometimes I'm in the street and you'll hear a tourist, because it's a huge tourist. It's like Disneyland out here, right? You'll hear like a a white girl from the States going, ⁓ my God, Becky, let's go to the bridge and I go, ⁓ my god, no. I c I can't hear this right now. Trying to get away from you people. I never thought of that. And I l I really actually love that because you learn to be your own linebacker. Wait, was a linebacker? I'm not a good sports okay. Full back. Full bac a linebacker. Actually no, I actually Your analogy is actually more spot on. A linebacker. Yeah, that's yeah. You got it. Okay, okay. Because A, you're not a little boy anymore, but you don't have your your twin, you don't have your ma and you're learning like It's interesting you made that jump. That that's interesting 'cause that's exactly what happened. That's exactly what happened. Yeah, yeah. I I love that and I think that you can't do that when you're young. You just can't. You can't advocate. Well, some people can, but I couldn't. I could not advocate for myself. I couldn't decide I'm gonna do this and guess what else? I'm not gonna learn the language of the country that I'm living in because it helps me like I I wouldn't have been able to do that as a younger person, but as an older person, you you know who you are now. You know, and you're like, This is what's gonna help me and this is what I'm Well, it was also it was also at that age, I'm dealing with the story I told you kind of retelling itself several times throughout my life in a way, right? I'm dealing with the brother and the partnership thing. Yeah. And then the jump you made there was important was I started doing stuff for myself. You know, and I do things now that in my twenties would freak me out. Like jumping on the train to go to Dresden by myself, check into a hotel by myself, you know, making all these arrangements by myself. I would never do that in my in in my twenties. Shopping for myself. I don't have an assistant. I don't have a driver. I don't have a car. I don't have any of the trappings of my so

called job. it's fairly s simple and it it basically like while I was mourning for fifteen years that partnership or t the first five years, the second five years the the third, it it got easier and easier but I also know in a way it was meant to happen. Even though it happened in a devastating way, it wasn't right. I I wouldn't I wouldn't wish that on anybody like to to see someone, you know, addicted. Well, there's nobody that addiction doesn't touch. I remember my kids were young and I have two boys and like you said, boys tend to be doing their own thing no matter what your advice is. I would leave notes on the bathroom mirror because they they didn't want to talk to me about stuff and so I would write like these notes and put ⁓ on the bathroom mirror 'cause I knew they had to brush their teeth and they'd read it. They couldn't help it and I would say there are only three things that you can do that change your life forever. One, have a baby, get someone pregnant, 'cause then that's taken out of your you know, it's not your decision. Two, kill someone, that changes your life forever. And three, get an addiction. You know, those are the three things that you you can overcome them, you can deal with them, but they will be with you forever. And ⁓ yeah. Well, I need to write those down. I sh I wish you were my mother and had that in the mirror. Well, they threw it away as soon as they found my notes all the time I would put like meth will make your teeth fall out and that'd be in the garbage and herpes is forever and they'd throw that in the garbage and my youngest came in, Will you stop putting those notes on the bathroom? Like, yeah, when you move out I will. That's it. So that's clever what you did. Well, they didn't want to talk. Boys are notorious. They did ⁓ not. They did not like it at all. I I wish you were my son and could appreciate it because they could. I definitely appreciate it. Like ⁓ I think that's the most subversive way to get information across. Anyway, so you moved to Prague and is that a main place for making movies, I'm gonna assume is that a big it was. It it it still is. Like there's still like Hollywood still comes in like score Stacey just made a movie here with Leo and Jennifer Lawrence, right? It's still a a production hub. Like it depends on the year. Like Hungary had a a very great tax break and that's what happens. ⁓ Hollywood chases and so then all the Marvel movies and everything were made out there. The project with Kirk and I was made out there, right? And then Prague gets its shit together and stu you know, comes up with a a tax ⁓ break that's nice and then production moves here for some time and then it moves to South Africa. It's all over the place. It's kinda like like in L A once was the capital. Like that's everything shot there and nothing shoots there anymore. Nothing. Yeah, yeah. Except for T V. I get that. That yeah, there's a lot of out of Hollywood and somewhere else to save a buck. Yep. And Canada was kind of the original. It was going on there for far longer than the tax break states in this in America. There's like Atlanta has a tax break. Or or the dollar being stronger tax break in Europe. Canada was the the first to do all that. Vancouver and Toronto, yeah. And what you were talking about, I mean British Columbia is kind of the California of Canada, I think that's what they call it. But ⁓ it's not a culture shock, it's not a change. But we do notice, like my husband, his other job is concrete, right? So he works for a concrete company. In the in the US, everything has to be, you know, ADA approved and the steps have to be a certain length and height and whatever and here that they don't have all those restrictions and so he's always walking around like, Well that wouldn't be legal in California, that wouldn't be legal. So it's behind in a way of like I think with lawsuits, right? People aren't suing each other over Yeah, they don't have that culture. Yeah, they don't have it. And kind of like you said, you have to go to a liquor store if you want to buy liquor and you you you can't buy it at You don't see cigarettes out in the open. No, no. I think what you're talking about with Prague, I get that. And there is a simplicity and there's a planning that you have to do. Whereas in the US, you want everything. I mean, you don't even have to leave your home anymore. Everything will come right to your doorstep. But the the states are great for service selection and size. Yes. Yeah. If you need fifty granola bars, you can get it. Yeah. So you're in Prague and Tell me about your diagnosis and how that even came about. I have an an autistic friend who became very successful in life in probably his late twenties, early thirties. And ⁓ he's a French guy who lives in Portugal, has a wife and kids. And he's the ex on the extreme end of the spectrum. And for your listeners who do or don't know it it's very hard to talk about autism because Everybody thinks rain man or nonverbal or no eye contact. And when you get into like the spectrum, there's several things that you can be elevated in a person and then ⁓ in the other areas are they're quite normal, right? Yes. ⁓ or they're high functioning, let's say, right? ⁓ this friend of mine considers himself high functioning. I don't Although although he was able to make a success out of himself, the way his mind works, it's ⁓ a a million miles a minute. You know? Okay. And early on in our you know our friendship, when we met in two thousand six or seven, he kept saying, you know, you're you're ⁓ back then it was Asperger's was the word before they found out Hans killed eight hundred kids in in Nazi Germany. ⁓ and then they changed to ASD. So ⁓ he kept saying I was I was one, I was one and and this this kind of funny banter between us had had been going on for a few years and I said, ⁓ you know, misery loves company, misery loves company. meanwhile I'm diagnosing people I work with that I love. I like love

working with these people that I can have extreme focus ⁓ and whatever. So he finally says to me, You should get a diagnosis, I'll I'll donate money if I I'll get an expert to to diagnose you. I'm like I'm like cool, whenever you're ready, whenever you're ready. But He also has ADHD, which means you know what that means, okay? So he'll say something and never follow through. Right. And that's what you were planning on, yeah. Yeah, it's been going on for years 'cause I when I say something I follow through, right? And then there's the autistic side of him which he's convinced himself of a narrative that's not true, which is Albert doesn't want to be diagnosed. And he kept saying that, I'm like, dude, how many times I gotta tell you? I'm cool, put your money where your mouth is. Yeah, yeah. So he found he he found the expert. Well it turns out this is the most hilarious part, it's like well, there's two hilarious parts to it to me. ⁓ it turns out the expert he finds I don't re realize this at the time. His name is Simon Barron Cohen. And yes, he is related to Sasha Barron Cohen. Okay. He's Sasha Barron's cousin, but he's one of the foremost experts in the world out of Cambridge and in England, right? No way. I didn't know while he was doing the diagnosis. I read some things of him online, saw videos, know about his books. I didn't know that anywhere in the world you get a diagnosis, they're using some of his teachings or some of his research or or his paperwork or his questionnaire, his standardized kind of testing. So I go into this like kind of blind and ⁓ we do two, three hour sessions I have to fill out some paperwork. It was fairly quick. that first diagnosis. And he gives he gives it to me and I told you what happened to my mother and then I had to kinda like process it in a way it didn't really shock me. But I I was having trouble accepting it fully because I first was struggling with the superpower part of it that people talk about. Like whether you're a mathematician or an engineer, I don't have that type of mind, right? It's I didn't want my hard work to be undercut by some silly diagnosis saying, Well that's the reason why you're talented. And it's like No, I don't that's that that didn't That makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah. And that took me a a a year to kind of unpack that. But where it really helped was my daughter. Like I have a good relationship with my daughter, but there's a lot of things to her that were strange about her father. Okay. And sh she kind of just locked in on it. And sh it explained a lot of her childhood, it explained a lot of my behavior. And so it was most helpful with her. So I get the first diagnosis and I tell my friend I tell my friend like, Yeah, this is a serious thing, you know? Yeah. I need a second opinion. So that drags on for a while because yeah. Can I ask you a question really quick? Did you recognize yourself in what they said about you in the diagnosis? Did you recognize a lot of yourself or did you go, Well, that's not really Well, I was still struggling with some of the behaviors. I was like, Well, why can't I just be shy? Why can't I just be an introvert? Okay, I see. Why can't I just, you know, well be passionate about something? Why can't you know, I was kinda making excuses for like it's the interesting thing is people always want to use the eye contact thing, which is bullshit. But while at the same time, if you met me in my twenties, you're not getting any eye contact from me, right? I learned eye contact because I was working with hundreds of people ⁓ per project. So My socialization or my masking as they call it. ⁓ my masking came from observing people in a way that most people don't have the opportunity, meaning that on one job I'm dealing with more people than most people have met their whole life. Right? So you multiply that times many jobs and I'm paying attention to details, of course. So I start to learn behaviors, I'm still processing a lot of it, and ⁓ for the most part I've accepted it, right? I go into the second diagnosis. which is a much or the second opinion, second diagnosis which is much more involved. It takes six months. ⁓ my gosh. I have to talk to two specialists, I have to fill out f five different PDFs of questions. Halfway through this process, they're referencing whatever they're standardized at and come to find out three of the five documents they used on me on the second diagnosis were all from Simon Barron Cohen. my gosh. So guess what? So I guess I I guess I know where this one's gonna end up, right? Yeah, exactly. Wow. Who would have thought that that guy would be related to? Yeah, exactly the same spelling with the hyphen and everything. And he's mild mannered. I think he's he's either seventy, he's close to seven a little over seventy maybe. I met with him in London a a few months ago for dinner and he found out and was getting a second opinion. He looked across the table at my friend the guy I told you about and he goes, Well, there's your second opinion. I love that. Okay. And so you're processing this and so this was recently, like within the last couple of years. The first diagnosis was probably a little over a year and a half ago. Okay. The second one I just got the results to ⁓ two weeks ago. ⁓ my gosh. Wow. Ninety six pages I had to read. ⁓ my gosh. Yeah. I had issues with that with that report. Yeah. Too long. ⁓ well yeah, too long. Well, first of all, it was two different documents. One was fifty six pages, the other was like twenty or thirty pages, but it was like cliff notes from the first document. I'm like, okay. Why do I need cliff notes? I I had some issues with some grammar I had some issues with ⁓ recalling the details that I told them that were incorrect. Some of them were incorrect. ⁓ gosh. Well, so much for scientific research and all that stuff, right? Like when I was getting my master's, you can actually find case studies that prove whatever you want. So exactly. You in

that case to me, I think, wow, these people are really smart because they can prove anything through this case study and they can make me believe it and I can read two opposing case studies and believe that they're both right. It's also what I what I when I was at dinner with Simon, I was trying to pin ⁓ down on if you had a hundred people in a room, how many are autistic? Because we now know that with more knowledge and more testing and all that stuff, like the numbers are rising because of that. Be before it was like you said It was a problematic child, nobody knew what it was, right? Yeah. So I kept asking him how many in a hundred it's like, Well, it's not about that, Albert. It's about helping the kid that needs help because that's his big thing is identifying the twelve year old that needs help, you know. And I go, No, I wanna know the number, I wanna know the and he would not give me a number and he finally said, Well, if you go looking for it, you'll find it everywhere. Yes. Okay And I go, ⁓ shit. So recently I was talking to a friend and I realized what he meant. I took it literal, okay, there's autism there. I took it literal, which meant, ⁓ if you want to find autism in a hundred people, you'll find it in a hundred people. What I think he meant was more nuanced is if you go test all those people, you're gonna find the percentages higher than what people think. And it all depends on what you're gonna classify as an autistic trait or I don't know if trait is the right word, but right? Yeah. You know, and I think sometimes part of it could be cultural, part of it could be environmental because Yeah, nature versus nurture. That was my whole argument. Yes. I mean I had an autistic student in one of my classes. He was great. He didn't have trouble with eye contact. In fact he would stare you down. ⁓ yeah. ⁓ yeah. And and so he would Yeah. But that kid, I told him you gotta finish three chapters of algebra and he wouldn't do any English. He wouldn't do any history. He'd He was gonna do algebra until he was done. Like you set that kid on a track and he went. And it was like I wish every kid was like that because I couldn't get other kids to, you know, do anything. Some of those markers would have probably fit him and others wouldn't. And his parents, who spoke very little English, did not want to accept that at all. They didn't because I mentioned it and they were like, No, he's fine. No. I mean I asked him point blank, has he been diagnosed with autism or on the spectrum? Nope. Nope. He hasn't. And so it was like, okay. And and that kid's gonna find his way because people are forcing him into this world to survive. I kind of like that you couldn't pin him down because he didn't know. He just couldn't say he didn't know. Yeah, it's like it's it's Simon, you don't know shit. Yeah. Well, he I like I said, I think his his answer was like Almost a riddle. Right. You know, like he Yeah. i this thing about traits, like yeah, my mother could have narcissistic traits but not be a narcissist, right? But where where it's helpful with a like a student like yours for the parents and it it it must be troubling for any parent at first. Yeah. Is ⁓ you know hey, it it can explain a lot and also you can put it in context. Like my daughter does this with me. My daughter did two things that were were She did two things that were hilarious. Like it started with like a almost like you how they you have the the so called safe word during sex. I hate to put that in the same paragraph as my daughter. Okay. But my friend I would call it I would I wouldn't call it Asperger's with my my autistic friend, I would call it ⁓ asparagus. I would say a asparagus. Okay. Then he changed it to broccoli. So every time we'd get into like little little texting conversation, he felt like I was going down the line too much, he would just put a broccoli emoji, right? So my daughter took that word and now she's weaponized it in a really cool way, which is and weaponizes ⁓ it sounds like it's not cool, but like when she sees me spinning out, she'll just go, Dad, dad, broccoli, broccoli, broccoli. And then it kinda just diffuses me, right? It's really like a cool thing that she uses this tool with me. Yeah. And I go, ⁓ shit, I am looping on this. But she did this hilarious thing in New York. I go out to New York. New York. She lives in Brooklyn now. ⁓ she's living her best life at thirty two. She has a bunch of like her gay friends that she loves and we're all drinking with a bunch of her gay guy friends and we're just going from place to place and we up end up at this dish Detroit style pizzeria of all places. ⁓ nice. And we're having these peppertinis and You know, having a good old time. And w it was like me, her and three three of her friends. We we walk outside, I light up a cigarette, this drunk guy comes up to me and asks me for a cigarette. I give him a cigarette. Yeah. Then he asked me for a lighter. Already I'm starting to like, you know, I'm getting irked now, right? ⁓ I I like and then he wants a hug now. Now he wants a hug. ⁓ Hm. And my daughter stepped in and goes, Sir, he's autistic and that dude jumped back like I had the plague. And we all started laughing, we were going down the street, I go, Adrian, what the fuck? You can't just say I'm autistic She goes, Dad, did it work? I said, Yeah. She goes, I know you don't like being touched. And he was getting a little handsy. I love it. She's a fierce girl. I love that. Sir, he's autistic. That is awesome. I I love your daughter already. She's she's your linebacker. She's your ⁓ what did you call it? Fullback. I don't know. Fullback, yeah. Fullback. She's she's another fullback you have there. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I think it's interesting. My younger son claims to be autistic. He is not, and so we call it artistic. You're artistic. So but he's not. Yeah, he he's I mean, here I am, a parent going, No, that's not my son. No, no. I would say he has a few little traits

that could be, but but that's our code word. Artistic, you're being artistic. Well, you can get tested. I think it's helpful if you're if if there's a struggle somewhere. Yes, I agree. If there's like a social struggle, emotional struggle. ⁓ i it like it's helped me let's say I wasn't and I still got this diagnosis, right? It's it's helped me like diffuse. Like if if my mind is going into a a a bad or dark place or I'm obsessing over a s a subject that that's not creative, but it might be a person who's wronged another person. Yes. ⁓ because there's a there's also a strong sense of justice within the autistic community, like right and wrong. There's rules. They're not meant to be broken. And when somebody breaks a rule, it spins me out. Bringing it back around like at this age, I wanna understand myself. Really well. That seems to be a goal of mine. And I think that most people really want that, especially at this age. Earlier you can focus on I gotta make money, I gotta raise a family, I have to do this. And then all of a sudden at this age, you're like, I just need to figure out who I am now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Having a diagnosis like that, like you said, you can look back and you can go, ⁓ that's why I did this and You know, it's almost like therapy, you know, whether you go into therapy or not, but it's also like such a revelation of like, ⁓ that's why I responded this way. ⁓ that's why this makes me comfortable. I had someone in fact it was a high school friend who she ⁓ is raising her autistic son. He's nonverbal. She just has to care for him for the rest of her life. And she said, you know, she really had to search when he was a baby for a diagnosis because They kept telling her, like, No, he's just a boy. No, he's just delayed. No, he's Yeah. Or they're back then they would say retarded or slow or this or that. It was a bunch of different labels, yeah. Yes. And so she's like, it doesn't change the reality of your situation to get a diagnosis, but it it makes it more manageable. I saw this on CNN there was this guy who's ⁓ a news anchor or whatever, and he wrote a book about his father. And basically his father recognized this early in life that he was struggling in all these areas. So his father read everything on autism. And basically would poke the bear with his son, make him develop in certain areas and learn how to mass this area. And he you see this guy talking in an interview, y I would never guess he was even on the spectrum. But his father had so much love for him that back then they didn't have the diagnosis in place. So the father basically did a whole bunch of reading and just trained his son how to behave properly in society. The masking can be ⁓ what I've read recently is that for certain autistic types it can lead to mental illness because ⁓ they they have to behave in a way that's not natural to them. Certain others I think in hand like like like me, I I have to develop a certain skill set ⁓ to social s skill set to do what

I have to do. But also even if even if you're in the low end of the ⁓ the spectrum, let's just put it that way ⁓ it i it it is exhausting. Yeah, I bet. And and I could see that with that student that I was talking about. And I I really felt for him because at school I worked with kids mostly that hadn't gotten their diploma and so they were coming back to school. So they were sixteen to twenty four. That was our age that we had in our school and and so most of ⁓ were mature enough, you know, perceptive enough to recognize this student's different and this is how we're gonna behave in class with him and you know, they kind of let him be who he was, but I'm wondering like how was that at home? You know, if his parents weren't accepting of it, if they were or maybe not even understanding it in the first place, which I think it probably was. But yeah, I I could see that and how frustrating that would be and so interesting. Well, wow, this was quite a this was quite a conversation. Yeah, we ⁓ we barely scratched the surface, but it was good. ⁓ dang. All right. Well if you ever want to come back and talk about Well, can I give you can I give you my percentages, my societal percentages before we leave? ⁓ my gosh. Yes. How could I forget? Yes. Okay. This can be pretty brutal, but let's just apply it to the states, okay? My theory is this is only my theory, is that thirty three percent of society are fucking idiots. Okay? Okay. It's bore out. The evidence is bore out the past ten years in in in America, okay? The middle thirty-three are not idiots, but they're below or at average intelligence. Okay. The upper thirty-three, which is not really the upper thirty-three, are at average intelligence or slightly above, or a small percentage of that thirty-three are highly intelligent, right? So what you have is you have a a a middle that can swing one way or the other. They can be persuaded by the idiots or they can be persuaded by the above average to average people. Right. So I've I've I learned this through a pattern recognition in life, ⁓ you know, as a as applied through autism that I didn't know about at the time. That every other person I meet's a fucking idiot. And You know, I have to deal with that for the rest of my life. And there was a talk I had myself in bed where I'm like, ⁓ my God, I have to deal with the fact that I'm gonna meet probably an idiot every day of my life. And it's gonna make my life quite difficult. And you know, what do I do about that? that's it. That's my my skill. ⁓ my gosh. That cracks me up. Well, I'm gonna digest that. I'm gonna think about that. Process that as my mother says. So I'm gonna process that process that and hope well, yeah. I can't disagree with some of your analysis. I can't. But maybe I'm just fortunate. I think I'm really fortunate enough to be surrounded by the top thirty three percent. Like I Well, you can select. Okay, you can select what you want. And I'm also not accounting for ignorance. Because ⁓ because the top thirty three, there could be a person who's ignorant in there 'cause they The root word is ignore. They can choose to ignore facts. Well, but doesn't that kind of place them in the middle or the or the like if you're I don't know. Like really, really smart people. I mean look look at Elon Musk. Well, I know. I know. Look at Jeff Bezos. I wanna call ⁓ idiots, but they're ignorant. Sorry. Don't be sorry. This was an awesome Awesome interview. I am so excited and I'm so glad that Kirk convinced you to do this for me. And I just am so grateful to you that you're willing to talk about this stuff because I didn't even think about like an interview with somebody that has been diagnosed on the spectrum so late in life, you know, that I I totally love it. And I mean, I am one hundred percent impressed by all the other stuff that you've done, but to me, that's just thinking about your life in a whole different way. So I I just so grateful that you're willing to be open about it and talk about it and well that's the other that's the other symptom, no filter. Well, maybe I need to get tested 'cause I don't have a lot of social. It's harder to find in women, you know, it's harder to diagnose. Okay. Okay. why I think it's harder to diagnose in in women is because women already naturally by default are masking. They have to learn to dance through raindrops in the rain and come out dry because they have to deal with men and men's ego. So they know they're like masters of masking. Yeah, that is for sure. And I think that's kind of why it's taken me 60 years to figure out who the fuck I am, right? Like I think about my mom's generation, probably your mom's generation, and they're gonna probably go through most of their life not having any idea what they like, what they don't like, what they want, what they don't you know, I think and when they are, it's somebody who's so outspoken that they're called bitch or whatever, they're called all these things because they know what they want. And so Yeah, I think you're right. When my kids were little I read this thing about how the educational system is failing boys because we have taken out P E we've taken out exercise. We've taken out playtime. We Yeah, after school programs, yep. Yeah. And so the girls who can sit for hours at a time and focus on something, that's what we evolved to do, right? Stay home, make the house, do all that stuff. And men were out where they were designed to go out and kill something and fight something and and we've taken that out of the educational system. again kind of goes back to like what traits are being recognized as autistic or not. And so that could also be it, right? I think it might be a combination of what you said definitely masking for sure. But hopefully your daughter's like, screw that, I'm gonna be who I am and she doesn't have to worry about that she's very good at that. Good. Very good. I'm glad. Yeah. I think that we did a better job with this generation than our parents did with us. We'll we'll we will see. Yeah. The jury's still out. ⁓ yeah. That's right. Well at least they have labels. You know, and they've they they definitely like ⁓ weaponize that. Agree. Like on mental health days and shit. Don't get me started. They break a fingernail and they want a mental health day off. Here's what you have to do. You can only hire Gen Xers who are used to working For three dollars an hour when they were kids and then no brakes and had to sit in the back of a station wagon and hold on for dear life as they drove around and ⁓ Yeah, and the parents were smoking inside that car with the windows on. Exactly. Yes, yes. Yeah. I think I'm gonna do an episode on smoking. I think I am. Yeah. We have do an episode on seventies babies. Yes. Well I was sixty. I was sixty seven, but My brothers were all seventies and ⁓ my god, they are just too much. Let me tell you that. They are too much. All the crazy decades. ⁓ my gosh. Well, Albert, thank you so much. Thank you, thank you. And Thank you for listening to Gen X Trustfall. My continuing appreciation to Kirk Ward for the amazing introductions to his friends and trusting me with telling their stories. A huge thank you to Albert Hughes for the honest conversation that kept me both fascinated and laughing throughout the whole thing. I highly recommend watching Albert's movies and some early interviews with Albert and his brother Alan to see the ASD qualities that That Albert described so eloquently in our conversation. For me, a lifelong student of psychology, it is fascinating. If you liked this episode or have a suggestion for a potential guest, check out our website at Genx TrustVall.com for additional notes on each episode. Gen X TrustVall is produced by me and the recording master, Ryan Loomis, at Double Banger Studio. Music by Ryan and Sam. Website and advisory by Amy Clifford.