PORTCAST with Ron Bennington Episode 1: Shane Gillis

ANNOUNCER: PORTCAST is recorded during Ron Bennington’s cancer treatment
in an active chemotherapy suite. Abrupt cuts or visual changes may be
necessary to protect the privacy of patients and staff. And now,
PORTCAST with Ron Bennington.

SHANE GILLIS: It’s funny following him in here. It’s exactly like
walking into SiriusXM. He’s like, “I’ll meet you at the elevator. I’ll
walk you through. Here’s what we’re going to do for the show.”

[Laughter]

RON BENNINGTON: How are you in hospitals? Do they bother you?

SHANE GILLIS: I think they do. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SHANE GILLIS: And yeah, the last time I was in one, my dad had just had
a heart attack and was having surgery, and I was basically saying
goodbye to him, right? And the whole time, you know, he’s one of those
guys that was like, “I don’t give a— I don’t give a—” And then when that
surgery came, it was like— and there’s nurses in the room, so I
couldn’t— I don’t know. I didn’t want to say anything too emotional. So
I just— I was like, “All right, Dad. See you later. See you later.”

And then I walked out, and then I was like, “I should probably say
something.” And I walked back in. I couldn’t say anything, so I was just
like, “You’re number one, man.” And he was like, “You’re number one.” He
was like, “Number one.”

[Laughter]

SHANE GILLIS: And, you know, I’m sobbing. Sobbing, crying. Walk outside,
there’s a guy sitting there right outside the ER, and he’s like, “Shane
Gillis.” I was like, “What’s— what’s up, man?” He’s like, “Can I get a
picture?”

[Laughter]

SHANE GILLIS: I was like, “Yeah, no problem. Come on over.” This guy’s
got a picture of me. Anyway, that was the last time I was in one. I just
told my dad he was number one.

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah, that’s all I got. That was my—

SHANE GILLIS: Yeah, that was my big one.

RON BENNINGTON: But he recovered and everything?

SHANE GILLIS: He did. He’s good.

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah. I’d love to have a heart attack. That’d be so much
easier.

[Laughter]

SHANE GILLIS: Yep.

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah, hospitals are always a weird thing for people.
That’s why I think us doing this here makes it extra funny.

SHANE GILLIS: I think it’s great, because—

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah. Because Joe List came in and he was just laughing
and giggling the whole time.

SHANE GILLIS: I saw.

[Laughter]

RON BENNINGTON: That beeping that you hear is your dad’s heart. Once
again, he’s back in trouble.

[Laughter]

SHANE GILLIS: Wow.

RON BENNINGTON: Do you ever think about where this is what would happen
in your life? Because you know how it’ll end for you?

SHANE GILLIS: How it’ll end for me?

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah.

SHANE GILLIS: Yeah, a little. I don’t know. I’m probably staring down a
heart attack.

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah, because your dad had it. You’re looking at it—
your lifestyle.

SHANE GILLIS: Yeah.

RON BENNINGTON: I see you more of like a head-wound guy for some reason.

SHANE GILLIS: I mean, that happened to several members in my family.

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah, for real?

SHANE GILLIS: This guy did a genealogy— he’s like a YouTube guy that
looks into people’s ancestries— and he just picked me randomly and did a
family-history thing. And my great-great-grandfather, one of them, was
from Ireland, came here. Somebody stole his empty glass bottles in
Chester County, and it was a gypsy camp that stole it. And he took an
axe and he went to the gypsy camp and started trying to fight people to
find his bottles, and a gypsy clubbed him in the back of the head.
That’s how he died. And he crawled home and then died in bed.

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah.

SHANE GILLIS: So we have a long— the Gillises. And my grandfather played
at Notre Dame and he cracked his skull while he was playing, and then
the rest of his life was just a maniac because they didn’t know what CTE
was.

RON BENNINGTON: Sure. Of course not.

SHANE GILLIS: So he was just— and he was huge. He was like six-five,
250, in the ’50s. And he lived by a creek in Mechanicsburg.

[Laughter]

SHANE GILLIS: He was just attacking people. Every story of my entire
life about my grandfather, they’re like, “You’re lucky you didn’t meet
him. He was mean.”

RON BENNINGTON: Right.

SHANE GILLIS: “He was mean as a snake.” Attacked everybody.

[Laughter]

SHANE GILLIS: And then he had a heart attack.

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah. So it’s going to be a head wound or heart attack.

SHANE GILLIS: Yes. Or a combo. Hopefully both.

RON BENNINGTON: So your people came over from Ireland, when did you say?

SHANE GILLIS: Both— I mean, everybody’s from Ireland on every side. So
some of them were here for a while, and then other ones like two
generations ago. It is also funny, the furthest they made it was the
middle of Pennsylvania, honestly.

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah.

SHANE GILLIS: My uncle got big into genealogy and all that, and he makes
a family calendar every year. And I opened it and it was like, “1920s:
The Gillises.” I lived on the same block.

[Laughter]

SHANE GILLIS: And I was like, “Man, we haven’t done anything. We’re not
going anywhere.”

RON BENNINGTON: I was thinking the same thing about my family. They got
here early, like 1600s and 1700s. Nobody had money. By the time I came
along, nobody— bums for 400 years. A lot of drinkers. That was the way
that my family died too. It was always liver, or, you know— and those
kinds of deaths, you don’t want to be around.

SHANE GILLIS: No.

RON BENNINGTON: Those are painful and ugly.

SHANE GILLIS: Yeah.

RON BENNINGTON: You’re better off having your great-grandfather smashed
in the back of the head—

SHANE GILLIS: Get clubbed by a gypsy.

[Laughter]

SHANE GILLIS: Get his bottles back. Two glass bottles. In the news
report— because the guy found an old newspaper clipping of the incident—
a passerby, it was in the woods, obviously, got hit in the head in the
woods, somebody on the road heard the crack.

RON BENNINGTON: Oh, God.

SHANE GILLIS: Like, it was that—

[Laughter]

RON BENNINGTON: But that’s the Irish.

SHANE GILLIS: Yeah. They don’t live long, but they live wrong.

[Laughter]

RON BENNINGTON: Do you ever have a nice Irish wake that starts nice and
then gets way ugly by the end of it?

SHANE GILLIS: Yeah. Yes.

RON BENNINGTON: That’s how I grew up, with those kind of things.

SHANE GILLIS: When I was a kid, my cousin and my aunt died like a month
apart, but I was so young that I was like, “I love funerals,” right?
Because I was like, “I’m going to play video games and eat food and hang
out with my cousins.”

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah.

SHANE GILLIS: And then, you know, everyone starts drinking and you’re
like, “This is— I love funerals.”

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah.

SHANE GILLIS: You get older, you’re like, “Crazy. This is insane.”

RON BENNINGTON: I don’t know. Maybe you get old enough again where
you’re like, “I like funerals.”

SHANE GILLIS: I like funerals again. It’s good to see the old gang.
Everybody finally gets back together.

RON BENNINGTON: You know, the Irish used to do a thing where they would
steal the body. The friends would come and steal the body.

SHANE GILLIS: No.

RON BENNINGTON: Yes. That was their thing. And they would drive around
town, take them into bars and stuff. The Irish have some of the worst
traditions that there is. And no tradition of food.

SHANE GILLIS: No. And really not that many drinks.

RON BENNINGTON: No. Just Guinness and whiskey.

SHANE GILLIS: Yes.

RON BENNINGTON: If you get beyond that— I remember one time—

SHANE GILLIS: My Christ, you better not.

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah, you better not right now.

[Laughter]

SHANE GILLIS: You better not die on this, dude. I’m going to finish
whatever story I’m telling if you die. I’m not going to bomb because you
died.

[Laughter]

RON BENNINGTON: No, it’s too late. But this will be one of your most
famous gigs that you’ve ever done.

SHANE GILLIS: He was like his last— he literally killed this time.

[Laughter]

RON BENNINGTON: So when I was a kid, my grandmother asked me to make her
a highball. I went in the other room— I’m really young— so I mixed her a
whiskey. It was Seagram’s, actually, at the time, and 7UP. And I gave it
to her and she goes, “What are you trying to do, rot my teeth? It’s
whiskey and water.”

[Laughter]

RON BENNINGTON: I’m sitting there with a bar rag. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’ll
get that for you as quick as I can.” She liked to drink, but she didn’t
like to get up. She liked to sit.

[Laughter]

RON BENNINGTON: Another beautiful tradition: somebody bring me a drink.

RON BENNINGTON: So, you hadn’t heard that story that you were almost in
a terrorist attack?

SHANE GILLIS: No, this is the first time I’m hearing it.

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah. I saw it this morning in the Post and I
immediately thought of you. And I guess Bargatze was there too. I see
the blowback happening for him right now.

SHANE GILLIS: Well, he and I talked, because I was like, I don’t— I
don’t feel like going to the— like, I want to go because I love the UFC.

RON BENNINGTON: Right.

SHANE GILLIS: And it is cool. That was a cool event. But I knew I would
get criticized for being there, which, whatever. I understand that. But
I was talking to him about it. I was like, “I don’t know if we should
go.” He’s like, “Ah, it’ll be fine.” I’m like, “It’s not going to be
fine, Nate.”

[Laughter]

SHANE GILLIS: Like, it’s not.

RON BENNINGTON: It’ll be more fine for you because everyone’s used to
it.

SHANE GILLIS: Yeah.

RON BENNINGTON: You know what I mean?

SHANE GILLIS: But I almost— I was not going to go. And then I saw a
video of them doing dirt bikes on the White House lawn.

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah.

SHANE GILLIS: And a flyover, and I was like, “I got to see this.”

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah, you got to see that.

SHANE GILLIS: It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah. That’s what we want out of our government, is
insane.

SHANE GILLIS: That’s what we need. Dirt bikes. That’s what we need.
America’s back. America is back. Dirt bikes.

[Laughter]

SHANE GILLIS: I mean, what was that? They were playing in between
fights— they were playing music, and the music was like, “Let the bodies
hit the—”

[Laughter]

SHANE GILLIS: All that shit. Which, sorry, I shouldn’t sing that here.

RON BENNINGTON: No, it’s the worst place to sing that.

SHANE GILLIS: But, I mean, they’re playing like, you know, “Cut my life
into pieces—”

[Laughter]

SHANE GILLIS: And you’re like, “This is the White House.”

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah. What are we doing?

SHANE GILLIS: Yeah. But it was sick.

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah. You had fun.

SHANE GILLIS: Another one. I should— but I don’t think it was cool.

RON BENNINGTON: I don’t think Nate’s ever gotten blowback before,
though. You know what I mean? You have, and you seem to roll with it
when it comes to—

SHANE GILLIS: No, it stresses me out. It makes me really— it does. Yeah.
I hate it.

RON BENNINGTON: Wow.

SHANE GILLIS: I don’t enjoy it, because I feel— I feel bad. I don’t
know. I don’t want to get in trouble. I don’t like being in trouble.

RON BENNINGTON: You feel like a little kid. You’re like, “Man, how long
before it blows over?”

SHANE GILLIS: This will be done soon.

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah.

SHANE GILLIS: But there will always be— anytime something like this
happens, you gain a couple people that are just never going to forgive
you.

RON BENNINGTON: Right.

SHANE GILLIS: And will DM you and tweet at you pretty consistently for
the next five to ten years.

RON BENNINGTON: So the roast was the last one, right?

SHANE GILLIS: Yeah, the roast. Yeah.

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah.

SHANE GILLIS: I could have skipped that joke, but—

RON BENNINGTON: Right. But it’s not even like you wrote it, right?

SHANE GILLIS: No, that’s the thing. That’s why I thought Che’s thing was
funny, to show your writing style.

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah, it was funny.

SHANE GILLIS: And I know Che, and he was trying to be silly. But yeah,
some of my writers didn’t like it.

RON BENNINGTON: Oh, they got mad about it?

SHANE GILLIS: A little. They were a little annoyed.

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah, that’s the thing about a roast. Everyone acts like
it’s fun, but everybody’s sensitive.

SHANE GILLIS: Oh, of course.

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah.

SHANE GILLIS: And that was another one I didn’t want to do.

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah.

SHANE GILLIS: They asked me to do the Tom Brady one. I was like, “I
don’t feel like doing it.”

RON BENNINGTON: Right.

SHANE GILLIS: Then they asked me this one, and I was like— they were
like, “Kevin asked for you to host.” I was like, “All right, I’ll do
it.”

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah. And how long into doing it were you like, “Oh,
shit”?

SHANE GILLIS: Literally the entire— like, I knew for maybe two months
that I was doing it. The entire time I was very stressed. And then once
I got up there, I had fun.

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah, you had fun.

SHANE GILLIS: It was fun.

RON BENNINGTON: But, you know, in the back of your head, well, there’s
receipts coming.

SHANE GILLIS: Oh, yeah. Yeah. You’re going to get in trouble.

RON BENNINGTON: But that’s the funny thing. I was trying to figure this
out. Who’s the guys that kind of brought you to New York, said, “Come on
up”? Was it—

SHANE GILLIS: Jay and Soder.

RON BENNINGTON: Jay and Soder brought you to town, and it was so amazing
to me how fast everybody in New York was like, “Hey, Shane’s great.” You
guys were really early.

SHANE GILLIS: We were real early, but I think with, like, Delco Proper
and McKeever and Tommy, those are my guys.

RON BENNINGTON: Those guys are so much fun. And that’s the guys that you
were doing Tires with.

SHANE GILLIS: Yeah.

RON BENNINGTON: I think that show is so goddamn good. To me, I think
you’ve got to go back to Louis C.K. when he put together his show, where
something seemed that natural, you know?

SHANE GILLIS: Well, thank you.

RON BENNINGTON: And that’s John. I mean, John is such a good director.

SHANE GILLIS: Yeah, he’s good at it.

RON BENNINGTON: But it’s so weird that you guys moved into that— to do
the thing like, “Okay, I got my break, now I’m going to bring my buddies
in.” That is a recipe for disaster for everybody.

SHANE GILLIS: Well, there’s cracks.

[Laughter]

SHANE GILLIS: But we’re going to work through it.

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah. But that show is so damn funny.

SHANE GILLIS: Thank you.

RON BENNINGTON: To me, it’s like if you didn’t have comedy as an outlet,
where your life could have went, you know?

SHANE GILLIS: That’s where I was. Yeah. The last job I had, I was in a
garage in Philly. So it’s pretty easy.

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah. That was my main thing when I was a kid. I was
afraid I was going to end up in a factory, because that was— I did do
that once. Never again. It seems so nightmarish to me because every dad
worked at a factory. But I ended up in warehouses, moving shit from one
thing to the other. And then I also worked at the Franklin Mint for a
while.

[Laughter]

RON BENNINGTON: When you work at the Franklin Mint, at least back in
those days, everybody’s thought was, “How do we steal gold from these
people?” All the guys were coming up with different things to steal
gold. And a guy got out of there with a bunch of gold medallions, right?
He had a bunch of gold medallions. And we were like, “He did it.” You
know what I mean? He’s living the dream.

And that night, the cops go into this nightclub and there he is dancing
with one of the medallions.

[Laughter]

RON BENNINGTON: He was wearing it. And I was like, “Yeah, that’s not the
perfect crime after all.”

SHANE GILLIS: Right away.

RON BENNINGTON: You know what I’m thinking would be funny? If this
person didn’t like your show, right, and now they’re going through
chemo.

[Laughter]

SHANE GILLIS: It’s still playing. “Turn this off!”

RON BENNINGTON: We’re in here.

[Laughter]

RON BENNINGTON: We’re in here dropping bombs and he’s like, “Oh, Jesus
Christ.” But these people are really nice to us.

SHANE GILLIS: Yeah.

RON BENNINGTON: “Do whatever you want back here.” You know? I mean, this
is going to be the new studios for everybody.

SHANE GILLIS: This is it.

RON BENNINGTON: Once everybody gets cancer. That’s my master plan.

SHANE GILLIS: I mean, it is— yeah. Whatever. I’m not going to get
emotional. It’s really beautiful. Laughing— laughing here is like the—

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah, whatever.

SHANE GILLIS: No, you don’t—

RON BENNINGTON: You can get emotional, because can I tell you something?
One of the things I love about your show is that you will say “I love
you” to your buddies.

SHANE GILLIS: Stop. Let me put my sunglasses on.

RON BENNINGTON: Can I tell you? It doesn’t really exist—

SHANE GILLIS: Yeah.

RON BENNINGTON: —most places. But you’re like that with them.

SHANE GILLIS: Yeah, I love them. Yeah.

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah.

SHANE GILLIS: And— well, that’s the thing. Where I grew up, people that
are born someplace, the jobs are wherever they are, and then everyone
knows they’re staying. No one has this, “I want to get out of here. I
want to leave.”

RON BENNINGTON: Whose idea was that from the beginning?

SHANE GILLIS: So Steve Gerben was— I think he wrote a pilot for it in
college as a project. He wrote Tires back then. And then him and Chris
O’Connor worked on it. They included John— John McKeever— and then Chris
was like, “You guys should get Shane if we’re going to film this. He’s
good.”

RON BENNINGTON: Right.

SHANE GILLIS: And then we filmed a pilot. They filmed a pilot, I think,
without me a long time ago. And then seven years ago, we filmed like a
YouTube video.

RON BENNINGTON: Right.

SHANE GILLIS: And tried to sell it. Actually, we sold it to Quibi in
2019.

RON BENNINGTON: Holy man. I forgot that thing.

SHANE GILLIS: And then I got fired from SNL, and Quibi was like, “We
can’t use him.”

RON BENNINGTON: Right.

SHANE GILLIS: And my guys were like, “Well, we’re not doing it without
him.” But Quibi did give us, like, I think 25 grand each.

RON BENNINGTON: Wow.

SHANE GILLIS: And we were like, “Damn, we got to give this back.”

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah. It’s going to take a while. You’ll get it back,
but not right away.

SHANE GILLIS: You might not get it.

RON BENNINGTON: We were in the club with a medallion that night.

SHANE GILLIS: Yeah, that’s right.

[Laughter]

SHANE GILLIS: Twenty-five grand would have been— yeah, that was all I
would have needed at any age. And then when I got fired from SNL, Lorne
gave me the first-season pay when I got fired. So I did get 50 grand.

RON BENNINGTON: Wow.

SHANE GILLIS: And that bought a used Chevy Cruze and paid off my student
loans, and that was it.

[Laughter]

SHANE GILLIS: I was back to zero. Back to zero with, like, no career
prospects.

RON BENNINGTON: I was actually thinking of you. I was watching that
Lorne documentary, and Lorne Michaels and Steve Martin are just at
dinner together. And who are they talking about? Shane.

SHANE GILLIS: Oh, really?

RON BENNINGTON: They’re just discussing you.

SHANE GILLIS: That’s awesome.

RON BENNINGTON: And I’m like, “I wonder if Shane’s too young to get
this.” You know what I mean?

SHANE GILLIS: Yeah, I understand that.

RON BENNINGTON: It was insane. And then Steve Martin said something
like, “Well, how did you get him back to host?” And Lorne goes, “Because
he’s the biggest comedian in the world.”

SHANE GILLIS: Wow.

RON BENNINGTON: And he’s saying that to Steve Martin, who once held that
title.

SHANE GILLIS: Which also— Lorne’s smart. He definitely would say that
just to fire up Steve.

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah. That’s the thing that kills me. You’re doing the
Linc this— July 17th?

SHANE GILLIS: July 17th.

RON BENNINGTON: I mean, it’s such a giant thing. Steve Martin was one of
the first people to do arenas. That’s how big he was, when nobody was
doing arenas. But everybody, to me, that does arenas has this big act
that can reach, and you’ve got the—

SHANE GILLIS: Yeah, that’s about it.

[Laughter]

RON BENNINGTON: And I’m like, how did that happen, that it kept getting
bigger?

SHANE GILLIS: I think just comedy just got huge.

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah.

SHANE GILLIS: But yeah, my act— that was a tough adjustment. First arena
I did—

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah.

SHANE GILLIS: I was up there just—

[Laughter]

SHANE GILLIS: It was in Atlanta. We did State Farm Arena in Atlanta, and
I didn’t do the round. I did a stage, which is way harder. I don’t like
that at all. And I was like, “I’m not doing lasers or pyro or smoke or
anything. It’s just stand-up.” So I go out there and it’s a
football-field-size stage, and I’m just—

[Laughter]

SHANE GILLIS: So after that, Joe was like, “All right, we need some
smoke. We need some smoke. It’s a long walk through a stage that big.”
And then my guy went and got one fog machine from Spencer’s Gifts. Like,
it was this big. Put it in the corner, and just no one could see it. I
was on stage. I mean, I got the worst team.

[Laughter]

SHANE GILLIS: I suck. The worst team. The worst group.

RON BENNINGTON: That’s hilarious. Well, I was with you the night when
you got Radio City. We were at The Stand, and I’m like, “Shane, Jesus
Christ, Radio City.” And then they come back—

SHANE GILLIS: Yeah.

RON BENNINGTON: “It’s going to be two nights.” And I think it got up to
three, right? How many?

SHANE GILLIS: I think it was three or four.

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah. And I’m like, we were freaking out, like, “Jesus
Christ. Radio City.” But an extended—

SHANE GILLIS: Yeah, that was— that was awesome.

RON BENNINGTON: Anywhere in the early days when you had those nights
that you were ready to quit?

SHANE GILLIS: Yeah. Yeah.

SHANE GILLIS: I did a show in Boston, and I didn’t have any money. I
drove from Philly to Boston, and the only money— I just went to a Panera
during the day. I had to kill an entire day, right? And I didn’t know— I
was new to drinking coffee. I was like 31. I didn’t know that would fuck
you up. I drank like 10 cold brews. Had a panic— I went and saw Jumanji
in a theater by myself at like 2:30 in the afternoon. I was like, “What
the fuck am I doing with my life?”

[Laughter]

SHANE GILLIS: And I called McCusker, my buddy, and I was like, “Dude, I
think I’m going to quit.”

[Laughter]

SHANE GILLIS: He’s like, “You’re all right. You’re all right.” He was
like, “What’s going on, man?” I was like, “I don’t know. I drank like 10
cold brews. I guess maybe that’s doing something.” He’s like, “Yeah, of
course it is. What are you doing?” Almost quit.

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah. But that’s the thing, too. I’m glad that you’re
here for the chemo because, in my opinion— and I’m not trying to be one
of those older guys ball-busting— but your generation’s chemo sucks. The
chemo we had when I was a kid was unbelievable.

SHANE GILLIS: What’s going on with the new chemo?

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah, the new chemo is like— it’s like—

SHANE GILLIS: Liberal. It’s woke chemo.

RON BENNINGTON: Our chemo, you didn’t even know whether you were going
to come out of it. Here’s the deal. Since it goes straight into the
port, right, it hits in a way that most people don’t understand. You
know, mainline just really grabs you, and it’s just fantastic. Where if
you try smoking it, it just takes forever to get high. Do you want to
try a little bit?

SHANE GILLIS: No.

RON BENNINGTON: I’ll get you a quick port. You don’t want to try it?

SHANE GILLIS: I probably could use it. I could probably use it.

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah. Well, I don’t want to keep you too long, because I
know this is weird for you.

SHANE GILLIS: I feel pretty comfortable now.

RON BENNINGTON: Now you’re into it.

SHANE GILLIS: Yeah. If you guys want to go, I’ll stay as long as they
won’t let me go.

[Laughter]

SHANE GILLIS: I get to finish.

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah.

SHANE GILLIS: I can wait if you want.

RON BENNINGTON: No, that’s okay, though. But that’s very sweet of you.
That’s very nice. That’s the thing about you that I wonder if everybody
gets, is the heart that you have. Because I felt like everybody in New
York got that as soon as you were here. And you know that when you got
fired from SNL, everybody—

SHANE GILLIS: Yeah.

RON BENNINGTON: You know, came in, and you— I—

SHANE GILLIS: Yeah, I called you that night.

RON BENNINGTON: Yeah.

SHANE GILLIS: I looked at the text. It was the night I got fired. I was
like, “Ron, can we talk?”

RON BENNINGTON: “Sure, buddy.”

SHANE GILLIS: And you said some really, really nice things.

RON BENNINGTON: Well, you know, I mean, I didn’t believe all of them.
You know what I mean?

SHANE GILLIS: You’re being so sweet to me right now.

RON BENNINGTON: I’m glad. I’m glad. Can I tell you something?

SHANE GILLIS: What?

RON BENNINGTON: Even if I never see you again—

SHANE GILLIS: Okay.

RON BENNINGTON: Even if this is it, I want to tell you I love you, and
I’m really— I don’t know how much more time I have, but I’m really proud
of you. I’m really proud of you.

SHANE GILLIS: Oh, man.

RON BENNINGTON: No, it does mean a lot that you came in.

SHANE GILLIS: Why’d you say that?

RON BENNINGTON: Which part?

SHANE GILLIS: All that. This is why— you’re number one. That’s all I
got. Number one. You’re number one.

RON BENNINGTON: Well, I think it’s a good way to end this. Let you get
out of here.

SHANE GILLIS: Yeah, that’s good.

RON BENNINGTON: All those things I said absolutely mean, though. I love
you.

SHANE GILLIS: I know. I love you. You’re the best.

RON BENNINGTON: You’re the best.