What Simon Rex Can’t Live Without

This is one of those things that I throw in my bag since I live out of a suitcase on the road most of the time. And when I unpack, I see the jump rope and it starts to talk to me. It’s like, Come on, just do 15 minutes. You need your 15 minutes of cardio. So I’ll just go out into the parking lot or if the room is big enough, I’ll do it in the room. I’ll set a timer and follow along with a YouTube jump rope video that makes it more fun. It’s just the easiest way to do my daily cardio. You don’t have to find a gym. You don’t have to go jogging through the streets of some city that you maybe don’t know or if it’s too cold. The jump rope is a necessary tool for staying in shape and feeling good, and it takes up so little space. That’s the best part. You just roll it up and throw it in your bag.

This is one of those things that I must bring with me. It’s got really good sound, for whatever reason; it’s the best little speaker. It basically becomes my stereo system on the road. I was just doing a movie in Argentina, and I brought the speaker with me to commute to work in the morning. I’m DJ-ing, I’m playing music. Everybody’s in a good mood because I’m bringing the vibe.

I need to dance in the morning. I’ll just dance like an idiot by myself in the hotel room. I feel like it’s exercise; it releases energy out of your body. I know that sounds hippie-dippie, but it’s true. I didn’t dance this morning. My mom and stepdad are in town. I don’t want to dance in front of them. I could, but I just don’t. Let me pull up my morning playlist; it’s called “Amazing Morning Vibes.” Lemme see, it’s got some ’80s feel-good music like Spiro Gyra on there. Do you know who Khruangbin is? It’s like instrumental music. And then a lot of “rock steady” — kind of like ’50s and ’60s oldies reggae. It’s my favorite. Feel-good, positive, simple, not too many lyrics, just easy to dance to.

I have this theory. I remember going to Hawaii when I was a kid and visiting my dad and I’d see all the little local kids — the Hawaiian kids, the white kids, whoever — and their toes were all spread out because they’d be barefoot all day. Then I’d look at my feet, because I’m from San Francisco and I would be wearing shoes all year round, and my toes weren’t spreading. I was always jealous of the kids with the spread-out toes. I’d go, That’s how we’re designed to be as a human species. I’m being robbed of this because I’m a city person from the cold streets of San Francisco. I need to have spread-out toes. So this goes back to my childhood. Whenever I’m just lying down watching a movie or I’m making music on my drum machine, I put the toe spreaders in and they simply spread your fucking toes. It’s pretty basic, but it feels so good. I wish everyone would do it. And you just do it for 30 minutes and you’re like, okay, I’m getting closer to the Hawaiian locals.

There’s a theme here. It’s almost like self-care therapy — a lot of keeping my mind and body sort of tuned in and alert and happy and awake. That’s what I need on the road. So the Aletha hip hook is something I discovered recently and it kind of blew me away. I’m very pessimistic about things like this. Like, Oh, it’s just a plastic thing. I don’t believe in that. But once in a while, something comes along. My friend had one, and I tried it. There’s a whole technique: You lay your psoas area onto this hook, and then you turn the hook and it releases the front of your hips. That’s an area that causes your lower back to hurt all the time. I’m constantly sitting in a car in Southern California, on a plane, or on set. I had to have back surgery a year ago — I had a herniated disc — so I need anything that opens up my lower back. Funny enough, this little hook that you put in the front of your hip relieves all the pressure on your lower back. Now I throw this in my bag everywhere I go and just lay on it for a few minutes at night when I get home. It’s one of those things that’s a good pain. It hurts at first — your body’s tightening up and it doesn’t want to lean into this hook — but then you kind of release into the pain. And then once you really relax and breathe and just totally surrender, it will fucking open it all up.

This is my favorite toy in the world. It’s my therapy. I’ve been making music as a hobby for, gosh, since the late ’90s, so 25 years. Not to name drop, but it’s just funny because Adrien Brody and I were very good friends in the late ’90s and early 2000s when I lived in New York. He would be on movie sets and always making beats on a little keyboard. This was before The Pianist. He was like, “This is the best thing when you’re on the road working. It’s like therapy.” So he taught me how to make beats on these little electronic keyboard machines. One of them was called an MPC 2000. I used that thing for so many years. It was my favorite toy to bring on the road when I was shooting a movie or staying in hotels or traveling on a plane. The newest one just came out: It’s called the MPC Live II. I spend more time on this thing than anything else. You basically sample out of your iPhone into these drum pads and you can make music. It’s the greatest thing in the world for someone like me to get out of their head and into a flow state and create something instead of just watching a movie or playing video games. I don’t necessarily do anything with the final product. The act itself is so therapeutic. It feeds my soul.