Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special

00:00:00.000 | What's your opinion on my bird here, Mr. Parrot?

00:00:04.840 | - It's a macaw, Scarlet macaw.

00:00:07.720 | - What?

00:00:08.560 | - It is a Scarlet macaw.

00:00:10.280 | - Oh, you know birds?

00:00:11.560 | - Yeah, and that's actually not life-sized.

00:00:15.880 | - Are you saying he's not real?

00:00:17.680 | - I'm saying it's not to scale.

00:00:19.360 | - Okay, but he's real.

00:00:21.440 | - Are we doing that Monty Python sketch?

00:00:23.360 | (both laughing)

00:00:25.080 | - Everything is a Monty Python sketch.

00:00:26.560 | - I don't think Monty Python's funny.

00:00:28.200 | - You don't? - At all.

00:00:29.760 | - That explains so much.

00:00:31.040 | - Does it?

00:00:31.880 | What does it explain?

00:00:32.720 | - What do you think is funny?

00:00:33.560 | (both laughing)

00:00:35.320 | - You're not answering that question, it's pretty funny.

00:00:37.840 | - Well, yeah, what do you think is funny?

00:00:39.960 | Having a mantis shrimp?

00:00:41.600 | - No.

00:00:42.560 | - You think Big Lebowski's funny?

00:00:44.200 | - Oh God, no.

00:00:45.080 | - This is getting worse and worse.

00:00:48.200 | The following is a conversation with Michael Malice,

00:00:53.560 | anarchist and author of "Dear Reader,"

00:00:56.440 | "The New Right," "The Anarchist Handbook,"

00:00:59.000 | "The White Pill," and he is the host of the podcast,

00:01:03.520 | You're Welcome.

00:01:04.480 | This is a Thanksgiving special of the pirate

00:01:08.960 | and ocean-going variety.

00:01:10.840 | So once again, let me say thank you for listening today

00:01:15.000 | and for being part of this wild journey with me.

00:01:18.600 | This is the Lex Friedman Podcast.

00:01:20.560 | To support it, please check out our sponsors

00:01:22.560 | in the description.

00:01:23.840 | And now, dear friends, here's Michael Malice.

00:01:27.480 | (silence)

00:01:29.640 | - The box?

00:01:35.040 | - Yeah.

00:01:35.880 | - The mystery box? - I'm wondering what's in it.

00:01:36.800 | - There's something in that box of exquisite beauty,

00:01:41.200 | both literally and in what it symbolizes

00:01:44.120 | and why it is here.

00:01:46.760 | - Given the kind of human being you are,

00:01:48.800 | I'm terrified at what you find beautiful.

00:01:52.640 | - That's a good point.

00:01:54.680 | You kind of hit me with the curve ball.

00:01:56.320 | - Yeah?

00:01:57.160 | - Like for me, the most beautiful wildlife

00:02:01.240 | are what I call God's mistakes.

00:02:04.440 | - Yeah.

00:02:05.280 | - Because my friend came up with that term

00:02:06.640 | where she's like, "God made these disgusting animals

00:02:09.280 | "just threw in the bottom of the ocean."

00:02:10.440 | He's like, "No one's ever gonna see this."

00:02:12.000 | - Yeah, you commented on Twitter about some creature,

00:02:15.600 | like a rainbow-type creature.

00:02:17.520 | - The peacock mantis shrimp.

00:02:18.760 | - Yeah, it's beautiful.

00:02:20.280 | - It's horrific, though.

00:02:21.520 | So it has, I think, eight legs, six arms,

00:02:26.440 | two punching claws or spearing claws,

00:02:29.160 | depending on the genus, two eyes, two antennae,

00:02:33.040 | two ear flaps, I don't know what they do,

00:02:35.600 | and its punch can be as strong as a bullet.

00:02:39.640 | And the other type with the spears,

00:02:41.320 | divers call them thumb splitters

00:02:43.720 | because if you stick your finger near it,

00:02:45.320 | it'll cut your thumb down to the bone.

00:02:48.240 | So I had one as a pet.

00:02:49.680 | All night, I would hear it banging on the PVC pipe,

00:02:52.000 | and I gotta tell you, they have the best eyesight

00:02:53.800 | of any animal 'cause they see in like seven different ways.

00:02:56.040 | And when you make eye contact with this thing,

00:02:58.000 | it's just absolutely terrifying.

00:02:59.520 | But you can eat them as sushi.

00:03:00.440 | They call them sea centipedes.

00:03:01.640 | - But they're colorful and beautiful.

00:03:03.120 | - That species is, yeah.

00:03:04.560 | - What was it like having one as a pet?

00:03:06.560 | And why did you do it?

00:03:09.560 | - Well, when you have a species that's that unique

00:03:13.600 | and that much of an outlier,

00:03:15.080 | growing up reading these books, watching these shows,

00:03:18.800 | I found this stuff so much more fascinating than space,

00:03:22.440 | which is dead.

00:03:24.640 | So to be able to have this specimen in your house

00:03:27.480 | and just observe its behavior is just an amazing thing.

00:03:32.480 | - Why'd you get rid of it?

00:03:33.960 | - I didn't have, I guess, the right minerals in the mix.

00:03:36.680 | - It died. - It had a problem

00:03:37.760 | molting once, yeah.

00:03:38.960 | It couldn't molt correctly.

00:03:40.400 | - Wow.

00:03:41.440 | You miss it?

00:03:42.280 | Think about it still?

00:03:43.280 | - I do think about it, to be honest.

00:03:44.920 | I still have a pair of its punching appendages

00:03:49.840 | from when it molted.

00:03:51.200 | - What pet animal in your life do you miss the most

00:03:54.960 | that has been in your life that you think about?

00:03:59.880 | - I've never had cats or dogs growing up

00:04:01.560 | or anything like that, which, you know, I, oh God.

00:04:04.800 | My problem is-- - Here we go.

00:04:08.400 | - If I like, oh, I can't do it,

00:04:11.320 | 'cause then once I get those five, it's gonna be 100,

00:04:14.080 | and I'm already too old to be the tattoo guy.

00:04:16.360 | - What would be the first tattoo?

00:04:18.760 | - My face.

00:04:19.600 | (laughing)

00:04:22.480 | - Would it go on your ass cheeks,

00:04:23.720 | or where would you put them?

00:04:25.200 | If it was my face.

00:04:26.680 | - If I got your face, it would definitely be

00:04:28.920 | on my arm right here.

00:04:30.040 | - If you had multiple faces, would you put like--

00:04:32.640 | - I think delts, right?

00:04:33.520 | Shoulders, different faces on different shoulders.

00:04:35.160 | - And then when you flex-- - Like, want some symmetry?

00:04:36.760 | - Yeah, yeah.

00:04:37.600 | Would you get a dictator?

00:04:39.440 | If you had to get a dictator, who would you get?

00:04:41.320 | - We have the Kim Jong-il, right?

00:04:42.920 | - Hmm.

00:04:43.760 | - 'Cause I wrote the book on him.

00:04:45.280 | - Oh, it's like plugging your book in a tattoo.

00:04:46.760 | - I don't think plugging, it's just like,

00:04:48.400 | I have a personal connection to this stuff.

00:04:50.080 | - Good opener to the conversation.

00:04:52.080 | People would be asking, "Why him?"

00:04:53.560 | And you'd be like, "Well, I wrote a book about it."

00:04:55.600 | - Well, I don't-- - And I'd be like, "Oh, okay."

00:04:57.480 | - Okay, here's why-- - Let me check it out.

00:04:58.760 | - That would be a bad, no, that's not what happens.

00:05:00.760 | - Okay.

00:05:01.840 | - Here's the thing.

00:05:02.680 | - What happens?

00:05:03.500 | - When you write a book about North,

00:05:05.520 | hey, nice to meet you, what is it you do?

00:05:07.160 | I'm an author, what kind of books do you write?

00:05:08.400 | Well, my last book was on North Korea.

00:05:10.120 | 90% of the time, 90, they will then start telling me

00:05:14.780 | everything they know about North Korea.

00:05:16.520 | And it's like, I don't need, this isn't a quiz,

00:05:18.600 | and it's a very poorly understood country.

00:05:20.800 | I don't expect you to know anything.

00:05:22.480 | You're not on the spot.

00:05:23.880 | And half what you're saying is not accurate either.

00:05:26.160 | It's fine.

00:05:27.000 | - How often do they bring up Dennis Rodman?

00:05:29.320 | - 100%. - 100% of the time.

00:05:30.800 | - Oh, so you know Dennis Rodman?

00:05:32.400 | - Yeah. - But I don't understand,

00:05:34.360 | I guess people feel the need to like,

00:05:36.600 | all right, now we're talking about this subject,

00:05:38.440 | I just gotta drop whatever I can talk about.

00:05:41.120 | It's usually a small amount.

00:05:42.600 | And there's this thing in the culture, which I hate,

00:05:44.880 | that everyone have to have an opinion on everything.

00:05:47.880 | And it's like, it's okay to be like,

00:05:49.120 | yeah, I don't know anything about that, tell me more.

00:05:50.840 | There's lots of things I don't know anything about.

00:05:53.200 | - What's your opinion on my bird here, Mr. Parrot?

00:05:58.040 | - It's a macaw, Scarlet macaw.

00:06:00.920 | - What? - It is a Scarlet macaw.

00:06:03.480 | - Oh, you know birds? - Yeah.

00:06:05.800 | And that's actually not life-sized.

00:06:09.080 | - Are you saying he's not real?

00:06:10.880 | - I'm saying it's not to scale.

00:06:12.600 | - Okay, but he's real.

00:06:14.640 | - Are we doing that Monty Python sketch?

00:06:16.640 | (both laughing)

00:06:18.280 | - Everything is a Monty Python sketch.

00:06:19.760 | - I don't think Monty Python's funny.

00:06:21.400 | - You don't? - At all.

00:06:22.960 | - That explains so much.

00:06:24.200 | - Does it?

00:06:25.040 | What does it explain?

00:06:25.880 | - What do you think is funny?

00:06:26.720 | (both laughing)

00:06:28.480 | - You're not answering that question, it's pretty funny.

00:06:31.000 | - Well, yeah, what do you think is funny?

00:06:33.120 | Having a manta shrimp?

00:06:34.760 | - No.

00:06:35.720 | - You think Big Lebowski's funny?

00:06:37.360 | - Oh God, no.

00:06:39.040 | Although-- - This is getting

00:06:40.200 | worse and worse. - To be fair,

00:06:43.120 | I only tried to watch Big Lebowski

00:06:46.040 | after it's been part of the culture for many years

00:06:48.800 | to the point where every single line

00:06:51.320 | has been quoted incessantly

00:06:53.680 | by the most annoying frat bros ever.

00:06:56.760 | So I kind of have been poisoned

00:06:59.480 | to be able to appreciate it.

00:07:01.120 | So maybe if I'd seen it when it came out

00:07:03.160 | before it became a thing, I would have enjoyed it.

00:07:05.760 | I couldn't get through it.

00:07:06.760 | Like I couldn't get through 20 minutes.

00:07:08.360 | - Is that how you feel about Schindler's List?

00:07:11.440 | - Well-- - It's so much easier

00:07:12.840 | for me to stare at you when you have sunglasses on.

00:07:14.760 | - I didn't think you'd be the one

00:07:15.740 | making Holocaust jokes today.

00:07:17.800 | And yet here we are.

00:07:19.160 | - And cut scene.

00:07:21.000 | I actually have no trouble making eye contact with you

00:07:24.520 | when you're wearing shades.

00:07:25.760 | - Yes, 'cause you're a robot.

00:07:27.920 | - Two copies of myself.

00:07:29.000 | - Yeah, oh, you're seeing yourself in them?

00:07:30.280 | - Mm-hmm. - Okay, cool.

00:07:31.120 | - Yeah, I'm having a conversation with myself.

00:07:33.680 | It's not your fault, Lex.

00:07:35.440 | (both laughing)

00:07:36.640 | - They made you like this.

00:07:38.320 | You were just a good little robot in St. Petersburg.

00:07:42.080 | - I could see Mr. Parrot a little bit too.

00:07:44.840 | - Well, what do you find funny?

00:07:45.840 | Come on, this is an interesting subject.

00:07:48.040 | - Well, I find Mighty Python, I find absurdity funny.

00:07:51.040 | - Yes, I find absurdity funny.

00:07:52.680 | I think that's the thing.

00:07:53.640 | When people come at me,

00:07:56.120 | and maybe this is an Eastern European thing.

00:07:58.920 | When they're like, how can you find

00:08:00.260 | this very dark subject funny?

00:08:02.720 | It's like, well, the humor, first of all,

00:08:04.480 | the humor is that you're making fun

00:08:07.480 | of something that's dark.

00:08:08.520 | So already it's absurd.

00:08:09.760 | It's completely inappropriate.

00:08:11.360 | Second, just psychologically,

00:08:14.040 | Joan Rivers said that Winston Churchill said,

00:08:16.640 | I don't know if it's true,

00:08:17.800 | that when you make people laugh,

00:08:18.760 | you're giving them a little vacation.

00:08:20.640 | And I was just thinking about this the other day,

00:08:22.480 | how when I die, if, I want my funeral to be a roast.

00:08:27.480 | - Yeah. - It doesn't help me

00:08:29.400 | that everyone's sad.

00:08:30.920 | If I brought people happiness or joy in life, whatever,

00:08:34.520 | I wanna keep doing that in death.

00:08:35.680 | Your sadness doesn't help me.

00:08:37.560 | I know you can't help it.

00:08:38.720 | But tell stories how it made you laugh,

00:08:41.440 | make fun of me, make me the punching bag,

00:08:43.720 | even literally take me out of that coffin

00:08:45.280 | and make me a pinata, I don't care.

00:08:48.280 | So I think, and I don't understand,

00:08:51.520 | well, I do understand, but it's sad for me

00:08:55.280 | when people are like, this isn't funny, that isn't funny.

00:08:59.360 | The way I look at humor is the way,

00:09:01.400 | it's like a chef, right?

00:09:02.760 | It's pretty easy to make bacon taste good,

00:09:05.400 | but some of these really obscure ingredients,

00:09:07.600 | to make it palatable, that takes skill.

00:09:10.280 | So if you're dealing with a subject

00:09:11.760 | that is very emotional or intense,

00:09:14.080 | and you can make people laugh,

00:09:15.720 | then that takes skill, and that's the relief for them.

00:09:20.320 | - Yeah.

00:09:21.160 | It's all about timing.

00:09:23.800 | - Yeah. - Yeah.

00:09:25.280 | - What's the difference, you wanna hear one of my jokes?

00:09:32.080 | - Is it a pirate joke?

00:09:33.240 | 'Cause that's the only kind I accept today.

00:09:35.880 | But go ahead, it doesn't have to be a pirate joke.

00:09:38.000 | It's one time.

00:09:38.840 | - Do you know who Leo Thomas is?

00:09:40.720 | - Yeah.

00:09:41.600 | - What's the difference between Leo Thomas and Hitler?

00:09:43.920 | - What?

00:09:45.000 | - Leo Thomas knows how to finish a race.

00:09:47.000 | - Very nice, very nice.

00:09:49.400 | - Did I just get the gold medal?

00:09:51.320 | - Good job.

00:09:52.160 | Why does it take pirates forever to get through the alphabet?

00:09:58.000 | - Why?

00:10:01.600 | - 'Cause they spent years at sea.

00:10:03.920 | - Oh, I thought it was gonna be an arr joke.

00:10:06.480 | That's a good one, I like that.

00:10:08.560 | When I was in North Korea, one.

00:10:10.560 | (laughing)

00:10:11.400 | - Oh, you know Dennis Rodman?

00:10:13.440 | It's a callback.

00:10:14.280 | - By the way, the thing that is very heartbreaking

00:10:16.880 | about the North Korean situation

00:10:18.120 | is that they have a great sense of humor.

00:10:20.600 | It would be a lot easier if these were robots or drones.

00:10:25.600 | They have big personalities, big sense of humor,

00:10:29.280 | and that made it much harder to leave

00:10:32.560 | and interact with these people

00:10:33.840 | 'cause there's nothing more human and universal

00:10:36.320 | than laughter and laughter's free.

00:10:38.240 | - You're saying there's humor even amongst the people

00:10:40.440 | that have most of their freedoms taken away?

00:10:42.520 | - Especially, again, we're from the Soviet Union.

00:10:45.360 | There's an anecdote, Russian humor is a thing

00:10:49.040 | because if you can't have food or nice things,

00:10:52.760 | at least you can have joy and make each other laugh.

00:10:55.320 | I think about it all the time

00:10:56.280 | and I think about my guide all the time.

00:10:57.400 | It's been, what, 2012, so it's been 11 years

00:11:00.240 | since I've been there and she's still there

00:11:01.480 | and everyone I've seen is still there.

00:11:02.840 | They just recently electrified the border

00:11:05.960 | so you can't even, even the few people who are escaping

00:11:07.960 | can't do it anymore.

00:11:08.960 | - Well, that's interesting

00:11:10.760 | that they still have a sense of humor.

00:11:12.000 | I attribute the Soviet Union for having that

00:11:14.180 | because of the really deep education system.

00:11:17.840 | You got to read a lot of literature

00:11:20.760 | and because of that, you get to learn about the cruelty,

00:11:25.760 | the injustices, the absurdity of the world,

00:11:30.720 | as long as the writing is not about the current regime.

00:11:33.680 | - Yeah, but I think if you look at African Americans,

00:11:36.400 | Jewish Americans, gay Americans,

00:11:38.160 | they are all disproportionate

00:11:39.720 | in terms of attributing to comedy.

00:11:42.000 | It's not 'cause these groups have some kind of magic to them

00:11:46.440 | it's that when you are on the outside looking in,

00:11:48.880 | A, you're gonna have different perspective

00:11:50.200 | than the people who are in the middle of the bell curve,

00:11:52.360 | but also when you don't have anything to lose,

00:11:55.200 | at the very least, you can make each other laugh

00:11:57.280 | and find happiness that way.

00:11:59.440 | So, that is something that I think

00:12:01.920 | is an important thing to recognize.

00:12:04.960 | - So what do you find funny?

00:12:07.240 | What makes you giggle in the most joyful of ways?

00:12:12.240 | The suffering of others?

00:12:14.520 | - I mean, there are YouTube videos

00:12:19.360 | of fat people falling down and they're really funny.

00:12:24.360 | - There's two kinds of people in this world.

00:12:29.080 | Those that laugh at those videos and those that don't.

00:12:32.760 | - No, and those that are in them.

00:12:34.400 | My friend Jesse just told me a great Norm Macdonald joke

00:12:39.760 | and this is a good litmus test joke

00:12:41.920 | 'cause he says a certain group of people lose their minds

00:12:45.680 | and a certain group of people just stare at you.

00:12:47.760 | And he goes this kind of,

00:12:48.880 | so I'll tell you the joke, this is Norm Macdonald.

00:12:51.480 | Guy walks into a bar and he sees someone at the bar

00:12:55.240 | who has a big pumpkin for a head.

00:12:57.800 | And the guy's like, dude, what happened to you?

00:12:59.280 | He goes, ugh, you'll never believe this.

00:13:01.320 | I got one of those genie lamps.

00:13:03.320 | And this genie, he's like, what happened?

00:13:05.160 | He goes, well, the first wish,

00:13:07.160 | I wished for $100 million.

00:13:08.960 | He's like, yeah, did you get it?

00:13:09.800 | He goes, yeah.

00:13:10.620 | He goes, it was in my bank account.

00:13:11.460 | It was fine.

00:13:12.300 | He goes, all right.

00:13:13.200 | Well, the second wish, I wished to have sex

00:13:15.080 | with as many beautiful women as I wanted.

00:13:16.360 | He goes, did that happen?

00:13:17.360 | He goes, yeah, it was amazing.

00:13:18.680 | He goes, then what?

00:13:19.680 | Well, I wished for a giant pumpkin head.

00:13:21.680 | (laughing)

00:13:25.720 | So there's a certain mindset

00:13:27.480 | that will just be staring at the screen.

00:13:30.080 | And that is, I mean, there's so many levels

00:13:32.440 | why that's funny, at least to me.

00:13:33.960 | And I just love that kind of--

00:13:35.760 | - Well, Norm Macdonald's like,

00:13:37.280 | just, I watch his videos all the time.

00:13:39.840 | He's a guy that definitely makes me giggle.

00:13:42.520 | And he's one of the people that makes me giggle

00:13:46.320 | for reasons I don't quite understand.

00:13:48.560 | - Did you ever see him with Carrot Top on Conan O'Brien?

00:13:52.320 | - No.

00:13:53.160 | - Making fun of Carrot Top?

00:13:54.360 | - No.

00:13:55.240 | He, this is probably the best talk show clip of all time.

00:13:59.240 | He's on with Courtney Thorne-Smith.

00:14:00.720 | She was on Melrose Place.

00:14:02.080 | And Conan O'Brien's the host.

00:14:03.720 | And Courtney's talking about how

00:14:05.960 | she's gonna be an upcoming movie with Carrot Top.

00:14:10.160 | And Conan's like, oh, what's it gonna be called?

00:14:12.640 | And she's like, doesn't have a title yet.

00:14:14.840 | And Norman goes, oh, I know what it should be called,

00:14:16.680 | Box Office Poison.

00:14:18.720 | And they're all laughing.

00:14:19.840 | And she's like, no, no, no.

00:14:20.800 | Like, the working title is Chairman of the Board.

00:14:23.440 | And Conan goes, do something with that smart ass.

00:14:25.240 | And Norman goes, yeah, board is spelled B-O-R-E-D.

00:14:27.920 | And they all just completely lost it.

00:14:30.160 | - There's something about him with words spoken

00:14:33.120 | out of his mouth, with the way he like turns his head

00:14:35.360 | and looks at the camera.

00:14:36.840 | - I think he is one of those rare comedians

00:14:41.320 | who you really feel like he's talking to you directly.

00:14:44.240 | He feels like he's winking at you in the audience.

00:14:47.560 | And he's like, can you believe I'm doing this?

00:14:49.480 | Like, it's like he almost, he feels like he's,

00:14:52.560 | I don't wanna say imposter,

00:14:53.520 | but like he's more a member of the audience

00:14:55.360 | than he is a member of the people on the stage.

00:14:57.200 | - Yeah, it feels like he's on our side,

00:14:59.920 | whatever the hell our means.

00:15:01.440 | - You know, Roseanne got him his first job.

00:15:03.960 | - Roseanne, you and her have been hanging out.

00:15:07.480 | - I got it, oh my God.

00:15:09.080 | Talk about Thanksgiving.

00:15:10.240 | When you are talking to Roseanne Barr

00:15:14.200 | and making eye contact with this person,

00:15:16.840 | it is, I can't even describe it.

00:15:19.040 | It's just like, holy crap, Roseanne Barr is talking to me.

00:15:21.240 | She is, I've said this to her face, pathologically funny.

00:15:26.240 | Like it does not turn off.

00:15:28.600 | And you're sitting there and you're like, holy crap.

00:15:30.840 | And when you make her laugh,

00:15:32.520 | which is that laugh that's in the theme song of her show,

00:15:35.480 | you feel like, okay, I did a mitzvah.

00:15:37.320 | I did something good and right in the world

00:15:38.920 | that I made Roseanne Barr laugh.

00:15:40.520 | And it's also really funny because,

00:15:43.400 | and she's gonna hate this,

00:15:45.000 | 'cause I tell her she's adorable, she isn't like that.

00:15:47.000 | She's little.

00:15:48.680 | You think of Roseanne Barr as this like force of nature,

00:15:51.120 | like a tsunami.

00:15:52.080 | She's like five, three, I'd say like maybe 130.

00:15:55.280 | And she puts on the sunglasses.

00:15:57.000 | You think this little Jewish lady, you'd never know.

00:15:59.320 | This is one of the most epic performers of all time.

00:16:02.360 | She lives near here now.

00:16:03.720 | So it's just so much fun talking to her.

00:16:07.160 | There was an old satirical magazine in the,

00:16:09.360 | I think in like early 2000s called "Heb" written by Jews.

00:16:14.360 | And she dressed up as Hitler for one of the photo shoots

00:16:18.480 | and she was baking little men in the oven.

00:16:21.440 | I found on eBay, I want her to sign it to Michael.

00:16:24.800 | It should have been you.

00:16:26.400 | But she signed it to Michael, you're one smart cookie.

00:16:29.480 | And now it hangs, love mom, Roseanne Barr.

00:16:32.360 | And I call her mom and it hangs over my desk

00:16:35.360 | 'cause I have her like good domestic goddess energy

00:16:37.640 | flowing at me.

00:16:38.480 | What?

00:16:41.920 | - What do you find?

00:16:43.600 | What else?

00:16:44.420 | So Norm Macdonald.

00:16:45.260 | - Norm Macdonald. - I guess we plan on that.

00:16:46.100 | - My favorite comedian is--

00:16:47.160 | - We agree on something.

00:16:48.120 | - My favorite comedian of all time is Neil Hamburger.

00:16:52.800 | So Neil Hamburger, I don't know if I'm ruining the bit.

00:16:55.760 | He's a character performed by this guy

00:16:58.600 | named Greg Turkington.

00:17:00.120 | So he comes out in a tuxedo, big eyeglasses,

00:17:05.000 | holding three glasses of water,

00:17:08.020 | coughing into the mic.

00:17:10.600 | And I remember I saw him once in LA

00:17:15.800 | and the girl ahead of me, at the table ahead of me

00:17:17.720 | was with her boyfriend, this basic chick, Pumpkin Spice.

00:17:20.840 | She turns to him and she goes, "What is this?"

00:17:23.320 | And I remember the first time he was on Jimmy Kimmel

00:17:26.080 | and he tells one of his jokes and it was like,

00:17:30.200 | "Why does E.T. like Reese's Pieces so much?"

00:17:33.720 | Well, that's what sperm tastes like on his home planet.

00:17:36.440 | And like no one laughs and he goes,

00:17:38.400 | "Oh, come on guys, I have cancer."

00:17:40.280 | (both laughing)

00:17:42.040 | And it just cuts to this marine in the audience

00:17:43.920 | with his arms crossed.

00:17:45.920 | So if you know what he's doing,

00:17:48.160 | it's just absolutely amazing.

00:17:49.280 | He opened for Tenacious D once in somewhere,

00:17:53.760 | I think in Ireland or the UK, one of those.

00:17:56.240 | And they're booing him

00:17:57.720 | 'cause his jokes are often not funny.

00:17:59.720 | He's like, "Hey, where did my whore ex-wife run off to

00:18:04.720 | with that dentist she's shacking up with?

00:18:07.120 | I don't know, but when I see her in court next month,

00:18:09.320 | Alaska."

00:18:11.040 | So they're booing and he goes, "All right,

00:18:12.720 | do you guys want me to bring out Tenacious D?"

00:18:15.220 | They're like, "Yeah, do you want to see your heroes

00:18:17.040 | of mine Tenacious D?"

00:18:17.880 | "Yeah."

00:18:18.720 | "Come on, let me hear it.

00:18:19.540 | Do you want to see Tenacious D?"

00:18:20.380 | "Yeah."

00:18:21.220 | He goes, "All right, if I tell this next joke

00:18:25.040 | and you don't boo me, I'll bring out Tenacious D."

00:18:28.800 | And it's like, I'm trying to think of one that's not too-

00:18:33.160 | - Self-censorship is never good.

00:18:36.120 | - Okay, he goes, "Can we agree that George Bush

00:18:40.440 | is the worst president America's ever had?"

00:18:42.960 | Everyone claps.

00:18:44.100 | Which makes it all the stranger that his son,

00:18:46.020 | George W. Bush, was in fact the best.

00:18:48.700 | - I take it back, I'm a self-censorship.

00:18:50.500 | - So two people laugh and he goes, "Oh, that's amazing.

00:18:55.220 | I guess I'll do an encore."

00:18:56.460 | And he did 10 more minutes.

00:18:57.700 | It was just like, I love him so much.

00:19:00.180 | - It's interesting that he opened for Tenacious D.

00:19:02.820 | Jack Black, that's a comedic genius of a different kind.

00:19:06.540 | - Oh yeah, and he was in one of my favorite movies,

00:19:08.700 | Jesus' Son, it's this little indie movie.

00:19:11.300 | He did a great turn in that.

00:19:12.300 | He's really underrated as an actor.

00:19:13.920 | He's got a lot of range.

00:19:15.040 | I know they kind of get typescast

00:19:16.920 | as this one specific type,

00:19:19.160 | but he's really, really talented.

00:19:21.160 | - But also just the pure joy.

00:19:23.040 | - Yes, he's clearly having fun.

00:19:24.880 | - Okay, it is Thanksgiving.

00:19:28.200 | So in the tradition, following tradition,

00:19:33.120 | what are you thankful for, Michael, in this world?

00:19:35.880 | - Do you have a list too?

00:19:37.160 | - No, not really.

00:19:38.320 | - Really?

00:19:39.140 | - It's up in here.

00:19:39.980 | - Oh, I mean, but you have several things

00:19:41.720 | you're thankful for.

00:19:42.560 | - Yes, yes.

00:19:43.560 | - One of the things I'm--

00:19:44.480 | - My list comes from the heart.

00:19:45.560 | I don't have to write anything down.

00:19:47.000 | - Well, I don't have it written down.

00:19:48.040 | - Okay.

00:19:48.880 | - One of the things that I'm most thankful for,

00:19:50.600 | this is a common answer, but I can back it up,

00:19:54.000 | is my family, because my nephew Lucas is now six years old,

00:19:59.000 | and when kids have a sense of humor,

00:20:03.640 | it's like just miraculous.

00:20:05.980 | So he stole my sister's phone, his mom,

00:20:10.560 | he figured out that grandma is listed as mom in the phone,

00:20:14.120 | and he calls her up, and he's like,

00:20:16.040 | "Michael's in the hospital, he's really sick,

00:20:17.720 | "he didn't wanna tell you," and she's freaking out,

00:20:19.680 | he goes, "Prank!"

00:20:21.120 | So I took him, Dinesh D'Souza just released a movie

00:20:24.880 | called "Police State," which is actually really good,

00:20:26.920 | highly recommend it, I was surprised how much I liked it,

00:20:29.720 | 'cause he wasn't going Republicans, good, Democrats bad,

00:20:31.840 | it was just about authoritarianism.

00:20:33.600 | And he had a movie premiere, "Mar-a-Lago,"

00:20:37.720 | so I'm like, I gotta bring Lucas to "Mar-a-Lago."

00:20:40.880 | So Lucas is, I'm like, "We're going to the president's house,"

00:20:43.320 | he's like, "Oh, the White House?"

00:20:44.760 | And I'm like, "No, no, a former president,"

00:20:46.400 | he goes, "Oh, Abe Lincoln?"

00:20:47.600 | And I'm like, "Okay, kid logic,

00:20:48.640 | "he's giving logical answers, this is kind of like AI,

00:20:51.280 | "you have to program it, it's using logic correctly."

00:20:55.160 | - You should have told him, as a president,

00:20:57.600 | that's second to only Abe Lincoln,

00:21:01.200 | in terms of greatness. - Accomplishments, yeah.

00:21:04.480 | He went up to all the women in their ball gown,

00:21:09.480 | evening gowns, and he goes, "You're so beautiful,

00:21:13.240 | "were you born as a girl?"

00:21:15.080 | So when you have this six-year-old asking you this,

00:21:17.840 | it was really, really fun.

00:21:19.760 | So that is a great joy, to have a nephew,

00:21:23.200 | and I have another one, Zach, who's coming up in age,

00:21:26.160 | and he's starting to talk now,

00:21:27.920 | that is really, really fun for me.

00:21:29.880 | - Getting to watch them find out

00:21:33.200 | about the world for the first time.

00:21:34.320 | - And also training them,

00:21:35.560 | like that he loves being funny and having fun.

00:21:39.680 | - You're his audience, in a sense.

00:21:42.320 | - Yeah, but-- - 'Cause you giggle and--

00:21:44.400 | - I give him, we're prank bros, he gives me a high five.

00:21:47.560 | My family, and this is, you talk about what I find funny,

00:21:51.240 | this is the things that actually enrage me.

00:21:53.520 | When people, and this is such a WASP thing,

00:21:55.720 | don't just go with the joke,

00:21:57.320 | or they're like, "I don't get it,"

00:21:58.400 | or they don't understand, to just go with it.

00:22:00.800 | I was in the car with my sister when she was like 10, 12,

00:22:05.440 | whatever, she's much younger than me,

00:22:06.520 | she's like 12 years younger,

00:22:08.120 | and there's this species of squid, by the way,

00:22:11.760 | which is asymmetric, one of its eyes

00:22:13.520 | is very much bigger than the other,

00:22:15.160 | 'cause it swims horizontally,

00:22:16.360 | and so one's looking up, one's looking down,

00:22:18.200 | where there's more light.

00:22:19.680 | Shout out, if you wanna learn more about squids,

00:22:21.360 | go to octonation.com.

00:22:22.600 | - Octonation, shout out. - Shout out to Warren.

00:22:25.240 | - There's a lot of fascinating stuff.

00:22:26.320 | Octonation on Instagram. - Yes.

00:22:28.120 | I was in the car with my sister,

00:22:30.400 | she was like 10 or 12. - Me as a pirate,

00:22:32.320 | I'm sorry for the rude interruptions,

00:22:33.840 | I appreciate that, I count especially.

00:22:35.920 | - Yeah, it's a great, yeah.

00:22:37.240 | - These jokes and thoughts are coming to me

00:22:40.080 | at a 10-second delay, so I apologize.

00:22:42.320 | Anyway, you were telling about the asymmetrical--

00:22:43.760 | - I know where I left the story, I got it.

00:22:46.400 | So I told my-- - Sometimes you need help.

00:22:47.680 | - No. - The age is getting to you.

00:22:49.480 | (laughing)

00:22:51.320 | - I was-- - Your skin is showing it.

00:22:53.800 | It's getting dark.

00:22:56.520 | - I told my sister, I go, "When you were born,

00:23:00.280 | "one of your eyes was bigger than the other

00:23:01.840 | "and you had to have surgery to fix it."

00:23:04.000 | So she turns, she's like, "Mom,"

00:23:06.240 | and my mom goes, "Honey, the important thing

00:23:09.800 | "is that you're beautiful now."

00:23:11.360 | That's all, it's like, "What's the big deal?

00:23:12.680 | "It was just a little surgery."

00:23:13.720 | And my sister's like, "All right, call grandma."

00:23:16.600 | And grandma goes, she goes, "Michael said that

00:23:20.040 | "when I was born, one of the eyes,"

00:23:21.040 | she goes, "Why is he telling you this now?

00:23:22.760 | "It's not a big deal."

00:23:24.280 | The fact that everyone went with this,

00:23:26.800 | I was so impressed.

00:23:27.920 | I was like, this is a quality family

00:23:30.160 | in this very specific regard.

00:23:32.040 | Does your family have a sense of humor?

00:23:34.040 | - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:23:36.000 | - Yeah.

00:23:36.840 | - Soviet culture, there's a dark sense of humor.

00:23:40.400 | - Very much so. - There's wit, there's--

00:23:42.520 | - Wordplay. - Wordplay.

00:23:44.120 | Yeah, yeah, and especially the Russian language

00:23:47.560 | allows for some hilarity to it.

00:23:51.040 | There's also a culture of poetry.

00:23:55.000 | My dad, my mom too, but they remember a lot of lines

00:24:00.000 | from books and poems.

00:24:02.800 | So there's just, you can do a lot of fascinating references

00:24:05.520 | that add to the humor and the richness of the conversation.

00:24:08.280 | - I feel like that's a very Russian thing.

00:24:10.520 | Like at a party or maybe at a bar or something,

00:24:12.200 | I don't know where you'd meet people,

00:24:13.720 | these are such great-- - And they go out.

00:24:15.760 | - I meant in Russia.

00:24:17.520 | I meant these would be such good icebreakers.

00:24:20.120 | Right, you go up to someone and goes,

00:24:20.960 | "Hey, did you hear this one, Novaya Anekdot?"

00:24:23.160 | And you just tell him some little story.

00:24:25.080 | - Did you say icebreakers 'cause it's cold in Russia?

00:24:27.720 | I'm here all night.

00:24:32.440 | - That's true, you never leave the house.

00:24:33.280 | - Literally. - So.

00:24:34.480 | I feel like that's a thing.

00:24:37.640 | - Yeah. - And that's not a thing

00:24:39.120 | in America.

00:24:39.960 | - You mean like witty banter?

00:24:43.440 | - No, meaning you go up to a stranger

00:24:45.000 | and that's your icebreaker, you tell him this little joke.

00:24:47.680 | And since everyone kinda has the same sensibilities,

00:24:49.680 | right away you guys are chatting.

00:24:51.040 | I don't think that's a thing here.

00:24:52.480 | - Yeah. - Here it's more small talk,

00:24:54.200 | which drives me crazy.

00:24:55.520 | - So what else are you thankful for?

00:24:57.280 | - Well, what's something you're thankful for?

00:24:59.680 | - Well, you went with family.

00:25:00.960 | I'm definitely thankful for family.

00:25:02.640 | - Okay. - Yeah.

00:25:04.160 | - How, if I may ask, how do they react to you?

00:25:07.320 | Like you're sitting down with Elon,

00:25:08.560 | you're sitting down with Netanyahu,

00:25:10.160 | you're sitting down with all these big,

00:25:11.760 | with Kanye, all these big names.

00:25:14.520 | Are they expressing that they're proud of you

00:25:17.440 | or is it more like, why haven't you talked to this person?

00:25:19.880 | - (laughs) Yeah, more Michael Malice, please.

00:25:22.800 | (both laugh)

00:25:25.280 | - People's choice.

00:25:26.680 | - Yeah, yeah, they're very proud.

00:25:28.320 | They've been very, they're very,

00:25:30.080 | I mean, but they get argumentative

00:25:31.400 | and they're just like a regular human being

00:25:34.880 | with whom I'm close and we just argue about stuff.

00:25:36.960 | They're not, maybe not enough, show the being proud of,

00:25:40.840 | but that part is just the nature of our relationship.

00:25:45.360 | It's also Soviet parents.

00:25:46.760 | - Yeah, I don't talk to my dad, that's one of the reasons,

00:25:48.640 | 'cause there's never, ever any good job.

00:25:52.480 | And at a certain point, it's like,

00:25:56.560 | why am I trying to search for approval

00:26:00.920 | from someone I'm never getting it for

00:26:02.480 | and from whom it wouldn't mean anything

00:26:03.720 | at this point anyway?

00:26:04.800 | - Well, that's interesting.

00:26:05.640 | I mean, there's a journey like that

00:26:07.440 | for a lot of people with their father or with their mother.

00:26:10.600 | Like, they're always trying to find approval.

00:26:12.760 | - Right.

00:26:13.960 | - That's life for a lot of people.

00:26:15.840 | - Yeah.

00:26:17.680 | - That's a really big part of the human condition

00:26:20.440 | is that relationship you have

00:26:21.800 | with your father, with your mother.

00:26:23.000 | I don't know, it's a beautiful thing.

00:26:24.120 | So it's, whether it's been a rough childhood

00:26:26.880 | or a beautiful one, all of it, that's who you are.

00:26:29.360 | Like, that, the relationship,

00:26:33.000 | especially early on in your life with your father,

00:26:35.240 | with your mother, is like extremely formative.

00:26:38.520 | - Yeah, my dad taught me a lot of things at a young age

00:26:41.920 | that I'm very, very grateful for.

00:26:45.640 | He's extremely intelligent, very flawed, and that's fine.

00:26:49.520 | We all are, except for me.

00:26:51.440 | And it's the kind of things that when you learn things

00:26:55.160 | that are right, and this is one of the things I like

00:26:57.040 | about being older, is that when I'm friends with people--

00:26:59.280 | - Much older.

00:27:00.120 | - Much older.

00:27:00.960 | (laughs)

00:27:01.780 | But much, much older.

00:27:02.620 | When I have friends who are younger,

00:27:04.720 | it's very easy for me to keep them

00:27:07.160 | from making the mistakes I did.

00:27:08.720 | So at least this is something I'm getting out of it,

00:27:10.800 | is that, okay, I can't fix these mistakes,

00:27:12.680 | but it just takes me 30 seconds

00:27:15.120 | and I can pull you back from making the mistake.

00:27:17.600 | So he taught me a lot as a kid.

00:27:19.640 | He really encouraged me very much to,

00:27:22.360 | he's a very good sense of humor

00:27:23.600 | and also very bad in some ways, dad jokes,

00:27:26.120 | but also really funny jokes.

00:27:28.380 | But also this love of learning, I got that from him.

00:27:33.040 | And I mean, I have got literally right now

00:27:36.200 | 98 books on my shelf to read.

00:27:37.880 | It's just a life, that makes me,

00:27:40.200 | I remember I had a friend and she ran into someone

00:27:42.900 | she went to high school with

00:27:43.960 | and he stopped you on the train

00:27:45.520 | and he's like, "Yo, you're not in college.

00:27:46.840 | "You don't need to read books anymore."

00:27:48.000 | And I was just horrified to hear this.

00:27:50.680 | - Yeah, yeah.

00:27:53.040 | Boy, don't I know it.

00:27:54.200 | - I mean, you do laugh, but when you got,

00:28:00.040 | there's a lot of things I don't understand.

00:28:03.160 | When you got heat for, I wanna read the Western classics,

00:28:07.880 | to me, that might've been the internet's absolute worst.

00:28:11.600 | - I think there's just a cynical perspective

00:28:14.480 | you can take that there,

00:28:15.960 | this is such a simple celebration of a thing,

00:28:19.220 | that there must be something behind it.

00:28:21.320 | I think the internet for good and bad is just skeptical.

00:28:25.500 | Like what's behind this?

00:28:26.800 | - My hero, Albert Camus, and if there's one thing

00:28:29.960 | I would wanna fight, it's cynicism.

00:28:32.400 | Because it's such a giving up, it's such everything sucks.

00:28:36.960 | This sucks, that sucks, this sucks.

00:28:38.640 | Most things suck, most standard comedians suck,

00:28:41.200 | most movies suck, all podcasts suck.

00:28:43.340 | But it doesn't matter. - Especially yours.

00:28:46.080 | - Especially mine, it's unwatchable.

00:28:48.400 | - You're welcome, you can't even spell it correctly.

00:28:50.640 | (both laughing)

00:28:53.300 | - But the stuff that's good is what matters.

00:28:57.060 | Who cares if 90% of movies are terrible?

00:29:01.080 | They're the ones that change your life.

00:29:03.160 | The books, the people, the comedians,

00:29:05.920 | the shows, the music.

00:29:08.320 | And even the terrible things have good moments,

00:29:11.680 | beautiful moments. - Some, not all.

00:29:14.200 | - Your podcast being an example of not all.

00:29:17.840 | I've literally just, I keep listening for something good.

00:29:21.480 | Something good. - In all fairness,

00:29:22.920 | none of my guests have anything to offer.

00:29:25.520 | (Lex laughing)

00:29:26.560 | It's not on me, I try. - Yeah, yeah.

00:29:28.480 | Well, I wish you'd talk a little less in your podcast.

00:29:31.720 | It's a little excessive.

00:29:33.660 | I only listen for the underwear commercials.

00:29:36.520 | Sheathunderwear.com, probably called Malice.

00:29:38.840 | - I think you did this, I haven't seen you do it in a while,

00:29:42.680 | but this kind of commentary on a debate,

00:29:46.400 | or I think it was with Rand,

00:29:49.240 | like an Ayn Rand debate or something like this.

00:29:50.440 | - Oh yeah, Malice at the Movies.

00:29:51.800 | I watched the video and I broke it down.

00:29:53.880 | - That was really great, I wish you did that more.

00:29:56.120 | - I haven't done live streaming in a long time.

00:29:58.480 | It was something I was doing a lot in New York,

00:30:01.640 | especially during COVID.

00:30:03.280 | I feel that, I don't know, I'm having,

00:30:07.720 | I've got so many projects on the plate.

00:30:09.720 | Oh, this is something else I'm thankful for.

00:30:13.760 | This is something I'm very, very thankful for,

00:30:15.680 | and I'm gonna announce it here.

00:30:17.160 | - Coming out of the closet, finally, go ahead.

00:30:19.460 | - Who's the lucky guy?

00:30:23.560 | (Lex laughing)

00:30:26.140 | You're the one in drag.

00:30:29.600 | (Lex laughing)

00:30:33.240 | - Guns out, guns out.

00:30:34.400 | - He makes me call him Sex Friedman.

00:30:37.200 | - You like it.

00:30:40.360 | - So, I didn't say it.

00:30:41.960 | Didn't even imply that.

00:30:44.960 | When I, as you probably know,

00:30:48.480 | as you know, but as many people watching this also know,

00:30:51.600 | Harvey P. Carr, who had the comic book series

00:30:54.640 | American Splendor, was the subject of movie

00:30:57.000 | American Splendor, he wrote a graphic novel about me

00:30:59.440 | in 2006 called Ego and Hubris,

00:31:01.400 | which goes for like $150 on eBay.

00:31:03.840 | It's not worth it, just download it.

00:31:06.080 | And I met Harvey because I wrote this screenplay

00:31:11.080 | about this band from the '80s called Rubber Rodeo.

00:31:14.240 | It's a real band.

00:31:15.400 | And the keyboardist, Gary Lieb, who passed away,

00:31:17.700 | rest in peace, Gary, introduced me to Harvey

00:31:20.640 | 'cause he did the animation for the movie.

00:31:22.920 | And this script's been in my desk for over 20 years.

00:31:27.160 | And I realized, thanks to my buddy Eric July,

00:31:29.680 | who has some huge success with his comics,

00:31:31.920 | I could just produce this as a graphic novel.

00:31:34.200 | So I've got an artist, we're getting it together,

00:31:36.880 | so I'm gonna make it happen finally.

00:31:38.560 | And it's some of the best writing I've ever done,

00:31:40.480 | I'm really proud of the story.

00:31:42.480 | It's kind of ironic reading it now

00:31:44.300 | because when you're a writer, obviously,

00:31:47.240 | different books, you put different aspects

00:31:49.080 | of yourself into them, right?

00:31:50.940 | And this story's very, very dark

00:31:53.160 | because basically they did all the right things

00:31:56.320 | and they went nowhere, right?

00:31:58.400 | And what I realized was, reading it now,

00:32:01.040 | that all these fears I had over 20 years ago

00:32:04.520 | about what if I'm not gonna make it,

00:32:06.160 | what if I'm doing all the hard work

00:32:07.800 | and it's still not enough,

00:32:09.760 | now it's been disproven 'cause I can at least pay my rent.

00:32:12.920 | - You feel like you've made it?

00:32:14.520 | 'Cause you said you could pay your rent.

00:32:17.120 | - I feel that to make it is,

00:32:21.680 | if you don't have to have a boss,

00:32:23.900 | and you know how I really felt like I made it?

00:32:27.600 | This is gonna sound like a joke and it's not.

00:32:29.880 | This is being an immigrant.

00:32:31.500 | I own, as you know, Margaret Thatcher's bookcases.

00:32:35.440 | - Yes.

00:32:36.280 | - So to me, as an immigrant,

00:32:37.800 | to have her bookcases in my house, I've made it.

00:32:42.200 | - You're right, it's not a joke.

00:32:44.360 | There's nothing funny about it at all.

00:32:45.480 | - No way.

00:32:46.320 | (laughing)

00:32:47.680 | - Time to get serious.

00:32:48.800 | - Oh, nice.

00:32:51.240 | Oh, now I'm more nervous.

00:32:52.480 | (laughing)

00:32:54.120 | And aroused.

00:32:55.020 | So what else are you thankful for?

00:32:57.180 | So we're both thankful for family.

00:32:58.880 | - The fact that I can--

00:33:02.320 | - They'll get it up.

00:33:03.160 | - What's that?

00:33:04.000 | - Nothing, go ahead.

00:33:05.120 | - I think as an author,

00:33:08.160 | to be able to write what you want

00:33:11.360 | and have enough of an audience that it covers your living,

00:33:15.620 | that's as good as it gets as an author almost.

00:33:18.780 | You don't need to be Stephen King or some legend.

00:33:22.360 | It's like, there's lots of stand-ups

00:33:23.880 | who aren't world famous,

00:33:25.300 | but they have perfectly good living,

00:33:28.180 | they do their gig, they do what they love.

00:33:30.440 | I feel very, very blessed.

00:33:31.820 | You must be thankful for your career.

00:33:33.980 | - Yeah, career-wise.

00:33:35.380 | But I think the best part about it

00:33:38.620 | is just meeting, making friends with people I admire.

00:33:42.700 | Quite honestly, just friends.

00:33:45.860 | The people that have gotten to know me,

00:33:47.620 | I hide from the world sometimes, I hit some low points,

00:33:50.980 | especially with all the new experiences.

00:33:52.900 | And just the people that have been there for me

00:33:55.120 | and haven't given up on me.

00:33:56.600 | - You know, there's days, and I'm sure you've had this also,

00:33:59.200 | where I literally don't speak to someone the whole day.

00:34:01.780 | And in certain times of my life,

00:34:03.200 | I remember very vividly.

00:34:05.580 | I was in DC in '97, I was an intern.

00:34:11.320 | And that summer, DC closes down on the weekends.

00:34:16.160 | And I remember those weekends

00:34:17.480 | when I got off the phone with the third person,

00:34:21.260 | I knew there was no possibility anyone was gonna call.

00:34:24.920 | And what that felt like.

00:34:26.400 | And it was dark, and it was bad.

00:34:28.580 | So I remember those feelings of loneliness a lot.

00:34:33.540 | - I still feel alone like that sometimes.

00:34:37.840 | You don't feel alone?

00:34:40.020 | - Not anymore.

00:34:42.560 | - What's the reason, you think?

00:34:45.640 | - Because I have a lot of people

00:34:50.340 | who I care about and who care about me.

00:34:52.340 | I mean, the thing about moving to Austin

00:34:56.520 | is I forgot how lonely New York got,

00:34:58.720 | because it was like one after another, I lost everybody.

00:35:02.480 | And then you start losing the places you go to.

00:35:04.800 | And then it was just like, holy crap, I'm very isolated.

00:35:07.400 | And here in Austin, there's not as much to do,

00:35:09.280 | obviously, as in New York.

00:35:10.900 | But there's a lot of people here,

00:35:12.440 | more people are coming all the time.

00:35:14.940 | So if I ever want to hang out with someone,

00:35:18.240 | I've got a long list.

00:35:19.400 | And these are people who I've known for a very long time,

00:35:22.440 | people who know me quite well, so I could be myself,

00:35:26.040 | my awful, awful, awful, awful, awful self.

00:35:29.400 | And that is something I don't take lightly.

00:35:32.760 | - Now you moved to Texas, it's gonna succeed.

00:35:34.880 | - Yeah.

00:35:35.720 | - It's just a very--

00:35:36.560 | - Do you know what happened with that?

00:35:37.840 | - No.

00:35:39.400 | - I forget the guy's name, and it's probably for the best.

00:35:42.040 | Monday, on Monday, a guy in the Texas legislature

00:35:46.680 | introduces a bill to have it on the referendum,

00:35:49.760 | to have a referendum for Texas to declare its independence.

00:35:53.320 | Tuesday, I'm on Rogan, me and him discuss it,

00:35:57.920 | I give it national attention.

00:35:59.520 | It was also really funny because a lot of people are like,

00:36:01.200 | these people have been in Texas five minutes, blah, blah.

00:36:04.120 | I go to the Texas legislature, meet with the guy,

00:36:08.600 | have a nice conversation.

00:36:10.680 | Month or two later, unanimous, I think,

00:36:14.600 | he gets voted, kicked out of Congress

00:36:16.600 | because he got an intern drunk

00:36:18.480 | and was inappropriate with her.

00:36:20.360 | At least it was the girl in this case.

00:36:22.600 | But yeah, so it's like,

00:36:23.800 | that was my little Texas independence moment.

00:36:27.320 | - Oh, it didn't go anywhere.

00:36:28.560 | - It did not go anywhere.

00:36:29.680 | - Wow.

00:36:30.520 | - But it's still part of the platform,

00:36:33.400 | the Texas Republican Party.

00:36:35.440 | - Yeah, it's fascinating that history is probably laden

00:36:38.120 | with stories like this of failed revolutionaries.

00:36:41.400 | We celebrate the heroes, but then there's the losers.

00:36:45.800 | - Myself.

00:36:46.720 | - Yeah.

00:36:47.560 | And we're gonna mark that one as a failure and edit it out.

00:36:52.760 | And moving on.

00:36:55.240 | So thankful, yeah, friendships, right?

00:36:57.800 | But by the way, I wanna say just to you,

00:37:00.320 | I'm thankful in this lonely moments

00:37:03.280 | for people who write books.

00:37:05.680 | I've been listening to audio books a lot and reading a lot.

00:37:08.960 | I really like audio books actually.

00:37:11.560 | And just like, I don't know,

00:37:14.120 | I can just name random person,

00:37:16.480 | Serhii Plokhi is a historian I'm reading on the--

00:37:19.280 | - Wait, I read him.

00:37:20.800 | - I just see he written a book most recently

00:37:23.440 | about the Russia-Ukraine war.

00:37:25.720 | - He wrote another one that I read.

00:37:26.920 | Didn't he write-- - "Empires," I think.

00:37:28.360 | - "The Fall of the Soviet Union," something like that.

00:37:30.040 | - Yeah, yeah.

00:37:30.880 | - Yeah, it was very, very good.

00:37:32.240 | - He's great.

00:37:33.080 | - I'd use him as a resource for the White Pill.

00:37:34.520 | - He's objective while still having emotion

00:37:37.640 | and feeling to it.

00:37:38.480 | Like he has a bias.

00:37:39.800 | - That's fine.

00:37:40.680 | - But without, a lot of times when you write a story

00:37:45.040 | that involves Putin, people are really ideological.

00:37:48.960 | They don't really like, they don't write with a calmness

00:37:53.720 | and the clarity and the rigor of history.

00:37:56.880 | There's emotion in it.

00:37:58.000 | Like there's almost a virtue signaling.

00:38:00.560 | And he doesn't have that even though he is Ukrainian

00:38:03.200 | and has very strong opinions on the matter.

00:38:06.080 | Anyway, there's people like that

00:38:07.280 | and he does an incredible job researching

00:38:10.480 | a recent event.

00:38:12.000 | Like he says, "I was looking at everything

00:38:16.440 | "that's been written about the war in Ukraine

00:38:18.880 | "and realizing," you know, the old Churchill line

00:38:22.200 | that historians are the worst ones to write

00:38:25.380 | about current events except everybody else.

00:38:27.800 | And so he's like, "I might as well just write

00:38:29.740 | "about this war."

00:38:30.580 | And he does an exceptional job summarizing day by day

00:38:33.240 | the details of this war.

00:38:35.320 | Anyway, so I'm just grateful for a guy like that

00:38:38.920 | and for me, I'll name some historians I love.

00:38:43.560 | Arthur Herman, Victor Sebastian is probably my favorite.

00:38:47.420 | David Petruccia, P-I-E-T-R-U-S-Z-A.

00:38:51.800 | When you are a historian, and I tried to do this

00:38:55.560 | to some degree in The White Pill as much as I could.

00:38:58.000 | But yeah, when you take data

00:39:01.040 | and you make it read like a novel,

00:39:06.040 | so you're learning about who we are as people,

00:39:08.920 | what had happened, but also it's entertaining and readable.

00:39:12.360 | That to me is like the acme of writing.

00:39:14.640 | And I have so much admiration.

00:39:16.200 | - What does acme mean?

00:39:17.440 | - Top. - Okay.

00:39:19.000 | - Zenith. - Zenith, okay.

00:39:21.040 | Is this what writers do?

00:39:21.920 | They just come up with these incredibly sophisticated words?

00:39:24.720 | I'm impressed.

00:39:25.560 | 'Cause you could have just said the best of writing.

00:39:28.440 | - Acme is also the company in like Bugs Bunny

00:39:30.720 | and Wile E. Coyote, so it's acme, you know, acme.

00:39:33.820 | - Yeah. - Yeah, like acme bombs.

00:39:36.360 | - Mm-hmm. - When they are that good,

00:39:40.200 | it's just, it leaves me in awe.

00:39:43.000 | - It's just the acme. - Ron Chernow's another one.

00:39:45.060 | - Who? - He wrote the Hamilton biography.

00:39:47.800 | - Oh, nice.

00:39:48.960 | Oh, I have a lot of favorite historians

00:39:52.040 | about the whole time period of World War II.

00:39:56.000 | William Shire, people that lived during it especially.

00:39:58.760 | I really like those accounts.

00:40:00.560 | Obviously, Solzhenitsyn is, he's not a historian,

00:40:04.320 | but his accounts are fascinating.

00:40:08.080 | You actually, how much do you talk about Solzhenitsyn?

00:40:10.960 | - Never. - Not much, right?

00:40:13.720 | Why not?

00:40:15.120 | - I feel like I wanted to,

00:40:17.040 | there's nothing I could add to him.

00:40:20.800 | - Oh, he's the Michael Malice of the previous century.

00:40:23.700 | - No, he's talented, charismatic, and skilled,

00:40:28.380 | so he's not the Michael Malice.

00:40:30.400 | Yeah, I did not,

00:40:32.920 | I feel like I didn't read Gulag Archipelago

00:40:36.320 | for the white pill.

00:40:37.560 | - You didn't? - I didn't, no.

00:40:39.480 | I feel I got a lot of it from Ann Applebaum,

00:40:41.800 | who's a very controversial figure.

00:40:43.600 | Her history books on the Soviet Union I think are superb,

00:40:47.560 | but she's also accused of being very much like a neocon

00:40:50.920 | and being a warmonger in contemporary times.

00:40:52.760 | - Oh, I see. - And I think comparisons

00:40:54.560 | between Putin and Stalin, although there is a Venn diagram,

00:40:58.560 | I think are a bit much

00:41:00.680 | because I think it's very hard to claim

00:41:03.120 | that if Putin conquered Ukraine,

00:41:05.520 | that there'd be a genocide.

00:41:07.280 | I don't think, I think that's a very hard argument to make.

00:41:10.040 | - In these tense times,

00:41:11.720 | even the comparisons of what's going on in Israel

00:41:15.040 | on either side, comparisons to the Holocaust,

00:41:17.640 | are also troubling in this way.

00:41:19.000 | - Yes, and I also don't like how that,

00:41:22.080 | I got in trouble, there was some literal demon

00:41:25.040 | who works at the Atlantic.

00:41:27.040 | - As opposed to a regular demon?

00:41:29.000 | - As opposed to a figurative demon.

00:41:30.440 | - I didn't know they employed demons.

00:41:32.240 | - They exclusively employ demons at the Atlantic.

00:41:34.960 | And he was giving me crap just a couple years ago on Twitter

00:41:39.200 | because I didn't think it's appropriate

00:41:43.080 | to refer to George Soros as a Holocaust survivor.

00:41:46.460 | And I'm like, listen, if you wanna put him

00:41:48.940 | in the same context as Anne Frank, knock yourself out.

00:41:52.960 | But I think that's so completely disingenuous

00:41:56.080 | and frankly repulsive to me morally

00:41:59.520 | to equivocate between figures like that.

00:42:02.520 | And also to claim that anyone who is a billionaire,

00:42:06.160 | who is, including Elon, including Sheldon Adelson,

00:42:10.540 | there's no shortage of these people,

00:42:12.200 | if you wanna use your extreme wealth,

00:42:14.200 | use it to influence politics,

00:42:16.200 | you have to be up for criticism.

00:42:18.160 | And to protect people, Bill Gates,

00:42:20.840 | to protect any of these people from criticism

00:42:22.820 | just on the basis of their identity is deranged to me.

00:42:26.000 | But also the Holocaust as a historical event

00:42:30.400 | and the atrocities within it are just singular in history.

00:42:36.040 | And so comparing them--

00:42:38.360 | - What's the utility, right?

00:42:39.720 | You're just basically trying to take this brand,

00:42:42.240 | I'm using that term in a very specific way,

00:42:44.500 | and latch, like when they say climate denial,

00:42:47.840 | no one's denying climate exists.

00:42:49.560 | So you're just trying to go off of Holocaust denial.

00:42:51.440 | I think it's shameless.

00:42:53.040 | And I think it's gross.

00:42:55.080 | - And it cheapens everything.

00:42:56.280 | - Yeah.

00:42:57.120 | - 'Cause there's deep, important lessons

00:42:58.240 | about the Holocaust.

00:42:59.840 | - Yes.

00:43:01.160 | - To me, the lessons are about how extreme it can get.

00:43:06.160 | - And how fast.

00:43:07.560 | - Yeah, and how fast. - That's the one.

00:43:09.600 | So people ask, oh, are humans basically good?

00:43:13.640 | Are they basically evil?

00:43:15.320 | I always say they're basically animals.

00:43:17.840 | And I think people are,

00:43:20.400 | most people are almost fundamentally deranged.

00:43:23.980 | And that there's basically this veneer

00:43:25.960 | of civilization and decency.

00:43:28.320 | And when shit hits the fan,

00:43:29.800 | and we see this over and over,

00:43:31.500 | they do things that would have been completely unthinkable,

00:43:34.320 | even to themselves five years ago.

00:43:36.020 | - Most people are fundamentally deranged,

00:43:39.120 | with a veneer of civility.

00:43:40.560 | - There's a show called--

00:43:42.520 | - I think I disagree with that.

00:43:43.840 | - Well, what's the show called?

00:43:45.140 | I'm having Alzheimer's 'cause of the advanced age.

00:43:47.320 | - The age.

00:43:48.520 | The skincare. - I think you should,

00:43:49.560 | there's a show called I Think You Should Leave.

00:43:52.360 | It's a sketch comedy show. - I Think You Should Leave.

00:43:53.640 | Okay, sorry.

00:43:54.620 | - It's a sketch comedy show.

00:43:56.560 | And he captures these great,

00:43:59.960 | how's your hair, princess?

00:44:01.120 | He captures these great moments

00:44:04.260 | of just the very thin veneer of normalcy

00:44:09.260 | and just the craziness

00:44:10.480 | that's so frequently lurking underneath.

00:44:12.800 | Another great example of this,

00:44:14.040 | when this is dealing with people who are literally crazy,

00:44:16.360 | have you ever seen the show Hoarders?

00:44:17.680 | So every episode of Hoarders,

00:44:19.400 | there's usually two people in every episode,

00:44:21.340 | but every episode has the same plot line.

00:44:23.880 | Veneer of normalcy, veneer of normalcy,

00:44:27.040 | veneer of normalcy,

00:44:28.440 | slight expression of concern,

00:44:30.440 | but blunt arrangement.

00:44:31.840 | And it always follows that exact pattern.

00:44:33.920 | - Yeah, I don't know.

00:44:36.280 | I think the deep ocean of the human mind is good.

00:44:41.280 | Like there's a longing to be good to others.

00:44:46.720 | - I have seen literally no evidence of this.

00:44:49.200 | And I know everything's a deep ocean with you people,

00:44:50.940 | but like--

00:44:52.120 | - What do you mean you people?

00:44:53.280 | - Pirates.

00:44:54.400 | - Oh.

00:44:55.480 | - I don't see it.

00:44:56.520 | You--

00:44:58.320 | - What's that, Mr. Parrot?

00:44:59.840 | You an anti-Semite?

00:45:01.280 | No, that's not nice to say

00:45:04.720 | in front of such a large audience.

00:45:07.080 | You're embarrassing me, Mr. Parrot.

00:45:08.820 | - Lex, you have--

00:45:10.320 | - What's that, Mr. Parrot?

00:45:11.160 | - You have--

00:45:12.040 | - He's a run-of-the-mill troll

00:45:14.480 | and barely an intellectual?

00:45:15.960 | That's not nice to say.

00:45:17.460 | That's not true.

00:45:18.420 | We talked about this.

00:45:20.320 | You have to see the good in people.

00:45:21.840 | - You have seen personally how quickly and easily it is

00:45:26.840 | for human beings to form outgroups.

00:45:30.760 | - Yeah.

00:45:31.600 | - And to just read others just,

00:45:34.280 | as I just did a minute ago with the Atlantic,

00:45:36.280 | completely out of the human race.

00:45:38.280 | And that happens constantly and very easily.

00:45:42.360 | Humans are tribal beings.

00:45:44.660 | So that does not,

00:45:45.920 | I don't see how that's compatible

00:45:47.040 | with this essential desire to do good.

00:45:49.300 | - No, I think it's like in 1984,

00:45:51.840 | the two minutes of hate.

00:45:53.760 | There is a part of humans that wants to be tribal

00:45:57.800 | and wants to direct, get angry and hateful.

00:46:01.560 | And then that hate is easy to direct.

00:46:03.760 | - Yes.

00:46:04.600 | - By especially people as you, as an anarchist,

00:46:08.240 | talk about little people in power

00:46:09.780 | that can direct that anger.

00:46:11.360 | But I think if you just look at recent human history,

00:46:15.040 | the desire for good, the communal desire for good

00:46:18.400 | outweighs that, I think.

00:46:20.180 | Like most of life on earth right now,

00:46:22.460 | people are being good to each other

00:46:24.380 | in the most fundamental sense

00:46:28.300 | relative to how nature usually works.

00:46:30.900 | - Okay, I think you're both wrong

00:46:32.380 | about people and about nature.

00:46:34.500 | So nature is not inherently violent in the sense like,

00:46:39.500 | for example, if anyone has an aquarium,

00:46:41.900 | or if you look at wildlife,

00:46:43.820 | yeah, you're gonna have predator prey,

00:46:45.780 | but these animals are gonna be coexisting

00:46:47.340 | and they're gonna be ignoring each other

00:46:48.340 | for the most part, right?

00:46:50.060 | And as for humans being essentially good,

00:46:54.080 | I think humans are essentially,

00:46:56.080 | to each other, you said,

00:46:57.240 | I think they're essentially civil and amiable,

00:47:00.680 | but that's not really being good.

00:47:02.760 | - Good, I think, is a thing that gets illustrated

00:47:05.160 | when you're challenged, when there's difficult situations.

00:47:07.520 | - Yes, exactly, yes.

00:47:08.360 | - I mean, civility is a good starting point.

00:47:10.840 | And then when there's a big challenge that comes,

00:47:14.520 | people step up on average.

00:47:16.980 | - I completely agree with you

00:47:18.260 | that human beings are capable of such profound goodness

00:47:21.600 | that it kind of makes you extremely emotional.

00:47:25.920 | And I certainly think that that's true.

00:47:28.660 | But I think that that's more unusual than is the norm.

00:47:32.460 | - I see beauty everywhere.

00:47:34.140 | - So do I, but that doesn't mean it's in every person.

00:47:36.940 | - Not in every person, but in most people.

00:47:39.180 | I think, I mean, I wish there was a really good way

00:47:41.940 | to measure this.

00:47:43.100 | My general sense of the world is just,

00:47:45.340 | there's so much incredible, both in terms of economics,

00:47:49.420 | in terms of art, in terms of just creation as a whole

00:47:53.260 | that's happened over the past century,

00:47:55.220 | that it feels like the good is outpowering the bad.

00:47:59.980 | - You just did the perfect segue to the box.

00:48:04.980 | - What's in the box?

00:48:08.340 | - So--

00:48:09.220 | - Is it your fragile ego?

00:48:10.580 | - You stole my joke, you stole my joke.

00:48:15.060 | That was the joke I made at you before we were recorded.

00:48:17.740 | You stole my joke.

00:48:18.660 | - No, I didn't.

00:48:19.540 | I write all your material, you hack.

00:48:22.380 | - So as you know, I have a lot of beautiful stuff

00:48:28.580 | in my house, 'cause I think it's something very important,

00:48:31.140 | everyone listening, if you accomplish something

00:48:34.740 | that is great, some achievement,

00:48:37.260 | what I like to do is buy myself something

00:48:40.460 | to remember that moment.

00:48:41.860 | 'Cause sometimes when it's hard, you forget

00:48:45.620 | you've done great things in your life,

00:48:47.060 | you've had accomplishments.

00:48:48.180 | Doesn't have to be some amazing factory,

00:48:50.420 | it could just be like my first job,

00:48:52.260 | or I got a raise, or you know what, anything.

00:48:57.020 | So there's this amazing sculptor named Jake Michael Singer,

00:49:03.100 | a singer who's a sculptor, and I saw a piece of his--

00:49:08.940 | - How's his singing voice?

00:49:11.240 | This is a joke song.

00:49:13.280 | - Hold on, I can go somewhere with this.

00:49:15.640 | How's his singing voice?

00:49:16.880 | - Do you want me to write your joke for you?

00:49:18.200 | - Yeah, what's the punchline?

00:49:19.640 | Hard!

00:49:22.240 | There it is, that's the one.

00:49:24.400 | - That's what she said.

00:49:25.360 | - So I followed him on Instagram, he followed me back,

00:49:30.360 | and he's like, if I made, he says,

00:49:35.520 | "What's the point of being an artist

00:49:38.640 | "if the work I create isn't in the spaces

00:49:43.320 | "of people I like and admire?"

00:49:45.680 | He's a big fan of yours, you've given him,

00:49:48.280 | and our episodes together give him joy.

00:49:50.200 | So he said, "If I make Lex a sculpture,

00:49:53.600 | "will he put it on the shelf behind him?"

00:49:56.320 | And what that reminded me of is when I was a kid,

00:50:00.660 | you read Batman comics, and there's the Batcave,

00:50:04.240 | and the Batcave has all this cool stuff in it.

00:50:06.200 | I didn't realize until much later

00:50:07.960 | that all of those things in the Batcave had an origin story.

00:50:11.680 | So the giant penny, the dinosaur,

00:50:13.960 | there was actually a story where that came from.

00:50:15.480 | So if you're a fan of a show, you can spot,

00:50:17.680 | "Oh, this is when this appeared,

00:50:19.060 | "this is when that appeared, this is when that appeared."

00:50:20.820 | So he made you this sculpture, he lives in Turkey,

00:50:25.120 | and it's called Chance Murmur,

00:50:28.560 | and it is, I haven't even seen it yet,

00:50:30.820 | it is absolutely beautiful.

00:50:32.880 | - So you wanna do a little unboxing?

00:50:34.920 | - Yes.

00:50:35.760 | - Okay.

00:50:36.700 | - Okay.

00:50:37.540 | Axe or?

00:50:39.220 | - Body spray?

00:50:41.460 | (laughing)

00:50:43.700 | - All right.

00:50:45.460 | - Let's do it. - Let's unbox.

00:50:47.220 | - I'm so excited.

00:50:48.060 | He likes what's out of the box.

00:50:51.340 | (laughing)

00:50:53.420 | - You know that Steven Seagal movie

00:50:55.700 | where there's a stripper that comes out of the box?

00:50:58.300 | - Is there?

00:50:59.140 | - Under siege.

00:50:59.960 | - Okay. - He's on a boat.

00:51:01.160 | - You're not an action film guy.

00:51:04.660 | - No.

00:51:05.580 | (scraping)

00:51:07.820 | - One.

00:51:10.740 | What does the pirate say when he turns 80?

00:51:14.000 | - What?

00:51:16.060 | - I'm 80.

00:51:17.060 | - I'm 80, oh.

00:51:21.000 | (laughing)

00:51:22.420 | - Oh.

00:51:23.580 | - See that's how I know you don't like humor.

00:51:26.060 | - I just don't like pirates.

00:51:27.940 | - Well your mom does.

00:51:29.540 | Do you play any musical instruments?

00:51:31.220 | - No.

00:51:32.060 | Neither do you, I've seen your guitar videos.

00:51:35.140 | - Yeah.

00:51:35.980 | - Okay.

00:51:37.900 | Here's a big piece of wood for you.

00:51:40.980 | That's what it feels like just so you know.

00:51:43.900 | - Oh wow.

00:51:44.740 | - Oh my God.

00:51:49.720 | - This traveled across the world.

00:51:52.700 | - So here's why his work speaks so much to me.

00:52:00.220 | So first of all, he's combining

00:52:04.020 | so many different references.

00:52:06.340 | It's Nike, the goddess of victory, right?

00:52:10.380 | It's that, it looks like an angel as well.

00:52:13.300 | The Italian futurists, which is my favorite art movement

00:52:16.660 | from the early 20th century,

00:52:17.940 | they tried to capture motion in 2D or 3D form.

00:52:22.260 | - Well Jake, thank you.

00:52:23.880 | Thank you.

00:52:26.420 | Thank you.

00:52:27.260 | Thank you for creating beautiful things.

00:52:28.820 | - And I-- - Thank you for caring

00:52:29.900 | about somebody like me and somebody like Michael.

00:52:32.580 | I really feel the love.

00:52:34.220 | - That's the other thing. - Thank you.

00:52:35.580 | - When you have something that matters to you in your house

00:52:40.000 | and you're having a bad day, you can look at it

00:52:42.940 | and remember, you know what I mean, that spirit of joy.

00:52:46.620 | And I actually have a list here.

00:52:48.380 | Okay, I got a little rant ready.

00:52:49.860 | You wanna hear my rant?

00:52:50.700 | - Yeah, let's go.

00:52:51.540 | - One of the things that drives me crazy

00:52:54.940 | is when people, especially conservatives,

00:52:59.020 | think that all contemporary art is ugly or abstract

00:53:02.740 | or like literally garbage.

00:53:04.540 | And there's a lot of that,

00:53:06.260 | but so much of the stuff out there in galleries

00:53:09.220 | is not only not crazy expensive,

00:53:11.940 | but they're trying to sell things for people in their house.

00:53:14.580 | And these are young artists, you know,

00:53:16.120 | they're trying to add beauty.

00:53:17.800 | I have a list.

00:53:19.360 | So if you don't believe me

00:53:20.320 | and you think all contemporary art is garbage or terrible,

00:53:22.900 | go to the website or any of these places

00:53:24.620 | that I'm gonna rattle off, look through them,

00:53:26.660 | and you're telling me that it's not about creating beauty

00:53:29.540 | and joy and things in people's lives.

00:53:30.820 | So I don't have any relationship with any of these people.

00:53:33.180 | These are just some galleries I follow on Instagram.

00:53:36.340 | Outre Gallery, Antler Gallery, Giant Robot 2,

00:53:40.300 | Beinart, I don't know how to pronounce it, I'm sorry,

00:53:41.900 | B-E-I-N-A-R-T, Spoke Art Gallery,

00:53:45.140 | VAR Gallery in Milwaukee, I was there.

00:53:47.220 | The pieces were not expensive at all.

00:53:49.020 | - What kind of art are we talking about?

00:53:50.120 | Everything, paintings? - Mostly paintings.

00:53:51.860 | Mostly paintings.

00:53:52.700 | Some sculptures too, like this.

00:53:54.340 | Corey Halford is my favorite one in LA.

00:53:56.620 | Knight Gallery, Vertical Gallery, Avant Gallery,

00:53:58.820 | Hive Gallery, Haven Gallery, and Curio Art Gallery.

00:54:02.300 | I'm telling you, it's not exorbitant.

00:54:05.900 | This is not the kind of thing where you have to go to a museum

00:54:09.060 | and be like, "This doesn't make sense to me."

00:54:11.300 | You look at it right away, you're like,

00:54:12.260 | "Okay, I know what this is and it's beautiful, it's awesome."

00:54:15.440 | And you're supporting someone who's young and creative

00:54:18.940 | trying to do something and make the world a better place.

00:54:21.620 | So I'm a big fan of the contemporary art scene.

00:54:24.180 | A lot of it is not great,

00:54:26.740 | but even the stuff that's not great

00:54:28.300 | is very rarely disgusting or gross.

00:54:31.700 | It's just like, "Okay, I've seen this before,"

00:54:33.500 | or something like that.

00:54:34.340 | - Okay.

00:54:35.180 | - There's a standup where I'll pay money for the ticket

00:54:39.140 | and someone's like, "Who's an opener?"

00:54:40.420 | It's like, I wouldn't pay to see him perform,

00:54:42.220 | but he seriously still made me laugh.

00:54:43.820 | That person is still by far more good than bad.

00:54:47.760 | So a lot of this art isn't stuff I would own,

00:54:50.080 | but it's like, "Okay, I get it, I like it."

00:54:52.340 | - Well, as the analogy goes,

00:54:53.860 | I really like going to open mics actually,

00:54:56.020 | because, it sounds absurd to say,

00:54:59.480 | but funny isn't the only thing

00:55:01.280 | that's beautiful about standup comedy.

00:55:04.020 | It's the--

00:55:04.860 | (laughs)

00:55:05.680 | - The agony.

00:55:06.520 | (laughs)

00:55:07.860 | - It's going for it.

00:55:10.020 | It's trying to be funny.

00:55:11.480 | It's taking the leap, trying the joke.

00:55:14.420 | And some of the best stuff is actually funny,

00:55:17.100 | but the audience is like three people,

00:55:19.060 | two of whom are drunk and bored,

00:55:21.140 | and you're still going for it.

00:55:22.860 | And that's the human spirit right there.

00:55:25.580 | - Roseanne was telling me how Gilbert Godfrey would go on,

00:55:29.900 | it was like three in the morning,

00:55:31.760 | and it was like her and three other comics in the audience,

00:55:34.660 | and they all were just dying.

00:55:36.940 | He was just killing them.

00:55:39.180 | Who's your favorite comedian?

00:55:40.620 | - Dave Smith.

00:55:44.700 | - Who?

00:55:45.540 | - And cut scene.

00:55:48.940 | Favorite comedian.

00:55:49.780 | - First on Norman McDonald,

00:55:51.340 | if you put a gun to my head

00:55:52.780 | and I had to answer really quickly, that would be him.

00:55:55.180 | - Okay.

00:55:56.020 | - I would also say Louis C.K.

00:56:00.100 | - Oh wow, yeah.

00:56:01.900 | Oh my God, yes.

00:56:02.740 | - But that's almost like a vanilla answer

00:56:04.380 | at this moment in history, because it's like--

00:56:07.140 | - Louis C.K.'s pretty radioactive.

00:56:08.980 | - He is, well, yeah, he does it,

00:56:10.940 | the tough topics, the best.

00:56:14.180 | Mitch Hedberg, the wit of a good one-liner is great.

00:56:19.140 | I guess that's what Norman McDonald's genius at.

00:56:22.340 | What about you?

00:56:23.820 | - I mean, we're so fortunate to be here in Austin

00:56:27.540 | because that comedy "Mothership,"

00:56:29.380 | you go there and people are just killing it.

00:56:31.580 | David Lucas is amazing.

00:56:33.380 | Ty Rivera probably did the best set I've seen

00:56:36.820 | since I've been here in Austin,

00:56:38.060 | and I watched him, and I'm like,

00:56:40.460 | this guy's even bitchier than I am,

00:56:42.740 | so I reached out to him, so he's just terrific.

00:56:46.100 | David Lucas is another one, a buddy of mine.

00:56:48.180 | - You just said it twice, I think.

00:56:50.660 | - I'm thinking Dave Landau, excuse me, Dave Landau.

00:56:53.460 | Joe Mackey. - Old age catching up.

00:56:55.060 | - It's true, though.

00:56:56.380 | - It's true. - It's true.

00:56:58.100 | - It's true. - Dave Lucas.

00:56:59.780 | - You ever been to the comedy "Mothership?"

00:57:02.220 | It's a great spot.

00:57:03.940 | - Where is that, is that in Austin?

00:57:06.020 | - Austin, is that where Willie Nelson's from?

00:57:08.780 | I haven't really, go ahead.

00:57:10.060 | - Oh, I heard a joke about that the other week.

00:57:12.660 | - Tell the joke again.

00:57:15.780 | - What's the only thing worse

00:57:18.660 | than giving head to Willie Nelson?

00:57:20.820 | - What?

00:57:23.060 | - If he says, "I'm not Willie Nelson."

00:57:24.940 | - What's that, Mr. Parrot?

00:57:28.380 | I know he's not funny.

00:57:30.260 | He's better, he thinks he's better on Twitter.

00:57:33.340 | That's not nice to say right in front of his face.

00:57:35.840 | Just think how he feels.

00:57:38.940 | - The statue's Chance Murmur is judging you.

00:57:42.460 | - Chance. - It's called Chance Murmur.

00:57:45.060 | - Chance Murmur.

00:57:46.180 | - God, that's so beautiful.

00:57:47.420 | - That is gorgeous.

00:57:48.340 | - This is another reason I hate cynicism,

00:57:50.300 | and I talk about this a lot.

00:57:52.460 | Even just on Etsy, there's so many small,

00:57:56.460 | not huge companies, like individual artisans

00:57:59.060 | who are creating great stuff and just making it happen,

00:58:03.780 | and it's really sad for me where people can't see that.

00:58:06.620 | Or if they're like, "Well, how could I be excited

00:58:08.460 | "about a sculpture when blah, blah, blah, the Middle East?"

00:58:11.340 | And it's just like, you can always look for an excuse

00:58:13.620 | not to look for joy, or you can look for an excuse

00:58:15.940 | to look for joy.

00:58:16.780 | - Yeah, Etsy's incredible.

00:58:18.060 | I feel the same way about OnlyFans.

00:58:21.220 | I can't even get that out of my mouth

00:58:23.180 | before laughing at my own failed joke.

00:58:25.300 | - That's what she said.

00:58:26.420 | - All right, that might be one of the first

00:58:31.700 | that's what she said from Michael Malice.

00:58:33.780 | - Yeah. - I'm gonna count that.

00:58:35.420 | - I don't know what I'm gonna do with mine,

00:58:39.700 | 'cause I got my own.

00:58:40.820 | Mine's three feet tall, just like me.

00:58:42.500 | - Your box was much bigger.

00:58:43.780 | - Yeah.

00:58:44.620 | - And it was giving me an inferiority complex.

00:58:47.300 | I think I'm gonna invade Russia.

00:58:49.460 | That's a Napoleon reference.

00:58:53.900 | For those in the audience.

00:58:58.060 | - I don't know if I'm gonna,

00:59:00.380 | I think I'm gonna put it in my bedroom,

00:59:01.220 | 'cause it's the first thing I see when I wake up.

00:59:03.540 | - Put it in the bedroom? - Yeah.

00:59:05.140 | - Do we get through everything we're thankful for?

00:59:09.500 | - No, I've got lots of things I'm thankful for.

00:59:11.140 | - What else, friends, family, we said books.

00:59:16.140 | - I'm thankful for career, I'm thankful for,

00:59:19.460 | I am thankful for, and I know people

00:59:23.940 | are gonna lose their minds,

00:59:25.500 | and I can hear them flipping out already.

00:59:28.220 | I am thankful for social media.

00:59:30.100 | - Yeah.

00:59:31.940 | - I'm thankful for several reasons.

00:59:32.900 | First, it is a way for people to make connections

00:59:36.020 | that they couldn't have made in years past,

00:59:38.500 | that if you got some weird hobby,

00:59:39.860 | you can find that other person's weird hobby,

00:59:41.940 | and you make that connection.

00:59:43.220 | It's a great way to stay in touch permanently for people,

00:59:46.100 | otherwise you'd lose touch with, you know, whatever venue.

00:59:49.060 | And it's also a great way to expose corporate depravity.

00:59:54.060 | When you have these organizations that are dishonest,

00:59:56.940 | I think the community notes thing on Twitter

00:59:58.700 | is the greatest thing ever.

00:59:59.780 | - Yeah, it's incredible.

01:00:00.620 | I wish they would pay attention

01:00:02.460 | to the Michael Malice account more often.

01:00:04.500 | - You shouldn't be encouraging anyone

01:00:06.780 | to pay attention to my Twitter account.

01:00:08.700 | - Yeah.

01:00:09.540 | - It's a fire.

01:00:10.380 | And I don't mean Bridget, I mean like literal,

01:00:12.900 | Bridget Phetasy.

01:00:13.740 | - Oh, Bridget, by the way, is amazing.

01:00:14.780 | But your Twitter account makes, yes, not here.

01:00:18.060 | I wish she did.

01:00:19.820 | - She's in Georgetown.

01:00:20.780 | - No, I mean in this, where we're sitting.

01:00:23.140 | It's a joke, Michael.

01:00:24.060 | - Is it?

01:00:24.900 | - Yeah.

01:00:25.740 | - But I'm just really glad about,

01:00:27.340 | it's another way for people who before

01:00:30.100 | would have felt very alone.

01:00:31.140 | I know it makes some people do feel alone,

01:00:33.020 | but for other people, it makes them feel connected.

01:00:36.540 | - There's been a lot of talk about anti-Semitism recently.

01:00:40.020 | - Yeah.

01:00:40.860 | - What's your sense about this?

01:00:42.460 | Is there, is anti-Semitism like any other brand of hate?

01:00:47.100 | There's a lot of hate out there.

01:00:48.260 | - No, I don't think it's like any other brand of hate.

01:00:50.660 | Because I don't think racists or transphobes

01:00:55.660 | or homophobes or misogynists or xenophobes

01:01:00.500 | argue openly or even not so openly

01:01:04.900 | for the killing of black Americans,

01:01:07.940 | transgender people, gay people, women, or immigrants.

01:01:12.380 | And it's not only something that's talked about,

01:01:14.740 | it's something that has actually happened.

01:01:16.540 | And not just the Holocaust,

01:01:18.080 | but just centuries of pogroms, right?

01:01:20.720 | There's this great book that I read many years ago

01:01:24.140 | called "The Satanization of the Jews."

01:01:26.300 | Camille Paglia recommended it and I read it.

01:01:28.820 | And they live in this certain specific

01:01:31.380 | kind of anti-Semitism.

01:01:32.380 | And again, I'm not talking about people

01:01:34.500 | who are against Israel,

01:01:35.340 | I'm talking specifically about Jew hatred.

01:01:37.860 | They have this moral calculus

01:01:40.260 | that Jews are the only people

01:01:42.140 | who are capable of good or evil,

01:01:43.920 | and Jews are exclusively capable of evil.

01:01:46.300 | And for example, if you look at

01:01:48.500 | the George W. Bush White House,

01:01:51.240 | you had W., you had Cheney, Condoleezza Rice,

01:01:53.940 | Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld,

01:01:55.840 | a lot of these neocon advisors.

01:01:57.860 | So if there's 10 people in a room

01:02:00.660 | and there's one Jewish person,

01:02:03.100 | it's his fault and the rest are Jew-controlled.

01:02:06.160 | So again, they only exist as a puppet of Jews

01:02:12.300 | in this kind of worldview.

01:02:14.580 | And it's like that, to me,

01:02:16.260 | if there were no Jews on earth,

01:02:18.520 | it is crazy to say that John Bolton

01:02:22.180 | and Liz Cheney and Lindsey Graham

01:02:24.700 | wouldn't be pushing for more war.

01:02:26.140 | That makes no sense to me.

01:02:28.120 | It's like you blame the Jews

01:02:30.460 | when bad things happen,

01:02:32.380 | but when a Jewish person does something good,

01:02:35.140 | it doesn't really matter.

01:02:36.660 | Or just wait, he's gonna do something bad.

01:02:39.820 | Well, yeah, that's true.

01:02:41.020 | Human beings do good things

01:02:42.380 | and then they do bad things sometimes.

01:02:43.980 | But it only counts when that Jewish person

01:02:46.660 | does the bad thing.

01:02:47.620 | - I wonder what's a way to fight antisemitism

01:02:51.860 | and fight hate in general.

01:02:53.260 | - I think the only, or the best way,

01:02:56.100 | 'cause I thought a lot about this,

01:02:58.460 | about how did gay Americans

01:03:02.220 | go from being universally hated and despised

01:03:06.060 | to the point that many people in the '80s

01:03:07.860 | went to their graves,

01:03:09.180 | those who had AIDS, without even telling their parents

01:03:11.460 | 'cause they were so scared,

01:03:12.780 | to now Times Square is just covered in pride flags.

01:03:17.100 | And I think, and this also works for Islamophobia

01:03:21.020 | and some of these other bigotry,

01:03:23.340 | is what I call the ambassador program.

01:03:26.480 | Because as soon as you know someone

01:03:29.220 | who is a member of a certain group,

01:03:31.860 | it is a lot harder to be bigoted against them.

01:03:35.780 | Because instead of this being this out group

01:03:37.820 | that's somewhere out there, it's like, wait a minute,

01:03:39.900 | I work with this guy, yeah, he's kind of a jerk.

01:03:42.520 | Maybe he sees things a little differently than me,

01:03:45.500 | but this guy is not a horrible human being.

01:03:48.380 | So I think the only way to fight any form of bigotry

01:03:52.320 | is to be a good example of the counter

01:03:56.400 | to these whatever archetype or stereotype is in the culture.

01:04:01.400 | - Karl Marx wrote that religion is the sigh

01:04:06.700 | of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world

01:04:09.340 | and the soul of a soulless condition.

01:04:11.860 | It is the opium of the people, as the famous phrase goes.

01:04:15.140 | Do you think he has a point?

01:04:16.600 | - No, I hate that quote.

01:04:18.100 | I absolutely hate it.

01:04:19.920 | I despise this sort of Reddit, internet, atheist activism

01:04:26.300 | for the simple reason that I know many people

01:04:30.560 | who in finding faith have become

01:04:34.480 | objectively better human beings.

01:04:37.020 | They start living consciously,

01:04:39.280 | they take morality seriously,

01:04:41.440 | they try, we all fail, to be moral good people.

01:04:45.660 | So this sneering that these midwits,

01:04:48.920 | these marginally intelligent people have

01:04:50.700 | towards religious people.

01:04:52.220 | Now, lots of religious people use religion

01:04:55.560 | to rationalize their bad behavior

01:04:59.400 | or sinful or big ego, so on and so forth.

01:05:02.660 | That exists, that's true.

01:05:04.340 | But to say that it never helps anyone

01:05:07.700 | and it's universally, see Marx was talking about a period,

01:05:12.200 | I'll defend his quote, when his argument was,

01:05:16.400 | the masses are being starved and oppressed

01:05:20.840 | but they're promised, don't worry,

01:05:22.920 | you'll have riches in heaven.

01:05:24.280 | So you should let yourself be pushed around now

01:05:27.880 | and this is this BS bargain that people are being given.

01:05:31.480 | So that was, I think, the point he was making.

01:05:33.980 | It certainly doesn't apply nowadays.

01:05:37.020 | I have a close to the family in the Midwest,

01:05:41.200 | they're good Christian people.

01:05:42.680 | I remember very specifically this guy,

01:05:44.740 | shout out to him, Sean Sherrod,

01:05:47.200 | I went to college with him, David Lucas.

01:05:49.780 | - Have you checked out the Comedy Mothership?

01:05:53.280 | Great, great club. - Where is it, Austin?

01:05:55.840 | - Willie Nelson.

01:05:56.680 | - And I was 17, 18, freshman year

01:06:00.640 | and I was reading all this criticism of the Bible

01:06:02.840 | and I was like, look, this is in there,

01:06:03.880 | look at this in there, and he put his hand on my shoulder

01:06:05.880 | and he says, Michael, there's nothing you're gonna tell me

01:06:09.400 | that's going to make me lose my faith.

01:06:11.640 | And that was a very self-aware and profound thing to say.

01:06:16.240 | As I've gotten older and I know lots of religious people,

01:06:19.360 | there's no part of me that thinks they're wrong

01:06:23.960 | or they should be mocked.

01:06:25.280 | It also reminds me of when people sneer

01:06:29.480 | at addicts in recovery.

01:06:31.880 | They're like, alcoholism is a disease, it's a choice.

01:06:34.000 | It's like, wait a minute, you don't know what it's like

01:06:36.640 | to have your entire life ruined by drugs or alcohol.

01:06:39.520 | And if you have to tell yourself,

01:06:41.160 | I have this disease and blah, blah, blah,

01:06:43.240 | and that keeps you from drinking

01:06:44.800 | and now you're a moral, upstanding person who's reliable

01:06:49.000 | and takes responsibility for their actions,

01:06:51.040 | I don't see the harm at all.

01:06:52.960 | So I think this kind of activist atheism is cheap.

01:06:57.960 | I don't agree with it whatsoever,

01:07:00.120 | and I do not like that quote at all.

01:07:02.120 | - But otherwise, big fan of Marx.

01:07:05.120 | - I mean, I think there's a fan of mine,

01:07:09.120 | I forget who it was, apologies.

01:07:10.480 | He had this great quote, he goes, and this is me talking,

01:07:13.680 | he goes, "The games people play to feel smarter than others

01:07:18.240 | is depressing and annoying."

01:07:20.520 | And I think this kind of fedora internet atheism

01:07:23.560 | is a good example, 'cause here's the other thing.

01:07:25.800 | If you've proven that someone else is stupid,

01:07:28.320 | that doesn't mean you're smart.

01:07:29.320 | You could both be stupid.

01:07:31.000 | So congrats, you proved someone else is stupid, who cares?

01:07:33.680 | - Yeah, and sneering in evolved forms

01:07:35.680 | in general is just not great.

01:07:39.160 | - That's one of the things I block out people

01:07:41.240 | on social media instantly.

01:07:42.400 | You're not gonna sneer at me in my space.

01:07:44.680 | You could sneer at me all you want in your space,

01:07:46.160 | but I'm not putting up with your crap, I don't know you.

01:07:48.320 | - My space, great social network.

01:07:49.960 | - Is that on Sixth Street?

01:07:53.500 | - AOL.com.

01:07:55.720 | (imitates music)

01:07:59.560 | - That's how Lex comes.

01:08:00.660 | - Like Pavlov's dog, that was the sound

01:08:05.680 | before you get to see, spend 10 minutes waiting

01:08:08.700 | for an image of a lady load.

01:08:12.400 | One line at a time.

01:08:15.000 | (imitates music)

01:08:17.760 | I recently talked to John Mearshamer.

01:08:23.380 | I don't know if you know him at all.

01:08:25.120 | So he has this idea about offensive realism.

01:08:31.520 | It's a way to analyze the world, international relations.

01:08:34.040 | And the basic idea, and I'll run it by you

01:08:37.800 | and see what you think, is that states,

01:08:44.160 | nations want to survive and they try to do so

01:08:48.800 | by maximizing power, military power.

01:08:51.100 | And he talks about anarchy quite a bit

01:08:53.960 | in that one of these underlying assumptions

01:08:57.120 | of this way of viewing the world

01:08:58.760 | is that states are anarchic towards each other.

01:09:00.720 | - Yes, that's true.

01:09:02.200 | - And they operate under a lot of uncertainty.

01:09:04.960 | States cannot be sure that other states

01:09:07.160 | will not use military capabilities against them.

01:09:09.360 | - Right.

01:09:10.280 | - They want to survive and they want to use military power

01:09:14.200 | to control the uncertainty, to protect themselves.

01:09:19.880 | - So I disagree in that regard.

01:09:22.400 | And I see on your bookshelf, I think the world

01:09:26.280 | is a lot closer to Brave New World than it is to 1984.

01:09:30.500 | And I think it is, if you look at,

01:09:33.080 | let's suppose China's influence in America, right?

01:09:36.280 | The influence is far more through soft power

01:09:40.440 | than military power.

01:09:42.360 | China doesn't threaten America through,

01:09:44.680 | you know, we're gonna kill you.

01:09:46.120 | It's more like their infiltration of universities,

01:09:48.960 | TikTok, things of that nature.

01:09:50.960 | Maybe this would have worked before the pop culture era,

01:09:53.860 | but I think one of the reasons we have

01:09:56.800 | this kind of American hegemony isn't just a function

01:10:00.560 | of American military, I think it's much more a function

01:10:03.680 | of American popular culture.

01:10:05.260 | When you're exporting ideas and culture,

01:10:08.440 | it makes other people in other countries feel closer to you

01:10:12.200 | and also feel, regard you as a friend

01:10:14.380 | and also to adopt your value.

01:10:15.640 | It's a great way to spread propaganda.

01:10:17.740 | - It seems to correlate though, right?

01:10:20.760 | It's interesting.

01:10:21.600 | It's an interesting idea, what has more power,

01:10:24.280 | the viral spread of ideas or the power of the military?

01:10:29.280 | It seems that the United States is at the top

01:10:34.200 | of the world on both.

01:10:35.340 | - That's true.

01:10:36.180 | - And so it's hard to disentangle the two.

01:10:38.740 | - Let's look at Europe.

01:10:39.880 | American culture is very popular in Europe in many ways.

01:10:45.620 | Like the best music comes out of Sweden, Swedish indie pop.

01:10:49.020 | They're singing in English, you know,

01:10:50.340 | even though so on and so forth.

01:10:52.340 | None of this is a function, maybe it's a function

01:10:54.500 | of post-World War II to some extent,

01:10:56.440 | but I don't think it's a function of American bases there.

01:10:58.900 | I think it's a function of we're exporting our music,

01:11:02.220 | our TV shows and our movies.

01:11:04.440 | - Yeah, it's interesting if the battleground

01:11:06.760 | will be Brave New World, the battle of ideas.

01:11:08.680 | - I think it's clearly Brave New World.

01:11:10.720 | It's so much cheaper.

01:11:12.780 | And again, this is one of the dark sides of social media

01:11:15.800 | to use influence than it is to use threats.

01:11:19.140 | I don't think, I think COVID is a good example of this.

01:11:21.600 | Like so much of the pressure,

01:11:23.800 | yes, there was authoritarianism,

01:11:25.120 | but it was the fact that everyone bought into it,

01:11:27.360 | rightly or wrongly, but the vast majority of the population

01:11:31.240 | was behind all of these things.

01:11:33.520 | And that was through persuasion,

01:11:35.480 | and 'cause people are begging for it

01:11:36.640 | to come back in many cases.

01:11:38.280 | - So who's funding you?

01:11:39.600 | Which intelligence agency?

01:11:40.920 | - Mossad.

01:11:41.920 | - Mossad.

01:11:43.120 | Mossad.

01:11:43.960 | This is how you do great interviewing.

01:11:47.160 | See, he didn't even expect that.

01:11:48.980 | Okay.

01:11:52.040 | - What's that, Mr. Parrot?

01:11:53.400 | - What's that, Mr. Parrot?

01:11:55.720 | You knew it, but you didn't have

01:11:59.600 | any documentation, did you?

01:12:00.840 | - I think Mr. Parrot is threatened by better wings.

01:12:04.120 | I chance murmur.

01:12:06.400 | - He gets like that when he's turned on.

01:12:07.880 | He's not threatened.

01:12:09.440 | You can't wait until he's,

01:12:10.960 | all three of us alone together.

01:12:13.560 | It's gonna be one hell of a party.

01:12:15.560 | - Beaks and feathers everywhere.

01:12:17.480 | - And metal.

01:12:18.320 | Yeah, this thing's beautiful.

01:12:23.240 | - It's ridiculous.

01:12:24.560 | - You have actually a lot of really cool stuff

01:12:27.120 | at your place.

01:12:28.240 | - It's so fun.

01:12:29.080 | - What's a cool thing that stands out to you?

01:12:33.280 | Maybe a recent addition.

01:12:34.960 | - So I went to the Dallas Museum of Art last year

01:12:39.960 | for my birthday, and there was a painting I liked.

01:12:44.160 | And I Googled it, and I saw the auction

01:12:46.360 | for that exact painting, and it was like,

01:12:48.400 | I think, three grand, which is not cheap,

01:12:50.880 | but not something you'd think.

01:12:52.200 | You think in a museum, I can never afford

01:12:54.000 | something like this, right?

01:12:55.640 | So when I was in, I went to Houston with some friends,

01:13:00.640 | the side surfs, Natalie, who made the cake of you.

01:13:05.520 | - Cake terrified my mom.

01:13:07.640 | - It did?

01:13:08.680 | - Yeah.

01:13:09.520 | - Aw.

01:13:10.340 | - No, it's not the cake that terrified my mom.

01:13:11.920 | It's you, Michael Malice, cutting it off,

01:13:15.360 | cutting the face off, and laughing maniacally.

01:13:20.060 | - Well, Natalie's pregnant.

01:13:22.440 | She's gonna have a daughter named Daisy.

01:13:24.220 | So congrats to Natalie.

01:13:25.880 | But I was in the museum with them,

01:13:27.960 | and there was a statue of Thoth,

01:13:32.120 | who's the Egyptian god whose head is an ibis.

01:13:34.960 | It's a bird with a long beak.

01:13:36.520 | And Thoth is the god of the moon, god of knowledge,

01:13:39.200 | and supposedly he invented writing.

01:13:41.560 | So I thought, you know what?

01:13:42.560 | I've always loved ancient Egypt.

01:13:44.600 | I know a lot about it, and especially the mythology.

01:13:47.040 | It'd be really cool as an aspiring author

01:13:50.280 | to have an ancient Egyptian Thoth statue in my house.

01:13:54.820 | Well, it turned out that the Egyptians

01:13:59.260 | also killed and mummified ibises

01:14:01.560 | and buried them with scribes.

01:14:03.500 | And a week after I went to the museum,

01:14:06.340 | there was an auction for an ibis mummy,

01:14:09.340 | and I have it now in my house, still in its bandages,

01:14:13.340 | overlooking my desk, and we all know

01:14:16.020 | it's gonna come to life and peck out my eyes

01:14:18.220 | and write with my blood,

01:14:19.360 | but that is one of the recent cool additions.

01:14:21.720 | Another thing I have, which is like,

01:14:23.360 | in terms of, holy crap, I've made it,

01:14:25.240 | I have an original Patrick Nagle painting.

01:14:27.840 | And if people don't know the name,

01:14:29.400 | he's like the '80s artist.

01:14:31.160 | He did the Duran Duran cover.

01:14:33.120 | We never see him in nail salons.

01:14:34.520 | I have a male, which were very rare for him to do.

01:14:37.640 | So that's two of my kind of favorite pieces.

01:14:40.080 | He only drew women predominantly.

01:14:41.800 | I have one where he drew a male,

01:14:43.120 | like it's a guy in a, like a jeanette or something.

01:14:46.840 | And now I'm looking forward to,

01:14:48.100 | so Jake made me a three-foot-tall sculpture

01:14:50.940 | called "Future Murmur," which I am ecstatic to get.

01:14:55.940 | - Just reminds yourself of how many fascinating,

01:15:02.220 | beautiful people that are out there.

01:15:04.060 | - And just the victory and holiness

01:15:08.100 | and technology and speed,

01:15:09.940 | and how many people have fought

01:15:14.180 | so that I could do what I do.

01:15:16.540 | - Yeah, that's another thing I'm grateful for.

01:15:18.880 | Just like the 100 billion or so people that came before us.

01:15:23.320 | - Yeah.

01:15:24.900 | - And also the trillions of life forms

01:15:27.440 | that came before that.

01:15:28.600 | - Oh God, I've gone down this trilobite rabbit hole,

01:15:33.560 | buying fossils, 'cause as a kid,

01:15:35.200 | I thought trilobites were the coolest thing,

01:15:36.520 | and now I've got like 15.

01:15:38.400 | And what's interesting is when you buy trilobite fossils

01:15:41.320 | on eBay, they're listed as used.

01:15:45.060 | 'Cause it's gotta be new or used

01:15:46.300 | and according to the programming, so it's used, yeah.

01:15:48.780 | - Yeah, but just thinking about all that history,

01:15:53.460 | just all the life forms that came before,

01:15:56.340 | it seems like a really special thing

01:15:59.660 | we have going on on Earth here.

01:16:01.340 | - Oh, yeah, I think that's very fair to say.

01:16:04.580 | But I also think this kind of is like

01:16:08.820 | live life to the fullest.

01:16:10.420 | You know, Camus talked about living to the point of tears,

01:16:13.700 | especially on behalf of people

01:16:14.820 | who didn't have that privilege.

01:16:16.420 | So, you know, I dedicated the white pill

01:16:18.960 | to my parents who got me out of the Soviet Union

01:16:21.060 | and all the kids who never could.

01:16:22.980 | And it's like, when I die, I want everyone else to,

01:16:26.280 | not only, they're obviously gonna be happy,

01:16:27.920 | but yeah, like I'm not here.

01:16:29.840 | Enjoy what you, live for me,

01:16:31.880 | 'cause I can't have that privilege anymore.

01:16:33.980 | - What do you think about Camus as a writer?

01:16:38.000 | - I don't like his novels at all.

01:16:39.720 | - Oh, you don't? - At all.

01:16:41.080 | - Yeah, you've talked shit about the plague to me.

01:16:42.960 | - Yeah, I think the book is pointless.

01:16:46.280 | - It's fascinating.

01:16:47.120 | - 'Cause all you need to do is read the synopsis

01:16:48.720 | and then you get it.

01:16:49.560 | Like, I don't think his book--

01:16:50.400 | - It's not true for most books.

01:16:51.920 | - No.

01:16:53.200 | - I mean, like, you could take, I don't know,

01:16:55.200 | I just don't agree at all.

01:16:56.760 | I mean, it's a catcher in the rye.

01:16:59.180 | There's a lot of books that seem trivial.

01:17:02.040 | - I don't think it seems trivial, but I think--

01:17:03.640 | - Animal Farm.

01:17:04.560 | - Animal Farm is a methodical step-by-step examination

01:17:09.500 | of a transformation from one thing to another.

01:17:11.760 | The plague is not that.

01:17:13.920 | - It's a methodical examination

01:17:17.600 | of what a society is like under the plague,

01:17:21.960 | which could symbolize a lot of things,

01:17:23.460 | including the plague directly,

01:17:24.800 | or Nazi Germany, or ideological movements.

01:17:29.080 | It's similar to Animal Farm, maybe not as effective

01:17:32.160 | in terms of using this kind of symbology.

01:17:34.760 | - I think Animal Farm has a narrative,

01:17:37.080 | and I'm gonna spoil the whole plague, the book The Plague.

01:17:40.480 | - Okay.

01:17:41.400 | - There's a town, I believe, in Oman.

01:17:44.240 | A plague descends, people struggle to deal with it,

01:17:48.720 | and the plague vanishes as quickly as it came, the end.

01:17:51.440 | - Yeah, but there's the victims,

01:17:53.600 | the people that take advantage of it,

01:17:55.480 | there's the doctor that, amidst the absurdity

01:17:57.880 | and the evil of the plague, is fighting to do good.

01:18:01.600 | - Nothing for me, there's nothing for me.

01:18:03.320 | - Okay, well, I could spoil Animal Farm.

01:18:05.600 | There's pigs, there's animals at a farm.

01:18:11.360 | And the humans are abusing them,

01:18:14.560 | and then the animals overthrow the humans.

01:18:17.680 | But then, the pigs become just like the humans.

01:18:22.680 | The lesson, kids, is that power corrupts

01:18:27.960 | no matter whether you walk on four or on two.

01:18:31.080 | - I thought the lesson was that pigs

01:18:33.000 | are the most human-like animals on the farm.

01:18:35.880 | - I thought the lesson was that

01:18:38.560 | there's no sugarcane mountain.

01:18:41.160 | - That's right, yeah.

01:18:43.520 | You've interviewed a lot of people.

01:18:44.960 | - Yeah.

01:18:45.800 | - What have you learned about getting

01:18:49.040 | to the soul of a person, the soul of an idea,

01:18:52.440 | from interviewing?

01:18:53.840 | Just how to do a good interview.

01:18:55.240 | - First off, I'm not interviewing just random people.

01:18:57.000 | I'm interviewing people who are accomplished.

01:18:58.880 | It's not a random group.

01:18:59.880 | That's self-selecting for something different.

01:19:02.160 | But I think that people love to,

01:19:06.600 | and this is very understandable, love to feel seen.

01:19:10.420 | So if you're someone who's done something,

01:19:12.360 | even if you're the best guinea pig breeder in America,

01:19:15.680 | to have someone interested in your work

01:19:17.640 | and listen to what you're saying.

01:19:20.120 | 'Cause I remember every book I've written,

01:19:22.920 | I have friends and I wouldn't stop talking about

01:19:25.160 | the person I'm writing with or the North Korea.

01:19:28.960 | At a certain point, I'm sure they're like,

01:19:30.440 | all right, I don't care about this anymore.

01:19:31.720 | But it takes over your brain, you know what I mean?

01:19:33.600 | So if you are someone who has an interest or a hobby,

01:19:37.040 | I'm sure to some extent, maybe your friends or family

01:19:39.320 | are sick of talking about it,

01:19:40.300 | or you don't wanna talk about it with them.

01:19:41.980 | That's the private life where you could just be yourself.

01:19:44.340 | So I try to, and this comes from my co-authoring background,

01:19:49.340 | when I'm talking to people to ask the questions

01:19:51.940 | that they haven't heard before.

01:19:53.820 | There's a possibility that this actor I'm a huge fan of

01:19:58.820 | is gonna be on my show.

01:20:02.580 | I don't wanna spoil everything.

01:20:04.380 | And he's got a very specific role that he's known for.

01:20:07.380 | And I know I'm gonna, I'm like, okay,

01:20:09.880 | I know it's gonna be annoying for you

01:20:10.960 | talking about this one role,

01:20:12.360 | but my goal is to ask questions that you aren't sick

01:20:15.560 | of asking, having been asked.

01:20:18.660 | - Porn star or?

01:20:19.620 | - Not a porn star.

01:20:21.960 | - That joke failed also, edit out.

01:20:26.040 | What do you know about breeding guinea pigs?

01:20:30.000 | You mentioned it.

01:20:31.060 | I'd love to hear.

01:20:32.040 | - I don't know anything.

01:20:32.880 | - I'd love to hear more about it.

01:20:35.080 | - I always use this as an example.

01:20:36.440 | So there's, you meet someone at a party

01:20:38.500 | who breeds guinea pigs, right?

01:20:39.700 | There's two approaches.

01:20:41.740 | Either you're weird, get it okay,

01:20:44.720 | or sit down and tell me everything.

01:20:46.580 | And I'm very much, and all the people I like

01:20:49.640 | are the second group.

01:20:51.420 | When you meet someone who's doing something unusual

01:20:53.440 | and are passionate about it and are good at it,

01:20:57.080 | like that to me is the motherlode.

01:21:00.080 | - Yeah, that to me also is the thing I enjoy the most.

01:21:03.920 | It's like people that are passionate.

01:21:05.620 | - People that are passionate about a thing.

01:21:06.960 | - Who do you guys hate?

01:21:07.800 | Do you guys hate the hamster people?

01:21:09.240 | Do you hate the rabbit people?

01:21:10.360 | There's gotta be someone that you guys look down on.

01:21:13.000 | 'Cause like the marine aquarium people

01:21:14.360 | look down on the freshwater aquarium people.

01:21:15.920 | - Yeah, it's a hierarchy.

01:21:17.340 | - Yes, there's always gonna be a hierarchy.

01:21:18.960 | This is where the left anarchists and I disagree

01:21:21.040 | 'cause they think you could have egalitarianism.

01:21:23.120 | There's gonna be a hierarchy.

01:21:24.240 | - Hierarchies emerge.

01:21:25.320 | - Yes.

01:21:26.260 | - There's no anarchy in the guinea pig world.

01:21:28.680 | - No, it's just a different kind of anarchy.

01:21:31.960 | - Somebody's always breeding somebody else.

01:21:34.240 | - Yes.

01:21:35.240 | - And looking down on the others.

01:21:37.840 | - If someone's the other.

01:21:39.220 | - Yeah.

01:21:40.060 | - Whether it's the hamster people, the rat people.

01:21:41.320 | - And everybody's breeding.

01:21:42.560 | - Yeah.

01:21:43.400 | - By the way, are you an anarcho-capitalist?

01:21:47.280 | What kind of, what flavor of anarchist are you?

01:21:49.760 | - I'm an anarchist without adjectives.

01:21:51.640 | I like them all.

01:21:52.960 | The black flag comes in many colors.

01:21:54.440 | - All right, all right, you're quoting your own.

01:21:56.400 | No, I understand.

01:21:57.240 | It's a beautiful line in the book.

01:21:59.480 | - Thank you.

01:22:00.740 | I think the anarcho-capitalists don't give

01:22:03.160 | the left anarchists enough credit,

01:22:05.360 | especially for their courage.

01:22:07.640 | And I do whatever I can in my power

01:22:10.760 | to talk about people like Emma Goldman whenever possible.

01:22:13.620 | - Do you still think that are some people better than others

01:22:18.480 | is a good litmus test?

01:22:20.120 | - Yes, it's worked 100% of the time.

01:22:22.300 | - And for you, the answer is yes.

01:22:25.520 | - I never answered.

01:22:26.520 | - There's two of them.

01:22:30.720 | (laughing)

01:22:32.960 | What are you getting, a little Hitchcock up in here?

01:22:37.080 | - Oh, hey, careful.

01:22:38.520 | I always got your back.

01:22:42.340 | What little habits in your life make you happy?

01:22:47.840 | Now that you're in Austin.

01:22:49.880 | - Oh my God.

01:22:50.760 | I was prepping for this interview

01:22:57.040 | and I imagined this coming up.

01:23:00.680 | And I knew that as I explained this,

01:23:04.260 | you know how sometimes when someone tells a story,

01:23:10.040 | like at first it's amusing,

01:23:12.120 | then it's amusing and concerned,

01:23:14.240 | and then you're like, holy shit,

01:23:16.160 | like where's the exit?

01:23:17.920 | - Yeah, I'm getting nervous already.

01:23:20.440 | - You should.

01:23:21.280 | So I'm going to tell you something

01:23:23.780 | I've told only a couple of people.

01:23:27.680 | This is my absolutely off the charts

01:23:32.040 | autistic approach to shaving.

01:23:36.140 | So I have this insane system.

01:23:42.840 | You asked about habits that give me joy.

01:23:44.360 | I used to hate shaving.

01:23:45.400 | I used to hate it.

01:23:46.600 | There's something called wet shaving.

01:23:49.400 | So wet shaving is you get the brush,

01:23:53.240 | you get the soap that's in a canister,

01:23:55.240 | you stir it up, you paint your face,

01:23:57.040 | and then you shave.

01:23:58.240 | The thing is there are dozens

01:24:03.240 | of these shaving soap companies.

01:24:06.000 | Okay?

01:24:07.040 | So I tried a couple of hundred of these soaps

01:24:11.200 | 'cause you're testing for scent,

01:24:13.860 | you're testing for what the lather thickness,

01:24:17.320 | and also how smooth of a shave it gives you.

01:24:19.660 | I have it down.

01:24:24.440 | I'm not making this up.

01:24:25.280 | I'm not this creative.

01:24:26.640 | I have it down to a cycle of 67 soaps.

01:24:29.600 | - Yeah.

01:24:30.440 | - Okay?

01:24:31.260 | - A cycle.

01:24:32.100 | - A cycle.

01:24:32.940 | So 67.

01:24:33.760 | - Yeah.

01:24:34.600 | - When I use up one soap,

01:24:37.800 | that is a slot that I will have to try new ones.

01:24:42.800 | And I will try new ones in that slot

01:24:45.640 | until I get one that I like,

01:24:47.260 | and then that slot is filled.

01:24:48.720 | So right now I have 67 that I use,

01:24:51.940 | and I have 86 that I--

01:24:55.280 | - Candidates.

01:24:56.120 | - Candidates.

01:24:56.940 | - Yeah.

01:24:57.780 | - In the queue.

01:24:58.620 | - Do you label them?

01:24:59.440 | Do you remember which one is which?

01:25:00.280 | - Well, they all have beautiful labels.

01:25:01.960 | I mean, these are artisans

01:25:02.800 | who are creating these amazing things.

01:25:04.880 | So I would encourage everyone to try this hobby.

01:25:08.520 | Who's a guy?

01:25:09.360 | It's so much fun.

01:25:10.560 | I will give a shout out to the companies

01:25:12.640 | that are the best.

01:25:14.560 | So the best company, in my opinion,

01:25:17.380 | is a company called, they just changed the name

01:25:21.340 | because you know what they were originally called?

01:25:23.280 | I'm not joking.

01:25:24.560 | Grooming department.

01:25:25.700 | And now it's like--

01:25:28.320 | - It's not a bad name.

01:25:29.320 | - Yeah, but it has certain connotations

01:25:30.980 | in contemporary discourse.

01:25:31.920 | So now he changed--

01:25:32.760 | - Contemporary discourse, yes.

01:25:33.580 | - He changed his name to Ion Skin Care, A-I-O-N.

01:25:36.400 | That's the sense of the most sophisticated,

01:25:39.080 | the most diverse, and the soap is just really high quality.

01:25:42.880 | Another amazing company is Barrister and Man.

01:25:47.980 | And if I'm gonna tell you to try one, it's called Cheshire.

01:25:51.280 | He comes out with new ones every month or so.

01:25:54.240 | A lot of it's miss, a lot of it's hit.

01:25:56.400 | Just great, great quality stuff.

01:25:58.920 | Another great company is Chiseled Face.

01:26:01.320 | They make something called Midnight Stag,

01:26:02.800 | which basically smells like a garage.

01:26:04.320 | It's one of my favorite soaps of all time.

01:26:06.640 | - Yeah, what makes for a good smell for Michael Miles?

01:26:09.980 | - I have 67 answers.

01:26:11.920 | So some of them smell--

01:26:12.760 | - So you can't put it into--

01:26:14.320 | - Some are citrusy, some are industrial, some--

01:26:17.640 | - So garage is more industrial.

01:26:19.040 | - It smells like a garage, yeah.

01:26:20.240 | Midnight Stag, it smells like a garage.

01:26:21.880 | Some are fun 'cause there's smells

01:26:24.140 | that smell like other things.

01:26:25.200 | For example, there's a scent in my queue

01:26:27.380 | called Finding Scotty, it smells like Swedish fish.

01:26:30.040 | Another great company is Phoenix Shaving.

01:26:34.180 | And they have one called Aloha Smackdown,

01:26:37.240 | smells like Hawaiian Punch.

01:26:38.660 | They had one called Yule Ham

01:26:40.520 | that they made for me special, smells like a ham.

01:26:42.620 | They had a ramen one, Rockin' Ramen,

01:26:45.480 | smells like cup of noodles.

01:26:47.200 | So they're a great, and every year they do

01:26:48.840 | an advent calendar where for 12 days

01:26:51.280 | you have a little sample of a soap

01:26:53.120 | and a sample of the aftershave.

01:26:54.640 | - Nice.

01:26:55.800 | - So those are, I'm forgetting someone

01:26:58.480 | and I'm feeling angry that I'm doing it,

01:27:00.920 | but those are some of the, oh, and Katie's Bubbles is great.

01:27:05.300 | They're vegan out of New Jersey.

01:27:08.120 | They've got one called Knee High to a Grape,

01:27:10.240 | smells like grape soda.

01:27:11.400 | I think those are the biggest names off the top of my head.

01:27:16.440 | - Will that list converge down to a small set eventually

01:27:19.840 | or no, 67 down to?

01:27:22.080 | - Well, no, it's down to, it's 67.

01:27:23.920 | - Oh, so it always keeps--

01:27:25.800 | - Right, so if there's a slot, then, you know what I mean?

01:27:28.040 | Like I'll fill that, you know what I'm saying?

01:27:29.520 | - Oh, so you will forever have the variety of 67.

01:27:31.920 | - Yes.

01:27:32.740 | - Huh.

01:27:34.480 | You know what?

01:27:36.640 | You know how sad my brain is?

01:27:38.680 | When you were telling me this, I was like,

01:27:41.560 | I wonder how many soaps are left in Michael Malice's life.

01:27:46.560 | Like you can count your life by days, by months,

01:27:49.920 | by years, or by soaps.

01:27:51.680 | - That is depressing, that is very dark.

01:27:53.760 | - 'Cause each experience of shaving

01:27:56.840 | is a little beautiful experience.

01:27:58.320 | - Yes, it is.

01:27:59.160 | - And how many do you have left in your life, right?

01:28:01.320 | - That's true.

01:28:02.280 | - Yeah.

01:28:03.120 | - I gotta tell you, there's something else.

01:28:04.260 | There's a term called, my friend Jackie

01:28:06.480 | taught me called touching pan.

01:28:07.860 | It's a makeup term.

01:28:09.240 | So basically when you use it and you can see the bottom,

01:28:12.520 | that's like a big moment.

01:28:14.400 | - Oh, it's a great thing.

01:28:15.360 | - Yeah, it's like, well, it's kind of fun.

01:28:17.040 | I'm telling you, like people can scoff.

01:28:19.240 | It is such a fun, and there's a lot of us online

01:28:22.440 | who are into this whole space.

01:28:23.640 | It's really, really fun.

01:28:24.800 | - When did you first discover this?

01:28:26.720 | - Can I curse?

01:28:27.840 | - Yeah.

01:28:29.280 | - Fuck you, Cole Striker.

01:28:32.080 | 'Cause I was staying at my friend Cole's house in LA.

01:28:35.360 | Fuck you, Cole.

01:28:36.200 | - Fuck you, Cole.

01:28:37.040 | - Cole is like one of the biggest hipsters I know.

01:28:39.320 | He's got the shirts with the pearl snaps and everything.

01:28:42.480 | And I'm staying at his house 'cause I was doing Rogan.

01:28:44.720 | And he goes, "Oh, have you heard of this wet shaving thing?"

01:28:47.520 | And he goes, "Look, this one's Pro Rezo."

01:28:49.320 | That's like the Italian grandpa soap,

01:28:51.000 | which is also a great one.

01:28:52.340 | And I went down this rabbit hole and I'm like,

01:28:55.880 | I don't even know how much money I spent on this.

01:28:57.840 | And it's all 'cause of him.

01:28:59.440 | - Oh, but it's like a happy fuck you.

01:29:01.160 | Like, fuck you, Cole.

01:29:02.720 | I love you, Cole.

01:29:03.560 | Fuck you.

01:29:05.000 | Thank you.

01:29:05.840 | - Yes.

01:29:07.080 | - That's a good idea for a tattoo.

01:29:08.400 | Fuck you, Cole.

01:29:09.320 | (laughing)

01:29:12.000 | Do you have advice on how to be happy?

01:29:14.140 | - Yes.

01:29:17.160 | - There's a lot of loneliness and sadness in the world.

01:29:20.300 | - Here, I can give a very easy piece of advice

01:29:24.800 | that worked a lot for me.

01:29:26.160 | Instead of telling yourself

01:29:30.320 | that you have these ridiculous standards,

01:29:35.000 | tell yourself, "I can be better."

01:29:38.240 | Right?

01:29:40.480 | I don't have to be a great writer.

01:29:43.440 | I can be a better writer.

01:29:45.160 | I don't have to be a great podcaster.

01:29:46.740 | That will never happen.

01:29:47.600 | I can be a better podcaster.

01:29:49.240 | I can be a better person.

01:29:50.800 | I can be better at the gym.

01:29:53.380 | I can be better with my time.

01:29:56.000 | And when you regard things in those,

01:29:57.720 | and especially if you have metrics that you can go by,

01:30:00.480 | you know, for example, I'll run this many miles a day,

01:30:03.640 | things you have control over,

01:30:05.360 | especially as males, when you have this chart

01:30:07.120 | and the data's telling you you're improving,

01:30:09.560 | right away, it's like you have this sense of accomplishment.

01:30:12.160 | So I think that is a really great way to find,

01:30:15.480 | and if something is not working in your life,

01:30:17.440 | let's suppose you don't have friends, right?

01:30:20.100 | There's the internet.

01:30:21.400 | How do people make friends?

01:30:23.000 | Try things out.

01:30:23.840 | What's the worst that's gonna happen?

01:30:24.920 | You're gonna, things are gonna blow up in your face?

01:30:26.320 | Well, you'll learn something at least.

01:30:28.920 | Don't be afraid of making mistakes.

01:30:31.240 | When I was a kid, I was so scared

01:30:34.880 | of having things under control,

01:30:37.560 | so like I would never have to get hit in the face,

01:30:39.280 | metaphorically, and then I realized,

01:30:41.380 | and you've realized this as well,

01:30:43.580 | everyone who's important gets hit in the face.

01:30:45.480 | Look at the president, whoever the president is.

01:30:47.460 | It becomes a matter of being strong enough

01:30:48.920 | that you could take getting hit in the face.

01:30:51.140 | So that is a big, important switch in your thinking.

01:30:55.640 | - Yeah, there's a Bukowski quote I wrote down.

01:30:59.400 | Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning

01:31:01.320 | and you think, I'm not gonna make it,

01:31:03.600 | but you laugh inside remembering

01:31:05.200 | all the times you felt that way.

01:31:06.840 | - Yeah, yeah.

01:31:07.840 | - There's a part of me that's like that.

01:31:09.920 | There's some days where I feel like

01:31:11.360 | this is the worst day of my life,

01:31:13.280 | and then shortly after, I think, chuckle at that.

01:31:17.000 | - Yes. - It's just knowing

01:31:18.360 | the ups and downs of the brain and the mind

01:31:20.560 | and life and all that.

01:31:22.120 | You ever been depressed?

01:31:23.360 | - Yeah, of course.

01:31:24.200 | I'm more anxious than depressed.

01:31:25.240 | I don't really get depressed.

01:31:26.640 | Yeah, but I've been depressed.

01:31:28.800 | - Like low points?

01:31:30.240 | - Yeah, but I think I distinguish depression

01:31:33.160 | between low points, right?

01:31:34.240 | Like if things are going bad and you feel bad,

01:31:36.480 | that makes sense, but when I think of depression,

01:31:38.600 | I think of someone who feels bad when things aren't bad.

01:31:41.680 | Like I said, to me, it's almost by definition irrational.

01:31:45.920 | - Well, yeah, and there's different kinds of,

01:31:48.080 | I like, there's a exhausted kind of depression

01:31:51.200 | where you're not, it's not so much sad

01:31:53.880 | as you're not, don't wanna do anything.

01:31:56.880 | You don't want to live, you don't want to.

01:31:59.960 | - What's the, yeah. - Yeah, what's the point?

01:32:01.520 | What's the point? - It's a wrap, yeah.

01:32:04.000 | - And like an extreme self-critical negativity,

01:32:06.440 | which I'm also scared of 'cause my brain

01:32:08.080 | is generally very self-critical.

01:32:09.800 | - 'Cause you're not taking enough magnesium.

01:32:11.760 | - Do you take erectile or in the mouth?

01:32:13.920 | - You take erectile. - Okay.

01:32:15.840 | - But as for the magnesium, you should take it as a pill.

01:32:18.680 | - Okay, well, the way your mom explained it then

01:32:20.880 | is way different.

01:32:25.600 | What are you most afraid of?

01:32:27.040 | - Holy crap, that's, I'm trying to think

01:32:40.680 | of anything I'm afraid of.

01:32:42.560 | - You know, in 1984?

01:32:44.240 | - With the, I thought, like even just--

01:32:46.920 | - Like if I wanted to torture you, hypothetically.

01:32:49.640 | - Well, you're, well, mission accomplished.

01:32:52.000 | (laughing)

01:32:53.040 | You know what, I mean, in terms of,

01:32:55.080 | I'm scared of increasing authoritarianism,

01:32:57.280 | but that's not personal.

01:32:58.720 | And that's not, that's something that I don't think

01:33:01.400 | is as much of an imminent concern as like,

01:33:04.560 | let's say, in Canada.

01:33:06.320 | - Are you scared of death?

01:33:07.560 | - No.

01:33:08.400 | - You think Camus was scared of death?

01:33:10.920 | - No.

01:33:11.760 | - He just accepted it as--

01:33:14.760 | - Look, I honestly feel like if I died tomorrow,

01:33:19.760 | I did pretty good with what I had.

01:33:22.600 | Like I think I did things that matter to me.

01:33:25.400 | I think I moved the needle on things that matter to me.

01:33:28.560 | I think I've been a good friend to the people I care about.

01:33:33.560 | I've saved a couple of lives.

01:33:39.000 | So I can, I think it's a very low bar

01:33:44.000 | for someone to be able to go to their grave and say,

01:33:48.200 | you know, I left the world a better place than I found it.

01:33:50.280 | I don't think it's that hard.

01:33:52.160 | - You ever been betrayed?

01:33:53.480 | - Oh God, yes, of course.

01:33:54.600 | Haven't you?

01:33:55.440 | - Not as often as I would have predicted.

01:33:59.840 | - Yeah, the Russian upbringing,

01:34:01.280 | it's like expects everyone to be like,

01:34:03.120 | just it's a time bomb before they betray you.

01:34:04.840 | I've been betrayed, of course, yeah.

01:34:06.400 | - Yeah.

01:34:07.240 | You value loyalty?

01:34:10.440 | - I do.

01:34:11.280 | And I also made it a point to not let that betrayal

01:34:14.680 | color my future interactions and regard that

01:34:18.440 | as the universal or the norm.

01:34:20.160 | - Yeah.

01:34:21.000 | - I think that's very important.

01:34:22.640 | - Me too.

01:34:23.480 | - And also I feel bad.

01:34:25.920 | I've gotten lex enough that I feel bad

01:34:29.920 | for the person who betrayed me

01:34:32.080 | because it's just like, they didn't need to do this.

01:34:35.400 | And at some point, if you betray someone, you know,

01:34:39.800 | and you know you're not a good person.

01:34:41.200 | I believe that.

01:34:42.480 | - Yeah.

01:34:43.960 | - Like even if you tell yourself this is something

01:34:45.600 | I had to do, you still know you had to do a bad thing

01:34:49.240 | to someone who didn't deserve it.

01:34:50.480 | And that's a really hard pill to swallow.

01:34:53.200 | - In my situation, I still think good thoughts

01:34:56.520 | and empathize with the people that have done me wrong.

01:35:01.440 | - I don't empathize with them, but I sympathize with them.

01:35:04.160 | - My English is not good enough to know the difference.

01:35:07.000 | - Empathizing means you're putting yourself in their shoes.

01:35:09.160 | Sympathizing means you feel bad for them

01:35:11.720 | and wish them well.

01:35:12.880 | - Yeah, I wish them well.

01:35:17.640 | - Yeah, but I don't put myself,

01:35:19.120 | it's very hard for me to empathize with someone

01:35:21.040 | who betrays someone that they care about.

01:35:23.680 | 'Cause that is something, it's not that just I think

01:35:26.080 | I'm such a great person, it's that I feel guilt

01:35:28.400 | very strongly.

01:35:29.520 | So if I did that to someone who trusted me,

01:35:32.080 | I would really, it would fuck up my head for a long time.

01:35:35.120 | - Yeah, but maybe they were in pain.

01:35:38.400 | Maybe they were desperate.

01:35:41.120 | Maybe they were back to the wall.

01:35:43.400 | - Sure, sure.

01:35:44.240 | - They felt that way.

01:35:45.080 | - Sure, well, that's the sympathy thing,

01:35:46.040 | not really an empathy thing.

01:35:47.320 | - Yeah, yeah.

01:35:49.200 | Loyalty is a fascinating thing.

01:35:51.840 | - Yes.

01:35:55.000 | - I value trust a lot.

01:35:56.400 | - I know you do.

01:35:57.240 | Especially 'cause you're in such a public,

01:35:59.320 | both of us, we're in very public positions.

01:36:01.840 | You have to be very careful who you surround yourself with.

01:36:03.960 | - It sucks.

01:36:05.120 | - Does it?

01:36:06.480 | Well, it--

01:36:07.320 | - It sucks because it's hard to,

01:36:08.920 | I usually just trust everybody.

01:36:15.880 | That's, okay, that's crazy.

01:36:17.280 | - But what's the alternative?

01:36:20.680 | - To be, have a filter?

01:36:23.600 | - Well, I have a filter in terms of who I interact with.

01:36:26.120 | - Okay.

01:36:26.960 | - But within the, you know, I see the good in people,

01:36:29.840 | but then you, in the very rare instances, that might turn.

01:36:34.840 | - Okay.

01:36:36.200 | - And yeah, it just sucks.

01:36:38.160 | It breaks my heart.

01:36:39.360 | - Yeah, I hear you.

01:36:40.640 | I completely agree.

01:36:41.680 | - Has your heart ever been broken?

01:36:44.640 | - Yes.

01:36:46.000 | - Love?

01:36:47.280 | - Yes.

01:36:48.120 | - I'm just so relaxed right now.

01:36:53.520 | - Good. - And happy.

01:36:55.080 | Relaxed and happy.

01:36:56.040 | - Good.

01:36:56.880 | - This is making me really happy.

01:36:58.280 | - It's so, again, it's beautiful

01:37:00.560 | on like eight different levels.

01:37:02.240 | - I think that's the deepest thing I'm thankful for,

01:37:05.520 | is just how beautiful people are,

01:37:08.120 | how beautiful the world is.

01:37:09.880 | - I really, and people are gonna laugh,

01:37:14.000 | and I welcome it, that's fine.

01:37:16.720 | I really sometimes feel like the guy in "American Beauty"

01:37:21.680 | looking at the plastic bag, dancing in the wind,

01:37:24.560 | and he's brought to tears

01:37:25.560 | 'cause of how much beautiful life is.

01:37:27.760 | And a lot of people feel the need to sneer at that scene,

01:37:30.840 | and Ricky Pitts, whatever,

01:37:33.640 | and I think he's got it exactly right.

01:37:35.520 | - I think he does too.

01:37:37.600 | Well, in the end, you and I will be both laughing.

01:37:43.320 | - That's exactly, and right, and also seeing beauty

01:37:46.040 | where other people see garbage.

01:37:47.880 | And I'd rather be the person who sees beauty

01:37:49.720 | than the person who sees garbage.

01:37:51.360 | - Yep.

01:37:54.040 | Well, when I look at you, I see beauty,

01:37:58.040 | when most people see garbage.

01:38:01.200 | And it's really unfair, Mr. Parrot,

01:38:04.280 | that you keep saying that.

01:38:05.600 | - What?

01:38:07.640 | - All jokes aside, man,

01:38:08.880 | I'm really grateful for your friendship,

01:38:10.720 | and I'm really grateful for you as a person.

01:38:13.320 | Thank you so much for talking today.

01:38:14.800 | Thank you so much for talking to me

01:38:16.120 | throughout all these years.

01:38:17.640 | Thank you for being who you are.

01:38:19.240 | - You are welcome.

01:38:20.760 | - Thanks for listening to this conversation

01:38:23.320 | with Michael Malice.

01:38:24.520 | To support this podcast,

01:38:25.720 | please check out our sponsors in the description.

01:38:28.200 | And now let me leave you with some words from Andre Geid.

01:38:31.440 | Man cannot discover new oceans

01:38:35.320 | unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.

01:38:40.680 | Thank you for listening,

01:38:41.920 | and hope to see you next time.

01:38:43.960 | (upbeat music)

01:38:46.560 | (upbeat music)

01:38:49.160 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special | Lex Fridman Podcast #402

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