Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan, Fraud, Prison, and Sociopathy

00:00:00.000 | he made me think that everything was going to be reversed and okay, and anybody that

00:00:04.640 | money was borrowed from, they would get it back, maybe tenfold. And so it was this

00:00:09.680 | weird situation of having one foot in his reality and potentially believing the things he was saying

00:00:17.840 | or even over time wanting to believe them more and more because the alternative was worse.

00:00:26.400 | The alternative was increasingly a bigger and bigger nightmare.

00:00:31.120 | The following is a conversation with Sarma Melengalas, a chef and restaurateur who was

00:00:39.120 | the subject of the Netflix documentary Bad Vegan, Fame, Fraud, and Fugitives, that documents the

00:00:46.160 | rise and fall of her vegan raw food restaurants in New York City that ended in what she called

00:00:52.400 | a road trip from hell, being arrested in Tennessee, her pleading guilty for stealing over two million

00:00:58.240 | dollars, and serving four months at Rikers Island Jail. Sarma disputes the veracity of the

00:01:05.680 | documentary and its conclusions, saying that she was misrepresented. So I wanted to talk to her to

00:01:13.120 | get the full story and to seek understanding of who she is as a human being, the good and the bad.

00:01:20.560 | This is the Lex Friedman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description.

00:01:26.160 | And now, dear friends, here's Sarma Melengalas. You said that you did a lot of reading when you

00:01:33.280 | were growing up, and you mentioned Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson.

00:01:38.400 | So from the reading you've done in those early days, how did you see the world? Was it to you

00:01:45.520 | a beautiful place or a cruel place? I don't think I thought about the world. You were focused on

00:01:52.240 | family, just basic day-to-day life? I think I was focused on day-to-day. I had an awareness of not

00:01:58.080 | fitting in, but I think back then it felt like something was wrong versus some people are just

00:02:04.960 | that way. And speaking of books, I read a book called Party of One by a woman named Anneli

00:02:12.240 | Rufus that somebody gave me and suggested I read, and that helped a lot. That was one book that made

00:02:18.560 | me feel like it made me understand things from the past that I hadn't understood before, specifically

00:02:26.480 | kind of feeling out of place, even among my family, which is where you're not supposed to

00:02:30.400 | feel out of place. Yeah, I'm not sure where I saw it, but I think you mentioned that you were

00:02:34.800 | a bit of a loner, and I also think I saw somewhere pictures of you with green hair in high school

00:02:44.320 | and a wild haircut. What was that about? Was that real? Am I just imagining? No, you're not

00:02:50.160 | imagining it. It's strange because I was kind of a loner, so it'd be strange to do something that

00:02:58.240 | calls so much attention to yourself because back then, I mean, I grew up in a suburb of Boston

00:03:03.760 | in Newton, and anybody that was there around that time, probably if you said that girl with green

00:03:11.680 | hair or blue hair, it was blue most of the time, they would remember seeing me walking down the

00:03:15.920 | street because it stood out like crazy, especially back then. Now, it wouldn't stand out so much,

00:03:20.080 | but back then, it really stood out. So I was trying to think about why I did that when

00:03:28.880 | I was kind of shy and on the one hand, wouldn't want to bring attention to myself,

00:03:35.840 | but I did something that did. And it wasn't my family, to their credit,

00:03:41.760 | they were fine with it, so it wasn't a rebellion against them or anything like that. They were fine

00:03:48.560 | with it. I don't think they loved it, but... Your dad was a physicist at MIT.

00:03:52.480 | Yes. So he was cool with your green hair

00:03:58.240 | when you're a rebellion. That's just the way of life.

00:04:00.480 | He was fine with the green hair, but I think in some ways, maybe they had to be fine with it

00:04:05.040 | because I didn't cause problems otherwise. And I got good grades in school. I was a very low

00:04:13.840 | maintenance child, I think. Even with the green hair. So Hunter S. Thompson wrote a lot of good

00:04:21.440 | stuff. He has a lot of just brilliant quotes, a lot of brilliant lines. So one of the ones I love

00:04:29.600 | is "Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and

00:04:35.280 | well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up,

00:04:41.600 | totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, 'Wow, what a ride.'" What do you think about that?

00:04:49.120 | Is that good life advice from Hunter S. Thompson? I think so.

00:04:54.080 | I think he followed it, right? Somewhere, I heard recently what he consumed in a day,

00:05:02.400 | and it was kind of astonishing. It's funny, when I was in college, there were always really

00:05:08.640 | interesting people coming through, speakers and whatnot. And I tended to not go to events and

00:05:13.280 | whatnot. But in the four years I was there, I mean, really interesting people came through

00:05:17.840 | and gave talks. I don't know, just a lot of famous people. But then one day, Hunter S. Thompson came

00:05:25.840 | to speak, and that was the only one I attended. Oh, wow.

00:05:29.040 | That was the only interesting person who came to speak on the campus that I attended,

00:05:33.600 | was Hunter S. Thompson. And he had a glass of whatever it was, whiskey.

00:05:38.640 | And I don't remember a whole lot about it, but it was entertaining.

00:05:44.400 | And yeah, I mean, later in his life, he started making less and less sense,

00:05:48.720 | but he was still somehow embodying the crazy that he represented throughout his life,

00:05:54.240 | the boldness, the fearlessness, the wildness, all that kind of stuff. And we'll talk about Johnny

00:05:58.320 | Depp a little bit too. Funny enough, there's like an echo. Obviously, Johnny Depp played him,

00:06:04.320 | or he starred in Fear, Loathing, and they hung out together. And it just seemed to somehow,

00:06:10.560 | like the universe rhymes in these two individuals. They're both madmen in different kind of ways.

00:06:16.640 | So you also told me that Leon, the Professional is one of your favorite films. It's also the

00:06:23.040 | reason you named your dog Leon. So what do you find beautiful and powerful about this film?

00:06:29.520 | I've watched it a bunch of times, but it's been a while since I've watched it.

00:06:32.480 | So for people who haven't watched it, there's a guy named Leon played by Jean Renaud. There's a

00:06:39.520 | young girl, I think, I don't know, 13, 14. Matilda played by Natalie Portman. And she's abused.

00:06:50.080 | She has a really hard life. Her parents are, spoiler alert, murdered. And then she finds

00:06:58.400 | protection under this fella, Leon, who also happens to be a professional assassin.

00:07:09.040 | And he is also kind of a Forrest Gump type character. He's a really simple,

00:07:15.920 | simple human. He seems to be like the immature one, or rather, the one who's young. And she

00:07:23.520 | seems to have a wisdom far beyond her age, because of the hard life she had to live through. And

00:07:29.280 | then they're here huddling together from the cruelty of the world and finding connection.

00:07:37.760 | Yeah, I think it's one of those films where there's so many interesting things about it. But

00:07:42.480 | I'm sure one of them is just the contradiction of him being

00:07:47.840 | a caring person and reluctant to get attached to her. He tries to, I think he knows he's very

00:07:54.000 | reluctant to get attached to her in the beginning. And so, you see all of his humanity, but yet he's

00:08:00.960 | also an assassin that kills people. So, that's interesting. And I think probably a psychoanalyst

00:08:08.560 | would have a field day with why I like that movie so much. And I haven't gone there myself. But

00:08:15.840 | there's something I think about she, even in the brief part that depicts her in the beginning,

00:08:21.920 | it seems clear that she's sort of out of place in her family. And

00:08:28.160 | then, yeah, there's all kinds of interesting things about their relationship along the way.

00:08:34.720 | What I like about that movie, and I had to think about it recently, because I've read stuff about

00:08:39.840 | it that bothered me. Or it bothered me the fact that I haven't really thought about it before.

00:08:46.240 | For people who haven't watched the movie, so here's a young underage girl who kind of comes

00:08:51.920 | on to him. First of all, I think she actually just doesn't know what familial love is. So,

00:09:00.720 | this is the only way she knows how to express love. That's one. And two is, you know, a lot of

00:09:08.560 | bad people in this world would take advantage of that. And the fact that

00:09:14.000 | she finally met a human being who doesn't, and is just there to protect her. That's a real sort of,

00:09:23.760 | I don't know, a powerful statement of what it means to be sort of like a father figure,

00:09:30.800 | I suppose, a protector. So that to me, I love the idea of being sort of the protector.

00:09:39.280 | That there's something worthwhile in this world to protect amidst all the cruelty that's all around.

00:09:48.880 | So that's a beautiful kind of, you're basically saving this young human's,

00:09:57.280 | or you're repairing this young human's path to love, to real love in life. Because

00:10:08.480 | that idea of love was destroyed for her. Just family, everything is, everything is

00:10:13.680 | sort of, everything around her is broken. And he's kind of repairing it by reestablishing what

00:10:22.080 | that kind of love can be. I don't know. - And the plant. They save the plant also.

00:10:28.720 | - Well, there's also just the simplicity of the film, just from a cinematic perspective,

00:10:34.240 | is beautiful. The music, the way it looks, the minimalism. - Even the violence was beautiful.

00:10:40.240 | - Yeah, the violence. It was over the top. And also the bad guy, the bad cop, played by

00:10:49.280 | Gary Oldman. - Yeah, he was amazing.

00:10:51.920 | - Yeah, I think he was listening to Beethoven or something like that. And he'd taken some sort of

00:10:56.000 | pills and drugs of some kind. So there was a kind of, like it's part of the orchestra,

00:11:02.080 | like the violence was part of some kind of musical creation.

00:11:07.600 | - Yeah, it's interesting because I turn away from violence or films usually that have violence,

00:11:15.680 | or TV or anything that has that sort of element to it, except in certain cases where-

00:11:22.480 | - Where the violence is beautiful? - Yeah, yeah. Or did you see the movie

00:11:30.880 | True Romance? - Yes.

00:11:33.200 | - That's my second favorite movie. - Okay, that's probably my favorite movie.

00:11:37.200 | - Oh, well, interesting. That's my second favorite movie.

00:11:40.080 | - That's a more simple kind of love, but also with the violence that is beautiful.

00:11:45.760 | - Yeah. - I suppose you could say.

00:11:46.480 | - Yeah. And my favorite scene is the one with Patricia Arquette and James Gandolfini.

00:11:52.080 | - Oh, yeah. Where there's a shotgun involved. - Yeah.

00:11:55.600 | - Yeah. And then- - It actually makes me cry every time I see it,

00:11:59.920 | for some reason. -

00:12:02.760 | So for people who haven't seen the film, I think he's actually, I think he's hitting her. Or

00:12:14.160 | like there's blood and violence and so on. - Oh, yeah.

00:12:16.800 | - Because she's resisting being murdered. - Yeah, there's a lot of violence. And then

00:12:20.960 | he throws her into the glass, the shower thing, and she's all cut up and beat up.

00:12:28.080 | - And she laughs. - Yeah, there's just so much passion in it.

00:12:32.400 | She knows she's gonna, or in that moment, she knows or thinks she knows that she's gonna die

00:12:38.960 | anyway. - Yeah.

00:12:40.080 | - 'Cause she knows he's gonna kill her. So she kind of gives it all she has.

00:12:45.440 | - But she also just has guts. She's not afraid. - Yeah. Well, and also she loves Clarence.

00:12:54.400 | - Yeah. The love comes through through that violence. Yeah.

00:12:58.000 | - Yeah. - Just like Clarence,

00:12:59.920 | her fella in that film has the same kind of thing when he visits-

00:13:06.880 | - Well, it was Gary Oldman again. - It was Gary Oldman again. That's right.

00:13:09.920 | - Yeah. - The pimp.

00:13:10.400 | - Looking very different. - Drexel.

00:13:12.000 | - Drexel, yeah. - Yeah. And he's also fearless in that

00:13:15.520 | interaction saying, "She's not mine." It's interesting. That movie, so romantic. And

00:13:21.760 | happy ending, spoiler alert, in a way. - That's what I like about it too,

00:13:25.600 | 'cause I feel like some movies should come with, I don't wanna watch a movie if it's gonna be

00:13:30.640 | devastating, usually, unless it's worthwhile in some other way, but I'm kind of sensitive and I

00:13:36.000 | don't want... I don't like movies that have a terrible ending. There's a book I read because

00:13:44.160 | it got so many good reviews, and the very last scene, the woman steps in front of a train and it

00:13:48.800 | was like... So I'm partial to movies with happy endings. - Leon ends with loss. Leon the movie.

00:14:00.320 | - Right, but it's still inspiring. - Love persists in some kind of form.

00:14:05.920 | - Yeah. - She persists.

00:14:06.800 | - And the plant. And the plant. - Okay, sure, sure. True Romance does have

00:14:13.600 | one of the... I mean, it's probably unhealthy. - That ending scene is just amazing.

00:14:18.080 | - "You're so cool." Where she... Is that one? Where she just kind of looks at Clarence and her son

00:14:25.680 | and child or whatever, and she's saying, "You're so cool. You're so cool." Yeah. That's love.

00:14:33.120 | - I just... That movie has so much in it because it's funny and there's so many good actors in that

00:14:41.520 | film. - And Brad Pitt plays in that film a pivotal role of Pothead on couch.

00:14:47.280 | - Yeah. They're all so good and funny. And Michael Rapaport. And even Val Kilmer. People

00:14:54.000 | don't realize he's in the movie because he doesn't look like himself.

00:14:56.640 | - Wait, what did Val Kilmer look like? - Val Kilmer's in the very end.

00:15:02.080 | You know when he's... There's like the Elvis sitting there talking to him in the end?

00:15:06.880 | - Yeah. - That's Val Kilmer.

00:15:08.640 | Yeah, you don't notice it unless you somehow either are very perceptive or noticed it in the credits.

00:15:17.040 | - Yeah. And Quentin Tarantino wrote the film, I think.

00:15:20.640 | - Yes. - Which is interesting. Directed by Tony Scott.

00:15:24.720 | And the music is beautiful too. - And Christopher Walken and

00:15:31.840 | Dennis Hopper. - Dennis Hopper. Dennis Hopper plays

00:15:34.960 | Clarence's dad. And they have this very racist sounding scene. But the big

00:15:42.480 | important aspect of that scene is it's a father willing to die to protect his son. I mean,

00:15:51.200 | it's so much beautiful violence in that film. - There is. There is. I love that film so much.

00:15:56.880 | - And she's a prostitute or not really. Part time, short time.

00:16:02.400 | - No, it was her first time. - First time.

00:16:04.320 | - Yeah. - Okay. And he saved her. And...

00:16:09.200 | - My third favorite film has no violence whatsoever. - What's your third favorite film?

00:16:17.200 | - "A Room with a View." - What is it?

00:16:20.320 | - I feel like you'd like it. It's, I forget the author. It's a book and I read the book much later.

00:16:27.760 | But it's Helena Bonham Carter and Daniel Day-Lewis is in it and Julian Sands.

00:16:39.440 | - Daniel Day-Lewis is a fascinating character. - He's amazing in this film because he plays,

00:16:46.720 | he's very funny. He sort of plays a, he's a comical character, which is unlike most of what

00:16:52.640 | he does, I think. I don't watch a ton of movies, so, but yeah, he plays, his role is funny.

00:17:00.080 | - Well, that's a heck of a top three. You brought me some books, some bread and books.

00:17:07.680 | - Yeah. - Some Russian bread,

00:17:10.800 | Russian inspired bread. - Yeah. I mean, it's Latvian, but it's

00:17:14.880 | similar to-- - Close enough.

00:17:16.480 | - Similar to what's made in Russia and it's made at a Russian bakery in Brooklyn.

00:17:20.160 | - That's where your dad is from, right? - My dad is from Latvia, yeah.

00:17:22.960 | - So you got me some books, "Beautiful Ruins." - Yeah, and if you never read them,

00:17:28.800 | who cares? That's totally fine. People give you books and then you feel like you just,

00:17:32.800 | you sort of feel like-- - I see this as, we'll talk about this.

00:17:36.960 | This is part therapy session. I don't feel the need to satisfy people's happiness.

00:17:42.400 | - That's a good thing. - Okay, so, but it could also be

00:17:46.160 | an opportunity to experience something I never otherwise would have. So "Beautiful Ruins."

00:17:52.320 | - It's a book that made me laugh and cry and it's just a happy story. And for some reason,

00:17:59.120 | I don't know exactly why, but for some reason, when you asked me to come, it just, I thought,

00:18:05.440 | "Oh, I'm gonna bring a copy of that book." - You just felt, it came, a voice told you.

00:18:11.520 | - Yeah. - So there's others,

00:18:13.120 | "Darkness Visible." - These are more--

00:18:15.200 | - "A Memoir of Madness," "Compelling, Harrowing, a Vivid Portrait of a Debilitating Disorder." It

00:18:21.520 | offers the solace of shared experience, "The New York Times." - This is--

00:18:26.080 | - William Styron. - There's a little bit about this book that

00:18:29.840 | reminds me of the Karl Deisseroth book because he writes about his own condition in, I mean,

00:18:39.280 | he's an amazing writer, so he writes about it in this beautiful way. And oddly enough,

00:18:44.320 | in some ways, it's kind of delightful. So it's not at all a depressing book,

00:18:49.120 | at least I didn't find it depressing at all, I don't think it is. But he writes about his own

00:18:55.360 | experience with depression in such a beautiful way. My own copy is full of underlines.

00:19:01.920 | - I would love that copy too. - The one with my--

00:19:06.640 | - I would love to look into the underlines and the books with notes, those little secrets that

00:19:12.880 | people leave, traces. - That's part of why I like

00:19:15.360 | paper books is 'cause I underline, I tend to underline like crazy. The Karl Deisseroth book

00:19:20.800 | is full of underlines too. - Well, I do the same thing on Kindle,

00:19:23.920 | and then you can actually more effectively go back to the things you've underlined 'cause you

00:19:28.880 | highlight and so on. But in fact, when you underline on paper books, you sometimes never

00:19:36.240 | go back, which always makes me sad. - To the book?

00:19:39.760 | - To the things you've underlined. - In the paper books?

00:19:42.080 | - Yeah, in the paper books. - Oh, I do, I go back.

00:19:43.760 | - You do? - Yeah, I go back a lot.

00:19:45.440 | - Do you wonder what the heck you were thinking about when you wrote something?

00:19:48.480 | - No, well, sometimes I underline things that are, well, also what I do is I have a whole file

00:19:54.000 | in Evernote of transcribed quotes from books, ones that I wanna save. So I might underline a lot

00:20:01.040 | of things in a book and then maybe like a third of them, I wanna write them down somewhere. So I

00:20:07.200 | write those down and I think even the time it takes to transcribe it is somehow worthwhile.

00:20:12.560 | It's like searing it in your brain. - And you're reliving the memory

00:20:17.680 | of having read it the first time. - Yeah, and then sometimes I'll pick up books.

00:20:23.600 | And sometimes I just underline sentences that are, it's not the content of the sentence,

00:20:28.240 | it's more that it's just a beautifully written sentence or like a particularly apt metaphor or

00:20:32.640 | something that's really nice. And I like paper books too 'cause I bought "Beautiful Ruins." I

00:20:39.440 | would have never heard of it, I don't think, except one of my favorite things is to go to

00:20:44.560 | used bookstores. Actually, Goodwill sometimes has really good big book selections depending on

00:20:52.480 | the area where you go. Sometimes you find a lot of treasures there. And what ends up happening a lot

00:20:59.120 | is I end up buying books that I know sometimes also 'cause I lost all my belongings at one point.

00:21:04.000 | So I'll very often buy books that I've already read just to have them. But then what always ends

00:21:11.680 | up happening is I'll find, there'll be a couple of books that I buy that I've never heard of the

00:21:16.560 | author. I don't really know anything about, I don't know anything about the book at all,

00:21:19.840 | but something drew me to it. And what I like about that is you're buying used books, so it

00:21:25.360 | costs a dollar or two. So if you made a mistake, no big deal, who cares? But every time I come back

00:21:31.600 | with a book haul, there's usually at least one gem that I end up loving and I'm so glad that I read

00:21:39.200 | it. And "Beautiful Ruins" was that book for me. And I was drawn to it because of the cover art.

00:21:45.120 | I just loved the cover and the colors. And then I picked it up and read the back and bought it.

00:21:50.560 | And I also feel bad sometimes buying used books when the author is still alive, 'cause I feel

00:21:56.160 | like if you write a book, you should get the royalties. So...

00:22:00.320 | But you get to live with that regret.

00:22:03.600 | Well, also, I'll usually end up putting a picture of Leon, reading the book online,

00:22:08.960 | and then other people buy it and read it. And so I feel like I've made up for...

00:22:12.560 | There you go, you make up for it.

00:22:13.520 | I've made up for depriving him of the royalties.

00:22:17.040 | I used to live in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

00:22:20.080 | I know it well. I used to hang out at the pit in Harvard Square with my

00:22:24.160 | green and blue hair when I was way too young to be doing that by myself.

00:22:28.560 | And there's a guy that I think has been there for a long time,

00:22:32.640 | sort of between Kendall and Central, that would just lay out used books and sell them.

00:22:39.840 | And I always loved that guy, whoever he was.

00:22:42.400 | He had a cool hat, he's an older gentleman, and you could just tell he's seen some things.

00:22:49.360 | I don't know who he is. I always wanted to actually talk to him for a long time,

00:22:54.320 | but I was too afraid, maybe 'cause I wouldn't be able to handle what he had to tell me.

00:22:58.800 | 'Cause I almost wanted to maintain the innocence of just, "Okay, here's this guy."

00:23:03.440 | But he was so...

00:23:04.640 | Every time you would ask him a question about a book, first of all, he's read all of them.

00:23:09.360 | Oh, that's interesting.

00:23:10.320 | Which means he's traveled quite a few places inside these worlds.

00:23:14.800 | And then you would tell him... I would look at a book, right?

00:23:19.200 | And he would catch you being curious about it, and then he would walk up to you,

00:23:24.160 | and then he would start talking about the book.

00:23:26.480 | And he would always forget that you were there.

00:23:29.440 | He's almost like... He's not trying to sell you the books.

00:23:32.240 | Part talking to himself?

00:23:33.360 | Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:23:34.480 | Almost like an ex-girlfriend he's visiting through this book or something.

00:23:38.960 | Did you buy books from him?

00:23:40.240 | Yeah, yeah, definitely.

00:23:41.680 | But the experience of just being there, 'cause he lays them out, and people actually

00:23:46.800 | that watch or listen to this probably would be able to tell me what his name is,

00:23:50.400 | 'cause I'd love to find that guy again.

00:23:51.840 | I'm sure he's still there.

00:23:52.800 | Maybe you'll have him on the podcast.

00:23:54.480 | I 100% will.

00:23:56.160 | But it's almost terrifying.

00:23:58.560 | I'm not sure I can handle...

00:24:00.880 | 'Cause he's been through some things.

00:24:03.280 | I'm not sure if he's homeless or just looks like it.

00:24:06.640 | Yep.

00:24:08.820 | That's sometimes a thing.

00:24:09.780 | And some of my favorite people either are homeless or look like it.

00:24:15.780 | Okay, what's the third one?

00:24:18.260 | The Confession of a Sociopath by M.E. Thomas, A Life Spent Hiding in Plain Sight.

00:24:24.820 | It's a book I recommend a lot, 'cause I've read a lot about sociopathy,

00:24:30.340 | and I've read all the books by psychologists.

00:24:35.140 | And this one's written by a woman who understands herself that she is a sociopath.

00:24:40.740 | And so it's beautifully written, but I learned more from that book than from any other book.

00:24:45.860 | And I think I thought about it a long time ago.

00:24:48.260 | I think a lot of conversations, you've talked a lot about good and evil,

00:24:53.940 | and whether everybody's really good or some people are not good.

00:24:59.780 | And I think sociopathy is something that I think the world needs to understand much better.

00:25:06.340 | And so that book helped me understand a lot.

00:25:08.980 | And it's beautifully written, and she tackles all the really interesting moral questions, like,

00:25:14.100 | what if we were able to definitively diagnose people in some way?

00:25:22.180 | You could immediately identify who's a full-blown sociopath.

00:25:28.100 | And then what as a society would you do with them?

00:25:31.140 | Because in most cases, they're just gonna cause destruction and pain and harm,

00:25:38.740 | and/or potentially rise to power and become president or something.

00:25:44.820 | So I just found that book fascinating.

00:25:49.300 | - And we'll return to this idea, 'cause it's fascinating.

00:25:55.460 | We'll return to human psychology and human nature.

00:25:58.500 | But let's go through the timeline of your life.

00:26:05.540 | Let's take a stroll.

00:26:06.580 | So you wrote that the documentary about you called

00:26:10.900 | "Bad Vegan Fame Fraud Fugitives" is not a documentary.

00:26:15.060 | You got some things right, some things wrong,

00:26:17.780 | and some were, quote, "disturbingly misleading."

00:26:20.900 | So let's go through and get things right today.

00:26:24.740 | First, can I give you a whirlwind summary, the way I understand it?

00:26:30.340 | - Yes.

00:26:30.340 | - And also for context of people.

00:26:31.860 | So 2004, you, Matthew Kenney, and Jeffrey Chodorow

00:26:39.620 | opened Pure Foods and Wine in New York City.

00:26:42.980 | Did I say their names correctly?

00:26:44.180 | - Pure Food and Wine.

00:26:45.220 | - No, their names.

00:26:46.420 | - Oh, theirs.

00:26:46.920 | Well, yeah, Matthew Kenney and Jeffrey Chodorow, yeah.

00:26:51.300 | So it's, and I'll ask about what it takes

00:26:54.180 | to launch and run a restaurant in New York City.

00:26:58.260 | That's a fascinating story in itself.

00:27:00.340 | So it's an upscale raw food restaurant.

00:27:02.660 | All right, that's 2004.

00:27:05.060 | 2007, you opened One Lucky Duck Juice and Takeaway.

00:27:08.500 | And second and third locations in 2009 and '14.

00:27:12.500 | All of those things close in 2016,

00:27:19.940 | '15 and '16, okay.

00:27:21.140 | All right, 2009, Jeffrey lends you $2.1 million

00:27:26.820 | to buy the business outright and Matthew is out.

00:27:29.780 | - Matthew was out earlier than that.

00:27:33.220 | And then time passed, time passed.

00:27:35.540 | And I had, what was complicated is I had started

00:27:39.620 | the One Lucky Duck brand on my own.

00:27:41.140 | - At first it was a dot-com that was doing like delivery.

00:27:46.740 | - It was a dot-com where people could order ingredients

00:27:50.020 | and things and all of the products that we made and packaged.

00:27:53.380 | So we made a bunch of cookies and snacks

00:27:55.060 | and things that were, I think, different.

00:27:57.540 | And if I may say so myself, better than other--

00:28:00.500 | - Strong words.

00:28:02.820 | - Products out there.

00:28:04.100 | - Talk about the cookies.

00:28:06.340 | - But I feel like I can brag about our food and products

00:28:09.380 | because I wasn't, you know, a few recipes early on

00:28:14.660 | I came up with, but it was the people that worked with me

00:28:19.460 | that created really good recipes and products.

00:28:22.660 | And I was just kind of there curating it all

00:28:27.460 | or helping to get it out there.

00:28:31.860 | - What was your favorite thing that you've created?

00:28:34.820 | Maybe yourself eat.

00:28:36.260 | That not you created, but this whole,

00:28:37.780 | all of these efforts have created in terms of meal.

00:28:41.380 | Like you said, cookies, what are we talking about?

00:28:44.580 | - Oh, that's a hard question.

00:28:45.540 | - It's just, okay, not the favorite,

00:28:47.620 | but like something that pops into memory

00:28:49.460 | that brought you joy.

00:28:50.420 | - The Malo Mar, everybody loved the Malo Mar.

00:28:53.940 | So very often we made like raw vegan versions

00:28:58.100 | of things that people are familiar with.

00:29:01.300 | So it was, I think it was pecans.

00:29:04.580 | It was like a salty cookie made with nuts

00:29:07.540 | and then covered in chocolate.

00:29:08.660 | And then there's a big blob of coconut cream.

00:29:11.460 | - I love coconut.

00:29:13.060 | - Which it didn't taste coconutty.

00:29:15.540 | Our ice cream was made with a coconut also.

00:29:19.780 | It's like the meat from coconuts, pureed.

00:29:22.340 | And then there's some soaked cashews in there.

00:29:24.340 | But anyway, it was a blob of vanilla flavored cream,

00:29:26.900 | kind of like a healthy natural version of fluff.

00:29:31.060 | I don't know if you're familiar with fluff.

00:29:32.980 | - Basically every single word you say,

00:29:35.380 | I'm not familiar with, you should see my diet.

00:29:37.460 | I don't, it's like steak and vegetables.

00:29:40.420 | - A fluff is like a thing that I remember it

00:29:42.660 | from my childhood, like peanut butter and fluff

00:29:45.220 | is a ridiculously delicious combination.

00:29:47.460 | - Is it fluffy or is it not?

00:29:48.580 | - It's like a marshmallow.

00:29:49.620 | It's basically like if you softened marshmallows

00:29:52.980 | and made it into a luxurious, amazing goo.

00:29:56.820 | - Oh, so it's like a fancy marshmallow.

00:29:57.620 | - And then put it in a jar.

00:29:58.580 | - Okay.

00:29:59.620 | - And then made it spreadable.

00:30:01.060 | It's spreadable marshmallows kind of.

00:30:03.060 | - Oh, I see.

00:30:04.020 | - I think that's, yeah.

00:30:05.940 | - Spreadable marshmallows, got it.

00:30:07.860 | - Yeah, so there's a big blob of that.

00:30:09.380 | - I didn't know that existed.

00:30:10.420 | That's a thing?

00:30:10.980 | - Fluff.

00:30:11.540 | - Fluff.

00:30:12.180 | - I know.

00:30:12.900 | - Does everyone, do people know about this?

00:30:15.620 | - Oh yeah, everybody knows.

00:30:17.460 | - Okay.

00:30:18.420 | - People, I mean, I think so.

00:30:19.700 | People know about fluff.

00:30:20.900 | - See, I think I went, I took the road less traveled by.

00:30:25.300 | You know, I went the peanut butter and Nutella road

00:30:28.260 | in terms of spreadable things.

00:30:30.100 | - Nutella is like the chocolate version

00:30:32.660 | and then fluff is like the vanilla equivalent sort of.

00:30:37.620 | - Okay, cool.

00:30:38.100 | - But I think commercial fluff that you buy in the store

00:30:40.900 | is just like sugar and whatever else they put in there.

00:30:43.700 | - So it's not actually fluffy.

00:30:47.140 | - It's kind of fluffy, but it's wet.

00:30:50.820 | - Because Nutella is not fluffy.

00:30:53.220 | - Yeah, so it's like Nutella if you whipped it

00:30:57.620 | and then kind of got a little bit aerated.

00:31:02.100 | - Okay, so we're getting this.

00:31:02.340 | - So it's a bit more fluffy.

00:31:04.260 | - So fluff was a part of the formula here.

00:31:06.900 | So it was fluff.

00:31:08.020 | So the coconut cream that we made

00:31:10.580 | was like a healthy version of fluff, kind of.

00:31:15.540 | - Nice.

00:31:16.260 | - Except it would, you know, you could make a quenelle,

00:31:19.780 | like a little scoop of it and it would stay in that form.

00:31:24.020 | Malamars were refrigerated

00:31:26.340 | and then there was like chocolate drizzled over that.

00:31:29.860 | So it had that like salty, sweet thing going on.

00:31:33.140 | That was probably my favorite.

00:31:35.140 | - And that's a dessert.

00:31:36.740 | - Yeah, it was like a dessert snack.

00:31:40.340 | It wasn't as, you wouldn't order it on the restaurant menu,

00:31:42.660 | but in the takeaway you could get them.

00:31:44.660 | Or sometimes some people would get them shipped on dry ice

00:31:50.100 | and pay a lot of money,

00:31:50.980 | like a lot of money to have them shipped on dry ice.

00:31:53.780 | - People are funny.

00:31:55.620 | - I know, I kind of want to like name drop

00:31:58.180 | 'cause it was Tom Brady used to order them.

00:32:00.020 | - Oh, that's awesome.

00:32:01.140 | - Yeah, they would order those shipped on ice to Boston.

00:32:06.100 | - Oh yeah, continuing on.

00:32:10.340 | In 2011, you meet Anthony Stranges on Twitter

00:32:14.180 | and then in real life, also around this time,

00:32:17.060 | I think before you got your rescue dog,

00:32:20.980 | a pit bull named Leon.

00:32:22.260 | - Yeah.

00:32:23.060 | - 2011, 2010, do you remember?

00:32:25.060 | - It was September, 2010.

00:32:27.860 | So, 'cause I think he was born roughly around March.

00:32:30.580 | I gave him a designated birthday of March 10th, 2010.

00:32:34.660 | - Why is that, why March 10th?

00:32:37.060 | - I wrote about the story of adopting him on my website

00:32:41.380 | a long time ago and then I reposted it here

00:32:43.380 | on my current website.

00:32:44.580 | And what happened, I got weirdly obsessed with Leon

00:32:49.140 | before he was Leon.

00:32:50.020 | He was a dog in a shelter named Quinn

00:32:52.660 | and I couldn't stop thinking about him.

00:32:55.140 | - Him specifically.

00:32:56.500 | - Him specifically, yes.

00:32:57.540 | - You saw him and there's something very special about him.

00:33:00.340 | - I was trying to convince somebody else to adopt a dog.

00:33:03.300 | So, and I--

00:33:04.260 | - Alec Baldwin.

00:33:05.540 | - Yeah, and it didn't occur to me that I would get a dog.

00:33:07.860 | - I like how you didn't name drop him,

00:33:09.620 | but you named drop Tom Brady.

00:33:10.980 | (laughing)

00:33:12.900 | I like it.

00:33:13.380 | - So, I was trying to convince him to get a dog

00:33:18.260 | 'cause I thought he should have a dog.

00:33:20.500 | I saw Leon's picture and just got weirdly obsessed with it

00:33:24.500 | in a way that I couldn't really explain.

00:33:26.260 | And I was laying in bed one night and thinking,

00:33:29.460 | I just couldn't stop thinking about him, the dog.

00:33:32.980 | And the paper, or his description in the shelter bio

00:33:38.500 | said that he was roughly five months old.

00:33:40.740 | Or however, whatever it gave us his age, I went back

00:33:43.620 | and it would have been March 20,

00:33:45.780 | would have been March of that year that he was born.

00:33:49.140 | And I had a cat that I was particularly attached to.

00:33:53.620 | I had two cats, brother and sister,

00:33:55.780 | but the boy cat, we had sort of like a,

00:33:58.020 | something that felt like a, you know,

00:34:00.740 | like we'd look at each other and like,

00:34:03.380 | there was something there.

00:34:04.420 | I don't know what it was, but,

00:34:05.620 | and in fact, when he got sick,

00:34:08.180 | I knew it before he even had any symptoms.

00:34:10.500 | It was like something in the way that he looked at me,

00:34:12.580 | I knew something was wrong.

00:34:13.620 | And then--

00:34:14.580 | - Was it friendship?

00:34:16.660 | Was it like, was there a power dynamic?

00:34:20.980 | Cats seem to not really--

00:34:22.980 | - Give a fuck?

00:34:24.100 | - Yeah, they seem to dismiss you.

00:34:26.020 | - Usually, yeah.

00:34:29.060 | - Your entire worth as a human being in a single look,

00:34:32.340 | was that there or?

00:34:33.860 | - He was more dog-like.

00:34:36.420 | He would occasionally fetch,

00:34:38.580 | like this little styrofoam thing I had,

00:34:40.900 | he would fetch it and bring it back.

00:34:42.260 | And he was friendly and, you know,

00:34:45.300 | if somebody came over, he would jump in their lap.

00:34:47.220 | He was less standoffish than most cats,

00:34:50.660 | but there was just something

00:34:52.740 | about the way he would look at me, I don't know.

00:34:55.540 | And I, maybe, probably in his mind,

00:34:59.460 | he's just a cat, I give him food.

00:35:01.700 | Whereas in my mind, it's some kind of,

00:35:04.180 | you know, great soul connection.

00:35:06.740 | - Great, great long running romance.

00:35:10.180 | - Not in his kitty mind, but either way,

00:35:12.260 | so he died in March and I thought,

00:35:13.780 | so I sort of concocted this,

00:35:17.300 | I just thought, you know, that,

00:35:21.460 | well, if he died and he died on March 10th,

00:35:24.260 | and so I thought, well, maybe Leon was born that same day.

00:35:26.820 | And that's why I'm so drawn to him.

00:35:30.580 | I don't know.

00:35:32.180 | - No, that makes, okay, that makes sense.

00:35:34.980 | - It's one of those things that is sort of--

00:35:37.300 | - When you saw him, you just, like, there's something--

00:35:39.940 | - It was his picture, yeah.

00:35:41.060 | - Oh, the picture, and you were drawn

00:35:43.300 | something about the personality in the eyes.

00:35:45.940 | - It was something about his picture.

00:35:48.500 | I don't know what it was.

00:35:49.540 | And everybody at the time was like,

00:35:54.740 | what are you thinking?

00:35:55.540 | Why would you get a dog?

00:35:56.660 | You can't, you know, can't even take care of yourself.

00:36:00.180 | You're overworked and busy.

00:36:01.940 | And why would you get a five-month-old pit bull mix?

00:36:05.540 | You know, why not get an older dog

00:36:06.980 | that's easier to take care of?

00:36:08.180 | And for me, it was like, I don't want any dog.

00:36:12.180 | I don't want, my intention isn't to get a dog,

00:36:15.380 | but there's something about this dog that I have to get.

00:36:18.500 | And so I went to see him,

00:36:20.340 | and then I had already filled out an application.

00:36:25.940 | It was just, I went to see him,

00:36:28.260 | and then I, it was the afternoon,

00:36:30.500 | and I sort of decided in my head, like,

00:36:33.700 | all right, I'm coming back to get him, I have to.

00:36:35.940 | And so the next morning I got on the subway,

00:36:37.540 | I went back to get him, and I was crying on the subway.

00:36:41.460 | And I remember thinking that people,

00:36:42.820 | I don't like crying in public.

00:36:44.980 | I cry a lot, but I don't like crying

00:36:46.580 | in front of other people.

00:36:48.020 | And-- - I love it.

00:36:49.220 | (Dana laughs)

00:36:51.540 | - I thought people on the train looking at me

00:36:53.620 | probably think that, you know, I just, somebody died or--

00:36:56.820 | - Sorry, you're crying on the way there or on the way back?

00:36:58.980 | - On the way there to get him.

00:37:00.340 | And I don't know why I was crying.

00:37:02.500 | It was just something about it was overwhelming, so.

00:37:04.500 | - So tears of happiness or tears of something?

00:37:08.500 | - Something, yeah.

00:37:10.260 | I think tears are overwhelming.

00:37:13.220 | And now I'm like jumping off,

00:37:16.660 | but there was some, I don't, now I'm trying,

00:37:19.620 | was it in your conversation or the book,

00:37:21.540 | Karl Deisseroth talks about tears of joy

00:37:24.260 | and trying to explain them.

00:37:25.700 | And he said something about how it was like about,

00:37:28.980 | you know, 'cause tears of sadness could be understood

00:37:32.900 | in a having like a evolutionary purpose,

00:37:35.700 | but why tears of joy?

00:37:38.340 | And I think he said it was something about like,

00:37:40.500 | hope that could be like lost.

00:37:46.020 | So if you cried at a wedding,

00:37:47.460 | it might be like you're crying

00:37:48.820 | because their love is beautiful

00:37:51.700 | and you're crying because, you know,

00:37:53.540 | they could get hit by a bus tomorrow or something,

00:37:56.100 | you know, like it had something to do with that.

00:37:57.620 | And I thought, but I thought,

00:38:01.460 | to me it feels like overwhelmed

00:38:02.740 | 'cause then how would that explain music?

00:38:04.980 | 'Cause music will make me cry a lot.

00:38:07.300 | - No, because it's anything beautiful, like love,

00:38:11.380 | you realize you're gonna have,

00:38:14.340 | it's gonna be over one day.

00:38:16.260 | - Or it's just overwhelming.

00:38:17.620 | - It could be overwhelming.

00:38:19.140 | - I think it's just overwhelming.

00:38:20.340 | - But it could, like if you had to explain,

00:38:22.740 | like one way to explain it, as you're saying is,

00:38:26.180 | it's so awesome that it breaks your heart

00:38:29.860 | that it's gonna be over.

00:38:30.900 | This feeling is gonna be over,

00:38:32.340 | the, either it's the song or the person,

00:38:37.140 | you're gonna lose them one day.

00:38:38.420 | - But even when you're just watching something

00:38:41.380 | that this is completely ridiculous,

00:38:43.300 | but I remember one time I probably was hormonal

00:38:46.500 | or something, but it was like an episode

00:38:48.580 | of "Family Feud" years ago and the fam,

00:38:51.620 | oh no, "Wheel of Fortune."

00:38:54.980 | - Yeah. - It was "Wheel of Fortune."

00:38:55.940 | And some family like won all this money

00:38:57.620 | and they were so happy, like it just,

00:38:59.460 | they were so happy,

00:39:01.140 | they must probably needed the money or something.

00:39:03.060 | And I started crying and I'm thinking,

00:39:04.340 | why am I crying?

00:39:06.100 | But I think it's just like an overwhelming,

00:39:09.220 | I think it's overwhelming in some way.

00:39:11.140 | - On the surface. - And crying, like crying,

00:39:12.740 | it's crying as a relief, like you feel better

00:39:15.300 | after you cry.

00:39:17.540 | - No, but that's not, doesn't explain the crying.

00:39:20.340 | You feel better after you cry

00:39:21.700 | and you're saying it's overwhelming,

00:39:24.020 | but that's on the surface.

00:39:25.140 | The question is what's going on underneath.

00:39:28.100 | That's the yin-yang shadow.

00:39:30.580 | And I don't think neither you or I

00:39:32.260 | can answer that question.

00:39:33.620 | - Right. - But there's something

00:39:34.420 | going on underneath. - Right.

00:39:35.060 | There's probably something that touches you

00:39:37.220 | in some specific way.

00:39:38.420 | - Yeah. - And so you were crying

00:39:41.140 | on the subway.

00:39:42.580 | - So I was crying on the subway.

00:39:43.540 | - It's a very New York thing to do.

00:39:44.980 | - Yeah, well, that's one of the things I love

00:39:47.620 | about New York is people,

00:39:48.580 | you can be weird and do strange things

00:39:52.260 | and nobody's gonna look at you strangely or.

00:39:54.420 | - The fascinating thing about New York,

00:39:56.500 | it's super crowded

00:39:57.380 | and yet you can still feel super alone.

00:40:00.660 | - But also energized

00:40:03.940 | 'cause a lot of other things and places

00:40:06.100 | will make me feel depleted,

00:40:09.300 | but there's something about the energy of New York

00:40:11.540 | specifically that feels energizing.

00:40:13.780 | - I mean, everybody is going about their day,

00:40:18.020 | excited for a future they're building and so on

00:40:20.660 | and that could be energy.

00:40:22.100 | Sure, sure.

00:40:26.100 | It could be overwhelming though.

00:40:28.020 | - It can be, yeah.

00:40:30.020 | I mean, also depending on what neighborhood

00:40:32.180 | and what part.

00:40:33.380 | - Well, I'm just talking about the subway.

00:40:34.820 | - Right, yeah. - The subway.

00:40:36.500 | And then there's the musicians.

00:40:38.420 | I love New York.

00:40:39.140 | New York at its best is a special place.

00:40:41.300 | I've never lived, but every time I visit,

00:40:42.980 | it's so many characters, so many fascinating people.

00:40:46.820 | - Yeah. - And then there's a bunch

00:40:48.420 | of people always crying in the subway

00:40:50.180 | and you're one of those people.

00:40:51.380 | - I was one of those people one day, yeah.

00:40:53.540 | - And so you got-- - I befriended some

00:40:55.140 | busking musicians, like the guys that just

00:40:58.500 | play out on the street,

00:41:00.340 | these two young guys playing guitar

00:41:01.700 | and I felt like it was one of those moments

00:41:03.060 | where it was like candid camera

00:41:05.060 | because nobody was paying attention

00:41:06.660 | and I thought it was like,

00:41:07.460 | "It was so beautiful, I may have cried or almost cried."

00:41:11.780 | But anyway, I ended up becoming friends with them

00:41:13.780 | and helping them out in some ways.

00:41:15.940 | And I knew, I was like, "Well, they're gonna do really well."

00:41:20.180 | And now they're playing large places

00:41:25.220 | and it's kind of fun to watch via Instagram.

00:41:28.180 | They're going on tour in Europe

00:41:30.660 | and they were these two scrappy guys.

00:41:34.260 | Well, now it's just one of the guys

00:41:35.620 | but they had no money, nowhere to live, nothing.

00:41:40.820 | And another-- - And they didn't quit.

00:41:43.620 | - They were on tour, no. - Persisted, that's cool.

00:41:46.500 | - Yeah, exactly.

00:41:47.300 | But I cried on the subway and I got there

00:41:50.260 | and he was there and I adopted him.

00:41:52.900 | But it just felt very profoundly

00:41:56.820 | like a force that was beyond me.

00:42:00.180 | Like I couldn't not get him.

00:42:02.820 | - So he was the same in person as he was in the picture?

00:42:07.300 | Meaning in terms of something pulling you towards him?

00:42:12.500 | - Yeah, when I first met him the day before,

00:42:15.220 | he was really distracted, which I think is,

00:42:17.860 | he is a puppy that spends most of his day in a cage,

00:42:22.500 | which is not natural.

00:42:23.700 | So when I, they let me take him for a walk

00:42:27.380 | and he was kind of distracted and all of the place.

00:42:30.260 | But then when we put him back in the cage,

00:42:32.900 | he sort of lay down and looked at me

00:42:35.060 | and I looked back at him.

00:42:36.500 | And of course I imagined all kinds of,

00:42:39.140 | I just looked at him and I thought, all right,

00:42:40.980 | don't worry, I'm coming back to get you.

00:42:43.140 | Like I'll get you.

00:42:44.740 | So yeah, it just, it felt like,

00:42:50.580 | it felt like something that I had no choice

00:42:55.700 | that I had to do.

00:42:56.820 | - And that was the beginning of a 12 year journey together.

00:43:00.820 | - An ongoing one.

00:43:03.060 | But so I wrote about these things on my website

00:43:05.860 | and I think it was among the many things

00:43:09.220 | that was later weaponized by Anthony Strange's.

00:43:15.300 | - Oh, the fact that there's something close to your heart.

00:43:18.660 | - Yeah, and also just, it's not like I believe

00:43:22.100 | that he was, I was just expressing my feelings

00:43:25.060 | about how I felt going to get him,

00:43:26.740 | that there was something about Leon

00:43:29.460 | and specifically that I, it was like,

00:43:31.700 | I felt like I had to get him.

00:43:32.820 | - Is there words you can put to your connection with Leon?

00:43:37.300 | Like, is it love?

00:43:40.340 | Is it friendship?

00:43:43.780 | Is it some kind of, like, what is it?

00:43:46.340 | Or are we getting to the crying and being overwhelmed?

00:43:52.980 | Something you just can't put words to?

00:43:54.660 | - Yeah, it's probably something that's hard to put words to.

00:43:58.340 | Kind of like, I sort of feel like,

00:44:00.180 | love being something that's hard to define

00:44:05.940 | is part of, is the definition.

00:44:08.740 | - Of love?

00:44:09.620 | - The fact that you can't define it.

00:44:11.540 | - The moment you define it,

00:44:12.980 | you're no longer talking about love?

00:44:14.340 | - Sort of, something like that.

00:44:16.180 | - Okay.

00:44:16.900 | - So.

00:44:17.860 | - Well, my definition of love

00:44:20.020 | is whatever's going on in true romance.

00:44:21.620 | I don't know.

00:44:22.900 | Let me fly through the timeline

00:44:26.340 | before we get to any of the interesting details.

00:44:29.460 | So, in 2011, you meet Anthony Strangis.

00:44:34.340 | Then in 2012, you two get married.

00:44:37.140 | 2015, the staff walk out due to failure to pay

00:44:43.140 | from the two restaurants.

00:44:45.140 | It reopens in April of 2015.

00:44:48.660 | And July of that year, there's another walkout, and so on.

00:44:52.900 | All this kind of stuff.

00:44:55.060 | - It's a confusing timeline.

00:44:56.020 | - Well, to me, that's not even,

00:44:58.260 | the point is in 2015, there's chaos happening.

00:45:03.300 | Okay.

00:45:03.800 | 2016, in the spring, pure foods and wine closes.

00:45:08.980 | - It closed in 2015.

00:45:11.700 | - 2015, okay.

00:45:12.820 | There's some factual stuff that's not,

00:45:15.860 | yeah, maybe correct me on it.

00:45:17.300 | To me, it's not that important.

00:45:18.580 | To me, the spirit of the thing is important.

00:45:20.500 | Okay.

00:45:21.780 | May 12, 2016, you and your then-husband, Anthony Strangis,

00:45:27.780 | were arrested after he ordered pizza using his real name.

00:45:31.380 | Okay.

00:45:32.660 | In May 2017, you pleaded guilty to stealing

00:45:36.740 | more than $2 million from investors

00:45:38.900 | and scheming to defraud, as well as,

00:45:43.060 | this is from Wikipedia.

00:45:44.180 | - Yeah, I got it wrong.

00:45:45.380 | - Well, let me just finish reading it,

00:45:47.460 | and then you tell me why it's wrong.

00:45:49.060 | In May 2017, you pleaded guilty to stealing

00:45:52.020 | more than $2 million from investors

00:45:54.180 | and scheming to defraud, as well as,

00:45:56.340 | criminal tax fraud charges.

00:45:58.100 | Why is Wikipedia wrong, and how dare you?

00:46:00.580 | - (laughs) Well, I mean, I did plead guilty to those things,

00:46:04.100 | which I had to, oh, I was,

00:46:06.420 | I got a jury duty summons,

00:46:09.380 | and I had to fill out what charges I pled guilty to,

00:46:11.940 | and I had to go online and look it up,

00:46:15.300 | because I didn't really remember,

00:46:17.780 | which is, I thought that was interesting.

00:46:19.220 | I had to go look it up, but--

00:46:21.380 | - Actually, let me finish the time,

00:46:22.500 | 'cause there's one more point.

00:46:23.380 | - Oh, yeah.

00:46:23.880 | - March 16th, 2022, bad vegan documentary comes out,

00:46:29.060 | where you're interviewed.

00:46:31.060 | There's, they tell the story.

00:46:33.700 | - Mm-hmm.

00:46:34.200 | - Some stuff is true, some is not.

00:46:37.620 | Some is disturbingly misleading, as you said.

00:46:39.780 | Okay, timeline over.

00:46:41.060 | Anyway, what's wrong with the,

00:46:45.220 | how would you elaborate onto the,

00:46:47.540 | you pleading guilty for $2 million stealing?

00:46:51.060 | - So, a lot of people plead guilty when they're,

00:46:53.700 | for reasons other than they're actually guilty.

00:46:57.380 | So, you know, it's, even right now,

00:47:00.340 | if I knew that I was gonna have to spend four months,

00:47:03.780 | or three and a half, at Rikers,

00:47:06.740 | and I was thinking about this recently,

00:47:09.940 | and even if I knew that I'd be acquitted

00:47:13.140 | at the end of a trial, I very,

00:47:16.500 | likely would have just taken the four months,

00:47:21.620 | because, you know, the stress of going through a trial,

00:47:26.580 | but in particular, it'd be incredibly stressful,

00:47:28.740 | not knowing the outcome.

00:47:29.780 | And then money and expense I didn't have,

00:47:33.300 | and so, you know, people plead guilty all the time,

00:47:36.180 | even if they don't think that they should.

00:47:40.100 | And my situation was so complicated,

00:47:42.500 | and hard to understand,

00:47:44.500 | that it just was the easier thing to do.

00:47:47.940 | But also, I just was kind of going on the advice of lawyers.

00:47:51.140 | - So, the choice, just so I understand,

00:47:54.820 | was to plead guilty, or to go through a lengthy trial?

00:47:59.300 | - Mm-hmm.

00:48:00.100 | - And that trial would stretch a long time,

00:48:05.620 | and it would be extremely stressful.

00:48:07.140 | - And extremely expensive.

00:48:08.900 | Because you have to pay the lawyers.

00:48:10.260 | - Right, and I didn't have anything.

00:48:11.860 | - Right.

00:48:13.060 | And so, a lot of people in that situation

00:48:16.580 | might choose to plead guilty.

00:48:18.820 | And so, that doesn't necessarily mean

00:48:20.500 | the full heaviness of that statement of guilt.

00:48:24.660 | - Right, and I think people plead guilty all the time,

00:48:28.180 | in situations where they're being threatened with,

00:48:30.260 | like a heavy sentence,

00:48:32.820 | and they sort of feel like they have no choice.

00:48:36.180 | But that's kind of part of a lot of things

00:48:38.980 | that are messed up about the system overall,

00:48:41.140 | that didn't necessarily apply in my case.

00:48:43.140 | - So, we'll talk about to what degree you're guilty,

00:48:46.660 | and what that even means.

00:48:49.540 | - Yeah, yeah.

00:48:51.060 | 'Cause it depends on intention, I think.

00:48:54.980 | - Yeah, yeah.

00:48:58.740 | But then the word intention

00:49:00.100 | also means a lot of things, like the word love.

00:49:03.540 | - That's true.

00:49:04.740 | - That's true.

00:49:06.260 | - All right.

00:49:06.980 | - So, the restaurant closed the first time,

00:49:10.580 | when I was away and told to be off communication.

00:49:16.340 | And then I-- - By Anthony.

00:49:20.020 | - Yes.

00:49:20.520 | And then--

00:49:21.540 | - He told you not to talk to anybody.

00:49:24.180 | - He told me not to open email,

00:49:26.420 | or look at my phone, or whatever.

00:49:27.860 | And so, when I came back,

00:49:33.220 | and had to get it reopened,

00:49:36.340 | which seemed like an unbelievably difficult task,

00:49:39.940 | and I was kind of shocked that I was able to pull it off.

00:49:42.180 | I worked incredibly hard to get it reopened.

00:49:46.740 | And because that place meant everything to me.

00:49:52.740 | And so, I just had to get it reopened.

00:49:55.540 | - Were you surrounded by people that were just angry at you?

00:49:58.420 | - At that time?

00:49:59.700 | - Yeah. - Well--

00:50:00.580 | - The staff and all that.

00:50:03.460 | - Yeah, but most of them came back.

00:50:05.220 | A lot of them came back.

00:50:06.420 | I think what was so unbelievably painful

00:50:09.060 | about that whole time,

00:50:10.260 | was not being able to tell anybody

00:50:14.580 | what was really going on.

00:50:15.780 | And in a sense, not really knowing

00:50:17.140 | what was going on myself,

00:50:18.180 | but not being able to,

00:50:20.020 | like having to pretend all the time,

00:50:21.780 | was just like--

00:50:22.900 | - So, you didn't really tell anybody about Anthony.

00:50:26.740 | - About him and what was really going on.

00:50:29.300 | In part, because I didn't really understand

00:50:30.740 | what was going on.

00:50:31.460 | So, what I did was I raised money

00:50:33.460 | to reopen the restaurant.

00:50:34.980 | And I think I raised something like eight,

00:50:38.260 | maybe like 900 grand.

00:50:40.900 | And probably 90% of that went to reopen the restaurant.

00:50:46.260 | And I even made two sales tax payments

00:50:51.140 | right before we disappeared.

00:50:52.900 | So, it just sort of logically seemed like--

00:50:57.220 | So, it's not like all of this money was taken

00:51:00.340 | and then he and I ran off together

00:51:03.220 | with a whole bunch of money.

00:51:04.260 | It was like, I raised a bunch of money

00:51:06.500 | to reopen the restaurant,

00:51:07.700 | because I wanted the restaurant to exist again.

00:51:11.460 | And I wanted to run it.

00:51:14.500 | I wanted to reopen the restaurant.

00:51:16.660 | And most of that money went to reopen the restaurant.

00:51:19.620 | And then I disappeared.

00:51:23.620 | So, sort of the timeline gets a bit wonky.

00:51:29.540 | So, this impression was created

00:51:32.180 | that we ran off with a whole bunch of money

00:51:34.660 | and we didn't.

00:51:35.620 | So, if I wanted to be a criminal

00:51:38.740 | and steal a bunch of money,

00:51:39.780 | why would I have put it all back into the restaurant

00:51:43.220 | and reopened it?

00:51:44.420 | And then also made two $10,000 sales tax payments

00:51:48.660 | that I didn't--

00:51:50.820 | And I also repaid $10,000 of another loan.

00:51:55.380 | I was making repayments and stuff.

00:51:57.380 | And then boom, I disappear.

00:51:58.900 | - So, is your mind going through a roller coaster here?

00:52:02.820 | So, could there have been multiple yous there?

00:52:05.940 | So, one mind is like, I love this restaurant.

00:52:09.700 | I'm going to reopen it.

00:52:10.820 | I'm this chef, business owner, this person.

00:52:15.940 | And then the other is a human

00:52:18.580 | that's in this complicated love affair.

00:52:22.020 | - It wasn't a love affair.

00:52:24.020 | - Okay.

00:52:24.740 | These are just words.

00:52:27.540 | How can I?

00:52:28.180 | Okay.

00:52:28.420 | I don't want to, I say that lightly, but also not.

00:52:35.220 | Because love can make us do dark things.

00:52:38.900 | And you can say that's not love, but okay.

00:52:41.780 | The thing that traps us,

00:52:45.140 | the things that pulls us in to a connection

00:52:48.340 | with another human being, that's love.

00:52:50.900 | Even when it's abusive and dark and toxic

00:52:53.860 | and all those kinds of things.

00:52:54.980 | - In some cases, I think, like if it's voluntary,

00:52:57.860 | but in other cases, somebody pulls you in.

00:53:01.220 | So, it's not like you're drawn towards them.

00:53:04.500 | They pull you in.

00:53:06.100 | - So, just to clarify, even when it's not physical,

00:53:09.060 | when the pull is with words, so it's emotional.

00:53:13.220 | - Yeah.

00:53:14.500 | - Okay.

00:53:16.420 | Where is your mind when you raise eight to $900,000

00:53:22.660 | to open the restaurant?

00:53:23.940 | Working your ass off to open this thing, okay?

00:53:28.580 | Making payments and then all of a sudden disappearing.

00:53:31.940 | Where was your mind?

00:53:34.580 | If you had a lengthy conversation with Carl Deisseroth

00:53:38.740 | in privacy, what would you be telling him

00:53:41.140 | as your therapist?

00:53:42.020 | - I would probably be asking him questions.

00:53:45.540 | - Okay, no, we'll get Carl as part of this.

00:53:47.780 | - Well, and actually, I have more questions

00:53:49.940 | for Andrew Huberman because I've had to investigate

00:53:55.060 | all of these things myself, like dissociation.

00:53:57.620 | And even, there's a psychologist who believes

00:54:04.180 | that he must have used neurolinguistic programming on me,

00:54:07.380 | which is something that Keith Ranieri

00:54:09.300 | from the NXIVM cult, he was known to have used that

00:54:12.740 | with people.

00:54:14.100 | And I think neurolinguistic programming

00:54:15.940 | is kind of the same as, like a sort of like hypnotism.

00:54:19.940 | - The only reason I know what NLP is,

00:54:23.620 | is because in what I do, there's something called

00:54:26.420 | natural language processing, artificial intelligence stuff.

00:54:29.140 | So it has the same like three letters.

00:54:31.780 | - Right.

00:54:32.420 | - What was the other thing that NLP, neurolinguistic--

00:54:36.260 | - Neurolinguistic programming.

00:54:37.380 | - Programming, yeah.

00:54:38.100 | Anyway, all right, well, we talked about Andrew,

00:54:42.820 | my friend Andrew Huberman offline,

00:54:44.420 | and you definitely should, you should do a podcast with him.

00:54:46.500 | He's a fascinating, he's such a brilliant

00:54:49.300 | and kind human being, definitely worth talking to.

00:54:52.100 | - Yeah, I've listened to a lot of his podcasts.

00:54:54.820 | - And you said that you listened to a lot

00:54:57.300 | of his instructions on getting light in the morning

00:55:01.140 | or whatever during the day, it's very important

00:55:02.980 | for your mental, like there's all these kinds of studies,

00:55:07.380 | it's good for your mind, for your--

00:55:09.220 | - Oh, and also the other thing that he got me to do

00:55:11.780 | is to try to delay having coffee.

00:55:14.180 | So instead of having coffee right when you wake up,

00:55:16.260 | I always drink a lot of water first.

00:55:17.700 | - Yeah.

00:55:18.180 | - But then instead of having coffee right away,

00:55:20.340 | if you wait an hour or an hour and a half or two hours,

00:55:24.100 | then your body is able to naturally do something

00:55:28.500 | that drinking coffee too soon would sort of blunt that,

00:55:30.900 | so then you'll be more tired in the afternoon.

00:55:32.900 | So if you wait an hour and a half or two hours,

00:55:37.060 | or as long, you know, before you have your first cup of coffee,

00:55:39.940 | then you won't be as tired in the afternoon.

00:55:41.860 | - Interesting.

00:55:42.980 | - There's a lot of--

00:55:44.180 | - Does it work?

00:55:44.900 | - Yes.

00:55:45.780 | - One coffee addict talking to another coffee addict.

00:55:48.340 | - Yes, it works.

00:55:49.540 | And so I try to get up and do other things first

00:55:52.900 | before I have coffee.

00:55:55.460 | So, and the light thing also makes a lot of sense to me.

00:56:01.140 | Getting light early in the morning,

00:56:04.020 | I have one of those bright light boxes,

00:56:08.020 | and I would love to have an apartment

00:56:10.420 | that had a little deck or something

00:56:12.020 | where I could just step outside,

00:56:13.460 | 'cause when you live in an apartment,

00:56:14.660 | you kind of have to like go all the way outside

00:56:16.820 | and then there's people everywhere.

00:56:18.100 | And so to get that early morning light,

00:56:20.740 | isn't that hard to do when you're--

00:56:22.100 | - Are people good for you or bad for you?

00:56:23.860 | What does Andrew Huberman say about that?

00:56:25.700 | I'm just kidding, it's a joke.

00:56:27.140 | Okay, so moving back to where was your mind

00:56:30.020 | that led you to disappear to what,

00:56:32.420 | did you guys go to Vegas first and then to Tennessee?

00:56:35.540 | - No, I kind of refer to it as like the road trip

00:56:37.860 | from hell.

00:56:38.340 | - It's a very Hunter S. Thompson way to describe it.

00:56:41.140 | - Right.

00:56:42.020 | - You went back to back country.

00:56:44.100 | - Maybe it was sort of Hunter S. Thompson-esque,

00:56:46.420 | except without actual drugs.

00:56:49.140 | That was one of the first questions my father asked me,

00:56:53.380 | was it drugs?

00:56:54.420 | And I wished that I could have said yes,

00:56:56.660 | 'cause I didn't know how to explain what had happened.

00:56:59.380 | But--

00:57:01.460 | - So road trip from hell.

00:57:03.060 | - He took me away involuntarily,

00:57:05.780 | except of course he wasn't holding a gun to my head,

00:57:09.220 | but all along it was like a metaphorical gun.

00:57:12.980 | - Was there ever physical abuse?

00:57:15.540 | - No, what would qualify as sexual abuse, yes.

00:57:22.900 | But physically, no.

00:57:26.340 | A couple of times we would get into slightly physical fights,

00:57:30.660 | but he never,

00:57:33.780 | I mean, he was big and as large and blubbery as he was.

00:57:40.260 | He was also really strong.

00:57:42.420 | So sometimes he would like subdue me,

00:57:45.060 | but other than that, no, there wasn't physical violence.

00:57:47.780 | But a lot of people will say that

00:57:49.460 | the psychological violence is,

00:57:52.900 | I don't wanna diminish physical violence,

00:57:58.020 | but some people say that the psychological

00:58:00.340 | and emotional violence is more destructive.

00:58:02.500 | - It's just that the physical violence is easier to identify.

00:58:06.180 | - It's easier to identify,

00:58:07.780 | and it seems kind of more straightforward.

00:58:09.620 | Whereas psychological,

00:58:11.780 | and you have a bruise on your face or you break a bone

00:58:14.180 | and those things hopefully heal in a visible way.

00:58:17.460 | But psychological stuff,

00:58:19.780 | you can't easily identify or understand

00:58:25.460 | or others can't easily identify it.

00:58:27.460 | - And then you find yourself crying for no reason

00:58:30.740 | at a beautiful song at some point.

00:58:32.340 | - Yes.

00:58:32.980 | - And it's that has to do something happening

00:58:35.540 | in the depth of your mind.

00:58:38.180 | Okay, so he took you away,

00:58:40.180 | but where was, I mean, where was your mind

00:58:44.180 | that was doing both of those things,

00:58:46.100 | was able to be taken away,

00:58:47.620 | but also was pushing to the flourishing,

00:58:53.060 | the reopening and the flourishing of the restaurant?

00:58:55.140 | - Well, I wouldn't have reopened the restaurant

00:58:58.020 | and then knowing I was gonna all of a sudden

00:59:00.820 | be taken away from it

00:59:01.860 | and it was gonna get closed again.

00:59:03.300 | You know, it's like, why would I do that?

00:59:05.220 | Why would anybody do that?

00:59:06.340 | And one of the things that I tried to do towards the end was,

00:59:11.940 | I was trying to get myself off the bank accounts

00:59:14.100 | because I didn't want him to be able to get money out of me.

00:59:16.740 | And so there was one time

00:59:19.620 | when I tried to get one of the investors,

00:59:21.220 | we went to the bank together

00:59:22.580 | to put her on as the signer and take me off.

00:59:25.140 | And because we didn't have the operating agreement,

00:59:28.020 | they wouldn't let us do it.

00:59:29.060 | So it was like this little snafu

00:59:31.140 | and so all of these things are

00:59:34.260 | sort of the opposite of criminal intent.

00:59:38.020 | - But that's a legal thing.

00:59:40.020 | What's going on in your mind at this time?

00:59:42.100 | - I don't know.

00:59:44.020 | I mean-

00:59:44.260 | - Were you, oh, did you give yourself

00:59:47.220 | a chance to just think?

00:59:50.420 | - No, and I think that's part of,

00:59:53.060 | one of the things that might have saved me

00:59:56.500 | or anybody that's pulled into a cult,

00:59:59.540 | one of the things that they do

01:00:00.900 | is they keep you exhausted,

01:00:02.580 | overwhelmed, confused, and afraid.

01:00:05.540 | And so you don't have any time to think.

01:00:10.020 | So you're just kind of constantly running

01:00:11.700 | and you're confused and then things are happening.

01:00:14.180 | That's funny, I have some quotes in my book draft

01:00:16.900 | because I listen to a lot of podcasts.

01:00:18.340 | I don't know what the logistics are

01:00:20.900 | of like crediting a quote from a podcast in a book.

01:00:23.780 | - Yeah.

01:00:24.260 | - But I have a couple, I think it was Andrew Huberman

01:00:28.020 | on Joe Rogan said something about,

01:00:32.420 | if a animal, if a human or animal,

01:00:37.220 | I don't know how he would know,

01:00:38.500 | if a human or animal is stressed,

01:00:40.100 | and I'm paraphrasing this horribly,

01:00:44.100 | but they're much more easily prone to be,

01:00:49.140 | not prone to, but forced into delusional thinking.

01:00:52.740 | And so that quote resonated for me

01:00:56.580 | because he kept me in this incredibly stressed out,

01:00:59.540 | afraid, confused state.

01:01:01.300 | And then whatever he's sort of planting in my mind,

01:01:03.780 | I'm gonna be that much more likely

01:01:05.140 | to just kind of go along with it.

01:01:07.140 | - Well, we'll see how this whole journey ends.

01:01:10.740 | Let's actually just step back a little bit

01:01:12.740 | and just looking at the employees of the restaurant and so on.

01:01:15.220 | Do you have remorse for what happened,

01:01:18.260 | especially from the perspective of the employees and the staff?

01:01:21.300 | - Yeah, I mean, hurting them was sort of the last thing

01:01:25.220 | that I would ever have wanted to do.

01:01:26.580 | And in part, I mean, there was financial harm,

01:01:31.220 | but I don't know whether it's more important or not,

01:01:37.060 | but it was taking a place

01:01:40.580 | that was very much like a family to them.

01:01:43.060 | And it was as if I destroyed it.

01:01:46.660 | And so I think that because we were so much like a family,

01:01:52.260 | it was almost as if like mom went off the deep end

01:01:56.020 | and got together with some cuckoo abusive guy

01:02:00.820 | and sort of abandoned them

01:02:02.580 | and they didn't know what was going on

01:02:03.860 | and what was happening.

01:02:04.740 | - So do you regret lying to them?

01:02:06.980 | - I regret lying to anybody in all of those circumstances,

01:02:13.380 | but I wasn't lying.

01:02:20.580 | He made me think that everything was gonna be reversed

01:02:23.540 | and okay and anybody that money was borrowed from,

01:02:26.900 | they would get it back, maybe tenfold.

01:02:29.060 | And so it was this weird situation

01:02:31.220 | of having like one foot in his reality

01:02:34.420 | and potentially believing the things he was saying

01:02:38.420 | or even over time, wanting to believe them more and more

01:02:42.820 | because the alternative was so,

01:02:44.420 | the alternative was worse.

01:02:48.900 | The alternative was like,

01:02:49.940 | was increasingly a bigger and bigger nightmare.

01:02:53.620 | - So there's this whole situation

01:02:55.140 | where you're constantly giving them money,

01:02:57.220 | you're constantly borrowing, borrowing money

01:02:59.220 | with this idea that it'll be repaid like 100X fold.

01:03:04.340 | - Right.

01:03:05.060 | - It's kind of like, yeah.

01:03:06.820 | - So it's sort of like lying to somebody

01:03:08.260 | because you're planning their surprise party.

01:03:10.020 | You think like, well, I'm lying to somebody,

01:03:12.020 | but it's because there's a good reason.

01:03:15.140 | - Yeah.

01:03:15.940 | - You know, it's sort of, that's not a good example,

01:03:18.100 | but-- - But you could have

01:03:19.700 | not made it a surprise party and be like,

01:03:22.980 | pull them in onto the planning of the party

01:03:24.980 | and be honest about like everything that's happening,

01:03:30.660 | not in a negative way, but like get them in on the fact that,

01:03:34.660 | okay, I just need to give money to this guy,

01:03:37.300 | but we'll get, he is a super rich person of some kind

01:03:43.620 | and he'll repay.

01:03:46.340 | - I mean, I wish I, well--

01:03:48.100 | - 'Cause you're holding on to this--

01:03:51.220 | - That's part of the torture is that you're isolated

01:03:54.180 | and unable to tell anybody.

01:03:58.260 | - But you're not unable, or he was telling you,

01:04:01.060 | you're not allowed to say anything to anybody.

01:04:03.060 | I mean, you're choosing not to say anything,

01:04:04.980 | but it's because of the sort of the weight of it,

01:04:08.900 | 'cause it's embarrassing to sort of,

01:04:11.380 | is it embarrassing?

01:04:13.620 | It's something, I mean, why do you not tell others?

01:04:16.020 | What is that?

01:04:18.980 | What's happening to the mind where you don't tell others?

01:04:21.860 | - I don't know.

01:04:23.540 | Part of why the story, everything that happened

01:04:27.060 | is hard to summarize and talk about in any concise way

01:04:31.700 | is that so much of it happens in this very slow, slow,

01:04:37.700 | slow way.

01:04:38.820 | And people always use the whole like frog

01:04:42.260 | in boiling water example,

01:04:44.660 | so that by the time you realize you're fucked,

01:04:47.220 | it's too late.

01:04:47.860 | And it seems hard to believe or understand other people

01:04:54.180 | because they see where you are or where you ended up

01:04:56.580 | and they think, well, how did you let that happen?

01:04:59.460 | Well, I don't know.

01:05:00.260 | Would I have willingly destroyed my life

01:05:04.020 | and hurt all the people I care about

01:05:05.620 | and allowed my mother to get hurt?

01:05:07.780 | And I wouldn't have ever willingly done that.

01:05:11.220 | So something else must have happened.

01:05:13.860 | And that's the part that's difficult to understand.

01:05:17.220 | - Let me ask you about another hard question.

01:05:19.780 | Do you deserve most or all of the blame

01:05:23.140 | for the failure of the business

01:05:25.460 | or are others at fault too?

01:05:28.660 | - Well, the business didn't fail.

01:05:30.900 | It was doing well.

01:05:32.180 | And so it's closing is like it was destroyed.

01:05:38.500 | - And who deserves the blame for that?

01:05:41.140 | I'm asking from your perspective

01:05:42.820 | when you think about it.

01:05:44.340 | In the privacy of your mind,

01:05:46.420 | are you angry at Anthony or are you angry at yourself?

01:05:51.540 | - Both.

01:05:53.860 | I think that in the privacy of my own mind

01:05:58.820 | and to everybody listening,

01:06:00.900 | I feel responsible.

01:06:05.700 | I feel responsible in the same way

01:06:08.340 | that if you kind of did something,

01:06:10.740 | if you were driving and you did something stupid,

01:06:12.740 | and caused an accident in which other people died,

01:06:15.300 | you would feel, I think, horrifically responsible.

01:06:19.060 | And you'd blame yourself

01:06:20.660 | 'cause maybe you looked away

01:06:22.500 | or checked your phone or something.

01:06:24.580 | But you didn't intend to kill those people, of course.

01:06:30.420 | So for me, it's like, I didn't intend to kill.

01:06:34.580 | Sometimes I say like my own child.

01:06:38.820 | I don't know if that's offensive to some people,

01:06:40.420 | but it's like as if I killed my own child.

01:06:42.580 | - Yeah.

01:06:43.220 | - Child, it was a business, but it was special.

01:06:46.020 | So I don't feel guilt.

01:06:52.500 | I feel responsibility.

01:06:53.780 | And then I'm angry at him

01:06:59.540 | even though that anger is pointless.

01:07:02.260 | - Okay, because this has come up,

01:07:04.900 | let's continue with the hard questions.

01:07:08.900 | - Are they gonna get easier?

01:07:11.060 | - They're gonna get easier.

01:07:11.860 | - Okay.

01:07:12.660 | - Most of them are easy.

01:07:13.940 | This is fun, we're having fun.

01:07:17.540 | You posted on Instagram,

01:07:18.820 | the ending, no, I'm gonna cite Instagram

01:07:23.940 | like it's Shakespeare.

01:07:24.900 | - Okay.

01:07:25.400 | - "The ending is disturbingly misleading,

01:07:28.180 | but still I'm very grateful for this coverage."

01:07:31.300 | Let's talk about the documentary, in quotes documentary.

01:07:35.060 | "I'm okay with the criticism and judgment,

01:07:38.100 | but would rather it be based on what's true."

01:07:41.060 | And then you say a couple more sentences.

01:07:43.380 | And then you say,

01:07:44.500 | Leon who has his own Instagram account.

01:07:46.900 | - Yes.

01:07:47.460 | - One lucky rescue dog says,

01:07:49.860 | "Hello, he loves you all.

01:07:51.860 | Even if you call me a quote,

01:07:54.020 | defective, arrogant sociopath, it's all okay."

01:07:57.940 | So the hard question,

01:08:00.260 | do you think you are in part a sociopath?

01:08:04.100 | - No.

01:08:05.140 | - Would you know it if you were?

01:08:07.060 | - Yes.

01:08:07.700 | - How does this work?

01:08:08.740 | So what have you learned from reading this book?

01:08:10.420 | - I had all these interesting thoughts,

01:08:12.340 | all these sort of questions and thoughts about it

01:08:14.500 | because the book I'm reading now

01:08:16.980 | that I'm only about a third of the way through,

01:08:18.580 | she talks about some of the things in the brain structure

01:08:22.180 | that are particular to sociopaths.

01:08:24.100 | And so then it makes you think,

01:08:26.740 | well, what if that could be tweaked in some way?

01:08:30.980 | Like, could you un-sociopath a sociopath?

01:08:33.300 | - Is it nature or nurture?

01:08:35.220 | I guess it poses the question.

01:08:36.580 | - I think it's both.

01:08:37.860 | I think it's genetic.

01:08:39.860 | And then it's like genes that are turned on

01:08:41.940 | by things like a particularly violent childhood

01:08:48.580 | or some sort of a dysfunction.

01:08:50.100 | So I think somebody could have the gene,

01:08:52.260 | it's not turned on.

01:08:53.460 | And then the sociopaths have the gene and it's turned on.

01:08:59.140 | - So sociopath means that you're not able to be empathetic

01:09:05.060 | or you're generally not empathetic

01:09:06.740 | to the suffering of others

01:09:08.500 | or to the emotions of others?

01:09:10.100 | - It's a hollowness.

01:09:11.620 | So it's like you don't have,

01:09:12.900 | just completely lacking the capacity.

01:09:18.180 | I mean, it's tragic because they wouldn't understand

01:09:21.860 | or feel love, but it's like a hollowness.

01:09:24.500 | And then something also about the wiring,

01:09:30.420 | and I think also because of that hollowness,

01:09:32.980 | they're able to incredibly quickly look at others

01:09:38.020 | and identify their insecurities and buttons and weak spots.

01:09:44.660 | So they're incredibly good at manipulation.

01:09:47.780 | - Is that because they're just able

01:09:49.060 | to objectively observe the situation?

01:09:51.460 | I wonder-- - Probably in part,

01:09:53.940 | but there was some other explanation

01:09:55.780 | related to the brain structure that I read somewhere

01:09:57.940 | that made sense to me.

01:09:58.980 | And I won't remember it 'cause I don't usually--

01:10:02.180 | - You're not Andrew Kuberman who seems to reference--

01:10:04.420 | - No, I'll listen to him. - Perfectly.

01:10:05.940 | - Yeah. - Every single line

01:10:07.700 | from every book or paper he's ever read, yes.

01:10:10.260 | - Right, I don't remember things in that way.

01:10:12.100 | I try to usually remember the conclusions.

01:10:14.100 | - Right. - So like I might remember

01:10:16.020 | that he might give a whole long explanation

01:10:19.460 | about why it's good to do this or to take this supplement.

01:10:22.340 | That's a bad habit I have.

01:10:24.180 | Sometimes I'll order supplements,

01:10:25.460 | and then by the time they arrive, I've forgotten why.

01:10:27.700 | - Why? - I forgot why.

01:10:28.900 | - Just take them all. - Supposed to take them all.

01:10:30.180 | - It's the healthiest option, but the healthy version.

01:10:31.780 | - I hope we get to talk about food 'cause I feel like--

01:10:34.020 | - Yes, fluff. - You have a brain

01:10:35.860 | that should be fed only the best food.

01:10:38.740 | - Oh, wow. - So we can talk

01:10:41.060 | about that later. - I have a lot of

01:10:42.660 | philosophies about that, but certainly fluff is not,

01:10:45.540 | and then best, what is best?

01:10:47.540 | We'll definitely talk about food.

01:10:48.660 | Throughout, what is best?

01:10:51.300 | That makes me think of Conan.

01:10:55.780 | And I just talked to Oliver Stone,

01:10:59.380 | who I didn't realize wrote "Conan the Barbarian."

01:11:02.260 | - Do you know that in my head, I pictured Conan O'Brien?

01:11:05.220 | That's what I was doing. - He's also one of the funniest.

01:11:08.260 | - I was sitting there going, wait, why is, I love him,

01:11:10.500 | but when you said that, I was like,

01:11:11.700 | why did that make you think of Conan O'Brien?

01:11:13.860 | - Yeah. - Yeah.

01:11:15.220 | - I love him so much.

01:11:16.820 | He's such a brilliant human. - Yeah.

01:11:18.580 | Sociopathy. - Sociopathy.

01:11:23.460 | - Yeah. - So it's stuff

01:11:24.900 | about the brain, fine, but how do you know

01:11:28.340 | you're not a sociopath?

01:11:29.540 | Would you know it, am I a sociopath?

01:11:31.940 | - No. - How would I know it?

01:11:33.140 | How do you know?

01:11:34.180 | - Well, having listened to a lot.

01:11:36.020 | - Well, wouldn't I be able to be good at faking it?

01:11:39.140 | Isn't that what? - Well, because you'd be out there.

01:11:40.820 | - There's a mask on the cover of this book.

01:11:43.300 | - I don't think you would be doing the work

01:11:44.900 | that you're doing. - With lipstick.

01:11:45.620 | I don't wear lipstick. - You'd probably be running

01:11:46.820 | for office or a trader on Wall Street or,

01:11:50.660 | one of the things about sociopaths is they kind of need

01:11:55.620 | like the stimulation of risk and danger.

01:12:00.660 | - Well, I need, okay, sure. - More than average.

01:12:06.980 | - I like, hmm, okay.

01:12:08.580 | But Wall Street, there's a fakeness.

01:12:12.020 | Like I don't like the fakeness of the game of it.

01:12:15.140 | - Yeah, that's why I left.

01:12:17.060 | I didn't, I just, it was a strange environment.

01:12:21.620 | - Okay, so you're not a, quote, "defective, arrogant sociopath."

01:12:26.980 | What does defective even mean?

01:12:28.340 | - I know, well, I think that somebody had just called me that

01:12:30.740 | and I think that, you know, it's easy for people to say,

01:12:35.060 | like, "Don't read the comments," but it's hard not to

01:12:38.660 | 'cause then also you'd miss the beautiful ones.

01:12:40.340 | Or sometimes like you have to go on there

01:12:42.660 | to check a private message and you just, stuff,

01:12:46.020 | it's there, people saying terrible things.

01:12:49.140 | So I try to, people say, you know,

01:12:55.220 | "Don't pay attention to the comments."

01:12:56.340 | It's hard not to, but I try to.

01:12:57.700 | - Even with the documentary, you try to still kind of see,

01:13:02.820 | to look for the good ones, for the kind ones,

01:13:07.860 | for the supportive ones.

01:13:08.900 | - Well, there were overwhelming kind comments

01:13:11.220 | and so that helped and felt a lot better.

01:13:14.740 | But sometimes the negative comments are based on,

01:13:22.100 | you know, they're based on false information.

01:13:23.700 | So if somebody knew everything that happened

01:13:26.180 | and then wanted to judge me or say things like that's somehow,

01:13:30.420 | at least that's all right.

01:13:32.900 | But people saying these things based on things

01:13:38.420 | that are totally false is just, it's hard to just

01:13:44.580 | let that go.

01:13:45.380 | But I know that people also say things,

01:13:50.740 | you know, for their own personal reasons.

01:13:55.060 | I had a fascinating exchange with somebody

01:13:57.060 | who direct messaged me and called me trash.

01:14:00.580 | - And you responded?

01:14:02.580 | - I responded 'cause it was, no, it was amazing.

01:14:07.060 | So I would do this for a while.

01:14:09.300 | It's sort of like, I might be procrastinating or,

01:14:12.820 | but I would scroll through,

01:14:14.660 | 'cause the private messages were overwhelming

01:14:17.700 | and there's still just this massive backlog

01:14:20.020 | that I'll never probably get to read.

01:14:22.100 | - But the one that called you trash as a pick up,

01:14:24.900 | as an opener, you were like, this is interesting.

01:14:27.940 | - I just was in a mood.

01:14:28.980 | - Yeah.

01:14:29.300 | - And so I responded and I wish I hadn't deleted it

01:14:34.500 | 'cause I sort of deleted a bunch.

01:14:36.260 | And then I was like, oh, why did I delete that one?

01:14:37.940 | 'Cause I was curious what exactly I said to him,

01:14:40.100 | but I responded to him.

01:14:42.500 | In a nice way.

01:14:43.380 | And then he responded back.

01:14:45.540 | And then it started this whole back and forth conversation.

01:14:47.700 | - So he was kind quickly or no?

01:14:51.380 | - Yes.

01:14:52.340 | And then also wanted to get to know me

01:14:54.260 | and lives in Pennsylvania and was like, I'll come to you.

01:14:56.980 | And I'm like, do you realize if somehow this just turned into,

01:15:02.740 | that would be our, how did you meet story?

01:15:04.420 | Well, he called me trash online.

01:15:06.660 | - That's a pretty good, yeah.

01:15:08.180 | - He ended up having such an insightful comment.

01:15:12.100 | I just found it interesting.

01:15:13.220 | And I think first he said, I never imagined you'd reply,

01:15:16.660 | which is, it's like part of the whole thing with social media.

01:15:19.380 | Although this guy wasn't anonymous.

01:15:20.740 | - Was not anonymous.

01:15:23.220 | - No, I think he had a private account,

01:15:25.540 | but it's like his name and his face was there.

01:15:27.540 | - Yeah, people forget that you're a human being

01:15:29.700 | when they message you.

01:15:30.500 | - Exactly.

01:15:30.980 | - Folks, when you message me, I'm a human being.

01:15:33.540 | - So I told him that that was, that I was hurtful.

01:15:38.180 | - Yeah.

01:15:38.980 | - And I guess I wanted to understand more why he said it.

01:15:42.820 | And it was surprisingly insightful,

01:15:45.940 | but he said something about, again,

01:15:47.620 | I wish I hadn't deleted it,

01:15:48.500 | but he was like, I guess I was just angry

01:15:54.100 | because like that guy, he said something like,

01:16:00.660 | I guess I was just angry 'cause that guy got you.

01:16:03.060 | - Oh, wow.

01:16:04.740 | - And I would have, so it made me think of the whole

01:16:07.540 | like sort of in-cell jealousy thing

01:16:11.940 | that can be very terrifying if you're female,

01:16:15.540 | is that like, if you reject a guy,

01:16:17.780 | they might turn around and be violent or angry at you.

01:16:22.020 | - Yeah.

01:16:22.580 | - And so his-

01:16:24.820 | - Well, to be fair, there's a dormant anger

01:16:27.860 | in probably all of us.

01:16:28.980 | - Yes.

01:16:29.700 | - I believe there's a capacity for cruelty and anger

01:16:32.580 | and destruction in all of us.

01:16:34.340 | And the whole struggle of life is to emphasize the good stuff.

01:16:39.300 | - Yeah.

01:16:40.740 | - Yeah.

01:16:41.780 | So it's not just an in-cell thing.

01:16:43.380 | It's true for men and women, both capable of cruelty.

01:16:47.380 | - That is very true.

01:16:49.060 | - But this one guy, so then you put on my therapist hat.

01:16:52.420 | What did we start with?

01:16:55.300 | I already forgot, but the, oh, Leon.

01:17:00.500 | - You're coming back to sociopath, Leon.

01:17:02.420 | (laughs)

01:17:03.780 | No, just, you know, maybe it's not the best idea

01:17:07.220 | to answer comments that start with, "You're trash."

01:17:10.980 | - I don't do it all the time.

01:17:12.020 | It's just, I happened upon that one

01:17:13.540 | and I was just in a certain mood.

01:17:15.060 | I was just in a certain mood.

01:17:16.180 | - Well, let's further offline sort of-

01:17:19.620 | - Yeah.

01:17:20.180 | - Discuss this mood that you're in

01:17:23.380 | 'cause it might get you in trouble

01:17:24.900 | at some point in your future.

01:17:26.180 | Okay.

01:17:30.820 | Can we just jump back, speaking of guys that say,

01:17:34.740 | "As an opener, you're trash."

01:17:36.180 | How did you and Anthony Stranges meet?

01:17:40.260 | Can we jump around and tell some of the details here?

01:17:43.220 | 'Cause I believe the documentary doesn't cover that well.

01:17:46.500 | It's not clear.

01:17:47.540 | There's some Twitter interactions

01:17:49.060 | and you've kind of assumed,

01:17:51.540 | by the way, I do think you need

01:17:55.380 | some social media coaching on this

01:17:57.060 | because I think, you know,

01:17:58.820 | I have some books you need to read, I think,

01:18:04.980 | some manuals on how to use Twitter properly.

01:18:07.860 | But anyway, apparently you kind of thought

01:18:10.660 | that this person who turned out to be,

01:18:13.540 | what was his name?

01:18:15.140 | He called himself Shane Fox,

01:18:16.500 | but he turned out to be Anthony Stranges,

01:18:18.900 | that he was somehow friends with Al Baldwin

01:18:21.940 | because of their friendly interaction on Twitter.

01:18:24.020 | And so you started interacting with him

01:18:26.900 | and then there was, how did that escalate quickly to-

01:18:29.940 | It escalated slowly.

01:18:33.620 | And I think, I'm sure it was intentional

01:18:38.340 | because had I met him right away,

01:18:39.780 | I would have probably thought like,

01:18:41.540 | "Oh, he's not what I thought he was and no thanks."

01:18:44.820 | But it was a long time.

01:18:49.380 | It was many weeks of back and forth conversation

01:18:52.420 | digitally one way or another.

01:18:54.820 | So it was via Twitter and then via direct message.

01:18:59.380 | And then we both played Words With Friends back then

01:19:02.900 | and we would message in Words With Friends.

01:19:04.580 | And then eventually we exchanged phone numbers.

01:19:07.620 | How does Words With Friends work?

01:19:10.020 | What's that?

01:19:10.520 | Words With Friends.

01:19:11.060 | I know that's a popular game.

01:19:12.980 | Is that like Scrabble?

01:19:14.180 | It's like Scrabble and you're playing other people

01:19:17.060 | and then there's like a chat function.

01:19:18.500 | Yeah, and then you can chat with them.

01:19:21.300 | Right.

01:19:21.540 | So you were, this intellectually stimulating game

01:19:24.420 | and you were what, like flirting and that kind of stuff.

01:19:27.540 | Like witty banter.

01:19:30.100 | Yes.

01:19:31.140 | AKA flirting.

01:19:32.660 | Yes.

01:19:34.260 | And, but all of that lasted a really long time

01:19:39.940 | and he would give me like little tiny bits and pieces

01:19:42.900 | of information about himself

01:19:44.180 | that made him seem kind of mysterious.

01:19:46.420 | This is a dark, mysterious man who was a Navy SEAL, strong.

01:19:52.900 | Yeah, and he would always imply things versus say them outright.

01:19:56.740 | So you're kind of always guessing and filling things in.

01:19:59.220 | Clint Eastwood type of character.

01:20:00.740 | He's not going to say it outright.

01:20:02.180 | He's what?

01:20:02.820 | He's a Clint Eastwood type of character.

01:20:04.500 | He's not going to say it outright.

01:20:05.780 | Right.

01:20:06.100 | He's just going to act badass.

01:20:07.940 | Yeah.

01:20:08.260 | Okay.

01:20:08.820 | All right.

01:20:09.140 | And plus intellectual because of Words With Friends.

01:20:14.340 | Is that still a thing by the way?

01:20:15.460 | So I think it still exists.

01:20:17.940 | Yeah.

01:20:18.100 | But I feel like if I started playing it again,

01:20:21.860 | I would get a little addicted and...

01:20:23.300 | Yeah.

01:20:23.940 | But...

01:20:25.140 | Stick to the coffee addiction.

01:20:26.100 | One of the interesting things is that I used to think that he like

01:20:29.700 | used an app to look up things, but then he would do it in front of me.

01:20:33.380 | He could like look at, he was really good at it.

01:20:38.100 | And he could look at the board and just like come up with,

01:20:43.140 | you know, a hundred point word that I'd never even heard of.

01:20:45.860 | So I think he had a little bit of that something going on

01:20:49.940 | in his brain that was like, I don't know, a little rain manish

01:20:54.900 | or something in the way that he was able to recall.

01:20:57.780 | I think his recall is incredibly...

01:21:00.500 | It's important if you lie a lot.

01:21:03.140 | If you lie a lot, yeah.

01:21:04.660 | To have good recall.

01:21:05.860 | Okay.

01:21:06.180 | So when...

01:21:07.300 | So, okay.

01:21:08.660 | So how did it escalate slowly from Words With Friends to meeting in real life?

01:21:15.140 | Like what...

01:21:15.940 | You know what?

01:21:16.420 | I mean, what...

01:21:17.140 | Okay.

01:21:17.540 | I know it's not a love affair.

01:21:19.780 | That said, when did you kind of get hooked by the...

01:21:27.860 | Ooh, I wonder, you know, like fall in love.

01:21:31.780 | I think it was just a slow...

01:21:32.580 | Yeah, when did you fall in love?

01:21:35.060 | It was a slow process.

01:21:37.460 | And I think he found me at a time when there was sort of a perfect storm

01:21:41.780 | of the right conditions for me to fall into whatever.

01:21:47.300 | I fell into with him because that was heartbroken for the first time in my life.

01:21:52.660 | Where was the heartbreak coming from?

01:21:54.980 | I had split with my boyfriend of four years.

01:21:57.700 | And that broke your heart?

01:22:00.500 | Yeah.

01:22:02.020 | I mean, it was...

01:22:02.580 | I knew it was a relationship that I knew would end,

01:22:05.700 | even when I got into it in the first place.

01:22:08.100 | How did you know?

01:22:09.700 | He's 15 years younger than me.

01:22:11.140 | And...

01:22:12.340 | Surely that can't be the only reason it wouldn't work.

01:22:17.380 | I need to also give you a book on love.

01:22:19.220 | What's it called?

01:22:21.700 | I'm gonna write it.

01:22:24.100 | I don't know.

01:22:24.660 | Okay.

01:22:24.900 | Just because it's called a joke.

01:22:26.340 | Because there's another book that I didn't bring.

01:22:27.860 | Okay.

01:22:28.180 | There's no book on Twitter and there's no book on love.

01:22:31.300 | Well, because there's actually a book on love that I really like,

01:22:34.340 | that I think you might like, but...

01:22:35.460 | What is it?

01:22:36.900 | Like love languages?

01:22:37.860 | I still have to read that one.

01:22:38.740 | No, it's called On Love.

01:22:40.260 | I can't wait.

01:22:42.420 | But...

01:22:42.980 | I'm gonna read the cliff notes.

01:22:44.660 | Bye.

01:22:45.140 | It's short by this guy named Alain de Botton.

01:22:48.660 | French name.

01:22:49.860 | I don't trust him already.

01:22:52.900 | No, it's funny and it's beautiful and shocking that he wrote it when he was very young.

01:22:57.540 | And I first heard him on a Krista Tippett podcast.

01:23:01.060 | That's how I end up reading a lot of books, is like,

01:23:04.980 | here's somebody on a podcast.

01:23:06.340 | So...

01:23:08.580 | So...

01:23:09.300 | Love...

01:23:10.100 | So you were heartbroken.

01:23:11.540 | You knew it wasn't gonna work.

01:23:12.820 | I knew it wasn't gonna work because...

01:23:13.860 | Because of the age difference.

01:23:15.700 | What else?

01:23:16.180 | That's just because of the age difference also.

01:23:18.100 | You know, I just knew that eventually he'd want to move on and probably he'd find somebody

01:23:22.660 | younger and/or was young enough that he still needed to go have a bunch of other experiences.

01:23:29.540 | And, you know, probably wanted a family or whatnot eventually.

01:23:34.740 | So he was 21 and I was 34 when we first met.

01:23:42.180 | But then we ended up living together for four years and it was the most drama-free,

01:23:47.540 | like there was no drama.

01:23:50.100 | And I had just come off...

01:23:51.220 | My prior relationship was Matthew Kenney, which was very

01:23:54.340 | dark in many ways and full of all kinds of...

01:24:00.180 | Yeah, and I just couldn't handle that.

01:24:04.180 | So...

01:24:04.660 | Can I ask you a personal question?

01:24:06.420 | Yes.

01:24:06.660 | Between us and...

01:24:08.180 | Between us, friends.

01:24:11.460 | Is there a part of you that's attracted to the drama and the chaos?

01:24:15.460 | Now, looking back.

01:24:19.700 | I feel like that happens a lot and...

01:24:23.460 | Maybe there was at some point, but I don't think so because, you know, part...

01:24:32.340 | What made that relationship work

01:24:37.300 | with his name was Tobin was that there was no drama, not at all.

01:24:42.980 | And I don't think I could have handled it.

01:24:45.220 | And I feel that way now too.

01:24:46.580 | Like I just couldn't, I can't, like fighting or any kind of like

01:24:49.380 | the people being passive aggressive, I can't handle that.

01:24:53.620 | So...

01:24:56.100 | You've had enough storms, now you want the calm.

01:24:58.980 | Yes.

01:25:00.500 | Yeah.

01:25:00.740 | So you knew it wasn't work?

01:25:03.860 | I knew it wasn't gonna be forever.

01:25:05.860 | Well, that could be just insecurity and cynicism, but fair enough.

01:25:10.660 | And then the heart was broken.

01:25:11.860 | Yes.

01:25:14.020 | And now the heart was broken and fragile and there to be manipulated in some sense.

01:25:23.460 | Yes.

01:25:23.940 | And there's another person that I heard that I quoted my book saying that when your heart broke

01:25:30.100 | and you can't rely on your instincts, somehow your instincts are compromised when you're heartbroken.

01:25:36.740 | And maybe I'm just like looking for excuses as to why this happened.

01:25:42.900 | No, no, it's true.

01:25:43.860 | But I was heartbroken and then...

01:25:45.300 | I like to see people when they're heartbroken because it's like

01:25:50.260 | shows how much they really love somebody, you know?

01:25:56.260 | Yeah, it's...

01:25:58.260 | It's sad, but sometimes love doesn't reveal itself as richly when you're in it versus when you lose it.

01:26:06.500 | Right, that's probably true.

01:26:08.420 | Anyway, so your judgment wasn't good.

01:26:11.300 | Great, so now you're lonely and you're super busy running the restaurant,

01:26:18.340 | but when you get home, you're lonely or in between.

01:26:22.180 | Yeah, and I was kind of overwhelmed and...

01:26:26.420 | But I'm sure you were getting a lot of really positive attention from other guys too while New

01:26:31.780 | York or New York were too busy.

01:26:35.220 | Well, no, because it was a restaurant, there was constantly...

01:26:39.300 | You're like constantly meeting people and really interesting people and New York is full of

01:26:45.780 | a lot of interesting people.

01:26:50.020 | And you're, you know, attractive.

01:26:53.860 | Why are you connected to some mysterious distant man from somewhere else playing overwords?

01:27:00.820 | Because, well, I think now looking back, I think it's 'cause I felt like he understood me and...

01:27:06.740 | What was that feeling coming from you think?

01:27:10.420 | Why does one feel that you're understood?

01:27:15.220 | One thing that made me extra easy to target is that I'd written a lot of very personal blogs

01:27:22.020 | and things, so in addition to him asking me questions and me probably just being insanely

01:27:28.020 | open and answering whatever he asked me, I had also written and posted a bunch of personal blogs.

01:27:33.300 | Some of them I've reposted on my new website and then some of them I haven't, but in one of them,

01:27:40.020 | I go into detail about my frustrations professionally in growing the business.

01:27:48.580 | And having read that and being a very smart person, he would have known kind of precisely

01:27:55.140 | what to say to get me drawn in.

01:28:00.100 | So I think by waiting so long before we met in person, he'd already gotten me hooked in a way

01:28:08.980 | that was gonna then make it possible for me to see him and even though he doesn't look like I

01:28:15.380 | thought he did, I'll make excuses for it. I mean, that's a dangerous thing about when people...

01:28:23.060 | And I'm not saying I fell in love with him in this way, I feel like there's another explanation for

01:28:26.740 | what felt like love, but when people fall in love quickly, there's that danger that

01:28:34.740 | because that's what happens first, that the more you learn about them, you'll sort of rationalize

01:28:41.620 | away things that might be red flags or things that you don't like. So I think it's safer to

01:28:52.820 | fall in love when you get to know somebody not in the context of dating them like Jim and Pam

01:29:02.020 | on The Office. Did you watch The Office? Yeah, of course I watched The Office. British Office

01:29:07.700 | is better, strong words, but yes. So well, yeah, fine, true. It might be less romantic.

01:29:16.820 | Yeah, I like the romantic. You can fall for it. Yeah, it's fine. But just I think the better

01:29:22.660 | lesson is, yes, that's one thing to say, but the other is when you see the red flags,

01:29:27.380 | notice them, be a little better about noticing them even amidst the passion.

01:29:33.700 | What if a brilliant woman kind of threw herself in your path? Because talking on a podcast is a

01:29:42.260 | little bit like having a blog where you overshare because people learn everything about you,

01:29:46.420 | what you like, what you don't like, what your wants and dreams. So some woman could

01:29:53.140 | pretend to throw herself in your path seemingly accidentally, and then you meet.

01:29:59.300 | She has a Russian accent and probably works for FSB.

01:30:02.740 | No, but whatever. She is who she is, and then she sort of slides into the conversation like a

01:30:10.580 | quote from The Idiot, right? And you're like, boom. But she's not who she, that's all a pretend.

01:30:21.620 | And so you very quickly could fall in love with her, and she's going to turn out to

01:30:28.500 | enjoy the game of destroying your life.

01:30:31.540 | Yep. That or it's the love of my life.

01:30:36.500 | It could be, but not if she did all those things intentionally.

01:30:39.060 | But you don't really know. But you have to then pay attention to, that's the dark aspect here.

01:30:45.060 | You mentioned blog. I love when people have stuff about themselves online because you get to really

01:30:52.420 | learn. I mean, I'm a fan of podcasts. I'm a fan of people. I love learning about them, the personal

01:30:57.540 | stuff and so on, hopefully for good reasons. So the person, people you connect with, the good ones

01:31:05.300 | are the ones that are going to be very sort of empathetic, and the bad ones are the ones that

01:31:10.500 | are going to be fake empathetic. Like they're going to learn everything about you and use you

01:31:16.340 | to manipulate you, as opposed to learn everything about you to fall deeper in love with you as a

01:31:22.180 | friend or as a romantic partner.

01:31:23.700 | Or like genuine curiosity.

01:31:25.460 | Yeah, genuine curiosity. Like there's something you're drawn, like imagine your dog Leon had a

01:31:30.420 | blog after, oh yeah, he does now. Yeah, that's true.

01:31:34.820 | He kind of does.

01:31:35.620 | Yeah. But as when you met him, right? Then you'd be like, what is this? What is there that's pulling

01:31:43.140 | me towards this creature, this entity? Like what is there? And it'd be fascinating to learn more.

01:31:49.060 | And then you fall in love with the details, not just with some kind of ethereal thing.

01:31:54.740 | Yeah, you don't know. You have to pay attention to the red flags. You have to-

01:31:58.100 | Yeah. I think one of them actually is somebody who doesn't have that kind of, I mean,

01:32:03.380 | plenty of people are private and they don't put stuff out about themselves online for all kinds

01:32:07.220 | of very valid reasons. But somebody who does share a lot about themselves personally is,

01:32:13.540 | maybe there's examples, but it's probably not a sociopath if they're sharing all kinds of-

01:32:20.580 | Sure, sure. But I mean, on the other side, when you meet people, yeah, I still like the falling

01:32:27.700 | in love. Because the red flags, whether you see them early or later, it doesn't matter. I'd rather

01:32:33.220 | see the red flags right away. I go in hard, intensely, to clarify, by going hard, I mean,

01:32:43.940 | no small talk. Just get to know a person, get to know quickly, get to know the person, challenge-

01:32:51.540 | Travel with them.

01:32:52.580 | Travel with them is a really powerful one. The road trip from hell or not. Go on a road trip

01:32:57.380 | and find out if it's a road trip from hell. Yeah.

01:32:59.540 | But you might, so there was somebody I was-

01:33:02.660 | This is also a male perspective.

01:33:03.940 | Destructive relationship with where we had already fallen in love and then went for the first trip.

01:33:10.820 | Yeah.

01:33:12.340 | In a situation where we had to borrow, I guess he was still sharing his car with his ex-wife,

01:33:18.340 | so we had to go to the garage to pick up the car to go on this little trip. And-

01:33:22.420 | So you literally baggage the ex-

01:33:25.220 | Yeah.

01:33:25.720 | That's, wow.

01:33:27.780 | Yeah. So, but something happened where the garage attendant was like, wanted more identification,

01:33:35.940 | and it was a pain in the ass. Anyway, this guy was so unbelievably rude to the garage attendant,

01:33:43.620 | like just nasty. And I was completely shocked and disturbed. And we got in the car for this

01:33:51.300 | long car ride, and I was like not saying anything and really shocked. And then he noticed that and

01:33:59.620 | was very concerned. And I explained, I would never treat somebody that way. And then he

01:34:07.860 | pretended to get incredibly upset and to feel horrible and remorseful about it. And

01:34:14.260 | it was like all we talked about for the next few hours. And then I kind of thought like, well, okay,

01:34:20.900 | I can get over that. And then the relationship continued and it was a dark and destructive one.

01:34:25.620 | Whereas, had I seen him behave that way before we were in a relationship,

01:34:32.500 | I would have known to back away.

01:34:36.420 | Okay. But the lesson, you could still walk away. You could still walk away.

01:34:42.020 | But, no, you can't. Well, I could have walked away at any point with, I call him Mr. Fox,

01:34:47.540 | because it's sort of depersonalizes him. But I could have walked away from him at any point in

01:34:55.140 | time. But that's kind of the whole point of what they do and the whole reason why people don't

01:35:02.740 | understand it. I mean, it's like being in a cult of one. So the people who've been in cults and

01:35:11.380 | gotten out, we understand each other very well, because the same psychology was used.

01:35:17.700 | The same psychological tactics were used on us. And then we experienced the same thing on the

01:35:24.500 | other side of it, which is it's hard for us to understand and it's hard for other people to

01:35:28.100 | understand. And everybody's saying, that would never happen to me. Or they're saying, I don't

01:35:32.020 | get it because you're smart. How could you let that happen? Why didn't you leave? Why didn't

01:35:35.460 | you walk away? And on the other side of it, we don't have the answers. Or it takes a really long

01:35:41.700 | time of self-reflection and reading and investigation to try and figure out how it is

01:35:47.780 | that it happened and why didn't we walk away. No, it's definitely hard at every level.

01:35:53.940 | And I just think that even for more subtle, not outrageously toxic relationships, but normal toxic,

01:36:06.020 | not normal, a little bit toxic relationship. - There are some people that kind of thrive on

01:36:10.100 | conflict. - Yeah, but you could still just be self-aware. I think you've talked about,

01:36:15.460 | give yourself time to think about the red flags. And I pride myself on being able to walk away.

01:36:22.980 | You have to think, is this the kind of thing I can live with in friendship and business partners?

01:36:33.540 | Because the little things that bother you turn out to be big things down the line.

01:36:40.340 | - Yeah, so it could be less romantic, but I feel like getting to know somebody

01:36:48.020 | slowly over time is... - Yeah, it's the smarter thing.

01:36:50.980 | - It's safer. - Fuck it though.

01:36:52.500 | - But that's again, my Russian/Ukrainian male perspective. Anyway, so, Meeting Mr. Fox.

01:37:06.660 | Anthony. - That's a chapter title in my book,

01:37:11.300 | Meeting Mr. Fox. - Meeting Mr. Fox. So you're working

01:37:14.340 | on a book about this. - I'm almost done. It's taken a really long time.

01:37:20.100 | - Can you define almost done? Because I've said that, it's when people say,

01:37:26.740 | they're leaving, I'm almost in the car. - Right.

01:37:32.420 | - And they actually... - But they're not really.

01:37:34.740 | - They're not really, they haven't even started the showering yet or something.

01:37:37.780 | - Yeah, I think I probably need some therapist to work with me on this.

01:37:43.540 | - Are you usually late to things? - No.

01:37:47.060 | - Okay. - I'm usually

01:37:50.100 | late. Oh, I sent you a text message because I was early when I got here.

01:37:53.140 | - Yeah. - And I said that I'm,

01:37:54.980 | because of, I think I said my crippling fear of being late. I'm like always early.

01:38:05.060 | - So I'm loitering outside like a weirdo, but glad to come in if it's not too early.

01:38:11.300 | The crippling fear of being late makes me chronically early and today's no exception.

01:38:17.220 | - Yeah, it's interesting. - So I got here before I rang the bell.

01:38:20.580 | - Yeah, it was interesting outside. - I was outside for a little while,

01:38:22.580 | like just killing time going, I'm way too early, but it's really hot out.

01:38:27.620 | - Oh, that's true. - Yeah, because I always air,

01:38:32.340 | like I was very early to the airport and then I had all this time to kill, but that's fine with me

01:38:36.260 | because that's actually time I appreciate because I can write things or, I worked on my book draft on

01:38:45.060 | the airplane, mostly editing, which it needs a lot because it's really long, it's in word count.

01:38:52.580 | - So all the things are already completed and you're just editing down or is this things I've

01:38:56.900 | written? - No, I wish. It's in five parts

01:38:59.380 | and I've written one through four and part five is like the chapters are all there, but some of them

01:39:05.700 | are messy, some of them are just like a few paragraphs, some of them are just notes, some of

01:39:12.020 | them are done. So I am kind of almost, it's like five parts and part five is not quite finished,

01:39:19.540 | but I've been editing along the way. - So this is gonna come out in 2023,

01:39:26.260 | I think you mentioned, so it won't come out for a bit or we'll figure it out.

01:39:30.580 | What have you learned about yourself from putting some of these things down on paper?

01:39:37.220 | What's like the darkest thing you've realized about yourself from writing?

01:39:41.940 | - The darkest, well, one of the things that was fascinating is reading through all of our,

01:39:50.020 | the correspondence between him and me that I was able to find because he deleted all our emails,

01:39:54.020 | but he didn't, I think he thought he deleted all of our G chats, but he didn't.

01:39:58.020 | - Oh, so he had access to your email, he deleted it on that side too.

01:40:02.740 | - And he had access to my email most of the time and then at the end was also emailing people as me,

01:40:10.820 | which was incredibly mortifying to come home and then get back into my old email and find that.

01:40:17.220 | And I think he was also texting people as me and those I'll never know unless somebody

01:40:22.420 | brings it to my attention 'cause after a certain date in 2015, he had my phone and he had exclusive

01:40:29.300 | access to my phone and email. So I wasn't looking at it until I got out, until after we were arrested

01:40:36.740 | and I was out on bail on my sister's and it took me a long time to get back into my Gmail because

01:40:42.740 | I had to verify who I am and I never got my phone back. So I don't know what he texted to other

01:40:48.900 | people as me after that time. But anyway, I was able to recover a lot of our G chats,

01:40:59.300 | which we used that, I don't know why people don't use it anymore, but it used to be a thing.

01:41:05.060 | - Yeah.

01:41:05.540 | - It was like, if you work with people and you use Gmail, it's a really easy way to just message

01:41:09.780 | back and forth.

01:41:10.180 | - So it's a chat client within Google, but I think Google shut it down already or no?

01:41:14.580 | - I think it's still there.

01:41:16.100 | - Okay. I used to talk to people on there and nobody talked to me anymore. And so I'd rather be-

01:41:23.700 | - I've talked to you.

01:41:24.100 | - Thank you. People don't love Google social products for some reason. The social network,

01:41:33.940 | they tried several times, Google Plus, it just dies out. Something about it, it's like when

01:41:39.380 | Microsoft tries to do stuff, it just doesn't feel right. Anyway, it is very lonely in that Google

01:41:46.260 | chat window. It makes total sense though. Anyway, so that was still there. So you're reading through

01:41:50.420 | them.

01:41:50.660 | - So finding, being able to go back and read. And then I kept finding more layers of stuff,

01:41:56.500 | including a journal that I didn't find, the DA, the prosecutor found.

01:42:03.060 | - Written by-

01:42:04.580 | - Me, my journal that I thought he'd thrown away. I didn't know it existed. So

01:42:09.140 | somehow he still had it and they found my journal, which was for the year 2014

01:42:18.420 | and the very beginning of 2015.

01:42:20.660 | - This is after you got, this is in the middle of it.

01:42:24.580 | - It was in the middle of it. Yeah. So reading that was fascinating.

01:42:27.780 | - Yeah. What's some interesting things there? Was your mind completely detached?

01:42:37.380 | - It was weird because no.

01:42:40.580 | - Were you concerned? Were you in love? Were you afraid?

01:42:44.500 | - I was not in love. I was afraid. I definitely write repeatedly in there that I'm afraid of him.

01:42:50.740 | I also write repeatedly things like, I don't know what's going on. Like,

01:42:54.900 | please let this be over. Please let this be over. Please let this be over. And then in a sort of,

01:42:59.540 | if I try to remove myself and look at it as if I was a different person,

01:43:05.380 | it's sort of heartbreaking because I was trying so hard to be positive.

01:43:08.420 | And that didn't work out. I was trying to be positive. So, but when I,

01:43:18.500 | it turned up later in the process and my lawyer at the time called or something and said,

01:43:29.140 | the DA has your, or the prosecutor, they have your journal. I haven't read it yet,

01:43:35.460 | but as soon as I get a PDF copy, I'll send it to you. So that was sort of weird to think that

01:43:40.100 | everybody's reading my journal, which, you know, you don't write it thinking people are going to

01:43:43.780 | read it unless you're like a historical person. And then later on you think people are going to

01:43:47.700 | print from it, but you're not, nobody's writing a journal.

01:43:51.940 | - I can just imagine like a 14 year old thinking they're going to be a historical person.

01:43:56.500 | - Right. Well, no, I mean like, you know, presidents who keep journals and then they're

01:44:01.140 | later on. So you write it, you don't think anybody's going to read it. And so that was

01:44:06.340 | a weird feeling. And then also just not knowing, having, you know, not remembering what I wrote.

01:44:12.020 | So I think it was the next day I got, she sent me a PDF copy of it and I read it really quickly

01:44:20.740 | because I could read my own, it was a PDF. So it was like Xeroxes of the pages. So it was in my

01:44:25.140 | own handwriting, which I could read really fast. Cause even though it's messy, I wrote it so I

01:44:29.700 | could read it really fast. And I read the whole thing and was crying because I thought, okay,

01:44:34.660 | finally, like surely nobody could read this and think that I intended to commit crimes.

01:44:40.260 | And so I thought like, I thought that journal was just going to fully exonerate me. And they would

01:44:46.420 | like, you know, if not drop the charges, like it would just be like, okay, well, you know,

01:44:52.420 | some bad things happened. You're responsible, you know, here's probation, but it didn't seem to make

01:44:58.820 | any difference, which was strange. But anyway, so the journal, and then also finding all of the

01:45:07.860 | correspondence between, not all of the correspondence between him and me, but the,

01:45:10.820 | the G chat correspondence between him and me, to me, so, you know, all of that in its entirety,

01:45:17.860 | like I wish that everything could have been kind of put out there as evidence. Like the more they

01:45:23.780 | turned up the better for me because I wanted them to see everything. And there are just so many

01:45:29.700 | examples in the correspondence between him and me where he's, you know, threatening me and,

01:45:33.780 | you know, lying to me and telling me that if I don't do what he says, my whole life will be

01:45:40.420 | destroyed and I'll lose everything I ever cared about all kinds of things like that. But what was

01:45:45.540 | what I still don't quite understand. And what one of my lawyers said why all of that wasn't as useful

01:45:52.180 | as I thought it might be is because so much of that correspondence, I'm like, sarcastically,

01:46:00.820 | angrily, I'm yelling at him, I'm mad at him. I'm like, fuck you. I'm making fun of him. I call him

01:46:05.700 | names. I'll say to him, like, you're lying. Why should I believe you? You told me you'd pay me

01:46:11.460 | back before but you didn't. So it seems like it doesn't, it seems like it doesn't make sense. Like

01:46:18.980 | how is it that if I say to him, you're lying, you're a liar, that I still, but so then what

01:46:25.620 | would happen is I'm reading those, that correspondence, and then it stops for a while,

01:46:30.180 | maybe because I was with him in person. And then I'll look at like my timeline of things and I'll

01:46:35.700 | see like, oh, I sent him a wire for 80,000. - Yeah, how do you explain your ability to still

01:46:41.780 | joke around and also to be mean to him in a joking way? Like, you know, couples can do that.

01:46:52.260 | I guess like, I mean, there's like cruel ways of doing that. And then there's like humorous ways,

01:46:58.980 | just like you're talking shit, whatever. You were able to do that still and yet you're sending over

01:47:05.940 | the money and are afraid. Like, how can you be those two things?

01:47:09.700 | Like as opposed to completely shutting down. - Well, I don't know. I mean, these are all

01:47:17.780 | interesting questions that I have as well. Like how is it that I was functional and yet also

01:47:24.740 | doing these things? And so the year that we were gone is like a different level because I no longer

01:47:31.300 | was running the business. But the thing about dissociation is that you're functioning,

01:47:37.140 | but like your feelings and your thinking are detached in some way. So that like you're

01:47:42.180 | functioning and people wouldn't look at you and go, oh, that person's dissociating. 'Cause you're

01:47:46.580 | functioning, you seem normal, but somehow in your head, you're like disconnecting your feelings

01:47:52.580 | and your thinking. - So you're still able to be like the game of social interaction,

01:47:59.620 | like being witty and so on, all that kind of stuff. You're still- - For me, I think it's like

01:48:03.460 | a coping mechanism too. 'Cause I'll, like if I went, I haven't been to a funeral in a long time,

01:48:08.020 | but if I went, I'd probably like find absurd thing, or I'll tend to like either make jokes

01:48:16.820 | or wanna make jokes at really inappropriate times, even in tragic times. 'Cause it's almost like a

01:48:22.180 | defense mechanism, I think. - Like you said, you told me you like dark humor. Yeah.

01:48:28.900 | - I, my next door neighbor is Michael Malice. He's an anarchist. - I have one of his books.

01:48:35.460 | - "The Hero." - "Dear Reader."

01:48:37.700 | - "Dear Reader," yeah. And he loves, he embodies dark humor, trolling and dark humor. And is

01:48:44.420 | underneath it, the sweetest human being. 'Cause he's writing a book now, "The White Pill," that's

01:48:49.780 | really focused on Stalin and the Hollywood of more, there's basically atrocities throughout

01:48:56.900 | the 20th century. And I think he needs the dark humor to release the valve.

01:49:01.620 | - I think there's something about incredibly good, the most offensive comedians tend to have

01:49:10.100 | the kindest hearts. I think this is my theory. People like Ricky Gervais, who goes out and

01:49:18.580 | insults people and makes jokes that people find horribly offensive and crude. And yet,

01:49:27.620 | is a huge animal rights guy and appears to be an incredibly sweet and kind person and sensitive.

01:49:34.660 | And Howard Stern, people who are incredibly crude, very often are, in my experience,

01:49:42.820 | to the extent that I've gotten either to know people personally, observe them,

01:49:48.500 | learn about them in other ways. But that almost like the more crude and offensive the

01:49:56.180 | comedian or the person, they tend to have the kindest.

01:49:58.980 | - Yeah, I don't know if it's a universal rule, but yeah, I see what you mean.

01:50:02.420 | And you lost me with Howard Stern. He seems like not a good person.

01:50:06.100 | - Oh no, he's such a good person.

01:50:07.380 | - Underneath it?

01:50:08.100 | - Oh yeah, such a good person.

01:50:09.620 | - He's just said so much. So I'm friends with Rogan. He says so many ignorant things about

01:50:14.260 | Rogan, but I suppose that's...

01:50:15.780 | - So I haven't heard, I haven't listened to Howard Stern in a long time.

01:50:20.660 | And I also think that people who say bad things about Rogan don't listen to his podcast.

01:50:26.820 | - Right.

01:50:27.140 | - Because if I've listened to his podcast and like people think that,

01:50:31.380 | I think people would assume that I don't like him because, or the whole like vegan thing and he's

01:50:38.180 | all about meat and they would think that I would think, no. I mean, because I've listened to enough

01:50:43.540 | of his podcast, I've heard the one where he talked about why he hunts. And whereas if I only knew him

01:50:53.780 | via his Instagram, I might think he's an asshole. But having listened to all of his, not all,

01:50:59.540 | I don't listen to all of them. There's a ton of them. But having listened to a lot of his podcasts

01:51:03.940 | enough to know that he's an extremely kind person with all the best intentions. And I think that all

01:51:11.940 | of that judgment comes from people who are just seeing little clips.

01:51:16.100 | - Yeah, because the lesson...

01:51:16.660 | - Because it's probably easy to take little clips from him that sound...

01:51:19.300 | - Yeah, the lesson there is just not make judgments on people without getting to know

01:51:23.940 | them, especially, and you have no excuse when the content is out there, like don't be lazy.

01:51:28.020 | - Yeah, I try. I'm very careful when a lot of these cases, like the Depp herd thing or...

01:51:39.540 | - Oh, Johnny Depp and...

01:51:41.460 | - And Elizabeth Holmes and anything controversial. And sometimes that makes me,

01:51:47.540 | I can't think of an example, but very often, when somebody criticizes something or something

01:51:54.180 | becomes controversial, that's what gets me to want to understand it better. So then I'll go

01:51:58.420 | read the book that everybody's mad about.

01:52:00.020 | - Yeah, it's hard to know what's true though. So I try to have humility and always assume I don't

01:52:05.620 | really know the full story and keep pulling at the string, keep learning more and more. But even then,

01:52:10.580 | like the more you learn, the more you realize the things are complex. What do you think about

01:52:16.500 | as a small tangent, Johnny Depp, Amber Heard, trial's going on, it's a quick pause, it's going

01:52:23.460 | to resume next week.

01:52:25.460 | - So again, this is one of those situations where, you know, I have very limited information

01:52:30.580 | because I'm also not sitting there watching the trial.

01:52:32.660 | - Yeah, have you watched any of it?

01:52:34.100 | - Little bits of it. And it's like, I know that if I go there, I'm going to want to watch it all.

01:52:39.620 | - Yeah, it's good.

01:52:40.820 | - I know.

01:52:41.540 | - Because it's raw human relationships that is most toxic at its most deep also,

01:52:49.060 | because you can tell there's love, probably still there's love, which is the interesting thing.

01:52:53.380 | They probably still love each other, even though they hate each other.

01:52:57.620 | And like, there's a lot of lying going on. It looks like it's Amber Heard lying to my foolish

01:53:04.340 | eyes. It seems like she's lying nonstop, but you know, I want to know the full story and we'll

01:53:11.860 | never get to know it. But you see this raw, like post-mortem on a relationship, on a love affair

01:53:18.100 | that was clearly passionate. There was clearly something deep of a connection there. And it just,

01:53:23.860 | that's the sad thing about love. It can destroy you as much as it can uplift you.

01:53:27.780 | - It can be also used to destroy people.

01:53:31.140 | - Yeah, to manipulate and all that kind of stuff, yeah.

01:53:33.700 | - Right. So people who feel that strongly are, I think, particularly vulnerable. Yeah, it's

01:53:42.420 | hard to talk about because I've dipped into like a podcast or something where other people were

01:53:52.420 | discussing "Bad Vegan" in like a pop culture way and they're analyzing it and it's so annoying to

01:53:58.180 | listen to. 'Cause I'm like, "Oh my God, that's totally wrong. That's totally wrong. Well,

01:54:01.300 | if they only knew this, will I have... Nope, that's wrong." So, you know, listening to other

01:54:06.020 | people analyzing my situation or my psychology when they don't have all the information has

01:54:13.140 | been really frustrating. But I did... - There's a difference. There's a difference

01:54:17.300 | 'cause the world doesn't know much about you except for the Netflix documentary.

01:54:21.780 | - Right. - There's a lot more information

01:54:24.020 | about both Johnny Depp and Amber Heard and the trial is revealing the real people. This is so

01:54:29.060 | interesting. - But I haven't watched it all.

01:54:30.500 | - Okay. But there's a difference between a documentary and like a raw human being.

01:54:35.700 | - Exactly, the real trial. - Sitting there. You can see the body

01:54:38.340 | language. And it's so interesting that I think you could tell the difference between a person

01:54:45.220 | who is full of shit and not... - No.

01:54:48.180 | - I'm not sure. - It's another... I can't remember.

01:54:52.580 | - Sorry, I keep interrupting you, but on top of this, they're actors too, which is very annoying.

01:54:58.580 | - Right, exactly. - 'Cause I don't know if they're putting...

01:55:01.860 | But sure as hell looks like Amber Heard is putting on a soap opera act. Soap opera meaning

01:55:08.420 | really bad acting and lies. - I would say all of these things are really

01:55:14.020 | hard. People would say about me, "I don't look like a victim." And I don't mind you interrupting

01:55:19.860 | me because Andrew Huberman said that means you're interested in the conversation. He said it was a

01:55:24.500 | good thing. So you don't have to apologize for interrupting me. He keeps coming up, but I keep

01:55:31.620 | thinking of these. - That's one of the things that Andrew told

01:55:34.420 | me that I'm like, "Are you sure? 'Cause it just does seem like an asshole thing to do."

01:55:38.980 | - I guess it depends on the context. If we were in a business meeting and somebody talks

01:55:43.860 | over you to kind of make their point heard, but if it's a one-on-one situation, then it's not.

01:55:48.340 | - I could argue that forever. - Anyway, so a long time ago,

01:55:52.420 | I listened to, there was an audio that was released of a taped argument between Johnny

01:55:59.220 | Depp and Amber Heard. And I don't remember why, which one of them had taped it and if they knew

01:56:05.060 | it was being taped, but it was like an hour and a half. And I listened to it almost like you would

01:56:09.140 | listen to a podcast where I was doing other things. It was like cleaning my apartment and I was

01:56:12.420 | fascinated listening to it. - To a fight.

01:56:14.660 | - And it's interesting too, 'cause it was just the audio, so you're not looking at their body

01:56:19.940 | language, which can be completely misleading. And there was another podcast where they talked

01:56:24.900 | about how judges make worse decisions on whether or not somebody deserves parole or to be released

01:56:32.420 | on bail when they see the person in person versus if they're just looking at the information on

01:56:38.260 | paper. So I think body language and those kinds of things can actually be misleading. Or we think

01:56:45.780 | that by looking somebody in the eye, we'll know if they're lying or not, but the skilled liars

01:56:50.740 | are able to bypass that. Because I'm jumping all over the place, but one of the things about

01:56:58.580 | sociopaths is they're not gonna have the same tell. So if I was lying, somebody would know

01:57:03.780 | because I'm stressed out, mortified, I'm probably doing all the things that we do when we lie,

01:57:09.620 | 'cause it's stressful for me, whereas they don't have those things. So I think that they could,

01:57:16.420 | for example, I think that they could pass a lie detector test. They also don't have a startle

01:57:21.220 | response. So the activity in their brain, like if you and I watched something graphic and tragic

01:57:28.900 | on TV or watched something happen, things would happen in our brains that don't happen in the

01:57:33.460 | brains of sociopaths. So they don't react to things in the same way that we do.

01:57:37.860 | - Again, you keep assuming I'm not a sociopath. I didn't say I'm not a sociopath. This assumption

01:57:42.900 | you keep making is very interesting. Then why did I murder all those people? Let's get back to the,

01:57:47.620 | what were we talking about?

01:57:49.780 | - Johnny Depp and Amber Heard. So the audio that I heard made me, without knowing anything else,

01:57:55.540 | made me very inclined to be team Johnny Depp. Just based on that audio.

01:58:03.620 | - Yeah. Well, that's how the people are feeling about this whole interaction. By the way,

01:58:07.780 | I do think it's a very healthy thing to do in a relationship is to record each other for months

01:58:11.940 | at a time. Every time you fight, that just seems like a very, that's sarcasm. I don't understand

01:58:18.340 | how that, because they both recorded each other. I suppose you could look back at all human

01:58:25.220 | relations and be like, this was ridiculous. What was I doing? But when you're in it, you don't.

01:58:30.740 | - Right. I wondered that too. Like who made the recording and why? And

01:58:35.300 | did they both know about it, that it was being recorded?

01:58:40.580 | - Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn't. All I know is just the poetry of Johnny Depp's

01:58:48.100 | speaking and sort of movement about the whole thing. It's interesting. It makes you wonder

01:58:56.820 | what's real. Maybe this is whole, maybe they're both in love and this is like a troll that they

01:59:03.620 | played on the world. I don't know. It makes me wonder what's real at all. Because you have to

01:59:12.020 | remember they're actors too. - Yeah. I don't think he would have

01:59:15.700 | filed the lawsuit if he was- - No, I'm joking.

01:59:18.500 | - No, I know. But no, I mean, my point is if somebody was trying to make the argument that

01:59:26.340 | he's the abuser and that he's lying and he's full of shit, it sort of doesn't make sense that he

01:59:32.260 | would have filed a lawsuit unless he's trying to have this all come out in the open because

01:59:41.460 | he believes he's in the right. Again, I have no idea.

01:59:44.660 | - I agree with you. I agree with you. As a fan of love and human nature, I appreciate the fact

01:59:50.100 | that they went through this. I know it's probably extremely painful, but it's fascinating to watch

01:59:56.100 | human relationships be presented in such a raw way. It made me realize how rare it is to get

02:00:02.820 | a glimpse like that. - Yeah. And I think one of the reasons I

02:00:06.180 | like that book, "Confessions of a Sociopath" also is it's female who's writing it. And I think

02:00:14.020 | statistically men are more likely to be sociopaths, maybe not. I mean, these are all

02:00:19.460 | things where a lot of times there exist statistics that would be inherently hard to get.

02:00:28.340 | So who knows? But I think that people tend to think of sociopaths more as men,

02:00:35.220 | which probably gives female sociopaths the advantage in that people are less likely to

02:00:42.980 | - like the Elizabeth Holmes, people who are really manipulative and really good at it.

02:00:49.460 | And part of how they're able to succeed is that people don't understand their motives,

02:00:56.820 | or people will assume that people behave rationally, even if rationally means,

02:01:01.780 | it's like Anthony Strange's. It would have made more sense if he had gotten all this money out of

02:01:08.980 | me and put it in an overseas account and then ditched me and got on a plane to Mexico. Everybody

02:01:15.380 | would understand that more. Whereas the way things happened and he dragged me around the country and

02:01:23.700 | like, "What were we doing in Tennessee?" And then why didn't... Nothing really makes any sense.

02:01:30.980 | And also all of the things that he did to me and had me do, it was as if

02:01:37.140 | all of those things together only make sense if his primary goal was to maximally destroy me

02:01:46.500 | and also make it like, have me burn all my bridges and make it so I'll never recover.

02:01:51.060 | And when you read a book like that, you understand that that's what he wanted. That's his life.

02:01:58.660 | So can you explain that further?

02:02:00.340 | It's like a game.

02:02:01.060 | What do you think...

02:02:01.860 | It's about power and it's a game.

02:02:03.620 | Do you think he understood the long-term goals he has, or was it the short-term game of it that

02:02:08.820 | he enjoyed, the ability to destroy you?

02:02:10.980 | Well, yeah, it was the short-term game of it.

02:02:13.460 | Because it's controlling another human?

02:02:14.740 | Yeah. And also I think for him, the motivations are just different. So

02:02:25.380 | he spent a year incarcerated because he never got out on bail, but then he got out...

02:02:29.220 | He's out of prison now.

02:02:32.500 | He got out before I went in to serve my time, which was particularly...

02:02:38.420 | Psychologically, I had to try really hard not to be infuriated.

02:02:49.140 | But anyway, so I think for him, the consequence of spending time in jail is sort of like an

02:02:54.980 | inconvenience. It's like life is a game. And so he wouldn't feel... If you're not capable of being

02:03:03.700 | emotionally hurt, then you have immense power because you can go around and do things and

02:03:12.740 | people can't hurt you. It's like a superpower.

02:03:14.980 | And he did this for people who are not familiar. I guess he did this to other women.

02:03:19.780 | Yes. Yes.

02:03:23.540 | I think it was in the documentary that his ex-wife from somewhere else was...

02:03:31.380 | Florida.

02:03:32.180 | Florida.

02:03:32.980 | Of course, Florida. Sorry.

02:03:36.020 | Strong words.

02:03:39.140 | It's just like when there's the weirdest story about people eating

02:03:43.220 | Tide pods and then doing crazy... It's always in Florida. So I feel like whenever crazy things...

02:03:49.060 | So to me, it makes sense that he would have spent time in Florida before and that's where...

02:03:53.140 | Crazy in a good way.

02:03:54.020 | And I mean that on an insult on him. I also... She's an amazing person.

02:03:58.500 | Yes. Yes.

02:03:59.300 | So it's him that I'm making the Florida is weird.

02:04:05.060 | Yes. He manipulated her as well, lied to her, that kind of things.

02:04:11.220 | Well, jumping around, but one of the things you said that was disturbingly misleading is

02:04:15.940 | the ending of the documentary. And the ending has a phone call, I think, of you and Anthony talking.

02:04:24.500 | So high level, let me ask. How many times have you talked with Anthony since you got

02:04:32.260 | out of prison and what did you talk about? And why is that, quote, misleading? That segment of

02:04:40.180 | audio misleading?

02:04:41.700 | My issue with it also was that it was deliberately misleading, which was

02:04:44.980 | what was particularly infuriating about it. And then also there was... It was like there were

02:04:55.220 | one major thing that was incorrect that I think helped allow people to make an incorrect conclusion

02:05:02.260 | at the end was in the film, it talks about... I say something about how my accountant made a joke

02:05:09.300 | about if I married him, he could easily transfer me money without tax consequences. And then the

02:05:15.300 | film has me saying something like, and then within 24 hours we were married, but that's like audio

02:05:21.860 | from here and audio from here spliced together.

02:05:24.340 | So they made it seem like there's a...

02:05:26.420 | Like I married him because it was like he could give me money and that wasn't the case.

02:05:30.500 | So you're part mastermind of some kind of scheme that involve

02:05:34.660 | money transfer and you got married and that kind of stuff.

02:05:37.620 | Right. Or if nothing else, I was trying to get money, that's why I married him. Which is absurd

02:05:43.460 | because again, New York is full of legitimate people with loads of money. If I really wanted

02:05:48.500 | to marry somebody for money in New York, it wouldn't be that hard to do. But anyway, it was

02:05:54.260 | just a deliberate making it seem like my intention was to marry him for his fictitious money.

02:06:02.020 | Okay. So that's one.

02:06:04.900 | And either way...

02:06:05.860 | Let's go to that ending thing because we're on that sort of topic. When you got out of prison,

02:06:12.580 | what the film implies is that whatever, there's a small aspect of your mind that still wants to

02:06:22.740 | continue a relationship with Anthony.

02:06:25.620 | Yeah. That's not the case.

02:06:26.980 | And not just that, but there's still flirtation and that kind of body incline.

02:06:33.460 | Mm-hmm (affirmative)

02:06:34.660 | Like we got the world at our fingertips, we're playing. So I mean, one of the exciting things

02:06:43.540 | about being a couple that's fucking with the world, that's getting away with something is that

02:06:50.500 | there's all these powerful forces that want to catch you in a crime and you keep getting away

02:06:59.220 | with it. That's exciting.

02:07:00.900 | And some romance.

02:07:03.220 | In a romantic world, it could be, although...

02:07:05.140 | Yeah. Not in this case.

02:07:06.500 | Right. And also, I always have to keep reminding people, "Get away with what?"

02:07:11.460 | Because I lost everything and all these people lost other... People I cared about lost a lot.

02:07:18.100 | My mother lost a lot, but I lost everything too.

02:07:22.900 | Yeah. Your restaurant, your dream.

02:07:26.660 | Yeah. My reputation, my stuff, my home, ending up with millions of dollars of debt. It's not even

02:07:35.220 | like I lost it all and then it's a clean slate. It's like I lost it all and now I have this giant

02:07:40.340 | boulder of... Or this wobbly, unclear how to... Yeah. So when people say...

02:07:50.260 | Well, Sisyphus kind of thing.

02:07:52.340 | "Got away with something," I'm always like, "Got away with what?"

02:07:55.140 | I know.

02:07:55.700 | Destroying my life and ending up in debt. Because that's... It's not even like... You can't even

02:08:00.980 | sort of point to as if I was trying to do something and then, oops, that happened. It's like, there's

02:08:06.900 | nothing that logically makes sense if somebody was trying to decipher my... Whatever motives I

02:08:17.860 | might have had.

02:08:18.900 | Yeah. You didn't walk away from the explosion. You were inside the explosion. Okay.

02:08:25.140 | But that said, the movie implied... And so, it's interesting to ask, not just

02:08:31.620 | in clarifying the movie, but just as a human being, you're out of prison, he's out of prison.

02:08:40.180 | There was that toxic connection, but it was there. And there's a depth to it. So toxic

02:08:51.380 | connections can be pretty deep. So what was the conversation like and how often have you

02:08:58.100 | talked with him?

02:08:58.740 | Well, we don't speak anymore. And that call at the end was...

02:09:04.740 | Not even on G-chat?

02:09:05.620 | Was recorded on... I recorded the call and gave it to them. So I was deliberately recording him.

02:09:14.580 | It's not like I was caught on a hot mic. I made that call.

02:09:18.180 | As part of the documentary.

02:09:18.900 | I recorded him intentionally. I was trying to get him to repeat some of the kookier things he would

02:09:23.620 | say about his meat suit or some of the weird... The things about something not being real.

02:09:31.780 | The more fantastical things. I was trying to get him to repeat those things.

02:09:35.780 | And it was probably a 40-minute call, which it's actually on my phone. I still have it.

02:09:40.900 | I haven't gone back to listen to it.

02:09:42.260 | You ever think of publishing that whole thing?

02:09:44.340 | Oh, yeah. Oh, I think about publishing everything. My entire journal.

02:09:47.380 | You should publish that call unedited. Just publish it. That'd be fun.

02:09:52.180 | No, I want to publish a lot of stuff. He took all these videos of me also that they used a couple

02:09:58.660 | of clips of. And I would... They're also on my phone. I would publish them all. I would publish

02:10:03.700 | everything. In particular...

02:10:05.860 | Because you'll release that with your book. It's good.

02:10:08.980 | Yeah. I probably... I've planned to do that eventually. If all of that material would be

02:10:15.540 | really useful to psychologists or people studying it. So, to the extent that it would help other

02:10:23.300 | people understand what happened, which I think would be meaningful.

02:10:26.260 | Well, he's still out there. He's fascinating.

02:10:28.180 | Yeah. He's still out there doing weird shit with his clean slate. I get a little annoyed about that.

02:10:34.820 | He's got the clean slate.

02:10:36.980 | Well, he didn't have a restaurant. He didn't have a persona. Does he have any public persona or no?

02:10:43.700 | Or we don't know?

02:10:44.900 | He got booted off of Twitter. Elon will put him back on.

02:10:49.060 | Is that a passive-aggressive statement?

02:10:52.020 | No, not at all. I find that whole conversation really, really interesting.

02:10:56.020 | Whether to put somebody like Anthony back on Twitter.

02:11:00.260 | Well, no. I think... Because I used to always think if only everybody had to identify as

02:11:05.380 | themselves on Twitter. And you could have a parody account. Or like Leon has an account,

02:11:10.900 | but it's very clear that it's me behind it. Or sometimes there's like Devin Nunez's cow.

02:11:16.660 | So, people have parody accounts. But if we could identify who it is, then a lot of...

02:11:23.860 | Why did he get booted off of Twitter?

02:11:25.460 | I don't know. But I used to... So, in the last few years, I would periodically,

02:11:30.980 | probably like once a month, maybe more, I would look at his Twitter just to kind of see where

02:11:37.380 | is he and just to see what is he up to. And I figured out, I could tell from the photographs

02:11:46.340 | that he'd moved to California. And I think he might have told me one of the last times I spoke

02:11:51.300 | to him that he was going to move to California. And then I also screen grabbed a lot of stuff

02:11:59.300 | that he put on Twitter. And he put these creepy videos of himself on Twitter at the beginning of

02:12:03.540 | COVID. I screen grabbed those.

02:12:06.740 | Just...

02:12:07.300 | And then one day I went and like he was, you know, account was suspended. And then I kept

02:12:12.340 | going back and it's like been suspended ever since. So, he might have started a new account.

02:12:16.820 | And I don't know what it is. Probably...

02:12:19.860 | He's probably in California, you're saying.

02:12:21.380 | He is in California. That's been verified. Somebody who was going to have to interact

02:12:27.140 | with him in an official capacity was going to go meet him. And I said, and was nervous about it.

02:12:34.260 | And I said, he's going to be really likable. Like you're going to like him. He's probably

02:12:40.340 | going to like figure out what you're interested in, talk sports, talk whatever it is that he

02:12:46.500 | figures out quickly that you're interested in. He's going to be really nice. He's going to seem

02:12:49.620 | like a nice guy. And that person later got back to me and was like, you're exactly right.

02:12:54.420 | So, yeah, that's the sociopath thing, right?

02:12:58.740 | Yeah.

02:12:59.700 | Extremely careful. But inside relationship, that's even more dangerous.

02:13:03.780 | So, I think that part of the reason I spoke to him was entirely self-serving and strategic

02:13:10.980 | after the fact. Well, even before I knew there was ever going to be a documentary,

02:13:16.260 | I spoke to him. And I knew how dangerous it was because I knew that in a situation like this,

02:13:24.660 | you're supposed to have no contact, which makes sense. And I understand why,

02:13:28.580 | which makes it extra tragic when people have kids with a sociopath or in a narcissistic,

02:13:33.380 | abusive relationship. If you have kids, then you're tethered, which is tragic.

02:13:37.700 | But why are you supposed to avoid conversations? Because you can get pulled right back.

02:13:42.500 | You still have no contact. Yeah. Because they'll continue abuse or you'll be vulnerable to them

02:13:49.620 | being able to pull you back in. So, I knew that to be the case.

02:13:56.020 | But why was it self-serving? Why did you talk to him anyway?

02:13:58.980 | Because he was going to be out free out in the open while I was going to be locked up

02:14:08.340 | at Rikers for three and a half months. And the one thing that, if his motivation was to destroy me,

02:14:16.340 | then what else could he do to really hammer that last nail in the coffin?

02:14:25.220 | That would be Leon. And so, he would have known that Leon would be staying with my mother.

02:14:30.740 | You know, he knows where he spent a lot of time at our house. He knows where she lives.

02:14:34.900 | It would be super easy for him to just drive up there, you know, wait for her to let him out.

02:14:40.740 | And then, you know, he because out in the country, he can be off leash. And all he'd have to do is

02:14:47.860 | kind of whistle, call him over, and he could take him away and do whatever. So, I was completely

02:14:54.900 | gripped with that fear.

02:14:56.500 | So, not fear for yourself, but fear for Leon.

02:14:59.460 | Well, I was going to be at least safe from him, but I was going to be locked away.

02:15:05.940 | Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, Rikers. Yeah, yeah, sure. I got it. Got it, got it, got it.

02:15:11.300 | I would be powerless to do anything. And he would have free reign to go

02:15:18.180 | and destroy me further by, you know, taking or hurting Leon.

02:15:23.300 | And then, when he got out, I still had unfollowed him from my own account, but

02:15:32.660 | Leon had never unfollowed him. So, I was looking at his account.

02:15:40.580 | Can I just say, because Joe has an account for his dog, too. I just love when people do that.

02:15:47.860 | It's so great. Because I actually pretend, in my mind, for some reason, I do think Leon has

02:15:52.980 | an account. Like, I don't, you forget that there's a human behind it. You're like, oh, okay, cool.

02:15:58.180 | Yeah, I know.

02:15:59.460 | I love it when people do that. Anyway, so, continue. So, Leon didn't unfollow him, and what?

02:16:04.580 | So, I was able to go back and look at his Twitter, and he,

02:16:10.500 | that's not how he quickly got a phone, but he very quickly started tweeting right after he got out.

02:16:17.220 | And I was kind of fascinated, because I didn't know what to expect or what he was going to be

02:16:23.700 | saying. And then he started saying things that I could tell were directed at me, you know,

02:16:30.260 | like little things that only I would know, you know, like random things, like things that were

02:16:35.780 | like the equivalent of an inside joke that you have. So, he was posting things like that.

02:16:42.100 | And there's so many things going on at once. So, another thing that would have, in a twisted,

02:16:50.660 | but I think understandable way, in sort of a sick way that I was fully aware of,

02:16:57.780 | is that here I am having gone through this completely, like, messed up thing that now

02:17:04.500 | I'm in trouble for, everybody's looking at, and nobody understands, right? And so, there was this

02:17:10.180 | unfortunate situation of the only person who understands what I went through is the person

02:17:18.340 | who put me through it. Right? So... So, were you also just a little bit seeking closure of some

02:17:25.380 | kind? Probably a lot, but also with the awareness that I probably wasn't going to get it, you know?

02:17:31.060 | And I mean, I know for a fact I would never get it in the same way that, which is why,

02:17:39.460 | which is why I was able to later on, like in the context of recording those calls,

02:17:44.580 | I was able to talk to him in this detached way, because I know he doesn't give a shit that,

02:17:53.540 | like, he doesn't give any shits about what he did to my mother, or me, or anybody, or anything,

02:17:59.380 | just doesn't care. So, he's certainly not going to care if I, you know, he's never going to say,

02:18:05.300 | like, "I'm sorry," or "I did a bad thing," or, or like, he's not going to be affected. Like,

02:18:12.500 | if I yelled and screamed at him, that would just be frustrating for me, and he would actually

02:18:16.820 | probably be gratified by that. So... So, that gave you, that empowered you in being

02:18:22.900 | cold and sort of distant? Yes, and I had a prior experience where I had to do the same thing,

02:18:31.220 | where like, if you're, if you're able to be very cold and not allow somebody to push your buttons,

02:18:39.540 | then you're taking away their power, and then that feels empowering, or it feels like we're

02:18:44.740 | claiming a little bit of your power. So, in my talking to him, I always had a reason,

02:18:50.660 | you know, like, there was always, like, I didn't want him to hurt Leon, or I wanted information,

02:18:55.780 | or I wanted to know where he was. I'd rather let him think that, you know, maybe he could still

02:19:01.540 | manipulate me one day, or whatever. It was, like, safer to keep that there than to not know where

02:19:07.940 | he was, and if I was going to, like, be walking Leon and turn the corner, and he's standing there,

02:19:13.060 | and, you know, like, it, like, if there's a crazy murderer out on the loose, you'd rather know where

02:19:18.900 | they are than have no idea. So, there are a lot of different reasons. Why does it upset you

02:19:26.420 | why was it wrong to have that audio clip at the end of the documentary? Like, what did it...

02:19:31.140 | Well, because it implied all kinds of things that were completely not true, and it also just didn't

02:19:35.700 | make sense, and it confused people, and so... So, for people who haven't watched it, spoiler

02:19:41.860 | alert, is they play the clip of... Sorry, I don't even remember what was said, but it was kind of...

02:19:48.740 | That last... What we spoke about? Yeah, what was the...

02:19:53.300 | I know. I only watched... Like, I still haven't watched it. I only watched the film once while,

02:19:59.380 | you know, people were looking at me for my reaction, and I was crying, and it was really

02:20:05.460 | weird and strange and surreal, and I haven't gone back to watch it again. I feel like I'm just going

02:20:09.540 | to get more annoyed, but I will eventually, but... And when the ending happened, I immediately

02:20:18.820 | blurted out, like, "I hate that. I hate that ending," but I sort of assumed...

02:20:22.820 | A lot of people saw it for what it was. They saw that it was, like,

02:20:27.220 | the director doing a weird thing, and that it was kind of just weird and off, and, like,

02:20:32.020 | that doesn't make sense. Yeah, it seemed out of the blue, but so it was basically you joking

02:20:35.780 | around, like, flirting, almost. It made it seem like, as if we're still friendly.

02:20:40.660 | And there's more to come. It's almost like there's going to be a Bad Vegan 2.

02:20:48.900 | Right. Yeah, and then also, I mean, it made it seem like, you know, if I was laughing with him,

02:20:55.700 | that I don't take anything seriously, you know, that I don't take what happened seriously, or...

02:21:01.460 | Yeah, or don't feel any remorse, which is why the... Yeah, and after that, he goes to the

02:21:08.260 | credits with "Wild World," which is a great song. "Oh, baby, it's a wild world."

02:21:15.060 | I never got to hear that, because the version I watched didn't have the end credits, but

02:21:19.620 | I knew that they used that song at the end, and paid a lot for it.

02:21:25.700 | Yeah, yeah, I was like, "Oh, well, you got this song." Did you ever say what was the darkest thing

02:21:32.180 | about yourself that you discover from the book?

02:21:35.780 | Oh. No.

02:21:38.420 | We took attention upon attention upon attention.

02:21:39.380 | Right, because we started talking about, exactly, yeah, about the G-chats, and I think

02:21:43.380 | it was, I guess it was trying to understand how I was able to be sarcastic and make jokes

02:21:52.020 | at his expense while all that stuff was going on.

02:21:56.980 | Ah, so what is that? Have you figured out what that means about you?

02:22:05.940 | No. No, it just was interesting to look at, and also, I think,

02:22:12.180 | I have a tendency sometimes to be sort of jokingly hyperbolic or sarcastic,

02:22:23.540 | and it's gotten me into trouble. One time, I got locked up in the Harlem psych ward for a day,

02:22:35.780 | because of my hyperbole and sarcasm, and like this sort of lost in translation errors.

02:22:42.500 | That's a heck of a lost in translation error.

02:22:46.980 | Yeah.

02:22:47.480 | Did you say something funny to a therapist?

02:22:51.220 | Yeah, I mean, I was sort of making jokes about how bad I was feeling, but in a hyperbolic way,

02:22:58.180 | and so then suddenly, somebody told somebody, and then the lost in translation,

02:23:03.140 | and then they were worried that I might kill myself, and then did a wellness check,

02:23:07.140 | and then tried to call me, and I was in the shower, so I didn't answer the phone.

02:23:09.860 | So then somebody called the police to do a wellness check on me.

02:23:14.020 | Things just escalated.

02:23:16.740 | And then not knowing that if I had handled it the right, if I had immediately,

02:23:23.780 | if I'd sort of understood what was going on and handled it the right way immediately, I

02:23:29.540 | probably could have gotten out of it, but they err on the side of taking you to the hospital,

02:23:33.540 | no matter what.

02:23:34.020 | Makes a lot of sense.

02:23:34.740 | And I didn't know that. And it also...

02:23:36.740 | So you really leaned into the joke by going to the hospital?

02:23:40.180 | I didn't. It's sort of one of those situations that was both comical and tragic, because

02:23:46.420 | and would actually make a really good...

02:23:49.300 | It's weird how I do this sometimes. Like, it would make a really good scene in a filmed version.

02:23:56.980 | Who would play you in the film?

02:23:58.900 | Uh, I don't know. There is a thing being made that's...

02:24:02.260 | Sharon Stone?

02:24:02.980 | ...that's very interesting, because...

02:24:03.380 | Who would play?

02:24:04.260 | Because...

02:24:05.220 | Have you cast the scene yet?

02:24:07.300 | No, but there's a thing being made that I have nothing to do with, which is frustrating and weird.

02:24:14.180 | What film, about you?

02:24:15.060 | Like somebody's making a fictionalized drama, and it's frustrating because,

02:24:20.740 | for all kinds of obvious reasons, it's like annoying and...

02:24:25.220 | It can go any way.

02:24:26.500 | It could go any way.

02:24:27.460 | You could be like the bad guy.

02:24:28.820 | Inevitably, they'll get a bajillion things wrong.

02:24:31.860 | And there are also a bunch of people profiting off of it, and like, "Thanks, guys."

02:24:36.500 | So it's infuriating for all kinds of reasons.

02:24:41.460 | Do you know who's playing? Who are the actors?

02:24:44.020 | No, I don't even... I just don't. I'll inevitably know, but I don't really want to know.

02:24:49.060 | The whole thing is just annoying. And also, I've always...

02:24:52.420 | People ask me this all the time, and I always thought,

02:24:56.180 | because of the way everything that happened was such a kind of a slow build,

02:25:00.980 | and there was so much nuance, and it's kind of really hard to understand that

02:25:05.540 | it could only really be done well in like a Breaking Bad type of series, long, like a long

02:25:12.020 | series, where like you would be taken through these kind of gut-wrenching, icky, slow build

02:25:19.780 | things, and then that would make it all make sense.

02:25:23.860 | If it was done that way, it could be done accurately.

02:25:26.020 | But the reason why I think...

02:25:28.820 | So I made these stupid jokes, and then somebody did a wellness check, and...

02:25:34.740 | Or asked the police to do a wellness...

02:25:38.500 | Have you ever...

02:25:39.140 | When they knocked on my door and came in, it was like a repeat of getting arrested,

02:25:42.980 | so I sort of weirdly flashed back to that, and then burst into tears,

02:25:46.820 | which isn't the appropriate response if you're trying to diffuse a...

02:25:52.980 | If you're trying to discourage the people coming to do the wellness check from taking you to the

02:25:57.380 | hospital, starting to cry is not the right reaction.

02:26:02.340 | Well, the thing is, I mean, there is...

02:26:06.740 | It's funny, but it could be also through the joke.

02:26:10.180 | The joke, the best jokes are grounded in truth and pain, in this case, pain.

02:26:18.580 | Yeah.

02:26:19.140 | Right, so there...

02:26:21.860 | And truth.

02:26:22.740 | Have you ever, if I may ask, considered suicide?

02:26:29.220 | Yes.

02:26:30.260 | When?

02:26:35.320 | Well, I'm kind of a wimp, so I'm afraid of all of the gruesome ways, but...

02:26:44.500 | One of the things I remember doing is sort of hoarding medications, which I had when...

02:26:53.780 | Around the time and before he took me away, because I wanted the safety of an out.

02:27:03.700 | But around that time, so when Anthony went...

02:27:09.700 | That's the road trip right before the road trip from hell, you were hoarding...

02:27:12.980 | Around that time, yeah.

02:27:14.100 | Hoarding medication and...

02:27:15.220 | Like I, yeah, like if I could get my hands on any sort of weird medication, I would kind of hold on to it.

02:27:21.700 | And...

02:27:25.140 | To all the chaos that you go through.

02:27:26.260 | But I think I knew that it would be hard to do it that way.

02:27:28.980 | So I definitely thought about it, but I never...

02:27:32.420 | In that really tough time, you know, you're thinking about taking your own life,

02:27:44.500 | what gave you hope?

02:27:45.540 | What gave you sort of...

02:27:48.820 | Because the business, the restaurant that you give so much of yourself to is lost.

02:27:55.140 | You're lying to everybody.

02:27:57.460 | You're in the hole financially.

02:28:01.140 | You're being psychologically trapped, manipulated.

02:28:06.500 | I might just go kill myself now.

02:28:09.300 | Well, you're still there.

02:28:11.940 | (laughing)

02:28:13.940 | Please don't.

02:28:14.580 | See, I made a joke about it, like that's...

02:28:16.020 | There you go.

02:28:16.580 | But it's always there.

02:28:19.540 | It's the...

02:28:20.840 | Albert Camus, you know, says, you basically always have to be aggressively looking for a reason to live.

02:28:31.060 | Otherwise...

02:28:32.280 | What's the point?

02:28:34.820 | Yeah, otherwise it's easy to go the other way.

02:28:37.940 | Because why live is a very good question.

02:28:41.460 | But anyways, by way of hope, by way, you know, it's a dark time.

02:28:46.260 | It's a dark time.

02:28:48.580 | If you could sort of look back, what gave you just strength?

02:28:54.180 | I think that just, you know, just having like a sort of relentless optimism.

02:29:04.660 | And I think too that sometimes people assume that suicide is the result of circumstances,

02:29:12.100 | which maybe in some cases it is.

02:29:14.500 | But I think one of the things that that book explains well is that very often it doesn't

02:29:18.660 | have anything to do with circumstances.

02:29:20.020 | It's just the pain.

02:29:22.100 | Which book?

02:29:23.160 | The Darkness Visible.

02:29:24.980 | You know, because people like to...

02:29:27.460 | So when somebody commits suicide, people will very often criticize them like it was a selfish

02:29:32.820 | act if they have a family, which most people do, but especially if they have kids.

02:29:37.060 | And I think that, yeah, everybody's quick to sort of call the person who killed themselves

02:29:43.540 | selfish.

02:29:44.340 | And I think that the type of pain that one is experiencing that leads to that is something

02:29:52.580 | that most people, and I don't, like people don't understand.

02:29:55.460 | But it's not a selfish thing.

02:29:57.780 | It's just like quite literally becomes intolerable from what I understand.

02:30:02.580 | And it can hit you.

02:30:03.940 | It could be slow.

02:30:04.740 | It could be fast.

02:30:05.540 | Yes.

02:30:07.460 | That pain.

02:30:08.020 | Yes.

02:30:09.380 | So I think because for me it was more just my circumstances were so crappy.

02:30:16.900 | But also I had an awareness that, you know, even in Rikers I knew how wildly lucky I was

02:30:23.940 | to have, you know, family, a support system, you know, opportunities.

02:30:30.820 | And like I'll always be okay one way or another.

02:30:34.420 | So I felt lucky that I have that.

02:30:43.460 | But, you know, also I want, you know, the shame of everything that happened and, you

02:30:50.660 | know, will I ever be able to crawl out from under it and rebuild something?

02:30:55.620 | I don't know.

02:30:57.540 | So there were certainly times where, especially when I would learn something new, like reading

02:31:02.420 | the emails between Mr. Fox, my mother, I just wanted a--

02:31:06.260 | So he--

02:31:07.460 | I wanted like a meteor to hit my particular spot on the earth right then and there just

02:31:13.540 | because it was--

02:31:14.020 | He was manipulating your mom too because your mom loved you and was willing to give money.

02:31:20.900 | Yeah.

02:31:21.140 | Yeah.

02:31:22.020 | And it was really grotesque.

02:31:23.300 | And so, and I feel like it's my fault.

02:31:26.660 | What's your mom say about this whole situation now looking back?

02:31:30.260 | We don't talk about it as much as one would think that we would because I feel sickening

02:31:38.980 | because I feel like it's my fault.

02:31:40.340 | And I think she also feels sick over it.

02:31:44.100 | And so we don't talk about it as much as one might think.

02:31:47.300 | Sometimes I've had to ask questions in the process of writing the book.

02:31:50.580 | And then there are other things where like I could ask the questions, but I just don't

02:31:54.740 | want to because I don't want to put her through that or it's not really necessary to ask the

02:32:01.140 | questions, but there are things that I'm sort of curious about.

02:32:04.340 | But--

02:32:07.780 | When you went on that road trip from hell, what was that like?

02:32:15.540 | Where'd you guys go first?

02:32:16.980 | Vegas?

02:32:17.460 | So you drove from New York, where?

02:32:22.100 | It was a series of stops at like hotel, motel type places.

02:32:27.060 | I did a similar road trip, but from Boston.

02:32:29.620 | I drove across the United States with no destination.

02:32:33.540 | I had always wanted to do that.

02:32:34.980 | And now, again, I feel like it's one of those things that's sort of like ruined for me because

02:32:38.100 | a lot of--

02:32:39.140 | You know, you can always reclaim it.

02:32:40.580 | Yeah, I could.

02:32:42.340 | But now, yeah.

02:32:44.420 | I did think about like how one day if I did some sort of a book tour or something that

02:32:49.780 | I imagine this Leon and I in a car.

02:32:53.860 | It has to be different than--

02:32:55.860 | Man, book tours, if you're not careful, can suck the soul out of a human being.

02:33:08.500 | I think you have to do like a Hunter S. Thompson style

02:33:10.580 | book tour where you miss a bunch of the dates because you got too drunk the night before.

02:33:16.420 | But anyway--

02:33:17.300 | Or I just-- what I worry about is that I just would be feeling terrible in some way and

02:33:22.900 | not be up for it.

02:33:25.460 | Up for the trip or up for the speaking?

02:33:28.740 | For like a certain type of appearance.

02:33:31.060 | I think I'm always afraid of that in committing to things like if it involved

02:33:38.420 | going to a big public event.

02:33:41.860 | Yeah, I think you have to be very careful.

02:33:43.380 | Like podcast is an interesting one.

02:33:45.220 | I'm always surprised that people just jump on podcasts they haven't really listened to

02:33:49.140 | and just do a lot of podcasts, a kind of book tour.

02:33:53.700 | First of all, financially it doesn't make any sense.

02:33:56.340 | Especially going on small podcasts, like what's the benefit?

02:33:59.780 | Like really you want to go on just a couple of big podcasts that you're actually a fan of.

02:34:03.780 | Right.

02:34:04.580 | It's really, really, really important.

02:34:06.180 | People don't-- like they don't understand the power.

02:34:10.420 | I mean, maybe you just don't understand podcasting.

02:34:12.420 | But me as a fan of podcasts, it's like the biggest thing I love listening to is

02:34:18.260 | when a guest is a fan, they understand the culture, the style, the sound, the feel of

02:34:25.380 | the podcast.

02:34:26.020 | They understand the other person.

02:34:27.220 | They feel the pain, the hopes of the other person, the weird like quirks of the other

02:34:33.700 | person.

02:34:34.420 | It makes for much better listening.

02:34:36.340 | And ultimately the appearance itself is not just enough to sell the book.

02:34:39.940 | You have to-- you're selling yourself as a human being.

02:34:42.980 | And that requires having chemistry and all those kinds of things.

02:34:45.380 | Yeah, I agree.

02:34:46.580 | And podcast appearance is exhausting.

02:34:50.020 | Like you're giving a lot of yourself.

02:34:52.420 | It's intimate.

02:34:53.060 | It's deep.

02:34:53.700 | Like, I don't know.

02:34:54.260 | Anyway, road trip.

02:34:57.780 | You don't remember the motels and the hotels along the way?

02:35:00.340 | Well, there are a lot of things where like I'll remember things that happened,

02:35:04.260 | but I don't remember where it was.

02:35:06.260 | Things you drove without a destination, really.

02:35:09.460 | I assume he must have known ahead of time, but he made it seem like, "Oh, funny we

02:35:16.580 | ended up in Vegas."

02:35:17.540 | Funny how that happened.

02:35:20.260 | But now when I see all the places that we stopped, they were all places with-- where

02:35:26.020 | there were casinos.

02:35:26.980 | So there's a lot more casinos around the country than I knew.

02:35:33.220 | And they're-- so--

02:35:36.100 | So he had a gambling addiction?

02:35:38.020 | Yes, but I think that it's not-- so I think that regular people have gambling addictions,

02:35:45.620 | and it's a horrible, tragic thing and can destroy their lives.

02:35:49.060 | And I know people who've-- like regular people can have a gambling addiction, which is explained

02:35:56.260 | in the way that addictions are explained.

02:35:59.220 | For him, I don't think it was so much an addiction as like a thrill-seeking, because he could

02:36:07.700 | win money, lose money, and he didn't really care.

02:36:09.860 | Whereas somebody who has an actual addiction and then all normal people with normal human

02:36:16.660 | emotions, you know, would either be elated and relieved or devastated to lose a lot of

02:36:25.540 | money.

02:36:25.860 | And for him, it didn't really care.

02:36:28.340 | It was more-- again, I think it was more just like a game.

02:36:30.580 | Like what was going through your mind here?

02:36:33.220 | Like, would you be on the run?

02:36:34.660 | Did you feel like you were on the run?

02:36:35.860 | No.

02:36:37.460 | Did you know you were on the run?

02:36:38.660 | No.

02:36:40.660 | So I didn't know that-- I mean, the other thing is the restaurant was operating, and

02:36:46.980 | he took me away.

02:36:48.340 | And then like people weren't paid, and it all sort of fell apart.

02:36:53.060 | And you weren't checking your texts or any of that?

02:36:55.860 | No.

02:36:57.060 | And then he had my phone and my email.

02:37:00.340 | I did later on get-- later on, I got a brand new phone, like an empty phone with no existing

02:37:09.780 | numbers in it or whatnot, so that he and I could communicate when I went to the grocery

02:37:18.500 | store or something like that.

02:37:19.460 | What was the reason he had the phone?

02:37:22.500 | What was the narrative, the story that he was taking over your phone?

02:37:27.140 | How did you allow that to happen?

02:37:33.860 | Or maybe a better way to ask is, how did he make that happen?

02:37:38.500 | Well, I was conditioned to it before, because before he was always checking my phone, which

02:37:47.860 | was wildly infuriating.

02:37:50.180 | And I feel like--

02:37:51.060 | You fixed it by giving him the phone.

02:37:55.220 | Well, I mean, the conditions were different later on.

02:37:59.300 | But in some sense, I didn't want my phone, because everything-- like I was in a state

02:38:02.980 | of shock.

02:38:03.780 | And it was just like, take it, fine.

02:38:06.260 | Like, I'd give up.

02:38:07.060 | Like, I guess I'd given up.

02:38:08.340 | And so, yeah, I'd given up.

02:38:12.420 | So there was no-- like I wasn't going to fight back on anything.

02:38:16.500 | Before, when he would take my phone and look through it, it was infuriating.

02:38:20.100 | And he sort of forced me to get used to it.

02:38:23.620 | And this is, again, something that people who've been in cults would understand, because

02:38:28.900 | it's like they condition you to not react negatively to things that you would normally

02:38:33.780 | react negatively to.

02:38:34.820 | And if I was in a relationship-- like, if somebody-- I would never, ever look in somebody's

02:38:44.180 | phone.

02:38:45.780 | And if somebody did that to me, I would be like, goodbye.

02:38:49.540 | So I'm pretty sensitive about that.

02:38:53.700 | And so it was very infuriating when he would take my phone and look at it.

02:38:59.220 | And it got to the point where not only did I feel like everything I said or wrote or

02:39:06.820 | emailed digitally or whatnot would be read, but he got me to the point of feeling like

02:39:14.500 | I was being watched all the time in a non-explainable way.

02:39:20.580 | Yeah, what were some of the-- you didn't mention them-- the documentary touched on some of

02:39:25.940 | them.

02:39:26.180 | What are some of the fantastical stories?

02:39:28.980 | So he mentioned that he might help make Leon immortal.

02:39:34.660 | What--

02:39:36.740 | All of that was always really vague, intentionally.

02:39:40.340 | Like a lot of what he talked about was always very vague.

02:39:43.780 | But a lot of that stuff was very vague.

02:39:46.420 | And again, like--

02:39:47.620 | But convincing.

02:39:48.500 | Slowly over time.

02:39:49.860 | And a lot of those things, too, are things that, you know, conveniently you kind of can't

02:39:56.580 | disprove.

02:39:57.220 | So it's almost like, you know, people believe in God or religious people believe certain

02:40:02.900 | things.

02:40:03.220 | And so one could argue, why is it that much crazier for me to have been open to the idea

02:40:11.860 | that, you know, maybe Leon, maybe we do live forever in some way when a lot of religious

02:40:18.980 | people have similar beliefs.

02:40:20.900 | So one of the-- the other thing is he was-- maybe you can correct me, but reincarnated

02:40:27.620 | or something like that?

02:40:28.500 | Or like--

02:40:30.580 | He acted like he had lived many lifetimes and had all kinds of wisdom from having lived

02:40:39.540 | all these prior lifetimes and being aware of it.

02:40:44.020 | So was that-- and it was vague, but it was somehow believable?

02:40:49.460 | Or is it just like part of the charm?

02:40:51.140 | Like what-- how do you-- how do you not call bullshit?

02:40:57.860 | I know.

02:40:59.620 | Well, not necessarily bullshit.

02:41:02.100 | I understand when you're smitten in whatever way.

02:41:06.900 | But like a little more details, proof, I suppose it's easy to just, you know, like put it off

02:41:17.780 | for later.

02:41:18.340 | Assume that more details will come later.

02:41:21.060 | Right.

02:41:21.380 | I think he's a mentalist or an illusionist named Darren Brown.

02:41:25.860 | And it was on a Joe Rogan podcast.

02:41:29.860 | I think Joe interviewed Darren Brown.

02:41:32.100 | I think Sam Harris interviewed him.

02:41:35.540 | I got really intrigued.

02:41:37.060 | And then I was looking for other podcasts or maybe Joe interviewed him like right after.

02:41:42.660 | I may have gone looking for it.

02:41:44.420 | But anyway, it was in the-- it was in the conversation with Joe where Darren explains

02:41:48.340 | he's somebody I would love to meet, a mentalist and illusionist, because they understand a

02:41:54.580 | lot of the ways in which the mind can be manipulated.

02:41:56.580 | So I feel like they would-- if they looked at everything about my situation, they would

02:42:00.900 | be able to understand better how he was able to get me to believe things or go along with

02:42:07.300 | things.

02:42:07.540 | Because Darren Brown is pretty fascinating what he does.

02:42:11.700 | And he's really seems like a very kind person.

02:42:14.900 | And he's very open about it.

02:42:16.420 | And when he was talking to Joe, he said this thing that-- and I use this quote in my book.

02:42:21.940 | And again, I'm paraphrasing because I don't have it in front of me.

02:42:27.460 | But it's like he says something about how we want to believe the lie because we'd rather

02:42:35.860 | believe that it's something amazing than just that ugly and pathetic a lie.

02:42:40.580 | And I-- whatever he said was said in a much better way.

02:42:45.220 | But the point is like that's-- and so he was explaining it in the context of the way that

02:42:50.500 | an illusionist or whatever they're called is able to pull off certain things, which

02:42:56.820 | is that they're sort of-- it was about somebody who was watching and watched them-- watched

02:43:02.900 | that person sort of leverage people's tendency to want to believe that something amazing

02:43:09.780 | and cool is about to happen versus like this is just a really ugly, pathetic lie.

02:43:14.260 | So I think that a lot of the things that Mr. Fox-- that he put forward, I couldn't understand

02:43:24.100 | it from the perspective of it being a lie because it just seemed too weird and crazy.

02:43:28.660 | So I think that this happens sometimes where you believe somebody because it seems so weird

02:43:36.740 | that they would lie about it.

02:43:39.140 | I think that somebody has-- or it's been said sometimes that like the more fantastical the

02:43:44.260 | lie, the more believable it is because you don't believe that somebody would tell that

02:43:49.700 | lie.

02:43:50.580 | And I think something also that Mr. Fox-- people like him are capable of doing is going

02:43:56.740 | out and lying in very brazen ways that normal people would be terrified to do.

02:44:01.220 | That kind of also makes it more believable.

02:44:03.860 | Yeah.

02:44:04.500 | So if somebody could go out on a world stage and lie and not kind of feel weird about that

02:44:12.580 | or even knowing that it's a lie that can be pointed out as being a lie.

02:44:19.780 | And then there's also the layer of to what extent is this person in some way also delusional

02:44:26.340 | themselves and sort of believing their lies?

02:44:28.420 | Because people have asked me that and I've wondered the same thing.

02:44:30.500 | To what extent did he believe some of the stuff he was saying?

02:44:34.100 | And I think probably there was some sort of delusional aspect, almost like he was sort

02:44:40.820 | of halfway aware of playing his own sort of virtual reality game.

02:44:48.500 | Like he was in some kind of metaverse in his brain.

02:44:51.540 | So you think he believed some of the things he was saying?

02:44:53.700 | In some way, yeah.

02:44:55.780 | Or he wanted to.

02:44:58.420 | Because he wanted to be his own-- he wanted to be a superhero.

02:45:02.020 | He never built anything or created anything or accomplished anything in his life.

02:45:06.500 | Yet, so in his own brain, if he could turn himself into a movie superhero--

02:45:13.300 | It's a nice shortcut.

02:45:14.260 | What about the Navy SEAL thing?

02:45:16.340 | Did that ever get resolved?

02:45:18.660 | You know, the lie that he-- no, he said that he's a Navy SEAL.

02:45:26.020 | I don't remember.

02:45:27.220 | I don't know if he said he was a Navy SEAL or that he implied that he worked with the

02:45:32.260 | CIA or then it was like he worked with black ops that is by definition under the radar.

02:45:38.100 | Right?

02:45:39.300 | So I mean, that's obviously a huge red flag now going forward is like if somebody--

02:45:45.460 | first of all, if somebody tells you that information pretty quickly, that's itself a red flag.

02:45:49.860 | But I mean--

02:45:51.860 | All right, cross that off my list of pick up lines.

02:45:56.660 | But you know, conveniently, if he say in some world he actually did work for like Blackwater,

02:46:06.100 | one of those places, or--

02:46:07.140 | Yeah.

02:46:08.740 | I wouldn't be able to just call someplace and verify it.

02:46:14.020 | Anyway, so I think that in some psychological way that I don't understand, he probably did

02:46:22.660 | in some way halfway exist in this world where he was this, you know, like fighter.

02:46:30.980 | And he would say things like, it's because of people like me that people like you can

02:46:35.220 | sleep at night, which is probably a line out of a movie that I've never seen.

02:46:38.900 | I feel like a lot of things--

02:46:39.940 | That's great.

02:46:40.340 | That's a great-- that's funny.

02:46:42.500 | That is a-- who said that?

02:46:44.820 | That's--

02:46:45.780 | Is that really a line out of a movie?

02:46:47.780 | It's not a movie.

02:46:48.580 | You know, what would happen at Rikers is when these things would happen where one of us

02:46:55.220 | couldn't think of something and you're like, oh, who was that actor in that movie and that thing?

02:46:58.740 | No.

02:46:59.860 | And so what we do is like somebody would be on the phone and you'd be like, hey, who are

02:47:04.660 | you talking to?

02:47:05.540 | Can you ask them to look up on their phone?

02:47:08.260 | So we'd ask people on the phone or somebody would go make a call and, you know, you'd

02:47:12.820 | have to call somebody and ask them to Google the cast of a movie or something like that.

02:47:17.380 | I think you would find jail-- don't ever get arrested or try not to, but I think you would

02:47:20.820 | find jail fascinating.

02:47:22.500 | Oh, I always wanted to go to jail, prison, because there's a lot of elements to it and

02:47:28.340 | I'll ask you questions about it, but I feel like I can get a lot of reading done.

02:47:31.780 | I got a ton of reading done.

02:47:34.020 | Yeah, yeah, yes.

02:47:34.660 | I remember now.

02:47:35.780 | People attribute this to George Orwell, but they're not sure if George Orwell ever said

02:47:40.260 | it, but it's something like there's a lot of different variations, but we sleep safely

02:47:45.860 | at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us.

02:47:50.500 | And there's a lot of variations of this, but basically we depend-- our entire society depends

02:47:56.900 | on bad motherfuckers who are willing to fight to protect our freedoms, to protect our

02:48:03.700 | well-being, and one of the things about the United States is because we're surrounded

02:48:09.300 | by water, we don't get to see the violence that's required in part to protect the sovereignty

02:48:17.940 | of nations.

02:48:18.580 | You mentioned that I would-- not to go to prison, but that I may enjoy my time there.

02:48:29.140 | Let me ask you--

02:48:29.940 | By the way, I love prison movies.

02:48:33.060 | You would find it fascinating.

02:48:34.260 | I don't because it's still kind of too soon, but--

02:48:38.820 | Well, how was your time?

02:48:39.780 | You spent three and a half months at Rikers.

02:48:43.700 | How was that?

02:48:44.740 | How was your experience in prison?

02:48:46.660 | How's the food from a chef perspective?

02:48:51.380 | Not good, but Rikers was-- when I got to Rikers-- so I was arrested.

02:48:59.460 | I spent, I think, about 10 days in a small town Tennessee jail.

02:49:03.780 | Oh, Pigeon Forge is also the weirdest place on earth.

02:49:09.220 | Is it a town?

02:49:10.260 | Yes, it's a town where I was arrested.

02:49:11.860 | Why is it so weird?

02:49:13.220 | In the film, I told them, "You have to go to Pigeon Forge.

02:49:18.660 | You have to go there.

02:49:19.300 | You have to go there."

02:49:20.260 | And I think I was pushing them because it was going to potentially be the end of the

02:49:25.380 | season. It's like a summertime or it's a tourist destination.

02:49:30.500 | And it's so bizarre and weird and trippy that it doesn't even seem real.

02:49:39.780 | Seems like a carnival is happening there nonstop.

02:49:42.180 | Exactly.

02:49:43.300 | I think I say that in my intro that it's carnivalesque and trippy and weird.

02:49:49.060 | Is there a lot of clowns walking around?

02:49:52.900 | Not necessarily clowns, but there is a video on YouTube that I-- because I got to the chapter

02:49:59.460 | where we arrive in Pigeon Forge, and I'll never forget, although I have forgotten,

02:50:04.500 | but I remember being like, weirdly, like, felt like we had entered a different universe,

02:50:12.580 | driving down this strip and just looking at everything on either side.

02:50:16.900 | And I'm wishing that I could remember in more detail, like, the names of the places or what

02:50:20.820 | was there, because I wanted to describe it in this chapter.

02:50:25.060 | And I was like, "I wish there was a video of somebody going down the street, kind of

02:50:29.620 | showing what's on one side and then the other side."

02:50:31.780 | And I was like, "There probably is."

02:50:33.940 | And there is on YouTube.

02:50:35.140 | Like, I found it and I watched the whole thing.

02:50:37.060 | How does this come up from prison exactly?

02:50:38.980 | Oh, okay.

02:50:41.540 | Why did that spark you?

02:50:42.340 | So that's the town that I went to jail in.

02:50:44.340 | Oh, right.

02:50:46.020 | In Tennessee.

02:50:46.660 | So--

02:50:47.460 | What was that like?

02:50:49.140 | The food there and some of the conditions, the food made--

02:50:55.060 | When I got to--

02:50:55.780 | Then I was extradited and transferred to Rikers.

02:50:58.980 | And when I got to Rikers, I felt like it was like the Four Seasons in comparison.

02:51:02.980 | Wow.

02:51:04.120 | And I really kind of appreciated a lot of things about New York when I got to Rikers,

02:51:12.420 | even though there are a lot of things that are very scary about it.

02:51:15.460 | Where's Rikers located?

02:51:17.540 | Is it close to New York City?

02:51:19.300 | Yes.

02:51:19.780 | And in a very kind of almost poetically interesting way,

02:51:24.260 | the dorm room where I was when I was there for the three and a half months

02:51:29.380 | was one of the ones that faced Manhattan.

02:51:31.380 | So I could go across the room and look out the window and see the whole Manhattan skyline.

02:51:36.660 | To the view.

02:51:37.220 | Which was--

02:51:38.660 | I remember being shocked by the cost per prisoner per year.

02:51:46.500 | Yes.

02:51:48.100 | That New York pays is like $400,000, $500,000 or something.

02:51:52.740 | I didn't think it was that much.

02:51:54.580 | I thought I wrote it down, but either way it is--

02:51:56.420 | No, I mean, it's elevated during COVID, which is fascinating, to that, the number I just said.

02:52:03.380 | Yeah.

02:52:04.760 | During COVID, I felt sick to my stomach thinking about people stuck there.

02:52:09.380 | And again, so Rikers isn't like a long-term prison.

02:52:12.340 | It's most of the people at Rikers are awaiting trial.

02:52:16.980 | And they've been arrested but not convicted.

02:52:19.300 | And then if you're convicted and you're sentenced to less than a year,

02:52:22.500 | then you put on a different color uniform and you go upstairs to different dorms.

02:52:26.180 | If you're convicted and sentenced to more than a year,

02:52:29.700 | you're sent to one of the upstate prisons.

02:52:31.540 | So most of the people at Rikers are there in transition.

02:52:35.540 | They've been arrested but not--

02:52:36.820 | They've been arrested but not convicted or awaiting trial.

02:52:42.820 | So you could be perfectly innocent and you're stuck there.

02:52:46.980 | And that happens to a lot of people.

02:52:48.420 | Or you could be arrested over some kind of comparatively petty thing or nonviolent thing

02:52:56.260 | and stuck there because you don't have as little as $500 to pay bail,

02:53:02.900 | which is completely messed up and unjust.

02:53:06.580 | And I think most people, most reasonable people agree that it's unjust.

02:53:11.940 | But it's different when you're there and you see those people and you see

02:53:16.020 | the anguish and whether--

02:53:20.580 | I mean, I have no idea if they're guilty of what--

02:53:22.420 | I mean, I usually don't know what people are there for, what the situation is.

02:53:26.900 | But you watch the sort of helplessness set in

02:53:32.500 | because you're kind of powerless there.

02:53:35.620 | You have very little contact with the outside world.

02:53:37.540 | You have these limited phone calls.

02:53:39.060 | And so for people who had kids and a job and an apartment,

02:53:43.300 | it's like one by one those things are lost or their kids are now being looked after

02:53:48.100 | by their abusive ex-husband or something like that.

02:53:50.740 | And so watching that is just gut-wrenching.

02:53:53.780 | And then also knowing that the only reason they're unable to get out

02:53:59.300 | is because of $1,000, $2,000, in some cases $500.

02:54:04.100 | There were people--

02:54:04.660 | So there's all of these tragic cases.

02:54:09.780 | But then there was also, while I was there--

02:54:12.820 | I mean, if I'd had any money, I would have been wanting to bail people out left and right.

02:54:16.340 | And then in some cases, I think there was a woman there who snored really loud

02:54:20.580 | and her bail was $500.

02:54:22.020 | And I was like, I wish I had him.

02:54:25.860 | I want to bail her.

02:54:26.820 | She just wanted to bail her out because I'm pretty sensitive to sounds.

02:54:31.460 | And being in a room with 50 people, inevitably--

02:54:34.020 | So you're in a room with a large number of people.

02:54:37.860 | Yeah, there are areas there with cells.

02:54:42.180 | But a lot of the areas there are rooms with 50 beds.

02:54:48.260 | And they're about three feet apart from each other.

02:54:50.660 | So during COVID, there was certainly no social distancing.

02:54:54.260 | And that just felt kind of sickening, especially because so many of the people

02:55:01.220 | are there for non-violent things or drug addiction-related or mental health issues.

02:55:09.940 | How did that-- you personally, just having spent that time there for three and a half months,

02:55:16.340 | how did that change you?

02:55:17.220 | Like, what-- did that have an effect on your mind?

02:55:22.980 | On my mind, personally, I think I was surprised at how well I adapted.

02:55:37.220 | And then how I was able to-- and then I think I sort of took it a next level when

02:55:42.420 | one of the books somebody sent me was The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer.

02:55:47.300 | And it's very much about observing your mind.

02:55:50.260 | And that kind of helped take it a next level.

02:55:55.220 | Was this like a meditation retreat for you?

02:55:57.940 | Well, it'd be like trying to meditate in the middle of a circus or in crazy circumstances.

02:56:06.900 | Because you're never alone.

02:56:08.340 | There's nowhere to be alone.

02:56:09.620 | And there's always--

02:56:10.100 | People are talking.

02:56:10.900 | There's noises.

02:56:11.700 | There's--

02:56:12.260 | Fighting, noises, chaos.

02:56:14.020 | Did you feel in danger?

02:56:16.260 | Yes.

02:56:19.320 | But I never felt terrified there.

02:56:27.620 | One of my friends-- the bathroom is the scary place, because they don't have cameras in the

02:56:33.220 | bathrooms.

02:56:36.100 | So that's sort of a-- one has to watch out there.

02:56:39.460 | And I did-- one of my friends who I-- one of the people I was friends with there, she did get

02:56:44.580 | beat up a bit in the bathroom one day.

02:56:48.180 | A lot of weird shit happened in the bathroom.

02:56:51.940 | But it was-- if you're interested in human behavior and psychology, and it can be fascinating

02:57:01.380 | to kind of sit there and watch things.

02:57:03.140 | You're saying you might enjoy prison for that perspective.

02:57:05.700 | You get to watch human nature at its-- I don't want to say that it's worse, but the full variety

02:57:14.260 | that it can take.

02:57:17.300 | Right.

02:57:17.540 | And there was a lot of beauty there as well.

02:57:19.620 | I mean--

02:57:20.260 | Was there love?

02:57:20.980 | People being-- well, again, it depends on the definition of love.

02:57:25.300 | But people being incredibly generous and kind to each other.

02:57:30.740 | Sometimes people singing at night.

02:57:34.660 | There was just a lot of-- and then there was a lot of hilarious stuff.

02:57:44.500 | It's just-- it's all there.

02:57:45.540 | There's like-- there's tragic things, interesting things.

02:57:51.220 | A lot of people with mental health issues, which can be difficult to witness.

02:57:58.420 | So a very different experience.

02:58:00.020 | I should ask you this, but somebody that's currently in prison, Galene Maxwell.

02:58:08.260 | I believe she spent approximately 500 days in isolation.

02:58:14.580 | So it's a very different prison experience.

02:58:19.860 | But what do you think about her case?

02:58:21.940 | What do you think about her and Jeffrey Epstein?

02:58:25.140 | She-- so her brother, her family, she says that she's a victim, not the monster.

02:58:36.020 | I think this is an especially fascinating case because-- and I have listened to podcasts about

02:58:44.740 | the Epstein situation.

02:58:46.500 | And there was one that was more focused on her by Vicki Ward that I would definitely

02:58:54.020 | listen to. Vicki Ward is a journalist.

02:58:58.820 | I think she'd written an article about Jeffrey Epstein for Vanity Fair.

02:59:01.860 | So she got to know Jeffrey Epstein.

02:59:03.300 | And then she knew Galene Maxwell from being sort of part of the

02:59:07.700 | social circle in which they would have overlapped.

02:59:11.940 | Have you, by the way, ever met them since this New York?

02:59:14.500 | Do you remember meeting this, you know, Jeffrey or Galene?

02:59:21.460 | No, I never met them.

02:59:23.140 | But they're also very much like this sort of Upper East Side crowd.

02:59:26.020 | I did meet Harvey Weinstein once that made me have all kinds of interesting thoughts later.

02:59:30.980 | At the restaurant or elsewhere?

02:59:33.060 | No, it was weird.

02:59:34.420 | It was out on the street.

02:59:35.460 | And we had this really strange interaction.

02:59:38.660 | And knowing what I know now, it was eerie.

02:59:43.700 | And also, like, had he contacted me after that and made it seem like he could have done

02:59:49.700 | something for me, like, would I have been, you know, say he said, "Oh, I'm gonna finance your

02:59:56.820 | whole expansion or something and, like, come to my, you know, come meet me at this hotel."

03:00:01.940 | And then I go to that hotel and he's like, "Come up to the room."

03:00:04.020 | And then I would have been like, "Uh."

03:00:05.060 | And you're wondering whether you would have done it.

03:00:08.420 | Yes.

03:00:10.180 | And sadly, I think I would have.

03:00:12.340 | And so I felt a lot of compassion for those who, you know, didn't yell at him and leave

03:00:23.540 | or didn't storm out.

03:00:24.500 | And because I think what happens in those situations is, you know, there's all kinds

03:00:34.660 | of uncertainty in the moment and you sort of freeze.

03:00:37.220 | And then you'll, if I'm probably one of those people that would sit there and somehow in

03:00:42.580 | the moment without clarity, just instinctively feel like somehow I must have done something

03:00:49.540 | wrong and it's my fault and like I led him on and are just being afraid.

03:00:55.380 | And then you don't know how to deal with it.

03:00:58.100 | And so you freeze.

03:01:00.980 | So I think that, you know, if you're somebody that maybe was raised differently or you have

03:01:08.580 | a lot of self-confidence or you might have reacted differently and kind of pushed him

03:01:15.780 | away and stormed out.

03:01:16.740 | But I am probably not one of those people.

03:01:21.620 | But I did not ever meet Jeffrey Epstein.

03:01:25.140 | But he seems very straightforwardly, you know, just a classic.

03:01:29.220 | The way he was able to charm people, the way he could step into these roles.

03:01:33.940 | You know, I think he was teaching at Dalton and then just kind of the way he would get

03:01:40.820 | himself into the academic crowd within Harvard and I think also MIT, right?

03:01:46.980 | He sort of, so he's playing a role, but he's doing it so well that he fools all these people.

03:01:54.020 | And the things that people would, in hindsight, say about him are just the same things that

03:02:00.740 | people say about, it's like you hear the same things over and over again.

03:02:03.940 | You hear the same things said about those people who were taken in by Elizabeth Holmes

03:02:08.180 | is that they were, it was as if he was under a spell.

03:02:12.020 | It was as if I was under a spell is something you hear a lot.

03:02:15.940 | And so it's like they have this powerful charm that's almost over, it's overwhelming in that

03:02:22.020 | they overwhelm your better judgment or they overwhelm your like normal, otherwise normally

03:02:30.340 | functioning capacity for rational thought.

03:02:33.700 | And they sort of overwhelm that with their charm.

03:02:36.260 | So, you know, when you look at, I think it was like James Mattis invested a bunch of

03:02:40.020 | money with Elizabeth Holmes and all these people were involved with her.

03:02:43.620 | And nobody really did their due diligence where they just sort of trusted her.

03:02:49.460 | And Jeffrey Epstein, I think it's still unclear where he got all of his money, but the guy

03:02:56.020 | Wexner, Les Wexner?

03:02:58.180 | Yeah, Les Wexner.

03:02:59.140 | Who had an enormous amount of money and somehow very quickly turned over management of it to

03:03:04.980 | Jeffrey Epstein.

03:03:06.180 | And so people wonder like, why would he do that?

03:03:08.020 | That's insane.

03:03:08.820 | And then other people have commented about that relationship.

03:03:13.700 | Like it was as if he was under Jeffrey's spell.

03:03:15.860 | Observers would say, I couldn't understand it.

03:03:18.580 | It was as if he was under his spell.

03:03:20.500 | And so somebody observing me and Mr. Fox could have possibly said the same thing about me.

03:03:26.420 | But it's a bit different because it wasn't all charm.

03:03:28.180 | I think Epstein used his charm and then was probably very, very, very crafty and getting

03:03:34.820 | another thing that people like him do and cults do also is to get you somehow compromised

03:03:43.220 | because then they've got you.

03:03:44.980 | So I think...

03:03:46.340 | Some kind of usually sex related.

03:03:48.820 | Yeah.

03:03:50.020 | And with Epstein, certainly, he was known to have cameras everywhere.

03:03:53.780 | And so if he got any of these people on camera doing something compromising and all very

03:03:59.300 | powerful people, then he's got them.

03:04:01.700 | And I think he was also very smart to do that to target people of both parties so that politically

03:04:10.260 | that he was able to maintain his power, like no matter...

03:04:12.980 | Nobody wanted him to be totally exposed because then people, a lot of people would be exposed.

03:04:21.380 | By the way, that part, that's all kind of conspiracy, right?

03:04:28.340 | Right.

03:04:29.300 | We don't know that.

03:04:30.180 | So a lot of people believe that.

03:04:34.180 | And I tend to kind of naturally believe that because it makes sense.

03:04:37.780 | But it's also possible that straight up with charisma.

03:04:41.540 | I mean, he did record people and there were recordings.

03:04:45.700 | So I listened to an interview with a woman who, I mean, was a girl back then.

03:04:51.380 | Maybe she was 15 or 16 back then.

03:04:53.300 | And subsequently, years later, was able to see some of the video of...

03:05:01.860 | I mean, I think that's a verifiable thing that there were video cameras all over his house.

03:05:06.260 | Yeah, but the degree to which it was used.

03:05:08.900 | Right.

03:05:09.940 | We don't know that.

03:05:10.660 | And to the degree of how many people were involved and so on.

03:05:16.660 | There's all kinds of conspiracies around the man.

03:05:19.140 | But the question about...

03:05:20.260 | Her.

03:05:21.220 | Her, Ghislaine.

03:05:22.900 | So I only know what I know from the inputs, which are...

03:05:26.900 | The Vicky Ward, it's one of the podcasts.

03:05:31.460 | It's a narrative podcast.

03:05:32.660 | So it's like an audio kind of a documentary or journalistic piece that she did and put out.

03:05:40.580 | I thought it was really, really well done.

03:05:42.740 | I think it's called Chasing Ghislaine.

03:05:44.260 | And I listened to that whole thing.

03:05:47.620 | I didn't intend to listen to it all in one stretch.

03:05:51.220 | That's how you know it's good.

03:05:52.100 | I mean, it was like a weekend and I basically was cleaning and doing other things and walking

03:05:57.380 | Leon and listening to it.

03:05:58.820 | And I got through it pretty quickly.

03:06:00.580 | But I got really fascinated by it because I don't know, but I think I feel...

03:06:07.700 | I find the whole situation gut-wrenching because I think Jeffrey Epstein is a straight up sociopath.

03:06:20.420 | No question.

03:06:21.940 | With her, everybody's calling her evil.

03:06:27.780 | And for her to have enabled and done a lot of the things that she did could potentially require...

03:06:36.020 | One might say that it could require a lack of empathy to be able to do those things knowingly.

03:06:43.700 | But at the same time, I think...

03:06:52.020 | The information that was conveyed in the Vicki Ward piece was fascinating to me because it's

03:06:58.180 | clear that at the very least, it's like all of these things could be true.

03:07:01.860 | She could maybe be not enough of a good person to have horribly victimized these young girls

03:07:09.460 | and destroy their lives.

03:07:10.900 | But she could have...

03:07:11.540 | I feel like I'm going to get bashed for saying this, but she could have in some way of not

03:07:17.300 | quite known what she was doing or been a bit out of her mind.

03:07:20.900 | Like manipulated, essentially.

03:07:22.980 | Maybe not.

03:07:23.940 | I'm just saying people...

03:07:24.820 | I would hope that people would be open to exploring that as a possibility.

03:07:31.140 | Well, her family and friends are making that case.

03:07:33.940 | They're painting a broad picture of who she is as a human being and showing that she couldn't

03:07:44.420 | have done any of those things without being systematically manipulated.

03:07:50.820 | That's their case.

03:07:52.020 | Right.

03:07:52.580 | What I listened to in that podcast about her relationship with her father, how her father

03:08:00.660 | died, her things about her childhood, and then Epstein coming into her life and basically

03:08:08.260 | pushing all those buttons and becoming the father figure.

03:08:13.380 | She would be in a position of kind of always wanting his approval.

03:08:16.180 | And just the way that...

03:08:19.700 | Things that are described about the way that she was so subservient to him in this kind

03:08:31.540 | of astonishing way that seems really weird and abnormal.

03:08:35.700 | And yet, I think she had a lot of money and connections.

03:08:39.700 | And I think she lost the money but had all the connections.

03:08:42.580 | Either way, there was a lot, a ton that Epstein gained via his relationship with her, a ton.

03:08:50.500 | So it makes sense that he would have manipulated her.

03:08:55.140 | He manipulates everybody.

03:08:56.900 | So without question, I think one could argue he definitely manipulated her.

03:09:01.780 | And again, I want to be careful not to be saying that's an excuse for what she did.

03:09:08.660 | I just think that...

03:09:11.060 | That's one possibility.

03:09:12.660 | It's important to explore these things and be open to them as opposed to just

03:09:17.460 | broad brush painting her as a horrible person.

03:09:20.740 | I mean, because people could say that based on things they've read or things that I did

03:09:26.660 | that I'm a horrible person.

03:09:28.260 | And it's very different because what she did involved young girls whose lives were destroyed.

03:09:38.980 | But I think that people could be a bit open to understanding how somebody could be manipulated.

03:09:48.020 | There's a psychologist that I'm friends with that I got to know after I watched him on

03:09:55.940 | Leah Remini's show.

03:09:58.740 | So Leah Remini is the actress who was in Scientology, got out, and has really been speaking

03:10:04.340 | out about it and trying to expose what they're all about and how diabolical that organization

03:10:10.340 | is.

03:10:10.820 | And a lot of people are exposing them and doing this type of work.

03:10:16.580 | And so she had this guy on her show who was in the Moonies.

03:10:20.180 | His name is Steve Hassen.

03:10:22.980 | And so he was in a cult.

03:10:26.340 | And then he got out, again, by extreme circumstances.

03:10:29.620 | He got in a car accident and almost died.

03:10:31.300 | And that's what ended up getting him out of the cult that he was in.

03:10:35.380 | But really smart guy, was targeted when he was young, got pulled into the Moonies.

03:10:40.580 | But watching this interview of him on her show, he said, he's talking about his experience,

03:10:47.380 | and he said, "If they had told me to kill somebody, I would have."

03:10:50.740 | And that, in that moment, made me cry.

03:10:54.340 | But I also felt like I understand that.

03:10:59.220 | And not that if Mr. Fox had told me to kill somebody, I don't think I would have.

03:11:02.740 | But again, I understand how it could get to that point.

03:11:05.780 | So that makes me feel like with her, like I would be curious what Steve Hassen would

03:11:14.420 | think kind of analyzing the entire situation.

03:11:16.740 | Because it's hard to understand that unless you've been in it.

03:11:20.180 | And I understand with him how he could have said that.

03:11:23.460 | If they had told me to kill somebody, I would have.

03:11:25.860 | That's pretty intense.

03:11:27.860 | I mean, that's pretty extreme.

03:11:29.060 | And it's interesting how you can get into it, how far you can go just one day at a time,

03:11:35.540 | like gradually.

03:11:36.420 | Just like the frog in the boiling water.

03:11:41.300 | So fascinating.

03:11:42.820 | All of these cases are fascinating, like Patty Hearst, that whole story.

03:11:45.860 | Well, I'm just also, I just, it's already a while ago, reread "The Rise and Fall of

03:11:53.140 | the Third Reich."

03:11:54.420 | I've been reading a lot, a lot about Hitler and Goebbels.

03:11:58.420 | For a long time, working on a series about Hitler and the Third Reich.

03:12:05.700 | Because for me, it's like returning.

03:12:08.340 | So much of my family was destroyed or impacted by this time in history.

03:12:16.180 | That it is somehow a way to find out more about myself, is going back to that time.

03:12:24.340 | Have you ever thought about inherited trauma?

03:12:26.180 | This sounds, not to mock people, but this sounds like a thing that...

03:12:38.900 | Like a woke thing?

03:12:40.900 | Like a woke thing, yeah.

03:12:43.140 | I don't mean it that way at all, but I get it.

03:12:45.300 | Because sometimes, now when I say, now I almost have to put air quotes when I say something's

03:12:50.260 | triggering, because I feel like I'm using a word that's now overused or used in less

03:12:57.140 | serious...

03:12:57.460 | So now when I say something's triggering, it's like I use air quotes.

03:13:01.700 | Yeah, it's funny, because good words get taken up and then they get destroyed.

03:13:05.780 | People are overusing gaslighting.

03:13:07.540 | And I worry that that would happen with sociopathy.

03:13:10.740 | I think people need to understand sociopathy.

03:13:12.820 | I think it's critical for humanity that people understand it.

03:13:16.740 | Yeah, so just because you're being an asshole doesn't mean you're sociopathic.

03:13:19.220 | Doesn't mean you're sociopathic, exactly.

03:13:20.660 | And I feel like it's going to be this thing where now everybody's going to start calling

03:13:23.540 | everybody else a sociopath and it's like, "Ugh."

03:13:25.860 | And right now everybody calls everything gaslighting.

03:13:28.740 | If somebody's lying, it's not gaslighting.

03:13:30.740 | I have to talk...

03:13:31.540 | We started talking about, I already forgot, fluff.

03:13:34.260 | Is it fluff?

03:13:35.140 | It's fluff, right?

03:13:36.100 | Fluff, yeah.

03:13:37.060 | Fluff, yeah.

03:13:37.780 | Okay, so that was great.

03:13:39.860 | That's a new discovery for me.

03:13:41.220 | Let's talk about food a little bit, if we can.

03:13:44.340 | You know what?

03:13:46.980 | Let's talk about restaurants first.

03:13:48.260 | What... that's the fascinating part of the story before anything else, which is opening

03:13:55.300 | exceptionally successful restaurant in NYC, New York City.

03:13:59.940 | What's that take?

03:14:00.980 | What does it take to open up from the very beginning, from the idea stage to the launching

03:14:07.700 | it, both the finances and the skill of actually getting people super excited by it and then

03:14:13.700 | running it, all that chaos.

03:14:15.700 | I mean, to me, am I over-romanticizing, but it seems like New York City is a really tough

03:14:20.020 | place to launch a restaurant in.

03:14:23.460 | Yes, very.

03:14:24.340 | Well, I think because it's extremely competitive and the standards are so high.

03:14:29.140 | So I think that's why there are so many good restaurants in New York, because if they're

03:14:36.260 | not good, they're not going to survive.

03:14:37.700 | So even like you could walk into what looks like a hole in the wall and it's going to

03:14:42.740 | have amazing food.

03:14:44.820 | That happens a lot.

03:14:47.060 | So what was the menu?

03:14:47.940 | So was it a raw... was it vegan and raw from the beginning?

03:14:52.420 | Yeah, it was.

03:14:54.100 | And raw means what?

03:14:55.620 | Now I'm getting thrown back to all the interviews I did when people asked me these questions.

03:14:58.900 | It was so long ago.

03:14:59.700 | At the time...

03:15:01.620 | What's it like being vegan?

03:15:02.900 | So nothing was cooked over roughly 118 degrees.

03:15:09.860 | It was this very like... the world of... there were people who are hardcore raw foodists

03:15:15.140 | and there's also people who are hardcore vegans, and I was never any of those things.

03:15:20.500 | So I think what we did...

03:15:23.380 | You weren't the hardcore part?

03:15:24.740 | Yeah.

03:15:25.240 | You weren't.

03:15:26.520 | But you... like, what parts of your life were you a vegan?

03:15:31.060 | Are you still a vegan?

03:15:32.100 | Do you eat meat?

03:15:32.820 | Are you a vegetarian?

03:15:35.380 | Are you raw?

03:15:36.020 | Good question.

03:15:38.500 | I don't apply labels.

03:15:41.140 | So none of those labels would apply because it's...

03:15:43.460 | Male and female, that's... I'm beyond those labels myself as well.

03:15:47.620 | But I'm a carnivore most of the time.

03:15:55.140 | There you go.

03:15:56.900 | It's the opposite of vegan, unfortunately.

03:15:58.740 | But no judgment.

03:15:59.460 | I think that's a beautiful thing to be, is vegan.

03:16:01.780 | Likewise, I think that it's people who are very adamantly one way or the other.

03:16:07.220 | I think that after all my years in this world in general,

03:16:15.060 | and also consuming an enormous amount of inputs and podcasts about health,

03:16:22.020 | I love listening to different points of view.

03:16:23.860 | So I love when somebody's arguing vegan and then somebody's arguing carnivore.

03:16:27.460 | Or even with other issues, I like listening to what other people...

03:16:32.260 | opposing sides, assuming they're both intelligent, interesting sources.

03:16:36.580 | Especially when they're...

03:16:37.380 | I love it when they're really testing that diet,

03:16:41.700 | meaning they're athletes or in some way really testing it.

03:16:46.660 | Not just vaguely saying what's healthy or not for you,

03:16:49.060 | but really what is life like under this particular diet?

03:16:53.220 | Yeah. And I think that probably everybody's different.

03:16:56.740 | And so in the same way that some people tolerate...

03:17:00.180 | Some people can't tolerate nightshades, or some people can't tolerate certain spices,

03:17:05.540 | or some people can't tolerate gluten, or some people thrive off of this or that.

03:17:10.500 | And I've heard it said and discussed that there's a great deal to what your body's used to,

03:17:19.140 | what your ancestors ate, where...

03:17:21.140 | Because it seems like the human body is pretty adaptable.

03:17:25.060 | So you can adapt to eating a certain type of food.

03:17:30.820 | And so that if your family comes from a certain part of the world

03:17:36.100 | where certain things aren't grown, or more meat is eaten, or...

03:17:39.460 | Because there's people who are vegan their entire lives,

03:17:42.980 | and they're incredibly healthy, and they thrive.

03:17:45.060 | And there's athletes, and there's people like Rich Roll, who I like, who's vegan and an athlete.

03:17:50.500 | But it might be something where that's working really well for him,

03:17:55.300 | but it wouldn't work well for somebody else.

03:17:57.140 | And I think there's also an element of people who try these things

03:18:00.580 | and then feel really good, or feel really bad.

03:18:04.020 | And they make a conclusion based on that initial period of time,

03:18:08.100 | when it might be something where it makes you feel really good temporarily,

03:18:11.700 | but then over time, you're going to be depleted of certain things.

03:18:15.300 | And then we also live in a world where our soil is depleted,

03:18:18.900 | and there's a lot of processing that takes out of foods, a lot of things that we need.

03:18:23.700 | So I just think that there's no one right answer.

03:18:30.340 | You can look at it from just a health perspective,

03:18:32.340 | and then you can also look at it from a morality and ethics perspective.

03:18:35.700 | And then also, what's the impact on the environment?

03:18:37.700 | And all those things are important.

03:18:39.380 | And I think that I've watched a lot of films and things, and for a while right after that,

03:18:45.940 | I might think, "Oh my God, I can't believe I ate this thing last week,

03:18:49.060 | and now I'm going to go back to being 100% vegan,

03:18:51.780 | because I just watched this thing, and it's fresh in my mind.

03:18:54.420 | And now I'm thinking about it in a certain way."

03:18:56.340 | But then over time, that sort of fades, and then you start to get a bit more loose.

03:19:01.220 | And for me, I will end up eating a lot of things that aren't vegan,

03:19:11.780 | usually in the context where I'm not adding to the consumption of it.

03:19:17.140 | So like at Rikers, most of the meat there was kind of weird and fake,

03:19:24.340 | but there was like a chicken every Thursday and Sunday.

03:19:29.220 | There was actual chicken, like the leg.

03:19:32.740 | Was that the most exciting thing for people?

03:19:34.580 | Oh yeah, oh, and then the most fights broke out on chicken day,

03:19:37.540 | because there was like heightened...

03:19:38.500 | Thursday and Sunday, you said?

03:19:39.780 | Yeah.

03:19:40.180 | Chicken day.

03:19:40.740 | So that was the most real meat you're getting is the chicken.

03:19:46.180 | Yeah, a lot of the rest of it.

03:19:47.060 | Chicken breast or dark, white or dark meat?

03:19:50.420 | Dark is the leg and the thigh.

03:19:53.620 | And it was cooked surprisingly well.

03:19:55.540 | And so I would always eat it.

03:19:58.340 | I don't know.

03:19:58.980 | I mean, it's there, and it's not...

03:20:02.580 | From a health perspective, one could say, "Well, that's probably the shittiest of the

03:20:06.660 | shitty chickens that are full of antibiotics and hormones and terrible things."

03:20:10.100 | So it's not optimal from that point of view.

03:20:12.980 | But it's like if it's otherwise going to be thrown in the trash, then...

03:20:18.660 | Yeah, you're not adding to it.

03:20:20.660 | Right.

03:20:20.980 | Or like I've been drunk at a party and eaten a bunch of stuff that one would think I would

03:20:26.580 | never eat.

03:20:27.060 | Yeah.

03:20:28.500 | But it's not like I ran to the store and bought it or went to a restaurant and ordered it.

03:20:31.780 | Or the same, liquor makes me eat things I shouldn't be eating.

03:20:34.980 | Oh yeah.

03:20:36.020 | Or maybe should.

03:20:36.900 | Well, I think...

03:20:38.660 | Life is...

03:20:39.060 | As you wrote me in the email, life is complicated and fascinating, and so was our decisions

03:20:45.940 | when we're drunk.

03:20:46.660 | I actually am a big fan of 7-Eleven.

03:20:50.820 | I go there sometimes late at night to think about life, and I'll eat whatever the stuff

03:20:57.220 | they have.

03:20:58.020 | I also think it's fascinating how our bodies intuitively know if you're quiet enough, and

03:21:04.580 | you think about what you're craving.

03:21:06.500 | Yeah.

03:21:06.820 | And as long as it's not like...

03:21:07.620 | It tells you.

03:21:08.420 | If you're craving some processed junky food, that's probably something that's not quite

03:21:12.980 | functional.

03:21:14.820 | Sometimes I'll be like, "I must have avocado," or I'll want to eat an entire parsley salad.

03:21:22.180 | And then it's happened.

03:21:22.900 | I went through a phase where...

03:21:24.100 | And here I'm like, "Do I say this out loud?"

03:21:27.940 | I went through a phase of...

03:21:29.460 | Are you gonna say it?

03:21:30.420 | Where I was...

03:21:31.220 | I know, now I have to say it.

03:21:32.420 | Where I couldn't get enough...

03:21:36.100 | I don't know where it started, whose house I was at or whatever, but grass-fed butter.

03:21:43.300 | I was like, I could tell that my body wanted whatever was there.

03:21:47.140 | And so I suppose I could have investigated it and thought, "Well, what's in there?

03:21:51.460 | Is it vitamin K, vitamin D?

03:21:53.460 | What is it in the grass-fed butter?"

03:21:54.740 | 'Cause it wasn't regular...

03:21:55.700 | Regular butter, ew, no.

03:21:57.300 | But this grass-fed butter, I felt like I just wanted, I needed it.

03:22:01.300 | So there's probably something in there, and maybe I could have gone and just taken a lot

03:22:04.260 | of vitamin K and then not eaten the butter.

03:22:06.500 | But...

03:22:06.660 | But there is something in there that's fascinating.

03:22:09.460 | I had that last night, actually, with...

03:22:11.620 | I went to a grocery store and I had a craving for tomatoes.

03:22:16.260 | I was like, "What the hell is this?"

03:22:18.660 | Like, what?

03:22:20.260 | I don't...

03:22:20.500 | Right, so I think you should listen to that and then just get a bunch of tomatoes,

03:22:24.260 | 'cause there's probably something in there.

03:22:25.620 | It was like...

03:22:26.820 | It felt right.

03:22:29.060 | When I was little, my mother...

03:22:30.420 | No, but that's exactly what I was saying, is that somehow your body knows without you

03:22:34.900 | knowing.

03:22:35.620 | And today I have zero interest in tomatoes.

03:22:38.660 | Yeah.

03:22:39.060 | Did you eat the tomatoes, though?

03:22:40.100 | Yeah, yeah, yeah.

03:22:40.580 | Okay, well, then you probably...

03:22:41.940 | I ate way too many, but that's all right.

03:22:43.380 | Or maybe not enough.

03:22:45.940 | There you go.

03:22:46.980 | So yeah, what you were saying?

03:22:49.300 | Anyway, I think these things shift and change, and there's not a right answer.

03:22:54.020 | And then there's something where it's like one person might do well on something, another

03:22:57.620 | person doesn't.

03:22:59.300 | Or you might do well on something for...

03:23:01.060 | I might...

03:23:02.420 | Maybe if I ate a bunch of liver, I'd feel better because I'm getting vitamins that I

03:23:07.860 | don't... that I'm lacking.

03:23:09.620 | But then once I get them, I'm fine and I don't need that anymore.

03:23:13.300 | And I could potentially get those from other sources or...

03:23:16.260 | But yeah, when I was little, I used to crave...

03:23:21.540 | My mother said I craved...

03:23:23.220 | Not craved, but she said I would always eat sardines, but I wouldn't eat the pieces.

03:23:28.340 | I would only eat the whole ones, which have the bones in them.

03:23:31.860 | And I used to chew on chicken bones and try to eat eggshells when I was little.

03:23:37.540 | So I think all of those things have calcium and other minerals in common.

03:23:43.220 | So there's probably something there that I needed.

03:23:44.820 | Because you'd think as a little kid, I wouldn't be drawn to oily fish and bones and eggshells.

03:23:51.700 | Yeah, it's interesting because you're saying the explanation for the craving is probably

03:23:55.860 | the nutrients you're getting.

03:23:57.300 | But when you're imagining the craving, you're not obviously imagining the nutrients, you're

03:24:01.620 | imagining the texture, the taste, the feel.

03:24:05.460 | A lot of the things that we actually experience as we're eating, that's our brain probably

03:24:10.180 | tricking us.

03:24:11.060 | Right, but do you love tomatoes?

03:24:12.740 | Well, I think we determined that love is impossible to define.

03:24:19.620 | Are you extremely fond of...

03:24:22.580 | Do you think tomatoes are one of the most delicious foods?

03:24:25.140 | No, no.

03:24:25.700 | But maybe...

03:24:26.180 | But yet you crave them.

03:24:27.620 | Maybe it's generational, because it's a big Russian thing with potatoes and tomatoes,

03:24:32.340 | because it's good with vodka.

03:24:35.540 | Salted.

03:24:36.040 | We were talking about the menu in the early days of the restaurant you opened in New York.

03:24:42.900 | So what was on the menu?

03:24:44.260 | What kind of foods were you playing with?

03:24:46.740 | Do you remember...

03:24:48.100 | Was that one of the challenging things, is putting together?

03:24:53.140 | Because you're crafting a new thing in New York, where it's extremely competitive.

03:24:58.500 | Right.

03:24:58.980 | But over time, it got easier and easier.

03:25:01.620 | And then also I wasn't coming up with new dishes.

03:25:04.980 | It was the people that worked there.

03:25:06.580 | So I feel like if I could take credit for something, it would be recognizing talent.

03:25:11.380 | And when dishes were developed, this is when I was there on my own.

03:25:17.780 | So it was opened with Matthew and Jeffrey.

03:25:21.140 | And then within a year, Matthew was out.

03:25:24.020 | And Jeffrey was still involved as the corporate side of it.

03:25:29.460 | But then over time, I separated from that infrastructure as well,

03:25:34.980 | and then was completely on my own.

03:25:36.420 | And in part, I did that because I was growing One Lucky Duck on the side,

03:25:41.220 | and that was growing and growing and growing.

03:25:43.060 | And I knew there was something there.

03:25:45.060 | And yet the two businesses were completely intertwined.

03:25:48.820 | And so potential investors would come at me,

03:25:52.660 | and they would see this very messy situation where I owned One Lucky Duck,

03:25:56.820 | and Jeffrey Chodrow owned the restaurant, and how do we move forward from there?

03:26:00.660 | And then people would say, I should shut down the restaurant and just focus on One Lucky Duck.

03:26:05.300 | And I wanted them all to be together under one umbrella

03:26:07.780 | and to move forward where everybody's incentives were aligned.

03:26:11.060 | And what was the magic?

03:26:12.980 | Why was it so successful so quickly, would you say?

03:26:15.220 | I want to half-jokingly, but not joking,

03:26:18.740 | but sort of say that it was about the love and the food and the space.

03:26:22.980 | Oh, can you define love?

03:26:26.500 | But there was something special.

03:26:30.020 | So when people ask me about opening a restaurant,

03:26:32.260 | I say I don't want to get back into the restaurant business

03:26:33.940 | unless it's the same restaurant in the same space.

03:26:36.180 | Because there was something about that space that felt,

03:26:39.780 | I guess, felt magical, for lack of a better word,

03:26:44.820 | and the energy of a lot of the people there.

03:26:48.660 | And I think that people really cared about it.

03:26:52.740 | And so for whatever reason, there was an energy about the place.

03:26:58.180 | Would you ever do it again?

03:26:59.380 | Yes.

03:27:00.580 | Would you ever consider reopening?

03:27:01.300 | In the same space.

03:27:02.340 | Wow.

03:27:02.840 | That's a tough thing in New York, but you're thinking, okay, well.

03:27:10.500 | It's there.

03:27:11.460 | It's there?

03:27:11.960 | Let me ask you this question, because I've been searching for that myself,

03:27:16.340 | asking myself this question, the last meal question.

03:27:21.300 | Like, what's the best meal you've ever eaten in your life?

03:27:25.220 | Like, if I had to murder you at the end of this,

03:27:28.980 | and you get one meal, but you can travel anywhere in the world,

03:27:31.620 | what would you eat?

03:27:35.220 | It's one of those questions where I feel like I should have an answer prepared.

03:27:40.260 | No, it's too difficult to sort of pick favorites.

03:27:44.420 | But if somebody would, you know, force you to choose, you'd have to.

03:27:49.380 | I was eating something once, and I had the thought that if I was going to die,

03:27:53.780 | I would come here and order plate after plate of this and eat this.

03:27:58.260 | Do you remember what it was?

03:27:59.220 | Yes.

03:27:59.460 | Some diner in the middle of nowhere?

03:28:01.620 | No, it was Pure Food and Wine was on Irving Place,

03:28:05.060 | and then the kitchen connected to the one Lucky Duck Juice Bar,

03:28:10.420 | which had an entrance on 17th Street.

03:28:12.020 | So it was kind of like this L shape, and then there was a huge garden in the back.

03:28:15.540 | On the corner was Casamano and Bar Jamon.

03:28:19.540 | Um, which was Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich, um, were behind that.

03:28:24.500 | And it was very focused on meat, but also like organ meats and strange, unusual meats.

03:28:30.020 | Spanish restaurant.

03:28:31.060 | Wow, lots of good reviews.

03:28:32.660 | Yeah, it was really good.

03:28:33.620 | This is just a funny that we surrounded it, but Bar Jamon was, um, was this tiny little bar.

03:28:40.980 | And I went in there once with Tobin late, and I don't know why we ended up going there,

03:28:48.580 | but it was right before they closed and drank red wine, and they had tomato bread.

03:28:54.340 | And it's just like a baguette, although it's a Spanish, whatever.

03:29:00.100 | It's like a bread, like a baguette, like a thin that they toast,

03:29:03.380 | and I think they rub it with garlic.

03:29:05.460 | And they don't even put tomato slices on it.

03:29:07.460 | It's like they rub it and the tomato juice is all over it.

03:29:11.620 | It was just bread and tomato juice and probably some garlic flavor and really good salt.

03:29:18.260 | And some wine.

03:29:19.700 | And red wine.

03:29:20.580 | And we sat there and ordered a plate, ate it, ordered another one, ate it, ordered another one.

03:29:25.860 | I think we had like six plates.

03:29:27.220 | And I remember sitting there thinking, I could just eat this until my stomach bursts.

03:29:32.180 | And then, and so if this is like, if somebody was like, what's the last,

03:29:36.020 | I would just want to sit there and eat plate after plate after plate.

03:29:39.780 | If you went back there and ate the same thing, it wouldn't taste nearly as good.

03:29:42.900 | And like, was there something magical about that night?

03:29:45.700 | About the way that bread was made on that night?

03:29:50.580 | The way you felt at that night?

03:29:54.340 | The wine?

03:29:55.060 | The something?

03:29:56.820 | Or do you think, like, where's the power from that food come from?

03:30:00.660 | Is it the food itself?

03:30:01.700 | Or is it the environment?

03:30:03.940 | I'm sure it's both.

03:30:05.700 | But like, if somebody brought a plate of it here right now, it would be completely delicious.

03:30:11.060 | Yeah.

03:30:12.260 | But it might not feel as kind of, not that it felt magical, but it was the whole

03:30:18.340 | warmth of the experience and the red wine.

03:30:22.340 | It's the afternoon in Texas right now, so it's different.

03:30:25.300 | And I keep forgetting and thinking it's late at night.

03:30:28.020 | Yeah, we're surrounded by, this whole place is anti-Huberman.

03:30:33.300 | There's no light.

03:30:34.020 | Well, it's pro-Huberman if it's in the afternoon or the evening,

03:30:39.220 | except for these bright lights.

03:30:41.780 | If they were lower down, if they were like down below,

03:30:45.300 | then they're hitting the tops of our eyes.

03:30:47.220 | But it's the light coming from above that's destructive at night because it's hitting the

03:30:51.860 | bottom of your eyes.

03:30:52.660 | So it's like mimicking the sun, which is signaling your body that it's time to be awake.

03:30:56.980 | So as much as possible.

03:30:59.300 | So I do this in the evenings.

03:31:00.500 | I shut off all the overhead lights.

03:31:02.420 | I try to dim the lights as much as I can.

03:31:04.420 | And I turn on like a lamp versus an overhead light.

03:31:08.340 | Are you also doing the caffeine thing, like not consuming much caffeine way before bed?

03:31:13.780 | Oh, I can't.

03:31:15.220 | Yeah, I usually don't have caffeine late.

03:31:20.260 | I try not to have it.

03:31:21.300 | So ideally-

03:31:22.500 | I drink into the night caffeine.

03:31:24.180 | 2 p.m. would be my last.

03:31:25.460 | Ideally, I wouldn't drink coffee after 2, but plenty of times I do.

03:31:30.260 | Especially if I haven't had midday coffee, then I worry I'm going to get a headache.

03:31:34.580 | That makes you way more responsible than me.

03:31:36.740 | Let me return to love.

03:31:37.860 | What do you think makes for a good romantic relationship?

03:31:44.100 | Given your experience.

03:31:48.180 | I mean this question.

03:31:53.380 | I think a mutual respect is a big part of it.

03:31:55.860 | Mutual respect.

03:31:57.940 | That's interesting.

03:31:59.940 | Well, and understanding it in a way that you want what's best for the other person,

03:32:05.780 | not in a way that you would sacrifice yourself for them necessarily, but in a very healthy way.

03:32:12.500 | So I think a healthy relationship is where you want what's best for the other person.

03:32:17.460 | So I always find it tragic.

03:32:18.740 | Like say you started dating somebody who then would get jealous or upset if you spent too

03:32:28.900 | much time working on something, right?

03:32:32.260 | But that's like your life.

03:32:33.300 | So if you're working on some robotics thing and you're having some breakthrough and so

03:32:37.940 | you just want to spend a lot of time wherever you spend a lot of time doing those things,

03:32:42.980 | and then that other person got all bent out of shape and it became like a competition.

03:32:47.140 | That to me seems very unhealthy because if somebody, if it was like a genuine healthy love,

03:32:55.780 | she would want you to be doing those things.

03:33:02.100 | Yeah, that's a good observation.

03:33:03.860 | But to me, I think the way to achieve that is actually, or the easiest way to achieve that,

03:33:13.700 | at least for me, is actually legitimately be excited by the things the other person is excited

03:33:19.380 | by.

03:33:19.880 | So like not in some generic sense, it's good for them to be doing the robotics thing.

03:33:25.860 | Like it's more like you become a fan of all the cool things that they're doing in their life.

03:33:31.700 | So I definitely have this.

03:33:33.700 | Somebody told me recently, there's a term for this, but I love watching other people

03:33:41.540 | succeed, be excited about shit.

03:33:46.820 | I like celebrating other people.

03:33:50.260 | It's fun for me to watch people do the thing they love doing.

03:33:53.620 | So in some sense, that's reinvigorating to me and exciting to me.

03:33:59.540 | And so one of the things for me in a relationship is like, you get excited by watching another

03:34:05.620 | person do the thing they're excited about.

03:34:07.220 | It's not like I intellectually know it's good for them to have their own thing.

03:34:11.140 | It's like I legit get excited by their own thing.

03:34:16.500 | Right, but that's what I mean.

03:34:18.180 | It's like that person would be excited because you're excited.

03:34:21.700 | But they would, I think the easiest way to achieve that is actually be like, what am I trying to say?

03:34:28.500 | It's not like saying that you should be excited.

03:34:32.660 | It's like you can't help yourself but be excited.

03:34:34.980 | Right, but I think that's possible.

03:34:37.620 | But it's possible for that to be the case for somebody that might have an appreciation for

03:34:47.220 | what you're doing, but that's not what that person's going to go spend their time on themselves.

03:34:52.820 | Yeah, if they were by themselves.

03:34:54.420 | So the other person might be really good at a musical instrument that requires a lot of

03:35:00.020 | practice and you're not interested in playing that musical instrument, but you appreciate

03:35:03.540 | the beauty of the music and understand that that person is getting something out of it.

03:35:07.220 | So you would be excited when they get a chance to practice or whatnot.

03:35:11.540 | So it's that kind of a...

03:35:13.620 | Do you think love should be simple or complicated in a relationship?

03:35:18.180 | Well, it might be inherently complicated.

03:35:22.660 | I may have asked Huberman the exact same question.

03:35:25.060 | Forget what he said.

03:35:27.060 | I thought it was interesting when you asked Elon about love.

03:35:30.660 | Oh boy, yeah.

03:35:32.580 | That's going to be conversation number seven, that he actually answers it.

03:35:39.620 | Well, what was interesting that I found admirable was this sort of like a duty to humanity.

03:35:46.180 | I think you asked about it not in about a person, but about the work.

03:35:52.660 | Yeah.

03:35:53.620 | And so it was like to put all this energy to try to kind of like move things forward,

03:36:01.220 | knowing that he will probably die before it gets there.

03:36:04.980 | You're talking about like something related to the science of rocketry.

03:36:10.020 | Yeah.

03:36:11.640 | He's kind of a rocket scientist.

03:36:14.180 | But whatever you were asking him about whether something could be accomplished, and he said yes,

03:36:18.820 | but not in his lifetime, but he's going to keep pushing it forward anyway.

03:36:21.540 | So I felt like that was a really, you know, to put so much of yourself into something just

03:36:29.060 | to kind of move the baton forward for humanity was a struck me as an admirable thing.

03:36:35.860 | You know, there's no great reward in terms of you're going to, you know, you're going to see

03:36:41.540 | that invention happen, or you're going to see Mars colonized or whatever it is.

03:36:46.660 | But you're willing to put in all the work and brainpower to try to push it along.

03:36:51.460 | Like thinking about the biggest possible impact on the world, just thinking about humanity.

03:36:57.460 | I think all of us when we do cool things are contributing to humanity.

03:37:01.140 | And it's good to think of it that way.

03:37:04.260 | When you run a restaurant and you make all the people happy,

03:37:06.820 | I don't know, that's part of that.

03:37:09.780 | It's good to think big like that.

03:37:12.500 | And Elon does definitely.

03:37:13.860 | But when I asked him about love, I'm, you know, just knowing him personally now,

03:37:19.860 | I'm asking about the personal question about love,

03:37:24.180 | but I'm giving him the freedom to escape it, which he always does.

03:37:28.820 | That's very generous.

03:37:29.780 | Because I don't want to trap him.

03:37:32.580 | And I understand it's a difficult.

03:37:34.980 | So, you know, he's better at solving engineering problems than talking about love.

03:37:39.300 | The other thing he's really good at is going to the joke.

03:37:44.180 | So for him, you know, for him, love and all those kinds of things,

03:37:53.140 | especially those kind of cliche sounding things are the stuff of memes.

03:37:59.060 | It's the stuff, the easiest way you can talk about it is humor.

03:38:02.740 | The same with trauma, like personal trauma.

03:38:04.660 | Easiest stuff for him to talk about is the, is laugh about it.

03:38:08.900 | He's been very tough privately or on podcast to talk about personal, like difficult stuff.

03:38:18.100 | And for me, obviously, that's often the most interesting stuff as humans, like,

03:38:22.180 | where's your darkness?

03:38:23.860 | But for him, it's tough.

03:38:28.180 | For a lot of people, it's tough, but it's important to go there.

03:38:30.500 | Maybe first in the privacy of your own mind.

03:38:35.620 | And I think, you know, bringing it back to the relationship thing is wanting to

03:38:39.220 | like understand and accept those things about somebody else.

03:38:45.940 | I mean, it's sort of cliche to say that you can't change somebody.

03:38:48.420 | And you don't want to also like try to change yourself for somebody,

03:38:55.700 | but you can sort of figure things out and be willing to

03:38:58.660 | make adjustments and navigate for the sake of something working.

03:39:05.460 | And sometimes that comes from understanding, which might require a lot of effort and

03:39:11.700 | open-mindedness if somebody is kind of very different from you.

03:39:15.860 | Yeah.

03:39:18.180 | And being fragile yourself, revealing your flaws and getting to learn about theirs

03:39:23.460 | and getting to see the beauty in them, because that's the good stuff.

03:39:27.780 | Or if the flaws are too much of a red flag, then you walk away.

03:39:33.460 | That's the hard stuff.

03:39:34.660 | Either the red flags might be the thing that you actually get to love deeply

03:39:39.620 | because they're a flawed human, or it might be the reason to walk away quickly.

03:39:43.460 | And you don't know.

03:39:44.820 | It's a gamble.

03:39:46.660 | Although if it's a red flag, then it by definition is something that's telling you to walk away.

03:39:52.660 | If it was just like something about their character that's challenging,

03:39:56.260 | you could appreciate that or understand it.

03:40:01.940 | But it's not something that they're intentionally trying to use to deceive you.

03:40:06.580 | I think red flags, I guess it's more about manipulation and/or somebody's

03:40:13.300 | kind of extreme dysfunction or something would be red flags.

03:40:16.980 | But I think there could be things that are quirky or weird or even dark about somebody

03:40:23.780 | that are acceptable.

03:40:26.500 | Yeah, but they might look like red flags.

03:40:28.660 | Right.

03:40:31.060 | If there's someone crying on the subway, that's a red flag for me.

03:40:35.300 | That she might be like an emotional basket game, high maintenance crazy person.

03:40:39.140 | Yeah.

03:40:40.360 | That's true.

03:40:41.860 | But there could be a deeper story to it.

03:40:44.740 | So that's what I'm trying to tell you.

03:40:47.220 | That's true.

03:40:48.180 | All right.

03:40:48.680 | What advice would you give to young folks today if they want to launch a restaurant in New York City

03:40:55.860 | and then message somebody on Twitter?

03:40:59.380 | Before you finished the sentence, I was about to say, "Read a lot of books."

03:41:02.180 | Because you said, "What advice would you give to young people today?"

03:41:07.460 | And I was like, "Read a lot of books."

03:41:09.300 | And then you got to the restaurant part.

03:41:11.940 | Yeah.

03:41:12.440 | No, I mean, I was joking about the restaurants.

03:41:15.300 | Yeah, about life, I would say.

03:41:16.660 | Not just about career as a restaurateur, but just in life, how to be successful,

03:41:27.060 | how to live a life that can be fulfilling, and how to live a life they can be proud of.

03:41:30.660 | I think-

03:41:32.120 | To read a lot of books.

03:41:33.300 | It's complicated because-

03:41:34.580 | Have you figured it out yet?

03:41:35.860 | No.

03:41:36.360 | But I think self-awareness is key.

03:41:39.460 | But I also think there's some of those things where people kind of have to learn their own

03:41:45.220 | lessons.

03:41:45.720 | But I think in part because I never had kids and I never wanted kids, I feel like through my book,

03:41:53.860 | I keep thinking that I want a lot of the lessons that I learned to be useful to other people,

03:42:02.020 | particularly younger people, and in many cases, younger females,

03:42:06.420 | to maybe understand themselves a little better along the way.

03:42:12.180 | Because I think that a lot of mistakes that I made and things that happened,

03:42:16.580 | or things that I did that I'm embarrassed about,

03:42:21.700 | or things that I stepped into that I wouldn't have otherwise stepped into or allowed to happen,

03:42:26.180 | were a result of, in many cases, insecurity, a lack of confidence.

03:42:35.300 | And I think in the context of moving forward with relationships, being really careful to

03:42:45.460 | understand why you're there, or if you're repeating a pattern, that's something that

03:42:50.500 | is sort of cliche, but I feel like it's very, I mean, aren't cliches are things that are true,

03:42:57.380 | they're just repeated a lot.

03:42:58.820 | But anyway, the idea that people repeat patterns, right?

03:43:03.700 | So I think that's very true.

03:43:05.620 | Right.

03:43:07.320 | And so to be aware of that and to figure it out sooner rather than later,

03:43:12.100 | so you don't keep stepping into the same thing over and over again.

03:43:16.980 | You mentioned sort of giving yourself time and space to think.

03:43:20.820 | Yeah, which sometimes isn't possible, but...

03:43:24.420 | Don't let momentum of life sort of carry you away.

03:43:28.020 | Right.

03:43:28.740 | And I think for me, one of the things that would have scared me about having kids is the chaos of

03:43:34.500 | it, or not being able to handle it.

03:43:38.180 | But I think that's just me, not most people.

03:43:41.060 | You ran a restaurant.

03:43:43.860 | I know.

03:43:45.220 | Which is probably why I would go home at night and lie on the floor and cry.

03:43:47.940 | Or...

03:43:49.480 | How often do you do that?

03:43:50.500 | What's...

03:43:52.680 | Do you like a good cry?

03:43:54.900 | I do.

03:43:56.280 | Music usually, or what's...

03:44:00.100 | Can you paint a scene?

03:44:01.140 | And just in general?

03:44:03.300 | Yeah, is there candles?

03:44:04.660 | I cried this morning.

03:44:06.020 | Okay.

03:44:06.520 | Not intentionally and not for long.

03:44:07.620 | Happiness or just overwhelmed?

03:44:09.300 | It was like a...

03:44:12.980 | I looked a little bit at Instagram and saw...

03:44:16.260 | What was it?

03:44:17.460 | Very often they're like these little animal rescue stories or whatever.

03:44:23.220 | But this guy, Matt, who used to be my trainer years ago,

03:44:26.260 | and put this little montage video to music.

03:44:30.260 | That was interesting.

03:44:30.900 | If there hadn't been music, I probably wouldn't have cried.

03:44:33.140 | But it was showing his wife having their second child.

03:44:36.820 | Not showing it, but like the sort of before and then,

03:44:41.140 | you know, the baby in her arms right afterwards,

03:44:43.460 | and then bringing the baby home.

03:44:44.740 | It was this very short little clip, but set to music.

03:44:47.860 | And I watched that and started to cry.

03:44:50.100 | But like, I didn't sob or anything.

03:44:54.260 | So I think I cry easily.

03:44:56.580 | Interestingly, though, in actual horrifically tragic things,

03:45:04.980 | or when they apply to me, I might not cry.

03:45:07.940 | And then people find that unusual.

03:45:09.700 | And that was in the film that, I don't know if it was my sister or my father,

03:45:12.900 | described that when my parents got divorced, I didn't cry.

03:45:16.500 | And I just, whereas my sister bawled her eyes out,

03:45:18.900 | and I didn't cry at all, ever.

03:45:20.980 | And I just didn't say anything or want to talk about it.

03:45:23.700 | And, you know, like when I was sentenced to jail, I didn't cry.

03:45:29.860 | So a lot of times when something really big happens,

03:45:36.100 | I get a little bit weirdly, I don't know.

03:45:42.020 | But I very often--

03:45:43.540 | Too much to feel it all directly.

03:45:46.660 | So you kind of cried out later, slowly.

03:45:49.460 | Right, maybe years later.

03:45:52.340 | Maybe years later.

03:45:53.380 | Yeah.

03:45:53.700 | And maybe that's what I'm really crying about

03:45:55.220 | when I cry at these little videos or something.

03:45:57.300 | I don't know.

03:45:57.940 | But I'm glad for it because I feel like it always feels like kind of a relief.

03:46:03.460 | Well, let me ask this, because it's interesting what you would say.

03:46:06.900 | Do you have regrets about things in your life?

03:46:13.780 | Like, what do you regret?

03:46:16.340 | If there's one day you could live again, which day would you pick?

03:46:22.500 | Like relive and make different choices?

03:46:25.700 | Well, like one obvious thing could be the day that I let

03:46:32.180 | Anthony Strange is in the door if I had instead, you know,

03:46:35.300 | if at any time early on I had instead just pushed him out,

03:46:39.700 | you know, that my life would be wildly different.

03:46:42.020 | It's hard to--

03:46:44.500 | So that's the biggest mistake of your life, you would say,

03:46:47.860 | just letting Anthony into your life?

03:46:52.740 | I think, yes, I think one could argue that's the biggest mistake.

03:46:56.020 | But then at the same time, you never know.

03:46:58.020 | Because like when I was in a sort of a dark relationship that then led to the restaurant,

03:47:07.220 | Am I Having the One Lucky Duck brand?

03:47:09.380 | So I felt like that darkness--

03:47:12.740 | It's like if you married a horribly abusive person, but you had a beautiful child,

03:47:17.300 | and then you go on and you have this beautiful child, and you think,

03:47:19.540 | well, if I hadn't been with that horribly abusive person,

03:47:21.940 | I wouldn't have this beautiful child.

03:47:23.220 | So I wouldn't go undo it.

03:47:24.740 | So I feel like a lot of things are like that.

03:47:27.300 | And I guess I could optimistically hope that there are good things down the road

03:47:32.260 | where I'll think, well, I'm here and I'm grateful for it.

03:47:37.540 | And therefore, I'm grateful for the things that got me here,

03:47:39.620 | which include a lot of dark things.

03:47:41.540 | It's hard to say because a lot of people were hurt in my case.

03:47:44.500 | But I am optimistic that I can make those things up.

03:47:48.580 | And there are also hurts that were, I mean, in some cases, emotionally,

03:47:54.100 | but also very much financial.

03:47:56.340 | And I feel like those are numbers.

03:47:59.220 | And the employees were all paid back.

03:48:02.500 | So anybody else that is out money because of everything that happened

03:48:06.100 | isn't somebody that's not able to feed themselves.

03:48:12.660 | Most of those people have plenty of money, and it's not a big deal.

03:48:16.580 | But I still want to repay all of it.

03:48:18.020 | And it's numbers.

03:48:20.820 | It's not-- nobody died.

03:48:24.900 | And sometimes when I think about my own challenges,

03:48:28.260 | they feel sort of inconsequential in comparison to other things going on in the world.

03:48:34.900 | So, you know, like, yes, it's hard being humiliated,

03:48:42.100 | or it's hard to have people say nasty things about you on Twitter, Instagram.

03:48:47.620 | But really, who cares?

03:48:48.660 | Because that's just words and things.

03:48:50.100 | And I'm not, like, fleeing my home and watching people get shot.

03:48:55.140 | So--

03:48:56.500 | And there's still-- out of this darkness,

03:48:59.060 | out of this, you can still--

03:49:02.020 | that you still have a lot of time to create something beautiful in the world.

03:49:05.620 | Yeah.

03:49:06.420 | Maybe something even more beautiful than you've ever done before.

03:49:10.020 | I am optimistic.

03:49:11.700 | And I also feel like, you know, part of the reason I like having these conversations,

03:49:16.420 | is because I feel like people will learn stuff from my shitty experiences

03:49:22.500 | to avoid going through their own shitty experience.

03:49:25.300 | And I've heard a ton of that from a lot of women and some men,

03:49:29.380 | you know, writing to me saying that they went through something similar

03:49:34.260 | and nobody understood.

03:49:35.220 | And, you know, my story helped them or,

03:49:38.340 | you know, might help them get somebody else out of a situation.

03:49:43.060 | So making it useful feels good.

03:49:46.580 | So through all of this, Leon was with you.

03:49:49.780 | He recently had a birthday.

03:49:52.980 | March, I guess?

03:49:54.820 | Yes, 12.

03:49:56.180 | Yeah, I made him a phenomenal meat cake,

03:50:00.340 | or a layered cake that involved a variety of animal foods.

03:50:06.660 | He's not a vegetarian?

03:50:07.940 | No, he's not.

03:50:08.580 | Okay.

03:50:09.060 | But I also give him, like, really high quality stuff.

03:50:12.340 | But yeah, he's not a vegan or vegetarian.

03:50:14.820 | Let me ask you a hard question.

03:50:16.260 | Do you think about the tragic fact that dogs live much shorter lives than us humans?

03:50:22.420 | Do you think about his mortality?

03:50:25.860 | All the time.

03:50:27.860 | I kind of try not to, but all the time.

03:50:30.260 | Because you told me in traveling here to Austin, Texas,

03:50:34.340 | you're not in the habit of leaving Leon by himself.

03:50:40.180 | Well, he's not by himself, but I know I haven't been away from him

03:50:45.460 | in certainly since before COVID.

03:50:49.860 | So given that...

03:50:54.100 | So I'm not used to it.

03:50:55.060 | And so people always say that dogs have attachment issues or get separation anxiety.

03:51:03.780 | But in my case, at least, it's like, I think he's fine.

03:51:07.460 | I'm the one that is, you know, he's like, fine.

03:51:10.820 | I'm the one that gets anxious about it, being away from him.

03:51:14.900 | You're the one who acts like a dog when you come back and you're super excited to see him.

03:51:20.020 | Yeah, I can't pee on the floor.

03:51:21.540 | Pee on the floor and wiggle your tail and drool and all that kind of stuff.

03:51:24.980 | But do you think about the fact, you know, that you might lose Leon soon?

03:51:29.140 | I do.

03:51:30.900 | I think about it all.

03:51:31.780 | I mean, I try not to think about it, but I...

03:51:33.380 | Are you scared of it?

03:51:34.020 | And I...

03:51:34.820 | Yeah, it's scary.

03:51:35.620 | But then I also just try to understand that it's inevitable.

03:51:38.740 | And I mean, yeah, assuming I'm still around, then that's, I think, one of the things about

03:51:49.460 | having, adopting a dog or caring for an animal, unless it's one of those animals that lives a

03:51:56.820 | really long time.

03:51:57.540 | I just found out that parrots live an extraordinarily long time.

03:52:02.340 | Yeah, but they're annoying.

03:52:04.340 | So you get, it's a trade-off.

03:52:07.220 | The ones we love live a short time, the ones that annoy you live a long time.

03:52:12.420 | So I just think it's one of those things that you just know it's going to happen and it's

03:52:17.540 | just part of life.

03:52:18.420 | And I think it's one of those pains that's, it's painful, but you just kind of have to

03:52:25.140 | go through it.

03:52:25.700 | And what's the alternative?

03:52:28.100 | You're not going to...

03:52:28.820 | It's like saying you would never want to fall in love because of the heartbreak that's going

03:52:33.220 | to inevitably come.

03:52:34.020 | Some people do that.

03:52:36.100 | They just have a way of...

03:52:37.380 | Exactly.

03:52:37.380 | ...ever...

03:52:38.100 | You're saying, "Screw it, I'm diving right in."

03:52:40.660 | Yes.

03:52:41.060 | It was all worth it.

03:52:42.420 | What about your own mortality?

03:52:43.700 | You think about yourself dying?

03:52:45.700 | Less so than I was before.

03:52:47.380 | I think I wrote about that and I put this letter, "Dear Mr. Fox," online, which I never

03:52:55.060 | intended to do, but I did because of all the misconceptions about the film and our relationship.

03:53:00.820 | And so I put this thing up online that I'd written on my phone on multiple.

03:53:05.860 | subway rides.

03:53:06.660 | And at the end of it, I talk about, because especially then when it was the height of

03:53:12.100 | everything was gone and what do I have to live for?

03:53:15.860 | I sort of noticed and wrote about how differently I felt about things, whereas I used to be

03:53:21.140 | afraid.

03:53:21.620 | I used to have a healthy fear of being pushed in front of a train because that happens in

03:53:27.540 | New York or anywhere.

03:53:29.220 | Or I had a healthy fear of, I don't know, walking down a dark street at night.

03:53:36.180 | But I noticed that at the time, I didn't really have those fears because I was like, "What

03:53:42.420 | do I have to lose?

03:53:43.780 | Who cares?

03:53:44.260 | I don't have anything anymore.

03:53:46.740 | What do I have to lose?"

03:53:47.860 | So I certainly feel much less that way.

03:53:52.260 | But something about those feelings lingered where I'm less afraid of it or more just less

03:54:02.100 | afraid of it, but hoping it's not some sort of a gruesome way.

03:54:05.060 | I mean, some people are really afraid of flying.

03:54:07.700 | And I feel like, well, statistically, it's extremely safe.

03:54:11.140 | And if it's going to happen, it's going to happen.

03:54:12.660 | There's nothing you can do.

03:54:13.700 | Like, there's really nothing you can do unless you're going to like do what that guy in that

03:54:20.180 | small plane did the other day and like leap over and was able to take control of the plane.

03:54:23.780 | But I mean, like a commercial flight.

03:54:25.140 | So it's like, if you're going to die, you're going to die.

03:54:27.780 | And it's just your time.

03:54:28.580 | And all you can do is hope that...

03:54:30.020 | I would probably prefer to have as little awareness about it as possible.

03:54:36.020 | You know, it's like, you'd rather have somebody...

03:54:38.580 | If you were going to get shot, you'd rather have somebody shoot you in the back of the

03:54:42.740 | head and you didn't see it coming and just boom, lights out versus somebody holding a

03:54:47.860 | gun to your head, and then you're going to feel all this fear and have to like feel all

03:54:53.460 | of that, which also made me think of animals and animal suffering in the way that some

03:55:01.700 | people argue that because of the conditions and the fear that that's like in their bodies

03:55:10.900 | when they're killed, which is an interesting thing to think about.

03:55:16.260 | Yeah, I clearly struggle with the ethics of...

03:55:19.540 | I just, I think about it a lot about, like our current food system, which involves a

03:55:35.220 | system that everybody has sort of accepted and normalized where, like say aliens did

03:55:44.580 | come down and looked at us and realized that we're a particularly good source of whatever

03:55:52.020 | fuel they need.

03:55:52.820 | So then they imprisoned us all in cages that were like the equivalent of like sardines

03:56:00.340 | and jammed in an elevator.

03:56:01.700 | And then we were bred and we would get sick and we'd go crazy and we'd do the equivalent

03:56:10.980 | of like pecking and then we'd get abused and then like grotesquely and brutally killed.

03:56:17.860 | And that was like our entire lives.

03:56:19.860 | And so if like aliens came down and started and did all of that, we would have to be okay

03:56:27.060 | with that, which is something that was said to me after watching this movie called Our

03:56:35.060 | Daily Bread many years ago.

03:56:38.020 | But it's an interesting way to think about it because, I mean, we would have to be okay

03:56:44.020 | with it because that's kind of what we're doing now, right?

03:56:47.620 | Yeah, we've normalized certain kinds of cruelty.

03:56:51.060 | And I don't, people think, yeah, people think that like I would object to hunting.

03:56:55.700 | Hunting for sport, I think is grotesque.

03:56:59.140 | But if you're hunting and then you're going to eat the entire animal and you're hunting

03:57:06.180 | in a way where it's kind of like, you know, that animal like lived a free and happy life

03:57:12.180 | until that moment in the same way that the animal lived a free and happy moment, lived

03:57:17.060 | a free and happy life, or we don't know, maybe they were depressed, but they lived a free

03:57:22.660 | life until like the lion came and took it down.

03:57:26.260 | So is a human shooting an animal for food somehow more tragic or horrible than a lion

03:57:34.900 | attacking an elk?

03:57:36.900 | Yeah, well, there's a lot of complexities to it on top of all of that.

03:57:41.780 | So one, you said sort of hunting for sport is bad, but there's this like complex ethical

03:57:47.700 | equation of the fact that hunting for sport is the thing that often funds the preservation

03:57:52.500 | of a species.

03:57:53.300 | That's, well, no, that's another complicated layer.

03:57:56.100 | There's like the Maui venison, all the deer in Hawaii.

03:58:00.820 | And I might have gotten Maui venison treats for Leon, but they're hunting those deer is

03:58:12.900 | a way of preserving.

03:58:14.100 | Yeah.

03:58:15.300 | So, I mean, these things are complicated, but that's why I don't have a problem with

03:58:18.500 | somebody shooting an elk or bringing it home and eating it.

03:58:23.700 | Like my, you know, like I've eaten elk jerky and things like that from, that's one of those

03:58:29.300 | situations where like, I wouldn't morally have a problem with it.

03:58:33.780 | And for me, it's also, I'm not one of those people where I think like, "Ew, I wouldn't

03:58:38.340 | eat meat."

03:58:39.220 | It's more like, I don't want to add to the consumption of it.

03:58:42.980 | And I wouldn't want to eat sort of like the factory farmed meat necessarily, unless I'm

03:58:49.860 | in prison and it's otherwise going to get thrown away.

03:58:51.540 | But...

03:58:52.040 | Hashtag.

03:58:56.820 | A lot of things, you know, you may do things differently there, but...

03:59:01.540 | So, you know, it's just, these things are complicated, but...

03:59:05.700 | So, it's not about like, "Ew, I don't want that in my body."

03:59:08.740 | It's sort of like, "Where did it come from and what's going on here?"

03:59:13.460 | And I think that, like, if you just followed Joe Rogan's Instagram, there's sort of a bit

03:59:22.100 | of a glorification of meat that...

03:59:24.260 | Because I listened to enough that I heard the one where he talked, it was a recent one

03:59:33.140 | where he was talking about Anthony Bourdain.

03:59:35.140 | And in that conversation, I think it was that one, he explained that he sort of did it in

03:59:40.580 | summary, so I feel like he talked about it in the past, but did all this research and

03:59:44.900 | came to the conclusion, based on all his research, came to the conclusion that he was either

03:59:49.540 | going to be vegetarian or shoot his own meat and hunt.

03:59:55.140 | And so, that's totally different.

03:59:57.620 | I mean, that's very admirable, I think.

04:00:02.020 | And he has the means to do it.

04:00:03.380 | But if you...

04:00:04.660 | Not only that, he does it with a bow.

04:00:06.180 | Right, even more so.

04:00:08.260 | It is a good question.

04:00:09.860 | It's a good question how we get out of this factory farming of meat.

04:00:15.780 | Right, 'cause I do, I like meat, I think it's delicious.

04:00:21.220 | We're dependent on not just on the nutrients and the taste, we're also dependent on the

04:00:28.980 | cost.

04:00:29.380 | A lot of people have gotten used to a particular kind of cost that they pay for meat.

04:00:34.100 | Right, but I think if you wiped out all the government subsidies, it would be a completely

04:00:40.020 | different story, because why are vegetables so expensive?

04:00:44.180 | And all the subsidies...

04:00:45.620 | Somebody who bought some tomatoes yesterday, I'm protesting.

04:00:49.060 | Why is salad so expensive?

04:00:50.660 | Right, but none of the...

04:00:52.580 | If you look at the subsidies that are given to all the inputs to the meat industry, like

04:01:01.140 | the grain and soy and whatnot, and then to the meat and dairy industries, and all the

04:01:07.380 | subsidies that prop up those industries and allow those products to be cheap and sustainable

04:01:14.260 | from a business perspective, not environmental, it's government subsidies.

04:01:19.780 | So what if we took all that away?

04:01:21.140 | And then also, what if we gave that to the kale and hemp and fresh greens farmers, and

04:01:32.580 | made those foods more affordable?

04:01:35.300 | And then had meat reflect its actual true cost?

04:01:38.420 | Then people would just eat more vegetables and less meat because of the cost.

04:01:44.820 | You mentioned that you crossed off one item from your list.

04:01:48.820 | I forget what the item was, but...

04:01:50.260 | Oh, it was...

04:01:52.020 | I had previously thought that I would want to go to Vegas one day, just to cross that

04:01:56.340 | off my list.

04:01:56.820 | And it's not like I was like, "Oh, one day I want to go to Vegas."

04:02:00.420 | It was just like, I imagined I would only go there once just to see it, and then be

04:02:05.620 | done with it.

04:02:06.180 | Yeah.

04:02:07.060 | Yeah.

04:02:08.260 | That's a good one.

04:02:10.500 | That's a good one.

04:02:11.220 | And I still think you can do it, because there's a particular Vegas experience that's worth

04:02:15.300 | having.

04:02:15.940 | And there's maybe a couple of Vegas experiences that are worth having.

04:02:19.620 | I find casinos horribly depressing, because I think they're just predatory.

04:02:24.820 | Everything about them is predatory.

04:02:26.100 | It's not the casinos that are important, it's the people.

04:02:29.140 | The culture and the whole crazy atmosphere.

04:02:31.780 | The people you meet in the chaos that is Las Vegas can create a memorable experience.

04:02:39.300 | You lose track of what is day, what is night.

04:02:44.260 | You can get drunk and make all the mistakes that somehow create a beautiful masterpiece

04:02:50.340 | at the end of it.

04:02:50.980 | That's for another time.

04:02:52.900 | What else is on the bucket list?

04:02:54.580 | What items on the bucket list you haven't done yet, you really, really would like?

04:02:58.660 | We talked about mortality.

04:03:00.020 | That there's a finite deadline.

04:03:03.220 | What pops in your head as something that you want to still do?

04:03:06.580 | What I want is to not die and owe people money.

04:03:09.860 | So whatever mistakes you make...

04:03:13.380 | I want to live to write those things.

04:03:17.060 | And I also felt really strongly about what I and everybody in the business had built.

04:03:27.860 | And so a big part of me wants to resurrect the brand.

04:03:35.940 | Because I felt really strongly about it.

04:03:39.700 | I had that feeling that this was going to be a thing that I wanted to build and grow

04:03:46.980 | and could have a really positive impact and outlast me.

04:03:49.620 | Would you bring it back as the same name?

04:03:54.980 | Yeah, well, I put the logo on my arm.

04:03:57.460 | That's kind of how strongly I felt about it.

04:03:59.540 | And so when I did that, and around that time and all of that time, I felt really, really

04:04:06.260 | strongly that...

04:04:06.980 | Quietly, because it feels like a little bit bold, but quietly felt really almost with

04:04:20.340 | a certainty that it was going to be something really big and it was growing and growing.

04:04:25.140 | And all signs were pointing towards there.

04:04:27.220 | I was just sort of stalled and couldn't figure out the logistics and then enter Mr. Fox.

04:04:32.420 | So...

04:04:33.800 | The universe can be quite absurdly cruel at times.

04:04:39.940 | But yeah.

04:04:41.620 | But that is something worth reaching for, is repay the debts of the past.

04:04:50.340 | And then people have said to me that Leon achieved some kind of immortality via

04:04:55.620 | being in the documentary.

04:04:57.940 | And then I might, I don't understand this world at all, but I might do like an NFT thing

04:05:04.020 | related to Leon's image, which would be another way of kind of immortalizing his image at least.

04:05:11.540 | Yeah.

04:05:13.080 | But that's a...

04:05:14.260 | I mean, it's a potentially in progress.

04:05:19.620 | Kind of a crazy leap, but...

04:05:21.860 | And potentially relaunching the restaurant.

04:05:24.660 | Possibly, yes.

04:05:27.460 | There's the restaurant and there's one lucky duck in that brand and they're sort of separate,

04:05:33.060 | but related.

04:05:33.940 | And they could each exist independently.

04:05:39.220 | I liked it better when they existed together because I felt like they were very complementary

04:05:44.180 | in a lot of ways and they made sense together.

04:05:46.820 | But either one could be done separately without the other.

04:05:49.780 | Do you think you will find love again, given the chaos yet to go through?

04:05:56.660 | I have, and I never talk about it.

04:06:01.700 | I've never talked about it.

04:06:03.940 | Do you have found love again?

04:06:05.140 | Yes.

04:06:07.400 | Outside of Leon.

04:06:07.940 | But also in a kind of possibly doomed temporary way, which...

04:06:13.780 | You don't like it simple, do you?

04:06:17.300 | It's not that it's not simple.

04:06:18.580 | It's actually quite simple.

04:06:20.020 | It's just that, again, there's a large age gap.

04:06:23.300 | I'm the older one, which in itself isn't a problem because again, I wouldn't want to...

04:06:32.260 | Like if somebody wanted kids in a family, I wouldn't want to hold them back from that.

04:06:37.300 | And so, if I sort of wanted to be with somebody who wanted those things,

04:06:45.460 | even if I was completely in love with somebody, I would have to kind of like,

04:06:48.180 | hurt, endure the pain to be like, "No, I'm going to keep you from those things.

04:06:57.060 | So you should go do those things."

04:06:58.820 | So that's the source of the temporariness?

04:07:02.980 | No.

04:07:04.040 | It's a bit related to logistics and living one place and having extremely different lifestyles.

04:07:15.620 | Is this a prince of some sort?

04:07:16.980 | No.

04:07:18.040 | Does he have a castle?

04:07:19.620 | No.

04:07:23.300 | Okay. All right.

04:07:24.900 | No, no.

04:07:25.540 | Are you going to say who it is or we're going to keep that a mystery?

04:07:28.340 | On the one hand, I feel like it's protective for me to talk about it in some ways.

04:07:35.140 | But I also worry because very often I avoid saying anything because, for a lot of reasons, but

04:07:44.980 | one being that people freak out and just assume that I'm going to step into something horrible

04:07:49.140 | again, because I did step into something horribly destructive again after Mr. Fox.

04:07:54.900 | And what happened was I allowed something to happen.

04:07:59.140 | And so, going back to that, what advice would you give to people?

04:08:02.900 | I would tell people to be very careful, to be deliberate about who they're getting involved with

04:08:11.220 | and thoughtful about it and making sure that they're not just allowing something to happen.

04:08:15.460 | So, it's like men can sometimes be, and I suppose women can be as well, but people can be very

04:08:23.940 | persistent. Sometimes that's a good thing, but it could also be a dangerous thing because sometimes

04:08:28.980 | somebody might just, and this has happened to me a lot, where somebody just wears you down and

04:08:32.340 | you're like, "Ugh, fine." You know?

04:08:34.660 | That's funny.

04:08:39.540 | No, I mean, it's shockingly the things that I've done in the spirit of,

04:08:44.260 | or not wanting to hurt somebody's feelings. That's another dangerous-

04:08:48.340 | Just to be nice. Let's get married just to be nice.

04:08:50.180 | That's another dangerous thing. And also-

04:08:52.100 | Maybe you should stay with Vegas.

04:08:53.460 | I'm circling back to all these unanswered questions from before, but I didn't marry...

04:08:59.300 | He convinced me to marry him in this very quick, annoying way, as if it was something I had to do

04:09:08.260 | and I'd be protected and all kinds of weird reasons. And it was just... My response to

04:09:13.540 | my agreeing to marry him was like, "Ugh, fine."

04:09:18.260 | And then I remember being embarrassed at City Hall, going to get the license.

04:09:24.100 | People who are in love and wanting to get married aren't sitting in City Hall mortified and

04:09:32.180 | embarrassed. So, I cringe when people call him my ex-husband because I've

04:09:38.180 | never thought of him that way. Even though technically that's correct.

04:09:42.660 | Yeah, but there's a powerful romantic notion to the thing and to those words,

04:09:47.220 | and that had nothing to do with you getting married. It was more...

04:09:50.180 | It was just another thing that he made me do.

04:09:54.180 | It's like a chore.

04:09:55.140 | That's just had unfortunate consequences of then having to get divorced and the whole...

04:10:00.660 | Yeah, I think even weddings are romantic. The whole cheesy thing.

04:10:06.740 | Yeah, they are.

04:10:08.900 | Those are cool.

04:10:09.460 | I agree.

04:10:10.500 | We don't get many of those in life. Well, you know what? Let's keep it a mystery.

04:10:16.660 | Let's keep the person a mystery. To be continued on season two on conversations with some...

04:10:26.580 | It's not like a known person or anything, but I feel like people always worry that

04:10:30.980 | I'm stepping back into something and I don't have the energy to be...

04:10:35.460 | Should they be worried?

04:10:36.420 | Defensive and... No.

04:10:37.540 | There you go. Don't worry, friends.

04:10:40.020 | No. And also just... Remember that thing I was saying about how it's good if you

04:10:45.300 | get to know somebody really slowly over a long period of time?

04:10:47.940 | Yeah.

04:10:48.500 | It's one of those situations. So I feel very confident that I'm certain that I'm not stepping

04:10:54.260 | into something where I'm going to be surprised and somebody turns out to be not who they

04:10:58.180 | presented themselves to be.

04:10:59.300 | That's the wise way to do it.

04:11:02.340 | Especially for me. Yeah. And also, again, I would caution people to be careful about

04:11:11.380 | wanting to go into something deliberately versus getting caught up in something or rushed or...

04:11:20.020 | That said, I would suggest people take that cautionary advice, but sometimes you just

04:11:27.540 | fall in love. Love at first sight is a thing.

04:11:30.660 | There are those stories of sweet stories of older people that have been married forever.

04:11:36.100 | They don't have to be sweet. You can get hurt for it too, but don't... Listen to your heart.

04:11:41.940 | This was an incredible conversation. We talked for way over four hours.

04:11:49.300 | We did?

04:11:49.860 | Yeah. And I feel like I can keep talking to you. This was amazing.

04:11:55.380 | Salma, thank you so much for being honest, for being fearless in answering all the questions,

04:12:02.660 | all the difficult questions. And thank you for trying to create something special with

04:12:11.060 | your restaurant and maybe create something special still in your future.

04:12:16.500 | Yeah, I hope so. Thank you for having me. I kept thinking that I was going to get a message that

04:12:24.820 | was like, "Just kidding." I've listened to your podcast a lot, and so I've certainly felt very

04:12:31.380 | intimidated knowing who's sat, if not in this actual chair, in this chair in another location

04:12:37.700 | or maybe here. Very...

04:12:40.180 | Were you nervous?

04:12:40.820 | Yes. And...

04:12:42.580 | Yeah, I was nervous too.

04:12:45.540 | Yeah. But also, because I know the way that you speak and your style, I felt like it was going

04:12:52.500 | to feel like a good natural conversation as opposed to sometimes you have conversations where it's like...

04:12:57.380 | Anyway.

04:12:59.960 | It felt good? You're happy with it?

04:13:01.300 | I didn't feel nervous because of what I was walking into. I felt nervous that I was going to

04:13:05.700 | sound stupid and boring and everybody would be like, "Why did he interview her?"

04:13:10.660 | It was exciting. You happy with it? How did we do?

04:13:14.980 | Yeah, I think so. Very often after...

04:13:19.700 | Are you self-critical after stuff?

04:13:21.780 | Yes. Very.

04:13:22.580 | When you go home tonight, are you going to be happy with yourself or not?

04:13:26.340 | I mean, I feel good. I don't feel like I can't think of anything that I said that I regret.

04:13:32.100 | Maybe there's things that somebody is going to yell at me because I said something that I said,

04:13:36.580 | like, "Meat tastes good," or something. Or I don't... Like this, "Uh-huh," the vegan judgment.

04:13:41.540 | Yes. Yes.

04:13:43.940 | But I think it's more useful to be honest about the contradictions and conflicting feelings,

04:13:49.540 | because I feel like that's what most people have. And so if you want to

04:13:53.140 | help people shift a certain way...

04:13:55.780 | Yeah, you were raw, honest. It was beautiful. It was beautiful to watch. Thank you for the books.

04:14:02.740 | Your darkness today was visible. But the beauty too. It was an amazing conversation.

04:14:10.820 | I'm really, really happy with it. I'm honored that you sit down with me. That was awesome.

04:14:16.340 | I'm floored that you're honored, and I'm honored that you asked me to be here.

04:14:20.740 | Thank you, Sarma.

04:14:22.820 | Thanks for listening to this conversation with Sarma Malingales. To support this podcast,

04:14:29.460 | please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, let me leave you with some words from

04:14:34.500 | playwright August Wilson. "Confront the dark parts of yourself and work to banish them

04:14:40.820 | with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons

04:14:45.860 | will cause your angels to sing." Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time.

04:14:52.900 | [music]

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04:14:55.060 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan, Fraud, Prison, and Sociopathy | Lex Fridman Podcast #288

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