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Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special | Lex Fridman Podcast #402
1 hours 39 minutes 1 seconds
🇬🇧 English
Speaker 1
00:00
What's your opinion on my bird here, Mr. Parrot?
Speaker 2
00:04
It's a macaw, Scarlet macaw. What? It is a Scarlet macaw.
Speaker 1
00:10
Oh, you know birds?
Speaker 2
00:11
Yeah, and that's actually not life-sized. Are you saying he's not real? I'm saying it's not to scale.
Speaker 2
00:19
Okay, but he's real. Are we doing that Monty Python sketch?
Speaker 1
00:25
Everything is a Monty Python sketch.
Speaker 2
00:26
I don't think Monty Python's funny. You don't? At all.
Speaker 2
00:29
That explains so much. Does it? What does it explain? What do
Speaker 1
00:32
you think is funny?
Speaker 2
00:34
What? You not answering that question is pretty funny.
Speaker 1
00:37
Well, yeah, what do you think is funny? Having a mentos shrimp? No.
Speaker 1
00:42
You think Big Lebowski's funny?
Speaker 2
00:44
Oh God, no. This is getting worse and worse.
Speaker 1
00:50
The following is a conversation with Michael Malice, anarchist and author of Dear Reader, The New Right, The Anarchist Handbook, The White Pill, and he is the host of the podcast, you're welcome. This is a Thanksgiving special of the pirate and ocean-going variety. So once again, let me say thank you for listening today and for being part of this wild journey with me.
Speaker 1
01:18
This is the Lex Friedman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Michael Malice.
Speaker 2
01:34
The box? Yeah, I'm wondering what's
Speaker 1
01:36
in it.
Speaker 2
01:36
There's something in that box of exquisite beauty, both literally and in
Speaker 1
01:42
what it symbolizes and why it is here. Given the kind of human being you are, I'm terrified at what you find beautiful. That's a good point.
Speaker 2
01:54
You kind of hit me with the curve ball. Yeah. Like for me, the most beautiful wildlife are what I call God's mistakes.
Speaker 2
02:04
Because my friend came up with that term where she's like, you know, God made these disgusting animals just threw in the bottom of the ocean. He's like, no one's ever
Speaker 1
02:11
gonna see this. Yeah, you commented on Twitter about some creature, like a rainbow type creature. The peacock mantis shrimp.
Speaker 2
02:18
Yeah, it's beautiful. It's horrific though. So it has, I think, 8 legs, 6 arms, 2 punching claws or spearing claws, depending on the genus, 2 eyes, 2 antennae, 2 ear flaps, I don't know what they do, and its punch can be as strong as a bullet.
Speaker 2
02:39
And the other type with the spears, divers call them thumb splitters, because if you stick your finger near it, it'll cut your thumb down to the bone. So I had 1 as a pet. All night, I would hear it banging on the PVC pipe, and I gotta tell you, they have the best eyesight of any animal, because they see in like 7 different ways. And when you make eye contact with this thing, it's just absolutely terrifying.
Speaker 2
02:59
But you can eat them as sushi. They call them sea centipedes.
Speaker 1
03:01
But they're colorful and beautiful. That species is, yeah. What was it like having 1 as a pet?
Speaker 1
03:07
And why did you do it?
Speaker 2
03:09
Well, when you have a species that's that unique and that much of an outlier, you know, growing up, reading these books, watching these shows, I found this stuff so much more fascinating than space, which is dead. So to be able to have this specimen in your house and just observe its behavior is just an amazing thing.
Speaker 1
03:32
Why'd you get rid of it?
Speaker 2
03:33
I didn't have, I guess, the right minerals in the mix. It died. It had a problem molting once.
Speaker 2
03:38
Yeah, it couldn't molt correctly.
Speaker 1
03:40
Wow. You miss it? Think about it still?
Speaker 2
03:43
I do think about it, to be honest. I still have a pair of its punching appendages from when it molted. What pet
Speaker 1
03:52
animal in your life do you miss the most that has been in your life that you think about?
Speaker 2
04:00
I've never had cats or dogs growing up or anything like that, which, you know, I, oh God. My problem is, if I like something, I will go down a rabbit hole. Yeah, so I know if I got 1 tattoo, I already know my first 5 are gonna be, okay?
Speaker 2
04:19
So I can't do it, because then once I get those 5, it's gonna be 100, and I'm already too old to be the tattoo guy.
Speaker 1
04:25
What would be the first tattoo? My face? Would it go on your ass cheeks, or where would you put
Speaker 2
04:34
them?
Speaker 1
04:34
If it was my face.
Speaker 2
04:36
If I got your face, it would definitely be on my, oh, right here.
Speaker 1
04:39
If you had multiple faces, would you put like?
Speaker 2
04:42
I think delts, right? Shoulders, different faces on different shoulders.
Speaker 1
04:44
And then when
Speaker 2
04:45
you flex. Like You want some symmetry?
Speaker 1
04:46
Yeah, yeah. Would you get a dictator? If you had to get a dictator, who would you get?
Speaker 2
04:50
We got the Kim Jong-il, right? Because I wrote the book on him.
Speaker 1
04:54
Oh, it's like plugging your book. I don't think
Speaker 2
04:56
plugging, it's just like I have a personal connection
Speaker 1
04:59
to this. A good opener to this conversation. We would be asking why him, And he'd be like, well, I wrote a book about it.
Speaker 2
05:05
I'd be like, okay. Okay, here's what, that would be a bad, no, that's not what happens. Here's the thing.
Speaker 2
05:12
What happens? When you write a book about North, hey, nice to meet you, what is it you do? I'm an author, what kind of books do you write? Well, my last book was on North Korea.
Speaker 2
05:19
90% of the time, 90, they will then start telling me everything they know about North Korea. And it's like, I don't need, this isn't a quiz, and it's a very poorly understood country, I don't expect you to know anything. You're not on the spot. And half what you're saying is not accurate either.
Speaker 2
05:35
It's fine.
Speaker 1
05:36
How often do they bring up Dennis Rodman?
Speaker 2
05:38
100%. 100% of the time. Oh, so you know Dennis Rodman? Yeah.
Speaker 2
05:42
But I don't understand why, I guess people feel the need to like, all right, now we're talking about this subject, I just gotta drop whatever I can talk about, it's usually a small amount. And there's this thing in the culture which I hate, that everyone have to have an opinion on everything. And it's like, it's okay to be like, yeah, I don't know anything about that, tell me more. There's lots of things I don't know anything about.
Speaker 2
06:02
What's your opinion
Speaker 1
06:03
on my bird here, Mr. Parrot?
Speaker 2
06:07
It's a macaw, Scarlet macaw.
Speaker 1
06:10
What?
Speaker 2
06:11
It is a Scarlet macaw.
Speaker 1
06:12
Oh, you know birds?
Speaker 2
06:14
Yeah, And that's actually not life-sized. Are you saying he's not real? I'm saying it's not to scale.
Speaker 2
06:22
Okay, but he's real. Are we doing that Monty Python sketch?
Speaker 1
06:27
Everything is a Monty Python sketch.
Speaker 2
06:29
I don't think Monty Python's funny. You don't? At all.
Speaker 2
06:32
That explains so much. Does it? What does it explain? What do you think is funny?
Speaker 2
06:37
You're not answering that question. It's pretty funny.
Speaker 1
06:40
Well, yeah, what do you think is funny? Having a mental shrimp?
Speaker 2
06:44
No.
Speaker 1
06:45
You think Big Lebowski
Speaker 2
06:46
is funny? Oh God, no. Although.
Speaker 2
06:49
This is getting worse and worse. To be fair, I only tried to watch Big Lebowski after it's been part of the culture for many years to the point where every single line has been quoted incessantly by the most annoying frat bros ever. So I kind of have been poisoned to be able to appreciate it. So maybe if I'd seen it when it came out, before it became a thing, I would have enjoyed it.
Speaker 2
07:15
I couldn't get through it. Like I couldn't get through 20 minutes.
Speaker 1
07:17
Is that how you feel about Schindler's List?
Speaker 2
07:20
Well, it's so much easier for me to stare
Speaker 1
07:23
at you when you have sunglasses on.
Speaker 2
07:24
I didn't think you'd be the 1 making Holocaust jokes today. And yet here we are.
Speaker 1
07:28
And cut scene.
Speaker 2
07:31
I actually have like
Speaker 1
07:32
no trouble making eye contact with you when you're wearing shades.
Speaker 2
07:35
Yes, because you're a robot.
Speaker 1
07:37
2 copies of myself.
Speaker 2
07:38
Yeah, oh, you're seeing yourself in them? Mm-hmm. Okay,
Speaker 1
07:40
cool. I'm having a conversation with myself. It's not your fault, Lex.
Speaker 2
07:46
They made you like this. You were just a good little robot in St. Petersburg.
Speaker 1
07:51
I could see Mr. Parrot a little bit too.
Speaker 2
07:54
Well, what do you find funny? Come on, this is an interesting subject.
Speaker 1
07:57
Well, I find Mighty Python, I find absurdity funny.
Speaker 2
08:00
Yes, I find absurdity funny. I think that's the thing. When people come at me, and maybe this is an Eastern European thing, when they're like, how can you find this very dark subject funny?
Speaker 2
08:12
It's like, well, the humor, first of all, the humor is that you're making fun of something that's dark. So already it's absurd, it's completely inappropriate. Second, just psychologically, Joan Rivers said that Winston Churchill said, I don't know if it's true, that when you make people laugh, you're giving them a little vacation. And I was just thinking about this the other day, how when I die, if I want my funeral to be a roast, it doesn't help me that everyone's sad.
Speaker 2
08:40
If I brought people happiness or joy in life, whatever, I wanna keep doing that in death. Your sadness doesn't help me. I know you can't help it, but tell stories how it made you laugh, make fun of me, make me the punching bag, even literally take me out of that coffin and make me a pinata, I don't care. So I think, and I don't understand, well, I do understand, but it's sad for me when people are like, you know, this isn't funny, that isn't funny.
Speaker 2
09:08
The way I look at humor is the way, it's like a chef, right? It's pretty easy to make bacon taste good, but some of these really obscure ingredients to make it palatable, that takes skill. So if you're dealing with a subject that is very emotional or intense and you can make people laugh, then that takes skill and that's the relief for them.
Speaker 1
09:29
Yeah. It's all about timing. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2
09:38
What's the difference, you wanna hear 1 of my jokes? Is it a pirate joke?
Speaker 1
09:42
Because that's the only kind I accept today. But go ahead, it doesn't have to be
Speaker 2
09:46
a pirate joke.
Speaker 1
09:47
It's 1 time.
Speaker 2
09:48
Do you know who Leo Thomas is? Yeah. What's the difference between Leo Thomas and Hitler?
Speaker 2
09:53
What? Leo Thomas knows how to finish a race.
Speaker 1
09:58
Very nice, very nice.
Speaker 2
09:59
Did I just
Speaker 1
09:59
get the gold medal? Good job. Why does it take pirates forever to get through the alphabet?
Speaker 1
10:09
Why? Because they spent years at sea.
Speaker 2
10:13
Oh, I thought it was going to be an R joke. That's a good 1. I like that.
Speaker 2
10:18
When I was in North Korea.
Speaker 1
10:20
Oh, you know Dennis Rodman. It's a call back.
Speaker 2
10:23
By the way, the thing that is very heartbreaking about the North Korean situation is that they have a great sense of humor. It would be a lot easier if these were like robots or drones. They have big personalities, big sense of humor, and that made it much harder to leave and interact with these people, because I mean, there's nothing more human and universal than laughter, and laughter is free.
Speaker 2
10:47
You're saying there's humor even amongst the people that have most
Speaker 1
10:50
of their freedoms taken away?
Speaker 2
10:52
Especially, I mean, again, we're from the Soviet Union. Like, there's, I mean, Russian humor is a thing, because there's nothing you can, If you can't have food or nice things, at least you can have joy and make each other laugh. I think about it all the time.
Speaker 2
11:05
And I think about my guide all the time. It's been, what, 2012, so it's been 11 years since I've been there, and she's still there, and everyone I've seen is still there. They just recently electrified the border, so you can't even, even the few people who are escaping can't do it anymore.
Speaker 1
11:19
But that's interesting that they still have a sense of humor. I attribute the Soviet Union for having that because of the really deep education system. Like you got to read a lot of literature.
Speaker 2
11:29
Okay.
Speaker 1
11:30
And because of that, you get to kind of learn about the cruelty, the injustices, the absurdity of the world. As long as the writing is not about the current regime.
Speaker 2
11:43
Yeah, but I think if you look at like African-Americans, Jewish Americans, gay Americans, they are all disproportionate in terms of attributing to comedy. It's not because these groups have some kind of, you know, magic to them. It's that when you are on the outside looking in, A, you're gonna have different perspective than the people who are in the middle of the bell curve.
Speaker 2
12:01
But also, when you don't have anything to lose, at the very least, you can make each other laugh and find happiness that way. So, that is something that I think is an important thing to recognize.
Speaker 1
12:14
So What do you find funny? What makes you giggle like in the most joyful of ways? The suffering of others?
Speaker 2
12:23
I mean, there are YouTube videos of like fat people falling down, And they're really funny.
Speaker 1
12:35
There's 2 kinds of people in this world. Those that laugh at those videos and those that don't.
Speaker 2
12:42
No, and those that are in them. My friend Jesse just told me a great Norm Macdonald joke. And this is a good litmus test joke.
Speaker 2
12:51
Because he says, a certain group of people lose their minds and a certain group of people just stare at you. And he goes this kind of, so I'll tell you the joke. This is Norm Macdonald. Guy walks into a bar and he sees someone at the bar who has a big pumpkin for a head.
Speaker 2
13:07
And the guy's like, dude, what happened to you? He goes, ugh, you'll never believe this. I got 1 of those genie lamps. And I just, genie, he's like, what happened?
Speaker 2
13:14
He goes, well, the first wish, you know, I wished for $100 million. He's like, yeah, did you get it? He goes, yeah. He goes, in my bank account, it feels fine.
Speaker 2
13:21
He goes, all right. Well, the second wish, I wish to have sex with as many beautiful women as I want. He goes, did that happen? He goes, yeah, it was amazing.
Speaker 2
13:28
He goes, then what? Well, I wish for a giant pumpkin head. So there's a certain mindset that will just be staring at the screen and that is, I mean, there's so many levels why that's funny, at least to me. And I just love that
Speaker 1
13:45
kind of thing. Well, Norm MacDonald is like, just I watch his videos all the time. He's a guy that definitely makes me giggle.
Speaker 1
13:52
And he's 1 of the people that makes me giggle for reasons I don't quite understand.
Speaker 2
13:58
Did you ever see him with Carrot Top on Conan O'Brien? No. Of Making Fun of Carrot Top?
Speaker 2
14:04
No. He, This is probably the best talk show clip of all time. He's on with Courtney Thorne-Smith, she was on Melrose Place, and Conan O'Brien's the host, and Courtney's talking about how she's gonna be an upcoming movie with Carrot Top. And Conan's like, oh, what's it gonna be called?
Speaker 2
14:22
And she's like, does it have a title yet? And Norman goes, oh, I know what it should be called, Box Office Poison. And they're all laughing and she's like, no, no, no. Like the working title is Chairman of the Board.
Speaker 2
14:32
And Conan goes, do something with that smart ass. And Norm goes, yeah, board is spelled B-O-R-E-D. And they all just completely lost it.
Speaker 1
14:39
There's something about him with words spoken out of his mouth, with the way he like turns his head and looks at the camera.
Speaker 2
14:46
I think he is 1 of those rare comedians who you really feel like he's talking to you directly. He feels like he's winking at you in the audience. And he's like, can you believe I'm doing this?
Speaker 2
14:59
Like, it's like he almost, he feels like he's, I don't wanna say imposter, but like he's more a member of the audience than he is a member of the people on the stage.
Speaker 1
15:06
Yeah, it feels like he's on our side. Yes, yeah. Whatever the hell our means.
Speaker 2
15:11
You know, Roseanne got him his first job.
Speaker 1
15:14
Roseanne, you and her have been hanging out.
Speaker 2
15:16
I got it, oh my God, talk about Thanksgiving. When you are talking to Roseanne Barr and making eye contact with this person, it is, I can't even describe it. It's just like, holy crap, Roseanne Barr is talking to me.
Speaker 2
15:30
She is, I've said this to her face, pathologically funny. Like it does not turn off. And you're sitting there and you're like, holy crap. And when you make her laugh, which is that laugh that's in the theme song of her show, you feel like, okay, I did a mitzvah, I did something good and right in the world that I made Roseanne Barr laugh.
Speaker 2
15:51
And it's also really funny because, and she's gonna hate this, because I tell her she's adorable, she isn't like that. She's little. You think of Roseanne Barr as this force of nature, like a tsunami. She's like 5'3", I'd say like maybe 130.
Speaker 2
16:05
And she puts on the sunglasses, you'd think this little old Jewish lady, you'd never know this is 1 of the most epic performers of all time, she lives near here now. So it's just so much fun talking to her. There was an old satirical magazine in the, I think in like early 2000s called Hib, written by Jews. And she dressed up as Hitler for 1 of the photo shoots and she was baking little men in the oven.
Speaker 2
16:31
I found that on eBay. I wanted her to sign it to Michael, it should have been you, but she signed it to Michael, you're 1 smart cookie, and now it hangs, love mom, Rose Zanbar, and I call her mom, and it hangs over my desk because I have her like good domestic goddess energy flowing at me. What?
Speaker 1
16:52
What do you find, what else? So Norm Macdonald.
Speaker 2
16:54
Norm Macdonald, my favorite comedian is.
Speaker 1
16:56
We agree on something.
Speaker 2
16:57
My favorite comedian of all time is Neil Hamburger. So Neil Hamburger, I don't know if I'm ruining the bit, he's a character performed by this guy named Greg Turkington. So he comes out in a tuxedo, big eyeglasses, holding 3 glasses of water, coughing into the mic.
Speaker 2
17:21
And I remember I saw him once in LA and the girl at the table ahead of me was with her boyfriend, this basic chick, Pumpkin Spice. She turns to him and she goes, what is this? And I remember the first time he was on Jimmy Kimmel and he tells 1 of his jokes and it was like, why does ET like Reese's Pieces so much? Well, that's what sperm tastes like on his home planet.
Speaker 2
17:45
And like no 1 laughs and he goes, oh, come on guys, I have cancer. And it just cuts to this marine in the audience with his arms crossed. So if you know what he's doing, it's just absolutely amazing. He opened for Tenacious D once in somewhere, I think in Ireland or the UK, 1 of those.
Speaker 2
18:05
And they're booing him because his jokes are often not funny. He's like, hey, where did my whore ex-wife run off to with that dentist she's shacking up with? I don't know, but when I see her in court next month, Alaska. So they're booing and he goes, all right, do you guys want me to bring out Tenacious D?
Speaker 2
18:24
They're like, yeah, do you want to see your heroes of mine Tenacious D? Yeah, come on, let me hear it. Do you want to see Tenacious D? Yeah, he goes, all right.
Speaker 2
18:32
If I tell this next joke and you don't boo me, I'll bring out Tenacious D. And it's like, I'm trying to think of 1 that's not too. Self-censorship is never good. Okay, he goes, can we agree that George Bush is the worst president America's ever had?
Speaker 2
18:52
Everyone claps, he goes, which makes it all the stranger that his son, George W. Bush, was in fact the best.
Speaker 1
18:58
I take it back, I'm a self-censorship.
Speaker 2
19:01
So 2 people laugh and he goes, oh, that's amazing, I guess I'll do an encore. And he did 10 more minutes. It was just like, I love him so much.
Speaker 1
19:09
It's interesting that he opened for Tenacious D. Jack Black, that's a comedic genius of a different kind.
Speaker 2
19:15
Oh yeah, and he was in 1 of my favorite movies, Jesus' Son, it's this little indie movie. He did a great turn in that. He's really underrated as an actor.
Speaker 2
19:23
He's got a lot of range. Like I know they kind of get typescast as this kind of 1 specific type, but he's really, really talented.
Speaker 1
19:30
But also just like the pure joy.
Speaker 2
19:32
Yes, he's clearly having fun.
Speaker 1
19:35
Okay, it is Thanksgiving, so in the tradition, following tradition, what are you thankful for, Michael?
Speaker 2
19:44
In this world? Do you have a list too?
Speaker 1
19:46
No, not really. Really? It's up in here.
Speaker 2
19:49
Oh, I mean, but you have several things you're thankful for.
Speaker 1
19:52
Yes, yes.
Speaker 2
19:53
1 of the things I'm- My list comes from
Speaker 1
19:54
the heart. I don't have to write anything down.
Speaker 2
19:56
Well, I don't have it written down. Okay. 1 of the things that I'm most thankful for, this is a common answer, but I can back it up, is my family, because my nephew Lucas is now 6 years old and he, when kids have a sense of humor, it's like just miraculous.
Speaker 2
20:15
So he stole my sister's phone, his mom, figured out that grandma is listed as mom in the phone, and he calls her up and he's like, Michael's in the hospital, he's really sick, he didn't want to tell you, and she's freaking out. He goes, prank! So I took him, Dinesh D'Souza just released a movie called Police State, which is actually really good, highly recommend it. I was surprised how much I liked it.
Speaker 2
20:39
Because he wasn't going Republicans good, Democrats bad, it was just about authoritarianism. And he had a movie premiere, Mar-a-Lago. So I'm like, I gotta bring Lucas to Mar-a-Lago. So Lucas is, I'm like, we're going to the president's house.
Speaker 2
20:52
He's like, oh, the White House? And I'm like, no, no, like a former president. He goes, oh, Abe Lincoln? And I'm like, okay, kid logic.
Speaker 2
20:58
Like he's giving logical answers. This is kind of like AI. You have to program it to, it's using logic correctly.
Speaker 1
21:04
You should have told him as a president that's second to only Abe Lincoln in terms of greatness.
Speaker 2
21:11
Accomplishments, yeah. He went up to all the women in their ball gown, you know, evening gowns, and he goes, you're so beautiful, were you born as a girl? So when you have this 6 year old asking you this, it was really, really fun.
Speaker 2
21:29
So that is a great joy to have a nephew. And I have another 1, Zach, who's coming up in age and he's starting to talk now. That is really, really fun
Speaker 1
21:38
for me. Getting to watch them find out about the world for the first time.
Speaker 2
21:43
And also training them. Like that he loves being funny and having fun.
Speaker 1
21:49
You're his audience, in a sense.
Speaker 2
21:51
Yeah, but- Because you giggle and- I give him, we're prank bros, he gives me a high 5. My family, and this is, you talk about what I find funny, this is the things that actually enrage me. When people, and this is such a WASP thing, don't just go with the joke, or they're like, I don't get it, or they don't understand, to just go with it.
Speaker 2
22:10
I was in the car with my sister when she was like 10, 12, whatever. She's much younger than me. She's like 12 years younger. And there's this species of squid, by the way, which is asymmetric, 1 of its eyes is very much bigger than the other, because it swims horizontally, and so one's looking up, one's looking down, where there's more light.
Speaker 2
22:29
Shout out, If you wanna learn more about squids, go to octonation.com.
Speaker 1
22:32
Octonation, shout out. Shout out to Warren. There's a lot of fascinating stuff.
Speaker 1
22:35
Octonation on Instagram.
Speaker 2
22:37
Yes. I was in the car with my sister, she's like 10 or 12.
Speaker 1
22:40
Me as a pirate, I'm sorry for the rude interruptions, I appreciate that count especially.
Speaker 2
22:45
Yeah, it's a great, yeah.
Speaker 1
22:46
These jokes and thoughts are coming to me at a 10 second delay, so I apologize. Anyway, you were telling about the asymmetrical. Don't
Speaker 2
22:54
worry, I
Speaker 1
22:54
got it.
Speaker 2
22:54
All right. So I told my sister.
Speaker 1
22:56
Sometimes you need help. No.
Speaker 2
22:59
The age is getting to you. I was.
Speaker 1
23:01
Your skin is showing it. It's getting dark.
Speaker 2
23:06
I told my sister, I go, when you were born, 1 of your eyes was bigger than the other and you had to have surgery to fix it. So she turns, she's like, mom, And my mom goes, honey, the important thing is that you're beautiful now. That's all, it's like, what's the big deal?
Speaker 2
23:22
It was just a little surgery. And my sister's like, all right. Calls grandma and grandma goes, she goes, Michael said that when I was born, 1 of the guys, she goes, why is he telling you this now? It's not a big deal.
Speaker 2
23:33
You were, so the fact that everyone went with this. Oh. I was so impressed. I was like, this is a quality family in this very specific regard.
Speaker 2
23:41
Yeah. Does your family have a sense of humor?
Speaker 1
23:43
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. You know, Soviet culture, there's like a dark sense of humor.
Speaker 2
23:50
Very much so. There's wit, there's a- Wordplay. Wordplay.
Speaker 1
23:55
Yeah, yeah, and especially the Russian language allows for some like- Yes. Hilarity to it. There's also a culture of like poetry and like my dad, my mom too, but they remember a lot of lines from books and poems.
Speaker 1
24:12
So there's just, you can do a lot of fascinating references that add to the humor and the richness of the conversation. I feel
Speaker 2
24:18
like that's a very Russian thing, like at a party or maybe at a bar or something, I don't know where you'd meet people. These are such great ice- And then go out. I meant in Russia.
Speaker 2
24:27
I meant these would be such good icebreakers. Right, You go up to someone and go, hey, did you hear this 1, novenikdot, and you just tell him some little story.
Speaker 1
24:34
Did you say icebreakers because it's cold in Russia? I'm here all night.
Speaker 2
24:41
That's true, you never leave the house. Literally. So, I feel like that's a thing.
Speaker 2
24:47
Yeah. And that's not a thing in America.
Speaker 1
24:51
You mean like witty banter?
Speaker 2
24:52
No, meaning you go up to a stranger and like that's your icebreaker. You tell them this little joke. And since everyone kind of has the same sensibilities, right away you guys are chatting.
Speaker 2
25:00
I don't think that's a thing here. Here it's more small talk, which drives me crazy.
Speaker 1
25:04
So what else are you thankful for?
Speaker 2
25:06
Well, what's something you're thankful for?
Speaker 1
25:09
Well, you went with family. I'm definitely thankful for family. Okay.
Speaker 2
25:13
Yeah. How, if I may ask, how do they react to you? Like you're sitting down with Elon, you're sitting down with Netanyahu, you're sitting down with all these like big, with Kanye, all these big names. Are they expressing that they're proud of you or is it more like why haven't you talked to this person?
Speaker 2
25:30
Yeah, More Michael Malice, please. The people's choice.
Speaker 1
25:36
Yeah, yeah, they're very proud. They've been very, they're very, I mean, but they get argumentative and we just, they're just like a regular human being with whom I'm close and we just argue about stuff. They're not, maybe not enough, showed the being proud of, but that part is just the nature of our relationship.
Speaker 1
25:54
It's also Soviet parents.
Speaker 2
25:56
Yeah, I don't talk to my dad. That's 1 of the reasons, because there's never, ever any good job. And at a certain point, it's like, why am I trying to search for approval from someone I'm never getting it for and from whom it wouldn't mean anything at this point anyway?
Speaker 1
26:14
Well, that's interesting. I mean, there's a journey like that for a lot of people with their father or with their mother. Like they're always trying to find approval.
Speaker 1
26:23
And that's life for a lot of people. That's a really big part of the human condition is that relationship you have with your father, with your mother. I don't know, it's a beautiful thing. Whether it's been a rough childhood or a beautiful 1, all of it, that's who you are.
Speaker 1
26:41
The relationship, especially early on in your life with your father, with your mother, is extremely formative.
Speaker 2
26:48
So- my dad taught me a lot of things at a young age that I'm very, very grateful for. He's extremely intelligent, very flawed, and that's fine. We all are, except for me.
Speaker 2
27:02
And it's the kind of things that when you learn things that are right, and this is 1 of the things I like about being older, is that when I'm friends with people, much older, but much, much older, when I have friends who are younger, it's very easy for me to keep them from making the mistakes I did. So at least this is something I'm getting out of it, is that, okay, I can't fix these mistakes, but it just takes me 30 seconds and I can pull you back from making the mistake. So he taught me a lot as a kid. He really encouraged me very much to, he's a very good sense of humor and also very bad in some ways, dad jokes, but also really funny jokes.
Speaker 2
27:37
But also this love of learning, I got that from him. And I mean, I have got literally right now 98 books on my shelf to read. It's just a life, that makes me, I remember I had a friend and she ran into someone she went to high school with and he stopped on the train and he's like, yo, you're not in college, you don't need to read books anymore. And I was just like horrified to hear this.
Speaker 2
28:00
Yeah,
Speaker 1
28:01
yeah, boy don't I know it. I mean,
Speaker 2
28:07
you do laugh, but like when you got, there's a lot of things I don't understand. When you got heat for like, I wanna read the Western classics, to me that might have been like the internet's absolute worst.
Speaker 1
28:21
I think there's just a cynical perspective you can take that this is such a simple celebration of a thing that there must be something behind it. I think the internet, for good and bad, is just skeptical. Like, what's behind this?
Speaker 2
28:36
My hero, Albert Camus, and if there's 1 thing I would wanna fight, it's cynicism. Because it's such a giving up, it's such everything sucks, this sucks, that sucks, this sucks. Most things suck, most standard comedians suck, most movies suck, all podcasts suck.
Speaker 2
28:54
But it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1
28:55
Especially yours.
Speaker 2
28:55
Especially mine, it's unwatchable. You're welcome, you can't even spell it correctly. Ha ha ha.
Speaker 2
29:01
Ha ha ha. But the stuff that's good is what matters. Who cares if 90% of movies are terrible? Like they're the ones that change your life.
Speaker 2
29:12
The books, the people, the comedians, the shows, the music.
Speaker 1
29:17
And even the terrible things have good moments, beautiful moments.
Speaker 2
29:22
Some, not all.
Speaker 1
29:23
Your podcast being an example of not all. I literally just, I keep listening for something good. Something good.
Speaker 2
29:31
In all fairness, none of my guests have anything to offer. It's not on me, I try.
Speaker 1
29:37
Yeah, well, I wish you'd talk a
Speaker 2
29:39
little less in your podcast, it's
Speaker 1
29:41
a little excessive. I only listen for the underwear commercials.
Speaker 2
29:45
Sheathunderwear.com, cover called Malice. I think you did this, I
Speaker 1
29:50
haven't seen you do it in a while, but this kind of commentary on a debate, or I think it was with Rand, like an Ayn Rand debate or
Speaker 2
29:59
something like this. Oh yeah, Malice at the Movies. I watched the video and I broke it down.
Speaker 1
30:03
That was really great. I wish you did that more.
Speaker 2
30:05
I haven't done live streaming in a long time. It was something I was doing a lot in New York, especially during COVID. I feel that, I don't know, I'm having, I've got so many projects on the plate.
Speaker 2
30:21
Oh, this is something else I'm thankful for. This is something I'm very, very thankful for, and I'm going to announce it here.
Speaker 1
30:26
Coming out of the closet, finally. Go ahead.
Speaker 2
30:31
Who's the lucky guy? You're the 1 in drag. Guns out, guns out.
Speaker 2
30:45
He makes me call him Sex Friedman.
Speaker 1
30:48
You like it.
Speaker 2
30:50
So, I didn't say it. Didn't even imply that. When I, as you probably know, as you know but as many people watching this also know, Harvey P.
Speaker 2
31:01
Carr, who had the comic book series American Splendor, was the subject of the movie American Splendor. He wrote a graphic novel about me in 2006 called Ego and Hubris, which goes for like $150 on eBay. It's not worth it, just download it. And I met Harvey because I wrote this screenplay about this band from the 80s called Rubber Rodeo.
Speaker 2
31:23
It's a real band. And the keyboardist, Gary Lieb, who passed away, rest in peace Gary, introduced me to Harvey because he did the animation for the movie. And this script's been in my desk for over 20 years. And I realized, thanks to my buddy Eric July, who has some huge success with his comics, I could just produce this as a graphic novel.
Speaker 2
31:43
So I've got an artist, we're getting it together, so I'm gonna make it happen finally. And it's some of the best writing I've ever done, I'm really proud of the story. It's kind of ironic reading it now, because when you're a writer, obviously, different books, you put different aspects of yourself into them, right? And this story's very, very dark, because basically they did all the right things and they went nowhere, right?
Speaker 2
32:07
What I realized was, reading it now, that all these fears I had over 20 years ago about what if I'm not gonna make it, what if I'm doing all the hard work and it's still not enough? Now it's been disproven, because I can at least pay my rent.
Speaker 1
32:22
You feel like you've made it? So you said you could pay your rent.
Speaker 2
32:26
I feel that to make it is, if you don't have to have a boss, and you know how I really felt like I made it? This is gonna sound like a joke and it's not. This is being an immigrant.
Speaker 2
32:41
I own, as you know, Margaret Thatcher's bookcases. Yes. So to me, as an immigrant, to have her bookcases in
Speaker 1
32:49
my house, I've made it. You're right, it's not a joke.
Speaker 2
32:53
There's nothing funny about it at all. No, what? Time to get serious.
Speaker 2
32:59
Oh, nice.
Speaker 1
33:00
Oh, now I'm more nervous. And aroused. So what else are you thankful for?
Speaker 1
33:06
So we're both thankful for family.
Speaker 2
33:09
I mean, the fact that I can. Still get it up. What's that?
Speaker 2
33:13
Nothing, go ahead. I think as an author, to be able to write what you want and have enough of an audience that it covers your living, that's as good as it gets as an author almost. You don't need to be Stephen King or some legend. It's like, you know, there's lots of stand-ups who aren't like world famous, but they have perfectly good living.
Speaker 2
33:37
They do their gig, they do what they love. I feel very, very blessed. You must be thankful for your career.
Speaker 1
33:43
Yeah, yeah, career-wise. But like, I think the best part about it is just meeting, making friends with people I admire.
Speaker 2
33:52
Okay.
Speaker 1
33:53
Quite honestly, just friends. The people have gotten to know me, I hide from the world sometimes, I hit some low points, especially with all the new experiences and just the people that have been there for me and haven't given up on me.
Speaker 2
34:06
You know, there's days, and I'm sure you've had this also, where I literally don't speak to someone the whole day. And in certain times in my life, it's really, I remember very vividly. I was in DC in 97, I was an intern.
Speaker 2
34:20
And that summer, DC closes down on the weekends. And I remember those weekends when I got off the phone with the third person, I knew there was no possibility anyone was gonna call and what that felt like. And it was dark and it was bad. So I remember those feelings of loneliness a lot.
Speaker 1
34:45
I still feel alone like that sometimes. You don't feel alone?
Speaker 2
34:51
Not anymore.
Speaker 1
34:52
What's the reason, you think?
Speaker 2
34:57
Because I have a lot of people who I care about and who care about me. The thing about moving to Austin is I forgot how lonely New York got because it was like 1 after another I lost everybody. And then you start losing the places you go to.
Speaker 2
35:14
And then it was just like, holy crap, I'm very isolated. And here in Austin, there's not as much to do, obviously, as in New York, but there's a lot of people here, more people are coming all the time. So if I ever want to hang out with someone, I've got a long list. And these are people who I've known for a very long time, people who know me quite well, so I could be myself, my awful, awful, awful, awful, awful self.
Speaker 2
35:38
And that is something I don't take lightly.
Speaker 1
35:42
Now you moved to Texas, it's gonna succeed.
Speaker 2
35:44
Yeah.
Speaker 1
35:44
It's just a very-
Speaker 2
35:46
Do you know what happened with that?
Speaker 1
35:47
No. I
Speaker 2
35:48
forget the guy's name, and it's probably for the best. Monday, on Monday, a guy in the Texas legislature introduces a bill to have it on the referendum, to have a referendum for Texas to declare its independence. Tuesday, I'm on Rogan, me and him discuss it, I give it national attention.
Speaker 2
36:08
It was also really funny because a lot of people are like, these people have been in Texas 5 minutes, blah blah. I go to the Texas legislature, meet with the guy, have a nice conversation. Month or 2 later, unanimous I think, he gets voted, kicked out of Congress because he got an intern drunk and was inappropriate with her. At least it was a girl in this case.
Speaker 2
36:32
But yeah, so it's like, that was my little Texas independence moment.
Speaker 1
36:36
Oh, it didn't go anywhere.
Speaker 2
36:38
It did not go anywhere. Wow. But it's still part of the platform, the Texas Republican Party.
Speaker 1
36:44
Yeah. It's fascinating that history is probably laden with stories like this of failed revolutionaries. We celebrate the heroes, but then there's the losers.
Speaker 2
36:55
Myself.
Speaker 1
36:58
And we're gonna mark that 1 as a failure and edit it out. And moving on, so thankful, yeah, friendships, right? But by the way, I wanna say just to you, I'm thankful in this lonely moments for people who write books.
Speaker 1
37:15
I've been listening to audio books a lot and reading a lot. I really like audio books actually. And just like, I don't know, I can just name random person. Serhii Plokhi is a historian I'm reading on the...
Speaker 2
37:28
Wait, I read him, what do you...
Speaker 1
37:30
I just see he written a book most recently about the Russia-Ukraine war.
Speaker 2
37:35
He wrote another 1 that I read. Didn't he write about-
Speaker 1
37:37
Empires, I think.
Speaker 2
37:37
The fall of the Soviet Union, something like that.
Speaker 1
37:39
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2
37:40
Yeah, it was very, very good.
Speaker 1
37:41
He's great.
Speaker 2
37:42
I used him as a resource for the white pill.
Speaker 1
37:44
He's objective while still having emotion and feeling to it. Like he has a bias.
Speaker 2
37:49
I would say.
Speaker 1
37:50
But without, a lot of times when you write a story that involves Putin, people are really ideological. They don't really like, they don't write with a calmness and the clarity and the rigor of history. There's emotion in it, like there's almost a virtue signaling.
Speaker 1
38:10
And he doesn't have that, even though he is Ukrainian and has very strong opinions on the matter. Anyway, there's people like that, and he does an incredible job researching a recent event. Like he says, I was looking at everything that's been written about the war in Ukraine and realizing the old Churchill line that historians are the worst ones to write about current events except everybody else. And so he's like, I might as well just write about this war and he does an exceptional job summarizing day by day the details of this war.
Speaker 1
38:44
Anyway, So I'm just grateful for a guy like that.
Speaker 2
38:50
So for me, I'll name some historians I love. Arthur Herman, Victor Sebastian is probably my favorite. David Petruccia, P-I-E-T-R-U-S-Z-A.
Speaker 2
39:01
When you are a historian, and I tried to do this to some degree in the white pill as
Speaker 1
39:06
much
Speaker 2
39:06
as I could, when you take data and you make it read like a novel, So you're learning about who we are as people, what had happened, but also it's entertaining and readable. That to me is like the Acme of writing. And I have so much admiration.
Speaker 1
39:25
What does Acme mean? Top. Okay.
Speaker 1
39:28
Zenith. Zenith, okay. Is this what writers do? They just come up with these incredibly sophisticated words, I'm impressed.
Speaker 1
39:35
You could have just said the best of writing.
Speaker 2
39:37
Acme is also the company, and like Bugs Bunny and Wile E. Coyote, it's always Acme, you know, Acme, yeah, like Acme bombs. When they are that good, it's just, it leaves me in awe.
Speaker 2
39:52
It's just the- Ron Chernow's another 1. Who? He wrote the Hamilton biography.
Speaker 1
39:57
Oh, nice. Oh, I have a lot of favorite historians about the whole time period of World War II. William Shire, people that lived during it especially.
Speaker 1
40:08
I really like those accounts. Obviously, Solzhenitsyn, he's not a historian, but his accounts are fascinating. You actually, how much do you talk about Solzhenitsyn? Never.
Speaker 1
40:21
Not much, right? Why not? I
Speaker 2
40:24
feel like I wanted to, there's nothing I could add to him.
Speaker 1
40:30
Oh, He is the Michael Malice of the previous century.
Speaker 2
40:34
No, he's talented, charismatic, and skilled, so he's not the Michael Malice. Yeah, I did not, I feel like I didn't read Gulag Archipelago for the white pill. I feel- You didn't.
Speaker 2
40:48
I didn't, no. I feel I got a lot of it from Ann Applebaum, who's a very controversial figure. Her history books on the Soviet Union, I think are superb, but she's also accused of being very much like a neocon and being a warmonger in contemporary times. And I think comparisons between Putin and Stalin, although there is a Venn diagram, I think are a bit much, because I think it's very hard to claim that if Putin conquered Ukraine, that there'd be a genocide.
Speaker 2
41:16
I don't think, I think that's a very hard argument to make.
Speaker 1
41:19
In these tense times, even the comparisons of what's going on in Israel, on either side, comparisons to the Holocaust are also troubling in this way.
Speaker 2
41:28
Yes, and I also don't like how that, you know, I got in trouble. There was some literal demon who works at the Atlantic. And.
Speaker 2
41:36
As opposed to a regular demon? As opposed to a figurative demon.
Speaker 1
41:39
I didn't know they employed demons.
Speaker 2
41:41
They exclusively employed demons at the Atlantic. And he was giving me crap, this was a couple years ago on Twitter, because I didn't think it's appropriate to refer to George Soros as a Holocaust survivor. And I'm like, listen, if you want to put him in the same context as Anne Frank, knock yourself out.
Speaker 2
42:02
But I think that's so completely disingenuous and frankly repulsive to me morally to equivocate between figures like that. And also to claim that anyone who is a billionaire, who is including Elon, including Sheldon Adelson, there's no shortage of these people. If you wanna use your extreme wealth, use to influence politics, you have to be up for criticism. And to protect people, Bill Gates, to protect any speed from criticism just on the basis
Speaker 1
42:33
of their identity is deranged to me. But also the Holocaust as a historical event and the atrocities within it are just singular in history.
Speaker 2
42:45
And so comparing them. What's the utility, right? You're just basically trying to take this brand, I'm using that term in a very specific way, and latch, like when they say climate denial, no one's denying climate exists, so you're just trying to go off of Holocaust denial.
Speaker 2
43:01
I think it's shameless, And I think it's gross. And it cheapens everything.
Speaker 1
43:05
Yeah. Because there's deep, important lessons about the Holocaust. Yes. To me, the lessons are
Speaker 2
43:11
about how extreme it can get. And how fast. Yeah, and
Speaker 1
43:17
how fast.
Speaker 2
43:17
That's the 1. So, you know, people ask, oh, are humans basically good? Are they basically evil?
Speaker 2
43:24
I always say they're basically animals. And I think people are, most people are almost fundamentally deranged and that there's basically this veneer of civilization and decency. And when shit hits the fan, and we see this over and over, they do things that would have been completely unthinkable even to themselves 5 years ago.
Speaker 1
43:46
Most people are fundamentally deranged with a veneer of civility.
Speaker 2
43:50
There's a show called, I think I disagree with that. Well, what's the show called? I'm having Alzheimer's because of the advanced age.
Speaker 1
43:56
The age, the skin care.
Speaker 2
44:00
There's a show called I Think You Should Leave. It's a sketch comedy show. Okay, sorry.
Speaker 2
44:04
It's a sketch comedy show. And he captures these great, how's your hair, Princess? He captures these great moments of just the, like just the very thin veneer of normalcy and just the craziness that's so frequently lurking underneath. Another great example of this, when this is dealing with people who are literally crazy, have you ever seen the show Hoarders?
Speaker 2
44:27
So every episode of Hoarders, there's usually 2 people in every episode, but every episode has the same plot line. Veneer of normalcy, veneer of normalcy, veneer of normalcy, slight expression of concern, full-blown derangement. And it always follows that exact pattern. Yeah,
Speaker 1
44:45
I don't know, I think the deep ocean of the human mind is good, like there's a longing to be good to others.
Speaker 2
44:56
I have seen literally no evidence of this, and I know everything's a deep ocean with you people, but like.
Speaker 1
45:01
What do you mean you people? Pirates. Oh.
Speaker 2
45:04
I don't see it. You, you.
Speaker 1
45:07
What's that Mr. Parrot? You an anti-Semite?
Speaker 1
45:12
No, that's not nice to say in front of such a large audience. You're embarrassing me Mr. Parrot.
Speaker 2
45:18
Lex, you have. What's that Mr.
Speaker 1
45:20
Parrot? You have. He's a run of the mill troll and barely an intellectual? That's not nice to say, that's not true.
Speaker 1
45:28
We talked about this, you have to see the good in people.
Speaker 2
45:31
You have seen personally how quickly and easily it is for human beings to form outgroups. Yeah. And to just read others just, as I just did a minute ago with the Atlantic, completely out of the human race.
Speaker 2
45:47
And that happens constantly and very easily. Humans are tribal beings. So that does not, I don't see how that's compatible with this essential desire to do good.
Speaker 1
45:58
No, I think it's like in 1984, the 2 minutes of hate. There is a part of humans that wants to be tribal and wants to direct, get angry and hateful, and then that hate is easy to direct. Yes.
Speaker 1
46:13
By especially people as you, as an anarchist, talk about, there are people in power that can direct that anger. But I think if you just look at recent human history, the desire for good, the communal desire for good, outweighs that, I think. Like Most of life on Earth right now, people are being good to each other, in a most fundamental
Speaker 2
46:37
sense, relative to how nature usually works. Okay, I think you're both wrong about people and about nature. So nature is not inherently violent, in the sense like, for example, if anyone has an aquarium, or if you look at wildlife, yeah, you're gonna have predator prey, but these animals are gonna be coexisting and they're gonna be ignoring each other for the most part, right?
Speaker 2
46:59
And As for humans being essentially good, I think humans are essentially, to each other, you said, I think they're essentially civil and amiable, but that's not really being good. Good, I think, is
Speaker 1
47:13
a thing that gets illustrated when you're challenged, when there's a difficult situation.
Speaker 2
47:16
Exactly, yes.
Speaker 1
47:17
I mean, civility is a good starting point. And then when there's a big challenge that comes, people step up on average.
Speaker 2
47:26
I completely agree with you that human beings are capable of such profound goodness that it kind of makes you extremely emotional, and I certainly think that that's true, but I think that that's more unusual than is
Speaker 1
47:40
the norm. I see beauty everywhere.
Speaker 2
47:43
So do I, but that doesn't mean It's in every person.
Speaker 1
47:46
Not in every person, but in most people. I think, I mean, I wish there was a really good way to measure this. My general sense of the world is just, there's so much incredible, both in terms of economics, in terms of art, in terms of just creation as a whole that's happened over the past century, that it feels like the good is outpowering the bad.
Speaker 2
48:09
You just did the perfect segue to the box. What's in the box?
Speaker 1
48:17
So. Is it your fragile ego?
Speaker 2
48:20
That's my, you stole my joke. You stole my joke. That was the joke I made at you before we were recorded.
Speaker 2
48:27
You stole my joke. No, I didn't.
Speaker 1
48:29
I write all your material, you hack.
Speaker 2
48:33
So, as you know, I have a lot of beautiful stuff in my house, because I think it's something very important, everyone listening, if you accomplish something that is great, some achievement, what I like to do is buy myself something to remember that moment. Because sometimes when it's hard, you forget you've done great things in your life, you've had accomplishments. It doesn't have to be some amazing factory, It could just be like my first job, or I got a raise, or you know what, anything.
Speaker 2
49:07
So there's this amazing sculptor named Jake Michael Singer, a singer who's a sculptor, And I saw a piece of his- How's his singing voice?
Speaker 1
49:21
This is a joke, it's not gonna-
Speaker 2
49:23
Well, hold on, I can go somewhere with this. How's his singing voice?
Speaker 1
49:26
Do you want me to write your joke for you?
Speaker 2
49:27
Yeah, what's the punchline? Hard! There it is, that's good.
Speaker 2
49:33
That's what she said. So I followed him on Instagram. He followed me back. And he's like, if I made, he says, what's the point of being an artist if the work I create isn't in the spaces of people I like and admire?
Speaker 2
49:55
He's a big fan of yours. You've given him, in our episodes together, given him joy. So He said, if I make Lex a sculpture, will he put it on the shelf behind him? And what that reminded me of is when I was a kid, you read Batman comics and there's the Batcave.
Speaker 2
50:13
And the Batcave has all this cool stuff in it. I didn't realize until much later that all of those things in the Bat Cave had an origin story. So the giant penny, the dinosaur, there was actually a story where that came from. So if you're a fan of a show, you can spot, oh, this is when this appeared, this is when that appeared, this is when that appeared.
Speaker 2
50:30
So he made you this sculpture. He lives in Turkey and it's called Chance Murmur. And it is, I haven't even seen it yet. It is absolutely beautiful.
Speaker 1
50:42
So you want to do a little unboxing? Yes. Okay.
Speaker 1
50:47
Axe or?
Speaker 2
50:49
Body spray.
Speaker 1
50:54
All right, let's do it. Let's unbox.
Speaker 2
50:59
He lets us out of the box.
Speaker 1
51:02
You know, that Steven Seagal movie where there's like a stripper that comes out of the box Is that? Under siege. He's on a boat.
Speaker 1
51:12
You're not an action film guy. No. 1. What does the pirate say when he turns 80?
Speaker 1
51:25
I'm 80.
Speaker 2
51:28
I'm 80. Oh. 0.
Speaker 2
51:32
See, that's how I know you don't like pirates.
Speaker 1
51:37
Well, your mom does. Do you play any musical instruments? No.
Speaker 2
51:42
Neither do you. I've seen your guitar videos.
Speaker 1
51:46
Okay. Here's a big piece of wood for you. That's what it feels like just so you
Speaker 2
51:51
know. Oh wow. Oh my God.
Speaker 1
52:00
This traveled across the world.
Speaker 2
52:05
So here's why his work speaks so much to me. So first of all, he's combining so many different references. It's Nike, the goddess of victory, right?
Speaker 2
52:20
It looks like an angel as well. The Italian futurists, which is my favorite art movement from the early 20th century, they tried to capture motion in 2D or 3D form.
Speaker 1
52:31
Well, Jake, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 1
52:36
Thank you for creating beautiful things. And I thank you for caring about somebody like me and somebody like Michael. I really feel the love.
Speaker 2
52:43
That's the other thing. When you have something that matters to you in your house and you're having a bad day, you can look at it and remember, you know what I mean, that spirit of joy. And I actually have a list here.
Speaker 2
52:57
Okay, I got a little rant ready. You wanna hear my rant?
Speaker 1
53:00
Yeah, let's go.
Speaker 2
53:02
1 of the things that drives me crazy is when people, especially conservatives, think that all contemporary art is ugly or abstract or like literally garbage. And there's a lot of that. But so much of the stuff out there in galleries is not only not crazy expensive, but they're trying to sell things for people in their house, and these are young artists, you know, they're trying to add beauty.
Speaker 2
53:27
I have a list, so if you don't believe me and you think all contemporary art is garbage or terrible, go to the website of any of these places that I'm gonna rattle off, look through them, and you're telling me that it's not about creating beauty and joy and things in people's lives. So I don't have any relationship with any of these people. These are just some galleries I follow on Instagram. Outre Gallery, Antler Gallery, Giant Robot 2, Beinart, I don't know how to pronounce it, I'm sorry, B-E-I-N-A-R-T, Spoke Art Gallery, VAR Gallery in Milwaukee, I was there.
Speaker 2
53:56
The pieces were not expensive at all.
Speaker 1
53:58
What kind of art are we talking about? Everything, paintings?
Speaker 2
54:00
Mostly paintings, mostly paintings, some sculptures too, like this. Corey Halford is my favorite 1 in LA. Night Gallery, Vertical Gallery, Avant Gallery, Hive Gallery, Haven Gallery, and Curio Art Gallery.
Speaker 2
54:11
I'm telling you, it's not exorbitant. This is not the kind of thing where you have to go to a museum and be like, this doesn't make sense to me. You look at it right away, you're like, okay, I know what this is and it's beautiful, it's awesome. And you're supporting someone who's young and creative trying to do something and make the world a better place.
Speaker 2
54:31
So I'm a big fan of the contemporary art scene. A lot of it is not great, but even the stuff that's not great is very rarely disgusting or gross. It's just like, okay, I've seen this before, something like that. Okay.
Speaker 2
54:44
It's like there was, there's like a standup where like I'll pay money for the ticket and someone's like, who's an opener? It's like, I wouldn't pay to see him perform, but he sure still made me laugh. That person is still by far more good than bad. So a lot of this art isn't stuff I would own, but It's like, okay, I get it, I like it.
Speaker 1
55:01
Well, as the analogy goes, I really like going to open mics, actually, because, like, funny, it sounds absurd to say, but funny isn't the only thing that's beautiful about stand-up comedy. It's the, the, the, The, it's going for it. It's trying to be funny.
Speaker 1
55:21
It's taking the leap, trying the joke. And some of the best stuff is actually funny, but the audience is like 3 people, 2 of whom are drunk and bored, and you're still going for it. And that's like, that's the human spirit right there.
Speaker 2
55:35
Roseanne was telling me how Gilbert Godfrey would go on, it was like 3 in the morning, and it was like 5, her and like 3 other comics in the audience, and like they all were just dying. Like he was just killing them. Who's your favorite comedian?
Speaker 1
55:53
Dave Smith. Who? And cut scene.
Speaker 1
55:58
Favorite comedian, first on Norman McDonald, if you like put a gun to my head and I had to answer really quickly, that would be him.
Speaker 2
56:04
Okay.
Speaker 1
56:07
I would also say Louis C.K.
Speaker 2
56:09
Oh wow, yeah. Oh my god, yes.
Speaker 1
56:12
But that's almost like a vanilla answer at this moment in history because it's like a...
Speaker 2
56:16
Louis C.K.'s pretty radioactive.
Speaker 1
56:18
He is, well, yeah, he does it, the tough topics, the best. Mitch Hedberg, the wit of a good one-liner, it's great. I guess that's what Norm Macdonald was a genius at.
Speaker 2
56:31
What about you? I mean, we're so fortunate to be here in Austin because that comedy, Mothership, you go there and people are just killing it. David Lucas is amazing.
Speaker 2
56:42
Ty Rivera. Ty Rivera probably did the best set I've seen since I've been here in Austin. And I watched him and I'm like, this guy's even bitchier than I am. So I reached out to him.
Speaker 2
56:53
So he's just terrific. David Lucas is another 1, a buddy of mine. You just
Speaker 1
56:58
said it twice, I think.
Speaker 2
57:00
I'm thinking, Dave Lando, excuse me. Dave Lando. Joe Mackey.
Speaker 2
57:03
Old age, catching up. It's true though.
Speaker 1
57:05
It's true.
Speaker 2
57:06
It's true. It's true. Dave Lucas.
Speaker 1
57:10
You ever been to the Comedy Mothership? It's a great spot.
Speaker 2
57:13
Where is that, is that in Austin? Austin,
Speaker 1
57:16
is that where Willie Nelson's from? I haven't really, go ahead.
Speaker 2
57:19
Oh, I heard a joke about that the other week. Tell the joke again. What's the only thing worse than giving head to Willie Nelson?
Speaker 2
57:31
What? If he says, I'm not Willie Nelson.
Speaker 1
57:36
What's that Mr. Parrot? I know he's not funny.
Speaker 1
57:39
He's better, he thinks he's better on Twitter. That's not nice to say right in front of his face. Just think how he feels.
Speaker 2
57:49
This statue's chance murmur is judging you. Chance. It's called chance murmur.
Speaker 2
57:54
Chance murmur. God, that's so beautiful.
Speaker 1
57:56
That is gorgeous.
Speaker 2
57:58
This is another reason I hate cynicism and I talk about this a lot. Even just on Etsy, there's so many small, not huge companies, like individual artisans who are creating great stuff and just making it happen. And it's really sad for me where people can't see that.
Speaker 2
58:16
Or if they're like, well, how could I be excited about a sculpture when blah, blah, blah, the Middle East. And it's just like, you can always look for an excuse not to look for joy, or you can look for an excuse to look for joy.
Speaker 1
58:26
Yeah, that's just incredible. I feel the same way about OnlyFans. I can't even get that out of my mouth before laughing at my own failed joke.
Speaker 1
58:34
That's what she said. Edit, oh. All right. That might be 1 of the first that's what she said from Michael Malice.
Speaker 1
58:43
Yeah. I'm gonna count that.
Speaker 2
58:47
I don't know what I'm gonna do with mine because I got my own. Mine's 3 feet tall, just like me.
Speaker 1
58:52
Your box was much bigger.
Speaker 2
58:53
Yeah. And
Speaker 1
58:54
it was giving me an inferiority complex. I think I'm gonna invade Russia. That's a Napoleon reference.
Speaker 1
59:05
For those in the audience.
Speaker 2
59:08
I don't know if I'm gonna, I think I'm gonna put it in my bedroom, so it's the first thing I see when I wake up.
Speaker 1
59:12
Put it in the bedroom? Yeah. Do we get through everything we're thankful for?
Speaker 2
59:18
No, I've got lots of things I'm thankful for. What else, friends, family, we said books. I'm thankful for career, I'm thankful for, I am thankful for, and I know people are gonna lose their minds and I can hear them flipping out already.
Speaker 2
59:37
I am thankful for social media. I'm thankful for several reasons. First, it is a way for people to make connections that they couldn't have made in years past, that if you got some weird hobby, you can find that other person's weird hobby and you make that connection. It's a great way to stay in touch permanently for people, otherwise you'd lose touch with, you know, whatever venue.
Speaker 2
59:58
And it's also a great way to extend.
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