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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.
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This is a Thanksgiving special of the pirate and ocean-going variety.
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So once again, let me say thank you for listening today and for being part of this wild journey with me.
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And now, a quick few second mention of each sponsor.
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Check them out in the description.
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It s the best way to support this podcast.
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We got Policy Genius for life insurance, Masterclass for learning, Shopify for shopping, BetterHelp for health, and Aidsleep for naps.
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Choose wisely, my friends.
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Also, if you want to work with our amazing team or just get in contact with me, go to lexfriedman.com slash contact.
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Like the movie, except I m not an alien, allegedly.
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And now, on to the full ad reads.
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As always, no ads in the middle.
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I try to make these things interesting, but if you must skip them, friends, please do check out our sponsors.
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I enjoy their stuff.
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Maybe you will too.
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This show is brought to you by Policy Genius, a marketplace for finding and buying insurance.
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Life insurance makes me think of Marcus Aurelius and the Stoics.
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I, of course, think about the Roman Empire many times a day.
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Marcus Aurelius is one of the great emperors and also one of the great philosophers that came from the long history of the Roman Empire.
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A quote from Marcus Aurelius, dwell on the beauty of life, watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.
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He, like many Stoics, emphasized the importance of living deeply each moment that we get in this too short life, and to meditate on the shortness, the finiteness of it, on death,
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that one day there will come a moment when we take our last breath.
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Thinking about this moment clarifies just what matters.
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Thinking about life insurance is yet another way for me to think about the fact that this thing ends.
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And you should contemplate the implications of that, the pragmatic and the philosophical.
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That s policygenius.com.
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This show is also brought to you by Masterclass.
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$10 a month gets you an all-access pass to watch courses from the best people in the world in their respective disciplines.
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There s so many incredible options, many of which I ve watched, many of which I haven t watched but can t wait to watch.
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For example, one I haven t watched yet that s in my queue is Mathematical Thinking by Terence Tao.
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This is one of the greatest living mathematicians in the world.
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And him philosophizing about the big picture of mathematics, just incredibly valuable.
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Especially given the fact that he really hasn t done anything like this anywhere else.
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For me as a person that loves math, just, I can t wait.
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But the problem is, there s so many other options.
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That s the thing I really recommend, is to focus and really dedicate yourself to a particular masterclass.
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And as long as you re getting value from it, keep going until the end.
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Don t skip around.
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Finish.
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Phil Ivey on Poker Strategy have talked about Daniel Negrano, but Phil Ivey has a poker masterclass, and that s another totally different, orthogonal kind of genius.
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Even if poker s not your thing, it s just fascinating to see
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one of the best, if not the best poker players in the world talk about how they think about the strategy of poker.
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All of it is fascinating.
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Anyway, get unlimited access to every Masterclass and get an additional 15% off of an annual membership at masterclass.com slash lexpod.
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That s masterclass.com slash lexpod.
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This show is also brought to you by Shopify.
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a platform designed for anyone to sell anywhere.
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And when I say anyone, I mean even people like me.
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It took me no time to set up a store and to put swag, to put some t-shirts on there with some Lex related imagery.
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for the folks who are into that kind of thing.
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I personally like wearing t-shirts that celebrate a podcast or a band or a book, author.
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It s a cool way to start a conversation.
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I think I have Space Odyssey shirts and Blade Runner.
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All of these have started conversations.
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People come up to me and it s an efficient and fun entry point into an intense passion-fueled discussion about a particular sci-fi topic or book or whatever, whatever we re talking about.
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And of course, I have band shirts.
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Famous ones and not-so-famous ones.
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I have many Metallica shirts.
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I have several Iron Maiden shirts and basically every other classic rock band.
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I have a bunch of Pink Floyd shirts, of course, as one must.
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If you pick up the guitar, you surely must own some Pink Floyd shirts.
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Anyway, Shopify is the way to sell those shirts and a place where you can easily buy those shirts.
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By the way, my Shopify store is lexfriedman.com slash store if you re interested.
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But you can sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com slash lex.
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That s all lowercase.
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Go to Shopify.com slash lex to take your business to the next level today.
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This episode is also brought to you by BetterHelp, spelled H-E-L-P, help.
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I, of course, every time I have to spell out help, think about Castaway and Tom Hanks.
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who, by the way, got in touch with me and is considering doing the podcast, which he is one of my favorite actors.
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He has created some of the most iconic characters ever, some of the most incredible movies ever.
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I kind of aspire, when I grow up, I aspire to be Forrest Gump.
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But anyway, we all need help.
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We all struggle.
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Some struggle a lot.
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If you re listening to this and you re struggling, I just want you to know that I m thinking about you and I m grateful that you re here with us on this earth.
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We re in this together.
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I think there s a lot of ways to take your mental health seriously.
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One of them is to do regular therapy.
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And the thing about BetterHelp, it just makes that super easy to do.
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Talking in general, in all its forms.
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Start a podcast.
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Talking deeply, one-on-one with a human being.
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is really powerful for organizing your mind, the stuff on the surface and the stuff hiding in the shadows, as long as you re honest, deeply honest.
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Anyway, check them out at betterhelp.com slash lex and save on your first month.
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That s betterhelp.com slash lex.
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This episode is also brought to you by Eight Sleep, and it s pod three mattress.
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The thing that brings me a lot of joy, whether it s for 20 minutes or for eight hours, or for nine hours, or for six hours, no matter the hours or the minutes.
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It allows me to have a cold bed surface with a warm blanket.
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It s an escape from the world.
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Much of the turmoil, the chaos in my mind can settle down and be alleviated through a 20 minute nap.
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I ll sometimes pop a caffeine pill and just take a nap.
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And then I ll wake up in like 20, 30 minutes, like incredibly energized and just clear of thinking.
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And all the troubles with which I went into the nap with are somehow gone to a different planet.
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Maybe every time you fall asleep, you actually transport into a different universe.
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where the chaos in your mind has not yet had a chance to materialize.
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Unlikely, but entirely possible.
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Anyway, I really, really enjoy it.
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You can heat it up, cool it down on each side of the bed separately.
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Check it out and get special savings when you go to 8sleep.com slash Lex.
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This is the Lex Friedman Podcast.
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To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description.
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And now, dear friends, here s Michael Malice.
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The box?
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Yeah.
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The mystery box.
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I m wondering what s in it.
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There s something in that box of exquisite beauty, both literally and in what it symbolizes and why it is here.
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Given the kind of human being you are, I m terrified at what you find beautiful.
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That s a good point.
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You kind of hit me with the curve ball.
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Yeah.
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Like for me, the most beautiful wildlife are what I call God s mistakes.
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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.
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He s like, no one s ever going to see this.
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Yeah, you commented on Twitter about some creature, like a rainbow type creature.
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The peacock mantis shrimp.
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Yeah, it s beautiful.
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It s horrific though.
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So it has
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I think eight legs, six arms, two punching claws or spearing claws, depending on the genus, two eyes, two antennae, two ear flaps, I don t know what they do.
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And its punch can be as strong as a bullet.
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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.
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So I had one as a pet.
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All night, I would hear banging on the PVC pipe, and I gotta tell you, they have the best eyesight of any animal, because they see in like seven different ways.
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And when you make eye contact with this thing, it s just absolutely terrifying.
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But you can eat them as sushi.
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They call them sea centipedes.
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But they re colorful and beautiful.
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That species is, yeah.
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What was it like having one as a pet?
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And why did you do it?
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Well, when you have a species that s that unique and that much of an outlier,
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You know, growing up, reading these books, watching these shows, I found this stuff so much more fascinating than like space, which is, you know, dead.
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So to be able to have this specimen in your house and just observe its behavior is just like an amazing thing.
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Why d you get rid of it?
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I didn t have, I guess, the right minerals in the mix.
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It died?
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It had a problem molting once.
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Yeah, it couldn t molt correctly.
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Wow.
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You miss it?
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Think about it still?
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I do think about it, to be honest.
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I still have a pair of its punching appendages from when it molted.
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What pet animal in your life do you miss the most that has been in your life that you think about?
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I ve never had cats or dogs growing up or anything like that, which, you know, I, oh God.
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My problem is- Here we go.
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like something, I will go down a rabbit hole.
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So I know if I got one tattoo, I already know my first five are gonna be, okay?
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So I can t do it, because then once I get those five, it s gonna be 100, and I m already too old to be the tattoo guy.
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What would be the first tattoo?
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My face?
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Would it go on your ass cheeks, or where would you put them?
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If it was my face.
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If I got your face, it would definitely be on my arm right here.
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If you had multiple faces, would you put like... I think delts, right?
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Shoulders, different faces on different shoulders.
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And then when you flex... You want some symmetry?
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Yeah.
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Would you get a dictator?
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If you had to get a dictator, who would you get?
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I d be Kim Jong-il, right?
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Because I wrote the book on him.
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Oh, it s like plugging your book in a tattoo.
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I don t think it s plugging.
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It s just like I have a personal connection to this stuff.
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A good opener to this conversation.
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People would be asking, why him?
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And he d be like, well, I wrote a book about it.
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And I d be like, oh, OK.
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OK, here s why.
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Let me check it out.
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That would be a bad opener.
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No, that s not what happens.
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OK.
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Here s the thing.
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What happens?
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When you write a book about North Korea,
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hey, nice to meet you, what is it you do?
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I m an author, what kind of books do you write?
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Well, my last book was on North Korea.
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90% of the time, 90, they will then start telling me everything they know about North Korea.
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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, it s fine.
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How often do they bring up Dennis Rodman?
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100%.
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100% of the time.
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Oh, so you know Dennis Rodman?
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Yeah.
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But I don t understand what, 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.
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It s usually a small amount.
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And there s this thing in the culture, which I hate, that everyone have to have an opinion on everything.
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And it s like, it s okay to be like, yeah, I don t know anything about that, tell me more.
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There s lots of things I don t know anything about.
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What s your opinion on my bird here, Mr. Parrot?
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It s a macaw, scarlet macaw.
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SPEAKER_00
What?
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It is a scarlet macaw.
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Oh, you know birds?
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Yeah.
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And that s actually not life-sized.
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Are you saying he s not real?
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I m saying it s not to scale.
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SPEAKER_01
Okay, but he s real.
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SPEAKER_01
Are we doing that Monty Python sketch?
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SPEAKER_01
Everything is a Monty Python sketch.
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SPEAKER_01
I don t think Monty Python s funny.
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You don t?
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At all.
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That explains so much.
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Does it?
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What does it explain?
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What do you think is funny?
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You re not answering that question.
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It s pretty funny.
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SPEAKER_02
Well yeah, what do you think is funny?
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SPEAKER_02
Having a Mentos shrimp?
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SPEAKER_01
No.
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SPEAKER_02
You think Big Lebowski s funny?
0
SPEAKER_01
Oh God, no.
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Although.
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This is getting worse and worse.
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SPEAKER_01
To be fair.
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Yep.
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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.
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So I kind of have been poisoned to be able to appreciate it.
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So maybe if I d seen it when it came out before it became a thing, I would have enjoyed it.
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I couldn t get through it.
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Like I couldn t get through 20 minutes.
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Is that how you feel about Schindler s List?
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Well, it s so much easier for me to stare at you when you have sunglasses on.
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SPEAKER_00
I didn t think you d be the one making Holocaust jokes today.
0
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And yet here we are.
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And cut scene.
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SPEAKER_02
I actually have, like, no trouble making eye contact with you when you re wearing shades.
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SPEAKER_00
Yes, because you re a robot.
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SPEAKER_00
Two copies of myself.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
Oh, you re seeing yourself in them?
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SPEAKER_00
I m having a conversation with myself.
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SPEAKER_02
It s not your fault, Lex.
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They made you like this.
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You were just a good little robot in St.
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Petersburg.
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I could see Mr. Parrot a little bit too.
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Well, what do you find funny?
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Come on, this is an interesting subject.
0
SPEAKER_02
Well, I find Mighty Python, I find absurdity funny.
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Yes, I find absurdity funny.
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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?
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It s like, well, the humor, first of all, the humor is that you re,
0
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making fun of something that s dark.
0
SPEAKER_01
So already it s absurd.
0
SPEAKER_01
It s completely inappropriate.
0
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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.
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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.
0
SPEAKER_01
If I
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brought people happiness or joy in life, whatever, I wanna keep doing that in death.
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SPEAKER_00
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, make me a pinata, I don t care.
1
SPEAKER_00
So I think, and I don t understand, well, I do understand, but it s sad for me
1
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when people are like, you know, this isn t funny, that isn t funny.
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SPEAKER_00
The way I look at humor is the way, it s like a chef, right?
1
SPEAKER_00
It s pretty easy to make bacon taste good, but some of these really obscure ingredients, to make it palatable, that takes skill.
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SPEAKER_00
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.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s all about timing.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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What s the difference?
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SPEAKER_00
You want to hear one of my jokes?
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SPEAKER_00
Is it a pirate joke?
1
SPEAKER_01
Because that s the only, that s the only kind I accept today.
1
SPEAKER_01
But go ahead.
1
SPEAKER_00
It doesn t have to be a pirate joke.
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It s one time.
1
SPEAKER_00
Do you know who Leo Thomas is?
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
What s the difference between Leo Thomas and Hitler?
1
SPEAKER_00
What?
1
SPEAKER_00
Leo Thomas knows how to finish a race.
1
SPEAKER_00
Very nice, very nice.
1
SPEAKER_00
Did I just get the gold medal?
1
SPEAKER_01
Good job.
1
SPEAKER_01
Why does it take pirates forever to get through the alphabet?
1
SPEAKER_00
Why?
1
SPEAKER_01
Because they spent years at sea.
1
SPEAKER_00
Oh, I thought it was gonna be an R joke.
1
SPEAKER_00
Nope.
1
SPEAKER_00
That s a good one, I like that.
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When I was in North Korea.
1
SPEAKER_01
Oh, you know Dennis Rodman.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s a callback.
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By the way, the thing that is very heartbreaking about the North Korean situation is that they have a great sense of humor.
1
SPEAKER_00
It would be a lot easier if these were like robots or drones.
1
SPEAKER_00
They have big personalities, big sense of humor, and that made it much harder to leave and interact with these people.
1
SPEAKER_00
I mean, there s nothing more human and universal than laughter, and laughter s free.
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SPEAKER_01
Are you saying there s humor even amongst the people that have most of their freedoms taken away?
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Especially, I mean, again, we re from, you know, the Soviet Union.
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SPEAKER_00
Like, there s an anecdote, 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.
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SPEAKER_00
I think about it all the time, and I think about my guide all the time.
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SPEAKER_00
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.
1
SPEAKER_00
They just recently electrified the border.
1
SPEAKER_00
So you can t even, even the few people who are escaping can t do it anymore.
1
SPEAKER_01
But that s interesting that they still have a sense of humor.
1
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I attribute the Soviet Union for having that because of the like really deep education system.
1
SPEAKER_01
Like you got to read a lot of literature.
1
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
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And because of that, you get to kind of learn about the cruelty, the injustices, the absurdity of the world.
1
SPEAKER_01
Right.
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As long as the writing is not about the current regime.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, but I think if you look at African Americans, Jewish Americans, gay Americans, they are all disproportionate in terms of attributing to comedy.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s not because these groups have some kind of magic to them.
1
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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.
1
SPEAKER_00
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.
1
SPEAKER_00
So that is something that I think
1
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is an important thing to recognize.
1
SPEAKER_01
So what do you find funny?
1
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What makes you giggle in the most joyful of ways?
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The suffering of others?
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I mean, there are YouTube videos of fat people falling down, and they re really funny.
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There s two kinds of people in this world.
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those that laugh at those videos, and those that don t.
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No, and those that are in them.
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My friend Jesse just told me a great Norm Macdonald joke, and this is a good litmus test joke, because he says, a certain group of people lose their minds, and a certain group of people just stare at you.
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And he goes this kind of, and so I ll tell you the joke, this is Norm Macdonald.
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A guy walks into a bar, and he sees someone at the bar who has a big pumpkin for a head.
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And the guy s like, dude, what happened to you?
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He goes, ugh, you ll never believe this.
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I got one of those genie lamps.
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And this genie, he s like, what happened?
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He goes, well, the first wish, you know, I wished for $100 million.
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He s like, yeah, did you get it?
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He goes, yeah.
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You know, it was in my bank account.
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It feels fine.
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He goes, all right.
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Well, the second wish, I wished to have sex with as many beautiful women as I wanted.
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He goes, did that happen?
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He goes, yeah, it was amazing.
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He goes, then what?
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Well, I wished for a giant pumpkin head.
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So there s a certain mindset that will just be staring at the screen.
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And that is, I mean, there s so many levels why that s funny, at least to me.
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And I just love that kind of thing.
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Well, Norm Macdonald is like, just, I watch his videos all the time.
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He s a guy that definitely makes me giggle.
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And he s one of the people that makes me giggle for reasons I don t quite understand.
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Did you ever see him with Carrot Top on Conan O Brien?
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Making fun of Carrot Top?
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This is probably the best talk show clip of all time.
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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.
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And Conan s like, oh, what s it gonna be called?
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And she s like, it doesn t have a title yet.
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And Norman goes, oh, I know what it should be called, Box Office Poison.
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And they re all laughing and she s like, no, no, no.
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Like the working title is chairman of the board.
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And Conan goes, do something with that smart ass.
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And Norm goes, yeah, board is spelled B-O-R-E-D.
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And they all just completely lost it.
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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.
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I think he is one of those rare comedians
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who you really feel like he s talking to you directly.
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He feels like he s winking at you in the audience and he s like, can you believe I m doing this?
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It s like he almost, he feels like he s, I don t wanna say imposter, but he s more a member of the audience than he is a member of the people on the stage.
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Yeah, it feels like he s on our side, whatever the hell our means.
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You know, Roseanne got him his first job.
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Roseanne, you and her been hanging out.
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I got it, oh my God.
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Talk about Thanksgiving.
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When you are talking to Roseanne Barr and making eye contact with this person, it is, I can t even describe it.
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It s just like, holy crap, Roseanne Barr s talking to me.
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She is, I ve said this to her face, pathologically funny.
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Like, it does not turn off.
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And you re sitting there and you re like, holy crap.
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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.
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I did something good and right in the world that I made Roseanne Barr laugh.
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And it s also really funny because, and she s gonna hate this, because I tell her she s adorable.
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She isn t like that.
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She s little.
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You think of Roseanne Barr as this like force of nature, like a tsunami.
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She s like 5 3 , I d say like maybe 130.
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And she puts on the sunglasses, you think this little Jewish lady, you d never know this is one of the most epic performers of all time.
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She lives near here now.
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So it s just so much fun talking to her.
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There was an old satirical magazine in the, I think like early 2000s called Hib, written by Jews.
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and she dressed up as Hitler for one of the photo shoots and she was baking little men in the oven.
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I found that on eBay.
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I wanted her to sign it to Michael, it should have been you, but she signed it to Michael, you re one smart cookie.
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And now it hangs, love mom, Rosanne Barr, and I call her mom, and it hangs over my desk because I have her like good domestic goddess energy flowing at me.
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What?
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What do you find, what else, so Norm Macdonald.
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Norm Macdonald, my favorite comedian is.
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We agree on something.
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My favorite comedian of all time is Neil Hamburger.
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So Neil Hamburger, I don t know if I m ruining the bit, he s a character performed by this guy named Greg Turkington.
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So he comes out in a tuxedo, big eyeglasses, holding three glasses of water.
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coughing into the mic.
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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.
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She turns to him and she goes, what is this?
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And I remember the first time he was on Jimmy Kimmel, and he tells one of his jokes, and it was like, why does E.T.
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like Reese s Pieces so much?
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Well, that s what sperm tastes like on his home planet.
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And no one laughs, and he goes, oh, come on, guys, I have cancer.
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And it just cuts to this Marine in the audience with his arms crossed.
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So if you know what he s doing, it s just absolutely amazing.
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He opened for Tenacious D once in somewhere, I think in Ireland or the UK, one of those.
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And they re booing him, because his jokes are often not funny.
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He s like, hey, where did my whore ex-wife run off to with that dentist she s shacking up with?
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I don t know, but when I see her in court next month, Alaska.
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So they re booing and he goes, all right, do you guys want me to bring out Tenacious D?
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They re like, yeah.
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Do you want to see your heroes of mine, Tenacious D?
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Yeah.
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Come on, let me hear it.
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Do you want to see Tenacious D?
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Yeah.
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He goes, all right.
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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 one that s not too,
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Self-censorship is never good.
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Okay, he goes, can we agree that George Bush is the worst president America s ever had?
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Everyone claps, he goes, which makes it all the stranger that his son, George W. Bush, was in fact the best.
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I take it back, I m a self-censorship fan.
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So two people laugh, and he goes, oh, that s amazing, I guess I ll do an encore, and he did 10 more minutes.
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It was just like, I love him so much.
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It s interesting that he opened for Tenacious D. Jack Black,
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That s a comedic genius of a different kind.
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Oh yeah.
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And he was in one of my favorite movies, Jesus  Son.
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It s this little indie movie.
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He did a great turn in that.
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He s really underrated as an actor.
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He s got a lot of range.
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Like I know they kind of get typescast as this kind of one specific type, but he s really, really talented.
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But also just like the pure joy.
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Yes.
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He s clearly having fun.
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Okay, it is Thanksgiving, so in the tradition, following tradition, what are you thankful for, Michael, in this world?
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Do you have a list too?
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No, not really.
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Really?
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It s up in here.
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I mean, but you have several things you re thankful for.
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Yes, yes.
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One of the things I m- My list comes from the heart.
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I don t have to write anything down.
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Well, I don t have written down.
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One of the things that I m most thankful for, this is a common answer, but I can back it up, is my family.
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Because my nephew Lucas is now six years old, and when kids have a sense of humor, it s just miraculous.
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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.
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He s really sick.
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He didn t want to tell you.
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And she s freaking out.
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He goes, prank.
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So I took him.
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Dinesh D Souza just released a movie called Police State, which is actually really good.
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Highly recommend it.
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I was surprised how much I liked it.
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because he wasn t going Republicans good, Democrats bad.
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It was just about authoritarianism.
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And he had a movie premiere, Mar-a-Lago.
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So I m like, I gotta bring Lucas to Mar-a-Lago.
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So Lucas is, I m like, we re going to the president s house.
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He s like, oh, the White House?
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And I m like, no, no, like a former president.
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He goes, oh, Abe Lincoln?
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And I m like, okay, kid logic.
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Like he s giving logical answers.
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This is kind of like AI.
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You have to program it to, it s using logic correctly.
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You should have told him as a president that s second to only Abe Lincoln in terms of greatness.
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Accomplishments, yeah.
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He went up to all the women in their ball gown, evening gowns,
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And he goes, you re so beautiful.
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Were you born as a girl?
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So when you have this six year old asking you this, it was really, really fun.
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So that is a great joy to have a nephew.
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And I have another one, Zach, who s coming up in age and he s starting to talk now.
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That is really, really fun.
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Getting to watch them.
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find out about the world for the first time.
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And also training them.
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He loves being funny and having fun.
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You re his audience, in a sense.
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Yeah.
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Because you giggle.
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We re prank bros.
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He gives me a high five.
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My family, and you talk about what I find funny, these are things that actually enrage me.
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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.
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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.
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And there s this species of squid, by the way, which is asymmetric, one 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.
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Shout out, if you wanna learn more about squids, go to octonation.com.
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Octonation, shout out.
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Shout out to Warren.
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There s a lot of fascinating stuff.
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Octonation on Instagram.
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Yes.
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I was in the car with my sister, she s like 10 or 12.
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Me as a pirate, I don t, I m sorry for the rude interruptions.
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I appreciate that, I count especially.
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Yeah, it s a great.
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Yeah.
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These jokes and thoughts are coming to me at a like a 10 second delay.
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So I apologize.
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Anyway, you were telling about the story.
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All right.
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Um, so I told my help.
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No, they just get into I was your skin is showing it.
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It s getting dark.
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I told my sister I go.
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When you were born, one of your eyes was bigger than the other, and you had to have surgery to fix it.
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So she turns, she s like, mom, and my mom goes, honey, the important thing is that you re beautiful now.
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It s like, what s the big deal?
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It was just a little surgery.
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And my sister s like, all right.
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Calls grandma, and grandma goes,
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She goes, Michael said that when I was born, one of the eyes, she goes, why is he telling you this now?
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It s not a big deal.
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So the fact that everyone went with this, I was so impressed.
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I was like, this is a quality family in this very specific regard.
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Does your family have a sense of humor?
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Yeah.
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you know, Soviet culture, there s like a dark sense of humor.
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Very much so.
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There s wit, there s... Wordplay.
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Wordplay.
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Yeah, yeah, and especially the Russian language allows for some like... Yes.
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Hilarity to it.
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There s also a culture of like poetry and like my dad,
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My mom too, but they remember a lot of lines from books and poems.
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So there s just, you can do a lot of fascinating references that add to the humor and the richness of the conversation.
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I feel 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.
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These are such great, I met in Russia.
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I mean, these would be such good icebreakers, right?
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You go up to someone and go, hey, did you hear this one, novenik dot, and you just tell him some little story.
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Did you say icebreakers because it s cold in Russia?
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I m here all night.
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That s true, you never leave the house.
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Literally.
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I feel like that s a thing.
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Yeah.
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And that s not a thing in America.
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You mean like witty banter?
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No, meaning you go up to a stranger and that s your icebreaker.
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You tell them this little joke and since everyone kind of has the same sensibilities, right away you guys are chatting.
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SPEAKER_00
I don t think that s a thing here.
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Yeah.
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Here it s more small talk, which drives me crazy.
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So what else are you thankful for?
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Well, what s something you re thankful for?
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Well, you went with family.
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I m definitely thankful for family.
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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 Kanye, all these big names.
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Are they expressing that they re proud of you, or is it more like, why haven t you talked to this person?
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SPEAKER_00
More Michael Malice, please.
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People s choice.
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Yeah, yeah, they re very proud.
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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.
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They re not,
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maybe not enough showed up being proud of, but that part is just the nature of our relationship.
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It s also Soviet parents.
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Yeah, I don t talk to my dad.
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That s one of the reasons, because there s never, ever any...
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Good job.
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And at a certain point, it s like, why am I trying to search for approval from someone I m never gonna get it for and from whom it wouldn t mean anything at this point anyway?
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Well, that s interesting.
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I mean, there s a journey like that for a lot of people with their father or with their mother.
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They re always trying to find approval.
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That s life for a lot of people.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
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That s a really big part of the human condition, is that relationship you have with your father and your mother.
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I don t know, it s a beautiful thing.
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Whether it s been a rough childhood or a beautiful one, all of it, that s who you are.
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the relationship, especially early on in your life with your father, with your mother, is extremely formative.
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And so- Yeah, my dad taught me a lot of things at a young age that I m very, very grateful for.
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He s extremely intelligent, very flawed, and that s fine.
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We all are, except for me.
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And it s the kind of things that when you learn things that are right, and this is one of the things I like about being older,
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is that when I have friends who are younger, it s very easy for me to keep them from making the mistakes I did.
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So at least this is something I m getting out of it, is that, okay, I can t fix these mistakes, but
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It just takes me 30 seconds and I can pull you back from making the mistake.
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SPEAKER_00
So he s taught me a lot as a kid.
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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, but also this love of learning.
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I got that from him and I mean, I have got literally right now 98 books on my shelf to read.
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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.
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And I was just like horrified to hear this.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah.
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Boy, don t I know it.
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SPEAKER_00
I mean, you laugh, but like when you got,
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SPEAKER_00
There s a lot of things I don t understand.
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SPEAKER_00
When you got heat for like, I wanna read the Western classics, to me that might have been like the internet at its absolute worst.
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SPEAKER_01
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.
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SPEAKER_01
I think the internet, for good and bad, is just skeptical.
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SPEAKER_01
Like, what s behind this?
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My hero, Albert Camus, and if there s one thing I would wanna fight, it s cynicism.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
Because it s such a giving up, it s such a everything sucks, this sucks, that sucks, this sucks.
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SPEAKER_00
Most things suck, most stand-up comedians suck, most movies suck, all podcasts suck.
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SPEAKER_00
But it doesn t matter.
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Especially yours.
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SPEAKER_00
Especially mine, it s unwatchable.
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You re welcome, you can t even spell it correctly.
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But the stuff that s good is what matters.
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Who cares if 90% of movies are terrible?
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They re the ones that change your life.
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The books, the people, the comedians, the shows, the music.
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And even the terrible things have good moments, beautiful moments.
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Some, not all.
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Your podcast being an example of not all.
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I ve literally just, I keep listening for something good.
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SPEAKER_01
Something good.
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In all fairness, none of my guests have anything to offer.
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SPEAKER_00
That s not on me, I try.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, well, I wish you d talk a little less in your podcast.
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SPEAKER_01
It s a little excessive.
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SPEAKER_01
I only listen for the underwear commercials.
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SPEAKER_01
Sheathunderwear.com, probably called Malice.
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SPEAKER_01
I think you did this, I 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 something like this.
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SPEAKER_00
Oh yeah, Malice at the Movies.
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SPEAKER_00
I watched the video and I broke it down.
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SPEAKER_01
That was really great.
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SPEAKER_01
I wish you did that more.
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SPEAKER_00
I haven t done live streaming in a long time.
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SPEAKER_00
It was something I was doing a lot in New York, especially during COVID.
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SPEAKER_00
I feel that,
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I don t know, I m having, I ve got so many projects on the plate.
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SPEAKER_00
Oh, this is something else I m thankful for.
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SPEAKER_00
This is something I m very, very thankful for, and I m gonna announce it here.
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SPEAKER_01
Coming out of the closet, finally.
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SPEAKER_01
Go ahead.
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SPEAKER_01
Who s the lucky guy?
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SPEAKER_00
You re the one in drag.
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SPEAKER_00
Guns out, guns out.
2
SPEAKER_00
He makes me call him Sex Freedman.
2
SPEAKER_00
You like it.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I didn t say it.
2
SPEAKER_00
I didn t even imply that.
2
SPEAKER_00
When I, as you probably know, as you know, but as many people watching this also know, Harvey P. Carr, who had the comic book series American Splendor, was the subject of the movie American Splendor.
2
SPEAKER_00
He wrote a graphic novel about me in 2006 called Ego and Hubris, which goes for like $150 on eBay.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s not worth it, just download it.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I met Harvey.
2
SPEAKER_00
because I wrote this screenplay about this band from the 80s called Rubber Rodeo.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s a real band.
2
SPEAKER_00
And the keyboardist, Gary Lieb, who passed away, rest in peace, Gary, introduced me to Harvey because he did the animation for the movie.
2
SPEAKER_00
And this script s been in my desk for over 20 years.
2
SPEAKER_00
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.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I ve got an artist, we re getting it together, so I m gonna make it happen finally.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it s some of the best writing I ve ever done, I m really proud of the story.
2
SPEAKER_00
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?
2
SPEAKER_00
And this story s very, very dark, because basically they did all the right things and they went nowhere.
2
SPEAKER_00
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.
2
SPEAKER_01
You feel like you ve made it?
2
SPEAKER_01
You said you could pay your rent.
2
SPEAKER_00
I feel that to make it is, if you don t have to have a boss,
2
SPEAKER_00
And you know how I really felt like I made it?
2
SPEAKER_00
This is gonna sound like a joke, and it s not.
2
SPEAKER_00
This is being an immigrant.
2
SPEAKER_00
I own, as you know, Margaret Thatcher s bookcases.
2
SPEAKER_00
So to me, as an immigrant, to have her bookcases in my house, I ve made it.
2
SPEAKER_00
You re right, it s not a joke.
2
SPEAKER_00
There s nothing funny about it at all.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s time to get serious.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, nice.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, now I m more nervous.
2
SPEAKER_01
and aroused.
2
SPEAKER_01
So what else are you thankful for?
2
SPEAKER_01
So we re both thankful for family.
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, the fact that I can... Still get it up.
2
SPEAKER_00
What s that?
2
SPEAKER_00
Nothing, go ahead.
2
SPEAKER_00
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.
2
SPEAKER_00
You don t need to be Stephen King or some legend.
2
SPEAKER_00
There s lots of stand-ups who aren t world famous, but they have perfectly good living, they do their gig, they do what they love.
2
SPEAKER_00
I feel very, very blessed.
2
SPEAKER_00
You must be thankful for your career.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, career-wise, but I think the best part about it is just meeting, making friends with people I admire.
2
SPEAKER_01
Quite honestly, just friends.
2
SPEAKER_01
The people that 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.
2
SPEAKER_00
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.
2
SPEAKER_00
And in certain times of my life, it s really, I remember very vividly.
2
SPEAKER_00
I was in DC in 97, I was an intern.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that summer, DC closes down on the weekends.
2
SPEAKER_00
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.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it was dark, and it was bad.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I remember those feelings of loneliness a lot.
2
SPEAKER_01
I still feel alone like that sometimes.
2
SPEAKER_01
You don t feel alone?
2
SPEAKER_01
Not anymore.
2
SPEAKER_01
What s the reason, you think?
2
SPEAKER_00
I have a lot of people who I care about and who care about me.
2
SPEAKER_00
The thing about moving to Austin is I forgot how lonely New York got because it was like one after another, I lost everybody.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then you start losing the places you go to.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then it was just like, holy crap, I m very isolated.
2
SPEAKER_00
And here in Austin, there s not as much to do, obviously, as in New York.
2
SPEAKER_00
But there s a lot of people here, more people are coming all the time.
2
SPEAKER_00
So if I ever want to hang out with someone, I ve got a long list.
2
SPEAKER_00
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.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that is something I don t take lightly.
2
SPEAKER_00
Now you move to Texas, it s gonna secede.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s just a very... Do you know what happened with that?
2
SPEAKER_00
No.
2
SPEAKER_00
I forget the guy s name and it s probably for the best.
2
SPEAKER_00
Monday, on Monday...
2
SPEAKER_00
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.
2
SPEAKER_00
Tuesday, I m on Rogan, me and him discuss it, I give it national attention.
2
SPEAKER_00
It was also really funny because a lot of people are like, these people have been in Texas for five minutes, blah, blah.
2
SPEAKER_00
I go to the Texas legislature, meet with the guy, have a nice conversation.
2
SPEAKER_00
Month or two later, unanimous I think, he gets voted, kicked out of Congress because he got an intern drunk and was inappropriate with her.
2
SPEAKER_00
At least it was a girl in this case.
2
SPEAKER_00
But yeah, so it s like, that was my little Texas independence moment.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, it didn t go anywhere.
2
SPEAKER_01
It did not go anywhere.
2
SPEAKER_00
But it s still part of the platform, the Texas Republican Party.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s fascinating that history is probably laden with stories like this of failed revolutionaries.
2
SPEAKER_01
We celebrate the heroes, but then there s the losers like... Myself.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
And we re gonna mark that one as a failure and edit it out.
2
SPEAKER_01
And moving on.
2
SPEAKER_01
So thankful, yeah, friendships, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
But by the way, I wanna say just to you, I m thankful in this lonely moments for people who write books.
2
SPEAKER_01
I ve been listening to audiobooks a lot and reading a lot.
2
SPEAKER_01
I really like audiobooks, actually.
2
SPEAKER_01
And just like,
2
SPEAKER_01
I don t know, I can just name random person.
2
SPEAKER_01
Serhii Plov, he s a historian, I m reading on the... Wait, I read him, what did he... I just see he written a book most recently about the Russia-Ukraine war.
2
SPEAKER_00
He wrote another one that I read, didn t he write about... Empires, I think.
2
SPEAKER_00
The fall of the Soviet Union, something like that.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it was very, very good.
2
SPEAKER_01
He s great.
2
SPEAKER_00
I used him as a resource for the White Pill.
2
SPEAKER_01
He s objective while still having emotion and feeling to it.
2
SPEAKER_01
Like he has a bias.
2
SPEAKER_01
But without, a lot of times when you write a story that involves Putin, people are really ideological.
2
SPEAKER_01
They don t really like, they don t write with a calmness and the clarity and the rigor of history.
2
SPEAKER_01
There s emotion in it, like there s almost a virtue signaling.
2
SPEAKER_01
and he doesn t have that even though he is Ukrainian and has very strong opinions on the matter.
2
SPEAKER_01
Anyway, there s people like that and he s done an incredible job researching a recent event.
2
SPEAKER_01
Like he says, I was looking at everything that s been written about the war in Ukraine and realizing, you know, the old Churchill line that
2
SPEAKER_01
historians are the worst ones to write about current events except everybody else.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so he s like, I might as well just write about this war.
2
SPEAKER_01
And he does an exceptional job summarizing day by day the details of this, this war.
2
SPEAKER_01
Anyway, so I m just grateful for a guy like that.
2
SPEAKER_00
For me, I ll name some historians I love.
2
SPEAKER_00
Arthur Herman, Victor Sebastian is probably my favorite.
2
SPEAKER_00
David Petruccia, P-I-E-T-R-U-S-Z-A.
2
SPEAKER_00
When you are a historian, and I tried to do this to some degree in The White Pill as much as I could, when you take data and you make it read like a novel,
2
SPEAKER_00
So you re learning about who we are as people, what had happened, but also it s entertaining and readable.
2
SPEAKER_00
That to me is like the Acme of writing.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I have so much admiration.
2
SPEAKER_00
What does Acme mean?
2
SPEAKER_00
Top.
2
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
2
SPEAKER_00
Zenith.
2
SPEAKER_01
Zenith, okay.
2
SPEAKER_01
Is this what writers do?
2
SPEAKER_01
They just come up with these incredibly sophisticated words?
2
SPEAKER_01
I m impressed.
2
SPEAKER_01
Because you could have just said the best of writing.
2
SPEAKER_00
Acme is also the company in like Bugs Bunny and Wile E. Coyote, so it s Acme, you know, Acme.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like Acme bombs.
2
SPEAKER_00
When they are that good, it leaves me in awe.
2
SPEAKER_00
Ron Chernow s another one.
2
SPEAKER_00
Who?
2
SPEAKER_00
He wrote the Hamilton biography.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, nice.
2
SPEAKER_01
I have a lot of favorite historians about the whole...
2
SPEAKER_01
time period of World War II, William Shire, people that lived during it especially.
2
SPEAKER_01
I really like those accounts.
2
SPEAKER_01
Obviously, Solzhenitsyn s, he s not a historian, but his accounts are fascinating.
2
SPEAKER_01
You actually, how much do you talk about Solzhenitsyn?
2
SPEAKER_01
Not much, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
Why not?
2
SPEAKER_00
I feel like I wanted to, there s nothing I could add to him.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, he s the Michael Malice of the previous century.
2
SPEAKER_00
No, he s talented, charismatic, and skilled, so he s not the Michael Malice.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I did not.
2
SPEAKER_00
I feel like I didn t read Gulag Archipelago for the white pill.
2
SPEAKER_00
You didn t?
2
SPEAKER_00
I didn t, no.
2
SPEAKER_00
I got a lot of it from Anne Applebaum, who s a very controversial figure.
2
SPEAKER_00
Her history books on the Soviet Union I think are superb, but she s also accused of being very much like a neocon.
2
SPEAKER_00
and being a warmonger in contemporary times.
2
SPEAKER_00
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, you know, if Putin conquered Ukraine, that there d be a genocide.
2
SPEAKER_00
I don t think, I think that s a very hard argument to make.
2
SPEAKER_01
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.
2
SPEAKER_00
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.
2
SPEAKER_00
As opposed to a regular demon?
2
SPEAKER_00
As opposed to a figurative demon.
2
SPEAKER_00
I didn t know they employed demons.
2
SPEAKER_00
They exclusively employ demons at the Atlantic.
2
SPEAKER_00
he was giving me crap just a couple years ago on Twitter because I didn t think it s appropriate to refer to George Soros as a Holocaust survivor.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I m like, listen, if you wanna put him in the same context as Anne Frank, knock yourself out.
2
SPEAKER_00
But I think that s so completely disingenuous and frankly repulsive to me, morally, to equivocate between figures like that.
2
SPEAKER_00
And also to claim that anyone
2
SPEAKER_00
who is a billionaire, who is, including Elon, including Sheldon Adelson, there s no shortage of these people.
2
SPEAKER_00
If you wanna use your extreme wealth, use it to influence politics, you have to be up for criticism.
2
SPEAKER_00
And to protect people, Bill Gates, to protecting these people from criticism just on the basis of their identity is deranged to me.
2
SPEAKER_01
But also the Holocaust as a historical event and the atrocities within it are just singular in history.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so comparing them.
2
SPEAKER_00
What s the utility, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
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.
2
SPEAKER_00
So you re just trying to go off of Holocaust denial.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think it s shameless.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I think it s gross.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it cheapens everything.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
Because there s deep, important lessons about the Holocaust.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
2
SPEAKER_01
To me, the lessons are about how extreme it can get.
2
SPEAKER_00
And how fast.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and how fast.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s the one.
2
SPEAKER_00
So, you know, people ask, oh, are humans basically good?
2
SPEAKER_00
Are they basically evil?
3
SPEAKER_00
they always say they re basically animals.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I think people are, most people are almost fundamentally deranged and that there s basically this veneer of civilization and decency.
3
SPEAKER_00
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 five years ago.
3
SPEAKER_00
Most people are fundamentally deranged with a veneer of civility.
3
SPEAKER_00
There s a show called, I think I disagree with that.
3
SPEAKER_00
What s the show called?
3
SPEAKER_00
I m having Alzheimer s because of the advanced age.
3
SPEAKER_02
The skin care.
3
SPEAKER_00
There s a show called I Think You Should Leave.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s a sketch comedy show.
3
SPEAKER_00
Okay, sorry.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s a sketch comedy show and he captures these great, how s your hair princess?
3
SPEAKER_00
He captures these great moments
3
SPEAKER_00
of just the very thin veneer of normalcy and just the craziness that s so frequently lurking underneath.
3
SPEAKER_00
Another great example of this, when this is dealing with people who are literally crazy, have you ever seen the show Hoarders?
3
SPEAKER_00
So every episode of Hoarders, there s usually two people in every episode, but every episode has the same plot line.
3
SPEAKER_00
Veneer of normalcy, veneer of normalcy, veneer of normalcy, slight expression of concern, full-blown derangement.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it always follows that exact pattern.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I don t know, I think the deep ocean of the human mind is good.
3
SPEAKER_02
Like there s a longing to be good to others.
3
SPEAKER_00
I have seen literally no evidence of this.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I know everything s a deep ocean with you people, but like.
3
SPEAKER_02
What do you mean you people?
3
SPEAKER_00
Pirates.
3
SPEAKER_02
Oh.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t see it.
3
SPEAKER_02
Is that Mr. Pirate?
3
SPEAKER_02
He s an anti-Semite?
3
SPEAKER_02
No, that s not nice to say in front of such a large audience.
3
SPEAKER_02
You re embarrassing me, Mr. Parrott.
3
SPEAKER_02
What s that, Mr. Parrott?
3
SPEAKER_02
He s a run-of-the-mill troll and barely an intellectual?
3
SPEAKER_02
That s not nice to say.
3
SPEAKER_02
That s not true.
3
SPEAKER_02
We talked about this.
3
SPEAKER_02
You have to see the good in people.
3
SPEAKER_00
You have seen personally how quickly and easily it is for human beings to form outgroups.
3
SPEAKER_00
And to just read others just, as I just did a minute ago with the Atlantic, completely out of the human race.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that happens constantly and very easily.
3
SPEAKER_00
Humans are tribal beings.
3
SPEAKER_00
So that does not, I don t see how that s compatible with this essential desire to do good.
3
SPEAKER_02
No, I think it s like in 1984, the two minutes of hate.
3
SPEAKER_02
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 by especially people as you, as an anarchist, talk about the people in power that can direct that anger.
3
SPEAKER_02
But I think if you just look at recent human history,
3
SPEAKER_02
the desire for good, the communal desire for good outweighs that, I think.
3
SPEAKER_02
Like most of life on Earth right now, people are being good to each other, in the most fundamental sense, relative to how nature usually works.
3
SPEAKER_00
Okay, I think you re both wrong about people and about nature.
3
SPEAKER_00
So nature is not inherently violent, in the sense like, for example, if anyone has an aquarium, or if you look at wildlife,
3
SPEAKER_00
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?
3
SPEAKER_00
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.
3
SPEAKER_02
Good, I think, is a thing that gets illustrated when you re challenged, when there s a difficult situation.
3
SPEAKER_02
I mean, civility is a good starting point.
3
SPEAKER_02
And then when there s a big challenge that comes, people step up, on average.
3
SPEAKER_00
I completely agree with you that human beings are capable of such profound goodness that it kind of makes you extremely emotional.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I certainly think that that s true.
3
SPEAKER_00
But I think that that s more unusual than is the norm.
3
SPEAKER_02
I see beauty everywhere.
3
SPEAKER_00
So do I, but that doesn t mean it s in every person.
3
SPEAKER_02
Not in every person, but in most people.
3
SPEAKER_02
I mean, I wish there was a really good way to measure this.
3
SPEAKER_02
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.
3
SPEAKER_02
It feels like the good is outpowering the bad.
3
SPEAKER_02
You just did the perfect segue to the box.
3
SPEAKER_02
What s in the box?
3
SPEAKER_02
Is it your fragile ego?
3
SPEAKER_00
You stole my joke.
3
SPEAKER_00
You stole my joke.
3
SPEAKER_00
That was the joke I made at you before we were recorded.
3
SPEAKER_00
You stole my joke.
3
SPEAKER_02
No, I didn t.
3
SPEAKER_02
I write all your material.
3
SPEAKER_02
You hack.
3
SPEAKER_00
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.
3
SPEAKER_00
Because sometimes when it s
3
SPEAKER_00
hard, you forget you ve done great things in your life, you ve had accomplishments.
3
SPEAKER_00
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.
3
SPEAKER_00
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?
3
SPEAKER_02
This is a joke song.
3
SPEAKER_00
Hold on, I can go somewhere with this.
3
SPEAKER_00
How s his singing voice?
3
SPEAKER_02
Do you want me to write your joke for you?
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, what s the punchline?
3
SPEAKER_02
Hard.
3
SPEAKER_00
There it is, that s the one.
3
SPEAKER_02
That s what she said.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I followed him on Instagram.
3
SPEAKER_00
He followed me back.
3
SPEAKER_00
And he s like, if I made, he says, what s the point of being an artist?
3
SPEAKER_00
If the work I create isn t in the spaces of people I like and admire, he s a big fan of yours.
3
SPEAKER_00
You ve given him, in our episodes together, given him joy.
3
SPEAKER_00
So he said, if I make Lex a sculpture, will he put it on the shelf behind him?
3
SPEAKER_00
And what that reminded me of
3
SPEAKER_00
is when I was a kid, you read Batman comics and there s the Batcave.
3
SPEAKER_00
And the Batcave has all this cool stuff in it.
3
SPEAKER_00
I didn t realize until much later that all of those things in the Batcave had an origin story.
3
SPEAKER_00
So the giant penny, the dinosaur, there was actually a story where that came from.
3
SPEAKER_00
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.
3
SPEAKER_00
So he made you this sculpture.
3
SPEAKER_00
He lives in Turkey and it s called Chance Murmur.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it is, I haven t even seen it yet.
3
SPEAKER_00
It is absolutely beautiful.
3
SPEAKER_02
All right, so you wanna do a little unboxing?
3
SPEAKER_02
Yes.
3
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
3
SPEAKER_01
Axe or?
3
SPEAKER_01
Body spray.
3
SPEAKER_01
All right.
3
SPEAKER_01
Let s do it.
3
SPEAKER_01
Let s unbox.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m so excited.
3
SPEAKER_00
He left this out of the box.
3
SPEAKER_02
You know that Steven Seagal movie where there s like a stripper that comes out of the box?
3
SPEAKER_02
Under siege, he s on a boat.
3
SPEAKER_02
You re not an action film guy.
3
SPEAKER_02
No.
3
SPEAKER_02
One.
3
SPEAKER_02
What does the pirate say when he turns 80?
3
SPEAKER_02
I m 80.
3
SPEAKER_02
I m 80.
3
SPEAKER_02
Oh.
3
SPEAKER_02
See, that s how I know you don t like humor.
3
SPEAKER_02
I just don t like pirates.
3
SPEAKER_02
Well, your mom does.
3
SPEAKER_02
Do you play any musical instruments?
3
SPEAKER_00
No.
3
SPEAKER_00
Neither do you.
3
SPEAKER_00
I ve seen your guitar videos.
3
Okay.
3
SPEAKER_02
Here s a big piece of wood for you.
3
SPEAKER_02
That s what it feels like, just so you know.
3
SPEAKER_01
Oh, wow.
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh, my God.
3
SPEAKER_01
that s traveled across the world.
3
SPEAKER_00
So here s why his work speaks so much to me.
3
SPEAKER_00
So first of all, he s combining so many different references.
3
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It s Nike, the goddess of victory, right?
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It looks like an angel as well.
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The Italian futurists, which is my favorite art movement from the early 20th century, they tried to capture motion in 2D or 3D form.
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Well, Jake, thank you.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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Thank you for creating beautiful things.
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Thank you for caring about somebody like me and somebody like Michael.
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I really feel the love.
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Thank you.
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That s the other thing.
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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.
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And I actually have a list here.
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Okay, I got a little rant ready.
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You want to hear my rant?
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Yeah, let s go.
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One 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.
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And there s a lot of that.
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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.
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And these are young artists, you know, they re trying to add beauty.
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I have a list
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So if you don t believe me and you think all contemporary art is garbage or terrible, go to the website or 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.
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So I don t have any relationship with any of these people.
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These are just some galleries I follow on Instagram.
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Outre Gallery, Antler Gallery, Giant Robot 2,
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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.
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The pieces were not expensive at all.
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SPEAKER_00
What kind of art are we talking about?
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Everything, paintings?
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Mostly paintings, mostly paintings.
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Some sculptures too, like this.
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Corey Halford is my favorite one in L.A.
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Knight Gallery, Vertical Gallery, Avant Gallery, Hive Gallery, Haven Gallery, and Curio Art Gallery.
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I m telling you, it s not exorbitant.
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This is not the kind of thing where you have to go to a museum and be like,
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doesn t make sense to me.
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You look at it right away, you re like, okay, I know what this is, and it s beautiful, it s awesome.
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And you re supporting someone who s young and creative trying to do something and make the world a better place.
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So I m a big fan of the contemporary art scene.
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A lot of it is not great,
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But even the stuff that s not great is very rarely disgusting or gross.
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It s just like, okay, I ve seen this before, something like that.
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There s a standup where I ll pay money for the ticket and someone s like, who s an opener?
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It s like, I wouldn t pay to see him perform, but he seriously made me laugh.
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That person is still by far more good than bad.
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So a lot of this art isn t stuff I would own.
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But it s like, okay, I get it, I like it.
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Well, as the analogy goes, I really like going to open mics, actually, because funny, it sounds absurd to say, but funny isn t the only thing that s beautiful about stand-up comedy.
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It s the agony.
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It s going for it.
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It s trying to be funny.
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It s taking the leap.
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trying the joke, and some of the best stuff is actually funny, but the audience is like three people, two of whom are drunk and bored, and you re still going for it.
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And that s like, that s the human spirit right there.
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Roseanne was telling me how Gilbert Godfrey would go on, it was like three in the morning, and it was like five, her and like three other comics in the audience, and like they all were just dying, like he was just killing them.
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Who s your favorite comedian?
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SPEAKER_00
Uh, Dave Smith.
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SPEAKER_00
Who?
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SPEAKER_02
And cut scene.
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Favorite comedian?
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First, I m Norman McDonald.
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If you like put a gun to my head and I had to answer really quickly, that would be him.
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SPEAKER_00
Okay.
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I would also say Louis CK.
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SPEAKER_02
Oh, wow.
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Yeah.
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Oh my god, yes.
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But that s almost like a vanilla answer at this moment in history because it s like... Louis C.K.
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is pretty radioactive.
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He is.
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Well, yeah, he does it.
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The Tough Topics, the best.
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Mitch Hedberg, the wit of a good one-liner.
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It s great.
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I guess that s what Norm Macdonald was a genius at.
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What about you?
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I mean, we re so fortunate to be here in Austin because that comedy, Mothership, you go there and people are just killing it.
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David Lucas is amazing.
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Ty Rivera probably did the best set I ve seen since I ve been here in Austin.
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And I watched him and I m like, this guy s even bitchier than I am.
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So I reached out to him.
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So he s just terrific.
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David Lucas is another one, a buddy of mine.
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You just said it twice, I think.
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I m thinking Dave Landau, excuse me, Dave Landau.
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Joe Mackey.
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It s true though.
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It s true.
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SPEAKER_00
It s true.
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It s true.
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Dave Lucas.
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You ever been to the Comedy Mothership?
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It s a great spot.
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SPEAKER_02
Where is that?
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SPEAKER_02
Is that in Austin?
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Austin.
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SPEAKER_02
Is that where Willie Nelson s from?
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SPEAKER_02
I haven t really.
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Go ahead.
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SPEAKER_00
Oh, I heard a joke about that the other week.
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SPEAKER_00
Tell the joke again.
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SPEAKER_00
What s the only thing worse
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than giving head to Willie Nelson.
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SPEAKER_02
What?
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If he says, I m not Willie Nelson.
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SPEAKER_00
What s that, Mr. Parrot?
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SPEAKER_02
I know he s not funny.
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SPEAKER_02
He s better.
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SPEAKER_02
He thinks he s better on Twitter.
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SPEAKER_02
That s not nice to say right in front of his face.
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SPEAKER_02
Just think how he feels.
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The statue s Chance Murmur is judging you.
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Chance.
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It s called Chance Murmur.
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SPEAKER_00
Chance Murmur.
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God, that s so beautiful.
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That is gorgeous.
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SPEAKER_00
This is another reason I hate cynicism, and I talk about this a lot.
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Even just on Etsy, there s so many small,
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not huge companies, like individual artisans who are creating great stuff and just making it happen.
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And it s really sad for me where people can t see that.
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Or if they re like, well, how could I be excited about a sculpture when blah, blah, blah, the Middle East.
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And it s just like, you can always look for an excuse not to look for joy, or you could look for an excuse to look for joy.
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Yeah, that s just incredible.
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I feel the same way about all.
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Only only fans.
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I can t even get that out of my mouth before laughing at my own failed joke.
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SPEAKER_02
That s what she said.
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Oh All right, that might be one of the first that s what she said from a Michael Malice, yeah, I m gonna count that I
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SPEAKER_00
I don t know what I m gonna do with mine, because I got my own.
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SPEAKER_00
Mine s three feet tall, just like me.
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SPEAKER_00
Your box was much bigger.
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SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
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And it was giving me an inferiority complex.
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I think I m gonna invade Russia.
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That s a Napoleon reference.
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for those in the audience?
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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.
3
SPEAKER_00
Put it in the bedroom?
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SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
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Do we get through everything we re thankful for?
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No, I ve got lots of things I m thankful for.
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What else?
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Friends, family, we said books.
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I m thankful for career, I m thankful for, I am thankful for,
3
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And I know people are gonna lose their minds and I can hear them flipping out already.
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I am thankful for social media.
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I think for several reasons.
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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.
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It s a great way to stay in touch permanently for people otherwise you d lose touch with, you know, whatever venue.
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And it s also a great way to expose corporate depravity.
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When you have these organizations that are dishonest, I think the community notes thing on Twitter is the greatest thing ever.
3
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I wish they would pay attention to the Michael Malice account more often.
3
SPEAKER_00
You shouldn t be encouraging anyone to pay attention to my Twitter account.
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SPEAKER_00
It s a dumpster fire.
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And I don t mean Bridget, I mean like literal, Bridget Phetasy.
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SPEAKER_02
Bridget, by the way, is amazing.
3
SPEAKER_02
But your Twitter account makes, yes, not here.
3
SPEAKER_02
I wish she did.
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She s in Georgetown.
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No, I mean in this, where we re sitting.
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It s a joke, Michael.
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SPEAKER_02
Is it?
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Yeah.
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But I m just really glad about, it s another way for people who before would have felt very alone.
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I know it makes some people do feel alone, but for other people, it makes them feel connected.
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There s been a lot
4
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a lot of talk about antisemitism recently.
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What s your sense about this?
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Is antisemitism like any other brand of hate?
4
SPEAKER_01
There s a lot of hate out there.
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SPEAKER_01
No, I don t think it s like any other brand of hate.
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because I don t think racists or transphobes or homophobes or misogynists or xenophobes argue openly or even not so openly for the killing of black Americans, transgender people, gay people, women, or immigrants.
4
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And it s not only something that s talked about, it s something that has actually happened, and not just the Holocaust, but just centuries of pogroms.
4
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right?
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There s this great book that I read many years ago called The Satanization of the Jews.
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Camille Paglia recommended it and I read it.
4
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And they live in this certain specific kind of anti-Semitism.
4
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And again, I m not talking about people who are against Israel or something.
4
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I m talking specifically about Jew hatred.
4
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They have this moral calculus that Jews are the only people who are capable of good or evil and Jews are exclusively capable of evil.
4
SPEAKER_00
And for example, if you look at
4
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the George W. Bush White House.
4
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You had W, you had Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, a lot of these neocon advisors.
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SPEAKER_00
So if there s 10 people in a room and there s one Jewish person, it s his fault and the rest are Jew-controlled.
4
SPEAKER_00
So again, they only exist as a puppet of Jews in this kind of worldview.
4
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And it s like that, to me, if there were no Jews on earth,
4
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It is crazy to say that John Bolton and Liz Cheney and Lindsey Graham wouldn t be pushing for more war.
4
SPEAKER_00
That makes no sense to me.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s like you blame the Jews when bad things happen, but when a Jewish person does something good, it doesn t really matter.
4
SPEAKER_00
Or just wait, he s gonna do something bad.
4
SPEAKER_00
Well, yeah, that s true.
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Human beings do good things and then they do bad things sometimes.
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But it only counts when that Jewish person does the bad thing.
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I wonder what s a way to fight anti-Semitism and fight hate in general.
4
SPEAKER_00
I think the only, or the best way, because I thought a lot about this, about how did gay Americans go from being universally hated and despised to the point that many people in the 80s went to their graves, those who had AIDS, without even telling their parents, because they were so scared, to now Times Square is just covered in pride flags.
4
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And I think, and this also works for Islamophobia and some of these other bigotry, is what I call the ambassador program.
4
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Because as soon as you know someone who is a member of a certain group, it is a lot harder to be bigoted against them.
4
SPEAKER_00
Because instead of this being this out group that s somewhere out there, it s like, wait a minute, I work with this guy.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, he s kind of a jerk.
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SPEAKER_00
maybe he sees things a little differently than me, but this guy is not a horrible human being.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I think the only way to fight any form of bigotry is to be a good example of the counter to whatever archetype or stereotype is in the culture.
4
SPEAKER_01
Karl Marx wrote that religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of a soulless condition.
4
SPEAKER_01
It is the opium of the people, as the famous phrase goes.
4
SPEAKER_01
Do you think he has a point?
4
SPEAKER_00
No, I hate that quote.
4
SPEAKER_00
I absolutely hate it.
4
SPEAKER_00
I despise this sort of Reddit, internet, atheist activism for the simple reason that I know many people who, in finding faith,
4
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have become objectively better human beings.
4
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They start living consciously, they take morality seriously, they try, we all fail, to be moral good people.
4
SPEAKER_00
So this sneering that these midwits, these marginally intelligent people have towards religious people.
4
SPEAKER_00
Now, lots of religious people use religion to rationalize their
4
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bad behavior or big egos, so on and so forth, that exists, that s true.
4
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But to say that it never helps anyone and it s universally, see Marx was talking about a period, I ll defend his quote, when his argument was the masses are being starved and oppressed
4
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but they re promised, don t worry, you ll have riches in heaven.
4
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So you should kind of let yourself be pushed around now, and this is kind of this BS bargain that the people are being given.
4
SPEAKER_00
So that was, I think, the point he was making.
4
SPEAKER_00
It certainly doesn t apply nowadays.
4
SPEAKER_00
I ve been close to the family in the Midwest, they re good Christian people.
4
SPEAKER_00
I remember very specifically this guy, shout out to him,
4
SPEAKER_00
Sean Sherrod, I went to college with him, David Lucas.
4
SPEAKER_00
And- Have you checked out the Comedy Mothership?
4
SPEAKER_00
Great, great club.
4
SPEAKER_00
Where s, is it Austin?
4
SPEAKER_00
Willie Nelson.
4
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And I, you know, I was 17, 18, freshman year, and I was reading all this criticism of the Bible, and I was like, look, this is in there, look at this in there, and he put his hand on my shoulder, and he says, Michael, there s nothing you re gonna tell me that s going to make me lose my faith.
4
SPEAKER_00
And that was a very self-aware and profound thing to say,
4
SPEAKER_00
As I ve gotten older and there are lots of religious people, there s no part of me that thinks they re wrong or they should be mocked.
4
SPEAKER_00
It also reminds me of when people sneer at addicts in recovery.
4
SPEAKER_00
They re like, alcoholism is a disease, it s a choice.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s like, wait a minute, you don t know what it s like to have your entire life ruined by drugs or alcohol.
4
SPEAKER_00
And if you have to tell yourself, I have this disease and blah, blah, blah, and that keeps you from drinking, and now you re a moral, upstanding person who s reliable and takes responsibility for their actions, I don t see the harm at all.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I think this kind of activist atheism is,
4
SPEAKER_00
cheap, I don t agree with it whatsoever, and I do not like that quote at all.
4
SPEAKER_00
But otherwise, big fan of Marx.
4
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I think there s a fan of mine, I forget who it was, apologies, he had this great quote, he goes, and this is me talking, he goes, the games people play to feel smarter than others is depressing and annoying.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I think this kind of fedora internet atheism
4
SPEAKER_00
is a good example, because here s the other thing.
4
SPEAKER_00
If you ve proven that someone else is stupid, that doesn t mean you re smart.
4
SPEAKER_00
You could both be stupid.
4
SPEAKER_00
So congrats, you proved someone else is stupid.
4
SPEAKER_00
Who cares?
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
And sneering in VOL forums in general is just not great.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s one of the things I block out people on social media instantly.
4
SPEAKER_00
You re not going to sneer at me in my space.
4
SPEAKER_00
You can sneer at me all you want in your space, but I m not putting up with your crap.
4
SPEAKER_00
I don t know you.
4
SPEAKER_00
My space, great social network.
4
SPEAKER_00
Is that on 6th Street?
4
SPEAKER_00
AOL.com.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s how Lex comes.
4
SPEAKER_01
Like Pavlov s dog.
4
SPEAKER_01
That was the sound before you get to see, spend 10 minutes waiting for an image of a lady load.
4
SPEAKER_01
One line at a time.
4
SPEAKER_01
I recently talked to John Mearshamer.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t know if you know him at all.
4
SPEAKER_01
So he has this idea about offensive realism.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s a way to analyze the world, international relations.
4
SPEAKER_01
And the basic idea, and I ll run it by you and see what you think, is that states, nations want to survive, and they try to do so by maximizing power, military power.
4
SPEAKER_01
And he talks about anarchy quite a bit in that one of these underlying assumptions of this way of viewing the world is that states are anarchic towards each other.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yes, that s true.
4
SPEAKER_01
And they operate under a lot of uncertainty.
4
SPEAKER_01
States cannot be sure that other states will not use military capabilities against them.
4
SPEAKER_01
Right.
4
SPEAKER_01
They want to survive and they want to use military power to control the uncertainty, to protect themselves.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I disagree in that regard, and I see on your bookshelf, I think the world is a lot closer to Brave New World than it is to 1984.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I think it is, if you look at, let s suppose, China s influence in America, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
The influence is far more through soft power than military power.
4
SPEAKER_00
China doesn t threaten America through, you know, we re going to kill you.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s more like their infiltration of universities, TikTok, things of that nature.
4
SPEAKER_00
Maybe this would have worked before the pop culture era, but I think one of the reasons we have
4
SPEAKER_00
this kind of American hegemony isn t just a function of American military.
4
SPEAKER_00
I think it s much more a function of American popular culture.
4
SPEAKER_00
When you re exporting ideas and culture, it makes other people in other countries feel closer to you and also regard you as a friend and also to adopt your value.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s a great way to spread propaganda.
4
SPEAKER_01
It seems to correlate though, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
It s interesting.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s an interesting idea what has more power, the viral spread of ideas or the power of the military.
4
SPEAKER_01
It seems that the United States is at the top of the world on both.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s true.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so it s hard to disentangle the two.
4
SPEAKER_00
Let s look at Europe.
4
SPEAKER_00
American culture is very popular in Europe in many ways, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
Like the best music comes out of Sweden, Swedish indie pop.
4
SPEAKER_00
They re singing in English, you know, even though so on and so forth.
4
SPEAKER_00
None of this is a function, maybe it s a function of post-World War II to some extent, but I don t think it s a function of American bases there.
4
SPEAKER_00
I think it s a function of we re exporting our music, our TV shows, and our movies.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s interesting if the battleground will be Brave New World, the battle of ideas.
4
SPEAKER_00
I think it s clearly Brave New World.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s so much cheaper, and again, this is one of the dark sides of social media, to use influence than it is to use threats.
4
SPEAKER_00
I don t think, I think COVID is a good example of this.
4
SPEAKER_00
Like so much of the pressure
4
SPEAKER_00
Yes, there was authoritarianism, but it was the fact that everyone bought into it, rightly or wrongly, but the vast majority of the population was behind all of these things, and that was through persuasion, and because people are begging for it to come back in many cases.
4
SPEAKER_01
So who s funding you?
4
SPEAKER_01
Which intelligence agency?
4
SPEAKER_00
Mossad.
4
SPEAKER_00
Mossad.
4
SPEAKER_01
Mossad.
4
SPEAKER_01
This is how you do great interviewing.
4
SPEAKER_01
See, he didn t even expect that.
4
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
4
SPEAKER_00
What s that, Mr. Parrot?
4
SPEAKER_01
What s that, Mr. Parrot?
4
SPEAKER_01
You knew it, but you didn t have any documentation, did you?
4
SPEAKER_00
I think Mr. Parrot is threatened by the better wings, by Chance Murmur.
4
SPEAKER_01
He gets like that when he s turned on.
4
SPEAKER_01
He s not threatened.
4
SPEAKER_01
You can t wait until he s, all three of us are alone together.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s going to be one hell of a party.
4
SPEAKER_00
and beaks and feathers everywhere.
4
SPEAKER_01
And metal.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, this thing is beautiful.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s ridiculous.
4
SPEAKER_01
You have actually a lot of really cool stuff at your place.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s so fun.
4
SPEAKER_01
What s a cool thing that stands out to you?
4
SPEAKER_01
Maybe a recent addition.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I went to the Dallas Museum of Art last year for my birthday, and there was a painting I liked.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I googled it, and I saw the auction for that exact painting, and it was like, I think, three grand, which is not cheap, but not something you d think.
4
SPEAKER_00
You think in a museum, I can never afford something like this, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
So when I was in...
4
SPEAKER_00
I went to Houston with some friends, the side surfs, Natalie, who made the cake of you.
4
SPEAKER_00
The cake terrified my mom.
4
SPEAKER_00
Is it?
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
Aw.
4
SPEAKER_01
No, it s not the cake that terrified my mom.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s you, Michael Malice, cutting it off, cutting the face off.
4
SPEAKER_00
And laughing maniacally.
4
SPEAKER_00
Well, Natalie s pregnant, she s going to have a daughter named Daisy, so congrats to Natalie.
4
SPEAKER_00
But I was in the museum with them, and there was a statue of Thoth, who is the Egyptian god whose head is an ibis, it s a bird with a long beak.
4
SPEAKER_00
And Thoth is the god of the moon, god of knowledge, and supposedly he invented writing.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I thought, you know what?
4
SPEAKER_00
I ve always loved ancient Egypt.
4
SPEAKER_00
I know a lot about it, and especially the mythology.
4
SPEAKER_00
It would be really cool as an aspiring author to have an ancient Egyptian Thoth statue in my house.
4
SPEAKER_00
Well, it turned out
4
SPEAKER_00
that the Egyptians also killed and mummified ibises and buried them with scribes.
4
SPEAKER_00
And a week after I went to the museum, there was an auction for an ibis mummy, and I have it now in my house, still in its bandages.
4
SPEAKER_00
overlooking my desk and we all know it s going to come to life and peck out my eyes and right with my blood, but that is one of the recent cool additions.
4
SPEAKER_00
Another thing I have, which is like in terms of holy crap I ve made it, I have an original Patrick Nagel painting.
4
SPEAKER_00
And if people don t know the name, he s like the 80s artist.
4
SPEAKER_00
He did the Duran Duran cover.
4
SPEAKER_00
We never see him in nail salons.
4
SPEAKER_00
I have a male, which were very rare for him to do.
4
SPEAKER_00
So that s two of my kind of favorite pieces.
4
SPEAKER_00
He only drew women predominantly.
4
SPEAKER_00
I have one where he drew a male, like it s a guy in like a jeanette or something.
4
SPEAKER_00
And now I m looking forward to, so Jake made me a three foot tall sculpture called Future Murmur, which I am ecstatic to get.
4
SPEAKER_01
Just reminds yourself how many fascinating, beautiful people there are out there.
4
SPEAKER_00
And just the victory and holiness and technology and speed and how many people have fought so that I could do what I do.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that s another thing I m grateful for.
4
SPEAKER_01
Just like the hundred billion or so people that came before us.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
And also the trillions of life forms that came before that.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh God, I ve gone down this
4
SPEAKER_00
this trilobite rabbit hole, buying fossils, because as a kid, I thought trilobites were the coolest thing, and now I ve got like 15.
4
SPEAKER_00
And what s interesting is when you buy trilobite fossils on eBay, they re listed as used.
4
SPEAKER_00
Because it s gotta be new or used, and according to programming, so it s used, yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
But just thinking about all that history, just all the life forms that came before,
4
SPEAKER_01
It seems like a really special thing we have going on on Earth here.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh, yeah, I think that s very fair to say.
4
SPEAKER_00
But I also think this kind of is like live life to the fullest.
4
SPEAKER_00
You know, Camus talked about living to the point of tears, especially on behalf of people who didn t have that privilege.
4
SPEAKER_00
So, you know, I dedicated the white pill to my parents who got me out of the Soviet Union and all the kids who never could.
4
SPEAKER_00
And it s like, when I die, I want everyone else to not only, they re obviously gonna be happy, but yeah, like, I m not here.
4
SPEAKER_00
Enjoy what you, live for me, because I can t have that privilege anymore.
4
SPEAKER_01
What do you think about Camus as a writer?
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t like his novels at all.
4
SPEAKER_01
Oh, you don t?
4
SPEAKER_01
At all.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, you ve talked shit about The Plague to me.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I think the book is pointless.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s fascinating.
4
SPEAKER_00
Because all you need to do is read the synopsis, and then you get it.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t think his book... It s not true for most books.
4
SPEAKER_01
No.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, you could take, I don t know, I just don t agree at all.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, it s catch you in the rye.
4
SPEAKER_01
There s a lot of books that seem trivial.
4
SPEAKER_00
I don t think it seems trivial, but I think... Animal Farm.
4
SPEAKER_00
Animal Farm is a methodical, step-by-step examination of a transformation from one thing to another.
4
SPEAKER_00
The plague is not that.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s a methodical examination of what a society is like under the plague, which could symbolize a lot of things, including the plague directly,
4
SPEAKER_01
Nazi Germany or ideological movements.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s similar to Animal Farm, maybe not as effective in terms of using this kind of symbology.
4
SPEAKER_00
I think Animal Farm has a narrative, and I m going to spoil the whole plague, the book The Plague.
4
SPEAKER_00
There s a town, I believe, in Oman.
4
SPEAKER_00
A plague descends, people struggle to deal with it, and the plague vanishes as quickly as it came, the end.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, but there s the victims, the people that take advantage of it, there s the doctor that admits the absurdity and the evil of the plague
5
SPEAKER_00
fighting to do good?
5
SPEAKER_00
Nothing for me.
5
SPEAKER_01
There s nothing for me.
5
SPEAKER_01
Okay, well I could spoil an animal farm.
5
SPEAKER_01
There s pigs, there s animals at a farm, and the humans are abusing them, and then the animals overthrow the humans, but then...
5
SPEAKER_01
The pigs become just like the humans.
5
SPEAKER_01
The lesson, kids, is that power corrupts no matter whether you walk on four or on two.
5
SPEAKER_00
I thought the lesson was that pigs are the most human-like animals on the farm.
5
SPEAKER_01
I thought the lesson was that there s no sugarcane mountain.
5
SPEAKER_01
You ve interviewed a lot of people.
5
SPEAKER_01
What have you learned about getting to the soul of a person, the soul of an idea from interviewing?
5
SPEAKER_00
Just how to do a good interview.
5
SPEAKER_00
First off, I m not interviewing just random people.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m interviewing people who are accomplished.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s not a random group.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s self-selecting for something different.
5
SPEAKER_00
But I think that people love to, and this is very understandable, love to feel seen.
5
SPEAKER_00
So if you re someone who s done something, even if you re like the best guinea pig breeder in America, to have someone interested in your work and listen to what you re saying, because I remember every book I ve written,
5
SPEAKER_00
I have friends and I wouldn t stop talking about the person I m writing with or the North Korea.
5
SPEAKER_00
At a certain point, I m sure they re like, all right, I don t care about this anymore, but it takes over your brain.
5
SPEAKER_00
If you are someone who has an interest or a hobby, I m sure to some extent, maybe your friends or family are sick of talking about it or you don t want to talk about it with them.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s the private life where you could just be yourself.
5
SPEAKER_00
I try to, and this comes from my co-authoring background, when I m talking to people to ask the questions that they haven t heard before.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s a possibility that this actor I m a huge fan of is gonna be on my show, I don t wanna spoil everything, and he s got a very specific role that he s known for, and I know I m gonna, I m like, okay, I know it s gonna be annoying for you talking about this one role,
5
SPEAKER_00
but my goal is to ask questions that you aren t sick of asking, having been asked.
5
SPEAKER_00
Porn star or?
5
SPEAKER_00
No, not a porn star.
5
SPEAKER_01
That joke failed also, edit out.
5
SPEAKER_01
What do you know about breeding guinea pigs?
5
SPEAKER_01
You mentioned it.
5
SPEAKER_01
I d love to hear more about it.
5
SPEAKER_00
I always use this as an example.
5
SPEAKER_00
You meet someone at a party who breeds guinea pigs, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
There s two approaches.
5
SPEAKER_00
Either you re weird, get it, okay, or sit down and tell me everything.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I m very much, and all the people I like are the second group.
5
SPEAKER_00
When you meet someone who s doing something unusual and are passionate about it and are good at it, that to me is the motherlode.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that to me also is the thing I enjoy the most.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s like people that are passionate about a thing.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then it s like who you guys hate.
5
SPEAKER_00
Do you guys hate the hamster people?
5
SPEAKER_00
Do you hate the rabbit people?
5
SPEAKER_00
There s gotta be someone that you guys look down on.
5
SPEAKER_00
Because like the marine aquarium people look down on the freshwater aquarium people.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s a hierarchy.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yes, there s always gonna be a hierarchy.
5
SPEAKER_00
This is where the left anarchists and I disagree because they think you can have egalitarianism.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s gonna be a hierarchy.
5
SPEAKER_01
Hierarchies emerge.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
5
SPEAKER_01
There s no anarchy in the guinea pig world.
5
SPEAKER_00
No, it s just a different kind of anarchy.
5
SPEAKER_01
Somebody s always breeding somebody else.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
5
SPEAKER_01
And looking down on the others.
5
SPEAKER_01
If someone s the other.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
Whether it s the hamster people, the rat people.
5
SPEAKER_01
And everybody s breeding.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
By the way, are you an anarcho-capitalist?
5
SPEAKER_01
What flavor of anarchist are you?
5
SPEAKER_01
I m an anarchist without adjectives.
5
SPEAKER_01
I like them all.
5
SPEAKER_00
The black flag comes in many colors.
5
SPEAKER_01
All right, all right, you re quoting your own.
5
SPEAKER_01
No, I understand.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s a beautiful line in the book.
5
SPEAKER_00
Thank you.
5
SPEAKER_00
I think the anarcho-capitalists don t give the left anarchists enough credit, especially for their courage.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I do whatever I can in my power to talk about people like Emma Goldman whenever possible.
5
SPEAKER_01
Do you still think that are some people better than others is a good litmus test?
5
SPEAKER_01
Yes, it s worked 100% of the time.
5
SPEAKER_01
And for you, the answer is yes.
5
SPEAKER_01
I never answered.
5
SPEAKER_01
There s two of them.
5
SPEAKER_00
What, are you getting all Hitchcock up in here?
5
SPEAKER_01
Oh, hey, careful.
5
SPEAKER_01
I always got your back.
5
SPEAKER_01
What little habits in your life make you happy?
5
SPEAKER_01
Now that you re in Austin.
5
SPEAKER_01
Oh my God.
5
SPEAKER_00
I was prepping for this interview and I imagined this coming up and I knew that as I explained this,
5
SPEAKER_00
You know how sometimes when someone tells a story, at first it s amusing, then it s amusing and concerned, and then you re like, holy shit, where s the exit?
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m getting nervous already.
5
SPEAKER_00
You should.
5
SPEAKER_00
So I m going to tell you something I ve told only a couple of people.
5
SPEAKER_00
This is my absolutely off the charts,
5
SPEAKER_00
autistic approach to shaving.
5
SPEAKER_00
So I have this insane system.
5
SPEAKER_00
You asked about habits that give me joy.
5
SPEAKER_00
I used to hate shaving.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s something called wet shaving.
5
SPEAKER_00
So wet shaving is, you get the brush, you get the soap that s in a canister, you stir it up, you paint your face, and then you shave.
5
SPEAKER_00
The thing is,
5
SPEAKER_00
There are dozens of these shaving soap companies.
5
SPEAKER_00
I tried a couple of hundred of these soaps, because you re testing for scent, you re testing for the lather thickness, and also how smooth of a shave it gives you.
5
SPEAKER_00
I have it down.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m not making this up, I m not this creative.
5
SPEAKER_00
I haven t down to a cycle of 67 soaps, okay?
5
SPEAKER_00
A cycle, so 67.
5
SPEAKER_00
When I use up one soap, that is a slot that I will have to try new ones.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I will try new ones in that slot until I get one that I like and then that slot is filled.
5
SPEAKER_00
So right now I have 67 that I use and I have 86
5
SPEAKER_01
Candidates, like in the queue.
5
SPEAKER_01
Candidates, yeah, in the queue.
5
SPEAKER_01
Do you label them?
5
SPEAKER_01
Do you remember which one is which?
5
SPEAKER_00
Well, they all have beautiful labels.
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, these are artisans who are creating these amazing things.
5
SPEAKER_00
I would encourage everyone to try this hobby who s a guy.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s so much fun.
5
SPEAKER_00
I will give a shout out to the companies that are the best.
5
SPEAKER_00
So the best company, in my opinion,
5
SPEAKER_00
is a company called, they just changed the name because you know what they were originally called?
5
SPEAKER_00
I m not joking.
5
SPEAKER_00
Grooming Department.
5
SPEAKER_00
And now it s like.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s not a bad name.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, but it has certain connotations in contemporary discourse.
5
SPEAKER_00
Contemporary discourse, yes.
5
SPEAKER_00
He changed his name to Ion Skin Care, A-I-O-N.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s the sense of the most sophisticated, the most diverse, and the soap is just really high quality.
5
SPEAKER_00
Another amazing company is Barrister and Man.
5
SPEAKER_00
And if I m gonna tell you to try one, it s called Cheshire.
5
SPEAKER_00
He comes out with new ones every month or so.
5
SPEAKER_00
A lot of it s miss, a lot of it s hit.
5
SPEAKER_00
Just great, great quality stuff.
5
SPEAKER_00
Another great company is Chiseled Face.
5
SPEAKER_00
They make something called Midnight Stag, which basically smells like a garage.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s one of my favorite soaps of all time.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, what makes for a good smell for Michael Miles?
5
SPEAKER_00
I have 67 answers.
5
SPEAKER_00
So some of them smell.
5
SPEAKER_00
Some are citrusy, some are industrial, some.
5
SPEAKER_00
So garage is more industrial.
5
SPEAKER_00
It smells like a garage, yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
Midnight Stag, it smells like a garage.
5
SPEAKER_00
Some are fun because there s smells that smell like other things.
5
SPEAKER_00
For example, there s a scent in my queue called Finding Scotty.
5
SPEAKER_00
It smells like Swedish fish.
5
SPEAKER_00
Another great company is Phoenix Shaving, and they have one called Aloha Smackdown.
5
SPEAKER_00
It smells like Hawaiian Punch.
5
SPEAKER_00
They had one called Yule ham that they made for me special, smells like a ham.
5
SPEAKER_00
They had a ramen one, rockin  ramen, smells like cup of noodles.
5
SPEAKER_00
So they re a great, and every year they do an advent calendar where you, for 12 days, you have a little sample of a soap and a sample of the aftershave.
5
SPEAKER_00
So those are, I m forgetting someone and I m feeling angry that I m doing it, but those are some of the
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh, and Katie s Bubbles is great.
5
SPEAKER_00
They re vegan out of New Jersey.
5
SPEAKER_00
They ve got one called A Knee High to a Grape.
5
SPEAKER_00
It smells like grape soda.
5
SPEAKER_00
I think those are the biggest names off the top of my head.
5
SPEAKER_01
Will that list converge down to a small set eventually or no?
5
SPEAKER_00
67 down to... Well, no, it s down to 67.
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh, so it always keeps... Right, so if there s a slot, then you know what I mean?
5
SPEAKER_00
I ll fill that, you know what I m saying?
5
SPEAKER_01
Oh, so you will forever have the variety of 67.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
5
SPEAKER_01
Huh, you know what?
5
SPEAKER_01
You know how sad my brain is?
5
SPEAKER_01
When you were telling me this, I was like, I wonder how many soaps are left in Michael Malice s life.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like you can count your life by days, by months, by years, or by soaps.
5
SPEAKER_00
That is depressing, that is very dark.
5
SPEAKER_01
Because each experience of shaving is a little beautiful experience.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yes, it is.
5
SPEAKER_01
And how many do you have left in your life, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
That s true.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
I gotta tell you there s something else.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s a term called, my friend Jackie taught me, called touching pan.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s a makeup term.
5
SPEAKER_00
So basically when you use it and you can see the bottom, that s like a big moment.
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh, it s a great thing.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s like, well, it s kind of fun.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m telling you, like, people can scoff.
5
SPEAKER_00
It is such a fun, and there s a lot of us online who are into this whole space.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s really, really fun.
5
SPEAKER_00
When did you first discover this?
5
SPEAKER_00
Can I curse?
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
Fuck you, Cole Striker.
5
SPEAKER_00
Because I was staying at my friend Cole s house in LA.
5
SPEAKER_00
Fuck you, Cole.
5
SPEAKER_00
Cole is like one of the biggest hipsters I know.
5
SPEAKER_00
He s got the shirts with the pearl snaps and everything.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I m staying at his house because I was doing Rogan.
5
SPEAKER_00
And he goes, oh, have you heard of this wet shaving thing?
5
SPEAKER_00
And he goes, look, this one s Pro Rezo.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s like the Italian grandpa soap, which is also a great one.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I went down this rabbit hole and I m like, I don t even know how much money I spent on this.
5
SPEAKER_00
And it s all because of him.
5
SPEAKER_00
But it s like a happy fuck you, like fuck you Cole.
5
SPEAKER_01
I love you Cole, fuck you.
5
SPEAKER_01
Thank you.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s a good idea for a tattoo, fuck you Cole.
5
SPEAKER_01
Do you have advice on how to be happy?
5
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
5
SPEAKER_01
There s a lot of loneliness and sadness in the world.
5
SPEAKER_00
Here I can give a very easy piece of advice that worked a lot for me.
5
SPEAKER_00
Instead of telling yourself that you have these ridiculous standards, tell yourself, I can be better, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
I don t have to be a great writer.
5
SPEAKER_00
I could be a better writer.
5
SPEAKER_00
I don t have to be a great podcaster.
5
SPEAKER_00
That will never happen.
5
SPEAKER_00
I could be a better podcaster.
5
SPEAKER_00
I could be a better person.
5
SPEAKER_00
I could be better at the gym.
5
SPEAKER_00
I could be better with my time.
5
SPEAKER_00
And when you regard things, and especially if you have metrics that you can go by,
5
SPEAKER_00
you know, for example, I ll run this many miles a day, things you have control over.
5
SPEAKER_00
Especially as males, when you have this chart and the data is telling you you re improving, right away, it s like you have the sense of accomplishment.
5
SPEAKER_00
So I think that is a really great way to, and if something is not working in your life, let s suppose you don t have friends, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
There s the internet.
5
SPEAKER_00
How do people make friends?
5
SPEAKER_00
Try things out.
5
SPEAKER_00
What s the worst that s gonna happen?
5
SPEAKER_00
Is it gonna blow up in your face?
5
SPEAKER_00
Well, you ll learn something at least.
5
SPEAKER_00
Don t be afraid of making mistakes.
5
SPEAKER_00
When I was a kid, I was so scared of having things under control so I would never have to get hit in the face, metaphorically.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then I realized, and you realized this as well, everyone who s important gets hit in the face.
5
SPEAKER_00
Look at the president, whoever the president is.
5
SPEAKER_00
It becomes a matter of being strong enough that you could take getting hit in the face.
5
SPEAKER_00
So that is a big, important switch in your thinking.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, there s a Bukowski quote I wrote down.
5
SPEAKER_01
Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I m not gonna make it.
5
SPEAKER_01
But you laugh inside remembering all the times you felt that way.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
There s a part of me that s like that.
5
SPEAKER_01
There s some days where I feel like this is the worst day of my life.
5
SPEAKER_01
And then like shortly after I think, like chuckle at that.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
5
SPEAKER_01
Just knowing the ups and downs of the brain and the mind and life and all that.
5
SPEAKER_01
You ever been depressed?
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, of course.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m more anxious than depressed.
5
SPEAKER_00
I don t really get depressed.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, but I ve been depressed.
5
SPEAKER_00
Like low points.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, but I distinguish depression between low points, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
Like if things are going bad and you feel bad, that makes sense.
5
SPEAKER_00
But when I think of depression, I think of someone who feels bad when things aren t bad.
5
SPEAKER_00
To me, it s almost by definition irrational.
5
SPEAKER_01
Well, yeah, and there s different kinds of, I like, there s a exhausted kind of depression where you re not, it s not so much sad as you re not, don t wanna do anything.
5
SPEAKER_01
You don t want to live, you don t want to, what s the point?
5
SPEAKER_01
What s the point?
5
SPEAKER_01
And like an extreme self-critical negativity, which I m also scared of, because my brain is generally very self-critical.
5
SPEAKER_01
Because you re not taking enough magnesium.
5
SPEAKER_01
Do you take erectile or in the mouth?
5
SPEAKER_00
You take it rectally.
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SPEAKER_00
But as for the magnesium, you should take it as a pill.
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SPEAKER_01
Well, the way your mom explained it then is way different.
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SPEAKER_01
What are you most afraid of?
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SPEAKER_00
Holy crap, I m trying to think of anything I m afraid of.
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SPEAKER_01
You know, in 1984,
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SPEAKER_01
I thought, like even just... If I wanted to torture you, hypothetically.
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SPEAKER_00
Well, mission accomplished.
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SPEAKER_00
You know what, I mean, in terms of, I m scared of increasing authoritarianism, but that s not personal.
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SPEAKER_00
And that s not, that s something that I don t think is as much of an imminent concern as like, let s say, in Canada.
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SPEAKER_01
Are you scared of death?
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SPEAKER_01
No.
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SPEAKER_01
You think Camus was scared of death?
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SPEAKER_00
No.
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SPEAKER_00
He just accepted it as... Look, I honestly feel like if I died tomorrow, I did pretty good with what I had.
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SPEAKER_00
I think I did things that matter to me.
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SPEAKER_00
I think I moved the needle on things that matter to me.
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SPEAKER_00
I think I ve been a good friend to the people I care about.
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SPEAKER_00
I ve saved a couple of lives.
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SPEAKER_00
So,
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SPEAKER_00
I think it s a very low bar for someone to be able to go to their grave and say, you know, I left the world a better place than I found it.
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SPEAKER_00
I don t think it s that hard.
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SPEAKER_00
You ever been betrayed?
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SPEAKER_00
Oh God, yes, of course, haven t you?
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SPEAKER_01
Not as often as I would have predicted.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, the Russian upbringing expects everyone to be like, just it s a time bomb before they betray you.
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SPEAKER_00
I ve been betrayed, of course, yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
You value loyalty?
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SPEAKER_00
I do, and I also made it a point to not let that betrayal color my future interactions and regard that as the universal or the norm.
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SPEAKER_00
I think that s very important.
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SPEAKER_00
Me too.
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SPEAKER_00
And also I feel bad.
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SPEAKER_00
I ve gotten lex enough.
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SPEAKER_00
that I feel bad for the person who betrayed me, because it s just like, they didn t need to do this, and at some point, if you betray someone, you know, and you know you re not a good person.
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SPEAKER_00
I believe that.
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SPEAKER_00
Like even if you tell yourself this is something I had to do, you still know you had to do a bad thing to someone who didn t deserve it.
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SPEAKER_00
And that s a really hard pill to swallow.
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SPEAKER_01
In my situation, I still think good thoughts and empathize with the people that have done me wrong.
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SPEAKER_00
I don t empathize with them, but I sympathize with them.
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SPEAKER_01
My English is not good enough to know the difference.
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SPEAKER_00
Empathizing means you re putting yourself in their shoes.
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SPEAKER_00
Sympathizing means you feel bad for them and wish them well.
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SPEAKER_01
Yes, I wish them well.
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SPEAKER_00
It s very hard for me to empathize with someone who betrays
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SPEAKER_01
as someone that they care about.
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SPEAKER_01
Because that is something, it s not that just I think I m such a great person, it s that I feel guilt very strongly.
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SPEAKER_01
So if I did that to someone who trusted me, I would really, it would fuck up my head for a long time.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, but maybe they were in pain.
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SPEAKER_00
Maybe they were desperate.
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SPEAKER_00
Maybe their back was to the wall.
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SPEAKER_00
They felt that way.
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SPEAKER_00
Sure, well that s a sympathy thing, not really an empathy thing.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
Loyalty is a fascinating thing.
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SPEAKER_00
I value trust a lot.
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SPEAKER_01
I know you do.
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SPEAKER_01
Especially because you re in such a public, both of us, we re in very public positions, you have to be very careful who you surround yourself with.
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SPEAKER_01
It sucks.
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SPEAKER_01
Does it?
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SPEAKER_00
It sucks because it s hard to, I usually just trust everybody.
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SPEAKER_00
Okay, that s crazy.
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SPEAKER_00
But what s the alternative?
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SPEAKER_00
To be, have a filter?
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SPEAKER_00
Well, I have a filter in terms of who I interact with.
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SPEAKER_00
Okay.
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SPEAKER_00
But within the, you know, I see the good in people, but then you, in the very rare instances that might turn.
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SPEAKER_00
Okay.
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SPEAKER_00
And yeah, it just sucks.
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SPEAKER_00
It breaks my heart.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I hear you.
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SPEAKER_00
I completely agree.
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SPEAKER_00
Has your heart ever been broken?
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SPEAKER_00
Yes.
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SPEAKER_00
Love?
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SPEAKER_00
Yes.
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SPEAKER_00
I m just so relaxed right now and happy.
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SPEAKER_00
Relaxed and happy.
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SPEAKER_00
This is making me really happy.
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SPEAKER_01
It s so, again, it s beautiful in like eight different levels.
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SPEAKER_00
I think that s the deepest thing I m thankful for, is just how beautiful people are, how beautiful the world is.
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SPEAKER_01
I really, and people are gonna laugh, and I welcome it, that s fine.
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SPEAKER_01
I really sometimes feel like the guy in American Beauty
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SPEAKER_01
looking at the plastic bag, dancing in the wind, and he s brought to tears because of how much beautiful life is.
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SPEAKER_01
And a lot of people feel the need to sneer at that scene, and Ricky Pitts, whatever, and I think he s got it exactly right.
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SPEAKER_00
I think he does too.
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SPEAKER_00
Well, in the end, you and I will be both laughing.
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SPEAKER_01
That s exactly, and right, and also seeing beauty where other people see garbage.
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SPEAKER_01
And I d rather be the person who sees beauty than the person who sees garbage.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, well, when I look at you, I see beauty.
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SPEAKER_00
And most people see garbage.
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SPEAKER_00
And it s really unfair, Mr. Parrot, that you keep saying that.
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SPEAKER_00
But all jokes aside, man, I m really grateful for your friendship.
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SPEAKER_00
And I m really grateful for you as a person.
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SPEAKER_00
Thank you so much for talking today.
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SPEAKER_00
Thank you so much for talking to me throughout all these years.
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SPEAKER_00
Thank you for being who you are.
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SPEAKER_01
You are welcome.
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SPEAKER_00
Thanks for listening to this conversation with Michael Malice.
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SPEAKER_00
To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description.
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SPEAKER_00
And now, let me leave you with some words from Andre Geid.
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SPEAKER_00
Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.
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Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time.