Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special | Lex Fridman Podcast #402
- What's your opinion on
my bird here, Mr. Parrot? - It's a macaw, scarlet macaw. - What?
- It is a scarlet macaw. - Oh. You know birds?
- Yeah. And that's actually not life sized. - Are you saying he's not real? - I'm saying it's not to scale. - Okay. But he's real. - Are we doing that Monty Python sketch? (both laughing) - Everything is a Monty Python sketch. - I don't think Monty Python's funny. And I-
- You don't? - At all, like, not-
- That explains so much. - Does it? What does it explain? - What do you think is funny? - (laughs) But you not
answering that question, it's pretty funny. - Yeah. What do you think is funny?
Having a mantis shrimp? - No. - Do you think "Big Lebowski" is funny? - Oh God, no. - (laughs) This is
getting worse and worse. 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 "YOUR WELCOME". This is a Thanksgiving
special of the pirate and oceangoing variety. So once again, let me say
thank you for listening today and for being part of
this wild journey with me. This is the Lex Friedman Podcast. To support it, please
check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends,
here's Michael Malice. - The box? - Yeah.
- The mystery box. - I'm wondering what's in it. - There's something in that
box of exquisite beauty, both literally and in what it
symbolizes and why it is here. - Given the kind of human being you are, I'm terrified at what you find beautiful. - That's a good point. You kind of hit me with the curve ball. - Yeah.
- Like for me, the most beautiful like wildlife are what I call God's mistakes. 'Cause my friend came up with that term where she's like, you know, God made these disgusting
animals, just threw in the bottom of the ocean. He is like, no one's ever gonna see this. - Yeah. You commented on Twitter
about some creature, like a rainbow type creature. - The peacock mantis shrimp.
- Yeah. It's beautiful. - It's horrific though. So it has, I think, eight legs, six arms, two punching claws or spearing claws, depending on the genus,
two eyes, two antennae, two ear flaps, I dunno what they do... And its punch can be
as strong as a bullet. And the other type what the spears, divers
call them thumb splitters, because if you stick your finger near it, it'll cut your thumb down to the bone. So I had one as a pet. All night I would hear
banging on the PVC pipe. And I gotta tell you, they have the best eyesight
of any animal 'cause they see in like seven different ways. And when you make eye
contact with this thing, it's just absolutely terrifying. But you can eat them as sushi,
they call 'em sea centipedes. - [Lex] But they're
colorful and beautiful. - [Michael] That's species is. Yeah. - What was it like having one as a pet, and why did you do it? - Well, when you have a
species that's that unique and that much of an outlier, you know, growing up reading these
books, watching these shows, I found this stuff so
much more fascinating than like space and
which is, you know, dead. So to be able to have this
specimen in your house and just observe its behavior
is just like an amazing thing. - Why'd you get rid of it? - I didn't have, I guess, the
right minerals in the mix... - It died? - It had a problem molting once. Yeah. They couldn't molt correctly. - Wow. Do you miss it? Think about it, still? - I do think about it to be honest. I still have a pair of its punching appendages
from when it molted. - What pet animal in your
life do you miss the most, that has been in your
life, that you think about? - I've never had cats or dogs growing up or anything like that,
which, you know, I, oh God. My problem is...
- Here we go. - If I like something, I
will go down a rabbit hole. - Yeah. - So I know, if I got one tattoo, I already know my first
five are gonna be, okay? So I can't do it. 'Cause then, once I get those five, it's gonna be 100 and
I'm already too old to be the tattoo guy. - What would be the first tattoo? My face? Would it go on your ass cheeks? Or where would you put
them? If it was my face. - If I got your face, it would definitely be
on my arm right here. - If you had multiple
faces, would you put like... - I think delts, right, shoulders, different faces on different shoulders? - And then when you...
- The symmetry. - Yeah. Would you get a dictator? If you had to get a
dictator, who would you get? - Have to be the Kim Jong Il, right? - [Lex] Hmm. - Because I wrote the book on him. - Oh. It's like the plugging your book. In the tattoo.
- Don't think plugging. It's just like I have a personal
connection to this stuff. - It good opener to this conversation. But he would be asking why him, and then he'd be like, well,
I wrote a book about it. He'd be like, okay,... - Okay. Here, here's why.
- Check it out. - That would be a bad open. No, that's not what happens.
- Okay. - Here's the thing.
- What happens? - When you write a book about North... "Hey, nice to meet you. What is you do?" "I'm an author." "What kind
of books do you write?" "Well, my last book was on North Korea." 90% of the time. 90. They will then start telling
me everything they know about North Korea. And it's like, I don't
need, this isn't a quiz. And it's a very poorly understood country. I don't expect you to know
anything. You're not on the spot. And half what you're saying
is not accurate either. It's fine. - How often did they
bring up Dennis Rodman? - 100%. - 100% of the time? - Oh, so do you know Dennis Rodman? - Yeah.
- But I don't understand what, I guess people feel the
need to like, all right, like now we're talking about this subject. I just gotta, you know, drop
whatever I can talk about. It's usually a small amount. And there's this thing in
the culture, which I hate, that everyone have to have
an opinion on everything. And it's like, it's okay to be like, yeah, I don't know anything
about that. Tell me more. You know, there's lots of things I don't know anything about. - What's your opinion on
my bird here, Mr. Parrot? - It's a macaw, scarlet macaw. - What?
- It is a scarlet macaw. - Oh. You know birds?
- Yeah. And that's actually not life sized. - Are you saying he's not real? - I'm saying it's not to scale. - Okay. But he's real. - Are we doing that Monty Python sketch? (both laughing) - Everything is a Monty Python sketch. - I don't think Monty Python's funny. And I-
- You don't? - At all, like, not-
- That explains so much. - Does it? What does it explain? - What do you think is funny? (Michael laughing) - But you not answering that
question, it's pretty funny. - Yeah. What do you think is funny?
Having a mantis shrimp? - No. - Do you think "Big Lebowski" is funny? - Oh God, no. Although... - This is getting worse and worse. - To be fair...
- Yep. - I only tried to watch
"Big Lebowski" after it's been part of the
culture for many years. - [Lex] Right. - To the point where every single line has been quoted incessantly by the most annoying frat bros ever. - [Lex] Yeah. - So I kind of have
been poisoned to be able to appreciate it. - [Lex] Right. - So maybe if I'd seen
it when it came out, before it became a thing,
I would've enjoyed it. I couldn't get through it. Like I couldn't get through 20 minutes. - Is that how you feel
about "Schindler's List"? - Well... - It's so much easier for
me to stare at you when you have sunglasses on. - I didn't think you'd be the one making Holocaust jokes today. (Lex laughing)
And yet here we are. - And, cut scene. I actually have like no trouble
making eye contact with you when you're wearing shades. - Yes. 'Cause you're a robot. - Two copies of myself.
- Yeah. Oh, you're seeing yourself in them? - Mhm.
- Okay, cool. - Yeah, I'm having a
conversation with myself. It's not your fault, Lex. - (laughs) They made you like this. You were just a good little
robot in St. Petersburg. - I could see Mr. Parrot a little bit too. - But what do you find funny? Come on, this is an interesting subject. - Well, I find Monty Python,
I find absurdity funny. - Yes. I find absurdity funny. I think that's the thing,
when people come at me, and maybe this is an
Eastern European thing. - Yeah.
- When they're like, how can you find this like
very dark subject funny? It's like, well, the humor, first of all, the humor is that you're making fun
of something that's dark. So already it's absurd. Like
it's completely inappropriate. Second, just psychologically, you know, Joan Rivers said that
Winston Churchill said, I don't know if it's true, that when you make people laugh, you're giving them a little vacation. And I was just thinking
about this the other day, how when I die, if, I want
my funeral to be a roast. - [Lex] Yeah. - It doesn't help me that everyone's sad. If I brought people happiness
or joy in life, whatever. I wanna keep doing that in death. Your sadness doesn't help me. I know you can't help it, but tell stories of how it made you laugh. Make fun of me. Make me the punching bag. Even literally take me outta
that coffin and beat the... I don't, make me a pinata. I don't care. So I think, and it's I
don't understand, well, I do understand, but it's
sad for me when people are like, you know, this isn't funny. That isn't funny. The way I look at humor is the
way it's like a chef, right? It's pretty easy to make bacon taste good. But some of these really
obscure ingredients, to make it palatable, that's takes skill. So if you're dealing with a subject that is very emotional or intense and you can make people
laugh, then that takes skill. And that's the relief for them. - Yeah. It's all about timing. - Yeah.
- Yeah. - [Michael] What's the difference, you wanna hear one of my jokes? - Is it a pirate joke? Because that's the only
kind I accept today. But no, go ahead. It doesn't have to be a
pirate joke this one time. - Do you know who Lia Thomas is? - [Lex] Yeah. - What's difference between
Lia Thomas and Hitler? - What? - Lia Thomas knows how to finish a race. - Very nice. Very nice. - Did I just get the gold medal? Good job. - Why does it take pirates forever to get through the alphabet? - Why? - Because they spent years at C. - Oh, I thought it was
gonna be an arr joke. - Nope.
- That's a good one. I like that.
- Yeah. - When I was in North Korea- - (laughs) Oh, you know Dennis Rodman? It's a callback. - By the way, the thing
that is very heartbreaking about the North Korean
situation is that they have a great sense of humor. It would be a lot easier if these were
like robots or drones. They have big personalities,
big senses of humor. And that made it much
harder to leave and interact with these people. 'Cause I mean, there's nothing more human
and universal than laughter and laughter's free. - Are you're saying
there's humor even amongst the people that have most of
their freedoms taken away? - Especially, I mean,
again, we're from, you know, the Soviet Union. Like, there's anekdoty. Russian humor is a thing because
there's nothing you can... If you can't have food or nice things, at least you can have joy
and make each other laugh. I think about it all the time. And I think about my guide all the time. It's been, what, 2012? So it's been 11 years
since I've been there. And she's still there. And everyone I've seen is still there. They just recently electrified the border, so even the few people who are escaping can't do it any more. - Well, that's interesting that they still have a sense of humor. I attribute the Soviet Union for having that because of the like really
deep education system. Like you got to read a lot of literature. - Okay.
- And because of that, you get to kind of
learn about the cruelty, the injustices, the
absurdity of the world. - [Michael] Right. - As long as the writing is
not about the current regime. - Yeah. But I think like, if you look at like African Americans,
Jewish Americans, gay Americans, they are all disproportionate in terms of attributing to comedy. It's not 'cause these groups have some kind of, you
know, magic to them. It's that when you are on
the outside looking in, A, you're gonna have different
perspective than the people who are in the middle of the bell curve. But also, when you don't
have anything to lose, at the very least you
can make each other laugh and find happiness that way. So, you know, that is
something that I think is an important thing to recognize. - So what do you find funny? What makes you giggle like
in the most joyful of ways? The suffering of others? - I mean, there are YouTube videos of like fat people falling down, and they're really funny. - There's two kinds of
people in this world. Those that laugh at those
videos and those that don't. - No. And those that are in them. (laughs) My friend Jesse just told me
a great Norm Macdonald joke. And this is a good litmus test joke. 'Cause he says, a certain
group of people lose their minds and a certain group
of people just stare at you. And he goes, and so
I'll tell you the joke. This is Norm Macdonald. A guy walks into a bar and
he sees someone at the bar who has a big pumpkin for a head. And the guy's like, "Dude,
what happened to you?" He goes, "Ugh, you never believe this. I got one of those genie
lamps and this genie..." He's like, "Well, what happened?" He goes, "Well, the first wish, you know, I wished for $100 million." He's like, "Yeah, did you get it?" He goes, "Yeah. It goes in my bank account, feels fine." He goes, "All right." "Well, the second wish, I wish to have sex as many
beautiful women as I want." He goes, "Did that happen?" He goes, "Yeah, it was amazing." He goes, "Then what?" Well, "I wished for a giant pumpkin head." - (laughs) Yeah. - So there's a certain mindset
that will just be staring at the screen. And that is, I mean, there's so many levels why
that's funny, at least to me. And I just love that kind of... - Well, Norm Macdonald is like just, I watch his videos all time. He's a guy that definitely
makes me giggle. And he's one of the people
that makes me giggle for reasons I don't quite understand. - Did you ever see him with
Carrot Top on Conan O'Brien? - No.
- Making fun of Carrot Top? - [Lex] No. - This is probably the best
talk show clip of all time. He's on with Courtney Thorne-Smith. She was on "Melrose Place"
and Coen O'Brien's the host. And Courtney's talking
about how she's gonna be an upcoming movie with Carrot Top. And Coen is like, "Oh,
what's it gonna be called?" And she's like, "Doesn't
have a title yet." And Norm goes, "Oh, I know
what should be called, box office poison." And they're all laughing
and she's like, no, no, no. Like the working title is
"Chairman of the Board." And Conan goes, "Do something
with that, smartass." And Norm goes, "Yeah, board
is spelled B-O-R-E-D." And they all just completely lost it. - 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... - I think he is one of
those rare comedians who you really feel like
he's talking to you directly. - Yeah.
- He feels like he's winking at you-
- Yeah. - In the audience. And he is like, can you
believe I'm doing this? Like it's like he almost,
he feels like he's, I don't wanna say imposter, but like he's more a member
of the audience than he's a member of the people on the stage. - Yeah. It feels like he's on our side. - [Michael] Yes. Yeah. - Whatever the hell our means. - You know Roseanne got him his first job? - Man, Roseanne, you and
her been hanging out. - I got it. Oh my God Talk about Thanksgiving. When you are talking to Roseanne Barr and making eye contact with this person... It is, I can't even describe it. It's just like, holy crap,
Roseanne Barr's talking to me. She is, I've said this to her
face, pathologically funny. Like it does not turn off. And you're sitting there
and you're like, holy crap. And when you make her laugh, which is that laugh
that's in the theme song of her show, you feel like,
okay, I did a mitzvah, I did something good
and right in the world that I made Roseanne Barr laugh. And it's also really funny because, and she's gonna hate this, 'cause I tell her she's
adorable, she doesn't like that. She's little. You think of Roseanne
Barr as this like force of nature, like a tsunami. She's like five three
I'd say like maybe 130. Like, and she puts on the sunglasses, you think this little old
Jewish lady, you'd never know, this is one of the most
epic performers of all time. She lives near here now. So it's just so much fun talking to her. There was an old
satirical magazine in the, I think like early 2000s
called Heeb, written by Jews. And she dressed up as Hitler
for one of the photo shoots and she was baking little men in the oven. - Oh.
- I got, I found on eBay. I wanted her to sign it, "To Michael, it should have been you." But she signed it, "To Michael,
you're one smart cookie." And now it hangs, "Love,
mom, Roseanne Barr." And I call her mom. And
it hangs over my desk. 'Cause I have her like good domestic goddess energy flowing at me. What? - What do you find... What else? So Norm McDonald, Norm- - My favorite comedian is-
- We agree on something. - My favorite comedian of
all time is Neil Hamburger. So Neil Hamburger, I don't
know if I'm ruining the bit, he's a character performed by this guy named Gregg Turkington. So he comes out in a tuxedo, big eyeglasses holding
three glasses of water, (coughs) coughing into the mic. And I remember I saw him
once in LA and the girl ahead of me at the table ahead of
me was with her boyfriend, this basic chick pumpkin spice. She turns to him and she
goes, "What is this?" And I remember the first
time he was on Jimmy Kimmel, and he tells one of his
jokes and it was like, "Why does ET like Reese's Pieces so much? Well that's what sperm tastes
like on his home planet." And like no one laughs. And
he goes, "Oh, come on, guys. I have cancer." (both laughing) And it just cuts to this
marine in the audience with his arms crossed. So if you know what he's doing, it's just absolutely amazing. He opened for Tenacious D
once in somewhere I think in Ireland or the UK, one of those. And they're booing him 'cause
his jokes are often not funny. He's like, "Hey, where did
my whore ex-wife run off to with that dentist she's shacking up with? I don't know, but when I see her in
court next month, Alaska!" So they're booing and he goes, "All right, do you guys want me to
bring out Tenacious D?" They're like, "Yeah!" "Do you wanna see your heroes
and mine, Tenacious D?" "Yeah." "Come on, let me hear it. Do you wanna see Tenacious D?" "Yeah." He goes, "All right, 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... - Self censorship is never good. - Okay. He goes, "Can we agree that George Bush is the worst President
America's ever had?" Everyone claps. He goes, "Which makes it all the stranger that his son, George W.
Bush, was in fact the best." - I take it back on the self censorship. - (laughs) So two people
laugh and he goes, "Oh, that's amazing. I guess I'll do an encore."
And he did 10 more minutes. It was just like, I love him so much. - It's interesting he
opened for Tenacious D. Jack Black, that's a comedic
genius of a different kind. - Oh yeah. And he was in one of my
favorite movies, "Jesus' Son", it's this little indie movie. He did a great turn in that. He's really underrated as an
actor. He's got a lot of range. Like I know they kind
of kinda get typecast as this kind of one specific type, but he's really, really talented. - But also just like the pure joy. - Yes. He's clearly having fun. - Okay. It is Thanksgiving. So in the tradition, following tradition, what are you thankful for,
Michael, in this world? - I got... Do you have a list too? - No, not really.
- Really? - It's up in here.
- Oh, I mean, but you have several
things you're thankful for? - Yes.
- Okay. - Yes.
- One of the things I'm- - My list comes from the heart. I don't have to write anything down. - [Michael] Well, I
don't have written down. - Okay. - One of the things that
I'm most thankful for, this is a common answer, but I
can back it up, is my family. Because my nephew Lucas is
now six years old, and he, when kids have a sense of humor,
it's like just miraculous. So he stole my sister's phone, his mom, figured out that grandma is
listed as mom in the phone. And he calls her up and he's like, "Michael's in the
hospital, he's really sick. He didn't wanna tell you."
And she's freaking out. He goes, prank! So I took him, Dinesh
D'Souza just released a movie called "Police State", which was actually really
good, highly recommend it. I was surprised how much I liked it there. 'Cause he wasn't going
Republicans good, Democrats bad. It was just about authoritarianism. And he had a movie premiere at Mar-a-Lago. So I'm like, I gotta
bring Lucas to Mar-a-Lago. So Lucas is, I'm like, we're
going to the President's house. He's like, "Oh, the White House?" And I'm like, no, like a former president. He goes, oh, "Abe Lincoln?" And I'm like, okay, kid logic, like he's giving logical answers. This is kinda like AI,
you have to program it to, it's using logic correctly. - You should have told him
is a president that's second to only Abe Lincoln in terms of greatness. - Accomplishments. Yeah. He went up to all the women in their ball gown, you
know, evening gowns. And he goes, "You're so beautiful.
Were you born as a girl?" So when you have this six
year old asking you this, it was really, really fun. So that is a great joy to have a nephew, and I have another one, Zach, who's coming up in age and
he's starting to talk now. That is really, really fun for me. - Getting to watch them, you know, find out about the world
for the first time. - And also training them. Like, that he loves being
funny and having fun. - You're his audience in a sense. - Yeah... But-
- 'Cause you giggle and... - We're prank bro's, he
gives me a high five. My family... And this is one of... You
talk about what I find funny. This is things that actually enrage me. When people, and this
is such a WASP thing, don't just go with the
joke or they're like, I don't get it, or they don't
understand to just go with it. I was in the car with my sister when she was like 10, 12, whatever. She's much younger than me.
She's like 12 years younger. And there's this species
of squid, by the way, which is asymmetric, one of its eyes is very much bigger than the other, 'cause it swims horizontally,
and so one's looking up, one's looking down where
there's more light. Shout out, if you wanna
learn more about squids, go to octonation.com.
- Octonation. Shout out. - Shout to Warren. - There's a lot of fascinating stuff. Octonation on Instagram. - Yes. I was in the car with my sister. She's like 10 or-
- Me as a pirate. I'm sorry for the rude interruptions. I appreciate that count, especially. - Yeah, it's a great, yeah. - These jokes and thoughts
are coming to me at a, like a 10 second delay, so I apologize. - Okay. - Anyway, you were telling about the... - I know where I-
- Asymmetrical. All right. - So I tell my-
- Sometimes you need help. - No.
- The age is getting to you. - (laughs) I was...
- Your skin is showing it. It's getting dark. - I told my sister, I
go, when you were born, one of your eyes was bigger
than the other and you had to have surgery to fix it. So she turns, she's like, "Mom!" And my mom goes, "Honey, the important thing is that you're beautiful now, that's all..." It's like, what's the big deal? It was just a little surgery. And I says like, all right, calls grandma. And grandma goes, she goes, "Michael said that I was
born one of the eyes..." She goes, why is he telling you this now? It's not a big deal. You were... So the fact that everyone
went with this... - Oh...
- I was so impressed. I was like, this is a quality family in this very specific regard. Does your family have a sense of humor? - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. - Yeah.
- You know, Soviet culture, there's like a dark sense of humor. - Very much so.
- There's... - Word play.
- Word play. (laughs) Yeah. Yeah. And especially the Russian language allows for some like hilarity to it. There's also culture of
like poetry and like my dad, my mom too, but they remember a lot of
lines from books and poems. So there's just, you can do a lot of fascinating references
that add to the humor and the richness of the conversation. - I feel like that's a very Russian thing. Like at a party or maybe
at a bar or something, I don't know where you'd meet people. These are such great ice-
- Go out. - I meant in Russia, I meant, these would be such
good icebreakers, right? You go up to someone goes, hey, did you hear this one anekdot? And you just tell him some little story. - Did you say icebreakers
'cause it's cold in Russia? (Michael laughing) I'm here all night. - That's true. You never leave the house. - Literally.
- So... I feel like that's a thing. - [Lex] Yeah. - And that's not a thing in America. - [Lex] You mean like witty banter? - No. Meaning you go up to stranger and like that's your icebreaker. You tell 'em this little joke. And since everyone kinda has the same sensibilities, right away, you guys are chatting. I don't think that's a thing here. - [Lex] Yeah. - Think here it's more small
talk, which drives me crazy. - So what else are you thankful for? - Well, what's something
you're thankful for? - Well, you went with family. I'm definitely thankful for family. - Okay.
- Yeah. - How, if I may ask, how
do they react to you? Like, you're sitting down with Elon, you're sitting out with Netanyahu, you're sitting down with all
these like big, with Kanye, all these big names. Are they expressing that
they're proud of you? Or is it more like, why haven't
you talked to this person? - (laughs) Yeah. More
Michael Malice, please. - (laughs) The people's choice. - Yeah. Yeah. They're very proud. They've been very, I mean, but they get argumentative and we just, they're just like a regular human being with whom I'm close and
we just argue about stuff. They're not, maybe not enough
show the being proud of, but that part is just the
nature of our relationship. It's also Soviet parents. - Yeah. I don't talk to my dad. That's one of the reasons, 'cause there's never ever any good job. And at a certain point
it's like, why am I trying to search for approval from someone I'm never gonna get it for? And from who it wouldn't mean
anything at this point anyway. - Well, that's interesting. I mean, there's a journey
like that for a lot of people with their father or with their mother. Like they're always
trying to find approval. And that's life for a lot of people. - [Michael] Yeah. - That's a really big part
of the human condition is that relationship you
have with your father, with your mother. I don't know, it's a beautiful thing. So it's, whether it's
been a rough childhood or a beautiful one, all
of it, that's who you are. Like that, the relationship, especially early on in
your life with your father, with your mother, is
like extremely formative. - Yeah, my dad taught me a
lot of things at a young age that I'm very, very grateful for. He's extremely intelligent, very flawed. And that's fine. We
all are, except for me. And it's the kind of things
that when you learn things at a right age, and this is one of the things
I like about being older, is that when I'm friends with people- - Much older.
- Much older, when I'm... But much, much older, When I have friends who are younger, it's very easy for me
to keep them from making the mistakes I did. So at least this is something
I'm getting out of it is that, okay, I can't fix these mistakes, but it just takes me 30
seconds and I can pull you back from making the mistake. So he taught me a lot as a kid. He really encouraged me very much to, he has 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
that I got that from him. And I mean, I have got
literally right now 98 books on my shelf to read. It's just a life... That makes me, I remember
I had a friend and she ran into someone she went to high school with and he stopped you on the train and he is like, yo, you're not in college. You don't need to read books any more. And I was just like
horrified to hear this. - Yeah. Yeah. Boy, don't I know it. - I mean, you do laugh, but like, there's a lot of things
I don't understand. When you got heat for like, I wanna read the Western classics, to me, that might've been like the
internet at its absolute worst. - I think there's just a cynical perspective
you can take that there. This is such a simple
celebration of a thing that there must be something behind it. I think the internet, for good
and bad, is just skeptical. Like, what's behind this? - My hero, Albert Camus. And if there's one thing I would
wanna fight, it's cynicism. Because it's such a giving up... It's such, everything sucks. This sucks, that sucks, this
sucks. Most things suck. Most standard comedians
suck. Most movies suck. All podcasts suck. But it doesn't matter. - Especially yours.
- Especially mine. It's unwatchable.
- "YOUR WELCOME" He can't even spell it correctly. - (laughs) But the stuff
that's good is what matters. Who caress if 90% of movies are terrible, like they're the ones that
change your life, the books, the people, the comedians,
the shows, the music... - And even the terrible things have good moments, beautiful moments. - [Michael] Some, not all. - Your podcast being
an example of not all. I've literally just, I keep listening for something good, something good. - In all fairness, none of my
guests have anything to offer. That's not on me. I try. - Yeah. Well, I wish you'd talk a
little less in your podcast. It's a little excessive. I only listen for the
underwear commercials. - Sheathunderwear.com,
probably called Malice. - 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. - Oh yeah. Malice at the Movies. I watched the video and I broke it down. - [Lex] That was really great.
I wish you did that more. - I haven't done live
streaming in a long time. It was something I was doing a lot in New York, especially during COVID. I feel that, I don't know, I got so many projects
on the plate, I'm, oh, this is something else I'm thankful for. This is something I'm very, very thankful for and I'm
gonna announce it here. - [Lex] Coming out of the closet. Finally. Go ahead. Who's the lucky guy? (both laughing) - You're the one in drag. - Guns out. Guns out.
- He makes me- - The sleeves off.
- He makes me call him Sex Friedman. - (laughs) You like it. - So... I didn't say it. - All right.
- Didn't even imply that. When I, in, as you
probably know, as you know, but as many people
watching this also know, Harvey Pekar who had
that comic book series, "American Splendor" was the subject of movie "American Splendor". He wrote a graphic novel about me in 2006 called "Ego and Hubris", which
goes for like $150 on eBay. It's not worth it, just download it. And I met Harvey because
I wrote this screenplay about this band from the
'80s called Rubber Rodeo. It's a real band. And the keyboardist, Gary
Leib, who passed away, rest in peace, Gary, introduced me to Harvey
'cause he did the animation for the movie. And this script's been in
my desk for over 20 years. And I realized, thanks
to my buddy Eric July, who has some huge success with his comics, I could just produce
this as a graphic novel. So I've got an artist,
we're getting it together, so I'm gonna make it happen finally. And it's some of the best
writing I've ever done. I'm really proud of the story. It's kind of ironic reading it now, because when you're a writer, obviously, different books, you put different aspects of yourself into them. Right? And this story's very, very dark because basically they did all the right things and they went nowhere. Right? And 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, you know, I'm doing all the hard work
and it's still not enough? Now it's been disproven 'cause
I can at least pay my rent. - You feel you've, like, you've made it, 'cause you said you could pay your rent? - I feel that to make it is if you don't have to have a boss, and you know how I really
felt like I made it? This is gonna sound like
a joke and it's not. This is being an immigrant. I own, as you know, Margaret
Thatcher's bookcases. - Yes.
- So to me, as an immigrant, to have her bookcases in
my house, I've made it. - You are right. It's not a joke. - It's not, there's nothing
funny about it at all. - Not laughing.
(Michael laughs) It's time to get serious. - Oh, nice. Oh, now I'm
more nervous and aroused. So what else are you thankful for? So we're both thankful for family. - I mean, I'm, the fact that I can... - Still get it up?
- What's that? - Nothing, go ahead. - I think as an author, to be able to write what
you want and have of enough an audience that it covers your living... That's as good as it
gets as an author almost. You don't need to be
Stephen King or some legend. It's like, you know, there's lots of standups who
aren't like world famous, but they have perfectly good
living, they do their gig, they do what they love. I feel very, very blessed. But you must be thankful for your career. - Yeah, yeah. Career-wise... But like, I think the best part about it's just meeting, making friends. - Okay.
- With people I admire. - Okay, cool. - Quite honestly, just friends. I, you know, the people
that have gotten to know me, I hide from the world sometimes, I hit some low points,
especially with this new, all the new experiences
and just the people that have been there for me
and haven't given up on me. - You know, there's days, and I'm sure you've had this also, where like, I literally don't speak
to someone the whole day. And in certain times of
my life, it's really, I remember very vividly, I was in DC in '97, I was an intern, and that summer, DC closes
down on the weekends. And I remember those
weekends when like I got off the phone with like the
third person, I knew there was no possibility anyone was gonna call. And what that felt like. And
it was dark and it was bad. So I remember those feelings
of loneliness like a lot. - I still feel alone like that sometimes. You don't feel alone? - Not any more. - What's the reason, you think? - There's like, I have a lot of people who I care about
and who care about me. I mean the thing about
moving to Austin is I forgot how lonely New York got, because it was like one after
another I lost everybody and then you start losing
the places you go to. And then it was just like,
holy crap. I'm very isolated. And here in Austin there's
not as much to do, obviously, as in New York, but there's
a lot of people here. More people are coming all the time. So if I ever want to like hang out with someone, you know,
I've got a long list. And these are people who I've
known for a very long time. People who know me quite
well. So I could be myself. My awful, awful, awful,
awful, awful, self. And that is something
I don't take lightly. - Now you moved to
Texas, it's gonna secede. - Yeah.
- It's just a very... - Do you know what happened with that? - [Lex] No. - I forget the guy's name. And it's probably for the best. Monday, on Monday, a guy in the Texas legislature
introduces a bill to have it on the referendum, to have
a referendum for Texas to declare its independence. Tuesday I'm on Rogan.
Me and him discuss it. I give it national attention. It was also really funny
because a lot of people are like, "These people have been in Texas five minutes, blah, blah." I go to the Texas legislature,
meet with the guy, have a nice conversation. A 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. At least it was a girl in this case. But yeah, so it's like, that was my little Texas
independence moment. - Oh. It didn't go anywhere? - It did not go anywhere.
- Wow. - But it's still part of the platform of the Texas Republican Party. - Yeah. It's fascinating that
history is probably laden with stories like this of
failed revolutionaries. We celebrate the heroes, but
then there's the losers like... - Myself. - Yeah.
- Yeah. - And we're gonna mark
that one as a failure and edit it out. And moving on. So, thankful... Yeah. Friendships. Right. But by the way, I wanna say just to you, I'm thankful in this
lonely moments for people who write books. I've been listening to audiobooks
a lot and reading a lot. I really like audiobooks actually. And just like, I don't know, I can just name random
person, Serhii Plokhy, he's a historian, I'm reading on the... - Wait, I read him. What do you, what do-
- I just, he written a book most recently about the Russia-Ukraine war. - He wrote another one that I read. Didn't he write about-
- Empires, I think? - The fall of the Soviet
Union or something like that. - Yeah, yeah.
- Yeah. It was very, very good.
- He's great. It's true. - I used him as a resource
for "The White Pill". - He's objective, while still having
emotion and feeling to it. Like he has a bias... - [Michael] That's fine. - But without, a lot of
times when you write a story that involves Putin, people
are really ideological. - Yeah.
- They don't really like, they don't write with a
calmness and the clarity and the rigor of history. There's emotion in it. Like there's almost a virtue signaling. - Yeah.
- And he doesn't have that, even though he is Ukrainian
and has very strong opinions on the matter. Anyway, there's people
like that and he's done an incredible job
researching a recent event. Like he says, I was looking at everything that's been written
about the war in Ukraine and realizing, you know,
the old Churchill line, that historians are
the worst ones to write about current events
except everybody else. And so he is like, I might as well just write about this war. And he does an exceptional
job summarizing day by day the details of this war. Anyway. So I'm just grateful
for a guy like that. - So for me there's,
I'll name some historians I love, Arthur Herman, Victor Sebestyen is probably my favorite, David Pietrusza, P-I-E-T-R-U-S-Z-A. When you are a historian, and I tried to do this to some degree in "The White Pill", as far as I could. But yeah, when you take data
and you make it read like a novel, so you're learning about who we are as
people, what had happened, but also it's entertaining and readable... That to me is like the acme of writing. And I have so much admiration... - What does acme mean?
- Top. - Okay. - Zenith.
- Zenith, okay. This is what writers do? They just come up with these
incredibly sophisticated words? I'm impressed. - Well, acme's-
- Because you could've just said the best of writing. - Acme is also the
company in like Bugs Bunny and Wiley Coyote is always
Acme, you know, Acme? - Yeah.
- Yeah. Like Acme bombs. When they are that good, it's
just it leaves me in awe. Ron Chernow is another one.
- Who? - He wrote the Hamilton biography. - Oh, nice. Oh, I have a lot of favorite historians about the whole time period of World War II, William Shirer, people that lived during it, especially, I really like those accounts. Obviously Solzhenitsyn
is, he's not a historian, but his accounts are Fascinating. You actually, how much do
you talk about Solzhenitsyn? - Never.
- Not much. Right? Why not? - I feel like I wanted to... There's something I could add to him. - [Lex] Oh, he didn't, he's the Michael Malice
of the previous century? - No, he's talented,
charismatic, and skilled. So he is not the Michael Malice. Yeah, I did not, I feel like I didn't... I didn't read "Gulag Archipelago"
for "The White Pill". I feel-
- You didn't? - I didn't. No. I feel I got a lot of
it from Anne Applebaum, who's a very controversial figure. Her history books on the Soviet
Union, I think, are superb. But she's also accused of
being very much like a neocon and being a war monger
in contemporary times. - [Lex] Oh, I see. - 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. I think that's a very
hard argument to make. - 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. - Yes. And I also don't like how that term... You know, I got in trouble, there was some literal demon who works at The Atlantic and... - As opposed to a regular demon? - As opposed to figurative demon. - I didn't know they employ demons. - They exclusively employ
demons at The Atlantic. And he was giving me crap
this a couple years ago on Twitter because I didn't
think it's appropriate to refer to George Soros
as a Holocaust survivor. And I'm like, listen, if you wanna put him in the same context as Anne Frank, knock yourself out. But I think that's so
completely disingenuous and frankly repulsive to me, morally, to equivocate between figures like that. And also to claim that
anyone who is a billionaire who is, including Elon,
including Sheldon Adelson, there's no shortage of these people, if you wanna use your extreme wealth, use it to influence politics, you have to be up for criticism, and to protect people, Bill Gates, protecting these people from criticism just on the base of their
identity is deranged to me. - But also the Holocaust
as a historical event, and the atrocities within it
are just singular in history. - Right.
- And so comparing them... - What's the utility? Right? You're just basically
trying to take this brand, I'm using that term, you know, in a very specific way and latch, like when they say climate denial, no one's denying climate exists. So you're just trying to
go off of Holocaust denial. I think it's shameless
and I think it's gross. - And it cheapens everything.
- Yeah. - 'Cause there's deep important
lessons about the Holocaust. - Yes. - To me the lessons are about
how extreme it can get... - And how fast.
- Yeah. And how fast. - That's the one. So, you know, people ask, oh,
are humans basically good? Are they basically evil? I always say they're basically animals. And I think people are, most people are almost
fundamentally deranged. And that there's basically this veneer of civilization and decency. And when shit hits the fan, and we see this over and over, they do things that would've been
completely unthinkable even to themselves five years ago. - Most people are fundamentally deranged with a veneer of civility... - [Michael] There's a show called... - I Think I disagree with that. - [Michael] Well, what's the show called? I'm having Alzheimer's 'cause of the advanced age.
- The age... The skincare...
- There's a show called, "I Think You Should Leave". It's a sketch show.
- I think you should leave. Okay. Sorry. - It's a sketch comedy show. And he captures these great...
How's your hair, princess? He captures these great
moments of just the, like, just the very thin veneer
of normalcy and just the craziness that's so
frequently lurking underneath. Another great example of this, when this is dealing with
people who are literally crazy. Have you ever seen the show "Hoarders"? So every episode of
"Hoarders", there's two, usually two people in every episode, but every episode has the same plot line. Veneer of normalcy, veneer of
normalcy, veneer of normalcy, slight expression of concern,
full blown derangement. And it always follows that exact pattern. - Yeah. I don't know. I think the deep
ocean of the human mind is... Is good. Like there's a
longing to be good to others. - I have seen literally
no evidence of this. And I know everything's a deep ocean with you people, but like... - What do you mean you people? - Pirates? - Oh.
- I don't see it. - What's that Mr. Parrot?
He's an antisemite. No, that's not nice to
say in front of such a large audience. You're embarrassing me, Mr. Parrot. - Lex, you have-
- What's that, Mr. Parrot? - You have-
- He's a run of the mill troll and barely an intellectual? That's not nice to say. That's not true. We talked about this. You have
to see the good in people. - You have seen personally...
- Yep. - How quickly and easily
it is for human beings to form outgroups. - Yeah.
- And to just read others, just as I just did a minute ago with The Atlantic, completely
out of the human race. And that happens
constantly and very easily. Humans are tribal beings. So that does not, I don't see how that's compatible with this essential desire to do good. - No, I think it's like
in 1984, the two minutes of hate, there is a part
of humans that wants to be tribal, and wants to
direct, get angry and hateful. And then that hate is easy to direct. By especially people as
you, as an anarchist talk about there are people in power, they- - Yes.
- Direct that anger. But I think if you just look
at recent human history, the desire for good, the communal desire for good
outweighs that, I think. Like most of life on Earth right now, people are being good to each other, in a most fundamental sense, relative to how nature usually works. - Okay. I think you're both wrong
about people and about nature. So nature is not inherently
violent in the sense, like for example, if
anyone has an aquarium or if you look at wildlife, yeah, you're gonna have predator or prey. But these animals are gonna be coexisting and they're gonna be ignoring
each other for the most part. Right? And as for humans, you know,
being essentially good, I think humans are essentially,
to each other, you said, I think they're essentially
civil and amiable, but that's not really being good. - Good, I think, is a thing that gets illustrated when you're challenged, when there's- - Yes.
- Difficult situations. - Exactly. Yes. - I mean, civility is
a good starting point. And then when there's a
big challenge that comes, people step up, on average. - I completely agree with
you that human beings are capable of such profound
goodness that it kind of makes you extremely emotional. And I certainly think that that's true. But I think that that's more
unusual than it is the norm. - I see beauty everywhere. - So do I. But that doesn't mean
it's in every person. - Not in every person, but in most people. I think, I mean, I wish there was a really
good way to measure this. My general sense of the world is just, there's so much incredible of
both in terms of economics, in terms of art, in terms of just creation
as a whole that's happened over the past century that
it feels like the good is outpowering the bad. - You just did the
perfect segue to the box. - What's in the box. - So...
- Is it your fragile ego? - That's my, you stole my joke! You stole my joke! That was the joke I made
at you before we recorded. You stole my joke! - No, no, I didn't. I write all your material, you hack. - (laughs) So, as you know, I have a lot of beautiful
stuff in my house. 'Cause 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. 'Cause sometimes when it's hard, you forget you've done
great things in your life, you've had accomplishments. It doesn't have to be
some amazing factory. It could just be like
my first job where I got a raise or, you know what, I... Anything. 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? This is, joke's not gonna-
- Hold on. I could go somewhere with this. - Okay.
- How's his singing voice? - Do you want me to
write your joke for you? - Yeah. What's the punchline? Hard. (both laughing)
There it is, that's... - That's what she said. - So I followed him on
Instagram, he followed me back. And he is like, if I made, he says, what's the point of being
an artist if this work I create isn't in the spaces
of people I like and admire? He's a big fan of yours.
You've given him... And our episodes together give him joy. So he said, if I make Lex a sculpture, will he put on the shelf behind him? And what that reminded me
of is when I was a kid, you read Batman comics
and there's the Batcave. And the Batcave has all
this cool stuff in it. I didn't realize until much later that all of those things in the
Batcave had an origin story. - [Lex] Hmm. - So the giant penny, the dinosaur, there was actually a story
where that came from. So if you're a fan of a
show, you can spot, oh, this is when this appeared,
this is when that appeared, this when that appeared. So he made you this sculpture, he lives in Turkey and it's
called "Chance Murmur". And it is, I haven't even seen it yet. It is absolutely beautiful. - All right, this... So you wanna do a little unboxing? - Yes.
- Okay. Axe or? - Body spray.
- (laughs) All right. - Let's do it.
- Let's unbox. - I'm so excited. Hey, Lex has got a box. (both laughing) - You know that Steven Segal
movie where there's like a stripper that comes outta the box? - Is there...
- "Under Siege"? - Okay.
- He's on a boat. You're not an action film guy. - No. - One. What does the pirate say when he turns 80? - What?
- I am 80. - Aye matey. Oh. (both laughing) - [Lex] Oh. See that's how
I know you don't like humor. - I just don't like pirates. - [Lex] Well, your mom does. Do you play any musical instruments? - No. Neither do you. I've seen
your guitar videos. (laughs) - Okay. Here's a big piece of wood for you. That's what it feels
like, just so you know. - Oh wow. - You need help?
- Yeah. - Oh my God. - This traveled across the world. - So here's why his work
speaks so much to me. So first of all, he's combining so many
different references. It's Nike, the Goddess of Victory. Right? It's that it looks like an angel as well. The Italian futurist, which is my favorite art movement from the early 20th century, they tried to capture
motion in 2D or 3D form. - Well, Jake, thank you,
thank you, thank you, thank you for creating beautiful things. And I thank you for caring
about somebody like me and somebody like Michael,
who really feels the love. - That's the other thing.
- Thank you. - When you have something
that matters to you in your house and you're having a bad day, you can look at it and
remember, you know what I mean? That spirit of joy. And I
actually have a list here. - Okay.
- I got a little rant ready? Do you wanna hear my rant?
- Yeah, let's go. You're... - 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. And there's a lot of that. But so much of the stuff
out there in galleries is not only not crazy expensive, but they're trying to sell
things for people in their house. And these are young artists, you know, they're trying to add beauty. I have a list, so if you don't believe me and you think all
contemporary art is garbage or terrible, go to the
website 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. So I don't have any relationship
with any of these people. These are just some galleries
I follow on Instagram. Outre Gallery, Antler Gallery,
Giant Robot 2, Beinart, I dunno how to pronounce it, I'm sorry, B-E-I-N-A-R-T,
Spoke Art Gallery, Var Gallery, Milwaukee, I was there. The pieces were not expensive at all. - What kind of art are we
talking about? Everything? - Mostly paintings. Mostly paintings. Some
sculptures too, like this. Corey Helford is my favorite one in LA. Night Gallery, Vertical
Gallery, Avant Gallery, Hive Gallery, Haven Gallery,
and Curio Art Gallery. I'm telling you, it's not exorbitant. This is not the kind of
thing where you have to go to museum and be like, this
doesn't make sense to me. You look at it right
away, you're like, okay, I know what this is. And it's beautiful. It's awesome. And you're supporting someone who's young and creative trying to do
something and make the world a better place. So I'm a big fan of the
contemporary art scene. A lot of it is not great, but even the stuff that's not great is very rarely disgusting or gross. It's just like, okay,
I've seen this before, or something like that. - [Lex] Okay. - It's like the difference between, there's like a standup
where like I'll pay money for the ticket and someone's
like, who's an opener? It's like I wouldn't
pay to see him perform, but he sure still made me laugh. That person is still more,
by far more good than bad. So a lot of this art
isn't stuff I would own, but it's like, okay, I get it. I like it. - Well, as the analogy goes, I really like going to open mics actually, because like, it sounds absurd to say, but funny isn't the only
thing that's beautiful about standup comedy, it's the act, the... - [Michael] Yeah- - No, it's going for it,
it's trying to be funny, it's taking the leap, trying to 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. And that's like, that's the
human spirit right there. - Roseanne was telling me how
Gilbert Gottfried 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.
Who's your favorite comedian? - Dave Smith. - Who? - And cut scene. Favorite comedian, first Norm McDonald, if you like put a gun to my head and I had to answer really
quickly, that would be him. - [Michael] Okay. - I would also say Louis C.K.. - Oh wow. Yeah. Oh my God. Yes. - But that's almost like a
vanilla answer at this moment in history because it's like... - Louis C.K.'s pretty radioactive. - He is. Well, he does it... The tough topics- - Sure.
- The best. Mitch Hedberg. The wit of
a good one-liner is great. I guess that's what Norm
McDonald's genius is at. - [Michael] Yes. - What about you? - There's a, I mean, we're so fortunate to be here in Austin because like Comedy Mothership, you go there and like
people are just killing it. David Lucas is amazing. - Thai Rivera, Thai Rivera probably did the best set I've seen since I've been here in Austin. And I watched him, and
I'm like, this guy's even bitchier than I am. So I reached out to him.
So he's just terrific. David Lucas is another
one. A buddy of mine. - You just said a choice, I think. - [Michael] I'm thinking,
Dave Landau. Excuse me. - Yeah.
- Dave Landau. Joe Mackey.
- Old age catching up. - It's true though. - It's true.
- It's true. - It's true.
- Dave Lucas. - You ever been to the Comedy Mothership? It's a great spot. - Where is that? Is that in Austin? - Austin? Is that where Willie Nelson's
from? I haven't really. Go ahead, I'm sorry. - Oh, I heard a joke
about that the other week. What's the-
- Tell a joke again. - What's the only thing
worse than giving head to Willie Nelson? - What? - If he says, I'm not Willie Nelson. (both laughing) - What's that Mr. Parrot?
I know he is not funny. He thinks he's better on Twitter, but that's not nice to say
right in front of his face. Just think about how he feels. - The statue Chance Murmur is judging you. - Chance?
- It's called Chance Murmur. - Chance Murmur. - God, that's so beautiful. - That's gorgeous. - This is another reason I hate cynicism and I talk about this a lot. Even just on Etsy, there's so many small, not huge companies, like
individual artisans, who are creating great stuff
and just making it happen. And it's really sad for me
where people can't see that. Or if they're like, well how could I be
excited about a sculpture when blah-blah-blah the Middle East? And it's just like, you can always look for an
excuse not to look for joy, or you could look for an
excuse to look for joy. - Yeah. That's incredible. I feel the same way about OnlyFans. I can't even get that outta
my mouth before laughing at my own failed joke. - That's what she said.
- Edit. 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 don't know what
I'm gonna do with mine, 'cause I got my own, mine's
three feet tall, just like me. - Your box was much bigger.
- Yeah. - And it was giving me
an inferiority complex. I think I'm gonna invade Russia. (Michael laughing) That's a Napoleon reference
for those in the audience. - I don't know if I'm gonna,
I think I'm gonna put it in my bedroom so that
it's the first thing I see when I wake up. - Put in the bedroom?
- Yeah. - Do we get through
everything we're thankful for? - No. I've got lots of
things I'm thankful for. - What else? Friends, family... We said books. - I'm thankful for career. I am thankful for... I am thankful for, and I know people are
gonna lose their minds and I can hear them flipping out already, I am thankful for social media. - Yeah.
- For several reasons. First, it is a way for
people to make connections that they couldn't have
made in years past. That if you got some weird hobby, you can find that other
person's weird hobby and you make that connection. It's a great way to stay
in touch permanently for people otherwise
you'd lose touch with, you know, whatever venue. And it's also a great
way to expose corporate depravity, when you
have these organizations that are dishonest, I think
the Community Notes thing on Twitter is the greatest thing ever. - Ah, that's incredible. I wish they would pay attention to the Michael Malice account more often. - You shouldn't be encouraging
anyone to pay attention to my Twitter account. - Yeah.
- It's a dumpster fire. And I don't mean Bridget, I mean like a literal- - Bridget, by the way, is amazing. But your Twitter account-
- She lives here? - Yes. Not here. I wish she did. - She's in Georgetown. - No, I mean in this,
where we're sitting... - Oh.
- It's a joke, Michael. - Is it?
- Yeah. - But I'm just really glad about, it's another way for people who before would've felt very alone. I know it makes some people do feel alone, but for other people, it
makes them feel connected. - There's been a lot of talk
about antisemitism recently. - [Michael] Yeah. - What's your sense
about this? Is there... Is antisemitism like
any other brand of hate? There's a lot of hate out there. - No, I don't think it's
like any other brand of hate, 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. 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. Right? There's this great book
that I read many years ago called "The Satanization of the Jews", Camille Paglia recommended
it and I read it. And they live in this certain
specific kind of antisemitism. And I'm, again, I'm not talking about people who are
against Israel or something. I'm talking specifically about Jew hatred. 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. And for example, if you
look at the George W. Bush White House, you had W, you had Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Colin
Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, a lot of these neocon advisors. 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. So again, they only
exist as a puppet of Jews in this kind of worldview. And it's like that, to
me, if there were no Jews on Earth, it is crazy
to say that John Bolton and Liz Cheney and Lindsey
Graham wouldn't be pushing for more war. That makes no sense to me. It's like, you blame the
Jews when bad things happen. But when a Jewish person
does something good, it doesn't really matter. Or just wait. He's gonna do something bad. Well, yeah, that's true. Human beings do good things and then they do bad things sometimes. But it only counts when
that Jewish person does the bad thing. - I wonder what's a way
to fight antisemitism and fight hate in general? - I think the only, or the best way, 'cause 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, 'cause they were so scared to now Times Square is just
covered in pride flags. And I think, and this also
works for Islamophobia and some of these other
bigotry is what I call the ambassador program. 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. Because instead of this
being this outgroup that's somewhere out there,
it's like, wait a minute, I work with this guy, yeah, he's kind of a jerk and
maybe he sees things a little differently than me, but this guy is not a
horrible human being. So I think the only way to
fight any form of bigotry is to be a good example of the counter to these whatever archetype or
stereotype is in the culture. - 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. It is the opium of the people.
As the famous phrase goes. Do you think he has a point? - No, I hate that quote. I absolutely hate it. I despise this sort of Reddit
internet atheist activism for the simple reason
that I know many people, who in finding faith, have become objectively
better human beings. They start living consciously. They take morality seriously. They try, we all fail,
to be moral good people. So this sneering that these midwits, these marginally intelligent people have towards religious people... Now lots of religious people use religion to rationalize their bad
behavior or, you know, sinful or big ego so and so forth. That exists. That's true. But to say that it never helps anyone and it's universally the... See, Marx was talking
about a period, I mean, I'll defend his quote, when
his argument was, you know, the masses are being
starved and oppressed, but they're promised, don't worry, you'll have riches in Heaven. So you should kind of like, let yourself be pushed around now. And this is kind of this
BS bargain that the people are being given. So that was, I think,
the point he was making. It certainly doesn't apply nowadays. I'm close to the family in the Midwest. They're good Christian people. I remember very specifically
this guy, shout out to him, Sean Sherrod, I
went to college with him, David Lucas, and... - Have you checked out
the Comedy Mothership, great, great club.
- Where is it? Is it in Austin?
- Willie Nelson. - 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." And that was a very self-aware
and profound thing to say... As I've gotten older, I know
lots of religious people. There's no part of me
that thinks they're wrong or they should be mocked. It's like, it also reminds
me of when people sneer at addicts in recovery, they're like, "Alcoholism isn't a
disease. It's a choice." It's like, wait a minute. You don't know what it's like to have your entire life
ruined by drugs or alcohol. And if you have to tell
yourself, you know, 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 then takes responsibility
for their actions, I don't see the harm at all. So I think this kind of
activist atheism is cheap. I don't agree with it whatsoever. And I do not like that quote at all. - But otherwise, big fan of Marx. - 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. And I think this kind of
fedora internet atheism is a good example. 'Cause here's the other thing. If you've proven that
someone else is stupid, that doesn't mean you're smart. You could both be stupid. So congrats. You prove someone else
is stupid. Who cares. - Yeah. And sneering in all forms. - [Michael] Yes. - In general is just not great. - That's one of the
things I block out people on social media instantly. You're not gonna sneer at me in my space. You could sneer me all
you want in your space, but I'm not putting up with your crap. I don't know you. - MySpace, great social network. - Is that on Sixth Street? - AOL.com. (Michael imitates beeping) That's how Lex comes. (both laughing) - Like a Pavlov's dog, that was the sound before you get to see, spend 10 minutes waiting
for an image of a lady load, one line at a time. (imitates monitor) I recently talked to John Mearsheimer, I dunno if you know him at all. So he has this idea
about offensive realism. It's a way to analyze the
world, international relations. 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. 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. - Yes, that's true. - And they operate under
a lot of uncertainty. States cannot be sure that other states will not use military capabilities against them. - Right. - They want to survive and they want to use military power to
control the uncertainty to protect themselves. - 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". And I think it is, if you look at, let's suppose China's
influence in America, right? The influence is far
more through soft power than military power. China doesn't threaten
America through, you know, we're gonna kill you. It's more like the infiltration of universities, TikTok,
things of that nature. Maybe this would've worked
before the pop culture era. But I think one of the
reasons we have this kind of American hegemony isn't just a function of American military. I think it's much more a function of American popular culture. 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 values. It's a great way to spread propaganda. - It seems to correlate though, right? It's interesting. It's an interesting idea
what has more power, the viral spread of ideas or
the power of the military? It seems that the United
States is at the top of the world on both. - [Michael] That's true. - And so it's hard to disentangle the two. - Let's look at Europe. American culture is very
popular in Europe in many ways. Right? Like the best music comes out
of Sweden, Swedish indie pop. They're singing in English. You know, even though so on and so forth. 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. I think it's a function of
we're exporting our music, our TV shows, and our movies. - Yeah. It's interesting. If the battleground will
be "Brave New World", the battle of ideas. - I think it's clearly,
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. I don't think, I think COVID
is a good example of this. Like, so much of the pressure, 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, not 'cause... And 'cause people are
begging for it to come back in many cases. - So who's funding you?
Which intelligence agency? - Mossad.
- Mossad, Mossad. This is how you do great interviewing. See, he didn't even
expect that. (chuckling) Okay. - What's that, Mr. Parrot? - Mr. Parrot. You knew it, but you didn't
have any documentation, did you? - I think Mr. Parrot is
threatened by the better wings, not a Chance Murmur. - He gets like that when he is turned on. - Oh. Okay.
- He's not threatened. You can't wait until he's, all three of us are alone together. It's gonna be one hell of a party. - Beaks and feathers everywhere. - And metal. Yeah. This thing's beautiful. - [Michael] It's ridiculous. - You have actually a
lot of really cool stuff at your place. - [Michael] It's so fun. - What's a cool thing
that stands out to you? Maybe a recent edition. - So I went to the Dallas
Museum of Art last year for my birthday. And there was a painting
I liked 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 think in a museum, I can never afford
something like this, right? So when I was in, I went to
Houston with some friends, the Sideserf, Natalie,
who made the cake of you. - Oh yeah. Cake terrified my mom. - Did it?
- Yeah. - [Michael] Oh... - [Lex] No, it's not the
cake that terrified my mom. It's you, Michael Malice, cutting it off, cutting the face off
and laughing maniacally. - Well, Natalie's pregnant. She's gonna have a daughter named Daisy. So congrats to Natalie. - [Lex] Congrats- - But I was in the museum with
them and they was a statue of Thoth who's the Egyptian
god whose head is an ibis. It's a bird with a long beak. And Thoth is the god of
the Moon, god of knowledge, and supposedly he invented writing. So I thought, you know what? I've always loved ancient
Egypt. I know a lot about it. And especially the mythology. It'd be really cool as an aspiring author to have an ancient Egyptian
Thoth statue in my house. Well, it turned out that
the Egyptians also killed and mummified ibises and
buried them with scribes. 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, overlooking my desk. And we all know, it's gonna come to life
and peck out my eyes. - Yeah.
- And write with my blood. But that is one of the
recent cool additions. Another thing I have,
which is like, in terms of holy crap, I've made it, I have an original Patrick Nagel painting, and if people don't know the name, he's like the '80s artist. He did "Duran Duran" cover. Whenever you see in nail salons. I have a male, which were
very rare for him to do. So that's two of my
kind of favorite pieces. - You have what? - He only drew women predominantly. I have one where he drew
a male, like it was a guy in a, like a jean hat or something. - Hmm. - 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. - Just remind yourself
how many fascinating, beautiful people that are out there? - And just the victory and
holiness and technology and speed and how many
people have, you know, fought so that I could do what I do. - Yeah. That's another thing I'm grateful for. Just like the 100 billion or
so people that came before us. - Yeah. - And also the trillions of life forms that came before that. - Oh God, I've gone down this trilobyte
rabbit hole, buying fossils. 'Cause as a kid I thought
trilobytes were the coolest thing. And I've got like 15. - Yeah.
- And what's interesting is when you buy trilobyte fossils on eBay, they're listed as used, (laughs) because it's gotta be
new or used and according to the programming, so it's used. Yeah. - Yeah. But just look, thinking
about all that history, just all the life forms that came before, it seems like a really
special thing we have going on Earth here. - Oh, yeah. I think that that's very fair to say. But I also think this
kind of is like live life to the fullest. You know, Camus talked about
living to the point of tears. - [Lex] Yeah. - Especially on behalf
of people who didn't have that privilege. 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. 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.
Enjoy, you live for me. 'Cause I can't have
that privilege any more. - What do you think
about Camus as a writer? - I don't like his novels at all. - Oh, you don't?
- At all. - Yeah. You've talked shit about "The
Plague" to me a little bit. - Yeah. I think the book is pointless. - It's fascinating... - Because all you need to
do is read the synopsis and then you get it. Like, I don't think his book-
- Isn't that true for most books?
- No. - I mean, like, you
could take, I don't know. I just don't agree at all. I mean, it's "Catcher in the Rye". There's a lot of books seem trivial. - I don't think it seems trivial, but I think-
- "Animal Farm". - "Animal Farm" is a methodical
step-by-step examination of a transformation from
one thing to another. "The Plague" is not that. - 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 or Nazi Germany or ideological movements or... It's similar to "Animal Farm". Maybe not as effective in terms of using this kind of symbol. - I think "Animal Farm" has a narrative, and I'm gonna spoil the whole "Plague". The book "The Plague".
- Okay. - There's a town I believe in Oman, a plague descends, people
struggle to deal with it, and the plague vanishes
as quickly as it came. The end. - Yeah. But there's the victims, the people that take advantage of it, there's the doctor that amidst
the absurdity and the evil of the plague is fighting to do good. - Nothing from me. There's nothing for me. - Okay. Well, I could spoil "Animal Farm". There's pigs, there's
animals at a farm, (laughs) and the humans are abusing them. And then the animals overthrow the humans. But then the pigs become
just like the humans. The lesson, kids, is that power corrupts no
matter whether you walk on four or on two. - I thought the lesson was that pigs are the most human-like
animals on the farm. - I thought the lesson was that there's no sugar candy mountain. - That's right. (laughs) - You've interviewed a lot of people. - [Michael] Yeah. - What have you learned getting
to the soul of a person? The soul of an idea? From interviewing. Just how to do a good interview? - First off, I'm not
interviewing just random people. I'm interviewing people
who are accomplished. It's not a random group
that's self-selecting for something different. But I think that people love to, and this is very understandable,
love to feel seen. 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... 'Cause I remember every
book I've written, you know, I have friends that I wouldn't stop
talking about, you know, the person I'm writing with or, you know, the North Korea and at a certain point, I'm sure they're like, all right, I don't care about this any more. But like, it takes over your
brain. You know what I mean? So if you, 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 wanna talk about it with them, you wanna have, that's the private life where
you could just be yourself. So 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. 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'm gonna, I know it's gonna be
annoying for you talking about this one role, but my goal is to ask
questions you aren't sick of, haven't been asked. - Porn star or? - No, not a porn star. - That joke failed also... Edit out. What do you know
about breeding guinea pigs? You mentioned it. I'd love to hear. - [Michael] I don't know anything. - I would love to hear more about it. - This is, I always
use this as an example. I said, you meet someone at a party who breeds guinea pigs. Right? There's two approaches. Either you're weird, get it? Okay. Or sit down and tell me everything. - Yeah.
- And I'm very much, and all the people I like
are the second group. When you meet someone who's
doing something unusual and are passionate about
it and, you know, are good at it, like that to me is the mother lode. - Yeah. That to me also is the
thing I enjoy the most is like, people that are passionate about- - Because it's who you guys hate? Do you guys hate the hamster people? Do you hate the rabbit people? There's gotta be someone
that you guys look down on. Because like the marine
aquarium people look down the freshwater aquarium people. - Yeah. It's a hierarchy.
- Yes. There's always gonna be a hierarchy. This is where the left
anarchists and I disagree. 'Cause they think you
could have egalitarianism. There's gonna be a hierarchy. - Hierarchies emerge.
- Yes. - There's no anarchy in
the guinea pig world. - [Michael] No. It's just a
different kind of anarchy. - Somebody's always
breeding somebody else. - [Michael] Yes. - And looking down on the others. - If someone's the other. - [Lex] Yeah. - Whether it's the hamster
people, the rat people... - And everybody's breeding.
- Yeah. - Hmm. By the way, are you an anarcho-capitalist? What flavor of anarchist are you? - [Michael] I'm an anarchist
without adjectives. I like them all. The black
flag comes in many... - All right. All right. You're quoting your own... No, I understand you. It was a beautiful line in the book. - Thank you. I think the anarcho-capitalist don't give the left-anarchists enough credit, especially for their courage. And I do whatever I
can in my power to talk about people like Emma
Goldman, whenever possible. - Do you still think that
are some people better than others is a good litmus test? - Yes. It's worked 100% of the time. - And for you the answer is yes. - I never answer. - Oh, there's two of them. - (laughs) They're... What, are you getting
all Hitchcock up in here? - Oh hey, careful. I always got your back. What little habits in
your life make you happy, now that you're in Austin?
- Oh my God. I was prepping for this
interview and I imagined this coming up and I knew
that as I explain this, you know how sometimes
when someone tells a story, like at first it's
amusing, then it's amusing and concerned, and
they're like, holy shit, like where's the exit? - [Lex] Yeah. I'm getting nervous already. - You should. So I'm gonna tell you something I've told only a couple of people. This is my absolutely off the charts autistic approach to shaving. - [Lex] Oh. - So I have this insane system. You asked about habits that gimme joy. I used to hate shaving. I used to hate it. There's something called wet shaving. 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. The thing is, there are dozens of these shaving soap companies. - Yeah.
- Okay. So I tried a couple of
hundred of these soaps. 'Cause you're testing for scent, you're testing for with
the lather thickness and also how smooth of
a shave it gives you. - [Lex] Yeah. - I have it down. I'm not making this up.
I'm not this creative. I have it down to a cycle of 67 soaps. - Yeah.
- Okay. - So a cycle?
- A cycle, so 67. - Yeah.
- When I use up one soap, that is a slot that I
will have to try new ones and I will try new ones in
that slot until I get one that I like, and then that slot is filled. So right now I have 67 that I
use and I have 86 that are... - Candidates. Like in queue. - Candidates.
- Yeah. - In the queue.
- Do you label 'em? Do you remember like which one is which? - Well, they all have beautiful labels. I mean, these are artisans who are creating these amazing things. So I would encourage everyone to try this hobby who's a guy. It's so much fun. I will give shout outs to the
companies that are the best. So the best company, in my opinion, is a company called, they just changed the
name because you know what they're originally called? I'm not joking.
- Yeah. - Grooming Department. (laughs) And now it's like... - It's not a bad name.
- Yeah. But it has certain connotations
in contemporary discourse. - Yeah. Understand.
- So now he changed- - Contemporary discourse. - He changed his name to
Aion Skincare, A-I-O-N. That's the sense of
the most sophisticated, the most diverse... And the soap is just really high quality. Another amazing company
is Barrister and Mann, and if I'm gonna tell you to
try one, it's called Cheshire. He comes out with new
ones every month or so. A lot of it's miss, a lot of it's hit. Just great, great quality stuff. Another great company is Chiseled Face. They make something called Midnight Stag, which basically smells like a garage. It's one of my favorite soaps of all time. - Yeah. What makes for good
smell for Michael Malice? - I've 67 answers. So someone that- - [Lex] So you can't put
into, convert it into words. - Some are citrusy, some
are industrial, some... - So garage is more industrial. - It smells like a garage. Yeah. Midnight Stag,
it smells like garage. Some are fun 'cause they're smells that smell like other things. For example, there's a scent in my queue called Finding Scotty. It smells like Swedish fish. Another great company is Phoenix Shaving. And they have one called Aloha SmackDown. Smells like Hawaiian Punch. They had one called
Yule Ham that they made for me special, smells like a ham. They had a ramen one, Rock and Ramen, smells like cup of noodles. So they're 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. - Nice.
- So those are, I'm forgetting someone
and I'm feeling angry that I'm doing it. But those are some of the, oh,
and Caties Bubbles is great. They're vegan, out of New Jersey. They've got one called
Kneehigh to a Grape. It smells like grape soda. I think those are the biggest
names off the top of my head. - Will that list converge down
to a small set eventually? Or no? 67 down to... - Well, no, it's down to, it's 67, so... - Oh, so it always keeps... - Right, so if there's a slot
then, you know what I mean? Like, I'll fill that.
You see what I'm saying? - Oh, so you'll forever
have the variety of 67? - [Michael] Yes. - Huh. You know what, you know
how sad my brain is? When you were telling me this, I was like, I wonder how many soaps are
left in Michael Malice's life. Like, you can count your
life by days, by months, by years, or by soaps. - That is depressing. That is very dark. - Because each experience of shaving is a little beautiful experience. - [Michael] Yes, it is. - And how many do you have
left in your life, right? - That's true.
- Yeah. - I gotta tell you,
there's something else. There's a term called, my
friend Jackie taught me called touching pan, it's a makeup term. So basically when you
use it and you could see the bottom, that's like a big moment. - Oh, it's a great thing?
- Yeah. It's like what's kind of fun? I'm telling you, like people can scoff, it is such a fun, and there's a lot of us online who are into this whole space. It's really, really fun. - When did you first discover this? - Can I curse?
- Yeah. - Fuck you Cole Striker. Because I was staying at my
friend Cole's house in LA. - Yeah.
- Fuck you Cole. - Fuck you, Cole. - Cole is like one of the
biggest hipsters I know. He's got the shirts with the
pearl snaps and everything. And I'm staying at his house
'cause I was doing Rogan. And he goes, "Oh, have you heard
of this wet shaving thing?" And he goes, "Look, this one's Proraso." That's like the Italian grandpa soap, which is also a great one. And I went down this
rabbit hole and I'm like, I don't even know how many,
how much money I spent on this. And it's all 'cause of him. - Oh. But it's like a happy fuck
you, like, fuck you, Cole. - Yeah.
- I love you Cole. Fuck you. - Yeah, it's just...
- Thank you. - Yes. - That's a good idea for a tattoo. Fuck you, Cole.
(Michael laughing) Do you have advice on how to be happy? - Yes. - There's a lot of loneliness
and sadness in the world. - Here I can give a very easy
piece of advice that worked a lot for me. Instead of telling yourself that you have these ridiculous
standards, tell yourself, I can be better. Right? I don't have to be a great writer. I could be a better writer. I don't have to be a great podcaster. That will never happen. I
could be a better podcaster. I could be a better person. I
could be a better at the gym. I could be better with my time. And when you regard things in those, and especially if you have
metrics that you can go by, you know, I'll run this many miles a day. Things you have control over. Especially as males, when you have this chart
and the data's telling you you're improving, right away it's like you have this sense of accomplishment. 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? There's the internet. How
do people make friends? Try things out. What's the
worst that's gonna happen? You're gonna, things will
blow up in your face? Well, you'll learn something at least. Don't be afraid of making mistakes. When I was a kid, I was so scared of having
things under control, so like, I would never have to get hit
in the face, metaphorically. And then I realized, and
you realized this as well, everyone who's important
gets hit in the face, look at the president,
whoever the president is, it becomes a matter of being strong enough that you could take
getting hit in the face. So that is a big important
switch in your thinking. - Yeah. There's a Bukowski
quote I wrote down. "Sometimes you climb out
of bed in the morning and you think, I'm not going to make it, but you laugh inside
remembering all the times you've felt that way." - [Michael] Yeah. Yeah. - There's a part of me that's like that. There's some days where I feel
like this is the worst day of my life. And then like shortly after, I
think, like, chuckle at that. - Yes. - Like just knowing the
ups and downs of the brain and the mind and life and all that. You ever been depressed? - Yeah, of course. I'm more
anxious than depressed. I don't really get depressed. Like, yeah. But I've been depressed. - Like low points?
- Yeah. But I distinguish depression
between low points. Right? Like, if things are going
bad and you feel bad, that makes sense. But when I think of depression, I think of someone who feels
bad when things aren't bad. Like, to me, it's like almost by
definition, irrational. - Well, yeah. And there's different kinds of, like, there's a exhausted kind of
depression where you're not... - [Michael] Right. - It's not so much sad as you're not, don't wanna do anything. You don't want to live.
You don't want to... - What's the, yeah.
- What's the point? What's the point?
- It's a wrap. Yeah. - And like an extreme
self-critical negativity, which I'm also scared of, 'cause my brain is generally
very self-critical. - 'Cause you're not
taking enough magnesium. - Do you take it rectally or in the mouth? - You take a rectally. - [Lex] Okay. - But as for the magnesium,
you should take it as a pill. - Okay. Well, the way your mom explained
it then is way different. What are you most afraid of? - Holy crap. I'm trying to think of
anything I'm afraid of. - You know in "1984?" - [Michael] With the, I
thought like, even just... - Like, if I wanted to
torture you, hypothetically... - Well, mission accomplished. You know what, I mean in terms of, I'm scared of increasing authoritarianism, but that's not personal
and that's something that I don't think is as much of an imminent concern as
like, let's say, in Canada. - Are you scared of death?
- No. - You think Camus was scared of death? - No.
- He just accepted it as... - Look, I can, I honestly feel like if I died tomorrow, I did pretty good with what I had. Like, I think I did
things that matter to me. I think I moved the needle
on things that matter to me. I think I've been a good friend
to the people I care about. I've saved a couple of lives. So 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. I don't think it's that hard. - You ever been betrayed?
- Oh, God, yes. Of course. Haven't you? - Not as often as I would've predicted. - Yeah. The Russian upbringing like expects everyone to be like, just, it's a time bomb before the betray. You have been betrayed. Of course. Yeah.
- Yeah. You value loyalty? - 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. - [Lex] Yeah. - I think that's very important. - Me too.
- And also I feel bad. I've gotten Lex enough 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. I believe that. - [Lex] Yeah. - Like, even if you tell
yourself there's something I had to do, you still know you had to
do a bad thing to someone who didn't deserve it. And that's a really hard pill to swallow. - In my situation, I still think good thoughts and empathize with the people that have done me wrong. - I don't empathize with them,
but I sympathize with them. - My English is not good
enough to know the difference. - Empathizing means you're
putting yourself in their shoes. Sympathizing means you feel bad
for them and wish them well. - Yeah. I wish them well. - Yeah. But I don't put myself like, it's very hard for me to
empathize with someone who betrays someone that they care about. 'Cause that is something, it's not that just I think
I'm such a great person. It's that I feel guilt very strongly. So if I did that to
someone who trusted me, I would really, it would fuck
up my head for a long time. - Yeah. But maybe they were in pain,
maybe they were desperate. Maybe their back's to the wall. - Sure.
- They felt that way. - Sure. Well, that's the sympathy thing. Not really an empathy thing. - Yeah. Yeah. Loyalty is a fascinating thing. - Yes.
- I value trust a lot. - I know you do. Especially 'cause you're in
such a public, both of us, we're, you know, very public positions. You have to be very careful
who you surround yourself with. - It sucks.
- Does it? - It sucks because it's hard to... I usually just trust everybody. - That's... Okay, that's crazy. - [Lex] But what's the alternative? - To be, have a filter? - Well, I have a filter in
terms of who I interact with. - [Michael] Okay. - But within the, you know,
I see the good in people, but then you, in the very rare
instances that might turn... - [Michael] Okay. - And yeah, it just
sucks. It breaks my heart. - Yeah. I hear you. I completely agree. - Has your heart ever been broken? - Yes. - Love?
- Yes. - I'm just so relaxed right now. - Good.
- And happy. Relaxed and happy. - Good. - This is making me really happy. It's so, again, it's beautiful on like
eight different levels. - I think that's the deepest
thing I'm thankful for. It's just how beautiful
people are and how beautiful the world is. - I really, and people are gonna laugh and I welcome it, that's fine. I really sometimes feel like the guy in "American Beauty" looking
at the plastic bag dancing in the wind and he's brought to tears 'cause of how much beautiful life is. And a lot of people feel the
need to sneer at that scene. And Ricky Fitts, whatever. And I think he's got it exactly right. - I think he does too. Well, in the end, you and
I'll be both laughing. - That's exact, and right. And also seeing beauty where
other people see garbage. And I'd rather be the
person who sees beauty than the person who sees garbage. - Yep. Well, when I look at you, I see beauty, when most people see garbage. And it's really unfair, Mr. Parrot, that you keep saying that. But all jokes aside, man, I'm really grateful for your friendship, and I'm really grateful
for you are as a person. Thank you so much for talking today. Thank you so much for talking to me throughout all these years. Thank you for being who you are. - You are welcome. - Thanks for listening
to this conversation with Michael Malice. To support this podcast, please check out our
sponsors in the description. And now let me leave you with
some words from André Gide. "Man cannot discover new oceans
unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore. Thank you for listening and
hope to see you next time."