Malcolm Gladwell

Guys, he wrote blank, he wrote a tipping point. He's got, he's got, he does the broken record podcast. He does the revision of history podcast, which I didn't realize I'd probably listened to, I was going through the list last night. 60 of them. - Wow. - The seasons are a little inconsistent. You jump genres. - Yeah. - You jump. - He's a drummer, Jim. It's Malcolm Gladwell, ladies and gentlemen, the King of the Dinner Party conversation. The dinner party starter. Would you say? You were, you were, you're inescapable at a dinner party. You're notions. - Oh, that's great. - You're not probably not, probably not at the ones you're at as much, but for, I don't know, 15, 20, I don't know if it's still happening. I haven't been to a dinner party in a long time. - What? (laughing) - But this guy. - We're talking to ourselves. - Guys, you remember the, that's funny. You heard the term, I did my 10,000 hours. This fucking guy. Anyhow. - Not introspective. - Not introspective and you said this is interesting, 'cause you are a, you're an analyst and a journalist, and all I know about you from listening to the podcast, the family, the cinematic universe, is that you run, here's what I know about you. You run, your father was Jamaican? - No, mother was just, that's how close a listener you are. - Somebody was Jamaican. - Something Jamaican happened. You are now married, you have children. - Yeah. - I know you have a place upstate, 'cause I've seen you interviewed there, the of a sunroom that I've seen you interviewed in. Is that true? Okay, Canadian? - Correct. - And you used to run for the Washington Post. - Correct, all those, with the exception of you botching the ethnicity of Hawaii. - Horror boy. (laughing) - Yes, by several thousand miles and several degrees of skin tone. - Sure, okay. And so what, obviously that's not intentional. I think, I don't think you think you're a boring person. I think you're a confident person. I think you, just by merit of your output, do you think that why is it, yeah, and I also don't think you're ducking anything. Tell me what's happening. (laughing) - You're only to be introspective about my life. - Yeah, about your lack of introspection. - But I, doesn't that, by definition, that's the thing I can't do? - No, but I think you can. - You think I can? - Yeah, I believe in you. - You've a lot of faith in me. - I do. - Interesting. - Well, you know, I didn't know what you mean by the word. I was blocked on the word block. - Sure. - Okay, so. - Okay, put that up. - Not a word that's in my vocabulary. Not to say that I'm, not to say that I'm, that this never happens to me. I just don't use that word, and I'm not around people who use that word. I don't really. - Limitate self-limiting beliefs. How about that? Is that one? You might not be new age enough for the term self-limiting belief. - There is a great, I'm gonna change subjects. - Right. - Which is what we do, those places are blocked. - There was a great Jesse Jackson speech back in the day. I was, there was a moment in my life when I was sass with Jesse Jackson. Because I saw Jesse Jackson at the, what I knew of him was when he ran for president and the speeches he gave. - And one South Carolina, correct? - Exactly. - That's the thing that people forget. He won the thing that turned Joe Biden's campaign into a winner, Jesse Jackson won, and then I kind of don't know what happened. - Yeah, he was never gonna go much further than that. But he, I saw him speak at the NWACP convention to an entirely black audience, which I'd never seen him do that. And he was a different Jesse Jackson. He was hilarious. And once he was freed of the constraints of kind of translating his message on an audience outside his community, he was just like, I mean, he was, he did a whole thing on the story of Shadrach Meshach and Abendigo as a kind of allegory for affirmative action that was so brilliant and funny, it could have been a standup routine. I mean, he was, anyway, I got very in love with him. And he had a speech he used to give at the height of the whole, there was a time when one of the central racist tropes in America was a black people were lazy, right? They were on welfare and group. And he had a whole speech where he refuted this notion about how all the black people he knew with the hardest working people, two and three jobs. And the refrain, he always had a refrain. The refrain of his speech was they go to work every day. And after a while, the crowd would start saying a lot, they go to his whole point was, that's what they, all this is nonsense. And as much as it is preposterous for me to identify with working class African-Americans, I can't get that phrase out of my head, never been able to, that's my mantra. You gotta work, you gotta go to work every day. Like, you don't, there's no, you can't stay in bed and you can't daydream. And I realized my parents had pit of eyes. It's my father went to work every day. The dominant image of my life is, without fail, he worked a lot at home, get up from the breakfast table, go into his study, and he wouldn't move until he had tea with my mother at 11 o'clock. - I am, or PM? - I am, and then he go back to work, and then he worked until like, whatever, and then he'd take it off for a walk. But like, that was the routine, and he wasn't daydream, and he wasn't on a phone with friends, and he wasn't doing a job. - Oh, it was a job. - He was a math professor. But like, the idea was that there was a certain amount of, there was dignity in that kind of regularity, a kind of routine, and there was no room for excuses, right? Nobody wanted, my dad never said, "I don't feel like working today." - Were you a good student? - Yeah, I mean, I went to very, I went to schools where the majority of kids would not have gone to college, so it wasn't difficult to be in the-- - You were in the top five or whatever. - Yeah, but yeah, when I put my mind to it, sure. - And did you go to a good university? - Well, Canadian, we have a very small number of universities where they take everybody. - You went to McGail? - No, you also Toronto. You, this is the American default, when you all see you guys. - Yeah, I thought I was being cute. I was like, I can't remember. But I mean, Canadian universities are, University of Toronto has like 80,000 people. It's not a selective school. - Got it. - Takes-- - Then you started running the Washington Post, which I would assume is a difficult job to get. - Yeah, although when I got it, it wasn't difficult because they were flush. You know, it was a heyday of newspapers and they were taking lots of chance. I was one of those people that took a chance on. But so yeah, it happened to come along at the right time. But wait a second, I'm not done with my introspection. - Fine. - My point is, if you have that attitude, you just have to go to work every day and that there's not a lot of, there's no appetite for complaint. - Then you can't, I don't think you get introspection unless you pass through the portal of complaint. I don't pass through the portal of complaint. - Introspection is definitely a, it's a luxury guy item. - It's a luxury item. - But also a life on exam end is not worth living. I mean-- - I read two books this week. - Okay. - This is very, this is very much on point. Book number one was a book by a woman in Mary Kane, who for a time was the greatest young, middle-aged cis-wanner, female cis-wanner in American history. She was a prodigy. She's written a memoir about her life as a runner. She's now 30. The second boy I wrote was a book written by my wife's cousin, a woman named by the name of Kadija. Mary Kane grew up in Bronxville. Her dad was a doctor. She went to fancy schools. She's a straight-a student, grew up in a life of privilege. Kadija grew up in the projects in Harlem, Manhattanville. Her father was in prison for most of her life. Mother was never there 'cause she was working two jobs. She tells us incredible story. She gets into Columbia and she puts her belongings into a shopping cart and pushes the shopping cart down the hill to Columbia from home. And then when she's at a sample of the story, when she's at Columbia, at one point her mom gets very sick and her two younger siblings are basically alone who are like, you know, seven and nine. Our loan in the apartment in like the one bedroom apartment in the projects and she goes and fetches them and brings them to her dorm room in the shopping cart. At Columbia and she has a roommate who she identifies as Erika from Connecticut, who's now living with three people from the projects, right? It's a hilarious story. Anyway, she goes through a one point, works herself so hard in college that she has to check herself into the psych ward at Columbia Hospital and they quickly realize there's nothing wrong with them. And they so quickly realize there's nothing wrong with her that they start giving her jobs to do in the psych ward. Will you go and help out? My point is objectively this woman has had an incredibly difficult life, right? Abusive father, there is in this entire book not a single note of self-pity or complaint. Not a single, it's all like that dealt with that. She's now runs business affairs for ABC News. The other book I read about this woman who was born into privilege and was distraughtily gifted, incredible, precocious, whatever, is nothing but complaints. Nothing. The whole book is really not complained about the way she was treated. My point is like, I don't, many of her complaints were by the way legitimate but I don't have any, I just don't have any time for that. I don't, I don't, at a certain point like, do we need to know that you felt hurt? by this or no, like you, you were born into, you were born into the 99th percent. You're smart. She's now a Stanford law school. This is a brilliant, talented, privileged young woman. Why are you endlessly introspecting to the point of writing a memoir about it? I used to be like Mary Cain, and now I'm more of a cadet. Yeah. And here's what I want to, what I would push back on you. What narratives are you telling, though? You're clearly you're analyzing things for you're getting at something, are you not? Do you not know where you're getting out of the beginning of these books or the beginning of these podcasts? Or is it my business? My business. Well, yeah. Yeah. Like you're, what are you, you're not complaining. Yeah. You're certainly painting pictures of some, they're not neutral. No. Right? I'd say there's a bend toward justice or something, right? Or righteousness, whatever you want to say. I'm very happy articulating other people's complaints, if I think they're legitimate. That's where I'm. If I feel you've been wronged, I feel very comfortable finding a way to express that to the world. But it's, you're none of your problems. What problems do I, does this do the thing? I have no patients, I have no patients, people in my position who claim to have problems. I agree. But you weren't always in your position, I guess. I was in my position. I'm so much closer to you, but at a certain point it became in your life, it's like, you must have been like, well, this is a, this is a farce how well these books are doing. Like this is crazy. Yeah. No. I don't know, the broader question is, there is no point in my life when I could legitimate have had complaints. I, my parents loved each other, I grew up in southern Ontario in the 70s, like the most kind of absurdly, I mean, it's like Switzerland on steroids, it's like, there's no crime, there's no substance dysfunction, the, the, the, the one social dysfunction on my high school was there were a handful of kids who smoked cigarettes. That was it. That was the, yeah, couple of stolen bikes here and there. I didn't even know if there was that. Yeah. There was, so I don't like, I can't, this is my point, like, you don't, you, I have no license and I was acutely aware as a child, even from a young age of, I always knew that I was in a special position because I knew we would go to Jamaica with my mom's drum and I would see what people didn't have any money. And I was, I used to, we used to, this is going to sound funny, but we would, we, we subscribed to Life Magazine and Time Magazine when I read them to cover it, cover from as early as I can remember. And those, you know, I was just reading about like, you know, those magazines were quickly life in those years. Very much interested in kind of social justice issues. You were aware that like, they were people in the world who had a rough time of it. And my mom, who was a therapist is, people would come to our house, you know, in rural Canada and they would, from all around, people knew my mom or even known, and they would talk to my mother about their problems and I would, I would, I would, I would listen in. And I was just aware, like, oh my God, you know, like, is this somebody who's, life is a mass who is this, you know, it's, it's, I knew it was different from my own life. Like my point is, it's no room. And I, this, I, one that's point about this. This whole thing about complaint has gotten so unmoored that the, to me, the most striking fact about American public life right now is the freedom that wealthy people feel to express their complaints. This is the thing that I find obscene. Like, like, what are they, what are they complaining about? Like, they're, you know, they, they are using the political system to kind of get their grievances addressed. What grievances? I know they're tiny. It's the, it's the, it's the narcissism of small differences. It really is like, these are really, really, you're really splitting hairs. Yeah. So like, my point is, in that context, I can't, I am, what I'm saying in a very, very roundabout way is, to my mind, I'm almost afraid to introspect because I don't want to come up with, I don't want to unearth my grievances because I know the real legitimate. Yeah. Great. I, I, I admire that. I admire that in that because it is just a trap. It's fucking endless. And if you, if you, if you, and you, at no point can you say, like, yeah, this isn't a real problem. Yeah. Once you start. So we got like 50 minutes left. Probably. No, we're not doing it. No, I got, we got to talk about your, oh, you know what? I wrote down, this is, he's not a block free. I wrote down one of your blocks that you said on a podcast a long time ago, you, uh, you were, you were a pointlessly provocative self-denier. Oh, yeah, maybe. Yeah. What is that? Well, that I kind of, they are, that was, was that in the context of how I only drink five liquids that might have been? Yes. Yes. I like to fill my life with arbitrary rules, just for the sake of arbitrary rules. And, um, because I believe that, you know how Obama would, I would say that he would, uh, three almonds that day. No, no, no, no, you'd lay out his clothes. Didn't he, he had a limited wardrobe and he would lay down. You don't want too many decisions. Didn't want too many decisions. That, I read that. I was like, oh, yeah, that sounds great. That's exactly what I, I believe that. Yeah. I think you should, you know, the, the amount of mental energy I, I'm standing in a, I do this all the time. It's been a lot of time in coffee shops. I'm standing, you're standing in line. And there's so much in front of you. And they get to the head of the line. And the person says, what do you want? And they go, um, yeah. This just, it just drives me and say, first of all, they were online for 10 minutes. They could have figured that out. But secondly, how do you not know what you, it's almost as if they look at the full menu of options on the wall and everything's in play. How can everything be in play? How could you, how could you in that moment of standing at the register? Feel that there is a strong possibility you might have anything. Yeah. I'm the kind of person who order anything. I swatter of you, you say, no, no, but that's the, that's your, your, your, and they look at the full array of histories, the 20 pastries. And they are as open to the op muffin as they are to the plain croissant. How can you be as open to the op muffin as you are to the plain croissant? Surely you have a preference going in. Like I find this, my kids instantly know they don't, how old are your kids? Two and a half and four and a half. And they know, because every, they know what they want to eat. Oh my God. If you were, if you rolled my daughters into a coffee shop and you showed them the pastry case, they would just point at the one they want. Do they know what? Do you guys overrule them? Because a lot of times they want the wrong one. Well, they're so certain and they tend to have good instincts. I don't know. I know I tend, I don't like they overrule them. I feel like they should be given their, they should develop preferences. Yeah, but they never go that, ah, they don't do that. No, they tend to, but that's fine too, because they're learning what they like. I don't know. Do you get them another one? No, because I would no longer be in line, would I? No, I look, I agree. I'm not doing the thing we're having to try it in line. No, I know with that. Now they're crying. I mean, what are you not crying? They're like generally what they do is they go, huh, I'm a, I'm a reasonable young lady. And I just learn something. No, my children are the furthest thing from angels. Got it. But I don't feel, I see them, they all with it as they take a bite. And they'll say, daddy, will you hold this meaning? That's sufficient. That's all I need. I, I've investigated this particular. Didn't work. Yeah. But they're quite, they'll go and they'll say they'll want the croissant. They're not going to go. When you guys cooked and launched breakfast in a, do they like what you gave them? Do you ask what they want? Before hand. Okay. What, what are you interested in? They have limit is, but it's a limited and things are rejected that are absurd. And they, they choose from the, from the menu. I mean, I, you know, do you want broccoli or do you want? Yeah. I guess, you know, how do you feel about Brussels sprouts? That kind. That's right. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Guys, you know, May is mental health awareness month isn't for me every month. Except December that I, I don't even think about my mental health. It's a reminder that whatever you're going through, you don't have to go through it alone. Life is a journey. Some days feel good. Others feel overwhelming. Whatever's keeping you up at night. It's easy to feel like you have to figure it all out on your own. But the truth is, no one has all the answers. And no journey should be alone. Having someone with you to listen to, understand and support you can make all the difference. They look, dude, if you're stuck overwhelmed, anxious, unsure. You know what's interesting? The thing that people come up to me on the street more than anything is, um, saying in three mics that I had feel like I was wearing a weighted vest. That's what those are the, like, that's the thing. Um, and, uh, that was 10 years ago. I said that, um, and it's still true. It less so because of, you know, the stuff I do. And because therapy, BetterHelp Therapists work according to a strict code of conduct and our fully licensed in the US. 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For a limited time, our listeners get $20 off, done like their new health intelligence, head over to superpower.com and use code NEAL for $20 off your membership. Use code NEAL and after you sign up, they'll ask you how you heard about super power. Do us a favor if you could and tell them blocks and Neil Brennan sent you to support the show. I'm very much in love with you. Bye. Okay. So this is what I was going to ask. So what did success do to you? It seems like you just kept your head down. No? Yeah. I mean it changes the materials. It changes the things you worry about. Say more. Open a household that was worried worried about money and it relieves that source of anxiety which is not a trivial thing at all. So in that sense. Did you find that my experience has been if you have a, you know, just an amount of anxiety your body wants to experience, secrete whatever you want to say. And then money goes away. Something else you think everybody else just moves up. Death. Oh, that's it. You know, just stuff you wouldn't, it's a hierarchy of needs thing where you're just like, okay, money is off the list. Okay. What about people stealing money or what about, you know, like what have you found? Well, well, you know, I do, do I wake up at three in the morning with a pit of my stomach last now that I used to know? I think I still wake up at three in the morning as much as I ever did, which is to say maybe once every two weeks, let's say that's a lot. Yeah. Yeah. But someone complain about that Malcolm, but not, you know, not complain. Because it's quite, can be quite productive. The, buddy, I would say I generally agree with the, what you're talking about is anxiety hormone stasis. Yes. That's funny. I agree with that. But I think money's in its own category. So I think actually, you know, if we don't believe that, if we didn't believe was money, was in its own category, then we would have very, very few reasons to want to do anything about economic inequity in the world. The reason we are motivated to do something about that is we do believe money is its own special category. By the way, you can relieve it. You can relieve money worries and leave people better off. They're not just going to backfill it with something else. But other kinds of worries, I do very much think it's, I think when you stop worrying about your kids, you just worry about something else just moves right in. So that, that form of, but there's a big difference between kind of material needs and kind of psychological needs, I think. What are you? I don't want to, I don't want to trick you into some blocks, but what are your psychological needs? Oh, look, I'd far be it for me, but if you were going to write down to your psychological block issues with those things, are you in over, are you competitive? Do you run? I would like to, by the way, I, I looked at, I did the math on how fast the guy, the marathon guy the other day. Oh, yeah, yeah. How fast he ran. Sebastian. Oh, yeah. 13.4 miles an hour for 26 miles. Yeah, phenomenal. Run at, put your treadmill on 10, you every, you're going to think your way faster than 10. No, it's 13. Right. So he was running 13.6 miles. And I'm telling the list, go on your treadmill and go on and just run at 10 and everyone's going to think that you're in trouble at the gym. You're going to look like the biggest, what we used to call spas. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's, he's awfully fast. Yeah. Anyway, so are you competitive? Do you check your numbers? Do you check your book sales? Do you check your hits? Do you check? I think I did in the beginning. I don't really much anymore. I mean, I'm, my competitive, my friends would say I'm, I'm competitive about like board games, like, if you want to play Monopoly with me, I, I stand up when I play Monopoly. I don't even, I can't even sit. Where is everybody sitting on the floor? Where is everyone? I pay a lot of Monopoly as a kid and we, we deregulated Monopoly. The problem with Monopoly is that it, it's a kind of, it's a game conceived during the depression. And so there's all these regulations. Well, you know the, you watched the documentary about it. I'm assuming you made the documentary. Yeah. I've never watched the documentary. Oh. It's, it was made, it was like socialist. Yeah. Yeah. Then they rewrote the whole thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So my friends and I growing up in high school, we deregulated the game. So we think you should start with one dollar. Because there's no strategy if you start with 1,500, you just buy everything you land on, right? That doesn't make any sense. That's not real. What it should be, you should have to earn money and you borrow from the bank. And your games would take months, correct? Well, our games took, uh, well, we were all standing. So our games would take like an hour, we would do like three in an afternoon. How does it, so how does starting with the dollar speed the game up? Well, it depends how quickly you play. And also, so you're not making, you guys have the timer like the transaction, the problem with the traditional Monopoly games is just a lot of transactions. Yeah. So like we, we used them, you only, you have to think long and hard. I land on park place, am I buying park place early in the game? No, I'm not. It makes no sense. Would you buy a luxury condo at, you know, 21 years old? No, you wouldn't. You, if you buy it at all, you buy it at the end of your life and your kids are gone and you actually money saved up, right? So like we've, we stripped the game down to its essence, which is serious, consequential, difficult economic decisions. And when you could finance and you could, we, I created what I realized now were derivatives. You would create these highly structured deals with your friends about who got the rights to property. If you landed on it, how many, you know, free, we call them free soaks, how many freebies would you give if you landed on a property? I could grant you an exchange for some money. You could land on my property three times and never pay any rent. That kind of thing. Anyway, we created this whole elaborate, was I competitive with that? Totally. Massively. Are you jealous? No. I've actually that's the one thing I've never, I know. I've never, I don't, that's the one thing I don't do. I don't gel, I don't, I never understood it. (bell dings) Why do you want something else, something someone else has? - 'Cause it makes you feel insecure. It's just a resource reaction. - But you know, my friend Bruce once said brilliantly that the cure for jealousy is you can't gel, you can't be jealous of an aspect of someone's life. You have to be jealous of their whole life. And once you do that, you're like, well, I don't want. - Yeah. You're jealous, you can don't want any of it besides the one thing. - Yeah, yeah, no, like so. - I don't want my life. (laughs) - Do I wish I could create music as brilliant as Jay-Z? Yes, do I want Jay-Z's life? - No. - Oh, not for a second. - I'd be like, be trapped here. - Or to sleep with Beyoncé, blah, blah. - No, but he's trapped. He's not gonna be trapped here. - No, yes, no, yeah. - Can't go anywhere. - Yeah. - Like they didn't go in somewhere, go somewhere. - He had the May back at one point. - I'm sure he hasn't made luck. - I'm sure he still does. No, he drashed at school. He would drive, he would drive Blue Ivy at his school. - Really? - Yeah. - In LA. - It's easier in LA. - Yeah, it is. - What are we doing? We gotta get out of here. Well, okay, well that's my next, okay. What are you, so did you chase success once you had it? So it seems like you have pretty good hygiene in terms of it's just about the work and not about the result. - Yeah. - You didn't, you didn't blank to them. You weren't like, ah, I like being a good source of money for myself and for the publisher and nothing. - Well, there was, I knew there was a moment long, happily long past. There was a moment where I was sort of zeitgeist, in the zeitgeist. I didn't like it. - Oh, tell me about that 'cause that's what I was talking to the dinner party. That's when, yeah, I thought that was uncomfortable. I didn't, that was, remember the, you know, in the age of gocker, I was in gocker a lot. - Yeah, you'd be having dinner in the West Village every minute. - Yeah, oh, they'd say something, snarky about me. And I don't, so I had achieved a level of celebrity such that I could make gocker. In other words, it's not real celebrity. I had gocker celebrity. - It's like in local New York media. - Local New York media celebrity. At a time when people cared about local New York media, which they don't anymore. - But by people, you mean local New York media. - Yeah. - Care about local media. - I did not like, that was a moment when I thought that was. - Yeah, I wonder what you thought of that. 'Cause it didn't seem to suit you. - Wasn't fun. - And, and by the way, it makes, it made me, someone passively reading it, resent you for, it seemed like you liked it. But meanwhile, it's like, you're just a guy eating. - Yeah. - But it, maybe it seemed like, it seemed like something you wanted to be in gocker or something. - Yeah. - No, I don't think, it's uncomfortable. That level of kind of visibility is uncomfortable. And also, it wasn't well intentioned attention. - Right. - It was, they were hate watching him. - Yeah. And so, that passed, thankfully. And, I mean, since it's passed, I've been like, I feel like I'm back. - Back to what? - Back to doing, it's like, - No, in your, in your, in your everyday life, your back, is it, is it, - Back to experience it differently? You expect your day to day differently? - Yeah, I feel like it was more equilibrium. This less, there was a member, I remember the worst thing that ever happened was, I wrote an article and for the New Yorker. And I made an egregious error. I quoted Charles Murray, highly controversial, race theorist. And I quoted him, I don't know, I'm laughing. It was such a terrible thing to have done. I quoted him and in his statement, he had the word not. - Love, love, love, love, love, love. And I laughed out the not. I read the statement and assumed that he was saying something horrifically racist. - Yeah. - In fact, he was, in that's, at least he had many things that are horrifically racist. And I wrote this up in a New Yorker article. And then, and fact checking missed it. - So normally, fact checking would have, they, you know, they were incredibly, they missed it, got into the magazine, it was horribly embarrassing. And then the somebody, I don't know who told Gawker that fact checking had caught it, and I had shout over, over, over, over. - No, I want the error in the magazine. And Gawker went to town, and I remember getting, remember Nick Denton used to run it. And I remember getting a call on my cell phone at like, 6.30 in the morning, an angry, a hostile Nick Denton. - Why did you do, what did you do this for? We're running a piece, burr, burr. I was like, this is just a principle, it's wrong. I don't know if you don't interest in whether I was, but secondly, it's just harassment. It's just like, why are you calling it 6.30 in the morning? Like that was just, I was just like, why do I want this? Like I don't, you know. And that's why you funded Hulk Hogan's lawsuit again. (laughing) - Okay, so you did, okay, that's, I'm happy to know that, you see, how do you see yourself? Now, do you see yourself as a humble, everyday, go to work writer? 'Cause there's also a lot of performing in your job now. - Yeah. - You're like a vocal performer. - I like, you know, yeah, I mean I kind of, I like that, that's the aspect of podcasting that I like. That it is, I like the kind of, I've been giving, you know, I, I like it. I'm very comfortable, ever since I was a kid, I was always comfortable with public speaking. I was watching, did you work for The Daily Show? - I remember, yeah, a little bit. - For more on this, we turn to my good friend, Neil Brennan, everybody. So I was watching the new Trevor Noah Special on Netflix. I'm sure I really liked it. And he does something, I'm a huge fan of his, for many reasons, but one of the reasons is, it's, his comedy is a means to an end. It's not an end in itself, I mean, I could be wrong, but that's how I read it. I read that in that latest special, join the trenches, he's making a series of, actually very serious and moving points. And he's surrounding it with really funny bits, so we can get to the serious moving point. That's how it felt to me. And that feels like, when I was watching, I was like, oh, I have enormous respect for this kind of performance. He's got a very serious and thought out goal in mind and message he wants to transmit. And he has applied his craft to putting it in a form where well, you'll accept it and take it seriously, and he's surrounded it with all this brilliant, you know, I was like, oh, that, you know, you asked, I feel jealous, I don't feel jealous, but like, I watched that special, I was like, oh man, if I could do that, that would be awesome. - Well, he's got like a spiritual, by the way, he had blocks, ADHD. He had a real blocks, ADHD, a part time, which you know, he would never complain. - A little thing called. - Yeah, whatever. So, yeah, he's an incredibly gifted performer. - Yeah. - Like, you know, support, like beyond. And, but making a larger. - Well, it's a very specific, I mean, this is the kind of territory that I'm sure you know far better than me, but journalism, go ahead. Go ahead, comedy. - There are the people who are sort of effortlessly funny and they're the considered comedians. - Yeah. - So, Chris Rock seems to be considered. Dave Chappelle seems to me, the other category. He just seems to be funny. Like, I feel like he. - You know what's funny? They're both more of the other than you think. - Oh really? - That's interesting. - It's like any, it's like me and Dave do the show. Everyone thinks I'm structure and he's madness and that's true, but it's nowhere nearest to him, I think, like he can ideate, structure, look, and I can be crazy, but people would never believe it 'cause like, look at me and look at me. He's Bugs Bunny and I'm fucking Elmerfut. But, yeah, and Chris is the same. Chris, you think Chris is all. Chris is best jokes in my, not, they're not jokes he's done on camera, but like, he said shit to me that's so fucking funny. And so, like, wet and loose, that you wouldn't. Like, you go, there's no way that got me, that metered autistic guy said that. - Yeah. - He seems all autism and he is, but he's more. - Yeah, maybe what I'm saying is the kind of comedy that I'm projecting, the kind of comedy that I feel I understand, is the metered considered part? That's, I don't understand that. - Well, that's the writing part. - Yeah, that's the part, yeah. - That's just the writing. - Yeah, that's the writing, which is, both Dave and Chris can both really write and like, I pitched it up to Chris one time and he goes too many words, like, you just talk about like, uh, like, grid, too many words. where it'd be like, I don't know, man, yeah. He wouldn't, he wouldn't. - How about this is the, as I said, was it an example of the years ago, I did a television commercial for Audible with Kevin Hart. Hey Malcolm, you know that Audible's got a lot more than audio books. Of course, regular memories, two days, and Kevin Hart arrived five minutes or four. I'd never read the script. Never in the script, but he committed it to memory, I guess, with he said he isn't. With the teleprompter? Go ahead. No, no, no. But he was so funny, he was funny for, it was two 10 hour days, whatever it was, two entire days. He was funny for 16 consecutive hours, or over the course of years. So funny that at the end, I was like my entire body just ached, and this was true of everyone on the set. He just, it was an endless stream of edit built. It was almost like, it was all jokes from, it's all material that he kind of created out of the situation. And we were in and the things we were doing, and it built over the course. And by the end of the second day, it was just, it was almost unbearably funny. Like, and I was just like, this is G, and what I went, is it, I don't understand it? It was, he couldn't have, he didn't prepare anything, he just showed up five minutes so we started, and just manufactured, and he created these fake antagonisms with people on the set. And like, the whole thing was just masterful, but it was all, it seemed to be like jazz improvisation of a sort I had never seen before. Yeah. I mean, that's Gina. He's, yeah, Kevin's really funny, like he's just, he just is really funny, and but there are things where like, I would say if you're good at writing, if you can write and perform, you can get a billion dollars from comedy. And certain people can really write, and you can get, you can make a great living, just, I'm, I performed it, but like mostly, my, my performances are basically reading, reading things I've written. Do you know what I mean? And like, whereas Chris, Dave, Kevin, Trevor, Malaney, you know, I could, you know, Jerry, these guys are, it's, but Seinfeld complain on this podcast, he's like, do you have the sense stage while you're performing? Why are you doing this? You shouldn't even be on stage. You should just be a writer. You're obviously just a writer who is performing these things. He was, and I was like, are you talking about me? He's like, no, I'm talking about myself, even he thinks he's just a writer. Yeah. So when you see someone that's like Kevin, who's like, charisma, where you, when you see someone as charismatic as Kevin, you go, oh, I've never seen charisma before. Yeah. Yeah. I've never even been around charisma. It's like, there's a lantern to my right. Yeah. Like I direct, some of the chase commercials with Kevin and it's like, Hey, Neil, you can earn 30% of drug stores, buddy. I'm right here. Why are you yelling? I know how much he makes and I go, this, he's worth it. You cut to him and it's sunshine. Yeah. He's whatever, whatever he was making for the audible ads. I would have, if I had been them, I would just have filmed the two days, edited them lightly and just put that out. Why wouldn't they just put it on YouTube? That was the biggest advertisement for audible advertising. Yeah. Just run six hours of it. I mean, it was hilarious because, well, because the, you know, ad buys them. But I'm with you. I'm completely agree. I mean, so, so you're, you are, you're, you admire good performers. But I will say you're good, you're a good performer for what you do for what you're trying to do. Yeah, but I'm only doing, my point is in this, just making this distinction is I'm on that. The only kind I can understand it, actually, is what, what I perceived Trevor to be, nowhere to be doing in, join the trenches. Yeah. That I can make sense of. The Kevin Hart thing, I have, in a million years, could never do that. And I'm just, it's a, it's a, he's a kind of a category that I just, I'm overwhelmed by. I just find like, I don't understand where that comes from. The magic of it. It like doesn't, the writing doesn't matter. Yeah. No, there's something. And he's made movie after movie proving that. I'm going to cut this out. I'm pretty sure. Kevin. God bless you. Kevin's an avid listener, I'm sure. Okay, so, you, so you, you, what made you, do you feel like you've switched to podcasting? What's your time allotment now? I was assuming 20 years ago you write 95% of the time, then you do press 5% and now it's or media and now it's, how much are you just sitting, writing to be read? Oh, it was never writing to read, it was never a large portion of my day. No? Because I do, there's so much, the largest portion is simply the reporting. Oh, okay. How are you still? Okay. Break it down for me. So it doesn't, in that sense, it's unchanged. Although, what's has changed in podcasting, the volume is greater. So now, and also back in the day, almost all the reporting you did was in person and now you do so much online. So I, the number of people that I talk to in this, your interview in the span of a given month is probably three X, what it was 20 years ago. It's just like the volume is just you have a staff now, I would assume, right? I have a team of people who have worked with me, but I do, almost all my own reporting. I always have. Do they do pre interviews or reporting or I don't believe in pre interviews? No, I really, I mean, the reporting is the most fun of all. I don't understand why anyone would want to give that up. Like, that's the interesting thing is sitting down and I've gotten much better. I was now in, early on my career, I don't think I was a very good interviewer and I, I think in recent years, I've gotten much better and I'm now, I'm actually quite, I'm quite proud of my. How have you gotten better, do you think? Just practice. What's the, what do you practice? I mean, obviously get reps, but what, what does reps get you? Well, it's getting a feel for the kind of, understanding the, you need to very quickly evaluate who you're talking to and what, for example, are they willing to play? So are they going to be, do they want to kind of deliver a very straight and narrow manner? In which case, what you're doing is you're just setting up the interview so that it flows logically and they get a chance to put all the pieces that they need to put together enough. I did an interview yesterday with a friend of mine, actually, who is a incredibly articulate, that's the way he thinks. It's. In paragraph. In paragraph. He spoke in complete paragraphs. He was kind of like, or I interviewed, you know, I interviewed recently who was fascinating, who was Sebastian Younger, the world reporter, yeah, who is one of the most articulate people I have ever, and interviewing him was such a delight because you just, you just basically press go, and then slightly oriented him in the direction you wanted him to go, and he just, it was, the last person who was that, I mean, years ago, I met Brian Eno, the only person who, in memory, is a particular Sebastian Younger is Brian Eno. They both spoke. It was uncanny. At the end of it, I turned to my producer, it was like, you know, what did we just listen to? This was like, it's perfect paragraphs. It was like. But don't you. But don't you. You choice it is like. My issue with people that do that, again, I'm probably guilty of it. I have a lot of friends that are guilty of it. Is it feels, I don't want to say stale, but it feels like this is, this is material. It's a thing we call in comedy like, he's working a bit. Like he's working a bit, he's like at the, he's at dinner doing a bit and it's a bit sweaty. Yeah. So what I want to. So Brian Eno, you're sweating. No, but what I'm saying is are they, are these new thoughts that they're laying out articulate? I was not with my friend yesterday and. And Sebastian Younger. Sebastian Younger. Yeah. I don't feel like I was, we were in Wellerhurst territory. Okay. We were going doing some things that were, though, my friend yesterday I hadn't, I don't think he had an extended conversation with anyone about, he'd experienced, we was talking about a medical thing he went through. He'd obviously talked about it with his wife. Right. But he hadn't, he hadn't kind of put it all together. Yeah. But anyway, understanding it, oh, that's what this is. This is a person who thinks this way, but then there's another person, there's another kind of person who has a long continuum, but at the other end of the continuum is the person who just, who will play, who will digress, who will jump around, who will say something that just popped into their head that's magic, who will, and there what you don't want to do is constrain them in any way. You want to kind of like, just keep offering them like, you know, gold, frankincense and mirror. Right. Encourage them to like go wherever they want to go. And like it's, those are decisions that we made really early on. And sometimes I witness in interview and I'm like, oh my god, did you not understand? You've read this person wrong. Why are you constraining them? They don't need to be in a box or also, why are you pushing this person to play? They don't want to play. I want to like lay it out or so those are excellent. - Just three examples, but. - Do you think that your job as an interviewer is to, 'cause my thing is always like, just say something you had, 'cause everybody gets interviewed so much now, right? And I'm just like longing for people to sit, like just sit, what have you not said? Just say something, or I hope to like shake the person enough to just like knock out some shit that they're, with directing, sometimes I will make people just do it again, do it again, do it again, do it again, so that they're irritated with me. - Yeah. - And then the performance will be different. - I did this, it's funny, it's funny you say that, 'cause I did, I've been interviewing this guy, who runs the ICU at Emory Hospital. And I met him, 'cause he was, we interviewed him for the Alabama murders, this podcast series we did. I do this sometime in time, I just asked him, if we could just keep talking. - Yeah. - I'd like to have one of these keep talking projects going on at all times. I've like done about four or five of them over the years. - What does that mean? It's you just see what comes of it? - Yeah, I just say. - And what's come of it? - Well, I'll tell you, like once every couple weeks, he gives me two hours. Sometimes he comes to New York. I want us to go to Atlanta, done this with a series of people over the years. We started doing this some months ago, and he, we ended up duplicating a story that he told me when I first met him, about his mom. But the second go around, and I'm not sure, he remembered that he told me the story the first time. - This is it, yeah. - I was so happy we did it again. I didn't stop him, because in the repetition, and the fact that the context was different, and the fact that I was like, oh, I remember the story now, and I pushed, I could nudge the conversation in different ways. The story got so much, it was all about his mom, and we uncovered this whole other layer. The first time around, he gave me the standard story about your mom, and the second time around, he did something much more, something so moving. And like, I was like, Jesus, I'm so glad we did this. But it's just that you can't, if you're talking about moms, for example, you're never gonna get to mom to the real story about your mom the first time around. You're gonna have to repeat all those stories, and like, if I started talking to you about your mom, there's no way we're getting to the truth of it in this conversation. I gotta come back, the same thing with my mom, you're not gonna get, it's too complicated. And I felt like, I didn't get to the core of it, but I got this layer that was, it was, at the end of us like, that is fantastic. What we just did. - I have two things I wanted to share, which is, do you ever see we did the Rick James, Charlie Murphy thing? - He wanted to do any shit, look at the whole Saturday face, man. - I'm Rick James, bitch. - So I directed it, and the Charlie tells the story, right? And we, I filmed him sitting in a director's chair, and he had like sunglasses on, and I kind of lit it, cool. And then I showed it to my editor friend, Bajan, and he was like, he's like, this was better the way you told me it, like a month ago. So Charlie told me the story, and then I repeated it, and then we filmed it, him sitting down. And he suggested like, you might wanna reshoot this, and it was like, the first thing I directed on the show, and I was like, this makes me look good, but we re, we re-filmed him telling the story, and I made him stand up. - We gonna hang out with Rick James today, you know what I'm saying? - And it completely transformed. - No, that's interesting. - His presentation, 'cause telling a story sitting down and telling a story standing up are completely different, especially on camera, 'cause no one's really standing on camera, like talking for 25 minutes. But, and he was, it just changed the entire dynamics of everything. The thing of the long conversation, do you have an idea at the beginning, or you just go, ah, something here, with this person? - There's something, it's this thing about, if you're willing to spend time with somebody, and to give them, to extend that courtesy to them. They will reward you, they'll give you something back. And I think that's the, you know, not to bring this back to comedy again, but when I was watching that Trevor Noah was special, it's like, we gave him an hour, right? We didn't say, unless I'm laughing a policy in five minutes, I'm out of here. - Yeah, well, I mean, that's-- - No, we'll do that. - Like, when people, you have an hour, I'll play at 1.5 speed, and you have 35 minutes. - Those of us who are fans of his, what we tell him is, he knows this when he's writing that spec, he knows that, I'm gonna, I am committed to giving you an hour. You've won that from me, and that frees him up to go all kinds of interesting places to say, to be really moving, to be, you know, that-- - Yeah, he's built a lot of things, because he's known for his biography. - Yeah. - Or his autobiography, so it gives him more latitude in terms of speed, pace, theme. - Don't you find that, I find that really, really beautiful. - Yeah, it's awesome. - It's awesome. Bernie Max told somebody, you don't have to be funny for an hour, you have to be interesting for an hour. - Yeah. - But it's just hard, 'cause if you're used to laughs, you get itchy, if you're like, "Oh, I got it." - Yeah, so you don't have to sit here. - I thought that whole thing was that I think about, like in storytelling about, how far can you push the kind of meat of it. Like how long can I make you wait? It's a central issue, even as-- - I would assume every episode of your podcast or like that, this is-- - Like that issue, yeah. - What's your, you just have an internal compass? - I don't, I mean, but it's one of the things, I don't think I'm usually wrong about. I mean, it's just one of that's the thing that we, in the editing process, all of us on the team get together and that's what we kind of, one of the main things we argue about, and invariably my first draft, second draft, it's in the wrong place. - Too long. - I'll wait forever. - Then I have to be like, "You can't wait forever." - Whew, she probably, one time, said, Neil would cut me out of the show if he could, 'cause I'm like, "Let's, girl, girl." Fucking, "Near." Like, we can, let's short, we got 21.30. Let's, yeah, yeah, you, I like it nice and tight. Guys, the world's better. Just everything, I mean, people seem to be worse, but technology and equipment is better than it's ever been. Phone is incredible, that's why you love it so much. Your car, so a lot of them parked themselves. Your headphones cancel noise. What does that even mean? Your razor? - A lot of them not great. Flimsy, overpriced, kind of 2008 style. - So where Harry's Plus comes in. - Okay, Harry's Plus, you know, it's a good razor, it's got three blades, it's got a moisturizing strip, it's got, it's got like, it's, it's got a weighted handle and it feels like a bear, it feels like you're your own barber. It's nice, it's real nice, and it's, and it's smooth as hell. It's designed with progressive blades for less tug and pull, get a barber shop and see, German engineer blades, three different angles, blade spacing, dynamite, lubricating strip, mentioned it. Also, it's not, it's affordable. They have their own factory in Germany. They don't, they, they're not going all over the woods. Like one, it's a one-stop shop. They've been doing it for 100 years. They control the entire process. Why pay 30 bucks for refills? When Harry gives you better blades for fraction of that. They, they've just launched their most advanced razor ever. I don't know how to tell you this, you sitting down. Harry's just launched their most advanced razor ever and it's still cheaper than the Gillette Fusion 5. Uh-huh. If you don't love your shave also, here's the thing about Harry. He's, he's cool. They'll make it right. No question to ask, risk-free trial means there's zero downside to giving it a shot. Also, they have deodorant. They got body wash. For a limited time, our listeners can get the Harry's plus trial set for only $10 at Harry's.com/NEAL. H-A-R-R-Y-S.com/NEAL. This set includes the all-new Harry's plus razor, one refined five blade cartridge, a two ounce foaming shave gel, and a travel cover to protect your blades on the go. Just head to Harry's.com/NEAL to claim this offer. And after you're purchased, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. I-- I'm in love with you. Goodbye. Guys, look, which one of my joints is doing the worst? I'm going to go with-- well, I used to have frozen shoulder. Got rid of it. Recently, it's been the hips. Hips are tricky because you don't really-- I guess it's like the bald. joint. Is that the hip joint? Yeah, they're a little stiff. But, but they want me to say that my skin has lost some of its natural color. I don't believe it. But I will say, like this thing, this, this beautiful specimen you see before you is not popping like it once was. I'm not going to, I'm not going to lie to you. I've never have why start now. Why does this happen? Well, because of collagen, so your, your natural collagen production begins to decline in your mid-20s, which I'm just coming out of. For those who don't know, collagen is a crucial protein that provides structure and support to your muscles. Joints and skin, it's offered to us the glue that holds our body together. So you can probably imagine that it'll decline in collagen production as some pretty big impacts on the body. So here's the thing. 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That's what I was listening. I was like, this is I don't even know what not your exploration of those points. I was like, why did they do this? Because it's not even panty. It's like weird. Well, the moment the whole Mormon twist at the end is what that whole thing is about. Is the idea that we discover what is you know, it's just unclear. We're just we're the idea that we're taking the head of animation for Disney and we are crafting this incredibly elaborate theory as to why he wrote Zootopia to the way he wrote where he has no input in it. It's like we don't call him up. We just yeah, we like we're talking to friends of his dads. I mean, just like the whole thing was just so deeply hilarious for me. It's like and he can't say anything. Yeah, you have a what do you feel about? I mean, I see it seems like you by what you said you enjoy an un falsifiable theory. Does it need is it not irresponsible? You don't think it's irresponsible. I as a journalist is be like, this might be here's not journalism. But that those two it's a you know, that's no I got to a yarn there are there like there. It's a bit of a what my my dad was very fond of shaggy dog stories. It's a shaggy dog story, right? And really, you know, yeah. Okay, the the the the J. Lo herb gotty one. I just listened to this is all under the rubric of revisions. Oh, but is it revisions history? It's okay. Yeah. So this season's about mistakes in their Hollywood. That's just about hearing earth goddy's voice. Yeah, which is amazing. Yeah, those records was colossal, not just in the state on the planet earth. I don't give a fuck if you went to Germany, Australia, Africa. That shit was in the heavy rotation. And for me to do unreal and instead of fucking and did any funny at that point in my life, I was like on top of the world. It was a feeling of invincibility. It was a feeling of I could do whatever the fuck I want. Your response to the fact that the writer of the it's I was surprised by the idea that you would have cut a thing out of an interview. If because the interviewed person didn't want an end. Oh, yeah, absolutely. That is that journal. Is that the are those the rules? Because it's basically herb goddy said something in an interview and it it ruined a relationship with J. Low, right? And basically he he he heard before it went to print. This is in 2002 that it was going to be in a lore magazine. And he called the writer. I was like, could you cut it out in the guy was or they called the fact checker and the guy was and the fact checker was like, no, we can't get rid of you said it. And I thought that's what so is that if you keep something and is that automatically got your journalism or is it well, it depends on who you are and why you're doing it. So in my my kind of journalism, which is not all kinds of journalism, but in my kind of journalism, if I'm interviewing somebody, I'm interested in accurately representing who they are. And in the course of any conversation you have with anyone, there are moments particularly taken out of context when people do not accurately represent who they are, right? You know, I rarely lose my temper recently. I'll ask my temper. If you were to have recorded me the episode of me losing my temper and run it, it's not an accurate representation if who I am. It's an operation. And you would, if you were going to write an article about me and you would have used that, you should check with me. You should say, Malcolm, I'm representing you to the world. I am trying to accurately give people a sense of who you are. Is this an accurate sense of who you are? And I would say, I don't think it is. I haven't actually lost my temper since 1989. This is unusual. If you're going to use it, you should say Malcolm hasn't, if you don't use it, and but better, don't use it at all. I always, I extend people that courtesy because I don't want, I'm not interested in. What if it's Pete Hegseth? No, if he says, it doesn't matter who it is, it matters. There's enough of Pete Hegseth that Pete Hegseth is personally proud of, that I don't need, I don't need to misrepresent him to make a point about him. You're okay. An elected official or someone with a lot of power in society. What a slip of if it's, I like what, I liked what you were saying because I happen to agree with you, but like, there are things I cut out of this that I'm like, I just don't, I that could blow up in the person's face. I'm like, I'm not a journalist and I'm friends with most of people that come on here. So, but I, but I was surprised to hear someone who is pretty, pretty explicitly a journalist saying like, I would have cut that temper tantrum out and I would have, if he'd asked me, I would have cut it up. Yeah. And do you think that's most journalists agree with you? I actually think most do is a small majority who don't and I feel like they make it hard on the rest of us. I mean, remember that I got my start in the newspaper world in Washington covering the government. Right. And there, it really does matter that you actually represent what's happening. So, if, you know, I covered the FDA, if the, if I'm talking to some senior official, the FDA who says, yeah, we just approved that drug, but I think it's a bullshit decision. You don't, you don't quote him saying that's a bullshit decision. It's going to get him a fired. It's irrelevant. This is not about the personal beliefs of FDA officials. They have a process that the process was honored. The judge was approved. Like, of course, there are going to be people who have different opinions. But unless you want to write a piece about the complexity of interpreting scientific data and thoughtfully talk about how people have differences opinion, there's no place in your article. You just leave it out. Like, and also, you're going to need to talk to that guy again. You can't, like, you know, burn your bridge. You have a responsibility to your readers to, on an ongoing basis, make that world transparent to them. And if you just blow up all of your sources, you can do them. We can do your job. Well, I know. Well, that's the, the rub. It's like, if you cut it out, it is, or if, if the writer cut out the, or got a quote, it's, it's one type of, uh, fake, news. And if you leave it in, it's gotcha. It's, you know what I mean, it's like it's set. There is no, there's so much gray area in this. Yeah. Which brings me to my next thing. Two of your episodes on revisionist history involve Joe Rogan, who you've done the pot. You've done this podcast 10 times or something. No, once. Oh, you've only done a once. Okay, I've done a, I've done a bunch of times. I did. But it, no, yeah, it was. You're really fucking, you could hear I heard you buy the matches and walk under the bridge and like, wow, I don't think I'm getting anybody back. Okay. You before that. It was interesting. It's a really interesting. That was a sociological theory that I really, I, I agree with you. I think it's true. And it was fun to listen to. Yeah. It was about how, if your, it's episode five and six of season 13 of revisionist history. It's about R of K. It's how he feels about. It's a, it's a Byzantine. And then one that's Woody Harrelson's involved. It's, it's, it's fun. It's, it's a bit of a while, right? Very quickly, I, I listened to the Elvis episode twice without realizing it over. I didn't realize how long you did on the podcast. I listened to it eight years apart. Yeah. Because I was like, I think this is how I know what Elvis referred to his mother's toes as. Would you tell the audience what Elvis, how he referred to his mother's toes, I believe? I can't even remember. It's so long ago. That episode was about Elvis's inability to sing the bridge to, um, what can we, what song was that? I don't even remember. Well, he was lonely tonight or something. Yeah. You're lonely tonight. Yeah. How, whenever he performed that song in public, he would botch the bridge. Yeah. Which is spoken word, kind of, and it was, this is an illustration of the Freudian notion of parapsych. Um, which is the idea that slips up the tongue of revelatory, the Freudian slip. Yeah. So we were trying to figure out what does the fact that Elvis, the bridge is all about someone explaining how their heart was broken by a woman. Let me cut you off here. Elvis referred to his mother's toes as, he called them her little sooties, little sooties. This is a weird dude. Just a real weird dude. But it's, if you ever want to creep your wife or girlfriend out or boyfriend or husband, call his feet and toasts the suit. Maybe one of my favorite episodes I've ever done. Um, the idea of, I started with a, you know, a classic Freudian psychoanalyst on the Upper East Side. And I went to Elvis and I, I mean, it's sort of, he goes many, and then I had, I had, um, Jack White in there. I had this, I had Bobby Braddock in there. I had, I mean, it's just like it was a, went to Nashville and hung out. It was a, it was a classic kind of a version of history, um, episode one point in, there's, you can go to the studio in Midtown where Elvis used to record. They still have the tapes of the sessions. I went there and they played me the tapes from the 1950s. They'll sell them to you. And you hear, you hear Elvis like talk is like insane. Yeah. The idea that we have those kinds of things. I want to talk about the Derek Chauvin episode, episode. Oh, yeah. Which the, it's a episode one and two of season 13 of revisionist history. You must have been surprised by your, it, it is interesting to hear your, how you ingested the information because you start off like most people are like, I'm, I'm, I don't like what Derek Chauvin did to George Floyd, right? Which you didn't end up feeling like fine with it. But, but you, you're the, you, you seem to be the only person who did a real investigation, a pretty neutral investigation. I'm always surprised in press stuff. How little, how kind of human laziness, um, interferes with good, like they just, ah, they didn't look it up. They didn't, they didn't ask. They didn't, it's my favorite one is Michael Moore. Uh, the George Bush finding out about 9/11. Nobody had asked the teacher if, if she had video. And then he just asked and she's like, oh, yeah, I have it. The George Floyd and Derek Chauvin was, you went back into his history and interviewed people he dealt with and read the charge transcripts. I mean, one of the things that people don't do is read the charge transcripts because they're, you know, there's hundreds and hundreds of hundreds of pages. And we had, I had done, before I did that, I did, I had done this, that episode, those episodes about this Georgetown loss, the two episodes on someone who, ah, tried to get their daughter into Georgetown on the tennis team and got, ah, it was the last of the varsity blues cases. And that one was all based on the fact that I was willing to read a thousand pages of court transcripts. And I kind of fell in love with court transcripts and realized nobody reads all the transcripts. Yeah. So if you read them, so then I got, so I got interested in the Chauvin case and decided, I'll read all the court transcripts. And, you know, you learn, you realize that no one's, part of this is about the change in the kind of structure of journalism, that there is no, ah, you know, that function used to be covered by local media. The local newspaper would send somebody to that trial and that person's job was to ingest the entire trial. And there's no one, like in the Georgetown thing we did, I realized it was no journalist covering the trial. None. I've never, when I was coming up, a trial, this was one of the varsity blues cases, a very, very huge, you know, in the headlines kind of case, in a federal court, you'd think there'd be a, somebody there, there was nobody there. So like, when she realized that, it's like, oh, okay. So the chances are, and you think it's budgetary? Or it's just like what the culture is doing. They don't have the kind of bodies available to, and also nobody wants to, you know, you, if you want to read a thousand pages of trial transcripts, sometimes there's more, you have to make a commitment, right? And people just don't want to make it. And if you do, you'll be rewarded. And so, same going back to this notion of time, you know, get a return on your time. And so with the Chauvin case, it was like, well, there was a lot of, a lot of people tested out of that trial, who said all a lot of things. And, you know, you should sort through them before you jump to a conclusion about what did or didn't happen. And, you know, the, the heartbreaking thing about that whole case, the thing that really is the kind of, the quote, part of what was at the core of that series was this kid, who is this first week on the job, who understands that what Chauvin is doing is unspeakable and tries to stop him and doesn't know how to do it. And that was just like, you just realized, once you see the case through that kid's eyes, you see it very different. You understand like what a monster Chauvin is, and you understand how complicated the power dynamics are within the police department. I think you came away, or at least I think I did. I came away like, I'm not going to say I empathy for Chauvin, but you come away going, it contextualizes police work and it contextualizes him, not in a way that's like, great, but you just go, wow. Okay. I mean, it's just a, well, the being, what doing, being a cop does to people who they are to begin with. Yeah. No, no, it was, and the idea that like the incredibly, you know, the progressive democratic mayor of Minneapolis, when asked what the core issue was in the George Floyd case, he said it's the union contract. It's like, yeah, incredible moment. Yeah, that's the other thing. I can't fire these guys. What do you want? What do you want me to do? This guy should have been fired. Yeah, the police can kind of be more violent because of the teacher's union contract. Yeah. It concessions between, I mean, just like labor concessions and you're like, well, I'm pro labor. It's just so much conflict and so much contradiction. Yeah. I hope it's funny. I was giving a speech to some company. I won't say what it was. And I decided to tell the story of, to summarize those two episodes or whatever it was of revisionists. You tell the story of Derek Chauvin to so cool people in the HR business. And because that was a story about HR, right? So it is about a guy who should never have been a police officer. Yeah. And how the presence of a bad apple screws everything up. He drags down those young cops with him. He, you know, the one of the things I highlighted in that series was a previous incident where we have video of Chauvin just beating up some young kid for no reason. And the other cops who came to the scene with him just leave the room. They can't stomach it. Just leave the room. And you mentioned like tearing up and crying watching it. It's just like, it's an incredibly, it's as moving in many ways as Chauvin. You realize this guy was a cancer and they couldn't get rid of it. Anyway, I gave this, I wanted to give this talk. So I gave you as George Floyd. Well, they're moving in different ways. Yeah. Um, because the other case is a kid. Oh, yeah. But it's George, it's Chauvin's beating him up as well. Yeah. Hitting him and like the kids pleading with him. Yeah. And the other cops there just leave It was all captured on body cam, so we see it all. It came out, this footage came out after the trial. But I gave this talk to a group of HR professionals, 'cause I thought this is about HR. And I don't think I've, I bombed so quickly. - You bombed so I already, I wish I'd seen their faces. - I don't know what, I did this day, I can't figure out. I thought about it a lot. - Time at a place, bro. - You just, you're gonna, some shit, ain't for everybody. - You're just gonna, it ain't. - Too heavy. - Yeah, it's not, what are you gonna be? - The hotel ballroom. - But to my mind, the speech was all about to them. My point was, this is why what you do matters. Because as a profession, HR is the put upon profession. It's the part of the corporate suite that everyone dumps on. And I was going to them and I was saying, the single most socially and politically divisive controversy in American society of the last five years was caused by the failure of the HR function. And if you guys were allowed to do your job, this would not have happened. We would have been spared that. So that was how I was, I was trying to say, - It was a pro-HR. - Yeah, I was trying to say to them, this is why what you do matters. - Yeah. - And I blew it. And it was a, I don't know what, I've never, like, it was like a room of 1,000 people. And I think like three people, like, (laughs) and it was such a disaster. I had to send an apology to the, it was just, I've never bombed so completely in my life. I was like, why did I? - That's why you work out material. - What do you work out? - At other venues. - Okay, well, in closing, what are you optimistic about the human project? - Yeah. - But how do you feel about the arc of the moral universe? - Well, it's a little grim at the moment. - Yeah. - But I feel like, you know, this is the story of American society is about backlash. It's all just back and forth. It's just back and forth. And I feel like the backlash, I'm hoping, I think, to what's going on now will be pretty strong. I think people are, there was a story, I was at a, this is another story of a talk I gave, I was giving a talk and I mentioned CQ Brown. So CQ Brown was, a guy got to know when I did my bummer mafia book. It was Chief of Staff of the Air Force. And he was, to be Chief of Staff of the Air Force is to, is to be the winner in one of the most grueling meritocracies we have in America. Air Force is already the elite, right? And Chief of Staff is ahead of the, you know, you have gone through seven layers of, out of the very end, to get chosen to Chief of Staff, they have like a bake off where they take the foremost brilliant people and they put them through like a year of the most demanding and they picked the winner. And he was the winner. - The demand is, what are the, what the demanding one? - Send you, your predecessors selects his possible successors and gives them jobs, sends them around the world, puts them in, you know, harm's way, whatever, to evaluate whether they're worthy of. - Are they literally like, dangerous? - No, no, no. 'Cause if you're, if you're, if you're, if you start, you know what I'm saying, you got it. - No, but you're being tested. And he emerged. These guys, if you ever meet a four star general, they are the most impressive people you have. Anyway, CQ becomes head of this because he's this superstar and then he gets bumped up after he's to be head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the most senior military position in the United States. Again, he's rewarded because he's this Trump rolls in and fires him because he's black. And Trump's whole thing was, remember, if you're black, then you must have gotten this job because of DI, right? Which is so phenomenally offensive to this whole. And so I was at some, giving some talk to a room that I don't know, was probably majority Republican. I talked about this about like, this really upset me and this is not upset me. People in the, if you talk to anyone in the enforcement, this, that what happened to CQ Brown is a stuck in their crop. It was deeply, it was offensive to the entire project that they're a part of, which is they're the last meritocracy. They don't fuck around with any of this stuff, right? And so when some Yahoo comes along and says, oh, you must have, this was affirmative action. They're like, no, no, do you know nothing about, anyway, I told the story and I had the very, very strong sense, I had that sense you rarely have. You know the sense, though, is everyone in the room was with me. Yeah. Like they were like, you know what, I may have voted for this guy. I may, but like, yeah, it's a bit too far. This is, you can't, this is not who we are, right? And I feel like if those guys, those kinds of things, those kinds of things wrinkle. Yeah, they don't, people don't, you know, the same thing with I had a friend who knew a rob runner. And when, you know, obviously it was incredibly upset by his murder. And then when Trump writes that, yeah, it upset him in a way I've never seen him upset. Like it shook him. Yeah. And I, again, it's, there's the key, a steady accumulation of these moments makes me feel like the backlash will be, it will be swift. I'm hoping, I'm hoping you're right. 'Cause I, it, I remember she'd tell me a story like 25 years ago. He had a dog. He had like a little, um, white, Alaskan, something. It's like a tiny little white dog. He had like a white lady dog, right? And he's like, his dog's name is Monk. And it was like, yeah, Monk and Monk got caught up with like a bunch of like, foxes and they were all, they were all chasing some kind of like, you know, a hedgehog or something. And, and he said, and one of the foxes caught the hedgehog and did the thing where it just snapped his neck. And he goes, and I saw Monk's face. He was like, yo, like what the fuck are we doing? And I'm hoping, I think about it all the time. 'Cause I'm hoping that's what Republicans come to. Like, yo, we're fire and seek you, Brown? Like, no, this isn't, we're shooting people on the street. Like, ah, I'm all for chasing, but yeah. And then try not to judge them for chasing. That's the, like, try not to, the parts that they wanted. I think it's worth forgiving all the, a lot of people disagree with me though, about like forgiving people for wanting to vote for them in the first place. I think, I have no further questions, guys. Malcolm Gladwell, the, well, he was, he almost got out of here block for eight, but it's the five liquids. It's, it's not a block, it's just fucking stupid. Malcolm Gladwell always come in. Thank you. Thank you. That's fun. (upbeat music) ♪ Mommy ♪ ♪ Oh, you have to do something ♪ ♪ Open it, open it ♪ ♪ You're here ♪ ♪ Mommy ♪