Where do you perform when you're here? Well, I guess the festival has a bunch of events. Yeah, I mean, when I'm here, usually I'm on tour and it's pretty much the Paramount, you know. Yeah, you don't seem like a mothership guy. No. But I will be...
talking to Joseph Rogan after this. Oh, you are? You're doing Rogan. Interesting. Yeah, it should be interesting. We'll see. You guys probably have known each other forever, right? Yeah, I haven't seen him in decades, but we were both in LA at the same time I did news radio a couple times, so I know him from that. Interesting. There's someone else we both know, Maria Semple. Oh, yeah. Yeah, she just wrote a book about stoicism. Really? Yeah, her new novel, which is going to be huge because it's Oprah's book club pick. I loved the first one. Bernadette? Yeah, I loved it. So this one is, the main character is a stoic philosopher, and she's a tutor to these two rich kids in New York City.
Okay. But she was just here a couple weeks ago. Yeah. I just saw her. I was in a play and she and somebody else I know came to the play. Yeah. Just saw her. But I hadn't seen her in quite a while. Yeah. At least 10 years. You would have known her, I guess, from Arrested Development? Yeah. And I think prior to that, because I knew George, her ex-husband or partner from like the Simpsons group. I knew a bunch of people who went over the Simpsons and wrote kind of around the Mr. Show, after Mr. Show. So just, you know, the same community. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, I'll give you a copy. It's really good. But there's not a lot of good novels about Stoke philosophy. So that's interesting.
Okay. How did you come to find any of this stuff? Stoicism? Yeah. I didn't. It's not something I practice or anything. I know I have a loose idea of what it is. I know it's in its, you know, something I learned in high school at some point, never really put into practice or anything like that. But it's basically, I could be... No, I'm going to hear it. This is fascinating. It's basically, we have no control over external situations. Yes. How we respond to those things. I'm thinking of these like corny bumper sticker things, like not letting...
Not letting it get you down. That seems simplistic. But how you respond and react to those things that you don't have control over and understanding that and not letting that get you... off track too far is that something no no i think it's very close and also not letting it make you a bad person or you know like is that just like how do you not get rattled by stuff but how do you sort of stay on whatever the path that you're supposed to be on is right like how do you because obviously there's there's the little things like how do you respond to a heckler or whatever and then there's also how do you respond to some kind of personal disaster or betrayal or like a financial change yeah or just the shitty events that are happening in the world how do you not let it change you or make you despair or make you bitter or make you not radicalize it. You know, like how do you sort of stay on the path? That's what it's kind of all about. Okay. All right. I believe you. I believe you. It's funny though because I was watching your special and you had the whole thing about is it possible to be a good slave owner? And there's this opening. So Marcus Aurelius' Meditations is like the famous text in Stoke Philosophy. Say it again? Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. The primary text in Stoke Philosophy. Okay. At the beginning of it, this is the emperor of Rome and he's sort of like...
reflecting on his life, you know, what he learned, what went well, what he's proud of. And one of the things he congratulates himself on is that he never laid a hand on any of his slaves. Like, so he's actually doing exactly what you're talking about in the bit because... you know all these things are relative right like he's he's looking around not going uh like the chris rock bit about i hang out with my kids yes like yeah that's what you're supposed to do congratulate yourself for but you do you look around and you go well everyone owns slaves so the idea of conceiving of a world where that doesn't happen is a huge leap for most people right so he's just saying well i'm not as bad as these people that are beating them or raping them or murdering them and i just it struck me as a very that even like the wisest people are falling prey to exactly what your pit was about yeah it's it it and there is There is a certain logic to it. Yes. And I know I'm also kind of having fun with the idea that I know that people are going to, it's going to take a second for the logic to work its way through. It sounds, what you're hearing is slave owner. Yes. And the idea that, well, I would have been a good slave owner, you know, the fact that you own slaves is a bad thing. Yes. But if you own slaves.
there's a way to be a good slave owner. So, and just messing with that illogic logic. But I do imagine most people, when they think about the past, their first assumption is, well, I just wouldn't have participated. I wouldn't be, I would have been with the good guys. Of course. And the majority of the people were not with the good guys, or it wouldn't have been a majority issue. We just conceive ourselves as being exempt, as opposed to just participating and behaving more or less like everyone else. Right. And, you know, it also, it depends on what era you're going back to, you know, and for a long time, in historic terms, extremely recently, there, it was just a given. That's, I mean, there's a caste system.
You know, and it's not out and out slavery, but it is understood. This is cultural. You know, this is you have this skin and you're from that family. So you do this. And, you know, that's the idea of people.
you know, collectively saying this is wrong is relatively recent. You know, we were the last kind of industrialized nation to stop slavery. Yeah, we had to fight a huge war about it. A lot of people are like, I would literally rather die than live in a world where I don't get to own other people. Yeah. It's nuts. But I think the funny part of the bit is like on the one level, you're like, yeah, what kind of slave owner would I be? What would I have been? But obviously- I have to say for anybody listening, taken out of context.
There's a contextual thing. It's like we keep talking about, oh, this bit that I do about being a good slave owner. And yeah, it's kind of a thing in the bit, but it really is just... less than a minute long and it's contextually part of a bigger thing no no i wanted to get to the bigger thing because i thought it was a fascinating bit because to me the subtext is like that's that's obviously the extreme example you're like i'm a good person in a bad system but like aren't we all uh good people in bad systems or so we think we are like you can you can apply that to any issue at basically any time where you're like i'm not as bad as the rest of those people i mean sure in in theory i just think with the luxury and ability to look back at things in our current situation and people who say, I never would have been a Nazi soldier. Like, well, that's not true. I mean, maybe you personally, but you can't just say there are people that, I mean, that book, Hitler's Willing Executioners, you know, so it's about your neighbors. We see what's happening with ICE. I don't think we're, you could draw a direct line. We're not there yet and we're not, hopefully we never will be, but you can certainly see it happening here with the same people who would say, oh, I mean, that's where I would draw the line. And what was the Stanford prison experiment? And what was the other one with the shock?
They did the shocks in the Stanford Prison Experiment. I thought the Stanford Prison Experiment was where they said, you guys are going to be guards and you guys are going to be... The shock thing was different, wasn't it? I thought they were doing shocks in that one, but I know your point. There's another experiment where...
What are you willing to subject another person to if someone's telling you it's okay to do it? Yeah. I think that was a different thing. Sure. Here you go. Maybe. Well, don't sure me. No, I mean, the point, I get the point, right? Which is like, we think we wouldn't do horrible things. Right. But everyone is capable of doing horrible things. Yeah, those were what, 70s, the 1970s? So not far removed historically. And yeah, the people, yeah, I mean, I'm basically, you know, supporting that idea. Like those experiments told us that the same people would be like, I would never do that. Yeah.
willingly did it. Everyone vaguely knows what happens in factory farms and wouldn't be okay with it. Like you wouldn't run if you were a farmer. That's not how you would do business or so you tell yourself. And then you're like, but I am hungry and there's a McDonald's right there. Right. And so we have the idea and then historically it's very clean. And then the, just the sort of realities of day-to-day life, we make a lot of excuses and rationalizations. Right.
to me that's what I took from the thing is that like you like to think that you're different but you're not that different yeah I don't think that was like a conscious thought that I had and that actually that bit for a while I was trying it because it just occurred to me I don't know why or how it did but it did and I didn't have a context for it and until I attached it to the Machu Picchu Inca Trail thing yes and I had done it like three or four times when I was you know working out new material and it did not land the way I wanted it to land and people weren't comfortable with it. And I couldn't really defend it because it wasn't that funny. It was an interesting idea. And then I later found the, and I probably dropped it for a while. And then I found the context to put it in there to make it kind of a flow as one linear idea. And then it worked great. The reason I was relating it to sort of the current day and how we sort of are able to rationalize things differently is you're talking about the sort of Inca trail and then you make a reference to like a World Cup stadiums. Like we know at some level, this is how these things occur in other countries. And then people are like, but I do want to go see.
Before I die, I want to go see a World Cup match. Or they're walking around the stadium. This is nice. And it's right beneath the surface. I feel like it's not exactly the same thing, but comparable to recycling. So I recycle pretty much everything. I don't think it has any real effect at all. I mean, when you look at what the defense department does, what is my washing my tuna can out and then... It's like one airline flight. It's like 500,000 cans or something. And what am I doing? What the...
And I tell myself, because it's true, well, at least I'm not contributing to, but even just consuming something that comes in that packaging, I mean, it's a thing that sort of makes you feel better, even though it actually makes me feel worse because it just points up the absurdity of the situation we're in. But look, if everybody had that philosophy, then we'd be okay if everybody recycled, but everybody doesn't. Driving from the airport in Lima, Peru, to kind of the city center, and Lima's huge, is, I mean, you have... seven miles of just garbage. I mean, just before it gets nicer. And I'm like, what am I doing? Rinsing out my tuna fish can. It doesn't matter.
but it does you're sitting on a paper straw yeah and and you're like yes exactly paper straw okay sure i'll do it there's a similarity there i guess although like being the kind of person that's like fuck this i'm not doing any of it i don't think that's good for you as a person i know like the absolutely the the the people who find joy and gleefulness and that uh i'm sure you had in texas uh rolling coal rolling rolling coal yes where you put the exhaust thing on your car it's a southern it's like they did it in the south a bunch and that makes them happy and they're all you know and they're like fuck you you know hippies or whatever i'm gonna pollute even even more and that was like a reaction to uh you know what they perceived as you know don't tell me i can't have a plastic straw the political correctness thing is kind of that too where it's like okay look it can be obnoxious to like police people and have to be overly sensitive and whatever right there's obviously some some level which that's onerous and obnoxious the same time being a dick on purpose is not good for the world it's also not good for you to to be the kind of person that's like fuck your feelings yeah absolutely yeah that's a that's a bad contribution to humanity yes
But I also don't think it's good to be that. It makes the world worse. But it's good to have boundaries and rules where you're like, hey, I don't do that because I care about other people. Yeah, I would imagine. mental health wise, but who knows? I would imagine those or a bunch of those people get a sense of well-being and a satisfaction from sticking it to the, you know, just an umbrella group and archetype. Like, nobody's going to tell me what to do and then you feel good about it. So maybe it is good for them because they sleep better and they're healthier and they don't, you know, they don't have as many stomach issues, gastro, you know, IBS, whatever. You know, they're like, yeah, I fucking rolled some coal. I showed them and I did my part. Yeah. Yeah, there's something weird about this. Like, I'm going to stick it to the man, but it's like, in this case, the man is people who are mentally handicapped.
Who are you sticking it to by using the R word or whatever? The weirdness of pushing back. You're pushing it back against a person who has nothing. They're not the man. Well, what about rich, retarded people? What do you do in that situation? A conundrum.
Yeah, the idea of punching down is sad and gross to me. You know, the idea of finding joy and making fun of and making other people laugh with you at this, you know, marginalized group is just sad. Yes. But again, to be empathetic to those people is they they don't always see they're not like waking up and they're like, hey, how can I pick on these other people? Because I know I think it's a as you were saying, it's like a.
reaction to don't tell me what I can and can't say and freedom of speech. And even if that freedom of speech is an offensive derogatory word or phrase or something. Yeah. Usually it comes from some kind of insecurity, literally or figuratively, where you're just uncomfortable. So you're like, how can I lash out? Like my kids want to... You know what? I want to stop and interrupt. And I don't know. That to me sounds kind of smug and condescending in a way that would make that person go, see, see, see what they think. And I think...
it's helpful to be careful about not kind of doing what they're doing sometimes, which is just a broad brush of, oh, some, you know, liberal, progressive, know-it-all, you know, because I get that a lot. I get that accusation. And I think sometimes it's warranted. I hear myself and I'm serious. Sometimes I hear myself and I'm like, oh, shut the fuck up. Yes. You just sound like a dick. You sound like everyone.
you're making it worse. I'm talking to myself now. If we want to truly affect, and I agree with all of your positions and philosophy on this, we have to be careful about not engaging in the same kind of thing. Yeah, Mark Maron's thing about annoying people into fascism is very real. But what I mean is that most people...
do not think most people when they're punching down probably aren't saying to themselves i am punching down in their in their mind they are thinking yes this person is a worthy target or i'm actually attacking this bigger interest that's behind that like i don't think people think i think it's the latter i think it's the idea that i've experienced and i'm in stand-up comedy so i experienced it a lot where there's uh and i've been on both sides where it's like you know like don't tell me what word i can i can't use but i think they most of these folks it's about oh, this makes you uncomfortable, then I'm going to say it. And there's not a whole lot past that. It's a lot of like, don't tell me what I can and can't say and freedom of speech. And I agree. I don't think they see it as punching down. And I don't think they...
care on a surface level of if it's hurting an individual person, it's more important to them to, oh, it bothers you? You're going to tell me what I can and can't say? No, you're not. Yeah. And, you know. Right, right. And I think as, yeah, and I agree, it can come off as condescending. I'm just saying, I feel like as you get older and you experience more, you're able to question that impulse a little bit more and go, hey, like I get why I'm having this reaction to it, but I'm going to decide whether it's worth the cost over here.
had for years. Like, I'm going to say this and I'm going to defend it. I'm going to tell you why, et cetera, et cetera. And then the more that I met people who said, hey, I just got to say, that bit you did where you said the N-word really upset me and it offended me. And whereas I would, you know, kind of sort of calcify against that thing, that thought. And I would have a discussion with that person, sometimes on stage, sometimes off stage, they'd approach me.
If I couldn't defend the bit as, well, here's like the slavery thing. Like, here's the logic. That's why I'm saying this. And it's in the context. I can defend that. But there's sometimes you can't. And if I found that I couldn't and I knew it was upsetting more than a couple people, like, it's not worth it. I'll drop it. Yeah. And it'd probably be different if someone was saying, like, hey, if you say this, you'll go to jail or, you know, like where there would be actually some principle at stake, even if you didn't care that much about it. You're able to just go, hey.
a human being interacting in society, here's how I'm going to decide to be considered or not. Like, one of the things the Stoics talk about is, like, how, like, look, if you take offense to something, like, you're at fault. Like, somebody said something and then you're choosing to be hurt by it. That's, like, one of the Stoic views. Which I think at some level is true, right? Like, no one can make you feel inferior without your consent. Like, you decided to give weight and meaning to those words. I agree with that on some level. I also, though, in my life, don't go around trying to hurt people's feelings because I don't give a shit. So, like, there's a tension there. Yeah, I think there are groups of people who it's...
easier for one group of people to make another group of people feel bad. I think it's, in a sense, easier for a wealthy white guy to say, hey man, don't let him get you down, than a poor black lesbian whatever, because they're fighting multiple fronts. And if that rich white guy is saying something, it's easy for somebody to go, hey man, don't let him get you down. Or as you say, the thing, it takes more muscles to frown. That might be literally true from whoever did that study, but that's not much solace to someone who just got diagnosed with terminal cancer. And someone else with terminal cancer might be able to say that to the fellow diagnosee, but you as just a regular person, you just understand it's not your place to say that. You haven't earned being able to say this to the other person. You're going to sound like a douche. Yeah, of course. Hey, man, I know cancer's bad. We all got the memo, but listen, cheer, cheer up.
Turn that frown upside down. Right. Well, like the thing about like dudes walking around telling women to smile. It's like, you don't know what this person just went through. Like, right. Just like stay in your lane is also what we're saying. Although I, I still have this kind of, it doesn't come up that much anymore, but my wife, who's a pretty active feminist, we, I think our daughter was, I'm going to say like two and a half, maybe, maybe two, maybe three, maybe. And we were in the TSA line at the airport and she's, she's in a stroller. My daughter wasn't crying or anything. So this guy who worked, you know, at the airport is like,
hey whatever he said it was very cordial and um uh you know what's your name and uh hey how about how about a smile and my my wife took that as like uh oh yeah a guy a man telling a woman or a girl to smile i'm like honey he was just being nice to a kid right and and she yeah she was she was that was like a source of contention and i still to this day i'm like what the fuck is wrong with you it's not it's not a sexist thing right oh but it is oh it's you know the patriarch she didn't say that but it's more like an adult baby thing not not a not a gender thing no of course yes it was it was so there's you know there's a point to do all of this i guess my kids do that like they just don't they just don't participate in any like you know adults are like hey like like they try to shake their hands and then you know like just how old are your kids a nine and a six-year-old but they're just like not interested in making like you know making adults feel good about like oh they just won't they just like i don't know you like the sort of polite version of you you're like hey don't do that and then and then they're like oh yeah don't
don't humor and engage with complete strange adults who are telling you to do stuff. It's like this mix of like horror and pride at the same time. Yeah, I know my daughter's nine does the same thing where actually when the examples I'm thinking of are like people that I know, you know, or at least have she's seen that I think this person is safe, you know, gets enough information. And then. But that's also shyness and you should be. And I know exactly what you're saying. I know that thing. I'm like, you do not need... I don't want to shake that guy's hand. I don't know who he is. I would like there to be less touching, period, among strangers. You don't need to do this. Also, I just saw you touch everything in the bathroom. You're actually doing this guy a favor by not shaking his hand. You're disgusting. Another one that I've watched you talk about the other day where you were talking about this with your kids where you're like, you have a rich kid. How do you both take care of your kids and then also not...
spoiled and rotten. I suppose it's relative what spoiled is. My daughter would certainly have a different idea than what I do, but she is spoiled. And the whole bit is about the resentment I have for how easy she's got it. And I do that annoying thing. I try not to, but like when it's, I can bring it up organically and it kind of works. She knows and she'll ask me questions, but yeah, I never had that. And I had to go do this and this. Well, you know, I didn't have a parent at home. We were latchkey kids and blah, blah, blah. Just because she doesn't.
truly appreciate. But she's also nine. But she also has, and we have a nice house. We have a brownstone in Brooklyn. It's huge. You know, it's the biggest place I've ever lived in. And it's not huge compared to like Texas huge, but you know, it's, I also live in Brooklyn, so it's never going to be that big. But I mean, most people live in apartments and all of her friends, you know, are like, live in these apartment buildings or units in a brownstone. Look, it's been a while since I've had to fill out an expense report. That's one of the perks of not having a job. But I don't remember enjoying the experience. And certainly...
I don't want my employees to waste a bunch of their time doing it You know, you got to find the receipt. You got to guess what category it goes in. Then finance is asking you, well, what about this? Or are you sure this was proper? Or, you know, what if you didn't have to do any of that? It's bad use of your time. That's bad use of company time. Expense reports are tedious. It's not what I want my employees doing. Well, Ramp makes collecting and submitting expenses super simple. With Ramp, expenses submit themselves. You just text or email your receipt and Ramp categorizes codes and submits it. And when you book business travel with Ramp, they find the best flights and hotels you're actually allowed to book. You don't find out later that your company is only partially going to cover it. Ramp is the only finance platform that employees and finance teams both rave about.
And companies have saved over $12 billion with Ramp. I think every business owner, every employee is trying to find tools that reduce the amount of admin process that they have to go through. And Ramp helps you do that. Ramp helps your team save time with one of those most tedious admin tasks. Time is money. Save both with Ramp. New customers get $250 off at ramp.com slash daily stoic. Go to ramp.com slash daily stoic. So she's aware of that. And what I'm trying to do is ride the fine line of, I don't want to say guilt because that's not the right.
emotion i want her to have but it just the understanding of what what she has what other people don't have this is not normal yeah that that uh but we also have a fair number of friends who are astoundingly wealthy yeah and they have multiple homes and their friends going back to before they were crazy wealthy and you know we were a drop in the bucket to what they have like a country estate and they have a you know a triplex in the city and they have all these you know and yeah and it's crazy they have a stable you know i mean so it's all relative and i Try to keep that in mind. Yeah, it's like I'm stressing about, okay, do I have to sit in like a shitty seat on this airplane because we're flying together because I want to build character? And then I'm picking you up from school and the guy behind me is in a Lamborghini. Like, I could probably, you know, like there is a relative nature. I do. I mean, she travels a lot, you know, because we do. Yeah, you want to take them with you. And what was it? Fairly recently, like a year and a half ago, I want to say, maybe two years ago.
And we were flying. It was a longer flight. Maybe it was going to L.A. from New York. And somehow we got bumped up. And it wasn't like anything. I didn't use points or anything like that. And it was also one of those newer planes. I think it's an American Airlines where they don't have business class. It's a newer plane and it's called Premium Economy. And so it's kind of in between business and Comfort Plus kind of thing. It's nicer than what we usually get, the Comfort Plus extra six inches.
And that's it. That's all that's all you get. That's all I need. We're fine. It's OK. And we got it was just her and I and we got bumped up somehow. And we were in this premium economy thing, which is nice. It's like business, basically. And from that point on. Yeah, that's the new normal. That's like she gets it. But she and I told her it was very special thing. I don't know why. But, you know, but from that point on, like, can we get the can we? No, we can't. Why? Why? Because it's expensive and I'm not going to pay for that. And this is the seat is fine. We're fine. But the other one, they gave us free and it's big. And no, honey, it's and.
So maybe it's a good thing because after that, we still were back in Comfort Plus and it's like, look, see, this is fine. This is fine. And probably as a parent, it's like, I got to build character, not make them a title. I don't want them to think life is easy. And it's like, life's hard for everyone. Your life is fucking easy. I mean, it is. I know it's tough being a kid regardless of your station in life and where you live. It's, you know, even wealthy kids have...
difficulty navigating social norms and kids in their school and there's a mean teacher and all that stuff. But she's doing all right. And what I mean is what ultimately shapes you more as a person, the handful of perks you get or just the fact that. shit is always happening and it's never the way that you like there's this idea at least that's what i got from my parents it's like oh it builds character and it's like is that what builds the character is where you're sitting on an airplane or what kind of car you're driving sounds like an excuse ryan it sounds like an excuse to bump yourself up no but i'm just what builds what what builds character is it that is it like your access or lack of access to material things or is it actually like how they see you going through the world what kind of person you are it's both of them and it's also uh it's a lot of stuff and it's also how uh you appreciate the things. If you think it's normal, if you think you're entitled, if you think, and we've seen plenty of examples in celebrity and whether that's athletics or actors or singers or whoever, people who come from limited means and then they just feel entitled. They haven't had good guidance and they treat people shitty and they feel entitled and they don't say please and thank you and they don't stop to reflect on.
exactly how this all happened, why they just think, well, of course I'm, I'm talented. Yes. You know, I'm a really good, uh, you know, at this thing and people love me. And so of course I should bathe in Evian water or whatever. And, you know, what I'm trying to do is keep her grounded as much as possible. And, and, but to answer what your, your question, I think it's all of those things. And it really is about.
understanding and appreciating that stuff for what it is. Well, I think that the thing that people struggle with is understanding that having money or luxury things or attention or whatever deference, that it can be nice, but it doesn't say anything about you as a person. Right. Like, like to have it, but not let it one become like the normal, like the baseline, like, Hey, this is, this is my, this is what I expect when I arrive, or this is, these are the basic levels of accommodations or whatever that I feel entitled to. But also that like it, it can, I'm sure it's like this with fame or with power where you, it just, it kind of intermingles with your soul and you go, I am this kind of person who, you know, should be treated this way. I get this because I'm special. If I don't get it, you're depriving me of my specialness.
Right. And then so that it's where it sort of merges with you on like a cellular, a soul level, as opposed to, hey, I would rather sit on a comfortable seat on an airplane than an uncomfortable one. I'd rather live in a nice house than a not nice house. But the problem is when you think like what kind of car you drive or how many followers you have or attention you get is as any kind of bearing on your worth as a person. It makes you better than others. Yeah, I get that. Sure. I think the best.
I'm saying this now. I haven't sat down with a pad of paper and really thought it out. But I think one of the best things about growing up poor, not having those luxury things, is that when you... And then you do attain them. But when you are in a position where you have to... I mean, this is just the way things are. You have to sleep on this bench. You're tired and there isn't a comfortable bed and we're in the middle of nowhere. Whatever the thing is, you just do it without... You may go, that sucks. But that's it. And then you go to sleep. You can handle not having it. You can handle... I think when people say...
I think when people say like, oh, they've got a lot of character or this builds character, all it means, literally all it means is you don't whine and bitch about certain things. You don't whine and bitch because it's cold or it's hot or this pillow isn't, you know, the thread count isn't. You just don't bitch. You don't cry about it. That's what I think what people mean when they say it builds character. You know, she's got a lot of character. That old lady, she's a, you know, that's what it means. They don't.
They don't whine when it's 90 degrees. You just get on with it. Yeah, it's funny that we use the word character there because what we actually kind of mean is like resilience or adaptability. Character is like, to me, has like a moral component. Like your ability to sleep on a bench is not like a statement of character because, I mean, there's lots of people who have to sleep on benches for no fault. I wouldn't say that has anything to do with their character. That's a social injustice that we should rectify. Meaning, going back to your thing about on the plane, like, oh, it builds character to sit. That's what people mean. It means you don't whine about having to sit there later on. You've been at the airport when you see people.
fucking flipping out because and they're yelling at somebody that had nothing to do with it and cannot control the situation and make it better for you because this you know this dude is going uh with his fucking cell phone out and waving it going my seat was business and now i'm in the back and yeah it happens and it sucks but don't be that person they you're yelling at somebody who has can't not do a thing about it yeah it feels like splitting hairs but it's like okay if the airline fucked up i get why you're a little upset but this is a storm like like this is like every plane in the entire airport is on the ground because there's a lightning storm right and and you're you're thinking that if you're just super rude to this person at the computer they can fix that yeah exactly yes that's that's a better way to put it just just like well sir it's hailing yeah and we cannot fly in the oh did you say you really have to get where you're going i said no yeah okay well we do have a plane for people like you yes right i i but going back even to the punching down too i do try to remind myself that these as as abhorrent as this behavior is i try to go i have no idea where this like how many hours this person traveled to get here how many horrible things have happened to them along the way what kind of anxiety they're bringing to i i try to having having had my own share of like wow i really wish i'd handled that better i do try to go this person as horrible as they're behaving is not having a good time like something is wrong inside this person that's uh that's noble that you try to remember that and that's a good thing i don't know if i'm i i
have done that as much as i should have or could have but yeah it's a it's a good but there also is a line of course i'm not saying it's funny like with daily stoic like we have a customer service person and when they like show me some of the customer service daily stoic is uh so it's all about stoic philosophy that we're talking about and it's uh it's like a daily email it's social media it's this podcast but like you know we sell stuff so like and it's funny to see the people who write in to customer service and how fundamentally un-stoic they are as if again they're like It's like, hey, you're not yelling at a computer. Like, this is a person. She sits right over there. And like, I wonder if people have kind of started to assume that just everyone and everything they're dealing with is like a computer bot, so it's okay to yell at them. But it's like, that's a human that you're talking to. Yeah, I'm not sure about that. I think they just...
It's about venting and it's about, you know, the classic Karen thing. Yeah, I mean, because you see enough of it. I mean, these fucking viral videos of somebody at a McDonald's, you know, like you put the wrong sauce and then they're throwing milkshakes at people. It's just awful. You know? Road rage? Road rage is insane. That wasn't a thing until it was. And then it was like everywhere, you know?
Yeah. But like when I watch some of those videos and not to excuse them, I'm like, this person is having some kind of psychotic break, you know, like this person is not well, like obviously what they're doing is not okay. And then this is obviously gets into things like, Hey, maybe it's not a good idea given a certain percentage of the population is not mentally well that we should just flood the country with millions of guns. That seems like a, you know, an explosive combination. But sometimes when I'm watching those videos, I'm like, okay, this person who's screaming at someone at Costco and they're in slippers and a robe and they're yelling. And it's like, obviously what they're saying is inexcusable, but like this person needs to be like.
Like this person is not well. Well, I mean, sometimes, sure. But sometimes I think people are just, it's that sense of entitlement. And it's kind of the similar logic of... when there's a really long line for something and you're in that line and the thing that you're in line for is, let's say to look at a painting. Yeah. This isn't the best example, but, and you're in that line the entire time going, come on, just move. All right. You've been looking at it for a minute now. Enough. Move on. There's other stuff. That's your process. That's what's going through all the way until you get to like three back. And then you're like, well, I've waited in this line. I'm going to take my time. You know what I mean? It's that kind of, again, not the best example, but that, that idea of that.
You know, I am at your store and you're supposed to customer is always right. And just the sense of entitlement that everybody has in any situation. Yeah. I mean, we see this with all these like nobody paid off my student loan debt or whatever. It's like, OK, but it was a fraction of the it was a fraction of the amount. Whole groups were excluded from attending the college when you went. But also, also, also, this will benefit you. If this was a this is a thing. I know in your brain, you're like, that's not fair. But this will.
directly benefit you if this person has less debt and they i mean this is keynesian economics 101 and then they have now all of a sudden they have money so that they don't have to work three jobs they're not tired behind the wheel their kids are better adjusted i mean it goes yeah that one is so weird too because it's like it's the people who are mad about how unfair it is are the people who like to say life's not fair you know like like yeah it's kind of not fair you had to do it and now uh they're not but it's not taking anything from you But it's actually giving. It will benefit that person. Be that as it may. It's them getting something that you didn't get is not taking anything from you. Right. But it's hard. There is that sort of immediate childlike part of us that's like, well, everyone should get the same. It should be fair. And it's like, that's not how it works. Isn't the whole point that the world is supposed to be better for the people that come after us? Isn't that what one of our main jobs as a human being is? Is to make things less hard for the people coming after us? I feel like that's kind of the point of a...
civilized society. Right. It's certainly a worthy goal. Yeah. But getting angry about other people getting stuff is a very animating force and sort of always has been. Yeah. I mean, especially when it's the government, you know, particularly when it's the government saying this. Yeah. You know, the special is very, very political. I mean, you open with the Trump thing and you have some other stuff. It's not really. It's it's I guess.
I guess you're going to consider the abortion stuff political. I guess I'm not saying it in a bad way. I know. I just turn people off. I didn't take I didn't take it that way. I just and I suppose I'm being a little defensive here because I have been really careful and worked hard at all like the last five, six specials, whatever of delineating like so a third and no more than a third of the hour and 15 minutes is quote political unquote or talks about religious stuff. And then a third I try to make just really silly.
dumb jokes, which I have plenty of. They had nothing to do with anything. They're just dumb jokes. And then a third are anecdotal things. This thing happened and I observed this and this is what I think of that. And I often, I think because the political content can be kind of sharp, I think I, and I'm just, this is a defensive posture night. So I'm good at a lot of things. I am not good at fixing things. I prefer to be writing than, you know, fixing stuff around my house. Maybe my grandfather wouldn't like that or my dad wouldn't like that.
But I like it. I like doing the things that I'm good at that are worth my time. Not running around trying to see what's wrong with my AC or why this electrical plug in the kitchen isn't working. You know, your homeowner's insurance doesn't cover a lot of the day-to-day wear and tear on your house. Plumbing failures, HVAC, electrical issues, you're on your own for that. And that's where HomeServe comes in. It is a subscription for your home. For as little as $4.99 a month, they've got your back. Repairs hit fast and hard. You know, you're searching for a contractor, whatever. You could already be on the phone with HomeServe's 24-7 hotline scheduling a repair. It's super simple. You choose a plan for your needs and your budget.
And when something on your plan goes wrong, you call the hotline and they start the repair process. They've helped homeowners like you for 20 years with a trusted national network of 2,600 local contractors. Join millions of customers who trust HomeServe. For 50% less your first year, go to homeserve.com. That's homeserve.com for 50% less savings compared to renewal price void in Florida. We recently bought our kids a Nintendo 64. It's crazy to think that the video game console from my childhood is an antique, but it is. It's vintage, certainly.
And so we've been looking for games that I kind of vaguely remember. We've just been buying tons of stuff and now we're kind of getting into these old vintage games. Well, we've been shopping for vintage games on Whatnot. Whatnot is a leading live shopping platform. You get on the app and people are selling live from stores, garages, living rooms, warehouses all over the country. And you can interact with the sellers. You can ask them questions, what kind of future inventory they're getting. There's a vintage shop down the street from us and Bastrop. And I go in there, hey, these are the things I like. Can you get me some of this? You can have a good relationship with the person and find stuff you couldn't get just browsing random websites. Thousands of items are sold every minute on Whatnot because customers get to know the sellers and they see those products live.
And for many sellers, it's gone from a side hustle to a full-time job since they're selling 10x on whatnot than on other marketplaces. Search whatnot, W-H-A-T-N-O-T in the app store, download, and start selling right away. Apologize for that, but it's just like people will... kind of pigeonhole me as a political comic and i'm like i'm not i'm a comic who does stuff about politics so that's where that came from and i apologize for no it's actually what i was going to bring up because like it feels like that word doesn't capture what it's like you're not like talking about like the marginal tax rate or something do you know like it feels weird that we have to say like politics about you know what feel to me like basic issues of the social contract and like how like what's happening in the world and then people are like why are you being so political and it's like well because i'm alive and i have eyes and i haven't turned my heart off to other human beings and what they're going through so i feel like i have to say something i but i would like not to have to say something because i would like this not to be happening right So it's, but I guess what I was going to ask is it feels like you make a choice to talk about it, even though you understand at some level, it's going to upset some people. Oh, yeah. I've never cared about that. And I'm very, you know, I'm a polarizing figure. And I know that. And I'm not going to do anything to, I mean, at this point, the ship has sailed about trying to please everybody and be like a clean comic who doesn't take sides, you know, but I have no interest in that. And I never, ever, not once have I ever thought, hmm, I need to figure out a bit about women's rights in this country. It just occurs to me when I'm.
reading thinking walking down the street whatever and then and then you work on stuff on stage but i do consciously i will go this feels this hour and 10 minutes 15 minutes feels too too political yeah and i need to take some of this stuff and maybe i'll do it in the next special but it So I do kind of, I guess, the reverse where I think, okay, this is too much about this. Let's have some fun. But you also go, hey, you can't just be talking about silly, ridiculous stuff when the world is on fire. It just has never worked out that way. There's always... There's always too much. There's always something. Yeah, it really is about pulling that stuff back on. This is too much. I prided myself on, and this special doesn't do it so much, but the last several tours where it's like, I'm not going to even get to this stuff until we're 30 minutes in. So if you get upset and you walk out, and that happens, I know.
that the first 30 minutes were inoffensive, had nothing to do with religion or politics or it's a story about whatever. You know, there might be a line here and there, but, like, I know you got at least 30 minutes of entertainment before you went, fuck you! And you chose to do this one not in a sort of theater, the kind of glamorous, maybe, like, special that people see a lot. Can we turn the AC down? Warmer or colder? No, sorry, off. Just turn it off. No, no, so the problem is, so this is like the...
Oh, it's going to heat up real quick. No, no, no. Out there, the ceilings are, like, 20 feet tall. Right. And here, it's small. So, like, the AC is very concentrated in this tiny windowless room. So, it either gets very cold or very hot. Right, right. Also, it gets hot, Alaska. No, no, we're good. I have no character. Yeah. Growing up in the South, you do get used to just being way too hot or way too cold. It's, like, it's never the right one. I grew up in Georgia. Yeah. So, I know that thing. The inverse is true when you go, like, in New York and you have a particularly hard winter and you are...
bundled up in four layers and then you go into a bar or you go to a restaurant or you go to a movie theater and it's fucking broiling. Yeah. And now you can take everything off. and basically strip down your shirt. And then you, yeah, you have the kind of similar thing. And then also in the summer, if it's hot, you know, and then you go see a movie and you're freezing. Like, Jesus, guys. I don't know how people lived here before. Like, the idea that air conditioning is not that new of, or not that old of an invention is kind of crazy. Oh, and they used to wear wool suits. I know. It's like a Hasidim. You know, like, you look at those old pictures, you know, New York.
Lower East Side. And you know it's like 92 degrees. And there's people in these three-piece suits and hats and like, oh God, and it must have stunk. Right. I feel like they don't talk about that. And what was the laundry situation? These are, in many cases, poor people. So it's not like they have a closet full of 50 suits and they're rotating them. They would wear the same shirt and just change the collar. So how disgusting must have everything been? And then they're riding horses. It's just disgusting. I don't have any idea how it worked. Well, I mean, that's what they knew. Yeah. It seems normal. Yeah. I wonder, too, if some of the brutality of the world back then.
was just like everyone was so uncomfortable and miserable all the time it was hard to have like a scale of like what was good i lived in london for a couple years and you know ac at newer newer places happen but like if you went through any kind of heat wave like we get here i mean there's most places don't have ac that you know where people live yeah and they've got uh you know the fans that the plug in but That only does so much. I mean, it's tough. Thousands of people die every year in Europe from just the heat. And that's obviously going to be one of the consequences of climate change. More Europeans dying? It's not an American news story. It's actually similar. I could be making this up, but I remember reading an article that was like, gun violence versus heat deaths across Europe are fairly similar. So we murder a lot of people every year. But in other countries, they just keel over from the heat. And that would have been just background noise in the world for hundreds of years.
In the summer, sometimes you die from sweltering in your tenement apartment. Have you been to Phoenix? Yeah. So Phoenix, there's a handful of places in the United States where I'm like, why? This should not exist. What the fuck?
If you go downtown where they have like, you know, kind of concentrated corporate, you know, fun town things. And all the like outdoor bars and sports bars and entertainment centers or whatever. When you're downtown in Phoenix, all of them have these things on the outside on the street that missed you. And that's so you don't die. Like the city is.
in order to live there and work there and and congregate and and go out to dinner you have to you have to be wet by the city the city has to wet you down because you might die yeah why the fuck would you move to that place yeah right and the irony too of like it's hot also because everything is concrete and cement so just like it sucks in the heat like phoenix if no one lives there obviously it's still a desert but like Nature does a decent job of making that somewhat hospitable because it's hot during the day, but it's cool in the shade and it's cool at night. But then a modern man comes in and actually makes it this concrete oven that's slowly releasing the heat throughout the day, so it actually is hotter longer. It's madness. Yeah, especially when we know there are measures you can take to rectify that situation, to reverse it. But people really like golfing, so that's why. They love golfing. And that's where they do the golf. They're like, what is the most water-intensive green thing we could have?
I guess we could put that anywhere in the United States where the climate makes sense. But what if we actually, what if we put them in Palm Desert and Arizona? That seems like the best place. Yeah, that's what we're going to spend our water on. Yeah. Well, it's like, they're like, there's nothing here. Let's build. And it's like, there's nothing here because it's inhospitable and horrible. That's why. It's madness. Well, hopefully we'll go to the moon and build some golf courses up there. That'll be way spread out. Won't need as much water. I don't know how we get the water. We'll figure it out. Doesn't George Carlin have a thing that's called?
arrogant game what an arrogant game like like like we need all this space for one person to hit this tiny ball is madness yep you want to see the bookstore yeah let's do that