David Sedaris #5

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert Experts on Expert. I'm Dan Shepard and I'm joined by Sticky Brain. Sticky Brain. My new nickname. Your new moniker. Heavyweight champion. Returning. Number five. Yeah. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. David Sedaris. My God, I couldn't love someone more.

Frequented guest. Yeah. What an honor to have him as our most frequented guest. If I had to pick a most frequented guest. A tie between him and Malcolm Gladwell. Yeah, we got some good ones. We got a couple of good repeat offenders. Sedaris is a humorist, a comedian, an essayist, a bestselling author, a radio contributor.

He's on the television on one of those morning shows. He's got kind of an Andy Rooney vibe on site. I love it. His books, Happy Go Lucky, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Calypso, A Carnival of Snackery, the best titles ever. Yeah. Family in denim and corduroy. Oh, and corduroy and denim. Corduroy and denim. He is on a 40-city tour across the United States. starting March 30th till May 19th.

including Burlington, Vermont, Albany, Philadelphia, Boston, Akron, Detroit, Fort Wayne, Dallas, Nashville, many, many more. Go to... davidsiderisbooks.com to see his tour. A lot of Arm Cherries have gone. Per our suggestion. And I always hear how much they love it. He puts on a great show. I really do recommend you go see him live. There's really nothing like it. He's a gift. And as I've been talking about lately, we're listening to his short stories every night.

before bed, those one-offs before bed. It's just, it makes me so happy. I love David Sedaris. Please enjoy. I'm Mike Bubbins. I'm Ellis James. And I'm Steph Guerrero. And we're convinced that our podcast, The Socially Distanced Sports Bar, is going to be your new favourite comedy podcast. with just a little bit of sport thrown in.

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My prized possessions are behind me. He was mad that the face wasn't turned out. And I said, I don't care about fucking picture. I want the writing of this man. I know, but he picks them out so specifically. Specifically that I understand. Maybe I'll do a glass wall.

In my next house. And I'll hang it. And you can choose what site you want to see. When I went to Egypt a couple months ago, all the postcards were bullshit. I went to Fiji. It was the same thing. I would expect that from Fiji and not from Egypt. Where is this from? No way! That's impossible timing. You just brought up being in Egypt. There are being bad postcards. I got that in Australia, but it was Egypt, and I wished I'd brought it to Egypt. You know what's so nice about this?

is that I wasn't going to bring up that I haven't gotten a postcard from you in a while, but I've thought about and noticed and been scared that I haven't got a postcard from you in a while. And I would have never brought it up, but here one has arrived and now I don't have anything to even ruminate about.

Well, I don't know. These are like private exchanges. It says, it's not the first time I've cheated on Hugh. Somehow this one's things for some reason. I want to read this first by myself and my dad. And then maybe on the fact chat. Okay. Hugh doesn't want postcards. He doesn't want me to text him. letters with stamps on them. Okay, that's a high bar. That's a lot. If I'm going to like 44 cities, I have to get the letters printed out.

That's a commitment. And I have a lot of stuff to do. Of course. Already. Of course, you're busy. That's why you're there. Okay, I'm going to read it. Thank you. Good idea. Because there's nothing incriminating. But okay. Dear Dax, have you been to Egypt? And tugged on, it's the place for you. There are 100 million stray cats there. So it's good, too, if you're afraid of mice. I didn't see a single one in Australia now.

Sincerely, David Sedaris. These are my... Yeah, I don't want to make it uncomfortable. These are like the treasures of treasures. We have the fires. I put my journals in a huge fucking suitcase and then I grabbed this off my wall. We were just talking last night. We had dinner with somebody. You can name drop. Jennifer Jason Leigh. Oh, my goodness. And then she looked out her window and saw a flame, so she had to evacuate.

And she didn't grab anything. And so we were talking about what would you grab? Exactly. What did you say? What did you say? Picasso painting this big. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Grabable. See, I'm jealous that you have that because in all these different fears I have, like somehow I'll still end up penniless. I'm still convinced that'll happen. I wouldn't like one item that I could just put in a backpack and land somewhere and be like, OK, well, I will have rent for some time.

this Picasso is going to still be valuable. And you know, it's small. Yeah. And I have a Franz Kline painting that Isn't much bigger. So I could put that in the same tote bag. You're set. Do you want to explain the value of art to Dax? Because he has a hard time understanding it. I understand it. Well, you fight back against it. My argument is if you enjoy the image, I don't understand the difference between a nice print and the original work of art. Unless you're collecting it for...

But like if your claim is just I look at this and I feel a certain way, I think it's a mental trick that because there's only one of them, I feel even a more different way. Does that make sense? Yeah. I mean, if you told me that you had a Picasso print. I would be like, that's nice. Well, first of all, I wouldn't tell anyone I had one.

This would just be for me to sit in a room and stare at and get whatever transcendent thing you all are claiming to get from it. You had a Picasso painting. Yeah. I would say... Oh God, I'd love to see it. I don't usually go to museums because what they have, I can't buy it. Well, the vagina soap. museum you went to. Yeah. Changed our life. The vagina. Yeah. But I went to a museum somewhere a while ago and I had time on my hands.

And I looked at the Picasso paintings that they had, and he was... such a forerunner and such a genius and the surface of those paintings was so alive no one can touch that guy you know picasa was an asshole and when you stand before his paintings He's a genius. I don't know. Why do you have to force yourself to go through all of his worst moments? Yeah. It's interesting that it's really troubling for people with artists and art. But no one is like, guys, bad news. Einstein raped his niece.

E equals MC squared. We can't touch it no more. No one has any issue with any kind of scientific breakthrough that was done by a monster. There's no moral dilemma. It's like if this thing serves me, it's a technology I want. I don't give a fuck what the person who invented it did.

Yet the art serves you. You can't really make an argument that one's more important than the other. Yet there is this very arbitrary distinction we make between scientists who are pedophiles and shit and then artists that were. Yeah, that's a good point. Thank you. I wanted to land one good point today. But even with writers like Céline was monstrous. That's the French. Yeah. You can't deny his...

You can't deny his power as a writer. Another thing is he wrote quite a while ago. So it's not like young people are getting swayed, read his books. But right now we're doing something that in 50 years from now. is going to be unforgivable. But we can't even imagine it. We're not even thinking, well, it's probably... I already know what it is. Well, eating animals. When I bring it up to my friends and colleagues in Los Angeles, no one wants to acknowledge it.

There will be a moment where they'll look back in time and they'll go. So anyways, in L.A., you know, in 2025, brown people worked and white people didn't. White people didn't cut their grass. They didn't clean their house. They didn't make their food. They didn't deliver their food. They didn't do anything. It was only brown people that did that stuff. People go, that's nuts.

And when I bring that up to friends, and I'm not saying, like, fire your Latina housekeeper. I'm just saying have enough humility to say we're engaged in it now. And they'll go, no. Well, it was a huge improvement from where my housekeeper came from. And I go, that's exactly what the slave trader said. It's the same argument. I think maybe fossil fuels.

will be part of it. Maybe eating meat will be part of it. I think that's going to be a big one. But that's the stuff we can suspect. There's things we cannot even. Truly. Yeah, it's like they wore blue shirts. Can you believe? I think the fossil fuels will go more in the category of like, can you believe we use a smoke? They use a pull smoke into their lungs and then hold it for a minute and do that several hundred times a day.

I have a list on my computer called countries I have been to. Now, my boyfriend Hugh criticizes me because he says I just want to go to a place in order to cross it off my list. Yeah, it's that simple. It means a lot to me. This is what I want to do. We went to Monte Carlo last year. So we went to this Michelin starred restaurant and our food just arrived. and three men at the next table lit cigars. And then...

Two men at the other table on the other side of us said, oh, we can smoke cigars. And then the waiter came and said, how's your meal? And I said, well, now that you mention it, it tastes like ashtrays. And he said, well, we can't say anything. And they couldn't say anything because. The people smoking the cigars at the next table, it's like, well, we've finished our meal.

So the important people have eaten. And I said, can I burn a tire at the table? That's what I would like to do. I've got a little money. Yeah. A little inner tube, a little model glue, set it ablaze. I thought maybe the server was going to come back and light up a cigar. To think that it used to be normal. Oh, yeah, yeah. I smoked on an airplane on a flight to Germany when I was 16. I woke up in the middle of the night, and I was just wondering.

Yeah. Was there a time when you couldn't order a drink on an airplane because it was a Sunday? Oh, I have no knowledge of that. question. Or let's say if you were flying over North Carolina, would they say, you got to finish your drinks in like a minute because you're flying over North Carolina. You couldn't sell liquor on Sunday in North Carolina until... I wonder, it might have to do with the hub of the... plane. Delta is an Atlanta

And I think you can drink there now on Sundays or buy a liquor, but at one point you couldn't. So maybe you wouldn't be able to on that plane, but on United you could. What if you're taking a red-eye, David, and you left New York at 1.45 a.m.? And then you could have one drink. Then it was two. But as soon as you got to Chicago, all of a sudden it was 146 again and everyone got to have a round. And then you just chased the time change.

for the 2 a.m. cutoff. Although I guess in New York it's 4 a.m. That scenario would work great leaving Detroit because it's 2 a.m. One of the things you don't count on... when you write is you're dated so quickly even if you write something about people not having exact change for the flight attendant because there was a kind of man who would get on a plane and buy a drink with a $20 bill, and he knew the flight attendant wouldn't have change. Whereas my mother always taught me,

If you have a $20 bill, buy a newspaper, buy some gum, buy something in the airport so you can have correct change when you order a drink. Because they would not give you change. Well, they would, but it's a pain in the ass. Then the flight attendant has to go... Oh, it's just a kindness. Yeah, if everybody pays with a 20, the flight attendant's like... Fuck. And you know the flight attendant used to go down the aisle saying, does anybody have any change for us? Right.

Do you feel very protective of flight attendants? Because I do. Monica saw me get into it with a first class customer that was sitting in front of us. In rapid order, he was at the bulkhead and he had his bag in front of his feet. And there's nobody that doesn't know you can't have your bag there, right?

So they ask him to put it away. Oh, yeah, I'll get to it. And then he doesn't. And then they come down. They really need to take up. Sir, we really need you to put that. Oh, I thought I could get it by you. No, you can't. So I'm flagging him. We're right behind him. I'm like, I don't like this guy and I'm going to pay attention to everything he does. So then the next thing was she came to say, have you made a selection for lunch? He said, what are the options?

The menu's right next to you. Well, just tell me the options. We have a short rib and we have a chicken breast. No, she said chicken. Chicken. It was a chicken thigh. And he said, is that white meat or dark meat? How could you have gotten to 56 years old and not know that the thigh is fucking dark meat? Why are you making this woman...

So then I needed to pee. He had gotten up to pee. I'm sitting on the armrest. Clearly, I want everyone behind me to know, don't get up. I've claimed that I'm next. Right. So when he exits, he sees I'm in the waiting position to go in. So he gets to his seat, which is one row in front of us. And then he decides to like open up the thing. He's just kind of looking around. He's not even grabbing his bag. He's just blocking it.

And then like a hockey player, I just fucking ran through him and shoulder checked him into the seat. Do you like the ending of that story? Monica didn't like it. There's more. No, that's not the end of the story. There's an important piece to this, which all that happens, Dex, is being very aggressive. And look, I hate that guy. That's annoying that he's behaving that way.

I'm more concerned about his behavior than I am about this stranger. Because I represent you. Yeah. And you know better. Why cause even more chaos? Because someone needs to smack this guy on the nose. That's why. That's very simply why. So then he causes this ruckus. He sits down, and a few minutes later, the guy turns. We were at South by Southwest X, posted a panel. This guy turns around, hey, I saw you last night.

Doing the panel, you were so great. Like, he was so nice to him. You're going to like the end of the story, actually. And then also, worse, then we had to Google who he was. Well, I was like, oh, no. He was at that panel. are just signing a deal with Amazon. That was an Amazon movie. Did I just fucking shove one of our new bosses?

Now I'm steering through the gap when he lifts up his laptop to do some work. Thank God it says his full name on this sign in for his password. And then the second we land, I open it up and I find out. I was like. Oh, he's just a fucking lawyer. I knew it. He was like a lawyer representing one of the actors that was on the panel. It's so funny, though, how you can be on a plane and have a towering hatred for somebody and they have no...

idea. I would have given anything to fight him in a parking lot. That's how mad I was at how he was treating this flight attendant. I was in Australia a couple of weeks ago. They made an announcement. They said the flight to Tasmania is full. So we're asking you to gate check your bag. and you want to bring your bag on the plane, you'll soon find yourself in a situation where there's no room for your bag. We will gladly send it.

on the four o'clock flight. So that's a way to do it. Yeah, big threat. I just had a knapsack and I had something else under my seat and I had my knapsack in the overhead bin. So he puts his bag in there and he's pounding on it. It won't go in all the way because my knapsack. Yeah. And I said, I think it won't go in there because of my knapsack. So he pulls my knapsack out. and puts his bag in and says, what do you want me to do with this now? No, we didn't. Stop it. I said, just.

Just go. And I was in first class. I said, just wherever you are back there. Just go. Just keep on walking. Oh, my God. That's so crazy, though. Did he get shoulder checked? He doesn't need to get shoulder checked. What needs to happen to him? You say, put it back, please. Okay. And he goes, eat this ass.

I saw a flight attendant once. A guy was pounding on a bag to get it in. The flight attendant turned to me and said, I just thank God it's not a living thing. But I had a towering hatred of a... flight attendant. He was standing right at the door of the plane and he said, can I get you something to drink, young man? And so I just ignored him and he said, young man, And I ignored him. And he said, young man. Oh, my God.

Why didn't you just say old man? Because that's what you mean. Oh. That's his. charm. He's going to flatter you because you want to hear that you're young. You see it a lot with Bellman at hotels, too. Can I copy with that bag, young man? And they say it to women more. They'll say it to like a twisted stick. figure with a walker. Hey, young lady. And she's supposed to say, he thinks I'm young. Right. She waddles off.

Here's my new thing. Okay. And again, I go on these tours and that's why I'm traveling and somebody else is paying for my ticket and... I'll admit it, I'm in first class. Already you're thinking you don't have that much to complain about. Look, you're in first class. But the flight attendant kneels and looks at the manifest. and says, Mr. David, what would you like? And I'll say now, oh, can I see the manifest for a second? I say, see, it says, David Sedaris. I said, David is my first name.

My last name is Sedaris, so I'd be Mr. Sedaris. Because they don't want to take a chance I'm pronouncing your last name. So they just call you whatever your first name is. That's just laziness. Part of my job, when I sit down and write books, is to pronounce people's names when they...

in front of me on a post-it note. And I pride myself on it. You know those Irish names? Someone said, oh, those Irish names always look like a Wi-Fi password. Oh, yeah, yeah. Do they have some symbols above their alphabet too? And those can be hard, but if you worked at the airport or something, you'd get them after a while. Chinese names, you'd get them if you took an interest and asked people, and you would say yes whenever you were right about them. So I just...

object to the laziness. My childhood friend who was just out, Ken Kennedy. Ken Kennedy, that's really nice. I've used his name in many movies if I have to improv because it has such a great alliteration. So Ken Kennedy, he lived in Novi, Michigan and he grew up on Buckminster Way. And one night he was coming home from work and he got pulled over by a cop and the cop came up to the window.

License and registration. Looks at his thing and goes, do you have any idea why I pulled you over tonight, Mr. Buckminster? He saw his street name and thought his name was Buckminster. Like really trying to hand it to him. It was a big mistake. It was a street name. Buckminster is my first name. My last name is Street. It would be Mr. Street.

It was interesting when I was in Australia, not a single person waiting for me at the baggage claim to take me into town said, how was your flight? Which I hate. If you ask me how my flight was, You're just dead to me. And I've said to people before, that's such a bad icebreaker. I know. Then why do you... You'll call that out? Yeah. At a hotel, not a single person said, welcome in. How are your travels? Right. They would say instead, gosh, that suitcase.

How did the wheels work on that? Are those good wheels on the suitcase? You know, the actual question. Something specific that you could actually answer. It never felt gimmicky. You don't like platitudes. Yeah, it just felt more... genuine but like a corporate personality is no personality yeah yeah yeah it's just like getting through every single thing everyone has to have a personality

No, I'm not opposed to it. It's preferable, right? I like it if I'm going to the security check at the airport and that person has a personality. Me too. Love that. TSA. Guy, personality, love that. Everybody I'm happy. You know who I don't want to have a personality? is the pilot. Sometimes you're on a Southwest flight and they kind of pride themselves on that they make Joe. That's not who I want making jokes. But I was on tour in the fall and I went to Chicago.

And I was checked in by a woman with Down syndrome. At a hotel or at the airport? At the airport. And she had a very hard time pronouncing the name of the city I was going to, but it was a difficult name. And a lot of times if you have Down syndrome, your tongue is kind of thick, so it can be hard to say. So I had to ask twice.

But I thought, wow, why haven't I seen this before? And then I started thinking they should hire a guy with Down syndrome or it could be a woman dressed in a pilot's uniform to stand at the front of the plane at the beginning of every flight. and say, we'll be flying over South Dakota. And then all the people who get off the plane immediately would be the right people.

And then we could just take off. They would be the right people. Just hire people with Down syndrome to pretend they were the pilots. Yeah. And you think that's like a test of something. It just weaves out the riffraff. That's interesting because I don't want to get political. But when I was sounding the alarm a year ago, going, guys, Biden, he's too old. We must have another option. And people were offended by that. My analogy was.

If you got on an airplane and Biden came out of the cockpit and was like, you know. And isn't running this huge country more important than flying one airplane? I thought that was a good analogy. It was. Thank you so much. It's probably tied with your Down syndrome analogy. It bothered me when people took that and said, well, you're just being ageist. And it's like, no.

There are people his age who are vital. He's not vital. And you would just be on the edge of your seat. It's like having your kid in the school play. You're so afraid they're going to... Fuck up. Every time he opened his mouth, it was just anxiety. People are like, do you watch the debate? And I'm like, no, no, I would never watch that. I don't want to see like on YouTube years ago, bum fighting, right? They pay two.

Homeless guys to fight. I don't want to see that. I never heard of that. You haven't heard of pums fighting? That's bad. Oh, it's so nasty. I was in the Philippines a couple of years ago and I was on a television show called Wow Wow Weed, like they invited me to be on this show. People there are so desperately poor and people would wait. in line for days to get in to give the host money so he gets a fistful of money

And he says, I've got $100 here for the craziest dancer. And then there'll be like people in their 80s, like break dancing, really humiliating themselves in order to get the money. And it was like. I didn't know the show was going to be like this. What did you do? Every now and then you're on a show and it goes somewhere and you're like, fuck, I'm just standing now in this situation. I was just brought on and then I gave money to the host to give away. And then...

I saw what was happening and it was like bum fighting. Yeah, it is a version of that. That seems like it would be in the Bible under things not to do. Yes. There should be some mention of bum fighting if you look that word up in the dictionary. Is that the word? Exploitative? Okay, but is this just as bad? So I was in Pakistan.

this man came up and he was begging for money. And I said, I will buy your shawl. Then he was like, oh I'll give you the shawl and he was trying to give it to me because that's what people are like there if you say to somebody I like your glasses they give you and I'm like No, luckily there was someone who could translate. And I said, you... and I want something from you, so I pay you. I mean, the money I was paying him for his saw was like,

50 times with the shawl. Of course. You were just making it a transaction. But he wanted to give me the shawl and I was thinking it's nicer for you if it's a transaction too because you're not begging me for anything. I'm just a customer buying.

Anyway, we finally made that understood. And then we went over here and then we came back and he already had a new shawl on and he was modeling it. And then I was like, I want that one too. Everything just looked better on him. You just wanted to have his frame. He was just a good model. Oh, my God. That is so. I have a similar situation. And really who it bit the most in the ass was Kristen, which was. I was in Italy and I have a good relationship with Ducati.

I got to tour the factory where they make the motorcycles in Bologna. And the tour was given to me by this very, very nice man who did not speak nearly any English. And he had a very cool vintage Ducati leather jacket on. And I had mentioned two or three times how awesome his jacket was. And at the end, he took off the jacket and he tried to give it to me. And I was like. Oh, no, no, I absolutely cannot accept this vintage jacket.

I was successful in not taking the jacket, but I was so moved by this gesture. He said, I'm going to Los Angeles and I was like you must Stay with us. I was really panicked because the gesture was so nice. And he fucking did. This man came for a week at our old house and I was working the whole week shooting a show and Kristen wasn't working. There was just an Italian man in our house.

almost no English. You should have taken the jacket at that point. Bring that jacket when you come. That would have been fair. Yeah, exactly. I regret not taking the jacket after he was there day seven. I went to Australia with my friend. Dawn, her dad had a music store. And he would get a lot of letters from prisoners. Oh, can you send me some guitar strings? And he was a lovely man, Don's father. So people would get out of prison and they wouldn't have any place to go. And so...

Dawn would be at home alone with someone who'd just gotten out of prison. stole from her jewelry box. Oh, fuck. Sometimes kindness can really bite you. It really can. Actually, this is interesting when you're talking about the shawl. For us, it's humiliating for him to just give you something and then you're giving money. Is it humiliating? Objectively? Not really, right? If they want the thing. Oh, yeah. Emotionally, it feels horrible to watch it, but also...

They don't feel horrible. When I was in Australia a few weeks ago, there was a hotel that had a notice on the desk that said, we are cash free. And then it said money can contain 163 bacterias, something like that. And then they had written, we charge an X fee for using the credit card. No. Yeah.

Anyway, when I was in Egypt, there was this kid selling big balloons. And they weren't inflated, but you'd inflate them yourself. They were just big. I thought, oh, they'd be good to give away to people at a book signing or something. So I bought all the ones that he had, and I gave him money. And he kissed the money. And the money there, you have to have a big stack of it. Like $100 would be such a big stack of money, you could barely close your wallet. And it really stinks.

Like the money really stinks. And here was this kid kissing it. And this other place won't even take it. Exactly. Right. And they don't know what. That's what stinky money is. Australian money is that plasticky money you could put in the dishwasher if you wanted to and it would come out fine. I guess nothing's objective, really. Were you doing readings in Australia? Yeah.

Okay, so you tour worldwide. Yeah. What are some of the countries? Australia. I went to England and did something, and then I went to Australia, and that was just a vacation. And then I went to New Zealand, and then I went to Australia. But that was just vacation. And then I went to Hawaii, and that was for... Everyone used that was vacation. When I was in Hawaii, someone told me I was in Hilo on the Big Island. Oh, okay. Someone said, oh, there was a woman who recently had a baby.

On the ground. She just stopped. The baby came out of her and then she kept walking. The baby was being dragged by its umbilical. What? No. That's what I said. And they said, no, it happened in front of Pineapple's restaurant. Lots of people saw it. And I said, what was the baby's drag name? They said it was her 11th child. And she just kept walking. But you know what? If you were 11, you might be like, eh.

It's fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not in a position to judge. I haven't had 11. God. I want an update from you. Where are you at on your smile journey? Because we've kind of caught you throughout your progress. You had gotten all your teeth fixed but you were telling us that even though they're fixed you still just have this muscle memory where you hate to smile. I don't do it in front of the mirror. I still can't look at my teeth. I had to go to the dentist the other day.

And she held up the mirror and I'm like, have we not been through this? I can't look. You don't ever want to see those. During the pandemic, I got those Invisalign. because I had massive gaps. I was at a nice hotel checking in. I would feel them thinking, you don't belong here. It's shocking not to feel that way. Like no one's ever said to me, You have beautiful eyes. Just no one's ever said it to me, right? I don't know what that's like.

to have beautiful eyes, but I'm fine with that. But nobody ever said, oh, you have such a nice smile. And then somebody said it to me after I got my teeth fixed, and I thought, I never in my life thought I would ever hear that from anyone. Did it feel good or did it feel like a cheat? You know, there are women who have magnificent breasts. Me. Just born with magnificent breasts. Yeah. And then I think if somebody else and has a maid, you know what? This is a better analogy. Okay. I...

Don't know that I still have them, but I used to have magnificent calves. They were like Popeye's arms, like bowling balls. And then people started getting calf implants. And it's like, I have big calves because I'm short. It's something you get as a bonus. And because I walk so much and you just paid to have your big calves.

But ultimately, I don't really care. Yeah, this is the Olympic conversation for a lot of people. I was picking up trash in England and I found a strap-on penis that was like... an inch and a half long. Wow, they sell that. And I thought, who are you going to fuck, a Cabbage Patch doll? That's small. There's a kink for everything. Wow.

Maybe they were in love. I got to pick the right species that would be smart enough to be consenting. Like maybe they were in love with a small chimpanzee and they wanted to consummate the relationship. We've talked about this a lot. Like, is there an animal is morally fine to be in love with? And we've concluded that. Female humans can guilt-free date male dolphins.

Because male dolphins are so horny. They constantly are getting caught trying to fuck the people they're swimming with. They're perverts. And there's these scientists that studied them and the dolphins fucked some of the scientists. We don't think it's right for a male human to fuck a female dolphin, but vice versa is totally fine with us. What's your verdict on that? Gosh. Because bonobo chimps are famously very horny.

So I think I'd be fine with a male bonobo chimp dating a female. No, I'd be better with a water creature. It would just be more sanitary, I guess. Okay. But ethically. It's more an ethics question. My dive buddy just kind of started like whacking me underwater and then he didn't know how to tell me that there's a shark. So he's trying to scream shark. And then eventually he just went with singing the Jaws theme tune.

a podcast called Oceans Life Underwater. If you haven't listened before and you're interested in the fascinating world of turtles and whales, Then we might just be your new favourite podcast. Everyone's seen this footage of orcas hunting seals. And when you're dressed up like a freediver, you do look a bit like a seal. This show takes you on an adventure beneath the waves.

mind-blowing stories about the oceans and the creatures that call them home. So there's always that possibility of something big and exciting, literally just out of arm's reach. We're swimming with dolphins, rescuing sharks. And we've even visited the Arctic Circle. This is a bit tricky because there are actually polar bears out there. To join us, just search for Oceans Life Underwater wherever you're listening to this.

I'm Raza Jafri, and in the latest season of The Spy Who, we open the file on Ewan Montague and Charles Chumley. who duped Hitler. 1943. Winston Churchill wants to capture Sicily, the key to breaking Hitler. Churchill's spy chiefs devise Operation Mincemeat, one of the war's most daring deceptions.

that hopes to make the enemy look in the wrong direction. The success of the plan relies on the unlikeliest of heroes, a deceased homeless man named Glindor Michael. Glindor is given a new name, a cache of fate. war plans and is dropped into enemy waters. Montague and Cholmley now wait to see if German intelligence have been fooled by their ruse. If it fails, then it could spell disaster for Europe.

Follow The Spy Who on the Wondery app or wherever you listen to podcasts. Or you can binge the full season of The Spy Who Duped Hitler early and ad-free with Wondery Play. Oh, hi, Greg James. Hi, Alice Levine. People might know you from the Rounders podcast you do. It's cricket and people will know you, I guess, from, oh, my dad's in a scandal, whatever.

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from the 4th to the 6th of July. Let me give you some of the line-up. Go on. So Grimmy and Angela Hartnett are going to be doing Dish live. Amazing. We're also going to have, we need to talk with Paul C. Brunson. No such thing as a fish are going to be there. Tailenders. Thank you. And so is Richard Herring, plus many, many more. Crossed Wires is a weekend of live podcast shows, but also free performances, after parties.

We're generally just going to have a really lovely time. I actually think that line-up's maybe too good. Yeah, who could we lose? Don't answer that. Tickets are on sale now. Head to crossedwires.live to get yours. That's crossed. D-R-O-S-S-E-D. Wires. The usual spelling. Then a full stop. Then the word live. Is that clear? He's brains and beauty. A friend recently showed me a YouTube video and it was Spanish feminists protesting the rape of chickens.

And I thought, oh, who would be so low as to rape a chicken? They meant roosters. The roosters were raping the chicken. And then their point was. Oh, God. that if you have free-range chickens and a rooster starts raping, the chicken can run away or something. But if they are in close captivity, the chicken doesn't have any. And then I thought,

Okay. Yeah, that's fine. That does have some backing behind it, I guess. I'm okay with that. A female snapping turtle has no peace. The male is just constantly on top of her. But at least they can try to swim away or try to escape in a way that they couldn't if they were. They also must be master disassociators because they can just literally leave the world and go inside their shell. They can really disassociate, quite literally.

I read the hem of his garment this morning, which is phenomenal. It was in the New Yorker September, I guess, of last year. That's a pretty crazy story. We tell Monica that you got invited to go meet the Pope. The Pope wanted to meet with humorous. and comedians from around the world. Wow. So I was just minding my own business. And then I got an email. I guess it had been sent earlier, but it didn't get to me. And it said, after tomorrow, you're invited to meet the Pope.

And I was in England, so it was an easy flight. So anyway, I thought, I'm not a Catholic, and I honestly don't care about the Pope, but I thought... It's a once in a lifetime opportunity. I'd be dumb not to do it. So I went and I met the Pope. There was a hundred of you invited? Yeah. When I came back, I was like, I met Chris Rock because he...

That to me was more like, oh, my God, I can't believe I met Chris Rock. You listed every comedian that was invited virtually in the article. And you're like, each one of those people I would want to hang out with for sure and meet more than the Pope. But they're going to be there.

kind of a fast pass to me and all these other people, I would. Most of the comedians were Italian, but they were from all over the world. I met this one woman from Switzerland. There was an Italian woman who was the only person to speak, and I'd met her before. Very well-known Italian comedian. And when I met her, she had just adopted two teenagers from Romania. Oh, wow. Teenagers? They were taking her.

canceled checks and selling them because they had her autograph on them. Oh my God. They were gypsies. And then she thought it was the funniest thing in the world. Anyway, so I asked about the kids. And, oh, they're doing great. Oh, they're great. They're in jail. I see them once a month. Everything worked out. So we just went. The Pope read something to us. That's what I don't understand. I would presume if I were you, oh, he wants to have some kind of dialogue.

Right. As you said in the article. Yeah. Why have you guys all come and then he sits in a chair and then this woman makes a speech and then that's that. What was gained from this? She made a speech. It was like 45 seconds long. Oh. And then he read a speech, and it was in Italian. Did anyone ever translate it to you? Yeah, they gave us...

a copy of it. He could have saved time. Laughter makes the world go round is essentially what he said. Oh, okay. So he was thanking you guys. It sounds more like he was acknowledging your contribution to the planet. No, he was just saying like, oh, it helps to laugh. Why don't you all fly here so I can tell you. God would like us to laugh and laughing's okay. He's a progressive pope, right? That's a whole thing. But he had said faggotry.

twice in the three weeks preceding David's arrival. He said it in Italian, but it translates to faggotry. But he was saying there was too much faggotry in the seminar, which I thought was just funny. And then he apologized, and then he said it again. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. He's 86. He is. And there were people, I can't believe you went, and I would have boycotted. I wouldn't have gone. He said faggotry. But the Pope cannot perform a gay marriage.

But he was blessing gay couples about to be married. He's a very progressive guy for a pope. Yeah. Yeah. He sat there and we all... Met him. You shook his hand. Friends of yours had advised you should kiss his ring. Then others said, no, you don't. He actually doesn't like getting his ring kissed. Yeah, this one doesn't like getting his ring kissed. Did you watch Conclave?

Loved it. It's so good. I loved it. But you must have had a particular interest having just been there and experiencing that. Did you cry when you watched Conclave? I didn't cry. Did you? I cried when the guy from South America spoke in Spanish. He starts off speaking English and then it moves into Spanish. What he said was so beautiful and the Spanish was so beautiful. His face. I'm not a religious person and I'm not a Christian, but...

I'll follow you. And what he said was that the church is not the past. He said, the church is what happens next. I don't even know what it means. Right. It's like a great song. You don't know the lyrics to it. Here's to my eyes. And I saw it and I rented it. And then I played that again and again and again and again and again and again.

I loved it. Yeah, I did too. The clothes in that movie, I mean, come on. They are remarkable. Well, that's where the story goes. Well, because there were 100 people there, and you figured every single one of them was going to put it into a routine. So what would my take be? And my take was the club.

And I went to a place that's been dressing the Pope. Well, before you get to there, I need to know, are you off the dome that knowledgeable about all those articles that close? Or do you yourself have to do some research when you write that piece?

I looked up the names of things because I didn't know those. And they're inherently interesting, those names. Like, they're words I've never heard. So I'm like, ooh, I'm intrigued by this. Like a cassock, that's pretty simple. But the sash is called aphasia. Yeah. I like it when I read something and there's technical language in there. Me too. Like not too much, but just some of it. I was trying to describe the clothing as well. And then I went to a place that's been dressing the Pope.

For 300 years. And I thought they wouldn't sell to a layman. And you went with Julie. Julie Louis-Dreyfus. Julie Louis-Dreyfus. What could be more fun than having her in tow? She was just fantastic. So you're trying to think of a ruse by which you'll be able to buy these robes. It takes nine months to have one made, but then they had one that. It was never picked up for some reason. So anyway, I walked right out the door with it. Off the rack. And then I started wearing it.

And it's so interesting. I wore it in London where it's not a Catholic country. With the collar? Yeah, with the collar and everything. And then would see me from a distance and then look away when they got close. They couldn't look at my face. They're scared you'll see all their sins just screaming across their face? I don't know. Again, it's not a Catholic country. I'm an atheist.

And I don't like looking at a priest. I'm like, he can see what a scumbag I am. This is his stock and trade. He's like, you fucking need to come in. I think it triggers that in people. Oh, we're in trouble. Maybe that's it. Oxford Street in London. It's like there's a shift change. And at six o'clock, Christians go home and Muslims. Oh, really? Oh, interesting. Even the beggars on the street go home and are replaced by...

beggars from the Middle East. Wow. Oh, wow. And so everybody on Oxford Street, after a certain time at night, is Muslim, and often they're dressed in, I don't know the names for the clothing. Right. And they are always treated differently. Their people looked me in the face. Because they're living a very pure life. Yeah. They were living a religious life. Yeah. And I felt like they were looking at me like... Whatever. You know, if you want to believe that, go ahead.

We're both wearing black. And so it was interesting. That is interesting. I can't imagine anything more amusing than being on a trip to London and knowing who you are and then just looking over and seeing you strolling around in a pre-style fit. That's really spectacular. I'm almost jealous of anyone who saw you and knew who it was. It has 32 buttons, one for each year of Christ's life. Okay. And so you're supposed to

think about that. The second time you put it on, you're pulling it over your head. You're wishing that he was crucified at 12. That is a lot of work. I wore it on stage one night and the lights were really hot. And so I'm trying to unbutton it while I'm reading. Will you tell Monica your joke about Epstein nails? A man dies and he has a company that sells nails and he turns it over to his.

son-in-law and one day he opens a newspaper and he sees a full page ad and it's a picture of Jesus on the cross and it says we used Epstein nails. And the guy calls his son-in-law and says, are you out of your mind? This is no way to sell our product, right? A couple of days later, he opens a newspaper and he sees a picture of a cross and lying face down in the dust in front of it. It's Jesus Christ, and the caption says,

They didn't use Epstein nails. Oh my God, that's fantastic. What I like about that too is that people think it's a Jewish joke. It's not. It's just a dummy joke. Yeah. The best joke I've heard. heard lately, someone told me at a book signing was a guy wakes up in the hospital following a horrible accident and says, doctor, doctor, I can't feel my legs. And the doctor says, I know, I just amputated both your arms.

That's great. It's funny what you just said about you think it's a joke about one thing and then it's not. And that's why it's actually funny because it's actually not offensive. but you're scared that it is and then you're like, oh, I can laugh. There's like a relief in it. I was watching Shane Gillis's

Stand up. Have you watched him? Have you seen him? Oh, you would absolutely love it. He's very, very funny. But it came out like a year ago and a lot of people watched it. And I remember Kristen was like. I don't think you should watch it. You won't like it to me. So I didn't. And then since then, we've had some other people on who I do think are offensive. So then I was like, now I want to see this guy and see.

And I don't find it offensive at all because it's so nuanced who you're making fun of. And that to me is the difference between what's offensive and what's not. Isn't he really sweet? He's really sweet. And then back to I almost brought this up when you're talking about the Down syndrome check in person, which is he has several family members that have Down syndrome and he has opened up a bagel and coffee shop in the small town he's from that's run entirely by these Down syndrome people.

And he goes, yeah, it's running. You know, it's up, people going, and it's going exactly how you think it would. He says there's a really long line, not because. Well, there's a place and is it. Savannah or is it Columbia, South Carolina? And it's a coffee shop and everyone who works there has Down syndrome or some people have brain damage, you know, they were in an accident or something like that. It's so funny because

they don't take cash because making change is too much. When you get a coffee, it just takes a really long time to get it. And it's filled up to the very top. But you just feel really good. Yeah, of course. Someone told me about a place in Dallas called Howdy. And it's an ice cream parlor. And everybody who works there has Down syndrome. So I said, I'm going. Yeah, yeah. And we went. And they make the ice cream too.

Dr. Pepper ice cream. I would have tried it, but it had chocolate chips in it, and I can't eat chocolate. You can't eat chocolate. But it's such a good idea for a business because you don't care. I mean, yeah, it takes a little bit longer. Yeah, you're happy. The Shane guys, he... Southern? He's from, I think, Pennsylvania. I know what you mean, though, that sometimes I think people hear a word

And then you're making a joke at the expense of something. And it's like, no, you weren't really listening. You stopped at the word and you didn't listen to the rest of it. That happens a lot. Yeah. I think that's what separates.

a very, very good comedian from a shock jock. And to some people, it can all sound the same, but it's really, really not. I'm glad you liked him. I think he's the funniest guy. We saw him live at the Greek, and it's the greatest stand-up I've ever seen. You would love his special. Beautiful dogs. Gosh, something you said a second ago Somebody gave me a rape whistle. It was a red whistle, and it was in a plastic bag that had rape whistle written on it, right?

And I thought, oh, I'll give it to a teenager at my book signing. So I was waiting for the perfect person, the 17-year-old. Boy came with his mother and I gave it to him and I said, I'm not exactly sure how it works, but I think you're supposed to blow into it the second you start raping someone. And then someone was offended by that. And I thought, no, no, a woman's being raped. She's got her hands.

Why can't the guy? I mean, it's the least a guy could do is blow into a rape whistle. Do your part. Oh, one thing I want to hear you talk about a tiny bit is in the hem of his garment. You say, I'm not queer, I'm gay. Tell me the distinction between that. My objection.

to queer isn't that it used to be a slur. And it really is a generational thing. When I'm signing books, if I meet gay men my age, I say there's not a right answer. I say, but where do you stand on the word queer? And 90% of them feel the way that I do. Which is it used to be yelled at you, right? Right, but I don't care that it used to be a slur. It's the fourth time in my life that I've been rebranded. And nobody ever asks. I was in Australia not long ago.

And the flight attendants for Qantas were getting new uniforms. And I just said to one, oh, I love your uniform now. I love the way the navy blue is next to the red, is next to the pink. And she said, well, we're getting new uniforms. And I said, what if you hate them? And she said, we're all getting a chance to vote on them. But nobody did that with queer. The word just...

change to queer and then people say to me as a queer writer and I just like no I didn't pick that yeah I didn't pick it and also it's an umbrella term when I was in Australia somebody Oh, I know a nun who identifies as queer because she's married to God. And that is an alternative sexual state. I meet a lot of women who identify as queer that are married to men, but they're open to the idea of a three-way or something. So now they identify as queer.

And I just don't know why I'm on their team. You're like, we're not the same. Right. Somebody... lumped us all together. I just want to know, who did the lumping? Or BIPOC? What's BIPOC? Black, indigenous, people of color. If you're like a Native American,

But wouldn't you just rather be Native American or be black? Right. But somebody decided. But it wasn't Native Americans or black people. It was some humanities professor who decided that we're going to invent this word. It's so ironic because it's an attempt to be... inclusive. And then in fact, it just sort of erases people's individual identities. I mean, I was just thinking this earlier today. I thought if they were straight people and gay people.

picking sport teams. Gays would say, let's take the trance. I just feel like the genderqueer people would be the last ones. On the field, you know what I mean? You're like, Chunk, we already took the nuns. Okay. Pay the genderqueers as well, you know, and they have green hair and their septum rings and they come over to your team where they just complain about everything. I did a little...

CBS Sunday morning thing about how I don't want to be. And then I don't ever read anything about myself, but apparently my friend Pamela Paul, who writes for the New York Times, she said, can I quote you for my op-ed piece in the Times? And then the Times ran a letter and it was like somebody went off on that aspect of it and called my position problematic. If I'm gay, I think I have a voice. I think I should be able to say I don't like that. It's not like there are...

People in Puerto Rico being called something, and I say, I don't agree with that. It's a word people are directing toward me. Plus, I have a problem with problematic. If everything's problematic, nothing is. Yeah, that word for me is a big... It's problematic. Yeah, it's rough. I do read the comments of this show and I had made a Boy Scout joke. I've now forgotten. It was like a Boy Scout leader and a young boy.

walking into the woods and they're going to go camping. I'm sure you know this. I got to walk out alone. Yeah, exactly. The little boy goes, oh man, I'm so scared. It's so dark. He goes, how do you think I feel? I'm going to have to walk out alone. It's a great joke. Someone was very mad at me. How dare you make that joke? It's disgusting. And I wrote to them, I was molested.

If I earned a single thing out of that, I can fucking make that joke as many times as I want. And she goes, well, I wasn't, so I don't know. And I was like. You weren't, and you're telling me how to deal with it. You don't have any business in this, really. That one got me mad. I wrote an essay in The New Yorker about my close friend, Dawn. And I just said in passing that one of her lungs had collapsed.

nervous about COVID. And so she wore her mask long after everybody else. And she and I were at O'Hare Airport. And I said, Dawn, I think it's time to let it go. Look around you. Nobody else. She took her mask off, immediately got COVID. Oh! But the story was about our almost 50-year-old friendship, right? Yes, of course. So then... My publicist called and said, I just think you should know this is happening. And it was like a tidal wave. I was able...

And I bullied a vulnerable person into taking her mask. I hope she never talks to you again. Oh my God. You almost killed her. I hate people like you. And it never occurred to me. No one was angrier than Dawn. because she doesn't identify as vulnerable. Right. And you can't bully her into anything. Takes away her autonomy in this somehow. Also, if it's a New Yorker, your editor's like, I don't know about this.

No one saw that coming. And then people were so angry about it. I didn't respond to any of it. I didn't read it. Some of it got back to me, but I just thought, I'd love to meet one of those people. I have that fantasy too. Like I wonder if I sat and talked with them. Could we join the same reality together at some point? I do have a curiosity. Like some of these people are very mad. I just want to go like.

I would love to have lunch with you and see if at the end of that lunch you could really still feel that way. But as soon as they even meet you for lunch, they're not going to be that. They're not that. That's a presence you're able to have when you're not. in front of another person. That's an online rage. I think what's a little bit happening is there was a barrier of effort before where you're passing thought.

to get to you would have involved sitting down and writing on paper and then finding an address and a stamp and all that. So you wouldn't do it. You would just let it remain a passing thought. But now you're already at the keyboard and the passing thought can come out. And so I have to often check myself and go, let's just recognize this person might not even think this. It was in their head that second and they had the keys right there and they did it.

I've only written a comment one time and it was the New York Times did an article about Tom Brown, fashion designer. And people wrote in, oh, I can't believe who would wear that. I can't believe that's so expensive. And I wrote, you don't have to wear the whole outfit. And if you were to hold this jacket...

you would understand why it costs so much. And also, somebody's being paid well to make that jacket. Paid properly. And that's all. And then there was something the other day people were going off on. I think sometimes I'm pretty lucky. to be my age because I think certain people like Lena Dunham, who I've done a show with and spent a little bit of time with and is a lovely person and talented person, but I think it's hard for her because of her age.

Her audience, her peers rather, grew up online. And they fucking are brutal. Yeah. Yeah. Amy Schumer it's the same thing. People are just brutal. Amy Schumer has a new movie. Yeah. But it was funny. I haven't seen it. I wanted to write like Really? I thought it was really funny. But then I thought, when do I become a part of the whole cycle? That's kind of my policy. I don't defend myself, but I defend other people I like. I'll get involved in the comments to defend other people.

You wrote a children's book, Pretty Ugly. Did people buy it? Yeah, I guess. It was written 20 years ago. It was? More than 20 years ago. And Ian Falconer did the pictures, but it was for a project of cartoons for kids that the art director for The New Yorker put together. And then...

A couple years ago, she decided to bring it out as a book. Ian died a couple months before the book came out. So it was done 20 years ago, but it came out a couple years ago? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, what I love about, because you were on Seth Meyers talking about it. But you're like, there's no message in this book. for the kids there's no lesson and there's no message and I just loved your defense of that well poor kids I mean everybody look at every children's book there's a message

And it's not doing any good. They're still assholes. Like, look at these adults. It didn't work. The baseline of piece of shit has not really fluctuated at all. Pre or post all these great books. What was the message of brain eggs and ham? That's true. Dr. Seuss was pretty good at it. He wasn't beating kids over the head with anything. But you're right. There's this impulse for everyone to teach them a lesson every second they're awake. And it must be exhausting.

Well, you know, it's interesting to me, too, the reviews of children's books now in Publishers Weekly and Kirkus, which are publications that review new books. And it was so interesting. It said... The character's skin color is the same as the page. review the books for diversity. What color are the people and how many? That's a consideration. I don't read children's books. It's been a while. Yeah, I don't. There was one that I bought 20 copies of, and it's a German book. Oh.

And it's a mole and someone's shed on its head and it goes to different animals and said, did you do this? And then the horse says, no, my shed looks like this. And the goat says, no, my shit looks like this. This is so German. And it's really beautifully drawn in. It was a great size. And then it got translated into many different languages. What's the name of that book? I want to get that. It's got the word mole. Shisha in it?

a little mole who wanted to know who did it on his head. Okay. How could he not? And there's not a lesson in it. Except you see what horseshit looks like. Yeah, you get educated on scat. Yeah, which is important. We did a whole episode on toilets as they vary around the world. And the German toilet in particular is designed with a landing pad so you can examine your shit to diagnose your health. And I was like, that's... Sounds pretty smart. The first time I went to Germany, I thought...

Why is there a staging area for my turd before it fucking goes into the sewer system? They're sick over there. I like it. I like it. I know, it's pretty fun. When Hugh just had his hip replaced, I went with him to the hospital I was with him in this little examining room And one nurse or one doctor after another came into the room and they asked,

Ask questions. Each one of them had a personality. And one of them said to here, when was the last time you had a bowel movement? I said, because we don't do that. We do not do that. We do not talk about that. We do never. And I thought everything could fall apart. If I listen to his answer after 30... Five years. 35 years, yeah. I am so impressed.

I'm shocked because I didn't think I would ever wander into the area that you're a prude. I mean, you acknowledge this is like very prudish of you. No, I think it's good for a relationship. A lot of people think this. Never happened in our house. I mean, I know people who... have that relationship. So when you guys get a hotel room, do you make sure you get a suite that has two toilets in it so that you guys can split up? No, but if you were to go into the bathroom...

I would... Respectfully not go for a while. Turn on the TV. Not the TV, but something. It would depend. If there was a bathroom and it had a paper door and he went in there, then... I would say, I'm just going to listen to this podcast with these big noise-canceling headphones on. Time for me to practice my accordion. Yeah, or I would leave. When we lived in Normandy, there was one bedroom, and then the bathroom, and then the kitchen.

And when we had company, he would be out somewhere and I would say, I'm going to go for a walk. I would be back in exactly 20 minutes. So people would know. Now's the time to try to move your bowels. Yeah. This is interesting. I'm surprised and I do like it. I mean, this is an ongoing debate for people in relationships. Does it ruin the romance? Does it ruin it? We had a house guest a while ago who said, I'm going to go downstairs now and take a shit.

Just go downstairs. I'm glad I know this about you now because I talk about it a lot. Yeah. And I probably would get myself disinvited had I not known this prior to coming over. It's just a different way of life. They're two different paradigms. Right. People who...

acknowledge it and say it's a part of life. I think it's funny. I think it's very inherently funny. I like hearing about other people. Do you like a pant shitting story? That's my all-time favorite story. There's nothing better. I like your story about shitting in your pants. Was it Home Depot? Yes, bending over to pick up some wood. And the bathroom was a quarter mile away. Yeah, and I know there's cameras in there. And I know...

I'm recognizable and I'm walking. I clearly shit my pants. Did I tell you when I got in there, the great relief was there's trash cans in all the stalls at Home Depot. which I think lets you know what the overall health of the laborers in the parking lot is. Like, clearly they had so many pairs of underwear in the bin for the paper towel that they were like, we got to put 55 trash cans in each stall.

I was at the airport a few weeks ago and my friend said, oh, look at that man. He looks so good in his seersucker suit. And he was like in his 70s and I've. fell in behind him later, and he'd completely shit in his pants. Oh! Yeah, that's a gift, though. Did you get immediately excited? No, I felt contempt for him. Oh! I got really early for my flight to the airport. I knew there was a gift shop. I knew they sold clothing.

I'm like, why didn't you go and buy a pair of pants at the gift shop? If you thought this is a nice suit, I'm going to put it in a plastic bag. And I thought, you can't not know. Even if you sat in someone else's shed, you'd be like, Right. It triggered your laziness thing again. Yeah, disrespect. I think that's the recurring theme is that when you smell laziness. Literally. Fucking handle your business. It wasn't about anything other than that. Then I thought, well, maybe he.

He took his underwear off. And he just still stinks a bit. Could you see it or you could only smell it? No, you could see it. And I thought, what would I have done? So I would have bought the shorts. If you're that married to the pants, I would have completely washed them in the sink. It takes some work, but it's seersucker. You could get it done. If they had a hand dryer.

You could go through all that and hand dry them and put them on again if you needed to. But I wouldn't even feel confident to do that. I would have thrown the pants away. Or... wrap the jacket around your waist. I sent Monica a photo one time. I was at the pharmacy and I was in line and the woman in front of me who was wearing yoga pants had shit herself. Her pants were full of shit and she was waiting in a very long line and she was so casual.

And I just thought, this woman's a gangster. I couldn't do that. I had to admire the bravery and the fuck it-ness of her demeanor. I just was like, man, when I shit my pants, I'm racing to handle it. This woman was like, no, I'm going to stop by the pharmacy. That's on my list. God knows where else she went. She might have gone grocery shopping. I would have gone to the second person in line. She had her pants. Do you mind if she goes in front of you? And then when you led her.

Up there, people would look at the back of her pants because they'd want to say, hey. Yeah. I was in life. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I probably would have judged her for wearing sweatpants outside the house. Yeah. There would have been a lot of offensive things for you. The chin in the back of it would just be secondary. The entree would be the sweatpants. Yeah, of course. Alice and Matt here from Wondery's podcast British Scandal. Join us for our latest series, a truly saucy tale of sex...

society and scandal. It was the tabloid sensation of the 60s. A wealthy socialite more used to gracing the pages of Tatler suddenly thrust onto the front pages of the newspapers for all the wrong reasons. Margaret Campbell was the Duchess of Argyll, but when her gambling, cheating husband's money problems became marriage problems, he divorced her, telling the world about her voracious sexual appetite

And 88 lovers. But Margaret was not prepared to go down without a fight. So get ready for wind-up copper penises, you heard me, dodgy Polaroids and disgrace. The Dirty Duchess is available now. Follow British Scandal now wherever you listen to podcasts and binge entire seasons early and ad-free on Wondery+. Do you think it's the first time that any Wondery title has said, wind up copper penis? The question is, will it be the last?

Injustice, Killer Privilege is a new podcast available exclusively on Wondery Plus. It follows Katia Faber's fight for justice. after her son, Alex Morgan, was savagely killed by an ultra-rich socialite. Katie has spent years working as a barrister in some of London's most shocking criminal cases.

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Okay, I was earmarking Instagram because Amy's so funny on Instagram. Oh, she's great at it. She's so great at it. I don't know where she's finding me. She is the most obscure. I implore everyone to follow Amy Sedaris on Instagram. It's probably the best follow on Instagram other than Shaquille O'Neal. Where is she finding this? Do you ask her? She's at it all the time. She's scouring the corners, though, of the internet.

Instagram curated. Yeah, she's like a museum curator. She's not posting pictures of herself or anything. It's really her point of view. You could not get her to put something on there that she doesn't. I don't know her at all. I've never met her. I feel like I know her better than anyone I know who's posting actual photos of their real life.

I'm like, oh, I understand her brain completely by these posts. When Amy's on a talk show, it's different when it's someone in your family because you're like, it's not really her because it seems more manicky. And she's not. One of Amy's best qualities is that she's a really curious person. And I think that's expressed in her Instagram. Does it ever encourage you to have an Instagram? I have one, but I've never seen it.

Okay. So you don't really have one, but the team has one. Every now and then I'll go to a play and I'll say, oh, would you put this on the Instagram account? Or they'll say, we want you to be more involved. Then I'll do it.

for like a day, but then I forget. I don't know. It's just not my thing. I understand. But I feel like you might be able to curate some stuff as well. But it really takes a lot of time. Yeah. I've been watching... this thing lately on Instagram and it's people getting sentenced for crimes they committed.

So somebody will get 900 years in prison and they'll pass out. So it's just interesting to see. But anyway, one of them, I watched not long ago, I don't know what he had done, but the judge is off camera and the judge said, you did this to a child. you would do this to other childs. And I thought, childs? Given the position you have on the calves, what is your thought on the ozempic trisepatide GLP-1? Struggling to lose five pounds. And you walk.

30,000 steps a day. But I don't care. I know there are people who struggled for years. Their entire life. And I think this must be just great for them. Yes, I'm so supportive of it. But I was just curious, since you put so much fucking effort into.

Yeah, they're not taking anything from me. Yeah. That's my opinion. It's made such a massive change in so many people's lives and made them happy. And then people say, well, we don't know what the long... No, true, we don't. Although diabetics have been on this medicine for like 20 years, they do.

I don't think that's a really strong objection. I really care about baths. I want to take a bath. I don't want to take a shower. I look forward to my bath all day. How long do you stay in the tub when you're in there? 45 minutes. Oh, nice. And I look forward. to dinner. And so if I were on a Zempic, then I wouldn't, I can't walk away from food. Last night we were at dinner, I noticed Some people had some food on their plate.

And normally I would have said, actually pass that over this way. You ate most of Whoopi Goldberg's dinner at the Pope invitation. I'll eat anyone under the table. Well, we should really have a meal because that could get violent. Really? Even people who think, oh, you can't out eat me. Yeah.

No, I like to eat until I hate myself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's when you know you're there. I think that serves that purpose for a lot of people. Yeah, when the shame sets in mid-meal. You know, it's funny. My brother and I are... exactly the same. And I don't know if it's because having six kids, they tend to corral my plate to keep you away from it. And I just would eat because if you finish first, then maybe you can get second. Yeah.

It's not like I need counseling, but watching my brother eat, I think, that's me. Yeah, same with me and my brother. Limited resources, and it was a race every time we ate, and I hate sharing. I think of myself as a very generous person. I'll buy you anything. I don't want to share any of my food. I don't enjoy it. I'd rather not do it. I went to dinner a couple nights ago with some very generous people. And what I ordered was so good.

offer anyone a taste because I wanted it all for myself. And they would all say, do you want some of this? Do you want some of this? And I would take their food. Never reciprocated. Didn't offer any of my own. Yeah, I've been in that position too. I mean, you're ordering the thing you want to eat. So, yeah, you don't want to give half of it away. I don't like it sometimes when you go to places with people you don't know that well, and it's a small plate thing that you share. Oh, share the plate.

I want all of it. When we're ordering, that's where I have to start the whole process. My wife will go, oh, should we get such and such for the table? And I'll go like, well, I want one for myself. So make sure I have my own appetizer. And I feel crazy, but I can't even enjoy it because I'm racing. You can soften it by just saying...

But I don't mean to. I don't want four people sharing two. I want three people sharing one and I have my own. I want my own and then part of yours. Exactly. I want my own and then the sharing one we're all getting. Okay, but you both have money so you can say, let's start with.

two and maybe we'll get another one if everyone's still hungry. Nope. You guys aren't resonating with this? You know what I like to do is when dessert time comes, I like to order more dinner. Oh, yeah. You might like this. We were in Austin six months ago, and we went to Lambert's, my favorite steakhouse there. I got a ribeye. And you would know as a fellow addict, The first bite, I'm angry. I'm like, fuck, this is so good. It's going to disappear.

I should have ordered two. It'd be crazy now if I ordered a second one because Monica will be waiting. I was... Very uncomfortable with how good it tasted and how panicked I was it was going to run out. So we went back two nights later. And I got two ribeyes. I could relax and breathe. And I enjoyed the shit out of both of them. But it's like, you know, when something's so good, my first thought is like,

Fuck, it's going to go away. There's a place in Melbourne called Tipo 00, which is a kind of flour they make pasta out of. And it's one of my favorite places. So I was there for two days. And so I went both days that I was there. And the second day I ordered two pastas. Yeah. And did you eat them both all or were you like, I'll save some, take some home or no? I ate them both all. And I would have eaten dinner there both nights too, but I was doing a show and I eat dinner while I sign book.

because otherwise I'm not getting out of there. All the restaurants are going to be closed. I hate having my picture taken. I hate how people take your picture like you're a statue. They don't ask you. It's so rude to me. Anyway, so they have signs up, no pictures. And this woman came up and said,

After standing in this line watching you eat for 10 minutes, I understand why you don't want any pictures taken. Because I eat like a caveman. Well, yeah, maybe part of it is the big family, but the addicts. thing is a piece of this. Can you relate to the panic the second you recognize it's something you really love? But I haven't been to that place. I'll go there. The Four Seasons there has a smoked ribeye. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's pretty...

Great. My fetish is that same hotel. We were in Tokyo end of January. And so we went to a teppanyaki restaurant at the Peninsula Hotel. And it was the best steak I've ever had in my life. Really? Unbelievable. I will go just for that now. That's still the greatest gift in life is when you have a meal like that. And I was just sitting there thinking, how many entire cows have I eaten in my life? And this is...

Best. Wow. And then I like to sit next to somebody who I know doesn't finish their food. Yes, yes, yes. That's very smart. Tactical. But back to the Ozempic thing, I agree with you. I think that takes away your desire. for food. And that's sad. I know. I've thought of many people I know who live to eat and I thought, I can understand that they don't want to lose their passion. Their excitement for dinner. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But plus, Hugh is a really...

really good cook. And he's a very generous cook. He'll say, what would you like for dinner? And if it takes four hours to make it, and I'm not saying he'll do this every night, but a lot of times, he'll spend four hours. What's your single favorite dish of his? It's this manicotti my mother used to make. Other people have tried to make it. It just takes me right back to my mother. And most people, they don't make a meat manicotti.

And I like the store-bought shells. He started making his own shells and it's like, no, no, no. I like those ribbed store-bought shells. The big boys. They're like a taco shell, pasta style. It would really change our relationship. If we didn't have that to do together, we always eat dinner. at the table. The only time we're allowed to watch TV is at the Academy Awards, but we eat dinner at the table with candles on the table. It's a lovely thing to have with somebody. It is. Yeah.

Where would we be if we didn't have that? Well, you just eat half of a manicotti, I guess. I have many friends on it, and they seem to still enjoy it. They just don't want to overdo it like you and I want to do. I just can't imagine...

putting anything away. You know, like when you meet people who take three puffs of a cigarette and put it out. Four sips of wine. Right. Or just turn back to their scotch and it's all, all the ice is melted. Or I'm regularly at a table and people go, should we get that banana pie to have a bite? That's me. I just don't eat dessert. I got to do some bargaining with myself. So I'm like, I'll go savory. I go as hard as I want on savory, but that's off the table for me.

And I just think, look at these psychopaths. They're going to order a dessert and they're going to have a bite. Well, last night at dinner, we split a piece of banana cream pie. But I felt good about that because I could have had a whole piece of banana cream pie for myself, but I need to lose 4.8 pounds. By the 28th of March. Okay. What is happening on the 28th? I start a new tour. Okay. And you want to be this very specific way? I want to be 145 pounds.

Okay, why? When I start my tour. That's the only way I do it. I'm just strict with myself, and I get out of control, and then I kind of rein it. But it's like a... five pound range yeah yeah yeah yeah you just talked about your mom and how much you like that it reminds you of her and I just want to say out loud I heard you say the sweetest thing in one of these interviews I was watching where you said my whole mission as a writer

has been to make the rest of the world love my mom as much as I did. Yeah, that's what I feel. That's so fucking sweet. My dad would get so mad. What did you have to say that for? But he never understood. My father would say, I love my mother. She was a wonderful woman. What was so great about her? Oh, I loved her. She was wonderful. How was she wonderful? She was a wonderful woman. And it's like, he could say to me, my mother.

I was an alcoholic. Or my mother pressed my face against the skillet one time to teach me a lesson. She didn't do any of those things. It wouldn't make me dislike her. It would make her more real to me because when you're just saying she was a wonderful woman, you're not telling me anything. If you can include somebody's weaknesses... in something that you write. I wrote something recently. When we were kids, we'd have dinner together and my father would leave.

go downstairs the second he could and the rest of us would sit around the table with my mother for hours and hours at 10 30 on a school night and we're still with our mother around the table I think she really liked having a lot of kids and she liked us and we liked her and

She would go to the bathroom and we would follow her to the bathroom. And she would throw up every single night. And then she would come out and say, I ate something that didn't agree with me. And it wasn't until you're older that you're like... All of the dental problems.

Mama's bulimic. Maybe now it would be a bit different, but at the time there wasn't a word for it. That didn't make her a bad mother. No. Right. If my goal is to make people love my mother, I don't think that that impedes my goal any. No, it just makes her human. Okay, you're going on a 40-city tour. You do it every single year, right? Every fall and every spring. Do you love being on the road?

Yeah, I do. You will do a reading. And as you already know, lots of armcherries go and we hear about it all the time. Like, oh, my God, I saw Sedaris in Skokie. I saw him in all these places. And you do book signings generally and they go on until they're over, right? Yeah. How long are they? The longest one was 10 and a half hours. Oh, my God. That was on a book tour. Can't you get piles? Is that a thing?

Isn't piles the old word for hemorrhage? Probably, but people are only going to wait in line for ten and a half hours once. They're not going to do it a second time. Gotcha. But usually if it's a lecture tour, it's a different thing because people bought a ticket. I got the longest one I did recently. It's like...

five hours. But usually I get in the theater and I start signing books immediately because I don't need any prep time. And I'm there at the theater because I got to do sound checks. So what am I going to do? Sit in the dressing room? So I do it beforehand and then I do it after. And usually you do it an hour before and two hours after.

I reread themes and variations today. Do you recall that story of yours? It's so good. And it's all about signing. I mean, mostly there's so much fodder in these signings. You get so many wonderful stories, but. to David and said like, I put my bra back on for you. Yeah, she said I take it off when I come home from work. I don't put it on for anyone. Once it's off, it's off. And it explains so much.

much to me because I found this woman's phone in England and I tracked her down, which is really hard to do. And I knocked on the door and her husband came to the door and I said, I found a telephone. He called over Sherry. And then she comes to the door with her arms crossed over her chest. As if I stole her phone. And then I realized, oh, she took a bra off. Yeah. And her arms are crossed. Now he starts asking everyone who comes up to get a book signed, when do you take your bra off?

That's actually a great question for people. Yes. Some of the women are like, oh, heavens no, I take it off in the car. They don't wait to get home. I met a Scottish woman who takes it off on the bus. And I hadn't even thought of it either. Reading that story again, I was like, it must feel incredible to get that fucking bra off. Like, I can actually feel the sensation.

of liberating these boobs that have been bound up. You know, like sometimes you're wearing a pair of shoes that's too tight or something. Yeah. And you come home and you take them off and you're like, oh. The last thing you want to do is put them back on. I am not in a rush to get it off, but I wait till the longest moment before I put it on in the morning. So like if it's a weekend. and I'm not going out anywhere, I probably won't wear one.

But when I get home from work, I'm not like, I got to get this thing off. You're not dying to get out of it. Now, is there any element of that that you're like, I must protect their buoyancy? Why I don't put it on? Why you don't take it off right away. No. No. I just forget. Okay. I have Great Bra Skims shout out sponsor. Yeah, big, big shout out. But is that like... When I was in Hawaii, I saw people with long sleeve shirts on and then they had hats on and they had things protecting their neck.

And they had sunblock. But part of me thinks when you're 60, you're going to look 60. Whether you... Live your life in the shadows. In the shadows. You're going to age regardless. So is that like that with breasts? I've had girlfriends. That's why I asked. I've had girlfriends that are like, I have to keep it on until I go to bed because I don't want them to get saggy. They're thinking of maintaining the buoyancy of their breasts. I don't think that's going to help. But by that.

reason, then a tight brief would keep your ass firmer than boxer shorts. But I'll tell you this from anecdotal experience and one experiment. my testicles were getting droopier and droopier and droopier. And one of the most embarrassing moments I had, which I've told on here before, is I was...

shooting as a guest star on the TV show and the lead actress was not working that week. They gave me her trailer. And this is a very perverted and I'm sorry for this story, but this was 20 years ago. I already love it. I finished my last day of work. And then I was told, oh, they're actually calling her in, this actress, back to her trailer.

And so I started getting kind of horny with the notion that she might walk in while I was naked. And then I happened to walk by a mirror and it was a very hot day that day of shooting. And I looked and I was like. Oh my God, my testicles are longer than my penis. This is a nightmare if she walked in and saw how droopy these balls are. Your dick should always be...

further down than your testicles. And again, this was 20 years ago. And I was like, where are these balls going to be when I'm fucking 50? Like, I'll have to tuck them in my socks. That's what I was en route to. Then I did a movie. I guess it was 10 years ago, nine years ago. And in the scene, I had to wear me undies. They were tight. They were boxer briefs. And I was like. Oh, I actually like these. And I switch to those kind of panties. And David, my testicles are half the length.

that they wore when I was wearing boxers for a decade. Hey, it's really funny to hear a man say the word panties. I'll never call a woman's undergarments panties, but I exclusively will call men's panties panties. Because a woman said to me... I had used the word panties in an essay. She said, only men say panties.

I don't think that's true. I think women say it in a sexual context, but I agree that you're not like, I'm going shopping for panties today. What would you say? Unmentionables? No underwear. Personally, that if your testicles. They look like taffy. I'm going to add that. Yeah, like saltwater taffy. If you put an ice cube... So maybe the heat had something to do with it. Oh, it had an enormous amount to do with it. But I'm telling you.

Even ice cubes would not have rectified the situation. And I put my clothes on so fast and got out of that trailer. You can't imagine. Have you ever seen kangaroos balls in Australia? They're just really disgusting. Disturbing. So long. Happy life. Oh, God. We're going to have to do some Googling. I could have put mine in a ponytail. Oh, my God. I absolutely love that you say that. When my second book came out, my first book

It was just stuff I'd written on. And the second book, they said, what's your book going to be about? And I said, oh, go to a nudist colony. Because I'd never read anything about it. And I don't even like walking around my house barefoot. I'm the last person to go to a nudist colony. And I kept putting it off. And then my...

editor found a place and it turned out to be a senior citizens nudist trailer park in upstate New York so I went and I lived in a trailer so I would get to my trailer and I would put my clothes on and then someone knocked on the door and I'm like just a minute I'm racing to take my clothes off. Because if you answered the girl with your clothes on, they'd be like, what's going on here? It was opposite land. I was invited to somebody's house for dinner.

Naked. And I went naked and you bring a towel and they're naked. You did that for how long? Ten days. Wow. That's the problem. I have seen enough documentaries about nudist colonies. It's just not what you want it to be. It doesn't attract the people you want to see. And this is senior citizens. So they were playing the Tonk a lot, which is a game where you take a metal ball and you toss it. And then the game's over and you go and you bend over and collect. So you were seeing people.

Asshole. Asshole. Yes. Did a snack bar and the waitress would have a tampon string hanging out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No. No. People would come out of the bathroom and they'd have a big ring around their bottom so you would know exactly. Sometimes people go in the bathroom and you think, oh, maybe they needed to wash their hands or something. Clean out their seersucker suit. Wow. Oh, man. Yeah, it's not sexy. You want it to be sexy and it's not sexy. If there's dick and balls around...

I'm going to stare at them. I can't imagine myself getting immune to it. You know, I think being gay and being in a locker room or something, you're always kind of living in fear that someone's going to say, what are you staring at? Yes, yes.

You're just extra super conscious. Yeah, that's my straight privilege. I can totally stare at dicks and balls. Yeah. And no one thinks anything. It's not dangerous for me. But I always thought people are just so wasting their time when they're thinking about like trans women in the bathroom. Hey, there's nothing to look at in the bathroom. And a trans woman is like, that's gay people you don't want in the locker room.

You know, I mean, not that they're going to attack you, but they're going to appreciate, you know, they're going to be looking at you in a way. Well, my bigger issue is it's always the same thing. No one's worried about a trans man going into the bathroom. They're worried about a trans woman going into the girls' bathroom. Right. So they believe that this person is a predator who will abuse children.

And they're like, they can't be in the girls' bathroom. They must be in the boys' bathroom. There's no concern that the boys are going to get molested by this predator. It's just like they're with girls. They can't be with girls. They must be with the young little boy.

Nothing got safer. You've prioritized little girls getting molested over little boys. Does that make sense? Yeah. But I haven't read about a single person being attacked. No, it hasn't. No, no, no. It never happened. It's craziness. And how you're monitoring this, let's say it passed. No trans women in the bathroom. Is someone at the door checking dicks and genitals? Is that what we're all signing up for?

No trans men in the bathroom. I have to show my dick and balls to go into the. I mean, try to work out how it's going to be enforced. And I'm not clear. You know, when people were ragging on Ellen DeGeneres, I don't know her. I've never met her. But I think she did so much more for gay rights than most activists because people watched her and people grew to love her. And then she said, I'm a lesbian. And they were like...

Okay. Shit, I already love you. Too late. Yeah, and I just think trans people need that. Because I can't think of a single one that I've met who's like... get that tiresome asshole away from me I just can't think of and that doesn't mean that they're all lovely but I was in Australia and I went into a drugstore and there was a

trans woman working in the drugstore and she had real personality and she's like oh do you want to take that packaging off that before you leave it hurt me to think that anyone might not wish her the best. Totally agree. Yeah. But I agree with you. That's how all things become palatable. You meet people

who you like, who are of different religions, races, all of these things. And then you're like, oh, that's fine now. Most hardcore racists, they've never even been in class with a black kid. They don't know any black folks. They hate them, but they've never, ever even met them. Is generally the case. Did you watch Sing Sing? Yes. We had Coleman Domingo on for that. Because when I said earlier that when Dawn, you know, prisoners would come get out of prison and stay at her house.

When I saw that movie, I thought I should take prisoners in my house because when he got out of prison at the end, I was so glad to see that his friend was there waiting for him. I thought, oh, I want him to come and live in my house and then find a job and I'll be that. step between. And again, it's not like he was really in prison. It's just that movie made me. You want Coleman Domingo to come live in your house. He was on the show. Yes, I love him. He's pretty special. Do you know him? No.

Oh, he is as special as they get. Is he pretty tall? Yeah. He's tall. He's got gorgeous legs. He was wearing short shorts. As you know, amazing fashion. Yeah, he's crazy into fashion. Okay, but I want to really, really... beg people to go see you in person reading your stuff. It's so, so fun. I've done it. And you're going to 40 cities and... I think people would be shocked how close you'll probably be to where they live. It's not like you're just in major cities.

You're in Akron. You're in Fort Wayne. You're in Burlington, Albany. You're all over the place. People should go to davidsiderisbooks.com and get tickets. It's such a fun evening. And if you want to hear him ask you a weird question, very high likelihood that'll happen if you stay in line. You'll talk to everybody and you'll write something very inappropriate in their book. You'll ask them a very inappropriate question.

It promises to be a real experience. Well, that's nice of you to say. And also, for anyone who's not listened to the audio book of Happy Go Lucky, I really recommend it because themes and variations, that... recording of that story is from a live show and the amount of laughs in that you don't pound for pound hear comedians really getting that of laughs. It's such a funny piece and to be an audience listening to it I think is so great. Well, I want to do my whole next book completely live.

That's a good idea. Well, because sometimes if you record in the studio, then it can be edited in such a way that it fucks your timing up. But if you're doing it live, then you can't. I like that. That and... You're getting real-time feedback of what... part we want to sit in for a second is it possible for you to really know

what part we'd like to sit in for a second. But the audience forces you to sit in some things. I tried reading something about going to Fiji. I wrote it when Hugh and I were in Hawaii, but I was on tour, but I had a five-day break. in the tour. So I read something out loud and then...

I go back to the room and rewrite it and read it out loud. Because you read it out loud and you think, oh I thought people could relate people can't relate to this so how do I make this more relatable and people are just confused by that So let's get rid of that. Ultimately, you could have an editor telling you that, but I'd rather you be the editor. You're working in like a stand-up routine in some way. And I think that's kind of cool and novel.

stuff. A lot of times people are, oh, you're going to be reading from your books. No, I never do that. Right, right, right, right. So anyways, everybody go to davidsiderisbooks.com and please go see David live before you perish because it's totally worth the trip.

And then, yes, listen to Happy Go Lucky because I had so much fun re-listening. I adore you. Oh, thank you so much for having me. I think you're our leading guest. You, I think, have the crown for the most. You're our Alex Baldwin. Let's keep it up. Keep coming back, please. Every armchair, if you ask anyone, like, who are your favorite guests? We pull them. You always come up. I meet so many people who listen to your podcast in Australia.

I even met a lot of people who listen. We want to go there and do a live show. That's what I say. Go see him live. That's what I say. That's exactly what I told him to do. All right. Love you. Love you. See you around soon. Thank you. You're stressed out. Yeah, but I'm trying not to be stressed out because... Buddhism. Yeah. I'm trying. I was yesterday. Did you get impacted by the. Extremely impacted by White Lotus Valley.

We won't talk about it with the details because you haven't finished, but I do want to talk about it overall. There are so many parts. of the whole season. The whole season is about... I mean, the whole series is really about Buddhism, I think. But this season specifically... is like, you know, kind of hitting you over the head with it a little bit. Yeah. In the most realistic way. Yes. He, oh my God. Mike White? I just think Mike White is... So brilliant in his accuracy.

Like everything, every storyline is so accurate, but so funny. He dabbles in Buddhism, so it comes through in all the seasons, I think. Because I think what they're all saying in different ways, obviously the first season is a class. is speaking to class, you know, and second season is speaking to relationships, and then this one is religion, that he just shows over and over again how... flimsy our grass.

on reality is uh-huh like what we think is true to us and what our identities are and who we are and even our beliefs are are are so flimsy everything Yeah, we've built up a lot of artifice around what is, at the end of the day, another animal on planet Earth. But we've created all these things and manufactured things and then...

Yeah, we have institutions of thought and they all feel really substantial and permanent and real. Nothing's real. But it's just all stuff we made and it's ideas we thought up and told other people and they caught on. We're just here. I was thinking in the simplest terms, they were going to breakfast. They're always going to breakfast on the show. And it seems so fun. I get like so excited at the notion of being at a hotel and going and getting breakfast when I see the scenes. And I go.

Oh yes, breakfast is so fun. And then I go, yeah, because it's eating. Yeah. It's the essential thing. We really do have a purpose, which is we have to eat food. That's like one of our purposes. Like the most consistent source of joy in your life is eating. Like you're almost guaranteed three times a day to have this like fun pick me up. Not anymore for a lot of people.

Well, true. That's a good, bring up Ozemp. I know. Peptides. Does that make any sense? I was like, oh yeah, it's not a mystery why breakfast, lunch, and dinner is so fun because we have to eat to stay alive. That's our purpose. Yeah, but then we put so much on top of it. The expense, like I'm going to a fancy restaurant tonight. That proves that I... I'm I'm doing a valuable in society and that people want to be I'm superior. Like we put we make all these hierarchies and.

And it's all made up. Like everything is made up. I was, because yesterday I was walking to go somewhere to work. And I like sat down with my computer and I thought, how do Buddhists work? Like, I don't want to do that. What is the point of this? What is the point of sitting here and picking apart this? conversation and making it sound good and all of this is for money and like, why? Well, hold on. No. Why? There's a very Buddhist approach to work.

But it's for money. No. Well, if you make it about money, then yes. Being diligent and meticulous and thoughtful and mindful about process. Is very Buddhist. It is. I know. And. I know. But for me, there's stress on it, right? Like I'm doing it so that it. So good so that we are able to. downloads and then we're able to earn our money and it's all like

And I'm able to feel comfortable in that big house. And like, it's all dumb. You're having a real reckoning. Yeah, it's all dumb. And it is so... so ironic and so stupid, but I... This isn't a bottle episode, but it kind of is. You love your bottle episodes. Yeah, yeah. You want to keep them going? On Friday, I mean, on Saturday, I went shopping with Callie. Uh-huh. And as we love to do. Yeah. And you went to a new store. I went to a new store that I was really excited to go to. Yeah.

fancy store that, you know, you walk in and you do, it's very pretty woman. You come in and you have to prove yourself there a little bit. And, um, Callie even said she was like, opposite of Costco. I'm just finishing the acquired Costco episode. Completely opposite of Costco. Costco is a fantastic company.

Like when we walked up, they said, do you have an appointment? And we said no. And then they said, okay, it's fine. How many? And we said two. And they said we could go in. While we were there, there was a watch. Beautiful watch. There was a gorgeous wad. Two, actually. And the first one I tried on... Was gold. Cartier. Beautiful. It has like this tiny face. I love, I love a tiny face. You love a tiny face, yeah. I like a bigger face. I love it.

It's so tiny, you wouldn't believe it. Okay. And it's vintage. Do you need a magnifying glass to see what time it is? Almost, almost. What if it came with its own matching magnifying glass you have in your pocket? Yeah. But it was tiny too. It's so tiny and, you know, I put it on and it was beautiful. And then he said the price. I was like...

You had to tell your face not to react. Yes. And I was kind of like, get it off. Like I can't, it shouldn't be on me. Like get it off. How much was it? 50,000. Oh, cowabunga. Yeah. So he took it off, but there was this other one I had seen, and Cal was like, maybe you should try on that other one. He put it on my wrist, white gold, Cartier, tiny face, also vintage. I mean, it is so...

Pretty. It looks great on my wrist. Yeah. It's extremely unique. Uh-huh. Asked the price. He told me. It was significantly cheaper than the first one. Right. So then it fell. Like a bargain. Felt cheap. I said, I'm going to think about it. Yeah, okay. Took it off. Callie made me promise her I wouldn't buy it that day. Good girl, Callie. Good girl.

She said, that's something to think about. Yeah, that's a think about purchase. And I said, sure. Yes, that's right. She's like, just wait till you watch White Lotus on Sunday. Well, that's where this is going. Okay. So I— Was ruminating on this watch for 48 hours. Yeah. We spoke about it even. Yes. Yeah. And I, you know, I was like, I really, you know, I was looking on the Internet to see if I could find anything like it. Yeah, you couldn't. No. Because my first thing would simply be.

Anything vintage at a really nice store, they're marking it up 100%. So why not find it in the wild if you really want it? Well, I've been scouring. And you couldn't do it. It's nowhere to be found. They found the only one. And so, you know, then I was like, God, shit. Do it. And then I've been asking people. And of course, some people are like, absolutely not. No. Yeah. And then some people are like, well, I mean, like, it is an investment. You know, people do that.

So anyway, you know, I've been doing this whole thing. A lot of math in your head. A lot of math, a lot of thought about this watch. And then I am watching the episode. Yeah. There's a scene. Yeah. There's a scene with the mother and the daughter. Have you got there? Yeah. Okay. We're basically the daughter who's been... She's there to become Buddhist. She wants to go to this monastery. She wants to live there for a year. Yes. And the mom says you need to stay there for one night. Yeah.

And like, if you're fine with that, then okay. We sign off. Which seemed like an easy thing to do, right? Yeah. And she goes and she comes back and essentially, if you haven't watched this yet, maybe turn it off, but like. Oh, fast forward is what you want to do. Yeah, yeah. She's crying. Yeah. Because she just can't do it. Yep. She's crying because she's spoiled. And she said I'm just so spoiled. Yeah. But even the fact that she's a victim in that is also funny to me.

Well, I took it as she was really disappointed in herself. She was, but it is like, I don't know. She's getting comforted because she's so spoiled. She can't live in a modest, you know, I don't know. Anyway, she basically says like. I can't do it. And the mom is like, I know, you can't. And she basically gives sort of a disgusting, but in some ways scarily. viable reason for why they should be spending their money and living rich. Yeah, yeah. And I was just like, oh my God. How we twist.

Yeah. Oh, and then there's for me the most poignant. scene in the, well, there's a few. Fast forward. But he basically asks his family members if they can live without money. Is that what you're going to say? Oh, no. That's the one that really hit me. So that one hit you. The one that hit me was like, you know, yeah, the dad's finding out if these kids can live without money. His wife's already told him she can't. Yeah. You know, I'm sitting there going like.

Yeah, if someone asks me that question, it feels like a way bigger proposition than I want it to feel like. I mean, it feels embarrassingly like I've become dependent on this thing. These luxuries. This thing gives me comfort. Yep. Like I think a less generous version is like people want to feel superior. I don't know if it's that dark for most people. Most people just want to know like I did good.

you could do good or you could do bad. You could try hard or you could not try. You could study. You could like, okay, yeah, I did good. I did all the things I was supposed to and I did good. Yeah, that's part of it. Much less than like. I'm way better than Mike who can't own a pontoon boat. But it's all subconscious. It's murky. It is a I did good. But with the I did good comes subconsciously some... On this hierarchy of humanity. Yeah. I have achieved.

A position that's fairly high up. What I totally agree with you on. And that's wild and dumb. What's dangerous is. What you're really afraid to lose is actually not the trip or the first class. It's the... Pride that you did good. The notion that without those. symbols of that, you could no longer say I did good, which is a terrible way to evaluate your life because if you're a good friend and a good parent. Also, what if your job is you go work at...

At the nursing home, you did fucking good. Oh, yeah, yeah. Actual good. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But they don't have money and Cartier watches to show for that. Right. They're all presentations. I mean. It's so depressing. Mike White says, you know, identity. What Buddhists believe identity is suffering. You know, that is what causes it. You're tied to your identity. Yeah. And yes, and it can cause pride. And even the belief that you have an identity.

Yes. Because Buddhists are like, it's contextual. You're a different version in every single environment you enter in this. obsession with, no, I have one thing in all environments and in all contexts. Yes. Creates all this suffering. Right, exactly. That's the whole point is nothing's. fundamental. Nothing's fundamental. It's all based on where you are, who you are in that moment, what you believe in that moment, but could change at any second. But there is.

I do think one thing that is fundamental, which is love. Like that is part of this show, this series, but also the season two. Where like one of the characters has the most bizarre arc of the whole, I think, of anyone. Saxon, that character. Where he's like repugnant. Yeah. And very much tied to money and... Being a successful businessman like his father. Exactly. You know, masculinity. Being alpha in the worst version. And then... By the end, he, like...

two of the characters, he sees love for real. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He witnesses it. Yeah. And he is about to, he's like crying. Yeah, yeah. Because he wants that. That's really what is all there is to have. That's right. Yeah. So I'm not getting my watch. But I think the distinction between who is made miserable and who is it not is, is their identity just that achievement? or not. I think it's tempting to just evaluate.

expensive stuff is bad or expensive life is bad. And I don't, I'm not willing to go there. I think. Having your identity tied completely anchored to that is very bad. Now, I love Buddhism and I've been reading it and I really like it. And it brings me a lot of perspective. Yeah. But I'm also going to say the world can't be Buddhist.

They could be. Yeah. We would not have vaccines. We would not have medicine. We would not have all the many things that we also really like and think are beneficial for mankind. That's not their pursuit. Their pursuit is acceptance and harmony. So, you know, I can't go fall. I don't think I'm willing to go full in on the whole world should be Buddhist and no craving and no striving and all that stuff because I also don't. I think we're in a much, much different world.

But maybe you could argue maybe everyone would be happier, but they'd be dying much sooner and there'd be no solutions for a lot of things we want solutions for. Yeah, they don't think like that. They're not going to band together to come up with the huge hydroelectric.

power plant or the sanitation system. That's not what they're going to do. They're going to live very simply in harmony. I mean, they're not going to... try to anti-age no they're gonna they're gonna they're accepting that this is one for them one droplet out of the ocean and we come back to it i do I think it's a very beautiful idea that we come back and we find this.

I like that a lot. In different forms. It's very comforting, yeah. I think I believe it. Like, there are people in my life that I feel I've known. You've done this dance before. Yeah. Who knows? Like, who knows in what way? Yeah, yeah. Here's a scene I thought you were responding to. Is the teacher is saying, often we wake up with anxiety. What does he say? I don't remember. He's like, we wake up with anxiety and we're uncertain about what will happen in the day. And we have fear.

And so what we do is we reach for our identity or our ego. I don't remember the exact words, but we reach for that thing to comfort us. Yeah. And I like any time, AA is great at doing this, any time that someone acknowledges what the real feelings are. Like, yes, I wake up with anxiety all the time. That's my roughest. Part of the day is right when I wake up. Because it's like, yes, what could go wrong today? What has to be done that I'm afraid I can't accomplish? All this stuff.

It's almost CBT to just go, oh, yeah, they've been already acknowledging this for a long time. And they're basically just saying observe it as well. There's a little distance from it. There's an acknowledgement. It's very human. Yeah. It's standard. That's what's very comforting to me about Buddhism. It's like, yes, these feelings are very normal to humans. And here's what you will normally do to try to. Push the fear away. And here's another thing you could do. And I like that part.

The kind of global judgment of things, it gets too dogmatic and too like every other religion for me at that point. If there's like this big judgment. Other things. I don't think it's not a judgment. It's an acknowledgement that the way modern humans, mostly not all. Yeah. Walk through the world is. doing us a disservice. We are causing ourselves so much suffering in pursuit. Of pleasure. Of pleasure, yeah. Yeah, on the worst side, and then just safety, which is defendable.

But for all of it, there's always these, you know, there's just too many great exceptions for all of it. So it's like I immediately think of Bill Gates. Like here's a guy who, per a Buddhist assessment, has generated way too much of everything. Money. Create all these products. But that's clearly not his identity because he's giving everything he's made away. And he's impacting the world in measurably tens of thousands of lives saved. And so the whole endeavor.

is outside of that belief system and I think really valid and admirable. Right. But I guess they would say that... His identity, he doesn't have one. He's a person that did those things. Yeah, well, I think his identity is kind of like... Rockefellers, which is like, I was put here, I was given this crazy gift. It allowed me to generate all this thing and pool this money so that I can go fix things. Like that's their identity and it's a cool one. I support it.

Right. Yeah. I mean, I hear what you're saying. But I guess the goal, I think, is that you aren't doing any of that. You aren't doing that. You're not like. saying my identity is that I help people, even that, like that you don't. put the labels on yourself because they're... They're, as they would say, a prison. Your identity is a prison. It's a cage. Whether it's a good cage, whether it's an admirable cage or not, it's still constriction. Yep, that's true. Anyway. Anywho, wow.

Yeah, it's a lot to sit with. Yeah. I'm not getting my watch. I am wearing another watch I have right now. I bet a lot of people listening would go like, I can't relate to this at all. But I would say, ask yourself. If you could move to a place that's half the size that you currently live in. That's all that's happening. It's like it's the proposition of having less than you have. Yeah. And I think that's a universal fear. It's not a—I mean, yeah, we brought in material—

items and things, but it's just about the treadmill. The treadmill every person is on to get to the next rung. No real satisfaction. That we're all doing that wherever you are on this ladder. And that's the whole thing that is. causing pain. Yeah. So I... You're a Buddhist. I'm quitting. I'm quitting everything. I'm selling my house. And I'm not buying that watch, I'll tell you that. I do think it has the little bit of appeal that a geographic has.

People didn't listen to that episode 10 years ago. But a geographic is a common solution for addicts. It's also a common solution for people with mental health disorders. I'm going to go somewhere else and I won't have my problems there. Yeah. And I do think there's a little bit of a fantasy. I think if you sold everything and you quit your job and you got into this one-bedroom tiny bachelor thing, I don't believe your happiness or fulfillment or purpose is going up.

I don't. I think you're going to get in that little box and go, huh, wow, okay, I did all that because that was going to result in something. Well, no. If you are truly committed to Buddhism, there isn't a goal. You are there. You are present. That's the goal. Like, it's not... I agree. Enlightenment isn't. I'm just saying.

I think if you did all that and you pursued all that, you would get to a point where, like, I could have done all this and not changed anything. Well, I'm going to try. I don't know. It's just it's just a lot. Like, it's hard to look around. It's hard to have this sense of like that. Correct. Like, I think that's correct. that our identities are prisons. Yet, I have constructed a... hard identity for myself. And I know that. And so... to carry both, like to know.

I'm doing a thing that I know. I'm participating in a thing that I actually know is not the ideal way. Yeah. that's like a hard thing for me currently today to reconcile. I think— fully committing to a singular view. I just, I like nuance and moderation. It's like, no, there's some good tenants and there's lots of great points to bring to your attention that you should observe and track. Yeah. And you can improve on.

But like, is full Buddhist the correct thing or not Buddhist at all, the capitalist thing, correct? I guess I'm just like, no, again, they're just two stories. They have valid points. And you try to make the version that leaves you with the most peace and contentment. I think most people could never. Achieve. Achieve full enlightenment. Monkhood. Yeah, or be like truly Buddhist. I don't. So yeah, everyone who believes, not everyone, but most people who believe any of this is.

You are combining it with the reality of, especially in this country, with our world, you know, with our— Reality. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. I'm John Robbins and on my podcast, I sit down with incredible people to ask the very simple question, how do you cope? From confronting grief and mental health struggles to finding strength in failure. Every episode is a raw and honest exploration. of what it means to be human it's not always easy

but it's always real. Whether you're looking for inspiration, comfort, or just a reminder that you're not alone in life's messier moments, join me on How Do You Coat. Follow now wherever you get your podcasts, or listen to episodes early and ad-free on Wondery+. How Do You Cope is brought to you by Audible, who make it easy to embark on a wellness journey that fits your life. with thousands of audiobooks, guided meditations, and motivational series.

Anyway. Anyhow. Okay. This is for David Sedaris. Oh, boy, oh, boy. The fun thing about Sedaris. Aside from that, he's just so perfect every time. Yeah. Is it always reinvigorates me to go back and re-listen to all this stuff. And I've just, since we've interviewed him, I've just been on a tear of listening to all this stuff. So fun. Listen to this incredible one in happy-go-lucky. In the actual, in the specific...

Story is Lady Marmalade. Okay, great. It's wild. The stuff he is able to cover. Yeah, he's incredible. He's just incredible. It's kind of Mike Whitey, actually. He's just so brutally honest with it. The Marmalade story is about, like, over the years, the many weird things his dad did. that were very perverse, but didn't seem to cross the ultimate line for him. It was also, it was the... seventies or whatever. Yeah. But like he examined, he wanted to examine, um,

David's asshole at one point because his stomach hurt. And he's like, you probably have hemorrhoids. And he was like, didn't know what that was. And his dad made him bend over the counter and he looked at his ass. No. As he said, he didn't like put his finger in his butt or anything, but he definitely like examined it. He said as if he were looking at a gem. Oh, my God. And he did that three times throughout his childhood.

He also wanted, he was very into photography and had these art photo magazines and he asked David's sister when she was 17 if he could take pictures of her topless in the woods. Yeah. It's like very bad. Yeah. Just a series of things. And then later, his sister, who ultimately died by suicide or of suicide, accused the dad of sexual abuse. Really?

And then them trying as siblings to evaluate whether they believe her or not, which is like so real. Yeah. It's just so real. It wouldn't be this way on TV and it wouldn't be this way in the media. But this is really what happens. This is what really happens. Yeah. It's such a delicately assembled story. Okay. Now, was there a time where you couldn't order a drink on an airplane because it's Sunday? No. I mean, maybe at some point you couldn't drink at all, obviously, on planes.

State laws regarding alcohol sales, such as blue laws, do not apply to alcoholic beverages sold on airplanes, even if the state has such laws. Airlines are subject to federal regulations regarding the sale of alcohol, which generally supersedes state laws. If you really step back, it's interesting that they allowed drinking on an airplane.

Yeah, I know. I mean, you got 100 strangers sitting in a very tight area. I know. And you're allowing them to get drunk, which we know makes humans unpredictable. Yeah. You can see where it would have never been allowed. I agree. I mean, I'm all for it. People are nervous. Makes the time go by. You don't have a problem like me.

It's lovely, but it is a curious policy. It is. Like, they should allow weed, I guess, too, but like, I don't know, mushrooms? Probably not. Well, weed is different unless they're eating it. Like, you wouldn't want the smoke. Yeah, you wouldn't want the smoke. Yeah, you're eating it. Yeah. Yeah, I guess. It's fine, I guess. But there's obviously certain drugs PCP don't know. Well, a legal drug.

I'll probably not allow. Shooting dope? No. You can't have ODs up in the air. I don't think so. The priest dress. Catholic cassock or cassock. It has 33 buttons representing the years of Jesus's life. Anglican cassocks may have 39 buttons symbolizing the 39 articles of religion. Right. But I didn't know there were 39 articles of religion. I didn't either know that. Okay, I have a surprise. Oh. I like surprises.

I brought everyone one of the books, the book, the children's book, The Story of the Little Mole Who Went in Search of Whodunit. This is the story about the poop on the head. I got one for you too, Rob. And he said it's German. Well, Werner. Yeah, Holsworth. Yeah, these are very German names. Wolf and Werner. And on the back, it says, when little mole looks out of his hole one morning, plop.

Something lands on his head. Whodunit. Oh, and guys, just for the viewer, here's a holdup of it and the listener. It's not like a little bit of bird poop. It's a big turd. It's like a soft serve turd. It's covering his entire head. And there's flies on it. Well, I cannot read this to the children. Yeah. This is going to be right up their alley. They're disgusting like me. Well, you made them disgusting. I think I did. Anyway, so this is an exciting... Thank you. Oh, wow, look at this page.

Oh, fun. It's a yak dumping big plop. You would know, you know, whenever you see that horse droppings, which I see on the hiking trail sometimes. Oh, sure. Make no mistake about it. It's horse done. I know. Because there's like clumps of hay still in it. Ugh. Yeah. I'm so glad we don't eat hay. That's a Buddhist thing. They could probably figure out how to eat hay, but I can't. I want to eat ribeye. Oh, yeah. I want a burger. I think I'm going to have a burger tonight.

But it's like so indulgent to eat burgers. Oh, no. I'm not sure how this is going to work out. I know. I'm going to New York on Friday. Be a Buddhist when you get home. Where I really indulge there. Yeah, no, be a Buddhist when you get home. Okay. There's plenty of time. I'll give myself another week to be a heathen. Fully actualized. Yeah. Okay. Oh, I had to bring this up because he talks about diversity in kids' books. And so I have completed the studio since we last spoke.

or since we interviewed Seth. Do you love it as much as I did? I loved it so much. So I, you know, my privilege, the Buddhists wouldn't like this, but my privilege that I had access. We had to the screeners, but I couldn't get in to the screeners beforehand. So I was like, whatever, I'll just watch it when it comes out. And so the first two episodes came out and I watched it and immediately I was like, we got to figure this out.

ASAP. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have to watch all of it. I watched it all one day. Oh, great. I was obsessed with it. It's so good. Yeah. It is so good. It is so... Stressful. It's so stressful. I almost want to watch it again without the stress. Yeah. It's so... But... Oh, no. Buddhism's my new the pit. Yeah, you switched right from. But this would interest you. I was talking to Tom Hansen. Well, I had lunch with, I had dinner with him yesterday before my meeting. And.

He was just coming from seeing John Wells. Oh, fun. And he said, are you watching? I said, no, but Monica's watching it for me. And she brings it up on every single episode. And he's like, it is so good. He went on it. He is right with you. Yeah. The cool kids know. And he's like, Noah Wiley's such a man now. Oh, I know. Oh, wow. He and I kind of went through the same transformation.

Wasn't he a medium-sized boy? He was, he was. In the show, he's wearing a hoodie, so you can't see his body, really. But he's kind of, he's really masculine. Yeah, he has. He's really become quite masculine. His neck is thicker. You want his bod, right? You mean I want it on me or in me? Yes, yes, I do. I am so attracted to him. Yeah, that's him. That's him on Friends.

No, that's ER, right? No. Oh, they guest start on Friends as doctors. That's cute. Yeah, so that looks like me on Punk'd. Oh, he's so cute. And let's see him now. Oh! Oh, wow. Oh my God, is he hot. Wow. Okay, so I'm just, I haven't watched. When you see him intubate. Oh, he can intubate like a motherfucker. I bet he knows how to intubate. Oh, in real life. Yeah. Probably. He's done this so many times.

But you would think I would know how to mix some music from how many times I hit buttons on parenthood and I don't know anything. I think it's different with this kind of thing. Okay, because he's a better actor. Because you haven't seen it. Yeah. But he— Wow. I would let— Him intubate you? I would let him perform a surgery on me. Oh, you would? Yeah. Wow. I think he wouldn't kind of know how to do it. Okay. I know you're mad about that. No.

I want you to expand how many people you let do surgery on you. Not limit. Thank you. That's very Buddhist of you. Yeah. Anyway, he's hot as hell. I think you'll have enough surgeries. There's enough. Oh, my God. Let's hope not. There's enough surgeries for Noah and Ida. Don't. say that. You're going to get another one of those piercings. I know you. I do want it. I know you so well. You'll get another infected piercing. I will. Another ring swollen around here. These are all coming.

Yeah, something happened. Oh, remember I told you I had an earring in recently and it was hard to get out. Yeah, got infected. Your ears are telling you very clearly, we don't want adornment. And I refuse to accept it. Good for you. Anyway. Identity. I love that he loves the pit. Yeah. People love it. It's like really gotten huge. I'm going to go in. Yeah, you got to go in. You got to go in. I'm just behind Unrighteous and I was behind on White Lotus.

So. Okay. Now, why was I bringing up the parents? Buddhism. Oh, Buddhism is your new pit. Right, but it was, I was going to say something. Oh, yeah. Okay, so the studio. So there's an episode in the studio about diversity, about casting. Oh, my God. Yes. Ice cubes in it. It is so funny. Yeah. So well done. No one can figure out what's racist. That's so true and funny. It's so accurate. Yes. Oh, my God. I was laughing so hard.

So hard. And also, like, because they each individually have the realization that something is potentially racist. And you see them all have the realization at different times. And it is. Oh, my God. It is brilliant. It is chef's kiss. Chef's kiss. Highly recommend the studio. Now, how many cows does an average meat eater eat in a lifetime?

Okay? Okay. The average American consumes approximately 174 animals per year, including 23 chickens, a third of a pig, a tenth of a cow, three quarters of a turkey, and smaller amounts of other animals like fish. shellfish. This translates to roughly... 11 cows over a lifetime. I think I've eaten more than that. Yeah, you do think that. Does it count human DNA in hot dogs? Huh? Oh, yeah, like one millionth of a human from the hot dog consumption. Oh, yeah, maybe that counts.

Maybe that counts. Okay, is piles the old word for hemorrhoids? Yes. swollen inflamed veins in the lower rectum and anus. Oh, ding, ding, ding. This is what... David's father was checking him for. Oh, my God. Yeah. Whoa. They can be internal or external. I am shocked that I've never had a hemorrhoid. I'm shocked you haven't. It feels impossible. Are you sure you haven't? I have some weak systems, but I have some bulletproof systems. As we know already, my teeth are bulletproof. Right.

I think my anus is too, because we both know I sit on that toilet for fucking, as long as I can, as long as my life will permit. Yeah. But you have had blood. Until my legs fall asleep sometimes. You've had blood. What did you have? Fissures. Fissures, yeah. Yeah, I had a bad run of fissures. Yeah, that's not strong. It's rough. But it's not a tongue hanging out of your butt.

Piles. I've never had piles. Okay. But if I did, Noah Wiley could get them off. Would you let him look at your piles? If I got waxed and everything. Okay. If everything else was gorgeous. Yeah. How old is he? Oh, 53. Great age. Mature. Just about to be picked off the vine to made into wine. Yeah. He's lived such a long life in the ER. Oh, God. It's crazy he's still at it. It's exhausting work. I know.

It's getting to him. He has a... I won't tell you. Okay. Okay. All right, that's it. Okay, great. I love you, David Sedaris. Love you, David Sedaris. So much. All right. Oh, yeah, he brought us... We have postcards, but I didn't bring mine. Isn't it behind you? Yours is. Why isn't yours behind you? I have it in my house. Oh, that's a good place for it. Yeah. I thought for some reason it went behind your head. It's on my fridge. Okay.

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At 24, I lost my narrative, or rather it was stolen from me. And the Monica Lewinsky that my friends and family knew was usurped by false narratives, callous jokes, and politics. I would define reclaiming as to take back what was yours. something you possess is lost And ultimately, you triumph in finding it again. So I think listeners can expect me to be chatting with folks, both recognizable and unrecognizable names, about the way that people have navigated roads to triumph.

people will finish an episode of Reclaiming and feel like they filled their tank up. They connected with the people that I'm talking to and leave with maybe some nuggets that help them feel a little more hopeful. Follow Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky on the Wondery app or You can listen to Reclaiming early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.