We All Get Cancelled One Day with Somebody Feed Phil’s Phil Rosenthal

25:01I like them. I said, would you want to do a theme song for a TV show? They said, your TV show? I said, yeah. They said, sure. So I wrote some lyrics and sent to them. And they wrote some additional, better lyrics. and this catchy tune that nobody skips on the show. And it's become my favorite song. And what you said before, which is this idea that you've got to make the show you want because it's going to get canceled anyway. That's right. So whether you get one years or nine years, you're going to have a fun time doing it because it's the show you want to do, which really is just a microcosm of what life is, which is we're all going to die.

25:34There's one thing that I can guarantee is we're all going to die. But the problem is life, we hope, is long. And so we don't live our life with that sense of make the thing you want because we think, oh, I'll get to it or I need to do this responsible thing first. Why else are we here? If we can't know the meaning of life, I mean, we could spend our lives studying that. Right. But I think without any studying, I think we're supposed to enjoy ourselves. Yeah. Was Raymond your big break? Yes. So what were you doing before? Well, I would say big break would be your first job in television writing at all.

26:10Which was? the Robert Mitchum sitcom in 1989. Oh my God. Yes, that's the right response. I didn't know Robert Mitchum had a sitcom. He shouldn't have. That lasted seven episodes. Okay. But what you can learn from your first job in the field, you can learn from any job in the field. Right? So I learned what not to do. I learned how bad it can be. What didn't work there? What was the big lesson there? The premise, number one, you don't put Robert Mitchum in a sitcom. It doesn't belong. But the story behind that was he had been in a TV movie. Remember TV movies? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this genre of TV movie is called a warmity.

26:47A war? Warmity. Warmity. Warm feeling. Not a comedy, not a drama, a warmity. That's terrible. So a lukewarm bath of shit. Yeah. Just nothing. This, I don't know what this is. This is a surprise. Oh, my God. Okay, this is totally, I don't know what this is. This is my surprise. This is chicken liver mousse. Wink, wink. I don't know where this is from. I don't know anything about this. Wait, this looks familiar. I know this. Why do I know this? You got to tell us where it's from. Petit Toit. Yeah. Littoral Lefebvre is the great French chef who opened Petit Toit. You've been to Petit Toit or no? No.

27:24So he's a brilliant French chef. Okay. He's a friend of mine. We filmed with him when we did an LA episode. We didn't have this.

27:37Wow. I mean, so, well, you and I grew up with chicken liver. Red wine mixed in with this. It's very different than my mother's. Beautiful sautéed onions underneath. Yeah. Fresh as bread. And when you get to about here, about three quarters in, that's where you have the heart attack. Hee! But if you're going to go, it's a good way to go. So you have your big break with your seven episode dramedy, warmity yes right and and i i start to first of all i'm thrilled because i'm splitting a salary i i had a partner at the time and that's a very good way to break in is you you have a partner and what the reason you're attractive to them is because you're two for one they pay one salary that you guys split so i'm splitting a thousand dollars a week i'm getting five hundred dollars a week and within a few weeks i'm a thousandaire and i think this is the greatest thing because i went from eating tuna fish for dinner to eating whatever i wanted and i can afford the rent and i can now you know i get that goat gets me another job jobs beget jobs right now i've had the experience now you know if they like you at all you're you're welcome and after a few years now my partner and i don't need to be partners anymore nothing nothing personal right it's just like your Your careers are now solid enough that you can go do your own thing.

29:01Let's make one salary for one person. That'd be good. And I get a tape of a comedian named Ray Romano. Where was Ray in his career? He had been a stand-up comedian. He'd been working 12 years to try to get on David Letterman's show. And he finally gets on. And from that one six-minute appearance, Letterman says, there should be a show for this Ray Romano. There should be a sitcom. And Letterman had a producing deal with CBS. Yes. Now, the way it works in Hollywood is comedians and their people start looking for writers to create shows for their clients, for the comedian. And writers are just looking for comedic talent to write for.

29:37So you take a meeting over lunch. Usually we met at Arts Deli on Ventura Boulevard, where every sandwich is a work of art. and uh he had you know a lot of stories about his family because I just asked him tell me about yourself where you come from and he just said I got twin boys and an older daughter my family lives close by they're always bothering me my brother is older and he's a police sergeant and he lives with them he's divorced he's jealous of me he saw an award that I won for stand-up and He said, never ends for Raymond. Everybody loves Raymond. And I said, well, it doesn't seem like there's anything there we can use.

30:20No, but I thought that's a good place to start. I didn't know if he could act even. Yeah. Right? He wasn't an actor. Yeah. So make him close to himself. And I saw this as a vehicle for all the stuff I wanted to do. Right. Family. What I didn't know about those characters, I'm putting in my characters. There's a lot of my parents in those parents. Yeah. There's a lot of my wife in that wife. there's a lot of me in Raymond yeah and the situations and I write this pilot and I use a real thing in my life that I gave my parents fruit of the month club and they acted as if I sent them a box of heads from a murderer like why did you do this stuff there's so much fruit I can't talk anymore there's too much fruit in the house so I put that in the show that's the scene they tell me that got us on the air why because it was very specific and I learned a great lesson I thought you would laugh at that because you'd go, oh, look how crazy Ray's parents are in that scene.

31:16Right. No, your parents are crazy too. You related to it. And the lesson is the more specific you get, not just in writing, but in everything in life, the more specific you get in your cooking, the more universal it becomes. The more people you hit because we all deal in specificity. So even if there's a crazy thing about you that is not something I do, I'm going to relate to it because I do a crazy thing too. Oh, this is so good because we try and make things general to have mass appeal. But it always fails because it ends up appealing or people can find no relevance of themselves. It's weak.

31:53It's weak. And you know what it is? There's an irony in this, which is the more specific you are. Yes. The more specific you are, it's kind of like people who are bad listeners. Okay. Right. Or fortune tellers if you're into that. Right. Yeah. People who are bad listeners, which is you're on a date and somebody says, oh, my parents sent me this fruit and month club and it's driving me crazy. Yes. And you're like, oh, your parents, my parents sent me. And it's you're competing in specific stories. Exactly. But you're relating. But you're relating because the feeling that comes from the story is the same.

32:29is the same. And so the specificity is a Trojan horse that allows somebody to find their specificity, but what is general and relatable are the feelings that go along with the stories. Exactly. But to your point, the more specific the story, the specific is the story. Genius. That fried chicken is genius. That is delicious in a specific way. Not in a general bland way, in a very specific way. And one of the things we haven't done is talked about the specificity of why we like the chicken liver, which is there's nostalgia. Number one. Chicken liver is a nostalgic thing. And then it's specifically this guy's treatment of it with the red wine, the chives on top, the beautiful bread, the beautiful sauteed onions underneath make it delicious in a way that...

33:14It makes it a more... As if you can't make chicken liver mousse richer, he made it richer. Absolutely. Well, that's a French influence and we appreciate it. It's hard to argue. that's the best chicken liver I've ever had. My mother's is good. My mother's an amazing cook. We were spoiled as kids. I was not. My mother was such an amazing cook and she would experiment sometimes. Oh, I know what's coming now. You're killing me.

33:48I invited Ryan Bartlett, the founder of our sponsor, True Classic, to sit down for a conversation. We call this an ad with authenticity. One of the things I like about you and your company, which I think most people don't know, is how generous you guys are. You don't advertise your giving. It's not a thing you do for stunts or public relations. You are generous because you want to do good. I know this because my family, we volunteer for an organization, and we show up, and there's a bunch of True Classic T-shirts being given out to the homeless. You just sent them six pallets of t-shirts. There's no virtue signaling about, look how nice we are, and you should be nice too, and buy one from us, and we'll give one away.

34:32You just quietly get it done. And it's one of the most attractive things about you as an entrepreneur and as a human being. Thank you. I appreciate that. For a long time, I never wanted to talk about any of it, because to me it felt gross to put it out there to the world. And it always felt very fake when I would see businesses just kind of checking the box of, this is our mission, and we help the ocean, and the end. I don't want to be that. I want to be the people that show up on demand for people. If there's a crisis, I want to be the one that they call and say, hey, we lost everything. Can you help us out?

35:03I'm like, of course. That's exactly what we're here to do. Not just some arbitrary organization that we're going to donate to. I want to make true impact for people right when they need it. There was a tornado last year in Nebraska. We sent a bunch of stuff. Just always things that are popping up, I'm jumping on them. And I'm making sure the team reacts to them, too. If they hear something or overhear a customer lost everything, we're going way overboard for them. We're sending them stuff that isn't even t-shirts sometimes. We're just sending them things that they need. It's so magical for them that a company is thinking that far for them.

35:41This I'm very excited about. This is the only one we've given plates. Wow. So my mother's an amazing cook. And I remember we were so spoiled. The food was so good. We didn't know that as kids. We just ate. It was just dinner. And then we'd go to friends' houses, and we'd be like, this is your dinner? Like, just like, this is, oh. And then we start to realize, like, mom's a great cook. Oh, we're lucky. Yeah. It's like my parents had a marriage that was far from perfect. Holy crap. This is a Basque cheesecake. It is. One of the places we go in season eight is San Sebastian and the Basque Country.

36:21You've done it already? You went there already? Yeah. Have you been there? I have never. Oh, well, if you like this little treat, I think you're going to love going there. This is a great story. Yes. This is the Basque cheesecake from Pajoli in Santa Monica. Have you been there? Oh, boy. Yes, I've been there, but I haven't had their best cheesecake. Okay, so I'm going to tell you the story behind this cheesecake. God, that's beautiful. Okay, so my friend, Will Gadara, who I think you know, He was the former owner of Eleven Madison Park. Oh, absolutely. So Will's a foodie, right? Yes. To say the least.

36:49Yes. Will and I are having dinner. And he says we're doing bang bang tonight. Two dinners. So bang bang is we had appetizers in one restaurant, main course in another restaurant, dessert in another restaurant. That's bang bang bang. That's bang bang bang. So we moved. And by the way, the main course was Wovo just that night. Nice. Okay. So we're sitting at Wovo. And he says, I know where we're going for dessert. were going to Pajoli. Great. They have this Basque cheesecake. And the way it happens, two chefs went on vacation to the Basque region. Yes. And they tried this Basque cheesecake and they competed just as a friendly bet, as chefs do, just for fun.

37:28Who could figure out that recipe? Great. So the guy who owns the French restaurant figured it out. He won the little friendly contest. Yes. So he's figured out the recipe for this amazing cheesecake. The problem is he has a French restaurant. There is literally nothing in that restaurant that is not French. He cannot serve a Spanish dessert in a French restaurant. So what he does is every night they made one cheesecake. And if the staff liked you, they gave you a slice. You couldn't order it. You couldn't, you couldn't, they didn't charge you for it. And if you saw somebody get in, like, could I have a slice?

38:05They go, no. Oh. So because Will's in the restaurant business, he says to me, this is one of the top five desserts I've had in my life, he says to me. And because he's in the restaurant business, he calls up his friend who owns the restaurant and says, do you have any cheesecake left? He says, we have one slice left. Will says, hold it for us. We show up. We drink way too much, whatever it's called, chartreuse. Yes. And they, it was a lot. And then we eat the cheesecake. It's one of the top five desserts I've ever had in my life. And it's here. And here it is. Oh, man. Okay. So there's only one more funny story to share.

38:37So you remember, you can't buy it. You can't order it. You can't get it. So I, uh, I'm on a date and I say to the girl, I got a surprise for you. And I take her to Pajoli and we sit at the counter and I sort of lean into the, to the waiter and sort of put my hand up as if I'm sort of like, I've got, I was like, Hey, uh, is, uh, is the chef here? He goes, no, he's not here today. He's like, and I'm sort of like trying to make his like, maybe maybe he knows who i am like maybe we can do this and i say um any chance you can uh get a slice of cheesecake he goes uh i think we can do that oh and i'm thinking yeah i'm in i'm in and he brings us a slice of cheesecake and it's the most amazing thing and i've got brownie points because this girl's like this guy can get cheesecake and then he says would you like anything else and i hold up the menu and it says cheesecake best cheesecake on the menu so all i did was surreptitiously order something that's on the menu.

39:33They put it on the menu. They put it on the menu. And I didn't know that they put it on the menu. And the girl was like, wow, this guy can really order from the menu. Exactly. So the point is, anybody can go to Pajoli and have this cheesecake now. Excellent. Excellent. Okay. How big a slice do you want? It's got to be small. You got to eat the slice. This is the last thing we have. Please make it small. That's good. Good? Yeah. Okay.

39:59This is the freaking... Oh. this is the shit as they say. Hold on. Gotta get the middle bit. Oh man. This is this cheesecake. Oh baby. Okay so for those who aren't looking it is a gooey creamy drippy creamy cheesecake with a top like all bass cheese case is burnt. Yep. Seared the top of the cheesecake. Alright. So excited I didn't overeat the rest of the meal so I have Thank you for this son. Oh this is such a treat. I'm so glad I found something you didn't know because everything else you own the restaurants. No. This is awesome. Okay you ready? Here we go. Yeah here we go. In we go.

40:33That doesn't get better than that. Top five desserts of all time, right? Yeah. It's unbelievable. Yeah. I mean... Holy cow. I don't think there's any conversation we can have right now. I'm so glad I came. This could solve wars. Yeah. This is something very specific that everybody can relate to. It's the great... It's the great... Unless you're lactose intolerant or you can't eat sugar or... If you're lactose intolerant... Take a pill. Take a pill. Take a lactate. Take a lactate for this one. It's worth it. Or just suffer. Suffer indigestion. Yeah, it's worth it. Food, I always say, is the great connector.

41:10We all got to eat, first of all. Everybody on the planet eats. But if you and I never met and we sit down and we have something amazing like this, first of all, we're happy because it's so delicious. Next, we're talking and we're in a better mood because the food was delicious and we might share a smile or a laugh. So I always say food is the great connector and then laughs of the cement. and so now we had a nice lunch and it was so nice what's gonna happen we want to eat again we definitely want to eat again right so that's how friends are made that's how that's how romance begins they call date for a reason right you go on a date where are you going you're probably going to movies but you're gonna eat because that's where you get to know the person yeah over a pleasurable experience.

41:59Did you have a happy family? Happy childhood? I have to say in retrospect, just like you were saying, you don't know what you have. You go to someone's house. I can't believe the food is so terrible. I must have great food at my house. No, we didn't have lousy food. And a lot of the time, my family was yelling at each other. But when we weren't yelling, we were laughing. My dad was very funny and my mother also was funny. Did your dad know he was funny? Yes, he actually told jokes. The way my parents met was my mom was on a date with a fella, and she went to a nightclub in New Jersey on amateur night, and they listened to the musicians.

42:38And then this young skinny tailor from the garment district gets up and tells old Jewish jokes that she thought was hysterical. And she said, that guy, I think I like that guy better than this guy I'm on the date with. And I always say, if my dad was not funny that night, I'm not here. So I owe everything in my life to Max's sense of humor and my mom's sense of humor for appreciating his sense of humor. It's our most underrated value as human beings. Sense of humor. Is everybody funny? No. Some people, sadly, are born without a great sense of humor. But I think it's who we're attracted to as friends.

43:22You don't have to have my exact sense of humor. You just have to appreciate mine and I have to appreciate yours. You don't have to be the joke teller, but you can be the laugher. Yes. That's your part in the equation. A good team, I find, has like, on my team, for example, a lot of people who are like brilliant idea generators and they're terrible at execution. But I've got people who are fantastic, fantastic executors, but they're not the big idea generators. Not everybody has to have the same skill. If they did, you wouldn't need them. You need the friend who loves your jokes. Absolutely. And that's what makes it work.

43:49Because you encourage each other. You encourage each other. Yes, but I tend to be attracted to people who are, I think, way funnier than me in different ways. Right? Like, that's the writer's room. Have you ever been in a writer's room? I haven't. I've always wanted to. It's probably heaven on earth, if you like to laugh. You're literally getting paid to laugh. And then the only sunshine coming in this room is the menu for lunch. And then you get to order whatever you want from wherever you want. This is at the peak of television. this may be gone now, this life. Right. In our virtual world now.

44:27Exactly. And the end of entertainment as we know it. Yeah. Right? Where kids can make their own movies on the phone by speaking into it and saying, make me the, I want to be an outer space and do my own version of Star Wars. And I want to be the hero. And I like the girl down the street and make her the girl that I get and make my friend over here the villain. And he pushes a button. And then this is soon. This will happen. It's not far. And then AI creates a movie that not only he can show on a giant screen, but he can hit a button and distribute it worldwide. Why does he need a studio? Why does he need an agent?

45:01Why does he need a movie theater? Why does he need... It doesn't. Does that bother you? Of course. Because the art is gone then. But here's the thing. I don't think so. Where I'm coming out on AI, especially when it comes to creativity, I think what technology does is it reorganizes the focus. Right? So for example, we were an album culture. We listened to eight tracks and records and CDs and tapes. We were an album culture until the MP3 player showed up. And now we're a song and playlist culture. So the technology changed our preferences and our taste, changed our area of focus. And who did that screw?

45:38The artist. Screwed some artists, gave life to new artists. but not the life that, you know, Beyonce has to tour because the album isn't going to make her the money that she can make on tour. Okay, we're going to go down this rabbit hole. Yeah. Okay. So it changed the business model. Yes. And so we can't whine that technology has changed the business model. That's like publishing whining that there's an internet. Yes. You know, remember, it's Netflix that pioneered streaming, not the television and movie industry. And it's Amazon that invented the e-reader and not the publishing industry. You're right.

46:13And it's Apple, a computer company that invented iTunes and not the music industry. It's because they're all clinging to the past and missing that technology changes our lives. And you can change with it. We can go kicking and screaming or you can go out of business. Those are your three options. I have nothing against the technology. It's the fairness. Fairness? I mean, the business models change. And so Beyonce may have been able to make tons of her money from selling her albums. Yes. And then the MP3 and the Spotify's. I get it. I get it. Yes. unfair took it away changed the business model but i guarantee you that beyonce makes more money on her tours than anybody with a couple of songs who had a a one a one hit wonder through an mp3 the business model changed and now the better the tours correct me if i'm wrong though ai is an amalgam of everything that ai takes from correct it's derivative human it is actually So it's a lot like stealing.

47:11It's derivative. How is it not like stealing? If a movie studio writes a script using AI. This has destroyed IP law. I mean, let's start there. Like the whole IP law probably needs to be rewritten. But if a movie studio writes a movie script using AI, which has stolen plot lines, lines of dialogue from human beings. Yeah. that studio owns that movie don't they i don't know the answer to that like i said i think this is uncharted territory however what i think is more likely to happen is that a studio will take what it owns yeah and feed it into the system all the movies they don't do that or or or let's or let's say they just take take take take from everybody but i'm saying what if we're going to talk legal, like where there's no legal problems is let's, let's say Amazon that now owns James Bond.

48:06Yeah. Puts all the James Bond movies in. Right. And says, make another James Bond movie for us based on all the previous James Bond movies. Right. They own all the IP anyway. They own the new IP that's spat out for the old IP. Pretty sure they're not going to stick to that rule. Yeah, that's the problem. I mean, that's a different, but like, but like you can ask AI to write something in the style of me. Yes. And it'll go on about why and purpose and all of this stuff. Yes. Which is a 15-year-old book. Yeah, it's mostly terrible now. It doesn't know what I'm going to write. Yes, but it's mostly terrible now.

48:40But you could see in a few years it not being terrible. It's not terrible. Some of it's amazing. But as an artist myself, I think what people miss is that we're all so result-oriented. We want the product. Give me the movie. Give me the screenplay. Give me this. that they forget that what makes you you is writing nine freaking seasons of Raymond. Yep. And you are a better writer now than you were from season one. You're more nuanced. You understand dialogue better. You understand conflict better. There's no learning if AI does all the work for you. You might produce a good product, but you go through life learning nothing, growing nowhere, and you'll have a class of artists that will be the same entry-level human being after a 15-year career as they were after a one-year career.

49:32And I think it's the wisdom that we're forgetting. It's this very human thing that computers can't give us, which is what makes me a better thinker, problem solver, better viewer of life, pattern connector, is not because of my... Because you Googled the answer. It's not because I Googled the answer. It's because I struggled to write my own book. Exactly. And that's what made me better at what I do. And my last book is a much more mature and better piece of literature than my first book. First book's a nice idea, but I wouldn't say it's well written. But the computer is going to get better at that and it's going to learn the way you learned over time.

50:13Yeah. And then replace you. You're not afraid of this future? I think it's... We believe, maybe naively, that we will always have some value as people. I remember when the internet popped up and there were the same things like the death of bricks and mortar stores. There would be no such thing as a store anymore because we're going to do all our shopping on the internet. And what we forgot is people like shopping. They do, but some of that came true. And a lot of business failed. But some of it came true because of Amazon's pricing model and Amazon's ability to make it impossible to build. And the convenience.

50:52But it's business model, right? Yes. At the end of the day, we still enjoy going to stores. And I hear you, but I don't think it's because of the internet. It's because of the pricing that Amazon can offer. I think it's a little of both because when I can sit in my bed and order something and it comes by the end of the day. That's the problem. I mean, remember when the early internet shopping, it came like two weeks. and so like convenient was going to the store of course but now that you can get your groceries in the same day in the same hour and even other stuff yeah it's crazy well i think we can agree on one thing yes we don't know what's going to happen we're probably all doomed and so so enjoy the moment so enjoy the moment surround yourself with the show you want to do because in the end they're going to cancel you anyway and there's that's today's little lesson there's a little bow i don't even have to summarize and be specific do the show you want to do because they're going to cancel you anyway and everything you talk about be specific i think so like just like you said you all the the knowledge that you accumulated through struggle and hard work made you specifically you there is no other you and that applies to everyone and i think so that's a great question which is do we come do we become more specifically us yes over time of course so are you less specifically you when you're young yes as a 21 year old more generic than a 50 year old because you didn't live long enough yet to there's not enough specifics yeah you need the wrinkles got it the little wrinkles wrinkles you have as the amount of specific experiences you have that made you you.

52:33That's right. The wrinkles are earned. The specifics are earned. I really like this. It's a great philosophy for life. I thought we were just going to talk about food. That's really nice. That's a big part of it, and it's a great metaphor for a lot of things in life. Yeah. Food is art. It can be, yeah. I don't understand people who... I think chefs are great writers. Right. You write a recipe. You put ideas together that maybe haven't been together before. Roy Choi, for example. You know who he is? I don't. Roy Choi created the Kogi truck. You know what that is? I don't. It changed the world. Why?

53:15Because here's a Korean American who, growing up in LA, loves Mexican food and culture. He takes Korean barbecue and he puts it in a tortilla. It makes a Korean barbecue taco. Wow. Then he takes a truck and paints it with the word Kogi on it. And as the internet is coming and people are writing now on the internet, the Kogi truck is at Ventura and this, come there. And crowds start coming. Now people go, wait a minute, food trucks used to be just be for construction sites. Now they're cultural phenomenons. The reason you seek food trucks everywhere on earth is because this guy put Korean barbecue in a taco.

54:04He's the OG. Roy Choi. Wow. You should have him on. That's a great story and real entrepreneurship and a work of art that took over the world. We love a food truck. We love it because it's handy. Everyone is different. You can travel by going to a collection of food trucks, which, you know, a place like Austin will take an old parking lot and put a ring of food trucks around it that's been curated. We have a Mexican one. We have a barbecue one. We have an Indian one. We have this. And you have a food festival. So why shouldn't chefs be afraid of AI? Why shouldn't they be? You said that writers are under threat.

54:48Musicians are under threat. Painters are under threat because this AI can do what they do. So why not the chef? You said they're writers. They write these recipes. So why not the AI give me a recipe for this kind of dish with these kinds of ingredients? Because the computerized restaurant could take their job away. If the truck can drive itself and the food can cook itself and serve itself to you, they're out of business. I don't think it'll ever happen. I hope not. But I'll tell you for a very simple reason. Yeah. I want somebody to smile with me. Of course. There's a cookie place in New York City that I went to.

55:22everything stark white and very futuristic and it looks like some woody allen movie yeah yeah and you go in and you there's a screen you go bleep bleep bleep and you say what kind of cookie you want this person in the back gets the order on a screen and they prepare the cookie and they put it in a bag and then some then just somebody hands don't even i think they haven't you they just put it on the counter with your name on it and the people i was looking in the back and the people in the back look so unhappy in a job and it's not the job it's not the mean the there's no social connection it's not the mundaneness of making a cookie and put it in a bag yeah yeah it's what makes my job fun is i want to talk to you and say hi and smile and say thank you and say please yes like stupid little shit also you know pretty girl might come in and a pretty girl but i think what will happen is people will demand it and i think the companies will always offer what the market demands and so companies might be looking for all this way to eliminate people eliminate this and all of that until the one person who starts the food truck who says you you know what?

56:16We're making our own food so that you can see who makes it and we'll smile at you and hand it to you because you'll know that I made it with love. And that's the one that's going to have the liner on the block and all the other AI trucks are going to put people in it because that's what the market demands. Unless one thing. Go. That's the best cookie you ever had in your life. No, I don't even think that's it. If a machine made that best cheesecake right now, right, that we just had. All right, all right, you win. You'd still love that cheesecake, right? I love the story that goes with the cheesecake.

56:43I've got the story of the chef. I always say the story makes it taste better. I really believe that. And if grandma smiles at me while she's giving me her, you know, beautiful pasta in Italy, I'm in love with the whole thing. I'll go this far. I asked Thomas Keller, because I have a podcast too. You'll come online. Please. It's called Naked Lunch, and we eat every time. I only eat with you. Thomas Keller came and did that. And I said, do you have advice for me for the diner? And you know what he said? The number one thing, what do you think it was? What? What do you want to guess? Great stuff.

57:15That's it. Service. Service. That's everything. Yeah. Especially for a diner. You want a warm, cozy hug of a place. The food has to be good or you're out of business. Bad service can ruin good food. Of course it can. And great service enhances mediocre food. And if you've got both, you're a winner. And if you fall in love with the people in the place, you're a customer. You're coming back. You're coming back. Right? We all want to be accepted. And that's why I think we're safe from AI taking over the world. is because fundamentally people want human beings. They want to feel loved. They want to feel held.

57:48They want to look somebody in the eye. You know what everybody wants? A hug. Absolutely. A metaphorical hug of good service or a literal hug. You know as well as I do that if your staff is amazing and a customer comes in, they will hug the staff. The regulars will get hugs because that's how people are. Yes, yes, yes. It's vital. AI will never take that away, but they could take away a lot. So you kind of, I think, yes, but I think again, it goes back to the Beyonce challenge, which is the enterprising ones will figure it out. We'll figure it out. The enterprising ones will be able to put their finger on the zeitgeist and say, you know what?

58:28I can't make money on an album anymore, but the album is my marketing tool for my tour. I'm going to do the best tours of anybody, the best concerts of anybody. And instead of slaving away, trying to market my album. I'm going to slave away making the best tour I can make. And I think it just changes the energy and it changes the model. And so because we're in a period of flux right now, the people with the old business models that can't imagine new business models are the ones screaming the death of everything. For good reason, it's going to be young people or really enterprising experienced people.

59:01But young people who are not encumbered by the old business models will be the ones figuring out the new models. Listen, it's always been... Or the truck. There's a small set of people who make the most out of the business. There's only one Tom Hanks, right? There's very few giant movie stars. And the kid that I described who talks into his phone and pushes a button and a movie comes out, the kid who's best at that will be the new Tom Hanks. Yeah. I was walking down Hollywood Boulevard, and I'm looking at all the stars of all the famous people, and I didn't know most of them because everybody gets forgotten.

59:39Hey, thanks, Simon. This is so uplifting. I guarantee you, my niece doesn't know who Arnold Schwarzenegger is. You know, I'm pretty confident my niece doesn't know who Ray Romano is. And it's no disrespect to anything you or Ray did. It's just like time goes forward, which is why you're doing new things. You have to do new things. You're like the Larry David of the Ray Romano show, which is... I guess. The guy in the background. Yes, except my show now is... You didn't... Why curb your enthusiasm? Why curb your enthusiasm? Don't curb your enthusiasm. That's right. Was there ever a temptation like Larry to make a show of you?

1:00:17This is it. This is my version. I've used him as an example. I am the guy who was behind the scenes and now I'm in the front of the scene. But this is my personality, specifically me. Larry has said that his show is an exaggerated version of him. It's not. I've done his show twice. I know him. He might be a little nicer on the show. he's not a people person no no and i love him he is uniquely and specifically him and there's there is a great need for him in the world there's nobody funnier yeah every line out of his mouth is an episode of curb your enthusiasm the first time i met him yeah i said hey it's great to meet you i was at a party right great to meet you he doesn't say hello he says you think it's all right to throw gum in the fireplace?

1:01:07He just says what's on his mind. You exist for him to talk to. The world is merely a fishbowl for him to swim through. Here's a face I can ask. Let me get your opinion. Let me test this theory. Yeah. All right. I'm going to have a couple questions here for you. You created Everybody Loves Raymond and Somebody Feed Phil. It's always got some name in it to give to that, to do something with Raymond, do something with Phil. so what would you name my show? if it's not the optimism a little bit of optimism that's the name of our show Somebody Talk to Simon it's so lonely by the way Somebody Feed Phil the reason I love that title and chose that title is because it denotes someone who can't take care of himself so right away it's a specific character that's me I can't cook somebody better feed Phil because otherwise Phil will die and I have my brother who produces the show with me and so he runs the show while I'm the monkey in the middle and he pushes me out of my comfort zone because he thinks that'll be entertaining for people I fight him every step of the way and every time I do the thing that I did not want to do it was worth doing like jumping in the cold water off the Irish coast.

1:02:27That sounds awful. It is awful. But I'm glad I did it because I lived. Yeah. And I did it. I jumped into the ocean with these maniacs who do it every morning. Yeah. And I did it. It's in the show. It's in the Dublin episode if you want to see it. And I didn't do it at first. They invited me. I said, no, I'll be here on the side with hot chocolate when you get out. Because I saw they were all freezing. They jumped in the sea off the Irish coast. Crazy people. every day, no matter the weather. But then I fall in love with the people over the course of the day. They're charming. It's like a town full of puppies, the nicest people in the world.

1:03:03Okay. And I leave them, I hug them. I have tears in my eyes because they were so special. Go back to my hotel and I'm thinking, and I'm thinking, and I can't let go of these people and how great they are. And I call my brother. He's in his hotel. I said, I got good news and bad news. He goes, what? I go, I think I know how to end this episode, which I never think of beforehand. It's made in the editing. We put it together and we see the theme develop and that's the show. We get what we get. And then we construct something out of that. He said, what's the bad news? I got to go back and jump in that water because I'm feeling like they have something to teach me and I love them.

1:03:43And I have to walk the walk. You know, I can't just say, try new things. I have to be willing to do that. Otherwise, why do I have a show? And he says, great. He wants me to jump in. And we go back. And now it's getting dark and it's raining. So it's colder than it was in the morning. And I strip off and I jump in that thing. And I'm telling you, it was crazy cold. Like I scream. You see it in the thing. Lasted maybe 30 seconds. I get out, shivering, you know, drying myself off. I'm happy. Why? Because I lived. I did it and you're gonna think I'm making this up that was six years ago every single day since then I take a shower in the morning and at the end of the shower I put it on cold for 30 seconds and it brings me right back there wow it also is very good for you apparently yeah the cold plunge they call it right so I do it with the shower 30 seconds I built myself up from 10 seconds no kidding 30 seconds and you can do it and I'll tell you one thing you forget all your troubles number one number two it's invigorating and you feel well now i'm ready for the day it's almost like uh i'm thinking about all this crap and now i have a clean slate and now i'm ready here i go that's that can happen because you took that baby step out of your comfort zone and changed your life that changes my life yeah you are wonderful You are the personification of joie de vivre.

1:05:16You love life. Because I feel very, very lucky. I know not everybody gets to live their dream. And I'm not discounting that I had to work hard to get it. But I know how lucky I am. And that informs everything I do. So when you start with that plateau of gratitude, right? That baseline. But I think there's a difference there. And you just said it. The plateau of gratitude is not the plateau of luck. You said, I'm lucky. You're not. You're grateful. There's a difference. Lucky is winning a lottery. I did. Right? I did. You did. You did. Yes. Okay. You have to be lucky. I agree. And once you are lucky enough to be lucky, you must be grateful for that.

1:05:56And I'm not making the case that you worked hard for it. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying what I think there's something to be, when somebody has something that others don't get to have, I don't think we want to think of you as lucky. but we want to know that if you have something that I either want or crave or look up to, that you appreciate it. I just want to know that you appreciate it. I feel lucky. Don't get me wrong. I feel lucky for everything that I've had. And I know luck played a huge part and timing played a huge part. You know, I am aware of that. All of that said, I have gratitude.

1:06:28And I think when I hear of others who call themselves lucky, maybe I'm just speaking for myself yeah i just want to hear them say i'm grateful and i'm good i think does that make sense absolutely and you because you just said it a platform of gratitude you said plateau of gratitude that's like the base basis is you have to have a place in the morning i'm already i'm already a winner i'm a winner look i got my wife next to me for 35 years i got the dog at the foot of my bed i won already no matter what happens today every part of the day is is every part of the day after that moment is the lucky yes you start with grateful and lucky is upon grateful and we appreciate what we have and then once you've have that now what how about giving a little back agree how about sharing it with the people it's only good if you can share life is more fun when you get to share with others exactly i keep trying to end this because there's a clock that says you gotta end but i just keep enjoying talking to you thank you well we're not dead yet we'll we'll talk some more i would love that eat some more oh this was thanks Thanks for sharing food with me.

1:07:30Thanks. You're a joy. You're a joy. Just a lot of joy. Gratitude and joy.

1:07:42A Bit of Optimism is brought to you by The Optimism Company and is lovingly produced by our team, Lindsay Garbenius, David Jha, and Devin Johnson. If I was able to give you any kind of insight or some inspiration or made you smile, Please subscribe wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts for more. And if you're trying to get answers to a problem at work or want to advance a dream, maybe I can help. Simply go to simonsynic.com. Until then, take care of yourself. Take care of each other.