Ramy Youssef Returns

22:36I'm going to be parading them up and down the protest line. I sure am. The thing too is I just keep thinking about the reality collapse that we're in. No one knows what's real and what's not, and no one knows what to trust and what information is actually legit. And I think that's the thing that just feels like it's getting even more amplified. Do you think that personally? Because I think I know the difference. And I have a hunch you think you know the difference. And I think Monica knows the difference. And I think this is part of the self-righteousness. I think we think our opponents don't know the difference.

23:06Of what's fact and not. What's real and what's not real in the news. No. Do you think you really can't delineate? I think that my point of how I filter what I see, I would hope is elevated beyond my own self-interest. Yeah. My hope is how I filter the information and how I look at what the facts are would be outside of my realm of comfort. That's where I'm able to look at things I would hope and say, someone wants to say this thing about Muslims and I can actually put together why you want to put that together. other, but I can then step it back also and understand, well, this is why a Muslim might be in a certain position, whatever it is.

23:46That's my goal. But people tend to ruminate and tend to be stuck in a certain thing. And I really understand why they're stuck. And I really understand why they're hung up. Yes. And so we all have our pet things that really, really bother us. And you just nailed mine, which is I believe you. And I think it's incumbent upon you to extend that same belief in everyone else. You have to. You really can't say I can delineate the difference. And I think what you're doing perfectly and what I think I'm good at is you can see incentives when you hear people talk. Yeah. You assess the incentive. OK, well, they have this incentive because they have this worldview and they want this to be true.

24:22And you can correct for that like you're a scientist. And I think a lot of us think we are able to do that and we're not extending that to other people. And that to me is really dismissive. And that's where you get into the elite problem we have. You're looking at it from one side, but I think it could be the other that I have incentives. And you do, too. So I don't think you're capable more than those other people. I think we're all in the water. We can do our best, but we're all subject to confirmation bias and we're all looking for the thing that we want to get validation. I agree. But do you think you're able to delineate between what's fake and real?

25:02But sometimes me and you have talked about this and you've agreed with me that we're not the same. Right. We don't have a standard intelligence. intelligence. It's not just intelligence. We're not the same across the board on anything as far as discernment. I agree with you a thousand percent. But my fear is that you think you can isolate one group that suffers from that more than another group. And I don't think you can. That's what I'm trying to extend to everyone. It's like it's equal across the spectrum. We're all equally good. We're all equally trying. We're all equally flawed. We're all equally not discerning when it comes to news.

25:37No one has a monopoly on this. No one is superior. We're all all of those things. But individually, we have different levels. A thousand percent. But do you think the individuals who are savvier have all made their way to one side and the ones that are not savvy? No, I mean, I just think that I act differently on a rainy day and a sunny day. And I can be aware that someone who I'm dealing with is in the middle of like a rainstorm that's been going on for months. That's kind of how I look at it. Given that you weren't in that, we would be at the same level of discernment. I am not questioning anyone's ability to have a wide universal discernment.

26:16What I am aware of is the particular weather and the particular thing that's happening that I know if I was there, I don't know that I would be where I am because I'm different today. I'm having a good day, but another day I'm really not. I just think that the thing that people really need to police themselves about is that when you disagree with somebody and they have an opposite point of view, if you are forced to make a character assessment about them to justify why you have a difference of opinion. Basically, if you knew what I knew, you would have my opinion. That kind of thought process, I think, is dangerous.

26:51Yeah. Where are you seeing that play out? On both sides entirely. On the left, if they really understood the real timeline of our geology and not a biblical timeline, they would think this way. Just name it. If they understood science, they would understand global warming. On the right, they're like, if they just understood that 250 ,000 people are coming in a month, and that's untenable. If they accepted that and acknowledged it, they would think like us. So I just think when you have to come up with an excuse that's a character flaw, as opposed to, hey, guess what? People have different opinions.

27:21People aren't morally superior or inferior because they have different opinions. They just think there's different ways to get to do an outcome. I agree with that. I think that there are people who are just like, I have the same data as you. And as I see it all kind of come in, this is what I believe to be true. I was at a conference and then lo and behold, Jared Kushner did like a 45 minute fireside chat. And I was like, wow, what's this going to be like? And I listened to the guy. And at the end of it, I had to say he's extremely intelligent, of course. And he has a very cohesive worldview. He has very honorable goals for the world.

27:54and I disagree with the approach. But not everyone has honorable goals. Can't we say that? Or we don't want to say that? Well, all I'll say is, yes, some people don't have honorable goals, but you can't actually put those people in one group or the other. No one's saying that. Jared, in particular, the way that he operates, it's really interesting because I've heard him talk. He's super smart. I've heard him on podcasts. No one's where they are by accident. Exactly. You know what I mean? There was a moment I thought he was there by accident. Like, oh, his girlfriend's dad became president And now he's the ambassador to the Middle East.

28:25Good luck, my friend. It's true. I kind of thought it was nepotism. No, no, no. He's super sharp. But I also think that he has a cultural, racial, racism, blindness. I think that these guys do look at certain swaths of the world and just it's very convenient. There is a lot to what they're saying that is honorable. But when you strip it back, you realize it is honorable for a certain group of people. And it tends to be that they can kind of be like, no, we're not racist. We sit with the Saudis and the Qataris. Right. you're only going to sit with those in that class system who are going to support what you want to do financially.

28:57There's a caveat. So it's like, hey, I'm for every man in Ohio, regardless of where they're at financially. And I'm for anyone in the Middle East who can bankroll whatever the hell I want to do. That's not exactly honorable. But I'll tell you, he truly wants peace in the Middle East and truly believes that that peace will be brokered on economic incentives from the countries. That is his worldview on how to get everyone to play nice. But I think when your worldview is based on economic goals and economic growth, that is racist. Well, hold on, though, not just growth, interdependence. We would acknowledge that there's a huge force in keeping peace, which is when your economies are interdependent, you can't go nuclear option.

29:34Of course. But I think there's what people say and what people do. So there's nothing policy-wise about what's being done that supports that. And this goes back to what we keep talking about, which is constitution's dope. That fireside chat is dope. What he says is dope. What actually happens is none of that. That is why we're living in the era of the con man, because everything they say is great. Everything they do is the opposite of what they said. And it feels good to hear and it feels good to be like, oh, cool. Just don't check in with the results. But don't check in with the next action. Don't check in with the call he makes when he gets in the car after that.

30:03That's the thing that is like mind boggling to me. And now the integrity crisis is so deep that you can call someone out on the lie and nothing sticks. And that's because we're so distracted. It's kind of like, oh, man, he lied about that thing. Yo, look at this kid like back flipping in Malaysia. This is a sick TikTok. Check that out. And that's the reality collapse, right? We're so detached from all of it. Yeah. I just believe you might be right. And I believe you might be right. And I believe I might be right. But I'm really not sure. I'm not sure about anything. I don't even know that we're necessarily disagreeing on anything.

30:32But people are facing consequences in the world for our pontification. They're facing the brunt of it in this way that is really wild. And back to your original question, how we got here, what's going on in America? Well, a lot of America is starting to feel those consequences. This country geographically is surrounded by so much water that we don't bump up with things in the way that people do in Europe, in the Middle East and other places. But that stuff is starting to happen. We're almost like a guy in a car road raging, like we're safe in our car. We could just antagonize safely from a distance.

31:04Immigration is one of our biggest issues, and that is as a result of being connected to them. So that goes to show, yeah, if we had more of that, we would be in more fights and we'd have more issues. We have plenty. I mean, and there's people in this country, too, who are really suffering 20 minutes from here. But yeah, so look, man, I think that right now I hope it's a moment of trying to integrate genuine integrity between what people say and what people do. And I'm curious how that nets out. There's so much happening so fast that we will see shockingly shortly. All these theoreticals are about to happen in front of our eyes.

31:39Stay tuned. for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

31:51Well, I just want to say we both put your interview at the top of our list of wonderful times. And I repeat a lot of different things you taught me in that interview. Most frequently you had said, and I could get it a little wrong, but you said the word for human in Arabic is forgetfulness, basically. Yeah, in that root Arabic word, yeah, of insen is nesien, and it's not like the perfect translation, but that word of being forgetful. Yeah, as a theme for humans, it's a good. Oh my God, so baked. And I always repeat that, and it's such an astute observation. So I was reading that you think there are a few words that we should know, and you give the example.

32:27You don't have to be Jewish to know Mazel Tov. We all know what Mazel Tov makes. And your words are haram, halal, inshallah. Yeah. Okay, tell me what these three words mean and why you're making a case for these to be the three words. Oh, my God. I'm trying to remember when I said that. Because if you want this to happen, we must get these definitions. Well, inshallah is just like God willing. I think we're fully in inshallah mode right now. We are fully in this like, man, if there's something beautiful about this moment, it is the realization that we all have to let go of control and just be present.

33:02You could say fingers crossed. It's also kind of like saying fingers crossed. Or like it is what it is. Sure. It's a cosmic fingers crossed. The thing is, even when you cross your fingers, it is a level of control. You are physically trying to create control in your hands. This transcends fingers crossed. This is I'm going to accept God's will. But it's also really important because that's not a passive thing. Is there hope in it? Totally. There's a ton of hope. Because God does read shit sometimes. Very much. Think about, you know, if you were fully in charge of your life, how many good things that happened to you were because you played a perfect play?

33:36No, you fucked up. You were too tired and you regret that thing you said to that person. And then still something great happened because it was bigger than you in spite of you. And the opposite happens where sometimes you did do it all right. And then it went wrong in spite of you. And there's nothing you can do. And then the hope is enough time passes or enough different things shifts where you go. That actually was a blessing. But this idea of giving in and saying, you know what, God willing is an incredibly active thing that takes a lot of action. It's not passive. It's not just chilling back and being like, well, whatever's going to happen is going to happen.

34:11To actually be in that state is very freeing because you kind of go, you know what? I can really just kind of focus on my own little plot of how I act. I want this, but I will trust that if it happens, it'll be for the right reason. If it doesn't, I'll accept that for the right reason. How hard is that? We're in the show up and work business, not the results business. I mean, AA is it's virtually the Quran. The amount of people who I feel this like deep brothership with are either people at the mosque or people who go to AA. I haven't been to AA, but I sometimes I'm talking with someone, I'm connecting so much with them when I go, you're an AA, aren't you?

34:46And they go, how did you know? You were a junkie. You saw the way that our actions can take us into this place that is so unlike who we actually are. Well, I'm not pointing out anything revelatory at all, but I was just reading a lot about the Stoics and I'm like, oh, yeah, that's an AA thing. That's a Buddhist thing. But obviously the Stoics and the Buddhists were doing it independently. There's some truths to be discovered and there's a lot of overlap. We're really hung up on the tiny non-overlap parts of it all. I always talk about sometimes it feels like we're talking about the rims and the paint trim on a car that doesn't have an engine in it.

35:23yeah like imagine just fighting being like i think it's got to be this color and this trim and it's like guys there's no engine it's technically not a car we are fighting over essentially like a hunk of metal how about we all just focus on getting the car to work and then we can get into all that because the basis of your conversations would be completely different if it was a genuinely operational society how do we make this work yeah if it actually was serving everybody You're a little more pragmatic. Okay, so the last time you were here, I guess you were maybe, well, you had to be because I looked at my old notes from the last trip.

35:54And you were promoting Poor Things, but I don't think I had seen it yet. No, we hadn't seen it. Oh, yeah, you hadn't seen it. No. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was by far my favorite movie of the year. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we had already then interviewed you, so I was already like, now I love you and root for you. And I was so delighted you popped up in it. I actually don't think it was for Poor Things, but you told us in it that you were shooting this movie. It was coming out. It was coming out. It was in my, like, you know. You don't know where I put what projects are on top? Oh, it was in there. It was in there.

36:19Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, my gosh. But, like, we hadn't seen it yet. Yeah. What a movie. What a fucking movie. Oh, my God. Yeah, dude, that was, what a gift. Now, it's so surreal. I've never been in a movie that was surreal like that. I've been in a science fiction movie that had space and stuff, but does it feel differently to be in something surreal, if that makes sense? Like, does the world and the sets feel warped in a way? Some of it, you can't see until you see the thing. It wasn't like we were at monitors or something. I mean, they're shooting this on film and it was one of those things where as actors, we would just show up and be in this immersive set.

36:53That set was not facade. Everything was built. It was really impressive. It was really gorgeous. And Yorgos is such a visionary. And so you kind of just show up. And so I had two experiences. One, when I read it, the writer brain in me was like, this is a rom-com. This is just funny. Yeah. But it is going to be dressed up with all this weird stuff on top of it. But at its core, it's a rom-com. And I get to play this character that is this wholesome, but also kind of has his own horniness he's dealing with. He's kind of navigating this dynamic. He has a naivete that we like matched with her naivete.

37:32They're safe for each other. They're meant to be together, but she's going to go around and experience the world before she accepts that. And so that's a rom-com. The guy waiting for the girl to figure out what she needs to figure out so that they can be together. Core simple. But then it's like, all right, late 1800s, learn a British accent, crazy costumes, surreal way of shooting it and stepping into like a performance that is different than anything I had done. So I had so much fun now just coming off playing this dipshit billionaire in Mountain Head. It's like the opposite. And so that's where I'm like, man, it's so much fun being an actor.

38:05What about being opposite Willem Dafoe? Yeah, especially in that insane prosthetic. That was really fun and wild and surreal as well. And that was one of those things where I got to know him. We had three weeks of rehearsal, which was really beautiful. We had three weeks that was me and Emily and Willem and Mark. Does Emma go by Emily? Oh, yeah, she does. Yes, that's her real name. Wait, I don't know. You haven't seen this big viral video? The Oscar speech. Oh, wait. But also, no, she was doing press and this journalist said Emily. And then somebody said Emma. And she said, no, my name is Emily.

38:39And then recently, I think it can. That guy was back in the press room and he said, I'm the guy who said that. And you changed my whole life. And I don't remember where he's from, but he's from some country. And he's like, my job opportunity is skyrocketing. He's making a documentary now, actually. It's called Her Name is Emily. And it's about this Hungarian journalist. I thought it was called Don't Call Her Emma. Yeah, that's the cautionary tale. I think that's the tagline. They're figuring it out. Her name is Emily. Tagline Don't Call Her Emma. Don't Call Her Emma. Or I'll Kill You. Another tagline.

39:10Or I'll kill you. The story of a truth-seeking journalist. Vigilante justice. Yeah, and it's less going through war zones, more kind of going through tabloid zones and kind of dealing with all that. I'm not as good of a love from afar as you. What do you mean? If we found out Matt Damon's real name was Kent Damon. Oh. Like you would have been first to know. I think that's maybe his dad's name. Kent? Or Kenneth. Oh, wow. See, you even know. You're plugged into the Damonverse. Oh, my God. And I think if I love any actor, I think it's her. as far as like who I think I could marry. I never even met her, but I'm like, from what I see, I feel like I could also marry her maybe.

39:45Everybody wants to marry her. Yeah, who does? She's very marriable. I mean, she's actually just like the best person. And also I can say that. And then my wife loves her. My wife's also like, we should marry her. The best person. I got to pitch that to Kristen. I would kind of get it prepped before even going to Emily with the offer. Get the package together. Don't bring her on all the brainstorm because she's dealing with a lot. You're going to have to tell her you just learned her name. She's dealing with a lot. Oh, I knew there was going to fuck this up. I am going to. That's jealousy. Yeah, you're right.

40:14That's an illness. That's not who it is. That is an illness. I saw that come up right there. Yeah, because I put more effort into facilitating the love connection with her and Matt Damon. Excuse you? What are you saying? She's trying to say that was a soul. Like you put in all the words. I encouraged him to hug you and to kiss your head. And I made standees posters when it happened. Kristen did that. Kristen did that. Come somewhere. Let's not take what she's done as yours. You've also hung out with him and excluded me. I mean, I want to. But in fairness, part of a larger strategy, because he knows Damon, and he knows if he's pushing you on every hang, Damon gets suspicious.

40:49But he's got to do two non-Monica hangs, then do the integration. And any wingman would know how to do that. You know the exact plan. It's not masculine. This is called winging. And this is like a non-gender situation. But OK, so we had three weeks where we're hanging out, learning the lines. Where are you? What country are you in? Budapest. Is it so special? Well, it's very clean. It's also kind of weird. I enjoyed my time there. They just have amazing public parks. It's just that Europe thing where not everything has to be a target. Am I wrong in that Budapest was one of the original crossroads, though, to the east and the west?

41:21I thought that would interest you. No, it is. The history is unbelievable. I think also at the time, though, I was reading a lot of Gabor Mate. And so he talked about being separated from his family during the Holocaust. And so I was a little bit walking around being like, oh, you guys fucked with Gabor Mate. But then also kind of like, but thank God for his trauma because he's really helping me. If his mom hadn't left him for those six weeks, dude, we have nothing, dude. So we're there. Then he puts on the prosthetics, Willem, and I'm in these scenes with him and it's really surreal because this is not the guy I was just hanging out with for a month.

41:54Who's a sweetheart, right? The sweetest guy. Have you guys had him on yet? We had him on. A, he's so hot. Dude, he's so cool. He's very fit. I got some pictures of his early work and I'm like, dude was a smoke show. Very handsome. And a yogi. He's up right now on another level, I think. 4 a.m., wake up, do yoga, get in the bathtub. He's got his non-negotiables. He was really inspiring, actually. I had some really good conversations with him. And this was at the time, too. I hadn't proposed to my wife yet. And I was even talking to him about marriage. And he was very much like, you got to be disciplined.

42:29You got to live your life this way as a man. And then you're going to pick someone. And when you pick, you choose, you choose, you make it work. And that's it. Wow. It was pretty cool. No frills. This is what it is. How long had you been with your wife before you got married? Well, we had known each other for a few years. How'd you meet? It had been a few years through a friend, May Kalmawi, who plays my sister on my show. And so they had known each other. And then we were getting to know each other. And then I immediately, it was one of those. Where's she from? She's from Saudi Arabia. So she grew up in Saudi.

42:55And did she come here for school? Yeah. So she studied fine arts in the Bay. She's an amazing artist. Yeah. I'm sorry. She's rich? that kind of thing. Well, this was the thing. Part of it for me was in the back of my head and I was kind of being coy. I'm like, okay, obviously oil money. This would be great. It's a great backup. Yeah, and I just kind of want to be like a boy artist who's supported and all that kind of thing. Parents are teachers. So it was really like a bad gamble and here we are still having to work. Why wasn't she at the Golden Globes? She's not trying to do all that. Good for her.

43:26I like that. Good for her. That's preferred. She doesn't give a shit. Yeah. She's going to the after party. But she's like, I have a whole thing with the carpet. And that was kind of one of the things, too, when we first were like, OK, we're going to be together. She was like, just keep me out of all that. Did you like it or were you like, oh, my God, I loved it. Are you kidding? And it's also helps just getting in the car quicker. You take about nine minutes to get ready. When we're planning our day for one of these things, she's got a hotel room somewhere. I like looking in the mirror. I'm like, yeah, all right, yeah, let's go.

43:51Let's get out of here. Ten minutes before with my van. Oh, my God. Ready. I know. Okay, now I watched Mountainhead last night with my best friend Aaron, who's in town, and we loved it. I love it. It has an insane plot, and it's scarily plausible, it seems. So you and three other gentlemen arrive at this mountain retreat. Yeah. So one of the dudes owns a social media company. One of the dudes is, like you say, a Peter Thiel. He's been first one in on a lot of these. And he's an extremely rich man,$60 billion or something. They write their net worth on their chest at one point, which is incredible.

44:31I almost believe it might be possible that that happens. So social media company owner, kind of legendary tech investor. And then you, who owns an AI technology that is being used by the social network. They want to use it. He's trying to get my AI. Basically, my character took some of his employees and made the AI that I'm using. And he's kind of like, dude, those are my guys anyway. But my guy is pretty dead set that the reason they built this good AI is due to his leadership and due to his guiding principles. And so he has this relative to the rest, a moral conscience about how the technology is affecting people.

45:12But at the same time, it kind of seems like that consciousness is also tied to his own net worth and tied to his own aspirations. And it's almost like, wait, do you have a conscience because you have a conscience or do you have a conscience because that's a really good brand to have a conscience? But what seems plausible is this is a trip you guys have taken many times. You've got a club name. You're the root. What are you? The Brewsters. The Brewsters and Cockadoodle Brew and all this terrible guy stuff. But as you're arriving for this weekend, which you guys apparently do once a year or something, they have released a new bit of technology on the social media platform.

45:44And it is incorporating AI and the AI is making fake news segments. Wars breaking out in places. People are killing. it's a simmer at the beginning and everyone's just like well how will this all play out and it just keeps escalating the entire time you're there at the weekend and you're kind of the only person that's going hold on here i think this is bad i think we have to intervene do we really not care about this but the compelling part that is the most scary is two of the dudes corral and what's the other gentleman's name oh jason schwartzman or oh oh cory michael smith cory michael smith yeah who plays venice he's incredible by the way he's so good yeah he's scary and But there is a point where some obvious thoughts come their way, which is like, OK, well, who's really killing each other?

46:32Pretty much idiots inspired by crazy fundamentalist religious views and people who are goable to this thing. Is this terrible that these people kind of just take care of themselves and then we've got a nice hard reset? I mean, it's eugenics. It's genocide. It's the operating principle of Mao, of a lot of people who are like, if we have an excuse and they do it themselves, we're not going to stand in the way of that. It's interesting, too, because in the film, you see them first start to really get concerned when it happens in France. Then they go, wait, what? Oh, that's hilarious. Then they go, okay, that's getting awfully white.

47:09And then all of a sudden they're like, hmm. Corral's got a thing that he's like, not to worry. There's never been a country that exports cheese that has what? That has like any sort of problem. Yeah, as long as you have an exportable cheese, you've got a way out. His character is great because they say he's got a 200 IQ. He's insanely smart. Yeah, yeah. He's quoting Greek scholars. And again, being really smart, I think, is more dangerous than people who are smart. Give it credit. You have been right so many times that it's much easier to mislead yourself. And you have so much information that you can kind of weaponize it to justify whatever you're thinking.

47:40Yes. If you make a plausible sound argument in your mind, it's hard not to buy into it. And if you have a track record of I invested well, the ego says I actually have a bit of a godlike view of what's going on. Yes. Again, it's that thing where it's like I'm better than everyone. I can think clearer than everyone. It's the thing I brought up earlier in this conversation. It's like this danger of thinking you think clearly and other people don't leads always to a genocide virtually. Yes. But it escalates in this most plausible, intriguing and terrifying way where they have to start considering, well, fuck, should we just run the whole show?

48:13When they put the pieces together, in reality, a lot of these people have tons of different products that are running the government. They have products that are running the military. They have products that are running satellites. Whether they've been given a role or not, they're so intermeshed now that they could make some very serious attacks. One of Carell Randall's lines is they have this whole thing where they talk to the president and then afterwards they don't like what the president says. And then he basically just goes, you know, the president's a good guy, but he's a simpleton. And it's really interesting because I don't think we could have gotten better press for the movie than the week right after it came out.

48:45The Elon Trump war on Twitter and literally everyone just being like this mountain head too, because essentially Elon is at that moment openly tweeting this budget sucks. I saw the way that everything is going in there. And essentially, he's seeing the same thing in the film is like, why aren't we running the show? Since then, he's walked that back. By the time this podcast comes out, I'm sure 400 other things will happen. Exactly. Those dynamics really exist. Well, and his satellite network was brought online when he was in support of Ukraine. And it was employed effectively. He can turn on and shut off Internet for a lot of places, which is wild we're there.

49:22And when he got elected, I remember everyone was like, oh, including me. I was like, why are all these people coming out and saying congratulations to him? And then I was like, oh, because they need in with him so that they can actually control things, which is so crazy, but true and works. Well, that's interesting. My conclusion on that was, oh, this person can destroy trillions of dollars of saved money of what we've done. Something I've been working on for 20 years, that half of America's IRA is involved in this value of this company and this person could ruin it. I've got no choice but to protect this thing.

49:58Well, I think that was my conclusion. I think it's both. Yeah, there's Kiss the Ring and there's I want the contract. It's just cozying up. This is how it works in dictatorships and all sorts of places. Yeah. There's a few wonderfully scary things in the movie. I can't wait to rewatch it, actually. Yeah, yeah. It has real stakes and real stress. And you're juggling that with comedy and the comedy is brilliant. But also your stress. It's almost like the studio, which you're also in. Yes. Congratulations. What a show. To have a bit in it was so fun. Yeah, what an accomplishment, that fucking show.

50:26It's so cool, dude. It's so impressive. It's insane. Seth is the man. Yeah, he's the man. Yeah, yeah. But that show has stakes in stress. It's a fucking stressful show, the studio. It's almost like I want to rewatch that as well. Well, I already did. Some episodes I rewatched because I wanted people to see it. The Warner episode, I'm like, yeah. That's so fun. And yes, I could enjoy it the next go around. So I'm like, everyone lived the stress of it. You know. You know how it ends. Yeah. This movie is fucking thought provoking. But the two things that I think are brought to the forefront are one, AI, are people going to be able to discern the difference?

50:59Is that going to happen? Terrifying. I'm optimistic. I don't think people are as vulnerable as we think. In what way can we elaborate? That people, if they're viewing a news clip on the Internet and it's proclaiming that this group killed this person. I have some faith that they're going to need to at least see it on a trusted news source before they take action. You do? Yeah, I do. I mean, it's interesting. We'll find out. But this is the integrity crisis and the president has run on a platform of fake news. So I think there's this level of verification that we still kind of look for where you kind of want to see it.

51:33The question is almost what happens in the gaps between something being verified and not, which I think is part of what the film explores. But I say this with the humility of knowing and hoping that one day I get old enough to have my own gaps between what's happening with tech and where I am. Maybe that inevitably happens. But the amount of things that my parents and people in that generation are like, man, can you believe this thing happened? And I go, where did you hear about that? And it's like one, two, three, Hindustan times dot com org slash whatever. And you look at this janky link. This is not a real thing.

52:04But that goes over their head. Right. And again, with the humility of I'll probably be at some point in that situation where my kids know something about hologram technology that I'm unaware of how the light refracts in order to know whether a hologram is a true hologram or a false hologram. But you kind of have this whole section of people that are already falling for it. And now they're going to get realistic video. And I actually see these clips go viral now of Trump saying something. And I'm looking at the mouth because I'm like, did he actually say that? And it's already really good. I think Trump and LeBron, they're like, I think, the most AI'd.

52:35Really? Yeah, Trump and LeBron, because there's so much footage on them that you can do it pretty seamlessly. You can make a very good data set from them. Trump and LeBron. Yeah, Trump and LeBron. Yeah, our two leaders. And that's your obsession with LeBron, right? I've heard you say that that's your main reason you're on Instagram. Dude, this is my guy. That's so interesting. Actually, since I saw you, I got to do a commercial campaign for LeBron. You did? Yeah, I'll send it to you. It's pretty cool. I got to work with him for a day. I directed him. It was for this mobile video game thing. And it was pretty cool.

53:03Tell me what you love about him. I love that he, 16, 15 years old, cover Sports Illustrated. The king. The next thing. The real wunderkind. And he did it. To live up to that level of expectation, to live a public life, you can go in and try to devalue something he's done or take away a championship and go, oh, that person was injured. No, no, no. To have that much pressure on you from 15 years old, to be still playing at an elite level where you're a top 15 player at age 40, get the hell out of here. No one's ever done it. He is, to me, the personification of discipline. Yeah. And I'm so attracted to that.

53:41Mastery of self. Yeah, it really feels like something worth aspiring to. He is really locked in. You can't make any excuse for how consistent and how high the quality of what he does is. He's an incredible human. I love the passion. Yeah, it was. And he's really funny, actually. You know, one of the things we did was knocking on that he claims to have read all these books. He was being self-aware about it. Had he done that? I didn't even hear that. Yeah, he has this whole thing where he's like, yeah, I'm reading this great book, but he would always be at these press conferences. And it's so clear he's just on page three.

54:10Like he's always just past the forward. He and Monica could start a book club. I know. He gets caught in these really funny lies where he's just going to be like, what's your favorite godfather? And he's like, how can you choose? They're godfathering all over it. And you're like, all right, dude, it doesn't matter. Like, we don't care. As long as you don't say three. As long as you don't say three, you're going to get a 66 % chance. What is your favorite godfather? I think two. So interesting. It's like also choosing between my favorite hamburger and my favorite pizza. They're both so incredible.

54:38Yours is number one. Yeah, I'm such a one. But two, we get De Niro. That's really fun. I like going really far back in time to find out where the Corleone started. The whole weird sequence in Italy. He falls in love with that woman with those unique nipples. That's wonderful. No, it's true. They're very memorable if you're a boy. The nipples are. Oh, really? You remember them. When you said it, I knew exactly. Yeah, every boy remembers that. Yeah. Well, why? It's like a guy thing. I'm sure you saw something on Damon that we don't see. Of course. No, but I mean, what about the nipples? No, no, they're not weird, by the way.

55:06They're just distinct for what you would usually see on screen. Really? There's this kind of tailored vision of all of that. And this is just like a, it just feels like an old country nipple. Beautiful breasts. And they were kind of unique in their own way. And I think to get into the nitty gritty of it, then I would feel like this woman could somehow hear me. I see. Yeah. We're obviously gentlemen still. So I don't want to like. We're addressing the areolas. But we're keeping it vague enough. If you describe an areola too much, it just starts to veer into. You know, you just stumble upon these realities in life where you slowly realize almost every guy who has seen Godfather remembers those nipples.

55:40You inadvertently discover that and you go like, oh, they're as memorable for you as they were for me. That's neat. I do find it fascinating. That's why I wonder what they look like. I'm going to look it up, obviously, as soon as we're done with this. Her nipples? Yeah. Well, have you ever seen the whole movie? No. Let's schedule that. I will come. Okay, great. Are you living in L.A.? No, I'm in Brooklyn, but I will come. Okay, you'll fly out. Okay, great. Or I'll host you guys. I mean, it's one or the other. Viewing party for the nipples. Yeah, yeah. We'll sit in the back row. I'm a one guy, though, fully, because I think two is amazing, but lives in one's playground because one was able to one, two was able to two.

56:21That's the origin. There are story breaks in two that work because they worked in one. Even the way two ends, hilarious. Don't want to spoil it for you. Okay, great.

56:34It's like part of the modern basis of cinema. I would hate to spoil for you. Also, the rosebud is the sled. What? I know. Sorry. I've always wondered. Okay, so that's a really good argument for one, but I'll add this is a counter, which is just simply the probability of the sequel being as good as the first one is zero. Agreed. And that needs to be acknowledged. It's almost impossible to make a sequel that's as good or potentially better. And that's kind of the triumph of that movie. And it's kind of... Oh my God, we're in Barbie. I literally... We're in Barbie. Did you see Barbie? Yeah, and the guys are just talking about...

57:06I was about to say. We did it. We barbie'd. And you even taught me about nipples. We can't. Wow. We can't. No, we, by the way, refused to get too into the nipple thing. But your godfather argument is kind of like a Jordan LeBron argument in a way. Yes. Because it's kind of like Jordan's this OG. But then you go, well, but LeBron lived up to the hype that Jordan never had. Because that's godfather too. Right. Jordan broke the mold. Yeah. Jordan broke the mold. and then LeBron lived up to the mold, which is almost impossible. Yeah, it's almost not even worth getting into basketball because all you'll ever hear is like, what's not?

57:45Yeah. Okay, great, great. We already did Godfather, so I think we're good. It's almost worth getting into it. You go, agree. Yeah. Okay, the other thing we got to talk about, just, I love Mountainhead. I hope everyone watches it so good. You're fantastic in it. It's such a fun role for you to have. It's kind of like in keeping with you being the most spiritual present in the room. I feel like being a part of a Jesse Armstrong thing is... Dude, I really love that man. Like he is so conscientious and smart and generous. How old is he? I don't know anything about him. He's 54, but he comes off as like a 42.

58:16Solid early 40s. Yeah, like he does not even, just in his youthful spirit. But he's a brilliant dialogue writer. It was his first thing directing and he was so great and so generous. And I would say he's very spiritually enlightened in this sense, because a lot of people, I think, going to direct their first thing would almost need to feel a sense of control of, well, if I'm the director, then it needs to feel like it's all coming from me and it all has my stamp. You know, something will come up and you go, that's a really good question. Not exactly my department. Let me think. You see him taking all the info and then you see him make the decision that is in line with what he's trying to philosophically do.

58:49And you know, that's directing. Directing is not I'm a genius that knows everything the whole time. And this goes back to this leadership thing. When you see it done well, it's very attractive because it's so exciting because then you get to be in something that knows what it is. That's my favorite thing as an actor, any sort of artist, this thing knows what it is. And then you get to contribute to that. It's very fun. So that was sick. Yeah. Okay. Number one, Happy Family USA. This is your cartoon. Yes. And I think it's relevant to say you set it up and pitched it during Trump one. Yeah. 45. And then it's now out.

59:21This is interesting. In 47. Yeah. I mean, the timing of it is wild. The title of the show is this thing that basically the family says. So in the pilot, 9-11 happens. The show starts on 9-10. Yeah. And then there's this moment, which is something that I think happened to a lot of immigrants in this country. So, so many Arab Muslim immigrants came, I would say around mid to late 80s. And it kind of took them a decade to get their feet under them. And then this thing happened and it shook and rocked everything. And I remember it kind of set up the basis of instability for a lot of our lives because you're just on the defensive.

59:55You were already trying to figure out what was going on. I was in Detroit where we have a humongous population. Oh, my God. And I was like, all these party store owners are like, all of a sudden there's just American flags plastered everywhere. And that's literally what happens right in our first couple of episodes. He goes, we're going to show everyone that we are number one happy family USA. And so he drapes the house in Christmas and Easter decorations and American flags. He's a Muslim, but he says Jesus Christ every other sentence. He's just trying to do every. And the whole show, the reason I wanted to make an animated show was because I was really into this idea of code switching.

1:00:26And I think it's pretty universal in the sense that the family, when they're in the house, look a certain way. And then when they step outside the house, they look different. You watch his beard disappear. You watch the daughter's curly hair become straight. You kind of see all these appearance things that people feel like they got to hide, which we all do to a degree. But they're doing it under the fear because then this FBI agent moves in across the street and they're being surveilled. And so I wanted to make this cartoon five years ago about the surveillance state and about how immigrants were basically put in this position to have to prove their patriotism in order to stay.

1:00:59And I thought it was a time capsule of the early 2000s. And the week it came out was when you start seeing everyone at the airport being thrown into these facilities in Louisiana. Now we're having this conversation of, I mean, in L.A., they're just picking up people who just look Hispanic and they figure out the facts later. and then they go are you here legally or are you not we'll figure it out later so that's been really eerie because I feel like no no we're a happy family USA is something someone might be saying at the airport right now and it's worse now than it was then the people who reach out after watching the show because people don't know how long it takes to make things especially animation so some people think I like cooked it up in January you know and I was like oh yeah like let's do this thing because they go oh it's so cool that you really picked it up quick and timed it and I go no man we've been working on this for This is like a weird.

1:01:47It's not a new phenomenon. No, it's really, really wild. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

1:02:04In real life, you were 10 or 11 living in New Jersey. Yeah, 11. When 9-11 happened. Yeah. And what was the shift in real life? I remember that feeling of, this was really sensitive, right? Because we're in Jersey. First off, you just watch this horrific thing happen. Yes. It's quite scary whether you felt safer or happier. Yeah, you're devastated. Human beings died. Yeah, jumping out of a building. We could sense the smoke in our town. That's how close we were to New York. So immediately it's just horrifying. And you're just sad. and you're just as sad as everybody else. But then in that sadness, you go, oh shit, we are now a target.

1:02:41You know what I mean? We're suspects. And so this lasted, I saw it affect my parents' friendships. I really love the town I grew up and I wouldn't change where I grew up. It's just everything becomes more complicated. And I think that the thing that I started to really feel was we were in, I would say, the brunt of the 24 hour news cycle, finding its voice of being able to just pump out fear. The birth of CNN being a thing you always have on in the background, that's 9-11. The beginning of that modern war machine being pushed by color, news, images, 24-7, it's then. What I always talked about when we were making the show was there is the outward kinds of racism and prejudice and fear that gets directed at you.

1:03:26But what we really wanted to do with the show was focus on something that I felt way more of, which is the internal fear where you kind of go, is all this shit they're saying about us true? Is all this stuff actually where I come from? And then you go down this spiral of self-doubt. I'm watching all this stuff and all these people look like me and have, you know, these views. I want to know a lot about that because to me, that sounds a little bit parallel to internalized racism. Yeah. You grew up where all the media you've seen, the people of your kind are committing crimes. You take on your own racism, even though you're the group.

1:03:59Oh yeah. And you're a kid and you go, wait, is this why my parents left over there because it's so bad and everyone's so bad over there. And then it took so many years to go through all that and then kind of reconnect. And not that I was necessarily disconnected, but by just where we live, we're not over there. And you kind of really get into it and you go, oh, this is like really beautiful people, really beautiful countries, beautiful places, but it gets isolated in this way to fit a really specific kind of narrative. When you're the in-group, the division between your government and your military and the citizens is quite clear to you.

1:04:31Everyone's having the same feeling like, why are we going to Iraq? We don't like that. And hopefully, you know, everyone else will recognize that like none of the citizens want us to go there. We don't think there's weapons of mass destruction. This is happening, but that's them. But when you're evaluating the out group, you don't draw those lines between the military apparatus and then just the humans that live there. It's happening currently with, there's a difference between Hamas and Palestinians. There's a difference between Netanyahu and then your average citizen living there. Putin and Russians.

1:04:59Imagine you're someone who has never been to America goes, oh, my God, it's terrible over there, huh? It's just like the men are raping the women who don't even get paid. And then you guys are terrible to all the immigrants. All your schools have shootings in them. Because that's essentially what happens, right? It's like you kind of look at the Middle East and go, oh, they make the women do this and they rape them. Here's an American. You go, factually, the palate of what you just said has occurred. Is that really what's occurring every single day? Yes, exactly. And also we're raping, but it's not potentially with the religious excuse.

1:05:26So that rape is fine. because we determined that one rape is much worse as a motivator. And then you realize how all that gets conflated about a group of people and about what's going on. Well, I remember at the time it stunk to me most. And look, I'm not a Ra Ra Russia supporter by any stretch. But when they were hosting Sochi, the Olympics, and I remember reading these articles about they've rounded up dogs and killed them. There was like every round of dogs and killing them. And then out of just curiosity, I typed in how many dogs are put down a day in the U.S. Yeah. We kill like a million folks a day or something crazy.

1:06:00It always flares up in the Olympics. There was also when China was hosting, it was like the Chinese are making their athletes perform through injuries. I'm like, y 'all look at Carrie's. Carrie Strug. Yeah. Every American athlete is competing. You could flatten America in that kind of thinking so easily. You could say America hates women so much that they twice elected an open liar rapist just to avoid having a woman. Exactly. And then they banned abortion, which is not even a thing in the Muslim world. You can get an abortion in Saudi Arabia. Oh, you can. Right away. Yes. I mean, it is like, you know, Muslims believe that the sole encasement is not.

1:06:34So I think it's something like around 100 days. Don't quote me. But abortion is more strict here than it is in so many parts of the Middle East. Wow. You can flatten whatever you want to flatten. You can talk about it however you want. Well, you can ignore everything that doesn't jive with your worldview and focus on the five things that do. right now about LA. Everyone's texting. They're like, are you okay? Is it chaos? And I'm like, no, it's fine. But the narrative that's getting spun about what's happening here. We're in a state of civil unrest. Yeah, I know what you mean. It's not like fine, but they make it look like it's like an active civil war where everyone's walking around with guns.

1:07:08They're saying we're in a state of war. There's a peaceful protest that was happening. And then we got ambushed by the Marines over a protest. So as a kid, you take in all this information. And for me, the experience was always what of this is real or not. And that was the perspective that we went into making the show, which is how do you talk about all this complex shit from a 12 year old brain when you're 11 or 12, a girl being dismissive of you feels like a national security issue in your brain. It is just as loud as we're going to Iraq. If you could wipe out a whole continent to have the girl like you back, you would do it.

1:07:47Yeah, that's far. You'd have no problem. Yeah, all that's far. She's here. So I was really interested in this. What could this look like as a world? Because cartoons have always been so cutting politically in a really great way, whether it's like South Park. And so to get to do it from this perspective, but also add a bunch of different elements, like that was really so exciting for me. Were you aware when you were a kid, my assumption would be even within your family, you're dealing with varying degrees of pressure because your parents are from Egypt, right? So they have accents. Yes. They have a lot of indicators that they're other.

1:08:20You have less of those. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe kids are worse than adults or they're better adults, but there had to have been different levels of how you are all having to deal with the fallout of 9-11, even within the house. Yeah. My dad was in the world of hotels. He was at the plaza for a while with 47. But it was always a tough fit for him. And my dad really became known for his hard work ethic and he's just so good with people. And so he would never really let anything get him down. This particular thing, though, ended up being so big. I just saw how it affected him. But what's interesting is talking to him about today and he goes, this is worse than what I remember, especially in the last year and a half, two years.

1:09:02Like with the Muslim ban? Yeah, with that, but also with this immigrant focus, the way people are kind of zoning in, because he was like, it hasn't happened like this. It's such a wild way to treat people, especially now. A lot of Arab immigrants came in the 80s. So my dad's like, a lot of us been here now going on 40 years. Exactly. Yeah. We've been here fully longer than we were ever in the countries we came from. My dad's like, I'm an American. It's like, what are you talking about? Well, your father had to have had this added stress as a dad, whether they've asked you or not, your job is to protect everyone in this family.

1:09:34And now I have these three variables out in the world in a very hostile world. So whatever his own personal struggles were, I'd imagine he was also, and then your mother too, I don't want I just speaking as a dad that had to be so stressful. If I had to think about my little girls going off to school, knowing that a huge chance that most of the students in there that don't look like them are going to be treating them terribly. This is very stressful. It's stressful. Part of why I focus on the internal stuff for the characters is I didn't go to school in this place that was super racist, but it was just this thing where you go, I already am like too short to be good at basketball.

1:10:09And now I got to deal with this shit where I'm like fucking debating people are asking me like, do you know those people? And this is one of my first standup jokes, but one of the first World Trade Center bombers, his name was Ramzi Youssef, right? And so when I was a kid, it was literally like, fuck me. I am walking around with the same fucking name. It was just nuts. It took me also in my 20s to get off the no fly list. It's like the same fucking thing. And then you got to clear that up and do all that. Why is this guy on the no fly list? Did he already die? Did you though feel because you didn't have an act, although maybe It's a little different because, like you said, your name and stuff.

1:10:45But I felt so protective of my parents and especially my dad, who, yeah, had this accent, was walking around very obviously Indian. I grew up with such a massive sense of protection for them and feeling like I needed to order at the restaurant. You're like an interpreter almost for your parents. Exactly. And like you're always on the lookout for who's going to hurt them or be mean to them. Did you have that? My dad, it's interesting because I think just being New York hotel business, it's somewhat Hollywood adjacent. Like he wasn't phased by famous people. He kind of dealt with all these big figures and dealing just in the heart of New York.

1:11:21He's a producer. Anything I know about show running or directing, I learned from my dad in how he dealt with hotels because he deal with like 500 people. Oh, yeah. It's like departments. So you kind of focus on how to move through that. But to your point, what I could feel on him was, man, to have to deal with this stuff when you already have the dad stress, you already have the immigrant stress, you're just trying to get used to a new place. And then this shit, that perspective as we were making this thing, I just felt has been unexplored, especially of that era. You know, there's not actually a lot of art about that era.

1:11:53And the art that exists is pretty dramatic, rightfully so, because it's a very dramatic thing. But we kind of started to say, can we step this out? it's a sensitive button, but is there a way to be hilarious, but also have it be tender and have it be aware that felt like a worthy challenge. And then that's where it felt like, yeah, this would be cool as a cartoon because you give people the ability to have a little bit of distance of the quote unquote reality of it. Yes. But it's doing what Rami did and what Mo does. It's very adjacent and in keeping with what you guys are exploring. Heavy shit with comedy, which is delicious.

1:12:27It's so fun. If I were just to be selfish, at least it's therapeutic for me. I get to work on this thing and work with like a bunch of writers who are super talented and such a great room. And Pam Brady, who worked on South Park, was on it with us. It's just fun to explore these things in that way that I personally never had. I hadn't seen and I hadn't put it through this kind of creative process. And so then when people connect with it, it's such a fun feeling. Well, it's great. Number one, Happy Family USA is on Prime currently. And of course, Mountainhead is on HBO currently. Is it HBO again?

1:13:01No, it's HBO Max. Fuck everyone. I know. This would be like Ferrari buys Dodge. And then they rename Ferrari Dodge. That's not the order of event. Like one has enormous cachet. And Max has always been like, I don't know. Max is the stepsister to Cinemax is like HBO light. That's why they're bringing HBO back into the mix. But I guess Max is like, we still want to. But then they were like, we're going to actually split the Warner Brothers Discovery thing. Yes. I'm just like, just get rid of the backs then. I don't like it. Listen, HBO has the most trusted brand loyalty. It's crazy. Of anybody in the space.

1:13:40So it's on HBO, guys. And I don't want anyone to take this like David Zaslav is a good friend. So I'm not trying to like take this out of. I haven't met him, but I'm trying to say that to kind of like will it into existence. I would like to be a close friend of his. And I also have so many things with it. I have both my specials with them and Mountainhead. And so I feel a kinship to the Zaz. Sure. So I kind of am like, he is a good friend. I'm just putting that out there. Okay, great. You know, whenever you guys do the description for this episode, you could, for my credit, just put Rami Yusuf, good friend of Zazlav.

1:14:13I'm happy to do that. Zazlav's best friend. Yeah. Also known as Zazlav's best friend. A good friend of the Zaz. Well, once again, it was delightful. We'll do it three times. I feel confident. You're young. Come on. and ambitious. Come on, man. Anything to come hang with you guys? Are you kidding? All right. And then Godfather 2. Exactly. I mean, wait. So you haven't even seen one? No, I haven't seen anything. Yeah, you're really behind. Have you ever watched In Order the way they do it? Yeah. I'm trying to think if I have or not. By the way, 3, not that bad. It's not as bad as I remember. It is not, dude.

1:14:45Let's pull our guitars out and sing at Monica now. Can't wait. We keep barbying you. And I have, and I, I want to push you all. What's that? That was the funniest movie of the last decade. I know. All right, Rami, I love you. Thank you so much. You guys are the best. So fun.

1:15:07Stay tuned for the fact check so you can hear all the facts that were wrong.

1:15:15This is fun. We're in a new environment. We're in a fresh environment. We stole a location. We did. all blessings and thanks and gratitude to the great Dr. Mike. Friend of the pot. If you've not listened to that episode, it's phenomenal. It is. Watch it on YouTube because he's so gorgeous. He is a beautiful doctor. He's a beautiful doctor. And we became friends and he was so generous because we had to come to New York to interview somebody. We don't have a space here. Yeah. We looked into renting a space that was very, I don't know, seemed complicated. It was easier. Sure. It was complicated. And then old Dr.

1:15:50Mike was like, you can film as much as you want. not my studio. Yeah, what a sweetheart. So in an upcoming episode, you'll see us in this space. That's right. We have come here for a big guest, figuratively and literally. I told an armchair, I've never done this. I've been tempted to do it before. Okay. But I told an armchair who we were interviewing today. You did? Yeah. And? She was excited. She was. Yeah, she was very excited. She was such a nice arm, Cherry. Well, that's redundant. That's fine. Yeah. They all are. But I'm just saying this was a very nice girl. Yeah. And I wanted to give her some insights.

1:16:34She's 13? I don't know how old she was. Okay. She was working at the Ralph Lauren coffee shop. Oh, that's where you're getting coffee while you're in New York? I got a coffee there yesterday on my walk, in my shopping time. Are they like, do they have signature items that are based on their product line? Like, was there a polo? I just got a cappuccino. There wasn't a polo cappuccino? No, but I did get a mug with a polo bear on it. Of course. Of course I did. How many mugs do you think you have at this current moment? Oh, I just got rid of some. Okay. Like four. You did a cleansing? I did a cleanse.

1:17:12I would guess I have. 30, 40? Yeah. I got to say, I got to give props to Kristen. So I think because I publicly shamed her for throwing away all my, or I doubt she threw them away, but got rid of my early Starbucks mugs I was collecting. The best ones. She replaced them all for Nashville. That was a big surprise. I got to my Keurig machine and then all of the ones I used to have virtually were there. Yeah. Those are great mugs. They're enormous. Yeah. You can put 20, 30 ounces of coffee in them. It's a good size mug. Although I've switched to the amber, as you know. So mostly I'm just drinking water out of those Starbeasts now because the amber keeps it warm.

1:17:54And I try to pace myself and drink slowly to curb my consumption, which is always an issue in my life. Always. Yeah. But it's nostalgic. It's just good for decor. Yeah. Even if you don't drink. It makes me feel really good when I look at them all. Yeah. They're very aesthetically pleasing. They are. They are very pretty. Okay. So you said you had a story for me. Oh, yes. Yes. So we have come to New York to because this guest became available. And I was, of course, on I was on vacation. I was I was driving around my pontoon boat. Yes. And of course, I was a little bit like, I don't I don't want to go.

1:18:33But then I was like, get real. This is a great opportunity. Get over it. So a great job. It's a great, great job. I should be grateful for and always happy to do. Alas, I said yes. So yesterday morning, I had taken a 9 a.m. flight out of Nashville, which meant I had to wake up at 5.15 so that I could do my meditation and my writing and all that crap, drive to the airport, blah, blah, blah. So I had had the goal for the last three weeks there to wake up for the sunrise because the sunrise comes up over the lake. I'm generally getting up around seven or eight and it's already kind of up. Still looks pretty, but I'm like, I got to do that.

1:19:12But making yourself wake up at 530 on your vacation. Hard to do. Hard to do. But I did it. Also, I was then able to meditate on the porch because everyone's still asleep. And then I was journaling. And it was absolutely spectacular. It was so, I mean, it was really transcendent. It looked so beautiful. It was just pink and then red. It was just so gorgeous. And I had meditated. It was really, really a nice morning. Flying out was a delight. and I was doing research the entire flight here and this person has a doc about them so I was watching the doc I had like saved it to my iPad we're coming into LaGuardia and we're lowering lowering lowering if you've flown into LaGuardia you're coming in over the water and then the runway starts right so I'm just I'm kind I'm not paying a ton of attention but from muscle memory the moment we're supposed to like i can feel we're about to touch the wheels on the ground it's the most radical and violent pull-up i've ever felt it's like it's like and then all of a sudden we're like oh my god heading back up into the sky and i was like oh i don't i don't like this oh no and i have my noise canceling headphones on and i and i immediately start telling myself and I'm still watching thing.

1:20:38I was like, you have no control over this. There's really no point in you even thinking about what's going on. You're not going to be asked to handle this. You're out of this equation. Even though if it was a terrorist organization. Well, I would have seen someone come to the then, of course, I can't wait to get involved. Exactly. Yeah. Because that wasn't happening. That's the only way I could help. I have nothing to do with this. I'm just actively trying to not think about it because I recognize it's a waste of my time. I can't, you know. That's good. I'm successful at that for a while, but then we're now circling.

1:21:16Now, of course, after the fact, I'm clearly alive. Yeah. We're probably circling just because we got to get back into the holding pattern. Yep. But I'm like, is the landing gear broken? Like, what is the mechanical issue that prevented us from landing? Why are we up here for so long now? And now I'm a little off to the races. You are. Okay. And I start making sense out of stuff that really shouldn't make sense, which is, oh, that's crazy. I just had like the greatest three weeks at this dream, dream place. My kids are so happy. I got to see the sunrise like I wanted to do. It started getting, I started feeling really suspicious.

1:22:01Like, yeah, I guess if there were a perfect time to go, it feels like this. Oh, Dr. Mike has no wood. It's suspicious. It started feeling really suspicious. Then, and you'll hate this. I was like, you wouldn't be dead if you hadn't left this trip to go work. Okay. Like you're about to die because you left the sanction time to go work. Okay. That's in the mix. Great. So now I make myself responsible for this calamity that's about to happen. There's an announcement, but I don't even want to hear it. I know it won't do me any good to hear it. Although it turns out it might have done me some good.

1:22:48Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

1:23:00we come back around we come down we land great and i'm like oh my god oh my god and then i take my headphones off and then i turn to her and i say what was the announcement and she said we almost hit an airplane that was crossing the tarmac oh my god so we were touching down and one came out onto the runway and we had to pull up to avoid it. So we almost center punched. I don't know how close it was. I wasn't flying the airplane, but now here's the funny part. So then I'm, uh, last night I'm eating by myself at Quality Meats. Great restaurant. I like to hit it every time I'm in Manhattan. And anytime I'm eating alone, I'm bored because I'm by myself.

1:23:43So now I'm on Instagram and I go into my DMs and I see a DM from Evan Rachel Wood. Okay. I'm like, oh, this is interesting. I haven't heard from her in a long time. I open up and goes, I was on your flight. Holy shit. Blah, blah, blah. Okay. And I'm like, I'm like, first of all, why didn't you say hi? Yeah. Secondly. Yeah. Holy shit. Uh, I thought for sure the landing gear was broken or something and then she sends back a voice that says, um, yeah, I didn't, I didn't come say hi.

1:24:17Cause I Additionally, the second we pulled up and went back into the sky and I'm convinced I'm going to die. And I'm thinking, the person next to me starts yakking in one of those airs. No. Oh, no. Oh, wow. Oh, miserable. You really went through it. Also, she says, you know, I'm thinking about my kids, too. She was doing the opposite. She's like, I didn't need to take this vacation. Everyone's guilty now, making themselves responsible. Yep. But there was a guy just yakking next to her also. Yuck. that's brutal. Oh, that's, that's scary. That's a good, that's. It was so funny. I was like, I got out of the, I got out of the airplane and then I got in a cab and I was just like, I'm so glad to be in this cab and not in that airplane, which of course the cab is probably statistically 25 ,000 times more dangerous.

1:25:09I'm going to die in the cab than that airplane. Yeah, exactly, exactly. This is a ding, ding, ding because so after I left Nashville, I went home to visit my parents. Not, sorry, I went to Atlanta I had to visit my parents. Although I'm confused because didn't over Christmas, you said that was home. I'm confused too. But I imagine if people hear me say I went home from Nashville, I went to LA. That's a good distinction. So I went to visit my parents and my dad has been following the Air India crash a lot. So he was very up to date on what's been going on. And, you know, currently the theory is that he, the pilot did it on purpose and committed suicide and then also then killed all those people.

1:25:59And because they can hear, I guess, on the black box, on the recording, they can hear the co-pilot ask the pilot, why did you move this or switch this or whatever? and he said, I did not. And then 10 seconds later, it got switched back, but it was too late. So that's the theory, but they're doing - They hadn't had anything to his seahorses, did it? Well - And his lack of understanding of what a seahorse was. It could have. We'll never know. Boy, that's - It's so dark. That is really rough. They're doing an investigation. A lot of people in India don't think he did it. so it's you know it's it's a thing the amount of thoughts i had in that time like i had that whole scenario i just talked about but then i also had this whole other debate where i was like you have to honor your life and be grateful right now it was so good and your daughters are so beautiful i just i was the only thing that was preventing me from having like total gratitude for my life is the thought of my girls growing up without me was just like so heartbreaking i was imagining like how well positioned they are currently and how disruptive that would be.

1:27:20And then I'm thinking, I hope I did enough while I was here. Yeah. And just I'm picturing my little Delta with no one to snuggle. I just, it was rough. Yeah. I hated that part. And then I also had the thought, I wonder if we'll land in the Hudson. Like if there's no landing gear and all this other stuff, like will we land in the Hudson? I'm a good swimmer. I was going to say, good thing you know how to swim well. Don't panic. Yeah. People do survive landing in the Hudson. I mean, it was the amount of thoughts I had in that 20 minutes or whatever it was. Yeah, it was scary. Yeah. Very scary. Well, I'm glad you made it.

1:27:57Me too. Me too. I'm really glad you made it. And then Larry was like, I'm never flying again, which is so stupid because I'm going to, I'm still going places. Yeah, we got to. You can't like, I mean, that's your whole motto. I know. It's like. That's right. Just do it. You don't know what's going to get you. Because what's, I'm going to, you know, I get hit by lightning one day or something. You just don't know. You don't know. You got to live your life. You're almost guaranteed to not die the thing you're worrying about dying of. Yeah. Did you, okay, once you landed and stuff, have you thought, because you're thinking about the girls and it's like, God, they're just so.

1:28:37they're so lucky and they are right they're so lucky did you ever have the thought like i mean i didn't die on this but like what are the chances it's gonna be at a hundred for them for the rest of their life like that's scary that starts getting scary it's like for for me it would start prompting yeah so this bad thing didn't happen but like Like how something bad. I immediately was so mad that I've never sat down and written them two letters. To be opened if anything ever happens to me. Like I got so mad. Because I just would want to write them a letter that would say you're going to be fine.

1:29:23Right. You're so strong. Yeah. And lesser people have survived this and you're going to because you're both bad motherfuckers. Yeah. I want, I was really mad I hadn't ever taken the time to do that. Right. I guess it's kind of morbid to do it, but I think I'm going to. It's so interesting. It's not very like you to like plan for disaster. Yeah, but they have a knack for making me do all kinds of things that are not consistent with who I am. That's a good thing, I think. Yeah. Yeah, that's the gift that they give you is you have to become patient. You have to not care if all your shit's fucked up.

1:30:02You have to care, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Well, one more thing. Ding, ding, ding. My dad, I told you this, but he has decided he has declared his retirement plan, which is he's going to master or understand quantum physics. Quantum mechanics. Yeah. Yes. That's his goal. And I was like, oh, my gosh. How long before he retires? He retires in January. He does? Are you nervous for him? I am, but I'm happy. So he is, he's nervous for him, you know, which is, but I think that's a good thing. He's hyper aware and like, like he's like making plans. He's not naive that it's going to be a hard adjustment.

1:30:47Yes. He's like, I want to learn, I'm going to learn about this. I'm going to start, I'm going to join a pickleball league. Oh, great. Yeah. He has plans, which made me feel relieved. Yeah. Good. Yeah. My Papa Bob, who I've told you was the longest employee ever at Wonder Bread. Yeah. Wonder Bread. There's an R in there. Wonder Bread Bakery. Wonder Bed Breakery. Yeah, that's hard. He was forced to retire because he had an ulcer he didn't know about that got so bad it blew out of his stomach. Ew. While he was carrying a 50-pound bag of flour. Ugh. There's a lot to that story. I went and visited him in the hospital, and I saw them putting a catheter in his penis.

1:31:26And I was like, oh, my God, Papa Bob's penis is the size of a baseball bat. That's a side note. Is that because it was swollen? I don't know. He just had a huge hog, I guess. Oh, you never saw it till then? I had never seen it. I seen him in his tighty-whities all the time. They were saggy, you know, Papa style. Grandpa style. He had no shepherd, no butt. Big barrel belly and zero butt cheeks of the tighty-whities hung on. Yeah, there was space between. Yeah. And I never really noticed how much action was in the front. Anywho. He was forced to retire because of that. Yeah. And he was depressed.

1:32:01He had like two years of for real depression. Yeah. And then he got a job just like delivering, I think, hearts and kidneys, like medical things on ice. And that kind of brought him out of that. Gave him something to do. Yeah. Yeah. You got to have something to do. Yeah. Wow. Well, I guess maybe we should do some facts now that we talked about the penis. Yeah. Okay, great. That's a fact. Papa Bob had a hog. Okay, so some facts for Rami. We love Rami. Yes, we do. Sweetest boy. Sweetest boy. Almost impossible he's in show business. I feel like he maybe came out around the same time as Gerard last time.

1:32:42I feel like I remember those two being sort of out around the same time, and then it's happening again, which is wild. And they were both in poor things. Oh, yeah. Maybe they're linked celestially. OK, just let's do some. OK, so we talked about how Obama deported more people than Trump, which is definitely true. Let's see here. This is an article on Vox. It says how Obama deported so many people. Obama's immigration enforcement strategy was two-pronged, increasing penalties for unauthorized crossings at the southern border and deputizing local law enforcement to target immigrants with criminal records inside the U.S.

1:33:27The former increased the number of people who faced official removal proceedings and deterred repeat border crossers, and the latter allowed ICE to have its ear to the ground in cities throughout the country. Before Obama, unauthorized border crossers were typically allowed to voluntarily return to Mexico without undergoing an official process or being subjected to any penalties. That meant that many attempted to recross the border, knowing that they would not face repercussions for doing so. The Obama administration started subjecting a greater proportion of them to formal deportation proceedings.

1:33:59Yeah, utilizing an expanded federal immigration enforcement workforce that had grown from 12 ,700 in 2003 to 22 ,000 in 2008. I remember this period. There was a 60 Minutes on it. And yeah, they were sometimes catching the same person and returning them to the border twice in one day. Like while they were filming, they watched it happen within a single day. Yeah. Donald Trump promised his supporters the largest deportation program in American history, but he's nowhere close. That distinction belongs to an early 20th century program that likely saw 2 million people deported. When looking at more recent times, it's President Barack Obama, who holds the 21st century deportation record.

1:34:47His administration kicked out 438 ,421 people in 2013. No president since has come close to equaling that record, including Trump during his first term. Half a mil. It's a lot. That's a lot of people. Yeah. That that's, you know, that's six Super Bowl stadiums. I mean, obviously, people have different opinions on immigration and stuff. But I think actually most people would agree that you a lot of people would agree that you can't just have like an open border and have people coming through, you know, and it's just the way to do it. Like there are ways to do it that don't feel cruel and inhumane.

1:35:29I think I mean, my real, real belief is that the majority of people wanted the flow of people to stop coming in. And I think the majority of people aren't dying to deport a ton of the people that are here. I'm hearing that on the left and the right. I think that's kind of you have Schultz saying those people should stay. You have Theo Vaughn saying, you know, you have people that were calling for tougher immigration saying like, no, no, let the people that are here stay. but you got to stop this crazy flow. A lot of people think, though, that a bunch of them are criminals and that they all need to leave.

1:36:09So that's, you know. I've never, I haven't met those folks, but I'm sure they exist. Yeah, I mean, that's, he sort of ran on immigrants or criminals. Okay, the reporter who said Emma Stone's name was Emily, he's from Kazakhstan. Oh, OK. That's where Borat was from? I don't know. I didn't ever, you know, I never saw any of the Borats. Yeah, I think he was from Kazakhstan. Well, it changed his whole life, he said, that moment. Oh, it did? Yeah. I was completely unaware of that. Were you aware of that? Was that a big viral moment I missed? Yeah, I think I was the one who brought it up on this episode.

1:36:48Oh, OK. And what happened? So at a press conference or something a couple of years ago, he said, Emily, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And someone said, Emma. And like correcting him. And she said, no, my name is Emily. And, you know, so then I guess that moment for him where he knew her name changed his whole life. Oh, OK. So he was right. Yeah, he was right. And then at Cannes. That's their country motto, Kazakhstan. We always get it right. Yeah, and they do. And then, yeah, at this year's Cannes Film Festival, he was there again, and he was also interviewing her, I think, for I don't know what.

1:37:35But he told her, like, you know, I was that guy, and my career has skyrocketed, and my personal life is better. Okay, this was wild. This was wild. So when we were talking about Emily Stone, you said that you were not very good at like, if you're if you are obsessed with someone, you wouldn't be as good as me at like knowing all the details about them. Right. Yes. and then you said like if if I knew Matt Damon's name was Kent middle name was Kent or real name was Kent or something like that you said something like that and I was like I think that's his dad's name and it is no yes Kent Damon yes yeah and he was very close with his dad okay very good son I'm sure.

1:38:28Yeah. And he when he did SNL some years ago, a lot of the monologue was about his dad because they would watch it together. And it was. Anyway, isn't that weird? You just pulled that name out of your ass and it was his dad's name out of my arse. Someone wrote in the comments about Alexander Skarsgård. And I'm inclined to think they were either in England or Ireland because they tend to use the word arse. And it was a normal lady and it said, I would suck a fart out of his arse. Oh my God. Yeah. It's still live in my comments, if you don't believe me. And I thought, wow, go get it, girl. That's a huge swing.

1:39:13Wow. But it really does. It does tell you the level of which she is obsessed with him. Yeah. Oh yeah. There's no questions left on the table after you hear that. You're not ambivalent about someone that you would suck the fart out of their arse. Oof. I wonder. Wow. Yeah, would you? Yeah, you would, Matt. I don't want to answer this. Okay, yeah, that's a little too much. The reason it's, I mean, I shone a light on it because it's extreme. It's extreme. Maybe privately at a dinner party, you might admit to that, but maybe in public, you'll keep a lid on it. I'm just imagining doing it. Sure. You're really.

1:39:55I should follow up with her and ask, is there a straw involved? No. I think it's mouth. It's direct. It's a kiss. It's a kiss to the anus. You know what's funny? I don't think just putting your mouth on someone's butthole is gross, really. I mean, if it's clean. Sure, sure. If they brushed. I thought you meant the mouth. Yeah, the mouth. As long as the mouth is clean, as long as I am brushed, I feel fine about it. Yeah. No. Well, what if someone said, like, how do you feel about ass eating? And you said, well, if you brush your teeth, you thought they were asking you and then you insisted that they brush their teeth.

1:40:45Yeah. But anyway, I don't think that is gross, really. but but there's something about the idea of like gas yeah in your mouth it's not even it's not even like there's something like you're yeah i don't know it sounds great but no it's it's really on the surface it's not terribly appealing well good for that lady and whoever she's with yes good for her lover yeah that's lucky yeah i should develop a relationship with her and find up more details like does she have a lover right has she ever actually done that we need to know right or is it just a it could honestly it could be a total figure of speech like break a leg on a play and if someone angles like i don't know this person was america they wanted the actor to break their leg while they were doing the performance that seems sadistic yeah and they could really be trying to figure out what's behind that but there's nothing behind it it's just a saying.

1:41:43It's just a regular old saying. So if that's a really common saying in the UK in the comments, just respond with, yes, we say that a lot. Okay. Is Budapest one of the original crossroads from the east to west? Yes. Budapest is often considered a crossroads from east to west due to its geographic location, historical influences, and the blending of cultural elements. It sits at the intersection of various geographical regions and civilizations, particularly between Western and Eastern Europe. It's been a meeting point for different cultural and political spheres. Right. That's it. Now, he said Trump and LeBron are the most AI people.

1:42:21I didn't really find that. There's like a bunch of people that often that have like a fair amount of deep fakes. I couldn't get like topsies. Like Taylor Swift is on all the lists. She's popular for that. Scarlett Johansson. I think because people do sexual things with that. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't want to say it, but that is probably what it was. Okay. Now, how many dogs are put down a day in the U.S.? Approximately 568 dogs are euthanized in U.S. shelters every day. This equates to roughly one dog every two and a half minutes. Right. So the criticism of the Sochi Olympics might have been a little hypocritical.

1:43:10Yeah, I think so. Okay, he said he thought that, and not to quote him, so I'm not, but in the Muslim religion, the soul encasement, he said he thought was around 100 days. So in Islam, the general belief is that soul encasement occurs around 120 days, four months after conception. This is the time when the fetus is believed to receive its soul, marking a significant stage in its development. I looked up whether abortion was legal in Saudi Arabia. It is in limited circumstances. Specifically, abortions are permitted when there's a risk to the pregnant woman's life or to protect her physical and mental health.

1:43:56Mental health is interesting. Pregnancies resulting from incest or rape also qualify for legal abortion under the mental health exemption. Well, here's where you get into some tricky. You can have a very liberal abortion policy if it's illegal to have sex out of wedlock. Right. Like if there's Sharia law and you can't have sex out of wedlock, that's already a crime to have become pregnant in a sense. Yeah. Then it kind of renders abortion moot. I'm not saying that's the scenario, but there are lots of countries that are under Sharia law. That is true. Should I look it up? What countries are under Sharia law?

1:44:40Is it a crime to have sex out of wedlock? Sharia law. But I'm not sure if Sharia law includes that, but I should find out too. Okay. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan have Sharia as the supreme law of the land, while others like Egypt, Nigeria, and Malaysia incorporate Sharia into specific areas like family law or personal status law. The extent and interpretation of Sharia also differs significantly across these countries. Yeah. So I'm looking at the list where it's illegal to have sex out of wedlock. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Qatar or Qatar, UAE, Sudan, Indonesia, Malaysia. So, yeah, I mean, it's kind of a.

1:45:23Yeah. It's not a fair abortion claim there, in my opinion. Yeah, that's true. But the abortion laws, the like six week abortion ban and stuff here has nothing to do with marriage. Like you could be married and doesn't matter. My point is, if it's illegal to become pregnant out of marriage. Yeah. You're saying that decreases the chances that people would even be wanting to get one. Yeah. So you're pregnant and you're going to go to jail for, you know, or be criminally charged for having sex. What is the difference between that? And then the abortion doesn't fall. The ones you just listed, it doesn't meet that criteria.

1:46:03So in practice, they might as well have a no abortion law because you're not even legally allowed to have sex out of marriage. And if you're married, the only way you can have abortion is if somehow your wife got raped or somehow there was incest. Or mental health. You know what I'm saying? I guess that's what I'm. Yeah. So it's like saying there's no speed limit in Saudi Arabia, but it's illegal to drive a car. And if someone's like, well, no, other countries don't care about speeding. There's no speed limit in Saudi Arabia. And you're like, yeah, and it's also illegal to drive in Saudi Arabia.

1:46:34You can't even get to the part where you have an abortion. That's what I'm saying. Right. But I guess because you're we're talking about out of wedlock versus in wedlock. So here, though, with the abortion laws that are six weeks, it's even if you're married, you can't get one after that. Yeah. So and the point is there. You pretend you could if you're married, like it's all things considered that we're married and you meet all the criteria that you just listed. Right. I mean, there it seems like theirs is more of a four month thing as opposed to this. six-week thing. Okay. Well, that might be it for Rami Facts.

1:47:19Well, I love him. I can't wait till he comes back. Me too. Me too. All right. Love you.

1:47:39Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.