Jimmy Carr: My Mom’s Depression Made Me Funny

30:11And then you look at the sitcom stuff that's come out of Britain. It's been very singular. Monty Python. And then even the stand-up itself, you go, this was the – it's like that's where you would go for the source of it, is what I mean. I don't know, because I think kind of in modern stand-up for me, Carlin and Pryor feel like they're the John the Baptist. They came along. and then they created this world where the stand-up comic, right? It was like, there was always comics, there was always entertainers around, but it was like the court jester or the guys in musical and they would be on the bill with other people.

30:50But the idea of going to see someone and buying a ticket and going to see them just speak on their own is a relatively recent thing. I think this is why comedy is having a moment now because it's quite a new medium. So it's guys like Billy Connolly in the UK would have been our George Carlin. So these things were kind of happening simultaneously and then stand-up kind of grew it's become a much bigger thing i mean like i got into it like 25 30 years ago whenever it was and when i got into it it was stand-up comedy was field hockey and now it's premier league football yeah yeah i got so lucky on that wave you catch the week yet that you know it comes through it's like become a bigger thing and it feels like it's it's having a moment now because it's it's authenticity it's it's like people like going to see a comic and they buy into them and they say, well, I want to spend time with this person and have fun.

31:39And it's the idea of like the proximate reason for comedy is to laugh and have fun. But the ultimate reason is to connect. I do think that's why it's becoming more popular. People desperately want to go out and feel part of something. You laugh so much more when you're at a show and you connect with someone and you feel like, okay, well, I've started like, I talk more on stage now. there's much more kind of interaction with the audience. And it's that thing where I want people to join in. I want it to feel special in this moment. I feel like - You want it to feel like it could only be happening now.

32:16That's how I feel. And I think that's what makes the comedy special is because we live in a world where everything is regurgitated and passed around and it's clippy and it's this and it's that. The one thing that we do have that's unique is this moment, this river, can never be stood in again. Yeah. That's essentially what it starts to feel like. So when an audience member comes in and they go, Jimmy spoke to me or we talked about something that couldn't have come from another show and those moments for me make you feel like you're experiencing something that is completely original, completely new and most probably will never be experienced again.

32:53And I think what's also helping how Jimmy was saying that you're more conversational now on stage is comedians are finally taking the advice that the audience has been saying to them for the longest time. Remember for long, you would have a show and then someone would come to you and say, great show. You'd be like, I wasn't feeling mine. Then they're like, no, I came for you. Yeah. Finally. Yeah. We believe that they came for us. That's a good point. It's not about the jokes only now. It's you can share a story. You can go for a tangent. You can come back. You can go. You can, but finally we believe that they came there for us.

33:24Yeah. Well, it's that, it's that, I suppose it's that, it's a weird thing with comedy where you want people that come out and have a great time and feel like they don't remember a word you say, but they remember how you made them feel. Yes. And I feel like the mistake we've made is bigger. As a society, when we all used to live in the villages 200 years ago, everyone used to sing and everyone used to dance. And then we moved to the cities and there's things like ballet and opera and people specialized and they're incredible dancers. We just couldn't take our eyes off them. They're amazing. But we're sitting and we're watching it and we're no longer joining in.

33:58Yes. And the joining in is everything. The joining in. And sometimes in heckles, some people are just heckling, just a bit of fun. Some people, I feel like there's a frustrated artist. There's someone out there that wants to say something. And there's a Thoreau quote I really like. Like, most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with a song still in their heart. And I think comedy should be taught. I think comedy should be much bigger than it is now. Because if you think about what it is, right? It's ordering your thoughts and writing them down and learning to speak in your own authentic voice.

34:34And the tragedy is most people go to their graves and they've never heard themselves. They themselves have never heard themselves. No, they don't know what they think because they've never sat down and ordered their thoughts and got it together. And, you know, so they're like, you know, they're just, they're taking in, they're taking in whatever media they're taking in and kind of regurgitating an opinion they've heard on the news. I want, you want them to have - Their own song. Yeah, their own song, their own voice. Like that thing of like stand-up comedy is really, if it's about anything, it's about like, what could you say that no one else could say?

35:10You just made me realize, you tied together a thought I've been grappling with, we've been grappling with for a while now. It was like, why are certain mediums and why are certain ideas expanding and growing? Why are people gravitating towards them? we talked about this with live streaming and i think you just hit on it one of the things that live streaming is achieving that all other mediums aren't is that people can hear themselves and they can see themselves so we'd be having this conversation now but there would be people in a chat with us in this moment going oh that's true jimmy hey jimmy i actually came to see you thanks for that show and but it's happening like now it's it's like i could like turn to you and say oh jimmy someone actually says hey did you ever find that thing you were oh and then you and then you interact with it and it interacts and it becomes this world where as you're saying it's no longer us at the ballet it's us dancing in a circle in a circle around the fire someone like like we do in south africa one person dances in the circle but everyone around them is dancing it's not like everyone stands and watches here's the illusion right the illusion is uh we're on stage performing and the audience are passive and watching but being in an audience is performative you see it much clearer when it's Bruce Springsteen or Taylor Swift, you see them on stage if they go, how you doing tonight New York and everyone goes, yeah but if you go to a Starbucks and they say how you doing, yeah people go, oh you're having a psychotic break I just like that image but you laugh I just love that image in my head that's my thing bro how are y 'all doing?

36:48I've got an order for Brian here but first before I get this sorted going Starbucks how you doing

36:57oh my god New York baby like being an audience member itself is performative it is I saw it I want to see Taylor Swift in London right two years ago Taylor Swift's not my I don't listen to a lot of Taylor Swift the gig was transcendent everyone has said that transcendent really everyone has said that and I spent about half my time watching Taylor Swift no and about half my time watching the audience everyone else because you were watching these and it was it was like it was the kind of the same with oasis the next year but it was the taylor swift thing was girls it was like mothers and daughters and they look at each other and they were singing every word and a lot of this like to them and it was so it was beautiful it was so beautiful and the same thing at the oasis gig you were saying but it was more like guys that like had no ability to to turn to their friend and go i love you man but like singing the words of Wonderwall and crying and like holding each other.

37:50It was just, it was like beautiful. It was like, it was the audience are the thing to watch. It was amazing. Really properly amazing. Yeah. Everyone has said that about the Taylor Swift concerts. They've said, and I, and I understand it because we've made the mistake of thinking, and I guess it's not just us as the audience. Sometimes I guess it's the performers that you can blame, but we've made the mistake of thinking that live performances are only determined by whether or not you like the actual artist and their what they're putting out but actually when a when a performance is put on well it's not about the person or not you know it's the it's the spectacle it's the it's the feeling it's the moment it's the energy yeah you don't have to be into it to get into it there when you go home you may you may still be like i don't really listen to the music but when you're in that space taylor swift uh beyonce i know when i went to beyonce like Like, songs you know or don't know, it doesn't matter what it is, it's going to be, people who say when they went to watch Michael Jackson back in the day, they're like, yeah, I know they're fans of the music, but people walked in and said, I don't know what this experience was, but it has stayed with me forever.

39:00Well, it's slightly standing in awe. And it's the, I have like a line on this. Okay, so there's a theory about pyramids and rockets, right? So it's McKenna, I think, said it first. So pyramids and rockets are the same thing. It's a huge amount of human capital is spent sending a chosen few to the heavens. Yes. It's the same thing. A rocket and a pyramid are the same, right? Cathedrals do the same thing. But I think music sometimes, maybe sometimes comedy, it's aiming at the same thing. It's the transcendent. There's a desire to take people to a place. and so like with the best gigs you've ever seen the best concerts you've ever seen and you leave just it's they're aiming up and it fit you feel like better for it and we'll aim together people also feel like that about huge religious gatherings yeah that's why they're so good but then the mistake they made i mean my i'm irish catholic like my heritage i'm not i'm an atheist but the idea that um the big mistake the church made was vatican ii so they made this thing vatican ii basically translated the Latin into the local language.

40:15So it took something that was very right brain, gestalt, standing in wonder, like the incense and the Latin, and no one really understood what was going on, but it was like, wow, the incredible show. Gregorian chance. So let's get on to Gregorian chance in a second. But it took that thing. I love Gregorian chance. It took that thing, and I'll tell you why you know him. And it basically translated it into left brain logic. Making it make sense. So you go, well, you try and make it make sense, but none of it makes sense because it's not meant to make sense. Yes. It's meant to be transcendent. Oh, no.

40:49You know why you've heard of Gregorian chants? No. It's a good story. It's why I wrote a book. Please tell me. Okay, so Pope Gregory was knocking around, I don't know, the year 1100. And he's in Vatican City and he's in the church and he's wandering around to other churches close by. And everyone's singing the songs differently. and he goes this is this is some bullshit i want the songs sung the same everywhere i want the songs how i like the songs okay and the guys go the bishops and the archbishops they go but the thing is uh pope gregory all due respect you can't write down music music is ethereal it is it comes through the soul people interpret it it's emotional music cannot be written and pope gregory goes yeah that's all very well but i'm the pope fucking write it down and music notation you make an amazing gregory we need to make this when they're casting this would be a great movie by the way i'm gregory listen i'm the fucking pope you're doing this so it takes them years i mean years right and eventually they get to a form of music musical notation that's why you've heard of gregorian chants because pope gregory was the first person to write down music.

42:05Now, cut to 400 years later, Bach. Now, Bach could not have happened if not Pope Gregory. Wow. Musical notation. I didn't know that. So you go, you're building on that. And so the reason to write a book about jokes, the reason to write something about comedy, to try in some small way to formulate the language, to give the scaffolding. You can't tell people what to joke about, what to talk about. You want them to have their own voice, their own language, but to give them the form to go, well, this is what a chord looks like. And these are what the joke types are. And these are how to put them together into a routine.

42:43And this is the rhythm of spoken word and how it works. And that's what I know. And when I started, I felt like I was macheting my way through the jungle. And this is a road. This is a road you could follow. I want more people to do it. I want more people involved. I love reading books about comedy. Can you imagine what else Gregory's Gestapo record company idea also birthed? Yeah. We know it birthed Bach, but imagine all the bishops that came together now for a common cause to find people who can translate and write the music down and write it on something. They had to get the paper to write it on.

43:23They had to distribute it. A lot of things were birthed by Gregory's Gestapo record company. It's all the big movements in life. He agitated something. You don't know where it's going to end. You don't know that small action by him had such an enormous effect because everything was kind of remembered. Everything was spoken word. And then suddenly you're writing down music and you can remember it. It's incredible. Music is, I mean, it's an incredible language. Just the idea that you can play a minor chord to anyone anywhere in the world. And they get it. And there are limited chords at that. yeah limited chords have made infinite sounds I'm still thinking about the people at the churches who missed their old songs hey hey what do you mean we're playing it wrong fuck you Gregory I'm just saying like there were some people at the other churches who were like cause now imagine your church cause every church I've been to a lot of churches in my life I grew up super super religious in our family we went to church maybe seven times a week right so there's every kind of church if the white churches that I went to managed to overwhelm the black churches that we went to with their music, what a terrible life that would have been now for me.

44:38Because that was the one thing I was looking forward to. I was like, when we get there, the vibes are going to pick up. The spirit is going to be different. Do you get what I'm saying? Like the music moves you differently. Whereas like when you were singing like the Psalms, you know what I mean? It's all things bright and beautiful. And all creatures. No one was dancing. No one was moving. You get what I mean? Yeah. Whereas when you had that bounce, now I'm thinking of that poor church where Gregory came in and then there was one church where they were vibing. There's got to be one where they were killing it.

45:07They were having the best time ever. They were like, I love church more than anything. You come into church this week? How could I not? Oh man, sorry, I sold out. What do you mean sold out? Yeah, we sold out, bro. Oh man, oh man, I'm loving it. Well, when you're there, make sure you sing my song for me. Come into the church, people are there. Oh yeah, I love my church. I love my church. I be, I be, I be, I be, I be. And then the next week you come to church. But you see, that's why in South Africa, there's a...

45:34There was a guy called French writer at the CD store. He introduced me to Gregorian chants. But he also looked like he was from the Gregorian era. In South Africa, the Methodist church came. When it came, the black people that it was preaching to and it was converting said, Here's an idea We're going to translate These hymns Into our language Genius So On Easter and Christmas Black people Who are part of The Methodist church Prefer to go To the black church So there's two churches On Easter and Christmas There's the early Early service Early service Yes White people Yep Then afterwards All the hymns That were in English Are now in Isitkohosa And it goes down Right It's just like Same hymn It's doing it, man.

46:23Different vibes. It's that whole thing of Latin and English, right? It's feeling it. Yeah. It's like, have you ever seen what, I mean, But it was the other way around. You're an English person. Have you seen what non-English speakers do to the English language? They give it, oh. Pazazz. Eh, eh, eh. You guys don't have that at all. I'm not. No, I don't. I mean, technically, I don't. You guys say things like bang, which is terrible. I don't even have an accent. This is just how things sound when they're pronounced properly. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. You are like literally the, it's like, You are of the Greenwich Me time.

46:54I travel the world thinking everyone is fucking up. Yes, but have you heard the, like, ooh, like the vibes of like, do you know what I mean? Okay, like if you were to tell a story of someone threw something at your head and it just narrowly missed you, how would you tell the story? I would say those words in that order. Ah, you see now. Yeah. Whereas with us, we'd be like, yo, you're cheating in the way. Let me tell you what happened to me the other day. So I'm walking, busy walking. Next thing I see this guy Shwaga Pops out This guy's there Throws the thing at me Shwaga You don't have that in the language You're going to label it You're going to say What are you going to call it?

47:30You're going to say You're going to call it a word Yeah I mean Shwaga Shwaga You know that Shwaga Shwaga is a A sound of a Shwaga It has a meaning It has a meaning Shwaga Shwaga It comes from the back Shwaga Shwaga And if you said it to someone In South Africa They'll know But I'm just saying like Like, ooh, that's what I feel like. That's also where I think the church sort of messed up is they didn't have like the, you want to have like your local, you know what I mean? Yes. Brings it like a, because if people can find themselves in, you've got religion. Well, my thing was that I think the church messed up by giving it, trying to give it logic and it's a category error.

48:13Oh, no, I agree with you. To try and get religion to make sense. Yes, but I'm saying also on top of that. It's about the other thing. It's about transcendence. about something bigger. And I'm saying on top of that, I'm agreeing with you, I'm saying, and on top of it, they should have made sure that there were regional, it's like McDonald's. Go to McDonald's in India, you can have curry. Oh yeah, no, they're killing it. They're killing it. You see what I'm saying? Yeah, you try and kill some cows in India, see how far you fucking get. No, that guy was a genius. The guy that reinvented, like they made a movie about the founder, right?

48:42The guy that created McDonald's. Yes, yeah. They should make another one about the guy and there's one guy that took McDonald's to India, came and got the rights and went, oh, we're doing this. Wait, really? Yeah, and he went, how are we going to do this? He went, really differently. But we're going to keep... They kept the essence of it, but they changed everything. Because obviously, like most people are vegetarian there. There's no beef. Yes. There's no fucking beef. What are you talking about beef? We're not having beef. Like, there's a reason people say as calm as a Hindu cow. They're in no immediate danger.

49:12None whatsoever. Imagine the black market of selling beef in India. There's none, my man. Pablo Escobar. You wish, my friend. You wish, my man. It would never happen? my friend remember this is now it's not that it's illegal the people are going I do not consume this so it's not like people are like I wish I could get some beef they're like no why would you I don't I don't consume that do you understand it's like selling dog in America people will be like what are you there's no need for a black market no one's searching for it but white people in America do buy dogs what are you talking about to keep them no I'm talking about to eat you didn't say that part okay yes to eat to eat to eat.

49:49I want to know about like... Wait, what are we doing here? What are we doing here? I think something just flew past Trevor's head. I think is what happened there. Called quava. Quava. You're actually saying that well, by the way. Thank you. I've never heard quava said with an English accent. And the next thing you know, shwaba. Don't go anywhere Because we got more What now After this Kids will always have An outfit that they love And they can't accept That they've grown out of it Sorry Are we talking about this? Yeah No because you No but you are You are You are dressed Like a toddler 100 % Yo man This guy gets shots I got I got I got a six year old I wouldn't put in that outfit I go, no, wear something with a collar.

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53:03How much do you think, or rather what has changed in the Jimmy stand-up person that we meet today versus like that Jimmy from years ago? I'm much more myself on stage now than I was. I mean, I still, like my love language is jokes. I like one-liners. I like that idea of like going, I mean, I'm in the service industry, right? Okay. I like to think of myself as a drug dealer. Okay. So I'm dealing in two drugs. It's dopamine and serotonin. and the people have already got the drugs on them, I can just tickle them out. I can make them happy. It's a variable interval reward system. So you know a joke's coming, but you don't quite know where.

53:42And then you do that for, you get on stage, you do that for 20, 25 minutes, whatever it is, like three, four jokes a minute. So you've established like a rhythm with the audience. And then you just kind of step back and you go, okay, what should we talk about? And then you let the evening go where it's going to go. And then you kind of get back and you perform some more. But it's really interesting that that thing of like, I've created this thing where it's exciting to me because every night is different because you're interacting with the audience in a way. And some people ask you dumb questions and some people ask you really interesting things.

54:13And sometimes you're sincere. Sometimes you try and just be as funny as you can. Right. Yeah. Brutal. But I'm never quite sure where it's going. It's really, it's fun. It feels like it's a, um, and spending a lot of time in that gym. You just kind of get, you get into it. You get really into, and you can joke about anything. but not with anyone. You can joke about anything but not with anyone. You find your audience. They come to you. They want to... I mean, I sort of... I view sort of jokes as they're transgressions. You know that benign violation theory? No. So it's a guy, Robert McGraw came up with it.

54:51So the idea that there's violations in life, right? Terrible things happen. And by joking about something, you make you make that benign you take away the power from that thing benign violation by joking about it so the venn diagram the cross between a violation something awful and a joke so in in joking about something you take away its power you take away the violation you you it's a way of kind of filtering life through the charcoal of humor and making it okay and i think i only i kind of view like an inoculation against the terror of life terrible things happen yeah and and we have like you know it's very stoic but we have no control over what happens to us but we can at least choose how we look at it and the idea that you go choose our reaction yeah and you you your breath and your reaction is all you have control over right so that that idea of like jokes are they're quite powerful in that like the darker the joke that the more powerful it is i think like Like if you can, and the stronger it has to be, like if you're going to tackle something that's really kind of third rail, difficult, it's got to be so funny to make it worthwhile.

56:03Yeah. To get people over that line. And then they feel the relief. And you can joke about anything. I kind of view it like it's the, you know that thing in politics, people talk about the Overton window of like, what's the most left-wing thing? What's the most right-wing thing? You could say at a polite dinner party. Okay. I think comedy broadens the conversational Overton window. I think it makes conversation, it's not the magic doesn't happen in the room. It happens afterwards. On the way home, people have a conversation a bit more open about life, a bit more free about stuff. It just gives them, yeah.

56:35But it's permission to talk about this stuff. So I think Freud called jokes pleasure bribes. A joke is a pleasure bribe and it's encouraging you to think an unthinkable thought. I think it's not just encouraging you to think an unthinkable thought. It's encouraging you to think an unthinkable thought and also acknowledge that it is only a thought. And I think that's something that some people have forgotten and lost in comedy. Are these comedians or the audiences? Both ways sometimes. One of my favorite things you ever did, I don't know if you still do it, but do you remember there was a point where you started playing this video before your shows?

57:15Oh yeah, I've got like an opening thing. of like, yeah, the rules. Yeah, like some of the rules. And you have this one line where you say, please remember that there will be jokes about terrible things, but those are not the terrible things. Those are jokes about the, you say something, yeah, it was, I remember seeing it once and I was like, this is the greatest disclaimer. I feel like it should be played before every comedy show and every, like, I feel like you created the standard language that goes before every - The opening credits of a standard show. comedy clip even like you know that thing of like epilepsy and seizures they just put it standard there's no flashing scenes that may disturb sensitive every time I see that warning I'm like so if you knew why did you put it in there because they're like yo bro we don't want to spoil the movie for no now I must now I get what they're saying they're just like yo for you if you have epilepsy it may be triggered but yo the flashing lights was fire bro we had to keep it in I get why they did it but I like that they have that language this is not your first day with epilepsy Fucking, you deal with that.

58:19I don't know, man. Right? Fucking, I got my standard line now. If I offend anyone. I feel guilty for laughing. I tried to delay it as long as I could. My thing with jokes, I mean, sometimes you catch some heat. You get dragged a little bit for making a joke. My thing now is if someone has a go at me, next time I get canceled, this is my line. I'm going to say, I'm sorry. and whoever's been offended will go, well, you don't really mean that apology. And I'll say, so you're saying I can say something and not mean it. Now you're getting it. That's it, right? You go, yeah, I didn't fucking mean the joke either.

59:04It's a verbal thing, and I want to talk about serious stuff. But that's why I'm saying the disclaimer was so powerful, because it's like, yo, there are terrible things in the world. I'm going to make jokes about these terrible things, Are those jokes? Please note that the jokes are not the terrible things. They are jokes. Of the terrible things. About the terrible things. Yeah. I don't think. And it's just such a small, it's such a small but powerful framing to remind you of what the comedy is trying to do, how it's trying to do it. Do you get what I'm saying? No, it reminds me of the, as Rilke had that great line, feel everything, beauty and terror.

59:46Just keep going. no feeling is final I do like that yeah a comedy show should contain everything there should be light and shade there should be joyful moments and brutal moments and it should be you come out feeling like okay life life is a bit like that you get a bit scared you get a bit excited you get a bit you know you laugh yeah but the joke the joke that you're horrifically offended by yeah and the one that you cannot wait to tell your friends and it's the funniest thing you've ever heard both come from the same place that's true there are jokes that I tell my mom she'll laugh and you've done it as well in fact you're more guilty than me she'll laugh and then she'll immediately go I don't like that but she'll laugh hard she'll laugh and she's got a beautiful boisterous laugh she'll laugh and then she'll go no I don't like that and I'm like but you laughed and she's like I didn't want to laugh you tricked me she's always like you tricked me You tricked me?

1:00:46She even said it to Eugene. She's like, we went out for lunch when she's like, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah. She's like, you tricked me. You tricked me. I don't like that. Then I'm like, but you laugh. Then she's like, no. Then I was like, it was funny. I think that might be my favorite noise in the world. It's like cognitive dissonance at a show. Yeah. People have two thoughts at the same time. One, that is very funny. And they laugh first. You've got to watch it because it's got to be a laugh first and then a sharp intake of breath. It's the best. It can't be the other way around. Yeah. It's got to be that first.

1:01:18The mother thing's interesting to me because I think I'm a comedian because of my mother. My mother had a narcoleptic, cataplexic laugh. I'm sorry, what? You ever met someone that laughs and they make no noise whatsoever? They just kind of do this thing. Oh, no. So my mother had a laugh where she would lose, like, full. Yes, yes.

1:01:42She would properly melt, like a witch in The Wizard of Oz if you really got her. So my whole childhood was like trying to make this woman laugh. I mean, especially if she was driving and you would be trying to grab the wheel while you were saying some funny shit and like steering the car. Like I should be dead, but it's... And she was so funny in her own right. Accident on the M5. A young man has made a joke that caused his mother to pass out. Please avoid the left lane of the M5. I think that's the... I think that's the one like with comedians I think if you meet a comedian you've never met somewhere in the world wherever you are I would say like my go-to question which of your parents was sick one of your parents was sick and you had to make things okay you had to be adjust the temperature in a room yes you have to make things okay diffuse the situation all the time make things okay make it alright make this let's get through this this is tough we're gonna get through it take away the attention from everything else yeah It's comedy.

1:02:43It's medicine. It helps. So when did you discover that your mom was actually having a good time while having that moment? Oh, no. She would laugh. I mean, the laughter was, she was, my mother was very depressed. I never knew it at the time. Whatever your household is, your household is. Yeah. You think it's just normal. It's your universe. You come home from school and your mom's still in a dressing gown. You go, yes, fucking that's moms. They sleep a lot. What do you want? You don't realize at the time. you have no facility as a child to see what she needs fucking help there's there's nothing so you have this thing and you you have to make it okay so that's what i think the idea that there's a there's a pathology to what we do as comedians there's a there's a there's a reason we do this yeah definitely whatever that is it's a vocation i would argue and it's a vocation that starts from a from a place of personal need and then over time it expands because you see that it can have effects on other people yeah you know so that's often what i say to people when they are very quickly offended by comedy or comedian is i'll say give them the benefit of the doubt genuinely give them i know i'm not speaking for all of them all the time even myself all the time every joke but give them the benefit of the doubt because a human being who steps on stage to try and make people laugh generally is not a person who doesn't want people to feel good generally.

1:04:04So it's just that they may not have used the tool that would make you laugh. The right vocabulary for you to understand what you're trying to say. But they were trying. It's the same way if you went to a country or a kitchen where somebody cooked food in a way that you didn't eat it. You would spit it out and go, are you trying to kill me? Are you trying to poison? No. They were trying to cook food that would give you sustenance. Interesting. Sense of humor is, I think, very much like food and sex. It is. It's exactly like it. Food and sex. Different people like different things. Some people like it spicy.

1:04:33Some people like very vanilla. Like it's different for different people. And the idea like comedy now has expanded so much. So it's not like, there used to be like three comedy DVDs, you know, VHSs a year. Now there's like, everything's out there. It's infinite. Yeah, it's everywhere. It's infinite. It's kind of fantastic. It really is. With your mom, did you ever find out like what the cause of the depression? Was it like just depression itself? Was it a depression that came from something else? Did you ever find out? Yeah, I mean, I had a very close relationship with my mother. I think like if you were being analyzed now, they would say enmeshed.

1:05:11It was very close to her emotionally. And yeah, I mean, she had good reason to be sad. But I think people get depression isn't feeling sad. Depression is not feeling anything at all. Yeah. The indifference. Yeah, that could be very tough. You know, you lost your hunger for life. It's a very difficult thing to deal with, especially difficult when it's a loved one dealing with that. So, you know, she died pretty young. So I never got to kind of resolve it. But it's, I don't know. I feel like the gift of laughter and being able to kind of control a room is something that she gave me. Did you have any siblings?

1:05:59Yeah, I've got brothers. I've got a couple of brothers. Where are you in the... I'm in the middle, but my younger brother's a lot younger. Okay, okay. So it was like a generational jump and then... Yeah. And then what was your dad like? Not great. So in the house, were you like the funniest or were you one of the funnies? I mean, Jesus. Of course I was the funniest. How dare you? No, mom was pretty funny. Yeah, my mother was a very funny one. Was it like dry humor or was it... I'm always intrigued by what the comedian picked up from the parent or where or how. Yeah, I guess. But I suppose there is that thing where you go, you ascribe.

1:06:45It's often the case like everyone blames their parents for anything bad that happened. And then anything good, they go, that was my hard work. And you go, and there's all, it's all kind of in the part. I kind of think with kids, I really noticed the difference between people with one kid and two kids. everyone with one kid believes in nurture oh we fed them this kind of milk and we gave them this kind of vegetable and we read to them every night so of course as soon as you have two kids two kids as soon as the second one arrives you go oh yeah they come out with factory settings and that one's like that so I guess we go with it I was chatting to you know Neil Brennan pretty well right chatting to Neil Brennan the other day and he had the best analogy for parenting I'm sure you won't mind me referencing it.

1:07:31He talked about curling. You know the sport of curling? Yes. Where they throw a stone, right? And then they're brushing feverishly. Okay. So the brushing feverishly makes about 5 % difference to where that stone ends up. The throw is everything. Okay. And then that thing is like about 5 % difference. That brushing, that's parenting. That's good. The stone has been thrown. It's going to end up where it's going to end up. You can change it a little bit, but it is what it is. So you don't have kids, right? No. Yeah, that's... I think about... You've made me one kid. I think about you more than you know.

1:08:09You, to me... Your mistress is not going to like that. No. Guys, cut that one. Okay, so here's... No, here's the thing, right? Here's the thing. I view certain comedians as almost like... You support Liverpool, right? Yeah. So, okay. I think you're Liverpool. Because I met you early on. relatively early on in your international career definitely you did and and then i i followed you through and so you go you go and you do these things and i watch it from a distance and i go oh he's doing the grammys he's doing the daily show oh he's he's doing like you watch these things and you cut you feel like it's my guy it's my guy's doing the thing and you you love it i can and i think i was thinking about it like coming here today i was thinking if your life was a movie what would people in the cinema be screaming at the screen right now and they would be screaming have kids the people that love you all see it like a mile off like oh you have to have kids you have to have kids you have that thing where you you it feels like you would be a very good father i would hope to be i would hope i mean i grew up i don't know your story but like one of the you know it's i think of it in the same way i think of comedy sometimes one of the reasons i love hanging out with eugene is because sitting here in this chair is one of my favorite comedians in the whole world like bar none you're one of them i can count the comedians where i go there's many comedians who are irate funny talented skillful you name it but there's some people where i go you're one of my favorite individuals who are also comedians like that or the whole thing you embody for me and when i'm in a conversation with you or when i'm watching you on stage is the same like level of joy for me like i'm sitting there with like my popcorn just being like do you get what i'm saying daniel kitson like is one of them yeah he he just like he gives me this thing where i'm like we went and played football once i have never laughed more playing the game of football in my entire life he like does commentary while he's like playing the game he's like running he's like oh a pass who's going coming down the wing he's got oh what's that another physique yeah any any but like the way he just is makes me i go like ah it's it feels like it is it's it's so is that not the the aim of like being like if you to give anyone advice in life it's like do you yeah but be sui sui generis be a non-fungible human that's the best thing you could be that's you're an entirely non-fungible human no but i think you guys take for granted how much i it's because i'm like enjoying like a like a flower you know basking in the rays of the sun i i watch this because you cannot always watch yourself you cannot in life you know mirrors are like a relatively new concept if you look at our history as humans no but even mirrors mirrors are very 2d you don't get to see how that's what i mean a room like you've got a lot of charm and charm i think is miss i appreciate that but i okay i don't know what i don't know but wait let me tell you charm isn't people like you charm is people think you would like them oh i do is my thing it's like yeah so this is what this is why i'm talking about the kid yeah i got zero charm plenty of that i got zero charm i got i got charisma for days.

1:11:34Well, he's got plenty of that he does. No, so what I'm saying about the dad thing is this. Okay, so when I think of stand-up, one of the things that gives me more joy than anything, I was in Saratoga recently, and driving up to the show, and Santa Barbara as well, I was driving up to the show. The people walking in gives me more joy sometimes than the whole show because I look at them and I go, yo, these people, this is their night, and this is their thing. and I go like, what a joy and a privilege that they have gone, this is the thing that I wish to do on this night. And it's the thing that will, I even said to one of the audiences one night, because I saw them like on the street, there was a couple having like an argument, but then they walked and they came into the show.

1:12:17And then I said, I've never realized this. And I said, I just want to say thank you to every one of the couples who came here, even though you're fighting, because you book the tickets when you're in a good mood. And I take for granted that on tonight, you have to come together. And I said, so I know right now you hate each other. but let's see how this but i just want to say i just want to say i appreciate you and it was shocking how many people clapped like it wasn't even a joke they were just like yeah we do hate each other right now and and and those small moments i go oh i would love for you to leave this moment better than when we all came into it myself included forget my day forget your day let's let's walk out of this i think the same thing for life and my mom always said this to me she always said not in like a financial way she just said oh she said and then i'm my child let every generation just be better than the previous one.

1:13:03Just, oh, let us just, just a little, let us beat some curses. Let us, and so when I think of that, like fathers and all that, I go, all I wish for is to be the kind of dad where I go, the kind of dad I never had where when I come home, like when a door opens or closes, my kid doesn't have to turn off the TV or doesn't have to like act like they're sleeping or doesn't have to, does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, I love that. No, but I'm saying that's, No, I'm just saying in general. No, no, but that thing of like the... That's what I would yearn for, is just to be able to give that to somebody.

1:13:36Yeah, it's rough and tumble. And it's the different thing that dads bring. Moms bring... Moms are very kind to the child. And dads are very kind to the potential. Yeah, that's fascinating. It's a different move. Like, I don't want to bring up good kids. I want to bring up good adults. Yeah. And you can't... So you can't ever let your kids do anything that will embarrass you. Or that you will resent. Because you have to love them. Don't think that you want, so you have to kind of, they have to, you have to hold them to a standard where you go, we're all going to have fun all the time. That there's, we've got, we've got boundaries.

1:14:08You know, moms are very good at setting boundaries. Dads tend to be better at enforcing boundaries. Enforcing them, yeah. And actually, you know what, I mean saying that, I'm gendering that, but actually it could be the mom and the dad could be roles reversed. It could be roles reversed, yeah, yeah, yeah. But within the household, someone's good at setting them, someone's very good at going, no, no, that's the thing. Remember that this is the rule. That's how we do it, yeah. Someone chose 8 p.m. bedtime. Another person's like, hey, it's 8 p.m. Yeah, you better be in bed. And the other one is like, we're coming.

1:14:34It's that thing of like, as you speak about that in the audience and seeing them coming to the show or wherever you go, it's the resume points. You have enough. I'm here to tell you, you have enough. No, I don't think, you see, it's funny. I don't think of it as resume points. What I'm thinking of is, I do smaller shows now than I've ever done, which, thank God, my team supports. but you know what it's like, if you're lucky, you do well. People go, we want more tickets and more shows and it gets bigger and it gets bigger and it gets bigger. And sometimes I go like, oh, this has gotten so big that it is no longer, or it's starting to lose the feeling that I originally loved, which was I touch you and you touch me in a very intimate way.

1:15:21When it gets very big, it feels like you watch me and I tell you. And I, you know, yeah, I started, I, when I play the bigger rooms, I mean, this is getting off the tangent of, I'm going to push you on the fatherhood thing, but the, if I play a really big room, I now play it in the round. I learned it from Chappelle. I was doing gigs with Chappelle in, uh, what was it? Uh, Australia. He invited me up. I had like one night off from my tour in Australia and he was playing that night. So an eye out coming open for you. And he played and you walk in the room, the arena, like a boxer, like up onto the stage.

1:15:54You have the stage in the middle and you have 14 ,000 people around you rather than being at one end and you're playing to them and there and some people have shitty seats. Everyone's got a good seat. It does shorten the furthest seat from the back. And then you just rotate in that room. And that's the way to do it. Okay. Yeah, that's a way to like – That's the secret sauce. Yeah. That's a way to break it smaller. But also the thing that you don't realize from that is that the people that are watching you can see past you people laughing on the other side. See each other. That's actually amazing.

1:16:21That's fantastic. That's a good reason to do it actually. Yeah. Yeah, that's a great reason to do it. Why did I play? I played the, is it the, I think it might be the, it's in Phoenix, Arizona. Maybe the Majestic Theater. Do you know it? No. It's like it's in the round. I think George Carlin filmed his very famous Seven Words You Can't Say on television there. It's that special. In the round. It's phenomenal. But it's a really small room in the round. It's like 2000, 2005. Yeah. Normally they're not that big. Yeah. It's amazing. So when you were becoming a dad, was there a part of you that was ever worried that you would be the dad that you had?

1:16:51Yeah. I didn't want to be a dad for the longest time because I didn't want to be my father. And then you realize, no, no, no, I'll make my own mistakes. I got mistakes for days. What was it about him that you didn't want to repeat? Like, what? I mean, he's not great. But look, the thing about, like, pregnancy makes a baby. Okay, cool. But it also makes a mother. And a father isn't blessed in the same way. Yeah. We don't go through the same transformation. But it's, so people are waiting around thinking, well I'm going to wait until I feel like a man and then I'm going to have some kids yeah and then you have kids and you go oh no it's this is this is a verb this isn't a noun yeah this is a doing that's beautiful I'm here to do the rough and tumble play yeah like I love the the the the kind of hair because you you want your kids to get you know it's it's it's bruises not scars yeah you you want them to kind of have that fun and the beat to be the fun one in the house and the, it's the most wonderful thing.

1:17:54I went out to lunch with a friend who's maybe the brightest guy I know. He's Eric Weinstein. Do you know him? No. He's a very, very clever guy, physicist. And I was talking about how much I love being a father. And he kind of stopped me and he grabbed my arm and he went, you will die and you will be reborn as someone else and you will love them. and i kind of went oh i oh i sort of get what reincarnation is now i kind of get what it is and there's this lovely crossover period of 30 or 40 years where you get to be with the next version it's a beautiful i would never think of you as somebody who would like adopt or accept that type of philosophy because i've always seen you as somebody like you said at the beginning of this conversation you're atheist i wouldn't think of jimmy as being spiritual but what changed well i I think that thing about going, it's the opposite of faith isn't doubt.

1:18:54It's certainty. And I'm not certain about anything. I'm full of doubts. But the idea that you go to throw out everything spiritual because you don't have a religion, it seems to be crazy to me. so there's two kinds of some people believe in fairy stories I don't and some people believe all religion is nonsense I don't think church works because God is happy I think church works because people come together yeah and decide and interesting that is what the Bible says when three or more gathered in my name three yeah and there's actually science behind that funny enough so it's just the two of us nothing no no no but there's actually science if I wasn't here this would be some bullshit but that's like the interesting thing about like three yeah but some of these things Yeah, but some of these things show you science Is like the science behind it Like group dynamic When it's one person in a room, two people Once it gets to three people Something happens that you can't even explain It just happens when there's a third body It just happens And you know what I think it is sometimes?

1:19:57I think it's even the passive effect of an audience So let's say you and I are having a conversation like this Like now, when I was talking to Jimmy You were listening to us You were with us right here But you were listening When you two were talking, I was listening and then we said you laughed i laughed when you two were talking that thing doesn't exist when there's two people in the same way because you can't always be listening in the same way you can't two people can make a conversation a third person can then watch that conversation that is being had by the two people and we sometimes take that for granted and that third person can influence the conversation with how they're listening to it and responding to it in a way that you don't appreciate.

1:20:38And so... And so Tyrion, a petri dish and a scientist above. Yeah, yeah. It just becomes like a, oh, wow. Oh, wow. Look what's happening. And something happens, changes, something changes, something changes. So it's interesting that even in the Bible, it basically talks about the power of the group. And people might just skip over that, but it's like, when three or more gathered in my name, I'll be there. I will be there. I think we've over-solved for the individual in our society. Ah, definitely. And the idea that you go, even identity-wise, People think that they are within their own skin. Our identities are dispersed.

1:21:12So you are different with me than you are with Eugene, than you are with your mother, than you are. But also the thing that you don't know yet is who you are as a father. You don't know what you're like as a dad. You haven't met that person yet. Yeah, you haven't met that person. And as much as you will love your kids, you will fucking love yourself as a father. That is fascinating. a whole new way of being. And you don't know. You won't know. You're like your favorite people in the world, the people you feel most comfortable with, the people that you can be yourself with. He tells me this all the time.

1:21:50And kids will see you as a combination of all the personalities you've tried out. You've told me this all the time. I've told him this all the time, yeah. Well, here's the real responsibility as well. The internal monologue in your head, that's your parents. The responsibility to know that's who you are to your kids. you will be the internal monologue that they have for the rest of their lives. It's a weight to carry. It's an amazing place to be. It tests you, it challenges you, but it also allows you to give yourself so much grace. When you see kids making mistakes and you know it's not final, if they spill something on the carpet, you're like, that's in their world, that's the ultimate thing that could have gone wrong.

1:22:30They juice out of the cup into the carpet. That moment is so painful, bro. To them, that's like, they invested$5 million in a company that went belly up. We've all done it.

1:22:47But that's like, it's Buddhist, right? What do they say? Equanimity with impermanence. Like the cup's already broken. Everyone's already dead. Make peace with that. Yeah, what do I want to do? Enjoy the now. Like a lot of mental health, I think, is the now. Depression is the past. Yeah Anxiety is the future Right now you're okay Yeah I love that That's beautiful The idea of like You learning grace Because you're watching them Sort of not have grace For themselves In those moments But you learn so much From kids It's almost those Kids will always have An outfit that they love And they can't accept That they've grown out of it Sorry Are we talking about this?

1:23:28No because you No but you are You are You are dressed like a toddler 100 % Yo man This guy gets shots I got a 6 year old I wouldn't put in that outfit I go no Wear something with a collar We're going out Do you know what this guy just did? Have you watched those Have you watched those mob movies? Where the movie's just Trundling along Calmly Everyone's having a great time They're doing things They're doing things All of a sudden They go Hey Billy You want to come for a drive? We're going for a drive Everyone's a good time Out of nowhere You even as an audience member are sitting there enjoying the movie so you know I was thinking bah!

1:24:07Oh shit! Oh shit! Yeah you guys you're in a Coupe de Ville and all of a sudden there's fucking brains in the glass and then Jimmy's wiping his gun off I'm like Jimmy what did you do to your jeans? What did you do to your jeans? He's like we had to do something about that outfit we had to do something it was coming it was a long time coming I'm like no Jimmy someone had to say I'm coming in blood right now Jimmy I'm coming in blood right now Jimmy what a shot fired out of nowhere Right. Yo. There's something nice about the out of nowhere. Oh man. That's the greatest. There's something nice that they've done nothing.

1:24:40They're just quietly sitting in the front row and then suddenly what? What just happened? Catching strays my friend. Yeah. And you hear that ringing sound. Wee. Yeah. Catching strays. Kids will teach you that. They'll be like I want to put this on. I want to put this on. You're like no it doesn't fit anymore. Then they'll be like yeah but I still like it. Then you're like no you have to get something else. Then you have to convince them that something else is good for them. Then that's your job. Then they trust you. Then they'll believe you when you say something else is good for them. Because this thing that they've grown to love and find comfort in doesn't work anymore for them.

1:25:13But as an adult, you take longer to understand that. The language of it. I love the language of it. I was thinking about it when you were talking about Star Wars earlier. Because my kid, my boy hasn't seen Star Wars. Too scary. Told. He's like six, but it's, whatever. We're pretty strict with screens or whatever. We don't fuck with that. So the idea, but he calls him, he's been on some of the rides at Disney. So he calls him, it's Dark Vader. and the American Falcon. And someone tried to correct him. I went, no, no, no, no. Leave it. Once he gets that right, he'll never get it wrong again. And you love it every single time.

1:25:46I'm enjoying. But like when he likes to wear a shirt, like a long sleeve, he calls it Downsleeves. Oh, man. And someone tried to correct him in a story. I went, no. Obviously, we're sticking with Downsleeves for as long as we possibly can. This is joyful. And I mean, Downsleeves is a great name for it. Perfect name. because long doesn't really tell us long in relation to down I like actually more I think it's actually a good theory because if you're wearing shorts they say you're wearing shorts but if you're wearing trousers they never say you're wearing longs I actually like this a lot yeah could change things you just made me you just made me sad that most people wouldn't no no no for people who won't we're living in a world where fewer people are having kids and fewer people can have kids and I wonder what society as a whole is going to be robbed of when people cannot have these magical experiences that you're talking about.

1:26:35Well, I mean, the best stuff in life is available to everyone, right? It's weird how the very rich and the very poor both have tons of kids. Isn't that weird? The poorest person you know that lives in a trailer park, tons of kids. Yes. And the richest person you know, tons of kids. Tons of kids. But the middle class is squeezed. It's really, it's a societal thing because as we moved from the countryside, like 200 years ago, everyone's a farmer. Everyone now lives in cities. Kids went from being an asset to a liability. In the city, kids are a liability. The countryside was like, I've got eight kids.

1:27:12How are you doing? Farmhands. Great. They're working hard. They'll be in soon. That thing of like, it changed. And we need to rebalance that because the future belongs to whoever shows up for it. And I say this all the time. And I say this, I always say, the middle class that can afford to have to some can't they're middle class but they can't afford they they have so much to offer to these kids people have five bedroom houses that are not occupied people have all these experiences all these excesses but no one to give it to who's the great guy that said warren farrell um who's great in the feminist movement in the late 60s and he's kind of he wrote the myth of male power so he's like he's like people think he's kind of men's movement i think he's a brilliant man he said this thing kids want your time more than they want your dime there we go i thought it was a great line he's got a great story you want to hear a great story about okay so i'm a guy who likes great stories all right so this guy warren farrell he's working as a therapist in the late 60s he's in new york he's where we are now and this guy comes to him and he's a wealthy man he says i'm very rich uh i'm involved in a big business and i uh have regrets about how i live my life i think warren farrell goes okay well tell me what's going on he said I had a first wife and I didn't spend any time with her.

1:28:30I was away working all the time and I had a kid. I didn't really connect with the kid. I just wasn't there and I feel terrible about it. And, um, my girl is pregnant and what should I do? And Warren Fowle like talks to the guy and he goes, well, you, you, there's no point having money if you're not going to do what you want with your life, right? So what do you want to do? He said, well, I want to give up everything and just be a father and just be there for the kid. Warren Farrell goes, okay, well, that's what you should do. Do that. So he does. He shuts down the business and he sits with the kid for like first five years of his life.

1:29:14And he just bakes bread and hangs out in the house. And he's like a dad when no one was like a full-time dad he was a full-time dad and the story gets interesting when I tell you the guy was John Lennon wow and no one knew that five years after that he'd get shot in the face he would never have that time again and he took that time to be with his kid to hang out

1:29:52damn

1:29:57give yourself that gift I think we always assume that the time is promised to us yeah because our obligations have claimed their time we always assume that the things we actually want for ourselves will also claim their time do you know what i mean yeah your work your debts your everything they've claimed their time well in advance they're like oh here's your payments this is how it's going to work you're like 20 years yeah you'll be paying for this house for 20 the bank has banks claimed its time the you know what i mean yeah everything and so i think because of that sometimes as people we assume because the things that we owe whether it's time money whatever because they've claimed their time we then i think assume that the things we want have no time we'll also be able to we'll also be able to claim their time but that's not what you just said to me but it's it's you it's also you know you're you're a good boy you love your mom yeah you want to get her a present you want to get her a gift she'll care about you were sent here as a spy yeah my mom sent Jimmy to this podcast.

1:31:13Deep undercover. But it looks like judging my outfit, it looks like my mom sent you to this podcast too. Jimmy was sent by both of our moms. I think your mother's here somewhere. I think she's still dressing you. I'm pretty convinced. Why are you always dressed so sharp, by the way? It became like a thing. Is this also like an English thing? Like an English? I don't think it is a particularly English thing. But I mean, I love my, My tailor is Tom Sweeney I go to. And he's one of my best friends, Luke. That's a tailor name. He's the best. I love spending time with him. I love the whole thing of going and buying a suit.

1:31:49The ritual of it, going into the store, hanging out with the guys. I'll shoot some pool. We'll pick some fabrics. This sounds like Peaky Blinders in my head. It's like the image I have right now. It's kind of. The boys are very good. You look at other people's suits and go, who's one is that one? What is that? I look at American men in suits and think, hilarious. Hilarious. I don't know who that was made for, but not you, clearly. I like to come correct. It's also that thing of like on stage, I think that thing about wearing a suit and a tie, for me, it feels like a mark of respect for the audience.

1:32:24Different people sort of see themselves in different ways, but also it speaks to character and reputation. Character is what you know about yourself. Reputation is what the rest of the world sees. Okay. and people perceive me in a in a three-piece suit and a tie fine great i'll lean into that okay it also suits you though very much it really suits your vibe like i don't know what it is but it's like you know when like the thing just like suits you every comedian has anything else i can't i can't yeah i can't and i also think there's something about like when i remember the first time i watched you when you like this guy's up there in a suit telling one-liners you it makes you even feel like an assassin in a suit feels even more dangerous you know so if I see like a movie and there's an assassin and they're wearing t-shirts I'm like alright they look like they know what they're doing no you kill people but an assassin in a suit I'm like oh don't mess with this guy he's gonna kill people wearing a three piece suit that he knows you know what I mean you know you go out to the theater and like someone's put on a bit of a show like I would think like your production design as a comedian is whatever you got on here.

1:33:34That's what people are looking at. So it's like, you don't need a big show. It's like, that's it. That's the set design. I bought a suit. Well done, everyone. A new tie. Do you love my set? You made me want to wear suits again. Yeah, I'll wear suits again. I'll try it a bit. That's all I wore when I first started. Remember? Terrible suits. Hey, some of them, you look like an evangelist. Terrible. Some of them, you're even being kind to me because you're my friend. My favorite one was that shiny... The shiny silver one. Yeah. Yo. tinfoil looking. Oh my goodness. that suit for me was like, yeah, no, it shimmered.

1:34:07It was like baggy and it shimmered and it's like massive fat tie in the middle and with a big collar. Huge shoulder pads and ah, but I was loving it. It's weird the way like it hasn't changed much in the last kind of 50 years. Like I could pretty much, like whether I'm like smart or casual, I could pretty much dress as JFK on any given day. Yes, you could. Yeah, you could. You know the deal with JFK? fashion-wise. No. His guys were called the men without hats. I've heard that term, but I didn't know what it was for his. So when he came up, when he was running for office, none of his guys wore hats.

1:34:44He didn't wear a hat. Everyone wore hats. And he came along and he didn't wear a hat. And suddenly, the hat business went from being a large industry to nothing in like two years. When he got elected, it was suddenly like, oh no, hats are for old-fashioned fuddy-duddy dudes. Yeah, yeah. modern new people this was America this was JFK yeah add a new suspect to the list the head industry a must always look at who benefits or who had a grievance with the person so you think you think the Zagrupa tape might have been someone on a grassy knoll wearing a hat what did they shoot on his body his head yeah I'm not saying that this is I'm just saying if I'm a detective.

1:35:29I found a new lead. Okay. The hat industry. And those people are famously crazy because they work with Mercury. And the beavers were happy. As mad as a hatter comes from that. I'm sure the beavers were like, yeah, we're seeing a reinsurgence. Let's have more kids, guys. Yeah. No one's after uphelds anymore. Good. Don't press anything. We've got more What Now after this. What's a conspiracy theory you do believe? A conspiracy theory? Yeah, that you do believe. All right. Here's two terrifying scenarios. Cool. Okay. So the first is there's a Manhattan project currently underway in America. And they're building a doomsday machine.

1:36:14And it's called Solstice. And it's artificial general intelligence. Okay. Trillions of dollars are being spent on building this. Somewhere in America, we don't know where, but it's siloed off and they're building this. Second terrifying scenario. They're not.

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1:38:13Yo, by the way, what's happening in England these days? In England? Yeah, because I like asking people this because when you're not in a country, or if you live between countries, you learn very quickly the stories being told about a country are not felt in the same way or they're being painted in a different way than the people are experiencing it in the country. And I wonder like, what's happening in England these days? I don't know. I mean, it feels, it's a very interesting time at the moment in the UK because it's kind of, there was the Brexit thing and then we didn't really leave and the country's in, we've had like seven prime ministers in 10 years.

1:38:52and there's political stagnation. The new guy, I wish him well, Andy Burnham's come in and he's capped bus fares at two pounds. And it's like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Like the economy is not going well, the country's not going well and no one quite knows what to do. And it seems to me like no one has like the big ideas on how to change Great Britain. And it seems relatively simple, but people don't want to do it. They don't want to grasp the nettle. What do you think the simple is? I always think they're like, there's no silver bullet. I'm a big follower of this guy called Roger Boutle.

1:39:33He's an economist who writes very good papers about what to do. And he did this great paper, which was like eight examples around the world of different economies that have done different things. I think if you want to sort out Britain, certain things are necessary but not sufficient. Okay. So if it was me, if I was in charge, I would devalue the currency by 20%. And I would do it on purpose and I would be open about it. And the reason is it would make your holiday more expensive. But I don't care about the two weeks a year when you go on holiday overseas. I care about the other 50 weeks of the year.

1:40:07And if you want to rebalance the country, you have to increase the manufacturing industry. And the reason the pound is very high is because of the city of London. But London is like a really rich city. and it's surrounded by quite a poor country. You want that redistribution. You want people to have more. You need to make things. Yeah, you do need to make things. And then energy. We have the highest energy prices in the world, I believe. It's four times higher than it is in America. And really, all I aspire to be is as good as 1970s France. In 1970s to the mid-80s, France built 56 nuclear reactors.

1:40:45They now have the cheapest energy in Europe. So they don't give a fuck what the Russians say because they don't import the gas. They make their own energy. And you go, well, that's a very – that takes 12, 15 years. Yeah, it takes a statesman, not a politician. Politicians are on a four, five-year cycle. The French have always been good at that, though, if you look at their history. If you look at how Paris itself, how it was built, if you look at the ideas, many French leaders built beyond themselves. And then the person who would follow on from them carried it on in a strange – you don't always see that.

1:41:18But that thing of like the statesman is planting a tree whose shade you will never enjoy. It's that kind of thing. And then we've got kind of crazy levels of regulation in the UK that you just need to kind of pare it back a little bit. You need to make it a bit simpler. Like if you look at China compared to America or Britain, right? They've covered their nation in high-speed rail. Yeah. And we've covered ours in environmental reports. Why? Because China is run by engineers and we're run by lawyers. and everything can't be run by lawyers. You know, you have to get some shit done. But it's, you know, and then the last thing is, you know, taxation, I think is very interesting.

1:41:58The idea that we haven't, we left Europe and then we never took the benefit. You know, Ireland, where my people are from, have lower corporation tax than anywhere else in Europe. So all of the anthropics, all of the companies, all the big tech companies base themselves in Dublin. and Dublin and Ireland does very well out of the tax revenue from that. I don't want to be a dick about it but I would undercut them by 2%. Bring it over here. But don't you think it didn't become like a race to the bottom? Aren't you worried about... No, but you have to be in competition with the rest of the world. You have to...

1:42:31The real politics is you're in competition with every other country and different places have different specialties, right? Why would you want to live there? Why would you want to live here? Where do you want to be? I feel like the tax guys have tricked us and all these corporations have tricked us tax-wise because what they've done is they've made it a cat and mouse game where they make everyone offer everyone a lower tax rate, but all they're always going to do is keep moving. And if everyone bends to their whims, at the end of it, everyone has just bent themselves out of actually being a place where you want to be or not.

1:43:06Because here's what I mean. Okay, it's like, think of this, and I'm not an economist, so this is how I think of it in the world, is let's say you went to a bodega here in New York and you got there and you said, how much for this bottle of water? And they said,$4. And you're like, ah, the other bodega is going to give it to me for$3.70. And then he's like, all right, I'll give it to you for$3.70. And then you leave and you go to the next bodega and you're like, oh, they give it to me$3.70. He's like, I'll give it to you. It becomes an infinite bid. Yeah, it can become an infinite bid. Now I know an economist will tell me, yeah, but supply, demand, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I know it's complicated in tax, but I just feel like sometimes I think the race is the wrong way around.

1:43:44I know this is a little kumbaya of me, but I think if countries found a way to come together and the same way they have like international crime agreements, I think if they did a better job of having international tax agreements, then that wouldn't be able. It's weird to me that when I'm in Europe, when I'm in London, I catch an Uber and I get charged by Uber Amsterdam. I think that's weird. Because the Uber is in London. Uber is in the UK. I even think this is in South Africa. Like one of the things that worries me the most in South Africa now is if you are a South African company and you advertise on Facebook and it's necessary for you, you know, you need to advertise where the people are.

1:44:24You're going to advertise on Facebook. You're going to advertise on Google, all of these things. The money doesn't stay in South Africa, but you're a South African business. Think about that. Advertising to South Africans. You're a South African business advertising South African products to South Africans. but the money that you pay for that advertising back in the day would go to a south african advertising company a south african platform a south african billboard a south african and for me i believe money is just like water you want to keep it flowing you know it's going to start somewhere it's going to flow and then you want it to evaporate and go back up and then rain back down and then freeze and then come down money that's a healthy system right money is upstream of the things that we want.

1:45:05We say we want more money for people, but really what do we want? We want more healthcare. Yes, exactly. And better nutrition. That's exactly it, yeah. The problem is I'd love to run for politics, but in 1980, I want to go back and be able to promise what we have now in 1980. The problem is the worst kind of inflation in the world is expectation inflation, right? And there's another word for expectation inflation. It's progress. People want more. We get used to shit being good really fast. but we want like a level for everyone. We want everyone to be at the level of kind of abundance. A decent level.

1:45:38Yes, a decent level. A decent level. But you can't keep moving the goalposts. And for me, it's about desires as opposed to kind of mimetic desires. Like, what's the example? Like a Ford car and a Ferrari do the same job. They'll get you from A to B. But one of them has like metaphysical value. It's like what you think it says about you as a person and you're adventurous and sporty and da, da, da, whatever. but one of them is just functional like provide the functional stuff everyone and then above that you know people are going to be we've done that badly with education and healthcare right? but that's what I'm that's what I'm saying that's why I'm saying that's why I worry that the race will go to the bottom because if we are not careful I think what will happen is the UK let's say will undercut Ireland oh we'll give you less tax rate and as the people come there and then we've seen this happen corporations companies, factories.

1:46:35The only reason we have weekends off is because workers had to fight for it. Yeah, the unions. Let's never forget that as an idea. People forget the unions gave us that. People forget the reasons for things. That's what I'm saying. People talk about the New Deal, like the New Deal just happened, just like Roosevelt came in, had the New Deal. You know when the New Deal happened? Because of labor riots that were brutal. People think Pearl Harbor happened out the blue. Pearl Harbor didn't happen out the blue. America cut off its oil supply. So it had a choice. It could collapse or it could go for an unwinnable war.

1:47:07And it couldn't face backing down. You know, it's like, it's a weird thing of like, knowing the history is really interesting. And I think, you know, Britain, it's interesting, but we live in very interesting times. Like the bigger picture, I think we're living in a revolution. I agree with you. Depends how you define revolution. But I define a revolution as the replacement of elites. And the elites are being replaced. Think about like the medical profession post-COVID, people don't trust it. People don't trust politicians in a way that they used to. People don't trust academics, academia. We don't trust institutions.

1:47:38People don't trust institutions. And the bubbling up of not trusting institutions, what's the first sign of that? Conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories are a symptom of a large problem, which is we don't trust the institutions. So we're just, we're scrabbling around. But I read a lot of Neil Howe. You've read that guy? Maybe I haven't. He wrote that book called The Fourth Turning. Okay. about how history moves in like 80 year cycles. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, I have read that. Yes, I actually have read that. And the idea that you go, the foundation myth of our culture is World War II. Like Western culture is World War II.

1:48:10Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we're the goodies, they're the baddies. We did this. And it's falling away. You can see it like statues of Churchill are being torn down, right? And you go, so that myth is kind of fading because people don't remember it. People that were there are all gone. It holds less and less of a meaning now. It does. So you go, so, you know, civilization is a clearing in the forest. We're going to have to relitigate everything. It's not like we can cope without institutions. We just need new institutions. And at the moment, politically, what's happening, like the post-modernists, it's a war on truth.

1:48:45And we can live without truth, if I'm honest. We live without truth pretty easily. But we can't live without trust. And we need truth to make trust. And trust, that's the fundamental. The trust is very delicate. I think it's, so to me, one of the reasons it's happening is because of what you said earlier. We are catering to audiences of one. I remember talking to Marques Brownlee, MKBHD. We were just chatting about this and he was talking about it amongst big YouTubers and YouTube in general. And he said, everyone talks about this race to the audience of one. if you look at your world and your entertainment and your information we're now living in a world where it is all specifically for you you you do not have to be in friction you do not have to share you do not have to and if it's not for your friends if it weren't for them if think about how many things you've shown me taught me shared with me that i i wouldn't otherwise neil brennan sends me stuff all the time i talk to him but it's like those things have you seen this have you done this have if we if it weren't for that we literally now would live in ideological silos and truth silos because there's no other world here's my here's my take on this right so so we gathered around the fire for i don't know two three hundred thousand years maybe longer we gathered around the fire and we talk okay and then we bought tv sets no we bought radios first right radios and we gathered around the wireless, the radio, and we listened to it and we talked.

1:50:21And then we bought TVs and TV. It's kind of like a proxy for a fire. And we watched that together. And then we turned it off. Exactly. And whatever it was, whatever mom was watching, we were watching. Exactly. And then we talked about it. And we moved on. And TV ended. And suddenly. Yeah, finished. Suddenly. Yeah. We're doing this and we're in separate rooms. And why do people want to go to festivals and comedy shows and things now? That's what I mean. Because we missed that connect. Yeah. Like that we have this dispersed identity. We have to kind of come together. I don't know. I presume that we relistigate, we reinvent everything now.

1:50:56Everything gets recreated. But we've been in tougher times than this before. When you look back, I'm very pessimistic in the short term and very optimistic in the long term. I like that. Like we have to get through this little precipice. But if we do. Good times. Yeah, man. that's why that's why i love that's when we're going back to appreciating it those are the things that i look at as i go i'm not just here doing a show thinking of oh the resume i've started to think of comedy and anything that i do anything that we do i go like what is this also a part of what do i wish to try and like contribute to and what i wish was in my world and how do i do you get what i'm saying because i because i genuinely think it makes a Listen to what you said when I was at the Taylor Swift show.

1:51:44It has left something with you that'll connect you to other people, by the way, that you maybe otherwise wouldn't have been connected with. Yeah, that one moment. It gives you a different memory. It gives you a different, and you were forced to share it with people who are singing at each other. The same thing with Oasis and Wonderwall. It's this thing, even Star Wars, funny enough, where you have this, I can see in your eyes, you're like, oh, man, when I get to show my kids Star Wars. Yeah, the excitement. Yeah, because they then get to see how you perceive literature, fiction, storytelling, movies, whatever it may be.

1:52:16And they get to understand you a little bit. I always hop on about this, man. Look at societies that are generally homogenous. One of the things they're really good at doing. By the way, do you say homogenous or homogenous? I always want to ask an English person. I would say homogenous, but I often pronounce stuff incorrectly because I'm an auto-dictat. so most of what I learned I've learned reading it and I'm quite dyslexic but because of your accent we all think that's the right one I'm going to go with you then so homogeneous I'm going to go with you just it's safer so if you look at homogeneous societies they're very good at agreeing on something it sounds now like you're talking about a really smart gay guy you see now you see now it does sound like that that's why I've always said homogenous he's a homo genius you guys are homo Leonardo da Vinci was a homo genius what a homo genius so when you look at these cultures you know you know he invented the reach around he's actually a homo genius

1:53:16when you look at these cultures one of the things they're really good at doing is coming to consensus quickly and moving forward in a direction yeah yeah right what are they generally bad at doing innovating or rather choosing an outfit that may be better for them even though the outfit they've kept for so long worked and was their favorite. Yeah, I think that idea, you know, it's Thomas Sowell, isn't it? There's no solutions, only trade-offs. Yes, yes, yes, completely. You can go to places that are very, very high trust. Yeah. You know, if it's Japan or Denmark where everyone's the same. Right.

1:53:49And it's super high trust, great. But I like that kind of the multiculturalism, the idea that you go to places like London where people are from 200 different nations. Yeah, right, right, right. And they come together. but you know it's not as high trust but okay i'll i'll take that i you know i love that idea that people kind of uh can and and proper you know properly enjoying travel and other cultures yeah is very valuable but a lot of people are just like tourists they say they love other cultures and what they mean is music food festivals but they never want to engage in the real stuff no they don't yeah and i think the privilege of our job is we get to travel the world and talk to people and engage with the difficult stuff.

1:54:31They think about that thing differently. That's what you said about Cape Verde, yeah. That's actually fascinating. He literally, when he came back from Cape Verde, it was more about, you said the people, but the ideas is what you were more. The people and the ideas that they share, their philosophy towards life, them realizing where they are, they know that they're in the middle of the ocean. They are floating in seven tiny rocks in the middle of the ocean. They know that for a fact. And they're like, we've only got each other. so them as a society and as a community like no no we've got a philosophy it served us well it makes us survive this thing therefore we've got each other to take care of I think there's often that and like the cultural memory of a place my girl is Canadian and I think there's something about the Canadian winters that makes Canadian people much nicer because someone knocks on your door and says can I come inside yeah because if you don't you're going to freeze to death the cultural you're going to die yes it's why Africans have more time for people yes we're not as precious about time we just generally aren't and it's the biggest friction like you'll see with like europeans and africans when they're in africa they're like they've been called african time yeah they'd be like they'd be like yeah but nothing you know you have you ever been to africa yeah nothing runs on time yeah everything is then i'm like yes because it didn't need to you must remember this time that you have created is a construct that you very desperately needed to facilitate your survival because if the snow was coming you had to make sure that the things were you know reaped at the right time your fruits were taken away your stuff was stored if the carriage didn't pick you up before the storm you were dead if you're yeah but in africa those things didn't exist as a concept so time is just a thing we're experiencing but if you look at the cultural memory of time africans never thought of it as a scarce thing because it didn't affect their existence so africans didn't go so there's a fascinating book i remember reading about it Because our whole lives, we know it.

1:56:23And then I read a book that talked about it. It's why Africans open their mouth more when they speak. Why they speak slower. So it doesn't matter where you're from on the African continent. There'll be that thing, you know, like... It's big and it's open. Why? The air is warmer generally. You don't worry about losing your body heat. And there's no rush. And then when you go to the coldest places, you look at like the Scandinavia, the Sweden. small words you don't have to open your mouth interesting about spicy food so the further south you go the spicy the food is it doesn't matter whether you could be in South America you could be in Africa and it's about the pathogen load the spices kill the pathogens I didn't know that there's no pathogens in the north so if you got Scandinavia and you kill a chicken and you cook it you're going to be okay if you got Africa because of the temperature that you exist with.

1:57:20You better put some spices in there to kill the pathogens. To kill whatever's in there. Kill the pathogens. It's like morning sickness. You know about morning sickness? Yes. So morning sickness affects women from this week to this week. Okay. Why? Because that's when the organs are being born, are being made. Okay. So if you're making the organs and you get sick, that's a real problem. So your sensitivity to pathogens during those weeks goes through the fucking roof. Morning sickness then goes away when the baby's just getting bigger, when you're just growing it. But the organs are there. So what is a congenital heart problem?

1:57:50It's when someone got sick on that day. Something went wrong on that day. There's no do-overs in nature. You have to be healthy on that day. Interesting, right? All of this is interesting to me. And that's why I... What did you think there? You said friction. I think friction is one of the... Like my kind of theory at the moment. Yeah. Friction is good. Friction is very good. Low friction, TikTok, very low friction, right? Super entertaining. Low friction, easy, right? Yes. TV shows, a little bit more friction. You're going to sit down, watch this thing. It's half an hour long. Okay, put it on.

1:58:24Okay, great. Okay, we'll watch it, pay attention. Movie, two hours, three hours maybe. More friction. Okay, but better. You can remember a book. Jesus, the amount of friction. Difficult. But you never forget what you read. Yeah. Like more friction is better. And who wrote it. Yeah. Who said whatever. Yes. LL Cool Jason on the show, which I really loved. remember when he was talking about like life and that and he was talking essentially about the idea of And assuming that things will come with friction makes, what did he say? He said, friction makes easy things difficult and difficult things impossible.

1:59:03Do you know what I mean? Just the friction. It makes an easy thing seem difficult and a difficult thing seem impossible because of the friction that is attached to it. And when you think of it through that lens, it's funny you say that because I've literally been on this for a long, you and I talk about this all the time. In our friend group now, we try and engage with friction purposefully. like purposefully we drive each other to the airport now like we'll ask each other can you drop me off at the airport and we know why we're doing it it's not going to be fun but that drive to the airport will bring you some of the greatest memories of friendship that you will ever have because it wasn't a lunch there wasn't someone interrupting you are you guys going to order something else are you going to and that's what I worry about in society is a lot of how we come together as people is governed by our financial means now yeah you know what i mean it's becoming more and more that do you want to go on a date can you do it without money no so then how do you date let's go out for a drink let's go out for a so many of these things have become you know when i was a kid i think of like the luckiness of it yes the parks and everything but there's the mall you know kids parents would just drop their kids at the mall no money and all of us would just run around in a mall for 10 hours and it was just like our place of like being.

2:00:20With each other. Yes, with each other. Kids who had money, kids who didn't have money. I think about this in a slightly different way, but like, I talk about this in the show at the moment about how men need therapy because women have got each other. Women are very good at talking to each other. Men, we've got friends, but we don't talk to our friends. We do things with our friends. I feel like we're living the same life. We need an excuse to do something. So we go, we're going to go and see the football. We have to go and see the football or we're going to play pool or we're going to go for a drink.

2:00:53We have to have an activity based. We can't just say, I want to have a conversation. And it's actually, there's something about testosterone that makes it very difficult to look people in the eyes and have a long conversation. It's much better if you have a friend that's having a crisis to play a game of pool or go on a drive, be doing something, have a distraction, have something else that's going on while you're talking to them. Seems to work. yeah it's a spring theme concept versus a taylor swift concept that's that's that's why i always love hanging with you i genuinely feel like we are like connected by some invisible force i'll play the audio from the show literally yeah this is what i'm talking about right now to the audiences is as men we're living in a world where the things that we take for granted that used to connect us are now becoming harder and harder for us to just attain.

2:01:43You know what I mean? Yeah. So whether it is the local pub and being able to afford just being there, whether it's because you can afford your electricity, you can afford, afford, like all of these things. You might be on, I'm very pro. I did a bit recently where I said I'm very pro drinking. I'm pro gangs. And I'm pro gambling. No, I haven't seen this. pro-drinking, pro-gams, pro-gangs, pro-gambling. Okay. Yeah. So I'm, okay. So I'm pro-gangs because some gangs deal drugs and shoot people. They're not good. But most gangs, it's groups of men that come together. And where should men be together?

2:02:26Like if you go to anyone that's having relationship difficulties, I'll tell you what their problem is. All relationships have the same problem. It's one person say every argument there's ever been between a man and a woman is someone going, you're not enough people. you're not enough people Esther Perel we want one person yeah Esther Perel is the genius on this no she literally talks about this all the time you go you need more than that you need your friends you need your buddies and men are very good at checking other men right I've set up a group of youth clubs across Britain they've got like they've got pool tables they've got dartboards they've got music they've got drinks they're called pubs and they're the greatest youth clubs there have ever been.

2:03:08Right? They're everywhere. We should lower the drinking age to 16. Because if you don't think 16-year-olds are drinking, you're living in a fucking dream world. Good luck in your fairy tale land. But I'd rather they were drinking in pubs with other people than on their own in the park. So I'd say the drinking age should be just wine and beer, no hard stuff. You can drink in a pub when you're 16, but you have to bring three friends. can't go on your own. You've got to have four people have to be there in order to drink, right? So I'm pro-gang, little gang of you. It's a little gang, yeah. You're allowed to go to the pub.

2:03:45You're allowed to watch football in the pub. The pub probably has a football team that you can join. Yeah. Like, other men will check you if you start to be a dick. You'll get thrown out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They'll let you know real quick. Right. The bartender will cut you off if you get drunk. You'll get each other home. You'll be all right. That's like, but it's the real world as well as opposed to the practical, as opposed to going, oh, I guess young people shouldn't drink. So just they'll, what are you talking about? The drinking age is crazy. And then pro gambling is like, the gamble though shouldn't be sports betting or casinos.

2:04:16It should be the big gamble. What are you going to do with your life? You can do anything you want with your life. You just have to face the consequences. And I think men have, people often talk about how 90 % of the CEOs in the world are men. But you have to also consider 90 % of the people in prisons are men. and it's the same drug at the center of that it's testosterone same personalities as well sometimes men take insane risks yeah right that's what we do sometimes crash and fail sometimes we do very well but that thing of like channeling that into making good bets LL Kulje said it yesterday right yeah said if he wasn't a great prolific musician and an actor yeah New York would have been a different place yeah he's like he would have been in the streets doing he's like that same energy he would have taken it somewhere else and he's like good luck New York you would have known my name in a very different way because it is that same energy that's going somewhere.

2:05:08But that friction thing you're talking about has become my newest passion because I've realized even in my own life how convenience is a thief that steals things you didn't even know you had. It's really, really powerful how it does it. The AI thing with me, don't outsource any skill you are not comfortable losing.

2:05:35because you're going to lose it. You're not going to be able to do it. You're going to have to work on it. If you play your instrument, you play your instrument, right? You get good, but you have to keep on playing it. You have to practice. You have to put the practice in. And if you, if you outsource that, you're, it's gone. But that's what I mean. It's the convenience. It's the, it's just the convenience of the, you know, the food arriving, the convenience of the car that picks you up, the convenience, the convenience, the convenience, the convenience. And then you go, like when I think the biggest thing I, I like, I get sad about, and it's like it's a conundrum I know you know like in South Africa I think of like townships when we were growing up it is the most inconvenient experience your neighbors play music at 6am on the weekend loud you're all everyone hears everyone's music everyone knows everybody's business everybody's talking to you you can't walk anywhere without having a conversation with somebody so you can't like just pop to the shops and come back real quick there's no such thing no privacy everyone's asking you if they can borrow money from you.

2:06:35Everyone, if you've got a car, then you've now become the de facto transportation person for everyone. Hey, Eugene, we heard you got a car. Oh, we heard you. Can you help us move this? Oh, can you do this? And if you have something, and if somebody dies, then you all have to go and cook for that. The whole thing is just friction, Jimmy. It's just friction, friction, friction, friction. But can I tell you what it is? I never once heard a story once in the township ever in Soweto. Never. I never heard a story of like, do you know someone died and no one knew for like two months. Those stories that I read in the newspaper now in life, don't exist.

2:07:06They literally never existed. Never, never, never, never existed. There was literally no homeless person. Think about it. There was literally, this is a place where people had been pushed into the worst types of poverty imaginable. And yet there was not a single person, homeless, sleeping on the streets. Which doesn't make sense because you're like, but no one had money. Or saying that family is poor. Right? That wasn't a thing. They just had less But poverty It's not a real thing In a township Someone will interfere Because the friction Someone will interrupt it The friction that came with it Meant Man a friendship is friction Yeah Because now it's like Okay well what do you Want to watch Jimmy I know what I want to watch Yeah But what do you want to watch Ah damn it Jimmy wants to watch His own thing So now I have to like We have to negotiate We have to find a comment But you know what That friction gives us in return It gives us the friendship A relationship is friction Hella friction Terrible friction this person wants to do you want to do that kids are friction you gave me can I tell you you gave me the most you sent me the most beautiful message about that literally changed my whole perspective you said man you like kids it is the most insane journey you said I cannot wait to get out of the house and leave and he's like and as soon as I walk out the door man I'm even more excited to come back you're like ah I cannot wait to get back it's the friction of it but we've been sold everyone has been sold and I mean everyone We've been sold on the convenience of relationships, the convenience of opinion, the convenience.

2:08:32Now it's like, oh, yeah, if you're going to go to your family, don't talk about the, just ignore that. Rather talk about it. It's like, yeah, but that friction leaves you. Where does it leave you? I was chatting to a guy recently, Alex Hormozzi. Do you know Alex? No. He's a really smart guy. Really smart guy. I don't know a lot of people. I don't know me. So Alex Hormozzi is, he like runs gyms and things. He lives in, I saw him in Vegas recently. He's kind of a public intellectual, but he's also, he's a great fun guy to talk to. So we're chatting about friction. and then he started chatting about optionality.

2:08:59Like we've over-solved for options, right? You've got a lot of options right now, right? But actually constraints are freeing because your problem is you've got too many options. Young people, they've got too many options. You could be with anyone. You could do anything. It's a lot. But once you've decided who to be with and what to do, you can stop thinking about how to live and get on with living. Get on with it. like limiting limiting what you what you have options wise because if you never cash in the option it's nothing yeah options are there to be cashed in oh i like that options are there to be i've never options are there to be cashed in yeah the freedom that comes with that so now that's that's that's the thing i'm preaching freedom's overrated yeah i'm evangelical about have you seen that video um it went viral in south africa it was of the prisoners and they made a they had some guy on the phone and was making a video and one of the prisoners they were like interviewing each other it was really funny and then got people very angry in the country but they were like yo what's it like being in jail then he's like he's like ah he's like jay he's like i love this place i know what time i have to go to bed i know when i'm gonna get my food i've got my friends every day we know what we're gonna do i don't worry about what's gonna happen tomorrow i don't and and people got very angry because they're like we need to make prisons more shit in south africa yeah what is it was the 28th isn't it oh no this was no this wasn't like in the that's the gang no this wasn't a gang this was just prisoners you know i'm sure you remember the video but it went viral and people like is this they went like people are suffering in the streets but in prison people are having a good time yeah and i get what they were saying but i think what some people might have missed in that moment was just that guy and his perspective first of all because i don't think he speaks for all prisoners but he was going it's surprisingly liberating being in a world where you have so many constraints because all i have to do is find my freedom within these constraints sure and it's exactly what you're saying forward to those gaps you've chosen it and it's like because you've chosen it's like okay you're stuck yeah but because you've you've anchored yourself to this you're you're free now to like you know yeah but it's also it's it's kind of stoic it's the idea that you go the guy didn't choose to be in prison.

2:11:16I don't know what he did, but he's there now and he's making the best of it. That's the whatever the life is. You can only do what you can with what you have where you are. That's it. Yeah, in war movies you always see them talking about going home and getting that leave. But in sci-fi movies and the spaceship and the starship enterprise you never hear them on deck talking about leave. They hear. I've actually never thought of that. Yeah, they hear, but soldiers were like yeah, we're going for downtime and R &R and really going away. And then they go and come back again to battle. But in the Starship Enterprise, no one has ever said, have you kept in your leave to Galactica Cabanas?

2:11:53No one has ever said that. They know where they are. They're having fun where they are. They've made peace with the fact that they're in this never-ending journey in this voyage. That is their world. He knows Star Wars isn't a documentary, right? I believe it is. What? I'm joking. What's my own footage? What's a conspiracy theory you do believe? a conspiracy theory? Yeah, that you do believe. All right. Here's... Even if it's one of your own. All right. Two terrifying scenarios. Cool. Okay. So the first is there's a Manhattan project currently underway in America and they're building a doomsday machine and it's called Solstice and it's artificial general intelligence.

2:12:44Okay? Trillions of dollars are being spent on building this. Somewhere in America, we don't know where, but it's siloed off and they're building this. Second terrifying scenario, they're not.

2:13:02Hmm. I think I take the second one. okay so the chinese are doing it oh this guy trapped me yeah but i think someone's working on agi at the moment i think that's a uh i think it's a pretty safe bet that they're working on agi and you remember we everyone was fascinated with aliens in the 1950s and 60s because like the dummies that we are we think drones came out four years ago in ukraine they've been working on that shit were you here listening to me yesterday No, but obviously they've been around a long time, right? I was saying the exact same thing. Jimmy! Of course. Of course. But that idea you go, what's going on now?

2:13:49What are they working on right now? And people worry about the wrong thing with AI. They worry about their job being taken. Obviously, we can see all the jobs AI will take. We can't see any of the jobs it will create. And they're thinking about the wrong thing. because the barriers to entry for running an authoritarian regime have come down by 10 orders of magnitude in the last two years. So you could run the Stasi off my laptop now. That is a worry because politicians will have to resist that temptation, and that's a big temptation. The other thing is physics. Peter Thiel said this, I think. If you minus the screens from the room, we're living in the early 70s.

2:14:34Nothing has changed in 50 years, right? So physics has general theory of relativity and Newtonian physics, and they don't quite match. There's no general theory that unites everything. Well, with this new technology, could there be? Because wealth is energy transferred. and if we if physics gets to another level using this technology everything changes everything

2:15:10is this the part of the show where you start asking the audience for questions yeah we're just sitting there in the audience well Jimmy how you feeling New York

2:15:28it's terrifying and then sometimes i'm like ah it's electricity just turn it off that's like the part of my brain that sometimes it's not very logical but i'm just like yeah we'll turn it off we'll unplug everything that's what that's what that's one of the outcomes that i think is very possible well it's it's weird we thought for the longest time everyone thought that was involved or interested in ai thought oh the big thing will be the turing test the big thing will be can it pass as a human and we flew past that in an afternoon and then we just shifted the goalpost yeah yeah like well that the touring was really just a benchmark it wasn't the i was like oh you said it was the and it's like no well really it's not the and and so it'll just get to a place where it's i i just think it's funny that a lot of the people who are selling it as the panacea like they'll be like oh you know there's it will create infinite wealth and money won't mean anything and all of this yeah but then i'm like okay if that's the case give us your money then.

2:16:22Wait, wait, wait. I don't want to be poor anymore. Does that mean I won't be rich anymore? You guys haven't thought this through. This is terrible. This is terrible news. What have we got? We got... What we have here is paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology. Let's roll the dice. Yeah, let's see what happens. this has been fun man it's great to see you by the way so when are you going to be touring the US again I think next year next year I'll come back have a dart at that because every time I hear you in Australia you're massive in Australia man yeah Australia and New Zealand are pretty good to me I mean I do 50 countries on the tour now it's 50?

2:17:09yeah 50 how do you break that down how much time are you on the road in a year I do maybe 200 shows at 200 nights a year, something like that. But the UK is my biggest market probably, and if I'm there, I can be in my own bed every night. That is nice. I feel like I get to spend, work-life balance, work and have a family, that's it. Forget the percentages. It'll change over the years. But yeah, I spend a lot of time kind of traveling around the world. It's great. Okay, so you'll be, and then come back to the US. Do you have like a favorite US city to perform in? Favorite US city? I mean, it's all good.

2:17:47It's all kind of very... No, no, but I'm saying is there like a spot where you go... I find every comedian has a place, it might even be a venue, where it feels like lightning just keeps hitting you when you stand on that stage. I mean, the Chicago Theater is pretty special. There you go. The Boston Wang, pretty amazing. The Beacon here. Like, there's an era in which America built theaters that are just better because they won't ever do it again because the fire restrictions and the health and safety won't let them do it again. Like, the seats are too close together and the aisles are too small.

2:18:19Yeah, that's the reason. They can't, if you build a thousand-seater theater now, it's the same size a 2 ,000-seater used to be because the seats are a little bit bigger and the aisles are a little bit bigger and they now have a thing called fire safety. Fire safety used to be a guy going, With a whistle. I guess, I guess don't have a fire? That's probably the best idea. That's the best we got is don't have a fire. While people were smoking. So you wonder why the theaters from that era are very special because they're grandfathered in. They're just better. ah okay you learn something here every day i like this by the way grandfather it is a racist term you know that remember samarill we're talking about this grandfathered in is a racist term do you remember we're talking about samarill do you remember this we're talking to him we're talking with so samarill was on the podcast and then someone said grand he said grandfathered in i think and then we i said as a joke to him i was like you know that's that's we're talking about the history of terms and whatever you know nursery rhymes blah blah we're like racist racist then he said yeah grandfather and then i said oh that's also racist then he said is it i was like no i'm joking i just then he's like well it probably is and then i went and i read up on it and it actually is a term that comes from america's sordid past sordid past wait what did they do we'll save that for the next conversation what a way to find out what what yeah we're gonna end on a cliffhanger apparently america has a sordid past we'll find out the bible and america i don't want to spoil I don't want to tell you the endings go out and enjoy it I can't believe I sorted the past is this the Kim Kardashian sex type I can't think what you could be talking about oh man this is fun, by the way is the book out?

2:20:00the book's out in October it's really, it's for I'm so excited for this I got your copy the last the last book I read I felt like a textbook for comedians was Stuart Lee. All right. It was one of my favorite books I've ever read. Oh, you talk about that book all the time. It was one of my favorite. You know why? Because for 20 years of my life, I have, and obviously this was before, but then still for 20 years of my life, I have worked in a profession where there is almost like no instruction. There is no... No guidebook. Guidebook. There is no... But there isn't like, it almost feels like there isn't even a, even for posterity.

2:20:36Yes. Like music, people can go, here's the notation and this is how it was. And then we are in this industry that, as you said, keeps growing, changing the world, doing things. We're in it. And there's no like... There's nowhere to point someone that wants to start in this or get better at this. And this wasn't just me. This is my friend Amanda Baker and Abby Grant as well. Like, we put this thing together and we think we have something. But the proof is in the pudding. Like, if you can become a comedian post-reading this, then it works. Yeah. And for people that want to do public speaking, and I think comedy is, for me, it's that thing of like you want more people to get involved in this.

2:21:14Yes. The more the merrier. Yeah. The more the merrier quite literally. Finding joy in these things. Great. This was fun. Thanks, Jimmy. Thank you so much, Jimmy. What a pleasure. What Now with Trevor Noah is produced by DayZero Productions in partnership with SiriusXM. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaz Yamin, and Jess Hackle. Rebecca Chain is our producer. Our development researcher is Marcia Robiu. Music, mixing, and mastering by Hannes Brown. Random Other Stuff by Ryan Harduth. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next week for another episode of What Now?

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