Factually! with Adam Conover - 100th Episode! Samantha Bee Talks Comedy and Information

Episode Date: April 14, 2021

It's Factually's 100th episode! To celebrate, Adam is joined by Full Frontal host Sam Bee to discuss the art of combining fact with farce. They talk the importance (or total unimportance) of informational comedy, consider what lies ahead in their careers, and dunk on sitcoms. Sam Bee's podcast "Full Release" launches May 4th. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You know, I got to confess, I have always been a sucker for Japanese treats. I love going down a little Tokyo, heading to a convenience store, and grabbing all those brightly colored, fun-packaged boxes off of the shelf. But you know what? I don't get the chance to go down there as often as I would like to. And that is why I am so thrilled that Bokksu, a Japanese snack subscription box, chose to sponsor this episode. What's gotten me so excited about Bokksu is that these aren't just your run-of-the-mill grocery store finds. Each box comes packed with 20 unique snacks that you can only find in Japan itself.

Plus, they throw in a handy guide filled with info about each snack and about Japanese culture. And let me tell you something, you are going to need that guide because this box comes with a lot of snacks. I just got this one today, direct from Bokksu, and look at all of these things. We got some sort of seaweed snack here. We've got a buttercream cookie. We've got a dolce. I don't, I'm going to have to read the guide to figure out what this one is. It looks like some sort of sponge cake. Oh my gosh. This one is, I think it's some kind of maybe fried banana chip. Let's try it out and see. Is that what it is? Nope, it's not banana. Maybe it's a cassava potato chip. I should have read the guide. Ah, here they are. Iburigako smoky chips. Potato

chips made with rice flour, providing a lighter texture and satisfying crunch. Oh my gosh, this is so much fun. You got to get one of these for themselves and get this for the month of March. Bokksu has a limited edition cherry blossom box and 12 month subscribers get a free kimono style robe and get this while you're wearing your new duds, learning fascinating things about your tasty snacks. You can also rest assured that you have helped to support small family run businesses in Japan because Bokksu works with 200 plus small makers to get their snacks delivered straight to your door.

So if all of that sounds good, if you want a big box of delicious snacks like this for yourself, use the code factually for $15 off your first order at Bokksu.com. That's code factually for $15 off your first order on Bokksu.com. I don't know the way. I don't know what to think. I don't know what to say. Yeah, but that's alright. Yeah, that's okay. I don't know anything. Hello, everyone. Welcome to Factually. I'm Adam Conover. And my God, this is the 100th been doing this show for almost two years. And to those of you who've been listening along with us, I really can't thank you enough. This podcast has been such a joy and a pleasure for me to do. Not just because I've been able to talk

to some of the greatest investigative journalists, sleep scientists, bug scientists, historians, economists, political economists, political scientists, sociologists, artists, and at least one video game developer out there. It's also because I really do feel like we've created something really special here. We've created a community of folks who are interested in learning more about the world around them, who are interested in new ideas, having new ideas penetrate your skull and get into your brain and maybe change the way that you think. I really enjoyed getting emails from all of you about what you've enjoyed about the show at factually at adamcounterford.net. If you want to send me one of those, I do love to

read them. You've given me such great suggestions for topics to have on the show that we've brought back again and again. And it's a really special thing that you have allowed me into this very intimate space and that space being the space in between your ears. You know, the experience of listening to a podcast so often is to turn your own brain off, turn off your own internal monologue and replace it with somebody else's. So you can not be yourself, but be another person who's speaking to you instead. It's a very intimate thing. I've experienced it myself as something that I love to do with my favorite authors and favorite podcasters and broadcasters. And I really can't say enough how I appreciate that you folks listening to the show would want to do the same with me. So thank you so much for sticking around for 100 episodes. And here's to 100 more. We are going to keep it going.

I can't imagine I'm going to want to stop doing this show anytime soon. So yeah, we're going to keep it rolling right along. So what are we going to do special for 100th episode? Well, this is a little bit of an opportunity for me to take stock of what I've been doing over the last couple of years and to talk to someone else whose work I really admire about comedy and about informational comedy and what it means to do it and why we do it and what the fucking purpose of it is. Now, I've always felt that comedy does have purpose. You know, I loved comedy from childhood. I grew up listening to, frankly,

this is a little embarrassing. I grew up listening to 1940s British radio comedy shows. I was a big fan of a show called The Goon Show starring Peter Sellers. I got the tapes out from the library, listened to them over and over again. Check it out if you want to hear some really witty wordplay about what it's like to live under the blackout during the Blitz. It's incredible stuff. Really does hold up. I was into silly stuff. I love Douglas Adams, love Monty Python, all those sorts of things. But what really formed my comedic sensibility was when I started watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. And before that, The Daily Show with Craig Kilbourne. Loved that show as well in

the late 90s. Oh, my God. Five questions? Who could forget? But when Stewart took over in the mid-2000s, that's when my notion of what comedy could do really expanded. When The Daily Show did a segment on a topic, it felt like they were really saying something. It felt like they were planning a flag. They were using comedy to expose real life issues and ideas in a concrete way that somehow felt like it was making a difference in the real world. I mean, they could shame a politician or media figure in a way that felt definitive. The show sliced through propaganda and bullshit in a way that nothing else really seemed to in popular culture. It felt like it really mattered. And so when it came time for me to do my own comedy, I wanted to pick up that torch and advance it a bit. You know, I wanted to share my own view of

issues that really mattered and revelatory facts that I had learned and bring them to people in hopes that it would change their minds. And I was really proud to be able to do that. You know, for instance, on an early season of Adam Ruins Everything, we did a big segment about forensic science. And if you don't know, the gist is that forensic science, that thing that you've seen on CSI, the thing that, you know, supposed scientists bring into the courtroom every time there's a murder trial or an arson investigation. Well, it's not really science. Lie detectors, for instance, which have always been presented to me as real science, something that actually works, well, it turns out that they do not work. They are pseudoscience. They are,

in a word, bullshit. And people go to prison over this bullshit. When I learned this, I was amazed by it. I was like, this is ridiculous, unjust and wrong and very funny in how wrong it is. I want to share it with people and blow the lid off of this. And guess what? We did. People saw that segment and they said, holy shit, I can't believe that. I had no idea. People come up to me today and reference that segment.

And I'm very proud of that. I thought, hey, I think we might have done something here. But then I remember a moment like a couple of months after that segment aired, I woke up and I had the thought, hold on a second, even though I did this whole segment, people are still using lie detectors. They're still using them for job interviews. They're still using them in court cases. People are still going to jail over over lie detectors. My segment didn't stop them. So what did it actually do and you know the daily show sure they went after bullshitters and liars definitively but the bullshitters and liars i don't know if you

noticed are still on the air in fact uh even more of them are on the air than were back in john stewart's day so what exactly is comedy accomplishing? You know, I've had to abandon this sort of naive notion that the comedy was going to change the world. I do think it was naive that I ever thought that. And now I do it simply to share these ideas with you, simply to hold up something that I noticed about the world, that I learned about the world, that I found awe-inspiring or shocking or upsetting or hilarious and show it to you so we can at least have that community together around it and enjoy it together. And maybe, sure, maybe we'll change the way that we think a little bit. Maybe we can make our

little contribution to changing the culture into something that is more positive, more rational, more thoughtful, less accommodating of bullshit and sloppy thinking. But that is all I can really expect of it. I think that's enough. I think it is. That's why I'm still doing this podcast here. I hope that's why you're still listening to it. But for me, it's less about trying to change the world with a definitive comedy piece and more about using comedy to continue learning, continue growing, and continue sharing with all of you. That's at least the direction I'm trying to move in the work that I do. And I thank you for coming along on the journey with me to the

extent that you are. Maybe this is the first episode of this show you've ever listened to, and you're like, why is this guy talking about his journey so much? I have never listened to him before. I don't know who he is, and I don't give a shit about his journey. I just want to hear him interview Sam Bee. So you know what? Let's just get to it. Let's get to our special hundredth episode interview with Sam Bee. She is, you know, Sam Bee. She was a one of the pioneering correspondents on that very same daily show that we were talking about. And of course, now she does an incredible show called Full Frontal on TBS. I'm very proud to say that we're a part of the same industry and that we're maybe even doing the same lane in terms of what we're doing in comedy. And she has a new podcast out that I

hope you'll check out called Full Release that is going to be coming out very, very soon. She talks about that on the show. So we get into it in this interview. We talk about comedy, what it does, what it doesn't do. We talk about her kids. We talk about my traumatic experiences at driver's ed in high school. It runs the gamut. I really hope you enjoy this interview. Please welcome Samantha Bee. Sam, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. We've talked before, but not at length. We've talked a little bit. We saw each other backstage for like 10 seconds at an upfronts once in the weirdest, one of the worst, one of the worst industry events and circumstances you ever have to be in. It's not, yeah, it's not like a place where robust, natural conversation can really coexist. Yeah. You were like, you were like, I like your show. I were like, I like your show.

I was like, I like your show. And then you were like, I got to go talk to an executive and pretend like I can focus my eyes at seven in the morning. I've been in makeup since four o'clock in the morning to look normal here. And all of the life's essence is draining out of my body. Well, you've been doing your wonderful show for like six years now, something like that. Am I right around there?

Yeah. You have a new podcast that you're doing. Yeah, season six. And then we did the podcast. We've been doing the podcast, but now we're like really doing it. I don't know how many episodes we did, but now we're like doing it, doing it and doing like 45 episodes, like a real actual run. And I love it. I really love it. It's really fun. Well, you know, we're doing a podcast right now. This is a podcast. I mean, this is all

in the pandemic that basically my entire creative output in life became doing podcasts. God. So what is going on? Okay. So where are you? Is it okay for me to ask you where you're at? No, please ask me. This is the 100th episode, so it should be somewhat about me. So you're creatively, you're just getting your EIS out creatively by doing a podcast, but then what are you, you must have a bunch of, you have a bunch of side projects. Oh, well, thank you. Thank you for asking me about my projects.

This is such a good industry question and a good friend question as well. I so, yes, we we finished doing Adam Ruins everything. And then we started doing a new show with Netflix called The G Word about the U.S. government. And then the whole thing was delayed. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. The whole thing was delayed for a year. Thank you. Thank you. The whole thing was delayed for a year. We started the writer's room a week before the pandemic started. And then we wrote the whole show during the pandemic. And then we had to put the whole thing on ice. And now we're coming back. We are going to hopefully be shooting very soon. De-icing the scripts, updating them all for our new post-pandemic world. And so hopefully that'll come out in 2022. Okay. And working on some new ideas too. What has your pandemic life been like? My pandemic life has been very consistently doing the show. So we only went down, we went dark for the first show after everyone, like that terrible week in a year ago,

March where everybody just went, what the shit?'s happening and i just like rumors were flying that they were like they're closing the bridges and tunnels like there was just so much shit happening it's like a zombie movie they're closing the bridges and tunnels to new york no one could get into manhattan escape from new y. So, and we, and the studio had gotten shut down like the day, whatever it was,

March 11th, I think, we were filming in the studio and they were like, it's so funny the things that no one, you know,

when you host a show, everyone's like, don't upset the host right now. And I don't know why because, actually,

I'm very, well, maybe I'm not, but I think of myself as very resilient and it's information i completely could have handled but they were like the entire building shutting down around our shoulders don't tell her because she won't be able to you know like perform or whatever which i totally would have been fine it's fine so i didn't really find out until after we had finished like the second we finished taping they were like get out the building's shut that we're the last people in the building get the fuck out and our office had closed down like meantime while we were filming our office closed down our everything closed they were like get out get your shit and go we don't know when we're opening again and so uh we went down one episode so we did not have

a a show the following week because we were like well where does one do that and then the week after we started doing it in the backyard so i've been doing shows i did a lot of shows in the backyard for many many months and then we moved into a smaller, different studio in the fall, I guess, which we completely govern. So our prior studio, we shared it with a lot of other shows and I was like, we cannot do that anymore because we will never be up.

So we actually have a smaller space now that is only us, which is great because we control everything. And it looks like a show yeah yeah the only thing it's missing is the audience it's missing the audience but it looks it looks like our old set because we actually took a lot of we actually used a cool two-thirds of our previous set so it's it's essentially the same thing just no people and remote cameras. Has your notion of what you're doing on the show,

like what the purpose is of the show, changed at all because of the pandemic or anything like that? No, it really hasn't. It's been very consistent. I mean, like we're, you know, a topical comedy show and the topic was the pandemic yeah but you know more so than ever before the the global conversation was the pandemic so we really had our finger on the pulse and you could feel it like we were living it in the sense of just not even being inside a building yeah in the backyard where the sun was shining, hopefully.

Yeah. I guess I was struck by, you know, when I started doing Adam Ruins Everything, and you've been at this, you know, longer than I have. So maybe this is going to sound like newbie words to you. But when I started Adam Ruins Everything everything i was like very intoxicated by uh i don't know if the power of it is the right word but i was like oh their idea there are ideas that i can say and they'll be broadcast out and i'll have a whole network behind me and i'll be you know changing the world in some little way like i did feel like there was an importance to it

and uh one of the things that the pandemic changed for me was it it made me feel like what I was doing was was not more trivial. But, you know, I was like, oh, my God, there's so much suffering right now. Oh, interesting. Uh huh. I do. I do know what you mean. Although I've never I confess that I've never thought that what we're doing was important. That's my problem.

That's this is what this is what everybody says when I say this, and they're like, yeah, but what you're doing is not important at all. I definitely, so that part didn't change for me. But the scale of the crisis and the magnitude of the suffering, it's really unimaginable. And the magnitude of the suffering is it's really unimaginable. I felt like and I do. I actually just tend to think of the show in this way. I actually tend to take a very small kind of I see it in very small terms where I go, OK, everybody is now I'm an employer of all these people and I'm responsible for these people. So how can I keep them employed? Because, you know, I can say from personal experience that being unemployed or being on the precipice of being unemployed is just one of the scariest things for me. It scares me so much to my core. It's like very defining actually. And so i felt like my staff must be feeling that way

too and so me and my husband we were just and and and all the producers of the show we just put our minds to making the show go back on the air as fast as possible so that we could feel like people had one thing like i could only really control or I could only really help the people who are in my immediate work circle in those moments. And so I was like, I'll just keep them, keep us all working. And then we'll have something to do. And we'll have a place to put all of this anxiety, whatever. Like if everybody's got eight hours of shit to do every day they'll be less worried yeah and they can make their rent like can people can pay their bills so i i experienced

that too i mean we were extremely fortunate we were in this position where like if our show had gotten up and running like two or three weeks later, we just wouldn't have had a writer's room. You know, when you're putting a show together, you're like, oh, we need to hire this writer and we need a head writer and we need this, you know, we need to get this producer in there. And oh, can they all start on Monday?

Oh God, thank God all their deals got done. Yes, we can start. Great. And then we did that. And then the next week we all went home. And if we hadn't like done that, if we had just been delayed by two weeks, you know, everyone would have said, the network would would have said well well you guys haven't started yet

so just don't well that is yeah you really do feel that working in this in in tv that if you're not like you're you're always proving that you have that you should exist so you're yeah when you're like you know i would say like up to the last minute of full frontal ever airing for the first time i feel like i was still sort of selling it like you're still like i swear to god it's gonna be okay and like the network's like behind you but they're also like okay well now you have to show don't tell and so it's it's super easy for people to take you off the schedule if everything isn't like completely just all those little bows kind of crossed. So that's very lucky. That's great.

And I felt so lucky, to your point, to be to be working because as everything was sort of falling, falling down as like, all right, at least we here on this Zoom call have a job to do and you're going to go do this and I'm going to go to that and I'm going to do this. And that was very stressful experience. But, you know, working in that way, working under tight script deadlines while in my own house and not being able to leave and all these things. Sure. But then after we wrapped on that, then I was like, well, now what do I do now now i have all this free time yeah no that's that's the the free time is the killer like it everybody was totally fine but then you would see that when when we go away for a break you you'll just everybody comes back like

super shaky you're like uh i think i'm mad about something like what what's happening how do i how do i do this again or you would just that feeling of like having the sunday scaries coming back after break you're like what's gonna happen on monday and really it's all fine but there's a lot there's panic in the world and there's so much yeah it's anxiety and everybody's like shut inside their places, et cetera. Is that the core of like workaholism is that it distracts you from the Sunday scaries? It distracts you from all those anxieties? Like, well, I have to focus on this one thing.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. I think so. I think I relate to that. I was laying in my bed last night because I'm thinking about this big episode that we're doing. And I was like, I've got to give a lot of thought to this. I have to work it out in my brain. Like, what do I want this to really, really say?

Like, what do I really want to say here? And so I was just laying in bed last night, staring at my lamp lamp like just staring at it in the dark usually i'm so tired at the end of the day i don't have a chance to stare at my lamp but last night i spent a lot of time staring at my lamp so it's always good to have a destination for the day i'm glad to know that you also have that those late nights though because i do that too when i'm when i'm working on the where i'm going like wait I think I'm saying the thing I want to say, but is it really, am I saying it hard enough? Is there some, is there some deeper point to make that's better than the one that I am making? Like, is the thought inside my head actually being communicated?

And it's like, you can never, it's like asymptotic. You can never quite make it there yes and i i often feel like that the first moment is the moment that is the hardest it's like oh what am i saying like right out the gate okay all right that's fine that's that's the i don't know just setting the table i'm just working hard on kind of setting the table and it's just a lot of thinking. And then it's a lot of, I also am just a super early riser. So more, more so than a late nighter.

I am like a get up at five person. And then I'm like, boing, I'm awake. Hello. And I start doing, making lists and drinking coffee. I think I'm,

I think I'm getting there. I think I'm getting there. I think I'm getting it real. I feel like as I used to be, I used to be like a sleep 4 a.m. to noon person, and now I feel that I get up early. It's because maybe you're getting, for me, it's because I'm getting, I'm old.

And I think that happens to old people where they just start getting up at 3 a.m. And they're like breakfast at five, lunch at 10, dinner at three, bedtime at 830. Like this is true. And that is why. But I didn't want to put it that way because I didn't want to accuse you of being old. I felt you being sensitive, but it's actually OK. I love it. I love the golden girls and I like old people and I love myself. So this is just how it is. I love it. I love the golden girls and I like old people and I love myself.

So this is just how it is. I love it. It's totally fine. Get up. My granddad used to like, he was old. He was like 96 when he died. And he would get up at like 3 and have a Sanka and a single strip of bacon and like half an egg. Like not even the full egg.

And he'd be like so set up. So set up for the day. I know to eat so little and need so little sleep and just, you just like your, your needs center down on a little pinprick. You can be happy with so little. A hundred percent. And your skin is so thin that you're just constantly bleeding from something you just like rub up against rub up against a sausage and you're bleeding and you're like what happened he's like i rubbed i hit a sausage the wrong way and now i need bandages

i've started experiencing the thing i'm uh you know i'm only in my late 30s but i started experiencing the thing where i'm like that i'm only in my late 30s but i started experiencing the thing where i'm like that that didn't heal like it's been months and like that little burn mark is still there like that what happened to my grandma it really we don't have to talk on and on about age but it gets so much worse like i'm 51 and now it's all the problem is the verticals actually heal even worse like if you if you if you scratch yourself on the vertical plane, like your shin, it just never heals. Like it just like it will be you're just broken forever. I kicked myself.

I like donkey kicked myself getting off a bike with a biking shoe, like with a cleat in the leg. My entire leg exploded. And it's still it's like green and it happened three weeks ago i keep looking at it i'm like when does this maybe it's just permanent i don't know it's a big tattoo i have this like big scar on my hand it's not that big but i can i can see it the scar on my hand and i got it when I was on a plane and I do this a lot but especially when I'm on a plane I'll just you know I have little like little ticks you know like little ADD stimming kind of just like shaking my hands and stuff yeah um snapping my

fingers and I was doing that and my fingernail caught me on my hand and I gouged my own hand with my own fingernail which I'd probably been nibbling, so it was a little ragged. And it made this gouge and I still have a scar. And I'm like the most prominent scar on my body is where I scratched myself with my own fingernail on a plane because I was just that energy. It sucks. Well, I don't

want to, it doesn't, it's not going to get better. It's not going to improve. Tell me about the new podcast what what are you doing on it i'm doing what you're doing i'm having great super fun conversations with people it's um it's called full release you can i think we're launching i don't know something they're gonna literally kill me for not knowing the exact date of our launch so i'm gonna look it up on my phone but it's like may 4th or something like that oh yeah we're not gonna

edit this i did great yeah may 4th back on may 4th it's i'm like talking to the funnest people and talking to the funnest people and having longer coverage because you know when you make your own show the segments are so small and you're trying to cram everything into these small, tiny sound bites with people and trying to get trying to just like ring the most content out of the shortest possible sentence. Yeah. And so it's actually fun to just kind of gab. Like, I love to interview people. I love it. It took a lot of years for me to love it and i do i

truly do so it's really fun actually for me to say what kind of people are you talking to i'm talking to stephen colbert i'm gonna be talking to elizabeth warren i talked to anna ferris i talked i got like a whole bunch of big lineup of great people. I'm excited. I know a lot of questions for them. We'll find out. We'll see how it goes. They better be honest with me. I see that you do

camera on for the interview. I do do camera on for the interview. You don't do that. Well, I prefer not to. I don't care. In this context, I don't care, but I like, I love to have it off. I thought that was a whole point of podcasts, but no one agrees with me anymore. And now you can see like people just talking into microphones on YouTube. It's fine.

I like to get a little, I think the body language helps you cut in a little bit. You can say, oh, Sam's got something to say. I see, I see her making a physical movement before the sound comes out. I see. I see. And I do find that a little helpful, especially when you're over Zoom and there's a little lag often. I guess that's true. Do you don't find the eye line to be a distraction?

Like the fact that like to really look into your eyes, I'm not looking at you at all. Yeah. So now I'm looking at you, but I can can't see what you're doing i'm doing the same thing i'm looking at the camera right now we're both looking at our cameras we're looking at our cameras and so yeah it would if you were watching it it would seem that we were just gazing into each other's eyes but i actually can only see it's like i'm talking to a computer yeah my little blinking no it is it No, it is difficult. It is difficult. I have to advise you. I don't know if you do this.

The most important tip is in Zoom, you can turn off the self-view so you don't look at your own face. Sometimes I like to look at my own face in the Zooms. Sometimes it comforts me. You don't think it you don't think it may i think it makes me crazy when i'm i want to be communicating with the other person and instead i'm just like adjusting my adjusting myself like it's not how we should be when we're talking to others is looking at ourselves well if it's a big if it's actually if i'm in a zoom with a lot of people i don't know i prefer to look at myself yes then a gallery of people who are not making you know who are not making an effort to

have a more yeah a more um active zoom face you know because it's just like they just like retreat into their like staring at the computer face which doesn't feel like you're even though you're actively listening it's not an active listening face so i prefer to look at my own face that's trying far too hard and just really spinning wheels what are your uh what are your interview methods like how do you try to make a good interview um that's a great question i i actually just lead with real curiosity like i just don't really i don't really talk to people who i am completely incurious about yeah i pass on those kind of like, I don't, I don't care. Yeah. I think I just,

it's in the selection of the person. Yeah. It's in the research. And then it's, I like to follow my own. I like to follow my own interest. You know, I worked for a long time at the daily show and I interviewed,

I really honed those interviewing chops there by talking to a lot of people who hated me. Yeah. A lot. You did those, you did those Daily Show, you did those correspondent pieces, which that's a very specific kind of interview that I've never felt I would be able to do. I've always been amazed by that. Hundreds of those really antagonistic interviews, I would say. And so I don't have to do that anymore. I chose to not do that.

Wouldn't it be incredible if you chose to do more of that? More of that, please. Please. They're very funny, but so difficult. Yeah difficult yeah i mean i'm good at the like i'm good at it i'm good at getting people to speak their truth and like make them feel like they're in a place where they should just say the thing that they feel and that they've been actively working toward say it out loud and they're always really mad because they're like i said this thing out loud and people didn't like it and that's how i truly feel and those are the laws i'm trying to

pass and then people were mad at me you're awful you're a liar like you're no i just gave you a venue for you to be real um but it is it's crushing it's actually very hard to spend loads of time with people who you really hate and so i'm glad i don't have to do that anymore i wouldn't choose that for myself i'm not a journalist they can do that part yeah leave that to them i relate to the leading with curiosity thing that's what i try to do myself. And it'll always, it'll always steer you well in an interview, even if you don't, even if you're talking to someone who you're completely unprepared for, which I don't, I don't do, I am always prepared, but if I were thrust into a situation where I was not, if you literally just ask, I don't know, ask what you're interested in.

I remember I used to do like like i almost thought of it as like a party trick to like assuage my own social anxiety at parties in my 20s i would talk to other people and i would talk to other anxious nervous people and i would like find something interesting to talk with them about even if we didn't know each other like i remember talking to a woman at a party i was like what do you do and she, ah, you don't want to talk about it. I work at the post office. And I was like, no, I have so many questions about the post office.

And I started asking her questions about stamps. And we got to some interesting point about like, you know, how the people at the post office feel about stamps. I forget what it was, but it was like, you know, able to find this,

you know, what am I, what in that you are, what of what you are giving me? Am I curious about, and let's find that. Um, it can like never steer you wrong.

It never steers you wrong. I usually hide in bathrooms at parties and I'm actually really happy that those, I'm not happy for the pandemic, not happy that it happened was very, I'm very pleased to be able to give up parties. So I really hate them. They should never happen.

My kids have never had a birthday party. I have three children and I have never had a birthday party for them. Cause I'm like, and I've offered, I'm like, do you want me to have a birthday party for you? And they're like, please don't.

And I'm like, this is how I know that you're my child like thank you thank you so much and other parents are like so many birthday parties right holy my weekends are like so bogged down i'm like oh really i say no to every party and we just go sorry we're out of town and then we just don't go. None of my kids want to. I fucking hate parties. Your kids have the personalities of people in their 30s. That's wonderful. Oh, it's a relief.

It's a relief. Get me out of here. Oh, get me out of here. I'm like, do you want to play team sports? They're like, please don't make us. I'm like, sweet. Because I don't want to go. I don't want to go i don't want to know anything about basketball don't make me learn like let me just let me just stay home and read

a book of essays mom i want to read this book of fran lebowitz or whatever not to we don't have to talk about my children anymore but this is a funny story about my son who's like, his friends were like, Fleischer, you should come and play baseball. Like we all do like baseball. They did these, there's like an under, it's a basement baseball zone with like indoor baseball diamonds and whatever, whatever. And he was like, can I, can I do indoor baseball in the basement of this place? And I was like, okay, we can try. We'll see if you like it. And so I signed him up for it. He came home every time from this, and he was like eight or nine or whatever. He came home every day from this once a week baseball

thing. And he was like, I don't, I don't enjoy this. He was like, the coach was screaming at me. I hate it. And I was like, okay, I think you should stick it out. Like, I think you should just do one full semester of baseball or whatever. Just like go to the end and see if you really hate it. And he was like, please, can you come and you can you tell the coach to stop screaming in my face? And I was like, I'm going to come. I think you're making this up. I'm going to come. I think you're making this up.

I'm going to come. I'm just going to observe. Here is an observer. So I came and I was really supportive. And then I realized he just didn't. He's been going for months, but no one had explained the game of baseball to him in his entire life. So, like, whereas I thought they would teach him the rules of baseball. It's just like everybody there was just came with this assumed knowledge of

like what you're supposed to fucking do when you hit this fucking ball. And so he would like hit the ball and then just stand there and be like, what? And the coach was like, run. So the coach was screaming at him and he didn't know even which direction to run in or what he was. He was like, run. So the coach was screaming at him. And he didn't know even which direction to run in or what he was. He was like, I'm lost. I'm fucking lost.

And so I let him quit. I was like, well, here's the rules. You're supposed to like run from here to here to here. And he was like, oh, he was like, well, OK. No wonder Jellybean was screaming at me like for four months and so we let him quit you don't have to do this he was like thank you i hate it that's so that's a really funny story jellybean is so mean to me the coach's name was jellybean yes and he was a lovely man and he wasn't really screaming at my son because he was a mean man.

He's a great coach. He just was like, why won't this kid do what he's supposed to do? And the kid was like, what am I supposed to do? Why is everyone looking at me right now? Anyways, this brings me back to a place of my own. This happened when I learned to drive. Oh, this exact thing happened.

I was in high school and I, I, there was, you know, driver's ed after school and I joined the driver's ed class. And then we're in this, you know, uh,

we, we, we section off into groups, you know, me, me and three other boys and the, and the driving instructor. And we get in the driving instructor car.

And I realized that for some reason, all the other boys like know how to drive already. Like, like they're all cracking jokes. This is a long aisle. They're like, Oh yeah. Oh,

talk about the Yankees or whatever. And then it's like, okay, Adam, it's your turn. And then I'm like, okay, what do I do?

And then, and the teacher was like, Oh, you don't, you, Oh, you don't know. You don't know how to drive. Oh, okay.

Okay. That's the gas pedal. And he was like really unprepared to teach me. Right. And he was like, what are you doing? You came to driver's ed and you don't know how to drive? What is this? I'm at driver's ed.

You could teach me how to drive. You tell me what the pedals are. That's your job. I think the reality is that most people's parents taught them how to drive. And mine did not. My family had a total family failure on learning to drive. I hated driving. My sister hated driving.

My parents hated teaching us. And they were like, okay, just go to driver's ed. And everyone else had been like, you know, illegally driving on the side with mom and dad since they were like 13 or whatever. Yeah. There's like a whole contingent of families who are like, my kid's driving, like with your kid on your lap and the kid has, is like holding the wheel. But parents should never teach their children to drive. Like never, never, never, never. My mom tried to teach me and it was such a abject failure, like horrific. Why is that? Horrific. Because she just kept.

She. It was. She had a Ford Bronco. And we were. And I was just like on a country road somewhere because she lived out in the country. And so just like on a straight country road going like 20 miles an hour. She was like, I feel just the center of the center of gravity of this car is really really different from other vehicles and i just want to let you know that you could flip this car at any second you will flip this bronco into a ditch and we will be consumed in a fireball

and killed so we just be very careful because there's a ditch running along the road and you're tipping the car like it was she just kept feeling like the earth was moving shifting to the left so i also driver's ed but i did understand what a gas pedal was but it's not it's not is this is not assumed this is not assumed knowledge someone has to teach you that this is i is how i felt as a kid all the time. Same thing with sports. You show up, everybody else has some basic background in it. I'm just like, I don't know. I don't want to be here. This is tiring.

I'm already tired. Let me just say, we don't have to talk about your kids anymore, but you're clearly a great mom. This is a great attitude to take towards your kids. That's what I think. Just based on my own experience of being forced to like go to basketball camp one summer and having to do it and just i don't want to be here why why am i being made to do this the the the counselors the coaches whatever we're like sure why is this kid here he just wants to read his magazine about

nintendo why are any of us having to go through this charade and so the fact that you'd cut through the bullshit so you know what don't just don't do it that's very nice let's all find what we like in life and do the thing that we like it takes a little while you're not gonna find it when you're six some people do and that's awesome that's so great but i don't know i didn't i don't even think i i didn't even learn how to ride a bike until i was 18 and then once i did it because no one ever taught me and then i taught myself at like six o'clock in the morning in a parking lot i was like this is fucked i gotta learn this is so dumb like why do i not know how to do this thing that everybody around me knows? I'm going to teach myself.

So I did, you know, these things like they don't, they don't come naturally. It's not all intuitive. Yeah. All right. Well, we got to take a really quick break.

We'll be right back with more Sam B. Okay. I don't know anything Okay, we're back with Sam B. So I do want to ask you, because you said earlier, you were like, I don't think what we do is important. Sure. And I want to push you on that a little bit, because I understand that, and I think it's important to have humility

and have a sense of your lack of importance in the world. But if you don't feel it's important, then why do you do it? Like, what is the, what is the motivation to do specifically the kind of comedy that you, that you do do, you know,

because like, you're not just, you're not doing just a, Hey, let's do a nice workplace comedy and we'll laugh or, you know, no, you're not making Ted Lasso. Wonderful show, Ted wonderful um but you're you're doing something that's about

that's about the world um i think that it's not yeah i don't i don't think that it's like i don't think of it as weighty or important i don't't know why I just don't. I really just don't. But I do think that it's interesting. I do think it's really interesting. And it's what I like. It's really what I like to consume. I loved The Daily Show before I got that job. So that kind of fusion of comedy and information is my super sweet spot. And I think that I do it because I just, I like it. I like to, it's just the sweet spot for me, that fusion of comedy and information. It's the two things I like best in, you know, in all of the arts and sciences is like news and great journalism and comedy. So I don't know that, I don't know that I do it. I don't do it because I feel like it's my

important contribution. I do it because I almost don't know how to do anything else. And I, yeah. And someone is willing to put me on TV to do that. It's a way to get health insurance. It's a great way to get health insurance. And I really do. I really do love it. I like really love what we do. And listen,

we try, we're trying, we try hard. We try to highlight things that we think need to be highlighted. Do I, are we changing the world i don't think so but i i do try in as many ways as possible to put attention on things that i think need attention or make i'm trying to like make i guess i'm trying to make tv a little better

than it was when i started like we put a great system of family leave. It's one of our signature kind of like workplace things. Cause I was like, cool. At your workplace. Yeah. Cause we should, you know, we just ended up having an employee who got pregnant. And then I was like, well, I guess we better look at our parental leave policy and figure that shit out and make it better and then challenge other shows to do the same thing like i love to do stuff like that because i feel like that just sort of makes people's lives even if it only makes two people their life better it makes their life so much better and it's something they'll always think back on and then try to maybe pay it forward when they have hiring power as well. So yeah, little, there's like little baby steps, I guess, little baby steps.

Cause why not? I mean, why wouldn't you, if you had the platform, why wouldn't you? Yeah. I relate to the thing about like, I just love information and I love comedy and I love sharing things I've learned with people. And that was like the thing when I was getting started in comedy that like actually worked for me. I was like, okay, I'll try to tell a joke.

Okay. That went pretty well. People laughed, but like, you know, who gives a shit? And then when I started being like, oh, here's a crazy thing I learned on stage, people started responding to it and I liked doing it more. And I was like, oh, this is, this feels like a deeper, realer connection. It's a piece of, it's actually a really great kind of living example of, because I'm sure that this, I'm sure that you get asked this all the time,

but people are always asking me like, what do you, like what do you recommend to like a fledgling comedy writer or someone who's in college right now and they want to make their name in comedy or in the performing arts or in writing or whatever, you know, some version of that. And I'm always like, you have to, I mean, the best thing for you to do is just to write for yourself constantly and like be figuring out what it is that you really like. Like if you strip everything to the bare bones, what are the things you really like? And it's a gift once you figure those things out

because whether you get paid for this thing or not, you'll always be doing something that you love. And it can repay you in many ways. It's not necessarily the career you think you're going to have or that you wish you're going to have or whatever. It can take you in many ways. It's not necessarily the career you think you're going to have or that you wish you're going to have or whatever. It can take you on a path. But if the nut of what you're doing is something that you really love yourself and you really, really do, you really will always kind of enjoy your work.

You know, there's obviously peaks and valleys, but you'll enjoy the nut of it. It's very important. It makes you a happy person. That's really wonderful advice. obviously peaks and valleys, but you'll enjoy the nut of it. Yeah. It's very important. It makes you a happy person. That's really wonderful advice. I never give that exactly. That's really wonderful advice to take to heart.

Well, you'll have a fulfilling career, even if it's not necessarily always exactly what you want or whatever. It's fulfilling to you because it's like I would be doing comedy now, even if I wasn't doing professional comedy, I would still be doing sketch comedy. I would still be performing this. I know. So I'd be doing it whether I was getting paid or not. I would be, you know, my wigs would be cheaper. I'd still be doing it. And that tells me everything, really. Yeah, you'd be doing a weekend slot at an improv theater. 100%.

100%. I'd still have like a big Rubbermaid tote full of props in the car. Yeah. And maybe you'd be a little bit frustrated, but you'd still be doing the work. Like that's what I tell people. I'm like, just start. If you want to do comedy. Or I was talking to my cousin who wants to be a video game developer and i was like great just start doing that like make a video game you know yes and and show it to other people then make another one and don't focus so much on how do i get the job where

but just like do the do the work first because that is your goal. That's the thing you want to do. And so start doing it, you know, and then you'll start to move and then you'll go up. Exactly. It's funny because I was a I was a viewer of The Daily Show while you were on The Daily Show. And it was, you know, so much of my comedic sensibility was formed by that show. And it was also formed by the media environment around the show because I was a lover of comedy since I was a kid.

But in those years, there started to be a critical reevaluation of comedy with people in the media going, oh, comedy, comedy is really important. Comedy can take down dictators. Comedy can expose satire, da, da, da, da expose satire all that kind of thing a lot of that was a lot of that was centered around the the daily show and around the you know the show that you do now that sort of came out of that culture um and you know i i think i internalized a

lot of that i was watching it going like oh yeah this kind of comedy is sort of the highest you know this is the top of the mountaintop, right? Because you can actually move the needle of culture a little bit with it. And now where I'm standing, I'm like, maybe, maybe I was a little oversold on that. Maybe we all were. I'm curious how you felt about it making it at the time. the time. A hundred percent. Well, uh, making it, we, I, I mean, we never bought, I never bought into that narrative. I never, I always knew that what we were doing, well, sorry. I mean, it's, it's, I keep coming back to this phrase that what we're doing was not important, but we weren't really changing people's minds at the Daily Show. We really were not. And I, and John knows that,

and he speaks openly about it. Just nobody ever believed that he believed that he wasn't changing the world. But he never seemed to, he never wavered from that perspective that what we were doing was kind of like really just catharsis for the people who are watching. And I think that has always been true. And when we were in it, like working in it, we weren't like, we're really going to change

people's minds with this one. This is the one. Not at all. We knew. I knew. I knew we weren't. It was still great and awesome and worth doing. Andarsis is valuable and and and like sharing a moment with people who feel the way that you do or helping shed some light on something that people don't really know about but they'd love to learn about is a great feeling and that is worthy goal unto itself changing the world like I'm not well frontal is not out there changing the world. Like I'm not, Full Frontal is not out there changing the world. Like we are not out, well, that's not 100% true. Actually, I do think like our health policy is really good.

That could be inspiring to other people perhaps. But, you know, generally speaking, I actually think that if you sit around going, what I do is so important. Then you are like an impossible. Yeah. Not, you can't,

that is to me, very incompatible with comedy of any sort. And it's sort of, I really don't know. I don't know what it would be like to wake up in the morning and go, Oh my God, look at me. I do.

The world cannot move without my words. Like I don't. There are definitely people who wake up that way. Oh, definitely. But like, I'm not like, let me chime in here. Oh, a celebrity died. Let me just go like, R-I-P-U.

Remember when we met on the set of a thing? Never forget. But you know, I don't know. Like I did grow up in Canada. So maybe that's part of the problem right there there's like I believe in myself listen I believe in myself I really do I love myself I love what I do but I definitely again not to I know this is not a podcast about my children but if you have those people in your life, they will disabuse you of any sense that you are an important

person to anyone other than them. They're just like, what you do is bad. You're not funny. Did you do my pants? Did you put the button back on my pants? Because I'm going for a walk with my friends. And it's great. It's very

healthy. Did you do my pants did you finish did you do the laundry like doing what to them okay doing like did you fix the i don't know like are you are you are you are you patching like charlie bucket's mom yeah like their expectations of me they were like they so didn't want to do the dishes last night. And I was making them do the dishes. And they were like, we have homework. We have homework.

We have homework. And I was like, I fucking also worked. And my work is more important than your work because it's why you had food. And so you can do the dishes. Like, so we're all in it together, guys. It's a family enterprise.

You do the second part. And so you don't ever. So if anyone on earth said to my kids, your mom is so important. My children would puke like onto them. Violently vomit. Fair. I mean, it's all it's all fair enough you know i um i guess there's a degree to which i you know i want to feel that my work is i want to maintain obviously humility about it but

i also want to feel that it's making a contribution in in some sense but i think a contribution is doing the i think it is a contribution. You are making a contribution. Like your contribution cannot be measured in like votes cast or anything like that. Yeah. But that's all kind of, that's all super elusive.

Like everyone runs around going like, Ooh, he's, you know, Instagram, like, you know, when,

when Twitter was like at its super height, everyone was like Twitter. So it's just everything. And it, and if you had 2 million Twitter followers and you told them to watch your short film, probably eight people would do it. Like, Oh my God, it's very abysmal, abysmal. Like the rate of return on anything like that is nearly impossible. So, you know, it's really hard to measure what your contribution is. And even if your contribution sometimes is just like a person thought differently about

a thing twice over the course of an episode, that is like, that's a real, that's a real contribution. Like, I think that's a real that's a real contribution like i think that's real it reverberates in ways that you can never know and so you should feel like you are making a contribution because you are it's just impossible to to measure that yeah and it's like thank well first of all thank you it's very validating um But yeah, you need to like not, not be too focused on what the, what the grand design of it is like the, the, the great change that it's making. It's really focused on like the individual reactions from people, I suppose. I agree with you.

I understand what you, what you mean. I think getting people interested in different subject matter is so valuable. Like, you know, it seems to me like you and I have a similar kind of, you know, probably the things we liked are very similar growing up. I'm older than you, but, you know, like I loved 60 Minutes. And there are 60 Minutes stories that I can still remember from when I was a kid. And I don't even know why those stories connected with me in that way, but they're things that I've never forgotten that I've brought into my adult life. And like, it really, stories are impactful and knowledge is powerful and all of that is great. And if you get someone interested in something because you painted a picture of it in a way that is entertaining. If you if you ignite an interest or a passion in that person because of that moment, that's

fucking awesome. That's great. That's fucking great. It's a lot better than like a sitcom. I don't I don't know. I think it is. Right. This is what I'm saying. The people who make Ted Lasso are wasting their lives. What a fun. Wasting their lives. It's a fun little diversion, but we're here doing the real work. And that's where I wanted to make sure we landed.

Let's make sure that everybody knows that we truly believe that about ourselves. I loved. I did love Ted Lasso. I did like it, but I have one very specific comedy complaint about it. I loved, I did love Ted Lasso. I did like it, but I have one very specific comedy complaint about it. Can I share with you? And I really did enjoy the show. I enjoyed it quite a lot,

but I think this is maybe a trend in comedy writing in a normal sitcom. When a character tells a joke, no one else in the show acknowledges that a joke was told, right? They just, the audience laughs or there's a little beat for us to laugh at home. And then everybody moves on.

Nobody acknowledges that Tracy Jordan said something weird, right? They just, the scene goes on. In Ted Lasso, every time someone tells a joke, the other characters go, ah, that's funny. That was a funny joke. Hey, you're pretty funny. Or they say, or they'll tell a joke

and they'll go, ah, that didn't really land, did it? Kind of a dad joke. And they'll move on. And to me, that is as though we were all watching a sci-fi movie and the characters were standing around going, wow, great special effects. No, no, no, no, no.

The jokes are for us at home, not for the other people in the fictional world. That's so funny. You know, okay, I have not noticed that, but I'm going to look for that now. And here's another thing that is similar. There are certain actresses that are just beautiful, I guess. And they're just so known for being beautiful that everyone in every project they're ever in has to have a moment where they go, you're just so beautiful. You're just so beautiful you're just so beautiful and i'm like does vera

farmiga have it in her contract that in every project someone has to go god look at you god you're a beautiful woman like what the fuck is happening? No one says that. Do they? I guess maybe they do if you're that lady. I don't watch comedy much at all. So, head loss. I have a disease too. It was kind of a departure. What do you watch? What are you watching?

What have you watched lately? I can tell you what I watched and holy shit balls. My partner, Lisa, and I have been watching from the beginning, The Good Wife. Interesting. Incredible show. Have you seen The Good Wife. Interesting. Incredible show. Have you seen The Good Wife? I have never seen a single episode. It's an incredible lawyer procedural drama.

It started in 2009. It literally starts the first year of the Obama administration. And let me tell you, this is the most 2009 show ever made. They are constantly just referring to things that happened. They're like, I just got an email on my Blackberry. It's the Obama administration. They just came into power. Oh, Twitter, that exists

now. Someone wrote something on their blog. Oh my God, that's great. It's as though it couldn't be better if it were a show made now, if it were like The Wedding Singer for 2009. That's what watching the show is like.

And it's also just a really good lawyer show. Recommend. Strong recommend. That's good. That's good knowledge. Comfort TV. I'll hold that in my heart. What have you been watching?

I just finished three seasons of Gamora. Gamora. I don't know Gamora. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Boy, oh boy.

Highest possible five stars. It's an Italian crime show set in Naples. And it is not, it is just horrifically frightening and dark and so violent and like everyone's speaking Italian and it's everyone's getting killed in ways like a rough watch

it's a rough rough watch and I have an appetite for rough watches I love things that are like wow like I love to walk away from something going like i'm shaken and this was one of those things like i know they did there's a fourth season has aired in italy but it's not going to be here for a few more months anyway and i was like i'm grateful i can't take another second of it. Like that was, that was a ride.

I need a break. I gotta get off the Gamora rollercoaster. Not even a rollercoaster. It's a rollercoaster to hell. And I just needed to get off, but I'll be back for sure. It's so, my tastes are so dark. Where do you see this? I watched it on HBO Max.

You can get it on Amazon. It's a's uh oh boy i'll check it out boy oh boy it's very good i loved it i'm trying to come up with a with a bring us in for a landing okay oh okay samantha b you've accomplished so much in your life this is i'm switching to like a dick cavett style this is good this is like the howard stern the end of howard stern he's like you've's like, you've said it all. You've said it all. Do you listen to Howard Stern? Are you a Howard Stern fan? I don't.

I'm not. I really should. I was on. Okay. I had one experience once where I know I should, but by the time it was time for me to listen, he moved to Sirius XM and I don't have Sirius XM. Oh, okay. Okay.

I should listen. But I once did. I was on not i wasn't on howard stern i was on the after show for howard stern okay where the other hosts sit around and they talk about and it was a very surreal experience for me because they were like adam on the show today howard said that he doesn't like it when people bring smelly food to the office what do you think and i was like why are we sitting around talking about this guy who's not here? This seems pathological to me. Like we're all very concerned with

Howard's opinion. We're all talking about Howard. He's not in the room, guys. You have your own opinions about what the food tastes like. What a funny show to go on. What a funny show to go on if you are not well-versed in like who those people are in the room with you. And anyway, okay, that's great. Well, he's a great interviewer.

So I don't know. Oh, I know. I know. I don't know why I, why did I go there? Oh, you've said it all. Cause he always ends every good interview with, well, you've said it all. You've said it all.

And you're like, well, we're about to end. And everyone goes, oh no. What did I, what did I say? What did I say? Oh shit. I forget. Okay. I was going What did I say? Oh shit, I forget. Okay. I was going to ask, what are your goals for the future

with what you do for your own life? Like, how are you looking to grow what you do? Some, I think, really good goals for the show this year. I'd like to kind of expand the visual world now that we're in a smaller and different studio and we don't have an audience. I think it's, it'll be an interesting cause I know how we did the show last year. I,

you know, just getting a show made was an incredible accomplishment last year. Yeah. And so now that we're in a space where we feel comfortable, I don't want to feel too comfortable. So I'm trying to put an eye to like, all right, how can we kind of like elevate this situation or how can we grow this situation now that we don't have an audience and probably won't again, maybe ever. I'd like to travel. I'd really like to travel. I have a production company. I'm making other shows, pitching other stuff. That's really fun. I really enjoy that. I don't enjoy the actual pitch process, but I do enjoy everything except the part where you're trying to sell the show.

I enjoy the development of new shows. I think that's really fun. And that's pretty much it. That's pretty much it. I know there's something really huge that I'm forgetting, but I like the work that I do. I really, really do. I really do love it. So I don't have too many places to go.

I want to keep, it's been nice to not have Donald Trump as the president because we, it's a bit more, now that we've all acclimatized to the new elevation. Yeah.

It's, it's, it's actually nice to be able to think about the show in a different way where we're not just like, just grinding

and, and like scrabbling up a gravel, you know, to get to, to just be covered in gravel at the end now yeah well especially for the show that you do to not have this one blaring red hot thing that is demanding demanding attention at all moments yeah you can actually have a thought yeah very nice very nice to be able to collect your thoughts for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, that's a great answer. I mean, I'm like also looking to like, I don't know, grow, grow what I do and be able to like, do it in a deeper way somehow to, to like,

I always feel like there's more, there's more under there that I somehow haven't gotten to. I always feel like there's more, there's more under there that I somehow haven't gotten to. And there's like a richer way to, a richer way to do it. Like I tend to look at what I was doing and go like last year and go, ah, that's a little glib. Like what's the more, what is, what is the more thoughtful version of the thing that I was just trying to do? Do you have hobbies outside of your, do you like garden or anything like that? I started birdwatching this year. It's the best. So fun.

It's the best. That's great. It is the best. I bet I've been baking too, but birdwatching is the more. Birdwatching is fun. I love, I used to hate birds.

I used to be, not hate birds, but like, just be like fucking birds. And I do feel that way. Yeah. Now I too, we got a bird feeder for the first time in our lives and we are two like TV maker

people. And I think we're, you know, and, and, and we put this fucking bird feeder on our window and we're like, there's that Cardinal. I don't know who Jason and I have become, but we're definitely like, I just downloaded the Audubon app so I can look at the birds and go like, is that a grackle or is that a crow? Tell me the difference. A turkey walked by my window because I'm at our house and a turkey walked past. There's all kinds of turkeys up here.

That's awesome. Yeah, it's neat. I do the kind where I go out with binoculars and I make a list and I submit it to the website eBird. Oh, God. And then it's contributed to this big database of where everyone saw birds that like ornithologists can use to track bird movements. Or you can just like look at your own little list. So you're going to do the big, what do they call it? The very big year?

The big year? The big year is what it's called. I've never done a big year. I've only been doing it for a year so i think a big year is where the bird watchers say i want to see as many birds as i can see in one year and then they fly around and burn a lot of fossil fuels that's killing a lot of birds to see some birds i uh i went straight from i've started observing birds to like well are you going to travel around the world and kill all the songbirds with the exhaust from your jet?

For real. For real. There's a lot less birds than there used to be. I don't want to get into that. No, there are a lot less birds and it's really scary and that's why I keep my cats inside. Wow, all you've learned is that I'm the biggest

fucking nerd. She's got cats too what a what a sexy picture wow surprising no but not only that you are the kind of cat owner who says those need to be kept inside when i see outdoor cats i get so i get very mad i know no no they belong they belong inside staring at the birds and jumping on those screens yes um. I mean, why not have that be our last note? It's fine. I like it. I could talk to you for hours,

but this has been wonderful. It's been so nice to really dig in. It's been really great. For real. Yeah. Thank you for indulging me in my most negative trait as a comedian, which is navel- gazing about comedy.

So I appreciate you joining me for that somewhat masturbatory exercise. Right. I loved it. It was really fun. Okay. Uh, plug, plug for us.

The name of the podcast one more time comes out on May 4th and it's called full release with Samantha B and new downloads are Tuesdays. Yeah. Tuesdays. Please check it out. Thank you so much, Sam B for it out. Thank you so much, Sam B., for being here. Thank you so much. Well, thank you once again to Sam B. for coming on the show.

Please check out her podcast wherever you get your podcasts. And hey, if you enjoy this podcast, please leave us a rating or review wherever you subscribe. I know I say it all the time. It really does help us out. If you want to pick up any of the incredible books that our guests have written, you can check those out at factuallypod.com slash books. That's factuallypod.com slash books.

And when you do, you'll be supporting this show and your local bookstore. I want to thank our producers, Chelsea Jacobson and Sam Roudman, Andrew Carson for editing the show, the fine folks at Falcon Northwest for building me the incredible custom gaming PC Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week on Factually for episode 101.