Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out - 47. Malcolm Gladwell: 10,000 Hours of Jokes

Episode Date: July 12, 2021

You can hear the excitement in Mike's voice as he welcomes legendary author Malcolm Gladwell, host of Revisionist History and author of 'Outliers' as well as his latest, 'The Bomber Mafia.' Malcolm brings Gladwellian theory to why the re-telling of jokes is never as funny. They riff on evil golf courses, evil search engines, & where that YMCA pool smell might actually come from. Even Malcolm’s mom Joyce makes a cameo. This may just be the tipping point for Working It Out. https://www.yesscholars.org/

Hey, everybody. We are back with a new episode of Working It Out. This is, I think this is the most exciting episode that we've ever had. This, okay, before I get into it, I just want to say, we're announcing some new tour dates in the fall. You probably know I'm going to be at the Chicago Theater. I'm going to be in Madison. This week, we're announcing Milwaukee.

You're the first to know. This week, we're announcing a third show in Denver. You're the first to know. All of that is on Burbiggs.com. Also, we're making announcements about some shows I'm doing, working out material in New York City at City Winery. If you want to be the first to know about those, sign up for my mailing list on birdbigs.com. Today on the show, we have Malcolm Gladwell.

I don't even know how we got him. Do you know? Ask your friends. I don't even know how this happened, but I'm very happy it did. He's one of my favorite authors of all time he has written not only books but he's written books you've heard of

he wrote The Tipping Point he wrote Blink he wrote What the Dog Saw David Goliath Talking to Strangers I've read all these books I love his books the new one I love it's called The Bomber Mafia and his podcast is one of my love, it's called The Bomber Mafia. And his podcast is one of my favorite podcasts.

It's called Revisionist History. And there's a new season out right now that I love and we reference today. Enjoy my surprisingly comedic conversation with the great Malcolm Gladwell. We're working it.

Hi. Good morning. How are you? I'm very well. Thanks for doing this. Not at all. Not at all. My pleasure.

I've listened to your voice so much lately, Malcolm, because I listen to almost all of Revisionist history every season. I listen to Bomber Mafia, which I highly recommend people listen to. It's funny because I was going to read the hard copy book, and then a friend explained to me, no, no, no, no. It is meant to be listened to. Yes, it is meant to be listened to. Yeah, it's designed, it's got a sound design. It's got a feel to it.

And I'm so glad I did. Oh, good. Yeah. No, no. We're very proud of that one. I mean, it's a story made for sound, right? Yes. It's about bombers and bombing

and like crazy generals in the Second World War. Like, why don't you want to hear their voices? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, some of those interviews that the footage is phenomenal yeah the just the yeah and it's interesting because for me on a personal level because i know like it it's that book started for you on a personal level because of your dad and uh growing up in england and and and sort of hearing the planes around you

and sort of starts from a personal place. For me, it's a personal thing. My dad and I have almost nothing in common. I'm a comedian. He's a doctor. He was in the service. He was in the military. And so he was stationed in Dallas, Texas for many years

before I was born, all this stuff. And so he's obsessed with World War II. And he reads stacks and stacks of books about World War II. And I never read books about World War II. And so your book allowed me to have this entry point with my dad I did not expect to have. I finished the book. I sent it to him. We talked a lot about World War II he talked probably for an hour oh wow oh that's just sweet what a wonderful what a wonderful I have created a father a father son moment for you this is fantastic do you are you finding that with people where people

because it's an unexpected book for you so many of your books are spring from an observation or a trend or a pattern that you're observing and then you sort of take people on the journey of uh you know something that's a much more macro thing happening uh and that book is is not that no No, this is a real departure. But it's because, you know, ever since I started doing Revisionist History, I have been thinking about storytelling in a different way. And I, you know, with Revisionist History, you tell, there's 10 episodes a season. And so you're forced by the sheer volume to do different kinds of things. So I can't do my old shtick.

Yes. Your old shtick. I love you saying that, by the way. That makes me feel so happy. But also, you're burning yourself in a way that, as a comedian, I enjoy. I'm not even sure that I want to do my old shtick that much. I mean, I'm proud of what I've done, but you can't do the same thing forever. You sort of have to. So I was super psyched to just to do a much simpler narrative, to tell a great history story. And then let the, I mean, there are little,

there are little macro notes in that story, but they don't require massive elaboration. They're all little macro notes in that story, but they don't require massive elaboration. They're obvious to anyone who wants to reflect on what they're reading. So, and I love, you know, the switching to audio has kind of made me fall in love with these emotionally powerful stories. Sure. And the Bar Mafia is these emotionally powerful stories. Sure. And the Bar Mafia is an emotionally powerful story, right? It's disturbing. Oh, yeah.

Beyond. I mean, I got choked up. Yeah. I mean, certainly at the moment where you start to go into the very detailed aspects of the bombing raids in Japan, it's so much to to take in but but yeah having the having the interviews that go with it that are so uh interestingly so sober talking about war yeah well it's this weird thing the most powerful interview i think in the whole book is with this guy hoyt hoddle who's the guy who you the guy who ran the program that invented napalm.

I'm sorry. I think you were coughing. Go ahead and say that again. Hoyt Hoddle. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Oh, sorry. I just forgot I'm dealing with a comedian.

And he has a weird name. It was weird to pronounce in the book. But he was this guy, you know, he's part of this group that are obsessed with fire fire and he's a chemist and i love i love this part of the book and he gets called in to figure out can we build the world's greatest firebomb and he leads a team that comes up with napalm and they're interviewing him after the war he's now an old man. It's the 70s. And he's looking back on his involvement. And he doesn't know when he leads this effort in the early 40s that he's going to invent napalm, which is going to have this horrible, horrible history. And he—

Which basically, for the listeners, I didn't fully understand this, that what napalm does is it burns at a rate that is almost inconceivable how quickly it burns and how hot it burns and how hot it burns it's i mean that's what's insane about it it creates its own kind of um meteorological ecosystem um because it burns so hot it starts to so you don't just die from the fire you you might die because it sucks out all the oxygen in its particular. But this guy is looking back on this, and you can tell he's filled with regret. And there's a point in his interview where he talks about how after the war, he devoted the rest of his life to fire prevention. So he starts his life as a guy who figures out how to burn things down,

and then he ends his life as a guy who figures out how to stop things from burning down. And that's his response to what he did during the war. And there's a million of these stories of these people, and they carry the burden of what they did during the war for the rest of their lives. And that's what's so kind of powerful for me. One of the things that I took away from the book, and you don't even touch on this, but I feel like you don't even have to with Bomber Mafia, is the extent to which before World War II, it was all hand-to-hand combat. And there was something in the universe of like 37 million casualties and sort of serious injuries from World War I.

And so all these aviators going into World War II in the 20s and 30s were like, we need to lower casualties. And that was their goal. And it was a noble goal. And it was, I mean, I might be putting words in your mouth, but it was like an American aspiration. Yes, very much.

Sort of, yeah. Very much, yeah. And what I took away, and then they sort of arguably did reduce casualties, but it also led to an extraordinary amount of casualties also. And there's many ways you could discuss that. It ended the war, but it also had a lot of casualties. And when I look at, you know, the air war, you know, the air war of World War II, the hand-to-hand combat at World War I, and then looking now, you go like, well, we're living in

this era of, of course, there's drones and there's cyber attacks. And like the warfare has, the face of warfare has changed so much that reading Bomber Mafia actually just made me think about that the whole time. And I just thought to myself, are we working on this? Like, is the American government working on this? Because I feel like we're losing in a big way, just anecdotally. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, it's... Or is there a secret bomber mafia working on this

and we just don't know about that in the cyber universe? I'm sure there is. I'm sure there is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's all... I remember this is totally parenthetical, but I have a friend who knew a guy who was very, very, let's just say very, very, very, very senior in the tech world

in Silicon Valley. You would know his name if I gave it to you. And this guy gets invited to be briefed by the Defense Department on what they were doing in the kind of high technology. And he comes back and he tells my friend, he comes back from Washington and he calls my friend and he says, you have no idea. Washington and he calls my friend and he says you have no idea

he's like because I think he thought that they were behind Silicon Valley sure with no evidence I think that all the time and he got back from the Pentagon and he's like oh no no no they're way ahead of us

they're doing stuff that we haven't even thought of so you know is there another secret bombing mafia out there almost certainly oh that's fascinating. They're doing stuff that we haven't even thought of. So, you know, is there another secret bombing mafia out there? Almost certainly. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. He was, this guy was humble. So this guy's a big rolling billionaire who, you know, who thinks he invented everything.

And he gets on a plane and goes to Pentagon. He's like, oh, shit. Wow. I'm not in the vanguard. That's fascinating. I'm trailing the, I'm the caboose on the train. Wow. I'm not in the vanguard. That's fascinating. I'm trailing the, I'm the caboose on the train. Wow, that's actually very heartening. Yeah, so or not, I mean, or terrifying, I don't know.

I mean, it's one of those. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. You bring up this thing that I have, one of the things I've loved so much about your work over the years is that it's repeatable. It's the kind of, like you have so many lines and observations and anecdotes, of course, and reporting where you can retell someone at a party or I can tell my wife. And I'm doing the one-person show of Malcolm Gladwell's book, The Bomb and Remarkia. And that's fun.

And it's funny because I was thinking about, one of the books you became famous for is Tipping Point. And that's one of the qualities of the Tipping Point, right? Is stickiness. Yeah. And that's what stickiness is. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's funny you say it as a comedian because, of course,

what is it that makes comedy so powerful? It's that exact thing. You watch Saturday Night Live and then the next day, or you watch Indie at Chappelle and you repeat. No. Yeah. And what's crucial about it is you always do a bad job, which is what drives the person back to the comedian, right? If the person repeating the joke, repeated the joke perfectly, you would never need to go and watch the professional in person, right?

and watch the professional in person, right? It's the fact they botch it that makes you think, oh my God, if that joke were told by someone who knew what they were doing, this would be amazing. That's, we don't need anything else for the interview. That's enough. That's such a great point and it never occurred to me, but it's, yeah, comedy has that quality where you repeat it and occurred to me, but it's, yeah, comedy has that quality where you repeat it,

and you're going, well, you know, if Bill is making me laugh with this version of what the comedian said, then the comedian must be brilliant. This exact thing happened to me, and by the way, it's going to lead into a little digression

that involves you. I saw this, two friends of mine this weekend, and they had just gone to a John Mulaney show. And they said it was the funniest thing that they, I mean, they were just, they said it was so incredible. And then they attempted to explain one of his bits. And it was, I was like, I trust you that it's hilarious. And I know that if I saw the show that it's hilarious, but you understand that the version you gave me is not even remotely funny. Now, why did I bring this up?

I bring this up because, is this true that, so I'm also friends with Britt Marling and Zal Maglij. And they told me that you, John Mulaney, Nick Kroll,

Britt and Zal were all at Georgetown at the same time. What? Is that true? That's insane. I'll do you one better because it, of course, ties into your outliers concept.

Yeah. Which is there's more. There's more? So the person who cast me in the improv group at Georgetown was James Murray, who is the star of a show called Impractical Jokers

that is massive. Yeah. I cast Nick Kroll. Yeah. He cast John Mulaney and Jacqueline Novak, who has a hit show in Off-Broadway called Get On Your Knees. Zal and Britt were in John and Jacqueline's class.

Yeah. And at the same time that I was there, I would see, I didn't know him, but I would see Bradley Cooper at theater parties. Wait, Bradley Cooper went to Tennessee? Yeah, same time. This is nuts. Yeah, no, it runs deep. You know what's interesting about it?

I'm going to butcher this because I read outliers when it came out, but it's like your premise is that there's sort of pockets of groups that co-motivate one another almost by competition without even meaning to. And then you end up with a cluster of great musicians or a cluster of

great figure skaters or hockey players. I feel like in a micro way, in a very small way, that happened at Georgetown because, yeah, John, you know, John moved to New York and then he came on the road with me and then Nick and John started doing Oh, Hello. And like, there was just like a lot of

sort of connective tissue along the way. I don't think it's micro. I mean, you've only named five or six of the most prominent people of your generation in comedy. I mean, like, it's—and also a school. By the way, it's like a Jesuit school. It's like— There's no support from the faculty for comedy.

Which— Maybe. Why? None. Yeah, which— Nick Kroll— So Nick Kroll used to, when we were in school, they'd have us in this little space called Bulldog Alley. And it was, I mean, imagine just a tiny cafeteria at a tiny public school. That was Bulldog Alley.

And that's where the improv group performed. And Nick used to be like, this fucking administration. You get uncharacteristically angry. This fucking administration like you get uncharacteristically angry this fucking administration you know like I will never return to this you know he was furious and meanwhile meanwhile maybe it helped us

I believe that it helped us totally helped you because how can comedy can only thrive in an adversarial environment if the administration loved you and were like, then all kinds of people who weren't funny would have joined it. They would have like, it would have become a thing corrupted by, and a bunch of, I mean, I have great respect for Jesuit priests,

but you don't want the Jesuits messing with your comedy. No, no, no. I mean, there are many wonderful things about the Jesuits. Comedy is not one of them. Yes. That's so funny that that's how you arrived at it with the Mulaney thing. And Mulaney, by the way, Mulaney is a perfect example of something that I think you have also, which is Mulaney has an—because I was at a few of those shows at City Winery.

I'm actually doing shows at City Winery myself right now and working on the next thing. But when I watch Mulaney, it is, what would you describe it as? It's hypnotic. Because his voice and his cadence brings you into his universe in a way that has a musicality and you're like what next what next what next and and and it's it's wonderful and your voice is that like i listen to all your stuff your revisionist history and all the books and your voice you have a voice vocal quality where you could just do asmr do you ever think about that? Like I was thinking today, I was like, I could imagine a universe where you were like, this little piggy went to market. This little piggy stayed home. This little piggy had roast beef. And this little piggy had none. And I was like, yeah, you could run with that. That could be your whole career. I could just read grocery lists.

But you aspire for more. Well, that's a very, very sweet thing to say. But I grew up, you know, my mother has a much better voice than me. My mom has the kind of voice that I didn't realize. You know, there's a certain age when you suddenly become aware about your parents as human beings independent of you, right? Yeah. It's like whatever. It's like 19 or whatever that age is, 18.

And I – so you learn things like, are my parents attractive? Which doesn't occur to you when you're nine. Are my parents funny? Are they smart? All these kinds of things. Yes, yes. I realized my mom had this extraordinary voice and it's an epic voice if we were to call her up right now you'd like oh my god she was quite well like keep talking it's like maybe we're gonna patch in a

voicemail from her at the end just because this is too tantalizing i've won she would be so baffled by the notion that we – I mean, she's 89. She's very, very on top of things. But her connection to popular culture, let's just say, is zero. Where does she live? She lives in southwestern Ontario. Oh, no kidding. Yeah.

And she's – my parents moved to Canada when I – in the late 60s. And she's very happily retired and she has all kinds of friends who come. And when they come, what do they do? She has all these young friends. They come over and they sit on the couch next to her because in addition to having a wonderful voice, she does that thing, not deliberately,

where she speaks really quietly. So you have to lean in. And she's also tiny. She's five feet tall. So you have to lean in. And she's also tiny. She's five feet tall. So you have to sit right next to her, and you have to lean down, because otherwise you're going to miss it, and you don't want to miss anything.

Malcolm, this whole thing is a humble brag. This is just all you're complimenting yourself. You're like, you know who's got a great voice? The person who's closest to me in the world. Who's responsible for me. Yeah, yeah. No, no.

Oh, you think I have a good voice. Oh, my mom. My mom. Oh, it's a butter. No, Joyce Clarville. Everyone, listen, I'm not humble bragging. Everyone,

if you met my mom, you'd be like, Malcolm, you're right. You weren't bragging. It's the truth. She, she, this,

it's amazing. So the golf episode of your revisionist history and i believe season two is a perfect example of i just tell the whole story to people and i because about it's to paraphrase for people but they have to listen to it because there's so many twists and turns. The golf, basically the way in which golf courses in certain parts of the country get away with sort of not paying their proper taxes is such a deep and intense metaphor for inequality in this whole country. I think it's one of those episodes of anything where you ever have this with something where you just go, if everyone listened to this, we would all be better off. If we could all set aside 40 minutes and understand the golf course system in Los Angeles County, we would all be better off.

You ever have that with something? Yeah, would we be better off? I mean, the problem is, well, actually, on this very point, I'm not going to answer the question directly, but I will say my first thought. So what that episode is all about is about this, the fact that the golf courses of Los Angeles are worth the land. They're all in the middle of the city.

The land on which— I already think you're giving away too much. I think you're giving away too much, but sure. Go ahead. You're Malcolm Gladwell, and I'm Mike. The land is worth billions and billions of dollars, right? So if you drive through LA, you see these big golf courses. And so land that's worth billions and billions of dollars should pay a lot in property taxes, and they basically don't pay any.

Yeah. My first thought was not to do a podcast about this. My first thought was to join one of those country clubs. This is absurd. And then to start a public campaign to get them to pay. From the inside. But wait, I'm not done.

Start a public campaign to get them to pay proper property taxes, which would force them to shut down as golf courses and sell the land. And where would the proceeds from the land go? To the members. This was a get-rich scheme for me.

Wow. Because let's think about this. Let's assume there are—LA Country Club is probably worth—the land is—let's say the land's worth $20 billion. I couldn't get a good number, but let's say it's worth $20 billion. And let's say there are 200 members. There's more than that, but let's say for the sake of argument. If they sell the course for $20 billion, the $20 billion gets distributed to 200 people. Do you understand? This is serious money, Mike. I could retire on this.

This was my get-rich scheme. I join LA Country Club, then start the revolution. Then ka-ching, ka-ching. You know how this ends, right? You and I join the Country Club. We decide right here. By the way, none of those people from the country club are listening.

They don't even, they wouldn't even, they wouldn't know that we're doing this. And it's broadcast, and they wouldn't know. And then we do it, we join, we make our $20 million, and then we decide, I don't know if we have to do the revolution. That's right. Isn't that how it all works, right? It always is.

Like these people with grand intentions, it's like Google, which I don't know if you have to do the revolution. That's right. Isn't that how it all works, right? It always is. Like these people with grand intentions, it's like Google. I don't know if you can say anything bad about Google. I think they're maybe one of your sponsors. No, no, no. You can say whatever you want about it. Okay, so Google is like, remember it was like, don't be evil? And then it was like, eh, fuck it. Kind of don't be, they started amending it every year.

Don't be evil all the time. Yeah. Only be evil some of the time. Like it just got, you know, they started changing tenses. You know, we used to not be evil. Looking back fondly on when we were not evil. Looking forward to being evil in the future. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Someday we'll be evil again. And then finally just evil. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Someday we'll be evil again. And then finally just evil. Yeah, yeah, evil. Yeah, yeah. What happened to these people? What happened? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I don't know.

Yeah. But so your golf episode, this is, okay, I've been, since it came out, I've been recommending it to people essentially by doing my five-minute Malcolm Gladwell one-person show. Mike Birbiglia's... Tonight, Mike Birbiglia doing Malcolm Gladwell doing Revisionist History.

I'm going to sell tickets for it. Thank you, thank you. By the way, wait. This is an insanely complicated last name. Oh, yeah. I honestly did not, until you said it just now, I was scared to say your last name. Yeah, of course.

Because I was going to botch it. What corner of Italy is that from? It's Sicily. Oh, it's Sicily. And so it's some variation on Greek and Italian roots. Oh, interesting. So there's like, does this mean you have some suspect ancestors? Oh yeah, yeah.

Oh my God. Like Louis Big Hands Birbiglia or something? Easy. That's a slur. Malcolm, that's a slur. No, I was, no, I'm allowed. First of all, I'm allowed.

I am allowed. Wait, why, why? Well, because you're a comedian. Oh, okay. That's true. Fair, fair. Once you enter that fraternity, I'm sorry, all bets are off. You have opened yourself comedian. Oh, okay. That's true. Fair. Once you enter that fraternity, I'm sorry. All bets are off.

You have opened yourself up. No, apparently. We've learned that in the last four years. You apparently can call anything a joke and get away with it. I once did this. Can I name drop for a moment? Please. Yeah.

Okay. I did the Conan O'Brien podcast a couple years ago. Oh, I listened to it. It was great. And, you know, like halfway through, I just started insulting Irish people. I can't, in retrospect, I can't believe I did it. I just went into automatic making fun of him for being Irish. When I was on Conan, I made fun of Irish people too.

I think there's something about him that he's so Irish. He's so Irish. That you just want to make a lot of Irish jokes. That red hair. And he's so kind of like unapologetically Irish too. He's not even trying to hide it. It's like he will just go into Irish mode at the drop of a hat. You just want to know, you know, is he related to the Kennedys?

I mean, there's just a kind of bunch of questions that you want to ask him. And he's even from Boston, which is even more absurd. Same, you know, Conan and I, he's from Brookline. I'm from Shrewsbury, which is probably about a 45-minute drive, but a world apart in terms of sort of culture and everything. Actually, speaking of the Georgetown thing, I wanted to go to Harvard and be on the Lampoon

because that's what Conan was the head of. And you didn't get in, did you? And I didn't get in, and I didn't get in. And then, of course, I went to Georgetown. I created what was my equivalent of the Lampoon. And then, of course, now we Georgetown I created what was my equivalent of the lampoon and then of course we've all you know now we've sunk we've sunk Conan no but wait a second lampoon lineage we've sunk it is the so there's a there was a similar it's going back to our Georgetown conversation there was a similar moment at Harvard only a generation earlier right when all of the writers all the Simpsons writers ASNL writers came out of the limepoom.

But isn't that, am I right? Is that over now? Harvard's no longer the highway. It's so hard to say. I don't know, because media is so diversified that you can't kind of tell. It's like comedy used to be where you'd have the Simpsons and SNL and like three other shows. And you'd know that Harvard was the great feeder school because it had people at all those shows.

Now it's like, you know, 500 different shows. So you can't even keep track of all the lampoon people. Yeah, there should be some kind of central list of the funniest people. Yeah. Oh, one last thing on the golf thing. So I realized, I re-listened to your golf episode and then I go, oh my gosh, I semi-stole a joke from Malcolm Gladwell and didn't realize it, which is I dig into my notebook.

It's not in the show yet, but I wrote in my notebook, I don't believe in golf. I mean, I believe that golf exists, but I feel like if you take up 5,000 acres of land with a sport you're mediocre at, you're kind of a buffoon. Like, can you imagine if I was terrible at basketball and I was like, I'm going to tear down this rainforest and build 500 basketball courts for me and my 30 buddies. You'd be like, Mike, why'd you do that? And I'm like, it calms me down. buddies you'd be like mike why'd you do that and i'm like it calms me down and i you got a belly laugh you got a better laugh you get a belly laugh yeah yeah thank you i was waiting i was waiting for that i was saying where is he where is this where's the joke no no no no no i i knew there was a joke coming but i was like where are you gonna land this

and it calms me down was is the perfect landing, I got to say. It calms me down. But it was funny because I was re-listening to the golf episode of Revisionist History, and you get to a point where you go, let me put this in perspective. A basketball court is X amount of acres, and a golf course is this amount of acres. And I go, oh my God, I didn't steal the joke, but I stole the premise from you. Oh, that's fantastic. The more the thing that goes on, the better. I think I love that. I think I'm enormously flattered. I once was, years ago, somebody plagiarized a article I wrote for The New Yorker and created a play about it.

Oh, wow. And she got in trouble. And then I went and read the play and thought it was genius. And I wrote this whole article about how happy I was to be plagiarized because she took it and made, she did what you did, which although she actually ripped off language,

but she didn't, the difference is she didn't write another article for a magazine using my words. She took my words and did something completely new with it. She constructed a whole narrative in a different genre. That's great. And I thought that was, that's what it's for. That's what you do this for, like to inspire people, right? And I didn't understand why she got in trouble.

I was like, why? And it was really, and then I met with her. It was actually a totally fascinating experience. And she was so kind of emotional about it and sheepish. And I explained to her, why are you sheepish? You created art out of, you see, and that's how I feel about it. So the other day, my wife got, my last show was called The New One. And painfully true stories from a Reluctant Dad, and it's all about becoming a dad despite the fact I never wanted to be a dad. And it was

off-Broadway, and then it ended up on Broadway, and now there's a, we expanded it into a book with my wife's poetry, and that shows sort of both sides of the story. And then one day, the other day, literally, my wife got served on Instagram an ad for someone performing the show in Mexico. And we did not know about it. And it's a guy doing a pose like me, and it's like the exact same key art. He's like this, you know, he's like mugging for the camera.

And it's called not the new one. It's called like, you know, see papa, blah, blah, blah, you know he's like mugging for the camera and it's called not the new one it's called like you know you know see papa blah blah blah you know whatever the thing is and and so it's like i was like i don't mind them doing this i just they should just call me you know and so i dm'd them i dm'd the guy he's like a big star in mexico yeah performing my show and uh and he goes oh we have the rights the rights, you know, like, you know, no big deal. You know, thanks for whatever. Checking in. And they didn't.

So I called my agents, like, they didn't have the rights. They had emailed back and forth. They had let the chain go. They didn't have the rights, basically. And so now they're like, they're properly getting the rights, but it's going to in mexico and it's going to tour in different parts of south america spanish-speaking places the point being it's the exact same feeling that you do which is i did i actually do want these shows to be all over the world i want if it's able to make a positive impact with people then great i i i want that as much as possible.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's hilarious. So I can go down to Mexico City and catch the Spanish version if I'm so- And Tijuana. Tijuana. Tijuana. Yeah. Even better.

Okay, so this is a thing we do called the slow round, and it's sort of just memories and things that sort of stick with you. And we just usually start with, do you remember a smell from your childhood, really bad, really good, anything? Yes. I remember, and forgive me if I might, there's a small possibility I'll get emotional. My father, who passed away three years ago, had smelled, his hair smelled, it had a very distinctive smell.

And that sounds like a gross thing. It wasn't. It was the most wonderful wonderful powerful smell of my childhood and i had i um he had a a woolen cap and if you smelled the woolen cap you could smell my father and i i still sometimes smell the and it brings him back it's the it's i can it's so it seems sounds weird to explain it but it's almost like a it's almost like a it's like a sense memory magic trick or something to to remember to remember yeah it just summons him so it just i associate him so much with this um very very very particular um smell and when when was a kid, when I went off to college and got homesick,

I would smell the cap. Oh. Yeah. I love that. Do you have a memory on a loop from your childhood where it's not even a story that you could tell, but it's just a thing that all of a sudden you think about sometimes?

all of a sudden you think about sometimes? Well, many. I mean, I have a bunch of them. Mostly they just involve slightly. Anything that makes you cringe? Anything you mean, oh, gosh, that. Oh, yeah. I mean, my entire adolescence.

I mean, what? I don't know what. am i how am i any different i once um when i was yes okay i'll tell this there was a a uh a i once went to this um debate competition and i uh the first girl i asked out was a girl I met at the debate competition. Her name was Arundha. She was very, very beautiful. And so beautiful, in fact, I was 15 or 16. I was completely overwhelmed and flummoxed and intimidated. And I actually went on a date with her and it was the first time I had driven a car. I just got my license. Oh, wow.

And the first time I ever drove by myself was in asking this woman out. This is crazy. So for so many reasons, I am terrified of driving a car. I'm with a beautiful woman who is terrifying to me. I've never been with a woman by myself before like this, you know, a date, my first date ever. It was a whole series of firsts. And it was just, I mean, it was disaster on every level. And I just, every now and again, I think about that. I just think that, that, I mean, the idea that I went through that at 16 is just astonishing.

And you didn't hit anything or crash or anything? No, but at one point I did go a wrong way down a one-way street. Wow. So it could have ended really, really. I just remember looking at her and the look of horror. She's like, my parents allowed me to go out with a boy for the first time and he's basically about to kill me. Wow.

Yeah, it was bad. Bill Hader was on the show recently. He went to Georgetown, I'm quite sure. No, he didn't. But he worked with John extensively, John Mulaney extensively. Did he apply to Georgetown and didn't get in? I don't think so.

Did you? Bill Hader is brilliant. And he made this observation. It's similar to what you're saying about adolescence, which is he's like, I'm not on social media because I don't agree with things I thought yesterday. Never mind when I was a teenager or in my 20s even. I disagree with everything.

It reminded me of something you said in an interview recently that I read where you basically said, they said, do you disagree with this thing you said in your book and blah, blah, blah? And you're like, yeah, of course I do. I mean, if I weren't changing, then I would be a failure. And I thought, ah, I wish that that was sort of shouted from the rooftops.

Mike, I had a picture, I had a poster of Ronald Reagan on my dorm wall at university. And it was in Canada. I don't even have the excuse that I was an American. That's incredible. You don't even have the excuse that I was an American. That's incredible. You don't think I look back on that and just talk about a cringy thing in retrospect.

I realized about it after about six months of that that it was essentially a highly effective form of contraception. That's a great joke. You should put that in your back pocket. I don't collect them like you do. No, no. So, yeah, you have to move on.

You have to move on. And it's like, I think what was so interesting about that is that with comedy, it's all disposable in a certain sense because comedy is all about finding the line of what is appropriate and what is inappropriate. And then sometimes when we're working it out, like the stage I'm at with Old Man in the Pool right now, crossing the line, realizing I'm across the line,

seeing it on the audience member's faces and going, oh, okay, there it is. And then tomorrow night I'll try it just before the line. And then I'll be like, oh, there's the line. And so- Wait, so when you're doing that by the way so part of your brain is has to be concerned with telling

the joke the story and jokes but you're reserving a huge chunk of your brain for actively monitoring when you're testing out material 100% that sounds like exhausting I did this last night at City Winery it's exhausting Monitoring, when you're testing out material. 100%. That sounds like exhausting. I did this last night at City Winery. It's exhausting, but it's also invigorating

because you feel like you're doing, yeah, you're simultaneously, as a stand-up comedian, you're simultaneously writing your show, directing your show, and editing your show, and rewriting your show all at the same time. And it's super hard, and it takes, to coin a phrase, 10,000 hours to be any good at it. Which, by the way, I bet there are days

where you regret that you popularized that phrase. Yes, yes. That's true. But wait, I want to go back to this for a second. So, but how do you know, so you're monitoring the audience, but how do you, like, how do you know – so you're monitoring the audience, but how do you know their reaction is real?

That is to say – and the audience might – so there might be – let's say there's 100 people in the audience. Are they speaking with one voice? No. Aren't people having all kinds of idiosyncratic reactions? What if you fast – what if there's a guy in the front row who just is never going to get your jokes? Yeah. Oh, so you saw him last night? Wait, how many times,

so when you're learning about a joke, how many times do you have to perform it to kind of figure it out? It's so funny. People have different theories on this. Seinfeld's theory is three times. You do a joke three times, and if it works three times, it works forever, if you're doing it the right way.

I actually don't think that, although I revere Seinfeld. I think that all jokes are in motion, and they're alive and so a joke uh in this sequence in this story as part of this show could work five times and it works forever or it could work a hundred times and you realize well it's just not going to work there yeah yeah so so i so i think it's sort of a never and then you film it and then to bring it back to sort of this thing of like that all jokes become outdated eventually, is like I know as I'm doing this, this is a revisionist history of comedy,

is that eventually this joke will not be as funny as it is today. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Always, always. Yeah. The thing I, no, I, of course, I'm not a comedian. I do give speeches, which is its own particular ecosystem. And the thing I always have learned about speeches is, well, first of all, the first thing is the same thing that you know, which is how much of your performance is audience dependent. And the thing that differentiates one audience from another is their timing.

So you could have generous audiences who will respond in anticipation of what you're saying. And then you'll have kind of reflective audiences who will respond a beat or two beats after the point you're making. Sure. And both are equally valid audiences, but you can't give your talk the same way in those two settings. No. same way in those two settings. No, no, no. I believe every single show is different and that you're always monitoring where you are and what's happening. A lot of times I'll show up early and I'll walk the perimeter of the room

from the audience perspective and sit in all the seats. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Yeah, because it took me years to figure this out. You begin by, you know, these speeches are 45 minutes long. You memorize them. They're performances, right?

And when I started doing it, I'd never done this before. And so you start out just by doing these things as a kind of rote exercise. And then after 10 years or so, you realize, oh, there's a reason that one didn't work and that one did work. And then you get – I'm always very, very, the thing I look for is how many women are in the room. The more women there are in the room, particularly older women, the easier things are. Oh, that's interesting.

For me, anyway, that's a much more, for when I'm giving my talks, they are a much more forgiving and responsive and generous audience. And then I also look very closely to see how many people are not white. That particularly African-American audiences are, you don't need to have 100%, but if you can have 20% African-American or 15%, they will lead the others in their responses. And that makes your life a lot easier. I think it's because it's,

they're coming out of a culture tradition, which is just a lot more comfortable with this. You know, if you think about, these are people who are, you know, used to, for example, church going. So responding to both sermons and to, you know to musical performance and whatever, there's just like that culture has a lot more experience with these kind of settings. Whereas I remember once

giving a talk in Minneapolis to a group of engineers who were very much scandinavian minnesota and it was eight in the morning and it was brutal really brutal but not because they were unfriendly but just because they're just not going to respond i talk about this with my friend john laster all the time who's a who's a black comedian and and we talk about black comedy rooms versus white comedy rooms. I started in Washington, D.C. when I was in college. It's very segmented. I was cold calling comedy clubs and they'd go, they'd go, I don't think this is

the club for you. Because it was a black club and I just didn't know. Yeah, it was super big. It's just black audiences, black comics. At those clubs, there's a whole circuit. Yeah. Particularly on the heels of,

and John Lasseter was explaining this to me recently, on the heels of deaf comedy jam. There was like a huge boom in these black comedy rooms. And I was a door person and brought food to tables at the Washington, D.C. Improv. And that was both. It was black shows, white shows, et cetera. Oh, really?

So you'd have Paul Mooney, and you'd have Dave Chappelle and Chris Paul, and then you'd have Jake Johansson and Brian Regan, Kathleen Madigan, et cetera. Yeah, yeah. But you're absolutely right that the black audiences were way more vocal. Yeah.

And involved and participatory. And for me, when I would open, I'd be lucky enough to open for Chappelle or Chris Paul, usually when someone fell out or didn't show up. Were you open? Were you really open for Chappelle? Yeah.

Oh my God. Just one time. Just one time. But still, this is like opening for the Beatles, for God's sake. No, I know, I know. I know, it's crazy, right? But anyway but and he was always and of course he was always

phenomenal he was he started doing comedy he was 15 years old oh i didn't know and in dc yeah he got his mom to take him to to some clubs yeah and uh but anyway that when i would play for black audiences i always found it was like um and my friend John Lester always says this too, is like, you either kill or you die. Yeah. They're all in or they're all out. And it's wild. When they're all out, it's like, holy cow.

This is, I got to go. I got to end early. I'm just going to, I was supposed to do 10 minutes. I think I'm just gonna do two and a half, you know? And when they're all in, they're like, I'll go all night. Give me three hours, you know? That's really interesting.

That is really interesting. Yeah, no, it's interesting. So in this vein, was there a time in your life when you felt like you wanted to be perceived in a certain way that wasn't authentically you looking back now? Oh, wow. What an interesting question. I never even thought about that.

Well, I guess because I have difficulty with the notion of what is authentically you. I don't really know what that means. To this day, I don't know who my authentic self is because I think of myself as being so much a product of the people around me, the environment I'm in. So do you have any other ways to deflect this question? Not deflecting. I'm just giving you a high-level conceptual answer that you are uncomfortable with for some reason. This is like one of those speeches that you do. No, I don't believe in personality.

Okay. Okay. And, you know, there's a whole philosophical and psychological tradition around this idea that we are so much a product of our situation and environment that it's foolish to talk about personality. And I think – so I'm baffled by this notion of authentic self. If you had talked to me when I was 15 and you had said, Malcolm, who are you? I would have said, oh, I'm a runner. That's all I care about. Okay, sure. But if you'd asked me a—

A jogger, a jogger. No, runner. Oh, you don't even like the term jogger. No, to call a competitive runner a jogger is like— I mean, it's the biggest insult imaginable. Well, I was trying to distinguish you from someone who runs and gets coffee at Conan O'Brien. A runner, a runner. In film, you know, in film sets, we call them.

Can we get a runner to develop a- Middle distance runner. Competitive middle distance runner. If you'd asked me at 20, I would have said I was an anti-communist. Okay. Yes, yes. If you'd asked me at like, you know, 28, I would have said I'm a reporter for the Washington Post. I'm a large J journalist.

I'm like dogged, impartial. Yeah, yeah. You know, and then, I don't know. It's just like. And in 2017, you were a Trump supporter. It's like all cyclical. It never went back. Never went back.

But I don't know. So what's the common thread? If you'd asked me when I was six, I don't know, I was living in seven. I was living in a farming town in Southwestern Ontario, rural. I mean, I don't even know how I would have answered that question. So did I- Okay, I'll give you an example of an inauthentic version of myself, and maybe this might define personality in a way that we can agree on the term. So when I was in high school, I recall that I would go to these outdoor concerts in the summer, and I started wearing a cowboy hat. And I thought of myself, I was like, I'm cowboy hat guy. That's who I am. And in hindsight, I'm like, oh, so outrageously stupid

that I thought of myself that that was a personality somehow. Well, okay, so I ran across a picture of myself from someone's wedding in the 80s, late 80s. And I'm wearing a bolo tie. Oh, there you go. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. I had tucked bolo tie. Oh, there you go. So. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. I had tucked that memory away. I had, I was like, who is that dude with the bolo? I had a Philly fade.

So, you know, close, close shaved on the sides, high flat top. I kind of looked like either kid or play, take your pick. Yeah, sure, sure. Yeah. Sure. And I had a bolo tie. From the hip-hop duo Kid and Play for the younger generation. For the other initiative.

And I had like, you know, one of those old school like black suits with really, really narrow lapels and pegboard pants. That's what I was rocking in 1988. What do you think you thought of yourself as at that point? I think I thought I was pretty cool. I love that. Alright, so comedian Gary Gallman, who I love, came on the show recently and he recommended, because

I always recommend Mary Carr's book Art of Memoir to people who are autobiographical writers. I love it. And he said, you should read, if you Memoir, to people who are autobiographical writers. I love it. And he said, you should read Anne. If you like that, you should read Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird. So I read that. And she has a question that I love for writers as a prompt, which is, can you describe a school lunch from your childhood?

Oh, my God. Well, I made my own lunch. Oh. So my mom at the age of – my mom when I was about in third or fourth grade said, all right, I'm done. You're making your own lunches and you're buying your own clothes. Mm-hmm. So here's money. You're on your own.

Wow. You're very independent. You're on your own. Wow. I'm very independent. Yeah, yeah. I would construct. So what was I making for myself? I don't even remember. I'm assuming an apple, some chocolate. Okay.

I would make these weird. Oh, I remember now, yes. I would make these date and this is a Jamaican thing. I would make these date and this is a Jamaican thing. The sandwich is a sliced banana, date, and brown sugar on white bread. That sounds quite good. It's really good. It's very, very good. And then I'd also, do you know-

It's a very kid-centric meal. It's a very kid-centric meal. But the whole date banana combination is amazing. I mean, I would recommend this highly to anyone out there. Dates and bananas. I'll try that.

That seems great. Slice the bananas. Wow. And then a little, don't go heavy on the brown sugar. That's the area people make. They think it's about sweet.

You just want the crunch. You want those, we're talking about like the crunchy, the raw sugar. You want that. It's just about giving it a little bit of crunch,

not a little bit of sweet. Wow. Yeah. Do you still eat that? Not, I mean, I love those ingredients independently. Have I put them together in a sandwich on white bread recently? No, I haven't. All right, final slow round question.

What's the biggest assumption people get wrong about you? What's the thing that you see wrong about you? What's the thing that you see on the internet and you go, come on. You're really missing the boat. You really don't get what I'm working on here.

I don't even know if I... You don't have that? I don't think I... I mean, I don't spend a lot of time. I think it's a really, really dumb idea to spend a lot of time

on the internet looking at what people are saying. Easy, Malcolm. That's a lot of the time I spend. I don't think. I think maybe. I don't even know.

I think just I would just say this, that there is an assumption with. Sometimes I get that if you do run a crowd, people think you have an agenda. I don't really have an agenda. I'm just trying to. I just enjoy, I enjoy making stuff. It's just as simple as, I don't think people think I have some kind of overarching goal. I don't really have an overarching goal.

Well, it's funny because I was, yeah, I was thinking about your, because a lot of creatives listen to this show. But it's a lot of people who are writing autobiographical work or they're writing novels or stand-up. With your stuff, it's like, what gets you to the point where you go, it's a book or it's an episode? Because of course, you're coming across 100 ideas in a week or a month. And you go, oh, that's interesting. That's interesting. Well, this, and this will take us back to Georgetown. So there are three episodes in the current season, the upcoming season of Vision History,

about the Little Mermaid and what's wrong with the Little Mermaid. Yes, you sent me one of these, and it's fantastic. And it was originally one episode, and it was just going to be a kind of academic discussion of what goes wrong with Ariel. Sure. But then I had this notion. It's like, oh, why can't I rewrite it?

Now, I can't rewrite it. So I was like, who should rewrite it? And then I thought, oh, Britt Marling can rewrite it. Oh, that's nice. Oh, great. It all comes back to Georgetown. I call up Britt and I say to Britt, come on. Just redo the ending, the last quarter.

She goes, turns out she was a huge Little Mermaid fan as a kid. She used to tie her ankles together with tube socks and jump into the pool so she could be like a mermaid. Oh, wow. So she then writes this insanely brilliant new ending. People don't know Britt. She's a brilliant actor, writer, director. She's phenomenal. Who went to, yeah, who's a former classmate of yours.

Yeah. But the minute she, I read what she'd done, I was like, oh, this is much bigger and more interesting than I had imagined. Oh, wow. Because it was bringing in another, because now, you know, I could see my own ideas could encompass an episode. But the minute I brought in her ideas, I was like, oh, this is just way more interesting.

You know, I could see where this idea was going. Oh, great. And I could see as well that, oh, what I'm really leading up to is a performance. We're going to perform our new Little Mermaid. That's the whole point of this exercise. Yes, yes. What I'm doing is simply prepping people for the performance. And that was 100% different from what I had imagined at the beginning,

which I had imagined it was going to be an intellectual riff on how Disney screws up stories. That's not what it ends up. That's actually a great lesson for all creatives, which is that, and it's true in my line of work too, is being open to the idea that what you're planning to do won't end up being what you create.

Yeah, no, no. And the opposite, and I have a million examples of this. This just happened yesterday. I had an episode of this season where I was trying to figure out how to get a school that was ranked at the bottom of the U.S. news rankings to be ranked at the top. And so I got together with the president of the school, and I was like, okay, let's just do a thought experiment. Let's figure out what you have to do to be up there with, like, Williams College. Sure, sure. And I thought it was a joke piece. experiment let's figure out what you have to do to be up there with like williams college or sure

and i thought it was a joke piece and i do it i report it out and i write a draft and i think oh this is going to be funny and then my producer emails me a couple days ago and says you know it's just not working and i was like what do you mean this doesn't work this is like and then she says we don't need funny malcolm we need angry malcolm oh my god that's so good and then i went back and i rewrote the whole thing it but but not not you know as a bit say taking the piss out of u.s news being furious and it yeah it totally works if i'm angry yeah now it all it all makes sense. And I was sticking with this. You know, the truth is I'm not that,

I'm not funny, really. I mean, I can be. I think you're quite funny. But also, by the way, angry Malcolm is still only about four decibels. So the final thing is material. This is the thing I'm working on for the show. This is a work in progress. People have heard the David Sedaris episode. We talk about the YMCA a bit. Frank Oz episode, this is a work in progress. People have heard, you know, the David Sedaris episode,

we talk about the YMCA a bit. Frank Oz episode, we talk about this a bit. But this is a new draft of this thing I'm writing for the old man and the pool, which is, I think we all have something from our childhood that we reject as we get older, where we think, I never want to do that again. I never want to go there.

For me, it's the YMCA pool. And I don't know if it was the chlorine smell or the half-blown-up basketballs or the snack machine room with a coffee maker that also makes soup or the rowing machine that's also a fan that seems to be powering the entire building. The whole YMCA power grid is based on a 75-year-old man in a V-neck, or possibly the smell of chlorine. You know, like, I don't know what the hell kind of heinous crime they're covering up at the Y, whether they're in cahoots with a mob, where the mob is like, do we dig a ditch,

or do we bring the body down to the YMCA? I got a family membership. We use a gas pass for the corpse. We drop it in a pool that disintegrates within six hours. But the thing about the YMCA pool also is that it's a great metaphor for existence because everyone's trying to stay in their lane, but no one stays in their lane. And it feels enormous, but it's actually limited. And there's wealthy people to unwealthy people and all races and genders.

And everyone's sort of naked. And there's technically a lifeguard but we probably shouldn't trust the lifeguard and it was founded as like a young christian men's organization but the christian the men thing sort of fell away and there's old people young people and really old people and no matter what you do or what you say, at some point, someone will shit in the pool. And then the final part of it is, I go when I was five, it's a true story. My mom took me into the women's locker room at the Y and I had never seen a vagina before. And then I saw 100 vaginas.

And when I was seven, she sent me to the men's locker room. And the only thing more shocking than 100 vaginas is 100 penises at eye level. And they were grown-up penises, which was a shocking detail and surprisingly important because I was just thinking, oh, no, this is going to be a long life. And I had this distinct – this is the brand-new part from literally a day ago. this is the brand new part from like literally like a day ago i had this distinct childhood memory and as it uh i had this distinct memory as a child of seeing an old man a hundred percent naked sitting on a bench at the ymca locker room and he was just rubbing baby powder on his genitals like a chalk bag on a pitcher's mound. I just remember

thinking, I will never return to the YMCA pool. And that's the whole piece. It's a work in progress. You know what I love? I can only, I can't offer criticism. I can only tell you what I like.

Of course. Yeah, what you connect to, what you don't Of course. What you connect to, what you don't connect to. The genius thing that got me going is way back at the beginning, the old man in a V-neck.

Oh, interesting. I'm in love with this. To me, at the heart of so much great stuff um is specificity

so this is a difference between a good storyteller and a mediocre one is they can tell exactly the same story but the the good person

is the person who nails all those little who understands the importance of the detail so the v-neck the instant you said that I saw the importance of the detail. So the V-neck,

the instant you said that, I saw the guy. And the whole point is, the point about the V-neck, of course, is that his gray little chest hairs are poking out from under the V. And just the idea that, and the V-neck is the T-shirt you wear to work. It goes with the shirt and tie.

And the idea that that guy is going to the Y, he came in in his suit, took off his suit, and he has the V-neck, right? And he's not adapting. The whole point of the Y is that no one's adapting to the Y. That's a great observation. They don't have the special workout clothes. No, they're still wearing the V-neck.

And that old dude who's been doing this, he's come from his office down the road. That got me in the – and I said, you know, we've all been to those. That's what got me in. Wow. That little – you owned me from that point on. I'm curious because you've lived in Canada and you've lived in the UK, you've lived in America and maybe elsewhere. Have you lived other places? Those are, I mean, briefly, but yeah. Does the YMCA exist in all of those places or do I have to explain to international audiences when I travel what what it is Canada has the Y don't

know about the UK Sedaris told me that the UK he goes swimming at the Y then it's everywhere it's everywhere yeah definitely there in Canada I mean everything you said about the the Y's from my growing up in Canada are exactly what you but I and also like I've never thought about this before why there's something there is something uniquely cringy about you don't have like about the why is i don't know what it is it's like i know it's huge it's very visceral it's really really really visceral the and all those little does that keep that steady accumulation of uh detail um is like is just works like i in, I'm smelling it by the end. Of course the body disintegrates in the pool.

Like, of course it does. Okay. You know what's so funny is I got, I did a version of this show at the City Winery last night in New York, and I get a direct message last night from someone who was in the audience. And this is potentially a huge discovery. She goes, hey, I love the show. This is something I know is chlorine doesn't have a smell. It is only the convergence of urine with chlorine that creates the smell. Is that true?

That's so genius. I immediately wrote back, can I use this fact in the show? And she said, absolutely. And I just thought, oh, I could write 40 minutes on this. Is that true? I mean, if that's true. That's unbelievable. That changes everything.

That changes everything. That changes everything. Exactly. Talk about revisionist history. Revisionist YMCA pool experience history. Go back and think about all the times we thought we were smelling chlorine. Yeah, no, no, no, no. That's what they told you. Do you think they were in on it?

Do you think they were complicit? The chlorine-smelling people? That's what they told you. Do you think they were in on it? Do you think they were complicit? They thought. The chlorine-smelling people? They thought that they were smelling chlorine, but they weren't. They were smelling urine. Wait, Mike, you have to go into the chemistry of this. Just a couple lines. Tell me about, there is a chemical reaction that's going on with some metabolites in urine that's interacting with the chlorine compound.

Just give me two, just. I'll do it. I want to understand, I want to understand that whatever like chemical synthesis is going on at the Y pool. I got to get, I got to get on the horn with the chemists. It's a living, breathing organism, the pool. It's not, it's interacting. Breathing organism, the pool. It's not, it's interacting.

I thought she was going to say, I thought you were going to say that she said, it's chlorine interacting with sweat, which I thought was, oh, that's fine. But it's so much better. Oh, it's, oh gosh, yes. So much, so much better. One of the wild lines I wrote recently is,

there's a sign at the YMCA I grew up at, there's a sign that says, that said strong swimmers, confident kids. But I wish there was a sign at the YMCA I grew up at. There's a sign that says, that said strong swimmers, confident kids. But I wish there was a sign that said weak swimmers will do your taxes as adults. I don't know quite where to put that, but it's sort of a fun line. That, you know, that's actually, that's the first time I thought that's actually a little mean.

Oh, do you think so? Why is that? You think it's CPA shaming? I think it's mean to the accountants. Accountants? I have very fond feelings towards accountants. Me too. I love my accountant.

What's off limits? For apparently we found the line with Malcolm Gladwell and it's accountants. The final thing that we do on the show is we do working out for a cause and I donate to an organization that our guest thinks is doing a particularly good job right now.

Is there any organization you're familiar with? Yeah, this is an organization I've been involved with for years. It's called YES. And it started in Los Angeles with actually an entertainment lawyer who worked for David Geffen, who makes a ton of money, quits, plays golf, gets bored, and decides to start tutoring kids in middle school in South Central

and has built this incredible organization, which is just about finding... His discovery was there's... If you pick a random middle school in the worst part of Los Angeles, you can reliably find five or six kids a year who have IQs north of 140 or 150. Wow.

And he says, I find those kids, I tutor them, I get them. It's all I'm going to do. I'm not changing the world. I'm just, it's super, and I've been involved with him, but he's now built it. It's all I'm going to do. I'm not changing the world. I'm just – Wow. It's super – and I've been involved with him. He's now built it. He's now all over the place.

But it's incredibly simple, low overhead, focused on one very, very – he doesn't pretend he's solving all the problems with income inequality in this country, but he just says, I'm just going to find really smart kids who it would be a crime if their intelligence went to waste and I'm going to get them a quality college and his track record is amazing I mean he finds these kids and they all end up at MIT and

I feel like that's the best that might be the best working out for a cause pitch that I've ever heard in terms of people clicking in the show notes with you. They can right now. And contributing because, man, that's an extraordinary idea.

Yeah. And he's a, you know, he is like your classic L.A. entertainer. I love him dearly. His name is Eric Eisner. But he, yeah, he's a remarkable man. Well, I'm going to contribute to them.

I encourage people to consider contributing. The link is in the show notes. And Malcolm, I can't thank you enough for joining me today. I mean, honestly, it's like a dream come true because I've been reading you and listening to you for so many years. And to have this conversation with you, it couldn't give me more joy, and so I thank you. Oh, it's been a real pleasure, Mike. Thank you. That's going to do it for another episode of Working It Out. Malcolm Gladwell is the best podcast guest you're going to get, as far as I'm concerned.

His new book is called The Bomber Mafia. It is fascinating. His new season of Revisionist History is everywhere. That podcast, R, I am endlessly fascinated by him, and I so appreciate him coming on the show. I followed up about his mom's voice. Hello, everyone. I am Malcolm's mother, Joyce Gladwell,

and I would highly recommend that you listen to my son on Working It Out. So you be the judge. Whose voice is better, Malcolm Gladwell's or his mom's? Our producers of Working It Out are myself, along with Peter Salamone and Joseph Birbiglia, consulting producer Seth Barish, Malcolm Gladwell's or his mom's? If you haven't listened to the Jack Ananoff episode yet, you should check that out. As always, a very special thanks to my wife, the poet, J. Hope Stein. Our book, The New One, is in your local bookstore, which you should be supporting right now as we speak. As always, a special thanks to my daughter, Una, who created my radio fort. Thanks most of all to you who have listened.

Tell your friends. Tell your friends. Tell your enemies. Which both of those, really. You could just go on the Apple podcast thing. You put a star reading. And then you just go like, hey, I like this podcast. Or I don't like this podcast. That's the way to get to your friends.

Get to your enemies. And what you tell them is, we're working it out. See you next time, everybody.