So True with Caleb Hearon - Adam Conover is Running for Office

Episode Date: May 9, 2024

We've got a real good one for y'all today! Our guest this week is the hilarious Adam Conover! Adam and Caleb talk about the WGA Writers Strike, public policy, teachers that impacted their lives, cheeseburgers, and more! Subscribe to our YouTube channel! https://youtube.com/@sooootruepod?si=duGhHMEkQA5q0PBbSee Caleb live! https://calebhearon.komi.io/  Join our Patreon for an extended conversation with Adam and more bonus content! https://patreon.com/SoTruePodcast?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink Follow Adam! @adamconover  Follow Caleb! @calebsaysthings Follow The Show! @sooootruepodProduced by Chance Nichols @chanceisloudFilmed at Bad Ladder Productions in Los Angeles, CASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

And I think the real problem with the social media age is you can look at it and go, oh, that guy got rich on YouTube. Oh, that person got rich on TikTok. First of all, very few of the people who are posting on YouTube or TikTok get rich. It's like a vanishingly small proportion. Most people are losing money buying equipment and putting stuff up and hoping, oh, one day I get enough views to get affiliate status or whatever. Yeah. Not this show, though. What if my opening question, I took all this time to think of my opening question and it's like how you doing man

that's the hardest question to answer that's actually the worst one because what are you supposed to say no one knows okay alright I'm good absolutely pained agonized thinking about everything that's bad that's happened in the last three days

that you cannot say because it would be rude to actually tell the person yeah all the fucking shit you're dealing with kind of also doing a cost benefit analysis

of telling the truth and figuring out are they doing good do they want to engage in not good behavior no I wanted to ask you what did we you were a huge part

of the writer's strike I was a massive a massive element of the writer's strike we were all on strike. There were 12,000 writers on strike. I was one of them.

Don't do, don't, don't, don't politician me. We were all on strike, but you were there every fucking day. Yeah. I was on the negotiating committee, yeah. You were on the negotiating committee. What did we, what did, this was, it was kind of brutal. What did we learn from this? What did we get out of this?

What was the point? What did we do? Did we do good? Yeah, no, we did great. We did something amazing i mean we proved to the companies and to hollywood into the world that like we have power that workers have power and that we can force them to give us what we want you know like there was all all this stuff that they swore they'd never give us this it was a non-starter you know not

even replying to what you what you asked for Five months later, they gave on pretty much all of it to some degree. So for a normal person in the world who's like, why the hell did the writers go on strike? We won't talk about this super long because I'm sure you're tired of it. No, it's been a little bit. I'm happy to dive back into it. What if for normal people who, because I think there's a lot of people out there

who never knew what was going on, who aren't writers, who were just like, oh, the writers aren't writing. Okay. Why did we strike and what did we get? Well, so the first thing is that over the last 20 years, the companies, Warner Brothers, Disney, Apple, Netflix, some of them are new, some of them have been around for a long time, but what they all have in common is that over the last 20 years,

they made it harder to earn a living as a writer in this town. They wanted us to work less hours but produce more, have less of a participation in the money when the thing did well, et cetera, et cetera. And then there were future issues where so-called AI text generation had just come around the corner and we were concerned that the companies were going to use that in the future to try to really undermine our work and say, okay, well, we want you to punch up this script the AI wrote. Of course, the AI outputs garbage, and it's the writer really doing the work,

but, oh, you don't get your full rate because you're not really a writer. You're just punching up what the AI wrote. We're worried about that kind of thing. And so we were able to put in place measures that protect writers that they never wanted to give us. For instance, we required that in every writer's room, for a certain number of episodes, there be a certain number of writers hired.

Because we were finding that less and less writers were being asked to do more and more work. We set that minimum for the first time ever. They swore they would never get... We were never counted in such a thing! Oh, no, we must have flexibility in the number of writers we hire! Oh, and we could never... Go out on strike! Five months later, they gave it to us.

And we got a residual based on the success of the shows so um which is a start the numbers will be improved in future years but uh now when a show is a big big hit the writers will be paid more um and so will the actors by the way and now and the directors were able to get that same deal because we fought and won it for them and a bunch of other really important stuff as well i don't want to get into the nitty-gritty two-step deals for screenwriters you don't know why that's a big deal the public doesn't but like for screenwriters that's like the difference between them being able to pay their mortgage and not um and i think the reason the public did care i would have asked all the time why should the public care about it the reason

the public did care is because everyone's experienced this in their own jobs that you know that hold on a second 20 years ago i was able to make a living and work reasonable hours and now everyone's getting laid off but they're asking me to do more and you know i'm being paid less my cost of living is higher i'm not being paid more and um everyone knew that okay that's probably happening to these guys too and these are the people who are fighting back and kicking ass and winning yeah um and so i think the reason people were riveted by it is people had that feeling of, I want to do this too. I've been processing a lot lately, my disdain for the robots. I'm really worried about the automation of everything. Even just these small things that seemingly don't matter.

You go to McDonald's and now there's a robot taking your order at the drive-thru. And you go to the store and you check yourself out at the robot. And I drove into Beverly Hills recently and there was a sign that said, Welcome to Beverly Hills, police drones in use. We even get policed by the robots now. And I'm like, these little interactions. I miss little interactions with the police. No.

Can you believe how little they want people to go to Beverly Hills? They're like, stay the fuck out of here. There's going to be a robot like two feet above your head. Hey, there's a drone watching you, buddy. And they are, and they're up there. You can't smoke on the streets in Beverly Hills. Horrible city. A horrible city.

I don't want to be there. And honestly, if I were the mayor, my number one thing, if I was going to run for office in L.A., my number one platform would be absorb Beverly Hills. Fuck that city. It should not be its own city. If you look at a map of Los Angeles, there's a little carve-out where the rich people live, where they have their own city and their own mayor.

They don't fucking need their own mayor. They don't need their own school system. They're hoarding tax dollars so that poor people don't get them. That's the only reason Beverly Hills exists. Absorb it! Now, by the way, if I were to run for public office in LA, it's giving Oj's if i did it a little bit because you're on the you're on the okay hold on say you're on the i thought it

was gonna be a compliment but you're no it's it's a compliment you're on the you're gonna run for office someday i mean look exactly i i think people ask me this now uh i think you honestly have more power in you know if you look more broadly at what you can do. Like, again, in the Writers Guild and in SAG-AFTRA, we were able to force these CEOs to do shit, right? The mayor of L.A. couldn't force them to do it. The governor of L.A. couldn't. The president couldn't force them to do it. We could, you know.

And so I think one of the truths of being an elected leader is they don't actually have a lot of power because they are so enthralled to the forces that are pulling back and forth. You know what I mean? They're beholden. Yeah, they're beholden because you have to be. I've seen I have friends who've run for office and I've seen how, you know, they are sort of forced to. I have to go to a listening session with the people who are mad at me, you know, like that kind of thing where some some big. So I have a lot of money and I have a lot of votes so you better do what i say and you have no choice because otherwise you'll be fucked you know well and if there's five big things you're really

passionate about that you really want to get done yeah you're not going to get all five but we can get two if you give them these three so you have to capitulate on all these things that matter to you and that's politics and that's reality you know but maybe if you want to get shit done instead of being subject to all those forces you could be one of the forces. You could be the person organizing and say, you know what, I'm going to organize 10,000 people in Los Angeles or my city or whatever, and we're going to demand X, Y, Z, and we're going to force the leaders to give it to us rather than say, I'm going to run and then be at the whims of, you know, a bunch of assholes you don't like. Yeah. My favorite activists, my friend Tara and I have talked about this quite a bit. She founded the Tenants Union in Kansas City. You guys would love each other. That's amazing. She's a wonderful

human being, an absolute genius, a very dear friend of mine. But my favorite activists, her being an example, you being an example, are people who realize that public office is not only maybe not the path for a really passionate activist, but also it feels to me like there is a certain point oftentimes where ego overtakes activism and says, I should be the person in the big office with the big chair. And I don't think it's necessarily always as effective. If you ran, I'd probably be there voting. But I think you've created this really interesting path for yourself as this very, you got a

psychology degree? Philosophy degree. Philosophy from Bard. From Bard College. Yeah. bard from bard college yeah wow you've sort of done your research messed up my p words but i really was halfway there what's up y'all if you're enjoying so true podcast there is so much more so true over on our patreon uh it's dirt cheap you guys the patreon is dirt cheap get over there get over there and get some more content. We've got bonus content on the Patreon with every single guest, including the guests that you're listening to right now. Bonus questions with them that you won't find anywhere else.

Please like, subscribe, share everywhere, and follow us on every social media. And frankly, kind of be sycophantic about the pod. We're trying to build a cult-like presence here where eventually people will get harmed. Thank you. Goodbye. So tell me about how you've carved this really interesting place for yourself in doing adam ruins everything yeah and and now being on the negotiating committee for the wga and and

those things how did you get what how did you get here who were you as a kid oh wow who was this guy i mean i was uh so you've seen adam everything. I often describe that character as a younger version of myself. Talked way too much, read too much. When a topic would come up, I'd be like, I know a little something about that. And people would be like, why are you bringing that up? That's not the conversation. We don't need to know your fun fact right now. But I would just know something and be, I have to spit it out.

And a lot of it is because my mind was easily blown. I was, oh, my God, I can't believe this is true, right? And when I was doing comedy, I mean, you might relate to this. Like, after a while, you know, you're doing comedy like five, six years. You're like, okay, I can write a joke. How do I make people give a shit about who I am? About where they remember my name, where they want to come back and see me later. And so I started, like started dropping stuff that I knew,

stories, the first one I did was about the invention of the diamond engagement ring, how it was made up by the diamond companies in the 30s to sell us more diamonds. That's not an age-old tradition at all. And I started telling that on stage, and people would react differently. They'd be like, wait, really, what, what?

In addition to laughing. They'd come up to me after the show and be like, is that really true, et cetera. And so I started, you know, I did a web video about that and, turn that into Adam ruins everything. Um, and just like tried to give people that feeling over and over again.

Then we didn't have topics about like how fucked up the world is and how there are like simple solutions we could put in place. Like, uh, the big one for me was, uh, homelessness, right?

That like, uh, uh, the big idea is guess what give people homes and it solves the problem yeah like it's not drugs it's not like mental illness those things happen because people are homeless you don't think segmenting them off to certain parts of downtown LA is working I don't think shoving everybody into a pile it's not working okay I don't think so I mean Skid Row has been there a hundred years yeah we literally it says on Google

Maps Skid Row because homeless people have been pushed there for 100 years. All it does is concentrate poverty and misery. But instead, if you take the people who are most at risk of dying on the street, you put them in permanent supportive housing, meaning you just put them in a place and you give them actual support from counselors, substance treatment folks, et cetera. It works. you know counselors uh you know substance uh treatment folks etc uh it is uh it works you get 90 retention rate and it is cheaper than folks going to the emergency room you know multiple times a week stuff like that uh and so i learned this like oh holy shit my mind was blown i shared it on the show and then i went okay why aren't we doing this you know and i got like involved with a group locally i started started doing street engagement.

I started seeing how homelessness actually happens in Los Angeles. And then a very good friend of mine named Nithya Raman, who founded that organization, went on to run for city council and on a platform of let's do these things. Was it Feed the Streets? What was it? It's called SELAH. SELAH, yeah.

S-E-L-A-H. And we do really basic volunteer street engagement we go out with food and water we have a drop-in center where people can come once a week and get a hot meal and clothes and then the main thing is just try to get to know people on the street and you know connect them with case workers and stuff like that but but in terms of just you know I was like I want to make this shit happen and since then I've sort of moved around from one topic to another because like it's one thing to learn about these things but it's really cool when you can start to put them into practice and actually see shit happen so you said that this kid the character you put on Adam ruins everything and I think it's

important for people to know that it's a character you're playing a larger version of this like trait that's within you yeah but you're heightening it you said it was a character of a younger version of yourself yeah what shifted between that being an actual kind of um way you were behaving or a person you felt like what changed in there I mean part of it was just growing up um a lot of it I think was me starting to do stand-up comedy like I felt very socially awkward before I did stand-up comedy and and like not really sure how to integrate myself into a conversation and then after like you know 10 years of doing stand-up I was like oh wait I feel like the most socially comfortable person in a situation like I can put people at ease at a party if they're nervous or whatever yeah because

stand-up is so intensely social well it's caretaking as well yeah caretaking I've used to stand up as caretaking I think you're taking care of the audience oh you're inviting them in you're giving them the opportunity to share in ideas with you i think when i don't like a stand-up it's because they don't take care of their audience they're mean to their audience they're inconsiderate to me my shows when i'm when i really figured out what i was doing on stage it was the shift of you stand up as taking care of the audience i love that that. You're hosting. Absolutely. And you're responsible for sort of the minds of everybody there. And you really much have to work with them.

I think all the time about how people all come in. This is my favorite thing about stand up. It's like a magic trick. People all come in and their minds are all in different places. They're thinking about different things. One of them got a bad email. One had a fight at work. One just, I don't know, gave birth or something, whatever. They're all in different places. They're thinking about different things. One of them got a bad email. One had a fight at work. One just, I don't know, gave birth or something, whatever.

They're all in different places. They're flooding around like birds. And they all need to come and land and then all point in the same direction and stop being individual minds and start literally being an audience. And your job as a comic is like, if you can make them all laugh, it's because you made them have one thought and then another thought in the order that you wanted with the intensity that you wanted in unison together yeah in unison and and like that's such a fucking cool magic trick and that's why as a comic you're always like paying

attention to like what's happening in the room or someone dropped a glass right because you need to keep everyone focused it's everyone's thinking about the glass yeah it's why a part of the this hosting mentality that I have about stand-up is exactly we're talking about and taking it and and realizing like yeah when we come together in a room with other strangers to experience a thing the number of sacrifices that go into that decision like i i end a lot of my shows live shows these days talking about this and thanking the audience really in depth for coming because it is it is never lost on me like it's fucking crazy that that you know what if you do a 300-seat room,

300 people got babysitters, took off work, ordered cars, bought two drinks, bought the ticket, money's tight, took off their shift from work. You're selling out every show? Because for me, a 300-seat room, it's like 175 people. I'm just saying. No, no, no. Okay, so 175 people.

And no, you're not. But 175 people, whatever. Thursday, you know, go And no, you're not. But 175 people, whatever. Thursday, you know, go for it. Depending on the night in the city, right? But whoever came, so many sacrifices went into us being in that room together. Yes. And it's, I think when I don't like a live performer, or when I feel a disconnect with a live performer, it's because I'm getting the feeling that you are not taking this seriously.

Oh, yeah. You don't take, this is such a huge responsibility, and you don't give a fuck. Well, so many comics are self-centered because they got into it for the same reason I did, which is that I was in a sketch comedy group, and we hosted a monthly show at UCB Theater in 2007, and we would do sort of multi-person. What was that?

The Golden Age. The Golden Age. It was wonderful down there. It was an incredible theater. It was like four or five rows deep, and it was around you. So when there were laughs you'd be standing in the center and they would like pop at you. Is this Chelsea? Under the Gristidis? Thank you. That building by the way, demolished now. What? I just found that out two weeks ago. I was like shocked. It hadn't been

the UCB for a while. They'd given up the space. But literally that stage no longer exists. It's like rubble. Which is like kind of shocking to me because it's it's just for me that was the first comedy room I ever fell in love with but uh I've experienced those laughs as so physical you know it was like I was getting something I'd always wanted I was getting like social approval yeah you know and and love and reward and I I did stand-up primarily because I just wanted to feel that way more often. When the group broke up, I was like, I don't want to stop having that feeling.

I want to keep doing that. And I think a lot of comics get into stand-up for that reason. But then if you don't check that, it's the comic stand-up that go like, why aren't you guys laughing? Why aren't you? Wow, what's with you guys? It's like, well well it's not about you

sir yeah the event is for them yeah like the comic wants something out of it but these people did not all get here did not all come here and get the babysitters to give you the laughs that you want yeah you came here to give them the laughs they're not here to fulfill you you're here to fulfill them it's a it's a it's a jeff i just saw jeff tweedy the other night at orgo and he said um you know he was riffing with the audience on something and uh you know he said how are you guys doing and he said i've they said oh everyone cheered and he said i've learned it's good to check in with the audience about that and someone yelled how are you and he goes it's immaterial it doesn't matter he goes i'm doing an active i'm i'm i'm in a i'm doing a serve i'm um i'm completing a service right now and i do feel that way about being on stage and i think it's part of why i'm not interested in railing against crowd work videos

they're happening whether we like it or not and and i'm and a lot of my friends who do crowd work videos do them very well yeah but there's a shift in mentality occurring occurring because of them with audiences i feel where audiences are starting to feel now responsible for making the show go well and i'm like i'm disinterested in that. Your job is to be an audience member and sit back and have fun. I don't want you coming up with quirky stories to tell me while I'm up there. Yeah. No, we don't want that to happen.

But I think people like crowd work videos for a good reason, which is that they're real and they happened in the room. Yeah. Like the best every comics experience the thing you're doing your whole set you've been working on for two years and then one thing happens unexpectedly and it gets the biggest laugh of the night yeah because it was real and it was to the people in the room it surprised them and that's like the magic of live comedy and like you can prepare all your material but you have to have some of that yeah or you're not really doing

stand-up or you're not doing it at its highest level and that's what crowd work does give you it's like a quick shot to like oh shit oh fuck i can't believe you know yeah um oh shit that guy's an accountant oh no he's an accountant well you know if you if you yeah if you overreact as a comic and you pump everything up too much and you have a pattern of how you get there every single night, then you lose the spontaneity. Yeah. You know, but you also need to those moments where you keep your knees loose and like something weird happens is like those are the magical moments. So I don't I understand why people want to watch them on social media. And I think, yeah, I think there's also some kind of understanding of like, this is a way to support your favorite comedians.

We know that it's working. Giving them views and follows is like, it's, yeah, I think people want to support their people. But I was thinking while you were talking, when you're such a, I view you as such a practical person. Like you have such a good mind

for taking huge complex issues and breaking them down to be understandable for people like me and for everyone else. But you – yeah, you studied philosophy. So what is – and that's such a big nebulous kind of – That's true. How did that – what is going on there? That's a really good question. I mean I guess I always had a practical approach to philosophy, which is that there were things that I want to know the answer to. How do I decide?

Just when you're 16 or 18, the questions that you want to know the answer to is like, how do I know I'm not in the matrix? Yeah. Which is like, that's a compelling question. And you can read a lot of philosophy on it. And I read about it until I had a satisfactory answer I think you only studied utilitarianism. That was your that was your approach to philosophy Utilitarianism is really interesting because it gives you you know answers to like complex moral questions It always produces a result which is like something that people want sometimes but then you know, you could ask well are the results?

I don't know. They push you in a weird direction, like these particular results? I don't know. I actually now, I get bored of the kind of philosophy that doesn't, like, go down to the real world and have an effect on things, you know? Because, like, this is the stuff that we're swimming in. Like, this is what I want to know about, I guess. But also, you know, I was just interested in philosophy when I was, you know, in college years. And since then, I get interested in lots of different things. And so I kind of sort of moved to being curious about other shit. Yeah.

Did you have a professor in college who really drove it home for you that you were, like, very in love with? I mean, there was a professor at – I went to a college called Bard College. There's a professor named Gary Hagberg who – I hope he never sees this. I, I, I would, I would call myself a straight man. I had a crush on this man for sure. As did everybody. He was just the most, I'm kidding. I don't know. That made me almost blush. He, he, he seriously, he had this like way about him. He was, he was a class, you know a corduroy jacket wearer, you know, a little bit balding, glasses, good look, but just so smooth. Yeah. You know, just like such a smooth guy.

He taught philosophy of art and aesthetics. He played the jazz guitar and he would just be like, oh, what do you think about Kant? You know, oh, that's a very good point. Like just, I think a lot of it was the performance of teaching. He was very, very good at. So he gave you think a lot of it was the performance of teaching he was very very good at so he gave you that little thrill and that feeling of discovery um and then uh you know when you were talking to him in his office he would like make you feel special for just long enough eventually i realized it was a little bit hollow i was like he doesn't really have time for

me he doesn't really think i'm special so i'm gonna go work with somebody else but but it was like he made such a such a such a strong impression I think people of all genders and sexualities can imagine themselves appreciating the soft touch of a gentle man. This is like. And that's what you had going with him. I don't know how the Kinsey scale works. I'll tell you how the Kinsey scale works. It's pretty. Is it like one to ten?

Like what are the numbers? It's one to six. One to six. And six is ultra, ultra gay. Okay. And one is i would say alt-right what one is just one is just head around so when i think of myself i'm like i'm not i'm not all the way on the kins i'm like a couple notches you know towards the middle and he's

falling on the other side of that notch yeah i mean yeah yeah i think anybody that we interface with and like as human beings even some of of the straightest guys I know, even the willingness to be friends with a gay guy means you're not a one. I'm like, you're a 1.5, you're a two. It doesn't mean you're going to fuck a guy. It just means you're progressive. Maybe you have a slightly open mind. Yeah, and I think Alfred Kinsey would agree with me. God, that's so funny.

Yeah, I had a philosophy professor in college who I really adored. I did not study philosophy. I studied sociopolitical communication, which was, I guess, a mix of ethereal kind of academic useless approaches to world problems mixed in with like a very practical approach. But I had a philosophy professor called Jack, Jack something, I forget his name. But he was wonderful. I loved him. He was just a sweet old man. I had him for one class, one semester.

And I just thought about, I think about him constantly. He just really made it so easy. He wasn't hung up on like tests and beating shit into our head. It was very much a conversation about who we are as human beings and what the hell is going on. Yeah. I mean, that's what philosophy is,

is just, I've got a big question and like, how do I answer it? You know, and there are certain parts of philosophy that go down the rabbit hole where I'm like, I'm not really interested in like the methods that these people, it gets a little too much.

People try and do math with ideas in a way that I don't think really holds up. It's, you know, I, I spoke with, um, an incredible philosopher on my podcast, uh, named Quill Kukla, and I was talking with them about how philosophy, like, it never kind of solves anything.

You know, science progresses. We know this, and now we know it, and we move on to the next thing. Philosophy, everything's always up for debate. You know, nothing is ever settled. Like, even, you know, Plato. Everyone loves Plato, but people are like, he was full of shit, you know? Like, we've got, like, you cannot, it's always on. Like even, you know, Plato, everyone loves Plato, but people are like, he was full of shit. You know, like we've got like you cannot. It's always on quicksand. You know, it's never solid. And they were like, this is that's actually what philosophy is. It's not a sort of rational. I mean, it's rational, but it's not like a discrete process that ends. It's an art. It's it's something that is like in the doing rather than in what has been done i'm not doing justice at all yeah to uh oh you are i'm locked in i'm locked in i love this and so you were you had them on was this a recent episode or an old one a couple years ago my

podcast factually or interview experts and folks like that um it's it's in our archive somewhere yeah yeah i'm gonna go listen to it you should i mean they're like such a just one of these people you're like oh my my God, I would love to buy you a drink and talk to you for hours, which is why I started doing the podcast. I was like meeting experts, doing Adam Ruins, everything. And I was like, I just want to talk to you for, you know, for hours at a stretch now. And that's what I'm able to do. Is that one of your favorite conversations you've had with like on the podcast?

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Top one. Yeah. Like in the top realm. In the top realm. I'm trying to think who, I mean,

we do one a week so there's so many but it's had like an incredible conversation about homelessness. Why am I trying to promote the, oh,

as you should be because I was thinking when you were saying that it was making me think of, Chance, can you Google this guy's name? We had him on Keeping Records, my podcast with Shelby

that was at HeadGum that there was this guy who he worked on the original golden records you know about the golden records the ones that went to space yes yeah he worked on them and he like he worked with carl sagan in um john lomberg i think was his name chance tell me if i'm wrong but he um he worked on the original records with carl sagan and decided what they were going to send to space and now he just lives in hawaii and is like chilling out. But we had such a beautiful conversation with him. And it's one of these things that like, were I not doing a comedy podcast?

I don't know that I would have ever spoken with this dude. But we had a beautiful conversation about specifically, I remember telling him, thinking about space and the sheer like immensity of it really spins me out. And I go, oh, I'm nothing. I'm a grain of sand. My life doesn't matter. You know, I get really, I'm like, I'm an aunt, you know? I really, when I think about you, those videos that go on social social media all the time that are like, this is the earth. This is the next biggest planet. The next thing that goes on so much until you realize that we're literally less

than a speck of dust. And I don't like, Ooh, that's making me sick to even think about. But I was telling him that those make me feel that way. And he oh I feel the opposite like I feel that we because we're so small everything we do matters and I was like I agree oh and I want and I think I do agree now like I think I've changed my thinking a little bit but um just one of those conversations that you go thank god for this job yeah thank god for like a life where I get to talk to cool interesting people that's fucking awesome. It's incredible.

I love getting the perspective that you're talking about. And the thing that I trip out on is like how unique in the universe humanity is, right? That, you know, everything is just molecules bouncing off of each other. That's all that exists. And, you know, entropy, right?

But here on earth earth under these very specific set of conditions a set of molecules started bumping around that are anti-entropic right that are able to consume other shit from their environment and like reproduce themselves you know that by itself is like so rare and cool and weird and then that happened to such a sophisticated degree that some of the living things are us. Right. And then this is OK. This is what I trip out on constantly. Like evolution. So slow. Yeah. Right. Very slow. Like human ancestors because for millions of years, just like tossing rocks and like eating fruit and, you know, et cetera. And then we reached kind of a tipping point where the evolution stopped happening genetically and started happening in our heads

Via language and then suddenly pow like all of the rest of history happened in we're talking fucking ten thousand years as opposed to millions Right like you know I could sit here and go my great great great great great And it wouldn't even take me that long to get to the great-grandfather right that that like was around for like that part of the explosion and things are moving so fast now and it's like kind of inexplicable and all of that happened just on top of molecules you know yeah and we haven't seen anywhere else in the universe where it's happened ever um so that makes us also like the most special things that we know about you know um honestly more special than i love animals

i love the environment but we are more special they're nothing compared to us like what we're doing is like fucking crazy that we have like that out of all this came like like bach and beyonce yeah you know um is is such a special thing and you don't need god for that argument for why humanity is special it just like comes out of like watching, knowing how this shit came about. It's the most unlikely thing ever. Are you a God guy? I'm not,

I'm not a God guy. Although my, my parents brought me up going to, we would go to a congregational church, which is very low key Protestant denomination. And we would go sing in the choir and stuff like that. But I was like, you guys are scientists.

You don't give a shit about this. And so they made me stop going after a while. And then they didn't go for a long time. And then now they're retired. They started going to a local church again, like mostly for the social part of it, because they're retired. And they were telling me about it.

And I'm like, I think I would go. At least if I was 70, I would go. You know, just like, yeah, I like,

I know all the songs. And they're great. Yeah. I've at several points in my life including now i have gone to unitarian universalist churches you ever been to one oh yeah lovely i love the people i go to one in kansas city i volunteered at the one here in la during covid for a while when all they were doing was operating as a food bank um i went to springfield missouri where i went to college it was the first time I went. My religion professor, Dr. Kathy Pulley, shout out, girl,

had us go as an assignment. I love Unitarian Universalist churches. Because they're just, it's like everybody's welcome. It's a bunch of like, at least in the Midwest and the South, it's a bunch of like old Christian people who left their conservative churches because they had a trans grandkid or something. Yep. And they weren't welcome there anymore.

Or it's like, yeah, it's like young Muslim people, young Jewish people, people who are atheists. And it's just like, yeah, we're going to get together and have coffee and chat. Yeah. It's great. There's an amazing philosopher named Alain de Botton. Alain de Botton. Has to be said like that.

Alain de Botton. Yes. Alain de Botton. Alain de Botton. I don't know. Can you sort of get it from there? I'm with it. Yeah. Alain de Botton. Yes. Alain de Botton. Alain de Botton. I don't know. Can you sort of get it from that? I'm with it, yeah. He's a French guy.

No. To tell the truth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He eats frog legs. Can you believe it? He makes the argument that church is like a valuable thing for reasons apart from religion because it's a place where you go and mingle with people who are unlike you but you are all there for a common purpose and the purpose is something uh not material the purpose is something spiritual or or abstract right or it's an ideal

and a virtue um and you go there to spend that time with each other and that's just like really important socially you know um and uh so he created something called the church of life which i've never been to i heard about this on a podcast like 10 years ago um which is like a secular church i don't know if that's any good but i do think about that a lot when i you know interact with things like that where it's like ah getting together with people all pointed towards a common purpose that are different from us is good. Sounds kind of like a comedy show, doesn't it? Dude, just when you were talking, I was thinking about how funny I think it is

that so many comics are atheists, myself included, agnostic atheists. I don't really know where I fall. I talk about this on the podcast a lot. I believe in a bigger power of some kind. I don't have a name for it. But we go to church all the time. Concerts and comedy shows are churches in a

way it's like gathering with strangers to feel good and share in the fact that we enjoy this thing yeah being and i think that is the whole point of life however you gather in rooms with strangers is the point of life yeah but being in a room that being at a fucking movie theater being at a comedy show a concert a church whatever i this is the whole point of being alive we're supposed to gather with each other. We're supposed to get together in person. I believe that very strongly. I think that's the point.

It's the time I feel most alive. It's the time I like other people the most. I like other people, not for nothing, the least when I'm in my phone imagining them based on what I'm reading on the internet. That's when I don't like community the most. And when I like community the most is when we're together in a room and someone bumps into me and I go, oh, my bad. And they go, oh, no, my bad. And then we go back to watching the show that we're watching.

You know what I mean? That's beautiful. This is a real controversial opinion of mine. But, you know, the rise of remote work, great. You know, very good that there's a lot of shit that should be done better over Zoom. You shouldn't have to drive to, you know. But the idea that, you know, permanently working from home, I feel like is not good for you. I understand parents and people with like real time problems, disabled folks and all that, right? The option is really important. But like just the daily rhythm as a person or the regular, it doesn't have to be daily.

The regular rhythm of leaving your house, no longer being your house self, putting on different clothes, going out and being among other people, and being work self, and then going to the store and being store self, you know, and interacting with people on those different levels is, like, essential to society but also to, like, us personally. Like, I think we really atrophy if we – it's like not going to the gym, you know. us personally like i think we really atrophy if we it's like not going to the gym you know um and i i just figured that out from paying attention to myself like working from home for like two years um and then you know los angeles like never went back to work people just like never well people never worked here to begin with yeah no one has jobs people stayed inside here way more than in other places and i was just like wow they're just making me really unhappy um and uh so I don't want to be one of those people who's like everyone hates the bosses who say ah everyone has to come back to work right I think that's horrible

uh to like force people to do it but I also sympathize with the idea that like we need to we need to gather you know yeah I think even I think even for our, even for in amongst ourselves, like I don't want my boss telling me that I have to go into an office. No. But I think take it on yourself to meet up with some other friends and co-work from your respective jobs or something. Be around people. I am extremely, I've talked about it a lot lately on stage and on here and in my life. I'm extremely worried about the broad and kind of general dissolution of community. Yes.

And people are, people, we have so many ways to connect now and people are feeling so lonely. And I think there's a minute, there's a bunch of solutions, right? There's like, yeah, making yourself go work with other friends at a coffee shop two days a week. If you have a full-time work from home job, there's becoming a regular somewhere, which I think I'm becoming more and more convinced that being a regular somewhere is like one of the keys to mental health. You've got to be a regular somewhere to the extent that you can. Yes, there are people who can't leave their home and things like that, but I'm worried about the lack of community. I think people are craving it and there's such an outsized craving for it compared to how much of it is being fulfilled. It's such an endemic in American society. There's a famous endemic in American society.

There's a famous book called Bowling Alone, which I've never read because it's a very like academic sociology book. But I know the argument because it comes up constantly. And it's that, you know, American society has lost all of these membership organizations. And so what this guy describes is, you know, the bowling rate has stayed steady. Right. But the number of people who bowl as part of a league where okay i go once a week and we have a you know yearly competition or whatever like an amateur bowling league that has plummeted there's a lot less people in leagues even though

the same number of people are bowling there's bowling by themselves right um and if you look at just the kind of organizations that people used to be a member of look at like elks lodges and masonic temples every single one of those, there's hundreds of them around LA. They're all sitting there empty. They're rented out as film locations. I've been in them because I filmed in them dozens of times.

There's always like one old guy drinking the $2 beer that you get if you were a member or VFW halls, stuff like that. That used to be like the fabric of life was you'd be in multiple things like that. Masonic Temple, 4-H, whatever the fuck that is, you know, like your church, your union, your all these things. Right. And now those all seem antiquated people.

Maybe they're like a member of a CrossFit gym. Right. But that's not the same thing. And so so I would say in addition to going out with other people, finding like something that you can join and when I joined the Neighborhood Homelessness Coalition, CELA, one of the most important things for me was during the pandemic and I was going every week and I had a route, you know, and I had my partners who I'd go out with and I knew who was doing what in the organization. I was on committees and stuff like like that i eventually stopped doing it so much when i started doing the union work instead um but just having that like all right it's not just social it's also we're all here to do something and then social stuff comes oh after after we do our shift let's all go out for beers or whatever yeah um looking for things like that

is so important for your mental health yeah i think it's a sense of these are my people and this is our place yeah and then it's also sense of these are my people and this is our place. Yeah. And then it's also the sense that that can expand and that you can, that you will meet new people and that you can make new friends and things like that. I, yeah, I'm,

I'm, I'm trying to move. I've been in the worried about it stage for a little bit and I'm trying to move into the, like, what am I going to do about it kind of part where I'm like, what are my ideas? You know?

I mean, I try to make my shows be community. That's one thing, but I'm like, what are my ideas? You know, I mean, I try to make my shows be community. That's one thing. But I'm like, yeah, I want like more. I want more agency. And I'll tell you something that I think we really need. And I've never had. I've thought about someone needs to do this, but it can't be me.

We don't have any community institutions for comedians. None exist for stand up comics. Right. If you think about it, like, like okay say other forms of even like writers and actors have the unions stand-up comedy has no union right yeah it has no club i mean there was the friars club like 100 years ago it still exists but you know it's a sort of old more abundant institution right yeah there's other than me going to a show or maybe some club has a holiday party if i wanted to like do do something with 50 comedians right now

or get the word out to 50 comedians, I don't know how I would do it, right? And when you look at stuff like mental health crises, we both know comics who've gone through mental health crises or et cetera, having community organs that allow us to get together and have bonds between each other would be great. And they don't exist.

Yeah, yeah. It's like such a weird freelance institution that nobody feels like they have a strong connection with each other. I think it could be a rehab center. If you want to, I think we could do two birds, one stone situation. We get 50 comedians together and try to work on some things. No, I totally agree. I think about, I've been thinking a lot about musicians. I've seen some musicians union activity popping up.

I mean, good God, those people are getting screwed. Oh, terrible. Good God, musicians are getting fucked over. It's awful. When I see what's going on over there, even, even, I think it's very rare that i think comedy is cooler than music for me personally but i go i've played some music venues in the past couple years and i go y'all are taking a cut of my merch comedy clubs don't do that you know what i mean i'm just a little stuff like that i'm like you musicians are getting fucked every single day yeah a comedy yeah a stand-up union would be

great but because it's such a self, I have, I have noticed this even during the strikes, there was behavior going on from standups. I'm in both unions. I'm also a standup. And there was behavior from standups who aren't neither of the unions that I was like, oh, you're a scab and, and you only care about yourself to an extent that I actually find baffling. Like there are, I think standup is such an individual pursuit, not all of us, but it's such an individual pursuit that I, yeah, I think we could benefit from trying to make some more collective thinking going. Yeah. I mean, people do that because we don't have the social norms and the bonds between us, right? Like they don't feel connected in the way that writers do. But the truth is that like writing is also very, very much an individual

pursuit. You're right. Yeah. And, you know, semi freelance in its way. And comedy is also intensely social. Right. That like that that was the thing I was liked about it was I'd go to when I was starting out in New York. There was a show at a place called Cabin that was like the big hangout show. And I would go and say hi to every single person. Good to see you. Good to see you. OK, I got to go. Bye bye bye bye bye. Right. It's like that those social bonds are really important to comedians even though we don't like

influence each other's careers that much, right? Yeah. Like it's not like a comic can book you on a show except for a bar show that they host, right? And yet,

we do have loose social bonds between us. Just nothing, there's nothing to show up at, right? Other than maybe some comic has a poker game. And I think that's the missed opportunity that we could set a little bit more you know. Totally I agree

and by the way all the unions the entertainment unions like the Writers Guild got started in the 30s because it was just like dinner groups that writers had oh yeah we all get together everyone who writes for Paramount or whatever you know we all get together so Everyone who writes for Paramount or whatever, you know, we all get together so that we're not just competing with each other, right? And writing scripts against each other. We're gonna like create a social group and oh, we elected a president and treasurer.

Oh, maybe we should be a union. Yeah, sure, let's file to be a union, right? And then eventually they, it grew and grew from there. But you don't need to start with union. You know, you can start with, hey, I created a space for us to get together and uh yeah just like come together and be yeah on a regular basis well i think we're making moves towards it all the time and i'm very interested in it and even uh this space that we're

in right now we record the podcast is uh mo uh sitting over there hey mo uh trying to make it a collective and trying to make it a place where trying to move away from these companies in as many ways as you can. We're always going to have to deal with big companies. But trying to move at least some of our creation away from the companies and more into a collective energy of like, I make shit and you make shit.

Can't we get together and do it without the outside force of big money? In at least some iterations of our careers. And I love the big companies I work with. Thank you guys so much for your service. Can you put in a good word for me? The companies? Yeah.

Oh, yeah, I'll text them. I'm not getting any calls. I'll text them. I could really... The podcast is going fine, but I need some health insurance. The big companies? Yeah, the big ones.

They're not loving you? The big ones. They're not calling all the time? I'm going to talk to the big companies for you. Oh, thank you. Yeah, I'd be happy to do it. The ad of the They're not calling all the time. I'm going to talk to the big companies for you. Oh, thank you. Yeah, I'd be happy to do it. The Adam, the guy who was screaming on the picket line, needs the health insurance minimum this year. You've seen him.

The sign at security that says, don't let this guy in. He's a great writer. Adam, what do you want? What does Adam Conover want? What's the big goal? What are you working towards? What's all this about? Oh, my God.

Come on. What do you want? You do you, what's the big goal? What are you, what are you working towards? What's all this about? Oh my God. Come on. What do you want? You do a million things. You have a million interests. That's true. Where are you headed? That's such a big question, Caleb. I know.

I'm here for the big questions. You know, I think in my, in my personal life, you know, I'm just sort of looking for the same sort of freedom and happiness that I think I'll probably be looking for forever, right? Professionally, I just want to get better at saying the things that I want to say on, you know, the biggest stage that I can, right? In the purest way that I can. Certain amount of ambition, but also it's just like sharing the ideas and things, you know? Yeah. Right now, what I'd love to have is like infrastructure you know it was such a pleasure

working on adam ruins everything to have like a team right to have like a hundred people all working to make the thing that you are uh uh that you're working on together right and i think the real problem with the social media age is you can look at it and go, oh, that guy got rich on YouTube. Oh, that person got rich on TikTok. First of all, very few of the people who are posting on YouTube or TikTok get rich. It's like a vanishingly small proportion. Most people are losing money buying equipment and putting stuff up and hoping, oh, one day I get enough views to get affiliate status or whatever. Yeah, not this show, though.

You do very well. But OK, so like I know what you're're right it's a small people who can make a living right so i i between you know patreon and youtube rev share and the ads that placements and touring i can make a living right i can make a middle class living in la that's wonderful other people are able to do that who weren't able to do that before. However, even if I can make as much money as I used to make on TV, which, you know, I might I might be approaching. I don't I can't pay to have the whole staff that was making the thing before. Right. A hundred people who were helping me make the show. They're helping me research topics, making the episodes funnier, you know, letting us go to different locations, you know, making the set beautiful, et cetera.

The new media world will pay the bills for one person and maybe these two guys. Yeah, Mo and Chance are on there. But where's the late night show? You know what I mean? If people are being driven to these platforms that pay the talent, a much smaller portion of what the profits are. So my hope professionally is one day, I want that car to drive so that I can really get places.

Because I sort of see that the more infrastructure you have, the more you can do creatively. Running a show is like, I'm sure this is a long answer to your question. I love a long answer to my question. Running a show that has your name in the title that's saying what you want to say is like stepping into like a mech suit from an

anime you know you're a little guy you get into this great big suit and suddenly you can do great big things you know yeah it also makes you a bigger target of people who want to say like ah fuck that guy in his show there's a bunch of other ways the metaphor works but primarily it's you know you're a regular sized person once you get person once you get really big and do bigger things, move more creative weight. And that for me is like I'm looking for that particular situation just not because I want to make more money or be more famous. I just want to like – I have more shit that I want to say than I'm able to like write with my own two fingers. There's a limited amount of time in the day, and I want a fucking team to help me do it yeah it's a it's a really interesting like relationship between I was just talking to someone about this earlier today uh that like

even if you don't desire fame which I generally don't you have to you have to drum up a certain level of interest to get the money to make the projects. What I want to do is make the movies in my head. What I want to do is talk to the interesting people that I love and share ideas. There's a certain amount of interest that has to be drummed up in you and who you are and your brand or whatever people think of you. The people watching have to like Caleb enough

for Caleb to get something made. And that is this really interesting relationship and you start to see immediately why people get so fucking crazy and lose their minds because you have to constantly be thinking about yourself in order to make the stuff that was in your head to begin with. And it's this really vicious cycle and I like asking people on this show what they want

because it never. I talk to interesting nice people and it never is I'd really like to be fawned over at the grocery store a little bit more often. Well, they want that, but they're too smart to say it. Everyone knows not to say that. Well, yeah, you don't say it, but I really don't think it's the central purpose. I think it's like people, yes, you enjoy the little, like, I love your stuff.

You know, that's so nice. But I think generally smart, talented people who have cool shit to make and say generally just want more resources to make their things yeah and that's where we are yeah and it's it's distressingly hard to get those resources and unfortunately we're in a period where people are less likely to take that chance you know the the reason that we made adam ruins everything was because i was working at college humor we had made a bunch of adam ruins everything sketches we had made four every single one of them got you know a million hits in the first day which was sort of our metric of

success back then still kind of is the metric for success for youtube video um and then we went to a bunch of networks and when we pitched it to true tv um they were like oh we're trying to compete with comedy central and we also have a mandate to sort of do educational comedy like that's our little idea for what's going to work on our channel is stuff that makes you laugh and learn they had a couple other shows like that and so they're like okay this did well on YouTube we like the material

my pitch was good we've got an experienced comedy website here we've got everything that we need but there's a lot of risk involved for them right because I had never I was not like a famous person I was a guy who worked at a website and had made four popular videos um and uh you know that doesn't exist now um like literally true tv as a network no longer exists it's still on your cable box but it's just run by the people who run hbo max yeah every single one of those channels that used to compete

with each other and like okay i've got this many millions of dollars to take a risk with that's just one motherfucker now um who you pitch and they're only looking to spend money on the people who are already massively proven successes right like i mean look at everyone is flipping out right now because conan o'brien went on hot ones and had that amazing segment he's got a new show coming out, right? And he's doing a comedy travel show. Great. He's the best in the world at it. They gave him four episodes. Four episodes?

Conan O'Brien. Conan O'Brien. And how long has it been? How long did it take him to do that since the last thing that he did, right? Like, since his show was out there. Four or five years of him having one of the most popular podcasts in the world,

being one of the most beloved comedians, and they give him four episodes. So if you were to have an idea for a comedy travel show as you know i would love to see you do that or any any other comedian right yeah where would you go in your comedy travel show where would i go on my comedy travel show yeah oh my god well i actually i what i would love to do right now is i would love to do a i have thought about a comedy travel show because i love to travel yeah i would love to I have there's something about my face and energy that tells strangers they should speak to me yeah and I don't know what it is but I'm grateful for it I love it I meet the weirdest fucking people and I when I was in uh I've always met the weirdest people but when

I was in Europe last summer I met a bunch of weirdos and I am like I would love to just like do a show where I go out in different cities around the world and see what I can get into no reservations no plans right who I meet and where they're going like I met this I was in Mexico City for Christmas and New Year's this past year and I some of my friends were supposed to come for the whole trip and something came up they couldn't make it so I was there for a couple days alone no big deal and I was eating at this taco place and the straight couple came up to me and they were like, well, one of them was a fan, but they were like, what are you doing tonight?

And I was like, nothing. And they were like, do you want to go to the speakeasy with us? We have a reservation. They're impossible to get. And yeah, I was like, yes. And then we went to a gay bar. We danced all night. I spent the whole night with this straight couple that I did not know at all.

Were they straight at the end of the night? No. What's interesting is she was more straight but he was gay and so i fucked him and no but but yeah just this shit like that i'm like what random i met a an uncle and niece pairing in amsterdam that i went out with one night yeah i just want that see incredible right so so but i'm more famous than conan so i could probably get 20 20 or 30 episodes i mean you telling me that i'm like there's a show there right it's like you doing you know it sounds like david tell's insomniac but for 2024 like with you right yeah and if we went and pitched that out right well how how are you supposed to get that bought when

conan o'brien could only give four episodes on his own fucking streaming service right well you just don't no one does that anymore yeah um and it's it's a bummer right so what could you do instead you could do it on youtube okay then you need to raise how much money per episode and how are you going to fund it you have to line up the sponsors and you got to do with the bare bones crew you don't get to do it with conan's crew you get to do it with you know two people yeah um it's it you know it's a little it's a really weird time in media now my, my positive take is that there are, I think, platforms that are starting to fill in the middle that disappeared because the streamers are only doing stuff with superstars

that's really expensive, et cetera. The sort of missing middle of television, I think, is being filled back in. So there's a wonderful service called Dropout. Do you know Dropout? Yeah, no Dropoutout yeah um which was what college humor became i just did my stand-up special with them we just taped it a couple weeks ago it's going to come out later this year let's go it was the perfect place to do it because everyone right now it's either you get to be one of the one or two people who get a netflix or hbo deal or you're going straight to

youtube your special is going to look like shit you had to shoot it in a basement for five grand. Right. But this is a streaming service that is they have a million. I have about a million subscribers. Right. And they're they're doing live shows. Great. Let's do a stand up special. All million of their subscribers actually watch the channel and are going to tune in.

And it goes, oh, yeah, I'll watch Adam Conover special. That's more than you can say for Netflix. Right. You have a special dump on Netflix. And then they're going to get it back to me after a year. I get to take it where I want. Um, but it's like, they actually have a business model that sort of like surviving underneath, you know, after the forest fire, right. A new green shoot popping up. Um, and there are those opportunities. Like if you look for them, I think. Yeah. Well, we're going to talk off mic about that because I've got an hour. I'm trying to do something. Adam, what's so true to you?

What's something that's so true to you? Okay. I've shared a lot of things already that were true to me, like my actual take about getting together in person with people, which I think is like, so I guess that's my real take is that there is, and then I have a funny one, but my real take is that I really started to believe that there's something ineffably important about being in the same room with people. And I don't put it in mystical or spiritual terms because I'm a materialist rationalist philosophically. But I think humans are so attuned to each other's presence biologically.

This is what we evolved to do is have intimate social relations with each other and like pick up on you know small micro movements and and people's smells and you know the environment in a room and I think that that is like a huge amount of information that you get in person that you just cannot get in over zoom you know like like oh yeah meeting with someone over zoom is like it's like listening to you know a symphony through like really shitty speakers you with someone over zoom is like it's like listening to you know a symphony through like really shitty speakers you know through over the phone like you can sort you're getting it you can hear it but you're not getting the full experience like my therapist i'm so mad about this get them drag them my therapist kristin if you're watching kristin kristin um is is uh is after the pandemic, she stopped doing in-person therapy entirely.

She only does it over Zoom. No. And I understand why. And like, I love her. She's a wonderful therapist. I keep going. But like, I miss having to go and sit in her room

and be confronted with myself. She's looking at me going like, you know, like, so what's, what's wrong? Yeah. And I have to actually, I can't, I can't escape. And I had to think about it on the way over and I had to park and walk in and know that it was about to, it's just different. I have to be there. Right. Um, and you know, the same way that people react differently in a movie theater to, because they're in the presence of other people than, than watching at home or, I mean,

you know, people watch stand-up specials, they laugh once every 20 minutes when they watch a stand-up special at home. When they watch it in the audience, they laugh constantly because they're around other people. And so I really do think it's irreplaceable. Thank God we have Zoom for folks who need it and for things that it's not important enough for.

But yeah. Okay, you want my dumb take? I want your dumb take always. Thank God we have Zoom for folks who need it and for things that's not important enough for. But yeah. Okay. You want my dumb take? I want your dumb take always. What do you think about fast food drive-thrus? Well. I want your take before mine. What do I think about fast food drive-thrus?

What do you think about the phenomenon of the fast food drive-thrus? Well, they've been massive for me in my life. But what do you. I think they're terrible. You don't like drive-thrus. I don't like drive through. I don't like drive throughs. And I'm not talking about the food itself.

Yeah. The fast food drive through is such a horrible experience. It is like, first of all, at least in Southern California. Yeah. The fast food drive through takes longer. Yeah. Going into the store. It's backed into the street. It takes longer than parking, going in, ordering your your thing getting it and then eating it in the sunshine you know if you're at an in and out here in la

there was an outdoor tables eating in the sunshine getting your car and driving away i'm like who who's like i want to get a nice burger you know what i want to do sit stationary it's traffic yeah you're in it's what if a restaurant was traffic that's what a drive-through is what if i could sit in traffic to get food and then eat it in your car or i guess maybe take it home now it's cold like what are we doing yeah like if you're gonna spend five dollars on like a burger and fries why aren't you fucking gonna enjoy it park for it's faster to park and go inside why does this exist and you're and by the way just so the listeners know you're a guy who deeply does not drive i don't drive at all so that's that's

playing i don't drive no i i took the bus here today yeah but i but me and my girlfriend were on road trips you know what i mean and we stopped to get a to get some fast food and we're like why is anybody in this line yeah it's worse tell what's one thing that's better about it well there isn't and i'll tell you you're right because what i do my little secret at starbucks is when you go to a starbucks if you're doing that i'm not right now but if you go to a coffee shop that even has pre-order the people waiting in line i go right around them on my way there maybe five minutes before i do the mobile order yeah i put my tip in whatever i get there i park i walk up to the window, grab it. Everybody who was in line will be there 30 minutes longer than me.

Yeah. I'm gone. I've drank the coffee already. You're right. There's especially with the order ahead. But if you go and order in person, even, yeah, it's often quicker. I'm with you. It's true.

I support your take. Order in advance doesn't count in what I'm talking about. But I will say Starbucksbucks is like when i see people waiting in a starbucks line i'm like is this the great depression like what the fuck is if you go to if you go you go to an airport and you see i've never seen a saturday line in the coffee line at an airport at a starbucks i pay for the admirals club membership a couple hundred bucks a year just so i can get free tea yeah because i don't want to go wait in that fucking line like what are we what are we doing to ourselves that we're like oh i need my fucking like it's people are desperate in that line the

craziest thing i just learned in that statement was that you're an american airlines guy yeah i'm an american airlines guy yeah no true blue that might have been the most telling thing you've ever said to me what okay wait you. You're an American Airlines guy. What's surprising you about that? Well, Delta is superior. Oh, they're not. Oh, okay. I'm sorry, they're not.

That's my so true. Actually, I'm sorry you're being conned. That's my so true. Delta has tricked people into thinking it's good. Delta is better than American. That's not. If you look at their service records over the past couple years, the number of complaints they've had from disabled passengers

and their on-time performance, American was worse six or seven years ago, but Delta has been in the crapper, and they just massively devalued their loyalty program. And they already had the worst loyalty program of the big three. Now, here's the unfortunate thing. I'm talking about for me, right? And you have said, you pretty much instantly,

you undercut my ability to talk about Delta being good because you're like, they're bad to disabled people. So now you put me in a tough position. No, no, no. We'll forget about what's your loyalty. But the thing is, my loyalty is very specific. Now, the loyalty, the way they slashed, you're talking about the slashing of their loyalty program

and how upset that made people. I loved it. I wish they would have done it harsher because I am out of it. I fly so much that it didn't affect me. It only affected people that I don't want

in the lounge with me. Because what they did was, what they did was they made it harder for people who don't travel very often to get into the lounge and it's good

because those people get in there and you guys act like animals. They act like animals in the lounge yeah i'm glad that delta kicked him out i would have loved to see him taken out in handcuffs yeah i don't want if you fly twice a year you shouldn't be in the lounge with me and i'm gonna get reamed for this we'll probably cut it i but i'm loyal to delta because they have they're the only airline besides southwest that has a direct flight between LA and Kansas City every day. Oh. And I live in Kansas City.

I go there quite often. And I have to be in LA all the time because I also live here. And so that flight made me loyal to them immediately. I got on the American Airlines train because I used to have to fly. When I was doing Adam Ruins, everything, the company would make me fly back and forth from LA to New York. And American had the best- Transcontinental.

Yeah, best transcontinental. But here's my loyalty and look, it's so funny because I'm a critic of capitalism and like, you know,

social hierarchies and shit and yet, you know, these companies that are hooked. So I did a whole fucking segment of Adam Ruins and everything

about how frequent flyer miles are bullshit and I am so locked in to the whole American Airlines thing. Like if I, I was on tour in February, I went to a bunch of different cities. I had to take one Southwest flight

and I was like, where the fuck am I? Like what country is this? Like it was horrifying to me. And like if you're on Southwest all the time, I'm sure you love it. But I was like, I just feel so cocooned in my American Airlines. But this is the reason that I am actually loyal,

which is I have twice left important electronics in the seat back pocket. Once it was a laptop, another time it was my Nintendo Switch with like seven years of saved game data on it. Both times they got it back to me within a week. That is nuts. And I was like,

I don't think that's happening on fucking United. They were literally like, you put in a little thing and they're like, what color is the case? And like, when we turn it on, what will we see They were literally like, you put in a little thing and they're like, what color is the case? And like, when we turn it on, what will we see?

I'm like, you'll see Adam, my player avatar is Mario because I'm basic. Yeah. And, and they, and then two days later,

they're like, yeah, we found it, you know, 12 bucks to ship it to you. I was like, that's incredible. That is a good,

that's a good note for them. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. Adam, we got one more segment for you. Oh my God, let's do it it's a true false segment

and I'm really interested to see how you do our producer Chance thank you Chance wrote these questions for you what it is I'm going to read you 15 statements

and they have an objective truth or falsity you're going to tell me if you think they're true or false as quick as you can and if you get 10 or more correct we're going to give you 50 US dollars Adam

whoa yeah okay wait you're going to read me questions I zoned out because I have ADD for sure, we're going to give you $50, Adam. Whoa. Yeah. Okay, wait. You're going to read me questions. I zoned out because I have ADD. For sure. So there are going to be questions.

15 statements. Yeah. As quick as you can after each one, tell me if you think they're true or false. You got it. That's all you need to do. You ready? Well, can I have a sip of water? I wish you would. It was John Lomberg, by the way.

It was John Lomberg. I knew that. Wow. Okay. First statement. The longest movie ever is 121 hours long true false 857 hours whoa the national flag with the most colors used is belize false true the american revolution came out after the wait came out

they dropped you no the american revolution came after the french revolution uh true false oh that's such a basic history god damn founder of pringles had his ashes buried in a pringles can uh true true wesley snipes is six two true false five nine bard college was established in 1799 uh false false 1860 one. Lettuce is a member of the sunflower family. False. True. The longest one-syllable word is... The sunflower fam... Oh, hold on a second.

Lettuce is a brassica, is it not? Are brassicas sunflowers? I'm sorry. The longest one-syllable word is screeched. False. True. Screeched? Screeched is one-syllable?

Screeched. Scree? Screeched. Chida. Chched. Scree. Screeched. Chida. Chida. Scree. Oh, no. Not trying to make it multiple.

Swings are banned from playgrounds in Sweden. True. False. The most leaves. RNG. The most leaves ever found on a clover is 14. True. False.

56. These are so annoying. Why can't you? Because they're like. These suck. These suck.. These are so annoying. Because they're like, because you've still chosen high numbers. So I'm like, yeah, okay, it sounds like it would be high, and then it's just a different high number. Stone Cold Steve Austin has been married four times. False. It's five. Nope.

True. No U.S. president has been an only child. You guys really don't want to give me 50 bucks. False. That is true. Whoa. That's actually, that one's kind of crazy. China has six time zones.

True. False. One. Chuck E. Cheese's middle name is Edwin. False. It's entertainment. It's entertainment. And there's one more.

There are three films in the Tremors franchise. True. False. Seven. How many did you get? I knew the ones that were actual trivia questions can I just say? Apart from the American vs. the French Revolution which was an extremely basic history fact that I was wrong about.

Yeah. Chance did tell me before the episode I'm going to make these ones really hard and see what Adam does so he came for you Adam where can people find you? tell them so I do a podcast called Factually

you can get it wherever you find your podcasts I have a YouTube channel I also do comedy video monologues and you can find my stand up tour dates at adamconover.net I'm all over the place I love seeing Adam live you're an absolutely brilliant stand up

thank you and thank you so much for doing the show. Thanks so much. I'm so thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me. Thanks for doing it. Well, bye, guys. We're done.