The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Paul Bloom and Ray Ellin

Episode Date: November 12, 2021

Paul Bloom is Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto, and Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Yale University. He has won numerous awards for his research and teaching.  He has written for scientific journals and for popular outlets such as The New York Times, The Guardian, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic Monthly. He is the author of six books, including his most recent, The Sweet Spot: The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning Ray Ellin is an Executive Producer on This Week at the Comedy Cellar on Comedy Central and a regular at The Comedy Cellar. 

This is Live from the Table, the official podcast of New York's world-famous comedy cellar, coming at you on Sirius XM 99. And on the Laugh Button Podcast Network, Dan Natterman here with Noam Dorman, the owner of the world-famous comedy cellar. We have Periel Ashenbrand with us. She is a show's producer, and she's becoming more and more of an on-screen or rather an on-air presence. And less and less production, I might add.

But go ahead. What's that? Nothing. Less and less production. Okay. Oh my God! And we also have with us the great Aruba Ray Ellen, who is one of the one of our favorite hosts here.

Would you say no, I'm at the Comedy Cellar. My my speaker is not working, but, you know, yes, he's one of our favorite hosts here at the Comedy Cellar. And he is also a producer of Aruba Ray Comedy, which are comedy shows in Aruba. You don't need to. OK, go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Off the coast of Venezuela. And he's the founder of Comedy Cloud, which is a Ray Allen. Why don't you explain briefly what Comedy Cloud Comedy Cloud? Thank you, Dan. Comedy Cloud.

The website is Comedy Cloud dot C.O. And Comedy Cloud produces live comedy shows on Zoom for primarily for companies. So it's a way for their employees to reconnect and bond while they've been working remotely. And it's great. We've done over 140 of them so far. But where do you see the future of that, Ray, as the pandemic winds down? They're definitely winding down. I actually thought there'd be no more shows, but I've actually, we have about a dozen between Thanksgiving and mid-January.

We have 12 so far. I mean, again, the last year we did, you know, over a hundred. So if we do another 30, 40, that'd be great.

And then I think it's going to go, it'll fizzle out eventually. Sure. A lot of companies are very happy to do events remotely. They really do save a lot. They don't have to fly people in or put them up. So it's still, you know, maybe some people, companies will still do events.

Dot CO, is that Columbia? Dot CO? It's dot, dot CO means dot company, dot corporation, dot CO. ComedyCloud.co. That's not what dot CO means. Why would you take that? Why would you say dot CO when every other, like, was it cheaper?

Why did you go.co? ComedyCloud.com, I couldn't get it. It was like $40,000. So.co has been working out just fine. No. How do you know? Because I'm getting a lot of business. But how do you know how much you would have if people didn't type in.com and get, you know, get errors?

I'll tell you what, if you want to float me the com and get you know get errors like i'll tell you what if you want to float me the 40 grand we'll give it a whirl what's it called comedy what comedy cloud comedy cloud dot com so if i say comedy cloud dot com i'm doing it now oh it goes to it it's a it's a placeholder yeah so but but if i mean dot co is so obscure i think that people would probably get his placeholder as whatever. It seems to be working just just just fine. But that no one's making the point that maybe it would work a little better if you if you spent that forty thousand dollars. Had a lot of press. No, we were on a featured on Bloomberg Radio, CBS Radio, ABC TV and a lot of press.

How about why don't you try like comedy in the cloud dot com or cloud comedy. How about cloud comedy? How about you change the name of your club to the comedy basement? See how that goes. I would take it. That's better than comedy bath. Noam is back

from city Las Vegas. What are you doing out there, Noam? Cloud Comedy is available, Ray. I'm going to fill it out. I'm going to find out what it costs. All right. How's the Vegas room doing? Vegas room is doing not bad, actually.

I'm surprised to tell you. Why are you surprised? Everything's are back. Well, Vegas room has been a touch-and-go enterprise enterprise um i mean it's listen vegas is a very difficult uh thing to to it's a very difficult market much more daunting than i realized because um you know you you have to you have to promote in vegas but promotion is very expensive and uh it uh, it's just,

it's just a different thing altogether, but we stopped promoting mostly. And we're, we're now we're, um, have momentum based on word of mouth. And so that's good. That means, I mean, I was there, I was there over the weekend and Friday night, the club was packed. I was like, it was just packed. I was, I was really gratified to see that. Wow. That's great. Considering you have a Vakakta website, by the way, your website needs a total overhaul. Yeah, it's not working for us, is it?

We're only sold out like 60 shows a week. It's not because of your website, but you think you take pride in every detail. You told me you moved the light fixture in the ceiling over a couple inches, all the lighting, the light bulbs, the lamps, the candles. You think you take pride in your website as well. Fair enough. But I've had that website, that goddamn website redesigned so many times. I spent good money after bad. And every time we do

get a design by a professional big shot web designer, two years later, everybody tells me it's the worst thing in the world. So I just kind of given up on the idea. Can't get a chef. Yeah. So, but if you know somebody who can do a good job with a website, I'm happy to redesign it. But it's very, you know, just to, you know, it depends what your definition of a good website is. Like Google is not a fancy website. A lot of websites of Forbes. There's a lot, I mean, just came to mind, but there's a lot of very important websites, which drudge, which are very, very functional and are not stylistic, barely at all. And I don't think that's a bad thing.

The comedy seller website is very plain and it very functional. You can get the lineup and you can make a reservation and um what else you need yeah by the way i'll be in vegas uh over thanksgiving week with uh esty didn't put me with anybody that i know uh but i guess i'll have to hang out with uh mark cohen and his dog um or just hang out in my room and uh surf the web but um i'll be there uhnd through the 28th, I believe it is. I'm looking at the Caroline's website. I mean, it's, I don't know this. I don't know.

I don't even know what's good. It's, why, Ray, why are you stressing me? Get your fucking domain name together. You're shitting on my domain name, which is going quite well. Anyway, I'm- And your website- I don't think.co,.'s see i looked it up i checked it

that co is columbia for christ's sakes comedy cloud.co but that may be because ray does a lot of business in aruba now and that's near columbia by the way dan's going to be appearing with me and robert kelly over christmas and new year's in uh aruba if anybody wants to come down why don't you get a.jp or something? I don't know that we need to belabor this point. Endlessly fascinating to me that an adult who would criticize my website has a.co. He's criticizing your website in response to you criticizing his website.

He has no real criticism about your website. No, no. His criticism of the website was a callback to a text message he sent me at like 2.30 in the morning one night. Go ahead. Just wanted to check and make sure you're alive. Yeah, go ahead. Did you see

Cicely Strong's Cicely. Well, whatever. Her weekend update segment on Saturday night. No, was it about the Jews? No, it was not. It was about abortion. Who saw it?

Did you see it? I put it in the talking point. It would be very easy to go on Google and YouTube. I was swamped the whole day with my kids. I'll look at it right now, if you want to tell us what it said. Well, Cecily Strong played Goober the Clown, I was swamped the whole day with my kids. What, what's I'll look at it right now. If you want to tell us what it said, well, it's really strong played a goober, the clown and she's talking about the Texas abortion law and she's kind of

doing it as a clown. So she's like, you know, she's spinning her bow tie and saying, you know, a clown, you know that one in three clowns will have an abortion over the course of their lifetime. I had an abortion when I was 23 um you know uh basically condemning the the texas law as a clown are you looking at i didn't get any talking points from you dan just so just so you know well i sent them but you don't look at them anyway i do i usually do that's i didn't know but i thought maybe like i if they came last minute i was too busy i didn't notice any talking points and you have a dan nat uh dan and Adam and.com that also always kicks back.

It's always also you guys, you guys are just awful with your web stuff. Oh, that's true. Your email does always bounce back. I think. Anyway, so you didn't see. It's great. I think it's great. I love what she did. Oh, you did see it. Okay. Do you have anything to add to my description of it? No, I don't, but I like that she did it. i think that um i i think that it was very on point so i i don't know whether cecily strong had it it seems to me and i i couldn't find this out whether she had an abortion in real life at the age of 23 but that seemed to be what she was getting at okay and that she i mean did you

is that what how you interpreted it i would imagine imagine so. But I mean, I think, I think she's also making fun of. Well, yeah, I know that, but she's, I, I, she, she had said that as the clown character, she said, I had an abortion when I was 23. I'm guessing that, that, that she means that she had an abortion, uh, Cecily Strong. And I don't know if you know this. You must know this.

A lot of women have had abortions, Dan. Probably more than half the women. I understand that. But very few go on Weekend Update and talk about it. Well, they can't get on Weekend Update, yeah. But the point is, is her sketch on Weekend Update has, you know, gone viral or whatever you want to call it or has, you know, become a talking point.

Dan, try to talk interesting race to busy checking his text messages. Maybe you can say something. I'm trying to find the video, but no one told me to watch the video. So I haven't watched it until. I'm pulling it up now. No, that's right. Yeah, well, she said, well, the goober, the clown said that one in three clowns, she kind of it was like the Smurfs where everything is Smurfy and Smurf tastic. So she was saying like, you know, Clown V. Wade legalized abortion in 1972. So she kind of it was like the Smurfs where everything is Smurfy and Smurf tastic. So she was saying like, you know, Clown V. Wade legalized abortion in 1972. So she kind of like used the word clown like in the Smurf sense of the term. So she said one of three clowns will have an abortion anyway. What do you think of it? That was well done.

Yeah, I mean, a lot of people said it wasn't funny. I thought I thought it was funny at moments. I mean, I don't think funny was necessarily the goal, but but I thought there were moments when it was funny. Did you think it was ladylike? I wasn't thinking of it in those terms. You know, I was it was it was a rant basically in clown form, which I mean, we've talked about abortion on this show. We all think it should be legal, but not necessarily for the reasons that many people think it should be legal. What does that mean?

Well, people make the point that it's all, that women should have the right to choose without regarding the other life that is in. And we actually believe men should have the right to get out of hot water. So, but it's all right. As long as it works out, we, we, we believe that we, who's we, well, me and no primarily. We don't believe women should have the right to choose, but we do believe men should have the right to get out of hot water.

So it mounts to the same thing. I thought that was funny, but I guess not. Go ahead. What troubles me in regard to Texas is I obviously I'm pro-choice. But what kills me is when I see women posting things saying it's so so heartbreaking that that men in Texas aren't letting women decide. There's a lot of women that are pro-life in Texas. And if all women in Texas were on the same page, we're all pro-choice. This would not be happening in Texas. The women who are pro-choice or who don't think that abortion should be legal

don't need to get fucking abortion. Sure. That's how they feel. Yeah, but I don't need an abortion either, and I'm pro-choice. Right. So it's like if all women were on the same page, this isn't happening. It's crazy to me that a woman would want to tell another woman what she can or can't do to her body. It's unbelievable. Arubare

has said to me, and this is very hard to believe. Would you guys... Go ahead, Dan. Go ahead. What? You're said to me, and this is very hard to believe. Would you guys, go ahead, Dan, go ahead. What, what, what, what were you about to interrupt me with something? Because it's so frustrating. Can't you guys who are pro-cho that when you say a woman can't tell another woman what to do with her body, that is a totally disingenuous way of portraying the argument of the other side. It's not to them about telling a woman what she can or can't do with her body. It's about telling a human that they can't kill another innocent human. That's the way they see it. Now, you can disagree with them, whatever it is, but if you're just going to avoid their argument and cast their argument as something stupid and then pat yourself on the chest, I vanquish that dumb argument and

pretend that there's not a much more complex, difficult, very difficult, super difficult argument, which you're pretending doesn't exist, but does exist, which you couldn't, you couldn't even take it on. If you had to explain to me why one day it's alive. And the next day it's a, it's not why one day you go to jail for the rest of your life. If you kill it. And the day before that it is, it's telling them what to do with their body. It is such a complex issue. But no, no one is talking. It's so frustrating. It's so frustrating to me. Abortion.

Abortion is a hard. Abortion is a hard issue. And if you don't have an answer to the tough parts of the issue, then you know what? You don't have an argument about abortion because it's not about telling them what you can do with the body. I don't have an answer. And we tell women they can't be prostitutes. Go ahead. My answer is, is that every time we have this fucking conversation,

you focus on like the infinitesimal percentage of third trimester abortion. No, I'm talking about second trimester abortion. One day it's a baby and you go to jail for the rest of your life. And the day before it's an abortion. I mean, we've had this conversation. The vast majority of abortions take place in the first trimester. At whatever, at whatever day

you're going to, we're going to decide as a society that this is no longer legal to abort. At whatever day we make that decision, it's a random day. And it is tough to swallow that the day before that, the hour before that, it was nothing. And now it's a life sentence. Nothing. What about like people who are raped by their fucking fathers and uncles? I mean, it's like, you know, we've had this discussion so many times before. I do want to address the issue that Ray Allen claims to have never gotten a woman pregnant. Does anybody believe this? Yeah, because he's probably shooting blanks. I could be shooting blanks.

You're right. You definitely are. Oh, my God. You know, you know, Norm and I had had the same urologist. Total, total coincidence. Oh, come on. We really did. Total coincidence. How do you think. We really did. Total coincidence.

How do you think I know you were shooting blanks? That's right. Maybe he told you something that he didn't tell me. But we never got the urologist. He was about six foot six black man. He was a terrific urologist. Six foot six. How tall was he? He's like a normal height, like

five, eleven, six feet. He's not super tall. Maybe I was always laying down or I was on my knees. Ray Allen sees a black man and assumes that's 6'6". Anyway, he was a great doctor and then he left. Gary Goldman is 6'6". You remember him being as tall as Gary Goldman?

I kind of do. Well, listen. Arnold, if you go to an African-American urologist, you're very confident with your manhood. I guess. I wonder how's a racist state you're responsible for. Good talking about about Noam. Yeah, of course. Noam Noam is responsible for some number, but he he's he's pro choice. But he he is is more nuanced in his in his analysis.

I've said this for you, I'm pro choice, but if you put a gun to my head, I can't really tell you why, because it's, I mean, science, liberals say follow the science, follow the science. Well, what exactly is the science that tells us that a four-month-old fetus is not a human? That's not the only thing we're talking about, though. Well, it's usually morality doesn't proceed. That's usually the threshold question of any more. Are you taking are you taking an innocent life? And generally when the answer is 12 year old girl gets raped by her uncle, gets pregnant.

What do you do? Well, OK. I mean, I don't people who believe, you know, in the fact that most most people who believe it's an innocent life would tell you that that trumps even a 12 year old girl. But yeah, I mean, yes, yes. Thou shalt not kill trumps. Thou shalt not rape. No, it doesn't. The rape happened already.

Jesus Christ, Perry. Are we really this this poor logic here? The rape happened already. Jesus Christ, Perriello. We really, this, this poor logic here. The rape has already happened. And it points out once the bait, once the, if there's a human life there in the eyes of the people, they would say, but let's just remove from the argument, the rape and incest thing. And let's just talk about the run of the mill abortion at four months. You can't explain to me why a baby that could live in an incubator is not a incest thing and let's just talk about the run-of-the-mill abortion at four months uh you

can't explain to me why a baby that could live in an incubator is not a human life for five months you can't you can't tell me that again i think that you're framing the way that you're framing the argument makes it very difficult to have any other kind of conversation about i blame myself i'm framing it in a different, facing the tough questions. You always want to frame it as if there are no tough questions. No, that's not true. I just think that there are other things that you can't just take out of the conversation. And I can't believe we're talking about abortion again. Well, it was my fault. I told an abortion joke recently and a woman approached me. She was like, hey, that's very insensitive. I've had an abortion. You shouldn't tell jokes like that i was like whoa hey sorry i just told a joke i think

what you did was much worse but you know either way i'll see you at home later honey and again all jokes i love abortions i paid for two last week. I'm a fan, right? You remember? Come on. It's all jokes. A friend of mine, she works at Planned Parenthood. She loves that joke. And I was like, I might have to get rid of it. People don't like it.

She's like, no, no, you got to keep it. I was like, I might get rid of it. She's like, no, no, you got to keep it. I was like, I might get rid of it. I was like, no, no, you got to keep it. I was like, I might get rid of it. I was like, don't tell me to do it with my body of work. She's like, every joke's a miracle.

I was really wanted don't tell me to do with my body of work. She's like, every joke's a miracle. I was really wanted this to lead more into a discussion of SNL in general. And is it funny? And which, by the way, I watch a lot of SNL on YouTube. And I guess these are the best sketches. But SNL is very funny, according to the sketches that I've been watching on YouTube. I know a lot of people say that SNL is not funny

or hasn't been funny, but would you let me finish my SNL statement? I understand professor Bloom is here. How do you do professor Bloom? Nice. Thanks for having me here. SNL was very funny. A lot of people seem to say it's not, I watched the YouTube videos, which might be a best of, so maybe my opinion is influenced by only watching. I don't actually watch the show, so I don't know. But it seems to me and I've said this before, that SNL at its best is so much better than any other sketch show that has ever been on television.

Yes. Paul Bloom, professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. I have relatives up that way. Do you know the Barons? David Barron? I think he's a GI guy. I don't I just got here about six months ago. Okay, so but anyway, he was born in Montreal and raised there. I was born in Montreal. Yeah, I have family there too. Do you know the burgers? I think I do know the burgers. You know, David Burger, he's a big furniture macher up there. We're doing, we're doing Jewish geography here. I try, I tell Perry, you know, we have enough Jews on this show. It becomes too Jewish, but you were too, you're too interesting a guy to resist. Thank you. Who, who would think comedy would run Jewish? Uh, Paul Bloom studies how children and adults make sense of the world

with special focus on pleasure, morality morality and religion and fiction and art. And his new book out is I'll let you, Paul, introduce the new book because my text message got cut off. But I know you have a new book out. Good production, Perry. Good job. Go ahead. Go ahead. It's called The Sweet Spot. The pleasures of suffering in a search for meaning. It's about how humans like to suffer. Exactly. Well, this is the right sort of suffering. This is a fascinating topic.

And we've discussed this on this show. And Dan has and then you wrote a column, which is, I guess, a cousin of this book about how a child having children doesn't necessarily make people happier, right? That's actually what I got attuned to you. So now let me preface by saying I have children and it is the great joy of my life. It has made me unbelievably happy. And I had a very, very effing happy life up until then. I mean, I was living it up. Okay. And I gave up a lot to have kids and get married. I was, I was living a life. Let me tell you, but I can't even, so, and I'm always shocked. I mean, shocked to hear people who are not getting the same gratification out of having children than I am. And I would include in that,

and then I'll let you talk, my co-host or producer there, Perrielle, who has a single son who she loves, she adores, and he's a wonderful, wonderful, beautiful child. But yet she clearly doesn't, she feels a crimp in motherhood that I do not feel in fatherhood so go ahead tell tell us about the data on uh happiness from children um most people are like you i have two sons greatest joy

in my life they're adults now very close to them no regrets but a lot of psychologists have argued that having kids is bad for your happiness There are all these studies suggesting that when you parents are less happy to non-parents, there's more marital strife, problems in relationships. And there are these famous studies by Danny Kahneman, who won a Nobel Prize for his work, brilliant guy, where you get people to walk around beepers that go off randomly. And then when it goes off, you say what you're doing and how much fun you're having. And this finding, which became very, you know, very influential is when people are with their kids, particularly with their young kids, they're kind of miserable. They say they're having fun, but when you beep them and they're with their kids, they'd much rather be with friends or in church or watching TV or socializing.

And then things get more complicated. So it turns out that the happiness you have for kids depends who you are fathers tend to be happier than mothers um young parents tend to get it worse single parents get it worse um americans get it worse compared to other countries america is one of the countries where there's the biggest happiness hit for for parents that's because of lack of government or presumably because lack of government programs that support parenthood. Is that. I don't think anybody knows for sure. That's an argument has been made.

An argument is made, you know, in some countries I have friends of mine, I have friends of mine in Montreal and they have two kids and they take their kids to daycare and a daycare is like $8 a day. And that makes their life easier. So Noam is a male. He had kids later in life and he's higher income so those are the three things that we would expect to put to play greatly in favor of his happiness with children is that correct it's the perfect storm perfect but you're also saying no might be delusional as well on some level well you know um i think there's all sorts

of forces that even if we didn't want to even even if we weren't made happier, it would kind of there's, it's very hard for you to say about somebody you love, people you love, people you love, maybe most in the world, they would rather they didn't exist. at being a mother. The case I make is there are different ages that can get scratched. And, you know, in some way, having a kid takes away from your pleasure, your day-to-day fun, you know, no big surprise, but it adds meaning to your life. People say their lives are more meaningful, they're richer, they have purpose. And so there's a trade-off. If you look through everything through the lens of happiness, maybe, you know, you miss out on some of the value of having kids. Well, Professor Bloom, you say Americans seem to be the most affected. You can call him Paul, by the way. Oh, okay, Paul. You can call me Paul, yeah.

Thank you, Dan. Paul, so if you say the Americans are the most affected, do you think it's possible that maybe Americans, as a hypothesis, that maybe Americans are more selfish people than folks in other countries. And, you know, and they're upset when they don't get what they want to do when they want to do it. And if having a kid certainly would interfere with doing whatever you want when you want. I don't know. I mean, I, the argument's been made that the amount of happiness does sort of, for a country does correlate with things like social welfare programs and so on, but there may be other factors.

This is, this is a, you know, I wouldn't exclude any factor. Do you think Americans are more selfish than people in other countries? I think it's possible. I think that America, I mean, look, not to get into a conversation about vaccines, but you know, we, we, we have them all. And there's plenty of people that, you know, like, you know, is know, is there is there anybody? Is there any profile?

Take a guy like Ray Eleanor. We call him Aruba Ray because he spent a lot of time in Aruba. I'm going to Aruba in a month. Pardon? I'm going to Aruba in a month. I'll see you come to the comedy club there. Aruba Ray's comedy club. You'll be my guest.

I would appreciate that. I hear it's very windy. Very windy, but beautiful. You're going to love it. We'll talk after the show. I'll give you a list of restaurants and things. Ray, we'll take you on a tour, too. So a guy like Aruba Ray, he's he lives a life I don't want to say hedonistic, but

he's having a lot of fun. And would you recommend and would you recommend is there people that you would say, I don't recommend fatherhood to you? I think you just keep doing what you're doing. I think that the difference between parents and non parents is subtle and complicated. So nobody is in a position to give anybody advice. Oh, you better have kids, or you better not have kids. You know, it's, it's I have a feeling that people often have a good sense of what they want. If you want it, you know, if you want to have a life of pleasure and going out and partying kids is

probably the wrong choice for you. If you, if you feel lonely and you want sort of attachment and so on, kids could be the right choice. What do you think about Ray having a kid in a room, but he, he drops by now and then says, hello, I can't, I can't answer it for real just a little poppy by the way i heard kahneman give a lecture i think it was he was interviewed by sam harris i think it was and he also did a i think that was it he also did an interview with tyler cowan but and he he spoke

about this happiness versus uh fulfillment or a satisfaction or I don't remember exactly what he said, but I know that that was something he was even grappling with. He didn't leave me thinking that he'd even figured it out. I know that I could look back on times in my life, which if you had spoken to me during them, I was just stressed and frayed and unhappy.

And if you had asked me, why don't you do something else? Are you crazy? I love this. So it's very, very difficult to unwind what gives you happiness or if happiness is even what you're after. I don't know.

Kahneman wrestles with this and we all do. And there's many ways to talk about happiness, but Kahneman has a certain distinction, which is very intuitive. One is experienced happiness. So I just go up to you in a random time during the day, ask, how are you doing? You enjoying yourself? A buzzer could go off and whatever. And then I get a number from one to 10 say and then there's um and then i i sum it up or i average it and there i figure out how happy are you on average but then there's um remembered happiness where i just ask you sit down how is your life going and these two things tend to go together but they could pull apart there are people walking around who are the opposite of you back at the time, which is

every moment of life is happy, but pleasurable. You're enjoying your life. Say, no, it's miserable. It just sucks. I'm just a loser. I'm just having fun, but I'm not going anywhere. I have no purpose. I'm going to cry now. Versus people who, if you beat every time they're miserable, I'm working hard. I got six kids. I got two jobs. I've got old projects. I'm exhausted. You ask them, how's your life going? He said, this is the best life ever. And Kahneman's point is which one should you try to maximize? And he in the end says, you should try to maximize your contemplative thing. Even if moment to moment, it sucks. If you feel you're living good, like that's what you should try to maximize. But other people go in different directions.

Paul, I have a question for you. I've asked other people this question. I think it's an interesting question. If I were to tell you that I could make a deal with you and that you take the deal, and by taking the deal, you will be happy. You will be, in fact, you will be glad you took the deal. You will be objectively happier when you take the deal.

But you'll be a complete dumbass. You won't be a professor. You won't be a respected man in the community. You won't get the seat by the Bima on the high holiday. You'll be a schmuck. But you'll be happier. Would you take that deal? It's the most Jewish conversation ever.

No. You're asking, you know, John Stuart Mill asked the classic question. You want to be Socrates, this brilliant philosopher, but sad? Are you going to be a happy pig? I'm going to be a sad philosopher. But what do you attribute that to? Because I just told you that once you took the deal, you'd be like, I'm glad I took that deal. You know, you'll be glad you took the deal.

It was a real world case. No magic. There's people who have dementia, senility, where they're actually happy they're blissed out some people are very anxious and miserable some people get senility alzheimer's and they're just glowing with happiness but who would want that life i want to you know i want to make a difference i got i got family i got friends i got relationships got work to do. You know, what would you do? Those things make you happy, by the way. Those things bring you happiness.

I would not take the deal, but I see, I recognize that it doesn't make any sense. I think that it's a bit like I should take the deal. Because if you did take the deal, you'd never regret it. I wouldn't regret it. To accept your thing, Dan, you'd have to, we'd all have to say, you know what, let's just admit it. Life is meaningless. And maybe it is, but it's very of meaning like that. That's too hard to face, even though it's probably true. I posed Dan's question differently at one point.

I asked somebody how many IQ points they would give up to have a bigger penis. But they, anyway, they didn't. My answer to that question was my penis is fine as is. All right. Yeah. I've had no complaints. I haven't had a lot of reviews either. But all the reviews have been five stars.

Would you even miss the extra IQ points? It's kind of like that. Oh, is that book of flowers for Algernon? Okay. Anyway. So, and then you also, you wrote a long essay and it's related um in the um i think the saturday essay the wall street journal why we choose to suffer yeah and this is uh related you can give us an overview of that issue because it's fascinating yeah this is it's it's the short version of my book you know

i hope people read my book if not read article it's just a short version and and basically it talks about two separate things so sometimes we suffer to give ourselves more pleasure and it sounds weird, but that's what we do. We like spicy foods. We like scary movies that, that, that scare us or sad songs. Some of us like BDSM, some of us like things that just, you know, some degrees of pain and the way our minds work is sometimes these things could trigger pleasure. They could, they could trigger pleasure through contrast, you know contrast. A little bit of pain makes things feel really good later on. They could cause an escape from the self. And that's part of the argument. The other part is that, and this gets back to what we're talking about, to live a full and meaningful life, you've got to do things

that are hard. You've got to do things that are challenging. If you don't challenge yourself, you don't run the risk of failure and disappointment and struggle, you'll be bored and you'll be unhappy. So suffering comes in for pleasure and also for meaning. Dan, what do you think? Well, I, you know, I read the article and I just, I mean, yes, absolutely. I mean, we suffer for, we, you know, some people are gluttonous for punishment for a variety of reasons. But with what you said yourself, that the suffering can provoke joy. So are we really suffering? Yeah. Or we just have the veneer of suffering, but it's actually pleasure.

So sometimes suffering is just a trick to get more pleasure. You know, so somebody who, you know, goes to a horror movie and is totally terrified and it's scary and so on, but they're really enjoying it. That's where they're going. They're enjoying the pleasure. So that's in some way, that's just more pleasure. But I think some of the suffering we engage in and having kids is what we're talking about is a good example of this, where having kids is rough, but I think the roughness of it, the difficulty of it is one reason why we take it as so valuable. There's, there's no activity you can do that you'd find totally easy, no problem, no stress, no worries. And later on, you say that was incredibly

valuable and important. Well, and what if there are just other human instincts, which demand satisfaction, which are not on the happiness scale at all. We have an urge to have children, an urge to fulfill curiosities, to play music, whatever it is that we find ourselves drawn to do. And isn't it possible that we might find ourselves drawn to do those things, even if it means some unhappiness? Like, there doesn't have to be a trade-off, necessarily. They could both, like, prioritize the other thing.

You know, that's the punchline of my book. It's just, you know, the fancy phrase here is motivational pluralism, which is, you know, I don't deny we want pleasure. Everybody wants pleasure. You know, it's a hot day. You want a cool drink. But the idea is there's many things we want we want meaning we want morality you know science we want to be good people we want to you know we

want bad people to be punished we want to we want justice to be done maybe we like beauty maybe we like truth and you got all of these different appetites often fighting out for each other because you can't do them all at the same time you You can't, you know, you can't lie on your butt and watch Netflix and drink beer and also visit your sick aunt who you love and you feel needs some company and also satisfy your curiosity. So it's a balancing act. Also, how much of happiness is just your natural state?

Like, you know, not much that you can affect it. Like some people just seem to be just born happy. A chunk of know, not, not, not much that you can affect it. Like some people just seem to be just born happy. A chunk of it, a chunk of it, you know, you want to ballpark. People say it's like 50% of the variance is carried by the genes. So, you know, you take your biological mother, your biological father, you ask each other, how happy are you? Miserable? You're happy. You're, you're, you're exhilarant, have exhilaration. And then from that, you could pretty much predict you roughly but then there's room to move around there's all sorts of things in your life you can do to make you miserable

there's all sorts of things you can do in your life to make you happier so it's a sort of standard balance for things same with things like shyness and intelligence and other aspects of personality just to give you by the way an example i was talking about ray on he's been texting 99 chance it's some ass he's got that he's working for ladies texting right stuff you're never gonna be a guest on this show again um you know what noam hey paul let me ask you this question what do you think about uh someone being invited on a on a show two years after the cancellation of a tv show and that person that was invited on the show is the reason why the host of the podcast made probably anywhere, $500,000, maybe

a million dollars on the TV show, and they were finally invited. What's the happiness quotient there? That's a toughie. I'd say that that guy who made all that money is somehow not happy despite having all his children

and well. Noam, would you like to uh comment on on that uh asshole i want i want to first i'll say that i was never made anywhere near close to a lot of money dollars i made a few hundred thousand dollars i'll cop to it off that tv show why you think i owe it to you i i can't even imagine never would have gotten on the air but if it brings you happiness right well i mean, I mean, I don't want to. I don't want to. Stating facts doesn't necessarily bring me happiness. But this situation kind of brought me some happiness.

Professor Bloom is kind of here, or Mr. Bloom. Paul. He's kind of like walked into, like, who's afraid of Virginia Woolf here? It's more of a marital argument, I feel. Yeah, something like that. Well, Ray, I've always said that I think Ray's role was pivotal in getting that show on the air because he just did the legwork. He ran with it.

But I don't want to make Paul uncomfortable with a domestic dispute in the middle of a discussion of philosophy. You know what's interesting? Do you remember the conversation we had years ago? You had taped Conan and we were hanging out, me, Dan, and a couple other comics, and one of the comics said to you, he said, Dan, I don't know if you could ever truly be happy. And then he said, for example, if you were given,

you got a million-dollar deal, I don't think you'd be happy. And you said, seriously, you said, I'd be happy for a couple weeks. Do you remember that conversation? I don't remember the conversation, but it's accurate. Yeah, you'd be happy for a couple of weeks. Do you remember that conference? Do you remember that? I don't remember the conversation, but it's, it's accurate. Yeah. You'd be happy to get back here. Short time. Well, I think any, I think, yes, I think, you know, I get happy for a short time when something good with my career happens. And generally speaking, these times, pardon,

that's the hedonic treadmill, you know, the, the, so some things will really make, you know, getting a million dollars is a big deal. Change your life forever. In a positive way, typically, but everything feels, this is actually a line from Kahneman, which is nothing matters as much as you think it does when you're thinking about it. So you get to a million dollars. Wow. It's amazing. Then time goes by and life happens and we habituate, we get used to stuff. We get used to good things. We get used to bad things. We plateau. We plateau.

We plateau. Yeah. And then we, it keeps us striving. You know, that's one of my favorite condiment lines. Actually. I,

I, when I read that, it stayed with me because he, and it's part of a whole like cognitive bias too, that you can't try and keep perspective on things. Listen, I, the truth of the matter is,

is we're all, we're all multi-billionaires compared to anybody that lived 200 years ago. That's right. You know, and we're, and we're not right. And are we any happier than they are? How often do you really feel great about the fact that you have like a

toilet inside your house? Yeah. And you don't have to go outside. About two hours ago, I was pretty happy about that. Well, no, well, I mean, you make a good point because if you think i mean if you think of what it must have been like for the average human soul you know 500 years ago a thousand years ago um by by our current ideas we would think well they must have been miserable how could they possibly have been happy but certainly they were happy i mean you know there's no species it's just been

born miserable like they they got happiness out of other things and maybe in certain ways they were happier right well james baldwin wrote about um joy as opposed to happiness and how, you know, joy was tinged. It was happiness, but it was tinged with a little bit of sorrow. And so you were able to actually appreciate sort of the full range. Well, I think Baldwin wrote that white people often didn't, were not capable of experiencing joy the way, the way black people were. That was his take on white people that they were joyless in some way. I think I remember that. And I, and I remember thinking that he had, there was something to what he described. I don't want, I don't like to generalize these things much, but he was, he was describing how, you know,

an uptight culture of that time was contrasted to the joy that he saw black people, you know, an uptight culture of that time was contrasted to the joy that he saw black people, you know, when they were having a good time at church or listening to music or singing, whatever it is that was happening. And I, you know, I spent a lot of time as a musician and I had, I don't know if anybody else here is a musician, but, you know, sometimes when you're playing music and you're, and it's, and the music is uplifting and you're screaming and it's just this primitive, wonderful feeling that you get.

And I remember thinking after a really good night with the band, I said, you know, other people who don't play music, they never will experience that. They have no idea what that is like. And it's huge it's a huge thing that is a potential feeling that you can have that many humans will never experience but i think that baldwin and i i will presume to say that like in a black church the whole congregation will will get that feeling and i think that's maybe baldwin alive he would say i was kind of onto what he was talking about. But we're way off the subject. But I will say one of the things I had compared childbirth. So, you know, when you when you throw a dog in the water, it immediately starts to dog

paddle. And if it never was thrown in the water, it would never trigger the dog paddle thing. And the dog would never know the extent paddle thing. And the dog would never know to the extent that a dog can know that it even knew how to swim or knew how to dog paddle. And that's what I felt happened when I had a child, that all of a sudden, all the dog paddle reflexes, as it were, kicked in. And all of a sudden, I looked at the people who never had children. So you don't even know what you're carrying around inside you. You don't know what can be triggered in that part of the brain that will never be triggered and the joy in that thing. So that's how I view having children is as it opened up a part of my brain, which I really had no access to. It's thrown in the water.

I remember when my kids, it was a different kind of love it was a whole new experience you know you're used to the love you have for friends and then turning romantic and sexual love and your kids come out and there's just this different whole new emotion yeah and you know it it comes in my article I quote Zadie Smith uh this wonderful British writer and she just talks about the the terrible risk of having kids a terrible fragility you have a kid and then for the rest of your life, you're never at peace because, you know, because you love the kid more than you love yourself. And there's this tremendous vulnerability. You must worry, worry all the time. You worry all the time. I'm sure, you know, I got to knock somebody out of you. I got to have a baby.

That's it, Dan. Okay. Not everybody's cut out for children, right? Yeah. Well, you know, no, look, I don't mean this in a snarky way. It also helps. I mean, I think of all my friends who all my guy friends who have kids love having kids. But I will say the ones who express the most jubilation are the ones that are the wealthiest that that are in good marriages, that have a lot of help. And I do think that factors. And I have a buddy of mine who's divorced with a kid.

He doesn't make a lot of money. He loves having his kid. It's great. But he's not quite as enthusiastic as the other guy who's a big attorney with a nanny and a maid. Having kids when you're poor is brutal. And having a lot of kids when you're poor is very brutal. Money is clearly a Greece's the skids, but I think there's a lot,

there's a, there's a big law of diminishing returns with money. I don't think you need to be wealthy, but it's better not to have tremendous financial anxiety. Yeah. I mean, on the other hand, but, but on the other hand, I would say that if you, on the other hand, but, but on the other hand, I would say that if you, this is again to generalize, but if you were to maybe study like the average, like Asian family living on a shoestring budget with a bunch of kids who were, and the New York times described like going without food just to, for test prep and this

kind of like hyper focus on children in a poor family, they would probably answer different questions than your struggling friends, Ray, because it's just a different cultural set of entitlement that that people, your friends would have. I think I don't know. I guess those people never seem happy. And I can't imagine seeing that that group you just described sitting around the pool laughing and frolicking. I don't know, Paul, you have any, you have any other remarks on that? It's very interesting. Just that there's that, that psychologists keep asking people, how happy are you? And, you know, and how good's your relationship with your partner? And I think these are good questions, but they're not the only questions. And I wish people, you know,

people are starting to ask different questions. Like how much meaning does your life have do you regret your choices what would you have done differently um is your life full of purpose and you get different answers and I think this is part of condiments insight there's a lot of different questions you could ask and when people say my kids are the greatest joy in my life people People have been saying this here. It typically don't mean I had a hedonic blowout. It's like an orgy or like cocaine or something. That's not what you're talking about. What they often mean is that now they have a reason for life and they have these deep attachments

and they feel like they're a different person. And I think my field is in a terrible job in studying this. So if you look, you'd easily find a hundred articles saying, you know, being a parent sucks, you know, surprise. And they think it sucks because they're asking the wrong questions. So, you know, to go back to what Dan proposed earlier about, would you give up this if you could just be really happy and I'm not, I'm being serious here. Isn't there,

couldn't you have the life you currently have and isn't there medication that can make people there is i mean that make people much happier that literally lifts their mood so you live the life you want to live but maybe you wouldn't be care about writing as much if you took that drug and felt so much happy you know happier it's a good question. There's a lot of people with manic depression, for instance, who say that the drugs make their lives better, but they take the edge off and they lower their productivity. I'm not sure how true it is.

I'm actually most productive when I'm happy. Maybe I'm being a bit less ambitious, but I get more work done when I'm in a good mood. But I agree to the general point, which is, pardon me. And when you're not like riddled with anxiety or stressed out, it makes it difficult to work. That's right. Or simply depressed. And you know, when you're depressed. And then I want to try to draw something out of parallel here, but I just want to make one other comment because I keep coming to mind and I keep forgetting it. That some people are the enemies of their own happiness. And I go through this with my wife. I had read an article at some point that said that, you know, one of the best ways to be happy was to pay people to do the things that you don't want to do yourself.

So, you know, and I don't I'm not going to do dishes. I'm not going to do housework. I'm just not going to do dishes. I'm not going to do housework. I'm just not going to do it. And my wife refuses to hire a, like a housekeeper more days a week. And thank God we can afford it. And, you know, and when I was a kid, a lot of families had like a five day a week housekeeper who was there when the kids came home from school, while the parents were out working, it wasn't even particularly extravagant thing. Maybe it's more extravagant now, but whatever it is, we could afford it. And she'll complain and complain about the house is a mess and having to clean up and do this and do that. I'm like, get a woman or a man or man, sorry, get a housekeeper to come in more days a

week because I'm not doing it. But she just can't bring herself to do it. She feels lazy. She feels it's I don't know. So you have any comments on that? Like, how do I convince her to leave me alone? She's bringing my happiness down. She's she's she's squelching, throttling her own happiness. Maybe she makes her happy to henpeck you. But it makes her money that neither neither of us are going to ever enjoy. We're going to die with it in the bank probably. But go ahead. But she is made unhappy by the guilt that she feels hiring a woman, perhaps a Hispanic woman.

And your wife is Hispanic. No, that's not what it is. That's not what it is. She doesn't care about that. It's not the Hispanic thing. It's not guilt about hiring a woman or a Hispanic woman or government or anything like that. It's that she feels guilty that somehow she feels like she should be doing

this herself. Well, did she, did she not sometimes, I don't know how she, she didn't grow up with a ton of money. I don't think. Right. So maybe she was very, very poor. Maybe she feels guilty spending money on something that she thinks she could just as well do herself. We have on open Amazon packages stacked up from, from impulse purchases that she buys.

I wish she felt guilty about spending money. money no it's not about spending the money it's i'm telling you it's about not doing it herself anyway it's it's you know it's just added to the interesting parts of human nature so perriel you didn't say much and i kind of you know said a pointed comment about you feeling the pinch of child rearing a child more than any of us. And well, I didn't say much because last time I said something, you said I wasn't doing that much production anymore, which is patently false. All right. All right. All right. But, but anyway, but, but I mean, I mean, your son's too young. He probably, he won't listen to this podcast. Well, I mean, I, that I did hear that you said that. And I actually I don't quite agree with how you phrased it. What I mean, I sort of was never really very interested in doing

either one of those things. And then I, I always wanted to be a writer and work in comedy. And my second book came out and was published. And I was nine months pregnant when it came out and I hadn't been planning on getting pregnant. I mean, I guess I should have been a little bit, um, I mean, it's not like I didn't know how it worked. Um, but I wasn't anticipating being nine months pregnant when my book came out and I'd spent, you know, obviously, uh, you know, several years working on it, et cetera, et cetera. And I had a really difficult pregnancy and a really difficult postpartum.

And it really threw me off course. And I think it really, it took me about probably three years to, and maybe four years, if you include the year more or less that I was pregnant, which was really, really difficult to become like, you know, sort of a human again. And I think, can I interrupt you? Cause just to, to go back to the, but when you, when you found out you were pregnant at that point, I'm presuming you at that point, he said, I want to have the baby. Like at some point, like you're, you're, you're, you, we talk about abortion all the time.

It doesn't seem like you'd be against having had an abortion. If you didn't want to have the child, I feel like you may have so many already. No, I'm just kidding. No, I, I mean, first, no, I was not, I wasn't thinking about having an abortion, but I was, I was, it was. Because you were getting, because of the abortion or because you decided, I guess I kind of do want to have a child. Because we wanted to have a baby or we had decided, I just didn't think,

I thought it would take me a year to get pregnant. I didn't think I was going to get pregnant the first time, you know, we had sex. Oh, so you did try to have a baby. Well, yes, but again, That was obscured. Sorry. I was, I was older. I mean, I was 37 years old and I thought all my friends were like, well, if you're going to, you know, try to get pregnant,

you better start now because it's going to take forever. So, but you know, I think the point is, is that your life changed significantly less than my life did oh please absolutely not wait wait wait wait you and you're you know an incredibly present and wonderful father i'm not saying anything about that but you um you know i really couldn't do anything for about three years and and it it's I wouldn't change it I my son is you know my favorite person on the planet um and I think what Noam said is true like I triggered things in me that I as a mother that like I never in my life even imagined um but it was it's I don't know, it's really different to become a mom. I think when you have especially when you'd never fantasized about becoming a mom, like I thought I

was going to have this kid and just get back to, you know, trying to write books. And by the way, I will I just do want to agree with you that Noam is a very present father, so much so that he is ignoring the needs of the comedians with regard to the menu. Now, I am happy to report that there is a minestrone soup available as a special. So I'm glad that Noam is finally getting around to um concentrating on the menu wait a second there's also new hummus and falafel balls that are so perry would this be accurate if someone asked you about whether childbirth having children made you happy or you would say it makes me less happy but I wouldn't trade it for the world no I wouldn't say that you wouldn't say no I would not say that I would say would say that it did make me more happy.

Oh, okay. Also, don't you think, I mean, there's a huge difference becoming a parent for a man versus a woman. You just described mood changes and hormonal changes and physical changes. I mean, now I've just got to sit there and there's my kid. That's what I'm trying to say, though, is that it's very, very different to become a mother than it is to become

a father sure especially i mean some women a lot of women i think like that's i have a lot of girlfriends that all they ever wanted to do was have a bunch of kids right well some fathers aren't as present as other fathers no one's a very good uh no one was quite present as i said to the detriment of the menu sometimes but um but we do have a minestrone soup that I'm looking forward to. It's a Moroccan minestrone and I'm told it's very good. But I'm sorry to interrupt you. I have to go because I have to go around the corner of the village underground and host. OK, you can go. We don't need an excuse. It's OK. It's fine.

Go good. Yeah. No, I really wasn't for you. It was more for Paul Bloom because I think Paul's a lovely fellow. And I actually think Paul, you're a lovely fellow. And I actually think. But Paul, you're going to be in Aruba next month. Ray's going to be in Aruba next month. Ray knows that island like the back of his hand. I really think you'd do well to, to, to hook up with him. Even though Ray and I have some, some obviously unresolved conflict.

He's, he's extremely gracious host in Aruba, and you would be very smart to take him up on his offer to show you a little bit around the town. I would love that. Thank you, Norm. Happy to do it, Paul. Great to meet you. Nice to be on here.

Everybody, again, check out comedycloud.co if you'd like to do a private event for your company or a holiday event, and arubacomedy.com for all your perry i will give you paul's email so that you can sure i happen to do it with paul's permission let's meet you paul good to see you nom perry l dan with paul's by right well we're we're we're about uh wrapped up here as well um um i don't know paul you have any have any comments do you would you write about other things besides these kind of like psychological things? You write about politics at all? What else are you into? No, my book before was about empathy. It was called Against Empathy. It was arguing about moral decision making and how we tell right from wrong.

I know that book. I didn't realize you had written that book. That was a very influential book. It got me into a fair amount of trouble. It was fun. I think, I think some of the arguments held up. My friend Coleman, our friend who sees his name seems to come up. Coleman Hughes talks about that book. What's the name of the book? It's called Against Empathy. Why did it get you in trouble? I think because people just quickly read the title and thought I was some sort of psychopath. What's the subtitle? There's always a subtitle.

Exactly. Thank you for asking. The subtitle is The Case for Rational Compassion. So plainly, you read the subtitle and say, oh, there's something going on. There's a distinction between empathy, putting yourself in another person's shoes, feeling their pain, and compassion. I wonder what that distinction is and so on. And that's what the book is about but some of these people just read the title

yeah people need to um try to operate on principle because i mean this is maybe not what you're with but empathy is such a dangerous and unpredictable and you know really comes and another way when i hear empathy in other words words, another way I see it is I will. It comes down to whose ox is gored. That's that's really what happens. And it's very disturbing to see why people are so oblivious to that. We feel empathy for people who look like us, for people who speak our language, people who don't threaten us. And an empathy sometimes makes us narrow minded, narrow focused and kind of mean. And when we when we take a broader,

more principled view, that means we're using other parts of our moral psyche. And that's the sort of case I make. And there's a humility in acting on principle, despite the fact that your emotional side is telling you otherwise. And the humility is that you realize that I'm very fallible. I'm very prone to these misjudgments because of my emotions and principles. The only thing I can really rely on to steer me right. And in, in retrospect principle, you know, nine times out of 10 is, is, is the best thing people, people who stuck to principle didn't live to regret it too often if i could have a billboard this is one thing it would say don't listen to your heart yeah i mean our gut

feelings often often they feel right they feel we're confident often they're bigoted and narrow minded narrow focus and we do our best when we sort of say well i have a gut feeling here but let's just step back and apply principle and other things. I must say that I'm shocked that Noam went an hour without mentioning a word that he coined, which I think has a lot of relevance to this discussion. The word being indignagasm. Noam, how'd you go an hour without mentioning that? I haven't mentioned that in years, Dan. That's great, because you immediately know what it means.

I haven't spoken about an indignagasm in at least four years has it been that long but yeah yeah yeah no people like being angry people's people so that sort of plays into you know your idea of people seeking out suffering in some way there's a pleasure into certain bad feelings into anger being anger angry being indignant um being wounded you could something savored a feeling of being wounded and you know some of it's healthy some of it's not all right well this is this is the most fascinating stuff right this is so interesting uh yeah we we uh we if you ever get to New York, please join us at the Comedy Cellar. So you know who Coleman is, right? Oh, yeah.

Yeah. I see him on Twitter. I've heard him talk to Sam Harris and other people. So he's also a great trombone player. And he and I have a band with a few other people that we play every Monday night in the Olive Tree above the Comedy Cellar. And it's pretty fun. All right. Well, it's been a pleasure to meet you. I'm happy you enjoyed it. And that guy, Ray Allen, you know,

I got to apologize for him, but he's, he, he resents me. I won't, I won't bore you with it, but let the listeners know he's, he's not correct about his, he has no reason to resent me if he i i you know all right i'm gonna shut up we have another show show and really air this yeah we should have another show where we really debated because i really want to cut loose on and rail and as dan knows i'm holding a few aces in the hole meaning things that i've never said out loud which he doesn't know i know about but, but he might drive me to it. All right. Paul, we might have to have you sit in on that one, too. I'm not that kind of psychologist. Just to say, I think rape played an integral role in getting

the Comedy Cellar TV show on the air, and I've said that before. Paul Bloom, thank you. Thank you. Where can people find your book? I guess Amazon. I'm on Twitter at Paul Bloom at Yale. And I have a website, just just Amazon. Yeah, but you live in Toronto. I do. I'm also a emeritus professor. Yeah, I worked up I worked there until like three months ago. So emeritus just means you don't do nothing. Exactly. Exactly. And I'm old. I want to tell you guys something. Paul, you might find this interesting or you could you could leave if you have to go. But there is there is a certain type of person. Oh, God, that. No, no. This is really true. I've noticed this and I think it'll ring true with other people. There's a certain type of person who feels that they're owed something in

some way, when they have any impact on something that happened favorable for them. So like people, if, if somebody introduces somebody to somebody, if any, well, you know, I was the one who introduced you, maybe even, and people will sometimes even sue. I should have gotten a fee or whatever it is. And I think that's what we're talking about here and i think this is talking about ray again well it's a reminder so

you know i had i had the idea for the tv show totally as a matter of fact and i and ray and by the way there were other people who were interested in the show ray knows this someone even overheard me i had producers from other networks calling me interested in the show, but Ray introduced me to this one guy, Michael Hirshhorn, who actually I went with, who put the show on the air. He introduced me. I've introduced people. I'm sure I could put a number of millions of dollars in my lifetime that came from various people who met through me or introduced me or whatever. It never even occurs to me like, because you introduce people. That's not, this is part of it. I think Ray's role was a bit bigger than that, but he's not here.

No, no, no, no, no. It was not bigger than that, Dan. No, it was not. Why don't we have him on if you want to have this out? Because I don't think it's fair because he's not here. And to this day, it irks him somehow. I mean, he let it out. I was the creator. I own the club and I made the big, I'm using scare quotes, the big money. I had the significant money

and I have no idea what he made, but he made less. And this is burning him up because I'm the one who introduced him and he made the money. And this is a way- I don't think he begrudges you the money. I think he wants you to acknowledge the role that he played, again he's not here but i'm just this is a formula

for misery in your life you cannot pettiness all right highly associated with misery in my opinion okay so that's that i'm happy to tell you this i'm happy to have said that when ray's not here to defend himself go ahead i want to tell you this i am am the biggest night owl. I, my favorite thing to do before I had a kid or stay up late and drink coffee and smoke cigarettes and write. And I, one of, I hate the morning. I hate getting up in the morning. One of my favorite things in the world to do is to take my second grader to school every morning. It is one of the greatest joys of my life. So, you know, but it's hard. I think that that's really, you know,

what we're talking about here is that, and back to what you said about, you know, I don't think the crimp or the cringe is accurate at all because it's difficult to be um a present good patient thought period i i only meant and then we really don't go when i said crimp and i think crimp is the right word what you have to deal with that i don't is that in some way there was a trade-off in your life for having a child. There are certain things that you may not accomplish or you can't devote the time, whatever. There's a trade-off that you're

experiencing. I experienced no trade-off really. I mean, I had to stop hanging out, you know, trying to pick up girls, but I was getting too old for that. I was getting too old for that. So I really didn't experience any trade-off and that's all I meant by, and that's a crimp, you know? So that's all I meant by that. So- I gotta say, can I just jump into one thing? Which is, about the topic. I have a friend, the philosopher, Laurie Paul, who would be great for you guys to talk with.

And she talks about transformative experiences. And a transformative experience is an experience that is a big, significant one. And it will change the kind of person you are. And from where you are now, you can't anticipate how the world will be different for you. And having a kid, particularly for a woman, but I think for all of us is a transformative experience where you become a different person, you have different priorities. And so and that makes it very hard to kind of reason about it and figure out what's best and so on. Nicole, does this episode make you want to have kids more or less or the same?

She's our sound guy. OK, that's our that. Nicole, she does the production of the sound. Thank you, Paul. I guess we're all done. We're done. I think, Paul, you might be you're probably a little surprised at the intellectual weight of the discussion, given that we're comedy folk. No, this is great with him. We talked before. I promised him that both of you were probably a little surprised at the intellectual weight of the discussion given that we're comedy folk no this is great with him we talked before i promised him that both of you

were smart my book iris spiro before covet a novel available on amazon if you can only buy one book mine or paul's unfortunately it's got to be mine what about mine and you you you can you and paul are you know whatever but but you have a book on my knees and the only bush I trust is my own. These are memoirs. They are available as well on Amazon. So go to Amazon, buy Peril's book, my book and Paul's book. But again, if you have to choose one, the choice is clear. Oh, Paul, did you ever read you? If you hadn't, this would be interesting to you, but maybe you have George will.

The great intellectual. Yeah. He wrote two columns at various times. They were separated by a number of years about the gratification and fulfillment and love that he got from his son with Down syndrome. I read them when they came out. And those were extremely moving to me. And I think in those columns is some insight into what we're talking. So anyway, people at home, you should Google George Will's columns about his son with Down syndrome.

Iris Spiro before COVID on Amazon. The sweet spot. All right. Good night, everybody. Thank you. Thank you for having me on. Bye.