The Downside with Gianmarco Soresi - #153 North Korea Tours with Jordan Harbinger

Episode Date: August 8, 2023

Jordan Harbinger (The Jordan Harbinger Show Podcast) shares the downsides of running a tour company that took foreigners to North Korea, the dos and don’ts of being a tourist in North Korea, and why YouTube clicks are a danger to society. You can watch full video of this episode HERE! Join the Patreon for ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and MORE. Follow Jordan on Instagram, Twitter, & YouTube Listen to The Jordan Harbinger Show Podcast wherever you get your podcasts! Get tickets to our live podcast recording in NYC on September 11 here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-downside-with-gianmarco-soresi-live-podcast-recording-tickets-676154224487 Follow Gianmarco Soresi on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, & YouTube Subscribe to Gianmarco Soresi's email & texting lists Check out Gianmarco Soresi's bi-monthly show in NYC Get tickets to see Gianmarco Soresi in a city near you Watch Gianmarco Soresi's special "Shelf Life" on Amazon Follow Russell Daniels on Twitter & Instagram See Russell in Titanique in NYC! E-mail the show at [e-mail] Produced by Paige Asachika & Gianmarco Soresi Video edited by Dave Columbo Special Thanks Tovah Silbermann Original music by Douglas Goodhart Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by A Real Pain. From Searchlight Pictures comes one of the buzziest films at Sundance Film Festival, A Real Pain. Written, directed, and starring Oscar nominee Jesse Eisenberg alongside Emmy Award winner Kieran Culkin. Witness a hilarious and moving story about two mismatched cousins as they tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the pair's old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history. See A Real Pain only in theaters November 15th. It's good this is only a podcast

studio now because I feel like if you brought a woman back here with the cameras. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh no, these are for my podcast. Yeah, no, it's cool. I just like multiple angles for podcasting purposes only. And also he leaves them on, because I got here earlier,

and so there was just on, not recorded. I honestly think a woman would be more horrified to know that I had a podcast to begin with, let alone the equipment being here. Also these pictures. I was down with you videotaping me without my permission in all circumstances, but the fact that you have a podcast, I'm just going to say it was nice meeting you. Welcome to The Downside. My name is Jamarcus Araizi. I'm here with my co-host, Russell Daniels.

How are you? I'm good. How are you? You're good. Good. We're here joined by a famous podcaster. Legendary. He's an oxymoron, but yeah. And many other things that we're going to get into. Please welcome to the show Jordan Harbinger. Thanks for having me.

Oh, I'm muted. Oh, wait. No, I'm not. I just muted. I think there might be a loose cable. Really? Is that a thing? No, I hear you.

I see it here. I hear you. Can you turn my headphones down a little bit, though? Turn them down. Super loud, yeah. When you got a major pod got a A major podcaster They got Notes on the box

Notes on the box Notes on the box I will stop doing that This is a new box Cause the other one I like that Colored buttons man are Yeah

I hate being my own producer In this sense I have a producer But not a technical producer Gotta gotta yeah And I don't You You're a man

You learn how things work I Just slam my head Against the wall Until it records It's not that hard to produce a podcast As evidenced by most of the podcasts that exist Yes

We're very excited to have you I listened to an episode that you had About interviewing people And like It made me go Oh shit I better bring my A game. For a comedy podcast, I do more research than anybody. For a real podcast, it's fine. Yeah, but you know what?

You're already in the top percentile because nobody, most people don't research the guests they even have on the show. And I'm talking about real journalists, too. They just don't have time. Sure. Slash are lazy. I can't even imagine not doing any kind of research. I mean, I don't

know what it's like for you, Russell, showing up every day. Tell us what it's like. As the sidekick, I have very little pressure. So, for those tuning in just now, many new listeners possibly, this is a place where we talk with our guests. we let things get

negative we let people complain they can kvetch they can bitch they can moan they don't have to pretend things are nice they don't have to pretend that like i got the room cold enough it's still a little warm they don't have to pretend thank you i appreciate it but that's not what this podcast is it's bad fuck it so uh uh thank you for for joining us um i i i someone messaged me on Instagram and they said your pedophile joke has been featured once again I've written so many jokes that pedophile joke that's just

the one I'll forever be known for people come up to me and they say are you the pedophile guy I go you can just say pedophile that's fine it's just one of those jokes and you played it guy. I go, you can just say pedophile. That's fine. It's just one of those jokes. And you played it on an episode of an intense episode.

This episode was about a hacker that targets pedophiles or he-bophiles, as I've come to learn, might also be included in there. Or he-bophiles. He basically found some pedo message board where they trade child sexual abuse material. And he was like, I'm going to expose all the users to this thing,

because some of them use their real IP address and their real Gmail. And he found that some people were politicians and local folks in the community or like teachers or whatever. And he went after them and showed the FBI. First of all, like no one believed him slash cared and news outlets were like, Oh, we don't want to get sued for doxing people.

And then he went on a couple of podcasts, mine and another couple of YouTube ones. And then it was like, Oh, we can't ignore this anymore. And it was such a heavy duty, intense show. The guy's name is Ryan Montgomery.

It was such a heavy duty, intense show that I was like, I'm going to lighten it up at the end. And that's when I stole your intellectual property without permission. Uh-huh, uh-huh. And that's why we got you here. So I won't sue. That was the terms of this podcast. I know it was a very—let me go right out the gate. I listened to the whole episode.

It's a two-parter. Yeah. Are you a religious guy? I'm not. You could tell the hacker kind of was. Well, that's so, he kept saying throughout this podcast, this is a guy who sees some of the worst humanity has to offer. And like still, he would say multiple times, he's like, well, this is God's plan for me. And I think there's that thing in there where I'm like, how?

How do you square these two things? I stub my toe. I go, how could God exist when my toe is in this much pain? And this guy, you know, it's just very interesting to me that he's the whole ton of that faith. I did notice, I have noticed that a lot of people who've been through really bad shit do sometimes turn to faith. I don't think he grew up

that way, though. I don't know how much we got into this on the podcast or how much is from my research. That happens, I guess, too. But I know he had addiction stuff going on in his family and stuff. So I don't think he grew up in the community, but I think he had no structure in

life. And I think a lot of people who grow up with terrible slash no structure use a. And I think a lot of people who will grow up with terrible slash no structure. Yeah. This is me. Use a little bit of the, of the Jesus. Here's looking at you.

I was, I was hoping, Oh, what's his name? C.S. Lewis. I think C.S. Lewis,

or am I thinking, I might be thinking of, uh, Francis Ellis, you know, Francis Ellis, he was the head of the NIH for a long time. He's like a,

a, a biologist and all these things. But he was walking through the woods some day, and he was an atheist. And then he passed three streams, and it was the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost, and he became Christian. And it just boggles my mind. You want that? Sure, if it was real.

If it's real, I want it. But if it's not, then it's real, I want it. If it's not, then I don't... Yeah, then it's bad if you experience it because you're having an illusion. Because there's a mental break happening, yeah. Yeah, because again, if you walk through the stream... How would you know the difference? Maybe.

Sure. But if I walk through a stream, I could see seeing the stream and you're like, oh, consciousness is all over. But to go from nothing to there's Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost in this Bible. I'd be very sure of it, yeah.

Yeah. You wouldn't. It freaks me out. What if this became a Christian podcast? It freaks you out. It would be a relief to feel that for once. I don't know if I would be relieved. I think it would change your whole existence and how you viewed things.

Certainty would just be such a relief there, don't you think? I don't know, no. I don't love certainty sometimes. Really? You're scared of death? I am, but I don't think certainty would help me not be scared of death. Sure. I don't know, maybe. Maybe. I can't say. Because, again, it would be a horrible person. Because you're uncertain?

You're uncertain of you? Yeah. You're sure my tracks go... Yeah, I see it. No, I appreciate it. Because you guys are loud and I'm not that loud. I'll turn you up. Maybe I tracks go... Yeah, I see it. It's all right. No, I appreciate it. Because you guys are loud, and I'm not that loud. I'll turn you up. Maybe I just need... Yeah, maybe I just crave hearing my own voice. Sure, sure.

There we go. That's a little better. Now I feel better about this. Yes, we're close talkers. We are. I'm like... Yeah, I know. So I...

Fuck. I stole your joke. I just think... I just think... Yes, fuck. I stole your joke is where we left off. Yes, yes. I just think, as a Westerner, if I suddenly believed in, like, what happened to be the most common religion in my country, I'd be skeptical of that right then and there. That's a really good point, because most people fall into something that's really obvious. really good point because most people fall into something that's really

obvious. And only absolutely crazy people that we would write off immediately have something actually unique that they believe in. Now that I think about it, you're screwed either way. But if you came to me and said, I'm Christian, I'd be like, what the fuck? If you came to me and said, I'm Muslim, I'd be like, interesting.

Yeah. Interesting. You'd be more open to it. Maybe that's why. Yeah. What if I said I was Jewish? I I think you're doing it for the show Biz Connections Listen Am I allowed to say that? Yeah you can

Yeah We're not going to have Kanye on So Let me just play the music This is The Downside One Two Three

Downside Downside You're listening three. Downside. You're listening to The Downside. The Downside. With Gianmarco Cerezi. Well, Jordan, I feel like this podcast, you're right for this because you have, on your show, you have Skeptical Sunday. Is that what you call it? I do, yeah. On Sundays.

And it's just like it is similar to one of... You do a whole episode of a segment, This Has Gotta Stop. I listened to the one on tipping. Oh, yeah. Which was a very good one. I had no idea that tipping in America was kind of an extension of post-slavery. Yeah, I didn't know that either. I was like, wait, tipping

is rooted in racism? I mean, everything we do. Kind of not surprising surprising but also surprising it was a way it was a way to like not pay but still like that's why it's so prolific in america particularly yeah um but enough about tipping let's talk about you sure i have to ask right out the gate that you used to give tours to north korea yeah that's okay that came out i was like what is coming next yeah i used to so a long time ago 2010 or so my friend goes i'm going to north korea and i was like i can't go i'll go next time he's like this is north korea there's not gonna be

like a next time that i go yeah there's the last time you go to North Korea. Typically. But even before we get there, are you a wild and crazy guy? I was, yeah. I know I have two kids, so the wildest thing I do is stay up past 11 p.m. Or have a drink at any time. But have you traveled to places before that are... Yeah, I mean, I went to Bosnia. I've gone to a lot of, yeah, but North Korea, I would say, is probably the

sketchiest place. I'm not going to think of other sketchy places that I've been to, but nothing approaches North Korea. You know, I walked through Albania, Kosovo, and stuff like that when I was younger. Is this when you were in college, you went to North Korea? Did your friend ask you? It was law school. Law school, okay. It was probably after law school, like right after law school.

So your friend says to you, hey, you want to go to North Korea? You're like, ah, next time. I'm like, next time. And he's like, dude, that makes absolutely no sense. You've been talking about it for a long time because him and I were discussing it, but it was illegal for us to go as Americans. Or either they weren't letting us in or the United States wasn't letting us go on our passports. I can't remember what the deal was, but we couldn't go. I think it was North Korea didn't want us there.

Sure. And then, surprise, surprise. And then he's like, all right, let's go. I was like, fine, I'll go. So I go. And I talked about it on Facebook at the time. And then people were like, holy shit, you went to North Korea. I want to go.

So then I said, all right. Well, tell me about this trip. How do you get to North Korea? How did you get it? Yeah. So you can't fly there directly, obviously. You can't fly there from South Korea. I'd be looking at Delta like for LaGuardia to Pyongyang.

Yeah. You go to Beijing. And then in order to get a visa, you need to go through the visa process, which is you go to a bar. And these North Korean dudes in, like in really cheap-ass communist suits show up there and you hand them 50 bucks per person. You buy them a bunch of booze and you have a very

pro-forma chat and then they take the envelope full of money and they give you these tissue-papery visas and a printout and that's your visa to get in the country. What is China's view on this? Is China just like, what?

Chinese citizens can go to North Korea by just, I don't even know if they need a visa. Really? I think they can just go. So what does your visa say? You have a Chinese passport, or what is it? Oh, no. Instead of stamping your passport as an American, they just give you this document that basically says, I paid a bribe to a North Korean

guy in Beijing. And you show up at the airport and they're like, oh, alright. And they don't stamp your passport because the United States, they know is going to be a problem. And you can get your passport stamped if you have say you're like dual Iranian American. They'll stamp your passport if you want them to

but I don't think they'll stamp your U.S. passport. They just give you this cheap paper. But it's all understood that this is kind of a bribery. Yeah. They're not like, oh, you have official documents. I think it's kind of like, I think they're official documents, but I don't think they're like, oh, yeah, this came through the appropriate channels. I think they're like, yeah, you went to the embassy and got this. But the whole place runs on corruption.

So I don't think... There's no danger that you bribed your way in getting the visa. The danger is the fact that you went to North Korea in the first place. So is it a major regular airline? No. So it's not like... No, it's not a regular airline.

Air Koryo is the North Korean airline. And the planes are these old Soviet jetliners. Oh, my God. So they're in pretty good condition, I mean, from the outside. And the inside looks, like, nicely upholstered. It doesn't look like, holy crap, this thing is going to fall out of the sky. But you used to be able to smoke on the flight.

Not that I took advantage of that. The food was really bad. Even for airline food bad. Well, what could it be? It was like a burger that was wrapped in plastic that tasted like the meat was probably not actually fit for human consumption. And you're like, what was that?

Was that paper that looked like meat? How long is the flight? You said from where did you leave from? Beijing to Pyongyang. I don't remember how long it was. It's not that long. It's probably like three or four hours at the most. Are you going into a regular airport? Are you going to an airfield? Oh, yeah.

So when you land, you go to a massive airport with no other planes, at least when I went there the four times I went there, no other planes on the tarmac at all. And when you land, the first thing that strikes you is the buildings look really old and communist, as you might imagine. Describe to me what communist means when you say that. Everything is prefabricated or colorless. There's no branding on anything. There's no real...

You know, in an airport, they try to make it look modern and nice. Communist architecture is almost designed to look imposing and authoritarian because that's how the government was run. It's like Stalin shit. And when you show up, the airport has a massive, and I'm talking like two or three story high picture of

the leader of North Korea or the leader and the leader's son and then another leader's son now. Is this when, who was alive still? It was Kim Jong-il was when I first went. And the first leader was Kim Il-sung, then it was Kim Jong-il. That's the guy who has all the weird dictator stories. And the new guy who's been around for, I don't know, what is it, like a decade almost now

is Kim Jong-un. And his photo was not up when I went there. It was just Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il. I think it's maybe a little bit like the monuments are usually not including the guy who's alive, but the pictures usually have the guy who's alive, so Kim Jong-un. But the monuments are all like the

father and the grandfather. How much research did you do before this first trip? Because you're talking to two guys. I can't get this guy to go to Pennsylvania. Or even Canada. I'm just saying we like, we would never. Oh, we would never. Is it worse now than it was then?

Was there more tension or less tension? There was way less tension. Okay. There was no, they hadn't killed that poor 20-year-old kid. Otto Warmbier. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That had never, nothing like that had ever happened there. Yeah.

But it was still illegal to travel. I don't think it was illegal. I think it was just like, hey, shouldn't go there. Not a good place. And the North Koreans were like,

we want tourists, so come on in. Yeah. Yeah. So you landed? Yeah. Oh, go. No, no.

So you, where did you stay? Marriott? Yeah, there's no, no. So where do you stay? Marriott? Yeah, there's no chains. There's no banks that you can use. There's no internet. What's the name of the money they use? They use won.

Okay. But it's North Korean won. They use the same thing in South Korea, but they don't use the North Korean version. So it's completely worthless outside of the country, obviously. And it's mostly worthless inside the country because nobody wants it. And there's nothing to buy. country, obviously, and it's mostly worth this inside the country because nobody wants it and there's nothing to buy. So even the stores inside the country that you go, that you walk by, if you're walking, they're closed and they all have the same products on the shelf. This is very sort

of like communist lack of everything. You'll walk past like five stores. They'll have these big windows. The windows are relatively dirty because nobody goes in the store and the store is closed. The power is off. And there'll be like a bottle of sake or soju or whatever. It's, you know, some kind of rice wine or some product. And it's pushed all the way to the front of the shelf right next to the window. And if you sort of look carefully, there's nothing behind it because they only have the one that's next to the shelf. Sorry, next to the window that's on the shelf because they just don't have anything else and you also i haven't done this

experiment but my bet is that the bottle is also empty and pushed up there so that it looks like the store has something even though the door's locked the power's off there's probably nobody there what's the purpose of this fakery this is so that when people walk by they have an illusion that there's a store or when they drive by they have an illusion that there's a store. Or when they drive by, they have an illusion that there's something there. Because occasionally you'll go to a bookstore. It's all planned. The tour guide will knock on the door. Someone will come to the door, turn all of the lights on. They look half asleep half the time because they probably woke up for this appointment for people to come in. And then you're in a bookstore and every single book is by Kim Il-sung. That's it.

There aren't books by other people in the bookstore. And that's all they sell. What kind of book? Romance novels or just history? There's operas, history, engineering, any kind. They're all textbook-looking things, and they're only by the leader. They're clearly not only actually by this guy at all. But you can't give

somebody else credit for being a thought leader in the country because they don't want that. So the guy was an expert at construction, an expert at opera, an expert at music, an expert at geology, an expert at rockets, an expert at space exploration. And then they'll sell stamps that are very propaganda-y, like most stamps are in any country. And then they'll sell propaganda posters that are all hand-painted. They don't have like a, maybe they do, but they don't use a printing machine. It's like you'll get a World Cup poster

or a we're launching missiles poster and it's all just hand-painted with like these dry paints. Speaking of stamps, I do feel like as I get older, I start to, you start to think about all the ways that you do have propaganda too and

i mean i do want to get into just like north korea has become especially with that with that woman who went on joe rogan and like shares her stories about park yeah i feel like there's a lot of like american just like pretending like we don't have a lot of similarities for sure yeah with like and again i don't know but so okay so you so there's like a very strict tour that you're going on yeah you can't just if you're an American or a Westerner I think if you're from Iran you might have a little more

freedom if you're from I don't know if certain countries I'm sure you have more freedom than you do if you're a Westerner if you're a Westerner you have a guide the guides with you at all times your hotel is on an island. You can't leave the hotel. I mean, you can go around the outside,

but you can't leave the island the hotel's on without the guide. You can't go in and out of stores. There's not, like, restaurants you can go check out at night or anything like that. Everything's preplanned. You can't do anything spontaneous. It's very, very controlled. And they're doing this.

They're getting some good income out of this? Yeah, they get your tour fee, but it's really not that expensive to go there for like a week. I mean, you're talking a couple thousand bucks, all inclusive. But what are you doing there for a week? Yeah, you can't just see shit they want you to see. It's just them showing you stuff they want you to see.

And some of it's patently ridiculous. Like, you go to an ostrich farm and you're like, hey, can we skip that? And they're like, no, it's important. And you're like, really, though? Because it's an ostrich farm. That's so funny because we went to Aruba recently. My girlfriend and I, the first thing I wanted to see was the emu.

Oh, okay. The emu. And they had an ostrich. But that's my jam. I mean, it's kind of interesting because there are ostriches there. But it's not so interesting that you have to see it three or four times, which I have. Oh, sure. Oh, I see.

Every time you go, they're like, and you're like, we saw the ostriches. Yeah, it's not optional. And then you'll go to something called the train museum, and you're like, oh, this is going to be so annoying. It's a train museum. And frankly, the train museum is one of my favorite things because not only does it have almost nothing to do with trains, but communists, they love trains. Dictators in general love trains because they're often afraid of air travel. Why? Because it's probably vulnerable.

For one thing, they can't get parts to maintain their aircraft fleet very well. But also, I would imagine it's really easy to take out a dictator when he's in the air and you could threaten to not let him land. Interesting. So they often travel by train. Putin does this. Kim Jong-un probably does this. I know Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il do this. And their train cars are ridiculous.

They're like bulletproof. There's a beauty salon in there. There's bunks and all these communications things. And it's got the armament car with all these guns in it. And what was really funny is they'll show you, like, Kim Jong-il's train car, the one where his office is. And I remember going, oh, that's interesting. This is the desk where he just does whatever.

And they're like, yeah, it has a satellite phone and a computer. And I'm like, this guy's using a MacBook Pro. Kim Jong-il is, like, making all the – he's probably got, like like a Google Docs spreadsheet of all of his fricking death camps or whatever on a MacBook Pro. And somehow he gets spare power, like some schleppy North Korean guy's job

is to go to Beijing on trips and be like, so he dropped it again and get him a new one. And then he's got a sat phone because there's no internet. There's no cell phones in the country, really. At that time, there weren't. There's like mobile phones now, but it sucks. And food, what are you doing? You said the burger was no good on the way there.

Was there any good meals? There's good food for people that can get the good food. So if you're an elite, you can go to a restaurant and get decent food. But for tourists, I remember the guides would always eat better looking stuff, spicier stuff. And I'd say, can I try that? And they would go, I'm sorry, that's not suitable for the foreign palate. And I'm like, but this food really sucks. They're eating something that looks pretty good.

Can we try that? And they would be like, I'm sorry, it's not suitable for Westerners. And they're eating kimchi and Korean food, which they must assume that we have just never seen in our lives, which is funny coming from New York or Los Angeles, where you can get Korean food every day and not eat the same thing for a month. And was there no option to be like, if you had a lot of money at the time, could you be like, I'd like the nice trip? Is there one standard trip?

It's pretty much one standard trip. I heard the difference is if you want to go on a culinary tour, they'll arrange that, but you have to plan that. You can't just show up and be like, I want to do a culinary tour. They have to go and buy all the ingredients and set up the chefs and turn the electricity, literally the electricity on, in the

restaurants where you're going. Because there's nothing to do. Even in the capital city, there's not much for foreign people to go and do. Or probably for anybody to really go and do at night. There's certain stuff for elite party officials. They don't want freaking random people like me there. And then for the

commoner who's just working all the time, they don't have disposable income. There's nothing for you to do. So it's very limited in what exists. You can't just go drink fine Japanese whiskey because they look at the Japanese like Nazis. Sure. So they just don't really have a lot of that stuff available at all.

Do you get a sense of people there that they all look miserable to be there? Or like what? Some, yeah. And the more rural you get, the worse it is. The people in rural areas really look exhausted, like falling asleep, standing up tired, except for the ones that are there for the tour. So you'll go see a factory or something, and it's clear that the factory is either not doing anything and people are pretending to work in it, or they're doing something in it, but the uniform is pressed and clean. And then when you look over the railing at the people downstairs, they're very dirty and very tired and very haggard looking.

And you're like, but why is this person who's wearing makeup? They hire actors for that one part of the tour. It's either an actor or it's a person who works there and they're like, look, tourists are going to see you tomorrow, so don't freaking look disgusting. Get out the good new uniform that you're never really normally allowed to wear and put that on and then put it back in the closet when they leave or whatever i don't really know how they set it all up and in your mind did they give a speech before because i think the thing with otto warmbier was that they

they alleged that he took a sign yeah he took a sign propaganda so normally yeah you do an orientation and i've done the same orientation where you're like, Hey, don't argue political beliefs. There are no politics in North Korea. They don't want to discuss it. They don't want to hear your opinion about your country or about their country. They don't want you to ask for their opinion about their country. They don't have an opinion. Having an opinion in a place like that is a great way to get killed and or

arrested. Don't make jokes about the leadership. It's not funny. It's like making a joke about somebody's religion when they're a fundamentalist. It's not, not going to land no matter how well you think you're going to deliver it. Don't push the boundaries. Don't bring in certain things. Don't, you know, fold magazines.

Like they're very even talk to your friend. Like if Russ was there with me, I could see going to that bookstore and be like, he wrote all of these. Yeah. Or were you like, you're like, not even that. You can say that to each other. Cause it's not like they're like, I heard that. You know, they don't do that.

But you wouldn't want to go to the person working there and be like, look, I'm taking the leader's photo and I'm putting it on my balls. Like, you don't want to do anything like that because they'll be like. That's why I'm never going with you. That's for sure. There's, I, to give you an example of how strict they are about this kind of thing. I had a magazine that I took from InFlight, and it's like a propaganda magazine. The articles are like, Kim Jong-un declares decade of prosperity. And there's like a paragraph about how he

stood up somewhere and was like, this is going to be the decade of prosperity. And then everyone clapped. Those are the articles that are in this thing. It'll be a photo of him on the front. So I took this magazine, which sometimes you're allowed to keep it, and sometimes they decide that you're not because they don't know the rules. There's, if you ask the rule, the answer is no. But if you don't ask, then it's probably fine. That's how it is in all these kinds of places, but especially

North Korea. So I take the magazine and I put it in my hotel room and it's fine. And the few days go by and they're, you know, they clean your room, they clean the stuff, they organize stuff. Well, I took some change that I had and I put it in an ashtray and I took the ashtray and I was moving stuff around and I put the ashtray on the magazine that had the photo. And when I came back to my room, the magazine was gone. The ashtray was down where I had left it. And the changes all stacked neatly according to the size of the coin. So they definitely found it, organized it for me. And we're like, you can't have this magazine in the room if you're going to put an ashtray over the face of the leader. And on the airplane home on one of the

trips, all the North Koreans sit in the back and all the tourists sit in the front. Doesn't matter what your seat says. They don't want you to sit next to a North Korean. It's just not a thing you're allowed to do. There was a seating issue, so I sat next to a North Korean. North Koreans who can fly to China are very, very, very privileged, and or they work for the state, probably both. So I'm sitting next to this kind of intimidating, scary-looking guy who's probably some kind of spy-ish character. You don't know what people do. They're not going to tell you.

The only people I talked to that were not north koreans and weren't tourists were arms dealers one guy literally told me he sells missiles and he'd just come from syria and he had a russian passport that was the other guy on the flight he was very talk i mean it's pretty talkative yeah i was sitting next to him and i was like oh where are you from are you north korean he's like no but i look asian and i said yeah you kind of do and he's like i'm russian and i said oh what are you doing in north korea and he's like i sell parts for machine parts and i was like oh what kind of machines and he's like, I'm Russian. And I said, oh, what are you doing in North Korea? And he's like, I sell parts for machine parts. And I was like, oh, what kind of machines? And he's like, rockets and things that fly.

And I was like, missile parts? Like, jokingly? And he's like, yes, and also machine parts. And I was thinking, this guy sells arms. Like, purely, definitely sells, like, gun parts or something. Oh, he's so open. Yeah. I mean, he was probably like, what are you going to do?

Tell anyone you want to tell, pal. I don't give a shit. You know? What am I going to do? We're flying back to Beijing from Pyongyang. Like, what are you going to do? Tell anyone you want to tell, pal. I don't give a shit. What am I going to do? We're flying back to Beijing from Pyongyang. What am I going to do? Was there anything there that was like, oh, that was fun.

That was a rollercoaster. Yeah, what made you want to then, you went there once, what made you want to bring other people? Yeah, I talked about it on my podcast a million years ago. This was like like 12 years ago 13 years ago now and uh i was related to podcasting and people were like whoa i want to go check that out that sounds really interesting so i filled another trip planned another trip then i posted about that trip on social media more people wanted

to go so i was just like you can't take pictures of any of this shit you you can you can yeah you can so what's interesting about north korea again, everything is always no until they like you and trust you a little bit. And the answer is maybe. And is it more about emotions than money? It sounds like they have to trust you as opposed to like, hey, I'll bring a tour guide. They'll pay 20 grand each. Is it not as much about that? It's more careful i think so for example

you're driving along and we're like oh there's tanks in the there's tanks driving around over there and so everyone goes to take a picture and they're like no pictures and you're like why it's like a soviet tank from 1968 there's nothing secret about this at all and then they're like no no photos and you go okay i respect that you don't want us to take photos who cares but some tourists will be like well fuck you i'm gonna take a photo and they'll do it and then they're like we want him to delete all the photos that are on his phone now or camera and it's like oh so there would be a we were on some tours where there were maybe multiple tour buses not all tours filled by me prime prime tourist season, which is like, you know, maybe 40 tourists in the country at the same time. And we'll come

back and we'll go, today was a weird day, hon. They're like, yeah, we couldn't take pictures. They wouldn't let us see the dam. We couldn't get to the, like the milk factory or whatever. And we're like, oh, we not only went to the dam, they let us take pictures of a bunch of stuff. And we went to the factory. And I remember asking my guide, how come we got to do all that stuff? And they didn't. And she would go, there's two people from Sweden in that group. And they won't listen when we say no pictures. So we just decided they can't do anything.

I think it's funny trying to leave a Yelp review for North Korea. Yeah. Being like, we didn't get to go to the milk factory. There was a very limited selection at the grocery store. We saw ostriches five times. What do you think then? there was a very limited selection at the grocery store. We saw ostriches five times. The, what makes you, what,

what do you think then? I mean, cause it, that sounds like very intense, but also like, there's like some, some like you do something and they're like, you can't do that.

And you're like, okay, what, how did this auto situation get so out of control, out of control? So he went with a company called young pioneer tours. They were not our tour partner called young pioneer tours they were not our tour partner for very long because they were and i liked some of the guys who ran it but it was

very disorganized and very like dude bro culture uh-huh and the one time i ran it toward them the guide showed up really late to the beijing hostel where we were all staying he didn't have time to do the orientation because he hadn't collected money from half the participants. So he needed to take them to an ATM to literally get paid for the trip beforehand. Because, again, there's no banks in North Korea that you can use for money. So he's like, oh, crap, I need to get people. So he's like, you guys are all, you'll be fine. So what I hypothesized happened, and I don't have any evidence for this,

but based on my experience with that same tour company before I chose a different partner for tours, they probably didn't run an orientation. They probably got super drunk every single night because that tour company was all about getting super fucking wasted all the time, which is common in North Korea. It's very common, actually. And I'm just thinking about my birthright trip. And it's just like, yeah, you're going to have young. Well, and you're kind of visiting. Sounds like boring things all day. You're like, OK, we're supposed to get drunk at night.

Pretty much. And you can't leave. It's not like you can leave the hotel. So there's a bowling alley with one lane of the basement. You can buy weird Korean dresses that have to be measured and tailored to you. So no one's doing that. There's a store that has stuff you would never buy, like deer antlers. And you're like, why would I buy that on a trip?

They're like, oh, it's medicine. You can grind it up. I'm like, but I'm on a trip. I'm not going to buy that. It's so weird. Or a bear claw. Yeah. Like a literal bear claw.

So you're just drinking. And you're doing karaoke. There's karaoke. And that's what everyone does is drink and do karaoke. But what's funny is they only have half of the binder the other half of the binder is just missing because like the dvd got lost 10 years ago so you can only start from m and go all the way through z in the song book and that's your those are your options do they pluck any songs out for being like yeah this is a little racy or a little sexy i don't't know. But I'm not actually sure about that.

I'm not sure. It's maybe. But it's probably a Chinese karaoke DVD from, like, 1995. And they just went, oh, we lost the other half of the DVD set. Here we are. When you started running a service, though, were you anxious at all about the kind of people that you took? Or you just take a young kid. I mean,

I'd be scared to go, you know, anyways, and I'd be listening, but you take someone young. Did you have, did you ever have any trips that were like a little bit, someone fucked up or you got a little bit nervous?

There was one guy who was real. He was a real asshole. Um, but he was a real ass. He, something was not right with him in the head. And I, I hate to say this cause I don't know what it was, but he couldn't react to social situations at all.

And so he would wear like a Japanese flag t-shirt, which to them is like wearing a swastika, right? Oh my God. That's so stressful. It was really bad. And so they'd be like, can you tell Kevin to change his shirt? And we'd go, hey, Kevin, yo, you got to change your shirt. You know, they had this whole war thing with Japan, and there was a lot of atrocities. And he'd go, no.

I have freedom of speech. And we're like, actually, you fucking don't. Not anymore. You don't. Not anymore. And he would just die on that hill until we would, like, make him turn his shirt inside out. Because the guide would go, we're not taking you out of the hotel and we're leaving without you. And we're not going to take you anywhere for the rest of the week until you

change your shirt. And he would turn it inside out and then we'd get somewhere and he'd turn it right back inside out and be like, I won that battle. And we're like, no, you're just being a complete asshole for no reason. And with that flag,

even inside out, it's, you're still seeing that big red dot. Of course. Of course. So we just had to explain to the tour guide we're like he's an asshole we didn't know him we feel really bad and the guy's like it's fine but we we're going into like these villages where people live and

their families were all murdered by japanese people like do you fucking mind you know yeah they didn't say it that way but it was just like really they need to make a curb your enthusiasm with these guys being like please god it changed right it was there was really They need to make a curb your enthusiasm with these guys Being like, he's got to change There was a lot of that kind of thing But it was always the same guy And we just explained to the guys He was an American But he lived in Ukraine

And what was interesting was It was just a guy who had no It was funny because there were a couple other Americans That had lived in South Korea And a couple guys that were living in China at the time That were also American but came on the trip. And they looked at each other when they saw him and they go, yeah, typical LBH. And I was like, what does that mean?

And they were like, oh, it means loser back home. And it's a whole category of American that lives in other countries that has no friends. Americans all go like, oh, this fucking guy. I don't want anything to do with that guy. But he goes to Ukraine and they're like, oh, it's the quirky American guy. And they don't have any context for the fact that he's just actually kind of a piece of shit. Oh, that's so funny. And like can't help himself.

I see someone like that being like, I'm not doing well here, but I will. I'll be a character. Maybe I'll be popular in Ukraine. Yeah. Right. Like he goes and lives in like a tier two. Crazy American. Yeah.

Or goes and lives in a tier two city Where the national income is $800 a month Or sorry, $800 a year And he makes that in a month teaching English online or like doing his E-commerce biz and so everyone's like He's rich and they don't realize

That he's like a complete asshole with no social Skills. And then he goes to North Korea And they're like, you're a loser actually. Like you went too far. You went to South Korea. That was fine. Now we see you for who you are. I remember no one would room with him because you go to different hotels.

Yeah, I'm not room with that guy. No way. No way. There were so many incidences with him being like he would drink a whole bottle of vodka alone before dinner. And we're like, hey, you can't walk. And so like a North Korean person would try to help him walk upstairs and he would like elbow them and be like, fuck you, I can do it. And we're like, you're going to get arrested.

And you're a dude who can't walk. This is crazy because I think this is all pre that Otto situation. It's pre-Otto. If I had seen that guy, well, I wouldn't have gone after Otto and I haven't gone after Otto. Oh, yeah. But if I had had a guy like that. It's just scary. It's terrifying.

That you could just then be, you know. Yeah, Otto was wearing just a regular shirt. Yeah, and took a poster. So you're like, how's this Kevin getting away with. Yeah. So when was your last trip to North Korea? I want to say 2014. And when did auto happen?

Ooh, when was that? It was during Trump. It was 2016 or 17. I think it was 2016 or 2017, yeah. And that must have changed the industry. So it became illegal for Americans to go there, period, from the perspective of the United States. So I used to own howtogo to northkorea.com, which was not taken. Can you believe it?

Wow. So I bought that. I set it up as like a lead generation site for our tour partners in Beijing. And then I eventually sold that to them. And they were kind of like, yeah, we're going to pay for this. But we know you have no leverage because your business is basically done. Yeah. Sure.

Yeah. So we shut it down. Our lawyers were like, yeah, they can't really prohibit you from, and I was like, let me stop you right there. I am not interested in fighting the U.S. State Department on whether or not this is technically constitutional. It's just not big enough as a business for me to do. And also, I didn't want to send money to the regime.

It was kind of like Dicey sending money and tourists to a regime before, but it was like, well, maybe they're going to reintegrate with the rest of the world. Maybe they're coming up. They're going to get a new leader. And then it was like, oh, no,

they're doubling down on being super shitty and authoritarian. Yeah. Yeah. And I imagine after Otto, I mean, it must have just shut down some of this industry. It did. I think a lot of people were afraid to go, rightfully so. And then COVID hit and they, I'm not even sure if they have tourists even now. They shut down the entire border. I mean,

smuggling is not happening. I mean, smuggling happens, but they really locked it down for smuggling. They locked down tourism. They locked down business transactions. They locked down the special economic zones because they know that if they get a COVID outbreak there that's serious, they have absolutely no way of controlling it. They don't have healthcare there very much at all. I mean, it's what you would expect from a third world authoritarian state. I mean, they can't do anything about it.

They don't have vaccination really or anything, so it would just destroy. It would kill hundreds. And the people are malnourished and overworked, right? So you're going to hit a population like that. It's going to be one of the worst outbreaks around. So they were very careful about not allowing it. You remember

that movie? There was a zombie movie and they were talking about how North Korea had solved the zombie breakout problem because they pulled everyone's teeth. You remember this? It was like World War Z or something. They were like, what about North Korea? And they were like, yeah, the outbreak

is done there. And they're like, how did they do that? And they're like, they pulled everyone's teeth out. And it's like that was so North Korean because they can do, in a country like that, it's just like, yeah, they will just say no crossing the border. And if you do, they shoot you. Yeah. And that's it.

They have enough people on staff to enforce these things. I think I read about whatever that group is that smuggles in USB sticks with friends on it. Right, yeah. Episodes of Friends. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's harder to do now because they locked down the border. Before, yeah, it was like Liberty in North Korea was doing stuff like that. It was cruel to show Friends just to show like the nicest apartment.

It doesn't, even for New Yorkers, it's like, this is bullshit. Like she works at a coffee shop and she can afford this? No, don't worry, that part's fake. Yeah. This is an ad by BetterHelp. What comes to mind when you hear the word gratitude? Maybe it's a daily practice, or maybe it feels hard to be grateful right now.

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That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com. Mama, look at me. Vroom, vroom. I'm going really fast. I just got my license. Can I borrow the car, please, Mom? Kids go from 0 to 18 in no time. You'll be relieved they have 24-7 roadside assistance with intact insurance.

Mom, can we go to Nana's house tomorrow tomorrow i want to go to jack's place today i'll just take the car don't wait up okay kids go from zero to 18 in no time don't they at intact insurance we insure your car so you can enjoy the ride visit intact.ca or talk to your broker conditions apply um yeah i think i've even mentioned on this podcast before, I think like for me, when Trump spoke well of Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Un, after Otto was delivered back brain dead. Yeah. To me, I thought was so shocking that it was like that, that the very patriotic conservative side would tolerate that. It seems so, especially even more, I mean, Otto was just like an American. He was by all accounts a really good kid and an overachiever who was like very sweet and talented and had a lot of potential.

And I think there was just something about that moment where I was like, Jesus Christ, I guess we don't even care about, there's not even a unity of like an American, like Trump could override that. The love of Trump overrode the love of like, oh my God, they killed an American. I feel like a different time, the country would have been like, honestly would have been like, we need to go to war. Right. Yeah. It would have been like cruise missile o'clock. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was really sad. And there's videotape of somebody that looks like him taking the poster. Maybe he did,

but here's the thing. I auditioned for that tape, actually. You're drinking in a hotel with a bunch of people and yes, it's a crime to damage the propaganda thing, but nobody saw it, right? So they could have just let it go,

but they decided not to do that, right? They decided not to do that. Yeah, it feels like a choice, just like a hey. Like an example. It felt like we're going to do this. Yeah, because I snuck onto that floor, too, when I was there a couple of times. I didn't take anything. But you're not allowed to be on that floor of the hotel.

The elevator doesn't have a button for that floor. What are you, crazy? Yeah, that was not a good idea. That was a really bad idea. Are you still that person? No. I look at that and I go, that's like... Do you go, my brain wasn't fully formed, maybe?

For sure, yeah, absolutely. That's one of those, like, when you go, and you look at your childhood and you go, wait, I used to go skydiving all the time. Which, by the way, I've never done that. But I would imagine it's that same kind of thing. It's such a crazy example to have. Yeah.

Like, I literally did that thing that could have. Yeah, where the guy died. Yeah. Could have turned into a world, you know, thing that everyone knew about. Yeah. And been, you know, brain dead. Yeah. Yeah.

And they try to keep you off that floor. Like if you, you go up the stairs, there's somebody on the stairs in the dark knitting with a candle and they're like, Nope, cause you, this elevator doesn't go there. Service elevator gets shut off at night. But if you go there early enough, you could take the service elevator to one of the areas, take the stairs, go downstairs, go on that floor. And it's all propaganda posters and meeting rooms.

And the guy caught us anyway. And we were just, we just pretended to be so drunk that we didn't know where we were. And he was like, not good humored about it, but he was just very, he was very professional about it. Took us to the bathroom on that floor. Cause we were like,

we got to stall and see the rest of this floor and walk through it more. And then he walked us down and he was like, no more. I mean, he was pretty like, this is not a place where you get to go and be yeah you know and and so yeah they don't want you on that floor and they don't want you ripping posters off the wall and stuff like that for sure there's a lot of stuff in there there's like piles of little video cameras which makes you think

they're probably on in all the rooms why do they have yeah i'm not jerking it in that room i'll tell you no too late for me but you know uh what are you gonna do um are there any misconceptions i mean obviously misconceptions but do you think like do you think americans paint it as even worse than it actually is i think people view it as 1984 everybody's controlled because they have high technology that's more China these days, but it's way more controlled in North Korea. But they don't even have electricity in most places. So while they have propaganda everywhere, and there's propaganda being shouted from loud speakers, there is indeed a speaker that's built into the wall in the home. When you have

electricity, it's playing propaganda in there. So it really is very 1984-ish. I think they're holding on by a thread when it comes to that population. I think everybody knows that they live in a shitty place that doesn't have enough resources. I think they're too tired and underfed to do anything about it, but I think everybody there probably knows what situation they're in. Do you think there could ever be a coup? Yeah, I think there probably could be a coup.

But the problem is, is the coup going to make things better? Or is it just going to put the military generals in charge and the Kim family out? There was an explosion a really long time ago, like 2011 or something. And this chemical train full of fertilizer blew up like three city blocks. And it seemed like three city blocks. And it seemed like a crazy accident. It took them days to let aid workers in, but it leveled buildings. I mean, it killed, I think, I want to say it killed hundreds of people, but I could be exaggerating.

But it was a massive, massive explosion. There's speculation that that was an attempt on killing Kim Jong-il, and it just failed because he was supposed to be whatever in the area or on a train or blah, blah, blah. And then there was another incident where there's not that much traffic in Pyongyang because they don't have gas, and most people don't have cars. There's no money. So there was a time when his car was driving through an intersection, and they don't have traffic lights. They have traffic ladies that are essentially, with these batons, and they tell cars which way to go. They're just controlling the traffic manually. This truck that was loaded with rocks or something sped through the intersection, and the only reason it didn't hit Kim Jong-un's car going, like, 60 miles an hour, weighing five tons, is because the traffic cop darted out in front of his vehicle and stopped the car because she saw it coming and it just narrowly missed him. And they're like, that's probably also not an accident because there's, what, three cars

in the entire area right now? One of them is his and the other one's a freaking truck full of rocks. That doesn't make a whole hell of a lot of sense. And the brakes went out on it after he sped up to the maximum speed of this truck. None of it made any sense. So there's some speculation that that was also an attempt to just smash him into a million pieces. Assassinations are, it seems really hard because I'm surprised they don't happen more often.

Yeah, we've talked about this. I was recently in Dallas and I went to the Sixth Floor Book Repository and you're like, the car just went by this building? It doesn't seem like it was the hardest thing in the world. Yeah. But when Shinzo Abe got killed recently, it was just like a guy. Homemade gun. Just went up at a public thing.

It didn't seem like he had to be too sneaky about it. No, I was very... But then you hear every time they tried to kill Castro and you're like, how did they... None of this worked? Explosive cigars and poison this and that. But you know, I can't remember who told me this.

Something about, I think it was, I shouldn't speculate because I can't remember. But basically Castro handles security. He controls his security detail personally. And so he said to someone, and I don't know who that person is. Maybe it's like Putin. But I don't know how that would have gotten out. He's like, I control my security detail personally. And so that's why I haven't been

Assassinated because CIA Has tried like 17 freaking times to kill that guy But he picks loyal people to be around him Because I think once one of your bodyguards Is a turncoat you're screwed Because that's the guy who's like Yeah we had the food tested and it's fine

And then it's like maybe they did but then he's the guy Who put the cyanide in it or like he's the guy Who switches your, yeah, we had the food tested and it's fine. And then it's like, maybe they did but then he's the guy who put the cyanide in it. Or he's the guy who switches your cigar out for the poison one. Or he's the guy who just puts a bullet in your head. Speaking of poison, Kim Jong-un, his half-brother? Yeah, Kim Jong-nam, yeah. So he was in Japan?

He was in Malaysia. Or Indonesia. I can't remember. Was it Indonesia or Malaysia? I think it was Malaysia, actually. At least what I read, the two women who threw the poison on him thought they were on a prank show. Right. They thought it was... Yeah, they were hired for a prank show.

They thought it was... What's the Ashton Kutcher one? Punk'd. Punk'd. Yeah. Right, and they'd done pranks. If it had been Ashton Kutcher, that would have been... Yeah. Even more ridiculous.

Yeah, they had rehearsed the show on other people, and they were just these two random girls from, I think, like, the Philippines or something like that. They were like... I'm sure their acting friends are like, can you believe they booked those two? Yeah. Come on already. So they had

one component for VX or Saren or whatever it was on their hand, and the other person had the other one. And when you blend them together, they're lethal. But singularly, they're not. I think that they didn't high-five after the success of the prank. I don't think they even knew about each other. I think that was part of it.

I don't think they knew about each other. I think it was just like there was a guy there who was Japanese and a guy there who was a couple North Korean agents, and they had run these girls through this thing for the first couple weeks, and then they spotted him, and they're like, that guy. And then they went, and they put the poison on to this thing for the first couple of weeks. And then they spotted him and they're like that guy. And then they went and they put the poison on his face and he died at the airport. That is just so wild that,

that that was easier than shooting him, shooting him. Yeah. Yeah. Just, just with Russia, it sounds like really easy. It's like they just put an incredible poison on the doorknob.

Yeah. Yeah. I think part of that is they want you to know that it's great that it's gnarly like it's thought out it's rehearsed it's like creative in a way i mean they really thought about it if anyone wanted to kill me just cast me in something and i will go to anywhere you could cast me and say it shoots in pyongyang i'd go there just for a line in a a show. Hey, we want you to tell that pedophile joke we heard on the Jordan Harbinger show to an audience. But instead of pedophile, use the leader's name, and it's going to go down really well. Yeah, they do that, I think, because they want the spectacle of, like, wow.

And then they had radioactive poisoning for a month and died slowly in a hospital in a really brutal way that nobody could do anything about that's terrible you know like they killed one of the kgb or the fsb killed uh defector named alexander litvinenko what by giving him tea that had polonium 212 in it and they traced the polonium because it's so radioactive they found it like in the hotel room on the doorknob and the airplane airplane seat, and da-da-da-da-da-da. So they found you can trace that stuff all the way back. You don't do that. The only people that can make polonium-212 is Russia and the United States

or places that have nuclear warhead programs, France or whatever. So they want you to know this was us, and it came from the highest level because look at the substance we used to kill you, but we also are going to deny it because we can and you can't do shit about that. That's like the whole dictator thing. That makes sense now. I guess I was just like

why are they pretending to deny it? And it's like because we can. Because we can. Because remember those agents that put the crap on the doorknob, the Nova Chalk, they put it on the doorknob? They said, yeah, we just came here because we heard that the 13th highest steeple in all of the UK. And they're just like, fuck you. This is why we, why did we come here? To kill you.

But we're not going to say that. So we're going to make up a lie like, oh, I went to see Price of Big Mac in Leicester. Like, that's the thing. They want you to know that they don't give a shit about what you think. Do you think America does that level of killing people and they're just more secretive about it? Or do you think they don't? That's a really good question. I don't think we have an assassination policy anymore, but we kind of do, right?

Because we killed Osama bin Laden. But we do it in a different way. We do it where we're like, yeah, we flew a helicopter that you didn't even know existed, that the world has never seen. We landed it right here near your military base where you totally didn't think you were protecting this guy. Then we had 12 guys go in. And before you even wiped the boogers out of your eye, we had killed every single person in the house. And then we took your body back to a boat, took photographs, sent them to Obama and dumped his ass in the ocean. So it's a different kind of thing. It's like we're so together that we orchestrated a trip to the moon using our finest engineers just so you're like,

holy shit, I cannot get away from these people. So it wasn't particularly brutal. It was more like, wow, you guys moved the entire chessboard before we woke up in the morning. Sure. That's what they want. It's like a cool reality show you set up. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. Do you miss that part of your life? Do you miss the excitement? I mean... No, I got two kids, man. I'm fine with not doing... The biggest excitement

I'm looking forward to now is like any kind of vacation that doesn't involve changing diapers. And not to Pyongyang. Yeah, no. I told my wife, I got offered a trip to Saudi Arabia and I was like,

I'm going to not do this one. Yeah. I'm going to not go. I'm going to go. Was it just a trip or like a, it's like a, it was like a media thing. Part of the reason I can't go is because they want me,

they want me to go on the trip and they want me to interview a minister of tourism. And I'm like, this sounds suspiciously like whitewashing a regime that has murdered journalists yeah sure illegally in terrible ways so i'm just not gonna do that for the money that you're offering they and it's a lot of money because it's saudi arabia but i'm just like i just can't do that because i can't call out china shills for saying you're lying about this and they're going to be like this you, bro.

And it's going to be me sitting in Saudi Arabia eating like lamb and talking about how great it is. Totally. Well, I want to because I am interested just to talk about interviewing people and guests. I will name the name. I forgot his name. He's like a name names. Wait, I can't remember the names. He's Elon Musk. He does a he does an interview, a forgot his name. He's like... I'm going to name names. He's Elon Musk. He does an interview, a long-form interview.

He had Kanye on. Lex Friedman. Lex Friedman. Yeah. So I feel glad I... And I'm not just blowing smoke up your ass, but I was like, oh, this is... I listened to a couple episodes of Lex Friedman,

and they were interesting, and they were in-depth, and I thought, this is really good. And then I listened to his one with Ben Shap shapiro and i started to get a little bit annoyed now listen i'm not just a leftist boy over here but i like i was like the the amount of just going with the flowness of it the amount of like not questioning where the the the journalist or podcaster entertainer desire to just be curious about everything and have absolutely no opinion made me feel furious. It's dangerously naive.

Yes. Yeah. And I would say almost – I think there's a strain of nihilism where, again, there's this weird intersection of comedy, podcast, journalism, where everyone's talking to people. And there's a degree of recently there was some people were talking about this UFC event and kind of there's certain people who were taking pictures like with Trump that were just kind of fawning.

There's a degree of like, so you think it means nothing? It's just like get a cool picture. It's funny. I'm with the guy. And I think Lex Friedman had Kanye on. But I think the moment for me where I was just like, all right, what is this? Where Andrew Tate and Greta Thunberg were having their little debate or whatever. And then Andrew Tate got arrested for possible alleged trafficking or whatever.

And his tweet was like, I can't wait to someday interview Greta and Andrew Tate. And it was this degree of nothing matters. This just nothing matters. All that's interesting is giving everyone a platform. And there's obviously a challenge of being interested, but you have to debate

just by talking to them gives them a platform. And in this day and age, allows them to more people who would like their shit to glob onto them. I agree with you. And it's all under the guise of what people will say is free speech. But here's the thing. One, that's not what free speech even means. And I'm sure that people already know that.

I have a law background. I was an attorney. So I'm like I remember con law. It's about the government. It's not about you're not required to have everybody go on Oprah even if their ideas are shitty. That was an attorney. So I'm like, I remember con law. It's about the government. It's not about, you're not required to have everybody go on Oprah, even if their ideas are shitty. Um, that's not required. That's not what free speech is. You're not stifling anything when you decide, I don't want to do that on the platform that I have built because I think it's bad for society. And you're by, by having everyone on, you're saying even really good ideas are also the same as really shitty objectively and obviously really shitty ideas that are expressed by a grifter who only wants attention because I'm going to pretend those things are equal because I just want to explore everything.

And it's like, okay, well, what if we explore white nationalism? Is that healthy? Do we need to do that in public with everybody? And I get that people say sunlight is the best disinfectant. Okay. But you can also express a certain... You can do that in a way that doesn't require you to have actually

bad people on. You can say, okay, we're going to have an expert on this topic on. We can discuss it openly, but you don't have to have one side advocating for it. It doesn't make any sense. So I just don't buy that. Sam Harris did a really good episode on this. And the people who do those interviews,

like the last time I heard that phrase of like, see, sunlight exposed it, was when Milo Yiannopoulos was on Bill Maher. And after that, I think because it was just one of his bigger forays into the real limelight. And then people found the old interview It was just one of his bigger forays into the real limelight. And then people found the old interview where he intimated that if you're 15, it's cool. And so people were like, you see?

Bill Maher had him on. But most of the time, these people have these guests on, and they do not have the capacity. No, they don't. You feel the intent behind it is not to push or challenge. It's to, hey, this will get a lot of people to watch. A hundred percent. We feel that intent when we're watching. We know that we struggle with really aggressively in person saying to someone, like, that's insane. That's bullshit.

Additionally, even if you didn't have a problem saying, actually, that sounds to me like it's kind of bullshit and you're just justifying this because you're making money off of it. And those are seven proven lies. You don't have the ability in real time to either become an expert or a fact check what somebody is saying. So I could come in here and say, here's all of these things that are really gross ideas that I have, because maybe I am a racist or something like that. And you just, I can throw statistics out that are made up or exaggerated or misinterpreted deliberately. You don't have the ability in real time to push back on that. So when you platform somebody like that, you're not going, oh, well, I'm going to push back on that. If I have a PhD in the topic we're talking about, maybe I can do it, right? If you're like a vaccine skeptic and I'm a vaccine scientist, I might be able to go, pause,

look at this. Here's the, okay, you say that this is it. I'm looking up the data right now. Here it is. You're wrong. And I know that because I know exactly where to look and I've studied this and I have a PhD in the subject. If I'm just platforming somebody who is making shit up because they're a grifter in many cases or is having a mental breakdown like kanye obviously was with the anti-semitism you're not doing anything by bringing that person into a live chat you're just exploiting them but also allowing yourself to be exploited and you're doing it for clicks on youtube and i don't really give a shit what else you're trying to tell me because it's really obvious that that's what you are doing.

There's no reason to have somebody on who says something that's blatantly false, like, oh, yeah, the Russians are just trying to denazify Ukraine. Well, there's nuance to that in that there's white nationalist symbols in some battalions of the Ukrainian army, but the idea that Ukraine needed to be denazified and therefore invaded by Russia is just Putin bullshit. And by allowing that idea to be on your show, that's your choice, but you're not like advocating for free speech by doing it. You're not a fucking hero for allowing people to spread absolute bullshit on your platform. You're just grifting for clicks.

And so I don't really care how they whitewash it. And so that was one of the reasons why, you know, I won't accept money from a regime to talk about something that's interesting and to not express my real opinion. But it's also why I don't respect people who do things like that, because you're just trying to get clicks. And you know what? If the YouTube algorithm wasn't the way it was,

those people would never bother having those guests on there because it wouldn't fucking matter. Sure. Do you feel like it's – it feels – I mean, especially with the vaccine, I guess, that – do you feel like it's getting worse or the medium of podcasting has given the illusion that long-form conversations reveal all truths? Like with the vaccine, I think there's a certain degree of... Recently, I got a heart... There was a little bit of cholesterol in one of my arteries or whatever. Nothing too bad.

It was like the whatever scale was 13 as opposed to zero, and it can go very high. Bottom line is my dad got me a book about cholesterol. I've never been good at science. I read a page of this and i just go like i science is so hard oh it's just too complicated it's just so and like i and i might be able to like sit down and learn a bit but like there's this degree where the number of people that would

like talk about the vaccine i'm like you would also have the same experience i'm having with this book right now where you're like i cannot even understand the beginnings of the minutiae of how the body works. But at the same time, obviously, you know, people at the heads of organizations, I mean, look at the history of everything, have lied or curbed the truth or pushed things. And so skepticism is, of course, healthy. What these people have lost is skepticism of themselves being intelligent enough to understand anything or skepticism of people who say they're skeptical

and then they go with whatever their first, Rogan's first conclusion was after that, as opposed to being like, where's the equal skepticism for here? Right. And it's like this. I think the most poisonous is the belief that you are skeptical and then you found the conclusion. Right. Then you believe you are a skeptical human being.

Right. And that's how you got to this. As opposed to, no, question this. This is insane, too. Exactly. Most of the time, people who think they are skeptics are just contrarians. And it's a line I walk on Skeptical Sunday because I'm insane, too. Exactly. Most of the time, people who think they are skeptics are just contrarians. And it's a line I walk on Skeptical Sunday because I'm like, okay, well, am I being skeptical about this?

So we do research fact-checking. And it's not something that I do. I'm just there for the conversation with the subject matter expert. And, of course, the stakes are low when we're talking about fireworks or vitamin supplements. We're not going to take on a humongous topic that could be dangerous if you get it wrong. But you need only look so far as the fact that most of the people who call themselves skeptics in one area, they almost always just agree with whatever contrarian thing is that week. And they will say, you're a sheep for not believing that.

And yet it's like, like okay so you're a flat earther but i'm the sheep even though you literally got all of your ideas from a youtuber instead of all of the other scientific sources that say the exact opposite thing of what you believe yeah that is just a really dumb way in a low education way in an unintelligent and a very non-skeptical way, to come to a conclusion is just listening to a YouTuber and go, well, I didn't understand all the science from the one thing that said that the sun was the center of the solar system, so I'm going to believe the one that I understand the most. That is not skepticism. That is simply

ignorance that is dressed up like skepticism because you don't even understand that the fact that you have a logical fallacy at the center of your belief system and that that bias is guiding you to that conclusion, you don't even see that. Because you're not skeptical or smart enough to identify it in the first place. Scientists are the first people to go, God, there's so much we don't know. But crazy Uncle fucking Frank at Thanksgiving, that guy's got certainty about everything. But I think the problem with the media is so culpable is all the scientific claims that they, for example, the concept of red wine being healthy for you, which was one study that was later proven to be many faulty. But it was on 60 Minutes. And it's so deeply ingrained that even when I order wine, there is a part of me that goes like red wine.

I'm getting this very much. Yeah. And so part of, I think sometimes whenever I see news organizations complaining about some conspiracy theory, I'm like, you are very much the reason people don't trust because you. I agree with that. I agree, but I also think there's been such a blending of... Everything is

media now. So I think it's like... Tucker Carlson being like the mainstream. I'm like, you're the mainstream media. You are the mainstream media. There's just a blending of online, news, thing, podcast. So I don't feel like people have those things delineating what

was trusted at one point and what's not trusted. That's true. And it just is a blending of everything. So people see something as valid as another thing. And I think that that's what's hard is you're like you don't have a thing to be like, no, this is real and that's not real. You don't have a media literacy background. Yes, yes. It's media literacy that is the real issue rather than just being like, the media is all to blame.

You're like, there's wonderful things out there, but there's just been a blending of everything where people don't know where to go and what to get and how to do it. And so they have their own things that they think are valid. Right. So you mix cognitive bias in here with the idea that so-and-so doesn't know the difference between medium.com and BBC or France 24, and they go, oh, or watches an opinion piece with two talking heads screaming at each other who are just advocating for their latest book or are there to create conflict, and then goes, well, those people were saying this, but then this other guy who wrote an entire book on it says this different thing, and I just don't know who to believe, and it's like, well, wait, one guy has a book with published citations and read

thousands of articles to craft this. The other guy went on there from Zoom and probably isn't even wearing pants and is doing a live debate where they're just disagreeing with everything because they work for RT or Russia Today or whatever the thing is called. These are not equal, but media

literacy is so far behind that people don't even know how to evaluate the source of what they're looking at. So they just go, well, I don't know. I kind of trust Joe Rogan. That guy seems like he's trying to do the right thing. So they trust him, and I understand that impulse. I don't think those people are like all idiots. I understand the impulse to go, well, I don't know.

I listen to him about comedy and MMA, and he knows a lot about that. And he's just, you know, this guy came on there there and he sounded like he knew what he was talking about. That's what's dangerous about quote unquote just asking questions because some people are not going to give you honest answers. They're there for the clicks and I'm not saying Joe Rogan is doing that. I'm saying the guest on there is doing that. Of course.

And he's very deliberate and you should know better but people don't and that's the problem. Why do smart people like you know, this is my my but but elon musk or jack from twitter i know like these are what do you think is it about rich smart people that they they lose they lose sight of yeah and even even if i'm even if i'm gonna go like at least be skeptical of everything but but they pick this side and it's very confusing. And I sometimes wonder, I'm like, are you lying?

And like, I don't know. You think this person is going to help you in the long run? Is this all a big con game and you're not saying anything truthful? Or is it that you, what is it? Because people go to that. People go to Elon, especially in America. It's a horrible poison of, oh, the rich, they must know everything. Yeah.

Everything. Well, we see it. I mean, we saw it with Trump. What's been crazy about Trump is that ever since he was elected, watching anything from 30 years before, it was propaganda. Trump, anytime anyone used an example of a rich person, he somehow branded himself that way. And we do give so much clout to rich people that it's

every sitcom, every movie, he would be the name used. For 30 years, we were all like, rich, Trump, rich. We would just associate with it. And he was never the richest person in America, but that's who we connected it to. And people do give so much clout.

And in America, everyone's trying to get money because we needed to have happiness in this fucking... So we worship that, and then we go, oh, well, okay, if they're that wealthy, they must be very smart. And then here's the big secret is, and you guys already know this, you meet rich people and you go, not all, but

many, and you go, holy shit, this person is the luckiest human alive because they're borderline moron, but they're so good at targeted advertising or whatever it is where they made their money, or you go, this guy's really smart, but man is he ignorant

about all of these other areas. Here's the problem. Since rich people are very worshipped in the media in the United States, what happens over a period of years, and I'd love to see data on this, like from a real academic who studies this, what happens, in my opinion,

is that they go, look at all these people telling me how fucking smart I am. Whenever I do anything, I know more than other people about it, and I have access to people. So when I come to a conclusion based on the fact that I had three tequilas last night and decided that that was the thing I was going to say this morning on Twitter, that's probably right. So I'm going to say that.

And I think with Elon, it's a little different. I think he really likes attention. So he'll say whatever gets attention. But I think with guys like Jack, where he would be like, hmm, maybe Ukraine is full of Nazis and needed to be invaded by Russia because of NATO expansion. It's like, do you think that? Or did that just occur to you randomly and you happen to have a giant microphone? And instead of actually doing any research about this at all, you just go, hmm. And that validates enough of it to millions of people. Do you realize how much damage that does? And this is a guy who

believes in a lot of stupid shit, but he invented Twitter, so he must be a genius. It's intellectual trespassing, I think is the term for it. It's where you know something a lot about one area, and you go, I'm the world's authority on coal mining. I'm going to opine on furniture making, because I am a really smart person. And since I know so much about this, anything I come to, any conclusion I come to about that is going to be also kind of right. Right. I mean, I'm brilliant in this one area. It's intellectual trespassing. Academics are pretty good about this. They know that you're going to ask somebody to peer review your thing. You don't really ask somebody who doesn't know what they're talking about. I'm sure it happens,

but it's very much a big thing in science. And you see it, and if you need any proof of that, look also on Twitter where someone will go, yeah, I'm an RN, and vaccines cause autism, and yada, yada, yada. And it's like, wait a minute. You have less of an idea or as much of an idea as a guy who bags shit at Target about this. You work in the medical field, sure, but you are as unqualified as me personally having a law degree to opine about vaccines. But it looks like you are because you're a registered nurse and you worked in a hospital, but that doesn't mean shit. Meanwhile, a Nobel Prize winner is telling you you're wrong and you're going to go, I don't believe you. You're just part of big pharma. You are delusional at that point.

You're delusional. You have a guest on that you regret having on or that you felt like you didn't? There's been a couple. First of all, episode one, Frank W. Abagnale turned out to be a big bullshitter. Really? Yeah, so everybody

catch me if you can, that whole movie. Became a lawyer and then became a doctor and pretended to be an airline pilot and all this stuff. Turns out he was just a petty thief. He was in jail during most of this. The whole story is made up. It's all a bunch of bullshit. Wow. Yeah.

So the con was that he never did anything out of the ordinary or special at all. It's kind of a meta-con. It's a meta-con. It's crazy. It's a meta-con. I don't feel bad about not knowing that because literally the entire world who knew who he was believed his bullshit. Except some dude wrote a book in, like, 2020 who researched it, found out when he was in jail, talked to the FBI that he supposedly worked with. Nobody had any record of him doing anything with them.

He lost a bunch of his endorsements. They found when he was in prison, but it overlaps with the time where he said he was being a pilot, the airline was saying, like, they were out of business, and it's like, well, how convenient, but we still have all these records.

Oh, look, not nobody by that name. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It just fell apart under scrutiny, but remember, he started his con in, like, 77.

So there was no internet. There was no FOIA, probably, to get records from the FBI. So he was like, I can just make this shit up, go on Johnny Carson, and I'm good. And it worked. He's still doing speeches that are probably, probably, to get records from the FBI. So he was like, I can just make this shit up, go on Johnny Carson, and I'm good. And it worked! He's still

doing speeches that are probably like 50k a pop. He's just a fucking con artist. I left the episode up because he's such a good storyteller, but I put in the show notes I was like, this is shown to be just complete nonsense. It just made me think of the Amazing Randy. Did you ever have him on your show?

Yeah, I would love to have had him on before. R.I.P. James Randy. You know Amazing Randy? Yeah, no. He was like a magician turned kind of skeptic investigator. Oh, yeah. And famously, it's so amazing, Uri Geller, who's still around. I read that New York Times piece.

Did you read that Times piece about Geller, like yesterday or the day before? Oh, I didn't. Oh, it's recent. Yeah, it's recent. So he was, I might get this wrong, but he would go around saying he could make spoons bend and weed mines and all these things. And he would go on

Carson. The Amazing Randy was... Carson was also very skeptical. And partly because they're magicians. I think partly people who know how to trick are the ones who have a really good dose of skepticism. They know how this works And he basically told Carson

Uri will want to Check out the spoons before The thing and what he does I make details wrong But he preps them He preps them in some way He gets them a little flexible So he can go like this

On the show Bring out a plate of fresh metal and see what happens. And sure enough, Uri was like, oh, my powers are off today. I don't feel the vibe. Something is wrong. It's incredible. I mean, I can't imagine living that life of getting caught any second. Yeah.

Oh. But you're good at confronting people in a way that I don't think we are. I listened to one episode with you and you were talking to someone just, it was more about interviewing in general. And the person mentioned that they had had on Jordan, uh, Bella Ford on, Oh,

the Wolf of Wall Street. Yeah. He's another con artist too. Yeah. You said on this show, I just, I just clocked it because you said on the thing of like, Oh no,

I have, he talked about him. He had him on his show and you were like, Oh, I wouldn't have him on my show. He's a con man. And I don't want to give a platform to that. And I thought, I'm sure the person you were talking to felt bad. Because they were talking about how they had had that person on their show.

And I guess in that moment, it's not an admirable trait of mine. But it's also why I wouldn't have certain people on this show because i know there's something in me that would go like if i tell him that i would never have that person on because they're a con man they're gonna feel bad because they already had that person on as a con man yeah yeah look but you gotta know who i mean you got like but you you you i said that i don't remember who that was you weren't mean about it okay that's good you were not because i'm like that's not that you were mean about it. You weren't like, you didn't judge him. That's good.

But I imagine you've hurt some people's feelings. I think you're blunt. I am. No, among other friends, they're like, especially if I have a couple of drinks, they're like, oh, my God, you wear your opinions on your sleeve. But I don't put it in your face. But somebody will say, okay, so I went to Peru. We were doing a food tour. And they were like, how do you like this?

And I was like, actually, this is really bad. I don't like this at all. And I would stop drinking it or eating it. And the person, it wasn't the cook. I would never say that to, like, the chef. But it was the food tour guide. And she's like, you don't like anything. And I was like, no, honestly, I just feel like this tour, it was a vegan food tour that our friend tricked us into going on.

And I was like, I feel like this isn't really vegan food. It's just the dish without any of the meat. And they put no thought to it. And it's funny because everyone on the tour was like, and the vegan guy who set it up was like, I'm sorry, but you're 100% correct. They took us for steak frites, and they just gave us fries. And that was a literal thing that they did. And it was all equally bad. And they'd make us a cocktail that had a special ingredient,

and they'd just be like, yeah, this is just actually Pisco now because the other thing isn't vegan. And we're like, well, this all sucks. And they were like, why aren't you doing it? And my friend goes, I envy you. I ate and drank all of that, and all of it was shit. And you just sat there, took one sip and you were like, no, thank you. And he's like, I wish I could do that. But here's the thing. I didn't grow up like that. My mom is a total pushover. She's a very sweet lady, but she was such a pushover that when I was a kid,

she would make me do things like tell the waiter my burger was undercooked and that I shouldn't eat it. Return a video game to the store that sucks or wasn't working on the computer. She would make me do it because she's like, I'm deathly afraid of the confrontation. So by age seven or eight, I'm going to Babbage's, which is where I would buy my video games in the 80s. No, I went to Babbage's too in the 90s, yeah. And I'd be like, this game crashes or I don't like it. And they'd be like, well, we can't return a game you just don't like. And I'd be like, actually, your policy allows for that. And they'd be like well we can't return a game you just don't like and i'd be like actually your policy allows for that and they'd be like the fuck is this kid talking about like

you could just tell and my mom would laugh because the manager of the store would be like an eight-year-old is telling me about my return policy but i just got used to that and so when then you go to law school and you're like oh people get paid for this yeah this is great see i had a father who was very confrontational and i think as a kid i was always so fucking uncomfortable with him just like and and he was an asshole too that's the problem i think right like if he was just sticking up for himself and you you'd be like this is a great trait but if he's just yelling at a fucking waiter whose poor day is ruined yeah that's a different thing. There's like an early memory where my dad got mad at someone for cutting in a line, and then we cut in a line.

And I said, wait a second, didn't we do the thing that you got mad at the person? And I think I remember it because it was truly a moment where I was like, oh, you're full of shit. Yeah, hypocritical. That's different. That's different, for sure. And you, why do you think you're the way that you are? I think opposite end. Because we, I think part of the reason we're friends, we text and we say a lot of what we really mean and that's part of our bond.

Yeah. I think I've gotten a little better even in the last five years. But I do think, I think it's opposite spectrum. I think it's growing up in a family with no one wants any confrontation, both mom and dad. Brother, I'm probably the most confrontational now in the family. And that's crazy. You know what I mean? Knowing me.

No. Yeah. Now that you're a father, do you know, like, you know, the dog dies and your kid says, what happened? And you're like, i know adams and just rotted away and yeah this happened the other day i'm trying to think of the example because we oh so my son who's turning four said something like what happened to oh my mother-in-law's brother passed away like a few days ago he cancer and he goes my son who's again turning four goes why did what happened why is grandma sad because he wanted to go goes my son who's again turning four goes why did what happened why

is grandma sad because he wanted to go sleep over at grandma's and i said you can't tonight grandma's really sad because uncle ken died and he's like why and i'm explaining it and and and it was tough because he goes wait are you gonna die and i was like oh shoot i said yeah but not for a long long long time and he got pretty upset about that he's like i'm gonna miss you am i gonna get a new daddy and i was like this was the wrong answer what was i thinking this is so dumb why didn't i just lie and my wife was like yeah now i'm gonna tell him the truth too and that it's a long time and we got him to finally stop worrying but i really in the back of my head was like i probably should have just said no and like you know he'll learn when he's older but i don't

really regret it because once he kind of got over that i wasn't going to die like overnight while i was sleeping in the bed he's like oh like a long long time like when you're really really old and i was like yeah we have so much time together buddy don't you worry about that and now he's like huh so when the bird flew into the window that time and we put him in the ground he died too and i was like yes and he's like oh and then he wanted to kill a bug and i go we don't want to kill the bug we're outside we're in the bugs environment it's not in the house yeah you know and he goes why not and i go well the bug will die and we don't need to kill the bug and he goes oh and when you die you don't come back. He like gets it now, you know?

And I thought it was good to power through that in a way. There's some stuff you don't tell kids, obviously, but death is a tricky one, right? Because it is a fact of life, but it's not like, I want you to have nightmares about this for the next 20 years. It's not like a brutal murder type situation. I think it's harder too than when they're asking a direct question too. Yeah. Than other, you're able to when they're asking a direct question too. You're able to sometimes navigate redirect it. If it's a

direct question that is very like oh this is a big important thing I think best to not lie even if it's hard because you're sometimes seeing people deal. I don't have kids so I'm just throwing it out. I love all the parenting experts. Listen to Russell Daniels.

Listen, parents. But sometimes you see parents in a moment being like, this is an easy way of moving, going on. And you're like, in my head, I'm like, I don't know. This is like, I know it sucks because you're so busy and so tired and blah, blah, blah. But you're like, it seems like something you should maybe, you know, it's worthy of a conversation sometimes. Explore not bullshitting your son about this thing. So my dad was very much like the guy who would go, huh, 14 times until you gave up.

And so for years, and I'm still at age 43, like learning something that my dad told me was a thing is just bullshit. And he just like made up the answer because he wanted me to go away. And I can't, this wasn't something I had to learn recently, of course, but i remember one example from when i was a kid the teacher was like what does it mean when it's a quarter past one and i said it's 25 past

one and she's like no that's not right it's 15 minutes past one because a quarter of an hour is 15 minutes and i remember going damn it dad in my head because my dad told me that a quarter of past something was 25 because I said is it I asked if it was 25 because a quarter is 25 cents and I asked him like 50 times and finally was like yeah and I went oh okay that makes total sense but no it's not 25 it's a fraction and so I just didn't know that for like years and then a teacher quizzed me on it I got it wrong and I remember being like oh but I really remember my dad telling me it was 25. So then I had to reevaluate everything he told me. And I don't want my son to do that because that's when I kind of knew that a

lot of my dad's stuff that he told me was just bullshit to get me to go away. And that felt awful. Yeah. What about Santa? I figured that out on my own early. And when I questioned my mom, she was like, yeah, that's correct, but don't tell any of your friends,

because it's a fun surprise. Well, that's what... I was like, oh, okay. In seventh grade, a teacher gave an assembly where she said, like, you know, we all, we get to an age, we find out Santa's not real, and apparently a parent called, like,

what the fuck did you tell my mom? Yeah. What did you do with your kids? So this is, I'm glad you asked. So we just started to do Elf on the Shelf. Are you aware of what this is? Tell me a little. I never really fully understood this.

It's big for my nephews, too. I never knew what Elf on the Shelf was. It's basically an elf doll that you put on the fireplace mantel or some shelf somewhere in your house. And every day, it's supposed to be watching the kids. And if you're good, it tells Santa. And every night, he goes back to the North Pole and if you're good it tells santa and every night he goes back to the north pole and in the morning he comes back and you position it differently so you'll have like he'll be sitting on a chair with a podcast mic he'll be drinking

the rest of the duncan coffee he'll be in the refrigerator eating leftover cookies and cake and you just make it fun and my son jayden he he three at the time for the past Christmas, he goes, how come his eyes are open if he's sleeping? How come he's, like, always wearing the same clothes? How come he's not moving? And we're like, oh, he comes alive at night and he flies away. And then he comes back during the day and he's watching. And he's like, you could just tell. He would ask so many questions.

He was like, he just knew something was up. He was like, this doesn't make sense. He'd ask the same questions over and over again, and we're like, he doesn't believe us. So finally we were like, okay, listen. The elf is not real. It's a fun game we play. So we all pretend that the elf comes alive at night and flies away. And he's like, oh, that is fun.

And that was the end of it. And he still enjoys it. He just knows it's not real. And I'm like, this is not. And that was the end of it. And he still enjoys it. He just knows it's not real. And I'm like, this is not that hard. Sure. And we have a one and a half year old girl and we're like, but don't tell Juniper that the elf isn't real

because she might think it's real and that's really fun. And he's like, oh yeah, he's in on it now, which is just as fun as him believing a lie that we made up about a toy. But then other people, they still believe it's true and then they run for political office. That's right.

Talking about the elf on the shelf. You're my kid. Ask me, what happens when... What happened to Uncle Larry? What happened to Uncle Larry? No, no. Ask me this. Ask me, are you going to die someday? Are you going to die someday? Don't fucking remind me of that. Don't fucking talk about that. You know how much that stresses me out? I'm not going to die someday? Are you going to die someday? Don't fucking remind me of that. Don't fucking

talk about that. You know how much that stresses me out? I'm not going to be able to go to sleep. I know. No way. I know. I regret having you. Not a fucking word. Let's go on to our next segment. This has got to stop. Sorry, that was so loud. This has got to stop. New box, new box.

This has got to stop. This is where we say a thing that that's got to stop. That's got to go away. Russell, do you have one? Go first. Okay. Okay. Oh, wait.

I did have a good one that I did want to say. Oh, I want to say this. Since we talked about assassinations, I went to that JFK. This is a comedy podcast. I went to the sixth floor book repository museum, and it covered all this stuff about JFK. They showed pictures of him with Marilyn Monroe. Okay. But they don't mention at all that this guy was a womanizer, that this guy had sex with Marilyn Monroe, he had affairs.

And listen, if I die and they make a museum, and at some point in my life I had sex with Beyonce, that should be a full floor. Yeah. Dioramas, conspiracy theories outside. I cannot stand museums that are talking about history in any way, shape, or form, and are either made for children, because this wasn't even made for, this is the Sixth Floor Book repository. But talk about it or fucking don't. made for children. Because this wasn't even made for, this is the Sixth Floor Book repository. But like,

talk about it or fucking don't. I think there's a part of me that talking about people being skeptical in the wrong way or mistrusting people, part of it is like, well, we're not honest about anything. So this guy's dead. The only one who's still in politics is pretty fucked up and a fucking mess.

Just talk about the guy. Just be honest. We're talking about his head being exploded in a car. Pretty tragic and gross. Just be honest. I remember going to a museum in St. Louis, I think it was.

It was like, first the Native Americans were here, and then they weren't. You're like, what are you? Are you out of your mind? What's the point of the museum? What's the point? And I think parents, like with your son,

it's like, I think a parent, it should be a big decision to bring a kid to a history museum. I think, I wonder sometimes this idea of teaching a whitewashed version of history and then teaching them later whether that's good at all yeah like i don't know if it's good to teach a version of thanksgiving that's bullshit and then educating it later i think todd let him watch my little pony first and then have them extract because otherwise people have

this illusion and then you have to one by one the same way with you and your dad. But it's with huge time periods of history. That's a really good point. Also, it's like it doesn't even make sense anymore of like in school. Like why for Thanksgiving, for instance, why even talk about like unless you're going to talk about it just as separate things. One day a year we have a nice big meal. These are the we've always done we don't really think about it anymore it's not connected at all to any sort of fucking thing but it's just a nice meal we have do you know what i mean like yeah but but but like they kids are making little turkeys in their hands still like

that is kind of crazy that they're still doing that and and there's pilgrims and their state of america's like this nice but that's i think was the pushback against critical race god this They're still doing that. And there's pilgrims in their state of America. This is nice. But that, I think, was the pushback against critical race. God, this podcast is really not comedy today. But that was the pushback against critical race theory, where there was just a degree of like, the people, they're like, they just want to hold on to this nice version of history.

And I'm like, we need to get rid of all this. And it starts with telling me how JFK was fucking Marilyn Monroe. And I've read, just would finish real fast and wasn't very good in bed at all. Where would you read that? That's a weird anecdote. I read it on Reddit. It's a weird phrase.

I read it on Reddit. No, I did. I heard that. I heard he was a quick comer. Okay. Well, I believe you. And I think it's important to know that, too. How long is anybody going to last with a Marilyn Monroe?

I one time went to the Jefferson house in... I forget where it is. It was funny because you could tell their tour guide was in a transitional thing of like they were kind of starting to talk about how... He owned slaves.

Yeah, he owned slaves. It was like you could feel the energy was new and they were like so we used to not talk about this but now we do they were very like kind of nervous about it but they were mentioning it uh it was very interesting time i imagine it's more open now but i like that as a i like that as a character imagine being the manager that has to be like ethel ethel now we're going to start telling people that he had many illegitimate children with his slave

ladies, and she's going to be like, oh, goodness. And you just have to be like, yeah. When people ask, you tell them. When they say, did he last long in bed? You say, nope. You say, quick drama. This has got to stop.

When you go for a meal, sometimes with older people, they're talking a lot about the service. They're talking a lot about if the waiter's doing a good job. It's either way. If the waiter's not doing a good job or if the waiter is doing a good job. I don't really care either way. It shouldn't be the main thing that we're talking about. But they're overly like, it's like they have nothing else to talk about. And this isn't all people. Sometimes just sometimes this happens no not my parents but uh sometimes

this happens and it's like very like they're they're like oh he's doing really good he's great and it's like if they have a personality something you're like yeah but i don't want to rely on this conversation like it just feels like sometimes you're on a meal with older people, and they're very in tune mainly with how the service is, and it's a very boring topic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like a talking about the weather type of thing. It's safe, though. It is what it is. It is safe.

Your mom knows not to bring up actual news because your dad's going to never shut up about whatever he saw on Fox or something that morning or MSNBC. It is a safe thing, but it just feels like it's talking about the weather. It's like one of those things where you're like, yeah, it is happening right in front of our faces. I guess we could talk about that. But I don't know. I get that. Yeah. I get that.

I'll take it when it's nice, but when it's mean, you're just like, okay, relax. But even when it's nice, it's like, why are we so concerned about this person? They're just doing their job. They're not part of this. You know what I mean? You're not at the CVS like, this cashier is ringing my ass. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It feels like sometimes it's connected to how much they're going to tip. It feels like it's this thing where we're all a part of this now. And that feels gross, too. Do we agree that it's a good job? Because I'm always like, whatever it is, it's 20-25%.

You know what I mean? Like, anything. It doesn't matter to me unless, you know what I mean? It really, so it feels like. For me, I just go like so it feels like i just got like 80 that's just what i do that's just my standard i'm such a good generosity good version louis ck had a bit about like the council at the end of a dinner where it's just like

so what do we what do we think yeah yeah will they eat tonight we'll see yeah but that's how yeah it feels a little like that like they're like they're like oh they're second themselves up for like either a big tip or they're convincing themselves why they could do a smaller tip. Because they're like, and where are they? And they rush just out. You know, that kind of thing. You know, just stop. Stop.

Just be here with me. When this is going to tell us exactly who it is. I will. Do you have a this got to stop? Yeah, it's funny because I wasn't prepared for this. But I swear I thought of this before you brought up tipping, but I also, I feel like they've got me by the balls because everything wants a tip now. And I'm, but I'm, I'm lucky in life, right?

I got, I had a, I got a good career. I'm healthy. I feel like the servers have the really shitty job. A lot of the time I've seen people just be mean for no reason. It's hot. They're standing all day. They're usually young. Some of them are even from other countries.

And I'm like, I want this person to have a good experience with the United States, with me in general. So I'll give them like 20 or 25 percent because I'm terrible at math. But here's the problem. Then it's like, wait a minute. But you just didn't even do it. I came here and you gave me like water which i didn't order and i sat here but now i have to still tip you i don't really understand how that works or like you didn't bring me the coffee i got it from you and the other person made it so

who's getting this money yeah and then and or it's like all right i did this thing but this is a takeout meal so am i still supposed to tip you? I don't really know. And then I lived in Europe for a while, not trying to brag or whatever, but it was so much easier because they were like, tip. You just round up to the nearest Deutschmark or Euro, and you're good. That's it. So you're not like, hmm, what's 18% of 364 for the whole meal, and then also we had alcohol, but then you just don't have to deal with it at all, and you realize the whole rumor was like, oh, the service is so bad there.

It's not. It's fine, because they make a living wage. It's their career. They take pride in it like everybody else does a real job. Here, the person is relying on you. They're being fake nice, because they're like, this son of a bitch is cheap. I can tell. It sucks for them. It sucks for you, too,

because you know they secretly hate you before and after the meal. I don't know if you mentioned on that episode, though, maybe I missed it. There was a restaurant in New York where they said, we're going to get rid of tips. That's right. And it failed because people looked at the price of everything and said, this is insane. And they couldn't

emotionally get over the fact that it actually was the same price overall with the tip at the end of the day. You ever go to that sushi place? I don't think they have tip. They don't have tip, no. I just went recently. I love that place. My girlfriend, she grew up in a Chabad community.

So fish stuff, she's into sushi now, but for a bit she was like, I like sushi, but when it's like sugarfish. And I was like, okay, honey. We're not getting sugarfish for all our sushi meals. I'll tell you that right now. So she's an Orthodox, former

Orthodox Jew? Or is that a Hasidic Jew? It's a Hasid. It's a branch of Hasidism. I try to follow it all. But I think she grew up technically Orthodox, but in New Orleans in a Chabad community. First of all, they have Jews in New Orleans. That's news to me.

Yes. Yes, they do. Well, this will – let me go on to our next segment. You better count your blessings. Because I was going to mention this because I went to New Orleans. My girlfriend grew up in New Orleans. your blessing. Because I was going to mention this because I went to New Orleans. My girlfriend grew up in New Orleans. And

we went to some kind of service, some kind of shul. The vocab is so tough. I'm trying to be better. Are you okay? Can I be weird for a second? I have 25 texts and I just want to make sure my house is not actually on fire. Oh, sure.

You check this, and I'm going to do this first part because this is for you first, Russell. Oh, my God. So Russell is a big New Orleans boy. Uh-huh. And why are you giving me the skeptical look? I'm about to do like a nice thing. So Russell helped me. Me and Tova, he helped us give like all the good recs of all the good restaurants.

And Russell has two dogs. So we got you some new orleans uh dog uh thank you things i thought you would enjoy them that's very cute um uh i but i want to say we went to the shul thing and it was it was it was khabar and it's it's like it was a mess of khabar and orthodox and the food was really good and it was like loose it was a mess of Chabad and Orthodox, and the food was really good, and it was like loose. And, you know, weird in that like all the guys were drinking. They were giving us shots in the middle of the day. But the women don't drink. They take care of the kids. But this Jewish guy, not a rabbi, but just, he was Chabad.

He came up. He's a comedian. Can I tell you some Holocaust jokes? And I just thought it's. No. Oh, yeah. Can I tell you some Holocaust jokes? And I just thought it's...

Oh, yeah. But Jews, we talk about... My blessing is just... Because I have this degree of Jewish fans. It's just Judaism's ability to joke about sensitive topics. The fact that he came up to me and he told me some rough ones. Some humdingers. He told me some rough ones and I think I'm going to do it for our Patreon joke. I think I'm going to do this one.

It's just what I like and I tried to ask him, why are Jews more okay? Because a Jew will come up to you and tell you Holocaust jokes. A priest is never going to come up and tell you a pedophile joke. Yeah, that's true.

Maybe it's too soon for that whole thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Still sweeping that one under the rug. I don't know. I still find the Holocaust jokes really hard to stomach. I mean, my great- Are you Jewish or not? Yeah, I am.

Oh, you are? So my grandfather, I mean, he died in the Holocaust. He was drunk and he fell off the guard tower. So it's still really sensitive. Uh-huh, uh-huh. Still really sensitive. Very good,'m Jewish and Italian So I get to tell this joke

This is hitting them both There's no way you were going to have me On camera laughing at that I'm going to do an editing trick One of your big I was like no way Maybe you can pan away from me too too, because I voluntarily chortled. I don't know.

I don't want to get canceled. But it's just a matter of, like, I think it's because being close. I also think it's that not being in power. I think the thing about, like, Catholic Church, where they're not going to make jokes about it. They're in power. So they don't want you to shake the foundations. The Jews. That's true.

We've been at the fucking bottom of shit for so many different epochs that we have gallows humor. And we have nothing to lose in certain times. And so I liked it, not because I think it's a great joke. It's a fucked up joke. But that someone could be like, you're a comedian. I can have a fucked up sense of humor, too. And anyone who can have an appreciation for fucked up humor is a friend of mine. What's your blessing?

I have really good air conditioning and I've been very thankful for it the last couple days. Really good air conditioning. It's been so nice. And a little oasis. That's simple. Are you going to help me install this air conditioner when we're done here? No, I've got to run. I'm late to my show.

We're all late for everything. What's your blessing? I have done a lot of things in my life to screw up my career, and somehow I have managed to fail upward every single time. And I'm so lucky for that. And I know when I tell people that kind of thing, they go, well, you've worked really hard. That's true, but that doesn't absolve me of the fact that I should probably not actually be successful in media of all things.

I went to school. I didn't really get super good grades, but I went to a really good law school because I had a really diverse childhood, like growing up and going an exchange student and working at this thing and doing all these crazy jobs. So that got me into good law school. I go to work on Wall Street. The economy tanks. But I'm also the world's shittiest finance attorney. I can't pay attention.

You wouldn't want to hire me to do anything important. But the economy tanks, I get severance, which I use to start a company, but I find podcasting really early. And then here we are, like 16 years later, I'm doing the Jordan Harbinger show. And it's like, I wasn't some who had like talent for public speaking or anything yeah it's just lucky and all these very unlucky breaks for other people like the 2008 crash turned out to be really lucky for me and

then getting like shit can from another business that was going pretty well and then having to start the jordan harbinger show over from the ashes of that and having that be like the second best thing that's ever happened to me in my life, that's not really supposed to happen. So it's just really luck largely that has allowed that to happen. So that's, that's definitely been a blessing. Oh yeah.

Um, I think what I'll do for the Patreon, we'll, we'll, we'll take out that, that joke. And if you want to hear that joke in full, join the Patreon,

patreon.com slash Downside. This is where you can get our live episodes, our bonus episodes, my clean comedy special, The Rats Are In Me. We're almost hitting 150, and then we're going to start doing some extra, more extra episodes. Is there anything you want to plug, Jordan?

Look, the stuff that was not funny is very apropos what I do on my show. I interview amazing people, have fascinating conversations with them, do skeptical stuff. It's probably light as well because I don't try to be like all intellectual on there because I'm not good at that. But the Jordan Harbinger show has more from me and smart, fascinating guests that I think people may enjoy. So please take a look. Yeah, I think if you like this show, you're going to like this. The Skeptical Sunday was just so...

It's very fun. Thank you. I appreciate that. And thanks for letting me steal your pedophile... Of course. Not that I asked or anything. No, please. No one asks these days. You played me and I got probably two followers out of it, so it was worth on my end. We'll link to you. Hopefully that'll at least...

Does PageRank still exist? I don't even know if that's still a thing. Patreon? PageRank. Oh, PageRank. I was like, I just plucked it. Just now.

Yeah, yeah. I was like, fuck, I didn't get the word out. Russell, what do you want to plug? It's coming out August 8th.

Okay, August 8th. You have three days to come see me in Titanic before I leave the show. Plenty of tickets still available. Don't worry.

You can go night of, maybe. You should get them, I think. I think you should announce and see if the last show is like a big fucking Russell show. I'll announce at some point. But yeah, so come see me

in Titanic these last three days. And follow me on Instagram at Russell J. Daniels. And again, join the Patreon at Russell J. Daniels. And again, join the Patreon, patreon.com slash downside. I will be headlining in Atlanta, August 10th. First time in Atlanta, and then August

11th and 12th, I'll be at Raleigh, North Carolina. And after that, I'm doing a weekend at Kansas City Comedy Club. And I guess let's just end by saying thank you to the man who's responsible for this happening in the first place, Kim Jong-un.

R. Kelly. This is The Downside. One, two, three. Downside. You're listening to The Downside. The Downside. With Gianmarco Cerezi.