The Ricochet Podcast - The Things That Matter

Episode Date: June 8, 2018

We cribbed the title of this week’s show from Charles Krauthammer’s book as it perfectly describes what we’re feeling this week after the announcement from the good doctor and the deaths of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain. We get reactions from our guests, Rod Dreher and Andrew Klavan, who also delve into other topics, including psychedelics, why Trump is a great President, cake baking, and more. Source

Okay, ready? Three, two, one. We have special news for you. The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer. Are you going to send me or anybody that I know to a camp? We have people that are stupid. Fellow travelers, this is what you want. This is what you need. This is the path to true happiness and wisdom

mr gorbachev tear down this wall it's the ricochet podcast and i'm james lalickson today we talk to rod dreher about enlightenment and drew clavin about everything else let's have ourselves a podcast I'm James Lallix, and today we're talking to Rod Dreher about Enlightenment and Drew Klavan about everything else. Let's have ourselves a podcast. Bye-bye. Welcome, everybody, to the Ricochet Podcast. It's number 404, in case you're making hash marks on the side of your jail cell, and it's

got that far because it's brought to you by fine fine sponsors like bolin branch the right sheets can take your sleep and your style to the next level with bolin branch that upgrade has never been more affordable frankly go to bolinbranch.com that's spelled b-o-l-l-n-branch.com and use the promo code ricochet to get 50 off your first set of sheets, plus free shipping in the U.S. And we're brought to you by Quip. The truth is, most of us are brushing our teeth incorrectly for not long enough, and we forget to change our brush on time. Well, that's because most brands focus on selling flashy gimmicks rather than better brushing, but not Quip.

No. So what makes Quip so different? We'll tell you in a little bit. And we're brought to you by Man Crates. Hey, you're looking for a gift for the guy who has everything look no further get your man crate your special father's day discount today at man crates.com slash ricochet and don't forget to add the extra bacon and we're brought to you by ricochet.com itself you're still not a member good lord 404 sales pitches into this. Rob, I – Yeah. 404 is to be the one. Well, I will just say this.

If you are – look, you're right. It's 404, so I don't know quite what else I can say. If you are listening to this and you're not a member and you don't ever want to be a member and that's just that, I don't know what else to tell you except um you know i wish you changed your mind because we really do need your membership if you're listening to this and you have always meant to you thought okay i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna join and you just you keep forgetting it's only 250 a month two dollars per day since a month to join at the podcast level there are other levels available but that's the level that i'm asking you to do today um i don't know what else to tell you. I can just say

to you that if you please make a point, a to-do list, checklist item to do it, I want you to listen to the podcast, but I would love it if you would stop listening right now and join. I understand you probably won't do that, but please do it. Please do it today. Please do it the day you're listening. I will tell you

this, and this is the most shameful, not the most shameful thing I've ever done, but it's among the most shameful things I've ever done in the service of our project, Ricochet. And that is to tell you that today is my birthday. Oh. And I would appreciate it. If you like this podcast, you like what we're doing here, and you want to keep it going, and you are center-right, you know these things aren't free. They don't just come magically and the government doesn't do it. You understand that

you didn't make that. You didn't build that. It's a toxic ideology and we are fighting against it. So join and wish me a happy birthday by joining. That's all I want. That's all I want from you. Unless they're listening to this tomorrow, in which case they feel like those people who

want to send the belated birthday card, but then somehow it's worse than actually missing it. No worries. No, no. It's not worse. It's even better. It's even better. I don't know if I related this anecdote before, but at the grocery store when I was talking to a young checker about journalism – did I tell you this a couple of weeks ago?

No. Well, I know that when the other person is talking, each of us wanders off, makes coffee, checks the croissants. This kid was saying that he would read the local paper, but he kept bumping up against the paywall, five articles and then you're out. It's cheap, really cheap to actually get the thing online. And I said it does – it costs money to have a newsroom, to have people drive around and gather information. He looked a little bit stunned. He said, well, I thought – like he thought that there was some government grant or journalism thing, law. And he said, but it's journalism.

Shouldn't it be free? Right, right. And this is a generation of kids who brought up believing that absolutely everything that they want should be free by the internet. But is that a generation? There's this generation? I'm not sure. I actually feel like we've been going down this path at a rather continuous rate where important things, the important things should be provided to you. I mean we've infantalized ourselves. What you get to keep out of your paycheck after the government has taken a lot of it to provide you with the important things, the things you need, that's your allowance.

Our take-homes are allowed. You can spend it on movies or whatever you want to spend it on. That's fine. No one will judge you. But you don't have to spend it on anything important. You don't spend it on food or education or health care or, as soon, even rent. You don't have to do that because why would you do that? Someone else should do that for you.

I agree. The mentality has been there for an awful long time. But now it comes to everything that's on your screen is necessary. The interesting thing was once we made it very possible for people to steal television, newspapers, magazines, and books, they instantly began to do so. And also came up with large philosophical justifications why it wasn't theft in the first place. But this led to a whole, I mean, ever since Napster, nobody wants to pay for music. That's the problem that they've had. And if it's on a screen, everything becomes sort of morally equal into this big pot of

stuff that comes to you through your glowing glass rectangle. And so music, information, books, television, it should all be provided for you. And when you're growing up as a kid, you have your parents' Netflix account, right? So you just sort of assume when you go out into the world, now I've got to pay for my own Netflix. Rent is later. Yeah, and that's a necessity, by the way. So it's okay for me to steal it because they shouldn't even be charging for it because I want it. The fact that I want it really badly means that I should get it for free.

That's actually how we determine what I deserve. I deserve the things that you would have to that would have to be described but also revealed that there was a vastly different culture not that long ago but not that long ago uh newspapers were basically free you put a quarter in and you lifted the little lid and you could take as many as you liked like people like and nobody did Nobody took two – why would you want two newspapers? It was crazy. Nobody thought of stealing them. But there is a certain quality to the press and the decline of the press that I still can't help but blame on their deeply partisan bias. And here's what I – here's the example that I would use. Bill Clinton earlier this week was asked an impertinent question during a book tour about Monica Lewinsky. And the look on his face. I mean, he had a mini temper tantrum on the air. He later sort of composed himself, but the look on his face

when he was asked that question was astonished and outraged and offended and almost as if he had been the victim of rudeness. And he is correct. I understand how he has that attitude because that question, which could have been asked to him for the past 20 years or certainly the past 10 years or more importantly the past three years, four years, while his wife was a candidate or a putative candidate, no one in the press ever asked him because that would they understood that to be rude they wanted him to succeed they wanted his wife to succeed they were on his side but now that he and his

wife are basically figures of yesterday and they have no leverage and no one has has any democratic party plans for either one of them now all the questions come out and the look on his face told me everything about what you need to know about how the press protects their partisan um their their partisan heroes they and and then when they stop the look on those heroes face is like how dare you and it must be kind of the same thing and like once you're a president you're a high court judge and then you step down and no one treats you with respect anymore it's sort of the same thing like it must he must feel like you feel like Tsar Nicholas after the revolution suddenly in a farmhouse somewhere and having to make his own toast. It's like, what on earth happened to me?

Anyway, I'm not sure that was germane to anything that you were saying, but it was running through my mind today. Well, you began it by saying that at the times when you think you're far more red meat than you are, that you take, that you believe that the reason that the press is foundering and being destroyed is because of its own biases, which are manifest to all. And I agree that if you look at newspapers, you will indeed see that the people who put them together are dispositionally liberal, and they live in a sort of bubble in which they don't get exposed to the ideas on the other side. I mean, we've been over this 100 million times times it's not as though they believe that what they are is the liberal side they believe that what they are is the baseline for correctness this is what decent smart educated east coast people think and so that affects what they do i i agree with that and if if they don't

see how this how this damages their brand over the long run true Well, I think they're seeing it now. They're seeing it in this president. He said, sorry, the local newspapers provide a function that there's really no other service they can do. Television doesn't do it. Bloggers don't do it. Local newspapers are capable of looking at the community in ways with resources that actually

keep local governments in check. And when that resource is gone, nothing fills it up. Nobody volunteers to go down to the sewer board and listen to what the commissioners are saying. So what I fear is that because the guys at the top, the ones who shape some of the national coverage, have

deservedly screwed the brand with their own inability to reach out and consider other viewpoints, it's going to affect the people down the chain. They have not spent their time in the business trying to push an ideological line. So that's the tragedy.

And this kid who thinks that it should be free because it's journalism and it's a public good, none of them really want to pony up what's required to learn about their community. So, I mean, nextdoor.org or nextdoor.com, an app on my phone, is not going to have the same effect. No, no.

Because that's basically – I saw a black person in my neighborhood, and also someone's missing a cat who wants some ficuses. That's basically that. Right, right. Is Peter around, or is he just simply listening, stunned? Peter's not around. Peter's in Spain. Is Peter around or is he just simply listening? Peter's not around. Peter's in Spain. Oh, that's right! I kept waiting for Peter. Oh, God, no wonder. You must have thought it was very strange we were going on and having a full conversation. By the way, if anybody's hearing a bunch of

clanking sounds in the background, that is recycling going out there. And the recyclers today are not happy with us because when you've had parties, when you've had people over, when you've had graduation stuff going on, there's going to be an awful lot of glass. So the melodious tintinnabulation of busted beer and champagne bottles is what you hear in the background. Say, by the way, champagne, that's kind of a frou-frou thing, isn't it? Bubbles. The only bubbles a man needs are the bubbles, perhaps in the beer that he drinks and the good beer that he drinks, and it doesn't have to be any of your fine crafty stuff. It can be just the honest beer that

an honest man wants after an honest day of labor. Along with good night's sleep, by the way. Good night's sleep is also important. Good night's sleep is also important. I don't know where you're going with this, but I just thought that a good night's sleep is also important. I wanted to add that.

Somebody's really not paying any attention whatsoever to the spots that I had at the top of the hour. Yes, a good night's sleep is important, Rob. Did you get one, by the way? I did. Oh, I see. Yes, you're correct. I'm not only interrupting you inartfully. I'm interrupting you inartfully in the wrong order.

Right, absolutely. In the future, I owe you oneartfully. I'm interrupting you inartfully in the wrong order. Right, absolutely. In the future, I owe you one not interrupting. Well, the wrong order to the wrong product and all the wrong rest of it. I'm just a guy. I'm just a normal guy. It's hard for me to keep track. I can't even do it. You go. Well, that sort of thing is that guys

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Bacon, whittling, pipe smoke. I mean, but there's a certain manliness that ascribes to items that guys just like and gravitate towards. And even if they're not the sort of guy who says, you know, I'm a whittling sort of man, maybe when they're exposed to the opportunity and possibility of whittling, they become a whittling kind of man. So man crates is the perfect gift for men, period. No matter what kind of man they are, no matter what they're interested in, there's something in these crates for them. Father's Day is coming up and you know it's a big problem because you don't know where to get them. Get them a tie. Oh, Lord. Get them another gimme cap. Give them another mug that says, world's best dad. You can't prove that in court. Truth is, dad may not even know what he wants. But if you go to mancrate.com, you're

going to see a whole bunch of stuff that he probably does. One of those items is going to hit him where he lives. Give him a gift he's guaranteed to love with man crates. They're handpicked and packaged gifts for every type of dad. Well, like the knife-making kit for hands-on kind of dads, or the whiskey appreciation crate for fathers who like the finer things. In most gift shops, you're going to get standard stuff and you got to wrap it. Oh, man. Man crates are shipped in a sealed wooden crate with a crowbar, so're going to get standard stuff and you got to wrap it. Oh man, man crates are shipped in a sealed wooden crate with a crowbar. So he gets to pry his man crate open in front of everyone. And you know what? It's not easy. This isn't a game. It takes some work. It takes some sweat. When was the last time you gave your dad a gift that required a crowbar to open, right?

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Now we bring back to the podcast Rod Dreher, senior editor of the American Conservative. Welcome. We had the masterpiece cake ruling this week. And judging from Twitter, a lot of people simply do not understand what the ruling was about and are convinced that the new Bush regime has made it legal to refuse service to gay people. But there's something else here, too. You found the ruling somewhat absurd and not unlike a 1790 Jacobin court decision. Explain.

Well, I thought that what the high court did was to say that the only thing standing between forcing Christian businesses to make cakes for gay weddings and so forth was the politeness that involved here. In other words, I think that the court's ruling was about like a court in revolutionary France telling the mob that they needed to respect the fact that aristocrats have a right to their status. It's just not going to happen, not in a country where 75% of the people, according to a poll released this week, believe that businesses should have no right to refuse service of any kind to gay customers.

But hey, Rod, it's Rob Long. I mean, I read the ruling or the parts of the ruling that I could understand. I kind of breezed through it. And it did seem to me that it was a win for common sense. I mean, full disclosure, I'm in favor of marriage equality, and I was in favor of the Obergefell decision, but I don't think that that means that you have to be forced to bake a cake. Why are people with my views, which I consider centrist maybe out of pure egotism, but why are those views not vindicated here? Well, Rob, you're not a centrist. You're the mainstream now,

absolutely the mainstream. People like me are on the margins. And I think your view is, I think it's not a matter of common sense. I wish it were so. But as conservatives have pointed out, there's no substance to this ruling, or rather, the Supreme Court did not rule on the substance of the matter, only on the perception that, the accurate perception, that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission was bigoted against Christians. Just this morning, there's been a ruling announced by the Arizona Appeals Court in a similar case in Phoenix, in which the court ruled that a couple of Christian calligraphers had to provide same-sex wedding announcements. They have no right, no religious right to refuse.

And get this, the Arizona court even cited Masterpiece Cake Shop. I think that that ruling in Arizona really causes or should cause the Christians and conservatives who are happy about Masterpiece Cake Shop saying it was a big win for religious liberty. Well, what do they say about this? A ruling against religious liberty that cites Masterpiece Cake Shop. So where do you where does this all end up? You think there's what we're going to keep adjudicating this and keep litigating it until somehow the court is forced to come out and unequivocally take a stand? Yeah, absolutely. I think that ultimately the court is going to have to rule

on substantive claims here, not just procedural ones. And more than that, this is the thing that I keep trying to bang into the head of my fellow conservative Christians. He said, even if we maintain the right to refuse this kind of service, the First Amendment right, the fact is we're going to be run out of business by public stigma. We're not going to survive the court of public opinion. Look at what happened this past week to the CrossFit gym owner in Indianapolis. Guy's apparently a conservative Christian. They had scheduled, some of his employees scheduled a pride workout there.

He said, no, you're not going to do that. Boom. His business was dead within a couple of days because all his employees quit and a lot of his clientele moved away. That's free. This is a free country. They have the right to do that. I would defend their right to do that, but that doesn't help the business

owner. No, no. Can you hear me? I might. Yeah, you can. Go ahead, James. All right. You're absolutely right. That's what I thought, even though every case in the courts might be one popular opinion, either has to go along with what the most extreme people say or just be silent. And you find this on Twitter where the CrossFit guy was excoriated by everybody. And not just for having the wrong opinion. His wrong opinions made him a truly bad person, not fit to be in the public sphere. And that's what seems to be happening with just basic religious beliefs. They're evidence of an unfitness for citizenship.

I mean, if you complain this week about a this week about, uh, you know, a couple of boys who were presenting as women winning a track event, that's transphobic and the phobic indicates that you have an irrational fear of these things. So it doesn't seem like we're defining the terms to just excuse and remove people from civics as a civil society whatsoever, put them outside the pale. That's exactly what's happening. And, you know, 50 years ago, it would have been done to gay people. It was wrong then, it's wrong now. And I fear what's happening, and Rusty Reno wrote about this in First Things this week, what's happening is we're making it impossible for us to live in a pluralistic republic, because we're forcing people

to take these hard and fast and cruel stands against each other in a way that just pushes everybody deeper and deeper into their own bubble. Speaking of getting deeper into your own bubble, this is a terrible segue, but I feel like I need to do it. I read your blog all the time. It's a fantastic blog. We're going to link to it here on the show notes too. But last week I was reading about your response to Michael Pollan's book, How to Change Your Mind. And it's something I've been sort of exploring for the past year. And I was absolutely transfixed by what you were saying because just – we talked about it a little bit last time on the podcast, but I'll bring everybody and you up to speed because I'm sure you didn't hear it.

The essential question was there are people who have these incredibly profound experiences, not just in the literature of the research, which has been people with PTSD and end of life, all that stuff, that is sort of undeniably, that the use of psychedelics is sort of undeniably effective in those cases, most of those cases. But also sort of, you know, regular people, if there are such, if there is such a thing as a regular person, have these sort of incredibly profound experiences. And the question is, are those, even those religious experiences or experience of religious conversion, are they as valid if you get them by altering your consciousness for you know six six seven hours as they are after months and months years and years and a lifetime of prayer and study and contemplation and you came out and said yes they are well let me qualify that a

little bit i think that they might well be. Again, I write as a conservative Christian, so some people were really shocked that I was so open to the idea of psychedelic experience. I was, and I'm not. That's right, but I was happy to read it, yeah. Yeah, well, because I think that, you know, I'm an Eastern Orthodox Christian, and mysticism is a very big part of our ordinary religion. I have often wondered, as someone without experience in psychedelics myself, but I've often wondered if our ability to perceive consciousness is, if it doesn't emerge from our brain, but rather our brain is the receiver for a broader consciousness, which I consider to be God. And psychedelics would seem to, the psychedelic experience would seem to back that theory up in the sense that if we change the chemicals in our brains, however temporarily, it opens us up to seeing what is actually there. I think that from a religious point of view,

psychedelic use is fascinating and what it might tell us about consciousness and about the nature of reality, about metaphysics. Now, to your particular question, Rob, I've thought of it in terms of, say, if somebody wins the lottery and wins $100 million in the lottery, his money is just as valid as the guy who's worked 30 years to build his business, I think, at that. But the way they relate to their experience seems to me will be qualitatively different. I would like to see the way people who have been profoundly affected by psychedelic experiences, how does it change their lives? Well, I mean, I think one of the things is it's certainly it's in the Pollen book and also in Jim Fadiman's earlier book. The people who did the research in the 60s on this.

I think what they've always described is it's the erasing temporarily of the ego. I mean, you know, the sort of Freudian concept of the ego. The idea that the part of you that's in between you and full consciousness, the part of you that's in between you and God, the part of you that's in between you and something else, the part of you that's holding you back. And you get a glimpse of the other side of you, the other side of yourself, something bigger, and it's easier then to see yourself as connected and see your duties as what they are

as a human being, and to see all the little attachments you've had in your life as sort of kind of beside the point, and not part of the big story. And I suspect that, to me, that sort of my experience is that has been that's been actually very very accurate description of what i've what's happened um but but part of that's also okay that's the that's that's the that's the part of you that remembers where you park the car i mean there's also there's all sorts of essential information there i can never remember you know well i have an app for that which, which makes me wonder whether the apps are the sum total of my consciousness now or me.

But isn't that – I mean that's the appeal is losing that nagging, flawed, slightly pitted old walnut that you are and being able to subsume yourself in something larger. But who are you then at that moment? Well, I think the idea there was that you've lost those things that hold, that you've lost the things that seem to be in between you and being your true self, and your true self is actually something it's actually a gift from God.

By the way, those are actually church bells in the background, even though I have the windows closed. I'm in between an Episcopal church and a Presbyterian church, which I think is probably meaningless terms for you, Rod, but they still ring the bells. I'm just kidding. It is a sign, man. It is a sign. So how have you, after the week and a half that you've been writing about this,

as you're thinking deep in or changed or in any way, have you amended your thought are you still sort of uh wrestling with these these these issues because to be fair you didn't get to a conclusion in your blog post oh no you're right about that rob i'm wrestling with this and in fact i'm i'm thinking about writing my next book in some way on these themes on the theme of transcendence and how we can connect with transcendence in a world that is very materialistic and denies implicitly and explicitly that there can be transcendence. That's why Michael Pollan's book spoke very deeply to me. And I'm sitting here right now in my

bedroom talking to you, and I'm looking on the floor of my book, and there are all these Eastern Orthodox mystical books there. I've been reading about the experiences of the saints with mysticism, and I'm finding that the things they describe are very much like what Michael Paul and some of the people he interviews described. Yeah, the research, even the research accounts, the direct lab reports from the 50s and 60s are kind of really remarkably and they're astonishing because they come from a time really before this stuff was kind of, before there was a new age, before there was even this kind of language in the culture. So these are people who

really had an immediate experience in 1950-whatever, 1961, and in their own words, they sound like late 70s hippies from Japanga Canyon. And yet they were 30 years before. So – I'm sorry, James. You don't like this. No. To tell you the truth, this fascinates me. And I'm inclined to lean towards it.

And that's what makes me suspicious because it seems to me that this consciousness, this item that we have between us and the transcendence, I would trust that less than I would trust saying, here is an arduous 30-year path of self-refining and learning and discipline and study to get you to a place where you can begin to imagine, to apprehend the glory. I mean, to me, that's the one where you go because it's work. And as much as I would love a pill that would let the walls melt away and I would see the great fellow with the beard and we'd play Uno, I think that's fantastic. But I don't necessarily trust it, but I'm not ruling it out. I'm going to show you. You're a Midwestern Lutheran, aren't you, James?

However did you possibly guess? No, look, I am somewhere between the two of you on this. I do believe that if you look at the stories of the saints in the Orthodox tradition and the Catholic tradition, they do receive these mystical experiences as the result of years and years of meditation and asceticism and so forth. Of course, not all meditators and ascetics do receive them. I think what I can't quite figure out is to what extent can the chemically induced mystical experiences be trusted? Because I believe that there's not only God out there, there are some evil spirits out there too, and how do we know they're not deceiving us? Well, that's a very good i mean

i think that's a that's a sort of a second level question which now now i'm terrified um i i would i would answer i would answer james this way is that you're not lose you're not seeing god you're not meeting god god is not waiting for you i mean i don't assuming you're a believer he's not waiting for you on the other side of this experience what what was holding you back or holding people i wouldn't even say that holding me back is my attachment to things that are really not godly and are not actually divine and really are not even that not valuable or necessary attachments to things like possessions and money and reputation and how people think of you and how much power I have. And that one of those things about losing your ego is you're losing a huge basket of those things and when those things are gone you start to see instead of i mean the one way one thing that can happen is

you can get very very nervous and very very depressed another thing that can happen is you suddenly realize oh there's actually this is there actually is something to this and something to me and something um that isn't the sum total of the ego artifacts that I've collected around myself, which I've really built around myself as a barrier to keep out any idea, anything larger than me. I mean, there is a certain kind of narcissism that I think is now rampant in our society, which is really just all about I am it, I am me. And if I'm not, you know, I have everything I need. And the most important thing is for me to have me. And then if you actually go through this journey and take these medication and you do it in kind of the right spirit and right way and the right circumstances,

those things you suddenly see as almost encumbrances. Like, why do I have them? Why are they? And you focus on, I think, the bigger things. That's the ideal. That's what's supposed to happen. I'm not sure it always happens. I suspect that Rob may be right about the other stuff. Well, Rob, you've got to dose James' hot dish and see what happens. Exactly right. Tater tot hot dish is a pathway to life. First one's free, James.

Lutheran tripping. I have to say that when I was in college in the 80s, I had a friend who was suffering from a suicidal depression, dropped acid just because, why not? He was willing to do anything. It turned his life around completely. He ended up coming out of his depression recreationally, and it changed them not one bit. They enjoyed it. They loved it. But I couldn't see any change in the way they lived. So I think Colin says this too in his book that what you and setting, the set and setting, the context is very important. But since you brought it up, this morning, I think for a lot of us, me definitely, very sad news about Anthony Bourdain, the writer and traveler and

raconteur and sort of boulevardier and a lot of other things with a wonderful CNN show, which followed his wonderful travel channel show. Somebody who I really admired and looked up to and, and, and did not know.

And he committed suicide. And there's this, the one part of it, you want to kind of think of this as kind of a Richard Corey moment where the guy's got everything, but really he's got a sad inside. But what, what,

what do you say to people? What can we say to people about a thing like this? I mean, it's a mystery, isn't it? Each of us is a mystery, and we will never know what happened. Or is there something, some unifying, I mean, I hate to say the word, but unifying lesson we can take from this? Right. Well, like you, I was absolutely devastated. In fact, I've been going back and forth with tears all morning because he meant something to me.

Anthony Bourdain lived the kind of life that I imagine I wish I had, the life of being able to travel around the world, meet interesting people, eat their food. And he was funny about it. But I think we now can see that that edginess he had, that wit came from a really dark food. And he was funny about it. But I think we now can see that that edginess he had, that wit came from a really dark place. And I've been really sad for him and praying for his soul. But I sat down with one of my kids, my 11-year-old daughter. She and I loved Bourdain. We would watch Bourdain shows together, and we liked to cook together. And I told her about it, and I reminded her that we just don't know what kind of battles people are fighting every single day. I don't know what else to say beyond that. No, I mean, I think I've had exactly the same reaction all morning. And part of me was also,

because I've had some experience with this and, and, and I'm, I'm these sort of familiar emotions that after in the, in, when you're no longer or the moments when you're no longer really sort of feeling sadness there's a lot of anger like i'm i i'm i'm angry at him not just for not just for stealing from me the his future career but also i i just it just feels like an act of incredible violence to do to your your children and i'm not i'm not I understand that there's pain and sickness and I understand all that. And so I forgive him. Not that it's me to forgive,

but I hope he's forgiven. But maybe it's just me. I just can't imagine anything that unbearable that I wouldn't bear it for my children. Although I don't have children and I'm not in that position. Well, Kate Spade also killed herself this week.

She had a 13-year-old daughter. Right. And Bourdain has a child, too, who's around the same age. And I feel like you, Rob, I just don't understand the selfishness of it, even though I just pity the man for his pain. But on my blog this morning, a couple of people just recently posted exactly that, that as much as they pity him, they wonder if we aren't showing if we ought to be showing anger at those who committed suicide for what they did, what they took away for the sake of discouraging others. And I don't know how I feel about that. But some of my readers feel pretty strongly that

there needs to be anger. I think there's that. I'm just not sure that I know how to pull that off. I'm not sure if suicidal people actually need that to be added to the list of things that they are bearing with the world. It's interesting that Bourdain's Wikipedia page talks about his extensive drug use, especially psychedelics. I mean, he talks about his extensive drug use, especially psychedelics. I mean, he talks about –

Oh, hey, wait a minute. No, I mean, the Wikipedia entry says, as a former user of cocaine, heroin, and LSD in Kitchen Confidential, he wrote of the experience at a trendy Soho restaurant, quote, we were high all the time, sneaking off at every opportunity to, quote, conceptualize. Hardly a decision was made without drugs, cannabis, methoqualin, cocaine, LSD, mushrooms soaked in honey. I think it goes on to list several other drugs, which seems to be an attempt to escape from the self, doesn't it? Or just simply to enjoy the effects thereof. Who knows?

I don't. But this was one case where – you're right. There's no way – no one knows why he did what he did. And I'm going with this other than to say it's a pity and a shame. And the people who are posting things like the suicide hotline number, somebody else pointed out on Twitter, listing the number of who you can call doesn't exactly cure everything. It doesn't cure what you bring to the call, and the person who makes the call doesn't feel any better and has one more sense of failure to add to the list of things

that they carry around. So are we going to have a – There was news – Go ahead. I was going to say there's news out today showing that – I think CDC numbers showing that the suicide rate is skyrocketing all across the country. Something is going on right now. And is it mostly, is it men who are killing themselves more often than women?

I would suspect that it is. Not only that, but white people. The suicide rate among whites is double that of what it is among Africanrican-americans and hispanics that's an interesting question too i think because men reach an age where the testosterone drops their usefulness drops their social utility their ability to do something in society leaves them and it unmans them and they have no purpose anymore and a man without a purpose is a man more than likely to look at the at the barrel and say there's one way out of this and that's to eat that. Well, it's just that there's the top 10

causes of death. I mean, I think it's like 50,000 suicides or 40,000 suicides. Only three are increasing. Alzheimer's, suicide and opioid, I mean,

or drug, but opioid abuse. Those are the three. But she might say reform suicide. That's right. This has been fascinating. We've held you over far too long, so we'll just have to have you back again

as soon as you write anything else, be it a tweet or an article or a book. We'll have you again. We just have to scatter and let you off to your full and fascinating day. Rod, thanks for joining us. Thank you so much. Okay, Rob, I need to get out there to your ashram in L.A. and observe you.

You are welcome. You are more than welcome. My ashram, just to break it down for you so you realize just how unglamorous what I'm talking about. I'm in New York City now, so my ashram is somewhere in the island of Manhattan. So actually, maybe you're right about those evil spirits. I don't know. How could you trip in Manhattan? It seems like you'd probably be too much.

What an nightmare. You've got to force yourself. You've just got to force yourself. You've got to force yourself. The things you'll do for the sake of science and religion, Rob. It's a beautiful thing. Well, thank you. So no one else gives me the credit. Thank you for doing it.

Okay, thank you, guys. See you later. Yeah, well, Rob, you're still in New York, right? I am. Yeah, well, I can well imagine that with all the commotion that goes on there, it's kind of hard at night to get a good night's sleep, isn't it? There's so much noise. There's honking. There's a cat.

There's the elevator. I get a good night's sleep no matter what. Why is that? Well, for one thing, I have an untroubled conscience. But for the other, if you have have a troubled conscience i've got some really great sheets is it well here's the thing folks if somebody in the entertainment business has an untroubled conscience he's a sociopath so let's just back away from that or broke but regardless of sociopathy one can appreciate good things in life and those of us with a conscience know that it's important to do the right thing for yourself now and then.

And that means good sleep, getting a good sleep. There are three words that help you get a good night's sleep. And what might those be? Comfortable, comfortable, comfortable. Those are the words. And if you want the best sleep of your life that's comfortable, well, you know, sleeping pills will try to help you do that. But they just knock you out. And that's not exactly the way to go.

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BowlinBranch.com. Promo code RICOSHET. And you know what else? I use the Bowlin Branch. I know we're supposed to get to Drew and we will, but I just want to say I use the Bowlin. Even the little cloth sack they come in, the nice cloth sack, I use that want to say I use the ball, even the little cloth sack they come in. It's a nice cloth sack. I use that to take my shirts to the laundry.

It's a full package for this company. I was going to say that Rob uses it as a sachet for his peyote buttons. You and I should be in one of those 60s, you know, groovy Sunset Strip movies. And you can play the Jack Webb character and I can play the guy in the fringe suede jacket. Come on, man. Don't you want to tune in?

I'll be walking toward the camera, twisting the bag of reefer in my hands as I mutter because the baby went in the tub and drowned because the parents, who were really square-looking in that episode, by the way. I mean, I think the guy had a tie on, for heaven's sakes. Well, you know, sometimes you can tell on the radio whether or not a guy is wearing a tie because there's a certain quality that he has. Sometimes you don't know. Sometimes there's just the quality in their

voice that keeps you guessing and wondering what he's going to say next. And, of course, that's Drew Klavan, novelist, podcaster, provocateur, inventor of The Clavin-less Weekend, which are horrible things to endure. You can listen to The Andrew Clavin Show right here at Rick's Gate. You can follow him on Twitter, of course, at Andrew Clavin. Welcome back, buddy. What's up?

How you doing, pal? Oh, we're fantastic. Listen, you say there is a double standard twixt Roseanne and Samantha Bee. I know. Samantha Bee has come out and said, get this, that we all ought to be a little bit more decent. She said that before, but now she says there's extra need for more special

decency in the world. But don't they give themselves constantly the ability to be indecent to the people who deserve it because people who don't think like they do are not really worthy of the civil niceties that they would extend to people who believe't think like they do are not really worthy of the civil niceties that they would extend to people who believe in the right things like it, like unlimited abortion and

property confiscation. This is where the left went wrong. I mean, they weren't always like this. It used to be, I'm talking about a long time ago, but I think it was around the, you know, the six, around 68 is when they just decided that it was not that they were right and we were wrong. It was that they were right and they were good and we were wrong and we were evil. And once you reach that place, how do you how do you have a conversation? How do you talk about anything when anything you say is going to be interpreted as bad? I really think their big problem. I really do believe this. I think their big problem is that socialism has failed everywhere.

You know, everywhere it exists, it fails. And even in the places where it seems to succeed, it actually bleeds the vitality and life out of everything so that the only way to justify it, and they seem to want to justify it, is by claiming that everything else is evil and must be silenced and no argument can be made. And I just think it's it has brought us to this pretty past that and the fact that they own the press so that the absolute brutality with which conservative voices have been treated, you know, tends to divide us. It tends to make it impossible to have a conversation. This thing with Samantha Barr and with Samantha Bee and Roseanne Barr, I call them I call them the Barbie girls, the Barbie girls. It is almost like a parable. I mean, it's so obviously a double standard that only a leftist surrounded by other leftists, which is the state of most journalists in this country, could argue that there was some difference between the vulgarity. The only difference between one of them and the other that I'm concerned with that I can see is that Samantha's B Samantha B's comment was scripted. It was approved by her producer. Levels, levels, levels.

Yeah. Yeah. We're sitting in a room with some ambient blasting off ambient. Hey, I want to get to some other stuff before. But we had dinner a few weeks ago, a month ago, so ago, in LA, and one of the things we talked about was I looked at you and I said, you know,

because you and I have been on the same side and roughly the same side of a lot of different perspectives, and I said, part of what I was complaining about was that it seems like a lot of people on our side are driven only by – it's enough that liberals are mad. It's enough that we drink their liberal tears.

And that's it. That's the sole criterion for deciding whether they're in favor of something or against something. So the fact that it seems like Trump is making the liberal media upset because he's going to go to Singapore, then he should go to Singapore and talk to Kim. We all will drink their liberal tears. And you said, yeah, a little that works for you. Does it still work for you? Is that how, you know, what the way I the way I feel about Donald Trump? I mean, look, you and I are in the arts. We know that bad people frequently do they frequently do great work. You know, we know some of the greatest work ever created in the arts was done by terrible people. I think Trump has been a very good president. I think he has been an excellent president.

I think he's a bad guy. I can live with that disparity. I mean I think it's – do I wish – yeah. Do I mean that – and I sort of – I would agree with that. But what I'm concerned about is the idea that everything he does, just because, you know, some things are true, even if liberal media says they're true. And some things are some things are false, even if Donald Trump says they're true. So, you know, you're saying like that where aside from style and and and general cootness, where would you criticize the Trump administration for their works and not, you know, just for the tweets? Well, well, first of all, though, I think we have to talk about this

at another level, because I do not think the conservatives fully grasp. They understand that the media is against us. When I say the media, what I really mean is not just the news media, but Hollywood and the Academy. But they don't understand that that sets an entire narrative that we're constantly swimming against, swimming upstream against, and has caused our politicians to become apologetic for their own principles. So that you have guys, the Bushes saying, oh, we're going to be kinder and gentler than Ronald Reagan, who made us rich and happy and free. And we're going to have compassionate conservatism instead of just

conservatism, which is compassionate. And when you have that kind of when you have people apologizing for what is essentially the truth, what is essentially right, and people pushing narratives that men are women and women are men and all this stuff, there's just complete nonsense. The fact that Trump takes on the media at their level is, I think, immensely important and immensely productive. It's not just it's not just the tears of the liberal media. It's the way he shatters their narrative. I mean, if you take the NFL, I hear so many intellectual right wingers saying, oh, this is petty. This is a demagoguery.

And by the way, it may be demagoguery, but it's still true that that the mainstream believes you should support the national anthem and salute the flag. And the press makes it sound as if anybody who's anybody thinks that's a bad thing. And Trump has been fearless and maybe and maybe he's using this to his advantage, too. But still, he has been fearless in challenging that narrative. And I think that matters when it comes to Kim Jong Un. You know, I'm going to say this, though it may make the top of my own head explode. I've begun to trust Trump a little bit in these negotiations.

A negotiation is always a movement. And what the press keeps doing is taking snapshots of him and saying, oh, look, he's here, and that's a bad place to be. And what Trump is thinking is, yeah, I'm here, but I'm moving over there. And he's kind of thinking a little bit ahead. And I'm not saying he's playing 3-D chess. I'm just saying he's negotiating. Right.

Let's talk about North Korea for a minute. What's he negotiating? I mean, the North Koreans have wanted for 25 years to have a summit with an American president. They've asked for it and asked for it. And the Americans have always said, all Americans, you know, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, no, not until you do X, Y, and Z. Right. And they said no. And so now we have an American president say, yeah, you don't have to do anything.

So he's already given away the story. And you're telling me he's got some master plan? Yeah, because I actually think that I've always had a different attitude about this. This is one thing I almost half agreed with Obama about, which is very rare, is I believe that when you talk to somebody, you're just it's just talk. You can talk to anybody. So you say all those three presidents wouldn't sit down with them. All three of them got taken to the cleaners. All three of them propped up this corrupt, cruel, brutal regime and let him go down the road with his nuclear program. Trump says that he thinks he can negotiate denuclearization. Hey, do I believe that's going to happen? I have grave doubts about it. But if

he thinks that he is such a good negotiator, that sitting down with him is going to win us something, let him try it. Everything else has failed. All right. Let me just push back a little bit on that just because I don't like the guy, but I'm trying to be fair to him. I'm talking about how great I think his pushback against China is right. I think his tax bill

was correct. I think in general his deregulation across the board is fantastic. I'm applauding that. I keep hearing about these deals. He can make deals. He can make deals. The guy's been president. He's 18 months in.

A third of his presidency is over. His first term is over. More than that. Where are the deals? There are no deals. There are no deals. The trade talks with China collapsed on the eve of their telling us how great they are. There's no accord with Mexico. The Canadians are angry. Our trading partners are furious because he's taxing their steel exports.

There are no deals. There just seems to be chaos and improvisation, and my concern is – and a lot of amen from the side that should be holding him to stricter standard well i you know i don't know i mean i i'm i'm hoping that he is still look this is what they said about the legislature but about congress just before they passed the tax bill that he can't get anything done nothing's going to happen it's always going to be uh a problem and they're never going to get anything done and then they did did get something done. He had actually a great first year. So now he's sitting down with this guy. This has been a problem for as long as I can remember. We keep getting taken to the cleaners. You know what? Why shouldn't we sit and wait and see? Why do we have to attack him before he's done anything? I mean, I'm willing to listen. Listen, by the way, I attack

him all the time. I think he's rude. I think he treats people like garbage. I cannot believe that some of the stuff that comes out of his mouth and some of the ways he treats some of the people I respect, like Jeff Sessions and Rex Tillerson, whether you agree with them or not, these are people who deserve respect. But I'm so perfectly willing to criticize him. But why should I criticize him before anything has happened at all? But isn't that one of the reasons you criticize him? I mean he's supposed to be taking care of this stuff. And instead, he's talking about what a great dealmaker he is, and he's not – and some deals are blowing up. I mean what is your – when does the report card come due for you, Clavin?

I mean wait. You can't – it doesn't seem fair to me to judge a president by what – necessarily by what he hasn't done. You judge him by what he has done, and he's accomplished quite a lot, right? But you're stacking the deck here. He has accomplished a massive trade crisis with Europe. He's accomplished pissing off our allies before we have to use them to go in negotiation and put pressure on China. I mean he's accomplished a lot of bad things. We've just decided that those are unfinished. So we're going to wait for him to be – we're going to wait to applaud it as a masterpiece.

Right? I mean, it just seems like, I guess here's my concern. My overarching, here's what psychologically twitches at me at night, is the idea that we are becoming them. We are becoming the left. We are doing exactly what they did for eight years with that president. So every single thing he does is magnificent. That we are like those children in that video when Obama was running in Venice and they stood in a circle and they sang a hymn to him. We all wisely rolled our eyes and said this is ridiculous. Instead, we're doing it. And we're doing it with a guy who probably is not even as nice a guy as Obama. But, you know, here's the thing. my response to that is this there are people doing

that there are people doing that i'm not one of them but i will say this you know they keep screaming about authoritarian trump and i have not seen one instance one instance where donald trump has violated the norms of american governance or when when I look back at Obama now, I see a Chicago-style corrupt machine government that polluted the Justice Department, the Treasury Department, the State Department. They were all working dishonestly, lying to Congress and the people to do things that in some ways can't even be explained, like the Iran deal, and in other ways meant nothing, like the Paris deal. So they were screwing everybody left and right and getting nothing done trump has gotten stuff done and hasn't done any of those things as far as i can see and so you know i'm pretty happy about what he's done right if you're trumpet if trump had said uh to hollywood you know at some point you've made enough movies this would be seen as an, fascistic edict for them to stop doing what they're doing.

But if Obama says at some point you've made enough money, that's just a general statement of principles that possibly can't have any consequence when it comes to taxation policy. So I mean I hear this all the time on Twitter, Drew, which of course as we know is the pulse of the nation. It's the pulse of the nation. And a font of wisdom. Unfortunately, it is the pulse of the nation. It's the pulse of the nation. And a font of wisdom. Unfortunately, it is the pulse of the nation, and it's a rapidly tachycardia pulse. But somebody was saying the other day, if you've ever wondered what you'd be doing in 1934 when Hitler rose, you're doing it now. And you get these people who are convinced that Jack Boudry is right around the corner.

Now, I will grant you, we have people in black masks running around with tire irons beating people. They're not exactly from the right. And I will confess that there are some incel, pathetic little neckbeard dweebs walking around calling themselves all right Nazis. I get that. But this is not some sort of Waffen-SS that's about to sweep the nation. They are convinced, however, that there is this tidal rise of authoritarianism sweeping the country. And the rest of us look around, and we just – we don't see it. So whereas Trump is not convincing them, they're not convincing us. Did you see, Drew, that recent study that said that most people in the next election are not voting for their own party.

They're voting against the other party, and supposedly this is bad. I think it's good. I think it's been happening for a long time. You know, I was watching this Masterpiece Cake case that came before the Supreme Court the other day. And when I learned the facts of it, when I read deeper into it, and I have to say straight up, I have been a supporter of gay rights since it actually cost you something. I mean, back in the 70s and 80s, I would talk about this, thought people were being mistreated. I thought it was insane. So I have a really, you know, I've been the same place about this forever. And you see this guy who's a religious guy who refuses to, who considers cake he refuses to bake Halloween cakes and he refuses to bake cakes that celebrate divorce and he refuses to bake a cake that celebrates a gay marriage.

It's not that he refuses to sell things to gay marriage. And two justices, two left-wing justices say absolutely not. This guy has got to be forced to celebrate what these guys celebrate. And it's not as if, you know, it's Colorado. It's not as if you can't find another guy to make you a cake. So it's not like he's running a monopoly business or something like that. The only bus station in town that won't take them to the wedding, which would be different. You know, he's in this, and they believe that they have the right to try to judges believe they have the right to drive this man out of business. And it's unclear from the decision what the what two of the other justices believe. And, you know, that's authoritarianism.

That is a complete disregard for people's faith, people's conscience, what people believe. I disagree with the guy, but he has the absolute right to stand where he stands. They are authoritarian. And the fact that Trump pushes against them, I'm sorry, it does give me joy because I think that there's no reason to apologize to people who would do that to a religious person. There's no reason to give them any quarter whatsoever. And to have Trump stomping on them until they moan and cry and use full terms and support MS-13 openly and diss the national anthem i mean they look like idiots i you know it is it's a it's a living joy you know and that you know that he may wind up you know selling i don't know giving new york to the north koreans maybe you're right maybe he will but he hasn't yet and all i know is

until he does that uh i'm i'm kind of on his side like i said i i wouldn't wouldn't leave him alone with my daughter, but I kind of like him in the White House. Drew, that makes too much sense. I've got to stop talking to you. And with every victory that he has, the left has to do something in order to get pushback, in which case Trump does something that moves the culture to the right, and the left has a – because he fits, stamps its feet, does a rumple, stilts andips itself apart, and then says, okay, well, then no more swimsuits at Miss America. It's my favorite story. We'll never see a bikini again. Never happen again. The eventual – the imposition of Handmaid's Tale-style modesty will be a feminist project.

Drew, we've got to let you go, and thanks a lot. We'll see you on Twitter. We'll hear you on the podcast. We'll read you wherever. And a pleasure, my friend. It's great talking to you. Thanks, we've got to let you go. And thanks a lot. We'll see you on Twitter. We'll hear you on the podcast. We'll read you wherever. And a pleasure, my friend. It's great talking to you. Thanks, Drew. Thanks.

I've got to go here in a second. But before I go, we do have an issue. There's something that I have to tell you right now. What I just did, frankly, before I got on the podcast here was made myself a cup of coffee. But coffee does what to your breath? It makes it horrible. And even though this is electronic, you just never know whether or not your coffee breath is going to be so bad that people will actually detect it on a podcast. Well, one of the things you can do to make sure that you

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G-E-T-Q-U-I-P dot com slash Ricochet. And our thanks to Quip for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast, GetQuip dot com. Before we go, we learned some sad news. There are weeks where it just feels as if a paw is being drawn over everything. And we heard, as everybody probably knows by now, that Charles Krauthammer has come out and said that he has not long for this earth. Yeah. He has, I guess, been battling stomach cancer. And I think he expected it to be in recovery.

And he's been off the air for a while. And apparently it's not. It's come back. And it's very sad. Incredibly, incredibly thoughtful, insightful, fearless person and writer and thinker. He's paraplegic in a wheelchair. He was not born that way. That was a result of an accident.

And he somehow managed to not only conquer it but surpass it and at the same time be, I think, one of the most aggressive and terrifying drivers. People I know who have been in a car with him have always said that you haven't lived – you haven't really loved your life until you've gotten safely out of a car with Krauthammer at the wheel. I had no idea that he actually did drive. That is remarkable. Well, a full life and a – and you have the suspicion, don't you, that he's meeting this with a certain amount of wry equanimity? Yeah. I mean, look, he was a trained uh psychiatrist that he was you know he said he was a md medical doctor and a psychiatrist and was that's what his

career was going to be until he um until he moved into politics and journalism and i think he always the joke he always made in the speeches i i heard him give and and in my encounters with him was that actually dealing with mentally disturbed people really helped him see American politics for what it is, which I think is true. It is true. In his statement, he said, and I just want to read this before we go, I leave this life with no regrets. It was a wonderful life, full and complete, with the great loves and great endeavors that

make it worth living. I'm sad to leave, but I leave with the knowledge that I lived the life that I intended, which is a sort of a, I mean, what more can you ask for? What more can you ask for? At the end, what more can you ask for than to say that I did what I did? I have no regrets. It was a joy and goodbye. And what's good, what's, what's going to be astonishing, of course, is the lack of gracefulness that will accompany this in social media in which a lot of people will tell an awful lot about themselves cowardly from behind a keyboard. I agree.

And when he said that this tells him something about American politics, his study of mental illness, whether or not that has infected and seeped into us from social media or whether or not it was always there waiting for the key that would let it out, and I think it's the latter. So I'm just going to stay off Twitter for a day. I think that's wise. Which, whether or not you take Rob's advice and take as many drugs as possible, or my advice and apprehend the world through, well, let's be frank, bourbon. We'll meet you here next time to compare our revelations. And we thank everybody.

We thank Quip, getquip.com. We thank Bowling Branch. We thank Mancrates. Support them and you support us. And please head over to the iTunes store. A little review would be nice. That would help more people discover the show and keep it going. And Rob, I think as you would join me in saying,

just join the site already. Pull me up a few dollars. It's not going to kill you. And so we'll guilt you again next week and we hope to see you there. See you all in the comments, everybody, at Ricochet 3.0. Nice week. Hello, darkness, my old friend.

I've come to talk with you again. Because a vision softly creeping left its seeds while I was sleeping. And the vision that was planted in my brain Still remains within the sound of silence In restless dreams I walked alone Narrow streets of cobblestone Neath the halo of a street lamp

I turned my collar to a cold and damp When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light It split the night And touched the sound of silence And in the naked light I saw Ten thousand people, maybe more People talking without speaking. People hearing without listening.

People writing songs that voices never share. No one dare disturb the sound of silence. Fool said, I do not know. Silence like a cancer grows. Hear my words that I might teach you. Take my arms that I might reach you, but my words like silent raindrops fell, and echoed in the wells of silence And the people bowed and prayed To the young God they made And the sign flashed out its warning

In the words that it was forming And the sign said the words of the prophets Are written on the subway walls Tenement halls Whisper sounds In the end, everything that matters depends on getting the politics right. All the things elevated and sophisticated,

beautiful and sublime, art, music, poetry, everything. If you get the politics wrong, Germany in the 30s, North Korea today, it wipes away everything.