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Speaker 1: I'm sure that you would like to think that you're normal.

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Speaker 1: I know I do, But then I think about what

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Speaker 1: I'm really like and I realize that in many ways

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Speaker 1: I'm actually not very normal at all. For you, there's

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Speaker 1: probably bits of your life that aren't that normal either.

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Speaker 1: But are you or I, I don't know, in the

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Speaker 1: middle of the desert looking for UFOs with a bunch

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Speaker 1: of other believers and an ex member of take that.

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Speaker 1: Have you ever tried to split an atom in your kitchen?

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Speaker 1: Are you currently a member of the KKK? No, Well,

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Speaker 1: then you're probably You're probably pretty normal me too. Additionally,

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Speaker 1: the chances that John Ronson will want to chat with

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Speaker 1: you for his next book or his next documentary are very,

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Speaker 1: very slim, because for twenty five years, Welsh journalist John

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Speaker 1: Ronson has been spending time with the absolute fringes of

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Speaker 1: our communities. He gets so deep in with these people

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Speaker 1: that truly humanize them. It's wonderful to see and it's

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Speaker 1: very useful for him too, especially well, there was that

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Speaker 1: time that he was outed as a Jew in the

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Speaker 1: middle of a jihadi training camp. He's got a wonderful,

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Speaker 1: quick witted charm about him and the self deprecating way

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Speaker 1: of being that probably saved his life. One of John's

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Speaker 1: most famous books is called The Psychopath Test, and he's

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Speaker 1: actually touring a live event to Australia kind of built

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Speaker 1: around that book. He's doing it before the end of

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Speaker 1: the year. I for want. I am absolutely thrilled by that,

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Speaker 1: because if this conversation that you're about to hear, if

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Speaker 1: this conversation is anything to go by, the chance to

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Speaker 1: spend an evening with a person who has spent evenings

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Speaker 1: with the most extreme, the most terrifying, the most ideological

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Speaker 1: humans on the planet, the chance to spend that with

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Speaker 1: someone like that sounds incredibly comforting. He's utterly charming. Can't

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Speaker 1: wait for you to meet him. Get to the show

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Speaker 1: in a moment. I do have to play some mats

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Speaker 1: back after the break. Gooday, welcome to the show. This

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Speaker 1: is better than yesterday, helping you make today better than yesterday.

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Speaker 1: Since twenty thirteen, my name's Osha Gisburg. I am a

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Speaker 1: podcast I'm a best selling author and award winning documentary maker.

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Speaker 1: I'm a TV host. I'm an AirPod locator, a homusuficionado,

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Speaker 1: and a person who yelled at once again by the

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Speaker 1: same person who yelled at me in the street a

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Speaker 1: couple of weeks back. You can listen to the previous

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Speaker 1: episodes to help me to help understand that one. Thanks

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Speaker 1: to everyone that got in touch on the new mailing list.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for writing back to that one if you want

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Speaker 1: to get on the link there. I'm writing stuff that's

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Speaker 1: not I haven't been able to do for a while,

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Speaker 1: and it's not here on this show and it's great,

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Speaker 1: so big thanks to the links in the show notes.

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Speaker 1: My guest today is Jhon Ronson. He's extraordinary. He is

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Speaker 1: a prolific author and filmmaker. His work is mostly about

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Speaker 1: the oddness that exists in our community, from the quaint

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Speaker 1: oddness to the terrifying oddness. Some of his books have

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Speaker 1: actually made into feature films, The Men Who Steric Goats

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Speaker 1: that one, and Frank, which is about a loosely about

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Speaker 1: a band he used to be in. Now. One of

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Speaker 1: his most well known books is called The Psychopath Test.

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Speaker 1: You may have seen a Ted talk about it. That's

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Speaker 1: him and that book is what he's loosely setting out

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Speaker 1: to explore during the live event and he's bringing to

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Speaker 1: Australia come November. I'll put a link for that in

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Speaker 1: the show notes as well. It's a marvelous conversation. I'm

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Speaker 1: so thrilled, But I've got to have the opportunity to

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Speaker 1: chat with John Ronson. I know you will be too

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Speaker 1: on every second I can get with you, mister Ronson's

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Speaker 1: I understand, Well, you know what it is, and you've

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Speaker 1: done it a squidion times where you take eighteen hours

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Speaker 1: of planes to get somewhere and you're half an hour

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Speaker 1: someone turns into twelve minutes with someone turns into eight minutes,

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Speaker 1: where someone turns into them finding a coffee for three minutes,

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Speaker 1: and you're like, fuck, I've got four minutes, yeah, eight

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Speaker 1: hundred frames.

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Speaker 2: Shit, that's sudding. I'm just had locks of that roof

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Speaker 2: the last time I was coming to Australia and I

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Speaker 2: was on the plane and I was listening to Michael

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Speaker 2: Paler's diary, like It's Around the World Diary, and I

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Speaker 2: was just it was like day four, you know, please,

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Speaker 2: and I was thinking, I'm not getting any sleep there,

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Speaker 2: and then suddenly it was day three hundred and ninety.

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Speaker 2: It's like, okay, I got some sleep.

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Speaker 1: I My dad gave me the book of that show

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Speaker 1: when I was a kid, and as you mentioned that,

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Speaker 1: I was like, go on another date where you can

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Speaker 1: show up to the BBC and go hello. I used

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Speaker 1: to be in Monte Paulis and I'd like you to

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Speaker 1: pay for me and a film crew shooting on sixteen

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Speaker 1: millimeter to go around the world for a year and

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Speaker 1: they go ba.

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Speaker 2: Done. You're right those days of God. You know. The

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Speaker 2: first time I wrote a story for American GQ, I

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Speaker 2: was interviewing a robots. I was interviewing a robot built

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Speaker 2: by a billionaire called Martin Rothblatt. This is an amazing story. Well,

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Speaker 2: I told you the story quite quickly, and then get

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Speaker 2: to the point upot.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I think if you're going to join the

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Speaker 1: billionaires club, you're gonna need a name that sounds.

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Speaker 2: Right. Well, okay, So Martin Rothblat born Martin trans Woman

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Speaker 2: as a child went round NASA had a brain wave

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Speaker 2: for there's just a regular kid in Chicago. So if

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Speaker 2: I could, if I knew how to double the strength

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Speaker 2: of satellites, I could shrink the size of satellite dishes.

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Speaker 2: And at that moment invented the concept of satellite radio

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Speaker 2: for carts. UH set up the Serious Network became a billionaire.

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Speaker 2: This woman called Bana. They had a kid that the

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Speaker 2: kid is diagnosed with an untreatable lung condition called pulmonary hypertension.

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Speaker 2: But he goes to the library and invents a treatment

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Speaker 2: for pulmonary hypertension, becomes a billionaire a second time over. Anyway,

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Speaker 2: by the time I entered Martin's orbit, she had she

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Speaker 2: was trying to create a conscious sentient robot based on

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Speaker 2: her real life partner Beina. So I went off to

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Speaker 2: interview being A the robot apparently the most sentient robot

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Speaker 2: in the world. I got to say, not that sentient,

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Speaker 2: but it's something that interesting. You know what, when you

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Speaker 2: interview a robot, you feel the need to ask it

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Speaker 2: like profound questions like I said, what does electricity taste like?

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Speaker 2: And being a replied like a planet around the star,

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Speaker 2: which is either like awesome or meaningless. Anyway, the reason

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Speaker 2: why I tell you that story, it was the whole time,

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Speaker 2: the whole like five hours I was inter Beaner. There

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Speaker 2: was a limo outside the GQ a date for those

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Speaker 2: dates of God, my God, you're lucky if you get

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Speaker 2: if you get splashed by a puddle that limo drives over.

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Speaker 1: We've text out if you can't access and will reimburse you.

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Speaker 1: They're never going to reimburse you.

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Speaker 2: Ever, I can't believe that GQ paid for a libo

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Speaker 2: to sit there while I interviewed the robots.

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Speaker 1: Well man, that's uh, good on you, Martine Rains And well,

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Speaker 1: at least when you know in the world of billionaires.

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Speaker 1: I'm not the first person to say it, but if

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Speaker 1: you're a billionaire, someone's getting exploited somewhere right.

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Speaker 2: Well, this gets to the heart of my I'm not

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Speaker 2: saying about as a psychopath. I'm not absolutely yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: But I wrote a book called psychopath Test, which I'm

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Speaker 2: bringing to Australia and New Zealers.

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Speaker 1: Getting the plugging we're telling not even five minutes and

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Speaker 1: you're already there. I love the culture, action, rons and

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Speaker 1: good stuff.

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Speaker 2: Well, well, it speaks to the very thing you just

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Speaker 2: made up, which is does our society reward psychopathic character traits?

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Speaker 2: Do we? Of all the mental disorders? Psychopathy is the

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Speaker 2: worst of all the mental disorders, And yet is that

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Speaker 2: the one that we reward by they kick them our CEOs,

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Speaker 2: business leeders, our religious leaders, our presidents and so on.

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Speaker 2: What does it say about society? If that's the mental

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Speaker 2: disorder that we're rewarding, the one that gives the person

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Speaker 2: no empathy, no remorse, no guilt.

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Speaker 1: For people that might not you know, have not you

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Speaker 1: seen your work or wondering who's this guy that we're

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Speaker 1: talking about, and how can a person become a busines

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Speaker 1: this leader and be a psychopath, this thing that we're

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Speaker 1: taught from all the horror movies to be afraid of.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to hold hang on, where is it?

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Speaker 2: Okay?

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Speaker 1: So I'm going to hold this phone in my hand right,

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Speaker 1: this phone, in the words of one of my favorite

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Speaker 1: podcast is blind Boy, this phone is dripping in blood.

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Speaker 2: All right.

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Speaker 1: The amount of minerals that had to get mined in

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Speaker 1: terrible conditions for this thing to get made is bonkers.

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Speaker 2: I thought you were going to say the about True

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Speaker 2: Crab podcasts you've been listening to. It's just a good flat.

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Speaker 1: But if you're you're the CEO of Apple, right, you

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Speaker 1: know where this stuff comes from, and in your heart,

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Speaker 1: in your brain, you're making a moral choice profit over people,

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Speaker 1: and you go, yes, I'll make the iPhone seventeen Supermax

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Speaker 1: And there you go, and you have to just switch

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Speaker 1: the other empathy part off to make that money, and

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Speaker 1: that's how you become the most profitable company in the

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Speaker 1: history of the world.

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Speaker 2: So psychopaths make up twenty five percent of the prison population,

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Speaker 2: but they are responsible for sixty to seventy percent of

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Speaker 2: unrest inside prisons. So move that to the business world. Wow,

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Speaker 2: let's say let's say the head of Apple isn't a psychopath. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: but the head of a rival cell phone company is.

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Speaker 2: That means everybody has to be a little bit more

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Speaker 2: psychopathic to keep up. So's there's smaller number that the

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Speaker 2: ripples are.

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Speaker 1: Big because people will We're recording this on the day

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Speaker 1: of the Republican National Convention. This is the day that

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Speaker 1: Trump is going to take the stage, right, and if

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Speaker 1: it's anything like last time, as I've heard you mentioned

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Speaker 1: in the past, an empty podium waiting for him to

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Speaker 1: walk up to it is more exciting than anything else.

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Speaker 1: And that's probably what going to be. It's going to

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Speaker 1: be in like an hour of television today and people

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Speaker 1: will see him speak and watch him lie four times

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Speaker 1: a minute, and people will go, the guy's a psychopath.

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Speaker 1: You probably know more about psychopaths than anybody I'm going

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Speaker 1: to speak to. Besides my own psychiatrist who knows a

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Speaker 1: lot about it. He does for tup of you to

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Speaker 1: be a leader like Donald Trump? Do you have to

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Speaker 1: be Do you have to be a psychopath?

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Speaker 2: Do you think I don't know what particular disordered Trump pass?

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Speaker 2: It's possible, And also, of course it's kind of psychopathic

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Speaker 2: to be an armchair diagnose with other people's psychopathy. Much

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Speaker 2: of what I do in the psychopath test is talk

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Speaker 2: about how the skills of learning how to spot psychopaths

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Speaker 2: can turn you into a bit of a psychopath too.

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Speaker 2: You get drunk with your power and you define people

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Speaker 2: by their matters stages. However, Trump's been in our lives

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Speaker 2: for a long time now. We's been in our lives

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Speaker 2: as a politician since twenty fifteen, for nine years now,

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Speaker 2: So you know, you could argue we've seen enough of

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Speaker 2: Trump now to be able to give him some kind

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Speaker 2: of diagnosis. So my next question is, Okay, the difference

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Speaker 2: between a psychopath and a narcissist is ans has a

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Speaker 2: lot of stuff going on under the surface. They're wounded,

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Speaker 2: there's a lot of emotions, and that main means that

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Speaker 2: they lash out with a psychopath. What's going on under

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Speaker 2: the surface, there's nothing like it's just emptiness. So when

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Speaker 2: you look at Trump, which of those two feels right

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Speaker 2: for I kind of think that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I listen to have a lot of Karamuchie who

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Speaker 1: worked with him quite closely, and the white the Scaramgry

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Speaker 1: talks about him. It's our would side of the former,

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Speaker 1: and that's firsthand experience.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I think narcissists are really interesting, especially kind of

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Speaker 2: COVID narcissists, the ones that you just don't know. It's

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Speaker 2: kind of more interesting because they're not wearing it on

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Speaker 2: their sleeves and the way that Trump does. But I

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Speaker 2: think psychopaths are more interesting than narcissists because it's just

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Speaker 2: a certain set of characteristics, this idea that there's that

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Speaker 2: all of the term is superficial, there's nothing going on underneath.

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Speaker 2: They look at that like regular people, but some people

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Speaker 2: would argue that they're nothing like regular people. They're more

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Speaker 2: like predatory animals, you know, the abigdal of underperform. They

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Speaker 2: see the world in terms sure to pray, be foolish,

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Speaker 2: stop to explode witnesses and others. Yeah, I think Trump

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Speaker 2: probably it's more likely to be ans the psychopathal though

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Speaker 2: I don't know for sure.

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Speaker 1: Because there's there's two combinations that are happening. There's, as

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Speaker 1: I mentioned, we're at the Republican National Convention today. But

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Speaker 1: it's a common thing to do. It's people do it

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Speaker 1: all the time. They go to a rally or a

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Speaker 1: gunfair or you know, somewhere where there's a giant amount

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Speaker 1: of polarized people. They do it out the front of

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Speaker 1: Coachella talking to hot girls in Native American headdresses. Right,

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Speaker 1: it is to kind of almost gotcha and you know,

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Speaker 1: naively interview someone on camera to get them to admit something.

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Speaker 1: What happens when there's super confident narcissist meets the ideologue?

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Speaker 1: What happens when that magic happens?

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Speaker 2: Right, Well, you know that's a very interesting question, and

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Speaker 2: obviously that's what we're saying Trump speaking tonight. I was

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Speaker 2: there eight years ago. Yeah, I was accident by the way,

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Speaker 2: sitting in the disabled area, which meant which meant that

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Speaker 2: I was desperate for the toilet for us of Trump speech,

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Speaker 2: but I couldn't get out because all the aisles was

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Speaker 2: people at wheelchairs. So it was a very unpleasant situation

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Speaker 2: set for all the broaderies. And he'd never stopped talking.

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Speaker 2: I couldn't get out I was dying for the toilet anyway.

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Speaker 2: That The most memorable line from that speech was I

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Speaker 2: alone can fix things. I alone can fix it. I

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Speaker 2: wonder whether things are going to be different this time around.

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Speaker 2: And I think he's going to pretend to be more

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Speaker 2: I hope not pretend. I hope he's got it in

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Speaker 2: him to be more conciliatory, more unifying. It doesn't really

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Speaker 2: means it, but it would be nice if he does it.

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Speaker 1: Because there's a thing that happens, and we've seen it

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Speaker 1: throughout history when a certain level of anxiety rise in

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Speaker 1: a population about unemployment, about cost of living, about national security,

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Speaker 1: for example, about some moral panic sometimes and that level

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Speaker 1: of anxiety gets to this point and no one in

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Speaker 1: leadership is doing anything about it, and then a person

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Speaker 1: comes along and says something like that, I alone can

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Speaker 1: do this, and then there's this great sense of oh,

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Speaker 1: thank fuck for that. I don't care about it anything else.

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Speaker 1: I just want this icky feeling inside me to go away. Boom,

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Speaker 1: you got my vote. And then now you get Sylvia

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Speaker 1: Belusconi or what's his mate in Venezuela, And these are all

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Speaker 1: democratically like the people. The whole strongman thing rises because

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Speaker 1: of it, and I wonder is the antidote to that

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Speaker 1: teaching the populace more about dan regulation and recognizing their

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Speaker 1: own anxiety and being more rational and being inoculated to

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Speaker 1: fear based messaging.

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Speaker 2: Well that's really interesting. So let me go back to

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Speaker 2: Cleveland Republican Convention of twenty sixteen. The reason why I

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Speaker 2: was there was because my old palay thirty years ago,

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Speaker 2: Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist, was there. Thirty five years ago.

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Speaker 2: Me and Alex Jones snuck into Bohemian Grove together. It

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Speaker 2: had this wild adventure, and I had no idea that

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Speaker 2: one day he would have the ear of a president.

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Speaker 2: And that goes back to that earlier thing that you

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Speaker 2: said about when narcissists and ideologues meet. Because Trump and

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Speaker 2: Alex really did enable each other's bad behavior. I'm pretty

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Speaker 2: convinced that Alex kind of gave Trump permission to be

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Speaker 2: more conspiratorial, and Trump gave Alex permission to be more

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Speaker 2: kind of xenophobic. Alex wasn't a xenophob in his early days.

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Speaker 2: His interest was things like, you know, government, over which

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Speaker 2: Waco Ruby Richards so, but suddenly when he hooks up

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Speaker 2: with Trump, he starts talking about the Muslims, you know,

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Speaker 2: are coming and taking over, and you know, his rhetoric

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Speaker 2: completely changed. And then Trump was appealing to Alex's conspiratorial base.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, that was a very it felt to me

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Speaker 2: like a very toxic combination. Yes, I think teaching people

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Speaker 2: critical thinking and rationality is incredibly important.

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Speaker 1: How in your mind, over the course of your career

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Speaker 1: you've seen as going down this path, do you feel

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Speaker 1: a correction may be coming?

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Speaker 2: Well, it's so interesting I think grappling with not just

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Speaker 2: in the media, but in many worlds were sort of

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Speaker 2: we're sort of edging towards a post institution society where

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Speaker 2: all the old gatekeepers don't hold any sway anymore. People

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Speaker 2: are becoming personal brands. Everybody's setting up their own you know,

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Speaker 2: Tucker Colson gets fired from Fox, he can go to

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Speaker 2: Rumbull or he can go to X. Now, God, that's

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Speaker 2: the first amout actually said X, not Twitter, clearly, clearly.

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Speaker 2: It's so, yeah, it's a really interesting thing to grapple with.

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Speaker 2: What are the consequences of that? That's actually something I'm

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Speaker 2: looking at from the next book. Of fact, because I

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Speaker 2: think it's one of the biggest, most size and changes

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Speaker 2: in my lifetime. It's you know, in many ways, I

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Speaker 2: think it's a positive thing. Like I you know, I

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Speaker 2: spent years battle and gatekeepers in the in the early

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Speaker 2: years of my career, you know, begging TV stations to

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Speaker 2: give me a chance and all of that, you know,

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Speaker 2: and it was very frustrating to be kind of powerless

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Speaker 2: at the face of hierarchies and ideologies and shade to

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Speaker 2: trends or whatever. So in many ways, this kind of

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Speaker 2: post gatekeeper study is a positive thing. I think the

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Speaker 2: legacy media had too much power, got things wrong, excluded

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Speaker 2: certain voices. There's all sorts of reasons why we needed

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Speaker 2: something like YouTube and then eventually you know, rumble and

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Speaker 2: all of those places to come along. But we really

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Speaker 2: have to also deal with the fact that a post

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Speaker 2: institution will do anything, goes, any kind of shit goes,

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Speaker 2: any lies or whatever is going to have real consequences too.

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Speaker 2: So I think we have to sort of both grapple

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Speaker 2: with the reasons why we've entered this new world and

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Speaker 2: what's going to happen next.

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Speaker 1: I have a one woman focused group in my house.

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Speaker 1: My stepdaughter who was ten when I met her. She's

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Speaker 1: in now twenty and I see, I see the way

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Speaker 1: that her and her cohort interact online, and I wonder,

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Speaker 1: you know, this idea of do I really want everything

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Speaker 1: documented forever ever always? I wonder if you can see

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Speaker 1: a correction coming in that generation.

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Speaker 2: Yes, you're not the first person to have said that

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Speaker 2: to me. Not just we don't want to be on

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Speaker 2: social media all the time documenting every fact, but also

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Speaker 2: do we really want to have this tra cody accessive

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Speaker 2: rules where we you know, disproportionately publish people for some

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Speaker 2: kind of bider transgression. I'm really interested that you said that,

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Speaker 2: and I say, you're not the only person to set

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Speaker 2: that to me. I think a new generation is covering

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Speaker 2: a lug to correct what they see, you know, was

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Speaker 2: the you know, the rogs of their older siphiles, like

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Speaker 2: quote unquote council culture, like being too idealistic and open

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Speaker 2: on the end Internet because you know, it's a minefield.

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Speaker 2: You know, in the early days, everyone was just so

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Speaker 2: excited about the possibilities of social media, and I mean, god,

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Speaker 2: you know, nobody's excited anymore. So Yeah, so I think so, Actually,

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Speaker 2: I think it's it's only positive. You know, this book's

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Speaker 2: just come out that's causing a lot of waves. I'm

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Speaker 2: the main thesis by Jonathan Height the Extras Generation. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: and his main thing is we should ban cell phones

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Speaker 2: in kids that under sixteen under. When I first heard that,

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Speaker 2: I thought, I don't really agree with that, Like, I

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Speaker 2: think a better thing is to it's for them to

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Speaker 2: come to it themselves, and they don't want to use

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Speaker 2: their phones as much. So you say that feels very

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Speaker 2: positive and refreshing for that reason.

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Speaker 1: But they you know, she's now on the other side

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Speaker 1: of that part of her life. But then I see

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Speaker 1: it in I have other mates, We've got kids who

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Speaker 1: are he I don't know how he did it, but

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Speaker 1: he managed to keep his daughter off my wove until

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Speaker 1: she was sixteen. It was just I don't know how

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Speaker 1: he did it, but he did it.

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Speaker 2: That's amazic. Yeah. I wouldn't have had a fucking chance

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Speaker 2: with my all. Just say that because I failed in

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Speaker 2: it so badly.

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Speaker 1: I watched my four year old unlock his mum's phone

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Speaker 1: last night. It's like, honey, you're going to have to

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Speaker 1: change a company now, and she goes, no, no, no, I'll

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Speaker 1: give him three chances like, no, you're fucking oh, because

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Speaker 1: I want clicking on TikTok and seeing some shit, you know,

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Speaker 1: some fucking beheading or something. No, that's what's going to happen.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but how positive for kids to come to that

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Speaker 2: realization themselves. For me, that feels like, you know, you

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Speaker 2: do want more laws in the world, you know, what

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Speaker 2: you want is for people to come to the realization themselves.

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Speaker 1: Can I ask about how because I've seen you on

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Speaker 1: stage and you do claim to be a socially awkward person.

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Speaker 1: But my career I've been on in broadcasting since for

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Speaker 1: thirty years now, and you know I came up through

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Speaker 1: music myself, and so my career is spent on stage,

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Speaker 1: is spent you know, in front of millions of people

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Speaker 1: live television or just in front of thousands of people

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Speaker 1: in a room. You do it very well. And so

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Speaker 1: while you do claim it awkward, I'm going to say

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Speaker 1: that you do command the room very well. And might

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Speaker 1: I add you and I have something in common in

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Speaker 1: that the attention to detail is extraordinarily important, in that

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Speaker 1: we share a common characteristic and that excellent, excellent, well

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Speaker 1: thought T shirt choice is vital vital first ted talk

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Speaker 1: and you're wearing your Overlook Hotel. I'm like, I'm no, buddy,

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Speaker 1: I see you.

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Speaker 2: I know I crouched that level easter. I got to

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Speaker 2: say it was Yeah. I just I feel very lucky, genuinely,

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Speaker 2: very lucky that my social anxiety, at all, of my

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Speaker 2: fucked upness, does it manifest of stage manifested dinner parties,

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Speaker 2: you know, busy bars. You know. I can't just can't

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Speaker 2: bear to be there, need to get the hell out.

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Speaker 2: So thank god, you know, just thank god. I can't say, like,

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Speaker 2: you know, it's not like I'm dying to get on stage,

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Speaker 2: but I feel very believed that for some reason I

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Speaker 2: have the ability to do it.

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Speaker 1: Well, is it a sense of control when you're up there?

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Speaker 2: It definitely helps. I can't see people's faces because the

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Speaker 2: lights are in your eyes. That helps a lot, right,

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Speaker 2: And I'm sort of on my own, like the whole stage,

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Speaker 2: unless I have guests, which I will be I think

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Speaker 2: I do have, you know, you kind of on your own,

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Speaker 2: so the people in the audience become a bit more

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Speaker 2: sort of theoretical. At the end of the Q and A,

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Speaker 2: the lights come up and you can see everyone and

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Speaker 2: sometimes it gives me a little bit of a shark

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Speaker 2: because you haven't seen any of them until then. But

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Speaker 2: is it control? It's because a moment. You know, Bruce

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Speaker 2: Bringstein talks about how, you know, his father always out

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Speaker 2: to the head. He never felt like he could talk

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Speaker 2: at home, so that's why he would now go on

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Speaker 2: stage for like three and a half hours every night

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Speaker 2: where he's like, you know, where everybody just has to

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Speaker 2: listen to him. Like that's not me, that's not what

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Speaker 2: it is. But it's more just like feeling God for

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Speaker 2: some mad reason, I do this, okay, so I might

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Speaker 2: as well just keep doing it. And also, if I'm

429
00:24:28,080 --> 00:24:31,360
Speaker 2: like dying on stage, here's something really weird. Like if

430
00:24:31,400 --> 00:24:36,720
Speaker 2: I'm dying, if it's not working, a little big piece

431
00:24:36,760 --> 00:24:39,639
Speaker 2: of me, of my brain thinks, you know, right, you

432
00:24:39,680 --> 00:24:42,600
Speaker 2: know I'm going to turn this around, not like you know,

433
00:24:42,960 --> 00:24:44,960
Speaker 2: thank god, you know, I don't know, thank God. I've

434
00:24:45,000 --> 00:24:48,000
Speaker 2: just got that because there's nothing else in my life

435
00:24:48,080 --> 00:24:50,960
Speaker 2: or personality that would make you think that that would happen.

436
00:24:51,080 --> 00:24:54,040
Speaker 2: But yeah, if I'm dying on stage, I'm not like

437
00:24:54,240 --> 00:24:56,800
Speaker 2: sweating and thinking fuck and I need to get off stage.

438
00:24:57,119 --> 00:25:01,639
Speaker 2: I'm thinking I'm going to whindle over the furliest weird.

439
00:25:01,720 --> 00:25:03,159
Speaker 2: I'm just glad. I'm just gloot.

440
00:25:03,680 --> 00:25:06,840
Speaker 1: Do you have because you and and Brian Cox having

441
00:25:06,920 --> 00:25:08,800
Speaker 1: common in that you early in your career, as you

442
00:25:08,880 --> 00:25:13,440
Speaker 1: developed a skill set by playing keyboards in in bands.

443
00:25:13,720 --> 00:25:17,600
Speaker 2: Going on was more successful than you.

444
00:25:17,520 --> 00:25:21,680
Speaker 1: Can only get better from here, John, So what was it?

445
00:25:21,760 --> 00:25:24,320
Speaker 1: What was it that you learned from your days in

446
00:25:24,359 --> 00:25:26,840
Speaker 1: the back of a you know, a ford Esk you

447
00:25:26,880 --> 00:25:29,320
Speaker 1: know ford transit van, running up and down the M

448
00:25:29,359 --> 00:25:33,120
Speaker 1: six on tour. What is it that you learn from

449
00:25:33,119 --> 00:25:34,640
Speaker 1: those days that you still carry with you?

450
00:25:36,000 --> 00:25:39,240
Speaker 2: It was it was auris the looking glass, certainly in

451
00:25:39,320 --> 00:25:42,119
Speaker 2: terms of having adventures, like getting out of your world

452
00:25:42,200 --> 00:25:45,240
Speaker 2: and going into new worlds. That's kind of what I

453
00:25:45,280 --> 00:25:46,840
Speaker 2: fell in love with being in About and the Thig

454
00:25:47,000 --> 00:25:49,040
Speaker 2: with my band. Well we pick fake hat that he

455
00:25:49,119 --> 00:25:51,919
Speaker 2: definitely took off, which made him even more mysterious and

456
00:25:52,119 --> 00:25:54,760
Speaker 2: you know, feeling like Alice and so it was. Yeah,

457
00:25:54,760 --> 00:25:57,159
Speaker 2: it was the onder delar aspect. It was just like,

458
00:25:57,800 --> 00:26:02,600
Speaker 2: I want to have adventures, got to shadowy places, you know,

459
00:26:02,760 --> 00:26:06,880
Speaker 2: carry off this absurd life that suddenly it is happening

460
00:26:06,880 --> 00:26:08,359
Speaker 2: to me. Yeah, that's what I learned.

461
00:26:08,400 --> 00:26:10,240
Speaker 1: It is it is? It is, you know, the closest

462
00:26:10,280 --> 00:26:13,120
Speaker 1: you can get to being a pirate. You're basically going

463
00:26:13,119 --> 00:26:15,439
Speaker 1: from town to town. And there's plenty of bands that

464
00:26:15,440 --> 00:26:18,160
Speaker 1: wrote songs about going from town to town marauding, that's

465
00:26:18,200 --> 00:26:18,560
Speaker 1: for sure.

466
00:26:18,640 --> 00:26:21,400
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, I just thinking I never loved that aspects

467
00:26:21,440 --> 00:26:24,639
Speaker 2: of it quite so much, especially in a lowly paid

468
00:26:24,720 --> 00:26:26,920
Speaker 2: van work. Quite often you're not spending it out in

469
00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:29,600
Speaker 2: a hotel. You're getting home at four in the morning

470
00:26:30,080 --> 00:26:31,720
Speaker 2: and then you have to unload all of your stuff

471
00:26:31,760 --> 00:26:33,880
Speaker 2: before you can get to go to bed. So yeah,

472
00:26:33,920 --> 00:26:36,240
Speaker 2: that aspects of that I don't think I even loved.

473
00:26:36,240 --> 00:26:38,480
Speaker 2: Even in my early twenties did I love that?

474
00:26:38,720 --> 00:26:40,600
Speaker 1: But now you shar up with a you know, with

475
00:26:40,680 --> 00:26:43,359
Speaker 1: a USB stick and a and a clicker and your

476
00:26:43,600 --> 00:26:47,040
Speaker 1: manager walking on stage and that's it. There's no load

477
00:26:47,080 --> 00:26:48,040
Speaker 1: in there, load out.

478
00:26:49,520 --> 00:26:53,440
Speaker 2: There is a there's a weirdness though there because you're

479
00:26:53,480 --> 00:26:55,640
Speaker 2: not traveling, if you're not doing all of that stuff,

480
00:26:55,960 --> 00:27:00,919
Speaker 2: the weirdness is there. The days are like twilight days.

481
00:27:01,119 --> 00:27:03,680
Speaker 2: You're just kind of sitting there waiting for the evening

482
00:27:03,720 --> 00:27:06,440
Speaker 2: to come for you to go on stage because you're

483
00:27:06,440 --> 00:27:08,960
Speaker 2: not going to write, because then you just tie yourself

484
00:27:08,960 --> 00:27:12,159
Speaker 2: out and not being good on stage. So yeah, so

485
00:27:12,240 --> 00:27:15,679
Speaker 2: the upside is you just walks on stage, but the

486
00:27:15,720 --> 00:27:18,280
Speaker 2: downside is you've lifted Twilight Day.

487
00:27:18,840 --> 00:27:22,640
Speaker 1: There was an Australian band called Grinsburne whose documentary, their

488
00:27:22,720 --> 00:27:25,000
Speaker 1: road documentary one tour, was called twenty three Hours of

489
00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:26,119
Speaker 1: Waiting Around.

490
00:27:26,760 --> 00:27:31,080
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, which there's something bleak about that. That's bleak.

491
00:27:32,440 --> 00:27:34,639
Speaker 1: Charlie, what's rot? He's dead? Now here's a dramma from

492
00:27:34,640 --> 00:27:37,280
Speaker 1: the Rolling Stones. It was at the fortieth anniversary. I

493
00:27:37,280 --> 00:27:39,399
Speaker 1: think it's a movement in the Rolling Stones for forty years.

494
00:27:39,520 --> 00:27:41,640
Speaker 1: I reckon eighteen months of that was playing. The rest

495
00:27:41,760 --> 00:27:44,920
Speaker 1: was just waiting around, right.

496
00:27:45,040 --> 00:27:47,480
Speaker 2: At least there's some solace to knowing that everyone's in

497
00:27:47,560 --> 00:27:50,840
Speaker 2: the same boat, right. I think that we all have

498
00:27:50,920 --> 00:27:53,680
Speaker 2: to go through this weird this weirdness much. Think Bruce

499
00:27:53,720 --> 00:27:57,159
Speaker 2: Pinstein again, what he pops up on my Instagram and

500
00:27:57,200 --> 00:27:59,520
Speaker 2: I see what he's doing in the day. Did it

501
00:27:59,640 --> 00:28:02,840
Speaker 2: before he goes on stage that he said he's going

502
00:28:02,880 --> 00:28:06,440
Speaker 2: round to Shane McGowan's house, he's going to hospitals, he's

503
00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:12,160
Speaker 2: meeting children, and he pushes on. He really pushes heart,

504
00:28:12,240 --> 00:28:14,679
Speaker 2: that guy, He really does I.

505
00:28:15,000 --> 00:28:18,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, he lifts a lot. He's quite fair bit older

506
00:28:18,160 --> 00:28:20,240
Speaker 1: than me. But years ago I had a massage in

507
00:28:20,280 --> 00:28:23,280
Speaker 1: a hotel from someone like a legit one, don't get

508
00:28:23,280 --> 00:28:25,840
Speaker 1: me wrong, and she said, oh, I had Bruce Springsteen

509
00:28:26,000 --> 00:28:27,960
Speaker 1: under my thumbs last week. I said, really, what was

510
00:28:27,960 --> 00:28:30,160
Speaker 1: that Like? She goes, that man lifts a lot of weight.

511
00:28:30,680 --> 00:28:33,800
Speaker 1: He's just made out of anchor rope. And I thought,

512
00:28:33,800 --> 00:28:35,919
Speaker 1: fucking hell, man. He wrote Born to Run at twenty

513
00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:37,720
Speaker 1: four and now he's in his mid fifties and he's

514
00:28:37,720 --> 00:28:39,560
Speaker 1: made of anchor rope. Well there you go, got on

515
00:28:39,600 --> 00:28:40,080
Speaker 1: your boss.

516
00:28:41,080 --> 00:28:44,520
Speaker 2: Wow. God he has very full days, Bruce Pigstein, and

517
00:28:44,560 --> 00:28:47,200
Speaker 2: I think, but he's not doing everything we just talked about.

518
00:28:47,440 --> 00:28:51,680
Speaker 2: He's like riding on his motor bike. You know. He's like, yeah,

519
00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:55,760
Speaker 2: I'm faw. I've still played Open in New York a

520
00:28:55,800 --> 00:28:58,640
Speaker 2: couple of months ago, and he's on by mind delight

521
00:28:58,760 --> 00:29:02,000
Speaker 2: because I sound like, see Jesus Well.

522
00:29:01,880 --> 00:29:04,600
Speaker 1: I hope that was the show where Nick Cave was

523
00:29:04,680 --> 00:29:07,600
Speaker 1: dancing side of stage next to Sting, which was an

524
00:29:07,600 --> 00:29:13,480
Speaker 1: extraordinary piece of backstage footage. So that's sadly speaking of

525
00:29:14,040 --> 00:29:18,280
Speaker 1: you know, physicality, there is an element to your work,

526
00:29:18,320 --> 00:29:20,440
Speaker 1: and I don't like to use the word process, but

527
00:29:20,600 --> 00:29:23,960
Speaker 1: ultimately I know it's a part of mine where walking

528
00:29:24,400 --> 00:29:27,280
Speaker 1: is a big part of how you come up with

529
00:29:27,480 --> 00:29:30,320
Speaker 1: ideas and how you marinate on things. Can you talk

530
00:29:30,360 --> 00:29:33,520
Speaker 1: to me about the role of not doing the thing

531
00:29:33,680 --> 00:29:36,160
Speaker 1: that you need to do for your job in order

532
00:29:36,200 --> 00:29:38,360
Speaker 1: to get the ideas to do the thing you need

533
00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:39,120
Speaker 1: to do for your job.

534
00:29:40,480 --> 00:29:43,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. Well, certainly go to a new place. Sometimes

535
00:29:43,280 --> 00:29:45,880
Speaker 2: if you're blocked going to another room or going through

536
00:29:45,880 --> 00:29:49,000
Speaker 2: a walk, it does seem to unlock you. But more

537
00:29:49,080 --> 00:29:52,960
Speaker 2: than that, so many of my stories come from just

538
00:29:53,040 --> 00:29:57,280
Speaker 2: a tidy moment in an otherwise really boring academic book,

539
00:29:57,880 --> 00:30:00,880
Speaker 2: from The Psychopath Test through to my new show fell Apast, Like,

540
00:30:01,200 --> 00:30:05,200
Speaker 2: I found so many stories that way a really boring

541
00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:08,240
Speaker 2: audio book, and there's a tiny little gem in there

542
00:30:08,440 --> 00:30:10,960
Speaker 2: where you just think, you know, I didn't expect that.

543
00:30:11,400 --> 00:30:13,120
Speaker 2: And I just can't think of anything more to pressing

544
00:30:13,120 --> 00:30:16,360
Speaker 2: than sitting there reading a big academic book or a sofa,

545
00:30:16,720 --> 00:30:20,080
Speaker 2: getting fat, not moving, not getting any exercise. So I

546
00:30:20,080 --> 00:30:22,840
Speaker 2: would much prefer to be listening to a ten hour

547
00:30:23,400 --> 00:30:27,000
Speaker 2: audio book and you're just just walking and walking and walking,

548
00:30:27,040 --> 00:30:30,800
Speaker 2: and I will I walk fifteen to twenty miles listening

549
00:30:30,800 --> 00:30:33,760
Speaker 2: to one of these books. The only downside is like

550
00:30:34,800 --> 00:30:37,960
Speaker 2: if you walk, if you're hiking and you see a squirrel,

551
00:30:38,120 --> 00:30:42,280
Speaker 2: you miss a paragraph, like it's like, oh squirrel, so

552
00:30:42,760 --> 00:30:46,280
Speaker 2: you know, so you've got to remember to concentrate. But

553
00:30:46,480 --> 00:30:51,600
Speaker 2: what gives me real solace is often like I'm worried,

554
00:30:51,760 --> 00:30:53,800
Speaker 2: like you know, it's my attention going to go. Am

555
00:30:53,840 --> 00:30:55,680
Speaker 2: I going to miss this moments that could be the

556
00:30:55,680 --> 00:30:58,600
Speaker 2: most amasic story? And you never know maybe you have,

557
00:30:59,080 --> 00:31:03,640
Speaker 2: But very often suddenly when I'm thinking that, I just

558
00:31:03,720 --> 00:31:06,240
Speaker 2: hear something and that's the moment. So it's that there's

559
00:31:06,240 --> 00:31:08,640
Speaker 2: a part of your brain that's still alive, even if

560
00:31:08,640 --> 00:31:11,360
Speaker 2: you don't know that it is where where it's listening

561
00:31:11,400 --> 00:31:14,880
Speaker 2: out for this moment of mystery. That's the moment. It's

562
00:31:14,880 --> 00:31:17,240
Speaker 2: that mystery I didn't expect that. I want to go

563
00:31:17,280 --> 00:31:19,760
Speaker 2: down a rabbit hole to learn more about that. That's

564
00:31:19,800 --> 00:31:20,560
Speaker 2: what you're looking for.

565
00:31:20,960 --> 00:31:24,120
Speaker 1: What are the people in your family say about you

566
00:31:24,200 --> 00:31:26,360
Speaker 1: if you haven't gone for a hike in a little.

567
00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:29,400
Speaker 2: While, Well, it never happens. I got for a hike

568
00:31:29,520 --> 00:31:32,120
Speaker 2: like every day, like I seven days a week. I

569
00:31:32,160 --> 00:31:35,640
Speaker 2: will either run or have a hike or something like that. Yeah,

570
00:31:35,800 --> 00:31:38,520
Speaker 2: I'm very motivated. All I do is work.

571
00:31:38,880 --> 00:31:42,280
Speaker 1: How does that play out for someone who's got kids.

572
00:31:43,560 --> 00:31:46,640
Speaker 2: Well, it's like he's mid twenties now, so he doesn't

573
00:31:46,720 --> 00:31:47,600
Speaker 2: need me anymore.

574
00:31:47,960 --> 00:31:51,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, we were little, surely you know there was like hey,

575
00:31:52,360 --> 00:31:53,520
Speaker 1: yeah remember this guy.

576
00:31:54,960 --> 00:31:57,560
Speaker 2: No, no, no. When he was little. I took time off,

577
00:31:57,640 --> 00:32:01,080
Speaker 2: like I gave up traveling. I started writing a column

578
00:32:01,120 --> 00:32:04,120
Speaker 2: about my domestic life and the Guardian so I could

579
00:32:04,120 --> 00:32:06,240
Speaker 2: stay home or and be born with my son. But

580
00:32:06,360 --> 00:32:09,840
Speaker 2: the irony is that then you start desperately hoping. It's

581
00:32:09,840 --> 00:32:12,440
Speaker 2: a weekly column, so you start desperately hoping that something

582
00:32:12,480 --> 00:32:16,640
Speaker 2: will go wrong, like something bad will happen so you'll

583
00:32:16,640 --> 00:32:19,160
Speaker 2: have something to ride about. So the irony is that,

584
00:32:19,280 --> 00:32:22,000
Speaker 2: you know, my quest to be a more pleasant father

585
00:32:22,880 --> 00:32:26,880
Speaker 2: meant that I was like writing about bad things happening

586
00:32:27,600 --> 00:32:30,120
Speaker 2: with my son in the Guardian, So it kind of

587
00:32:30,120 --> 00:32:33,720
Speaker 2: took me to a worse server. So I sort of Yeah,

588
00:32:34,400 --> 00:32:36,800
Speaker 2: so if you're thinking about writing a column about your

589
00:32:36,800 --> 00:32:39,640
Speaker 2: domestic life, it's a good idea not to do it.

590
00:32:40,600 --> 00:32:42,640
Speaker 2: So yeah, but the upshot is I gave it up

591
00:32:42,680 --> 00:32:44,640
Speaker 2: for a good number of years, and I cut down

592
00:32:44,680 --> 00:32:46,200
Speaker 2: my work for a good number of years. But now

593
00:32:46,200 --> 00:32:48,960
Speaker 2: he's left home, I just work all the time. It's

594
00:32:49,000 --> 00:32:51,360
Speaker 2: the thing that brings the joy. And my wife doesn't

595
00:32:51,400 --> 00:32:54,200
Speaker 2: bad because we've been together so long with you know,

596
00:32:54,400 --> 00:32:57,680
Speaker 2: we don't you know, we don't need to be walking

597
00:32:57,680 --> 00:33:00,120
Speaker 2: around holding hands to give it to the space to

598
00:33:00,160 --> 00:33:00,600
Speaker 2: do our thing.

599
00:33:01,200 --> 00:33:03,160
Speaker 1: What do you think is different about your relationship to

600
00:33:03,240 --> 00:33:04,720
Speaker 1: relationships that haven't lasted as.

601
00:33:04,600 --> 00:33:08,640
Speaker 2: Long's it's space. It's not putting any pressure on the

602
00:33:08,680 --> 00:33:12,560
Speaker 2: other person and just letting them do whatever they want. Basically,

603
00:33:13,560 --> 00:33:16,680
Speaker 2: no guilt, no pressure. Yeah, if they want to go

604
00:33:16,760 --> 00:33:20,400
Speaker 2: away and you're you're left with the extremely old dog

605
00:33:20,520 --> 00:33:24,080
Speaker 2: that won't stop coughing, do it, let them go away

606
00:33:24,480 --> 00:33:29,120
Speaker 2: and vice versa. So that's a particular moment that's happening

607
00:33:29,120 --> 00:33:31,000
Speaker 2: in my life right now. By the way, our dog

608
00:33:31,040 --> 00:33:31,920
Speaker 2: won't stop coughing.

609
00:33:32,920 --> 00:33:35,920
Speaker 1: Why do we choose pets as long as we do?

610
00:33:37,760 --> 00:33:40,360
Speaker 2: I know, I know, I know, I know. It was

611
00:33:40,400 --> 00:33:42,760
Speaker 2: a few years ago when I was lying at bed,

612
00:33:42,800 --> 00:33:44,560
Speaker 2: I was a bit depressed. I've been working on this

613
00:33:44,640 --> 00:33:47,520
Speaker 2: podcast with the last days of August. That made me

614
00:33:47,600 --> 00:33:50,800
Speaker 2: a bit depressed because it was such a bleak story

615
00:33:50,840 --> 00:33:54,520
Speaker 2: about the death of a porn star for Audible. Anyway,

616
00:33:54,640 --> 00:33:57,080
Speaker 2: I would just remember lying there with my two dogs,

617
00:33:57,320 --> 00:33:59,480
Speaker 2: thinking I want to I would have died before you,

618
00:34:00,160 --> 00:34:04,200
Speaker 2: like I wanted. That was one of the most dead

619
00:34:04,600 --> 00:34:07,120
Speaker 2: and the other one's about to die. I don't show

620
00:34:07,240 --> 00:34:09,040
Speaker 2: that way anymore and cut a kai clap at that

621
00:34:09,160 --> 00:34:09,879
Speaker 2: time before me.

622
00:34:10,080 --> 00:34:12,239
Speaker 1: I think I'm going to push for galafigus turtles or

623
00:34:12,280 --> 00:34:16,200
Speaker 1: African gray parrots, both of which outlive humans. Right.

624
00:34:16,280 --> 00:34:18,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, See, that's the part of the world that you're

625
00:34:18,160 --> 00:34:20,160
Speaker 2: living in where those things are an option. We have

626
00:34:20,280 --> 00:34:21,600
Speaker 2: no option. We're nowhere big.

627
00:34:22,000 --> 00:34:24,440
Speaker 1: You can't keep those things here. You can't even keep

628
00:34:24,440 --> 00:34:27,719
Speaker 1: a fucking wombat, even though they're in danger. I'd love

629
00:34:27,760 --> 00:34:29,920
Speaker 1: to have a warm They're cuddly, they're delightful. They do

630
00:34:30,520 --> 00:34:34,640
Speaker 1: you know cubic pooh. Amazing animals, I tell you, yeah.

631
00:34:34,520 --> 00:34:39,760
Speaker 2: I tell you what slightly overrated of kangaroos. They were little.

632
00:34:39,960 --> 00:34:42,239
Speaker 2: I went to a kangaroo sanctuary when I was in

633
00:34:42,400 --> 00:34:50,840
Speaker 2: Brisbane my house. Yeah, a little grumpy, a little stubbed

634
00:34:50,880 --> 00:34:54,040
Speaker 2: off fish like goats, So that way, I didn't love them.

635
00:34:54,680 --> 00:34:58,840
Speaker 2: I did love the koala though, that I loved. You know,

636
00:34:58,880 --> 00:35:00,839
Speaker 2: I held the koal of it, got my picture take

637
00:35:00,880 --> 00:35:03,439
Speaker 2: it that you know, in the room where you pay

638
00:35:03,920 --> 00:35:06,600
Speaker 2: there's pictures of like Elvis Costello holding.

639
00:35:10,920 --> 00:35:13,279
Speaker 1: Loan Pine. That's where I grew up. That was where

640
00:35:13,400 --> 00:35:16,080
Speaker 1: it was. My early BMX day writing was all around

641
00:35:16,080 --> 00:35:18,880
Speaker 1: that area. That is where I grew up. And those kangaroo,

642
00:35:19,520 --> 00:35:23,839
Speaker 1: the kangaroos that you saw, they are I'm not going

643
00:35:23,920 --> 00:35:26,719
Speaker 1: to say they're the circus elephant version of the kangaroo,

644
00:35:26,760 --> 00:35:29,960
Speaker 1: but they're They've all lived there their entire lives. I've

645
00:35:30,000 --> 00:35:31,640
Speaker 1: never seen the wild. They're all the children and the

646
00:35:31,680 --> 00:35:34,080
Speaker 1: grand and grandchildren of the kangaroos that have always lived there,

647
00:35:34,080 --> 00:35:36,759
Speaker 1: and they're like, n unless you've got snacks for me,

648
00:35:36,800 --> 00:35:39,919
Speaker 1: I'm fucking staying here, Okay.

649
00:35:40,000 --> 00:35:42,480
Speaker 2: What it's good to know that they were like. But

650
00:35:42,520 --> 00:35:45,280
Speaker 2: there's that's a kangaroos looking at that's a situation.

651
00:35:45,560 --> 00:35:47,200
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, there's ones that will suck you up if

652
00:35:47,239 --> 00:35:50,919
Speaker 1: you get in their space. And if you're driving at night,

653
00:35:51,040 --> 00:35:56,120
Speaker 1: don't don't don't because they're bigger than human and they

654
00:35:56,160 --> 00:35:59,440
Speaker 1: will destroy your car and you it's you know, it's

655
00:35:59,440 --> 00:36:03,080
Speaker 1: a bad time. It's a real bad time. Just a

656
00:36:03,120 --> 00:36:05,040
Speaker 1: moment away from John Ronson to say that if this

657
00:36:05,239 --> 00:36:09,040
Speaker 1: podcast is interesting to you, please share the show, tell

658
00:36:09,080 --> 00:36:11,759
Speaker 1: a friend, subscribe to the newsletter. I've put it in

659
00:36:11,800 --> 00:36:13,560
Speaker 1: the show notes. I put stuff there now that I

660
00:36:13,560 --> 00:36:15,839
Speaker 1: don't put elsewhere. I finally found a platform I can

661
00:36:15,920 --> 00:36:24,480
Speaker 1: use quite easily. It's great back in a minute over

662
00:36:24,520 --> 00:36:27,920
Speaker 1: time and the last, certainly since COVID. Many of us

663
00:36:28,040 --> 00:36:30,880
Speaker 1: and I heard you talk about it. People we really

664
00:36:30,920 --> 00:36:32,759
Speaker 1: care about, we've seen them just fall off the edge

665
00:36:32,840 --> 00:36:36,640
Speaker 1: of reality, you know, into this wild ideological place that

666
00:36:36,719 --> 00:36:39,240
Speaker 1: doesn't have a relationship to the rest of the world

667
00:36:39,280 --> 00:36:42,799
Speaker 1: that other people live in. You have spoken to more

668
00:36:42,840 --> 00:36:46,080
Speaker 1: people who live there than anyone I've ever spoken to.

669
00:36:47,160 --> 00:36:49,880
Speaker 1: So I don't feel so afraid, and so people may

670
00:36:49,920 --> 00:36:52,160
Speaker 1: perhaps don't feel so afraid of this shit happening again

671
00:36:52,480 --> 00:36:54,799
Speaker 1: or worse, What do we need to know about people

672
00:36:54,840 --> 00:36:58,920
Speaker 1: who exist in that space where they're literally operating in

673
00:36:58,960 --> 00:37:01,480
Speaker 1: a parallel universe that just happens to breathe the same

674
00:37:01,480 --> 00:37:02,440
Speaker 1: atmosphere that we do.

675
00:37:03,560 --> 00:37:07,680
Speaker 2: It's well, such an interesting question to you raise one

676
00:37:07,680 --> 00:37:08,920
Speaker 2: thing I say. I don't want to sound too much

677
00:37:08,960 --> 00:37:10,839
Speaker 2: like a like a New Yorker, but I was just

678
00:37:10,920 --> 00:37:15,360
Speaker 2: reading in The New Yorker an interesting article about how

679
00:37:16,239 --> 00:37:19,239
Speaker 2: maybe we should think of people who believe, you know,

680
00:37:19,840 --> 00:37:24,239
Speaker 2: completely irrational things like you and I, or pizzagate or

681
00:37:24,280 --> 00:37:27,759
Speaker 2: flat earth. Maybe we should think of them more like

682
00:37:27,880 --> 00:37:31,960
Speaker 2: religious believers, that these are symbolic beliefs, not real beliefs.

683
00:37:32,360 --> 00:37:34,160
Speaker 2: The point of this article was making that I thought

684
00:37:34,239 --> 00:37:38,040
Speaker 2: was very interesting and sort of spoke to something that's

685
00:37:38,280 --> 00:37:41,319
Speaker 2: kind of been in my mind too. Is you know,

686
00:37:41,400 --> 00:37:44,759
Speaker 2: religious people tend not to act at home like God

687
00:37:44,880 --> 00:37:48,719
Speaker 2: is watching them. You know, they're still they reacted ungodly

688
00:37:48,760 --> 00:37:52,600
Speaker 2: ways when they're not, you know, nobody sees them, so

689
00:37:52,680 --> 00:37:55,520
Speaker 2: that means they don't really they're not real believers. It's

690
00:37:55,520 --> 00:37:57,719
Speaker 2: more like a symbolic belief. And so maybe the same

691
00:37:57,840 --> 00:38:00,799
Speaker 2: is true for the for the believer qan on and

692
00:38:00,840 --> 00:38:03,240
Speaker 2: so on. However, at the same time, I would also

693
00:38:03,400 --> 00:38:06,560
Speaker 2: say that we are all of us, not just people

694
00:38:06,600 --> 00:38:10,800
Speaker 2: on the right. Obviously, everybody is susceptible to conspiratory or thinking.

695
00:38:11,200 --> 00:38:14,200
Speaker 2: Just look at what happened after the assassination of Trump

696
00:38:14,360 --> 00:38:16,799
Speaker 2: on Trump Suddenly it was the left of it all

697
00:38:16,880 --> 00:38:20,280
Speaker 2: saying it's an inside job, it's stage, it's a postblug operation,

698
00:38:20,560 --> 00:38:22,120
Speaker 2: all the things that we've been mocking the right for

699
00:38:22,239 --> 00:38:25,839
Speaker 2: all of this time. Another interesting thing I read was

700
00:38:26,640 --> 00:38:30,840
Speaker 2: people reporting on the shooting at pizzagate at the Comet

701
00:38:30,840 --> 00:38:33,239
Speaker 2: Ping Pung restaurant in Washington, d C. Where the guy

702
00:38:33,320 --> 00:38:36,600
Speaker 2: came in and you know, tried to rescue the kidnapped

703
00:38:37,040 --> 00:38:41,960
Speaker 2: children who'd be like sex slaved by Hillary Clinton. The

704
00:38:42,000 --> 00:38:46,880
Speaker 2: people reporting on that don't say something which is that

705
00:38:47,000 --> 00:38:52,080
Speaker 2: almost never happens. It almost never happens. There was loads

706
00:38:52,080 --> 00:38:54,319
Speaker 2: of people at qan on and they didn't do that

707
00:38:54,480 --> 00:38:58,279
Speaker 2: very often. It happened sometimes, true, but it doesn't happen

708
00:38:58,320 --> 00:39:01,480
Speaker 2: that much. There's this whole on the left about how

709
00:39:02,600 --> 00:39:09,160
Speaker 2: maga people and militia people are all white supremacists secretly

710
00:39:09,760 --> 00:39:13,760
Speaker 2: plotting to or just plotting to kick start an ethnic

711
00:39:13,840 --> 00:39:17,239
Speaker 2: based civil war, and I just don't think there's any

712
00:39:17,280 --> 00:39:20,640
Speaker 2: truth to that at all. I think there's not very

713
00:39:20,719 --> 00:39:23,720
Speaker 2: much racism in that world. It's much more an anti

714
00:39:23,760 --> 00:39:28,160
Speaker 2: government thing, an anti institution thing. And the reason why

715
00:39:28,800 --> 00:39:31,520
Speaker 2: they think people think that, academics on the left, I

716
00:39:31,640 --> 00:39:35,480
Speaker 2: think that is because when civil wars started, other countries

717
00:39:35,680 --> 00:39:38,439
Speaker 2: like Parsnia will wander. It's always ethnic based. It's always

718
00:39:38,480 --> 00:39:41,240
Speaker 2: tribal based. So if civil war's going to start in America,

719
00:39:41,320 --> 00:39:44,280
Speaker 2: it must be ethnic based. So it's almost like there,

720
00:39:44,320 --> 00:39:48,680
Speaker 2: it's almost like a sort of false mathematical equation. So

721
00:39:49,200 --> 00:39:52,560
Speaker 2: all of this is to say, and you know, maybe

722
00:39:52,600 --> 00:39:54,600
Speaker 2: in a couple of weeks or a couple of months,

723
00:39:54,680 --> 00:39:57,440
Speaker 2: this is going to seem very naive. I don't think

724
00:39:57,480 --> 00:39:59,839
Speaker 2: anything particularly bad is going to happen. I don't think

725
00:40:00,280 --> 00:40:03,239
Speaker 2: the right is going to kick start some sort of

726
00:40:03,280 --> 00:40:06,520
Speaker 2: civil war. In fact, if there's any political violence is

727
00:40:06,560 --> 00:40:09,560
Speaker 2: going to come from the left. True at Charlottesville, you

728
00:40:09,600 --> 00:40:12,120
Speaker 2: had all of those Jews would not replace us. You've

729
00:40:12,120 --> 00:40:15,040
Speaker 2: got a resurgence of anti Semitism coming from the left

730
00:40:15,040 --> 00:40:17,360
Speaker 2: as well as for the right. So I'm not saying

731
00:40:17,400 --> 00:40:20,839
Speaker 2: it's like plain sailing. But what I am saying is

732
00:40:20,880 --> 00:40:24,440
Speaker 2: that it's there's a certain amount of paranoia in thinking

733
00:40:24,440 --> 00:40:27,760
Speaker 2: that all of these kids with you know, gun clubs

734
00:40:27,800 --> 00:40:30,200
Speaker 2: in Michigan are or you know, plotting to start a

735
00:40:30,239 --> 00:40:33,080
Speaker 2: civil war. That's just you know, overblown and not true

736
00:40:33,120 --> 00:40:36,520
Speaker 2: and dangerous because it means that you know, you demonize

737
00:40:36,560 --> 00:40:39,200
Speaker 2: them and they get more more angry, and you know,

738
00:40:40,080 --> 00:40:41,440
Speaker 2: the problems are on both sides.

739
00:40:41,600 --> 00:40:43,600
Speaker 1: You're right. I mean, my my brother and his husband

740
00:40:43,600 --> 00:40:46,280
Speaker 1: live in Michigan and they had people they have fifteen

741
00:40:46,320 --> 00:40:49,120
Speaker 1: to try to take over the governor's house. It's it's

742
00:40:49,160 --> 00:40:50,480
Speaker 1: not not happening.

743
00:40:51,520 --> 00:40:55,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not nothing, but it's also it's not nothing.

744
00:40:55,640 --> 00:40:58,319
Speaker 2: But it's also overblown on the left, I'd say, it's

745
00:40:58,360 --> 00:40:59,640
Speaker 2: what's what's going on there?

746
00:41:00,080 --> 00:41:02,000
Speaker 1: How much of what we see when we see the

747
00:41:02,640 --> 00:41:05,600
Speaker 1: froth and the bluster and the whether it be someone

748
00:41:05,680 --> 00:41:07,880
Speaker 1: writing in a comment box or someone standing on the

749
00:41:07,920 --> 00:41:11,520
Speaker 1: street going this that the other but Jews will not

750
00:41:11,560 --> 00:41:14,360
Speaker 1: replace us, how much of that is I feel this

751
00:41:14,480 --> 00:41:17,239
Speaker 1: in my heart or I'm saying this because I want

752
00:41:17,239 --> 00:41:20,840
Speaker 1: the people around me to think I'm okay, so I

753
00:41:20,840 --> 00:41:22,080
Speaker 1: don't feel so alone.

754
00:41:22,800 --> 00:41:26,960
Speaker 2: That's really interesting. I think antisemitism. You know, I'm Jewish,

755
00:41:26,960 --> 00:41:29,719
Speaker 2: and so I've been sort of noticing, you know, the

756
00:41:29,800 --> 00:41:32,799
Speaker 2: sort of rise and anti semitism, especially since you know,

757
00:41:33,120 --> 00:41:36,839
Speaker 2: October seventh, but before too, you know, David Badil wrote

758
00:41:36,840 --> 00:41:39,640
Speaker 2: his book two Just Don't Come Back in, you know,

759
00:41:39,680 --> 00:41:42,560
Speaker 2: four or five years ago about how there was a

760
00:41:42,640 --> 00:41:46,600
Speaker 2: rise of antisemitism on the left and how people conflate

761
00:41:47,400 --> 00:41:51,239
Speaker 2: it's really government policy with the Jews and so out

762
00:41:51,239 --> 00:41:53,320
Speaker 2: in the way that you wouldn't do with other cultures.

763
00:41:53,680 --> 00:41:56,680
Speaker 2: And that feels real. That feels real. I've got to say,

764
00:41:56,880 --> 00:42:00,280
Speaker 2: it feels that they really, they really don't like us.

765
00:42:01,080 --> 00:42:03,880
Speaker 2: It's really in their hearts. And that's coming from both sides.

766
00:42:03,920 --> 00:42:06,400
Speaker 2: It's coming, you know, for the right. I'm the left.

767
00:42:06,920 --> 00:42:08,680
Speaker 2: That's a kind of bleak way of looking at it.

768
00:42:08,719 --> 00:42:10,799
Speaker 2: But that doesn't feel performative to me.

769
00:42:11,960 --> 00:42:17,120
Speaker 1: It's because that thing itself is is bananas to you. You've,

770
00:42:17,320 --> 00:42:19,280
Speaker 1: as I said, you've been in the homes of people.

771
00:42:19,320 --> 00:42:21,960
Speaker 1: You've you've put yourself a great peril to go and

772
00:42:21,960 --> 00:42:25,160
Speaker 1: speak with people who have quite publicly said we want

773
00:42:25,200 --> 00:42:28,200
Speaker 1: to kill people like you, or we support you not

774
00:42:28,280 --> 00:42:31,480
Speaker 1: having any rights or anything like that. When you see

775
00:42:31,719 --> 00:42:33,359
Speaker 1: and I went to a gig, went to go see

776
00:42:33,400 --> 00:42:35,960
Speaker 1: a mate's band play at the university here and it's

777
00:42:36,040 --> 00:42:39,759
Speaker 1: like ninety tenths in the in the quadrangle, you know,

778
00:42:40,040 --> 00:42:42,560
Speaker 1: with all kinds of flags, and I you know, I

779
00:42:42,600 --> 00:42:47,560
Speaker 1: saw Pride flags hanging amongst Palestinian flags, and I'm thinking, like,

780
00:42:47,719 --> 00:42:51,680
Speaker 1: do you do you know what happens? Come on, man,

781
00:42:51,800 --> 00:42:54,479
Speaker 1: like you probably don't wear leather shoes because you're worried

782
00:42:54,520 --> 00:42:57,560
Speaker 1: about the cows that like, what, what do you think

783
00:42:57,640 --> 00:43:01,000
Speaker 1: is happening? And at the is that people are having

784
00:43:01,000 --> 00:43:03,359
Speaker 1: to hold in their heads at the same time when

785
00:43:03,400 --> 00:43:04,200
Speaker 1: they're trying to.

786
00:43:06,160 --> 00:43:09,239
Speaker 2: I actually live right on the Pride Route in New

787
00:43:09,320 --> 00:43:13,400
Speaker 2: York City. I've got the department so down down in

788
00:43:13,440 --> 00:43:15,799
Speaker 2: Greenwich Village and so yeah, so I saw that. I

789
00:43:15,800 --> 00:43:20,040
Speaker 2: saw an awful lot of pro Palestinian you know, banners.

790
00:43:20,280 --> 00:43:23,319
Speaker 2: I couldn't work out how whether some some weren't like

791
00:43:23,400 --> 00:43:27,600
Speaker 2: official Pride floats, some were black people infiltrating and tried

792
00:43:27,640 --> 00:43:31,160
Speaker 2: to shut them march right. Yeah, that definitely was happening.

793
00:43:31,560 --> 00:43:37,200
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's this idea that Judaism is equitable with

794
00:43:37,239 --> 00:43:40,279
Speaker 2: white supremacy seems to be a kind of, you know,

795
00:43:40,480 --> 00:43:44,480
Speaker 2: feeling among some people in the left. You know, sometimes

796
00:43:44,520 --> 00:43:46,359
Speaker 2: it's just a slip, you know. There was this big

797
00:43:46,520 --> 00:43:52,759
Speaker 2: case of Britain of this incredibly anti Semitic mural that

798
00:43:53,040 --> 00:43:57,399
Speaker 2: turned up in Shoreditch or Hackney in East London, which

799
00:43:57,440 --> 00:43:59,279
Speaker 2: had all the tropes of you know, the sort of

800
00:43:59,400 --> 00:44:03,840
Speaker 2: Jewish bags controlling the world and Joremi Corvid like you know,

801
00:44:03,920 --> 00:44:05,799
Speaker 2: it was the Labor Party at the time over here,

802
00:44:05,880 --> 00:44:09,040
Speaker 2: like liked the Facebook post about it, and and I

803
00:44:09,080 --> 00:44:10,919
Speaker 2: think that was two things at once. That was both

804
00:44:11,160 --> 00:44:15,400
Speaker 2: you know, upsetting a discocistic for Duce, but also arguably

805
00:44:15,520 --> 00:44:17,880
Speaker 2: for some other people it was a misunderstanding, like some

806
00:44:17,960 --> 00:44:21,200
Speaker 2: people were liking that picture not realizing that there was

807
00:44:21,239 --> 00:44:25,120
Speaker 2: all as anti Smitic imagery in there. But yeah, the

808
00:44:25,239 --> 00:44:31,880
Speaker 2: dissonances is it's it's it's upsetting, Like I find this

809
00:44:32,120 --> 00:44:36,319
Speaker 2: all upsetting. A friend of mine, you know, somebody who

810
00:44:36,320 --> 00:44:38,960
Speaker 2: I really like as a friend and admire as a person,

811
00:44:39,520 --> 00:44:42,840
Speaker 2: gave it to where they said that Jewish journalists in

812
00:44:43,239 --> 00:44:47,440
Speaker 2: New York should declare whether or not they went to

813
00:44:47,600 --> 00:44:50,759
Speaker 2: Israel as teenagers, so we would know whether or not

814
00:44:50,960 --> 00:44:53,239
Speaker 2: to trust them because maybe they were brainwashed by the

815
00:44:53,360 --> 00:44:59,000
Speaker 2: Israeli government. Yeah, and that just, you know, really disheartened me.

816
00:44:59,120 --> 00:45:01,640
Speaker 2: I just thought, you wouldn't say that about other.

817
00:45:02,480 --> 00:45:05,560
Speaker 1: Other You wouldn't say that about someone from Uganda.

818
00:45:06,640 --> 00:45:08,520
Speaker 2: No, you would say about anyone. You would say about

819
00:45:08,800 --> 00:45:11,239
Speaker 2: Irish people, you would say about Muslims, you know, you

820
00:45:11,239 --> 00:45:13,680
Speaker 2: would say about anybody. So you know, that felt like

821
00:45:13,800 --> 00:45:15,720
Speaker 2: a like a shift.

822
00:45:16,120 --> 00:45:18,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, how much of that kind of stuff is I'm

823
00:45:18,200 --> 00:45:21,640
Speaker 1: saying this because I truly believe it, or I'm saying

824
00:45:21,680 --> 00:45:23,400
Speaker 1: it because I want to feel a part of something,

825
00:45:26,200 --> 00:45:28,040
Speaker 1: or I want I want to feel left alone. I'm

826
00:45:28,440 --> 00:45:30,800
Speaker 1: stuff because I want to feel less alone. If I

827
00:45:31,000 --> 00:45:33,760
Speaker 1: speak in this way, then these people who look powerful

828
00:45:33,840 --> 00:45:36,360
Speaker 1: and look organized and look like they know what's going on,

829
00:45:36,960 --> 00:45:40,160
Speaker 1: I get to stand with them, because then I feel

830
00:45:40,239 --> 00:45:42,600
Speaker 1: less alone than over here by myself, just worried.

831
00:45:44,000 --> 00:45:47,400
Speaker 2: That's certainly what was happening in the stories that I

832
00:45:47,480 --> 00:45:49,680
Speaker 2: wrote about it in my books that you can perp

833
00:45:49,719 --> 00:45:52,959
Speaker 2: appreciate about the sort of early days of what became

834
00:45:53,040 --> 00:45:57,439
Speaker 2: known as councel culture. And there was absolutely a sort

835
00:45:57,440 --> 00:46:01,680
Speaker 2: of group a sense of you know, group enjoyment. You know.

836
00:46:01,760 --> 00:46:04,240
Speaker 2: The main story of that book was that justin Saco

837
00:46:04,360 --> 00:46:07,560
Speaker 2: story to tweets, yeah, I go to Africa. I hope

838
00:46:07,560 --> 00:46:09,759
Speaker 2: I don't get AIDS. Just kidding, I'm white. And then

839
00:46:09,800 --> 00:46:12,600
Speaker 2: when she was asleep on the plane, you know, my

840
00:46:12,960 --> 00:46:14,960
Speaker 2: book sort of dissects everything that happened to hers. She

841
00:46:15,040 --> 00:46:19,120
Speaker 2: was asleep and oblivious, and absolutely all of these groups

842
00:46:19,160 --> 00:46:24,239
Speaker 2: were just joyfully, you know, supporting each other for you know,

843
00:46:24,320 --> 00:46:26,359
Speaker 2: and egging each other role and there was this sort

844
00:46:26,400 --> 00:46:29,400
Speaker 2: of group joy. And there were so many groups by

845
00:46:29,440 --> 00:46:32,480
Speaker 2: the way that night, everyone from kind of misogynists due

846
00:46:32,520 --> 00:46:35,400
Speaker 2: to social justice people through to hipsters, like, all of

847
00:46:35,480 --> 00:46:40,120
Speaker 2: these different groups are all having great fun, group identifying

848
00:46:40,200 --> 00:46:42,399
Speaker 2: by destroying this person who was asleep on a plane

849
00:46:42,400 --> 00:46:45,520
Speaker 2: and oblivious to everything that was going on. So yeah,

850
00:46:45,560 --> 00:46:47,320
Speaker 2: I'd say in that book it looked very it was

851
00:46:47,400 --> 00:46:51,000
Speaker 2: favoruch about groups, about feeling part of the group, feeling

852
00:46:51,040 --> 00:46:54,080
Speaker 2: part of something. I'd also thinking you were doing something

853
00:46:54,160 --> 00:46:57,320
Speaker 2: morally right. You know, it's no surprise that, you know,

854
00:46:57,640 --> 00:47:01,600
Speaker 2: many social scientists over the years have so that people

855
00:47:01,719 --> 00:47:04,680
Speaker 2: behave in moll violently when they think they're doing it

856
00:47:04,800 --> 00:47:06,359
Speaker 2: in the service of a moral good.

857
00:47:07,080 --> 00:47:09,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's well. I remember what a director of

858
00:47:09,480 --> 00:47:11,480
Speaker 1: mine when I worked for this music TV channel, we

859
00:47:11,480 --> 00:47:14,040
Speaker 1: would often do this big live things. There was bands,

860
00:47:14,080 --> 00:47:16,480
Speaker 1: there was thousands of kids. I've been involved in riots

861
00:47:16,480 --> 00:47:18,280
Speaker 1: and stuff before, so I was aware of how badly

862
00:47:18,320 --> 00:47:21,879
Speaker 1: everything could go. And he just said to me, you've

863
00:47:21,960 --> 00:47:25,160
Speaker 1: got the microphone. All people need is permission to behave.

864
00:47:25,280 --> 00:47:27,000
Speaker 1: If you tell them to dance and look after each other,

865
00:47:27,080 --> 00:47:28,960
Speaker 1: they'll dance look after each other. If you tell them

866
00:47:29,000 --> 00:47:31,920
Speaker 1: to riot they'll write it's up to you, because that's

867
00:47:31,920 --> 00:47:34,680
Speaker 1: all people want. People look for a clue, Oh we

868
00:47:34,760 --> 00:47:37,360
Speaker 1: can do this, right. All they want is permission and

869
00:47:37,520 --> 00:47:40,600
Speaker 1: the you know, the choice not to be theirs and

870
00:47:41,080 --> 00:47:43,840
Speaker 1: the way they go. And I was just everybody else was,

871
00:47:44,160 --> 00:47:47,719
Speaker 1: and yeah, it's it's fascinating. I think, you know, group

872
00:47:47,800 --> 00:47:50,160
Speaker 1: grew crowds and what happens to our decision making when

873
00:47:51,120 --> 00:47:54,960
Speaker 1: it's there's social proof is extraordinary. It can happen incredibly quickly.

874
00:47:55,280 --> 00:47:58,879
Speaker 1: Like as I mentioned, I've been in riots and fuck me, man,

875
00:47:59,200 --> 00:48:00,760
Speaker 1: it can turn with it five.

876
00:48:02,120 --> 00:48:05,040
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I ran a little bit about crowd theory. Actually

877
00:48:05,080 --> 00:48:08,160
Speaker 2: in Saving Public Shame. There was this terrible Yeah, there

878
00:48:08,239 --> 00:48:10,879
Speaker 2: was this terrible French guy in the nineteenth century called

879
00:48:10,920 --> 00:48:14,840
Speaker 2: Gustaf Lebonne who wrote this book about crowds coming up.

880
00:48:15,200 --> 00:48:16,920
Speaker 2: Was it called The Wisdom of Crowd I can't remember

881
00:48:17,560 --> 00:48:21,200
Speaker 2: or something of crowds anyway, Like here's his line was there?

882
00:48:21,640 --> 00:48:23,719
Speaker 2: You know which I think is wrong is that, you know,

883
00:48:23,840 --> 00:48:27,879
Speaker 2: in a crowd, man is no different from a grain

884
00:48:27,960 --> 00:48:30,520
Speaker 2: of sand being like pushed a pulled by the wind.

885
00:48:31,320 --> 00:48:34,319
Speaker 2: He basically described, you know, man in the crowd will

886
00:48:34,400 --> 00:48:38,200
Speaker 2: descend to the level of a child or a woman.

887
00:48:39,440 --> 00:48:42,280
Speaker 2: It was a real asshole. Anyway, I don't agree.

888
00:48:42,080 --> 00:48:43,800
Speaker 1: With the last part, but I can roll.

889
00:48:45,239 --> 00:48:47,600
Speaker 2: Well, well, okay, let me give you a counter argument

890
00:48:47,680 --> 00:48:49,520
Speaker 2: to that, because yes, you know, at first you think,

891
00:48:49,640 --> 00:48:51,479
Speaker 2: you know, maybe we are just like grains of sand

892
00:48:51,560 --> 00:48:55,080
Speaker 2: in the wind. But this massive riot unfolded in London.

893
00:48:55,640 --> 00:48:57,279
Speaker 2: I come remember a few years ago. It was like

894
00:48:57,360 --> 00:48:59,840
Speaker 2: the biggest right that we'd had, you know, in decades,

895
00:49:00,360 --> 00:49:02,320
Speaker 2: and it was really scary. You know, people were like

896
00:49:02,440 --> 00:49:06,560
Speaker 2: smashing all over the place. It was all over the yeah,

897
00:49:06,920 --> 00:49:09,600
Speaker 2: and it was getting closer and closer to our house.

898
00:49:10,040 --> 00:49:12,319
Speaker 2: We lived in Highgate at the time, but we want,

899
00:49:12,560 --> 00:49:15,879
Speaker 2: we were watching on the news really scared. It's like fun,

900
00:49:15,920 --> 00:49:18,439
Speaker 2: they're getting closer, they're in Camden. No now they're is literal,

901
00:49:18,640 --> 00:49:21,279
Speaker 2: oh shit, they're getting closer. They're getting closer. And we

902
00:49:21,440 --> 00:49:24,000
Speaker 2: lived at the top of this quite high hill at

903
00:49:24,040 --> 00:49:26,400
Speaker 2: the time, Highgate West Hill, which is like probably the

904
00:49:26,440 --> 00:49:29,360
Speaker 2: steepest tend in London. And you know what, the riot

905
00:49:29,440 --> 00:49:32,040
Speaker 2: got to the bottom of the hill and didn't go

906
00:49:32,200 --> 00:49:36,560
Speaker 2: up the hill. They just carried on. And I was thinking,

907
00:49:36,600 --> 00:49:40,200
Speaker 2: if they were like grains of sand, they'd have got

908
00:49:40,280 --> 00:49:42,920
Speaker 2: up the hill suddenly disagreed.

909
00:49:43,120 --> 00:49:45,760
Speaker 1: I disagree, so that it's the path of least resistance.

910
00:49:45,840 --> 00:49:49,080
Speaker 1: It flows like water thermodynamics, the whole thing. It's wild man,

911
00:49:49,320 --> 00:49:49,960
Speaker 1: the parallels.

912
00:49:51,400 --> 00:49:53,000
Speaker 2: I hear what you said. I do hear what you're saying.

913
00:49:53,040 --> 00:49:54,600
Speaker 2: But the one thing I would also add is that

914
00:49:54,719 --> 00:49:57,640
Speaker 2: some people who are anti Gustaf the Barn, some anti

915
00:49:57,680 --> 00:50:00,440
Speaker 2: Clowd theorists, would say that if we think of the

916
00:50:00,600 --> 00:50:05,120
Speaker 2: crowd as just this sort of thoughtless mass, yeah, then

917
00:50:05,640 --> 00:50:09,439
Speaker 2: the downside of that is we're not listening to any

918
00:50:09,600 --> 00:50:13,480
Speaker 2: concerns that they had. That sometimes people write for practical

919
00:50:13,560 --> 00:50:15,520
Speaker 2: reasons and so so con be used to sort of

920
00:50:15,600 --> 00:50:16,920
Speaker 2: form of social control.

921
00:50:17,200 --> 00:50:19,840
Speaker 1: And I've heard I've heard you take Q and A.

922
00:50:19,920 --> 00:50:21,279
Speaker 1: There's a Q and A that's part of your show

923
00:50:21,360 --> 00:50:24,399
Speaker 1: that you're bringing to Australia on your tour. I've heard

924
00:50:24,440 --> 00:50:26,759
Speaker 1: you take Q and A, and I've heard questions from

925
00:50:27,400 --> 00:50:29,279
Speaker 1: I heard this particularly one question that was like, well

926
00:50:29,320 --> 00:50:32,600
Speaker 1: that that lady bought a ticket, waited in line, you know,

927
00:50:32,760 --> 00:50:35,560
Speaker 1: and then stood up, knowing what the thousands and hundreds

928
00:50:35,560 --> 00:50:36,880
Speaker 1: of people in the room we're going to think of her,

929
00:50:36,960 --> 00:50:40,000
Speaker 1: and she just went on this full tire rate and

930
00:50:40,320 --> 00:50:42,759
Speaker 1: the way that you I really have to applaud you

931
00:50:42,800 --> 00:50:46,200
Speaker 1: because you modeled a really extraordinary way of communicating with

932
00:50:46,280 --> 00:50:50,080
Speaker 1: someone who was clearly afraid and clearly believed very much

933
00:50:50,400 --> 00:50:52,600
Speaker 1: what she was talking about. I don't know if people

934
00:50:52,600 --> 00:50:54,279
Speaker 1: are going to ask you those questions in Australia, but

935
00:50:54,719 --> 00:50:56,160
Speaker 1: the Q and a part of the show. Do you

936
00:50:56,560 --> 00:50:58,360
Speaker 1: do you look forward to it? Do you worry about stuff?

937
00:50:59,320 --> 00:51:02,120
Speaker 2: Yeah? That woman that you're talking about that doesn't happen

938
00:51:02,280 --> 00:51:05,960
Speaker 2: very often. Yeah. She stood up and basically said yeah,

939
00:51:05,960 --> 00:51:07,920
Speaker 2: and I'm glad I did too, And in fact, I

940
00:51:07,960 --> 00:51:09,960
Speaker 2: said to my producer, we have to leave that in.

941
00:51:10,680 --> 00:51:12,719
Speaker 2: She basically does this whole thing about you know, five

942
00:51:12,800 --> 00:51:16,000
Speaker 2: g towers and you know, COVID conspiracies like trying to

943
00:51:16,360 --> 00:51:18,319
Speaker 2: I'm trying to stop her and then find I said, look,

944
00:51:18,320 --> 00:51:21,920
Speaker 2: I've got to stop here. It got typical BBC and

945
00:51:22,080 --> 00:51:23,920
Speaker 2: I said, you know, no, you know, this isn't the

946
00:51:24,000 --> 00:51:28,000
Speaker 2: BBC trying to silence, you know, a truth teller. This

947
00:51:28,160 --> 00:51:29,960
Speaker 2: is the fact that there's four hundred people in this

948
00:51:30,200 --> 00:51:33,880
Speaker 2: room and I've got to look after that, like you know, welfare,

949
00:51:34,080 --> 00:51:35,839
Speaker 2: like some people don't want to listen to a great

950
00:51:35,920 --> 00:51:38,960
Speaker 2: date long you know, works of brands. That's the statement

951
00:51:39,040 --> 00:51:41,239
Speaker 2: to know a question. And it did make me think,

952
00:51:41,600 --> 00:51:43,680
Speaker 2: and I'm not saying that this woman was analyssist, but

953
00:51:43,760 --> 00:51:45,560
Speaker 2: it did make me think that what was going on

954
00:51:45,760 --> 00:51:49,800
Speaker 2: here was a battle between the individual and the institution.

955
00:51:50,320 --> 00:51:53,160
Speaker 2: She thought I as you know, a representative of the

956
00:51:53,239 --> 00:51:56,120
Speaker 2: BBC was like shutting her down, and I was like, no,

957
00:51:56,640 --> 00:51:58,320
Speaker 2: you know, I have to look after the four hundred

958
00:51:58,320 --> 00:52:01,320
Speaker 2: people in the room and you know, and keep this conversation,

959
00:52:01,440 --> 00:52:04,120
Speaker 2: keep this event going. And it did make me think,

960
00:52:04,200 --> 00:52:09,799
Speaker 2: you know, as institutions crumble, narcissists thrive and end.

961
00:52:10,200 --> 00:52:12,120
Speaker 1: The antidote to all of it is just kind of

962
00:52:12,200 --> 00:52:15,399
Speaker 1: knowing what you're looking at, I guess, and your work

963
00:52:15,520 --> 00:52:18,480
Speaker 1: is really me at least understand a lot more of

964
00:52:19,440 --> 00:52:23,480
Speaker 1: what those traits look like when they are in the

965
00:52:23,600 --> 00:52:27,520
Speaker 1: leadership position or a company's policy or a person standing

966
00:52:27,600 --> 00:52:30,319
Speaker 1: up asking a question. You know, I don't don't try.

967
00:52:30,360 --> 00:52:32,839
Speaker 1: It helps me not dehumanize it so much. And I'm

968
00:52:32,840 --> 00:52:33,440
Speaker 1: grateful for that.

969
00:52:34,400 --> 00:52:36,360
Speaker 2: Well, I really, I really appreciate that. But the other

970
00:52:36,400 --> 00:52:39,279
Speaker 2: answer your question is, yeah, I especially by the time

971
00:52:39,320 --> 00:52:41,320
Speaker 2: I come to Australia, I'm hoping it's not going to

972
00:52:41,360 --> 00:52:45,759
Speaker 2: be all psychopathity mental health stuff like you know, I

973
00:52:45,840 --> 00:52:48,360
Speaker 2: think I'm going to tell some stories about, you know,

974
00:52:48,440 --> 00:52:50,640
Speaker 2: the time I went ufl hunting with Robbie Williams, or

975
00:52:50,719 --> 00:52:53,040
Speaker 2: tried to sneak into the Heap and grove with Alex Jones,

976
00:52:53,160 --> 00:52:55,800
Speaker 2: like like if the Knight turns into that stuff to

977
00:52:56,360 --> 00:52:57,000
Speaker 2: count the end?

978
00:52:57,239 --> 00:53:00,640
Speaker 1: You know? Ah, was it now? I want to know

979
00:53:00,920 --> 00:53:03,960
Speaker 1: was it net Worth? Backstage at Oasis?

980
00:53:05,080 --> 00:53:05,400
Speaker 2: Robbie?

981
00:53:05,880 --> 00:53:11,480
Speaker 1: Was it call me Rob Robbie?

982
00:53:12,640 --> 00:53:16,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I definitely called him Rob because it was twenty.

983
00:53:16,560 --> 00:53:19,840
Speaker 2: It was about twenty, don't spoiler. I want to hear it.

984
00:53:21,239 --> 00:53:23,200
Speaker 2: I will tell you the story of the night. I've

985
00:53:23,239 --> 00:53:25,160
Speaker 2: got to say, it's pretty much the best story I've start,

986
00:53:25,520 --> 00:53:29,080
Speaker 2: so I hope to tell it. It's a top tier anecdote.

987
00:53:29,719 --> 00:53:32,160
Speaker 1: John, You're an absolute delight, and thank you so much

988
00:53:32,200 --> 00:53:34,200
Speaker 1: making the time to do this. I'm thrilled you coming

989
00:53:34,239 --> 00:53:36,960
Speaker 1: to our country again. It's been a while. It'll be

990
00:53:36,960 --> 00:53:40,120
Speaker 1: an interesting time. You're here right around the American election,

991
00:53:40,239 --> 00:53:45,040
Speaker 1: so it'll be fascinating and no matter what, absolutely, and yeah,

992
00:53:45,280 --> 00:53:46,720
Speaker 1: it's an interesting time to be alive.

993
00:53:47,080 --> 00:53:50,600
Speaker 2: I'm super excited to come back. I always love coming back.

994
00:53:50,800 --> 00:53:52,480
Speaker 1: I'm glad we're alive in the world at the same

995
00:53:52,560 --> 00:53:56,480
Speaker 1: time because I've always liked yours helps me feel less

996
00:53:56,560 --> 00:54:00,680
Speaker 1: nuts and yeah I did. It is a bit too

997
00:54:00,760 --> 00:54:02,760
Speaker 1: early for me to be on taking my medication today.

998
00:54:04,120 --> 00:54:07,080
Speaker 1: Don't get me wrong, I have been nuts and so

999
00:54:07,719 --> 00:54:10,399
Speaker 1: I spend time with you. Is is a real treat

1000
00:54:10,440 --> 00:54:11,960
Speaker 1: and makes me feel a lot less insane. So thank

1001
00:54:11,960 --> 00:54:13,600
Speaker 1: you so much, John, Thank.

1002
00:54:13,400 --> 00:54:15,280
Speaker 2: You so much. It was it was a great conversation.

1003
00:54:15,360 --> 00:54:17,320
Speaker 2: I really enjoyed talking to you. And and you know

1004
00:54:17,520 --> 00:54:20,520
Speaker 2: another speaking now that I'm talking to you in Australia,

1005
00:54:20,600 --> 00:54:22,279
Speaker 2: tell me something else that makes me feel a little bit.

1006
00:54:22,400 --> 00:54:25,719
Speaker 2: That's nuts. Amil and the Sniffers my new favorite, my

1007
00:54:25,840 --> 00:54:31,560
Speaker 2: new favorite band. Awesome. Fucking aren't they sick?

1008
00:54:31,800 --> 00:54:33,920
Speaker 1: They are proper, proper, proper.

1009
00:54:34,000 --> 00:54:38,160
Speaker 2: I love them. Amil and the Sniffers, Our Chapel Roan

1010
00:54:38,520 --> 00:54:41,440
Speaker 2: are the two greatest things that have come out of

1011
00:54:41,520 --> 00:54:42,680
Speaker 2: music in the last few years.

1012
00:54:42,840 --> 00:54:45,319
Speaker 1: I couldn't agree with you more. That video, that one

1013
00:54:45,360 --> 00:54:48,320
Speaker 1: that they do at the Clueless Liquor Short store and

1014
00:54:48,760 --> 00:54:53,800
Speaker 1: in North Hollywood is fucking It's is great. She is electric.

1015
00:54:54,920 --> 00:54:56,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's super incredible.

1016
00:54:56,960 --> 00:54:59,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, great, Well, I hope you see them when you

1017
00:54:59,480 --> 00:55:00,120
Speaker 1: come out, man.

1018
00:55:00,840 --> 00:55:03,360
Speaker 2: Hope so too. They were playing in New York, but

1019
00:55:03,800 --> 00:55:07,359
Speaker 2: Doors were Yeah, but doors were at eight. I thought

1020
00:55:07,400 --> 00:55:10,360
Speaker 2: there was two support bands till they came on, and

1021
00:55:10,480 --> 00:55:12,439
Speaker 2: I thought, I'm not going to stay up till after ten.

1022
00:55:12,960 --> 00:55:13,240
Speaker 1: Mate.

1023
00:55:13,440 --> 00:55:13,680
Speaker 2: I am.

1024
00:55:14,040 --> 00:55:16,919
Speaker 1: I'm fifty years old, and after going around the world

1025
00:55:16,960 --> 00:55:19,800
Speaker 1: with a triple A around my neck, I'm like, when's

1026
00:55:19,840 --> 00:55:22,880
Speaker 1: the kid, when's the how many minutes on my ticket

1027
00:55:22,960 --> 00:55:24,920
Speaker 1: and how many a's are on it? No, thank you,

1028
00:55:25,640 --> 00:55:26,399
Speaker 1: I haven't watch KP.

1029
00:55:26,560 --> 00:55:30,160
Speaker 2: And I feel exactly the same way. I don't have

1030
00:55:30,239 --> 00:55:32,360
Speaker 2: to wait until I have the sniffers of a legacy

1031
00:55:32,440 --> 00:55:34,640
Speaker 2: band and go on at seven thirty. So I've been

1032
00:55:34,640 --> 00:55:36,080
Speaker 2: seeing them in forty years time.

1033
00:55:36,200 --> 00:55:37,880
Speaker 1: This is the way I have a great night.

1034
00:55:37,960 --> 00:55:40,200
Speaker 2: Man, it's a great talk.

1035
00:55:41,400 --> 00:55:44,839
Speaker 1: Thanks for sticking with that. That was so Boodoper good.

1036
00:55:44,960 --> 00:55:48,279
Speaker 1: That is John Ronson. What a cracker. Huh. He's coming

1037
00:55:48,320 --> 00:55:51,160
Speaker 1: to Australia in November. The night is brilliant. It's called

1038
00:55:51,360 --> 00:55:55,640
Speaker 1: John Ronson's Psychopath Night twenty twenty four and it's weather.

1039
00:55:55,800 --> 00:55:57,840
Speaker 1: Just to have the ticket stub. I think if anyone

1040
00:55:57,920 --> 00:56:00,120
Speaker 1: keeps the ticket stub anymore, it's on my phone. I

1041
00:56:00,160 --> 00:56:02,840
Speaker 1: don't know well worth the price of a mission. He

1042
00:56:02,920 --> 00:56:05,800
Speaker 1: has written so many books I would encourage you to

1043
00:56:05,920 --> 00:56:08,840
Speaker 1: explore any one of them, and his TED talks were

1044
00:56:08,840 --> 00:56:10,560
Speaker 1: also quite delightful. If you haven't heard of his stuff

1045
00:56:10,560 --> 00:56:12,480
Speaker 1: before and he'd listened to this today, you may think, oh,

1046
00:56:12,680 --> 00:56:14,960
Speaker 1: that's interesting guy. Just go Todd John Ronson in the

1047
00:56:15,520 --> 00:56:19,319
Speaker 1: TED thing I enjoy. I'm back here on Friday. Thanks

1048
00:56:19,360 --> 00:56:21,440
Speaker 1: so much for listening. Please tell a friend about the

1049
00:56:21,480 --> 00:56:25,040
Speaker 1: show that helps us enormously. Here are the credits, read

1050
00:56:25,080 --> 00:56:28,520
Speaker 1: by an AI voice with a very strange accent.

1051
00:56:30,600 --> 00:56:32,680
Speaker 3: This episode was brought to you by Andy Maher on

1052
00:56:32,800 --> 00:56:36,719
Speaker 3: audio post production, Big Sayed on video post production to

1053
00:56:36,960 --> 00:56:41,080
Speaker 3: Hyder on music. Asher's executive function assistant is Monica Chapman.

1054
00:56:41,440 --> 00:56:44,240
Speaker 3: Sign up to the regular newsletter and get every episode

1055
00:56:44,320 --> 00:56:46,160
Speaker 3: ever at Osherginsburg dot com