#152: Brian Malow / The Science Comedian / Moon Landing / Stand Up & Science / SciFi

0:01 Welcome to another episode of Come Together, Brian Mallow. As if as if there was 2L's in your last name, but there is one. Great to have you here. Science communicator, comedian obviously overflowing with enthusiasm and charisma already. Obviously. How are you? How are you today? Good, thanks for having me. Yeah, you know, I have how? Did you find me? Oh, I was trying to avoid you. How did you find me? I found you with assistance of grok where I.

0:46 Oh no, I don't know if that's good or bad. I'm known to the AIS already. You are, by the way, I got, I got my first call. Someone reached out to me. I found you using AI and I'm like, oh, that's what it feels like. I see I had done an interview about a month ago with a a nuclear physicist and stand up comic named Kevin Hickerson. And and he was, I think he, oh, he didn't as much try to focus on blending the two arts as much as pursuing them as, you know, two different careers and ultimately chose to focus more on the nuclear physics and felt like he had more to, you know, offer than. Jekyll and Hyde 1 is a comedian by day.

1:28 You know, probably nuclear physicist by day, comedian by night. But why couldn't it be the other way around? I, I honestly, I don't know. I don't know. I kind of do the I kind of live my business life like that because most of my podcasting ends up being during the day. I do, I do sales. Otherwise with I work with my dad. You know what? So when I was growing up, way before comedy was an idea as a career, like I liked comedy, but like when I growing up, I did have early comedy influences. Like I had George Carlin albums, Richard Pryor, Monty Python album, the original crew of Saturday Night Live had an album that was very popular at some point there in the late 70s and Steve Martin, you know, like, but I, I, I hadn't what, but I wasn't thinking of comedy as a career.

2:24 I did like it and those influences were there as well as like science and science fiction influences. But I had a friend that we started writing songs together and he was a great composer and mostly I wrote lyrics to his music. And we we're torn because we wanted to be rock stars. We also wanted to be scientists. We loved physics, especially, and astronomy, astrophysics. So we always thought about that like scientists by day. Rockstar. By night. And yeah. Totally in the end. We became neither. It's wonderful. Well, I mean, you find a different way to blend it.

3:04 And actually, I, you know, I, I spoke with, I had another guest recently who was a musician first and then ended up ends up studying music in the brain and, you know, music with cochlear implants and perception of music. The Yeah. And really, really. Cool stuff. Her name was Karen Barrett, Doctor Karen Barrett. And she's a, she's a a trained classical pianist and has been studying dementia and neurogenesis and creativity. And one thing that she recently did was creativity with kids, where she'd put kids in the FM RIMRI scanner, I guess have a background music loop play, give them a keyboard and have them improvise and let them play music in the FM RI scanner and see which parts of their brain would light up and which circuits were being activated while they were improvising to see, to study creativity.

3:57 Yeah. Like in a tangible way, it was really, really cool. But she said the same thing. She goes, I didn't know where, where, where my research was going to take me. I just knew what I loved. And I just had to figure out one, you know how to put 11 foot in front of the next and then and then you get there. I've had I've given talks to students, especially older students, high school or college and where I discussed my path because it was very non linear. It wasn't like this is what I always wanted to be. And then I became it. I I was always good at science, but I was also good at writing. I liked both the science and the art and. The performing I bet, and the performing I imagine, right?

4:41 You know, that actually came later. I was kind of a shy kid. Like I would get nervous if I had to stand up in front of the class and speak. So although I had dreams of being a rock star with my friend, that was a dream very fantasy based because I didn't really I didn't have much stage experience. I did a couple like little plays or something, but but I didn't have much stage experience until much later. So that's something I actually had to overcome later and get get used to. But I didn't head straight into any of this. I, I went, I was a great student and when I went to college, I went to the, I grew up in Houston mostly actually. So I was born.

5:26 I like saying I was born in Chicago. We moved down to Texas and I went to California and then to North Carolina. So I don't even know what that means. But as a Jew, what is this? But that's the path I took. I, I, I hit the four corners of the country kind of. But what I'm trying to say there is that I was at at the University of Texas, I was in this liberal arts honors program called Plan 2, Roman numeral 2. And I I was pre Med at the urging of my Jewish parents mother. One of my jokes is that that's very truthful is like I I'm very often open with this.

6:14 My name is Brian Mallow and I'm not a doctor, but I play one in the broken dreams of my parents. There you go. And then? When they laugh, I I thank them for laughing. But it wasn't, it wasn't even a joke. It's a pretty honest statement, but I was pre Med and I started, I graduated with a high GPAI started to study for the MCAT, the test you take to get into medical school. But I knew this isn't what I want. That's not even the science that I like best. I prefer physics and astronomy and and then I was out of school for a year and then I went to Graduate School in TV production in a way, and I learned video skills. Wait a minute while.

6:57 I was doing that I tried stand up for the first time. There was a funniest person in Austin contest that I was ready to try it. And so then I left that and I became a comedian and then it became science comedian. And so this path like but the whole time kind of like what what she said that previous guest. Yeah. Karen Dr. Karen. The I just sort of was following. Maybe I was just following the path of least resistance, but if I want to I a more positive take would be I was just following like what felt right. It's like, I'm glad I learned this, but I'm going to do this now.

7:38 Now I'm going to do this. And where I've come to now, I basically use all those things, all of those things, irrelevant. Now, I do, you know, I have a nicer video set up here than most people because I'm bringing my video background to it. I'm using a DSLR and a nice microphone and lights and what The lights aren't really set up but it looks OK. Good to me. Yeah. So in the end, you know, I don't know if you've, there's a comment, there's a video on YouTube from Stanford University and it's Steve Jobs giving a commencement speech. I show it to all my high school students every. Year it's only about 20 minutes long and it's and he's like has like 3 main things he wants to talk about and one of them is what I just said. It's that like looking back at my career, you never knew when you were doing it.

8:31 But when I look back, it's almost like all those pieces were stepping stones to hear. Like it makes sense when you look back at it, but it wasn't planned that way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He, he says you can't connect the dots looking forward, only looking back. And you have that faith in something going forward, you know, and that's passion, the universe, God, whatever it might be, and. And then mostly it was following what felt right. It's like, oh, like following the passion the whole time. I guess it could lead you astray, but it worked out. When I get to be and there's a little bit of the teacher in me, so I get to give science first of all. Some of my comedy might be a little educational, where I make science subjects kind of fun or funny. I also give talks to help scientists be better communicators.

9:24 Which is really important. Yeah, so some gigs that I have, like I love just performing comedy, but like in the summer I'll have this gig in Germany and then I'm going to go to the University of Mines, Maine. It looks like Maine's but. And as part of a speaker series, it's like the physics department. And they'll have like this colloquium and. And most of their speakers are physicists. Yeah, but I will be giving a talk on science communication and my path maybe. And so it's like, so I get to use my video skills. What I do is both art and science and education.

10:04 And it's just like it involves all these, like the skills I've picked up along the way or developed. I, I, I think I have AI, have AI have a couple of thoughts and a couple of questions. Follow up questions. First of all, I, the entire, I, I, you know, the entire old, old school of Hollywood was founded on Jews in the similar situations to you whose parents wanted them to be doctors and lawyers and they said, screw this, I want to do something fun. And they ran off to to California and just build. I can make movies about doctors. And, and the other observation that I actually, that I, that I had recently, and it's so cool to see this actually apply to you is I think that creativity comes out best in people when they feel like they're being stifled.

10:53 I think that that is whether you and that could happen like a cultural level, you know, like with the counterculture, the whole counterculture world, the Sixties, 70's rock jam bands, you know, like the psychedelic and hippie era. That was all born from a group of people feeling like disillusioned with the world, suppressed by the world around them. And like they like they were just trying to figure out a way to like be themselves And like, it's loaded into like this incredible, you know, culture, you know, pros and cons, of course, but but that happens to people on individual levels too. And you know, and to go from being pre Med, getting ready to go to Med school, being a science oriented person, like, I mean, I could even imagine old school Jewish family, if you if, if their son came back to them and be like, guys, I hate to break it to you, I'm not going to Med school. I'm going to be a physicist.

11:40 You know, like they'll be disappointed on one end. Like they come back and go, I'm taking a year off and I'm going to movie to to to to, to design to, you know, to, to, to the film school. What was what was that react? What was their reaction? You know what? You just reminded me of several different things. The last thing you just reminded me of was many years ago, I saw there is a remake of film The Jazz Singer with Neil Diamond. And he was supposed to probably, like his father, become a Cantor, but he wanted to be a rock star. And so, you know, he had to break the family's heart. You know, my father was an accountant. And I think things like, I think in a way I had more like 100% support from my mother than my father because my father is like, if you instantly became rich and successful at it, then he's all on board. So that was his concern.

12:34 And I think my mom was more concerned that you do what you like. And so I know that was tough to, it's like such a tease to begin to study for the MCAT and, and all this and then go, I'm not doing this. This isn't, this is what you want, but it's not really what I want. And that's a hard thing to do sometimes. We people in general, in all parts of your life, like to not be bent by other people's expectations and to to realize this is your dream. For me, it's not my dream exactly.

13:14 And I hate to break your heart, but the other but two other little things you reminded me of, I remember. I don't know whatever came of this, but I remember there was a guy in a filmmaker in the Bay Area and he was making a documentary about why there are so many Jews in comedy way out of proportion to their numbers in the population. Why do Jews dominate in Hollywood and in and in comedy in particular is what he was interested in. And, and then, you know, that was always true. And in the recent several decades, other groups that are minorities that have been held down and persecuted also rose up. You started to see way more black comics and Asian comics and and just people of.

14:04 Comics. And other politically. In America politically libertarian and right leaning comics now. Which like you could. Hey everyone, real quick, if you're enjoying the show, click subscribe and rate the show 5 stars helps a ton. Thanks so much. Definitely say we're definitely considered a minority, especially in the corporate world or the, you know, whatever kind of world that like they definitely like for sure. And you see the same kind of rise now. So is there something there because you hear up and been during the Holocaust or something like like that. Sometimes some humor is born out of being repressed or being torn, you know, like art in general. There's this idea that art in general, any, any art form is that like, it comes out of suffering and pain and torture and that if you had a really messed up childhood. And in fact, like I wrote a little joke about how I, my parent, I was never abused or even neglected. Like, I feel like I could have been a much better artist, but I was never abused.

15:05 And I blame my parents because I could have been. Why didn't you know, you took too good care of me. I could have been a greater artist. Andrew Schultz has a very similar joke where he says all I have to do to make he goes, I I'm happy I had a girl, he goes, but it requires a lot more work because if I had a boy to make him great, all I had to do was just ignore him or beat him up every now and then. He's like then he would have been great and I wouldn't end of it, but and then. So the but the thing that you said was about like where, like like part of the I don't remember your exact words, but about where what gives birth? The feeling of being suppressed, the feeling of depression leads to like this kind of what? Needing to break out and need to start to explode?

15:47 Really. Well, I I've had the opportunity to do these a couple really interesting events with Brian May, the guitarist from Queen, who also has a PhD in astrophysics. He he complete, he was working on it before Queen. That's what he was studying. Was that in the film? Was that in the movie Bohemian Rhapsody? Yeah, I. Think he may have? Mentioned on it because all of them were pretty good students in in in different fields and he but he was studying astrophysics and he was really pursuing it. He had papers published. He had a co-authored paper in Nature. Like wow.

16:31 Then. Like by 1970 or something, he was pretty getting pretty busy with Queen and he put it aside. But when he was like 59 years old, he, that's the kind of guy he is. He completed his PhD and so he's Doctor Brian May and then he was knighted. So he's Sir Doctor and he's an animal rights activist and an evangelist and publisher of 3D photography, which is how I. What's 3D photography? What's that? What is 3D photography? Well, you know, like 3D movies and so and and three DI wish I had one handy. I almost do. But before 3D movies, there were the these classic like the stereoscope where it's this like maybe a wooden device and you put your eyes up to it.

17:24 And all it is, is a simple way of there's two images and one represents the view from your left eye and one from your right eye. And the reason we have depth perception is because of having two eyes. And our brain builds this 3D World out of these two different views. And if you close one eye, you'd, or if you lose one eye, you might lose your driver's license because you don't have true depth perception. Yeah, Now, you know, like I close one eye, I still know that those shelves are behind this camera. You know what I mean? Like there are. Other people protect the focus and they close one eye when they're aiming for something. They're really just making it harder for themselves. Yeah, that's an interesting thought. I don't know, but the 3D photography, what involves is taking 2 pictures from slightly different angles. And then when you see like a stereo card that you would place in one of these stereoscopes, all it is you would look at a glance, it looks like the same image twice, but they are. But just like our two eyes, it's 2 slightly different angles. And then when you the stereoscope, just make sure that your left eye sees one and your right eye sees the other. When you go to a 3D movie, they might be projecting the two different images with polarized light. And light can be polarized in different ways. So like 1 image is being

18:55 polarized One Direction and the other is the other direction. And then you wear these glasses, and that means this lens only lets you see one. Set of. Images and the other lens only lets you see the other images. And so that's a clever way. And it used to be the green, blue, you know, same thing. And those different lenses. It's these are all just ways of serving up one image to the left eye and a different, slightly different image to your right eye. And then you can have 3D, whether it's film or like a little stereo card. And anyway, so this was all to say, Brian May and this astrophysics physicist friend of his started an event called Starmus. It's like star and music, our mus music, and every year or two they'll have one of these events and they have astronauts and scientists and musicians and artists. It's a great.

19:57 It's all about art and science and. Where is it? It moves around the I did it once in Zurich and I did it once in Bratislava, Slovakia, and there's one coming up later this year in Spain. Or in. Tenerife it's so this was a lot to get to the point relevant to what you said, because one of his friends that's, that's involved on the, on the board of Starmiss is Brian Eno, great musician, producer. And I, I overheard I, I was sitting in and, and listening to a conversation between Brian and it was the year this Apollo 11 documentary came out and it was in 20/19.

20:47 It was the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11's landing on the moon. And so the guy that did the music for the documentary was talking to Brian Eno. They're talking about music. And Brian Eno said something really interesting. He said that sometimes when he like, downloads some music app and plays with it and there's a premium, but there's a free version that's hobbled and then there's a premium version that has all the bells and whistles. He likes to start with the free hobbled version because it forces you to work within limitations. It doesn't do all the things the fancy version does. Let's see what you can do when we force these limitations on you before he goes and he plays with the full 1 and it's like it's just you see the connection there. It's like, oh, like, how is how can it force you to be creative by really limit?

21:45 Like if you were told you're great artist, but you can only use a pencil instead of all your paints or you can only use charcoal or you know, like all of a sudden, well, what can you do with this limitation? And you see what people do with all sorts of crazy limitations. It's incredible. It's really yeah. And it's and that's how you get some of the coolest inventions and, you know, but you need. And this is actually something that I actually, I also wanted to talk to you about because I, I was running through some of the YouTube videos that that you have. And one common theme I saw a lot was about the repeating the expression, you know, about not growing up and, and. I haven't noticed this. I, I saw that a bunch, it came up a bunch. And one of the things, but, but I think that, and, you know, and, and a lot of the great creatives, the great communicators, the real, you know, they always say, you know, they're always saying things like getting older, but don't grow up.

22:37 And like, you know, and, and, and I think what they generally tend to try to say or imply is that growing up is more of a mindset of like, I get how things work. And like I've taken, I, I've understood the world and now I'm going to navigate within the world that I understand. And not growing up is still looking at everything like it could kind of be broken and put back together again. And it gives you a lot more room for play and for playful kind of whether it's, it's, whether it's learning or science or, you know, different, different experimental forms of comedy or whatever it is that you're going to be doing. You talk about some of the values of of that kind of mentality and how we can why it's necessary to adopt it.

23:20 Well, so interestingly, I when I give science communication talks, I usually call my talk A Science Comedian's Guide to Communicating Science. And I draw from a little bit from my experiences as a comedian, but then also now years of being a science communicator. So it's not just that, but I started seeing all sorts of connections between comedy and science and comedians and scientists. So obviously when you talk about not growing up, comedians are an obvious group of so immature and not and always being silly and light hearted and but you know that that's so a slightly negative.

24:08 That's all like almost like, you know, critical take on it. But there's also the the not growing up and not losing your childlike wonder with the world, and scientists are very much like that. A scientist might dedicate not only their career, but their life to like understanding. Why does that bug do that? Why you're look at that weird, like noticing something that most people you know when you grow up, you start paying attention to more important things like your mortgage and your children and your and and you, and you might lose that childlike wonder. You get hardened by life and all, but anyone that can hang on to that, you can have a little of both.

24:52 You can, you can mature a little bit, but still look at the world through these fresh eyes and the joy and the wonder of child, that childlike wonder. And so scientists and, you know, there's this other connection that I feel like both scientists and comedians see, see patterns and connections. Like sometimes you hear a comedian, there are different kinds of comedy. Like sometimes a comedian says stuff that you're just like, that's crazy. I've never heard anything like that. And other times it's that sort of, Oh my God, like it's like, I have noticed this before or, but a lot of times comedians notice things that we haven't noticed before.

25:33 It's like, Oh my God, I never connected that. And you might and you might make an analogy and and if I connected to this and you go, wow. So I saw a connection that no one saw before. And scientists also many science discoveries are that same thing. It's everyone has looked at this for thousands of years and you're the first person to notice this strange little thing and make a connection that's towards understanding. So I think that that's kind of that says there's that it's important to not grow up in a way that it's important to to sometimes see the world with that child, those childlike eyes and don't let that get beaten out of you by some kind of formal education or some kind of experiences and the need to deal with life, life. Yeah, it's important to be a little heretical every, every now and then, especially as an Orthodox Jew, right? Yeah.

26:29 Yeah, I get myself in a little bit. Of trouble are you? You're an Orthodox Jew. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you. Know what's funny? Yeah, I have some. You know, I've done a lot of Jewish shows over the years and I've always had some Jewish material. And one, one of the things that must be is like, well, is that people like that there are different degrees of Judaism, like murder, like so there's Orthodox Jews and I go, they follow like 714 commandments now. I'm sorry, that's how many home runs Babe Ruth hit. And then there's like Conservative Jews that are like the porridge in the middle, right? And we were Reformed Jews, like the criminals.

27:11 And what that meant is like, we would take off school for the Jewish holidays, but we wouldn't go to temple. We'd go to Galveston, the beach, you know, right. So we observed the holidays from a distance. Sure, from a distance from the beach. Yeah, Excellent. It's too funny, by the way, because, you know. Yeah, yeah, totally. I love I all the flavors have been. You know what, one of my simplest jokes that I can't believe I've never like 2 one is not being very religious. I'm just sort of Jewish. Right. Which many other comedians have come up with that joke, it turns out, but one that's almost as simple as that.

27:51 And as far as I know, I've never heard anyone else. I tried to research, like, sometimes you go see if anyone else wrote this joke before, and it's that two Jews walk into a bar mitzvah. OK there. You go. It's so silly. It's so obvious. It's just two Jews walk into a bar. Has been said a billion times. And like mitzvah, I just like that one word that changes it. Yeah. It's fun, It's fun. It's fun, by the way. That's the type of comedy that speaks to that speaks to me the most, is I like to be LED down one path expecting something and then and then I love to have the rug pulled out from under me and like, you know. That's just good writing. That's just like surprise.

28:34 A lot of comedy is about surprise. Sure, sure. Yeah. And and just, you know, just. One word, yeah. There's a there's a great, there's the comedian Sam Morrell had a great line where he goes, you know, this content's not going to go well with this crowd. He's like, but structurally it's a great joke. Trust me. He's like, you know, like they might not like the material, but like, I've worked on this, you know, like you've done. We, we, we put the work into it. It's it's important. You know, there was this most people nowadays only know Woody Allen now for other stuff, but for his film career. But he was an amazing stand up comic in his early days. And his stand up was mostly just squeaky clean and brilliantly funny.

29:19 And one of his simple little jokes that is like perfect example of this is that he, he pulls out this pocket watch and he goes, there's a great watch. My grandfather on his deathbed sold me this water. And you're like, what's great about it is like, you hear what he's saying and then you're like, you know what he's going to say. He's going to say my grand, his grandfather gave him. So you, you totally know what he's going to say. And then one word switches the whole thing. And that's very that's brilliant writing. And and one other example is there was she was, she's still around. I think it's, ah, crap. Is it Elaine Boozler or Oh, I might be confused.

30:04 I think it was Elaine Boozler. Brilliant joke where she said I have no kids. Well, at least none that I know about. And what's great about that is that is a thing that men have said forever. And it's kind of funny, mildly amusing. And she realized that if a woman is so much. Funnier and. You don't even change one word. You don't even change a syllable. You say the exact same thing, but put it in the mouth of a woman and it becomes a much funnier joke. Yeah, for sure. I did. I was, I did a podcast. It's. Either Carol Leafer or I think it was Carol Leafer or Elaine Boozler. I'm confused now. One of those great female comics.

30:46 Yeah. I I was, I was saying I did a podcast with a gentleman that's a Bob Dylan scholar last week. Yeah, really cool. We had a lot of fun. I never did an hour and a half talk of judged about Bob Dylan, but it turned out to be more fun than I thought it would be. And one thing that we talked about was the, and, and he writes about this actually in a book that he wrote, but that the voice and the way that it's said has everything to do. Like basically was discussing delivery, you know, and obviously to stand up comics, it's, you know, it's one thing into musicians. It's, it's almost the same thing, but in a, in a very similar tone, you know, you can say the same sentence 5 different ways.

31:26 And, and that's, I, I learned about that in Shakespeare class because you know, I, I, you know, we, we in, in college, you know, I, I was a creative writing literature major and I, you know, I'm in my Shakespeare class. I'm dreading, I'm, I'm not looking forward to it because I, you know, it was like, I was in the degree for the writing, not for the literature. And and then I, and then, and then the teacher made like 5 or 7 different guy people get up and deliver the same line in their own way. And that's when like my, that's my whole perception of writing and you know, and, and performing just immediately shattered. And I was like this. And, and then I have AI have a uncle that used to work for ABC.

32:07 And so he, he used to get screenplays sent in to, to vote for best for best script. And he'd give them to me. And I'm reading these screenplays and I'm watching the movies after I read them and like this screenplay was so much better. What are you talking about over here? You know, but like, it's all it's all about, it's all about the delivery and it's all about the way that you that you embody. And not only are you embodying the idea, but you're also turning it into your own thing. And then you're sharing that with everyone else as well. You know, the way that you're going to deliver these jokes is coming through your like who Brian is, you know, like it's like flowing through you and and I'll say the same line, but you know, and I'll and I'll try to embody you, but end up doing it my own way and like that'll hit totally differently, you know, and that's what makes things fun. There was this great independent film called Passion Fish. I think John Sayles might be the director, but Passion Fish and that McConnell, what's her first name? I don't know.

33:07 If you ever watched Battlestar Galactica, she was the president. I can't think of her first name, but in this, there's this scene where someone is describing an actor is describing an audition and it was just one line. And they were like really obsessing over how to say this one line, all the different reads the line. It must have been a UFO thing they were auditioning for. And and it's like I think the line is I didn't expect the anal probe and they're going, I didn't expect the anal probe. I didn't expect the anal probe you.

33:47 Know I didn't. Expect the anal probe, you know, I didn't expect, you know, like they're just obsessing. Like what's the perfect read of this one line? You know I didn't and expect the anal probe, you know, you know. Yeah, but there's so. Much you can do with it, Yeah. And I've actually seen, you know, other like I've seen videos talk about like actors, like directors talking about actors and just doing surprising reads. I think there was a, a, some video I saw a director talking, I think about Christopher Walken and how each time each take he did like like a shockingly different take.

34:32 And you're like, Oh my God, that was perfect. And then let's do it again. And he gives this completely, where he brings something else to the scene, but the words are exactly the same. Incredible. Yeah, Incredible what? So, you know, Speaking of heresy, which is how we even got here. Finally, a subject I. Know. Well, I mean, you know, I think, I think it's I think I think most creative people have a healthy dose of heresy to them. And like, why can't I do it this way? A little bit of defiance in that kind of way. And that and, and, and, and I think that what you said is extremely true that scientists and stand up comics have to both have, you know, this real different way of looking at things, but it's but they're in common then stepping in line with one another. And there's something about, you know, I want, and maybe you could speak to this the content when you're delivering a joke, you can say things that you cannot, that you cannot get away with and any other context.

35:34 And it can be something that everyone was thinking that no one is willing to say. And there's something about the fact that you're protected by this like moment where you're like, hey, I'm on the stage with a microphone. And the purpose here is to laugh. So, like, if you don't laugh, I'm sorry. But like, it's all in this spirit, you know? But you can really, really effectively teach, you know, like, get different things, different points across that people would not be able to hear in any other context. Do you agree with that? Or can you give me some examples, you know, some of some ideas of that? Absolutely. On stage and off. I've always known that that I could get away with saying some stuff and some of it it has to do with your personality and on stage this goes on stage and off that that I can say something that might sound mean, but like the way I say it and the smile that I flash, like, you know, I'm not serious.

36:35 And I, I had a line where I was talking about like about just getting really frustrated with beautiful people. It was talking about a, an old VH1 on scene on VH1, a video with Ricky Martin and Christina Aguilera and how we over the top beautiful both of them are. But and that, and I would start the thing by saying to the audience, I've started getting really frustrated with beautiful people. I don't mean anyone here and then and so like I would say that kind of under my breath, which is like insulting the entire audience. But you know that that's just it's an absurd. Of course, I'm not insulting the audience. That's just a joke.

37:17 And yeah, this applies all the time. We can get away with stuff, although you can also it can also backfire in in comedy. It's like there is this thing where comedians have caught some Flack for things they've said on stage, where it's almost as if, well, you're quoting him Like that's just something he said off stage and not, you know, even in an interview, a comedian might be being funny, but but you can't always quote a comedian and go look what he said. It's like he was on stage in the middle of a comedy routine when he said that.

37:58 And so maybe there's some non verb, maybe there's some contacts and stuff that you go. It wasn't a horrible thing he said. He was just being funny and and sarcastic like that. Like when I dismiss the whole audience is not don't worry, I'm talking about beautiful people. It doesn't this doesn't apply to any of y'all. You know, that's like obviously I'm, I'm not being that big of a Dick. I'm being I'm, I'm, I'm just kidding. I'm teasing pulling your pigtail and then and, and it's OK to bring it over to science, though, as far as heresy, because, Oh yeah, you can get away with a lot. I think there's more to say on comedy. But the first thing I thought of was I have a relationship. I've been working with this meeting in Germany called the Lindao Lindao is a town.

38:51 It's like Linda with AU at the end, the Lindao Nobel laureate meeting. And every year, this is their 75th year, they bring in a couple dozen Nobel laureates. But this year for their 75th anniversary, it's going to be 75 Nobel warriors, I think, and 600 young scientists carefully curated from all around the world, maybe 90 countries. And it's all about mentorship. It's really an amazing organization and meeting, and I've been privileged to be a part of it for 10 years. I, they hired me to perform 10 years ago, but for fun, I was walking around interviewing scientists and that that led to conversations.

39:37 So I've never performed at the meeting a second time, but I come in, they hire me to do good interviews and I'm not even being a comedian. I'm just giving good interviews. I might be funny, but I'm not there to be a comedian. I'm there to be a good interviewer, which I love to do. Talk to these young scientists, talk to Nobel laureate. So I've had the opportunity. So in the course of. 30 years or so, I've interviewed a lot of scientists and authors and other interesting people. There's a guy, a Nobel laureate out of Israel, his name is Danny Scheckman, and he came up with something, he discovered something called quasi crystals and what he's, his words were this is something that shouldn't exist. It was forbidden by the literature. Like there are forms of matter that like crystals are a kind of matter and you know, we got gas, liquid solids, we have crystals and but this idea of quasi crystals, he said, was forbidden by the literature.

40:45 So it would be heretical to say that this is like and like often happens when a comedian or filmmaker or musician is ahead of their time and isn't appreciated till later some scientific discoveries. It was like there was so much resistance. And at the time, the most famous chemist in the world was Linus Pauling. And he was a he was like a double Nobel Prize. He because he had won a Peace Prize and a chemistry prize, I think. And he was very opposed to this. It was like no. And he even said there are no quasi crystals, only quasi scientists.

41:30 He was rude about it. And and then, and then he had the nerve to die before Danny Scheckman was validated and won the Nobel Prize. He he did. But unfortunately, Pauline wasn't there to have it rubbed in his face, you know, like, but he's like, how rude to, to, to say of some young scientist. And he was wrong and he was wrong. And so, yeah, so he had this heretical idea and it turned out to be true against all this resistance that he had to keep pursuing the research when I'm sure he was told, stop this line of research, you're wasting your time. Yeah.

42:12 So that brings me to, I think a really important and relevant question in today's world, which is that institutions are like objectively pretty much have collapsed as far as public, you know, trust of them have go. You know, whether it's universities, whether it's public health, whether it's government, it does it like no one seems to take banks for sure. Obviously, you know, like no one trusts like anyone or anything anymore. Yeah, it's a dangerous place to be a dangerous place to be nowadays, you know, from a patient's perspective or from a management perspective. And and, you know, there's and I think one of the reasons why is because the institutions had overplayed their position of authority and the people that were quoted as heretics for a lot of things, you know, are turning out to have turned out to be correct.

43:08 You know, and like, you know, there's these great memes going on the Internet of like the 2016 conspiracy theorists and like 2024 news or 2025 news trying to catch up with them and, you know, all these cute little stick, but. How do we? How do you think you could be be your people can be discerning about like an idea that's really interesting, even though it's a radical or idea that's a radical because it's lunacy and craziness, because that's really going to be the real issue that I think that everyone's coming up with AI and you know, and, and, and social media and like this collapse of, of faith in any kind of objective institution. Like what do you, what do you got to do? You think it seems crazy, doesn't it? Yeah.

43:49 You know, this is a terrible challenge these days. There is so much misinformation out there. And, you know, with the rise of social media and all these platforms, you know, it's this. It's incredible. It's this thing that each new technology, we think about the promise what how television, oh, my God, it's going to revolutionize education and the world and all of this. And in some ways it does. But then there was this I, I have a line I wrote that is like unforeseen consequences are very hard to predict. And, and The thing is, they come with that. They're like, you go social media right at the beginning. It's like, oh wow, some of these platforms, it's like you can connect with people, you know, maybe you're into some little niche thing and in your town there aren't many people into it.

44:43 And all of a sudden you found your people spread around the world thanks to this platform, whether it was e-mail or, or a social media platform and a group. So there are all these positive aspects, but holy crap, we've seen from previous elections all the, the, the way it could be abused for spreading for, you know, we have, we live in a world where there's really bad actors spreading bad information on purpose. Yeah, everywhere, everywhere. By the way, I want to make both spectrum literally everywhere. It's crazy and. Then even short of the really evil bad actors, we have other people in like Health Science, so much misinformation and anti vax stuff and and and flat earthers and moon landing deniers and where somebody with a microphone starts speaking authoritatively on this subject filled with misinformation. And yeah, it's very problematic because so often something I noticed about conspiracy theories is that so often when you hear when you don't know better and you hear one of these conspiracies, you're like, oh, wow. Oh, it sounds very compelling and it could be true. But then when you hear someone explain like like the moon landing ones are very

46:14 frustrating. It's just so part of it is like most older people, like it's a newer phenomenon because an older generation that's my age or a little older, they we were all there for it and experienced it. And now you have young kids who think we didn't, we couldn't possibly have had the technology to do that. And it's like, yeah, we we did. I know it seems like it was ancient times to you, but it really wasn't. And we could do things like this, like some of the, you know, but like, like one of the dumbest moon landing ones is, I'm sorry, if you're a moon landing denier, they'll go.

46:54 How come in all these photos on the moon, you don't see the stars? And then some people go, right, it's because it's in a studio. It's like these things never make sense for multiple reasons. Because if NASA wanted to, don't you think they could have added stars to the image if they had to fake it? You know what I mean? Like they would but the but, but it's just like, it's like, yeah, how come you can't see any stars? There's the black sky. Why don't you see any stars? And, but, and it sounds compelling if you don't know a single thing about photography. But if you know anything about photography, you go, Oh, well, that's 'cause the surface of the moon is really bright. So if you want, if you, what I've been saying is about the flag, the flag, the the flag.

47:39 Yeah, that's a tougher 1 that is like, so some of these sound compelling, like this one is just photography. If you if you shut the lens down to it so that the bright surface is exposed, it's just like when you walk outside at night and your eyes haven't adjusted. You can't see the stars yet. And if there's a light in your eye, you will not see the stars if it's. Interesting. We don't. See the cars in the daytime here? Because it's too bright and they're not. I never heard the star. I never heard the star. This star argument, the one I the the main one that I heard was. This is. It's one of the most. Common. The. Flag one and do you know OK, so that's like how come the flag moved if there's no air and it's like it's vibrating they stuck it in the ground and there's no air to slow it down.

48:22 Even so, it. Did. This and it's just flopping a little because the thing it's really. Cool by the way. But how come that answer I I never heard that answer. You know everyone ever said that. Here's another one. Where's the information we're talking about this off camera. You know, we're we're saying that that that, that there's information vacuums with with a lot of this stuff and yeah and and I've. It's so hard and I don't know the answer because to your basic question, it's like what do we do? Because it's a matter of who you trust for information. This is a political thing and it's also could be anything if. You. If you decide Anthony Fauci is evil and a liar, and then it's like, whereas the entire scientific and medical establishment think he's this, he's done a, he's an amazing guy that's done all this good and these other people think he's supposed to be in prison.

49:14 It's like somebody's wrong. Yeah, but there's, but there's objective ways that you can measure that, right? Like you can you can match up the words of the record. You can match, you can match like there are ways that you can that you can like do basic fact checking. And I, I think what you're saying is correct that people tend to jump to political conclusions before they even bother doing that type of homework. And so you just say you kind of hop on a band bandwagon. Fauci's good. Fauci's bad, but. Who do you choose? If I choose to trust this YouTube, then I just. It's like it's saying. So but that goes back to my state. People decide who they're going to trust. But that goes back to the original question, which is that with institute with with the collapse of institutional faith, right? Because people have been feeling let down then like, how do you, and then, and then how do you know which institutions are BS ING?

50:02 Because certain ones certainly do. And you know, and there's certainly no question about that. How do you, you know, like then conspiracy theories, the best things that conspiracy theorists can possibly have is evidence, because then it makes it, it validates their case. I say this, you know, drives me crazy about Candace Owens's show in particular, because I think that she, I don't have patience to listen. The one, the two or three times I've tried, the thing I've noticed that really struck me was she dissects information remarkably well and puts it back together incredibly poorly. So she's really, really good at like poking holes, examining things from different perspectives. That inquisitive mind is very, very valuable.

50:44 The question is, how do you put the pieces back together? I listened, you know, and especially now because Israel and Judaism and everything has been in the, in the limelight of society really, really in the last couple of years. You know, I listen to people go on different podcasts, Julian Dory or Joe Rogan or, you know, whoever it is Lux Freeman and, and, and, and you hear people say things. And as an Orthodox Jew that has experience with Orthodox community, I'm like, again, the premise of what you like there, there, there is like grains of truth in what you're saying, but like, I don't know where you're, I don't know where you're getting this information from and who's teaching you this. And so, and, and, and, and only when I noticed how, how strongly the reality deviated as far as like Judaism goes from like what the, the way with information being presented in the public was the first time that I really said, I could really see how people are really fooled by conspiracy theories because they're and dressed up and even presented with some with, with, with truth. There, there is some truth in some of the information, but it's just, it's, it's just not, it's just not true, you know, and, and, and there's shards, there's shards of evidence doesn't put it all together necessarily. You know, there's a a good point in there is that the the best conspiracy theories, they start with this little nugget of truth, but then they veer off.

52:03 But but there's this little bit of truth at the beginning and like one of the other. The flag you said, that's a good question. When you said the flag, that's a good question. That's a little bit of truth. Good question, right? Like good stand, there isn't. There, when you hear them, you go, oh, you know another one. Is that the shadows on the moon? Yes, that's as good. As they're not all parallel and and you go, if there's only one light source, the sun, then they should all be parallel. And but this is in a studio and that's why. But you know what, there's this that sounds so compelling, but you apparently haven't looked very carefully at shadows on Earth. They're not all parallel, but first of all, topography has an effect, but more importantly, it's perspective. You know, when you look at a highway and the two sides of the highway seem to get closer and closer in the distance, those lines don't look parallel.

52:56 Like, you know they are parallel. And the same is true. Like I've seen someone demonstrate this with with the lines in a parking lot that that if you look at them and from here, they all look like they converge in that perspective. And then if you take a drone and fly up and look directly down, you'll see those those lines are parallel, but from the angle you're looking, they're not. But when you hear this, you go, Oh my God, you're right. All those shadows, there must be more than one light source. No, it's like it sounds so compelling, but you didn't realize. No, no. Look carefully at Earth and you'll see the same thing. So, so our conversation, Brian, I think this is so great and I think this is so important, right?

53:41 Because there was 2 we both we just had between in the last 10 minutes or 5 minutes, the 2 two of the same conversations, but one is going to win people and 1 is going to lose people, right? One of them is saying one of them was your argument, for example, with Fauci was like all this entire scientific Community Trust this guy and like a bunch of Youtubers don't trust him. That argument for what I've seen in the last couple of years will not win people over changing with conspiracy minds, right, because that is depending on the reputation and institutions. Like we said that the trust has dropped. So until that trust is re earned, but the way it is re earned is by the second-half of our conversation where you say, I understand why you would think that you know, because the because matters are this way that this is what it is.

54:27 Let me explain in detail with examples of how that's not necessarily always the case. And then now you can put the information together and you can understand yourself how that's not true. Rather than having to rely on the good word of people that you might not trust, or a crowd you might be left out from or or anything like that. Like it gives you much more to work with. You know, two things about that. One is that, yeah, it's a shame that we've lost faith in in the institution or let's let's not say institution, but expertise. It's like, yes, so OK, some of these flat earthers, you're telling me that you think you're smarter than Einstein and Stephen Hawking and Isaac Newton. You think that your knowledge of the universe and physics. And on top of that, I love thinking this. It's like most of these people, I'm not being mean when I say, you know, you weren't good at science in school. That's obvious from what you've written here. It's very obvious that you weren't good at science. You didn't like science.

55:31 And yet here you are thinking, you know, the science better than Einstein and Newton and NASA and everything. And it's like, what is it that? And it's that you've heard of the Dunning Kruger effect where you like what you, oh, it's this famous thing in psychology where people who have a little knowledge of something sometimes overestimate how much they know about a subject. And, and there's a weird, the corollary is like a lot of times, people with a lot of knowledge, you know, what comes with that is knowledge of your ignorance. And so like, sometimes, so scientists are always pretty careful about how they say things. They go, you know, in all likelihood they, they, they are always qualifying things because that's how science is. It's like, you know, we go to the highest percentile. This is true, but we admit that that some things change over to that we learned.

56:26 But and so there's this thing where people think why? How do you think you know more than it's like, where did you get this idea? And I know you know you were bad at science. Here, here's a good let me tell you one other moon like space denier one, please, because it's so funny to me, but not fun. I don't really mean funny. It's frustrating. There's this thing. Have you ever noticed that every almost any rocket launch that's going into orbit, the rocket takes off and then it's going up and then at some point it starts curving? Well, the flat earthers and science and moon landing deniers and space deniers, they all say that's proof.

57:11 It's like, look, it's curving and it's going to land way over there. It's it's going to go land. And. Here's the irony is oh, you're not understanding a very basic, fundamental thing about orbits and rocketry. If you go straight up and then cut your engines, you'll fall straight down what an orbit is. And we've known this since Isaac Newton hundreds of years. Like if you shoot a bullet at a certain speed, it'll travel pretty far and then fall and and it's falling the whole time. If you shoot it faster, it'll fall farther away from you.

57:54 And Newton realized if you shoot it fast enough that the rate that it's falling, the Earth is curving or under it. If you shoot it fast enough, you'll hit yourself in the back of your head. It'll keep going. And that's what an orbit is. An orbit is about the sideways motion. The reason every rocket does that is because you have to achieve a certain like 17,500 miles an hour sideways. That's why they turn sideways, because that's what an orbit is. So when you maintain, when somebody says that's so stupid, you people that understand go, Oh my God. But why don't people?

58:35 This is fun. This is this. Is hundreds of years old science? This is basic if this is what an orbit is and you're misunderstanding it and it's frustrating. So why is that not just the answer every time? Like I think that it because it is. But they never learned. But also, here's the other thing I wanted to say that that you point out is like for science and for communicators in general, science, health, medicine, anything. You know, sometimes when people are against GMO's or people are against this or any new technology, you have this, there's a tendency to berate them and go you're stupid for thinking that and that's not going to win over. Anyone.

59:20 But what you were saying is like, you go, oh, like I would say, oh, I tried this. I went into some Facebook groups that are flatter. And. I went in optimistically, thinking that I could. And so here's what happens. Yes, every time that happens, you have people you can't. Do it on the Internet. I don't mean the Internet. What happens is it ends up degrading into, well, you're just stupid. No, you're stupid people. You're stupid for believing this, but but I was, I would get excited and go, oh, you don't understand what an orbit it is and what an interesting, beautiful thing because like the moon is orbiting the Earth and and and and or the space station is orbiting the Earth.

1:00:07 And, and it's like they're falling the whole time. You know how some people think when you're up, up in the space station, you're beyond Earth's gravity. You're not beyond Earth's gravity. Earth's gravity holds the moon, The sun's gravity holds Pluto. You know, it's like you're not beyond gravity. You're in free fall. The moon is falling towards the Earth, but it's also moving sideways. So it's always missing. And then it's so so it's this beautiful thing, the space station or the moon is endlessly falling around the Earth. So it's always in a state of free fall because it's falling. It gets closer to moving. Well, no, because. For every only get back out.

1:00:50 What? I'm sorry, I want to just make sure I'm understanding what how things work for a second, right? So far what you're saying, so you're in Earth's orbit and Earth is the is the huge mass that is keeping you kind of sucked in from getting from drifting out to space forever, right? Maybe. Well, yeah, I don't understand. I'm just, I'm asking. Make sure I understand correctly. I'm. I'm asking, yeah. Well, yeah. Well, here's what would happen if if all of a sudden you turned off the gravity. Gravity, yeah. What the moon or the space station would do this is this is Isaac Newton's laws of motion that that an object, if it's not acted on by any force, it'll just can, it'll either stay motionless or in motion, uniform motion. So if you turned off the gravity, what they would do is here they are orbiting as soon as you turn it off, they would just shoot off in the direction in a straight line. But what's happening is they want to move in a straight line that way.

1:01:44 But the Earth is pulling them down, so they're moving really fast and bending, and they're constantly. Being towards the Earth. So it's falling, but it's missing because of that 17,000 for the for the space station because it's different at various heights. Gotcha. So at the stations level about 17,500 miles an hour sideways perfectly matches the speed you're falling at. So, so you're already always falling, but never getting closer because you're always just skirting around. And so an orbit is really this beautiful thing. It's this balance and and you are and and you think so that's why they like.

1:02:28 How do you escape orbit? How do you get out of orbit unless you have an? Artificial. Rust. Yes, a little faster. But how do objects? How do other objects unless Unless for example stuff collects in orbit and then it becomes heavy enough that they could break off on their own or that doesn't happen like how do? You wait. What do you mean by that? Let's say hypothetically we're going, you know, you have garbage, you know, massive junk floating around Earth, right, N orbit. If over time it kind of got got built up right, became heavier than the individual parts that were orbiting, could that new weight, that new mass be collect enough speed or inertia I guess to to break out of the orbit? The only way see but The thing is something would have to affect its speed.

1:03:16 You would have to add a force, so something would have to push it. Or the weight. The new weight would be the force, no? Yeah, no, not enough. It that's it's all moving at the same speed and yes it's more massive but but it's not adding to its velocity. I see, I see, I see. And so how do you, so how do things end up traveling through space that's through explosions and stuff like that? Oh yeah, there. There could be many things, but like, like so the Artemis 2 mission that just went to the moon first, it went up into Earth orbit and, and it, it did a couple orbits around the Earth and they tested some stuff out. And then when they wanted to leave Earth orbit, they, they burn the Rockets again. And then that gave them enough speed that now they still weren't completely detached from the Earth, just like the moon isn't but, but it put them in a different path where this path could go all the way out to the moon and around it and then back to the Earth.

1:04:21 You know, here's another one of the conspiracy things. They're like, how could that rocket be carrying enough fuel to go all the way to the moon? Yeah, that. Was a question that people asked. But you know what? But it's a very simple answer. They're not burning fuel the whole way. They burn it at the beginning and then they get on a certain, they hit a certain speed and they're headed in a certain direction. And then they then they just coast the whole thing. And then at a certain point the moon's gravity was pulling it in. And then when they came back around and they started heading towards, and then they, they did a little burn to break away from the moon and then they're basically headed to the Earth. And the closer they get, the stronger the gravity is.

1:05:04 So the closer, so almost the whole time they're coasting, the the size of the rocket. The reason the rocket is this big and they're in a little capsule at the top, that's how much fuel it took to get up to that speed. Once you hit that speed, you turn off the engines and you just coast. And every once in a while, they correct their course with a little. Yeah, like seriously. Just Wally. Like Wally with his fire extinguisher. Yeah, totally. It's the same thing and there are all sorts of conspiracies. But The thing is, it always comes back. To that's. Great, but I never don't know the basic science. No one, ever. Sits down and says that and that, and that's really, really great information. And like I said, and you know what?

1:05:46 I think it's insane that I have to be 30 years old on a podcast with the, with the, with the, with the, with the comedian e-mail, with a code call e-mail to you, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to hear the answers to this question instead of just having a textbook and just being like, this is what the answer is like. I don't. I don't know well, but The thing is, if you take a physics class, you do learn this. That's the. Place. That's a good answer, people. That are doing this. That's why I say you were never good, and I don't mean to insult. No, I'm not. I was not, by the way. That's why I'm revisiting this now, because I, because I was not. And I and I, and I think to myself, I've got to be a, and I've say this about everyone else in different contexts. If I'm bad at something when I'm 15, I have to be a moron not to look at again when I'm 25 or 30.

1:06:27 Like you have to be like to write it off for the rest of your life because you weren't good at it while you were in the middle of developing. And like you have no idea where your brain development was at that point. Like, I know. So revisiting this stuff and I'm loving it. I'm loving every minute of everything that I've been. Learning. Well, let me tell you another thing they'll say like sometimes they're like, you're telling me this craft is going 17,000 miles an hour or 25,000 miles an hour and it's not crushing the people inside. There's another thing about physics. When you're coasting, you feel nothing. It's only when you're accelerating. Like if when you're on an airplane, when you start to take off and you're only going 70 miles an hour, you're pressed back into your seat, right?

1:07:10 Or when you're up in the sky. See, here's the thing. It's like people don't think like when you're up in the sky going 600 miles an hour, you don't feel anything. You can walk down the aisle and you feel nothing because you're not accelerating. You're just maintaining like a 600. And it's like, you realize like you feel nothing at 600. You felt something at 60 in a car. You force, you feel acceleration. And that's the thing when a force is acting, as soon as you turn it off, you're just coasting. And that's how rounded. Part of it, right? Yes, Oh, at that first part of it, they feel like several times the Earth's gravity, like several GS and they were pressed, but at a certain point they cut the engines and now they're just floating and they're going like 17,000 miles an hour or whatever.

1:08:02 When they were coming back, you know, they got up to this speed and they headed to the moon. The whole and and they cut their engines the whole time they're headed to the moon, they're slowing down because the Earth is still pulling on them. So their speed was gradually decreasing because the Earth is still pulling. And then they got into this. They went around the moon, and then when they started heading back, they slowed down to like 900 miles an hour, at least I saw the thing. And then they were heading back to Earth, starting at about 900 miles an hour. And basically they're coasting and they're getting closer and closer to Earth. And the closer you get, the stronger the gravity is and they're accelerating.

1:08:47 So by the time they hit the atmosphere, they were going 25,000 miles an hour, which is insane. But it was, it was, but it was virtue. They're just falling. The whole time they're. Falling towards the Earth, and when they got really close, it's really pulling them in. But then they hit the atmosphere and the the that this was in the frictionless vacuum of space. But when you hit the atmosphere, yeah. You now. You start slowing down incredibly and it all this heat and the heat Shields. So then they, I mean, by the way, all this makes Elon's like reusable rockets like all the more incredible, right? Because I mean, you think about everything that he's got, that he's got a combat and fight while, you know, in order to do that. And you're like, like, on one hand, OK, that's cool. On the other hand, we like when we even judge this conversation, it the way I like to look, the way I like to think about this. Or the example I like to give is, you know, my dad's been a car junkie.

1:09:45 My, you know, my whole life. And like, you know, he used to pull, you know, come home with these vintage cars you find on eBay, you know, and like you and, and I would look at it and I would see one thing and he look at the exact same thing and see a lot more than you know. And like we're looking at the same object, but our understanding, our perception of it is so fundamentally different. I think that one of the one of the incredible. That's why education and learning. And with any piece of art, what a piece of art means to you, you might focus on, oh, wow, I'm focusing on the relationship of the guy with his father, but you're focusing on, you know, some other aspect of the film. Yeah, yeah, Incredible, incredible. And so I think I so that, yeah, I think that there's tremendous value in even having these conversations because it's it's it it gives me a whole new depth of understanding and appreciation for stuff like this. I got to.

1:10:38 I have two questions I want to, I want to ask you because I'm having so much fun with this. Number one is we know, oh man, there's so many ways to go. We know that there's we know that it takes a long time. Technology, our technology, what we're capable of is far greater than what we've implemented into society, right. What do you think the process is like to implement new science into into society? Because again, people kind of almost have, it's a little bit of an inherent pushback or, you know, there is pushback to new things, new technologies in particular, especially if old ways are threatened. And two youth, I have a three-year old and a one year old.

1:11:20 What do you think the odds are that they, that they'll be in space throughout their, you know, throughout their lives based on where we are and where our potential is? Because and the two questions are bridged by the fact that I'm sure we could get there, you know, and I'm sure that, you know, we have, you know, between nuclear energy, robotics, AI, like the way that the, the, the, the pace that we're growing and developing. It's really just going to be a question of are we implementing it in time for this generation to really be able to kind of explore beyond where any of us have ever been before? Yeah, You know, I hate like we should move beyond the Flat Earth moon denying thing, but everything connects a little bit to it. And one of the things is people are always like, oh, right, we went to the moon in the 60s and we never went back.

1:12:05 Why? And all these things. And it's like, because it's insanely expensive, like the science. Well, not with alternative energies. Maybe. But, well, right now we don't have anything that compares to burning rocket fuel like like maybe nuclear power, you know, the, the, there might be some new technology. Magnetics. Nuclear. Now to get up into space now now private enterprise, SpaceX and others have helped bring down the cost of just getting to orbit. But going to the moon, it's The funny thing is like the science and math was worked out a long time ago. It's an engineering, you know, like sometimes we're like, Oh no, it's like where they think that's what the why it's so funny that it's like this isn't hard. You'd like you can just do the math. If we burn this much fuel for this long, we'll hit this velocity and then we coast to the moon. It's like the actual ideas were worked out, but the engineering and cutting it off, that's hard and it's expensive. And the reason we did it in the 60s because we were in a space race with Russia, we were trying to outdo each other. So the problem with so many things is this isn't a science problem.

1:13:22 As far as the science goes, we could go to Mars and the moon all the time. It's a political problem. It's what are we willing to spend money on? And it's the same thing with income inequality. Sometimes people are like. Why are you wasting? Money on NASA when you could. It's like, you know what, if they cut NASA's entire budget tomorrow, it's not going to help our healthcare because that's a political thing. The money isn't being allocated that way, but it's not because of NASA or the environment. It's a political decision. It's interesting. That's the. Problem. It's like it's like, wow, our future could be astounding. Your kids could.

1:14:02 Yeah, you. Have to remove the shackles we have. We have our shackles on but. It has to be do we have the will and the political the political will to like, hey, let's spend the money on that instead of if just think if we took that military budget and we put it towards going to. Mars. We'd be at Mars tomorrow. I would be thrilled. I'd be thrilled being, you know, the way that the example that came to my head while you're describing this is, you know, the amount of time it takes to come up with a great song, right, to be creative with the song. And then the next day it turns out that it's really easy for every other kid to play right. But you still got to learn how to play an instrument in order to play the song. So you can have the song, the song can exist, the riff can exist, the the tabs or the notes can all be there, but someone's got to learn how to play the instrument in order to actually bring it back to life again. Yeah, that's an interesting analogy. I like it.

1:14:52 Thank you. I just thought of it while you were saying that because I think it's really what it is, you know, because one of the things I learned was like, I'm watching, you know, I, I picked up guitar out and I was like 24, I think. And I'm going back. I'm going to actually, I'm switching to piano. I hope I've always felt more of a connection to it. But keep the guitar but. One thing I learned was like these riffs, you know, Norwegian Wood by The Beatles, right? And I'm like, that's, I love that riff. And I'm like, oh, that's pretty easy to play. And I'm like, but imagine coming up with that riff and then like, I had to learn guitar for three years before I could even think about trying to replicate it. So I think that like everything, like everything, there's no, there's no, there's no shortcut to, to greatness. There's no shortcut to success.

1:15:34 Just because it's been done doesn't mean that it doesn't require more effort to be replicated, right? Like the same way that it takes to learn something like that. Before I let you go, because I know we're we're almost there. Can you give me a couple of your favorite or most accurate? I, I love this question. Accurate and least accurate sci-fi movies as far as this kind of stuff concerned, Because while you were describing I, I thought of while you're describing the orbiting Interstellar, that scene with Matt Damon where they were orbiting and he was trying to also make that connection with the space station before it explodes. You know, you know, you see what I'm talking about. Give me more I I I saw it, but it's been a long time. So they were.

1:16:18 They were visiting the water planet, they find that Damon in space and he was like this abandoned. He he was this abandoned astronaut trying to find a viable home for people. And, and one of the ways that and they only had a certain amount of fuel. And so they had to basically time their release, you know, that they whatever fuel they had left at the exact right time in their orbit to be able to break off to head towards the safe base where they had to go. But it was all a matter of exact timing. And you had you had very limited fuel. But whatever that what what your opinion anyway, your favorites and least favorites as far as accuracy and least accuracy? Well, there's a lot to this because I've been a science fiction fan forever.

1:17:04 I don't know if that's technically a true statement. Maybe not forever, but but since very young and growing up, the the science fiction that I gravitated towards the most was where it's. It's often called hard SF, hard science fiction, but not because it's hard. It specifically means that's the genre of science fiction where the science really matters, where the author cares about scientific accuracy, and also where the science is an essential part of the story. Like it like, like this, it's, it's a kind of science fiction where the science matters and it's central to the story and everything.

1:17:47 And so I was reading people like Isaac Asimov and Arthur C Clarke and Robert Heinlein and, and, and I liked this science fiction and I wasn't really into fantasy and, and this other stuff. But then as I got older, I started discovering some other writers who it's not about the scientific accuracy, but it's like, Oh my God, what an amazing book. Philip K Dick and a guy named Rodger Zelazny who wrote a kind of fantasy in science fiction. Philip K Dick was this amazing writer with the weirdest mind and what made his stuff great. It wasn't the scientific actor like these guys.

1:18:29 And there's newer people like a guy named Joe Haldeman and Robert J Sawyer are some guys I know that are great modern science fiction writers who they care about the science and fantastic stuff. And then but I discovered Philip K Dick and you go, oh, it's weird. Like, do you remember, Like a lot of Movies Now have been based on his stuff like Total Recall, Blade Runner, Minority Report. And I love Minority Report. And like, so you know, like in in total recall, like where maybe there's a taxi now some of this is starting to be where it could be pretty realistic. But were you have like the taxi is having a conversation with you.

1:19:14 It's it's like basically robotic or there's a guy who he's behind on his rent. So his front door refuses to open unless he puts not either. And and and yeah, some of this stuff is starting to be like you're like everything is. We are moving into a Philip K Dick, a Phil Dickian world is is a word. Here's the thing. What his stuff, his stuff. It wasn't essentially about the science accuracy. It was more about exploring philosophical ideas. He was really interested in what it means to be human. What happens if you have an alien or a robot who is way nicer than this human who's an asshole? And like a woman's short story, a woman the the government comes to this woman and you know her husband came back from a. Being an astronaut and going to Mars or something. And they're pretty sure he's not. She notices he's not the same.

1:20:14 He was kind of an asshole. And now ever since he's come back, he's really nice and he's nice to the kid and he's all this and the government is like, we think he's been replaced by a Martian and she's going to testify against him. But at the last minute she realizes, well, I don't care if he's an alien or not, he's much nicer. And she's so she's like, I don't know what you're talking about. He's the same and and there's stuff like that that's really interesting. Mate Runner where where Rachel doesn't realize she's a robot, a replica. She has implanted memory. So he's always exploring these ideas. It wasn't about the scientific accuracy. So just to say that I still love science that like sci-fi, that that takes an idea and exactly like you go, Oh my God, you're right.

1:21:00 Like what if and let's? Treat this. Super scientifically like the Martian tries to do that and I haven't seen the Hail Mary. Oh, by the way, I I wanted to like it. It was Everybody used to love it. I know it was like 45 minutes longer than it needed to be. I think like it was almost 3 hours. I went with my wife, my dad, and my 15 year old brother and all three got mad at me because the movie was too long. And I was like, but Ryan Gosling was amazing. The the science was really, really good. The story was really great. It just felt like the director or the editors or something with the pacing or whatever, they just felt a little too long.

1:21:40 I like an hour too long, but an hour is a long time. For you, that's good to know. I, I, I, I want to see it. You should. See it and you should see it. It's really I, I, I, I really applaud Amazon because they really they, they did a good job with it. So. Given that one of my very my like my favorite like sci-fi movies, probably Blade Runner again, not because of I don't even I'm not even looking at it through the lens of is it scientifically accurate? I'm just, you're just immersed in a world that is so amazing, visually stunning, and then you have these artificial people that are indistinguishable or even better than humans.

1:22:22 And, and it's just like the, the script is beautiful and it's just like, so it's not about the scientific accuracy. Another one of my favorites is Galaxy Quest, which I think is the funniest science fiction film. I don't think I've ever seen it. You've never seen Galaxy Quest? I don't think I have. Put it on your list. It's for the whole family. It's. Funny. It's the funniest science fiction film and everyone. It's got to be Tim Allen's best performance. And Tony Shalhoub is hilarious and I love him and and and Sigourney Weaver's in it and, and Alan Rickman and. Oh, it's a great cast. It's a. Great cast and it's hilarious. I'll check it out. I have to check it out.

1:23:03 So funny and it's for everyone, but you know, 2001 people always hold up as the as maybe the greatest and the most scientific that that's a great film. It's a great film and painstaking attention to detail like. But then we. Also for this AI that that goes kind of nut crazy. Yeah, that's a little scary, but that's a, that's a, that's a little bit more I, I prefer space stories to, to, to rogue AI stories. What are some of yours like? Do you have an answer to that question or is that just a question for me? I, I loved interstellar. I really like, I really like the way that you described that you appreciate the world building and how like, like science catches up with the science fiction, you know, part of life. And like the thing that always jumps out to me was like brave new world where like the genetically modified humans of like like separating classes before they're even born. And you mean you think about the world today and it really, really, really is, you know, it's not far off from being. And all the talks he wrote that before they were computers, you know, like, I mean, I don't even know when he wrote that, but he wrote that like in the 30s or the 40s, I think something like that.

1:24:19 But. You know, Interstellar, they had really good science consultants, including the Nobel Prize winner Kip Thorne. And so the, the visualization and the company that did the visualization and stuff of the black hole, they were painstaking and trying to be accurate there. And the fact that relativity time passes at a different rate when you're really close to a black hole and that stuff. As crazy as it seems, they they strove for scientific accuracy and incredible world building too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, you know what? I and I'm more interested. It's so funny. I've never been.

1:25:00 I think the movies have always scared me, but I am really interested in extraterrestrial or ultra, you know, some kind of form of that that that type of that type of life. I'm really excited for Spielberg's new movie. I'm really, really looking forward to it. Which movie? Spielberg has a new movie coming out called The Age of Disclosure about. Yeah. And my actually my last question I wanted to ask you was do. You can I say, but right before is that I left out a sci-fi guy that I loved so much in the 70s and 80s Larry Niven, his stuff, he was a mathematician and he had amazed. There's always black holes and neutron stars and all this astrophysics stuff. But then you know what IA couple little Nuggets that have stuck with me. They have more to do with this other aspect of science fiction where you extrapolate.

1:25:47 So we're like, this isn't part of the main story, but in this novel, there's a guy in prison. What happens is on Earth is we have really good organ transplants at this point. So what they start doing is when they take prisoners, if you're in prison, you could get the death penalty and they would harvest your organs. And so imagine I'm a good citizen. I'm not going to get arrested for anything. So why not vote the death penalty for armed robbery or any other crime? And because then there will be more organs available to keep me immortal. And so there's a part where a guy is on a colony world and he's reading the back on Earth.

1:26:31 They've instituted the death penalty for too many traffic violations. So it's like science fiction, like extrapolates like that. What would happen if we had really good organ transplants? Then you would be like, well, I'm not going to commit a crime. Let's harvest all those criminals organs. Let's make it OK. And one other one is he had this other novel and there's this tiny little thing I think about when I take a shower. He has someone on the moon. The moon has 1/6 the Earth's gravity. OK. Right. So, you know, and in the, so when the guy gets out of the shower, because of, you know, how water tension, like water collects and like on the, on the ISS, like water won't just disperse everywhere.

1:27:20 It has a tendency to collect. And you know how water forms like like shapes like that, It's because it's attracted. It's adhesion or cohesion, I forget. And then it collects together, yeah. So when the guy gets out of the shower, there's like 1/4 inch sheath of water stuck to him. Like like, you know, when you get out of the water, there's a shower, there's a little water on you. You might brush it off. Well, then on the moon with 1/6 of gravity, there's way more water. And so he's like, and like all this water falls off. And I was like, that is I love little things like that, that you go, Oh my God, you really thought this through to this little to a level of like that goes from the physics that something so much that was like taking a shower and wiping the water off.

1:28:10 Totally. There's, there's an amazing book called The Anxious Generation and the Introductory and Introduction to the by Jonathan Haidt and he talks and he talks about social media and mental health with kids and stuff. But the first thing that he's the first example he gives is your kid has an opportunity to grow up in Mars and he goes through all the potential thing goes. But growing up in Mars, gravity is going to be different. The way that they're, you know, the, the, the reason why our legs are shaped, you know, our bodies are shaped the way they are is because our legs are strong for any pull down constant to keep ourselves up. He goes and our eyes are going to be different and like the, the, the, the structure of our face is going to be different. He goes. So do you want your kid growing up in a plant and it you know, and like, and I'm like, I didn't even think about any of.

1:28:50 This. Oh yeah, you know. Yeah. Larry Niven also had like people working out in the asteroid belt. Let's say they're miners. They're they're mining the asteroids. Well, after generations of that, those people are getting tall and thin because they're not living in much. Gravity. And then you really probably after a while, like if you're a few generations down and you've you probably you might not be able to visit Earth because the gravity, you wouldn't be able to handle the gravity. Wow. Oh man, it's so much fun all this. But you know what? That's why I think like you hear such, you know, I mean you hear there are really compelling extraterrestrial stories. You know, there's an amazing documentary called Moment of Contact and it was and the the head neurosurgeon of this hospital in Brazil, I believe, who is totally sober minded, totally sane, spoken from the spoken from the Congress a couple of months ago, like a month or two ago. And he and part of his presentation was all his associates for the last 25 years, basically speaking to his character and his and his well-being. He's like, I had eyes on the extraterrestrial for 4 minutes and like 1995 or something like that when there was and there was a crash and like, and he describes it and like they look humanoid and like they look humanoid and like, and, and The funny thing about, and I've heard this from, there's some really fun UFO podcasts.

1:30:20 American Alchemy with Jesse Michaels is incredible and Danny Jones is always entertaining. His guests are always I, I, I go back and forth and like what I think, but they're always entertaining. I did not like the episode where I've only seen a little of him and where I teed into him was he had Charlie Duke and he had the main values of. The planning, he said that he was very upset with how that he was not happy with how that went. He said. The whole thing was it was was a nightmare. And that guy was, he's always been disrespectful. He got punched by. Bird side. Bird side. Bell got everything for hounding him and called calling them a liar and all this. And The thing is, it's like you don't understand the science. You know what the thing you said about music and how once somebody writes it, it might be very easy to play. If you've.

1:31:11 Spend 10 years learning to play. And it's the same thing with the science stuff. It's like, oh, wow, you seem interested in the subject. Why don't you actually try to learn some science and then you'll know which stuff, oh, that I was wrong about. But here I'm still wondering about this, you know, learn the science because when when we're in these Flat Earth groups, some of the time you're like, it's so frustrating because you go, oh, oh, I don't even know how to talk to you because clear. It's as if you're talking to someone and you're talking about baseball and they keep talking about the quarterback or what quarter of the game is this? And you go, this person doesn't know the first thing about baseball. And he's like, he's like absolute like. And you go, oh, I don't know how to handle this even because. You're.

1:32:03 Acting like you're an expert, but you don't know what you're talking about. Yeah, he. Does not defend that debate. He, he was like that debate. He goes, I, I love the idea. He goes in theory, it would have been so much fun. He was like, it was not a performance that, that, that I was happy with. But I, I, I think I, I want, there are, there's a website called Calci and Polymarket. Now these are live betting based on different events that people think are going to happen, right? So what do you know, like 70% chance that, you know, the war that ran is over, you know, within the month or not. You know, I just made a bad number. I'm not sure if it's true or not, right? But I, I think it got, I think according to Kaushi, a bunch of months ago, it was up to, I think 70% or I don't know if I'm making up a number.

1:32:49 It was a high number, higher number than I, than I would have expected. That Trump that that Trump makes an announcement basically acknowledging and recognizing that extraterrestrials and UFOs are real. What are the odds you think that happens? You think it's going to happen before 2027? Yes or no? I don't think so. Would you be surprised if it did happen? Oh yeah, my, my here's. Because of the politics or because of reality, Do you think in reality they're not here? You think that politically, the president of the United States is not going to get up and say, hey, there's there, There's extraterrestrials, you know, hanging out in society among us. Well, here's the thing, I've been interested in the subject of UFO since I was a little kid. OK.

1:33:35 So we're talking like 5 decades. OK. Well, so sometimes I've seen people recently like younger, but like journalists, like popular people talking on YouTube and stuff. And I want to say that a lot of them are younger and they're very optimistic that because you keep hearing people coming out that it's like we're on the edge. There's the document the age of disclosure document the documentary. Logic. You haven't seen it by the way. It's really I haven't. Seen it yet? So The thing is, some of them, Bill Maher is convinced 100%, absolutely. There's no question that they're real at this point. And it's like that's overstating the case. And here's the thing.

1:34:18 My opinion is tempered by the fact that I've been hearing the same stuff for 50 years and the real evidence has it's always been. I know it's. Great story. What about this story and this story? And these people seem credible, but there's never a hunk of metal from a spaceship that absolutely couldn't have been made on Earth. You know, like where's the extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence? This is so. And, and one thing I hate is when people on the other side of it say they tend to do this. It's a very disingenuous argument. Go. So you don't think there's life in the universe given the size of the universe? And I was like, that's not at all what we're talking about. That's a completely different topic. Yeah, the question is whether I think most landed on Earth and hope you are not.

1:35:10 Right. Most physicists and astrophysicists think the universe is vast and there's probably life out there. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about whether aliens have come to Earth. I. Know right, so that's my. Completely different subject. You don't. You, you, you. You're skeptical. I'm maintaining a healthy skepticism. I want to believe. I want to believe so. Many of these other people that don't believe they want to, of course we want contact, we want confirmation. Would you believe it would you believe it if Trump gets up would you and says that or do you think this is a political stick and you know when I forgot about it because the government announcement right has lied a lot, you know exactly forever. So if they just.

1:35:52 Say it if they just say it and they don't provide any new evidence. Forget about it. Then I'm extremely skeptical because at this point, show us the evidence. Not a video, not a black and white tic tac video that people have debunked pretty reasonably. Where yeah, it looks like it's moving fast. That's parallax. Just like you know what? I mean, like, I think there are, I believe there are and not even just American, but all over the world there are military, there are like military records and, you know, documentation that are keeping up with these things moving very fast. We have no evidence to say that it's necessarily extraterrestrial as opposed to some kind of, you know, maybe weapon development or whatever. But you know, like the.

1:36:36 The Tic Tac one, for instance, that looks like and they're like, whoa, look at it go. There's a guy named Mitch Hedberg. What's this? What? No education. You know what? By the way, Hedberg was a good friend of mine. That's no he. Wasn't really. That's a whole other subject. Oh, you can't do that to me an hour and 35 minutes in. Really. He. Was like can you tell me? A little bit about him. Yeah. I love him. I loved his work. Man, oh man, How'd you know him? So I first met him, we were working at a comedy club in Wichita, KS called Slapsticks with an XSTIX Slapsticks funny comedy club names. He was the opening act, I was the middle act, and then there was a headliner and we worked a week together. And so comedy clubs typically, let's say it's a show, like a three act show and everyone came from out of town, typically either give you each a hotel room or they keep an apartment. Like sometimes it's better for them if they just keep an apartment and you share an apartment. So I lived with them for a week while we worked this club. We really hit it off.

1:37:50 We were both living in LA and we just became, he was one of my best friends for for years. We we had a little bit of a falling out and we got a little of strange as he got into drugs that were a little beyond the drugs that I was interested in. He separated himself from people he had been close with. You know that's that's common behavior. Which makes sense. You know, it's like, why are you doing heroin, my friend? Yeah, I'm making. So I just, we just hit it off. We liked a lot of the same stuff. We were both into music and and comedy and. Was his personality similar to his stage performance? Was he like, was he like kind of that like deadpan, you know, like deadpan but like twinkle in his eye goofy kind of style? Or was he that was just the way he performed, do you think? Yeah.

1:38:43 You know, like a lot of people, I would say, and especially it evolved because I met him early enough in his career where he didn't command the stage as much. Like, he was a little shyer and not his own. But over those next years, you know, the writing was always really funny. And then he got better and better at commanding an audience, and so he became stronger. But when I met him, here's one of the reasons we became friends too, is that he was easy to follow because he was very low energy and subtle and clean. So I got gigs where I was headlining and I could bring some. So I would bring him, you know, he became more famous than me. But for a while there I brought him on gigs. So cool then.

1:39:28 Later I middled for him as he. Had. But that's why we, we, we travelled. We, I was in so many places with him and had so many adventures. So I would say that, you know, like maybe this is true of a lot of us, like what we are on stage. You know, some people are a total character on stage, Other people, we we strive to be ourselves on stage, but it might not be exactly how you are off stage, like a distillation of your best self or something. So like the way he was on say, you know, there's a little bit about his delivery and everything that's maybe it's a little exaggerated, but I think that. The essence is there.

1:40:17 Yeah, the essence is there and that, you know, that's his sense of humor. And and, you know, here's something about him. He might say the F word like he might have cussed on stage sometimes. But one thing you might notice is he never had any bodily function humor like no fart jokes, nothing like that. And this is very unlike most men. He didn't like that off stage, like he wouldn't make you know, I, I know plenty of people that would make guys that would make fart jokes off stage, but maybe they don't in their act or maybe they do. But Mitch, it's like, Nah, he just didn't like that kind of humor. And so like he might cuss, but he didn't tell fart jokes off stage or on stage. He.

1:40:59 Didn't. That's good. I'm happy to hear that. Function humor. He liked his weird, weird thoughts and a lot of times about just minutiae. Kit Kat bars and M&M's and Koala bears. And my neighbor knocked on the wall because the music was too loud. He said, go around, you know, I don't know what's on your side. It's only a wall here. I know you know, you know one of his classics that I just think is an amazing joke structurally because out of nowhere it doesn't just have a regular setup and then a punchline. It just starts with yeah. I love that. I think Bigfoot is blurry.

1:41:39 Five word. No set up like. Hey, you know when you see those videos of Bigfoot and like, a comic might write a joke this way and go, well, what if it's because he's blurry? But instead those 5 words, boom, hilarious punch line. And then everything he says is funnier and funnier and funnier. Maybe. You know, that's the problem. It's not what photographers fall. Bigfoot is blurry and that's extra scary. Yeah. And it's just like that joke structurally is so funny to me. So as as you're performing something like that, because that joke especially is. Aside from being brilliant and funny, we'll take the audience a second to understand that that is the joke, right? Like there's always the delivery. And then it's like everyone, like you could see it hit them. You see it like dawn across their faces and dawn across their eyes.

1:42:31 Like, oh, that's the joke. What is it? What do you do to deliver that joke in that like pause time? Do you do you, Is it like a performance like you hold? Is it like, is it do you have a do you have like a like, what do you do when you know that a joke is going to take a second for the audience to get? You know, I don't know that there's a single answer. I think like each joke might be a little different but. That's just, you know, that's part of writing and performance. They're two different ways you. Know because. Sometimes when a joke isn't working, when you have a so you know you have a funny idea. And sometimes you go to the stage and it's like you can't make it work. Well, OK, first of all, is the idea actually funny? Is there a funny idea there?

1:43:14 But let's say that you actually have a funny idea, but you're not sure how to get it across. So that's like, how do I write this to communicate what I find so funny here? How do I make the audience see what I and it's an art thing. It's like I want you to see the world the way I see it. I'm looking at this and I'm finding it very funny. You don't yet, but so I got to find the right words and then also delivery can make a huge difference. It's like, what can I also do to communicate this idea? I watched Mark Norman's new special recently on Netflix and one thing that I noticed and he always did. This but you could see he's kind of taking it to new level as he, you know, matures as a comic is he holds poses for punch lines and like, and he does it really well with like a lot of body language. And so like, if he's saying like a a line that he know he's going to get resistance to, like he has like he almost like plants himself and like, you know, like, I'm going to stand up for this joke kind of way or like, whoa, didn't mean to take you down.

1:44:12 Like he'll do these things that bring you in with him to like. So it's not just the content. It's the you're you're you're literally drawing people in. And one thing I noticed, my wife and I went to see Tom Segura in the Hard Rock and, and every motion, every time he rolled one of his eyes or both his eyes, they all 5000 people or 7000 people, wherever it was, every single eyeball was watching that eye roll and you felt it in the room. And you're like, this guy is, this guy is not only a writer, this guy is like the most skilled performer. Like, he is like, it's incredible to watch. So yeah. So I think Mitch has both of those, too, because a lot of his jokes, they're just so funny. You can just read.

1:44:56 Them on paper and they are funny others maybe they're not as funny, but his delivery helps make it funny. I don't know like but I really love so many like the simple ones of like when someone hands me a flyer, it's like they're saying here, you throw this away. It's so simple. And I was just listening to, he had a really old one about I think he had a paper route or something. And he goes, I was supposed to go to 2000 houses or two dumpsters almost related to that other one. Or you know, the I like to play tennis. The depressing thing about tennis is I know I'll never be as good as a wall.

1:45:37 It's it's like some of them are just so. Yeah, some of them they just. Some of them seem jokier. Than others. Some just seem like. It's just a sentence, but it always plays very funny. Yeah, definitely, definitely. He was he's he's definitely a a great for sure. And it was, it was, it was a. Tragedy that he that he died. So yeah, he died. Well, you'll be happy to know there a guy who's, well, now he's a friend of mine. Jeff Siegel, There's a documentary that's almost finished. Oh sweet. So exciting sometime maybe in the next year or. Something. We'll see it somewhere a major. Mitch Hedberg documentary.

1:46:18 OK, that's what I'm saying as well as an unbelievable. He interviewed. Everyone. So he interviewed everyone. So it'll be a fascinating. I'm looking forward to it. That's going to be awesome, Brian. This is so much fun. I would love to have you back sometime in the future because I really had such a no. I think we ran out. Yeah, we ran out of time. There's so much more to talk about. I was about to say we ran. Out of time we went overtime, but I, I, I I this is what these are the. Conversations that I love having. These are the podcasts that make me want to keep on going and excellent. I really appreciate your time. This is this is a ton of fun. Thank you so much. OK.