Michael Malice
Appearances
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Yes, I find absurdity funny. I think that's the thing. When people come at me, And maybe this is an Eastern European thing. When they're like, how can you find this like very dark subject funny? It's like, well, the humor, first of all, the humor is that you're, making fun of something that's dark. So already it's absurd. It's completely inappropriate.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Second, just psychologically, Joan Rivers said that Winston Churchill said, I don't know if it's true, that when you make people laugh, you're giving them a little vacation. And I was just thinking about this the other day, how when I die, if I want my funeral to be a roast, It doesn't help me that everyone's sad.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
If I brought people happiness or joy in life, whatever, I want to keep doing that in death. Your sadness doesn't help me. I know you can't help it, but tell stories of how it made you laugh. Make fun of me. Make me the punching bag. Even literally take me out of that coffin. Make me a piñata. I don't care. So I think, and I don't understand. Well, I do understand, but it's sad for me.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
When people are like, you know, this isn't funny, that isn't funny. The way I look at humor is the way, it's like a chef, right? It's pretty easy to make bacon taste good, but some of these really obscure ingredients to make it palatable, that takes skill.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
So if you're dealing with a subject that is very emotional or intense and you can make people laugh, then that takes skill and that's the relief for them. Yeah. It's all about timing. Yeah. Yeah. What's the difference? You want to hear one of my jokes? Is it a pirate joke?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
This one time. Do you know who Leah Thomas is? Yeah. What's the difference between Leah Thomas and Hitler? What? Leah Thomas knows how to finish a race. Very nice, very nice.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I like that. When I was in North Korea.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
By the way, the thing that is very heartbreaking about the North Korean situation is that they have a great sense of humor. It would be a lot easier if these were like robots or drones.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
They have big personalities, big sense of humor, and that made it much harder to leave and interact with these people because it's, I mean, there's nothing more human and universal than laughter and laughter is free.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Especially. I mean, again, we're from the Soviet Union. Like there's an anecdote. I mean, Russian humor is a thing because there's nothing you can... If you can't have food or nice things, at least you can have joy and make each other laugh. I think about it all the time. And I think about my guide all the time. It's been, what, 2012.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
So it's been 11 years since I've been there and she's still there and everyone I've seen is still there. They just recently electrified the border So you can't even, even the few people who are escaping can't do it anymore.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Yeah, but I think if you look at African-Americans, Jewish-Americans, gay-Americans, they are all disproportionate in terms of attributing to comedy. It's not because these groups have some kind of magic to them. It's that when you are on the outside looking in, A, you're going to have different perspective than the people who are in the middle of the bell curve.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
But also, when you don't have anything to lose, at the very least, you can make each other laugh and find happiness that way. So that is something that I think – is an important thing to recognize.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I mean, there are YouTube videos of fat people falling down, and they're really funny.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
My friend Jesse just told me a great Norm Macdonald joke. And this is a good litmus test joke because he says a certain group of people lose their minds and a certain group of people just stare at you. And he goes this kind of, so I'll tell you the joke. This is Norm Macdonald. Guy walks into a bar and he sees someone at the bar who has a big pumpkin for a head.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
And the guy's like, dude, what happened to you? He goes, oh, you never believe this. I got one of those genie lamps. And this genie, he's like, well, what happened? He goes, well, the first wish, you know, I wished for a hundred million dollars. He's like, yeah, did you get it? He goes, yeah. He goes, it was in my bank account. It was fine. He goes, all right.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Well, the second wish, I wished to have sex with as many beautiful women as I wanted. He goes, did that happen? He goes, yeah, it was amazing. He goes, then what? Well, I wished for a giant pumpkin head. So there's a certain mindset that will just be staring at the screen. And that is, I mean, there's so many levels why that's funny, at least to me.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Did you ever see him with Carrot Top on Conan O'Brien? No. Making fun of Carrot Top? No. This is probably the best talk show clip of all time. He's on with Courtney Thorne-Smith. She was on Melrose Place. And Conan O'Brien's the host. And Courtney's talking about how she's going to be an upcoming movie with Carrot Top. And Conan's like, oh, what's it going to be called?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
And she's like, doesn't have a title yet. And Norman goes, oh, I know what it should be called. Box Office Poisoned. And they're all laughing and she's like, no, no, no. Like the working title is chairman of the board. And Conan goes, do something with that smart ass.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I think he is one of those rare comedians. who you really feel like he's talking to you directly. He feels like he's winking at you in the audience. And he's like, can you believe I'm doing this? It's like he almost, he feels like he's, I don't want to say imposter, but he's more a member of the audience than he is a member of the people on the stage.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
You know, Roseanne got him his first job. Roseanne, you and her have been hanging out. I got it. Oh my God. Talk about Thanksgiving. When you are talking to Roseanne Barr and making eye contact with this person, it is, I can't even describe it. It's just like, holy crap, Roseanne Barr's talking to me. She is, I've said this to her face, pathologically funny. Like, it does not turn off.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
And you're sitting there and you're like, holy crap. And when you make her laugh, which is that laugh that's in the theme song of her show, you feel like, okay, I did a mitzvah. I did something good and right in the world that I made Roseanne Barr laugh. And it's also really funny because, and she's going to hate this, because I tell her she's adorable. She doesn't like that. She's little.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
You think of Roseanne Barr as this like force of nature, like a tsunami. She's like 5'3", I'd say like maybe 130. And she puts on the sunglasses. You think this little Jewish lady, you'd never know. This is one of the most epic performers of all time. She lives near here now. So it's just so much fun talking to her.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
There was an old satirical magazine in the, I think like early 2000s called Hib, written by Jews. And she dressed up as Hitler for one of the photo shoots and she was baking little men in the oven. I got, I found that on eBay. I want her to sign it to Michael. It should have been you, but she signed it to Michael. You're one smart cookie. And now it hangs, love mom, Roseanne Barr.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
And I call her mom and it hangs over my desk. Cause have her like good domestic goddess energy flowing at me.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
My favorite comedian of all time is Neil Hamburger. So Neil Hamburger, I don't know if I'm ruining the bit. He's a character performed by this guy named Greg Turkington. So he comes out in a tuxedo, big eyeglasses, holding three glasses of water. Mm-hmm. coughing into the mic.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
And I remember I saw him once in LA and the girl ahead of me, at the table ahead of me was with her boyfriend, this basic chick, pumpkin spice. She turns to him and she goes, what is this? And I remember the first time he was on Jimmy Kimmel, and he tells one of his jokes, and he was like, why does E.T. like Reese's Pieces so much? Well, that's what sperm tastes like on his home planet.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
And no one laughs, and he goes, oh, come on, guys, I have cancer. And it just cuts to this Marine in the audience with his arms crossed. So if you know what he's doing, it's just absolutely amazing. He opened for Tenacious D once in somewhere, I think in Ireland or the UK, one of those. And they're booing him because his jokes are often not funny.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
He's like, hey, where did my whore ex-wife run off to with that dentist she's shacking up with? I don't know. But when I see her in court next month, I'll ask her. So they're booing and he goes, all right, do you guys want me to bring out Tenacious D? They're like, yeah. Do you want to see your heroes of mine, Tenacious D? Yeah. Come on, let me hear it. Do you want to see Tenacious D? Yeah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
He goes, all right. If I tell this next joke and you don't boo me, I'll bring out Tenacious D. And it's like, I'm trying to think of one that's not too...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Okay. He goes, can we agree that George Bush is the worst president America's ever had? Everyone claps. He goes, which makes it all the stranger that his son, George W. Bush, was in fact the best.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
It was just like, I love him so much.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Oh yeah. And he was in one of my favorite movies, Jesus' Son. It's this little indie movie. He did a great turn in that. He's really underrated as an actor. He's got a lot of range. Like I know they kind of get types cast as this kind of one specific type, but he's really, really talented.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Really? It's up in here. Oh, I mean, but you have several things you're thankful for. Yes. Okay. Yes. One of the things I'm- My list comes from the heart. I don't have to write anything down. Well, I don't have written down. Okay. One of the things that I'm most thankful for, this is a common answer, but I can back it up, is my family. Because my nephew, Lucas- He's now six years old.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
And he... When kids have a sense of humor, it's like just miraculous. So he... Stole my sister's phone, his mom. Figured out that grandma is listed as mom in the phone. And he calls her up and he's like, Michael's in the hospital. He's really sick. He didn't want to tell you. And she's freaking out. He goes, prank. So I took him.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Dinesh D'Souza just released a movie called Police State, which is actually really good. Highly recommend it. I was surprised how much I liked it. Because he wasn't going Republicans, good, Democrats, bad. It was just about authoritarianism. And he had a movie premiere at Mar-a-Lago. So I'm like, I got to bring Lucas to Mar-a-Lago. So Lucas is, I'm like, we're going to the president's house.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
He's like, oh, the White House? And I'm like, no, no, like a former president. He goes, oh, Abe Lincoln? And I'm like, okay, kid logic. Like he's giving logical answers. This is kind of like AI. You have to program it. It's using logic correctly. Mm-hmm.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
He went up to all the women in their evening gowns And he goes, you're so beautiful. Were you born as a girl? So when you have this six-year-old asking you this, it was really, really fun. So that is a great joy to have a nephew. And I have another one, Zach, who's coming up in age and he's starting to talk now. That is really, really fun.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
And also training them. He loves being funny and having fun.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Yeah, but... Because you giggle and... I give him, we're prank bros. He gives me a high five. My family, and this is one, you talk about what I find funny. This is the things that actually enrage me. When people, and this is such a wasp thing, don't just go with the joke or they're like, I don't get it. Or they don't understand to just go with it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I was in the car with my sister when she was like 10, 12, whatever. She's much younger than me. She's like 12 years younger. And there's this species of squid, by the way, which is asymmetric. One of its eyes is very much bigger than the other because it swims horizontally. And so one's looking up, one's looking down where there's more light. Shout out.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
If you want to learn more about squids, go to octonation.com.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Yes. I was in the car with my sister. She's like 10 or 12. Me as a pirate. I don't.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I told my sister, I go. when you were born, one of your eyes was bigger than the other and you had to have surgery to fix it. So she turns, she's like, mom. And my mom goes, honey, the important thing is that you're beautiful now. That's all. It's like, what's the big deal? It was just a little surgery. And my sister's like, all right, call grandma. And grandma goes,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
She goes, Michael said that when I was born, one of the guys, she goes, why is he telling you this now? It's not a big deal. So the fact that everyone went with this, I was so impressed. I was like, this is a quality family in this very specific regard. Does your family have a sense of humor?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I feel like that's a very Russian thing. Like at a party or maybe at a bar or something, I don't know where you'd meet people. These are such great, I met in Russia. I meant these would be such good icebreakers, right? You go up to someone goes, Hey, did you hear this one? No, no. And you just tell him some little story.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I feel like that's a thing. Yeah. And that's not a thing in America.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
No, meaning you go up to a stranger and like that's your icebreaker. You tell them this little joke. And since everyone kind of has the same sensibilities, right away you guys are chatting. I don't think that's a thing here.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Here it's more small talk, which drives me crazy.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
What's something you're thankful for?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Okay. Yeah. How, if I may ask, how do they react to you? Like you're sitting down with Elon, you're sitting down with Netanyahu, you're sitting down with all these big, with Kanye, all these big names. Are they expressing that they're proud of you? Or is it more like, why haven't you talked to this person? Yeah. More Michael Malice, please.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Yeah, I don't talk to my dad. That's one of the reasons, because there's never, ever any good job. And at a certain point, it's like, why am I trying to search for approval from someone I'm never gonna get it for and from whom it wouldn't mean anything at this point anyway?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
So- Yeah, my dad taught me a lot of things at a young age that I'm very, very grateful for. He's extremely intelligent, very flawed, and that's fine. We all are, except for me. And it's the kind of things that when you learn things at a right age, and this is one of the things I like about being older, is that when I'm friends with people- Much older. Much older. But much, much older.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
When I have friends who are younger, it's very easy for me to keep them from making the mistakes I did. So at least this is something I'm getting out of it, is that, okay, I can't fix these mistakes, but- It just takes me 30 seconds and I can pull you back from making the mistake. So he taught me a lot as a kid.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
He really encouraged me very much to, he's a very good sense of humor and also very bad in some ways, dad jokes, but also really funny jokes, but also this love of learning, right? I got that from him. And I mean, I have got literally right now 98 books on my shelf to read.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
It's just a life... That makes me... I remember I had a friend and she ran into someone she went to high school with and he stopped you on the train. And he's like, yo, you're not in college. You don't need to read books anymore. And I was just horrified to hear this.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Yeah. Boy, don't I know it. I mean, you laugh, but when you got... There's a lot of things I don't understand. When you got heat for like, I want to read the Western classics, to me, that might have been like the internet at its absolute worst.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
My hero, Albert Camus, and if there's one thing I would want to fight, it's cynicism. Because it's such a giving up. It's such everything sucks. This sucks. That sucks. Most things suck. Most stand-up comedians suck. Most movies suck. All podcasts suck. But it doesn't matter. Especially yours. Especially mine. It's unwatchable. You're welcome. You can't even spell it correctly.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
But the stuff that's good is what matters. Who cares if 90% of movies are terrible? They're the ones that change your life. The books, the people, the comedians, the shows, the music.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
In all fairness, none of my guests have anything to offer. It's not on me. I try.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Oh yeah, Malice at the Movies. I watched the video and I broke it down.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I haven't done live streaming in a long time. It was something I was doing a lot in New York, especially during COVID. I feel that, I don't know, I'm having, I got so many projects on the plate. Oh, this is something else I'm thankful for. This is something I'm very, very thankful for, and I'm going to announce it here.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Guns out, guns out. He makes me call him Sex Friedman. You like it. So, I didn't say it. Didn't even imply that. When I, in, as you probably know, as you know, but as many people watching this also know, Harvey Pekar, who had the comic book series American Splendor, was the subject of the movie American Splendor.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
He wrote a graphic novel about me in 2006 called Ego and Hubris, which goes for like $150 on eBay. It's not worth it. Just download it. And I met Harvey. Because I wrote this screenplay about this band from the 80s called Rubber Rodeo. It's a real band. And the keyboardist, Gary Lieb, who passed away, rest in peace, Gary, introduced me to Harvey because he did the animation for the movie.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
And this script's been in my desk for over 20 years. And I realized, thanks to my buddy Eric July, who has some huge success with his comics, I could just produce this as a graphic novel. So I've got an artist, we're getting it together, so I'm going to make it happen finally. And it's some of the best writing I've ever done. I'm really proud of the story.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
It's kind of ironic reading it now because when you're a writer, obviously, different books, you put different aspects of yourself into them, right? And this story is very, very dark because basically they did all the right things and they went nowhere, right?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
What I realized was, reading it now, that all these fears I had over 20 years ago about what if I'm not gonna make it, what if I'm doing all the hard work and it's still not enough, now it's been disproven, because I can at least pay my rent.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I feel that to make it is, if you don't have to have a boss, And you know how I really felt like I made it? This is gonna sound like a joke and it's not. This is being an immigrant. I own, as you know, Margaret Thatcher's bookcases. So to me, as an immigrant, to have her bookcases in my house, I've made it. You're right, it's not a joke. There's nothing funny about it at all. Stop being serious.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
What's that? Nothing. Go ahead. I think as an author, to be able to write what you want and have enough of an audience that it covers your living, that's as good as it gets as an author almost. You don't need to be Stephen King or some legend. It's like, you know, there's lots of standups who aren't like world famous, but they have perfectly good living. They do their gig. They do what they love.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I feel very, very blessed. You must be thankful for your career.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
There's days, and I'm sure you've had this also, where I literally don't speak to someone the whole day. Mm-hmm. And in certain times in my life, it's really, I remember very vividly. I was in DC in 97, I was an intern. And that summer, DC closes down on the weekends.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
And I remember those weekends when I got off the phone with the third person, I knew there was no possibility anyone was gonna call. and what that felt like. And it was dark, and it was bad. So I remember those feelings of loneliness a lot.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I, because there's like, I have a lot of people who I care about, who care about me. I mean, the thing about moving to Austin is I forgot how lonely New York got because it was like one after another, I lost everybody. And then you start losing the places you go to. And then it was just like, holy crap, I'm very isolated.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
And here in Austin, there's not as much to do, obviously, as in New York, but there's a lot of people here. More people are coming all the time. So if I ever want to hang out with someone, I've got a long list. And these are people who I've known for a very long time, people who know me quite well, so I could be myself, my awful, awful, awful, awful, awful self.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
And that is something I don't take lightly. Now he moved to Texas. It's going to secede. Yeah. It's just a very... Do you know what happened with that? No. I forget the guys in the 8-Minute. It's probably for the best. Monday, on Monday... a guy in the Texas legislature introduces a bill to have it on the referendum, to have a referendum for Texas to declare its independence.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Tuesday, I'm on Rogan. Me and him discuss it. I give it national attention. It was also really funny because a lot of people are like, these people have been in Texas five minutes, blah, blah, blah. I go to the Texas legislature, meet with the guy, have a nice conversation.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Month or two later, unanimous, I think, he gets voted, kicked out of Congress because he got an intern drunk and was inappropriate with her. At least it was the girl in this case. But yeah, so it's like, that was my little Texas independence moment.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
It did not go anywhere. Wow. But it's still part of the platform, the Texas Republican Party.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Yeah. Yeah. It was very, very good.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I used him as a resource for the White Pill.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
So for me, I'll name some historians I love. Arthur Herman, Victor Sebastian is probably my favorite. David Petruccia, P-I-E-T-R-U-S-Z-A. When you are a historian, and I tried to do this to some degree in The White Pill as much as I could. When you take data and you make it read like a novel,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
So you're learning about who we are as people, what had happened, but also it's entertaining and readable. That to me is like the acme of writing. And I have so much admiration. What does acme mean? Top. Okay. Zenith.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Acme is also the company in like Bugs Bunny and Wile E. Coyote. So it's acme, you know, acme. like Acme bombs. When they are that good, it just leaves me in awe. Ron Chernow is another one. He wrote the Hamilton biography.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I feel like I wanted to, there's something I could add to him.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
No, he's talented, charismatic, and skilled. So he's not the Michael Malice. Yeah, I did not. I feel like I didn't read Gulag Archipelago for the white pill.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
i feel i got a lot of it from anne applebaum who's a very controversial figure her history books on the soviet union i think are superb but she's also accused of being very much like a neocon and being a warmonger in contemporary times oh i see and i think comparisons between putin and stalin although there is a venn diagram i i think are a bit much because i think it's very hard to claim that you know if putin conquered ukraine that there'd be a genocide
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I think that's a very hard argument to make.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Yes, and I also don't like how that... You know, I got in trouble. There was some literal demon who works at the Atlantic. As opposed to a regular demon? As opposed to a figurative demon. I didn't know they employed demons. They exclusively employ demons at the Atlantic. And...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
He was giving me crap just a couple years ago on Twitter because I didn't think it's appropriate to refer to George Soros as a Holocaust survivor. And I'm like, listen, if you want to put him in the same context as Anne Frank, knock yourself out. But I think that's so completely disingenuous and frankly repulsive to me morally to equivocate between figures like that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
And also to claim that anyone... who is a billionaire, who is including Elon, including Sheldon Adelson. There's no shortage of these people. If you want to use your extreme wealth used to influence politics, you have to be up for criticism. And to protect people, Bill Gates, to protecting these people from criticism just on the basis of their identity is deranged to me.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
You're just basically trying to take this brand, I'm using that term in a very specific way, and latch, like when they say climate denial, no one's denying climate exists. So you're just trying to go off of Holocaust denial. I think it's shameless. And I think it's gross.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Yeah, and how fast. That's the one. So, you know, people ask, oh, are humans basically good? Are they basically evil? I always say they're basically animals. And I think people are... Most people are almost fundamentally deranged and that there's basically this veneer of civilization and decency.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
And when shit hits the fan and we see this over and over, they do things that would have been completely unthinkable even to themselves five years ago. Most people are fundamentally deranged with a veneer of civility. There's a show called... I think I disagree with that. What's the show called? I'm having Alzheimer's because of the advanced age.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
There's a show called I Think You Should Leave. It's a sketch comedy show. Okay, sorry. It's a sketch comedy show. And he captures these great... How's your hair, princess? He captures these great moments... of just the very thin veneer of normalcy and just the craziness that's so frequently lurking underneath.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Another great example of this, when this is dealing with people who are literally crazy, have you ever seen the show Hoarders? So every episode of Hoarders, there's usually two people in every episode, but every episode has the same plot line. Veneer of normalcy, veneer of normalcy, veneer of normalcy, slight expression of concern, full-blown derangement.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I have seen literally no evidence of this. And I know everything's a deep ocean with you people, but like- What do you mean you people? Pirates.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
You have seen personally how quickly and easily it is for human beings to form outgroups. And to just read others just, as I just did a minute ago with The Atlantic, completely out of the human race. And that happens constantly and very easily. Humans are tribal beings. So that does not, I don't see how that's compatible with this essential desire to do good.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Okay, I think you're both wrong about people and about nature. So nature is not inherently violent in the sense like, for example, if anyone has an aquarium, or if you look at wildlife, Yeah, you're going to have predator prey, but these animals are going to be coexisting and they're going to be ignoring each other for the most part, right?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
And as for humans being essentially good, I think humans are essentially, to each other you said, I think they're essentially civil and amiable, but that's not really being good.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I completely agree with you that human beings are capable of such profound goodness that it kind of makes you extremely emotional. And I certainly think that that's true. But I think that that's more unusual than is the norm.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
So do I, but that doesn't mean it's in every person.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
You stole my joke. You stole my joke. That was the joke I made at you before we recorded. You stole my joke.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
So as you know, I have a lot of beautiful stuff in my house because I think it's something very important. Everyone listening, if you accomplish something that is great, some achievement, what I like to do is buy myself something to remember that moment. Because sometimes when it's hard, you forget you've done great things in your life. You've had accomplishments. It doesn't have to be some
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
amazing factory it could just be like my first job where i got a raise or you know what i i anything so there's this amazing sculptor named jake michael singer a singer who's a sculptor and i saw a piece of his singing voice
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I could go somewhere with this. Okay. How's his singing voice?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Yeah. What's the punchline? Hard. There it is.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
So I followed him on Instagram. He followed me back. And he's like, if I made... He says, what's the point of being an artist? if the work I create isn't in the spaces of people I like and admire, he's a big fan of yours. You've given him, in our episodes together, given him joy. So he said, if I make Lex a sculpture, will he put it on the shelf behind him? And what that reminded me of
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
is when I was a kid, you read Batman comics and there's the Batcave. And the Batcave has all this cool stuff in it. I didn't realize until much later that all of those things in the Batcave had an origin story. So the giant penny, the dinosaur, there was actually a story where that came from.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
So if you're a fan of a show, you can spot, oh, this is when this appeared, this is when that appeared, this is when that appeared. So he made you this sculpture. He lives in Turkey and it's called Chance Murmur. And it is, I haven't even seen it yet. It is absolutely beautiful.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
No. Neither do you. I've seen your guitar videos. Okay.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
So here's why his work speaks so much to me. So first of all, he's combining so many different references. It's Nike, the goddess of victory, right? It looks like an angel as well. The Italian futurists, which is my favorite art movement from the early 20th century, they tried to capture motion in 2D or 3D form.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
That's the other thing. When you have something that matters to you in your house and you're having a bad day, you can look at it and remember, you know what I mean, that spirit of joy. And I actually have a list here. Okay, I got a little rant ready. You wanna hear my rant? Yeah, let's go.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
One of the things that drives me crazy is when people, especially conservatives, think that all contemporary art is ugly or abstract or like literally garbage. And there's a lot of that. But so much of the stuff out there in galleries is not only not crazy expensive, but they're trying to sell things for people in their house. And these are young artists, you know, they're trying to add beauty.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I have a list. So if you don't believe me and you think all contemporary art is garbage or terrible, go to the website or any of these places that I'm going to rattle off, look through them, and you're telling me that it's not about creating beauty and joy and things in people's lives. So I don't have any relationship with any of these people. These are just some galleries I follow on Instagram.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Outre Gallery, Antler Gallery, Giant Robot 2, Beinart, I don't know how to pronounce it, I'm sorry. B-E-I-N-A-R-T, Spoke Art Gallery, Var Gallery in Milwaukee, I was there. The pieces were not expensive at all. What kind of art are we talking about? Everything, paintings? Mostly paintings, mostly paintings. Some sculptures too, like this. Corey Halford is my favorite one in LA.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Knight Gallery, Vertical Gallery, Avant Gallery, Hive Gallery, Haven Gallery, and Curio Art Gallery. I'm telling you, it's not exorbitant. This is not the kind of thing where you have to go to a museum and be like, This doesn't make sense to me. You look at it right away. You're like, okay, I know what this is. And it's beautiful. It's awesome.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
And you're supporting someone who's young and creative trying to do something and make the world a better place. So I'm a big fan of the contemporary art scene. A lot of it is not great. But even the stuff that's not great is very rarely disgusting or gross. It's just like, okay, I've seen this before or something like that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
There's a standup where I'll pay money for the ticket and someone's like, who's an opener? It's like, I wouldn't pay to see him perform, but he sure still made me laugh. That person is still by far more good than bad. So a lot of this art isn't stuff I would own. But it's like, okay, I get it, I like it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Roseanne was telling me how Gilbert Godfrey would go on, it was like three in the morning, and it was like five, her and like three other comics in the audience, and like they all were just dying. Like he was just killing them. Who was your favorite comedian?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
What about you? I mean, we're so fortunate to be here in Austin because that Comedy Mothership, you go there and people are just killing it. David Lucas is amazing. Ty Rivera probably did the best set I've seen since I've been here in Austin. And I watched him and I'm like, this guy's even bitchier than I am. So I reached out to him. So he's just terrific.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
David Lucas is another one, a buddy of mine. You just said it twice, I think, David. I'm thinking Dave Landau, excuse me. Dave Landau. Joe Mackey. Old age catching up. It's true though. It's true. It's true. It's true.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Oh, I heard a joke about that the other week.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Tell the joke again. What's the only thing worse... than giving head to Willie Nelson.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
If he says, I'm not Willie Nelson. What's that, Mr. Parrot?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
This statue's Chance Murmur is judging you. Chance. It's called Chance Murmur. Chance Murmur. God, that's so beautiful.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
This is another reason I hate cynicism, and I talk about this a lot. Even just on Etsy, there's so many small... not huge companies, like individual artisans who are creating great stuff and just making it happen. And it's really sad for me where people can't see that. Or if they're like, well, how could I be excited about a sculpture when blah, blah, blah, the Middle East.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
And it's just like, you can always look for an excuse not to look for joy, or you could look for an excuse to look for joy.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I don't know what I'm going to do with mine because I got my own. Mine's three feet tall, just like me. Your box was much bigger.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I don't know if I'm gonna, I think I'm gonna put it in my bedroom, so it's the first thing I see when I wake up. Put it in the bedroom?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
No, I've got lots of things I'm thankful for.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I'm thankful for career. I'm thankful for, I am thankful for And I know people are going to lose their minds. And I can hear them flipping out already. I am thankful for social media. I think for several reasons. First, it is a way for people to make connections that they couldn't have made in years past.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
That if you got some weird hobby, you can find that other person's weird hobby and you make that connection. It's a great way to stay in touch permanently for people otherwise you'd lose touch with, you know, whatever venue. And it's also a great way to expose corporate depravity.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
When you have these organizations that are dishonest, I think the community notes thing on Twitter is the greatest thing ever. Yeah, it's incredible.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
You shouldn't be encouraging anyone to pay attention to my Twitter account. It's a dumpster fire. And I don't mean Bridget. I mean like literal Bridget Phetasy.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
But I'm just really glad about, it's another way for people who before would have felt very alone. I know it makes some people do feel alone, but for other people, it makes them feel connected.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Because I don't think racists or transphobes or homophobes or misogynists or xenophobes argue openly or even not so openly for the killing of Black Americans, transgender people, gay people, women, or immigrants. And it's not only something that's talked about, it's something that has actually happened in not just the Holocaust, but just centuries of pogroms. right?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
There's this great book that I read many years ago called The Satanization of the Jews. Camille Paglia recommended it and I read it. And they live in this certain specific kind of antisemitism. And again, I'm not talking about people who are against Israel or something. I'm talking specifically about Jew hatred.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
They have this moral calculus that Jews are the only people who are capable of good or evil, and Jews are exclusively capable of evil. And for example, if you look at the George W. Bush White House. You had W, you had Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, a lot of these neocon advisors.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
So if there's 10 people in a room and there's one Jewish person, it's his fault and the rest are Jew controlled. So again, they only exist as a puppet of Jews in this kind of worldview. And it's like that, to me, if there were no Jews on earth, It is crazy to say that John Bolton and Liz Cheney and Lindsey Graham wouldn't be pushing for more war. That makes no sense to me.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
It's like you blame the Jews when bad things happen, but when a Jewish person does something good, it doesn't really matter. Or just wait, he's going to do something bad. Well, yeah, that's true. Human beings do good things and then they do bad things sometimes. But it only counts when that Jewish person does the bad thing.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I think the only or the best way, because I thought a lot about this, about how did gay Americans go from being universally hated and despised to the point that many people in the 80s went to their graves, those who had AIDS, without even telling their parents because they were so scared, to now Times Square is just covered in pride flags. Mm-hmm.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
And this also works for Islamophobia and some of these other bigotry, is what I call the ambassador program. Because as soon as you know someone who is a member of a certain group, it is a lot harder to be bigoted against them. Because instead of this being this out group that's somewhere out there, it's like, wait a minute, I work with this guy. Yeah, he's kind of a jerk.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Maybe he sees things a little differently than me, but this guy is not a horrible human being. So I think the only way to fight any form of bigotry is to be a good example of the counter to these, whatever archetype or stereotype is in the culture.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
No, I hate that quote. I absolutely hate it. I despise this sort of Reddit internet atheist activism for the simple reason that I know many people who, in finding faith, have become objectively better human beings. They start living consciously, they take morality seriously, they try, we all fail, to be moral good people.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
So this sneering that these midwits, these marginally intelligent people have towards religious people. Now, lots of religious people use religion to rationalize their, bad behavior or sinful or big ego, so on and so forth. That exists, that's true.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
But to say that it never helps anyone and it's universally... See, Marx was talking about a period, I mean, I'll defend his quote, when his argument was the masses are being starved and oppressed but they're promised, don't worry, you'll have riches in heaven. So you should kind of let yourself be pushed around now. And this is kind of this BS bargain that the people are being given.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
So that was, I think, the point he was making. It certainly doesn't apply nowadays. I've been close to the family in the Midwest. They're good Christian people. I remember very specifically this guy, shout out to him, Sean Sherrod, I went to college with him, David Lucas. And- Have you checked out the Comedy Mothership? Great club. It's in Austin. Willie Nelson. And I was 17, 18, freshman year.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
And I was reading all this criticism of the Bible. And I was like, look, this is in there. Look at this in there. And he put his hand on my shoulder and he says, Michael, there's nothing you're going to tell me that's going to make me lose my faith. And that was a very self-aware and profound thing to say.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
As I've gotten older and I know lots of religious people, there's no part of me that thinks they're wrong or they should be mocked. It also reminds me of when people sneer at addicts in recovery, they're like, alcoholism is a disease, it's a choice. It's like, wait a minute, you don't know what it's like to have your entire life ruined by drugs or alcohol.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
And if you have to tell yourself, I have this disease and blah, blah, blah, and that keeps you from drinking and now you're a moral upstanding person who's reliable and takes responsibility for their actions, I don't see the harm at all. So I think this kind of activist atheism is- I don't agree with it whatsoever. And I do not like that quote at all. But otherwise, big fan of Marx.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I mean, I think there's a fan of mine, I forget who it was, apologies. He had this great quote. He goes, and this is me talking. He goes, the games people play to feel smarter than others is depressing and annoying. And I think this kind of fedora in an atheism is... is a good example. Because here's the other thing. If you've proven that someone else is stupid, that doesn't mean you're smart.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
You could both be stupid. So congrats, you proved someone else is stupid. Who cares?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
And sneering in all forms. Yes. In general is just not great. That's one of the things I block out people on social media instantly. You're not going to sneer at me in my space. You could sneer at me all you want in your space, but I'm not putting up with your crap. I don't know you. My space, great social network. Is that on 6th Street? AWOL.com. That's how Lex comes.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
So I disagree in that regard. And I see on your bookshelf, I think the world is a lot closer to Brave New World than it is to 1984. And I think it is, if you look at, let's suppose China's influence in America, right? The influence is far more through soft power than military power. China doesn't threaten America through, you know, we're gonna kill you.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
It's more like their infiltration of universities, TikTok, things of that nature. Maybe this would have worked before the pop culture era, but I think one of the reasons we have this kind of American hegemony isn't just a function of American military. I think it's much more a function of American popular culture.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
When you're exporting ideas and culture, it makes other people in other countries feel closer to you and also regard you as a friend and also to adopt your value. It's a great way to spread propaganda.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Let's look at Europe. American culture is very popular in Europe in many ways, right? Like the best music comes out of Sweden, Swedish indie pop. They're singing in English, you know, even though so on and so forth. None of this is a function, maybe it's a function of post-World War II to some extent, but I don't think it's a function of American bases there.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I think it's a function of we're exporting our music, our TV shows, and our movies. Yeah, it's interesting if the battleground will be Brave New World, the battle of ideas. I think it's clearly Brave New World. It's so much cheaper, and again, this is one of the dark sides of social media, to use influence than it is to use threats. I think COVID is a good example of this.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Like so much of the pressure Yes, there was authoritarianism, but it was the fact that everyone bought into it, rightly or wrongly. But the vast majority of the population was behind all of these things. And that was through persuasion, and because people are begging for it to come back in many cases.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I think Mr. Parrot is threatened by the better wings.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Beaks and feathers everywhere.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
So I went to the Dallas Museum of Art last year for my birthday. And there was a painting I liked. And I Googled it and I saw the auction for that exact painting. And it was like, I think three grand, which is not cheap, but not something you think you think in a museum, I can never afford something like this. Right. So when I was in, um,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I went to Houston with some friends, the sidesurfs, Natalie, who made the cake of you. Cake. Terrified my mom. Did it?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Well, Natalie's pregnant. She's going to have a daughter named Daisy. So congrats to Natalie. But I was in the museum with them, and there was a statue of Thoth, who's the Egyptian god whose head is an ibis. It's a bird with a long beak. And Thoth is the god of the moon, god of knowledge, and supposedly he invented writing. So I thought, you know what? I've always loved ancient Egypt.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I know a lot about it, and especially the mythology. It would be really cool as an aspiring author to have an ancient Egyptian Thoth statue in my house. Well, it turned out. that the Egyptians also killed and mummified ibises and buried them with scribes. And a week after I went to the museum, there was an auction for an ibis mummy. And I have it now in my house, still in its bandages.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Overlooking my desk and we all know it's going to come to life and peck out my eyes and write with my blood. But that is one of the recent cool additions. Another thing I have, which is like in terms of holy crap, I've made it. I have an original Patrick Nagel painting. And if people don't know the name, he's like the 80s artist. He did the Duran Duran cover. We never see him in nail salons.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I have a mail, which were very rare for him to do. So that's two of my kind of favorite pieces. He only drew women predominantly. I have one where he drew a male, like as a guy in a, like a jean hat or something. And now I'm looking forward to, so Jake made me a three foot tall sculpture called Future Murmur, which I am ecstatic to get.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
And just the victory and holiness and technology and speed and how many people have fought so that I could do what I do.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Oh, God. I've gone down this... This trilobite rabbit hole, buying fossils. Because as a kid, I thought trilobites were the coolest thing. And now I've got like 15. And what's interesting is when you buy trilobite fossils on eBay, they're listed as used. Because it's got to be new or used according to the programming. So it's used, yeah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Oh, yeah. I think that's very fair to say. But I also think this kind of is like live life to the fullest. You know, Camus talked about living to the point of tears.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Especially on behalf of people who didn't have that privilege. So, you know, I dedicated the white pill to my parents who got me out of the Soviet Union and all the kids who never could. And it's like, when I die, I want everyone else to, not only they're obviously going to be happy, but yeah, like I'm not here. Enjoy what you, you live for me because I can't have that privilege anymore.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Yeah, I think the book is pointless.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Because all you need to do is read the synopsis and then you get it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I don't think it seems trivial, but I think... Animal Farm. Animal Farm is a methodical step-by-step examination of a transformation from one thing to another. The plague is not that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I think Animal Farm has a narrative, and I'm going to spoil the whole plague, the book The Plague. Okay. There's a town, I believe, in Oman. A plague descends. People struggle to deal with it, and the plague vanishes as quickly as it came. The end.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I thought the lesson was that pigs are the most human-like animals on the farm.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
First off, I'm not interviewing just random people. I'm interviewing people who are accomplished. It's not a random group. That's self-selecting for something different. But I think that people love to, and this is very understandable, love to feel seen.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
So if you're someone who's done something, even if you're like the best guinea pig breeder in America, to have someone interested in your work and listen to what you're saying, because I remember every book I've written, You know, I have friends that I wouldn't stop talking about, you know, the person I'm writing with or, you know, the North Korea.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
At a certain point, I'm sure they're like, all right, I don't care about this anymore. But like it takes over your brain, you know what I mean? So if you are someone who has an interest or a hobby, I'm sure to some extent maybe your friends or family are sick of talking about it or you don't want to talk about it with them. That's the private life where you could just be yourself. So...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I try to, and this comes from my co-authoring background, when I'm talking to people to ask the questions that they haven't heard before. There's a possibility that this actor I'm a huge fan of is gonna be on my show. I don't wanna spoil everything. And he's got a very specific role that he's known for.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
And I know it's going to be annoying for you talking about this one role, but my goal is to ask questions that you aren't sick of asking, having been asked. Porn star?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I always use this as an example. You meet someone at a party who breeds guinea pigs, right? There's two approaches. Either you're weird, get it okay, or sit down and tell me everything. And I'm very much, and all the people I like are the second group. When you meet someone who's doing something unusual and are passionate about it and are good at it, that to me is the motherlode.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Who do you guys hate? Do you guys hate the hamster people? Do you hate the rabbit people? There's got to be someone that you guys look down on. Because the marine aquarium people look down on the freshwater aquarium people. Yeah, it's a hierarchy. Yes, there's always going to be a hierarchy. This is where the left anarchists and I disagree because they think you can have egalitarianism.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
There's going to be a hierarchy.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
No, it's just a different kind of anarchy.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Thank you. I think the anarcho-capitalists don't give the left anarchists enough credit, especially for their courage. And I do whatever I can in my power to talk about people like Emma Goldman whenever possible.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I was prepping for this interview and I imagined this coming up and I knew that as I explained this, You know how sometimes when someone tells a story, at first it's amusing, then it's amusing and concerned, and then you're like, holy shit, where's the exit? Yeah. I'm getting nervous already. You should. So I'm going to tell you something I've told only a couple of people.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
This is my absolutely off-the-charts story. autistic approach to shaving. Oh. So I have this insane system. You asked about habits that give me joy. I used to hate shaving. I used to hate it. There's something called wet shaving. So wet shaving is you get the brush, you get the soap that's in a canister, you stir it up, you paint your face, and then you shave. The thing is,
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
There are dozens of these shaving soap companies. So I tried a couple of hundred of these soaps because you're testing for scent, you're testing for the lather thickness, and also how smooth of a shave it gives you. I have it down. I'm not making this up. I'm not this creative. I haven't down to a cycle of 67 soaps. Yeah. Okay. So this cycle, a cycle. So 67. Yeah.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
When I use up one soap, that is a slot that I will have to try new ones. And I will try new ones in that slot until I get one that I like. And then that slot is filled. So right now I have 67 that I use and I have 86 that
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Well, they all have beautiful labels. I mean, these are artisans who are creating these amazing things. So I would encourage everyone to try this hobby who's a guy. It's so much fun. I will give a shout out to the companies that are the best. So the best company, in my opinion, is a company called, they just changed the name because you know what they're originally called? I'm not joking.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Grooming Department. And now it's like- It's not a bad name. Yeah, but it has certain connotations in contemporary discourse. So now he changed- Contemporary discourse, yes. He changed his name to Ion Skin Care, A-I-O-N. That's the sense of the most sophisticated, the most diverse, and the soap is just really high quality. Mm-hmm. Another amazing company is Barrister and Mann.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
And if I'm going to tell you to try one, it's called Cheshire. He comes out with new ones every month or so. A lot of it's miss, a lot of it's hit. Just great, great quality stuff. Another great company is Chiseled Face. They make something called Midnight Stag, which basically smells like a garage. It's one of my favorite soaps of all time.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I have 67 answers. So some of them smell, some are citrusy, some are industrial, some- So garage is more industrial. It smells like a garage, yeah. Midnight Stag, it smells like a garage. Some are fun because there's smells that smell like other things. For example, there's a scent in my queue called Finding Scotty. It smells like Swedish fish. Another great company is Phoenix Shaving.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
And they have one called Aloha Smackdown. It smells like Hawaiian punch. They had one called Yule Ham that they made for me special. It smells like a ham. They had a ramen one, Rockin' Ramen. It smells like a cup of noodles. So they're great. And every year they do an advent calendar. where you, for 12 days, you have a little sample of a soap and a sample of the aftershave.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
So those are, I'm forgetting someone and I'm feeling angry that I'm doing it, but those are some of the, oh, and Katie's Bubbles is great. They're vegan out of New Jersey. They've got one called Knee High to a Grape. It smells like grape soda. I think those are the biggest names off the top of my head.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
67 down to... Well, no, it's down to 67. Oh, so it always keeps... Right, so if there's a slot, then you know what I mean? Like I'll fill that, you know what I'm saying?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I got to tell you there's something else. There's a term called, my friend Jackie taught me, called touching pan. It's a makeup term. So basically when you use it and you can see the bottom, that's like a big moment. Oh, it's a great thing. Yeah. It's like, well, it's kind of fun. I'm telling you, like people can scoff. It is such a fun.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
And there's a lot of us online who are into this whole space. It's really, really fun. When did you first discover this? Can I curse? Yeah. Fuck you, Cole Stryker. Because I was staying at my friend Cole's house in LA. Fuck you, Cole. Fuck you, Cole. Cole is like one of the biggest hipsters I know. He's got the shirts with the pearl snaps and everything.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
And I'm staying at his house because I was doing Rogan. And he goes, oh, have you heard of this wet shaving thing? And he goes, look, this one's Prorezo. That's like the Italian grandpa soap, which is also a great one. And I went down this rabbit hole and I'm like, I don't even know how much money I spent on this. And it's all because of him. Oh, but it's like a happy fuck you.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Here, I can give a very easy piece of advice that worked a lot for me. Instead of telling yourself that you have these ridiculous standards, tell yourself, I can be better. I don't have to be a great writer. I could be a better writer. I don't have to be a great podcaster. That will never happen. I could be a better podcaster. I could be a better person. I could be better at the gym.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I could be better with my time. And when you regard things, and especially if you have metrics that you can go by, I'll run this many miles a day, things you have control over. Especially as males, when you have this chart and the data is telling you you're improving, right away, it's like you have the sense of accomplishment. So I think that is a really great way to find.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
And if something is not working in your life, let's suppose you don't have friends, right? There's the internet. How do people make friends? Try things out. What's the worst that's gonna happen? Does it blow up in your face? Well, you learned something at least. Don't be afraid of making mistakes. When I was a kid, I was so scared of having things under control.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
So like I would never have to get hit in the face metaphorically. And then I realized, and you realize this as well, everyone who's important gets hit in the face. Look at the president, whoever the president is. It becomes a matter of being strong enough that you could take getting hit in the face. So that is a big important switch in your thinking.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I don't really get depressed. Yeah, but I've been depressed. Like low points. Yeah. But I think I distinguish depression between low points, right? Like if things are going bad and you feel bad, that makes sense. But when I think of depression, I think of someone who feels bad when things aren't bad. To me, it's almost by definition irrational.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
You take it rectally. Okay. But as for the magnesium, you should take it as a pill.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Holy crap. I'm trying to think of anything I'm afraid of.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
if I wanted to torture you hypothetically well mission accomplished you know what I mean in terms of I'm scared of increasing authoritarianism but that's not personal and that's something that I don't think is as much of an imminent concern as let's say in Canada are you scared of death?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
no He just accepted it as... Look, I honestly feel like if I died tomorrow, I did pretty good with what I had. I think I did things that matter to me. I think I moved the needle on things that matter to me. I think I've been a good friend to the people I care about. I've saved a couple of lives. So...
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I think it's a very low bar for someone to be able to go to their grave and say, you know, I left the world a better place than I found it. I don't think it's that hard.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Oh God, yes, of course. Haven't you?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
There's something in that box of exquisite beauty, both literally and in what it symbolizes and why it is here.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Yeah, the Russian upbringing expects everyone to be like, just it's a time bomb before they betray you. I've been betrayed, of course, yeah. Yeah. Do you value loyalty? I do. And I also made it a point to not let that betrayal color my future interactions and regard that as the universal or the norm.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I think that's very important. Me too. And also, I feel bad. I've gotten lex enough. that I feel bad for the person who betrayed me, because it's just like, they didn't need to do this, and at some point, if you betray someone, you know, and you know you're not a good person. I believe that.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Like even if you tell yourself there's something I had to do, you still know you had to do a bad thing to someone who didn't deserve it. And that's a really hard pill to swallow.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I don't empathize with them, but I sympathize with them.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Empathizing means you're putting yourself in their shoes. Sympathizing means you feel bad for them and wish them well.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Yeah, but I don't put myself, like, it's very hard for me to empathize with someone who betrays someone that they care about. Because that is something, it's not that just I think I'm such a great person, it's that I feel guilt very strongly. So if I did that to someone who trusted me, I would really, it would fuck up my head for a long time.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I know you do. Especially because you're in such a public... Both of us were very public positions. You have to be very careful who you surround yourself with. It sucks. Does it?
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
That's a good point. You kind of hit me with the curveball. Yeah. Like for me, the most beautiful wildlife are what I call God's mistakes. Because my friend came up with that term where she's like, you know, God made these disgusting animals just threw in the bottom of the ocean. He's like, no one's ever going to see this.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
It's so, again, it's beautiful on like eight different levels.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I really, and people are gonna laugh, and I welcome it, that's fine. I really sometimes feel like the guy in American Beauty, looking at the plastic bag, dancing in the wind. And he's brought to tears because of how much beautiful life is. And a lot of people feel the need to sneer at that scene and Ricky Pitts, whatever. And I think he's got it exactly right.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
That's exactly right. And also seeing beauty where other people see garbage. And I'd rather be the person who sees beauty than the person who sees garbage.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
It's horrific though. So it has... I think eight legs, six arms, two punching claws or spearing claws, depending on the genus, two eyes, two antennae, two ear flaps. I don't know what they do. And its punch can be as strong as a bullet. And the other type with the spears, divers call them thumb splitters, because if you stick your finger near it, it'll cut your thumb down to the bone.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
So I had one as a pet. All night, I would hear banging on the PVC pipe. And I've got to tell you, they have the best eyesight of any animal because they see in like seven different ways. And when you make eye contact with this thing, it's just absolutely terrifying. But you can eat them as sushi. They call them sea centipedes.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Well, when you have a species that's that unique and that much of an outlier... Growing up, reading these books, watching these shows, I found this stuff so much more fascinating than space, which is dead. So to be able to have this specimen in your house and just observe its behavior is just an amazing thing. Why did you get rid of it? I didn't have, I guess, the right minerals in the mix.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
It died. It had a problem molting once. Yeah, it couldn't molt correctly. Wow. Do you miss it? Think about it still? I do think about it, to be honest. I still have a pair of its punching appendages from when it molted.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I've never had cats or dogs growing up or anything like that, which, you know, I, oh God. My problem is- Here we go. If I like something, I will go down a rabbit hole.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
So I know if I got one tattoo, I already know my first five are going to be. Okay. So I can't do it because then once I get those five, it's going to be a hundred and I'm already too old to be the tattoo guy.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
If I got your face, it would definitely be on my arm right here.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I think delts, right? Shoulders, different faces and different shoulders.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
I'd be Kim Jong-il, right? Because I wrote the book on him. Oh, it's like the plugging your book in a tattoo. I don't think it's plugging. It's just like I have a personal connection to this stuff.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
That would be a bad... No, that's not what happens.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Here's the thing. What happens? When you write a book about North... Hey, nice to meet you. What is it you do? I'm an author. What kind of books do you write? Well, my last book was on North Korea. 90% of the time, 90, they will then start telling me everything they know about North Korea. And it's like, I don't need, this isn't a quiz and it's a very poorly understood country.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
100% of the time. Oh, so you don't, do you know Dennis Rodman? Yeah. But I don't understand what, I guess people feel the need to like, all right, like now we're talking about this subject. I just got to, you know, drop whatever I can talk about. It's usually a small amount. And there's this thing in the culture, which I hate, that everyone have to have an opinion on everything.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
And it's like, it's okay to be like, yeah, I don't know anything about that. Tell me more. You know, there's lots of things I don't know anything about.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
It's a macaw. Scarlet macaw. What? It is a scarlet macaw. Oh, you know birds. Yeah. And that's actually not life-sized. Are you saying he's not real? I'm saying it's not to scale. Okay. But he's real. Are we doing that Monty Python sketch? Everything is a Monty Python sketch. I don't think Monty Python's funny.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
You're not answering that question. It's pretty funny.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
To be fair... Yep. I only tried to watch Big Lebowski after it's been part of the culture for many years to the point where every single line has been quoted incessantly by the most annoying frat bros ever. So I kind of have been poisoned to be able to appreciate it. So maybe if I'd seen it when it came out before it became a thing, I would have enjoyed it. I couldn't get through it.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Like I couldn't get through 20 minutes.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Well, it's so much easier for me to stare at you when you have sunglasses on.
Lex Fridman Podcast
#402 – Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
Well, what do you find funny? Come on. This is an interesting subject.