第 402 期·中文精讀
邁克爾·馬利斯：感恩節海盜特別節目
Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special
無政府主義者邁克爾·馬利斯在感恩節特別節目裡暢談政治、文化與歷史軼事，風格隨性而辛辣。
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中文精讀由 AI 基於原始訪談改寫，非官方翻譯，可能存在偏差或錯誤；表述以原音訊與官方文稿為準。說明
一個寫過朝鮮專著的作家，在社交場合報出書名之後會發生什麼？邁克爾·馬利斯（Michael Malice）給出了精確的比例：90% 的情況下，對方會立刻開始給他科普朝鮮；100% 的情況下，對方會問“那你認識丹尼斯·羅德曼（Dennis Rodman）嗎”。
這個場景發生在任何一次自我介紹裡。他說自己從不期待對方懂朝鮮，這又不是考試，你不在考場上，對方說的一半也不準確，也沒什麼關係。他受不了的是另一種東西：既然聊到這個話題了，我必須把我知道的全部倒出來。
他把這種衝動歸到一種文化病上：每個人都覺得自己必須對一切有觀點。
說一句“這個我不懂，你多講講”，在他眼裡是完全體面的回答。這場感恩節特別節目從這裡開始，兩個人在錄音室裡聊了將近一百分鐘，話題從螳螂蝦的出拳速度，一路走到人性的底色、無政府主義、67 塊剃鬚皂，以及死亡。
上帝的錯誤：從螳螂蝦到朱鷺木乃伊
開場時萊克斯指著桌上一隻鸚鵡擺件問馬利斯怎麼看。馬利斯看了一眼說，這是緋紅金剛鸚鵡（Scarlet Macaw），而且尺寸不對，實物比這大得多。萊克斯追問“你是說它不是真的”，馬利斯說“我是說比例不對”。兩個人就著蒙提·派森的梗繞了兩圈，然後馬利斯順口說了一句：他不覺得蒙提·派森好笑，一次都沒笑過。
這讓萊克斯很受打擊。他後來試圖挽回局面，問馬利斯覺得什麼好笑，得到的答案是“你在迴避這個問題，這就挺好笑的”。
馬利斯真正覺得美的東西，是他朋友造的一個詞：上帝的錯誤。意思是上帝造了一批噁心到家的動物，隨手扔進海底，心想反正沒人看得見。
孔雀螳螂蝦（peacock mantis shrimp）就是樣本。它有八條腿、六條臂、兩隻拳擊爪或者穿刺爪（看屬種）、兩隻眼、兩根觸鬚，還有兩片不知道幹什麼用的耳狀鰭。它出拳的速度可以接近子彈。帶穿刺爪的那種，潛水員管它叫“拇指分離器”，你把手伸過去，它能把你的拇指削到見骨。
它還有動物界最強的視覺，用七種不同的方式感知光。馬利斯養過一隻，整晚都能聽見它敲打 PVC 管的聲音。他說當你和這東西對上眼，那種感覺極其恐怖。
但你可以把它做成壽司，人們管它叫海蜈蚣。（邁克爾·馬利斯）
那隻寵物後來死了，蛻皮的時候出了問題，沒能蛻乾淨。馬利斯至今留著它蛻下來的一對拳擊附肢。
他解釋自己為什麼會對這種東西著迷：太空是死的，這些是活的。小時候讀那些書、看那些節目，覺得海底比星系有意思一萬倍。能在自己家裡養一隻，觀察它的行為，這件事本身就是獎勵。
這份趣味延伸到了收藏。他書房裡有一座托特（Thoth）雕像，埃及的月神與知識之神，朱鷺頭，傳說文字就是他發明的。逛完博物館一週後，他碰上一場拍賣，拍到了一具真正的朱鷺木乃伊，還裹著繃帶，現在放在書桌旁邊。古埃及人會把朱鷺殺死、做成木乃伊，跟書吏（scribe）一起下葬。他的原話是：我們都知道它早晚會活過來，啄出我的眼睛，用我的血寫字。
他還買三葉蟲化石，買了十五塊。有意思的細節是，在 eBay 上買化石，商品狀態會被標成“二手”，因為系統只給了“全新”和“二手”兩個選項。
讓人笑，是給他一張短期休假券
馬利斯對幽默有一套完整的理論。他引用瓊·裡弗斯（Joan Rivers）轉述的丘吉爾說法：當你讓人笑的時候，你是在給他們一個小小的假期。
他由此推出一個結論：自己的葬禮要辦成吐槽大會（roast）。大家講我當年怎麼讓你們笑，拿我開涮，把我當沙袋，甚至把我從棺材裡拖出來打一頓，做成皮納塔也行。
你們的悲傷對我沒有幫助。如果我在活著的時候給過人快樂，我想在死後繼續給。（邁克爾·馬利斯）
他喜歡用廚師打比方。想讓培根好吃很容易，難的是把那些奇形怪狀的食材做得能吃。處理一個沉重、情緒濃度極高的題材，還能讓人笑出來，那需要手藝，而笑本身就是給觀眾的解脫。
他講了諾姆·麥克唐納（Norm Macdonald）的一個笑話：一個人走進酒吧，看見吧檯上坐著個腦袋是個大南瓜的傢伙。這人問他你怎麼了，對方說，我撿到一盞神燈。第一個願望，一億美元，到賬了，感覺還行。第二個願望，跟想要多少美女就有多少美女，實現了，非常棒。第三個願望，我要一個巨大的南瓜腦袋。
這個笑話有好幾層。馬利斯說它是很好的試金石：一部分人當場笑瘋，另一部分人盯著螢幕一動不動。
他還複述了 Conan 脫口秀史上最經典的片段之一。柯特妮·索恩-史密斯在宣傳一部和 Carrot Top 合作的新片，說片子還沒定名，諾姆在旁邊接了一句“我知道該叫什麼，叫票房毒藥（Box Office Poison）”。全場爆笑。她趕緊補救說，工作暫定名是《董事長》（Chairman of the Board）。諾姆又接：“對，無聊（bored）是 B-O-R-E-D。”
萊克斯說他看諾姆的影片會一直笑，但說不清為什麼。馬利斯給了一個解釋：諾姆讓人感覺他在跟觀眾席裡的你說話，他在對你眨眼，好像在說“你敢信我在幹這個嗎”。他更像觀眾中的一員，而非臺上那群人的一員。
他最喜歡的喜劇演員是尼爾·漢堡（Neil Hamburger），本名格雷格·特金頓（Gregg Turkington）演的一個角色。穿著燕尾服、戴著大眼鏡、端著三杯水、對著麥克風咳嗽著上臺，講的都是爛笑話，而且故意講得很爛。
有次在洛杉磯，馬利斯前面那桌坐著一對情侶，女生轉頭問男朋友：“這什麼玩意兒？”
尼爾上 Jimmy Kimmel 節目時講了個笑話：“為什麼 ET 那麼愛吃花生醬巧克力豆？因為在他老家，精子就是這個味。”沒人笑。他說：“別這樣，我有癌症。”鏡頭切到觀眾席一個抱臂的海軍陸戰隊員。
他給 Tenacious D 做過開場，地點在愛爾蘭或者英國。臺下噓聲一片，因為他的笑話就是不搞笑。他講：“我那個婊子前妻跟她的牙醫跑了，跑哪兒去了？我不知道。下個月開庭我就知道了，阿拉斯加。”臺下繼續噓。他說：“你們想不想看 Tenacious D 上臺？”“想。”“那這樣，我講下一個笑話，你們要是不噓我，我就把他們叫上來。”
他講的是：“我們能不能達成共識，喬治·布什是美國史上最差的總統？”全場鼓掌。他接著說：“這就讓他的兒子小布什其實是史上最好的總統這件事，顯得更加奇怪了。”
只有兩個人笑。他說：“太好了，看來我得加個返場。”又講了十分鐘。
越是沒得可失去的地方，笑話越硬
聊到朝鮮，馬利斯提了一個讓人意外的觀察：朝鮮人很有幽默感。這讓他更難受。
如果這些人是機器人、是無人機，事情會容易得多。他們有鮮明的性格，有很強的幽默感。沒有什麼比笑更人性、更普世，而且笑是免費的。（邁克爾·馬利斯）
他是 2012 年去的，距今十一年。他的導遊還在那裡，他見過的每一個人都還在那裡。朝鮮最近把邊境通了電，連那少數能逃出來的人也逃不掉了。
萊克斯把這個現象歸因於蘇聯那套很深的教育系統：你讀過大量文學，所以你知道世界的殘酷、不公和荒誕，只要那些作品寫的不是當下的政權。
馬利斯把範圍擴得更大。非裔美國人、猶太裔美國人、性少數群體，在喜劇行業裡都佔據不成比例的位置。他的解釋裡沒有玄學：站在外側往裡看的人，視角天然不同；手上沒什麼可失去的時候，至少還能互相逗笑。
蘇聯長大的經歷給了他另一種東西：把詩歌和文學典故當成社交開場白的習慣。在那種文化裡，你走到一個陌生人面前，念一小段，兩人就聊起來了。美國這邊對應的東西是 small talk，聊天氣，聊路況，這讓他很抓狂。
他也講了自己家庭裡的一次集體作案。妹妹比他小十二歲，有次在車上，他一本正經地跟她說：你出生的時候一隻眼睛比另一隻大，做手術才修好。妹妹立刻轉頭喊媽。他媽說，寶貝，重要的是你現在很漂亮，這有什麼大不了的，就是個小手術。妹妹又打電話給外婆，外婆說，他怎麼現在才跟你講這個，這本來就不是什麼大事。
全家沒有一個人拆穿他。
我當時特別佩服，我心想，這個家庭在某個非常具體的維度上，質量真高。（邁克爾·馬利斯）
感恩節清單：外甥、書架和社交媒體
萊克斯讓他列感恩清單。他先說家人，並且強調自己能給出證據。
外甥盧卡斯六歲。這孩子偷了他媽媽的手機，發現通訊錄裡外婆的備註是“媽”，就打電話過去：“邁克爾住院了，病得很重，他不讓我告訴你。”外婆當場慌掉。他說：“惡作劇。”
馬利斯帶他去海湖莊園參加迪內什·德索薩（Dinesh D'Souza）新片《警察國家》（Police State）的首映。路上他跟盧卡斯說，我們要去總統的房子。盧卡斯問：“白宮？”他說不是，是一位前總統。盧卡斯想了想說：“亞伯·林肯？”
馬利斯說這叫“小孩邏輯”，他在用正確的邏輯推導，只是資料庫不夠。就跟 AI 一樣，你得先把資料喂進去。
到了現場，盧卡斯走到每一位穿晚禮服的女士面前說：“你好美。你出生的時候就是女孩嗎？”一個六歲小孩問出這話，效果極其好笑。
他感恩的第二件事是職業。標準很簡單：不需要有老闆。他給了一個更具體的座標，作為一個移民，他家裡現在擺著瑪格麗特·撒切爾的書架。他說這話聽起來像開玩笑，其實完全不是。
第三件事是社交媒體。他知道這段會得罪人。他的理由是三條：第一，有怪癖愛好的人能找到同類，這在過去幾乎不可能；第二，那些本來會失聯的人可以一直保持聯絡；第三，可以曝光企業和機構的無良行為。
他把 Twitter 的社群筆記（Community Notes）稱為“史上最偉大的發明”。
1997 年那個華盛頓的週末
聊到孤獨時，馬利斯講了一個很具體的畫面。1997 年夏天他在華盛頓實習。那座城市一到週末就空掉，政府關門，人都走光。
他說他記得很清楚：當你打完當天第三個電話，你就知道不會再有人打來了。那種感覺是黑色的。
我到現在都還經常想起那種孤獨的感覺。（邁克爾·馬利斯）
萊克斯說自己有時候還會有那種感覺。
馬利斯說他現在沒有了。原因是搬到奧斯汀之後，身邊有一批認識了很多年、瞭解他底細的人，隨時想約就能約到。他承認自己忘了紐約後期有多孤立：人一個接一個地走，然後常去的地方也一個接一個地關門，等到反應過來，已經徹底與世隔絕。
順帶講了個插曲。那位在德州議會上提出獨立公投議案的人，週一議案上臺，週二馬利斯就上了羅根（Joe Rogan）的節目討論這件事，等於給了它全國性的曝光。一兩個月後，那位議員被議會全票除名，原因是他把一名實習生灌醉並行為不當。
他說這事後來就沒了下文，但“德州獨立”仍然寫在德州共和黨的黨綱裡。萊克斯感慨，歷史裡大概堆滿了這種失敗的革命者故事：我們記住的永遠是英雄，那些輸掉的人連名字都留不下來。
把史料寫得像小說，才算寫作的頂點
萊克斯提到自己那段時間在聽謝爾希·普洛希（Serhii Plokhy）的有聲書，寫俄烏戰爭的那本。馬利斯說他讀過，還把普洛希寫蘇聯解體的那本當成《白藥丸》（The White Pill）的參考資料。
萊克斯的評價是：普洛希有立場，但寫的時候保持著史家的冷靜、清晰和嚴謹。寫普京的題材，很多人會寫成意識形態宣傳和美德表演，他沒有。
馬利斯列了自己喜歡的幾個歷史學家：亞瑟·赫爾曼（Arthur Herman）、維克多·塞巴斯蒂安（Victor Sebestyen，他說這是自己最喜歡的）、大衛·佩特魯薩（David Pietrusza）、羅恩·切諾（Ron Chernow，漢密爾頓傳記的作者）。
他給出了一條標準：把資料組織起來，寫得像小說一樣好讀。讀者既能學到發生過什麼、我們是什麼樣的人，讀的過程本身又是享受。
在我看來，這就是寫作的頂點。（邁克爾·馬利斯）
他用了 acme 這個詞。萊克斯追問這詞什麼意思，他說是頂點、是 zenith。萊克斯說，你們作家是不是就靠這種高階詞唬人，你完全可以說“最好”。
他補了一句，acme 也是《兔八哥》裡那家公司的名字，歪心狼買的炸藥就是 Acme 牌。
反猶主義有一套別處沒有的演算法
話題轉到近期關於反猶主義的討論。萊克斯問，它跟別的仇恨是一回事嗎？
馬利斯的回答很直接：不是。別的種族主義者、恐跨者、恐同者、厭女者、排外者，不會公開、甚至半公開地主張殺掉某個群體。而針對猶太人的這種仇恨，不只是被討論過，它真的發生過。不只是大屠殺，還有幾百年的迫害史。
他引了一本卡米拉·帕格利亞（Camille Paglia）推薦給他的書，《猶太人的撒旦化》（The Satanization of the Jews）。
他描述這套思維的特殊結構：猶太人被當成唯一有能力行善或作惡的群體，而且只被承認作惡的那一半。
他舉了個例子。小布什的白宮裡坐著切尼、賴斯、鮑威爾、拉姆斯菲爾德，一堆新保守派顧問。這套世界觀的處理方式是：如果房間裡十個人裡有一個猶太人，那壞事就是他的責任，其餘九個人則是“被猶太人控制的木偶”。
他的反駁是：就算地球上沒有猶太人，約翰·博爾頓、利茲·切尼、林賽·格雷厄姆照樣會推動戰爭。這個說法站不住腳。
壞事發生就怪猶太人。猶太人做了好事？那不算數，等著吧，他遲早要幹壞事。可人本來就是有時做好事、有時做壞事，憑什麼只在他做壞事的時候計數。（邁克爾·馬利斯）
萊克斯問，那怎麼對抗這種仇恨，以及一般的仇恨？
馬利斯說這個問題他想過很久。他的觀察樣本是美國的同性戀群體：從八十年代那些得艾滋病的人恐懼到死都不敢告訴父母，到今天的時代廣場掛滿彩虹旗。
他管這個方法叫大使計劃。你一旦真的認識某個群體裡的一個人，就再也難以對他所屬的整個群體抱有偏見。因為那個群體從一個遠處的概念，變成了“我有個同事就是這樣，他人是有點討厭，看事情的角度跟我不太一樣，但他不是什麼壞人”。
對抗任何形式的偏見的唯一辦法，就是你自己成為打破那個刻板印象的正面樣本。（邁克爾·馬利斯）
“宗教是人民的鴉片”這句話他不同意
萊克斯引了馬克思那段名言：宗教是被壓迫生靈的嘆息，是無情世界的心，是無聲處的靈魂，是人民的鴉片。然後問：他說得有沒有道理？
馬利斯的反應很激烈。他討厭這個句子，討厭那種 Reddit 式的網路無神論激進主義。
理由是他認識很多人，在找到信仰之後成了客觀上更好的人：開始有意識地生活，認真對待道德，努力做一個有德性的人。他說我們都會失敗，但他們在努力。
他也不是完全否定馬克思的語境。他替這句話做了一次辯護式解讀：馬克思那個年代，大眾確實在被壓榨、被餓著，然後被告知別急，天堂裡有你的財寶。所以你現在忍一忍。這是一筆爛交易。這個批評在當時有它的物件。
但他認為這段話跟今天的情況對不上。
他講了一個大學同學的故事，還專門點了名，肖恩·謝羅德（Sean Sherrod）。那年他十七八歲，大一，正在讀各種批判《聖經》的材料，一條一條地拿給肖恩看。肖恩把手放在他肩上說：邁克爾，你說什麼都不會讓我失去信仰。
馬利斯說，這句話極其自覺，也極其深刻。
他又拿戒酒互助會打比方。有人嗤笑說酗酒不是病，是選擇。他的回應是：你不知道整個生活被毒品或酒精毀掉是什麼感覺。如果一個人必須告訴自己“我有這個病”，而這個說法讓他不再喝酒，從此變成一個可靠、負責、有道德的人，那我看不出有什麼害處。
這種激進無神論很廉價，我完全不同意。我也完全不喜歡那句話。（邁克爾·馬利斯）
他順帶引了別人的一句：人們為了顯得比別人聰明而玩的那些遊戲，既讓人壓抑又讓人煩。他的補充是，就算你證明了另一個人蠢，也不等於你聰明，你們可能都蠢。恭喜你，你證明了別人蠢，然後呢？
對貶低和嘲笑，他的處理方式極其乾脆：在社交媒體上，只要有人在他的地盤上嘲諷他，立刻拉黑。你想在自己的地盤上嘲諷，隨便；在我這兒不行，我不認識你。
世界更像《美麗新世界》，不是《1984》
萊克斯介紹約翰·米爾斯海默（John Mearsheimer）的“進攻性現實主義”：國家要生存，就最大化軍事力量；國家之間處在無政府狀態，彼此無法確定對方不會動武，所以只能靠實力來控制這種不確定性。
馬利斯不同意這套框架。他指著萊克斯的書架說，這個世界離《美麗新世界》近得多，離《1984》遠得多。
他的例子是中國對美國的影響。他判斷那種影響主要靠軟實力，軍事層面的威脅很小。中國不需要靠“我要殺了你”來威脅美國，它更願意把力氣花在滲透大學、花在 TikTok 這類地方。如果這套說法在流行文化時代之前或許還成立，放在今天就說不通了。
美國自己的霸權也一樣。他把這套霸權的主要來源放在流行文化的輸出上，美軍基地的作用有限：當你出口觀念和文化，別的國家的人會覺得離你更近，把你當朋友，順帶接受你的價值觀。這是成本極低的宣傳方式。
他舉歐洲為例。美國文化在歐洲非常受歡迎，瑞典的獨立流行樂是最好的，而他們用英語唱。這跟美軍基地關係不大，跟二戰後格局有些關係，但主要是音樂、電視劇和電影的出口。
萊克斯追問：可這兩件事好像高度相關，美國在軍事和文化上都是第一，很難拆開。
馬利斯承認這點，但堅持成本差異是重點。用影響力比用威脅便宜太多，這也是社交媒體的陰暗面。
他拿疫情做例子：確實存在威權手段，但更關鍵的是絕大多數人主動接受了那一整套，而且是靠說服。甚至到現在還有很多人盼著那套東西回來。
萊克斯順勢開玩笑：所以你背後是哪個情報機構在資助？馬利斯說，摩薩德。萊克斯說，這就是高水平訪談的做法。
拆箱：一座叫“偶然的低語”的雕塑
馬利斯帶來一個箱子，說是要在節目裡拆。他先講了一套自己的習慣：每完成一件值得記住的事，就買一件東西紀念那個時刻。因為日子難的時候，人會忘記自己做成過什麼。不必是了不起的東西，第一份工作、一次加薪，都算。
箱子裡是雕塑家傑克·邁克爾·辛格（Jake Michael Singer）的作品。馬利斯在 Instagram 上關注了他，對方回關，然後說了一句話：如果藝術家做出來的東西不能進入他喜歡、敬佩的人的空間裡，那當藝術家有什麼意義？
辛格是萊克斯的聽眾，說兩人的節目給了他快樂。於是他做了這件作品，名字叫《偶然的低語》（Chance Murmur），從土耳其寄過來，跨越了半個地球。
拆開之後馬利斯開始講這件作品為什麼打動他。它把好幾個引用疊在一起：勝利女神尼刻（Nike），所以它像天使；還有義大利未來主義，他最喜歡的二十世紀初藝術流派，那個流派試圖在二維或三維中捕捉運動。
萊克斯對著鏡頭道謝，說謝謝傑克創造了美的東西，謝謝你關心像我和邁克爾這樣的人，我們真的感受到了這份心意。
馬利斯補了一句：家裡有一件對你有意義的東西，日子不好的時候看一眼，就能想起那種精神。
然後他掏出一張紙，說自己準備了一段吐槽。
他要罵的是那種觀點，尤其在某些保守派裡流行：當代藝術全是醜的、抽象的、就是垃圾。他承認確實有很多垃圾，但畫廊裡有很多東西既不貴，就是做給普通人掛在家裡的，作者是年輕藝術家，他們在給世界增加美。
他念了一串自己只在 Instagram 上關注、沒有任何私人關係的畫廊名字：Outre Gallery、Antler Gallery、Giant Robot 2、Beinart、Spoke Art Gallery、密爾沃基的 Var Gallery（他去過，東西一點不貴）、洛杉磯他最喜歡的 Corey Helford，還有 Night Gallery、Vertical Gallery、Avant Gallery、Hive Gallery、Haven Gallery、Curio Art Gallery。
你不用去博物館，站在一幅畫前面心想“這我看不懂”。你一眼看過去就知道這是什麼，它很美。而且你在支援一個年輕的、有創造力的人，讓他把世界變好一點。（邁克爾·馬利斯）
萊克斯接了一句自己的體會：他喜歡去看開放麥，因為好笑並不是單口喜劇唯一的美。那種美在於“他敢上”，在於他跳出去講那個笑話，而臺下只有三個人，其中兩個喝多了在走神，他還在拼命講。這就是人的精神。
馬利斯說，羅珊娜（Roseanne Barr）跟他講過吉爾伯特·戈特弗裡德（Gilbert Gottfried）的事：凌晨三點上臺，臺下只有她和另外三個喜劇演員，四個人笑到不行。
兩人交換了各自喜歡的喜劇演員名單。萊克斯的答案是諾姆·麥克唐納（如果拿槍指著頭讓他立刻回答）、路易·CK、米奇·赫德伯格（Mitch Hedberg）。馬利斯提到奧斯汀喜劇母艦（Comedy Mothership）裡的一批人：泰·里維拉（Thai Rivera）、大衛·盧卡斯（David Lucas）、戴夫·蘭道（Dave Landau）、喬·馬奇（Joe Machi）。
萊克斯順口說了個資料：奧斯汀這個俱樂部現在很難進，票一放出來就沒。馬利斯說他在那兒看泰·里維拉那場，是搬來之後看過最好的一場，看完心想“這人比我還刻薄”，於是主動聯絡了他。
67 個皂位和 86 個候選
萊克斯問他，在奧斯汀有什麼小習慣讓他快樂。
馬利斯先做了個預警：這個故事一開始會顯得有趣，然後是有趣中帶點擔憂，最後你會想找出口在哪兒。他說這事他只跟兩三個人講過。
他有一套自己的溼剃系統。溼剃就是拿刷子、拿罐裝的皂、打出泡沫、塗臉、再刮。他說自己以前討厭刮鬍子。後來發現這個圈子裡有幾十家做剃鬚皂的手工作坊，他試過兩三百種，因為要測香味、測泡沫厚度、測刮完順不順。
他的原話是：我沒有在編，我沒這個創造力。他把這套系統固化成了一個 67 塊的迴圈。
規則是這樣的：67 個位置，每用完一塊皂，那個位置就空出來，他會往這個空位裡試新皂，試到滿意的為止，然後這個位置就被填上。所以他現在固定用 67 塊，手上另有 86 個候選在排隊。
他點名了幾家。最好的一家原來叫 Grooming Department，最近改名 Aion Skincare，他評價說最精緻、種類最豐富、質量極高。另一家叫 Barrister and Man，如果只推薦一款，他推薦 Cheshire。還有 Chiseled Face，有一款叫 Midnight Stag，聞起來像車庫，是他最愛的皂之一。
他還提了 Phoenix Shaving，有一款叫 Aloha Smackdown，聞起來像夏威夷潘趣酒；給他特調過一款叫 Yule Ham，聞起來像火腿；還有一款拉麵味的，叫 Rock and Ramen，聞起來像杯面。每年他們出一個倒數日曆，十二天，每天一小份皂加一份鬚後水。還有新澤西一家素食品牌 Catie's Bubbles，有一款叫 Knee High to a Grape，聞起來像葡萄汽水。
萊克斯問，這套會收斂到一個更小的集合嗎？馬利斯說不會，就是 67，永遠會有空位被填上。
然後萊克斯說了一句讓氣氛沉下來的話：你知道我腦子有多喪嗎？你講這個的時候，我在想，邁克爾·馬利斯這輩子還剩下多少塊皂。人可以按天算、按月算、按年算，也可以按皂算。
馬利斯說這太黑了。萊克斯說，因為每一次刮鬍子都是一次小小的、美好的體驗。
馬利斯承認這點，還教了他一個詞，是朋友傑基告訴他的化妝品行話：Touching Pan，用到能看見盒底的那一刻，是個大日子。
至於這愛好怎麼來的，他開頭先罵了一句人：都怪科爾·斯特賴克（Cole Stryker）。他住在這位洛杉磯朋友家的時候，對方問他要不要試試溼剃，還拿出一塊 Proraso，說這是義大利爺爺輩的皂。然後他就掉進去了，現在都不知道自己花了多少錢。
萊克斯說，那這是個開心的“去你的”，謝謝你，科爾。
把標準從“偉大”換成“更好”
萊克斯問，怎麼才能快樂。世界上有很多孤獨和悲傷。
馬利斯給的建議很具體：把“我要成為一個偉大的作家”換成“我可以成為一個更好的作家”。同樣，不要求自己成為偉大的播客，那永遠不會發生，但可以做一個更好的播客。可以做一個更好的人，在健身房更好一點，時間管理更好一點。
他還強調了可量化指標的作用。要有自己能控制的東西，要有能看見的曲線。他說尤其是男性，當你有一張圖表，資料告訴你你在進步，成就感立刻就來了。
第二層建議是別怕犯錯。如果生活裡某件事不成立，比如你沒有朋友，那就去試，最壞的結果是搞砸了，但至少你學到了東西。
他回憶自己小時候極度害怕失控，怕被人當面打臉，比喻意義上的。後來他想明白了：所有重要的人都捱過打臉。看看任何一位總統，無論是誰。所以問題不在於怎麼避免被打臉，而在於變得足夠強，能捱得住。
萊克斯引了一句布考斯基：有時候你早上爬下床，覺得自己撐不下去了，但你在心裡笑了，因為你想起以前每一次這麼感覺的時候。
他說自己有時覺得這是人生最糟的一天，然後過一會兒就對此發笑，因為他知道大腦的起伏規律。
他問馬利斯有沒有抑鬱過。馬利斯的區分很有意思：他把“低谷”和“抑鬱”分開。事情變糟、你感覺糟，這合理。抑鬱在他看來，是事情不糟的時候你依然感覺糟，那幾乎按定義就是非理性的。
萊克斯補充了另一種形態：不是悲傷，是精疲力盡，什麼都不想做，不想活，覺得“就這樣吧”。還有一種是極端的自我批判，他說這也是他怕的東西，因為他自己的大腦長期處在自我批判狀態。
馬利斯給出的處方是：你鎂補得不夠。萊克斯問是口服還是塞。馬利斯說，塞。然後補了一句，不過鎂還是吃藥片吧。
背叛、忠誠，和一種不設防的活法
萊克斯問他最怕什麼。馬利斯想了很久，說自己一時想不出來。硬要說的話，是不斷增長的威權主義，但那不是個人層面的恐懼。他還補了一句：這事在加拿大比在美國更緊迫。
萊克斯問，你怕死嗎？他說不怕。
說實話，如果我明天就死，我覺得我用手裡這些牌打得不錯。我做了對自己有意義的事，在我在意的事情上推動了一點點。我對我在意的人是好朋友，我救過幾個人的命。（邁克爾·馬利斯）
他的標準很低：一個人只要能站在自己墳前說一句“我讓這個世界比我來的那天好了一點”，就算過關。他不覺得這有多難。
萊克斯問他有沒有被背叛過。他說當然。萊克斯說自己經歷的背叛比預想的少。
馬利斯說，蘇聯長大的背景會讓人預設所有人都是定時炸彈，早晚要背叛你。但他刻意做了一件事：不讓某次背叛影響他之後跟人打交道的方式，也不把背叛當成常態。他認為這一點極其重要。
他甚至說，自己已經不會對背叛者生氣了，反而會替對方難受。因為那個人並不需要這麼做。而且無論他怎麼給自己找理由，心裡都清楚自己對一個不該被這樣對待的人做了壞事，這一關很難過。
萊克斯說他還是會替那些人說好話，會共情。馬利斯說了一個區分：共情是把自己放進對方的鞋子裡，同情是為對方難過、希望他好。他能同情，但很難共情，因為他自己內疚感極強，如果他對信任自己的人做了那種事，會在腦子裡轉很久。
萊克斯說，也許對方當時很痛苦，也許走投無路。馬利斯說，那是同情，不是共情。
兩個人在公開位置上練出的兩套防禦
兩人都處在高度公共的位置上，都承認必須極其小心地選擇身邊的人。萊克斯說他為此很難受，因為他習慣性地信任所有人。馬利斯說那太瘋狂了。萊克斯說，可替代方案是什麼？馬利斯說，有個篩選器。
萊克斯說他確實有篩選器，決定了跟誰來往，但在那層以內，他選擇看見人身上的好。而那極少數翻車的時刻，會讓他心碎。
萊克斯問他有沒有心碎過。有。因為愛情嗎？有。
這一段裡，兩個人的差別擺得很清楚。馬利斯用系統來擋，把人際交往分層，先過篩選器，再投入；萊克斯把篩選器放在最外面，進去之後就不設防。兩種做法各有代價：前者避免了大多數傷害，也失去了很多意外的親近；後者得到了很多意外的親近，也要一次次承受那種心碎。
馬利斯追問過萊克斯一件事：你的家人怎麼看你？你跟馬斯克坐在一起，跟內塔尼亞胡坐在一起，跟坎耶坐在一起。他們是表現出為你驕傲，還是更像“你怎麼還沒約到這個人”？
萊克斯說，後者。他們會說，多請邁克爾·馬利斯來。馬利斯接了一句“人民的選擇”。
萊克斯說家人當然很驕傲，但他們也會跟他吵，就像跟任何一個親近的普通人吵一樣。驕傲那部分不常表現出來，這是他們關係的性質。
馬利斯順著說了自己的部分：他不跟父親來往。原因是他從父親那裡從來沒有得到過一句“幹得好”。到了一定階段他會想，我為什麼要一直尋求一個永遠得不到、而且現在即使得到了也沒有意義的認可。
他也承認父親在他小時候教了他很多東西：極聰明，也很有缺陷，這很正常，所有人都有缺陷，除了他自己。父親幽默感很好，也有很糟的時候，那些老爸笑話裡偶爾有真的很好笑的。他對學習的熱愛來自父親。馬利斯說自己書架上現在有 98 本待讀的書。
他講了一個讓他震驚的往事。一個朋友遇到高中同學，那人在火車上攔住她說：“你又不是大學生，不用再讀書了。”馬利斯說他聽到這個說法感到恐懼。
萊克斯談到自己想做西方經典閱讀計劃時遭到的那波攻擊，馬利斯認為那大概是網際網路最糟糕的一次表現。萊克斯的解釋比較溫和：這件事本來是一個很簡單的、對某樣東西的讚美，但網際網路的預設反應是懷疑，這麼簡單的東西背後一定藏著什麼。
馬利斯說他最想對抗的就是犬儒主義，那是一種徹底的放棄：什麼都爛，這個爛那個爛。他的回答是：大部分東西確實是爛的。大部分單口演員很爛，大部分電影很爛，所有播客都很爛。但這不重要。重要的是那些好的東西，它們才是改變你人生的東西：書、人、喜劇演員、劇、音樂。
萊克斯補了一句：就算是爛東西里也有好時刻，有美的時刻。馬利斯說，有一些，不是全部。
美在別人看見垃圾的地方
話題最後落到一個很軟的地方。萊克斯說自己此刻非常放鬆，非常開心，這件雕塑在八個不同的層面上都美。
馬利斯說他有時覺得自己就是《美國麗人》裡那個看著塑膠袋在風中打轉然後哭出來的傢伙，很多人覺得那個鏡頭很可笑，他覺得那個人完全是對的。
在別人看見垃圾的地方看見美。我更願意當看見美的那個人，而不是看見垃圾的那個人。（邁克爾·馬利斯）
萊克斯說他也是。然後他開了個玩笑：我看你的時候也看見美，雖然大多數人看見的是垃圾。他轉頭對著那隻鸚鵡擺件說，這話說得不公平，你別老這麼說。
笑完之後他說了真話：他很感激這段友誼，感激馬利斯這個人，感激這些年來的每一次對話。
馬利斯的回答是他播客的名字：You are welcome。
這一期真正給出的東西
整場對話裡沒有多少宏大結論。兩個人在感恩節這天聊了螳螂蝦、諾姆·麥克唐納、朝鮮、67 塊剃鬚皂和一具朱鷺木乃伊，中間夾著關於人性善惡的一次正面交鋒。
那次交鋒沒有結論。馬利斯認為人本質上被一層很薄的文明包裝著，壓力一大就會做出五年前自己都無法想象的事。萊克斯認為人心裡那口善的井更深，只是不常被看見。兩人都沒說服對方，最後是萊克斯那句“我在各處都看見美”和馬利斯那句“我也是，但不等於每個人身上都有”，各自收場。
馬利斯那句“人是動物”的說法值得單獨拿出來。他說的不是人很壞，他說的是大多數人處在一種近乎失序的內部狀態裡，外面糊著一層文明和體面。這層東西很薄，一旦外部壓力足夠大，人會做出連五年前的自己都無法想象的事。這個判斷很冷，但它有一個實用推論：不要用一個人在平穩時期的言行，去推斷他在極端處境下的選擇。反過來，也不要因為在極端處境下見過某些人的選擇，就認為所有人在平穩時期的好都是假的。
能帶走的，是馬利斯那些極度具體、幾乎有點偏執的生活方法：
- 把“偉大”換成“更好”，並且給自己一個可量化的指標。“我要成為偉大的 X”是個無法驗證的目標，“我這周要跑多少公里”“我這周要寫多少字”是能看見曲線的。資料往上走，成就感就來了，這跟你是不是天才無關。
- 刻意不把某次背叛當成世界的常態。被傷害之後最大的代價往往來自那次傷害本身，而它對你此後待人方式的改寫會持續更久。馬利斯的做法是記住這件事，但不讓它影響他跟下一個人的相處。
- 每完成一件值得記住的事，給自己買一件實物。不需要貴，作用是在你狀態很差的時候，家裡有個東西能提醒你“我做成過事”。這條對長期做創造性工作的人尤其有用，因為這類工作的記憶衰減得極快。
- 遇到你不懂的領域，說“我不懂，你多講講”。這比硬湊一個觀點體面得多，而且對方通常正等著有人問。馬利斯說，一個養豚鼠的人坐在你對面，你可以覺得他怪，也可以說“坐下，全都告訴我”，後者是更好的活法。
- 把愛好做深，深到有系統和編號。67 個皂位聽起來荒謬，但它帶來的快樂是真實的，因為系統本身產生了期待感。任何領域做到這個深度都會這樣，前提是你願意為一件無用的事投入不成比例的精力。
- 去開放麥，去看小畫廊，去 Etsy 上找手作。這些地方的東西大多不完美，但它們是活的，是有人在拼命夠一個東西。馬利斯的判斷標準很實用：一個喜劇演員值不值得你買票，和一個人值不值得你尊重，是兩個問題，前者不行不代表後者不行。
- 不要用別人的身份來豁免他該受的批評。這條在反猶主義那段裡最鋒利，對億萬富翁、對任何群體都適用。財富和身份不構成批評的禁區。
- 給自己的葬禮寫一份設想。馬利斯說他想要一場吐槽大會，不要眼淚。這個設想反過來會逼你想清楚一件事：你這輩子希望別人記住的是你的成就，還是你讓他們笑過、好受過的那幾個瞬間。
節目最後，萊克斯唸了紀德的一句話作為結尾：人除非有勇氣離開海岸，否則永遠發現不了新的海洋。
馬利斯那天帶來的東西，恰好是這句話的一個笨拙版本：一個人可以同時收藏三葉蟲化石、痴迷 67 塊剃鬚皂、堅持不在陌生人面前裝懂，並且相信在別人看見垃圾的地方看見美，是一種更值得過的活法。
文稿來自 Lex Fridman 官網公開發布的官方 Transcript（含說話人與時間戳）。
Lex Fridman (00:00:00): What’s your opinion on my bird here, Mr. Parrot?
Michael Malice (00:00:04): It’s a Macaw. Scarlet Macaw.
Lex Fridman (00:00:07): What?
Michael Malice (00:00:08): It is a Scarlet Macaw.
Lex Fridman (00:00:10): Oh, you know birds?
Michael Malice (00:00:11): Yeah. And that’s actually not life-sized.
Lex Fridman (00:00:15): Are you saying he’s not real?
Michael Malice (00:00:17): I’m saying it’s not to scale.
Lex Fridman (00:00:19): Okay. But he’s real.
Michael Malice (00:00:21): Are we doing that Monty Python sketch?
Lex Fridman (00:00:25): Everything is a Monty Python sketch.
Michael Malice (00:00:26): I don’t think Monty Python’s funny.
Lex Fridman (00:00:28): You don’t?
Michael Malice (00:00:29): At all. Not once.
Lex Fridman (00:00:29): That explains so much.
Michael Malice (00:00:31): Does it? What does it explain?
Lex Fridman (00:00:32): What do you think is funny?
Michael Malice (00:00:35): You not answering that question is pretty funny.
Lex Fridman (00:00:38): Yeah. What do you think is funny, having a mantis shrimp?
Michael Malice (00:00:41): No.
Lex Fridman (00:00:42): You think Big Lebowski is funny?
Michael Malice (00:00:44): Oh God, no.
Lex Fridman (00:00:46): This is getting worse and worse. The following is a conversation with Michael Malice, anarchist and author of Dear Reader, The New Right, The Anarchist Handbook, The White Pill, and he is the host of the podcast, YOUR WELCOME. This is a Thanksgiving special of the pirate and oceangoing variety. So once again, let me say thank you for listening today and for being part of this wild journey with me. This is a Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here’s Michael Malice.
Michael Malice (00:01:34): The box?
Lex Fridman (00:01:35): Yeah.
Michael Malice (00:01:35): The mystery box.
Lex Fridman (00:01:36): I’m wondering what’s in it.
Michael Malice (00:01:36): There’s something in that box of exquisite beauty, both literally and in what it symbolizes and why it is here.
Lex Fridman (00:01:46): Given the kind of human being you are, I’m terrified at what you find beautiful.
Michael Malice (00:01:52): That’s a good point. You kind of hit me with a curve ball. 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, “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 (00:02:12): Yeah. You commented on Twitter about some creature, a rainbow type creature.
Michael Malice (00:02:17): The peacock mantis shrimp.
Lex Fridman (00:02:18): Yeah, it’s beautiful.
Michael Malice (00:02:20): 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’ll cut your thumb down to the bone. So I had one as a pet. All night I would hear banging on the PVC pipe. And I’ve got to tell you, if they have the best eyesight of any animal because they see in 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 (00:03:01): But they’re colorful and beautiful.
Michael Malice (00:03:03): That’s species is, yeah.
Lex Fridman (00:03:04): What was it like having one as a pet, and why did you do it?
Michael Malice (00:03:09): 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.
Lex Fridman (00:03:32): Why’d you get rid of it?
Michael Malice (00:03:34): I didn’t have, I guess, the right minerals in the mix because-
Lex Fridman (00:03:36): It died?
Michael Malice (00:03:37): … it had a problem moulting once. Yeah, it couldn’t moult correctly.
Lex Fridman (00:03:40): Wow. Do you miss it? Think about it still?
Michael Malice (00:03:43): I do think about it, to be honest. I still have a pair of it’s punching appendages from when it moulted.
Lex Fridman (00:03:51): What pet animal in your life do you miss the most, that has been in your life that you think about?
Michael Malice (00:03:59): I’ve never had cats or dogs growing up or anything like that, which I… Oh God. My problem is-
Lex Fridman (00:04:07): Here we go.
Michael Malice (00:04:08): … if I like something, I will go down a rabbit hole. 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 (00:04:25): What would be the first tattoo? My face? Would it go on your ass cheeks or where would you put them if it was my face?
Michael Malice (00:04:36): If I got your face, it would definitely be on my arm right here.
Lex Fridman (00:04:39): If you had multiple faces, would you put like?
Michael Malice (00:04:42): I think delts, right? Shoulders, different faces on different shoulders.
Lex Fridman (00:04:44): And when you flex?
Michael Malice (00:04:45): I’d want some symmetry.
Lex Fridman (00:04:46): Yeah. Would you get a dictator? If you had to get a dictator, who would you get?
Michael Malice (00:04:51): Would have to be Kim Jong-il. Right? Because I wrote the book on him.
Lex Fridman (00:04:54): Oh, it’s like the plugging your book in the tattoo?
Michael Malice (00:04:57): I don’t think plugging, it’s just I have a personal connection to this stuff.
Lex Fridman (00:05:00): Good opener, the conversation. People would be asking why him and he’d be like, “Well, I wrote a book about it.” And I’d be like, “Oh, okay.”
Michael Malice (00:05:07): Okay. Here’s why-
Lex Fridman (00:05:08): “Let me check it out.”
Michael Malice (00:05:08): That would be a bad. No, that’s not what happens.
Lex Fridman (00:05:10): Okay.
Michael Malice (00:05:11): Here’s the thing.
Lex Fridman (00:05:12): What happens?
Michael Malice (00:05:12): 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. I don’t expect you to know anything. You’re not on the spot. And half of what you’re saying is not accurate either. It’s fine.”
Lex Fridman (00:05:36): How often did they bring up Dennis Rodman?
Michael Malice (00:05:38): A hundred percent.
Lex Fridman (00:05:39): A hundred percent of the time.
Michael Malice (00:05:40): “Oh, so do you know Dennis Rodman?”
Lex Fridman (00:05:42): Yeah.
Michael Malice (00:05:42): But I don’t understand why. I guess, people feel the need to, “All right, now we’re talking about this subject. I just got to 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. And it’s like it’s okay to be like, “Yeah, I don’t know anything about that. Tell me more.” There’s lots of things I don’t know anything about.
Lex Fridman (00:06:02): What’s your opinion on my bird here, Mr. Parrot?
Michael Malice (00:06:07): It’s Macaw, Scarlet Macaw.
Lex Fridman (00:06:10): What?
Michael Malice (00:06:11): It is a Scarlet Macaw.
Lex Fridman (00:06:13): Oh, you know birds?
Michael Malice (00:06:14): Yeah. And that’s actually not life-sized.
Lex Fridman (00:06:18): Are you saying he’s not real?
Michael Malice (00:06:20): I’m saying it’s not to scale.
Lex Fridman (00:06:22): Okay. But he’s real.
Michael Malice (00:06:24): Are we doing that Monty Python sketch?
Lex Fridman (00:06:27): Everything is a Monty Python sketch.
Michael Malice (00:06:29): I don’t think Monty Python’s funny.
Lex Fridman (00:06:31): You don’t?
Michael Malice (00:06:31): At all. Not that once.
Lex Fridman (00:06:32): That explains so much.
Michael Malice (00:06:33): Does it? What does it explain?
Lex Fridman (00:06:35): What do you think is funny?
Michael Malice (00:06:38): You not answering that question is pretty funny.
Lex Fridman (00:06:39): Yeah. What do you think is funny, having a mantis shrimp?
Michael Malice (00:06:44): No.
Lex Fridman (00:06:45): Do you think big Big Lebowski is funny?
Michael Malice (00:06:46): Oh God, no. Although…
Lex Fridman (00:06:49): This is getting worse and worse.
Michael Malice (00:06:50): To be fair, I only tried to watch Big Lebowski after it’s been part of the culture for many years.
Lex Fridman (00:06:57): Right.
Michael Malice (00:06:58): 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.
Lex Fridman (00:07:10): Right.
Michael Malice (00:07:10): So maybe if I’d seen it when it came out, before it became a thing, I would’ve enjoyed it. I couldn’t get through it. I couldn’t get through 20 minutes.
Lex Fridman (00:07:17): Is that how you feel about Schindler’s List?
Michael Malice (00:07:21): Well…
Lex Fridman (00:07:21): It’s so much easier for me to stare at you when you have sunglasses on.
Michael Malice (00:07:24): I didn’t think you’d be the one making Holocaust jokes today. And yet, here we are.
Lex Fridman (00:07:28): And cut scene. I actually have no trouble making eye contact with you when you’re wearing shades.
Michael Malice (00:07:35): Yes, because you’re a robot.
Lex Fridman (00:07:36): Two copies of myself.
Michael Malice (00:07:38): Yeah. Oh, you’re seeing yourself in them?
Lex Fridman (00:07:39): Mm-hmm.
Michael Malice (00:07:40): Okay, cool.
Lex Fridman (00:07:40): Yeah, I’m having a conversation with myself. It’s not your fault, Lex.
Michael Malice (00:07:46): They made you like this. You were just a good little Roman in Saint Petersburg.
Lex Fridman (00:07:51): I could see Mr. Parrot a little bit too.
Michael Malice (00:07:54): But what do you find funny? Come on. This is an interesting subject.
Lex Fridman (00:07:57): Well, I find Monty Python. I find absurdity funny.
Michael Malice (00:08:00): 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 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. 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. 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 I made you laugh. Make fun of me. Make me the punching bag. Even literally, take me out of that coffin and beat the-.
Michael Malice (00:08:55): Make me a pinata. I don’t care. I don’t understand, well, I do understand, but it’s sad for me when people are like, “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’s takes skill. 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.
Lex Fridman (00:09:29): Yeah. It’s all about timing.
Michael Malice (00:09:33): Yeah.
Lex Fridman (00:09:34): Yeah.
Michael Malice (00:09:38): What’s the difference? You want to hear one of my jokes?
Lex Fridman (00:09:41): Is it a pirate joke? Because that’s the only kind I accept today.
Michael Malice (00:09:45): Okay.
Lex Fridman (00:09:45): But no, go ahead. It doesn’t have to be a pirate joke this one time.
Michael Malice (00:09:48): Do you know who Lia Thomas is?
Lex Fridman (00:09:50): Yeah.
Michael Malice (00:09:51): What’s difference between Lia Thomas and Hitler?
Lex Fridman (00:09:53): What?
Michael Malice (00:09:54): Lia Thomas knows how to finish a race.
Lex Fridman (00:09:58): Very nice. Very nice.
Michael Malice (00:09:59): Did I just get the gold medal?
Lex Fridman (00:10:00): Good job. Why does it take pirates forever to get through the alphabet?
Michael Malice (00:10:09): Why?
Lex Fridman (00:10:11): Because they spent years at sea.
Michael Malice (00:10:13): Oh, I thought it was going to be an [inaudible 00:10:15] joke.
Lex Fridman (00:10:15): Nope. No.
Michael Malice (00:10:16): That’s a good one. I like that.
Lex Fridman (00:10:17): Yeah.
Michael Malice (00:10:18): When I was in North Korea.
Lex Fridman (00:10:21): Oh, you know Dennis Rodman? It’s a callback.
Michael Malice (00:10:23): 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 robots or drones. They have big personalities, big senses of humor, and that made it much harder to leave and interact with these people because I mean, there’s nothing more human and universal than laughter and laughter’s free.
Lex Fridman (00:10:47): Are you saying there’s humor even amongst the people that have most of their freedoms taken away?
Michael Malice (00:10:52): Especially. I mean, again, we’re from the Soviet Union, there’s [inaudible 00:10:57] 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? 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 (00:11:19): Well, that’s interesting that they still have a sense of humor. I attribute the Soviet Union for having that because of the really deep education system. You got to read a lot of literature.
Michael Malice (00:11:29): Okay.
Lex Fridman (00:11:30): And because of that, you get to kind of learn about the cruelty, the injustices, the absurdity of the world.
Michael Malice (00:11:40): Right.
Lex Fridman (00:11:40): As long as the writing is not about the current regime.
Michael Malice (00:11:43): 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. 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 (00:12:14): So what do you find funny? What makes you giggle in the most joyful of ways? The suffering of others?
Michael Malice (00:12:24): I mean, there are YouTube videos of fat people falling down and they’re really funny.
Lex Fridman (00:12:36): There’s two kinds of people in this world, those that laugh at those videos and those that don’t.
Michael Malice (00:12:42): No. And those that are in them. 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…” and so I’ll tell you the joke. This is Norm McDonald. A guy walks into a bar and he sees someone at the bar who has a big pumpkin for a head.
Michael Malice (00:13:07): And the guy’s like, “Dude, what happened to you?” He goes, “Ugh, 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, I wished for a hundred million dollars.” He’s like, “Yeah, did you get it?” He goes, “Yeah.” He goes, “In my bank account. Feels fine.” He goes, “All right. Well, the second wish, I wished to have sex with as many beautiful women as I want.” He goes, “Did that happen?” He goes, “Yeah, it was amazing.” He goes, “Then what?” “Well, I wished for a giant pumpkin head.”
Lex Fridman (00:13:34): Yeah.
Michael Malice (00:13:35): 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. And I just love that kind of humor.
Lex Fridman (00:13:45): Well, Norm McDonald is just, I watch his videos all the time. He’s a guy that definitely makes me giggle. And he’s one of the people that makes me giggle for reasons I don’t quite understand.
Michael Malice (00:13:58): Did you ever see him with Carrot Top on Conan O’Brien?
Lex Fridman (00:14:01): No.
Michael Malice (00:14:02): Making fun of Carrot Top?
Lex Fridman (00:14:03): No.
Michael Malice (00:14:05): This is probably the best talk show clip of all time. He’s on with Courtney Thorne-Smith. She was on Melrose’s 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 is like, “Oh, what’s it going to be called?” And she’s like, “Doesn’t have a title yet.” And Norm goes, “Oh, I know what should be called, Box Office Poison.” And they’re all laughing. And she’s like, “No, no, no, the working title is Chairman of the Board. And Conan goes, “Do something with that smart ass.” And Norm goes, “Yeah, bored is spelled B-O-R-E-D.” And they all just completely lost it.
Lex Fridman (00:14:39): There’s something about him with words spoken out of his mouth with the way he turns his head and looks at the camera.
Michael Malice (00:14:46): 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 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 (00:15:06): Yeah, it feels like he’s on our side.
Michael Malice (00:15:08): Yes. Yeah.
Lex Fridman (00:15:09): Whatever the hell “Our” means.
Michael Malice (00:15:11): Roseanne got him his first job.
Lex Fridman (00:15:14): Man. Roseanne, you and her have been hanging out.
Michael Malice (00:15:17): 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. It does not turn off. And you’re sitting there and you’re like, “Holy crap.”
Michael Malice (00:15:40): 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. You think of Roseanne Barr as this force of nature, like a tsunami.
Lex Fridman (00:16:01): Big, yeah.
Michael Malice (00:16:01): She’s five three, I’d say maybe 130. And she puts on the sunglasses, you think this little old 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. There was an old satirical magazine in the, I think early two thousands called Heeb, 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 found it on eBay, I wanted 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.” And I call her mom and it hangs over my desk because I have her good domestic goddess energy flowing at me. What?
Lex Fridman (00:16:52): What do you find? What else? So Norm McDonald. I guess, we’ve landed on that.
Michael Malice (00:16:56): No. My favorite comedian is-
Lex Fridman (00:16:56): We agree on something.
Michael Malice (00:16:57): 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 Gregg Turkington. So he comes out in a tuxedo, big eyeglasses, holding three glasses of water, coughing into the mic. 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 it was like, “Why does ET Reese’s Pieces so much? Well, that’s what sperm tastes like on his home planet.” 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.
Michael Malice (00:17:58): 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. 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, Alaska.”
Michael Malice (00:18:20): 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 my Tenacious D?” “Yeah.” “Come on, let me hear it. Do you want to see Tenacious D?” “Yeah.” 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 (00:18:44): Self censorship is never good.
Michael Malice (00:18:45): 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 (00:18:58): I take it back on the self-censorship.
Michael Malice (00:19:01): So two people laugh and he goes, “Oh, that’s amazing. I guess I’ll do an encore.” And he did 10 more minutes. It was just, I love him so much.
Lex Fridman (00:19:09): It’s interesting. They opened for Tenacious D. Jack Black, that’s a comedic genius of a different kind.
Michael Malice (00:19:16): 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. I know he kind of get types cast as this one specific type, but he’s really, really talented.
Lex Fridman (00:19:30): But also just the pure joy.
Michael Malice (00:19:32): Yes. He’s clearly having fun.
Lex Fridman (00:19:35): Okay. It is Thanksgiving. So in the tradition, following tradition, what are you thankful for, Michael, in this world?
Michael Malice (00:19:45): Do you have a list too?
Lex Fridman (00:19:46): No, not really.
Michael Malice (00:19:47): Really?
Lex Fridman (00:19:48): It’s up in here.
Michael Malice (00:19:49): Oh, I mean, but you have several things you’re thankful for.
Lex Fridman (00:19:51): Yes.
Michael Malice (00:19:52): Okay.
Lex Fridman (00:19:52): Yes.
Michael Malice (00:19:53): One of the things I’m-
Lex Fridman (00:19:54): My list comes from the heart. I don’t have to write anything down.
Michael Malice (00:19:56): Well, I don’t have written down.
Lex Fridman (00:19:57): Okay.
Michael Malice (00:19:58): 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, is now six years old. And 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.
Michael Malice (00:20:27): He didn’t want to tell you.” And she’s freaking out. He goes, “Prank.” So I took him, Dinesh D’Souza just released a movie called Police State, which was actually really good, highly recommend it. I was surprised how much I liked it because he wasn’t going Republicans good, Democrats bad.
Michael Malice (00:20:41): It was just about authoritarianism. And he had a movie premier 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.” He’s like, “Oh, the White House?” And I’m like, “No, no, a former president.” He goes, “Oh, Abe Lincoln?” And I’m like, “Okay, kid logic.” He’s giving logical answers. This is kind of like AI, you have to program it. It’s using logic correctly.
Lex Fridman (00:21:04): You should have told him it’s a president that’s second to only Ab Lincoln in terms of greatness.
Michael Malice (00:21:11): Accomplishments, yeah. He went up to all the women in their ball gown, 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 for me.
Lex Fridman (00:21:39): Getting to watch them find out about the world for the first time.
Michael Malice (00:21:43): And also training them, that he loves being funny and having fun.
Lex Fridman (00:21:49): You’re his audience in a sense?
Michael Malice (00:21:51): Yeah, but.
Lex Fridman (00:21:52): Because you giggle and?
Michael Malice (00:21:54): 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 things that actually enraged 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.
Michael Malice (00:22:10): I was in the car with my sister when she was 10, 12, whatever. She’s much younger than me. She’s 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. If you want to learn more about squids, go to octonation.com.
Lex Fridman (00:22:32): OctoNation. Shout out.
Michael Malice (00:22:34): Shout out to Warren.
Lex Fridman (00:22:34): There’s a lot of fascinating stuff. OctoNation on Instagram.
Michael Malice (00:22:37): Yes. I was in the car with my sister. She’s 10 or 20.
Lex Fridman (00:22:40): Me as a pirate, I’m sorry for the rude interruptions. I appreciate that comment, especially.
Michael Malice (00:22:45): Yeah, it’s a great. Yeah.
Lex Fridman (00:22:46): These jokes and thoughts are coming to me at a ten-second delay, so I apologize. Anyway, you were telling about the asymmetrical.
Michael Malice (00:22:54): I know where I was, don’t worry. I got it.
Lex Fridman (00:22:54): All right.
Michael Malice (00:22:56): So I tell my-
Lex Fridman (00:22:56): Sometimes you need help.
Michael Malice (00:22:57): No.
Lex Fridman (00:22:57): The age is getting to you.
Michael Malice (00:22:57): I was…
Lex Fridman (00:23:02): Your skin is showing it. It’s getting dark.
Michael Malice (00:23:06): 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 things that you’re beautiful now. It’s like, what’s the big deal? It was just a little surgery.” And I says like, “All right.” Calls grandma. And grandma goes, she goes, “Michael said that I was born one of the eyes.” She goes, “Why is he telling you this now? It’s not a big deal.” So the fact that everyone went with this…
Lex Fridman (00:23:35): Oh, nice.
Michael Malice (00:23:36): I was so impressed. I was like, “This is a quality family in this very specific regard.”
Lex Fridman (00:23:41): Yeah.
Michael Malice (00:23:41): Does your family have a sense of humor?
Lex Fridman (00:23:43): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Michael Malice (00:23:43): Yeah.
Lex Fridman (00:23:47): Soviet culture, there’s a dark sense of humor.
Michael Malice (00:23:50): Very much so.
Lex Fridman (00:23:51): There’s…
Michael Malice (00:23:52): Wordplay.
Lex Fridman (00:23:52): Wordplay. Yeah. Yeah. And especially the Russian language allows for some-
Michael Malice (00:23:58): Yes.
Lex Fridman (00:23:59): Hilarity to it. There’s also culture of poetry and my dad, my mom too, but they remember a lot of lines from books and poems. So you can do a lot of fascinating references that add to the humor and the richness of the conversation.
Michael Malice (00:24:18): I feel like that’s a very Russian thing. At a party or maybe at a bar or something, I don’t know where you’d meet people, these are such great ice-
Lex Fridman (00:24:18): I never go out.
Michael Malice (00:24:25): I meant in Russia.
Lex Fridman (00:24:27): Oh.
Michael Malice (00:24:27): I meant these would be such good icebreakers, right? You go up to someone and goes, “Hey, did you hear this one?” [foreign language 00:24:32] And you just tell him some little story.
Lex Fridman (00:24:34): Did you say icebreakers because it’s cold in Russia? I’m here all night.
Michael Malice (00:24:42): That’s true. You never leave the house.
Lex Fridman (00:24:42): Literally.
Michael Malice (00:24:46): I feel like that’s a thing.
Lex Fridman (00:24:47): Yeah.
Michael Malice (00:24:48): And that’s not a thing in America.
Lex Fridman (00:24:51): You mean like witty banter?
Michael Malice (00:24:53): No. Meaning you go up to stranger and 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 (00:25:02): Yeah.
Michael Malice (00:25:02): I think here it’s more small talk, which.
Michael Malice (00:25:00): … We’re chatting. I don’t think that’s a thing here. The thing here, it’s more small talk, which drives me crazy.
Lex Fridman (00:25:05): So what else are you thankful for?
Michael Malice (00:25:06): Well, what’s something you’re thankful for?
Lex Fridman (00:25:09): Well, you went with family. I’m definitely thankful for family.
Michael Malice (00:25:12): Okay.
Lex Fridman (00:25:12): Yeah.
Michael Malice (00:25:14): If I may ask, how do they react to you? You’re sitting down with Elon, you’re sitting out Netanyahu, sitting down 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?
Lex Fridman (00:25:30): Yeah, more Michael Malice, please.
Michael Malice (00:25:34): The people’s choice.
Lex Fridman (00:25:36): Yeah, They’re very proud. But they get argumentative and they’re just like a regular human being with whom I’m close and we just argue about stuff. They’re maybe not enough show the being proud of, but that part is just the nature of our relationship. It’s also the same with your parents?
Michael Malice (00:25:56): 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 getting it for? And from whom it wouldn’t mean anything at this point anyway.
Lex Fridman (00:26:14): Well, that’s interesting. There’s a journey like that for a lot of people with their father or their mother. They’re always trying to find approval, and that’s life for a lot of people. That’s a really big part of the human condition is that relationship you have with your father, with your mother. I don’t know. It’s a beautiful thing whether it’s been a rough childhood or a beautiful one, all of it. That’s who you are. The relationship, especially early on in your life with your father or with your mother, is extremely formative.
Michael Malice (00:26:48): 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-
Lex Fridman (00:26:48): Much older.
Michael Malice (00:27:09): Much older, much older. 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’s taught me a lot as a kid, he really encouraged me very much to… He has 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 that I got that from him. And I have got literally right now, 98 books on my shelf to read. I remember I had a friend and she ran into someone she went to high school with and he stopped me 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 (00:28:00): Yeah, yeah. Boy, don’t I know it.
Michael Malice (00:28:07): You do laugh, but there’s a lot of things I don’t understand. When you got heat for, I want to read the Western Classics. To me, that might’ve been the internet at its absolute worst.
Lex Fridman (00:28:21): I think there’s just a cynical perspective you can take that this is such a simple celebration of a thing, that there must be something behind it. I think the internet for good and bad, is just skeptical. What’s behind this?
Michael Malice (00:28:36): 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, this sucks. Most things suck. Most stand up comedians suck. Most movies suck. All podcasts suck. But it doesn’t matter.
Lex Fridman (00:28:54): Especially yours.
Michael Malice (00:28:55): Especially mine. It’s unwatchable.
Lex Fridman (00:28:58): You’re welcome. You can’t even spell it correctly.
Michael Malice (00:29:03): 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 (00:29:17): And even the terrible things have good moments, beautiful moments.
Michael Malice (00:29:22): Some, not all.
Lex Fridman (00:29:23): Your podcast being an example of not all. I keep listening for something good, something good.
Michael Malice (00:29:31): In all fairness, none of my guests have anything to offer.so that’s not on me. I try.
Lex Fridman (00:29:37): Yeah. Well, I wish you’d talk a little less in your podcast. It’s a little excessive. I only listen for the underwear commercials.
Michael Malice (00:29:46): Sheathunderwear.com. Promo code Malice.
Lex Fridman (00:29:48): I haven’t seen you do it in a while, but this kind of commentary on a debate or I think it was with Rand, like an Ayn Rand debate or something.
Michael Malice (00:30:00): Oh yeah. Malice at the Movies. I watched the video and I broke it down.
Lex Fridman (00:30:03): That was really great. I wish you did that more.
Michael Malice (00:30:05): I haven’t done livestreaming 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 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 (00:30:26): Coming out of the closet, finally. Go ahead. Who’s the lucky guy?
Michael Malice (00:30:38): You’re the one in drag.
Lex Fridman (00:30:42): Guns out. Guns out.
Michael Malice (00:30:45): He makes me call him Sex Friedman.
Lex Fridman (00:30:48): You like it.
Michael Malice (00:30:50): I didn’t say I did.
Lex Fridman (00:30:52): All right.
Michael Malice (00:30:52): 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. 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 downloaded 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 Leib, who passed away. Rest in peace, Gary. Introduced me to Harvey because he did the animation for the movie. 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.
Michael Malice (00:31:43): 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. It’s ironic reading it now, because when you’re a writer, obviously different books, you put different aspects of yourself into them, and this story is very, very dark because basically they did all the right things and they went nowhere. What I realized was reading it now, that all these fears I had over 20 years ago about what if I’m not going to 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 (00:32:22): Do you feel like you’ve made it because you said you could pay your rent.
Michael Malice (00:32:26): 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?
Lex Fridman (00:32:36): Mm-hmm.
Michael Malice (00:32:37): This is going to sound like a joke, and it’s not. This is being an immigrant, I own as you know, Margaret Thatcher’s bookcases.
Lex Fridman (00:32:45): Yes.
Michael Malice (00:32:45): So to me as an immigrant, to have her bookcases in my house, I’ve made it.
Lex Fridman (00:32:51): You’re right. It’s not a joke.
Michael Malice (00:32:53): There’s nothing funny about it at all.
Lex Fridman (00:32:55): Not laughing.
Michael Malice (00:32:55): It’s time to get serious.
Lex Fridman (00:32:59): Oh, nice. Oh, now I’m more nervous and aroused. So what else are you thankful for? So we’re both thankful for family.
Michael Malice (00:33:10): the fact that I can-
Lex Fridman (00:33:11): Still get it up?
Michael Malice (00:33:12): What’s that?
Lex Fridman (00:33:13): Nothing, go ahead.
Michael Malice (00:33:14): I think as an author, to be able to write what you want and have of enough 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. There’s lots of stand-ups who aren’t world famous, but they have perfectly good living. They do their gig, they do what they love. I feel very, very blessed. You must be thankful for your career?
Lex Fridman (00:33:43): Yeah, yeah. Career wise. But I think the best part about it’s just making friends with people I admire.
Michael Malice (00:33:52): Okay.
Lex Fridman (00:33:53): Quite honestly, just friends. The people that have gotten to know me, I hide from the world sometimes, I hit some low points, especially with all the new experiences and just the people that have been there for me and haven’t given up on me.
Michael Malice (00:34:06): There’s days, and I’m sure you’ve had this also where I literally don’t speak to someone the whole day. And in certain times in my life, I remember very vividly, I was in DC in ’97, I was an intern, and that summer, DC closes down on the weekends. And I remember those weekends when I got off the phone with the third person. I knew there was no possibility anyone was going to 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 (00:34:44): I still feel alone like that sometimes. You don’t feel alone?
Michael Malice (00:34:51): Not anymore.
Lex Fridman (00:34:53): What’s the reason, you think?
Michael Malice (00:34:57): Because I have a lot of people who I care about and who care about me. 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.” 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 self. And that is something I don’t take lightly.
Lex Fridman (00:35:42): Now you moved to Texas, it’s going to secede.
Michael Malice (00:35:44): Yeah.
Lex Fridman (00:35:44): It’s just a very-
Michael Malice (00:35:46): Do you know what happened with that?
Lex Fridman (00:35:47): No.
Michael Malice (00:35:48): I forget the guy’s name, and it’s probably for the best. 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. 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.” I go to the Texas legislature, meet with the guy, have a nice conversation. A 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 a girl in this case. But yeah, so that was my little Texas independence moment.
Lex Fridman (00:36:36): Oh, it didn’t go anywhere?
Michael Malice (00:36:38): It did not go anywhere.
Lex Fridman (00:36:39): Wow.
Michael Malice (00:36:41): But it’s still part of the platform of the Texas Republican Party.
Lex Fridman (00:36:45): It’s fascinating that history is probably laden with stories like this of failed revolutionaries. We celebrate the heroes, but then there’s the losers like…
Michael Malice (00:36:55): Myself.
Lex Fridman (00:36:56): Yeah.
Michael Malice (00:36:56): Yeah.
Lex Fridman (00:36:58): And we’re going to mark that one as a failure and edit it out and moving on. So thankful. Friendships, right? But by the way, I want to say just to you, I’m thankful in these lonely moments, for people who write books. I’ve been listening to audiobooks a lot and reading a lot. I really like audiobooks actually. I don’t know, I can just name random person, Serhii Plokhy. He’s a historian I’m reading on the-
Michael Malice (00:37:28): Wait, I read him. What did he…
Lex Fridman (00:37:29): It’s just he’s written a book most recently about the Russia-Ukraine war.
Michael Malice (00:37:35): He wrote another one that I read. Didn’t he write about-
Lex Fridman (00:37:37): Empires, I think.
Michael Malice (00:37:38): The fall of the Soviet Union or something like that.
Lex Fridman (00:37:38): Yeah, yeah.
Michael Malice (00:37:40): Yeah. It was very, very good.
Lex Fridman (00:37:41): He’s great.
Michael Malice (00:37:42): I used him as a resource for the White Pill.
Lex Fridman (00:37:44): He’s objective while still having emotion and feeling to it. He has a bias.
Michael Malice (00:37:49): That’s fine.
Lex Fridman (00:37:53): A lot of times when you write a story that involves Putin, people are really ideological. They don’t write with a calmness and the clarity and the rigor of history, there’s emotion in it. There’s almost a virtue signaling. And he doesn’t have that, even though he is Ukrainian and has very strong opinions on the matter. Anyway, there’s people like that and he’s done an incredible job researching a recent event. Like he says, I was looking at everything that’s been written about the war in Ukraine and realizing the old Churchill line, that historians are the worst ones to write about current events except everybody else. And so he’s like, “I might as well just write about this war.” And he does an exceptional job summarizing day by day, the details of this war. Anyway. So I’m just grateful for a guy like that.
Michael Malice (00:38:50): For me, I’ll name some historians I love. Arthur Herman, Victor Sebastyen is probably my favorite. David Pietrusza, P-I-E-T-R- U-S-Z-A. When you are a historian, and I try to do this to some degree in the White Pill as much as I could. But when you take data and you make it read like a novel, 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. I have so much admiration-
Lex Fridman (00:39:25): What does Acme mean?
Michael Malice (00:39:27): Top.
Lex Fridman (00:39:27): Okay.
Michael Malice (00:39:28): Zenith.
Lex Fridman (00:39:29): Zenith? Okay. Is this what writers do? They just come up with these incredibly sophisticated words? I’m impressed.
Michael Malice (00:39:35): Well, Acme is-
Lex Fridman (00:39:35): Because you could have just said the best of writing.
Michael Malice (00:39:38): Acme is also the company in Bugs Bunny and Wile E. Coyote is always Acme, like Acme bombs. When they are that good, it leaves me in awe.
Lex Fridman (00:39:52): It’s just-
Michael Malice (00:39:53): Ron Chernow is another one.
Lex Fridman (00:39:54): Who?
Michael Malice (00:39:55): He wrote the Hamilton biography.
Lex Fridman (00:39:57): Oh, nice. Well, I have a lot of favorite historians about the whole time period of World War II, William Shirer, people that lived during it, especially. I really like those accounts. Obviously Soldier Knudsen, he’s not a historian, but his accounts are fascinating. Actually, how much do you talk about Soldier Knudsen?
Michael Malice (00:40:20): Never.
Lex Fridman (00:40:21): Not much, right? Why not?
Michael Malice (00:40:24): I feel like I wanted to. There’s nothing I could add to him.
Lex Fridman (00:40:30): But he’s the Michael Malice of the previous century?
Michael Malice (00:40:34): No, he’s talented, charismatic, and skilled. So he’s not the Michael Malice. Yeah. I feel like I didn’t read Gulag Archipelago for the White Pill.
Lex Fridman (00:40:47): You didn’t?
Michael Malice (00:40:48): I didn’t. No. 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 a NeoCon and being a warmonger in contemporary times.
Lex Fridman (00:41:02): Oh, I see.
Michael Malice (00:41:02): And I think comparisons between Putin and Stalin, although there is a Venn diagram, I think are a bit much, because I think it’s very hard to claim that if Putin conquered Ukraine, that there’d be a genocide. I think that’s a very hard argument to make.
Lex Fridman (00:41:19): In these tense times. Even the comparisons of what’s going on in Israel on either side, comparisons to the Holocaust are also troubling in this way.
Michael Malice (00:41:28): Yes. And I also don’t like how that… I got in trouble. There was some literal demon who works at the Atlantic.
Lex Fridman (00:41:36): As opposed to a regular demon?
Michael Malice (00:41:38): As opposed to figurative demon.
Lex Fridman (00:41:40): I didn’t know they employed demons.
Michael Malice (00:41:41): They exclusively employ demons at the Atlantic. And he was giving me crap this a couple of 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. 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, use it to influence politics, you have to be up for criticism, Bill Gates. To protect these people from criticism just on the base of their identity is deranged to me.
Lex Fridman (00:42:35): But also, the Holocaust as a historical event and the atrocities within it are just singular in history. And so comparing them…
Michael Malice (00:42:47): What’s the utility? You’re just basically trying to take this brand. I’m using that term in a very specific way. And when they say climate denial, no one’s denying climate exists. So you’re just trying to go off Holocaust denial. I think it’s shameless and I think it’s gross.
Lex Fridman (00:43:04): And it cheapens everything because there’s deep important lessons about the Holocaust.
Michael Malice (00:43:09): Yes.
Lex Fridman (00:43:10): To me, the lessons are about how extreme it can get.
Michael Malice (00:43:15): And how fast.
Lex Fridman (00:43:17): Yeah, and how fast.
Michael Malice (00:43:17): That’s the one. So people ask, “Oh, are humans basically good? Are they basically evil?” I always say they’re basically animals. And I think most people are almost fundamentally deranged. And that there’s basically this veneer of civilization and decency. And when shit hits the fan and we see this over and over, they do things that would’ve been completely unthinkable even to themselves five years ago.
Lex Fridman (00:43:46): Most people are fundamentally deranged with a veneer of civility.
Michael Malice (00:43:50): There’s a show called-
Lex Fridman (00:43:51): I Think I disagree with that.
Michael Malice (00:43:53): What’s the show called? I’m having Alzheimer’s because of the advanced age.
Lex Fridman (00:43:58): The age, the skincare. It’s just working well.
Michael Malice (00:44:00): There’s a show called, I Think You Should Leave. It’s a sketch comedy.
Lex Fridman (00:44:00): I think you should leave. Okay, sorry.
Michael Malice (00:44:04): 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. Another great example of this, when this is dealing with people who are literally crazy, have you ever seen the show, Hoarders?
Lex Fridman (00:44:27): Yeah.
Michael Malice (00:44:27): 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. And it always follows that exact pattern.
Lex Fridman (00:44:44): Yeah, I don’t know. I think the deep ocean of the human mind is good. There’s a longing to be good to others.
Michael Malice (00:44:56): I have seen literally no evidence of this. And I know everything’s a deep ocean with you people, but-
Lex Fridman (00:45:01): What do you mean you people?
Michael Malice (00:45:02): Pirates.
Lex Fridman (00:45:04): Oh.
Michael Malice (00:45:05): I don’t see it.
Lex Fridman (00:45:05): What’s that Mr. Parrot? He’s an antisemite/ No, that’s not nice to say in front of such a large audience. You’re embarrassing me, Mr. Parrot.
Michael Malice (00:45:18): Lex, you have-
Lex Fridman (00:45:19): What’s that Mr. Parrot? He’s a run-of-the-mill troll and barely an intellectual. That’s not nice to say. That’s not true. We talked about this. You have to see the good in people.
Michael Malice (00:45:31): You have seen personally, how quickly and easily it is for human beings to form outgroups and to just rid others, 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. I don’t see how that’s compatible with this essential desire to do good.
Lex Fridman (00:45:58): No, I think it’s like in 1984, the two minutes of hate. There is a part of humans that wants to be tribal and wants to get angry and hateful. And then that hate is easy to direct by, especially people as you, as an anarchist, talk about, there are people in power that direct that anger.
Michael Malice (00:46:20): Yes.
Lex Fridman (00:46:21): But I think if you just look at recent human history, the desire for good, the communal desire for good outweighs that, I think. Most of life on earth right now, people are being good to each other in a most fundamental sense relative to how nature usually works.
Michael Malice (00:46:40): Okay. I think you’re both wrong about people and about nature. So nature is not inherently violent in the sense, for example, if anyone has an aquarium or if you look at wildlife, yeah, you’re going to have predator or 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 (00:46:40): Mm-hmm.
Michael Malice (00:46:59): 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 (00:47:12): Good, I think is a thing that gets illustrated when you’re challenged, when there’s difficult situations.
Michael Malice (00:47:17): Yes, exactly. Yes.
Lex Fridman (00:47:18): Civility is a good starting point. And then when there’s a big challenge that comes, people step up on average.
Michael Malice (00:47:26): I completely agree with you that human beings are capable of such profound goodness, that it makes you extremely emotional. And I certainly think that’s that’s true, but I think that’s more unusual than it’s the norm.
Lex Fridman (00:47:42): I see beauty everywhere.
Michael Malice (00:47:43): So do I, but that doesn’t mean it’s in every person.
Lex Fridman (00:47:46): Not in every person, but in most people. I wish there was a really good way to measure this, my general sense of the world. It’s just there’s so much incredible both in terms of economics, in terms of art, in terms of just creation as a whole, that’s happened over the past century, that it feels like the good is out powering the bad.
Michael Malice (00:48:09): You just did the perfect segue to the box.
Lex Fridman (00:48:16): What’s in the box? Is it your fragile ego?
Michael Malice (00:48:21): 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 (00:48:28): No, I didn’t. I write all your material, you hack.
Michael Malice (00:48:33): 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 made accomplishments. It doesn’t have to be some amazing factory. It could just be like my first job or I got a raise or you know what? Anything. So there’s this amazing sculptor named Jake Michael Singer, a singer who’s a sculptor, and I saw a piece of him.
Lex Fridman (00:49:18): How’s his singing voice? This joke’s not going-
Michael Malice (00:49:23): Hold on. I could go somewhere with this.
Lex Fridman (00:49:24): Okay.
Michael Malice (00:49:25): How’s his singing voice?
Lex Fridman (00:49:26): Do you want me to write your joke for you?
Michael Malice (00:49:27): Yeah. What’s the punchline? Harrrd. There it is, that’s the one.
Lex Fridman (00:49:33): That’s what she said.
Michael Malice (00:49:34): So I followed him on Instagram, he followed me back and 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 and our episodes together give him joy. So he said, “If I make Lex a sculpture, will he put it on the-“
Michael Malice (00:50:00): He said, “If I make Lex a sculpture, will he put on the shelf behind him?” And what that reminded me of is when I was a kid, you read Batman comics and there’s the Bat Cave. And the Bat Cave has all this cool stuff in it. I didn’t realize until much later that all of those things in the bat cave had an origin story. So the giant penny, the dinosaur, there was actually a story where that came from. 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 (00:50:42): So you want to do a little unboxing?
Michael Malice (00:50:42): Yes.
Lex Fridman (00:50:44): Okay. Axe or…
Michael Malice (00:50:49): Body spray?
Lex Fridman (00:50:54): All right.
Michael Malice (00:50:54): Let’s do it.
Lex Fridman (00:50:55): Let’s unbox.
Michael Malice (00:50:59): I’m so excited. He lunges out of the box.
Lex Fridman (00:51:04): You know that Steven Seagal movie where there’s a stripper that comes out of the box?
Michael Malice (00:51:07): Is there?
Lex Fridman (00:51:08): Under Siege.
Michael Malice (00:51:09): Okay.
Lex Fridman (00:51:09): He’s on a boat. You’re not an action film guy.
Michael Malice (00:51:14): No.
Lex Fridman (00:51:19): One.
Lex Fridman (00:51:21): What does the pirate say when he turns 80?
Michael Malice (00:51:24): What?
Lex Fridman (00:51:25): Aye matey.
Michael Malice (00:51:29): Aye matey. Oh.
Lex Fridman (00:51:32): Oh.
Lex Fridman (00:51:33): See, that’s how I know you don’t like humor.
Michael Malice (00:51:35): I just don’t like pirates.
Lex Fridman (00:51:37): Well, your mom does.
Lex Fridman (00:51:39): Do you play any musical instruments?
Michael Malice (00:51:40): No. Neither do you. I’ve seen your guitar videos.
Michael Malice (00:51:46): Okay.
Lex Fridman (00:51:48): Here’s a big piece of wood for you. That’s what it feels like, just so you know.
Michael Malice (00:51:57): Oh, wow. Do you need help?
Michael Malice (00:51:57): Oh my God.
Lex Fridman (00:52:00): This traveled across the world.
Michael Malice (00:52:05): 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 futurist, which is my favorite art movement from the early 20th century, they tried to capture motion in 2D or 3D form.
Lex Fridman (00:52:31): Well, Jake, thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for creating beautiful things. Thank you for caring about somebody like me and somebody like Michael. We really feel the love.
Michael Malice (00:52:43): That’s the other thing.
Lex Fridman (00:52:43): Thank you.
Michael Malice (00:52:45): 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’ve got a little rant ready. Do you want to hear my rant?
Lex Fridman (00:53:00): Yeah. Let’s go.
Michael Malice (00:53:02): One of the things that drives me crazy is when people, especially conservatives, think that all contemporary art is ugly or abstract or 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. They’re trying to add beauty. 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?
Michael Malice (00:53:40): So I don’t have any relationship with any of these people, these are just some galleries I follow on Instagram. 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.
Lex Fridman (00:53:58): What kind of art are we talking about? Everything? Paintings?
Michael Malice (00:54:00): Mostly paintings. Mostly paintings. Some sculptures too, like this. Corey Helford is my favorite one in LA. Night 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. And you’re supporting someone who’s young and creative trying to do something and make the world a better place.
Michael Malice (00:54:31): 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 (00:54:43): Okay.
Michael Malice (00:54:44): It’s like the difference between, there’s a standup where I’ll pay money for the ticket, and someone 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 (00:55:01): Well, as the analogy goes, I really like going to open mics, actually, because funny… It sounds absurd to say, but funny isn’t the only thing that’s beautiful about standup comedy, it’s the…
Michael Malice (00:55:14): The agony.
Lex Fridman (00:55:17): It’s going for it. It’s trying to be funny. It’s taking the leap, trying the joke. And some of the best stuff is actually funny, but the audience is like three people, two of whom are drunk and bored, and you’re still going for it. And that’s the human spirit right there.
Michael Malice (00:55:35): Roseanne was telling me how Gilbert Gottfried would go on, it was like 3:00 in the morning. And it was her and three other comics in the audience and they all were just dying.
Lex Fridman (00:55:46): Yeah.
Michael Malice (00:55:46): He was just killing them. Who’s your favorite comedian?
Lex Fridman (00:55:53): Dave Smith.
Michael Malice (00:55:54): Who?
Lex Fridman (00:55:56): And cut scene. Favorite comedian. First, Norm Macdonald. If you put a gun to my head and I had to answer really quickly, that would be him.
Michael Malice (00:56:04): Okay.
Lex Fridman (00:56:07): I would also say Louis C.K.
Michael Malice (00:56:09): Oh, wow. Yeah. Oh my God, yes.
Lex Fridman (00:56:12): But that’s almost like a vanilla answer at this moment in history because it’s like a-
Michael Malice (00:56:16): Louis C.K.’s pretty radioactive.
Lex Fridman (00:56:18): He is. Well, yeah. He does the tough topics-
Michael Malice (00:56:21): Sure.
Lex Fridman (00:56:22): … the best. Mitch Hedberg. The wit of a good one-liner is great. I guess that’s what Norm Macdonald was a genius at. What about you?
Michael Malice (00:56:33): 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.
Lex Fridman (00:56:43): Yeah, he’s great.
Michael Malice (00:56:43): Thai 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. David Lucas is another one, a buddy of mine.
Lex Fridman (00:56:57): You just said it twice, I think. David.
Michael Malice (00:57:00): I’m thinking of Dave Landau, excuse me.
Lex Fridman (00:57:01): Yeah.
Michael Malice (00:57:01): Dave Landau. Joe Machi is-
Lex Fridman (00:57:04): Old age catching up.
Michael Malice (00:57:04): It’s true though.
Lex Fridman (00:57:05): It’s true.
Michael Malice (00:57:06): It’s true.
Lex Fridman (00:57:07): It’s true.
Michael Malice (00:57:08): Dave Lucas.
Lex Fridman (00:57:10): You ever been to the Comedy Mothership? It’s a great spot.
Michael Malice (00:57:13): Where is that? Is that in Austin?
Lex Fridman (00:57:15): Austin? Is that where Willie Nelson is from? I haven’t really… Go ahead, I’m-
Michael Malice (00:57:19): Oh, I heard a joke about that the other week.
Lex Fridman (00:57:23): Go ahead. Tell a joke again.
Michael Malice (00:57:25): What’s the only thing worse than giving head to Willie Nelson?
Lex Fridman (00:57:31): What?
Michael Malice (00:57:32): If he says, “I’m not Willie Nelson.”
Lex Fridman (00:57:36): What’s that, Mr. Parrot? I know he’s not funny. He thinks he’s better on Twitter. But that’s not nice to say, and right in front of his face. Just think how he feels.
Michael Malice (00:57:49): The statue, Chance Murmur is judging you.
Lex Fridman (00:57:52): Chance?
Michael Malice (00:57:52): It’s called Chance Murmur.
Lex Fridman (00:57:54): Chance Murmur.
Michael Malice (00:57:55): God, that’s so beautiful.
Lex Fridman (00:57:56): That is gorgeous.
Michael Malice (00:57:58): This is another reason I hate cynicism, and I talk about this a lot. Even just on Etsy, there are so many small, not huge companies, 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?” 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 (00:58:26): Yeah. Etsy is incredible. I feel the same way about-
Michael Malice (00:58:28): OnlyFans?
Lex Fridman (00:58:30): … OnlyFans. I can’t even get that out of my mouth before laughing at my own failed joke.
Michael Malice (00:58:34): That’s what she said.
Lex Fridman (00:58:36): Oh, all right. That might be one of the first that’s what she said from Michael Malice.
Michael Malice (00:58:43): Yeah.
Lex Fridman (00:58:43): I’m going to count that.
Michael Malice (00:58:48): 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.
Lex Fridman (00:58:52): Your box was much bigger.
Michael Malice (00:58:53): Yeah.
Lex Fridman (00:58:54): And it was giving me an inferiority complex. I think I’m going to invade Russia. That’s a Napoleon reference for those in the audience.
Michael Malice (00:59:09): I don’t know if I’m going to… I think I’m going to put it in my bedroom so it’s the first thing I see when I wake up.
Lex Fridman (00:59:13): Put it in the bedroom.
Michael Malice (00:59:13): Yeah.
Lex Fridman (00:59:16): Did we get through everything we’re thankful for?
Michael Malice (00:59:19): No, I’ve got lots of things I’m thankful for.
Lex Fridman (00:59:20): What else? Friends, family. We said books.
Michael Malice (00:59:26): I’m thankful for career. 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.
Lex Fridman (00:59:40): Yeah.
Michael Malice (00:59:41): I’m thankful for several reasons. First, it is a way for people to make connections that they couldn’t have made in years past. That if you’ve 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, at whatever venue. And it’s also a great way to expose corporate depravity. When you have these organizations that are dishonest, I think the community notes thing on Twitter is the greatest thing ever.
Lex Fridman (01:00:09): Yeah, it’s incredible. I wish they would pay attention to the Michael Malice account more often.
Michael Malice (01:00:15): You shouldn’t be encouraging anyone to pay attention to my Twitter account.
Lex Fridman (01:00:18): Yeah.
Michael Malice (01:00:18): It’s a dumpster fire. And I don’t mean Bridget, I mean like a literal… Bridget Phetasy.
Lex Fridman (01:00:23): Oh, Bridget, by the way, is amazing. But your Twitter account makes-
Michael Malice (01:00:23): She lives here.
Lex Fridman (01:00:25): Yes. Not here. I wish she did.
Michael Malice (01:00:29): She’s in Georgetown.
Lex Fridman (01:00:30): No, I mean in this, where we’re sitting.
Michael Malice (01:00:32): Oh.
Lex Fridman (01:00:32): It’s a joke, Michael.
Michael Malice (01:00:33): Is it?
Lex Fridman (01:00:34): Yeah.
Michael Malice (01:00:34): But I’m just really glad about… It’s another way for people who before would’ve felt very alone. I know some people do feel alone, but for other people it makes them feel connected.
Lex Fridman (01:00:46): There’s been a lot of talk about antisemitism recently.
Michael Malice (01:00:49): Yeah.
Lex Fridman (01:00:49): What’s your sense about this? Is antisemitism like any other brand of hate? There’s a lot of hate out there.
Michael Malice (01:00:57): No, I don’t think it’s like any other brand of hate, 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. And not just the Holocaust, but just centuries of pilgrims, right? 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 like that. I’m talking specifically about Jew hatred. 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.
Michael Malice (01:01:56): 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. 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, 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. 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 (01:02:58): I wonder what’s a way to fight antisemitism and fight hate in general?
Michael Malice (01:03:02): 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. 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 and 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 whatever archetype or stereotype is in the culture.
Lex Fridman (01:04:13): Karl Marx wrote that, “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of a soulless condition. It is the opium of the people.” As the famous phrase goes. Do you think he has a point?
Michael Malice (01:04:26): 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.
Lex Fridman (01:04:46): Yeah.
Michael Malice (01:04:46): They start living consciously. They take morality seriously. They try, we all fail, to be moral good people. 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. But to say that it never helps anyone and it’s universally the… 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. So that was, I think, the point he was making. It certainly doesn’t apply nowadays. I’m 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.
Lex Fridman (01:06:01): Have you checked out the Comedy Mothership? Great club.
Michael Malice (01:06:03): Where is it? Is it in Austin?
Lex Fridman (01:06:05): Willie Nelson.
Michael Malice (01:06:07): I was 17, 18, freshman year, 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. As I’ve gotten older, 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 isn’t 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 (01:06:48): Yes.
Michael Malice (01:06:49): 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 cheap. I don’t agree with it whatsoever. And I do not like that quote at all.
Lex Fridman (01:07:12): But otherwise, big fan of Marx?
Michael Malice (01:07:14): I mean, I think there’s a fan of mine, I forget who it was, apologies. He had this great quote, 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 internet atheism 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. You could both be stupid. So congrats, you proved someone else is stupid. Who cares?
Lex Fridman (01:07:43): Yeah. And sneering of all forms in general is just not great.
Michael Malice (01:07:48): 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.
Lex Fridman (01:07:57): MySpace, great social network.
Michael Malice (01:08:00): Is that on Sixth Street?
Lex Fridman (01:08:04): AOL.com.
Michael Malice (01:08:07): Clang, clang, clang. That’s how Lex comes.
Lex Fridman (01:08:12): Like a Pavlov’s dog. That was the sound before you get to see… Spend 10 minutes waiting for an image of a lady load one line at a time.
Michael Malice (01:08:24): Yeah.
Lex Fridman (01:08:29): I recently talked to John Mearsheimer, I don’t know if you know him at all. So he has this idea about offensive realism. It’s a way to analyze the world into national relations. And the basic idea, and I’ll run it by you and see what you think, is that states, nations want to survive and they try to do so by maximizing power, military power. And he talks about anarchy quite a bit, in that one of these underlying assumptions of this way of viewing the world is that states are anarchic towards each other.
Michael Malice (01:09:10): Yes, that’s true.
Lex Fridman (01:09:11): And they operate under a lot of uncertainty. States cannot be sure that other states will not use military capabilities against them.
Michael Malice (01:09:18): Right.
Lex Fridman (01:09:19): They want to survive and they want to use military power to control the uncertainty to protect themselves.
Michael Malice (01:09:29): 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 if you look at, let’s suppose China’s influence in America. The influence is far more through soft power than military power. China doesn’t threaten America through “we’re going to kill you.” It’s more like the infiltration of universities, TikTok, things of that nature. Maybe this would’ve 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. 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 (01:10:28): It seems to correlate though, right? It’s interesting. It’s an interesting idea. What has more power, the viral spread of ideas or the power of the military? It seems that the United States is at the top of the world on both.
Michael Malice (01:10:44): That’s true.
Lex Fridman (01:10:45): And so it’s hard to disentangle the two.
Michael Malice (01:10:48): Let’s look at Europe. American culture is very popular in Europe in many ways, right? The best music comes out of Sweden, Swedish indie pop. They’re singing in English, 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. I think it’s a function of we’re exporting our music, our TV shows, and our movies.
Lex Fridman (01:11:14): Yeah. It’s interesting, if the battleground will be Brave New World, the battle of ideas.
Michael Malice (01:11:18): 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. 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 wars 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 (01:11:47): So who’s funding you? Which intelligence agency?
Michael Malice (01:11:50): Mossad.
Lex Fridman (01:11:51): Mossad. Mossad. This is how you do great interviewing. See, he didn’t even expect that. Okay.
Michael Malice (01:12:01): What’s that, Mr. Parrot?
Lex Fridman (01:12:02): What was that, Mr. Parrot? You knew it? But you didn’t have any documentation, did you?
Michael Malice (01:12:10): I think Mr. Parrot is threatened by the better wings on Chance Murmur.
Lex Fridman (01:12:15): He gets like that when he’s turned on, he’s not threatened.
Michael Malice (01:12:18): Oh, okay.
Lex Fridman (01:12:18): You can’t wait until all three of us are alone together. It’s going to be one hell of a party.
Michael Malice (01:12:25): Beaks and feathers everywhere.
Lex Fridman (01:12:27): And metal. Yeah, this thing is beautiful.
Michael Malice (01:12:32): It’s ridiculous.
Lex Fridman (01:12:34): You have actually a lot of really cool stuff at your place.
Michael Malice (01:12:37): It’s so fun.
Lex Fridman (01:12:39): What’s a cool thing that stands out to you? Maybe a recent addition.
Michael Malice (01:12:44): 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, I think three grand, which is not cheap, but not something you think… You think in a museum, “I could never afford something like this,” right? So when I went to Houston with some friends… The Sideserfs, Natalie, who made the cake of you.
Lex Fridman (01:13:14): Oh, yeah, the cake. Terrified my mom.
Michael Malice (01:13:17): Did it?
Lex Fridman (01:13:18): Yeah.
Michael Malice (01:13:18): Aww.
Lex Fridman (01:13:19): No, it’s not the cake that terrified my mom. It’s you, Michael Malice, cutting it off, cutting the face off and laughing maniacally.
Michael Malice (01:13:30): Well, Natalie’s pregnant. She’s going to have a daughter named Daisy. So congrats to Natalie.
Lex Fridman (01:13:30): Congrats to Natalie.
Michael Malice (01:13:35): 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. I know a lot about it and especially the mythology. It’d 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, 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.
Michael Malice (01:14:31): 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. Whenever you see him in nail salons. I have a male, which were very rare for him to do. So that’s two of my kind of favorite pieces.
Lex Fridman (01:14:49): You have what?
Michael Malice (01:14:49): He only drew women predominantly. I have one where we drew a male. It was a guy in a jean ad 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-
Michael Malice (01:15:00): … sculpture called Future Murmur, which I am ecstatic to get.
Lex Fridman (01:15:06): Just remind yourself how many fascinating, beautiful people that are out there.
Michael Malice (01:15:14): 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 (01:15:26): Yeah. That’s another thing I’m grateful for. Just like the 100 billion or so people that came before us, and also the trillions of lifeforms that came before that.
Michael Malice (01:15:38): Oh God, I’ve gone down 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.
Lex Fridman (01:15:57): Yeah. But just thinking about all that history, just all the lifeforms that came before. It seems like a really special thing we have going on earth here.
Michael Malice (01:16:10): Oh yeah. I think that’s very fair to say, but also think this kind of is like live life to the fullest. Camus talked about living to the point of tears, especially on behalf of people who didn’t have that privilege. So 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… I’m not here. Live for me, I can’t have that privilege anymore.
Lex Fridman (01:16:44): What do you think about Camus as a writer?
Michael Malice (01:16:47): I don’t like his novels at all.
Lex Fridman (01:16:49): Oh, you don’t?
Michael Malice (01:16:49): At all.
Lex Fridman (01:16:50): Yeah. You’ve talked about The Plague to me, a little bit.
Michael Malice (01:16:52): Yeah. I think the book is pointless.
Lex Fridman (01:16:55): It’s fascinating.
Michael Malice (01:16:56): Because all you need to do is read the synopsis and then you get it. I don’t think his book-
Lex Fridman (01:17:00): Isn’t that true for most books?
Michael Malice (01:17:01): No.
Lex Fridman (01:17:02): I mean, you could take, I don’t know… I just don’t agree at all. I mean, it’s Catcher in the Rye. There’s a lot of books that are seem trivial.
Michael Malice (01:17:11): I don’t think it seems trivial, but I think-
Lex Fridman (01:17:13): Animal Farm.
Michael Malice (01:17:15): Animal Farm is a methodical step-by-step examination of a transformation from one thing to another. The Plague is not that.
Lex Fridman (01:17:23): It’s a methodical examination of what a society is like under the plague, which could symbolize a lot of things, including the plague directly or Nazi Germany or ideological movements, or… It’s similar to Animal Farm. Maybe not as effective in terms of using this kind of symbology-
Michael Malice (01:17:44): I think Animal Farm has a narrative and… I’m going to spoil the whole Plague. The book, The Plague. 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 (01:18:02): But there’s the victims, the people that take advantage of it. There’s the doctor that, amidst the absurdity and the evil of the plague, is fighting to do good.
Michael Malice (01:18:11): Nothing for me. Does nothing for me.
Lex Fridman (01:18:13): Okay, well I can spoil the Animal Farm. There’s animals at a farm and the humans are abusing them, and then the animals overthrow the humans, but then the pigs become just like the humans. The lesson, kids, is that power corrupts, no matter whether you walk on four or on two.
Michael Malice (01:18:40): I thought the lesson was that pigs are the most human-like animals on the farm.
Lex Fridman (01:18:47): I thought the lesson was that there’s no sugar candy mountain.
Michael Malice (01:18:50): That’s right. Yeah.
Lex Fridman (01:18:53): You’ve interviewed a lot of people. What have you learned about getting to the soul of a person, the soul of an idea from interviewing? Just how to do a good interview?
Michael Malice (01:19:04): 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. 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, I have friends, and I wouldn’t stop talking about the person I’m writing with or the North Korea. And a certain point, I’m sure they’re like, “All right, I don’t care about this anymore.”But it takes over your brain. You know what I mean?
Michael Malice (01:19:43): So if you 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 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 going to be on my show. I don’t want to spoil everything. And he’s got a very specific role that he’s known for. And I’m like, “Okay, 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, haven’t been asked.”
Lex Fridman (01:20:28): Porn star or…
Michael Malice (01:20:29): No, not a porn star.
Lex Fridman (01:20:32): That joke failed. Also edit out. What do you know about breeding Guinea pigs? You mentioned it. I’d love to hear-
Michael Malice (01:20:32): I don’t know anything.
Lex Fridman (01:20:42): I would love to hear more about it.
Michael Malice (01:20:44): 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, 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 mother load.
Lex Fridman (01:21:09): Yeah. That to me also is the thing I enjoy the most, is people-
Michael Malice (01:21:13): And then it’s like-
Lex Fridman (01:21:15): … that are passionate about a thing.
Michael Malice (01:21:16): … who do you guys hate? Do you guys hate the hamster people? Do you hate the rabid 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.
Lex Fridman (01:21:25): Yeah. It’s a hierarchy.
Michael Malice (01:21:26): 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. There’s going to be a hierarchy.
Lex Fridman (01:21:33): Hierarchies emerge.
Michael Malice (01:21:34): Yes.
Lex Fridman (01:21:35): There’s no anarchy in the Guinea pig world.
Michael Malice (01:21:39): No. It’s just a different kind of anarchy.
Lex Fridman (01:21:41): Somebody’s always breeding somebody else.
Michael Malice (01:21:43): Yes.
Lex Fridman (01:21:44): And looking down on the others.
Michael Malice (01:21:47): Yeah, someone’s the other. Whether it’s the hamster people, the rat people.
Lex Fridman (01:21:50): And everybody’s breeding. By the way, are you an anarcho-capitalist? What flavor of anarchist are you?
Michael Malice (01:21:59): I’m an anarchist without adjectives. I like them all. The black flag comes in many colors.
Lex Fridman (01:22:04): All right. All right. You’re quoting your… No, I understand. It’s a beautiful line in the book.
Michael Malice (01:22:09): Thank you. I think the anarcho-capitalists don’t give the left anarchist 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 (01:22:24): Do you still think that “are some people better than others” is a good litmus test?
Michael Malice (01:22:29): Yes. It’s worked 100% of the time.
Lex Fridman (01:22:32): And for you, the answer is yes?
Michael Malice (01:22:35): I never answer.
Lex Fridman (01:22:39): There’s two of them.
Michael Malice (01:22:43): What are you all Hitchcock up in here?
Lex Fridman (01:22:46): Oh, hey, careful. I always got your back. What little habits in your life make you happy now that you’re in Austin?
Michael Malice (01:22:59): Oh my god. 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?”
Lex Fridman (01:23:27): Yeah. I’m getting nervous already.
Michael Malice (01:23:30): You should. So I’m going to tell you something I’ve told only a couple of people. This is my absolutely off the charts, autistic approach to shaving. 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 stirred up, you paint your face, and then you shave. The thing is, there are dozens of these shaving soap companies, okay? So I tried a couple of hundred of these soaps, because you’re testing for scent, you’re testing for, with 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 have it down to a cycle of 67 soaps. Okay?
Lex Fridman (01:24:40): A cycle.
Michael Malice (01:24:41): A cycle. So 67. 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 candidates.
Lex Fridman (01:25:05): Like in the queue?
Michael Malice (01:25:07): In the queue.
Lex Fridman (01:25:07): Do you label them? Do you remember which one is which?
Michael Malice (01:25:09): Well, they all have beautiful labels. I mean, these are artisans who are creating these a amazing things. 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. Grooming Department. And now it’s like-
Lex Fridman (01:25:37): Not a bad name.
Michael Malice (01:25:38): Yeah, but it has certain connotations in contemporary discourse.
Lex Fridman (01:25:42): Yeah, I understand. Contemporary discourse, yeah.
Michael Malice (01:25:43): So now he changed his name to Aion Skincare, A-I-O-N. That’s the sense of the most sophisticated, the most diverse, and the soap is just really high quality. Another amazing company is Barrister and Man. 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 (01:26:16): What makes for a good smell for Michael Malice?
Michael Malice (01:26:19): I have 67 answers. So some of them smell-
Lex Fridman (01:26:22): So you can’t convert it into words?
Michael Malice (01:26:24): Some are citrusy, some are industrial, some-
Lex Fridman (01:26:27): So garage is more industrial.
Michael Malice (01:26:28): It smells like a garage. Yeah. Midnight Stag. It smells like a garage. Some are fun. There 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, and they have one called Aloha Smackdown. It smells like Hawaiian Punch. They had one called Yule Ham that they made for me special. Smells like a ham. They had a ramen one, Rock and Ramen. Smells a cup of noodles. And every year they do an advent calendar where for 12 days you have a little sample of a soap and a sample of the aftershave.
Lex Fridman (01:27:04): Nice.
Michael Malice (01:27:06): I’m forgetting someone and I’m feeling angry that I’m doing it. But those are some of the… Oh, and Catie’s Bubbles is great. They’re vegan, out of New Jersey. They’ve got one called a 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 (01:27:25): Will that list converge down to a small set eventually, or no? 67 down to-
Michael Malice (01:27:31): Well, no, it’s 67.
Lex Fridman (01:27:33): Oh, so it always keeps [inaudible 01:27:35]-
Michael Malice (01:27:35): So if there’s a slot, then, you know what I mean? I’ll fill that. You see what I’m saying?
Lex Fridman (01:27:39): Oh, so you will forever have the variety of 67?
Michael Malice (01:27:41): Yes.
Lex Fridman (01:27:46): You know how sad my brain is? When you were telling me this, I was like, “I wonder how many soaps are left in Michael Malice’s life.” You can count your life by days, by month, by years, or by soaps.
Michael Malice (01:28:01): That is depressing. That is very dark.
Lex Fridman (01:28:03): Because each experience of shaving is a little beautiful experience.
Michael Malice (01:28:07): Yes, it is. It’s so much fun.
Lex Fridman (01:28:09): How many do you have left in your life, right?
Michael Malice (01:28:10): That’s true.
Lex Fridman (01:28:11): Yeah.
Michael Malice (01:28:12): I got to tell you, there’s something else. There’s a term my friend Jackie taught me called Touching Pan. It’s a makeup term. So basically when you use it and you could see the bottom, that’s like a big moment.
Lex Fridman (01:28:24): Oh, it’s a great thing.
Michael Malice (01:28:24): Yeah. Well, it’s kind of fun. I’m telling you, people can scoff. It is such a fun… and there’s a lot of us online who are into this whole space. It’s really, really fun.
Lex Fridman (01:28:34): When did you first discover this?
Michael Malice (01:28:36): Can I curse?
Lex Fridman (01:28:37): Yeah.
Michael Malice (01:28:38): Fuck you, Cole Stryker. Because I was staying at my friend Cole’s house in LA. Fuck you Cole.
Lex Fridman (01:28:45): Fuck you, Cole.
Michael Malice (01:28:46): Cole is one of the biggest hipsters I know. He’s got the shirts with the pearl snaps and everything. 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 Proraso. That’s the Italian grandpa soap, which is also a great one. And I went down this rabbit hole, and now I’m like… I don’t even know how much money I spent on this. And it’s all because of him.
Lex Fridman (01:29:09): Oh. But it’s like a happy fuck you. Like, fuck you, Cole.
Michael Malice (01:29:09): Yeah.
Lex Fridman (01:29:12): I love you, Cole. Fuck you.
Michael Malice (01:29:13): Yeah, it’s just-
Lex Fridman (01:29:14): Thank you.
Michael Malice (01:29:15): Yes, yes.
Lex Fridman (01:29:16): That’s a good idea for a tattoo. Fuck you, Cole. Do you have advice on how to be happy?
Michael Malice (01:29:25): Yes.
Lex Fridman (01:29:26): There’s a lot of loneliness and sadness in the world.
Michael Malice (01:29:31): 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. I could be better with my time.” And when you regard things in… 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 this sense of accomplishment. So I think that is a really great way to…
Michael Malice (01:30:25): 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 going to happen? Things will blow up in your face. Well, you’ll learn something at least. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes. When I was a kid, I was so scared of having things under control, so like I would never have to get hit in the face metaphorically. And then I realized, and you realized 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 (01:31:05): Yeah. There’s a Bukowski quote I wrote down. “Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I’m not going to make it. But you laugh inside, remembering all the times you felt that way.”
Michael Malice (01:31:16): Yeah, yeah.
Lex Fridman (01:31:17): There’s a part of me that’s like that. There’s some days where I feel like this is the worst day of my life. And then shortly after, I chuckle at that.
Michael Malice (01:31:26): Yes.
Lex Fridman (01:31:26): Just knowing the ups and downs of the brain and the mind and life and all that. You ever been depressed?
Michael Malice (01:31:32): Yeah, of course. I’m more anxious than depressed. I don’t really get depressed, but I’ve been depressed.
Lex Fridman (01:31:38): Like low points.
Michael Malice (01:31:39): Yeah. But I think I distinguish depression between low points, right? 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 (01:31:55): Well, yeah. And there’s different kinds of… There’s a exhausted kind of depression where it’s not so much sad as you don’t want to do anything. You don’t want to live. You don’t want to-
Michael Malice (01:32:09): Yeah. What’s the point? It’s a wrap, yeah.
Lex Fridman (01:32:10): What’s the point? What’s the point? And an extreme self-critical negativity, which I’m also scared of because my brain is generally very self-critical.
Michael Malice (01:32:19): Because you’re not taking enough magnesium.
Lex Fridman (01:32:21): Do you take a rectally or in the mouth?
Michael Malice (01:32:23): You take a rectally.
Lex Fridman (01:32:24): Okay.
Michael Malice (01:32:25): But as for the magnesium, you should take it as a pill.
Lex Fridman (01:32:28): Okay. Well, the way your mom explained it then is way different. What are you most afraid of?
Michael Malice (01:32:47): Holy crap. I am trying to think of anything I’m afraid of.
Lex Fridman (01:32:51): In 1984-
Michael Malice (01:32:54): I thought even just-
Lex Fridman (01:32:55): Look, if I wanted to torture you, hypothetically…
Michael Malice (01:32:59): Well, the mission accomplished. I mean, 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.
Lex Fridman (01:33:15): Are you scared of death?
Michael Malice (01:33:17): No.
Lex Fridman (01:33:17): You think Camus was scared of death?
Michael Malice (01:33:20): No.
Lex Fridman (01:33:22): He just accepted it as-
Michael Malice (01:33:24): 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 I think it’s a very low bar for someone to be able to grow their grave and say, “I left the world a better place than I found it.” I don’t think it’s that hard.
Lex Fridman (01:34:01): You ever been betrayed?
Michael Malice (01:34:03): Oh god, yes. Of course. Haven’t you?
Lex Fridman (01:34:07): Not as often as I would’ve predicted.
Michael Malice (01:34:09): Yeah. The Russian upbringing expects everyone to be like… it’s a time bomb before they betray you. I have been betrayed. Of course. Yeah.
Lex Fridman (01:34:16): Yeah. You value loyalty?
Michael Malice (01:34:20): 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. I think that’s very important.
Lex Fridman (01:34:32): Me too.
Michael Malice (01:34:34): 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. Like even if you tell yourself, “This is 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 (01:35:02): In my situation, I still think good thoughts and empathize with the people that have done me wrong.
Michael Malice (01:35:11): I don’t empathize with them, but I sympathize with them.
Lex Fridman (01:35:14): My English is not good enough to know the difference.
Michael Malice (01:35:16): Empathizing means you’re putting yourself in their shoes. Sympathizing means you feel bad for them and wish them well.
Lex Fridman (01:35:25): Yeah, I wish them well.
Michael Malice (01:35:27): Yeah, but I don’t put myself… it’s very hard for me to empathize with someone who betrays someone that they care about. 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, it would up my head for a long time.
Lex Fridman (01:35:46): Yeah, but maybe they were in pain. Maybe they were desperate. Maybe their back’s to the wall.
Michael Malice (01:35:53): Sure.
Lex Fridman (01:35:53): They felt that way.
Michael Malice (01:35:54): Sure. Well, that’s a sympathy thing. Not really an empathy thing.
Lex Fridman (01:35:56): Yeah. Yeah. Loyalty is a fascinating thing.
Michael Malice (01:36:03): Yes.
Lex Fridman (01:36:04): I value trust a lot.
Michael Malice (01:36:05): I know you do. Especially because you’re in such a public… Both of us, we’re in very public positions. You have to be very careful who you surround yourself with.
Lex Fridman (01:36:13): It sucks.
Michael Malice (01:36:14): Does it? Well, it’s-
Lex Fridman (01:36:16): Well, it sucks because it’s hard to… I usually just trust everybody.
Michael Malice (01:36:25): Okay, that’s crazy.
Lex Fridman (01:36:29): But what’s the alternative?
Michael Malice (01:36:30): To have a filter?
Lex Fridman (01:36:33): Well, I have a filter in terms of who I interact with, but within the… I see the good in people, but then in the very rare instances that might turn. Yeah. It just sucks. It breaks my heart.
Michael Malice (01:36:48): Yeah, I hear you. I completely agree.
Lex Fridman (01:36:52): Has your heart ever been broken?
Michael Malice (01:36:54): Yes.
Lex Fridman (01:36:55): Love?
Michael Malice (01:36:56): Yes.
Lex Fridman (01:37:01): I’m just so relaxed right now, and happy.
Michael Malice (01:37:03): Good.
Lex Fridman (01:37:04): Relaxed sand happy.
Michael Malice (01:37:05): Good.
Lex Fridman (01:37:06): This is making me really happy.
Michael Malice (01:37:09): Again, it’s beautiful on like eight different levels.
Lex Fridman (01:37:11): I think that’s the deepest thing I’m thankful for, is just how beautiful people are and how beautiful the world is.
Michael Malice (01:37:21): People are going to 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 (01:37:45): I think he does too. Well, in the end, you and I will be both laughing,
Michael Malice (01:37:53): 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 (01:38:02): Yep. Well, when I look at you, I see beauty when most people see garbage. And it’s really unfair, Mr. Parrot, that you keep saying that. But all jokes aside, man, I’m really grateful for your friendship. I’m really grateful for who you are as a person. Thank you so much for talking today. Thank you so much for talking to me throughout all these years. Thank you for being who you are.
Michael Malice (01:38:28): You are welcome.
Lex Fridman (01:38:31): Thanks for listening to this conversation with Michael Malice. To support this podcast. Please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, let me leave you with some words from Andre Gide. Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.
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