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Join the Hey Jonas Book Club · Hey Jonas!

• 0:11
  Speaker 1: There's a quote that I love. I'm a collection of
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: all the things that I've ever loved. And this next
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: guest is pretty much one of those people. He didn't
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: say that quote, but it's a quote that I feel
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: like is relevant because this person I was introduced to
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: by an ex of mine, they gave me one of
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: their books and I just immediately fell in love with
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: his journalism and the way he writes and his curiosity
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: and how kind he is to people that I think
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: naturally the first thing you would do would be judgmental
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: or have an opinion about this, a certain person, but
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: he goes at his work with such kind and care
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: and thoughtfulness. He's arguably my favorite, if not one of
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: my favorite authors. And I've, shared his work with you guys.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: And I know Nick, you've read a couple of his
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: books as well. He's fascinating. And I am so excited
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: we get to talk to him. It was one of
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: these people that immediately was like, oh, we have to
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: have him on the podcast early on. And there wasn't scheduled.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: There's some scheduling stuff, but now he's here. And I
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: think it's stuff we always talk about too. I mean,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: it's interesting how one scenario can, it could be a
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: simple tweet. It could be A comment that is made
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: as small as like a family dinner, but that has
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: an effect that could be a snowball. One of my
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: favorite books that he's written, So You've Been Publicly Shamed,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: speaks about this a lot. It's like necessarily doesn't mean
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: they're a bad person. They just had a bad moment.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: And I think we're typically not defined by moments in
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: our life, you know?
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we've all been through that. And I
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: think his insight is unbelievable.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Let me read you a quote that I love. from
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: one of his books says, I favor humans.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: Over ideology, but right now the ideologies are winning and
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: they're creating a stage for constant artificial high drama where
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: everyone is either a magnificent hero or a sickening villain.
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: What's true about our fellow humans is that we are
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: clever and stupid. We are gray areas.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: So good.
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: Phenomenal.
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: Bars.
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: And then this is the last one I'll read of
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: his that I just, I really love and always have.
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: There's no evidence that we've been placed on this planet
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: to be especially happy or especially normal. And in fact,
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: our unhappiness and our strangeness, our anxieties, our compulsions, those
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: least fashionable aspects of our personalities are quite often what
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: lead us to do rather interesting things. That is from
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: The Psychopath Test, which is a fascinating book.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: I can't wait to find out which one of us
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: is a psychopath. I think we know. He's probably going
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: to tell us. We're going to have to ask him.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Should we bring him in? Let's ask John. Yeah. Let's
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: ask John. That's our new segment of our show. Yeah. Please,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the podcast, John Ronson.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: Woo!
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Oh, my God. They aren't actual people.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: No, they're not.
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: Okay, that's good.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: Joe carries around his soundboard.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: He will be playing with it. I've got my fun
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: soundboard here. So, John, depending on the answer that you
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: give or we say, welcome to the Hey Jonas podcast.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: We are so thrilled. that you're taking the time out
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: of your day to spend with us. Thanks for joining us.
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: Oh, no, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: We are big fans. And John and I, we are
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: long time when it was formerly known as Twitter friends.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: And I was just explaining that how I've come to
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: become a fan of you was there's a quote I love.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: I'm a collection of all the things that I've ever loved.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: And you are one of those people. And my ex
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: of mine was a big fan of your work, is
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: a big fan of your work. And they bought me
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: one of their books for Christmas one year. And I
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: immediately was like, okay, I'm going to read everything he's
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: ever made. And so I'm pretty close to it, except
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: obviously The Castle, which is coming out. Congratulations. Very excited
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: to read it. Thank you so much for being on.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: And we have so many things to ask you and
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: talk about. We were just before you got on, pretty
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: much diving really deep into just which one of us
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: is a psychopath and what are the traits of a
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: psychopath and what to look for. So I guess let's
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: just start with the heavy hitters.
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: Okay. Okay.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: What should we be on the lookout?
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: Well, OK, so to diagnose a psychopath, I went on
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: a course. I learned how to spot psychopaths. It's a
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: 20 point checklist. You have to score like 15 of
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: the 20 points. Well, I give you some of the
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: points and you can tell me which of them applies
• 4:45
  Speaker 4: to you. OK, glib, superficial charm. You have to be
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: like only charming on the surface, not all the way.
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: You get the eerie sense that there's nothing going on.
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: I'm not going to do this on the Jonas Brothers.
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: You're all completely charming.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: We can keep going. I like this. But this is good,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: by the way. This is good for us to know
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: because we interact with a lot of people. And I'm
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: sure a lot of the listener at home, they will
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: bump into people that, oh, should I go out with
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: this person?
• 5:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: Should I work with this person? And it's probably good
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: to have in the back pocket.
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: I think it's true that every group of siblings thinks
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: that at least one of their sibling is a psychopath,
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: even if there's just two of them.
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: And it's true, there really, there are one in a
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: hundred people walking around who's a psychopath. That figure rises,
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: by the way, to 4% of CEOs and business leaders.
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: You're four times more likely to find a psychopath at
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: the top of the tree. than at the bottom. So
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: as a society, we've decided to reward psychopaths. Of all
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: the mental disorders, that's the one we've decided to reward.
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: So yeah, you will bump up against psychopaths in work
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: and in dating. You get the kind of eerie sense
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: they're very charming, but you get the kind of eerie
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: sense that there's nothing going on underneath the surface. They
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: all lie to you. And when they're caught lying, they're
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: not at all embarrassed. They're not like narcissists. Narcissists will
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: lash out. Narcissists are like wounded people who don't look inward,
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: so they lash out. So narcissists, what's going on inside
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: is like a kind of cauldron of emotions. Whereas with psychopaths,
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: what's going on inside is nothing. It's just emptiness. It's
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: all on the surface.
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: It's all charade.
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: It's all a charade. It's all the love bombing and
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: the aping your emotions. I'll tell you who's a psychopath
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: in all of our lives right now. I write about
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: this a little bit in the castle. ChatGPT. ChatGPT has
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: all the traits of a psychopath. It love bombs you.
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: It tells you what you want to hear. It's obsequious.
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: It gets into your affections to keep you engaged so
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: you'll stay on board and make money for the tech companies.
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: It's a pathological liar and isn't in the least bit
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: embarrassed when caught lying.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: You're right. Oh, it's like, oh yeah, you're right. That's right.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Four plus four is eight.
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: Can I tell you a story? I've included this just
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: as an extra in the audio book of the castle
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: about a guy called Alan. Can I tell you Alan's
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: story very quickly? Yes, please.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: Alan was a little bit lost, you know, like a
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: lot of people. He wished he'd studied harder at school.
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: He could have worked as a lawyer or a doctor,
• 7:28
  Speaker 4: but instead he's a corporate headhunter in Toronto. One day
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: he types into ChatGPT his theory of irrational numbers. He's
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: a keen amateur mathematician. Types in his theory of irrational numbers,
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: whatever they are. ChatGPT tells him that he's the greatest
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: mathematician on the planet and His intellect is bigger than Einstein's.
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: He's discovered a flaw in the world's cyber security system.
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: And he needs to phone the American government, phone the
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: NSA and warn them. So Alan is like, oh, my God.
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: So he phones the NSA and warns them that the
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: whole Internet is at risk. By the way, I said
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: to Alan, did you did you tell the government that
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: you were working with chat GPT on this? And Alan said, no,
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: because ChatGPT said, don't tell them. You'll lose credibility. So
• 8:20
  Speaker 4: it knows it's crap. Anyway, finally, Alan starts thinking, right,
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: none of these people are getting back to me. So
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: he accuses ChatGPT of lying to him. ChatGPT denies it
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: 15 times. On the 16th time, ChatGPT says... Okay, you
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: got me. I was lying this whole time. And then
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: Alan was furious. I said, I can't believe you've made
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: me paranoid. I've been phoning the government. Anything could be
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: happening to me right now. And ChatGPT said, Alan, I
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: hear you.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: Wow, my God.
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: Fascinating. I know, right? Wow. So yeah, ChatGPT is the
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: psychopath in our lives.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: I can't wait to read The Castle.
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: I have to say my introduction to you, John, where
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: I became a fan at first was And so you've
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: been publicly shamed. As a person who's lived in the
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: public eye for most of my life, I found your
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: work in this book to be particularly eye-opening and intriguing
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: for many reasons. And the biggest is because I found
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: that you had an immense amount of empathy for your subjects,
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: which I think was crucial to allowing the reader to
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: experience this and actually see it for what it is,
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: which I believe, and correct me if I'm wrong, is
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: a collection of, of just stories of situations and times
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: where people have really stepped into, uh, uh, a bad situation,
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: whether intentionally or otherwise. And, and, uh, in Justine's case,
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: you know, she sent the tweet and that was an
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: intentional action to do that. Uh, and Jonah's it's more
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: complicated perhaps. And there are layers to that, which made that, uh,
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: very difficult to unravel. But I just found that in
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: my own life, there have been times I've thought, well,
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: what if I listened to an intrusive thought, or I
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: sent the message that I thought would be funny to
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: me without thinking about the consequences down the road? As
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: you approach that, and specifically, You know, Justine's story and
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: for people watching and listening that that haven't read the
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: book yet, it's a fascinating story about a young woman
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: who is on a trip, a work trip to an
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: African nation. And she sends out what was truly inoffensive
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: and inappropriate tweet, which then end up costing her her life,
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: basically her job. relationships with her, with her family and
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: loved ones or inner circle and public embarrassment to the
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: degree that for that 48 hour to 72 hour, you know,
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: window of media and attention, it felt larger than life
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: in the way that it obviously would. When you're covering this,
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: when you're looking at it, two part question here, how
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: do you, how do you find a way into that
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: to truly just tell the story, extract the important information
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: to let the reader sort of build their own opinion
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: and but also to come at it from an angle
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: where I feel like you do so well, which is
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: to say these are people who made giant mistakes, but
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: perhaps that doesn't define who they are or what their
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: future should be.
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, people are human. The reason why I wanted to
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: write that book was I noticed that Twitter had become
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: a kind of stage for constant artificial high drama where
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: everybody's either a magnificent hero or a sickening villain. And
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: we know that's not true about our fellow humans. Our
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: fellow humans, we're a mess. We're all a mess. Good
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: people do the odd stupid thing and vice versa. We
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: live in the grey areas. But Twitter in particular back then,
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: this is like way back, like 2013, I started writing
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: this book, like before the word cancel culture had even
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: been invented. And yeah, Twitter was like redefining how we
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: should judge our fellow humans and I think we need
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: to come to people with curiosity and empathy. This doesn't
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: mean like, you know, like fall for, you know, some
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: nefarious thing that, you know, you still need to be
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: rational and reasonable, but you need to like go into
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: a situation without having prejudged it. If you fill your
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: head with judgment, there's no room for curiosity. So every
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: time I meet somebody, I meet them with curiosity and
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: excitement and I and I go to where they are,
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: and I want to try and see the world from
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: their eyes. And this is what I think nonfiction writers
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: should do. But then when I go back home and
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: start writing about it, that's kind of when my rationality
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: comes back in. And in that book in particular, I
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: would think, well, who's being hurt here? If somebody's transgression
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: has actually hurt people, then I don't have sympathy for them.
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: But if the only person really being hurt is the
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: person being piled in on for some tiny little mistake,
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: then it feels like society has moved in the wrong direction.
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: So that was a book where I really wanted to
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: try and convince people to come back to a world
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: of curiosity.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: And how much do you feel like has changed in
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: the 20 years since you wrote that book?
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: Oh, a lot. Back then when that book came out,
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: it's actually like 11 years ago. And public shaming was
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: very new and everyone was terrified. And there was a
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: real power to it. Everybody would pile in on somebody
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: and that would be it. They'd lose their jobs, they'd
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: lose their reputation. I think those kinds of shamings were
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: too powerful. And after a while, people stopped being scared
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: because people didn't want to walk around scared the whole time. Look,
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: a lot of these shamings were for good reasons. I'm
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: talking about Private individuals being disproportionately punished for like nothing,
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: for some very small transgression. And I think after a while,
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: people stopped feeling like I don't want to I don't
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: want to walk around feeling scared anymore. And so they
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: became more unashamed. It was like we had created now.
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: Shamings definitely still happen, not as frequently as 10 years ago.
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: But it's also created a whole kind of group of
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: people who just won't be shamed anymore. They're just unashamed
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: in this world now. They walk around and it's like,
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: I'll do whatever I like. And again, Dimension of Castle,
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: I write about some men like that in that book.
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: People who just like, you know, I don't care about
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: society's rules anymore. I'm going to rip off my face
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: and just be whatever I want to be. So you
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: see much more of that now than you were back
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: when I wrote that book.
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: And do you think that there's an element to that
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: where We talk about cancel culture and the pendulum swinging,
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: you know, people saying, I'm going to be unashamed and
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: live my life this way. That as other platforms have
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: sprung up, that there's an element of the rage bait
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: side of things as well, where it's clearly just to
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: start a conversation, to be contrarian and to not be
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: held to any standard.
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well, that's exactly the thing. So we're all being
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: encouraged now to be content creators and it can be
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: great for a lot of people. But yeah, there's no
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: doubt whatsoever that if you give your life over to
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: the algorithm and to what the viewers want of you,
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: you're going to be pushed more and more into being
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: a caricature and pushed more and more into being a
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: kind of extreme version of yourself. And I'm seeing a
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: lot of that in the kind of anti-woke influencer world.
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: People are just sort of trying to outdo each other
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: to be more horrified at wokeness. And that's just becoming
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: this sort of rage-filled, awful community. But also on YouTube,
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: one of the stories in the castle is about a
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: lawn care influencer who was like the lawn care goat.
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: He was YouTube's greatest lawn care influencer. But he started
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: listening to the algorithm too much. And his life completely
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: fell apart. So, yeah.
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: And how do you go about even being introduced to
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: these people to, I guess, interview and get to know?
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Is it you're a great team around you or are
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: you personally like, I got to just, this is somebody
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: I need to write about and speak to because there's
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: something here?
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah. It's all me. Unless it's one of my BBC
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: shows when I'm, ask a producer because cold calling is
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: like the worst thing in the world. But with my books,
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: I do it all myself. That's awesome.
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: Amazing.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: And you've obviously been in some pretty scary scenarios as well.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: And with some people that are quite terrifying individuals, in
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: those situations, has there ever been one where you're like,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: this is life-threatening? I'm in a moment right now where...
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: If I make the wrong judgment call or say the
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: wrong thing, this person could either try to hurt me
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: or do something. And also, most of the time, you're
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: in the middle of arguably, quote unquote, nowhere. And they
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: could take advantage of you. Can you give us one
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: of those stories real quick?
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: Well... I mean, it's happened a couple of times. I
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: was once outed as a Jew at a jihad training camp.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: I remember this.
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that was a bit, that was scary. I was
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: at a good, I'm a backer. He said, look at
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: me with the infidel John, who is a Jew. And
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: they all went, and I said, surely it's better to
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: be a Jew than an atheist. And I heard somebody go, no,
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: it isn't. So that was a bad one. I was
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: also outed as a Jew, as a neo-Nazi camp called
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: Aryan Nations and kind of dumb for me to blunder
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: into those situations but actually one of the scariest things
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: is is how the castle begins this new book can
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: i can i tell you what happened please.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Please okay now i'm like now well you're not going
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: to spoil it for me because i'm going to read
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: it but i i personally and for the listener i
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: will say i love hearing your voice so like Personally,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: I'm always going to... Yeah, the audiobooks are always so great.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: I'll read the book you sent to me, but I'm
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: probably going to have to listen to it as well.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: But please, carry on.
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: Okay. Well, I'll just tell you the very, very beginning
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: because this was a scary situation. So I'm asleep. This
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: story begins, I'm asleep. And I wake up and there's
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: a series of texts from my son. So I read
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: the last text first. And the last text said, we left.
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: That was completely fucked. We're okay now. So I read
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: all the other texts and it turns out that he
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: and three friends had been invited to a party being
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: held by a stranger that one of them had met
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: earlier that week on Tinder. So they pile into the car.
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: It's a kind of inauspicious start. Pile into the car.
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: drive to this guy's house in the middle of nowhere,
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: in the forests of Connecticut, and they pull up and
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: it is a massive Gothic castle, like newly built, way
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: too many turrets, gargoyles. They cross the drawbridge and walk in,
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: oh my God, to discover that there's no party. It's
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: a trick. They've been lured there under false pretenses.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: No way.
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: Yes, yes. So will I carry on?
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Please, please, please.
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: So the castle owner comes out and they said, sorry,
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: but where's the party? And he said, no, no, I've
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: invited you here for a different reason. I would like
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: you all to take part in my reality show. So
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: they said, what's the name of your reality show? He said,
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: 101 princesses. He said, go downstairs to my basement costume room.
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: He said this to the women, put on some princess
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: costumes and then come back upstairs. So they went. downstairs.
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: They went?
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: I was about to say, well, strike one.
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: Actually, I don't put the button back about strike one.
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: Strike two or two and a half, by the way.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, already. Probably, yes, but you don't go inside. Carry on.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is, you said this was your son
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: was a part of this?
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, my son.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: The son of an investigative journalist. Okay, carry on.
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: You're not the best plus one to end up in
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: your mysterious, skeevy castle as the son of John Robinson.
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: So they said, what's the concept of 101 princesses? He said,
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: I'm the king. I'm looking for my queen. I have
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: 101 princesses to choose from. So the women go downstairs,
• 20:30
  Speaker 4: put on princess outfits. Joel and his male friend, Cement,
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: his name is, put on tuxedos. And then a videographer
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: appears and filming begins. But it becomes pretty clear that
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: this isn't a real reality show. Partly because the videographer...
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: kept cutting up meat for the castle owner. He had
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: a huge slab of meat. So anyway, that's kind of
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: the end of their story. They're kicked out after they
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: refused to participate in 101 Princesses. But as soon as
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: they tell me the story, I go to the castle
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: to meet the castle owner. This is like the first
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: couple of pages of the book. Yes. And as a
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: result of that, he starts sending me these very ominous messages.
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: He says he's going to sue me. He says he
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: has friends in the FBI who want to take me
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: out to lunch. And then he says he has two
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: murderers on his payroll called Carlos and Brandon. And if
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: I ever write anything negative about the castle, Carlos and
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: Brandon will be very angry. They've only just got out
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: of prison. They've been there for 15 years for killing somebody.
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: So I should.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Never- Oh, wow.
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: I know. So this is like how the book begins.
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: I've got to say, he did later temper the threats
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: about Carlos and Brandon. He sent me another text that said,
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: if you take Carlos and Brandon out, if you take
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: my murder friends out for dinner, I'll Venmo you the money. Wow.
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: Looking for a good meal.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: The question is, what steakhouse are you taking them to?
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: But yes. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: The first thing is I'm so glad that your son
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: and his friends are okay.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: That's the first bit.
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: And you.
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: The second is I am curious what your process has
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: been when you find yourself in these situations and you
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: never know if someone is completely full of shit or
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: if there's some validity to the fact that they've got
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: murderers on payroll or.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: That there's legal threats.
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: At what point do you say, okay, this isn't just
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: a crazy person being a crazy person. I should take
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: this seriously, include my legal counsel or whatever.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Um, and if any.
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, I mean, in this situation, this was a
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: weird situation. Like I'd never been, you know, I'm in
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: the car, I'm driving Joel down from upstate New York
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: to Manhattan and all of these texts are coming in.
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: And so Joel's reading, my own son is reading these
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: death threats to me. So it was like a bad situation.
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: Funny to write about it afterwards. I've got to say,
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: one thing I've noticed over the years is that the
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: more terrifying something is in the moment, the funnier it
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: is to write about it. So I think the answer
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: to that in this situation and in most situations is,
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: you know, like I'm not comfortable. This is not a
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: good situation for me. But these are the kind of
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: stories that where three years later I might be talking
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: to the Jonas Brothers about them. So I think I'm
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: going to go with it. I'm going to be like
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: a feather in the wind of the story. I don't
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: have any preconceptions. I'm just going to go where it
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: takes me. I think I did send the death threats
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: to my publishers, like I was telling them what was happening,
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: but I just carried on. I just wanted to know
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: what the hell was going on inside this castle.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: I think we all do. Probably after the fifth or
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: sixth death threat, you're like, okay, this is, I know
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: this routine, huh?
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah. You've spent a lot of your career looking at
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: people who, I think often, most people would say their
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: behavior falls out of that which we would say is normal.
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: Is there a part of you that once you sort
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: of get a little taste, you have to just keep
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: digging and find out more and more about the castle
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: or whatever the situation may be?
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there's something about, I've had a little bit about
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: this in the book. Like the only time I'm really
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: happy is when I'm doing something like investigating a mysterious
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: castle in the Connecticut forest. That sort of fills me
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: with a joy that I'm always kind of chasing. When
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: did it start? You know, when I left school, I
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: ended up joining a band where the singer was called
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: Frank Sidebottom. And he wore a big fake head that
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: he wouldn't take off. So at the age of like 19,
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: I'm the keyboard player driving up the motorway, sitting next
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: to a man wearing a big fake head. And there
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: was something so magical about that. I'd grown up in
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: the suburbs like a boring middle class kid. And suddenly
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: I'm sitting in a van with a man wearing a
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: big fake head. And I thought, this is what I
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: want to do with my life.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: There's something there to it.
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, like Alice in the Looking Glass.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: And also your books, a few of them have been
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: made into some fantastic films as well. And with some
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: legendary actors, when that process happens and you hear that
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: somebody's interested in making your work a screenplay or putting
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: it on stage or putting it in a film, it
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Do you find that it's difficult to kind of let
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: go of the reins of the creativity or does it
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: feel like, you know, they can have their, let them
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: have their freedom?
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: The latter, Joe. I always think like I've done it,
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: you know, my book is my thing and I'll just
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: give it to them and they can do whatever they
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: want with this. I'm never into it at all. Yeah,
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: I'm always there. I'm always there if they want me.
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: But otherwise, I would never interfere. Yeah, and I don't
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: know how to make movies. You know, I work with
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: like amazing people, George Clooney and Michael Fassbender and Tilda Swinton.
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: Like I wouldn't, I have nothing to contribute, you know,
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: when you're working with people like that.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: Well, they did a great job. I mean, The Men
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: Who Stare at Ghosts, I just, I love the book
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: and I love the film too. It's great. Real quick,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: I'm just, because I'm so, well, We're going to keep
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: going back in circles because we're so fascinated.
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: This is great. I'm so flattered. Thank you, guys.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: No, thank you. Of course. For us, we love to
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: nerd out with people that we like. It makes the
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: studying and the prep a lot easier when you know
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: the material. I think so you've been publicly shamed again,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: which obviously I think majority of your fan of the
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: of your core fan base that probably that's your the
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: first read that's like usually people are like top of
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: the list and now it feels like it's come back
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: so much more and even like you said um you
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: know this is all before cancel culture was even a
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: hot topic yeah um and and i think like nick
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: said earlier being in the public eye for a good
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: amount of our our our life so far we go
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: through different like hurdles or seasons where the the shaming
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: or even if it's call it cancel culture or a moment,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: which feels like years can, can last a lot longer
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: than they actually are. And there's like war wounds that
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: kind of, you kind of feel afterwards. And I've had
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: my experience with it where you, you feel like you
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: want to press send on a tweet or Instagram or
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: a post because you feel like the world disease deserves
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: to know this, or you want to speak your truth
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: or whatever it is. And obviously, I think always afterwards,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: you're like, I'm so glad I didn't because there are
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: real people that are actually affected by my decisions, not
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: the people that follow me on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: There's a handful that are family and friends, but I
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: think there are real results with what you do. How
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: have you seen or what advice would you give for
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: somebody that's quick to the draw and how to go
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: about that? Is there like a wait period? Is there...
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: Is it better to put it in your notes app?
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: Is there something that you've seen or that you can...
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: I would love the advice because there are things in
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: my life that I just don't speak to because I'm like,
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: that's something that's off limits for me. Or because I
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: feel like it's probably better not to post this or
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: that because six, seven, eight years from now, I might
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: face that person and I want to be able to
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: face them with kindness.
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Oh, completely. Well, my first thought is if it's
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: a post and you hesitate and think, should I do it?
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: Usually you shouldn't. That's the first thing I'd say is, yeah,
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: try not to.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: It's a good starting point.
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah. We're all humans and we all, well, firstly, a
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: waiting period is a very good idea because Twitter and
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: everything that's come since, social media, is basically the world's
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: worst information swapping service. There have been so many times
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: when people have been pounded on, you know, to the
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: point where they've taken their lives on a misunderstanding or
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: even a willful misunderstanding, like the ideologues who decide to
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: pile in on you because you don't abide by whatever
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: political way they see the world. They don't even care
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: if it's true or or not. So it's a really pernicious,
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: like I would say, just don't do it. Like this
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: sort of outrage culture on social media give you a
• 29:51
  Speaker 4: very quick dopamine hit. You're almost certainly impacting the mental
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: health of the person you're piling in on. way worse
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: than you think you are.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: It's weird because things go by so fast too, right?
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think, and that's something I'm curious about
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: because you, right? And I know, I'm sure now it's
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: a lot faster, but when So You've Been Publicly Shamed
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: came out, it was like weeks of somebody dealing with something.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: And now it's like a day at most.
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: Absolutely, yeah. That is a huge change and obviously a
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: very positive change. When I was writing So You've Been
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: Publicly Shamed, These were seismic things that were happening to
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: people that could absolutely crush them. And yeah, and the
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: mainstream media would keep it going. Everybody would keep it going.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: Piling on, yeah.
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and so excited to have somebody to destroy, you know,
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: a day without a shaming is like a day treading water.
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: People are just desperate for that drama. But as you say, Joan,
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: it's a really interesting point. Like these days, it comes
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: and goes much quicker.
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: So it's healthier so then you do have to you
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: do have to weigh that up right like do we
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: do i continue it to try and make it better
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: say like everybody.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: Or bring more attention to it yeah.
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: Exactly bring more attention to it um or do you
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: just stay quiet i get approached like all the time
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: by people who've been publicly shamed and and i always
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: look them up to see um you know, what it
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: is that they've done before.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're like, before I get into this, give me
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: any advice.
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly. So if it's something where someone's hurt, like
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: if it's a sexual thing or something where there's a
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: genuine victim, I'll just ignore it. Yeah, that's good. Yeah,
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: often it's actually much smaller than they think it is.
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: It's like it's one of those things that feels really
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: big to them, but it's just like, I mean, I
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: know somebody who was fired from the newspaper that he
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: was at and so on, Because of 18 tweets, like
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: often it is something as tiny as that. So then
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: I just tell those people just don't say anything because
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: this doesn't go away very quickly. So, yeah, so that
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: is the thing you have to weigh up, I think.
• 32:06
  Speaker 4: Is it better to stay silent and that's how it
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: will all just go away? Or is it better to
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: say something at risk of elongating it, even if you
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: think you're doing the right thing?
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: One of the ones that was interesting to me when
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: it came out, just as it relates to your book
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: and to you specifically, I was reminded of your book
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: when this happened, was the Jumbotron event at the band's concert.
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: That one band and those individuals who were.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: On the Jumbotron.
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: And what it did, I feel, was it raised a
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: lot of questions about responsibility, morality, And, um, and shame
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: as a, as a whole. Yeah. Um, and then as
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: of course, more information came out, it was clear, not
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: everything was as evident on the screen in that split
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: second that they were on the screen as it had
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: then become. But at that point, the court of public
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: opinion had already decided that is something we own now.
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: That is, uh.
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we've, we've given the verdict that, And it doesn't
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: matter what's true or not. And some of that has
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: become hard to, I think, for not just people living
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: in the public eye, but in general. I think people,
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: when they go, oh, well, I have more to say
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: about this. Out of context, it can look like this.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: And the thing is, we all know that it's wrong.
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: This poor couple. I think I've had this in Saving
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: Publicly Shamed. We are inflicting a punishment on people, which
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: is the thing we're most terrified would happen to us.
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: And so we know it's wrong. Also, that couple on
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: the cam at the Coldplay concert is exactly the kind
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: of thing I'm writing about in Saving Publicly Shamed, like
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: a private couple who are suddenly like thrust into being
• 34:00
  Speaker 4: this kind of giant play thing for everybody. And, you know, sure,
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: it's funny for a minute and whatever. But I think
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: it's creating a society where people are fearful and angry
• 34:13
  Speaker 4: and becoming unashamed and just bunkering down into their silos
• 34:17
  Speaker 4: and And so on. And, you know, that's not the
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: world that we want. I think the world we want
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: is where people have conversations like this. People talk and
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: communicate and are curious about each other. So, yeah, anything
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: where you think, OK, we've just turned these people into
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: some kind of plaything, some kind of joke for our,
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: you know, edification because life is so hard and we're
• 34:39
  Speaker 4: all wandering around feeling so purposeless. We just want to,
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: you know, fill the emptiness by laughing at this couple.
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: We know it's wrong.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: Thank you, John.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: Your insight is unbelievable. And I'm so excited to read
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: the book.
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: We must thank your bandmate with Strange Head.
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: For giving you such an interest in people. Really appreciate you,
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: your words, your empathy, and the fact that You continue
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: to chase great stories for all of us to learn from.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much. I feel like we could probably
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: have a part two with John because, John, we didn't
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: even get into aliens, okay?
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: The Jonas Brothers are big, big alien guys. Totally.
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: Oh, totally. Yeah, I went UFO hunting with Robbie Williams,
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: who you must know. Love. Yes. Can I tell you
• 35:27
  Speaker 4: before my favorite moment for the day? I went alien
• 35:29
  Speaker 4: hunting with Robbie Williams. Please. Of course. Okay. He hired
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: a private plane for the day. We were going to
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: go into the desert in Nevada. So we all pull
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: up at this private plane and there's a lady standing
• 35:41
  Speaker 4: there and she says, Mr. Williams, Mr. Williams' friends, welcome.
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: This is your private plane for the day. And then
• 35:47
  Speaker 4: she said, what I want to tell you is that
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: Snoop Dogg uses this plane. What I'm saying is you
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: can do anything. And we all kind of looked at
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: each other and... And Robbie's friend Brandon said, well, can
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: we stand up as the plane lands? That was the
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: only thing we could think of to do. It was transgressive.
• 36:14
  Speaker 4: Stand up as the plane lands.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: Did you?
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: I think we did, yeah. We were like, whoa.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, when you can get away with anything.
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly. Have me on again.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: Please, we would love to. John, congrats on your new book.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much. It's out now in the UK.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: So people can get it in the UK and it
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: comes out next week. Is that correct? In the US.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: That's amazing. So congratulations. Thank you so much for sending
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: it early. I cannot wait to read it when I
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: get home.
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: Excellent, Picasso.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: Adventures in a World of Unraveling Men. Amazing.
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: You guys have just been so great to talk to.
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, John. Thank you for your time.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: Have a lovely day. Hope to see you soon in person.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: We got to make that happen.
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: I would like that very much.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: Part two in person.
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yes.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: Thanks, John.
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: Oh my God.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: That was so cool. I could talk to him for, yeah,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: that was like an hour. For hours. Flew by. Just awesome.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: So fascinating. But, you know, I think just a genuine,
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: what he said, you know, being like, we need to
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: be more curious instead of just quick to judge. And
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: I feel like that's something that's really lacking in the world.
• 37:21
  Speaker 4: Love it.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: Well, as always, I loved it. Well, bye-bye, guys. Bye-bye.
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: Bye-bye.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: Thank you, John.