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5 Questions with Andy Borowitz · Reasonably Happy with Paul Ollinger

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Hey, everybody.
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SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Five Questions with Paul Ollinger.
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SPEAKER_00: I am said Paul Ollinger,
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SPEAKER_00: New York City-based comedian and podcaster,
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SPEAKER_00: and I am honored today to be joined by my esteemed guest,
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SPEAKER_00: who is a New York Times bestselling author multiple times over,
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SPEAKER_00: the first ever National Press Club Award winner for humor.
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He's the comedy genius behind the massively popular Substack The
0:20
Borowitz Report,
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SPEAKER_00: which he's been publishing on one platform or another since 2001.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: But most importantly,
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SPEAKER_00: He was the co-creator of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air.
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SPEAKER_00: So if you ever see me doing the Carlton at a wedding,
0:34
SPEAKER_00: one,
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SPEAKER_00: put me in a cab and take me home,
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SPEAKER_00: and two,
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SPEAKER_00: know that it is my guest's fault that any of us know what the Carlton is,
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SPEAKER_00: please welcome Mr.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: Andy Borowitz.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: Good to be here.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: Andy, I'm happy to have you here.
0:50
I have to confess,
0:51
I have been getting the Borowitz Report off and on since the
0:55
early days.
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SPEAKER_00: And I had no idea you had such a pedigree in television production,
1:01
so I was thrilled to find out that you're one of the people
1:04
behind The Fresh
1:05
SPEAKER_00: Prince.
1:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, I mean, I have a very, I would say, eccentric resume.
1:11
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I started out as a sitcom person.
1:14
SPEAKER_01: The first show I ever worked on was Archie Bunker's Place,
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SPEAKER_01: which was the lesser successor to All in the Family.
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and that was like when I was 23 so with the great Norman Lear
1:28
with the great Norman
1:29
Lear Norman Lear in his infinite wisdom had already left the
1:33
show by the time I got
1:34
there so I was dealing well not directly but I was I was
1:40
subject to the the
1:42
dictatorial regime of Carol O'Connor who played Archie and yeah
1:47
you know he and he
1:48
and Norman this is all predated me but he and Norman apparently
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had a very
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SPEAKER_01: very testy relationship because before before on the family,
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SPEAKER_01: Carol O'Connor had been very much a character actor,
2:01
SPEAKER_01: not at all a star.
2:03
He was really very well respected,
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but he was a theater actor and a character actor.
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And then he was suddenly catapulted into this position where he
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was the number one
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SPEAKER_01: star on the CBS network.
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SPEAKER_01: So he had I remember I didn't drive up to the
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SPEAKER_01: Studio in Television City in LA because I didn't have a car.
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SPEAKER_01: I was like, I was the only person in LA taking the bus.
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SPEAKER_01: And I took a bus and I arrived at CBS Television City.
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I saw that Carol O'Connor had a better parking space than the
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president of CBS.
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SPEAKER_01: That's where he stood in the cosmology of CBS.
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And he,
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I guess because he and Norman had this very difficult
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relationship
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He eventually alienated Norman sufficiently that Norman was no
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longer involved day
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to day and then Carol really didn't have much time for the
3:00
writers because we would
3:01
write these scripts and then he would kind of improv based on
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the scripts very
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loosely I would say he saw the scripts as prompts and so he
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sort of got rid of the
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SPEAKER_01: writers and eventually he got rid of the audience too because it famously
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SPEAKER_01: All the family was taped in front of a live studio audience.
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By the time Archie Bunker's place came around,
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we were taped in front of no audience.
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SPEAKER_01: And Carol's executive producer,
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SPEAKER_01: who was his godson,
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SPEAKER_01: actually a very nice gentleman,
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SPEAKER_01: but was,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
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SPEAKER_01: there on a very much on a nepo baby basis.
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He was responsible for putting in the laughs with a laugh
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machine after the fact.
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SPEAKER_01: So Carol became the arbiter of what was funny on the show, too.
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SPEAKER_01: He he replaced the function that's traditionally played by an audience.
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SPEAKER_01: So it was a very surreal introduction to TV.
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SPEAKER_01: And it does seem like a million years ago,
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SPEAKER_01: but it was kind of a cool thing to be doing when you're 23.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
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SPEAKER_00: and some shows that you worked on,
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SPEAKER_00: I remember watching as a teenager or even barely teenager,
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SPEAKER_00: Square Pegs,
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SPEAKER_00: which brought the world Sarah Jessica Parker and Jamie Girt,
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SPEAKER_00: and then the Facts of Life,
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which are Gen X pop cultural touchstones like John Hughes
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before John Hughes.
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SPEAKER_00: But my question for you,
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SPEAKER_00: the first question is,
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SPEAKER_00: you've chosen to live a life outside of Hollywood.
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SPEAKER_00: What drove that decision?
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SPEAKER_01: You know,
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SPEAKER_01: I would just,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
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I get asked about this a lot because when you have a very lucky
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to have a success
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like Fresh Prince and the impulse in Hollywood and in
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capitalism in general is just
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SPEAKER_01: to repeat yourself,
4:44
SPEAKER_01: you know,
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SPEAKER_01: that you have a successful product.
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So you just keep on making more of that product over and over
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and over again.
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SPEAKER_01: And that's kind of I'm ready.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm so ready for that moment in my life.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm ready to sell out.
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SPEAKER_00: I want my Larry the Cable Guy moment, dammit.
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SPEAKER_01: It'll happen.
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SPEAKER_01: I hope so.
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SPEAKER_01: You have to just lower your standards a little bit.
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SPEAKER_01: I'm ready.
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SPEAKER_01: But I mean,
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I realized pretty soon after Fresh Prince went on the air that
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it was really
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SPEAKER_01: lightning in a bottle.
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SPEAKER_01: It was a very fluky success.
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SPEAKER_01: It was this kid, Will Smith, who had never acted before and
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although now it's very much in the mainstream of TV and it's
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like the most
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wholesome all-American show in the world at the time it was
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really going against
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the grain because the networks and the media the corporate
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media in general were
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terrified by hip-hop hip-hop was like to them gangster rap it
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was you know sort of
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the I would say the inherent racism of corporate media really
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showed its true
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SPEAKER_01: colors no pun intended but they were very
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SPEAKER_01: Terrified by what they knew that Will Smith had something at NBC.
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They knew that he had a lot of charisma,
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but then they were terrified by what he might have.
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SPEAKER_01: And so they were always like trying to get me to take the edges off.
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SPEAKER_01: Not that I could ever find any discernible edges in Will Smith.
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SPEAKER_01: He seemed pretty safe to me, pretty safe and suburban.
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But once that show hit,
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you know,
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it was only a matter of time before I realized,
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well,
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SPEAKER_01: I've kind of done the thing that you're supposed to do in Hollywood,
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SPEAKER_01: which is have a success as fluky as it was.
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And do I want to spend the rest of my life kind of chasing my
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own tail and trying
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SPEAKER_01: to do that again?
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SPEAKER_01: Unlikely.
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I don't I'm not like a Spielberg kind of hit maker where I just
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have all these
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SPEAKER_01: great commercial ideas up my sleeve.
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SPEAKER_01: I'm just not that's not my gear.
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SPEAKER_01: And maybe if I if I did have that kind of talent,
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SPEAKER_01: I would have stayed at the wheel for longer.
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SPEAKER_01: But I kind of felt like, okay, I'm feeling very burned out.
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SPEAKER_01: I feel like I've repeated this experience a lot of times already.
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SPEAKER_01: So what else can I do?
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SPEAKER_01: So that was kind of, it wasn't like a very bold or daring decision.
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SPEAKER_01: It was kind of like, all right, I've done this.
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SPEAKER_01: I don't think I have much more to give here.
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SPEAKER_01: What else can I do with violence?
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SPEAKER_00: Well,
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SPEAKER_00: you mentioned idea generation,
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SPEAKER_00: and when I think about writing five posts a week for 25 years,
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SPEAKER_00: that is an infinite amount of creative ideation.
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SPEAKER_00: So I want to ask you about the Borowitz Report.
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SPEAKER_00: You know,
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SPEAKER_00: there's the famous quote you've heard a thousand times,
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SPEAKER_00: attributed to Mark Twain,
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SPEAKER_00: but it goes back to Blaise Pascal,
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I wrote you a long letter because I didn't have time to write a
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short one.
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Each of your posts is 250 words or fewer And you've been doing
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it for a quarter of
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SPEAKER_00: a century How do you find the time?
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SPEAKER_01: How do I find the time to write such short things?
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SPEAKER_01: Yes As our boy Blaise Pascal My man,
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SPEAKER_00: my man Blaise You know,
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SPEAKER_01: I You know,
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SPEAKER_01: it's funny I do think concision
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SPEAKER_01: is great as an audience member.
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SPEAKER_01: I mean,
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if I see a play and I feel like there's no fat in that play and
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it's like 90
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SPEAKER_01: minutes maybe with or without an intermission,
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and I feel like the playwright and the people working on it
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really eliminated all
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SPEAKER_01: the unnecessary parts,
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I feel like that's a huge success for me as an audience member
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because now I can
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SPEAKER_01: continue with my life.
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SPEAKER_01: I'm entertained and I can move on.
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SPEAKER_01: So my instinct is always to write short.
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SPEAKER_01: I don't have,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
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when I hear these stories about people who wrote the first
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draft of their novel,
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SPEAKER_01: and it was 2000 pages long,
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SPEAKER_01: and their editor had to get it down.
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SPEAKER_01: I just like, I cannot relate.
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I tend to,
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it might be a short attention span on my part,
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but I tend to write short.
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SPEAKER_01: And in a way, I think, just accidentally, my
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SPEAKER_01: Weakness,
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SPEAKER_01: if it is a weakness,
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my short attention span kind of aligns with the internet in
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some ways predicted
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SPEAKER_01: certain trends in the internet.
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SPEAKER_01: Not that I'm in favor of people shortening their attention span,
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SPEAKER_01: but certainly social media,
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SPEAKER_01: scrolling,
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SPEAKER_01: all these terrible things we bemoan all the time.
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SPEAKER_01: They do kind of require that you say what you're going to say quickly.
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SPEAKER_01: You can't go on and on and on.
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SPEAKER_01: And
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SPEAKER_01: I love the fact that you can put that stuff alongside of long form.
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Like,
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for example,
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this,
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we're having a conversation,
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this is going to be like half an hour.
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SPEAKER_01: That's a long,
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that's a big chunk of time to ask an audience to devote
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themselves to what you have
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SPEAKER_01: to say.
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SPEAKER_01: And I do do interviews now on the site, stuff that I never did before.
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SPEAKER_01: You know,
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SPEAKER_01: I have a podcast that's occasional,
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SPEAKER_01: it's intermittent,
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comes out when I have somebody worth talking to or who's
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willing to talk to me.
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but I like the fact that I can devote a few months out of my
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life like I did in
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2021 and actually sit down and write a book because I had
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something longer to say
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but then most of the time do something shorter that's on my
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mind and make my point
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and then be done with it I think one of the problems sometimes
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with not just comedy
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SPEAKER_01: but with kind of think pieces and op-eds and
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really everything when it comes down to letters or and I mean
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letters in the old
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sense of just writing or drama or TV it's just things go on too
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long like we get it
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you've made your point and you know it's again it was sort of
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one of my issues with
10:44
television which is that I love the fact that I mean the Fresh
10:48
Prince pilot
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SPEAKER_01: was like 19 minutes long.
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SPEAKER_01: It was actually a presentation.
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SPEAKER_01: It wasn't even a full pilot.
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SPEAKER_01: And then before we aired it,
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we had to come up with another three minutes to tack on at the
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end so that we had
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SPEAKER_01: time to justify all those commercials.
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SPEAKER_01: But I mean,
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SPEAKER_01: I liked how short that form was,
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SPEAKER_01: but I didn't like the fact that you then had to make 150 of them.
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SPEAKER_01: I felt like that is,
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SPEAKER_01: okay,
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SPEAKER_01: now we're getting into,
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SPEAKER_01: it's seeming much more like a job than like play.
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SPEAKER_01: And I feel like
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SPEAKER_01: Creativity.
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I am sort of childish in that I feel like creativity should be
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playtime and should be fun.
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SPEAKER_01: And when it starts feeling too adult and feeling too much like work,
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SPEAKER_01: that's where I kind of check out a little bit and lose interest.
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SPEAKER_01: So I feel like this format of doing short form things,
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SPEAKER_01: almost like haikus,
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SPEAKER_01: I have kind of a strict format behind what I'm writing.
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SPEAKER_01: It's a
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SPEAKER_01: It's great.
11:46
SPEAKER_01: It's almost like doing like a little crossword puzzle every day.
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It's like mental exercise,
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but it's not I'm not getting I'm not getting sick of it.
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SPEAKER_01: And I'm hopefully not boring the shit out of too many people.
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SPEAKER_01: I mean,
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SPEAKER_01: I know I am doing that inevitably,
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SPEAKER_01: but I feel like if I've asked a subscriber to spend 20 seconds with me,
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SPEAKER_01: that's not arrogance on my part.
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SPEAKER_01: Maybe that's being I'm being accurately assessing
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SPEAKER_01: how much time they really want to spend with me that day.
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SPEAKER_00: Fair enough.
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SPEAKER_00: Okay, question number three.
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As a writer and a graduate of John Harvard's College,
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do you have a grammatical pet peeve?
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SPEAKER_01: Oh, I think it's not so much grammatical.
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I mean,
12:35
I do some things that people say just are like,
12:38
you know,
12:39
nails on a chalkboard.
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SPEAKER_01: I hate when people say, as best you can.
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SPEAKER_01: It's like as well as you can or the best you can.
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SPEAKER_01: And now I'm sounding like just the biggest old school mom in the world.
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SPEAKER_01: But that drives me crazy.
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SPEAKER_01: It also bothers me when instead of people saying,
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SPEAKER_01: if I had known you wanted me to do that,
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SPEAKER_01: they say,
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SPEAKER_01: if I would have known that that drives me absolutely batshit.
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SPEAKER_01: So those are two things that I find grading.
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SPEAKER_01: I know it seems very intolerant on my part.
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SPEAKER_01: But the main thing I have a problem with,
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SPEAKER_01: and it really isn't grammatical,
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SPEAKER_01: it comes down to Strunk and White,
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SPEAKER_01: the elements of style,
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SPEAKER_01: which is taught at other places besides Harvard College,
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SPEAKER_01: I should say.
13:24
It should be taught everywhere because it's a great text for
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anybody who has to sit
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SPEAKER_01: down and write a letter not assisted by AI,
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SPEAKER_01: God willing.
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SPEAKER_01: And the best
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I think I actually read it in high school I think in English
13:42
class our teacher made
13:43
us read it and the best advice for any writer and I think it
13:47
maybe dovetails a
13:48
little bit to question number two is the instruction omit
13:55
needless words omit
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SPEAKER_01: needless words if you start with that as a writer and I don't mean as a
14:00
professional writer but as anybody who ever tries to write a
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sentence you really
14:04
SPEAKER_01: can't go wrong and
14:06
It's actually one of the reasons why my columns wind up being
14:11
considerably less
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SPEAKER_01: than 200 words,
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SPEAKER_01: if I have to be honest.
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SPEAKER_01: It's because I will go over them a few times and omit needless words.
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SPEAKER_01: And it's interesting,
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SPEAKER_01: as concise as I think I'm being when I'm writing that first draft,
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SPEAKER_01: which might be topping out at 189 words,
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SPEAKER_01: there might be nine words in there that need to go.
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SPEAKER_01: So that isn't a grammatical pet peeve, but it is kind of a
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It Is Kind Of A North Star Is That The Right Expression That
14:39
Kind Of A I Don't Know
14:42
It It's A Good Idea Right Right How Do You Feel About The
14:47
Expression It Is What It
14:48
Is Well I Like It Ironically Now I Am A Stoic Or I Aspire To Be
14:58
A Stoic So To A
14:59
Certain Extent It Is What It Is Is An Expression Of Stoicism
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Which Is That
15:04
You Have To Accept Reality But Even Stoics Aren't Like Totally
15:10
Passive Like Marcus
15:11
Aurelius Was A Stoic But He Still Had To Kind Of Run The Roman
15:15
Empire He Couldn't
15:16
Just Sit There All Day Saying It Is What It Is There Is
15:20
Something What Are You
15:20
Gonna Do What Are You Gonna Do Like Tony Soprano He He And I
15:28
Mean The Stoics Had
15:29
SPEAKER_01: This Idea Which Is You Still Try Your Hardest To
15:33
um make things to achieve a result but you always had that kind
15:36
of reserve clause
15:37
which was try your hardest but accept the results if they're
15:40
not what you were
15:41
going for and I think that's good that's a little bit different
15:44
from it is what it
15:45
is it is what it is is something that um Donald Trump said um
15:52
very famous famously
15:54
SPEAKER_01: about COVID
15:55
SPEAKER_01: You know, all the deaths is what it is.
15:57
And that's how you wind up with like a million needless deaths
16:00
by just accepting
16:02
the reality of your own mediocrity as a leader that you could
16:06
not do better than
16:08
SPEAKER_01: you did.
16:09
SPEAKER_01: So I suspect you don't like it is what it is.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: No, it's just one of those things.
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SPEAKER_00: I don't like it, but I find myself saying it a lot.
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SPEAKER_00: You know, it's sort of a tick that I can't get away from.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: So.
16:22
You mentioned AI and every conversation about writing these
16:25
days has to have a
16:28
SPEAKER_00: segment about AI.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: As a comedy writer, I try to use AI for
16:36
SPEAKER_00: for feedback or for ideation.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: But as far as writing jokes, it's terrible.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: It writes dad jokes or knock knock jokes.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: And so I thought I'd give it a chance to do what it's good at.
16:47
And so I went to ChatGPT and said,
16:49
write a knock knock joke about Andy Borowitz.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: And so here's what ChatGPT came back with.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: Knock knock.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: Who's there?
16:58
SPEAKER_00: Andy.
17:00
SPEAKER_01: Andy who?
17:01
SPEAKER_00: Andy Borowitz,
17:02
I just published a story saying 83% of Americans think this
17:06
joke is funnier than
17:07
SPEAKER_00: the Constitution.
17:09
SPEAKER_01: That is absolutely horrible.
17:11
SPEAKER_00: It's terrible.
17:12
SPEAKER_01: That was Chat was responsible for that?
17:17
SPEAKER_00: That was ChatGPT.
17:19
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I don't even want to know what Claude or Grok would do.
17:23
SPEAKER_01: I want to say one thing about Chat or any of these AI tools and comedy.
17:30
Don't get me started on my general rant about the AI bubble and
17:34
the incredible
17:34
SPEAKER_01: fraud that's being perpetrated on stock investors and the rest of us.
17:39
SPEAKER_01: But we can talk about that at some other point.
17:43
SPEAKER_01: But in terms of humor, there's this great thing that's developed.
17:46
SPEAKER_01: I would actually don't use chat at all.
17:49
SPEAKER_01: I was using it for a while until I realized,
17:51
SPEAKER_01: chat told me recently that Jane Goodall was still alive.
17:55
And I had to persuade it through numerous prompts to look at
18:00
her Wikipedia page.
18:03
SPEAKER_01: And finally, Chad said, thanks for flagging that.
18:06
SPEAKER_01: She died last year.
18:08
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, yeah, dumb ass.
18:10
SPEAKER_01: So chat, I think is pretty useless for most things.
18:14
SPEAKER_01: If we're really betting on chat to cure cancer,
18:18
I think maybe we should need to go to Mexico for alternative
18:21
treatments instead.
18:22
SPEAKER_01: I don't think that it's on the cusp of doing that.
18:25
But one thing that I find very helpful to my comedy is that on
18:30
Facebook,
18:32
Meta AI has started
18:35
SPEAKER_01: giving me advice on my posts.
18:37
SPEAKER_01: So I do a post and I did a post about Pope Leo earlier this week.
18:45
And Meta AI said,
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your post about Pope Leo is doing better than your average
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post.
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Maybe do another post on the same thing to take advantage of
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this interest.
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SPEAKER_01: And I thought,
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SPEAKER_01: Well, this is really great humor advice.
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SPEAKER_01: If you've done a joke that gets a laugh,
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SPEAKER_01: do the exact same joke again,
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because there's nothing funnier than repeating the same joke
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multiple times.
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SPEAKER_01: And so what I started doing,
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I started doing on Facebook is I will just do a screenshot of
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Meta AI's incredibly
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SPEAKER_01: moronic solutions.
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SPEAKER_01: I post those because they're funnier.
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SPEAKER_01: They're funnier than anything I come with.
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SPEAKER_01: And I just invite my audience to mock meta AI.
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And actually,
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so that's actually been an unintentional comedy goldmine for
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me.
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SPEAKER_01: Just let's make fun of this idiotic tool that's absolutely useless.
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SPEAKER_01: I'm glad you found some use for it.
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SPEAKER_01: I don't mean to.
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SPEAKER_00: Not at all.
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SPEAKER_00: My question is, will AI ever be able to write comedy?
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SPEAKER_00: But your anecdotes demonstrate where it is today.
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is that it is a blunt tool that is unintentionally funny and
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mocks itself.
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SPEAKER_00: It's giving you the same career advice that you avoided in Hollywood,
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which is go do the same joke over 155 times until you get into
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syndication.
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SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
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SPEAKER_01: I mean,
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SPEAKER_01: early in my career,
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SPEAKER_01: I worked with a writer,
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SPEAKER_01: one of the founders of National Lampoon named Henry Beard.
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SPEAKER_01: He's kind of legendary.
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a truly hilarious and brilliant and off the charts smart guy
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and he would talk a
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lot about stuff at the lampoon that he did and that he was
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editor so he had to edit
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other people's works and and sometimes he would talk about
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certain jokes and he
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says there are these jokes that sort of look like a duck and
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walk like a duck but
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are not a duck like there are things that are sort of in the
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form of humor in the
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SPEAKER_01: form of comedy that aren't really funny and
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by the way I have a very broad church in terms of what I think
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is funny like I
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think there are things that other people think are hilarious
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that I don't really
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get and that's fine I deem those things funny because they're
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funny for somebody so
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I'm not judgmental I'm not a comedy nerd at all I'm not a snob
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I feel like if
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there's a comedian out there that's killing it and I just do
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not get the jokes he's
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still funny because you can't take back the laugh a laugh is a
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genuine human
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SPEAKER_01: response but Henry's point is good is that they're
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SPEAKER_01: There were smart people,
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SPEAKER_01: and you would see this in comedy,
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there were smart people who kind of imitate the contours of a
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joke and the format
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SPEAKER_01: of a joke,
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SPEAKER_01: and it was very close to actually being a joke,
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SPEAKER_01: except that it wasn't funny.
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SPEAKER_01: And I feel like that's what AI is,
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SPEAKER_01: at least at this current state of its development,
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SPEAKER_01: is capable of doing.
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SPEAKER_01: It's capable of kind of like an alien landing on a spaceship and kind of
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SPEAKER_01: understanding human interaction and language up to a point
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SPEAKER_01: It can kind of mime that or mimic that.
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SPEAKER_01: And that actually for the internet is often enough.
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SPEAKER_01: For the internet,
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SPEAKER_01: like doing a meme that's not really funny,
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SPEAKER_01: but it's in the right form is enough for people to think,
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SPEAKER_01: oh,
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SPEAKER_01: that's a good one.
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They might not actually laugh at it,
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but they might say,
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oh,
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that's a good one.
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SPEAKER_01: I'm going to repost that.
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SPEAKER_01: empty calorie version of comedy,
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this kind of virtual comedy that exists outside of that genuine
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human response of
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SPEAKER_01: laughter that I would say 99% of what's online really is.
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SPEAKER_01: It's like memes.
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SPEAKER_01: It's like a reference.
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SPEAKER_01: It's slop.
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It's all this stuff that no one has really ever laughed at,
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but they've reposted a lot.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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I got a DM on Instagram this morning from some guy who said he
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is reaching out on
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behalf of a well-funded pre-IPO AI company that's trying to
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help develop comedy in
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SPEAKER_00: the chat bot.
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Would I spend a few hours every week reviewing and telling it
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what's funny?
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SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, oh, okay, here we are.
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SPEAKER_00: So...
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Did you run that email through chat to make sure that was not
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AI generated?
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SPEAKER_01: Because I bet it was.
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SPEAKER_00: It probably was.
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SPEAKER_00: It probably was.
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SPEAKER_00: But yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: All right.
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SPEAKER_00: Last question.
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SPEAKER_00: We'll let you go.
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SPEAKER_00: What is the secret to a happy life?
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SPEAKER_01: Oh, wow.
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SPEAKER_01: That's, um, I guess I'm glad you've only allotted a few minutes to that.
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SPEAKER_01: That's a very cool question.
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SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'd like the, I like the, um,
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SPEAKER_01: the premise of that, the presumption that I am leading a happy life.
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SPEAKER_01: I really am for the most part.
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SPEAKER_01: I mean,
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I think I don't want to underestimate the misery that envelops
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the world right now,
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SPEAKER_01: not just the United States,
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SPEAKER_01: but most continents in the world,
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SPEAKER_01: except maybe Antarctica.
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Although we've withdrawn,
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we put tariffs on Antarctica on the penguins down there.
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SPEAKER_01: So even they are suffering to some extent from our misery.
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SPEAKER_01: But
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SPEAKER_01: You know,
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SPEAKER_01: I think if you want to get into some deep philosophy,
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SPEAKER_01: I want to quote one of my favorite philosophers,
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SPEAKER_01: who is my friend Susie Essman,
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SPEAKER_01: the comedian from Curb Your Enthusiasm.
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SPEAKER_01: She's best known for Curb Your Enthusiasm,
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SPEAKER_01: but she's been a great comedian for years,
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SPEAKER_01: a good friend of mine.
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SPEAKER_01: And Susie,
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SPEAKER_01: I interviewed her at Thanksgiving time,
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SPEAKER_01: right after the election,
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SPEAKER_01: after 2024,
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SPEAKER_01: when so many of us were feeling like we just entered
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SPEAKER_01: a new dystopia,
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a feeling that I must say has been very much borne out by
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what's happened over the
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SPEAKER_01: last year and a half.
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SPEAKER_01: And Susie had this advice,
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SPEAKER_01: and I think this is really very deep,
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SPEAKER_01: and it's echoed by many of the great philosophers across the eons,
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SPEAKER_01: which is,
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SPEAKER_01: she said,
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SPEAKER_01: focus on the micro because the macro is fucked.
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SPEAKER_01: And I really like that.
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SPEAKER_01: I think we're spending a lot of time now
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SPEAKER_01: doom scrolling, consuming too much news.
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I think we need to consume enough news to be well informed
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enough to vote and also
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SPEAKER_01: to know how to keep our family and our communities safe.
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If we find out that there's a tornado coming,
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it's good to have that news.
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SPEAKER_01: That's important news to have.
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SPEAKER_01: But in terms of the ups and downs of politics and all that,
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SPEAKER_01: even though that is kind of my bread and butter and maybe I'm
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SPEAKER_01: Biting the hand by saying we pay too much attention to that stuff.
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SPEAKER_01: I think a certain amount is fine,
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but I'm old enough to remember when the only news we got was
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the morning paper,
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SPEAKER_01: maybe an evening paper if our parents subscribed to it,
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SPEAKER_01: the evening news,
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SPEAKER_01: and maybe like the Today Show if we watched TV in the morning.
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SPEAKER_01: And that was kind of it.
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SPEAKER_01: And we had to sort of go about our business during the day
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blissfully unaware of the minutiae of what was going on in
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Washington or other
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SPEAKER_01: world capitals or on the battlefields of,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
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in those days it would have been Vietnam and now we've got like
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wars everywhere.
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But somehow we were able to soldier on during the day without
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all that information.
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So what that tells me is that we now are getting too much
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information that's not
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SPEAKER_01: really advancing anything in terms of our being able to
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Lead Happier Productive Lives And Maybe We'd Be Better Off You
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Know Doing Some
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SPEAKER_01: Things That Are More Micro If I Can Quote One Other Philosopher Which My
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Grandfather Whose Name Was Max Osterman He Had This Piece Of
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It's Like An Old
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Chestnut And I Have A Feeling He Was Not Like A You Know A
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Great Philosopher Like
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Susie Essman So I Have A Feeling He Didn't Come Up With This
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Himself My Guess Is He
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SPEAKER_01: Read It Somewhere But His His Philosophy Was
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SPEAKER_01: Every day, take a walk, read a book, make a friend.
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SPEAKER_01: What's better than that?
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SPEAKER_01: It's like between that and Susie Essman, I think you're good.
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SPEAKER_00: I like it.
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SPEAKER_00: That's pretty good.
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SPEAKER_00: And studies have proven that being outside,
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SPEAKER_00: being social,
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SPEAKER_00: being with friends,
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SPEAKER_00: relationships,
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SPEAKER_00: and doing something like reading actually does make you happier.
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SPEAKER_00: So your grandfather was a wise man indeed.
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Yeah,
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and I mean,
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I'm also helped in this regard because I have two dogs.
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SPEAKER_01: And so dogs need a lot of walking.
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SPEAKER_01: And so walking actually takes care of two of those things,
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SPEAKER_01: which is that you wind up taking a walk,
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SPEAKER_01: as Max prescribed,
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SPEAKER_01: making a friend.
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SPEAKER_01: You actually do make friends because dogs lead to other people.
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SPEAKER_01: And especially if you're in a place like New York City, where
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SPEAKER_01: Dog people tend to intersect with each other.
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The one thing that dogs do not help you do is read a book
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because my dogs are
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SPEAKER_01: happily competing with whatever I'm trying to read for my attention.
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SPEAKER_01: So dogs just have not gotten the memo about read a book.
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SPEAKER_01: But for the first two things, they're helpful.
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SPEAKER_00: Which is why there's podcasts and audiobooks.
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SPEAKER_01: I do actually listen to podcasts.
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SPEAKER_01: We have a pond.
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SPEAKER_01: I know you're familiar with Hannah.
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SPEAKER_01: Ockham Pond is very nice.
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SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: Lovely.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01: Here at the Dartmouth campus.
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SPEAKER_01: And it's like one mile around.
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SPEAKER_01: So I'll take my two dogs twice around.
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SPEAKER_01: And that's usually a pretty good exercise for them.
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SPEAKER_01: It's about two miles.
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And I listen to a lot of BBC podcasts because they tend to be
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pretty good.
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SPEAKER_01: I mean, a lot of information.
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SPEAKER_01: And they do help me zoom out.
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SPEAKER_01: Like I'm not focusing so much on the
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SPEAKER_01: day-to-day minutiae of British politics,
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SPEAKER_01: although I do find British politics incredibly entertaining,
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SPEAKER_01: I must say.
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SPEAKER_01: But,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
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SPEAKER_01: you can listen to a podcast,
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SPEAKER_01: I was listening to one the other day,
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SPEAKER_01: all about world population decline,
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SPEAKER_01: which has become a big trend that some demographers are concerned with.
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I am not concerned about it because I think fewer people would
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improve this place considerably.
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But it was,
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you know,
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I get to interact with my dogs and get some exercise and also
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you know be kind of edified a little bit so that's I think all
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that contributes to
29:04
happiness I think just in general I say this to my kids I have
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three kids and this
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is maybe my only advice I say like I say like I do not have a
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big strong opinion
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about the choices you make other than I hope that when you make
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choices they will
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SPEAKER_01: contribute to your being
29:28
Happy and Healthy and like when you make a choice if it's going
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to make you happy
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for the moment like oh that drug looks kind of fun but it's
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going to make you
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unhealthy you should probably cross that off your list and just
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try to think about
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like in the choices you make are you going to be happy and
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healthy as a result of
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this choice and even at my age I sort of feel like that's kind
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of a good exercise
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SPEAKER_01: like because we're constantly confronted with choices especially now
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with the internet and apps and phones providing us with all
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these opportunities for
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SPEAKER_01: instant gratification and I would say instant self-destruction.
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It's up to you to make that decision to see if those two
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factors will be realized
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SPEAKER_01: if you make that choice.
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SPEAKER_01: So,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
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I wish I could say that all these years of experience have led
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me to great insights
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SPEAKER_01: into happiness,
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SPEAKER_01: but
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I think like acknowledging having some humility and knowing how
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much you don't know
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is a great place to start like whether it's you know Susie
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Essman or Seneca or
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Blaise Pascal you know open your mind to other people's wisdom
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people who maybe
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arrived at some deeper truths that you haven't yet and see if
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that'll work for you
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SPEAKER_01: it's like we're engaged in this daily experiment of life
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SPEAKER_00: Well, Andy, thank you for choosing to be with me today.
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SPEAKER_00: I've been a fan for a long time.
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SPEAKER_00: I enjoy your writing.
30:59
SPEAKER_00: Links to the Borowitz Report are in the body of the text of this post,
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SPEAKER_00: or if you're listening on a podcast,
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SPEAKER_00: it is in the show notes.
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SPEAKER_00: So click on the link, check it out, and enjoy Andy's humor.
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SPEAKER_00: Andy, thanks again.
31:12
SPEAKER_01: Thanks again.