Senses Working Overtime with David Cross - Adam Conover

Episode Date: August 8, 2024

Adam Conover (Adam Ruins Everything) joins David to discuss street dogs, police unions, and more. Catch all new episodes every Thursday. Watch video episodes here.Guest: Adam ConoverSubscribe and Rate Senses Working Overtime on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review to read on a future episode!Follow David on Instagram and Twitter.Follow the show:Instagram: @sensesworkingovertimepodTikTok: @swopodEditor: Kati SkeltonEngineer: Nicole LyonsExecutive Producer: Emma FoleyAdvertise on Senses Working Overtime via Gumball.fm.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a HeadGum Podcast. Great to meet you. You as well. Now I always give the guest an option, couch or chair. It's totally up to you. It doesn't matter for... Where do you... do you change where you sit based on what I choose? Well yeah, one or the other. So you can take... I'll take

chair why not? Alright. When I record in the room, I'm gonna do it from the room next door then and Emma you'll patch me in? Sounds good. I do I use the couch when I'm hosting so this will make me feel like I'm a guest rather than a host. Motherfucker chose the chair. What did I tell you? What did you tell me? You thought I would choose the chair? I'm gonna use the bathroom really quick actually, okay? Yeah, that's what the chair the chairs multipurpose Yeah, exactly that or would you like water or anything Adam? Yeah Cold from the from the fridge yeah, I made it myself cuz I'm not fancy I'll tell you what I'm gonna take this time while Adam goes to the... What? Oh, I'm talking to the audience. Sorry. That's, you've heard it, phony. You've heard it here first. I just want to remind everybody that

I have some shows coming up. I don't know when this thing's coming out but August 8th big show in Central Park David Cross and Super Pals lots of great special guests that'll be outside that'll be fun Center Stage Summer Stage Central Park and then also my the end of the beginning of the end tour kicks off in early to mid September, I believe. Go to OfficialDavidCross.com for all that information where I'm going to be. And I've also got shows this weekend, two in Milwaukee, two in Omaha. So check those out. Might be too late for that. I don't know. But what's the other thing? Some other stuff? New season, final season of Umbrella Academy starts August

8th on Netflix. I'll be in that. And oh yeah, August 13th, I'm doing a live streaming benefit. All proceeds will go to an organization called Little Essentials, which helps people who have no money and they have kids get things they need to have kids. So the kids don't suffer. Just anything from diapers to toys to books to medicines to bedding, things like that. They're an amazing organization, Little Essentials. And I've been working with them for them for a while. But I'm doing August 13, either the bell house or Sultan Room here in Brooklyn, but it'll be live streaming on my website, officialdavidcross.com. All crowd work, again, every all the

proceeds go to charity called write a joke you lazy piece of shit. And it'll be live streaming August 13th. So check that out as well, that should be fun. And if you're in New York, come down to the show. Check that out too. All right, Adam should be here shortly. And in the interim, we will stop down. Emma, is it possible,

you have kind of an Emma Peel look going today. What? Adam? I don't know either. Oh you guys. I'm so sorry. No, I just dated myself. It's from the Avengers. The TV show. Not the movie. The TV show. The British. The non-Marvel show. Yeah, the British TV show.

Yeah, they're like, you've got kind of an M appeal look going. I'll take it, thank you. Yeah, no, that's a compliment. Is it the character or the actor? The character. Her name, the actress was Diane. I thought you were supposed to know everything. Not that.

And you have a podcast here, same thing. Yes, it's called Factually. And you've disgraced this couch, this very couch I'm sitting on. I've disgraced that couch, I've farted into the couch. Well, it's hardly a disgrace, but okay. Yeah, I've been on that. This is my, normally we record in LA,

but when I'm in New York. This is like one of the reasons I'm a head company, is because I can do it from New York when I want to. Yeah, well I have the exact same thing, but the opposite. I've seen you in both studios. Yeah, I'm based in New York, but when I'm in LA, we were actually just discussing that.

I'll do a couple. How often are you in LA? I mean, I suppose roughly three, four times a year. I mean, now that four times a year. I mean, now that there's a podcast, I try not to go there as often as I can. I don't care for it. Neither do I, but I live there and I try to be here as often as I can.

Well, why don't you live here? That's what I'm thinking about. It's a fucking podcast. You can do that from, you know, Yeah, but there's other, work defiance. There's other bits of work here and there. Like there's nothing like go out there just for the year and there. That's what I

do. Yeah. I go out there if there's work. Um, unfortunately, uh, I mean, not unfortunate. That's not the right word, but my, uh, my wife's side of the family is all out there. So we have to go there, you know, a little bit more than I would normally go if it's outside of work. But I go there for work. I'm actually heading there, when is it? The fifth.

Or the fourth so that I can do this thing on the fifth and then also knock out a couple podcasts while I'm there and then head home on the sixth. Yeah, and then you get some nice LA locals on your podcast. And in person you have to do the Zoom thing. I don't do Zoom. I don't do Zoom. And now you are officially the third, I think, guest that I have had on the show that I don't have any kind of relationship with. Okay. I don't know a thing about you. I don't. Great.

And I like it that way. I like meaning the whole initial conceit of this podcast, initial conceit of this podcast, which didn't fly with the podcast people, but was just to have a conversation. Yeah. And I drink a lot. I go to bars and pubs and whatnots, and either somebody strikes up a conversation with you or you with somebody else. And I like those conversations. So that is in part, now that I've branched off into people, one person I knew her standup. Who is that? Robbie Hoffman, is that her name?

She's really funny. Somehow I knew you were gonna say Robbie Hoffman. I didn't know she was on the show, but the name that popped in my head is Robbie Hoffman. Yeah. Robbie Hoffman is one of the funniest people I've ever seen. Oh my lord, I hadn't heard of her,

and then I saw the, whatever that compilation, where Netflix had a show where they, what's the show where they exploit talent? Yeah, they had people on for, and gave them like 10 minutes. Yeah, I know that show. Yeah, so I saw her on that, and half the comics on that show were really good, and half of them

were like, meh, whatever. But she was so funny, so ballsy, and I wanted to have her on the show. Yeah, she's one of those people who like, there's some comics who they're, when they're funnier than me it makes me mad, and then there's some where I'm just like, that's fine, but you know, like she's so good. Like I can't,

I don't feel bad about this. I can't. Also I'm not a lesbian ex hasidim. So yeah. Uh huh. Uh huh. From Brooklyn. Phony, phony. Don't, that's, I was serious about that. I'm not. All right. Sorry. My phone. Yeah. Um, it's amazing the technology that phones have nowadays. Sorry, my phone. Did it pick up on that? Yeah. It's amazing the technology that phones have nowadays. So yeah, you're the third person. I know that you do things.

Yeah. You know, and- Do lots of things. I know. Now tell me some of the things that you do. I do a podcast called Factually. I do YouTube videos. Before that, I did a Netflix show called The G-Word

that was about the government. And then before that I did a television show on True TV called Adam Ruins Everything. That I've heard of. Yes, the G-Word less people heard of because Netflix doesn't market anything. No they don't, that's part of their, that's their genius, the other G-Word.

True TV, the smallest channel on basic cable when our show came out, like wrapped the Grand Central subway station in my face. Like they put my face on literally every surface of the Grand, for one week, you know, and they did billboards and shit. That's how I know about it. Yeah, exactly.

And the other one, I guess my algorithm doesn't guide me towards Adam Conover. Netflix was very proud to tell me when that show came out, because I was like, why aren't we doing marketing? And they were very proud to tell me, we got you one slot on a rotating Times Square billboard for like one weekend. Like, so if you stood in Times Square

and you watched the billboard for three minutes, you would see eventually 10 seconds of my face. And they were like, we did it. We got you a billboard. Can I tell you, I'll tell you something that, and I brought this up to somebody else. I don't think of the podcast, but, and I wish I could remember the,

I don't want to say it because if I get it wrong, then that's not a good idea. But somebody at Netflix told me a story of a director of a movie that was, I believe, nominated for an Academy Award. Not, not it was, it was. And not for a for direction, but for acting, I believe, and some other things. A couple, maybe two awards.

And I remember the movie, but anyway. And the director had said, was complaining, hey, why aren't you advertising my movie? Why, you know, I see all these, you know, things and clearly it comes down to the numbers and it doesn't, somebody made the assessment, probably drew wisely that, oh, it doesn't, we're not gonna benefit if we spend, you know,

$500,000 marketing this movie in these places. So, and she was complaining about it. And they ended up, this is so genius and awful and smart at the same time. They ended up putting up a billboard on a street they know that she takes to work. I'm dead serious. One billboard and she stopped complaining.

She saw it and she's like, oh, they were marketing her movie to her. It reminds me that when I did one special for Netflix, and they decided that's enough. It was called Making America Great Again. And they had one billboard and it wasn't until this, I heard the story from this Netflix exec. And there was one billboard on Lincoln Boulevard. It was when I was staying with my now, you know, wife,

and it was on a route that I traveled. Yeah. It was one little. That's what you get for all the power of being talented in Hollywood is the appearance of them doing what you want, you know? You yell and scream and then they go, okay, we'll just do it just enough to make you happy.

Yeah, but they don't tell you that. That's what's so smart about it. Yeah. Is that this woman, you know, who worked hard on this film that was being recognized for its merits, artistic merits, was like, hey, how come you're not, I see huge advertisements for, you know, what are big Netflix shows, whatever, you know, the-

Stranger Things or whatever, yeah. Stranger Things, yeah, exactly. And I don't see anything for my movie, which are big Netflix shows, whatever, you know. Stranger things or whatever, yeah. Stranger things, yeah, exactly. And I don't see anything for my movie, which is nominated for awards, and they said, oh, okay, we'll get on that. And they just put up a billboard. It's how you treat a toddler, you know? It's like, they're like, I want this,

and you give them half of what it is, or you just give them just enough to be happy. You just put on the frozen DVD, you know, and like to calm them down. Yeah, it's, the reason they don't market it is because the content isn't valuable to them anymore. Like it's, they want enough of it to keep people watching, but they don't really care about the success

of any particular thing that much. I mean, they care enough that if it doesn't do well, they'll penalize you and not do more, but you know. Well, they, yeah, they care enough that if it doesn't do well, they'll penalize you and not do more, but you know. Well, yeah, they have a completely different business model and they were extremely smart and prescient. And now, you know, they've changed the way Hollywood works, I think for the worse, but that's because I'm a creator. So it's worse for me.

If you were a soulless suit, right, you would be happy about it. Well, if I even forget that just as a consumer, I'm like, Oh, all this stuff. Great. You know, um, I think there's, I remember when, uh, John Landgraf, uh, at FX, um, uh, did a, you know, one of those upfronts or what they call TCAs, one of those type of things, or, you know, the state of the business type of conferences, big, you know, week long thing.

This is a while ago when he got up and he was talking about how there's too much content and, you know, we are going to suffer from this. And he was fucking ridiculed and people like, you know, you're wrong, what a dumb thing to say. And he was absolutely right. It was years and years ahead of, but saw it. And he was right. I think though that the people are not, like the customers are not, the consumer is not happy.

Like people I think feel that everything has gotten worse because everyone went through the years of like 2009 through what do you want to say 2017 was like the golden years. 2018. I do want to say that. I would like to say that. Yeah.

2009 through 2017. You know. Yeah, that feels good to say. That's good. I like it. You know, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, all these shows and people were, you know, these were cultural phenomena.

People loved the shows. We loved talking about them. There were whole websites just devoted to recapping what would happen on the previous episode of the show and stuff like that. And now when you talk to people, people aren't excited about, they're not like, oh my God, I saw this great new show.

Oh, this is so good. You have to watch this. They're like, yeah, I mean, I saw this great new show. Oh, this is so good. You have to watch this. They're like, yeah, I mean, I watched the new Apple TV thing. Like, yeah, what did I put on last night? Yeah, it was okay. Well, also, I think I'm just talking from my own experience that there is a frustration that didn't exist prior to this glut of, you know, quality shows, I'd say, for the most part. I think we've become spoiled a little bit with all the amazing TV, but, you know, where I was just having this conversation

the other day and I was like, oh, oh, it was with Nicole, it was when I was here, Emma. The last thing where I was like, oh, you gotta watch, have you seen, I was talking about Umbrella Academy, which I love. Have not seen it. It's great. And she's like, oh, my boyfriend's really into that. And then I like this kind of thing.

I was like, oh, have you seen this? She's like, no, it's on my list. And we went through back and forth, like six really good shows, we were recommending to each other that we hadn't, we just don't have time. Yeah. You know? And like, uh, the boys, I was like, oh, the boys is great.

And no, I haven't seen it. I've heard it's really good, you know, but then you're, it all compiles, you know, and into a big clutter in your TV algorithm closet, and then you're like, shit, six seasons of 12 episodes? Fuck, I don't know if I can watch that. You know, and. Yeah, who's got time to watch these things? You know, I've been much more into movies lately

just because it's like, every movie is, you know, 90 minutes, two and a half hours, and then it's different from every other movie you've ever seen. I've started to enjoy that. Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. I mean, I love the shows. I love my little shows. I have my shows that I watch, my stories,

and I just love, what's the one, oh gosh, it's on daytime, it's about a a hospital and people from the army in the general hospital. General hospital. And it's wonderful stories. Anyway, I love the boys. I love Umbrella Academy. Severance is coming back. Severance is great. Can't wait for that. There, there's a whole list. I, I sort of the, the other victim in this are the shows themselves because I

remember watching the first season of Hacks, really loving it, and then started watching the second and it kind of tailed off, not in a big major way, but it just sort of like, there was a moment where I was like, ah, and then something else had come along that everybody's like, you gotta check this out. All right, I'll check out an episode. And then as that came in, oh, and the new season of The Boys and Umbrella, you know, that other stuff. And Hacks is a good show.

I just, it's way. The new season of Hacks is phenomenal. It's really good. I gotta get back into it. But again, everything's piling up. Yeah, I know. I've got all this stuff I wanna watch. You can't have a backlog.

You just gotta, it's a horrible way to exist. You see that with video games, how to try to have a backlog, you can't do it. Like, you can't give yourself a to-do list of media. It will ruin the experience. That's kind of what I'm saying. It feels weird. It's frustrating, you know frustrating for people to go,

you gotta check this out. And like, dude, maybe in the, maybe winter, spring, I'll get to it. I mean, a big part of the success of Pluto and Tubi, those two things, have you used either of these? No. They're free. They are like the fastest growing streaming apps.

They're bigger than Disney and Apple and Max. Well, what's their content? What do they have on there? They just have licensed stuff from other services. You open Tubi and it's just got a bunch of movies. And you open Pluto and it's one of those things where it's little television channels. You know what I mean?

It's like, here's the Star Trek channel, just play Star Trek in a loop. Here's the CBS local news for Los Angeles channel. It looks like cable, right? And the appeal of this is like, when I get home and I'm like, I just wanna watch something. I can just open that app and there's something there. And so I started watching on Tubi.

I started watching a bunch of old movies. I watched like the Maltese Falcon and I started watching a bunch of Bogart movies because they had a whole bunch. And are these movies that appear elsewhere and they just were able to co-license them? They could be on other services, but they're on Tubi with ads and they're were able to co-license them? They could be on other services, but they're on Tubi with ads and they're licensing,

yeah, they're licensing them. And they've always got, open it up and there'll be some fucking Kevin Hart movie you can watch on there. And a lot of people, that's like all they need and they don't need to pay $15 a month for five services when, well, there's enough stuff on this thing. You know?

Yeah. I mean, I'll check that out. I don't, you know, outside of the handful things, almost always recommended to me, you know. I watch baseball. I do, I watch baseball and I'm happy to just watch MLB. I got the package or MLB tonight and see whatever. And that's like my, once my daughter goes to bed, cause that's, that's another thing is I have a different life than I did.

Back when I could watch a lot of stuff. I mean, by the time, you know, the day's over and my daughter's in bed, I'm just like glass of wine or crack a beer. And I want to just not. I just want to veg out on the, you know, full on dad mode. And, um, you know, it's exhausting and we have a puppy and that, you know, it's, it's insane. And, you know, for someone who, uh, goes on and on about how much they hate chit chat and

small talk, I am a fucking glutton for punishment because I have a kid and I also have this ridiculously muppety goofball puppy, big. And so, you know, there's no way you can't, you go the dog part and I don't want to talk to. Do you want to have a small talk now about the dog? No. Does the, was the dog do anything cute? Um, yeah.

I got you. Um, the other thing I don't know what, how to respond and I'm serious is when people are like, Oh my God, I love your dog, your dog is so cute. And then, and the thing that starts to come out of my mouth is, you know, thank you, but why, why am I thanking you? Why am I thanking you? You picked a good dog. You had a good idea for a dog to get.

My daughter, the dog picked her actually out of a litter of dogs and came over and we got it with my daughter and mine. But yeah, I don't know what to say to that. It's sort of like a halting kind of thank you? Question mark. I mean, so many people do is they take their identity and they put it into the dog or the child. And then when people compliment that,

that's them getting a compliment. I'm ugly, but my dog is cute. If my, you can compliment my kid because they are actively showing you behavior that is, you know, precocious or whatever it is. I'll take that compliment. But a dog is just, you know, cuteo, whoo, you know, cute. It's just a matter of, you know, it's relative.

Yeah. And I think perhaps we should make everything equal and say to somebody, I don't like the way your dog looks. I think it's unattractive in a dog sense. Yeah, tell people your dog is ugly. And then see what they say. Yeah.

And they'll say the opposite of that. I like going up to pit bull owners and being like, that's a killer. Get rid of that. That is a, from what I've read. They love that when you do that. That is not, pit bulls have gotten a bad rap. Oh no, they have, they have.

Yeah. I was speaking ironically. Yeah, they've gotten a bad rap. I mean, there's, they have. I was speaking ironically. Yeah, they've gotten a bad rap. I mean, there's a lot of very damaged pit bulls out there that need a lot of very special care. And there's a lot of people who wanna give them that. I have a lot of respect for people who adopt a real problem dog.

Oh, of course. They're like, I'm broken, you're broken, let's be broken together. That's really nice. I can't handle it. I need a well adjusted dog. No, not for me. And, but yes, that is an admirable thing.

And people do that with other people, you know, broken people or I admire them more than myself or you. Yeah, I mean, I don't have much to recommend me. Do you have kids? No kids. Yeah. Yeah, nope., I don't have much to recommend me. Do you have kids? No kids. Yeah. Yeah, nope. Girlfriend dog.

We have a- That's enough. Very nice, yeah, it's plenty. Just invest all the energy in that. That's what a dog is for. A dog is like- Well, let's back off a sec. A love receptacle.

What? A love receptacle. Like that's, my belief is, you know, there's a human desire and need to love something and to pour love into something that it's like. And to get love back. And to get love back is generally something that we do with kids.

And having a pet is, that is what that, it's filling that need. Sure. Giving you that companionship and that, I just love you so much, rr, rr, rr, you know. And look, if shit goes really south, it's, you know, it's food for a week at least. Yeah, exactly.

Depending, I mean, if you have a hamster, that's not gonna do much, but that's why I got an extra big dog, Bernice Mountain Dog Poodle. And it's big, it's a lot of it is fur, but again, if it gets nuclear winter. Bernice Mountain Dog Poodle. Yeah. Wow.

It's a Bernadoodle, so. It's a Bernadoodle. So it's called a Bernadoodle. I was about to say. But it's mostly, and by mostly I don't mean like 90%, but clearly more than half is Bernice Mountain Dog. And then you can guess poodle in there but not really like when you see poodles and my first dog was poodle and but just a

big dumb goofball big half poodles seem kind of dumb generally are they my parents have a something doodle might be a lab or doodle I forget what it is dog is very stupid. They keep making bad dog mistakes. But are labs smart or no? No, they're obedient and very good family dogs. The dog they got before that was a, so I had done on Adam Ruins Everything,

we had done this episode about dog breeds. What happens? Did you try to breed some dogs and it just was a terrible outcome? Yeah, no, I spent 10 years and they just a bunch of genetic monsters and freaks, you know, and I was yeah, they were repossessed by the state. No, we did a segment on how like, you know, dog breeds are fake. Like they were all made up in the last 100 years. Sure. Dogs don't really come in breeds. Dogs are just, you know, they're just like, they're basically, like they were all made up in the last hundred years. Dogs don't really come in breeds. Dogs are just, you know, they're just like, they're basically pigeons. They were just animals that were eating our trash

until we decided to start breeding them. But most like- Well, they helped, they did labor too. Then they work out on- Yes, when we train them too. But like the original, if you go to countries that have street Yes, when we trained them to. But like the original, if you go to countries that have street dogs, you know.

I was just in Cusco not too long ago. And the dogs just roam around like eating trash and stuff. Rode around, yeah. That's where dogs came from, was there were human settlements and you know coyotes or wolves type dogs started, oh we can just eat the trash. And then eventually we're like, oh that's cute,

come inside, you know. But there's this story like, oh we tamed the noble wolf. Like no, no, no, they were eating our trash and then they tricked us into us letting them in the house and now we give them the trash directly. We keep them alive. That's fine and we have a symbiotic relationship. But dog breeding like when you see on the Westminster

Kennel Club, whatever, on know, on Thanksgiving, right? That's horrible for dogs. Sure, yeah, no, I know that. Yeah, they've gotten, you know, like all the different breeds have gotten really debased and corrupt, I feel like Werner Herzog, they've debased and corrupt dogs over the century, the century of the dog breeding's been around.

My last dog was a rescue dog, and I'd been told like, oh rescue dogs will give you the least amount of health issues as they get older. Any mixed breed dog, even saying mixed breed is stupid because like a mixed breed dog is just a regular dog that doesn't, isn't like some sort of weird, you know, eugenicist freak. But went to St. Andrews.

Went to prep school. But so I did this whole segment about like, you're telling all these horror stories about like, you know, different dog breeds that have horrible health problems. Wait, now I'm sorry to interrupt. Please. But I'm just now, I think I'm understanding

that Adam Ruins Everything means you're taking, tell me if I'm right or wrong. It says, you truly know the least about this show of anyone who's ever interviewed me, which I love. Oh, I don't know a thing about it, yeah. Tell me, tell me. I'm guessing that it's like you take a thing that people like and then you break it down and go,

the thing you like isn't that great, here's why strawberries suck. That's exactly what the pitch is, yeah. I mean, it's- Is that it? Yeah, I mean- So you ruined dogs for people. We ruined dogs for people. Got it, got it.

That's the sort of comedic premise, and I played a sort of arch version of myself, almost a Pee-wee Herman version of myself, where I did this in a very annoying fashion. The actual payload of the show was to, you know, tell people the truth about the world, and then ultimately, hopefully you enjoy the thing more, or it helps you enjoy the thing.

It's not just about it's bad, here's the awful truth about the thing. Got it, got it. Like recycling, did you ever do anything on recycling? We did recycling, yeah. Did we do that on that show? I think we did, yeah. Yes, we did.

Recycling as the plastics industry trying to put the blame onto the consumer. We did that. We did all the hits. What was one of your favorite things that you debunked or showed? We did one about, a couple that come to mind, or we did one about the Olympics,

and how bad the Olympics are, which was for more- For who? For the athletes, for the cities. The cities I knew about. Yeah. Like the, you know. With the athletes, it's really hard. The cities I knew about. But the athletes, it's really hard. The athletes are not paid. It's meant to be an amateur competition. They're not allowed to get sponsorships.

It's very hard for, especially if you're just like doing a not big event and you're not independently wealthy, it's hard to get the money to go. We had a... But Paris is cheap. Paris is a cheap place to go. Oh yeah, it's so easy to go just fly off to Paris, you know, and stay in a little pié de terre.

I think we had, I believe, a shot putter on the show who described like sleeping in his car around the, you know, at the same time he was training for the Olympics. That's a real thing. And yeah, I mean, it's just this like weird cabal of, you know, people at the top making tons of money. Pepsi makes a ton of money off the Olympics. Michael Phelps makes money.

Sure. The top athletes do. Everybody else is like, I'm just excited to be here, you know, and is getting, getting screwed. Uh, but I love the Olympics. And so that was for me, like one that was, you know, taking apart my own, uh, uh, my own love of the thing. Uh, we, we did one, one of my favorites that we did,

it's not funny, but we did one about like redlining in the suburbs and you know, black people not being allowed to live in certain neighborhoods, et cetera. And it's like- Not in America though, in like Canada, Europe. No, in America this happened, did you not know that? What?

Yeah, in America. Get out of here, liar, fake news. You can look at the maps, you're there. No, thank you. I don't want my eyes corrupted. That segment ended up getting used by a lot of teachers in classrooms and stuff and had a really long life. And we did our segment.

That's great that teachers can take a little break. They can go, kids, watch this, put in a, was it a half hour show? It was a half hour show, yeah. Half hour show, fuck off to the teacher's lounge, have a smoke, have a sandwich. Put a little whiskey and some coffee. Yeah, come back 30 minutes later.

All right, you guys learned something? I love it. When I was a kid, they used to just put on the movie, Babe. But now they can put on my show, it's a lot better. But yeah, so we were talking about that topic like a couple years before other white people were, I would say, you know, like it was a little bit, we were a little bit ahead of the curve on that one

and introduced that idea to a lot of people, which I was proud of. Yeah, did that show for like five years, very happy. Did you read The Power Broker? I love The Power Broker, yeah. I read it probably about 15 years ago now, but it's like one of my favorite books I've ever read. Yeah, it's so I Appreciate just the writing of it. Oh, yeah, the story is is it's a

Book about Robert Moses. Yes, who was it's fascinating and they they made a Play they made a was on Broadway. Yeah, they made it I want to say it did not do well at all It got bad reviews. I think. Oh, urban planning didn't make for a good play. Well, it was about, it was about Robert Moses. I think it was a two-hander. It was like him and, you know, over the years.

So, but it's, it's fascinating how he is so idyllic and, uh, uh, and he just gets corrupted by this power. And this, with this idea of like, I don't care how it happens. I don't care what rules I have to break. I'm going to do this thing because it's for the good of the city. And it starts off. It's, it's, uh, you know, somewhat altruistic in a sense. He's building parks and things.

Yeah. And then he just becomes this fucking horrible piece of shit, you know, over decades and decades and, and it's all about the power. And he, he tell, he kind of gets off on his own, you know, it's a fascinating, a Pulitzer Prize winning book. I love that book. And I've read that and I've read Robert Caro,

the author's books on LBJ and- I haven't, I know my friend Bob has read that, the LBJ book. There's four of them, this, I mean, this guy, Robert Caro is one of the most insane authors because he- It's like 900 pages and there's no fat. There's nothing like I cut that. And it's all gripping.

And he started writing these biographies of LBJ in the seventies, like, you know, 10 years after LBJ was president. He has now done four of them. He has not yet gotten to LBJ being president. He's done his boyhood, his rise to the Senate, him like, the most recent book is all about the assassination of JFK and him becoming president

and it ends with now he's president. He hasn't gotten to Vietnam. And he's been working on these books for like 40 years and he himself is now like in his 80s and people are just hoping that he can like finish writing about LBJ's life before his own life is over. But even if he never does,

it's like a really like Titanic work of biography because he's such a gripping writer. He really sucks at it. Yeah, he's a great writer. And I, you know, I mean, I don't know how much his poetic license of the conversations that were had between, I know he does his research and everything, but like in the beginning when he's at Yale on the swim team and he quits in a huff, you know.

Oh, you remember this book, yeah. That's all I read. I just read the first page. I'm assuming the rest of it's good. Yeah, there are no pictures. I just read the first page. I'm assuming the rest of it's good. Yeah, there are no pictures. So, you know, I was just reading until I hopefully found a picture, but there's no picture. There's a photo.

There's some photos. It's a 900 page book. There's some photos around page 450. They got those like eight glossy pages in the middle with a couple of photos in them. Yeah, it's a fascinating story. And also, you know, you understand just how, like for anybody in New York who's traveled through

or lived here and has cursed the BQE, and it makes no sense, read that book and then you'll go, oh, that's why. But isn't it amazing, in that book, it was like, for those listening who haven't seen, the BQE is like an elevated freeway that goes over buildings. But- It stands for Brooklyn Queens Expressway.

But it creates this horrible chasm underneath, underneath the BQE is like the most horrible place you've ever been. Driving on it is horrible, because there's no shoulder, makes no sense. When it was built, the public was like, oh, Robert Moses's ribbon of asphalt through the air, such a glorious transport across Brooklyn and Queens.

And now it's like everybody, fuck, fuck, fuck, I hate. Oh, it's awful. And it makes no sense. And the triple of cantilevered part over in, by Dumbo is crumbling. And every, every mayor who comes, every mayor has to deal with kicking the can down the road on that thing until somebody, I mean, there's going to be a terrible

accident and there'll be, you know, dozens of injuries if not deaths and and if not 100. You know? It's amazing to come back to New York and just see a new way it's crumbled. Every time I come back, that someone's kicked the can down a little further down the road. Boy, you have to offset the gentrification somehow.

Uh-huh, yeah. You know? Yeah, it got too nice. Now we gotta cancel congestion pricing and make sure everything goes to shit. I was so bummed when she canceled it. I really want congestion pricing. So do I.

I was living in New York when they were gonna do it under Bloomberg and they didn't do it. And I remember the time going, this is great. And then finally, 15 years later, or however long it's been, oh, they're gonna do it. Oh my God, thank God. And then what, a week beforehand, Kathy cancels it? Yeah, well also- Cancel congestive, Kathy?

No, not a week, not a week, but it was very shortly after the announcement. Yeah. And- And after they had spent a ton of money. And after they had spent a ton of money. Yeah. And then, but there were also examples like,

like Stockholm has congestion pricing and London has congestion pricing and, you know, they work to do these certain things and, you know, like everything, people bitched about it in the beginning and then came to appreciate what it, what it did for the what it did for the area and the funds go into the MTA, which desperately needs it. And then people wouldn't drive into Manhattan, which is insane to drive. So I grew up on Long Island. And so my parents would take us into the city

every year or so to go to a show or whatever, get dinner and go to a show, but we lived far enough out that we would drive, and my dad would white-knuckle his way into Manhattan for two and a half hours. He would be driving, he'd be listening to AM radio with traffic on the eights, and every eight minutes he would be like,

quiet, quiet, I have to listen, blah, blah, blah, blah, because he was like, on the beat, can we, blah, blah, blah, and then we would drive into Manhattan and he'd be was like, on the big wheel. And then we were driving to Manhattan and he'd be driving like like looking for parking in like, I don't know, the theater district, like in a parking garage, like insanity. Yeah. And it wasn't until years later as why did we not take the train? Yeah. I just get on the train, make it easy. Or drive into Brooklyn or Queens

or wherever you get off of the LIE, and hop on the A train. You'll be there in, it's an express train, you'll be there and there's plenty of parking there. Make that part of the commute. The only way being in a car in Manhattan makes sense is if you're in the back of a cab or like a Chevy Suburban. Like in the back of someone else driving a car in Manhattan makes sense as if you're in the back of a cab or like a Chevy Suburban. Like in the back of someone else driving a car

and they're like taking you somewhere else, then it makes sense. But being like doing your own thing. I can't tell you how many times, I mean, easily way more than, I'd say three quarters of the time that I have to do like something in Manhattan for, I'm doing the, you know, Stephen Colbert show or whatever.

There's a thing that I have to do, right? And they offer you a car, right? Yeah. Car service. And I go, oh, no, thanks. I'll just take the subway because I live, the subway is on my corner where I live. And it's usually a straight shot or I just transfer somewhere and I avoid all the traffic and the hassle.

It's easy. Yeah. I mean, I take the subway, I'm gonna guess 10 times a week, something like that. I mean, I took the subway to get here. I'll take it back home. I took it here as well. I live in LA and I take the bus in the subway in LA

and that's like, unfortunately become part of my like personal brand that people know that I do that, but it like, it makes me a lot happier than driving. Oh, fuck yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but especially in Manhattan, it's just crazy. It's unbelievable. My wife will, she goes to see this specialist,

osteotherapist, I think she is, whatever. It's- My wife will, she goes to see this specialist osteotherapist, I think she is, whatever. She's got like nine specialists for whatever. And- Leaves through wife's health problems. Well, are they? Um. Oh, you're a braver man than I. We're all thinking it.

Well, you know, I went there. I, not that you would know this, but I, she's very expensive too. We have insurance. We have good insurance because we're in the WGA. So they have great insurance and SAG after. But so I had to go there. I didn't know I had fractured three ribs. I knew that I injured them because I did a dumb thing, but I didn't know they were fractured. And I'm the kind of person who doesn't complain about that kind of stuff and

You know Tell you check in every 10 minutes to let you know my pain level on whatever the thing is my eyelid is sticky and and and My wife who's right a lot of the times when I'm being stubborn or whatever and she's like just go to doctor so and so. And I went there and I did. I did go there. What triggers this?

Oh, it's a it's an app. It's called poor timing ringtone. It seems to be so synced to what you're saying. I mean, ring tone. And that's my- It seems to be so synced to what you're saying. I know. That's AI, brother. Wow. That's future.

And anyway, this doctor was, I was describing this thing and what brought me there and it hadn't gone away. And also like an idiot, what brought me there and it hadn't gone away. And also like an idiot, I chopped wood. Like it was, you know, I tried to chop wood for the winter and the summer. I have a place upstate in the woods and you know, you have to chop wood.

You just, if you want your, you got to do it. And I did this without realizing I'd broken three ribs. But she said, she said, you're a minimalist and your wife is a maximalist. Meaning I felt, I couldn't wait to tell my wife that. This is your lady telling you, what I'm inferring from this is you probably don't have to see her that much. This is your lady telling you, what I'm inferring from this is

you probably don't have to see her that much. Maybe I should see her a little bit more, we'll trade off. You're like, hey, I just wanna let you know I am making so much fucking money off your wife, man. She is buying me a boat. This is great. Keep sending her, we got a value club that you wanna join. I don't send her anywhere.

She goes on her own. Anyway, to get back to why I brought this up, she sometimes, not all the time, but occasionally will drive there, and that is just insane to me. It's costly. It's stressful. You have a subway that is at the corner

and you would have to make one transfer, transfer at J Street, get on the F train and then walk a couple of blocks. Easy. Easy, easier, faster, cheaper. Better for the environment and for the city. She's driving into Manhattan from where, Brooklyn? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Unbelievable. Yeah. Crossing a bridge, crossing a 200 year old bridge. You know, not, you know, not all the time, but she's done it. And I just go, what were you think? And then you get complaints, you know, she'll text me like, oh my God, traffic is insane.

Like, yeah, When was it not? At three in the morning in August of 1942? Traffic was light. So she's the one lobbying Kathy Hochul to cancel congestion price. She's like, this is gonna hurt middle class families. No, but you know what, it was good in the sense that I said to her, hey, starting on,

I think it was like June 24th or whatever, it was gonna start. It was like, no more starting on, I think it was like June 24th or whatever it was, it was going to start. It was like, you know, no more driving in. That's it. That's it. You know, I'm paying 30 bucks. Fuck that. Well, you know, on top of the other stuff, no, no driving in.

No, you shouldn't anyway. But the thing is that the way it should work in America, capitalist society is like, okay, there are rich people who don't give a shit about that extra 30 bucks. That's why they'll get tickets on their car and they'll pay, whatever, I'll just park it here and I'll pay the $180 ticket. And we should be doing that more to rich people.

You know? Yeah, taxing them more. It's not taxing. Yeah. It's not, that's, it's a, it's a, look, we have a, we have the- Charging them for use. Yeah, we have the empty, we have tolls,

we have the bridges. Okay, this bridge cost us, you know, X amount of money and we have to keep it up. And this is a service to, you know, I mean, it shouldn't be in an ideal society, but we don't live in that society. Why shouldn't it be? I mean, if you have a society where money is how you

divvy up resources, you know, you exchange money for goods and services. That's what I'm saying, in America, since we've all chosen this. Good add Bernie, but we all chose this. And so this is how it works. Yeah. And now if you wanna use this thing

that you don't have to, it's a luxury, then we're gonna charge you this money and rich people are like, I don't give a shit. What's weird is that people are, what people are okay with paying for versus not. Like people get so mad at the idea of a road of any kind, not being free because we have an expectation that our roads should be completely public and never charged.

But the weird thing is that, you know, the reasons they're free is that we're all paying for them with our tax money, et cetera. But in order to use them, you have to pay Chrysler $40,000 if you wanna use the road. Like the vehicle that you need, you have to buy from a private company and it's extremely expensive to buy gasoline, you have to buy all these other things.

And that's the part that like, is like this weird cognitive dissonance in the American psyche, because people have this attachment to the idea of like the open road, the free road, you know, they hate toll have this attachment to the idea of like the open road the free road You know, they hate tolls. They hate the idea of congestion pricing, but I don't know if I go along with that Transportation system requires every individual person to make an extremely expensive capital purchase versus the subway They don't make you buy a subway car to go on the subway, right?

No, but there but you do if you live in Long Island to go on the subway. Right, no, but you do, if you live in Long Island, you are a place that doesn't have a great public transportation, then you need a car, right? I know, but that's because we built a transportation system that requires you to have one. Like there are other transportation, so there are entire countries

that are heavily industrialized, very dense, have the same standard of living we do, but don't rely on individual car ownership. Don't essentially require almost every single person in the country to purchase a five figure vehicle. Because of the city planning in advance or what? Yeah, exactly, yeah, because they built, they built a, they have a widely available

public transportation, they have bike-based systems. You know what a good example of that is, and I lived there for a number of years, is London is another place where I'm like, why would you have a car in London? You know, the transportation system is great, meaning it's accessible. There are all kinds of things that are problematic with it, much like ours, but it's there.

You can use it and the bus system is great too. And car ownership becomes like a luxury, something that, oh, you're a little older. Oh, I bought a little, bought myself a little automobile on the weekends. I can go into the country. You know, it's like that. That's the experience. What kind of, what accent was that? You know, don't question me on it because I don't know.

I just sort of like threw a dart at the dartboard and saw what came out. And the dartboard was shaped like? The United Kingdom generally. Oh, okay, so it could be. I might've ended up in the channel somewhere. Yeah, it could've been Wales. Yeah, I don't really know.

I don't even remember what it was. Maybe an expat, maybe an American expat who moved to. Automobile, auto-mobile. Okay, so maybe not an expat. Maybe somebody who was in a coma for a while. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then woke up. Yeah.

And had that, you know, the kind of Oliver Sacks thing happening. Re-learning how to use their mouth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you're like, oh, this guy never been to England, but he was in a coma and he woke up with this English accent, it's crazy. And then you go, you gotta listen to this guy. And then people go, I wonder if that's English.

I never claimed to be Tracy Ullman, you know, and to be able to, you know, Tracy Ullman. I've been to your Wikipedia page and you have claimed to be Tracy Ullman, you know, and to be able to, you know, Tracy Ullman. Well, that, I've been to your Wikipedia page and you have claimed to be Tracy Ullman. So that's what I'm calling you on your bullshit. I'm actually Tracy Ullman. I'm one of her trademark characters. She's doing a perfect American accent of me right now.

It's good. I'm wearing long prosthetics in all of it. There's a lot of places, go to Tokyo, right? A lot of places where having a car is something some people have. Oh, my friend has a car. And we run a weekend trip. But it's also a pain in the ass.

Yeah. Like you, of course it's great. Like I have a car, you know? And I've had one since I moved to Brooklyn, I guess, shortly after I moved to Brooklyn, a couple years after. But I have a house upstate and I've had it for over 16 years. And you can take the train up to a point to Port Jervis,

but then it's a half hour drive from there, from the train station. So I have a car and I had to haul and shit up back and forth. And, but I don't drive the shit up back and forth. But I don't drive the car in the city ever. Yeah. I mean, that's crazy. Yeah. To run an errand?

Yeah. I'll take it to Costco in Bay Ridge or Sunset Park. Exactly. And I will... Sometimes if there were a bunch of kids, I'll take and I gotta go a little further away. Oh, like I went to Coney Island, took the car to Coney Island,

which I know you can get a subway, but fuck it. I drove to Coney Island. It was, you know. And then suddenly you drive into Manhattan to go see your specialist. Oh, my wife, yes. No, yeah, you do it for a special trip. It's a nice convenience to have

for certain types of things. But the fact that so many people in America, the majority of people who don't live in New York City or like, I don't know, Chicago, maybe parts of San Francisco, are just simply required to have a car. And our transportation system, the roads are free, but there's a tax that you are forced to pay

to the auto manufacturers, to the gas companies. I don't know, I don't really- Just to get to and from work. I don't see, I mean, yes, but I don't think that has, they're kind of separate issues. To me, the idea that people are like, Oh, it's cool if I pay gas for tax on it. Tack, I fake tax for gasoline. Uh, and that's a given, but then they're like, uh, I won't pay tax for road

because the road is, is not a privately owned, you know? Yeah. But it's, we've like have this, I'm just talking about like the psyche of America that we have this like attachment to the roads are public, anyone can go on them, but yet they are not really a public amenity because they are dominated by these like vehicles

that are extremely expensive. It's just like a very strange state of affairs as opposed to, you know, a public park is something you can just walk into and enjoy. You know, you don't need like, oh, the park is free, but to get in, you have to, you know, buy some enormously expensive, you know, pass in order to use it.

I don't think this is a good analogy. You don't, the analogy is not as good as my original point. My original point does make sense. And I'm interested that you can't go there with me because we agree on almost every single other point. And yet something about just my point about the sake of America is not quite adding up for you for reasons I don't understand.

We don't have to pull it apart, but. It's just the, I don't see it as being like, this is cognitive dissonance that you'll pay, you'll gladly, happily, willingly pay a tax for gasoline or a tax on the car. What I mean is like, you know, look at what Kathy Hochul and the other people who didn't want congestion pricing said.

You look at Kathy Hochul and the people that didn't want pricing. I'm looking at them, let's look at them together. Okay. There they are, let's take a look at them. Oh, they're so, oh God, they're all so ugly. But their professed reason for not wanting congestion pricing is that it's a tax

on middle-class families. How could we do this to middle-class families? And what they're talking about- Don't ever listen to them. What they're talking about is a third, like what was it, $30, $40, something like that? To drive into Manhattan? What about all of the other money

that these people are being supposedly forced to pay, right? Well, now it's an additional cost. That's part of the psyche, right? It's an additional cost that they didn't have to deal with. But also it's bullshit. And it's it's. You know, because there are exemptions for businesses. And and it's it's like saying again, the the you just go, oh, we'll take the subway or you don't have to take the subway.

You can also drive in. But because of these existing problems, which are only getting worse, that we need to, the city needs to come together and address, this is one of the solutions. We didn't come up with this ourselves. This is used in several other countries and cities, in with different governments, and it works. So here's, you know, so it's the, it's a thing that just to go, oh, it's a tax on the middle class.

That's a fucking bumper sticker thing that the anti people came up with and it resonated enough. I don't think that was the issue. I think it's whoever was funding enough people who would donate to Democrats or Hochul or whatever, I've said, no, you're not, you know, and they were enough money spent on lobbying.

If we took all the money that was spent on lobbying against this thing and just put it into helping to fix the MTA, we'd be there. So stop all lobbying monies. All lobbying monies should go directly to the New York subway MTA. There we go. I'm with you.

Yeah, I mean, the rich people who enjoy driving in, the upper middle-class people who are financing the campaigns of the people. They love it. Of the politicians. I love driving into Manhattan. I'm so rich. I just love driving into Manhattan. Apparently they do.

There's a lot of people who do. There's a lot of cops who like driving into Manhattan. There's like, you know. From Staten Island? Apparently so. This is what I was reading. I don't know. This is what I read on the various blogs

about New York that I read since I don't live here full-time anymore. How about all the cops that live in Staten Island, but are like, they work in Brownsville, but shouldn't it be required that a cop, I don't wanna sound derogatory, a police officer, should live close to where they're being? This is a real problem. A lot of New York City cops live in New Jersey, obviously. should live close to where they're being.

This is a real problem. A lot of New York City cops live in New Jersey, obviously. In LA, I don't know if it's the majority, but a huge portion of Los Angeles LAPD cops live in Orange County and drive in 90 minutes to go to their job where they see it as, there's a bunch of fucking freaks in LA and I go bust their heads and then I go back to the suburbs.

I think freaks is probably not the word they use, but sure. That's the nice version. That's the nice version. Yeah, and they, I don't know, they see themselves as like fucking attacking Fallujah or something. They're like on mission to go kill the bad guys or whatever. That seems to be the issue with,

there were ads in the subway for recruiting police for Atlanta in the New York subway. And I don't know if it varies, I don't think there's a federal guide to who can, it can't be a cop, but the New York bar is set so crazy low now. I mean, it is, it sounds like a bad joke a bit, but it's true. Like they keep saying, well, you guess what? You don't have to have an high school education. You can just have the, if you have a GED. All right, here's another thing. You don't have to run,

you know, whatever it is in 440 and X amount of time. We're gonna, you can do it in a minute and a half, if you want. I mean, they keep lowering the body. You don't have to have this much body fat. You can have this much body, whatever the stipulations are. And I don't know if it varies from city to city,

I imagine it does, but they're in Atlanta, recruiting just people who are on the subway. Hey, come down and be a cop in a place you don't know anything about. Different culture. Yeah, majority black city. Here's the best, the sweetest part of the deal. We're going to give you a gun. How'd you like a gun? Can't have a gun in New York. Not unless you're a cop. And it takes some, you know, it takes a while

to be a cop in New York. In Atlanta. His head down. We'll hit you a Glock. Yeah, ninth grade education. And you cannot be a member of more than three white Christian nationalist organizations. I mean, it's crazy, man, the way cops control city governments and the fact that every city has a recruiting crisis for cops. Like they're like, we can't get enough cops. We can't get enough cops. Right.

Um, and so what do they do? The cops, the police union say, let's raise the salary for cops. And so every mayor in almost every city, including LA, which is like a pretty. On average progressive city has like raised the salary for cops. The fucked up thing about that is it has not actually caused more people to become cops. Because the truth is being a cop is such a bad life because we've put every social problem into the police. Oh yeah.

You know, they just like have to go and like sweep homeless encampments all day and just deal with- It's a terrible job. The worst problems, and guess what? An extra 10K a year doesn't inspire someone to sign up for that job who wouldn't otherwise. So why are they doing it? The police unions are just trying to hoard more and more

of the- New York City is the best example, literally the best example of that. We have a mayor who's an ex-cop, I think pretty clearly corrupt. And I don't know that he's going to have a second term. I hope not. But he was cutting funding for the things that New Yorkers particularly care about,

you know, libraries and parks and these things that really resonate, particularly with New Yorkers, quality of life things. And then giving more money to the existing police. It wasn't about recruitment. It wasn't about that. It was about getting, you know, and these are people who are working, you know, they're getting, you know, what, $180 an hour for golden time, double overtime stuff to, you know, they're getting, you know, what $180 an hour for golden time,

double overtime stuff to, you know. I talked to a city elected official who I won't name in LA, but someone I know. And, uh, we were talking about why, why can't they actually add officers? So, so what we were talking about specifically was the LA park rangers are a branch of law enforcement there and they're all agitating to have guns. The people who just like the park rangers want guns and they want more money, right? And I was talking to this person and they told me,

well, you know, the real problem is there aren't enough park rangers. There's only like 20 park rangers in all of Los Angeles for like a giant city, right? And I said, that's weird. Why wouldn't the union want more park rangers? Because in the writers guild, we're trying to grow the union.

We want more writers, because then the union gets more money and is able to do more. And like, you know, we want to cover more. Why wouldn't they want that? And what they told me was fascinating. It's that under capitalism, if you have a union that like works,

you know, for corporate America, well, the pie can grow, right? Because the industry industry can get bigger they can make more television shows, right? In a city the pie never grows. There's 8 million people in New York. There's however many million people in in LA They pay this much in taxes pie is basically the same every year. So all the unions do Unfortunately, and I'm a huge union supporters. I hope people know about me do, unfortunately, and I'm a huge union supporter, as I hope people know about me. But what like the police unions try to do is instead of saying, hey, let's have more cops,

if they said, let's have more cops, then each cop would get paid less because it's a fixed pie, right? So instead they fight to get more of the pie. And so that's what police unions end up doing in every city. They do it in LA, they're clearly doing it in New York, is they say, take money away from the libraries and the parks and

give it to us. And because the police have this like special political position where they're like unquestionable for 55% of the population and the electeds, they're able to like do it with great success. And so if you look at the LA cop budget, they just, it goes up and up every year and there's never any more cops because the cops actually don't want there to be more cops. The cops go, oh, there's a recruitment crisis. Why can't we get more cops? Oh, you guys, you got to pay us more money. But they don't actually want more cops. They want to leave those slots open.

So the existing cops all get paid more, get more overtime, et cetera. And that's like a really deep level of corruption, but it's so built into the city infrastructure of city politics that it's almost impossible to root out or even call out. If you call it out, the cops will attack you. Oh yeah, that's, I mean, as to quote Joe Rogan, interesting. Interesting. I don't mean to bite Joe Rogan's thing.

I mean, he's. Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Interesting. No, you don't want to bite Joe Rogan's thing, no. Interesting. Yeah. Interesting.

Yeah, it's a big issue here. I've talked about it on stage and I, it's, because I've talked about, this was as of two years ago, the budget for the NYPD. And I asked people to guess what it is. And I go, not just what the salary is, but what it costs us to have.

The NYPD annually, what their budget is. And people will, I mean, guess ridiculously low amounts like five million, or sometimes they'll go, you know, you know, a billion or whatever. And I go, no, no, it's a, this is as of two years ago, 11.2 billion dollars annually because a lot of that money goes to paying civil suits when they murder innocent people, when they beat the shit out of innocent people,

when civil rights are blatantly, oh, we got you on camera, all the money spent in trials, and trying to root out corruption, quote unquote, root out is the part in quotes, and overtime, and then double overtime, and quotes, um, and, and, uh, over time and then double over time and double golden over time and things like that, that the, the union is baked into the, uh, to the contracts and, and that's an insane amount of money to spend annually. Yeah.

I mean, but if you could, I feel like you just gotta pull the thread a little bit and that's not the right analogy, dominoes. And if you make being a cop the job less shitty and you make it so that you're not asking them to do all these, just deal with these mentally ill violent people and just make it more pleasant for them to do their job in whatever ways those broken, the broken window theory, um, clean, clean up the street foot.

Uh, you know, again, uh, give them housing, make a, make a, uh, uh, you know, credit for housing in the community they're going to serve, like say, okay, I know you love Staten Island, but it's a pain to get there right back forth every day or Orange County or whatever I'm gonna the city is going to pay for you know, 30% of your Apartment condo house, whatever. Yeah, and and but you have to be within Three miles of the of the neighborhood. Yeah that you're servicing And we will set you up and we will supplement that. And I mean, it's just, we've got to rethink this thing. Cause then that you're going to save money.

You're going to save money. And if you can hire people that aren't racist, like no, Nazis, neo-Nazis, and racist, who've been convicted of sexual assault or whatever, then you're going to ultimately save 25 million on the having to pay out somebody who got the shit beat out of them. The problem is that we have a policing system where what we have asked the police to do

is go beat up people of color. Right, like that's their job is to go to black neighborhoods. They like doing that. Exactly, and that's why you end up with racists on the police. Hey, how can I go beat up a black person today? Oh, I can be a cop with the with the impunity and immunity. Yeah. And yeah, very easily. And this is this turned out to be the most Roganesque of a podcast I've ever done.

How is this? Is this what he talks about? He talks about criminal justice reform. I don't know. I mean, to me, it's like the greatest sadness that a big issue for me for many years has been criminal justice reform, policing, and the prison system is like the greatest sin that this country commits,

like possibly more than climate change, the amount of human misery that is happening right now in America. If you look at America compared to other country, every single other country on earth and in history, I mean, we incarcerate a wildly disproportionate amount of people and usually it's people of color and it's a for-profit industry.

It is. You know, there are how many, and they're corrupt people. And it's a for-profit industry. It is. You know, there are how many, and they're corrupt people. They're wildly corrupt judges and on small local levels and then on bigger federal levels. But, and it's, these people have no fucking chance. Yep. And it's, what's really sad about it is we had this national conversation.

I mean, I did television episodes about it. There was a rising tide of people talking about mass incarceration as being a problem leading up to George Floyd's murder and those protests. It was like a culminating moment. You had all these people reading like the Michelle Alexander book, like the new Jim Crow and all this stuff and like a growing awareness of criminal justice reform. And then the backlash was so swift. And so, oh, there's a lot of shoplifting at Walgreens.

So we gotta be tough on crime now. A lot of fake shoplifting. They later admitted that they made up the shoplifting. Oh, it was absolute. And now, and now- Do you ever read popular information? Judd Lagoon. I know that, I've read it, I have read it.

The newsletter, it's a newsletter, right? He did a whole thing on how all the, especially in California, you know, the shit about. Flash mob, robberies. That's why they're closing down and that's bullshit. And was just, and he covered the whole thing. It's pretty succinct. It's all right there.

There's the information. It's total bullshit. And it was just garbage that the... Yep. There were some rises in crime. A lot of that had to do with COVID and, you know, and even the amount of rise was, you know, on a historical level, crime has dropped so much in the last, you know, 30 years. Well, you know, right now you're sitting in the safest big city

and have for a while. Yeah. It's been like that for years. But despite that, the people who do the, oh, there's robberies, crime is out of control, da da da, those people won so thoroughly that now you can't even bring up criminal justice reform. And now Kamala Harris, her record as a prosecutor

is seen as, oh, that'll be an advantage to her because Democrats need to be tough on crime now. We're done with criminal justice reform. We're not talking about it. You can't even, it's political death to bring it up. Just like four years after the George Floyd moment. And it's like the ultimate sadness. I mean, criminal justice reform is in a worse place than climate change in terms of the political discourse.

Cause like it's just anathema to bring up now. And it's still, there's still millions of people in misery locked up for no good reason in America that we're spending billions on. There's still, the cops are doing the exact same thing that they were right before George Floyd was murdered. You know, it's a- Oh, you mean the goon squad in Mississippi?

It's still happening. The goon squad. The goon squad. The goon squad. Sorry, it's very depressing, but that's just where the conversation took us. All right, Adam, thank you so much for coming on. Now, I don't know if you've ever seen or listened to the podcast,

but I end every episode with a question from my daughter. Great, oh, please. Who is seven. And where is it? Her question is. Wait, I don't want that. Hmm. Wait, I don't understand. No, seven years old, and wants to know, Adam, if you dropped one of your pennies on the street and then found it 80 years later, would you still have good luck? Wow. I think so. I think so.

I think so. Is that a thing that gives you good luck? You drop a penny and pick it up, that gives you good luck? I think it's- I thought it was if you just found a penny. If you just found it. Oh, okay. So maybe that's why she asks the question.

I see. Because she knows it as find a penny, pick it up, and all the day you'll have good luck. So what if you previously owned that penny? Right, and if you, and by dropping it, it as find a penny, pick it up and all the day you'll have good luck. So you previously owned that penny. Right. And if you end up by dropping it, I don't know if she's, I don't know if she is implying you purposefully drop it or you accidentally drop it. And maybe there's a difference.

I don't know. We really have to conceive of what we're talking about here because it's 80 years later. So she's thinking of like, I'm dropping this penny when I'm nine or 10 years old. And I'm picking it up when I'm 90. I'm like, I've lived an entire life. My life. There was a Mr.

Show sketch and with my life, that's what we're talking about. That kind of fast forward. That's one of my favorite sketches. Uh, we're talking about a man has lived an entire life and he sees a penny that he dropped 80 years before. I think that would mean you have good luck if that were to happen to you. You would still have good luck from picking up that penny. I think there would be so much luck invested in that penny

from it rolling around to having its own life for those 80 years and then you pick it up again. Are we imagining that it's in the same spot, or has someone else picked up and it's been spent, and then they dropped it, and it found its way to you? That's a good question, I don't know. I mean, it's simply put, if you dropped a penny on the street and you found it 80 years later,

would you still have good luck? I think yes. Okay, there you go, there's the answer. What still have good luck? I think yes. Okay. There you go. There's the answer. What's your daughter's name? Marlo. Marlo.

The answer is yes. She doesn't watch this or listen to it. She's not behind camera three. No, she's, uh, uh, although she was here for, uh, Brian Quinn, we did Brian. I, my wife was out of town and I had just had to bring her, bring her daughter work day because I had no place to put her. Wow. So she came in.

So she has a concept of what this looks like, but I kept her out there. Now she knows what podcasting is. What a lucky girl. All right, thank you so much. Thanks for having me, David. Sense is Working Over Time is a HeadGum podcast created and hosted by me, David Cross.

The show is edited by Katie Skelton and engineered by Nicole Lyons with supervising producer Emma Foley. Thanks to Demi Druchen for our show art and Mark Rivers for our theme song. For more podcasts by Headgum, visit Headgum.com or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and maybe we'll read it on a future episode. I'm not gonna do that. Thanks for listening. That was a hate gum podcast.