The Tucker Carlson Show - Tucker’s Brother Buckley Carlson on Dogs, Childhood, Nicotine, Frank Luntz and America’s Future

00:00:00.000 uncle buck i'm glad you're here so you're on i didn't even know you're on twitter and then

00:00:10.640 the ghouls decided to you know destroy my son who's got the same name as you

00:00:16.240 because in our family there are only like four names and everyone's required to use one

00:00:20.400 and uh and i think they mistook your twitter feed for his i don't even know if he has a twitter feed

00:00:27.560 and um and all of a sudden you became really famous and a couple of your nieces called me

00:00:31.640 uncle bucks on twitter i had no idea i was like i didn't know that how long have you been on twitter

00:00:35.780 not very long since 2010 but mostly as a reader yeah and now that there's nowhere else you can

00:00:43.280 get news except for uns review we're allowed to talk about uns review on this uh other than uns review

00:00:49.780 uh the only or revolver news the only other place you can get information these days is on x so if

00:00:55.620 you're not on it you're not getting information i had never actually rendered many opinions on x

00:01:01.740 yeah but i started doing that recently oh did that change yeah it did it did and it's been so fun

00:01:10.120 actually you meet some interesting people on x there's a lot of creativity on x i agree with that

00:01:15.060 there is a lot like i wouldn't know how to make a meme if my life depended on it but i sure appreciate

00:01:20.440 them other than that there are some seriously well-researched smart people who've got a lot

00:01:26.700 of interesting stuff to say so and it's addictive i try not to spend a huge amount of time on it i

00:01:32.540 actually have work to do so but it will suck me in but which you beat alcohol you beat cigarettes

00:01:38.320 but twitter's hard as much thankfully i've got a lot of nicotine with me good that's um are you

00:01:45.440 armed by the way i always i always assume you normally have a gun right on the table but i don't see it

00:01:49.900 sadly i had to fly through i had to be groped by tsa this morning at dawn it was awesome

00:01:55.840 they uh yeah what's your strategy for that my strategy used to be hey say please and thank you

00:02:04.620 um because you work for us right they love that message yeah they do i've seen you try to enforce

00:02:11.900 manners anglo manners at the tsa station doesn't work no and actually recently since they've instituted the

00:02:19.560 real id and they have you stand and take your picture i know they have their your picture

00:02:24.040 everywhere else and they have your biometrics um i took a principled stand a few times and said oh no

00:02:31.160 i don't think i want a picture well every time that's happened they managed to discover that i have

00:02:36.600 a duplicate ticket or no tsa badge and i have to go back to the front of the line so i don't do that

00:02:43.620 i'm captain compliant i go through i'm super courteous when i walk through uh so they broke

00:02:50.660 you're like winston smith at the end of 1984 they just broke into you're like two plus two i think

00:02:54.440 that's five is it five you just have to surrender at some point exactly if you want to fly anywhere

00:03:00.380 these days so no i'm not armed sadly but uh i'm in the great state of florida i don't think i've ever

00:03:06.060 seen you unarmed but you're this is a safe place um normally you have this little thing on the table

00:03:11.160 and uncle buck what's that backup planner but so you've actually been broken by tsa i don't really

00:03:18.280 think there's any other solution to it i'm still angry about it right oh for sure legitimately i find

00:03:24.060 it to be one of the most humiliating experiences in american life and i do still say to everyone

00:03:30.500 around me after i've gone through the groping i say do you feel safer you do say that every day

00:03:36.460 you offer it every comment in the line it's amazing how few people actually will take the bait

00:03:40.780 they can smell the non-compliance on you and get away quick big time like he should be deplatformed

00:03:47.360 boy there's a lot of that on x i had heard that you could say whatever you want it turns out

00:03:53.520 that's not true oh it's not true no and people have no sense of humor oh they don't they don't

00:03:58.980 like jokes anymore no yeah can i just give you my strategy for tsa when i get groped please

00:04:04.620 a little the left yeah no totally yeah like um i'm gonna touch you uh around the belt area sir

00:04:11.800 i'm like bring it on baby you know and then just act like you love it and it's so creepy

00:04:17.480 that it'll abbreviate the experience do you go through the x-ray machine so they can keep the file

00:04:22.680 i try not to i'm so paranoid about all of that stuff i'm getting crazy and i'm like

00:04:28.900 oh i'm gonna get some weird you know lymphoma from the from the magnetometer or something i just

00:04:33.960 don't i can't be healthy right no it can't although i figure once you've surrendered and you can't do

00:04:38.620 anything in american life without surrendering to some extent even emailing or texting you know that

00:04:43.740 other people have it so at some point you should just adopt an attitude no i i think you're absolutely

00:04:48.900 right i mean we've we've both been tamed by the women in our lives and it's like stop making a fuss but

00:04:53.440 i always think these are the people who ran the burn pits at camp lejeune yes where our father was

00:04:58.220 stationed and in the marine corps and never joined the class action never he never joined the class

00:05:03.720 action that's right not a litigious man not a litigious man i was saying something today i'm 56

00:05:09.560 i've never sued anybody someone said people are slandering you gotta sue and i was like i'm committed

00:05:14.960 to a higher principle that in my culture we're not into lawsuits at all and i'm never gonna i want to

00:05:20.480 make it to death and i hope it's you know a while from now without ever suing anybody that'll be a

00:05:24.960 personal victory for me and my family and really only our family will appreciate it because the

00:05:30.180 culture we grew up in is just gone doesn't like it never existed but i've noticed yes oh you've

00:05:35.700 noticed yeah i have noticed a little bit has it has it been a net win or loss for the country would

00:05:40.580 you say after we won world war ii and we got to luxuriate in our freedoms and and all the economic

00:05:46.800 prosperity that has led us to be freer and able to speak our mind no no it's actually tragic and

00:05:53.100 if you have young children as you do i guess they're no longer young but you really see it with

00:05:58.120 the way our children have grown up and the restrictions they've had on thought and speech

00:06:03.760 especially i mean we grew up at a time as you know where i don't think anybody's ever heard this

00:06:08.520 question before in a in a school setting one ask any question you want in fact you're encouraged to

00:06:17.880 ask a question i was always taught and ask any question you'll never get in trouble and then that

00:06:23.160 silly little ditty you know sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me

00:06:27.980 that was real and none of our children were taught that no no american child goes through life

00:06:34.840 thinking that they can deviate from the script that they can offer some opinion that's counter to

00:06:41.280 the authorities that are in front of them and that's tragic and it obviously has a huge effect

00:06:45.740 it stifles imagination and creativity um which are why they've died i think actually that slogan which

00:06:53.200 if you're under 50 you may not be familiar with but it was a staple of well england by the way and

00:06:58.800 then the united states it's child sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me

00:07:04.060 it's actually been inverted where we've endorsed sticks and stones violence is no big deal we're

00:07:08.580 totally for violence just blow up the drug boats whatever are they drug runners who cares kill them

00:07:12.380 and by the way charlie kirk got shot well yeah because he used bad words like he deserved it

00:07:17.900 people believe that so sticks and stones are fine but words are the threat like what is that

00:07:23.400 it's terrifying actually it's not a western orientation

00:07:27.040 no no it's not um but it is prevalent here now in the west it's everywhere so you've it looks like

00:07:35.740 you've decided not to play along i am not playing along and i'm fortunate because i've grown up in an

00:07:42.140 in an atmosphere where actually i was encouraged to say what i believe i don't have a lot of governors

00:07:46.960 in my life especially now that my child is old enough not to be embarrassed by me daily and i don't

00:07:52.500 i don't have to fight with his various academic institutions that charged me a lot of money and

00:07:58.500 tried to wipe out the boy and wipe out the creativity and from my son uh and that was a

00:08:04.880 you know 12 14 year battle that i had to fight and also i so i don't really care there are very few

00:08:12.960 people whose opinion matters to me in the end of the day i have a constituency basically of one

00:08:19.120 and that's the woman i love and live with and my son and then the

00:08:25.340 slightly expanding circle of you and other family members beyond that and every one of those people is

00:08:33.280 perfectly apprised of my deep flaws and my history so and and your amazing virtues and as one of my

00:08:43.180 children said to me well in fact all of my many children said to me and my nephews when you made your

00:08:49.100 public immersions on twitter the legend of uncle buck is

00:08:53.580 is now out there for the public to appreciate and by the way they loved it that's so nice i guess the

00:09:03.060 key is just not thinking about it i don't think about that's actually i was thinking i thought you

00:09:06.900 might ask me about this only because it's a new thing in my life um i likened it to shooting rabbits

00:09:12.940 on a sporting clay course the most accurate you'll ever be is if you're just instinctive you just pull

00:09:19.200 your gun up and you shoot that's totally right and so i don't have a lot of time to think about

00:09:23.200 what i write i've managed not to write anything too embarrassing i don't write things that are

00:09:27.220 intentionally provocative but i also have no trouble expressing myself and there's so much

00:09:33.380 absurdity out there that needs to be addressed i think so and i think that the most important act

00:09:42.960 of defiance is not violence i have come to believe in my age that violence actually doesn't

00:09:49.540 doesn't seem to solve i don't really know when the last time violence solved a problem it's also

00:09:53.680 prohibited to us as christians so like there's that but you can't kill innocent sorry but i do think

00:10:00.580 they're right to worry about words yes actually words do change the world the new testament changed

00:10:06.640 the world period the old testament changed the world i mean truth changes everything and you may

00:10:12.680 not live to see it come to fruition but it still is the most profound thing you can do to fight tyranny

00:10:17.580 is to tell the truth about tyranny yes do you feel that very much so and i think and there's a huge

00:10:23.180 amount of people in this country and across the world who do and it seems like they aside from podcasts

00:10:28.620 like yours and they're very few there are few opportunities for people to express themselves

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00:13:40.580 coffee you talked about growing up obviously we grew up together we're the only children in our

00:13:46.800 family we had the world's smallest family it's like three of us for a while and uh and then we've lived

00:13:51.360 next to each other our whole lives until pretty recently and you talked about telling the truth

00:13:56.480 that your kid's school i should just say this because it's one of the things i admire so much about

00:13:59.500 you we sent our children to the same school obviously lived i forgive you

00:14:02.740 well my wife convinced you to send yours to the school that our kids went to and of course it

00:14:09.180 turned out to be a sub awesome school very liberal crazy school but you know it's our neighborhood

00:14:14.280 school whatever we did it let's not regret it but um you were the only person in this rich person

00:14:20.420 school that we sent our kids to to confront you know with politeness but firmness the administration

00:14:26.680 of the school about what they were telling your child which was like totally bonkers like men can

00:14:31.780 become women and hate yourself if you're white and all this stuff and boys are bad testosterone's

00:14:36.980 bad masculinity's bad and everyone else was like okay well it's a prestigious school we'll just go

00:14:43.720 along with it you were like i know and i remember all the moms kind of hated you but were also sort of

00:14:50.820 attracted to you just to be honest about it and they were like oh i can't believe your brother's always

00:14:55.480 making a fuss and you were like yeah i don't care why did you do that you're the only person

00:15:00.760 my son is the greatest blessing in my life and it's a sole purpose it was my sole purpose for a long

00:15:09.120 time it seemed it's the only thing that that could be important it's the only enduring thing

00:15:14.380 when people ask me when i was a kid probably because we had such a happy thoroughly fucked up

00:15:20.080 childhood but really happy thanks to our father who was so extraordinary in every way and made it

00:15:27.500 very clear that we were the number one priority in his life i mean and it's like the busiest guy i've

00:15:34.440 ever known involved in so many things and yet we were without a doubt his only focus and or his

00:15:41.580 primary focus and he would do anything would do absolutely anything so literally there are no

00:15:49.000 boundaries and and so that seems normal to me that was my reflexive attitude about my son

00:15:55.060 well i think the first thing i encountered when i took him to that school that pretended to be a

00:15:59.740 nice episcopalian school with its own chapel i noticed um they were anything but christian in

00:16:06.240 their attitudes and it was it was the middle of the obama administration when everybody got super

00:16:13.900 empowered about you know indoctrinating children on a level that i don't think i'd ever seen i don't think

00:16:18.780 that america had ever seen it no and you pay all this money because there's really no chance that

00:16:23.900 you would send your children to a public school in washington i thought didn't um there's actually

00:16:31.560 an argument probably for sending your children to something other than what we sent ours to

00:16:35.800 anyway i remember showing up it was right after the election and i'm not a big bumper sticker guy but i

00:16:40.920 had a bumper sticker probably the only other only bumper sticker i've ever owned and it was a series of

00:16:46.380 four memes and it was pro-god pro-life pro-gun and then it had the obama horizon with a cross through

00:16:56.300 with a slash through it yeah it was in the back of my chevy tahoe and i pulled up and dropped my son

00:17:00.820 off at school and the visceral reaction from the entire teacher platoon that was outside

00:17:09.140 was obvious and so actually i made a commitment right then and there again i was kind of embarrassed

00:17:15.040 to have a bumper sticker on my car like who does that but uh i kept it on there religiously for the

00:17:21.380 next like eight years until the car died uh yeah until one of our friends actually took that car that

00:17:27.540 i had tried to flip and destroy many times and unsuccessfully was unsuccessful and he flipped it and

00:17:33.300 broke his neck yes he did he's okay he's he is okay but he was yeah it was sober too yes he is

00:17:41.180 in his defense uh he he was dead sober he was going hunting and it was in the morning it was in maine

00:17:48.120 and he hit black ice yes yes even having grown up in rural maine he somehow was an expert at

00:17:53.840 dealing with the top of a pine tree off with the vehicle i know i drive by it all i say a quick

00:17:59.620 prayer every time i could buy it me too um he's unbeatable in every way so he's gonna help us

00:18:05.840 both for sure what a wonderful man so that set the tone and then the other and then the fact that they

00:18:12.460 have your child captive you pay all this money they should have a classical education that in this case

00:18:18.060 was billed as something that was rooted in the christian church and yet immediately they adopted and

00:18:25.560 started all these clubs that were race-based they my son went there in fifth grade so he was 10

00:18:31.080 and they immediately started not only indoctrinating all the kids there but making them feel horrible

00:18:39.560 about themselves segregating kids by race there's a school where you know all the entire it's in the

00:18:46.180 middle of the swamp so it's like the the richest zip code in all of dc and so the diversity richest in

00:18:53.160 the united states yes and the diversity that they had they talked endlessly about diversity and the

00:18:58.440 diversity they had there was color only everybody was in the same industry everybody was working

00:19:03.660 everybody was driving a fucking range rover i wasn't but you know they were um and yet anyway so

00:19:11.920 it was stifling and confusing for children and i just wasn't going to sit back and allow them to do

00:19:18.760 that and i tried to be reasonable i was just persistent and they boy they didn't like it they

00:19:24.860 actually despised me in fact i guess i've encountered that a few times in my life but

00:19:30.200 but boy they they heartily dislike me yes and these are the kind of people who probably do have voodoo

00:19:37.360 dolls back home oh a hundred percent they're all wiccans no they were my back pains were not from

00:19:43.160 being overweight or from not having a tough core it was someone sitting some booger eater sitting at

00:19:47.940 home you know stabbing me with a fucking dagger and excuse my language sorry no it's fine no you're

00:19:55.420 right it just it was so interesting because i saw it obviously you know i'm your brother my wife is

00:20:01.220 your biggest fan so it's like of course we supported you but i just and but i was not as brave as you

00:20:07.440 not even close and i felt exposed because i had a public job like i didn't want to get you know

00:20:12.140 whatever i felt a little bit constrained but you're just you were braver than i that's just a fact and

00:20:16.440 but the reaction from the other parents all of whom liked you because everyone likes you but they were

00:20:21.140 they didn't want you even the ones who agreed with you to keep saying stuff like this because

00:20:26.680 i think they wanted to ignore it they wanted to fit in more than they cared about their own

00:20:33.760 children's moral and intellectual development i mean that's just a fact that and also i think um

00:20:39.580 cowardice breeds self-loathing and which turns into hostility like extreme hostility i saw this during

00:20:47.480 covid in the same place that cowardice cowardice breeds self-loathing i think people who are cowardly

00:20:55.680 hate being cowardly they know they're being cowardly and they hate themselves for it especially

00:21:00.180 men or people who claim to be men and then that manifests itself in extreme hostility i mean i saw

00:21:10.260 everybody's had their experiences during covid but i encountered the most extreme hostility when

00:21:16.820 it was if i'm i never wore a mask i mean i was compelled to wear a mask on an airplane other than

00:21:21.660 that i never wore a mask i just wouldn't i refused and i would travel a lot so i would go through like

00:21:27.780 chicago airport and be the only person that i ever encountered with no mask and it wasn't the

00:21:33.900 authorities who wanted to tackle me it was the other people like going past me on the people mover on the

00:21:39.820 escalator who looked like they wanted to fucking stab me in the face right and then and then when i

00:21:46.660 would i i write for a living and i need to get out in in the world in nature and you know it's a tough

00:21:53.120 business it's a solitary business so um i take my dogs twice a day and and run them in nature

00:22:00.460 oh you have dogs oh yes i have a few dogs five i have five dogs which is i think actually about

00:22:07.140 the ideal number yeah is that right it's about the ideal number yes of course i said that every time

00:22:12.460 three four five is the ideal number yes it's the best but i would encounter people outside on a

00:22:19.160 windy day in the sun walking and i would of course didn't have a mask on and they would all have their

00:22:25.240 dutiful masks on and it would inspire the fact that i didn't have a mask would inspire in them this kind

00:22:30.840 of hostility that i've never encountered anywhere else and yeah it was obvious um i think something

00:22:39.320 like that was going on at the school very much a little episcopal day school because the other

00:22:44.620 parents knew that this was bad and when their kids started to become trans or get into drugs or

00:22:49.860 whatever they sort of know like it's not all your fault you know you can't blame parents for

00:22:53.640 everything but it is partly your fault and they sort of you can kind of blame parents i try not to

00:22:58.420 judge people but i do definitely judge them about their parenthood that's about the one thing i judge

00:23:02.060 people on right although trying to be nice i know i mean you don't actually have total control

00:23:06.420 there are people who have aberrant children that they're i believe are not responsible for it but

00:23:10.480 i think the majority of the weird child behavior stems from shitty parents or parents who were

00:23:17.460 occupied with other people's problems rather than their children's problems yeah what you're saying

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00:24:32.660 remember you mentioned you heard it here first so you i should just say for the record that um

00:24:39.720 you were scoffed at for having the pro-life pro-god pro-gun anti-obama bumper sticker at a christian

00:24:46.840 school at a christian school right no pro-god no pro-life at christian school but um then you decided

00:24:52.960 to take your defiance another click up the ladder by driving your son to school on a big twin harley

00:25:00.340 in carpool line which i personally saw and he was like a little kid and there'd be all these

00:25:06.860 range drivers and vulvas you look over be like there's uncle buck with the ape hangers i had him

00:25:14.680 strapped to my chest with a bungee cord it was safe no it was it was i mean safe is a relative term

00:25:21.960 and our families we know there's no such thing as safety there's only destiny yeah and i we both

00:25:27.760 believe that but safe okay but it wasn't even a safety violation it was like a cultural violation

00:25:35.180 yes and all the moms would be you could you could tell they were a little bit turned on but also very

00:25:40.560 kind of like oh what is this why did she i saw that with my own eyes many times what was the thinking

00:25:47.980 there pure celebration of joy and freedom that's it that's how i try to live my life

00:25:55.580 you're called to be joyful in fact you're you're commanded to be joyful totally agree you are you are

00:26:02.300 what is that susie has that thing all over our house first thessalonians rejoice always never stop

00:26:08.340 praying yes it's my favorite right no you're absolutely right and and philippians 4 4 which is

00:26:15.520 always be full of joy in the lord i say again rejoice yeah yeah i that's just such a wonder it's

00:26:24.800 funny that that's triggering to people whatever it was you were triggering people and i felt like it was

00:26:30.240 such an act of bravery because it's one thing to like you know stand up at the congress and say

00:26:34.300 something unpopular or even like go into battle but to stand apart from your neighbors at the

00:26:41.220 fifty thousand dollar a year episcopal school in northwest washington where there's just so much

00:26:46.280 conformity yes that ticks balls well i appreciate it i don't think i really thought of it that way

00:26:52.460 i'm so used i don't know i've lived my life we were as you said we grew up that way and what do you mean

00:26:58.160 because i did say okay so i haven't looked at a lot of your i don't i'm not on twitter that much because

00:27:03.500 it's it's too upsetting to me but um i did go and check your twitter feed which i i thought was

00:27:09.000 amazing and uh but some of the responses are like oh of course you feel this way because you had such

00:27:14.900 a horrible childhood it's like wait a second what do you people are very personal that way on the

00:27:20.640 attacking your childhood what did you think of your without getting you know too specific but like

00:27:26.140 you described it as happy i actually had the best childhood i'm really sorry for our children

00:27:34.820 they didn't have the childhood that we had i agree with that had because it was a just a lesson and

00:27:42.620 adventure all the time you could define your own boundaries as long as you were as you went to

00:27:48.400 school you were respectful to your parents and you showed up for dinner uh there were really no

00:27:53.660 other boundaries nope nothing that was it so and i loved you and i loved our father and i loved our

00:28:01.280 mother so um we had a happy home life and it was creative and interesting it was in a beautiful part

00:28:09.540 of the world that was at that time very well run in california in fact i think it was the cleanest

00:28:14.940 most efficient state uh in all 50 and it was obviously the the center of creativity

00:28:22.520 in in the country and in the world and it was fantastically beautiful everywhere i mean it has

00:28:29.400 every single climate we lived near the beach and we got to go swimming in the ocean and we had a bunch

00:28:35.620 of dogs and we got to explore we got to explore with our friends and experiment and we also went i'm

00:28:44.480 sure you recall it was a much different time we could actually walk across the border into tijuana mexico

00:28:49.280 and uh engage in all sorts of interesting it wasn't the most wholesome place no it really wasn't i

00:28:57.480 was suddenly thinking yeah is revolution avenue still around is it still accessible to american kids

00:29:04.400 i think the whole thing is so different now you know i'm not in tijuana a lot but i think it's like

00:29:09.520 a huge i think it's like bigger than san diego it's controlled the drug cartels i don't know i shouldn't

00:29:13.040 say that i've never been against mexico i've always liked mexico obviously mexico has done more

00:29:18.060 harm to the united states in any other country not even close but i still like mexicans and i still

00:29:22.380 just have happy memories from mexico i'm like we'll never be against it just for i don't know

00:29:27.620 reasons of memory but uh i wouldn't go there to tijuana no and i wouldn't send my 12 year old child

00:29:33.660 there either uh no but we were that's right we were allowed to do basically whatever we wanted as long

00:29:41.540 as we you know were polite and family loyalty was at the center of everything of course yes yes um

00:29:49.220 and it was interesting our father was involved in so many interesting pursuits he had interesting

00:29:54.180 friends yes our friends were interesting he included us he treated us like adults where it was appropriate

00:30:00.300 i guess all the time

00:30:02.100 he taught us invaluable things that no one teaches their children that's for sure i mean

00:30:09.420 yeah and you you've used the word creativity a couple times it felt to me looking back i never

00:30:15.900 have thought about it until recently as i see the decline in creativity and the awards given to people

00:30:21.200 who are totally non-creative which is almost everyone in our professional class like zero creativity

00:30:25.740 and the creative people are penalized and that's made me think that maybe the saddest change is the

00:30:31.820 disappearance of creativity and the abundance of it in our childhood like that was wait i never heard

00:30:38.540 anybody certainly not our father ever talk about how rich someone was who gives a shit ever plus no one

00:30:44.580 noticed everybody was pretty much in the same boat we lived in an expensive area we had a nice house but

00:30:48.980 it was not absurd no one had five million dollar houses no one had 50 million dollar houses either

00:30:54.040 there wasn't such a thing no there was literally not such a thing so the measure was and there was

00:30:59.420 much less economic anxiety obviously it was a different economy but still the values were different

00:31:05.000 in creativity the the ability to create something out of nothing that was like really prized yes

00:31:11.180 especially if your father gave you the what was the the james bond cookbook oh what was the other

00:31:17.740 one oh yeah i'm sorry i guess they're yeah they're illegal now sorry well he had a library he had a

00:31:23.480 first of all he had a real library like almost a public library in our house and he'd read every

00:31:27.300 book in it and he was very serious about it and it was talk about catholic tastes i mean

00:31:32.100 broad tastes universal interests he's just like nothing he wasn't interested in and there was a book

00:31:37.740 about every possible thing and there was a ton of extremist literature on all sides he didn't buy

00:31:43.900 any he wasn't like he was an extremist he was not an extremist at all but he was like really

00:31:47.580 interested in knowing what people thought and why and this revolution happened and

00:31:50.460 he hated the soviets but he had tons of soviet propaganda literature which was interesting yes

00:31:56.400 he had tons of left-wing and right-wing mostly left-wing actually and he was not left-wing but

00:32:00.580 that was back when they were creative when people on the left actually right were artists and and

00:32:07.560 thinkers and they were open-minded he would always defend people whose politics he hated if they were

00:32:14.900 creative he would say this guy's an asshole i think these ideas are horrible but man look at the songs

00:32:19.200 he wrote or the novels he produced or do you remember that yes very well clearly yes like that

00:32:25.160 counted in your favor yes huh and that's that's kind of gone it seems like it so i i didn't even

00:32:35.320 know this until you i can't believe we're actually doing this interview i'm so glad but um i'm so glad

00:32:39.660 too thank you could we could i ask you an alb question by the way of course best nicotine product

00:32:45.240 in the universe why thank you buck i'm glad you noticed and uh yes i did and i'm generally this

00:32:50.960 is the problem i have when i'm talking i'm generally double barreling or sometimes triple barreling

00:32:55.200 those are nines yes i'm looking forward to the 12s so on the question of nicotine would you say

00:33:01.940 and i know it's hard to assess yourself but would you say you dick around

00:33:04.680 if i like it i like it i really like this a lot although it's so this is the question i have

00:33:14.780 where does one tuck it i know where people tuck this in yeah i get that they stuff it yes they stuff

00:33:21.280 it by the way they should be more up front on the labeling on the zen i know they should actually tell

00:33:27.320 you that that's why it tastes like shit that's why it's like dehydrated they forgot to tell you it

00:33:31.900 needs mucosa but a particular type of mucosa to activate yeah they got it wrong i think they're

00:33:38.520 expecting the bangladeshi guy in the convenience store to tell you to hand you the ky and the

00:33:44.640 surgical glove and just be like i think you know how this works it's like when they have those little

00:33:48.640 crack pipes at the counter with the flower in them and like no it's not a crack pipe i think they're

00:33:52.440 it's an incense burner it's a whistle so i think they're expecting like if you're using zin

00:34:00.780 you know how this works yes you know what i mean that's a good point so that's how i actually feel

00:34:05.400 like a bit of a an amateur asking this but i talk to people and all of a sudden i feel like my biden

00:34:11.040 my upper palate is like coming out your biden my biden you know like the fake teeth i have up here

00:34:18.000 anyway sorry i try to rotate them around because there are parts of my gums that get neglected

00:34:27.240 and yes yes i believe in kind of sharing the wealth yes plus there are different taste buds

00:34:32.900 throughout the entire topography of your tongue and cheek well it wasn't that long ago that many

00:34:38.680 americans thought they were inherently safe from the kinds of disasters you hear about all the time

00:34:42.760 in third world countries a total power loss for example or people freezing to death in their own

00:34:47.440 homes that could never happen here obviously it's america people are recalculating unfortunately

00:34:54.480 because they have no choice the last few years have taught us that remember when the power grid

00:34:58.920 in texas failed in the dead of winter yeah it happened and it could happen again so the government

00:35:05.240 is not actually as reliable as you hope they would be and the truth is the future is unforeseeable

00:35:10.900 and things do seem to be getting a little squirrely so if the grid does go down you need power you can

00:35:16.520 trust last country supplies newest product is designed for exactly that the grid doctor is a 3300 watt

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00:35:47.960 day after day taking care of yourself and the people you love is solely up to you and the amazing

00:35:52.780 thing is with these new batteries we use one at home by the way is they're super easy to use there's

00:35:59.960 no inverter you need to figure out on the front of it or anything like that there's like three buttons

00:36:04.700 it's very easy and totally reliable highly recommended we literally use one as i said visit

00:36:11.320 last country supply dot com to shop the grid doctor for power you can trust this winter last

00:36:18.720 country supply dot com are you surprised since we're only really a year apart um so we grew up

00:36:25.600 and our father always treated us the same it was never like listen to your brother it was it was a

00:36:31.760 fully egalitarian household like in a way that also doesn't exist anymore i'm sure that was frustrating

00:36:35.920 as the oldest i never even questioned it it was like we had the same bedtime same rules there were

00:36:40.120 never any difference at all in the way that he treated us same buddies which is one of the reasons

00:36:44.040 we've always gotten along our whole lives because he treated us fairly yes by the way if you want to

00:36:48.540 make people hate each other treat them unfairly oh i've noticed like institute affirmative action or

00:36:52.920 dei and you will have like serious race problems but we never had anything like that it was a pure

00:36:58.700 meritocracy in our house with a quality at the center of it but the most intuitive accidental father

00:37:04.820 there has ever been i mean this was a man who did not strive to be a dad no and he ended up being

00:37:10.840 pretty much the best father ever the details of my conception have always been a little bit hazy

00:37:16.320 but i did get the i don't think they were legal i don't want to know and i'm sure they were creative

00:37:21.860 everyone's probably mobile i know i can't let's sorry oh i can't even think about it but my strong

00:37:29.140 impression just from like comments picked up over the years is that was not intentional at all like

00:37:34.940 the whole thing was not intentional that sense it was intentional by god yeah it was god's plan

00:37:40.040 totally agree with that the closest i ever got to asking pop about it was he obviously married like

00:37:44.300 a complete lunatic and he was such a smart person and he really understood women and loved women and

00:37:49.520 really paid close attention to women like why did they love him they loved him he loved them not just

00:37:54.680 in carnal ways but like he thought they were really interesting and listened to them all the time

00:37:57.440 and he had such deep wisdom about women and so i once boy isn't that he was the deepest on women

00:38:04.700 and it was out of love like true love he thought they were amazing but uh and he also loved them

00:38:10.160 in other ways but but whatever but anyway i once said to him like given your deep knowledge of women

00:38:15.580 how could you have married a really crazy one like how did you do that and he goes they're upsides

00:38:20.980 that's all he said i was like i don't want to hear anymore it was just clearly never boring

00:38:26.540 right no i guess that was it you know i'd go with yeah well they're never boring once you engage

00:38:31.760 with them they're like amazing and but she had a lot to say yeah especially in public settings

00:38:36.740 yeah i can't yeah i can't imagine yeah i can't even get it i'm sorry i don't even know where we were

00:38:41.640 so one thing i want to ask you was when we were kids and like everyone in our family i know this is

00:38:48.260 like so forbidden this is more forbidden than israel but like everyone in our family smoked cigarettes

00:38:52.140 like everybody and everyone they knew smoked cigarettes and like the question was filter or non-filter

00:38:59.380 and of course our family was strongly on the non-filter side because like gay or straight

00:39:02.680 yeah i mean come on used to call them straights for a reason i remember camel straights are the

00:39:07.760 best cigarette ever made yeah that's literally true and pop would always say it's important not to

00:39:12.900 have a filter in your cigarette because when you're behind enemy lines you can field strip it you can

00:39:16.360 field strip it yeah you can field strip it you break the the butt done it many times roll up the

00:39:21.740 paper flick it away then the enemy will never know you were smoking american cigarettes they might

00:39:27.240 they'd only know you're american if you died and they saw your dental work

00:39:30.040 it didn't make a lot of sense but anyway but the in our family they were you know people were very

00:39:37.060 strongly in favor of of cigarettes and tobacco it sounds so forbidden now but and then we were all

00:39:42.760 convinced this is like so bad because america's killing itself and if we can only get people off this

00:39:47.600 everyone's going to live forever is it a little weird and i'm not i don't smoke i'm not endorsing

00:39:54.140 smoking that strongly but i'm considering going back i am too actually but but whatever and for

00:39:59.820 hard for this i reached yesterday i literally stepped over a dog i was talking to my girl

00:40:05.980 stepped over a dog to join her in a booth in a restaurant and i reached in my pocket to grab my

00:40:10.920 zippo it's been 12 years since i've had a zippo in my pocket seriously i was about to light a smoke

00:40:17.220 we'd had a pizza it was fantastic and i was like i know what's gonna cap this off a camel straight

00:40:23.260 can you even buy them anymore even in south i'm lying i actually know even in tobacco states do

00:40:29.960 you know how much it costs oh my gosh for a deck of cigarettes how much it's 12 bucks in south

00:40:34.480 carolina it's 21 dollars in the district of columbia yeah 21 bucks for a deck of smokes i i walked into a

00:40:42.480 circle k the other day my girl still smokes god bless her and uh i walked in and i bought her some

00:40:48.580 cigarettes and the guy said id and i laughed i pulled out my wallet and i said it's funny

00:40:54.560 what's funny and i said that's what the guy said i said well i've been buying cigarettes since i was 11

00:41:00.980 and they cost a dollar do you think it's funny to make fun of people in the retail business

00:41:07.180 said dude i'm not making fun of you i'm making fun of the stupid rules

00:41:12.040 yeah yeah you had no sense of humor i don't know but you can buy benzodiazepines cheap you can buy

00:41:19.840 weed in any store you can buy it online you're encouraged to smoke pod you're encouraged to do

00:41:25.260 mushrooms you're encouraged to do mezcal or any other stuff but you're the greatest pariah in america

00:41:31.060 you're probably encouraged well you are encouraged to like have a touchy-feely love with the people in

00:41:36.800 your gender but if you're a cigarette smoker you're the literally the dirtiest pariah in in america

00:41:44.740 actually that attitude is is overwhelming now but it was still around 12 years ago when i quit smoking

00:41:51.560 and if it hadn't been i would have quit smoking probably 15 years ago i would have i mean i got i

00:41:57.820 mean the obvious so you smoked in defiance i did i smoked aggressively with joy i did i loved smoking and

00:42:05.420 it made me smarter it made me nicer yeah made me a lot happier uh not only your constant companion

00:42:11.840 but also like a self-defense weapon or an aggressive weapon if you you know you've got a lit cigarette on

00:42:18.860 you you're a force to be reckoned with i would say plus are you ever alone when you have a cigarette

00:42:25.280 no you sound so much like our father because he of course he did once wield a cigarette uh in self-defense

00:42:31.200 i had to do that too you did it too i most certainly did maybe not on someone's cheek but

00:42:37.020 on their wrist i held their hand because he was holding my hand i remember it's like my second job

00:42:43.780 and he was a guy who had a married guy christian self-avowed loudly christian and he had cute kids

00:42:52.560 and a nice wife and he like put his hand on my knee i said can you move your hand please

00:42:58.400 and he didn't oh he's hitting on you yeah at a company picnic like the first week i was on the job

00:43:06.260 and i said please remove your hand from my knee and he didn't so i grabbed his hand grabbed his wrist

00:43:12.820 and put my cigarette out on his hand it was a saturday afternoon and i had had some cocktails but i

00:43:19.520 also felt completely justified in doing that i did and he pulled his hand away and i remember

00:43:24.800 sorry to go down this rabbit hole but i uh the net i thought about it soberly on sunday and monday

00:43:31.160 morning as i was going into the office and that there could be real repercussions for doing this

00:43:34.980 he was like the chief of staff of the organization it was a political organization and he wielded a lot

00:43:39.560 of power and i went in i remember i was doing some copying some document and i was standing in the

00:43:46.860 break room next to the xerox machine and he came up to me and he said i can't believe you put a

00:43:52.320 cigarette out of my hand i said i can't believe you touched me and you wouldn't let go that was it

00:43:59.120 and we had like a staring contest and then he like you know his lip girl and he looked down and walked

00:44:04.320 out i never heard anything about it he never told anyone right so i think it is fair i think that's

00:44:11.300 called gay bashing no i think you are um recklessly or yeah you're you're yeah you're without proper

00:44:21.680 defense when you don't have a cigarette you should have a cigarette with you at all times even if you

00:44:25.520 don't smoke that's my attitude seriously i want to bring back smoking because actually smoking without

00:44:31.480 the filter is probably pretty flipping good for you i i have a lot of views on this i don't want to

00:44:37.080 articulate because i don't want to seem crazy but i tend to i'm sorry i mean we were certainly raised

00:44:41.620 thinking that and our father considered filters like a really bad thing and uh it's you know smoking

00:44:49.040 does you know whatever our real mother died on cancer you know you can and she smoked unfiltered

00:44:54.680 pell-mells uh she engaged in some other activity that may have been responsible for her cancer

00:45:00.880 i think when you're on the dark side and you get cancer it makes sense what do you mean i think if

00:45:08.040 you lead a life of extreme narcissism yes and you are completely self-focused and one it's unhealthy

00:45:18.500 too it's it's unhealthy outlook and the people around you suffer yes but i can't imagine you as an

00:45:24.600 individual don't suffer and now that i'm 54 and i'm old enough to actually witness people who've lived

00:45:30.320 their lives this way and i mean self-focused all the time not one of them is healthy physically

00:45:37.720 mentally it's stifled it kills something in someone it's like it's like i'm not to

00:45:44.880 attack people who aren't able to have children but people who've chose men who've chosen not to have

00:45:51.680 children they reach a certain age and they are intractable in ways that are damaging to them and

00:45:59.180 those around them she was not a man but she had that same problem and i think i think she like

00:46:06.020 was drowning in like me yeah drowning in like me exactly totally asphyxiated on herself so you've

00:46:13.840 made reference to dogs you've conceded that you have five you think five is the perfect number

00:46:17.840 you were describing your childhood and you pointed out the presence the omnipresence of dogs

00:46:23.920 and uh as a highlight why are dogs important

00:46:27.120 well dogs i think i've thought a lot about this aspect raising children with dogs i think it's

00:46:34.460 important because your children are the center of your universe as they should be right but the last

00:46:40.380 thing you want to do is convey that to your children so i mean that's a good way to fuck up your

00:46:45.920 children so having dogs around and instills in them they have their first my first loving

00:46:51.620 relationships were with my very small family of which you're half and dogs we had a lot of dogs

00:47:00.060 around all the time all the time and there are people i mean have written endlessly and talked

00:47:05.520 endlessly about how wonderful dogs are but i don't think they talk enough about how wise dogs are

00:47:10.660 and how dogs are clued into like a communications channel that most people are not picking up

00:47:19.080 um my dogs know what i'm going to do long before i do it they know exactly my intentions it's weird

00:47:28.940 if i if i'm working in my office and i've got five four dog beds in my office underneath the bed

00:47:34.540 underneath the desk and if i get up to go where does the fifth dog go uh

00:47:40.220 three of them are shamefully small so two two of them two of them anybody else's brood i'd say

00:47:47.660 those are pseudo dogs but actually one of my small dogs is an incredible relentless actually you know

00:47:53.240 her she was a gift from you yes she is um a hunting dog that's my defense she's a hunting dog she's

00:47:59.720 got autism yep bad bad she is the most well-meaning yes she is she means well 100 good-natured

00:48:08.100 and pretty good in the quail field i will say yep she also has unerring uh aim she will hit you

00:48:14.500 right in center mass every time she sees you i have more scars from that dog on my face in fact in the

00:48:20.920 morning when i wake up i now have started putting lightning collars on three of the five before i even

00:48:26.880 let them into the backyard which is actually kind of impressive because it's dark i've had no coffee

00:48:32.900 i'm usually naked and i'm affixing lightning collars to three dogs one of whom continually

00:48:39.200 bounces up and slams me in the face with her snout yeah it's amazing anyway dogs are an endless

00:48:45.620 endless source of joy and affection well actually even today i was telling because it's christmas or

00:48:51.380 everyone's at the house or a lot of people at the house your relatives are at the house and

00:48:55.540 uncle buck's coming oh is he bringing and because i've never seen you travel i don't think a single

00:49:00.260 time ever in life without at least one dog you always bring at least one dog but you're dogless

00:49:06.000 today she's kind of vocal and she's not very respectful to expensive camera equipment or genitals

00:49:13.420 yeah no so if i was a smoker it'd be great because then keep her at bay but um all she'd need is about

00:49:22.580 6 000 cigarette burns and then no i know exactly i don't think that would work no i don't think it

00:49:26.960 would either but you are surrounded by dogs you work with dogs you as i just said you travel with

00:49:31.920 dogs you're you are inseparable in the minds of everyone who knows you from dogs they have great

00:49:38.080 insight you said that's one of the main reasons they improve our lives i think so i mean i i talk to

00:49:46.640 my dogs and they understand me my dogs have actually a very a better understanding of the english language

00:49:54.240 than i think most people i deal with outside of this room um they're so much smarter than people

00:50:00.940 give them credit for and wise and kind and of course it does remind me of the the great little joke

00:50:07.580 lock your dog and your wife in the trunk of the car come back after three days and see who's

00:50:12.480 grateful the answer to that is always not your wife um so they're forgiving they are they are

00:50:21.560 actually the essence of purity i think they're even though they're capable they're not capable of

00:50:27.820 artifice a dog will never pretend to be happy when it's not and they have no um no sense of vanity

00:50:37.840 they're they're perfectly willing to display their immediate and current emotion at all times and

00:50:45.920 their emotions are almost exclusively loving uh now i have a predator i have a three-legged predator

00:50:53.180 what a wonderful a wonderful description boy i couldn't have matched that well it's true don't you

00:50:58.040 oh it's so true i mean what i have five dogs at my house right now too i'll just admit um so

00:51:02.480 you're winning that you're winning the grand dog competition i would say i'm not about to render

00:51:08.120 an opinion about which is best but can i just say not to make this into a cultural thing but

00:51:12.940 that and i know that there are other i'm sure that there are other cultures that feel the same

00:51:17.240 way i don't know what they might be but the culture that we grew up in which was a culture

00:51:20.640 was i mean none of these were even questioned like dogs and other things politeness bravery loyalty

00:51:28.900 but dogs were in that lit like those that was just unquestioned yes dogs were at the center of

00:51:34.660 the culture not just the family but the culture we grew up in very much so oh very much so i never saw

00:51:40.920 our father cry except when our dogs died and i that's correct got a little more emotional as i've

00:51:47.040 gotten older so i've occasionally shed a tear about something other than a dog dying but i've never been

00:51:53.120 as affected by death as my various dogs death and i'm also convinced convinced 100 that my capacity

00:52:03.700 for joy is less than it was before my last dog died but i'm also convinced 100 that we will see

00:52:14.440 them all again i am convinced of that to be reunited um i have a particular dog that you know who was

00:52:22.280 what's the phrase you use a lifetime dog or the the special dog and you know now you agree that

00:52:28.480 everyone has one of those if you have enough dogs there's always a dog where you're like oh i'm never

00:52:32.380 gonna have a dog like this again yes and boy do i love my dogs and and unlike raising children where

00:52:37.940 you could never indicate which one of your children is your favorite not that that ever exists no um

00:52:45.340 with dogs i think it's completely the opposite my strategy is to convey to each and every one of my

00:52:52.760 dogs privately that they that they are my favorite so every one of my dogs is going around being like

00:52:59.240 i'm dad's favorite yeah i know you engage in a little bit of that you've got to

00:53:06.460 anyway i do that with my children by the way they all i think they all have that impression i hope so

00:53:12.920 they are gosh but yeah you had a dog you had that lifetime dog i have many pictures of that dog on my

00:53:19.840 phone because i were not my dog but i did i felt real love for that dog and my favorite picture of that

00:53:25.480 dog who was called bella uh was in the dog park in the rich lady dog park directly cross street from

00:53:31.900 our house in washington that we both used every day and there are always a million ladies in the

00:53:37.580 you know they're all nice i don't i'm not i don't mean attack anybody but they're all a little little

00:53:41.280 bit uptight yes went to hbs but now they're staying home to raise their kids very methodically

00:53:45.580 that kind of thing let me look it up let me look it up and your dogs have never kind of been with

00:53:52.420 that program at all they're off-leash dogs they are off-leash dogs and that one dog was an amazing

00:53:58.880 hunter finished spits yes and this dog had killed a squirrel and has in her mouth this squirrel was

00:54:05.240 like you know quite was a black squirrel a black squirrel and she was this deep beautiful red and just

00:54:11.160 the contact the contrast from a photographic perspective was powerful i had i had that on my

00:54:17.380 screensaver for for years until my son got old enough to notice that his picture wasn't on there

00:54:23.600 can i tell my one dog park story which is like family lore which is like my favorite story which

00:54:30.980 i've told at many dinner parties about you which one it's not a bad one no so you were at so in dc

00:54:40.180 of course our parks it's a federal zone so our parks are policed by park police actual park police

00:54:44.940 oh yes they are yes sometimes on horseback yes and this specific dog park was i mean when i say it

00:54:50.700 was across street from my house like i could see it from my bed it was right there was no but it was

00:54:53.600 extensive it went miles actually we have an amazing park system in washington and this is called this

00:54:58.580 was called battery kimball yes it was a civil war battery beautiful park beautiful part of the city

00:55:03.480 and you would walk your dogs in there every day and you had a million dogs as always and you never

00:55:09.240 leash them because you're a free man and this is america and they're well behaved and they don't

00:55:14.460 bother other people generally pretty responsive dogs yeah they call the wildlife a little bit

00:55:20.700 oh that's for sure well that's i don't know that's sort of your responsibility when you're

00:55:24.980 it is the food chain isn't it like i'm sorry if you can't handle it get out of the park dude i'm with

00:55:31.060 you and i remember when this happened but like every woman in the neighborhood is probably still

00:55:35.220 talking about it um oh this isn't a city rife with all sorts of other crime so every time i know it's

00:55:42.320 not this story but every time i was accosted by someone and the next door that's silly uh next door

00:55:47.780 online thing right pre-covid in a city that has overwhelming physical and property crimes uh the

00:55:56.780 number of the most prevalent complaint on that listserv oh i saw someone walking without a leash and this is a

00:56:03.160 terrible thing and literally that would garner the most commentary from any next door post we need

00:56:09.060 better rich people in this country yes that's the number one thing we need yes yes well they need

00:56:14.080 some hardship because complaining about shit like that it's not only picayune but like repulsive it is

00:56:19.820 repulsive i totally agree and they have no self-awareness at all and they're all like that but

00:56:24.160 anyway my universal response i'm sorry to interrupt you my universal response to them and to authorities who

00:56:29.000 would occasionally accost me would be i'm so relieved you've solved all the other problems in

00:56:35.060 in dc all the other crimes are no rapes there are no armed robberies cvs isn't being ransacked on a

00:56:40.920 daily basis like thank you i really appreciate i'm so glad you solved that problem now we can deal

00:56:46.080 with lesser crimes like leashes my god they did not appreciate the lecture no they didn't after many

00:56:52.280 such lectures from you they decided to arrest you and they told you that that if we catch you again

00:56:58.000 without a leash you're going to jail sir sir and then you get approached by a couple of these

00:57:04.460 officers i think on horseback i was walking through a beautiful meadow at about 10 30 in the morning

00:57:10.480 absolutely deserted and i had four dogs with me and we got all the way to the end of the meadow and i

00:57:17.120 heard someone say hey hey someone clearly yelling not in not like they needed help but like they were

00:57:25.260 trying to get my attention i'm sorry i don't respond to that and so i turned and i saw it was

00:57:31.820 on a slope this meadow and i could see these blue helmets coming up the meadow so they were the horses

00:57:37.700 weren't even visible helmet helmet so i kept walking and then i was you and peacekeepers

00:57:42.860 exactly so i kept walking and then i was in the middle of the forest on a on a small beautiful

00:57:50.960 path and i kept hearing this female male voice hard to determine was rather masculine

00:57:57.260 but but also flipping hysterical so it could only have been a soy boy with a gun or a very masculine

00:58:06.140 chick and it was it turned out to be three cops three park policemen on beautiful very expensive

00:58:13.320 horses with tidy helmets on and they yelled at me for a good half mile they finally caught up to me

00:58:20.060 and when she when they were about when this trio was about you made them just like yell at you and

00:58:24.900 chase you completely ignored them i'm sorry it's my park i'm a federal taxpayer i also live in dc this

00:58:31.220 is right don't we fund that park we fund their salaries i'm sorry i have a bit of a sense of

00:58:35.840 entitlement about two things nicotine and dogs yeah and that's it and this was so i was minding my own

00:58:44.840 business in our park and so they were persistent and yelling and when they got to be about 75 yards

00:58:52.480 away she lost her cool completely and she yelled and said stop or i'll tase your dog

00:58:59.600 i'll tase your dog so i'm sorry that's just too much for me so i said yelled because they were

00:59:10.440 still far away i said you're not gonna fucking tase my dog you do that you know the real problem

00:59:15.320 and so they were taken aback by it a little bit and they finally came they hadn't met a man in a

00:59:21.340 while in dc is that i guess not i mean too busy solving all the other crimes so they got they finally

00:59:28.460 got up to me and it was a very authoritative squat muscular woman who was the authority figure

00:59:35.120 and then two men men and who were embarrassed and i made them further embarrassed because i said this

00:59:42.160 first of all don't speak to me like that don't ever speak to me like that don't threaten my child

00:59:47.540 and um she didn't like that but she backed down a little bit i actually had the i had the moral

00:59:55.900 authority i was in the right and they were absolutely in the wrong and i did what you're

01:00:01.280 supposed to do in a situation like that is i met and exceeded their aggression

01:00:05.120 significantly and to the point where i asked their badge numbers as their full names give it to me now

01:00:13.000 and pulled out my phone i was totally obnoxious but also in the right and i said to those men how can

01:00:19.120 you tolerate this well she's your boss she's telling you oh and these guys literally at the end of it

01:00:25.000 this is probably a three or four minute exchange and they ended up they gave up and they walked away

01:00:32.340 and i was on this beautiful uh ledge that had railroad ties every three or four feet going down into the

01:00:41.380 stream into this valley you'd have no idea you're in the middle of dc it was such an incredible park

01:00:45.680 sanctuary it's incredible and they went ahead of me she in the front steamed literally coming off her

01:00:53.720 and then these two extremely embarrassed men and they started going down well their horses decided this

01:01:01.340 would be a great opportunity to leave some indelible artwork on the path and a horse when a horse goes

01:01:08.480 to the bathroom it's not a subtle thing no especially when they're walking down a hill so they deposited

01:01:14.800 i don't know 26 27 pounds of artwork right there on the path so the and they had to go slow because it was

01:01:21.600 one of these winding paths with with railroad ties and they were stuck so they were like slowly

01:01:27.900 trying to go down and i was yelling at them the whole time hey pick that up what's wrong with you

01:01:32.860 i can't believe you're leaving that behind who's going to clean up after you oh i am so surprised

01:01:37.900 actually they did not shoot me i was expecting it actually i really was worth it it was so worth it

01:01:44.400 and actually i was enraged i was still enraged to the point where excuse me my biden is coming out again

01:01:51.740 um i uh by the time i got back to my car and that was probably 15 minutes

01:01:58.180 later i remember this clearly i had gone to one of the best uh sandwich stops i had a meeting downtown

01:02:04.660 and i was running my dogs first and it was i had stopped and i'd gotten some clam chowder

01:02:11.440 from uh beau blair's place i can't think jetties from jetties and i had a container of

01:02:17.800 clam chowder yeah they had good chowder so agitated by the time i go even by the time i

01:02:23.740 go back to my car which is like 15 or 20 minutes later i opened up the top of the clam chowder

01:02:27.960 and promptly launched it into the air where it came and landed on my dashboard directly in the

01:02:35.700 air conditioning unit in fact that chevy tahoe smelled like clam chowder for literally the next

01:02:40.980 three years it was disgusting until patrick flipped it until patrick flipped it and broke his neck

01:02:44.940 but i uh was i don't normally hold on to anger for very long i've got like a reasonably quick wick

01:02:52.100 and i can get pretty hot but it it dissipates fast this didn't i was still mad 20 25 minutes later and

01:02:59.460 i drove i think i pushed my meeting back i had to drive downtown i think i texted them it was like i

01:03:04.100 had a bit of an emergency i'm gonna be a half an hour late and i drove around the entire perimeter at

01:03:09.320 least that western perimeter of that park looking for the telltale sign of the the horse carriage

01:03:15.140 because i actually really did want to record their names and make a formal complaint not that it would

01:03:19.840 have gone anywhere but or write a piece about it i don't know but it would have made me happier i

01:03:24.420 didn't find them i looked for them so everyone i should say for the fifth time in our tiny little

01:03:29.240 very cohesive neighborhood where we spent most of our lives um and know every single person

01:03:34.400 almost everybody disapproved of this kind of behavior from you because it was disruptive and

01:03:39.960 like it wasn't you weren't getting in line with everybody i never of course felt that way because

01:03:44.560 we grew up together with the same attitudes but now i think that if like eight more people in our

01:03:50.980 neighborhood and 800 000 more people in our country had taken that attitude we'd be in much

01:03:56.220 better shape than we are now amen amen i three more people would have been able to dominate that town

01:04:02.480 without dominate that neighborhood you're totally right because people are look i'm not some great

01:04:09.180 student of human behavior but i do observe it and i think that people again as we talked about earlier

01:04:15.760 i think people who are cowardly hate themselves for it yes and are hostile towards those who express

01:04:22.360 themselves or embrace their freedom in america land of the free home of the brave like i mean not anymore

01:04:30.120 clearly and but i think there are people are waiting to be galvanized by someone who's willing to say

01:04:37.600 i'm not saying i'm that person but they need someone to rally around someone trump was obviously that guy

01:04:45.000 that's obviously part of trump's appeal that he was that you know hey fuck you this is what i believe

01:04:51.160 and i'm not going to back down kind of guy and i think our country used to be full of people like that

01:04:55.940 yes it did and and they were they were real heroes in this country uh this country didn't have an easy

01:05:03.920 an easy time of it for the first couple hundred years and the only people who exercised real power

01:05:10.920 and authority were men who were courageous and willing to speak their mind and willing to follow

01:05:18.380 through also and kind to other people and but whatever leadership qualities that you just don't

01:05:23.000 see in america that often i don't i mean i couldn't agree more and one of the hallmarks of that kind of

01:05:29.180 society is decency one of the things you notice about brave men our father being the bravest person

01:05:34.600 i think either of us ever met it was totally 84 years old never saw him one time express fear in

01:05:39.860 any situation any situation physically intellectually nothing i saw a few where you know he could have and he

01:05:45.880 including when he died totally unafraid totally uncomplaining totally unmedicated totally undiminished

01:05:51.220 totally undiminished both of us were there so yes no i agree with that but that was the twin two that

01:05:58.420 was the flip side of his decency and kindness he didn't hate himself he had no reason to and if he

01:06:05.000 made a mistake or did something wrong which he did he'd be like wow i did something wrong i'm really sorry

01:06:10.380 and he was genuine genuinely inquisitive with other people and kind and interested

01:06:17.420 thoughtful and interested oh his favorite thing was talking to i mean he loved to talk and he told

01:06:23.580 the best stories around but he loved people and oh he'd get back from dinner parties when we were kids

01:06:29.300 i'll never forget always it was always a woman of course because you as a man you sit next to a woman

01:06:33.040 at a dinner party thank god i met the most amazing woman she would grew up in some weird country and did

01:06:38.180 this and her dad was in the oss and you know it was all that was a theme it was always some intrigue

01:06:43.260 always always but um but he was so interested in other people like and so passionate about it like

01:06:48.560 their stories were like as exciting to him as his story yes oh he paid attention to the details very

01:06:54.480 close attention very he was an amazing listener because he was really interested anyway i think

01:07:00.080 his decency his love of children animals his family his wife people he sat next to at dinner parties

01:07:07.840 like that was all related to his total fearlessness yes in a way yes do you know i can't quite articulate

01:07:14.740 it but i think you did but you know no but he was so self-confident because he used all the talents

01:07:22.480 that god gave gave him to the extent that he was able i mean he never passed up an opportunity ever

01:07:29.200 anywhere to do anything interesting or adventurous that is literally true and that was like his law

01:07:36.440 and it's so attractive and it's that was his law yeah that was his law have an interesting life

01:07:43.100 that's like the only instruction i got me too yeah and he constantly i mean i remember when you got

01:07:48.960 thrown out of boarding school and the only family drama i ever remember remember was would pop be able

01:07:57.560 to force you to join the french foreign legion and he was dead set on forcing you to do that in case

01:08:03.800 you don't remember i do remember and i don't remember being resistant to it it wasn't you no i'm aware

01:08:09.360 yeah someone else who was very resistant to it you can't do that to him

01:08:13.700 man you weren't against it but like you were 17 when you got tossed how old were you 17 maybe i was

01:08:22.420 17 yep and he checked at the head office in marseille i'll never forget this and 17 was old

01:08:30.220 enough to join the french foreign legion and i'll never forget coming home for christmas or easter

01:08:34.780 or some vacation where we were all home in georgetown and he was like well your brother's gonna join the

01:08:38.820 french foreign legion and i was like is this real is this real you were like yep he fucked up at school

01:08:45.360 he got thrown out of boarding school he's going to the french foreign legion and it's a six-year

01:08:48.600 commitment but by the time he gets he'll only be 23 and imagine he'll be able to see all his

01:08:53.000 friends i spent six years in the french foreign legion i've got a fake name and a new passport and

01:08:56.780 i served in jibouti isn't these wars and isn't that great and i was like yeah that sounds great

01:09:03.820 you're like yeah i'm totally thank god for female wisdom and strength actually i think i think it would

01:09:11.100 have been great i probably wouldn't have survived it but no thank god for mom he was so all in

01:09:15.800 i'll never forget he knew people who who had done it oh yes speaking of without even getting into it

01:09:24.660 but i think both of us have taken an awful lot of shit about whatever he did for a living and it's

01:09:31.700 not even totally clear but um let me just ask a general question not about him but about sort of

01:09:37.940 the world that you grew up in you were what like 14 when we moved to georgetown maybe ish 13 13 so you

01:09:48.160 spent your entire life in northwest dc like you never left except to go to maine obviously but

01:09:52.940 but like full-time you right you're living there and um in a world i mean you literally lived in a

01:09:59.820 house that our father purchased from cia officer in cash yes right and everybody in our world was

01:10:06.160 involved involved in that kind of stuff and and then you have had jobs where you rubbed up against

01:10:11.920 people in the intel world yes a lot of jobs though common probably in dc but yeah that's the point

01:10:18.760 actually that i'm making yeah everybody i wouldn't be bringing this up if i thought you were well by this

01:10:23.780 point in the conversation i think everyone knows you're not working for the cia you're not compliant

01:10:28.260 enough have you seen my tax returns yeah no but who has who has right exactly but um i guess my

01:10:36.200 question is did you know until relatively recently what a huge role intel agencies foreign and domestic

01:10:44.640 played in the life of our country not just the political life but the civic life the cultural life

01:10:49.440 did you know that no and it and it reminds me what you said a little earlier in this conversation

01:10:54.520 about not being aware of what's going on around you yes you're steeped in it of course and i worked

01:10:59.660 for some i worked for a corporate intelligence firm that was founded by all former spooks and i knew

01:11:06.340 personally yes good guys great guys excellent shots too we hunted with them holy smokes were they yeah

01:11:12.160 and also one of them died like the best death ever had grandchildren his children were married

01:11:17.420 walked out of his on k street walked out of his accountant's office having received good news

01:11:23.160 and had a massive heart like life-ending heart attack right there on k street across the prime

01:11:29.200 rib yeah like 76 yeah i mean he was a great man he was a great man but intel guy intel guy sorry i think

01:11:36.660 it's also important to mention i my attitude has changed like so many because of covid but even a

01:11:42.720 little bit before that i just had taken it on faith that we had a good government that was well-meaning

01:11:49.280 that makes mistakes but that was answerable to the people i actually always thought that growing up

01:11:54.960 i generally didn't think what i heard from the government was a lie i didn't think it was a

01:11:59.700 manipulative lie um i remember i mean the the most important thing that went on in our lives as we were

01:12:07.340 growing up the most important enduring conflict was the iron curtain and communism and i remember talking

01:12:14.680 with you and others all the time about those poor people who live in the soviet union who have no

01:12:20.560 access to real news they have tasks and they have zvestia was zvestia pravda and they don't have the

01:12:29.240 freedom to go to church and they obviously their economy sucks because it's managed by a government

01:12:35.400 and that never works but really they didn't have access to accurate information right they had no access

01:12:43.200 to any real news and further they had been taught as a society terrible things about america

01:12:51.740 and americans and specifically we used to also talk after the iron curtain came down had the same

01:12:59.140 attitude about north korea like here are these poor emaciated captives who can't leave their own

01:13:05.140 country who don't who think these terrible and untrue things about americans and it was only a couple

01:13:11.920 years ago that i suddenly realized i had this epiphany we're fucking north korea we are north koreans

01:13:19.140 and so much of what the government has told us throughout our lives about big events and small

01:13:25.180 events are simply not true not just massaged but like 180 degrees from truth and reality

01:13:33.260 once you have that realization it's very unsettling and dispiriting i think and scary um and obviously

01:13:42.380 the election of 2020 brought it into focus all of the suppression of twitter and the new york post

01:13:48.260 piece from miranda devine on hunter biden and that's and all the false news about masks and the vax and

01:13:57.940 everything else i mean the list is endless and could go on and on but no to answer your question

01:14:04.400 i was not aware of it i didn't pay attention to it i didn't suspect it and i really had no reason to

01:14:10.000 suspect it actually because life was different even a decade ago in america and certainly in washington

01:14:18.540 and now they've just it seems a certain air of desperation or something that they're they're

01:14:24.140 clamping down to such an aggressive degree even with trump in the white house which i wish someone

01:14:28.940 would explain to me i have my theories but anyway um and the fact that they used to be good liars this

01:14:36.580 is the thing i find the scariest is they used to tell compelling thought out well-fashioned plausible

01:14:45.100 lies and they no longer do that now it's just hey this is it and you either accept it or shut the

01:14:53.500 fuck up and we'll put you in prison or we'll take all your liberties away and i do think it's akin to

01:14:59.340 finding you know the great debate are you going to look under the bed and or are you going to jump

01:15:04.100 across the room and leave the door it's like once you look under the bed you might actually find the

01:15:09.260 monster and now it's clear that our government is the monster and the intelligence agencies are the

01:15:16.560 monster and once you've seen it you can't really not unsee it yes and that's really unsettling so

01:15:23.640 nicely put um that's so nicely put yeah that has been i try to talk about it too much because it's

01:15:30.700 obviously way too personal but that but the realization about the intel agencies has been one of the really

01:15:36.800 big things for me i just i can hardly even believe it i can hardly believe i know that sounds stupid

01:15:42.100 but it doesn't but it grows out of a totally different understanding of the u.s government

01:15:46.540 yes and i always thought it was inefficient and the problem with u.s government was

01:15:50.940 there you know were a lot of lazy people with guaranteed jobs and like big bureaucracies don't

01:15:56.120 function very well they're just they just don't work but the spirit that animates them which is a

01:16:02.180 spirit to protect and improve the country is kind of unquestioned they're not trying to subvert the

01:16:07.420 country that's what i would think maybe at worst they don't care right and occasionally have a soviet

01:16:12.720 or cuban spy but that's like really far out you know what i mean or some drunk fbi agent with having

01:16:19.580 an affair who sells secrets because he needs the money but like human flaws human thank you human

01:16:24.120 flaws but never that this whole that there'd be huge parts of this whole enterprise that are working

01:16:30.480 to destroy the society like i'd never even occurred to me no no me either and but it's clear that

01:16:36.400 that's what's going on it's clear yeah it couldn't be clearer and it's accelerating it's not decelerating

01:16:42.320 no no so um yeah and it's demonic it is and i actually don't even understand why that obvious

01:16:51.620 observation that obvious conclusion makes people i guess it's a religious question i don't know why it

01:16:57.500 makes people not just uncomfortable it makes people super hostile if you mention that certain

01:17:05.820 motivations are demonic and that there are demons among us i think that's i've always known that i've

01:17:11.900 just known that it's just obvious i've known it my whole life it is obvious you don't have to be

01:17:17.780 around it's like being always as our father always said trust your dog sense everybody and you talk

01:17:23.620 about it everybody has it all you have to do is pay attention to it it's it doesn't even need to be

01:17:28.600 that finely calibrated i mean if you have a weird feeling about a situation or about a person

01:17:35.780 you know you're probably right yes trust it yeah trust it it's not random no not at all and every human

01:17:45.100 has also had weird out of the blue impulses to do things that go against their nature and all the

01:17:52.780 time this happens to me thank god it happens to me a lot especially when i'm out in nature with my dogs

01:17:59.800 it's where i can clear my head it's where i can relax and think yes away from my phone i get all

01:18:08.520 sorts of unbidden unsolicited thoughts impulses that i follow good things call this person write

01:18:18.520 this do this we agree and if i didn't have that in my life i would be a mess i would be more of a

01:18:25.860 whatever it'd be it would so it's not just so i think it's not just demonic it's not just dark

01:18:32.380 stuff that acts on us god acts on us yes very much so so i boy if i had the same experience i

01:18:39.620 guess my whole life but i didn't recognize it for what it was until pretty recently yeah and i

01:18:46.640 certainly would never you know as a wasp i would never mention it because you're not like that's one

01:18:53.820 thing you're not not supposed to talk about your spiritual views period in fact in fact it's such a

01:18:59.660 rarity i remember exactly where i was when i first had this conversation and it was with you

01:19:06.020 and it was in the state of maine which is obviously wonderful but also something about

01:19:12.160 the state of maine is very close to whatever's going on around us that we can't see it's happening

01:19:18.880 in maine a lot more than anywhere else the membrane is thinner in maine between this world

01:19:22.440 and the next there's no question about that it's not very much it's not a light state no it's it's

01:19:27.820 a heavy state there's a reason stephen king when he at one point had talent and one point had a god

01:19:36.160 given talent yes you can't read his early stuff you can't read the stand without saying this guy is

01:19:42.480 using god-given talent oh there's a reason why all those books actually take place in maine oh and

01:19:47.560 it's not just because he's from maine it's because something going on in maine all right and that's been

01:19:52.520 i think recognized for a long time yeah and um and it exceeds my understanding i can't even guess

01:19:59.060 i do know that the first transatlantic television signal was broadcast from maine oh yeah you know

01:20:04.920 in a town very close it's still there it's still there i hunted next to it i flew over it yeah

01:20:10.280 patrick but but the point is it's like there's something about its geographic locations geography

01:20:15.520 as well that i don't know there's something about it yes but yeah we grew up in a world and in a

01:20:21.640 culture that did not welcome conversations about spiritual matters the transcendent no

01:20:27.180 yeah no that was a huge week didn't talk about death no didn't talk about illness there were no

01:20:35.080 support groups for illness i remember in the 80s there was this black because georgetown had been

01:20:39.980 black or partly black like 100 years ago or something and so there were there was a black church

01:20:45.140 on our street do you remember that well yeah like four blocks down on n street in georgetown and

01:20:49.920 of course i didn't even know it was there but our father knew it was there it's actually the end

01:20:54.000 of dumbarton it was the end of dumbarton sorry one block up and um he was like he just loved black

01:20:59.740 church do you remember getting dragged to black church with it i loved it actually i was never

01:21:04.280 resistant to it you'll never find nicer people with better music great food and a super welcoming

01:21:10.780 attitude i couldn't agree more as i think church is supposed to be it's such a departure from

01:21:15.220 the i won't mention the name of the church because i know family members of ours still go

01:21:20.400 there but i was baptized there and it was just too right it was beautiful architecturally and that's

01:21:26.680 about what it had to recommend it yeah the pews had a nice patina from you know hundreds of years

01:21:33.120 for the frozen chosen yeah no there's no question but he would drag us to the black church at least

01:21:37.060 once or twice here let's go let's go to easter at the black church they were always a little

01:21:40.660 confused by what we were doing there but he was so into it they were on board though they were no

01:21:45.160 they were totally on board no to give them credit they were they couldn't have been nicer and they

01:21:48.040 were like old-fashioned washington black people like the definition of like respectable middle class

01:21:54.200 people and um but he liked it because they were just like all in like they weren't beating around

01:22:00.300 the bush like they're for they're for jesus yes and i think that's just unabashed yeah and i think

01:22:05.940 those were the that was the only contact i ever had in my young life with jesus at all

01:22:09.960 were people talking about jesus yes do you feel it 100 no no no i mean i've had i've had a lot of

01:22:18.180 reasons to have an awakening in my life it was forced upon me and in so many ways god has come into my

01:22:25.100 life and changed things that needed to be changed yes excised certain patterns and behaviors that needed

01:22:31.940 to be that i never could have done on my own yeah ever and yeah i know we both i mean i

01:22:37.440 so yes no i didn't think about it enough i always had a reflexive faith i always knew god existed i never

01:22:45.840 questioned but i didn't know a lot about i still don't necessarily know a lot about the history of

01:22:51.400 religion or the intricacies of certain scripture but i read the bible i commune with other people i

01:22:57.180 celebrate god i celebrate fellowship and i celebrate jesus unabashedly i mean

01:23:05.660 yeah other yeah so how um i would say the other thing the feature of the world that we grew up

01:23:14.020 in was you know just alcohol is part of it yes it was cocktail culture absolutely my favorite food

01:23:20.080 growing up was tonic water and cam and bear we had so many cocktail parties at our house

01:23:25.280 that's tonic water and cam and bear true that's where that you remember that i remember well tonic

01:23:31.340 water that's when you know your parents are going to too many cocktail parties not many six-year-olds

01:23:36.160 drink tonic water i wonder if any six-year-olds drink tonic water i don't think people even drink

01:23:40.700 gin and tonics anymore but they did in our house growing up anyway boy we come from a long line of

01:23:45.360 gin and tonic drinkers but yeah uh so we both got caught up in it and i would see you a little

01:23:52.620 more enthusiastically than me like um you were epic i think is the term people use now but uh and then

01:24:02.500 you know you know as anyone who drinks overly enthusiastically the people who love them start

01:24:07.520 to worry and then you just like quit didn't go to rehab no i admire people who do i think it's helpful

01:24:14.440 oh i'm not criticizing it no no no i didn't think you were i just actually i've had heard some

01:24:19.240 fascinating stories at those AA meetings it's been years since i've been to one but i did have some

01:24:24.700 concerned friends who'd gone through this journey themselves and who pulled me in and i was receptive

01:24:31.980 to listening um not necessarily receptive to stopping but receptive to learning more and um

01:24:40.280 and i was flirting with it flirting was stopping because you take those tests that they have and

01:24:47.980 like answer 10 of these questions and if you answer even three of them then you've got a drinking

01:24:52.760 problem and it was always like i've answered yes on all 10 and i could probably give you six more

01:24:58.240 questions to ask um so and i'd been i'd had a few run-ins with the with authorities quite a few

01:25:05.920 actually it had affected my life anybody asks you oh do you think alcohol is affecting your life oh

01:25:11.660 gosh i don't know let me contemplate that oh so and i'd also reach but principally what happened was

01:25:18.820 my son was born and that was a tough pregnancy an early birth and um the moment i saw that child

01:25:28.620 be born i'd had a lot of preparation from you because you'd already had a couple of children

01:25:34.100 and from others but i and it was an aspiration for me for the entirety of my life to be a father

01:25:40.240 but the moment i saw that child be born and they're purple and unattractive my son urinated all over the

01:25:48.040 doctors it was great still very proud of him but i remember unbidden speaking of unbidden thoughts

01:25:54.860 emotions the first thing that i thought when that child was born was i'd fucking kill for this child

01:26:01.520 yes and i would do it with relish like if someone ever someone ever threatened this child i would i

01:26:10.760 mean there's nothing i wouldn't do so um anyway so he was born and he was young as a baby my son has

01:26:20.540 never seen me intoxicated i'm happy to say he's 24 i had my last cocktail 23 years ago in march

01:26:28.240 coming out incredible and talked about it and thought about it and had concerned people discuss

01:26:36.860 it with me um and had dialed back but then had really an amazing an epic weekend with my son's

01:26:45.620 godfather a great friend of both of ours who came in from new orleans the and had like three-day

01:26:52.300 bucknellia and in georgetown and got like physically ill and so did my wife and she had a full-on divine

01:27:00.780 intervention where god like spoke to her out loud and said enough and and she that was it removed it

01:27:11.620 from her completely incredible completely and then i was sympathetic on board with it because not only

01:27:17.580 was i trying to convince myself that i should lay off it for a while i was trying to convince her

01:27:22.160 and like most she was resistant and um so that day i made the commitment you know i'm going to join her

01:27:29.900 but then one of my great friends was having a bachelor party like in two days so i said

01:27:33.960 okay well let's just get through this weekend and then i'm committed

01:27:37.300 and i did i had my last cocktail as actually engagement party of a great guy i'm spacing his

01:27:46.060 name i'll think in a second oh you know him he's a wonderful guy his marriage didn't last but he's

01:27:50.940 around um and he had a great party and i had a couple cocktails didn't get hammered and then i said

01:27:56.060 that's it not doing it again and but it was divine intervention for me too because he removed

01:28:02.480 not only the desire to drink but he implanted like a revulsion for alcohol yes i feel that physical

01:28:10.380 revulsion where i could to this day 22 and a half years later summon the taste of a great goose

01:28:15.180 martini or summon the taste of like a three inch glass of maker's mark and i could make myself vomit in

01:28:22.540 like 15 seconds um and also for that first year no one ever talks about this at least i've never heard

01:28:30.120 let me talk about this that for that first year i couldn't sleep sweating constantly had horrible

01:28:36.160 nightmares every night yep and the enduring nightmare that i still have occasionally i would

01:28:41.280 say once a month i'll be somewhere socially in my dream and i'll be talking to someone and i'll just

01:28:46.000 reach and have a cocktail and i'll as soon as it hits my mouth like start sobbing in my dream

01:28:54.020 and wake up really agitated and really upset with myself um but anyway god removed the desire

01:29:03.200 completely for me and and i've had a much better life since and i've never run interestingly i've

01:29:10.420 never run i could give you hours of stories about stupid and dangerous and destructive things i did as

01:29:16.820 a drunk person but i never have hooked up with an old friend that i haven't seen in like two decades

01:29:24.060 have a meal and they like order a drink and oh do you want to drink and i'll say no actually i quit

01:29:28.920 drinking i've never had someone say what the fuck did you do that for like really you quit drinking

01:29:36.220 like you yeah no no one's ever had that that emotion you're the only person i know who's crashed

01:29:42.360 an airplane a speedboat a motorcycle and multiple cars and that's literally true that's just a fact

01:29:48.560 and you're here i think we differ on the the definition of crashing i did not crash the plane it

01:29:55.620 was uh well it was a forced landing they call it okay okay well forced no i bear some responsibility

01:30:03.020 for sure but the plane survived completely unscathed well okay in a clearing in a national forest i'm just

01:30:11.340 saying and by the way i'm not blaming you for whatever mechanical error forced your plane but

01:30:14.740 again we could just take the plane out of it and we still have the motorcycle the boat and the cars

01:30:20.480 yes yes i also once fell asleep while flying an airplane from drinking yeah passed out in in a

01:30:30.900 in a really trafficked area and i was aware that i was you know when you're really really really tired

01:30:37.600 you can't hide it from yourself you can slap yourself in the face you can pinch yourself i was

01:30:41.900 a smoker at the time and i you know was chain smoking while flying ah and i was in a traffic

01:30:47.880 pattern and i just couldn't keep my eyes open could not in an international airport in someone else's

01:30:54.200 airplane yeah and i kept nodding off was anyone else in the plane no i was by myself it was really

01:31:01.780 terrifying i wrote a piece about it actually for a friend of mine who also subsequently quit

01:31:06.720 drinking and started like a webzine when those things were around and um yeah it was pretty

01:31:14.160 hilarious sleep while flying an airplane what multiple times multiple times i i was going on a

01:31:19.940 local trip and i took off i was tired i was sleep deprived i had a friend you know those friends who

01:31:26.880 come and visit you oh yes and they never leave and they're great company amazing especially after like

01:31:33.180 5 p.m yeah yeah and well he stayed for like two weeks and so we developed this this great um

01:31:41.900 strategy where we'd go out we'd like drink all day on the beach and then go out to wildly hedonistic

01:31:47.280 meal and then we'd get back to my apartment at like two in the morning and then he would stay up smoking

01:31:52.420 and reading so he could make sure that i got up at 4 30 to go make it to the flight line i was in flight

01:31:58.000 school at the time and so i did that for two weeks he subsequently got food uh alcohol poisoning i think

01:32:05.180 i did too but uh i was just exhausted and but i love flying and it was actually the only academic

01:32:11.800 experience i've ever had that i was really passionate about i love flying and i was in a great flight

01:32:18.800 school i took it seriously uh not too seriously not seriously enough to quit drinking but or to sleep

01:32:25.520 or to sleep but yeah i showed up at dawn flew you know places prone to massive fog banks everywhere

01:32:33.900 it's flat it's actually in this state on the atlantic ocean and it the flight school itself shares an

01:32:41.440 internet international airport with uh like six carriers big carriers so it's got like a 10 500 foot

01:32:48.440 runway it's got north and south and east and west it's got a lot of traffic and so i was wary

01:32:55.040 i'm feeling you know tired or exhausted but it wasn't until i took off that i thought this is bad

01:33:02.260 like this is dangerous like i really can't focus and i'm falling asleep and so i went about 10 miles

01:33:08.660 north and came back because i didn't want it to be super suspicious just take off you have to basically

01:33:13.480 declare an emergency to get back in the pattern in an international airport like that so i went north

01:33:18.460 for like 10 12 miles and then called approach and said i was coming back and have to identify why

01:33:25.240 and it was in the approach with like 737s flying around and other it was a very high trafficked

01:33:31.560 airport and i was on like a five mile downwind or crosswind i'm trying to think whatever i was on a

01:33:39.980 long approach to this airport and communicating with the tower on the radio and i would fall asleep in

01:33:46.000 between communication you know cessna november 678 echo are you there cessna november 678 echo

01:33:54.140 here oh yeah it was and i said a lot of prayers and as i said i smoked some cigarettes in that plane

01:34:00.480 and i pinched myself and uh i landed safely excellent landing and got to the flight line and

01:34:07.540 and turned the engine off and promptly took a nap in the plane for like an hour it was bad and then i

01:34:14.580 i had a motorcycle at that time too and i hopped on my motorcycle and i went home and i was like

01:34:18.620 you got to go back to your real life man it's like one of my oldest friends um you got to leave

01:34:24.540 i can't can't sustain this

01:34:27.300 so then you wind up you're a blackjack dealer on a riverboat in mississippi you work for a couple

01:34:35.020 different political candidates a presidential campaign and all nice guys i don't you know can i say

01:34:41.500 one thing like if you name i'm not gonna name them you can if you want but like people you thought

01:34:46.460 were impressive 30 years ago in politics they're also discredited now i know it's sad it is sad i

01:34:51.940 don't want to be mean not only discredited but actually there was a much better stable of real

01:34:58.340 candidates real people for one one example i briefly was a communications director at the

01:35:05.640 maryland republican party for like six months you were communications director yes imagine a

01:35:11.040 maryland republican party it's like a different country there were like 16 republicans even then

01:35:15.120 but they could still raise some money and they could make some noise because there were no other

01:35:18.420 republicans and actually it was great for me because i was the communications director which

01:35:22.440 really means i was writing nasty press releases and trying to generate lots of news and you know it's

01:35:28.500 a fully corrupt state and so there's a lot to talk about and no one's looking over your shoulder

01:35:34.760 because it's maryland like really right no so i'd write the most incendiary stuff and occasionally

01:35:42.480 generate some news on it but i had license to do that and it was actually a really good it was a

01:35:48.860 really good launch pad it was a was a nice brief experience i had with some really good people they did

01:35:54.440 they didn't have you know big aspirations i don't think i don't think you could stay at the maryland

01:36:00.160 republican party it's kind of interesting quickly i've i've i started then and i've written for now

01:36:07.140 25 years i love writing speeches and i write speeches for i've written speeches political candidates and

01:36:12.720 aspiring political candidates and and corporate heads i love it i think it's so fun and interesting and

01:36:19.200 i'm sure no one will do it anymore with the ai but i hope that's not true but anyway whatever

01:36:24.420 i could write good speeches and one of the guys who actually was impressive in maryland in the mid

01:36:30.000 90s was michael steel do you remember michael steel i knew mike steel yeah his sister married mike tyson

01:36:37.940 i did know that i totally forgotten he's such a chameleon he's such an unimpressive person now it's

01:36:45.780 hard to believe that i once thought he was impressive he was articulate he was as you know i wasn't

01:36:51.680 going to use biden's was he clean too yeah he was clean didn't smell bad and he was articulate i

01:36:56.420 think that was to quote joe biden yes yes and he was he's impressive he's a tall man and he's got a

01:37:02.020 lot of a lot of energy and yes like and your face looks you in the eye no that's totally right a good

01:37:06.980 handshaker and he was going to be like the face of republican success and he had a failed senate

01:37:12.660 campaign whatever 10 12 years go by and in a much different iteration in my life i was uh writing

01:37:21.020 still but like doing more interesting and more lucrative things than the maryland republican party

01:37:26.700 and an old friend of mine named lance copsey who's no longer around i don't know if you remember him

01:37:31.980 he's a very well great guy he's been gone like 15 years he called me and said hey i'm running michael

01:37:38.980 steel's campaign for the rnc will you write some speeches for him and i was like hell yeah love to

01:37:45.680 do that i got paid to do it and i also believed in michael steel and i so i wrote michael steel's

01:37:51.640 acceptance speech and when he became the rnc chair not a huge deal but like kind of fun it was bigger

01:37:58.640 then it was bigger then and and then he immediately like became reverted to type and by which i mean

01:38:07.980 corrupt politician and immediately blew like eight hundred thousand dollars on you know

01:38:14.380 redecorating his personal office he demanded a private jet because he claimed that obama was

01:38:20.600 president he claimed that he was obama's counterpart on the republican side and obama had air force one

01:38:26.260 and he needed to fly private the the incredible nuts on that guy i mean he had balls yeah but no

01:38:33.660 interesting opinions and no you know principles zero no foundation and then he figured out he

01:38:40.220 figured out the white guilt lever yeah and he's like i don't get a plane is that because i'm black

01:38:44.040 are you saying that i'm lesser in his defense wasn't um terry mcauliffe the dnc guy at the time

01:38:52.740 probably so he was probably looking at terry mcauliffe's like right pretty good deal terry mcauliffe

01:38:58.580 hadn't yet imported you know chinese cars for for visas yet but he was living large man i didn't even

01:39:06.180 understand how corrupt that world was when we lived in it so then speaking of you wind up working at you

01:39:13.080 know basically the number two for uh a guy called frank luntz frank luntz for those who haven't heard of

01:39:22.520 frank luntz he's still around oh very much yeah it was the the biggest pollster in the republican

01:39:28.200 party and more than just a pollster he was like the message guy like how do we communicate that

01:39:32.800 you know cutting capital gains taxes for donors is part of the american dream

01:39:38.520 or whatever it's in the constitution um how do we soften all the environmental lunacy and make it

01:39:46.640 palatable oh let's call it climate change you mean the fucking weather no climate change did he

01:39:52.820 came up with that came up with climate change what with death tax he came up with climate change well

01:39:57.540 i say he his team i was part of his team for like six years and yes i helped run that show with a

01:40:03.620 couple of other very competent people he as you know he's very complicated he's he's like a walking

01:40:10.380 dichotomy he is occasionally brilliant he's very smart naturally he's lazy he's dirty he's dishonest

01:40:20.340 dirty what do you mean dirty like his favorite food group is thousand island dressing oh come on

01:40:26.840 and you just can't eat thousand island dressing without getting it all over yourself

01:40:30.180 and the biologicals which are supposed to be unmentionable but with frank are ever evident

01:40:37.800 everywhere oh it's disgusting no no no no no the personal hygiene is like non-existent i could get

01:40:44.540 much more graphic i can't even tell you what his nickname around the office was there's a guy who's

01:40:49.340 walking around with literally a dead raccoon in his head yeah yeah i know i'm sorry so many people

01:40:54.240 don't skimp on the hairpiece that's like rule one i know i know but he was brilliant in his business

01:41:00.480 because at least the business preposition that he had which was he understood i'm not sure if you

01:41:05.960 remember there was a time yeah you really have to actually think back there was a time in america

01:41:11.740 where there was something called uh cable news yeah i'd heard that yeah people took it seriously

01:41:17.480 yeah and no one took it more seriously than franklens so franklens aspired not only to hang out with

01:41:24.700 famous people like in really close proximity but to be on tv and he's very articulate and he's very

01:41:31.640 aggressive like people say people occasionally say oh that guy's shameless no no you've never seen

01:41:38.140 shameless until you've met franklens because he literally has no shame gene like there's nothing

01:41:43.220 you could do to franklens in public to shame him he's unshamable but then again part of the dichotomy

01:41:50.840 is like also super socially awkward and socially aspirant like he wants to hang around people but he

01:41:57.840 he's autistic in his eruptions which are usually pretty funny so he's very verbal he's energetic

01:42:06.780 he's got limitless aspiration to make dough and be on tv and he recognizes actually that's a pretty

01:42:16.220 common thing in corporate america and on the hill so he's very close with newt gimrich in 94 and he got

01:42:24.300 a lot of credit for coming up with the contract with america i think he was maybe a little bit he was

01:42:32.740 definitely very much involved i don't think it was his entire baby i think it was more newts and the

01:42:37.760 people around newt but whatever frank weaseled in there got a lot of credit for being part of the

01:42:43.780 contract with america and then of course the republicans come in and they're in power for the

01:42:47.700 first time in my lifetime and first time in like i don't know 32 years or something maybe 36 years the

01:42:53.060 first i can't remember the 94 election when republicans got back into the house it was the first time in

01:42:58.620 three decades at least and so frank was there and his business model was i will come up with

01:43:07.240 language and words and speeches for members on the republican caucus i'll do it for free then

01:43:15.120 i'll promote those messages in corporate world and make a ton of money with people who also want to be

01:43:20.880 on television corporate heads excuse me fortune 500 fortune 100 fortune 50 companies and i'll go pitch

01:43:29.640 them on some research product project that will allow them to understand their customers better

01:43:37.400 and i'll incorporate the language that i'm devising and using for the benefit of republicans so he

01:43:45.660 ingratiated himself with republicans at the same time he's ingratiating himself with corporate america

01:43:50.860 all around this old antiquated now defunct medium cable news and it was brilliant so he made it and

01:44:00.560 he had no overhead because his entire business model relied upon getting people even though he was

01:44:07.880 incredibly label label conscious like he went to upenn he went to oxford he had an honorific doctorate

01:44:15.620 that he insisted people call him doctor people call him doctor oh dr frank luntz yes dr luntz i didn't

01:44:24.640 call him dr luntz i called him i won't tell you what i call him call him frank mostly but this is so

01:44:31.620 frank was rolling in the dough and didn't know what to do with it and he's indefatigable in his entire

01:44:37.520 i will and there are things about him that i hugely admire for sure his relentless nature his

01:44:44.740 shamelessness you've never seen a pitch ever seen a pitch people talk about oh he's such a great pitch

01:44:51.580 man and he knows how to go and speak to these prospective clients no one does it like frank luntz and

01:44:56.980 with literally no preparation because his entire his entire strategy i would call humanly at the

01:45:05.480 executive what yeah humiliate the executive generally in front of his underlings or a sub

01:45:12.580 like not a ceo but like the guys who are angling for the ceo spot the various vice presidents and

01:45:18.960 stuff who are sycophantic towards the ceo he would gather all the all the executives in one room

01:45:25.780 either a conference room or sometimes bigger like a like a an auditorium inside a coca-cola's

01:45:32.460 headquarters or dow's headquarters and he would go and he would give a presentation and like five

01:45:39.080 minutes into the presentation he would identify one of the sub executives by name and he would do

01:45:45.640 everything he could to humiliate that person in front of all of his peers and his boss come on yeah

01:45:53.200 so this is a guy who actually understands the worst part of human nature because that does

01:45:59.560 actually excite the sadist in certain people right and so who gravitates to those jobs except people

01:46:08.340 who a lot of them not all of them but some of them have that gene like oh public humiliation love to

01:46:15.360 publicly humiliate you and every single person like if you could see that if you could see the thought

01:46:20.000 bubble above everybody's head they're all saying holy fuck i'm so glad that's not me right so everybody

01:46:27.040 so at the end of his how would he humiliate when he finds oh the most personal stuff their clothing

01:46:33.020 their the asymmetry of their face you know big earlobes no no i mean like i know he was predatory

01:46:44.140 relentless ruthless ruthless and entertaining as hell like he's really fast with the english language

01:46:51.580 he's like fast he's super fast i'll give him that he's and very articulate and man he would go after

01:46:57.940 them and so at the end he'd like softened up the entire i mean he would humiliate actually

01:47:05.180 actually at coke headquarters yes yes i saw him do it at pfizer i saw him do it at coke i saw him do

01:47:12.940 it i mean we were he did work for some impressive people uh some huge companies he worked for the

01:47:18.940 sacklers at purdue pharma i i'm ashamed to say that i was involved in that and that's actually

01:47:24.220 something i think about often actually i bought into the whole line it's like you're telling me before

01:47:30.940 did you did you know that the intelligence agencies played such an aggressive role in american life and

01:47:36.100 elections no i didn't i also really didn't know it turns out i should have listened to a lot of the

01:47:41.760 blue haired vagina hat wearing i know crazy women because a lot of the shit they said about the iraq war

01:47:49.820 obviously true about bush administration obviously true only in hindsight for me at least and i dismissed

01:47:56.420 them and i dismissed in a lot of the jobs i had because i did end up in a position defending some

01:48:03.260 of the worst corporate interests in america and i believed that when people attack big pharma for

01:48:11.460 instance or the sacklers or they're really just against you know corporate world they're really

01:48:17.620 against capitalism they're really they're just communists they're against america right they're

01:48:22.440 against america so i i grew up thinking that and it dovetailed well with my job because i ended up i

01:48:30.260 mean they're not all evil of course and a lot of them employ tons of people and do good things and

01:48:35.340 we couldn't survive without them so i'm not attacking all of them gladly attack the sacklers and purdue pharma

01:48:40.940 though because that not only you know more about this topic than most but you know it also dovetailed

01:48:48.820 with an entire societal effort that they had which i was very much a part of to convince americans that

01:48:54.600 there is no such thing as acceptable pain you cannot be in pain you shouldn't be in pain someone needs to

01:49:01.580 be responsible for your pain and you need to eradicate your pain that was that was what they

01:49:06.100 were talking about in 2000 in 1999 2001 two and three they engaged in a society-wide campaign

01:49:14.240 to convince americans that pain was unacceptable not just for chronic cancer sufferers or people

01:49:23.340 who'd been injured in war or people who'd had you know back injury 20 years ago you should not be

01:49:29.440 feeling in pain ever at all and there's a solution for that and they obviously had this solution

01:49:35.080 further they're the ones as you know who pioneered maybe didn't pioneer it but they took it to the next

01:49:42.200 level uh attacking the people that they'd hooked on oxycontin when they said and i said engaged in a

01:49:50.900 ton of research projects and jury uh messaging with that company where we'd go in and test messages and

01:49:59.500 arguments but really sort of like a push-pull designed to not just gauge public opinion but to

01:50:06.940 very much influence public opinion and then we would implant messages yes very much so and then

01:50:12.340 of course because of his business model he would use those messages and it would be incorporated in

01:50:16.940 thought leaders and elected officials around the country they would use that same language and that

01:50:22.120 that was in its essence you're not responsible for your pain you shouldn't have pain but further you

01:50:29.700 this is a non-addict is not an addictive product and if you are addicted to it it's because you've been

01:50:34.800 abusing it it's because you have some latent some long dormant addictive thing within you that's now been

01:50:42.740 released and you also probably have been abusing the product like have you been hitting it with a

01:50:47.400 hammer and smashing it into dust and snorting it well that's on you so that shit's evil it is evil and

01:50:54.580 i never you're thinking about it much more broadly than i ever have so i've always been focused on the

01:50:59.560 you know the physical addiction the societal destruction you know you and i both spend a lot

01:51:04.500 of the year in a place that's been really really followed out followed out by it and we know people

01:51:10.960 a very good friend of ours is now in prison because of drug addiction so anyway whatever we have seen it

01:51:17.000 both of us but i have never really thought about what you just said which is they were making a broader

01:51:22.100 pitch about pain and how pain is always bad and i think if you any any man especially middle age

01:51:28.360 looking back has to recognize that the painful moments are the are the best some of the best

01:51:34.280 moments the most the most important necessary absolutely necessary yeah failure is necessary

01:51:39.060 pain is necessary including physical pain sometimes very much so to say that our goal is to eliminate all

01:51:44.540 pain that's evil yes i agree and i wish i had recognized it as such i totally i don't think i was

01:51:50.640 i think i was probably smarter back then because i was still smoking cigarettes so

01:51:56.400 um um and i was younger but anyway i was i still didn't recognize it lacking wisdom at that yes

01:52:05.200 right yeah lacking wisdom men in their 30s don't have the perspective that a man in his 50s has

01:52:08.900 yes very much assuming he makes it could i say one more thing about the lens thing it was it was

01:52:14.000 actually the bull the business model was amazing in terms of it was very profitable it was effective

01:52:21.500 he came up with some effective language so it's a it's a quasi it's a dual track research thing where

01:52:28.100 you do quantitative research you know actual polling calling polling was long before online polling and

01:52:34.520 then qualitative research with people in a group a focus group but he expanded it to like six times the

01:52:41.060 normal size so your normal focus group has like eight to ten or twelve people in it

01:52:45.460 and obviously it depends who you recruit to be in that focus group um but then he expanded that to

01:52:53.440 like 60 people and then he had an electronic dial which was actually a dial but he called it dial testing

01:52:59.260 where you could gauge individual words and sentences in real time so every single person in the audience is

01:53:07.820 reacting to a speech a speech which is littered with messages that you're testing and they could react in

01:53:16.420 real time to each word and phrase they could you know it's a visceral reaction right do you like it or are you

01:53:22.360 repelled by it and it's pretty effective actually and i i think a lot of the language that he came up with

01:53:29.240 was great but because of his total inability because of his manic behavior and his dishonesty and his

01:53:36.260 penchant for yelling and screaming and treating people horribly didn't actually treat me horribly

01:53:43.540 lied to me a number of times and i got into some big arguments with him and i was too young and unwise

01:53:50.060 to understand you're not supposed to confront your boss and right the way you would confront anybody else

01:53:55.360 right he's not a park ranger he's not a park ranger i was more respectful to the park rangers

01:54:00.980 probably the two men i felt bad for um but anyway no but sorry i was trying to compliment him which is

01:54:07.780 all he cared about was the product and which was the written word and he never gave you enough time

01:54:15.820 there was no schedule he was deluged with clients with high paying clients and he was disorganized

01:54:24.220 and so he would rely upon there was a period where we were handling like 12 huge clients and it was

01:54:30.260 like three writers or two writers and client hand holders you know interfacing with the client

01:54:36.240 because frank wasn't good at that he was very good at humiliating them and coming and coming to the

01:54:42.720 crux understanding human nature to the extent that he could get someone to say yes i'm going to pay you

01:54:47.720 a ridiculous amount of money for a research project that will take six weeks and then allow me to

01:54:53.600 understand my customer better that he was great at he was not great at allocating he was not great at

01:55:00.340 planning and so the end result was a total beautiful meritocracy like you could only survive

01:55:07.820 in that situation unless you produced it was like a camp campaigns are like that too i'm sure you know

01:55:14.560 of course it's like doesn't matter where you came from doesn't matter what you did yesterday or

01:55:18.720 tomorrow it matters that you fucking produce now on time you can't it's like in that old medium cable

01:55:25.900 news so you didn't have an opportunity to be like i'm not done with my script it's seven o'clock and

01:55:31.020 you're going on the air regardless right it's the greatest part about it it's the greatest part that

01:55:35.620 was that's what i'm saying it was the greatest part about it because of that job because you just had

01:55:41.260 no room for failure and every day was an opportunity to prove that you were up to the challenge and then

01:55:50.760 further silly cliche but true that you know oh he's got an inch wide mile long knowledge i feel like that

01:55:58.400 a little bit because i was compelled as were the other guys i worked with to absorb the details of

01:56:05.460 something that's very complex a particular business that i had never been involved in or a policy or

01:56:12.040 some capability of a future product or you know something initiative and you had to be able to speak

01:56:21.100 about it write about it articulately and compellingly on no notice at all so i think that sounds like the

01:56:29.140 best training i am that's exactly how i think about it and despite the weird and i wasn't trying

01:56:35.440 to gratuitously attack no i wrote him a letter actually like six years ago and and just

01:56:41.040 contemplative letter saying despite all of our differences despite the various tensions we've had

01:56:48.720 despite the fact you fired me three times and then hired me back the next day and paid me more money

01:56:53.800 still not fairly but uh despite all of those things um i thank you because it was the best most

01:57:01.600 satisfying job i've ever had no no of course no well he i had a stroke and it changed him actually

01:57:09.160 well that's no no it actually he had his own admission he had a stroke that he survived

01:57:14.280 like all of us at certain age you know he has a terrible diet and leads a unhealthy life and had

01:57:22.280 a stroke and it changed him it actually made him more compassionate from good yes no he had that

01:57:27.380 attitude so franklin's i remember and i don't want to be i mean i feel sorry for frank and i love the

01:57:32.300 fact that he's improved after his stroke both that he's okay and that he's that it's made him a better

01:57:38.100 person i do think that's common i mean as we were saying about pain it actually can it certainly

01:57:42.840 improved me and he was aware of it by the way can i tell you how i knew no i called him uh five or

01:57:48.420 six years ago about some common interest that we had and uh i shot him a text and said do you have

01:57:54.220 two minutes i just want to tell you something interesting maybe we let me tell you something

01:57:58.020 interesting so he texted me back said yeah call me so i called him first words hey how are you i was

01:58:04.960 like i'm doing great man uh let me tell you and he goes no how are you i was like no i said i have to

01:58:14.020 put a cigarette out on his wrist is no i said i beg your pardon frank he said no i i just i'm

01:58:20.280 genuinely interested like how are you how is your wife how is your son do you still have dogs i was

01:58:25.520 like someone take over your body like are you fucking serious i've known you for like 26 30 maybe

01:58:33.240 28 years at that point you've never once asked me a personal question and that's just fine but you're

01:58:40.060 asking me how i'm doing are you okay and that's when he told me he said actually i had a stroke and i

01:58:46.340 said oh i'm so sorry i was genuinely sorry to hear that but yes it had a good effect on him

01:58:51.160 and i as i said i am eternally grateful as i have expressed to him of course no i am i feel that way

01:58:58.960 about all my bosses some of whom you know regularly denounce me but i'm always grateful for every

01:59:04.240 experience and especially when you're young and you're learning a lot i mean it's amazing

01:59:07.460 i know of course i know frank also he's a fixture in republican world in dc he's at the center of

01:59:13.160 republican world in dc yes i always feel like he had weird he kind of hated the wasps did you get

01:59:18.440 that from him ever i did it was uh it was uh i've encountered it before but with him it was very

01:59:23.260 pronounced a lot yeah i mean to say it but not just to hate but uh an attraction also yeah it was a

01:59:31.280 yeah it was like let me sidle up next to you and then let me stick a fucking dagger in your kidney

01:59:36.820 that that was the attitude but there was something about that the fact that you were a wasp triggered

01:59:41.620 him right he would talk about it oh actually are you joking oh he would talk about it all the time

01:59:48.840 well he'd make you know derogatory comments or or derogatory complimentary comments something

01:59:55.540 it was it was an attraction and a revulsion or something it was bizarre what did he say

02:00:01.840 oh that's well he would just say nothing nothing hugely creative but he would say oh that's what the

02:00:08.620 wasp so you do that or you've got such attack my name occasionally or my dress yeah that's a big

02:00:16.600 one yeah i didn't wear a dress in the office very often but only on only when you were going out with

02:00:22.400 frank yeah exactly but he was fixated on that very no evidently yes unquestionably yeah bill crystal

02:00:29.900 was the same way with me i remember when bill crystal if we may take a moment yeah bill crystal was

02:00:35.960 a smart guy oh yeah not that smart but not that's right he came across as a smart guy yeah a

02:00:43.460 thoughtful guy a compelling guy it was weird i used to respect him yeah yeah he's like a puddle

02:00:50.020 yeah but you know it is i've i've learned so much um like yes he he's clever um he did a fair

02:01:01.580 mind of reading back in the 70s you know in school yes he went to collegiate in new york which is you

02:01:07.800 know was a really good school rigorous school and they went to harvard got his phd forced to do a ton

02:01:13.000 of reading so he had read you know aeschylus and you know he had read um a lot and rousseau and and he

02:01:20.760 could kind of remember parts of it and sort of half quote it sort of but what you realize which was

02:01:26.380 impressive and i'm not against that um he had like three lines of poetry he could probably do

02:01:30.640 but you realized over time that that was more a party trick than a reflection of his like actual

02:01:39.060 erudition and that on the wisdom scale like there was none and he was really mission driven yes and

02:01:46.540 um parent now and apparent now but he was it was not obvious to me because i was an idiot and uh

02:01:53.600 he was smart for sure but he was not that smart at all and um and the mission was you know hated

02:02:01.280 christianity yes and uh and really really hated it and um the mask is off now oh the mask is off now

02:02:07.620 but if i look back on this you know he was opposed to american sovereignty he was opposed basically to

02:02:13.780 the population of america he's really was hostile a lot very hostile and um there were glimpses of it

02:02:20.500 but i just wasn't i wasn't wise enough to to understand what was going on plus i was like

02:02:24.540 you know young and he was employing me and so there were lots of incentives not to notice but

02:02:29.460 he was very fixated on the wasp thing with me and it would bubble up sometimes i'm like what the hell

02:02:34.300 was that you know it wouldn't occur to me to be like well i never really thought about him being

02:02:38.680 jewish to be honest i really didn't he is jewish but i didn't think about it that much he thought a

02:02:43.100 lot about me being a wasp though there's no question and it would come out anyway it's just

02:02:48.440 interesting i never have heard anybody mention that dynamic before but um but i noticed that

02:02:56.240 in once too because he would say stuff to me too very much wasps it's like well there's no like

02:03:00.600 meeting probably should be probably wouldn't disappeared if there was but this would have

02:03:05.360 turned out a little differently get off the golf course yeah get off the golf course get some

02:03:10.800 self-awareness get a defense mechanism but you know none of those are visible respect yourself

02:03:15.040 yeah exactly don't hate yourself what your ancestors built a hundred percent and i do think

02:03:20.880 that one i mean i don't deal with many wasps anymore because they really really hate me

02:03:25.120 um and i'm sure you probably have the same experience but don't you think it's the same

02:03:30.080 dynamic yes self-loathing from cowardice cowardice leads to self-loathing which leads to

02:03:36.500 hatred of others i totally agree if someone will hate himself he's probably not going to treat me

02:03:41.100 well yeah exactly i think and they have a lot to be ashamed of in the cowardice department i mean

02:03:46.760 these are the bravest people in the world who went over the top of the trenches the wasps yes and um

02:03:53.160 there's a lot of lying about that but their numbers are there in the first world war was all wasps

02:03:57.140 including our our ancestors so um a lot of them so yeah they had a lot of bravery they seem to have

02:04:03.880 lost that probably through comfort and booze and booze and booze sorry yeah and booze and they kind

02:04:11.300 of know that and and they're shrinking little islands well now they've almost shrunk to nothing

02:04:15.640 but um and they're mad do you take any shit from them when you run into them it's funny i i took some

02:04:23.240 shit actually from neil bush who was oh in an unimpressive family probably the least impressive of

02:04:29.820 that family right because the rest of them are charming mostly there are a couple of them i i

02:04:34.340 like a lot i'm not gonna shame them by naming them but i know them me too well i don't mind shaming

02:04:38.480 neil bush because neil bush this is george w's brother yes attacked me in the most passive aggressive

02:04:47.080 way at a fraternity party that my son's fraternity put on which was like a formal cocktail

02:04:53.700 and i accidentally bumped into him and i backwards and i turned around i said oh my gosh forgive me

02:05:00.600 i'm so sorry and then i said oh neil bush hi buckley carlson nice to see you met you in washington

02:05:05.980 years ago and then he did something he had this is he has this affectation about he's not very smart

02:05:13.620 first of all he has this affectation about him that you that you encounter occasionally and it's

02:05:18.780 um he said something really nasty about you and the content of your show you were on that

02:05:26.220 i forgot what it's called one of those channels one of those channels it was named after a animal

02:05:31.460 that i really admire but back when that medium actually mattered um and he made some offhand

02:05:38.980 comment and i said i beg your pardon and it this went back and forth a couple times and i was trying

02:05:44.060 to be a gentleman i had my son next to me and neil bush's son who was a fraternity brother of my son

02:05:49.740 and so for a cocktail party i'm not going to get in some argument with this guy uh but i wasn't going

02:05:56.280 to back down either and so i said here's something about the content of your show and what you'd said

02:06:01.220 but he wouldn't be specific about it and i said and he said oh no i'm not judging i just call it like

02:06:07.540 it is he must have said that six times i'm not judging i just call it like it is and i said well

02:06:12.820 neil bush really call it like it is huh uh so what exactly specifically did my brother say

02:06:19.120 that you don't agree with well i haven't actually seen his show i read about it in the new york times

02:06:26.180 he said that this who's part of a family that i mean i actually exactly specific people in the

02:06:33.600 family are quality and nice and deserve kindness but the policies and the administration of george

02:06:42.540 bush was disastrous and we're still feeling the effects of it today i think about it often and

02:06:49.260 um i lived in texas for a while and i can tell you the people in texas think about it all the time

02:06:53.940 they feel completely betrayed by that family and george bush specifically every reason to feel that yes

02:06:58.960 they do and so i share that revulsion um but anyway i'm sympathetic to the fact that he is a

02:07:06.460 sibling a non uh public person and a sibling of people and the son of a man who was attacked

02:07:15.560 relentlessly by people who didn't have specificity in their attacks didn't even know what they were

02:07:21.380 talking about and had no trouble attacking family members to him personally and yet he's going to

02:07:28.500 engage in the same thing with me exactly i mean i thought this is exactly that's actually when it

02:07:32.560 really came home to me that the that the wasps have not just lost but that they've lost will

02:07:38.160 and they've surrendered totally they're unwilling to make a stand and the fact that he had adopted that

02:07:43.920 leftist attitude without being smart well it's part you know one of the things that there are a lot

02:07:51.140 of good things about the wasps obviously there are some bad things about the wasps um but one of

02:07:55.740 the good things was they were totally committed to uh fairness and at the heart of fairness is the

02:08:02.560 understanding that we're born and will die and will be judged as individuals not as groups

02:08:06.660 and therefore we do not believe in collective punishment the country was founded on that premise

02:08:11.780 by wasps and uh you know to abandon that is to abandon everything especially when it's the last

02:08:19.060 country on earth that still believes that yeah that's exactly right it's important to know

02:08:22.520 to attack a man for one of his relatives i mean everyone in our family has been attacked for some

02:08:27.720 other member of the family so it's like we're all very familiar with that but um you know i'm proud

02:08:34.500 to say one thing i'm proud about our family is that no one would ever do that no not a chance no

02:08:39.380 i'd be happy to have dinner with yamin's brother and never you know attack him for cannibalism

02:08:44.760 because he's not the one who committed it yes that i know of well uncle buck um

02:08:51.620 i just gotta ask you one final question you've spent your life i haven't even i'm not i'm not

02:08:58.100 going to violate your privacy by explaining some of the things you've done or places you've been or

02:09:02.380 people you've worked with or whatever because it's nobody's business and you'll divulge it if you

02:09:05.360 want to but you've had a really interesting life but it's been very interesting life but it's been

02:09:08.680 um like our father but it's all been very private haven't been a public at all no right by design

02:09:15.820 oh i know oh i'm aware so yeah i'm aware and um but now all of a sudden you've like just entered

02:09:22.520 full-blown into the public debate online after you know 54 years of avoiding it and you certainly have

02:09:29.900 seen stuff you could have added to the public conversation but you didn't and you've reserved

02:09:34.220 it for a christmas dinner at our house so thank you for that but now that you're in the you know

02:09:38.860 public what's that like i hadn't anticipated it shock shockingly calling neil bush dumb i feel pretty

02:09:48.240 dumb that i didn't anticipate that but it's because i haven't had a governor i've had the freedom to say

02:09:54.760 what i want to say in the venues that i operate um i must say i've had a lot of fortune in my life a lot

02:10:02.720 of blessings but principally in the business world i've been able to work with some people i have some

02:10:08.160 long-time clients who've who are aligned um who are christian who are very smart and very loyal

02:10:17.580 and they've allowed me to operate in my job doesn't demand i write primarily i come up with strategic

02:10:23.660 stuff but uh strategy uh but i've been allowed to lead an independent and private life and i've

02:10:33.240 enjoyed it um i don't have any young children who i can embarrass or under my wing at the moment so

02:10:40.080 that's great uh but again i didn't anticipate it and but the other thing i would say is

02:10:45.540 i'm not a coward i love this country and i really don't appreciate what's happening to it

02:10:53.000 what's been happening to it and it feels like there's a lot afoot there's a lot going on that

02:10:58.840 i don't necessarily understand but i feel like there yeah there's a battle oh there's a massive

02:11:05.420 battle and it does remind me um simple thing ever someone said the other day i don't mind saying

02:11:14.200 who was great rick warren who wrote purpose-driven life started listening to his podcasts and boy is

02:11:21.640 he wise and boy is he using the tools that god gave him to communicate sometimes complicated things in

02:11:28.660 a very simple way and he said at the end you know we're gonna have a final exam and there are exactly

02:11:37.660 two questions on that exam and you can't avoid it and it's what did you do with my son jesus

02:11:43.000 and what did you do with the purpose god gave you wow that's a pretty sobering thought yes it is and

02:11:50.980 once you have it's true and so i've so i'm not i guess i'm middle middle young middle aged something

02:11:58.760 like that um a little weathered but i have our father was more weathered than both of us put

02:12:05.680 together and he made it a long time yes he did uh but i don't know every man has an obligation to

02:12:11.500 defend what he loves and to practice that so i love this country and i and there's something going

02:12:20.420 on and i want to play a role i want to i want to do battle i want to do battle that's that clear

02:12:27.880 seriously seriously there's no one better if i can just end with one vignette that's been in

02:12:34.420 our family all this time but it's i don't know almost 10 years ago i was at work because my job

02:12:39.280 at the time i was at work was public so when i was at work uh antifa came to our house and of course

02:12:44.160 as i've said we've always lived next to each other our whole lives so uh my wife was home alone and

02:12:50.460 all these people came and tried to bang through the front door and spray painted her house and you

02:12:55.400 know an antifa mob came to our house whatever i was not even aware this was happening so my wife

02:13:00.180 is in the pantry of the house like people are trying to bark you know break down the door dogs

02:13:04.260 are barking she does not call the police she calls you first because everyone in our family would

02:13:10.220 always call you first if there's a problem and and then she calls the cops well the cops for some

02:13:15.320 reason got there before you and then you showed up as the cops were just pulling up which meant that

02:13:21.400 you couldn't shoot anybody and that you were mad for weeks after i'll never forget the next day when

02:13:26.800 i saw you for lunch like i just feel bad i couldn't shoot anybody and they were terrifying suzy and i but

02:13:32.500 the police were right there so i couldn't shoot them and i'm just i just feel bad about it and i was like

02:13:35.800 it's okay it was it was a justifiable sanctioned culling it would have been society would have been

02:13:43.880 much improved i would have declared a tax credit that year don't you think oh i can't talk about this

02:13:49.740 so that was so good it was so it was so good and everyone in our family was like yeah uncle buck

02:13:54.700 got there after the police you don't get good so that antifa was lucky it was hilarious i don't think

02:14:00.400 i've ever experienced such frustration oh actually oh i know mandated restraint oh uncle buck thank you

02:14:07.240 thank you so much that was awesome i appreciate it

02:14:10.140 thank you so much片付与

02:14:17.100 my name is

02:14:17.300 this我 guess is wow

02:14:19.220 thank you people

02:14:20.180 because i'm so happy to hear around

02:14:21.480 have a great day

02:14:22.260 thank you

02:14:23.160 thank you

02:14:23.320 thank you

02:14:24.360 thank you

02:14:25.000 thank you

02:14:25.800 thank you

02:14:26.020 thank you

02:14:26.820 thank you

02:14:27.300 thank you

02:14:27.960 thank you

02:14:28.200 thank you

02:14:28.760 and i'm so nick

02:14:31.960 thank you

02:14:32.960 thank you

02:14:34.880 thank you

02:14:35.620 thank you

02:14:36.020 thank you

02:14:36.940 thank you

The Tucker Carlson Show - January 12, 2026

Tucker’s Brother Buckley Carlson on Dogs, Childhood, Nicotine, Frank Luntz and America’s Future

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