Greg Gutfeld promotes his new book, The Plus, arguing that failing schools and media necessitate self-directed education via charismatic online instructors. He contrasts conservative community stability with cancel culture tactics targeting figures like Tucker Carlson, while criticizing the loss of spontaneity in remote broadcasting. Addressing NYC violence and institutional collapse, Gutfeld concludes that individuals must curate their own realities to survive a fractured society dominated by fake news and antisocial activism. [Automatically generated summary]
So what you do is you create your own curriculum that is above and beyond what is handed to you.
And I think, you know, I think about what was handed to me education-wise and how I kind of blew it.
And I talk about that in the book.
There's a whole chapter on creating your own curriculum.
It was based on a tweet this guy did.
Frank Fleming said that if you actually took all the education time, 16 Like 16 years of education and kind of curated what you wanted to do, you would be Batman.
16 years of like martial arts, philosophy, languages, you would be, or economics, you would be Batman.
But instead you have 16 years of education and you're applying for jobs
you know in pharmaceutical sales and you're hoping you will get that job.
Make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel and click that notification bell so you have a small chance of seeing our videos.
And more importantly, joining me today is the host of The Greg Gutfeld Show, the co-host of The Five on Fox News, and the author of the new book, The Plus, self-help for people who hate self-help.
Yeah, I guess what happened was, I really kind of started in January when I was at a wedding and somebody took a picture of me and I won't say that her name is Kimberly Guilfoyle but this woman took a picture of me and my wife and when she sent me the picture I saw my wife there who looked great and this little gnomish freak With just sweaty, gross, and it was me, obviously.
And I was like going, how do I, how does she, how does she put up with that?
How does she go to in public places with such a steaming pile of unattractive flesh?
So that's, that, I said this to somebody else that in this case, fat shaming, fat shaming can be a really good thing.
Cause I was fat shamed by that picture.
So I started on the diet when I got back from the wedding and then the shutdown happened.
And I made you come to my, I made you come to my apartment when it was destroyed, because I would rather sit in my apartment that had just been flooded than actually like, oh, Dave's going, meet me at this restaurant.
No, but let's talk about the quarantine stuff a little bit, because in your book, you actually, I guess you added the preface after you wrote the whole thing because then you wanted to address the quarantine stuff and they let you jam it in there?
Yeah, it was interesting because we had to have a discussion whether something in the news ends up branding your book, or should your book be above it all?
So the book's going to bed, and all this stuff is happening, and the book itself is about a collective response to crap in your life, so that we all share the risk and be better people, and this thing is happening, and I'm going, this has to go in the book, because all of the things in the book, the collective response, prison of two ideas, unbending minds, Blaming and forgiveness all fit.
You could all point all of these tips in that direction.
But there were people going, yeah, but you don't want to be a pandemic book.
And I go, well, you know what?
If this book had come out in 2016, we would be talking about the Trump election.
If it had been coming out in 2012, it would be Obama.
Or if it came out in 2001, it would be 9-11.
You can't ignore reality.
So I put it in there and it's weird.
All the chapters in this book are dealing with crap that happened later.
Like even the riots in them, all this, like I talk about social media,
I talk about marginalization, demonization, all this stuff.
And it's like, everything is happening.
And it makes, it kind of scares me because I'm trying to be positive
and the book is trying to be positive.
But we're in a time where we're not sure if we can be positive anymore, you know?
No, well nobody's sure of anything, but I will go on the record, Gutfeld, as saying that if anyone watching this enjoyed Don't Burn This Book, they will dig the plus.
Because actually a lot of the themes, I mean this is why we do so much stuff together lately, a lot of the themes that both of us care about Related to free speech, what's happening at the colleges, trying to keep some semblance of Western society organized, maintaining a sense of humor through it all, that really is what the thrust of this is about.
But on the self-help side, do you sense that people over the last four months, that there's gonna be like, when this thing is done, if it's ever done, That there will be a real split where it'll be like some people really will have gotten their lives in order, lost weight, learned how to cook, started new hobbies, et cetera, et cetera.
And then there will be this other set of people that will have just like completely lost control of their lives.
It's kind of like the it's it's like the education argument that like you could just go to high school, check in and check out and you come out worse.
Or you can be that kid that goes, oh, I want to do this.
I want to go.
I'm going to be like the Dana Perino.
I'm going to join the speech and debate club because that's going to make me better.
And I'm going to and then I'm going to go play bad with field hockey.
I'm trying to think of sports.
But I mean, it's like lacrosse.
Lacrosse, thank you.
So what you do is you create your own curriculum that is above and beyond what is handed to you.
And I think, you know, I think about what was handed to me education wise and how I kind of blew it.
And I talk about that in the book.
There's a whole chapter on creating your own curriculum.
It was based on a tweet this guy did.
Frank Fleming said that if you actually took all the education time, 16 Like 16 years of education and kind of curated what you wanted to do, you would be Batman.
16 years of like martial arts, philosophy, languages, you would be, or economics, you would be Batman.
But instead you have 16 years of education and you're applying for jobs, you know, in pharmaceutical sales and you're hoping you will get that job because you did not Think about it.
Like, what an incredible opportunity.
So that's how I started thinking about the pandemic.
It's like, okay, the cards that are being dealt are limiting everything.
Like, I can't go to the gym, which I've been going for 40 years, I guess, to the gym, like every week for 40 years.
And that's over.
And I know how much I eat.
I eat a buttload of food.
So this is not going to end well for me.
Also, I tend to, you know, I like drinking and I'm going to be home a lot.
And there's all so all of these variables are pointing in a terrible direction for me.
And I thought, well, what if I decided to create like a quote, Scott Adams, a system
rather than goals.
And so I like cut out the get cut out the starches and the and the carbohydrates.
And then it's like, get a bike and get up every morning and start early.
And also, I get up every morning and walk before I exercise.
And I just to get sunlight, all this stuff.
And all of a sudden it just like, it made me, it's like I took, I went to school to become a better person, which was weird because that's what the book's about.
But it is kind of interesting because you wrote the book, obviously, before the pandemic.
Then you add this part about the pandemic.
But yeah, what you were writing about and sort of getting your life together really kind of is what you're trying to show for other people.
But that kind of reminds me, you wrote a piece on foxnews.com about a year ago.
about how people can educate themselves outside of the system.
You can learn from Jordan Peterson.
You can go on YouTube and learn from biologists and chemists and all of those things.
Does that strike you?
The fact that young people still, even now, as we watch colleges collapse, does it seem just completely crazy to you that they're still putting all that money in on that experiment?
So there's that old experiment that we see is failing and it looks like the pandemic is going to push it online and elsewhere.
And then here is the perfect thing, which is to have You know, shows like yours or YouTube, anything on YouTube, like getting a biology class from Brett Weinstein or getting a philosophy class from Jordan Peterson.
But the instructors have to be really good.
It can't just be like YouTube where you, like, I get stuck in a YouTube black hole looking for guitar instruction.
And so it's like, how to play rockabilly guitar.
So I hit that.
It's 30 minutes and the guy's talking for eight minutes and he's like, and he's just talking, he's holding his guitar.
And it's like, I can't do this.
I need like somebody who's an instructor.
And I think that's the only missing point.
'cause you have the vehicle, you have YouTube, you've got the internet, and you have the desire,
the people to wanna do this, you have the pandemic that is forcing people in this direction.
All that's missing is the stylistic, charismatic instructor and I go back to Peloton every time.
What Peloton did to gyms is what instructors are gonna do to college.
So I no longer need to go to a gym again because the Peloton instructor is so amazing, so smart, and so authentic.
And I love this girl, Hannah Frankson.
She's British.
I get up every morning and she gets me on that bike.
And what she's done is she's taken the product and she's Delivered it to you in the best way possible.
That's the way there has to be colleges that start up with that model that says, OK, you need great professors and they got to be funny.
They got to be smart.
They got to be not bad looking.
Everybody in Peloton's great looking and they're funny.
And so I think that's the Peloton model for education is going to be the solution for all of this.
And I'm not the I think that Scott Adams said this to me before in an interview that it's like this is the step.
that's necessary is to get likable, talented, persuasive people to be the instructor.
And so now you're going to get those people leaving these colleges,
but there has to be something to come to. And it's got to be like Jordan Peterson teaches
introduction to apologetics or whatever, you know.
I'm telling you, you get this bike, it will change your life.
Because what happens is, they jumble up the types of segments.
So you're not doing 45 minutes on a bike, you're doing, we're gonna do some hills, then we're gonna do some sprints, and then we're gonna sit down, and then we're gonna stand up.
And before you know it, it is over.
It's like, you're done.
And they're talking to you the whole time.
So they do live classes in the morning, sometimes in the middle of the night.
And then I never do live classes.
I get up at around 10 a.m.
or 11 a.m.
I will do it and I will find my favorites.
Leanne Hamesley.
My favorite ones are the British ones.
They have a German one.
This German woman from who when she's yelling The stuff, it's not, it doesn't make somebody whose name is Gutfeld feel very comfortable, but she's great.
But now I've got, but see, that to me is a plus that somehow they took an existing issue and they, which I guess they took a spin class and they brought it inside.
So you don't have to go to the gym.
And so that to me has changed and it is expensive.
The bike's at least two grand.
I think the bike's two grand, but Equinox, I mean, Equinox is 250 bucks a month.
You like new words, incorporating new words into the show and new linguistic tricks.
So I really like the title of the book because the plus, the idea basically that there are positive things out there that you can aspire to, that you can kind of incorporate in your life and everything else.
We've talked about this a little bit on your show, but one of the things that I'm kind of amazed by right now is that a certain set of people, and I would say generally, politically, they're on the right, they are actually much happier than the people on the left.
And I don't think that has to do solely with politics.
Are you with me on that?
Do you see a fundamental reason that even when I just, just the Fox crew that I've become friendly with, so you and Dana and Tucker and Hannity, like, I, from what I know, I know you the best as a person, but like, everyone's happy.
And it's, there are three kind of things that I think are, that make them happy.
And I don't really aspire to them, which is weird, but family, community, religion.
And I think that like, people build these inner circles outward.
They have themselves, and they have their family, then they have their community, and they have religion.
Or it might even be, religion might be the closest thing.
But those are the things.
I'm not religious, but I understand why it works, And religious people tend to be incredibly nice and forgiving and will help you.
And part of being religious is actually helping people and being charitable.
That's the same thing.
And it also bleeds into their family and their community.
Possibility or potential for intolerance, as you know, among religions.
And that's always something to be watched out for.
But it provides a structure for people.
So I think, but it's true, it's like, everybody's very happy.
Like, I am, I am probably more, I think I swing between poles in terms of happiness and unhappiness, because I'm neurotic.
So I would say that I'm at my happiest point in my life, but that's still not as happy as they are because of my neurosis and anxiety prevents me from jumping completely into the happiness pool.
And in terms of writing that show, we used to do this every night with Red Eye with roughly the same crew.
I write my monologue and then Tom and Holly and this other kid, Gene, will work on the segments and the graphics.
I better not leave anybody out.
And of course Kat does her thing, which is really good.
And Tyrus writes his stuff.
And it's naturally funny and smart, and you aren't sitting in an air-conditioned room with 13 people who are all making six figures, ordering in, let's order in and write 40 more jokes for Kimmel's monologue.
I'm opening myself up when I say nobody writes my jokes, because that's like, we can tell, Greg.
But I always start with like, okay, I have a serious point to make, and then You work your way through that, and then at the end, there are these jokes that come up, absurdities, and instead of just leaving them out, I put them in.
And it always helps to have targets that are hilarious.
I mean, CNN never gets old.
As long as you have Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon, I'm going to have a monologue.
Or Brian Stelter.
I mean, these are the GIFs that keep on slobbering.
Well that's the thing because it's like if you look at the CNN crew not only do they all seem miserable and we can and the lies and all that stuff but like you guys are having fun like there doesn't seem to be any level of fun there and I'm not saying the news has to be fun per se but I think it does it does color something else beneath it or something like that.
You know think about like Their Daily Show with Jon Stewart was having fun during that period.
I don't see that anywhere.
Even on Comedy Central, you really don't see any fun.
I've said this to you before.
I always use, I call it the Dean Wormer effect.
That like, for the longest time, in Animal House, the Republicans were always Dean Wormer.
And everybody else was Pluto and Delta House.
We, the whole goal of, you know, when Andrew was alive and I was working at the Huffington Post, was to flip it.
So yeah, so the Republicans at some point would become Delta House, and the left would become Dean Wormer.
And that's what's happening.
You know this.
You left Dean Wormer.
And you're watching this.
I'm curious about how you feel about Matt Taibbi, because I feel really guilty about all the times that I kind of dismissed him as just a left wing, for the way he dismissed me, I'm sure, or he didn't even maybe know who I was.
Yeah, you see that though, you see that with Brett Weinstein, you see that with his wife, when you listen to that, what they're, what they go through.
And by the way, probably the most, I guess, disturbing thing about this last couple of months is that how right Brett was about, um, what's the name of this college?
So for a guy like you that doesn't want, I know you don't want the whole system to collapse, but I think you also, I think we're probably similar in this way.
Well, I, I mean, I'm going to sound like a broken record because I am, I do agree with Donald Trump that Fake news is the enemy of the people.
I mean, I don't know if you could find a clearer statement than tear down the wall, maybe, because almost all of these things that are happening to us right now tend to be these psychological conflicts that are ginned up.
And I think if you go to any serious issue where there is an issue, you could talk about police and communities, serious issue.
Does the media add or subtract to it?
It's a negative, it's a minus, it's not a plus.
The more that the American public understands how to perceive what's going on on television, cable television, and not to trust it, the better off we're going to be.
I think the first thing we have to do is understand that this is not our friend, that this is a machinery of division.
That's trying to get us to eat each other alive.
And then they don't see it.
Like you see on CNN going, you know, what's happening, like yesterday, you know, what's happening in Portland is, you know, we don't condone it, but it's being exaggerated, you know, by the pouncing right-wing media.
You know, they found a dead body in Minneapolis in a burned out, you know, pawn shop.
That ain't pouncing.
That's a corpse.
So, I mean, it is, I think that the first thing is realization.
That this institution is gone.
It's your enemy.
And, and, uh, and I, and fake news is the enemy of the people sound.
So, you know, it sounds so Trumpian, but it actually, God, we knew this, right?
We always, it's like, like, if you, if you, by the way, you know, this, I know this specifically because anytime anybody writes about you, it's never right.
It's never, it's like you, I've been written about, I don't know, a bunch of times.
And if the person loves your show, it's going to be great.
But if they're coming from a liberal institution in which they have editors, they can't compliment you.
They can't see your point of view.
They can't even empathize.
So they'll go like, Dave Rubin claims to be a traditional liberal who became disillusioned with the progressive left.
What he likes to call in a mocking manner, regressive.
We met Dave and then there's like six or seven cutting remarks and then some comment from somebody who doesn't like you.
Well, here's the thing about Dave that you probably aren't aware of.
And so it builds and you go like, wow, this whole story.
was just designed to take me down and it's not true.
I didn't say that.
I've had instances with reputable journalists where I go, that didn't happen.
That didn't happen.
And then if you end up on Twitter calling people out, you could be there all day, you know, and I've, I've called out four or five people and they've retracted.
Others don't.
But, um, you know, it's, if you, if you are the object of a story, You know how this works.
They seek a narrative.
They need to tell a story.
If the beach doesn't have a shark, it's not a story.
I always try to appeal to a lot of these people, and there's not that many of them, I don't know, on Twitter or privately, and I'll go like, do you really want to do this for a living?
I mean, your job is to watch me and hope that I screw up.
So think about that as a career, that you are not successful.
Your role is that I, a successful person, fails.
Your job is just to sit there and just hope that maybe I lose my temper or I say something that could be misconstrued because what they really do is they take something and find the worst intention out of it.
So it's like, you know, they just take stuff out of context.
Well, the big one a couple weeks with you was one of the guys at Media Matters was claiming that you were basically, in effect, hiding information about coronavirus.
And you pulled up a clip that you were talking about coronavirus.
Yeah so as a guy that just wrote a you know a self-help it's a self-help
mockery in a way but it's also but it is self-help at the same time.
What do you think it is about that type?
What do you think the dividing line is between a type of person who wants to take care of themselves and their life versus the type of person that wants to, because we see so much of this everywhere, just take out other people?
Well, I have a chapter on this in the book and I talk about how The most manic of these individuals are, according to research, are incredibly antisocial.
And they can't tell if it's the chicken or the egg.
Is it their own beliefs and ideologies that make them antisocial, or is it something about them That makes them that way.
And when you look at what's going on in the streets of Portland and Seattle, there is a mental issue going on there.
They do not seem stable.
So I think that these are people that have lost contact with their loved ones, their family.
I don't think these are people that come home for Thanksgiving and help with the turkey, right?
I think that their joy in life is to humiliate and attack And have you hear their screams and their cries?
I do think that we're living in an age of hysteria.
And I think it's also bleeding into other certain segments that I can't even talk about.
Certain activists who do not represent the people they claim to.
There's a great clip of this African American cop in Portland talking about how a black activist came up to him and said, you know, how do you feel about George Floyd as he's
talking? A white leftist female comes over and goes, "Don't talk to him!" She's telling a black woman
not to talk to him. And you realize, okay, this is a mental issue. So I think that you almost
have to pull them out of this cult.
You and I aren't in cults, because the measure of a cult is the ability to admit when you're wrong.
Like, I admit I'm wrong on, like, at least once, twice a year.
Well, not only do you admit, Greg, not only do you admit you're wrong, can you tell the good people what happened this very week on the Greg Gutfeld Show with you and cows?
But is all of that really just because everyone seems to pretend that they know everything at all times?
Net neutrality was gonna kill everybody.
Soleimani's death was gonna start World War III.
There's some, the Russia thing, the Ukraine thing, the Iran nuclear deal, people who have no jobs, people who can't get their lives together, but they know everything about string theory and economic policy and everything else.
We are going on a Dean Stock... I have to ask you, because my favorite movie of all time is Blue Velvet, and Dean Stockwell's character was the guy that ran the whorehouse that Dennis Hopper came to, and it's one of the greatest scenes in any movie.
Anyway, that's my... You look like you've not seen Blue Velvet.
I actually, I haven't seen it, believe it or not, but Gutfeld, I got to tell you, I love you, but your movie recommendations over the last couple of months have really been disastrous.
I'm texting you one morning, I'm like, I don't know what we're going to watch tonight.
I've watched everything.
You're like, oh, you got to watch The Color of Something with Nick Cage.
I literally, I got brain damage in the middle of the movie.
This is the beauty of YouTube, that you don't have the luxury as a cable news host to do these things.
Actually, I wanna tell you about something somewhat serious, actually, because just in the last couple of days, Tucker did this end of the show monologue about what the New York Times is doing to him, and they've basically threatened to dox him.
They already did one version of this, and we know that people have shown up at his house before and all that.
I feel that this is the next level of where this is all going.
That they've said it's okay to burn down stores.
Violence isn't violence.
Words are violence, but violence isn't.
It's very confusing.
But the next level of this will be that, it will be something to the effect of, can Republicans go to public places?
And can Republicans have homes that are not docks?
I'm worried in a number of ways that I've actually acted on it.
For the last couple of years, actually, I've acted on certain things for safety reasons, and we've talked about that before.
I find it interesting that all the things that you've talked about are okay, but they're charging that couple for brandishing that weapon when the mob broke down the gate and was in front of their house.
So they're actually telling you, not only can you be threatened Not only can your public and private property be vandalized, but you cannot defend yourself.
And it's also with, I mean, Tucker, you know, say what, like, they cannot deny this is not a political act.
It's not Rachel Maddow that they're doing this to.
You know, it's not anybody on CNN.
It is Tucker Carlson, the most, I guess, the most successful cable host in history, in terms of ratings, I believe, he eclipsed O'Reilly.
So it's not a coincidence that it's the New York Times that is doxing him.
They're not doxing Chris Cuomo.
he kind of doxed himself during the coronavirus.
But you know, it's like, it's so it's,
it's, if these actions were a two way street,
I would get it.
But all these errors and all these prosecutions and persecutions happen in one direction.
And the direction is towards people like Tucker, people like you.
My guess is if they can find out where anybody lives that they disagree with, they would have no problem.
I mean, look what they did.
I always used the Covington kid.
There was no shortage of people wanting to make sure people knew where that kid lived and where, you know, and everybody was looking, hey, are these pictures of him in high school?
You know, people, these are political persecutions going on right now.
Now, I know that the Times today, I think they might've issued a response saying they weren't gonna dox him, but that's after Tucker called him out, you know?
So there was clearly something going on there.
And I mean, the guy had a move.
You know?
It takes a lot for Tucker to move.
It takes a lot for Tucker to change his clothes.
You know, he's always wearing the same clothes.
I can't imagine him ever leaving his house because he was threatened.
But I mean, they came to his door.
They vandalized his house.
The New York Times.
Man, I don't know what it is.
Are they completely overtaken by the young woke?
Or are they just terrified by the young woke who work there?
We knew this was going to happen.
When you graduate from college, you got to go somewhere.
And they ended up at the Times and they end up in corporations to Dave.
It's gonna take down every corporation and every institution that lets it in.
I think both is the answer to what you just said.
Did they let it in willingly or are they just afraid of it?
I think it's both things.
What do you make of the last liberals that are scattered throughout the galaxy?
You know, the ones that maybe are still afraid of showing up on your show?
Because I know you talk to people privately that wouldn't want to be, you know, that they wouldn't want to be associated with you.
You would have no problem associating with them.
But what do you make of, say, the people that were in my position a couple years back that still, it's like, ah, I just don't want to be seen with Gutfeld or Tucker.
Because that's worse than having my house burned down.
I'm thoroughly compassionate and I never pressure anybody to do anything because I know that the change that they're going to experience is going to get ugly.
I'm trying to think of a good example is anybody in a band.
Anytime I do anything with somebody in a band, their fans are going to be so shocked.
Not because they hate me, but Fox News!
So like a buddy of mine who's in Power Trip.
You know, we met on Twitter.
We became friends.
Him, me, and his dad went out drinking in Texas.
He did my podcast.
And I'm on Twitter, and there are these people going, I really love it when bands like PowerTrips crap all over Fox News and Gutfeld.
And I just tweeted at the guy to go, I don't think you'll like this podcast.
And it's like, it's the, I like the cognitive dissonance when they go, you know, it's weird.
How dare two people who disagree with each other get along?
I mean, what kind of philosophy is that when you think that's wrong?
Like that somehow, if you and I disagree, I cannot be friends with you because somehow your opinions are going to rub off on me or mine are going to rub off on you.
And that's wrong.
It's, it's, it's, and I, I feel bad for, I'm trying to think of like, there are people that have done my podcast Who won't do my show and vice versa.
But I don't, you know, I don't, like, sometimes I do them a favor because I go, like, I don't want, I don't want, I just don't want a crowd, like when Ariel Pink did Red Eye, he got, you know, all these freaks went after him.
Any, like, music websites that are, music websites are populated by the Scott Adams definition of the non-talent stack.
The person that has no talent other than one thing and it's barely... So when you go to music blogs, they're usually people that have no wisdom, no acumen about anything.
And so whenever anybody outside the music world does my show, they have to write about it and cancel that person.
It's like when they found out that Thelma Houston was doing a duet with Morrissey.
And so Pitchfork contacts her.
We want to know, why are you doing a duet with Morrissey?
Instead of saying, wow, it's amazing that she is back and she's doing something with one of the greatest singers of all time.
And yeah, he's a right winger.
Big deal.
You know, I'm sure it wouldn't matter if he was, you know, supporting Corbin or a What do you call it?
Do you think that any of the stuff, like going back to studios, you know, you're not doing your show in front of a live studio audience anymore, but even the five, you guys used to all be in a room together, or even the late night shows, do you think any of it's coming back?
Or do you think that the putting the virus aside and that whatever's true or not true about that, but just that the companies are going to look at the numbers and be like, wait a minute, why the hell were we paying for these live studio audiences when The ratings are actually better now.
But the thing is, so you have all these variables.
People are home, so the ratings are higher, right?
Like, The Five was killing it during March and April.
It was like, we were having like six million or something.
Crazy number!
We were like huge.
Now we're kind of in a normal phase, or it's still pretty high, about three and a half million, depending on whether Trump speaks or not.
But okay, so.
That's going to fudge the numbers a bit, but you're right in the sense that there's a lot of things you don't need anymore.
I will say this though.
The five suffers because there's this two second delay and it always sounds like we're interrupting each other and that we don't like each other and that we're mad at each other because let's say Juan will be finished talking and then I'll jump in to say something.
He doesn't hear me.
Because there's a two-second delay.
So he starts talking again, and then we overlap, and then it's like, hey, I was talking.
Well, I was talking.
It's so bad.
So the delays are terrible.
And also, it handicaps me even more, because I'm a wiseass.
I'm supposed to be at the table.
And while you're saying something, I'm supposed to insult you under my breath.
But loud enough for everybody to hear it.
Or I'm supposed to make fun of Dana and embarrass her.
And when you're on remotes, I'm completely cut off.
If I yell something, it's going to be a two-second delay, and it's going to come later, and then they're going to be laughing, and then it's going to fuck everything up.
So instead, when I'm doing the five, I compare it to this.
When you're around a table, it's like a great game of pickup basketball.
When you're doing this remote thing, it's like you're at a batting cage.
Everybody's in their separate batting cage, and they're all swinging for the fence, but you're not having any conversation.
And if somebody else is batting, you're not really looking.
You're kind of looking at your notes, getting ready for your swing at the bat.
And so it's not a conversation anymore.
But like you said, they're still selling ads, and shows are still rolling along.
I think the Gigi show will probably, I mean, I don't know how you do an audience, and I don't see this happening before 2021 either, right?
I don't see them.
I mean, you're gonna have a winter time, which means you're probably gonna have a return of different flus and different illnesses and corona, and nobody's gonna want the legal ramifications.
I mean, I guess you could sign a waiver when you enter an audience thing, but, you know, I had two events canceled.
I'm doing, I think I might be doing an event in But I don't know.
But it is kind of interesting that you mentioned the delay thing and doing this stuff all through Skype.
Because even in the course of this, where we know each other, I've stepped on you a couple times because you miss, I can see you right now, but you miss a little bit with the eyes, a little bit with the body.
And then next thing you know, we're kind of babbling over each other.
And that does change what a little bit of the magic is of television.
And I think people who, the people who watch these shows like the, don't just like the politics of it.
They like us.
So they like to see us talk to each other and have fun.
And that's, it's a little bit harder.
I was watching yesterday, an interview with Mike Patton, who I love and is chef.
And they were talking about food.
And I thought this was going to be great, but it was just, they were like in their separate boxes.
What do you like to eat?
Well, I like Italian food.
I like, what do you eat?
I eat French food.
And that's how it went for an hour.
I'm like going, this could have been great if they were sitting next to each other.
But I guess you beggars can't be choosers.
So I just coined that, just so you know.
And it'll be the title of my next book.
Impressive.
Yeah, thank you.
I'm sorry.
But that's, it's, like I'm doing the five today.
I'll be doing it in a location.
And it's not fun waiting to do it.
And it's just like, You know, when you do remotes on TV, for a whole hour, it's just, and like, the sound is weird, and I don't know, it's just like, I can't, I'm not having as much fun, but again, I can't complain, because if this is my complaint during the coronavirus, that I'm not having as much fun, then, you know, I'm an asshole, because I'm here, I'm healthy right now, you know?
Wait, I want to talk, since we're talking about the remote thing a little bit, I want to talk about New York City, because normally you do live in New York City, at least some of the time, but you're in your forest now.
You're undisclosed location in the forest.
Yes.
Do you think New York City is ever going to come back from this?
And what about the violence and just the whole thing now?
The silver lining has to be... Well, you've been talking about the silent majority a lot, and it's like...
These people will finally, they weren't political or they never spoke up and they're still not speaking up now and the polls don't reflect it, but come election time that there will just be this giant uprising of people that are like, yeah, you know, we thought about it and America's pretty decent.
That's, yes, and buy my book, The Plus, because it's incredibly positive.
It's positive, it's gung-ho, it's gonna change your life.
If your life is like this, it will be like this when you're done reading the book, or possibly like this, and then you can just move on over and crush that past self that doesn't exist anymore.
Is there anything else on the book that we didn't hit?
I mean, anyone that knows you will dig it.
It's fun.
It's not too serious, but you do make good points about just getting your shit together and going ahead and living a decent life and not getting obsessed with everything.