BONUS: Malcolm Gladwell

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[3] Welcome, welcome, welcome to a bonus episode of Armchair Expert.

[4] I'm joined by Monica Padman.

[5] Hi.

[6] Hi.

[7] We have Malcolm Gladwell here.

[8] Oh, we're so lucky.

[9] And the only reason we have him here is to help him promote his podcast, Revisionous History, season five.

[10] We don't benefit in any way from this.

[11] No. No, we have no professional ties to Malcolm.

[12] We wish we did.

[13] We wish we did.

[14] We just love him and we love his podcast.

[15] So we said, yeah.

[16] Well, aren't you come on and tell us about what season five has to offer?

[17] But of course, it spins into other topics as is prone to happen with Malcolm.

[18] There are 10 new episodes dropping every Thursday starting June 18th.

[19] So please enjoy this bonus exchange with Monica, Malcolm and I. so malcolm this is the first we've ever done this in fact i was trying to i was thinking of an analogy and it would be kind of like if we put the ford mustang on display at gm's big auto show i mean we've never promoted a competitor but some for some reason we're really excited to do that starting off strong on cars i want to prime the pump with a little automotive we can hardly call you a competitor you're way above us Not even in the same league.

[20] No, that's not true.

[21] Yeah, we're not competitors.

[22] We're lesser media forms.

[23] Like, you know, television, reading books, all those kinds of things.

[24] Wow, so I'm going to be able to refer to you as one of my peers.

[25] Oh, my God.

[26] Yeah, yeah.

[27] You just gave me carte blanche to talk about my peer, Malcolm.

[28] But you have a new season of revisionist history coming out.

[29] What number is this?

[30] This is season five.

[31] Monica, I know some of the answers to these questions, but I'm just, trying to get the ball wrong.

[32] Did you hear her over there?

[33] She's like five dip shit.

[34] You like the show.

[35] Well, it's like, it should have done a little research before we talked about them.

[36] Just the tiniest bit.

[37] No, I got to say this is a great thing for me to do because I'm not obliged to actually know anything because only you know what the new season is and your producers.

[38] Yes.

[39] Although with that said, I did listen to episodes one and two last night, which of course I fucking loved.

[40] Your show is so, it's the Big Mac man. It is, I know what I'm going to get.

[41] I get it every time.

[42] And I love it.

[43] It's the original McDonald French fry.

[44] Yes.

[45] That's a callback to your show.

[46] Wait, my mind is just reeling with the Big Mac.

[47] I've never been called the Big Mac before.

[48] This is fantastic.

[49] This is like the highest place I've ever heard.

[50] Now, you know me, I like to let people behind the curtain.

[51] So after I interviewed you, we discovered that we both have the mutual friend of Lake Bell.

[52] And then so I started kind of sending her text about you.

[53] I hope it got back to you.

[54] all of mine focused on how mischievous your eyes are.

[55] And I feel a little robbed in the Zoom 2D experience that I'm not getting the full, provocative, mysterious, dangerous eyes.

[56] Well, no. Dangerous seems like a stretch.

[57] I always think of myself as fundamentally harmless, which is why the more harmless as though you are, the more you can get away with.

[58] I'm Canadian.

[59] My father -in -law sent me a text yesterday.

[60] It said, do you think that it's just occurred to Canada that they rented an apartment above a meth lab.

[61] That's very good.

[62] That's very good.

[63] Yeah.

[64] Well, this season is, will you listen to the two shows about hoarding?

[65] Yes, yes.

[66] And about art museums.

[67] That's as much as they'll say.

[68] There's all kinds of weird, wacky moments.

[69] One of my favorite shows is where I went back and I interviewed all of my past assistants.

[70] Oh, boy.

[71] Oh, cool.

[72] Because I wanted to know how did I hire them?

[73] Because I have no memory.

[74] How did I hire them?

[75] Why did I hire them?

[76] Did it turn out?

[77] And it's a rare case of me engaging in some self -examination.

[78] And what I discovered is that my hiring practices are ludicrous.

[79] I mean, it's the word.

[80] I barely interviewed them.

[81] I asked stupid questions.

[82] The whole point is I'm defending my approach to hiring.

[83] Of course you are.

[84] What I refer to as the nihilist position on hiring, which is we're fooling ourselves if we think we can make good predictions about whether someone's going to work out by on the basis of like a 45 or an hour and a half.

[85] So why bother?

[86] Just like I hire the first person who walks in the door, which is essentially what I've done.

[87] And it's almost all worked out.

[88] Okay, so no other pattern emerged.

[89] Like were they all inordinately tall or short or no, no patterns?

[90] It's funny.

[91] Initially, I was going to do a different episode.

[92] I was going to talk about how I am obsessed with voices.

[93] And if someone has a good voice, I'm a sucker.

[94] It doesn't matter.

[95] I don't care what else is the case.

[96] If I hear a really great voice, I was realizing when I went back and interviewed all my old assistants, is that they all do have fantastic voices.

[97] In fact, two of them who I interview a lot on the show, one is Jewish, grew up in South Africa, moved to Sydney and then America.

[98] Oh, wow.

[99] And then the other woman was, is also Jewish from North London.

[100] The two of them, their voices, and also they express themselves in this really fantastic way.

[101] Is there any childhood comfort in the fact that your dad had an English accent?

[102] I don't know.

[103] I've always been, you know, you mentioned Lake Bell.

[104] Yeah.

[105] Lake has got an A -plus voice.

[106] Oh, sure.

[107] Everyone's, I'm so self -conscious about my voice now.

[108] Yours is thriving.

[109] We have metrics.

[110] You had your own show and it was humongous.

[111] I think in despite of the voice.

[112] No. I am curious about The criteria.

[113] No, Monica, I'm going to say, you have a great voice.

[114] Thank you.

[115] Now, you're not, now, you're not, I'm going to say, Lake Bell, Lake's in a category by herself.

[116] Okay.

[117] Well, she's employed as a voice actor regularly, so, you know.

[118] Makes sense.

[119] But I don't go into this in the episode, but I was thinking about this as a side thing.

[120] It's so weird, though.

[121] Your voice is literally something you have almost no control over.

[122] You have control over the word choice you use, and you can.

[123] try and clean up your voice, but fundamentally, the tone of your voice is something.

[124] It's pure God -given.

[125] It is, but I would say the cadence is the fingerprint, right?

[126] That's why I'm so drawn to your speech.

[127] It's not the tenor of your voice.

[128] It's your unique rhythm, your musicality that is, it is very specific.

[129] No, Monica?

[130] It is.

[131] We just concluded.

[132] It's a fact.

[133] It's two to one.

[134] But that's actually not what the episode is about, is my case for nihilism.

[135] And it's called Hamlet was wrong after one of my favorite brilliant intellectual called Albert O. Hirschman, who was this incredible figure.

[136] He escapes the Nazis in World War II, and then he goes back and he rescues all these Jews.

[137] He just had one of those magical James Bond lives, and he also happens to be this towering intellectual who was Freud's cousin.

[138] And he had this saying that Hamlet was wrong, meaning Hamlet couldn't make up his mind.

[139] You know, to be or not to be, is like, what could I do?

[140] What can I do?

[141] And Hirschman's point was not knowing what's happening shouldn't freeze you.

[142] It should do the opposite.

[143] It should free you.

[144] Because once you realize you have no understanding of what happens next, you're not in control of your own future, then you can do whatever you want.

[145] Herschman was always doing these crazy things.

[146] Like at one point in the 50s, he takes his family and they just all move, I think, to Bolivia or the wilds of somewhere in South America.

[147] And he was like, why not?

[148] Why would?

[149] Shouldn't I take my two -year -old to some tiny, town, a little north?

[150] Because I don't know what's going to happen.

[151] That frees me up to do crazy things.

[152] It makes you not culpable in any decision, basically, right?

[153] Like, if you make a right turn, you didn't know there was a cliff on the other side.

[154] There's nothing really feel guilty about.

[155] There's some liberation in your ignorance.

[156] There's that, but you're phrasing it in a kind of negative way.

[157] I would phrase it in a positive way, which is every option is open to you once you realize you can't predict the future.

[158] And it's only our desire to try and predict the future that ends up limiting our choices.

[159] Like, think about you've just graduated from college and you're deciding, where should I move to?

[160] Well, most of us make very, very safe choices because we say, well, I wouldn't want to move to Tokyo because I don't know anyone in Tokyo and I'm predicting I'm going to be miserable and sit in my apartment.

[161] On what basis do you make that prediction?

[162] True.

[163] It's nonsense.

[164] You have no idea what's going to happen if you move to Tokyo.

[165] So why not just move to Tokyo?

[166] Because there's a good chance you're right, and you'll be miserable.

[167] No, no. Now, so back -to -back episodes, one and two, about art, ostensibly.

[168] And are there more about art in this next block?

[169] No. You and I seem to have a similar relationship with art, equally impressed and perplexed by the market.

[170] Yeah.

[171] Yeah, like, I can recognize some genius, but on another hand, I don't know, some of the other stuff isn't so obvious to me and is maybe the whole thing the stock market, we all agreed that these have value.

[172] You know, I'm very cynical of it and yet I'm also very intrigued by it.

[173] Not only that, I also don't understand museums because it strikes me, this is the thing I was trying to explore in those two pieces, although I'm making these pieces sound really boring.

[174] No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. But the minute you mentioned the word art museum, people fall asleep, but I was interested in this weird fact that they have so much stuff and they won't get rid of it.

[175] You know, they're the worst kind of hoarder.

[176] Once you realize that 95 % of the art that the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has is in storage in New Jersey and will never see the light of day, 95%.

[177] It's weird.

[178] I would have thought the function of a museum was to show art to the world, but in fact, that's not their function.

[179] Their function is they're like those self -storage units that you drive by on the highway, only like high -end, millions of dollars at stake.

[180] And that's what they're spending an enormous amount of their resources on is simply storing all this stuff which they'll never show to anybody.

[181] And they keep acquiring more and more and more.

[182] They are classic hoarders.

[183] Yes.

[184] And so I was shocked in that episode to hear your take and someone else is that hoarding, I would have thought it was connected to OCD.

[185] I would have thought it was an attempt to control and satiate your anxiety by you know finding that and keeping it safe but your explanation of it or i guess the your guest's explanation of it was so much more positive it was like someone with that touching actually the well you shouldn't give it away right that's a big part of the episode the takeaway of why people hoard but it was very beautiful i thought but this notion that i think i can say that some people enjoy an object more than other people that i guess that hadn't crossed my mind, even though, of course, I enjoy cars in a way that it's clear other people don't, that somehow, yeah, they get a real -time enjoyment out of them, just looking at them and being with them.

[186] Well, this is the thing, this is this guy Randy Frost.

[187] I don't want to give it all away, but he did say this one thing.

[188] You're absolutely right.

[189] He's someone who spent his entire life working with hoarders.

[190] And I kept asking him for his attitude towards the people he was working with, and it was of genuine affection.

[191] And he said, I have come to love them.

[192] And what he loves is their ability to see beauty in the ordinary.

[193] The most interesting thing he says, though, is it's all about memory that you and I would have, there's a handful of objects which, like a photo of, you know, I have a photo of me and my dad when I was very young, which when I look at it, all these memories flood back about my dad.

[194] There are a limited number of objects, though, in my life that have that kind of power.

[195] And his point about it hoarder is that every object in their life has that power.

[196] He told me the story about, and I tell it in the show about working with this woman, and she won't throw out an ATM receipt from six years ago, because it conjures up that day, and that was a lovely day in her life.

[197] And if she thinks if she loses the ATM receipt, she loses the memory.

[198] So her memory is encased in objects.

[199] And that's weird and interesting.

[200] And that's not bad.

[201] Also, it's not a pathology.

[202] It's just a different way their brain is wired.

[203] Yeah.

[204] Yeah, it doesn't seem to be a pathology until, like, the show that I've watched where you can't walk in the house and it's a fire hazard.

[205] I mean, I wonder if that veers into OCE.

[206] It makes your life unmanageable.

[207] But at its core, it's something quite beautiful that has the potential to screw up your life because it gets out of control.

[208] Yeah.

[209] And so one of the interesting things is it starts with just the reverendable.

[210] that their assets aren't really listed on their financials.

[211] And then you actually, you know, you kind of talk about what the theoretical value would be of the Metropolitan Museum in the billions, right?

[212] I mean, billions of dollars.

[213] Oh, in the hundreds of billions.

[214] Yeah.

[215] It begged the question when I heard that.

[216] Then how do they insure that?

[217] Is that stuff insured or they can insure it, right?

[218] Such a great question.

[219] You and I, our brains are wired in similar ways.

[220] I started talking to all these people about the fact that museums don't, on their bound sheet, list their collection as assets.

[221] They don't enumerate what they have.

[222] And my first question was exactly that one.

[223] It was like, how on earth do you insure it?

[224] So I started calling all these, none of this in the show, but I started calling all these insurance guys and saying, if I'm the Met and I have $100 billion roughly of art. And I refuse to put it on my balance sheet.

[225] So I refuse to like value it.

[226] Who insures it and how?

[227] And the answer is they don't really insure it.

[228] They buy a blanket coverage.

[229] If you think about it, it's a great dereliction of responsibility.

[230] If the Met burns down tomorrow, no one's mailing you a check for $50 billion a next day.

[231] And then the other question it led to for me is, could a collection like this ever be assembled again?

[232] Is this almost a thing from the past?

[233] Like when you think of the value of those and what the income of a museum is through grants and everything else, I mean, could anyone build a collection like that in the future?

[234] I mean, hard to do.

[235] You see it in L .A. you have Eli Broad, super rich guy, devotes 30 years of his life and huge amounts of money to more than 50 years of his life to buying art, opens his own art museum.

[236] So it can happen.

[237] But you're right.

[238] It gets harder and harder and harder as time goes on.

[239] And what happens is the existing institutions get all the good stuff.

[240] When people die, they donate it.

[241] Which is weird because typically if I'm a rich guy and I have 50 valuable paintings and I die and I will them to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, LACMA in L .A., most of that stuff's going to go straight into storage.

[242] So it's like, it's weird.

[243] It's like, why do rich people give art to museums if the museums are just going to stick them in storage facilities in New Jersey?

[244] I mean, the whole thing makes no sense to me whatsoever.

[245] They should give.

[246] I was talking to this one guy who said, you know, when you realize that most art is in storage, you begin to wonder, so why don't museums take the stuff that's in storage and put it on the walls of schools?

[247] Sure.

[248] He said there should be no city hall in the country that doesn't have a bunch of nice paintings on a wall.

[249] Now, are those at risk for being damaged or stolen?

[250] Sure.

[251] But like, you can't let that stop.

[252] Who cares?

[253] Who cares?

[254] Like, the whole point of art is, I was talking to this friend of mine who's a art photographer, who works sell for a lot of money.

[255] And I was asking him, how much of the stuff that you have sold over the course of your long career is publicly available to be seen.

[256] It's like a tiny, almost all of it is locked away.

[257] It's like, what's the point?

[258] Yeah.

[259] What's the point?

[260] It's like they're holding on to a secret of some sort.

[261] Like, it's almost like the exclusivity of it.

[262] Totally.

[263] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

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[286] spelled my, B -I -L -L -I -E .com slash Dax.

[287] Well, I just learned of an underbelly in the art world.

[288] You're probably already familiar with it, but I guess some criminals in Europe steal these really famous paintings, not to sell because they're almost valueless.

[289] Like five cents on the dollar, you can sell them to another criminal empire.

[290] But in general, they do it as an insurance policy that if they need leverage, in negotiating some kind of conviction that a lot of criminals keep these as leverage.

[291] And I was like, what a fascinating...

[292] Oh, you mean if I'm arrested, I say, I know where the Van Gogh is.

[293] Exactly.

[294] You give me a reduced sentence.

[295] Exactly.

[296] Why aren't we doing that?

[297] Well, it crossed my mind.

[298] I'm like, I need some leverage.

[299] Just some real general cultural leverage in case I find myself in a pickle.

[300] This is an open up a whole new.

[301] I had not thought about...

[302] This is such an interesting idea.

[303] Yeah.

[304] You could do the same thing with gossip.

[305] Oh, sure, like in a blackmail sense?

[306] Yeah.

[307] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[308] Did you watch the Epstein documentary?

[309] I have not watched that.

[310] Oh, you haven't.

[311] I have a whole series of things I've been working my way through this summer.

[312] I just haven't got there yet.

[313] You're behind on a few of the pedophile docks.

[314] I'm behind my bed.

[315] I've been watching the staircase, that classic old true crime.

[316] Oh, it's so good.

[317] It's so good.

[318] By the way, from day one, I've been convinced.

[319] convince that guy is 100 % innocent.

[320] Okay.

[321] How far are you?

[322] I'm really far.

[323] I got like two left.

[324] Okay.

[325] This is exciting.

[326] I feel like maybe this is another...

[327] If you root it for me. No, no, no, no. Okay.

[328] I'm going to clutch at a parallel here and hopefully it stays.

[329] Did you watch the jinx?

[330] And did you find yourself kind of wanting to give Robert Durst a hug?

[331] You know, recognizing still that he's a criminal and he should be in jail, I found myself wanting to protect him and take care of him.

[332] Really?

[333] Yes.

[334] I felt this deep affinity for him for some bizarre reason.

[335] I said to Kristen, I don't know, man. I think I'd let him sleep in our house still.

[336] I really, I think I'd have him over for dinner.

[337] I knew, weirdly, way back in the day, so he comes from his famous real estate family, and one of the founders of it was, I believe, his uncle.

[338] His dad and his brother were partners, I believe.

[339] Seymour.

[340] Seymour is the patriarch, and I went to interview Seymour.

[341] in the, God, in the 90s, and he was this, there was used to be something called the debt clock in Times Square, who was a running total of the country, that was Seymour.

[342] And then way back in the day, on the front page of the New York Times, you could buy ad space on the bottom of the front page.

[343] Seymour would buy it all the time, just to, like, hold forth on how much he hated somebody, or, and he had the largest, one of the largest private libraries in America.

[344] and I went to his townhouse in the other than one of these completely fascinating self -made, brilliant and he was one of those rich people who wanted to do really interesting things with his money, like the deck block or like buying these little things in the bottom of the, or buying like weird books.

[345] So when I watched the Durst thing, I just remembered this afternoon I once spent with Seymour.

[346] Yeah.

[347] Wow.

[348] Wow, that's fascinating.

[349] Okay, so to round out my last question about your phenomenal show, how do you come upon a theme for a season?

[350] Oh, let me just first say, I said it to your producers, Lee and Heather, but, you know, when we listen to your show, we're just, we're so blown away with the production value.

[351] I mean, it's like watching the jinx.

[352] It's like a very, very well -produced.

[353] Yeah.

[354] It's so perfect, and we are abundantly aware of the amount of time that is for you and your team.

[355] It's incredibly impressive.

[356] It seems, unless I'm wrong, is that interest you more?

[357] Are you very more and more?

[358] Like, that's obviously valuable time you could spend researching a book or writing.

[359] And I know you were really pleased with the audiobook version of talking to strangers.

[360] So I just wonder, is this increasingly where you want your energy to go?

[361] Totally.

[362] In fact, this week, I'm thinking more and more about long -form podcasts that are really audiobooks.

[363] And I just spent the whole week, me and my friend Bruce, with Paul Simon.

[364] Ah.

[365] We're doing an audio biography, music biography of Paul Simon.

[366] Wow.

[367] So one of the things we were doing the last couple days was he would play a song, and we would all be listening to one of his songs, and then he would annotate over the audio.

[368] So he would say, okay, listen to that guitar sound.

[369] And he would tell you the style of the guitar playing, the person who was playing, the reason he was playing that way, You know, he would say, that guy's from Lesotho.

[370] He's playing a, you know, a South African interpretation of American country guitar from the 60s.

[371] Because he heard that on the radio when he was, and I heard that, and I said, I want that.

[372] And he came and he played that on Graceland.

[373] You know, it was that kind of thing?

[374] Yeah.

[375] I've never understood why anyone would want to do a book about a musician.

[376] First of all, it's crazy.

[377] You want to hear the musician.

[378] So let's do a book where you hear everything.

[379] And the minute you hear it, it just makes so much more.

[380] So we're going to have a chapter called How to Listen to a Paul Simon song.

[381] Because there's these depths of complexity that now he can describe because he can play everything for you.

[382] My favorite example is, do you remember the song, Come and Take Me to the Mardi Gras by him?

[383] It's an old song from the 70s.

[384] I bet if he sang it, I'd recognize it.

[385] Are you trying to make me sing it?

[386] Of course, and I'm nudging Monica.

[387] Okay, here goes.

[388] I'm going to do it.

[389] I'm going to do it.

[390] Oh, yes.

[391] It's an exclusive.

[392] Exclusive.

[393] Here's the chorus.

[394] I'm a terrible singer.

[395] The chorus is, come and take me to.

[396] to the Mardi Gras.

[397] Da -da -da -da -da -da -da -da -da.

[398] Oh, yes.

[399] Remember that song?

[400] Yeah, da -da -da.

[401] Okay, so that song, there's a big falsetto part, which is done by a guy named Reverend Jeter, who is a black minister in Harlem, who sang in the famous gospel quartet.

[402] They go to Mussel Sholes, Alabama, to the famous R &B recording studio, to record that song.

[403] He brings Jeter with him.

[404] He ships up from New Orleans, a brass band, the Onward Marching Band from New Orleans.

[405] And the song itself is a calypso tune.

[406] So we have a white Jewish guy from Queens, New York, teams up with a gospel preacher from Harlem with a New Orleans brass band to go to Muscle Shoals, Alabama, to do a calypso song.

[407] When he describes how all those pieces come together, it's just like magic.

[408] You're like, oh, my God, what a genius.

[409] I was just sat there in awe yesterday.

[410] Weirdly enough, I was just listening to Paul Simon a couple weeks ago in the car and I actually had the thought, maybe you don't even want to go near this thought.

[411] But I was like, if he was coming onto the scene today doing virtually the exact same thing he had done, would he now be accused of cultural appropriation?

[412] Absolutely.

[413] I think he would, right?

[414] And I was like, huh, there's some clear intention behind what he's done.

[415] But it did cross my mind that I don't know that it would be viewed the same way today.

[416] You have that's a big theme of this.

[417] book we're writing.

[418] And what I want to argue about is, I think what he's doing is a very important part of creativity.

[419] As long as it's entered, he's not stealing people's traditions.

[420] He is discovering them and reinterpreting them.

[421] And I think that's the key.

[422] When you traffic in another cultural tradition, your intentions really matter.

[423] Yeah.

[424] And what are you doing and why you doing it?

[425] And in his case, I think his intentions are, I want to make something magical and new out of all these pieces.

[426] And I want to celebrate the stuff that I'm investigating.

[427] And also his New York, he grew up in New York in the 50s and 60s.

[428] That's what New York was.

[429] Yeah, yeah.

[430] In Queens in 1955, when he's a teenager, there's 20 different cultures all going on at the same time.

[431] So that's his world.

[432] It's incredibly authentic to who he is.

[433] It's the only story he could have told probably.

[434] Yeah.

[435] That's what he grew up with.

[436] He's not Dylan from Hibbing, Minnesota.

[437] Right, right.

[438] I also think it's only appropriation if it's him and 10 other white guys doing a replication.

[439] If it's this black gospel preacher and hit.

[440] I mean, it's like, that's just bringing sounds together.

[441] That's not like, I'm going to pretend to be this.

[442] Unless Chevy Chase plays the black reverend in the music video, then we have some major problems.

[443] Then we got some problems, yeah.

[444] That we have some problems.

[445] Did you inquire about his friendship with Chevy Chase?

[446] I'd be curious.

[447] I didn't know they were friends.

[448] Oh, well, you remember that Chevy Chase was in that video.

[449] Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do.

[450] You can call me Betty.

[451] Betty, when you call, you know.

[452] Now we've both sang some.

[453] Your voice is better than mine, X. No, no, no, no, no. It's only compounded by the fact that I live with a bona fide great singer.

[454] So, you know, however bad I thought I was.

[455] How come Monica hasn't sung?

[456] Never.

[457] She's a really good singer.

[458] This is a big point of frustration between her and I. I'll catch her in the back seat occasionally.

[459] I'm like, why aren't you doing that more often and loudly?

[460] Why aren't you singing?

[461] Monica, you're a trained actress.

[462] What's the issue here?

[463] I'm just self -conscious about him.

[464] There's something about singing that's so vulnerable.

[465] Oh, sure.

[466] Don't you think?

[467] I guess maybe you don't think.

[468] No, I do, because you're thinking.

[469] It is the instrument they say is some representation of their inside.

[470] I think it circles back to what we talk.

[471] talked about at the beginning about you being infatuated with voices.

[472] Like, you can't really fix your singing voice.

[473] Like, it is what it is.

[474] And I like to present things that I can fix.

[475] Like, if it's wrong, I can be better at it.

[476] But I can't be better or worse at whatever I have going on with my vocal cords.

[477] So no one gets to hear it.

[478] Unless you want to ride in the front seat occasion.

[479] You'll have to ride for a long, long time.

[480] Because in seven years, I've heard her sing, like, five times.

[481] But if you're up for that commitment, I've got a passenger seat.

[482] What was she singing?

[483] She was singing, Whiplash by Metallica.

[484] How great would that be, by the way?

[485] Talk about it.

[486] That's like an unexpected turn.

[487] If suddenly Monica turns out to be a Metallica fan.

[488] Oh, I've been urging my wife to do an entire cover of Kill Em All by Metallica.

[489] I'm like, that would be the greatest, your sweet voice with that music.

[490] It could be something, it could be a Paul Simon, a synthesis.

[491] We've all been there, turning to the internet, self -diagnose our inexplicable pains, debilitating body aches, sudden fevers, and strange rashes.

[492] Though our minds tend to spiral to worst -case scenarios, it's usually nothing, but for an unlucky few, these unsuspecting symptoms can start the clock ticking on a terrifying medical mystery.

[493] Like the unexplainable death of a retired firefighter, whose body was found at home by his son, except it looked like he had been cremated, or the time when an entire town started jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their ceilings.

[494] Hey listeners, it's Mr. Ballin here, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast.

[495] It's called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

[496] Each terrifying true story will be sure to keep you up at night.

[497] Follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts.

[498] Prime members can listen early and ad -free on Amazon Music.

[499] What's up, guys?

[500] It's your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season, and let me tell you, it's too good, and I'm diving into the brains of Entertainment's Best and brightest, okay?

[501] Every episode, I bring on a friend and have a real conversation.

[502] And I don't mean just friends.

[503] I mean the likes of Amy Polar, Kell Mitchell, Vivica Fox.

[504] The list goes on.

[505] So follow, watch, and listen to Baby.

[506] This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.

[507] Are there 10 episodes?

[508] 10 episodes.

[509] I've got four episodes about this Air Force General in the Second World War called Curtis LeMay, who is responsible for one of the most consequential and controversial acts of the war.

[510] It starts out with an investigation of him, and he's someone who's in love with airplanes, obviously, and it's all about what happens when your kind of infatuation with technology and machines starts to cloud your judgment.

[511] But that's the heart of the season is really those four episodes.

[512] And then I have one about this guy who was convinced that we elect student counsels the wrong way.

[513] that and it's my favorite one of the whole season he goes to Bolivia and he starts to go to high school I don't know why he's in Bolivia is a not separate long story he starts to go to high school seems like you guys are choosing your student council president all wrong you should use a lottery anyway that's all I'm going to say okay so similar to your hiring practice it sounds like those are twin those two episodes are twin oh okay I have to imagine it varies greatly but if you had to come up with the mean average of how long it takes you to record an episode.

[514] What do you think that would be?

[515] You mean report, right, and record?

[516] Yeah, from your idea, you listen, you're like, great job, gang.

[517] Sounds wonderful.

[518] Well, I'm doing multiple ones at once, but it's, you know, it's probably part -time a month and episode.

[519] But I mean, I'm doing three at a time.

[520] So the whole thing takes six, takes six months to do ten episodes, basically.

[521] Oh, wow.

[522] Oh, wow.

[523] Okay.

[524] Yeah.

[525] So I started in December.

[526] Wow.

[527] And then there's always a moment of panic when I don't have enough.

[528] And I despair.

[529] I go for long walks.

[530] I think about, you know, switching professions and then I come up with my final ideas.

[531] Now, the current two topics of the day, when we're in such unique times, do you start up the engine of like, wow, how am I going to put this through Malcolm's eyes and tie it to something else?

[532] Are you interested in doing that?

[533] Do you feel like you can't wait to be a part of that exploration?

[534] Well, I've written so much about police violence.

[535] It's been a big theme of three of my books.

[536] So I feel like I've said, you know, there's been such an outpouring of extraordinary new voices on this issue.

[537] And I think I've said my piece.

[538] It's available if those who want to read it.

[539] And I don't, I don't feel I need to wait in.

[540] And I'd rather hear from others at this point.

[541] You know, I've been writing about this for 15 years.

[542] And I do have an episode of this show that touches on this question of, on the other big issue of the day on COVID.

[543] It's the last episode, which is always supposed to be the one that's the most meaningful.

[544] And it's all about how we choose to remember people who would otherwise be forgotten.

[545] I did it before COVID.

[546] I went to Jacksonville, and I spent a lot of time talking to people who deal with the homeless in Jacksonville.

[547] And the whole point of dealing with the homeless is you're trying to make people visible who would otherwise be invisible and remembered who would otherwise be forgotten.

[548] And then I wrote the episode after the COVID thing.

[549] There were all kinds of parallels that I was able to draw about, because this is turning into an epidemic of the invisible and the forgotten.

[550] By the way, I was curious if you'd seen the Epstein doc, because through my lens, it's not even a story of pedophilia.

[551] It's the ultimate story of income inequality.

[552] If you don't have desperation, you can't have an Epstein.

[553] And I do think that more and more, as these big, big issues are burbling to the top, we're starting to see a little connective tissue, right?

[554] Or we're starting to see some of the same root causes.

[555] And I feel like we're finally starting to glance a little further upriver, which I'm so excited about.

[556] Yeah, yeah.

[557] Well, we're very excited to have 10 more episodes of your show, Revision is History.

[558] That is not on our network, and we do not profit.

[559] from whatsoever.

[560] And in fact, we will lose many listeners to your fantastic show.

[561] So we wish you well, Mr. Gladwell.

[562] Thank you so much, you guys.

[563] Monica, Dax.

[564] Yeah.

[565] All right, great seeing you.

[566] I can't wait for this over because we must drive something together.

[567] I know, I know.

[568] We will.

[569] We will.

[570] I've been zipping around in my box here.

[571] It's been very, very fun.

[572] Of course you have.

[573] All right.

[574] We've got to get you in some American muscle.

[575] Yes.

[576] Okay, guys.

[577] Bye, guys.

[578] Bye -bye.

[579] Amazon music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[580] You can listen to every episode of Armchair expert early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple podcasts.

[581] Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondry .com slash survey.