 Welcome to broadcast. I'm David Feldman, DavidFeldmanshow.com. Please friend me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter, and do all your Amazon shopping via the Amazon banner on the David Feldman show website and check out our premium content. You know the drill. I have a new best friend. We worked together at Caroline's Christmas week. We were opening for Judy Gold, who I no longer need anymore now that I have you. Josh Gondelman is a stand-up comedian. He's achieved recognition from co-creating the popular parody Twitter account Modern Seinfeld. He has since gone on to become a writer on the critically acclaimed HBO series Last Week Tonight and has written a new book titled You Blew It, an awkward look at the many ways in which you've already ruined your life. Welcome, Josh Gondelman. Thank you for having me, new best friend, David. My new BFF. Forever. Forever. Forever. That's a lot of time to be a BF. Yeah. That's people tacking on there willy-nilly. Yeah. Well, you're younger than I am, so it's not as much of a commitment as it is for me. Totally. Yeah, let's hope. I mean, no offense. Well, you know, I met you at Caroline's and it was, you know, envy and jealousy at first. Thank you. Which I think is what a friendship is all about. Certainly in comedy. I always think like the highest compliment I can pay a comedian is like, that joke was so good, it made me hate you. Yes. That's like how I, yeah, that's the best thing you can say about someone's act is like, I'm furious at you that you thought of that and I didn't. Who's your nemesis? My nemesis was Jake Johansson. Do you know Jake Johansson? I do know Jake Johansson. We started together. Yeah. And I thought it was a limited universe and he, I was eating his dust and I thought, how dare he do this to me? And how dare he be good? Now I love him and he's the best. I just watched, I think it was the one when I got HBO go, I went, I like was browsing through the HBO one night stands and I watched his. Well, he figured it out. I remember my father calling me saying, why can't you be like Jake Johansson? We both moved to San Francisco at the same time and Jake Johansson figured out that stories are better than jokes. Yeah. And his Letterman shots, I think he holds the record for most Letterman shots. I think that's true. I think it was like 37. And I don't know why we haven't had it on the show. I think we've made several false attempts and then but he was the guy and I remember getting when I used to drink, he won the San Francisco Comedy Competition and I literally got drunk and pulled one of those. Why you not me? Oh, sure. But you need a guy like that to make you better. For sure. I don't think I have like a personal nemesis that I have a grudge against, but I definitely have friends who when I see them, I'm like, oh, boy, I got to do better. Like I got to be better. The last time I felt that way was and he's an amazing comedian. Like I feel like I'm a competent comedian. You're a great comedian. Well, thank you. But this guy, when I watch Sean Patton, I'm just like, oh, boy, that's that's the thing I should be aspiring to. And a part of Ninchella as well. Two people that I'm just had a lovely piece in the New York Times. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I haven't seen he had. Yeah. That's she's wonderful. And so those two were, I'm just like, oh, there's there's more on this bone that I'm not getting to. Yeah. Well, they're answering like I can't pronounce her name. What is her name again? Mine or a partner. A partner Ninchella. Yeah. They are answering to a different comedy God than I am. Yeah. And and they're not answering to the audience, which is, you know, the audience is either anyway, we'll move on. But the audience, I would say the audience will answer to them. Do you know what I mean? Like instead of doing the thing they think a crowd will like, they will do a thing that they like and be like, come to me audience. Like I'll bring you to me, which is I commend that. Yes. Josh Gondelman. Yes. One of the great last names of show business. We were talking about it the other day. My friend Matt Marquess in high school pointed out to me first, but it's like very easy for someone to yell at you in anger is Gondelman. Gondelman. Gondelman. Gondelman. Get in my office. So we were talking about that the other night, but yes, it's a it's a great name to say furiously. Where'd you grow up? Just outside Boston in a little town called Stoneham, Massachusetts. Stoneham? Yeah. It is notable for being the hometown of Nancy Kerrigan. Olympic medalist who who had weak ankles. Knees. Weak knees. Well, I mean, they were Tanya Harding. Yeah, they were structurally impaired by outside forces. But I remember 1994. And yeah, and I most people deep in their heart were rooting for Tanya. There was something I don't want to say Nancy. I don't want to trash Nancy. No, but see, here's I can't even feel that because we're so not only is she from my town, but that's that New England like spite of like one of us against everybody. So I have to like it could have come out later that like she got her figure skating ability from like I'm hinging her John Swallow and the baby hole, but I'd still be like nah, but she's from she's from my hometown and she's a good shit. Bad Nancy. And who was the guy? The Tanya Harding. Jeff Galuly was like her husband or ex-husband. Yeah. Spend Galuly. Spend Galuly. You grew up in Massachusetts. Did you start doing comedy in Massachusetts? Yeah, I did. I started when I was in college in Boston. I went to Brandeis and then I would like take a bus into the city and do spots and then do a lot of stuff on campus too. Brandeis College. Yeah. Abby Hoffman went to Brandeis. Abby Hoffman? Very Jewish. Is it still very Jewish? It's still very Jewish, certainly. Yeah. What was it? Was Brandeis set up? I don't know if Justice Brandeis was the first Jewish. Justice? Yeah, I don't know if he was the first openly Jewish. Sure. I think that's true, but I'm not sure about it. And is he the one who said Sunshine is the great disinfectant? I don't know. Because I'll tell you, it isn't. It did not chirpy coli. It did not. My great-grandmother died of polio and... No amount of vitamin D. Injections full of Sunshine. Right. Well, they invented Brandeis because Harvard, I believe, found that they were getting too many Jews when they were doing... Do you know the story? I've heard like variants of it. Harvard found that they were doing blind admissions. And all of a sudden, there were a lot of Jews being accepted into Harvard. So they literally said, well, we're looking for people with character. Now we're looking... It's not just how you do on your SATs or what your grades are and how good a scholar. We're really looking for gentlemen who have character. Right. Who weren't bar mitzvah. Kind of the character that comes from never eating matzah, that kind of character. And there's also, I believe, on the campus was a medical... Was formerly a medical school before Jews could go to medical school. And so there isn't a medical school there now, but there's a castle. Well, if you've got a college filled with the Jews, do you really need a medical school? I feel like keep it in house, vertically integrate. But there's not. And there's not even really... Like my sister was a physical therapist and also went to Brandeis. And she had to do physical... She went through a course of study at Brandeis, but also had to take a couple outside classes because they don't do a lot of super pre-professional stuff, which is kind of neat because you get a breadth of study. But also when you're like, but this is what I want to do. It was a little hard for her. Like she had to take some anatomy other places and stuff. Right. And the woman who accused Clarence Thomas, Anita Hill, teaches at Brandeis. She does. Yeah. Did you ever see her walking around campus? No. Or maybe I did, but I wasn't... I never recognized people, even friends. It takes me forever to like, oh, I know that guy. Like even when I see the people at all out of context. So I wouldn't have known anyway. We were at, gosh, where were we? Oh, we were somewhere in Brooklyn and we walked out of the store and my girlfriend was like, that was Ethan Hawke. And I was like, which one? She's the one that looks like Ethan Hawke. And I was like, oh, right. Right. Yeah. Well, so you started doing comedy while you were at Brandeis. What did you major in? English and creative writing. And I was Spanish minor. So English, yeah, English and creative writing major. English and creative writing and a Spanish minor. So like those guys in the Chilean mine who... Yes, I was Spanish. Right. I was a Spanish speaking subterranean or extraction specialist. On a scale of one to 10, we'll give my joke a two. That gets a two. I would give it a six. We could... No, you're just being assays. Assays. So when you say Spanish... I haven't used my mining since college. It's just fallen away. When you say a Spanish minor, you are studying... Spanish language and literature. And I dig a couple. I think at least one film course. I think it was just the Spanish film course. The one with the eye being slit. Oh, I didn't see that was... The Bowie used to play that at the beginning of every one of his concerts. Wasn't that... I forgot the name. I mean, was that French though? The Unchen... Or no, maybe it was a Dali thing, right? Unchen and Deleu. Oh, right, right, right. Because it's in the Pixies song too. That's Debaser where the lyric is slicing up eyeballs. Ha, ha, ha. And it's a reference. And they say the name of the movie. Anyway, I think that's what we're doing. Yeah, yeah, I think you're right. And it's a Dali. But with a French name. Right. Was Dali Spanish? I think so. That I could be very wrong about. I know very little. We are like going down... This is the problem with my show, by the way. It's not you. It has nothing to do with you. We go off into little tangents that have nothing to do with anything. I do remember that Bowie knew when he was supposed to go on stage because the audience would scream in horror of seeing the eye being slipped. Oh my gosh. Yeah. What a... I just, I went to the station to station concert that Bowie didn't used to play that. Anyway, when I was into Bowie. That's a gruesome way. That's a hole to dig for yourself. Yes. But I'm reading the Cliff Nesterhoff book. How is it? I've been... It's fan... I know we have to get to you. No, that's okay. I'm... The comedians. Yeah. I really want... I would like to read that very much. I was just reading... Oh, the Cliff Nesterhoff book, the comedian. It's... I can't stop reading. I've stopped reading. It's great. It's just the history of modern stand-up starting with Vaudeville. And every page has this thing that just jumps out. I love that. And especially because it ends with the stuff that's like... Does it go towards the present? Yes. Yeah. It starts with Vaudeville. Great. That's awesome. I sometimes with non-fiction, my problem is I'm like, man, the Civil War is fascinating. And then like 300 pages into a 500-page book. I'm like, all right, enough of the Civil War book. It's really a collection almost of trivia. Great. That sounds super fun. When you said digging a hole for yourself, I think it was a checky green who said anybody can kill. I'm bored. I want to go up and just create an absolute hole and then get out of it. It is really fun when you feel the ability to do that, to like turn a crowd against you, knowing that you're going to bring them back, or like with the goal of bringing them back. It's very fun. Well, you're successful. So let's talk about your success. Thank you. You have a great job. You're on the HBO series last week tonight, John Oliver, where Deep Dive has become part of the lexicon. I keep seeing it everywhere. It's nice. I mean, it's nice to. Who came up with Deep Dive? I don't know. I think it certainly predates the show. And even what we do is kind of like a skimming off the top of a bunch of other stuff that's come before. But it's fun to work on crafting these longer comedy bets. Yeah. I mean, it's amazing that a British guy could sink his teeth into something. All right, that's that's that's a four. I have to give it. I have to give that one a two just because it's I know where my I know who signs my paychecks. You know, which side of your who butters your biscuit or whatever. No, he's he's fantastic. He's great. He's a wonderful comedian and a wonderful person to work for. When did. Is this your first television writing job? I did a very small amount of writing for Billy on the street a couple of years ago that was like done from home. And I went, you know, I went in for a meeting and kind of talked and then contributed some stuff freelance. But this is my first like writer's room that I've been in. And how do you like the writer's room? I like it. I really I like the balance of working on assignments kind of in my office, kind of hammering away in solitude or like working with one other person. And then the balance of spending the weekend more or less like, excuse me, more or less collaboratively. And I enjoy that. And I think it's something that you don't always get a lot of in stand up of just like banging out a bunch of jokes with other people. Because even when you do, even when you write together, I think you kind of have your own goal where it's like, you want to balance out. All right. Well, we do one of mine. We do one of yours when you're working on writing with somebody. So it's nice to have like a common goal with the nine of us working on something. And it's fun. How much reading do you have to do? It's a lot of like the early part of the week is lot of reading the news. Or if you're working in a long story, it's a lot of reading transcripts of footage that we're drawing from and research. So it's like, it's a lot. And I feel like I'm definitely better informed when I'm in the office than when I'm on a break for even a week. I'll be like, what happened last week? Oh, no, I'm going to catch up. Yeah. I don't want to violate any trusts. You know, I've heard the rumors about John Oliver putting guns in everybody's mouths and then jerking off. I'm just joking. I'm just kidding. No, those are totally false. I feel like I know it's a joke, but I also have to be like, I know it's totally false. Just I know. I believe me. I work for Robert Smigel and he puts a gun in my mouth and forces me to jerk off. But that's a whole other. For you to jerk off. Yeah, it's a that's like a totally different. That's like an interesting that's a niche of a niche. Yeah. So I don't want to put you in an awkward position because I know that when you work on a show, you have you leave because I've done these interviews and you're asked about the show and then then you go, did I do anything? Did I violate a trust? So I and I don't want to put you in a. But what I do like is I've had several jobs. The best job I ever had was working for Bill Maher because I got to read all the time. I was paid to just sit and read. And I, you know, the phone would ring and I'd be reading something and I can't talk now. I'm working. Yeah, I'm working. I'm working. That's great. I do love. I mean, I really like it. And I think it when I'm working, I feel like I'm a better informed citizen for sure. Because even because not only am I reading the stuff that everybody puts across your vision, whether it's like something your parents want to talk about or something that comes up on your Facebook feed or Twitter, but I'm also I think it's kind of part of the job to like try to find stories that haven't been, you know, covered by other shows Monday through Thursday or on Friday. So it's like nice to Monday through Friday. Most of the daily shows are, you know, Monday through Thursday. So let's talk about reading more than most people. I would love to. Because your job, you're paid to read about civic issues that are essentially ignored by everybody, except John Oliver, Rachel Maddow and a couple of other people. But. Yeah, I mean, all the stuff we do has like, you know, has grounding in other research and reporting that exists in the world. But it's not getting the attention. Yeah, I guess I guess that's I think it's fun to try to find things that are like under the radar. And the things that are under the radar are mind boggling and mind blowing. Yeah, there's why you say, well, why isn't this the lead story? And what do you think the forces at work? What do you think? Why do you think they're not the lead stories? I guess. Oh gosh, that's a lofty question to comment on. I think, though, it seems like when you watch and read a lot of news, it's like it's a competitive business. And it seems like sometimes it's good business to lead with Donald Trump said awful thing because that's people are responding to that. And unlike a level of clicking or watching or and it's sometimes it's sometimes easiest to let the the loudest voices. That's the George Saunders essay, right? The brain dead megaphone of like just the loudest thing draws the most attention, even if it's not the most interesting or compelling thing. It just is louder than everything else. So people have to crane their necks towards it because they want to know what this big commotion is about. And I think that's it's sometimes hard when that's when that's what people are interested in to to avert what you're doing away from it. Yeah. And it's and it's so as I was listening to meet the press today, we're recording this on Sunday. This is going up Monday night. And they were talking about Donald Trump who is bringing up Bill Clinton's lady problems because Bill Clinton now is going to be campaigning in New Hampshire. Well, the lady problems was a distraction 15 years ago and is a distraction now. Meanwhile, there was a story in the New York Times about Donald Trump's older brother, eight years older, died of alcoholism, didn't fit the Trump mold. The father wanted him to do a specific thing going to the family business. He wanted to be an aviator and he drank himself to death. And it really gives you insight into the Freudian conflict that Donald Trump exemplifies and looked up to his brother, but was competitive with him and then got the brother written out of the will. And the brother, the older brother had a child with cerebral palsy and Donald was footing the bill for the cerebral palsy treatments. But then when the father died, when the grandfather, when Donald Trump's father died, the older brother's wife and kids were written out of the will. So they challenged the will. So Donald stopped paying the bills for the kid with cerebral palsy. And it's so much insight into who this guy really is and what he represents. And that is America is great if you fit the mold. If you're the guy who does what your father wants to do, you can inherit the business, you can have everything. But if you're the older brother who wants to fly and not go into the family business, you're going to be ostracized. And that is the America of Donald Trump. It works for you if you're lucky and you're ruthless. And you want what the richest one percent want. If you don't, you're screwed. No conversation about that on Meet the Press. Just, you know, is Donald Trump wrong for going after Hillary's husband's ladies problems? Yeah, it's I don't I don't know. I it's I've never worked in like news media. So I don't know exactly what guides those decisions. But it's like sometimes you want you'd hope that the deeper issues of that would get touched upon, especially if you're going to, you know, if you're going to be talking to this person who seems to have found a loophole in the system or in whatever you can just say whatever you want. Like, I think we haven't caught up to that yet. That there are people now that are just like, oh, we don't have to be spin. We don't have to spin anything anymore. I'll just say whatever I want. And then nobody will say the opposite better than I said the lie, which is like fascinating. I'm fascinated by that. Just like, oh, you can just say a thing. And then if nobody corrects you, then that's the new truth. Right. Right. I had Steve Forbes on the show. A lot of people complained to me that I had Steve Forbes on because this is an echo chamber, but I feel we should have other people representing other views. And he kind of steamrolled me on some facts and I talked to him about this. I said, I think the problem is live radio and live television because you don't have time to just stop and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, stop, stop. What you just said is factually inaccurate. You're always getting a countdown clock with live radio and live television. That's why 60 Minutes is so terrifying to politicians. The idea that Carly Fiorina can claim that she saw that Planned Parenthood video that doesn't exist. And when she's called on it, she says, I saw it. Yeah. I saw. And if you, you know, it's what Gerbil said about repeating the lie over and over again. There is now evidence coming forth that there were Muslims celebrating after 9-11. If you just repeat it over, you know, Trump insists that he saw Muslims celebrating. Thousands. Thousands. Little evidence. People will, little evidence, enough evidence to keep the lie going. Yeah. It's fascinating. I just, it was brought up pre-show, but making a murderer I just watched, which is like so fascinating. On Netflix. Yeah. And such a like harrowing display of like if you say a thing, the people that heard it will have always heard it from that point on regardless of like the, the amount of truth that's in it. So that's always like part of their consciousness. So you're one of the most, I'm not embarrassing you. It's you're paid to be one of the most knowledgeable people we have on this show because your job is to have knowledge. My job is to have knowledge. Yes, it is. And to, you know, to turn that into comedy. But I don't know if I'm one of the most knowledgeable. I think that's, that is a kind compliment. So when you, what are your web hobbies? Like when you're on the web, where do you tend to go? Is it the nation, the Daily Co's, talking points, remember what? I do, I try to, I try to go to sites with, excuse me, I read a lot of Guardian just because it has more international stories and I, and that's like useful for me for work. So I do a lot of that. I will go through New York Times, Washington Post. I have like a pretty decently curated, I mean, I go to Twitter also and stuff like that to see specifically Twitter though, to see like what people are talking about and where they're sourcing things from. Do you have two separate Twitter accounts? I have, I use my own, but I like, I'm a pretty, I'm a slightly too frequent refresher. So I'll see, I follow like a mixture of people that work in. So tell me how you start, because I have two separate Twitter accounts. I have a fake Twitter account where it's just new sources that I go to and I don't even, you know, come and then I have my, you know, the regular one. Tell me like how you start your day to find things out. Sure. Talk me through it. What time do you get up in the morning? Right there about eight. Eight a.m. Yeah. Walk the dog. Okay. Don't learn a lot from that. No. I mean, just above the... Well, if you didn't walk that, if the dog took a crap on the newspaper in the house, you could have something read. Yes. Or I'm most, yeah, I'm mostly learning about the dog's digestive health and her general interest in... I've learned a lot about the cleanliness of our sidewalks, the Brooklyn sidewalks. That that's the big illumination experience. This is the rescue. Yeah. It's, yeah, we adopted. A pug. Yeah. An ugly dog. Oh, she's so cute though. She's such a sweetie. She's very small and snuggly, which is helpful in her... She's, for a hug, pretty quiet. And we have a white noise machine for sleeping and it kind of... The pug's snoring and the white noise machine almost vibrate against each other back to nothing. And when you say white noise machine, you're talking about Fox News or an actual white... Yeah. That gets one and a half. Poor Ham. You made it yourself below Spanish minor. So, okay, so you go to the web and you start looking at what? Yeah, I look... First thing you look... Do you have like a ritual? Do you have to go to one thing first? Are you anal? There's things... There's like a... No, I'm not at all. I will... So, I guess the first thing I'll do is like... If something has come across my social media... Because, you know, the first thing in the morning I'll read, I'll check my email and Twitter and Facebook and whatnot before I go to work. And if something jumps out at me as like an interesting story, then I'll investigate that more deeply to be like, what's there to this? Is that are people just like saying something or is there something interesting there? And then from there it's like kind of through a few... I'll look at the, you know, times first usually just because they have a pretty thorough accounting of things. And then post-Guardian newser, which have you ever been there? Yeah, it's gone downhill for me lately. I haven't... I mean, I haven't been on in a few weeks just because I've been less engaged. But I like that just because it's like a variety, a broad variety of things. And then sometimes it'll even just like look at... Sometimes it helps me to go like, what's trending on Facebook even to be like... Oh, what are the stories that are the unignorable stories this week that everybody seems to be interested in? I always tell my kids you should read the editorials in the New York Times because that's the first thing President Obama reads, I assume. He turns to the New York Times and probably the Washington Post every day. This is what Barack Obama is reading in Hawaii. He is reading The Whites by Richard Price. It's a detective novel about the cold cases that got away. Purity by Jonathan Fraunzen. Sure. The Right Brothers by David McCullough. And The Three Body Problem by Liu Chikson. I don't know. I don't know. It's an Asian name, so I don't know what that is. How does the... Do you think the president is really reading Jonathan Fraunzen? I don't know if he's going to go cover to cover on Purity. Maybe he is. Maybe he loves... Maybe he loved Freedom. But I don't... That's tough because I'm not nearly as busy as the president and I don't read a lot of novels. Yeah, that's a lot. I want you to say cover to cover. Can you read Jonathan Fraunzen with that going cover to cover? Is it... Can you do that? What I mean... I don't mean like skimming. I just mean like you read a chunk and then you get engrossed by something else and you kind of leave it off. That's what happened to me with the corrections. But like the right brothers you can skim. Totally. I think we're talking about nonfiction. It's like, oh, then this is a chapter about one of their kids, blah, blah, blah. Okay. I want to read about the airplanes. Although, you know, he had a really interesting interview in the New York Review of Books with a novelist two months ago. And I can't remember... I can't remember her name. But anyway, I'm going, how the hell does this guy know this much? I can't even remember the woman's name, but how does... How can he have a conversation with a novelist when he's in the situation room and dealing... I'm always asking about how these people manage their time. Seinfeld spent some time with President Obama. It was amazing. Did you see it? I haven't seen it yet. No, the comedians and cars. Obama is just the coolest guy in the world. And yeah, I really recommend it. I will check that out. He has been... He's done a lot of comedy stuff really well. Yeah, he's really great at it. So your Twitter account, modern Seinfeld, it's kind of interesting. Larry David knows about it. Yes. Does Jerry know about it? I believe he does, but I'm not 100% certain. I've heard rumors that he's heard about it through third party sources. Well, what spawned the idea of the modern Seinfeld Twitter account? I was just talking to my friend, Dan Bulger, who's a Boston comedian, very funny, and Boston based. And we were just chatting and he was like, you wouldn't have any Seinfeld episodes if they'd had cell phones, which is very funny to think about. But also, I think you would lose half a dozen episodes and you would gain hundreds. That was my counter thesis. So I just started tweeting from my own account just about modern plot lines of Seinfeld that couldn't have happened then. And my friend, Jack Moore, saw that and was like, oh, this is a thing. So he grabbed the handle really quickly and we started writing it together. When was this? This was December 2012. And it took off when? Right away, like within a day. It became huge. And people started adding to it. People were tweeting back at us stories, but it's all the stuff we've run with. I think at first we'd retweeted a couple others, but all the stuff that's on there is just like, we didn't solicit submissions and if people sent stuff, we'd be like, you know. This is kind of interesting because you're working for last week tonight, which is not a sitcom. I want to read some of these tweets because they're hysterical. I'm going to ask you if you've been approached by anyone. Seinfeld today, Jerry gets paranoid that his girlfriend's past when her iPhone automatically connects to the Wi-Fi at Newman's apartment. Now that is a great pitch. They always say in sitcoms, you need a log line. What's your pitch? Well, there it is. I mean, if some guy's running a show, that is a perfect Seinfeld pitch. I think that was a jack one. And he is now a sitcom writer by trade. That's what he very quickly got into that line of work. From this? From, this was kind of the springboard. I mean, he had scripts and stuff, so he had done the prerequisites. And then this was kind of the thing that put him in the conversation of like, oh, this is a guy we should look at. I believe. This is fantastic. Listen to this one. Seinfeld today. And this is 140 characters. Elaine accidentally does a British accent in a job interview after marathoning Downton Abbey. She gets the job and has to keep faking it. I like that. That's fun. I mean, that is absolutely brilliant. Well, thank you. And it's 140 characters. And that's an, I would say, for a Seinfeld, that's one quarter of a Seinfeld. Right. Because that's like a, it's an Elaine story, so you need Jerry and George. You know, it's like one of the several storylines. But my favorite Elaine, I think was, the first one I wrote, so it always sticks out to me and didn't even, was never on the modern Seinfeld. One of those just tweeted from my account was, Elaine sleeps with her upstairs neighbor and then breaks up with him, prompting him to make his Wi-Fi network name an insult against her and won't change it until she meets conditions. Right. So that was, I mean, it's like the, the fun thing about it is we're sitting on the shoulders of giants in the way that all four of the principal characters have such a strong point of view and such a strong set of habits and hobbies and, you know, perspective that anything that happens in the world now, you can be like, oh, one of them will have an interesting reaction to it. Whether, because sometimes the topical ones go super huge in terms of retweets and stuff, because it's like, it feels like we're reacting to, we're reacting to the news, but in a way that's like, oh, this is the character of George Costanza reacting to the news. What's another sitcom that you watch a lot? I love Parks and Recreation. Okay. One of my favorites. Current with Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which I like very much. Okay, but I mean, you know, Jerry gets paranoid about his girlfriend's pass when her iPhone automatically connects to the Wi-Fi at Newman's apartment. That is great. Could that apply to friends? Totally. Yeah. Yeah. That's a pretty, that was a pretty broad one. Yeah. Elaine accidentally does a British accent in a job interview after marathoning down to Naby. She gets the job and I keep faking it. It's a brilliant idea, but that, you could transpose that. Yeah, that could be some more else too. It just felt, to me, that feels so, like you can imagine Julia Louis-Dreyfus playing that very easily. Yeah, I guess it's broader than that, but the Seinfeld lens really helps you focus, you know, rather than just writing in the dark. How great is Seinfeld? Great. Why? I think this a lot. I think that not only were the performances brilliant and the writing super tight, so everything's really fully realized. But my favorite thing about Seinfeld is that it puts a name, it names things that we didn't know needed naming. And it gives, it describes things like a great stand-up bit that we didn't know needed describing. What do you mean? Like the idea of, he's a close talker. People didn't say that before, you know what I mean? That was a thing that was coined, like they've coined so many things that we forget were coined in Seinfeld. Re-gifting was like a Seinfeld. Wow. Yeah, and it's like, that was a thing people did, and then they put it on TV, and then everyone's like, oh, that's the word for that phenomenon. And to me, that's like the highest form of pop culture achievement is when you do a thing that now that's the name of that. In the beginning, there was the word. Yeah. Without a word for something, it doesn't exist. Yeah. So it's all swimming around in the ether, and what Seinfeld did was isolate something, and then it made sense of something. Yeah, it was almost like the comedy version of one of those murder-solving boards with yarn that connects stuff, and then you see the connections where you didn't know they were before, and I think that they did that. Or it's like, even the loftiest way I've ever thought to describe it was like, what's in a name, right? Rose without a name would smell as sweet from Romeo and Juliet, and it's like, yeah, but nobody else would know that it was a rose, and if you talked about it, you'd have to describe it for an hour, and then they would be like, oh, that flower, it's red, it's got the thorns, and when someone goes, oh yeah, you mean a rose, that's so powerful, so that everyone has this common vocabulary. It smells better if you know it's a rose. Yeah, and you- If you're blindfolded and you don't know it's a rose, it won't smell as sweet. Right, it's like the Pepsi challenge. Really? Right, when you would get blindfolded, it was the blind taste test that Pepsi said made it. When Coke was number one, and Pepsi did this blind taste test that Pepsi came out on top and said, look, that's the, where the best? You just want it because it's called Coke. Right. So you like it better when it's called the thing you like already. And is that wrong? That may not necessarily be wrong. I don't think so. And I think there was also Malcolm Gladwell who wrote a thing about Pepsi being sweeter, so people like it better when you take the first sip, whereas Coke is slightly less sweet, so you can drink a whole can of it easier, and so it wins those taste tests. I don't know the science there. I mean, to me, you go to Denny's and you see the omelet, the vegetarian omelet, they have a picture of it, and you point to that picture, and they bring you something, and it doesn't look like what's in the picture, but you kind of are imagining what's in the picture while you're eating the junk, and it does make it tastier. I would assume I do know a couple of very rich men who are able to hire porn stars to satisfy them. Sure. And I've asked them about this, and they won't, I assume the video is what wags the actual sex with these porn stars, because to me, the video is like the word. It's the thing that defines what this sex is all about. And it's the idea of this person as a recognizable figure, and they are, we are together now. It's like a human version of conspicuous consumption, it feels like. The difference between a Rolex and a fake Rolex, which I'm sorry to be, if that's, I think, dehumanizing to say, but I think that's the principle at work, right? Yes. In fact, in high school, I would assume you care who you sleep with. Let's just say, I don't know who slept with whom, but I'm just saying, it's the status of. It's a status thing, right? Right. To have, to sleep with a porn star puts you in the conversation of porn star sex, which is a conversation that, I don't know, otherwise you would just pay someone to tell someone that is true about you. Right. Did you ever shop for something and like something that was less expensive than the more expensive thing, but be confused, like, well, I like this, but why is this more expensive? Like, shouldn't I be getting this if it's more expensive? Yeah, all the time. I just was, I just bought a watch online and, excuse me, there were like some that were, there was a style that I liked that only came in either smart watches, which I did not want, or like very expensive watches. And I was like, no, I'm not going to spend this much. But then once that was in my mind, I was like, oh, are this, is this one that's $30? Like, not a good thing to have. And I was like, probably it's fine. And the difference between, like, I don't need a $500 watch in my life. That's just more than I need. But it, it. You don't know that if you get a $500 watch, you live longer. Is that true? Yeah. Oh, okay. Well, different time. I'm going to cancel the Amazon order. He's from a different time. He has a much more expensive watch. So that I think it would like put in my head like, oh, is this not okay to get? And I ended up like paying, it ended up, I considered buying watches that were much more expensive. I would, once I saw that there was a $500 watch, I looked at the $275 watch being like, well, that's not so bad. And I didn't get it. But it like, definitely there was that idea of like, oh, well, that's what the spectrum is. I find the $10 questions on Jeopardy are much more satisfying than the $200 questions on Jeopardy. I'm just making a really bad joke. Why would you wear a watch? I'm buying a watch because I found myself out to lunch with someone and looking at my phone periodically in a way that I, or I mined looking at a watch, but I was looking at my phone periodically in a way that felt disrespectful. That's more disrespectful than looking at a watch because like, people get that you have to, like, if I go, hey, I have to leave around three and I'm looking to make sure that it's around three, people get that. But if you're looking at your phone, I think people get that too, but it's definitely like, oh, he's not looking at his time. Are people aware that when you check your phone in a conversation that you are saying to the other person, I'm losing interest in you? I think people, I think people feel that way and it's often true, but I don't think it's always true. But that's, so that's why I wanted to get a watch. So I wouldn't send that message by accident. If I was like, oh, this is a really great conversation. How much time has gone by that I don't look at my phone and send the message of like, oh, I'm gonna see if anyone texted me. I'm just like, oh, cool. Okay, do I have to go to a show now? The Waldorf school. What, the Waldorf, it's like a German school, schooling for kids that was invented 100 years ago, right? I think, and then it's like a method of education and it's all over the place now, right? Yeah, yeah. I was just reading that in Silicon Valley, all the tycoons are sending their precious children to these Waldorf schools where their precious children are being told to put away their tablets and their phones and look at one another and the high tech Silicon Valley guys are going, what? And the Waldorf teachers are having to explain, no, no, what you make is dehumanizing. It's actually bad for kids. Yeah, especially for very small kids. It's like scientifically bad for them, right? Until a certain age it's just like, oh, don't. I think there's something too, like I'm not anti-technology. I'm like very, I don't find, I was just out, I was on vacation with my girlfriend and her family and I found it a very anxious experience to have limited access to my phone. I didn't find unplugging to be like a delightful freeing experience. However, I do try to minimize like my relationship with technologies affect on my relationship with people. Like I don't, I try not to prioritize technology over people. Right. Especially when you're present with them. Right, absolutely. They've also, in this article they read, they kind of demystified the myth that there's a technology gap in our country. Los Angeles public school system spent like $1.5 billion to put iPads in the schools from what I understand that was a disaster. And they kept saying, well, poor kids, African-Americans don't have access to the same computers as white kids. It now turns out that African-American teenagers have more technology than white teenagers. Oh, fascinating. Yeah, that there's no digital gap in the African-American community. So between the African-Americans and the whites. Indeed with teenagers. Yeah. Huh. So this idea that we have to spend all this money making children computer literate when what we really need to do is just make them literate. Right. Yeah, I think right. Like the iPad access to an iPad is not the difference between a good education and a bad education. Right. You can get a terrible education and have you could be in a room with floor-to-ceiling iPads and not learn anything. Anger in America. What about it? I've been saying on this show since 2012 that women in 2012 all decided to be angry at David Feldman that they all David Feldman is the problem. And but I do. I did say that after the 2012 presidential elections, women got scared and they realized climate change is real. Men don't understand how contraception works. If we don't stop this, there's going to be no planet left. And people say to me, ah, you can't back that up. And that you're just being paranoid. Your marital problems are influencing your observation. But I keep saying women are angrier than they have been in the past. And a new study out NBC and Esquire did a poll. Do you know who the angriest people in America are? Angrier than African Americans? Women. The angriest people. Are the angriest people in America right now? Women are angrier than men in America. And that makes me happy. It makes me less angry. That's just feeling the validation of that? Yeah. And I think and it makes me realize that it's not my fault that all these women are angry at me. No, I would, I was agreeing before you heard the last clause of that sentence. Uh, it is definitely not your fault that women are angry at you. I can't vouch for. Well, don't you think that you tend to channel your rage to what's right in front of you? I'm, let me think if that's what I do. I guess. You're married. Uh, long term relationship. Okay. Living with my girlfriend. Okay. I'm not going to pry into your personal life. Would you say that you've noticed women are angrier and do they have a right to be angrier? I would say over the, um, excuse me, I would say if we're talking about since 2012, I would say women certainly have a right to be angry. I haven't noticed whether they're angrier, but I think there is. I think there's certainly a right to be angry. And a lot of the like, there's a lot of distressing political, uh, you know, with, um, access to medical care specifically. Yeah, Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood specifically. It's like, that's a thing that is even more than in the way of like, well, everyone's feelings are valid, like even more than that. That's like a thing to get like scared and angry about, I think. And it's, I don't blame men or women for feeling that way. But it's, it's something that definitely acutely comes down on women. And, uh, and I would not, I don't, I would not blame people for, blame women for that. Yeah. I'm so glad we can talk about why women should or should not be angry without a woman, without a woman present. Sure. That way we're, you know, objective. But here's why women are angry. And this will really endear me to the female listener out there that I have, who I have. Actually, I do have female listeners. I'm amazed. I don't know why I'm amazed because women tend to listen. They do and they talk. Okay, studies have shown that when a rat is placed in a maze and you put the cheese at the end and the rat is in the maze trying to ferret out the cheese, that's not a good, ferret and rat. Yeah. Yeah. Too close. Too close for the metaphor to. Yeah. Sniff out the cheese. That if you design the maze so that the, that he can get close or she can get close to the cheese but not find it, the rat becomes very agitated and then angry and violent. Yeah. So the closer the rat gets to the cheese, and finds herself unable to get the cheese, the more angry that rat becomes. So I am saying that women are rats and cheese is equality. That's beautiful. Thank you. No. I think they smell the equality. I think there's definitely, on a human level, I think there's something to that as well. They smell the equality, and let me tell you something, ladies. Equality smells like cheese. It does. And it goes bad and it's not as, it's stinks. Closing, closing the pay gap is like an aged parmesan. I understand that. And you want to, and without it you just, you get spaghetti, you get marinara. What kind of dinner are you having? And your cholesterol is going to go up. Yep. But cheese is not good for you. It's choice. It's the choice. The choice for cheese. That's my new book about income and quality in America. You can buy it never. Yeah. What were you saying? I interrupted you. Oh, I was just saying there's something on a human level, I think, to being more frustrated when something seems just out of your grasp than when something seems indomitably far off or like inachievably far off. Just like a certain, accomplishing a goal in your personal goal, career goal, feels, I think probably it takes up more of your mental real estate, I imagine, when it feels close than when it feels really far. And. As a Jew. Yeah. I was raised to not expect too much. From America. Were you raised that way? I don't think that there were limits to what I could achieve that anything is possible. But in the end, you're going to still be on the outside looking in. I did not receive that message. Well, I'm telling you right now. That explains most of my life. I wish somebody would have told me younger. No, but I understand that. And it's like there's there's something I think that's like when you. I think when you don't think something is possible, then it doesn't frustrate you as much even even if you're worse off than you would be if you were like striving for that. Like I will never go. I will never walk on Mars. And it doesn't bother me because I don't think about it. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And but if there were something I but I think if there was something that I felt in my own life or possible and just outside my grasp, it would frustrate me a lot more. Like the idea of even if even if it's a smaller thing or maybe a larger thing. Like if I if I couldn't if I really wanted to to learn a skill or to accomplish like a fitness goal or to I mean, as it's like it's hard to make the exact algorithm because like as a white male person, I have pretty much the full docket of rights in America. But if I was if there was something that was being denied to me that I wanted and felt like was close, oh, all it would take is this is a local legislator or a state legislator or a federal legislator making making a change. And they just won't do it. That's so much more frustrating than like I'll never dunk, you know, because that just seems to me that's like walking on Mars. Right, right. I think Martin Luther King, a couple of other African Americans talked about happiness. Oh, Fareed Zachariah has an interesting article. We talked about it on the previous show about how white middle aged men are the dyingist group in America that our mortality rates are going up while everybody else's rates are going down. And so why are middle aged white men dying? And it's because we drink too much, we eat too much, we smoke too much, and we have a sense of entitlement. And when that sense of entitlement doesn't come to fruition, we gamble and get angry and turn on ourselves and die as well we should. But if you're not expected to do that well in this country, like I'm always envious of the children of immigrants because they're expected to do well, but not too well, right? Yeah, I know what you're saying. I think it's hard, you're starting off with being kind of an outsider to the culture and within, but I don't know. I think there's that like often heard immigrant tale of like the immigrant tale, like I'm from the 1800s. They do have tales. Well, they have tales. Well, you're thinking of Fifel goes west and write the tale. He was specifically a mouse. Feeble Moskowitz. Yes. Moskowitz. Yes. But like I think you hear both ways of the like high pressure parents of the first generation Americans. Right. So I think there's like, I don't know. It's always... This is a question I always ask Jews. So complicated. I always ask Jews this question. Please. Third generation Jew or second generation Jew. How many of your grandparents? My grandparents were born in America. All four of your grandparents were born in America. Yeah. All four of my grandparents were not born in America. I'm older than you. There's a big difference between Jews whose grandparents were not born in America. And yeah, I think you do. I think for sure. Yeah. My grandparents were all born in America, I believe. I think you're less neurotic if all four of your grandparents were born in America. Because you're kind of raised to realize it's going to be okay. You're in America now. I had four grandparents who were beaten dogs. Yeah. I mean, I think my grandparents, I knew one great grandmother, but I didn't have those like tales, the like disheartening dehumanizing tales of like what made them leave. They all had PTSD. Every single one of my four grandparents had post-traumatic stress syndrome, either from the Holocaust or the pogroms or being married to one another. One of three equivalently difficult statuses. And you know, the twitches and anxiety and depression that was external, you know, wasn't caused by a chemical imbalance. It was you got to leave your shtetl because they're coming to rape you. You know, and you're not entitled to your feelings. That's the, you know, they raise your, if you're the child of an immigrant, I'm not just talking about, I'm just talking about the Jewish experience, but I guarantee you it's the same thing with the Guatemalans and the Mexicans and maybe not the Canadians, but that if your mother or father came to this country, you're not allowed to own your feelings. You're not allowed to feel anything because you don't know how bad we had it. Right. As a descendant of Fiddler on the Roof Jews. Yes. By the way, we were working Caroline's Christmas Day. Did you see the people lining up to go see Fiddler on the Roof? I did not see those. Oh, I took their pictures. That's very funny. I should post it though. To me, I wanted to get a bullhorn because it was Christmas Day and they're lining up to see Fiddler on the Roof. And I just, we get it. You're a defiant Jew. You're very Jewish. Could you involve yourself in a more Jewish pursuit today? Were you Bart Mitzvah? I was. How important is your godless faith? I'm very secular. Very secular. But I like, I like, do you like being Jewish? I do. Yeah, I do. I like it. I think that there's growing up. American Judaism, I think, has a lot less baggage attached to it than other, than like my friends who were like raised Catholic. I feel like I have a lot less religious qualms because I feel like take or leave as a buffet and nobody's ever, nobody in my family has ever made me feel, especially my parents have never made me feel like bad about that. It's not like a culture. I don't have friends that are like, you should be more like your poor mother. So I think it's a very, it's an easy religious identity to like take the parts that I like and leave off the parts that I like less. Like to me, a really lovely idea is the idea of, and I do it most years. I think I lapsed last year. But the idea of on and around Yom Kippur, between Rosh Hashan and Yom Kippur, making, mending fences with people that you might have wronged in the previous year. And I think that's like a really, it's a, it's a practical thing to do. And it's like a lovely reminder of, of like, hey, this is a good, it's a good housekeeping measure for your own life to do at that time. But like what's, you know, there are certain things that are less important to me religiously and, and I, and I think that it's easy to, um, I, I haven't had a hard time like he's saying I'm a Jewish person while still, well, without, um, you know, going to shul twice a week or Can I ask you about Israel? I, man, that's tough. It's, it's just so it's a, uh, my best friend, my best friend for my whole life. What's tough about Israel? Just the, what isn't tough about Israel? Because I feel like it's such a, a fraught climate and there's like not only Israel itself and the conflict, the intra national and depend, you know, obviously depending on the status linguistically that you grant, uh, Palestinian people as a nation. Um, but it's, but like globally it's so fraught with it, with it as a part of the larger fabric. And then there's the, the Jewish part of like, I think I have less heart attachment to Israel than my parents and grandparents certainly as, as like a a Jew who has grown up in America as, um, my parents and grandparents also did. So I think, I think there's less of that like gut, Holocaust anxiety. Driving it. And my best friend from childhood lives in Tel Aviv and has for six years, seven years. And, uh, it's, it's, it's something that I think about a lot but haven't come to any from conclusions on. Yeah. Yeah. It's a bone of contention because my kids don't have the connection to Israel that I have. You want to hear my theory about anti-Semitism? Sure. I would say if you take a hundred people with no ethnicity, no religion of those 100 people, three of them are good and the 97 are horrific, right? I would give you a few more. I think that's a core difference, but I will, I would like to hear more. Okay. For comedic purposes, Sure. I would say three out of, three percent. Three percent. Out of a hundred human beings are people you want to hang out with. Sure. Is that a fair statement? Yeah. Okay. This is why there's anti-Semitism. Jewish people tend to read a lot if they can read, if they, if they don't have dyslexia, but you know, they like to read more than I think most people, right? Is that fair? Is that, there's a lot of reading going on. There's a lot of reading going on. And a lot of talking going on. Sure. A lot of conversation going on, right? So if you were to take a hundred Jews, put them in a room, three of those Jews would be worth being friendly with, right? Sure. As a subset of the hundred people theory, about three out of a hundred people theory. Right. So there are 97 Jews who you should stay away from. But three Jews that you would want to be friendly with. Right. Three Jews you'd watch a basketball game with. Yeah. But of those 97 Jews who you should be staying away from, they're probably good conversationalists. They're probably well-read. They probably like to share their love of food and music and knowledge. And they can seduce you into actually believing that they're not a pain in the ass. And then when you find out that they're a pain in the ass, like the other 97 people out of a hundred who aren't Jewish, you go, these effing Jews, they got me. I've been hoodwing to the friendship again. I've been swindled into a clinch and ship with another guy. Does that make any sense? I hear what you're saying. I don't know if it tracks all the way through. OK, I'm going to keep this in. This is anecdotal evidence of traveling around the country. I tend to, because I'm Jewish, I tend to meet Jewish people at comedy clubs. They walk up to me. Yes. And they make a pretty nice first impression if you're into opinionated, argumentative, New York Times reading professionals. Sure. Is that a fair? Yeah. But only 3% of them are worthy of friendship. But it takes a while to find out that they're not part of that 3%. And that's where the anti-Semitism comes from. You're saying other non-Jews are easier to understand on face value. You go, oh, that guy's pretty cool. Or like, that guy's a jerk, and he's going to stay a jerk. Yes. OK. So what I'm telling Jews are, what I'm telling the Jews is, if you're not part of the 3%, just tell me upfront. Don't quote something from the New York Times. If you're an asshole, be an asshole. Don't give me your first date self. All right. Can you stick around for some premium content? Sorry. Good. Josh Gondelman. Oh, I didn't ask you about your book. We'll come back and talk about, you blew it an awkward look at the many ways in which you've already ruined your life. If you want to listen to our premium content, go to davidfelbenshow.com. And for $5 a month, you get access to all our premium content. We won't be selling this. It's just part of the premium content. And it helps keep the lights on here, except on Saturday. Well, then the Shabbat's going to help us keep the lights on. Will you come back? Of course. Let's plug all your gigs. What is your Twitter handle? At Josh Gondelman. Yes. And at Seinfeld today, for the Modern Seinfeld. Find me at, what else, standup stuff? Yeah. My next big standup show is, maybe this will be up by then, is January 11th. A partner in Nancherla and I are doing a show at Union Hall. So it's Monday, January 11th at 8 p.m. Doors at 7.30. And it'll be really fun. We're each doing a long set. So it's not one of those, if you want to see one of us, you'll come and we'll do seven minutes. You will not have gotten what you thought you were getting. So we're each doing a long set. And thank you. And Naomi Paragin is hosting and she's really, really, really happy to. Yeah, absolutely. You're a great standup. And by your book, you blew it, an awkward look at the many ways in which you've already ruined your life. Before we go, very quickly, tell me what that book is about and why everybody should buy it. So the book is about how, even under the best of circumstances, everything is kind of a nightmare and that's okay. We're all just doing our best. And it's funny. It's like the idea is, here's why we get it, that it's terrible. Like getting a massage. Here's why getting a massage is terrible. And here's why your mom being on Facebook is terrible, which is like a little more obvious. And then here's why it's terrible to have a party where friends that don't know each other meet. And it just kind of goes through like, this is why the world is, even when you're under the best of circumstances, still a relentless nightmare. Great. Buy it. You blew it, an awkward look at the many ways in which you've already ruined your life. Go to DavidFellmanShow.com, hit the Amazon banner, do all your shopping on Amazon via my website. Follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, from the show Briss Studios in downtown Manhattan. That'll do it for us.