No, I’m not talking about a toddler who won’t eat his broccoli or a comedy club manager who “knows funny.” I mean real terrorists - the kind who kidnap children and plant bombs at marathons.

Well, that’s what my most recent guest did for a living.

Kyle Vowinkel is a West Point graduate and retired FBI executive who mediated the peaceful surrender of the Boston Marathon bomber, helped to save a 5-year-old boy who was abducted by a crazy man in an underground bunker in Alabama, and participated in over 100 high-risk missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

One of only five agents ever to serve on both the Bureau’s Hostage Rescue Team and Crisis Negotiation Unit, Kyle received the FBI Director’s Medal of Excellence, FBI Director’s Award for Outstanding Counterintelligence Investigation, and the Attorney General’s Award for Exceptional Heroism, the Department of Justice’s highest award for valor.

In other words, though he would never put it this way and he doesn’t come across with this energy at all, Kyle is a law enforcement badass who served his country in ways you and I will never fully appreciate.

His new book, Shaping Chaos, is the story of his incredible career, the grueling training he endured to prepare for it, and the impact that service had on his family.

It also reminds us of the sacred duty of law enforcement and the critical importance of the Department of Justice’s political independence.

Get Kyle’s book here.

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We cover congestion pricing, sanctuary cities, the importance of supporting Israel, the rise of anti-Semitism in New York, the best gluten-free bagel in the city, and why she believes a Republican can finally win in Manhattan.

Follow Caroline on her website and Instagram.

Follow Me on Instagram and X (Twitter).

Timestamps:

• 00:00:00 Trailer

• 00:01:01 Intro

• 00:02:17 Mapping New York’s 12th District

• 00:04:29 How the DSA hijacked the Democratic Party

• 00:07:02 Congestion pricing, or how to tax the problem you created

• 00:11:18 A second Cold War in our own backyard

• 00:16:39 Running as a Republican in an 80% Democratic district

• 00:19:04 No federal income tax up to $150,000

• 00:21:37 Why supporting Israel matters to America

• 00:24:19 Is Zohran Mamdani an anti-Semite

• 00:28:43 Sanctuary cities and the Bronx ICE shooting

• 00:32:22 The best gluten free bagel in Manhattan

• 00:34:19 The biggest political realignment since FDR

• 00:37:20 Outro

Let me ask you a question: Can you allow your investments to ride without losing sleep or checking your portfolio every eleven minutes?

I have trouble with this. Even though I feel really good about what I own, I still peek at my balances a couple of times a day—just to make sure the world isn’t exploding.

In The Awesome Portfolio, Jared explains why owning one fund with 500 different stocks doesn’t necessarily make you diversified or safe from violent market fluctuations. He argues that a portfolio balanced across five different asset classes—equities, bonds, commodities (like gold), real estate, and cash—will produce very good returns and drastically reduce volatility.

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While nothing I say in this discussion should be considered professional financial advice, I think his idea is interesting and worth your consideration.

We also talk about trouble in the bond market, political risk, financial advisor incentives, and investor psychology, including how our emotions can wreck even the smartest investment plan.

What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Hey look - I had a piece in ‘The Hill’ today:

Nikole Hannah Jones Just Ran Head-first Into the Great Dumbing Down

ATLANTA FOLKS - come see me at the new Whiplash Comedy Club in Ponce City Market on 10/14.

Thank you , , and many others for tuning into my live video with Jared!

What we saw from the outside: a formidable 6’6”, 220 lb athlete who had just signed a 10-year, $23 million contract. (about $85 million in today’s money)

What was happening on the inside: self-doubt, anxiety, and the stress of a boss intentionally sabotaging him in the press and among his peers.

In 1980, Dave Winfield signed the biggest contract in baseball history with the New York Yankees, who had won two of the previous four World Series. From the minute he arrived in the Bronx, Dave became an object of derision to George Steinbrenner, the Yankees’ mercurial owner.

For no apparent reason, Steinbrenner insulted him in public, smeared him in private, and reneged on multiple contract obligations. He seemed to make the star player’s life miserable just because he could.

It seems counter-intuitive that a rich and famous athlete at the height of his physical and commercial prowess—someone who appeared to have everything—would describe those years as “the worst period of my life.”

And yet, that’s exactly the story Dave tells in his new memoir Touching All the Bases: A Story of Power, Purpose, and Surviving the Bronx and what he told me on this week’s episode of Reasonably Happy.

The 12-time All-Star, seven-time Gold Glove winner, and World Series champion lays out his side of the decade-long feud with Steinbrenner, and how he kept making All-Star teams despite the toxic work environment. We cover his getting drafted by three professional sports leagues, Hank Aaron’s warning about playing in Atlanta, signing the first 10-year contract in sports, finally getting his World Series ring in 1992, and, of course, the Canadian seagull that got him arrested.

Dave also shares what it was like to finally make peace with Steinbrenner before The Boss’s death in 2010.

Follow Dave:
Instagram: @davewinfieldhof
X: @DaveWinfieldHOF


Follow Me:
Instagram: @Paul-Ollinger
X: @Paul-Ollinger

Timestamps
00:00:00 Trailer
00:00:50 Intro
00:01:56 Pro baseball in 1973, when nobody played to get rich
00:04:40 His first bank went bankrupt, his second bank burned down
00:06:25 Growing up in Saint Paul
00:07:40 Drafted by the NFL without playing a down of college football
00:11:37 The yellow legal pad and studying the veterans
00:14:51 50 years of the Winfield Foundation
00:17:31 Free agency and the first 10-year contract in sports
00:20:05 Dinner with Ted Turner and Hank Aaron’s warning
00:23:13 Steinbrenner throws his lunch across the boardroom
00:26:22 “If you don’t like it, sue me”
00:29:58 How he kept performing through a toxic workplace
00:31:46 “The worst 15 years of my life”
00:33:19 Honorary doctorate in Syracuse, first pitch in the Bronx
00:35:09 The seagull incident in Toronto
00:37:39 Winning the 1992 World Series with the Blue Jays
00:39:25 Lightning round: toughest pitcher, best teammate, worst fans
00:42:53 Making peace with George Steinbrenner
00:46:22 Outro

Vitaliy Katsenelson grew up in the Soviet Union - in Murmansk, the largest city north of the Arctic Circle. Today, he is the CEO & Chief Investment Officer of IMA (Investment Management Associates).

An award-winning writer, Vitaliy has authored two books on investing and the widely acclaimed Soul in the Game: The Art of a Meaningful Life, which has been translated into multiple languages. Forbes has called him “The New Benjamin Graham,” and his writing has appeared in the Financial Times, Barron’s, and The Wall Street Journal. His newsletter reaches a global audience of over 100k subscribers.

In this Substack live-streamed conversation from last week, Vitaliy and I discuss:

• Daily life up under a communist government

• The rise in anti-Semitism from both the Right and the Left

• Why he is so disturbed by President Trump’s profiting off of market-moving social media posts

Vitaliy lives in Denver with his wife and three children. In his free time, he enjoys reading, listening to classical music, playing chess, and writing about the intersections of investing and life.

Subscribe to Vitaliy’s Substack here or his newsletter here.

Subscribe to Paul’s Substack here.

Phil Gramm is an economist who served 24 years in Congress, including three terms as a United States senator from Texas and as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. He later spent years in investment banking and now serves as a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He’s also the co-author of the book The Triumph of Economic Freedom: Debunking the Seven Great Myths of American Capitalism, which seems particularly well-timed for our current moment.

I was thrilled to talk to Senator Gramm about his career, the misunderstood causes of the Great Depression and the 2008 Financial Crisis, and how alleged rates of inequality and poverty plummet when you factor in taxes on the affluent and the trillions in entitlements received by low-income households.

Senator Gramm entered Congress in 1979 during the Carter administration and served in the Senate through 2002, under President George W. Bush. Since he was a primary co-author of the 1985 Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Balanced Budget Act, I was most interested to hear his take on the federal government’s $40 trillion in debt. Spoiler alert: it won’t end well!

I hope you enjoy this chat — I sure did.

In that time, I’ve interviewed some pretty incredible people, from a superstar like LL COOL J to Peter Singer, the world’s most influential living philosopher, to dozens of amazing authors, academics, and winners of the Nobel Prize, Heisman Trophy, PGA Championship, and Olympic gold medals.

Upcoming episodes include conversations with former Texas Senator Phil Gramm and MLB Hall of Famer Dave Winfield.

Thank you for your support, interest, and for sharing this with all your friends and family!

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This week, I’m talking to , the guy behind the mega-popular Substack Young Money and author of a great new book called Young Money: A Field Guide to Wealth and Purpose in Your Twenties.

After graduating from college and landing a finance job at UPS, Jack turned $6,000 in retirement funds into $400,000 by trading SPACs in his spare time. Then, by continuing to trade SPACS, he turned that $400k into $200k! This experience was expensive but vital.

Jack started publishing his thoughts about careers and finances on Young Money, and has built a following of over 60,000 “anxious but ambitious” readers. Morgan Housel, author of The Psychology of Money, called him “one of the best money writers around.”

Perhaps that’s why he got a call from Penguin Random House and an eventual book deal. Like Jack himself, it’s a book of unbridled enthusiasm and optimism. It’s a trip to read about money through the eyes of a 29-year-old who’s had just enough interesting life experience but has lost zero of his youthful energy.

If you have a young adult in your life who has found her way or one who is trying to figure himself out, Young Money might be the perfect read for them. In the meantime, check out my conversation with Jack, aka, the pride of Tifton, GA.

We talk about working at UPS, billboards along I-75 (“Repent or die!”), the Allman Brothers Band, playing Call of Duty in his pajamas during COVID, Wall Street Bets, and the Wall Street Journal’s .

Stay gold!

Follow Paul on Instagram here and Twitter here.

Get Jack’s book here.

teaches economics at the University of Southern California, and is the creator and host of Econ Nerds, a project devoted to finding the economics hiding in everyday life. It’s like Freakonomics for the YouTube and Substack age.

Matt has the rare ability to take economic ideas that normally require a textbook, a slide rule, and three hits of Adderall to get your head around and turns them into entertaining stories about things like Ozempic, the lottery, OnlyFans, gentrification, and why it took humanity so damn long to put wheels on suitcases.

In other words, he can help you learn about economics without making you feel like you’re studying economics!

More importantly, Matt uses story-telling techniques to shed light on important issues where the data and the prevailing public rhetoric diverge. Examples include the true nature of inequality, what’s really happening with climate change, and the actual number of alleged police violence incidents. (HINT: it’s much lower than you might think.)

He’s using his great mind, a sense of humor and the power of economics to help spread understanding.

Follow Paul on Instagram here and Twitter here.

SUBSCRIBE TO ECON NERDS:

The Econ Nerds

The home for all Econ Nerds content.

By Matt Hill

“People do not decide their futures: they decide their habits and their habits decide their future.”

– F.M. Alexander

If you want to improve, be kind to yourself. That’s the message from this week’s guest, Dr. Beth Cabrera, a positive psychologist, professor, and author of the new book Being Well: A Positive Path to a Healthier, Happier You. Beth is also an old college friend who's now the first lady of Georgia Tech.

In her new book, Beth argues that willpower and guilt are the wrong tools for lasting change (sorry, Catholic and Jewish moms). Because our brains are wired to survive, not thrive, and default to scanning for threats instead of good things, feeling good is actually the more effective fuel for building habits that stick.

We cover the chicken-and-egg question of whether happiness causes success or success causes happiness, why optimistic salespeople at MetLife outsold others by 88%, how much of optimism is genetic versus learned, the brain's negativity bias and why social rejection registers like a broken arm. (So, please don’t reject me. Please!)

Beth and I talk gratitude, hedonic adaptation, the basics of diet, sleep, exercise, and meditation, what it's actually like being the first lady of a major American university. And how the way to cheat death is to have a Purpose (capitalized intentionally).

Get Beth’s book here. See her website here.

Follow Me (Paul Ollinger) on Instagram here or on X (fka, Twitter) here.

We got pinged because our home is owned by our trusts, which are not New York entities. The good news is that, since we are legit full-time residents, we will get out of this. Still, it’s pretty scary to get this kind of unexpected invoice.

Suffice to say, it’s a wild time in New York city real estate. In addition to this new second—or third or fourth—home tax, there are a ton of policy changes in the works, including but not limited to:

• The mayor and the Rent Guidelines Board just implemented a two-to-three year rent freeze for all the city’s rent stabilized units, comprising 41% of the supply of rental housing in the city.

• Pending in the City Council is the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (COPA) that, when it passes, will impose major restrictions on a multi-family unit owners’ freedom to sell their building.

• Potential “Mansion” Tax reform could lower the threshold from $1 million to $500,000 transactions, increase rates by 40%, and switch the liability from the buyer to the seller.

In short, there’s a massive amount of uncertainty about the future, but all trends point to an increasingly hostile and expensive environment for property owners.

To try to make sense of how it works, I interviewed this week Paula Pant, founder and host of the Afford Anything podcast, a former newspaper reporter, and Knight-Bagehot Fellow at Columbia University.

Paula is a NYC-based landlord who has developed an expertise on the city’s rent stabilization system, where it came from, and how it works.

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Most people assume that rent stabilization exists to help poor people, but that’s not the priority. It operates more like a lottery system where random, lucky “winners” lock in below-market prices regardless of how much money they make. In fact, a recent Wall Street Journal analysis indicated that more than 86,000 rent stabilized households earn over $200,000 a year!

The system and its adjacent policies protect bad tenants, disincentivize capital investment and construction, and have led to 57,000 vacant apartments because it’s less expensive to leave them empty than to participate in the city’s rigged game.

The whole thing is wacky and totally non-obvious. I learned a ton talking to Paula and I know you will too. Check it out.

Follow Paula on Instagram here, or X (aka, Twitter) here. Get your free download: 7 Expensive Rental Property Mistakes to Avoid

Follow Me (Paul) on Instagram here, or X (aka, Twitter) here.

Get tickets to see me live in Sarasota 8/13-16 here.

Timestamps

00:00:00 Trailer
00:00:59 Intro
00:03:03 Hyper frugal in her twenties, for all the wrong reasons
00:05:31 A $27,000 down payment on an Atlanta triplex
00:08:21 Never be a landlord in New York City
00:08:33 The price to rent ratio, and how to run it on any apartment
00:14:10 Nobody has a right to 12% returns, and what a 9.9% cap would actually do
00:16:24 Rent control versus rent stabilization: 16,000 units against a million
00:20:16 If it were designed to help poor people, there would be means testing
00:23:36 True working class people are subsidizing the rich
00:24:23 How the units actually get handed out, and the friend earning over $300,000
00:30:32 The Rent Guidelines Board, the 7 to 1 freeze, and the resignation in protest
00:37:07 Check credit or verify income, but not both
00:41:21 The 2019 law and the $100,000 turnover no bank will finance
00:49:25 57,000 vacant units and the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act
00:54:22 Austin as the model, and where Paula puts her own capital
00:57:13 Analyst, not advocate. Data over dogma
00:58:36 Outro

• Why it's easier to buy heroin than hire a hitman,

• Iran's legal kidney market versus America's black market,

• Winners and losers of rent control in New York,

• Why I can’t get a horse meat hamburger in California, and

• What a real accounting of scarcity and trade-offs actually looks like.

  Want more great podcast episodes about prostitution and horse meat? Subscribe now ↓↓↓

Get tickets to see Paul in Sarasota, Florida here.

Follow Paul on Instagram here and on X (i.e. Twitter) here.

Rate and Review Reasonably Happy here.

Timestamps:

• 00:00:00 Trailer

• 00:01:07 Intro

• 00:03:48 What market design actually means

• 00:06:57 Markets are better at producing efficiency than equality

• 00:10:08 What makes a transaction “repugnant”

• 00:11:45 Same-sex marriage as the textbook repugnant transaction

• 00:15:45 Why it’s easy to buy drugs but nearly impossible to hire a hitman

• 00:17:32 Iran’s legal kidney market and America’s black-market problem

• 00:22:10 The case against price-gouging bans, from Sydney to snow shovels

• 00:27:07 The real winners and losers of rent control

• 00:28:12 California’s ban on horsemeat, and the loophole New York doesn’t have

• 00:35:59 How a PhD in operations research became a career in game theory

• 00:37:02 The 3 a.m. phone call that announced his Nobel Prize

• 00:40:40 The kidney transplant shortage and what it will take to fix it

• 00:41:51 Outro

In his new book, Suicidal Empathy: Dying to Be Kind—a New York Times #1 bestseller—Gad argues that empathy, while one of humanity’s greatest virtues, can become destructive when it’s untethered from reason and directed in ways that undermine the very people and institutions it’s meant to protect.

Whether he’s discussing evolutionary psychology, free speech, or consumer behavior, Gad has a talent for blending rigorous research with sharp wit, and for challenging conventional wisdom.

Those challenges have made him a controversial figure. Not coincidentally, the long-time professor of marketing at Montreal’s Concordia University is now a scholar at the Declaration of Independence Center for the Study of American Freedom at the University of Mississippi. (Hotty Toddy!)

Today we’ll talk about the evolutionary roots of human behavior, the cultural forces re-shaping the modern West, and what it takes to think independently in an age of ideological conformity.

Follow Gad on X here.

Get tickets to Paul’s upcoming shows in San Francisco, Southhampton, and Sarasota here.

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Also Me: You mean the people who started Johnson & Johnson, makers of BAND-AID, hip replacements, and a thousand prescription drugs?

Me: No.

Also Me: Oh, you must mean the family behind SC Johnson, the Wisconsin-based consumer products like Ziploc and Windex?

Me: No.

Also Me: You mean like Howard Johnsons?

Me: God no, you big dummy. What are you, stuck in 1966?

Also Me: Sorry, I’m not smart. Who are you talking about and why are there so many rich families named ‘Johnson’?

Me: Well, ‘Johnson’ is one of America’s most common surnames, so it would follow that there’s a few that have crushed it. The specific family I’m referring to are the founders of financial services firm, Fidelity.

Also Me: Fidelity - they’re kind of a big deal, right? And why are you asking?

Me: I’m asking because my podcast guest this week is Justin Baer, award-winning journalist at the Wall Street Journal and author of the new book House of Fidelity: The Rise of the Johnson Dynasty and the Company that Changed American Investing. It’s going to blow you away how big they are.

Also Me: Okay, how big are they?

Me: Fidelity is one of the largest private companies in America and they administer over $18 trillion in assets—that’s greater than the GDPs of Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and France combined. (Or, it’s18 Elon Musks.) Last year, they earned almost $13 billion in profit, half of which goes to the family.

Also Me: You like italics a lot.

Me: I do. Anyway, in this conversation, Justin and I discuss:

• How this financial family dynasty was built

• Succession planning for a complex and massive family business

• The rise of Abigail “Abby” Johnson, Fidelity’s Chairman CEO and founder’s granddaughter, with estimated net worth of $35 billion (check out her LinkedIn profile below).

Also Me: Sounds great. I’m going to listen and check out Justin’s book here.

See Paul (aka, Me) Tell Jokes Live Near You!

• Los Angeles: The Venice West, 7/21

• New York: QED Astoria, 7/31

• San Francisco: Cobbs Comedy Club, 7/23

• Southampton, NY: Sticks and Stones Comedy Club, 8/1

In this honest, fun, and sometimes stark conversation, Francis and I discuss:

• Why teaching is a terrible job.

• How the United Kingdom is “fucked”

• The side benefits of making TRIGGERnometry

• His love for Buc-ees* (which are closer to 50,000 square feet than the 8,000 I mentioned)

• Why the Stone Roses won’t help incoming PM, Andy Burnham

Get his book, and watch the Francis Foster Show on YouTube.

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Some of my favorite clips

What’s going on in the U.K.? (00:10:23)

Francis: “We are totally and utterly fucked.”

Why traditional media should be scared (00:24:12)

Francis: I think the mainstream media realizes that the game is up. Their viewing numbers are going down. Their engagement is going down. Their advertising revenue is going down. Their relevance is going down. They can no longer shape the narrative. They can’t do it any more. They have not only a business model that is obsolete, but they have been exposed time and time again for lying to the audience. And you can’t do that. Because your audience will go ‘I don’t trust you, and if I don’t trust you, why am I going to get the news from you.’ And they leave.

How teaching and comedy are similar (00:05:28)

Francis: Actually, teaching and comedy are very similar

See Paul Live in July:

• Philadelphia: Next In Line Comedy, 7/3

• Los Angeles: The Venice West, 7/21

• New York: QED Astoria, 7/31

• San Francisco: Cobbs Comedy Club, 7/23

• Southampton, NY: Sticks and Stones Comedy Club, 8/1

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He is best known as the creator and host of CNN’s United Shades of America on which he spent seven seasons traveling the country exploring communities, subcultures, and perspectives that often go overlooked. The show demonstrated his unique skill of helping people conduct difficult conversations without losing their sense of humor.

Not that he’s afraid to mix things up. Kamau’s 2022 HBO docu-series, We Need to Talk About Cosby dove deep into numerous allegations of sexual assault against legendary comedian and television icon, Bill Cosby, a comedian whose work Kamau deeply admired.

Kamau has a new podcast called Who’s With Me? on which he has already talked to Ted Danson, Delroy Lindo, Daveed Diggs, and Kristen Kish.

He spoke to me from his home in Oakland, CA where he lives with his wife and their three daughters. In this occasionally-serious, but most enjoyable conversation, we discuss:

• The difference between craft and character

• His love of podcasting

• Comedy nerd-ship

• The best part about Father’s Day

• And—most importantly—

See clips and leave comments below. In the mean time, subscribe to Kamau’s ‘Who’s With Me?’ Substack here and to Paul’s ‘Reasonably Happy’ Substack here.

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Some of my favorite clips

On podcasting (00:02:31)

Paul: Let’s talk about that podcast. I listened to Ted Danson and Delroy Lindo—great conversations with two very interesting guys. What do you enjoy most about podcasting?

Kamau: It’s a way to have conversations with people I want to have that I probably wouldn’t have if I didn’t have a work-related reason to reach out.

Paul: Would you do it for free?

Kamau: I would. In fact, I’m currently losing money on it, so the answer is clearly yes. The podcast gives you a dedicated reason to have those conversations, and it makes it less weird that I’m asking very focused questions. Because if I went out to dinner with you and said, “Tell me about that time you did blackface, Ted Danson,” that’s going to be a pretty strange way to start a conversation.

On being an “only” child (00:07:23)

Kamau: Only children don’t just want to be alone sometimes—they need to be alone. It’s a requirement. It’s no different from needing to eat or sleep. Only children need to be left the hell alone once in a while, and it’s not weird; it’s simply how we grew up. If we don’t get that time to ourselves, we get depleted.

I think this ties into the idea of a “social battery.” Everyone has a different-sized social battery, meaning a different capacity for being around other people. Some people actually get energized by social interaction—their battery charges up when they’re with others. Only children, on the other hand, tend to get drained pretty quickly by being around too many people for too long. Our social battery runs down.

Mine is definitely like that, although I’ve trained myself to function with a low social battery because I’m in show business. My middle child is the same way, and it’s helpful to give kids language for it. Sometimes she’ll be out and say, “My social battery is low.” What she means is, “I’ve been around a lot of people today. I need to relax. I need to be home.”

On Bill Cosby (00:16:56)

Paul: When you called out Cosby—on We Need to Talk About Cosby…

Kamau: Man—I didn’t expect this conversation to go from Scooby-Doo to Bill Cosby, but here we are.

Paul: Did you ever feel like the guy at the end of a Scooby-Doo episode exposing the crook who’d been hiding in plain sight? Like, “It’s Dr. Huxtable!”

Kamau: I definitely felt that way to some extent. So much of the Cosby story was known behind closed doors. People talked about it privately, but it hadn’t really been discussed publicly. When he went to jail, I thought, “Okay, now we can finally talk about this openly.” I had no idea he would get out of jail in the middle of our production. At that point, I thought, “Huh, I may never be able to leave my house again,” because I knew this wasn’t going to be popular with a lot of people.

There was definitely a period afterward where I took a lot of heat. It’s probably the best work I’ve ever done, but it also caused me the most personal stress. Every time I started feeling overwhelmed by that, though, I thought about the women who had spoken out. If they could come forward and endure what they endured, I could certainly take a few hits.

Thank you , , , , , and many others for tuning into the live video w/Kamau!

In this upbeat and friendly conversation, Bruce and I discuss:

• What came first, ritual or religion?

• Why SEC football tailgating fits the definition of ritual

• How Balinese tooth-filing ritual has much in common with modern Western dental customs

• Why so many New Yorkers are jumping on the Knicks bandwagon (including someone’s wife who shall remain nameless)

See clips and leave comments below. In the mean time, subscribe to Bruce’s ‘The Nonlinear Life’ Substack here and to Paul’s ‘Reasonably Happy’ Substack here.

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Some of my favorite clips

Paul asks Bruce about the sacred nature of college football tailgating (00:12:33)

“A ritual is a shared, unnecessary act, that makes us feel at home.”

Bruce on why New York has gone crazy for the Knicks (00:17:09)

“Ritual is essential and it can save us. Because, whatever the problem is—if it’s loneliness, ritual is the answer. If it’s polarization, ritual is the answer. If it’s de-civilization, ritual is the answer.”

The performative nature of life—both online and IRL (00:22:01)

“There is going to be a human response to the tech…but also, the internet can be a source of connection.”

LET US KNOW WHAT YOU THINK IN THE COMMENTS BELOW↓↓↓

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Even if you belong to Andy’s army of loyal readers, you might not know that he is also the co-creator of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and wrote on classic 80’s TV shows, The Facts of Life and Square Pegs, which helped to launch Sarah Jessica Parker’s career.

In this fast-paced conversation, Andy and I discuss:

• His career in and out of Hollywood

• How to write succinctly

• His grammatical pet peeve(s)

• Whether AI will ever be able to write comedy

• The best advice he got from Susie Essman (aka, the secret to a happy life)

Subscribe to The Borowitz Report here ↓↓↓↓

The Borowitz Report

Home of Truth

By Andy Borowitz

Some of my favorite quotes

Will Smith and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (00:05:12)

Andy: I realized pretty soon after Fresh Prince went on the air that it was really lightning in a bottle. It was a very fluky success. It was this kid, Will Smith, who had never acted before. Although now it’s very much in the mainstream of TV and it’s like the most wholesome, all-American show in the world, at the time it was really going against the grain because the networks and the media—the corporate media in general—were terrified by hip-hop. Hip-hop was, to them, gangster rap. It was, I would say, the inherent racism of corporate media really showing its true colors—no pun intended. They were very terrified by what they knew that Will Smith had. At NBC, they knew that he had a lot of charisma, but they were terrified by what he might have. So they were always trying to get me to take the edges off—not that I could ever find any discernible edges in Will Smith.

Chat GPT Knock-knock joke (00:16:47):

Paul: I went to ChatGPT and said, write a knock knock joke about Andy Borowitz. And here’s what ChatGPT came back with. Knock knock.

Andy: Who’s there?

Paul: Andy.

Andy: Andy who?

Paul: Andy Borowitz,I just published a story saying 83% of Americans think this joke is funnier than the Constitution.

Andy: That is absolutely horrible.

Andy on Life Choices (00:29:13):

Andy: I say this to my kids—I have three kids and this is maybe my only advice—I say “I do not have a big strong opinion about the choices you make other than I hope that when you make choices they will contribute to your being happy and healthy.” And when you make a choice if it’s going to make you happy for the moment like oh that drug looks kind of fun but it’s going to make you unhealthy, you should probably cross that off your list and just try to think about the choices you make are you going to be happy and healthy as a result of this choice. And even at my age I sort of feel like that’s kind of a good exercise.

See Paul tell jokes near you:

• June 19 and 20 - The Comedy Catch, Chattanooga

• June 25 - ❤️ Happy Couples Show, West Side Comedy Club, NYC ❤️

• July 21 - The Venice West, Los Angeles

• July 23 - Cobbs Comedy Club, San Francisco

• Aug 1 - Sticks and Stones Comedy Club, Southampton, NY

• Aug 8 - Atlanta Country Club (private show)

• Aug 13-16 - McCurdy’s Comedy Theatre, Sarasota, FL

That is all - have a wonderful day!

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In her new autobiography, Fully Baked: A Messy Memoir, Rosebud shares the story of being the grand-daughter of James Baker, the former Secretary of State and Secretary of the Treasury who also served as White House Chief of Staff for Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

She also relates unfiltered observations on her parents’ divorce, her addiction to drugs and alcohol, her multiple miscarriages, and the death of her younger sister, Graeme.

Her latest Netflix special is called The Mother Lode. She filmed half of it while eight months pregnant and the other half after giving birth. It was named one of the best comedy specials of 2025.

See Rosebud’s upcoming dates and get the book here.

Some of my favorite quotes

On her tenacious grandfather (

Rosebud: My granddad was just a powerful guy -

Paul: He’s still alive right?

Rosebud: Yeah, he is. He will never die. He won’t die. This man has fallen down the stairs twice in the last year. He’s like 96 or 98 and he’s fallen down the stairs and he won’t take the elevator in his home — like honestly believes it could turn him gay.

Paul: Like Luna bars!

Rosebud: Yeah. He’s like, I will take the stairs every god damn day rather than getting in that gay machine. And I’m like they installed it for you cause you fell down the stairs and broke your spine. But he won’t do it. He’s just that kind of guy. And so there’s a stubbornness and a just a refusal to listen to anyone that sort of is in my blood.

On growing up in an affluent home (00:23:34)

Paul: Do you have guilt for being raised in an affluent environment?

Rosebud: No. Not at all. It was awesome. I look at my life growing up and I’m like holy shit, she didn’t have any idea how good she had it. But I don’t have guilt about it because I wouldn’t have known. That was part of being raised like that— you don’t know anything about anything. So you just get to imagine yourself as whoever you want.

See Paul tell jokes near you:

• June 19 and 20 - The Comedy Catch, Chattanooga

• June 25 - Happy Couples Show, West Side Comedy Club, NYC

• July 21 - The Venice West, Los Angeles (on sale soon)

• July 23 - Cobbs Comedy Club, San Francisco

• Aug 1 - Sticks and Stones Comedy Club, Southampton, NY

• Aug 8 - Atlanta Country Club

• Aug 13-16 - McCurdy’s Comedy Theatre, Sarasota, FL

Over the past two decades, A.J. has built a remarkable career by asking questions most of us would never think to ask—and then answering them by turning himself into the experiment.

He’s read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica, lived according to the Bible as literally as possible, pursued bodily perfection, traced his family tree to millions of relatives, thanked every person involved in making his morning cup of coffee, explored the world of puzzles, and most recently spent a year trying to live according to the original meaning of the U.S. Constitution.

See Paul’s comedy shows live in NYC, Chattanooga, LA (on sale soon) or San Francisco.

The result has been a string of New York Times bestsellers, including The Know-It-All, The Year of Living Biblically, Drop Dead Healthy, Thanks a Thousand, The Puzzler, and The Year of Living Constitutionally. Along the way, he’s become one of America’s most entertaining guides to the intersection of happiness, curiosity, gratitude, self-improvement, and human connection.

What I love about A.J.’s work is that beneath all the humor and outrageous experiments is a serious question: How should we live? And instead of lecturing, he goes out and tests ideas on himself—often with hilarious consequences.

Today we talk about:

• The USA’s 250th Birthday

• Geeking out on compound anniversary words like “semiquincentennial”

• Summer blockbuster movies

• What I should keep in mind while I help my kids search for colleges

Some of my favorite quotes

What Darwin taught A.J about romance (09:14):

A.J.: One of my romantic heroes is Charles Darwin who, before he got married, made a pros/cons list of whether he should get married to his wife. And so, that’s some good thinking.

PAUL: Do you ever break that out and discuss it with Julie (A.J.’s wife)?

A.J.: She does not like that…because on Valentine’s Day I write a card that says “the benefits of being married to you outweigh the costs.” And she does not appreciate that humor So then I’ve stopped doing that joke So yeah, people don’t like pro-con thinking when it comes to love.

What do you think about A.J.’s romantic moves?

Leave a comment

Reminder to be grateful (11:03):

PAUL: What about America are you grateful for?

A.J.: I am grateful for quite a bit, I have to say. Well, I talked about this in my book. I’m grateful for, first of all, for democracy, for balance of powers. But I’m also grateful for progress — things like elastic in my socks. Because during this constitutional year, I tried to dress the part, because I was trying to get into the mindset of the founders and I wore these socks, and they didn’t have elastic in them. They had these woolen, knitted socks and they would just fall down and puddle around the ankles. All those little things that we take for granted—there’s a lot of horrible stuff going in the world, but let’s be grateful for elastic socks and elastic underwear!

Subscribe to A.J.’s Substack, ↓↓↓↓

I understand that sometimes you don’t have time to read everything I send you. You’re busy and on the move—working out, running through an airport, or re-arranging your sock drawer. And that’s okay.

So for this week’s podcast—as I do occasionally—I’m sharing an audio recording of me reading a few recent Substack essays right into your ears. And now you don’t have any excuses to not enjoy my wonderful writing.

You’re right - it’s quite generous of me, but you’re worth it! See links to the articles below.

Have a great day.

Which one is your favorite?

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