How Jerry Seinfeld Bombed His Legacy (with Emma Vigeland)

[00:00:00] What's the deal with high school girls? I'm not allowed to date them anymore! Palestine might not exist to me and you know what else doesn't? The age of consent! That's your Seinfeld? Yeah. It really, it sounds like a golden girl.

[00:00:26] I was watching so much Seinfeld over the last week and I feel like because he's not funny, a lot of his quote-unquote comedy is just like instructing people to laugh based on the pitch of his voice. Exactly. I mean it's hand-holding your way to a laugh. It's kind of like when there are sitcoms that have laugh tracks for example.

[00:00:47] Although, I do love Seinfeld and I'm sure we'll be talking about this at some point. It is a great show. The man Jerry Seinfeld though is not so great. Hello, hello, hello and welcome back to A Bit Fruity. I'm so happy that you're here and I just want to say right up front, this episode is dedicated to Kesha.

[00:01:09] A bunch of years ago, Kesha and Jerry Seinfeld were on the same red carpet for something and Kesha went up to him and was like, Jerry, I'm Kesha. I'm such a big fan. Can I have a hug? And he was like, no. And she was like, just a little one? And he goes, no. I've seen this. Yes.

[00:01:27] And she later said that it was one of the saddest moments of her life. And then about a year later, Cardi B and Jerry Seinfeld were on a panel together or something and Cardi B got up to leave and hugged everyone except Jerry Seinfeld. And so Cardi B got her lick back for Kesha. And I'm also just like as a gay boy who really came of age in the 2010s, I'm forever indebted to Kesha. So Kesha, this one's for you.

[00:01:52] Jerry Seinfeld is worth $1.1 billion. He is the richest comedian in the world. I'm already annoyed. I'm already annoyed because you know who the richest comedian in the world should be? Meg Stalter. Honestly.

[00:02:06] Jerry Seinfeld is the richest comedian in the world because for 10 years of his life, three decades ago, he played a semi-fictionalized version of himself in the sitcom Seinfeld, which was written by someone funnier than him who also has better politics. But let me not get ahead of myself.

[00:02:24] If you were sentient in America in the 90s, Jerry Seinfeld was basically a pillar of culture. He was a pillar of home life. Seinfeld was routinely the most watched show in the United States. And its series finale in 1998 drew 76 million viewers, or a quarter of the U.S. population at the time.

[00:02:48] In that final season of Seinfeld, Jerry was making $1 million per episode, which is $2 million today, adjusted for inflation. I was born the year Seinfeld ended. And by the time I could watch TV, we kind of moved on from Seinfeld. I mean, a lot of people haven't. I'm sure a lot of people would disagree with that. But like in my house, we just we didn't have Seinfeld playing. I wasn't really a big Seinfeld guy. But nevertheless, Jerry has always been a supremely famous person in my head.

[00:03:18] And I think because of that, I've always assumed that he's been working on a lot of things that I just don't watch because of like my taste preferences or whatever. But he hasn't. The most notable thing that Jerry Seinfeld has done since Seinfeld is voice act as Barry in the B movie, which to be clear, is notable. There's a lot of things to criticize Jerry Seinfeld for. But for me, B movie will not be one of them, except for its promotional tour. We'll get to that.

[00:03:45] Nevertheless, the magnitude of Jerry Seinfeld's 1990s celebrity is unfortunately for him, no match for the person that he has become. Always has been? I don't know. Today, we're going to look at the evidence and let you decide. And to do that, welcome back, my dear friend, Emma Vigeland. Always great to be with you, Matt Bernstein, my lovely, lovely friend.

[00:04:10] Emma, this episode is entirely a product of your texting me saying that we should do a Jerry Seinfeld episode. I know that he has been pissing you off lately. And the further I dug into the archives, we're in for a ride today. I'm a huge fan of Curb Your Enthusiasm and Larry Davids, and we will be talking about him as well.

[00:04:32] But Seinfeld just went viral recently. I'm a huge Knicks fan, and he was at the game. And when I think we're about to play this, but he was asked about Palestine and of course decides to be an absolute genocidal freak asshole. And he has been that way for quite a while. He is a rabid Zionist. And there's also stuff in his past that raise eyebrows that are not just connected to his politics.

[00:04:59] So it's fascinating to look at somebody like this, who is such a fixture of so many people's lives, as you say, to see really how rotten that core is and how he is one of the public faces in Hollywood who is dehumanizing Palestinians so regularly.

[00:05:18] In coordination with the Israeli government. First things first, as you mentioned, Jerry Seinfeld recently attended one of the NBA finals games at Madison Square Garden. And as he was leaving a TikToker, like man on the street soundbite type of guy, I don't know, there's so many of these guys. You can't even walk through New York City anymore without someone running up to you with a microphone being like, what's your income and what's your rent?

[00:05:48] But this guy was doing some real journalism and he ran up to Jerry Seinfeld and the following transpired. Oh, Jerry Seinfeld. What up, Seinfeld? What up? Can we get a free Palestine? Can we get a free Palestine? Come on, give us one free Palestine. It doesn't exist. There you have it. That is the position of pretty much everybody who still calls themselves a Zionist.

[00:06:12] But the fact that this immensely wealthy man took the time to laugh in this guy's face as a genocide is being committed to say that Palestine doesn't exist. And explicitly genocidal statement in and of itself. It's just like, keep walking, dude. But you can't because you're a fanatic. I've known Jerry Seinfeld is a Zionist. He and his wife, Jessica, have been doing Israel advocacy for a long time.

[00:06:37] But even with that in mind, this was kind of a shock to the system for me. The three words, Palestine doesn't exist. And I think you're right that this is basically the mainstream Zionist belief at this point because movement has become so nakedly far right and genocidal. However, I do think it's worth unpacking for a second here.

[00:07:02] We get about zero minutes into Seinfeld's life chronology and I'm like, let's start unpacking. Sorry, this is a leftist podcast. You know, back in the day when I think liberal Zionism was still considered by many to be a tenable ideology, you had kind of like the two-state solution people.

[00:07:21] Think about Kamala's 2024 campaign run and what her party line was at the point, which was like, you know, we want safety and security for Israelis and safety and security for Palestinians. And I think there's a point that Jerry Seinfeld would have, you know, said that. I mean, he supported Kamala. Yeah. And Joe Biden. And, you know, he's always kind of been an anti-Trump guy. Don't know if that's still the case. But that perspective seems to really have collapsed.

[00:07:49] Right. And I think that anybody who hasn't gotten off the liberal Zionist train at this point right now is complicit in this viewpoint that is based in erasure. And it's also not theoretical erasure. I think if you were saying this prior to the genocide, of course, when liberal Zionism was a little bit more digestible for people and was a fairly mainstream opinion, it would be one thing.

[00:08:13] But for us to be two and a half years into the act of genocide of the Palestinian people, to add to that chorus and to add to the bloodshed by contributing to the perception of erasure and saying that an entire people doesn't exist as they're being exterminated. I mean, what else can you call that except to be almost psychopathic?

[00:08:37] And this is also I mean, you have a lot of these like liberal Zionist figures in the Democratic Party still being like I mean, even and love to Bernie Sanders, but he still does this sometimes where he'll be like, oh, this is Netanyahu's far right government of Israel. And they'll kind of pin these like outwardly genocidal ideologies on Netanyahu, on Ben Gavir, on Smotrich. But here's Jerry Seinfeld saying something as genocidal as Ben Gavir tweets on a random Tuesday.

[00:09:06] Right. I do not think that we should be catering the Democratic Party to the whims of these individuals. Just go vote for Republicans if this is your pet issue. But the reality is, is that the party has no future and we don't have the ability to fight fascism. If we can't stand up against genocide, as Ta-Nehisi Coates has said so eloquently in that we also the party has become so narrowed given this is such an aside.

[00:09:33] I won't get into it, but the active pursuing of affluent suburbanites in the coalition that has been a strategy of the Democrats since 2016. That's why they're always going after the mythical Republican that's leaving the party for them.

[00:09:47] They have narrowed the party and a lot of working class voters have left, narrowing it further just to appease wealthy Zionist donors and make sure that guys like Jerry Seinfeld feel like they can still be woke and enjoy Barack Obama's like Netflix series and stuff like that. Give me a break. They should not be in the party. They're not welcome here.

[00:10:10] They are contributing to fascism because they are neutering the only opposition party that exists in the country right now, whether we like it or not. I also just think a lot of people would hear those words, Palestine doesn't exist. And it's like, whoa, that's really extreme. Like, that's very extreme. Like I said, within the discourse in Israel, I don't think it is. I think it's the mainstream.

[00:10:34] But Jerry Seinfeld, what you have to infer from him saying this to some random guy on the street, knowing that he's being recorded, is that he's surrounded by this. He is surrounded by this rhetoric all day.

[00:10:47] He has a $40 million home in the Hamptons with his wife, Jessica, as well as a home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where they are integral in these very high society sort of upper echelon Zionist, specifically Zionists, often engage with lots of Zionist activism communities. But to me, it's so revealing as to how some of these social groups operate.

[00:11:13] The fact that he's saying that openly means that he has said very similar things, if not worse things, many times over in private. That should not be surprising to us. However, I do think that it is worth it lingering on this for a second to just think about what it means when you say Palestine doesn't exist right now, as you have the Greater Israel Project underway in practice, not just the genocide in Gaza, but the constant settler attacks and violence in the West Bank.

[00:11:43] That is actionable erasure as well. He's essentially saying that all of the even land that Palestinians have and have been forced into, the smaller and smaller parcels as more stolen from them, that even that doesn't belong to them. What happens if they choose not to leave? The answer is that they die.

[00:12:03] And the idea that Jerry Seinfeld, with all of his wealth and influence and power, still finds a way to justify his viewpoint of extermination from a place of victimhood is a level of psychosis that is, I think, a combination of wealth, of having so much wealth, which, you know, I've said this before, I think, on your show. Like, it doesn't matter if you have to be a sociopath to become a billionaire or a billionaire makes you a sociopath.

[00:12:32] Regardless, that amount of wealth removes you from shared humanity. So there's that piece of it that informs his rabid Zionism. But there's also the kind of cult-like devotion to an ethno state that is as racist as segregationists were in the South that did not want to mix with black people.

[00:12:53] It's that ideology right now, but it's one that is kind of like has a national security infrastructure here in the United States, but also groups of very wealthy private donors that help further that project. Should we talk about how Jerry Seinfeld became Jerry Seinfeld? Let's.

[00:13:11] This isn't going to be like a super, super biographical episode about the entirety of Jerry Seinfeld's life and work because he's been around for a while and he's done a lot of things in the public eye and it would be very difficult to cover all of them in the detail that some of you might desire.

[00:13:29] So I want to focus on a few things thematically throughout the episode to show how I think Jerry Seinfeld has just become so divorced from reality and the human condition to the point where it becomes very hard to stay in the good graces of people no matter how famous or beloved he once was. Jerry Seinfeld was born in Brooklyn in 1954 to a nice Jewish family. His dad was a sign painter who fought in World War Two. I think that's quaint.

[00:13:59] He grew up, however, on Long Island in Massapequa as a 16 year old. I don't know if you knew this. Jerry Seinfeld volunteered on a kibbutz in Israel, which is basically like a socialist adjacent organized commune, which in the early days of Israel, it was life was sort of centered around these kibbutzim. I did not know that. It does not surprise me. I mean, I guess it's better than volunteering to fight in the IDF.

[00:14:26] Yes. I was wondering when I was seeing some of the more extreme pro-Israel stuff that Jerry Seinfeld has been saying. I was like, where did this come from? But that's kind of a dumb question for me to ask because I grew up, you know, in a synagogue with like the maps of Israel on the wall and you label the different parts and you know where Tel Aviv is. And, you know, they of course indoctrinate in Jewish American life for you to feel like Israel is your second home.

[00:14:55] And I could have only imagined that that was probably like times a thousand in Jerry Seinfeld's house, given that like his dad was a Jew who like fought in World War II. And they were probably like, Jerry, like you're going to spend you're a child and you're going to spend a summer in Israel because like, you know, you could have died in the Holocaust. And this is where you're going to go to like not die in the next Holocaust or something. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I can understand that perspective. You got to wonder what the formative experience was for Jerry, though, on that kibbutz.

[00:15:23] Maybe, you know, he got his first BJ on that trip or something. And that's why he's a Zionist to this day. I mean, no one ever knows how these formative memories come to be. Do you know the next time that he would return to Israel? No. Promoting the B movie. It was literally Jerry Seinfeld went when he was 16, went his whole life without returning to Israel. And then in like 2007, he was promoting the B movie. I was going to say this till later, but I can't help myself.

[00:15:53] If you scroll down in the outline and I'm going to throw this image on the screen, there's images of him doing press for the B movie in Israel. Oh, you see where the B movie is in Hebrew? It's very bizarre. It's very bizarre. Oh, my gosh. I mean, as if they couldn't get the picture with B movie being the title. We've got to make sure this is in Hebrew in Israel.

[00:16:21] It's kind of self-explanatory. It's very strange. Also, I was looking into whether or not he went on like a truly like international tour to promote the B movie. And he didn't. I think he did like a stop in Australia and a stop in Israel. As one does. Anyway, Jerry goes to college. He goes to a New York State school. He returns back to New York City where he tries his hand at open mic nights. This is in like the latter half of the 70s.

[00:16:50] And then his first kind of breakthrough gig was he was a recurring guest on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and also had a recurring guest spot on Letterman. I don't know if you're familiar with any of this. I'm not. I'm I start in the sitcom days. Well, so then comes the sitcom in 1988.

[00:17:07] Seinfeld and Larry David get together to create the sitcom that would become Seinfeld, which stars Jerry Seinfeld as a fictionalized version of himself alongside his three friends played by, of course, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, Jason Alexander and Michael Richards as they gallivant around New York City. Larry David was the head writer of Seinfeld and the showrunner for the first seven seasons out of the total nine seasons.

[00:17:36] Notably, Jerry Seinfeld only has writing credits on a total of 17 out of the 180 episodes of Seinfeld. Just saying. Just saying. All right. Emma, talk about Seinfeld because you're you're this is way more part of your life than mine. Yeah. I mean, I love Seinfeld. Of course, everybody loves Seinfeld. I love Curb Your Enthusiasm more. I think that it's unscripted nature is more fun.

[00:18:04] And Larry is even more himself. And it's more Larry, less pressure to fit into kind of a sitcom format. And frankly, Jerry Seinfeld in Seinfeld is the least interesting part of the show and the least interesting cast member. Julia Louis-Dreyfuss is phenomenal and, you know, hot as hell in that show. She's just killing it. She's hilarious. And remains hot. Yes. God. I mean, and not only hot, but booked.

[00:18:34] Not everyone can say the same. And by the way, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss grew up really rich, too. So she it's not like Jerry is wealthy now. So he doesn't need to work. But she never needed to work. She just did it for the love of the game. And that's why we stan her. But Jason Alexander is great as the kind of Larry style character, of course, of George and Michael Richards, despite, of course, his deep racism. It's, you know, Kramer's a really hilarious character. But Jerry is the weakest part of the show.

[00:19:03] And I think that you can see how it really was Larry's brilliance that carried the show. One, in just how phenomenal Curb Your Enthusiasm is. And two, how the show had a notable decline after Larry was like, I'm out. And how all of the stuff that Jerry has done since then, Sans B movie, putting respect on its name, is not good. Feel free to sound off in the comments if you disagree.

[00:19:31] But I was consuming so much Jerry Seinfeld in the last week and a half because I was like, I need a reasonably good handle on this to talk about it on a podcast. And I was like, my God, this is like pulling teeth. You know, he makes a lot of money as a stand up because he has enormous name recognition. Yes. His stand up to me, though, is the kind of toothless funhouse mirror version of what Larry does, which is like it's observational humor, I guess.

[00:20:01] But there's no teeth to it. I mean, Curb takes risks. Curb can be offensive. Curb can touch topics that might piss some people off. But what Jerry's stand up is about is about appealing to everybody at all times. And I guess good comedy does that to a degree. And I'm not not here to police comedy, right? Just because I'm a podcaster, even though I guess that's the Joe Rogan experience model.

[00:20:28] But like, you know, it's so anodyne that I find the stand up to be kind of boring. And I feel like without the edge that Larry provides, you can kind of see that get exposed. I also think what you just said about Jerry Seinfeld's name recognition in relation to how much money he makes off of touring is so, so significant. Because I think in Jerry Seinfeld's mind, he is one of the most profitable touring comedians today because he's so funny.

[00:20:57] But it is because he is a nostalgia act. And what people are coming to see is like effectively like a meet and greet type of thing. Spend time in the same room as the guy that you loved in the 90s. I watched a lot of Seinfeld preparing for this. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. I blocked out all the stuff I know about Jerry Seinfeld now. And I enjoyed it. And then I started watching basically everything he's done since Seinfeld except for B-movie. And I was like, oh, this sucks.

[00:21:24] But you know that you're listening and watching Seinfeld. So I guess that enhances the experience a little bit, but not enough to make me laugh. Right. And dude, your last name is literally the title of the sitcom. It doesn't get more name recognition than that. There is one episode of Seinfeld that I found fascinating and kind of instructive. It's called The Cigar Store Indian.

[00:21:48] This is commonly named as like one of the most offensive episodes of Seinfeld. And it is. But the plot revolves around Seinfeld trying to woo this young woman who he wants to be his girlfriend. Not that young. She's an adult woman. Not always the case. It's a fictionalized version of him. It's not exactly him. He, you know, the real life guy is going after teens. Yeah, it's fictional. It's fictionalized. He goes for adults in this.

[00:22:18] Right, right, right. But she is Native American. She's of Native American heritage, which he does not realize. And he he basically shows up with this big wooden offensive statue of a Native American. You know, he does all these like racist anti-Native thing. Like he's mocking and, of course, calling them Indians the whole time. And then the sort of episode plays out and he just can't stop saying offensive things towards all groups of people.

[00:22:47] And it's kind of like people are so sensitive these days. Uh-huh. Yes. And I find it fascinating because that is the position of like everyone's so woke you can't even say anything anymore is a position that Jerry Seinfeld would take up unironically later in his life. The way that Larry writes, I think both Jerry to less of an extent, definitely George, but Jerry often is that they're the asshole in the situation. It is very interesting that he would unironically be so anti-woke later in life.

[00:23:17] But what is not shocking to me is that Seinfeld, even in the fictionalized version of the show, is insensitive to people who have been colonized. The other thing I want to to mention about Seinfeld before we get into the teenager of it all is just how much goddamn money he continues to make from this show. Which, by the way, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing that he's making all this money from.

[00:23:45] But like I think artists today should continue to make royalties in a way that they are often robbed of in the streaming model. But I do think it has changed the way that he engages or disengages with the world around him. I mean, he makes so, so, so, so, so, so, so much money and has been so rich for so long. So he was adjusted for inflation, making like $2 million an episode in the final season alone. That's one of the nine seasons.

[00:24:14] But also, I have to fact check this, but I believe he continues to make around $100 million a year today off of just like residuals from the show. Editing Matt here, it's actually reportedly between $40 and $60 million a year, depending on what source you look at. Gosh, it's honestly criminal what streaming has done to actors in this country. And look, I know Seinfeld residuals for that kind of show, it's going to far exceed anything.

[00:24:42] But we've really missed the mark on paying these actors that are entertaining us, you know, with big tech trying to get around that kind of thing. I would like to take a quick break from the show to give a shout out to our friends at NordVPN for sponsoring this episode. I recently did something very exciting. I was in a documentary about Elon Musk for the BBC.

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[00:27:53] That is bb-b-i-b-i-b-e-s dot com slash fruity. Thanks so much to Balesa. Now let's get back to the episode. So I know you've been waiting for it. What's the deal with high school girls? Oh, that wasn't good. That wasn't good. That wasn't good. What's the deal with high school girls? Maybe that was a little... I don't know. That was a... You know, I still think you're going for older Jewish grandma more than you are going for Seinfeld, but...

[00:28:22] You can't date him anymore! I honestly just love that you're attempting it. Someone told me on Instagram that if I do this episode, I have to. It's a requirement. In 1993, Jerry Seinfeld was in his fifth season of filming Seinfeld. And he, at the time, publishes this book called Sign Language. Do you get it? Do you get it? Sign language! Sign language! That's my Jerry.

[00:28:53] Emma has read excerpts from this book and so graciously clipped one. Emma, do you want to read this excerpt? Sure. We had a viewer that wrote in about this, and she, I think, found this book at some sort of secondhand store and was getting a real kick out of how awful it was. You can go to page 133 if you want to get a copy of Sign Language yourself. Here we go. My question about women's gymnastics is simple.

[00:29:20] Are we not supposed to be looking at their little rear ends while they're jumping around all over the place? Because I think that's pretty much all I've been doing, and I don't know if it's wrong. I mean, if it's wrong, I'll stop. But no one's ever said anything about it. The announcer never goes. In judging this event, they throw out the high score or the low score and stop staring at their little rear ends. They really do have the most unbelievable rear ends in the world, and it's hard not to notice it.

[00:29:49] Whenever they talk about what this girl needs to do to win, I'm thinking, win? Win what? I think we have a winner right here. You know how race car drivers and tennis players get paid to have a company name sewn onto their uniforms? Can you imagine how much money these women gymnasts could make if they sold advertising in the right spot on that little leotard? All I would have to say is diet slice on one chic, and she's set for life. The greatest ad space ever.

[00:30:17] We guarantee people will see your message. Your product will be a household name in the qualifying round. Now, he says women there. Yeah, yeah. But given the history that we're going to get into, what age are gymnasts typically? Yes. Their little rear ends. How many times are you going to say it, bro? I think he said little three times in these three short paragraphs.

[00:30:45] Couldn't stop staring at their little rear ends. This, ooh, ooh. It's gross. I feel dirty just reading it out loud. That's right. I mean, it really, there's no word for it other than pedophilic. Because we know that, I think in gymnastics, in Olympic gymnastics, which I am a big fan of personally,

[00:31:09] the age to become what is, quote unquote, a senior gymnast, where you're eligible for, like, senior Olympics, it's either 15 or 16. And that's also, by the way, they've bumped up that age. It used to be younger. And we know that historically in the sport of gymnastics, that is around the age that women and girls tend to compete at their highest level, which is why countries send oftentimes the youngest possible athletes to the Olympics,

[00:31:38] which actually Simone Biles and Team USA has done a great deal just in the last decade to challenge the notion that they should all be that young. But that was not the case in 1993 when Jerry Seinfeld publishes this book. And so we just have to acknowledge that he is no doubt writing about girls. Yes. And the just sheer number of times that he said the word little, I think, should be an indication.

[00:32:05] What kind of horndog is thinking about this that aggressively and, like, seemingly unable to get off of this? I mean, these honestly, these thoughts that he's writing down are so half-baked and creepy. It's just I don't know which to be more offended at which parts be more offended about how lazy and stupid the thoughts are or how gross he is. Yeah. And how unfunny it is. Right.

[00:32:30] Like, there's not even a moment in there, as with so much of his quote-unquote comedy and comedic writing, there's not even a moment where you're like, oh, I'm laughing. Oh, but I shouldn't be laughing. That's bad. Exactly. No, we're not even laughing. What? The joke is that brands should advertise on children's butts? That's the joke. I don't know. The laughter has, I guess, escaped the studio.

[00:32:52] But anyway, the same year that Seinfeld publishes Sign Language, 38-year-old Jerry Seinfeld is walking in Central Park in New York City when he eyes a 17-year-old Shoshana Lonstein, a high school student. Now, what are the logistics of this? You know, like, what is a nearly 40-year-old man doing approaching a high school student in a park? Like, how does that actually happen?

[00:33:20] In some tellings of this story, Seinfeld noticed Shoshana sitting on a park bench and decided to approach her. Other sources I've read say that Shoshana rollerbladed past him and he stopped her, which I find to be, I don't know, like, kind of particularly disturbing just because I associate rollerblading as such, like, you know, a children's activity. Right, right. In any case, from an excerpt in People Magazine, March 1994, quote,

[00:33:48] Real life Jerry Seinfeld, comedian, TV star, and life observer, which aren't we all? It's like how Riley Gaines is called former swimmer. It's like, yeah, I'm a former swimmer too, bitch. Anyway. Also, human being was strolling through Central Park one day in May 1993 when he spotted a stranger he now calls the most wonderful girl in the world.

[00:34:13] Seinfeld, then 38, sallied over, made small talk, and went away with the telephone number of Shoshana Lonstein, then 17, and a senior at the private Nightendale Bamford School in Manhattan. So she was in high school. Yeah, she was applying to college and getting ready for prom. And Jerry Seinfeld was, in the fifth season of his show, one of the most famous celebrities in America. Exactly. Like, just to pause for a second on that.

[00:34:43] Please. It's already an enormous power imbalance if Jerry was working at the coffee shop next door, given his age and given her age. That is why sleeping with minors is wrong, because of the power imbalance, because these are children with developing brains.

[00:35:01] Now, look at the power imbalance of a random high schooler and one of the most famous people in the country right now, or then, on the most popular sitcom in the country at the height of its popularity with his money, with his fame, all of that. How coercive and predatory that relationship is when you keep that in mind.

[00:35:21] Even as you say it, it really strikes me that this isn't a bigger story constantly surrounding Jerry Seinfeld and not relegated to, like, the corners of Reddit where people are like, didn't Jerry do something weird? Jerry did. Indeed. Yes. And it's not like he approached her and didn't know, oh, gosh, she looked so much older and then found out that she was 17 and backed off. As we're about to learn, that's not what he did. Nope. That's not what happened at all.

[00:35:48] So she was a senior at Nightingale Bamford School, which is an all-girls K-12 private school on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. She was, of course, as high schoolers do, living with her parents. Now, they begin dating, and I hesitate to even call it dating, but, you know, walk with me here. They begin dating, and the New York Daily News publishes an article titled,

[00:36:13] High School Sweetheart for TV's Jerry Seinfeld, with all due credit to New York Daily News calling her his high school sweetheart. The whole thing's insane, but that is a clever title. Yes. They wrote, Seinfeld, whose people wouldn't call us back, and Shoshana were spotted together at Tuesday's Knicks playoffs game. The Knicks' constant presence in this episode. He vociferously denied that she was 17 on the Howard Stern show, and he was almost right.

[00:36:42] She will be 18 tomorrow. Ugh. You know, it's like they've been dating for like three weeks. She's like in high school. She has to go to school the next day, and he took her courtside to a Knicks game, and there's a photo of it. The fact that he would have to drop her off at her parents' place. Mm-hmm. At her parents' place.

[00:37:07] The idea that you can get past that, or that that's something that you're okay with, is so mind-boggling to me. I mean, he was, what, he was 21 when she was born? He was able to drink? Yeah. Also in that People magazine March 1994 story, Jerry said, quote, I am not an idiot. Shoshana is a person, not an age. She's extremely bright. She's funny, sharp, very alert. We just get along.

[00:37:36] You can hear the click. That can apply to anyone. Any child. She's very alert. Yes. This is the standard for which we talk about the people that we're dating. It's like, also just Shoshana. Ugh. No, sorry, sorry. I interrupted you. No, I'm sorry. No. I'm sorry. No, it's like, she's funny, sharp, very alert.

[00:38:00] That's like what your rover cat sitter would be saying to you, giving you an update about how your cat is doing while you're away. Yes. That's how he's describing his girlfriend, like a pet. Shoshana is a person, not an age. Makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Yep. Because this is, I mean, this is what every pedophile. Yes. Could say and oftentimes does say. Are we dehumanizing her by pointing out that she's underage? Is that what you're saying?

[00:38:30] We're dehumanizing her. We're stripping her of her individuality by pointing out that she's a child that you are taking advantage of. I read every article about this that I could find. Jerry Seinfeld, around the time that he started dating Shoshana, did an interview with Playboy. And I would like to read an extended portion of that interview because he says some things that I really cannot get past.

[00:38:57] You know, I think it's easy in the age of the internet, which all of this proceeded to be like, oh, it was 1993. He was 40. He was 40. Anyway, do you want to be Seinfeld or Playboy? I'm going to be Playboy. Okay, great. Sorry. Sorry. Thanks. I get to be this lovely gem of a human being. Sorry. It's all right. The tabloids had a field day with one of your recent dates with a 17 year old. I was in a tabloid rocket to the moon. I'm telling you, that was too fun. That was so much fun.

[00:39:26] That was just absolutely hilarious to me. Excuse us. We need to get a pan to catch the dripping sarcasm. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. I guess I haven't quite adjusted to celebrityhood because it's still hard for me to believe that anyone gives a damn who the hell I go out with or what I do. So anyway, I met this girl Shoshana. She's a very sweet girl and she's very pretty. I didn't know how old she was. I knew she wasn't 40. I took her to a basketball game and that was the whole thing. Did you meet her in the park like they say?

[00:39:56] Yeah, but the rest of it is all... Is she 18? She's 18 now. You took her to the basketball game and now the tabloids are calling you a cradle snatcher. Cradle snatcher? It was a wonderful article. I couldn't believe how nice they were about it. Nice? Everyone was saying I don't see anything wrong with it. If they like each other, my manager couldn't believe it. He said I'm bulletproof even in the tabloids. They had every chance to really stick the knife in and they didn't do it. They could have said anything. I'm taking advantage of her. She doesn't know what's going on. Her parents are upset.

[00:40:26] My mother wants to disown me. They could have made up anything. How did Shoshana feel about all the attention? Didn't bother her a bit. Kids today. The great thing is you can go out on a date and pick up a little babysitting money on the side. That pays for the pizza. She's a very nice girl. Hold on. Okay, okay. Can we pause here for a second? Because I almost stopped it before. First of all, he lists all of the things, what they could have said, which he fundamentally understands are legitimate.

[00:40:55] He's got to. Or maybe he doesn't think they're legitimate critiques. I think they're obviously legitimate critiques. And my favorite is him feeling exonerated by the tabloids. You know the tabloids that famously love women and girls? The tabloids. You know, remember how kind they were to Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan and like any woman that was struggling? And in the 90s, God, they were even more feminist.

[00:41:21] Is the Playboy writer in you picking up on my fucking sarcasm? Yes. No, I mean, it's insane. It made me mad. It made me mad. It's insane. He's like, all these people around me, they could have said I was taking advantage of her. They could have said she doesn't know what's going on. They could have said her parents are upset, which reportedly her parents were very upset. And yeah, none of this seems to bother him because People Magazine wrote a relatively kind article,

[00:41:50] which of course they did because, you know, People Magazine famously morally neutral entity. When he jokes about the babysitting money thing and the pizza. Yeah, can I just read that again? Can I just read that again? The great thing, says Jerry Seinfeld, is you can go out on a date and pick up a little babysitting money on the side. What he's saying there is that this is his girlfriend and the girlfriend's parents are paying him a babysitting wage to take care of her.

[00:42:18] Can we all this is what Jerry Seinfeld cannot get me into a legal issue for calling him a pedophile because he's admitting it right here. Right. Anyway, let's continue. Playboy says, what have your friends said about this? It's really strange. The reactions ran the absolute gamut from horrified to just busting buttons with pride that they know me. Guys I hadn't heard from in years called to say, congratulations. Good for you. Women I know wouldn't even call me back. My assistant punched me.

[00:42:48] She saw me and literally punched me. She was so mad. It was reviled by women in their 30s and by Jay Leno. Leno? Leno was just terrified. To him, any potential public relations imbroglio, any appearance of impropriety is the most terrifying thing in the world. He was scared for me just out of concern as a friend. By the way, it makes total sense that Leno and Seinfeld are friends. Total hacks. Did he do anything in the monologue? No, he wouldn't never do anything like that. But my mother was thrilled because Shoshana is Jewish and Syrian.

[00:43:16] My mother's Syrian and all my aunts and uncles on the Syrian side, this is what they expect. They figure 15, 16 is the right age for a woman for me because that's the way they do it in Syria. They're going 18? She's a little over the hill, but if you like her. My women friends, some of them were really hostile about it. They didn't like it. First of all, they think I look for this. Like this was an ambition of mine. But the fact is I don't meet that many women I like, period.

[00:43:43] So when I like someone, I don't care about her race, creed, or national origin. If I like her, I don't care. I don't discriminate. If she's 18, if she's intelligent, that's fine. When I like someone, I don't care about her race, creed, or national origin. Well, those seem like fundamentally different things in a situation of dating than age. His framing of someone who wouldn't date a child as like, oh, well, do you also judge your partners based on race? Jerry, fuck you. Right.

[00:44:13] That's an immutable characteristic. Age is quite literally the opposite because you grow up and you grow out of being a child and you grow into being an adult. You're always going to have your same race, creed, and national origin for the most part. Also, did you notice how he decides to be kind of racist towards Syrian people there in that response? Yeah. Yeah. Of course. And that's a preview for the future. And he feels safe, clearly, in this playboy environment.

[00:44:42] He knows he can be a little bit of a dog and talk about this relationship in this manner. But he ends saying there, if she's 18, if she's intelligent, that's fine. She was not 18. So you're lying through your teeth. It's like, what do these two people even have to talk about? She's like studying for finals and he's one of the most famous people in the world. Like, ugh. Exactly. Disgusting. They go on to date for four years.

[00:45:09] Shoshana graduates from high school and she initially goes to George Washington University for a year, which is in Washington, D.C. But she transferred to UCLA to be closer to Jerry Seinfeld. The relationship ended in 1997 when she was 21 and he was 43, partially due to constant press scrutiny. There are videos that tabloids shot of Shoshana, like over, you know, over fences and stuff of

[00:45:38] her, like lounging by a pool in a bikini and talking about her body. Reflecting on the relationship and how their lives, quote, weren't dovetailing, Jerry said in a 1998 interview with Vanity Fair, Seinfeld has a general idea. Think dolphin, a great body and a nice disposition of what he's looking for in a wife. I don't want my wife to work, he insists. I've had enough career for both of us. The wife needs to be fun loving. Let's drive cross country. Let's go to Corfu.

[00:46:07] Let's have fun. He takes another sip. People aren't as fun loving as you think. They have all kinds of other things they have to do. Lonstein and Seinfeld no longer speak. She has moved back to New York, where she is often photographed at club or restaurant openings identified as Seinfeld's ex-girlfriend. Seinfeld, meanwhile, appears to be married to the show. He leaves parties early if he goes at all. I mean, you can hear it in there what he's looking for in a wife.

[00:46:35] First of all, it's very dehumanizing to that's not the part that's in quotes, but the article seems to indicate that he said that he wants his wife to look like a dolphin or be like a dolphin. OK, as an animal. And he doesn't want his wife to work because he wants to have kind of control and dominion over her, which is much easier to have also when you're dating a child. That's the power dynamic that we're talking about there where you're able to essentially groom her.

[00:47:01] The idea that this girl transferred colleges to be closer to him and that this man who was 40 at the time allowed for a girl to uproot her life just to be closer to him says everything about his like inability to treat her with humanity. I can't even imagine what that must have felt like after they broke up for a girl who probably had this like extremely, you know, traumatizing and also transformational relationship.

[00:47:31] And the power imbalance was that pronounced. And he wants a wife who doesn't work. That is what really stood out to me here, because if you want to be with a woman who doesn't work, why find a woman at all? Why not find a child who's in school who can't work? And then, oh, look, the moment she becomes an adult and is like, Jerry, I want a career. Well, now our lives aren't dovetailing so well together. It's like, yeah, obviously, because you want a child.

[00:48:00] And I do find it interesting that who he's married to now, Jessica Seinfeld, is I mean, we can define work. She's a philanthropist, meaning that they play with money. So throwing galas and board seats and Zionism. Yes, that whole that is part of her philanthropy. Oh, yes. I mean, how philanthropic is it to support the government that's slaughtering children?

[00:48:28] Shoshana seems to have been an entrepreneurial young woman. She went on to build her a fashion line called Shoshana. I don't know if you're familiar with it, but it seems to have done well. Good for her. It's like dresses and swimwear. And I don't know, it's sold at places. Matt, we already covered how little I know about fashion or anything like that in the last episode. OK? Not to make like this, like a Shoshana Lonstein episode. My heart goes out to her.

[00:48:58] But she yeah, she goes on to form this brand. She came from a wealthy family in the Upper East Side and continues to now have her own wealthy family in the Upper East Side. She married a different, wealthier man when she got older. Fascinatingly, you know how this this 1998 piece says that she stays referred to as Seinfeld's ex-girlfriend? Yeah. Shoshana Lonstein, who's now Shoshana Lonstein Gruss, she has a townhouse on the Upper East Side with her family.

[00:49:28] OK. Also good for her. You know, well, I mean. Oh, no. Oh, no. I think I know what's coming. In 2015, 20 years after her relationship with Seinfeld ends, one million dollars of jewelry is robbed from her home in New York City. Can you read what the New York Post headline about it said? Thieves steal one million dollars in jewels from Jerry Seinfeld's ex-girlfriend.

[00:49:56] This is a woman who is now 40 years old. I know. And I'm aware that even on this podcast, she is reduced to Jerry Seinfeld's ex-girlfriend. And I just want to take a beat on that because it's the thing that most people in the world who are aware of her will ever know her for. And in all of these stories, it's just so rattling to me when people are sort of reduced to a footnote

[00:50:24] in a much more famous person's story, especially as a child. Especially as the victim. I don't purport to know how she feels about that relationship at this point in her life, but that must be immensely difficult in any way. Any way you slice it. Yeah. And just to bring it full circle within the context of the A Bit Fruity cinematic universe, like I said, Shoshana herself is now part of Manhattan High Society.

[00:50:53] And specifically, she herself is very involved with the New York pro-Israel activism community. I went on her Instagram, which is mostly to promote her fashion line, but I was like flicking through some of her different content. And she posted a photo of a lamppost with a sticker on it that says, Zionism is the radical idea that Jews are people too. Well. And who is she friends with?

[00:51:23] Who do you think she's friends with? I know you have the outline open. No, I'm not. I'm a page behind because I like or I don't like to be spoiled. I want to guess some of this stuff. I don't remember this girl's name. The blue-eyed crazy bitch. Shoshana Lonstein is now friends with Lizzie Savetsky. Oh, right. Lizzie Savetsky. Right, right. So. That's unfortunate. It's unfortunate. And people contain multitudes. And I don't want to do a perfect victim fallacy where I'm like,

[00:51:53] well, you screw her because her politics suck now. It's just, you know, people contain multitudes. Exactly right. This all leads me to my next portion of the episode. What's the deal with Me Too? You too? No, Me Too. In 2018, Jerry Seinfeld had this to say when interviewed about the burgeoning Me Too movement. Let's talk about serious things then. The Me Too campaign. Yes.

[00:52:24] What's wrong with the industry? I mean, are you asking yourself how come all of this is coming? It's not the industry, honey. It's the whole gender. It's men and women. This is about men and women. You just called me honey. Yeah. Yeah. Because you got to get with this. It's not show business. This is global. Did you see any of it? Because everyone's saying it was all around and everyone knew about it. But then... Well, which show? Who are we talking about? Just things that were going on around in studios and networks. Honestly, I've never seen...

[00:52:54] And during the years when I worked on my show. And even in the nightclubs. I mean, a lot of comedians... There was a lot of activity. Let's call it. Frivolity. Comedians and waitresses and everybody. I mean, men and women chase after each other. Right? Right? Yes. Yes, they do. Now, I've never seen it done in a way that was...

[00:53:24] That I thought that's not right. What that guy's doing. So you're surprised with all this Me Too campaign and things that are coming out now? No. I'm not surprised. But you asked me if I had seen it. Okay. So I haven't. One of them is actually your friend or someone you worked with, Louis C.K. That's terrible. I mean, these behaviors themselves don't even make sense. Sexually. It's like... I don't even understand why they would do that.

[00:53:51] And is it something that will cause you not to listen to him anymore? Not to be... I mean, not to listen to his material. Think it's right that they took him out there? Well, he stopped. He stopped working. The problem for him will be no one will ever, ever look at him without thinking about that. And he knows that. I don't understand the syndrome. Harvey, the showering. What fun is it to shower for somebody? I don't even understand it. Who wants to watch anybody shower? Where's the excitement of that?

[00:54:21] Only if it's on a movie set, yeah. It's a whole world of sexuality that's kind of caught people by surprise. It's like, you're doing what? This is a horrible story. It's not even a good story. So him calling her honey there at the beginning as a way to diminish her is notable because he felt immediately uncomfortable when he's approached with the idea that men have been predatory in Hollywood. I wonder why that might hit close to home for him.

[00:54:47] But when he says men and women chase after each other, what is he referring to in particular? Because what we're talking about in these instances are no like men chasing after women, men sexually harassing women, men using their power to coerce women into sexual acts that they did not consent to. That's what we're talking about. Not a mutual chasing, but a predation. He's so uncomfortable when being forced to sit with that.

[00:55:16] And how did you also notice how he immediately empathizes with Louis and is talking about how he can't tour anymore? He's not working anymore. Like he doesn't even it doesn't even register to him that he should have considered the victims in this situation. His his mindset immediately goes to Louis. You could splice like every 15 seconds of that. And I would have such a crazy diatribe. First of all, when he's like men and women chase after each other. Right.

[00:55:45] Right. He leans in and it's so menacing. And I just feel like in that two seconds, you see how he thinks about women. Yes. Right. Woman. Validate me. Validate me. Right. I'm I'm in control of this conversation. Am I not? And what he keeps going back to in various very mealy mouthed ways is like, well, it's not Hollywood.

[00:56:13] And it's, you know, everyone's just discovering that people are sexual. And that and that's what he's saying. Men and women chase after each other. Well, first of all, in your case, men chase after girls. So let's be very specific about that, Jerry. But also then, you know, when Louis C.K. is brought up and Harvey Weinstein and some of the allegations. I mean, Louis C.K. alleged by many women is that he would masturbate in front of them.

[00:56:41] Harvey Weinstein, he invokes and showers. And showers. I think he's saying like that they would either shower in front of them, masturbate in the shower in front of them, force them to shower in front of them. And what do you do you see what he says there? The kind of sleight of hand where he goes, I don't even get it sexually. That doesn't even make sense. And what he's saying is in coded language, those allegations aren't true because they don't make sense to me. They don't turn me on. Ah, that's interesting. Or did you get something else from it? I saw it a little bit differently.

[00:57:10] I saw him trying to move away from the uncomfortability of the lack of consent part into his trademark observational light style. That's why he's trying to control the conversation. He's steering it away to focus on the specific oddities of the way that these men chose to sexually assault slash harass women. I mean, he's literally doing a like, what's the deal with these crazy allegations? Right.

[00:57:38] He's literally doing a like, what's the deal with forcing women to watch you masturbate? What's the deal with that? It's the same schtick. It's as you say, it is the same schtick. And it's him feeling like he seems in that clip, you can see how he's such a control freak. Like he really wants to make sure that this conversation is within the contours of where he feels comfortable operating. And that's why, in my view, towards the end of the clip, that's what he's trying to do.

[00:58:07] So with this in mind, much of the last decade or so for Jerry Seinfeld has been marked by his fraught relationship with the changing world around him. You saw that very clearly in that clip. And also by his fraught relationship with his own ability to be funny. To begin tackling that, I think it's time for... The Gay French King Interlude! Oh, his favorite bit!

[00:58:35] On June 9th, 2015, three weeks, by the way, before gay marriage became the law of the land, Seinfeld did an interview with Seth Meyers, where he complained that you can't even make gay jokes anymore. Here's the clip. I know people are fucking hating my Seinfeld impression. Sorry, it's not stopping. Comedy, it's interesting. Comedy is, I do think, is, you know, supposed to push the line, push towards lines in the medium.

[00:59:03] There are more people now who will let you know if they think you went over the line than ever before. Don't I know it. I mean, you have to feel the same way about comedy. Yeah, but they keep moving the lines in for no reason. Right. I do this joke about the way people need to justify their cell phone. I need to have it with me because people are so important. Right. You know, I said, well, they don't seem very important the way you scroll through them like a gay French king. You know, it's just...

[00:59:33] Well... That's very offensive to the gay French kings. Yeah. I did this line recently in front of an audience. And comedy is where you can kind of feel like an opinion. And they thought, what do you mean, gay? What are you talking about, gay? What are you saying, gay? What are you doing? What do you mean? You know? And I thought, are you kidding me? I mean, we can't even... I could imagine a time, and this is a serious thing.

[01:00:00] I can imagine a time when people say, well, that's offensive to suggest that a gay person moves their hands in a flourishing motion. And you now need to apologize. I mean, there's a creepy PC thing out there that really bothers me. Creepy is an interesting word to use. Indeed it is. Yeah.

[01:00:20] So he's saying that he made a joke comparing the way that people scroll on their smartphones to the body language of gay French kings. You know, those people that we're always talking about. Homosexual French kings. Why not pick gay or French? Why gay French? It's redundant. He's basically saying the crowd went silent.

[01:00:50] And from that, I inferred that they were so offended that my joke is poking fun at gay people that everyone's just gone too woke now. Whereas I think that the joke makes no fucking sense. It doesn't make sense. Also, no one's scrolling like this. What are you talking about? I mean, it is not good observationally in terms of even the motion that he's saying would indicate the gay French king part.

[01:01:17] He's in such a prison of his own ego and money that he can't conceive of the fact that his joke bombed. It must be wokeness. Right. Everybody's just too sensitive these days. My joke is funny. And that is like a non-starter. We're not we're not moving past that initial premise. OK, so if people don't react the way that I want them to react, then it must be because the problem isn't me. It's everybody else.

[01:01:44] And notice again, his fixation with controlling the room, with controlling the conversation, with being the guy that's in power on stage in a relationship with a with a girl or what have you. Like he can't even handle he's so fragile, can't even handle his joke bombing without making it a screed on society. I'm still sitting here processing what the crux of the joke is. Right. And I've been thinking about it for three days.

[01:02:14] He's he's used to going into rooms. And like you say, with the stand up big, you know, I don't know, stadium arenas, whatever. I don't know where he tours, but like everyone is there laughing together based on mostly the rhythm of his voice. And I guess he was in a room where that wasn't the case 100 percent of the time. And his joke bombed and he can't emotionally handle it. Poor Jerry. Which brings us to what's the deal with political correctness?

[01:02:45] Sorry, it is getting a little grandma. It is getting a little grandma. I like it. Jerry has spoken many times at this point about his views on political correctness in ways that have positioned him, interestingly, as a right wing culture war podcast. Darling, for example, Dave Rubin shared the video. Crowd roars at Jerry Seinfeld's message for woke students. Dave is like, please call me a gay French king.

[01:03:14] Call it to call me a gay French king to my face. I will not be offended. You can throw a slur in there, too. Please, sir. You know what's funny about that? Dave Rubin posted that video two years ago and then he reposted the exact same video with the same commentary and the same thumbnail and the same title three weeks ago just because it's like graduation season again. And I think he Dave Rubin, you know, listen, content creation is a grind.

[01:03:40] And I think he was like, well, it's commencement season again, so I'm just going to throw out the same triggered woke students thing as two years ago. But the speech is two years old. Yeah. Kind of lazy, lazy job, Dave. Oh, Dave is infamously like a really, really lazy guy. Even when he was at TYT, he didn't want to work hard. So this is something that everybody knows about him. You're right on the money. Ben Shapiro posted Jerry Seinfeld gets emotional while discussing his trip to Israel. We'll get back to that.

[01:04:09] But speaking of that Jerry Seinfeld Duke commencement speech from 2024, his message to students was clear. Privilege is not a bad thing. Quote, we are embarrassed of things we should be proud of and proud of things we should be embarrassed about. Privilege is a word that has taken quite a beating lately. Privilege today seems to be the worst thing you can have. I would like to take a moment to defend it.

[01:04:39] Again, a lot of you are thinking, I can't believe they invited this guy. Too late. I say, use your privilege. I grew up a Jewish boy from New York. That is a privilege if you want to be a comedian. Thanks. You went to Duke. That is an unbelievable privilege. I now have an honorary doctorate of humane letters degree from Duke University.

[01:05:09] And if I can figure out a way to use that, I will. I haven't figured anything out yet. I think it's pretty much as useful in real life as this outfit I'm wearing. But so what? I'll take it. My point is we're embarrassed about things we should be proud of and proud of things we should be embarrassed about. When I was writing my TV series. Okay. Writing. Writing. We know who was doing the writing.

[01:05:38] You know, this isn't like the craziest thing he's ever said. But I was watching this full Duke speech. And it's really interesting because you could start to interpret what he's saying in a good way. Which is like, it's not a bad thing to have privilege. Use it. Right. But that's not what he's saying. No. What he's saying to these graduate students at Duke is like, don't be ashamed. Exactly. That you're graduating from Duke.

[01:06:04] I meet all these people who go to Harvard and they are so bashful about being from Harvard. Don't be ashamed. Own it. And it's like, okay, first of all, in real life, no one's ashamed of coming from Duke. Like, no one's ashamed of having gone to Duke. That's not a real thing. No.

[01:06:22] And Jerry Seinfeld, I think, is very clearly airing some personal grievances here about how he feels like, oh, you can't just be like a rich, straight white guy in society anymore without having to acknowledge that you started on third base kind of thing. And it reminded me a lot of how very recently Erica Kirk, who is doing a lot. Yeah. Told a group of young white college students, quote, don't let anyone disenfranchise you just because you're a young white male.

[01:06:52] Yes. Also, disenfranchise is a real actual thing. And that has never happened in the history of this country, except, you know, before it was changed for just white men to be able to vote. It was only landowning white men. So. Yes. Yes. But but but that's an aside. This is a hallmark of conservative media. You'll see this a lot. Don't let any doubt creep in. Don't let any empathy creep in.

[01:07:17] You see this on Fox News all the time because they'll disparage their opponents or say how weak they are and ineffectual they are for having empathy for others. They will emphasize this a lot because, of course, inevitably, conservatives are going to maybe run into like, hmm. I don't know. Is it cool that we're like warehousing immigrants like this and that we're abusing? Don't. No, no, no. No, this is for the greater good. Don't let any doubt creep in.

[01:07:44] And you're, you know, non-binary granddaughter is the one who's completely insane. That's a very conservative construction of like how you view the world. And it's also not shocking, I think, as we're going to get to his Zionism, that he believes that there are hierarchies in this way and that he is a supremacist about his place in life. In addition to, of course, a religious and ethnic supremacist. Absolutely.

[01:08:12] The most famous example, before we get to the Zionism, of his sort of really flailing amidst the winds of change culturally is when he went in 2024 on the New Yorker Radio Hour podcast and said this. Nothing really affects comedy. People always need it. They need it so badly and they don't get it. It used to be you would go home at the end of the day. Most people would go, oh, Cheers is on.

[01:08:41] Oh, MASH is on. Oh, Mary Tyler Moore is on. All in the family is on. You just expected there'll be some funny stuff we can watch on TV tonight. Well, guess what? Where is it? This is the result of the extreme left and PC crap and people worrying so much about offending other people. When you write a script and it goes into four or five different hands, committees, groups. Here's our thought about this joke. Well, that's the end of your comedy. They move the gates like in skiing.

[01:09:10] Culture. The gates are moving. Your job is to be agile and clever enough that wherever they put the gates, I'm going to make the gate. I'm not sure if you saw the Pop-Tart movie that came out. No, don't spoil it. Oh, that's coming up? It's coming. But I think this was on the press tour for that. It was. It was. You know how edgy the Pop-Tart movie was? All right, fine. Well, if we're here.

[01:09:40] Yes, that was one of my many dazzling reveals for the listener. Thank you for breaking it. It was a good breaking. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. No, no, no, no, no. I'm saying genuinely that was good. This complaint about how comedy can't be edgy anymore was part of the press tour for one of his. The only things that he has made in the 30 years since Seinfeld aired, which was a movie called Unfrosted.

[01:10:07] It was a direct to Netflix comedy starring, obviously, himself and Amy Schumer and Melissa McCarthy. But we're going to leave her out of this. We have to. About the creation of Pop-Tarts, which was called by the Chicago Sun-Times, quote, one of the decade's worst movies.

[01:10:30] Yeah, it's like I get annoyed with the like Wokeness Guild comedy critique, even from like, you know, people who do actually make like edgy comedies. But also, like, I want to know in Jerry Seinfeld's mind what comedy he was making that you couldn't make anymore. Observational airplane humor is just you can't do it anymore. I'm not sure if you're aware of this, Matt Bernstein, but it's just way too offensive to talk about how the seats are so small.

[01:11:00] Yeah, I mean, it is so offensive because it isn't fucking funny. I'm glad we can't do it anymore. I mean, there are so many like great comedies out right now on streaming, but also even movies. I think about one of the maybe the funniest movie of the past five years was Bottoms. And like that had edge to it, but it also was like inclusive and LGBTQ friendly. And and he's just lazy. And it's just like that you're an old man ranting about Cheers and Mary Tyler Moore. Wow.

[01:11:30] Things were better back when you were a kid. What a revolutionary thought that no one has ever had. No one's ever experienced nostalgia. But he's decided to make it like a whole political ideology because he probably is not hitting at 100 percent rate with some of his comedy. And it is like driving him up a wall. I came across this clip that I think really well represents comedy that probably wouldn't make it anymore.

[01:11:55] That Jerry Seinfeld seems to think is missing from the comedic ecosystem. And it comes from HBO's Talking Funny with Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Ricky Gervais, and of course, Jerry Seinfeld's close personal friend, Louis CK. I laugh at the dumbest things. I laugh at the years and years ago.

[01:12:17] I saw a comic in some horrible club bombing with a guitar and he's saying, sitting on a cock because I'm gay. And that's still. Yeah, but. I will. I'm in the shower sitting and I just. But you're laughing ironically. It's the funniest thing I ever heard. But you're laughing ironically. No, no. What he's saying is because he's gay, he has to sit on some cock. And it happens to fit beautifully over the template of sitting on the dock by the bed.

[01:12:45] It's the last thing Otis Redding thought he was setting up. Yeah, exactly. It's the last thing he saw. No wonder. He was, I'm going to help some guy do the lame gay joke. Yeah. By writing this song. Anderson Cooper's going to beat our ass. Is he sitting on the cock? Is he just sort of sitting on the cock? Yeah, because he's gay. Or is he. He's really sitting on the balls. He's sitting on the balls but the cock is up, right up. But if you said sitting on some balls because the cock attached to them is inside of me. Because I'm gay. Does not. Otis Redding didn't help him. Otis Redding would be laughing and they can't make it scan. They haven't got it.

[01:13:15] Let's walk away. And they go, no, I've got it Otis. Sitting on a cock because I'm gay. And then he stops. Doesn't need the rest of the song. Where's he going? There's no place to go. He's there. I love bits where. Does he do the whistle? I love the. No one thinks about gay male sex more than straight. Straight men. Like, I'm a gay guy. I think about having sex with men. I think like a healthy amount. Mm-hmm.

[01:13:45] That's good. But no one thinks about gay sex more than straight men. In any case. Like, why did they elaborate? I mean, they could have just let Louis say. For two minutes. Like, okay. Louis was saying this made me laugh because it was dumb. And then. But they can't help but continue to talk about it. It's just like, God. There is no feminine energy in that room. And it's not for me. Not for me. And I'm not offended. To be clear. I'm not offended.

[01:14:14] I am happy to laugh at a joke where gay men are at the butt of it. I'm happy to. At the butt of it. Hey. Hey. Hey, you just stumbled into that one. But make it funny. I know. Sorry. I'm like screaming. I just like. But it all comes back for me to like. This is the comedy that Jerry Seinfeld is so pissed. You can't even say it anymore. You can't even riff for minutes on end about a gay man having sex anymore. But what?

[01:14:44] But also. This is the Joe Rogan experience. What are we talking about? This is what they do all the time at the mothership on podcast. There's these stupid, awful comics that came up through Rogan. Who are getting these huge specials and deals to say the dumbest shit ever. It's less funny than that. That Louie's delivery makes it better. They're saying things that are worse. Yeah. I just think, you know. And Bill Maher would be lumped into this critique for me.

[01:15:13] But it's like these moderately funny white men. They just want to return to an era. Where the bar for comedy was so low. But the Hollywood gatekeeping was so high. That they were uniquely poised to become successful. And that era is gone. Kind of. Kind of. We still have Matt Reif. Julia Louis-Dreyfus responded to this clip of Seinfeld complaining about wokeness. In an interview with the New York Times. She said, quote.

[01:15:43] I think to have an antenna about sensitivities is not a bad thing. It doesn't mean that all comedy goes out the window as a result. When I hear people starting to complain about political correctness. And I understand why people might push back on it. But to me, that's a red flag. Because it sometimes means something else. I believe being aware of certain sensitivities is not a bad thing. I don't know how else to say it. Get him again for me. Ugh. Queen. Shall we move on? Oh, right. Because we already did the Pop-Tarts thing. Yeah, we did the Pop-Tarts thing.

[01:16:11] What's the deal with genocide? I support it. You can't support it anymore. Because of wokeness. So like I said, Jerry Seinfeld. He went to Israel as a child to work on a kibbutz. A.K.A. like foment a physical and emotional relationship to the land. That he does not live on and does not belong to him. Hey, he may have an apartment in Tel Aviv. He may have an apartment in Tel Aviv, okay?

[01:16:41] He may have a second home. Oh, well at this point I wouldn't be shocked. He probably bought one of the fucking Gwyneth Paltrow apartments already. He probably put it down as his down payment. But you know, he returned to Israel to promote the B-movie. He went a couple times over the 2010s to perform his quote-unquote comedy. And then in December of 2023, two and a half months after October 7th and into the ensuing genocide.

[01:17:07] And at which point, might I add, Israel had already murdered over 20,000 Palestinians. Jerry and his wife Jessica take a trip to Israel. His wife Jessica, who by the way, there's just not enough time today. But Jerry met Jessica like the week that she returned home from her honeymoon with the man that she had just married. Messy. Messica. Messica. It's really a whole other thing.

[01:17:36] And actually, on principle, I don't talk about like the morality of people cheating. Because I don't. It's not my business and I don't. It's just let's keep it to the politics. I hear you. I'm in agreement. But in any case, Jerry and his wife Jessica take a trip to Israel in December 2023. He visits the site of the October 7th attacks. He does a number of photo ops with IDF soldiers. Have you seen these? I'm going to throw them on the screen.

[01:18:05] Really the happiest he's looked since he was, I guess, at the height of his career. Now it's he gets to experience new heights to travel with a bunch of guys and pose with a bunch of guys that are going to kill children. He really does. Like he comes across as sort of perpetually miserable in most of his interviews these days. Yes. And it is jarring how happy he looks to be standing with these soldiers. Could you speak to that, though?

[01:18:31] Because I do think there is it's all part of the psychology of what Israel wants from Zionists, which is this like fervent nationalism. It's very Nazi like to me. Well, yeah. And fervent nationalism can become a drug in and of itself. I mean, we see parts of it in the Trump movement, although I don't think it's fully accurate to describe it just as a nationalist movement. Movement, obviously, Zionism is explicitly so.

[01:18:58] But like, you know, the fact that he didn't really go to Israel that much and went after October 7th just to kind of experience the high of the nationalism says how cult like it is in its construction. It's about experiencing something that is shared amongst you and your community. And that is what can be so tantalizing and addictive about Zionism because it's a shared purpose.

[01:19:24] But once it becomes abundantly clear what that purpose is, anybody who has a conscience turns away from that kind of ideology. But Jerry ran right to it. And I think that that just says everything about his morals. I also think often about the double standard, of course, that exists in American media with relation to supporting Israel versus Palestine.

[01:19:51] Because to give people like a really honest comparison here, Jerry Seinfeld doing these like fists up photo shoots with IDF soldiers. It is the equivalent of like if Hassan Piker went and did a photo shoot with Hamas fighters. I mean, I mean, the difference would be that Hamas is not as immoral and dangerous as the state of Israel, in my humble opinion. But but yeah, no, of course not. Of course, it's it's completely hypocritical.

[01:20:21] But and Hassan wouldn't I mean, he wouldn't be able to leave his house. Of course. I'm just using Hassan as an example because he's very famous and like, you know, the media loves to fixate on him. But if he were to do equivalent photos with like Hamas fighters, it would never it would be the defining event of his career for the media. They would bring it up anytime he ever appeared next to a politician.

[01:20:47] I don't think politicians, even ones who supported his mission, would be able to appear next to him because this is the only thing that they would run, not just on Fox News, on CNN. And comparatively, most people don't know these photos of Jerry Seinfeld exist. And there's a lot of celebrities who have done this. Deborah Messing, Deborah Messing mentioned a welcome to the Bit Fruity podcast. She did a very similar trip and has similar photos of her wearing an IDF uniform like as a costume. Which is hilarious. I mean, there was also a guy.

[01:21:15] I think it was Representative Brian Mass, Republican, who wore an IDF uniform on the on the floor of Congress. Can you imagine doing so for like, you know, the Chinese government wearing their military uniform or say the Iranian military fatigues? Like if Hassan did a photo shoot with Hamas, they would find a way to bring charges against him and say like, oh, you gave this guy a bag of chips. That's material support for terrorism.

[01:21:42] Obviously, we have this double standard where, of course, I don't hold Hamas to the standards that I would hold Israel to because it's a nationalist movement that is born out of desperation and the circumstances that are created by the apartheid and genocide of Israel. Hamas wouldn't exist without Israel. So that's just the even my point is like it's even worse in my view. Yeah, right. Yeah.

[01:22:07] Nonetheless, Jerry has since become one of the most visible, vocal, shameless and unflinching Zionists in Hollywood. In May of 2024, Seinfeld reflected on his trip to Israel with a one Barry Weiss on her free press honestly podcast, which is very bad, by the way. Oh, no. No shade. Like I have a whole episode about Barry Weiss on Patreon. I'm very bad at promoting the Patreon. Go subscribe to the Patreon if you like the show.

[01:22:37] But she's not a good interviewer. You can throw shade on her. She can. She has all of that blood money that she can wipe her tears with. In this interview, which is happening amidst the campus protests for Gaza around the country, Barry casually describes student protesters for Palestine as, quote, Ivy League jihadis marching on campuses, which like we don't even have time to get into every little thing.

[01:23:02] But I do want to play you the clip of when Barry asks Jerry about the trip to Israel he took a few months prior. You were in Israel? Yes. Since the war started. How was that trip? Oh, the most powerful experience of my life. Really? I'm sure. Yeah. Why? Um, you know, you just.

[01:23:40] Are you thinking of someone in particular? Oh. Sorry. Woo. This is the only example I could find of him crying in public in his five decades of fame. I mean, he's kind of infamously aloof and a bit of a snide dick. Yeah.

[01:24:10] Yeah. Yet this is what got him. This is what got him. The experience of going to Israel and the collective experience of being in a state that was murdering innocent people just miles away. Um, I think, you know, you kind of see how weak minded he is there. His inability to have any doubt or challenging thought creep into his mind.

[01:24:35] That's the through line with his relationship with women and with with his fixation on girls who are more powerless in conversations with him and in a relationship with him. Never having any doubt creep in and him being able to have a controlled environment for his feelings.

[01:24:54] He probably had such an emotional reaction to Israel because the nationalism was probably so empowering for him because you don't have to think about Palestinians. No doubt has to creep into your mind. Nothing has to challenge you. The girl doesn't challenge you. Your relationship with your Jewish identity doesn't need to be challenged. You can just get high off the drug of nationalism while you're there.

[01:25:20] And I also like I would imagine that when he goes there being Jerry Seinfeld, being the richest comedian on the planet, that he's treated like royalty. And yet he's so moved by that as if he doesn't understand the propaganda value that he's providing. It's it's amazing. I guess when you're that rich and that famous for that long, you you kind of are an emotional child to a degree. And he has actually spoken about that calling back to the B-movie press tour.

[01:25:52] Strings of words that I just never thought there was one good thing that came out of that B-movie press tour and that he is in a great episode of 30 Rock called Seinfeld Vision, which was a part of that promotion. And I got to say he can perform OK when other people who are funny are writing for him. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:26:11] But he did say in one interview that he had like not really thought that much about like what he means to the Jewish people, for example, until he went to Israel after Seinfeld had concluded to promote the B-movie, at which point he was extremely famous. And he's like, I saw the way that they looked at me and the way that they treated me. And I realized that, like, I meant something to these people. There we go. We solved it.

[01:26:41] This is the smallest man on the planet who is addicted to validation that, like, if it doesn't come in every format, he breaks down. And so, like, when you have nationalism and Zionism, which basically also reinforces your supremacist belief in yourself and that you're basically a god and that this is some sort of holy war. Yeah, yeah. For somebody like that whose, you know, fame has passed him by at this point. He's just sitting on a pile of money.

[01:27:10] Of course, that's going to make that guy cry. I thought this clip of him crying was so interesting because, like you said, he's famously, he's aloof, he's a dick, he's, like, increasingly, I think, taken on this really, like, tough guy, like, not afraid to call balls and strikes kind of thing. In this very interview with Barry Weiss, he, like, calls for a return to, like, sort of strongman masculinity. And yet this makes him cry.

[01:27:35] And this made me think of a concept that Amy Sedaro coined called prosthetic trauma that Naomi Klein has written about in the context of Israel. And how in the wake of October 7th, while Israel continues to genocide Palestinians, now South Lebanon, that they've made these like art installations and like interactive immersive exhibitions

[01:28:04] around like the Nova Music Festival and all of these things where you can go and it's like combination, like memorial, like summer camp sing-along, like mega church vibes where they just wrap you up in emotion and the grief of October 7th that like Jerry Seinfeld didn't experience,

[01:28:29] but they make sure that he feels like he experienced it and therefore never has to doubt whatever Israel does to anybody else because that level of pain and trauma that Jerry Seinfeld thinks that he's experienced is enough to make him never doubt it and to throw, I cannot even imagine the amount of money that he and his wife have thrown at this cause. Oh, oh, absolutely. Does that make sense? So the way I explain it makes sense. It completely makes sense.

[01:28:59] With those tours of like the Nova Festival, if you're able to kind of experience that trauma or a display of it, then that's a way to kind of indoctrinate you into the cult-like mindset of Zionism as well. It's a shared trauma. It's a shared experience. And it is a myth that Zionists can tell themselves that is a moral underpinning for their thought-negating belief system

[01:29:28] that pushes aside all empathy and all humanization for Palestinians. So it can act as a method of indoctrination. And Jerry was more than happy to be indoctrinated. And I think this idea of prosthetic trauma is so good. I want to unpack it further in future episodes, I hope. Maybe even with Naomi Klein. She ever comes back to talk to me? No, she did message me and she was like, you did such a great job with our episode. I was like, oh yeah.

[01:29:56] God, what an amazing human being. There's a lot of parallels that we can draw between October 7th and 9-11. And 9-11, similarly, was this moment that was exploited by bad faith nationalist actors to put this nationalist and oftentimes racist fervor into the American population. And why ever since 9-11, especially around the each year memorial of 9-11, you have a lot of people,

[01:30:26] especially Muslim and Arab Americans, talking about like, hey, yes, let's like talk about this awful thing that happened in New York City, but also let's not use this to further our own racism. The prosthetic trauma is what like a George Bush wanted every especially white American to feel in the wake of 9-11. It's like, you know, you may not have actually experienced this, but actually, yes, you did.

[01:30:56] And let's do, you know, all of the museums and let's do all of the documentaries and let's and I'm not saying in and of itself, museums and documentaries about a tragedy is a bad thing. But if they are exploiting people's pain to further more pain for other people and violence and destruction and genocide, then it is a bad thing. And we have to recalibrate how we're thinking about these things. And that's what Israel has done with October 7th. Absolutely. And people should look up Netanyahu's quotes about in his immediate reaction to 9-11.

[01:31:26] If you want to know how Israel felt about 9-11, they were quite excited that the United States would get even more involved in the Middle East and Netanyahu had to walk back some of his excitement about that kind of thing. But it is a way to, if you're constantly only reinforcing the humanity of the victims of a terror attack like that, which is definitionally blowback for foreign policy in the Middle East, both on October 7th and what happened on 9-11, if you remove that context

[01:31:56] and you only humanize one side, when you're trying to garner public support for a war, say, in Iraq that had nothing to do with 9-11, that is a very powerful way to get people to have some sort of collective trauma and only empathize with one side without analyzing systemically why this may have happened. You know, they hate us for our freedom. It serves the same role as Zionists basically saying that, you know, Hamas is the equivalent of Hitler and that they're going by Mein Kampf.

[01:32:25] And while Jerry Seinfeld is really biting into that emotional propaganda and literally crying with Barry Weiss, college students, like I said, across the U.S. are peacefully camping out on their university's lawns for days and weeks at a time in protest of their tuition money being invested in companies that enable the IDF's genocide on Gaza. As people may recall, this severely angered Zionists across the country

[01:32:54] and two such Zionists were Jerry and Jessica Seinfeld. Jessica Seinfeld was so angry about these protests. So Jessica posts on her Instagram story, it's a screenshot of a GoFundMe that just says UCLA rally. Huh? And she writes on top of it, I just gave to this GoFundMe to support more rallies like yesterday's at UCLA. More cities are being planned,

[01:33:23] so please give what you can. Donations are anonymous. We will continue to share our light and love as proud American Jews. Now this GoFundMe, which was literally just called UCLA rally, seems incredibly vague. And why did it need to raise $80,000? One has to wonder. And I've been to many a protest and I just can't, I don't know where this money is going. But in any case, Jessica Seinfeld, as publicly available information on GoFundMe shows,

[01:33:53] donated $5,000 to UCLA rally. Now, what did UCLA rally end up being? Well, in response to a peaceful encampment at UCLA formed by pro-Palestine student protesters, this was for a Zionist counter-protest, which turned out to be a violent mob. I remember this. This was one of the worst instances of attacks on students

[01:34:22] and it was jarring in particular to see how much older the Zionist protesters slash mob was than the students and they were going after young women who were college-aged with violence. Yep, they were beating the pro-Palestine students with rods. They were launching literal fireworks at the encampment from like tens of yards away.

[01:34:51] This is the worst violence of any of the ongoing college protests. UCLA where counter-protesters used sticks and boards against a pro-Palestine encampment. It was more than three hours of unrestrained violence the night of April 30th that led to injuries and bloody scenes as campus security and law enforcement allowed it to continue. Do you know how bad it has to be

[01:35:21] how poorly Zionists have to behave for CNN to do reasonable reporting on them? Exactly. They did a whole investigation where a month later they were like, yep, these were basically all middle-aged men. None of them were students at UCLA. They came to cause violence. They were yelling at young female students that Hamas was going to rape them. Horrifying. And, you know, Jessica Seinfeld, she was like, I'm horrified and, you know, this isn't what I

[01:35:50] donated to and but, you know, it is. It is. It is. You also advertised it and you knew what was going on there. You knew that they were going to disrupt it and it is, as you say, interesting how so much of what Zionists have to say is projection, like the paid protesters thing. Oh, that these students are being funded by Hamas. The big claim at the time was like, who's funding all of their tents? And it's like, what? I don't know.

[01:36:20] I forgot that tents range between 200 and 300k or something like that. It's a valid question. Yes, Hamas is sending money for their tents, but nevertheless, every accusation is a confession and this is yet another example of that because Jessica Seinfeld donated thousands of dollars to a mob of middle-aged men who went and yelled at girls on campus. There you have it. And without

[01:36:50] listing the many other examples of Jerry Seinfeld cruelly responding to anti-genocide hecklers at his shows or returning to Duke in 2025 to give a talk about how pro-Palestine protesters are quote, the modern KKK. Jerry, can I get a selfie? Sure. Free Palestine. Maybe. I don't care about Palestine. That's sad. That brings us to the present, where just two weeks ago,

[01:37:20] Jerry Seinfeld uttered the three words that a lot of people will likely remember him most for. Come on, give me some free pasta. It doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. That's what I hope his legacy is. Or I could also settle for second fiddle to the much more talented Larry David. How do we round this out? Watch Curb Your Enthusiasm. If you guys like Seinfeld, watch Curb Your Enthusiasm. It is a superior show. It actually is riskier

[01:37:49] than Seinfeld and some of the things that it touches. If you like Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, I think, shows who the real creative genius behind all of this is. That must eat at Jerry. I think that must eat at him. That's why he has to create this delicate little palace for himself in his mind where there is nothing that creeps in that would cause him to feel insecure or unsafe. As he lectures the rest of the world on wokeness and safe spaces

[01:38:18] and cancel culture and political correctness, what have you, the snowflake that we're talking about here is the rich guy, Jerry Seinfeld. I found a way to end on a high note, which that was a pretty high note. That was really good. That was really good. Snaps. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. I was reading a Reddit thread about Seinfeld and someone wrote the following. Seinfeld's an example of someone who is bland and unlikable in every way, but blind ambition and self-belief paid off.

[01:38:48] Not particularly talented. His writers and coworkers were much more capable and talented. Not good looking. No altruistic or noble qualities to speak of whatsoever. Personality like Velcro or plywood, but he's made a ton of money. It's inexplicable. This reads as someone who's just in utter disbelief. Not even just disappointed, but just seeing things for what

[01:39:18] they are. It's the most clear throated analysis of Jerry Seinfeld. I almost said Jeffree Star. My brain's broken. She goes on, he's one of those people who actually reinforces my belief in the law of attraction because there's no other reasonable explanation for his success. This soda cracker of a human just expects the best so he gets that. I think this is the energy we should all carry into 2026. I really love that

[01:39:47] person and they are completely flummoxed. It's amazing. And the person who wrote that has deleted their account. So if there's any chance you might be listening to this today, please find me somehow and let me give you credit. But I think we should all move in our lives with the delusional optimism of an untalented, uncharismatic Jerry Seinfeld. I'm not usually a person who's thinking grow rich.

[01:40:17] It is proof though that there's no God, that he's this rich. I'm sorry. I'm keeping a running list about whether there is or is not a God and the kind of evidence that we can collect on either side. But this is waiting heavily on the no God side. There's no justice in this world unless it's Old Testament God. Maybe because we're all being punished. That is for sure. Emma Vigeland, I love you so much. Thank you for suggesting this episode and sort of forcing me down this rabbit hole because I

[01:40:47] had fun. I had fun. I'm glad you did. I'm glad you did. And I love you, buddy. So good to always connect. And, you know, as we've discussed now, podcasting is hanging out in our world. So it's good to hang out with you. And it's a socialist summer. In New York City. I hope that we came to you with full energy today because we were I was out last night at some DSA events celebrating the

[01:41:16] election results. Got a little got a little fruity. A bit fruity. A bit fruity on stream. I mean, not in like a, you know, campy manner. I just I had some drinks and what are you going to do? It was a great night. You were acting like a gay French king. Scrolling. I was drunk posting, unfortunately. Can't do that. Can't do that. But, you know, we've we've been electing some great left wing anti genocide pro worker

[01:41:46] candidates here in New York City. And let's replicate this elsewhere in the country. I know we can do it. So many people are saying that, you know, oh, New York City is just being woke New York City. First of all, New York City has plenty of very unwoke representatives. And also, I know that what we are feeling in New York with regards to the genocide, with regards to taxing the rich, these are feelings that are being held throughout the country. So if that is something that resonates with you, join the DSA. But also,

[01:42:16] look into candidates running in your district. Support the ones who are. I know we have some great candidates popping up all over the place that I'm very excited about. And I don't know, just leaving this on a high note. Absolutely. Change is coming. Change is in the air. Hell yeah. Thanks so much, Matt. I love you so much. And until next time, stay fruity.