Ep. 175 - Free Thoughts with Bowen & Twyman, Ep. 43

0:00Good morning, evening friends. This is your friendly announcer, Michael David Cobb-Bohen. And I'm here with my friend and colleague, Winkfield, Franklin Twyman, Jr. Thank you very much for that. We have a mouthful of names here. Well, you know what? I apologize in this step. I'm in a glory smooth because as you know, my readers know, it's my birthday. It's my birthday. I know. I'm just like, go Wink. Go Wink. It's your birthday. I got a phone call five minutes before we started taping from a wonderful cousin in the Washington DC area. No, so nice. That's so nice. So that's just kind of how my days been going so far. Oh man, do you get a whole birthday week? Oh, weekend. We get. Okay. So things kind of started to go into play Thursday at 6 o'clock 1 p.m. Oh my goodness.

1:03That's funny. You know, I have an interesting thing about my birthday. I was born at 420. 420 p.m. Right, right. So the doctor was the first one to ask, what are your kids doing at 420? Being born. That's right. That's right. That's what they're doing. That's what they're doing. So well, you know, today, Michael, promises to be a fun, fun episode. We decided to change things up a little bit and just have it be a pure question and answer session, entertaining questions from our various readers and listeners. And I am just so jazzed because I think in some ways, that's a great way for us to know our readers and listeners better in a great way for them to know us better as well. So yeah, I think it's a good one. Because I said, I'm going to kind of take the lead informally since I'm so excited. I'm the birthday boys. I get to take the lead. Yes, you are. So the first question, well, first of all, I promised, you know, when you are a writer and a

2:09Michael, I'm sure you feel this way, it's so warm and flattering to know that you develop almost like a fan club, like groupies, like there are people who begin to read you every day. And it's a warm feeling. And so I want to start this presentation. Someone reached out to me from a long, long time ago. And my readers will know who this person is. It's the Mexican Amy White House. And so she said, I dare you to give me a shout out. So Mexican Amy White House, this is your shout out. Yes, I hear a lot about the Mexican Amy White House. You live in this man's psyche. Right, that's right. That's right. That's right. That's the fictional character she must be. And now let's start in with the first question. As you, my readers know, I live an interesting life. I am I am the distant even my own household. Some say I'm a black American. I think that's true. I'll be at retired. But my family, I didn't refuse this read by writing. So I, so since it's my birthday, however, I asked my lovely wife, do you have any questions for my podcast? And these are her

3:14questions for me. Question one. What's gotten into you? What's wrong with you? How do I get you the change? And what is free black thought? What is the point? That's for my lovely wife of 35 years. So the answer of my lovely wife of 35 years, well, you know, I think nothing has gotten into me. I suspect I've always been for all of my life a very curious sort of person, someone who's kind of open-minded, someone who's not really driven by the racial impulse so much. So it's not that something's gotten into me. Maybe it was always there. So nothing's wrong with me because you married me as I am. So you have to count for that right? Lovely wife. How do I get you to, I'm not going to change you though that. I know that. And so we coexist in love and bliss every night as we watch the swatip episodes with Shemar more. What is free black thought? Well, free black thought, my dear

4:16wife, is this wonderful organization of scholars, intellectuals and writers. They're not all black necessarily, but they are united in this idea that blackness is not a monolith, that there are a million and one ways to understand blackness. And so I find it's a wonderful place to really dive into the authenticity of what I perceive and are saying about the human condition. And so those are the answers to the first question for Mrs. Twyman. Very appropriate. I have an answer to that too. Go right ahead, Michael. Please join in. Well, I mean, the core question is blackness static. And is there nothing more to say? Is there no new politics, no new philosophies? And I think the catalog of freeze frames of people that you say, this is what blackness is all about. Django and chain or Booker T Washington or Ali or Malcolm X or Marcus Garvey or Pan Africanism. No, none of those

5:18things close the question. The question is always open. And it's always changing. It's active, it's dynamic. And so what free black thought is against the flattening, the reduction, the condensation, the paternalism and the presumption that one great leader appears and everyone black falls in line or that they have to. And the list of people that we get is short and shallow and it doesn't cover all the basis. So and also I think we're also challenging the idea of race. I mean, for centuries, we've gone for the one drop rule. All right. So we knew we knew what the octavoons and and watchrooms, creoles and quadrooms and byracial. And unlike those one drop of blood actually change your thought. It might change your body. It might change your skin color. But we're not free black bodies. We're free black thought. I like that. Michael, I could not sit that better. Thank you very

6:22much. And I hopefully one day the universe will communicate your wisdom to Mrs. Twyman. So now you got to see all the phones. That's right. That's right. The next question. And this is from a dear reader. I refer to her simply as CD CD. Her question to me is, why did you assume I did not want the chocolate dessert at the Harvard Club? That's an odd question. CD. Here's my hamster to that question. Well, look, I wanted the cake. I always wear a cake, but I just didn't want the consequences. How's that? Michael, you're response. You know, my wife and I have a running joke that anytime we talk about something that has absolutely nothing to do with cultural race. Right. You know, she'll say, Oh, Mike, would you get that black bowl? And I'm like, why is it got to be black? So I, I, I throw those crazy references. So why is it cake have to be chocolate? Why can't I have a vanilla shake? You know, and I do stupid stuff like, yes, exactly.

7:28Another question from CD. And this is an interesting question. Why the fascination with AI? That's a great question, actually. I was thinking about that this morning. I feel and I'll let Michael speak as well because he has a greater technological expertise, but I really feel that we are approaching the, a watershed in human history. And I think that you can sense this transformation every day if you use Claude or open AI or Grop or the other frontier language models. And I think there's tremendous opportunity. We could solve cancer, have a vaccine for cancer. We could reverse aging, but there's also horrible dread. We could have swarms of AI agents out there hacking companies and creating problems with power plants and water systems and too many data systems centers might increase the heat on our planet. So to me, those great problems, they're just riveting because

8:31they're going to influence how humanity progresses forward. And also, as you can tell, I'm not just in a black mental cage, I can see larger problems. I can see things that really burden us. Michael, what's your answer to that one? Yeah, I agree that AI is transformational. It's changing. Everything that has to do with thought. And it's revolutionary. I mean, I just listened to a guy who goes by the initials DHH. And I didn't, he was the guy who invented Ruby on Rails. And he's come up with a new Linux distribution. And it is the first Linux in a very long time that's really got my attention. And it might get me even off of Mac. But he's saying, we are so fortunate. If you can imagine, if you grew up in the, let's say you were born in 1890, you would have seen the first flight. And you would have seen the first atomic bomb. And people think like the 20th

9:37century is so full of miracles. Imagine you living through that time. And but us, we've lived through seeing a man on the moon, the invention of the internet and search engines. And now AI, which is the biggest of those three things. And and and rocketry has done leaps and bounds. So it's, it's, it's a crazy time to build it. It is. It is. And this is a final question from CD. Are you nostalgic? Always as of late since the passing of your dad. And that's a deep question. Um, um, I was thinking about that. I mean, on the one hand, I'm very blessed that my dad lived in his 90s. Very few people can say that. I'll let him increase over time. Um, it was very painful to see my dad suffering from dementia and suffering from severe arthritis. And this is most rules we're not working as they should. And I remember the pain he was in when the catheter was

10:43removed. And I remember the last time holding his hands, we said goodbye. My daughter, uh, who didn't really know him that well, but tried to engage and we're running repertoire with her grandfather to to make him smile. Um, yeah, I think if you're a human, one of the deepest bonds of life is between a father and a son. So when that bond is no more, of course, you're going to think about your own mortality and the meaning of life that all the lessons you've learned from your father, my, my dad and I did not always see that eye. We had our differences. But I think that, um, fatherhood, if done well, will trump all of those secondary considerations of politics and ideology in life. So that's my answer. What do you think? Yeah, my father just turned 90. And we are, our family is particularly long lived. My, my great grandfather was like 87 or 88

11:47when he died. And so yeah, I'm dealing with, um, um, dealing with his dementia and his body kind of falling apart. And I just remember a great book that I read a long time ago called Two's Days with Mori. Yes, yes. I remember that. And, and also a gathering of old men. Yes. And so there was, there are some, you know, it's like, it's like when people say you're going to have your first child and it's going to really change your life and you'll have love that you've never understood. And I was like, yeah, yeah, sure. And, and then it did happen. And so now taking care of my father where I'm having to be a father to him is, is really a, an extraordinary thing that, um, that I'm fortunate. I mean, even though it's a burden and it's difficult and it's harsh to, to deal with that emotions that come along with that, seeing your father fail. Right. Um, man, it, it, it, it really grows you up.

12:53That's true. Even if you're 65. Yes. Even 65. Next question from our mutual dear friend, Diana Bloom, from the day area. Diana says, I would ask you guys what I was asked when interviewing for medical school, alive or dead, fiction or nonfiction, who would you want to be and why? I have a quick answer to that. I would love to be Dean Charles Hamilton Houston in the 1930s, when all beyond how are universities bleak and darkness, but yet you've got in your hands, the future crusaders of a race. And every day you come into the classroom and you assign your professors and your faculty to go for and inspire and teach these people, these law students who are probably from poor and published backgrounds throughout the South and whatever

13:54that they have a duty, they have a mission to use the law for the betterment of mankind. So that's what I would love to be Charles Hamilton Houston, Dean of Howard Law School in 1930s, what say you Michael? Wow. It's funny. I, I was asked this question a long time ago and I was really happy to be who I was. I said, I'd love to be a young black man in post civil rights America. You know, we had Muhammad Ali and my hero was Matthew Hanson, the explorer. And so I was just, you know, really happy to, you know, I was one of those young kids who had the chemistry set, the crystal radio, I built all those things at home. I watched the man missions to the moon. And 2001 is my favorite movie of all time. So I was really excited to be part of the space age. And, you know, I didn't

14:54understand the downside of what the Cold War was about. And I had that fear of nukes and, and, and of the Russians. But I was like, this is the place to be. We're going to go further as black men and women than we've ever been in this country. And it was really exciting in the 70s once we got past all the violence. Right. To, to see that. So I guess I would like to be land okay. I'll risk you. Okay. All right. So that was a great question. Thank you very much, Diana. We love you so much. Michael and I. Next question from a neat, another mutual friend, Jennifer, Jennifer Richmond, my co-author of my, hi, Jim later. Yeah. She's in Montgomery, Alabama, as we speak. And in fact, that inspires her question for us. It's a little lengthy. So in Dorifus listeners was a good question. It's a good question. Rich question. So I'm in Montgomery, Alabama for an event. It apparently has a very high primary. But the downtown area is clean and

15:58quiet. Yes, there are the homeless asking for money. But I feel so much more at ease here than in Baltimore. In Baltimore, the trash literally accumulates on the streets. It seems there's just no care for the city. It feels so different here in Montgomery, Alabama. Like they actually care about the city or at least the city center. What do you make of this? And my question reminds me of our earlier conversations. Remember when I was in Baltimore and took the social justice tour? It was just showcasing diversity as big business. Where's now Montgomery, Alabama. There are plenty of black historical monuments here. It just feels different. And I have a, I thought about that great question because it's rich. And here's my answer. Now, some listeners might say, well, Jim, look around you. There must be something about the racial composition of the respective cities. Maybe that accounts for what you're seeing as a difference in the life. Well, actually, no,

17:00ladies and gentlemen, both Baltimore and Montgomery, Alabama have essentially the same black percentage, 60%. So you can remove race out of the equation in terms of what Jim's experiencing. I think the differences are threefold. Number one, I think Baltimore is a very dense city as a post trust spread out city like Montgomery, Alabama. So I think in a dense city, it's more easy for trash to accumulate on the streets. Number two, for better or for worse, Baltimore has a higher poverty rate compared to Montgomery, Alabama. And I think sadly, a higher poverty rate may correlate to less investment in the cleanliness, cleanliness of one's surroundings. You may agree with your disagree, Michael, we can talk about that. And then number three, I think that Baltimore today and for this decade has been so riveted by social justice and dogmas and slogan words.

18:05In part because of police police brutality accusations, the Freddie rich dilemma happened in 2015 in Baltimore. Whereas Montgomery doesn't have that. Montgomery has something different, which I closely relate to. And Montgomery, it's more about the lineage, the heritage of Black American culture and consciousness, the memory of people who were civil rights crusaders. In some ways, the feeling tone as she walks the streets of Montgomery, Alabama is paedist as I use often. Whereas one doesn't sense that as a virtue in the streets of Baltimore. So I think that accounts for the differences. What say you, Michael? I don't often think of Baltimore as a southern city. In the same way, I would think of Montgomery, Alabama. Just a couple of years ago, we had some friends, new relatives that we discovered from the south. And they had those old school manners.

19:08And this was a young woman in her earlier mid-20s. And she had a baby. And it was yes, sir, yes, ma'am. That kind of gentility. It means come home trainings. And I'm all with say good. Yeah. Yeah. And it wasn't about the bling. It wasn't about a materialist culture. This was someone who was deep south black, which is very different than urban hip hop people or those who looked to politics first before the church. And so, I think every city has its own racial dynamic. I spent some time in Greensboro, North Carolina, which is Jesse Jackson's, I believe, on the moder there. And just the way that people deal with each other between black and white, it can be kind of hostile.

20:08It can have a kind of, you know, stalemate, or there could be this idea that blacks are taken over here. And so this is the way things are going to happen. And each one of those, especially in seven towns, has a big influence on the culture. That's a good point. That's a very good point. And I like your point because it reinforces the idea that we just can't stereotype cities. Every city is unique unto itself, unique history, unique vibe. The next question I think is from one of my beloved readers, and I think her name is Amy Griffith. She comments by my essays often. She makes me feel beloved as a writer. So she has a question for me, and then a question for you and me, Michael. The first question for me. So what is a lesson for her personal professional from your time in Barney Frank's office?

21:09Well, that's a good question. That's a good question. I learned the importance of intellectual brain power and how that can create a leadership vibe. When I worked for Barney, he was just one of 435 members of the house. But because he was so, so brilliant, he had gone to Harvard, law school, some of the lower view I think at Harvard, had been one of the youngest deputies to a mayor of Boston. He just brought a lot of intellectual force power to his committee assignments to legislative debates. And I discovered that he became recognized as a go-to leader for other members of the Democratic caucus. It's a crazy degree. So he probably had more power when I work for him than 95% of other Democratic members of the house. And so I learned that, you know,

22:15if you really are as sharp as all get out, leadership and power will flow to you. And it doesn't matter if you're Jewish, it doesn't matter if you're gay, it doesn't matter if you're from being owned, you're Jersey. If you've got the horsepower, that's going to be recognized. And so less than I got from working at Barney Franks office. And now the question for you and me, Michael, from Amy. What are your favorite places in Cambridge in Boston? Oh, I love that question. Cambridge, I love that Sheridan Commander Hotel. It sits right on the Cambridge Commons. And I love it because they have this great old reference for General George Washington throughout the hotel. I love that. That was one of the places I stayed with my daughter when we were doing our college tour back in 2019. I also love in Cambridge Harvard Square. I love in Cambridge the campus of Harvard. Oh, and I love the landing for the boats when you approached the Harvard Business School and the

23:22other side of the Charles River. I love that part of Cambridge. In terms of Boston, oh, what's it called? The top of the hub restaurant in the credential building. That was the first place my close friends took me to celebrate when I got into law school. It took me out to the top of the hub. And it was so magical. It was so mystical. I felt like I was just transported away to this magical place because here I am, you know, in this big city, probably more than a few times I'd been in a big city, truth be told, at the top of this multi-story building with a great view of all of downtown Boston at my feet and my friends were there drinking with me, toasting with me. Yeah, those memories will never go away. As a side note, and this is just our generational change, I tried to replicate those feelings with my daughter in 2019 when we were visiting on our college tour. So I said, you know, we're going to go to the top of the hub. It's going to be magical. It's

24:24going to mystical. You're just going to blown away. We get there. And she's like, yeah, what else is because she's she's so different from me. And I was so crestfallen. I was just like, oh, we know. So I did top of the hub for me is where my special places in Boston are. How about you, Michael? Wow. Well, I really love the fence because that's where I lived. And there was a pool place near Fenway Park. I spent a lot of time playing pool and they had a micro brewery over there. I really, one of the first times I went to Boston, I stated the copy place hotel. And they had the best clam chowder I've ever had in my life. And I was just, oh, this is so good. And it was an old school hotel with the hexagonal tiles in the bathroom. And that was just lovely. I love going to Waterstones books on on Mulberry Street. Is it Mulberry Street?

25:27Could be. I'm not sure. Something, something berry street. And everybody knows it's where all the nice restaurants and shops are. And there was a bicycle shop over there. And the Boston Public Collaboration right over there, which had a great exhibit of photojournalism that I just, it just reminded me, oh, how, how majestic, you know, it is when a great photo was there. And I also love the colonnade. I just love this big public expanse where everybody can come. And it's just wide open space. And there's nothing to do there, but just hang around and meet people. But it's just, it's just a great space. But I have to say that my favorite place would be Harvard Square because that was the first place in a little theater over there that I saw Schindler's List. Oh, really? It just smacked me in the head for Schindler's List. And of course, on the border

26:29restaurant, where I proposed to my wife. Oh, that's a lie story. That's a special place for Michael, very special place to eat. And so the next question is, and I think it could be for the two of us, this one is from a common friend of ours, Connie. Connie Morgan. So she said to me, and I quote, I thought you were already pretty race and different. And I guess my response is, yeah, I'm probably even more so as of late. But I think it's interesting because, is there a difference between being color, what is it being, race and different versus race blind? I don't know. I don't know because obviously I recognize blackness. I mean, obviously I recognize things like Pioneer Black Lawyers and Jack and Jill and Alpha Fowl, and all the rest. But I think you can

27:35recognize blackness, but not attribute to it any intrinsic value because if you view the world as an individual, you really, really always know that there's more to the story than blackness. I think for many people, the story begins and ends with blackness. And that's never been true for me. How about you, Michael? You know, I wrestled with that because I have been race and different, but race and different in terms of the idea of raising the race. I think the establishment of the civil rights law, which was a bipartisan effort, really did a better job than all of our individual movements. So it's actually the rule of law that presumes that we're equal, which is a presumption that goes all the way back to the founding. Although, practically speaking, it doesn't happen everywhere all at once. So I look to the fidelity of the black experience to

28:40the higher ground, which is to say, you know, how do black people distinguish themselves? And do they do it on a political basis or a religious basis or a philosophical basis or an education basis or a class basis? Because I mean, let's look at a very simple thing, the National Association of Colored People. Everybody understands that's a black organization. We're not like, well, we got to get some Koreans in here. We got to get some Japanese in here. We have to get some Indians in here. No, no, no, it's a black thing for black people and everybody understands that. And so that whole thing is that, you know, that is an august institution. And if you are properly old school black, then you do your contribution to that or the urban league or organizations such as you said. So there is real black culture that is sustainable. And, you know, some of us

29:46take that responsibility rather seriously, but that's different than a racial unity platform. Which is, which is strictly political and ideological, where you pick and say, okay, we're on Malcolm X's mission, or we're on Farrah Consumission. No, that's insufficient. I love that answer. Ladies and gentlemen, that's a great answer. And we would do well to to ponder that one deeply. And now we move from the world of human questionnaires to the world of artificial intelligence questions, AI. Let's see what AI has for us. So the first question, Michael, out of a set of 12 that I had put together before, what is the single most important misconception people have about black intellectual life today? Well, I'm going to take a very conventional answer to that. I'm going to say the misconception people have is because of echo chambers and the way

30:50thought is manipulated, the misconceptions that, you know, black intellectual life is dogmatic, it's liberationists, it's activists, it's all those things. And I think that's a misconception, because I think if you were to question over 40 million individual black Americans, or over 1 billion black people in the planet, you would not get anything, you would not get a single coherent answer to the question, what is black intellectual life? It would be very porous, it would be like a kaleidoscope of perspectives and vantage points and attitudes and values. And so that's where I think it's the single most important misconception that there is something singular to black intellectual life. Or do you say Michael? I would think that the biggest misconception about black intellectual life is that black intellectuals are not integrationist that we're always seeking a separate piece, a separate place

31:58that we don't necessarily want to be equal or we don't necessarily want to be integrated into American society. There are some black intellectuals who behave that way, but that's not by and large, the smart people I've met in my life are not that way. They are like their championing America. And that's what we really want to be is American. I like that. I like that. The next question, when did you first realize that thinking independently would cost you socially, something socially, and what did it cost? Oh, I think the first time I was watching Fox News on my wife was in the room and she was like, you don't really want to see that. And I was kind of like, well, I'm open, but I don't want to see what the arguments are. And the more I began to be open to that show, the more she began to put me into a label.

33:04I would label that box the forsaken, the lost, the won't be gotten. So that way, by answer that question. Yeah. I got some of that stuff as well as the founder of the conservative brotherhood back in 2003 or four somewhere around there as Cobb, a lot of my readers still know me as Cobb. But I was always very independent minded. My parents spoiled me. You know, they told me, you know, my IQ was 136 and you're different in your special. And you know, I spoke Swahili at home because my uncle was in the Peace Corps. So they spent time in Francophone Africa and part of my family did that as well. And I was doing that because of, you know, the Pan African influencing my

34:06family before I ever went to church. So I could say, how about Igani and Jamas, I'm they son of before I said, you know, you know, we believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic church. So I was way out of joint with black Christians. And then I went to Catholic school. And so, you know, I couldn't palm a basketball. I was a middle distance runner, not a sprinter. I learned how to swim and do diving. So I was always different. I was always out out of the bunch. And I just I just accepted it. It was yeah. Yeah. That's fair answer. The answer. What is the belief you held about race or identity 10 years ago that you no longer hold? That's an interesting question. I'm going to offer a nuanced, um, preliminary and nascent answer, uh, dear listeners. I'm it's not firm. It's not like a coherent. It's forming.

35:13But I think more than 10 years ago, I think I just simply felt, well, if you're, block, you're black. That if you're a block in America, you're a black American. But I think in the last 10 years, so since 2016, I become more tuned to experiences and values and attitudes that may differ based upon one's cultural genesis. So for example, I was in I was on a conversation recently with someone. And they were very excited because they have a great opportunity in life. And they were talking about whether or not there were any, um, black people in the class, which, you know, some people do and I find I even get that when I was in junior high school. I made black, so I didn't get to your eyes. But what I thought was interesting was, um, the person said the person was

36:18block. But then the person said the person's name. And someone else thought, hmm, that doesn't, that doesn't, they must be from Africa or they must. And then they thought further about it and it thought, no, maybe Haitian, maybe Haitian. Um, and I could see in their minds going from initially where you're just one of the monoliths, black Americans to Africa, Asia, that in their mind, they were already beginning to focus the sense of a distinction or a difference. And so that's why I would answer that question. I would not really have noticed that more than 10 years ago. But I noticed it more lately, particularly given experiences of two family members I know and elite institutions. And at both places, random black kids from Africa or the islands would ask

37:19them, well, were you from or who are you? And they would say black American, which was on it, got on his truth. And they were met with disbelief. And that caused me to pause. Why would someone from Sierra Leone or someone from Ghana or someone who's an evil or someone from Jamaica question where I used to wear foundational black Americans are from their own country at elite institution? Or your thoughts on that, Michael? Interesting, interesting. Um, well, yeah, I think, I mean, I, I, I, I, I definitely sets that dynamic. And I tend to notice more Nigerians here. But and I think about the past 10 years, that's definitely the pre-woke era versus the woke era. And I think what really broke it was President Obama saying that he is Trevon Martin.

38:27And I think that was a change from the traditional old school to the new, you know, woke mentality, the victimhood mentality. And and I recognized it from the right in watching how a Michelle Obama was, uh, amping up the social dimensions of power that they wanted to assume if Obama changed the, uh, became in the White House. And I think that was a kind of racial overreach. And the consequence was that it, it, it raised the profile of Black Lives Matter over the NAACP in the Urban League. BLM got more money than they did for sure. And, and I noticed,

39:30again, in the post-multicultural era, but pre-woke era, you know, our heroes like mine were people like Bryant Gumball and, and Ron Brown, uh, Sidney Poitier, even in his age. But and I was never expecting Snoop Dogg and Tupac and Trevon Martin and, and Amadou Diallo, these new victims to be emblematic of Black America. And I thought the class issue was, was ascendant in terms of the way Glen Lorry talks about social capital. And the way blacks would discriminate against, uh, between black people would be on those kinds of things. The integrational, you know, somebody like Vernon Jordan would be a hero. And, and, and then Tupac becomes a hero. And I'm like, how does, how does that happen? Um, so the race, the whole raising the race

40:33kind of thing really changed, uh, during the Obama era. And I think white America for lack of a better term thought about, oh, we're going to have a post-racial president. And what, what he says will go. Again, this idea that there's the head me grow in charge and his tone will set the tone for the nation. And that's it. That's the last goal. So everybody's cool. And, and, and, and it didn't work. And I think it laid the groundwork for the, the ideology of the woke, which was done by the progressive left. Uh, so I think race has really changed from before 2016 to after 2016. And I think we're just beginning to recover from that. Interesting. Interesting. Next question. What is the most difficult truth you've ever had to accept about yourself? Well, that's an interesting

41:35question. Um, let me think about it. Um, that you want to say. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, um, um, okay. I think this is true. This is, yeah, this is true. Like as a, those who followed me closely will notice that if you look before the year 1995, I wrote nothing. I had zero publications. I think, I think I had one letter to the editor to roll call back in the 1980s about how they missed that John Mercer Langston was the first black congressman from Virginia. But, other than that, I didn't write anything. I remember when I chose to write, choosing topics that I really believed in the commerce class, the dormant commerce class. I had a law review article in

42:36the South Carolina law review and some in the Verenacaxe law review. But I consciously did not write about race because I knew my truth, my difficult truth, as the question says, was not looked upon kindly in the academy of other faculty members. So I tried to like, uh, how was being the closeted, so we say in terms of my truth as a non-conforming, uh, peculiar quirky, uh, believer in the individual. And then something happened, I think, uh, in the 2000s, it was almost like a damn burst. I felt like I just can't keep these opinions and viewpoints bottled in because I feel they're true. I know they're true. They reflect my life, but I don't see them reflected in critical race theory or the the academic literature. And so I wrote this, wow, I wrote this piece where I just let it all

43:39hang out. I think it was called another, another black woman. It came out in the St. Croix review. Don't look it up, ladies and gentlemen, it is good to know without you that. But it was a scathing critique of my sister's choices in life. And it was truthful, it was a difficult truth. And I remember how I felt relieved and liberated because I was now writing and writing truth. I'm not trying to write from the closet. And I remember how that definitely, and recently so, created a rift between me and my niece. Uh, I remember she asked me two or three times, I want you to take down that essay. I want you to delete that essay. No, that's not what writers do. In fact, you should applaud writers who show courage. And so I would say that's probably the most difficult truth I've had to accept about myself as a writer is that the courage to just write what is not popular. What's your answer, Michael?

44:46Um, it's funny. My father gave me something that I've kind of defied this advice my entire life. And it was a little bit of everything adds up to a whole lot of nothing. Mm hmm. And I've never had a singular passion that I invested myself in 100% or 120%. So I'm all over the place. And I have, you know, two or three strengths that I think. But neither one of them is enough where I just say I am so totally committed to this. I want to be the best in the world in this. And so that has mitigated against my, um, my ability to have high quality networks

45:48because I was like, you know, I, okay, you know, I flunked out of USC fine. And then I went to the state college and did four years there, but didn't get my degree fine. I'll move on. I went to Xerox. I did well there, but then Xerox dropped their computer business fine. And I ended up bouncing around and never having a real institutional backup where I could say these are people who've known me for 20 years. And these are people who could vouch for me. And I, I thought it was a virtue to be organic. I'm not leveraged by any institution. I'm my own man. I can decide what I want to do. And, you know, there's, there are serious costs to being auto-didactic. There's, there's serious blessings. Um, you know, but I don't know. I, I, I think, you know, I'm going to die poor because

46:50I've gone my own way. And as much as I, as much as I like that philosopher who lived under the bridge, um, yeah, that may be my destiny. Elon Musk would disagree. He would say, if you bake it to 2035, you will live like a multi-millionaire. You will have hyperabundance, my friend. Yeah. Okay. Okay. We read on for our critique, Elon Musk to, uh, the next question, which would be how do you decide when to speak publicly about a controversial topic and when to stay quiet? I love this question. It's timely and so hard to answer, but I'm going to take a stab at it. All of us have emails that come in like a flood every day. I know you do, Michael. I do. The Wilford Rylade does. You know, if you're, if you're someone who's really making contribution to the public discourse, you just develop dreams and dreams of emails every day. And I really do try to read every email. And so as you might have noticed, Michael,

47:55sometimes I'm two days, four days behind and getting back to people. It's just my life. But I've noticed this. I am on a subscription list for this interesting platform. It's called LA Progressive. God knows how I kind of, but this was a description list now. But I read it because I'm in tree. I'm open minded, ladies and gentlemen. And so even though most of the things I look at or I rolled my eyes as I fiction, I still will read it. But sometimes I just can't let it go. And I'm thinking of what article you may have rated Michael about, uh, what the 13th anniversary of Black Lives Matter or something like that. And I just, what the professor 13 I call her, I just couldn't let go. And so to answer this question, why is it that I can just read these essays 95% of the time and just shake my head, but stay quiet. And then 5% of the times I just, it's got to put pen to paper.

49:02I think it's the level of annoyance. And that's hard to kind of define with greater clarity. But sometimes a knob, a dial in me just flicks. And I just think, no, you just cannot say this and not be engaged. You just can't say this or that be critiqued. I'm thinking of the one, the only, the time traveler author I call him who wrote a book I read over my suburbication. And you know, at first, I wasn't going to read the book because I thought, why bother? I can just take quiet, you know, but the more I read the book, the more I thought, oh God, more. As I wrote, and I critiqued, I think over two or three essays, this book, from start to finish. And I think it's because once again, as William F Buckley Jr once said, the best writing sometimes comes from the great annoyance, the greatest annoyance. So I think for me, there's like some magical dial or trigger. And when it's flicked on, when it's crossed,

50:08yeah, stand back ladies and gentlemen, I'm just going to roll up my sleeves. I'm just going to write a critique of the hour. Let's say you to that question Michael. I used to write a three panel cartoon. And I used to follow the blogosphere just religiously. I had something to say every day, every meme I'd never let it go. And I was really active. And that's funny because I've republished one or two of those. And there was something called do dad pro. So do dad pro, if you search your AIs or Google, you'll find out that had something to do with the Democrats. But having been writing online forever more than 20 years, more than me. I've decided that I kind of want to be holistic. And because I started in blogging and because I

51:12started in performance poetry, I always have to have a personal kind of thing that's involved. And so only if I can see something that challenges my principles, that I can work my way around, then I'll do that. But then that takes me away from literary film and music criticism, which I often like to do. And I haven't done enough of that. I wanted to concentrate on beauty this year. And I haven't, you know, I've been overcome by events. And my creative spark is kind of all vacants here in August. That's a good answer. That's a good answer. Let's go to the next question. What is one moment in your life when curiosity saved you? And one moment when it failed you. Oh, that's the key question. It's a good question. Coming at me cold here. Let's see. I would say,

52:17and I'm not going to give away like highly personal details because I just not my personality. But I think there was a moment in my life when curiosity saved me. I think if in 10 or 20 years, I would have turned back the hands of time. I could say because I was so curious about my genome, my very snips and chromosomes and whatever that that may have actually saved me in a medical sense, just because it raised my awareness about potential problems that otherwise would not have felt. One moment when it failed you, there was something that happened that was funny. And I just can't remember the details about it. Oh, well, oh, my lord. Well, okay. It's a tough question. I know it is. Okay, I'm okay. Okay, okay. Fail to be. I wrote about this in a recent substuck. So I'm like eight years old, Michael. I met the front yard at our home in Irvington Street. I'm just a

53:22curious little kid. I'm like looking at the flowers and the bumblebees and the dead possums and the trash can and I just live in life, right? And so I decided to just throw some pebbles up in the air because I wanted to see how high could I throw a pedal, pedal, pedal, and you know, I would watch how high they would go and come down and I increased the size of the pebbles and they got this size bowl. I threw it up in the air to say how high would go? It was like a social experiment, science experiment and it came down to Michael tough on my head. I'm looking at him. I never told my parents I only revealed it in my substuck essay for the first time, but that's when my curiosity failed me because I wanted to know how high in the air can I throw this rock and not consider the foreseeable consequences that it might come straight down in a direction on my head. That's what I think. I don't know if my curiosity about AI will save me or fail me, but it certainly has

54:31changed the way I work, the way I think it's been almost a year, October of last year, when I just started seriously saying, why am I coding at all when I could be coding with these agents? In January, that's when it really took off for me. My curiosity about that has really fired me up and it's changing my habits in real ways that I don't know are tractable. I have some faith that it will save me, but I don't know. Definitely when it failed me, I have been curious about a particular female and she failed me spectacularly. Yeah, but another one is when I went on vacation to Hawaii and I hadn't been body surfing in over

55:3715 years and I said, wow, this is a nice looking break. I think I can handle that. Let's see if I can. And I completely, the soul's stupid for me to go out. I know there was one other person at this beach and he was surfing and I said, I'm going to body surf and he had to end up rescuing me. Oh my god, because I was not the swimmer I used to be and it was just totally stupid for me to try that. Gotcha. You're a curiosity failure for real. I got you. Next question, what do you think black America most misunderstand about white America? And what does white America most misunderstand about black America? Well, Mr. AI, I'm going to directly question the premise of that question because I'm not sure there's a black America. I'm not sure there's a white America. And so I think

56:39to really answer that question in good faith, I would have to isolate or identify particular individuals. Otherwise, I'm just doing the old caricatures, stereotyping thing, right? So Mr. AI, that's going to be my good faith answer to your question. I can't answer it because there's no such thing as a black America. Did I just say that? I did. And there's not such thing as a white America, ladies and gentlemen. What do you say Michael? Yeah, I'm in general agreement of that. But since I'm into, you know, ontologies and definitions and philosophical directions, I think I would basically say white America doesn't have as much experience thinking its way out of race as black America has. You know, we know Uncle Tom's, but what's the white equivalent of an Uncle Tom? Well, we know the equivalent. Yes, we will see it. Right, but there's probably more Uncle Tom's, right?

57:47Right, right, right. And I think that getting out of racial thinking is a skill. And black people are always wearing masks. You know, as as Lauren Hill said, we all wear the mask, but how long will it last? And I think there's a symmetrical error. There's a symmetrical error, which is I identify too much with my race. And I feel responsible. If that race doesn't do X, Y, or Z, then we're never all going to get along. And there's these these racial prescriptions. So people misjudge how invested in race, everybody else is. And I think it's it's it's absolutely symmetric. And they don't know that. Hmm, that's interesting. Interesting answer. Next question. What is the most intellectually honest argument you've ever heard from someone you disagree with? Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Um.

59:01You know, it's funny as the author of the book letters in black and white. I think it would probably be the arguments Jen made in my book when it came to understanding um, one self as an old American. Uh, I'm a firm believer in the power of genetic genealogy that we can rethink how we think of ourselves if we embrace all of ourselves. Jen honestly, she's actually felt well, no block Americans as an arrogant are not at a place where they can just accept that they may be the descendant of the first colonial school teacher in Virginia, Peter Montague, or um, you know, sign or dieglyph, sign or declaration of independence or the Thomas Jefferson, the author of the adecoration that uh, it won't matter to most black Americans. I resisted that argument because of my vision of a better life. Hmm. But I did feel Jennifer was very intellectually honest in the

1:00:06argument she made, even though I just, you know, took her to town and wrote paragraph after paragraph questioning her. But I would not say our argument about the ability of black Americans to change their sense of self simply due to their genetic composition. That was the most intellectually honest argument I've had from someone with who I disagree. How about you? I say okay. Um, this happened to me just very recently. Um, uh, let's say I met about a 30 year old Hollywood production assistant and and I think this person was very smart. Uh, but um, she was arguing that her industry's corruption is very unfair and her generation, she, she, she, she invested her education and she went to grad school and she's out here and she has to work in Hollywood and it's just a horrible thing.

1:01:12And my thing was like, well, you're smart enough, go to law school, change your career, you have plenty of time to live, get out of Hollywood. Otherwise, you're going to, you know, do this job and hate it. And then you're going to spend a fortune, you know, when you turn 50 to go fly fishing in Patagonia and get in touch with your inner self, where you could do that in a more honest career. Um, so, you know, I, I, but I very much sympathized with her. I was like, yeah, you put in a lot of time and effort. Um, and I see that I, I recognize that argument fully, but either you're going to subsume yourself in that. This is what I call swallowing the vomit. You know, it's something that makes you sick, but it's like, uh, the sunk cost are too great. So that, that was a, and I also have that, that argument with people who say, I'm never going

1:02:13to have children. And I'm like, I'm like, dude, so that's, that's my answer. Good. Good. Next question. How has aging changed your relationship to ambition, desire, and then need to be understood? Well, that's a good question, this question. First ambition, hmm, well, I think that when you're young and ambitious, the, the, the entire world, at least for me, appears to be your oyster, that it appears like, um, you have a 366 degree range of sight, uh, wherever you go is where you choose to go. But I think as you grow older, you encounter more and more, um, guard realises, you encounter more and more, uh, limitations, just because that's nature of the world. The world rewards certain skills and preferences and not other skills and preferences. And so I think that aging renders

1:03:18your ambition more sharpened, uh, more chiseled, uh, more, uh, worth out of steel in a sense. I think the ambitious 65 year old man is a stronger force to be whole than the ambitious 25 year old man because you're just starting out. Whereas at 65, you kind of know what's, you kind of know what your worser ambition and what doesn't. And that says this, that's the best way to put it. Desire. Well, you know, chocolate cake. Pappies. I, I find that, uh, I, I pay, I pay the piper of what I succumb to chocolate cake and rals. And so I've tried really hard to not do that. I feel very good about myself. I confess, I had chocolate ice cream last night, but it's because it was my birthday eve. So, uh, desire for me has not been a question of, um, aging, the desire for bad food is just constant. So,

1:04:25uh, that, that doesn't matter. In terms of the need to be understood, that's a good one. I don't think for me that has made a difference in terms of how old I am. When I was eight years old, I wanted to be understood by my white classmates who were calling me names because skin color didn't really matter to you were. When I was, um, 15, I wanted to be understood by my classmates because I've got my goals and dreams and surely you're on board with me, right? I want to be understood as who I am. When I was 25, uh, same story, uh, I was so delighted that a chance to be, to be recruited by and work for Congressman Barney Frank because even though on the surface, we were different. Uh, he was Jewish, I was a me, he was gay, I was straight, I was from the south, he was

1:05:25from the young New Jersey. But yet there was a certain something that clicked between the two of us. And, um, I like that because I felt like he was seeing beyond the surface stuff to the real me. So even, even, even the age of 65, I still crave that sense of being understood. You know, I joke about my, my wife and how she just thinks I'm just will be gotten and the kids think the same, but you know what? These are the same people who love you, who sing happy birthday to you in the morning. These are the people who are there when your dad dies and his funeral is held. Uh, so yeah, that would be my answer is that to be understood does not diminish as you age, it continues on a date. Hmm. I, I think I'm the inverse of you on that link. Go right ahead. Uh, because, you know, when I was young, I had my ambition and it was relatively clear to me. But the industry of software

1:06:30was very new. And I had this arrogant sense is I'm going to computerize everything. And I'm going to render so many of you useless. Right. Right. Because because these machines are getting better and better. And it was a, I literally had to choose between root 128 and Silicon Valley. And I chose root 128. Oh, okay. Because I said, I said Stanford can't beat MIT. But Stanford had also Berkeley. And those were that combination did beat MIT. And I didn't mention that I like Kendall Square. Because, you know, they were thinking machines incorporated was there, Lotus development was there. Um, but it turned out that, you know, you could make a bigger impact on the computing world in the 90s than, than you can today. There's so many programmers today. And so much of the work that I did

1:07:38that was cutting edge. Nobody knows about nobody respects it. It's, it's really crazy. And then as a writer, I didn't care. I was, I was a performance poet. And I'm there on stage. And I'm writing my poetry. And I'm getting the audience to, and the rest of the world can, you know, yeah, go to hell. And I was, I was saying, you know, the internet is for me and people like me. And the rest of y'all can take the bus. But over time, I just came out of the dialect. I realized that I was writing for the world. And I couldn't just do it all in lowercase spontaneous stuff. And now I feel like there's so much of life that I have learned and become wiser. And I wish everybody knew this stuff that I think I know right now. So now I think I want to be more understood than ever.

1:08:38Because I think I have, I have, you know, that, I would say that's how you and I are the inverse of each other. Because you are wide open and you're a teacher. And I am a practitioner. And I'm like, I want to make this single creation that will change the world. And the world be damned if they don't appreciate me. Whereas you're saying, I'm coming here from a discipline where I can share my knowledge with everybody and teach. And I've been impatient for most of my life. And I didn't want to teach. And I didn't want to cultivate those kinds of relationships. So that's that's how we're very different on that point, I think. That's a good answer. The next question, what is one question about race you wish people would stop asking? And one question you wish they would start asking, well, it's awesome. Fun. That one question I wish they would stop asking is

1:09:41to do black people tan. It's such a ridiculous question. You can sense Michaels laughter. Yes, now, now having said that, some people tan more than others, of course. But that's that's more matter of what your skin color happens to be, not what your race happens to be. Now the next question, one question you wish they would stop asking, um, I think I would like people to stop asking questions that presume marginalization and subjugation and oppression. When I go to, let's say a monastery and a method bookstore and there's a visiting person from Canada there. And small, there shouldn't be small talk because it's a monastery. So they're already breaking

1:10:44the rules. But suppose the person ask a question or makes a presumption that you must be part of the black monolith in terms of how you view yourself. Those kind of questions so greatly annoy me because the person isn't seeking to know me. They're looking at a caricature. I probably don't necessarily about that a while ago. Is that so many Jacantill types, for example, you know, they learn to play the admissions game. They learn to squeeze out the last ounce of oppression and great grandpa's life. And that's just, you know, they're experiencing this kind of existential dread, this angst because society is giving them an incentive to play the narrative game, right? Even though it doesn't accord with their own personal life experience, those things annoy me and trouble me deeply. They cause me to write. Those are the things that kind of trigger me to write. So that would be my answer

1:11:45that question. How about you, Michael? Let's see. What do people ask me about race that I wish they would stop asking? I don't know. It's weird. I think it's like that they ask me at all. I mean, oh, good point. I mean, I know I'm not in control as a stoic. I have to understand that I'm not in control of the questions that are going to ask me. But when I look at my own substag, it kind of upsets me that my most popular stuff has been about race. And that's a function of when I started at substag and how big I got immediately, you know, something that I wrote right there at the beginning of the woke revolution. And that was retweeted as it were by a prominent

1:12:52conservative. But I don't know. I'm always ready to answer those questions in some level of detail because I want to be understood. And I think I've solved the problem for myself where race matters about as much as, you know, blood type or Chinese. I'm an ox in the Chinese astrology. I'm a Gemini ox. What I think people should ask is to dive down into psychology and to mental health and mental fitness and the virtue of mental fitness. I think too many things are attributed to race that should be attributed to psyche. And we don't go through that at all. I mean, we talk about it at free black thought. We say it's victimology and catastrophe kept catastrophizing. And the slogan

1:13:53words, you know, that that but we only get close. We talk about narcissism. We talk about the autism spectrum. But we can't we don't do it enough to say, oh, that's why that person, this racial person thinks that, you know, no white policeman can question them because they're so black narcissistic, look at it black, narcissistic. So yeah, I wish we would talk more about psychology. Next question. What is the most important thing you've learned from Michael Bowen? And what do you think he's learned from you? So I'll answer a question first and then you can flip it. I think the what I've learned from Michael is an appreciation for the computer industry, for technology, for the software world. And that's something I wouldn't have known otherwise. I mean, Michael,

1:14:54truth be told, you're the only person I've known who's been in that industry in my entire life, except for, and let's see if you've heard of them. My college roommate, Steve Schina, have you heard of Steve Schina? Steve became a professor computer science at Sony Brook, New York. So apparently, he's written seven books about computer science, and as regarded as one of the leaders in the academic science. So it's kind of funny that at the beginning of life, my roommate becomes an esteemed computer scientist and then towards the end of the live, I meet Michael Bowen, who's also computer science and what do you think he's learned from you? Interesting question. I think Michael has learned that in this brave vast world we live in, in this time of wokeness and darkness, Logan Warts and what have you, in this time of blockity, black, milieu, or any of those, that there are remnants. There are

1:15:55gyms from the past that the the gentleman, the southern gentleman lives on and that he sees that in me every ship. Well, I think you nailed that last one because I've written this out. I've like, who's wink? He's a southern gentleman. He's a voracious reader. Oh, thank you. He's disciplined. He's outgoing. He has a positive uplifting outlook. He's circumspect. He's polite. He's generous. And he's dedicated to replicating his own success in others and often too humble to see how unique he is. What wink has learned from me? I have no idea. Maybe to laugh. Yes. A bit at things that he'd otherwise get uptight about. Maybe I loosen him up a little.

1:16:58I think so. Yes. Yes. Good question. Good answering. Good questions. If you could speak directly to a 22-year-old version of yourself, what would you tell him about courage? All right. So my 22-year-old self, on my birthday, thinking it is out. So I would have been, that would have been 1982. Oh, 1982. No, no, that's wrong. 61, 7181, 82, 83. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, God. Okay. Courage. All right. All right. So look, look, look, 22-year-old kid, August 30th, 1983. Yes. You, you, you love her. She's your first love. You love her hair. You love her skin. Her face. Her smile. You love her family. You're, you're working for her dad. You're like in this crazy zone.

1:18:06But let me tell you something about courage. You have got to have the courage. If you want to make this last, to be your real self with her, you can't just let her see part of you. You can't just let her see the good things about you. You got to remove that mask. You've got to have the courage to bring her down to Chester and have her see the folks, the great folks, and then not so great folks. Because she has to feel the real you. She can't just know the UVA Harvard Moscow bound you. She just can't know the cerebral nerdy gift you. She's got to know the beloved cousin you, the quirky aunt you, the ambitious uncle you, the dad you suffer you, the mommy or door you. She's got to know all of those anxieties and heartbreaks and pain and ambitions. She's got to know,

1:19:07she's got to know the copaster in the backyard. And if you do those things, Mr. 22-year-old, if you have the courage to really open up your heart to that woman, who can say that maybe one day she would be the one. But if you don't have that courage, I can't say what will happen as you start the law school days. What would she say? Yeah, it's interesting. I'm one of those people who, I don't know, I think, you know, if your parents love you and your little brothers and sisters, idolize you and that you are something of a big guy around the neighborhood and you made a name for yourself on campus. That augment your ego and I was fearless pretty much growing up. I never coiled from a fight. I never, yeah, I just, I was fearless. So my fearless curiosity gets

1:20:14me in trouble. And there were things that I felt that I can do and I should do on my own. And yeah, that's, I mean, my curiosity has gotten me into good things mostly. But I didn't know how to take the L and try again. So it wasn't fearless. It was just about my attitude and my arrogance. I didn't, I didn't push myself in ways that I think would have benefited me more. I shouldn't have always tried to be on the vanguard or a pioneer or come with my opinions. But you know, that's the way my life went. I never had, I never had any sponsors, you know. I didn't, I didn't have someone that I looked up to and said, oh, I want to follow those footsteps.

1:21:17It was always abstract for me. So what I should have told myself as a 22 year old is to be good to people around you and and be their hero instead of living for the future. Live for the now. And I think that would have translated into me being a better friend. And yeah, just just being a better friend. That's what I would tell myself. I love that. The final question, and then we will call it a morning, dear listeners. It is my birthday today and my lovely wife has activities planned for me. But I do want to ask a final question of Michael from the AI. And here's the final question. It's a lighter question. What considering everything you have written this year, what is the sentence you're proudest of,

1:22:26not the essay, the single sentence? And how would you answer that? Michael, I'll take a first stat at it. The sentence that I am most proud of because it really captures me and how I am in the world. I run an essay called Who Are My People in these days of dog months, slogan words, and tribalism and wakism. That seems to assume a very important dimension in life. Not so for me. And so this sentence was one I was proud of. It's not the most dramatic sentence. It's not the most epic sentence. It's not the most biblical sentence, but it's a sentence that in it's in its sense of reality

1:23:29captures me and I like it. The sentence reaches follows and it's from the essay Who Are My People. My people are varied lot. Twymand Road family, Chester classmates, Jewish Americans, the curious and the creative, the black Harvard Law School crowd. And I love that sentence because that sentence says it all for me from start to finish. This is a difficult one of course. I wrote something about Superman. Oh, okay. And I'm trying to find that. But it had something to do. Okay, here it is. This was probably one of my my better essays in this year. And it was

1:24:41entitled Truth, Justice, or the American Way. And I tend to really like the sentences that other people when they restack my stuff, then that comes up. Yeah. So I guess I'll just do the opening. If you know Superman, like I know Superman, you know that the title of this essay is wrong. It should be Truth, Justice, and the American Way because that's what mild manner Clark Kent was all about. But look around you. We are no longer small deal. We have become Gotham City. Oh. And I think that emphasizes my focus on the polis of how our experiment into democracy can

1:25:45go wrong or go right. And that we need reminding that there are certain virtues, paedis as it were, that are central to the health of this Republic. And that we're playing too much with luxury beliefs. And people think, oh, we're going to invent a new superhero that's better than Superman. And I guess that's become Iron Man or Spider Man or to say which but yeah, I'm not a traditionalist to be a traditionalist, but I have actually lived through better times than the ones we're in right now. Although these are exciting times because of the change. But you know, there's good old-fashioned stuff that works that's in tune with our evolutionary biology. And you know, a guy gets arrested this this week for saying a woman is

1:26:46an adult female. This was the NBA player who got thrown out of a WNBA game. And I'm like, hey. So, so yeah, I've enjoyed answering these questions. I spent some time preparing answers for them with with my friend Claudia. Yes. And yes. And I thought these were great questions to enjoy. I mean, these questions kind of forced me to dig deeper normally than I would. And to really think about the things that have the threads that have come together to produce the wife that I have known in the life that I am living. And I think the readers will appreciate this. The listeners will appreciate this walk through our inner selves as writers. So a shout out, a wonderful shout out to our human contributors, the Mexican Amy Winehouse, my lovely wife, CD, Diana Bloom,

1:27:54Jennifer Richmond, Amy Griffith, and of course, the AI contributors, co-pilot, and Claude, as it were. So this was great. This was great. Yeah. Yeah. You've put together quite a bombshell show today. I think so. I've enjoyed. And this is something, ladies and gentlemen, that wink field timing is very good at. He can get answers out of you. He can be and he does it without being provocative. I tend to be a little bit more provocative. I'll make an assertion. And I'll say prove me wrong. But wink just says, let me tickle your fancy here. Let's see. Let's see if I can elucidate something from you. So it would be very good operative for the CIA. So I'm sure I'm sure that Michael and I are in one as we thank you all for listening to this podcast session this morning. As you listen to us review all of the wonderful components of the human condition.

1:29:00And that we remind you once again, John and Glenn. We are here at Hale as always. So may the habits of discipline give you the courage to take the rising path. I'll stand you at the top. He set to center one and all. Happy birthday to you, bro. Thank you. Happy birthday to you too. All right.

1:30:00how