Ep 517 - Confessions of a Black Conservative (feat. Glenn Loury)

Wow, wow, Wes.

Glenn Lowry, dude, it's honestly, I've been, I talk about you a lot on my podcast.

I watch yourself.

I kind of parrot your talking points.

I listen to you talk and I'm like, you know what I'm thinking about this whole thing.

So it's an honor to have you.

I think, honestly, you're one of the best thinkers currently.

No lie.

No lie.

No lie.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Good to be here.

Thank you so much, man.

Here's, so I have a million questions.

You know, you just wrote the book, Late Confessions. It's your memoir.
admissions oh dude i'm sorry edit it late admissions and then the subtitle is confessions of confessions of a black conservative excuse me i read the book dude it was i knew it was going to be good i because i've been watching you for a while so i read the book and it really it was you know like books just kind of like grab you and you can't put them down. It was I'm not buttering you up.
I swear to God, I read it and it was pretty great. That's great to hear.
Because I remember you were kind of like hesitant. You're like, you know, like, well, should I write an autobiography? I don't know if you're just kind of like messing around with your co-host John McWhorter.
But did you really have like a kind of hang up? Like, do I really deserve to write an autobiography? Or did you know, like, I'm letting this rip? I don't know if I put it that way, but it was a long time coming. I've been thinking about it a long time before I actually got it done.
So, yeah. But once I got going with it, once I got into the thing, it kind of took over.
So what was that like? Like, did you have an outline for like this part of my life, this part of my life, or did like the memories just spontaneously arise as you started kind of from the beginning? I went through different, you know, phases. First, it was going to be changing my mind.
That was my title, had a working title. And I thought it was about being on the left, being on the right, you know,

a black guy, conservative, Reagan affiliations and things like that. But then kind of going left and, you know, my back and forth, the pendulum swing of my politics, changing my mind.
It was going to be about, you know, the friends you lose and, you know, the things that you have to do and, things like that.

But that

wasn't the cover story.

That wasn't the real story. and the things that you have to do and things like that.

But that was the cover story.

That wasn't the real story.

Yeah, I remember that theme from there.

Then it was going to be the enemy within.

I went through a phase when it was all about fighting my drug addiction and dealing with my sexual addiction and things like that.

And confession and, you know, getting religion and losing,

you know, it's about the devil,

about the guy sitting on your shoulder on one side,

on the other side, the enemy within.

And then I realized that the real issue for me was figuring out how to tell myself the truth about my life. That was being honest.
It was coming to terms with it, you know. And I finally was able to get something going.
Yeah, I had an outline. I had a dozen outlines.
Yeah. You just didn't know how deep you were going to go.
I knew I wanted to do the Chicago thing. I knew I wanted to do the MIT thing.
I knew I wanted to do the Harvard thing. I knew I wanted to do the drug thing.
I knew I wanted to do the church thing. Yeah.
So I had these, you know, but it didn't have the um the life that it needed didn't have the uh i want to say something like thematic integrity it didn't it didn't have the vision it wasn't it wasn't quite right what do you think the theme so because i have an idea of what the kind of the theme was for me what do you think the theme was at least from my experience of it what do you think the theme was for you when you an idea of what kind of the theme was for me. What do you think the theme was, at least from my experience of it? What do you think the theme was for you when you were writing it? Or like that you took away from it afterwards? Well, I hint at that in the preface when I say it's the problem of self-regard.
And I say I'm playing a game with the reader. The reader has to figure out whether or not what I'm saying about myself is true.
And I call myself being clever. You know, I say, I'm going to tell you the worst things about myself.
And in doing so, I'm going to gain your trust. Yeah, I remember I was kind of tickled.
I read that. I'm like, God damn it, he's so smart.
Dude, there's such a good way to start the book. But that was true, though.
It was, you really did disclose, you know, a lot. And it wasn't like, you know, I read it and I was like, first of all, and I got to say, and this is, I just didn't know how much of the book was going to be about you getting pussy.
That was crazy. About what? You got a lot of pussy.
A lot of the book was about getting pussy and growing weed. I had to sometimes, I had to turn it over and check.
I was like, is this my life story? And I was like, no, I was like, this is,

this is you Glenn.

Well,

I wasn't bragging.

I wasn't trying to prove anything.

I was just telling you what happened. You don't need to,

bro.

You don't need to,

man.

That was the smoking jacket.

Dude,

I would try to explain that to people.

I'm like,

what are you talking about?

I'm like,

dude,

it's the funniest thing.

That was your Uncle Adler smoking.

You should have known my Uncle Adler,

man.

Yeah,

that was my Uncle Adler smoking jacket

and he gave it to me. I mean, it was, he came to my bachelor pad on the near north side of Chicago, Lincoln Park.
And, you know, it was all set up for seduction. You know, I've got the music played and I got the incense burning and the weed and whatnot.
You know, the fireplace and the exposed brick, the track lighting, the four-poster bed. You know, I'm ready.
Bro. And he says, oh, man, this is this is too much you know you will make better use of this than me because he was he was this uh duke ellington-esque he was born in the early 20s so you know he would have been like 30 years old in 1952 53 you know he was he was uh he was in his prime he was in his prime and he transferred you the smoking jacket Well, by the time This happened, which was the late 70s He was past his prime And he was in decline He drank himself to death He had a lot of different issues But he was a ladies man Par excellence So how old was he when he gave.
Wait, so how old was he when he gave you the jacket?

How old was he when he gave you the jacket?

Okay, this was, he would have been 55, 60.

Okay, I thought you were saying he was 30.

I got you.

So he was like really happy.

No, he was still making good use of it when he was 30.

So what was the protocol for the jacket?

Would it be on like in the house?

Would you toss it on afterwards?

Like how exactly did it work?

The coolest thing was coming out of the shower, drying off, and just putting the jacket would it be on like in the house would you toss it on afterwards like how exactly did it work the coolest thing was coming out of the shower drying off and just putting the jacket on and then i don't know if you fully i mean maybe you recognize this but just like the the poetic nature of how it met its demise just a scorned young lover cutting it to pieces. There was no other way that Jacket was going to lose form other than that

by the hands of a scorned young lady.

It was like some kind of Greek tragedy.

That's what I'm saying. I read that.
I was like, this is beautiful.

Like I say, it was like entrails strewn

on the floor like a soothsayer

supposed to come in and tell you what your future is going

to be when you see this shit.

That's

what I really liked because you really can, like you were saying, I'll just hit a couple key themes from the south side of chicago blah blah but you really really went in in the autobiography and it was like you were really laid like you know just stuff out there that i think a lot of people would kind of be like now i'm gonna polish my image where you're like well i want to be authentic but then i don't want to totally you know lose because everyone has stuff they've done that they're obviously not proud of to the point where people might be saying you're telling me too much they might be saying why are you telling me all of this they might be trying trying to say oh it was that bad you think you can get a pass by telling me how bad it was you know yeah but that's kind of i i think that's kind of uh i don't know i don't i totally agree with what you're saying like, if you've lived a full life, you know, like you've made mistakes yourself and to be able to like make them learn from them, grow from them. I don't know.
I just, I just like when people are like, you think you're going to pass now? It's like, dude, I'm sure you've done stuff too. Like, yeah.
My answer would be like, yeah, dude, I wrote it down. And it's like, well, a pass for what? It's just like, this is my life.
This is what happened. And it's like.
Well, that's where I came out. I came out saying, you know, it is what it is.
And I have to tell it fully. And as I say in the book, in a way that I'm exposing myself to myself too.
I'm going back over these things and I'm asking myself, man, how could you have done that? What was it going on in your mind? Like when I smoked crack in my Harvard office. Yeah, that was pretty good.
I mean, I take my whole career in my hands. Anybody could have come in with a security key, man.
Yeah, that. That was crazy.
That was a wild move. And also, I will say, bringing the side babe to a work thing.
Bro, I read that. I was like, no, Glenn, don't do this.
No. No, dude, that was crazy.
In Israel. In Israel.
I took her to a conference at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Mount Skopas campus. And were people really like, did people actually take you aside? Like, dude, what the hell were they just kind of like? They didn't, but they raised their eyebrows, but I was oblivious to the whole thing, man.
I was getting ready to go into the Reagan administration as an undersecretary to Bill Bennett in the education department, which was all about family values and everything like that. And I was, it was just crazy.
Yeah. But the thing that I'm, this is the one question that like, cause when I, I read your autobiography and it sent me, I started reading them now, like impulsively, I'm reading a bunch of them because then I started like, when I read yours, the big question was like to that point of like, when you were like, you know, orbiting the apex of basically worldly power.
And then you, the whole thing that the thinking that I would get from your autobiography would be like, yeah, I shouldn't be doing this. I shouldn't be having extramarital affairs, but I kind of deserve a reward.
I'm working hard. I'm getting all this stuff.
And if that was the thinking at the time, and it's honestly like, like you said, you weren't obviously the only one in Washington, DC that had, you know, a little sweet thing on the side. So the question would be like, looking back on on all that what do you think a person in like super high stature like deserves quote unquote or like what do you think looking back on that now does that question make sense well yeah uh in the book i talk about um master the universe yes that's the phrase you know and i got that from tom wolf the writer you know his book bonfire of the vanities you know his character sherman mccoy who was a bond trader he was like 35 year old at a big apartment in the park avenue or something like that he was living the life in new york city had social x-ray wife and all the museum uh you know benefit things and whatnot he's making a million dollars a year and he's a master of the universe he.
He has a side piece. He gets into trouble.
It's a fiasco. You have to read the book.
It's very funny. Yeah, yeah.
But I identified with that guy. Yeah.
I thought, you know, I'm a professor at Harvard. I'm the smartest guy in the room.
You know, I wasn't making his kind of money, but I wasn't doing badly. I had real connections.
I was on the upscale. I was on the magazine, magazine you know thing and you're getting tapped by literally the reagan administration yeah i was going to the white house and i was you know the world was mine i could do whatever i wanted to do and the side piece was a part of that and yeah you know uh did not think there would ever be any reckoning and felt like i had it coming the reckoning you're saying i said didn't, didn't think there would ever be any reckoning.
I mean, didn't imagine chickens would come home to roost. Didn't see anything, you know, like Sherman McCoy in the book.
Yeah. When he ends up in a New York city courtroom and his whole life falls apart and the girlfriend is gone and the bond trading firm doesn't want his services anymore.
And the newspapers are on his heels and the lawyers are picking him over i ended up pretty much in the same kind of a position yeah well that that's kind of my question because i started reading these autobiographies trying to figure out like because there's like you know if you look at like value systems there's you have like sacrifice self this is all from like spiral dynamics which i'm not like a master of i've just read books about it and there's like express self which is like i'm gonna get what i want you know not even like damn everybody else but like I'm not like a master of. I've just read books about it.
And there's like express self, which is like, I'm going to get what I want, you know, not even like damn everybody else, but like, I'm going to, you know, try to get as much as I want is, you know, that's my driving emphasis on life. And then there's like, I should sacrifice my wellbeing for the good of others.
And then there, there, there's two prevalent worldviews that like, you know, you can either subscribe to one. And the question I have is like, to what degree do you sacrifice your own joy and happiness versus do you, you know, pursue your own joys? And like, basically, how do those worldviews play out if you read someone's entire life? So I don't have the answer to that.
I don't know if maybe you could shut the spider. I do, I.
Yeah, it's really, it's kind of a tough one to figure out. What would you say looking back on it? Like, do you, because my main question was like, yeah, if you were to have side pieces and and get away with it you'd probably look back on your life pretty fondly and be like fuck yeah dude that was awesome but it's when it comes and it just kind of like hits your life like a meteorite I think that's when people that's what I'm just trying to figure out basically sorry that's like kind of what I told myself was I was living fully yeah I've only got one life.
I'm going to live it to the, I'm going to have experience. You know, this episode is brought to you by call of duty.
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And I, you know, I just wanted to pause for a minute and contemplate the fact that this beautiful young woman was gone from this freak disease and right in the prime of everything good was happening for her. And you know, Jesus, I mean, I didn't want to hear it.
I didn't want to hear about it was okay. Yeah.
And they were like dancing around this church and that really pissed me off. uh but the thing that you refer to is earlier it's when i was first coming along in the church and be being in inducted into the spiritual community and and the culture of belief and it was about baptism in the holy spirit and they were putting hands on me and praying while we were setting up chairs and in the gymnasium where the church was having its services before the service and inviting me into this you know state of a giftedness with respect to spiritual gifts you know speaking in tongues you know healing you know this kind yeah so this was a conservative theologically conservative Pal-oriented kind of congregation, even though it's black Methodist, African Methodist Episcopal, but they had this flavor to it.
And I ended up speaking in tongues. You did.
I ended up, because that's how you show that the baptism of the Holy Spirit has come upon you, that you have a manifestation of it. But it was fake.
I was just doing it to have them stop praying. Because those people, those Christians were going to keep on praying.
They wouldn't stop. It was this surreal scene.
And they're going on and on and on. And they're getting expressive.
And they want the completion of this thing. And I did.
I performed. and afterwards want completion of this thing.

And I did.

I performed and afterwards I kind of

you know

there was a kind of

cynicism to it.

You know, what game are we playing?

You know, we

so

eventually I moved away from the church. But as I tell in the book, it's a complicated story.
Yeah, so where do you stand now personally with spiritual beliefs? So if I had to put a name on it, I'd say agnostic. I am not an anti-religious person.
I'm not a person who, oh, they believe in God. That's some crazy shit.
I'm not that guy. I respect people's trying to come to terms with the biggest questions of existence.
What's the meaning of life? Who am I? Where did we come from? What's the answer to the ultimate question? People are seeking, and this is a human tendency that you see in every culture going back throughout recorded time. People seek meaning in life.
But I think it's the hardest problem there is. What's the meaning of life? I don't believe in magic.
I'm not going to just sign on to something that doesn't make sense to me. I don't believe in virgin births.
I don't believe that a person who died is alive 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 years after they died. I don't believe that.
That's just asking me too much. But the answer to, you know, it relates to what we were talking about earlier about getting pussy and about side pieces and about you know what's what's the uh most noble way of living what's what's the most uh rewarding way of living is is feeding my sensual desires really let me you know it's is there anything higher than that i mean what about my loyalty to others what's the you know anyway I'm rambling I think people trying to answer that question in part through religious practice is a legitimate thing I'm just not I'm just not that's exactly kind of my question and's exactly kind of my question is like what do you uh and again it's it is kind of a tough one to answer but it's like what is what have you walked away from being like is there anything higher than feeding your sensuous appetites and like over the course of like you know decades does the sensuous appetite being fulfilled fulfilled be like worth it or is it like is there something you think higher just in like, uh, you know, whatever else there could be, even if it isn't like an organized religion, but like, where do you stand on that now? Does that question make sense? Repeat the question.
So is, do you think it's there, it is enough to just kind of satisfy like sensuous kind of like appetites of the body, or do you think there is something higher principles and over the course of time, just as i could see serving higher principles and then getting to the end of it being like well what the fuck man i could have been having fun that was a waste of time or do you think that pays off i don't know i just know there are other people uh i know that when you make a decision to hurt somebody that that's consequential i i don't think my sensual gratification is the highest thing. I mean, what about my intellectual edification? True.
What is that, Jesse? Get pussy. No, I hear you.
You know, I'm in my 70s now. Yeah.
You know, mortality. That's the thing that, you know, you confront.
I realize I've only got however much I've got, but it's not that much, you know. Yeah.
And then you're gone. And then what? I mean, and then what? I don't believe in the afterlife either.
I think when the brain cells stop firing, whatever consciousness that is embodied in me is

gone forever.

So

what's the point?

And, you know, I could say

some poetic stuff here. Baby smile,

you know. Things like that.

The sunrise, you know.

And it's not bad watching the sunrise

over the ocean from the beach and

you know, whatever. And the pussy's not bad either.
True. You know.
A good glass of wine or whiskey. Right.
Smoke. Yeah.
But there's got to be more. There's got to be more than that.
And what about my legacy? What about the memory? I mean, I know that whatever I do now, it's just in stone, whatever it is that people can look back upon. That was, you know, Glenn Lowry.
Yeah, well, and then, so speaking of that, that was the big, I think this has kind of been in the book a big theme of your life where it's like you're in a place, you can kind of identify things that seem almost performative and like not, I guess, like true to experience or whatever. And I feel like you could have in the book, you say people, because of your race would just be like, Hey, just kind of take a position.
Not, you know, you had your own merits, but you detected, there'd be a lot of like, look, you know, kind of quota filling and like, just relax, take a paycheck and like, just be here for representation. And you kind of really bucking against that being like, no, fuck that.
I'm going to, I'm going to be here on be here on my merits and like i'm gonna go to a different school like where were you at at one point where you're like i'm out of here or there i think it was it that wasn't the kennedy center was it does that am i mischaracterized no no no you're not uh you're not mischaracterizing it uh this is about affirmative action and uh about race and how you come to terms with what people think about and the expectations they might have and whatnot. And, you know, I've gone through different phases on it.
But I was at Harvard. I was at Harvard in 1982.
I came as a professor, the first black to be tenured in the economics department. I was employed in Afro-American studies.
I was trained at MIT. That's where I did my PhD.
I was a tech techie guy. I was a math, you know, whiz and theoretical economist and, you know, very academic, very ivory tower.
And I had, it was a fork in the road for me about whether to be a pundit, you know, a public intellectual, a guy that you see on TV and writing in magazines and whatnot, or whether to be a scientist. And I didn't know if I was good enough to really break through to the first rank of the scientists.
I was in that pack, but I didn't know if I was at the top of the heap in that pack because those guys are pretty good. I had my doubts, and I got brought into Harvard so early in my career, and I had this portfolio of responsibilities where I was going to be the black guy.
I was going to be the black economist. I was going to do the Afro thing as well as doing the scientific thing on economics.
And I was overwhelmed by it and the doubt, the doubt of whether I was good enough, which especially rankled me because I didn't want anybody to think that I was, and also ran, that I was being patronized. I didn't want to be that guy, that black guy that, oh, well, we know he's not really, really, but you know, we got to, I don't want to be that guy.
Yeah. And I say in the book, I choked.
I thought about that game of pool I lost to my mother's lover in that pool hall way back when I was a kid. That was excruciating, dude.
I read that. Andrew's a big pool guy.
He can play really well, but I read that. I had a clean shot on the eight ball in the side pocket, and I would have run the table on this dude, and he's got his hand on my mom's butt.
Oh, bro. And I don't know who he is.
And, you know, man, and I missed that shot. I choked, man.
Yeah man yeah and i felt a little bit like that some days when i was sitting in my office at harvard and i was trying to find an idea that i thought was going to be a good enough idea and i'm looking on my show and everybody's looking and is he going to be good enough and whatnot and i had an out yeah the out was going over to the kennedy school taking up the job of a public intellectual and start writing op-ed pieces and book reviews and magazines and commentary because I was an unusual black guy. I was conservative in some of my orientations.
I had a lot of respect for what the Reagan revolution was about as far as an economist is concerned. Forgive me, forgive me.

It was a long time ago. I was young.
I was young and foolish.

But there

was a road for me to be a pundit

and a commentator, you know, a Cornel West

kind of type.

Respect.

I respect Cornel.

He's also fantastic.

I respect Cornel.

But the scientific with the green eye shade and just doing the, you know, the epsilons and all that. And I made the choice to go the way that I ended up going.
I'm curious, though, because, you know, I obviously had only seen your show before that, so I didn't know. I knew you were, you know, an economist and all that stuff.
I don't know anything. I'm terrible at math, so I was just like, you know, whatever, like supply and demand.
And I didn't know I knew you're you know economist and all that stuff I don't know anything I'm terrible at math so I was just like you know whatever like supply and demand and I didn't know it was such a technical uh science but the like you have regrets about because you seem my point is you seem so well suited for like commentary like you're so good at like just talking in general that like did you the fact that you were like I don't know if I want to do this do you feel like that was like almost, like a well-placed nudge by the universe at the time? Or do you feel kind of like, damn, I wish I stuck, which is just imagining you sitting in a building doing math. It's just like, my God.
Yeah, I think all things considered, it was, like you say, a nudge of the universe, well-pl the right direction. Although I have regrets.
I mean, I would have been a much less interesting dude if I had done the scientific thing. Yeah, true.
Okay. Maybe you could have been like Breaking Bad.
You might have been like Breaking Bad. There would have been this character inside of the guy trying to get out.
That's what I'm saying. It would have been crazy to keep all that in, just the hours of talking, all the stuff you've done, and to keep that in and just sit behind a desk and just doing.
So there's a character I carried through the book. Jonathan Hughes is his name.
He was one of my teachers when I was an undergraduate at Northwestern University. He's a historian, economic historian, economist economist but a historian played a saxophone

and always said don't eat lunch at the economist table and the faculty club go to the big table where the historians and the literature people and the scientists and and uh the whatnot because it's too narrow it's it's too it's too now read read widely read you know outside of your field and And I think that not getting too down in the weeds spirit stuck with me. I mean, you know, so I might have been unhappy.
Yeah. As a guy trying to, you know, every year the Nobel list comes out, you're looking to see if your name is it.
Kind of guy. Yeah.
I might've been, you know, unhappy. I know I would've gotten a lot of this pussy.
Yeah. I mean, well, and it's funny too.
Cause I mean, I, I think, you know, obviously it worked out, you know, you're, you're doing, you got your recognition and it's like, I do see the pressure that is kind of like, you know, cause for me, it's like maybe this is like I'm trying to think how to formulate this. But I especially with like, you know, the black conservative thing.
I feel like there's just like undue pressure where it's like, you know, you're doing conservative values. Then you have, you know, in the back of your head, it's like you have, you know, family, all these other people.
Or it's like could almost excommunicate you being like, dude, you're, you know, you're playing for the wrong side, blah, blah, blah. Did you feel the pressure of like, almost like conservatives wanting to be like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Say, say those things. It was like, you know, do you, how did you, cause it's a shame.
Cause it's like, if that's your real orientation, then you're like, how do you balance that? Or do you care? That's a good question, Matt? No, I definitely care. I definitely felt it.
And I think you put it very well yeah on the conservative side is people said yeah get on out there darkie i could say it but they bite my head off you go ahead uh on the one hand and then on the other hand there's like my home boys and my uncles and whatnot sitting back saying man what what kind of uncle time thing are you doing tap Tap dancing for the white man. You know, Reagan? Come on, you got to be kidding me.
Reagan? Yeah, yeah. Like that.
And where do I stand? I don't want to be anybody's dancing bear. You know, I'm there to say that even black people agree with us about affirmative action.
I'm not, I don't want to be that guy. On the other hand, I had my doubts about affirmative action.
I actually agreed with Reagan about a lot of the economic policy stuff. So I had to be true to myself.
I mean, I can't live my uncle's life. But I had doubts.
So that's definitely the case. So I bounced back and forth, you know, I mean, I, I broke with the Reagan people.
I tried to come home again and realize that I, you know, you can't ever really go home again. Yeah.
Well, it's, it's kind of like, Oh, you gotta, you gotta switch your thing. All right.
Sorry. We'll take a little break.
All right. Sorry about that.
We had a little, we had to change the battery in the camera. So, okay.
So not to lose our place. The thing I was at was the, just kind of the black conservative question.
And it does, it always struck me that it's like, there's this weird, like double pressure on black people in terms of like politics and stuff. Cause it does get like, you know, just the phrase black conservative is like, you have to almost qualify it where it's like, you're, you're kind of under a, it's like pressure to be like, are you performing for, you know, white people or whatever are you true to yourself and it's like that seems like a lot of pressure to deal with I try to point at that in dealing with the book I mean authenticity you, you know, loyalty.
I resent other people thinking that they look at the color of my skin and they think I know what I'm supposed to say or what I'm supposed to do. I deeply resent that.
Yeah. On the other hand, you know, when I pick up the newspaper and I read about some of the shenanigans that are going on, I mean, I'm talking about in Baltimore and St.
Louis and, you know, Philadelphia and Chicago, New Orleans. Yeah.
I feel ashamed. Now, why should I feel ashamed without some knucklehead in some ghetto project somewhere that's ripping somebody off in a carjacking and shoot some other train? Why should I feel anything about that just because that person is black and I'm black? And I feel like it's my people.
And I feel like I'd be damned if I apologize for that. On the other hand, how can I expect somebody to see that and not want to move their family away from it? Yeah.
And is it enough to just call them a racist? And I feel like the people who represent my group, my racial group who go on TV and I feel like the people who represent my group,

my racial group,

who go on TV,

and I could name names,

but I don't need to,

you know,

it's a song and dance.

I mean,

they're not dealing with the real thing,

and they're not being honest with it,

and yet if I were to say what I really think, then I'd be a traitor.

So it's like a maze. It's like

wandering in a maze. I mean, I don't know what to

do. And I don't want to feel

trapped.

I want to be true to myself. So I'm dealing with it the best I can.
Yeah, well that was like, so I went to school kind of later, like only a couple years ago, I think in 2000, I went to school for social work, or no, 2020, excuse uh, for social work. And that was like, I mean, it was crazy just being like, there was no, like, like even suggesting that somebody have something, you could even be like, obviously there was historical traumas endured and like that does, there's a real thing with that.
Then be like, but despite you still have to have some sort of like, you know, uh, like self responsibility, like you are at some point still responsible for your life. Just saying like that'd be like no you can't how dare you it's just kind of like well dude it's not gonna help anybody like take like a 40 year old person and be like yeah look none of this is your fault so you i feel like you it's i feel like everything gets simplified where it's like you have you know one group of people being like it's their fault they need to fucking get their act together talking about like black people from the inner city and then you have people be like look it's not their fault at all and it's like there has to be some it's it seems pretty easy to like stitch those two things together like yeah obviously there's been some terrible stuff that's happened that's had an effect but there's also needs to be some self-accountability like where do you kind of stand on that question or do you just like i agree with that i mean there are uh a lot of unfairnesses in the world and there are a lot of people who are in desperate straits and who could it could do with some help and i would not want to be a 22 year old mother with three children and making twenty thousand dollars a year trying to on earned income tax credit and stuff,

medical and food stamps.

I mean, I wouldn't want to be that woman, or I wouldn't want to be one of her children. That's inequality in spades.
But that's a separate point from the point that each and every one of us is responsible for how we live our lives and what we do at our time and the extent to which we are responsible, uh, to those who are dependent upon us. And, uh, you can't let the one cancel out the other.
I mean, you, so, I mean, let me be concrete. Homicide, violence, assault, rape.
You just look at the numbers and look at the racial disparity in the numbers. I don't want to hear from a social worker about how it wasn't his fault.
He had a choice to make. I mean, who are we if we as a society take such despicable behavior? And of course I get emotional.
Now I'm getting emotional about criminal behavior where they're victimizing people. Well, we should get emotional about it because it's despicable.
Little baby sitting on his grandmother's knee on the front porch and some T-H-U-G riding by shooting a pistol at his rival out the window and he kills him. That's despicable.
Black Lives Matter, exactly, exactly. That's despicable.
Yeah, yeah. Like that.
I think you should be able to do both things. We should have a decent society without apologizing for criminals.
Yeah. And when they're black criminals, without apologizing for black criminals.
Yeah. And that was the thing.
And then on your show I was watching, you said something to the effect. And I thought it was also true and good to be like, you know, and people forget too that people in the city, they're Americans.
Like they're your fellow country people. Like we should be also helping where we can help and not like using the crime to just be like, that's a totally lost cause.
And then blah, blah, blah. Cause there is like, like when I, when I was doing the social work, I worked with high schoolers and I would hear their stories.
And it's just like, like if you, like I grew up in the suburbs and it's like from a suburban perspective to be like, yeah, they just got to figure it they got to go to school and it's like I would hear the firsthand accounts of like what a 14 year old girl was dealing with and it's just like Jesus Christ man it would just be like frying my computer I'm like this is you know so it yeah I wish people would take a more kind of nuanced approach and just kind of like you're saying be able to be like yeah you can call out bad behavior and also not try to like use bad behavior to you know if you want to take like a not to like single out Fox News but like growing up in the 90s. I'm like you're saying, be able to be like, yeah, you can call out bad behavior and also not try to like use bad behavior to, you know, if you want to take like a, not to like single out Fox News, but like growing up in the nineties, I'm sure you remember the news was just like on Fox News, you're just like black guys are terrible.
And like, you just, it almost like when I remember being a little kid watching TV, just like seeing the news and like, Jesus Christ, that's all it was. Then it flipped to like terrorists.
Then it was like, you know, white people are the devil. So yeah, I wish people would take more of like a nuanced approach.
And it really makes me think like, have you ever thought about just for the sake of the money, just cashing in and going like full daily wire? And going where? Full daily wire and just being like, yeah, dude, you motherfuckers better knock it off right now. Here's my $2 million, please.
Because that's crazy. You watch those right wing commentators and it's like, you know, it's the same when that's like the super liberal.
You know exactly how they're going to fall on the issue every time and it's like do ever think about taking that money and just go on just unit totally unilateral one issue like yeah guys just let me know because those guys you're giving me lots of money you're giving me ideas just a couple years just cash in for a couple years and just like i you know what guys i take it back because isn't that crazy though that you have the internet that's like well i'll tell you what so uh because you know you could do it you could do it very well if you wanted i have the podcast the glenn show and people watch it and it's got a sub stack thing and had a patreon thing and they're paying subscribers and there's advertisers and there's a little bit of money on the table. There could be a lot more money.
You know what I'm talking about. Exactly.
My whole point is you kind of pay the price for being honest. Oh, wait a minute.
Because I got most of these guys beat because I'm an Ivy League tenured professor with an MIT PhD. Wait a minute.
Wait a minute. You're not going to be able to write that brother off, okay? No.
And he's out there talking about what the immigrant thugs are doing? Cats. Have you talked about eating cats yet? They will pay.
They will pay to hear that. Bro, they will pay you a couple million bucks a year.
You can sign up tomorrow. Yeah, the thought has crossed my mind, but, you know.
Yeah. That's my whole point.
That's that's what i admire about you again it's like you could easily fall in at your own you know gain throughout years and decades you could have just fallen in and being like all right i kind of see what's going on here let me kind of grease my palms and kind of go with the flow but your whole life seems to be you getting into situations and being like this is fucking bullshit and it's a shame because it, you know, the markets obviously rewards currently just like demagogic kind of like unilateral thinking of like good guys, bad guys, we're the good guys, they're the bad guys, and that's all we're doing. Like with the debates, it's like we got to pick a non-biased thing where it's like now it's like I won't do a debate on that one and I won't do a debate on this one.
I think it's embarrassing. Well, you know, the shame of it is I still get accused of being a grifter just for speaking my mind as I did just a minute ago.

They say that I'm doing it for the money when if I really wanted the money,

they haven't got any idea. Oh my God, you can make so much more, bro.

You can make so much more. And that's, I mean, you, hopefully you don't read,

what do you make of the whole internet comment phenomenon?

Do you read them or do you kind of like, yeah, I read them.

I'm not going to say I read every single one of them in every one of the platforms. Never pissed you off, but yeah, they pissed me off.
I mean, I have an editor and a producer at the podcast who helped me put the thing out. And I, you know, we meet, talk about all this stuff and the feedback and what the audience capture, you don't want to get an audience capture and whatnot.
Yeah. Uh, but, uh, I try not to take it personally.
Yeah. Yeah.
You can't, you just can't. I always tell people podcasting comments are like coal dust for coal miners, dude.
This is an unfortunate reality. You got to breathe some in, but don't, you can't, don't take, don't whiff it in unnecessarily because it'll spin you out you get one that's like great another one like this sucks this guy's the worst guy ever and you then you're stuck between those two things you're like i don't know which one's true yeah but that's that is something i do admire the fact that like your your shows you guys really do like and there's not a lot of it you don't see a lot of like high level commentary and thought on issues other than just kind of like, here's a CNN panel with like four people blinking in a camera and, you know, they're cutting mics and doing stuff.
Same on Fox where it's like, you know, you can say stuff and they kind of like really try to like almost force a point on people rather than letting the point kind of like the cream rise to the top in terms of people talking. And it's like, I think you and John McWhorter do a good job of that.
And you guys at least have, you kind of offset each other. You know, I know you guys don't agree on everything.
Have you guys ever gotten in like kind of like a real fight on the show where you had to like. What's the question again? You and John McWhorter.
Have you guys ever like really butted heads hard or like. Fighting over something? Yeah.
I mean, not really.

I mean, we have a thing going, you know, this kind of shtick.

Like Lewis and Martin or something like that, you know,

playing off of each other and, you know, my personality, his and whatnot.

I go on these rants.

He's kind of snooty.

John, I'm sorry, man.

I'm sorry.

He's great. But he was saying it himself.
He would acknowledge would acknowledge it you know he's kind of weird in that way but he's smart and he's interesting and we have a conversation going and yeah I mean Trump you know so I'm a Trump apologist and he's got Trump derangement syndrome that's kind of like the type okay and I'm like you know how can you sit there in New York City and sneer down your noses at 75 million people? And have you ever thought about why he's actually as successful as he is? And your coastal elite people do not have a natural entitlement to run the world. Yeah.
So what do you make of that then, the whole Trump versus Kamala Harris situation, and just specifically Kamala Harris's rise from literally like the ashes. It was like a senile guy, visibly guy with cognitive issues.
It's one of the most interesting things I've ever seen in my lifetime. I mean, what I think about it is there are events which expose the real structures of power for what they are.
So I watched Nancy Pelosi on Bill Maher, and she's out with a book called The Art of Power. Really? Yeah, Nancy Pelosi has a book.
It's called The Art of Power. And Bill Maher had her on his intro segment when he does the interview one-on-one.
And I thought, yeah, this is real power. You asked me about Kamala Harris and, you know.
Sorry to cut you off. What is the nature of her book, though, The Art of Power? I haven't read the book.
How is it? She's, I guess, giving an account of her rise as Speaker of the House and leader of the Democratic Party. And, you know, the inside game of, you know, how we decide things like who's going to be president of the United States.
What? Why did she do that? I added that last because I haven't read the book. It's the art of power.
But, you know, Trump's signature book is the art of the deal. Nancy Pelosi is the art of power.
And the image when I watched her being interviewed by Bill Maher was her tearing up that copy of the State of the Union address that Trump gave that time. Yes, I remember that.
Complete contempt for this guy to get more votes than anybody else except Joe Biden, et cetera. Yeah.
But she does have a book named The Art of Power. That's true.
She doesn't what about?

She does have a book named The Art of Power. Yeah, that's true.

You were just pulling my leg on the nail. I thought she

really did a tell-all about

polling candidates and all this stuff. What I was

trying to say in response to your question about Kamala

Harris was she was a failed vice

president until yesterday and now she's

become the hope for the future. And I

resent having that

foisted on me yeah i'm just saying i'm not a fool i'm not asleep out here i see you people making your moves i see you billionaire hedge fund people making your moves uh i see you uh democratic party leadership making your moves on me and trying to tell me a story about what's going on and first black woman first Asian woman

yeah

please

please give me a story about what's going on. And first black woman, first Asian woman.
Yeah. Please.
Please give me a break. My sense, it is kind of grotesque to even especially to use like, you know, the legacy of racial struggles and all that stuff and like have that as like almost a hologram hovering over a giant bureaucratic machine trying to launch like multiple wars.
I like that image. You know what I mean?

Doesn't that feel kind of like,

I don't know,

it gives me the creeps

where I'm kind of like,

don't, you know,

of all things,

like Jesus, man.

Well, the hologram image,

I love this.

This is what is put out

by the real structures of power

to mollify

and put you people to sleep,

to lull you into a complacency

and an acceptance

to give a phony legitimacy. I mean, the future.
Yeah. Hope.
Oh, yeah. This episode is brought to you by Max.
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More wars.

Joy!

Yeah.

The joy made me laugh, dude.

That was when you did the rendition of Oprah's's performance of joy was that actually made me chuckle do they think we are idiots what do they think they lead us with a ring through our nose they they say bark and we bark how does it how does it work i mean that's a question too is it even working is it all just a media fabrication or like because i don't see i live in a pretty liberal area in austin texas and i don't see a ton of the harris signs i see them they're like starting to pop out a little more and more but it's not like you you know usually you would think that there'd be everywhere like obama i remember when obama was running those signs were everywhere the harris um forgive me i forget the mr vice president's name but that waltz i believe i don't see i don't see those as many as much and much. And I'm in like the thick of like kind of like a liberal area.
They're starting to spring up on the east side of Providence and the Tony neighborhood that I live in, but not nearly as thick as the Obama side. That's what I'm saying.
It's like, you know, she was at the Great Hope, and I'm kind of seeing that being like, wow, I don't know if they even believe it. It's a short campaign.
Yeah, true. It's over.
The next month it's gonna be over yeah that's uh that is a that is true it's like here's the thing too it's easy to like point the finger but i i do think they are kind of like a almost a manifestation of just like collective apathy like people are like trump and come on it's like well nobody else seems to really care or like like they're just trying to go and press a button like yeah these people will take care of it now we've had just like these weird kind of figures emerge and it's like how do we not have anybody better in this whole country to do the most my wife keeps asking me important job you know this is what we're left to choose among it almost proves it's like somehow being curated in like a very weird way where it's like i you know, like if you're just someone with like good intentions and a lot of good ideas,

like clearly can't make it to the national spotlight,

you know,

maybe,

maybe now with the internet,

I don't know.

No,

it's,

it is what it is.

True.

That's true.

That's true.

I guess I'm naive to think that,

you know,

we'd just be like,

get up there,

man,

you can do it.

But either way you have a,

so again, Glenn show, I think people should all watch that. Is there anything else you have burning on your mind you'd like to talk about? Comedy.
So I did this event at the Comedy Cellar in Norm Dorman. And Shane was one of the people who came up there.
Spoke highly of you, too, by the way. He's like, I met Glenn Lowry.
I was like, what? So my thesis was, I said to Noam, I think there are things, I'm a political commentator, but I think there are things that really only comedians can say. Like Dave Chappelle talking about the trans stuff or whatever.
He almost got cashiered for that. Kind of.
Then you just end up making more and more money because it just kind of drives more attention do you agree do you agree that there are things that only a comedian can say and do you feel as a comedian any responsibility to say them yeah i think they're unfortunately yeah for something like if you're in an office i can't like i can i actually was in an office when i was doing social work i had been a comedian before i kind of started having doubts like i had this just want to, like, do something and actually work with people. Then they'd land me in an office, and people would be like, yo, man, like, you can't talk like that.
So there is definitely, like, yeah, obviously, I think, you know, or construction workers also can say whatever they want. But there's not a big difference.
But I don't know. When I get, like, I think that, yes, comedians, not to get too highfalutin about, you know, what I've been up to, but it's like a lot of comedians kind of cash in and just kind of put the blinders on like look I don't want to get controversial I want to kind of sell my tickets and but I think yeah I think they have a function where they should be kind of like you know uh ridiculing because I was reading something recently they're saying you know ridicule is usually the tool of the masses and when people in power try to employ ridicule it never has the same effect because it kind of comes off as like, you know, kind of contrived and phony.
So I think, yeah, I think as a comedian, you should be like kind of lampooning anything you see as just kind of like disingenuous or just kind of like fake, like you were saying, but you can watch the Kamala thing and, you know, I'm sure people can make fun of Trump too if they want. And it's like, whatever they have, you know, ad nauseum, but it's like, you see something about it and you're like, this is kind of weird.
But if you're in an office environment and you're like, I don't know about this. Now it's like, you could upset your boss.
You know, it's just, you can't. I do think working in an office for too long gives you like low grade brain damage, which is not a popular opinion, but I think it does.
Just from having to kind of like, just like you were saying behind a science desk, just keep so much of you inside of yourself. I think it does something.
I think you have like these mini hemorrhages in your brain. So, sorry to answer your question.
Yeah, I think they do. I think you should try to be funny because there's like, there's people out there, you know, they're working, they're at a job they hate all the time.
So like, you know, it's like, you got to strike a balance between being like, I'm burning with a message for the world because then people can be like, bro, come on, man, I'm trying to just laugh laugh I just want to laugh and have fun and drink a couple beers but I think there is you know you try to make you have some sort of substance to it you know if you they are kind of inclined but you can also go out there and just do dick jokes and if people laugh the whole time it's like I would never like sneer and be like it's just like perfect mission accomplished make people laugh, spread joy. So I have another question.

You're a performer.

I'm a performer.

When I go and give a lecture in class, I'm a performer.

Yeah.

And I've been doing it for a long time.

My first college teaching experience was in 1975.

So when I retire next year, it'll be 50 years.

Damn.

College teaching.

I am always, always nervous before I step in front of a class always even to this very day I have notes but I'm not sure I'm going to have enough to say or that I'm going to you know be interesting and good and I feel like to this day I don't know how a stand-up person does that thing yeah there are no notes uh yeah i mean i'm sure there's rehearsal i'm sure there's drafting and sketching and there's thought that goes into it but it's in the moment it's the performance there's the audience and there's no net there's no safety net there's there's no there's no fallback i mean mean, you know, if you go flat, if you, as it were, lose your place, you're done. Yeah.
They call it losing your spine. If you lose your spine on stage, you're done.
Well, I will say, and this is what I tell people. It's like, yes, it's the same thing.
I'm always kind of nervous. I, even the first five minutes takes me, I'm like a little squirrely.
I don't know if people can even notice, but I'm like, kind of like, cause I'm like, I'm going to forget. I start like kind of have a thing where I'm like, what am I doing? But the thing that comedians get is when a whole room laughs, it puts you in like the deepest sense of like, it's, it's, it's like, it's a hard feeling to describe, but it's a very nice feeling.
And you're just kind of like little Pac-Man pellets. You're like trying to get the next laugh, the next laugh.
And once you've gotten so many, you just kind of relax. And like, when I talk without laughter,

I try to give a reading at my brother's wedding a couple years ago.

And I was like, my mom was like, you do it.

I'm like, I'm a pro, man.

I'm a professional speaker.

I was going to pass out.

I was at the podium.

Like, there's 40 people.

And I was like, I'm going to, for real, I thought I was going to faint.

So I'm not a public speaker by nature.

But comedy, when I get laughed, it like, it puts me at ease.

And I'm'm like all right

i can do that but i can't do any other form of public speaking that's so interesting like teaching

a class i'd be because you're not getting that it's like a visceral feedback so you're like yes

i got them when you're just like spreading an idea i would go nuts being like is there

does this make any sense you know and you have all these you know just people and the people

are bored in class too that would just kill me to see someone like kind of like so yeah

Thank you. you know and you have all these you know just people and the people are bored in class too that would just kill me to see someone like kind of like so yeah i i got it i hadn't thought about that laughter thing that's a that's a unique thing to the comedic experience did you ever make your class laugh i'm sure you made your class oh yeah yeah but i'm not there to make them laugh i mean i'll tell a joke along the way it'll come to me or it'll be an old one that I've used before.
Oh, yeah, you got canned crowd work. And then they're also, you know, they can raise their hands and ask questions and make comments, and I can play off of that.
And there is feedback. I don't think anything like what you get when you're in that comedy routine thing.
Yeah, it's kind of visceral. There's like a visceral element.
I kind of like, it's kind of nice. So I'm good.
Okay, dude, I think you did a great job. Watch a Glenn show.
I would tell everyone, again, I don't have any, you know, I don't have the power of Oprah, but people do listen to me about books. I have a small, I have like a grain of sand of Oprah's book club power.

So I give it double, total double thumbs up.

And I think, you know, you'd be a fool not to read it.

Well, I hope the book does well.

So far, so good.

I mean, I'm not breaking any records, but the reviews have been on the whole very positive.

And it's been widely noticed.

And I get a lot of positive feedback from yeah people like you so i'm hopeful nice man well hopefully you know hopefully i can get it out to a couple more people because it was really i read the other memoir you mentioned the uh born again chuck colson i like oh read that whole book from there and i just i'm on a memoir frenzy right now where i'm reading as many of them as i can to try to get, you know, the big answers to see if I can maybe figure out this age old question that I brought up before of like sensual pleasure over like some sort of higher order. And right now, you know, well, more power to you.
Thank you so much right now. It's just me masturbating at hotels.
So that's all I got. I don't have the rockstar lifestyle.
Well, thank you so much. We can edit that last part out.
I'm sorry. I didn't want to ruin it.
But thank you so much for doing this. Really, I think you are one of the best people.
It's like you're one of my top people to go to. And it's kind of like catch information because I know it's not like doesn't have that ideological capture that I think 99% of other stuff on the Internet has.
So I'll tell you this. So I trained with a guy.
And another of his clients is Nick.

So Nick's going to be at one of your shows either tonight or tomorrow night because he follows you and you and Shane.

And he said, I heard you mentioned on Matt and Shane.

And he was so excited about it. He said, they like you, man.
And I know you. You know, he's happy to know the guy.
Oh, that's so funny. So if he comes to the show that I come to, I'll introduce you to him.
Absolutely, that'd be awesome. I'm excited.
Again, I can't wait. He's a great guy.
He loves his kids. And and I love that about him that you know he's a high school teacher very modest guy just trying to keep his kids interested this big thing now is that they have to put their phones in the phone holder when they come into the classroom and they get them back after the end of that's awesome you know but Nick's a good guy nice man hopefully I get to I get to meet him.
So, yeah. Thanks again.
Okay.

Appreciate you.