Overtime – Episode #587: Ira Glasser, Fiona Hill, Matt Welch

Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO late night series, Real Time with Bill Ma.

So I have a

sorry

I have a correction.

I did make a mistake.

It was Sonia Sotomayor in the Supreme Court who asked Gorsuch to wear a mask.

I said it was Stephen Breyer.

Stephen Breyer, I said he, no, it was, but same difference.

If you're around,

my point, my point was, if you're around an 83-year-old.

That's what my grandchildren say to me.

Oh, right.

They don't want to visit me anymore because they're afraid of infecting me.

Right.

But you look healthy as a horse.

I'm much healthier than they are.

Exactly.

You know, I didn't.

I didn't get to this in the show.

But one of the things in David Leonhardt's article I read about this week that I thought was so sad was that he made the point that older people are the ones who should be more scared of the virus.

And it's the reverse.

It's younger people.

They have so scared the kids, they've raised them, they've coddled them, they've helicopter-parented them, they've bulldozed parented them to the point where they're afraid of their own shadow.

They have like a minuscule possibility, unless you're having some, yes, people with comorbidities do, but mostly, I mean, you've got the good immune system.

Just to read these statistics about a quarter of the 18 to 34-year-olds being very worried, very worried, oh fuck, grow a pair.

If they go to college on the east or west coast,

they have booster requirements, they have incredible restrictions.

I mean, imagine anyone in this country between the ages of 16 and 23 who've had to go through this.

Like the normal stuff of adolescence and youth, you've just had to go to the bathroom.

You know,

when my parents died, especially my mother,

I was very happy that she never knew what I was doing in the streets in Brooklyn when I was growing up.

Right.

Because the fundamental rule of playing in the streets was that you should never have adults around.

Right.

And, you know, now

they want you to come watch them play.

And the parents can be very destructive watching their own kids play.

And, you know,

what I used to love about growing up in the 40s in Brooklyn was that we went out and we came back when it was dark and it was time to have dinner.

And if my mother ever knew what I was doing, and I didn't do anything terribly dangerous, I'm not talking about, you know, doing anything that was really, but we were out in the empty lots, we climbed on garage roofs, we

were, I mean,

that's, that's what, and, and, and, and, and, you know, there was this wonderful book that was written in the, I think, in the, in the late 50s called Where Did You Go?

Out.

What did you do?

Nothing.

And

it was about,

you know, it was about kids.

They don't want to be required me, required reading.

Now, you know, when my kids grew up,

you took them to the playgrounds, and you didn't

let them play.

You sat there on the benches.

And if one kid got into a scrap with another kid, the mothers jumped up and mediated the dispute.

Sometimes they also have ordinances that it's actually illegal for your kids under a certain age to walk to school on their own.

Yeah.

I mean,

it's literally that bad.

I mean, I used to walk to school from age five.

They all did.

And you would be arrested for it.

I mean, if they see a kid walking alone, it's like a crisis.

Crisis.

Well, as I know, when I was a kid, I was like afraid of asking.

I was afraid of abduction.

But the fact is that most abductions of children are by their relatives and custody disputes.

They They imagine that every kid is being followed by a clown with his dick out.

I mean,

you know, I mean,

but yeah, I mean, I was always kind of, I mean, I wasn't the perfect son, but I was kind of proud.

You weren't?

No.

It wasn't bad, but I was kind of proud that I always protected my parents, like, from the stuff you're talking about.

And I did a little things a little worse.

I mean, when I started in comedy, you know, I was living in New York.

I had a shitbox apartment, but it wasn't cheap.

cheap, nothing is in New York, and they never really asked me, they must have known there's no money in comedy at the beginning.

They never like asked me, and I didn't tell, and I didn't ask them for money, but I was selling pod.

You know.

You know, that's how I live.

It's a beautiful thing not to tell your parents.

No, and I just, right, it was like, don't ask, don't tell, and that was.

Well, you know, it was like cursing.

It was like cursing.

Everybody was afraid

their parents found out that they cursed when they were out in the street.

Oh fuck yeah.

And

I always knew that I knew what early I figured out what the rule was.

The rule was is that your parents could curse and you could curse, but you must never curse in the presence of each other.

Right, there you go.

That was the rule.

Don't go out the streets.

I never heard it expressed that we were so right.

You should hang out with me more.

I would love to hang out with you more.

I told you, you're a hero of

But you're right.

You know, I'm sure my parents, we just didn't do it in front of each other.

That's right.

And if you did, everybody would be mortified.

Like, oh my God, he's learning about these words.

Learning about these words.

I used to, you know, I was a language.

It was a separate language for us.

Everybody knew those words.

The best...

Most honest discussion to ever had with my father was when I was in college and I was home for like the summer or something, and I'd come in late being stoned, and he'd had three martinis.

And then we kind of talked, you know?

Okay.

Well, I got stoned the night cream.

Those are the questions now.

What does it say, Matt, about Gen X that the most likely candidates for 2024 are two guys over the age of 75?

I guess they mean Biden and Trump.

Is Biden going to run again?

Let's get to that one first.

If they wheel him out, I guess.

He's supposed to.

Both of them.

Both of them, to be clear.

A lot of wheeling needs to happen.

Even Gurneys, both of them.

Well,

no, I think to the questioner's point, and it's a good one, is that it's yet another reason why Gen X rules is because we never really liked politics to begin with, never got into it overly much.

And the most Gen X politician out there is a guy who started off interesting but has seriously embarrassed himself, Beto O'Rourke, like with every skateboard run to losing whatever his latest position is in Texas.

We're on to other things.

I think that's great.

But let's not be ageist about this.

It's not right to judge people.

There are people, 100 in this world who are still working the fields.

Look at this.

How old are you?

How old am I?

I don't know.

I'm almost 84.

84?

Okay.

I mean...

And you don't want to play one-on-one basketball with me.

Oh, I would say that to you.

I'll play one-on-one with you.

Absolutely.

You won't last.

I guarantee you.

Really?

Let's fucking do it.

All right.

On television, we can do it.

Great.

And you're just going to punch it.

And even the applause I find patronizing.

Like, oh, you're still here.

I'm good for you, sir.

It's like, fuck you.

Well, you know, when I was a kid, nobody lived past 62.

I didn't know anybody.

I mean, if you said you were 85, that was like, now I open up the bits every day in the Times.

Right.

And I'm only, you know, if you're not in that, then I'm not there.

But everybody is older than I am.

Okay.

But I mean, there's something about, it's like the way you talk, the way you move, your energy, your acumen.

Nothing about you suggests a specific age other than you're obviously a mature man.

But I mean, I don't know why you couldn't be president.

I don't either.

I don't either.

Right.

It's a prejudice.

But I know why my dad, who is your age, shouldn't be president, for example.

But that's your your dad.

It's a case-by-case basis.

And with the case of Biden and the case of Trump?

Right.

Well, Trump was crazy before he was old.

Yeah.

Okay.

That's, I mean, he has so many things.

Old is the least of his problems.

I agree.

No, it is.

He does not.

I mean, that is one of Trump's great weapons that he has going for him is he doesn't come across as old.

He's a robust Henry VIII kind of, you know, just strutting.

He just, you know, you see him and you don't think old, you think nuts.

And, oh, a man who became a platinum blonde in his 70s.

Like, that's cooked.

I'm already eating that hamburger.

Right.

You don't think,

as he has two portions of ice cream, everybody else gets one.

That kind of shit.

Fiona, you started working as a young, great segues here,

as a young teenager to, like me, selling pot, no.

As a young teenager to

help support your family.

What do you think is the best way to instill a strong work ethic among young people today?

Well, definitely getting a job when you're 11, honestly, right?

You're on one, right?

You're on one.

You're on one.

You're on one, right?

I mean, the problem actually, you know, right now is, of course, it gets back to you all of your rules and regulations.

I mean, you know, I I g I guess that's what you know, back in the day we tried to stop people from working at 11, 12, 13, 40, 12.

Well, that we should do that.

Yeah, we did, yeah.

But definitely having a job early on is a great thing to do.

I think unfortunately with COVID, all the jobs uh that kids have have, you know, dried up.

I mean, well, delivering newspapers is also hard when you're getting in them on your phone.

I did them all.

That's a bit difficult to kind of throw people's phones and apps across the

mowing lawns, shoveling driveways.

That's what my parents thought I was living on when I was selling pot.

Boy, that lawnmower money really sucks.

Yes,

where did you get the pot to sell?

Let's talk about that over basketball.

Thank you, Bill Buddha.

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