United Arab Emirates w/ Tucker Carlson | You Be Trippin' with Ari Shaffir

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Speaker 1 So, what's this about? Okay, this is about travel. Let me, I'll start it off.
But did we just like talk about travel? Oh, well, I love to

Speaker 1 connect with you so much on that shit. Before, sorry, I'll try not to curse.
Um,

Speaker 1 before we even started up there at your place, you just meet certain people that are just into it.

Speaker 1 Totally, it's you. I feel that way about travel.
I mean, I think it's one of the most important things.

Speaker 1 Where you've been and where you going,

Speaker 1 this is our Reese Travel Show. Yeah, we're gonna talk about travel today.
It's UB

Speaker 1 Trippin. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Hi, everybody. Welcome to Ubi Trippin'.
I'm the host, Ari Shafir. I go to a lot of places.
I like hearing from other people.

Speaker 1 One of the greatest travelers in journalism, I'd say, on the Mount Rushmore of journalist travelers.

Speaker 1 Tucker Carlson.

Speaker 1 Just got off his war with the Magnussons, and they were victorious. Congratulations.
And now he's here. Thank you.
He's here to talk about

Speaker 1 where?

Speaker 1 Where do you want to talk about? We try to cut it it to one place. One place? I've been a lot of...
First of all, let me just say one of the reasons you and I connected.

Speaker 1 Well, you've traveled in a way that I haven't traveled since the 1980s, which is without a cell phone, which is that's real travel. That's funny.
Because then you're fully immersed.

Speaker 1 And the whole point of travel is to get perspective, I think. To satisfy your curiosity and to get perspective.
And I am one of the only people. Politics aside, who actually believes in diversity.

Speaker 1 Like I like to see people who have got different ideas, different cultures, different languages. And I don't feel like I have to drop bombs on them if they live differently from me.
I just don't.

Speaker 1 I know that puts me in a tiny minority in Washington, D.C., but

Speaker 1 so I really think you can't understand your own country until you travel to other countries. Yeah, it's weird.
When you're in another country, you're more easily able to be like, oh, differences.

Speaker 1 And then here you're like, wrong.

Speaker 1 Yes. And you don't have perspective on what's happening here until, and I say this as someone who really loves America.
I was born here. I'm going to die here.
I'm connected to the country, I think.

Speaker 1 At least emotionally, I am. But I wouldn't wouldn't love America as much, and I certainly wouldn't understand it half as well if I didn't travel a lot.
Yeah, yeah. It is really weird.

Speaker 1 You come back and you're just like, oh, this is all clear now. Yes.

Speaker 1 But if you're going to pick one country,

Speaker 1 are you looking for an animal? No, it's her ball.

Speaker 1 Oh. Sorry, buddy.
Go, go. What is it? That dog is so cute.
It's out of control.

Speaker 1 Bandit, you're a good dog.

Speaker 1 Go play with the ladies, Bandit.

Speaker 1 Go play with the ladies.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 what's on your mind?

Speaker 1 You're going to do this podcast like six times. Okay, so I've been to a million countries, but I haven't been to that many countries except the obvious ones, you know, many times.
Okay.

Speaker 1 I've been to England many times, France many times, Italy many times. You know, those are obvious countries.
Who hasn't been to those countries many times? Greece many times.

Speaker 1 The only country outside of Western Europe I've been to a lot is the UAE.

Speaker 1 And what's so cool about the United Arab Emirates is I've been there for, I first went there in October of 2001, right after 9-11, because I was headed over to see the Taliban.

Speaker 1 What do you mean? What?

Speaker 1 Well, no, I was just a journalist, and I was interviewing the Taliban in Pakistan at the Taliban embassy right before the Afghan war started, when the Taliban were still in charge of Afghanistan.

Speaker 1 So 9-11 happened, obviously, mid-September, and the war in Afghanistan didn't begin until

Speaker 1 15th or so, until a month later, ish, if my memory serves. And so during that month, the Taliban were still in charge of Afghanistan.
They were the walking dead. Everyone knew it.

Speaker 1 And I wanted to go interview them. This is not an interesting story, but I, in.
Did they know their time was about over?

Speaker 1 They were pretty far out from what I can remember. I remember that the Taliban spokesman when I interviewed was holding the hand of this little boy, and everyone was making fun of it.
Actually,

Speaker 1 everyone in the press corps there was making fun of it. This was in Karachi or Islamabad.

Speaker 1 I think it was in Islamabad, Pakistan.

Speaker 1 Anyway, the point is, I went to UAE on the way there and the way back.

Speaker 1 And on the way back, I had this like horrible...

Speaker 1 My plane went down on the way back from

Speaker 1 Pakistan.

Speaker 1 From Peshawar, Pakistan on the Kuiper Pass into Dubai in the middle of the night, and it landed in Sand Dune and the plane was wrecked. It was destroyed.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 so now that plane is actually a dive site for scuba diving. They pulled it into the water? They did, yeah, off a hotel.
It's a big, big double-aisle Airbus, and you can now dive on it.

Speaker 1 So that was October of 2001. And I've just been back intermittently and then in recent years, much more regularly every year.
Well, you are most welcome

Speaker 1 to the UAE. And so I've seen the changes there in a way that has has absolutely blown my mind.

Speaker 1 It's just in this way that if you go back to any place over time, but particularly to a country that's just becoming something as that country is. Were they like completely unmodern before?

Speaker 1 Well, okay, I got there in 2001. So this, you know, we had air travel and air conditioning, and it was the modern era.
But I remember

Speaker 1 going to a belly dancing place in Dubai. Oh, wow.
I mean, it wasn't the Arabian Nights or anything. It was a modern city, and they had this famous airline emirates, but

Speaker 1 come here, you little animal.

Speaker 1 But it was, you know, it was like middle, it was very Middle Eastern. And it was right after 9-11.

Speaker 1 So there was this, you know, everyone in America was like scared to death of the Arabs and Islam and all this stuff. And it was like, oh, gosh, you know, am I safe here in Dubai?

Speaker 1 And then, you know, subsequently I've been back many times. And I've just watched it become this, become basically the future.

Speaker 1 Not just futuristic, not just like far-out architecture or clean streets, but I've just seen that country adopt, self-consciously adopt sort of the best qualities of the West.

Speaker 1 Rule of law, order.

Speaker 1 So it's not dangerous. No, not at all.
It's definitely not dangerous.

Speaker 1 I heard they have futurists as part of their government, which says, hey, in 10 years, it's going to be this. So let's start playing now versus

Speaker 1 building a highway here, and then it's already done. Yes, it's all, I mean, look, it's a monarchy, so,

Speaker 1 and it's probably the most, I mean, in my opinion, it's the most benign, thoughtful, enlightened, liberal in the best sense of the word liberal monarchy in the world. Really? Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, that's the kind of country where, that's the kind of country that makes you feel sad about your own country.

Speaker 1 It's like you're in the middle of an Islamic monarchy where they're more tolerant, there's more free speech, there's more tolerance. There's more free speech.
Oh, my gosh, yes.

Speaker 1 I mean, I think it's pretty clear that, you know, if you were to criticize, and this is true, I think, throughout the Gulf, but, you know, if you were to call for, you know, Sharia law,

Speaker 1 if you were to express like radical Islamic political views, you would be they won't put up with that because it's a threat to them, right? But everything else.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, you can walk down the streets of Abu Dhabi and say, you know, I'm a proud Jew, Ari Shafir. They don't care about that at all.
That's always the question in the Middle East.

Speaker 1 Like, how safe is it? And then how safe is it for this for this nose?

Speaker 1 Oh, not only is it safe, it's like, yeah, oh, yeah, no, no, no. No, there are lots of Jews

Speaker 1 in the Gulf golf who are totally including a very good friend of mine who was there

Speaker 1 Jesus. No,

Speaker 1 and there are lots of Christians, too. I mean, it's really, it's, in general, they're much more comfortable with

Speaker 1 religious faith publicly proclaimed as long as it's not political Islam, which obviously, again, is a threat to them. And I don't think you'd want to try that.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I don't think you'd want to go like Muslim Brotherhood. Yeah, a lot of these places are like, just don't shit on the government.
You're fine. And I'm like, well, I wasn't going to, so it's fine.

Speaker 1 Well, Russia's like that, honestly. Just don't make fun fun of the government.
Yeah. Say anything else.
Kind of, yeah.

Speaker 1 And well, that was certainly my experience there. Just don't get involved in politics.
It's like, that's well, which, by the way, I'm an American, so I feel a right to get involved in politics.

Speaker 1 So that's a deal killer for me. I can't live in a country like that.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 as a visitor, oh, it's, it's,

Speaker 1 it's, yes, it's incredibly free.

Speaker 1 And the things that people say, so we've been brainwashed into believing that if you allow people actual free speech, which obviously we don't have, but if you were ever to allow them that, that they would just become like, you know, vesuviuses of hate.

Speaker 1 You just start

Speaker 1 beating up black people or screaming the N-word. And actually, most people don't have any interest in acting like that because they don't feel that way.

Speaker 1 That's just a lie.

Speaker 1 And what you get when you allow people to say what they really think is a much more interesting conversation where people say, and usually in a pretty, in my experience, a very polite, kind of restrained way, because people don't generally want to hurt each other's feelings.

Speaker 1 You know, I think this, and here's why, and well, I think that, and here's why. And it's like sort of America 1985, you know? In

Speaker 1 China, my friends all told me that they use WeChat. Yeah.
But there's no like regulation there. So they're just seeing a lot of like,

Speaker 1 if they're like comedians, you're saying a lot of murdered babies.

Speaker 1 But everything else, like, hey, come on, my mom's in this chat. And then they just regulate themselves.
But there's no like, can't show that. Like, you can show anything.
Is that true? Yeah.

Speaker 1 So some stuff flips through, but it's not like you're just like, guys, I'm out of this group. Yeah.
It wouldn't wouldn't be in your group. It would just be like in a comedian's group.

Speaker 1 They would send murdered babies pictures. Yeah, or just like anything crazy, you know?

Speaker 1 But I think over time, like, I mean, I've never lived in a society with, you know, real free speech, but I think if you did, you would find that people don't really want to scream racial epithets or send

Speaker 1 it. You know what I mean? Like, some of it's because you're like, oh, they won't let me do it.
No, but that's some of it. All of it.

Speaker 1 Most of it anyway. You're like, oh, you can't say.
Like the word retarded.

Speaker 1 I've never had like a deep desire to call people retarded, but the second second they're like, oh, you're against the disabled, well, no, actually, I kind of like people with downstream.

Speaker 1 So then you're like, retarded, retarded, retarded, retarded. Yeah, but you can't stop.

Speaker 1 You can't take a word away. It's all I can do now.
It's true. And they're like, don't bring this up.
You're like, oh, why'd you say that? That's how I feel. Why'd you say it?

Speaker 1 That's what he said about China. Don't make fun of the Chinese government on stage.
I'm like, I was never going to, but now it's all I can think about. That is the truth.

Speaker 1 Yes, I have that same personality. I know the feeling very well.

Speaker 1 Hey guys, I'm going to break in real quick from this episode to tell you about my dates and my special that's out now, America Sweetheart.

Speaker 1 It's called by China, the greatest stand-up comedy special of all time.

Speaker 1 Get it on Netflix right now. Tell your friends.
Watch it all the way through. Reception so far has been fucking overwhelming, legitimately.
I'm really happy that you guys are enjoying it.

Speaker 1 I hope you're getting the

Speaker 1 what I made,

Speaker 1 what I had in mind for you to get the fuck off the news and everybody. Just chill out a little bit and focus on the positives.
That's all I want you to do in life. Focus on the positives.
Last.

Speaker 1 Tell your your friends about it if you saw it. Post about your favorite bits.
Take a screen grab. Fucking record it and post it.
I don't care. I gave you permission.
Post it.

Speaker 1 Netflix can, I don't know, fuck off.

Speaker 1 America Sweetheart. I'm also on tour right now, all over.

Speaker 1 Oh, I got America Sweetheart shirts, too. If you want to help me pay for this special, go to arishair.com.
Get a stay positive shirt.

Speaker 1 Oh, shit. I have it in my bag.
Oh, well. And

Speaker 1 I'm going to to model that for you guys. You can put it in.
And also, there's a Feidelberg shirt. You can throw that up here, too.

Speaker 1 Both available at RSafeir.com on the merch.

Speaker 1 And that's it. My dates are

Speaker 1 this weekend. Oh, there we go.
I got down, down, down, down, down, down. I know these.

Speaker 1 Brea, California with Adrian Appalucci, Nashville, San Antonio, San Jose, Atlanta, Portland, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Seattle, Anchorage.

Speaker 1 I know I'm forgetting one. Denver, Tampa, Schaumburg, Illinois.
Some of those with Adrian Appalucci. Denver's with Colin Terrell.

Speaker 1 Fort Lauderdale and Orlando.

Speaker 1 That's it. Everybody, all my tickets are available at rgfair.com.
That's my whole tour until April, and then I'm gone until 2027. The farewell tour is on sale now.
Some shows have been added already.

Speaker 1 Portland sold out.

Speaker 1 That's it. Now let's get back to the episode.
Again, If you watched America's Sweetheart, if you enjoyed it, I really appreciate it.

Speaker 1 Uh, for those of you who are just joining this podcast for Tucker Carlson, he'll be back on again because he's a great uh traveler. He's also got his own.

Speaker 1 Well, I'll tell you in a second, but um, check out my special. I'm a stand-up comic, and I have a new special out right now on Netflix called America's Sweetheart.

Speaker 1 Tucker Carlson approves of my stand-up comedy, you should too. Uh, he also has his own pouch of nicotine that you guys love called ALP.
It's uh, all lives pattern. That can't be right

Speaker 1 What could ALP stand for? Well, Alp. Oh, maybe it's because he's in the Alps.
Maybe Alpine. Could be that.
You know, I could ask. Tucker fucking Carlson.

Speaker 1 I've met him. I've met him.
You don't believe me? Watch the rest of this episode. Let's get back to it.
So, what did you do? First of all, I got to get back to this plane going down.

Speaker 1 We just skimmed over that, but I want to know what you got, what you get into when you're in Dubai.

Speaker 1 Well, it wasn't in when the plane went down. So I was.
What do you mean it went down? Did they announce, hey, strap up? No, it was, it was really awful, actually.

Speaker 1 But no, we were flying on a Pakistan International Airways flight from Peshawar, Pakistan, which is right

Speaker 1 Peshawar, it looks like the spelling, and it's right on the Afghan border. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And it was the day that the bombing started in.

Speaker 1 Okay, so there you have it. Right, right, exactly.
Right in there. So,

Speaker 1 um,

Speaker 1 okay, so where are we here? Keep going

Speaker 1 to

Speaker 1 east.

Speaker 1 East. Peshawar.
So go to Islamabad, and then you can see Islamabad is the capital and Rawalpindi. You see it? No, I don't have my.
I'm so blind, dude. I don't have my glasses on.

Speaker 1 Islamabad, Pakistan, there it is. Islamabad.
Rawalpindi. So Rawalpindi is the traditional.
Oh, and Peshawar is... You can see that right there.

Speaker 1 It looks like Peshawar, I think if I can read it correctly, it's to the west. Yeah.
And it's up in the mountains. So that is...

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Anyway,

Speaker 1 so

Speaker 1 we couldn't fly. So that was the night that the bombing campaign in Afghanistan started.

Speaker 1 And so I was flying, well, I had nothing to do with it. I just happened to...
be in the area. But we had a very secure, circuitous route, and

Speaker 1 we probably took off at I don't know 10 at night or something and it I think it's just a couple hour flight under normal circumstances but we had to fly I don't think we could

Speaker 1 we had to fly all the way around we couldn't fly over Iran I think which is on

Speaker 1 all this airspace stuff right on

Speaker 1 do out go out a little bit so Iran is

Speaker 1 of course right on the other side of the Persian Gulf from this way so Iran's right there right so yeah that's where you'd fly over Iran right so I think we had to come up

Speaker 1 through

Speaker 1 the Gulf of Oman.

Speaker 1 We had to fly straight south and then up in. Anyway, whatever.
We were over the water

Speaker 1 at about 2.30 in the morning and on descent. So my guess would be without knowing because no one ever told me anything about what happened.
But

Speaker 1 probably 20,000 feet, not wheels down. But, you know, coming down, it felt like we ran into something.
The plane just went up BAM and then just dropped. What? And yeah,

Speaker 1 out of nowhere. And something happened.

Speaker 1 Someone told me later who worked for Airbus that there was a bomb in the cargo hold. I don't know.
All I know is the plane had a lot of trouble maintaining altitude after that.

Speaker 1 It would like drop, and then they would, you know, gun the engines and kind of come up sideways and just basically porpoise around in the air for what seemed like about an hour.

Speaker 1 It was probably eight minutes, but it was, I really have no perspective on what happened or how long it took.

Speaker 1 But it was, it was very high drama and everyone on the plane was convinced we were going to die and people were. I could see that.

Speaker 1 I was sitting in first class with all the Gulf Arabs, you know, in the robes and stuff, all smoking because this was back when you could smoke on Pashtun. I mean, you have to at that point.

Speaker 1 Oh, never was burning marlboroughs. And then if you look back, the back of the plane, it was a huge plane, was all Pashtuns

Speaker 1 from Afghanistan and from,

Speaker 1 you know, the northwest border territories of Pakistan.

Speaker 1 Pashtuns, the dominant tribe in Afghanistan, and they were all going to work in the Gulf.

Speaker 1 And they're famously stoic and impressive people, supposedly related to Alexander the Great, but they're really interesting people, very interesting. And they're very emotionally controlled.

Speaker 1 And the plane is doing all this weird stuff in the air, and it's clear that we're not going to be able to land it. And I look back and they're just sitting, like staring straight ahead.

Speaker 1 And all the Gulf Arabs with their headdresses and the Marlboros, who are much more Western, of course, they're flipping out. Whoa, you're going crazy.

Speaker 1 Anyway, ultimately, they tried to bring it in. We wind up sideways in the sand dune.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 so the plane, one of the wings had partially detached and there were flames or whatever. So I got off the plane.

Speaker 1 I opened the door actually myself and took the slide down with about four or five other Westerners who were on the plane.

Speaker 1 What? Yep. Into the desert? Into the desert at night.
And we got picked up within about, so we started, I think the plane's going to blow up. It didn't.
But I thought it was because of the fire.

Speaker 1 And I just had this vision of being incinerated, and so I was wearing loafers exactly like these running through the sand and these things.

Speaker 1 And we got picked up by a bus, an army, a UAE Army bus, and put on the bus.

Speaker 1 And it was, it was, it was like a hallucinogen, it was like kaleidoscopic, like these things are. You know, you don't really, you have no perspective on what the hell just happened.

Speaker 1 You have no idea how to think about it. You have no idea how to think about it.
And even now, I'm not really sure. But,

Speaker 1 and it was,

Speaker 1 gosh, I can look it up because I have the data on my calendar. But anyway, it was like this week, 2001.

Speaker 1 And then they brought us to the Dubai airport and locked us in a room.

Speaker 1 Like, it was only what? Yeah, it was so hard.

Speaker 1 Well, because I think

Speaker 1 here I am defending the protocol, but I think what happens when something bizarre happens, like a plane winds up sideways in a sand dune in the middle of the night, you're like, oh, wait, everyone needs to be questioned.

Speaker 1 And so we got locked in this.

Speaker 1 Even if it's just like, I look, somebody packed my bag. That's exactly right.
What was that? It's exactly right. So then ultimately they put us on a BA flight to London.

Speaker 1 I'm British Airways flight to London. And when I got on the flight, I'll never forget this.
It was me and another guy from the U.S.

Speaker 1 The captain was waiting for us as we walked on the plane, and he handed us each bottles of champagne and said, I heard you were on that flight. You're lucky to be alive.

Speaker 1 And that bottle of champagne is on my desk to this day. You weren't drinking already, then? I was drinking hard.
Oh, you were? I was drinking hard. I wouldn't have gotten hard.
And I got home.

Speaker 1 Actually, I got home. Put it down.

Speaker 1 And I gave up drinking and had a fourth child within a year. Really? Yes.
It really changed me.

Speaker 1 But the point is, I've been going back to UAE since then, and I've never dived on the plane. I should.

Speaker 1 But I have just seen it become not just physically

Speaker 1 more expansive, bigger, shinier, more obviously rich, which it has become, but I've seen it become much more

Speaker 1 like the United States once was,

Speaker 1 much more,

Speaker 1 it's it's hard to believe I'm saying this about, again, in Islamic monarchy, a form of government I was trained to hate, but I'm just telling you what I've seen. It's like,

Speaker 1 I think you've got a much better chance of a,

Speaker 1 you know, of the rules being enforced around business and crime there than you have here. I think you're much freer to say what you really think in public.

Speaker 1 I think, you know, there are definitely things I don't like about it, but in general, I think it's a much more, again, I can't believe I'm saying this, progressive in the true sense, society.

Speaker 1 It depends on the monarch, too. Like the old Thai king was amazing.
The new one is like kind of a schmuck.

Speaker 1 So it's like, the new one's like, let's make sure tourism happens and we can actually come out of this poverty thing. So it's like, oh, complete control works here if you get a guy who wants to help.

Speaker 1 Well, it does. And I'm hardly endorsing monarchy as a system of government.
But on the other hand, I will say, you know, they have worked in some places.

Speaker 1 I mean, Saudi Arabia has, over the last 80 years, become,

Speaker 1 you know, by the normal measures of is government effective, which are not theoretical, they're physical. Like is life expectancy extending? Do you have more paved roads? How's literacy? How's crime?

Speaker 1 How are drug ODs and suicide? Like those are fair ways to measure the efficacy of a government. It's been more successful than any country in Europe.

Speaker 1 I mean, how is Europe better than it was 80 years ago? You got kids upstairs. Yeah, she just moved in.
It's cool.

Speaker 1 All right, buddy. I see what you want.
You got it.

Speaker 1 Does the dog do the podcast a lot? She does sometimes. I know you like dogs.
I love them. She does like the lucky.
I love dogs.

Speaker 1 That's it, buddy.

Speaker 1 How are dogs there?

Speaker 1 Strays looked down upon. You know, it's funny you said that because I actually like it so much that I've thought about

Speaker 1 spending the winter there or spending, you know, we actually are spending a lot of.

Speaker 1 some of the winter there anyway, like we did last year.

Speaker 1 But, you know, like spending two or three months there in the winter. And, uh, because it's pretty great.
You know, it just is. It's beautiful.
The food is great. The people are really nice.

Speaker 1 It's completely safe. It's reasonable.
Yeah. Again, I'm not, you know, they're very down on drugs.
So I wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't get caught selling meth there.

Speaker 1 I'd think that would be bad for you. But, um, but I don't want to sell meth.

Speaker 1 Just do it. But the main thing that keeps me from doing that is my dogs.
First of all, how do you, I've got three dogs. How do you get them there? How do you get them there? Anywhere you want to go.

Speaker 1 It's got a charter. And I can't, that's too expensive.
That's insane. I don't even know what it will cost.
You can't take a king air to Dubai. Just to not put them underneath.
Exactly.

Speaker 1 And then the other question is: can they run? You know, we don't use leashes on our dogs because we don't have to. And

Speaker 1 you can't, I don't think you can run your dogs on the beach without a leash.

Speaker 1 There's a weird thing with Islam. Islamic people with dogs where they're like really look down on them.
They start to get out of the city. Some kick out, sometimes they can't do it.
Some do.

Speaker 1 No, some do. And I've seen it in, I also have known a number of Muslims, some friends of mine who like love dogs.

Speaker 1 I mean, the British were in charge of many of those countries for a long time.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 they failed on the dogs. Well, they did.

Speaker 1 They should

Speaker 1 think that you know, people read PG Woodhouse still, but no, but I've known, actually, honestly, I've probably known a lot of Muslims who love, who really love dogs, but in general, they're not as friendly toward dogs, you know.

Speaker 1 So that's a that's a deal killer for me because you know, I'm Anglo. We love dogs.
Yeah. So So what did you find? Let me tell you two of my thoughts on UAE and tell them what I have.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I'm probably wrong.

Speaker 1 It's just Greater Vegas. Yep.

Speaker 1 And there's some level of slavery,

Speaker 1 but I don't understand much.

Speaker 1 Okay, so there are a couple.

Speaker 1 Okay, so to the first, and I'm not working for UAE, I've never taken time from anyone in UAE. I've already spent money there.

Speaker 1 So just to be clear on that,

Speaker 1 so there are several Emirates, and I'm embarrassed. I can't remember whether it's five or seven.
I think it's seven. So let's say there are seven emirates.

Speaker 1 There are really two you've heard of, and that's Dubai and Abu Dhabi. They're 100-ish miles apart.
We're both right on the Gulf.

Speaker 1 Abu Dhabi is the seat of government. It's where the leader lives,

Speaker 1 MBZ, as he's known,

Speaker 1 and they have massive oil and gas. Okay.
Dubai has no oil and gas. It has no kind of resources at all.
It was a pearl diving center.

Speaker 1 The whole region had slavery, like actually, like a lot of the Islamic world had slavery and I think UAE until the 70s. And slaves were used as pearl divers.

Speaker 1 And so the economy of Dubai was tiny, but you can see it sticks out into the Gulf. You can see it's like a perfect spot

Speaker 1 for trading, right? Because it's at the entrance. Yeah.
Oh, yeah, for sure. Right.
So, but it was, but pearl diving is not a real economy. And they didn't have too many options.

Speaker 1 So they did the smartest thing ever, which was they kind of looked at a map. It's always good to start by looking at a map.

Speaker 1 And they're like, wait a second, we're like at the perfect point between East and West. Why not have like the best airline in the world? Best what? Airline.

Speaker 1 So they created this airline called Emirates, which I think is fair to say the best or one of the best airlines. God's rules.

Speaker 1 When you just happen, when you see like the Emirates, and it's not much more expensive. No!

Speaker 1 But they treat you just like a

Speaker 1 exactly. Or Singapore Air, same thing.
Oh, it's so nice. Which I think is also supported by the government.
But they decided. Please can have some water everywhere else.

Speaker 1 Oh, well, on Emirates, they're like, just a little water. You're like, oh, just walk back to the saloon, Mind Cabin, and like, you know, get whatever you want.
It's all great. It's incredible.

Speaker 1 But they decided, like, why shouldn't we be, if you're flying from the West, Europe, U.S.,

Speaker 1 to anywhere in Asia or the East, if you're flying to India or you're flying to Singapore or you're flying to Africa, you should fly through to Dubai because it's right there.

Speaker 1 So they, and they built this airport that's just beyond. The airport itself, I think, think, has the largest,

Speaker 1 certainly date market in the world, but I think also one of the larger gold and diamond markets. There's a date market in there? In the air airport? There's a bunch of them.

Speaker 1 Oh, they take dates really seriously there in the Gulf. Oh, yeah.
Do you like dates? I mean, I guess. Not like that.

Speaker 1 I was in Israel once and I drove to a kibbutz, not like the fun kibbutz you go to on like a tour. Like, let's see a kibbutz.
Yeah. But like an actual working, just a farm

Speaker 1 out in the middle of nowhere because it had the best dates.

Speaker 1 And I went to the kibbutz store and just loaded up. And then I ate about half of the truck and

Speaker 1 I was really sick. Yeah, I'm driving.
It's not a fill-up food. No, it's not.
Well, I have problems with regulation. I'm like your dog.
But anyway,

Speaker 1 so they used that airline to make Dubai famous. Oh, interesting.
That's smart. Simultaneously, you had the Lebanese Civil War, which lasted from 1975 until the mid-90s, late 90s, actually.

Speaker 1 And that kind of wrecked Lebanon, which was at one one point a majority Christian country in the Middle East, to which rich people from around the region went on holiday. So

Speaker 1 if you have like theocratic countries that are, you know, don't allow you to let your freak flag fly, you need a Vegas. And that was always Lebanon because it's beautiful.
Beirut is beautiful.

Speaker 1 A couple hours to go skiing. Academics.
Lebanon has everything. Beautiful women, great food.
So if you're a Saudi family and you're like, we need to relax for the weekend, you'd fly to Beirut.

Speaker 1 So Beirut kind of had all these problems because they had this horrible civil war and then they got invaded in 82. They had all this drama.
So people are like, we need a new Beirut.

Speaker 1 And that really became Dubai. Somewhere safe.
Somewhere safe that had liberal codes of personal conduct. So booze is not a problem? Booze.
In fact, let me just summarize it in one word. Booze.

Speaker 1 Dubai had booze. That's a humongous thing.
It's a humongous thing. And I say this as a non-drinker, but it is a humongous thing.

Speaker 1 And you would walk into the Dubai airport and they would have like a wall of booze. Just to be totally clear, we've got booze in Dubai.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Because sometimes in Emirates, if you land in Qatar or Doha, they'll be like

Speaker 1 the stewardess is like, all right, hats on.

Speaker 1 Give me your alcohol. Give me your alcohol.
Oh, yeah, yeah. Get it off the table.
Like, we're no longer safe to do this. But there.

Speaker 1 The whole area, except I haven't, I'm going to Saudi soon, actually, in a couple months, but I'll see when I get there. But I think the whole area has gotten more alcohol-friendly.

Speaker 1 That's my impression, just visiting. But Dubai kind of led the way on that.
Like, you could drink in Dubai. And that may not apply to Muslims, actually.
I'm not really sure the rules.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but they got their own rules. It's like it's up to you.
Right. I heard Ron Paul talking about it when he was running.
They were like, well, you're Christian. How would you feel about abortion?

Speaker 1 He goes, I mean, I'm not going to force my wife to have an abortion, but like, but like, that's a law. I'll just defend the law.
But we're not going to do it. Right.
Yeah. You can just still.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Hi, guys.
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So in Dubai, they had boosts.

Speaker 1 So anyway, you drew a lot of rich people from the region there. And then they decided, well, wait a second, let's become a business center.
So like super low taxes.

Speaker 1 I don't know if they even have personal income taxes, corporate taxes. To get more money over the just under 10%, yeah.
Wow. Meanwhile, Europe was starting to kind of collapse.

Speaker 1 So all these people sent their children and themselves went. The ruling class in all these countries all went to school, mostly England, but also the U.S.

Speaker 1 Like they all went to Stanford or Georgetown or whatever. That'd be despots.
Or Oxford or Sandhurst. Yeah, exactly.
And

Speaker 1 so they saw that Europe is kind of becoming,

Speaker 1 you know, a very hard place to do business because of the massive welfare states and the bureaucracy that sustains them. And they're like, well, why don't we become the new kind of duty-free country?

Speaker 1 And so then they decided, because they're really longitudinal thinkers and they're smart, they're very smart.

Speaker 1 They're like, well, let's have have like let's use traditional english law for business so in other words if you've got a business in the uk copyright i can exactly and we'll enforce all that so china's it's never going to work in china exactly it can't yeah

Speaker 1 and one of the reasons there's like so much someone should much smarter than i should write a series of books about what's going on there right now but one of the reasons they can do that is because they're secure in their authority

Speaker 1 and right i've actually seen i've had a window into how that country is governed. And what's so interesting is how different it is from what you expect as a Westerner wedded to this idea of democracy.

Speaker 1 And the core idea of democracy, of course, is that everyone gets to say it's our country too. And we have, you know, we're equity partners in the country.

Speaker 1 And in a monarchy, it's just the king makes every decision.

Speaker 1 It's a totalitarian system. And the truth is that's not right.
There's no absolute ruler of any country ever. Joseph Stalin, in the end, was murdered by his inner circle.

Speaker 1 Even Stalin, who had as much unchecked power as anybody ever in history, in the end pissed off the wrong people and got killed, which he did. So in 1953.
Tchesco, it just keeps happening.

Speaker 1 You're right. Exactly.

Speaker 1 Totally right. You in the end.
Causing his money. Rule by consent.

Speaker 1 Maybe not of the whole population, but certainly of the oligarchy that inevitably runs every country, like the big people, the rich people, the big families. And in the Gulf, they have a...

Speaker 1 a system, a codified system where you meet with the ruler usually once a week in his yard, in his courtyard. Who meets with him?

Speaker 1 Well, there are two groups that can meet with him. In a country as small as UAE, I think they're only like a million citizens or something.

Speaker 1 Any citizen can petition to meet with him. And he sits there.
They sit outside and he sits in a chair and people come up and take turns bringing their complaints to him. Whoa.
Every week.

Speaker 1 He does it every week. Wow.

Speaker 1 He's like Game of Thrones.

Speaker 1 This guy should be the subject of a lot of studies

Speaker 1 for many reasons. I don't want to sound like I'm flacking for him, but I just, I'm not.
I'm just very impressed impressed with him.

Speaker 1 So it's anything from like, there's murders going on to like, I'm just guessing, to like, hey, the garbage only comes on Tuesday, they need it on Friday. 10%.
Oh, interesting.

Speaker 1 So the monarch sits and listens to this, and then they have separate meetings with the heads of the clans, the families, the power centers in the country.

Speaker 1 All these emirates are all these different, trying to use the word tribe, but I don't mean it pejoratively, but like,

Speaker 1 you know, groups of related people.

Speaker 1 And the leaders from those meet with him regularly and they bring their concerns. And so he's not going to make a big decision without seeking some form of level of consensus from everybody.

Speaker 1 And that's why it's stable. And his approval rating is sky high.
So if you are secure, you don't need to be repressive.

Speaker 1 And one of the reasons that our government is getting more repressive is because they feel insecure. They feel like, oh man, you know, we can have a revolution in this country.
They can feel that.

Speaker 1 And they're right, by the way, that they're very unpopular. Both parties are very unpopular.
And it makes them feel defensive. And it makes them reactionary.

Speaker 1 just like a parent would be or a dog owner. If you feel like your dog is obedient and he pisses on the rug, you don't beat him.
You're like, oh man, you pissed on the rug.

Speaker 1 Don't do that.

Speaker 1 But if you feel like your dog's out of control and giving you the finger, you flip out. And governments are the same with their people.
And so that government feels very, very secure.

Speaker 1 And so they're not repressive. Yeah, why? Okay, so that's the answer to your first question.
All the

Speaker 1 Vegasy stuff is Dubai.

Speaker 1 I would say it's more than that. It's actually a business center now.

Speaker 1 And Abu Dhabi is the seat of government. It's where the oil and gas are extracted, that part of the country.
And it's where the ruler lives. And it's a beautiful place.
Holy smokes.

Speaker 1 I mean, they have, for example, they have a lot of money. So they've spent it on infrastructure, not just hookers.

Speaker 1 They have hookers there? No, I don't.

Speaker 1 I'm sure they do. They're hookers everywhere, but I've never seen any hookers there.
But,

Speaker 1 I mean, of course they do. What am I saying? They must.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, I don't know what everyone does for a little bit. But in the lobby of a hotel, if you see a lot of Russian girls, you're like, okay.

Speaker 1 If you see a woman sitting alone in a gown. Kind of.
Like, who am I to? I don't know what they are. No, I would do whatever you want, but just know what they are.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 over there on the Abu Dhabi side, they have installed an entire desalinization plant, which is a big thing.

Speaker 1 Israel famously has one. We should have some.
We don't.

Speaker 1 It takes sea water and makes it into potable water. But they're incredibly expensive to run.
The energy costs are super high, but they've got the gas, so they do it. It's just for landscaping.

Speaker 1 So, this is the middle of the desert.

Speaker 1 That's how you get that.

Speaker 1 Oh, it's insane. Wow.

Speaker 1 So, if you care about plants, and I really do, one of the problems with the desert is there are no plants.

Speaker 1 But in Abu Dhabi, and to some extent, Dubai, but particularly Abu Dhabi, I mean, you drive along

Speaker 1 the roadway along the sea, and it's just like tree. Look at that.
Trees everywhere. And that's how that's not even like in someone's yard.

Speaker 1 This is just like they've remade forests, yes, it's it's incredible, and you know, if you care about nature, it's like so delightful to see that. So, to the slavery question, okay,

Speaker 1 what you're talking about are the Filipinos, worker, yeah, yeah, Filipinos, Pakistanis, also,

Speaker 1 and so,

Speaker 1 you know, the people who built all of this stuff, the laborers, are not, of course, the citizens of the country.

Speaker 1 There are not many citizens of the country at all, and citizenship is a a high value thing.

Speaker 1 You know, you don't have citizenship lightly, and citizenship in the UAE entitles you to free education, I think, through the doctorate level.

Speaker 1 They'll send you anywhere in the world and pay all of your expenses. It's a rich country per capita.
So all of their labor is imported, physical labor, all of it is imported.

Speaker 1 And they've built at such a speed that they have like, I mean, many times the population is living there to work. And it is, last I checked, it was was mostly Filipino and Pakistani.

Speaker 1 And there have been a lot of complaints about the way that they're treated. They can't leave.
Like, they took their passport.

Speaker 1 There have certainly been a lot of claims, and I wouldn't doubt that that's true. I know for a fact that the government sees that as like a big PR problem for them.

Speaker 1 And so, to what extent they're trying to fix that, I don't know.

Speaker 1 And I'm ashamed to say I don't know as much about it other than the obvious, which is people are being exploited for their labor, which is a pretty common arrangement through human history.

Speaker 1 And I'm opposed to it.

Speaker 1 I do know that. But that's government, I guess.

Speaker 1 What's interesting, so they have this problem in Jordan where the majority of the population is not Jordanian

Speaker 1 because of various wars recently, Syria 1st, 1948, Palestinians coming, et cetera, et cetera. And

Speaker 1 it's hard to govern a country that's majority non-citizen because there's always the fear they're going to rise up and eat you.

Speaker 1 And that has, of course, been the problem the Hashemites have had in Jordan for all these years. That's what Rome did was like, you're citizens now.
That's exactly right. So smart.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but it didn't work. It didn't work.
All the legions were German.

Speaker 1 They sacked Rome.

Speaker 1 But anyway, the point is,

Speaker 1 this is a huge problem in a lot of countries, particularly small rich countries.

Speaker 1 And they seem to have a pretty peaceful situation. But, you know, long term, you can't have the majority of your country be non-citizens.
So,

Speaker 1 you know, if there'll be a path to get there, even Australia to that, like you're a prisoner, but like you'll be a path to be there will never be, there will never be a path to get there because like most countries around the world outside the West, you're

Speaker 1 like your bloodline. Yeah, you just can't have a Filipino citizen of

Speaker 1 UAE.

Speaker 1 Yeah, of an Emirate. I don't think so.
Any more than they're going to become citizens of China or Israel for that matter.

Speaker 1 Most countries outside Europe, Western Europe, and the United States are like, oh, I'm sorry, your parents weren't from here. You can't be a citizen.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Tell me what you get into when you're there.

Speaker 1 They're going to make you leave soon. Oh, they are.
Sorry. What do I get into when I'm in there?

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 I am seeing people I like and having, you know, dinners and being kind of sedentary. I went out into the desert last time I was there this winter, I think.
Yeah, with these ladies.

Speaker 1 Just hiking. We went to a dinner party out at a friend's ranch out in the middle of the desert.
I am going to, we're going there again this winter for a while, and I want to do falconry.

Speaker 1 I want to see falconry. Nice.
Well, that's like, like, get, like, go get that, whatever.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and I think they really do all the real falconry is because it requires huge land, you know, a lot of land.

Speaker 1 Like a thousand acres is not big enough to do falconry on because these things are fast. The birds of prey are fast.
So it's mostly done in Pakistan. But I still want to go out and see it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that'd be so cool. Want to see them get one? Want to come back after catch a rabbit or something? That would just be amazing.

Speaker 1 You ever seen one of those in nature like at a golf course or something? And you're like, whoa, it's so wild.

Speaker 1 Just grab a squirrel and just like, nope. It's so good.
So I've never seen that. I've seen it with trout.
I've seen it in front of my house. Oh, really?

Speaker 1 We have bald eagle nests right across from my house. And I watched them dive down and kill my trout.
And I always, I shouldn't say this because it's a violation of federal law, but I want to.

Speaker 1 Wanting to is not a problem. I want to shoot them.
Yeah, of course. I want to shoot them.
Because we we have a lot of bald eagles. It's not like, oh my gosh, a bald eagle.

Speaker 1 It's like, oh, more bald eagles. Killing.
And we don't have enough trout. So it really bugs me.
That's how they are in Iceland and Denver. They're like, oh, these whales.
We got plenty here.

Speaker 1 It's not a shortage. And they are.
They have. Yeah, we got burgers.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Whale's pretty good. Whale's pretty good.
He's got to know how to do it right, I guess. Remember when they were telling you in school that whale's not a fish, it's a mammal?

Speaker 1 And you're like, yeah, whatever. But then when you get whale, you're like, oh, it's surprisingly not fishy.
Yeah, it's camp. It's like cool.
Well, because it's not a fish.

Speaker 1 Is there like local food or do they have like Western food everywhere? They have Western food. I love Mediterranean and Middle Eastern food.
Like, who doesn't, actually?

Speaker 1 And it's kind of, you know, it's not so different from the Arab Quarter in Jerusalem or anywhere in the region. It's all kind of the same.
The bread is amazing. tons of fresh ingredients.

Speaker 1 I mean, they have, you know, it's Dubai, so it's like the richest city in the world. So they have whatever you want, like the best pizza and all that, but I get enough of that.

Speaker 1 So I like the Mediterranean. Don't you? Yeah, yeah.
When I'm somewhere like that, I'll do it. Plus, like in Yafo, it's just like they all kind of get along right there.

Speaker 1 So you're getting the taste of everything. You get the falafel, you get the kibbeh, you get all the hummuses and everything.
So it's like... So I could just eat that now.

Speaker 1 I could eat that every meal for the rest of my life. Yeah.
Just the spreads they have. It's like, if you don't order like a meat, then you charge you this much.

Speaker 1 If you do order the meat, that's all gratis. Exactly.
Fuck noise. And I like that I'm left-handed, though, so it makes communal eating hard in some countries because

Speaker 1 your left hand is the toilet paper hand. Oh, right.
And they don't like it when you dip into the hummus with your left hand. It's considered extremely offensive.
Wow, really? Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 And you're not thinking twice about it. Well, my right hand barely works.
It's like a watch holder. I don't even have a watch anymore.

Speaker 1 But yeah, if you, oh, just for fun, next time you're in that part of the world, or Pakistan, especially, and you're like sitting around talking, yeah, just slowly move your left hand in and watch people flip out.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's your dirty hand, like super dirty. Wow.

Speaker 1 Dirtier than your hand has ever actually been. So they'll see that and they're like, what's this?

Speaker 1 What's wrong? I mean, I get it. It's like.
It's impulsive. Yeah, to them, like you're putting a piece of used toilet paper on.
You haven't used public men's rooms, I guess, in that area. I have.

Speaker 1 It's pretty.

Speaker 1 Here I am talking up the region. That's one thing I just don't have that in Dubai.
It's very western. Yeah, how is that there? Sanitary.
Oh, no. It's cleaner than New York by a lot.

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Speaker 1 I'm doing a joke about it now. My friends come here.
They're like, it's so dirty. I'm like, what dirt? What are you talking about? What trash? You just meant.
And like the piles? Like, oh, right.

Speaker 1 I thought you meant more so. Yeah.

Speaker 1 The regular map. I haven't been to New York in a while.
It looks slightly cleaner. It's a little cleaner.
It gets a bad rap. It gets the bad rap that a lot of things get.
You're here. It's safe.

Speaker 1 You'll see an occasional like homeless person screaming. Honestly, it looks great.
I'm glad. It's our biggest city.
I'm rooting for New York. I mean, obviously, I'm not, I don't live here.

Speaker 1 I don't want to, but I want it to to be great. So funny room.
I'm like, you ever New York? Last one, you're like, no.

Speaker 1 I have a child here.

Speaker 1 No, I want. I've spent a lot of my life in New York and I want to love New York.
It rules.

Speaker 1 It's late night, daytime, small underground jazz scenes. No, I know.
That is also cool.

Speaker 1 I just feel like New York is like an ex-wife who I was once in love with, and she just went bad and moved to Taos and became a lesbian. And do you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 I just compare it to what it was before in a different kind of, yeah. I wanted to come back from Taiwan.

Speaker 1 You know what I mean? I loved her once. Man, she was hot.
You should have seen her in 95.

Speaker 1 She's all in crystals now. It's not the same chick.

Speaker 1 I'll let you wrap up. Fuck.
I wanted to talk more about this.

Speaker 1 You should go there. You would love it.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 When I went to Egypt from Israel, my Israeli family are like, why? I'm like, what do you mean? See the pyramids? Like, why? I'm like, what?

Speaker 1 Okay, so Cairo has, what, almost 20 million people? Yeah. Someone told me the other day, in fact, this week, someone just come back from Cairo.

Speaker 1 I was like, I've been in the middle of the room in this whole area. Yeah, I know.
That

Speaker 1 Cairo has no traffic laws. Bro,

Speaker 1 I was on the highway with a cab driver who said, I put my seatbelt on. He goes, you actually don't have to wear those here.
I'm like, oh, okay. And he goes,

Speaker 1 so take it off. It was like a man.
I was like, you want me to do more work? Take it off. As he's moving into the oncoming traffic of a highway to get around a crater.
I love him.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, I mean, all right. All right.
I don't want to be a puss. So I'm like, okay.

Speaker 1 But it's like in and out of oncoming on a highway. It's so great.
That's what I love.

Speaker 1 Do you remember right after 9-11 when everyone, including me, was spun up into this? We hate Arabs. We hate men.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. All that stuff.

Speaker 1 And I remember going over there and hearing the phrase inshallah, which means like, you know, it's up to God. Yeah.
Okay. And I remember thinking, I agree with that.
It's up to God.

Speaker 1 Kind of. Like, it kind of is.
Like, I don't know, five-year-olds get leukemia. Why is it? I don't know.
Yeah, there's no. Right? Yeah.
Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 It's like your car crashes when your car crashes. Yeah, you want to say this explanation, but I'm like, hey, here, I'm going to get this guy mad at me if I wear a seatbelt.
Don't wear a seatbelt.

Speaker 1 I almost never crash. So, so, okay, should be fine.

Speaker 1 So, did you take it off? Yeah, I had to

Speaker 1 emotionally. Bless you.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 We met a guy in Ecuador who was like Amazonian, and he goes, hey, in slice Spanish, this is October of 2020. He goes, hey, I have the cure for COVID.
Do you want it?

Speaker 1 And we're like, some guy with like linen pants and no shirt. And I'm like, how am I going to say no thanks?

Speaker 1 So I'm like, all right, I'll go into your home.

Speaker 1 His dad is on a couch, like

Speaker 1 probably heavy COVID. He's like dying.
And I'm like, well, we're in it. We're in it.
We have to. And he gave us this elixir.
He said, drink a capful every day. How was it? Disgusting.

Speaker 1 Six months, didn't get COVID once. Actually? yeah what'd he charge you nothing that's what i thought it's an upsell he goes you should just have this

Speaker 1 because we're trying to get the word out this stuff all grows it's all um whatever respiratory so we know the cure it's like a little bit of coconut husk this did you see trails at all no it wasn't that i saw i did other stuff there but it wasn't ayahuasca

Speaker 1 no it was not

Speaker 1 So I actually believe, I don't know anything about the compound that you ingested, but I mean. Then they were selling it

Speaker 1 at bars in like the Amazonian towns. Like we know they said once they realized it was respiratory, they said it ravaged the

Speaker 1 Amazon and then they said, oh, it's respiratory. Oh, here's the cure for that.
And it worked. They said it went like deaths and then that.

Speaker 1 I don't know. I didn't get it.

Speaker 1 And there's no, it wasn't off patent. It was just never patented.
It was just like, oh, let me show you.

Speaker 1 It was in a water bottle that he filled it up with his hand. And then it'd just like take one capful every day.
Oh, I just love this. I love these people.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we were like, but it was that thing. It was like, I can't say no.
I don't want this world-saving cure right now.

Speaker 1 So I'm like, you tell me to take my seatbelt off. I'm gonna.

Speaker 1 Well, but also, you wonder, like, if you're in some random place and a random person comes up to you, I know you're like between religions right now,

Speaker 1 but

Speaker 1 as a former yeshiva student,

Speaker 1 you know

Speaker 1 that like there is

Speaker 1 a supernatural world. Like people appear, events happen for a reason.
And if some shirtless guy in linen pants is like, do you want the cure for COVID? The only answer is yes, I do.

Speaker 1 Because who knows why you're there? It's only like, oh, I don't respect you. If it's a homeless guy here says, I'm like, no, but like, you got to like drop that.
This guy's not homeless.

Speaker 1 He's just living in the jungle. But even if he, even if a homeless person, there are moments when we receive messages from some,

Speaker 1 I'm just saying, it's just true, from some larger force, whatever you want to call it, through unlikely people. That is true.
That's happened to you, hasn't it? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you too, I'm sure. Did you die of COVID?

Speaker 1 Hold on.

Speaker 1 No. No.

Speaker 1 Right? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Before I let you go, I got two questions to ask everybody. Travel tips, general travel tip, like packed light is a common one.

Speaker 1 If you're taking mushrooms with you, put it in your granola.

Speaker 1 Whatever.

Speaker 1 Get a good toilet cheese bag. And then one place like you are is calling you.

Speaker 1 Travel tips, I've got somebody else.

Speaker 1 Never bring a bag that you can't run with through a large airport, okay? Brush your teeth with bottled water always. Never eat shellfish.
If you distrust the food, eat only rice and Mars bars.

Speaker 1 Go full carb. I'm serious.
You'll never get sick from carbs. You get fat on the trip, you can, and I always do.
I just did again on a trip. I'm going to lose it next week.
You can lose the weight.

Speaker 1 I'm there. I'm there with you.
Okay. So those are my travel tips.
And by the way,

Speaker 1 stay sober on airplanes. Do not get shit faced on an airplane.
I once drank an entire case of beer by myself from Nerita to Dulles. I'm still hungover for it, and that was like over 20 years ago.

Speaker 1 So stay off the boost.

Speaker 1 As for places that are calling my name,

Speaker 1 I mean, there are so many,

Speaker 1 but I want to go to Pyongyang. Pyongyang.

Speaker 1 Just talked to Michael Malice, who went. Did he really? That's North in Korea, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. He took a trip out there.
What did he say? He said it was

Speaker 1 rich and poor at the same time, like built up like a monarchy, but then like not maintained. So these like beautiful fountains, but then like a grosser version of it.
And like

Speaker 1 they just don't have much

Speaker 1 money, but they want to appear like they do. Yes.

Speaker 1 But he enjoyed it. I want to go.
I've been, I met Kim Jong-un,

Speaker 1 and I've been several feet into North Korea, and my vantage from there, I was in DMZ, was that it looked beautiful, so mountainous, and I just want to see I want to see it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, right? It'd be cool. But I also want to go to Wilson.
I'm going to go to Estonia,

Speaker 1 which is right across from Finland, and it's got some of the smartest people in the world, some of the best contact bridge players in the world.

Speaker 1 Contact Bridge?

Speaker 1 Yeah, or and chess. The Estonians are, I think.
Wait, I'm sorry. What's contact? Is that like full contact?

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's sort of UFC plus card playing. No, contact bridge is a kind of bridge.
You know, bridge, the card game. But anyway, the point is...

Speaker 1 Oh, there it is.

Speaker 1 Right. Okay.

Speaker 1 But it's also one of the sources of modern sauna culture. So everyone associates the sauna with Finland correctly.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I've actually been on a sauna trip to Finland. But Estonia shares the sauna glory and the history.
And I just want to, I've always wanted to see it. I'm addicted to nicotine and sauna.

Speaker 1 Those are the two things I really love. And dogs.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. Yeah, all good for you.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Buddy, we could do this a thousand times. Let me know your time your back.
I'm going to. I'm sorry.
I just was in something. I couldn't get out of it.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I try to keep this like this vibe low pressure enough to be like, hey, I'm running late. This is supposed to be fun.

Speaker 1 Well, I've loved it. Thank you.
Thanks, buddy. Yeah, it's so cool to get to know you.
Oh, it was was awesome. You rule.
Bennett. His tucker's gone.
Bennett. Don't forget about Tucker.

Speaker 1 Get up there. Get up.
Get up. Go, go.

Speaker 1 Bennett. Show tucker.

Speaker 1 That's distress.

Speaker 1 Oh, she's avoiding me. Bennett.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 All right. Well,

Speaker 1 thanks, man. I'll be back.
It's great seeing you. Great to see you.
And congrats on your city not falling down. Thanks.

Speaker 1 Well, everybody, that was the episode. Thank you very much, Tucker Carlos, for coming in.
I wish I had more time with him. Dude, we talked about Jerusalem when I was over at his place.

Speaker 1 And it's just like, he's just got a spirit of someone who's willing to try stuff. It's pretty cool.

Speaker 1 That list of travel recommendations. Oh,

Speaker 1 he's got him ready to go. It was like, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba.

Speaker 1 Ah, that stunned me.

Speaker 1 The guy rules, everybody. And I hope.
you understand what I'm doing in February is taking people that have

Speaker 1 some people can't see the positive out of last week. Was Burt and John.
My God, the comments.

Speaker 1 Did you guys see those?

Speaker 1 Does Bert get that every time? Oh my God.

Speaker 1 I thought I had them bad.

Speaker 1 It was a great episode. It was like people like pass, hard pass.
I'm like, I thought I got that, but it was like everyone. You guys are retarded.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but anyway, it was great. This is great.
It's like, if you can't focus on the positive on Tucker Carlson, if you're a hardcore liberal, don't be an idiot.

Speaker 1 It was just a good travel podcast about the UAE. If you can't, Burt Kreischer didn't squeal once on that episode.
He didn't interrupt once because I fed to him.

Speaker 1 Somewhere Burt Kreischer's at home going, you're feeding to me?

Speaker 1 My stomach is burning.

Speaker 1 Anyway, next week, what are we doing next week? Is it North Korea, Which is also misunderstood, like, you know, find the positive in such a crazy place. Or do we do Segura?

Speaker 1 Shit, I should have done more about my special if we did with Segura. Anyway, I'll talk to Tom.

Speaker 1 What do you guys?

Speaker 1 I should have planned this out better. Okay, next week, either Tom Segura or Michael Malice going to North Korea.
Guys, watch America Sweetheart. Please tell your friends about it.

Speaker 1 There's nowhere to post about it or donate to me, but you can buy a shirt to help me pay for the stuff that Netflix did not pay for.

Speaker 1 And anyway, just get your Feidelberg shirt, get your Stay Positive shirt, wear it with pride. I'm also on tour at ariesyourfeir.com right now.

Speaker 1 For all of that, you can go and see me in Brea, California, Nashville, Tampa, Denver. I can do it by heart.
San Antonio, San Jose, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando,

Speaker 1 Denver. Hold on, I got it.

Speaker 1 Portland, Atlanta. That's one weekend.

Speaker 1 Seattle. Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Anchorage.
I think I got them all. Schaumburg.
Fuck.

Speaker 1 That's it for the show, everybody. Assalamu alaikum to all of you.
Until next week, with somebody, either Segura. Wait, that was the plan.
I fucked it up. I said I'd save it.

Speaker 1 I meant to do it this week.

Speaker 1 Segura.

Speaker 1 Bye, everybody.