Afghanistan w/ Saad Mohseni | You Be Trippin' with Ari Shaffir

Speaker 1 Give it up for Chicago.

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Speaker 1 30 years ago, Jeff Bezos, complete nerd Bezos now, ripped to shreds on his super yacht, and the boxes keep

Speaker 1 coming.

Speaker 1 Watch Sebastian Maniscalco, It Ain't Right, now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundled subscribers. Terms apply.

Speaker 1 You've done these before, right? Yep. Podcasts, plenty of stuff.
You could. This is my first media mogul I've had on here.
No,

Speaker 2 pop from it.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's like

Speaker 1 talking about big fish in a small pond. Yeah, no, exactly.
It's embarrassing. But anyway.

Speaker 1 Where you been and where are you going?

Speaker 2 This is Aries Travel Show.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we're gonna talk about travel today. It's you'll be

Speaker 1 Hello, everybody. Welcome to UB Trippin'.
It's a travel podcast. Every week, me and a guest go to some far-off place in the world where they've been to tell me about their experiences there.

Speaker 1 It's the only podcast that has never

Speaker 1 played a part in the assassination of any British writer.

Speaker 1 Guest today is Saad Mossani. He just wrote this book, Radio Free Afghanistan.
Pretty cool to write a book. Is this your first one?

Speaker 2 Probably first and last. I had help, of course, as you can see.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Jenna Kozhowski. Yes.
Is that hard having a woman help you out in Afghanistan?

Speaker 2 Well, she helped me outside.

Speaker 1 No, it's not actually. Really? Yeah.
All right. Well, okay.
So the first time I heard about you was through Yoshi.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 1 Our buddy. Our mutual friend.
Yeah, one of the wildest guys on the planet.

Speaker 2 We can do an entire episode about Yoshi.

Speaker 1 Just Yoshi, yeah. Just Yoshi.

Speaker 2 Episodes. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but he told me went to Kabul. He was like, dude, you'd love it there.

Speaker 1 It's this occupied area. They were like, please bring.
He said, what can I bring? He goes, bring two bottles of Jack Daniels. We got to have a bar.
And he goes, there's this guy, Saad, who's like,

Speaker 1 he runs a newspaper there, and he's always coming under attack of everybody local. And he's just the coolest guy.
He'll put you up in his house.

Speaker 2 You should have.

Speaker 1 You still can. So how is it now compared to how it was in occupation? Because once they were like, they pulled out, Kabul's gone within like a minute.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I was like, ah, shit, I guess that trip's over.

Speaker 2 No, actually, Kabul fell before the Americans had pulled out.

Speaker 1 Oh, really?

Speaker 2 So the Americans had pledged in

Speaker 2 April of 2021 to leave by the end of August, so four months.

Speaker 2 And then by mid-August, the government collapsed. The Americans are still in Kabul, and there was this uneasy peace between the Taliban and the Americans.

Speaker 1 What do you mean, the Americans? You're not talking about the military. The military.
The military.

Speaker 2 So the military had a presence at the airport. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So everyone rushed to the airport, including embassy staff and Afghans who'd worked for the Americans, members of civil society who feared that they would be attacked.

Speaker 2 So the Taliban took over the city. The Americans had tens of thousands of troops at the airport trying to protect it.
And the Taliban allowed them. to evacuate all these people over a two-week period.

Speaker 2 So literally a couple hundred thousand people flew out of Kabul in those two weeks.

Speaker 1 Damn.

Speaker 2 And then at the end of August, the Americans left for good.

Speaker 1 And then how was it?

Speaker 2 And then it's.

Speaker 1 You were there before. You're Afghani?

Speaker 2 I'm Afghan, yes.

Speaker 2 I was born outside of Afghanistan because my father was an Afghan diplomat. Okay.
So I was born in London.

Speaker 2 58 years ago.

Speaker 2 But I went back to Kabul when I was three. And we were

Speaker 2 back and forth. And then when the Russians invaded, we decided not to go back.
We were living in Japan at all.

Speaker 1 Right. I don't even think about the Russians.
Yes.

Speaker 2 So the Russians invaded in late 79. We were based in Tokyo.
And then from Japan, we moved to Australia. And

Speaker 2 as such, I'm a dual Afghan-Australian national. Really?

Speaker 1 This is a long history of like

Speaker 1 higher-ups and leaders in all sorts of fields getting educated in

Speaker 1 Great Britain or the U.S. Yes.
Like taking that education and going back.

Speaker 1 I think even all the communists in the Latin American countries, a lot of the smart ones were

Speaker 1 learned here and then took that thinking and changed it for them.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's ironic because if you look at

Speaker 2 the pre

Speaker 2 Russian or Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Afghans never felt compelled,

Speaker 2 they never felt the need to leave the country. Interesting.
So people are very comfortable living in their own countries.

Speaker 2 And I think this is, I mean, this whole issue of immigration, which is such an important issue today in the U.S., also in Europe.

Speaker 2 Thank you.

Speaker 2 It was sort of non-existent in those days, especially in the Middle East and Central Asia.

Speaker 1 This issue of what?

Speaker 2 This issue of immigration.

Speaker 1 Oh, right.

Speaker 2 Right? I mean,

Speaker 2 governments are basically

Speaker 2 parties are losing power in Europe, even in the U.S. I mean, immigration is a very, very important issue to your voters.

Speaker 1 Protecting our way of life. It's pretty funny, too, when you know Shoe Otani, baseball player, fellow baseball player.
Of course, yeah, yeah. So this guy, Stephen A.
Smith, goes, I don't like it.

Speaker 1 I don't like that he's here because he's like this non-English speaker. It's kind of ruining things.
And everybody goes, you know, the Dominicans are like half our league. Yes.

Speaker 1 And they're learning as they come. Like, what are you talking about? And he goes, oh yeah, I guess you're right.

Speaker 2 And when I was young, uh, living in Japan, there were a lot of Americans playing baseball in Japan. Oh, really? Who didn't speak Japanese?

Speaker 1 Yeah, exactly. Like, figure Figure it out.
Pictures coming.

Speaker 2 And a lot of Sumo wrestlers are now foreign.

Speaker 2 Polynesians.

Speaker 1 I remember that white guy, and everyone in Japan was like, no fucking way. You can't be a champ.

Speaker 2 I remember Jesse. I can't remember his full name, but Jesse was,

Speaker 2 I think he was the first American from Hawaii who became a champion. I don't think he was a grand champion.
He was a champion, so the second category champion.

Speaker 1 Really?

Speaker 2 But I remember him well because his son went to our school. If you look up Jesse.

Speaker 1 This guy? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Jesse, Sumo Superstar. Okay, at least he looks the part.
Well, they all do. You have to.
Yeah. No, I mean the eyes, not the fat.
Obviously, the fat.

Speaker 2 Well, he's Hawaiian. Yeah.
He may be indigenous Hawaiian.

Speaker 1 So we're going to talk about Afghanistan today. Please.

Speaker 1 What is this book about? About starting this.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 we were living in Australia, and

Speaker 2 when the Americans invaded and the Taliban...

Speaker 1 Why did the Americans invade? Sorry, I'm going to ask questions and interrupt. It's way too much.

Speaker 1 So Russia's gone.

Speaker 2 Well, 9-11... Well,

Speaker 2 so Russia, so the Soviet Union invades Afghanistan with 120 odd thousand troops. They stay for 10 years.
Almost 10 years. Can't take it.
Can't take it. Huge, obviously, reputational damage.

Speaker 2 They lost a lot of troops.

Speaker 2 And then

Speaker 2 Gorbachev decides it's too expensive. It's too costly for us in terms of.

Speaker 2 Yeah. So Afghanistan's there.
Right. So the Soviet Union invaded.

Speaker 1 Were they always big there? Were they already today?

Speaker 2 Yeah, they're all the way up there, yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 All of Central Asia. So Gorbachev decides it's too much for us, reputational dollar-wise.
So they decide to leave in 1989.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 A civil war. So the groups which were supported by the Americans, you know, for the Americans it was convenient to have the Islamists fight the Soviets.

Speaker 1 To keep them occupied.

Speaker 2 To keep them occupied. They fought well.
They were committed to it. They were driven by ideology.

Speaker 2 So the Americans and the Saudis and others pumped billions of dollars into the country and they helped these Islamists. And that, in a lot of ways, radicalized the entire region because

Speaker 2 people indoctrinated in this sort of extreme

Speaker 2 fundamentalist views of Islam were attracted to this holy war. And then of course, when the Soviets left,

Speaker 2 the Americans said, well,

Speaker 2 well done.

Speaker 2 You know,

Speaker 2 we're out of here, basically. And they completely disengaged.
Then these groups, which had fought the Russians, started fighting each other.

Speaker 1 For 12 years.

Speaker 2 Well, for three years. Okay.
Right? From 1989 to 19... Well,

Speaker 2 sorry. They initially fought the Afghan Communist regime,

Speaker 2 which basically...

Speaker 1 These are all groups fighting separately against the Russians?

Speaker 2 So the Russians leave.

Speaker 2 But the government which was supported by the Russians, a communist regime, managed to hold on for another three years.

Speaker 2 Eventually, that government also fell. Then these Islamists, these different Islamic groups, religious groups that had fought the Russians and the Soviets, they took power.
in 1992.

Speaker 2 And then for the next three years, they fought each other, completely destroyed the city of Kabul, 50,000 dead, hundreds of thousands injured,

Speaker 2 perhaps hundreds of thousands of people had to flee the city.

Speaker 2 And then in 1995, this group called the Taliban, religious students, marched right through Afghanistan, take over the country, pretty much almost unopposed.

Speaker 1 Like Pol Pot almost? Well,

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 they.

Speaker 1 In terms of the march.

Speaker 2 In terms of the march, well, I'm not that familiar with Pol Pot Cambodia, but they came pretty much unopposed because I think there was fatigue in terms of fighting.

Speaker 2 And also, they represented something new because they said, listen, enough of the fighting, enough of the cruelty that we've witnessed over the last few years.

Speaker 1 This is the Taliban?

Speaker 2 This is the Taliban. So they came, they took over the city, and with the exception of the northeast of the country, pretty much the rest of the country fell to the Taliban.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 But they also attracted a lot of these other non-Afghan individuals and groups, including Osama bin Laden. What was he?

Speaker 2 Well, he was living in Afghanistan, but I think that he became sort of a lot more active during the Taliban reign in the mid-90s.

Speaker 2 Forces

Speaker 2 loyal to him, or his supporters attacked embassies in Africa.

Speaker 2 U.S. naval ship was attacked.
Why?

Speaker 1 Because

Speaker 1 the radicalism extended beyond the Afghan borders?

Speaker 2 Well, I think bin Laden basically was on the same side as the Americans because he went into Afghanistan to fight the Soviets. Okay.
With the support, of course, of the Americans.

Speaker 2 Maybe not directly, but they were all on the same side. I think bin Laden's issue with the Americans was the invasion of Iraq in 1991.

Speaker 2 Okay. Right? So bin Laden felt as a Saudi that the Americans should not be on

Speaker 2 Saudi soil because the Americans had to base themselves from, you know, and

Speaker 2 the large operation was conducted from Saudi Arabia, if you recall, to liberate Kuwait in 1991.

Speaker 1 I remember that one. I remember the attack overnight and was like, what?

Speaker 2 Yes, over there.

Speaker 2 So.

Speaker 2 And then.

Speaker 1 Iraq, Kuwait. There we go.
Okay.

Speaker 2 Yeah. So then bin Laden

Speaker 2 turns against the Americans.

Speaker 2 And in the mid-90s, if you recall, embassies were attacked in Africa.

Speaker 1 That was bin Laden?

Speaker 2 That was bin Laden's groom, Al-Qaeda.

Speaker 2 And I think a naval ship was attacked in Yemen and so forth. So the Americans, he became sort of enemy number one.
And then 9-11 happened, and it was traced back to bin Laden.

Speaker 2 And then the Americans gave the Taliban an ultimatum to give him up. And the Taliban refused to do so.
They said, well, he's our guest. And as long as he's here, we cannot...

Speaker 2 We don't condone his actions, but at the same time,

Speaker 2 we're not going to give him up to...

Speaker 1 so the Taliban is like the greater government.

Speaker 2 The Taliban is the government.

Speaker 1 It is the government. And then Al-Qaeda is just some group?

Speaker 2 They're, you know, like, quote-unquote, guests. Right.
They have fighters, they do training.

Speaker 1 It would be like if,

Speaker 1 let's say, I had a cyber attack on Cambodia, and Cambodia is like, we want to arrest him. America's like, no, we're not sending him to Cambodia.

Speaker 2 That's a U.S. citizen.
Well, you're a citizen, but Bin Laden was not an Afghan citizen.

Speaker 2 But they refused to

Speaker 1 give him up.

Speaker 2 And then the Americans, I think the Americans were looking, which

Speaker 2 invade Afghanistan.

Speaker 1 And when you look at Vietnam, they were like, the French left, and the Americans were like, give us a few years, we're going in. If you're gone, there's always these power struggles.

Speaker 1 And once one group comes out, who's going to get it? Yes. You know, when East Tim or when the Portuguese pulled out, Indonesia waited like 10 minutes and they're like, it's ours.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, I mean...

Speaker 2 That's because I think people don't think through these operations, the assumption is it's going to be over within a year or two years. But you look at the Russians couldn't take it forever.

Speaker 2 And the Brits. And the Brits.
Prior to that.

Speaker 1 It's every time I see a pizza place open in a place where a closed pizza place was, and I'm like, are you out of your mind?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 The model doesn't work in this building. Well, how are you going to do it differently?

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 1 Open a bookstore.

Speaker 2 It was Einstein who said, you know, the definition of stupid is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Guys, I want to interrupt for a second. I got to tell you about Saad's book, Radio of Free Afghanistan.
This has got to be the first guest I've had

Speaker 1 that has a book. No, Russell Peters wrote a book,

Speaker 1 but

Speaker 1 it wasn't out right now. It wasn't like new.
Radio Free Afghanistan. It's all about his journey,

Speaker 1 trying to start this media company in a country where he's coming under constant attacks.

Speaker 1 Some of his employees were killed.

Speaker 1 I shouldn't take that lightly, but it's crazy. I'm just saying that's probably not what was in Russell Peters' book.
Probably different story is what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 From Russell Peters having a great time on the road

Speaker 1 to Saad Mossaini,

Speaker 1 who had employees killed.

Speaker 1 Radio Free Afghanistan, it's available right now wherever you buy books, and there'll be a link for it at the bottom of the Spotify page or the YouTube page, wherever you're watching or listening.

Speaker 1 Are there only two places? Are there other places?

Speaker 1 Guys, my farewell tour. Well, first and foremost, I got to tell you once again, get ready and set your calendars for January 14th.

Speaker 1 My new special, America's Sweetheart, will be preparing on Netflix.com. Set your TiVos

Speaker 1 and record it right there at Netflix.com.

Speaker 1 If you're still on the dropship

Speaker 1 subscription where they send you CDs, I would get in the queue now because

Speaker 1 it might kind of build up once January 14th happens. You want to get it ahead of time.
I don't know know how that works.

Speaker 1 I don't know if they'll send it on the 12th until you get it on the 14th or they'll send it on the 14th and you get it afterwards. I'm not sure.
But what I'm talking about doesn't exist anymore.

Speaker 1 So let's be done with this joke. My farewell tour is on sale right now at AriShafir.com as well as my merchandise,

Speaker 1 t-shirts, vinyls,

Speaker 1 grinders, stuff you want.

Speaker 1 Tahoe, Pittsburgh. I'm just going to do it by memory.
Tahoe, Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh. Some of these will be with Adriana Bellucci.
The shirt will be marked on there at rgivor.com.

Speaker 1 Pittsburgh, Providence, sold out.

Speaker 1 Austin sold out. Sorry also.
Tahoe is December 21st in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. First time there.
Providence, Tampa, Denver, San Antonio, San Jose,

Speaker 1 Schaumburg, Illinois. I think that's it for clubs.
I know I'm missing one. And then the big theaters, Atlanta, the Tabernacle in March.

Speaker 1 April, and then Portland. Both of those will be at Adrian Appalucci.
Portland,

Speaker 1 and then Seattle, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton. Tickets are low at all those.

Speaker 1 Hardy picking tickets at risgvair.com. Also, Fort Lauderdale and Orlando.
I think Orlando sold out. We already had a second show.
I think it's sold out. There will be no more shows added.

Speaker 1 No room for it. And I think that's it.
Go to RSGV.com for tickets. I know I'm leaving something out.

Speaker 1 Nashville, Adrian Appalucci will be there too. Guys, let's get back to the episode.
Thank you, Sod, for coming in. At the end of the episode, I just got some new.
Oh, Cambodia.

Speaker 1 I got some new postcards that I'll be reading on the air. Stay tuned for the outro.

Speaker 1 That's it. Let's get back to the episode.

Speaker 2 So the Taliban were toppled by this huge military,

Speaker 2 let's call it exercise.

Speaker 2 The international community sort of...

Speaker 2 supported this operation. You're there for this? No, I wasn't there in 2001.
I went for the first time in 2002.

Speaker 2 I had not been back since 1978.

Speaker 2 So we went back.

Speaker 2 The Taliban basically dispersed. They went to the countryside or they went to neighboring countries, in particular Pakistan.

Speaker 2 And then the Americans initially were reluctant to go beyond Kabul. They thought, well, this is a success.
And then these things creep up on you, right? So then they deploy troops outside the country.

Speaker 2 You know, we have to destroy al-Qaeda. They're chasing bin Laden.
And all of a sudden.

Speaker 2 And then all of a sudden, they're

Speaker 2 very, very involved in security and

Speaker 2 subsidizing

Speaker 2 the Afghan economy,

Speaker 2 trying to rebuild this nation. Nation building is a tough exercise, especially in the 21st century.

Speaker 2 So then 20 years on,

Speaker 2 having lost thousands of troops, a trillion dollars,

Speaker 1 so many dead soldiers. And I think both presidents.
Dead civilians, too.

Speaker 2 A lot of Afghans died in that period. Cities were destroyed.

Speaker 2 Towns were destroyed. People's lives destroyed.

Speaker 2 By both sides. I mean, it wasn't just

Speaker 2 the Americans, but the other side also

Speaker 2 was quite brutal.

Speaker 2 And then the Americans decided to leave, which is understandable after 20 years. It's America's longest war.

Speaker 2 So Trump wanted that, and Biden also wanted that. And the Americans are gone.

Speaker 2 And the Taliban take over.

Speaker 1 Okay. We saw it here.
It's just massive, like, what the fuck. I know people that were in the military, they're like, I got to talk to all my brothers and say, like,

Speaker 1 we fought for nothing and don't feel bad. But, like,

Speaker 1 yeah, what?

Speaker 1 It seems such a waste.

Speaker 1 I mean, immediately, the Taliban took over. But we viewed them as not this, like, government group.
We viewed them as this evil. They were almost synonymous with Al-Qaeda and ISIS.

Speaker 1 The Taliban was used interchangeably here. Yeah, well.
To someone like me, to a non-expert.

Speaker 2 I mean, I don't know who it was who said that,

Speaker 2 you know,

Speaker 2 it's just the way you, you know, a terrorist is sometimes a freedom fighter and vice versa.

Speaker 2 So we just have to wait for the history books.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah, the word insurgent is so interesting.
Yeah. Insurgent, like, what do you mean? Like, he killed an American troop.
Like, why are we even at his house? Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's just like, just don't be there.

Speaker 2 I mean, listen, I, you know, we were cheerleading this for the for

Speaker 2 the international intervention

Speaker 2 because we felt, well, this

Speaker 2 evil government needs to be toppled. But, um, you know, looking back now and reflecting on what we saw over the 20-year period,

Speaker 2 you know, we see things differently. I see things differently.

Speaker 1 So you come in and then you just, what do you do? What are you going there for?

Speaker 2 Well, listen,

Speaker 2 a lot of us Afghans, you know, my father was a diplomat. We never sort of, we never, for example, a lot of people immigrate to a country, right?

Speaker 2 And then you understand you're of Italian heritage, but you become an American. You want your kids to become Americans.
And you never think about going back. But for us, it was very different.

Speaker 2 We were not sort of the traditional

Speaker 2 immigrant experience that most people have in terms of abandoning their past.

Speaker 2 That for us was not really the thing because we always felt that we had to go back to Afghanistan. We sort of never gave up on the idea of returning to the country.

Speaker 2 So all these years living in Australia and I lived in London and worked in different places, I always felt if there's an opportunity, I'd like to go back.

Speaker 2 You know, it's my country, it's my people. So

Speaker 2 when the Americans invaded, and then we had the opportunity to go back, which we did in 2002, we went and had a look.

Speaker 2 And the idea was to invest in a few businesses, like an investor, sort of detached, passive investing in a number of sectors. And there was this opportunity to set up this radio station, which we did.

Speaker 2 It's called Arman FM.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And then

Speaker 1 I got a paperback copy. I knew I had it.

Speaker 2 And then

Speaker 2 And then we set up this radio station, which was hugely popular. And then we set up

Speaker 2 our second radio network and then television network and second television. I mean, we did.
So we established a whole bunch of businesses inside of Afghanistan.

Speaker 2 And eventually outside of the country as well.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so how what was the process like getting in there and starting a radio? Because that's I mean

Speaker 1 getting the word out is a massive thing for governments.

Speaker 2 Well there was a radio there was a radio network which was a state radio network, like

Speaker 2 NPR, for example.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 we set up this very commercial radio network with music and chit-chat and banter and some of that.

Speaker 1 Did you ever talk with like chicks singing?

Speaker 2 No, nothing. Okay.

Speaker 2 We were completely free to buy it. They didn't bug you.

Speaker 2 Well, they gave us a hard time because although the Taliban were not there, but people are basically conservative in that country or were in those days. So it was controversial, but

Speaker 2 we had some obstacles, but we could really develop that business. And it took off because people like those things.
People like music. People like laughter and banter and

Speaker 2 a fun,

Speaker 2 you have your own

Speaker 2 FM that works in this country.

Speaker 2 We had our morning shows, the afternoon shows.

Speaker 2 People would dial in with their problems.

Speaker 2 Oh, really? We had our own version of Dr. Ruth.

Speaker 1 Just regular radio.

Speaker 2 Just regular radio, regular music. So it was hugely successful.
And we got sucked into the business because we realized we had to be involved in running this business.

Speaker 2 We couldn't just delegate to someone else.

Speaker 2 And it was fun. I mean it was a 20-year exercise.
I mean the business still exists.

Speaker 2 All the businesses still operate

Speaker 2 with a lot more restrictions today.

Speaker 1 Was so the government left you alone?

Speaker 2 For the most part? For the most part. Well, we always had issues.
We had issues with parliament. We had issues with the government.
we had indictments, we had court cases.

Speaker 1 What kind of indictments?

Speaker 2 You know,

Speaker 2 this show is, you know, is against Afghan values and culture, and then some guy would, you know, file a case against us and those sorts of things.

Speaker 2 And because we also gave the government a hard time, because we had a news network.

Speaker 1 Yeah, would you attack the government?

Speaker 1 All the time.

Speaker 2 On corruption, on nepotism, on all sorts of things like that.

Speaker 1 That corruption and episode. That's one of those things where it's like, I'm not talking about the Islam religion.

Speaker 1 I'm just saying, why are you hiring that guy when this guy's a better fit for the position?

Speaker 2 Absolutely. But there was also a lot of corruption.

Speaker 2 When you flood a country with billions of dollars and that country doesn't have the capacity to absorb that aid,

Speaker 2 it leads to corruption and mismanagement. So we,

Speaker 2 you know, our news network, which is called Tolo News, was very

Speaker 2 aggressive in terms of pursuing these sorts of stories. So the government would find ways to give us a hard time.

Speaker 1 Who'd you hang out with then? Like who was your crew?

Speaker 2 Well we had I mean Afghanistan's a fun place.

Speaker 2 We had

Speaker 2 I'll give you the other one if you want. Okay.

Speaker 2 It'll be better on the shot.

Speaker 1 Yeah, tell me about the place itself and like

Speaker 1 well

Speaker 2 Afghanistan is a

Speaker 2 is a very, very

Speaker 2 it's a friendly place. Really? Yoshi's probably told you this as well.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but he told me really a version of the occup like the

Speaker 1 what are they called? The workers that work for the government, that aren't in the government, the U.S. government.
Contractors. Contractors, yeah.

Speaker 1 Like that's the crew he was telling me about.

Speaker 2 Yeah, because I think he wasn't really exposed to a lot of Afghans.

Speaker 2 But Afghans generally are a very warm people. Oh, cool.
And very hospitable. You'll hopefully see it for yourself when you travel there.

Speaker 1 Bro, I want to go look really bad.

Speaker 2 There's, and you know, people who've been exposed to Afghanistan can never let go of the country. I'm talking about non-Afghans.
There's

Speaker 2 the food, the mountains,

Speaker 2 you know, people's hospitality.

Speaker 2 There's something

Speaker 2 just very, you know, I don't think it's a sort of, you can,

Speaker 2 you know, words are enough to describe what you would feel.

Speaker 1 How are they with Jews? They don't care. They don't care.

Speaker 1 That seems like that's most of the Middle East. It's that conflation of Israel and the Jews where it's like, oh, no, you're just a Jew.
You're from New York. Who gives a fuck?

Speaker 2 People don't care.

Speaker 1 Wow, that's nice. Because there's always that second level of like, is it safe? Like, yeah, it's like, is it safe for this nose? And they go, oh, no.

Speaker 2 That's a very Afghan nose.

Speaker 2 You could easily be an Afghan. Really?

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 2 No, Afghans are very accepting, actually.

Speaker 2 Now, if you're there proselytizing and trying to convert people to Christianity, and of course that's against the law, and that's a totally different thing, and people would be suspicious of that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, as when I tell people about China, they're like, well, the government does this and this, and they'll arrest you if you speak out against them.

Speaker 1 I'm like, I'm not speaking out about the Chinese government, trying to get street food. Yes.

Speaker 1 That's not my idea.

Speaker 2 No, I think Afghans, you'll discover. I mean, I put this in the book, actually.
There's a very well-known

Speaker 2 war correspondent,

Speaker 2 John Lee Anderson. And so I asked him, I said, John, you've been to this country many, many times.

Speaker 2 What is it about Afghanistan?

Speaker 1 That keeps on coming back.

Speaker 2 And he said, the sky is so high. And there's something just wonderful about this.

Speaker 1 The sky is so high.

Speaker 1 Interesting.

Speaker 2 So, I mean, if you can visual, most of Afghanistan is like,

Speaker 2 I don't know how many feet it is, like 2,000 meters above sea.

Speaker 2 You're dealing with a very mountainous country.

Speaker 1 Damn.

Speaker 2 I don't know if that's Afghanistan, but.

Speaker 1 It says Afghanistan. I don't know.

Speaker 2 Oh, it says Bamiyan. Yeah, that's Bambiyan, sorry.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Is that Afghanistan? Yeah.
Oh, wow. Jesus.
It's pretty. So it's all mountainous.

Speaker 2 So it's very mountainous. It's rugged.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 there's, you know, there's, and the people, I think the people really make the country.

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Now back to the episode. What are the meals like?

Speaker 2 Food?

Speaker 1 Not just the food, but also the meals. Like, there's this thing in

Speaker 1 maybe Cambodia or nearby there, where there's this like king syndrome where like you don't pour your beer, I pour your beer, you're a king. You pour my beer because I'm a king.

Speaker 1 Yeah, let me get you food. No one gets their own food.
And it's just like long meals with small bites. Yeah.
It gets everybody talking for like two hours.

Speaker 1 You'll be hungry, then you'll be less hungry, then you'll be okay, then you'll be full.

Speaker 2 I think by the time you leave Afghanistan, you would have put on like 10 pounds.

Speaker 1 Really? Yes. Okay.

Speaker 2 So the food is interesting too, because it's sort of...

Speaker 2 So we're nestled between China and the Middle East and Central Asia. So

Speaker 2 we have noodles, we have dumplings, but we also have rice and stews,

Speaker 2 lots of bread.

Speaker 1 What's your favorite dishes?

Speaker 2 You know, because I don't want to put on weight, I try to avoid Afghan food.

Speaker 1 But they're all very delicious. A lot of pitas, or is that just more Middle Eastern?

Speaker 1 A lot of pita?

Speaker 2 Yeah. No, we have like

Speaker 2 clay ovens, and we have long bread called naan.

Speaker 2 But the Afghan bread is like superior to any other bread you'd have. I mean, and I'm sort of unbiased, but

Speaker 2 I'm biased slightly, but I can be objective because I like different types of cuisines.

Speaker 1 And you put stuff on it?

Speaker 2 You can, but you tend to

Speaker 2 just eat it fresh or eat it with meat or with rice.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And you have it fresh while it's hot.

Speaker 1 Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah.
Steaming.

Speaker 2 It's like steaming hot. So we have soups and we have, you know,

Speaker 2 like

Speaker 2 very

Speaker 2 different parts of the country have different obviously they have their own specialities. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But I think most people like our rice okay well we the most famous one is the one with raisins and carrots and

Speaker 2 chicken for example or meat with steamed rice so it's called like that yeah

Speaker 2 and that's good I love that's fantastic that's fantastic there's actually raisins so it's savory and sweet at the same time yeah that's cool there's apparently a really good Afghan there's a really good Afghan restaurant in Brooklyn somewhere really and I read a really good review in the New York Times I think it was, or New York Times.

Speaker 1 It's so called your motor. Or both.

Speaker 2 You should check it out.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I'll try some Afghani food.

Speaker 2 Or dumplings, you know. Put mantu.

Speaker 1 So is it similar to Nepalese food or nothing even close?

Speaker 2 No. I'm not familiar with Nepalese food, but.

Speaker 1 Afghan mantu, wow. Damn, that looks good.
What's in that?

Speaker 2 Well, you can have meat or vegetables. It could be vegetarian or not.

Speaker 2 And then you have a meat sauce with yogurt on top. Yogurt and garlic, basically, milk.
And mint, dried mint.

Speaker 1 How are the meals? Are they like, do they go full hog or this is just like a million?

Speaker 2 I mean, again, people are very hospitable. I mean, if they have one goat or cow, they'll kill it for you and they'll feed you.
It's very important to ensure your guests are happy and satisfied.

Speaker 2 And you need to have, you know, they keep on like forcing you to eat more food.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's like Israeli for sure.

Speaker 2 And until you can't move.

Speaker 2 But people walk around and because of the altitude,

Speaker 2 we don't have a lot of overweight people. But I think a lot of Western people, when they go there, and because they're always driving around, they tend to put on weight.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I was in Vietnam and they were like, there's no, was it Vietnam? No, it was maybe it was China, I forget. In Vietnam, they're like, there's no fat Vietnamese people.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, that one's fat. And the guy's like, that's Korean.
Yeah. He's a fucking American Korean visiting.
I'm like, oh, yeah, all right. Do they have like regular Western food as well? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I mean, you can get pizza, you can get burgers, you can get all sorts of things.

Speaker 2 People are interested and curious so especially in the cities and people have been exposed because so many afghans have traveled outside so they have um

Speaker 1 you know you can get almost anything and is that what people eat well most people eat afghan food okay they feel more comfortable eating local dishes but a lot of younger people go out and they have they go to cafes or they get takeaway so i was in austria and my friend took us out to she was like this is the cool new spot we're like all right we're going to get some some um some austrian food this will be great and she she took us to a burrito place

Speaker 1 and she's like well this is what everyone is eating right now yeah i'm like oh okay this is the authentic this is the like the real one i guess but but but nothing is ever constant things are you know

Speaker 2 you know people's what they eat in any country in any culture is always evolves right and it's influenced by things from the outside right

Speaker 2 yeah the bonh mi right with the baguette yeah yeah that's not so but anyway afghan food is you know i think what was one of the highlights of uh visiting the place. But

Speaker 2 you would also notice, I'm sure if you go to Brooklyn to this place in Brooklyn, you will also enjoy that.

Speaker 1 Do you know the name of it?

Speaker 2 No, but I can look it up.

Speaker 1 Tell me later.

Speaker 2 In New York or New York Times.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I'll find it later.

Speaker 1 So it's Pitable. You saw Lone Survivor? The movie?

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 1 Okay. Well,

Speaker 1 it's one guy in a troop. He's trying to attack a Taliban, whatever.
And it's supposed to be based on a true story. I think it's Marky Mark.
And they're chasing him, and everyone else gets killed.

Speaker 1 And then

Speaker 1 they chase him down to this village, and somebody's like, oh, we'll protect you. Because they're like, we have an obligation to protect a visitor.
Yeah. Is that like a real vibe?

Speaker 2 Yeah. Afghans are very stubborn, but very loyal.

Speaker 2 So, and, you know, a guest, looking after a guest, and protecting a guest, and feeding a guest, all those things are very important culturally. to most Afghans, even if it means loss of life.

Speaker 1 Wow. So if you're walking around, not you, but if you're walking around, you'd get invited

Speaker 1 over or people would talk to you. Yeah, I mean, I think.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think people are going to be very curious about you and ask you.

Speaker 2 I mean, you could look Afghan. There are Afghans, you know, who have

Speaker 2 blue eyes and

Speaker 1 fair. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 look it up, you know.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 but especially if you're, you know, you're an American, I think people would be curious and ask you questions.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
I remember her. Who's she?

Speaker 2 She appeared on the cover of National Geographic in like 1980 or 81.

Speaker 1 There it is. Yeah, she became a big.

Speaker 2 And then they had to find her. And there was this program where they attempted to see where she was, and they eventually found her again.

Speaker 1 Really? Yeah.

Speaker 2 So the one on the

Speaker 2 that's her on the right. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Is she had her nose blown off?

Speaker 2 No, that's another. That's another one.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 How cheap is it?

Speaker 2 It's very cheap, yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, okay, that's good.

Speaker 2 You want, well, I don't think people are gonna take care of you, yeah. I don't think you'll be spending too much money, okay.

Speaker 1 But I mean, like, not many listeners, if they want to go, yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, I think it's it's quite cheap, yeah, it's quite cheap, yeah. Relative to the region, it's very cheap, yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, even there, yes, damn, interesting.

Speaker 1 Okay, how about bathrooms?

Speaker 1 Uh,

Speaker 2 you know, I,

Speaker 2 you know,

Speaker 2 you better get used to a hole in the ground.

Speaker 1 It's holes?

Speaker 2 Well, they do have Western bathrooms and guest rooms and hotels and so forth. But a lot of, you know, if you're in the countryside, it's either behind the bushes or in a, you know, outside of the,

Speaker 2 well, yes, or in a traditional outhouse.

Speaker 1 Okay. What do you got in your house?

Speaker 2 Well, we have a, most people have Western bathrooms.

Speaker 1 Do you have one of each? You know how they have a bathroom? It's like a toilet and then a urinal. I could see them going like, here's a hole if you want it.
Here's a sit if you want it.

Speaker 2 No, no, we have

Speaker 2 a traditional bathroom.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 We'll organize one for you.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 2 If that's something that bothers you.

Speaker 1 No, I mean,

Speaker 1 I hate using them, the squats, when I have to in China or whatever. They're better than that.
I guess, but I'm just not raised with it.

Speaker 1 So processed foods aren't good for you.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but I've heard of people not being able to squat properly and then slipping and falling into one. Not fully falling into one, but a foot inside.

Speaker 1 I mean, if your ass touches the top of that, you've got to cut your ass off.

Speaker 2 Well, worse things than that have happened to people.

Speaker 1 So, who'd you hang out with there? What's your crew there in Kabul?

Speaker 2 Well, I mean, so I mean, Afghanistan is a place you make friends very easily. So, you know, we had our staff members, we had people in the government, we had people in the opposition,

Speaker 2 other journalists,

Speaker 2 foreign diplomats,

Speaker 2 you know, visiting journalists. I mean, we we were always busy meeting people and talking to people.

Speaker 2 Um

Speaker 2 I don't know, it's a it's a place it's uh you have to be very social.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Or sociable. Um

Speaker 2 it was fun. It's still fun.
I have not been back for three years.

Speaker 1 Why?

Speaker 2 Well, you know, because of what's going on, I just thought for you know, because if if I do go back, it's just the optics. I have to meet with the government and I I just you know

Speaker 2 I I'm not sure how this government is going to be viewed in 10 years' time. I just, it's better for me to keep a lower profile.

Speaker 2 But we still have 400, 500 people working there.

Speaker 1 Do you ever get physically attacked?

Speaker 2 Not outside. Inside the country, no, but we've, you know, it's in the book.
I mean,

Speaker 2 we've been targets.

Speaker 2 We were targets for 20-odd years. We lost 12 staff members

Speaker 2 because of suicide bombers.

Speaker 1 Hitting the new radio?

Speaker 2 One of our buses was attacked in 2016, killed seven of our employees, injured another 15.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 then subsequent to that attack, there were a number of other smaller attacks, and we lost another five journalists.

Speaker 1 Specifically about your company?

Speaker 2 The bus that was attacked the first time, we were specifically targeted.

Speaker 1 Over what?

Speaker 2 Because of stories we had done, and they viewed us as being biased and anti-Taliban.

Speaker 1 Killed seven people.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 1 And now is that like a national scandal or is it just is it normalized?

Speaker 2 It was a it was a national s well, it was a it was a big story because we were a major T V network and as such it was a you know, it was big news.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 But then for most ordinary Afghans

Speaker 2 it was a daily occurrence. There were attacks and people were getting killed.

Speaker 2 So we were not the only ones. I mean, we went through what it probably most other Afghans had to also go through over that period.
I mean, Afghanistan has been

Speaker 2 sort of mired in conflict since

Speaker 2 late 1979 when the Soviets invaded.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I mean, relative today,

Speaker 2 relatively speaking, there's no fighting.

Speaker 1 So 79, that means anyone in their 40s has never seen a much of a peaceful place.

Speaker 2 Except now, maybe, ironically.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 Who's in charge of the Taliban?

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 1 With no, like, al-Qaeda or ISIS involvement?

Speaker 2 ISIS is active,

Speaker 2 but, you know, obviously, it's not a daily thing. They attack from time to time.

Speaker 2 For now, at least. it seems that

Speaker 2 they're not a major threat to the Taliban.

Speaker 1 Ross Powell, so it's just like a regional group, kind of like the, I don't know, like a gang in the Bronx would be. Like, they're not going to fight.

Speaker 2 But they're active, but they've

Speaker 2 struck against targets in different parts of the country, in the north, in the middle, in Kabul. But it's not a daily thing.
Whereas before, it was a daily thing.

Speaker 2 There would be an attack somewhere.

Speaker 2 So, and other groups exist,

Speaker 2 but

Speaker 2 it's hard to say how active they are.

Speaker 2 But nonetheless, an ordinary Afghan can travel freely because with no one pushing him around.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and

Speaker 2 it doesn't have to fear for safety. Whereas before, if they had to go from city to city, they were always afraid because of the fighting that they would be targeted or attacked.

Speaker 2 But now I think people don't have that fear. So

Speaker 2 people feel safer today than they have. for many decades.

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Speaker 1 Now back to the episode. Wow.
So the mood.

Speaker 1 The mood's got to be way better now than it was then.

Speaker 2 Yes and no. I mean, I think

Speaker 2 the international engagement was very important for the economy. You know, when you have this many troops and the government was getting a lot of help.

Speaker 1 Outside money coming in.

Speaker 2 And although the money went to the contractors and others, but filtered down to the ordinary Afghans as well. But today that's gone.
So economically, people are

Speaker 2 worse off. But the other thing is, because of the sanctions, the Taliban were a sanctioned movement.
It's individual sanctioned. So when they took power,

Speaker 2 the country is indirectly sanctioned, which means that a lot of companies are afraid to invest in the country.

Speaker 1 It's a bad word, Taliban. You're like, oh, I'm a Taliban businessman.
You're like, what a partner?

Speaker 1 In here, you're like, what are you crazy?

Speaker 2 An American company wouldn't risk it because they may get sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury.

Speaker 2 But also the other problem is that humanitarian assistance, whereas before

Speaker 2 would be channeled through the government, like for example, the government has thousands of clinics through which you can help kids.

Speaker 2 All of a sudden, you can't do that through the government.

Speaker 2 So you have to do it through the NGO community, through the UN, which is a very expensive because these institutions are very inept, perhaps even corrupt.

Speaker 2 So the assistance that needs to reach people don't reach them. So the humanitarian crises is very, very serious.
You know, half the population doesn't have food security.

Speaker 2 Like a third of the population, they don't have proper housing that's insulated, that can protect them against the elements. You have, like,

Speaker 2 you have three and a half

Speaker 2 million kids who are suffering from malnutrition. And

Speaker 2 hundreds of thousands of kids

Speaker 2 will have development issues

Speaker 2 as they get older. They don't get enough vitamins and minerals.
So the country is not, it's in a good place in some ways. but it's not in a good place in a lot of other ways.
And

Speaker 2 in a weird way,

Speaker 2 it's the Americans and Europeans and others

Speaker 2 who are continuing to litigate against the Taliban, but in the process hurting the Afghan population, which happens, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, my friend went to Michelle Wolfe, comedian. She went to

Speaker 1 maybe UAE.

Speaker 1 I don't know. One of those countries where women are just

Speaker 1 not really equal. And everyone got on her.
She went to perform. Yeah.
And everyone's like, how dare you? Why did you go there?

Speaker 1 And she goes, maybe it's something cool to show them like a strong, independent woman. Why don't we show them a version of womanhood instead of just saying, like, I'll never go there?

Speaker 1 Like, you're not actually helping by not going there.

Speaker 1 How are women there in Afghanistan?

Speaker 2 Well, I mean, obviously in this environment with these new decrees, and, you know, I don't know if you've seen these new decrees which have been issued in terms of women not showing their faces or raising their voices and so forth.

Speaker 1 I like that.

Speaker 1 Like, man, if we could have that here where they can't raise their voices, I'd be down. Not showing their faces, I do not respect that.

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 2 but in practice, of course, women are active, they go on and about, they drive.

Speaker 1 They do drive, fine. No one looks in a way.

Speaker 2 I don't think a lot of women want to drive, but the ones who do have a car and want to drive, they can drive.

Speaker 1 Everyone wears hijabs or not, really?

Speaker 2 No, you have to cover your head, but not face. In the cities.
In the cities.

Speaker 2 It all depends in terms of how strictly they impose their rules by the local authorities. And, you know, the

Speaker 2 Taliban, like, you know, like say the Republican Party is going to be different in New York to

Speaker 2 California to

Speaker 2 somewhere in the deep south, right?

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 some Taliban officials in some parts of the country have a more liberal approach to things and some are more conservative. And so it depends on local implementation of these decrees and rules.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, good point. I remember after COVID, I met nearby here, I met a rabbi.
It was very beginning. I was still before the shutdowns.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I met a rabbi and he was like, hey, come by. You know,

Speaker 1 he knew me from whatever, from comedy. And he's like, come by sometime when we open back up again.
I was like, you're closed? It was like right before the shutdowns. He goes, yeah.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, why? I thought religious exemption. And he was like, well, disease doesn't, disease doesn't care.
Like, I'm not putting any old men at risk here. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But across town, they were like, oh, we're staying open. I don't care how bad it gets.

Speaker 2 And they suffered, right?

Speaker 1 Maybe. I really don't know.
But the idea is like, Jews do this. Like, no, no, this Jew says we're shutting down.
Go pray at home. This Jew says, no, you still have to come.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So there's not like one, it sounds like it's there, too.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but you know, with any situation,

Speaker 2 it's never that black and white. Right.
There's a lot of nuance. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 it's easier to paint a black and white picture of any, you know, all Muslims are bad or all, you know.

Speaker 2 Christians are aggressive or, you know, whatever. But even with the Taliban, you know, I think there's

Speaker 2 it is not that black and white.

Speaker 2 And there are people who are more pragmatic within the Taliban movement, and there are ones who are much more conservative.

Speaker 1 Right. Can you get laid in Afghanistan?

Speaker 2 If you're married, you can. Or if you're a Westerner.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Do people have relationships outside marriage? I'm sure. Listen, if you're talking.

Speaker 1 Not the wholesale, but I mean, like, if

Speaker 1 somebody, like, hey, I came to visit.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I had sex the first day and the ninth day, just some random. Is that like, what, or is that like, oh, cool, whatever.
If you get late in New York, that's not that notable. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, technically, it's against the law. Okay.
But I think that if you were caught

Speaker 2 being friendly with a Western woman and Western woman. Yeah, they would leave you alone.

Speaker 1 But Afghani women aren't.

Speaker 2 No, I think that could be a bit of an issue. Okay.
I would caution you to

Speaker 1 not try that.

Speaker 1 I have no game anyway. They resist for a week.

Speaker 1 Do they have a problem with like someplace they're like, if let's say you have a girlfriend and you're staying somewhere, they're like, hey, just say you're married because they don't want a boyfriend, girlfriend staying in the same hotel room.

Speaker 2 Well, I would think it's like the U.S. military.
Well, in the old days, you know, they won't ask and you don't tell.

Speaker 2 But I think with Westerners,

Speaker 2 they understand that people have long-term relationships.

Speaker 2 And, you know, people are content to leave you alone.

Speaker 1 And that's like, that's you guys do it. It's fine.
It's you.

Speaker 2 Yeah, they'll probably volunteer to watch.

Speaker 1 Do they get porn and stuff now? Is there any influx of like

Speaker 1 cool parts of Western culture?

Speaker 2 I think that that's probably one of the reasons a lot of Afghans get the Internet.

Speaker 1 For porn.

Speaker 2 It's a phenomenon that's, you know, it's consistent throughout the world, right?

Speaker 2 We had to create all sorts of filters because our own staff members would, you know, download things they shouldn't, you know. And

Speaker 1 what do you mean?

Speaker 2 I mean, they would go on all sorts of different sites and we had to like block them.

Speaker 1 When you say all sorts of different sites, you just mean porn or you mean like crazy?

Speaker 2 Gambling, porn, and things like that. You know, so but they didn't block them what?

Speaker 1 Because you couldn't trust them to do their work or because it was evil to look at it.

Speaker 2 No, because of work and also, you know, you shouldn't be looking at those sorts of things. I'm not saying majority, but I'm saying there were instances with young men would

Speaker 2 download things they shouldn't.

Speaker 1 Did you hear that Elon Musk thing? He went on contacted people tribe somewhere in the Amazon or something. Yeah.
He goes, I'm going to get you guys internet. I'm going to get you guys what you need.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Out of the goodness of his heart.
Yeah. And then immediately they're all watching porn 19 hours a day.

Speaker 2 Well, I had a really interesting... We had

Speaker 2 so we do a lot of work in terms of polio eradication.

Speaker 1 Polioeradic, okay. Right.

Speaker 2 And Bill Gates is a big funder of that.

Speaker 1 God, he's huge with that. And the,

Speaker 1 what's the one the mosquitoes give you?

Speaker 1 Malaria. Malaria, yeah.
There's no funding for malaria research if not for Bill Gates. He's like 98% of it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and it's, you know, I mean, he's to his credit. He wants to do it, but he also wants to be the person who eradicates polio forever.
And he got very close to it.

Speaker 2 So anyway, I was invited to a dinner. So it's Bill Gates and a whole bunch of people, like prominent Middle Eastern ministers and the head of, you know, McKinsey's and, you know.

Speaker 2 And they go around the table. And no one's drinking wine except Bill Gates, and he's putting down these wines.
And they go around the table, and everyone is like,

Speaker 2 let's go around the table and discuss how the internet impacted you. And one guy says, We know, well, it's about education, sir.

Speaker 2 And they're all making these comments, you know, standard comments to impress Bill Gates.

Speaker 2 So, and I'm probably the last person to say something. So, it comes to me.
He said, What do you think of the internet and how it's impacted people, say, in Afghanistan? I said, I'll tell you a story.

Speaker 2 One day, our head of finance, this gentleman probably in his 50s, comes in, he looks around, closes the door, sits down, he said, Sir, what's a she-mail?

Speaker 2 Because he'd looked it up on the internet.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 1 for a lot of people in these countries, the internet is all about that.

Speaker 2 Joe Rogan would love that.

Speaker 2 And he couldn't even pronounce it properly. And it took me a while to figure out what he was trying to say.

Speaker 1 That's a Hermale.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 yeah, I think

Speaker 2 it's

Speaker 2 the Internet's not, you know,

Speaker 2 we all thought thought, you know, 30 years ago the Internet was going to change the world in a very positive way.

Speaker 2 But even without the social, you know, these social media companies, I mean, I think, you know, a lot of.

Speaker 1 Is there Afghan social media?

Speaker 2 Well, they're on Instagram and TikTok and so forth.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I wonder how that's changing this fucking very like traditional world to like, hey,

Speaker 1 you're part of the world now. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Kicking and screaming.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's like you can see it all, so you're in it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Such a massive thing.

Speaker 2 But Afghans and others suffer from the same things, you know. You've got fake news.
Yeah. You know, the Russians and

Speaker 2 the Chinese and others are obviously amplifying all sorts of anti-Western stories. There's a lot of like...

Speaker 2 There's a lot of like

Speaker 2 there's a lot of hatred.

Speaker 2 you know, along ethnic or religious lines that's amplified by these social media companies. I mean, the algorithms affect the Afghans as much as they affect you guys.
So

Speaker 2 the fragmentation of this world is not

Speaker 2 just the Western world. It's also impacting people in our neck of the woods.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 Damn, people turning against each other.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I mean, I think the good thing is that internet penetration is still pretty.

Speaker 1 Do most people have it or not really?

Speaker 2 Well, either 42 million people, something like 8 million people have it.

Speaker 1 42 million people in Afghanistan? Yes.

Speaker 2 It's huge. Its population doubled from 2001 to uh until now

Speaker 2 it's got its annual growth rate's three percent it'll be at a hundred million people by like 2060 2070 annual growth rate god damn it'll be a hundred million jesus well so they predict there's no space for that well it's the size of texas yeah so it's not that small but it's not that big either yeah texas don't have a hundred million people and it's so much so much of that is like that nothing land is all this shit so like where's everybody going to go?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, I think that's what a lot of people are afraid of. Yeah.

Speaker 2 We have Afghan refugees in Europe is a major concern.

Speaker 1 People leave because they're like, I can't make any money here.

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 2 if you look at the map, we're literally two countries away from Europe. Iran, Turkey, and then you see Europe.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 So for the Europeans, any sort of conflict in this region is a huge concern.

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 1 any European government, you're right in Bulgaria or Greece.

Speaker 2 Any European government today, their biggest concern is immigration.

Speaker 2 Because it will ensure that that government's toppled if they're not managing it well enough.

Speaker 1 Why?

Speaker 2 Because of this hysteria about immigrants coming in, taking their jobs, or causing crime.

Speaker 1 Did you see that London thing? These riots of one guy stabbing somebody. And it's like,

Speaker 1 every time they get you riled up, it's like you're looking at it in a vacuum. It's like somebody stabs him.
Like, well, what's the national average of stabbings per person? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Like, is that lower or higher? But we're so geared on stories. You must do this in your shows, too, where it's like the story goes so much further than statistics.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 If they tell you LASIK eye surgery is so safe,

Speaker 1 it's got a failure rate of one out of 100,000. You're like, no, my uncle went blind.
Yeah, that's the one out of 100,000. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 Have you had LASIK? Yeah. I've had it too.

Speaker 1 It's great. I got to do it again.

Speaker 1 It's just starting to wear off. It's been about eight years.
Oh, really? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Mine's still 2020, actually.

Speaker 1 Really? Till 10 years, yeah.

Speaker 2 But they said that

Speaker 2 the lens is thick enough that I can have a second one.

Speaker 1 Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, maybe I can't have a second one.

Speaker 2 You can have a second one, yeah.

Speaker 1 I got to look at it, see how thick my lens is. Yes.
What a manly way to put it.

Speaker 2 It's funny because I told my friend, he said, listen, I had this doctor who did it for me. And I said, I want a guy who is experienced.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And then he said, the guy's done 6,000 operations. So I went to see him.
The thing I forgot was if you if you've done 6,000 operations, you're pretty old. You're 78 years old.

Speaker 1 So the guy's hands were shaking. I'm like, nope.
No, I did it. What's your last 10? Let me just get out of that.

Speaker 2 But yeah, but immigration

Speaker 2 is an important issue because it's about loss of identity.

Speaker 2 If your country is all of a sudden, you know, full of people from a different culture, a different religion, what happens to our culture? What happens to our religion?

Speaker 2 I'm not saying it's justified, but these concerns need to be addressed. So it's also the case in the United States.
I think what does it mean to be an American, right?

Speaker 1 Let me break that down. What does it mean? So it's like, hey, well, this guy's come from here.
It's weird. They're like, well, Mexicans should be conservative.

Speaker 1 They should love Mexicans. They're Catholic,

Speaker 1 family members, strong family units. It's like, that's who they should want here.

Speaker 2 But it's also, you know, so the question, what I don't get is that if you look at the economy, if you look at everything, life expectancy, the economy, education levels, it's never been this good.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 2 But why are people so unhappy?

Speaker 1 God, they're the maddest they've ever been. Everything's the best it's ever been.
And yet. The lowest black unemployment rate in history, black people are madder than ever.

Speaker 1 Jews have it more equal than we've ever had it. It's like, I'm afraid everywhere I go.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 But the question is why?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 But I think it's because

Speaker 2 we tend to not look at today,

Speaker 2 we always look forward.

Speaker 2 Because most Americans see things not improving for the next generation, for their kids. And they think they're on top of the hill and

Speaker 2 they're going downhill from now on. So I think it's that

Speaker 2 there's nothing to look forward to, it seems.

Speaker 2 And if you look at the Midwest and if you look at Middle America,

Speaker 2 probably perhaps for the first time,

Speaker 2 the next generation will be worse off. And I think it's that mentality.
And the other thing is, of course,

Speaker 2 we tend to worship this idea of America, Americans do at least, is that their ideal America, which probably was never that perfect to start off with, given your history with slavery and everything else, and inequality, but this idea, this myth of America, there's a mismatch in terms of what people see today and what they see in the future.

Speaker 1 Interesting. I talked to

Speaker 1 a conservative family member.

Speaker 1 She goes, you know, say whatever you want, but this is the only country where you can show up with 10 bucks in your pocket and you become a millionaire, which I'd heard since I was a kid.

Speaker 1 And then for the first time, I heard it again for the first time in like 20 years, and I was like, break that down for me. Yeah.
You show up, you have $10.

Speaker 1 You get a slice of pizza for a dollar, you know, and find some free water. Yeah.
So you got about one day to find a job where you're homeless and unable to get out of that fucking basket.

Speaker 1 What's this idea of 10 bucks in your pocket? Be a millionaire. That's crazy.
You can't afford. You can have $1,000 in your pocket and you're going to fail.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but Ari, let me put it to you. Let me ask you a question.

Speaker 2 Why do you have to become a millionaire to be happy?

Speaker 1 That's a great idea.

Speaker 2 Right? Yeah. What happened to family? What happened to friendships? What happens to neighborhood camaraderie?

Speaker 1 Bro, this is what I fight with all my rich comedian friends.

Speaker 2 Generosity towards, you know, when you're on your deathbed and you reflect on your life, what do you think about?

Speaker 1 Right?

Speaker 2 And, you know, despite the obsession with longevity and living to 300, whatever, but it's a, this appearance of ours is very brief.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And we just don't enjoy the things we should enjoy. We don't care for our parents.
We neglect them.

Speaker 2 We kick our kids out at sort of 18 or 19. We're not particularly friendly with our neighbors.
We don't even know.

Speaker 2 In the West, I'm saying.

Speaker 2 And I mean, and this is me looking back, you know, with these ideas of modernizing Afghanistan and things like that.

Speaker 2 And I ask myself, what right did I have to tell people they should drive a car if they're happier to, you know, to ride a donkey and get there in three hours, while they're on the back of the donkey, they can think about life and they can think about their kids.

Speaker 2 They can relax. This idea of

Speaker 2 everything on speed.

Speaker 1 You know that fisherman fable? Which one? There's an old man who runs a fishing boat and he fishes all day and then makes money.

Speaker 1 And they're like, why don't you ever like hire someone else to help you fish? You know this one? No.

Speaker 1 And then the guy goes, well, then what? He goes, well, then you could catch more fish. He goes, and then what? He goes, then you could afford another boat.

Speaker 1 He goes, and then what?

Speaker 1 And goes, then you could catch even more fish with a second boat and keep going and get a fleet of ships yeah he goes and then what he goes then you can retire and goes okay then what he goes then you can do whatever you want goes i just want to fish

Speaker 2 it's already so true it's so true yeah no i think the the

Speaker 2 material well materialism which is a form of religion this obsession with wealth and accumulation of wealth of assets it's one of the things that is so distractive you look at instagram i mean i talked today with my friend yeah he's like i'm not happy and i'm rich and i don't know how to give up a podcast and

Speaker 1 just like settle on my family and my life. And like, what's important? I was like, buddy, you got to write down what's important.
Yeah. It's not getting you there.

Speaker 1 Listen, if you get a contractor job for three days lifting concrete and they pay you $20 million,

Speaker 1 sure, do it.

Speaker 1 But if it's a nine to five for $28,000 a year forever, don't do that one.

Speaker 1 So where are you in the middle of those two things?

Speaker 2 Listen, people...

Speaker 2 borrow whether to go to university or to buy a house and then you become slaves to your ambitions, to your greed. But most people are not like that.
But they're brainwashed that

Speaker 2 you need to have, you know,

Speaker 2 three degrees. You need to have two houses.

Speaker 1 And if you don't, you're a failure.

Speaker 2 You have to go to Aspen skiing, or you have to go to the south of France. I mean, you know, everyone, you know,

Speaker 2 has his own ambitions, you know, depending on their environments.

Speaker 2 But people are becoming slaves to

Speaker 2 this, you know, this this American dream is one that's imposed on people in a lot of ways. It's a rat race that you're forced into and you can't get off.

Speaker 1 Yeah, now they advertise, they're like, they just push these ideas to you. Like, you're falling behind.
If you're not on Instagram, you see all your friends taking vacations every single day. Yes.

Speaker 1 That's all they show is their best pictures. Like, I need that life.
Yeah. But that's only 5% of their existence.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. They never show you pictures.

Speaker 1 The people who have kids see their friends with kids only in their best days they don't see their oldest son kicking their youngest son and them going shut stop it and spilling milk and you know they don't ever show those pictures it's always them with their hair brushed and like

Speaker 2 so I think a lot of people in

Speaker 2 Western societies

Speaker 2 are not happy that's why I mean how many people take you know medication for depression in in in this country for example so how's the afghani happiness

Speaker 2 You know what? So years ago, I went to Pakistan and there were a lot of Afghan refugees, including members of our family. We're talking about that mid-1990s.

Speaker 2 And I remember asking someone, I said, you know,

Speaker 2 exactly your question.

Speaker 2 Depression, you know, do you experience

Speaker 2 people with depression and how do you deal with them? He said, most people are too busy surviving to get depressed.

Speaker 2 And if you look at depression rates in places like Australia, where I grew up, or Sweden, they're very high. Because in a lot of ways, life is easy.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 You know, someone is, I always tell my friends.

Speaker 1 Life is too easy until you start.

Speaker 2 Yeah, go ahead. I always tell my friends, I mean, the greatest gift you can give your children is the opportunity to struggle.

Speaker 1 There's a fable in Judaism that God loves his creatures, right? Yeah. You don't want them to suffer.

Speaker 1 You have kids? Yeah. Okay, so your kids like...
having trouble with something. You're like, let me help you with that.

Speaker 1 They can't reach something on the top shelf. You're like, I'm taller than you.
Let me help. I don't want you to look in pain.
So God loves all his children. So he's like, let me make it easy for you.

Speaker 1 And he just made crops grow easily. He made plenty of cattle.
He goes, don't worry. You never have to toil and sow the fields because I'm just going to give you the crops.

Speaker 1 And they were like, this is awesome. And then within a short time, they're like, let's murder that tribe over there.

Speaker 1 And it was all just war. And he goes, oh, I need you guys to suffer a little bit.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, I think a lot of us deserve some suffering, some form of suffering.

Speaker 1 So what should people, let's kind of, I I know you got to go. This is interesting, though, and it does make me want to go to Afghanistan.
What would you tell people?

Speaker 1 All right, I'm headed out next week. What do I got to pack? What do I got to prepare for?

Speaker 2 Well, if you're going now, it's going to start to get cold.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 It's mountains, so it's freezing.

Speaker 2 It can get freezing, but it's nice during the day, especially when the sun is out. Okay.

Speaker 2 I think just go as you are.

Speaker 2 It's funny,

Speaker 2 David Cho, you know him, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I just wrote him a letter yesterday trying to, I want to go to Boston. So he came to Kabul.

Speaker 2 Really? I took him for three days, but the only clothing he took with him were shorts, flip-flops, and a couple of singlets.

Speaker 1 When I met him, he had a robe on and a red lined on his head. Yeah, ask him about Afghanistan.

Speaker 2 So he was there. He did graffiti.

Speaker 2 Really? No, no, but this is the funny thing. So the mayor's office, because the mayor, I knew the mayor, I rang him up, I said, this very famous graffiti artist.

Speaker 2 It's going to come and do some work. And they, so he did this thing on the side of the wall.

Speaker 2 You know, obviously, some people would say it's a valuable piece of work. Then the mayor, the next day, just repainted the whole thing.
So it was so ugly. I said, yeah, but that's graffiti.

Speaker 2 You know, it's anyway. So David was there for three or four days.
He traveled. He went to Pancher and traveled around, but wearing his flip-flops and his shorts.
And

Speaker 2 I, you know, just told him, you know, don't try to hug

Speaker 2 women and

Speaker 2 be well, which he was. He was quite well-behaved.

Speaker 1 And he was good.

Speaker 2 He got some local clothing and ordered some local stuff. And

Speaker 1 do you look people in the eye? Is that any problems like that? Like social dynamics you wouldn't know? No, no, you can look at people. Okay.

Speaker 2 People are very accepting. They're very open.
And

Speaker 2 they don't

Speaker 2 judge you too quickly, especially if you're foreigner. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Are there sports? What sports do you guys play?

Speaker 2 Well, the Afghan national game is called Buskashi.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's dragging a sand-filled calf from one circle and into another circle. And

Speaker 1 yeah.

Speaker 1 What?

Speaker 1 It's a sand-filled calf?

Speaker 2 It weighs about 80 kilograms,

Speaker 2 which is about

Speaker 2 a couple of hundred pounds.

Speaker 2 And as you're lifting it and putting it in the circle, the other side attempts to stop you from

Speaker 2 doing it. It's like scoring a goal.

Speaker 1 It's like U.S. football.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you get whipped and

Speaker 2 you have to be very strong to be able to hold it and pull it up.

Speaker 1 And you launch it into this hole? No, it's a circle. Okay.
It's a circle.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 yeah, like this picture, yeah.

Speaker 1 This is the national sport?

Speaker 2 This is the national sport.

Speaker 1 Everybody plays this growing up?

Speaker 2 Well, I don't think everyone can play it because you've got to be a good rider. You've got to be very strong.
But they play football, as in soccer, they play cricket, volleyball, basketball. Okay.

Speaker 2 But this is the national game.

Speaker 1 Wow, that's fucking cool.

Speaker 1 Damn, they seem tough.

Speaker 2 yeah so did you did you watch rambo yeah oh he played it in there yeah yeah was that afghanistan yeah rambo was it two i think yeah

Speaker 1 interesting yeah oh wait youtube there's a video of it yeah get a video

Speaker 1 watching game

Speaker 1 all right oh wow

Speaker 1 Do horses ever get hurt?

Speaker 1 Must, yeah.

Speaker 1 What?

Speaker 2 But these are these are amateurs, these guys playing. Yeah.
So you got to find a video that has...

Speaker 2 I'll send one to you.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 But apparently they say that it's a leftover from

Speaker 2 Genghis Khan. That makes sense.
And they used to do it with the bodies of their enemies.

Speaker 1 No. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Damn, that's bad.

Speaker 1 And then play sports with it. Yeah.
What a fucking baller move. What a, not just did we defeat you.

Speaker 1 Our kids are going to eat popcorn. Oh, wow.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 The dude fucking fell right off his horse. Yeah.
I think

Speaker 2 this may be in Central Asia.

Speaker 1 Oh.

Speaker 1 So it's all over the region.

Speaker 2 Yeah. But in Afghanistan, it's huge.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And I think the Afghans are probably.
Jesus.

Speaker 2 The Afghans are the best.

Speaker 1 God damn. They hit each other?

Speaker 2 Yeah. In Afghanistan, you can whip each other, too.

Speaker 1 So manly. It's so manly.

Speaker 1 They don't give a fuck.

Speaker 1 Wow, you got to look at right off your horse to pick it up. Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's heavy.

Speaker 2 I'm sure this is in Uzbekistan or somewhere, but the Afghan one is very heavy. And we use real calves.
They fill it up with sand. They soak it overnight in water.

Speaker 1 To get it heavier.

Speaker 2 To get it heavier. So it's probably a couple of hundred pounds jump off your horse and throw it but the afghan one only has a circle like this right in the middle okay in the middle yeah

Speaker 2 god damn so you got to be very acrobatic to you know they must get hit like trampled yeah their heads are leaning all the way down to the ground so it's a winter sport so if you come in winter you can uh you can watch this and you can ski you can ski in afghanistan well you have to walk up but in central afghanistan and bomb beyond it's fantastic do you ski yeah i love it so it's like uh you hike up and then hike and then ski down?

Speaker 2 So a friend of mine, a Swiss guy who helped develop skiing in Afghanistan, said to me, it's probably as good as Sapporo in Japan.

Speaker 2 In terms of the quality of the snow, the powder you get, it's phenomenal. Wow.

Speaker 1 It's really high. Untouched, probably.

Speaker 2 Untouched, yeah. You got to walk up for like a couple of hours.
Or, you know, probably can, you know, people can arrange heli skiing. But no lifts.
No lifts. Damn.

Speaker 1 No, thanks.

Speaker 1 I'm not walking up two hours, one run. One run, yeah.

Speaker 1 But I'm sure we can figure something out.

Speaker 1 You get

Speaker 1 on the lift, you smoke some weed, then you ski down, then repeat.

Speaker 2 Well, that's another reason a lot of people go to Afghanistan.

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 fuck. How did I forget about this? The weed and the poppy, the heroin?

Speaker 2 Well, there's obviously opium is banned now, but obviously Afghanistan supplied like 80% of the world's opium and heroin. But hashish,

Speaker 2 Afghan black hash.

Speaker 1 How is it?

Speaker 2 Well, they say it's the best on the planet.

Speaker 1 Fuck off, they say. You've never tried hash.

Speaker 2 No, it's it's it's it's it's it's it's Afghanistan is known for its hash.

Speaker 1 God, I gotta get some of that.

Speaker 1 You know, it's a is it readily available?

Speaker 2 It's readily available. Gold standard.

Speaker 1 Coffee shops, they give it to you? Or where do you get it?

Speaker 2 Anywhere, I think. You can get a big block and someone will give you a brick.

Speaker 1 God damn it. Hash is the best.
People just like pull off a little bit, roll it thin,

Speaker 1 put it in a spliff.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 it's great. And people just break off a little piece.

Speaker 2 Now, here, because I think a lot of, you know, especially.

Speaker 1 Nobody smokes hash here.

Speaker 2 No, because at marijuana, the people smoke is so strong, right? Yeah. Hashish has been designed to smoke, you know, for the entire evening.
And it gets you into a zone. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that hashish.

Speaker 2 That contributes to one's happiness.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 That's what you got to get.

Speaker 2 I suspect that you may go there just for that reason.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Would just sit down at a guy's place. So would the locals smoke too? Yes.
Wow. So we'd just sit and get high with the locals.
Yes. And just shoot the shit.
How's their how's English?

Speaker 2 Well the people speak English now. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 In just the major cities?

Speaker 2 I think everywhere. Because of the international community.
Afghans are very multilingual. Every Afghan speaks like two, three languages.
So

Speaker 2 they pick up, you know, because you have your local language, you have the lingua franca of the country is Persian, our own dialect of Persian.

Speaker 2 So everyone speaks Persian, but they also speak local languages like Pashto and Uzbeki and so forth.

Speaker 2 But a lot of people speak English nowadays.

Speaker 1 Damn.

Speaker 1 That's great. Yeah.
Oh, you're selling me on it.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Go talk to some fucking local Afghanis.

Speaker 1 Smokes hella weed. Smokes.
Eat good food.

Speaker 1 Eat some of that naan.

Speaker 2 Eat some of the naan, some of that rice. Watch one of the Buskashi game.
Yeah. That's your itinerary

Speaker 2 for the week.

Speaker 1 Okay. What should people avoid when they're there, touching women or something like that? But like anything else.
Be respectful. Don't.
Okay.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think think be respectful when you know when don't lecture people.

Speaker 1 It's everywhere, yeah.

Speaker 2 Don't talk politics, booze,

Speaker 2 it's illegal.

Speaker 2 But as a foreigner, I think that you know, I think foreigners at the UN and other places are allowed to drink, and but you will not be able to, I don't think you'll be able to find it in the I don't know, it's just what to expect.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I would be fine getting crazy hashed up, yes, you will. Especially with no peer pressure to drink, no, no,

Speaker 2 And you sleep better.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 So you're going back? When are you going to go back?

Speaker 2 Maybe I'll go back with you.

Speaker 1 Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 Dude, yeah. Get me settled.
I always get so nervous when I go to a new place for a day or two, and then I'm like, okay, I think I'm ready. Thank you.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 I'm off. You'd fly via Dubai.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 Or Turkey. Okay.
So

Speaker 2 you fly Emirates to Kabul, to Dubai.

Speaker 2 You stay in Dubai for a couple of days or one day and then you fly into Cabo.

Speaker 1 And then just go from there.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's two hours away from Dubai.

Speaker 1 Where's Dubai?

Speaker 2 Dubai City. UAE yeah.

Speaker 2 So it's 14 hours from New York to Dubai.

Speaker 2 Hang for the night. 24 hours rest and then you go into Cabo.

Speaker 1 I'm yeah, I'm going.

Speaker 2 And Yoshi will come too.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Yoshi will come too for sure.

Speaker 1 Oh, that makes me so happy that I I just thought it was like my opportunity to go has been it's over over now that the U.S. left.
But that's been sound like that.

Speaker 2 No, I think it's easier for you now because you'll be able to travel more. Whereas previously it would have been, you know, it would have been a security issue for you to travel.

Speaker 1 Because I would be a target before. Like, oh, here's an American.
Let's fuck with them so we can fuck with them. Yeah.
And now it's just like you're not in Taliban or Al-Qaeda or ISIS.

Speaker 2 Yeah, the guys, the guys who were going to get you before are now in charge and they will welcome you.

Speaker 1 Damn.

Speaker 1 All right. Well, this book is available everywhere now.
It is. Radio Free Afghanistan: A 20-year odyssey for an independent voice in Kabul.

Speaker 1 Sad Mossey.

Speaker 1 With some chick.

Speaker 1 It's Jenna Krajewski helping him write. Jenna.
That's what I would need to.

Speaker 1 Damn, this is crazy. And you don't fear for your safety, or you do?

Speaker 2 Well, not outside.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 you have a walled guard there, but in Kabul? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, in Kabul, we used to have a lot of security.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 2 the best way to remain s secure is to

Speaker 2 not be that obvious, to not have too many bodyguards, to be very just low-key.

Speaker 2 You know, the more security you have, the more attention you draw to yourself. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that makes sense. So, okay.
I wouldn't go outside with a lot of money and flashiness. Not that I do anyway.

Speaker 1 Buddy, this is great. This is very interesting.

Speaker 2 Thank you. Thanks, Ari.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Congratulations on the book. That's a fucking massive feat.

Speaker 2 Thank you.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Letting us DJ run your radio show is way different than actually writing a book.
It seems way harder.

Speaker 2 Well, it's a story of what, you know, what we

Speaker 2 what we built.

Speaker 1 The fighter-turned media chief took one look at me, declared me a waste of time, and kicked me out of his office. It's a random sentence I just turned to.

Speaker 1 The fighter-turned media chief. This is going to be a fun read.
I'll read this. I get so sick of reading, like, trying to catch up on all the books I didn't read in high school, and they're so boring.

Speaker 1 I'm trying to get caught up on, like, Fitzpatrick's.

Speaker 2 But there's also an audio version if you're lazy.

Speaker 1 An earlier version? No,

Speaker 1 fuck that. I can't get into that.
No, I mean, guys, you should. Yeah.
But I want to turn a page. Okay.
I want to do the thing where you read seven pages and you're like, oh, I've tuned out.

Speaker 1 And you have to back up and actually read them.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I know the feeling.
Yeah. Yeah.
You're like, what have I been thinking about? Said, buddy, thank you very much. Thank you.
Yeah, it's a pleasure. I've heard about you for years now.
Thanks.

Speaker 1 Cool to meet you. I didn't know what you're doing.
What do you think?

Speaker 1 Well, you guys, that's the episode. Thank you very much.
Saad Mosseni for coming in. Telling me after Garrett said, it's actually pretty cool.
He wants to bring me there. And I want to go with Yoshi.

Speaker 1 I mean, listen, I talk about this sometimes. We're talking about boots on the ground.

Speaker 1 And man, that's what you got. And I don't mean like in terms of like soldiers.
I mean in terms of like showing you around.

Speaker 1 When I went to Hong Kong, when I went to Shanghai, I met the comedy scene, Beijing, the comedy scenes. And so I had boots on the ground.
They told me the cool places to go. Not the lonely planet.

Speaker 1 No offense, lonely planet. I am looking for sponsorship.
But I mean,

Speaker 1 I mean, to tell you what's actually cool. What's the cool restaurant that just opened up last week? What's the cool bar? Where can you go to get the cheapest hookers? Where do you go get robbed?

Speaker 1 If you're in Amsterdam, they tell you, oh, don't go to that one. That's a tourist one.

Speaker 1 The bull bar? The bull coffee shop? I forget.

Speaker 1 And you should forget, too, because it's the tourist one with shittier weed. Copenhagen has the best weed in Europe, and I'm not counting Spain.

Speaker 1 Damn. Radio Free Afghanistan is available wherever you buy

Speaker 1 books. Also,

Speaker 1 I'll tell you this. My special is coming out January 14th.
Go ahead and open up your calendar and your phone and set a reminder. So it goes

Speaker 1 and then you can go on Netflix and say, okay,

Speaker 1 watch later. Also, if you're watching, by the way, anyone's special.
Just let it play till the end. If you got to get back to it, just let it play.
Leave the house and let it play.

Speaker 1 Even if you're done with it, just let it play and do whatever. Because then their dumb fucking algorithm only registers if it goes like a full watch.
I mean, all the way through the credits.

Speaker 1 Just fix your fucking everybody. YouTube, everybody.
Fix your program. Don't ask

Speaker 1 the artist to cater to the program. Make the program cater to the artist.

Speaker 1 Do what you want.

Speaker 1 I'm doing pretty well.

Speaker 1 My tour is on sale now.

Speaker 1 Lake Tahoe, Nevada. Oh, Austin, this coming weekend, sold out.
Sorry. You can get standby tickets.

Speaker 1 Lake Tahoe. And then that's December 21st.
And then January first week starts with Pittsburgh, Providence, Nashville, Schaumburg, San Antonio, San Jose, Atlanta, Portland, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando.

Speaker 1 I know I'm missing one.

Speaker 1 Seattle, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary. Edmonton and Calgary are almost sold out.
So hurry up.

Speaker 1 Portland's almost sold out too. Adrian will be there with me for Portland, The Dark Queen.
Also, watch that, by the way, if you haven't yet. Watch the Dark Queen, guys.
There's no bad reviews for it.

Speaker 1 It's just great.

Speaker 1 If you're looking for a special to watch, and if you've ever been like, maybe I'm misogynist, but I don't want to face it. I just haven't found women funny.
This is the one to clear your name.

Speaker 1 It's so fucking good. And it's not even long.
Mine is too long.

Speaker 1 I'm going to not,

Speaker 1 you know, the algorithm is not going to be kind to me. Anyway, very interesting about Afghanistan.
I do want to go there. I do want to go there badly.
And he's going to take me.

Speaker 1 I don't know when I'll have time. I'm on the road till like

Speaker 1 early April. I definitely don't have time for that.

Speaker 1 And then I got like stuff planned. Maybe 2026.
Maybe that's what I'll do when I'm taking off the road.

Speaker 1 By the way, no more dates added. So if I'm in this city, if I'm in one of your cities, I won't be there till, I mean, at least 2028.
Except Denver.

Speaker 1 Denver, I'll come back because Denver, I'm doing a greatest hit show. It's not new material.
It's the greatest hit show.

Speaker 1 We're going to write down all the bits and collect them, and then I'll do all these best hits I've had over the years, whatever you remember. Fun.
We did it once before. Fun.

Speaker 1 Denver, I'll come back. Awesome.
I'll come back. The rest, you're SOL.

Speaker 1 Stupid Orlando lover.

Speaker 1 Let's read a postcard. By the way, Saad did not bring me any Afghani money.
Saad, send me some Afghani money from my wall, my money wall.

Speaker 1 Next week, I got Bobby Kelly on a remote podcast episode from Havana, Cuba.

Speaker 1 It's going to be pretty cool. And I brought some Cuban money back.
I'll put those up in the episode. And I brought a mask from my White's wall that you can't see.

Speaker 1 God, that was a fun trip. But we did it from Havana, one of the first.
It's got to be the second one, right? No, Zach, Zane Jireski. Jireski was the first one.
We did it about Morocco.

Speaker 1 We did it from a hostel in Paris. That was a good episode.
Have you guys voted for this Trippy Awards? Best guest,

Speaker 1 best trip, worst trip. Let's add that.
I'm just calling these. The final one for the episode, for the year, will be a wrap-up episode.
Just me speaking alone about everything.

Speaker 1 And maybe we'll do the trippy awards then.

Speaker 1 But, yeah, maybe. But maybe the week after.

Speaker 1 The next year, I got a bunch of them because I have to promote my special. So I got a bunch of fucking big ones.
Gaffikin's coming. Ronnie Chang in a couple weeks.

Speaker 1 Oh, Bert, maybe, finally. Admitting that he never went to Russia.
Never even been there. Never even been to fucking Romania, to be honest.

Speaker 1 Obviously, that's a lie. Let's read a postcard.
So on my Patreon, patreon.com slash you be trippin',

Speaker 1 people send in postcards. I don't want to show you the postcard wall now, but

Speaker 1 it's crazy. They send me postcards from around the world, and I read them on air.
And then I put them up, and I'm lining my wall.

Speaker 1 The same way I'm lighting out White's wall, I'm also lining the, what's it called? The The background over there. So it's going to like fill up.

Speaker 1 Don't forget to get his book. I mean, A 20-year Odyssey for an Independent Voice in Kabul.

Speaker 1 All these fucking bitch comics who are just like bitching about how things aren't going their way and stand up. Fucking,

Speaker 1 you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 And I mean, not even not their way. It's rich kids.
Bitching about how it's not done perfectly. This guy's fucking risking his life

Speaker 1 to bring an actual independent voice to journalism. And Jake Hammerhan, too.
Popular Front. Another independent voice.

Speaker 1 Okay. Here's one from

Speaker 1 Machu Picchu. We've been there.
Joe List took us there. Peru.
And I got another Peru one coming. What about ayahuasca? It's a good one.

Speaker 1 You'll be tripping. 151 First Avenue, number 49.
Don't write this down. New York, New York, 10003.
Whoa,

Speaker 1 cool. They've got the fucking stamp on it.
Check that fucking stamp. It's with a llama.

Speaker 1 Fucking badass.

Speaker 1 Fucking badass.

Speaker 1 And this is a very good postcard. Look at that.
Fucking cool. Get a little closer.

Speaker 1 Oh, I wish I could see insertion. Am I going to be demonetized for this? Look at him.
He's having a blast. Look at that guy's face.
He's having a good old time.

Speaker 1 Okay, it says Lamas and Machu Picchu. And then the translation is Lamas and Machu Picchu.
And the translation is Lamas

Speaker 1 Jamas and Machu Picchu.

Speaker 1 One letter off. The average Lama's dick is 15 inches long, and sexs last around 45 minutes.
At 11,000 feet, lasting that long is quite impressive. And the dick size is decent too.

Speaker 1 OE?

Speaker 1 DE?

Speaker 1 Could be OE. I don't know.
Is that like a XOXO? Danny Cox. Well, Danny, thank you very much for the postcard.
This is going up on the Patreon wall. Patreon.com slash UbiTripping.

Speaker 1 I'm going to start doing with Colin Tyrrell. We're going to do them together.

Speaker 1 Oh.

Speaker 1 You're be tripping. 151 First Avenue, number 49, New York, New York, 10003.
He sent this one from there to another fucking stamp.

Speaker 1 Some guys send it when they get home because you can't risk it, but I like the stamps. I say risk it.
Look at that.

Speaker 1 That's fucking badass, dude. We got a light.

Speaker 1 And it's got Cambodia, and these people are there. I never saw that lady.
I definitely didn't have sex with her. If you say I have sex with her, you're wrong.

Speaker 1 Unless she's never had a baby, and then you're right. I did have sex with her.
It was fucking great. We took that hat off.
We took that hat off, if you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 We took the hat off.

Speaker 1 See him reap Cambodia. Been there.
Traditional

Speaker 1 Apsara dancers.

Speaker 1 Photo 2006. Okay.

Speaker 1 Hey, Ari. Love the new podcast.
I'm out here in Phnom Penh, living a chill life on the cheap. God damn it, that makes me jealous.

Speaker 1 In Phnom Penh. So I was in Phnom Penh once, and my slippers, my slides that I brought out Southeast Asia my whole trip.
Guys, remember RHV for Skeptic Tank?

Speaker 1 And I did these long, long intros and they were cool. And then a fucking 20,000 podcast started.
And then they're like, hey, just get to the fucking episode. And we kind of missed those.

Speaker 1 And I can't delay the fucking episode in order to give you this fucking rant, but I can't do it at the end. I have fun.
Some of you have fun.

Speaker 1 The ones that don't don't have to tune in, the ones that do will tune in. Win-win.

Speaker 1 I'm out here living. Oh, so anyway, I had these slides, these Michael Jordan slides that I got in Portland, where I'll be in March with Adrian Appalucci.

Speaker 1 Tickets on San sanlabar at rhythm.com, at the Nike Outlet store. I got access to cheapest shit Nikes.
So I took them to,

Speaker 1 I rarely wore slides, but I was like, let me take these to Southeast Asia. I'll need flip-flops.
And I don't, I never liked the ones with the fucking thing in the middle.

Speaker 1 Until I got Burt Kreiser's, actually, because it's leather.

Speaker 1 The plastic ones always cut. It's like here.
They always cut.

Speaker 1 And then Birds, I got, but I got a similar pair of Burts with the leather in Guatemala. And then I got another one in Montauk.
The leather one's the way to go.

Speaker 1 But I got those Bert Chrysler Freewaters. Bert, I am your number one fan.
I've brought your shoe to Trinidad and Tobago. I've brought your shoe to Ecuador.
I've brought your shoe to Hawaii.

Speaker 1 I've brought your shoe to

Speaker 1 Australia.

Speaker 1 I've brought your shoe to a ton of places. But one place I did not bring it

Speaker 1 was Phnom Penh, Penn Cambodia because I didn't have them yet. And I had these slides, these Jordan slides.
And so I brought Warm Razor Myanmar.

Speaker 1 I flew to Thailand, warm off through Thailand, met a chick in Bali.

Speaker 1 We had sex, and it was great a bunch of times. And found some private beaches.
Oh, that chick ruled. She had a guy.
She knew a guy who was like a local Jakarta person.

Speaker 1 And so, like, her friend was trying to hook up with that guy. So I just got freebies, bro.
Hostel, hostel, hostel. Nice fucking villa.

Speaker 1 it was great what a great time and the sex was good um cambodia and then i went to i think i went from thailand to bali and then and then to pn penh i think i flew from from

Speaker 1 oh no

Speaker 1 i went to i went to bali later

Speaker 1 I went to Bali later because I went from Bali

Speaker 1 all the way through the islands.

Speaker 1 This trip. I got to do a full This is not happening story.
Archie was reading him storytelling show story about my trip from damn from Bali to Lombok all the way through there. God damn, that sucked.

Speaker 1 And then I went from Flores and Ende down to Kupang and then he's Timor.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I took the land border. So I would not have gone back there.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So, okay, Thailand,

Speaker 1 then Cambodia. And from Cambodia, I went to Vietnam, got sick of white people, went to South Vietnam, then took a boat up back to Phnom Penh.

Speaker 1 One of those trips to Phnom Penh,

Speaker 1 I realized that my shoes smelled so bad

Speaker 1 and it could not be saved. I soaked them in a bucket of soap.
I mean, it was just like, it was just like the worst cabs you ever smelled. Imagine them ass fucking each other.

Speaker 1 And I was trying to wash them, wouldn't work. And I was like, okay, whatever.

Speaker 1 I'm in a decent hotel. No, it was the one night stay over because I was in a decent hotel.
I never got the decent hotel. I know what it was.
It was after Vietnam.

Speaker 1 I took the boat back up and I was like, it's fucked. I mean, it's fucked.

Speaker 1 No wonder I couldn't get laid in Vietnam. I didn't get laid a lot, but I kind of fell in love in Vietnam one night, one day.

Speaker 1 But my shoes stung so bad. So, of course, how is she going to fuck me? Also, I think she was like seven.

Speaker 1 So I'm in there and then I'm like, didn't work to wash them. And then I try to soak them, didn't work.
And then I'm like, well, I got to find new flip-flops.

Speaker 1 I got to find new flip-flops. And so I went around and they were like, oh, I'm like, I think I'm a 45 European sizes.

Speaker 1 And they go, so let's say that's 11 and a half. And they go, will we have a 10? And I'm like, well, that won't do.
And they go, it'll stretch. They'll stretch.
I'm like, no, not a size and a half.

Speaker 2 You can't stretch a size and a half.

Speaker 1 You can stretch a little bit. And that's also just shoes, not flip-flops.
The base is what you want. The base is the thing, not even the things.

Speaker 1 Anyway, I found a Quicksilver store, which I later found to be a knockoff store.

Speaker 1 Bought some flip-flops. Finally found my size because no one had my size at any of the markets.
And it was like an all-day process. Found them.

Speaker 1 Realized it was a knockoff when I got to Komodo Island in Indonesia. That guy who's trying to hook up with a friend of the chick I fucked.

Speaker 1 He was like, you going to see Komodo Dragons? I was like, where's that? He goes, near here. And I was like, I've always wanted to.
Where is it? He goes, near a couple islands over. So I went.

Speaker 1 The bottom flap of

Speaker 1 my flip-flop started coming off. And I was about to chuck them

Speaker 1 right in Komodo Island. And then I'm like, oh, no, it took me a fucking full day to find my size.

Speaker 1 I can't fix them. I got to fix them.
I can't chuck them. I'll never find them again.

Speaker 1 So I found Superglue and I taped him. I glued him.
Did it a few times. They served me for the rest of the trip.
Took him to East Timor. Took him everywhere.
Wow, what a good memory. Dustin, buddy.

Speaker 1 Thanks for fucking reminding me of that. Living in a life on the cheap.

Speaker 1 Heading to Chiang Mai, then Pai tonight.

Speaker 1 Dude, enjoy the boomers in Pai.

Speaker 1 Via overnight bus and train. Wow, you're going from Phnom Penh.

Speaker 1 Overnight bus and train. Wow, because

Speaker 1 Chiang Mai is way up there. And Pai, I think, is

Speaker 1 further west than that. What a way to get there.
God damn, that's exciting.

Speaker 1 The overnight buses in Southeast Asia are crazy.

Speaker 1 I had some

Speaker 1 gay mishaps on those.

Speaker 1 Gonna be good to hit the road again. Enjoy your future travels.
Dustin Taylor. Dustin, buddy, this is going up on the wall, the Patreon wall.
I got a Machu Picchu one and I got a Cambodia one.

Speaker 1 God, that's exciting.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 1 Should I show you the wall? No, you'll see it if you're on the Patreon. Next week, Bobby Kelly is on the podcast talking about Cuba with me, me and Bobby Kelly.
It's a joint episode.

Speaker 1 I have another one of these coming about Guatemala with somebody I was there with. We did that in Gold Coast, Australia.

Speaker 1 But that's not coming up for a while. Today's episode is produced by Your Mom's House Network.
It's edited by Alan Caffey. Well done, I think.

Speaker 1 Don't forget, guys, Radio Free Afghanistan, Saad Mossey's book, get it right now.

Speaker 1 If you're a reader at all, it's available everywhere. I assume it's available on audiobook too, but possibly.
And Saad,

Speaker 1 first of all, send me some Afghani money for my wall, please. Anything.
Doesn't have to be major. In fact, it should not be major.
If you guys are in a faraway place, of a place we've been,

Speaker 1 please send it as well. Here's what I got so far.
You figure out who I need. This is China during the fucking lockdowns.
They put out special money.

Speaker 1 They put out special money with everybody in fucking hazmat suits. Kenya, Didman Roe Martin, nominee best trip,

Speaker 1 I would say. Thailand, okay, that's where you're headed.
Egypt, Bank of Scotland, Romania, Hungary.

Speaker 1 Where's that Mongolia?

Speaker 2 What the fuck is that?

Speaker 1 Japan? I don't know. Mexico, Canada.

Speaker 1 I don't remember. Some of these Soviet ones, they really don't try.
I I don't remember where that one is. Costa Rica, have we been there yet? And Desert Kuna.
What is that?

Speaker 1 And the U.S.

Speaker 1 I got more. I got more to put up, but I haven't put up.
Next week, I'll put up my Cuba one.

Speaker 1 Alright, everybody.

Speaker 1 Until the next week with Bobby Kelly.

Speaker 1 Have a good day. Wait, where'd we go? Oh.

Speaker 1 Asalaamu Alaikum. I'm guessing.