Rachel Bloom

Summary

Podcast Summary: Joy with Rachel Bloom Hosted by Craig Ferguson | Released on December 17, 2024

---

Introduction In this episode of Joy, Craig Ferguson sits down with Rachel Bloom, one of America's most innovative and talented performers of the past two decades. Ferguson opens the conversation by praising Bloom's background and her role as a mother, setting the stage for a deep and insightful discussion about joy, creativity, and personal growth.

[00:01:45] Introduction to Rachel Bloom Craig introduces Rachel Bloom, highlighting her as "one of the most interesting and different and talented American performers to emerge in the last 20 years" ([01:45]). He compliments her on balancing her professional life with motherhood, noting her "fresh and young and upbeat" demeanor.

Rachel Bloom’s Humor and Creative Process Rachel discusses her unique approach to comedy and storytelling, particularly through her work on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. She explains how the show blends stand-up comedy with storytelling and one-act plays, allowing for a deeper exploration of personal and emotional themes.

[05:58] Innovative Comedy Techniques Rachel elaborates on experimenting with unconventional elements in her comedy, such as introducing a character who claims to be Death. She explains, “[05:58] 'We kept cutting down the time that we revealed it was a plant so that people wouldn't be worried for their lives.'” This creative risk led to genuine reactions from the audience, enhancing the show's impact.

Impact of Motherhood on Perspectives The conversation shifts to how becoming a parent has profoundly altered both Rachel and Craig's worldviews. Rachel shares that motherhood has made her more empathetic and sensitive, affecting how she consumes media and interacts with the world.

[12:51] Transformation Through Parenthood Craig remarks, “[12:51] 'Everything about my perspective in life started to change a lot after my first son was born.'” Rachel concurs, adding that having a child has made her more emotionally attuned and less able to remain entirely impartial.

Skepticism and Beliefs Rachel delves into her interest in skepticism and the search for truth, discussing her attendance at a skeptics' convention in Las Vegas. She touches on topics like debunking pseudoscience in health trends and expresses admiration for figures like Carl Sagan.

[18:10] Skeptics’ Conference Insights Rachel describes a keynote by Neil deGrasse Tyson, reflecting on human intelligence and our place in the universe: “[18:10] 'Neil deGrasse Tyson was... talking about how objectively unspecial human beings are.'” She emphasizes the importance of evidence-based thinking while remaining open to wonder.

Mental Health and Moral Compass The discussion evolves into mental health, accountability, and the formation of a moral compass without relying on religious frameworks. Rachel shares her journey towards developing her own sense of right and wrong, driven by a desire to spread joy and minimize pain.

[47:17] Developing Morality Without Religion Rachel states, “[47:17] 'How do you teach someone a sense of right and wrong?... I'm still navigating.'” Craig and Rachel explore the complexity of maintaining moral standards in a secular context, debating whether spirituality is necessary for ethical behavior.

Historical Reflections and Adaptation Craig introduces his fascination with historical narratives, particularly through Gore Vidal's novels, linking historical chaos to contemporary societal issues. Both discuss the importance of adaptation over brute strength for survival, referencing evolutionary principles.

[31:30] Adaptation vs. Brute Strength Craig muses, “[31:30] 'Those who adapt survive, then the intelligence survive. That's an optimistic worldview.'” Rachel agrees, illustrating with examples from evolution and human dominance.

Balancing Kindness and Judgment Rachel shares personal anecdotes about striving to be kind while grappling with judgmental tendencies. She humorously recounts how her driving habits have become a teaching tool for her young daughter, blending kindness with personal growth.

[50:15] Balancing Kindness with Human Flaws Rachel humorously admits, “[50:15] 'I am so petty... but now it's got... a running joke of my kind of Soviet re-education camp.'” This highlights the balance between nurturing kindness and acknowledging innate human imperfections.

Conclusion As the conversation wraps up, Craig and Rachel reflect on the enduring chaos of life and the importance of kindness amidst turmoil. They discuss the ongoing journey of personal development and maintaining mental health in an increasingly complex world. Craig praises Rachel’s work, calling her special projects "masterpieces," and both express mutual admiration and respect.

Notable Quotes:

• Craig Ferguson [01:45]: "Rachel Bloom... one of the most interesting and different and talented American performers to emerge in the last 20 years."
• Rachel Bloom [05:58]: "We kept cutting down the time that we revealed it was a plant so that people wouldn't be worried for their lives."
• Rachel Bloom [12:51]: "Everything about my perspective in life started to change a lot after my first son was born."
• Rachel Bloom [18:10]: "Neil deGrasse Tyson was... talking about how objectively unspecial human beings are."
• Rachel Bloom [47:17]: "How do you teach someone a sense of right and wrong?... I'm still navigating."
• Craig Ferguson [31:30]: "Those who adapt survive, then the intelligence survive. That's an optimistic worldview."
• Rachel Bloom [50:15]: "I am so petty... but now it's got... a running joke of my kind of Soviet re-education camp."

Key Topics Covered:

• Creative Innovation: Rachel Bloom's blend of comedy and storytelling.
• Personal Transformation: The impact of parenthood on personal perspectives.
• Skepticism and Belief Systems: Balancing evidence-based thinking with wonder.
• Mental Health and Morality: Developing a moral compass without religion.
• Historical Insights: Understanding chaos in history and its parallels today.
• Kindness vs. Judgment: Striving for kindness while acknowledging human flaws.

This episode offers a rich exploration of joy through the lenses of creativity, parenthood, skepticism, and personal growth, providing listeners with profound insights and relatable anecdotes from two accomplished individuals.

Transcript

[Chase Business]

Small Business owners. This one's for you. Chase for Business and iheart bring you a podcast series called the Unshakables. This one of a kind series will shine the spotlight on small business owners like you who faced a do or die moment that ultimately made their business what it is today. Learn [e-mail] business podcast Chase Make More of what's Yours Chase Mobile app is available for select mobile devices. Message and data rates may apply. JPMorgan Chase Bank NA Member FDIC Copyright 2024 JPMorgan Chase Income you wake up.

[Meta AI User]

Put on your Ray Ban Meta glasses. You're living all in. You realize you need coffee so you.

[Meta AI]

Say hey Meta, how do I make a latte?

[Craig Ferguson]

Brew two shots of espresso?

[Meta AI User]

After Meta AI gets you caffeinated, you're ready for some beats.

[Meta AI]

Hey Meta. Play hip hop music.

[Meta AI User]

You head to meet some friends but can't remember the place.

[Meta AI]

Hey Meta.

[Meta AI User]

Call Eva Ray Ban Meta Glasses, the next generation of AI Glasses. Just say hey Meta. To harness the power of Meta AI, shop now at meta.com smartglasses.

[Radhi Devlukia]

This is Radhi Devlukia from a really good Cry when you take a shower, where does your shower take you? If you're like me, your shower is your escape from everything. The Kola Anthem plus Smart Showering system lets you create a personalized refuge by fine tuning water, steam, light and sound all from a single control. You can customize music and lighting, even pre programmed steam therapies. With Anthem plus, you're not just imagining your sanctuary, you are creating it and you can save up to nine of your customized favorites. Personalize your escape with Anthem plus Smart Showering only from Cola the Craig Ferguson.

[Craig Ferguson]

Pants on Fire Tour is on sale now. It's a new show. It's it's new material, but I am afraid it's still only me, Craig Ferguson on my own, standing on a stage telling comedy words. Come and see me, buy tickets, bring your loved ones or don't come and see me. Don't buy tickets and don't bring your loved ones. I'm not your dad. You come or don't come, but you should at least know it's happening. And it is. The tour kicks off late September and goes through the end of the year and beyond. Tickets are [e-mail] tour. They're available at thecraigfergussonshow.com tour or at your local outlet in your region. My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast is Joy. I talk to interesting people about what brings them happiness on the podcast today, for my money, one of the most interesting and different and talented American performers to emerge in the last 20 years. She's really thoughtful, clever, interesting, talented. Well, you're going to find all of this out. It's Rachel Bloom. May I compliment you, first of all, on your background, which is amazing. And also the. The fact that you are dealing with a young child right now, and you look fresh and young and upbeat and lovely, and I'm jealous.

[Rachel Bloom]

Well, I slapped on some makeup just before I came on here, and I had a glass of wine last night, which to me is six glasses of wine. Cause I have no tolerance, so that means a lot that I look fresh.

[Craig Ferguson]

No, you look great. And listen, I know what it's like to have a little kid. It's. My God, every time I see people and I'm in a hotel right now, when I see people in hotels with little kids, I always say, are you. Is anybody getting any sleep? And everybody always like, no, no.

[Rachel Bloom]

It's all encompassing. She. She was at a sleepover last night. So it was nice to go out and come home and to be like, oh, my God, there's no one. I don't have to care for anyone in this house. I mean, that sounds very mean because I still have a husband and a dog. But. But to not. To not be responsible for someone's life for one night. Cause even when you're off the clock, you're on the clock.

[Craig Ferguson]

I was gonna say you probably woke up panicked in the middle of the night.

[Rachel Bloom]

It was weird.

[Craig Ferguson]

Yeah, I know, I know. I've done it myself. Hey, here's what I have to tell you. I'm a little angry. I'm a little angry at you.

[Rachel Bloom]

Oh, okay. Okay.

[Craig Ferguson]

All right.

[Rachel Bloom]

I'll take it.

[Craig Ferguson]

Because. Because I'm watching death. Let me do my special. And you shouldn't make people cry and be scared in stand up comedy. That's not stand up. I was scared. I had no idea. Like, when the death thing started, I'm like, just fucking with me, man. I don't like it. Did the audience know that was going to happen?

[Rachel Bloom]

No, no. It really fucked with people. When the show, when we started trying it out, it was called, like, rachel, try some new stuff out and see what happens. So people really had no idea. And then, of course, you know, the country we live in, we kept cutting down the time that we revealed it was a plant so that people wouldn't be worried for their lives. Because the second year, someone say, I'm death, you're like, what? So that was.

[Craig Ferguson]

I saw that. Yeah.

[Rachel Bloom]

So that was also like, okay, the second we're gonna hear him heckle, but the second he says, I'm Death, let's get him on mic so, you know something's up.

[Craig Ferguson]

Yes.

[Rachel Bloom]

So that was something we worked on. But, yeah, no, it fucked with people. And then when we called the show Death let me do my. People still thought it was real, but they knew something would be off about the show, but they thought it was. They thought it was real. And then they grew to not trust anything in the show to the point where I had actual weird things happen in the show and a couple of actual hecklers. People assumed it was built in.

[Craig Ferguson]

That's kind of great, though, isn't it? I mean, even I first became aware of your work with Crazy Ex Girlfriend, like most people, I think. And I always thought, like, I remember the first episode of that show going, the fuck is happening? Why is. And then it took me. And I love that it reminded me of you. Ever seen the movie Trainspotting?

[Rachel Bloom]

No.

[Craig Ferguson]

All right. Well, you should see it, because you'd really like it. It's an upbeat tale of heroin addiction in Edinburgh in the 1990s.

[Rachel Bloom]

Oh, you know what? I saw it a long time ago. Yes.

[Craig Ferguson]

There's a scene in that movie where Ewan McGregor, as a drug addict, drops a vial of heroin, a kind of anal heroin input thing, down a public bathroom. And it's disgusting, but he knows the only way he can get the heroin is put his hand into the horrible toilet to get the heroin. And then when he goes into the toilet, he goes all the way into the toilet. And he's swimming in this beautiful ocean in this toilet. And they play Brian Eno's Deep Blue Sea, and it's so beautiful. And when I saw Crazy Ex Girlfriend, I thought, whatever, McGuffin, in the head of Irvin Welch that created that story, you have that, too. You know that.

[Rachel Bloom]

Oh, well, thank you. That's a big. And I didn't even need heroin.

[Craig Ferguson]

Well, what I'm saying to you is maybe it's time as your daughter gets a little older, maybe you start thinking about heroin, especially when she's on a sleepover. That would be the time.

[Rachel Bloom]

That's the one.

[Craig Ferguson]

That's the time to do it. But it's an interesting thing because I was very taken with the special.

[Rachel Bloom]

Oh, that means a lot. I really obviously love you and respect you. That means a lot to me.

[Craig Ferguson]

Oh, my God. No, it's fantastic. Anyone who fucks with a genre that is tired. Anyway, stand up comedy. There's too many people doing it. It's like everybody's playing C, F and G on the guitar. It's like, stop it, stop it, stop it. And then somebody comes along and throws in a huge minor chord and a five, eight drum thing and suddenly the whole world opens up again. And I'm now enthusiastic again about stand up comedy. And you have no idea how jaded I am that suddenly you see somebody doing. You go, fuck. There's more room again. There's. Somebody's breaking it again. It's great.

[Rachel Bloom]

That really means a lot to me. Thank you.

[Craig Ferguson]

Well, it's the truth. And what I was. You paid a high fucking price for it, though. Like.

[Rachel Bloom]

Yeah.

[Craig Ferguson]

When you talk about the death of Adam and the show, that to me is. It's such a weird. A weird twist on the. I don't even. Is it stand up comedy? Is that what it is?

[Rachel Bloom]

It's like stand up. I always say it's. It's a standup show wrapped in a storytelling show wrapped in a one act play kind of. So it kind of veers more into storytelling as it gets. Especially when I get into just like, all right, my character is talking about this for the first time. Right. So it's like, okay, let's just go day by day, what happened? And then you're in real storytelling where it's like, all right, I'll just tell you about this terrible week where I gave birth, my friend died. And so that's where it gets. It gets very storytelling in that granularness.

[Craig Ferguson]

It's a very kind of horribly convenient for story thing to event. I mean, it's a cataclysmic kind of. Because I've been, you know, I've had friends that I. Obviously everyone has. And I've been at two live births. The both of my children. My God, they're so weird.

[Rachel Bloom]

They're so weird.

[Craig Ferguson]

It's like that weird kind of energy, like somebody's coming.

[Rachel Bloom]

And it's bloody and it's. There's nothing else in life that's a central life event where it's also going to be gory.

[Craig Ferguson]

Yeah.

[Rachel Bloom]

Unless you have really good birthday parties, I guess. But it's like gruesomeness is. Is part of it. And so you're already in this very fleshy, bloody place that feels very primal.

[Craig Ferguson]

And there's poop, too. Let's be honest. There's poop.

[Rachel Bloom]

You know what? I'm astounded with me, there wasn't poop, but.

[Craig Ferguson]

Oh, stop Stop. You're amongst friends. Of course, there was no poop.

[Rachel Bloom]

Me neither was. No one told me, they're being nice to you.

[Craig Ferguson]

There's.

[Rachel Bloom]

But maybe I. I would have been fine if there were. But, yeah, no, there's everything. I mean, and there was a. My husband was trying not to. To look, but there was a mirror on the other side of the room where you could see everything. And I didn't really see the birth because everyone was blocking it. But after she was born and they took her to the NICU and the placenta was still in, I caught a glimpse of open wound placenta, umbilical cord. It was. It's weird.

[Craig Ferguson]

It's unbelievable. Isn't it crazy? And it changed everything. I mean, clearly, for a mother, is physically astonishing, you know, change. But everything in my life changed. Everything that my entire perspective of the world changed when I became a father. And I hear people say, oh, not having kids. And I'm like, fine, that's your choice. It's okay. But I always say that all the great philosophers in history, none of them had children. That's actually. No, it's not true. But I say it to people because I want to shame them. But really, what I think it is everything, you know, that people say that there's lazy assumptions that I think people I made before I had kids. One of them was, you know, people say that thing, well, we're born alone and we die alone. And I've been at two live births, and as far as I can tell, nobody is born alone. There's at least two people in the room. There's. Nobody's born alone. It's utter bullshit. And I. I just. Everything about my perspective in life started to change a lot after. After my. My first son was born. It is weird. Is that. What. Is that what's happening to you?

[Rachel Bloom]

100%. I mean, I say a little in the special where, you know, ever since I've given birth, a story of a child being hurt anywhere messes with me. It. I got into it a little bit, basically. Yeah. Like, it kind of makes sense. I know it's not technically true that philosophers, all the great philosophers didn't have kids, because before you have kids, there is an impartiality that you can have on the world. There's a moral impartiality that you can have. There's this scene in the HBO show the Last of Us. I don't know. Did you watch it?

[Craig Ferguson]

I did. I love that show.

[Rachel Bloom]

So remember when it's like someone basically turns in the head of this rebel alliance in exchange for cancer medication for his brother. And he's like, I wanted to prevent a child from dying. And Melanie Lynskey's character goes, children die. Children die literally all the time. This wasn't worth it. And before you have a kid, you can say that, right? There's a certain amount you can zoom out from the world and look at history and say, yeah, well, life is gruesome. Life is horrible. And I had such a strong stomach for. I don't. True crime for. I went to the Museum of Death. I was gonna say I went to the Museum of Death in la where it's the most gruesome crime scene photo. And it's just. You're like, yeah, that is what it is. And then I had a kid and it just blew that wide open. There's no. There's no. It's so much harder to be impartial because you would do anything for this kid.

[Craig Ferguson]

Yeah.

[Rachel Bloom]

And you would. I turn in the founder of a rebel alliance to get my child cancer treatment. Fuck, yeah. In an absolute second. So you're led by your heart and emotion. And now the media that I can consume has completely. Not completely, but it's really, really done in almost 180, where I'm exactly the same. I'm just so much more sensitive and. And empathetic. But, like, in a. In a painful way.

[Craig Ferguson]

Yeah, I mean, I can't watch. I used to watch British detective shows about, you know, crumbly detectives. And they have this thing going on with British. A lot of British detective shows. There's the murder of a child. And I was like, I can't do it. Or a child is even missing. Maybe the child's gonna be okay, but you don't know. But the child missing, that's enough. I don't wanna see it. And it is an odd thing. And it's not because. I don't know, it happens. I was able to consume that media before, like you say. But it's because I can't stand it. It's not entertainment. All it does is make me feel awful all the time.

[Rachel Bloom]

Yeah, that's what. It's not even. And it's not even in the way that darker shit used to make me. Like, okay, this is dark. But like, okay, it's teaching me a lesson. I'm so consumed by the emotion, I'm like, I'm not learning a lesson from this right now.

[Craig Ferguson]

Yeah, it's funny that as well. I think even when I. When I have dark thoughts about my own Mortality. And I thought, well, better not die now, because that would really upset the kids. Yeah, it's like, I'll be fine, but whatever happens to me, happens to me. But I would be.

[Rachel Bloom]

Oh, you start to have this narrative of like, oh, yeah, sometimes when I get on a plane alone, and I'm like, oh, this is the movie in my daughter's life where it's the last time she saw her mom.

[Craig Ferguson]

Oh, I do it all the time.

[Rachel Bloom]

Right. Because they do that in so many where it's like, oh, this is the last time. And this is the story she's going to tell herself now where it's like, goodbye, I'm going to Vegas. And then it's like. And I never saw her again.

[Craig Ferguson]

So you're telling me you left your daughter to go to Vegas?

[Rachel Bloom]

I did go to Vegas alone a couple weeks ago. That is true.

[Hesu Jo]

I did.

[Rachel Bloom]

There was a skeptic. There was a convention of skeptics, and my friend was speaking at it, and I. And I went for literally a night.

[Craig Ferguson]

I. First of all, I have to take you back because I need to know what happens at a convention of skeptics and why they would meet in Las Vegas to gamble. That seems like a contradiction.

[Rachel Bloom]

Okay, so as far as I can tell, Vegas is just where you meet, because they have good convention centers, and it's. Well, it's not even somewhat central. It's still West Coast. I don't know. But it was a convention for the center for Inquiry held at the Horseshoe Las Vegas. And it was just a bunch of panels and speeches about science and skepticism. And I'm really, really into this. And I'm. I'm a big old skeptical atheist. And it was like, absolutely my jam. And my friend Reena was there speaking about. She's really, really good. She's actually a book called the Gospel of Wellness. That's awesome. About the pseudoscience of the wellness industry and why we turn to pseudoscience and why even now, with all the information on the Internet, people are still so mired in false truths. And also. Yeah.

[Craig Ferguson]

Have you ever read the Demon Haunted World?

[Rachel Bloom]

Yes, I have.

[Craig Ferguson]

It's fantastic, isn't it?

[Rachel Bloom]

It's. It's. It's unbelievable.

[Craig Ferguson]

Carl Sagan's the Demon Haunted World, for those of who haven't read it.

[Rachel Bloom]

And I still think about. I still think about the thing he says, which is, you know, when people talk about. And this is more about paranormal phenomena, but he's like, all right, so imagine you're. You're in a house. You're looking at a glass sliding door and there's a fireplace behind you. During the day you would see the backyard. During the day the sun starts to set. Suddenly what you see is the reflection in the glass of the fireplace behind you. But you've been looking out the window all day so it just looks like suddenly there's a fire outside. And he compares that to the way our brain tricks us into thinking we might be seeing things that aren't there and hearing things that aren't there. I still use that as an ex.

[Chase Business]

Small Business Owners this one's for you. Chase for Business and iheart bring you a podcast series called the Unshakables. This one of a kind series will shine the spotlight on small business owners like you who faced a do or die moment that ultimately made their business what it is today. Learn [e-mail] business podcast Chase make More of what's Yours Chase Mobile app is available for select mobile devices. Message and data rates may apply JPMorgan Chase Bank NA Member FDIC Copyright 2024 JPMorgan Chase & Co. Have you thought.

[Craig Ferguson]

About a gift for yourself this year? One that has the power to help you grow, learn, and become a better version of you? Give yourself the gift of language by getting Babbel Speak like a whole new you with Babbel, the language learning app that gets you talking with quick 10 minute lessons handcrafted by over 200 language experts, Babbel gets you talking a new language in three weeks. And because talking is the key to really knowing a language, Babbel is designed for real conversation. Wasting hundreds on private tutors is the old way of learning languages. And I certainly wouldn't recommend the way I used to do it, which was drunk in the back of a taxi in a country you'd never been to before, trying to find your way around that is also no way to learn a language. So here is a special holiday deal right now get up to 60% off your Babbel subscription, but only for our [e-mail] joy get up to 60% [e-mail] joy spelled b a B-B-E-L.com joy rules and restrictions may apply.

[Meta AI User]

You wake up, put on your Ray Ban Meta glasses, classic style, innovative tech. You're living all in. You realize you need coffee desperately.

[Meta AI]

So you say, hey Meta, how do I make a latte?

[Craig Ferguson]

To make a latte, brew two shots of espresso.

[Meta AI User]

After Meta AI gets you caffeinated, you start walking to work and you need a soundtrack.

[Meta AI]

Hey Meta Play hip hop music.

[Meta AI User]

With the built in camera, you snap a pic of a dope mural on the side of a building that you think is worth sharing.

[Meta AI]

Hey Meta. Text my last photo to Eva.

[Craig Ferguson]

Sending message.

[Meta AI User]

After work you head to meet some friends.

[Rachel Bloom]

Hey, nice glasses.

[Meta AI User]

Ray Ban meta glasses. The next generation of AI glasses. Just say hey Meta. To harness the power of meta AI listen to music, make hands free calls with open air audio and built in microphones and so much more. All while staying present to the world around you. Shop Ray Ban meta [e-mail] smartglasses.

[Craig Ferguson]

There'S a quote that he does at the start of the book which I think is fantastic. He's talking about a taxi driver that he gets who's asking him about, so where is Atlantis? You're Carl Sagan, where's Atlantis? And he's like, I don't know what you're talking about. You know, the city under the sea. And he's like, I'm. No. But he. Then he goes into a quote from Leon Trotsky, who, to be honest, not my favorite guy in the world, but Leon Trotsky is talking about the rise of the Nazis in Germany. And he's talking about, you know, I'm paraphrasing it until the end. I only remember the end, but the paraphrase in the Trotsky says, you know, they have pilots who wear amulets to give them good luck while they have, you know, while they pilot these magnificent machines of engineering. And he talks about all these different people who do superstitious things while doing very scientifically advanced things. And then this is the thing that he zeros in to make it about the rise of the Nazis. He says this quote, which I still find chilling, he says about human beings, what remarkable reserves they possess of darkness, ignorance and savagery. And I was like, whoa. And I feel like that's accurate. Even now. We have remarkable amounts of darkness, ignorance and savagery. People are very on fire right now.

[Rachel Bloom]

Oh, it's, it's all, I mean, to put it bluntly, to make me sound like I'm 90. We weren't ready for the Internet. No, we just weren't.

[Craig Ferguson]

I don't think anyone's ready. I'm not ready for it now.

[Rachel Bloom]

I'm not ready because it takes advantage of tribalism, which is, which is in us. Like I, I think I might be wrong, but I feel like I read somewhere the reason Homo sapiens is the dominant, you know, the only dominant kind of species of our kind is because we just killed everyone else. Because it Was, you know, the Neanderthals were wiped out.

[Craig Ferguson]

We killed the ne. I think that I also heard that same study, though. I also heard that we actually just shagged the Neanderthals and we're all like, their genes stopped coming through and everybody got their sex on and the humans came through more. Homo sapiens came through more than Neanderthals. But I might have just been looking at a completely erroneous report, or I may even.

[Rachel Bloom]

Maybe it's a beautiful mix.

[Craig Ferguson]

I think it might be a little bit of both, a little of column A little of column B. But let me take you back to Las Vegas because it's important to me because I don't think I know enough about skeptics, modern skepticism, and I would like you to take me through it.

[Rachel Bloom]

Well, I think it's still finding of what is it generationally now, because I would say it was overwhelmingly a lot of people who are Gen X or boomers. And there's a lot of skepticism that's still about UFO paranormal debunking. Because. Because it's very much in. In con. It's very much in conversation with. With like, New Age stuff that came about in, like, the 60s, the 70s. Right, right. So UFOs are less of a thing now. But if you were born in the 50s, you know, Roswell, there's so much about that aspect of the paranormal that they're still debunking, which is very interesting. But I think what was really cool about this is my friend Rena and some other people spoke more about taking a skeptic lens into health trends and into. There was this really, really interesting speech, I forget who it was, of this journalist comparing Gwyneth Paltrow goop culture of that kind of pseudoscience, like, put this jade egg up. Up your vagina to.

[Craig Ferguson]

Thank you for saying it. I noticed that as well.

[Rachel Bloom]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's a lot of parallel with that with what's going on with now the manosphere. I don't know if you've heard about the manosphere, which is like, it's. It's like. I feel like Joe Rogan's like, kind of a part of this where. Where it's just like all of these things you can do to make yourself as manly as you can. Like, people are drinking their piss. There's this one guy who's like, people. People are fully drinking their own fermented piss because they're like, this will make you. Man. This will make you, like, manly. And it. And it's also why? People are. It kind of goes into. People are chewing really tough gum to get a chiseled jaw. Like, that's a big thing now to, like, look as manly as possible. And it's just the kind of flip of the Gwyneth Paltrow stuff where it's like, pseudo sciencey stuff to be the best that you can be and be the most of your. I don't know, it's all about, like, primal, right? Like, go, let's go back to being a man. Like, there's this. There are these influencers who are like, I only eat raw meat. And look at me. I'm. I'm. I'm fucking shredded. And then it turns out he's doing a lot of steroids.

[Craig Ferguson]

I only eat raw meat and steroids.

[Rachel Bloom]

Yeah, exactly. But it's the same thing where it's on the female pseudoscience end, where it's like, I only eat grass and spring water. Also, I can afford a trainer six times a week. So that's the bigger. That's probably the bigger thing.

[Craig Ferguson]

But that does not play into archetypes. Those things play into archetypes of aesthetics as well. Like the. You know, like, if a square jaw makes you more manly. But, you know, David Bowie was a man. Andy Warhol is a man. Arnold Schwarzenegger is a man. You know, there are. There are men who look different. I mean, I guess it's like. To look like a cartoon man. Maybe.

[Rachel Bloom]

I think it. Well, it all. Look, it also relates to a lot of the cultural thing of, like, men need to assert themselves, men need to be masculine. It's a thing that's, I think, more on. More on the. What you would call the right. Although I don't even know what that means anymore. But the idea of, like, men need to be men and women need to be women, and the world will be more organized once men are empowered again to embrace their true power and potential. As opposed to. The journalist was like. As opposed to me. He's like, I'm a soy boy beta cuck. He's like, I'm their nightmare. So it's like, whatever. Like, I guess they would consider David Bowie a soy boy beta cuck.

[Craig Ferguson]

See, that's interesting, because my definition of masculinity is, like, aspirational. Masculinity for me as a man is individualism, is fuck you. You know, this is how we all have to be. Fuck you. It's how we have to be. This is how I am, you know? So if I'm like. And you're labeled Beta Cuck. Fuck your Beta Cuck label. I'm a man, you know, and I kind of. I don't like to allow people who have a different view of the world than me to give me a name that I then have to adopt.

[Rachel Bloom]

Oh, you know, that's all the Internet is.

[Craig Ferguson]

Yeah, I know.

[Rachel Bloom]

All the Internet is people giving other people names.

[Craig Ferguson]

That you have to take. And I think if you have a name, no matter what part of the spectrum you're on, the political sphere you're on, if you have a name for a group of other people, you need to take a fucking look at yourself because people are people. And I think that that's what fascinates me is that I always thought the Internet was a bit like show business, that it's only dangerous if you take it seriously. But yeah, if you take it seriously, it can kill you.

[Rachel Bloom]

You know, I really love on Crazy Ex Girlfriend, we did a whole story about a character getting sober and we actually watched some of your work in the room. You did a great monologue. It was when Britney Spears was having her meltdown. Because we were talking about what you learn in AA and to be non judgmental and how in that you were saying, like, I don't want to say she's not. I don't, I don't judge, I don't, I don't want to say what she is. And I just love. I don't know, I really see that, that kind of non judgmental space in what you're saying right now. And, and it's just really cool. It's really cool to see like evolved recovery and how it continues to clearly like affect your worldview in all sorts of awesome ways.

[Craig Ferguson]

I think that it's the idea of it. Thank you. But I think the idea of it is that the idea of evolution I think has. It's interesting, people say that the evolution, and I think this is part of this masculine thing right now that the strongest survive. And that's not true. The strongest don't survive. Mammoths are plenty strong. Saber toothed tigers strong. You know, it's not about strong. It's those who adapt, survive. If you can adapt to the changing environment, you survive. And so I think that by. If you extrapolate, those that adapt survive, then the intelligence survive. That's an optimistic worldview. I know. But I think that, I feel like, you know, Hannah Arendt was it. Hannah Arendt said if evil had triumphed even once, good wouldn't exist or something like that. I don't know if that was her or was someone else. I mean, she said a lot of very things and. But so have a lot of other people.

[Rachel Bloom]

Yeah, I was gonna say, I don't know, you know, you know, better than. Better than me, if that was her. But. But that. But yeah, that's a really good. Has anyone else made that point?

[Craig Ferguson]

Oh, I'm sure they must have. There's nothing here.

[Rachel Bloom]

You're not the first person to point out that adaptation is actually a better quality than just brute strength. Because. Yeah, like, the reason that mammals became superior and that there was like mammalian supremacy in the first place is because when the asteroid hit and killed off the dinosaurs, all these little moles were living underground.

[Craig Ferguson]

Right?

[Rachel Bloom]

And so that's why now we're here. And that's why mammals rose to the top. Without that, who the fuck knows where we'd be? We'd all be, you know, feathered bird.

[Craig Ferguson]

Lizard people, you know, I've had a few nights.

[Rachel Bloom]

Yeah. I was also going to say, if you asked certain corners of the Internet, they'll say, well, okay, a lot of people watch, that's fine.

[Craig Ferguson]

I don't know, I mean, I think it's quite interesting because it also depends on your idea of what success is like. Is your success as a species, Is it numbers? Is it sheer numbers? Because if it is, ants win. Or is it intelligence? Is it a soul? Is there a soul? I mean, what do the skeptics say about the soul? Is there a soul?

[Rachel Bloom]

I mean, I think that the skeptics are. It's all about kind of always searching. That's the thing that I always take from the skeptic community is it's always searching for the truth. So soul? No, I mean, there's never been any. It's all evidence based, right? So there's never really been any evidence of a soul. A lot of what you're saying, also the keynote speaker the night I was there was Neil Degrasse Tyson. And a lot of what you're saying is exactly what he was saying. He's like, all right, so if aliens came and they wanted to talk to, you know, the smartest animal, how would they gauge that we don't have the biggest brains of any animal on earth? And he started to go through what are the animals with the biggest brains? And he's like, okay, well, let's say we're looking at brain to body ratio. We're not the animals, even with the, you know, biggest brain to body ratio. And so he's really started breaking it down about how objectively unspecial human beings are. If you were. If you were an alien species looking down at us. And that was his whole.

[Craig Ferguson]

Counter to that, though. Yeah, Louis CK has a great counter to that, which is humans remove themselves from the food chain. So that's pretty impressive. Like, for most of history, humans died. Like. Yeah, it doesn't. That doesn't happen really anymore. It's a. No, we're perfectly capable of destroying ourselves, but it's, you know, and then actually, if you think about it, maybe we didn't. I mean, look at Covid, for example, with Adam. You know, it's like plague comes, it comes.

[Rachel Bloom]

So maybe there's nothing you can do. It's. Why, what is it is the movie the Sword and the Stone. There's a, you know, it's an animated movie. It's King Arthur and Merlin. There's a wizard fight. And the way the wizard fight culminates, I want to say, is they're like turning into. One's a dragon, the other turns into a bear. And finally Merlin disappears and he's become a virus. Oh, and he just gets the other wizard very sick because he's like, this is actually the most powerful thing.

[Craig Ferguson]

Yeah. And maybe that was like the last of us when they do that, the beginning of it when they're doing that show about fungus in the 1970s that.

[Rachel Bloom]

Was such a good cold open to acknowledge. Hey, I know we're in a pandemic, but there's actually something. There's actually something worse. That was a really chilling way to open a show.

[Craig Ferguson]

How do you deal with that now that. I'll tell you what I'm leading up to. I had to adapt my entire Veltun Shang. My entire worldview had to change when I became a parent because now there was someone who mattered more than my feelings on Earth. And it continued with my second child. And I think that it led me in a very different path that I'd been to before. I was very evidence based right up until I became a parent. And I'm on a deep dive right now with the early Christian mystics and the Moses and his gang. And I mean, it's like I'm off on all sorts of adventures with those people now. And we had Pythagoras, who was like a real, you know, and Gore Vidal's historical novels, which, if you haven't read them. Oh my God. Have you. Have you done any of those?

[Rachel Bloom]

No, no. Oh, you have to put it on my list now.

[Craig Ferguson]

Oh, my God. It's amazing. Amazing. But all I became much More interested in the uneven in the lack of evidence than in the evidence. And I think it came from that moment of being at my first live birth, apart from my own, which I don't remember. But that weird moment where it all. There's no words for it. I don't even think there's just some kind of weird gap in the universe and then somebody knew is there and it freaked me out. It had a profound effect on me. And I am no longer evidence based.

[Rachel Bloom]

Oh, that's interesting.

[Craig Ferguson]

Yeah.

[Rachel Bloom]

So I'm not there. I think that I see it more as my emotions and my empathy have been just cracked open in a way that makes it very hard for me to be totally objective and totally impartial. But for me, I guess the thing with looking for evidence based stuff, and this might just be really personal to me is the part of the reason I'm interested in all of it and skepticism and you know, the search for the truth is I want someone to find the proof of the mystic. And I'm.

[Craig Ferguson]

Not.

[Rachel Bloom]

But that's what I'm looking for. Right. I know I'm looking for, what is it? I read this woman named Mary Roach who writes amazing books. I read was it stiff or Spook. She's written two books about death and the search for the afterlife. I read that stuff because I'm like, maybe this will be the thing that proves it. Which is very, I think not everyone, but it's why I like the skeptic area is from a very young age I knew that I kind of liked this area. But also I didn't want to believe in things that weren't true. So this is the way I split the difference. Cause what's funny, my own therapist, I was talking to her about my interest in this and she goes, you know, she's like, I don't really believe in this stuff. She's like, I'm an atheist. She's like, I just don't think, think about this stuff. You really have a thing where you're. You want to immerse yourself in this skepticism paranormal investigation where she's like, I just don't, I just don't think about it. I just think ghosts aren't real and that's it. And so I don't, I don't know what it is, but there is something in me that I love reading studies of things that can't be studied because maybe this will be the thing that proves it.

[Craig Ferguson]

But that's a beautiful mind to have that I think is a spiritual hunger which was My own particular brand. I don't know if I was ever an atheist. I think I probably was at one point. And I'm certainly not a flag wave and drum beaten organized religion person. I'm not good at joining groups of people. I couldn't even join in a group of late night hosts and there was only seven of us. So I don't want to be part of your fucking gang. There's only enough for a dinner party. I don't fucking care. It's funny, I was talking to a friend of mine today about that very thing. Atheism is too fundamental a stance for me. I can't do it. I can't do it. It believes in itself too much. And fundamentalism, I can't do fundamentalism. It doesn't seem hungry enough.

[Rachel Bloom]

This is where you get into like the idea of atheism being a form of spirituality is controversial. But when I really kind of became an atheist, what it actually meant for me was really what I would say is, I'm a practical atheist, theoretical agnostic. I live my life as if there's nothing, as if no one's looking out. If I fuck up, it's not the universe teaching me a lesson. It's like, no, maybe I just fucked up and I have to apologize to someone. But I'm practically agnostic in that I think it's something like 98% of the universe is dark matter and we don't know what dark matter is. So no, you can't be like, there's nothing when there's so much we don't know. It's just the way I live my life on a practical level is as if there's nothing and very evidence based. But there's a part of me that is very open to wonder and wants to remain open to wonder. So whatever that means. I don't know if that's, you know, pure atheist. You know, I'm sure there are some people who are like, well, that's. Then you're not an atheist. I don't know what that means, but that's how my brain. This is what I think makes me the best version of myself. Whatever you'd call this, what I'm doing.

[Chase Business]

Small business owners, this one's for you. Chase for Business and Iheart bring you a podcast series called the Unshakables. This one of a kind series will shine the spotlight on small business owners like you who faced a do or die moment that ultimately made their business what it is today. Learn [e-mail] business podcast Chase Make More of what's yours. Chase Mobile app is available for select mobile devices. Message and data rates may apply. JP Morgan Chase Bank NA Member FDIC Copyright 2024 JP Morgan Chase you wake.

[Meta AI User]

Up, put on your Ray Ban Meta glasses Classic style, innovative tech. You're living all in. You realize you need coffee desperately. So you say hey Meta.

[Meta AI]

How do I make a latte?

[Craig Ferguson]

To make a latte, brew two shots of espresso.

[Meta AI User]

After Meta AI gets you caffeinated, you start walking to work and you need a soundtrack.

[Meta AI]

Hey Meta. Play hip hop music with the built.

[Meta AI User]

In camera, you snap a pic of a dope mural on the side of a building that you think is worth sharing.

[Meta AI]

Hey Meta. Text my last photo to Eva.

[Meta AI User]

Sending message after work you head to meet some friends.

[Rachel Bloom]

Hey nice glasses.

[Meta AI User]

Ray Ban Meta Glasses the next generation of AI glasses. Just say hey Meta to harness the power of Meta AI. Listen to music, make hands free calls with open air audio and built in microphones and so much more. All while staying present to the world around you. Shop Ray Ban meta [e-mail] smartglasses.

[Radhi Devlukia]

This is Radhi Devlukia from a really good Cry when you take a shower, where does your shower take you? If you're like me, your shower is your escape from pretty much everything. The Kola Anthem plus Smart Showering Smart system lets you make that refuge exactly what you need it to be. It lets you fine tune water, steam, light and sound all from a single control. You can dial in your temperature settings to the degree so it's just how you like it. And you can stream music from your own playlist and program the lighting to create the right mood. And with pre programmed steam therapies with infused aromatherapy oils, it's really getting into spa territory. With Anthem plus, you're not just imagining your sanctuary, you are creating it. And you can save up to nine of your customized favorites. The system even pairs with Cola Connect app so you can start your shower remotely before you're even in the bathroom. Honestly, I'm relaxed just thinking about it. Personalize your escape with Anthem plus Smart Showering only from Cola.

[Craig Ferguson]

We talked earlier about the lessons of sobriety or recovery and if there's one thing I learned that I think has been pivotal for me in this and it sounds like you are capable, not capable that you do this too. And at a far younger age than I ever got hold of, it was, it seems to me that too many people, most people are not willing to make themselves the villain of their own story. Everyone and I am willing to do That I want to go, look, this person may have fucked up, but I fucked up too, you know? And I really try to live my life like that. Like, okay, whatever they did, that's not important what did I do? You know, what did it. Because that's the only thing I can do anything about. I can't do anything about what they did, but I can do something about what I did. And if it means I have to try and, you know, make amends or not do it again or whatever it was, then I do that. But I think accountability is something that can be lost if you're not worried about the accounts being settled in some way, you know, and I'm not worried about that. But you see where I'm kind of like, edging towards this.

[Rachel Bloom]

I get it. I don't have. I have so many other parts of me that want to be a good person that have nothing to do with heaven.

[Craig Ferguson]

Oh, I agree. I don't mean that. I don't mean, like, getting the books. Right. So you get into heaven. I mean, getting the idea that there is a. I don't want to get to one of the. I'm not saying, oh, well, if you don't believe in God, you're going to run around killing people. That's nonsense. But what I mean is it helps. I don't know, it helps me imagine that there may be something. But I absolutely reject the didactic nature of stand up, sit down, turn around, eat this, don't eat this, wear this, don't wear this, tell these other people they've got it wrong. I reject all of that. The organized part of religion, if you like.

[Rachel Bloom]

Yeah, I think it's a really interesting question of and one that I'm still trying to figure out for my own family of. Okay, if you live your life not religiously, where does a moral compass come from? Where do you get a sense of right and wrong? And do you need God for a sense of right and wrong? For me, I don't know if you do. I think that we just have so many societal structures that are set up. You have thousands of years of people philosophizing and thinking of morality in the context of different spiritualities. And a lot of it is not. And very little moral compass that we're kind of taught that isn't based in some sort of spirituality. So I'm still navigating. Okay, how do you. How do you teach someone a sense of right and wrong? And maybe spirituality isn't involved, but at the same time, like, just from a. An objective Perspective, like, it's not like religion is. Is. Is useless to me. Religion is. Is people for thousands of years, ideating on the human condition. That's. That in itself is so incredibly profound.

[Craig Ferguson]

It's a lot to throw out in one. In one.

[Rachel Bloom]

And I don't want to. And I don't want to do that, but I think that that's a real debate. And it's. It's what a lot of religious people would say. Well, we're. You know, when you take religion out of society, you miss a moral compass. And I don't think that's necessarily the. I don't think that's the case. But that is a debate of what do you ground yourself in?

[Craig Ferguson]

I guess there are people who, if they, you know, I'm not one of them. I don't think you're one of them. But maybe there are people who, if they didn't have the, you know, their accounts to settle in heaven, they would run around killing people. And that's the reason why they don't. So maybe.

[Rachel Bloom]

Which is so scary, which is just so. So. Which is so.

[Craig Ferguson]

It's terrifying.

[Rachel Bloom]

But I am so less scared of the idea of someone going around who doesn't murder people. Who, who, if you really press them, they'd be like, no, I could murder someone and get away with it. I. I just don't want to murder people. That scares me a lot less than someone who's like, oh, boy, if there.

[Craig Ferguson]

If they.

[Rachel Bloom]

There weren't God, I would be killing everyone. That's horrifying.

[Craig Ferguson]

Yeah, it is a horrifying thing. I don't think there's that many of those, though. There are.

[Rachel Bloom]

I don't think there's that many. But all you need is a few to be, you know, serial killers.

[Craig Ferguson]

Well, there's that. But then you get. The people are like, oh, well, I got to kill these people because God wants me to. There's. There, there's those people, too.

[Rachel Bloom]

Well, and they're taking that. And they're taking out whatever is messed up in their head, you know.

[Craig Ferguson]

But, yeah, that's for them.

[Rachel Bloom]

It's. It's. It's righteousness. Yeah. I mean, this is stuff that I'm actively thinking about and going through, especially since having a kid. But for me, it. I guess, like, what guides my moral compass is how do you spread joy? Not pain. How do I not cause pain? Even though at the center of life is pain? I mean, something that I've been really thinking about lately is the way that living beings survive is to Consume other living beings. Even if you're a vegetarian, you're eating plants. Plants are alive. So that's weird that if this were a moral, just world, the fact that not only are we supposed to eat things that are alive to survive, but that then everything alive has pain receptors. And even plants, even plants have, like. Plants have a way of sending out distress pulses. Right. So even though that fundamental of life to me seems really morally contradictory, I'm just trying to cause people the least amount of pain as possible. And Patton Oswald has a great special. I don't know if you saw it, shortly after his wife died.

[Craig Ferguson]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Rachel Bloom]

And she says, and she was, I think, very much what sounds like an atheist or agnostic. And she just always said it's chaos. Be kind. And I think, I think, I still think about that sometimes. I think that's such a beautiful way to view the world and kind of how I see the world where it's like, it's just chaos. Just be kind.

[Craig Ferguson]

You know, I feel like that that is it. That's the only way to. It's hard to be kind when you know it's. I think it's easy for me. I find it easy to be kind when people are worthy of pity, but when they're worthy of anger, it's harder for me to be kind to people I feel angry with.

[Rachel Bloom]

Oh yeah.

[Craig Ferguson]

It's much more of a challenge. And people I don't necessarily love or love how they, they live. It's tricky.

[Rachel Bloom]

I am. So I'm not an aggressive driver, but I'm a judgmental driver where if someone doesn't signal or cuts me off, I'll just, I'll. What do you, you know, to the point where my 4 year old has heard me criticize people enough that she's like, mama, you, you should have your own driving school where people can learn how to drive like you. And I was like, you know what? They should. So I.

[Craig Ferguson]

That is a great idea.

[Rachel Bloom]

I was like, that's really. And so now. But now it's got, it's become kind of in our family, a running joke of my kind of Soviet re education camp where I, where I force people to learn about all sorts of different polite things that we've forgotten in society. Like no cutsies is really important to me.

[Craig Ferguson]

Very.

[Rachel Bloom]

So I'm. As much as I want to spread kindness, I'm also very petty.

[Craig Ferguson]

I think maybe you're just human and we're all a duality. I always circle right back around. I seem to always come Back around to Carl Jung. Every time I wander off in any direction, any other direction, I come back to Carl Jung who seemed to kind of grab it all for it all into one place. Mysticism and science and you know, and the human experience. I really kind of get that. You ever read any or have you ever come across the Red Book or anything like that?

[Rachel Bloom]

No. It's been a minute actually. I did a lot of weirdly read a lot of Freud in school. So I'm behind on my young.

[Craig Ferguson]

It's funny Freud. I mean obviously, you know, an innovator.

[Rachel Bloom]

Oh, so many. No, no. So many holes to poke. Yeah, a little bit. I took a class in Freudian, Freudian psychoanalysis for some reason in school. And I really. And then I had my first therapist was, was a therapist who was then training in psychoanalysis. So I, I know a lot more about the kind of almost simplistic Freudian view of things than I do about the Jungian view. It's on my to do list.

[Craig Ferguson]

Well, they famously kind of split up. It was a real John Lennon, Paul McCartney moment with those two. But I veered towards young. I can't make Freud work for me much, but the discovery of things is important and he did discover a lot of techniques. He moved things forward. He wasn't really. It wasn't the be all and end all, but no.

[Rachel Bloom]

And he didn't believe in clits.

[Craig Ferguson]

Yeah, that's, that's a real.

[Rachel Bloom]

No, it's a whole. There's a really fucked up story. It was a story from like the twenties. There's this princess, she was a great. She was like a grand niece of Napoleon Bonaparte. She was very rich and she got in with Freud and she was obsessed her whole life that she'd never had a vaginal orgasm. And Freud was like agreed like because he basically believed that clitoral orgasms, which is scientifically where all orgasms come from in the woman were immature. And so this woman had numerous. This is in like the 20s surgeries to try to make her vagina closer to her clitoris. And this was all urged on by Sigmund Freud. It's nonsense. It's absolute nonsense. So there was, there was a lot of.

[Craig Ferguson]

You've talked a little bit in your life about mental health and, and, and kind of dealing with your own struggles. I mean I, as I have myself, I've talked a lot but like when I got sober I thought everyone was going to be great. It didn't really work out that way. I mean that there's. It's Kind of an ongoing struggles to. It's a. It requires vigilance. Do you still find yourself in that place today? Do you still kind of.

[Rachel Bloom]

Oh, it's a journey. It's a journey I'll never be. I'll never be over. Because there's two things. There's my own mental health and then, you know, the mental health of others. And I've dealt with people close to me going through mental health issues and, okay, how much do you help? Where do you put up boundaries?

[Craig Ferguson]

Yeah, it's hard.

[Rachel Bloom]

And that's. You know, you can only control what you. What you can control. But, no, it's an ongoing thing. Especially as just the world continues to get more complicated, not only becoming a parent, but as, frankly, the Internet gets scarier and weirder and weirder. Like, I. I'm never gonna be like, yeah, I got nothing else to solve with my mental health.

[Craig Ferguson]

The. This is why I got. When you said that thing about the Internet and the world getting weirder and stuff, I feel this is why. I mean, people that listen to this podcast, probably sick of me hearing it, sick of me saying it, but that's why I get so obsessed with these Gore Vidal historical novels. Julian the Apostate Creation, the seven Narratives of Empire that you wrote about the United States from the revolution till the 1950s. It's fascinating because it's always been a shit show, Rachel. It's always been a shit show. And he made it. He makes it personal so that you believe it's not distant. It's like real people 500 years BC. You believe it. It's like someone's got an iPhone and showing you around.

[Rachel Bloom]

Oh, I got to. Oh, I've got to get into these.

[Craig Ferguson]

You have to, because it's FaceTiming your way into the past. He was a fucking genius, Vidal. I met him towards the end of his life, and I hadn't read a thing he had written at that point. And I feel like I really missed an opportunity to, I don't know, grovel or something. I don't know that it would have made any difference to him, but his work is unbelievable. He's an unsung American genius. I know a lot of people are into him, but he should be far more to the forward of thinking now.

[Rachel Bloom]

That's very calming to me. Just hearing you say it's always been a shit show is really. It's fucked up, but I find that really calming that I find it too.

[Craig Ferguson]

Me too.

[Rachel Bloom]

This is just. This is life. I think coming up during the 90s, which people called the end of history. Right. There was something about like, well, we're finished. Nothing else to see here, nothing else to do here. Which was kind of the narrative of, I don't know, I think the, maybe a child's perceived narrative of the late 90s and then being launched into this century with anything but calm just to remember, like. No, it's actually chaos is. Is the norm.

[Craig Ferguson]

Totally.

[Rachel Bloom]

It's calm.

[Craig Ferguson]

The United States, you know, Aaron Burr shoots and kills Alexander Hamilton and goes on trial while he's still the vice President, goes to New Orleans, tries to raise an army to become the emperor of fucking Mexico. Right. This is all going on. What we've got right now is kind of mid range crazy.

[Rachel Bloom]

Wow.

[Craig Ferguson]

You know, I didn't know about the.

[Rachel Bloom]

Emperor of Mexico thing.

[Craig Ferguson]

Oh, girl, he was fucking nuts. And then, you know, don't get me started on Thomas Jefferson, how crazy that fucking shit was. And then. And Burr was Jefferson's vice president, of course.

[Rachel Bloom]

Yeah.

[Craig Ferguson]

Oh my God. And then McKinley getting shot at the start of the 20th century and Teddy Roosevelt, who was his vice president, coming in and all that crazy shit that was going on. William Randolph Hearst getting blamed for inciting the assassination of McKinley and losing his chance of ever becoming president, which is what he really wanted.

[Rachel Bloom]

Holy shit.

[Craig Ferguson]

And when you read about these people, you go, oh, well, that's Elon Musk, that's Donald Trump. That's, you know, that's Hillary. I mean, they're all over the place. I mean, it's. Mark Twain gets the credit for saying this. I don't know if he said it or not, which is kind of ironic because it makes sense with the quote. Apparently he said, history does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.

[Rachel Bloom]

Yes. I love that quote.

[Craig Ferguson]

I think that that's the way I find it. Very comforting and well researched. Meticulously researched. Genius. Written historical fiction, but based in real fact.

[Rachel Bloom]

Well, I gotta get into that because even though I'm not a mental health professional, I can't help but see people's unresolved issues and personality disorders everywhere. And it's just like, oh yeah, that's the brain chemistry that's been fucking people up and causing dictators in wars for the past 10,000 years.

[Craig Ferguson]

Totally, totally.

[Rachel Bloom]

And not to blame mental illness on people being bad, which is a whole other debate. I just want to say it's complicated.

[Craig Ferguson]

Well, yeah, but you know, there are things like. Let's take Henry viii, right? Henry viii, who for a long time is like a fairly state, nothing much going on. Monarch in England, everything's pretty stable, has a jousting accident, it won't heal. He starts getting a little, he starts getting a little crazy. He's putting on weight, decides that, you know, his wife of 20 years, it's her fault. And that whole period, his six wives of Henry, that's a 10 year period. That's it. That was the last 10 years.

[Rachel Bloom]

So it was like maybe concussion from a jousting accident or something.

[Craig Ferguson]

I think it was.

[Rachel Bloom]

That's really interesting.

[Craig Ferguson]

They reckon he was probably type 2 diabetes and he had all sorts of. I mean, for a while they thought it was syphilis. They thought it was something else. But a lot of his behavior was brought on by the physicality of his changing body, you know, through the course of his life. And I think that, that, you know, to come back to the skeptics conference a little bit. I think that's what people are looking for. Sometimes when they put the jade egg in the vagina or the fucking rub myself with cat feces in order to make whatever, you know, whatever the thing is, please don't do any of those. But the. But I think they're looking for a way to physically change how they feel. I did that with alcohol. I want to physically change how I feel and some of it's beneficial. If you run or you swim or you know, do push ups or something, then it's all right. But as I have to go myself, so do you.

[Rachel Bloom]

No. This is amazing.

[Meta AI]

I'm.

[Rachel Bloom]

I'm honestly gonna read that. Might be next on my reading list.

[Craig Ferguson]

Oh, I can't recommend it highly enough. Start with either Julian the Apostate Burr or Creation.

[Rachel Bloom]

Oh, okay, great.

[Craig Ferguson]

They're all fabulous. It was great to talk to you. That specially yours is a fucking masterpiece. How dare you.

[Rachel Bloom]

Thank you.

[Craig Ferguson]

But other than than that, I'm. I remain a fan.

[Rachel Bloom]

Oh my God, you're the best. Thank you for having me.

[Craig Ferguson]

God bless you. Talk to.

[Rachel Bloom]

You.

[Meta AI User]

Wake up, put on your Ray Ban meta glasses. You're living all in. You realize you need coffee so you say hey Meta.

[Meta AI]

How do I make a latte brew.

[Craig Ferguson]

Two shots of espresso?

[Meta AI User]

After Meta AI gets you caffeinated, you're ready for some beats.

[Meta AI]

Hey meta. Play hip hop music.

[Meta AI User]

You head to meet some friends but can't remember the place.

[Meta AI]

Hey Meta.

[Meta AI User]

Call Eva Ray Ban Meta Glasses, the next generation of AI glasses. Just say hey Meta. To harness the power of Meta AI, shop now at meta.com smart glasses.

[Rachel Bloom]

This podcast is supported by BetterHelp offering licensed therapists you can connect with via video phone or chat. Here's BetterHelp, head of clinical operations Hesu Jo discussing who can benefit from therapy.

[H]

I think a lot of people think that you're supposed to be going to therapy once you're like having panic attacks every day. But before you get to that point, I think once you start even noticing that you feel a little bit off and you can't maintain this harmony that you once had in relationships, that could be a sign that maybe you want to go talk to somebody. There's always a benefit in talking to someone because we can all benefit from improved insight about ourselves and who we are and how we behave with other people. So if you're human, that's like a good indicator that you could benefit from talking to somebody.

[Rachel Bloom]

Find out if therapy is right for you.

[Meta AI]

Visit betterhelp.com today.

[Rachel Bloom]

That's betterhelp.com it's beginning to sound a.

[Hesu Jo]

Lot like the holidays. The Roku Channel, your home for free and premium TV is giving you access to holiday music and genre base stations from iHeart, all for free. Find the soundtrack of the season with channels like iHeartChristmas and North Pole Radio. The Roku Channel is available on all Roku devices, Web, Amazon, Fire TV, Google TV, Samsung TVs and the Roku mobile app on iOS and and Android devices. So stream what you love and turn up the cheer with iheartradio on the Roku Channel. Happy streaming.