Episode 35: Samantha Bee’s Fury, and Staffing the Supreme Court

Summary

The New Yorker Radio Hour – Episode 35

Date: June 17, 2016
Host: David Remnick
Guests: Samantha Bee, Pamela Carlin, Jaron Lanier, Paul Rudnick, Bob Bozik, Nick Paumgarten

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Episode Overview

This episode juxtaposes comedy with tragedy and explores the intersections of politics, personal experience, and creativity. The first half features an in-depth and emotional interview between David Remnick and Samantha Bee, examining how her show "Full Frontal" responded to the Orlando nightclub shooting and discussing the evolution of late-night political comedy. The episode then shifts to Supreme Court issues, with Paul Rudnick's satirical job application and a substantive interview with law professor Pamela Carlin about the impact of the Court’s changing makeup. The final segments include an interview with digital pioneer Jaron Lanier on technology’s unforeseen downsides and a poignant portrait of Bob Bozik, a New York bartender who reclaims a lost family mansion in Serbia.

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I. Samantha Bee’s Fury and Full Frontal's Response to Tragedy

Guest: Samantha Bee
(00:31–13:27)

Main Theme

Samantha Bee and her team’s creative and ethical choices in responding to the 2016 Orlando massacre on her show "Full Frontal," and the larger role of satire and anger in late-night political comedy.

Key Discussion Points

• Immediate Decision-Making after Orlando

  • On the Sunday of the massacre, Bee and her staff decided to set aside their usual content and directly address the tragedy in the show's opening [01:43].
    • "Are we just throwing out... the first act, but basically putting it aside to face the event head on? And that was really a no brainer for our show." — Samantha Bee [01:43]

• Radical Tone Change: Expressing Rage on Air

  • Bee opted for open anger, moving away from the "standard operating procedure" of unity and platitudes.
    • "I'm too angry for that. Love does not win unless we start loving each other enough to fix our problems." — Samantha Bee [02:17]

• Struggle with Performance and Emotions

  • Bee explains her battle not to cry on air, but admits the effort was only partly successful.
    • "I am a real baby. I mean, I do cry a lot, and I think that's really healthy... but I really didn't want to do it in this performance." — Samantha Bee [03:37]

• Juggling Humor and Grief

  • The team had to instinctively balance comedy and seriousness:
    • "It's very instinctive, even in the face of tragedy. We do recognize that we're a comedy show." — Samantha Bee [05:02]

• Influence of Jon Stewart and Shifting Norms

  • Discusses Stewart’s impact on comedy’s reaction to national trauma, and how addressing tragedy is now expected, not a cliche:
    • "There was a Jon Stewart effect... now, when you have a show like this, you do have to address it." — Samantha Bee [05:49]
    • "You're doing a topical show. You're in the moment... you do have to react." — Samantha Bee [06:24]

• Ambitions for “Full Frontal”

  • Bee emphasizes the importance of enjoying the creative process, not just achieving fame:
    • "My ambition for the show at the moment is to keep this feeling of pure enjoyment..." — Samantha Bee [07:32]

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Memorable Quotes

• "I hope that the fury continues unabated until we actually put our actions behind our words and our thoughts and our prayers, for sure." — Samantha Bee [02:52]
• "If you don't have one friend to hold the phone for you, your lone wolf ass doesn't get a gun." — Samantha Bee on gun laws [04:39]
• "We are just—and I am just—angry. And I felt like it was the correct point of view and the correct tone for our show." — Samantha Bee [06:24]
• "We've always delivered this show and we always knew that we wanted to deliver this show from our gut..." — Samantha Bee [05:25]
• "This has been a really good... if you like authoritarian demagogues, and I do. Who doesn’t?" — David Remnick, tongue-in-cheek about the election [09:27]

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Notable Moments & Timestamps

• Bee’s Monologue — [02:17]
• Discussion on performance and emotions — [03:16–03:52]
• Balancing rage and comedy — [04:43–05:19]
• Reflections on Jon Stewart and media responsibility — [05:35–06:59]
• Ambitions and personal satisfaction — [07:32–08:03]

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II. Satirical Segment: Applying for the Supreme Court

Performer: Paul Rudnick
(14:07–16:44)

Purpose and Tone

A tongue-in-cheek “job application” for Supreme Court Justice, lampooning judicial appointments and contemporary political anxieties.

• Sample answer to "Why do you want to be a Supreme Court justice?":
  • "B, it will look good on Tinder, especially the photo in which I'm flirtatiously unzipping my robe..." [14:11]
• Under "What would you like your legacy to be?"
  • "He or she bravely remained on the Court for three years after being declared legally dead." [16:12]

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III. What Would a Democratic Supreme Court Look Like?

Interview: Jeffrey Toobin with Pamela Carlin
(17:28–28:00)

Main Theme

Political implications of the Supreme Court’s composition, especially with the pending Merrick Garland nomination and a possible Clinton presidency.

Key Insights & Discussion Points

• Garland’s Prospects:

  • It's possible Garland could be confirmed in a lame-duck session after the election but before the new Congress [17:42].

• Potential Shift to Democratic-Appointed Majority

  • Would be the first such majority in a long time; could change direction on pivotal issues [18:16].

• Citizens United and Campaign Finance Reform

  • Carlin doubts the Court would overrule Citizens United outright but predicts increased support for campaign finance regulation [18:57].
    • "It's far more likely... the Court might move back towards approving more regulations based on ideas that equality is a value that campaign finance regulation can serve." — Pamela Carlin [19:02]

• Abortion Rights

  • Predicts many state-level abortion restrictions would be struck down with a Democratic majority, applying the “undue burden" standard more rigorously [21:45].
    • "Most of those laws would be struck down... a lot more things are going to be viewed as undue burdens..." — Pamela Carlin [21:45]

• Opinion Assignment Power

  • Explains how the majority controls not just decisions, but the scope and reasoning via opinion assignments, vastly impacting future law [22:44].

• Voting Rights

  • Predicts a Democratic majority would “absolutely” be more likely to strike down restrictive voting laws [26:04].
  • "The current eight justice Supreme Court seems to have moved from being baseball umpires to being football punters." — Pamela Carlin [26:43]

• Potential Supreme Court Involvement in 2016 Election

  • While it's unlikely a replay of Bush v. Gore will occur, the Court may need to resolve conflicting lower court rulings on election law [26:27–28:00].

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IV. Jaron Lanier on Lost Utopias and Virtual Reality Ethics

Interviewer: Nick Thompson
(29:02–42:23)

Main Theme

A candid reflection on the unanticipated failures of Internet utopianism, the manipulation economy of the web, and the promise and perils of virtual reality.

Key Insights & Discussion Points

• Early Optimism vs. Reality

  • Lanier once believed universal open information would lead to rational discourse and knowledge, notably on issues like climate change. This did not come to pass due to "perverse incentives" in the web’s advertising-driven model [29:02–30:58].

• “Fork in the Road”

  • The crucial moment: Google (and others) embracing targeted advertising and behavioral manipulation [30:48].
    • "We ended up turning the Internet into this giant sort of manipulation service where people pay us for what's called advertising, but it's more like behavioral manipulation." — Jaron Lanier [30:32]

• How Advertising Incentivizes Misinformation

  • "Given that advertising essentially is the only source of revenue... there's a lot of room for manipulation." — Jaron Lanier [30:58]

• A Vision for a New Internet

  • Imagines a network of equals, where users get paid for data and contributions—potentially producing better service and less manipulation [31:57–32:45].

• The New Frontier of Virtual Reality

  • Describes VR as both a creative and potentially “apocalyptically creepy” medium, reminding listeners that all powerful technology has dual potentials [34:00–35:25].

• Principles for VR’s Social Good

  • 1. Users must own their own data and control its use and value.
  • 2. Clear ethical and legal standards separating digital illusion from reality must be enforced [35:25–37:06].

• Children and Tech

  • Lanier, like many tech elites, is cautious about digital overexposure in his own child’s life, balancing creative and “zombie” uses [40:21–41:15].

Notable Quotes

• "People need to control their data." — Jaron Lanier [37:01]
• "As we get better and better at creating illusions, there should be a firm ethical and legal requirement that people are honest about when they're creating an illusion versus when they're not." — Jaron Lanier [37:06]

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V. Bob Bozik: A Bartender’s Epic Homecoming

Reporter: Nick Paumgarten
(43:28–54:16)

Main Story

The extraordinary odyssey of Bob Bozik—former bank robber, boxer, and New York bartender—who sets off to reclaim his family’s grand house in Belgrade, lost post-World War II to the Communists.

Key Story Beats

• Bozik’s Orphaned Beginning

  • Born to a wealthy family ruined by war and politics, given up by his mother, grew up in foster care, running away at 14 [45:06].

• Survival and Reinvention

  • Became a street kid, taken in by a gangster, became a boxer—the "Landlord"—and eventually turned to petty crime, including one bank robbery [45:28–46:36].

• Shifting to Europe and the Battle for the House

  • After travels and various adventures, learns Serbia is returning nationalized properties as a condition for EU membership [47:26–48:58].
    • "The courts have given me back the house... The one in charge called the restitution. They're fighting everybody now." — Bob Bozik [48:52]

• The Emotional Stakes and Uncertain Future

  • For Bozik, it’s as much about heritage and closure as property—his daughter Vesna, his ex-wife Alex (Obama’s former college girlfriend), and his lifelong search for home [51:22–52:57].
    • "Everything was just a preparation for the... the final fight. And this is my final fight." — Bob Bozik [49:08]
  • "He may joke about the diamonds, but the real treasure is that house. If and when he gets it." — Nick Paumgarten [53:04]

• The Key and the Ceremony

  • With comic irony, it’s revealed the ceremonial “key” to the mansion is candy-coated and unlikely to open anything [50:32–50:54].

• Resolution and Next Steps

  • Bozik plans to move in, buy pajamas and simple furnishings, and considers finding peace—not with wealth, but with meaning [53:44].
    • "I want to live someplace where I can finish up making some kind of sense. I can't make sense of this life, so I'd like to send Buddy's interpretation." — Bob Bozik [53:44]

• Immediate Setbacks

  • Upon arrival in Serbia, Bob's new home has no electricity or heat—“So it begins.” [54:29]

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Episode Timeline at a Glance

• 00:31–13:27 – Samantha Bee interview: Tragedy, comedy, and creative process in “Full Frontal”
• 14:07–16:44 – Paul Rudnick’s satirical Supreme Court job application
• 17:28–28:00 – Pamela Carlin and Jeffrey Toobin: What the Supreme Court could look like
• 29:02–42:23 – Jaron Lanier and Nick Thompson: The Internet’s utopian promise, perversion, and VR’s future
• 43:28–54:16 – Nick Paumgarten profiles Bob Bozik’s surreal journey home

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Summary Takeaways

• Samantha Bee’s blend of anger and comedy redefines how late-night shows respond to real-time tragedy, drawing on but distinct from the “Jon Stewart effect.”
• Supreme Court shifts could have profound but incrementally realized impacts on campaign finance, abortion rights, and voter access, with the nuances detailed by Pamela Carlin.
• Jaron Lanier provides a sobering reminder of the unintended consequences of optimistic tech culture, cautioning for user empowerment in coming virtual realities.
• Bob Bozik’s story is a modern odyssey, encompassing the search for identity, justice, and home against the odds of politics and personal loss.

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Notable Quotes (for Sharing or Citation)

• "I am too angry for that. Love does not win unless we start loving each other enough to fix our problems." — Samantha Bee [02:17]
• "We ended up turning the Internet into this giant sort of manipulation service." — Jaron Lanier [30:32]
• "Everything was just a preparation for the... the final fight. And this is my final fight." — Bob Bozik [49:08]

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For listeners seeking a sharp blend of comic outrage, legal insight, digital prophecy, and personal storytelling, Episode 35 captures both the gravity and the absurdity of our cultural moment.

Transcript

[Jaron Lanier]

Hey, hey, hey. How are you?

[David Remnick]

Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. We're here in an office. We're at your office. It's kind of a corporate looking office. You're on $0.50.

[Samantha Bee]

Kind of corporate looking. It's so.

[David Remnick]

I was being polite.

[Pamela Carlin]

I'm a visual.

[Samantha Bee]

It's a cubicle matrix. This is a.

[David Remnick]

It's not that I don't like this color paint, by the way.

[Samantha Bee]

Oh my gosh, that's nice. Well, it's so flattering. And that's why we've chosen these drop ceilings and the floor.

[David Remnick]

Late this week, I went to see Samantha Bee at her office. For years she was a star cast member on Jon Stewart's the Daily Show. And a few months ago she struck out on her own with Full Frontal on tbs, making her in the realm of late night tv. Anyway, amidst all those white guys at their desks, a kind of solitary woman, there was never any doubt that she'd be a unique comic voice. We just had no idea of the degree until this week. On Sunday morning, after hearing the awful news from Orlando, Samantha Bee and her staff channeled their grief and their sense of political outrage, particularly at the NRA and its congressional lackeys. And they formed an opening monologue unlike any other. Samantha, Monday night you had a decision to make, a creative decision, an emotional decision how to handle this horrific incident in Orlando, Florida. And you'd been at the Daily show for years. And unfortunately, God knows, with 9, 11 and then onward, there were any number of disasters to confront. What was the discussion like here about how to approach it?

[Samantha Bee]

Well, I mean, the discussion about how to approach really began first thing Sunday morning. You know, are we going in on it? Are we just throwing out or not throwing out the first act, but basically putting it aside to face the event head on. And that was really a no brainer for our show. Everybody got behind that immediately. We wanted to do that.

[David Remnick]

But you did something different than usual and something different than all other shows really before or that night. Let's listen to the way you approach this horrendous incident in Orlando, Florida.

[Samantha Bee]

Now, after a massacre, the standard operating procedure is that you stand on stage and deliver some well meaning words about how we will get through this together, how love wins, how love conquers hate. And that is great, that is beautiful. But you know what it, I am too angry for that. Love does not win unless we start loving each other enough to. To fix our problems. That's the first time I've heard it back I don't.

[David Remnick]

And it was as if you were leaping through the screen. Physically, you looked furious.

[Samantha Bee]

I. We all. I mean, obviously. And I hope that the fury continues unabated until we actually put our actions behind our words and our thoughts and our prayers, for sure. It was very difficult to do. I wrestled with it a lot. We all did. We sat with it.

[David Remnick]

You wrestled with what? Because there's a standard way of doing this, a kind of emotional. We are one. And you had. Had it.

[Samantha Bee]

When I say we wrestled with it, it wasn't wrestling with the decision to actually engage with it for the entire first act. The wrestling was the tone. You know, my tone, my personal tone. So I guess I should say I wrestled with my performance a tremendous amount. I really didn't want to cry. I really didn't want to cry.

[David Remnick]

You didn't completely succeed, did you, in not crying?

[Samantha Bee]

I didn't. I think I did the best job that I could possibly have done. And it took a long day of crying. Actually. I'm a big crazy. I'm a real baby. I mean, I do cry a lot, and I think that's really healthy. And I do do that. But I really didn't want to do it in this performance. And so, you know, it was a struggle. Of course, we're all struggling. We were all crying the whole country. Mass shootings have become so frequent in this country, it seems like the only thing that will stop a bad guy with a gun is another bad guy with a gun who coincidentally came to shoot up the same place. Our mass shooter du jour was Omar Mateen. Born in New York, he beat his ex wife. He'd been reported multiple times to his employer as homophobic and unhinged, and the FBI had twice questioned him for ties to terrorism. But none of these things disqualified him from legally buying a gun that shoots 45 rounds a minute. Not even his terrible mirror selfies. I think we can all agree that if you don't have one friend to hold the phone for you, your lone wolf ass doesn't get a gun.

[David Remnick]

How do you figure it out? How do you. I'm moved, just. And laughing at the same time, listening to it now a few days later. How do you figure out this very uncanny balance of rage and anger and at the same time making some pretty amazing jokes?

[Samantha Bee]

I think that we. The team that we have built here, you know, from our showrunner Joe Miller, to the writers to the researchers, I mean, we just have. It's very instinctive, even in the face of tragedy. We do recognize that We're a comedy show, you know, we do recognize that. And there it is.

[David Remnick]

And a new one.

[Samantha Bee]

I mean, you're in episode one, 15, 16 from there.

[David Remnick]

I mean, it's a fledgling, really new.

[Samantha Bee]

But we've always delivered this show and we always knew that we wanted to deliver this show from our gut and our gut. It tells us that we can make a joke. It tells us when we can make a joke.

[David Remnick]

You had been at the Jon Stewart show for years and years, and he had unfortunately had to react to 911 and any number of incidents thereafter. What were you learning from that? How did you want to approach it? The same or different?

[Samantha Bee]

I didn't live in New York when 911 happened. I came shortly thereafter. But I watched the show in Canada and his reaction was monumental for me. I thought it was amazing. I mean, it just truly was. And then I do think that there was a bit of. There was a Jon Stewart effect from that. You know, the ripple effect of that is now when you have a show like this, you do have to address it. You know, it's become part of the norm.

[David Remnick]

Did it become a kind of cliche for late night television?

[Samantha Bee]

No, I don't think it is. I don't think it's a cliche. I don't know how you could possibly avoid it. You're doing a topical show. You're in the moment.

[Jaron Lanier]

You.

[Samantha Bee]

And you just can't. You just cannot open a show and do like, isn't this election bananas? Guys like, you cannot ignore. It's a. It's more than an elephant in the room. It's just, you do. You do have to react. You know, I didn't think too much about what everybody else was doing, but we did know on a very visceral level what we needed to do and what we needed and how we react to things. And we are just. And I am just angry. And I felt like it was the correct point of view and the correct tone for our show.

[David Remnick]

What are your ambitions for the show? It's pretty new. There's gotta be for everybody of this generation of late night a little bit of kind of the anxiety of influence with, you know, Jon Stewart living out there in Jersey taking care of animals.

[Samantha Bee]

And all that stuff.

[David Remnick]

I mean, he's the. Everybody comes from something. Stewart is related to a lot of the shows and a lot of the performers that we see now. What are your ambitions for it? What do you want it to be? How do you want it to be distinctive other than it's just coming through your voice? What's the plan.

[Samantha Bee]

My ambition for the show at the moment is to keep this feeling of pure enjoyment, like I'm just not that person who goes for the glory of it. I really, really try to keep it really focused on the experience of doing the show and how much pleasure it gives me to work here with these people and how much pleasure it gives me to do the show. And I think that's true of. I think that's true of a lot of us.

[David Remnick]

What I can understand about you is that apparently you were, as a kid, very shy.

[Samantha Bee]

Very. I'm still very shy.

[David Remnick]

So you picked this to do.

[Samantha Bee]

It's so common, though. I mean, that's the. I mean, that's the psychology of any.

[David Remnick]

What did you leap into? How did you leap out of your shyness? What stage did you come. Come to?

[Samantha Bee]

Well, again, I'm still quite shy. I'm just excellent at masking that now.

[David Remnick]

Is it psychoanalysis?

[Samantha Bee]

I think so. You know, it's not something that. It doesn't torture me, but I am terrible at parties. I'm just the worst. The world's worst mingler.

[David Remnick]

So if you're shy, when you get out in front of an audience here with the knowledge that many Yankee stadiums fulls of people are gonna watch you.

[Samantha Bee]

I don't think about it. I think about the audience. I definitely think about the audience. But I consider it to be kind of a. I'm such a hippie. Oh, my God. I do consider it to be a bit of a communal experience with the audience, their energy and their desire to be there is something that is. Feeds my tender ego, but it does. You know, there is a back and forth. There's a give and take in that room.

[David Remnick]

You've been covering elections since, I think, 2004.

[Samantha Bee]

Yes. Mm. Yeah.

[David Remnick]

How much more. How to put this insane. Is this one. For the obvious reason.

[Samantha Bee]

They're all. I'm not gonna say that the Sarah Palin year wasn't.

[David Remnick]

That was good.

[Samantha Bee]

That was a good.

[David Remnick]

But that didn't get that way until the summer and her nomination. This has been good from the get go.

[Samantha Bee]

This has been good from the get. This has been a really good.

[David Remnick]

I mean, if you like authoritarian demagogues, and I do. Who doesn't?

[Samantha Bee]

We know this, but do you ever.

[David Remnick]

Get the complaints that we do in the, you know, the news business that somehow by covering Trump and by covering him a lot, that we're somehow also responsible for the rise of Trump and the success of Trump?

[Samantha Bee]

How are you going to. I don't understand. I mean, you cannot. Many unserious people have run for president and you have to cover them. They are running for president.

[David Remnick]

Who's been remotely as unserious?

[Samantha Bee]

No one has been remotely as unserious.

[David Remnick]

Okay, but, you know, fact checking department.

[Samantha Bee]

Yeah, no, I'm not saying there's no. There's no real. There's no real equivalent here. But you have to cover them.

[David Remnick]

Does comedy have to be fair? Sometimes you'll go and you'll interview a person and that person is gamely sitting there and they're kind of excited to be on tv, let's face it. And you go to a black, gay Trump supporter and you interview him. And the standards. The goal is different from straight up journalism. Let's listen.

[Interviewer (Nick Thompson)]

We've had these disasters in neoconservatism and.

[Jaron Lanier]

Neoliberalism, and I think that he is an alternative to both of those paths and sort of like a return to, not old style, like ethnic nationalism, but.

[Interviewer (Nick Thompson)]

Like a civic nationalism where it's not like, you know, like racist or anything like that.

[Samantha Bee]

What he says is not racist. You don't think. You separate. Okay, you did a beat. You did a big sigh. All right, he's not racist. He's not.

[Nick Paumgarten]

I don't.

[Samantha Bee]

He's a.

[Interviewer (Nick Thompson)]

He's like.

[Pamela Carlin]

He speaks in an old way.

[Interviewer (Nick Thompson)]

He speaks in an old way like an old racist.

[Jaron Lanier]

Well, I mean, in the.

[Interviewer (Nick Thompson)]

In the definition of, you know, where we have, like, microaggressions in safe spaces, probably, yes.

[Samantha Bee]

But is that okay for you, that he's representing the country in an old timey racist way?

[Interviewer (Nick Thompson)]

If it is a negative, I would say it's like a minor negative.

[Samantha Bee]

I'm so confused by you. Watching someone choke down a piece of their soul just to belong broke.

[David Remnick]

My fact checker is he ain't on the joke. Does he know what's going on?

[Samantha Bee]

Of course he knows. What. Oh, my God. He completely knows what's going on. But there's no. I mean, what I. There's no joke. We're just having a conversation. We're not putting anything over on him. That was a natural conversation that we had together. You know, one of the best things that we're doing at our show that we are doing differently. You know, we had. When I worked at the Daily show, we had. There was such a structure to the field pieces and there was such such an act that you would put on that you were a fake reporter. And we've just completely lost that artifice here. Now it's much more about me just having conversations.

[David Remnick]

I don't is that liberating?

[Samantha Bee]

It's completely liberating. I don't hide my point of view at all. We go into these conversations, we make agreements to talk to each other and we really have conversations. I do not hide my point of view from people at all. I am completely free to speak my mind. And that conversation is great example of that.

[David Remnick]

Let me ask you this. I think we both know or we feel it in our hearts that this is not the last mass shooting that we're going to experience, I'm sure.

[Samantha Bee]

No, of course not.

[David Remnick]

And we're going to be here, God willing. It'll be a long time, but it probably won't.

[Samantha Bee]

I mean, when we did, when we originally, in our original first draft of the show for Monday, we definitely were like, this is the only mass shooting that we tape our show at 5 o'. Clock. So who knows what has happened between 5 o' clock and 11 o'. Clock. And that's or 10:30, which is a horrifyingly real joke.

[David Remnick]

But we'll be back. What do you do then?

[Samantha Bee]

I mean, I hope that we do not have to cross that bridge ever again. I really do. I think we probably will. And that is the saddest thing that anyone could say. So I don't know. I guess we'll deal with it when we deal with it. But it's really not fun to try to put a comedy show together after something like that has happened. And we really deserve better. We really deserve better.

[David Remnick]

Samantha, thank you.

[Samantha Bee]

Thank you so much.

[David Remnick]

Samantha Bee, the host of Full Frontal on tbs. I'm David Remnick. Coming up this hour, we'll tell you about a great, great job opportunity in Washington at the Supreme Court. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.

[Paul Rudnick]

You're listening to the New Yorker Radio Hour. Hello, I'm Paul Rudnick. Application to be a Supreme Court justice. One, why do you want to be a Supreme Court justice? A, job security. B, it will look good on Tinder, especially the photo in which I'm flirtatiously unzipping my robe just a bit. C, I enjoy riding jet skis, taking long walks and telling women what they can and can't do with their bodies. Two, True or false, it's inappropriate for the personal religious beliefs of a justice to inform his or her legal decisions unless God tells that justice in a dream. You're the only smart one. I mean, look around. Three, in cases involving powerful business interests, how will you balance the rights of an individual against the economic heft of a corporate giant? A. I'll think, well, when was the last time an individual offered me free 24 hour delivery? B. I'll ask the attorneys representing the corporate interests if Time Warner is really offering cocaine and prostitutes to try to lure customers back. C. I'll ask Justice Ruth is it worth getting Netflix when all I want to watch is Kimmy Schmidt and all the episodes of Friends. 4. Who or what is Merrick Garland? A An exit on the Long Island Expressway B. Not a Mexican C The best name for a riverboat gambler since Gaylord Ravenail. 5. If you're confirmed as a Supreme Court justice, what would you like your legacy to be?

[Bob Bozik]

A.

[Paul Rudnick]

He or she bravely remained on the Court for three years after being declared legally dead. B. He or she was the first justice to sit on one of those inflatable exercise balls instead of a chair. C. He or she introduced a more egalitarian system of jurisprudence to the nation by concluding every decision with the words or maybe not.

[David Remnick]

Application to be a Supreme Court Justice By Paul Rudnick, playwright, novelist and New Yorker contributor for over 20 years. I'm David Remnick. Now let's stay with the Supreme Court for just a minute. Right now there are eight justices. One of the arguments for the establishment Republicans who have gotten behind Donald Trump is that a Trump presidency would, at least if it does nothing else for the Republican Party, keep Hillary Clinton from getting to appoint one or two or even more justices. So what would a President Clinton mean for the Supreme Court? Jeffrey Toobin put the question to Pamela Carlin. She's a law professor at Stanford University and a deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department.

[Jeffrey Toobin]

Merrick Carlin's been nominating to the Supreme Court, as you know. Do you think he's going to be confirmed?

[Pamela Carlin]

I think at some point he may well be confirmed. I'd be surprised if it happens before the election, though.

[Jeffrey Toobin]

Meaning how would he be confirmed?

[Pamela Carlin]

Well, the nomination, as I understand it, remains in force until this session of Congress goes out, and that won't be until January 3rd of 2017. And so there's a period of time between the election and the start of the new Congress when the old Congress is still in session. And several people people have suggested that that might be a time when the Senate might confirm him. Even if they don't confirm him before.

[Jeffrey Toobin]

The election, let's take the 63 year old white guy, cut our losses and don't let Hillary Clinton fill the seat.

[Pamela Carlin]

I think that's some of the assumption.

[Jeffrey Toobin]

Yeah, let's operate on the assumption for this conversation that either Merrick Garland or a Hillary Clinton nominee fills the Scalia spot, meaning there would be a democratically appointed majority on the Supreme Court for the first time in a very long time. Let's talk about what that Supreme Court might look like. One of the big cases that has been talked a lot about during the campaign, including by Hillary Clinton, is Citizens United and how she would like to see Citizens United overturned. If there's a Democratic majority on the Supreme Court, do you think Citizens United would be overturned?

[Pamela Carlin]

I would actually be surprised if Citizens United got overturned expressly. I think it's far more likely that what would happen is Citizens United would be a kind of outlier case and that the Court might move back towards approving more regulations based on ideas that equality is a value that campaign finance regulation can serve. I'd be surprised if the Court, as I said before, just outright said Citizens United itself was wrong and and wrongly decided. And we overrule it because it's kind of rare for the Supreme Court to outright overrule prior cases.

[Jeffrey Toobin]

And the current rule is that campaign finance regulation can only eliminate corruption. Right? That's what the Supreme Court has said.

[Pamela Carlin]

Well, a corruption or the appearance of corruption. But the Court has said that equalizing the strength of various voices in the process is not a legitimate reason for restricting the speech of some.

[Jeffrey Toobin]

So what would that mean in practical terms? What kind of laws do you think a democratically controlled Supreme Court might approve that the current Supreme Court wouldn't approve?

[Pamela Carlin]

Well, one area where I think there'd be a pretty clear difference is that I think a different Supreme Court than the one we had in the past is much more likely to uphold various kinds of public financing regimes. You may remember, Jeff, that a couple of years back, the Supreme Court struck down parts of the Arizona clean election law because it gave more money to publicly financed candidates if their opponents were raising and spending more money. That kind of law, I think, would be upheld because Citizens United is often used as a shorthand, I think, for the more general idea that campaign finance regulations are permissible. That general idea, I think, could change quite dramatically. But the question whether you would have to overrule Citizens United to get there or simply say, well, Citizens United was about this kind of law, and the law we have in front of us now is quite different, allows you to kind of what you might say under rule or circumrule rather than overruling Citizens United.

[Jeffrey Toobin]

Okay, fair enough. So let's move on to a different area, which is abortion rights. After 2010, when the Republicans won control of many states, they have passed a series of laws restricting abortion rights, like requiring doctors to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals by creating burdensome new regulations on how clinics should be constructed. What do you think a Democratic majority would mean for those laws in the Supreme Court?

[Pamela Carlin]

My guess is that most of those laws would be struck down. The reason for that is that the standard that the Supreme Court now has is a standard called the undue burden standard.

[Jeffrey Toobin]

And what does that mean?

[Pamela Carlin]

Well, that's exactly the right question to ask, which is, in whose eyes is the burden undue? In the eyes of people who generally support women's right to choose, a lot more things are going to be viewed as undue burdens than in the eyes of people who are skeptical about women's ability to decide whether to terminate a pregnancy. But I think the undue burdens standard will be applied with a good deal more rigor by a court in which Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is making the assigning decisions than in a court in which she's not making those decisions.

[Jeffrey Toobin]

Now, you referred to the opinion assignment process. What is the opinion assignment process at the Supreme Court?

[Pamela Carlin]

So after the Supreme Court hears oral argument in a case, the nine justices go into a room where it's just the nine of them, and they vote on whether to affirm the decision below the judgment below or to reverse it. And then once they've had the vote, the Chief justice, if he's in the majority, or the senior associate justice, if the Chief justice is in the minority, decides which justice will take a crack at writing an opinion for the Court, and other justices will decide do they want to join on to that, do they want to write a concurring opinion that is an opinion that reaches the same bottom line but by a different route, or do they want to write a dissent, an opinion that comes to a different bottom line conclusion, or to join a dissent? The reason the assigning power matters is that there are often a lot of different ways to reach a bottom line. The Court can write a broad opinion that will have impact on a lot of other pending cases, or it can write a narrow opinion. It can decide to rule on a constitutional aspect of the case or a statutory aspect. If it rules on a statutory aspect, con essentially come back and tell the Supreme Court they got it wrong by amending the statute. Whereas if the Court issues a constitutional decision, then it's much harder. You need a constitutional amendment or a change in the Court's personnel to really cut back on a constitutional decision. So it matters who writes the opinion because who writes the opinion determines in some sense the rationale and therefore the analysis that's often going to play out in future cases.

[Jeffrey Toobin]

So you are a particular expert on voting rights and you recently worked in the Obama Justice Department on voting rights issues. There are a lot of laws in the red leaning states at the moment that are either attempts to restrict voter fraud in the eyes of Republicans or in the eyes of Democrats to limit voting rights, establishing photo ID requirements, limiting early voting. Where do those cases go? What happens to those challenges with a Democratic majority Supreme Court, if that's what we have.

[Pamela Carlin]

So under the Voting Rights act, as it existed from really 1965 until 2013, there were parts of the country which had had a history of racial discrimination in voting that were required before they put any new voting law into effect to get federal approval for the lot. And in order to get that approval, which was referred to as pre clearance, they had to show that the law would have neither a racially discriminatory purpose nor a racially discriminatory effect. And under that law, the Department of Justice or federal courts had blocked several voter ID laws and had required other voter ID laws to be modified to make it easier for voters to satisfy the ID requirement. Immediately upon the Supreme Court's deciding the Shelby county case in 2013, which eliminated for practical purposes the preclearance requirement, jurisdictions started putting into effect or enacting new restrictions on the right to vote, cutbacks in early voting, voter ID laws, and the like.

[Jeffrey Toobin]

So you think there's a better chance that these laws will be struck down with a Democratic majority Supreme Court?

[Pamela Carlin]

Absolutely, Pam.

[Jeffrey Toobin]

I know it's far fetched, but it was far fetched in 2000 that the presidential election wound up in the Supreme Court. Do you see a possibility that the 2016 election could wind up in the Supreme Court?

[Pamela Carlin]

I don't really see a possibility that something like Florida 2000 will get there, but I see a definite possibility that the Supreme Court is going to face over the next, say, six months, a series of cases involving various aspects of the 2016 election.

[Jeffrey Toobin]

How so?

[Pamela Carlin]

Well, it's going to see requests from various folks to enjoin new election practices that are being put into place. The current eight justice Supreme Court seems to have moved from being baseball umpires to being football punters. They have been sending an awful lot of cases back to the lower courts with kind of vague instructions. You know, you can kind of predict that in cases involving voter ID that are working their way through the courts, the court is going to get confronted with what do we do about these ID requirements for this election? And when you have a 4, 4 court, it's entirely possible that you'll end up with inconsistent rules across the country about whether or not particular kinds of election practices can go into effect. And that's an area where having eight justices and not being able to decide the rule nationwide actually is a problem because people should have the same ability to vote whether they live in Ohio or Virginia or Colorado or Arizona. And if the 9th Circuit and the 10 circuit and the 4th Circuit and the 6th Circuit are deciding these issues in different ways, that's a problem.

[David Remnick]

Pamela Carlin of Stanford University and the U.S. justice Department. She spoke with the New Yorker's Jeffrey Toobin. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. More to come. Welcome back to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. There are just a few people around who can claim to have created the digital world that we live in. Jaron Lanier, a computer scientist, is in that small club. He was an early pioneer of virtual reality and he's an architect of what's called Web 2.0. Lanier for much of his career was an idealist, almost a utopian, about the promise of technology to improve our lives. He talked with Nick Thompson, the digital editor of the New Yorker, about how he actually lost some of that belief.

[Jaron Lanier]

We believed that if you had a universal open information system, we didn't have the name Internet yet, but we believed that something like that would further the cause of rational fact based human discourse and would reduce non factual fear based fads that are used to manipulate people, with climate change denialism being a specific one. And the reason it came up is one of the major figures back then was a senator from Tennessee named Al Gore who really did play a pivotal role in bringing about a single information service to be called the Internet, rather than having a bunch of incompatible ones. And at the time he was also an early, probably the earliest political voice expressing concern for climate change. And I remember at a meeting saying, you know, these two things go together. If we can have the universal information service, people will approach these huge questions, these long term questions like climate change more realistically. You know, that didn't happen. That's an example of me being wrong. And it doesn't happen often that I'm wrong. But here is an example and I think it really speaks to the way utopianism can make you a little blind. Although I'm not willing to give up my utopianism completely. But I mean, the question for me is was it completely wrong or did it turn out to be wrong? Because we made some wrong steps after that. And I currently kind of tend to believe that latter thing, that we ended up turning the Internet into this giant sort of manipulation service where people pay us for what's called advertising, but it's more like behavioral manipulation. And that fork in the road is I think, what kind of ruined it.

[Interviewer (Nick Thompson)]

The fork in the road where Google started attaching advertising to search results is what made false information spread more easily.

[Jaron Lanier]

Well, what it did is it created a perverse incentive for people to manipulate the population instead of present things more neutrally. Given that advertising essentially is the only source of revenue for companies like Google and Facebook at this point. And obviously there's a lot of room for manipulation there and we're proud of it. I mean, like we routinely, we speaking for Silicon Valley, you know, we publish sociology papers showing that we can affect people's emotions without them realizing it and that sort of thing. I think that, that that was a wrong turn taken around the turn of the century. And it would be interesting to someday try doing the Internet over with a different approach and see if that has a different result.

[Interviewer (Nick Thompson)]

So where there's no advertising attached to search results, no advertising attached to the major social networks, do you think that we would have ended up with an Internet that instead of sending people, the misinformation, reduced misinformation?

[Jaron Lanier]

Well, I mean, here I was wrong once, right? So why are you asking me now? Do I have any credibility with you at all? The theory, and I'm really not sure if this would work out, but the theory is that. But if you made it more of a network of equals, instead of the central company having more information about you than you have about that company, instead of it being an imbalanced system, if it was a balanced system, and if the economics of it was balanced, which would mean people would get paid for whatever they contribute to it so that you had a more spread out economic benefit instead of such a concentrated one. If those two things were true, then in theory there'd at least be a chance that there'd be more motivation for service and less motivation for manipulation online.

[Interviewer (Nick Thompson)]

I want to ask you about a subject you're often asked about, which is of course, virtual reality. We're in a moment of incredible boom in virtual reality, and you're often called the founder or one of the founders of virtual reality. Will you take us through your early contributions, your early work and your current work?

[Jaron Lanier]

Okay, sure. In my teens, in the 70s, I got the bug and I was just Enthralled with this notion.

[Interviewer (Nick Thompson)]

Enthralled with what notion?

[Jaron Lanier]

The notion, well, of what I came to call virtual reality. But at that time we called them virtual worlds. And that came from Ivan Sutherland, who built the first headset for VR, which was in the 60s. What I did is I started the first commercial company, I made the first multi user stuff. I made the first versions of a lot of the major applications in collaboration with people from those fields, including surgical simulation and, and kitchen design and well, all kinds of things over a fairly long period. And we seeded industrial and scientific labs all over the world with the initial equipment in the 80s that they were able to use to make virtual reality experiments and improve the field. I made the first avatars, I suppose.

[Interviewer (Nick Thompson)]

So 30 years ago, as you start working on this, what was drawing you in? It wasn't, it seems like to make money. What was it?

[Jaron Lanier]

Well, I was very intensely starry eyed back then and I still am. So what I believed is that virtual reality represented a new frontier of human creativity and a way for people to connect with each other in new ways. And virtual reality lets you tap into parts of your brain that are otherwise hard to access. Like you might turn your avatar into a mathematical expression and then dance it through all the different phases it can take on. And I know that sounds just crazy, utopian, and yet someday I'm sure it'll sound ordinary and it'll be like this ordinary pleasure. As ordinary as reading and writing are today, it's also beautiful. I mean, it's possible to create extraordinary beauty in virtual reality. And at the same time, let us not forget that in order to make virtual reality work at all, you have to measure what people are doing in great detail to make the illusion work. And that measurement gives you the opportunity to put a person in a scanner box and manipulate them to a vastly greater degree of accuracy than you could imagine using something like Facebook today. It has the potential for apocalyptic creepiness too, but so does any powerful technology. We really have to go into it eyes open. Virtual reality more so than most.

[Interviewer (Nick Thompson)]

We're now at this really interesting moment where virtual reality is taking off and the biggest tech companies in the world are investing heavily in it, very attached to it. What are the crucial decisions that need to be made now so that virtual reality ends up serving the common good, ends up improving us as a species?

[Jaron Lanier]

That's a great question, and I think the number one answer is people have to own their own data. We have to get away from this regime where you're given a all or Nothing. Choice where you click this one thing and then all of your data is just taken. You don't even know what the data is. You don't know what happens to it.

[Interviewer (Nick Thompson)]

And the data is how we move our heads, what we look at, how we react inside the system.

[Jaron Lanier]

As an example, it might be, as you're walking down the street, who are you really attracted to? What really scares you? Like all kinds of little things that you might not even be fully aware of. Or it might be stuff that you do deliberately. Whatever it is, any data that exists because you exist, you have to own it. If you want to have a lot of privacy, just set the price of your information insanely high. If you want to maximize your income, play around with the price to find the right one. And if you really just don't care, make it free. But it's your choice. Another thing it does is it creates a more enforceable ethical regime because right now there's no transparency at all. So nobody knew the NSA was collecting data until it was leaked by somebody. How could you know? You have no way of knowing. But the interesting thing about money is that it creates this world of people called accountants. So all of a sudden, if there's money on the table, there'll be motivations for people to track it and it'll actually make the world more transparent, not less transparent.

[Interviewer (Nick Thompson)]

People need to control their data. What else? What are the other principles as we enter the era of virtual reality?

[Jaron Lanier]

Well, I think as we get better and better at creating illusions, there should be a firm ethical and legal requirement that people are honest about when they're creating an illusion versus when they're not. You shouldn't be able to create a false position of the curb to cause somebody to walk into traffic without their own intention and put themselves at risk or something like that. There's a million pranks you can play with. Mixed reality in particular, that really shouldn't be legal. That's an extreme example. You shouldn't be able to make a product look different than it is when you're thinking about buying it or something like that. If you're at the store shopping, you should see the vegetables as they really are instead of through some filter that makes them look fresh or something.

[Interviewer (Nick Thompson)]

When you got into virtual reality, as you said you wanted it to improve our imaginations, improve our cognitive processing. Do you think that's going to happen with the direction the industry is heading right now?

[Jaron Lanier]

I think it could. Well, I'll give you a little example. I have a 9 year old daughter and I asked one of my grad students to make her four dimensional world a higher kind of dimensional space. That's a little hard to explain quickly and hard to imagine, but if you can have intuition in it, you could be fantastic at all kinds of math that are quite important. So I told my daughter about that and she was like furious. I had a chance to be the first four dimensional kid and you didn't do it. Like, what is wrong with you? Since then she's been demanding four dimensional experiences so I've been giving her them. And you know, a nine year old can learn to navigate in four dimensions and it's really cool. So it's like a tangible example of something where I think we can increase human range, you know. Now, about the industry direction, there's good news and there's bad news. I think the good news is that it's driven by passion. Like that's been true for all the commercial interests that I've seen. People just try it and I mean, look, if you look at people with their smartphones, they sort of turn into like these stone zombies with little wiggling fingers on the glass. You look at people in VR and they're engaged, they're moving. It's a different type of experience that's just much more physical and joyous and healthy. And you know, obviously everybody in the tech world wants things to be more like that and that's all for the good. But what's problematic is that the immediately available customer base is the gamers. And nothing wrong with games, nothing wrong with gamers overall. However, there is this sort of hardcore gamer culture that's kind of misogynistic and mean spirited now, which is perhaps what's known as the Gamergate phenomenon. And virtual reality can inherit some of that. Now I'm sure the broad market for VR is much bigger, but it's a little bit, if I can make a crazy metaphor, it's a little bit like the republican primary problem where the immediate market is kind of loony and mean spirited, but it's the immediate one that you get through. So it kind of tilts and focuses the whole thing in its own direction. The gamer culture isn't the only one feeding into VR. There's another very interesting one coming from cinema. Personally, a lot of the work from that side of the aisle is a little more interesting to me at this particular moment this year. But there's also some great stuff coming out of the gaming world. There really is.

[Interviewer (Nick Thompson)]

Okay, tell me a little bit more about how you've introduced your daughter. To technology. What you want her to try and what you want her to stay away from.

[Jaron Lanier]

You ask that as if I have control or sort of.

[Interviewer (Nick Thompson)]

I have a 7 year old, so I'm going through the same thing too.

[Jaron Lanier]

Yeah, she seems to be using technology in a healthy way. She seems to use it with her friends. She seems to be alive when she uses it. Once in a while I see her get a little zombie, like watching a video or something, and that's when I sort of intervene. I don't think it's good to have have kids fall into that. I will say that in the technical elite you do tend to see, I know a lot of people in the industry with kids in Waldorf schools that are zero technology zones. I think we tend to look at people with Facebook accounts as chumps by this point and we don't want our own kids to fall into it. But the irony of course is they will.

[Interviewer (Nick Thompson)]

Jaron, can you quickly explain what the fourth dimension is as your daughter uses.

[Jaron Lanier]

It and understands it? Okay, so the. Look, if you imagine in the real world, you can tell where something is with just three numbers, well, it's three to the left and four down from the ceiling and five units away from me, whatever those units might be. So just three numbers is enough to position something. So there's a lot of instances in math where you need to have another number to describe where things are, where they poke into this other dimension that we don't experience, where there's just this other number that describes where things are. And we need that in order to describe all of modern physics. And it is a little hard to get it across at first and it will not be in virtual reality. If we were in a virtual world, I would just show you and you'd get it just like that. And I think you'd derive great pleasure from that. And I'm sorry, radio just can't do that.

[Interviewer (Nick Thompson)]

Soon our radio show will be in the fourth dimension, Jaron.

[Jaron Lanier]

So it will be fun. Well, when your radio show moves to VR, invite me back and then I'll show you.

[Interviewer (Nick Thompson)]

I look forward to it. Thank you, Jaron Lanier, for coming on. It was a pleasure to talk with you.

[Jaron Lanier]

Oh, sure, great.

[David Remnick]

Jaron Lanier, computer scientist and the author of books including who Owns the Future? He spoke with the editor of newyorker.com, nick Thompson. A few months ago, there was a going away party for a guy named Bob Bozik at a Manhattan bar where he's worked for decades. Bozick was the kind of colorful bartender that we sometimes describe as a fixture. He was a former boxer, a former bank robber, and he drew a crowd with an outsized personality and a million stories that he was happy to regalia with. Bozik was 65, but that's not why he retired. For years he'd been fighting to reclaim a mansion in Serbia. It was on the fanciest street in Belgrade, and his family had lost it 70 years ago. He didn't know anybody there. He didn't speak a word of Serbian. I'm going to let Nick Pamgarten, a staff writer at the New Yorker, take it from there.

[Nick Paumgarten]

So on December 30, just before New Year's, I got a text from Bob. First in a while. It read, since you were in the beginning of this parade, I leave January 11th for four months in Belgrade, moving into my house around January 15th. The Balkans. Best to you and yours.

[Bob Bozik]

How the hell did you get in here?

[Nick Paumgarten]

I got waves.

[Bob Bozik]

Hey, I'm Bob.

[Pamela Carlin]

Eric.

[Bob Bozik]

Didn't I say goodbye to you already?

[Nick Paumgarten]

I was introduced to Bob by a colleague who thought he'd make a good story. Actually, it was Bob who thought that he, Bob, would make the good story. Here was a New York character who wanted me to write about him. We get a lot of those.

[Bob Bozik]

Yeah, he looks like a tourist.

[Nick Paumgarten]

Anyway, so we met up and went to some Brazilian place and ate and had a couple beers. And I'm thinking, this guy is full of it.

[Bob Bozik]

So we're driving through the Kurdish territory of Turkey. So we're eating, but I like the. They have kebab, lamb kebabs. Most people eat one, some eat two. Oh, I had three. And then the leader of the whole thing says he goes, order more. I eat so many goddamn kebabs. Some guy had a couple kebabs, just emphasized the point being Bob, I reached over, took his last ones off his plate and sunk them in my mouth.

[Nick Paumgarten]

Bob can out talk anyone you've ever met, but the crazy thing is his stories are actually true. They check out.

[Bob Bozik]

I thought I was going to die. €reed. I don't know.

[Nick Paumgarten]

Bob's father was an inventor, rich, successful, connected. But after the Second World War, the communists accused him, the father, of collaborating with the Germans, and the Boziks fled to Canada. So Bob was born in Ontario in 1950, but his father split just a few days later. He left the family. His mother couldn't take care of the baby, so she gave him away to a foster family.

[Bob Bozik]

And I lived in a foster home until I was nine. Then my mother Took me back. I didn't want to be there, so I was furious. So I obviously became who I became. During that year. I decided, we're all alone from that day on. You couldn't discipline me.

[Nick Paumgarten]

Bob ran away from home, or whatever home was when he was 14. Lived on the streets of Toronto, homeless, stealing baloney and checking payphones for change.

[Bob Bozik]

And up in Toronto, a gangster met Galaxy. He happened to own a boxing gym. Turns out I could fight. And then I became a fighter.

[Nick Paumgarten]

All this checks out too. The gangster's name was Bertie Migno. He's the one who found Bob on the street and took him in. Bob started working for the guy, running numbers, collecting debts. He also began boxing and soon was working his way up the ranks.

[Bob Bozik]

My nickname was Landlord in boxing. Did you know that?

[Samantha Bee]

I didn't know that.

[Bob Bozik]

Oh, my Landlord.

[Nick Paumgarten]

Eventually, Bob won the Canadian National Amateur Heavyweight Championship. And then he went pro. And he fought some big bouts. He fought Larry Holmes, Madison Square Garden.

[Bob Bozik]

When I was fighting Larry Holmes, I realized, I'll never be this good.

[Nick Paumgarten]

He was beaten badly. And that was the beginning of the end of his boxing career and the beginning of the next chapter.

[Bob Bozik]

I looked down the board, Madrid, I'll go to Madrid, what's the difference? So I went to Spain, started a whole life. So I lived in Europe, ended up in Istanbul. That's when I started driving trucks to Afghanistan. I met some people who hooked me up with some people. And then, cuz you're in the Kurdish territory, remember talking about the kebabs?

[Nick Paumgarten]

I once asked Bob if there were any unknown unknowns, things I should know about, like if he'd ever got in trouble with the law, hemmed and hawed a bit. And then he said that he'd rob banks. Well, then he said, wait, I robbed one bank. Because he'd only been busted robbing one bank. So he was caught robbing one bank. He was unarmed, but almost an apology. He gave the teller a pair of tickets to see Oklahoma. On Broadway. This was in the police report. And then after all that, he lands at Finelli's, a saloon in lower Manhattan. For the next 25 years, he tended bar. Meanwhile, communism fell, Yugoslavia broke up. Serbia became a country. And Bob got an idea. How are you flying over tonight? What airline?

[Bob Bozik]

I'm flying to Vienna and I got extra legroom.

[Nick Paumgarten]

I met Bob at Finelli's one last time. He quit his job, moved out of his apartment in Brooklyn, and he was getting on a plane for Serbia later that night. So Serbia, almost 100 years ago, Bob's father invented an air brake system that revolutionized train travel. The Boziks had a yacht, apartment complexes, a timber farm, a coal mine, a cook, a nanny, a driver, and this house on Kunstka Street, Belgrade's Fifth Avenue, really, it's more of a palace than a house. Anyway, the Communists took it in 1946, and for the last 10 years, Bob has been trying to get it back.

[Bob Bozik]

Okay, it's four stories high. It's 7,400 square feet. It's got a beautiful atrium in the back. Got two gates. It's limestone. There's a stairway, two stairways rising to a terrace.

[Nick Paumgarten]

There's a big emotional element to all this. It's the house he never had a connection to. The father who abandoned him to the old country he never really had any connection to, except in name or maybe in his stories. It's a homecoming to a home that never was. So how is this even possible For a bartender, ex boxer, convicted bank robber, to lay claim to one of the nicest houses in Belgrade? Politics. Global politics. Serbia has been trying to join the European Union. To do so, it has had to follow restitution laws regarding property taken, quote, unquote, illegally by the Communists.

[Bob Bozik]

The courts have given me back the house. The one in charge called the restitution. They're fighting everybody now.

[Nick Paumgarten]

Bob is a tenacious dude. That's what made him a good fighter and what has made him so dogged at pressing his case with the Serbians, who haven't exactly been eager to say, here, take it, it's yours.

[Bob Bozik]

They've had to deal with me. I've been at them every few years, everybody. Why do you keep doing this? You know, because this is what I do. You know you want to. As Larry said, I broke my nose, knocked my teeth. I kept coming because that's what I do. I keep coming. You know, everything was just a preparation for the. The final fight. And this is my final fight.

[Nick Paumgarten]

But what do you know? He's done it. In the last few months, he's gotten almost all the necessary approvals from the various levels of government. Almost all the Serbs seem to come up with new hurdles every day. So you're going to go over there, you're going to land, and you're going to land at the airport.

[Bob Bozik]

I'm going to land at the airport.

[Nick Paumgarten]

First thing you're going to do, go.

[Bob Bozik]

To my small hotel. Then the first thing I'm going to do is meet my lawyers. They're.

[Nick Paumgarten]

They're Serbian lawyers.

[Bob Bozik]

They're both Serbian lawyers. And I Hire the new lawyer whose mother was the mayor of Belgrade a few years ago with the Democratic Party. The ones who were in the house who are leaving by today. Today they're supposed to be out by. That's my agreement.

[Nick Paumgarten]

For a while, the house on Krunska street was the Iraqi embassy starting in the late 90s and until the end of last year it was the headquarters for the Democratic Party, the center left faction in Serbia that plotted the defeat of Milosevic. For a time, the Bozik house was the seat of power in Belgrade. So there's a lot of public sentiment surrounding it. It's more than just a nice house. And here's Bob, an American, essentially kicking the Democratic Party out. So the idea is you're gonna get there and supposedly there's gonna be a ceremony or something where they're gonna turn it over to you.

[Bob Bozik]

Yes. You saw the key, right?

[Nick Paumgarten]

No, I haven't seen the key.

[Bob Bozik]

You wanna see the key? Yeah.

[David Remnick]

Let's see.

[Bob Bozik]

Here's the key to the house. They're gonna present to me and I'll tell you what I'm gonna do.

[Nick Paumgarten]

Is it the actual key or is it like a ceremonial key?

[Bob Bozik]

You're gonna. Wait a second. He's Nick, here's this. There is what they're presenting me with. That key.

[David Remnick]

That key.

[Nick Paumgarten]

That key ain't going to open the door.

[Bob Bozik]

It looks like confectionary. Chocolate coated with candy.

[Nick Paumgarten]

Like a tennis rack.

[Bob Bozik]

They're going to give me this key to my house.

[Nick Paumgarten]

I mean, let's say they let you in the house. You're going to move in.

[Bob Bozik]

Yeah, let's say. Yeah, I'm going to buy a bit. Bed, lamp, chair pillows and. Or a stent.

[Nick Paumgarten]

Where are you gonna be?

[Bob Bozik]

Oh, I'm gonna be on the front floor, right at the front door. Because you know what? I bought? I bought. First time for years. I bought pajamas. Wait a second. Vesta. Vesta.

[Jaron Lanier]

Here.

[Bob Bozik]

What was it? Back here. Alex, what are you doing? Get over here.

[Nick Paumgarten]

Vesna, Bob's daughter and Alex, Bob's ex wife, come to say goodbye. Vesna is everything to Bob. He tears up just saying her name. Alex is Vesna's mother. Alex was also Barack Obama's first serious girlfriend in college. The Serbians, not surprisingly, have made a big deal out of this. But anyway, miraculously, Alex and Bob are still close. What do you think of his going away to do this?

[Samantha Bee]

I think it's something Bob felt that he has always wanted to do and had to do.

[Nick Paumgarten]

Are you worried for him?

[Samantha Bee]

I mean, I am a little bit. I don't think it's the safest place. And then the idea of Bob in a big house with no furniture but a mattress and some sheets and a lamp and his books and pajamas.

[Nick Paumgarten]

Bob had said he wanted me to stay in touch with him in case something were to happen. I'd be the one to bear witness. You have imagined scenarios. You've even told me how it would go down if it were to go down.

[Bob Bozik]

He's got the story, too.

[Samantha Bee]

You must be nervous, too. Because you gave me an envelope to not be opened.

[Bob Bozik]

Basta. Don't look like that. Nothing's gonna happen.

[Samantha Bee]

What's in the envelope? I don't know. It's addressed to you, but it's not to be opened.

[Pamela Carlin]

In case.

[Samantha Bee]

Unless what? You die?

[Bob Bozik]

No, not die. In case. I insult some people, you know, and I hurt their feelings. Bessie, you'll be fine.

[Jaron Lanier]

Dory.

[Bob Bozik]

You're my daughter. You grew up.

[Samantha Bee]

Okay. This is the first I'm hearing of it. I have no idea what it is.

[Bob Bozik]

Just a lot of things. I'll tell you where the diamonds are. And then you say, don't let your mummy hear this.

[Nick Paumgarten]

That's what's in the envelope. It's a big pile of diamonds. Bob may joke about the diamonds, but the real treasure is that house. If and when he gets it. And while his pursuit of it has been about his heritage, his journey, closure and all that kind of stuff, the house is also a heck of a piece of real estate. He may just turn around and sell it. He's not a big money guy. He's never really owned anything. Except for his life stories, if anything. But he'd like to leave something for Vesna. And here's the house where his story began. Or maybe even where he'd like it to end. He's already started talking about other places. He has this fantasy, this image of himself sailing off into the sunset on a boat full of books.

[Bob Bozik]

I'm leaning toward Nova Scotia. Also between northern Morocco. Get a boat. Get all my books. There's tons of books. I want to live someplace where I can finish up making some kind of sense. I can't make sense of this life, so I'd like to send Buddy's interpretation.

[Nick Paumgarten]

Once you're out of New York will.

[Bob Bozik]

Never be the same sigh of relief. Where are we going for breakfast?

[Pamela Carlin]

Lunch?

[Bob Bozik]

Want to go to egg shop or you want to go to dinner? Eggshop.

[David Remnick]

Bob Bozik speaking with the New Yorker's Nick Paumgarten. That was six months ago. On the very next day, almost as soon as Bozik landed in Serbia, he started sending voice memos.

[Bob Bozik]

So I went out for dinner tonight, took myself for a nice dinner, a little wine, sat there and a nice cafe, which is going to go home and read my books. And they've turned off the electricity and the heat. So it begins.

[David Remnick]

Bozik's story continues next week. Also on the program next week, Evan Osnos talks with a prominent gun blogger about how the modern gun rights movement took off. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Thanks so much for joining us and have a great week.

[Samantha Bee]

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Toon Yards, with additional music this week from Alexis Cuadrado. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Chorina Endowment Fund.