EITM interviews A.J. Jacobs

EITM interviews A.J. Jacobs

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Tallie and I am how excited.I was going to say, how are
you, dude? I am hangingin there wearing my tricorn hat, just
here in New York, missing you, delighted to be back. Well,
listen, if you don't mind,I'd like to start our interview with a
little joke, maybe just to keepthings light. Okay, a famous teacher

(00:24):
of arithmetic had long been married withwell, this is one of my favorite
jokes. Oh man, it iskeep going, keep going. Okay,
Okay. A famous teacher of arithmetichad long been married without being able to
get his wife with child. Someonesaid to her, Madam, your husband

(00:47):
is an excellent arithmetician. Yes,she replied, only he can't multiply.
But I'm boom. That is man, that is a class Listen in seventeen
eighty nine, that killed Yes,that was the funniest thing that that was.

(01:10):
Like, I don't know, ChrisRock. Should we continue on,
maybe with an extended version of YankeeDoodle if you really want to depressed listener,
sure that would be great. Cerentlynot me singing it though, maybe
Diane The Year of Living Constitutionally Dude. The book is the book's awesome the

(01:33):
book is fascinating to me. Oh, thank you, Elliot. That is
huge. I love it. Andso I guess the goal was, and
you'll do a better job of explainingthis than I will, is you wanted
to go Well. I think Isaw you say somewhere aj where you almost
can't go a day and if you'relucky two days without something on the news

(01:56):
popping up, where there is aquestion or somebody trying to make an interpretation
from the left from the right.It doesn't matter about the Founding Fathers and
the Constitution exactly. I mean,it is everywhere. And I had read
a statistic that sixty percent of peopleAmericans had never read the Constitution, and

(02:19):
I was in that sixty percent,and yet I was reading all these stories
about what on then a huge impactthe two hundred and thirty year old document
have on my life every day,and I thought, all right, I'm
going to try to understand this.And as you know, the way I
try to understand topics is to livethem, to immerse myself. And that's
what I did with the year ofliving Biblically, which I talked about on

(02:43):
Your Life. Will say, we'rein the robes, growing the Beard,
doing the Ten Commandments, Stone andadulterers the whole with pebbles, I said,
And I didn't want to go tojail. But so I thought,
let me try the same thing withthe Constitution, because I need to understand
it and I want to help readersunderstand it. And I thought, all

(03:05):
right, I'm going to follow itin the original way, the founding Father's
way, using the tools and mindsetof seventeen eighty nine. So that meant
walking around the Upper West Side ofNew York with my musket, my eighteenth
century musket. It meant writing thebook with a quill pen. It meant

(03:25):
quartering soldiers in my apartment in NewYork. And it was a wild journey
and it was absurd, you know, as all my books are. But
also I hope it had a seriouspoint about how should we interpret the Constitution,
how literally should we take it,how frozen in time should it be,
and how much should it evolve?Hey, so real quick, I

(03:47):
want to go back to because youtalked about the how you wrote a book
with a quill and ink. Andby the way, AJ's not lying,
and AJ, more than anything youmay go AJ's crazy. AJ is not
a great author. You could saywhatever you want, but the one thing
you can't say is that AJ doesnot commit to a bit right, So

(04:09):
I love you. I do commit, yes, And so like you said
you wrote using a quill, youwrote using ink, and then you had
like that little desk. I gotto tell you. I laughed my ass
off though when you were talking abouthow not only did you write the book
with it, dude, you wentto Chinese restaurants and signed the bill using

(04:30):
the quill in the ink I did. My kids were mortified and so they
wouldn't walk within fifty yards of me. I also took it. I don't
think I mentioned I took it tothe DMV. They were getting their license,
and I was a little worried,are they going to accept the DMV?
One clerk did not and one clerkdid. So I don't know what

(04:51):
to tell you. If you want, I'm bringing a quill. It has
to get lucky. But the youknow, so the so the other thing
is, yes, is to tryto unders and what needs to change,
maybe what doesn't need to change,maybe what's frozen? How do we interpret
things? But you know the otherpart, And then I mean just the
just the the the I mean,the book's very, very funny, obviously,

(05:14):
but then there's also like just anybitty little factoids and any bitty little
little things that you learn along theway. And like one of the first
things that I think you mentioned isand you were talking about how sixty percent
say they've never read the Constitution,which, by the way, if I
had to argue that number is muchhigher, I would better change way higher.

(05:34):
But but you talk about how thelike there was an over capitalization gets
used in the in the Constitution.You go, okay, well that's how
they wrote. But then you learnthat little factoid that Ben Franklin thought every
noun should be capitalized. You're like, holy crap. I mean again,

(05:56):
I don't know where that's going tocome in necessary for me, but what
an interesting little factoid to learn.Well, thank you, and I've started
to do it. I've become anover capitalizer. I just feel it makes
the nouns more important. I alsolove the fact that the Constitution has typos
or I don't know what to callthem, because they didn't they had spellos

(06:19):
or quillos, I don't know.But the word Pennsylvania, the state Pennsylvania,
is spelled two different ways in fourpages, so it's spelled pe n
n and then just pe ns.So people who say, I love the
Constitution, it's an amazing document,but I was not written by God.

(06:42):
It was written by people, andthey made mistakes. They were fallible,
and they know it. They said, this is a fallible document. This
is not perfect. We've got towork to make it more perfect. Hey.
You know the other thing, well, I also like the I mean,
obviously everybody knows, whether they've readit or not, it's we the
people is how it starts. Right, everybody knows that. But I didn't

(07:02):
realize even like at the beginning itwas going to be we the people of
the state of Pennsylvania and they weregoing to name all thirteen states. But
then I think, you say,it's Governor Morris who stepped in and was
like, no, no, no, no, no no, let's just
make it we the people and callit a day. That's right, And
that was huge. That one littleedit was huge. And he was a

(07:26):
great guy, by the way,I mean a philanderer, so not like
you know, he wasn't a greathusband, but he was a great guy,
and he that change made the focusfrom a collection of states to a
collection of people, and that hasproved to be so important, and that
we the people are the number onething, not we the states. And

(07:47):
I do like so the book forwell, I shouldn't say the book you
start your year of living constitutionally onwhat makes sense. You start on election
day. And I like how youpoint out that back like back in the
day. Well, first of all, you've got on your stupid hat and
you you go to the you goto your polling place. I also like

(08:11):
that you walk down the streets inNew York and people pass you and go,
hey, maybe my cricor by way. It made me stupid, but
it was it was like two hundredfifty dollars. You're not getting it.
When I donate it, you arenot getting it. But on election day,

(08:31):
you walk in the same way thatwould have been done in the in
the early days of the Founding Fathers. You walk into your polling place on
the Upper West Side of New Yorkand as you're checking in where most people
know, you just hand them,you know, whatever your ideas or whatever
you're gonna do, and you getshuttled behind a screen to do it.
You walk in and you go Iwould like to announce I'm voting for and

(08:54):
scream it at the top of yourruns. Julie, your wife is like,
oh my god, God. Butyou talk about how voting used to
be a celebration, and voting usedto be like people had I don't want
to say parties, but people madecakes and people were happy and people celebrated.
It was a day of celebration tohave this freedom to go out and

(09:18):
elect, to have a democracy,to go out into elect somebody that was
going to be a leader. Boy, it feels like we've gotten a little
bit away from that, huh.And that is one of my favorite parts
of the book, is how differentelections were. And you can say party,
you can say festival. There wereparades, there was music, farmers'

(09:39):
markets. I mean, it wasn'tquite Coachella, but it was a party.
And I think that we've lost thatand I want to get that back
because I think then it's not likethis duty, like annoying chore to go
vote. It's this amazing right thatwe have to cherish. And I started

(10:01):
a movement to get people to takeelection cakes all over the country and bring
into the polls. And I'm doingit again in November. If everyone wants
to pay election takes, join me, join the democracy as sweep movement.
Hey, what was the what wasthe when you decided that you were going

(10:26):
to pack up the Jacob's family anddrive them to Fort Lee, New Jersey,
just outside of Manhattan, to takepart in a Revolutionary War re enactment.
What was the what was the desirethere? Well, thank you ras.
Yeah, part of this was tofigure out what's in the constitution,

(10:48):
how to interpret. Part of itwas how did they live back in the
seventeen nineties and how different was itand what can we learn from that?
I mean, first of all,we don't want to go back to the
seventeen nineties sexist, racist, itsmelled cutting edge. Medicine was a tobacco
smoke enema where you literally blew smokeup someone's ass with a hose. So

(11:11):
let's not go back. But therewere parts of the eighteenth century that were
I think we need to reconsider it, like the idea of virtue, the
idea of slowing down our thinking.So I joined the New Jersey Third Regiment
of Revolutionary War Reenactors to really liveas much as I could, and it

(11:31):
was it was hilarious and delightful.And I fought in the bottom Battle of
Monmouth and I died. I diedfrom the red Coat shot me. I
did die in the shade. Itwas like one hundred degrees out, so
I made sure I'm going to diein the shade. And so it was
like a little nat wasn't so badunlike back then, But yeah, that

(11:54):
was it was. It was greatto hang out with people who really put
thought into out canley, what canwe do to try to recreate this time?
And you know, like you mentioned, you mentioned how we don't want
to go back and live in thein the seventeen nineties, and you talk
about how the Constitution, like yousaid, wasn't written by God's it was

(12:16):
written by by regular I mean,albeit leaders, but flawed men like you
said, the one guy was aphilanderer. There's misspellings through the whole thing.
And it was written at a timewhere, like you said, there's
slavery and people are enslaved, andwomen can't vote and black people can't vote,
and on and on and on.But I did like and I can't

(12:37):
remember aja exactly where in the bookit fell, but you talk about when
the amendments start coming along, right, and there's a debate of do we
go back and take this the firstamendment, do we take the original Constitution
and try to rewrite it into theexisting constitution, or do we leave the

(12:58):
Constitution as it is and add onthe amendments at the end to show it's
a work in progress, like weare not in seventeen ninety. I don't
know where we'll be in the future, but let's not try to I hate
to use the term like whitewash theConstitution, but I thought it was really
smart to go It's okay, whenwe wrote this it meant one thing,

(13:22):
but we've learned, we've developed,we've gotten smarter. Let's just add this
on to fix a mistake or somethingthat we weren't advanced enough or smart enough
to realize totally. I mean,these guys were brilliant. They were like
so much smarter than me, ofcourse, but they were also as you

(13:43):
say, they were humans, andthis was fascinating. I didn't know this,
but James Madison did not want theamendments tacked on at the end.
James, he was considered the fatherof the Constitution. He wanted them to
be like a Google doc where youbasically rewrite it. You take the and
you rewrite the whole thing and stickin the amendment. But he was overruled.

(14:05):
So now we've got this sort ofoh, ps, this also this,
and don't forget that. And theadvantage of that, is, you
say, is that we can seethe progress we've made. I mean there,
we can see that women have gottenthe vote, and black people and
indigenous people have gotten the vote.So we have made progress, and there

(14:28):
is something wonderful about that, especiallywhen you get so much negative news about
this is the worst time in history. It's not the worst time. We
got problems, but it is notthe worst time in history. And one
of the one of the first thingsyou cover, obviously because of who you
are and what you do for aliving, is freedom of the press and
the First Amendment and everything under theFirst Amendment? But freedom of the press.

(14:52):
Are we better now than we wereback then? Oh, Selma,
you be in jail, elegant youhe would be rotting in a prison cell
right now. Because their version ofthe First Amendment was much stricter. It
was shocking to me. And thisdidn't come from me. This was these

(15:13):
scholars. I talked to at allthese fancy schools. They point out that
you were allowed to publish anything youwanted, but the government was also allowed
to punish you because they felt itwas such a fragile instant democracy. So
there were laws against blasphemy, soyou couldn't you couldn't curse. In New

(15:35):
York State they had a law thirtyseven and a half sence every time you
say the ass word, or asword or whatever they considered curses them.
And there were sedition laws. Thisone guy got thrown in jail for making
an ass joke about John Adams oran art, to be technical, it

(15:56):
was an art. He said,I wish the cannonball would go up that
guys are and he was throwing hisjail, so you know you would.
That's where you would be. AndI know that you said that. And
this is another example of I lovethe little tidbits that you learn. You
talked about how you went and youlooked up what was what was the press
like in seventeen ninety, what didarticles look like in seventeen ninety, And

(16:19):
that is where I learned the totalside note, the great bit on the
invention of the parachute that's interesting.I loved reading the yeah about the newspapers,
and that was in Ben Franklin's newspaper. They had a great article about
the first parachute, which I guesswasn't a person. So they have put

(16:41):
in an I think of chicken orgoat or something, and can you imagine
how confused that chicken would have beenwhen they drive They just threw it out
there. It goes anyway. Youlike coms like what that? How happen?
Hey? Ag? Yeah? No? Say you talk about how back
in the day, right that youand your sons would have both been in

(17:06):
the state militia, like if youlived back then, right? And now,
clearly that is a time that hasgone by. But I do like
where you get into the mindset ofwondering whether or not mandatory service would do
the country well. And I don'tAnd you do say in the book,

(17:26):
I don't mean mandatory military service,but some kind of mandatory service for the
country to give everybody kind of ashared experience exactly. I mean, we
don't have a real glue now,and you see that's part of the reason
why we're so divided. And asyou say, I don't want to go

(17:48):
back to everyone in a militia.But maybe there's something to everyone does America
or something, because back then therewas this idea of balancing your individual rights
with responsibilities, with your obligations tothe community, to the country, to
the world. And I love that. I think you know, Kennedy talked

(18:12):
about it when and when he said, ask not what you can do what
your country can do for you,but what you can do for your country.
And I don't think a politician couldget away with that right now that
people will be like, what doyou mean? Right? You've been like,
what tell me what your what's init for me? I'm not I'm
not here to help you the government. Hey, can I tell you what

(18:34):
I am upset with you for?Though? Please do apologies agent in advance
for doing the book The Year ofLiving Constitutionally? How many times did you
come to d C to do research? Oh? My, I am a
bad person. Not Actually that's nottrue. Was the Supreme Court trip?

(18:56):
Oh? No, you're right,you're right. Yeah, Well listen,
if I had known you would takemy call, I would take you to
the Supreme Court in a second.Oh great, so I could camp out
for one hundred and thirty eight hoursin hopes that Rob Reiner shows up to
take my place. I would payyou. I would pay you two hundred

(19:17):
bucks. Did you enjoy your visitto the Supreme Court? I mean it
was fascinating. It was, firstof all, like that building is just
so wild. It's like a it'slike going to a Roman temple. And
that was one of the things thatsurprised me is reading the history, the
founders would have been shocked by howpowerful the Supreme Court is. And that

(19:41):
building is not from the seventeen eighties. That's from the nineteen thirties. It
just looks like the seventeen eighties.But back then the Supreme Court was stuck
in the Capitol building and in thevery beginning it was like in a butcher's
market. So it has become somuch more powerful than the founders would ever
have imagined, right, because didn'tyou say, like back back then that

(20:06):
they would, yes, they would, they would rule on things. They
would they would hear things and thenrule on things. But then those decisions
were brought to when I say,the leadership president to Senate and stuff like
that, for them to go overand see whether or not as opposed to
it being the ultimate decision. Andby the way, you make the same
point with the president, where becausewe had just come out of a war,

(20:30):
we had just broken away from afrom a king, from a monarchy,
and that was the last thing thatif you again trying to get into
the mind of the founding fathers,is we don't want that. We want
there to be checks and balances.Nobody should really have that much power over
anybody totally. And that was oneof the most fascinating things about researching the

(20:52):
book was when the idea of asingular president was brought up in the Constitutional
Convention, several delegates that are youjesting. That's terrible, that's They called
it the fetus of monarchy. Wejust tried to get rid of a king.
We don't want another king. Andit was debated, debated, Finally,
the single president did win by sevenstates voted for and three voted against

(21:15):
it. So two other states thatthey voted differently, we would have a
crazy different world and country. Someof them wanted three presidents, so which
I always think, can you imagineBiden, Trump and RFK Junior like working
co working, like at a wework space in the overlah that would be

(21:37):
very interesting. I'm not sure it'sa great idea, but I do think
we need to constrain the power ofthe president, both Democrat and Republican.
This is not a it's not apart of an issue. So and I
started a a petition to do justthat, to like, let's rethink the

(22:00):
president, and got people to signit with a clillten and brought it to
Washington. I'm very sorry. Therewe go, by the way. I
also like, here's the tidbit outof that that I like though, is
because there was a king and sowhen when when the United States is being
set up, what do we callthis person? And there there's this debate

(22:22):
of do we call him his excellence? Do we call him his highness?
Do we call him Washington? Andyou point out that if it would have
been as obviously president ends up winning, right, so your president right,
whatever, right, But if not, you say, it would have been
Washington Obama and Washington Clinton and whatever. Washington would have been the name of

(22:44):
what we just say president for exactly, which would have been very bizarre.
But it has happened before because Caesaris used now like Czar, there's a
derivation of Caesar so Zar Nicholas wasbasically the same as Washington Obama. But
yeah, I would. I amglad that lost, and I'm glad John

(23:08):
Adams was. He was big onthe fancy titles, and people made fun
of him. They called him hisrotundity because he was a little pudgy.
He got a lot of jokes athis expensive Now, I don't want you
to think I only read the book, because I did also look at the
pictures. My favorite picture in thebook is you at the National Archives going

(23:36):
to see the Constitution, and againyou're being brought in there to see this
thing that you're you've dedicated a yearof your life to and done more research
and reading than anybody I know overthe course of a year. But again
you got to show up in yourstupid hat and your stupid jacket and your
stupid woolen socks with the little beltsaround him, and this poor woman from

(23:59):
the Archives is ready to meet you. And it is the sweetest picture in
the book because you do look likeyou're meeting like this beautiful symbol to you,
but you're wearing your stupid outfit.AJ listen as you say, I
got to commit to the bit youare what you wear. There's lots on
that. And listen, it washot. Those wool coats are very hot.

(24:25):
I will tell you it gave mesome insight. It wasn't just the
crazy stupid. It gave me someinsight. It's a life. And I'll
give you one quick example. Thosesocks. As you say, I had
to put belts on top of mysocks every morning because there's no elastic,
so they would just they were madeof wool and they would just slip down.
So can you imagine I'll never getback those combined three hours of putting

(24:49):
on the sockbel So I am nowso grateful for not just democracy, which
is one of the main points ofthe book, but also elastic my life.
So let me let me, letme get to that, let me
get here, so here, sohere we are. Now, Like we
get to the end of the book, and I could, I could go

(25:10):
through every little part of the book. Aja, I really did love it.
But so we get to we getto this point and we go every
day go back to how we started. Right. Every day you'll something will
come up and it will be somebody'sinterpretation. They'll say I'm an originalist or
I'm a constitutionalist or or you know, whatever it is. And there's no

(25:33):
way to time travel, right,there's no way you're going to go back
and really be able to sit downand ask them, how do how do
normal people like us figure out whatis? Like? What is somebody really
and I don't mean a founding father, but somebody who's using it as an
example, What did they really meanor what are they really trying to say?
Are we just trying to are wejust trying to stack a game?

(25:56):
Or is this something somebody really believesin? Oh well, I do think
both sides genuinely believe. I don'tthink there's charlotta lot of Charlattan's on both
sides. But I do hope bythe end of my journey, and I
hope if you read the book theyyou'll be more empowered to figure out when
people say, oh, that's notflying a kite, that's not constitutional,

(26:19):
they'll be able to say, now, wait a second, let's take a
look at this and let's see whatthey meant. But also how should we
interpret it? And I think alot, as you say, we'll never
figure out what the founders meant wordfor word, but we can look at
the big picture and let things likethe preamble, which talks about the blessings

(26:42):
of liberty and the general welfare,and things like equal protection under the law
and the fourteenth Amen, look atthe big picture, and let's try to
follow that and make the constitution,make the country live up to the best
ideals of this document. Hey,last thing, do you have your fife

(27:03):
nearby in the other room? Didyou want it's very piercing. I think
your listeners might not uh, youmight turn off the idea. I think
I think if you put the phonedown on your lap and gave me a
little revelle, that would be theperfect way to wrap up. Do you
want me to run and get it? Oh? You bet? I do?
You bet? I do? Okay, all right, I'm holding all

(27:26):
right, all right, I'm well, I'm now listen, I falling down
spelled out. You're making me run. You live in an apartment on the
Upper West Side, running anywhere?I think your apartment I have. I
know my vife was not happy whenI took my size lessons, and I

(27:49):
did take a lot of sight lessons, but it's I still am not a
great slices. But but she didteaching. Yeah, this is meant to
be on the battles. This isnot like a fun interro. I understand,
I understand that age. All right, hold on, I'm looking.
I found both of my muskets,but I'm not allowed to fire that.

(28:15):
I saw my stocks, my belt. Sorry for the delay. I know
it's in here. I know it'sin here somewhere. Can you hear me
looking around? Yeah? I thinkso can floor twelve, eleven and ten.
Wow, I am having trouble findingit. Oh, I just damned

(28:36):
myself with my quill. That reallyhurts. So you you are making me
work? All right, Wait,I'm taking out. Oh I have two
more ideas. I'm sorry. Isthis fascinating for your listen? I found
it? Oh? Excellent, excellent, excellent? All right, here we
go, give me a second.Here we go? Can I get revel

(28:59):
so much as one note or twonotes? That's fine. This is the
excitement that's going to sell the Yearof Living constitutionally by Ajjcobs. All right,
here we go. How is that? God bless America. I'm glad

(29:22):
you're found it. Oh yeah,it's worth the way, no doubt,
AJ, you are the absolute bestthe Year of Living constitutionally, one man's
humble quest to follow the Constitution's originalmeeting. It is out, It is
available now. The book is sogosh darn good. I don't want to
get in trouble. Aj I appreciateit. The book's fantastic, my friend.

(29:48):
Oh, thank you Elliott, andI am bothering you next time I
come to DC, I swear toGod you better all right, love it
all right, talk to you soon. Thanks aj By