It's topics, the podcast in which two comedians talk about evergreen topics in a serious way.

My name is Michael Ian Black, joined as always by Michael Schoalter.

It's great to be here. It's great to be here it's great to be here and uh yeah everything you said is true we also have this guideline

that uh we're going to attempt to cover 80 percent uh at least 80% of whatever the topic is.

Yeah, and as you say, it is a guideline.

It's not a hard and fast rule because one of our rules on topics is that there are no rules.

And that's just a kind of clever way to say that we're open to anything happening.

You know, obviously there's rules.

Yeah.

They're kind of unspoken.

Yeah.

I actually think the rule that there are no rules is the only rule.

That's the only actual rule.

Right.

And then everything else is a guideline, which is why I think it's worth specifying that the 80% guideline

isn't a rule, so there's no consequence if we're not able to get there.

Well, that's an important distinction, I think, because rules, almost by definition, do have consequences when broke.

Exactly.

And so I'm glad you stated it in that way because I hadn't really unpacked the definition of the word rule in that way up to this

point. So thank you because now I feel like even a couple minutes into the podcast, I'm already

thinking about the definition of the word rules in a new way.

And I wanted to also introduce a new guideline, which is we're going to get down and dirty with these conversations.

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