It's Topics, the podcast where two comedians discuss serious topics in a serious way.

Although, if something funny happens, that's okay too.

I'm Michael Ian Black, joined as always by Michael Schoelter.

Hello, Michael. Hi, Michael. Always great to hear your voice as we delve into another hot

episode of topics. And if I'm not mistaken, you're hearing my voice a little more clean

this week. Yes, we are. You really sound great.

I'm really getting some of that deep chest resonance that I, I love so much when I see

you in person.

And, yeah, just some technical fiddle fattling got us, got us over that audio hurdle.

And I'm happy to hear you and all your audio resplendence, Michael.

Yes.

It's always good to be here on the show with you.

And I am glad that a little bit of the vocal technical issues have been, as they say, dealt with.

Well, a little bit about the podcast for some of our new listeners, and, you know, we're getting

tons of them every episode, so it's great to see that kind of year-over-year growth.

The first rule with topics is maybe the most pertinent, and that rule is there are no rules. And I'll unpack that very

briefly if I can. What that means is we really strive to keep this a free forum for conversation,

for ideas, sometimes for disagreement, and every once in a while, a little bit of humor.

We try not to place

any limitations on the podcast and in that way we feel like we really get into the juiciest stuff.

Anything to add to that, Michael? No, I think you, I think you really need to hit the nail on

the head there. We're trying to create an environment where everyone who comes on here feels

...