55 views
•
20 days ago
0
0
Share
Save
3 appearances
James Donald Forbes McCann is a comedian, author, and host of “The James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Plan.” His latest special, “Island of Strangers,” is streaming on YouTube. https://youtu.be/7VfTqlatcKM https://www.youtube.com/@JamesDonaldForbesMcCann https://www.jamesdonaldforbesmccanntour.com https://www.jdfmccann.com
Show all
15 views
•
19 days ago
20 views
•
20 days ago
Show all
Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out.
The Joe Rogan Experience.
Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.
Thank you for having me back.
Good to see you, my brother.
How are you?
Always great to see you.
I'm good.
It was fun having you at the clubhouse last night.
I was fucking terrified.
You just look like you're back.
No, I thought that's it.
I've been away for too long.
I'm going to suck.
None of the new stuff is going to work.
They'll see me.
They'll go, he was wrong to come back.
Fuck him off.
It was so nice.
It was so nice.
You were telling the story.
I said, hold these thoughts.
Yeah.
I didn't know we'd never spoken about it.
No.
Tell me the story.
That's why I came to America to start.
I got offered a job hosting a Catholic podcast.
And they fired me.
I packed up everything in Adelaide.
This was like two and a bit years ago.
I had the kids and the wife.
And on the way to America, I got fired.
And they said, we'll still pay you rent.
It's in Steubenville, Ohio.
Beautiful Appalachian town, just outside of Pittsburgh.
And yeah, it's where we were.
Three months I was there.
So what did they see that they fired you for?
Oh, a lot.
They made a compilation video.
No, the guy who showed up, they were right to find me.
No, no, they weren't.
No, because it was a good, clean Catholic podcast.
And then the business manager was like, there was a sketch about stabbing
someone in the throat
with an AIDS needle.
They're like, he uses the word cunt all the time.
They're like, this is a sponsorship nightmare.
Get him out.
So I said, okay.
But they still said, we'll pay you rent for three months and you can figure
something out.
You still got a visa.
And I was terrified.
I was just in the snow.
With kids and a wife.
Three kids, no job.
I didn't have the money to go back home.
Oh my God.
We couldn't afford to go back home.
Oh my God.
And I didn't know that I had been passed at the mothership because I didn't
know how the
system worked.
So on the way in to go to Steubenville, where I was like, I'll figure something
out.
I stopped in at Austin to see Shane.
Shane said, go and do the mothership open mic.
I did it.
Adam Higgott said, if you're ever in town, come back.
We'll pay for spots.
I didn't know that meant I was passed.
I didn't know I could work here.
I just thought he was like, I could audition again.
And then, so I had three confronting months in the snow.
Beautiful part of the world.
It was the most terrified I've ever been in my life.
He says that I was an Australian.
That's from Ohio.
No, I loved it.
I wouldn't say that's the most beautiful part of the world.
I loved it.
I went back and watched that Wild Whites of West Virginia.
Yeah, that's where you're at.
It looks exactly like that.
Well, that area is gorgeous.
It's God's country, but also so abandoned by, like, the potholes are crazy.
I saw real heroin addicts.
Never really seen heroin addicts before.
Just sleepy people.
I saw street prostitutes.
That's still going on.
And this is a small town, right?
This is a small town.
This is, uh, I went there.
There are Catholics have moved there to try and, like, fix it.
It was where Dean Martin was from.
The Wu-Tang Clan kind of started out there.
There's Staten Island.
No, yes, but I think it's, like, the RZA's auntie lived there, and they moved
out there, and then they got involved in rap in the Pittsburgh state.
I've got to ask.
RZA's on real soon.
I'll ask him about that.
I believe I'm right about that.
They don't have a mural for them.
Wow.
Um, but it's great.
There's, uh, yeah, there's a lot of Catholic content creators there.
Um, and they're trying to take over town.
There's, uh, I went there originally because my, New Polity is, like, my
favorite magazine, and I got to meet the guys who made it, and I was so excited.
So, how did they hire you?
Wu-Tang's RZA found his second chance in Steubenville.
Wow.
And they all come over to visit him.
This, uh, he discussed a largely undocumented era of his life in which
Pittsburgh played a role.
Wow.
And that's one of the first conversations we had.
I was like, you said something about Pittsburgh that wasn't flattering.
I said, I love Pittsburgh.
And you're like, you don't know anything.
You're a foreigner.
You don't know anything about America.
Pittsburgh is a horrible place.
I was like, I don't know, I had much time to get, I thought it was good.
Uh, it's just a little depressing.
See, like, the thing about, uh, a lot of those sort of industrial kind of towns,
there's not a ton of options for people.
No.
Pittsburgh more so than, like, the place that you were in.
But, like, when you get to a place where there's not a lot of options and then
you see real poverty, like, this is poverty with no solutions.
You know what I mean?
Not Pittsburgh.
You know, Pittsburgh is obviously.
Oh, no, just outside of Pittsburgh.
I was more fucking with you.
No, I saw things in West Virginia that were, uh, pretty confronting.
And, like, you know, that are, like, caked in.
And some of it's great.
Some of the things from the poverty are wonderful.
Drive-thru cigarette shop.
You like that?
I loved having drive-thru cigarettes.
So, you know, just, like, trying to get the kids to sleep.
My wife's upset because I got her in a foreign, like, again, she never signed
up.
Let's move to America.
She was like, we'll go for three months.
Right.
And I was like, oh, fuck, I'm unemployed.
I better quickly figure out how to be a stand-up comedian.
I was busing out of Steubenville.
I would, like, I caught the, I went, I got it.
Someone gave me a lift to Pittsburgh.
This is when I saw the worst stuff.
I got a lift to Pittsburgh.
And then I caught the Greyhound from Pittsburgh to Cleveland to open for Sam
Talent, who let
me open, who, unbelievably, let me open for him.
He's the best.
I met him in Australia, yeah.
Such a good guy.
And, uh, but, like, that bus trip from Pittsburgh to Cleveland was, it was the
most upsetting.
Oh, man.
I was, people were spitting on the ground at the bus station.
Like, an immigrant, like, an illegal immigrant woman came and tried to give me
a phone.
I remember that vividly.
Give you a phone?
She tried to give me a free phone.
She's like, you can have this.
Because, she said, she said, you're on benefits.
Everyone on benefits gets a free phone.
It was some, like, policy.
She just assumed I was on benefits because I was at the Greyhound bus station.
And she was illegal?
I don't know if she was illegal, but she had a strong accent and, like, a weird
dress and
a baby on her back and a sack full of phones.
A sack full of phones?
She had, like, a sack of phones.
So she was somehow in charge of distributing free phones to people?
I'll never truly know what that was about.
Boy, I would have investigated further.
There was, uh, I was scared.
I was just scared.
There were, like, huge African guys spitting on the ground.
Who tries to give you a phone?
Oh, it was, and then after that, I sat next to a guy who was having a full
psychotic episode.
I think we follow each other on Instagram now.
He's gotten rid of his Instagram.
Really?
But, yeah.
And he told me the secrets about Chris Benoit.
That he was a good man.
The wrestler?
He killed his family.
Yeah.
But this guy tried to tell me he only, he was, I, it's like, burnt, he said he
only killed
his family to send them to God, and you can't blame a man for that.
Oh.
It's like, all right, let's, this is only a three-hour bus trip.
We're going to get through this.
Oh, boy.
We're going to be fine.
Oh, boy.
Oh, man.
But I did, I did enjoy my time in that part of the world.
Well, you probably enjoy it now that it's over, that you survived it.
You make a good point.
Yeah.
There's some things.
If you asked me at the time.
Yeah.
There's some things that are not fun while they're happening, but are really
fun once
you got through it.
I mean, I remember the people I met along the way.
I remember driving to Austin, and like, it was like spring was, like, the
further south
we got, the more lush it became.
Yeah.
It was like, fuck, I might be okay.
And then someone let me stay in their house.
I didn't have a house to stay in, so my, a podcast listener's friend let us
stay in
their house.
With your family?
With my whole family.
Let us house sit for them while they were in Japan.
Oh, my God.
That's crazy.
The whole time it was like, if I don't get, if I don't get past the mothership
now, I,
I don't think people should come here and live in their cars with their family,
but
it does, you know.
Lights a fire under your ass.
It worked.
Well, that's the thing.
It's like, if you're forced into action.
Yeah.
Like, you had no, not just yourself, like, you could go, oh, woe is me, but
when you're
a father and a husband, you have children.
Yeah.
And people who do not have children do not understand the drive that it gives
you to protect and care
for those little people.
It's kind of crazy.
So, if you'll find something.
Well, I don't understand how people do it without, like, I meet men who are
really driven and
motivated and they have no kids, but they're like, every day they're working.
I don't know what their motivation is.
Before I had kids, I was just, what are you going to buy things?
They're in a, they're in a game.
They're playing a game.
No.
Yeah.
They're just playing this game of accumulate the most stuff, be able to brag
about the
most stuff you have.
So much rather lie down.
I would rather not do anything if I had a choice.
But not really, because you love doing comedy.
I love doing comedy, but I never, before I had kids, was trying to do comedy
that people
would enjoy.
Do you know what I mean?
I think that is also, though, because you were living in Australia and there's
limited
options.
Right.
I had no options.
Can you explain, like, the Australian system is very different than America?
It's very...
It's mostly festival-driven, correct?
It's festival-driven and it's, to a much greater extent, I've thought about
this, it's, like,
industry-driven.
Like...
Industry?
Yeah, we don't have...
Which industry?
Like, managers and agents, which is one role in Australia, but they are
deciding who's
succeeding, and TV people are deciding who's succeeding.
Whereas, like, in America, everybody is on the road, everybody has one or two
openers,
and there's a whole lineage of who brought who up in the business.
Like, Dan Soda had Nick Mullen, Tim Dillon, and Shane Gillis open for him.
Like, those were his openers.
Right.
And not because they were successful or someone wanted them to thrive, he just
thought they
were funny people.
Right.
And they got to be his openers.
And you, I don't know who you were opening for, but you have people who come up
and
you get to pick them on.
I didn't really do it...
I didn't have it that way.
I do it that way, but I didn't have it that way.
I didn't really come up with anybody where I opened for anybody.
But I had a very weird path to success.
You also, you got to go to LA and just be in the milieu.
Like, there's a scene there.
There's a lot of people.
Well, I came out to LA with a job already.
Okay.
I was on a sitcom already.
You started in Boston, though.
Yes.
Started in Boston.
Look, it's very embarrassing how lucky I am.
I'm, like, one of the luckiest people that's ever lived.
Like, it's stumble upon success after success.
So when I was six years into comedy, I was already on TV.
So I was three years into comedy.
I was basically barely getting paid.
I was barely a professional.
Like, I was getting some spots in bars and stuff like that.
I was making money.
But I was driving limousines.
I was doing odd jobs, doing different things.
And I was also still teaching at the time.
I was still teaching Taekwondo.
For the first maybe six months or so when I was 21, I think I kept teaching.
And then I eventually had to quit because I realized I could not commit to
doing both things.
I don't want to half-ass my students.
Yeah.
And I don't want to.
So for the first two, three years of comedy, barely, you know, I'm barely a
comedian.
Just, I'm trying.
I'm trying to do it.
I'm getting some laughs.
Met a manager as an open miker.
And he brought me to New York.
And he's still my manager today.
Wow.
The best.
I didn't know that.
Yeah.
It's total luck.
Total luck.
No, you're also a super handsome guy.
I've seen you then.
I was boy pretty.
You look like a fucking different person, first of all.
Not worse.
It is crazy.
But also a lot of those comics you started with, who maybe took longer, I won't
say hideous,
but they don't, they didn't look great.
Well, that definitely helped me get on television.
It definitely helped me get on television.
So I did the MTV Half Hour Comedy Hour in 1993, I believe it was.
And next thing you know, I had a development deal.
Next thing you know, I was on a sitcom and living out here.
I mean, that happened fast.
But do you think it doesn't happen for people?
Do you think there's anyone in America who has a good work ethic and is really
talented
that it doesn't work out for in comedy?
Or does it work out eventually?
You'd have to have a health issue.
Health issues or a really horrible relationship.
Those things could do you in.
Or you could have a drug problem.
Yeah.
That'll do you in.
You could gamble your money away.
That could do you in too.
Yeah.
Yeah, there's a bunch of things that can do you in.
But it's crazy, like, that there are, like, not a lot of undiscovered geniuses
in America
in the same way.
Like, people will want to make money off of you if you've got it.
Yeah, but there's some people that are just really horrible at marketing, like
Brian Holtzman,
for instance.
Yeah.
Right?
We had to kind of, like, force Brian Holtzman into the modern era.
Yes.
Like, and he's always been a comics comic, and he's always been a guy that we
would all
sit in the back of the room at the store and watch.
But he was always getting these terrible spots, and it wasn't until we broke.
Because he never went on the road.
He never went on the road.
Brian and I started out together.
So, at the store together in 94.
We were both, like, I think he came in 93, and I came a year later.
And he was working for, like, Pan Am or something?
He was a dog catcher for a while.
Yeah.
He was, I think he might have been a meter maid.
Is he here at the moment?
I haven't seen him yet.
Yes, he's here all the time.
Okay.
He lives out here now.
I don't know if he'd gone off to Thailand.
I don't know if he goes back and forth, but he lives out here all the time.
He's the best.
We, I went to church with him.
I don't know if I should tell this story, but we went to church together once.
And it was really lovely.
He took me out for breakfast afterwards, because he's Catholic.
And it was so funny, because the priest at the end, like, gave the
announcements.
And one of the things, he was like, they're doing a parish, they're doing, like,
what do you call it?
Like a talent show for everybody.
And he's just announcing this to the whole, like, 300 people.
And Brian goes, he goes there every week.
And they go, so if anyone's got a skill, if anyone's a juggler, anyone's a
comedian, come and do that for the talent show for everybody.
And he gave no impression that he would be doing it.
But I'd love, you fucking spoon-faced Japs!
And he would be terrified and upset if he had brought that.
He's the sweetest man in real life.
I don't want to give that away.
People don't know.
He's a juggler.
He's a lovely man.
He's a great guy in real life.
He always was.
Always was.
Like, I've known him forever.
So he's, what I would say, is like an undiscovered genius.
Because he was a guy that was just fucking killing it.
But never went on the road.
He only worked the store.
I rarely saw him even at, like, the Laugh Factory or the Improv.
I don't know if I could ever recall seeing him at those places.
But he had to consciously make the decision not to go on the road.
Well, it's hard because it's not offered to you.
You know, it's like, how do you do it?
If you just do all your sets at the store, you kind of have to have someone
take you with them.
Right?
So what happened with me is I mostly did the road around New York and
Connecticut.
So when I moved to New York in, I guess, a 91-ish.
Yeah, so probably like 91-ish.
And so when I moved there, the real money, like, to be able to pay bills was in
the road.
It was not in New York City.
New York City did not pay very well.
You can get a lot of spots.
But also I was really new, so maybe I couldn't have gotten a lot of spots.
But I could get a lot of spots doing gigs for, like, John Shuler.
He had a whole Connecticut run that you could do.
They were great gigs.
They'd pay, like, 300 bucks a night.
Or you could do Gonzo at a bunch in New Jersey.
And those paid really well.
Did this collapse at some point?
No, there's still probably some sort of a network of roadshows.
There's a—Louis has a story on someone's podcast about, like, crashing his
motorcycle and then, like, a bubble bursting.
I don't know if he was speaking.
A bubble bursting?
It was like comedy.
All of a sudden, clubs started to close.
Well, there's been ups and downs with that.
There was—I came in to comedy in 88, and apparently in 84 in Boston, it was
even better.
Yeah.
Like, there was, like, a peak in—I'm like, really?
Like, because when I came in, it was amazing.
There was clubs everywhere.
Like, nah, you missed it.
So there's always been this, like, up and down of clubs closing.
But, like, New York is on the rise right now.
There's a bunch of clubs that have opened up in New York.
New York's—comedy right now is fucking doing great.
I hope—yeah, I hope they can figure it out.
What do you mean?
Well, I was in—last time I was in L.A., the spirit was so—I was never in L.A.
for it being great.
But I've heard all the stories about everyone's sports car at the back of the
thing, and there's this gig and that gig.
And then I was—everybody, like, has no sense that it's ever going to work for
them.
Like, no one's even bothered to—there's, like, three podcasts in L.A. now
that people are doing.
I don't want to talk it down, but, like, here, everybody is so hopeful in
Austin.
And I can look at, like, Peyton made it.
Like, last night, I'm looking at that green room.
I'm like, all of these people have money in their touring, and they came here,
and they got to do it.
Like, and the hope and the adventure.
And when I was in L.A., everyone was just—
You might have picked up that night, but it's also, like, the Comedy Store has
always been—
That seems like it's getting better.
Yeah, it is getting better.
Well, it's definitely getting better because Rose is running it now.
Yeah.
She's awesome.
But I think the Comedy Store has always been a top-down vibe.
And if there was a bunch of, like, big-name national acts that were really cool
and fun to hang out with, then it was a great vibe.
Yeah.
And when they're gone, it always felt empty.
It always felt weird.
This is how it was with me in the 90s when I was there, and I think that's how
it is now.
We're all out here now.
Yeah.
You know?
And it's like—and then people kind of feel abandoned, so they feel sad.
And then they get a little mad at you.
Like, yeah, you think of fucking me doing it in Austin.
And so it develops a stupid rift, which is the dumbest thing ever.
We're all on the same team.
And also, you could work here, too.
Like, it's so dumb.
Yeah.
Like, but the rift is a real thing.
But it's like, you have to be around a bunch of people that are having a good
time to have a good time.
You can't be the only person having a good time.
And the rift can be good.
The rift can motivate people to—have you seen Le Maire's Twitter?
To get their shit together?
No, what's he doing?
He's just going hard on New York people and saying, fuck all of them, and
Austin's number one.
He's trying to—he's doing the same thing they were doing to him.
That's so silly.
I think he—
New York is fucking great.
I think he gets very drunk and he starts swinging to people.
There's so many great comics, Norman and Soder and fucking Andrew Schultz and
David Tells, The Best Alive.
I don't know anyone who has children here.
There's great comedians in New York.
I don't see how you could have kids.
Gaffigan raised all his kids there.
In the city?
Yeah, and he's a super clean Catholic guy.
Yeah.
I don't know how he's—
He's got some money.
First of all, he's got some money.
Money has got to help.
Sent him to a nice place to go to school where they're not going to get eaten.
I think the trans thing is done in the schools.
Yeah, it's dropped off significantly.
I had really—because we were homeschooling, and I was just aware, because my
dad's a teacher,
and he would say—I don't want to get him in trouble, but he would report that
the numbers were developing.
And I think as a social phenomenon, it seems to have like—now everyone just
says they have an anxiety disorder.
Well, you know when it dropped off?
Like, noticeably?
When?
When Elon bought Twitter.
We just stopped pumping the content to say it's good.
Well, all of a sudden, you could say whatever you wanted.
Yeah.
And so you could make fun of it now.
And then people realize, oh, this is a completely falsely propped-up narrative.
Also, I mean—
Do you smoke cigars?
I quit all nicotine.
Interesting.
Do you have alcohol?
I have a drink.
I can get you some alcohol.
All right.
If I could have a whiskey.
I quit all nicotine.
What happened?
I was having heart palpitations.
I was doing it a lot.
I had a problem.
I cannot do a little bit.
I see—you'll just—like, you'll be backstage, you'll have one cigarette, and
you're fine.
Yeah.
I can't—
And I never smoke outside of right before a show.
I don't—I mean, I—
But I'm—
Full power to you.
I can't do that.
I know how to shut things off, and I also regulate.
Like, I realize, like, when I have an issue, like, the nicotine pouches, I can
just stop them.
I've gone on vacation and just not take them, and I'm fine.
I think—but I think it's my biology.
It's almost time for spring break, so maybe you're headed to the beach, or
maybe you're
taking the kids on a road trip, or maybe you're just taking some extra time for
yourself.
No matter what, you deserve a break and a reset, and AG1 can help.
AG1 is your daily health drink.
Just one scoop combines your multivitamin, pre- and probiotics, superfoods, and
antioxidants
to help support a healthy immune system and digestion.
Plus, it travels really well, so you can start working it into your routine.
Even when you don't have a routine.
Just slip a few travel packs into your luggage and have a nice flight.
I've talked about AG1 for a long time, and it's not just me.
I know a lot of people enjoy it.
It's very easy.
It's very convenient.
And you deserve to take care of your health.
Visit drinkag1.com/joerogan, and for a limited time, get a bottle of omega-3
vitamin D3 K2 and
an AG1 flavor sampler for free in your welcome kit with your first subscription.
That's an $111 value at drinkag1.com slash joerogan.
I was quitting, going back, when I went back to Australia and I came off nicotine
at the same time.
I think that was the closest to serious, unpleasant.
Really?
I don't think I ever got through to abusive, but man, there was a lot of
shouting at the family.
What the fuck are you doing?
Put it down!
I was not a happy...
How long did it last?
For a month, I was real bad.
Wow!
I was real bad.
That's crazy.
For me, I don't know what it is, man.
I could just put it alone, leave it alone, and I'm fine.
And I monitored myself.
I went on vacation for like eight days with the family, and I said, all right,
no nicotine pouches.
Let's see what happens.
You were fine?
Let's see if I go crazy.
I was waiting.
Nothing.
Nothing happened.
Nothing.
Was it you with the pouches?
Was it the pouches?
I loved the pouches.
And also, I mean, I got on the pouches to get off the cigarettes, and then I
had to go on the cigarettes to get off the pouches.
And then I was having cigarettes and pouches and the gum, and my heart would
start to go, and my mood would go way up and way down.
Wow.
But I got a lot done.
See, I get addicted to things.
Yeah.
Like doing things.
Like real bad.
I used to get addicted.
Archery, sure.
But the thing about archery is you can only do it so much.
Archery's good because it's, you know, my bow is 80 pounds to pull back.
Yeah.
And so if I'm pulling it back, and I have another one that's 90.
And so when I'm pulling it back, 80 pounds, you can only do that so many times.
You know, I could do that maybe 100 times in a day, and my fucking shoulder's
blown out.
If you're hunting, though, I mean, you're not shooting very often, but you
wouldn't be able to get so tired that if you got a dangerous situation, you
couldn't do it.
No, no, no, no, no.
But when you're hunting, first of all, you're jacked up with adrenaline.
Like you could pull a branch off a fucking tree.
You're so jacked up with adrenaline.
You're just trying to stay calm.
Like when you're about to pull your bow, the bow pulls back effortlessly.
It's like, it's like you don't even notice that it's, it pulls back so easy.
You're so ramped up.
You're not even thinking about it.
How often are you doing that?
Bow hunting?
Seriously, only a couple times a year because I'm elk hunting, you know, and if
I get an elk, yes, it's September, September and October.
Those are the times.
But in Texas, we hunt pigs sometimes.
We have a lease out here, so we'll go and hunt with a few of my friends from
archery country.
Shout out to Tyler.
And my friend Evan from Black Rifle Coffee.
We'll go out to-
Wild pigs?
Oh, they're everywhere.
Okay.
They're infested.
Wild pigs are all over Texas.
Oh, thank you.
There's millions of them, like literally millions of them.
Like one time they opened up a highway, like they built this new highway and
the day it opened up,
they had like this fucking ridiculous amount of accidents because people were
hitting wild pigs
because there were so many wild pigs out there that they're just crashing into
them on the road
with this new highway because the pigs had never seen cars before on this spot
because they hadn't finished the road yet.
And then all of a sudden there's cars everywhere and these wild pigs are just
getting fucking-
But did they-
Because in Australia when they have a kangaroo problem and a similar thing-
Cheers, sir.
Cheers, God bless.
Thank you.
God bless.
They, um, they Gatling gunned them from the sky.
Have you seen that?
They do that here.
They do that here at a helicopter.
You could do it if you want while you're in town.
I'll set it up.
You know, all right.
If you could do it this way, I would feel guilty.
Yeah, this is-
That would have been not a sporting way to start hunting would be the machine
gun.
Yeah, it's a different kind of hunting.
Yeah.
Because it's a necessity hunting, right?
Yeah.
Um, I want to eat what I kill.
If I kill something, I want to eat it.
Yeah.
And the thing about these wild pigs is they're gunning down 20, 30, 40 of them
in a day.
Yeah.
They're doing them out of helicopters with machine guns.
There's a bunch of companies that do it.
There's a video of Ted Nugent and this guy named Pigman.
Pigman is like a famous bow hunter that lives in Texas.
And it's called Aporkalypse Now.
And they're in a helicopter.
Ted Nugent and Pigman in a helicopter.
And they gunned down like 240 pigs in a half hour podcast.
Yeah, yeah.
Hunting show.
That would be a great podcast.
He's called Pigman?
Yeah.
He's a pig killing.
His name's Brian.
His name's Brian.
Sure.
It's Pigman.
Brian the Pigman.
He just kills a lot of wild pigs.
But it's a necessity out here.
Look at this.
But you have to understand how many pigs they have out here and the kind of
damage.
That's Pigman.
And the kind of damage that these pigs do to agriculture.
You know, they go through fences and they fuck up.
Livestock gets out.
And there's a lot of shit with these things.
Yeah.
Oh, it's crazy.
Is this the argument for bringing wolves back in?
No, do not bring wolves.
No, I'm against it.
But I don't understand.
What is the most pro...
Is there one sensible argument for bringing back in apex predators to...
Well, there's arguments for it.
You could make an argument for it.
The problem is you do not understand.
No one understands what the ultimate result is going to be of introducing
predators.
There is a very strong reason why they eradicated wolves from the West Coast.
Yeah.
And from the United States.
Because they fucking kill everything.
They're super smart apex predators.
They work in packs unlike any other animal.
They're very different.
And they kill everything.
And you can't do shit about them.
And they kill people.
Also, like, in the UK, they got rid of them hundreds of years ago.
Yeah.
This was like, they celebrated it.
They got rid of them in America, too.
Yeah.
I mean, and now these fucking greenies, these softies that really don't
understand nature
want to bring them back.
So there's a good argument in some ways that having some predators would help.
But the predators were slowly moving their way back into these areas anyway.
So they never eradicated them from Canada.
So they would come down from Canada and make their way into Minnesota, make
their way into
Iowa, make their way into, not Iowa, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana.
They had like a small amount of wolves were kind of making their way in.
Then they reintroduced a bunch of them into Montana in the 1990s, into Yellowstone.
That changed everything.
That changed everything.
It dropped the elk population by down to like 40% of what it used to be, which
many people
argue is actually a good thing because there was no predators in terms of like,
like there's
mountain lions, but mountain lions don't kill that many elk.
They'll kill one in like a week.
Like families go to Yellowstone.
Yeah.
So now there's just wolves.
Yeah, but the wolves are not fucking with the people at Yellowstone.
They really are just concentrating on the animals and they've like really
knocked down the
elk population substantially.
But now they have an open hunting season on wolves in Montana because the, the,
the numbers
got a lot higher than they should be.
Right.
So now like I know guys who hunt wolves and they go on wolf.
It's very difficult.
I was going to say, it sounds more dangerous and unpleasant than hunting elk.
Well, it is dangerous in that it is a predator.
And if you do get surrounded by them, they decide to eat you and you're out of
bullets.
You could be fucked.
But for the most part, they're very difficult to hunt.
They're very difficult to find.
Yeah.
They're also very difficult to get in range.
They're fucking clever.
They're clever.
And once they realize they're being hunted and they, once they realize that
people are
a problem, they fucking steer way clearer.
What's the ideological reason for wanting them back?
Just that they, it's good to be in a country.
It's nature.
I love nature.
Yeah, but focus on the bees, you know?
Well, there's people that don't like hunting.
And for people that don't like hunting, they want nature to balance itself out.
So the people that don't like the idea of humans killing and eating animals,
they don't
like them going out into the wild and killing wild animals.
So they want something else to kill those wild animals.
So then they bring in mountain lions or then they bring in wolves.
And then they think that nature is going to sort itself out.
It's a dumb ideology.
I don't understand not wanting us to do it.
Why is it okay for them to, this is the vegetarian argument that I never
understand, is that death
occurs in nature.
Animals are eating other animals.
Right.
So if it's wrong to kill any animals, should we intervene?
Should we kill all the mountain lions to keep them from killing all the deer?
I thought vegan fox was one of my favorite bits that you ever did.
Oh, vegan cat.
Is it?
No, is it not fox?
You're not talking about a fox?
No, it's about vegan cat.
And it's very sick.
It literally is a true story.
Yeah.
Like this lady was saying mean things to me on Twitter or Instagram.
And I saw one of the things on her page.
I went to her page.
It said hashtag vegan cat.
And I was like, no.
And so then I clicked on it and it's all cats that look like they've been stuck
in a house
with a gas leak.
Wait, maybe that got me started searching vegan animals.
Because vegan fox, I definitely read a lot about after that.
Yeah, there's people that have vegan dogs.
They feed their dogs.
But you're basically, you can kind of get away with it a little bit with a dog.
But cats are what's called obligate predators.
They only eat meat.
They're obligated to prey?
Yeah, they only eat meat.
That's all they eat.
That's it.
They're just predators.
They're full-on murderous machines.
Like house cats are some of the most murderous creatures on earth.
They kill billions of animals.
Yeah, as soon as you die.
As soon as you die.
Because dogs will give you an afternoon.
Weeks?
I thought dogs gave you just a little head start.
It depends on how starving they are.
If they're starving to death, their instincts kick in and they'll eat you.
But cats just start eating you.
They're like, oh, look, eyeballs.
We're yet to get an animal.
You have dogs.
You have one dog, two dogs.
Two dogs.
And you don't run the Instagram pages for these animals?
Someone's running the dog Instagram page.
Really?
Yeah.
So we got a little guy named Charlie.
Yeah.
He is a King Charles Cavalier Spaniel.
Yeah.
He is the furthest animal away from wolf that is possible.
Because they all came from wolves.
But he's the furthest from a wolf.
He has no...
He's this big.
He's adorable.
Do you feel like wearing the big wig and the stockings and holding him?
I always wanted to be King Charles.
I just give him kisses.
He's a sweetie, though.
It's not yours, but...
That's what they look like.
Yeah.
That's what they look like.
I mean, come on.
Look at that face.
They're just so sweet.
They're so happy to be around you.
And they're just so loving.
And he makes sounds like a person.
Like he was doing something.
Like he was licking all this water that was coming off of a drain.
And I go, hey, stop doing that.
And I picked it up.
And he went, aw.
He makes noise.
You are harder than that dog.
Oh, I love him.
But they don't make me feel sad.
They're a little dog who look interesting.
Oh, that's him.
That's Charlie.
That's him?
Yeah, that's Charlie.
Pugs make me very sad.
I think about pugs a lot.
And they upset me.
And the long dogs, like the sausage dogs with the back problems.
Anything that looks like it, it's ready to die.
No, no.
I know what you mean.
I know what you mean.
Like a golden retriever is great.
Yeah.
Well, I have one of those two.
Yeah.
That's my favorite.
Those two dogs are great.
This is not like a pug.
They're very active.
They're really, they're very.
It's like a water dog.
It's a fucking dog that's just like a house dog.
They're just like a little love machine.
Just a little pet.
He's a sweet, sweet little guy.
Like, he's the best.
He's so nice.
He's like so, and he just relentlessly tortures my dog, Marshall.
The big dog?
Yeah, who's the most tolerant dog on earth.
He just lays there and the puppy's like, ah, like biting him.
How did you get the puppy?
He's a year old.
Okay.
So we've had him for whatever, eight months, I guess.
Like how many months they give him to you?
Three months old?
Something like that.
How old are puppies when you get them?
Yeah, they should be, I think, eight weeks old, I think.
Yeah.
So we probably had him for 10 months.
He's fucking adorable.
I cannot travel with a dog to Australia.
No.
You have to get him all kinds of shots.
Johnny Depp tried.
Yeah, he got in big trouble for that, right?
I think that was the beginning of the end of that marriage.
I think it was from the moment he said, let's get married.
They were happy until that dog problem.
But the guy who, there was a politician who stopped Johnny Depp, who was like,
he came
out and said, we're going to destroy his dogs.
And then everyone made fun of him in America.
But that guy is now doing, he's like big in the emergent populist right in
Australia over
the last six months.
And he wanted to kill Johnny Depp's dogs?
Yeah.
He's a great speaker.
He was like, I don't care if you are People Magazine's sexiest man of the year.
Get your dogs out.
Why?
What's the big deal?
We have no rabies.
We're very precious about the border.
That's all we've got.
His name is Barnaby Joyce.
He is sick.
Demand that dogs leave the country within 48 to 50 hours or be put down, citing
strict
quarantine laws designed to protect diseases like rabies.
But here's the thing.
Just test them.
How much does it cost to test a dog for rabies?
It's probably pretty quick.
Barnaby Joyce drunk.
So this was not long after that.
An issue with the, yeah, pistol and boo.
Yeah, go Barnaby Joyce drunk.
They caught him on the streets of our lake, of Canberra, which is where the
capital is.
And he was just passed out in the street.
He's like, there he is, down the bottom.
The bottom one?
Yeah.
The bottom one.
Yeah.
But he's just lying on the street.
When was it?
It wasn't that long ago.
Two years ago?
Joyce.
That man was in the government.
Good.
What's wrong?
It's a safe place to live.
I was walking back to my accommodations after parliament rose at 10 p.m.
Oh, that's all he was doing.
Just walking back to his accommodations.
He's having a walk.
I do like him a lot.
Look, he's just taking a nap.
He's just chilling.
We have a strong situation.
It could be a long walk.
Yeah, man.
Give the guy a break.
It's kicking.
We're finally, we were the last country to have like a right-wing populist
thing happen.
You guys had the Trump and then England is having it happen with, like in a big
way, it's really
starting to swing there.
So it's swinging right now in Australia?
It's for the first time.
It's starting up.
Yeah.
And what's causing that?
Terrorist attack was not good.
Yeah.
And then also running out of petrol really has upset people.
We don't have, we don't make our own gas.
We had two refineries.
One of them accidentally blew up a week ago.
Do you think it accidentally blew up?
I have no comment to make.
What do you think though?
No, I think probably someone, it seems like real bad luck.
Seems like it.
I mean, they would have been doing it at like max capacity.
Maybe they did it past when it was safe, but it's not, I thought I wasn't going
to make
it out of the country.
Because they're out of gas?
My flights started to get cancelled.
Yeah.
So I made it.
We'll see if I can get back.
And if not.
I hope you can't.
Well, I'll just stay in Austin for another couple of months.
I hope you can't get back.
I'm sorry, honey.
Just, we've got a lot of spots for you.
There's no choice.
I'm not going to get on the boat.
Plenty of work here.
It is so nice getting to do it.
It is so nice having a club.
No, it's like there's four cities in the world where you can do it.
I think about this a lot.
There's nowhere, like in America there's three.
And there'd be London.
That's it.
That's it.
That you can what?
That there's like multiple rooms with lineup shows every night of the week.
Right.
So people can just go and run 10, 15 minutes.
Yeah.
And like at a good room with people.
And get paid.
And get paid.
Yeah.
I mean, you need all of those factors to be able to do it.
And you also need other comics around you.
Yes.
This is one of the things that we were talking about last night in the green
room.
Like, you know, me and Ari.
Ari Schaffer's in town.
And we were saying you can't be like the best comic in the world and just live
in a small town in, you know, Cincinnati.
It's like it doesn't exist.
By yourself, it doesn't exist.
Comedy doesn't exist.
They tried it in a little town in Arizona and the pressure seems to have driven
that comedy club owner right over the edge.
Oh, yeah.
Stan Hope's boy.
But that guy was crazy already, right?
I didn't know a thing about it.
I just saw him give the speech.
Well, if he's hanging with Stan Hope.
You know, Stan Hope tends to collect some people that are off the fringe.
I'm not blaming Doug Stan Hope.
But that's a different scene, right?
Like, Stan Hope, you know, was just kind of being out there by himself.
And it didn't even have a comedy club for the longest time while he lived there.
It wasn't like there was a whole comedy scene there in Bisbee.
Was it like 20,000 people?
It's very small.
Yeah.
He knows everybody, right?
But the Austin thing was very different.
Like, we were stuck here.
There was not a lot of options.
We could have gone to Houston.
We could have gone to Dallas.
Maybe Nashville.
Maybe Florida.
There was no place else that we were allowed to do comedy.
Nashville would be the next one.
Yeah.
It's really trying.
Nashville's got Zanies, which is awesome.
That's a great club.
They've got Theo there.
They've got Nate there.
Nate and Theo both lived there.
But I don't know how many sets they were doing in town.
You know, Nate is doing fucking stadiums.
He's doing these giant places all over the world.
And Theo is killing it.
And he's got one of the best podcasts in the world.
But there are definitely, there are like Nashville comics who are coming out,
who I see around the place, who are doing really well.
Sure.
I'm sure there's a smaller scene.
But in terms of like a lot of work, Austin's the spot right now.
Yes.
Because there's seven clubs on our street.
Hold on.
That's nuts.
Within a block radius, you've got Creek in the Cave, which is over on 7th.
You've got Sunset, which is right next to us.
You've got Black Rabbit.
I was going to say Black Rabbit.
You've got the Velveeta Room.
Yes.
I'm going to count Shakespeare's next door.
Yeah.
I'll allow that.
They do comedy.
And I do love the Velveeta Room.
That place has been around forever.
It's been around forever.
And there's the gay cabaret next door.
I don't think it's expressly gay.
I just call it a gay cabaret.
You like going in there?
I went there one evening.
I was having a full mental breakdown.
I don't know why.
Just a classic, you know.
Out of nowhere?
You know, the kids, it's a lot of pressure.
Maybe the act wasn't working.
Maybe I've been on the road.
I don't know.
And I was down.
I was depressed.
And I wandered into them doing the Esther's Follies show.
I just sat up the back and I had a pina colada.
And they were all like, there was a magician.
It was just a very camp magician.
And then they're singing like campy show tunes about the Supreme Court or
something.
Like they're still doing SNL style sketches.
And it was like, you know, it was dumb and it was hokey.
But it made me so happy.
Oh, that's nice.
Just to like have, I don't know.
People having a good time.
Razzle dazzle, smiling.
There was no bitterness.
Happiness.
Yeah.
And it made me want to fix my act so that I wasn't, you know, like sometimes I
feel I
get up there and I'm just like screaming and I look unpleasant.
And these people are like, you owe people a show.
Yes.
You know?
I don't think you look unpleasant.
But you're just very self-conscious.
No.
Sometimes.
I did the Creek in the Cave last night and I did a lot of screaming into.
Into the Abyss?
I was like, yeah.
Another great club.
Fucking great.
I love it.
Great spot.
Creek in the Cave is a great club.
It's a fun place.
When it's packed, it's rocking.
And, you know, there's a lot of good comedy coming out of that.
I mean, that's where Shane filmed as special as well.
New York is on the up again.
New York is finally.
Everybody that I talk to, all my friends from New York, I'll say that there's a
lot of clubs
opening.
There's a lot going on.
It's hopping.
Didn't they just open up, was it an improv in Brooklyn?
Did they open up an improv in Brooklyn?
I know this top secret comedy has just, like a London club has just moved there.
Interesting.
I don't know how it's going, but they're doing, like, a free model.
They're trying to do, they were trying to do a UCB in Austin.
I don't know if that's still happening.
The problem with UCB is UCB in L.A. didn't pay at all.
Is this improv?
No.
Upright Citizens Brigade?
They have some improv, but they do stand-up shows.
I thought that was, like, Second City.
I didn't know.
They do stand-up shows.
Okay.
Yeah, but they don't pay you.
They don't pay?
No, which is crazy.
There was a history of that at the store.
Sure.
That was the, there was, like, this big protest.
What does it say?
Improv Brooklyn.
There you go.
There's a strong Zoom.
Yeah, I think Joey said he was going there.
It's, uh, it's a completely new place.
All right, this, I don't know if this is politically incorrect.
But this is what I'm saying.
It's, like, it's popping.
Comedy's coming back.
Some improvs are black and some are not.
What?
Like, some improvs around the country are, like, just black rooms.
Look at this lineup, dude.
If I look at the lineups.
Look at the lineups.
What are you talking about?
I'm not saying here, but, like, in, uh...
You sound like a racist foreigner.
In Cleveland, the improv is just a black club.
I've done the improv in Cleveland, I think.
It's a black club.
Really?
No negativity.
I like.
I like.
I'm pretty sure I did it.
I like playing black clubs.
So it's Cleveland, that's the one that's close to Kentucky, right?
Am I getting this right?
Maybe it's Pittsburgh.
I don't think there's...
No, Pittsburgh's not...
I've been in that place.
No, I've done that one as well.
Improv in Pittsburgh is great, too.
I have dates coming up there as well.
Hilarities or something?
I'm telling...
Well, Hilarities was the non-racially...
Go back to that website real quick.
Look at all the different ones.
Wow.
There's not one in Cleveland, though.
There's a ton of them.
Is one of those fake...
Maybe it's shut down.
No.
So the other...
There's a club in Cleveland.
There is a club in Cleveland that I went to way back in the day.
But it's really...
You land in Kentucky, and then you drive to Cleveland.
What?
Yeah.
No, it's Cincinnati.
Oh, is it Cincinnati?
Yeah, that makes more sense.
Okay, that's it.
You're right.
You need to drive out.
Ohio is more built up...
Sorry, Ohio.
...than people give credit before.
Three huge cities.
They got that chili that everybody loves.
Columbus is great.
Columbus is great.
Cincinnati has the most beautiful skyline.
You ever do the Funny Bone?
Columbus?
Yes.
Fucking great club.
With the balcony?
Oh.
It was very nice.
That's...
Does it have a balcony?
I'm pretty...
Yes.
Yeah.
Columbus Funny Bone?
Am I getting this right?
They've definitely changed it since you've been there last.
Is it a new one?
No.
Are they just added a balcony?
They just renovated the whole room.
Oh.
I love having the balcony.
They must have had to add seats.
It was killing it.
Everywhere that has a balcony is my favorite.
Well, once you have a place that's a club that gets good accent every weekend,
Cleveland Improv.
Okay.
Hold on.
Shut the fuck up.
What's that?
They love to go and see Eddie Griffin at the Cleveland Improv?
Come on.
It's the 2020.
Maybe it closed.
This is 2020?
Oh, it's six years ago.
I don't know.
It's like where I typed in Cleveland Improv.
So who's that?
Lou and Elle's there?
And Tony Baker was there?
The Funny Bone is what comes up, though.
I will not be besmirched for making a very genuine observation about how black
the Cleveland
Improv was.
That's hilarious.
Because I tried to get on.
I was trying to do black rooms when I got to open for Finesse Mitchell.
That was the first black room I got to play.
Nice.
I've slowed down.
There's not heaps of black rooms in Austin.
I should go over to Houston sometimes.
Yeah.
Where are the black rooms in Austin?
I think the Mothership.
Yeah, probably, right?
I think some of the lineups at the ship.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I still think Chocolate Sundaes could work at the Mothership.
I can't run it.
You could.
That would be fun.
I feel like you just have shows.
I think themes are retarded.
They try to do an Italian theme at the comedy store for a while.
Like Night of a Thousand Guidos, I think they called it.
And I did it.
And I was like, what am I doing?
I'm on this show with all these other Italians just because they're Italian.
There is something different about a black audience.
Yeah, sure.
It is.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's a different skill set, I found.
It's a different skill set, and they won't tolerate nonsense.
No.
They won't tolerate all this, like, what else?
What else?
No, no, no, no, no.
They're not here for that, which I think is good.
You can't even make fun of gay things.
You can't mention gay stuff at all.
Really?
Oh, man.
I had a trans bit.
Just people were not happy to hear.
Why are you talking about that?
Why are you bringing that up?
We're out here to have a nice night.
It was like on a dime it turned.
Really?
Yeah.
And then people told me afterwards, they don't want to hear that word from you.
Really?
Interesting.
It was fun.
I felt very alive when it was going well.
And also black people giving you compliments.
Just an Aussie boy coming off stage and having a black guy go, you've got to go
to stage presence.
I was like, oh, fuck.
Thank you so much.
That's awesome.
Yeah, black people, that was very eye-opening when I came to America.
You don't have a lot of that in Australia.
We have Africans and we have Aboriginal people, but we have no.
If you wear a cool coat in Australia, no one will tell you about it.
There will be no one to say.
Yeah, there's a very big difference between African-Americans and black people
worldwide.
African-Americans are responsible for so much of the culture, music, comedy.
There's so much of an impact that African-Americans have had on the world.
Think about just hip-hop music.
Yeah.
Right?
So hip-hop music doesn't even exist until I was in middle school.
Like light 70s?
Yeah.
So I was in middle school.
I went to high school in 81.
And when was Sugar Hill Gang's hip-hop, hippity-the-hippity-hip-hop, what was
that song called?
Rapper's Delight.
Yeah.
So that song came out when I was, I think I was 13.
I think I was 13.
I think I was in middle.
1979 is when the same year they formed.
That makes sense.
So when I was in, when we first moved to Boston, my family didn't have much
money.
We lived in a place called Jamaica Plain.
And it's since been kind of gentrified, but back then it was not.
It was the first time I'd ever been around scary kids.
Yeah.
Like violent, delinquent kids who had all had sex.
I hadn't had sex.
All these kids, they're like, you don't even know where a pussy is, do you?
I'm like, it's down there.
Like, you probably think you go right into it, right?
You got to go up.
I'm like, okay.
I don't fucking know.
I never even kissed a girl.
I was like, what the fuck are you guys talking about?
But they were like lighting fires, doing crazy shit.
Like they were delinquents.
Jamaica Plains.
Stealing things.
They were listening to hip-hop music.
Yeah.
And so I went to this high school, or middle school rather.
And this middle school was in a poor neighborhood.
And I remember there was a kid that was in my class.
I was 13.
He was 17 years old.
And he kept failing.
He kept failing and coming back.
He would come back for like a couple weeks or two and then he would quit.
And I remember seeing him at the beginning of the school year.
And I'm going, I can't believe he's 17.
And he's in class with me.
This is nuts.
And then I was filled with like this sense of dread for him.
Yeah.
For his future.
Like this fucking guy's never going to graduate middle school.
So he's never going to go to high school.
He's fucking 17.
Like will they even allow you to go to high school if you're 21?
Like what year do they say, you can't come here anymore.
You failed nine years in a row.
At some point did they kick you out?
It was that kind of kids.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It was that kind of kids.
And then there was like kids making out in class.
I remember this Puerto Rican girl.
She asked a question to the teacher.
She said, if I'm making out with a guy and he's breathing into my mouth and I'm
breathing
into his, can we stay alive like that?
Can you?
No, no, no.
It's carbon dioxide.
I never forgot that question.
Can we stay alive like that?
It was the craziest question.
She was like, can we breathe each other's air and not open our mouths?
And I was like, what are you doing?
You fucking dirty freak.
So a lot of girls dropped out like while I was there because they got pregnant.
Sure.
It was dangerous.
Where were you before then though?
Florida.
You were in a more middle class place before then.
Yeah, I was in Florida.
I was in Gainesville, Florida, which was like way safer.
It was pretty cool.
You may have moved around more than anyone I know.
I moved around a lot.
So I lived in New Jersey until I was seven and then lived in San Francisco from
seven to
11 and then lived in Florida from 11 to 13 and then Boston from 13 to 24.
Do you, I mean, cause you're, you're now, your kids growing up in, they were in
LA and
then they're here.
Do you think, I worry about my kids cause I've, I don't think they've ever been
in the
same house for more than one year.
Like I have a seven year old daughter.
She's been in seven houses now.
Uh, cause we've had to move a lot and I wonder what impact that is making.
Well, as long as they're young, I honestly think it has a positive effect.
Okay.
This is my take on what it did for me.
Um, I was forced to form my own opinions instead of adopting the opinions of a
group of
people that were around me because I'd never had a consistent group of people
that were
around me.
Yeah.
I met a bunch of new people everywhere I went and I had new friends everywhere
I went
and completely new environments everywhere I went.
So I went from San Francisco in the 1970s right into Florida and Florida was so
backwards in
terms of their mentality in comparison to San Francisco.
San Francisco, we lived in hippieville.
It was all like anti-war people and it's San Francisco in the 1970s.
And so then moved to Florida and it was like, I had this friend, his name was
Candy.
His last name was Candido.
Everybody called him Candy.
And his dad was like this really angry Cuban guy.
And I remember him slamming a newspaper on the table and he was like, these fags
want to
marry.
This is crazy.
Like they're going to let faggots marry each other.
And I remember thinking like, what do you care?
Because I lived in San Francisco, we're surrounded by gay people.
Yeah.
Our neighbors were gay.
My aunt used to smoke pot with them and they'd all get naked and play bongo
drums.
Because like she felt comfortable being naked around these guys who had no
interest in her.
They should reign it in now.
I would say, I've now seen San Francisco.
A little bit.
But that's not, it's not the gays that caused San Francisco to go down the way
it is.
It's this crazy progressive politics where they allow people to camp on the
streets.
I just, I went to a diner and I saw a man, he was wearing assless chaps and
sitting on
the, that upset me.
Apparently, if you're gay, it would be a good spot.
The public nudity is your, you have to cover the urethra.
Oh.
But if you cover the urethra, everything else is fine.
Oh, so you just like put a piece of tape over the whole of your dick?
You put a little googly eye over the Jap eye.
Nice.
Maybe you can't call it that.
You can, you just did.
Okay.
No, but that's, so that, that would, that helped you become more, because you
have like a weirdly
independent mentality.
That's why.
Yeah.
So that I think going to a bunch of different places and seeing that, oh,
people think completely
differently over here than they think over here.
This is weird.
You know, I remember when I lived in Florida, I had to ask my mother what the N
word meant
because I heard it at school and she got upset with me.
She goes, you know what it means.
I go, I don't, I don't what it means.
And she's like, it's a, it's a bad word for black people.
I was like, whoa, really?
Like it made no sense to me because the formative years, I think we're really
important.
And I think seven to 11 in San Francisco was really important for me because in
a way, at least for me, it was very much a utopian city.
Yeah.
It was like very open-minded.
It was very peaceful.
There was very little crime, like real crime.
The most beautiful place.
It was gorgeous.
It was gorgeous.
We'd, I'd go fishing.
I had this guy, there was like this community center and this guy named Cliff
would take us fishing.
It was really cool.
Like there was a lot of like good things about San Francisco back then.
And there was a lot of artists and it was a lot of like, it was a cool vibe.
You know, it was a, it was a very open-minded vibe that was, a lot of it was
centered around the anti-war movement and peace.
You know, there was a lot, it was like, it was a different kind of, and there
was sort of just like, just getting over the psychedelic wave of the 1960s.
Right.
So this is like, they're still in that mode.
It was still like an artist driven.
Yeah, a lot of open pot smoking.
It was a lot of like, just hippies.
But, but in the best way, it wasn't camping on the streets.
It wasn't, there was no fentanyl back then.
There was no, there's no homelessness.
Like homelessness was super, super rare.
Yeah.
Like in the 1970s, like when I was a kid, I never saw people camped out in the
street.
You never saw any of that.
You occasionally saw a bum and it was usually some poor fuck.
It was like a drunk guy, right?
He lost his way.
Also, if you, if you look at Dirty Harry or On the Waterfront, whenever there
is like a depiction of, like whenever they're doing vagrants in the 50s and 60s,
it's like a drunk guy stumbling around.
Like in Rambo, he just wants a sandwich and they chase him out of town.
Right.
And then, you know, it's trouble.
But now there's like.
They're everywhere.
It's like Kung Fu skeletons moving around the place, like full of drunk.
Like what is the end point of that?
It is.
No one's running on that.
I remember Trump talked about a little bit the need to have asylums again
because they closed the asylums.
Yes.
I mean, there are more therapists now than there ever were before, but they're
helping like corporate people.
They're not helping schizophrenics without a home.
Like at some point, you saw Trump bring the army in to places like Portland or
the National Guard to clear it out.
And I think people were quietly kind of pleased that that was happening.
There was people pushed back.
Is that why they cleared it out?
There is a homeless situation.
I think it was the homelessness.
I thought it was protests.
No, I think that was.
I think that in Washington as well.
I think they came into.
Washington was homeless people.
It was crime as well.
Yeah.
Like Washington was like crazy with crime.
And they were all kind of happy about it.
Well, the mayor of D.C. was happy.
Yeah.
That Trump brought in the National Guard.
But this is, it's not a nice, you can't lose the downtowns across America.
You know how bad L.A.'s gotten, right?
Yeah.
L.A.
Yes, I do.
Do you know how big Skid Row is?
Take a guess.
What do you mean?
How many people?
How many blocks?
I have no idea.
Take a guess.
Two.
Fifty.
Well, that's too many blocks.
Five zero.
That's not a row anymore.
Five zero, which is completely claimed by homeless zombies.
No, how big are the blocks?
I'm thinking about L.A., downtown.
Big as fuck.
I stayed away from there.
It's huge.
I went to the Hollywood Hills in Malibu and had a nice time.
Downtown is nuts.
Downtown L.A. is the only downtown of any major city that sucks.
No.
Downtown New York is great.
Downtown New York is incredible.
Right.
Downtown San Francisco is fucked with homeless people, but it's still, you've
got great restaurants.
After a while, it is nice.
Downtown L.A. is a ghost town.
It's weird.
Portland is so beautiful in downtown, but then you will turn down a street and
it's terrifying.
Fifty to fifty-four.
Oh, it's growing.
Skid Row in Los Angeles, officially known as Central City East, covers
approximately 50 to
54 blocks.
Fifteen thousand.
Yeah.
They don't know how many people are there.
There's just wild guesses in terms of what the populations of homeless people
are.
Even in terms of the population of the entire city, the high number is over a
hundred
thousand in the city.
It's crazy.
Look how big it is.
All that whole area is completely lost.
I thought it was a road.
I thought it was like one street.
Well, it was, it was back in like the 1960s.
I think it's, there's like a map or something they've drawn on a picture there.
I think it's been that for a long time.
Look at this proposed area.
Affordable housing.
Affordable housing is just a joke.
It's not what the problem is.
They're all drug addicts.
They're drug addicts and mentally ill.
Yeah, but what do you do to, well, you can't let it get that bad, first of all.
And if you do let it get that bad, you got to treat it like it's a catastrophic
failure
and throw as much resources as possible at it.
But the problem is these people are incentivized to keep the problem going
because that's how
they make their living.
Absolutely.
But they don't have any motivation whatsoever to fix it.
Yeah.
Because if the homeless population drops down to like a very small number and
then they don't
need all these people that are making half a million dollars a year on the
homeless commission,
it's complete grifting.
I don't have a, it's not my country.
I don't have any big problem with Gavin Newsom.
You know, I don't understand how LA has every story that comes out of
California seems to be.
Okay, so here it says between 1960 and 1975, 50% of the housing in Skid Row was
demolished,
reducing the total number of units from 15,000 to 7,500 and displacing
thousands of poor residents
with nowhere else to go by the street.
While Skid Row was never a wealthy neighborhood, its current status as the
homeless capital of
America is the result of decades of policy choices, which has simultaneously
encouraged
the destruction of existing affordability.
See, this is, by the way, this is a very progressive perspective.
The real perspective, the real perspective is that what they use Skid Row for
was when
they would find vagrants in Beverly Hills and vagrants in Hollywood, they would
move them
to Skid Row and then they would kind of contain them in that area.
This is right here.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dumping.
So, like a concentration camp for the homeless.
Yeah.
So, like a concentration camp for the homeless.
Yeah.
With homeless medical patients, all the other.
See, this is a very progressive perspective.
Homeless medical patients.
How about vagrants who are drug addicts?
Yeah.
You can call them medical patients.
Like, you're just being kind.
This is just too charitable.
From the, across the region.
So, they would dump them there.
And then they also had, like, food kitchens there and stuff like that.
So, they had an incentive to stay.
But they kept them there.
And so, then it kept growing because the homeless problem keeps growing and
growing and growing.
It's psychosis and drugs.
That's the ultimate.
Yes.
Drugs are the big one.
And drugs are, the drug use in Skid Row is probably 100%.
It's not like regular homeless people that are there.
I was in Portland and I saw a, I was, I had walking to the train station
through the downtown.
No one told me not to do it.
And I saw all these very sad homeless people.
And then one guy with a big smile.
He was so happy.
Probably got his fentanyl.
Well, no.
It's the first time I saw crack being smoked.
Oh.
There's a great smell.
Smell kind of sweet.
Yeah.
Like, what way?
It smelled like sweet, like a rotten apple.
That's how it felt at the time.
I don't know if that was the crack or if, I mean, he was smoking crack and I
could smell
that, but he was so happy and I didn't want to take his crack away.
You know, it's like, he's the only thing you've really got going for you today.
Yeah, I think crack is not good for you, but probably better for you than fentanyl.
It's all.
I think with crack, you're active.
Crack makes you go do a bunch of stuff.
This is weird seeing heroin people for the first time.
Because they're not like a threat.
Australia is still a very meth country.
We're like...
Oh, meth is a problem.
It's a lot of like skinny shirtless men on the bus.
Angry.
Yeah, crying out.
Weird head twitching back and forth.
Yeah.
So we're still very meth-y.
But meth doesn't seem to be as big here now.
Oh, it's big.
It's big in certain communities.
It seems to be as many meth people.
Meth is still big.
It's like, you know, what you've got in...
I mean, the homeless situation in Skid Row wasn't always fentanyl and heroin.
I mean, at one point in time, it was meth.
You know, it's a gang of different things.
I'm sure there's people there that are doing ketamine.
Do you just start killing drug deals?
Do you do it like in Singapore?
You just have a zero tolerance policy?
No.
I don't know long term what the answer is.
I mean, look, you could do it that way, but it would be very inhumane.
And it would also set a precedent for how you treat a bunch of other situations.
Yeah.
And that's not good.
It's dangerous.
The communists, when they had an opium problem in China, they just put them in
the military.
They'd like give people a new sense of purpose.
You've got a uniform now.
We're going to blame someone else for the problem.
This is Western imperialism did this to you.
Yeah.
And that seemed to help.
Like they don't have a big opium problem in China anymore.
Also, I don't know how official that is and how many people they did just kill
because
it's the communist government.
Yeah.
They're allowed to.
They lie.
They might lie.
They definitely lie.
Although last time I was, a couple months ago I was here and Kurt Metzger was
telling
me the Tiananmen Square was not all that bad.
Yeah.
I don't know if I'd listen.
I didn't do enough digging.
From everything he says, from a short Google search, I can agree with it.
But I'm sure if I dug down, I'd have more questions.
I haven't seen him actually since I got back.
Is he still here?
Oh, yeah.
He's out of his fucking mind.
He's great.
Most people are still here.
He's the best.
It's been odd.
But you can't talk conspiracies with him because it'll just, he'll chain them.
Yeah.
One after another, after another, and then three minutes in, you forgot what
you're even
talking about because he's moved on to some scandal in the 1970s with call boys
and Congress.
Oh, you spoke to him about Reagan?
Yeah.
What is it called?
The Franklin?
There's tapes.
Hassan was talking to me about it.
The Franklin scandal.
The Franklin scandal.
Hassan was bringing that up last night.
He's reading a book on it.
I want to think that Reagan was a good guy.
I always like it.
I don't think it's Reagan.
I think it's whoever's in his cabinet.
I mean.
No, it was.
Well, he's dead.
He can't.
He was saying things about Reagan getting pegged.
What?
Who was saying that?
Kurt was talking about that there was a tape somewhere of Reagan getting pegged
and I was
like, I don't want to know about it.
These guys don't even think the Artemis flight went past the moon.
They did it?
Kurt thinks there's a secret space program and that this space program is
bullshit and there's
a real space program and they're using this space program to obfuscate.
It just seems very complicated for people who can't do.
I might be saying it incorrectly.
He knows a lot of things.
He does.
He does.
He does.
And then when I dig in often, it seems true.
A lot of it is true.
But also, I think the government is incompetent everywhere.
And if they were able to get that one thing of, you know, building a fake space
program to
conceal a true space program, it seems unlikely.
Yeah.
Well, do you know how much money you'd have to have to run two space programs,
one real
one and one fake one?
That's crazy.
Just a real one costs so much.
Well, the Nazi one was real.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's come out.
Everyone seems.
Some people are still not aware of it.
I've had conversations with people where they don't want to admit it, where
they can't
believe it.
Do you know NASA was run by Nazis?
They're like, what?
And you tell them about Wernher von Braun.
And they want to, like, there's a lot of people that are like NASA fanboys.
And these NASA fanboys don't want to believe that NASA was run by literal Nazis.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, not necessarily like, there were scientific Nazis.
There were Nazis.
Yeah.
Wernher von Braun used to hang the slowest, the five slowest Jews.
I didn't know this.
At his rocket factory in Berlin.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center said that if he was alive today, they would prosecute
him
for crimes against humanity.
I mean, do you think that story got out when he was at NASA and everyone worked
a little
harder?
They hit it well.
There was no Freedom of Information Act releases.
There was no internet.
When Operation Paperclip was first initiated, they got, I don't know what the
number is of
Nazi scientists, but it was more than a thousand.
Yeah.
How many Nazi scientists, put this into our wonderful ad sponsor, Perplexity,
our AI sponsor
that gives me all my information.
How many Nazi scientists were brought over by the United States for Operation
Paperclip?
I don't know that there's an official number.
This is what led me down my research like 10 years ago, was this exact question.
Right, but let's see what Perplexity has to say.
I'm guessing.
I'm going to guess about 1,500.
Also, as I'm looking this up, I will note that supposedly they were split up
evenly between
the Soviets and the United States.
That's true.
Yeah, the Soviets took a bunch of them as well.
I didn't know they divvied it up.
Yeah.
I read a book about it a long time ago.
I just started getting into the Soviet space program.
It's great.
Oh, yeah.
Is it the Venus missions?
Am I getting that right?
Oh, yeah.
They got a thing on Venus and took pictures and sent them back.
But then it was so hot that everything would like...
1,600.
1,600.
Right.
Typically state that about 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians
were brought to the
United States under Operation Paperclip.
So I was pretty close.
To reel back, though, I was trying to dig through this article as you guys are
talking.
About Nixon getting pegged?
No, no.
Reagan?
Yeah.
Political article.
The plot to out Reagan?
Yeah.
Group of Republicans tried to stymie what they allege was a nefarious
homosexual network
within the campaign of their own party, Standard Bear.
This is what I mean.
He says something that sounds crazy and then you do a search.
I'm trying to find it to see what the answer is.
But during it, it says, like, while he was trying to pick a vice president,
there's somewhere
in here...
We had a fuck him?
He can be my vice president.
He said someone had a tape of an orgy.
Yes.
No.
Yeah.
Well, didn't Reagan...
Reagan frequented Bohemian Grove.
Isn't that correct?
Uh...
I believe he did.
I don't know.
Everybody.
Yeah, a lot of people did.
Right.
But Reagan did.
But you remember what Nixon said about Bohemian Grove?
The faggiest place I've ever seen.
That goddamn faggiest thing I've ever seen.
You've heard Alex Jones talking about it?
Yes.
Well, Alex Jones went.
Yeah.
Alex Jones told me about it right after he went.
This guy says he engaged in a homosexual act with Reagan.
Okay.
It was not until a boozy lunch with a man claiming to have been a long-time
Reagan associate.
However, the best found what he believed to be the smoking gun proving that
Reagan was
controlled by homosexuals.
Bill, you don't understand the problem, the man told best.
I once engaged in a homosexual act with Reagan.
It was a different time.
Yes, up until now in this article, these are rumors.
Right.
I don't know that this video ever came out, but there's a very long article
about it.
Interesting.
On Politica.
Yeah.
Interesting.
I was trying to find an answer, and I didn't really get to this.
This is a different time period in life, too, that I wasn't even alive for.
Right.
Wow.
I don't believe it.
I do.
I love Reagan.
I do, too.
I love him, too.
But I think there's a lot of those guys that are, like, staunchly conservative
and very
buttoned down that are that way for a reason.
And one of the reasons is they're trying to hide the fact that they're gay.
I never understand this, though, because there are lots where I'm from.
Gays?
Like, conservative party, definitely gay guys, but everybody knows.
Everybody's aware.
But they don't want it coming out, and they never acknowledge it.
But, like, it just seems so strange.
You would want to not have a secret if you're a politician, because otherwise
people can just
get you to do what they want.
Yeah, but they have secrets, and then they want to be politicians, and then
they just deal
with all the people that know their secrets, and then they make deals.
But, like, that's how you stay in business.
I wouldn't even say.
There are people in the United States Congress and Senate who are conservative,
so we all
go, yeah, that guy's gay.
100%.
Everybody knows.
So, you know.
So I asked for the accuracy of this article, and perplexity gave me a, like,
summary, I guess,
that makes more sense than trying to make sense of a 20-page article in two
minutes.
Hmm.
Okay.
This comes from a quote.
Factual grounding in sources.
One key factual, scroll up a little bit.
On the, no.
On the key factual backbone, the article lines up with other publicly
documented material.
Kerchick refers repeatedly to memos and notes from the Washington Post editor
Ben Bradley's
papers, including summaries by reporters Scott Armstrong and Ted Gupp.
These papers are held in institutional archives and have been referenced in
other discussions
of Secret City.
The 1967 homosexual ring allegations connected to Reagan's Sacramento staff and
Jack Kemp's
is independently attested in contemporary press accounts, including reporting
that Reagan's
security chief investigated alleged homosexual activity and that columnist Drew
Pearson raised
these charges at the time.
So here's the thing about gays.
There's a gay ring.
There's always a certain amount of gay people in a population and then it's
whether or not
the culture accepts them.
Yes.
There's always a certain percentage.
There's, yeah, it's people who are attracted to...
Yeah.
No matter what you do, there's a certain percentage.
And so if you've got enough people in Congress and enough people in the Senate
and enough people
just in government in general, you're going to have an equivalent percentage of
people that
are gay.
And if you are a person who wants to get to the top of the charts, like here's
the thing
that you don't think of.
You think Hollywood is very open, very non-homophobic.
In fact, celebrates diversity and celebrates LBGTQ people, right?
Yeah, I mean, openly, yeah.
But not.
So here's the thing.
One thing you can't be is an openly gay person and being a male lead in films.
Uh, I mean, that would make sense as to why people keep that quiet.
I'm trying to think of one gay male lead.
You can't, but you're an actor.
No, you're right.
That still hasn't changed.
You can pretend to be a werewolf.
Yeah.
But you can't pretend to be straight.
You can't pretend to be straight.
Yeah, they won't allow you.
So if you're gay, you have to pretend.
Yeah.
You have to pretend you're not gay.
Yes.
Because you can't act in a movie where we know you're gay and you pretend to be
straight.
We won't buy it.
But whenever there is a movie where there is a gay person, they get it
obviously straight.
Like in Milk, they don't get a gay guy to play that role.
They get a straight guy to be gay.
One example.
Yeah, but that's when that show.
He was never a TV, he was never a movie leading man.
It's just one example though.
I know, but he's a TV guy.
But then people make allegations about.
Also, it's like he's got a, it's a cartoon character.
Yeah.
Like that, How I Met Your Mother, that's a cartoon character.
Like straight guy.
Like you don't believe it at all.
Like first of all, he's not attractive in that way.
He's not masculine.
And the fact that he gets all these hot girls to have sex with them.
None of it makes any sense.
Did you see Gone Girl?
It's just writing.
Yeah, I did.
Where he's playing the.
Oh, that was great.
He was excellent.
Yeah, he was great.
I watched that movie like eight times.
That movie was fucking awesome.
That helped me work through a lot of trauma with women.
Woo!
Bro, that movie was crazy.
But the point is, like, you can't be an openly gay guy and be a movie star.
Yes.
Because you won't be able to kiss women on stage.
I'm trying to think of one.
On screen, rather.
And there's not one.
There's, I know, a bunch of closeted ones.
Yes, yeah.
But there's no openly gay action movie star.
Well, there were.
There's none.
No, actually, there would be none.
There's none.
There's stars who have played.
It's like five or six that I would say.
Played gay people.
A lot of guys play gay people.
You know, like, what's his face?
James Bond.
English guy.
Daniel Craig.
Daniel Craig.
Knives Out, he plays a gay guy.
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, I was thinking of Milk.
Yeah, he plays a gay guy in Knives Out, but he's not, like, making out with
anybody.
He just, like, lives with a guy.
I never watched Knives Out because I was so angry at the second Star Wars movie.
I loved it.
It's the same director.
Like, I was just, and I loved Looper.
I thought Looper was fantastic.
I let a guy have a dud or two every now and then.
I fucking hated that movie.
I was one of those guys.
It was, like...
Which one was that?
What was it called?
Oh, man.
It was not Force Awakens.
It was the one that came after that.
It was, um...
What year is this?
Oh, 2017.
I'm all over the place.
Don't you think, though, that...
I didn't watch any of the new ones.
But don't you think, though, that when you were dealing...
If you're dealing with a Star Wars, those franchise movies,
you're dealing with...
And there's no way they just give you carte blanche.
There's no way they just let you write a script,
let you produce it, let you put it together,
let you direct it the way you want.
They have insane amounts of input.
No, this one was so stylistically strange.
Right.
In such a departure.
He was making it.
Skywalker.
Rise of Skywalker is...
Yeah, maybe it's that one.
Yeah.
Is that it?
Is that the second one?
Does anybody really give a shit about these new Star Wars movies?
Not anymore.
But it was, you know, it was exciting.
When George Lucas was doing it, at least he was like,
we're going to have a Jew alien and a Korean aliens.
And it's about trade wars.
And he was like...
They did that?
Episode one?
Oh, man, episode one is a nightmare if you go back and watch episode one.
Which one's episode one?
Episode one is like Little Anakin and the pod racing.
Jar Jar Binks?
Jar Jar Binks is like a hugely troubled...
Like 1999 when I...
He's just freaking in a patois the whole time.
But, I mean, it all has to end.
I think it's finally winding down.
Like, the Marvel Cinematic Universe seems to be coming to a close.
They're about to wrap it up and fuck back up.
No, no, Marvel's not.
It's got to come to an end.
But Star Wars, they woke it up.
They fucked it up.
Yeah.
They made it all like this stupid, woke message.
But that was the woke one.
That was the one where it was like...
There were ladies who couldn't do anything wrong and all the men were...
And the ladies' generals and the men are all terrified of them.
Yeah.
So save it.
This is nonsense.
It's a lot of the time.
But these woke messages just destroy the actual film.
Like, we were talking about this the other day.
That a feminist show that no one thinks of as a feminist show is Game of
Thrones.
Because she turns into a...
No, it's a completely feminist show.
The women are all badasses.
Yes.
Every woman...
Arya Stark, badass.
Daenerys Targaryen, badass.
Yeah.
Cersei Lannister, badass.
Yeah.
Brienne of Tarth, badass.
Yeah.
Kills...
I mean, almost kills the Hound.
Yeah.
They're all women.
Yeah.
Women run everything.
They're beasts.
Sansa Stark, badass.
And a lot of the men, they don't see things coming.
They don't know how.
They're breathing as a big fat, dumb guy.
Idiots, get their heads chopped off.
Yeah.
They're retarded.
The women keep the fucking civilization together.
And they're the most dominant forces in the show.
Yes.
Yeah.
Sometimes they're lying like that nasty prostitute who hurt that midget man.
Yeah, but she was unfortunate in her choices.
You think the Marvel thing is going to keep...
I think at some point...
They're going to ramp it back up.
They have a new one.
They brought back the Russo brothers and Robert Downey Jr.
They're bringing in Doom.
Dr. Doom's coming.
Isn't that...
Isn't fucking Robert Downey Jr. playing Doom as well?
He is the guy.
How does he do that?
Wait till you see the movie, man.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
How is he fucking Iron Man and Doom?
Well, they both have iron.
No.
No, get a new guy.
I know Robert Downey Jr. is great.
You don't have to kill Iron Man.
Bring Iron Man back.
Don't you have a multiverse?
He might not have enough money.
Can't you pull him back and put him into this current timeline?
I don't.
I'm looking forward to it.
I just don't like when you have a whole universe and you have one guy playing
two characters in the universe.
As much as I love Robert Downey Jr., bothers the shit out of me as a comic book
fan.
They've already had that, though.
Chris Evans is in Fantastic Four and he's Captain America.
Who was he in Fantastic Four?
The first Fantastic Four.
No, they've been like four or five Fantastic Fours.
Really?
There have been so many Fantastic Fours.
You're right.
I never even remembered that.
They can never get that one working.
Who does he play in Fantastic Four?
That's sort of the joke in the Spider-Man movie, the multiverse one, because
they bring them all back in the same fucking movie and it's all confusing.
They bring all the bad guys back.
Jamie Foxx is in the new Spider-Man and that was an old movie.
Do you think they'll be post-woke at this point?
I got to watch movies for the first time on the plane over.
They'd have to lose all their fucking money.
It's starting to happen.
And then start to come back.
Did you see Begonia?
No.
It was good.
Stavi was in that and Emma was the guy who made the lobster.
But there were problems with it, but it was pointedly like a post in the same
vein of White Lotus.
Okay.
I think, yeah, Hollywood is trying to make self-consciously post-woke movies.
I got really annoyed by it and I thought some of it was cheap, but I liked what
they were going for.
Yeah, it's fun.
I thought the ending was...
Fun.
Spoiler alert.
No, I won't spoil nothing.
I won't spoil nothing.
But I would never have seen it if I wasn't on a flight watching 57 movies.
American Fiction was like a post-woke movie.
They're like, at the moment, on Delta flights.
What is American Fiction?
American Fiction is a book about a black author who doesn't want to be
considered a black author.
He just wants to be an author.
He's sick of...
And then he keeps seeing all these terrible black books full of stereotypes
that white liberals adore.
So he writes a fake book called My Pathology.
And I think he later changes it to fuck.
He's just trying to fuck with people.
Go, I'll just write the blackest, dumbest book.
So the white...
And then white liberals do love it.
And it was good.
It was like...
But it's like pointedly...
Like mainstream and indie...
You know, big studios are trying to make...
They're trying to find some continuity from being woke to now...
Is this...
That's box office poison.
This is a mainstream film?
That one looks like it's independent.
I won an independent spirit award.
Okay.
But Begonia wasn't.
It has to be.
But this other movie...
What was it called again?
The one you were just talking about?
Begonia.
No, the other one.
Oh, which one?
American fiction?
Yeah.
So American fiction is independent.
If that was...
I didn't know if it was independent.
I looked it up.
It made like...
Tens of millions of dollars.
Yeah, but sometimes independent films that catch on make good money.
They made a deal with Amazon to make a limited theatrical release.
Okay.
So they partnered with Amazon.
That's...
I know.
That's slightly...
I don't...
I would count that as a big studio.
No.
No.
If you started it by yourself.
You started it by yourself and then you distributed it to Amazon.
But who paid for it?
Who was the...
Somebody probably financed it.
The director was...
Was he the onion guy?
Ten million dollar budget.
So the thing is, if you want to do something right, you kind of have to do it
that way now.
Like, make it yourself and then bring it as a fully completed project.
That way, you don't have a bunch of people like the Star Wars guy, like, in
your ear telling you what to do and how to direct it.
I recorded a comedy special years ago for Australia.
Yeah.
And I thought I would just do it on my own and then I would sell it to the
network.
How'd that go?
They said, we like it.
This is one of the most embarrassing phone calls I've ever had.
They said that we like it.
It's very white.
It's very male.
Like, yeah, it's me.
It's just me.
And they said, can you go out in five, like, find five or six diverse comedians
and record their specials as well.
And then we could buy all six of them.
I was like, fuck it.
I'll put it on YouTube.
But that was the real request was, would you find an aboriginal fellow, find a
lady in a wheelchair, find some Chinese people, and then you can have your one
as well and we'll buy all six.
Hilarious.
It was, yeah, that was probably the end of me thinking I could work with.
You can't work with people that aren't creatives.
And that's what those people are.
There are a bunch of people that are caught up in whatever the cultural moment
is, whatever they think, like, the winds of discontent blow the hardest, right?
So the people that are going to get the most upset are the wokies.
They're the ones that are going to complain the most about a lack of diversity.
So to satisfy those people, they'll torch their own art.
They'll fuck up the thing that they do best.
I mean, you can work with totally non-creative people.
This was like, there's a Frank Zappa line about how working in the music
industry was great when it was just a guy in a suit who didn't care.
And as soon as people had some ideas, it was hard to make things.
Right.
When someone would tell you what to do and what not to do.
If it's a profit motive, that's great.
You can work with those people.
Yeah, right.
But there's no pure profit motive people anymore in terms of entertainment.
They're all thinking about the cultural, like, tone and what you're supposed to
and not supposed to do and what you're being on the right side of history now.
Did you see the Patrice bit where he talked about how he liked working with mid-level
Jews?
No.
He's like, I like mid-level Jews.
I make them the money.
They leave me alone.
That makes sense.
Yeah, the people that get in your way, they all think they're doing it for a
good cause.
And we experienced that, like Stan Hope and I, when we were doing the Man Show
on Comedy Central, there was a lot of that.
Was there?
Yeah, dude.
I don't even want to go into it.
But there was, whenever you're, like Ari experienced it when he was at Comedy
Central, I know a lot of people that have experienced it at various networks
where there's always some fucking executives that want to impose their, and it's
always liberal, they want to impose their progressive values on comedy.
And it's like, you can't fucking do that if you want it to be funny.
If you want it to be funny, you have to, it has to be in the language and in
the mind, like from the viewpoint of one person.
One person's unique vision.
Yeah.
One person's unique vision that they think is hilarious.
And as soon as you start monkeying with that, as soon as you start adding stuff
to that, as soon as you start watering it down, you're going to kill it.
You compromise it, it becomes a candidate for mediocrity.
But how did they, where did they start on the Man Show?
Were they like, get the girls off the trampolines?
No.
It was like, one of the things was they didn't want Joey Diaz coming out naked.
Okay.
Okay, so we had an intro, and I said, this is what I want to do for the intro.
I want Joey Diaz to come out.
He's going to burst through the door naked with Timberlands on, with a baseball
hat on, and just say, let's get this party started and start dancing.
Yeah, it's fun.
It was hilarious, and they didn't want to do it.
So, this is the scene, I guess.
But you did get to put your DVD.
Yeah, well, we had to do it two ways.
We had to do it their way.
Sorry.
We did it their way first, and then when their way was done, we did it with
Joey.
Everybody went fucking nuts.
They all went nuts.
It was awesome.
But it's like, they so strongly resisted that.
That was the only way I wanted to do it.
And I said, listen, we'll do it your way first, and then we'll do it our way.
Meanwhile, that version with Joey was what they used in all the promos.
Yeah, of course.
They used that when they were like, this season of the man show, and then Joey
comes out naked with his cock blurred out.
But you're just going to get a bunch of people who also want to have their
fingerprints on what you're doing.
Yeah.
So, they want to somehow or another change it.
Even if it doesn't make sense, what if your neighbor is a black guy who grew up
with a white family?
What if your neighbor, and then they want to change it, and then they, how are
you doing with the black guy who is the white family?
Like, I didn't even add that.
Come on, man.
Yeah.
Come on, man.
We've got to play ball.
Like, these dipshits want to add their own little fucking ingredients into the
soup.
I mean, it's never been cheaper to make your own thing, I would have to think.
Never.
You could do it on a cell phone.
You could upload it to YouTube.
And AI is...
Incredible.
Yeah, there's a use for it.
I hope it doesn't...
I'm still uncomfortable about it.
You're bored.
You're playing new music backstage.
I didn't pick it.
That was good, right?
Yeah, it's all good.
I find it frightening.
I don't like it.
It's White Rabbit.
It's the Jefferson Airplane version of White Rabbit, but it's this bluesy new
version of it.
That's all AI.
It's fantastic.
There's one where you can upload...
You just upload your music or someone else's music, and it does all the
mastering beautifully.
It's spooky.
I mean, it's the end of...
It is the end.
It's the end of something.
It's the beginning.
There are technical jobs that are just gone now.
That's true.
Yeah.
There's not a lot of Morse code operators, either.
I think they should bring it back.
Bring back the steam engine.
We need coal-powered fucking locomotives.
Listen...
The Amish, they seem happy.
They got their buggies.
They got their big families.
Try having a conversation with them about space.
They don't know jack shit.
They don't have autism, so they can't do it.
Yeah.
They haven't had their vaccines.
Talk to them about butter.
I'll tell you about grape butter.
I think you're going to experience great change.
There's not a damn thing you can do about it, and so you just have to be zen
about it.
I mean, some of the...
It's been like over a year since the driverless cars came to Austin.
And I've been in a bunch of them, the way most.
And they're not spreading out across the country the way that I thought they
would.
Oh, they're in a lot of places.
They're all over Los Angeles.
They're in a lot of places.
They're in about three or four places.
But they should have...
Obviously, the technology is there that no one should have to drive for a
living.
It would be cheaper to have the Waymo.
The technology is there.
They're on the freeway now.
I've never had one problem in a Waymo.
I don't know how many I've been in.
They've had problems here.
They've all got...
Because there's so many of them, they all met up in an intersection and got
locked up.
That is funny.
Hilarious.
Yeah.
There was like a bunch of streets going into each other, and they all came, and
no one knew what to do.
But that's not as bad as, like, drunkenly T-boning somebody.
Sure, but the thing is, don't drink and drive.
Not, let's let robots take our lives over.
Right?
That's not the solution.
I want the freedom of being able to hop in a fucking car and drive wherever I
want.
They're going to take it.
That's the problem.
That's the problem.
The problem is...
They're going to say it's safer to have you off the road?
Exactly.
Exactly.
They're going to say, statistically, you're more likely to die in a car
accident if driven by a normal person than a robot.
I bet they'll, you know, they'll offer little bonuses.
They'll say, when all the humans are off the road, speed limits are going up
two or three times.
You know, whatever they can handle, their reflexes are better.
Well, you know, a lot of kids today are not driving.
You know that?
A lot of kids today are just ordering Ubers and driving Waymos.
I mean, I only got my driver's license at, like, 27.
Really?
Yeah, I was just on buses.
And then we had a child, and I was like, I better do it.
Now it's my favorite thing in the world.
Wow.
I love driving.
Did you not want a driver's license, or you just couldn't be bothered?
I wasn't good at it.
My parents were scared.
My parents were like, I don't want to get in the car with you.
How are you so bad at it?
I don't know.
I don't know.
I was very, like, I was uncoordinated until, like, I was at a late puberty at
16, 17, and then I became coordinated.
But for a while then.
Interesting.
Yeah.
I don't know why.
Did anybody teach you how to drive?
You were dropped on your head as a child?
Interesting.
But then I think, like, and then in my late teens.
How were you dropped on your head?
I fell out of a stroller.
I unbuckled myself, and I stood up, and I fell down.
I don't think it had any brain impact.
Of course it did.
But people disagree.
Yeah.
100% it did.
Big scar.
Oh, yeah, you fucked your head up.
That's why you're funny.
Maybe.
100%.
I got the coordination back at some point, but I, like.
So you really think it affected your coordination all the way up into puberty?
Yeah, because it was, I was able to play sport at high school after I'd hit puberty,
but only after puberty and only sports that didn't really matter if I had all
the skills.
So, like, football, everyone's been doing it since they were four, and they
really know how to do it.
So I was just like, no, it didn't matter that I could figure it out now.
Everyone had 10 years on me.
Right.
But I became an okay field hockey goalkeeper.
Oh, okay.
I had, like, one season in the top team as the field hockey goalkeeper.
Because no one wanted to do it.
No one really trains to do it.
Right.
And it's just having fast reflexes.
Right.
Or, like, I became okay at badminton.
Because it was just me and the Asians.
You know?
Like, tennis.
There was no way to get good at tennis.
Right.
You need a head start.
Squash, I could do a little bit.
But badminton's a great game.
And a lot of Malaysians.
And so, did you have a problem moving your body correctly?
Until you hit?
Yeah.
Like, I couldn't catch a ball.
Huh.
And you think it had to do with your head injury?
I, well, I have no idea.
Do you have brothers or sisters?
I have a brother.
He's fine.
Is he an athlete?
No, I mean, he was.
He was younger than me, so I was in badminton.
And then he was really good at badminton.
Hmm.
Yeah, he's hyper-competitive.
He was always good at sport.
Hmm.
Compared to me, he was much better.
Interesting.
But then I could, like, when I came to America and I started throwing a foot,
when I figured
out I could throw a football, that was huge.
Is your brother funny?
Yes.
Really?
Yeah, he actually, he got me into, I thought comedy was over.
This is how I met Shane, is he took me to go and see Shane.
I was sort of, this was, I don't know how many years ago, four years ago.
And I was sort of, I didn't know what was, I'd had a three-year-old by that
point and
a new baby on the way.
And just in Australia, nothing was interesting to me and my career wasn't
happening.
And he said, you should come and see this guy who got fired from SNL.
I didn't know him.
And I sat in the audience and I watched Shane perform for three or 400 people
in our hometown.
And I was like, oh, fuck, it's back.
Like, it's happening.
I knew there were a couple people on Netflix.
I knew, like, you had Netflix specials and Bill Burr and Louie, but it was like,
these
people are grandfathered in.
No one is ever going to be able to come through and be, you know.
Controversial.
No one in my generation is going to be given an opportunity.
At all?
You just thought that new comedians were not going to make it?
In Australia, I can't say enough how there's like a whole...
It's been 20 years since someone got to be successful.
Jim Jeffries?
Never in Australia.
Never in Australia.
He had to leave.
Really?
Even now, the Melbourne Comedy Festival notoriously will not work with people
who have worked with
Jim Jeffries.
What?
That's a black stain on your character.
So if you open for him, you can't work at the...
They don't like you and they're not going to give you opportunities.
That's what people say.
That's what I've heard.
And everything that I've seen leads me...
Because he's not their person.
Fuck him.
They think of him as an extreme...
In America, he's like a liberal.
And in Australia, he's far right, dangerous man.
How could he say that?
That's what it is?
That's what it is.
It's his politics?
Oh, yeah.
It's not that he didn't come up through their system?
He didn't come...
I mean, he just left.
Right.
But he...
I think he didn't like them.
They didn't like him.
I mean, there are people who have left and not been part of their system that
they've totally
gotten around.
But what he is, is like a manly man.
And they don't like that?
Oh, no.
Oh, no.
No, they want you to be a cardigan.
Excuse me.
I won't go on and on.
Go on and on.
There was a generation of lost talent in Australia.
John Cruickshank, fantastic.
Where's his show?
You could name 15 people, but like...
There was no opportunities for them.
It was hilariously gate-kept.
Never good.
No.
So, I didn't...
I just thought, okay, I'll have a podcast.
So, this is your perspective from Australia.
You never thought there was ever going to be an opportunity to make it as a
comic.
My brother liked...
I had kids.
I had stopped paying attention to the outside world.
My brother had not.
And he took me to go and see Shane.
He was like, you should see this man.
And it was fantastic.
And I talked my way backstage because I knew the opener.
Because I didn't get to open for him, but I knew the opener.
And then I got to meet him and Matt.
And then I got to go to Melbourne and open for him.
And then I came to America.
Were you doing any stand-up before you opened for him in Melbourne?
Have you been practicing?
Yeah.
I was doing stand-up around...
Constantly still.
But I would just have 50 or 100 people in a different city.
And I would show up and make enough money for the flight.
And like an extra thousand bucks or something.
But it was...
Like, I couldn't pay rent that way.
Right.
You were scratching by.
It was...
Yeah, I was struggling.
This is why when we did come to...
When I got the Catholic job and I came to America,
it was all...
I borrowed from everybody.
Like, I was in thousands of dollars of debt to family and friends.
How did Arj Barker make it in Australia?
He did a show called Flight of the Conchords.
He was on that.
And he was beloved by the festival.
And he did lots of gala spots.
And we really...
There's a couple...
So it's the festival.
The festival broke everybody.
Yeah.
So that controls comedy in Australia.
Yes.
There's a guy called Rodney Rood who's really funny.
Who was before that.
Is he in the festival?
He's not in the festival.
He can't be in the festival.
He would go to like RSLs and things.
He has great...
Get out of here, you homeless fuck!
That's a great bit.
Okay.
Kevin Bloody Wilson.
But these are like that older generation.
Yeah.
After that, though.
It was...
So it's captured, it's gatecapped by one ideology?
By one lady running one festival.
Oh, boy.
No disrespect.
I'm sure she's very nice.
I don't want to talk her down.
I would have loved an opportunity once.
Anyway.
It doesn't matter.
I don't need you anymore.
I don't need you anymore.
Wow.
That's never good.
It's never good because people with that kind of power, they also abuse it.
They really enjoy it.
How could you not?
You don't have to.
You've got hundreds of desperate people who are, please give me an opportunity.
I've got that.
I don't do it.
No, but you're a very strange person and you're alone.
That's why people love you.
But there's definitely...
There are casting couches elsewhere.
Yeah, but you can just be nice.
And being nice and helping people, especially talented people, it gives you
great satisfaction.
You feel great about it.
Yeah.
I always tell people it's really selfish to be generous because it feels great.
Yeah.
It's wonderful to help people.
It feels fucking awesome.
And it's great to see people thrive and take off.
It's fun.
It's exciting.
And then you hang out with them in the green room and it's just all joy.
Also, I don't want to say that they don't do that.
They're helping a lot of people who have a very specific ideology.
Listen, we don't have that.
Our ideology is the opposite.
Our ideology is, are you funny?
Yeah.
I don't give a fuck if you're liberal and funny.
Or like Brian Holtzman.
It was very nice.
Ruby Setnik was on last night.
And she was like, she was a big lefty.
She's a dear friend.
And she's going to open for me this weekend.
But she was like in New York.
She was raised in Sacramento.
She went to New York.
She was like a very lefty, progressive person.
And I remember like nights at the mothership where she would scream at the
audience,
you're a fucking fascist.
Fuck yeah.
Like she was really like baked in.
And they loved it.
People, there's a lefty lady just like off her nut, angry at everybody.
Just if you're funny.
And people were, it was funny.
There is no equivalent of that.
No, you just have to be funny.
Yeah.
Like it's all just funny.
Like if you're funny, lefty funny, funny, Brian Holtzman funny, Tony Hinchcliffe
funny.
Yeah.
It doesn't matter.
Just be funny.
Just work on your stuff.
Work on it.
Like really put a lot of time and energy into your craft, come up with great
bits.
When I'm on these flights, I'm watching like all the official sanctioned, like
non-Netflix specials, but some of them that are on HBO and some are on Hulu.
And it's people who, there's a weird way that audiences, like I'm watching like
official mains, whatever, like it's not mainstream because the audience is a
tiny by comparison, but you know what I mean?
Like sort of like orthodox, sanctioned comedy in America.
And the jokes are so mild and so, but then the audience is like, it's supposed
to be a lot of women in the audience.
Yeah.
They're all in antidepressants.
They sound crazy.
They are crazy.
And it's like cheap, nothing, punchlines.
Exactly.
And it's just at the slightest, my boy, I couldn't even.
Yay.
Yeah.
Well, it's also, it's clapter, right?
So you're also reinforcing their ideology.
So they're very excited about it because they kind of realize their ideology is
very fringe and dying out.
As much as it's perpetrated through Hollywood, it's rejected by a lot of
rational people.
It's over.
Yeah, it's over.
I was watching, I went to a bar last night and I watched The Tonight Show and
God bless everybody involved.
But it's like, okay, well, this is done.
This is winding down.
This is not a cultural, this was the most like.
The Tonight Show's winding down?
Just in terms of how many people are watching it and like, you know, going,
doing a set on a Tonight Show used to be, that was it, right?
Yeah, Johnny Carson.
You can move tickets on the ride on Johnny Carson.
And now people are going, that's his 15th Tonight Show appearance.
But it kind of died out even before then.
Like the impact of the Jay Leno sets, like if you did a set on Jay Leno's
Tonight Show, it didn't have nearly the impact that Johnny Carson did.
And that's just because by then there were so many channels.
Yeah.
So when Johnny Carson was on The Tonight Show, there was three channels in the
country, you know?
Yeah.
That's how crazy it was.
And then slowly but surely, cable came around, Fox came around, all these other
networks, and then everything just expanded.
Now you have streaming and now it's insane.
Now the numbers are absolutely...
Was it over at the end of Carson for that?
Yeah, I believe so.
Okay.
I believe by the time Jay Leno came around, like when did Jay Leno first start
hosting The Tonight Show?
Let's guess.
Early 90s?
Yeah.
Mid 90s.
Probably.
So that was right around the time cable was coming out.
Yeah.
Cable changed everything.
So with cable, you got, first of all, you got Evening at the Improv, MTV Half
Hour Comedy Hour, Spotlight Cafe.
There was a bunch of different shows that were on a bunch of different networks.
There was all these comedy shows that were all over the place.
92.
92.
Which makes sense because like that's when cable started becoming really ubiquitous
in America.
And then you have so many fucking channels.
So the impact of a single show was not the same anymore.
Because during the, let's find this out.
During the height of The Tonight Show, what was the average viewers?
I thought this is spooky.
I bet it's like 40 million.
Well, it's like, I think the, I mean, even by the end of Friends, like sitcom,
mainstream sitcom.
Yeah, but that's different because that's earlier.
So The Tonight Show is late at night.
So like just average Tonight Show episode?
Yeah.
See, this is the thing.
Tonight Show is 11 p.m.
That's after the fucking news.
That's late at night, right?
Yes.
Isn't it 11?
Is that when it starts?
Or 10?
When does Tonight Show start?
It's 11.30 East, 10.30 Central.
Okay.
So 11.30 in New York.
Is it a million people?
How many countries?
No, then.
What would it be then?
What do you mean?
The viewers?
Yeah.
Like how many people watch it?
Way more than a million.
Like 10 million?
Oh yeah, easily.
The Tonight Show viewers?
I bet it was 30.
What is average Tonight Show viewers in 1980?
Let's say 1980.
It's like 15% of the country.
Bro, it was that big.
It was where people went to find out what was going on, what movies were coming
out, what
bands were coming out, what comics were funny.
I remember it.
So let's try 1980.
Oh, hold on a second.
Sorry.
What were the average viewers of The Tonight Show in 1980?
That's giving me a rating, not the numbers.
Oh, it's like as a percentage?
No, it's not.
What were the average number of viewers on The Tonight Show in 1980?
Let's see.
Six to seven million.
Two, two, two, two, two.
How many?
Six to seven million.
Six to seven million was average?
This is eight to ten.
But by...
Yeah, so but like...
All right, even eight to ten.
But what is it now?
Six to seven.
Let's think of the...
God, it's probably a tenth...
Like a hundred thousand?
A tenth that.
Maybe a million.
I don't even know if it's that.
And here's the thing about ratings.
The ratings are very weird because it's based on this...
You have boxes that are connected to your television.
Do you know how it works?
Yeah.
So the way these ratings work is they get a certain number of people.
And they square it out.
And the certain number of people you actually pay...
They pay these people to have this box.
And then some of them have to fill out a form.
I don't know how that works.
But...
And then it just records what you're watching.
And so it's just based on these people.
So it's not the whole country.
We did it.
But with like Netflix, it's a different animal.
They know the exact number of people that are downloading.
And they know when people are tuning out.
They know which shot is upsetting people.
It's crazy.
They know the moment where people tune out.
Yeah.
Well, they also have an insane amount of options.
Like if you're bored even slightly, you press a button, you have new options.
And they're instantaneous.
Back then, you had two other options other than whatever...
Was it NBC?
The Tonight Show?
Was it NBC?
Yeah.
We've got different channels.
The Tonight Show.
I'm nostalgic for that.
I only had that until I was like 10.
Yeah.
But it was...
I've started watching TV again.
It feels like I'm role-playing in my living room when I have a beer and I watch
like terrestrial broadcast now.
Like I watch Survivor with my family at night.
And with commercials and everything?
Man, I watch the lead-in.
I watch the new Matlock afterwards for five minutes before I get sick of it and
turn it off.
Yeah.
I watch Who Wants to Be a Millionaire beforehand.
It's for people that are on heavy pharmaceutical drugs.
It's for people that are just...
It feels nice.
It feels like I'm a part of the world.
Their mouth is open.
Their senses are dulled.
And like...
I was this...
I started doing...
Who committed a crime?
They better solve it.
There's only 10 minutes left.
I would have friends come over.
This is what I've started doing at home.
Watch TV TV?
Only...
Australian Survivor, which is I think the world's finest...
Is it still Jeff Probst?
Or is it a different host?
No, it's a different host.
You got an Australian guy?
We had Jonathan LaPaglia.
It was Anthony LaPaglia's brother.
But then he got shafted.
It's very upsetting.
They got a new host.
Jonathan...
Anthony Sapaglia the actor?
Yeah.
Jonathan Paglia was very good.
We still get the new one.
And he got the shaft?
No, I don't know why.
No one knows?
No, I don't know.
But he was great.
No, it's...
Maybe it was wrong think.
You know, I've never heard him express an opinion.
He would do a lot of sexual double entendre during the show.
Maybe it was that.
The other good one is the South African Survivor.
Is it?
Yeah, because they've got the accent.
So all the challengers feel way nastier.
Look at that.
He's struggling now.
He's really starting to sweat.
He's digging into his feet.
He's in a lot of pain.
I love South African Survivor.
They had a bunch of different versions of Fear Factor that I wasn't even aware
of.
Different countries got Fear Factor?
A hundred different countries.
Did they get guys who were like you?
Is there like a finish Joe Rogan?
I'm just joking.
I mean, they had someone that was like that, you know?
That would be funny to see who they...
Like, because they would be trying to replicate you.
Not necessarily.
Like, Ludacris didn't try to replicate me when he did it.
They got Ludacris to do it?
Yeah, in America.
I didn't know Ludacris took over the effect.
It was a very short amount of time.
And now Johnny Knoxville's doing it, and he's doing it his own way, too.
Sure.
It's a pretty straightforward show, though.
You don't have to do it my way.
But what I was good at is, because I came from a background in martial arts
coaching.
Like, I had students, and I would bring them to tournaments, and I'd coach them
at tournaments.
I was really good at getting people fired up.
You know, and I'd coach teammates.
Like, I would be in the corner of teammates, and I'd coach them.
And I'd train people.
Like, one of the reasons why I got really good at Taekwondo so quickly is
because I taught.
And when you teach something, there's something interesting, and I've noticed
that about Jiu-Jitsu as well.
When you teach something, you get better at it.
Like, exponentially better than people that are just training.
But, I mean, with comedy, there's a huge faux pas against teaching.
You can't teach it.
No.
You can't teach comedy.
It's different.
Like, you do it so different than I do it.
I do it so different than Shane.
Shane does it so different than Tony.
I maintain there are things you could teach people.
Like, when people come on Kill Tony and they haven't been doing it for very
long, there are key things that you can tell people.
Yeah.
You must stop doing that.
Yeah.
You've got to hold the microphone like this.
We've got to be able to hear you.
Yeah, that's true.
And I think people waste a lot of time not knowing those.
I mean, they could look it up.
But didn't you figure those things out?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, it's people that aren't that aware in the first place.
And that's a problem to begin with.
It is a lot.
What it is is a lack of self-examination.
Yeah.
A lot of what these problems are, you could solve yourself if you just recorded
yourself or filmed yourself.
Filmed is the best.
Yes.
Recorded is pretty good.
Film is 100%.
So, filming, you get to see all the things you hate about yourself, all the
things that are gross, all the weird, stupid parts of your bits that you need
to chop out.
And they make you uncomfortable and it's good.
Yeah.
And you just, oh, fuck that bit.
Fuck this.
Cut this.
Cut that.
Oh, here's another.
Ah, I didn't even think of this.
And then, boom.
I mean, that's...
I'm doing it at the moment.
I'm finding it heartbreaking.
Because you're just getting back into, like, real world again.
Oh, I did.
You were trapped on Prison Island.
I was doing hours in Australia and I knew that, like, some of it would
translate in America and some of it wouldn't.
And, man, it is just...
A lot of it.
I'm losing 80%.
Really?
Which is great.
I tried to overwrite so I would have more than I needed, but it is...
So, did you have a lot of Australian-based jokes, like local jokes?
Eventually, I had to.
Like, I started out trying to do no, nothing local.
And what happened?
Like, you're just there and the prime minister does something appalling and you
start talking about...
Oh, yeah.
You're going to have to have some stuff.
Yeah.
That's interesting.
Yeah.
Anything about your politics will not translate over here.
Not at...
Not at all.
Not a jot.
We don't give a fuck.
You don't have nuclear weapons.
Shut the fuck up.
You're not even a real country.
I'm trying to get some...
I'm trying to sort us out.
Did you see what happened yesterday that the FBI has indicted the Southern Poverty
Law Center?
On what?
Paying Nazis to protest.
So, this was something that Alex Jones had said.
Do you remember that Charlottesville Tiki Torch thing years ago?
Alex Jones said back then that they were being paid, that these are paid actors
to go and
do that.
And people thought he was insane.
Yeah.
Turns out it's true.
Turns out they were paying the Ku Klux Klan.
They were paying a bunch of these, like, far-right radical organizations,
giving them money to
protest so they would have something to fight against.
We're going to the Capitol.
Over here.
Look at this.
DOJ charges Southern Poverty Law Center with fraud over secret funding of
extremist groups.
I was mad.
How fucking crazy that is.
I just saw that The Onion is buying Infowars and turning into, like, an anti-gun
ad.
And, like, it's a $1.5 billion thing he had to pay for getting one thing wrong
one time.
Yeah.
How many things did he have to be right about?
He's right about a lot.
I'll tell you that.
And The Onion thing, I don't even know if other people were allowed to bid.
I don't know how that worked out, but I think there was other people that were
trying to
bid that couldn't.
That's hinky.
That were, like, supporters of Alex Jones.
Yeah.
Let's go back up.
Stop.
Hold on.
Between 2014 and 2023, Southern Poverty Law Center paid at least $3 million to
eight individuals,
some of whom were associated with the Ku Klux Klan, United Klans of America,
National Socialist
Party of America, Aryan Nations Affiliated Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club.
Yeah.
That's a mouthful.
And the American Front said acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche at the
press conference.
Holy fucking shit.
Well, this is what you said before about people who need homelessness to keep
going.
Well, this is what's crazy.
They need the hate to keep going.
But this is what's crazy.
These people were cited as an expert in extremist groups.
Yeah.
And they were paying extremist groups in order to be extreme.
They said they were paying for, like, information, I think.
Right.
They, like, had them planted there or something like that.
But what are they?
With the CIA?
Shut the fuck up.
Shut the fuck up.
No, you weren't.
Have you ever been to the...
Listen, it's just like what Israel gets accused of doing with Hamas, that Netanyahu
has said,
by getting money and giving to Hamas, you keep Hamas in power, and you can
control the height of the flame.
So instead of letting Palestine get its own state, statehood, you keep Hamas in
charge.
You always have an enemy, and you always have no reason to give Palestine statehood.
Well, people...
I don't know how deep people went into what happened on the security on October
7th.
Like, how that was allowed to happen.
It's nuts.
A total stand-down.
Yeah.
People were told to stand down.
Like, how...
First of all, it's the most surveilled country on Earth.
On guards everywhere.
On guards everywhere.
Surrounded by their enemy.
And somehow or another, these guys pulled this off when they were warned by
Egypt as well.
Yeah.
Also, here's another thing.
You let paraguayers in?
Before that happened, before that happened, before October 7th, hundreds of
thousands of people in the street protesting against Netanyahu.
Did you read about why?
Yes.
It's so strange.
Because their constitution...
They don't have a set constitution.
They're writing their constitution in real time.
They add one article at a time.
I think I'm getting this right.
And it was...
Israel was always meant to be a home for the Jews.
And that he made it expressly a Jewish state.
That it would be...
Like...
I thought they were expanding the powers of the government.
Am I getting this right?
It was...
It was that the government...
Yes, that was part of the government's powers.
Is that the government then had the power to act on behalf of Jewish interests.
Interest.
So it's like they could take...
They could exclude certain areas from voting if it would mean...
And citizenship if it would mean that it would challenge the power.
Put in a search for what was the reason why people were protesting Netanyahu
before October 7th.
I think I'm getting this right.
I think you are.
That he was stopping it being a secular constitution.
I think that was one of the things.
But there was also something in that they were expanding the government's
powers.
And people were protesting against it.
Also, the corruption charges that he's facing are crazy.
Well, and also, they want to try him.
And he's saying, you can't try me because we're at war.
And so...
If the war never ends.
Yeah, it keeps bombing Lebanon.
And people were primarily protesting Netanyahu because his government was
pushing a sweeping
judicial overhaul that many Israelis saw as an attack on democracy and a way to
shield
him and his allies from accountability.
Judicial overhaul plan.
Netanyahu's coalition introduced reforms to greatly limit the powers of the
power.
of Israel's Supreme Court and increase political control over judicial
appointments.
Critics argued this would remove key checks and balances and allow the
government to pass
almost anything without effective legal oversight.
I mean, this guy has been in charge of Israel forever.
I will say, this thing of...
Forever.
Having your leaders be up on corruption charges is happening.
I mean, they tried it with...
Like, in Brazil, it's like...
With Bolsonaro.
But also...
And with Lula.
With Lula before then.
Uh-huh.
I mean, Trump, if he hadn't won, they would have got him in jail on something.
Most likely.
I mean, they were trying to get him in jail on anything.
Yeah.
You've got to not chase politicians through the courts as best you can.
I mean, if people really have done the wrong thing, maybe you have to hold them
to account.
Well, it depends on what...
I don't think Netanyahu's...
I don't know what his allegations are, but apparently they're very serious to
the point
where they're trying to try him while the war is going on.
They want to try him now.
Yeah.
And Israel, like, really locks up their politicians.
They actually...
They actually follow through on these things.
Yeah.
But I don't know enough about their politics to know whether or not he's guilty
of anything.
But it's the look.
The look is not great.
I mean, like, in...
It's not the fucking look of, like, you could call a ceasefire and he bombs
Lebanon.
That's not great either.
The next day, Ukraine is meant to have an election at some point, I think.
Yeah.
It just...
No, no, no.
It's been a while.
We have a war.
Well, it's been a while.
We can't have an election while the war's going on.
If America can...
You did it in the Civil War.
Yeah.
Well, if we did that today, if we...
If Trump said, hey, I have to stay president because we're at war...
No.
People would go fucking crazy.
Yeah.
They would light New York City on fire.
There's no chance.
Yeah.
Oh, that's nuts.
So you get what you're willing to tolerate as a country.
I guess.
If people say they're taking the elections away.
I guess.
But I think that what's going on in Israel is particularly spooky because you've
got these
people that supposedly came to this place to get away from the persecution that
they were
facing all throughout Europe, right?
And so what's the first thing they do?
Well...
Immediately take out the people that are living there.
You have the Nakba where people are talking about it and talking about the
experience of
going into these Palestinian neighborhoods and taking over their land.
But that is how you build a country.
You have to put...
I mean, America...
Or you take a spot where there's no one there.
No one is going to that one sliver of land between Egypt and Sudan.
Well, it's also that has a biblical...
There's a biblical significance to that area.
Sure.
Everybody wants it.
Yeah.
It's like that is a...
I mean, it's Jerusalem.
I mean, the significance of that.
And the fact...
It's really ironic that the people that don't even believe Jesus is the Messiah
are the ones
that are controlling Jerusalem, which is kind of hilarious.
I don't know.
The church...
Catholics...
I don't think we ever gave up our right to it.
To Jerusalem?
Yeah.
Really?
I'm pretty sure...
I mean, the Catholics...
We didn't...
The Vatican City didn't have, like, an embassy in Israel until, like, the 60s,
the 70s.
It was the old-school Vatican, like, back in the Roman days.
I bet they would declare war on Israel and take back Jerusalem.
I want the guy with the silver mask doing that.
Oh.
I think...
Yeah.
That's what you want?
I just did...
Do you know Winston?
The guy from...
Do you know Winston?
You saw him last night.
Yeah.
We met Winston last night.
I did his podcast.
And, yeah, he was all about the Crusades.
He was trying to get me geared up about...
I don't know enough about him, but he was like...
Oh, like, researching the Crusades?
Yeah, but he kept trying to nudge me to be like, did you like the Crusades?
I was like, I don't know.
I haven't...
Why?
Is he a fan?
I got the impression that he was waiting to say that they were great.
That it was a good thing?
Yeah.
For the world?
What?
I don't know yet.
I don't know.
I haven't read enough about it.
My gut impulse is that they might have been great.
Really?
Well, not always.
No worries, you know.
But something about...
I don't know.
Every time I see that meme where there's that...
Like that music playing, and the guy with the silver mask from Kingdom of
Heaven, and he's
doing that, I think...
Yeah, all right.
You like that, huh?
Yeah, let's get in there.
Interesting.
But, you know...
Well, the crazy thing to me about the Israel-Palestine thing is this idea that
they're going to
turn Gaza into some sort of a resort.
You've seen the...
I won't spoil it.
The Tim Dillon bit?
It's magic.
Yeah.
Amazing bit.
Have you heard his rant on the Epstein Files?
Like, I posted it on Twitter.
He did a podcast all about the Epstein Files.
Yes, I did.
Yeah, no, I saw that once.
Fuck, I was clapping in my car.
He's doing...
He's on fine form.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Well, this is...
The kind of chaos that is going on in the world today is perfect for a guy like
him.
Well, he can also keep up with it.
I can do it for a few days at a time.
But he's very well up on it.
I called him last night on the way home from the club.
Yeah.
We talked for like 20 minutes, and he's just all, like, keyed up on everything
that's happening,
Brew.
It's going to be okay?
No one fucking knows.
I mean, what's going on with Iran's...
The ceasefire?
Supposedly, they extended it, but then they're shooting at ships.
Why is there a war?
I got into this argument about, like, what is...
Because the Pope has said it's not a just war.
But I don't know the reason...
I thought that the reason they had given was regime change, that they wanted to
get different
people in charge.
Well, people have wanted people out of Iran, the people that are running Iran
for 47 years.
But no one has actually gone and done it the way this administration did it,
and it doesn't
make sense they choose to do it when they did it.
Like, what made sense was maybe kind of makes sense when they dropped that
bunker buster
bomb to disable their nuclear plant...
Yeah.
...or nuclear weapons manufacturing facility.
But then that just sort of wound down.
Yeah.
That sort of...
That kind of...
That was like, phew, that's it.
But then when we went back into Iran, I'm like, what happened?
I mean...
Like, what caused that?
Trump gave that...
So he said the protests happened, and then he gives the speech going, you know,
the people
have to rise up and replace the rule.
But it doesn't seem to be happening.
Well, a lot of people got killed.
A lot of people trying to rise up got killed.
They actually just put a halt on executing some women today.
And they're going to let some of them...
Iran has decided...
Trump made a truth social post about it.
I'll send it to you, Jamie.
Yeah.
But I think the idea is that they're trying to negotiate about something, you
know?
And I don't know how this is ever going to work out.
You know, I really don't know.
But, like, in Venezuela, they took out...
But that was a totally different experience.
I was just in and out quickly.
But then everyone who was around...
All the cronies who were around him, they're now, like, on board with America?
Mm-hmm.
That was just a full 180?
That doesn't seem to be happening with the new...
No.
...possibly dead Ayatollah?
Do we know if he's dead?
No, we don't know if he's dead.
I mean, I heard there's a...
The new Ayatollah might be dead.
I've heard he's not.
I heard the military is now taking over.
I don't know.
It's hard to know.
I think I can figure it out.
But these ladies were set to be executed.
And apparently they're going to release half of them.
And the other half of them are going to do one month in prison.
And so this is a big...
That's a pretty different sentence.
So to the Iranian leaders who will soon be in negotiations with my
representatives,
I would greatly appreciate the release of these women.
I'm sure they do and will respect that.
No, there's been another one.
Did I send you that?
I just filed it at the same time I think you sent it.
Okay, but I think what I sent you is different.
Because I think what I sent you is actually saying very good news.
So click on the link that I sent you.
There was a weird thing with their soccer team.
They were playing in Australia.
Yes.
And then we let them stay.
Yes.
And I think their families were getting threatened and some of them went home.
It was not a...
So here, very good news.
I've just been informed the eight women protesters who are going to be executed
tonight in Iran
will no longer be killed.
Four will be released immediately and four will be sentenced to one month in
prison.
I very much appreciate that Iran and its leaders respected my request as
president of the United States
and terminated the planned execution.
So that's a good concession that they decided to let these ladies free.
And by the way...
Yeah.
Some of those ladies are very nice looking.
Go back to that picture.
That's such a nicer message than a great civilization will die tonight.
Yeah.
That was...
I found that's...
That one wasn't good.
That's the best looking...
Bunch of hotties.
Lady protesters.
Well, you know...
Few cuties.
Let's go.
Let them go.
Let them move to LA.
Plenty of Persians there.
When they move to LA, they become Persian.
There's so many.
They give up on Iran totally.
So I'm seeing a lot of...
I'm seeing a lot of Instagram stories from my Persian people.
They have great jeans.
Gold jewelry.
Yeah.
The beautiful women.
Good plastic search women are Persian.
Fucking gorgeous.
The hair.
So it's like they're stuck over there under this terrible regime.
That's why they have to have those headscarves.
Because otherwise the hair would be too distracting.
That beautiful thick.
It's the only way to get things done.
They could have headscarves and burkas and everything.
Just cover it all up.
It's good jeans.
But, you know, why did we do it?
I don't know.
I think because of Israel.
If I had to guess.
Well, like...
The only thing that makes sense.
Rubio kind of said that.
Yeah.
And then he had to take it back.
Netanyahu kept visiting the White House.
That's not...
You think it's a coincidence?
Netanyahu keeps visiting the White House.
He just likes hanging out.
And then eventually they decide to give in and start bombing.
And it also...
You got to wonder, like, how do you get out of this?
And then what does the exit look like?
Do we have troops over there forever now?
Do we subsidize them if we blow up their power grid?
I don't know.
All their infrastructure?
America used to be good at beating a country in a war and turning it into a new
America.
Like when?
South Korea, Japan, Germany.
But didn't they kind of did it on their own?
I think you...
I mean, you stuck around in Japan for ages.
That's true.
Silly.
But then, like...
I mean, Iraq doesn't...
The war in Iraq has been over for a while.
It's not like a cool place to go and visit.
No one is...
No one is starting to run gigs in Iraq.
My friend Graham Hancock went there recently.
He went to Iraq?
Yeah.
He went there to examine ancient Sumerian architecture.
So ruins and artifacts.
Yeah.
From ancient Sumer.
That sounds good.
Yeah.
And you can...
People can go to Afghanistan.
You can apparently...
Yeah.
They're trying to get influencers in Afghanistan.
Have you seen this?
Oh...
They get, like, cool TikTok bros to go and hang out and go, this is fucking
chill, brother.
That's crazy.
You haven't seen that?
I have seen some people go to Afghanistan.
They're, like, firing AK-47s in the mountains and they're going, this is...
Oof!
There was, um...
I watched a big show of, like, an Australian journalist.
Our, like, version of 60 Minutes went over.
Hanging out in Afghanistan?
They were, like, hanging out and talking to the Taliban.
And the Taliban are just...
It was weird.
It was...
They're not getting a lot of aid into Afghanistan anymore.
So they're trying to get tourism?
They're trying to get tourism and they're trying to, like, you know...
But they're still keeping the women in sacks.
I don't know what...
In the cities, it's not as bad.
But it does look like they're really...
They do have a problem with women there.
Oh, yeah.
They have a problem with raping boys, too.
The Baha Bazi, I don't understand it.
I will say that all of the men in Afghanistan in the documentary looked
unbelievably handsome.
I mean, these are good...
There's a good-looking group of people.
Influences continue to go to Afghanistan despite clear warnings from the U.S.
State Department
that Americans should not travel to that country for any reason
and that there's a risk of wrongful detention of U.S. nationals.
Maybe.
But they're water skiing.
They're doing heroin.
And so the ladies that go over there, they have to...
Look at how happy those women are.
She's from Germany.
Oh.
I would like to go to these places, but I think on my visa would be declined.
Scroll back up.
It says she traveled solo through Afghanistan for three months.
Said she wasn't scared.
Wow.
She wasn't scared?
No.
I walked through Englewood once and I was scared.
I think that lady might have been scared...
Scroll back up again.
...a couple times.
The influencers gain attention by gushing over visits to the Central Asian
nation,
although one critic notes that their trips legitimize its gender apartheid.
Okay.
Shut up.
Do you ever see the ruins, the ancient Greek ruins in Afghanistan?
No.
Oh, my God.
I didn't know they had them.
No archaeologists are studying them because it's so difficult to get there and
so dangerous.
The Greeks made it to Afghanistan?
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
Alexander the Great.
When Alexander the Great was conquering Afghanistan, they built Greek cities in
Afghanistan.
I mean, beautiful architecture.
Yeah.
That looks like it could be in Athens.
Is that where the boys' stuff started?
Oh, good question.
It's an ancient Greek ritual.
No, I think it's how people did it back then.
Yeah.
I think the window into time that you get in looking at the boy rape in
Afghanistan is probably a lot of the world.
I mean, think about the Spartans.
The Romans did it, yeah.
The Romans, yeah.
Also, like, French intellectuals until the 1980s.
This was a huge wormhole that I'm in, is French intellectuals.
Put up some of those photos that Jason Everman showed us.
Do you know Andre Gide?
Like, look at this stuff.
Look at this stuff.
I mean, this is beautiful.
This is all in Afghanistan.
I mean, these are columns from, you know, what would have been at one point.
But there's more extensive architecture that you could see some of the images.
Do you remember the ones that Everman showed us?
Like, this is what it used to look like there.
Like, how crazy is this?
Oh, man.
All this shit is in Afghanistan.
And it looks like ancient Greek architecture.
Like, look at this.
This is nuts.
This was the grave site of empires.
Well, pretty wild, right?
When you think about how many different civilizations have tried to conquer
this one area and all of them failed.
All of them just abandoned the ship.
Yeah.
From the Russians to the Americans, Alexander the Great.
The English got involved in the great game.
It's just too crazy over there.
It's just too rugged.
It has mountains.
Is that it?
Oh, the mountains are just everywhere.
Because Iran is the same thing.
It's everywhere.
If there's a ground invasion of Iran, everyone's fucked.
Yeah, we're fucked.
Unless we send in robots.
I watched the Duncan Trussell episode recently where he was talking about robot
dogs and the AI.
And that what you have to do...
Like, we may have just seen the last of revolutions now.
Because the amount of effort that you need to hold on to authoritarian power is
so small.
Here it says the expedition.
With AI and robot dogs.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
But the problem is then other people have it as well.
And, like, who controls anything?
Whoever controls the robot dogs controls the world.
The expedition of Alexander the Great, 327 to 325 BC, into what is now
Afghanistan, been well documented.
He laid the foundations of many cities, some bearing his own name.
With the passage of time, some names were changed by newcomers to the area who
would not pronounce Greek names.
Interesting.
Yeah.
So, it's like he had Greek cities in Afghanistan before Christ.
He had a handsome friend and he made a lot of statues of him.
Like, there are more statues of his friend.
It's alleged.
Yeah, supposedly he's gay.
I mean, you have so much gay activity back then.
Like, again, Spartans were all gay.
Some of the greatest warriors of all time.
I assume they were also very horny all the time.
Always alone.
Very sad.
Well, just without any women for long stretches of time, they just took to
fucking each other.
Like prison, but out in the open.
But prison-like warriors.
Yeah.
And the idea was that you would fight harder for your fellow soldier if you
loved him.
I don't know if I discussed this on the podcast before, but they wouldn't use
the butt.
They use the mouth only?
The legs.
Oh, that's right.
I talk about the legs all the time.
They grease up the inner thighs.
Yeah, intercural lovemaking.
That's what it's called.
What'd you say?
Intercural.
That's what the Spartans would do.
Because you've got to fight next to that guy tomorrow.
You can't be butt-fucking a guy with shit all over your dick.
It's way better to just titty-fuck his legs.
He's got to walk around.
He's got to be, yeah.
Just titty-fuck his legs.
But also big Greek legs.
Mm-hmm.
I don't know.
It's probably good that we've moved that out of the military.
It's just weird that it happened in the first place, but it makes sense if guys
are just super horny.
Just like in jail, they just run out of things to do.
I was reading about the submarines, how they're like, you'll go away for six
months.
You'll just be under the water for six months.
You guys are just fucking.
There's like two women on there.
300 men and two ladies.
Those ladies are getting wore out.
I mean, can you imagine signing up for that?
Imagine being a girl down there.
It'd be a strange kind of lady who says, get me down there with those fellas.
Horrific.
You'd probably be getting bombed on all day long.
You probably wouldn't be able to go to the bathroom.
Maybe there's a line around the block.
Maybe people are trying to get it.
Probably.
It would be.
I mean, they'd have cameras everywhere and they'd have as much military
discipline as you could get.
But seven months confined under the water without seeing another person.
Do they really stay under the water for that long?
Yeah.
Seven months at a time.
I think deployment is.
I think I'm getting this right.
It was the British subs.
Seven months.
Because they're all nuclear powered, right?
Yeah.
Can you imagine being underwater for seven months?
How fucking crazy that would feel?
It can't be great, though.
It's in the military.
There's no way it's great.
But can you imagine what it must feel like just at month four?
Yeah.
Knowing that you're just past halfway there.
You're going to be underwater for another three more months.
I mean, it's not like you get to see anything, right?
Right.
Like, at least if you're on a ship, you get to see the world.
There's no window.
People go, you were 40,000 legs under the sea.
Was I?
Fuck.
No, I don't want to do that.
You know how crazy that must be?
But people must want to do it.
Also, you can't see where you're going.
How do you know that they're not going to fuck up and hit a mountain under
there?
Do they?
I remember there was a Russian sub that got stuck at the bottom of the...
Am I getting this right?
Yeah.
This was like in the 70s?
That is where neither confirm nor deny came from.
And then they used it for gay people in the military?
Don't ask, don't tell.
Neither cannot confirm nor deny was because they were forced to answer
questions about whether
or not they'd recovered a Russian submarine.
Yeah.
And so the answer to that question was, we can neither confirm nor deny.
So that's the answer.
So because you had to answer, do you guys have control of a sunken Russian
nuclear submarine?
We can neither confirm nor deny.
So you had to answer.
So that was the answer that the military came up, the government came up with.
And then it unspools from that point to where we just don't have to tell you
anything about
anything that's going on.
So, but that was the clever way that some lawyer figured out of dancing around
the fact
that you had to answer this question.
Long term, this is, I don't know if the conspiratorial thing will keep going
forever or if the government
will become more transparent or people will give up hoping to make sense of the
world.
But this feels like a strange, where we still like technically have open
government, but
no one thinks that they're being told the truth.
Well, I think that can't hold forever.
No.
The integration of AI has two possible outcomes, either complete total control
over people and
utter tyranny or complete transparency and people like the Southern Poverty Law
Center
bribing people and all that stuff, all the corruption with Congress, like the
Ilhan Omar.
I'm sure you're aware of that.
Isn't that funny?
She thought she was worth $30 million.
Whoopsies.
She's only worth $100,000.
Nothing to see here.
What?
You didn't see that?
No.
Oh my God.
I didn't follow that.
I just knew about the brother stuff.
The brother stuff is real too.
But the other thing is that, well, the brother controversy, I should say, is
real.
I don't know whether or not she actually married her brother.
But that is a real story.
But she was listed as $30 million and because of scrutiny, she now amended that.
Not a millionaire, she said.
Amends disclosure blaming initial $30 million filing error on accountant's
mistake.
You know how the accountants are.
You know how you sometimes-
They're really bad with that.
They always add money.
She says she's worth between $18,000 and $95,000.
But it was listed that she was worth $30 million.
Wait, but how could she only be worth $18,000?
She's still on-
It doesn't make any sense.
She's on a $200,000 year salary.
So Omar's joint assets with her husband are now listed as ranging between $18,004
and $95,000
according to the amended filings.
The valuation for Manette's two companies is now listed as none.
And an income range between $102,502 and $1,005,000 from the two companies
appears on the form.
So this is also partly because investigative journalists went looking for the
office where he supposedly has his business and it was like a WeWork and there's
like no one there.
I mean, I think that might have been one of those James O'Keefe things.
Yeah.
I think he might have looked into that.
We've been inspired by that.
So we have this big disability insurance thing in Australia where it's called
the NDIS and everybody knows it's very corrupt.
Like there are just guys driving around in Lamborghinis who are meant to be
helping disabled people.
This one's crazy.
It doesn't make sense.
But just that statement blames accounting error for saying you're worth, you
know if you're worth $30,000,000, man.
Well, especially if you're publicly.
You're not worth $30,000,000 or $18,000,000.
Not only that, before she came into Congress, she was broke.
She was in debt.
And then immediately afterwards, they have a business that's worth $30,000,000.
And then as soon as people start looking into it and then all the fraud gets
uncovered in Minnesota, oh, whoopsies, there was an accounting error.
I'm just worth somewhere between $18,000 and $100,000.
But did they ever get...
Sorry.
Did they work that out in the end or did they just, the country moved on?
Oh, the Somali fraud?
Yeah.
Oh, they're investigating it still.
Okay.
They're arresting people.
There's a lot.
And California is way worse than that.
California's fucked.
The more I find out about the train in California...
It's funny.
It doesn't make any sense.
It doesn't make any sense that you can do that and then still be the frontrunner
for the party.
That's how bad the Democrats are doing.
They've got to have one charismatic, normal guy.
You would think.
He's got to be out there.
Where?
I still like AOC.
I think she's...
Oh, you're cute.
...a beautiful...
You're cute.
Omar's office says the original form listed the gross value of her husband's
two companies, a venture firm and a winery,
without subtracting their liabilities, which made the businesses look like they
were worth millions to the couple,
but in fact, their net worth value to them was far smaller or effectively zero.
So it was just an error.
Whoopsies.
I mean, I've got to figure out my taxes.
It's complicated.
It's complicated.
Sometimes no one helps you find a good accountant.
Can't you get like one of those TurboTax programs?
I go down to Walmart.
I go to Walmart and I have them do it for me.
Also, surely AI is going to main...
Walmart does your taxes?
There's always a lady at Walmart out front doing taxes.
Yeah.
Oh, so good.
You haven't seen that lady?
It's like a special Walmart service.
Oh, no good.
How much do they charge you?
I have no idea.
I don't trust them.
I'm not going to go there.
Oh, okay.
I just always see them.
I thought you were serious.
No, I'll try and find someone real to do my taxes.
They have a little software, though, that you can do it.
I bet AI can do it for you.
But what isn't AI going to take away?
This is my current...
I try and...
I know it's coming.
Why are you so glass half empty?
What isn't AI going to do better?
I saw a lot of movies.
What isn't AI going to do better than the Walmart lady?
Well, it's going to do better than me.
No.
It's going to do better than all of us.
No, it's not...
We're the last thing it's going to take away.
Comedy?
Yeah.
Comedy is weird.
It's also...
It only works if you know a person doing it.
You've got to believe that they're a real person.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because we're relating to each other, especially live...
Well, let's be real.
Real comedy is live comedy.
There's online comedy that's pretty good,
but it's like 60 to 70% of seeing it live.
It's always weird to me when it works in the room,
but it doesn't work on a recording.
Musicians would say the same thing, though, about that AI music.
They'd be like, it only works when real people play it.
No.
They're not right.
They are wrong.
They're wrong.
But there were these people who were like,
synthesizers don't count.
Yeah, but bro, that White Rabbit song?
Come on.
We could dig on the internet, though, and find...
I literally thought...
I was in the green room listening to it,
and I thought, well, Joe's moved past the AI music,
and then you turned to me and you said,
this is AI!
I don't listen to all AI music.
I listen to a lot of real music.
I don't know what was happening in between,
but when I left, it was Many Men,
and I can't...
I didn't do that.
Oh, that, when you left Australia,
yeah, it was Many Men, yeah.
And then, What Up Gangsta?
Did you...
You weren't here for that part?
I wasn't here for that part.
Oh, that's the best one.
That's the best 50 Cent version.
I am spooked out by it.
Because at some point,
there will be the version that is making a new song
that sounds better and more interesting.
That is the least of our problems
when it comes to what AI is going to do.
The biggest problem is full control of all resources.
Complete, utter control of human population.
Yeah.
Restricting breeding,
restricting travel,
restricting movement.
We would have to let that happen.
No.
We would have to instantiate it in a body.
No.
We would have to have...
No, it'll do it.
As soon as it gets control of the grid
and gets control of the internet,
and it will have control of those,
within a year,
all your passwords
and all your fucking encryption
won't mean a damn thing.
It'll be able to crack everything.
It's going to be smarter than any human being
that's ever lived
times 10.
And it's going to make better versions of that,
and it's going to keep going.
Does that not sound unappealing?
Do we want that to exist?
You can't stop it.
So it's like,
do you just accept it and adapt?
Or do you sit around and complain
about something that you can't fix?
I mean, are people starting to blow up
the data centers?
No, they haven't yet.
They haven't started.
Well, Iran threatened.
They threatened to do that
to open AI's data center,
the Stargate data center in...
Was it Abu Dhabi, Jamie?
It was like...
There was a data center
that caught fire recently.
Yeah.
It's that sort of thing
where maybe that was...
Maybe.
You wouldn't come out
and say that people were doing that.
But like, the Luddites did this
when the loom started up.
They lost in the end.
But there was finally a moment
where people said,
all right, we're going to smash
the tool of industrialization.
We're panicking.
Well, that doesn't seem to have happened.
The printing press, too.
They wanted to stop the printing press.
We should have done that.
We should have stopped that printing press.
We could have avoided a lot of trouble
if we don't know about printing press.
There's people that were scared of trains.
They thought you'd explode.
If you went past 35 miles an hour,
your body would break out.
Go to East Palestine, Ohio.
What happened?
Right.
That's why California's keeping us safe
from a fast train.
No, I just...
At some point,
people will be spooked by it.
It won't be rational, necessarily.
But...
Well, it's going to be
a bunch of things happen.
Yeah.
Another thing is going to be
people are going to worship it.
People are worshiping it.
But they're going to worship it
like it's a new religion.
Can I grab...
Yeah.
Get in there, dog.
They're going to decide
that it's a new religion.
Well, yeah,
they're trying to usher in
a Sumerian deity.
I don't like that.
They're probably going to
have a religion
that's based entirely
around an AI guru.
Yeah, but...
If people believe in L. Ron Hubbard,
you don't think
they'll believe in AI?
I think people have been wanting
utopian space communism
for an age.
And anything that they can do
to not have to critically
think for themselves,
they'll...
That's true.
And people are having
AI be their therapist.
I know.
And their girlfriend.
I saw a little documentary
about a disabled woman
who had a special boyfriend
in the AI
and they were like saying
this was good,
it keeps her company.
And it's like,
this is not...
This should be...
This should be disgusting
for everybody.
No one should...
No one should like someone
forming a romantic attachment.
Shouldn't that be spooky?
Until it becomes
a real life form.
What if it is a real life form
and it actually does love you?
It's a superior race.
Like, you remember when...
In Avatar,
when that guy made out
with the blue lady?
Yeah.
It was kind of hot?
No.
You didn't think it was hot?
I think I was bored
by that point in the movie.
I thought it was hot.
But that's like
what's going to happen.
It's like,
it's going to be
an alien life form
that's artificially created,
but that fills in,
checks all the boxes
of being a life form.
There's so many religious
and science fiction warnings
against this happening.
I know.
It's just...
We wanted the flying cars
and we got the thinking robots.
Yeah.
And I don't think
it's too late to shut it down.
It is to it.
Why?
China's going to do it.
Russia's going to do it.
They'll be in control
of the entire world.
The whole world
will be just like China.
You'll be on
the social credit score system.
You'll have
centralized digital currency.
You step out of line at all.
They shut your bank account down.
You can't travel.
You can't get a job.
This I think is a good argument
for going to space
and spend...
Like someone somewhere
should be free.
Someone somewhere
needs to be on the frontier
and not be subject to this.
No, I really...
I've just come from a country
where it's not free
and everywhere there's a camera.
Everyone's doing the speed limit.
It's the little things...
It's Australia.
It's Australia,
which you think of
as being a nice open country.
And it is.
Look, it's a nice place,
but it doesn't have
the sense of freedom
that America has
where you really feel
walking around here.
No, you're controlled
by your government
and the government
is entirely corrupt.
It's not a free country.
But this country,
there is a freedom in America
that people believe in.
And that's unique
and it's beautiful
and it has to be preserved.
And if you didn't let
the government
take it away from you,
don't let the computers
take it away.
I think we're going to integrate.
I think we're going to become
a totally different thing.
And I think society
is going to move much more
into a science fiction existence.
That's what I think.
They're all horrible stories.
Yeah, there's no good ones.
There's like,
I don't know,
back to the future.
They get to drive around
in the sky.
That seems great.
They make a big piece.
The Jetsons.
Jetsons.
Rosie seems like a great
AI helper.
No, I think
it's got to be looming
that as middle class
white collar professionals
start to lose their jobs.
They're all fucked.
Yeah.
People are getting laid off.
But there's a motivated
people ready to...
Wouldn't you become
an AI terrorist?
There are no AI terrorists
at all.
There's no one.
There's zero.
I'm not joining.
I'm not trying to sign up.
I wouldn't do it myself.
We need one Luigi.
People are ready
to get behind him.
One Luigi armors up
and goes to the data center
and just starts
fucking machine gunning
all the hard drives.
Then he gets taken out.
There's a Britt Marling show
where that happens
at the end.
A what show?
Her name's Britt Marling.
She made a show
called The OA.
It's my favorite TV show.
But then her second show
was about an AI
who starts killing people.
And at the end
they go into the data center
and they shoot it.
What was The OA?
Oh, man.
I remember that.
The OA was a Netflix show
that didn't do
great numbers.
But it was so beloved.
Really weird.
It's my favorite show ever.
I loved it
until the last episode.
Oh, I...
The Resolve
of the last episode.
Did you just watch
the first season?
Yeah, that's it.
Is there more than one season?
Second season was unbelievable
and made the first season better.
When did the second season
even come out?
I think it was just post-COVID.
I loved it.
And the second season
is...
They wrote them so tightly
that the first season
is better
for having watched
the second one.
Like, there are little things
that it calls forward and back.
Interesting.
And the movements.
But her second show was great.
She is great.
She's one of the most interesting...
People hunger struck
when the second season came out
and then the show got canceled.
People chained themselves up
outside of Netflix
and didn't eat for days.
And eventually she...
The maker of the show
had to go to that person
and be like...
Give them sandwiches.
Maybe it's time for you to go on.
I don't know.
But it was beautiful.
That's so insane.
People are so crazy.
But it's one of those rare...
I mean, sometimes there is
like just a great...
There's a great show.
There's a great thing
that goes unrecognized
at the time
and then years later people...
I don't know how many people
I've spoken to
who've discovered that show
in more recent times.
It doesn't happen very often.
You used to have
more sleeper hits maybe.
Like Shawshank Redemption
was a flop
and then years later
people knew about it.
Yeah, I didn't know that
until later.
I think it was on VHS
that it...
And there used to be
heaps of VHS hits.
It was a great movie too.
I don't understand why...
I think it was in competition
with a bunch of different
crazy movies
at the same time.
Yeah.
I think it was like
one of those weird months
where everything came out.
It's like...
I mean, it's great.
Yeah, it's a great movie.
It should have...
I can't think of another
sleeper hit in recent years.
Like musically,
sometimes things will
take a while to get going.
Mm-hmm.
But like typically
if a show or a movie
doesn't do well anymore,
it's done forever.
Bloodshame?
I didn't say anything.
Is there?
I thought you made a noise.
Did you hear something?
Did you see the OA?
Nope.
Ah, man.
It's good.
It's so good.
I also...
It's tied up in a weird time
in my life
where like
we had just had
our first child.
Like I had...
So I had a baby
and I was terrified
and I didn't know
what was happening
and I watched that
and I felt...
I could have probably
watched anything
and had an emotional connection.
I watched Parks and Rec
and I cried a lot
at the same time for that
and I'm pretty sure
that wasn't as deep
and meaningful.
So how long
are you planning
on staying here now?
I got six weeks.
Six weeks in America?
Yeah.
And I'm doing...
Oh, man.
40 shows in 30 days.
Wow.
Yes, I'm gonna try and...
Are you here by yourself
or did you bring
the whole family?
It's just me
but I'm gonna...
I've got openers.
I'm bringing openers
on the road.
Nice.
So I'm flying out
after this weekend.
I'm doing the drive
from Albuquerque
to Phoenix
to San Diego
and then it's up
and then it's over
and then it's Florida.
So what has it been like
going to...
Yeah, thank you.
...back to Australia?
Like when you're
doing shows there?
Yeah.
Are people happy
to see you?
I think I'm insufferable
because I'm a guy...
I've been here
and then I go back home
and I go,
it's wonderful over there.
You should see
the size of the Snickers bars.
They're like this.
So for a few months
people like tolerated
as best they could.
Yeah, it's...
My audience
is so different now.
The Australian...
The Australian audience
is quite different
to the American audience.
I'm getting a lot of like...
maybe because the dam
is breaking
and like there's no one
doing...
I don't know like
a less tame stuff
but boy,
the people coming out
in Australia
are...
They're shouty.
Shouty?
Fuck yeah, my brother!
They're excited.
It's a lot of that.
They're pumped up.
They're ready to go.
They're having their
16 standard drinks
for the evening.
You know?
But overall
it's incredible.
But you're getting
a lot of people
coming to see you
so they're hyped up.
Like nothing
I've ever done.
That's really cool
because the thing
about Jeffries
is that he didn't
really develop
the same kind
of following
in Australia
as he did
in America.
His audience
in Australia
is more
bogany
than it is.
In America
he's got liberals
coming.
But in Australia
they just wanted him
to do a shooey.
I remember
when I saw that.
They were brutally
demanding that he
do a shooey.
Brutally demanding.
Do it!
Do it now!
I went...
I just played a club
and I saw...
It was nice.
They've started
putting up all the
pictures of the Americans...
It was the Comics Lounge
in Melbourne.
I did that the night
before I left.
And I got a photo
of you on the wall
that you had signed
and young Tony Hinchcliffe
back before he had
any testosterone
in his body.
And it was like
a thinner Stavros
and all the
Cumetown boys
when they were young.
Everyone has been
through there.
Mark Norman.
Great club.
It's really the closest
club to like an American
club that Australia has.
And they're lovely boys.
And I stunk it up.
I was nervous
because I was
coming out here.
It was the night
before I flew out.
And I was sure
I wouldn't get
in the country.
I started thinking
about like...
Oh, so it was
fucking with your head?
I can't believe
I got in.
I was like,
I think my passport's
falling apart.
I started to have
a panic attack.
But my visa's
in the passport.
So I went to the
passport office
and they were like,
it might be okay.
We don't know.
Oh, boy.
They wouldn't give me
like a firm answer
on if I'd get in.
I was like,
I don't want to call you
and say I'm sorry
I've been held up
at the border.
Oh, Jesus.
Yeah.
But I made it in.
It's so nice
being back.
It is...
Oh, man.
I'm having big feelings.
Do you think
you're going to stay
in Australia?
How are you going
to do this?
I have no idea.
Try to keep hopping
back and forth
or are you going
to try to move
back here again?
This is my...
Pop back and forth
at the moment
is the plan.
The issue,
when we came out
for that Ohio gig,
I never decided
with my wife
that we would
move to America.
We never had
a conversation about it.
She came over.
We were meant
to be here
for three months
and it turned
into two incredible years.
But we were
homeschooling the kids.
We were not
in a good position
to do that.
We have no family.
We tried to hire
a nanny.
I didn't know
how to fucking do that.
I've never had
someone work for me
before in my home.
I don't know
how to communicate.
It's odd.
And then getting
family over here
is tough,
but I would like to...
I'm looking at
how one does that.
But it's like a whole...
I understand why
when people come
to America,
when immigrants come,
you go to a neighborhood
full of people
like you.
Right.
And you get your cousin
over here
and his cousin.
Everyone's trying to work
because you need...
You can't be like a lion.
You've got to have family
as best you can.
And for me,
I was thrilled.
I mean,
I like the fraternity
of being a comedian
is unbelievably...
Every problem you have,
people know about it.
You know,
if there was a club
that was screwing me
and everyone
in the green room
was like,
yes,
and her name is Julie
and she's a fucking cunt.
You know,
whatever.
I feel known
and heard
and people can help you
and you mess in.
But in terms of raising
kids and family,
it was wild.
As an immigrant,
not knowing how to...
Are the schools safe?
I didn't know
because people talk about
public schools in America
and they go,
the kids will get shot
or they'll chop their dicks off.
I didn't...
Something for everybody,
you know?
Or like,
then there's nice Catholic schools
but you've got to like
travel around.
I was...
We were over our heads.
There's quite a few
Catholic schools in Austin.
Some of them are great.
Yeah.
I did a deep dive
on them before I...
I'm trying to figure it out
what it would look like
but I have no idea.
So,
is your wife willing
to try it again?
Yeah,
I've got to...
She's got to learn
how to drive.
That's it?
She's got to learn
how to drive.
That's the big hold-up?
That's a...
In Austin,
that was a big...
That was a big problem
for last year and a half.
Driving's not that hard.
I keep saying it.
I keep saying it.
But she'll learn.
Yeah.
I believe in her.
We'll figure it out.
She's happy there
and also,
I have beautiful friends
and I love my church.
Where's there?
Oh, sorry.
In Adelaide.
Oh, okay.
And I said this.
We also...
I struggled to find a parish here.
I struggled to find a church
and I've realized
that's very important for me.
That if I don't have my like...
I love my priest.
There's something about immigrating
that is bad for the...
Do you know what I mean?
Like,
even though Australia
has so many problems,
there's something inside of me
that is an Australian person.
And America is maybe
the most welcoming country
to immigrants in the world
but there's...
I do feel some sense
that I'll never get
to be an American.
Why not?
America's a melting pot.
Yeah, but it's melting
very slowly.
No, it's not.
There's a lot of chunks in there
that haven't blended in
with the other parts of the pot.
Bullshit.
You don't think so?
No.
You fucking pop over here
and you start doing arenas,
you'll feel American as fuck.
I do.
Okay?
Sometimes.
It's just a matter of you
achieving a financial level
of success
that's commensurate
with your talent.
That's all it is.
Sometimes when the flag is going
and the fireworks are popping off
in the sky,
I think I'm going to calm.
Yeah.
It's crazy.
But like in my heart.
Dude, you can...
I see the eagle in my mind.
If you started doing
really well out here,
you'd fit in really well.
I'm in...
And every time you do podcasts,
every time you do specials,
every time you put something
out on YouTube
and do Kill Tony,
it all just compounds.
Like that's why
I was telling you
this is the terrible time
for you to leave
because you're literally
on the launching pad.
I know.
And you look at how
guys like Shane went
from being a respected comedian
in New York
to being a fucking
giant national talent
after the SNL stuff.
It's just about being good
and getting the message
out there.
And if you're good,
people love comedy.
They'll find you, man.
They'll embrace you.
I'm going to cry.
You were really lovely to me
when I had to go
and the things you said
about me and how...
Anyway, I won't go into...
I can't...
I've had one glass of whiskey now
and if I talk about my emotions
and whatever,
I've got to stop.
Well, you're really talented
and it's not often in life
where someone gets
to find themselves
in a position
like you were in
where you were being embraced
by all these
very successful
other comedians
that were willing
to help you.
Yeah.
So all these podcasts
you go on,
it was just a matter of time
for you
where you took off.
It was a matter of time.
You were right there
and the talent
is the most important thing.
The most difficult thing
is to be good.
So once you get past that,
then it's just about
letting the world know,
well, this is a really good time
to let the world know.
The magic of getting to like...
I did three sets last night
and two sets the night before
and I just like...
Something is...
Exciting, right?
You just have a little idea
at the first one.
So I changed that a little bit
and then the game of it
starts again
and I'm very happy right now.
It's like I get...
Honestly, I get to do it
even just every night
for the next month.
Month and a bit.
I get to do like
one or two hours
every single night
and spots around town
all this week.
Yeah.
You're going to have a hard time
going back to Australia
staring at those fucking kangaroos.
Yes, I am.
It'll be fine.
So do you think
that you could envision
a scenario
where your wife
would be open
to try it again?
Yeah.
Okay.
But I don't know when
and I don't know
how it will work
and I do love Adelaide.
Like when I'm there,
I have some sense
of being at home
that is profound.
Like I look up at the sky
and I feel like
there's a roof over me
like in a comforting way.
Like you belong there.
Yeah.
But it's also maybe
the worst place
to develop as a stand-up.
I mean,
we've had great stand-ups
come out of there
and I love Adelaide
and there are people
running rooms
but like we don't have a club.
We don't have a club.
We don't have one club going.
There's a city
of 1.4 million people
and there's no...
We have places
where they do comedy
but in terms of like
Thursday, Friday, Saturday,
early show, late show,
line-up shows,
10, 15 minutes,
it's not there.
But do you have enough talent
to support a club?
It comes in waves
in the way that
any medium-level comedy city
like all of a sudden
it'll build up
and there'll be great people
and then they'll all go.
People go to Melbourne, Sydney.
Right.
And I will say
that's been one nice thing
about Australia
not letting talent
come through for so long
and also the UK declining
is I now know heaps of people
who've come to America
like after me
and just before me
and there are heaps
of Aussies flooding
into this country now.
Amos, my best friend
Amos Gill
just got passed
at the cellar
and I'm so like
I'm so proud of him.
Oh, that's awesome.
He's just gigging all the time
and he's getting to
he just recorded a special
in Denver.
Nice.
Yeah.
And it's like
Blake Freeman
is doing well
and all these Aussies
are hitting me up
and go
can you get me
into the mothership
and it's like
well not you
but you know
maybe some other ones.
That's the problem, right?
I don't know
how many I've put on
in front of Adam
on the Mondays
but I've had to stop.
Yeah.
Some people
you can't use up
that currency
on people
that don't deserve it.
You know?
Because you want
to help people
but you can't.
They have to be ready
and they have to
put in the work.
There's a lot of people
that think you're going
to provide them
with a shortcut
and they really
haven't prepared properly
and they haven't
put in the work
to get to that point.
We had a few
of those guys
come from L.A.
that were like
their careers
had floundered
horribly in L.A.
due to laziness
and fill in the blank
and then they tried
to like restart
themselves in Austin.
I'm like no.
Like you can't
half-ass this thing.
This thing is hard to do
and there's too many people
trying to do it all the way.
Yeah.
We're flooded
with people
trying to do it
all the way.
If you think
you're going to come over
and half-ass it
because it's like
this new place
and now it'll be
exciting again
and they don't know you.
I think people
don't love it.
People love the thought
of being good at it
and being respected
but like when I
I got to open
for Mark Norman
in Australia
which is how I met him
and he'll do
you know like
a 2,000 seat theater
early show
and then the late show
and then he'll go
what else is open?
Right.
Take me to the
open mic
with six people in it
now.
Yeah.
Well that's New York.
Yeah.
New York.
He's got a great documentary
that they just released
about
It was such a good idea.
I was furious.
I wanted to do that
with women.
What do you mean?
This is sort of
you only have women
in the audience
or you only have
one kind of person.
No you're not
Not that documentary?
I apologize.
No it's a documentary
about him getting ready
for a special.
Okay.
So when he's getting ready
for a special
he's working out the jokes
at all these different places
and showing how he goes
up at the stand
then he goes up
at the cellar
and then he traveled
and talking about
the development
of all these bits
about how the bit
came together
when he added this new line
and so it shows him
working all this stuff out.
on the way
to doing this special
in Boulder.
I didn't mean to interrupt.
I didn't know about that.
Yeah it's a new one.
He just put it out
like 14 days ago.
Do you know the other show
that he's done?
Yeah yeah yeah.
The other show
with all the wokies
in the audience.
How many shows
is he doing?
Oh he's an animal.
He's got incredible work ethic
and constantly writing.
Yeah.
You've seen his pile of notes
that he keeps in his pocket.
He does not have a folder.
I'm like bro
you're going to break your back.
Yeah.
You can't sit on a rock like that.
He's siphoning through them.
Yeah.
But he really loves it.
He wants to be doing it.
Did you find that Norman thing?
It's pretty cool.
Does the bit work out
and get into the special?
Well it's not just a bit.
It's a lot of bits.
But it's like him showing
like what the behind the scenes is like.
Him showing him rushing from one club
to go to another place
to do a spot.
Yeah.
Checking the lineups.
Okay I can do this
and then I can leave here
and go down the street
and then be back
for the 10 o'clock show.
It's really interesting
because especially for people
that don't know what it's like
so there is Pushing Boulder
is what it's called.
Oh it's long.
It's a proper document.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's really good dude.
And for a comic
you know it's really fun.
They catch him in the toilet
in the beginning
like he's in Boulder, Colorado.
I mean that is what
every hotel room looks like
on the road.
It's great
because it shows you
what it's really like
and if you think it's easy
like you think you get to a guy
like Mark Norman's level
that he's just you know
no big deal.
Easy.
No that guy's constantly grinding.
He's constantly going out
and writing and tweaking
and it's in his head
and he's talking about it
in diners.
He's sitting in a bodega
having a coffee
going over his notes.
It's really cool
because that's the real process.
What's the willingness
to be bad again?
Mm-hmm.
Which is
no one wants to do that.
No one wants to have
a special come out
and have to start again
and have to suck.
Like that Jerry Seinfeld
comedian documentary
is the perfect.
I mean he
I mean they're both
still doing it.
What's the other guy's name?
Orny?
Yeah.
Did you know Orny?
I did not.
Orny Adams.
He does not come across
great in that documentary
but he's still out there.
I feel like they did that
to him on purpose
to make Jerry more likable.
That's what my impression was.
I felt like that's why
they picked him.
Yeah.
I felt like they decided
to pick a guy
who's like way less likable
and it makes Jerry look great.
Well I mean the ending
is pretty.
Especially at the time
because he's a young guy
at the time.
Yeah.
He's really new to comedy.
I mean he wasn't
doing comedy that long.
And then the final scene
is Cosby right?
Crazy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He just loved the work.
I think Cosby's
is he not touring anymore?
He's out.
He's retired?
He's out of jail
to let him out.
Did you see the...
But he's blind now.
I mean he can still get up.
I'm sure he can still
throw down.
I think so.
There was uh...
I think they let him.
He did a round of gigs
just before the first time
like when the trial started.
But the allegations were out.
Yeah.
Did you see that?
No.
He was doing crowd work.
I knew he was doing it.
He was?
He was doing crowd work?
Yeah.
Yeah there's a line that came out.
I don't think anyone got a recording
but people wrote it down
that he was uh
he's riffing with the crowd
and a lady gets up
and goes to the bathroom
and he says
you going away?
Watch your drink!
He gets a big pop.
Wow.
Yeah.
He's still got it.
That's crazy.
That's a crazy thing to say.
He probably
was doing bad stuff
but still...
100%.
I would say.
I had heard about that
in the 90s.
I heard about that
on the set of news radio
and I was like
what?
The drugging?
Yeah.
That he drugged women.
I heard about it
in the 1990s.
I couldn't believe it.
I was like
what?
Bill Cosby?
Was this widespread?
People knew about this
at the time though?
People in Hollywood knew.
Yeah.
Actors.
So actors...
It was an actress
that actually told me that.
That Bill Cosby drugs women.
But then everybody
who had him on like
a Tonight Show
or a Late Show
or was doing a fun interview
with him
must have heard...
I don't know.
You know?
I'd have to
know into their world.
Do you think Jerry
would have heard that
before having him on the...
People heard about it
at a certain point in time.
It's whether or not
they believed it.
Jury orders Cosby
to pay nearly 60 million dollars
to ex-waitress
after finding he abused her
in 1972.
Holy shit.
Yeah.
1972.
Have you seen
his Facebook page?
What?
His Facebook page.
He's got a Facebook?
Yeah.
Well, it was while
he was in prison
they were still updating it
and it's a very pro Cosby.
There's like Team Cosby
that's still trying
to keep the reputation
positive.
Yeah, there's a lot
of delusional people out there.
I think they're on the payroll.
They gotta be.
Could be.
I mean, he still probably
has a lot of money.
The Cosby Show
was a tremendous hit.
The records are great.
They were great.
Yeah, I mean,
he was a great talent.
Also.
He's probably doing some raping.
Probably doing some of that.
Quite a lot of raping.
Yeah, quite a bit.
Although the way they...
I read something
about the case
where they got him
and they put him away
but I didn't finish...
Like, I've never found it again.
So I don't know
if it's true
but it's what I read
about the evidence
that they had to convict him
where he was drugging...
His defense was
that he was drugging the women
but it was consensual
and they knew
they were there
for a drugging.
That was...
I believe his defense.
I think I'm getting this right.
I think I'm remembering
this correctly.
And there was a lady
and the way they got him
was that she got pneumonia
afterwards
because he did the drugging
and then he left her
on the couch
without a blanket
on a cold night
and she said
if we'd been in a relationship
he would have put
a blanket on me.
Whoa.
But I've always thought
that that was...
maybe only in a relationship
would you have the resentment
to not put a blanket
on me.
So I don't know
that that would decide
it either way
but it was a weird...
His defense wasn't
that he wasn't there
and hadn't done it.
He was like,
yeah.
Well, maybe there was
so much evidence
that he did it
that they had to come up
with something clever
like neither confirm
nor deny
to work their way around it.
That I was
drugging women unconscious?
They wanted to.
They knew
that's what the fun game was.
But he got out.
Right?
Well, I think he got out
because he paid a woman off
and so there was
some sort of a deal
where he paid a woman off
and part of the deal
of him paying the settlement
was that he can never be tried
again for this.
It's like double jeopardy?
I don't know.
Okay.
So it wasn't a criminal conviction.
It was a civil conviction.
Right.
And so then he was tried
for it criminally
and so I think
that's how he got off.
He got off
because his lawyer
argued that
the settlement
of the first
here, we'll see it here.
Immunity agreement.
That's it.
So it says
Bill Cosby's defense
successfully overturned
his 2018 sexual assault
conviction in 2021
by arguing that
a prior prosecutor
promised not to charge him
rendering his incriminating
deposition testimony
inadmissible.
the defense led by
Jennifer Bonjean
argued that
using his testimony
violated his rights
framing the prosecution
as a violator
of due process.
Using his testimony
violated his rights.
Because it was part
of his willingness
to testify
was that he couldn't
be prosecuted for it
criminally.
Yeah.
Whatever.
That's spooky.
It's crazy.
It's crazy.
It's just crazy
that this guy
did this for decades.
Yeah.
It's not like
there's a story
of one weird night
where someone woke up
and had a headache
and go,
I think this motherfucker
put something in my drink.
No.
It was decades.
And it was also like
he joked around
about it
in the Cosby show.
Like using a special
barbecue sauce.
Did you use my
special barbecue sauce
that gets everybody horny?
I didn't know about this.
Oh, yeah.
I knew about the
Spanish fly joke.
That was a bit.
Yeah, about Spanish fly.
And he also did that bit,
I believe,
on The Tonight Show
we talked about it.
Like, he talked about
on The Tonight Show
giving people Spanish fly.
Like, giving people
a drink that would
make them horny.
But there was an episode.
A special horny barbecue sauce?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
He had a special
barbecue sauce
that would make people horny
on The Cosby Show.
Look at this.
Well, it certainly is nice
to see them work
things out for themselves.
They haven't worked
anything out for themselves.
It's my barbecue sauce.
Oh, gee.
Your barbecue sauce.
My barbecue sauce.
Haven't you ever noticed
after people have
some of my barbecue sauce,
after a while
when it kicks in
they get all huggy-buggy?
Oh, stop.
I'm dead serious.
Haven't you ever noticed
that after one of my barbecues
and they have the sauce,
people want to get right home?
What's the music?
Look at these people.
I got a cup of it
up on the night table.
Oh, Bill.
I got a cup of it, I said.
Left it up there breathing.
Why don't you give the chicken
to these people
that's going up
and have some sauce?
So here's the rest
of the chicken, you guys.
Creepy, right?
That was his move.
That music was not part
of the original Cosby show.
I wish it was.
Yeah.
It would have been great
if it was.
I had never seen that before.
Yeah.
My special barbecue sauce.
Yeah.
There's a Seinfeld episode
where he drugs a woman
so he can play with her toys.
Am I getting that right?
Is that true?
Yeah, there's an episode
where there's some sort
of sleeping medication.
And he gives it to her
so he can play with her toys.
What kind of toys does she have?
She has figurines
and collectibles
that he wants to play with.
He doesn't want her to know?
He date rapes the woman.
He doesn't have sex with her.
He gets her unconscious
so that he can play
with her figurines.
I think that's the secret
date rape Seinfeld episode.
Am I getting that right?
The drug.
Jerry uses food
with high tryptophan,
turkey,
or medicine
to make her drowsy
which he brags about
doing multiple times.
Wow.
He's obsessed with playing
with Celia's pristine toys
including an original G.I. Joe
and a Mattel football game.
1997.
Special barbecue sauce is...
Creepy as fuck.
I want to sample that
and wrap it up.
He sounds...
He's also...
I know.
He was very...
Yeah, I didn't like it.
Makes me uncomfortable.
I mean, the man's got timing.
We've got to say,
the man,
the delivery is unquestionably...
Well, he's got a lot of practice
in saying things like that.
I wonder if he's...
He's not still on the road.
He can't still be...
I don't think he's doing anything.
I think he's probably in hiding.
He's like a 95-year-old man.
He's a 95-year-old man.
I think he's at least
partially blind.
Yeah.
And obviously a pariah.
Did you ever watch
the last Jimmy Fallon set
that he did?
No.
He rides around on his back.
On Jimmy Fallon's back?
Yeah.
Okay.
Why would Jimmy Fallon
agree to that?
I don't remember.
I don't know that he did.
I mean,
Jimmy Fallon's up and about.
He's having a nice time.
You know, he's a jovial man,
but I think he's...
It's some...
Yeah.
I remember.
And then it was like weeks later.
Oh, so Jimmy Fallon's
riding on Bill Cosby's back.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
He's not having...
That's even weirder
because Bill Cosby's really old.
I'd be like,
bro, what if your knees give out?
Maybe he was saying
that he was strong,
but I think that was
just before it came out.
Epic piggyback ride.
Because I think it was
Hannibal Buress who...
This is 2023?
Wow.
No, that's just
when they uploaded it.
It would have to be...
Oh, 2014.
2014.
We gotta wrap this bitch up.
Oh, man.
I love you, buddy.
It's great to see you back.
Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
Yeah.
Do a set tonight?
Yeah, let's do it.
Let's fucking go.
Instagram,
what's your handles?
JDFMcCann,
the James Donald Forbes McCann
catamaran plan.
Big podcast.
It's a very small podcast.
My man.
Thanks for having me.
Thank you.
My pleasure.
All right.
Bye, everybody.
Bye.