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Tim Dillon: Comedy, Power, Conspiracy Theories, and Freedom | Lex Fridman Podcast #156


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The following is a conversation with Tim Dillon, a standup comedian who is fearless in challenging
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the norms of modern day social and political discourse.
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As a side note, let me say that I will continue talking to scientists, engineers, historians,
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mathematicians, and so on, but I will also talk to the people who Jack Kerouac called
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the Mad Ones in his book On the Road, that is one of my favorite books.
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He wrote,
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The only people for me are the Mad Ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad
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to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say
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a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, like fabulous yellow Roman candles exploding like
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spiders across the stars, and in the middle you see the blue center light pop and everybody
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goes.
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Some of these conversations will be a bit of a gamble, in that I have no idea how they
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will turn out, but I'm willing to risk it for a chance at a bit of an adventure, and
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I'm happy and honored that Tim this time wanted to take a chance as well.
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If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube, review it, and have a podcast, follow on Spotify,
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support on Patreon, or connect with me on Twitter at Lex Freedman.
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And now, here's my conversation with Tim Dillon.
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What would you like your tombstone to read?
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It's a good way to summarize the essence of a human being.
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I would like it to say this has not been paid for, and I want my living relatives to struggle
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to pay for it, and I think I would like them to be hounded every day.
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I would like people to call and go, listen, we don't want to ever excavate a body, but
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we will, because this has not been paid for.
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I love the idea of leaving the world, like debt, leaving the world in lots of debt that
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other people have to deal with.
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And I know people that have done that, I know people that have been in families where that's
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happened where someone has to sit and just curse the sky, because they don't have a physical
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person anymore to be angry at, but they still have to deal with the decisions that person
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made.
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It's deeply tragic, but that's always struck me as very funny.
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Well, it's the kind of immortality, the debt, because if the debt lasts for a long time,
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the anger lasts for a long time, and then you are now immortal in the minds of many.
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You arouse emotion in the minds of many.
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My mother's best friend in the town I grew up in, her husband shot himself in the driveway.
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And my mother's friend never got a chance to just grieve, because he owed so much money,
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she would come over and go, I hate him.
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I fucking hate him.
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And it was just such an interesting thing to see somebody who, and her kids ended up getting
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angry at her for that, because they didn't understand why she would hate a guy who was
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clearly suffering, but she goes, he took the selfish way out, he fucked us.
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And it was always interesting for me to just remember that you can leave Earth and still
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be a problem.
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It's kind of a special person, so that's, I think, what I'd like my tombstone to read.
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Yeah, there's a show called Louie with Lucy Cannon, if you watched it.
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I'm aware of it.
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There's this moment, I think, where an old guy is talking to Louie about the best part
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about love is after you break up, and it's remembering the good times and feeling that
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loss, the pain of that loss.
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The worst part about love is when you no longer feel that pain.
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Interesting.
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The pain of losing somebody lasts longer, is more intense than lasts longer than the
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actual love.
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So his argument was like, the pain is what love really is.
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Wow.
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In the same way that anger, your tombstone would arouse is, would last longer.
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And that's deeply like a human thing.
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Like, why do we attach happiness to the way we should remember others?
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It could be just anger.
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I know so many people who will have deeply complicated feelings when, you know, I did
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drugs for many years, so, and I spent time with some wild people.
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And their parents were also wild people.
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And some of their parents have done crazy things to them, and, you know, have created
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situations that were not productive for child rearing.
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And so I know that when those people die, it's going to be a very mixed bag, like there's
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going to be a lot of complex emotions like, hey, we loved that guy, but also when we
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look back, he was a horrible father, a horrible husband, but he was fun.
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And we don't put enough stock in that, but there will be a push and pull.
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And I'll be the one kind of bringing up like, hey, he was a lot of fun.
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He was a lot, remember when he stuck us, you know, one of the things, this particular
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person I'm talking about, we were at a bar, me and my friend were there, we were having
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dinner, and his father, who was, you know, an alcoholic, you know, a guy that would
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go out every night and didn't work, you know, refused to work, would lie and say he was
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going to work and then go to a bar.
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I mean, just a fun person.
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And we were sitting at this bar restaurant, and the bartender, we see his father walk
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up to the bartender and say, pointed us, pointed our table and go and put the thumbs up and
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the bartender nodded.
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And then the father walked over to our table and he said, listen, I just want to let you
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know, I just bought you dinner.
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And I looked at his son, I said, he's a pretty good guy.
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And then he climbed over the little fence down to the water and got his little boat.
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It was a little cigarette boat, and he just drove away.
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And in about an hour later, we went, we said, I think that guy took care of the bill, but
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she said, well, go talk to the bartender.
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So we just walked to the bartender and he goes, he handed us a bill and the bill was
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for like a thousand dollars.
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And we said, wait a minute, what the hell's going on?
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And he goes, the guy that left an hour ago said, you were going to take care of his bill.
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He's been drinking here all week.
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And we go, what are you talking about?
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And he goes, remember, he pointed at you, he put the thumbs up and you guys waved.
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You remember that?
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And the guy, and we went, yeah, and I just looked at my friend and I went, you know,
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your dad is just, we're going to remember him for all kinds of reasons.
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But to you, he was fun.
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He was a lot of fun.
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He wasn't my dad.
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But I spent a lot of time with him.
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I was in two boating accidents with him.
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You know, two boating accidents.
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Alcohol involved, drugs involved.
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Yes, he was usually alcohol was involved when he left his house.
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And when he was at home as well.
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But I was in two boating accidents.
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And do you know how fun someone has to be to get in a second boating accident?
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Do you know what a good time someone has to be to get in a boat with them after you've
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already gotten in one wreck?
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Never get fooled again.
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What was that line?
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George Bush, never get fooled again.
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Right.
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Yes.
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So if you're getting fooled again, you know, there's a reason for it, but he was, he was
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a fun guy.
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He did have a death wish.
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The second boating accident, he grabbed me and said, you can't hang out with me anymore.
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And I said, why?
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He goes, I'm trying to kill myself.
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And I was like, oh, and then I understood that like, oh, the fun under the fun lived
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a very destructive person who not only was destructive, but wanted to die.
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So speaking of fun people that want to die, I don't know if you're, we can go hunter as
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Thompson, but Charles Bukowski, I don't know if you're aware of the guy.
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I'm aware of him.
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Sure.
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I've read some of his stuff.
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So his tombstone says, I just wanted to ask you a question about it.
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His tombstone says, don't try.
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Interesting.
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What do you think about that advice as a way to approach life?
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I think for many people, it's a good, good advice because the people that are going to
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try will do anyway, and the people that need to be told, there's a whole cottage industry
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now of motivational speakers and life coaches and gurus that tell people that they all have
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to own their own business and be their own boss and be a disruptor and get into industries.
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That's incredibly unrealistic for most people.
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Most people are not suited for that.
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And the Gary V's of the world that tell everybody that they should just hustle and grind and
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hustle and grind.
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They're very light on the specifics of what they should actually do.
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Yeah.
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I think a lot of people, that's not horrible advice to give to a lot of people.
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I think my generation got horrible advice from our parents, from our teachers, and that
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advice was follow your dreams, and that was it, by the way.
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There was no like, what are your dreams?
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Are they realistic?
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What happens when they don't work out?
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Will your dreams make you happy?
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Are your dreams real?
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Do they exist on earth?
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When you follow your dreams, you can be anything you want to be.
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Horrible advice.
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Yeah.
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Horrible advice.
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Worst advice you could ever give a generation of people.
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Really.
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Truly.
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I mean, think about it.
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If you were talking to somebody and you were trying to make them succeed, are there any
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two worst pieces of advice to give them then?
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Follow your dreams and you can be anything you want to be.
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Those to me are the two most destructive pieces of information I've ever heard.
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So let me push back because...
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Oh, that's fair.
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This is...
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Many people do.
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So yeah, this is like a rigorous journalistic interview.
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Larry King, by the way, passed away today, so I'm taking over the...
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It's very sad.
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I'm carrying the...
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Very sad.
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R.I.P. King.
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Yeah.
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What was I even going to say?
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Oh, let me push back on the follow your dream thing is I come from an immigrant family where
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I was always working extremely hard at stuff, like in a stupid way.
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There's something about me that loves hitting my head against the wall over and over and
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over until either my head breaks or the wall breaks.
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Just like I love that dedication for no purpose whatsoever.
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It's like the mouse that's stuck in a cage or whatever.
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And everybody always told me, my family, the people around me, the sort of the epitome
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of what I could achieve is to be kind of a stable job, the old lawyer, doctor.
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In my case, it's like scientists and so on.
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But I had these dreams at this fire about love robots and that nobody ever gave me permission
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to pursue those dreams.
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I know you're supposed to grab it yourself, nobody's supposed to give you permission,
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but there's something about just people saying, fuck what everyone else thinks, like giving
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you permission, a parent or somebody like that saying, do your own thing, go become
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an actor, go become like, do the crazy thing you're not supposed to do, an artist, go build
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a company, quit school, all that kind of stuff.
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Yes, sure.
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That's to push back against the follow your dreams as bad advice.
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In mass, if you were to look at statistically how few people that works out for, let's be
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very honest.
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This is very true, yeah.
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Be very honest.
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So I mean, yeah, if you're going to go be an actor, hey, I was broke for 10 years before
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I was making money as a comedian, I get it.
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I didn't need Gary Vaynerchuk to tell me to follow my thing, right?
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And here's the other thing, I was kind of funny and a lot of things were in my favor of being
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a comedian.
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I had this kind of crazy fucked up life, I had a lot of stories, I had exhausted, I
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was willing to fail, I had failed before, I was broke, I didn't care about being broke,
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I knew how to be broke, I was shameless to a degree, I would get on a stage night after
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night and be laughed at, I had a high threshold for being embarrassed, I had a high threshold
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for people thinking that I was scumbag, right?
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And showing up at family parties and being like, yeah, I still really don't have a job
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and I'm just, I work at comedy clubs, kind of, and I get booked when I can.
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And I was suited for it.
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There's this idea that people can just roam around the world injecting themselves into
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other things they have no aptitude for at all and will that happen?
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A small percentage of people might be able to do that, but the vast majority of people
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have something they might key into that they're meant to do, like you loved robots, you loved
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technology, and you found a place in that world where you thrive.
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But I think many people, a lot of people love robots, right?
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So a lot of people think everything you do is interesting.
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I think your shit is fascinating.
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I watch you or podcast and I think it's very interesting.
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I have no place in your world.
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You know what I mean?
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I have no place in that world.
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I don't like remedial math.
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I don't like community college math.
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I think it's a waste of my time.
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What do you think about a robot?
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Would you ever buy a robot for your home?
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Yes.
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What will it do?
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I'll be a companion, a friend.
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Oh, yeah.
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I mean, I would like to start replacing friends and family with robots immediately.
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Okay.
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I mean, truly, truly.
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I mean, I'm not even kidding, like, I would like to have a Thanksgiving with four robots.
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I'm dead serious.
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Well, are they into QAnon?
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Like, are the robots, when do the robots start going crazy?
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That's my question.
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It's like, how long do the robots live with me before they are also a problem and I got
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to replace them?
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You know what I mean?
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You're going to indoctrinate the robot.
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Yeah.
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The robot's going to call me like my aunt doesn't talk about coronavirus for an hour every
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morning and tell me everyone in America who's died of coronavirus.
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One of the things I enjoy in life is how terrified people like you, a huge fan, by the way, get
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a robot.
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Well, I am concerned about AI like completely getting rid of the need for human beings because
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human beings, I mean, you go out in the street and you go, so few of these people are necessary.
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Even now, even now you look at people and you go, they're hanging on by a thread, right?
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And you can just imagine how many jobs are going to get replaced, how many industries
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are going to be completely remade with AI and the pace of change worries me a little bit
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because we do a very bad job in this country of mitigation when we have problems.
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We don't do a great job.
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We did not do a great job with COVID, right?
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We don't do a good job.
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It's just something we don't do well.
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We kind of, we're good in booms and busts.
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We're good when it's good and we're actually, we kind of know how to kind of like, hey,
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we're bottomed out.
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We're like a gambling addict in this country.
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We know what it feels like to be outside of an OTB at 9 AM drinking coffee and smoking
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cigarettes going, I'm going to build it back and we know what it's like to win.
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But anything in between, it seems not that great.
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So to me, it feels like, are we going to be able to help people that are displaced and
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that have their jobs taken by, I mean, do you not fear sort of a world where you have
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a lot of artificial intelligence replacing workers and then what happens?
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There's a lot of fears around artificial intelligence.
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One of them is, yes, displacement of jobs, workers.
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That's technology in general, that's just any kind of new innovations, displaced jobs.
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I'm less worried about that.
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I'm more worried about other impacts of artificial intelligence.
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For example, the nature of our discourse, the effects of algorithms on the way we communicate
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with each other, the spread of information, what that information looks like, the creation
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of silos, all that kind of stuff.
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I think that would just make worse the effects that the displacement of jobs has.
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I think ultimately, I have a hope that technology creates more opportunities than it destroys.
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I hope so too.
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In that sense, AI to me is an exciting possibility, but the challenges this world presents will
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create divisions, will create chaos and so on, so I'm more focused on the way we deal
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as a society with that chaos, the way we talk to each other, creating the platform that's
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healthy for that.
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Now, as a comedian, creator, whatever you want to call it, people that put out content,
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the gatekeepers are now algorithmic.
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They are almost AI ready.
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00:17:13.520
If you are a person that puts out YouTube videos, podcasts, whatever you're doing, it
link |
00:17:21.960
used to be a guy in the back of the room with a cigar saying, I like you or get him out
link |
00:17:27.480
of here.
link |
00:17:28.480
Now, it's an algorithm you barely understand.
link |
00:17:31.520
I've talked to people at YouTube, but I don't know if they understand the algorithm.
link |
00:17:35.600
They don't.
link |
00:17:36.600
They don't.
link |
00:17:37.600
This is fascinating.
link |
00:17:38.600
Because I speak to people at YouTube and I go, hey, man, what's going on here?
link |
00:17:42.240
One of my episode titles of my podcast was called Knife Fight in Malibu.
link |
00:17:46.600
It was about real estate.
link |
00:17:49.120
And it was because of Realtor in Malibu.
link |
00:17:50.840
I was trying to get a summer rental, which I can't really afford, but I don't think that's
link |
00:17:54.640
a huge problem.
link |
00:17:55.640
I follow my dreams.
link |
00:17:57.760
So I called a Realtor and she said, listen, she goes, I don't know what the government
link |
00:18:00.840
is saying, but she goes, it's a real knife fight out here, an old grizzled woman, real
link |
00:18:04.560
Realtor canned skin, sick at the mouth, driving a Porsche, you know, it's a real knife fight
link |
00:18:09.480
out here.
link |
00:18:10.480
You know, her entire life had become real estate.
link |
00:18:12.600
Her soul had been hollowed out.
link |
00:18:14.000
Her kids hate her.
link |
00:18:15.000
You know, no one's made her come in years, but it's just, she just loves heated kitchen
link |
00:18:18.800
floors and fuses.
link |
00:18:20.320
Fun.
link |
00:18:21.320
She's a demon from hell and we need them.
link |
00:18:23.200
Truly.
link |
00:18:24.200
We're getting rid of them.
link |
00:18:25.200
It's not good.
link |
00:18:26.360
And she goes, it's a real knife fight out here.
link |
00:18:28.120
So we put that in the episode title.
link |
00:18:30.120
And of course, I guess some algorithm thought that we were showing like people stabbing
link |
00:18:33.560
each other in a Wendy's and we got like demonetized.
link |
00:18:37.800
Did we get demonetized?
link |
00:18:38.800
We lost a lot of views because we were kicked out of whatever out like we're just kicked
link |
00:18:44.360
out.
link |
00:18:45.360
And I was asking YouTube about it.
link |
00:18:46.360
They were kind of understanding it, but even the people that work there didn't truly seem
link |
00:18:50.520
to understand the algorithm.
link |
00:18:51.920
So can you explain to me how that works where they barely know what's going on?
link |
00:18:55.400
No, they do not understand the full dynamics of the, the monster or the amazing thing that
link |
00:19:00.720
they've created.
link |
00:19:01.720
That's the amount of content that's being created is larger than anyone understands.
link |
00:19:06.000
Right.
link |
00:19:07.000
Like this is huge.
link |
00:19:08.000
They can't deal with it.
link |
00:19:09.000
The teams aren't large enough to deal with it.
link |
00:19:11.240
There's like special cases.
link |
00:19:13.240
So if you fall into the category of special cases, we can maybe talk about that like a
link |
00:19:17.120
Donald Trump where you like actually have meetings about what to do with this particular
link |
00:19:21.600
account.
link |
00:19:22.600
But everything outside of that is all algorithms.
link |
00:19:24.920
They get reported by people and they get like, if enough people report a particular video,
link |
00:19:31.120
a particular tweet, it rises up to where humans look over it.
link |
00:19:36.840
But the initial step of the reporting and the rising up to the human supervision is
link |
00:19:45.600
done by algorithm.
link |
00:19:46.600
And they don't understand the dynamics of that because we're talking about billions
link |
00:19:49.600
of tweets.
link |
00:19:50.600
We're talking about hundreds of thousands of hours of video uploaded every day.
link |
00:19:58.400
Now the hilarity of it is that most of the YouTube algorithm is based on the title.
link |
00:20:08.520
That's crazy.
link |
00:20:09.520
And the description is a small contribution in terms of filtering, in terms of the knife
link |
00:20:13.280
fight situation.
link |
00:20:15.080
And that's all they can do.
link |
00:20:17.160
They don't have algorithms at all that are able to process the content of the video.
link |
00:20:22.520
So they try to also infer information based on if you're watching all of these QAnon videos
link |
00:20:29.080
or something like that or Flat Earth videos and you also watch, are really excitedly watching
link |
00:20:35.760
the whole knife fight in Malibu video.
link |
00:20:39.600
That says that increases the chance that the knife fight is a dangerous video for society
link |
00:20:47.160
or something like that.
link |
00:20:48.160
Interesting.
link |
00:20:49.160
Wow.
link |
00:20:50.160
Based on their contribution.
link |
00:20:51.160
Yeah, because I watch QAnon and Flat Earth videos to ridicule them.
link |
00:20:55.440
Right.
link |
00:20:56.440
You know what I mean?
link |
00:20:57.440
I watch these videos and I make fun of them on my show.
link |
00:20:59.640
Yeah.
link |
00:21:00.640
But what's interesting is if I then go watch something else, I'm increasing the likelihood
link |
00:21:04.480
that that video is going to get looked at as potentially subversive or dangerous.
link |
00:21:07.880
Exactly.
link |
00:21:08.880
That's what.
link |
00:21:09.880
So they make decisions about who you are, who you are as a human being as a watcher,
link |
00:21:14.320
the visual user based on the clusters of videos you're in.
link |
00:21:18.080
But those clusters are not manually determined, they're automatically clustered.
link |
00:21:23.560
So weird.
link |
00:21:24.720
We have titles where they got upset about it, I don't even understand.
link |
00:21:29.520
We had a title that was so innocuous in my opinion and the title of the episode was called
link |
00:21:34.120
Bomb Disney World and I was asking people to consider bombing Disney World and YouTube
link |
00:21:42.640
got angry at that.
link |
00:21:44.160
So you don't know why.
link |
00:21:45.720
You can never understand.
link |
00:21:46.720
You could have said Disney World is the bomb.
link |
00:21:49.080
Right.
link |
00:21:50.080
Right.
link |
00:21:51.080
It's just rearranging.
link |
00:21:52.080
That's what it probably meant.
link |
00:21:53.080
I wasn't saying to do it, but I was saying let's start thinking about plans to do it.
link |
00:21:58.600
Not let's do it, but let's get in the mind.
link |
00:22:01.880
Let's change the conversation.
link |
00:22:03.760
I think it's very interesting because as a comedian, you don't want to live in that
link |
00:22:06.480
world of worrying about algorithms, you don't want to worry about the platforming and shadow
link |
00:22:09.600
banning.
link |
00:22:10.600
I mean, all these conversations that I've had with other comedians about shadow banning,
link |
00:22:13.360
I mean, it's hilarious.
link |
00:22:14.360
We all call each other.
link |
00:22:15.360
I think I'm being shadow banned.
link |
00:22:16.800
Are you being shadow banned?
link |
00:22:18.320
And nobody knew what that word was a month ago, a year ago, but everyone now is convinced
link |
00:22:23.440
that everything they do that isn't succeeding is being shadow banned.
link |
00:22:27.120
So it's this new paranoia, this algorithmic paranoia now that we all kind of have because
link |
00:22:34.200
there are genuine instances of people being taken out of an algorithm, rightly or wrongly,
link |
00:22:41.480
however you want to believe.
link |
00:22:42.920
But then there are also things that just don't perform as well for a myriad of reasons.
link |
00:22:47.600
And then we're all saying like, well, they're against me, they're shutting me down and you
link |
00:22:52.160
don't know if that's true or not.
link |
00:22:55.280
What do you think about this moment in history, which was really troubling to me?
link |
00:23:00.000
We could talk about several troubling aspects, but one is Amazon removing Parler from AWS.
link |
00:23:09.600
To me, that was the most clearly troubling.
link |
00:23:13.840
It felt like it created a more dangerous world when the infrastructure on which you have
link |
00:23:21.400
competing medium of communications now puts its finger on the scale, now influences who
link |
00:23:29.040
wins and who loses.
link |
00:23:30.960
Absolutely.
link |
00:23:31.960
You're right.
link |
00:23:32.960
And what you're always told is like, if you don't like Twitter, create your own service.
link |
00:23:37.760
Or if you don't like something, you can do your own thing.
link |
00:23:40.200
Or if you are...
link |
00:23:42.840
And basically, because you have to be in business with one of five companies, I think it's like
link |
00:23:47.440
Amazon, Facebook, Google, YouTube, and Twitter, whatever.
link |
00:23:51.480
Amazon puts everything on the cloud, Google and YouTube.
link |
00:23:55.440
It's all basically the SEO and the advertising and you get to get your name out there.
link |
00:23:58.560
You don't want to be buried.
link |
00:24:00.400
Because you have to do business with it, it's a cartel of these companies, you understand
link |
00:24:04.080
it better than anybody, that you are prevented, truly.
link |
00:24:08.040
And I think whatever you think about Parler, whatever you think about what people are saying
link |
00:24:12.280
on Parler, whatever you think about Alex Jones, whatever you thought about Millenianopolis,
link |
00:24:19.160
the state has an interest in and has always had an interest in crushing dissent.
link |
00:24:25.600
This is what the state has done.
link |
00:24:27.080
This is how they retain the power they have by eliminating dissent where they can.
link |
00:24:34.640
Now because you don't have three broadcast networks anymore and a handful of newspapers
link |
00:24:39.400
that were all run, by the way, by people that had been either compromised or happily going
link |
00:24:47.160
with the program and you have this wild west of the internet, people like me, people that
link |
00:24:53.680
make, I make funny content that I hope is funny, but a lot of it is wild and crazy.
link |
00:24:59.480
I say a lot of wild and crazy things.
link |
00:25:02.000
They're very funny.
link |
00:25:03.000
I say a lot of wild and crazy things about powerful people.
link |
00:25:06.120
You mock the powerful in there by bringing them down a notch.
link |
00:25:09.560
We'll probably talk about it, but humor is one of the tools to balance the powers in
link |
00:25:16.600
society.
link |
00:25:17.600
Well, sure.
link |
00:25:18.600
And to make people feel better about things and to whatever the case may be.
link |
00:25:22.680
That's my goal is to kind of like, hey, people have had a shitty day.
link |
00:25:25.360
If this video or podcast makes you laugh, that's great.
link |
00:25:29.360
I think that it won't ever, it was never going to stop at Alex Jones.
link |
00:25:33.200
Not that I think he should have been taking off everything the way he was, but this keeps
link |
00:25:37.640
going until we have sanitized all of social media.
link |
00:25:42.760
And what they really wanted to be is what Instagram is kind of becoming, which is a
link |
00:25:47.080
marketplace of you could just go and buy sneakers, go buy a sweatshirt, go buy jeans,
link |
00:25:52.320
go buy this, go buy that.
link |
00:25:54.040
And the idea of the free exchange of information seems to be the old internet and it seems
link |
00:25:58.720
the new internet seems to be hyper and I'm a capitalist, but this seems to be like hyper
link |
00:26:04.400
capitalist in the sense of like, they only want you consuming things and they don't want
link |
00:26:09.600
you thinking too much.
link |
00:26:12.200
And that seems to be where it's heading.
link |
00:26:13.520
I've even seen that with Instagram where it's like everything on Instagram is not like buy
link |
00:26:16.760
a sweatshirt.
link |
00:26:17.760
Yeah.
link |
00:26:18.760
And I'm like, all right, man, hey, man, if I want a sweatshirt, I'll get it, relax.
link |
00:26:25.640
Just every ad seems to be encouraging consumption, but very few things seem geared towards, hey,
link |
00:26:35.840
let's have a dialogue or let's, and not that Instagram is ever great for that, but if everything
link |
00:26:39.800
is geared now towards content on Instagram, a lot of it seems geared towards shopping.
link |
00:26:44.400
See, I don't know, that's an interesting point.
link |
00:26:47.000
I don't know if the consumerism that capitalism leads to is necessarily gets in the way of
link |
00:26:52.320
nuanced conversation.
link |
00:26:53.800
I feel like you could still sell Tim Dillon sweatshirts and have a difficult nuanced conversation
link |
00:26:59.560
or mock the current president, the previous president, mock the powerful, all that kind
link |
00:27:05.120
of stuff.
link |
00:27:06.120
Yeah, we try.
link |
00:27:07.120
We try to balance that.
link |
00:27:08.120
Do you have sweatshirts?
link |
00:27:09.120
We do.
link |
00:27:10.120
Are they on sale now, fake business?
link |
00:27:12.520
We do fake business sweatshirt with the Enron logo fake business because I like, I do fake
link |
00:27:16.440
business all the time.
link |
00:27:17.440
It would be nice if you talk about Alex Jones, if you plug the sweatshirt during that conversation.
link |
00:27:21.080
Yeah, we'll do that.
link |
00:27:22.080
Absolutely.
link |
00:27:23.080
Yeah.
link |
00:27:24.080
But what I tend to worry about with, I see social media and technology existing to flatten
link |
00:27:30.840
society.
link |
00:27:32.360
It makes people very boring.
link |
00:27:34.560
All of the experiences kids have right now are online.
link |
00:27:38.920
Many of their closest friendships are online.
link |
00:27:40.640
Their first relationships are online.
link |
00:27:42.960
The culture is very homogenous.
link |
00:27:45.800
And that's, I think it's eliminating characters.
link |
00:27:48.120
It's eliminating interesting people.
link |
00:27:49.800
It's making people into AI.
link |
00:27:52.320
All of their tastes.
link |
00:27:53.320
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
link |
00:27:54.320
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
link |
00:27:55.320
That's right.
link |
00:27:56.320
Charles Bukowski as well.
link |
00:27:57.320
Let's not get crazy.
link |
00:27:58.320
It's not there yet.
link |
00:27:59.320
Right?
link |
00:28:00.320
I mean, the $75,000 dog is not doing anything.
link |
00:28:03.920
So we're not there yet.
link |
00:28:05.880
Listen, I get why you like AI so much.
link |
00:28:08.280
I hate people too.
link |
00:28:09.440
And I'm very amenable to AI.
link |
00:28:11.440
And I agree with you.
link |
00:28:12.880
Listen, I think the future, we got to get everyone out of here.
link |
00:28:15.760
I'm with you on that.
link |
00:28:16.760
So don't think I'm...
link |
00:28:17.760
I love people.
link |
00:28:18.760
He's manipulating my mind and my...
link |
00:28:20.880
That's why the flash of light in your eyes when you talked about that dog was so much
link |
00:28:25.320
more than any person.
link |
00:28:27.200
And I get it, by the way.
link |
00:28:28.200
You're right.
link |
00:28:29.200
I love people, but if we...
link |
00:28:30.200
They're not excited.
link |
00:28:31.200
If it could just use robots to kill most of them, I think that would be good for society.
link |
00:28:35.880
I'm with that too.
link |
00:28:37.240
But I think that social media flattens people.
link |
00:28:40.920
Flattening the personalities of characters.
link |
00:28:42.760
The personalities of people, man.
link |
00:28:43.760
And it's just...
link |
00:28:44.760
When's the last time...
link |
00:28:45.760
I like the idea of somebody showing up to high school with a backpack and taking out
link |
00:28:52.320
an old CD and being like, hey, man, here's this band you've never heard of that I love
link |
00:28:56.720
or whatever.
link |
00:28:57.720
You got to get into this.
link |
00:28:58.720
And I'm like...
link |
00:28:59.720
When I talk to...
link |
00:29:00.720
I have friends that have younger brothers and everything.
link |
00:29:02.520
And I know that the dominant culture was always dominant.
link |
00:29:04.680
I'm not an idiot.
link |
00:29:05.680
But I feel like it's harder to be unique and original now because so much of what's promoted
link |
00:29:11.960
is just this way to kind of corral people into believing and thinking a certain set
link |
00:29:17.760
of ideals that's constantly shifting and evolving.
link |
00:29:20.920
And people are just caught up in that.
link |
00:29:23.440
And to me, it gets very boring very quickly.
link |
00:29:27.200
I hate being bored.
link |
00:29:29.000
That's what it is.
link |
00:29:30.000
I don't know what to do with that because at the same time, podcasts are really popular,
link |
00:29:33.240
long form podcasts are really popular and people are hungry for those kinds of conversations.
link |
00:29:38.480
There's a lot of dangerous ideas, quote, unquote, flowing, being spread around through
link |
00:29:44.000
podcasts, meaning just like debates.
link |
00:29:46.560
Correct.
link |
00:29:47.560
You know, so that's still popular.
link |
00:29:49.160
So I don't know what to...
link |
00:29:50.560
I agree with you.
link |
00:29:51.560
That gives me hope, I guess.
link |
00:29:52.560
I hope so too.
link |
00:29:53.560
And like I said, I look at the negative a lot because that's what I usually make fun
link |
00:29:56.880
of, but there's a lot of positive stuff happening too.
link |
00:30:00.080
Let's talk a little bit about Alex Jones.
link |
00:30:04.720
So you've gotten a chance to talk to him while you were on the Joe Rogan experience.
link |
00:30:09.040
I've been on Alex's show.
link |
00:30:10.520
I've talked...
link |
00:30:11.520
I've had Alex on my show.
link |
00:30:12.880
I've talked to Alex for three hours in front of, I guess it was maybe like 15 million people,
link |
00:30:18.120
right, on Joe's show.
link |
00:30:19.120
It was a really wild conversation.
link |
00:30:20.640
I think it was one of the coolest moments in broadcasting that clearly that I've ever
link |
00:30:26.120
been a part of.
link |
00:30:27.120
But I think it goes in the lexicon of like, these are big podcasts.
link |
00:30:31.280
I think it's one of the biggest podcasts a week before the election, Alex Jones.
link |
00:30:35.200
I'm really grateful that Joe gave me the opportunity to be there.
link |
00:30:38.560
And it was just an amazing conversation to watch.
link |
00:30:41.440
What was the shirt you wore, Jillian Mackle?
link |
00:30:43.560
Free Just Lane.
link |
00:30:44.560
It was a fun joke that no one in tech got because we all know how funny they are.
link |
00:30:48.800
But the tech writers, which is mainly blue haired people whose goal in life is to find
link |
00:30:55.240
things to give them orgasms with, you know...
link |
00:30:57.480
If you want to dye your hair blue, it's your choice, I respect it.
link |
00:31:01.000
But is it your choice?
link |
00:31:02.800
But at the end of the day, it's like, you know, all the tech writers, like a lot of people
link |
00:31:05.720
just...
link |
00:31:06.720
And I'm not...
link |
00:31:07.720
I'm just maligning tech unfairly.
link |
00:31:08.720
But a lot of people that sense as a humor, we're like, he's advocating for human traffic.
link |
00:31:12.760
I'm like, it's clearly a joke because we're coming off the believe all women.
link |
00:31:16.640
We're coming off that.
link |
00:31:17.880
It's very funny to just say, Free Just Lane, hey man, believe all women, like it's just...
link |
00:31:22.880
Our politics and our public sphere is so schizophrenic right now that when you point that out, people
link |
00:31:28.680
are going to be angry with you, but that was a fun shirt to wear.
link |
00:31:31.840
But on Alex, you know, I was one of the people that found him really entertaining that the
link |
00:31:38.160
same kind of thing as Bakowski, these kinds of personalities that are wild, crazy, full
link |
00:31:45.080
of ideas, they don't have to be grounded in truth at all, or they can be grounded in
link |
00:31:49.360
truth a little bit.
link |
00:31:51.360
He's just playing with ideas, like a jazz musician, screaming sometimes.
link |
00:31:55.760
Obviously, he has some demons, sometimes he's super angry for no reason whatsoever.
link |
00:32:01.240
It's some weird thing that he's constructed in his own head.
link |
00:32:04.800
Sometimes he's super loving and peaceful, especially lately that I've heard him.
link |
00:32:08.320
I don't know if you've seen with him with Michael Malice where he's doing a, like Malice
link |
00:32:12.680
was doing, like, well, telling Alex Jones, I love you, Alex, you know, just this loving
link |
00:32:18.160
kindness, softness and kindness underneath it all.
link |
00:32:21.040
I don't know what to make of any of it.
link |
00:32:22.640
And then there's this huge number of people that tell me that Alex Jones is dangerous
link |
00:32:27.420
for society.
link |
00:32:28.920
Right.
link |
00:32:29.920
So what do you do with that?
link |
00:32:30.920
Do you think he's dangerous for society?
link |
00:32:32.400
Do you think he is one of the sort of entertaining personalities of our time that shouldn't be
link |
00:32:37.920
suppressed or somewhere in between?
link |
00:32:39.720
I don't think that Alex, per se, is dangerous for society.
link |
00:32:43.840
I think the greater danger for society comes, again, from stifling all dissent, right?
link |
00:32:50.200
All like anybody with a voice that uses it, that critiques the government and putting
link |
00:32:56.360
all of those people in a category and getting rid of them is incredibly dangerous to me.
link |
00:33:01.120
More so, I think the biggest problem that Alex has ever had was when he questioned the
link |
00:33:06.640
Sandy Hook shooting.
link |
00:33:08.360
And that really was, because it really is this identifiable incident that you can look
link |
00:33:13.320
at where it did get away from him and a lot of his fans who, the people that are attracted
link |
00:33:17.760
to conspiracy stuff, and I have some of those fans, some of them are really smart people,
link |
00:33:22.000
some of them are mentally unwell.
link |
00:33:23.480
A lot of them happen to be mentally unwell.
link |
00:33:25.760
So when you have a fan base of people where some of them are mentally unwell and you are
link |
00:33:29.560
questioning, you know, tragic events, okay?
link |
00:33:34.240
And Alex was right about Epstein.
link |
00:33:35.240
He was right about a lot of things and he's got no credit for that.
link |
00:33:38.440
And I understand that this, sometimes when you write about 10 things and you're wrong
link |
00:33:42.880
about something and the thing you're wrong about is so offensive to people, you're never
link |
00:33:48.960
going to get any credit for being right, even though you were right more than when you
link |
00:33:51.960
were wrong.
link |
00:33:52.960
The problem was a lot of his fans who were crazy stalked, harassed these families and
link |
00:33:58.560
accused them of being actors and accused them of like faking their children's death.
link |
00:34:02.680
It was this horrific experience.
link |
00:34:06.320
Alex is tired of that and how much he inspired that by what he did on his show, I don't know
link |
00:34:15.480
because I haven't watched hours and hours of that particular thing, like with the whole
link |
00:34:20.680
Sandy Hook thing.
link |
00:34:22.680
If you listen to him, he says, I really covered it.
link |
00:34:24.680
I kind of covered it and moved on.
link |
00:34:26.560
Other people go, no, he spent a long time on it.
link |
00:34:29.200
But that's the real danger of going into that territory over and over again.
link |
00:34:33.560
Everything is a false flag or everything's fake.
link |
00:34:37.600
I think Alex has actually been kind of reasonable.
link |
00:34:39.520
He's resisted a lot of the politics of racial resentment on the alt right, for example.
link |
00:34:45.120
He's resisted that.
link |
00:34:46.280
He's resisted the anti Semitic currents of a lot of that politics.
link |
00:34:51.320
He's resisted a lot of the virulently anti trans or anti gay stuff.
link |
00:34:56.320
Now, he does dip his toe into the water of the culture wars, of course he does.
link |
00:35:00.800
But I've never really seen him, or that could be wrong about this, embrace white nationalism
link |
00:35:07.240
or identitarianism.
link |
00:35:08.480
I've never seen him really go anti Semitic.
link |
00:35:10.400
I've never seen him take that route.
link |
00:35:12.400
When I grew up, and I would turn him on every now and then, he was talking about NAFTA, the
link |
00:35:16.600
WTO, he's talking about 911, he was talking about the world trade organizations and a
link |
00:35:22.840
lot of these big conferences, whether it was the Bilderberg group, whether it was Bohemian
link |
00:35:27.080
Grove, which he infiltrated, and he was talking about, hey, here are the most powerful
link |
00:35:30.760
people in the world, and here's what they're doing.
link |
00:35:32.880
And here's how it affects you.
link |
00:35:34.320
And that was interesting to me, because no one else was really talking about it, except
link |
00:35:38.000
Alex Jones.
link |
00:35:39.000
Occasionally, Art Bell on WABC, you'd listen to him at night, right?
link |
00:35:45.320
I think Alex became very controversial when he decided to back Donald Trump.
link |
00:35:50.160
And then he has a considerable following and a considerable audience that he was then able
link |
00:35:54.520
to marshal in the direction of supporting Donald Trump.
link |
00:36:00.360
That was when the spotlight, because then he was talking to Trump, Trump did his show.
link |
00:36:05.600
Alex Jones just got bigger, right?
link |
00:36:07.360
And he blew up.
link |
00:36:08.360
That's the term, right?
link |
00:36:09.360
He blew up.
link |
00:36:10.360
Like, he had the good, he put out the good HBO special, whatever you want to call it.
link |
00:36:14.640
He has a hit song.
link |
00:36:16.120
He blew up.
link |
00:36:17.120
And then people started looking at the things that he was associated with.
link |
00:36:20.280
The Sandy Hook thing is a blemish on his record.
link |
00:36:22.120
I do believe he regrets it, but again, I do see the point of the families who are like,
link |
00:36:26.000
dude, fuck this guy forever.
link |
00:36:27.680
This is the worst thing I ever went through.
link |
00:36:29.520
It's a very tough...
link |
00:36:32.000
I understand the people that say that.
link |
00:36:35.640
I understand and I understand the people that go, when you coordinate, when you have tech
link |
00:36:40.280
companies that act in a coordinated manner to just get rid of someone, they don't have
link |
00:36:44.240
any way to defend themselves, it's a little terrifying when you think about that power
link |
00:36:50.040
being abused and how wouldn't it be?
link |
00:36:53.520
Do you think he should have not have been banned from all these platforms?
link |
00:36:57.080
I don't think...
link |
00:36:58.360
I do think that if you are a private company, right, I do think, and this is where you run
link |
00:37:03.160
into this problem, I don't know if these tech companies were government utilities, would
link |
00:37:08.040
that decrease people's likelihood of being banned?
link |
00:37:10.960
I don't know, right?
link |
00:37:12.920
So I understand the benefit of them being treated like public utilities and people thinking
link |
00:37:19.720
they have the right to a Twitter.
link |
00:37:21.880
I've never...
link |
00:37:23.760
I don't know, I have very little confidence.
link |
00:37:25.320
I mean, the government is trying to roll out a vaccine in California and we vaccinated
link |
00:37:28.360
like five people, I mean, in terms of what we need to do in the state, right?
link |
00:37:32.760
So maybe if it was a government utility, I do think someone like Alex...
link |
00:37:38.120
There should be some process.
link |
00:37:40.760
So if you're going to get rid of someone, they should have a way to defend themselves.
link |
00:37:44.360
There should be more democratic process that you can go through than just being unilaterally
link |
00:37:53.600
taken off something.
link |
00:37:54.600
But like, then you run into the, you're like, am I going to say that everyone deserves...
link |
00:37:58.840
No, if you're threatening or harassing people or threatening to kill them, publishing their
link |
00:38:02.440
private information.
link |
00:38:03.440
If you're committing crimes on these platforms, obviously the people that own these platforms
link |
00:38:07.720
are going to be like, we're not going to allow this to happen.
link |
00:38:10.560
So I understand that there is a line, right?
link |
00:38:14.360
There is some...
link |
00:38:15.360
Like people that say there's no line aren't really thinking, like there is a line.
link |
00:38:19.240
I just...
link |
00:38:20.240
That line seems to be moving all the time and it seems to be a very hard thing to police.
link |
00:38:25.080
But I don't think you can remove a guy off everything.
link |
00:38:28.360
And then also bank accounts won't give him debit cards or credit cards.
link |
00:38:31.600
I don't know if you talked to him about that, but like, you know, there were financial institutions
link |
00:38:35.320
that were refusing to let him park his money there.
link |
00:38:38.080
So I mean, it really does get pretty terrifying pretty quickly.
link |
00:38:44.320
Probably without any transparency from those companies.
link |
00:38:46.760
See, right?
link |
00:38:47.760
It feels like there should be a process of just having for him to defend himself or...
link |
00:38:54.000
I think there needs to be a process for people to defend themselves.
link |
00:38:59.320
Every day I wake up and I go, is something I said in a video going to get taken out of
link |
00:39:03.440
context, is somebody going to get angry, is somebody going to be, you know, I say wild
link |
00:39:08.200
stuff because that's what makes me laugh.
link |
00:39:09.320
That's what makes my friends laugh and that's what makes my audience laugh.
link |
00:39:12.320
So I never, ever, people, you know, whatever political side you come down on, I think if
link |
00:39:18.800
you make your living speaking, it's always interesting to me if you are pro to the platform.
link |
00:39:26.280
That's odd.
link |
00:39:27.520
It's interesting to consider kind of a jury context to where, you know, there's transparency
link |
00:39:35.040
about why you're a video about bombing a Disney world might be taken down, like it gets taken
link |
00:39:42.120
down and then there is, it's almost like creating a little court case, a mini court case and
link |
00:39:47.960
not in the legal sense, but in the public sphere and then people should be able to have,
link |
00:39:53.760
you know, you pick representatives of our current society and have a discussion about
link |
00:39:58.600
that and make a real vote.
link |
00:40:00.840
You know, just have, like, jury to lock themselves up in a discussion.
link |
00:40:04.840
That kind of process might be necessary.
link |
00:40:08.240
Right now what happens is Twitter is completely, first of all, they're just mostly not aware
link |
00:40:13.400
of everything they're doing.
link |
00:40:14.880
There's too much stuff, but the stuff they're aware about, they make the decision and close
link |
00:40:19.200
doors, the meetings and without any transparency to the rest of the company actually, but also
link |
00:40:26.240
transparency to the rest of the world.
link |
00:40:29.600
And so, and then all they say is we're doing, we're making decisions because the people,
link |
00:40:36.280
they use things like violence.
link |
00:40:37.880
So violence equals bad.
link |
00:40:40.040
And if this person is quote unquote inciting violence, therefore that gives us enough reason
link |
00:40:44.720
to ban them without any kind of process, it's, I mean, it's interesting.
link |
00:40:48.840
And I'm torn in the whole thing if it was indeed, there's no transparency about it,
link |
00:40:54.720
but if Parler was indeed inciting violence, like if there was brewing of violence, potential
link |
00:41:01.680
violence where, you know, thousands of people might die because of some kind of riot, like
link |
00:41:09.320
this is a scary thing about mob, about when a lot of people get together or good people,
link |
00:41:17.440
like legitimately good people that love this country, that don't see enemies yet around
link |
00:41:23.760
them.
link |
00:41:24.760
But if they get excited together and there's guns involved, and then some cop gets nervous
link |
00:41:30.080
and shoots one person, another person shoots the cop, and then there's a lot of shooting
link |
00:41:34.440
involved.
link |
00:41:35.440
And then it goes from five people dying in the Capitol to thousands of people dying in
link |
00:41:39.800
the Capitol.
link |
00:41:40.800
Well, in fairness to defend the people at the Capitol, they didn't shoot the cop.
link |
00:41:46.640
They bludgeoned him to death with a fire extinguisher.
link |
00:41:49.000
Yes.
link |
00:41:50.000
So I do, I do want to just kind of put that out as a, as a defense of them.
link |
00:41:54.880
Listen, I'm sure there was some wild shit going on on Parler.
link |
00:41:57.960
And I think the problem, here's the problem, right?
link |
00:42:00.560
There's a lot of people that just want to go on these sites and say they want to kill
link |
00:42:05.280
everyone.
link |
00:42:06.280
Yeah.
link |
00:42:07.280
And the problem is, you know, at what point do you shut them all down?
link |
00:42:11.760
Like I think a lot of people are just living in a world where they're powerless.
link |
00:42:15.720
They don't have any political power.
link |
00:42:17.560
They don't have any economic power, right?
link |
00:42:19.440
They can't throw their money around.
link |
00:42:21.160
They don't have healthcare.
link |
00:42:23.640
Their job security isn't great.
link |
00:42:26.120
They might be living in a community that doesn't have the resources they would like it to have.
link |
00:42:31.840
They're not happy and thrilled.
link |
00:42:34.120
And then they have these sites where they can go on and just say, man, I'd like to fucking
link |
00:42:37.880
burn it all down and distinguishing a guy blowing off steam and saying wild stuff from
link |
00:42:44.040
a genuine threat is a very hard thing to do.
link |
00:42:48.360
You know?
link |
00:42:49.360
Like I've threatened to kill, I got banned from Airbnb.
link |
00:42:52.800
I threatened to kill the people that banned me comedically.
link |
00:42:58.040
Yeah.
link |
00:42:59.040
Comedically.
link |
00:43:00.040
This is a joke.
link |
00:43:01.040
I'm not going to kill you.
link |
00:43:02.040
Yeah.
link |
00:43:03.040
This is a joke because I'm blowing off steam and I'm angry.
link |
00:43:04.760
Do you know how many people that my parents, like my dad's like, I'm going to fucking kill
link |
00:43:08.960
this guy and my mom's like, I'm going to fucking kill.
link |
00:43:11.040
Yeah.
link |
00:43:12.040
I'm going to fucking kill each other, but it's, but none of it ever happened.
link |
00:43:16.440
But we should be, I think you have to create a space for people to threaten to overthrow
link |
00:43:22.760
the government.
link |
00:43:23.760
Yeah.
link |
00:43:24.760
As long as they don't violently do it.
link |
00:43:26.360
Yeah.
link |
00:43:27.360
I mean, does that make any sense?
link |
00:43:28.360
Like, I mean, as long as they're not going to go hurt innocent people, what are you going
link |
00:43:32.640
to do?
link |
00:43:33.640
Like there's so many people out there that she's, that's why a lot of these things like,
link |
00:43:36.120
you know, 4chan, these sites, a lot of people going on there, they just want to say the
link |
00:43:39.960
most fucked up shit because they, it's the thing that gives them, they can laugh or they
link |
00:43:45.400
can release steam.
link |
00:43:46.400
And it's, it is immature, it is stupid.
link |
00:43:49.080
It's not productive.
link |
00:43:50.240
It's not, you know, but at the end of the day, if you're not going to give people health
link |
00:43:55.360
insurance, you got to give them something.
link |
00:43:58.040
It's like when someone in this country dies that everyone disagrees with, right?
link |
00:44:02.240
Political figure, media figure, a lot of people dance on their grave online and then
link |
00:44:06.360
everyone, people goes, and the other side will always do it, like if a conservative
link |
00:44:10.640
dies and everyone goes, great, conservatives goes, and this is grotesque that you, and
link |
00:44:15.640
then when RBG dies, they all have parties and the conservatives go, great.
link |
00:44:20.800
You have to let people in this country enjoy the deaths of their enemies.
link |
00:44:25.480
Yeah.
link |
00:44:26.480
You do it because they don't have much else.
link |
00:44:29.120
Again, if you gave them other things, you might say, guy, you can go get any operation.
link |
00:44:34.920
Why don't you stop?
link |
00:44:37.120
But if they're working for shit wages and you haven't figured out a way to treat them,
link |
00:44:44.680
treat their cancer diagnosis, and they don't like, I mean, life, you know, you got to derive
link |
00:44:52.200
pleasure from something, right?
link |
00:44:54.360
It's an interesting point that anger is a good valve, like to, if your life is suffering,
link |
00:45:02.040
that there's something very powerful about anger, but I still have hope that it doesn't
link |
00:45:07.160
have to be.
link |
00:45:08.160
I mean, that kind of channeling into anger that then becomes hate led us into a lot of
link |
00:45:14.200
troubles in human history, so you have to be careful in powering people too much in
link |
00:45:20.720
that anger, especially, I think, Mike, I think I understand why people are nervous about
link |
00:45:28.320
Parler, about Twitter and so on, because all that shit talking about violence was now paired
link |
00:45:36.120
with let's get together at this location.
link |
00:45:40.080
This was a new thing.
link |
00:45:42.160
It's not just being on whatever platform, talking shit, it's saying, we're going to
link |
00:45:48.240
in physical space meet, and then everybody got, all these platforms got nervous.
link |
00:45:52.440
Well, what happens when all these shit talkers, all these angry people that are just letting
link |
00:45:58.120
off steam meet in the physical space, and there was probably overreach, almost definitely
link |
00:46:04.600
overreach, but I can understand why they were nervous.
link |
00:46:07.200
I agree.
link |
00:46:08.200
There doesn't seem to be, and this is when Trump got elected, and when you have whatever
link |
00:46:11.480
you have, right?
link |
00:46:12.480
Whether you have riots in Portland and Seattle, where you have the Antifa people doing crazy
link |
00:46:15.440
things, you have the people storming the Capitol, there never seems to be a ton of an examination
link |
00:46:21.960
of why these ideas are becoming popular, why are people so angry, what is leading people
link |
00:46:27.240
to this?
link |
00:46:28.240
Yes.
link |
00:46:29.240
Why are we here?
link |
00:46:30.240
What about their lives is to the point where they need to show up at these places, and
link |
00:46:35.360
obviously there's going to be people on the fringe, they'll always be the mentally unwell,
link |
00:46:38.920
they'll always be people that want to destroy society, but when you look at how popular,
link |
00:46:43.720
large, long discredited things, whether it's fascism, totalitarian communism, all of these
link |
00:46:50.480
things are like, why are they back?
link |
00:46:53.400
Why are they back in a big way, and why are people so fed up with the status quo that
link |
00:46:58.760
they're finding solace in the most extreme discredited theories of how to run and operate
link |
00:47:09.000
societies, theories that have led to deaths of a lot of people.
link |
00:47:11.760
So to me, I'm like, if those people at the Capitol, yes, if they were going to work,
link |
00:47:20.240
if they were able to go out and drink at Chili's, if they were able to get a fucking
link |
00:47:27.940
checkup, if their job paid a little bit better, and I'm not saying that this is all the reason.
link |
00:47:34.560
I'm sure that there's a lot of people there that are doing quite well, and they're still
link |
00:47:37.960
nuts, but the anger and the rage that's boiling to the surface of this society, does it come
link |
00:47:45.000
from the fact that across the board, people in very different areas, and with very different
link |
00:47:52.920
political beliefs, feel like they are being fucked over, and there's nothing they can
link |
00:47:57.960
do about it.
link |
00:47:59.840
That's what the baseline to me, they look at the people that run the country and run
link |
00:48:05.400
the world, whether they're tech titans, the guys that you talk to, or whether they're
link |
00:48:09.920
people that run the government, whether they're people that run large banks, large media companies,
link |
00:48:16.400
the people that have created this kind of infrastructure that everyone lives in, these
link |
00:48:21.840
people are incredibly powerless, and when you push people to that point, logically, sadly,
link |
00:48:28.520
and unfortunately, the next thing does seem to be violence.
link |
00:48:33.360
Yet the thing that troubles me a lot is you said nobody's asking why these beliefs are
link |
00:48:40.680
out there, but sometimes it's not even acknowledged that people are hurting, people are angry,
link |
00:48:49.960
just even acknowledging that all the conspiracy theories that are out there, acknowledging
link |
00:48:54.560
that they're out there, and then people are thinking about it and talking about it, just
link |
00:49:00.000
because otherwise, so it's not acknowledged in this nuanced way, what happens is you say,
link |
00:49:04.640
okay, 70 million people are white supremacists, it's just throwing a kind of blanket statement,
link |
00:49:12.440
and of course, that gets them angrier, and more makes them feel more powerless, and that
link |
00:49:20.720
ultimately, that's what's been painful for me to see is that there's not an acknowledgement
link |
00:49:28.240
that most people are good, and there's circumstances where it's just you're pissed off because you
link |
00:49:38.080
were powerless.
link |
00:49:39.080
You could fall in with a bad crowd, that's the thing, you can just fall in, and it doesn't
link |
00:49:44.840
mean that there's not blame, obviously, you have agency, you're a person, but the idea
link |
00:49:52.040
that you could be rehabilitated, you could do something stupid, or you could fall into
link |
00:49:56.200
a group of people that are, and then in a few years, you could go, what the fuck was
link |
00:50:00.480
I doing?
link |
00:50:01.480
I'm an ex drug addict, I know what it's like to go from being one thing to being another
link |
00:50:05.760
thing, right?
link |
00:50:06.760
I'm still a drug addict, if I were to use drugs right now or drink, I would still be
link |
00:50:10.160
addicted to them, right?
link |
00:50:11.160
I mean, it's not something that I can ever change about myself, but I know what it's
link |
00:50:14.640
like to go from one thing to another thing, so when you look at racism, or whatever is
link |
00:50:19.480
them, homophobia, misogyny, whatever you're looking at, antisemitism, and you go, that's
link |
00:50:24.840
a fixed condition where nobody's ever going to be able to change, nobody's ever going
link |
00:50:29.200
to be able to be rehabilitated, nobody's ever going to be able to reimagine themselves
link |
00:50:34.640
in a different way, to me, you're just, you're throwing away someone and you're making them
link |
00:50:39.400
feel helpless and worthless, and that's going to lead to antisocial behavior that spills
link |
00:50:44.360
out into the violence.
link |
00:50:46.000
We don't have a very redemptive society, right?
link |
00:50:49.000
That's a huge factor, we don't have a redemptive society.
link |
00:50:52.800
That's why I like O.J. Simpson, because O.J. Simpson, yes, he did a bad thing supposedly,
link |
00:50:58.960
but he's very kind now on Twitter and he makes very nice points about how we all have to
link |
00:51:04.040
get involved in the political process and he's on golf courses and I like watching people
link |
00:51:07.520
golf, I don't do it, but I like watching them do it, and he's like an elder statesman because
link |
00:51:12.120
I remember him from the naked gun, and I choose to forgive him for whatever happened there,
link |
00:51:19.440
which I don't know, but I choose to forgive him really for, I mean, obviously, what they
link |
00:51:25.400
say is he cut his wife's head off, but I can look past that and redeem him because he's
link |
00:51:31.720
very stable on Twitter and he's a good, I see all these people going crazy on Twitter,
link |
00:51:37.680
and I'm like, maybe, O.J. has lived a full life, and I think there's a benefit to that.
link |
00:51:43.160
There's a benefit to kind of living a full life.
link |
00:51:45.360
Yeah, how many of us have not at least tried to murder somebody?
link |
00:51:48.920
100% listen, O.J.'s had the highs and the lows, but he did it on his terms, and there's
link |
00:51:57.120
a real...
link |
00:51:58.120
It's like a Frank Sinatra song.
link |
00:51:59.520
Yeah, he did it my way.
link |
00:52:00.520
I mean, there's a benefit to that, and he seems like a very well adjusted person now,
link |
00:52:04.320
so I mean, I don't know, how is that a fact, but it is a fact, and that's an uncomfortable
link |
00:52:09.480
fact.
link |
00:52:10.480
Well, that's a strong case of forgiveness in one of the more extreme cases, I suppose,
link |
00:52:16.360
but yeah, there's not a process of forgiveness.
link |
00:52:18.920
It seems that people just take a single event from your, sometimes a single statement from
link |
00:52:23.160
your past and use that as a categorical like capture of the essence of this particular
link |
00:52:31.240
human being.
link |
00:52:32.240
So, murder might be a thing that you should get a time out for a little while.
link |
00:52:38.360
Murder is bad.
link |
00:52:39.360
Murder, and let's just say that.
link |
00:52:43.000
Murder is not good.
link |
00:52:44.000
I'm glad you make this definitive statement.
link |
00:52:46.600
OJ is an interesting cat because you're like, he's very stable on Twitter.
link |
00:52:53.480
He's very like, he's like, let's take a look at it, guys.
link |
00:52:56.040
Like we need more of his energy.
link |
00:52:57.520
That's what I'm trying to say.
link |
00:52:58.520
Yeah.
link |
00:52:59.520
I know like, yes, it was bad.
link |
00:53:00.600
He killed the woman in the waiter.
link |
00:53:03.280
Was not for that.
link |
00:53:04.280
Yeah.
link |
00:53:05.280
I wish he didn't do that, but the OJ Sims trial was such a fun thing.
link |
00:53:09.640
Yeah.
link |
00:53:10.640
And like you said, we need more fun people in society.
link |
00:53:12.080
Well, you might.
link |
00:53:13.080
You know, fun people, you've, your politics have been all over the place.
link |
00:53:17.640
I hope so.
link |
00:53:18.800
I hope so.
link |
00:53:19.800
I mean, imagine not, imagine someone whose politics weren't all over the place.
link |
00:53:24.080
It would seem odd.
link |
00:53:25.080
Right.
link |
00:53:26.080
Like in the 10 years that I've been politically conscious, just because I'm 35 and 21, no,
link |
00:53:30.440
I've probably been conscious for over two decades, but like Democrats have become Republicans
link |
00:53:34.480
or Republicans become Democrats.
link |
00:53:36.440
I remember when Ann Coulter said, we need to defend the George W. Bush when he said,
link |
00:53:40.120
we need to go out and Christianize or, you know, modernize the Arab world and we need
link |
00:53:44.280
to democratize the Arab world.
link |
00:53:45.840
And then Ann Coulter backed Donald Trump and all the right wing in America believed in
link |
00:53:50.840
nation building.
link |
00:53:52.000
They believed in going out and democratizing areas that might breed radical terrorists,
link |
00:53:58.680
whether it was Iraq or wherever you were going, toppling regimes and instituting new democratic
link |
00:54:04.680
norms in those countries.
link |
00:54:05.800
That was a right wing point of view when I grew up.
link |
00:54:08.160
When the right wing switched to, we are going to be isolationists, we're going to take care
link |
00:54:13.760
of America first and foremost, we're not going to go into other countries.
link |
00:54:18.360
And then the Democrats, who when I grew up were doves and the right wing people were
link |
00:54:22.960
more hawkish and the Democrats were like, the military solutions aren't the way.
link |
00:54:27.760
We need to have multilateral diplomatic coalitions to solve all the problems.
link |
00:54:32.400
Now, you know, Rachel Maddow is like, let's nuke Russia every night on MSNBC.
link |
00:54:37.400
The Democrats are like, we need, we need strong presence in Syria.
link |
00:54:42.080
We need a strong presence.
link |
00:54:43.440
We need to counter Putin all over the globe.
link |
00:54:45.720
We need to get, so they are more hawkish on things.
link |
00:54:48.200
So literally I have watched two political parties literally flip and it's crazy to watch.
link |
00:54:55.120
And in some sense, I've watched that as well because I, when I first saw Barack Obama,
link |
00:55:01.040
I admired that he was against the war.
link |
00:55:03.480
This is whatever, maybe before he was a senator, he spoke out against the Iraq war.
link |
00:55:11.360
And then he, you know, it doesn't feel like, it feels like his administration was more
link |
00:55:19.360
hawkish than dovish in a sense with all the drone attacks, with the sort of inability
link |
00:55:27.320
to pull back, or at least en masse, efficiently pull back from all the military involvement
link |
00:55:33.440
they'll have all over the world.
link |
00:55:35.320
And just the language.
link |
00:55:36.320
What I think is interesting about that, what's interesting about Obama, because it's a very
link |
00:55:39.160
interesting study, is that presidents are controlled in very different ways, right?
link |
00:55:44.440
You know, presidents can be controlled by different factors, power factions within Washington.
link |
00:55:50.080
And, you know, I think one of the reasons that Obama was maybe, you know, in a very
link |
00:55:54.840
close relationship with John Brennan, he was a CIA director, and Obama was very close with
link |
00:55:59.800
John Brennan, and Obama was very, you know, you know, I think malleable to the extent
link |
00:56:06.960
that, you know, the CIA, and I've had CIA agents on my show, John Kiriakou, a guy who
link |
00:56:10.960
went to jail for exposing torture, was saying that, like, you know, you get into the Oval
link |
00:56:15.720
Office, all of a sudden you're having that presidential daily briefing every day, and
link |
00:56:18.920
the intelligence people come in and they go, listen, man, I mean, there's going to be a
link |
00:56:22.920
terrorist attack on your watch if you don't do X, Y, and Z. They go, we have, you know,
link |
00:56:27.360
they call it, like, blue book information, which is five levels above top secret, and
link |
00:56:30.760
they go, like, hey, man, a guy in Iran at a cafe said he's blowing everything up next
link |
00:56:36.680
week, and you know, I mean, it's the same thing as parlor, you don't know if it's true
link |
00:56:39.000
or not.
link |
00:56:40.000
But now the president's making a decision on usually a lot of uncorroborated intelligence
link |
00:56:44.800
that goes into a presentation for the president, where you're just terrified every day and
link |
00:56:49.520
you don't want a terrorist attack on your watch.
link |
00:56:51.640
Now, so why are they getting all this information?
link |
00:56:54.120
Because a lot of the people in Washington have an interest in perpetual constant ongoing
link |
00:56:58.960
warfare, and there's a lot of financial gain to be had from that.
link |
00:57:02.800
So they're sneaking their information into the presentations that are going to the president,
link |
00:57:07.360
and then the president is now behaving and going, fuck, I don't want a bomb going off.
link |
00:57:11.800
We got to do what we got to do.
link |
00:57:13.720
And whatever version of that happens, that is really kind of what is happening, whereas
link |
00:57:19.440
the presidents are being controlled by forces that are outside of the political sphere,
link |
00:57:25.680
but very much still in it.
link |
00:57:27.360
And they have a lot of power.
link |
00:57:28.360
That's where the deep state is.
link |
00:57:29.360
You know, Trump, there's a lot of ridiculing Trump of the deep state doesn't exist, but
link |
00:57:33.560
absolutely exists.
link |
00:57:34.560
There's been books about it written by liberal journalists.
link |
00:57:36.840
The deep state is only a term for unelected largely power factions in Washington DC that
link |
00:57:45.160
outlive any presidential administration.
link |
00:57:47.960
These are people that might work at the State Department.
link |
00:57:50.320
They might work at the Defense Department.
link |
00:57:52.800
These are people that are not always working officially in any government capacity.
link |
00:57:57.960
They might be private companies.
link |
00:58:00.000
They might be military contractors.
link |
00:58:02.840
They might be people of Boeing or Raytheon or General Dynamics.
link |
00:58:06.440
And they constitute a group of people that Trump kind of called the swamp.
link |
00:58:11.960
But Trump had really no interest in draining the swamp, but he articulated these things.
link |
00:58:17.720
And this is what it is.
link |
00:58:18.720
You have a lot of interested parties that have budgets that they want, big budgets.
link |
00:58:24.920
Everybody wants a budget in Washington, whether you know what it is, they want money.
link |
00:58:29.440
And these are the people who really control.
link |
00:58:31.720
So this idea that the president is the BLM doll has got to be smashed, which is why the
link |
00:58:36.400
horse race model of politics and being like, is it right wing?
link |
00:58:39.400
Is it left wing?
link |
00:58:40.400
Is it what team am I on and what color am I wearing?
link |
00:58:43.680
It's very simplistic.
link |
00:58:44.840
But the reality is this is an empire.
link |
00:58:47.320
It's past its peak.
link |
00:58:49.240
We're in trouble.
link |
00:58:50.240
The United States is an empire.
link |
00:58:51.240
It's past its peak.
link |
00:58:52.240
Yeah.
link |
00:58:53.240
I mean, that's just, you could prove that case in court.
link |
00:58:55.320
Well, let's go to court right now, but I do love the more complex idea that there's
link |
00:59:01.680
just human beings who crave power and seek ways to attain that power through different
link |
00:59:07.280
ways.
link |
00:59:08.280
If you have Barack Obama or George Bush or Donald Trump, there's different attack vectors.
link |
00:59:16.040
Different ways to attain that power, and then you can use that to leverage and it probably
link |
00:59:20.320
doesn't have to be just in Washington, D.C. There's people who crave power for all over
link |
00:59:25.920
the world.
link |
00:59:26.920
Of course.
link |
00:59:27.920
Not in, but where we are now in Los Angeles, these people are all good.
link |
00:59:30.920
LA.
link |
00:59:31.920
The studio, exactly.
link |
00:59:32.920
The people that I, from what I understand, they treat everyone fairly and they're nice.
link |
00:59:38.760
But I think he sees the bad guys, but out here in LA, everyone's lovely.
link |
00:59:43.720
So amidst this fun exploration in your mind through the political landscape that you've
link |
00:59:50.280
done over the past couple of decades that you've been conscious politically, where does Donald
link |
00:59:57.240
Trump fit into this picture for you?
link |
00:59:59.880
Great question.
link |
01:00:01.720
Well, he didn't, right?
link |
01:00:04.120
Because we didn't, he wasn't political until four years ago.
link |
01:00:08.040
He got political very quickly before, I mean, he was firing off crazy tweets about where
link |
01:00:12.280
Obama was born or whatever, but he was, he got into politics very quickly and then he
link |
01:00:18.120
became the president.
link |
01:00:19.120
So it was like, I knew him as Donald Trump, this crazy New York City character, the host
link |
01:00:24.240
of The Apprentice.
link |
01:00:25.240
I didn't think much about him.
link |
01:00:27.480
He was just constant, just as constant figures.
link |
01:00:31.600
I don't think much about Warren Buffet.
link |
01:00:33.040
I know Trump's like, he's married to a new showgirl all the time and he's always opening
link |
01:00:38.360
another casino and he's on TV.
link |
01:00:40.920
Wait, Warren Buffet, really?
link |
01:00:41.920
No, Trump.
link |
01:00:42.920
Oh, Trump.
link |
01:00:43.920
Warren Buffet is the opposite, right?
link |
01:00:44.920
Warren Buffet has been married for a million years, lives in a little house in Omaha.
link |
01:00:48.760
But these are the, that's what I associate Trump, like I don't think about Warren Buffet.
link |
01:00:52.040
I don't think about these people.
link |
01:00:53.560
They're just guys that I've known forever that have like a, you associate certain things
link |
01:01:01.480
with them, right?
link |
01:01:02.480
And Trump, we always associate with kind of Folger, Garrish, New Money, Billionaire,
link |
01:01:07.440
married a lot, you know, casinos, Miss Universe pageants, but again, you know, but it makes
link |
01:01:12.840
perfect sense that he really was able to become president at the moment where we were about
link |
01:01:20.200
to have Hillary Clinton versus Jeb Bush.
link |
01:01:22.800
And I think Americans felt like this is now the oligarchy is spinning right in our face.
link |
01:01:27.600
You're not even making it feel like there's an appearance of democracy.
link |
01:01:32.520
We have two crime families vowing for control of the country every four years.
link |
01:01:37.280
And then there was this rogue kind of upstart guy that was really about himself, you know,
link |
01:01:42.800
Trump doesn't really care that much about the, I mean, really was summarized perfectly
link |
01:01:46.000
when he left and he just said, Hey, have a good life.
link |
01:01:48.760
That's what he said before he got on Andrews Air Force Base.
link |
01:01:50.800
Have a good life.
link |
01:01:51.800
If you watch this speech, he goes, Hey, have a good life.
link |
01:01:54.000
That's what he really feel like, Hey, have a good life.
link |
01:01:58.240
I'm, I'm going to get on a plane right now and fly to a castle I own in, uh, Marlago
link |
01:02:04.360
in Florida and really, I'm not going to think too much about you people outside of how I
link |
01:02:10.320
can get more attention in the future.
link |
01:02:12.360
Can I ask you like a therapy questions?
link |
01:02:15.020
What is your favorite and least favorite quality of Donald Trump?
link |
01:02:21.680
So my least favorite quality of Donald Trump, I think, because there's, there's a few of
link |
01:02:28.840
them, uh, his lack of empathy, complete and total lack of empathy.
link |
01:02:35.120
I don't feel that he cares about human beings on any level.
link |
01:02:39.240
And I feel like that's maybe it should be a requirement, right?
link |
01:02:43.000
I mean, I don't think he cares.
link |
01:02:45.080
I think it's obvious that he doesn't care.
link |
01:02:46.400
I mean, he sent, you know, basically saying like they're in there, Mike Pence is in there.
link |
01:02:50.680
He knows that his people are going to get, try to get into a Capitol.
link |
01:02:54.520
I mean, those motherfuckers are not going to have jobs.
link |
01:02:56.840
They're going to go to federal prison and he doesn't care.
link |
01:03:00.000
He doesn't care.
link |
01:03:01.000
As long as they're storming the Capitol to prove the point that he thinks he won the
link |
01:03:03.760
election, he has no concern for these people.
link |
01:03:08.200
His followers, he leads them lamps to the slaughter, right?
link |
01:03:11.320
So that, that's, that's not a respectable call.
link |
01:03:13.680
My favorite quality of Donald Trump is his willingness to call bullshit.
link |
01:03:18.680
So his willingness to call bullshit out.
link |
01:03:20.240
He doesn't play the game.
link |
01:03:22.440
He will, you know, when people say about Putin, Putin kills people, he goes, we kill a lot
link |
01:03:25.960
of people here too.
link |
01:03:26.960
Like he's, he's willing and able to break the fourth wall and say things that no politician
link |
01:03:32.720
has ever said.
link |
01:03:33.720
He's willing to call out hypocrisy, you know, of course not his own, but the media, the
link |
01:03:40.160
members of the political establishment, that's a laudable quality.
link |
01:03:43.280
It's an entertaining quality, right?
link |
01:03:45.440
We all like it.
link |
01:03:46.440
I love to, I'm like, this guy's saying something that a lot of people want said.
link |
01:03:49.760
Yeah.
link |
01:03:50.760
That being said, it's coupled with no real work or action.
link |
01:03:53.560
Right.
link |
01:03:54.560
So it's not coupled with anything behind it that he just wants to, when we did an episode
link |
01:03:59.040
of my podcast once where it's like, essentially he's like criticizing the deep state.
link |
01:04:01.600
He wants a deeper state.
link |
01:04:02.920
Yeah.
link |
01:04:03.920
He wants a deeper state.
link |
01:04:04.920
Like he hired his daughter and her husband.
link |
01:04:07.760
I mean, this is not a guy that's interested in transparency and openness.
link |
01:04:11.600
He's a guy that would just prefer, he wants to run the mafia state.
link |
01:04:17.040
But he shakes up the norms of social discourse, political discourse, and that people are just
link |
01:04:22.800
hungry for that.
link |
01:04:23.800
Yes.
link |
01:04:24.800
But he got banned from Twitter, from all the different platforms.
link |
01:04:29.160
Do you think, is there an argument to be made for and against banning?
link |
01:04:33.320
There's always arguments to be made for everything.
link |
01:04:35.680
A permanent ban seems to be an overreaction to me.
link |
01:04:38.280
He's the president of the United States.
link |
01:04:39.760
It also rearranges the power, like whether you like him or hate him, love him or hate
link |
01:04:43.000
him, he was the president.
link |
01:04:45.920
We've elevated Twitter is now more powerful than the president.
link |
01:04:48.880
It's like, do you want that to be longterm the salute that the reality, like now Jack
link |
01:04:52.880
at Twitter is more powerful than the president of the United States?
link |
01:04:56.680
Is that a good paradigm going forward?
link |
01:05:00.040
I don't know.
link |
01:05:01.040
I'm not, listen, maybe give him a little time out for a few days.
link |
01:05:05.000
I think a time out, a little spanking, certainly, but I don't know if a permanent ban across
link |
01:05:10.320
the board on every social media, I mean, they banned them on Grindr.
link |
01:05:13.040
I mean, this is how hilarious it is.
link |
01:05:15.040
I mean, they banned them across the board on everything.
link |
01:05:17.560
I don't think he could get an Airbnb net, neither can I, but like, I don't think he
link |
01:05:21.560
can do anything.
link |
01:05:22.560
Again, I just, I look back and there's so many people, I have very smart, intelligent
link |
01:05:26.280
friends that go, yeah, but who cares?
link |
01:05:27.760
Yeah, but he's bad.
link |
01:05:28.760
Yeah, but blah, blah, blah, blah.
link |
01:05:29.760
Yeah, but I don't like Milo Yiannopoulos.
link |
01:05:31.320
Yeah, but blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
link |
01:05:32.840
And I'm like, you have such faith.
link |
01:05:35.360
You have such faith that it's always going to be the people you disliked that are banned.
link |
01:05:40.640
It's always going to be the, it's never going to be you, man.
link |
01:05:43.640
You have so much faith in the government.
link |
01:05:45.320
You have so much faith in tech oligarchs you've never met.
link |
01:05:48.200
You have so much faith in the security state that they're going to always make the right
link |
01:05:52.480
decisions and they're not going to penalize people that shouldn't be penalized.
link |
01:05:56.920
To me, I'm like, wow, I've never had that much faith in any human being ever, including
link |
01:06:01.640
myself.
link |
01:06:02.640
I wouldn't want that power.
link |
01:06:03.640
I would start deplatforming people that I hate.
link |
01:06:05.760
I would deplatform my aunt, you know what I mean?
link |
01:06:08.320
I would deplatform everyone I know.
link |
01:06:10.480
I mean, so that it's such an insane power to give somebody who gets heard, who gets
link |
01:06:15.960
to speak.
link |
01:06:16.960
Yeah, I'm worried about the effect it has on people like you actually.
link |
01:06:20.000
I agree.
link |
01:06:21.000
Of being like, everybody's a little more nervous in what they say.
link |
01:06:27.360
Correct.
link |
01:06:28.360
And that has a big problem.
link |
01:06:29.360
Yes.
link |
01:06:30.360
Because then you're just like long term, unmasked like we're talking about.
link |
01:06:33.720
It has an effect where people just become more bland.
link |
01:06:37.160
Yeah.
link |
01:06:38.160
Self censorship, anxiety, all of these things go into it.
link |
01:06:43.320
We try to fight it.
link |
01:06:44.320
I try to fight it.
link |
01:06:45.320
I think I got to still do what makes me laugh and what makes me laugh is often fucked up.
link |
01:06:49.640
And it's often, you know, it's not always fucked up in a way that, you know, it's going
link |
01:06:53.240
to get me thrown off something.
link |
01:06:54.240
But like, I think pushing certain buttons is funny to me, so I got to keep doing that.
link |
01:07:00.480
Part of the problem is that so many of the lines are blurred, right?
link |
01:07:03.160
So you have comedians that are commentators and commentators that are comedians and politicians
link |
01:07:08.000
that feel, so it's like, it's harder to the defense of like, hey, I'm a comedian, leave
link |
01:07:10.880
me alone.
link |
01:07:11.880
Right.
link |
01:07:12.880
That defense becomes harder when like, all of these lines are blurring, everybody's kind
link |
01:07:16.640
of everything now.
link |
01:07:18.320
So like, people say to me, you should run for office and they're serious and I'm like,
link |
01:07:22.200
you're crazy.
link |
01:07:23.200
But they're serious.
link |
01:07:24.200
Like, so the blurring of everything means that people aren't in their lanes as much.
link |
01:07:29.400
And that you go, well, this guy is dangerous because he's not just making a joke.
link |
01:07:35.080
He's doing something else and he's using humor and I'm like, I'm really not.
link |
01:07:38.920
I'm really just trying to make a joke.
link |
01:07:40.440
That's all.
link |
01:07:41.440
That's really what I'm trying to do.
link |
01:07:42.440
But I do think that because of the flattening, there's a lot of people out there that go,
link |
01:07:48.160
they take aim at humor because they go, humor is where bad ideas can kind of, you know,
link |
01:07:52.800
start and flourish.
link |
01:07:54.800
To put some responsibility on you, don't you think humor is a way to, that you are the
link |
01:08:02.040
modern like Jordan Peterson style intellectual.
link |
01:08:05.920
The humor is actually a tool of changing the zeitgeist, changing the social norms.
link |
01:08:11.840
But it also cannot be.
link |
01:08:12.840
I don't think it's any one thing.
link |
01:08:14.440
And I think there's a lot of pressure for a comedian.
link |
01:08:17.600
You can be funny and right.
link |
01:08:18.960
You can be funny and wrong.
link |
01:08:21.120
If your goal is to be right, you might end up being right and not funny.
link |
01:08:25.680
So the reality is funny has to come first.
link |
01:08:27.880
There are brilliant people that have been funny and correct according to people, right?
link |
01:08:33.440
But at the end of the day, people that put way too much faith in what comedy is, most
link |
01:08:38.680
of what comedy is, is people showing up to strip malls and telling jokes for an hour
link |
01:08:43.680
while people eat chicken fingers and they all get drunk and they laugh and they feel
link |
01:08:46.920
a little bit better about their lives.
link |
01:08:48.960
That's really the majority of comedy.
link |
01:08:50.640
Then there's like 10 famous people that are really famous that do a version of that in
link |
01:08:54.760
an arena.
link |
01:08:55.920
But the amount of cultural power they have has always been greatly exaggerated.
link |
01:08:59.720
My uncles loved George Carlin, who was anti military industrial complex, anti this, anti
link |
01:09:04.440
that.
link |
01:09:05.440
And then they would go vote for Ronald Reagan.
link |
01:09:07.080
They didn't care.
link |
01:09:08.080
It doesn't, it doesn't really, it doesn't, it's not as powerful as you think.
link |
01:09:12.680
I wish it was.
link |
01:09:14.040
It feels good.
link |
01:09:15.320
It feels good for me to say, I am the new thing.
link |
01:09:18.520
It really isn't.
link |
01:09:19.520
It truly isn't.
link |
01:09:20.760
No one is, comedians are the people that get on stage and say, we're fucked up.
link |
01:09:24.600
We're, we're, we're drug addicts.
link |
01:09:26.200
We're sex addicts.
link |
01:09:27.200
We're fat.
link |
01:09:28.200
We're gross.
link |
01:09:29.200
We can't manage our money.
link |
01:09:30.200
We can't stop eating.
link |
01:09:31.200
We can't stop fucking doing horrible things.
link |
01:09:33.160
We're liars.
link |
01:09:34.160
We're narcissists.
link |
01:09:35.160
We're scumbags.
link |
01:09:36.160
We're the people that get out and say that.
link |
01:09:37.840
Only a psychopath would look at us and go, show me the way.
link |
01:09:42.400
Like it's not.
link |
01:09:43.640
I disagree with you.
link |
01:09:44.640
Well, then I'm, then I'm a psychopath.
link |
01:09:46.920
Well, and that's, that's, I mean, I don't think, I don't think, no pushback here.
link |
01:09:51.720
It's, it's another issue, but one I don't because I mean, I understand you using this
link |
01:09:59.760
as a psychological tool for yourself to give yourself freedom.
link |
01:10:03.120
Yes.
link |
01:10:04.120
But the reality is you are one of the rare comedians like a George Carlin who is besides
link |
01:10:09.200
being funny.
link |
01:10:10.200
Yeah.
link |
01:10:11.200
When I hear things like that, I'm like, okay, you're being very sweet, but like, I agree.
link |
01:10:14.040
I understand what you're saying.
link |
01:10:15.040
I do stuff that makes, hopefully makes you think.
link |
01:10:17.000
Yeah.
link |
01:10:18.000
I hope that's what good comedy is.
link |
01:10:19.000
I think I try to do that, but I also would hate to feel shackled to the idea of that.
link |
01:10:26.520
I had to make a point and that point had to be correct.
link |
01:10:31.320
I think the best comedy makes fun of everything, makes fun of both sides.
link |
01:10:34.920
And then there's a deeper truth about human, humanity revealed.
link |
01:10:38.400
But then what happens is people take that deeper truth and go, let's politicize it.
link |
01:10:42.240
But what does he mean?
link |
01:10:43.240
Is it the right or the left?
link |
01:10:44.240
And I'm like, I'm doing something that I think speaks to hopefully people on both sides
link |
01:10:48.480
for everybody because I'm making fun of people on the left and the right and in the center
link |
01:10:51.600
and people that don't care and people that do care.
link |
01:10:53.560
And I'm trying to figure out a way to do it.
link |
01:10:55.640
But then immediately, anything of value in this culture right now is like, how do we
link |
01:10:58.680
politicize it?
link |
01:10:59.840
How do we put it in a box?
link |
01:11:01.040
So yes, I think comedy could produce a lot of inherently valuable things, reflective,
link |
01:11:05.920
thoughtful things.
link |
01:11:07.400
But then immediately, can it be put in this box where all of those things can be used
link |
01:11:12.040
politically?
link |
01:11:13.040
No.
link |
01:11:14.040
And like when they say like comedy is a great way to speak truth to power.
link |
01:11:17.320
It is, but I don't know how much it changes things.
link |
01:11:23.840
I don't know how much a joke can dethrone a king.
link |
01:11:28.440
I know the idea is nice, but let's look at the practical applications.
link |
01:11:34.280
I mean, we had brilliant comics, Bill Hicks, George Carlin, Richard Price.
link |
01:11:40.800
We had people talk about so many problems in society, illustrate them, put a spotlight
link |
01:11:46.080
on them.
link |
01:11:47.600
And we still have them.
link |
01:11:48.600
They're worse now than they've ever been.
link |
01:11:50.640
That's not true.
link |
01:11:51.640
I think the society is better.
link |
01:11:53.040
So to push back in my perspective, it's very possible that those voices were the exact
link |
01:11:58.840
reason we have the world today, which I do believe is actually, I mean, on the boring
link |
01:12:06.320
old measures of what makes a good world, which is the amount of violence in the world, the
link |
01:12:12.240
amount of opportunity that all those kinds of measures, even happiness, all of those
link |
01:12:17.000
things measured, things have been improving.
link |
01:12:19.080
Stephen Picker gets a lot of shit for this, but he's really good at articulating how the
link |
01:12:23.960
data says pretty clearly that the world is getting better.
link |
01:12:26.560
And it's arguable that the freedoms we do enjoy currently are thanks to the comedic
link |
01:12:32.360
voices or the people who mock.
link |
01:12:34.800
So to me, it's possible that humor is the very thing that saves the world.
link |
01:12:39.800
humor is the very thing that keeps is the balance of power in the world.
link |
01:12:44.120
But I think a lot of the things that those guys criticized, whether it was militarism
link |
01:12:48.000
or the elites, the lying, the corruption, the bribery, that's still going on.
link |
01:12:53.640
And it's always going to go on, right?
link |
01:12:54.840
Because that's the nature of human beings.
link |
01:12:56.440
We call it out, we point it out, but we don't have a plan to change.
link |
01:13:00.960
It's not really our job.
link |
01:13:03.160
And I think that too much now is like, well, comedians should have a, like, I don't tell
link |
01:13:07.960
people who to vote for.
link |
01:13:09.640
But the idea that comedians went and told people who to vote for is like to me is crazy.
link |
01:13:13.160
I understand like people have strong opinions, but like, I believe I have a job and my job
link |
01:13:18.520
is to make you laugh or whatever, maybe make you think, but like, my job is not to tell
link |
01:13:22.360
you to vote for me.
link |
01:13:23.360
It's absurd.
link |
01:13:24.360
But see the thing you do by the comedy, like on your Twitter, that people should definitely
link |
01:13:29.760
follow.
link |
01:13:30.760
Yeah, I believe that.
link |
01:13:31.760
That's Jim J. Dillon.
link |
01:13:32.760
I agree with you.
link |
01:13:33.760
Oh, on the, on this point of, I agree with you that people should follow you.
link |
01:13:38.640
Yeah.
link |
01:13:39.640
You, you give me, you give me freedom to think on my own, meaning like you're shaking things
link |
01:13:46.960
up to where I'm, I don't feel constrained about what I can think about.
link |
01:13:51.800
And that's awesome.
link |
01:13:52.960
And that, thank you.
link |
01:13:54.460
So you're not telling me what to think.
link |
01:13:56.320
You're giving me the freedom to think.
link |
01:13:57.640
That's what great comedy does is, you know, I don't, I don't often agree with George
link |
01:14:03.280
Carlin, like he can get pretty political sometimes, but, you know, just the ability to do that.
link |
01:14:09.640
So rare.
link |
01:14:10.640
Podcasts do that too.
link |
01:14:11.640
Now, like certain people that can really just challenge you to, even when you disagree
link |
01:14:16.520
with them to sort of be like, Oh, it's okay to think about this kind of stuff.
link |
01:14:19.520
Yeah.
link |
01:14:20.520
And I appreciate that because that's awesome.
link |
01:14:21.520
And I mean, that, that's great.
link |
01:14:23.020
And a guy like you who's a brilliant guy, that's great.
link |
01:14:25.280
If I'm giving you the license to think, then man, the world is completely fucked, but
link |
01:14:30.720
I'm happy about that.
link |
01:14:31.720
Yeah.
link |
01:14:32.720
Speaking about the world being completely fucked, Alex Jones turned on QAnon, I know
link |
01:14:40.920
almost nothing.
link |
01:14:41.920
It's a very tough match.
link |
01:14:42.920
They had a rough marriage.
link |
01:14:43.920
They fought it.
link |
01:14:44.920
They fought it out for years.
link |
01:14:46.720
And eventually we just knew someone was going to leave someone who was tried to leave him
link |
01:14:51.560
a few months ago.
link |
01:14:52.560
Oh, so.
link |
01:14:53.560
Yeah.
link |
01:14:54.560
He was staying at someone else's house.
link |
01:14:55.560
The car wasn't in the driveway.
link |
01:14:57.400
Yeah.
link |
01:14:58.400
Well, the thing about QAnon that makes it a lot of fun is it's kind of a making of
link |
01:15:02.680
it up as you go along.
link |
01:15:04.400
I'm a drug addict, right?
link |
01:15:06.160
So often my lies aren't planned.
link |
01:15:09.240
They're in the moment.
link |
01:15:10.240
A lot of what I do on the podcast.
link |
01:15:11.240
A lot, you know, it's all in the moment.
link |
01:15:12.240
I have an idea of what I want to talk about and I rant and I go.
link |
01:15:14.920
And I've been like stoned and I show up at home and my parents are like, what's going
link |
01:15:19.240
on?
link |
01:15:20.240
There was $50 on the mantle.
link |
01:15:21.240
Now it's not there.
link |
01:15:22.240
And I'm like, well, and I got to make something up on the spot, right?
link |
01:15:28.680
I've been, you know, are you drinking again?
link |
01:15:31.320
No.
link |
01:15:32.320
I'm not.
link |
01:15:33.520
And then you got to have a, well, you were gone for two days.
link |
01:15:35.880
No one knows where you were.
link |
01:15:36.880
And somebody said, you left your car.
link |
01:15:38.040
Well, I was, well, this is, I was at a sales conference and I left my car.
link |
01:15:42.560
I flew to Phoenix.
link |
01:15:43.560
Like I understand what that is.
link |
01:15:45.120
QAnon is an ever evolving conspiracy theory where the events are happening in the past,
link |
01:15:50.480
in the present and in the future.
link |
01:15:51.720
It's kind of hilarious.
link |
01:15:52.720
Every conspiracy theory is like Kennedy, something like that, that there's a lot of truth in
link |
01:15:56.000
that or all truth.
link |
01:15:57.520
But at the end of the day, it's like you're looking back from 30,000 feet analyzing little
link |
01:16:00.960
things that have already happened.
link |
01:16:02.520
QAnon's like, so I think Alex is kind of like a little tired of the constant evolving nature
link |
01:16:08.600
of that conspiracy theory.
link |
01:16:11.200
So he's not a fan of like the jazz that is QAnon.
link |
01:16:14.160
So they're not, because they're improvising constantly.
link |
01:16:16.000
They're improvising.
link |
01:16:17.000
Alex is like, Hey man, I was on board a little bit, but at the end of the day, it's getting
link |
01:16:20.560
a little annoying because it can turn on you.
link |
01:16:23.040
Eventually you become part of the conspiracy.
link |
01:16:24.440
Right.
link |
01:16:25.440
Alex is controlled opposition.
link |
01:16:26.680
That's what they'll say.
link |
01:16:28.560
Eventually you, because QAnon just eats things.
link |
01:16:31.600
So it's a conspiracy that just eats things.
link |
01:16:33.320
The minute you start to say, Hey man, maybe that's not, it'll just eats you and go, well,
link |
01:16:37.000
you're in on it.
link |
01:16:38.520
Everyone's in on it.
link |
01:16:39.520
Everyone's a satanic pedophile.
link |
01:16:40.520
Everybody.
link |
01:16:41.520
Everyone that questions it is eating children.
link |
01:16:43.840
And you go, wait a minute, that seems illogical.
link |
01:16:46.920
And but now there's not enough children.
link |
01:16:48.360
Now there's not enough.
link |
01:16:49.360
And I think QAnon's over now, unfortunately, because for these people, but I think fortunately
link |
01:16:55.600
for them, they're going to have to find a new hobby.
link |
01:16:57.600
But I think it's over now because even the best QAnon people now are starting to go,
link |
01:17:01.000
Hey man, this might not be going down the way we thought.
link |
01:17:03.840
But they've literally gone as far as to say that like Biden and Trump switched faces.
link |
01:17:08.120
Trump's actually still the president except Biden's.
link |
01:17:10.640
You have to be a real moron now.
link |
01:17:13.880
You got to be real stupid now.
link |
01:17:16.520
It's at the end.
link |
01:17:17.520
Like when it was cool, like when the Epstein stuff happened, QAnon was like, it was party
link |
01:17:21.360
at Q.
link |
01:17:23.040
And then when the Hunter Biden laptop stuff started to happen, they were like, dancing.
link |
01:17:27.200
It's time.
link |
01:17:28.720
And then Biden wins.
link |
01:17:32.240
And they're like, wait, whoa.
link |
01:17:34.800
And it's just like, it's the day after the party.
link |
01:17:36.480
QAnon, if you ever went to a party in high school or college, QAnon right now is the
link |
01:17:40.080
day after the party.
link |
01:17:41.080
You wake up, it's 12 noon, the sun is hitting you in the face, you're hungover, there's
link |
01:17:45.320
a stench of disgusting beer and cigarettes all over the house.
link |
01:17:48.480
You're like, what the fuck happened here?
link |
01:17:50.800
I got to get out of here and get a bacon egg and cheese.
link |
01:17:53.960
That's what QAnon is.
link |
01:17:55.120
They got to sober up, get out of that house, get a bacon egg and cheese and go, man, we
link |
01:17:58.760
were fucking whacked.
link |
01:18:00.880
We were high, dude.
link |
01:18:02.040
I thought Nancy Pelosi was eating children for four years and that Donald Trump was going
link |
01:18:06.560
to put her in Guantanamo Bay.
link |
01:18:08.400
Wow.
link |
01:18:09.400
That was, because I mean, it's interesting that people had to do that after the 60s.
link |
01:18:13.560
They were like, yeah, I just did a bunch of ass and I lived in a ranch in Malibu and
link |
01:18:17.400
fucked everyone I ever saw.
link |
01:18:20.080
And they're like, I thought that was the way the world was going to go.
link |
01:18:22.440
And I followed some shaman guy, some guru who just wanted to fuck me and 10 other people
link |
01:18:27.680
that were living there.
link |
01:18:29.040
And we did that for three years.
link |
01:18:30.560
Apparently, we never created the utopia we thought we were going to have.
link |
01:18:33.760
And now I'm back working here at all state insurance.
link |
01:18:37.360
And we have great policies.
link |
01:18:39.160
And we'd love you to come in the office so we can break them down for you.
link |
01:18:42.160
It all ends, folks.
link |
01:18:43.640
All the love, all the bullshit ends.
link |
01:18:45.880
But it's fun.
link |
01:18:46.880
They had so much fun.
link |
01:18:47.880
QAnon was hard to get mad at because they were, this was all they had.
link |
01:18:53.360
Yeah.
link |
01:18:54.360
And they were, they were quite good at it.
link |
01:18:56.880
And they were good at it.
link |
01:18:57.880
And they, and, and, and, and it was a lot of desperate people, but they were also rich
link |
01:19:01.520
idiots.
link |
01:19:02.520
There's also like dumb rich people.
link |
01:19:04.680
And you, those are like the saddest people in Q because it's like they should, they
link |
01:19:09.400
have the resources to do other things.
link |
01:19:11.520
But they just love Q. They're like, I'm just into this.
link |
01:19:14.520
And I'm like, you're rich.
link |
01:19:17.960
Go do something.
link |
01:19:18.960
How curious are you?
link |
01:19:19.960
Go to the Amazon.
link |
01:19:20.960
Go bird.
link |
01:19:21.960
Why?
link |
01:19:22.960
I don't know.
link |
01:19:23.960
But they're, you know, so it's sad, but they're like done now.
link |
01:19:26.960
I mean, they're, they're, oh, it's over.
link |
01:19:28.760
Oh, so you think this is the, I think everything's ending.
link |
01:19:32.120
My whole thing is that Trump's out, QAnon's over, the quarantine is going to end.
link |
01:19:36.200
Everything's going to go back to something that's more recognizable.
link |
01:19:40.360
I think that.
link |
01:19:42.240
Are you optimistic about the 2021 and what?
link |
01:19:44.800
Two degree, in certain aspects, I have optimism and then I have, I have short term optimism
link |
01:19:50.840
and long term pessimism, meaning that I think in the short term, things can get better.
link |
01:19:55.160
I think long term, because there's so many forces that are out of our control that are
link |
01:19:58.800
revolving in ways I barely understand that are carving up society, it's going to be very
link |
01:20:03.520
tough long term to be completely optimistic, like, Hey, it's going to be great.
link |
01:20:08.160
It's going to be good forever.
link |
01:20:09.560
But short term, I think, yeah, this quarantine will end, things will get better, the economy
link |
01:20:13.200
will get a little better, the constant Trump craziness will die down a little bit.
link |
01:20:18.840
That's my hope.
link |
01:20:19.840
And people can go back to focusing on things that matter, which is, you know, the things
link |
01:20:24.480
that are near you and close to you.
link |
01:20:26.080
Yeah, the humans around you.
link |
01:20:27.520
Humans around you, not Nancy Pelosi, I have my, I have uncles that talk about Nancy Pelosi.
link |
01:20:32.360
I'm like, you've never met her, you'll never meet her.
link |
01:20:34.960
Shut up.
link |
01:20:35.960
And I have a belief that this kind of local love and kindness that you naturally can have
link |
01:20:42.880
for human beings that you actually know, can be expanded at scale through the social networks
link |
01:20:49.280
that we use, that we build, that Twitter is currently failing at that miserably.
link |
01:20:54.600
That would be great.
link |
01:20:55.600
But that's if we were able to increase the love through the social networks, that would
link |
01:21:00.360
be great.
link |
01:21:01.360
It feels very hard to.
link |
01:21:03.520
It's a worthy challenge.
link |
01:21:05.020
You've tweeted, one of the underreported reasons conspiracy theories take hold is because
link |
01:21:10.480
some of them are true.
link |
01:21:13.400
What conspiracy theories do you believe that are sort of important for people to think
link |
01:21:22.000
about, would you say?
link |
01:21:24.880
Kennedy was not killed by a lone gunman with no connections to any other situation, government,
link |
01:21:30.520
you know.
link |
01:21:31.520
I believe that JFK was removed from office by a group of people that had very different
link |
01:21:39.160
interests.
link |
01:21:40.160
That's the question of like deep state.
link |
01:21:42.280
So these are powerful people that are able now to dictate through basically the threat
link |
01:21:48.560
of violence, what the presidents, the surface powerful people in our society.
link |
01:21:53.560
Yeah.
link |
01:21:54.560
I mean, again, I'm not, I want another investigation into 9 11, not because I think George Bush
link |
01:21:59.680
pressed a button and made 9 11 happened, but because we invaded the country of Iraq.
link |
01:22:03.920
And then we, you know, 15 out of 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.
link |
01:22:09.200
There was tons of stuff in the 9 11 import that didn't make sense to anybody.
link |
01:22:13.000
There's tons of stuff about that day that I feel like we just don't know.
link |
01:22:16.160
Yeah.
link |
01:22:17.160
That's sorry to interrupt.
link |
01:22:18.660
That's when I, my little aunt life touched upon conspiracy theory world and first learned
link |
01:22:24.520
about Alex Jones.
link |
01:22:25.520
Right.
link |
01:22:26.520
When 9 11 happened, it was very frustrating to me how poorly the reporting and the transparency
link |
01:22:32.960
around what exactly happened, who knew what, all that kind of a basic information that
link |
01:22:37.520
you would hope the government would release, reveal and use as like a lesson for how we
link |
01:22:45.160
prevent this.
link |
01:22:46.160
Instead, it felt like a lot of stuff was being hidden in order to manipulate some kind of
link |
01:22:50.840
machine that leads us to war.
link |
01:22:52.920
Yeah.
link |
01:22:53.920
That's fair to say.
link |
01:22:54.920
Yeah.
link |
01:22:55.920
I feel like we've gotten the full story.
link |
01:22:57.360
I don't know what the full story is.
link |
01:22:58.360
I can't.
link |
01:22:59.360
I don't know what it is, but I don't feel like we've gotten the full story.
link |
01:23:02.440
Yeah.
link |
01:23:03.440
There are, there are groups of powerful pedophiles, right?
link |
01:23:06.520
Whether they're in the Catholic church or they're in the government or wherever they
link |
01:23:08.840
are, they are able to cover things up that they do.
link |
01:23:11.280
They're able to silence people that try to out them in terms of like, you know, disrupt
link |
01:23:15.240
their operations.
link |
01:23:16.240
That's true.
link |
01:23:17.240
QAnon has nuggets of truth.
link |
01:23:18.760
It just went crazy.
link |
01:23:20.360
Any conspiracy theory that involves the Knights Templar and also Chrissy Teigen is probably
link |
01:23:26.040
wrong.
link |
01:23:27.040
You know?
link |
01:23:28.040
What's the Knights Templar?
link |
01:23:29.040
Well, it's just this group of knights back in the day, you know, it's that, you just
link |
01:23:33.640
suppose these secret meanings and like in every conspiracy, they talk about like, you
link |
01:23:36.880
know, if you go deep enough, it's like the Knights Templar, the Rosicrucians, you know,
link |
01:23:41.720
all of these secret groups throughout history, the Illuminati, the…
link |
01:23:44.880
Oh, and there's a thread that connects all of it, some public Chrissy Teigen.
link |
01:23:46.880
Oh, yeah.
link |
01:23:47.880
It connects it all to David Spade.
link |
01:23:48.880
I mean, it's a little much.
link |
01:23:50.480
Well, how do you, if you're David Spade, defend yourself, by the way.
link |
01:23:53.280
You ignore it because it's hilarious and I know David Spade, it's like Hollywood's
link |
01:23:56.720
kind of boring.
link |
01:23:57.720
Yes.
link |
01:23:58.720
There are sex orgies.
link |
01:23:59.720
I'm not invited.
link |
01:24:00.720
I'm sure there's shit going on.
link |
01:24:01.720
Kids do get abused.
link |
01:24:02.720
Women get abused.
link |
01:24:03.720
I'll invite you to one.
link |
01:24:04.720
Please.
link |
01:24:05.720
If you want.
link |
01:24:06.720
We got the $75,000 dog.
link |
01:24:07.720
And then we'll get one.
link |
01:24:08.720
But, you know, I, you know, me and David Spade, we go out to sushi restaurants, like, and
link |
01:24:13.120
you sit there and you listen to people complain.
link |
01:24:15.680
That's what a lot of it is.
link |
01:24:17.080
What a lot of Hollywood is, is deeply sad tragedy that people don't understand that
link |
01:24:22.280
it's some of it is nefarious and dark and there are problems and there are real power
link |
01:24:26.080
brokers here.
link |
01:24:27.080
It's a dark town, 100%.
link |
01:24:29.360
But they did it.
link |
01:24:30.360
Everybody that lives here is in some wide ranging, vast conspiracy, isn't true.
link |
01:24:34.840
It ignores how humdrum, boring, deeply sad most people's lives are in Hollywood and it
link |
01:24:41.640
ignores how sad fame is in general.
link |
01:24:44.800
Fame's a sad thing.
link |
01:24:46.240
Not always, but a lot of times it's a sad thing.
link |
01:24:49.440
It's fleeting.
link |
01:24:50.440
It's ephemeral.
link |
01:24:51.440
It doesn't last.
link |
01:24:52.520
It separates you from other people.
link |
01:24:55.640
It's isolating.
link |
01:24:56.640
It can be traumatic, depending on what's going on.
link |
01:24:59.760
Obviously, it's better than the alternative.
link |
01:25:01.680
If you're trying to be famous, it's better to be famous than not famous, right?
link |
01:25:05.240
I'll say that.
link |
01:25:06.760
But it's a mixed bag to a degree.
link |
01:25:09.320
There are things about it that aren't great.
link |
01:25:11.720
And Hollywood has a deep undercurrent of sadness of people that have not realized their dreams
link |
01:25:16.120
and people that have realized them.
link |
01:25:18.920
Both of those people.
link |
01:25:21.280
The people that win Olympic gold medals can sometimes suffer from depression.
link |
01:25:24.800
Correct.
link |
01:25:25.800
They've lost.
link |
01:25:26.800
Well, somebody said, and I forget who said it, it's a great quote.
link |
01:25:29.000
It's not mine.
link |
01:25:30.000
I think it's from a book.
link |
01:25:31.000
It might be from a TV show.
link |
01:25:32.000
Sometimes they quote something and they're like, that's from like, Charlotte's Web.
link |
01:25:34.800
I'm like, oh.
link |
01:25:36.600
The two worst things are, oh, I think it's from the movie Limitless.
link |
01:25:39.240
I'm like an idiot.
link |
01:25:40.320
But anyway, thanks for having me on.
link |
01:25:42.520
Tomorrow, you've done some genius.
link |
01:25:44.520
I wish this.
link |
01:25:46.720
It's from the movie.
link |
01:25:47.720
And I think he says, the worst two worst things in the world are not, oh, you know, it's not
link |
01:25:51.480
from Limitless.
link |
01:25:52.480
I think it's from the movie where Nicholas Cage sold weapons.
link |
01:25:57.960
It was called Lord of War.
link |
01:25:59.360
It's a little better than Limitless.
link |
01:26:00.360
Anyway.
link |
01:26:01.360
That's a good movie.
link |
01:26:02.360
It's a great movie.
link |
01:26:03.360
He said, the two worst things in the world are not getting what you want and getting
link |
01:26:05.440
it.
link |
01:26:06.440
So the undercurrents of sadness that run through Hollywood are there are two rivers that converge
link |
01:26:10.520
and there are people that just never had it and people that have it and go, now what?
link |
01:26:14.600
And so it's a sad place.
link |
01:26:15.600
It's tragic place.
link |
01:26:16.600
And there's a lot of, it's boring.
link |
01:26:17.600
That's what people don't realize is like, it's actually kind of boring.
link |
01:26:20.680
Well, life is kind of boring.
link |
01:26:22.080
Life is kind of boring.
link |
01:26:23.080
But there's also like, you know, so I think QAnon's this way to make a lot of it seem
link |
01:26:26.560
like it's super exciting.
link |
01:26:27.560
It's super exciting.
link |
01:26:28.560
And listen, I don't want to diminish the experiences of people who've been abused because there
link |
01:26:31.640
is a lot of horror here.
link |
01:26:33.320
But the whole QAnon thing was like, everybody in everything is doing.
link |
01:26:37.040
And that's not true.
link |
01:26:38.040
But see the, just to link on that a little bit is Bill Gates, the conspiracy theories
link |
01:26:44.240
around Bill Gates bother me because this is me dumb naive Lex thinks that Bill Gates did
link |
01:26:51.960
a lot of good for this world.
link |
01:26:53.440
Sure.
link |
01:26:54.440
First by creating a company that empowered personal computers.
link |
01:26:58.960
And second by donating a ton of money for like treating malaria in Africa and all those
link |
01:27:04.800
kinds of things.
link |
01:27:06.600
And there's these huge amounts of conspiracies.
link |
01:27:09.680
I think based on like just replies to whenever Bill Gates does anything.
link |
01:27:15.600
Like to me, the top replies should be about how inspiring that guy is to donate so much
link |
01:27:22.280
money.
link |
01:27:23.280
Well, I think, I think that.
link |
01:27:24.280
And so sorry too.
link |
01:27:25.280
And the thing I'm struggling with is if I'm Bill Gates, like, how do you behave differently?
link |
01:27:32.120
How do you show people that you're, if you're not, I don't know, doing creepy stuff
link |
01:27:36.520
that they're saying he's doing.
link |
01:27:38.040
Well, I think part of it is that he's done some really good stuff, right?
link |
01:27:42.320
He's an innovative guy.
link |
01:27:43.320
He's on the vanguard of a lot of things, but he's also the antichrist.
link |
01:27:47.320
And I think that that is, you know, they're not mutually exclusive.
link |
01:27:51.480
He is the prince of darkness as well as some, no, here's my view of Bill Gates.
link |
01:27:56.040
He's a Batman villain billionaire, meaning that he's not a villain, but he's got all
link |
01:27:58.840
this money, right?
link |
01:27:59.840
Here's the thing.
link |
01:28:00.840
And I love mosque and all these guys.
link |
01:28:01.840
I know you love these guys.
link |
01:28:02.840
Listen, when you have the kind of money that these guys have and you have the vision that
link |
01:28:05.600
they have and they want society to look a certain way.
link |
01:28:08.320
And a lot of them are doing great things.
link |
01:28:10.440
People, they need to get better at the pushback.
link |
01:28:13.120
They need to get a little better when somebody says, Hey man, what's going on over there?
link |
01:28:17.000
Bill Gates needs to be a little better at going, here's what?
link |
01:28:20.240
Yeah.
link |
01:28:21.240
Because, you know, Bill Gates has the money.
link |
01:28:23.720
You know, I think he, he wants, he wanted to shoot a missile of dust at the atmosphere
link |
01:28:27.400
to help global warming.
link |
01:28:28.760
And a lot of scientists were like, Hey man, that might not be the way to do it.
link |
01:28:31.320
But no one in history, like so few people in history have had the resources to even
link |
01:28:34.160
have that thought that if you have the resources to have that thought, and you have designs
link |
01:28:37.680
on the way you want society to look, whether it's public health policy, vaccinations, whatever,
link |
01:28:42.480
you have to get a little better at dealing with legitimate critiques.
link |
01:28:46.720
And obviously you're not defending yourself against people that say you're the anti Christ,
link |
01:28:49.760
but like you need to get a little better.
link |
01:28:51.720
And I feel like Bill Gates and some of those people at that level are like, Oh, PR is kind
link |
01:28:56.760
of like, you know, they're terrible at it.
link |
01:28:58.760
They're terrible at it.
link |
01:28:59.760
They're terrible at it.
link |
01:29:00.760
Him and Zuckerberg are really bad at it.
link |
01:29:01.760
Zuckerberg's horrible at it.
link |
01:29:02.760
And he seems especially bad at public.
link |
01:29:06.680
Yeah.
link |
01:29:07.680
And it makes me feel so bad because the problem of being a billionaire is you lose touch
link |
01:29:14.680
with reality.
link |
01:29:15.680
If you're not careful, I think Elon is good at at least so far maintaining touch with
link |
01:29:21.320
reality.
link |
01:29:22.320
No, if you look at the name of his child, you can clearly see, Liz, I do like him and
link |
01:29:27.280
I do think what he's done with Tesla, you know, my producer is a Tesla and he never
link |
01:29:30.560
shuts up about it and most people that have Teslas never shut up about them and they thought
link |
01:29:34.880
they think they're part of the development team at SpaceX.
link |
01:29:37.280
And I liked that he's created a world where people can get excited about a $37,000 car
link |
01:29:43.080
and never shut the fuck up about it to the point where I have to threaten people with
link |
01:29:46.600
physical violence to get them to stop telling me about that their car drives itself.
link |
01:29:50.560
Oh, you should get a Tesla.
link |
01:29:51.560
Maybe have a few less drinks and a few fewer Vicodin and you can drive yourself.
link |
01:29:56.000
Have you thought about getting a Tesla?
link |
01:29:57.000
I've never thought about it.
link |
01:29:58.000
I don't like them.
link |
01:29:59.000
They're minimalist.
link |
01:30:00.000
I don't like them.
link |
01:30:01.000
I want more.
link |
01:30:02.000
I want more.
link |
01:30:03.000
Get the Cybertruck.
link |
01:30:04.000
I want to stay.
link |
01:30:05.000
I'm just being a trolling you.
link |
01:30:06.000
My guy, my producer wants a Cybertruck.
link |
01:30:09.000
I want a stagecoach, old school stagecoach, horse thief shit.
link |
01:30:14.600
It's going back to that.
link |
01:30:16.880
I live in an area with a lot of horses.
link |
01:30:18.280
It's going back to like whipping a horse.
link |
01:30:20.440
I want an animal to shriek while I go by.
link |
01:30:25.680
You want more suffering in the world, not less.
link |
01:30:27.600
Oh, I think we need it.
link |
01:30:28.800
OK, but I just don't like that billionaire is a bad word.
link |
01:30:33.720
And it's not.
link |
01:30:34.720
Sure.
link |
01:30:35.720
Not every billionaire is a pedophile.
link |
01:30:36.720
I know.
link |
01:30:37.720
But the problem is a lot of like, it's just, you know, Epstein was very smart at like just
link |
01:30:42.120
getting people at that house and taking photos of them.
link |
01:30:45.160
Nobody knew what they were doing, but it's like it was one of those things where it's
link |
01:30:47.480
like, Epstein was the most social guy ever.
link |
01:30:49.360
Like every photo, he's like, hey, it's like everyone that's ever done anything in the
link |
01:30:54.840
world has been at that fucking island.
link |
01:30:57.400
Every human being is like in a photo.
link |
01:30:59.600
It's just weird.
link |
01:31:00.600
Like I'm in like it's funny.
link |
01:31:01.600
Me and my friends get together.
link |
01:31:02.600
We don't ever take photos, right?
link |
01:31:03.600
Yeah.
link |
01:31:04.600
Like last night, a few people, I was on my birthday yesterday, I'm 17, and my my friends
link |
01:31:09.120
came over and we're just eating dinner, right?
link |
01:31:11.760
And we had a fun night.
link |
01:31:12.760
Just four people that are over, nobody, right?
link |
01:31:14.920
Nobody ever thought like, let's let's, hey, I want to remember it.
link |
01:31:18.280
Let's take photos.
link |
01:31:19.600
I'm 36, but everything Epstein did, there's just photos of everybody.
link |
01:31:25.800
It's interesting.
link |
01:31:26.800
Do you think Jeff Epstein killed himself?
link |
01:31:29.000
No, I think he was killed by that guy that that that that guy that they put in his cell,
link |
01:31:35.400
that lunatic, who was that big muscled guy.
link |
01:31:38.120
I think he was just, he did it for money, kept his mouth shut.
link |
01:31:41.600
Money from whom do you think?
link |
01:31:44.160
Massad, MI6, CIA, all three.
link |
01:31:47.280
So there's a lot of pressure from a lot of different powerful people.
link |
01:31:50.200
Probably Massad, CIA more.
link |
01:31:52.200
I mean, it seems very clear that he was working inside of a honeypot intelligence operation.
link |
01:31:57.960
Just Lane Maxwell's father was an Israeli super spy.
link |
01:32:01.240
Just Lane Maxwell's working for Israeli intelligence, it would be odd to think.
link |
01:32:04.720
And of course, the CIA knows about everything that Israeli intelligence is doing with Americans.
link |
01:32:09.080
So I would think that it's a very cozy relationship with those two intelligence agencies.
link |
01:32:14.080
And I think if you ran it by anyone, I think if you ran it by French intelligence, they'd
link |
01:32:17.320
go, yeah, no, get, get here.
link |
01:32:19.520
I don't think there's any intelligence service in the world whose job is to protect the
link |
01:32:22.840
powerful people that live in their countries that was against him getting whacked.
link |
01:32:27.240
But do you think it's possible that he is just an evil person who is after manipulating
link |
01:32:31.400
people and also was a pedophile?
link |
01:32:33.440
No, no.
link |
01:32:34.440
So there's a bigger thing.
link |
01:32:35.440
Absolutely.
link |
01:32:36.440
No factual that there's a bigger thing.
link |
01:32:38.080
Evil people don't get handed.
link |
01:32:39.080
Those are your facts, Tim Dillon.
link |
01:32:40.840
No, there's the facts of the case.
link |
01:32:42.680
You don't get handed a 65.
link |
01:32:44.400
Show me another evil guy who was handed a $65 million dollar place by Les Maw.
link |
01:32:49.480
That's Wexner.
link |
01:32:50.640
Show me another evil guy that got that type of handshake deal where he was basically let
link |
01:32:57.160
off without anything after a judge had made a very sweetheart deal for him after he was
link |
01:33:03.480
accused of molesting a 14 year old.
link |
01:33:06.400
Show me another evil guy that doesn't have that kind of backing, that has those type
link |
01:33:11.000
of friends, those connections, those type of properties.
link |
01:33:13.840
Show me multiple passports all over the world.
link |
01:33:17.000
You show me a guy without anyone backing him that's doing it.
link |
01:33:20.520
Why did they?
link |
01:33:21.520
So you think he's just an evil guy who is doing this for whom it's his own just chits
link |
01:33:26.120
and giggles.
link |
01:33:27.120
He's just getting off on it.
link |
01:33:28.520
Human nature, yeah.
link |
01:33:29.520
Human nature, huh?
link |
01:33:30.520
It's human nature.
link |
01:33:31.520
$70 million dollar limestone match.
link |
01:33:33.520
I'm visibly mocked.
link |
01:33:34.520
Yeah.
link |
01:33:35.520
Is it human nature?
link |
01:33:36.520
And it's...
link |
01:33:37.520
I don't think it's human nature.
link |
01:33:38.760
I think it's...
link |
01:33:39.760
I think they manipulated human nature, but I think they did it.
link |
01:33:43.520
I think just lame...
link |
01:33:44.520
I think Epstein was really just a functionary and I think just lame was kind of a pimp and
link |
01:33:48.960
Epstein was kind of a guy that made the money okay and hid money and things like that and
link |
01:33:54.400
worked for a lot of powerful people.
link |
01:33:56.120
I don't believe in lone pedophiles anymore.
link |
01:34:00.040
I don't even believe that.
link |
01:34:01.040
If you're a pedophile, you're like in a group.
link |
01:34:03.960
You know what I mean?
link |
01:34:04.960
Whoa.
link |
01:34:05.960
I'm not even going there, but staying on just lame.
link |
01:34:11.320
So you believe there's some power in her.
link |
01:34:13.200
What do you think happens to her?
link |
01:34:14.840
No.
link |
01:34:15.840
What are the differences?
link |
01:34:16.840
Great question.
link |
01:34:17.840
I mean, I don't know what'll happen to her, but I imagine she'll get some type of deal,
link |
01:34:23.000
closed door thing years from now when people don't really care about the case and she'll
link |
01:34:27.720
serve some time in a very lax thing or she'll be killed.
link |
01:34:31.280
I mean, again, it's like if she was doing what she was doing, which is I believe a fact
link |
01:34:36.160
that she was compromising powerful people so that they could be blackmailed by the intelligence
link |
01:34:43.160
services of the US and Israel, probably, I don't see how she wasn't doing that.
link |
01:34:51.400
Someone's black.
link |
01:34:52.400
Someone's using the photos and the tapes, right?
link |
01:34:55.360
Someone's using that against these people.
link |
01:34:57.880
Someone wants to control these people.
link |
01:34:59.440
Well, who and why?
link |
01:35:01.000
That's the real question.
link |
01:35:02.000
And I think the real question is you want to exert control over congressmen and senators
link |
01:35:07.840
and presidents because they have the power to make decisions to affect about the CIA
link |
01:35:13.200
just works for a lot of very wealthy people.
link |
01:35:16.080
That's what the CIA, so how the CIA started, right, was lawyers, bankers, they're protecting
link |
01:35:20.960
financial interests of multinational corporations all over the world, overthrowing democratically
link |
01:35:26.280
elected governments, going in and doing subterfuge campaigns, encouraging terror.
link |
01:35:30.160
They were doing all kinds of crazy stuff.
link |
01:35:31.840
I don't see why that would change.
link |
01:35:33.280
I think that's who they still represent and I think those people want certain policies
link |
01:35:38.320
and certain people pushed forward and I think those people are controlled and I think one
link |
01:35:42.840
of the ways to control people is their sexual problems and that's the way they did it.
link |
01:35:49.440
I wish there was a way to, because everything you just said now is...
link |
01:35:54.480
Makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?
link |
01:35:57.160
I'm being indoctrinated on air.
link |
01:35:59.760
You think there's just a fun, random guy who just wanted to make home movies to presidents?
link |
01:36:06.800
Well, you think I'm just some random guy, I'm just trying to sell myself as somebody
link |
01:36:11.800
who is friendly with the American audience.
link |
01:36:14.200
I believe you are backed by people that want people to be more comfortable with robot dogs.
link |
01:36:20.480
I believe that.
link |
01:36:21.480
I believe you're pushed to be the happy face of AI.
link |
01:36:23.520
Which is why I will take the happy face out.
link |
01:36:26.960
No editing, Joe Rogan's rule, no editing.
link |
01:36:30.760
This is live.
link |
01:36:31.760
No, I mean, I wish there was a way for some of the conspiracy theories to prove that that's
link |
01:36:35.880
not the case.
link |
01:36:37.760
The CIA is...
link |
01:36:39.800
There is some possibility in my mind that institutions like the CIA and different kind
link |
01:36:45.880
of organizations are driven less by organized malevolence and more by just incompetence.
link |
01:36:54.880
Just bureaucracy being incompetent.
link |
01:36:56.680
I think that argument gets less and less persuasive when you look at all the things they've been
link |
01:37:01.920
able to do.
link |
01:37:04.520
It's very certain, just like you said, that there's a bunch of them that have done...
link |
01:37:09.120
There's some conspiracy theories that are dramatic and true.
link |
01:37:14.240
The question is, I wish there was a way to prove that some of them are not.
link |
01:37:19.320
It's very difficult because so much is shrouded in mystery.
link |
01:37:23.360
One of the things I'm bothered by is when people accuse other athletes of using steroids,
link |
01:37:27.800
for example, and it's just, yes, a lot of people use steroids, but it sucks that people just
link |
01:37:33.360
don't believe you.
link |
01:37:35.600
There's some incredible athletes that look shredded, that look just incredible performers,
link |
01:37:40.480
and everybody just says that they're on steroids, they're kind of assumed.
link |
01:37:46.280
People accuse me all the time of being on performance enhancing drugs and steroids.
link |
01:37:50.560
It is hard, but what I remind them is it's my appearance as a result of dedication,
link |
01:37:58.960
but it's hard work, diet, exercise, dedication.
link |
01:38:02.080
Are you on keto?
link |
01:38:03.960
I'm on keto.
link |
01:38:05.320
I'm doing a version of keto.
link |
01:38:06.840
You're keto, right?
link |
01:38:07.840
Yeah.
link |
01:38:08.840
I'm doing a version of keto right now with bread, and it's...
link |
01:38:12.360
Do you see what I mean?
link |
01:38:13.360
You carb up in order to build.
link |
01:38:14.880
It's keto with sugar.
link |
01:38:16.120
It's called keto plus sugar.
link |
01:38:18.360
It's a good diet for...
link |
01:38:21.120
I grew up in the 90s when nobody ever lost weight, sadly, because every diet was like,
link |
01:38:25.520
you can eat what you want, just be accountable.
link |
01:38:28.280
No one even knew what that meant.
link |
01:38:30.080
So it would be like my mother being like, if you have chocolate chip pancakes, have
link |
01:38:33.600
a glass of water.
link |
01:38:35.800
Just take a walk around the block.
link |
01:38:37.920
You go to McDonald's three times a day, just walk around the block.
link |
01:38:41.040
It's what my parents used to say, my mother would be like, just walk around the block.
link |
01:38:44.600
You're fine.
link |
01:38:45.600
I'm going to have a cigarette, walk 20 steps, walk 20 steps back.
link |
01:38:50.120
It's exercise.
link |
01:38:51.520
So there's too many conspiracies out there.
link |
01:38:54.440
A lot of them aren't true.
link |
01:38:55.440
A lot of them are bitter, angry people trying to justify their own impotence, not being
link |
01:39:00.080
able to do anything in life, and they're like, the people that have done something in life,
link |
01:39:03.240
they're all nefarious.
link |
01:39:04.240
It's all...
link |
01:39:05.240
The cards just act against me.
link |
01:39:06.240
That's 100% true, 100%.
link |
01:39:08.720
It attracts usually people that have not figured out a way to succeed, or haven't succeeded
link |
01:39:15.440
on the level that they want to.
link |
01:39:18.040
But that also being true, there is a fair amount of fuckery going on and provable, and
link |
01:39:26.680
we just have to, I think, separate, know that these things are often inflated or not true,
link |
01:39:34.640
but know that sometimes they are true.
link |
01:39:36.160
Otherwise, it wouldn't exist.
link |
01:39:38.040
If there was nothing to JFK, if there was nothing to 911, if people felt like they were
link |
01:39:44.720
being dealt with honestly, this wouldn't exist.
link |
01:39:48.000
This exists because there are real questions that people have that don't get answered for
link |
01:39:52.560
whatever reason, and then the vacuum of the refusal to answer those questions, that information
link |
01:39:57.840
vacuum, is filled with people like Alex Jones, who are curious, and sometimes they're right,
link |
01:40:03.000
and sometimes they're horribly wrong, and sometimes they're all over the place.
link |
01:40:07.000
They're good storytellers, and people love stories, and then when there's an absence
link |
01:40:10.680
of actual...
link |
01:40:11.680
Alex is a uniquely American person, very interesting.
link |
01:40:14.800
I don't know how many countries...
link |
01:40:16.120
How many people make a living as a conspiracy theorist?
link |
01:40:18.200
A good living in other countries.
link |
01:40:20.120
It's very rare.
link |
01:40:21.120
I mean, it's very interesting.
link |
01:40:22.680
He became...
link |
01:40:23.680
I know people that knew him when he was a kid, because I go to Austin and perform a lot.
link |
01:40:27.600
He was a guy that would take a bullhorn and yell at cops because he thought Dewey checkpoints
link |
01:40:31.040
were unconstitutional.
link |
01:40:32.040
That's what he was doing in college.
link |
01:40:34.080
He just went through...
link |
01:40:35.080
He was hated by the right.
link |
01:40:36.080
He was hated by the Bush people.
link |
01:40:37.240
He was hated by the...
link |
01:40:38.600
When he went from being this guy that was considered a leftist even, even though he's
link |
01:40:44.520
never a leftist, he was considered this enemy of mainstream conservatism.
link |
01:40:51.160
He was not...
link |
01:40:52.160
He considered a guy that wasn't a patriot, wasn't this, wasn't that?
link |
01:40:56.120
He just...
link |
01:40:57.120
Wow!
link |
01:40:58.120
He whines, and whines, and ends up just being this confidant of a Republican president, very
link |
01:41:02.640
divisive Republican president, and he becomes this populist and everything like that.
link |
01:41:06.480
It's really wild to watch that.
link |
01:41:08.120
I mean, I do think he should retire eventually, just so we could get some, I don't know.
link |
01:41:12.480
It seems like it's a lot to keep doing.
link |
01:41:14.840
Well, I hope this world allows for Alex Jones to continue having a voice, because just like
link |
01:41:20.040
you said, he used the word fun, but really he shakes up the norms of our discourse.
link |
01:41:28.600
I do too.
link |
01:41:29.600
I do too.
link |
01:41:30.600
I do think we need to put more value.
link |
01:41:31.600
I think entertainment...
link |
01:41:32.600
We do need to say that there are people that should be allowed to have a voice for entertainment
link |
01:41:36.720
purposes.
link |
01:41:37.720
Right.
link |
01:41:38.720
And that's part...
link |
01:41:39.720
And that's part of what Donald Trump, now that he's not the president, come on.
link |
01:41:44.040
Let the guy...
link |
01:41:45.240
Let him talk.
link |
01:41:46.240
Who do you think is the best comedian of all time?
link |
01:41:48.840
Oh, that's a great question.
link |
01:41:51.400
Greatest of all time.
link |
01:41:53.040
You mentioned Carlin, your uncle's like in Carlin.
link |
01:41:57.280
Well, Carlin is great.
link |
01:42:01.080
Carlin is really hard to argue with, but Chappelle is also really great.
link |
01:42:08.960
Louis C.K. is really great.
link |
01:42:11.000
I don't know that there's what Joan Rivers is great.
link |
01:42:14.400
No, you smile at that.
link |
01:42:16.480
She's a beast of a comic.
link |
01:42:18.240
I'm not aware of her standup, actually.
link |
01:42:19.720
She's a beast of a comic.
link |
01:42:20.720
Ask Rogue and ask any of them.
link |
01:42:23.320
Keneson's great.
link |
01:42:24.320
So what makes a great comic, do you think, in the history of comedy?
link |
01:42:29.160
Said something at the moment in a way, found a way to communicate with people in the funniest
link |
01:42:36.240
possible way at that moment and illustrated larger truths about life in what they did.
link |
01:42:44.200
And I think that guys like Louis and Chappelle and Pryor and Keneson and Hicks, people like
link |
01:42:50.520
Joan Rivers have done that.
link |
01:42:53.200
And even modern people, people like Maria Bamford is an amazing comedian.
link |
01:42:57.800
It's just a different style of comedy per se, but she's an amazing comedian.
link |
01:43:03.240
Cat Williams is an amazing comedian.
link |
01:43:05.400
He really is.
link |
01:43:06.400
Does he have any...
link |
01:43:07.400
Well, see, the one of the things you've kind of mentioned, the comedies you mentioned,
link |
01:43:11.200
they were kind of fearless in saying the difficult thing that needs to be said is Cat
link |
01:43:15.360
Williams is more...
link |
01:43:16.360
I don't remember his comedy, but I think it's just more wild out there.
link |
01:43:20.520
Well, to an extent that you can watch it, he's got stuff.
link |
01:43:22.640
He talks about stuff.
link |
01:43:23.640
He talks about race brilliantly.
link |
01:43:24.920
He talks about America brilliantly.
link |
01:43:26.520
No, I think there's a lot of stuff there.
link |
01:43:28.440
Of course, Chris Rock.
link |
01:43:29.440
Of course, of course.
link |
01:43:30.440
It's so hard.
link |
01:43:31.440
You can't really pick one.
link |
01:43:32.440
You just got to...
link |
01:43:33.440
There's a class of people that throughout this history of this business, which is not
link |
01:43:37.360
that long of a history.
link |
01:43:38.360
It's pretty much within the last century that have been really influential.
link |
01:43:45.040
Sometimes it's style, the way they deliver things.
link |
01:43:47.320
Sometimes it's substance of what they're saying or sometimes it's just a style of what they're
link |
01:43:52.200
saying.
link |
01:43:53.200
I mean, and we're only talking about standup comedians, right?
link |
01:43:55.200
So there's a million great comedians.
link |
01:43:56.680
I mean, if we're going to talk about Jim Carrey and Adam Sandler and Chris Farley,
link |
01:44:00.480
I mean, these are brilliant.
link |
01:44:01.840
And those guys are bigger influences on comedy, I think, than standups, really, truly.
link |
01:44:06.320
So there's so many brilliant people in the business.
link |
01:44:09.600
Who was for you influential, just the early on?
link |
01:44:12.440
Picks was influential because I'd watch Bill Hicks and I'd be like, this guy's saying crazy
link |
01:44:15.960
shit on stage and this is the only way he can get away with it.
link |
01:44:18.720
His business is so funny.
link |
01:44:20.240
And he was calling out the military industrial complex and he was talking about the First
link |
01:44:24.720
Gulf War.
link |
01:44:25.720
I remember he said a joke that I heard.
link |
01:44:27.280
It made me sit up straight.
link |
01:44:28.280
He goes, he goes, he was in Canada and he said, we had a war in the States.
link |
01:44:31.240
He was talking about the First Gulf War.
link |
01:44:33.200
And he said, I was in the unenviable position of being for the war, but against the troops.
link |
01:44:39.140
And to me, I love that joke.
link |
01:44:40.640
It was so funny to me.
link |
01:44:41.640
And I was like, oh, you can't get away with that anywhere other than standing on a stage.
link |
01:44:46.760
You couldn't ever say that in an office, really.
link |
01:44:48.880
And this was before like it was like PC.
link |
01:44:50.880
And there's that the other thing I always knew the comedians had to say shit and have
link |
01:44:55.520
it be funny enough that you couldn't get away with it in polite society.
link |
01:44:58.960
That was the whole point.
link |
01:44:59.960
That was why it was a dark theater or a dark nightclub.
link |
01:45:02.400
That's when people had a few drinks.
link |
01:45:04.120
That's what the art form was.
link |
01:45:05.240
And that's why, so a guy like that was influential because I started watching him.
link |
01:45:09.920
And of course, like, you know, I loved SNL when I was a kid and I would watch Chris Farley
link |
01:45:13.280
and I would watch, you know, people like even John Belushi going back in the day, but I'd
link |
01:45:18.000
watch Adam Sandler and Will Farrell and all these guys.
link |
01:45:21.080
I mean, there's so many funny people.
link |
01:45:23.280
But Bill Hicks was kind of funny.
link |
01:45:24.880
And then Patrice O Neal was like probably my favorite comedian who's made me laugh more
link |
01:45:28.720
than anybody else.
link |
01:45:31.160
I think it was you actually that maybe on your podcast, we're talking about Patrice
link |
01:45:35.760
O Neal and that he was actually vicious to others.
link |
01:45:40.120
I think he was a little mean to other people, but he was very good to people that he liked.
link |
01:45:43.760
I guess I think he was like not, I mean, he wasn't and I'd never met him.
link |
01:45:47.120
I have no inside info, but from what I've heard, he was like, no nonsense guy, right?
link |
01:45:51.600
He just said what he wanted to say.
link |
01:45:53.280
But I think in terms of comedians, I don't know of anyone funnier than Patrice O Neal
link |
01:45:58.360
who said in modern times that said more about our society than him.
link |
01:46:03.120
I mean, he was just a brilliantly funny guy on the radio.
link |
01:46:06.000
He was funny on his specials.
link |
01:46:07.800
He was funny everywhere.
link |
01:46:09.400
He was funny.
link |
01:46:10.400
And there's something else to be said about the whole medium of comedians doing podcasts.
link |
01:46:14.560
Yeah.
link |
01:46:15.560
I think it's a, it unlocks a weird special new thing that changed everything.
link |
01:46:20.280
I mean, Rogan started with that.
link |
01:46:22.840
You're doing that.
link |
01:46:25.320
I think that's a whole nother form of like stand ups.
link |
01:46:29.840
The ones that have a lot to say, almost like we get to witness the process of the creation
link |
01:46:37.320
of the jokes in a way or the mind, the sort of the evolution of the mind behind the jokes.
link |
01:46:44.040
Which is comedians relate to social media.
link |
01:46:47.640
Comedians, comedies, it's a performance based medium.
link |
01:46:52.240
So it's about getting up and doing it, getting up in a club, getting up in a theater, getting
link |
01:46:56.080
up in a bar, getting up wherever you can get up.
link |
01:46:59.080
And comedy for years was about performance.
link |
01:47:03.200
And then on the higher end, it was about movies and TV shows.
link |
01:47:06.760
But we were very slow to get on YouTube.
link |
01:47:09.640
We were very slow to adapt to technology.
link |
01:47:12.040
We were very slow to monetize anything we did on the internet.
link |
01:47:16.600
So podcasting was a way for comics and funny people to kind of get into that space, start
link |
01:47:22.600
earning money.
link |
01:47:23.760
And now, because of the pandemic, it's really become essential.
link |
01:47:27.200
And it helps you.
link |
01:47:28.200
And even without the pandemic, it was where people, it was how you were building a fanbase.
link |
01:47:32.760
And that's like, you know, but comics were very reticent to embrace social media at all
link |
01:47:36.800
because they thought it was cheap and they didn't like it.
link |
01:47:39.960
And they thought the people on it were idiots and were unfunny.
link |
01:47:42.400
And it was just a blatant, you know, whatever it was, whether it was a money grab or it
link |
01:47:45.760
was just too commercial and in the sense where they're like, hey, look at me.
link |
01:47:49.920
Like it was just goofy, right?
link |
01:47:52.960
And then comics, I think, got displaced because all the YouTubers came in and all the social
link |
01:47:59.160
media stars came in.
link |
01:48:00.480
And they really knocked comics off because now people are much more like, if you ask
link |
01:48:05.400
anyone under 30 who their favorite comedian is, they say, David Dobrik.
link |
01:48:08.520
And there's nothing wrong with that.
link |
01:48:09.840
David's a funny guy, but like what you, you know, I'm not especially to me a ton, but
link |
01:48:16.880
that's okay.
link |
01:48:17.880
I don't, you know, but he makes people laugh.
link |
01:48:19.760
So he's funny.
link |
01:48:21.760
But he's what people, you know, that's a comedian now.
link |
01:48:24.880
So comics got beat by other people coming into a digital space before they did laying
link |
01:48:31.880
the groundwork and taking it over.
link |
01:48:35.120
And now comics are just trying to stay alive.
link |
01:48:38.560
And even my podcast, which is people really like it.
link |
01:48:41.480
Thank God.
link |
01:48:42.480
And I love doing it.
link |
01:48:43.480
The Tim Dillon Show.
link |
01:48:44.480
Well, thank you.
link |
01:48:47.240
I was late.
link |
01:48:48.640
You know, I mean, I was, I just, you know, I've been podcasting for a long time, but
link |
01:48:52.320
really dedicating myself and putting the resources behind it.
link |
01:48:54.760
I was late to it.
link |
01:48:55.760
Like I was like, Hey, I'm, I'm telling jokes on stage, which is great, but I should have
link |
01:48:59.400
been allocating more time to building an infrastructure online and I wasn't doing it.
link |
01:49:03.480
And a lot of comics weren't doing it.
link |
01:49:04.880
Funny comics weren't doing it.
link |
01:49:06.720
It should be doing it.
link |
01:49:08.720
And I think when the pandemic ends, a lot of comics will just keep doing live standup.
link |
01:49:12.240
But I will keep, obviously I'm going to go back on the road and do live standup, but
link |
01:49:15.240
I will keep doing this podcast and building digitally too.
link |
01:49:17.640
But you're also exploring ideas.
link |
01:49:19.280
You're doing like short videos and so on.
link |
01:49:22.160
You're trying to look for different mediums of how to be funny everywhere.
link |
01:49:27.280
I want to be funny everywhere.
link |
01:49:28.280
I love making things too.
link |
01:49:29.520
My producer, Ben Avery is like a brilliant editor and comedic mind, even though he's
link |
01:49:34.720
not a standup.
link |
01:49:36.320
He's able to, he understands funny, he understands what makes me funny.
link |
01:49:39.280
We're able to make these really, I mean, some of those videos, they're just brilliant little
link |
01:49:43.480
videos, even though they're tiny little videos, they're fucking as funny as anything.
link |
01:49:47.640
And it's not me, it's me working with somebody else to make something really great.
link |
01:49:52.960
And if, and, and it's that relationship that's very important.
link |
01:49:55.640
Well, in some sense, the, the medium of a short video is a challenge, just like the
link |
01:50:00.560
medium of a short tweet of how to say something.
link |
01:50:04.680
I mean, whatever the flavor is of what's in your heart, what's in your mind, how to
link |
01:50:09.920
say it, whether it's the goal is funny or something, or just an expressing idea.
link |
01:50:15.760
I think it's the whole thing that's important to us is that it's an extension of really
link |
01:50:20.400
like an extension of your friendship in a way.
link |
01:50:22.440
Like are you guys laughing at it?
link |
01:50:24.600
Are you guys making each other laugh about this idea?
link |
01:50:28.000
And if that's the case, other people are going to laugh at it, you know?
link |
01:50:31.720
I think so much of the old medium was like, everything was top down.
link |
01:50:35.360
Okay.
link |
01:50:36.360
Pitch me this idea.
link |
01:50:37.360
I pitch it to the showrunner.
link |
01:50:38.680
They pitch it to the network.
link |
01:50:39.920
They pitch it to this, to that, to that, you know, standards and practices, sales, and
link |
01:50:44.120
you know, we got to go through everything.
link |
01:50:45.560
Now it's just like, are me and a few buddies or even just one buddy laughing at this idea?
link |
01:50:51.360
Does it captivate us?
link |
01:50:52.800
And do we see it visually?
link |
01:50:55.160
And also a great line from Roseanne, a guy, not Roseanne, but a guy that worked on Roseanne.
link |
01:51:01.400
The old Roseanne, the great one, he said, is it funny with the sound off?
link |
01:51:06.000
Right.
link |
01:51:07.000
That's what we try to do.
link |
01:51:08.000
That's brilliant.
link |
01:51:09.000
Is it funny with the sound off?
link |
01:51:10.000
When you see me and the dumb things or me and the Meghan McCain or me and the thing,
link |
01:51:15.200
is it funny with the sound off?
link |
01:51:16.200
And if it's funny with the sound off, you have a good starting point.
link |
01:51:18.720
That's hilarious.
link |
01:51:19.720
Because you, I would say you're one of the people, because most people are not funny
link |
01:51:24.640
with the sound or most comedians, like you will fail is another example that there's
link |
01:51:28.960
something about when I click on one of your videos, it's funny, just like the first thing
link |
01:51:34.280
I see.
link |
01:51:35.280
Yeah.
link |
01:51:36.280
Just your face.
link |
01:51:37.280
Well, thank you.
link |
01:51:38.280
That's very sweet.
link |
01:51:39.280
But I mean, thank God.
link |
01:51:40.280
I mean, that's what we try to do, right?
link |
01:51:41.680
We're trying to be funny.
link |
01:51:42.680
Yeah.
link |
01:51:43.680
So we're trying to be funny.
link |
01:51:44.680
Can we talk about love a little bit?
link |
01:51:47.240
Sure.
link |
01:51:48.240
So you came out of the closet as being gay when you were 25.
link |
01:51:53.400
Yeah.
link |
01:51:54.400
It was late.
link |
01:51:55.400
Very late.
link |
01:51:56.400
Very late.
link |
01:51:57.400
And what were your standards?
link |
01:51:59.280
During and after.
link |
01:52:00.640
How has your view on love evolved?
link |
01:52:04.020
Interesting.
link |
01:52:05.020
It's so hard to say, because I would, I would like to make a very Disney Fide statement
link |
01:52:12.200
about that you can't be in love secretively.
link |
01:52:15.820
You should be honest.
link |
01:52:16.820
Love should all be about honesty.
link |
01:52:17.920
But that's not true, right?
link |
01:52:19.920
There's people that are in love that are lying to everyone else, but they're deeply in love.
link |
01:52:25.880
I would love to say something like honesty is an ingredient for love, but I don't know.
link |
01:52:31.040
Maybe honesty with each other, but I think there's a lot of people in the world that
link |
01:52:35.840
aren't honest.
link |
01:52:37.080
My view on love is super important.
link |
01:52:39.000
I think that a lot of society in America is all about love.
link |
01:52:44.920
We don't tend to focus on other things in terms of friendship or sustainability of that
link |
01:52:54.680
because I know a lot of people in relationships where it's like, I don't know, they love
link |
01:53:00.640
each other, but it's also a rock solid couple because they're very compatible in many other
link |
01:53:08.440
ways.
link |
01:53:09.440
Right.
link |
01:53:10.440
They're friends.
link |
01:53:11.440
I see friendship and love as the same thing.
link |
01:53:14.040
There's this part of it that are, right?
link |
01:53:16.200
I look at it as like, there needs to be more than just that amazing chemistry or physical
link |
01:53:24.640
attraction that is this chemical thing that happens.
link |
01:53:28.560
There should be like some underlying, I mean, again, that's from what I, that's what I've
link |
01:53:33.440
observed as really long lasting successful relationships.
link |
01:53:37.400
Well, is there something about coming out that you took away that you remember as profound
link |
01:53:47.560
and siphoned?
link |
01:53:48.560
Yes.
link |
01:53:49.560
And I, it wasn't society, it was me, so there were kids that were out in my high school
link |
01:53:55.120
that I waited years later to do it.
link |
01:53:58.640
That was no one's fault but my own.
link |
01:54:00.600
So I was taking a cowardly way out and a lot of people, so I could blame society or like,
link |
01:54:06.040
oh, I lived in a conservative area and I grew up in, you should take responsibility for
link |
01:54:11.000
your own decisions.
link |
01:54:12.000
And if you're being cowardly, admit that you're being cowardly.
link |
01:54:14.520
So that's what I took out of it is that it's not society's fault that you chose to be
link |
01:54:18.680
a coward.
link |
01:54:19.680
Society will never be perfect.
link |
01:54:21.200
You have to be honest when you're ready to be honest or however you want to be honest,
link |
01:54:25.200
but it's not somebody, too much now is it's everyone else's fault that you didn't take,
link |
01:54:30.040
make a hard choice or a hard decision.
link |
01:54:31.640
So that's kind of what I took out of it.
link |
01:54:33.840
So now in retrospect, you see yourself as, or being afraid, do you, do you think at the
link |
01:54:39.640
time?
link |
01:54:40.640
Well, I wanted people to like me, which is the, which is the disease of humanity, right?
link |
01:54:45.080
The disease that we want to be liked and what happens is if you want people to like you
link |
01:54:48.720
and love you even, you want people to feel comfortable with you.
link |
01:54:51.960
And those were people like your family?
link |
01:54:54.200
Friends more.
link |
01:54:55.200
My family I would always, you know, could always throw in the street, but I'm kidding.
link |
01:54:59.560
I mean, but I am not, but my friends, my circle of friends, which I were my family at the
link |
01:55:04.920
time when you're senior, when you're 10th, 11th grade in high school, your, your friends
link |
01:55:09.240
are your family.
link |
01:55:10.240
You know what I mean?
link |
01:55:11.240
Like that's your, so you don't want to do anything that puts you on the outside of
link |
01:55:14.000
the circle.
link |
01:55:15.360
So thinking back to that fear, is there things you're afraid of now that you're not doing,
link |
01:55:20.960
you're afraid to do?
link |
01:55:21.960
I'm afraid of all kinds of things.
link |
01:55:24.000
I'm afraid of not being good at my job, not being funny, letting people down, not putting
link |
01:55:30.800
out products that are good, you know, whether it's the podcast every week or stand up or
link |
01:55:36.040
the videos.
link |
01:55:37.040
Like I'm afraid of like, there's a ton of people that really enjoy what we do.
link |
01:55:40.240
So when you're in that position, you're nervous that you're going to start doing things that
link |
01:55:44.520
they don't like.
link |
01:55:45.520
So the new things you want to do, the evolution you want to do, you want to make sure you're
link |
01:55:49.000
evolving in the right way.
link |
01:55:50.160
You know, you want to make sure that you're doing things that are consistent with why
link |
01:55:53.440
people liked you.
link |
01:55:54.600
But also you don't want to put yourself in a box and limit what you can be going forward.
link |
01:55:59.800
So like I had a talk with the CEO of NBC Universal once, I was doing some internal sketch for
link |
01:56:04.880
them and I was playing like a cab driver and he was a, and he's not the current CEO, but
link |
01:56:09.920
he's a former CEO.
link |
01:56:10.920
And I said to him, what's the hardest part of running a corporation of this size?
link |
01:56:14.360
And he said something very interesting.
link |
01:56:17.160
He said, the hardest part is maximizing the current profit model of what you have at the
link |
01:56:22.720
same time, getting ready, getting ready, getting the company ready for where it's going to
link |
01:56:26.520
be in five years.
link |
01:56:27.920
He said, those are often at odds.
link |
01:56:29.840
And that's the toughest thing.
link |
01:56:30.960
He goes, because I could just bang out everything I got to do right now and we're going to make
link |
01:56:34.440
a lot of money doing this, but am I devoting enough resources into digital so that in five
link |
01:56:38.320
years when that's where everything lives, are we competitive in that space?
link |
01:56:42.200
So as funny as I am now, hopefully to people and a lot of the things that I want to do
link |
01:56:46.160
now, I'm going, what am I, what groundwork am I not laying for three to five years down
link |
01:56:51.160
the road so that I can be adapting to the trends that are important then in terms of
link |
01:56:57.800
not so much comedic trends, but like the technological trends, like what is the, what
link |
01:57:03.880
is it?
link |
01:57:04.880
You know, I should have done podcasting earlier.
link |
01:57:06.440
What should I, should I have a bigger presence on TikTok?
link |
01:57:09.120
Should I have a bigger presence here?
link |
01:57:10.120
Should I have a visitor?
link |
01:57:11.120
Or should I be on Twitch?
link |
01:57:12.120
Should I be doing this?
link |
01:57:13.120
Should I be doing that?
link |
01:57:14.120
What am I not doing that I should be doing that I'll regret not doing?
link |
01:57:17.480
And those are, those are the conversations I think I have in my own head all the time.
link |
01:57:21.400
And I guess there's parallels to coming out as gay or just parallels in like career paths
link |
01:57:26.120
you're taking all that.
link |
01:57:28.080
That's ultimately just fear.
link |
01:57:29.680
It's fear.
link |
01:57:30.680
Yeah.
link |
01:57:31.680
It's the fear of, you know, the best thing that happened in my career was that I came
link |
01:57:35.760
to LA, I didn't have an idea of what was going to happen.
link |
01:57:41.720
I met somebody who was really committed to making funny things that we just wanted to
link |
01:57:49.040
be funny.
link |
01:57:50.120
No one would let us be funny.
link |
01:57:51.280
We didn't have Comedy Central letting us be funny.
link |
01:57:53.880
We didn't have HBO.
link |
01:57:54.880
We didn't have Netflix.
link |
01:57:55.880
We just had a garage and a phone in the beginning and then a camera and then a thing.
link |
01:58:00.320
And we just wanted to be funny.
link |
01:58:01.960
And that was the greatest risk really I took because I was like, well, I don't know what
link |
01:58:05.720
else is going to happen right now, but I just want to be funny.
link |
01:58:08.720
And funny saved my life.
link |
01:58:09.720
Right?
link |
01:58:10.720
I mean, funny got me out of drugs.
link |
01:58:11.720
Funny probably got me out of the closet.
link |
01:58:13.080
Funny was the thing that I was able to do that made everything okay in my own head.
link |
01:58:16.840
So I was like, as long as I'm being funny, something good will happen.
link |
01:58:19.120
So we did that and then something really cool happened that we were able to do a lot of
link |
01:58:22.600
cool things.
link |
01:58:23.600
But, you know, that's what it is.
link |
01:58:25.720
It's fear that keeps you from being the better version of yourself.
link |
01:58:29.600
Your mom, I mean, you have so many complicated, fascinating parts of your story.
link |
01:58:35.200
Thank you.
link |
01:58:36.200
Your mom, as you were growing up suffered from out to illness, yes, schizophrenia.
link |
01:58:43.640
Can you tell her story and how that relationship has changed over the years?
link |
01:58:46.920
Yeah.
link |
01:58:47.920
Well, she was always eccentric and always, you know, the terms for schizophrenia in
link |
01:58:51.400
an Irish Catholic household where we didn't talk about anything were eccentric, fun.
link |
01:58:56.320
She's fun.
link |
01:58:57.320
There's a theme to this conversation.
link |
01:58:59.520
Unpredictable.
link |
01:59:00.520
She's a live wire, any of the words you would use to describe somebody who is a fucking lunatic,
link |
01:59:08.880
but you wouldn't say that.
link |
01:59:11.520
She started experiencing symptoms probably early on in her life, but she also, like,
link |
01:59:19.040
I think, started really manifesting them when I was in my mid teens.
link |
01:59:24.800
So like 14, 13, 14 area.
link |
01:59:29.600
And she got really, really bad and then I think she was institutionalized about 10 years
link |
01:59:33.720
ago, a little over 10 years ago.
link |
01:59:36.160
And she could really no longer live on her own.
link |
01:59:37.760
She was unable to go to work.
link |
01:59:39.560
She was unable to function.
link |
01:59:40.560
So I visit her when I can.
link |
01:59:42.040
Obviously, I'm not in New York.
link |
01:59:43.040
Whenever I go to New York, I visit her.
link |
01:59:44.600
She's aware of what I do, my career and everything like that.
link |
01:59:47.080
You know, she has good days and bad days, but, you know, mental illness is a thing that's
link |
01:59:50.840
very tough.
link |
01:59:51.840
We don't talk about it as a society.
link |
01:59:53.440
People with mental problems don't get that much attention.
link |
01:59:57.280
We tend to think that they did something wrong or that they deserve it or that they are,
link |
02:00:03.000
you know, to be ignored and we don't devote a lot of resources into it, which is unfortunate
link |
02:00:07.240
because then you have the junk gurus come in and go like, let's diagnose your mental
link |
02:00:11.400
illness off Instagram.
link |
02:00:12.400
And it's like, that's not the move.
link |
02:00:14.480
Yeah.
link |
02:00:15.480
Do you love her?
link |
02:00:17.480
I do.
link |
02:00:18.480
I do.
link |
02:00:19.480
I love her, but I also remember her that isn't her now.
link |
02:00:24.360
And when someone has mental illness that's severe, you make peace with their death before
link |
02:00:30.360
they die because the part of them that you love and remember a lot of cases is not evident
link |
02:00:40.960
or obvious.
link |
02:00:41.960
Now, my mother's still a loving person that I love, but the fun, her ability to be present
link |
02:00:48.600
in the moment and to not, you know, that is lost with the progression of illness so that
link |
02:00:55.320
you still love her.
link |
02:00:56.480
And I mean, again, you know, your parents, you know, the time horizons you have with
link |
02:01:00.440
your parents are unknown.
link |
02:01:01.880
People don't know.
link |
02:01:02.880
You could, you know, I have friends that their parents were in their lives for their entire
link |
02:01:05.320
life.
link |
02:01:06.320
And I have friends whose parents were in their life, but my mother was a very, she knew what
link |
02:01:09.280
I was when I was a little kid.
link |
02:01:10.680
I was an actor.
link |
02:01:11.680
When I was like six to 12, my mother knew that I was a performer.
link |
02:01:14.480
She knew what I was and what I'd ultimately do.
link |
02:01:16.480
She recognized that in me.
link |
02:01:17.680
When I said to her, I want to audition for shows.
link |
02:01:19.320
I want to be on stage.
link |
02:01:20.320
I want to be on this.
link |
02:01:21.320
I want to do this.
link |
02:01:22.320
She let me do it because she knew who I was and she didn't want to get in the way of me
link |
02:01:26.080
being a human being, a fully realized person at six.
link |
02:01:30.760
So that's probably the best thing a parent can do for a kid is let them be who they are.
link |
02:01:36.280
And my mother did that.
link |
02:01:37.880
So that, I mean, that's good.
link |
02:01:40.760
We ate too much fast food.
link |
02:01:42.880
There were negatives, but she did let me be.
link |
02:01:44.640
Well, that's why you want to throw them out into the street.
link |
02:01:47.040
Sometimes.
link |
02:01:48.040
But coming, coming to accept the mortality of her, I guess identity as you remember it
link |
02:01:59.720
from childhood, do you ponder your own mortality?
link |
02:02:04.360
Are you afraid of death?
link |
02:02:06.080
I'm afraid of death.
link |
02:02:07.080
I don't like the idea of death, but I know what's happening.
link |
02:02:10.000
You know, I know it's going to happen eventually.
link |
02:02:12.360
I don't think about it.
link |
02:02:14.160
I think about, I want to do some good stuff that people can look back at.
link |
02:02:17.000
And I think I'm proud.
link |
02:02:18.000
I'm proud of the show where if people look back at the show, I don't know how comedy
link |
02:02:20.720
ages or whatever.
link |
02:02:21.720
But like, I think I put out a lot of stuff and I want to continue to put out stuff and
link |
02:02:24.840
I want to put out a few specials that people can look back at and go, oh, this guy was
link |
02:02:28.200
really funny in this really crazy.
link |
02:02:30.440
You know, he lived in the latter part of this century when all this shit was going on and
link |
02:02:34.000
he kind of made fun of it and he did something to make people's lives a little better just
link |
02:02:40.840
by having, you know, a few laughs, you know?
link |
02:02:43.600
Well, do you think about, this is something like in the podcast context, do you think
link |
02:02:50.000
you'll have just one or two or three shows out of thousands maybe that are like the truly
link |
02:02:56.120
special ones?
link |
02:02:57.120
That's probably the case.
link |
02:02:58.120
Or do you think it's an entirety of the body of work?
link |
02:03:00.680
I think people will take 10 minute clips from all different shows and put them together
link |
02:03:05.280
in this highlight.
link |
02:03:06.280
Yeah.
link |
02:03:07.280
Like a highlight reel of just like these are like the best things that he's ever done
link |
02:03:10.840
or the best rants he's ever had, the best things, whatever.
link |
02:03:13.560
So the legacy would be that this was an important voice in a very weird time.
link |
02:03:18.840
I would hope that that's part of it.
link |
02:03:21.560
And I hope that I continue to be, you know, you say important, I say funny, but hopefully
link |
02:03:27.160
I continue to be a voice.
link |
02:03:28.560
And that's what I think when I think about death, I think about like, what did people
link |
02:03:32.560
come on earth to do?
link |
02:03:33.560
And I think I came, I think my main purpose on this planet other than to experience whatever
link |
02:03:39.440
love or, you know, worthiness or whatever is to make, to entertain people and there's
link |
02:03:44.960
a lot of people in comedy right now that are not entertainers and that's really the problem.
link |
02:03:50.040
But and they got into comedy sort of the way that, you know, you can walk into the wrong
link |
02:03:54.320
store in a mall and then not realize you're in the wrong store and try on a bunch of clothes
link |
02:03:58.480
and then go, fuck, I wasted my whole afternoon.
link |
02:04:01.040
But I think I've always kind of been an entertainer and that's what I want to do.
link |
02:04:04.480
There's unfortunately, sadly, a lot of people that look up to you, there you go.
link |
02:04:09.240
That is a horrible thing, but life is a nightmare.
link |
02:04:13.160
Yeah.
link |
02:04:14.520
If you were to give them advice, young folks, people in college, maybe even high school,
link |
02:04:20.520
but people in their 20s about what to do with their life, whether it's career, whether it's
link |
02:04:25.640
just life in general, what would you say?
link |
02:04:28.200
Ignore everyone, make a few good friends, truly have honest conversations with yourself
link |
02:04:35.760
about your, when do you feel the most alive?
link |
02:04:42.880
Figure that out.
link |
02:04:44.640
When and how do you feel the most alive?
link |
02:04:48.760
Figure that out.
link |
02:04:50.480
Try to figure out a job or a career that can replicate that feeling.
link |
02:04:56.440
Don't listen to anyone.
link |
02:04:57.600
Don't listen to your parents.
link |
02:04:59.000
Don't listen to the gurus on the internet.
link |
02:05:01.320
Don't listen to me.
link |
02:05:02.720
Don't listen to anyone.
link |
02:05:04.360
Figure out where you feel the most alive.
link |
02:05:07.600
Where do you feel excited?
link |
02:05:09.800
Where does your pulse quicken?
link |
02:05:11.800
What do you feel matters?
link |
02:05:13.920
When you're in a situation, do you feel like it matters?
link |
02:05:17.440
What situation was that?
link |
02:05:18.920
What got you excited?
link |
02:05:20.760
What thing did you walk into where you looked around and were taken back and you're like,
link |
02:05:26.120
wow, this is amazing.
link |
02:05:27.280
I'm filled with awe.
link |
02:05:29.120
If you can figure out a life where you can excite yourself, you might not use drugs or
link |
02:05:35.760
alcohol or a sex addiction or gambling or irresponsibility.
link |
02:05:41.160
You might not have to get your fucking kicks in very destructive places if you can get
link |
02:05:47.120
them in a productive place.
link |
02:05:49.600
You had a pretty weaving life that's full of mistakes and so on.
link |
02:05:57.120
Any mistakes?
link |
02:05:59.800
Is our mistakes a bug or a feature?
link |
02:06:02.400
Do you recommend embrace the mistakes and make a bunch of them?
link |
02:06:06.040
It depends what they are.
link |
02:06:08.680
You've had the full spectrum.
link |
02:06:09.880
I've had a lot, but a lot of mine could have sunk me.
link |
02:06:13.520
They sound like fun when I talk about them, but they actually could have sunk me.
link |
02:06:19.000
They were all part of what made me funny, but I don't know.
link |
02:06:22.680
I would never tell anyone else to just light their life on fire and hope it all works out
link |
02:06:27.920
on the other end.
link |
02:06:28.920
It would be pretty irresponsible.
link |
02:06:31.080
But hey, at the end of the day, it's like, you're going to... I think one of my themes
link |
02:06:40.320
is that there's too much.
link |
02:06:41.800
We give the power.
link |
02:06:42.800
We think we have to... The power of choice has been elevated in our society to an unhealthy
link |
02:06:49.400
degree.
link |
02:06:50.400
I think you could get really good at something, but you're born with a certain aptitude.
link |
02:06:56.080
It might be to be a dealmaker, might be to be an athlete, it might be to be an artist,
link |
02:06:59.680
it might be to be a romantic, just fall in and out of love, in and out of love, in and
link |
02:07:03.400
out of love.
link |
02:07:04.400
It might be to be a world traveler, but whatever you are, I think you are.
link |
02:07:08.800
I think that there's something about you that makes you something, and if you can figure
link |
02:07:12.760
it out and then refine... You're not going to be good at it, per se, but if you're an
link |
02:07:16.640
athlete, it might not mean that you're going to be a great athlete in the history, but
link |
02:07:20.680
it might mean you're the best coach anyone's ever had, or you're the person that builds
link |
02:07:24.840
a local scene for young athletes or whatever.
link |
02:07:27.520
If you are a really good dealmaker, it doesn't mean you're going to be Warren Buffett, but
link |
02:07:31.560
it might mean you're somebody who enjoys making deals all the time and things like that.
link |
02:07:37.200
If you're an entertainer, it might mean that you are an entertainer.
link |
02:07:40.920
It might mean that you are in the world of entertainment because you love it so much
link |
02:07:45.400
that if you lack the skill set to really pursue it on a degree, you just want to be... There's
link |
02:07:50.520
a thing inside of you that makes you what you are.
link |
02:07:55.840
I look at certain people and I go, you were born to be that thing.
link |
02:07:58.600
The whole purpose is to find it.
link |
02:08:01.200
I was a juror on a murder trial in Long Island, and the woman who's the DA, I'm like, you
link |
02:08:06.040
were born to do this.
link |
02:08:07.320
You were born to put murderers away, and this guy killed the mother of his children.
link |
02:08:12.160
That means a bad guy, but I was like, you are really good at what you do.
link |
02:08:15.640
She has a strong belief in whatever her moral code is and what her justice and ethics are,
link |
02:08:20.560
and she wants to communicate that to people.
link |
02:08:22.120
She was very good at doing what she did.
link |
02:08:25.760
I don't know the facts of the case.
link |
02:08:26.960
I didn't really listen.
link |
02:08:27.960
He seemed guilty, so I just voted guilty, but I didn't really listen to her, but I heard
link |
02:08:32.400
the shape of her mouth was very bovine, like a cow.
link |
02:08:35.440
It conferred a certain level of expertise that I enjoyed.
link |
02:08:38.880
Well, it's funny, you could see you're half joking.
link |
02:08:43.800
You can often see that people just, they found their place.
link |
02:08:47.920
They found their role.
link |
02:08:48.920
They found their thing.
link |
02:08:49.920
They found their thing, and that's kind of the purpose of life.
link |
02:08:52.480
Once you are in a place that seems sticky, like the place that seems right, this is one
link |
02:08:59.720
of the problems with the generation that you're speaking to is there's always a feeling like
link |
02:09:03.440
I should keep exploring, keep exploring, but it's okay to stay in a place that you found
link |
02:09:08.480
that works.
link |
02:09:09.480
Yeah.
link |
02:09:10.480
And listen, sometimes the best place you'll find is when people are like, when did you
link |
02:09:14.360
feel really excited and alive?
link |
02:09:16.000
It's like doing nothing.
link |
02:09:17.600
Right.
link |
02:09:18.600
Yeah.
link |
02:09:19.600
You know?
link |
02:09:20.600
That's the other thing.
link |
02:09:21.600
It's like some people are going to be like, I feel really excited and alive, and I'm laying
link |
02:09:24.000
in my backyard in a hammock, and I just wanted the simplest life and not have to do much,
link |
02:09:28.520
and I don't like doing anything, and I love laying around and going, wow, this guy looks
link |
02:09:32.480
good today.
link |
02:09:33.480
Bill Gates goes, this guy looks good today, let's shoot a missile into it.
link |
02:09:36.400
He wants to do shit.
link |
02:09:37.400
Right?
link |
02:09:38.400
So it's like in between that and nothing is you can find something.
link |
02:09:42.280
But in that process, for you personally, I mean, for me and for others, I think there's
link |
02:09:48.640
a struggle.
link |
02:09:49.640
When you look in the, when Tim Dillon looks in the mirror, do you love yourself or do
link |
02:09:53.440
you hate yourself?
link |
02:09:54.440
Well, a lot of times I think I'm in me shumer, so I'm confused.
link |
02:10:00.320
I'm a detente with myself all the time.
link |
02:10:01.920
I don't love myself or hate myself.
link |
02:10:03.520
Things have a very bad problem where you can't just fall in love with yourself and you can't
link |
02:10:09.560
hate yourself.
link |
02:10:10.720
Both of them lead you to a negative place.
link |
02:10:12.840
You try to stay kind of even keel.
link |
02:10:14.720
I don't go like, hey, man, you put out a video, I got all these views, things are great, you
link |
02:10:18.840
sold a bunch of tickets, let's fucking go out, like maybe let's say, hey, man, let's
link |
02:10:22.360
have that drink that you've been waiting for for 11 years.
link |
02:10:25.160
And I don't look at myself and go, you ate a burger yesterday, you're a piece of shit,
link |
02:10:28.720
you're horrible, you'll never get into the shape you want.
link |
02:10:33.240
I try not to get too low or too high.
link |
02:10:35.320
Both of them are not good for my particular mind.
link |
02:10:38.520
Okay, I got to ask, we were kind of spoke about 2021 and you being potentially hopeful.
link |
02:10:45.520
Hopeful short term, cynical long term.
link |
02:10:50.040
So let me ask, I forgot to ask, are you moving to Austin?
link |
02:10:54.080
I don't know, I mean, I don't think so immediately, you know, I love Joe, I love what he's trying
link |
02:10:58.920
to do down there.
link |
02:10:59.920
I'm appreciative of everything that he's done for not only me, but for comedy in general.
link |
02:11:04.360
And I think as things happen in Austin and unfold is such a political answer.
link |
02:11:08.640
But as things unfold, I will consider it more and more.
link |
02:11:11.440
But I mean, I think I got into the year in LA.
link |
02:11:14.520
So you've spoken so nicely about this magical place that is Los Angeles.
link |
02:11:19.640
LA is very funny.
link |
02:11:22.520
You think there's a place for comedy in LA?
link |
02:11:24.440
Oh yeah.
link |
02:11:25.440
The Los Bia Place for Comedy in LA.
link |
02:11:27.480
So it's going to be a place for comedy in New York.
link |
02:11:29.600
I mean, the question is how thriving of a comedy scene is Austin going to be.
link |
02:11:33.800
And the Joe can probably make it one, but as of right now it isn't.
link |
02:11:38.640
So that would be him doing that.
link |
02:11:40.000
But the question is a lot of people escaping Los Angeles, but I know better about New York.
link |
02:11:44.640
There's a lot of really brilliant people.
link |
02:11:46.680
Let them go.
link |
02:11:47.680
There's other people.
link |
02:11:48.680
This is the thing.
link |
02:11:49.680
It's like, this is the fear thing.
link |
02:11:50.680
It's like, no, but all the brilliant people are leaving.
link |
02:11:53.120
There'll be other people and they'll fill their shoes the way that they've done throughout
link |
02:11:56.600
history.
link |
02:11:57.840
And I think that New York and LA, listen, maybe in five or 10 years, they're not the
link |
02:12:01.200
two cities.
link |
02:12:02.200
It would be real rough in five years when this pandemic's over for people in Australia
link |
02:12:08.040
to go, dude, you got to go to America and you got to visit Charleston and Austin.
link |
02:12:12.640
Yeah.
link |
02:12:13.640
Stop.
link |
02:12:14.640
Let's be adults here.
link |
02:12:15.640
Let's be adults.
link |
02:12:16.640
It's still going to be New York and LA for a while.
link |
02:12:18.640
LA is an absolute hellscape, but I don't think you're going to replace California with another
link |
02:12:27.440
place.
link |
02:12:28.440
And also, everyone's going to make decisions now because we're literally in the midst of
link |
02:12:31.680
a pandemic we've never had before.
link |
02:12:33.640
We've never had this before.
link |
02:12:35.880
Joe loved California up until the pandemic.
link |
02:12:37.920
He had problems with it.
link |
02:12:39.240
Like we all have problems with it.
link |
02:12:40.720
There's a lot of benefits to being here.
link |
02:12:42.360
I think a lot of us made pretty bad decisions in 2020 because we were all locked up and
link |
02:12:47.200
stuck with our own thoughts.
link |
02:12:49.160
But so it's funny there's parallels because I don't necessarily, you know, I'm obviously
link |
02:12:54.920
a fan of comedy, but I don't care where comics move.
link |
02:12:59.120
But there's a parallel move that's happening instead of decisions which do influence my
link |
02:13:03.560
decision making, which is where to start a business that's tech centered.
link |
02:13:07.800
And that's more about the San Francisco Silicon Valley.
link |
02:13:12.440
And there is a lot of people leaving there.
link |
02:13:15.360
And they're going to Austin.
link |
02:13:16.880
Well, Austin, there's a, I think, there's a bunch of different places, Phoenix.
link |
02:13:22.360
There's Denver.
link |
02:13:23.360
Austin will probably be a massive tech hub.
link |
02:13:26.720
Elon's there.
link |
02:13:27.720
It seems like it's all, everything about Austin says that it's going to be a massive tech
link |
02:13:32.040
hub.
link |
02:13:33.040
I just don't know if that means it'll be a massive comedy hub.
link |
02:13:35.640
It might.
link |
02:13:36.640
I don't know if those two can actually coexist.
link |
02:13:38.480
It's interesting.
link |
02:13:39.480
Yeah.
link |
02:13:40.480
I don't, I think, you know, comedy suffered in New York and LA when everyone got super
link |
02:13:43.840
rich.
link |
02:13:44.840
Like, you know, it just wasn't as cool.
link |
02:13:47.200
It's still much more fun on the road.
link |
02:13:48.640
It's still more fun to perform for people that want and need to laugh in strip malls
link |
02:13:53.320
than it is to perform for hedge fund managers and with their dates and, you know, Instagram
link |
02:13:58.520
models in LA.
link |
02:13:59.520
It's just what it is.
link |
02:14:00.520
Comedy on the road is much more fun.
link |
02:14:01.760
So maybe in the spirit of that, Austin becomes, but, you know, you know, Austin is just colonized
link |
02:14:06.880
by tech bros and stuff like, yeah, I mean, sure, sure, it'll be fun and it'll be great.
link |
02:14:10.680
I think Joe's made LA a scene.
link |
02:14:13.840
So if anyone's going to make Austin a scene, it's Joe.
link |
02:14:16.760
Yeah, and I like the, on the Elon side, which is what I'm much more familiar with, the promise
link |
02:14:22.840
of the possibility of what that could become because there's a lot of problems in Silicon
link |
02:14:27.280
Valley.
link |
02:14:28.280
And of course, it might be naive to think that just because it's like the grass is greener
link |
02:14:32.640
thing, which is just because the place where you come from has a lot of problems.
link |
02:14:37.200
It doesn't mean you can just create a new place.
link |
02:14:39.160
It's not going to have those.
link |
02:14:40.160
Yeah.
link |
02:14:41.160
There's homelessness in Austin.
link |
02:14:42.160
There are problems in Austin.
link |
02:14:43.160
I think that with, by the way, with the influx of very rich people to an area, sometimes
link |
02:14:48.520
that helps things, but sometimes it just makes things more polarizing and it's spot puts
link |
02:14:52.200
a spotlight on those problems and makes those problems even bigger, right?
link |
02:14:55.280
So I mean, I don't know that it's necessarily, it's hard to predict.
link |
02:14:59.160
I just know the LA right now is funny.
link |
02:15:01.160
It's funny that there's 15 year old tech talkers making millions of dollars dancing
link |
02:15:04.360
in a house while the world burns.
link |
02:15:06.480
That is very funny.
link |
02:15:07.480
Well, it's for your, for it, for your style of humor.
link |
02:15:10.840
Yes.
link |
02:15:11.840
The absurdity of the world.
link |
02:15:12.840
It is.
link |
02:15:13.840
No one cares about Hollywood starlets and actresses and actors and everyone goes, hey, fuck you.
link |
02:15:17.720
Even though they've won three Academy Awards, they're all being replaced by just mediocre
link |
02:15:22.120
dancer 15 year olds.
link |
02:15:23.960
I mean, it's like there's something hilarious about this city and it will burn in hell, but
link |
02:15:28.640
so will everything.
link |
02:15:29.720
So what are we talking about?
link |
02:15:31.120
Yeah.
link |
02:15:32.120
Eventually the sun will die out and we will all be gone unless we colonize outside of
link |
02:15:37.840
our solar system.
link |
02:15:39.080
But, you know, I stand, I just sit here, you know, I'm struggling with this because Boston,
link |
02:15:45.240
I'm currently at MIT, Boston doesn't feel like the right place to start a business in
link |
02:15:50.840
the tech sector.
link |
02:15:52.800
And so I'm choosing, I'm looking at San Francisco the way it is, and I'm looking at Austin.
link |
02:15:56.800
Oh, Austin up clearly.
link |
02:15:58.400
So it seems clear, but it's such a difficult thing to, to predict what a place will look
link |
02:16:06.520
like in 10 years and 15 years and 20 years.
link |
02:16:08.960
And it's so hard to predict if you'll like it or not until you're there.
link |
02:16:12.160
And you know, this is speaking to risk.
link |
02:16:15.200
There's not really a good reason for me to move anywhere.
link |
02:16:18.320
There's not a good reason to do anything in life.
link |
02:16:21.400
Part of me wants to just fucking do it and whatever and see what happens.
link |
02:16:26.480
You like Boston.
link |
02:16:27.480
You like other things about Boston besides the tech thing.
link |
02:16:31.200
You like MIT.
link |
02:16:32.200
MIT, that's the problem.
link |
02:16:33.200
And but you like, you like like the food in Boston.
link |
02:16:35.360
Do you eat food?
link |
02:16:36.360
I haven't been, I haven't eaten food or been outside for years.
link |
02:16:39.720
And I mean that, that's probably the better version, but you're keto forever.
link |
02:16:44.160
You've been keto for a long time.
link |
02:16:46.000
Yeah.
link |
02:16:47.000
Keto fasting for a long time, 15 years fasting, eating once or twice a day.
link |
02:16:54.640
I haven't.
link |
02:16:55.640
But no sugar ever.
link |
02:16:57.480
No like, no sugar and no pasta ever, no bread ever, no pasta, no bread, no, except like,
link |
02:17:05.480
so you could kind of live anywhere because like going out is such a big part of what
link |
02:17:10.320
city you live in and like, you like the food there, do you like the restaurants, can you
link |
02:17:13.480
meet people, whatever.
link |
02:17:14.480
But it's like, you really can just kind of, yeah, so not married, no kids, right?
link |
02:17:18.800
You have freedom.
link |
02:17:19.800
I'm me too.
link |
02:17:20.800
I have freedom.
link |
02:17:21.800
Yeah.
link |
02:17:22.800
And that's, we have the curse of too many choices.
link |
02:17:25.120
Right.
link |
02:17:26.120
That's the thing.
link |
02:17:27.120
We have too many choices.
link |
02:17:28.120
We don't have somebody else going, what about like, we don't have to justify our decisions
link |
02:17:30.880
to anyone.
link |
02:17:31.880
Yeah.
link |
02:17:32.880
So we can just kind of like let our minds run wild.
link |
02:17:34.640
So you just got to hone the instinct of just what feels right and just fucking do it and
link |
02:17:41.000
that's it.
link |
02:17:42.000
I think Austin would show down there and Elon down there.
link |
02:17:43.000
Austin seems like a real no brainer move for you.
link |
02:17:46.480
To try.
link |
02:17:47.480
To try.
link |
02:17:48.480
Why the hell not?
link |
02:17:49.480
Why not?
link |
02:17:50.480
Why not?
link |
02:17:51.480
And then I think I should go to MIT.
link |
02:17:52.480
Like, I mean, I mean, I think I should give those nerds a piece of my mind and you should
link |
02:17:58.480
go to, I was in an Uber pool once with a kid from MIT and I was eating this thing from
link |
02:18:04.160
Bova's Bakery.
link |
02:18:05.160
I forget what it was.
link |
02:18:06.160
It was like, it's so good.
link |
02:18:08.720
I don't know.
link |
02:18:09.720
You don't know Bova's Bakery, right?
link |
02:18:10.720
Yeah.
link |
02:18:11.720
It's a boss.
link |
02:18:12.720
It's famous.
link |
02:18:13.720
I was eating a thing and I was like covered in chocolate and this kid, like this little
link |
02:18:15.120
nerd, like this little like, you know, USB drive with feet was just staring at me and
link |
02:18:19.640
they just dropped them off at MIT and he like scurried away.
link |
02:18:22.880
But that's a big school that doesn't the NSA recruit out of there heavy like MIT places
link |
02:18:27.000
like that?
link |
02:18:28.000
I can't, I can't speak to that.
link |
02:18:30.720
But what, this is the ridiculous question I sometimes ask myself when I'm alone.
link |
02:18:36.800
What is the meaning of life?
link |
02:18:37.960
Do you think about the big existential kind of, why the hell we're here?
link |
02:18:43.360
It's a cosmic kind of joke kind of in a weird way, right?
link |
02:18:46.440
I mean, Joe said it the other day on maybe it was you saying that like, he was just like,
link |
02:18:52.440
you know, by the time you figure out what it is, you're out of here.
link |
02:18:55.440
You know, it's kind of interesting or you even start to figure out what it is you're
link |
02:18:58.400
out of here.
link |
02:18:59.400
It's like, that's kind of funny.
link |
02:19:00.840
It's like, you don't get enough time to truly, I think the meaning of life is just like,
link |
02:19:08.240
at the end of the day, do you feel it was time well spent?
link |
02:19:12.160
Was it time well spent?
link |
02:19:13.960
That's, that's really what it is.
link |
02:19:16.600
If you look back, do you go, hey, it was time well spent, like a pretty good ride.
link |
02:19:21.400
It was pretty good ride.
link |
02:19:22.400
I did, I did, I did a lot, I did a lot of things I doing what you say is a part of
link |
02:19:29.040
it, I think.
link |
02:19:30.600
If you say you're going to do something, maybe doing it.
link |
02:19:34.480
That seems to be extrapolating the meaning of life question to like, you know, what did
link |
02:19:40.160
you come here to do?
link |
02:19:41.160
I think it goes down deep of like, who are you and what do you want and, you know, what
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are you suited to do and what?
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02:19:47.520
It does seem that like the people who are most enlightened that I've ever met or read
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02:19:53.120
books by, they ultimately land on humor, like they don't take shit seriously.
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02:19:58.520
They embrace the absurdity of it all and just kind of laugh at, laugh at it in this kind
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02:20:03.840
of simple way.
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02:20:04.840
So this seemed like humor is like one of the fundamental truths of the scene that we're
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02:20:11.400
in.
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02:20:12.400
And somehow.
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02:20:13.400
It's love.
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02:20:14.400
It's love.
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02:20:15.400
Humor.
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02:20:16.400
Humor can be love, right?
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02:20:17.400
People laughing that that sound is kind of like, Carolyn Knapp who wrote a book called
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02:20:22.160
Drinking a Love Story, which is a really good book about not drinking.
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02:20:28.160
Drinking and then not drinking.
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02:20:29.720
And she said that you could understand things as love, that I think one of the last lines
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02:20:35.400
in the thing is like, people talking about their experiences in life, that could be love.
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02:20:40.440
Like, you know, laughter is love.
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02:20:41.800
Like I feel like love and finding it wherever you could find it is why we're here.
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02:20:46.640
That's that connection.
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02:20:48.280
And laughter can be love and, you know, figuring out, you know, something that makes life better
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02:20:55.960
for a lot of people can be love, you know, whether it's a vaccine or a technological
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02:21:01.160
advancement or whatever, like, you know, all of those things I think can be that feeling.
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02:21:06.440
And I think that's what's important.
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02:21:07.920
It connects you to a larger frequency, you know?
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02:21:11.320
I don't think there's a better way to end it, Tim.
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02:21:13.440
I hope you're one of the voices.
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02:21:15.720
I truly believe that your legacy would be one of the most important voices of our time because
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02:21:20.160
you're fearless and challenging all the absurdity of the nonsense that of our social and political
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02:21:27.880
discourse.
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02:21:28.880
I hope you keep doing it.
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02:21:30.160
I'm a fan.
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02:21:31.160
I'm still a bit starstruck, so.
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02:21:32.960
Oh, stop it.
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02:21:33.960
Listen, I was your intellectual capacity, enjoying anything I do, only underscores how truly fucked
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02:21:42.360
we are.
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02:21:43.360
But thank you very much.
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02:21:46.840
Yeah.
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02:21:47.840
Thank you for talking today.
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02:21:49.320
Thank you, brother.
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02:21:50.320
Thanks for listening to this conversation with Tim Dillon and thank you to our sponsors,
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02:21:55.440
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02:22:01.240
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02:22:07.160
So the choice is business, health, sanity, or transcripts.
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02:22:12.800
Choose wisely, my friends.
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02:22:13.800
And if you wish, click the sponsor links below to get a discount and to support this podcast.
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02:22:19.840
And now, let me leave you with some words from George Carlin, scratch any cynic and
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02:22:25.240
you will find a disappointed idealist.
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02:22:29.080
Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.