Chapo Trap House - BONUS - The Bitter Buddha feat. Eddie Pepitone

Episode Date: August 1, 2025

Will welcomes comedian Eddie Pepitone to the show for a bonus interview. They rap on keeping comedy political, celebrity sell-outs, veganism, Bill Maher vs. Billy Joel, trying to calm the rage, and of course, being Just Kids From New York. Check out Eddie’s new special at: https://veeps.com/eddiepepitone It is your last day to pre-order YEAR ZERO: A Chapo Trap House Comic Anthology at badegg.co/products/year-zero-1!

Hello, everybody. It's Will here. And I'm coming at you with a bonus chapo interview and episode for this week. And I'm very pleased to say that we're having on today's show. We have a comedian whose work I have enjoyed for many years now. It is my pleasure to welcome to the show, the bitter Buddha himself, Eddie Pepitone. Eddie, how's it going? Hey, thank you. This is an honor to be on this podcast. I was listening to you guys yesterday talking about Gaza. And it's amazing because I deal with comics who are so politically inept, you know, so politically unaware on the whole. You know, like when I go up in front of audiences, I look at their dead eyes and I go, do I bring? up, do I bring up a genocide here on a Saturday night in the chuckle hut? I mean, it is Miami. Well, Eddie, I mean, you talk about like how sort of politically inept or incurious most comedians are, but like at the same time, comedians have become like the de facto Walter Cronkite or Mike Wallace of this current moment, right? like comedians are now becoming the go-to interview for Hitler, you know?

Like, what happened to have, we're happy to have Hitler. Yo, Hitler, what's your favorite thing to have for lunch, you know? Right, right. And it's sort of like John Stewart is our Edwin Armorro, where Stewart should end his daily shows with good night and good luck, you know. But yeah, I think when you're talking about. about is the big guys like Stuart, Colbert, Chappelle. But, you know, I'm in the grind, you know, I'm like with a lot of different comedians at different levels. And I'm just amazed how it is so difficult for them to talk about anything other than Batman and pussy.

Or Spider-Man and Cock, whatever. I'm seriously like, how are Batman and pussy? How do we weave those two topics together? Just bring in Catwoman? What's going on here, Eddie? Yeah, how do we weave those? Well, there's a lot of, you know, hidden meaning in Batman. And I think you can, you can just extrapolate from there.

But what it is. And I mean, yesterday I did go see the Ventim. Fantastic 4 in 3D and IMAX. Can we get a quick review here? Fantastic 4, the new Fantastic 4 movie. Thumbs up, thumbs down. I give it a thumbs up, but it's hard to fuck up something in 3D and IMAX. I mean, you could watch, you know, pay it forward and have a good time in 3D and IMAX.

You know what I mean? I mean, have you ever seen Pay It Forward in 3D? I have a good time watching Pay It Forward just in Lomax. my television. By the way, failure to launch, very underrated movie. McConaughey really hit his stride there. Failure to launch, how to lose a guy in 10 days. They're all good.

Well, Eddie, you bring up McConaughey in your new special, The Collapse, you have a, you have a thing about how annoying it is to see actors of his status and caliber on commercials nonstop. Now it's just like, does he need the money? Yeah, let me tell you that. I feel like, and I really shouldn't like say, you know, I feel like I'm the only one talking about that. You know who I've really gone after on social media is Martin fucking short and Steve

who I used to love. I mean, both of them were kind of big in when I was, you know, coming of age as a comic like Morton Shorts, Ed Grimley. Do you remember Ed Grimley? Ed Grimley? I mean, Martin Shorts, Jiminy Glick is one of my favorite characters of all time. Jimmy Glick is one of my favorite shows of all time. And I'm like, I love Martin short, but you're right.

When I see him and Steve Martin, then they're like, Wells Fargo? Can you put this on your MX or whatever? Yeah. Was it Wells Fargo? No, no. They are, they are doing a campaign, a hell of a campaign for Wells Fargo, which is unbelievable. It's like, let's take one of the most corrupt, abusive corporations and let's be that

funny little face of them. You know, you know, the commercials are so unfunny, by the way. They're so unfunny. And, you know, they're shilling for this company that's been, you know, I mean, publicly, I mean, they've been sued. They've been sanctioned. And, They're just the worst, you know? I mean, what's next for them? Black Rock. Well, it's weird because I remember, like, you know, when I was growing up, the thing was, was if you were like an A-list celebrity and you needed some extra money from doing a television

advertisement, you would have to fly to Japan to cut that app. And it would only air in like the Pacific Rim countries. But now it just seems like, like, is it, is it like sort of streaming in the internet that is just sort of flattened all celebrity into just like if you're on a screen now you're a celebrity because it used to be like you would want to you would want to sort of protect the mystique of being a famous person by not be not doing you know ads for geico on american television yeah no what i think has happened is that uh what's happened all over is the greed has just gotten to the point of acceptability and and it's you know incremental i mean my favorite artist

of all time is Bob Dylan. And even Bob Dylan did IBM. I don't know if you remember that. He did a commercial for, I think it was, if you remember this crap Watson, their computer, their supercomputer. He did some Victoria's Secret ads.

Even Bob Dylan has done a couple of ads, which I kind of write off. I'm like, well, Dylan is his own thing, and he's probably fucking, with people. But the celebrities who just on a record, I can't believe Samuel Jackson, who is the highest box office grossing actor in the history, like his movies have grossed more than anything and of any movies combined. And he is constantly shilling for Capital One. You know, what's in your wallet, you know? And I come at these guys and nobody really, people don't.

really respond to it that much because they're like, you know, I get things like, I thought it was terrible. I'm also a bit of an asshole, but I thought it was terrible when one of my favorite actors, John Terturo was chilling for Heineken. And I remember I posted something about that. It was a Super Bowl commercial. And people were like, who are you as fucking accountant? Let him do his thing. You know what I mean? Like people come at me like that. I mean, I love John Turturro too. And, you know, like, I'm not, I'm not sort of pocket watch, another man. But it does thing a little bit when you see someone who's artistic

work you respect so much and who's been very successful being in an ad for a big. But like, Eddie, like, you think like this is, this represents sort of a shift in our economy and our culture overall because like when you were coming up as a comedian, like I feel like in in

Gen X, there's like this tension between being real and selling out. Because I feel like back then there was still a viable path to success that didn't require selling out, whereas I feel now like kids who are, you know, Gen Z or whatever are coming up in a world where like selling out is the only viable alternatives. Like they're, they don't even, there's, there is no such thing as selling out. It's just like making money. Selling. Selling. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, are you, are you a Bill Hicks fan?

Oh, of course. Yeah. He was like really super integral. Him and Carlin and. And, Boy, you really realize how far ahead of the curve George Collin was. Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, everybody's posting all these Carlin clips. Yeah. You know? It's a big club and you're not in it. But the thing is like, our friend of the show, Jake Rhodes, who actually I'm having on it tomorrow,

he had a point the other day that like the club is getting smaller. You know, like that was the bit that maybe that Carlin didn't anticipate. Like, it's not so big a club anymore. I always wonder what. what Hicks and Carlin, particularly those two, what they would be saying right now. You know?

Now Hicks used to, he inspired me the way he would talk about artists doing commercials. I don't know if you remember that, but he'd be saying, you're sucking on the devil's cock, you know, and he actually went out of his way to say, I don't begrudge the small-time actor,

the guy who doesn't have much, but these huge celebrities do in this shit, you know? It's like where is integrity anymore, you know? Well, Eddie, so like I watched the new special, which is great. And what I've always loved about your comedy is like, the energy that you bring to the stage

is always like very much about like the exurgation of sort of anxiety, tension. rage self-loathing. It's like lancing a boil. So I guess I want to ask you is, Eddie, what's annoying you today? What's causing stress for you this week? What's pissing you off? What needs to be purged from you? Yeah. You know what really gets me lately is not lately, but I get obsessed with the climate breakdown. I get obsessed particularly with heat. And I am traveling to Atlanta tomorrow and I fucking cannot stand Atlanta and the South in the summer. It's, yeah, it's oppressive.

Oppressive is the word. It's like I'm going in to do a place called the Earl on August 1st and then I fly the next day to Durham, North Carolina. And I just start getting anxious about, oh, shit. I hope we're not starting. like stuff like this i hope we're not stuck on the fucking runway i remember when they when they kept me in in a plane wouldn't because they don't have a c until you yeah yeah take off right and it's like i remember one time i think i was in like denver and denver was like a hundred and nineteen degrees i mean

the temperatures now are insane you know and the storms i'm always like okay i have to rent a car You know, when I get to the Northeast on this trip, going to Potsdown, Pennsylvania, I take my message to the masses, you know. I go to Potsdown, Pennsylvania. I'm playing the Catskills. I go to, and then I go to Washington, D.C. Maybe I could stop off at the Heritage Foundation. And I like the daily demonstrations going on there.

Have you seen those? No, no, I haven't seen that. It's pretty cool. You're stopping off at the Heritage Foundation. Make sure to wear your best symptoms. text vest. Yes, yes. But I love it because these guys are just standing

guys and guys and gals are just standing out there with bullhorns going Nazi. Like they walk out of the hair it's rather. You fucking pig. How do you sleep at night? But anyway, what I was Yeah, not bad. But what I was

saying is that I get panic now about flooding and Trump store. Like, I just think they're all supercharged, which they are. And I, I just don't want to die in a weather event, you know, playing the chuckle hut in Durham or whatever. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Because, like, I mean, there are ways to die violently or die of an illness or, you know, pass peacefully in your sleep. Yeah. But there's something about weather killing. you that just seems, I don't know, biblical in a way or just sort of, I don't know, it's like rain killed you. You know, I was supposed to play the Guadalupe River, but that got canceled. You know, I was going to play the banks of the Guadalu. And, you know, I don't like the way I'm being booked like that. I always tell my bookers, please try to keep me out of, you know, zones like New Orleans. I'm actually

doing New Orleans as part of the festival in November, but I think in November it'll either be gone or the hurricanes will be dormant. Eddie, I see you got your Brooklyn Dodgers hat on. And I don't want to talk a little bit about Brooklyn, you know, because like you were born in Brooklyn and I think you grew up in Staten Island, right? Yes, unfortunately. Yeah, Staten Island cultural wasteland, people communicated by hitting each other with bats. It was, I'll never forget, me and my dad, who, by the way, got me political. My dad was a union leader for the, for the UFT, United Federation of Teachers. And I don't know if you remember Albert Shanker, who was like a big union leader for the teachers in New York City.

As a matter of fact, Woody Allen immortalized him by saying in Sleeper, the movie, sleeper, he said, it's unfortunate, but Albert Shanker has the nuclear bomb. So my dad, my dad gave me in Brooklyn when he was a union leader, the book, The Rich and the Super Rich by Ferdinand Lundberg. I don't know if you've ever heard of that book, but it got me right away. You know, I needed an outlet for my anger because I, you know, I was a kid who, you know, never got enough attention. You know, my mom was in and out of mental institutions, which is, you know, prime me for life.

And my, my dad was just kind of a rageaholic, you know, Sicilian, she was Jewish, you know, it was like just everything was based on woe and anxiety. And that's what I deliver to the crowds. I want to deal on that because a couple of weeks ago, we had Larry Charles on the show. Larry Charles also from Brooklyn. I fucking love that guy. And one of the things I asked him is like, what is it about working class New York City in general?

But Brooklyn in particular, that like this milieu contributed so much to what we think of as American comedy. You know, I mean, there's like, you know, like you said, Lenny Bruce, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks. I mean, you mentioned Carlin before. He's from Morningside Heights.

That's in Manhattan. Who? It's like George Carlin is from Morningside Heights. He's from Upper Manhattan. Yeah, what is it about? Well, you're saying specifically Brooklyn. Yeah. I think, you know, Brooklyn is one step removed from Manhattan.

And I think if you grew up in Manhattan back then, you were kind of part of the elitist, you know, even if you didn't have a lot of money. But Brooklyn, you know, I think Brooklyn being right outside Manhattan, first of all, New York in general is a cauldron, a pressure cooker. of anxiety, sorrow, you know, rage. And Arthur Miller's from Brooklyn, too. There's a great, have you ever been to the Brooklyn Walk of Fame in the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens? It's pretty cool to see. Yes, I have. It's great. Right?

It's pretty cool to see all the artists who have come from Brooklyn. But I think because New York is such a pressure cooker, And Brooklyn, I think, you know, Brooklyn people kind of wanted to be like I, I always looked at Manhattan as like a place to aspire to, you know, because Brooklyn was a borough. But it was, it was, it was pretty, you know, culturally great. Whereas Staten Island, which formed me, my dad thought it was the country. He was like, we're moving to the country, Staten Island, you know. And that was a cultural wasteland when I was there. It really kind of instilled in me again, just rage and aspiring to be like a great comedian because everyone I saw around me was settling for just suburban shit.

Yeah. And I went to Brooklyn Tech High School. So I was always in the city. Oh, you went to Brooklyn Tech? I did. I did. I was actually, I found out in the graduating class of Spike Lee, though I never ran into him.

Wow. Two Brooklyn roads diverged or perhaps, you know, coming together again. Yeah. Well, Eddie, as soon as you're talking about New York City, I'd like to bring up two of New York City's most celebrated and favored sons. I am, of course, referring to Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein.

Also from Brooklyn. Is that right? Yeah, yeah, he grew up around Coney Island. But Eddie, you know, just like as a perspective of, yeah, someone filled with the tension and rage that comes with, you know, being alive and aware of this country, but also someone who, you know, channels that into comedy. I just got to ask, what are you making of the now second term of Donald, the second non-consecutive administration of Donald Trump?

And what do you make of him continuing to be sort of bedeviled or rather goering a self-eastern inflicted wound by continuing to talk about his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein or or tried to look anything other than guilty. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I got to say that I always get angry at the Democrats for not, you know, people that I know, just focus in on Trump as the devil, which he is. but it was a long time coming, you know. It was a long time coming. He is the product. Trump is the product of a system that incrementally got bought and bought that the Democrats

oversaw and that none of my so-called liberal friends, you know, want to talk about, you know, like they just oversaw corporations completely buying. senators, congressman, you know, everybody has been co-opted now by money, which is what we were talking about before, about this generation of people who just want to sell, you know. And so Trump is this product of years, many years of just this complete seller, you know, working class people being sold out, whether it started with Clinton from NAFTA, you know, all. all of that leaning up to Trump. So I'm always, I'm always like, man, don't you see the fucking problem is that we have to have a

revolution in this country? I always say, I always say on stage, look, when are you people going to rise up? Now, I, you know, you have to hit the streets. You have to be angry. You can't just, you know, wear pink pussycat. you have to disrupt traffic. You have to block the highways. You have to block the machinery.

Now, I can't join you. I'm in the middle of Ozark right now. I'm late to the party on Ozark, which is really, you know, it really is true that so many people, you know, as we get more and more into this fascist authoritarianism, there's a lot of good shows to watch. Have you seen Andor, Eddie? I have not seen Andor. It's a good show.

You should check it out. But to your point about how Trump is sort of like the golem created by a capitalist society and by a liberal Democratic Party that is constitutionally unwilling or unable to confront the savage inequities created by market economies, right? Yes. And what I feel like is what we have now is a situation, but like there is only the. the market. Like, the market has achieved total primacy and dominance over social and political life. And, like, in a situation like that, figures like Donald Trump will rise to the top.

And, like, you know, I mean, like, and if you think about, like, the Epstein scandal overall, like, what is it really about? It's about the buying and selling of human beings. And like, and like, this is really where it, where it leads up to, where this all ends up when it just like, when market forces are allowed to determine the conditions of human life, when like there is that where the state no longer has the capacity or the willingness to step in and just like and just say no like there are there are values uh for human life and thriving and dignity that are more important than the bottom line than the ability of insurance companies or whoever to like make as much money as possible exactly and that said with trump's second term i was a little fucking taken abacking that all of a sudden there were massed ice agents on the streets and as aggressive as they were immediately, I was like, holy shit. This is so fat. You know, he hit the ground running with this shit. And that took me a little bit like, oh, my God, you know, that's unbelievable. But I mean,

this stuff is coming to a head, right? I mean, it's got to it's got to with with the genocide in Gaza um you know globally uh this kind of oppression going on I mean what is going to happen with the climate breakdown is there's going to be so many climate refugees I mean how will this you know affect my sets at the improv or the comedy store I'm wondering you know like no but seriously like like that's my big thing is like how do how do i expose or put this stuff uh to audiences in a way that kind of awakens the dormant people you know or awakens them and and just as an in your face thing i mean that's what i do it for it's cathartic to me you know um i realized that a lot of my

is from my Sicilian dad. And I'm kind of channeling him. And he kind of gave up. He kind of gave up like when he was like 60. He started watching fucking CNN and MSNBC and becoming one of those kind of shitlibs, you know? But you said like, but he was the one he sort of like politicized you that gave you, you know, like he was a union leader.

Like what do you think was like the process that led to? Is it just aging? Is it just sort of? of you can only sort of stomach so many defeats before you just figure, hey, why not just, you know, can't beat him, join him. Yeah. Yeah. I think for me, you know, they say aging kind of melanchu.

It has not true with me. I know. I just watch the special. Yeah. I mean, it is just not true with me. Even though I'm one of these guys, I don't know if I've talked about this in the special or not, but I'm one of these guys who drives around LA. listening to the power of now.

What's the power of now? Wait, wait, what's that? You've never heard it. No, no. Oh, wow. We're on different, like, spiritual planes. It's Eckartol. Have you heard of Eckartal?

And it's all about this coming into the now, you know, Buddhism. It's basically Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, which I try to use to, like, get some kind of grounding. It's all about breathing. You know, meditation. It's all about breathing. Rooting yourself because, you know, if you keep following all this, all the stuff that's going on, right? And you just start thinking, thinking, thinking.

And it's just a rabbit hole and kind of breathing and feeling your body and yoga, stuff like that is a way to kind of come down. but for me it's a way to recharge so I can go back out there to quote unquote wake people up or to like rage against the fucking oligarchy, you know. But with my dad, I feel like he just had some setbacks in his personal life. You know, he wanted me to be a dentist. He gave me a Novakain needle when I was 10. like as a birthday present, a molar-shaped desk, all this shit. He wanted me to be like a medic, like, he wanted me to have a great job.

And I remember, I think I broke him when I told him I was dropping out of Fordham University. And I'm saying, I'm going to study acting him. And he just, he just looked at me like, leave. Just leave the room. He wasn't. But I won him back. I don't know if he was some of the documentary about me called A Bitterbooter, but I won him back with later in his life with my stand-up.

He came to a big show at the Gotham Comedy Club and I killed. And when I got a stage, he was like, and we caught this on film. He was like, you had them eating out of your hand. That's great. That's awesome. Yeah. Victory achieved, finally. In your career as a comedian,

I touch on this at the beginning in terms of like politics and comedy, because sometimes it's like oil and water. Do you think that the expectations that audiences have of comedians now have changed? Do you find that they want political instruction from comedians or are they rejecting that? This is what I think. I think you have to be skillful in presenting it to audiences and funny. And my buddy Pat Nosswald, who executive produced, he said to me, one thing I never forget is that my first job is to be funny. And I agree with that.

You know, if you're going to be a comedian, you kind of, you remember Lenny Bruce at the end of his life. He was just reading transcripts. Yeah. Right? He was reading fucking transcripts from court proceedings. It'd be funny if I just went up there reading like eviction. notices that I've been getting. You know, folks,

before, hello, Durham, North Carolina. Good to see you. But I just got this eviction notice and just listen to this wording. You know what I mean? But I, you know, I have a couple of bits that I'm very proud of, like, as far as, like, being political and funny at the same time. I do this bit. I don't know if you've seen it where I go.

I'm very left-wing. I'm way to the left of Bernie Sanders. I'm super left-wing. But I also have a guilty pleasure. I like game shows. And I would like to see my politics bleed into game shows. For instance, I would like to see some woman from Oklahoma on the prices right have to guess the price of the Iraq war instead of a toaster. And the curtain comes up and it's just carnage, you know, real life industrial warfare. And she's jumping up and down going, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. And the audience is like, $8 billion a day, $8 billion. And she's like, does that include Afghanistan?

All right, with Afghanistan. I wrote it a while ago, so it was all those wars that were going on back then. Does that include Afghanistan? With Afghanistan, $50 billion. What about the other proxy wars? Ukraine, Syria, Libya. Gaza, okay, all the wars, let's call it $2 trillion a day. I don't know.

Did we ever shut down Guantanamo? You know, stuff like that. I say it turns out the woman from Oklahoma very well read. Like, I mean, it's, you know, like, beginning with like Lenny Bruce, Carolyn, Hicks, people we've talked about, like, it's been assumed for a long time that comedians and political comedians have been like the province of the left or I guess more probably like like a liberal point of view but like that that's changed that's changed a lot over the last like 10 20 years in that like I think there are a lot of comedians now that are political comedians but they're but they're

from the right or they're from aren't they disgusting now yeah you ever see a right winger try to be funny a right wing comedian like this guy gut gutfield is it oh yeah good great gutfeld yeah I don't was he ever was he ever a comedian I I guess he tried to be a comedian. I think he was. I either knew him or his brother. They were actors. I don't know, but.

Well, I think a lot of these right-wing entertainers are failed actors and comedians. Like, they gave it one year of trying to, like, make it big. Didn't work out. Or a few years. Yeah, yeah. But now they have this sort of like an audience that's like a habit trail that

will just like, you know, like like hamsters that will just like go to that water bottle and like, you know, because because they feel. underserved and like it's it's it's it's sort of like it's it's it's it's less of a free market. I feel it's like there's a lot of the sort of juiced incentives for a right wing audience because like if you just say the words they want to hear, you just like oh absolutely. I just I just don't like those guys have no fucking um awareness of class. You know, class struggle. They have zero, you know, awareness of class struggle.

And what they kind of focus on is the. woke stuff. You know, these comics are telling us what to do. Meanwhile, people's health care is getting taken away from them. You know, there's no due process for people. People are getting disappeared and they're like talking about we can't say the word retarded. You know what I mean?

Like, that's their big fucking thing. It's funny you said that they don't have a class consciousness. But I think a lot of the woke culture war stuff is a right wing attempt to kind of like engage in class warfare. because like they would say that like what wokeness or woke ideology or sort of like pronouns not being able to say retard that these are the province of an American upper class that is liberal that is being censorious and sort of like you know like using their power to oppress in some way like the authentic working class voices who you know like want to be racist and say retarded and you know be you know just uh yeah rude and crude and fun yeah that is true um That is definitely true, but I feel like they, you know, particularly right-wing comedians, you know, their thing is just to like build an audience. I mean, again, it goes back to your point about people just want to sell.

So they like see this, you know, Maga crowd or Rogan crowd, whatever, as just this big market to like be tapped. and they they they tap it and that's why you know my following is a very niche following we like our we like our meat sliced very thin you know in my following like just you know the thin prosciutto well you bring that up any but aren't you a vegan yeah i'm on and off on and off yes but i'm getting back to it now it was tough because i had a i had major surgery and i was told by my surgeon to eat intense protein. You know, I told him I was vegan.

He said to recover, I had an incision that went hip to hip, not to brag. I'm sure you'll get there eventually. And so I went back. That is impressive. Yeah, it was a great incision. I didn't even need it. It was elective. I was like, you know what?

Let's do it. But yeah. So, you know, because vegan for me, is also besides, you know, I bring it up because, like, vegan, like, that's a punchline for, like, right-wing comedies or right-wing politicians, like being a vegan, you know, like the soy eaters or whatever.

But, like, you know, I say this is someone who's not even a vegetarian. Like, I eat meat, but like, I am convinced that, like, in 100 years from now, like, that's going to be thought of as, like, a fairly morally, I don't know, blind thing to have just, I don't know, not, just because it's part of the culture,

It's how you were raised that like you, you just kind of go along with it. Like, so I have conflicted feelings, but like, oh, yeah, it's very, it's not easy. It's not easy to do. I mean, I used to go to, uh, you know, Kansas City, like looking for a cucumber sandwich or something. You know what I mean? It's like, and everybody around you is eating prime rib or whatever and you're like, holy shit, you know, um, but what I want to say is that, you know, I really got into it for the animal activism, like, you know, getting into the slaughterhouse videos.

You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. You know, every night before I would go to sleep, I would watch a slaughterhouse video just to kind of put me out. A lot of people, a lot of people listen to rain. I listen to the screaming. No, but I mean, they're brutal industries to animals. Yeah, like, the idea that, like, having compassion, for other living things.

I mean, like, how did that become such a punchline? Because I really feel that, like, the less, the less compassion that you have for living things other than human beings, like the likelihood that you're going to have, not have compassion for actual living human beings is that greatly increased. Absolutely. You know? Yeah, I always say my feed on Instagram is I go from these, you know,

I post these horrific things about Gaza. and then I will do a pallet cleanser, you know, on Instagram stories or whatever. I'll do a pallet cleanser of a possum eating a potato. You know what I mean? And that's my feed. I have curated my Instagram, so it is all possums eating potatoes. Because, like, you know, I'm on fucking, I'm on fucking Twitter or more or less professionally. And that is a 24-7 madness inducer.

It is an insanity engine. So I make sure. sure that my Instagram reels are just yeah like badgers sniffing around seals and then and then occasionally like I get a lot of interviews from like other like actors talking about how they kick drugs and alcohol I don't know why Instagram's recommending those videos to me but yeah I I want to say this too and this this bugs me no end as far as veganism is why don't scientists and why don't all these people who report on the climate breakdown mentioned methane. They're always talking about fossil fuels,

right? That leads to greenhouse gas warming, global warming. But methane that is produced on these factory farms are even worse than the fossil fuels, you know? And it is trapping, you know, more heat. And nobody, I don't understand it, that they don't talk about. about that. And my idol, my idol politically, who I've been following, reading all his books as Chris Hedges, I just feel like this guy stands out there with all this integrity. It's almost hilarious at this point. Like it used to be him and Chomsky. I love Chomsky too, but Chomsky has disappeared. I think Chomsky is going to be on the Golden Bachelor this year. I'm not sure. That would be funny.

That would be fantastic. I would love to see Chomsky. I was thinking to do in a sketch like that. Yeah, yeah. You know, like he's meeting these women who are just, you know, talking about, you know, how hot he is. And he's like saying, I just want to talk to you about UN Resolution 5, 618 instead of kissing, if you don't mind. You know, Chomsky on the Golden Bachelor.

Yeah, on a date, just reminding all the dates that, you know, if you read the business press, like the Financial Times, actually the capitalist class is quite honest about what they're doing. That's where you get the truth. Yeah, yeah. And they'll be like, I don't care about the business press. What I care is that you press your clothes, you know, and don't look as rumpled. I mean, why are you such let go with a professor thing? Oh, I'm 95 and not feeling well. But what was they saying about hedges?

He turned vegan. And I was like, ah, so Chris finally went vegan, which, you know, I mean, just as far as climate sustainability, it's a big thing. You know, it's a very big. I mean, I did see recently that Texas, the state of Texas has just passed a law that essentially pre-bans any form of lab grown meat being sold in Texas. And like, the lab grown meat thing is so fascinating to me because it's just like, well, if there is like an alternative that creates like, you know, an equivalent of animal.

base protein that is more or less the same thing that doesn't have the you know uh horrific side effects associated with you know like the mass slaughter of you know cattle for instance or the or not even the slaughter of the raising and keeping of cattle um and like in terms of water and methane and things like that what like i mean and if you still enjoy eating meat like what's the what's the problem i'll eat lab grown meat i don't care like but it's just like it's the preemptive blocking of a possible alternative because the concept that like you could eat a steak in which like an animal wasn't slaughtered for it is like offensive in somewhere well because they're all invested in in in cattle you know yeah they don't watch the instagram videos of cow of cows playing with balls

you know there's a lot of instagram videos that show or videos just showing cows being super playful which I never even knew. You know, a lot of cows are playing I go seek, hide and seek. They're playing different board games. I don't know if you know a lot of cattle are into shoots and letters. Just stop me when I'm reaching for humor

and it's not hitting. Not yet. You got a green light all the way, Eddie. Well, we've been talking about like comedy and wokeness. So I wanted to share an article with you. from the other week that I very much enjoyed. And I just wanted to get your thoughts on it. The headline, this is from foxnews.com,

and the headline is, Billy Joel tells Bill Marr, he's over what woke people think of him. Are you a fan of the Bill Maher podcast? You're a fan of new rules and real time. Oh, God. You know, I used to like Marr when he first came on the scene.

I thought, oh, this guy is kind of in your face. And boy, is he, become a real first of all he's an arrogant prick he's just an arrogant guy the couple of times I met him he's just like he's kind of dismissive like who the fuck are you and but his politics on Gaza is yeah his it's just like that is you know what a fucking idiot well I mean we had Larry Charles on we we talked about because Larry worked with him on a religion oh that's right yeah yeah and I love Larry.

No, and like, you know, obviously Larry has, you know, been taking a stand against where some of his former collaborators have gone, particularly on the issue of Palestine. But like, like, his whole thing is like atheism. Like religion is stupid. God doesn't exist. But he did give Israel to the Jews who just like, what? Like. Yeah. I don't know about trace being around the country, talking to different people, how God doesn't exist.

is helpful. I get the, you know, I get the fact that people can become religious elots. But I was always, I have a bit about what the hell does an existential, you know, atheist church have to offer? Like, what is an atheist healer? Come on up. And someone comes up and they put their hand on him and they just go, what's your problem? And they're like, I can't walk. And they just put the hand on the head of the atheist healer and goes, it's going to get worse. And you are going to be a burden to your family. You're going to die alone in the Mark Twain Hotel. Do you know that hotel?

It's in Hollywood. It's horrible. It's horrible. You're just going to have a hot plate watching Neil de Grassee Tyson talk about how there is no Santa Claus. Yeah. But I really don't like more on so many levels, you know? Yeah. So many levels.

Well, I mean, like, you know, he's, he's been at the forefront of, you know, like, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the wokeness backlash. And he doesn't, he doesn't like, doesn't like millennials, because, you know, we're too woke. And so, but, but now, now he's, he's, he's found somebody's simpatico in Billy Joel. And I just want to read a little of this article. Uh, it says, legendary musician, Billy Joel told Bill Maher, he doesn't care if the far left complains about his statements or music anymore. During the latest episode of Mara's club random podcast, released Monday, the two discussed the woke left's reaction to anything it disagrees with, with Joel admitting he is over being concerned

about what that group thinks of him. I mean, I didn't know Billy Joel was being targeted by like the left wing in this country or live or lib, libitards or, you know. Like,

are there social Democrats going? Have you listened to New York state of mind? Or Brenda, Brenda and Eddie? It's bullshit. It's, well, they get into so like what this article claims.

It says, at this point, I'm a nerd to it, Joel said and replied to Marr asking if he doesn't care if woke people criticize him any longer. Mar brought up woke outrage while talking to Joel about his 1976 song, Angry Young Man. In the song Joel sings, I believe I've passed the age of consciousness and righteous rage. I found that just surviving was a noble fight. I once believed in causes too. I had my pointless point of view and life went on no matter who was right or wrong. What was this outrage over this song?

like yeah yeah well you know i did have a problem with that when i saw when i saw him at madison square garden a couple years ago if i had known he wrote those lyrics in a song in nineteen 76 i never would have gone okay i didn't know i was supporting i didn't know i was supporting fascism yeah that's funny i mean i did have a problem with that song a little bit because i was like what do you mean i can't i can't protest i can't be angry like because survived is difficult. You know, I'll tell you why survival is difficult

is because Black Rock is buying up all the real estate, Mr. Joel. No, but yeah, yeah, that to me is hilarious that Billy Joe feels besieged. Well, like, I watched this interview, and the thing is, I don't think Billy Joel does.

Yeah, yeah, I watched it. I don't think Billy Joel does feel besieged by the woke censoriousness. I think he's just kind of like trying to have a conversation with Bill Maher and giving him nothing or giving him. the bare minimum to like, you know,

just like get to the end of it. It says, with help from Joel, Marr recited the lyrics and commented, I feel like this is the message of the age, even though some people will hear that and say, look at these two assholes. Boomers, Joel chimed in,

mocking an insult often lobbed at older generations. The host continued, noting how mad leftists get when people don't declare Trump's the worst. Well, I mean, Eddie, you started the show. You didn't say Trump's the worst. You said, it's it's all our fault that he's fucking president again yeah yeah yeah yeah i yeah i think i think on that podcast i what did i see i always love watching uh who's really growing on me is bill burr

like bill burr bill burr well not only is bill just flat out it's hilarious yeah he just he yeah he just makes great points about different things. And he would just call Marr out on his bullshit if you've seen that. I have seen an episode. Yeah. Wasn't that great? Yeah. Hey, you're here, you know, doing his Boston.

Oh, you're like a little league coach here. You know, like I just love the way. And Burr got like they were trying to, they were trying, they were trying, the media was trying to go after Burr about saying something about Mangione. Oh, yeah. I don't. Every time I see him interviewed now, he bigs up Luigi for killing that CEO. And he's like, we need a couple more of that. He says free Luigi every time I see him on an interview.

Yeah, yeah. And they were talking about some people are like claiming that this shooter in Manhattan was going. Oh, yeah. I was going to bring that up like more or less accidentally shot that like one of the heads of like Black Rock's like landlord division. And like I'm not making this. Like I didn't make this joke. some of several people who put it out that like you want to talk about new york city that's how evil new york city is that you can more or less randomly do a mass shooting trying to kill someone

else and accidentally kill the head of black black rocks real estate fucking division oh my god that's very funny if you do a random shooting in new york you're you're definitely especially on park cabin well i was like i was saying about that this guy was trying to kill people in the nfl head office Yes, yes. And I, you know, I'm an NFL fan, you know. Yeah, me too. As a man, you are too. Yeah, yeah, who's your team, Betty? Jets or Giants? It's the Giants. Me too, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I always look at my, my sports addiction.

I'm a big hockey New York Rangers. I'm a big New York Giants and New York Yankees. My sports addiction has a big conflict with my corporate criticism. it's a big conflict because the NFL, for instance, has become a commercial for the military. Oh, yeah. And one bit I do is I say to the audience, I hate when they, you know, it's become a commercial for the military. And I hate when they fly these, you know, F-14 bombers overhead stadiums. And the announcers always like, ladies and gentlemen, flying overhead or F-14 bombers from Fort Bragg. And I go, I wish they would tell the.

like ladies and gentlemen flying overhead or F-14 bombers from Fort Bragg. Each one of these bombers could be 50 libraries in your community. You could have free healthcare, free daycare. You could have an infrastructure that's not falling apart. But instead, all you have is a manifestation of imperialistic evil, enjoy the game, you fucking sheep. Well, here's the thing, Eddie. I don't like when politics are getting put in sports.

I think people leave their political and just leave their political opinions at the door, stand for the national anthem and look at a nuclear bomber fly over the Super Bowl. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. But it's so funny that I, you know, I ignore sometimes the politics. You remember that whole thing with Kaepernet. Oh, yeah. You know, taking a knee and whatnot. Yeah. And these, you know, white owners were like, This is disgusting.

How the fucking this guy do this? Does Billy Joel know about this? Well, I'm glad to hear this from you, Eddie, because I too sometimes have to confront and then immediately compartmentalize all of my publicly stated political beliefs and stances with rooting for the New York Yankees, which is, I'm sorry, not going to change. Same.

Yeah. Same. And people have always told, as a matter of fact, I've heard a bunch of things. Like every team in professional sports. It's like, it's all the owners. All the owners are the same people.

Yeah. Yeah, right. But they really, I remember my friend years ago, he used to say, it's like rooting for U.S. Steel. What are you doing? You know, when U.S. Steel was a company that was big. Like, how can you root for the Yankees? And I'm like, have you seen their rotation? Their pitching staff is fucking horrible.

Routing for the Yankees is the worst. I know. We haven't won a World Series in like 15. fucking nearest. The injustice of that it sickens me. It's too long. It's a little worse than climate breakdown. Like, why have it? You know.

Sorry, just to get to the end of the the Bill Maher, Billy Joel piece. It says and don't you care what they say about you? The woke, Mar asked. At this point, no, the musician replied. But like, what I like about that is like, if you have someone in Billy Joel's position, do you care what anyone says about you? Like, you've won. Like, yeah, you're.

You won. You've won. Like, Well, I think you nailed it. I think you nailed it when you said he's trying to give Marr something. Like, what are they going to talk about? You know what I mean? Like, who were Brendan and Eddie?

You know that song, right? Yeah, of course. And Eddie were the, were they real people? Like, I don't know. Hey, you know, when Anthony moved out of his mother's house, what, like, you know, because you're, what are the, have you ever moved out from somewhere? Could you, could you tell some moving stories that inspired that song, Billy? And he's Mr. New York, supposedly, Billy Joel, right?

Well, he's actually, Mr. Long Island is really what he is. That's what he is, though. But he did the longest residency at Madison Square Garden. I know. And, like, they put his, they gave him a banner in Madison Square Garden for, like, how many shows he's done at MSG. And I'm thinking, like, the long eye, like, the New York State troopers who patrol the Long Island Expressway should have a banner raised up in the precinct for how many times he's driven drunk.

Oh, shit. As he. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, he takes a helicopter into MSG now to avoid to avoid any any problems operating a vehicle. It's kind of like me. When I used to drive to San Francisco, I was not drinking, but I, I would speed. And I got nailed for speeding tickets like I would drive from L.A. to San Francisco.

like, I think I got speeding tickets back to back trips. And I was like, it's a 45 minute flight, Eddie. Let's just do the flight instead of the four-and-a-half-hour drive through Kow Schwitz. Oh, yeah. You want to talk about fucking becoming a vegetarian man. When I, the first time I drove past that Central Valley drive from L.A. San Francisco, it felt like the fucking end of the world to me, man. End of the world.

Grim. Yeah. End of the world. That's why I think people love San Francisco. Francisco so much when you're driving you finally come to life when you see the city of San Francisco. It's like six hours that just looks like the fucking surface of Mars. Yes. Agriculture is just, oh, there's like sometimes you see like a person like working in one of

these fields, but for the most part it is denuded of all life. It is really dramatic. Denuded of all life. It's just the worst. Yeah. Yeah. It's just getting to the end here. It says, uh, it's a, it's, so difficult in this day and age, Marr replied. Mark continued, I mean, is what I'm always trying to do on my show. It is, look, this is one safe space for everyone and I will take keep from either, both sides. I mean, I do feel like the left, who ironically, I'm actually more aligned with, is more snippy about it and has a worse attitude about it and it makes me viscerally not like them some more sometimes. Elsewhere, the two discussed how social media makes political outrage worse. People say things all the time on social media. They would never say if they had to say it to your face, Marr said.

I'm just always surprises me how people they express this hatred, Joel responded. It's like you hate a musician because he wrote something. It's like, I don't think, no one, no one hates Billy Joel. I know. They hate Bill Maher. They don't hate Billy Joel. Right.

I mean, start a group. But Eddie, I got to tell you, really, the highlight of this interview came. Yeah. When it's not covered in the Fox News article, but on this club random episode, Bill Maher pitched Billy Joel on a song idea he had and he said he said of eyes like I wrote this song and he said like I've always wanted to like do something with it but the song is about an age gap relationship and people being judged because of an inappropriate age gap and I wanted to do a song about that and like

and Joel is he's giving him nothing he's just like he's like oh okay I even had a good premise I had a title it's called The World Makes Us Lie Okay that's a good premise It is because it was about someone in a relationship with someone who the world deemed age inappropriate. I don't know where I got the idea. And that could be more universal than that. The world does make us lie about things. I agree.

She's 20 and I'm 60. The thing is like there have been a lot of songs along those lines. You know, like she was only 16. That was a song. Oh, right. Right. Yeah. I think that's hilarious that that Marl is trying to justify his age gap relationships through Billy Till and he didn't bite. It'd be like, you know who Mar would never have on his show is Roger Waters, who is a hero of mine. Oh, yeah. He doesn't back down on Israel. Like, and he's taking a lot of shit for that.

Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, ahead of the curve, man. I got to say, I've never liked Radiohead and I've never felt more vindicated from that. I liked one of their songs, you know, I forget which one, but I would use to, I would cry to it in my car, which I do a lot with Van Morrison. I find that in L.A. you have to, you know, you weep in your car in L.A. You live in L.A.? No, I live in Brooklyn. You are? Yeah, yeah.

Oh, you don't know. I grew up in Manhattan. But I live in Brooklyn now. But I'm in L.A. quite frequently. I'm in Clinton Hill. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love it.

Anyway, being in L.A., it's a certain type of dystopia, you know. In New York, people cry on the streets, but here in L.A., you have to cry in your car. Yeah. It's, you know, the car is like, it's your little bubble. You're captain of the universe until you hit traffic. Until you hit traffic. Yeah, yeah, I like doing a bit about how I'm very upbeat in the car when they, you know, when there's no traffic. And then as soon as I hit traffic, I'm like, oh, I really fucked my life up, didn't I?

By not staying with medicine and dentistry. It's like, no, but like, when I think about cars and like America is like the premier car culture of the world, right? We haven't, like, even if we wanted to build, like, $10 trillion worth of high speed rail tomorrow, which we should. The fact of the matter is, like, we spent, like, a hundred years making the infrastructure of everything in this country, just entirely dependent on cars. So it's very hard for me to imagine the way out of that.

And I think, like, a lot of that is, like, because America's such a big country, there's this vastness, this openness. And, like, with a car, you have this, like, at least, theoretically, you have this, like, ultimate freedom of transit and motion and sort of acceleration. And like, yeah, like you're driving a nice day. You got the window open. You really feel like this is what freedom feels like.

And then you hit traffic and you're like, I feel like a fucking rat. Like I feel like a fucking insect. Like totally. You're, you're, you immediately like look around and say, I'm not different than any of these assholes who were stuck on the 405 south with me. Why didn't I fly out of Burbank? Why do I still go? LAX. Yeah.

Yeah. I think a lot of like the rage that comes from driving comes from like, you know, the commute to work and from being in traffic. And I think like being in traffic forces like this very individualistic American mindset to confront the fact that your time and your life is in fact no more or less important than anyone else's. And I think that causes people immense frustration and anger a lot of times. Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely. And, you know, the public transportation, one thing I love about New York City, because I go back there a lot lately, is jump on the subway, you know? It's like easy. Well, it's like when you arrive at your destination, you can just get out. You can just walk away. Whereas with the car, you have just like, oh, here's three tons of steel I need to account for. Yeah. But also the public transportation here in Los Angeles is terrible.

It's just terrible. you know, the subways or they don't go many places, you know, it's super, super dangerous, you know, even more than New York, you know. It's just, it's the transportation system, like you said, it's all been based around highways and cars out here, you know. Well, Eddie, I think we got to, we got to wrap it up here. But like I said, you have a new, you have a new special out right now. It's called the collapse. I watched it. It's extremely funny. It's classic. It's classic pepaton. It's classic pepaton. If you have, for anyone out there is already a fan of yours. But if, if people want to see the special, if you want to get your stuff, where should they go? Yeah, they could, they could go to veeps, vips.com slash any pepaton. You can make, you can pay 12 bucks for it and you get it for seven days. Or you could like do a subscription to VEPS, which has all this stuff on it and have it on.

limited. And then I'm going to, after about a couple of months, I'm going to put it on YouTube. So that's, yeah, the collapse I call it. And it, you know, the society's collapse mirrors my own collapse. You know, I, I, you know, in preparing for the show, I did find an article from the Boston Globe years ago that said that like, Eddie Pepitone's time has finally arrived. And it only took the total collapse of society. Yes. Yes. Yes. I get kidding about that with my friends. Yeah. But thank you so much, Will, for the interview.

Well, thank you, Eddie. Like I said, I've been a fan for a long time. So really nice to have you on the show. Great. Take care of guys. Cheers, everybody. Bye, bye-bye.