Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 481: Aida Rodriguez

Episode Date: December 12, 2021

Aida Rodriguez, hilarious and inspiring comedian, joins the DTFH! Check out Aida's new HBO Max comedy special, Fighting Words. Available now! Original music by Aaron Michael Goldberg. This episode is brought to you by: Liquid IV - Use code DUNCAN at checkout for 25% Off your first order! BetterHelp - Visit betterhealth.com/duncan to find a great counselor and get 10% off of your first month of counseling! StoryWorth - Visit StoryWorth.com/Duncan and receive $10 off your first purchase!

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podcast. Welcome. We've got a great episode for you today. But before we jump into it, might I invite you to join my Patreon? It's at patreon.com forward slash DTFH. Also, I've got some dates coming up. I'm going to be performing in Austin

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Now, everybody, today's guest is so inspiring and so funny. If you aren't already aware of her, I'm so excited that I get to introduce you to her. She's got a wonderful new comedy special on HBO Max. It's called Fighting Words. I hope you'll watch it. But first, I hope you'll listen to this conversation. Everybody, welcome.

For the first time, hopefully not the last, to the DTFH, Ida Rodriguez. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome on you, that you are with us. Shake hands. Don't be too blue. Welcome to you.

La-la-la-la-la-la. It's the Duncan Castle video. Castle, castle, castle, castle, castle, castle, castle. Ida, welcome to the DTFH. The DTFH, it's so cool to meet you. Oh, nice to meet you too. Thank you for having me. You know, I gotta say, you know, my favorite comics, George Carlin, Richard Pryor, what I love about them is they're alchemists.

You know this, but they transform, they're so good at turning some of their life experiences into something funny that somehow you can forget when you're watching them. You know, they've been through something so brutal. They're almost too good at it. Almost too good at it. You know what I mean? Because you're laughing at Pryor talking about getting his skin, his like, skin like, shaved off or whatever when he was burnt.

Carlin talking about his wife screaming with cancer. I'm watching you and I'm thinking, my God, I would be in a curled up in a ball somewhere if I went through some of this stuff you went through. And so my first question to you is, I can see that this is a kind of beautiful, powerful therapy that you're doing successfully because I don't like it when comics are doing the just the therapy part, but it's not funny. You know what I mean? Don't mind, but you're making it brilliantly funny.

But I got to ask you offstage, how are you working through this stuff? So I thank you. First of all, Carlin and Pryor are my heroes. Those are the best comedians that ever lived hands down in my opinion. Yes. And I, those are the people that inspire me all the time. Honestly, the way that I deal with a lot of this stuff came to me later is I'm in therapy. You know, I do a lot.

I meditate. I do a lot of, yeah. And I read this book by Louise Hay about healing and I sat down and I started doing some of the exercises, which was really weird. I did this. It's right here. It's called You Can Heal Your Life. But it's like a book that I really work. But there's an exercise in that book that you go back to little you.

And I had never done that before. I think I was afraid to do that. And I went back and I visited with little me and I thought that it was bogus. I was like, this is, this is some, you know, whatever trash. And I cried like a baby, just allowing, forgiving myself for thinking that a lot of the things that happened to me when I was a kid was my own fault. And just giving myself grace, but also letting that little girl know that she was going to come out on the other side and be okay. And I don't know what happened that day, but honestly, I think that that has been something that's been very instrumental in my healing. And I practice forgiveness daily.

Some people tell me I'm a sucker. Like I'm a, you know, like I'm kind of weak for that. But I think it makes me stronger not to walk around holding anger for what other people should be accountable for. And it just, forgiveness has been really, really empowering for me. How, how do you, how do you do it? How do you forgive? Oh, it's practice. Like I sit down and I write about it.

I write it in a journal. I say it into the mirror. I say it out loud so that my subconscious can pick it up. It's a process. It's not like me saying, I forgive you and it's over, but it really has been Mike's husband, the father of my children who didn't take care of his kids for a great amount of time. And then blamed me for my geographic setting as the reason for why he didn't do what he was supposed to do, which that would make me so angry at the time. Yeah. Just forgiving him just gave me freedom and, and realizing and acceptance like acceptance is always a big thing for me because that's where we, that's where it gets tricky for us.

Because when we don't accept things, we continuously try to adjust them, try to fix them. Right. And I was like, he's not going to show up and I have to accept that this is my journey. My journey is as a single mom, I'm going to have to do this task. And he's not going to pay child support and he's not going to show up and you have to accept that. And it took me years to accept that because I was just like, but why? And like, how could you just travel? And when I finally said, this is my journey.

This is what I'm supposed to do. I'm supposed to show up. My life got so much easier. Wow. I just don't, I can't, there are, you know, I've been thinking about forgiveness a lot. And, you know, it's something everyone says, forgive, forgive, forgive. But, and I think a lot of people think they've forgiven just because they've sort of casually thought, well, I don't care about that person anymore. But I can't, some people, I can't let go.

I mean, not like I'm like stalking them. Not like I'm sending them like dove heads in the mail or anything like that. But just like, it's like they're stuck in my mind a little bit. They float around it in there and then appear sometimes at like 2am where I'm thinking, what a motherfucker. And this, but so, so. For you to hook when you're forgiven. So that's, that's the thing that I had to learn because forgiveness is for you. Right.

So I forgive you. That does not mean in any way that I will continue a relationship with you that I will engage you that I will, I'm not here to alleviate your guilt. That is all for me. And so that was what I had to learn because I always thought, you know, I was, I was a victim of sexual abuse when I was a child. So when I, when people would talk about forgiveness because I grew up in this like super religious, complicated religious setting that was weird because there was all drugs going, all kinds of stuff. But they will always tell us. Sorry, what was the religion? So my family was, they traveled from being Pentecostal and landed at being seven day Adventist.

Wow. So you know that you're always being told to forgive. If God can forgive you, you can forgive. But that sends mixed messages to a kid when somebody's doing something bad to them because they're obligated to forgive them. Oh God. What a mess. Yeah. Right.

So for me, it was like, um, I had to learn that forgiveness, the version of forgiveness that I've accepted is my me forgiving you has nothing to do with you. It's only mine. And it's just for me to free myself and forgiveness. It has so much to do with me accepting that the things that happened to me were not my fault for giving myself and then letting that person go. Um, but I will never, ever look at their face again. I don't, I don't engage people who, who I believe mean me no well. I don't care if we share name, blood, I don't, I don't want to be around those people. Right.

Do you think you can forgive someone and simultaneously still be angry at them? Absolutely. Maybe that's where I misunderstood it. Maybe because my version of forgiveness is I don't have any hard feelings for the person anymore. No, no, no forgiveness is, I mean, for me, I believe it has so much to do with yourself. Because a lot of the times when we hold on to stuff, we're angry that we let that happen to us, that we didn't catch it, that we didn't, we didn't figure it out. And for me, it's like, you know what, the universe will handle you and it always does. You know, like, I don't, it's not my job.

Right. Vengeance is mine, say it the Lord. That's right. Now, but tell me a little bit about, you mean like Christian Pentecostal, like snake handling? Well, I mean, I never saw that, but yes, that type of Christian. It was a holy ghost, you know. Speaking in tongues. Speaking in tongues.

A lot of stuff happening that was very complicated and difficult for me to understand. You know, people would speak in tongues that scared me as a kid. Yeah. Or as a child that didn't understand it. Then I thought something was wrong with me because it didn't happen to me. And so I didn't know that, you know, in some cases that is just mass hysteria. And I was just like to, I was like, maybe God doesn't love me because I don't do it. Oh, wow.

It's so sad that, you know, you have this, the story of the Pentecost is so intense and beautiful. The fire, the tongues of fire on their head and they could speak all the languages of the world. I mean, symbolically, metaphorically, oh my God, it's like the most beautiful thing. But then in practice, you hear these stories like what you're saying, you know, of abuse of children who are completely scrambled by the pressure parents are putting on them to sort of give up their rational mind. And oh, it's really can war people in the most intense way.

Are you still religious? Do you still pray or go to church? I still pray. I don't, I don't go to church right now. I don't have a church home. I still pray. I believe in the most high. I do believe in the most high at that.

And I just, I arrived at another place where I was like, I'm not going to let other people because, because we say the Bible says that God made man in his image, but man has made God in his image. And so we sit down and talk to people who would are always speaking on behalf of God. And my mom is one of them, oh, God is going to punish you. God doesn't like God. Don't like ugly. You hear it all the time.

And I'm like, how you know you a mere man in perfect. I didn't tell me that the, the infinite intelligence, the most high of us all is that petty. That is worrying about, you know, you being snarky. Like this, that for me is just incomprehensible and it doesn't connect with what is in my heart and soul or in my mind. And I do believe that praising and believing in God, the most high, infinite intelligence, whatever it is for you, Jet Jeshua, it is an intellectual process. And to say that it's not, it's insulting to what the most high is.

And that's why where we, where we split, because people will say, oh, it's, it's here. And I'm like, now it's here too. Because what I'm able to do, and I have domain on this planet over all the other creatures means that it, there's some form of intelligence that went into that. So why would I, why would I forsake that in my decision making process? I think that's ungodlike. And so, yeah. I want to thank Liquid IV for supporting this episode of the DTFH.

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That to me is the creepiest thing when people are inviting you to abandon your intellect and usually the way they do it is very flowery. Just listen to your heart, blah, blah, blah. You're wrong. Your instincts and all the intuitions telling you that you're getting inducted into a cult. That's just your mind. Listen to your heart. Yeah.

That's how people get. I love that. In Buddhism, the idea is there's no faith here. It's a process. It's a system. It doesn't matter if you understand it. You have to practice it. They call it picking it up.

You have to take it up. And so I think sometimes people get lazy and they imagine, okay, I have some sort of vague belief in something bigger than me. That's enough. I love that you're saying you use your intellect, but what does that look like? You mean like when you're approaching some scripture or something, don't be afraid to deconstruct it or pull it apart. Yeah, I'm not afraid to deconstruct it.

And I also read all the books, all these doctrine books. I don't just read the Bible. I've read the Koran. I've read the Torah. I've read all of the books because if you read the Kabbalah, if you read all of those books, you'll find the common theme and it's like the universal laws, right? Because if you look, they're universal laws. Even when you think about money, money is an energy, right?

Because it's a piece of paper and we've assigned the value to it. So it's energy, right? That we have given power to, right? We choose what we give power to and we sit around and think about a lot of these things. For me, it's like, what is the common thread in all of this? And the common thread is you obey the universal laws, right? Whether you're tithing to a church or you take money from all the money that you make and you make sure that some people eat or that some people have a sweater or socks

because it keeps you balanced as a human being. So maybe I'm not tithing to these big churches where the pastors are driving Bentley's but I do make sure that I invest in helping people who don't have what I have because I feel like that is following the universal laws, right? And whether in the Bible it's tithing and alms to the poor in Koran, it all means the same thing. It's like, it keeps you balanced and human to take from all that you have and be able to help somebody else.

And that doesn't do anything but make you feel better as a human being and it completes the cycle of humanity for me. So I read all those books and I take from all of them because I think that they've all been polluted and they've been tainted by the hunger for power and money, the greed for power and money. So if you remove all of that, you'll see that the common thing is to obey universal laws.

It's not cool to murder people because you want to control and you want power. Like all of that stuff is just common sense and we don't need anybody to tell us what's right or wrong. The center, the people who don't have that, there's something, they have issues, right? There's some balances, some chemical imbalances. You know, nobody, you don't need a man in a suit to tell you as you hand him over your paycheck

that you can't, you know what's right or wrong. It's just, to me, it's just like, we all have it and you have to stay connected to that if you want to have a fulfilled life. Have you ever heard the Mark Twain quote, religion is what happened when the first con artist met the first fool? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and it's a brilliant trick because it's so deceptive in the sense

what you're saying, anyone I know who is successful, they leave massive tips and they're so generous and they're always giving and giving and giving and you realize that's not just, they are generous but it's not all coming from some benevolence, it's coming from understanding these laws that you're talking about and working with them, utilizing them, knowing you've got to be in the flow.

You know, you have to be in the flow, but do you, it's such an insane thing to think that there are organized groups of people who understand that law too and are deceiving people into, like if literally shifted that flow into their organizations. You know, and a lot of times those organizations are taking 70, 80% of the donations and just using them to pay their staff. And to live well, you know what's funny,

like those people are the people that scare me the most because those are the people that I believe don't believe in it, right? Did you see leap of faith, like it's a hustle, right? Because the Bible, if you are really going to go by the Bible, the Bible says, better you not be born than to mislead my sheep. Like the consequences are more for those people who have assumed the positions of power within the church. So if you honestly believe that and you know you hustling the people

and you know the consequences are worse for you, you can't possibly believe it. And that's why for me, I always look at people sideways because, you know, I never gave money to church because I felt like I was getting hustled. That was my way of praise and worship, right? I gave, I tied or I gave my offerings as praise just like I seen and whatever that person does with it, that's on you, right?

Because I really believe that I believe in karma as well. So, you know, I just think that it's important to deconstruct it and find your own way in it because if you allow people to sway you, you will be a victim. You will be a victim because everybody's not whole and pure. And a lot of these people who I think start, I was a member of a church that was really small and very humble and then I watched it evolve into like this mega church

because it became a business and you could see the difference where the first lady of the church had a security guard and would not even allow members of the church to get used close to her. And I stopped going to the church. It was so, it was so gross to see, it was a young man who was mentally ill and he was trying to talk to her and she had, she told the security guard to get him away from her

and I was just grossed out and I was like, I can't be a part of that. And I just remember how humble and meek they were when they didn't have and the love that they had is what attracted people to the church and people wanted to be a part of that because it felt so authentic and as it grew, it just got gross. And I was like, I can't, I can't be a part of this. Oh, no. Do you can't, you don't want to say the name of the church, do you?

No, I don't want to say the name of the church because I don't, but it's in Los Angeles. It's in Los Angeles. Oh. Yeah, Woodland Hills. Oh, no. I hope it's not the church I think it is. I'll ask you off, Mike.

Oh, shit. That's so depressing. It's so, so depressing to think of that. This podcast is sponsored by better help. Is there something interfering with your happiness that's preventing you from achieving your goals, like maybe every night at 2am on the dot, you're waking up in a kind of weird anxiety rage, completely unable to forgive certain people in your life

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No. He's great, but one of the things he says is that any good church or religion or whatever is a self-destructing trap, it keeps you there long enough for you to be empowered, for you to take on whatever it is that it's transmitting and then move on with your life, not stay perpetually in some kind of never-ending trap. And some of these churches, because they need that money

and because the people running them are getting incredibly wealthy and not paying taxes. How about that? What a fucking grift. They don't pay taxes. No taxes and everything becomes about money. It's like, please put some money in the bucket for the women's group. Please put some money in the bucket for the children's choir.

Mind you, you see the porcelain walls and you see these elaborate floors. And I'm like, what is that for? What do you need this for? Yeah. When you got people, you know, I went to this church in Los Angeles and it was shaming people into giving money. They make you stand in a line and give the offering. And the pastor was like, everybody in here should be able to give $20.

And I remember at that time in my life, I was so broke. I had my two kids and I was just like, I was like, that's my last $20. Like I needed for gas. But you get in this line and they watch you people, you shaming people into giving you money. And I was like, I can't do this. I can't because I mean, this is not wise. You know, this is not wise, right?

You have to be smart with your spending. So I stopped, I stopped going to these churches altogether. And I was like, I'm going to be my own church. Yeah. I'm pure at heart. And I know that I mean, well, and I really want to help people and I want to give and I give a lot, you know, and I give quietly, you know, I don't put on Instagram when I help somebody or I don't give with the

expectation of return. And I may not have like some of my friends who have a lot of money. But I just feel, I always feel good when I give. Oh my God. It's, it is the, it's the greatest feeling. And I do, you know, I do think there is something to be said for doing it secretly. I don't know why or what it is or there does feel like some true like

magical thing happens when no one knows except the person that you're with. And it's so, also I think it's just humiliating this thing where people film, you know, someone's holding a camera and then you see them doing some nice thing. So it's all been set up and staged and it's pretty grotesque. But I've got some questions about you. Okay.

I want to. So you end up in Los Angeles, homeless, living in a car with your kid. And again, I'm sorry. This is just a question from your Wikipedia. But, but it seems like it's saying that simultaneously you had started working on standup comedy. So, oh my God, can you tell me how you navigated the Los Angeles comedy

scene while being a mom living in your car? So in all fairness and in all transparency, I only slept in my car for maybe about a week. We were homeless. So we would go, we would get vouchers. And the vouchers were for like best Westerns, which I'm thankful to the best Westerns because I stated a few of them, but I was able to have a warm place and a safe place for my kids to sleep.

But I did sleep in that car for a week. And that was probably one of the most horrifying things I've ever done. Since then I haven't slept. I cannot sleep more than five hours a night. But because I was in that situation, I didn't sleep because I was scared that something was going to happen. Somebody was going to see us. It was very, very horrible.

I did start doing standup when I was homeless. I was not, that was at the point where I was staying at someone's house who's a friend of mine and I had a safe place for my kids to be. So I wasn't in a car going and stand up and having kids in the car. But I didn't do standup at that time. I never thought it would turn into anything. It was mainly for, it was cathartic for me. It was just me processing and working out what was happening in my real life.

And I couldn't afford therapy. So being able to get on stage and just talk about it and just make it funny somehow became what I never thought I needed. But I had a job. I had a full-time job. And I always want to make sure that I take the opportunity to say that because a lot of times people think that those who are homeless are homeless because they're lazy and because they don't want to work and they've given up on everything.

A lot of people who've ended up unhoused is because they're under-earners in a country that prioritizes wealth over health. And people don't realize that a lot of those people are also veterans. When they come back, the resources that are available to them are limited and they can't cope. They need mental health care and all that. So when I speak on behalf of that period of my life, which was, it was years. It wasn't just, I wasn't unhoused for eight months. I was without a home for about four years.

Wow. That was very, very traumatic. And the people that you see when they're asking for money or you see people, everybody's not on drugs. Everybody is not lazy and don't want to work. Everybody is not a violent criminal. Those are human beings that are having a very difficult time surviving in a country that is doused with toxic capitalism

and really just overlooks the value of human beings and human life. And that doesn't mean that I'm communist or I'm anti-capitalism. I'm speaking to the specific toxic capitalism that has, you know, people in America are so uneducated that any single reality star or celebrity politician can sway you because you don't have the basic information and knowledge from school because they don't care about schools the way that they care about cars and they care about everything else. And so those people that you see, and I was one of them, it was so.

Anyway, I started to, you know, use those experiences and talk about them on stage. And for a little while, I had like my own little therapy session with an audience. Wow. I want to talk more about this, what you were saying about unhoused people. And are you living in LA right now? I live in Los Angeles. I think I know what you're going to say, but full disclosure, when I was living in Los Angeles and the spread of the tent cities

and, you know, knowing everything that you're saying, new age spiritual teachers and, you know, praying to God and all this stuff, I still felt resentful. I still felt like, what the fuck is this? This city is so expensive. They're taxing us so much and somehow we're like you're witnessing a kind of poverty that I've never seen anywhere in all the places I've traveled in the world. I've never seen anything like that.

And your mind wants to come up because you don't want, you don't want to face what you just said. You don't want to face the reality. These are people, you know, not you want to make them into monsters. You want to think. So for me, I would think, well, these are people who just want to do heroin on the streets or, you know, these are right because it makes it makes your, I mean, I, again, just trying to be brutally honest, it makes your drive easier.

When you're driving somewhere, you don't have to confront the fact that you're witnessing people who have just been ground up in these invisible gears and splattered out all over the streets who are hopeless beyond hopeless. But what, how are we to maintain compassion in the face of this sort of thing? I've got kids, you know, I don't want my kid to see somebody shooting up on the side of the street or like jerking off while I'm at a traffic light, you know? So how do you balance, you know, the compassion with like realism when it comes to it? That's also, that's very transparent and that's very honest.

And I cannot say that I can't relate, you know, because I understand exactly what you're talking about. Being in this city can be very harmful to the psyche and the spirit, if you're not honest about it. Some people get swept into it and they justify it with whatever because the hype tells you because you are having success that you're doing it right. And, you know, even fools, you know, can do, can do well in life. I, you know, I have to, I have to stay grounded in some spiritual work

so that I can maneuver being in this city every day and I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that I don't think about leaving this place multiple times a week because it is a toxic place to be. It is expensive. It is superficial and it's hard to live in this place. Now that you see these people coming and robbing people and doing smash and grabs and all of this stuff, what you're seeing is an evolution of crime and criminals becoming more intelligent and learning that they were harming themselves

by staying in their own communities that are already lacking and now they're going to where the wealthy are. And eventually, hopefully, they'll leave off to the place where they learn that that's not where you need to be. If you really want to make an impact, then you need to really go to where the money money really is because that's really who has their foot on your necks. But where is that? What do you mean, like a castle in Viveria or something? They got to find the Illuminati base.

Well, you know, it's not the Illuminati is right in front of us, right? You want to be mad at another and, you know, as a person of color, you want to go steal a watch from another person of color who appears to have more than you. But Jeff Bezos made three times became a trillionaire during a pandemic where half a million people died, right? So your anger is targeted at the wrong place and it's institutions. Like, I'm not telling anybody go kill Jeff Bezos, but what I'm saying is you're targeting the wrong people if that's really what you feel like you're doing to,

or else it's envy and jealousy. You're not really doing this because you're hungry, you're doing it because you're entitled. And so there's a lot to unpack there. But what I'm saying is that. Hold on. We're going to cut to an Amazon commercial now. Okay, we're back. I'm just kidding. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm honestly thinking, oh God, did Amazon advertise on this episode?

No, I don't know. What? No, I'm not taking that out. Are you kidding? What you're saying is true. It's just, I think like it's just probably a hell of a lot easier to do a smash and grab than it is to get through the multiple layers of security around the people that you're talking about. I mean, I agree. But what I'm saying is that it's misdirected anger.

But what I'm, what I was saying is that that's how it's evolved, right? Because first you would hear people saying, oh, look at them. They're just, they're just destroying their own neighborhoods. They're stealing from their own people. Well, now they're not, now they're in Beverly Hills, right? Well, they're in, in Calabasas. So now it's, oh my goodness, they're gruesome people. And we don't ever sit down and talk about what the root of all of this is, right?

And the root is that some people are eating like fat rats and some people are eating rats. And there's a big difference in that. And we don't, we don't, you know, what do you think is going to happen as human beings continue to evolve? You know, they start figuring things out and things start to move. And now you have to be uncomfortable. And that's really ugly for you because you're not used to that.

You're used to people serving it to you on a platter. And you don't have to see those people because they're not in your neighborhood. You're not in, you know what I'm saying? That's one of the ways I was beating myself up as I'm like, oh really? Okay. So now it's in your fucking face and you're, you're uncomfortable. You just want to see it in little like clips on, on Fox news, some kind of fucked up commentary about it.

Like when they show the immigrants on Fox news, they're a war with immigrants. And these are, they will zoom in on a mom and like two kids with like music playing as though like they're zooming in on some kind of predatory alien. You know what I mean? And they're so unaware. They don't even know that that's, that's what they're doing is like where, where is the, you know, so I hear what you're saying. It's like, here it is.

It's in your face. Now, now do now live with that. Now deal with it because, you know, the very system that's putting those people out is the same system that's given you a car that's given you the ability to drive around. But all that being said, still from a compassionate place, what's the solution? This is an ongoing conversation when I was living in LA that I was always having. I was always curious, like how people thought the situation could be dealt with. What, what's, you know, and again, I'm not asking for you to give some kind of,

obviously if anyone knew, but I would love to hear your thoughts on like what, like ways to, to deal with it. This episode has been sponsored by story worth friends. If you were looking for the ultimate gift to impress your in-laws or people you love or your parents, story worth is the way to go. It's an online service that helps you and your loved ones preserve precious memories and stories for years to come. It's a thoughtful and meaningful gift that connects you to those who matter most.

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Thank you, story worth. How do we yet go? So I honestly believe a lot of our FDR said that one of the greatest threats to democracy was, you know, a lack of education. And he said it far more eloquently than I did, but I believe in that. I believe that wholeheartedly. I think that everything begins with education, right? Education, because of course resources, right? Because a book is not going to feed a family.

But I think the fact that we're so uneducated and we're so far from balance, because we're getting our information from the Internet and we constantly distract it and always thinking about ourselves. Because now you have your own little channel on social media where you can post pictures of yourself, get adoration, and your brain just starts deteriorating. It becomes like mush. And you don't realize that you're not aware of what's happening and everything in your world is to support your ideologies because the machine has picked up on what it is that you like and what you believe. And so you're insulated in this world.

And so I think education is a big factor in how we, you know, restore order. Because so many people, you know, now these teachers are going into the classroom after listening to Fox News or CNN for the whole weekend, and they take that with them. You know, they absolutely take it with them. And we've got, it's idiocracy, right? So what's the, what's the opposite of that is information and education. And it has to be equal education that everybody is being educated with the right information until people start being informed because we're emotional creatures. We can't move forward because now you have half of this country believing that red is it the matrix dammit is come to life blue is it.

And the truth is that it's all for profit. And all of us are pawns in the game. Wow. Your allegiance to, it's no difference in the Red Sox and the Yankees. You all have this blind allegiance to this team. And that team is just trying to win a world series that can care less about you. But you know, it has to be education. People have such bad education.

Some places in the middle of the country in the South, even in California, don't have up to date books. They're getting informed by stuff that happened, you know, books that were written 10 years ago. It's really, really bad the way that our children are being educated. And these are the people that grew up. These are the people that grew up on the internet now. And they feel like, you know, I deserve this. I should have this. There's an entitlement that doesn't come with work ethic.

Everything on the internet glorifies how quickly you can get there. There's never anything about educating people about the process, about how you work to get the things that you have. And it's just become a circus. And that's what we are. And until we start delivering accurate information to people, they're going to be ill-informed and they're going to react. That's what we have a reactionary world. All we do is people reacting, you know. Yeah.

It's a danger. It's a very scary, weird place that you add to it the bizarre reality of a lot of artificial intelligence bots, intentionally starting arguments and threads to send jam debate. And it's so surreal. I want to ask you related to this. You know, your story is just so incredible. And to go from living in your car, even for a week, it's the fact that you're like, oh, it's just a week. It was just a week in a car with my kid.

It was just a week not knowing what was coming or what. Yeah, I wouldn't wish that on anyone. But to go from that to having an amazing special on HBO is so beautiful and so powerful. But how are you dealing with that kind of acceleration in your career? How are you dealing with this sudden real power that you have? The sudden real fame that you have, which is only going to grow and grow and grow and grow. How do you deal with it? Everything that you're saying about education and people understanding our privilege and understanding why it's...

You are now going to the place where you meet the people who earlier you were recommending. Those are the ones who should be robbed. I know you didn't really mean that. You know what I'm saying? Don't you find it a little eerie and unnerving and creepy sometimes? Because I know by now some of them have probably come knocking at your door to say hello. Absolutely. So one of the challenges that I always have in this business is a battle with my conscience.

I don't ever want to become one of those people that I despise. And I got to be honest because I feel like I see a lot of people who are famous. I know them. I'm friends with some of them. I wouldn't say friends, but I know them who are very performative and they claim to love the people. But when the cameras are off, it's all in angle now, right? Because even activism has become mainstream. So everybody's an activist. Everybody has a cause.

You know, how do I get involved with this? Because it's good press. You know, I have made a commitment that I'm going to be part of that minority group of people who want to make a difference. And the only way to change some of this stuff is from inside, right? Because if you're not inside, you're not impacting, you know, I don't consider myself being inside yet. But even though I maybe have a special on HBO Max, I think that I can be problematic to some of those people because, you know, I threaten that for them and they keep doors closed when it comes to me. But I really want to be a part of the solution. And so for me, it's just about gaining equity and power, like you said, and learning to speak the business speak to be able to gain enough money and power to create content for the good people.

And that's really what I work towards. It's like, I don't want to tell any more lies. I don't want to perpetuate what's already out there. I really want to be a part of the solution and also give people something positive to look forward to because the trauma porn is at an all time high right now. And it's people are triggered and they're depressed. And if they've experienced this collective trauma of what's happening in the country with this pandemic. And I just think that they're never being at they're never at the top of the list of priority of what entertainment should be. It always is about numbers and money and not giving people, you know, because if you get if you put some trauma porn people are going to watch so that's going to give numbers and money.

But never like with the the wellness of the people at the heart of it all and I want to stay. That's why I can you define trauma porn for me. You know, like I think that a lot of these movies, TV shows, you ever see those videos where people getting beat up or people getting killed, they go viral. Yeah, okay. You just get off on that stuff like and it's you don't realize that constantly feeding that to your subconscious mind. Downloading that your mind your subconscious mind doesn't know the difference between reality and fantasy and then you wonder why you're feeling down. Oh, you're talking about Dateline forensic files. Is that what you're talking about?

You're talking about all of it. Yeah. People love SVU like I'm one of them. I watched so many episodes of SVU and then I wonder why I'm walking around paranoid. I'm in the parking lot like where my key ready to and you know, and you have to, you know, my gun. I got to get put the you just walk around like because you're constantly downloading. I remember watching Sons of Anarchy. I binged and then I went into a depression when it was over.

And my my therapist was like, yeah, because your subconscious mind doesn't know the difference. So of course you're sad because your body feels your mind feels like you you had so much loss. You experienced so much loss. That's why you shouldn't binge. You should you should watch and release watch and release because your subconscious mind doesn't know the difference. Right. But it's just like that's so I'm I stay because I want to make a difference and I believe that there are people here. Who you don't hear about all the time that really want to do good work and create content that's good for the people.

Speaking of which, sorry, may I toot your horn for a moment? Can I play a clip of you back to you just to hear your thoughts on it now? Do you mind? I'm sorry. This is this is where the rubber hits the road. This is folks. This is somebody who is not bullshitting. You're really like, in fact, you're being kind of modest about it.

But I found this clip from a few years ago. Do you mind if I played it? You're on a panel with the young Turks. They've got you up there with two like right wing people. And I just wanted to play what you said because a little clip from what you said here it is. And then we could talk about it because we have about 10 more minutes. Can we save the world? No, we cannot save the world.

We can't even save ourselves. Can we take more children from Africa and China? No, we should start with the little white boys who shoot up schools and theaters in America is where we should start. We like to give immigration a brown face. Are you talking about the Eastern Europeans that come here because you're talking about building a wall. Is that going to keep people coming from China? It's always our people who are demonized and you talk about we come here and we do we commit crimes and we the Democrats want the MS 13 to come here and rape all the white women. We hear that bullshit all the time where we got to be scared right now.

Look how many white boys are out here. We got to worry about them shooting this bitch up. And it's really frustrating to have to hear that immigration belongs comes from Mexico's El Salvador. When we all know that people migrate here from all over the world, overstay their welcome, abuse our economy, break the laws and then you want to blame it on the people who come here who are honorable. They work, they mow lawns. They do all kinds of things that you would never do. Sell delicious fruit in Mexico. Beautiful.

Okay. What did that feel like? What did that feel like when you were doing that from your heart? And I can hear it, right? I was angry. You know, the thing is that I don't want to participate in this thing. This us versus them thing in America. Because we all know it's common knowledge that all of us are the children of immigrants.

This land is sacred land that belongs to the First Nations people. And many of us are the descendants of immigrants that came to this country all seeking the same thing. Whether they came from Ireland or Guatemala, they were seeking some sort of freedom. And so, you know, to sit here and just talk about the, it's just, you know, those people that I, I'm different because I'm, I don't belong to any group on that panel, right? I don't belong to any group. I'm there with the young Turks, but I'm not, I'm there as a standoff comedian and I sit there and I'm like, you are speaking these talking points because they support the, the doctrine that you guys continuously spit out. Because you're getting checks from corporations and you are participating in, in political party bullshit and it has nothing to do with the people. Because when was the last time said, said white guys sitting on a panel that you ever drove through Omaha, Idaho, Montana and talk to those white people who are also struggling because of this toxic economy.

And don't know any better. When was the last time you shook hands with one of those people? So you sitting here scaring them, telling them these immigrants are trying to take their jobs. But when you go to California and you look at when they deported the farmers, because the farmers that were for Trump participated in getting rid of those, those people that were working there. Then they were begging because they didn't have anybody to come mine the crops, because all of these alleged jobs that these immigrants were taking. Nobody wanted to do that. Right. So then when we sit there and have this conversation, I'm like, and what immigrants are you talking about? Eastern Europeans come here every day illegally. And you know what? They also do jobs that nobody would want to do.

And you also scoff at them. So it just, it was, I was just sitting there and I'm listening and I'm like, what are we talking about here guys? Like really, did you come here to say you are, you made immigrants the boogeyman and you thought I was going to sit there and allow you to do that. And that's not going to happen on my watch because too many people in this country are struggling, are hungry, are really, really, and they don't even know any better. Because they don't have a good education. Fox News, CNN, all of these people are telling them bullshit. And they're believing it because what happens when you're afraid you become angry and then you become hateful. Those are that's the process, right? And so I'm sitting here listening to this man feeding all of these people with this information and those people got caught the bus and paid to watch this man talk. And I was like, nah, bro, you're gonna, you're not doing that here.

Yeah, that's it. I mean, I think that like if you that to me was an act, you know, I know what you're saying. I feel like I'm guilty of it because it's so easy to tweet some obvious fucking thing in the past. I've done that whatever we've all transgressed in that way. But I think that what you did, that's what real activism looks like, which is you go to the place where it's at, confront it directly in front of people. And then somehow you're, you manage to be funny. And in the midst of that, that is real talent because I could hear it in your voice. I could hear the pain.

I could hear like that, that my stammer for a second just said everything about what how upset how pissed off you were at them. And the look on their face was so beautiful. They weren't used to that. They came there to humble me. They were sent there to put me in my place because I'm not a political pundit and I didn't finish college. So they were coming there to put me in my place because this is what they do for a living. The problem was that they came there with their talking points and they came there with, you know, this disingenuous vibe. And I don't talk about things that I don't know about because I don't, I am not, I didn't go to Harvard and I don't have a degree.

But I do know people and I know good people and I know good working people. And I'm tired of these political fools continuously swaying people in different directions while the people are struggling. And I'm sitting there watching them roll up in their nice, you know, expensive attire while I have on a dress that I bought at Target. I'm sitting there listening. That was a beautiful dress. Thank you. But you know, and I appreciate that. But what I'm saying is, no, I bought it at Marshall's.

I'm sitting there like I'm sitting here knowing what it's like because I got to go to work every day still as a stand up comedian. And you're sitting here because Fox News is giving you all this money. And you're going to tell me about us. Like us as the working class people, are you kidding? Get out of here with that bullshit, bro. Get out of here. Right. Wow.

I, you know, the other, I was really impressed that you spent part of your comedy special going back to see your dad and forgiveness. Oh, wow. And, you know, we didn't mention it yet, but and maybe you could help clarify this story. You, you were abducted. My mom. Your mom came and took you from your dad. You don't, when you were just a little baby and just to clarify, you hadn't seen him since that. No, I'd seen him like on WhatsApp a few times after we reconnected.

But that's the first time I actually touched my father since I was maybe three or four years old. Wow. Wow. That must have been the most beautiful bittersweet feeling to come there shooting your special. Could you just talk about it a little bit? Yeah, I wanted to capture that. I wanted to normalize, you know, that the romantic notion that of a, of a not having a parent in your life and reconnecting with your parent is going to become something that's like a fairy tale. I wanted people to see it, especially little kids who don't have a parent and or younger people.

I would say when I say little kids, I'm always talking about people who could be 19 but younger people who are feeling that void of not having a parent. I wanted them to see what it looked like and what it felt like. I didn't have my father. I was, I had my mother's last name. I grew up feeling this hole in my life. And I wanted them to see that I did accomplish something in life and that there's a there you can be on the other side of that. And I also wanted to show people where my jokes come from and how I write my jokes. So I wanted to share an experience that would end up in the special and the comedy.

Great joke, P.S. Great joke about like, what was that? Do you mind if I poorly recite your joke back to you? It was so good about what your dad was a giver. Everybody got their own. Will you do the joke for me? I'm sorry. Yeah, no, he gave everybody their own mother.

Oh my God, it's such a killer joke. It didn't have it illustrated. Like, wow. You saw all those sisters and they have different mothers and I'm sitting there like, I'm surrounded by people that I never knew existed. And there's so many different trails of pain from different women that were, you know, hurt. And now the daughters who are also women that are hurt. And it was just, I wanted to show it. And I was like, I don't care if people, you know, I want people to know that that is okay.

And this is life for some of us. And a lot of people have reached out to me, white, black, Latino have said to me, men, women, you know, trans have said I had the same experience. I didn't meet my father till I was nine or thank you for sharing that experience. I thought I was alone. My driver, a white man that was in his 30s who took me to the airport was like, I watched your special, the stuff about your dad. I just want you to know that I went and saw my father. He was like, I didn't, I didn't meet him, but I saw him and it was because I saw your special.

So it was, it was, it was cool. Wow. Well, you know what? Your dad missed out. And that's the real truth. He missed out and he'll never get that back. And that's a tremendous loss that I think a lot of these dads, they don't realize until it's way too late, what they let go of. And thank you for that.

I appreciate that because that was what I was grappling with my whole life was am I nothing because he's not here. And so that, that's where that forgiveness came from. It was forgiving him because, because of that missing part, because your parents are your, where your trust is formed. Yeah. And so that you form your empathy, your self-esteem and your trust with your parents. So for me, it was like, oh, I, I, I'm not worth anything. And then I evolved to this place where I was like, you missed out. I turned out pretty good in spite of your absence.

And so thank you for saying that. Oh God, thank you for making such beautiful comedy for us and for doing this amazing work. And thanks for giving me all of your time today. Thank you for having me here. I love, I love doing the, and this has been like one of the most thoughtful podcasts that I've been on. So thank you for these questions and watching and, you know, knowing what I do. And, you know, I just, I care about people and I want to, I don't ever want to lose that. And I'm never going to let this town make me like that.

Oh no. I'll see it. We're coming back. I'm bringing the family back. We left for the pandemic where we're headed back in the summer. So don't leave. Maybe we can get dinner or something. Yeah, absolutely.

Come to a show and as we can get dinner, I would love to meet your family and I, you know, this is what it's about for me. It's building a community of people like us. Yeah. Because we make the difference. This right here makes the difference getting this out. That, that's how we change the world. I love it. Everybody fighting words.

You can find it on HBO. It's brilliant. Obviously. HBO Max. HBO Max. I didn't, I guess there's a distinction now. I'm old. It's all HBO Max is the streamer.

And I think that some people have it and don't have HBO proper. So HBO Max, not regular boring HBO, HBO Max. And can you let people know how they can find you please? Sure. I'm funny a idea on Instagram and Twitter and on Facebook, which I really go to is Ida dot Rodriguez. Beautiful. Thank you so much, Ida. Thank you.

Have a beautiful day. God bless you. God bless you. That was Ida Rodriguez. Everybody. She's going to be at the lab factory in Los Angeles. If you are going to be listening to this on the weekend of December 10th, definitely catch your live and check out her special fighting words on HBO Max.

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