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

Starting point is 00:00:00 The following is a conversation with Tim Dillon, a stand-up comedian who is fearless in challenging the norms of modern-day social and political discourse. Cook mentioned of our sponsors, Netsuite Business Management Software, Athletic Greens all-in-one nutrition drink, Magic Spoon Low-carb cereal, Better Help Online Therapy, and Rev Species Text Service. So the choice is Business, health, sanity, or transcripts. Choose wise, my friends, and if you wish, click the sponsor links below to get a discount at the support this podcast. As a side note, let me say that I will continue

Starting point is 00:00:38 talking to scientists, engineers, historians, mathematicians, and so on. But I will also talk to the people who Jack Kerouac called the Mad Ones in his book on the road. That is one of my favorite books. He wrote, The only people for me are the Mad Ones. The ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time. The ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn. Like fabulous yellow Roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.

Starting point is 00:01:14 And in the middle you see the blue scented light pop and everybody goes, some of these conversations will be a bit of a gamble in that I have no idea how they will turn out. But I'm willing to risk it for a chance at a bit of an adventure. And I'm happy and honored that Tim, this time, wanted to take a chance as well. If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube, review it, and have a podcast, follow on Spotify, support it on Patreon, or connect with me on Twitter at Lex Friedman. As usual, I'll do a few minutes of ads now, and no ads in the middle.

Starting point is 00:01:51 I try to make these interesting, but I give you time stamps, so if you skip, please still check out the sponsors by clicking the links in the description. It's the best way to support this podcast. This show is sponsored by NetSuite. This one's for the business owners. Running a business is hard. If you own a business, don't let QuickBooks and spreadsheets make it even harder than it needs to.

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Starting point is 00:03:13 to support better health and peak performance. It replaced the multivitamin for me and went far beyond that with 75 vitamins and minerals. I do intermittent fasting of 16 to 24 hours every day and I'm seem to not be able to shut up about it and I always break my fast with athletic greens. I honestly can't say no good things about these guys. It's probably one of my favorite sponsors. Love them. It helps me not worry whether I'm getting all the nutrients I need. One of the many reasons I'm a fan is that they keep iterating on the formula.

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Starting point is 00:04:14 supplement I rely on. This episode is also sponsored by Magic Spoon, low carb keto friendly cereal. I've been on a mix of keto and carnivore for a long time now That means very little carbs. I do binge eat cherries or apples sometimes and regret it later But love it in the moment just like I used to regret eating cereal because most have crazy amounts of sugar Which is terrible for you, but magic spoon is totally new thing Zero sugar 11 grams of protein and only three net grams of carbs crazy amounts of sugar, which is terrible for you. But magic spoon is totally new thing. Zero sugar, 11 grams of protein, and only 3 net grams of carbs. I personally like to celebrate little accomplishments in productivity with a snack of magic spoon.

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Starting point is 00:05:20 for free shipping. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp spelled H-E-L-P-E-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H- to and following along with David Goggins who is definitely not a licensed professional therapist, but he does help me, his and my demons, and become comfortable to exist in their presence. Everyone is different, but for me, I think struggle is a central vocation, but you can struggle beautifully in a way that doesn't destroy you. Therapy I think can help and better help is an option worth trying. They're easy, private, affordable, and available worldwide. You can communicate by text anytime and schedule weekly audio and video sessions. Check it out at betterhelp.com slashlex. This show is brought to you by Rev and their service Rev AI, which is by many metrics the best speech to text AI engine in the world. Rev in general

Starting point is 00:06:27 is a company that does captioning and transcription of audio by humans and by AI. I've been using their service for a couple years and I'm planning to use Rev to add both captions and transcripts to some of the previous and future episodes of this podcast to make it easier for people to reference various parts of a podcast episode if they would like to do that. I'll do a separate video on that so people can provide suggestions on how to best sort of deliver those transcripts. They've processed over 16 billion minutes of audio and video to date. Rev.ai is the API part of Rev that allows you to use speech-to-text programmatically as

Starting point is 00:07:07 a service. And this opens up a lot of different cool applications. You can check out how well Rev.ai performs in a 7-day free trial at Rev.ai-slashlex. That's Rev.ai-slashlex to tap into the world's most accurate speech AI. I love this company. I'm a huge believer in them. That's why they're a sponsor. We should go definitely check them out to support them with your love, with your money, with your business. I guarantee you you won't regret it. And now here's my conversation with Tim Dillon. What would you like your tombstone to read?

Starting point is 00:08:03 It's a good way to summarize the essence of a human being. I would like it to say this has not been paid for and I want my living relatives to struggle, to pay for it and I think I would like them to be hounded every day. I would like people to call them a listen. We don't want to ever excavate a body, but we will because this has not been paid for. I love the idea of leaving the world, like debt, leaving the world in lots of debt that other people have to deal with. And I know people that have done that.

Starting point is 00:08:38 I know people that have been in families where that's happened where someone has to sit and just curse the sky because they don't have a physical person anymore to be angry at. And they, but they still have to deal with the decisions that person made. And that's deeply tragic, but that's always struck me. It's very funny. Well, it's a kind of immortality, the debt, because you can, if the debt lasts for a long

Starting point is 00:09:00 time, the anger lasts for a long time. And then you are now immortal in the minds of many. You aroused emotion in the minds of many. My mother's best friend in the town I grew up and her husband shot himself in the driveway, and my mother's friend never got a chance to just grieve, because he owed so much money, she would come over and go, I hate him, I fucking hate him. And it was just such an interesting thing that he's somebody who, and her kids ended up getting angry at her for that.

Starting point is 00:09:31 Because they didn't understand why she would hate a guy. He was clearly, you know, suffering. And, but she goes, he took the selfish way out, he fucked us. And it was always interesting for me to just remember that like, you can leave Earth and still be a problem. That's kind of a special person. So that's I think what I like my tombstone to read. Yeah, there's a there's a show called Louis with Louis C. Canterfew

Starting point is 00:09:57 Washington. Yeah, I'm aware of it. There's this moment I think we're all guys talking to Louie about the best part about love is after you break up and it's remembering that like remembering the good times and feeling that loss, the pain of that loss, the worst part about love is when you no longer feel that pain. So interesting. The pain of losing somebody lasts longer, is more intense and lasts longer than the actual love. So his argument was like, the pain is what love really is.

Starting point is 00:10:32 Wow. In the same way that anger, your tombstone, what arouse is, will last longer. And that's deeply like a human thing. Like why do we attach happiness to the way we should remember others? It could be just anger. I know so many people who will have deeply complicated

Starting point is 00:10:53 feelings when I did drugs for many years or so and I spent time with some wild people and their parents were also wild people. And some of their parents have done crazy things to them. And you know, I've created situations that were not productive for child rearing. And so I know that when those people die, it's going to be a very mixed bag. Like there's going to be a lot of complex emotions like hey, we loved that guy, but also when we look back He was a horrible father a horrible husband, but he was fun

Starting point is 00:11:33 And and and we don't put enough stock in that, but that will be a push and pull Yeah, and I'll be the one kind of bringing up like hey, he was a lot of fun Yeah, he was a lot remember when he he stuck us, you know, one of the things, this particular person I'm talking about, we were at a bar, me and my friend were there, we're having dinner, and his father, who was, you know, an alcoholic, you know, a guy that would go out every night and didn't work, you know, refused to work, would lie and say he was going to work, and then go to a bar. I mean, just a fun person. And we were sitting at this bar restaurant,

Starting point is 00:12:09 and the bartender, we see his father walk up to the bartender and say, pointed us, pointed our table and go and put the thumbs up and the bartender nodded, and then the father walked over to our table and he said, listen, I just wanna let you know, I just bought you dinner. And I looked at his son, I said, he's a pretty good guy and then he he climbed over the little Fence down to the water and gotten his little boat

Starting point is 00:12:30 There's a little cigarette boat and he just drove away and in about an hour later we We went we said I think that guy took care of the bill Which he said we'll go talk to the bartender It's we walked to the bartender and he goes he handed us a bill and the bill was for like a thousand dollars. And we said, wait a minute, what the hell is going on? And he goes, the guy that left an hour ago said, you were going to take care of his bill. He's been drinking here all week. And we go, what are you talking about?

Starting point is 00:12:55 And he goes, remember, he pointed at you, he put the thumbs up and you guys waved. You remember that? And the guy, and we went, yeah, and I just looked at my friends, my friend, and I went, you know, your dad is just, we're gonna remember him for all kinds of reasons. But to you, he was fun. He was a lot of fun, he wasn't my dad. But I spent a lot of time with him. I was in two boating accidents with him.

Starting point is 00:13:16 You know, two boating accidents. How have you all involved drugs? Yeah, he was, usually alcohol was involved when he left his house. And when he was at home as well. But I was in two boating accidents. And do you know how fun someone has to be to get in a second boating accident?

Starting point is 00:13:30 So you know what a good time someone has to be to get in a boat with them after you've already gotten in one wreck. Never get fooled. What was that line, George Boyce? Never get fooled again. Right. Yes, if you're getting fooled again, you know, there's a reason for it.

Starting point is 00:13:47 But he was a fun guy. He did have a death wish. The second putting accident, he grabbed me and said, you can't hang out with me anymore. And I said, why he goes, I'm trying to kill myself. And I was like, oh, and then I understood that like all of the fun under the fun lived a very destructive person who not only was destructive, but wanted to die. So speaking of fun people that want to die, I don't know if you're, we can go Hunter Eston soon, but Charles Bukowski, I don't know if you're aware of the guy.

Starting point is 00:14:15 I'm aware of him. Sure. I've read some stuff. So his tombstone says, I just want to ask you a question about it. His tombstone says, don't try. Interesting. What do you think about that advice as a way to approach life? I think for many people, it's a good advice.

Starting point is 00:14:33 Because the people that are going to try will do anyway. And the people that need to be told, there's a whole cottage industry now of motivational speakers and life coaches and gurus that tell people that they all have to own their own business and be their own boss and be a Disruptor and get any industries, you know, that's incredibly unrealistic for most people most people are not suited for that and You know the Gary Vs in the world that tell everybody that they should just hustle and grind and hustle and grind

Starting point is 00:15:03 They're very light on the specifics of what they should actually do. Yeah, I Gary Vs of the world that tell everybody that they should just hustle and grind and hustle and grind. They have very light on the specifics of what they should actually do. Yeah, I think a lot of people, that's not horrible advice to give to a lot of people. I think my generation got horrible advice from our parents, from our teachers, and that advice was follow your dreams, and that was it, by the way,

Starting point is 00:15:21 there was no like, what are your dreams? Are they realistic? What happens when they don't work out? Will your dreams make you happy? Are your dreams real? Do they exist on earth? Yeah. Can you follow, everybody follow your dreams?

Starting point is 00:15:34 You can be anything you want to be. Horrible advice. Yeah. Horrible advice. Worst advice you can ever give a generation of people. Really? Truly. I mean, think about, think about it.

Starting point is 00:15:44 If you were talking to somebody and you were trying to make them succeed, are there any two worse pieces of advice to give them then follow your dreams and you can be anything you want to be? Those to me are the two most destructive pieces of information I've ever heard. So let me push back because... Oh, that's fair. This is so many people do. So yeah, this is like a rigorous journalistic interview. Larry King, by the way, passed away today. So I'm I'm taken over the very sad.

Starting point is 00:16:15 I'm carrying the very sad. It's all right. The king. Yeah. What was I even going to say? Oh, let me push back on the follow you dream thing is I come from an immigrant family where I was always working extremely hard at stuff, like in a stupid way. I would, I love, there's something about me that loves hitting my head against

Starting point is 00:16:37 the wall over and over and over until either my head breaks or the wall breaks. Just like, I love that dedication for no purpose whatsoever. It's like the mouse that stuck in the cage or whatever. And everybody always told me, my family, the people around me, the sort of the epitome of what I could achieve is to be kind of a stable job, you know, the old like lawyer doctor, in my case, it's like scientists and so on. But I had these dreams, I had this fire, you know, about love robots. And that nobody ever gave me permission to pursue those dreams. I know you're supposed to grab it yourself, nobody's supposed to give you permission.

Starting point is 00:17:21 But there's something about just people saying, you know, fuck whatever one else thinks, like giving you permission, a parent or somebody like that saying, do your own thing, go become an actor, go become like do the crazy thing and I supposed to do an artist, go build a company, quit school, all that kind of stuff. Yes, sure. That's to push back against the fall your dreams as it's bad advice. If you look at it in mass, if you would have looked at mass,

Starting point is 00:17:50 if you would have looked at statistically, how few people that works out for, I'm just, no, but let's be very honest. This is a very true, yeah. Be very honest. So I mean, like, yeah, if you're gonna go be an act, hey, I was broke for 10 years before I became, before I was making money as a comedian, I get it. I didn't Gary Vannier chock to tell me to follow my thing, right?

Starting point is 00:18:08 And here's the other thing. I was kind of funny and like I was kind of a lot of things were in my favor of being a comedian right? I had this kind of crazy fucked up life. I had a lot of stories I had exhausted or I was willing to fail. I had failed before I was broke I didn't care about being broke, I knew how to be broke. I had, I was shameless to a degree, I would get on a stage night after night and be laughed at, I had a high threshold

Starting point is 00:18:36 for being embarrassed, I had a high threshold for people thinking that I was scumbag, right? And showing up at family parties and being like, yeah, I still really don't have a job. And I'm just, I work at comedy clubs kind of. And I get booked when I can. And I was, you know, suited for it. There's this idea that people can just roam around the world injecting themselves into other things. They have no aptitude for at all. And will that to happen? A small percentage of people might be able to do that. But the vast majority of people have

Starting point is 00:19:12 something they might key into that they're meant to do. Like you loved robots, you loved technology, and you found a place in that world where you thrive. But I think many people, a lot of people love robots, right? So a lot of people think everything you do is interesting. I think many people, a lot of people love robots, right? So a lot of people think everything you do is interesting. I think your shit is fascinating. I watch you or podcasts and I think it's very interesting. I have no place in your world. You know what I mean? I have no place in that world. I, I don't like remedial math. I don't like community college math. I think it's a waste of my time. What do you think about robot? Was you ever buy a robot for your home? Yes. What will it do?

Starting point is 00:19:52 I'll be a companion, a friend. Oh yeah. I mean, I would like to start replacing friends at family with robots immediately. Okay. I mean, truly, truly. I mean, I'm not even getting like, I would like to have a Thanksgiving with four robots. I'm dead serious. Are they intercuing on? Like, do the robots, when do the robots start going crazy? That's my question is like, how long do the robots live with me before they are also a problem?

Starting point is 00:20:19 And I got to replace them. You know what I mean? You're going to indoctrinate the robots. Yeah, as the robots going gonna call me like my aunt does and talk about coronavirus for an hour every morning. And tell me everyone in America who's died of coronavirus. One of the things I enjoy in life is how terrified

Starting point is 00:20:37 people like you, like I'm a huge fan, by the way, get a robot. Well, I am, I'm concerned about AI like completely getting rid of the need for human beings because human beings, I mean, you go out in the street and you go, so few of these people are necessary. Even now, even now you look at people and you go, they're hanging on by a thread, right?

Starting point is 00:21:00 And you can just imagine how many jobs are going to get replaced. How many industries are going to be completely remade with AI and the pace of change worries me a little bit because we do a very bad job in this country of mitigation when we have problems. We don't do a great job. We did not great job with COVID, right? We don't do a good job. It's just something we don't do well. We kind of were good in booms and busts. We're good when it's good. and we're actually we kind of know how to kind of like hey, we're bottomed out We're like it. We're like a gambling addict in this country We like we know what it feels like to be outside of an OTB at 9 a.m. Drink a coffee and smoke and cigarettes going I'm gonna build it back and we know what it's like to win but try anything in between it seems not that great. So to me, it feels like, are we going

Starting point is 00:21:46 to be able to like help people that are displaced and that have their jobs taken by, I mean, do you not fear sort of a world where you have a lot of, you know, artificial intelligence replacing workers and then what happens? There's a lot of fears around artificial intelligence. One of them is, yes, this placement of jobs, workers, that's technology in general that's just any kind of new innovations displaced jobs. I'm less worried about that.

Starting point is 00:22:19 I'm more worried about other impacts of artificial intelligence, for example, or the nature of our discourse, like social effects of algorithms on the way we communicate with each other, the spread of information, what that information looks like, the creation of silos, all that kind of stuff. I think that would just make worse the effects that the displacement of jobs has. I think ultimately, I have a hope that technology creates more opportunities than it destroys. I hope so too. So in that sense AI to me is an exciting possibility, but you know the challenges this world presents will

Starting point is 00:22:59 create divisions, will create chaos and so on. So I'm more focused on the way we deal as a society with that chaos, the way we talk to each other. That's huge. Creating the platform that's healthy for that. Now, as a comedian, creator, whatever you wanna call it, people that put out content, the gatekeepers are now algorithmic, right?

Starting point is 00:23:20 So they are kind of almost AI ready. So if you are a person that puts out, you know, YouTube videos, podcasts, whatever you're doing, you are, it used to be a guy in the back of the room with a cigar saying, I like you or get him out of here. Now it's, it's algorithm you barely understand. Like I talk, I've talked to people at YouTube, but I don't know if they understand the algorithm. They don't they don't and that's fascinating. Yeah, it's fascinating because I speak to people at YouTube and I go Hey, man, what's going on here? One of my episode titles of my podcast was called knife fight in Malibu It was about real estate and

Starting point is 00:23:57 And it was because a realtor in Malibu. I was trying to get a summer rental, which I can't really afford but I don't I don't think that's a huge problem. I, you know, I follow my dreams. So I called a realtor and she said, listen, she goes, I don't know what the government's saying. But she goes, it's a real knife fight out here. You know, an old grizzled woman, real realtor, can skin, SIG at the mouth, driving a Porsche, you know, it's a real knife fight out here. You know, our entire life had become real estate. Her soul had been hollowed out, her container, no one's made her

Starting point is 00:24:25 common years, but it's just she just loves heating. It's fun. It's fun. She's a demon from hell, and we need them truly. We're getting rid of them. It's not good. And she goes to a real knife right out here. So we put that in the episode title. And of course, I guess some algorithm thought that we were showing like people stabbing each other in Wendy's. And we got like demonetized. Did we get demonetized? We got demonetized, but we lost 80,000. We lost a lot of views, because we were kicked out of whatever route, like we were just kicked out.

Starting point is 00:24:54 And then I was asking YouTube about it, they were kind of understanding it, but even the people that worked there didn't truly seem to understand the algorithm. So can you explain to me how that works, where they barely know what's going on? No, they do not understand the algorithm. So can you explain to me how that works? Were they barely know what's going on? No, they do not understand the full dynamics of the monster or the amazing thing that they've created. It's the amount of content that's being

Starting point is 00:25:13 created is larger than anyone understands. Like this is huge. They can't deal with it. The teams aren't large enough to deal with it. There's like special cases. So if you fall into the category, go to a special case, so we can maybe talk about that like a Donald Trump, where you like actually have meetings about what to do with this particular account. But everything outside of that is all algorithms. They get reported by people, and they get, they give enough people to report a particular video, a particular tweet.

Starting point is 00:25:41 It rises up to where humans look over it, but the initial step of the reporting and the rising up to the human supervision is done by algorithm, and they don't understand the dynamics of that, because we're talking about billions of tweets, we're talking about hundreds of thousands of hours of video uploaded every day. Now, the hilarity of it is that most of the YouTube algorithm is based on the title. That's crazy. And the description is a small contribution in terms of filtering in terms of the knife fight situation. Right. And that's all they can do. They cannot, they don't have algorithms at all that are able to process the content of the video.

Starting point is 00:26:31 So they try to also infer information based on if you're watching all of these Q&N videos or something like that or flat earth videos. And you also watch, are really excitedly watching the whole night fight in Malibu video that says that increases the chance that the night fight is a dangerous video for society or some places. Interesting, wow. Based on their contribution. People are watching something because I watch QAnon and Flat Earth videos to ridicule them. Right. That, you know what I mean?

Starting point is 00:27:06 I watch these videos and I make fun of them on my show. Yeah. But what's interesting is if I then go watch something else, I'm increasing the likelihood that that video is going to get looked at as potentially subversive or dangerous. Exactly. That's what. So they make decisions about who you are. Look.

Starting point is 00:27:21 Who you are as a human being as a watcher. The visual user based on the clusters of videos you're in, but those clusters are not manually determined, they're automatically clustered. And so weird, we have titles where they got upset about, I don't even understand. Like we had a title that was so innocuous in my opinion, and the title of the episode was called Bomb Disney World.

Starting point is 00:27:45 And I was asking people to consider bombing Disney World and YouTube got angry at that. So you don't know why. You can never understand. You're gonna say Disney World is the bombs. Right, right, right. It's just pretty ranging. That's what we're probably meant.

Starting point is 00:28:02 I was saying to do it, but I was saying let's start thinking about plans to do, like, not let's do it, like, but let's get in the mind. Let's change the conversation. Yeah. I think it's very interesting because as a comedian, you don't want to live in that world of worrying about algorithms. You don't want to worry about the platforming and shadow banning.

Starting point is 00:28:19 I mean, all these conversations that I've had with other comedians about shadow banning. I mean, it's hilarious. We all call each other. I think I'm being shadow banned. Are you being shadow banned? And nobody knew what that word was a month ago, I mean, a year ago, but everyone now is convinced that everything they do that isn't succeeding

Starting point is 00:28:34 is being shadow banned. Yeah. So it's this new paranoia. This algorithmic paranoia now that we all kind of have because there are genuine instances of people being taken out of it algorithm, you know, rightly or wrongly, for whatever you want to believe.

Starting point is 00:28:51 But then there are also things that you just don't perform as well for a myriad of reasons. And then we're all saying like, well, they're against me, they're shutting me down and you don't know if that's true or not, you know? What do you think about this moment in history, which was really troubling to me? We can talk about several troubling aspects, but one is, uh, Amazon removing parlor from AWS.

Starting point is 00:29:18 To me, that was the most clearly troubling. It felt like it created a more dangerous world when the infrastructure on which you have competing medium of communications now puts its finger on the scale, now influences who wins and who loses. Absolutely, you're right. And what you're always told is like if you you don't like Twitter, create your own service. Right. Or if you don't like something, you can do your own thing.

Starting point is 00:29:49 Or if you are, and basically because, you know, tech, you have to be in business with one of five companies, I think it's like Amazon Facebook, Google, YouTube, and Twitter, whatever, like, you know, I mean, Amazon puts everything on the cloud, you know, Google and YouTube, it's all basically the SEO and the advertising and you got to get your name out there. You don't want to be buried and like because you have to do business with it, you're, it's

Starting point is 00:30:11 a cartel of these companies. You understand it better than anybody that you are prevented truly. And I, I think whatever you think about parlor, whatever you think about what people are saying on parlor, whatever you think about, uh, the Alex Jones, whatever you thought about me people are saying on parlor, whatever you think about Alex Jones, whatever you thought about me, million opalus, the state has an interest in in and has always had an interest in crushing dissent. This is what the state has done. This is how they you know retain the power they have by eliminating dissent where they can. Now because you don't have, you know, three broadcast networks anymore and a handful of newspapers that were all run by the way by people that had been either compromised or happily, you know, happily going with the program

Starting point is 00:30:57 and you have this wild west of the internet, people like me, people that make, I make funny content that I hope is funny, but a lot of it is wild and crazy. Yeah. I say a lot of wild and crazy things. They're very funny. I say a lot of wild and crazy things about powerful people. Yeah. You mock the powerful and thereby bringing them down a notch.

Starting point is 00:31:18 We'll probably talk about it, but humor is one of the tools to balance the power in society. Well, sure. And to make people feel better about things and to, you know, whenever the case may be, right? That's my goal is to kind of like, hey, people have had a shitty day. If this video or podcast makes you laugh, that's great.

Starting point is 00:31:38 I think that it won't ever, it was never gonna stop at Alex Jones. Not that I think he should have been taking off everything the way he was, but this keeps going until we have sanitized all of social media. And what they really wanted to be is what Instagram's kind of becoming,

Starting point is 00:31:55 which is a marketplace of, you could just go and buy sneakers, go buy a sweatshirt, go buy jeans, go buy this, go buy that. And the idea of the free exchange of information seems to be the old internet, and it seems the new internet seems to be hyper, and I'm a capitalist,

Starting point is 00:32:12 but this seems to be like hyper capitalist in the sense that they only want you consuming things, and they don't want you thinking too much. And that seems to be worth heading. I've even seen that with Instagram, where it's like everything on Instagram is like buy a sweatshirt. You know, and I'm like, I'm like, all right, man, hey, man, if I want to sweatshirt, I'll get it. Like relax. You know, just every ad seems to be

Starting point is 00:32:37 encouraging consumption, but very few things seem geared towards hey, Very few things seem geared towards, hey, let's have a dialogue or let's, and not that Instagram is ever great for that, but like if everything's geared now towards content on Instagram, a lot of it seems geared towards shopping. See, I don't know, it's an interesting point. I don't know if the consumerism that capitalism leads to

Starting point is 00:33:00 is necessarily gets in the way of nuanced conversation. I feel like you could still sell Tim Dylan sweatshirts and have a difficult nuanced conversation or mock the current president, the previous president, mock the powerful, all that kind of stuff. Yeah, we try. We try to balance that. Do you have sweatshirts? We do.

Starting point is 00:33:18 Would they not, are they on sale now? Fake business? We do. Fake business sweatshirt with the N-Ron logo fake business. Because I do fake business all the time. It would sweatshirt with the N-Round logo fake business because I like I do fake business all the time. It would be nice if you talk about Alex Jones if you plug the sweatshirt doing that conversation. Yeah, we'll do that. Absolutely. Yeah. But what I tend to worry about with I I see social media and technology existing to flatten society. It makes people very boring. Yeah. All of the experiences kids have right now are online.

Starting point is 00:33:47 Many of their closest friendships are online. Their first relationships are online. The culture is very homogenous. And that's, I think it's eliminating characters. It's eliminating interesting people. It's making people into AI. All of their tastes. Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I could be Charles Bukowski as well. It's not get crazy. It's not there yet, right? I mean, the $75,000 dog is not doing anything, you know. So, when I, when I, when I'm not there yet, I listen, I hate, I get what you like AI so much.

Starting point is 00:34:17 I hate people too. And I'm very amenable to AI. And I, I agree with you. Like listen, I think the future, we gotta get everyone out of here. I'm with you on that. So don't think I'm. I love people.

Starting point is 00:34:28 He's manipulating my mind and my, that's why the flash of light in your eyes when you talked about that dog was so much more than any person. And I get it by the way. You're right. I love people, but if we're not excited, if it can just use robots to kill most of them, I think that would be good for society. I'm with that too. But I think that social media flat and small.

Starting point is 00:34:49 Just flattening the personalities, the characters. The personalities of people, man. And it's just, once the last time, I like the idea of like, and I'm somebody showing up to a high school, like a backpack, a ticket on old CD, and being like, hey man, here's this band you've never heard of that I love or whatever you've

Starting point is 00:35:06 got to get into this. And I'm like, you know, when I talk to young, you know, I have friends and I have younger brothers and everything, ever, and I know that the dominant culture was always dominant. I'm not an idiot. But like, I feel like it's harder to be unique and original now because so much of, of what's promoted is just this way to kind of corral people into believing and thinking a certain set of ideals that's constantly shifting and evolving and people are just caught up in that and to me it gets very boring very quickly I hate being bored and that's what it is. I don't know what to do

Starting point is 00:35:39 with that because at the same time podcasts are really popular, long form podcasts are really popular and people are people are hungry for those kinds of conversations. There's a lot of dangerous ideas, quote unquote, flowing, being spread around through podcasts, meaning just like debates. Correct. So that's still popular. So I don't know what to...

Starting point is 00:35:59 I agree with you. That gives me hope, I guess. I hope so too. And like I said, I look at the negative a lot because that's what I usually make fun of but I'm there's a lot of positive stuff happening too let's talk a bit about Alex Jones I so you've gotten a chance to talk to him while you were on the Joe Rogan experience I've been on Alex's show I've talked I've had Alex on my show I've talked to Alex

Starting point is 00:36:23 for three hours in front of, I guess it was maybe like 15 million people, right? On Joe's show, it was a really wild conversation. I think it was one of the coolest moments in broadcasting that I clearly that I've ever been a part of, but I think it's, it goes in Alexa kind of like, these are big podcasts. Like I think it's one of the biggest podcasts

Starting point is 00:36:42 a week before the election, Alex shows. I'm really grateful that Joe gave me the opportunity to be there and I was just an amazing Conversation a watch. What was the shirt award? Lane it was a fun joke that no one in tech got because we all know how funny they are But the tech writers which is mainly I do not agree with these things They may be blue-haired people whose you know goal in life is to find things to give them orgasms with, you know, without... To dye your hair blue, it's your choice, I respect it.

Starting point is 00:37:10 And is it your choice? But at the end of the day, it's like, you know, all the tech right now, like a lot of people just, and I'm not, I'm just maligning tech unfairly, but a lot of people that sense as a humor were like, he's advocating for human trafficking. I'm like, it's clearly a joke because we're coming off the believe all women.

Starting point is 00:37:25 We're coming off that. And it's very funny to just say, free just laying, hey man, believe all women. Like, it's just our politics and our public sphere is so schizophrenic right now that when you point that out, people are going to be angry with you, but that was a fun shirt to wear.

Starting point is 00:37:40 But on Alex, I was one of the people that found him really entertaining, that the same kind of thing is with Bukowski, these kinds of personalities that are wild, crazy, full of ideas. They don't have to be grounded in truth at all or they can be grounded in truth a little bit. It like he's just playing with ideas, like a jazz musician, screaming sometimes. Obviously he has some demons. Sometimes he's super angry for no reason whatsoever. It's some weird thing that he's constructed in his own head. Sometimes he's super loving and peaceful, especially lately that I've heard him. I don't know if you've seen with him with Michael Mallos, what he's doing. Like,

Starting point is 00:38:21 Mallos was doing like, I want to tell you Alex Jones, I love you Alex, you know, just this loving kind of softness and kindness underneath it all. I don't know what to make of any of it. And then there's this huge number of people that tell me that Alex Jones is dangerous for society. And so what do you do with that? Do you think he's dangerous for society?

Starting point is 00:38:41 Do you think he is one of the sort of entertaining personalities of our time that shouldn't be suppressed or somewhere in between? I don't think that Alex Perse is dangerous for society. I think the greater danger for society comes again from stifling all descent, right? All like anybody with a voice that uses it that critiques the government

Starting point is 00:39:04 and putting all of those people in a category and getting rid of them is incredibly dangerous. To me, more so, I think the biggest problem that Alex has ever had was when he questioned the Sandy Hook shooting, and that really was, because it really is this identifiable incident that you can look at, where it did get away from him, and a lot of his fans, who,

Starting point is 00:39:26 the people that are attracted to conspiracy stuff, and I have some of those fans, some of them are really smart people, some of them are mentally unwell. A lot of them happen to be mentally unwell. So when you have a fan-based people, where some of them are mentally unwell, and you are questioning, you know, tragic events, okay?

Starting point is 00:39:43 And Alex was right about Epstein, he was right about a lot of things. And he's got no credit for that. And I understand that this piece, but sometimes when you write about 10 things and you're wrong about something and the thing you're wrong about is so offensive to people.

Starting point is 00:39:57 You're never gonna get any credit for being right. Even though you were right more than when you were wrong, the problem was a lot of his fans who were crazy, stalked, harassed these families and accused them of being actors and accused them of like thinking their children's death. It was just horrific experience. And Alex has tied to that. And you know, how much he inspired that by what he did on his show. I don't know because I haven't watched hours and hours of that particular thing like with a whole Sandy Hook thing. If you listen to him, he says,

Starting point is 00:40:33 I really covered it. I kind of covered it, moved on. Other people go, no, he spent a long time on it. But that's the real danger of going into that territory over and over again, going everything is, is everything's a false flag or everything's fake. I think, I think Alex has actually been kind of reasonable. He's resisted a lot of the politics of like racial resentment on like the alt right, for example. He's resisted

Starting point is 00:40:54 that. He's resisted the anti-Semitic currents of a lot of that politics, right? He's resisted a lot of the virilently anti-trans or anti-gay stuff. No, he does dip his toe into the water of like the culture wars of course He does and but I've never really seen him Or that could be wrong about this embrace white nationalism or Identitarianism. I've never seen him really go anti-Semitic. I've never seen him take that route When I grew up and I would turn him on every now and then he was talking about NAFTA, the WTO, he was talking about 9-11, he was talking about the world trade organizations, and a lot of these big conferences, whether it was the Builderburg Group,

Starting point is 00:41:35 whether it was Bohemian Grove, which he infiltrated. And he was talking about, hey, here are the most powerful people in the world, here's what they're doing. And here's how it affects you. And that was interesting to me, because no one else was really talking about it except Alex Jones, occasionally Art Bell on, on W A B C you'd listen to him at night, right? I think Alex became very controversial when he decided to back Donald Trump. And then he has a considerable following in a considerable audience that he was then able to marshal in the direction of supporting Donald Trump. That was when the spotlight

Starting point is 00:42:11 because then he was talking to Trump. Trump did his show. Alex Jones just got bigger, right? And he blew up. That's the term, right? You blew off. Like he, he, he, he, he had the good, he put out the good HBO special. Whatever you want to call it, he has a hit song. Yeah. He blew up. And then people started looking at the things that, you know, he put out the good HBO special, whatever you want to call it, he has a hit song. Yeah. He blew up and then people started looking at the things that, you know, he was associated with. The Sandy Hook thing is a blemish on his record. I do believe he regrets it. But again, I do see the point of the families who are like, dude, fuck this guy forever.

Starting point is 00:42:36 Yeah. This is the worst thing I ever went through. It's a very tough, um, I understand the people that say that. I understand and I understand the people that go, when you have tech companies that act in a coordinated manner to just get rid of someone, they don't have any way to defend themselves. It's a little terrifying when you think about that power being abused and how wouldn't it be? Do you think he should have not have been banned

Starting point is 00:43:05 from all these platforms? I don't think, I do think that if you are a private company, right, I do think, and this is where you run into this, this problem, like I don't know, if these tech companies were government utilities, would that decrease people's likelihood of being banned? I don't know, right? So I understand the benefit of them being treated like public utilities and people thinking they have the right to a Twitter.

Starting point is 00:43:30 I've never, I don't know, I have very little confidence. I mean, the government is trying to roll out a vaccine in California and we've vaccinated like five people. I mean, in terms of what we need to do in the state, right? So maybe if it was a government utility, I do think someone like Alex, like there should be some process. So if you're going to get rid of someone, they should have a way to defend themselves. There should be more democratic process that you can go through than just being unilaterally taken off something. But like, then you run into the, you're like, am I going to say that everyone deserves, no, if you're threatening or harassing people or threatening to kill them, publishing their private information, if you're committing crimes on these platforms, obviously, the people that own these platforms are going to be

Starting point is 00:44:17 like, we're not going to allow this to happen. So I understand that there is a line, right? There is some, like people that say there's no line aren't really thinking, like there is a line. I just thought that line seems to be moving all the time and it seems to be a very hard thing to police. But I don't think you can remove a guy off everything and then also bank accounts won't give him debit cards or credit cards.

Starting point is 00:44:40 I don't know if you've talked to him about that. But like, you know, there were financial institutions that were refusing to let him, you know, park his money there. So I mean, it really does get pretty terrifying pretty quickly. Probably without any transparency from those companies. So you're right. It feels like there should be a process of just having for him to defend himself.

Starting point is 00:45:03 Or I think there needs to be a process for people to defend themselves. I every day I wake up and I go, it is something I said in a video, gonna get taken out of context, is somebody gonna get angry, is somebody gonna be, I say wild stuff because that's what makes me laugh, that's what makes my friends laugh

Starting point is 00:45:19 and that's what makes my audience laugh. So I never ever, people, whatever political side you come down on, I think if you make your living speaking, it's always interesting to me if you are pro-the-de-platformer. That's odd. It's interesting to consider kind of a jury

Starting point is 00:45:40 context to where, you know, there's transparency about why you're a video about bombing Disney World might be taken down. Like, it's, it gets taken down. And then there is, it's almost like creating a little court case, a mini court case and not in a legal sense, but in the, in the public sphere. And then people should be able to have, you know, you pick representatives of our current society and have a discussion about that and make a real vote. You know, just have like jury, the locks themselves, helping a discussion. That kind of, that kind of process might be necessary. Right now what happens is Twitter is completely, first of all, they're just mostly not aware of

Starting point is 00:46:22 everything they're doing. There's too much stuff. But the stuff they're aware about, they make the decision in closed doors, the meetings, and without any transparency to the rest of the company, actually, but also transparency to the rest of the world. And then all they say is we're making decisions because the people, they use things like violence. So violence equals bad. And if this person is quote, I'm quote, inciting violence, therefore that gives us enough, enough reason to ban them without any kind of process. It's, I mean, it's interesting. I'm, I'm torn in the whole thing. If it was indeed, there's no transparency

Starting point is 00:47:03 about it. But if parlor was indeed inciting violence like if there was brewing of violence potential violence where you know thousands of people might die because of some kind of riot like the this scary thing about mob about when a lot of people get together. Right. Or good people, like legitimately good people that love this country, that don't see enemies yet around them. But if they get excited together and there's guns involved,

Starting point is 00:47:36 and then some cop gets nervous and shoots one person, another person shoots the cop, and then there's a lot of shooting involved, and then it goes from five people dying in the capital to thousands of people dying in the capital. Well, in fairness to defend the people of the cap, they didn't shoot the cop. They they bludgeoned him to death with a fire extinguisher. Yes.

Starting point is 00:47:59 So I do, I do want to just kind of put that out as a as a defense of them. Listen, I'm sure there was some wild shit going on on parlor. And I think the problem, here's the problem, right? There's a lot of people that just want to go on these sites and say they want to kill everyone. And the problem is, you know, at what point do you shut the mole down? Like I think a lot of people are just living in a world where they're powerless. They don't have any political power. They don't have any economic power, right?

Starting point is 00:48:28 They can't throw their money around. They don't have healthcare. Their job security isn't great. There might be living in a community that doesn't have the resources they would like it to have. They're not happy and thrilled. And then they have these sites where they can go on and just say, man, I'd like to fucking burn it all down.

Starting point is 00:48:48 And distinguishing a guy blowing off steam and saying wild stuff from a genuine threat is a very hard thing to do. You know? Like I've threatened to kill, I got banned from Airbnb, I threatened to kill the people that banned me Comedically, yeah, comedically. This is a joke. I'm not going to kill you

Starting point is 00:49:10 Yeah, this is a joke because I'm blowing off steam and I'm angry Do you know how many people that my parents like my dad's like I'm gonna fucking kill this guy my mom's like I'm gonna fucking kill and they were talking about each other, but It's but none of it ever happened, but we should be, I think you, you, you have to create a space for people to threaten to overthrow the government. Yeah. As long as they don't violently do it. Yeah. Like, I mean, does that make any sense? Like, I mean, as long as they're not going to go hurt innocent people, what are you

Starting point is 00:49:41 going to do? Like, there's so many people out there that she's that's why a lot of these things like, you know, forechan, these sites, a lot of people going on there, they just want to say the most fucked up shit because they, it's the thing that gives them, they can laugh or they can release steam, and it's, it is a mature, it is stupid. It's not productive, it's not, you know,

Starting point is 00:50:00 but at the end of the day, if you're not gonna give people health insurance, you got to give them something. It's like when someone in this country dies that everyone disagrees with, right? Political figure, media figure. A lot of people dance on their grave online. And then everyone people goes, and the other side will always do it. Like a conservative dies and everyone goes, great.

Starting point is 00:50:21 Conservatives go to this is grotesque you, and then when RBG dies, they all have parties and the Conservatives go, great. You have to let people in this country enjoy the deaths of their enemies. You do it because they don't have much else. Again, if you gave them other things, you might say, guy, you can go get any operation. Why don't you stop?

Starting point is 00:50:46 But if they're working for shit wages, and you haven't figured out a way to treat them, treat their cancer diagnosis, and they don't, like, I mean, life, you know, you gotta, you gotta derive pleasure from something, right? It's an interesting point that anger is a good valve. Like if your life is suffering,

Starting point is 00:51:11 that there's something very powerful about anger, but I still have hope that it doesn't have to be. I mean, that kind of channeling into anger that then becomes hate, let us into a lot of troubles in human history. So you have to be careful in powering people too much in that anger, especially I think I understand why people were nervous about parlor, about Twitter and so on. Sure, yeah. Because all that shit talking about violence was now paired with, let's get together at this location.

Starting point is 00:51:48 That this was a new thing. Like, it's not just being on whatever platform talking shit, it's saying, we're going to in physical space meet. And then everybody got, all these platforms got nervous. Well, what happens when all these shit talkers, all these angry people, they're just letting off steam meet in a physical space.

Starting point is 00:52:10 And there was probably overreach, almost definitely overreach, but I can understand why they were nervous. I agree. There doesn't seem to be, and this is when Trump got elected, and when you have like whatever you have, right? Whether you have riots in Portland,

Starting point is 00:52:22 in Seattle, where you have the antifa people doing crazy things, you have like, you know, the people Whether you have rides in Portland in Seattle where you have the antifa people doing crazy things you have like, you know, the people at the storming the Capitol. There never seems to be a ton of an examination of why these ideas are becoming popular. Why are people so angry? What is leading people to this? Why are we here?

Starting point is 00:52:39 What about their lives is to the point where they need to show up at these places. And like, and obviously there's to be people on the fringe. They'll always be the mentally unwell. They'll always be people that want to destroy society. But when you look at how popular, large, long discredited things, whether it's fascism,

Starting point is 00:52:57 totalitarian communism, all of these things are like, why are they back? Why are they back in a big way? And why are people so fed up with the status quo? That they're finding, you know, solace in the most extreme, uh, discredited theories of how to run and operate societies. Theories that have led the deaths of a lot of people. So to me, I'm like, if those people at the Capitol, yes, if they were going to work, if they were able to go out and drink at Chili's, if they were able to get a fucking checkup, right?

Starting point is 00:53:39 Like if their job paid a little bit better, and I'm not saying that this is all the reason, right? I'm sure that there's a lot of people there that are doing quite well, and there's still not. But like the anger and the rage that's boiling to the surface of this society, does it come from the fact that across the board, people in very different areas,

Starting point is 00:54:00 and with very different political beliefs, feel like they are being fucked over and there's nothing they can do about it. That's what the baseline to me, they look at the people that run the country and run the world, whether they're tech titans, the guys that you talk to or whether they're people that run the government, whether they're people that run large banks, large media companies, the people that have created this kind of infrastructure that everyone lives in, these people are incredibly powerless. And when you push people to that point, logically, sadly, and unfortunately, the next thing

Starting point is 00:54:40 does seem to be violence? Yeah, the thing that troubles me a lot is you said nobody's asking why these beliefs are out there, but sometimes it's not even acknowledged that people are hurting, people are angry, just even acknowledging that all the conspiracy theories that are out there, acknowledging that they're out there, and then people are thinking about it and talking about it just Because otherwise so it's not acknowledged in this nuanced way what happens as you say okay 70 million people are white supremacists It's just throwing a kind of blanket statement and of course that

Starting point is 00:55:23 gets them angrier and makes them feel more powerless. And that ultimately, that's what's been painful for me to see is that there's not an acknowledgement that most people are good. Right. And there are circumstances where it's just you're pissed off. Right. Because you were powerless. I mean, you fall in, you could fall into the bad crowd. That's the thing. You can just fall in. Yeah. And it doesn't mean that you're you don't there's not blame. You know, you're obviously you have agency, you're a person, you know, but the idea that like you could be rehabilitated, you

Starting point is 00:56:03 could do something stupid or you could fall into the great, you know, a group of people that are, and then in a few years you can go, what the fuck was I doing? You know, I'm an ex-drug addict. I know what it's like to go from being one thing to being another thing, right? I'm still a drug. If I were to use drugs right now or drink, I would still be addicted to them, right? I mean, it's not something that I can ever change about myself, but I know what it's

Starting point is 00:56:23 like to go from one thing to another thing So when you look at racism or whatever is them homophobia, misogyny, whatever whatever you're looking at Antichymitism and you go that's a fixed condition where nobody's ever going to be able to change Nobody's ever going to be able to be rehabilitated nobody's ever going to be able to Re-imagine themselves in a different way to me. You're just you're throwing away Someone and you're making them feel helpless and worthless Um, and that's gonna lead to anti social behavior that spills out into the vise we don't have a very redemptive society Right that's a huge factor. We don't have a redemptive society

Starting point is 00:57:01 That's why I like oj Simpson because oj OJ Simpson, yes, he did a bad thing, supposedly. But he's very kind now on Twitter and he makes very nice points about how we have to get involved in the political process and he's on golf courses. And I like watching people, golf, I don't do it, but I like watching him do it. And he's like an elder statesman, because I remember him from the naked gun and I choose to forgive him You know for for for for whatever happened there, which I don't know, but I choose to forgive him really for I mean They obviously you know the say that what they say is he cut his wife's head off But I I can look past that yeah and redeem him because he's very like stable on Twitter And he's a good like I see all these people go

Starting point is 00:57:45 on crazy on Twitter and I'm like there's maybe OJs live the full life. I think there's a benefit to that. There's a benefit to kind of living a full life. Yeah, how many of us have not at least tried to murder somebody? And 100% listen, OJs had the highs and the lows, but he did it on his terms. And there's a real. It's like a Frank Sinatra song. Yeah, he did it my way. I mean, like, there's a benefit to that. And he seems like a very well-adjusted person now.

Starting point is 00:58:13 So I mean, I don't know. How is that a fact, but it is a fact, and that's an uncomfortable fact. Well, this is a strong case for forgiveness in one of the more extreme cases, I suppose. But yeah, there's not a process of forgiveness. It seems that people just take a single event from your, or sometimes a single statement from your past and use that as a categorical capture of the essence of this particular human being. So murder might be a thing that you should get a time out for.

Starting point is 00:58:46 A little. This is bad. Murder. And let's just say that. Murder is not good. I'm glad you make this definitive statement. OJ. OJ is an interesting cat because you're like he's very stable on Twitter.

Starting point is 00:59:02 He's very like, he's like, let's take a look at it guy. Like, we need more of his energy. That's what I'm trying to say. Yeah. I know, like, yes, it was bad. He killed the woman in the waiter. I was not for that. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:59:14 I wish he didn't do that. But the trial, the urgency was to try out was such a fun thing. Yeah. And like you said, we need more fun people inside. Well, you might. Speaking of fun people, your politics have been all over the place. I hope so. I hope so.

Starting point is 00:59:29 I mean, imagine not, imagine someone who's politics worn all over the place. It would seem odd. Right. In the 10 years that I've been politically conscious just because I'm, you know, 35 and I know I probably have been conscious for over two decades, but like Democrats have become Republicans. Republicans become Democrats. I remember when he had cultter said we need to defend the George W Bush when he said we need to go out and Christianize or, you know, modernize the Arab world. We

Starting point is 00:59:53 need to democratize the Arab world and then Ann Coulter backed Donald Trump and the all the right wing in America believed in nation building. They believed in going out and democratizing areas that might breed radical terrorists, whether it was Iraq or wherever you were going, toppling regimes and instituting new democratic norms in those countries. That was the right wing point of you when I grew up. Then the right wing switched to we are going to be isolationist. We're going to take care of America first and foremost. we're not going to go into other countries. And then the Democrats, who when I grew up were doves

Starting point is 01:00:30 and the right-wing people were more hawkish. And the Democrats were like, the military solutions aren't the way. We need to have multilateral diplomatic coalitions to solve all the problems. Now, Rachel Maddow's like, let's nuke Russia every night on MSMBC. The Democrats are like, we need, we need strong presence in Syria, we need a strong presence, we need to counter putt and all over the globe, we need to get, so they

Starting point is 01:00:55 are more hawkish on things. So literally, I have watched two political parties literally flip. And it's crazy to watch. And in some sense, I've watched that as well because I, when I first saw Barack Obama, I admired that he was against the war. This is whatever. Maybe before he was a senator, he spoke out against the Iraq war. And then, you know, it doesn't feel like it feels like his administration was more hawkish than Dovesch. In a sense, with all the drone attacks, with the sort of inability to pull back or at least

Starting point is 01:01:38 in mass, efficiently pull back from all the military involvement that will have all over the world. And just the language. What I think is interesting about that, what's interesting about Obama, because he's a very interesting study, is that presidents are controlled in very different ways, right? You know, presidents can be controlled

Starting point is 01:01:55 by different factors, power factions within Washington. And I think one of the reasons that Obama was maybe, you know, a very close relationship with John Brennan, he was a CIA director, maybe a very close relationship with John Brennan, who was a CIA director, and Obama was very close with John Brennan. And Obama was very, you know, I think malleable to the extent that the CIA, and I've had CIA agents on my show, John Curriacco, a guy who went to jail for exposing torture, and was saying that like, you know, you get into the Oval Office, all of a sudden you're having that presidential daily briefing every day and the intelligence people come in and they go, listen, man, I mean, we're just going

Starting point is 01:02:32 to be a terrorist attack on your watch if you don't do X, Y and C. They go, we have, you know, the quote, they call it like blue book information, which is five levels above top secret. And they go like, Hey, man, a guy in a guy in Iran and a cafe said he's blown everything up next week. And you know, I mean, it's the same thing as parlor. You don't know if it's true or not. But now the president's making decision on usually a lot of uncorroborated intelligence that goes into a presentation for the president where you just terrified every day. And you don't want a terrorist attack on your watch. Now, so why are they getting all this formation? Because a lot of the people,

Starting point is 01:03:05 it Washington, have an interest in perpetual constant ongoing warfare. And there's a lot of financial gain to be had from that. So they're sneaking their information into the presentations that are going to the president. And then the president is now behaving and going, fuck, I don't want a bomb going off. We got to do what we got to do. And whatever version of that happens, that is really kind of what is happening, whereas the presidents are being controlled by forces that are outside of the political sphere, but very much still in it, and they have a lot of power. That's what the deep state is. You know, Trump, there's a lot of ridiculing Trump, and all of the deep state does exist. It absolutely exists. There's been books about it written by liberal journalists. The deep

Starting point is 01:03:46 state is only a term for unelected largely power factions in Washington, D.C. that outlive any presidential administration. These are people that might work at the state department. They might work at the defense department. These are people that are not always working officially in any government capacity. They might be private companies, they might be military contractors, they might be people abowing a Raytheon, a general dynamics, and they constitute a group of people that Trump called the swamp. But Trump had really no interest in draining the swamp. But he articulated these things, and this is what it is. You have a lot of interested parties

Starting point is 01:04:30 that have budgets that they want, big budgets. Everybody wants a budget in Washington, whether you know what it is, they want money. And these are the people who really control press. So this idea that the president is the Bill Endoll has got to be smashed, which is why the horse race model of politics and being like, is it right wing? Is it left

Starting point is 01:04:49 wing? Is it what team of my on and what color am I wearing? It's very simplistic. But the reality is this is an empire, it's past its peak, we're in trouble. The United States is an empire that's just you could prove that case in court. Well, let's let's go to court right now, but I do love the more complex idea that there's just human beings who crave power and seek ways to attain that power through different ways.

Starting point is 01:05:17 If you have Barack Obama or George Bush or Donald Trump, there's different attack vectors, different ways to attain that power. And then you can use that to leverage. George Bush or Donald Trump, there's different attack vectors. Correct. Different ways to gain that power. And then you can use that to leverage. And it probably doesn't have to be just in Washington DC. There's people who crave power all over the world. Of course.

Starting point is 01:05:36 Not in, but where we are now in Los Angeles, these people are all good. Uh, LA. Studio exactly. The people that I, from what I understand, they treat everyone fairly and they're nice. But I think he sees the bad guys, but out here in L.A. West Coast, everyone's lovely. So amidst this fun exploration in your mind through the political landscape that you've done over the past couple of decades that you've been conscious politically.

Starting point is 01:06:05 What is Donald Trump fin into this picture for you is, is, is, is, is, great question. Well, he didn't, right? Because we didn't, he wasn't political until four years ago, right? He got political very quickly before, I mean, he was firing off crazy tweets about where Obama was born and whatever. But he was, he got into politics very quickly and then he became the president. So I knew him as Donald Trump, this crazy New

Starting point is 01:06:32 York City character, the coast of the apprentice. I didn't think much about him. He was just constant. You know, like he was just as constant figures. I don't think much about Warren Buffett. I know like Trump's like he's married to a new show girl all the time. And he's always opening another casino and he's on TV. Warren Buffett really? No, Trump. But like Warren Buffett is the opposite. Right?

Starting point is 01:06:54 Warren Buffett's like, been married for a million years, lives in a little house in Omaha. But these are the, that's what I just know to you. Trump like, I don't think about Warren Buffett. Right. I don't think about these people. They're just guys that I've known forever that have like, you know, you associate certain things with them, right? And Trump, we always associate with kind of vulgar,

Starting point is 01:07:13 garish, new money, billionaire, married a lot, you know, casinos, misuniverse pageants. But again, you know, but it makes perfect sense that he really was able to become president at the moment where we were about to have Hillary Clinton versus Jeb Bush. And I think Americans felt like this is now the oligarchy is spinning right in our face. You're not even making it feel like there's an appearance of democracy. We have two crime families vowing for control of the country every four years. And then there was this rogue kind of upstart guy that was really about

Starting point is 01:07:50 himself. You know, Trump doesn't really care that much about the thing. I mean, really was summarized perfectly when he left and he just said, Hey, have a good life. That's what he said before he got on Andrew's Air Force base. If you watch the speech, he goes, Hey, have a good life. That's what he really feel like, hey, have a good life. That's what he really feel. Like, hey, have a good life. I'm going to get on a plane right now and fly to a castle I own in Marlaga, in Florida. And really, I'm not going to think too much about you people

Starting point is 01:08:18 outside of how I can get more attention in the future. Can I ask you like a therapy question? Yes. What is your favorite and least favorite quality of Donald Trump? So my least favorite quality of Donald Trump, I think, because there's a few of them, his lack of empathy, complete and total lack of empathy. I don't feel that he cares about human beings on any level.

Starting point is 01:08:48 And I feel like that's maybe it should be a requirement, right? I mean, I don't think he cares. I think it's obvious that he doesn't care. I mean, he's sent, you know, basically he's saying like, they're in there, Mike Pence is in there, he knows that his people are going to get, try to get into a capital. I mean, those motherfuckers are not gonna have jobs.'re going to go to federal prison. And he doesn't care.

Starting point is 01:09:09 He doesn't care. As long as they're storming the capital to prove the point that he thinks he won the election, he has no concern for these people. His followers, he leads them lamps to the slaughter, right? So that's, that's, that's not a respectable call. My favorite quality of Donald Trump is his willingness to call bullshit. So his willingness to call bullshit out, he doesn't play the game. He will, you know, when people say about Putin, Putin kills people, he goes, we kill a lot of people here too. Like he's willing and able to break the fourth wall and say things that no politician has

Starting point is 01:09:42 ever said. He's willing to call out hypocrisy, you know, of course not his own, but the media, the members of the political establishment, that's a lot of equality. It's an entertaining quality, right? We all like it. I love to, I'm like, this guy saying something that a lot of people want said.

Starting point is 01:09:59 Yeah. That being said, it's coupled with no real work or action. Right. So it's not coupled with anything behind it that he just wants to, we didn't have a sort of my podcast once where it's like essentially, he's like, criticizing the deep state. He wants a deeper state. Yeah, he wants a deeper state, like he hired his daughter and her husband. I mean, this is not a guy that's interested in transparency and openness.

Starting point is 01:10:20 He's a guy that would just prefer he wants to run the mafia state, but he shakes up the norms of social discourse political discourse Yes, and that people are just hungry for that. Yes, but he got banned from Twitter Yeah, all the different platforms Do you think is there an argument to be made for and against ban? There's always arguments to be made for everything a permanent ban seems to be an overreaction to me. He's a president in the United States. It also rearranges the power, like whether you like him or hate him,

Starting point is 01:10:51 love him or hate him, he was a president. We've elevated Twitter is now more powerful than the president. It's like do you want that to be long term the salute that the reality, like now Jack at Twitter is more powerful than the president in the United States. Is that a good paradigm going forward? I don't know. I'm not listening. Maybe give him a little time out for a few days. I think it's time now a little spanking certainly but I don't know if

Starting point is 01:11:18 a permanent band across the board on every social media. I mean they banned them on Grindr. I mean this is how hilarious. They banned them across the board on everything. I don't think you can get an Airbnb not neither can I, but like, I don't think you can do anything. Again, I just, I look back. And there's so many people, I very smart and talented friends that go, yeah, but who cares? Yeah, but he's bad. Yeah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, but I don't like me like an op-less. Yeah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, you have such faith. You have such faith that it's always going to be the people you dislike that are banned. It's always going to be the, it's never going to be you. Man, you have so much faith in the government. You have so much faith in tech oligarchs. You've never met. You have so much faith in the

Starting point is 01:11:59 security state that they're going to always make the right decisions. And they're not going to penalize people that shouldn't be penalized, to me I'm like, wow. I've never had that much faith in any human being ever including myself, I wouldn't want that power. I would start de-platforming people that I hate. I would de-platform my aunt, you know what I mean? I would de-platform everyone I know. I mean, so it's like, it's such an insane power

Starting point is 01:12:22 to give somebody like, who gets hurt, who gets to speak. Yeah, I'm worried about the effect that has on people like you actually. I agree. Of being like, everybody's a little more nervous in what they say. Correct. And that has a big problem. Yes. Because then you're just like long term unmass like we're talking about.

Starting point is 01:12:42 It has an effect where people just become more bland. Yeah, self-censorship, anxiety, all of these things going to, we try to fight it. I try to fight it. I think I got to still do what makes me laugh and what makes me laugh is often fucked up. And it's often, you know, it's not always fucked up in a way that, you know, it's gonna get me thrown off

Starting point is 01:13:03 something, but like, I think pushing certain buttons is funny to me So I got to keep doing that Part of part of the problem is that so many of the lines are blurred right so you have Comedians that are commentators and commentators that are comedians and politicians It's like it's harder to the defense of like I'm a comedian leave me alone. That defense becomes harder when like All of these lines are blurring. Everybody's kind of everything now. So like people say to me, you should run for office and they're serious and I'm like, you're crazy. But they're serious. Like so the blurring of everything means that

Starting point is 01:13:36 people aren't in their lanes as much and that you go, well, this guy is dangerous because he's not just making a joke. He's doing something else, and he's using humor, and I'm like, I'm really not. I'm really just trying to make a joke. That's all. That's really what I'm trying to do. But I do think that because of the flattening, there's a lot of people out there that go, they take aim at humor because they go, humor is where bad ideas can kind of start and flourish. But don't you put some responsibility on you, don't you think humor is a way to that you are the modern, like, Jordan Peterson style intellectual.

Starting point is 01:14:15 The humor is actually a tool of changing the zeitgeist, changing the social community. But it also cannot be. I don't think it's any one thing. And I think there's a lot of pressure for a comedian. You can be funny and right. You can be funny and wrong. If your goal is to be right, you might end up being right and not funny. So the reality is funny has to come first.

Starting point is 01:14:37 There are brilliant people that have been funny and correct according to people, right? But at the end of the day, people that put way too much faith in what comedy is, most of what comedy is, is people showing up to strip malls and telling jokes for an hour while people eat chicken fingers and they all get drunk and they laugh and they feel a little bit better about their lives.

Starting point is 01:14:58 That's really the majority of comedy. Then there's like 10 famous people that are really famous that do a version of that in an arena. But the amount of cultural power they have has always been greatly exaggerated. like 10 famous people that are really famous that do a version of that in in an arena. But the amount of cultural power they have has always been greatly exaggerated. My uncle's loved George Carlin who was anti-military and industrial complex, anti this anti that. And then they would go vote for Ronald Reagan.

Starting point is 01:15:16 They didn't care. It doesn't, it doesn't really, it does it. It's not as powerful as you think. I wish it was. It feels good. It feels good for me to say, I am the new thing. It really isn't. It truly isn't. No one is comedians of the people that get on stage and say, we're fucked up. We're drug addicts, we're sex addicts, we're fat, we're gross,

Starting point is 01:15:37 we can't manage our money, we can't stop eating, we can't stop fucking doing horrible things, we're liars, we're narcissists, we're sc scumbags We're the people that get out and say that only a Psychopath would look at us and go show me the way like it's not I disagree with you Well, then I'm then I'm a psychopath and that's that's another shank. I don't think I've no push back you It's another issue, but you know what I'm saying one One, I don't because, I mean, I understand you using this as a psychological tool for yourself to give yourself freedom. Yes. But the reality is you are one of the rare comedians

Starting point is 01:16:16 like a George Carlin who is besides being funny. Yeah, when I hear things like that, I'm like, okay, you're being very sweet, but like, I agree, I understand what you're saying. I do stuff that makes, hopefully makes you think. I hope that's what good comedy is. But I think I try to do that, but I also would hate to feel shackled

Starting point is 01:16:33 to the idea of that I had to make a point and that point had to be correct. I think the best comedy makes fun of everything, makes fun of both sides. And then there's a deep retreat about humanity revealed. But then what happens is people take that deep retreat and go, let's politicize it.

Starting point is 01:16:51 But what does he mean? Is it the right or the left? And I'm like, I'm doing something that I think speaks to hopefully people on both sides for everybody, because I'm making fun of people on the left and the right and in the center. And people that don't care, and people that do care. And I'm trying to figure out a way to do it.

Starting point is 01:17:04 But then immediately anything of value in this culture right now is like how do we politicize it? How do we put it in a box? So yes, I think comedy can produce a lot of inherently valuable things, reflective, thoughtful things. But then immediately can it be put in this box where all of those things can be used politically? No.

Starting point is 01:17:23 And like when they say comedy is great great way to speak truth to power. It is, but I don't know how much it changes things. I don't know how much a joke can dethrone a kin. I know the idea is nice, but let's look at the practical applications. I mean, we had brilliant comics, Bill Hicks, George Carlin, Richard Pratt, we had people talk about so many problems in society, illustrate them, put a spotlight on them,

Starting point is 01:17:56 and we still have them. They're worse now than they've ever been. Oh, that's not true. I think the society is better tonight. So to push back, in my perspective, it's very possible that those voices were the exact reason we have the world today, which I do believe is actually, I mean, on the boring old measures of what makes a good world, which is the amount of violence in the world,

Starting point is 01:18:21 the amount of opportunity, all those kinds of measures, even happiness, all of those things, measured things have been improving. It's Stephen Picker, gets a lot of shit for this, but he's really good at articulating how the data says pretty clearly that the world's getting better.

Starting point is 01:18:35 And it's arguable that the freedoms we do enjoy currently are thanks to the comedic voices or the people who mock. So to me, it's possible that humor is the very thing that saves the world. Humor is the very thing that keeps us is the balance of power in the world. But I think a lot of the things that those guys criticized

Starting point is 01:18:55 whether it was militarism or the elites, the lying, the corruption, the bribery, that's still going on. And it's always gonna go on, right? Because that's the nature of human beings. We call it out. We point it out. But we don't have a plan to change.

Starting point is 01:19:10 It's not really our job. Right. And I think that too much now is like, well, comedians should have a, like, I don't tell people who to vote for. Like the idea that comedians went and told people who to vote for is like, to me, it's crazy. I understand like people have strong opinions.

Starting point is 01:19:24 But like, I believe I have a job. And my job is to make you laugh or whatever, maybe make you think, but like, my job is not to tell you who to vote for. I mean, it's absurd. To see the thing you do by the comedy, like on your Twitter that people should definitely follow. I believe it's to add to Jim J. Dylan.

Starting point is 01:19:41 I agree with you. Oh, on this point of, I agree with you. I agree with you. Oh, on this point of, I agree with you. I agree with you. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Starting point is 01:19:50 I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,

Starting point is 01:19:58 I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I And that's awesome. And that, thank you. So you're not telling me what to think. You're giving me the freedom to think. And that's what great comedy does is, you know, I don't often agree with George Carlin. He can get pretty political sometimes. But, you know, just the ability to do that is so rare. Podcasts do that too now.

Starting point is 01:20:20 Like there's certain people that can really just challenge you to even when we disagree with them to sort of be like, oh, it's okay to think about this kind of stuff. Yeah, and I appreciate that because that's awesome. And I mean, that's great. And the guy that you used to bring a guy, that's great. If I'm giving you the license to think, then man, the world is completely fucked. But I'm happy about that.

Starting point is 01:20:41 Yeah. What up? A slurrying about. Speaking about the world being completely fucked, Alex Jones turned on QAnon. I know almost nothing. It's a very tough match. They had a rough marriage.

Starting point is 01:20:52 They fought it. They fought it out for years. And eventually we just knew someone was gonna leave someone. QAnon was tried to leave him a few months ago. Oh, so it was dangerous. I was just thinking someone else's house, the car wasn't in the driveway.

Starting point is 01:21:07 Yeah, well, the thing about QAnon that makes it a lot of fun, is it's kind of a make it up as you go along. I'm a drug addict, right? So often my lies aren't planned. They're in the moment. A lot of what I do on the podcast, a lot, you know, it's all in the moment.

Starting point is 01:21:21 I have an idea of what I want to talk about and I rant and I go. And I've been like, stone, that I shop at home and my parents are like, what's going on? There was $50 on the mantle now, it's not there. And I'm like, well, and I got to make something up on the spot, right? I've been, are you drinking again?

Starting point is 01:21:40 No, I'm not. And then you gotta have a, well, you were gone for two days No, no's where you were and somebody said you left your car Well, I was it well. This is I was at a sales conference and I left my car I flew to Phoenix like I understand what that is QAnon is an ever-evolving conspiracy theory with the events are happening In the past in the present and in the future. It's kind of hilarious every conspiracy theory is like Kennedy Something like that that there's a lot of truth in that or all truth. But at the end of the day, it's like you're looking back from 30,000 feet analyzing little things that have already happened. QAnon's like, so I think Alex is kind of like a little tired of the constant evolving

Starting point is 01:22:17 nature of that conspiracy theory. So he's not a fan of like the jazz that is Q and on so they're not because they're in provides and Improvising Alex is like hey man I was on board a little bit But at the end of the day it's getting a little annoying because it can turn on you eventually you become part of the conspiracy Right, they'll Alex is controlled opposition. That's what they'll say Eventually you could because Q and on just eat things so it's a conspiracy that just eats things the minute you start to say Hey man, maybe that's not it. It just eats you. You're in on it. Everyone's in on it. Everyone's a static pedophile. Everybody, everyone that questions it is eating children. And you go,

Starting point is 01:22:53 wait a minute. That seems illogical. And but now there's not no children. Now it's not enough. And I think QAnon's over now, unfortunately, because for these people, but I think fortunately for them, they're going to have to find a new hobby, but I think fortunately for them, they're gonna have to find a new hobby. But I think it's over now because even the best QAnon people now are starting to go, hey man, this might not be going down the way we thought. But they've literally gone as far as to seeing the like

Starting point is 01:23:14 Biden and Trump switched faces. Trump's actually still the president except Biden. And you have to be a real moron now. You gotta be real stupid now. It's at the end, like when it was cool, like when the Epstein stuff happened, Q and on was like, it was party at Q. And then when the Hunter Biden laptop

Starting point is 01:23:33 started to happen, they were like dancing, like, it's time. And then Biden wins and they're like, wait, whoa, and it's just like, it's the day after the park. Q and on, if you ever want to a party in high school at college, Q and on right now is the day after the party. You wake up, it's 12 noon. The sun is hitting you in the face. You're hung over. There's a stanch of disgusting beer and cigarettes all over the house. You're like, what the fuck happened here? I got to get out of here and get a bacon egg and cheese. That's

Starting point is 01:24:03 what Q and on is. They got a sober up, get out of that house, get a bacon-egg and cheese and go, man, we were fucking whacked. We were high, dude. I thought Nancy Pelosi was eating children for four years and that Donald Trump was gonna put her in Guantanamo Bay. Wow. That was, because I mean, it's interesting. The people had to do that after the 60s.

Starting point is 01:24:23 They were like, yeah, I just did a bunch of acid and I lived in a ranch in Malibu and fucked everyone I ever saw. And they're like, I thought that was the way the world was gonna go. And I followed some shaman guy, some guru who just wanted to fuck me in 10 other people that were living there.

Starting point is 01:24:37 And we did that for three years. Apparently, we never created the utopia we thought we were gonna have. And now I'm back working here, you know, at all state insurance. And we have great policies. And we thought we're gonna have and now I'm back working here, you know, at all state insurance And we have great policies and we'd love you to come in the office who we can break them down for you It all ends folks all the love all the bullshit ends, but it's fun They had so much fun QAnon was hard to get mad at because they were this was all they had

Starting point is 01:25:02 Yeah And they were they were quite good at it. And they were good at it. And it was a lot of desperate people, but they were also rich idiots. Those were like dumb rich people. And those are like the saddest people in Q. Because it's like they should,

Starting point is 01:25:18 they have the resources to do other things. But they're just a love Q. They're like, I'm just into this. I'm like your rich Go do something how incurious are you go to the Amazon? Go bird-watt. I don't know, but they're you know, so play golf. It's sad, but they're like done now I mean they're there. Oh, it's over. I'll see you think this is the I think everything's ending my whole thing is that trumps out QAnon's over

Starting point is 01:25:44 Quarantine's gonna end everything's ending. My whole thing is that Trump's out, QAnon's over, the quarantine's going to end. Everything's going to go back to something that's more recognizable. I think that are you optimistic about the 2021 and what the world is saying? To certain aspects, I have optimism and then I have I have short term optimism and long term pessimism. Okay. Meaning that I think in the short term things can get better. I think long term because there's so many forces that are out of our control, that are evolving in ways I barely understand, that are carving up society, it's going to be very tough long-term to be completely optimistic like, hey, it's going to be great, it's going to be good forever.

Starting point is 01:26:18 But short-term, I think, yeah, there's quarantine will end, things will get better, the economy will get a little better, the constant Trump craziness will die down a little bit. That's my hope and people can go back to focusing on things that matter, which is, you know, the things that are near you and close to you. Yeah, the humans around you. Humans around you, not Nancy Pelosi. I have uncles that talk about Nancy Pelosi, you've never met her. You'll never meet her.

Starting point is 01:26:44 Shut up. Yeah. And I have a belief that this kind of local love and kindness that you naturally can have for human beings that you actually know can be expanded at scale through the social networks that we use that we build. That would be great. The Twitter is currently failing at that miserably. That would be great. But that's, if we were able to increase the love through the social networks,

Starting point is 01:27:09 that would be great. It feels very hard too. It's a worthy challenge. You've tweeted one of the under-reported reasons conspiracy theories that I hold is because some of them are true. What conspiracy theories do you believe that are sort of important for people to think about, would you say? Kennedy was not killed by a lone gunman with no connections to any other situation government. I believe that JFK was removed from office by a group of people that had very different interests but the question of like deep state. So these are powerful people that are able now to dictate

Starting point is 01:27:55 through basically the threat of violence, what the president's, the surface powerful people in our society. Yeah, I mean, again, I want another investigation into 9-11 not because I think the George Bush press the button It made 9-11 happen, but because we invaded the country of Iraq and then we you know 15 out of 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia There was tons of stuff in the 9-11 port that didn't make sense to anybody There's tons of stuff about that day that I feel like we just don't know. Yeah, that's starting to interrupt. That's when I, my little ant life touched upon conspiracy theory world and first learned about Alex Jones. Right. Because when 9-11 happened, it

Starting point is 01:28:37 was very frustrating to me how poorly the reporting and the transparency around what exactly happened. Who knew what all that kind of a basic information that you would hope the government would release reveal and Use as like a lesson for how we prevent this instead it felt like a lot of stuff was being hidden In order to manipulate some kind of machine that leads us to war. Yeah, that's it. That's fair to say Yeah, I mean, I just don't feel like we've gotten the full story. I don't know what the full story is.

Starting point is 01:29:07 I can't, I don't know what it is, but I don't feel like we've gotten the full story. Yeah, there are groups of powerful pedophiles, right? Whether they're in the Catholic church, or they're in the government, or wherever they are, they are able to cover things up that they do. They're able to silence people that try to out them in terms of like disrupt their operations. That's true. QAnon has nuggets of truth. It just went crazy.

Starting point is 01:29:29 Any conspiracy theory that involves the night's Templar and also Chrissy Teigen is probably wrong. You know, what's the night's Templar? Well, it was just this group of knights back in the day, you know, it's that, you know, supposed secret meanings. And like in every conspiracy, they talk about like, you know, if you go deep enough, it's like the ninth template, the Rosacrucians, you know, all of these secret groups throughout history, the Illuminati, the... On this thread, they connect all of it, some of it's in the...

Starting point is 01:29:56 Oh yeah, it connects it all to David Spade. I mean, it's a little much. Well, how do you, if your David Spade defend yourself, by the way? You ignore it, because it's hilarious, and I know David Spade. It's know, David's Bay, it's like, Hollywood's kind of boring. Yes, there are sex orgies. I'm not invited.

Starting point is 01:30:09 I'm sure there's shit going on. Kids do get abused. Women get abused. I'll invite you to one. Please, if you want. With the, we get, we got the $75,000 dog. And then we'll get one. But, you know, you know, me and David's Bay,

Starting point is 01:30:20 we go out to sushi restaurants. Like, and you sit there and you listen to people complain. That's what a lot of it is. What a lot of Hollywood is is deeply sad tragedy that people don't understand that it's some of it isn't a fairious and dark and there are problems and there are real power brokers here. It's a dark town, 100%, but they did it. Everybody that lives here is in some wide-ranging vast conspiracy. Isn't true. It ignores how humdrum boring, deeply sad most people's lives are in Hollywood and it ignores how sad fame is in general. Fames are sad thing, not always, but a lot of times it's a sad thing. It's fleeting,

Starting point is 01:30:59 it's ephemeral, it doesn't last, it separates you from other people. It's isolating. It can be traumatic, depending on what's going on. Obviously, it's better than the alternative. If you're trying to be famous, it's better to be famous than not famous, right? I'll say that. But it's a mixed bag to a degree. There are things about it that aren't great. And Hollywood has a deep undercurrent of sadness of people that have not realized their dreams and people that have realized them. Balls of those people. Like the people that win Olympic gold medals can sometimes suffer from depression.

Starting point is 01:31:34 Correct. They've lost the... Well, somebody said, and I forget who said it, it's a great quote, it's not mine. I think it's from a book, or it might be from a TV show. Sometimes I quote something and they're like, that's from like Charlottes Webb. Oh. The two worst things are, oh, like, that's from like Charlottes web. I'm like, oh, the two worst things are,

Starting point is 01:31:46 oh, I think it's from the movie Limitless. I'm like an idiot. But anyway, thanks for having me on. Tomorrow, he'll have a nice genius. I will never publish this. I will never publish this. It's from the movie, and I think he says, the worst two worst things in the world are knockout.

Starting point is 01:31:59 Oh, you know, it's not from Limitless. I think it's from the mat that the movie where Nicholas Cage sold weapons. It was called Lord of War. It's a little better than Lundleless. Anyways, it's a good movie. It's a great movie. He said, the two worst things in the world are not getting what you want and getting it.

Starting point is 01:32:15 So the undercurrents of sadness that run through Hollywood are, they're two rivers that converge and they are people that just never had it and people that haven't and go, now what? And Swiss is sad place, it's tragic place. And there's a lot of, it's boring. That's what people don't realize.

Starting point is 01:32:27 It's like, it's actually kind of boring. Well, life is kind of boring. Life is kind of boring. But there's also like, you know, so I think QAnon's this way to make a lot of it seem like it's super exciting. It's exciting. And listen, I don't want to diminish the experience

Starting point is 01:32:39 of the people who've been abused or because there is a lot of horror here. But the whole QAnon thing was like, every body in every thing is doing, and that's not true. What's he, just to linger on that a little bit abusive, because there is a lot of horror here. But the whole Q&A thing was like, every body in every thing is doing, and that's not true. What's the, just to linger on that a little bit, is Bill Gates, the conspiracy theorist around Bill Gates, bothered me because this is me, Dom Nyev, Lex, thinks that Bill Gates did a lot of good for this world. Sure. First, by creating a company that empowered personal computers.

Starting point is 01:33:08 And second, by donating a ton of money for like treating malaria in Africa and all those kinds of things. And there's these huge amounts of conspiracies, I think. Based on like just replies to whatever Bill Gates does anything. Like, to me, the top replies should be about how inspiring that guy is to donate so much money. Well, I think this is so sorry to, and the thing I'm struggling with is if I'm Bill Gates, like, how do you behave differently? How do you show people that you're, if you're not, I I don't know doing creepy stuff that they're saying he's doing.

Starting point is 01:33:47 Well, I think part of it is that he's done some really good stuff, right? He's an innovative guy. He's on the vanguard of a lot of things. But he's also the antichrist. And I think that that is, you know, they're not mutually exclusive. He is the Prince of Darkness as well as some... No, here's what deal with Bill Gates. He's a Batman villain billionaire, meaning that he's not a villain, but he's got all this money, right? Here's the thing, and I love masking all these guys. I know you love these guys. Listen, when you have the kind of money that these guys have and you have the vision that

Starting point is 01:34:14 they have and they want society to look a certain way and a lot of them are doing great things, people, they need to get better at the pushback. They need to get a little better. When somebody says, hey man, what's going on over there? Bill Gates needs to be a little better going, here's what? Because Bill Gates has the money. I think he wants you wanted to shoot a missile of dust at the atmosphere to hell, global warming.

Starting point is 01:34:37 And a lot of scientists were like, hey man, that might not be the way to do it. But no one in history, like so few people in history have had the resources to even have that thought. That if you have the resources to have that thought and you have designs on the way you want society to look, whether it's public health policy, with vaccinations, whatever,

Starting point is 01:34:51 you have to get a little better at dealing with legitimate critiques. And obviously you're not defending yourself against people and say you're the anti-crime, but like you need to get a little better. And I feel like Bill Gates and some of those people at that level are like PR is, PR is kind of like, you know, they're terrible at it.

Starting point is 01:35:07 They're terrible at it. They're terrible at it. Him and Zuckerberg are really bad at it. They're Zuckerberg's horrible at it. He seems especially bad at public. Yeah, and it makes me feel so bad because the problem with being a billionaire is you lose touch with reality if you're not careful. I think Elon is

Starting point is 01:35:27 Good at at least so far maintaining touch with reality No, if you look at the name of his child you can clearly see Liz I do like him and I do think what he's done with Tesla You know my producer as a Tesla and he never shuts up about it Most people that have Teslas never shut up about them And they thought they think they're part of the development team at SpaceX and I like that he's created a world where people can get excited about a $37,000 car and never shut the fuck up about it to the point where I have to threaten people with

Starting point is 01:35:55 physical violence to get them to stop telling me about that their car drives itself. Oh, you should get a Tesla. He has a few less drinks and a few fewer viking and you can drive yourself. Have you thought about getting a test? I've never thought about it. I don't like them. They're minimalist. I don't like them. I want more. I want more. I want a I want to see just being it. I want it. I want it. I want it. My guy. My dude, my producer wants a cyber truck. I want a stage coach. Old school stage coach horse thief shit. Hmm. That's going. it's going back to that. I live in an area with a lot of horses.

Starting point is 01:36:27 It's going back to like whipping a horse. I want an animal to shriek while I go by. You want more suffering in the world, not less. Oh, I think we need it. Okay, but I just don't like that billionaire is a bad word. And it's not necessarily. Sure, not every billionaire is a pedophile. I know, but the problem is a lot of,

Starting point is 01:36:48 like it's just, you know, absumes very smart, and like just getting people at that house and taking photos of them. Nobody knew what they were doing, but it's like it was one of those things, where it's like, I've seen the most social guy ever,

Starting point is 01:36:58 like every photo, he's like, hey, it's like everyone that's ever done anything in the world has been at that fucking island. Every human being is like in a photo. It just weird like I'm in like it's funny me and my friends get together. We don't ever take photos, right? Like last night a few people I was in my birthday yesterday.

Starting point is 01:37:15 I'm 17 and my friends came over and we're just eating dinner, right? And we had a fun night. Just four people that are over. Nobody, right? Nobody ever thought like let's let's. Hey, I want to remember it. Let's take photos. I'm 36. Woo. But but everything Epstein did is just photos of everybody. It's interesting. Do you think Jeffy Epstein killed himself? No, I think he was killed by that guy that that that guy that they put in a cell that lun lunatic, who's that big muscled guy.

Starting point is 01:37:47 I think he did it for money, kept his mouth shut. That's money from whom do you think? Mossad, MI6, CIA, all three. So there's a lot of pressure from a lot of different profit people? Probably Mossad, CIA more. I mean, it seems very clear that he was working inside of a honeypot intelligence operation.

Starting point is 01:38:07 Just laying Maxwell's father was in Israeli super spy. Just laying Maxwell's working for Israeli intelligence, it would be odd to think. And of course, the CIA knows about everything that Israeli intelligence is doing with Americans. So I would think that it's a very cozy relationship with those intelligence agencies. And I think if you ran it by anyone, I think if you ran it by French intelligence, they'd go, yeah, no, get, get him. I don't think there's any intelligence service in the world whose job is to protect the powerful people living their countries that was against him getting whacked.

Starting point is 01:38:36 But do you think it's possible that he is just an evil person who was after manipulating people and also was a bad foul? No. So that there's a bigger, the fact that there's a bigger thing. Evil people don't enhance your facts Tim Dylan. No, there's the facts of the case. You don't can hand it a 65. Show me another evil guy who was handed a 65 million dollar

Starting point is 01:38:56 a place by less Wexner. Show me another evil guy that got that type of handshake deal where he was basically let off without anything after a judge had made a very sweetheart deal for him after he was accused of, you know, molesting a 14 year old. Show me another evil guy that doesn't have that kind of backing that has those type of friends, those connections, those type of properties. Show me, you know, multiple passports all over the world. So show me a guy without anyone backing him that's doing it. Why did they, you know, so you think he's just an evil guy. So he's doing this for whom

Starting point is 01:39:34 it's his own just chits and giggles. He's just getting off on it. Human nature. Yeah. Human nature, huh? It's human nature. $70 million. Limes on the moon mocked. Yeah. Is it human nature? And it's like always. I don't think it's human nature. I think it's I think it's I think they manipulated human nature. But I think they I think they did it. I think just laying back.

Starting point is 01:39:53 I think Epstein was really just a function area. And I think just Lane was kind of a pimp. And Epstein was kind of a guy that made the money okay. And you know, hid money and things like that and worked for a lot of powerful people. I don't believe in lone pedophiles anymore. I don't even believe that. If you're a pedophile, you're like in a group. You know what I mean?

Starting point is 01:40:16 Well, I'm not even, I'm not even going there but staying on just laying. So you believe there's some power in her. What do you think happens to her? No, like what? What are the different? Great, great question? I mean, I don't know what'll happen to her But I imagine she'll get some type of deal Closed-door thing years from now when people don't really care about the case and she'll serve some time in a in a very Lax thing or she'll be killed. I mean again

Starting point is 01:40:41 It's like if she was doing what she was doing, which is, I believe a fact that she was compromising powerful people so that they could be blackmailed by, you know, the intelligence services of the US and Israel, probably, I don't, I don't see how she wasn't doing that. Someone's black, someone's using the photos and the tapes, right? Someone's using that against these people, someone wants to control these people. Well, who and why? That's the real question. And I think the real question is, you want to, you want to exert control over congressmen and senators and presidents because they have the power to make decisions to affect the

Starting point is 01:41:21 , but the CIA just works for a lot of very wealthy people. That's what the CIA was. So how the CIA started, right, it was lawyers, bankers, they're protecting financial interests of multinational corporations all over the world, overthrowing democratically elected governments, going in and doing subterfuge campaigns, encouraging terror. They were doing all kinds of crazy stuff. I don't see why that would change. I think that's who they still represent.

Starting point is 01:41:44 And I think those people want certain policies and certain people pushed forward. And I think those people are controlled. And I think one of the ways to control people is their sexual problems. And that's the way they did it. I wish there was a way to cause everything you just said now. It's a lot of s sounds, doesn't it? I'm being indoctrinated on air. No, I think there's just a, just perhaps there's just a fun random guy who just wanted to make home movies. The president, um, well, you think I'm just some random guy.

Starting point is 01:42:18 I'm just trying to sell myself as somebody who is friendly with the American audience. I believe you are backed by people that want people to be more comfortable with robot dogs. I believe that. I believe you're pushed to be the happy face of AI, which is why I wanted to take that part out. You should take that half of your face. No editing.

Starting point is 01:42:37 Joe Rogan's rule. No editing. This is live. No, I mean, I wish there was a way to, for some of the conspiracy theories, to prove that that's not the case. Like what the CIA is, there is some possibility in my mind that institutions like the CIA and different kind of organizations are driven less by organized malevolence and more by just incompetence, just pure accuracy being incompetent. I think that argument gets a lesson, last persuasive, when you

Starting point is 01:43:09 look at all the things they've been able to do. Right. It's very certain, just as you said, that there's a bunch of them that have done, because there's some conspiracy theories that are dramatic and true. The question is, I wish there was a way to prove that some of them are not. And it's very difficult because so much has shrouded a mystery.

Starting point is 01:43:31 Like one of the things I'm bothered by is when people accuse other athletes of using steroids, for example. And it's just, yes, a lot of people use steroids, but it sucks that people just don't believe you. Like there's some incredible athletes that look shredded, they look just incredible performers, and everybody just says that they're on steroids, they kind of assume that. And people accuse me all the time of being on performance enhancing drugs and steroids,

Starting point is 01:43:59 and it is hard, but what I remind them is, it's what my appearance my appearances result of dedication. But the hard work diet exercise dedication. Are you on keto? I'm on I'm on key. I'm doing a version of your keto, right? Yeah. So I'm doing a version of keto right now with bread. And it's do you see what I mean your car bump?. You know, it's, you know, with sugar. It's called keto plus sugar. And it's a, it's a good diet for, I grew up in the 90s when nobody ever lost weight,

Starting point is 01:44:32 sadly, because every diet was like, can you eat what you want? Just be accountable. No one even knew what that meant. So it would be like my mother being like, if you have chocolate chip pancakes, have a glass of water. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:44:44 Just take a walk around the block. Yeah. You go to McDonald's three times a day. Just walk around the block. It's what my parents just said. My mother being like, just walk around the block. You're fine.

Starting point is 01:44:56 Gonna have a cigarette, walk 20 steps, walk 20 steps back. It's exercise. So, you know, there's too many conspiracies after. A lot of them aren't true. A lot of them are bitter angry people trying to justify their own impotence, not being able to do anything in life and they're like the people that have done something in life. They're all nefarious.

Starting point is 01:45:13 It's all that the car just hacked against me. That's 100% true. 100%. It attracts usually people that have not figured out a way to succeed. And I haven't succeeded on the level that they want you. But that also being true, there is a fair amount of fuckery going on and provable. And, you know, we just have to, I think, separate, know that these things are often inflated or not true,

Starting point is 01:45:43 but know that sometimes they are true. Otherwise, it wouldn't exist. If there was nothing to JFK, there was nothing to 9.11, if people felt like they were being dealt with honestly, this wouldn't exist. I mean, this exists because there are real questions that people have that don't get answered for whatever reason. And then the vacuum of the refusal to answer those questions, that that information vacuum is filled with people like Alex Jones, who are curious and sometimes they're right and sometimes they're horribly wrong. And sometimes they're all over the place.

Starting point is 01:46:16 A good storytellers and people love stories. And when there's an absence of actual, Alex is a uniquely American person, like very interesting. I don't know how many countries like how many people make a living as a conspiracy theorist a good living in other countries, right? It's very rare, right? I mean, it's very interesting and he became like I know people that knew him when he was a kid because I go to Austin and perform a lot.

Starting point is 01:46:36 And you know, he was a guy that would take a bullhorn and yell at cops because he thought dewey checkpoints were unconstitutional. That's what he was doing in college. And he's just went through. He was hated by the right. He was hated by the Bush people. He was hated by the and he went from being this this this guy that was considered like a leftist even like even though he's never leftist, he was considered this like enemy of mainstream conservatism like he was not and they considered a guy that wasn't a patriot, wasn't this wasn't that. And he just wow, like he winds and winds and ends up just being this confidant of a

Starting point is 01:47:10 Republican president, a very divisive Republican president. And he becomes this populist and everything like that. It's really wild to watch that. But I mean, I do think he should retire eventually just so we could get, you know, some, I don't know, it seems like a lot to keep doing. Well, I hope this world allows for Alex Jones to continue having a voice because just like you said, he's a, I use the word fun, but really he shakes up the norms of our discourse. I do. I do. I do.

Starting point is 01:47:40 I do. I do. I do think we need to put more value. I think entertainment, you know, we need, we do need to say that like there are people that should be allowed to have a voice for entertainment purposes. Right. And that's part of what Donald Trump now that he's not the president. Come on. Let the guy let him talk.

Starting point is 01:47:55 Who do you think is the best comedian of all time? Oh, that's a great question. Greatest of all time. You mentioned Karlin, your uncle's liking Karlin Well, Karlin is great. Karlin is really hard to argue with But Shepal is also really great Louis CK is really great. I don't know that there's what Joan Rivers is great I don know you smile at that, but she's a beast of a comic. I'm not aware of her stand-up actually.

Starting point is 01:48:28 She's a beast of a comic. Ask Rogue and ask any of them. Kinesens great. So what makes a great comic, do you think? In the history of comedy? Just like, Steads something at the moment in a way, found a way to communicate with people

Starting point is 01:48:44 in the funniest possible way at that moment and illustrated, you know, illustrated larger truths about life in what they did. And I think that guys like Louis and Cheppell and Prior and Kineson and Hicks, people like Joan Rivers have done that. And even, you know, modern people, people like Maria Bamprance, an amazing comedian. It's just a different style of comedy per se, but she's an amazing comedian. You know, Cat Williams is an amazing comedian. You know, he really is. Because you have any, we'll see the one of the things you kind of mentioned, the communities you mentioned, they were kind of fearless in saying the difficult thing they need to be said,

Starting point is 01:49:23 is Cat Williams is more, I don't remember his comedy, but I think it's just more wild out there. Well, to an extent that you can watch it, he's got stuff. He talks about stuff. He talks about race brilliantly. He talks about America brilliantly. No, I think there's a lot of stuff there. Of course, Chris Rock.

Starting point is 01:49:38 Of course. It's still hard. You can't really pick one. You just got to, there's a class of people that throughout this history of this business, which is not that long of a history. It's pretty much, you can't really pick one. You just gotta, there's a class of people that throughout this history of this business, which is not that long of a history, it's pretty much within the last century, that have been really influential.

Starting point is 01:49:53 Sometimes it's style, the way they deliver things. Sometimes it's substance of how they, what they're saying, or sometimes it's just a style of what they're saying. And we're only talking about stand-up comedians, right? So there's a million great comedians. I mean, if we're only talking about stand-up comedians, right? So there's a million great comedians. I mean, if we're gonna talk about Jim Carrey, and Adam Sandler, and Chris Farley,

Starting point is 01:50:09 I mean, these are brilliant, and those guys are bigger influences on comedy, I think, than stand-ups, really, truly. So there's so many brilliant people in the business. Who was for you, like influential, just the early on? This was influential, because I watched Bill Hicks, and I'd be like, this this guy saying crazy shit on stage And this is the only way to get away with it is because it's so funny

Starting point is 01:50:28 And he was calling out like you know the military industrial complex and and he was talking about the first Gulf War I remember he said a joke that I heard it made me sit up straight He goes he goes he was in Canada and he said we ought to war in the States He was talking about the first Gulf War and he said I was in the unenviable position of being for the war, but against the troops. And to me, I love that joke. It was so funny to me. And I was like, Oh, you can't get away with that anywhere, other than standing on a stage. You couldn't never say that in an office, really. And this was before, like, it was like, PC and this and the other thing, I always knew the comedians had to say shit and have it be funny enough

Starting point is 01:51:06 that you couldn't get away with it in polite society. That was the whole point. That was why it was a dark theater or a dark night club. That's when people had a few drinks. That's what the art form was. And that's why, so a guy like that was influential because I started watching him. And then of course, like, I loved SNL when I was a kid.

Starting point is 01:51:21 And I would watch Chris Farley. And I would watch people like even John Balushi going back to the day, but I'd watch Adam Sandler and we'll feral. And all these guys, I mean, there's so many funny people, but Bill Hicks was kind of funny. And then Patrice O'Neill was like probably my favorite comedian who's made me laugh more than anybody else. I think it was you actually that's maybe our new podcast. We're talking about Patrice on you on that he was actually

Starting point is 01:51:47 vicious Others, I think he was a little mean to other people But he was very good to people he liked I guess I think he was like not I mean He wasn't and I've never met him. I have no inside info But from what I've heard he was like no nonsense guy, right? You just said what you wanted to say, but I think in terms of Comedians, I don't know of anyone funnier than Patrice or Neil who said in modern times that said more about our society

Starting point is 01:52:11 than him. I mean, he was just a brilliantly funny guy on the radio. He was funny on his specials. He was funny everywhere. He was funny. And there's something else to be said about the whole medium of comedians doing podcasts. Yeah. a, it unlocks a weird, special new thing that changed everything. I mean, Rogan started with that. You're doing that. It, I think that's a whole another form of like stand-ups. Yeah. The ones that have a lot to say, almost like, uh, we get to witness the process of the creation of the jokes in a way, or the mind, the sort of the evolution of the mind behind the jokes, which is. Comedians relate to social media.

Starting point is 01:52:56 Comedians, comedians, comedians, it's a performance-based medium. So it's about getting up and doing it, getting up in a club, getting up in a theater, getting up in a bar, getting up wherever you can get up. And comedy for years was about performance. And then on the higher end, it was about movies and TV shows. But we were very slow to get on YouTube. We're very slow to adapt to technology. We're very slow to monetize anything we did on the internet. So podcasting was a way for comics and funny people to kind of get into that space, start earning money. And now because of the pandemic, it's really become essential. And it helps you.

Starting point is 01:53:37 And even without the pandemic, it was where people, it was how you were building a fan base. And that's like, you know, comics were very reticent to embrace social media at all because they thought it was cheap and they didn't like it. And they thought that people on it were idiots and were unfunny and it was just a blatant, you know, whatever it was, whether it was a money grab or it was just too commercial in a sense where they're like,

Starting point is 01:53:58 hey, look at me, like it was just goofy, right? And then comics, I think, got displaced. because all the YouTubers came in, and all the social media stars came in, and they really knocked comics off because now people are much more, like if you ask anyone under 30 who their favorite comedian is they say David Dobrik. And there's nothing wrong with that. David's a funny guy, but like what you, you know, I'm not especially to me, a ton, but that's okay. I don't, you know, but he makes people laugh. So he's funny. But he's what people, you know, that's a comedian. So comics got beat by other people coming into a digital space before they did laying the groundwork

Starting point is 01:54:42 and taking it over. And now comics are just trying to stay alive. Like even my podcast, which is people really like it, thank God, and I love doing it. The Tim Dylan show. Well, thank you. I was late. You know, I mean, I was, I just, you know, I've been podcasting for a long time, but really dedicating myself and putting the resources behind it, I was late to it. Like I was like, hey, I'm telling jokes on stage, which is great, but I should have been allocating more time to building an infrastructure online. And I wasn't doing it in a lot of comics,

Starting point is 01:55:13 weren't doing it, funny comics weren't doing. Comics that should be doing it, and I think when the pandemic ends, a lot of comics will just keep doing live standup, but I will keep, obviously I'm gonna go back on the road and do live standup, but I will keep doing this podcast and building digitally too. You're also exploring ideas. You're doing like short videos and stuff and so on.

Starting point is 01:55:30 You're trying to look for different mediums of how to be funny. I want to be funny everywhere. I love making things too. My producer Ben Avery is like a brilliant editor and comedic mind, even though he's not a stand up. He's able to, he understands funny, he understands what makes me funny, we're is like a brilliant editor and comedic mind, even though he's not a stand up. He's able to, he understands funny, he understands what makes me funny, we're able to make these really, I mean, some of those videos,

Starting point is 01:55:51 they're just brilliant little videos, even though they're tiny little videos, they're fucking as funny as anything. And it's not me, it's me working with somebody else to make something really great. And it's that relationship that's very important. In some sense, the medium of a short video is a challenge, just like the medium of a short tweet. Of course. How to say something. I mean, whatever the flavor is of what's in your heart,

Starting point is 01:56:18 what's in your mind, how to say it, whether it's the goal is funny or something, or just an expressing an idea. I think the whole thing that's important to us is that it's an extension of really like an extension of your friendship in a way. Are you guys laughing at it? Are you guys making each other laugh about this idea? And if that's the case, other people are going to laugh at it. I think so much of the old medium was like everything was top down.

Starting point is 01:56:44 Okay, pitch me this idea. I pitch it to the showrunner They pitch into the network they pitch to the this to that to the you know Standards and practices sales and we've got to go through everything now It's just like our mean a few buddies or even just one buddy laughing at this idea Does it captivate us and do we see it visually and also a great line from Roseanne a guy not Roseanne But a guy that worked on Roseanne The old Roseanne the great one. He said is it funny with the sound off Right, that's what we tried it. That's brilliant. Is it funny with the sound off when you see me in the thumb things or me in the

Starting point is 01:57:21 Megan McCain or me in the thing Is it funny with the sound off and the thing is funny with the sound off. And if you're funny with the sound off, you have a good starting point. That's hilarious because you, I would say you're one of the people, because most people are not funny with the sound or most comedians. Like you, you will feral is another example of that. There's something about when I click on one of your videos, it's funny just like the first thing I see, just your face. Well, thank you. That's very sweet. But I mean, that's funny just like the first thing I see just your face. We will thank you. That's very sweet.

Starting point is 01:57:48 I mean, God, I mean, that's what we try to do, right? We're trying to be funny. Yeah. So we're trying to be funny. Can we talk about love a little bit? Sure. So you came out of the closet as being gay when you were 25. Yeah, it's late, very late. Very late. Before then. I'm in AIDS tenderness. During and after, how has your view on love evolved? Interesting. It's so hard to say because I would, I would, I'd like to make a very like

Starting point is 01:58:19 Disney Fides statement about like that you can't be in love secretively. You should should be honest love should all be about honesty, but that's not true, right? There's people that are in love that are lying to everyone else, but they're deeply in love Yeah, I would love to say something like honesty is of ingredient for love You know, but I don't know maybe honesty with each other But I mean, I know I think there's a lot of people in the world that aren't honest. My view on love is super important. I think that it's a lot of society in America is all about love. We don't tend to focus on other things in terms of like, you know, friendship or sustainability of that. Because I think that a lot, I know a lot of people in relationships where it's like, I don't know, they're not,

Starting point is 01:59:08 they are, they love each other, but like it's also a rock solid couple because they are, they're very compatible in many other ways. So I think they're friends. They have, right. I see friendship and love is the same thing really. There's this part of it that are, right?

Starting point is 01:59:24 So it's like, I look at it as like, there needs to be more than just like that, like amazing, like chemistry or physical attraction that is this chemical thing that happens. There should be like some underlying. I mean, again, that's from what I, that's what I've observed as really long lasting successful relationships. Well, is there something about coming out

Starting point is 01:59:49 that was, that you took away that you remember as profound and insightful and so on? That it wasn't society, it was me. So there were kids that were out in my high school that I waited years later to do it. That was no one's fault with my own. So I was taking the cowardly way out and a lot of people, so I could blame society or like, oh, I lived in a conservative area and I grew up in a, you should take responsibility for your own decisions and if you're being

Starting point is 02:00:21 cowardly admit that you're being cowardly. So that's what I took out of it is it's not society's fault that you chose to be a coward. Society will never be perfect. You have to be honest when you're ready to be honest or however you want to be honest, but it's not something that too much now is it's everyone else's fault that you didn't take make a hard choice or a hard decision. So that's kind of what I took out of it. So now in retrospect, you see yourself as we're being afraid. Do you think at the time? Well, one of the people that like me, which is the

Starting point is 02:00:52 disease of humanity, right? Is it we want to be liked? And what happens is if you want people to like you and love you even you want people to feel comfortable with you. And those are people like your family. Friends. My family I would always, you know, could always throw in the street, but I'm kidding. I mean, but I am not. But my friends, my circle of friends, which I were my family at the time when you're senior, when you're 10th, 11th grade in high school, your friends are your family, you know, what I mean? Like that.

Starting point is 02:01:21 So you don't want to do anything that puts you on the outside of the circle. So thinking back to that fear, is there things you're afraid of now? That's not doing you're afraid to do. I'm afraid of all kinds of things. I'm afraid of not being good at my job, not being funny, letting people down, not putting out products that are good, you know, whether it's the podcast every week or stand up or the videos, like I'm afraid of like just a ton of people that really enjoy what we do.

Starting point is 02:01:49 So when you're in that position, you're nervous that you're going to start doing things that they don't like. So the new things you want to do, the evolution you want to do, you want to make sure you're evolving in the right way. You know, you want to make sure that you're doing things that are consistent with why people like you. But also you don't want to put yourself in a box and limit What you can be going forward. So like I had to talk with the CEO of NBC Universal once I was doing some internal sketch for them and

Starting point is 02:02:15 I was playing like a cab driver and he was a and he's not the current CEO But he was a former CEO and I said them once the hardest part of a running up a corporation of this size And he said to him, what's the hardest part of running a corporation of this size? And he said something very interesting. He said, the hardest part is maximizing the current profit model of what you have at the same time, getting ready, getting ready, getting the company ready for where it's going to be in five years. He said, those are often at odds. And that's the toughest thing. He goes, because I could just bang out everything I got to do right now.

Starting point is 02:02:43 And we're going to make a lot of money doing this. But am I devoting enough resources into digital so that in five years, when that's where everything lives, are we competitive in that space? So it's funny as I am now, hopefully, to people. And a lot of the things that I want to do now, I'm going, what groundwork am I not laying for three to five years down the road, so that I can be adapting to the trends that are important then in terms of not so much comedic trends, but like the technological trends, like what is the what is that you know I should have done

Starting point is 02:03:13 podcasting earlier. What should I should I have a bigger presence on TikTok should I have a bigger presence here should I be on Twitch should I be doing this should I be doing that what am I not doing that I should be doing that I'll regret not doing? And those are the conversations I think I have in my own head all the time. And I guess there's parallels to coming out of the gate or just parallels in career paths. So you're taking all that,

Starting point is 02:03:37 that's ultimately just fear. It's fear. Yeah. It's the fear of, you know, the best thing that happened in my career was that I came to L.A. I didn't have an idea of what was going to happen. I met somebody who was really committed to making funny things.

Starting point is 02:03:57 We just wanted to be funny. No one would let us be funny. We didn't have Comedy Central letting us be funny. We didn't have HBO. We didn't have Netflix. We just had a garage and a phone in the beginning and then a camera and then a thing and we just wanted to be funny and that was the greatest risk really. I took because I was like, well, I don't know what else is going to happen right now, but I just want to be funny and funny say my life. Right? I mean, funny got me out of drugs. Funny probably got me out of the closet. Funny was

Starting point is 02:04:22 the thing that I was able to do that made everything okay in my own head. So, as long as I'm being funny, something good will happen. So we did that, and that's something really cool happened that we were able to do a lot of cool things. But, you know, that's what it is. It's fear that keeps you from being the better version of yourself. Your mom, I mean, you have so many complicated fascinating parts of your story. But your mom, as you were growing up, suffered.

Starting point is 02:04:48 Well, from out to illness, yes, because of Frania. Can you tell her story and how that relationship has changed over the years? Yeah, well, she was always eccentric and always, you know, the terms for schizophrenia in an Irish Catholic household where we didn't talk about anything. We're the eccentric fun. She's fun. This is a name to this. Unprodictable. She's a, a, a, a, a, she was live wire. Any of the words you would use to describe somebody who is a fucking lunate

Starting point is 02:05:16 tech, but you wouldn't say that. Um, she, right. She, she started experiencing, uh, symptoms probably early on in her life, but she also, like, I think, started really manifesting them when I was in my mid teens. So like 14, 13, 14 area. And she got really, really bad. And then I think she was institutionalized about 10 years ago, a little over 10 years ago, and she could really no longer live on her own.

Starting point is 02:05:46 She was unable to go to work. She was unable to function. So I visit her when I can. Obviously, I'm not in New York, whenever I go to New York, I visit her. She's aware of what I do, my career and everything like that. She has good days and bad days, but mental illness is a thing. It's very tough. We don't talk about it as a society.

Starting point is 02:06:02 People with mental problems don't get that much attention. We tend to think that they did something wrong or that they deserve it or that they are, to be ignored. And we don't devote a lot of resources into it, which is unfortunate because then you have the junk gurus come in and go like, let's diagnose your mental illness off Instagram. And it's like, that's not the move. Do you, do you lover? I do.

Starting point is 02:06:27 I do. I love her, but I also remember her that isn't her now. And when someone has mental illness that's severe, you make peace with their death before they die. Oh, yeah. Because the part of them that you love and remember a lot of cases is not evident or obvious. Now, my mother's still a loving person that I love, but the fun, her ability to be present in the moment and to not, you know, that is lost with the progression of realness so

Starting point is 02:07:04 that you still love her. And I mean, again, you know, your parents, you know, the time horizons you have with your parents are unknown. People don't know. I have friends that are parents when they're lives for their entire life. And I have friends who's parents when they're like,

Starting point is 02:07:16 but my mother was a very, she knew what I was. When I was a little kid, I was an actor. When I was like six to 12. My mother knew that I was a performer. She knew what I was and what I'd ultimately do. She recognized that in me. And when I said to her, I want to audition for shows, I want to be on stage, I want to be on this,

Starting point is 02:07:29 I want to do this. She let me do it because she knew who I was and she didn't want to get in the way of me being a human being, a fully realized person at six. So that's probably the best thing a parent can do for a kid is let them be who they are and my mother did that. So that, I mean, that's probably the best thing a parent can do for a kid is let them be who they are and my mother did that. So that, I mean, that's good.

Starting point is 02:07:49 We ate too much fast food. There were negatives, but she did let me be who. Well, that's why you want to throw them out into the street. Yes. Sometimes. But coming to accept the mortality of her, I guess identity as you're remembering from childhood, do you ponder your own mortality?

Starting point is 02:08:13 Are you afraid of death? I'm afraid of death, I don't like the idea of death, but I know it's happening. You know, eventually. It's gonna happen eventually. I don't love it. I don't think about it. I think about, I wanna do some good stuff

Starting point is 02:08:24 that people can look back at. And I think I'm proud of the show where people look back at the show. I don't know how comedy ages or whatever, but like I think I put out a lot of stuff and I want to continue to put out stuff and I want to put out a few specials that people can look back at and go,

Starting point is 02:08:36 oh this guy was really funny in this really crazy. You know, he lived in the latter part of this century when all the shit was going on and he kind of made fun of it and he did something to make people's lives a little better just by having you know a few laughs you know. What do you think about this is something like an podcast context. Do you think you'll have just one or two or three shows out of thousands maybe that are

Starting point is 02:09:04 like the truly special ones. That's probably the case. Or do you think it's an entirety of the body of work? I think people take 10-minute clips from all different shows and put them together in this. Yeah, like a highlight reel of just like these are like the best things that he's ever done

Starting point is 02:09:20 or the best the rancies ever had, the best things, whatever. So the legacy would be that this was an important voice in a very weird time. I would hope that that's part of it. And I hope that I continue to be in a, you know, you say important, I say, funny, but hopefully I continue to be a voice. And that's what I think when I think about that, I think about like, what did people, what did people come on earth to do when I think I came, I think my main purpose on this planet, other than to experience whatever love or, you know, worthiness or whatever is to make, to entertain people.

Starting point is 02:09:53 And there's a lot of people in comedy right now that are not entertainers and that's really the problem. But and they got into comedy sort of the way that, you know, you can walk into the wrong store in a mall and then not realize you're in the wrong store into the wrong store in a mall and then not realize you're in the wrong store and try on a bunch of clothes and then go fuck, I wasted my whole afternoon. But I think I've always kind of been an entertainer and that's what I want to do. There's unfortunately, sadly, a lot of people that look up to you.

Starting point is 02:10:17 That is a horrible thing, but life is a nightmare. Yeah. If you were to give them advice, young folks, people in college, maybe even high school, but people in their 20s about what to do with their life, whether it's career, whether it's just life in general, what would you say? Ignore everyone, make a few good friends, truly have honest conversations with yourself about your, what, when do you feel the most alive? Figure that out. When and how do you feel the most alive? Figure that out. Try to figure out a job or a career that can replicate that feeling.

Starting point is 02:11:06 Don't listen to anyone. Don't listen to your parents. Don't listen to the gurus on the internet. Don't listen to me. Don't listen to anyone. Figure out where you feel the most alive. Where do you feel excited? Where does your pulse quicken? What do you feel matters?

Starting point is 02:11:22 When you're in a situation, do you feel like it matters? What situation was that? What got you excited? What thing did you walk into where you looked around and were taken back and you're like, wow, this is amazing. And I'm filled with awe. If you can figure out a life where you can excite yourself, you might not use drugs or alcohol or a sex addiction or gambling or irresponsibility. You might not have to get your fucking kicks in very destructive places if you can get them in a productive place.

Starting point is 02:11:58 Well, you got a pretty weaving life that's full of mistakes and so on. Many mistakes. Is that our mistakes a bug or a feature? Do you recommend embrace the mistakes and make a bunch of them? Depends what they are. You've had the full spectrum. I've had a lot, but a lot of mine could have sunk me.

Starting point is 02:12:22 They sound like fun when I talk about them, but they actually could have sunk me. Right. Like, there sound like fun when I talk about them, but they actually could have sunk me. And they were all part of what made me funny, but I don't know. I would never tell anyone else to just light their life on fire and hope it works out on the other end. It would be pretty irresponsible. But hey, at the end of the day,

Starting point is 02:12:43 it's like, you're gonna, we get, there's, you know, I think one of my themes is that there's too much, we give the power, we think we have to, the power of choice has been elevated in our society to a unhealthy degree. I think people are, I think you could get really good at something, but you're born with a certain aptitude. It might be to be a deal maker, might be to be an athlete, it might be to be an artist, it might be to be a romantic, it just falls in and out of love in and out of love in and out of love.

Starting point is 02:13:12 It might be to be like a world traveler, like, but whatever you are, I think you are. I think that there's something about you that makes you something. And if you can figure it out and then refine, you're not going to be good at it, per se. But if you're, if you're an athlete, it might not mean that you're going to be a great athlete in the history, but it might mean you're the best coach anyone's ever had or you're the person that, you know, builds a local scene for young athletes or whatever. If you are a really good deal maker, it doesn't mean you're going to be warm buff, but it might mean you're somebody who enjoys making deals all the time and things like that. Like, if you're an entertainer, it might mean that you are an entertainer.

Starting point is 02:13:50 It might mean that you are in the world of entertainment because you love it so much that if you lack the skill set to really pursue it on a degree, you just want to be like, there's a thing inside of you that makes you what you are. I think I look at certain people and I go, you were born to be that thing. You know, I hope purpose is to find it. I was a juror on that murder trial in Long Island in the, the woman who's a DA, I'm like, you were born to do this. You were born to put murderers away and this guy killed the mother of his children. He's a bad guy, but like, I was like, you are really good at what you do. She has a strong belief in whatever her moral code is

Starting point is 02:14:27 and what her injustice and ethics are. And she wants to communicate that to people. She was very good at doing what she did. I don't know the facts of the case. I didn't really list any seam guilty, so I just voted guilty. But I didn't really listen to her, but I heard the shape of her mouth was very bovine,

Starting point is 02:14:43 like it counted. It conferred a certain level of expertise that I enjoyed. It was funny. I mean, you could see you're have joking. Yeah. You could often see that people just, they found their place. They found their role. They found their thing.

Starting point is 02:14:59 They found their thing. And that's kind of the purpose of life. And once you are in a place that seems sticky, like the place that seems right, that's one of the problems with the generation that you're speaking to, is there's always a feeling I should keep exploring, keep exploring,

Starting point is 02:15:14 but it's okay to stay in a place that you've fallen that works. Yeah, and it listened. Sometimes the best place you'll find is like one point. People are like, when did you feel really excited and alive? It's like doing nothing. Right.

Starting point is 02:15:27 Yeah. You know, like that's the other thing. It's like some people can be like, I feel really excited and alive. And I'm laying in my backyard in a hammock. And I just wanted the simplest life and not have to do much. And I don't like doing anything. And I love laying around and go, wow, this guy looks good today. Bill Gates goes, this guy looks good today.

Starting point is 02:15:44 Let's shoot a missile into it. He wants to do shit, right? So it's like in between that and nothing, as you can find something. But in that process, for you personally, I mean, for me, for others, I think there's a struggle. When you look in the, when two and Dylan looks in the mirror, do you love yourself? Do you hate yourself? Well, a lot of times I think I'm a measumer, so I'm confused. I do, I'm a day-tongue myself all the time. I don't love myself or hate myself. Addicts have a very bad problem where you can't just fall in love with yourself and you can't hate yourself. Both of them lead you to a negative place. You try to stay kind of even keel. I don't go like, hey man, you put out a video, get all these views, things are great, you sold a bunch of

Starting point is 02:16:28 tickets, let's fucking go out and like maybe let's say, hey man, let's have that drink that you've been waiting for for 11 years. And I don't look at myself and go, you wait a burger yesterday, you're a piece of shit, you're horrible, you'll never, you know, get into the shape you want. Like I try not to get too lower, too high. Both of them are not good from my particular mind. Okay, I gotta ask, we were kind of spoke about 2021 and you being potentially hopeful, hopeful, short-term, cynical, long-term. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:16:59 So let me ask, I forgot to ask, are you moving to Austin? I don't know, I mean, I don't think so immediately. You know, I love Joe. I love what he's trying to do down there. I'm appreciative of everything that he's done for not only me, but for comedy in general. And I think as things happen in Austin

Starting point is 02:17:15 and unfold is such a political answer, but as things unfold, I will consider it more and more. But I mean, I think I got another year in LA. So you've spoken so nicely about this magical place that is Los Angeles. So you think you think there's a place for comedy in L.I. Oh, yeah. The loads of you plays for comedy in L.I. So it's going to be a place for comedy in New York.

Starting point is 02:17:38 I mean, the question is how thriving of a comedy scene is Austin going to be. And the Joe can probably make it one, but as of right now it isn't. So that would be him doing that. But the question is a lot of people escaping Austin just by I know better about New York. There's a lot of really brilliant people. Let him go.

Starting point is 02:17:56 There's other people. This is the thing. It's like this is the fear thing. It's like no, but all the brilliant people who leaving, there'll be other people and they'll fill their shoes, the way that they've done throughout history. And I think the New York and LA, Melissa, maybe in five to 10 years,

Starting point is 02:18:10 they're not the two cities. It would be real rough in five years when this pandemic's over for people in Australia to go, dude, you gotta go to America and you gotta visit Charleston and Austin. Yeah. Stop. Let's be adults here.

Starting point is 02:18:24 Let's be adults. It's still going to be New York and LA for a while. LA is an absolute hellscape, but I don't think you're going to replace California with another place. And also, everyone's going to get decisions now, because we're literally in the midst of a pandemic we've never had before.

Starting point is 02:18:43 We've never had this before. Joe loves California up until the pandemic. He had problems with it, like we all have problems with it. There's a lot of benefits to being here. I think a lot of us made pretty bad decisions in 2020 because we're all locked up and stuck with our own thoughts. But so it's funny there's parallels because I don't necessarily obviously fan a comedy, but I don't necessarily, obviously, if I'm in a comedy, but I don't care where comics move. Sure. But there's a parallel move that's happening,

Starting point is 02:19:10 set of decisions, which do influence my decision making, which is where to start a business that's tech centered. And that's more about the San Francisco Silicon Valley, and there is a lot of people leaving there. That's a really good question. Well, Austin, there is a lot of people leaving there. That's an awesome. Well, Austin, there's a bunch of different places. Phoenix, there's Denver. Austin will probably be a massive tech hub.

Starting point is 02:19:35 Elans there. It seems like it's all everything about Austin says that it's going to be a massive tech hub. I just don't know if that means it'll be a massive comedy hub. It might. I don't know if those means it'll be a massive comedy hub. It might. I don't know if those two can actually coexist. That's interesting, because. Yeah, I don't, I think comedy suffered in New York and LA when everyone got super rich.

Starting point is 02:19:54 Like, it just wasn't as cool. It's still much more fun on the road. It's still more fun to perform for people that want and need to laugh in strip malls. And it is performed for hedge fund managers and with their dates and Instagram models in LA. It's just what it is, comedy on the road is much more fun.

Starting point is 02:20:10 So maybe in the spirit of that, Austin becomes, but Austin is just colonized by tech bros and stuff. Like yeah, I mean, sure, sure it'll be fun and it'll be great. I think Joe's made LA a scene. So if anyone's gonna make Austin a scene, it's Joe. Yeah, and I like the Elon side, which is what I'm much more familiar with,

Starting point is 02:20:31 the promise of the possibility of what that could become, because there's a lot of problems that still come out. And of course, it might be naive to think that just because it's like the grass is greener thing, which is just because the place where you come from has a lot of problems. Doesn't mean you can just create a new place, it's not going to have those.

Starting point is 02:20:49 Yeah, there's homelessness in Austin, there are problems in Austin. I mean, I think that with, by the way, with the influx of very rich people to an area, sometimes that helps things, but sometimes that just makes things more polarizing and it's spot to put the spotlight on those problems and makes those problems even bigger, right?

Starting point is 02:21:04 So, I mean, I don't know that it's necessarily, it's spot puts a spotlight on those problems and makes those problems even bigger right so I mean I don't know that it's necessarily it's hard to predict I just know the LA right now is funny It's funny that there's 15 year old tiktokers making millions of dollars dancing in a house while the world burns That is very funny. Well, it's for your for for your style of humor. Yes, you absurdity It's funny that no one cares about Hollywood starlets and actresses and actors and everyone goes Hey, fuck you. You know, they've won three Academy Awards. They're all being replaced by just mediocre dancer 15 year olds. I mean, it's like there's something hilarious about this city and it will burn in hell But so will everything. So what are we talking about?

Starting point is 02:21:40 Yeah, eventually the the sun will die out and we will all be gone unless we colonize outside of our solar system. But I stand and just sit here, I'm struggling with this because Boston, I'm currently at MIT, Boston, doesn't feel like they're right place to start a business in the tech sector. And so I'm looking at San Francisco the way it is, I'm looking at Austin, just a little bit. Oh, Austin, a clear look. So it seems clear, but it's such a difficult thing to predict what a place will look like in 10 years

Starting point is 02:22:16 and 50 years and 20 years. And it's so hard to predict the risk. It's so hard to predict the risk. It's so hard to predict the risk. And you know, this is speaking to risk, there's not really a good reason for me to move anywhere. There's not a good reason to do anything in life.

Starting point is 02:22:30 Part of me wants to just fucking do it and whatever and see what happens. You like Boston, you like other things about Boston besides the tech thing. You like MIT? MIT, that's the problem. Do you like the food in Boston? Do you eat food? I haven't eaten food or been outside for years. And I mean, that's probably the better version.

Starting point is 02:22:52 But you're keto forever. We've been keto for a long time. Yeah, keto fasting for a long time. About 15 years fasting, eating once or twice a day. I haven't. And then no sugar ever, no like. No sugar. And no pasta ever. the eating once or twice a day. I'm not having, and then- No sugar ever, no like, no sugar. And no pasta ever, no bread ever.

Starting point is 02:23:10 No pasta, no bread, no except like, so my source of color. You could kind of live anywhere, because like going out is such a big part of what city you live in and like, you like the food there, do you like the restaurants, can you meet people, whatever, but it's like you really can just kind of. Yeah, so not married, no kids.

Starting point is 02:23:27 Right, you have freedom. I mean, too, I have freedom. Yeah. And that's, we have the curse of too many choices. Right. That's the thing. We have too many choices. We don't have somebody else going, what about like we don't have to justify our decisions

Starting point is 02:23:40 to anyone. Yeah. So we can just kind of like let our minds go run wild. So you just got a home instinct of just what feels right and just fucking do it. I think Austin would show down there in Elanda and there Austin seems like a real no-brainer move for you to try you know by the hell not why not why not and then I think I should go to MIT. Like I mean I mean I think I should give those nerds a piece of my mind. And you should go to, I was in an Uber pool once

Starting point is 02:24:10 with a kid from an IT. And I was eating this thing from Bova's bakery. I forget what it was. It was like, it's so good. I don't know. You don't know Bova's bakery, right? Yeah, it's in Boston. It's famous.

Starting point is 02:24:21 And I was eating a thing. I was like covered in chocolate. And this kid, like this little nerd, like this little USB drive with feet was just staring at me and they just dropped them off at MIT and he like scurryed away. But that's a big school that doesn't the NSA recruit out of their heavy like MIT places like that.

Starting point is 02:24:37 I can't, I can't speak to that. But what, this is the dickiest question I sometimes ask myself when I'm alone. What is the meaning of life? Do you think about the big existential kind of, why the hell we're here? It's a cosmic kind of joke, kind of in a weird way, right? I mean, Joe said it the other day on maybe it was you saying that like, he was just like, you know, by the time you figure out what it is, you're out of here.

Starting point is 02:25:04 You know, it's kind of interesting. Or you even start you figure out what it is, you're at it here. You know, it's kind of interesting. Or you even start to figure out what it is, you're at it here. It's like, it's like, that's kind of funny. It's like, you don't get enough time to truly, I think the meaning of life is just like, at the end of the day, do you feel it was time well spent? Was it time well spent?

Starting point is 02:25:23 That's really what it is. If you look back, do you go, hey, it was time well spent. That's really what it is. If you look back, do you go, hey, it was time well spent. It was pretty good ride. It was pretty good ride. I did a lot of things. I, doing what you say is a part of it, I think. If you say you're gonna do something, maybe doing it,

Starting point is 02:25:42 that seems to be extrapolating the meaning of life question to like, you know, what did you come here to do? I think it goes down deep of like, who are you and what do you want? And, you know, what are you suited to do? And what? It does seem that like the people who are most enlightened that I've ever met or read books by, they ultimately land on humor. Like they don't take shit seriously. They embrace the absurdity of it all and just kind of laugh at it in this kind of simple way.

Starting point is 02:26:14 So this seemed a humor is like one of the fundamental truths of this humor that's wearing. And some love. It's love. Humor can be love, right right people laughing that that sound is Kind of like Carolyn nap who wrote a book called drinking a love story, which is a really good book about not drinking drinking and then not drinking and She said the land you could understand things as love that you I think one of the last lines and the thing is like,

Starting point is 02:26:46 people talking about their experiences in life, that could be love. Like, you know, laughter is love. Like I feel like love and finding it wherever you could find it is why we're here. That's that connection and laughter can be love and figuring out something that makes life better for a lot of people can be loved, whether it's a vaccine or a technological advancement or whatever, all of those things I think can

Starting point is 02:27:14 be that feeling. And I think that's what's important. It connects you to a larger frequency. I don't think there's a better way to end it, Tim. I hope you're one of the voices. I truly believe that your legacy Be one of the most important voices of our time because you're fearless and challenging all the absurdity of the nonsense that of our

Starting point is 02:27:35 Social and political discourse. I hope you keep doing it. I'm a fan. I'm still a bit star struck so oh stop it listen I thought I was your intellectual capacity Enjoying anything I do only underscores how truly fucked we are But thank you very much. Yeah Thank you for talking today. Thank you brother Thanks for listening to this conversation with Tim Dylan and thank you to our sponsors Net sweet business management software athletic greensic Greens all in one nutrition drink,

Starting point is 02:28:09 Magic Spoon Low-Carb Serial, Better Help Online Therapy, and Rev Species Text Service. So the choice is Business, Health, Sanity, or Transcripts. Choose wisely my friends and if you wish wish click the sponsor links below to get a discount and to support this podcast. And now let me leave you some words from George Carlin. Scratch any cynic and you will find a disappointed idealist. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time. you

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

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