Rev Left Radio - Comedy in a Police State: ICE, SESTA-FOSTA, Stand-Up, & U.S. Culture

Episode Date: July 15, 2018

Jake Flores is a stand-up comedian and the host of Pod Damn America. Jake joins Brett to talk about his house visit from Department of Homeland Security agents because of a joke about ICE that he posted on twitter the day before. They also talk about comedy as a vehicle for radical politics, how SESTA-FOSTA hurts sex workers, Millennial culture, why reactionaries suck at comedy, and much more!    Visit Jake Flores’ Website here: http://www.feraljokes.com Follow him on Twitter @FeralJokes  Outro Song: Kill Your Masters by Run the Jewels Support Revolutionary Left Radio and get exclusive bonus content here: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio Follow us on Twitter @RevLeftRadio Intro Music by The String-Bo String Duo. You can listen and support their music here: https://tsbsd.bandcamp.com/track/red-black This podcast is officially affiliated with The Nebraska Left Coalition, the Nebraska IWW, and the Omaha GDC. Check out Nebraska IWW's new website here: https://www.nebraskaiww.org

What's up, y'all? I'm from Texas, too. Originally, originally, I'm a Texas New Yorker. I'm also, I'm a Texan and check this out. I'm woke. Are you guys fucking woke? Yeah, Texan woke. That means you call me by my preferred pronoun. Y'all, all right? It's the wokenest pronoun there is.

It includes everyone. What's up, y'all? Let's talk about it. It's happening everywhere. Everyone hates it. All these tattooed hipster ding-dongs are moving into your neighborhood Opening up these muffin shops They look like me. I am them kind of It's a problem It's wacky results. It's kind of fun sometimes, you know? I look in one of these neighborhoods. There's this like hip bookstore in my neighborhood Has a little sign outside. It says on some

Sundays they do sex classes. Okay, very cool, sex classes. Interesting. Some chick with scurlex hair is going to teach you how to do butt stuff. You know, without slipping a disc and throwing your back out of shit. It's important. That's good. Good for you. Sex classes. I don't need sex classes, though, because I was sex homes.

sex homeschooled. Unite the left against the capitalist lies And liberate the proletary as mine Five for all the working class Fight for equality Fight against the right free Fascist ideology Tune it in and turn it up loud

Revolutionary Left Radio starts now Hello everyone and welcome back to Revolutionary Left Radio I'm your host and Comrade Bred O'Shea, and today we have on Jake Flores, the comedian, to talk about comedy, talk about ice, talk about Sesta Fasta. Jake, would you like to introduce yourself and say a little bit about your background for anybody that doesn't know who you are? Yeah, sure thing. I'm a stand-up comedian primarily. I'm also, you know, extremely online millennial. I also host a podcast about leftist politics hosted by a bunch of comedians who are also organized

in that world. And I don't know. These days what it means to be an artist is you're not one thing. You're a whole big bubble of different outlets. And we'll get into the comedy later, but just to be clear up front, the name of your podcast is Pod Damn America. Is that correct? That is correct.

A wonderful little playoff of the Jeremiah Wright thing that got everybody up in arms. It's funny because when I go back and listen to that, like I remember at the time, you know, during Obama's election and that was like the big thing the right was attacking him for us as Jeremiah going off on America. God damn America, et cetera. And now, looking back on it with a more radical frame of mind, like, I agree with everything he said in that speech. That was an awesome speech.

Yeah, it's interesting how the Overton windows shifted and a lot of people become radicalized on a lot of things that made people like even ourselves once clutch our pearls are now, you know, not that weird at all. Exactly. Well, I'm a big fan of comedy, and I've been more and more interested in the kind of comedy circles that you run in and that's how I found you. So let's just kind of start off with some basic questions about you. How long have you been doing comedy and why did you get into it in the first place? I started when I was around 19 or 20-ish, you know, some sort of blur in my youth, hard to pin down

exactly, but I'm now 31 years old. So that's over 10 years. It's been something that's been with me for all of my adult life. I was attracted to it, you know, probably, I mean, most comedians I'll tell you if you interview Mo, it's, you know, my entire life. Like, I mean, I was a kid. I grew up watching, you know, Nick at Night and the classics and stuff. I'm watching Comedy Central and something spoke to me about stand-up. But I also, you know, I started doing it during a time in my life when I think I was very rudderless.

It gave me a sense of community. I was living in a city. I didn't really know anyone in. And it did a lot for me personally. I also think it's important to point out for some of the things I'm probably going to be talking about later in regards to, like, comedy and culture. I started slightly before there was what's agreed upon in the comedy community to be like the second comedy boom. So there's a big boom in the 80s when, you know, anyone and everyone should do this thing and everyone's on cocaine and, you know, for very interesting economic reasons. This is very popular practice of going and telling jokes in front of your friends at bars, right?

there's a second boom that kind of happened during Obama and I think after like the comedians of comedy sort of paved some way culturally and I started slightly before that so I think I always like to compare and contrast the the old-timey people that were real freaks and real niche weirdos that I started with with this crop of people we have now who are very normal and a lot of a very middle class yeah yeah that's where I come from though what do you think was the cause of this most this latest boom because we're certainly in a in a comedy boom absolutely do you have any idea or any inkling of what kind of gave rise to that well i mean a lot of it's cultural but i you know whenever you have some culture is you know connected in some way to economics and politics so i mean

the things i always think about is you know Obama was in office and middle class liberal people especially felt very safe and so a lot of what was was happening out of like the worlds of music and art and literature at the time. Everything was very personal, you know? Everyone was reading Dave Eggers and of Montreal and, you know, everything was autobiographical. And the story at the time was, you know, what's going on inside your own heart and your life, et cetera. And I think that's why something as autobiographical or that could be interpreted autobiographically as stand-up comedy. appealed to a group of people that were that were graduating from college and living comfortably

and moving to big cities. And it's all very romantic. And there's nothing wrong with that, too. That's just a, you know, artistic movements go through trends and the pendulum within them swings back and forth a lot. And you look at, you know, the evolutions of hip hop in such a short time. There's, you know, there's reasons for these things. I think the boom also kind of maybe is a result of, you know, with this large group of people, sort of finding themselves as young adults, there was also just, just purely because I think, I used to put it squarely on the comedians of comedy, but I think there was a collective effort to make this thing, you know, into an art form that's could be considered punk and kind of cool. And we could do it DIY style

and sort of take some of the power back from the, the television industry. And that's what kind of I liked about that time. I thought it was really cool that we were going to do a DIY. But I think we came full circle and came all the way back to now worshipping the television and the sitcom and success, you know, in the mainstream sense. Right. Yeah, that's incredibly interesting. The notion that under Obama's presidency, after Bush before Trump, there was a sort of, especially for the liberal worldview, which sees a Democratic president in office as being a comforting thing, regardless of what the action. policies are. And so they actually kind of, instead of focusing all the attention outwardly at

like wars or the chaos of Trump and ICE, et cetera, there's a moment where you can almost look inwardly because you kind of feel like politics is in good hands for the moment. And maybe that spurred on this sort of middle class liberal interest in the art form mixed with, of course, as you alluded to sort of millennial cultural interests in music and comedy and, you know, film generally. I'm sure that played a role as well. It's all incredibly interesting though, I don't know. Yeah, I just think about that a lot because a lot of people will tell

you, oh, Trump must have, you know, been great for comedy, right? Because people have this simplistic view of what comedy is, oh, it's you, you make fun of the president, right? But, you know, anybody who's down here in the trenches will tell you no, he was horrible for comedy. He's too funny as he is, and he's too

threatening. So he just became reality is now funny, so there's no real reason. to ruminate on it, you know. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, reality is a parody of itself at this point. There's no need for people to play middlemen. Yeah.

We're going to come back to comedy later and sort of the social and political implications of it, but I'm just kind of curious. Who are some of your biggest comedy heroes and influences both past and present? Past and present is a very good question asked there because those are, you know, the two main influences are people that I loved when I was forming my mind for this. And then also, you know, there's always an answer to this. question that I think no interviewer wants to hear, which is it's a bunch of people you've never heard about because they're my friends.

Yeah. My friends influence me incredibly. But as far as, uh, who are my guys, as Marin would say, um, I, uh, I mean, I even, I loved Marin, you know, when I was growing up. I saw him when I was a kid and somehow related to this, uh, cool cynical, you know, this, this New Yorker and, uh, all the angsty personal things he was talking about. But when I came back around and, and got into. stand up as a young man. I was really under Doug Stanhope, who is complicated because he is,

you know, this DIY intellectual, drunk, cool gonzo sort of guy, but he also was proudly a libertarian for a while. Yeah, I remember that. I am not and no longer flirt with, obviously, but I also, like I kind of am still within spitting distance of his world. I'm still within earshot of him. And so, and I, and I still watch his stuff and read his stuff. And he's an incredible writer. And I think, I think that he also maybe not so much subscribes to just hardcore libertarianism anymore. I still think he's definitely worth checking out.

And I admire the way he's able to craft jokes, which is, you know, first and foremost, what we're talking about when we talk about comedians. The politics often comes second. I also really just love Chappelle. and to me he really speaks to what a comic can be in terms of someone who sort of comments on society on a really large scale and on a really huge platform in a way that is critical of it and funny and analyzes it and he doesn't he seems really genuine to me in a way that a lot of a lot of people in this second comedy boom I was talking about kind of aren't he has a point of view that isn't shaped by, you know, the Overton window and the status quo. He's a bit of an iconoclass, which I really admire. And, you know, he does things. He writes jokes that are extremely funny and comments on like capitalism and society and things like that, which I think is the highest you can reach

in this sort of thing. I also don't think that that's necessarily the goal. And there are different types of comedy, just as there are different types of music and stuff. But it's something that always spoke to me. I also, just in terms of jokes, I love Pat and Oswald and guys like Kyle Canane, real long-form guys. They definitely inform me when I write, because I tend to write big sprawling stuff like them. I'm not really a one-liner guy. But also, even not being a one-liner guy, though, I mean, everyone, you know, has to pay respects to the great Mitch Headberg. Right, right. Yeah, I've seen Kyle Canane live before. It was a great show. Chappelle is wonderful. Not only his economic critiques, but his critiques of just the racial caste system in this society

are just so on point and so penetrating. You can laugh, but at the same time, it's a deep point he's making that you don't often hear. I remember working in, like, kitchens in my early 20s, just like being a dishwasher and a cook and shit. And we would just play Dave Chappelle stand-up comedy specials just all night, and we would just laugh our asses off while we were making pizza in the back. and it's just a funny, interesting memory I have. So, yeah, I mean, all those guys are great. Obviously, like people like Norm McDonald's, like that.

There's so much in comedy that we could talk about, and we'll get back into that in a little bit. But before we get into ICE and Sesta Fasta, I've been asking my guess this just as kind of a way to orient my listenership to where they're coming from. So how do you identify politically and what got you into radical politics initially?

Great question. And I'm sure there are tons. interesting answers with your various guests. Me personally, I only will go as far as to identify as a Marxist and maybe with some anarchist leanings. I don't want to limit myself. And I also am a student of radical politics. So I don't find it very prudent for me unless I really, really, really have a specific point to make to sort of subscribe to one of these long a world of Warcraftian, you know, I'm an anarcho-syndicalist split with, you know, hybrid, you know, comm, et cetera. You know, I, uh, I don't really, um, feel quite comfortable going that

far, especially because also, you know, as a comedian, I'm, I'm a little bit more of an analyzer of society than I am, um, you know, I do organize and I do, uh, as much as I can. But honestly sometimes i like to identify as a cultural marxist just because that's the word that gets thrown at uh me by a specific type of person so that's on a much uh nerdier level the same joke is you know identifying as a bad umbrae or a nasty woman i think it's kind of funny to say uh cultural marxist um but yeah i um that's kind of where i land and i arrived there in an interesting way because as I'm sort of discovering as I talk to more of my friends that are that are on some of the same kicks as me and that were, you know, doing a lot of similar work right now, I started to discover a lot of my friends I didn't know were like red diaper babies or like people that were more low key, like, you know, their parents were leftists, et cetera, like came from these traditions, but either had to sort of keep it on the down low for a long time or conversely, and this is where I kind of feel like I fall into these people. We're just plainly cynical about it until the biggest thing that they went off in a lot of people's heads, I think, is, you know, Bernie.

And I hate to even say it because such people just relitigate the 2016 election and are so annoying about it. And that's that's a name that'll, you know, that'll immediately make people shut off and stop listening to you. But frankly, what happened from my point of view with watching Occupy and Bernie and a few things leading up to that lifted me out of nihilism because I grew up in Texas where, you know, I had plenty of beliefs. And there are a lot of intellectual people in places like that. But what you're plagued with is nihilism because when you're living a place that's so, you know, that's got its boot on your neck like so hard, you know, you don't really. really feel that inspired to do anything or to get into something like organizing or to vote, which is the other end of the spectrum because you just, you know, what can you do? So for me, I always felt like someone who, you know, very wisely would say, ah, you know, you guys are all fools.

And, um, and myself, uh, I, I also had this experience, which I think is not uncommon, which is that the more I learned and the more I read leftist literature, Marx, et cetera, I felt like some things that I had always believed and that had been in my mind were suddenly being articulated. And in a way that, you know, commonly, you'll have people tell you, oh, this is a trend you're into, oh, this just came about because of 2016 or Bernie or whatever. But these things are things that you always kind of believed, but maybe we're afraid to manifest themselves in your mind because, you know, you live in a society with social mores and things and, uh, you know, paradigms in the Overton window and everything. As culture sort

of changes and it becomes more acceptable to talk and then, you know, also to think about these things, I felt myself, um, you know, very much intellectually stimulated and very gratified by all this thought becoming common, becoming something you could talk about. So I had, you know, a moment where I came to these politics. But I feel very genuine about it. I don't feel like, I've never felt this way, you know, reading about the Democratic Party or, you know, or libertarian bullshit when I was ever flirting with that stuff. So I kind of arrived here, but I think in a way that people can probably relate to,

which is very genuine. Yeah. I think a bunch of people can relate to that. I can relate to that. I get messages, people telling me that exact thing where to some extent this show has helped introduce those ideas to them. And as you said, they had those values

and those feelings, but they didn't really have a good articulation towards them. And of course, there's the hangover from the collapse of the USSR and the boom of the 90s and just leftist politics weren't really at the forefront of American culture for a very long time. And we, this generation has sort of had to rediscover that in a weird way and bring that back into the scene, especially after the financial

crisis, after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, you know, it was sort of re-installed these ideas in people's minds in a generation that was born after that Cold War taboo. We were more easily able to pick up some of those ideas and run with them in a way that maybe our parents' generation just weren't. So I find that extremely interesting. You mentioned nihilism, and I talked about this with a previous guest, but if you remember, before Trump, during the Obama years, there was this huge sort of blossoming of like nihilist and depression meme pages. And I was into them. Everybody was into them. And I just think it's a

weird cultural thing because it was our generation. It was before Bernie. It was before a lot of people got politicized before Trump, et cetera. It was in that weird Obama years. And there was this sort of internal looking and navel-gazy nihilism that was very popular amongst millennials. And then just just after just like the political turmoil of the past couple years has you don't you don't see that shit i don't ever see my friends retweeting nihilist and depression memes anymore they're retweeting communist and anarchist memes now yeah well nihilism at this point i think that doesn't seem as funny because it seems like the very real uh feeling of giving up you know i'll still joke about it from time to time but it's when i've been so frustrated with arguing with someone

else or um you know or just being on twitter and just reading insanely horrible takes that you know in a while when i joke about it it means i'm i just know i want to go do something else for five minutes before i inevitably dump myself back into this world exactly exactly all right well let's go ahead and move on and i know yeah you've talked about this a lot in the past few months um you've told it on other podcasts etc but i'm sure there's still plenty of people who have not heard the story, and I find this story fascinating and really indicative of a certain sort of cultural and political moment. So can you tell us about your visit from ICE agents? Why did they come to your home, and what was that experience like? Okay, absolutely. So the story goes that I woke up

on Cinco de Mayo, and I'm a half Mexican, half white dude. I am an online person. I'm a comedian. and these are all factors that go into this joke that I was sort of thrown around. I write tons of stuff online and a lot of them make it off the scratch pad into my stand-up act and I had a tour coming up. You know, something about writing jokes

is you tend to throw a lot of crazy stuff around. You don't really sit in police what's coming out of your brain. You know, that's maybe for later. So I was thinking about how funny it is that there's, you know, these clickbait rage articles about cultural appropriation that happen all the time. And you notice them on Cinco de Mayo and on Dio de los Moritos. And there's this funny thing to them where, you know,

I write things in the internet. I know how to sell something. I don't think that these are genuinely concerned people pushing these ideas out. I think it's a little bit of a play on white guilt and to just, just cause an uproar. That's how you get advertisers to, you know, that's how you make money now, you know. So I was thinking about that and I was thinking about, you know, how disingenuine, I think that that, that world of journalism is. But I also was thinking about how, just how funny it is to even be having these cultural conversations, you know, the further and further we get into this very real fascist government with ICE, you know, because ICE is this, you know, Gestapo at this point. So the joke was like, you know, it was on Twitter. So it's like jokes don't need a lot

of context on Twitter because everyone's already yelling about whatever you're talking about. So the jokes, jokes just kind of like, hey, what if we just let white people do cultural appropriation if they just killed an ice agent, right? Like that seems, you know, that seems like it would it would throw off, like it's, you know, it's a balance issue here. You know, it's weird that these people are so, uh, mired in this conversation about culture while there's this thing happening. It's like, can you imagine like during Nazi Germany if someone was riding, running around telling people, oh, this hat is problematic. You know, it's like a silly unbalanced.

So what do we just let these people, you know, wear the hat and, uh, you know, just as long as they show up and do some direct action, right? And so the joke then becomes like, you know, you should be, you should be allowed to be culturally racist in these soft, you know, ways if you're doing all as much direct action as possible. So like, you know, let's say you kill an ice agent. Well, uh, guess what? Now you're allowed to wear a sombrero, right? That seems fair for everyone. Uh, solved white guilt. It's all ice, you know? Um, and so like, uh, you know, let's say you keep going, et cetera. You kill like maybe five ice agents now you get the poncho to match the sombrero you know um and on and on and

the joke is kind of that the uh the more the more ice agents you were to actually take down in this war against this terrorist organization the more racist you're then allowed to become until it just culminates in like this action movie you know cultural appropriator man who's like whatever doing the joke in my act is like you know you're rolling to some some Mexican border town and they're just like, El Appropriatoro, look it's him. Like, you're like this legend, you know. And you're just this extremely racist person wearing, you know,

the makeup and everything, et cetera. So that's kind of the joke. I wrote it in a tweet format, you know. And I put it out on Cinque de Mile. It's a joke about the holiday. And, you know, I have a specific following. I mean, I don't know in Comtown and stuff like that. People know what to expect from something like me.

So I didn't really get anyone who was that mad about it. Um, but the next morning, I woke up to this banging on my, uh, door. And I thought it was the guy who, um, you know, was here to fix my pipes or something. Um, it's the only only person that ever comes to my door. I live in a loft, uh, kind of punk house space. And, um, I'd been out drinking the night before. And so I was real hungover. And, uh, you know, I just woke up and stumbled to the door. And, um, I open it. And there's these four, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, Homeland Security agents. They have their badges out and they say Homeland Security. And I sort of go like, you know, it takes me a minute, but then I go like, all right, I think I know what this is about. And so the thing that's really funny about this experience, I mean, this is a very scary experience, but it's also pretty funny on a level is that like, you know, what they're trying to, what they're there to do on some level, if deliberately, or if just systematically is to intimidate you. This, you know, this mechanism is set up to scare people and to scare them from dissidents, you know? I mean, if you have kids, like there's a guy, there's another guy who said something similar. It's not a comic. He was just, you know, making a statement on Facebook that got taken away from his family for six months.

Yeah. The quote unquote black identity extremist? Yep. Yeah. Yeah. that's terrifying if you have someone to be taken away from you know if you have kids etc but um i just think with me they got the wrong guy because i'm a fucking comedian i don't have anything you know i don't care about anything i don't value my own life really i there's

nobody in here that i don't have kids there's just a bunch of you know weird other road comedians sleeping on bed rolls in these rooms like i don't care you know i don't smoke weed so there's not really like that thing that they use a lot of the time like i I'm just a drunk, which is perfectly legal. You know, so I'm not like, oh, no, they're going to find my jello shots. Like, who cares? So, so I, you know, I can't remember, and I'm making it a point to this to tell this. And every time I tell the story, because this is, you know, something that's kind of important.

But I can't remember why they were invited them in or not. I might have just kind of like, all right, let's just do this. Or I might not have. And I don't think it really matters, but, you know, there is a lot that goes on there legally. and you should think about this if this ever happens to you. There are apparently things you can do to keep them from coming in. But I, A, like, I don't think, if you're a certain color of person, I don't think they're going to respect any of that stuff.

You should just know it for court later. But, you know, anyway, we end up in my apartment and there's one guy that sort of interviewing me. The other three are taking photos of, like, my apartment. And I have this roommate that was this like industrial goth artist who had recently moved out, but all their stuff is all over the wall. So they're taking pictures of like these mannequin parts and just weird gas masks and stuff. And I'm like, no, like it's no, that's not. Don't put that in the file.

Like don't make me look like a CSI, you know, weird, you know, the crow terrorist villain or whatever, you know. But, you know, they come in and we say, they're like, they're like. you know, well, can we sit down and talk about this and we sit down at the table where I recorded my podcast and there's all these mics out, you know? And the guy looks at me and he goes, these aren't on, are they? And they weren't. So I told them, no, they're not. But like, what if they were, you know? He didn't even think to look under the table, try to unplug them, turn it off. You know, very weird, shoddy job they're doing thus far, you know. So he starts to ask me, about the joke and the thing I said.

And, you know, I tell them, well, you know, I mean, you clearly looked me up. You found me within 24 hours. I know that you know I'm a comedian because it says that all over the damn internet next to my name. I've been marketing myself for 10 years, you know. And, you know, so I don't feel like I need really clarify that. And, you know, a joke is a work of fiction. If I had written a book about this, if this had been a, you know, an HBO, prestige television show you know this this wouldn't be treated in this way and I

I think it's unfair that comedians are always the first people to get thrown under the bus in the sense because it's a joke is the the most plausible thing you can willfully misunderstand and go you know this guy's being serious but like you know damn well that like that was not a literal statement everyone knows that everyone likes jokes you know and And he, you know, he sort of goes along with me and eventually he starts to say, well, you know, you could have incited someone. And, you know, at the time I had like, I don't know, like 10,000 Twitter followers or something. Thanks to this whole thing, I'm about doubled that.

But that's still not very much, you know, to say, oh, you're a cultural influencer. There's a, there's a mural in L.A. right now that you're only allowed to take a picture in front of if you have 20,000 followers and are therefore a cultural influence. influencer. I can't even take a picture in front of that thing. I can't even get booked at comedy clubs, you know. Don't tell me that I'm inciting people. But, you know, he said, you know, well, there's a possibility that, you know, some wacko could have read this and then gone off and yada, yada, yada. And I think that's a little bit, I call bullshit on it because, you know, that can be true, that can be said to be true of anything. And the other thing is, and I told him this, I was like, why don't you go, if you really are, believe that, why don't you go kick in

Roseanne Barr's door, you know, why don't you go mess with Alex Jones? Because these are people with millions of followers and have direct influence on society and the government. And they're actively trying to perpetuate like Pizza Gate theories. Or fucking Trump's, or fucking Trump's door, go kicking his door. I mean, he's threatening to nuclear bomb and millions of people for Christ's sake. Yeah. And he's, he's the culprit number one for this stuff. You know, he tells, he's the president and it tells people, like, I'm allowing you to, you know, go do this thing or whatever. And, you know, the pizza gate thing is really funny because I work at a restaurant that gets death threats all the time over pizza gate. It's not even the one from the conspiracy.

Jesus Christ. It's just that pervasive. These people are insane, you know. Yeah. You know, so I called bullshit because there's this thing about the law, which is it's a, it's just sort of selectively enforced. and that's the important part of uh well it's one of the important parts of the story is you know you could very well say well that you know they have a point and the law is law how can you argue with what they're saying but it's like if you're not

enforcing this across the board then it seems to be specifically people with a certain point of view that are being told you know you need to respect the law and you need to not not disrupt and not be subversive right so I don't think it's a coincidence that someone with, you know, the types of thoughts as I would get a visit before Alex Jones was because, you know, those guys, the agents that arrested, you know, that other guy who got six months for no reason, they heard about him on Alex Jones. Jesus, wow. Listen to Alex Jones.

That's horrifying. Yeah, it's fucking terrifying, you know. And so at the end of it, I started telling him about this stuff. And I think because I just was, I'm a, I'm a problem with authority, you know, I, I at once tried to protect myself by not doing anything that they could then arrest me for because I have been arrested and I'm not, you know, the type of person to like mouth off to someone while this is happening for, you know, for fear of my own safety. But I also, you know, when they engage me intellectually, I told them everything I believed.

And I didn't really hold back partially because maybe to some credit the hangover. I just didn't care of anything. Didn't give a fuck, yeah. Just my general point of view in life. And so I think what happened is that I might have taken the way. wind out of their sales a little bit in terms of this intimidation stuff because I think they're supposed to shock you a little bit and then start drawing information out of you. But I mean, they asked me, you know, do you know anyone has affected by this? And like, of course I do.

You know, of course I know people are affected by ICE, but I know a leading question when I hear one, you know, I know they're going to go, okay, who, you know, and I'm supposed to suddenly give up the names of people in my life. Yeah. You know, it didn't work, I think, to some extent. So we just ended up sort of sitting around and you know they didn't really get anything out of me and eventually they start they start asking me well then what you know what do you why do you not like ice and um you know i told them very plain and simply how i feel about ice which is that it's a terrorist organization and um you know just because it's part of the u.s government you know you should still look at it that way um it's unjustifiable etc i go on and on and on basic things that we all believe and we

I'll talk about it online every day, you know, but what I noticed that was interesting was his defense of ICE, which was he started to launch into this thing that I noticed immediately my ears pricked up and went, I've heard this argument before. And he said that, you know, oh, those videos you see online, those viral videos, those are a misrepresentation of what ICE does because they put those videos out, but they never show you the hundreds of interactions a day that ICE has with other people that are perfectly non-violent, et cetera, and nothing bad happens. And I noticed, I used to tend bar quite a bit. And this is the thing that cops would always tell you when you ask them about the videos about them, right? Right, right. It's a bullshit argument when the cops

tell you it, but it's even more of a bullshit argument when ICE tells you it, because at least a cop could say, you know, our job on some level is to serve and protect or whatever, you know, but ICE's stated mission is fascism. I don't believe that there's some other thing that these people are doing. That's heroic and that completely justifies them as an organization that we're not seeing. They exist for ethnic cleansing. So I asked him about that. He told me, well, you know, what they do is they fight human trafficking.

And when he said that, this is like this is how you can tell the comedian's mind, I think, because I can notice bullshit in things. And that's just how I think. I'm going to analyze things and go, oh, fuck. This is the trick right here, right? And so I, he tells me, oh, they fight human trafficking. And I immediately went, oh, I've heard that bullshit argument before, too. And where I heard it last was when I was talking to someone or reading about Sesta Fosta,

which is this bill that's anti-sex worker. It was passed recently with glowing support from Democrats. and Republicans, but if you look into it, it was lobby for by the extreme right-wing, Christian fundamentalists, people that don't think women should be able to read Cosmo, et cetera, and it was sold as a bill that was like rescuing women from sex work. And specifically, and here's what's important, it was sold as a bill that would fight human trafficking, right? So both these organizations are alluding to this specter of human trafficking. And Cesta Fossa really interesting because culturally people really believe that shit about sex work. But if you talk

to any sex worker or any sex work activists, they're all like desperately fighting against this bill because it's going to get them killed because what it does is, you know, it doesn't rescue any from that work. It also assumes that people want to be rescued from that work and, you know, and then it's not just labor. But, you know, what it does is effectively turn sex work back into a black market by destroying any forums online that sex workers could use to communicate with each other, to vet clients, etc. But the interesting thing to me was the marketing, which is it's about human trafficking, right? If you look at what happened with Sesta Foster, after Sesta Fasta got passed, the only people got arrested were sex workers for sex work, not for human trafficking,

right? So the way they sold that bullshit bill is to just use this boogeyman of human. trafficking, and then once they got it passed, use it for what it was for the whole time, which was patriarchy, right? Yep. So with ICE, I notice a parallel, which is that they use the specter of human trafficking to sell it to a large swath of people, and then once they get it passed, they use the law for what it was always for, which is white supremacy. It's just an interesting trick, and it works for some reason in our society with the whole

two-party thing or whatever. So I told him all that, and he said, what's Sesta Fossa? Oh, my God. And I was like, what? You're the, you're the human trafficking police. You're Homeland Security. Like, hell's going on here, you know? And so I explained it to him.

And they told me they'd still be watching me and they left. So there's a file on me and they said, you know, maybe I should expect another visit. So far nothing. I'm not really sure where this is, you know, going to end up. But I think, you know, it's a funny story. It's a scary story and there are a few things to be gleaned from it. You know, one, that whole parallel I just made because I think it says a lot about the authoritarian state. Also, how disorganized they were, you know.

My big takeaway from this whole experience was that the authoritarian apparatus is at once both extremely powerful and extremely uncalibrated, which is, you know, why you see this thing flailing around attacking, punishing, and killing people seemingly at random and all the wrong people, you know? They don't seem to be preventing a lot of mass shootings, but, you know, but they are messing with me and some guy on Facebook, you know, comedians, activists, et cetera, people who have no intention of any, you know, any threat, any physical threat. you know, he asked me if I was a, you know, if I was a terrorist, like if I was going to go do something, you know, in the street with guns or whatever. And I told him, I mean, no, I just started explaining organizing and civil discourse to him and civil engagement. You know, he might have been playing dumb. There's, that's, that's a thing that they supposedly do, you know, and there's definitely a reading of this, which, which you could interpret that to be how it went down. But it really just seemed honestly like some, you know, some guy with a job, um, who is just part of a system. that is terrifyingly dangerous, but not entirely put together, which is also my friends that got arrested at a J20, kind of had a similar takeaway from their experience. Anyway, that's the story in a nutshell.

Yeah, I mean, that is just fascinating. It shows on one hand the Department of Homeland Security is so insecure that they had to go after a comedian who posted a joke on Twitter, and then just the irony of that comedian then explaining to them what Sesta Foster, their own government, that they're supposedly ostensibly standing in for is doing, you know, using the sort of facade of human trafficking to go after sex workers,

just like they're using the facade of human trafficking to enforce white supremacy and be a Gestapo fascist force that gets brown people out of the country or worse locks little brown children in fucking cages. And then the comedian has to explain to them their own policies of the government that they're representing. It's just, it's a fascinating, also horrifying,

and illustrative sort of event. Yeah, I think that what's really interesting about the fact that I had to explain that to him is that when we talk about, you know, myths that they use against us, it's not really, I don't think a big huge conspiracy where like every cop and every agent knows, you know, that they're getting one over on us. I think the problem is that they believe those myths too, because they're just individuals working with an machine that then at the top of it, there's some insidious person like Stephen Miller or whatever. But, you know, that whenever you ask yourself, why are there black cops? and why there are so many Hispanic ice agents is because what they're doing is, you know, they're selling the myths to those people, too. So in some ways, you know, they're, I don't want to say victims because, you know, fuck you if you join one of those organizations, but that's how it operates, I think.

Yeah, they're a product of the society and the societal myths and the cultural conditioning that we're all subject to are also put upon the people that are in these agencies. And that's why, you know, you had the question of, well, they could possibly have been playing dumb, but I actually don't think they were. I think that they weren't being manipulative or cynical. They were just genuinely incompetent.

I mean, the road you take to get into those positions isn't one where you're spending a lot of time in the humanities department exploring philosophy and political science. It's very much a sort of militarized or police track, and that has a very specific and narrow range of information you need to go along that track. So I really do think they had no fucking clue what Sesta Fasta was, and you genuinely explained it to him. I mean, even the fact that you knew their arguments,

because you've heard them before, but they didn't really know yours, I think speaks volumes. And this is the Department of Homeland Security. These aren't just, you know, beat cops. These are people that are high-ranking government officials, and still they don't know shit. I mean, it's scary because that ignorance can be weaponized in really horrifying ways. But it's also kind of interesting because, you know, if we know more, I mean, we can have the advantage play in our favor if we play it right. What do you think about that? Yeah, well, I think well said, and I totally agree.

And I do think that, yeah, this is definitely, if there's some silver line to be clean from that, then that that means that, you know, yes, this thing can be turned in the other direction. I do think that there's a tendency among people to make up, you know, a big spooky, big brother state in their head. I think the most inspiring thing to take away from something like this is, oh, the system is fallible and it is made up of humans, and we can't fight back. It's not an invincible thing. in a lot of ways I felt that way in an odd way when Trump got elected because at some level in my head

I didn't think they counted the votes but clearly they do so clearly it's destructible from both ends you know. Right exactly and you know that goes back that really separates radical politics from conspiracy nonsense and even Marx talked about it you know the ruling class is not a monolith it's actually lots of different factions

and ignorances and splits inside the ruling class itself and so it's really not this conspiratorial cadre running the world from on high, but it's really a bunch of different factions of the ruling class and the state operating in parallel tracks, but in ways that often conflict with one another or that are not informed by other branches, et cetera. It's more disorganized. It's still powerful, but it's not, it's not conspiratorial. And I think that's important for us to hear. Now, before we move on to comedy, I do want to touch on the idea of intellectual engagement with police, because that's something that I've had many run-ins with police in my life, and

And it's always something that I want to press. I like to have time to just pick a high-ranking police, our government officials' brain and just kind of see where they are. Actually, I'll tell this because this happened just this week, and it's not nearly to the extent of yours, but it does speak to this paranoia and this cracking down on dissent. I had a local detective call me up this week, and he basically said that they got an anonymous tip that I was a quote-unquote violent communist who was planning to kill the rich and that I talked about it on my podcast. So this detective calls me out of the fucking, I'm just walking out of work and I get this call from this detective and I'm like, what in the hell is going on? And he's like, well, we got this tip, you know, it's my job to follow up on it, etc.

I just basically like, you know, here's the name of the podcast, you can go fucking listen. This is a baseless accusation by who the fuck knows. Obviously, reactionaries of some sort. But it was just, it was, it's, it's nerve-wracking because now you feel like you have the police watching you. And I feel like right now that there's not a, you know, totally impossible that the police is going to listen to this episode and just to see what is this guy all about. I'm on their radar now. And I think it does play into this broader thing from J20 to your situation to the quote unquote black identity extremist who was taken away from his kids for for six months to

lesser examples like me. It is this sort of broad cracking down on dissent. And it's never equally distributed, right? It's like you said earlier. It's not the Alex Jones's and the three percenters and the Nazis that are being locked up and taken away from their families and and having you know government officials knock on their doors but it's it's it's the left wing and and I think in this right wing society with a right wing white supremacist government they will always view the radical left as much more of a threat than it views the fascist right because the fascist right on the political spectrum is closer to the center than we are you know well I agree and also I'd like to point out that the fascist right is also you know heavily infiltrated like

the police and ICE in these organizations that are used, you know, to implement authoritarianism to begin with. So, you know, like I said, like they're listening to Alex Jones. Yeah, it's always going to be one-sided like this. So do you have anything else you want to say about ICE or Sesta Fossa before we move on to some questions about comedy broadly? Another big takeaway from that story is that it's something that's designed to intimidate. and I would like to, you know, as I tell the story, advise that you take away the opposite of what they intend. Fuck those people, you know, they're horrible. And as a, you know, a person with a unique position to be able to do so, I would very much like to buck back against these people because if we're not intimidated by this, then it loses a little bit of power.

What you were just saying about how it's, it only attacks the left and it doesn't attack the right. Well, it also, it only attacks the left just at random, seemingly, because something about the story I think is kind of interesting is that I didn't get reported, I don't think, by another user in the internet. I think I got pinged by their algorithm. Right. And so, you know, it really goes to show you, these people are angry and they have a system that definitely wants to take us down. But it, you know, it doesn't have any calibration, any insidious, you know, big, big, dark web, spooky machines. that's coming to find you, they don't know what they're doing, something to keep in mind. Absolutely, yeah, pros and cons, and I think it's a learning experience and moving forward

these sorts of events and visitations are, you know, enlightening because you kind of do get to pull the curtain back a bit and see, you know, what the power system really is behind it. And in a lot of ways, like you say, it is scary, but in a lot of ways, it's kind of incompetent and absurd in its own, you know, parody of itself way. But let's go ahead and move into comedy. There's another bar in my neighborhood. Quite disturbing. There's this bar in my neighborhood that had something

an event recently, you know? It's a bar, it's a stage. They have events. Stuff like this. Pretty cool, right? But they had something recently that I found very disturbing. They had an event called

The Short Dick Contest. Okay? What are we doing here? what is fun in 2018 you know short dick contest short dick contest is exactly what it sounds like it's a night at a bar where a bunch of guys got together threw down money whipped out their dicks had a contest to see who had the shortest dick I don't know how it was regulated I don't know if there was a referee, some guy blowing a whistle and throwing flags around, you know.

Fluffing, excessive celebration, keep it down over there. I want a good, clean match tonight. Fundamentals, stick to the fundamentals. Short dick contest. What a ridiculous thing to do, you know? I can't stop thinking about it. I've been up all night, paralyzed. with anxiety, wondering how terrible it must feel

to come in second place in the short tick contest. You know? Because the guy who won won something Free plate of nachos, everyone likes him, you know? The guy came in second place has probably an equally short dick. Everyone's like, boo, loser! Get out of our bar!

You know? That's got to suck. Then, hold on a minute. What about the guy who came in last place? that motherfucker knew exactly what he was doing showed up to the short dick contest paid money just to whip his huge dick out in front of

a bunch of noble small dick men you sir are the biggest dick are a huge dick as a leftist what do you think the role of comedy stand-up comedy etc is or can be in pushing forward a revolutionary political project so it almost sounds silly to you know to talk about something as low-brow and dumb as comedy in these completely radical terms but unfortunately

I think it does hold quite a role and it's complicated what that role is though because there is an idea that I only halfway subscribe to that's very popular on the left, which is that politics is not downstream from culture. The reason people say this is because there's a politician, right-wing guy

off the top of my head, I can't remember him, who said, you know, very vehemently that politics is downstream from culture. And I think what he was trying to argue was, you know, the violent video games, they do cause these, you know, these mass shootings, et cetera. And so obviously we know that to be bullshit, right? And also, there is a dirty

trick that the neoliberal left sort of gives you, which is that, you know, representation in culture is supposed to be this thing that that then causes all the actual direct justice to then happen slowly as an inspiration from it. They offer you, you know, a superhero movie with your, uh, with your someone who looks like you as a replacement for, you know, anything that would actually affect you, your community, poor people in general, et cetera, right? And that's why we tend to get so mad at the concept of culture in the left, I think. But I think It's more complicated than that because those two points are definitely true. And that is a dirty trick and it is flaccid and hilarious and to look at the way people worship like, you know, the movie Wonder Woman or something while not supporting politicians or politics that would appeal to the massive amount of women on earth.

You know, it's very funny. They worship this idea of one person succeeding being better than, you know, they're being a floor for us all to live on, et cetera, et cetera. It's sort of right. But I will say I think it's a little bit more complicated than that because, you know, there still is something to be said for a cultural diet. And my main point about this, I think the best example of culture affecting politics is probably the daily show. The daily show is something that I and a lot of people my age watched every day after school. Formed a lot of politics and a lot of beliefs that we held, some of which I still hold and some of which I now know. to be complete bullshit. I don't think the world would look the same had there not been a daily show for that long. I think it would be foolish for anyone to argue that there's no effect on American politics by this concept of comedy about politics. And I also think that that vehicle, you know, that the daily show and all its little spin-offs

sort of embodies is completely useless, meaningless and shot off in the wrong direction at this point. You know, as society progresses and a lot of us come to understand, you know, leftist politics and the deeper motivations and meetings behind a lot of these things, you start to realize that television, like comedy on television like that can never really be truly subversive because even something like The Daily Show is still on a network that is, you know, owned by a company that sells weapons, et cetera, has a, you know, a big, big neoliberal imperialistic mission. at the end of the day and that's why systematically there's there's a limit to what you can say and there's a limit to the ideas and the directions you can put forth on those things but i do think that right now because we have the the internet and these new frontiers like podcasting where there's no one that can really censor the stuff there's no gatekeeper to keep you from making your own thing we no longer have to worship the mountain the ladder of the industry and

And, you know, this big cultural hegemony that they have and, you know, and someone telling you, oh, no, you can't say that. You can't believe that. Or this isn't good. This won't work. This won't sell to other people, et cetera. We got this wild, wild west stuff going on with, with, with, I meant wild west. Not the, not the movie.

Will Smith's movie. Yeah, yeah. We got these big spiders. We're running around them. No, because because podcasting in the internet are sort of the wild west right now, What we're seeing is an opportunity to completely fill that void in what the daily show should have eventually become with like, you know, podcasts like Chopo Trap House. I mean, it's not an accident. It's not a coincidence that that podcast blew up during 2016 and is now a complete, you know, behemoth online and is sprouting off an inspiring shows like mine.

I'll tell you anyone directly up front and be incredibly inspired by that show. and they're great people, and we've worked together on stuff. And I think that, like, that is a, you know, a shining light little beacon for what the future can be. Because what we can do with that is replace what the Daily Show did for people, and it's like especially young people, which is use comedy to make things palatable, to make things interesting, you know, make it really easy to take in information that you do find intellectually stimulating. And I think it's also important because. We're not going to win this, we're not going to win a lot of people over by throwing, you know, these big, thick tomes at people and telling, oh, read Marx, read Howard Zinn, et cetera. Because working class people don't have time to sit around and read all this stuff. You know, you need podcasts.

You need snackable information. You need media to sort of give you that cultural bedrock. Ironically, the only people that really can sit around and theorize all that stuff are academic types, you know, grad students, people of a different class. So I don't think it's anything to turn your nose up at this lowbrow art form. I think it serves a purpose. You have to be filling this specific cultural gap for it to serve that purpose. And I do think a lot of what's going on it right now because of this middle class comedy boom I talked about isn't doing that at all. There's a lot of people that claim to be like speaking truth to power. And it's just, you know, they're just out there

making platitudes for claptor. There's a lot of it's kind of lame. But at the end of the day, that's my fight. And I hope to move things in this direction. And as I've traveled the country, you know, I wanted a tour recently right after this thing happened, a bunch of people came out to my shows, young people that listen to this stuff and seem inspired by it. And they're the next generation of people that are going to organize and vote.

And so I think that there's ever reason to do this. Yeah, I mean, it is like DIY in its own way. This whole podcasting boom, it's regular people. finally being able to have the technology and the lack of gatekeepers to kind of talk to one another. You know, a conversation between me and you five years ago, ten years ago would have just been between me and you. But now thousands and thousands of people can tune in, listen, and engage with that content. And what you were saying about reading books because you're working class person in late capitalism and you're pressed to the metal every goddamn day. And when you come home, a lot of people, you know, they don't want to sit down and spend their only four hours before bed trudging through a very intellectually engaged.

and complicated books. Sometimes they just want to sit back and watch comedy or even when they're at work, maybe they just want to throw in some headphones and then here we are. And we're talking to them in a vehicle that they can more easily access. And so I think that is important. I do agree with you that there is limitations to comedy and unique obstacles to trying to be subversive using it. And I think our generation did, I mean, I'm only a year younger than you. So I mean, I was totally in that same milieu as you. I was watching the daily show every day. And it was interesting and you did kind of walk away feeling a little bit smug, but it was really, there was no momentum to it. There's nothing else you did. It almost acted to dissipate your political

frustration rather than to focus it towards the enemies of the people in a way. And I thought that was a big problem. And maybe we're trying to grasp ways to not do that, you know, to present these topics, but also to urge people to get out and do something about it at the end of the day and not just turn off your TV and go to bed and wake up the next day like nothing happen. Yeah, the reason I'm so inspired by that as a concept is that I can, I, I'm certain that it is a real thing that can happen because it on some level happened to me. And I also, you know, I don't think that, uh, that culture and, uh, that comedy, obviously as part of culture are at all the most important things that can be affected right now. But as someone who has a certain set of

skills. I definitely feel like this is something I can contribute that will have more of an effect than if I just spent all my time on the ground organizing or something like that. I mean, I, you know, I do have 10 years put into a skill set, which just, you know, now translates to broadcasting and media and stuff like that. And I've enough people follow me online to where I feel like it would actually be a little bit counterproductive to not take advantage right now. You know, that, to me, feels better than doing nothing or going out and, you know, doing on the ground work, which is I also intend to do as much as possible, but you weaponize what you do, you know? Exactly. We're in the middle of a fight.

Yeah. And I always say it's attack on all fronts, and every single person has a unique set of skills and talents that they can lend. And it might not, I mean, even just being an effective organizer is a really, really crucial talent that some people have and they're really good with and other people. struggle with based on whatever, you know, maybe you're a little introverted or shy, et cetera. I mean, who knows what the problems may be, but everybody does have something they're into. And at this moment in history, it's how can we take that thing that I already like doing and I'm already kind of good at and turn it in a direction that helps the cause? And I think if we all get creative with that, I think we can make progress on all fronts. Exactly. And to say another

thing about culture, if there are people that are skeptical about the concept of culture having an effect on people and the way they think and the beliefs they hold and our our paradigms that we tend to live in. I talked to somebody recently who confirmed my belief a little bit, I think, which is what, which was a sex work activist. So me and some of the people from Chopo Trap House are organizing an event right now. It's still in its nascency. And I can't really, uh, you know, give you a date or anything yet, but follow me and I'll be promoting it. Uh, but basically we're, we're organizing an event, uh, for survivors of sesta, Fasta, and it's going to benefit some organizations that do ongoing work within that

community. That's pretty cool. I think it's going to be big, big event. We're going to be able to use our mutual followings and stuff to really pack out an event. We're going to get some big names on it and stuff. It's going to be kind of, you know, one of the jokes of it is going to be kind of anti-Amy Schumer and Seth Myers because they promoted Sesta Fasta for some reason, they're idiots and their celebrities and they don't know what the hell they're talking about. They watch too many Netflix documentaries. But I was talking with some of the organizers about how I feel about this cultural thing and I'm happy to report back that someone said to me that they believe that to be absolutely right, especially in the case of sex workers because sex workers,

for example, have a gigantic barrier, a gigantic hurdle in between them and society in the form of social stigma, right? And that's a cultural thing that you can change by making a piece of media that gets really popular. If you don't think that people's minds were changed over the last 10 years or so on like trans rights and queer rights and stuff like that, through culture, I don't really know what to tell you. I mean, do you think it was a bill that got passed? One good byproduct that came out of, you know, sort of liberal cultural legamy was at least that. Yeah, absolutely. So why conservatives and comedy? They don't go together. I know a lot of people have talked about this idea that musicians and artists and comedians tend to be more progressive, tend to lean towards

the left. There are some conservatives that try to be funny, you know, the Greg Gutfelds, the Stephen Crowders of the world, even the Gavin McGinnis is to some extent. But they don't, they just, there's fucking not. What do you make of that? Well, what is it about comedy that lends itself to more socially progressive people and makes it so difficult for these fucking asshole right wingers to do it? Well, I mean, for one thing, the way that a lot of lot of people come to those politics is by being really frustrated that they weren't funny to begin with. Like comedians.

There's a lot of washed up comedians that were just lame comedians for a long time and then recently became alt-right because no one is reacting to them just talking about their lives in an apolitical way. But suddenly they get this huge reaction from going online and triggering the libs and all that stuff because that tends to pathologize. people and derange them a little bit. And that's where I think, like, someone like a Ricky Jervais lands, which is funny because he used to be funny, but fame drove him insane.

I don't know. It's something that, like, it's like an optical illusion. I look at it all the time and I can never figure out which direction everything is moving. Like, are these people unfunny because they're conservative or are they conservative because they're unfunny? One of life's greatest mysteries, you know, there may be like one or two comedians that are, you know, on some sort of strange libertarian kicks. that I've ever known to be like particularly funny.

It does happen. But in general, I don't know. I mean, it's got something intellectually to do with generally where people come from when they get into right wing politics, which I think tends to be a sort of insulted, hurt compensating for something point of view that is inherently wrong. and so you can't write jokes from a point of view that's inherently wrong. I mean, jokes are, as dumb as they are, intellectual in nature. So, you know, a joke makes you laugh. It makes you have a physical reaction. Your body has a physical reaction to being intellectually stimulated.

Well, a conservative is probably isn't going to be good at intellectually stimulating anyone, you know? They tend to just sit around and pat each other on the back for, you know, also having, you know, of these same dumb broad points of view. So I don't know, man. I mean, it's out of that or it's something in the water in certain parts of the country. I don't even describe to that, you know? Yeah, yeah. I don't really buy into like this idea that like, oh, Trump, you know, we got them

because of these hicks, you know, it's not them. It's middle class, small business owners. Petty bourgeois, yeah. Yeah, yeah. They gave us this bullshit. And so this is, the question is why is their cultures suck, you know? And I mean, it's probably because it's extremely suburban and, you know, it's all about strip malls and stuff like that. I don't know.

I mean, the answer, it's a fascinating question and I've thought about it plenty in my life. And I don't know. I mean, it's maybe because they're too angry. But then I know angry comedians that are hilarious. I don't know, man. Yeah, true. Well, on the fascist front, I've heard fascism be described as the revenge of the petty bourgeoisie. And in some sense, the revenge or the anger of the aspiring petty bourgeoisie, like white men who feel entitled to,

sort of middle management positions in our society, whether they actually have them or they think that they deserve them in the future. And when they see progressively social movements or, you know, specters of economic redistribution that could undermine that hierarchy that they feel entitled to, they lash out. So I totally agree with you that fascism is not, quote unquote, working class Hicks in the South. Fuck, no, it's not. And if you look at the numbers and the median household income of Trump voters, you'll find

out they're suburbanites. They're not coal miners. for the most part. I think you just nailed it with the word entitlement because that is exactly the thing that also makes like liberal comedians not funny. No one is funny when they feel entitled to your laugh. The soul of someone who's really funny is desperately seeking your approval and calculating real hard to try to get it.

It's not someone who demands, you know, like they have an inherent right to intention or applause or anything like that. People that are funny, like work hard for that. shit man yeah i'm i'm excited to see um a liberal go up on stage be a stand-up comedian get no laughs and then still demand that the audience PayPal them for their emotional labor i'm looking forward to that uh come to new york happening everywhere one more thing before we wrap up i think you you got like really good insight into why conservatives aren't funny and this is not the full answer but maybe just an idea i got when you were talking is that there is a a marked lack

of empathy on the right and perhaps some form of or some core part of comedy is being able to understand other people at a deep level and that does take empathy to understand what somebody else is going through because if you're going to construct a joke that makes an entire audience of strangers laugh you're going to have to have some insight into the human condition and usually that will involve some sort of empathetic ability to understand somebody else's perspective and on the right especially to the fascist right these these assholes have no sense of humor because they don't understand other people. They're sort of fundamentally unable to have empathy and to take the perspective of somebody

else. And if you can't do that, how the hell are you going to make a stranger laugh? Yeah, I mean, it's a great point. You know, who do you think is funnier? Somebody who's, like, you know, living in an impoverished neighborhood or there's nothing to do with stand outside and talk to your friends or someone who's living alone on a compound with a shotgun who just talks to a dog all day, you know? Listen to Alex Jones, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Excellent point. I agree. All right. Well, thank you so much for coming on. We covered a lot of shit, and it's honestly been an honor. I've been a fan of years for a while, so it was really cool to have you on and to have a conversation. Is there anything that you want to plug or let listeners know where they can find you, your comedy, and your podcast online before we let you go? Yes, absolutely.

So my name is Jake Flores and my at, my handle on everything on the internet is feral jokes, like feral like an animal, jokes. It's an anagram for my name. It's just the letters all moved around. It's my handle on all social media. Farrelljokes.com is my website. You can find everything there. And you can hear me on my podcast, Poddam America, on SoundCloud, Stitcher, iTunes, all the things. Just look it up.

I do it with a bunch of comedian friends of mine that I, that are also leftists and organizers and stuff like that. And if you're into it and you like my show and you want to help us out, you can subscribe to our Patreon for five bucks. And that gives you access to like every other episode. episode we do. We do two episodes a week. One one's free, one was behind the paywall. If you sign up, you get access to an RSS fee. They'll give you all the past ones and everything. And you can help us and support the show. We're, you know, cheap living motherfuckers. We're bag of bonds, troubadors. You know,

I don't need much. And if we get this thing to a point, we can then work on the podcast professionally and, you know, and then do what I'm talking about, which is accompanied you on your commute to work. and bring you the news of the day that you probably missed because you're working too much and tell you stories from history and, you know, these big tombs that, uh, you know, that normally we wouldn't get, um, that, you know, none of us would really have time to sit around and listen to. Um, we can use our skills as comics and writers and broadcasters to sort of get that out. So I really believe in what I'm doing to check that out. Listen to Poddam America. And, uh, I'm at Farrell Jokes and my tour dates are always on my website and pinned to my Twitter page.

Like my top tweet is always tour dates. So if you're curious, I'm coming to your town, look at my pinned tweet. I'm coming to L.A. here. On the 9th through the 16th, I'll be doing some stuff around town. I'll put everything up. That's it. Yeah, definitely go out and support Jake if he comes into your town. And I will put all of those links into the show notes.

And when we post on Twitter, I'll link to Jake's Twitter page and link to those as well. So people go support leftist comedians. Go support leftist podcasters, support leftist people doing shit in the world. Thank you so much, Jake, for coming on. It's been an absolute honor. Let's keep in touch and keep up the great work. Thank you. Big fan of the show.

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