The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster

Episode Date: September 18, 2020

British comic, Konstantin Kisin, who made international in 2018 by refusing to sign a university “behavioral agreement form” which banned jokes about religion, atheism and insisted that all humor must be “respectful and kind”. He is joined by Francis Foster, co-host of their popular podcast, TRIGGERnometry. Use the code (COMEDYCELLAR) and Mybookie will double your first deposit at https://bit.ly/MB_COMEDYCELLAR

and we are on this is live from the table the official podcast of new york's world famous comedy seller coming at you on sirius xm 99 raw dog and on the ryan cast podcast network dan natterman coming at you co-host of the podcast with noam dorman another host and owner of the world famous comedy seller and periel as producer and on air personality. Again, it didn't start that way, but it has evolved in that direction. We have with us Constantine or Constantin. There's no, we at the end. So it's Constantin. Constantin.

Constantin a Russian British comedian, podcaster, writer, and social commentator. He made international headlines in 2018 by refusing to sign a university behavioral agreement form which banned jokes about religion, atheism, and insisted that all humor must be respectful and kind. He's a podcaster. He is coming to us all the way from England, but he's leaving soon to go to Italy. But he's accorded us a couple, an hour or so of his time. We are grateful. Welcome, Konstantin Kissin. Thanks for having me.

It's a pleasure to be with you. And you are leaving for Italy because you said England's going back on lockdown and you want to get the hell out of there. Yeah, I want to have a holiday before all happens or a vacation, as you guys would say. So yeah, it looks like we're going to lock down again. Well, Italy sounds like a nice place to go i know that aziz ansari has a house there perhaps he's there now and you guys can get together i don't know if you're friends yeah some problematic associations right there off the map good stuff what's problematic about that well aziz ansari and

me have both been in hot water over various things, haven't we? So that's what I meant. Interesting. Interesting. Yes. Well, not the same sort of stuff. It would have come through admirably. Noam, I know you've been wanting to talk to Constantin. I just want to talk to him because he's a comedian who is so anti-woke culture.

He's like a breath of fresh air across the Atlantic. And he belongs in our circle because he's such a strong voice for free speech. So tell us about some of the hot water you've been in. Well, at the very end of 2018, I was booked to do a college gig here in London. And they sent me this contract, which said that they have a zero tolerance policy on racism, sexism,

classism, ageism, ableism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia, anti-religion, anti-atheism. And as you said, Dan, it also said that all jokes must be respectful and kind. I turned it down. I tweeted about it to what was at the time like three followers. I go to bed. I wake up the next day. It's a major international news story. Within 24 hours, another comedian went on radio and called me a Nazi for turning it down, which was... Just for the record, you're not a Nazi, correct? It was great for me because now I've got a niche right i'm the only jewish nazi comedian in the world uh absolutely crushing on the on the white supremacist

synagogue circuit um and it's it sort of went from there really um yeah and uh it became quite a big story and i kind of realized at that point that this woke culture was starting to bleed through into a lot of things it wasn't just staying on college campuses uh and it's it's i think it's a big concern yeah so what are we gonna well so go ahead dan you first of all i mean what do you think about in principle what do you think about the idea of a college saying look you don't have to work here we'd love to have you uh but we need you to sign this form and to respect this form i mean, certainly they have a right to do that. And Constantine had the right to say no. And I don't see a fault necessarily on either side of that.

And it's interesting that a college would do that, but you know, I mean, I guess they're entitled to very frequently when I perform, I'm told that there are certain restrictions as well. You asked me? Do you fault the college for giving you the form or do you, you know, say, well, look, that's their right to have their conditions? Oh, it's totally their right to have whatever conditions they want. They could mandate that I have to perform wearing a Russian hat,

but then I'm free to say no, uh and and to make fun of it i actually did a whole show at the edinburgh festival because comedy works a little bit different uh here in the uk uh you perform at the clubs all year round and then every summer well except this one uh there is a festival in edinburgh which is the biggest arts festival in the world. And you do a kind of like special type thing when you go up there. And I did a whole show about it. So my take on it is they were free to send me the contract. I was free to make fun of them for it. And that's kind of where I stand on it. But also, I think there's a broader issue, which is I think it's a symbol of where we're headed to. And to me, that is more of a problem. And where are we headed? I where we're headed to and and to me that is more of a problem and where are we headed i think we're headed to this hypersensitive new age where anything you say can and will be used

against you in the court of public opinion and that that worries me i think it worries a lot of comedians a lot of people don't want to say anything because if you speak up about it you instantly become an arty uh but uh from my perspective i think it's important to speak up about it and you you instantly become an arty uh but uh from my perspective i think it's important to speak up particularly you know i come from russia my grandparents were born in the soviet gulag for political prisoners so so you come from a long line of big mouths right exactly exactly so as someone with a big mouth i i i think it's important we protect the right of big mouth people to to do some particularly in comedy you know when i became a comedian it's important we protect the right of big mouth people to to do something particularly in comedy you know when i became a comedian i was like this is the one place

you can like say stuff that you think it needs to be said and if you can make it funny great you know um so that was my my stand on it but as you say dan they're perfectly free to have any they want for sure so i mean i have a lot of questions but dan you have something else go ahead are you finished so uh why do you think this seems to be a worldwide phenomenon this is very strange to have something going on in america and we can we can expand this out to the black lives matter movement too which we would have thought was a unique to us and our dirty hands vis-a-vis slavery, but it seems to be adopted,

being adopted through the entire world, as is this political correctness, for lack of a better word. How do you account for that? It's all your guys' fault, isn't it? It's America's fault. Well, they used to say that when the Ottoman Empire sneezed,

all of Europe catches cold. Obviously, that's an outdated saying, but maybe we could say that now for America. We're such a big presence in the world. So we import all your stuff, good and bad, and culturally particularly, and it's also in education. So it's mainly coming through the education system. All your stuff, critical race theory, which just got banned in America. All that stuff is feeding through the education system. It didn't get banned. Trump said he was going not to allow it on the federal level

or something like that. Yeah. That's an interesting thing. We should talk about that too. But you studied critical race theory pretty carefully, I seem to gather. If you had to say um something in its behalf is there would you say there's any insight that came from critical race theory which is which is actually legitimate

that um is mixed in with the stuff that you don't think is legitimate oh man this is it's not a very funny very interesting topic um i i think one of the things that critical race theory may be correct on is generally the idea of white privilege. I'm not that keen on, but I do think there's majority privilege in society. So you would look at me through this webcam and you'd probably think I'm white, right? In Russia, it's called black. I shouldn't have, I stepped on your line. Go ahead. Go ahead. It's all good. I didn't have a line. That's the problem. So I'm glad i stepped on your line go ahead go ahead it's all good i didn't have a line that's the problem so i'm glad you stepped on it um but yeah so uh i think you have majority privilege where the majority group in society has a certain privilege but i i'm not comfortable

with just looking at someone and going i think you're white therefore i can tell things about you based on that how privileged you are how how oppressed you are, et cetera. That's my issue. But I think, as we've seen in recent months in the United States, there are racial issues in your country particularly, and they do need to be addressed. I think critical race is probably the worst way to address that. Let's be clear, however, that it was the English's idea to bring......to be racism in England.

Well, it's hard to say. I would probably guess the majority of people support the BLM slogan, which I support as well. Obviously, Black Lives Matter. And actually, I would imagine the majority of people, without necessarily delving too deep into the things behind the organization, would support the organization as well.

And we have racism in this country as well, you know, and historically, there has been police institutional racism in this country, too. I think it's nothing like on the scale that you guys have over there, as far as I can tell. And obviously, we don't have guns, which makes it any interactions that are, you know, have the potential to be violent, they never escalate to that sort of level. So last year, we had, I think, one unarmed person of color shot in this country, and he was a terrorist who had a suicide vest on and was claiming to blow up a bunch of people. So I'm kind of down with that sort of, you know, that shooting. I'm okay with, you know.

Considering that the first Americans were, well, they were, I guess they came from a few places, but mostly from England. How did our gun culture become so different than the English? We just love it. I mean, people are just absolutely crazy about guns here. I don't know where that came from. Noam, do you have any... I imagine the frontier

hunting, you know, it's a different vibe here. I don't think about England, but you know, the taming the West and the frontier, I guess you needed guns. And I guess the fight with the Indians, too, brought the worst out and

brought guns out. I'm just guessing. I hope I didn't say something stupid. We don't have Native Americans to fight here and the biggest animal you can find in England

is a squirrel. So that's probably why. Yeah. I mean, we just have a different culture. So, and I saw that you had tweeted. So the Black Lives Matter thing

is interesting because the, they, it was very, I don't want to say it was ingenious because it sounds cynical, but I don't know if it was calculated or not, but the organization took a name, which is very difficult to object to um but the organization is quite different than the cause you might think uh you're supporting when you cause a black lives matter so you what's you you have some opinions on that correct well right i there's three layers to on there first of all there's the slogan right at the top which i imagine we all agree on, Black Lives Matter, right? Then there's the cause, and then there's the organization, and there are three different layers. So it's a kind of, for me, it's a pick and mix. I agree with the slogan. I don't agree with, you know, abolishing capitalism, defunding the police, etc. And the thing that troubles me most, of course, is that the moment

you say any of that, you immediately become, you know, evil, Nazi, target, whatever. And I just, I don't think that's the way we should be talking about this issue. Constantine, if you were an American citizen, sounds to me like you might be a Trump voter. No, I'm very much a centrist. So I wouldn't vote for either of those two people, to be honest with you, if I could help it. I mean, the critical race theory, I think it's such a big problem that that might swing it for me. But I don't like, even though as a Russian, I'm duty bound to vote for Trump. I don't, I'm not enthused by either of those two candidates. Let's put it that way. I mean, well, some people are, of course, many people are enthused by either of those two candidates. Let's put it that way. I mean, well, some people are, of course,

many people are enthused by Trump, but I think most of America is with you. We're not enthusiastic about either of them, but unfortunately, those are our choices. Now, you can vote for a third party, but that's usually, I mean, arguably a waste of time. Right. Yeah, it's a bad system, man. It's a bad system man it's a bad system i agree with you

it's worked till now you know more or less um i mean we did manage to you know have you know kick some ass as a country for some time with that system with all our faults right but maybe it's time to to um re re uh evaluate it now i don't know i think it's a system that's based sorry no i think it's a system that works very well if you have a a shared myth right which is the american dream in your country's case right doesn't matter where you're from doesn't matter what you believe as long as you come to america and you become an American and you adopt those sort of values and you say, we're all Americans, right? And you can be from wherever you're from and you all buy into that.

But once you start dividing people along racial lines and you say, we're more interested in someone's race than we are in them being part of one nation. That's when you start to run into problems. And which is where you are now, where you're not voting for who you want. You're voting for the person you hate the least. I think it's a very scary time for America. And I guess that means the whole Western world.

I agree with you 100%. They have no... Let me just say, whenever I talk about this stuff, I try, in my heart, I'm always trying to think of what am I missing? I read White Fragility. I try to keep an open mind. I mean, you could hook me up to a lie detector test

while taking truth serum, and you would find that I do really want everybody to be treated fairly. And I do really want to know what I'm missing in terms of my perception of reality that, that I could learn from being inside another person's skin. And yet having said all that, when I try to imagine the society that they seem to be the critical race

theory proponents mixed with the Marxists, the society that they seem to be pushing us towards. It sounds dystopian. It sounds like everybody's defined in terms of their race. It sounds like we believe rid of meritocracy. And it sounds, I mean, it just sounds like, I think it really is exactly the opposite of, it's a cliche, a Martin Luther King's dream of a content of your character. And I mean, it just sounds like the end of America to me. You don't have to look that hard to see other nations, including, I guess,

the Soviet Union, that came apart when they couldn't see a nationality beyond their first level nationality, right? Yugoslavia, even Canada goes through cyclical bouts of the French wanting to split from the English. If America is going to be the first successful multicultural democracy, yeah, we're going to have to de-emphasize the race and ethnicity, right? I mean, that seems, it just seems like common sense.

Right. And it just scares the shit out of me. I even, I'm talking a lot, but I even look back, I used to be like one of the only two white people in a band with a bunch, with a lot of black musicians. And I look back at some old videos of it recently. And I used to watch those videos and I just saw the band.

And now I look back at those videos and I see myself with a bunch of black guys. And I say that because like, you can see, like, if I was leading the band, like I would be leading the band or I would be telling a musician what to do. And I'm like, Whoa, that, that might even look like, people would perceive that differently now. Like the white guy's actually telling the black guy what to do in front of people. It's just, you know, but we, none of us thought that way.

We used to tell each other to go to hell and it was fine. I'd be afraid to tell, you know, one of those guys to, to go to hell now, just like man to man. It's just awful every way you look at it. I know, I imagine you agree. Completely. I'm trying not to nod my head off here as I'm listening to you there. No, I agree with you. And you know what the thing is? A big part of this is that I get more pushback on this from dumb basement dwelling white kids. A lot of black people are closer to me on that than a lot of white people are, which is actually hopeful in a sense, because, you know, these white kids,

you know, they may snap out of it or it's just a trend, or maybe it's just being distorted by Twitter. I don't really know how many people buy into this because Twitter has such an outsized influence. Sure. I think, first of all, I agree with almost everything you said pretty much. But also, I think the reason, if we come back to the contract I turned down,

this is where my concern was that it stopped being a thing that was isolated to the college campuses. It stopped being a thing that was isolated to the Twitter bubble. And it was now starting to be through into real life. Right. And we see it all around. I mean, the polling on this is incredible. In America, over 62% of people say that they're worried about expressing their political opinions now. The majority of all three groups, Democrats, Independents, and Republicans all feel that way. In the UK, it's the same thing. Nearly half the country thinks that we're less free to speak our mind now than we were a few years ago, and only 20% of people think that they're more free. So it worries me that we're going down these racial lines and you're right a multicultural society cannot exist if everyone is encouraged to think of themselves as their racial group instead of this an american or a british person or whatever have you um because

i want to think of other thing dan because i think like so one of the things i think about is this idea of um cultural appropriation and know, if you were to imagine a society that was becoming very healthy racially, like, you know, the ideal society where people were actually beginning to forget about color and stuff like that, then you would expect to see total cultural appropriation. I love your dress. You love my hairstyle. I love your music. And that would be the natural manifestation and expression of a very healthy society. So in a very kind of disgusting way,

this movement is preventing any signs of a health. They actually object to any of the natural signs that we are a healthy society what they're what they're doing is they're re-racializing society and creating tensions between different racial groups where there were fewer tensions before so actually what they're doing is they're taking us back uh in time uh and uh it's i agree with you completely I'm actually working on my first book, and that's what it's going to be about to a large extent. I am extremely concerned about the direction that we're headed.

You guys are leading the way, but in this country, it's similar. And as you said earlier, in this country, it's even more absurd because the nature of the underlying issue isn't anything like the problems that you guys have in America, right? We have less racism. We have a much smaller black population. Many of the black people who live in this country are first or second generation immigrants from Africa who are extremely successful, right? They're not really experiencing being underprivileged or being disadvantaged.

Some of them are successful groups. So we don't have the problems, yet we have the same reaction. Nor do you have the history of slavery and Jim Crow that we had. Right. I mean, slavery we have a little bit of, and a lot of our cities and buildings are built with slave money. So that's an issue in terms of history and how you deal with that has to be looked at in this new context, which is cool with me. But we don't have the history of Jim Crow.

We have other stuff, for sure. Who doesn't? Right, right. Well, when we talk about slavery, it's kind of, I mean, it boggles my mind because if you look at through history, every civilization has had slavery. In Russia, my ancestors would have been serfs, which is essentially slaves until 1867.

It does seem like American slavery or at least New World slavery had a slightly different, maybe not worse necessarily, but it was a different kind of a thing you know because it was racially based and uh it was hereditary i don't know if like in ancient rome i i don't i don't think it was racial i think it was in rome it was less racial although of course if you were a barbarian i not a roman you were a second class citizen by definition uh but uh if you think about af, let's say, more black slaves were taken out of Africa by Arab traders to the Middle East than were taken to the United States.

I think the horror of the American slavery was the sort of industrialized nature of it. It was like a mass thing that was done on an organized scale in that way, whereas probably less so in other countries. But yeah, I think, what can I say? I think there's something else going on. I think there's something that's just not frank about what's being spoken

about. I actually don't think the issue is slavery. I think the issue is the legacy of slavery, meaning that the Nazis were quite recent. But if I were sitting some Germans and I started going off about where were you German, people look at me like I was crazy because it's not an issue anymore. And in 70 years or whatever it is, it becomes almost bizarre to start attacking Germans about their Nazi past because it's done. But the legacy of slavery, the inequality that we presume comes from slavery, is still with us. And when we focus our resentment and our outrage at slavery, I really think it's about the legacy of slavery. If black people were, for instance,

doing better, were more successful than white Americans now, nobody would be screaming about anything about slavery, even old statues. They would all become kind of just quaint and irrelevant. Maybe that's an exaggeration, but you know what I'm saying. It wouldn't bother us the same way. Well, right. I mean, look at Japanese Americans who,

who went through some pretty terrible stuff, right. During world war two, still very successful. And therefore we don't talk about it. Is the converse true, Noam? If there was no slavery at all, but black Americans were still in the situation that they're in, how would that change in terms of the tension that we have now i mean i guess we can look to england right you know england is in exactly that situation you didn't have slavery at least not there right but you have inequality the complexity of it comes in down because uh you know if you look

at history who would you say are the historically speaking most oppressed people in the entire history of Western civilization? Fat chicks. Right. So maybe just behind fat chicks, you would say the Jews right now, the Jews have gone through quite a bit of stuff that we don't need to get into it. Still doing pretty well, right? So we don't really talk about it in that way. So I think, Noam, you're exactly right, which is in this modern sort of critical race theory, intersectionality dogma,

it's really about who is doing badly, right? And if you're not doing well in society, that by definition in this way of thinking means that you're oppressed, right? And it's a very crude method of trying to analyze all this stuff, because I am sure that slavery has had an impact on the descendants of slaves, both in America, in the United Kingdom, and all around the world. How you address that is a different issue. But the fact that a certain group is not doing as well as other groups isn't just about the history of how that group has been treated we know that from the examples we just talked about

japanese americans jews all sorts of other groups you know i'm internalizing one of the beefs of a critical race theory but i'm very conscious of the fact that we're four uh well perriel you identify as a woman right three Three white guys and a woman sitting around talking about racial issues. And some people might find that offensive, but I hope they're just- I'm not talking for the record. I haven't said a word.

That we're trying to do it, you know, with proper humility. So yeah, I think the fact, the horrible inequality in America, for whatever the reason, and for whatever reason you think it exists, is a serious, serious, serious problem. their attempts to try to solve it. You know, we've tried for a long time and they can't give up. And whether it's the legacy of slavery or it's current racism or legacy of Jim Crow or a combination of all those things, whatever it is, we should never,

we should tirelessly try to address it. I would say that one of the things I've been thinking about recently that I feel the Democrats and the left are opening themselves up to politically. I hope Trump doesn't get wind of it because I don't really want to help him. But if I were running, I think that I could make some hay by saying, you know what? Those guys over there, they don't think you can do it. Look what they're doing. You're not doing well on tests.

They want to get rid of the tests. They say that family is white, that punctuality and hard work, these seniors, is white. Even when they supposedly want to try to prevent you voter suppression, what do they do? They make you have to get a driver's license because they don't even think you can get a driver's license. They don't think you can do it. That's the people you're voting for. And I think that there's a lot of truth. There is something very condescending about some of these positions such that if I was an everyday black guy, I think I'd be like, what the fuck? You're going to tell me, rather than double down in your efforts to get my kids to do better on that test, you're going to tell me that the way you're going to help me is to get rid of the test altogether? So magically, when he gets out in the world, these skills, he won't have them,

but somehow nobody's going to notice because he wasn't tested on them? Go fuck yourself. You need to spend double the money. You needhattan project to teach my kids how to do well on the sats but don't you dare take the sat away because all that tells me is you don't think my kids can do it yeah and what's interesting about that is that that that it puts the then the person has to answer that and says no no we think you can do it well if you think right well then why then why are you getting rid of the test if you think we can do it well this this has been very well covered there's a black american journalist who writes for the wall street journal called jason riley who wrote a book called please stop helping us and this is him and thomas soul and people like that they've been talking about this for a long time which is

uh well i think there's plenty of very decent people on the center left, the far left is not only racist against white people now, it's actually racist against minorities as well, in a sort of bigotry of low expectations, like, oh, you are these poor little oppressed people and we need to talk down to you. And there's a lot of evidence, actually, I remember seeing some analysis done on how sort of far left Democrats versus Republicans talk to groups of black people. And the analysis shows that the far left Democrats dumbed down their language when they're addressing groups of black people. So yeah, I agree with you i think as i said this is why i'm so concerned

about critical race there and all this and woke shit because it's really about uh it's it's a racism of its own uh and i don't like racism are you yeah i mean i i i it is a i guess it's a racism i i kind of like i kind of uh uh hesitate to call it racism. In any case. Yeah, it's a condescension, because racism ought to have some notion of hate attached to it. So what would you call condescension against a group of people based on their skin color?

No, no, you're right. There isn't a good shaded word for that. I just, it's not the evil of a KKK racism. It's a different, it's a different brand of it, but it's, it is in its essence, like I said, it is in its essence, a belief that these people are not up to the task. And that's an outrage because it's not true. First of all, it's not. There are charter schools in New York where the average score and these are mostly black kids with the average. And the left wants to eliminate these opportunities and these methods. It's unions, who knows what it is, but they're not helping the people

they're trying to help. That's for sure. I think it's very important to distinguish between the left and the far left. I think the left, I historically have been voted mostly on the left in my life i think the center left uh is has sensible ideas on many things but sensible people on the center left are terrified

of saying that they denounce the far left and the far left is in the driving seat uh and that's one of the reasons we are where we are yeah well where is the center left i mean you barely hear a peep out of them and then they always back down. I think we need to, Francis, is that her name? Yeah, it's his name. Oh, I'm sorry, his name. Oh, no. Francis and I host a YouTube show together called Trigonometry,

where we're sort of like a very small, but still the biggest in the UK equivalent of Joe Rogan here. And so we talked to, say hello, Francis. Hello, how are you doing? And if anybody wants, I will identify as a woman in this conversation. Whatever makes anyone feel more comfortable.

Where are you from, Francis? Now, here's the story. I'm originally from South London. My mother is Latin American. My dad is from a place called Wigan. You've never heard of it, and it's for good reason. It's a mining town in the north of England. Because Constantine sounds like, I was trying to say this earlier,

it was a little off topic, but I'm getting a hint of northerner. Well, now I'm insulted. You bring me on and this is what you did to me. No, no. If Constantine went to the north of England, he would deservedly get violently assaulted. I would. I would get my head smashed in.

But that doesn't sound like a proper London accent either that you're sporting. Who, me? No, Constantine. No, Constantine. No, no, no. I've lived all over the place, but it's sort of like here, and this ties into the issue we were talking about, about race and stuff. Really, particularly in the UK, but also to a large extent in America, the outcomes between different racial groups is mostly a class issue.

And in the UK, the class system is very strong. So my accent is sort of middle class. And that's why if I went to the North, I'd mostly get my head kicked in. But I'm sad to swear I hear a little bit of John Lennon in your voice. Do you know what? Our producer's from Liverpool, and if he heard that, he would be mortally offended. Yeah.

He's going to kick my head in. By the way, I want to give Francis a proper introduction. He's a British-Latino comedian, which he mentioned, and he has written, this is Francis Foster,

written for television and opened for Eddie Izzard, Jeff Garland, and our friend Al Madrigal, who's a comedy cello regular. Indeed. So that's a proper intro for you. We're big on intros on this show. Perrielle loves intros. To me, I like to keep it... I don't see the need

for a big to-do, but she... It's not about me or you. It's people are listening. They want to know who's... Nah, they don't. Listen, I'm a big fan of Jeopardy. Good evening. Welcome to Jeopardy. First question. who's now they know listen i'm i'm a big fan of jeopardy good evening welcome to jeopardy first question that's what they don't they don't you know they they get right to it but yeah you need an intro you have to do an ad yeah we have to do an ad also we have an ad we're doing uh and we'll get back to um constantin and francis after this word from our sponsor,

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Your winning season begins today. only at my bookie and uh we're back with constantin and francis who are co-hosts of triggered nomitry was it pretty much which is joe rogan of england, Joe Rogan podcast of England, which is pretty enormous considering Joe Rogan is, are you guys, but I'm sensing you guys are more intellectual than that lunkhead Joe Rogan. I mean, he might be, I'm certainly not intellectual.

I'm a comedian. In fact, you were talking about introductions. There's, it's very, very different. The American style of introduction to the British style because I've hosted a lot of shows

and normally when we invite a comedian on as an emcee, you don't say anything, right? Because you let the audience judge for themselves. Americans, you like the big credits. You're like, he starred on this, he starred on that. He's a star of this. If you do that to a British audience, every single person in the British audience will go,

huh, thinks he's funny, does he? Come on. I think the British have it correct. This is one of the rare instances where the British have it right, but we have it wrong. Just bring me on, you know, and let my jokes do the talking. Bring me on. They say you've seen him on Conan.

Well, no, they haven't seen me on Conan in all likelihood. Very, very, very unlikely they've seen me anywhere. I have a question. I have a question. It just occurred to me now. I don't know why I ever thought of this. Go ahead. So in America, we're very aware now of unequal outcomes. And I'm not even in race, you know, in a black America, we're very aware now of unequal outcomes.

And I'm not even in race, you know, in a black America, but we've kind of adopted this idea that if everything were as it should be, you would see basically equal representation of every ethnic group and everything in every single aspect of society, I guess, except, well, whatever. I think, no, I'm going to say the nba if you thought the better of it but um or indeed the hundred meters at the olympics but but this yes right but this is what's interesting to me so europe you have all those cultures living next to each other in their each in each in their individual country and they don't do the same but they're

but none of them you know you're not so how do you guys like the germans you cannot beat these people down it doesn't matter what you do to them a generation later they're on top of the heap right the british too they have um i think yeah yeah but i mean is it is that a is that a decent laboratory situation to say that every culture is different and you shouldn't expect equal outcomes? Well, go for it. I think that Europe is very, very different

because people see Europe and they say, you know, that we do have these different cultures. But I think in the UK, we are very, very much influenced. We're like your little brother who follows you around copies every single thing that you do some of the good stuff but a lot of the bad stuff as well whereas I think European cultures they don't have that American influence it's not as great as it is here where we pretend to be better than you but deep down we suck up to you and we really want to be you.

Right. Okay. But what I'm saying, like, so Germany obviously is outperforming, I don't know, Italy, right? Like it almost. That's not difficult, though. Right. Right.

Now what I'm saying is that if the German people and the Italian people live side by side under the same nation, when we still see the German people out during the Italians, like, isn't there something that is just, or maybe the Italians excel at this and the Germans excel at that. Like, even in COVID, is it any, it doesn't seem like an accident to me, like that the Germans are really good about wearing their masks and staying healthy. They just seem to be more disciplined as a culture for better and for worse, right? But in America, we just assume that the only explanation has to be that something funny is going on under the hood. Sometimes cultures are

just different. Well, see, it's interesting. Dan threw me the hot potato earlier of suggesting that I'd be a Trump voter if I lived in America. If you lived here, Noam, you would be a Brexiteer. Because this is really one of the fundamental problems of the European Union, that you've got these completely different countries with different histories, different economies, everything is very different. But they're sort of jammed together into this one thing. And it's tearing apart from within because of that very issue. So yeah, the European Union is a very good example of the fact that cultures are different. And it's also as well that the European Union, especially the Euro, is designed to suit the Germanic economy. Therefore, Germany does a lot better out of it than, for instance, Spain or

Italy. So the Euro is a very, very very very powerful country which suits german and german and germans economy however if you are like spain for instance and your economy is based on agriculture and tourism the last thing you want is a strong currency because you're not going to sell be able to sell your products abroad and you're not going to be able to get people to come and visit you on holiday so it suits germans it really doesn't suit spain or the southern european nations yeah the southern european nations are really struggling which is why we're to come and visit you on holiday. So it suits Germans. It really doesn't suit Spain or the Southern European nations. Yeah, the Southern European nations are really struggling,

which is why we're going to Italy because we can get more for our money. Absolutely. And we're not going to piss them off with that. You guys are going to Italy together? You're both going to Italy? Yeah. You guys are best friends,

not just podcast partners. Noam and I seldom travel together. Well, the problem is we've currently pissed off so many people in comedy. That's the only two people who talk to each other now are us. By the way, you don't cut into the

term a Latinx, I presume. No, fuck that. People don't know what a Latino person is in England. We think a Latino person is somebody who once visited Italy. We've got no idea about Latin America. If you were in America, nobody would take you seriously as a Latino anyway. I mean, you could say you were, but you'd be dismissed rather quickly.

Well, this is one of the things that we keep talking about. If Francis had been born the color the skin color of his mother he'd be an oppressed minority and if he and if he was born the way that he's born now he's the oppressor right same guy same genes just a different switch you know this is where all this stuff just falls apart is really really simplistic and and stupid. You know, I have to... Go ahead, sorry. No, carry on. No, no, you're the guest. You go ahead, go ahead. Now it's up to you.

It just made me realize that it's nonsense because in a lot of gigs in the UK, they have a BAME quota. And I turn up and they go, we've got too many white men. And I go, well, I'm BAME. They go, what? I go, well, my mother's Latin American from Venezuela. But actually my grandfather was an Arab.

He was from Lebanon. Whoa, whoa, you didn't tell me we were going to have an Arab on. If I had to get a Pyrenean Christian. Yeah. I'm kidding. He was originally a Coptic Christian. And so I go, so I'm actually, I'm technically Baman. Then they get very, very uncomfortable.

And then I ask the question which is my favourite question which is where along the Dulux colour chart would you want me to be for me to have my BAME card and then I don't get booked again

I don't know if they have I don't know what that is the colour chart in America do you guys have the Dulux colour chart I didn't think so no no it's basically the chart

which has got all the colours on it where you pick which one you want your bathroom to be oh we have that we have a yeah there you go jokes work well when you explain them yeah No, it's basically the chart which has got all the colors on it, where you pick which one you want your bathroom to be. Oh, we have that. Yeah, there you go. Jokes work well when you explain them. Yeah.

But it's interesting as well because we get attacked from both sides. So the far left crazies hate us and also the far right really hate us. So when they watch our show and come after us, I am the shifty Jew and Francis is is the secret jew or before i lost weight the factory the secret factory absolutely yeah i had i had lunch with a guy from who works at cnn today and he said something interesting about this latinx thing he said it's a very he says he believes it's ostentatious uh at its root because they could have just changed it to Latin. They had to add the X to make it sound,

but really it was just like, just change it to Latin. And that would have accomplished the same thing. Which I thought was, I'd never thought of that before. I thought that was exactly right. And it's also an act of oppression because what the white man is doing is he's changing the Hispanic language without their consent. It's so stupid. Of course, you're going to have to go through every object, every noun and change it, right?

Like why just Latino? I mean, is it anybody from Latin America? You know, there are people in Latin America that are Germans, that are Italians, that are Castilian Spanish. And they're as white as any white man. that are Castilian Spanish. And they're as white as any white man. You know, they just happen to have been born in Latin America and speaking Spanish. But, I mean, I don't know.

I guess you'd say that's a white Hispanic, I guess is what we call that. And the thing is race is very, very different in somewhere like Venezuela. So I'll take an example of Venezuela. Venezuela is so mixed because all different types of people have been there or gone there and lived there, whether it's black people, whether it's Native Americans, whether it's all different types.

So frequently in a family, you'll get someone who looks like me and then their sister, who's actually very, very dark and has taken maybe from the native part of the family or the black part of the family. So this idea of race is viewed in a completely different way in Latin America as it would be viewed here. Well, you're touching on something which I actually believe is that the only answer to this eventually is going to have to be miscegenation. Is that the word, Dan? Like interracial? That is the word, sure. It's the word dan like like interracial the word sure it's the word

for for what you're describing is in in breeding because inbreeding means something very very different or mixed mixed breeding interbreeding interbreeding interbreeding interbreeding um breeding is something we shouldn't advocate inbreeding don't knock it our jewish people have you ever gone to bnh photo and and this we we have a little inbreeding, don't knock it. Our Jewish people, if you've ever gone to B&H Photo, we have a little inbreeding too, but interbreeding. That seems to be the only long-term answer to what at root is just a very deep, primitive, genetic, tribal instinct. We talk about racial problems in America along the black, white,

and black-Hispanic divide but but we don't speak about the asian white divide perhaps because maybe there isn't one of any real significance or the asian east indian divide is is there one is there a significant rift there and what about the black hispanic divide and or the black there is a rift there all of that sort of shit it just look this conversation is extremely dangerous and it leads us down a very dark path and the sooner we stop talking about this crap the better i know solution is everybody fuck everybody right right and actually we had a guest on our show a while ago called eric kaufman who wrote a book White Shift. And one of the things he talks about is over time, what is considered quote unquote white is going to change.

So first generation and I think also maybe second generation Latinos identify as Latino. But most of them, by the time they get to third generation, they identify as white. So as the demographics of the United States change change you'll start to find that the descendants of people who are currently considered people of color will now think of themselves as white potentially that's at least i have to hand it to no not only does he advocate interbreeding he's doing it obviously his wife is indian slash puerto rican she's got a puerto rican attitude but she's part ind Indian and her kid and their kids are you know whatever mix that would be but and how they'll identify

later on I'm sort of anxious to see I I think in touching what's very interesting with this discussion in and the difference between America and the UK you might have already touched it before here in the uk we have what is called the class system which uh an american standard put it rather beautifully is a fantastic way to discriminate against discriminate against somebody who looks like you so what you have in the uk is people born into a certain strata of society and it is very very difficult for them to move out a certain strata of society, and it is very, very difficult for them to move out of that strata. And people can see what strata of society you're from by the way you dress, by the way you behave, by your accent, and so on and so forth. And it's quite simply

that if you're born into, let's say, a lower strata of society, it's very difficult for you to progress because you haven't been to the right schools you haven't got the right connections etc etc etc and that class system has been bred into this country for centuries upon centuries upon centuries it's why we still have a role and it's very easy to tell who's who so for example if francis and i both walk into an interview and the interview is middle class. They're much more likely to hire me because Francis has a more slightly more working class accent and would dress in a more working class way, which is where we come back to the racing. It's the same thing.

Like the racial issues, mostly about the fact that due to being more new newer people in the country, it's such a people of color tend to be more, more proportionally working class because they've come from abroad and it takes some time to build up your capital and build up, you know, power, et cetera. In England, do you have the same adoration for the self-made men? There's nobody more admired in America than the self-made,

than the shittier your background, the better. And people like to exaggerate how poor they were when they grew up and how little they, you know, nobody wants to admit they came from a nice home. Let me tell you one thing I've learned in all my time living in this country. British people hate successful people. Absolutely.

In America, you have the American dream. In Britain, we don't have dreams you know your place and you stick to your place exactly that's how we do it wait no my family is across the party i do want to talk now so they can see you i can see you person of color i told you your virtual background is rendering everything. Yeah, yeah, I'll take it off so you can... Where's Ari? Where's Ari?

Ari's not here. Noam, I did want your opinion. I'm sure enough this progressed. I can't, I can't, I can't... It's not that hard, Noam. You go to virtual background and then you click... I'm having trouble with something. I did want your opinion We have some time

If you'll indulge me on The QD controversy Go ahead Dan The QD controversy, the Netflix movie Constantine Why is it not Why am I not losing my Virtual background

This is one of those Call for a Zoom calls isn't it Why am I not losing my virtual background? This is one of those cold Zoom calls, isn't it? Oh, I know. I can't get rid of it. I can't get rid of it. You guys go. I can't get rid of music because I'm using a plug-in. That's why.

What's my, the Netflix thing? Yes, are you aware of what's going on, the controversy surrounding cuties? Yeah, a little bit. You know know it's funny because i don't remember the like five maybe six years ago i tweeted something out like on verizon uh cable on the channel guy they have all this soft core porn and it'd be like um uh almost teen girls to turn you and all these um all these soft core porn movies where they were they were marketing to the fantasy of underage girls teen like almost teens and and and i was like well this is really offensive isn't it like why are they getting away with marketing towards a an attraction to underage women um and obviously they find act actresses who are of age but look like they're 14 you know

and i tweeted something out about that and everybody yawned about it i mean i even spoke to some famous feminists about it and she didn't get it um all of which is to say that yeah i i actually i actually do think that something's been going on for a while that somehow this kind of uh playing towards the attraction of men to underage girls has been considered okay and now they're finally being called on it but this movie But this movie is the theme, and I haven't seen the movie, just the clips in question that people have put on Twitter.

But this movie purports to denounce the sexualization of underage girls. In other words, it's saying, here's what's going on in society, and this is bad, and this is what's going on, and we should be horrified by it yeah well you think that's what's really going on because they seem to also be you know

cleverly also uh using some of the titillating aspects of it to to get eyeballs right i mean hasn't showbiz always done this i mean look at the early stages of rock and roll you had chuck berry singing sweet little 16 and i can't remember the name of another rock and roll, you had Chuck Berry singing Sweet Little Sixteen. And I can't remember the name of another rock and roll singer. The song was called She Was Only Sixteen. Elvin Bishop. Yeah. And this has gone right the way from the very, very start of rock and roll from entertainment.

It's always been dramatic in the TV business. Are you saying this was... Hold on, Francis. I found the thing. Now what happened to it? It disappeared just as I... That was very strange. Google.

Let me try it again. What Francis is saying is those were the good old days. I want to... So I found... Let me try that again. Are we about to change topics again? I was hoping to say that. No, I want to show you the...

Okay, can you see that? Yeah. You can see that channel guide? Yep. Hairy teen beavers. Hairy teen beavers. Barely legal babes rub their fuzzy beavers for the camera then suck a lucky guy.

And by the way, this is just one example. There's example after example after example of this. I'm like, what the fuck? Where is it? Regular Verizon files. I mean, I'm going to be honest with you guys. This is taking a turn. Yeah.

I was going to ask, early, if we're okay to swear. I think we've eclipsed that yeah title for this episode though at least okay but so isn't there something like they're gonna boycott me for whatever for whatever some community isn't there something weird about marketing towards the attraction of barely legal babes and the hairy teen beavers and nobody nobody has any problem with it i mean the entire history of like art and literature is steeped in that exact notion i mean lolita nabokov but i think it's not book of number one it's actually not good okay well first of all i hope you're here to pronounce nabokov i number one. It's actually not good, okay. Well, first of all, I hope you heard it pronounced Nabokov.

I hope that the rich, you know, dude who, I hope that the guy who directed Harry Teen Beavers lives to hear you compare him to Lolita. Listen, it's a catchy title, let's be honest. I think Lolita was purporting to say that this is a bad thing. You know? Well, I mean, I don't know.

Not exactly. I mean, I think it's much more complicated than that. Let the record show that Perrielle has a soft spot for underage girls. And she does. She's repeatedly defended forbidden love i just i have a soft spot for um beavers i think more than anything yeah but i don't i i mean you don't you don't believe in pedophilia obviously but you do have you do you do you are not that outraged by like a 15 year old or a 16 year old going with like a 25 year old guy that doesn't that doesn't guys can i just say what a pleasure is to be on the show in this moment yeah hold on you're being sarcastic yeah

you're gonna get in trouble no no no i'm joking but this is the thing we do this is the british way as i've learned is basically the way british people express affection for whoever they're talking to is you think of the most horrible thing you affection for whoever they're talking to is you think of the most horrible thing you can think of you say it to them as if you mean it and that's how they know you like them. Okay I'd say that taking the piss. Yeah it's because we're emotionally retarded shall we say we can't express our emotions only when we're drunk and you know if we really hate you because we're nice to your face well so anyway let me say that i don't agree with perry all about this as a dad of a daughter second i never ever have taken that fucking position i mean that's outrageous

well i i'm complaining about soft core porn being targeted to people who want to you know or turned on want to jerk off to underage girls. And you brought up Russian literature. I mean, come on now. I mean, I'm just saying that it's not that shocking to me. I think it's everywhere in our culture and has been, like, I'm not that surprised that they're putting that there. Okay.

Gentlemen, I want to get, get are you would you guys call yourselves free speech absolutists no i wouldn't certainly no no no no so some some people have asked me like where would i draw the line would i put on a a comic that i knew by day was a nazi where would your stand be on that well i there's a difference between person and speech isn't there right so if he's doing like cuddly family friendly material i don't know i mean how do you know right like i mean give you an example we've just had a thing and it's a bit different because we have a national broadcaster where we all pay our taxes to have the BBC broadcast into our homes, right? So we all pay to have it.

And there was just a comedy, a very woke comedy program on it, where one of the comedians was talking about, she's a black comedian, was talking about how when we, as in black people, when we talk about kill YT, we don't mean it. And the joke was, yes, we do. And then she went on to make a point, right? Now, and Frances and I were sort of having an argument about it today well how do you know what the intent was we'll always stand up for a comic's right to make a joke but should the producer have broadcast that

because it's a pre-recorded thing you know so it's a very complex issue isn't it and you kind of I think you just know it when you see it don't you know i agree with you and i i i don't know that it's complex there there is a part of me which just says and i've always felt this way it's none of my goddamn business like if the audience is laughing i mean i i compare it i've compared it to um in the old days i had a musician who came in right at the time when farrakhan had said lewis farrakhan is an american figure you probably know who he is um you know talking about jews being a gutter religion and compared to him and he came in wearing a farrakhan t-shirt and i had this thing i'm like well who cares like what am i gonna do you know and i just went on now of course in 2020 if some if somebody were to wear the

mirror image of that kind of sentiment on his t-shirt he might never work again um and that's that's what that's where that leads to there is no limiting principle to this stuff and because there's no limiting principle and we see this over and over we think there's going to be a limiting principle and then five years later we see see that it is actually out of control. I'm like, just, you know, America's, if America's going to go bad, if America's actually that fragile, it's not going to be because we let people speak freely or we didn't sufficiently punish, you know, somebody who we found out had a belief that we don't agree with. I just think America is much healthier if we don't do that.

I think that... You were telling me an interesting story about an example of this today. What was that? Yeah, okay. About the female comic. Yeah, about... So the thing is,

is because we have diversity quotas in the UK, then what essentially happens is that people get fast-tracked in that they don't serve their time, they don't do the clubs, they don't do the open mics, they get fast-tracked from open mic, and then you see them in the clubs, and they can't even really hold a middle spot, which we all know is the easiest spot, or even a 10 spot, and they get propelled onto TV, which then therefore means that when they get onto TV, they're nowhere near ready to be a comedian.

Is he? Is he? They're nowhere near ready to make those jokes. And actually, when they do make those types of jokes, they're not good. They don't know the nuances of comedy. They try to make a point, but they're not sharp enough. And it comes across as incredibly clumsy, which is, I think, what happens in the instance of this woman.

What I meant is the example of a club comedian trying new material. Oh, right, yeah, yeah. So the perfect example is someone like Chris Rock. So when he did, you know this story, but he did the famous routine, Black People vs. the M Word. He himself said it, that the first six months he was doing that routine, it was just straight up racist. You know, it took a long time to get it honed

and sharp and hitting and all the rest of it. But if we lived in a, if the society back then was like it is now, then someone would have videoed it. He would have been canceled. He would have had to drop the routine and it would never have become this thing of beauty. Which is one of the finest comedy routines of all time you're describing in england stated

explicitly or you just sort of see it going on and and um you know you can see that it's there but nobody says explicitly that we have these quotas it's a mix of both uh but it's getting to a point where yeah i, it's being stated explicitly. So I remember I mentioned the Edinburgh Festival right at the beginning. In addition to doing your own hour show, you can go and do these sort of mixed bill shows as well, where everybody gets a spot. And then at the end of your spot, you promote your show. Right. And I was talking to a club promoter who was booking one of these shows. And he was saying, yeah, I need to get a certain certain number of this type of person a certain number of that type of

person uh it's the same you know if you speak to people who book tv shows it's exactly the same and they'll tell you up front you know we need x number of uh this type of comic x number of that type of comic so it's pretty blatant and fact, they're not only not really embarrassed about it, it's actually seen as a virtuous thing to be doing. Like, here we are, we're doing this thing. We're doing the right thing. We've got X number of black people, X number of this, X number of that.

But what's very, very interesting... Pick back to the class system. So they'll pick, you know, a black know a black comedian so you know but you look and then they went to private school and private school i think you've got the same you call it the same word so it's a fee-paying school so you only get to go to that school if you've got money they then go to oxford university or cambridge so they only pick black or ethnic minority people or women who, number one, come from the same background as them. And more importantly, as well, number two, share the same

political opinions as them. Heaven forbid that they would pick a black comedian who has a socially conservative outlook or viewpoint. We're starting to sound a little bit like two whiny losers. Just to balance it out yeah uh neither of us is in any way concerned about it from a personal point of view because fortunately we now have the internet and francis and i've been able to create something that people enjoy where we can perform to our own audience every night you know uh and we can we can go out to a comedy club and play to two or three hundred people or we can do a live stream to 2000 people every night, you know, and it's an audience that's interested in what we're doing.

And so the internet fortunately allows us to circumnavigate that thing, even if we don't tick the right boxes for other things. So we don't complain about it at all. You are. Yeah. That's cause he's working class, but really it's it's literally uh you know it's it's a reality you asked us so we told you but i don't think it it doesn't help to complain about you just look like a whiny white person do you know our dear friend lewis schaefer yeah we gotta let these guys go i just wanted with that we're good if you if you want to carry on we got a bit of time you go ahead i're good. If you want to carry on, we've got a bit of time. Go ahead. I want to show them.

You want to ask about Louis Schaefer? I want to show you what you think of crazy Louis Schaefer, one of our more interesting exports to the United Kingdom. He's very good and very crazy. Yeah. I remember one of the first gigs I did, I saw Louis Schaefer

and I'm just like what I mean it was really fascinating to watch because there was moments where he was killing the crowd were loving it and there were moments where it was just like is this gonna start a riot I don't know if you've seen his latest stuff but mostly it consists of telling people they've got diabetes no no he's gone to covid is covid is um overblown yeah who knows he may be right i mean i think the jury is still out on covid you know i i it seems like nobody really has a good handle on it but in any case yeah i mean it's it's a weird issue isn't it i think in in this country we overreacted but it was probably the right decision to overreact because we didn't know what the fuck was going on uh the issue for us now is as i told you at the beginning we're heading towards a second overreaction and we now know what's going

on and it doesn't really make sense because the death rates are going down hospitalizations are still very very low uh but we're reacting as if there's a massive problem so yeah but but so yeah it's it's a it's an interesting conversation for another day i believe uh that's a good segue into the you two have to get uh wait down dane i just wanted to show one thing so you know there's this website called project ccdb like project comedy club database oh i thought you i thought it was going to be another thing no that's good right okay cool cool. And they apparently scoured the internet and they created a database of ethnicity of all booked comedy club comedians.

You could probably look it up to see exactly what their database is. But anyways, interesting here. Black or African-American, first of all, 25% of the comedians working in America, 25% are black, and 20% of them are black male, which are way, way overrepresented numbers. They talk about blacks are about 12 or 13% of the population. So they're basically double the, and the black males are like 6% of the population.

There's 20% of the working comedians. So, you know, no one's ever really thought through this logic. What does that mean? Are we supposed to cut back on black male comedians? I mean, if you really believe this, or if we're not supposed to cut back, whose hide is it supposed to come out of, those extra 15% or whatever?

I'd like to see what happens to anyone who advocates that policy. No, that would be quite something. Yeah, don't tweet that, mate. You know what I'm going to do to make things fairer? Anyway, but it is interesting because, you know, black people do pretty well in comedy.

I mean, they dominate, you know, among most of the most famous comedians. Listen, man, this is where we need to go back to what we've been talking about for this whole hour, which is fuck all these quotas. Let's go back to meritocracy if we can or go forward to meritocracy. If you're good, you get in.

If you're not, you don't get in. And your genitals, your race, your whatever doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. If you're funny, you're funny. If you're not funny, you're not. That's the thing we all love about comedy, I think. And it's the thing we all love about sport. Francis always says this, you know, it's like, it's on merit. If you're in the team, it's because you're smashing it. And if you're not in the team, it's because you're not playing well, you know? And that's why people love sport, because it feels fair. And I think comedy is one of those rare fields where you can kind of judge

who's good and who's not. And you, you know, yourself, when you go off stage, have I crushed it or did I die on my ass? I mean, I do think the one thing I'll say, and we've made this point before is that to the extent that somebody of a different background can bring in a different point of view, then you have more variety right that can be interesting in and of itself yep so if i were running a show i might want different points of view but i would also want everybody to have a certain level of competence

but i might i might seek variety in terms of style and that might mean more diversity but there's a rebuttal to that so for instance let's say you i mean obviously god rest his soul but mitch hedberg and you and then you have um hannibal barrett then comedically they're actually quite similar in terms of their style in terms of their joke writing and you know the hannibal would admit himself he's very much interested but influenced by mitch but then you know just because somebody has admit himself, he's very much influenced by Mitch. But then, you know, just because somebody has the same race as another person doesn't mean that they're gonna have

the same comedic style. Eddie Izzard and Bill Burr are two, you know, white men, but they're fundamentally incredibly different. Did Eddie identify as a man or does he recognize as non-binary? I think actually, I should correct myself. I think, I think, I think, because at one point Eddie was a transvestite.

I think last summer I was talking with him. I think he was identifying as transgender. Well, last time you were talking to him, you, he got you to feel his artificial boobs. Yeah, they were great actually. He's a talent or she's a talent, but they're a talent. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's a genius, she's a talent but they're a talent yeah yeah yeah he's a genius isn't he he's brilliant what's fantastic about someone like eddie is uh his comedy is amazing

and what he's done and what he's achieved of course you should respect but one of the fascinating things about him is his mindset so i remember when i was opening for him in spain and we were sitting there and we were talking and he said to me, oh, you know, I used to be scared of flying. I was like, oh really? He was like, yeah, yeah, terrified. I went, so how did you overcome this, Eddie? He just looked at me and went, oh, I just got my pilot's license. Yeah, that's absolutely true. Not a joke because, you know, it's that single-minded, ferocious dedication and desire and driving. And you look at someone like that, you see the amount of work and the focus and you go, Oh,

I get why you're in Hollywood. I understand it. Anyway, we don't want you to go back to your point. I actually agree with you to some extent. I do think a little bit of variety, even if it's sort of slightly engineered, I think that's good, but I think we've gone way, way beyond that now. I think you're just, I think, yeah i but also then we're discussing two things you're dan you're zooming out and say i'm putting i'm putting together a show so i'm trying to make it the best show it can be and i think i don't want to have the five most brilliant white comics in a row because it's monotonous you know whatever it is

so i'm gonna which is quite different than saying i have to give somebody a chance because of their race or or any kind of quota thing you're just you're just speaking absolutely but i'm just saying they're just speaking up for the fact that that uh you know that things should be interesting and and there's various ways to do that. And one way to do that is to have contrasts, right? Which is, that's unobjectionable and obviously true. But that's not a reason, the state is not interested. Your show needs to be more interesting.

So you need to have more Hispanic comedians. That's not what they're saying. They're saying you have a social duty to hire more because there must be some because if you don't have any that must be because you're not hiring them and the reason you're not hiring them must be because they're Spanish or Latino and and that's quite a different issue well I know comedians in this country for example who've who've come off a showcase for a show let's's say, right? And there's eight people applying for a TV spot or whatever. And they've done the best.

And the producers come to them and say, you were the best tonight. You're a middle-aged white guy. We can't get you in. As simple as that, right? I don't think anyone wants to live in a world where people are just their skin color and their sex you want to underline by the way once again to repeat that constantin and francis

are rolling in dough this is not sour grapes and we're not middle-aged we're not middle-aged we're way past that now we gotta go but you guys need to come to play the comedy cellar. You don't have to perform if you don't want to, but you at least to come and hang out. Oh, we'd love to. We'd love to. What's the British, Tatiana...

Tatani McGrath. Yeah. Tatani McGrath, yeah. She's come down to the Olive Tree and I've had a few copies with her. Yeah. You probably... Her or Andrew Doyle, the

creator? Andrew Doyle. Andrew is a good friend of ours. We've had him on the show a bunch of times. Last year, before the great plague of 2020, we actually did a bunch of live shows where we interviewed the actor who he got to play her role

in front of a live audience. And those were the best comedy shows we've ever done by a long way. He was so, he was a great company. I really enjoyed meeting him. He's a great guy. And he's a sweetheart. He's such a lovely guy. And he's so funny as well.

Yeah. Next time we're in New York, which will probably be in the winter of 2027, we'll look you up. And you'll probably go together because that's how you of 2027. We'll look you up. You'll probably go together because that's how you guys generally travel. That's how we travel. That's how we travel now. We're now a couple. We'll see you both there and thanks for

coming. I think this was a pretty good discussion. Where can everyone find you, guys? I haven't seen Francis on Twitter. I have to look it up. I'm not big on Twitter, but Constantine is fantastic on Twitter. I have to look it up, but, but, um, and I'm not big on Twitter, but the constant scene is fantastic on Twitter. And I, uh,

give your Twitter handles. If people can, both of you guys give your Twitter handles. So I'm at Constance and Kisten. And I'm at Francis J. Foster. And I YouTube show where we interview people, uh,

is at trigger pod and it's called trigger nomitory, uh, as a gun trigger for the Americans in YouTube. So just look it up there. And thanks very much for having us. We really appreciate it. Thank you. Podcast at ComedyCellar.com for questions, comments, suggestions.

Periel, at live from the table. At live from the table. Periel, send me his email address. I want to email him sometimes. You can be on a known email list where he emails articles. And oftentimes, no one will just send an email saying,

this famous journalist says exactly what I said a week ago. Do you know John Haidt, the guy who wrote The Righteous Mind? Yeah. He lives near us. And I'm kind of friends with him, too. So he's like a hero to people who think like us, right?

So you might want to – I'd try to get him to come down to meet you if you come down. Yeah, well, help us get him on the show via Zoom. We'd love to interview him. Well, have you emailed him? I may have, but maybe not. I don't remember. I probably did once or twice, but if you could put a good word in for us,

we'd appreciate it. Yeah, yeah. Email him and make sure you have. And if you have, then maybe send it to me and I will absolutely email him and I'll recommend you because he does podcasts. He did our podcast when we were not known at all. Fantastic.

Brilliant. All right, gang. We went so long. Cheers, everybody. Thanks very much.