The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Look at Me I'm Katherine Dee

Episode Date: October 8, 2021

Katherine Dee is an internet historian and writer based in the Midwest. You might also know her as Default Friend on Twitter. Jordan Jensen is from upstate NY where she started started doing stand up then after a brief love affair with Nashville, she moved to Brooklyn where she was selected to be a new face of Just for Laughs Comedy Festival. She is a Comedy Cellar regular and opens for Louis CK. 

this is live from the table the official official podcast of New York's world-famous comedy seller coming at you on Sirius XM 99. And on the Laugh Button Podcast Network. This is Dan Aderman with me. Periel Ashenbrand in studio. We also have with us Jordan Jensen, comedy seller, regular. He's joining us also in studio. Not in studio tonight.

Noam Dorman, owner of the world famous Comedy Cellar. I believe I was told you were having car trouble. Is that why you are joining us via Zoom, Noam? Was that correct? I don't know if I should say this on the air. You know, I had a brand new Tesla. Yeah. Somebody backed into it in my driveway.

Well, why shouldn't you say that on the air? Because the person who backed into it might not want me to disclose the fact that they can't back. Never mind.

Never mind. I can't say it. Nothing. OK, so your wife backed into your car. It happened. I didn't say that. I didn't say that.

Is it is it like really bad? No, it turned out it's not it's not so bad. But I didn't know that when I didn't say that. Is it really bad? No, it turned out it's not so bad. But I didn't know that when I decided not to come. It's going to be all right. I've never loved anything as much as this car. Oh my God.

That's why your wife hit it. I can see it damaged this way. It hurts. It hurts. You really do like that car. Yeah, of course. I love it.

A lot going on. No, that would be of interest to you this week. First of all, Joe Rogan is at it again. He apparently posted on Instagram, a video, and I don't know if you saw it,

but no, he's in the video.'s his it's his voice from one of the episodes that he did talking about you know you can't give the government power when you give the government power to to segregate people they they don't let go of the power they want more power and then somebody made a video using that voiceover and in the video are images of Hitler for example and that sort of thing so anyway um what is this hitler thing i mean i know what this hillary thing is but but i mean is this really comparable to hitler is everything have to go to hitler

well apparently yes argumentum ad hitlerum or something like that and this is because this is because they want people to be vaccinated. Well, that was that was the implication. Yes. The implication being that that that government power grabs lead to more government power grabs ultimately lead to Auschwitz, I guess, is the implication. Now, last time about that, then last time we talked about Joe, we kind of defended him and said, you know, he's a young, healthy guy. He had said that he's a young and healthy guy or that if he were in his 20s and healthy, he wouldn't get vaccinated. I think he said something like, and we defended him. Well, statistically, you know, if you're in your 20s and you're healthy, you probably won't die from COVID.

And, you know, maybe that's not the most ridiculous thing in the world. I think this is harder to defend. Well, I didn't defend him the last time either, but I didn't like, you know, the stuff he said about most ridiculous thing in the world. I think this is harder to defend. Well, I didn't defend him the last time either, but I didn't like, you know, the stuff he said about ivermectin and stuff like that. But I was just saying that he in a narrow sense, he was right. But but that he was it's also, you know, implying that other people shouldn't get vaccinated. I didn't like that. But so what do you think about this Hitler thing? I don't get it. I mean, I understand the argument. It's true that temporary matters never stay temporary. Rent control was supposed to be temporary.

All sorts of measures that that will never get rid of. Yeah. Well, the draft, you know, we send people off to war and then when the war is over we send them home and so if you use that as an analogy we're at war and we're we're we're drafting people in a sense yeah but a lot of people are against the draft she needs to be closer to her mic or turn off her mic how's that yes that's good a lot of people are against the draft although i don't i don't know if people necessarily said the draft will lead to auschwitz or to hit, but maybe they did. And and I don't know that that the same people that are protesting the vaccine have a beef with with the draft or not. No, certainly not. Are they are they protesting the fact that it may become mandatory or are they protesting the vaccine in general? Well, the particular video that we're talking about basically is Joe saying, you know, you can't let the government take away our freedoms freedom is what makes america great once they start they start nibbling away at our freedoms then they there's no stopping them and then somebody

took those words and overlaid a video wherein there was hitler and this sort of thing so and then and then joe then took that video and put it on his instagram feed and uh endorsing the hill so listen this is the thing that gets, and then, and then Joe then took that video and put it on his Instagram feed and endorsing the Hitler. So listen, this is the thing that gets him out of the Hitler thing. Hold on. My, I got to turn off my phone because well, I mean, so listen, this is the thing that go ahead, Dan, you want to say something? I'm just saying, even without the Hitler thing, I think the notion that, you know,

we can't let the government infringe on our freedom. Well, you pay taxes. You do jury duty. I mean, living in a society, there are obligations. There is no such thing as unlimited freedom. And if you want to say that the vaccine is not good for one reason or other, but the idea that we don't live in a hundred percent free society anyway, there are obligations as a citizen. So I just, whether, whether without Hitler, I don't, I don't see the logic there. Okay. But let me just, let me just comment on the Hitler thing, because it's what really gets me is that, I mean, any, nobody should be compared to Hitler unless, unless the thrust of the comparison is the evil intention.

And there's just something very wrong about comparing Hitler, whose goal and motivations were pure evil, to a compulsory vaccine, which you may have certain points as to why you don't think it's wise, but does anybody not understand that this is motivated out of a desire to keep people healthy and keep children from getting sick? I mean, like it's such a weird thing to compare it to Hitler. I just looked up what this was called, this logic, like basically if I'm like, I don't eat meat because I don't want to hurt animals. And somebody says to me, well, your iPhone was made by children.

You don't care about that. It's called a false in logic, a false equivalency. But it's also it is like wildly offensive to compare the two things. I mean, it is. And Hitler is this like immediate go to the people. Nobody ever like pulls up a photo of Stalin or something. It is always Hitler, which is like, I just, I feel like imagining, I don't know, being somebody who actually

was like a survivor of the Holocaust and then being like, see, this is the same, would be so fucked up. Yeah, like they didn't give anybody vaccinations to prevent them from getting sick in the concentration camps, right? But I do think, Noam, some people

do perceive this as evil. I don't know that Joe is one of them, but there certainly are plenty of But I do think some people do perceive this as evil. I don't know that Joe is one of them, but there certainly are plenty of people that do think that this is some sort of evil power grab. Look, there is one thing about the vaccines, which which I can't say I know is true or not true, which is that both these things are brand new, both COVID and the COVID vaccine. And nobody, but nobody knows what the long-term effects of either of them are. But we're all kind of, the smart money is on that the long-term effects of the vaccine, if there are any, are less risky than the long-term effects of the virus, if you survive the virus, right? But for young people who don't expect to

die from it. But so I get that. And, you know, like when it's time to vaccinate my child, I'm going to have a pang of concern. Like, you know, I hope this doesn't come back to haunt us in some way. It's brand new, right? Things have, it's not unprecedented that something turned out years later to have risks that people didn't comprehend at the time they were doling it out. So I get that. But I don't but I don't see the Hitler thing. And also, obviously, I said this before in the podcast, but I think it's really an important point. It's not made enough. There's no there's no clear principle here, because, for instance, if if it was if COVID was the opposite it could have been, where children were at the higher risk and adults were the ones who barely died, and we lost 100,000, God forbid, or 200,000 kids, the way we lost 100,000 70-year-olds and above, would anybody be saying, you have no right to tell me to get vaccinated. It would be obvious that if kids are dying by the hundreds of thousands,

that we'd all have to get vaccinated. So where you draw the line, you know, this is reasonable. People of well-intentions can differ. We've lost, you know, we're moving up on a million people from this virus, right? So, and then also the final thing is that this freedom is also the freedom to freeload on the decision of other people to take the vaccine.

That makes me uncomfortable. So the people who feel that there's not much risk about covid anymore. Well, part of that reason is because people like me and all of us got vaccinated. So if your freedom to do that is based on the fact that other people took the vaccine. There's something about that that doesn't sit right with me. Well, and the Delta variant came out of being, you know, mutating from in people who aren't vaccinated. Yeah, but not in this country, in India. I have so many comedian friends, like not in New York, but in like the South who are not getting vaccinated. And they're really upset that clubs are not getting vaccinated and they're really

upset that clubs are requiring it. And they're, you know, all of these things. And I guess it came down to, I was talking to one of my buddies and I was like, if it's like, if you read Nietzsche, he like does all this things where he's like, everybody's trying to control you. You have to like be against societal control. And then he like goes to see this like opera and he's like, oh, I understand now that I have to like do certain societal things in order to participate in these benefits of society, like going to see an opera.

And that's how I felt like with comedy, where I was like, yeah, there might be effects down the line, but would you rather deal with that or gamble or just not do comedy right now, you know? And then, you know, their response is like, well, it's fascist that they should make that make, you know, me do this. And I'm like, you could say that about red lights, dude. You could say that about stop signs in the street. You know what I mean?

Do they think like it's dangerous or like they take other vaccine, excuse me, vaccines or is this? They would say nothing that the government could ever could ever produce would be something that I would trust and nothing that the government pushes me to do is something why should I trust the government if you know what I mean sure okay but what about other vaccines though like are those like are they vaccinated against like polio and this is scary for me because of like the Shane Gillis phenomenon where it's like I'm pretending to be a person that I'm not. They would say I didn't choose to get those vaccines and I wouldn't choose to get them now. Got it.

I was a baby, you know, right. Well, I know that Chrissy Mayer, who is a comic who was on this podcast a couple of years back, said she's boycotting clubs that that that that that require vaccination. And Jim Brewer also said that he tweeted that he will not be performing at clubs that require vaccination, that he's putting principal over money. Words to that effect. Do people send their kids to school? Because your kids have to be vaccinated in order to go to public school.

I mean, you have to. Private school, too, I think. Yeah, private school, too. But, I mean, you have to private school too, I think. Yeah. Private school too. But I mean, you have to literally provide like, I don't know, there's like a long list of vaccines that your child has to have. You can't send them to summer camp without a healthy proof of vaccination. It's not vaccinations are not at all unprecedented requirements that we're used to. I don't remember as adults being required, but that's because I guess we had them as kids. You've been vaccinated as a kid, right?

Although I will say that in the past five years or maybe even longer, being vaccinated against the flu has become mandatory at a lot of schools also for kids. I haven't heard that. So, Noam, what do you think Joe's M.O. is? Does he believe

this, or is he just playing to his base? I think Joe Rogan is a sincere guy. I think he believes it. And so what, if anything, do you have to say? Listen, I don't dislike Joe Rogan. I mean, I disagree with him, that's all.

I'm not, I listen, I don't dislike Joe Rogan. I mean, I disagree with him. That's all. I disagree with him or I just don't know that he's, from what I've heard, spelled out an argument that I really understand. I mean, I'm pretty civil libertarian. I'm mindful. Yeah. This is, you know, when the government is telling you that you have to take something, you know, inject something that's new and you're worried about it. And if you don't do it, you can't work. This is not a small matter. I understand people wanting to give it extra consider care and it's worthy of some very very um serious thought right and serious conversations on both sides of it to really think it through the but the you know comparing it to hitler and calling it fascist this is just such to me with all respect if you don't agree it's just a very shallow way of handling that issue of all the issues there are. It's not creeping fascism. That's not the issue that I'm worried about. Biden is not there. He's going to get everybody vaccinated and then I'll control the world. That's just not what he's up to. Right. He's trying to he's trying to handle a problem that

has killed upwards of 600000 Americans.. And he's trying to put this problem to bed once and for all. And everybody tells him, all the scientists tell him, vaccines are the best way to do it. So even against kind of his better judgment, because at first he said he wouldn't do that. He's like, I got to require everybody to get vaccinated. I don't know what else to do. I'm pretty sure if you shot him up with sodium pentothal, he would say pretty much what I'm saying, right? That's where he's coming from. And I don't think this is going to be a first step toward greater government control. I mean, I hear what you're saying. Sometimes measures are taken. It's hard to roll them back. But I don't I don't see this as it's just so

ironic that he's posting this shit on Instagram, which is one of the biggest sources of mind control ever to exist. Literally everything that this man does is constantly on social media, which is telling him what to buy, how to be, you know what I mean? And it's like, yeah, delete your social media, and then I'll believe that you're an off-grid libertarian. It's insane. That's great.

The real issue that really that I think gets attention but not enough are these leaders who promulgate all these rules and then just don't follow them at all. The latest was this mayor from San Francisco, London Breed, who I

had a high regard for because she was an early she handled COVID very well early, like in February or March of 2019, but, or 2020, but she was, she was caught in a club with no mask on. Right. And she said, I just got, I just got the spirit. I just had to dance. I just had to have a good time. I'm not thinking about a mask right now. I'm having a good time. This is crazy. Well, it's hypocritical, but that doesn't necessarily mean that what they proposed was a bad idea. Doctors smoke cigarettes and they'll tell you don't smoke and they do it anyway. That doesn't mean that they were wrong to tell you not to smoke. No, it doesn't mean that, but there is something really bothersome about these people who've, who, who

put out rules, which are inconvenient and they say it's for the greater good. And then they don't follow them themselves because they're inconvenient. Well, if it's too inconvenient for you, maybe it's too inconvenient for all of us. And maybe we should reconsider the rules, or maybe you should follow the frigging rule because you're a leader, you know, and lead by example, you know, I, I, it's, it's kind of, you know, something that we've all know you're supposed to do anyway, that bothers me. No, and there's another, uh, something else, uh, I, I in scouring the news and curating the news for this show and keeping in mind the kinds of things we like to talk about something else uh i thought

you might be interested in that happened this week there was another uh viral video of a white woman and uh let me uh is that is that katherine d here or do we want to start this uh tell me about the tell me about the viral what. What happened was this in Brooklyn at a dog park. Apparently, a woman told a black couple, a man and his fiance, go back to your hood. She claims that the dog was. Start again. Start again. Because somebody else joined the meeting.

Say it again. A woman. This woman in the dog park. Apparently, it's not in the actual video, but she was accused on video of telling a black couple to go back to their hood she claims their dog was being aggressive and she wanted them to quote go back to their hood the man says the dog was not being aggressive it was a case of mistaken dog identity but be that as it may in the video, are you saying all dogs look alike? The woman, the woman,

uh, is on the video. She giving the finger to the guy. And then it seems to be the, the woman, it seems to be the voice of a woman. I guess his, his fiance,

it seems to be saying, Oh, that's, you know, Oh, what Karen is what whiteness. And that's about it for the. And then there's a white guy.

He asked the white guy, did she just tell me to go back to my hood? And the white guy said, yes, she did. That's pretty much everything that's in the video. Was the use of the word hood like pointed, like using the word hood because talking to black people or was it her own implication? We didn't see her in the video saying, go back to your hood. After she said, go back to your hood, the man starts to film her. And the man said, did you just tell me to go back to my hood? And then he asked this white guy, this witness, did he did she just tell us to go back to our hood?

And the white guy said, yes, she did. And it sounded to me like the black woman said, oh, what whiteness, what Karen is. But I couldn't quite make it out. So I don't know if she said that. That sounds disrespectful to me anyway. Well, let's continue. So the woman issued a statement saying she apologizes. She just meant for them to go to another dog park because their dog was being aggressive. There were no racial implications, but it was a bad choice of words. She got fired from her company.

Some computer. I don't know what it is. I think it's a computer conferencing software. Anyway, she got fired. So that's the story. So we've seen this before, obviously. Oh, she got fired from her job. She got fired from her job. They issued a statement like, you know,

we don't accept discrimination or racial hatred or whatever they said. And except it being we don't accept it outside of our office included. You can't. I mean, it's I mean, that woman is insane. But it is like if somebody is rap singing rap music in their shower and lets the N-word fly as you know, as the rapper was in that moment and somebody catches the video, puts it online and that person gets fired. You know what I mean? Well, I mean, I don't I don't know if anybody would get fired for that necessarily. What do you mean? It's like

I mean, for privately using the N-word in a rap song, I don't know. But but in this case, it seems clear that by go back to your hood, there was a racial implication in that statement. Does does she deserve to be fired? Of course not. I mean, I mean, let me say, I don't think anybody should be disrespectful racially. I think that's terrible. If that's what she said, even in the heat of anger, which I know a lot of people find themselves saying things like that in, in the heat of anger, you know and I don't even think that's an excuse, but I don't think, I mean, I wouldn't fire anybody who told somebody to go back to the diamond district. Like,

like I'm just not going to, it's not their job. It's not, it doesn't do their job in the olive tree to fire somebody because they lost their temper and said something disrespectful to somebody. I just, this is a terrible, terrible.

So if this woman worked at the comedy cellar and, and there was pressure on social media to fire this person, you would respond how? Oh, there was pressure. I'd have to let her go. I would say that my, that the,

the, I didn't raise the people who work for me and, and I, I can be offended by them, but this is, as long as they do their job properly for me, um, I'm not going to get into their personal lives. What do you think about the man in the video? And you didn't see the video when asked, uh,

did she just tell me to go back? What if you were that man? You're in the, in the park, uh, you overheard a woman telling a black couple to go back to their hood. The guy takes out his phone. He starts filming it. And he says to you on video, did she just tell me to go back to my hood? What do you say if she said I say, yeah, why wouldn't I say? Well, you might say, look, I don't believe in online mob justice and cancellation. Leave me out of it. You might say that. What's that? Oh yeah. If I knew, if I knew everything that was going to come of it, I would, I would not want to be get involved. Yeah. Yeah. I would. Yeah.

I would probably be like, this is inappropriate. What you just did was inappropriate. I would probably not address the camera. I would address the group and be like, y'all do need to go back. No, I'm just kidding. I would be like, you guys, this is insane and what you just said was super racist and you should watch yourself. And you know what I mean? Like, I probably would try and not be. This is what really bothers me about it. And I made this point before, is that if they found out that this woman slapped her kid. She wouldn't get fired, right? Like like like was abusive or did there's a whole list of things which I could probably reel off,

which are probably a higher offense than saying, go back to your hood as as disrespectful as that is. Right. She would not get fired for any of them. Like she could hit her kid. She could hit her husband. She could she could steal. There's all kinds of things that she could she could steal there's all kinds of things that that she could she could take money seem true whoops there's something with the sound going on oh was cat is cat on is cat on the all right i'm on the call yeah oh introduce her if someone's any kind of pest in the i've got introduced but if she's been listening she can't see her though oh yeah i'm keeping my camera off. Sorry, guys.

I went to Florida and didn't bring a suitcase or anything. I don't have my e-girl drag on. Introduce her, then let her chime in. I'll introduce her. This is Catherine D. She is an internet historian.

She writes about the history of the internet. She can be found on Twitter under the handle Default Friend. You can't read her tweets anymore. They're private now, so I don't know. Maybe that's a story, too. It definitely is a story. I became the main character of Twitter a couple of days ago, so I'm laying low a little bit.

Well, we still want to dig into that. But before we do, do you have any thoughts about the latest Karen video? Yeah, I mean, like, I don't think she should have been fired. I guess like my contention with the statements you guys are making was like, if someone's some kind of like pest in their community and like they're, you know, abusing their kids and then someone like was like hey you know this woman is abusing her family she would it would impact her professional life for sure right like it's it's this just you know getting uh getting heat for being racist isn't the only

thing that you'll get heat for i don't know i mean i I mean, don't we all know people who've done shitty things? Common knowledge and the people who work with them know it. And they don't get fired. There are people that are... I mean, it's a brand new world.

Sorry, go ahead. Sure. It sounds like a sex test. like everyone knows it's one thing but like someone comes and is like look you know it's a sex test and they keep making it they you know they keep making it that you would even you would get fired in 1950 you get fired today if it's you would do it at work well, look, if it looks if it's a bad look for the company. Yeah. Well, let me just say, you know, as a boss, I've been a boss for like 40 or 30, 30 something years now. It wasn't until recently that it ever, ever came even on my radar that I might have to consider firing somebody for something outside of work.

That was just something I can't say there was no scenario or whatever could have happened, but it was not something I'd ever heard of, nor I think had any of us ever heard of it. It is purely a result of social media. You'd never heard of someone like getting fired because they were like flamboyantly gay and it was bad optics for whatever corporation? they were like flamboyantly gay and it was bad optics for whatever corporation but they were um yes yes yes that that that would happen but that was that was something we considered was a bad thing to do but yeah you're right there was or um there were people who were fired for being gay absolutely a scandal like that um uh that was discrimination in my opinion but yes but i'm but um i don't know how to compare that but yeah i'll give you that but i mean i it never occurred

to me that i had to fire somebody for anything that they did wrong and i knew people who did things wrong people i really did not approve of. People who, I knew people who hit women, you know, over the years. I knew, we've all met people like that. They work. They should go, I mean, fine if they should get arrested, but I don't see how a boss can get involved. Like, we don't know. You know that she said, go back to the hood. I don't know anything else about that story. But even if I knew, is that, would you punish somebody? I mean, think about if a judge was going to punish you with something, the equivalent of losing your livelihood, would, would that be the punishment we would give to somebody who said something? We would just

that would not be a commensurate punishment. You should, you should, we don't care if you have a family, you're not going to work anymore. You said something disrespectful. That's it. No more livelihood for you. That's crazy. I mean, I guess like my point is like, I agree with you. It's totally crazy, but this kind of attitude has always existed. It's just the goalpost shifted. So it feels new. Like people would get like, you know, they'd run out of town for being a slut or being, you know, a lifelong bachelor or what like you know they'd run out of town for being a slut or being you know a lifelong bachelor or what you know whatever thing it's but we're we're familiar like oh that's clearly misogyny or clearly homophobia but now that kind of energy is just

shifted over to like perceived racism or whatever thing well you know what cat you actually made a good point it made me think about it and now it's's kind of, is that the word, coalesce? It's kind of coming together in my head. There were certain jobs which were very, very high profile, like a sportscaster who made a remark about black people, or somebody who turned out to be gay, or somebody turned out to be having a fair part. Teachers that were gay were fired, I believe, in the old days. What's that? Teachers that were gay, I i think got fired a lot back in the day but but so but what's happened now is that where there was a very very small number of jobs which were sufficiently in the public eye that the employer would feel that pressure from the public that they had to do something like that now every single job is capable of coming under that pressure. A waitress at a small restaurant, you know, and that's where, that's what's changed. So we've taken that very unusual circumstance of a very, very high profile

situation where these pressures might cause an employer to do something bad, like firing somebody for being gay or firing somebody for doing something bad. But now we're all subject to it. And and it's crazy because obviously the mob gets it wrong at least as often as they get it right. Right. Yeah, I mean, that's another thing is we really don't know what happened before the video was taken. It may well be. that this woman was completely unprovoked in any way, shape or form and said what she said. And that's certainly possible. Maybe she uses the word hood. I don't know. I hear why people use hood has become pretty ubiquitous, you know, I don't know. So so, you know, if if this were a court of law, that video would be insufficient to convict.

We'd need to hear a little bit more or a lot more. And again, is it serving like it? In my experience as a comedian, when a when a male comic gets shamed for, you know, being a sex pest, which is the best. I love that term so much. I have found that publicly the remorse is there privately. It's doubled down. Like if my friends have been, you know, if somebody I know has a woman was like, yeah, just so you know, I don't feel comfortable with the sexual exchange that we had.

It's rare that I get a call from those male friends being like, I feel so bad. I'm so scared that I did something that made her feel. It's usually like I didn't do shit. What the hell is going on? She's going to ruin my life like it does increase the it makes people double down. I mean, this woman who said this is not going to be like now that I've lost my job, I would like to reform my behavior and my and my belief system and ideology. It's going to make her probably more racist. Also, I mean, I got to wonder if, if, if it was a verse and even a white person or a black person said to argue with a Jewish person, Shalom, get the hell out of here. Um, would they get fired? Look, I mean, in my life, I've had people say, you know, rude things to me about being, I was working years ago at the Greenwich, Connecticut haagen-dazs ice cream parlor and and i i gave some i don't know i had an

argument with a customer i was a bad employee i'll admit that i put the wrong sprinkles on whatever it was uh so somebody said to me a lebowitz over here uh such and such and such and such you know and i was like you were jewish well apparently they know. And my thought, of course, we didn't have the Internet. We didn't have cell phones with cameras. But I don't think my thought would have been I got to get this guy fired. My thought would have been, yes, another asshole. And I deal with assholes every now and then. And there's such a thing as assholes in the world.

And I don't know what you would have been your thought to get the guy fired. All right. So so we call you cat because it says cat's eye bunch we call you cat yeah you could call me cat yeah the way you came on my radar is because a very a very important public intellectual i don't i'm not gonna say his name i could tell you off just because i don't know if he wants to sent me a tweet that you tweeted one time where you said, I just saw stand-up comedy so bad. I walked out more right wing,

you know exactly what I mean. And then, so then I looked you up and I said, well, you're followed by a lot of really, really smart people. So I said, well,

this is, she must have something to say. And then when I went back to like to refresh my memory about you today, you're all, you know, you're all locked down in private. So, so first thing is what was that about standup comedy that was so bad, walked out more right wing and then tell us a story about why you can't show your face or show your Twitter anymore.

Look, bad night for me. Okay. I wasn't performing. It was just like, you know, so I, I, I am, I am sort of on the right. And sort of like a trope is that comedy has become like a little bit too, like, you know, like all the trope is, and this isn't what I believe, but the trope is that like, all women comedians, like only make jokes about their vaginas and their terrible sex lives. And everything's about trauma or like an appeal to some kind of activist cause. And I went and I saw a show and it was literally like a parody, like a right wing parody of what they would assume like left wing comedy is. And, and it was just, it was like, it was, it was was so i love stand-up um and i i have like a a pretty like a pretty diverse taste it was like unbelievably bad and like to make matters worse there was like some like total like dork next to me on our first date who like was just commenting

on every joke and like the waitress thought it was funny somehow that he was like interrupting the show constantly. It was, it was an awful experience. This was at a club in Chicago. Where was this? I think it was at the law factory. If I'm recalling correctly. In Los Angeles or in Chicago.

No, no. In Chicago. Okay. All right. I have to take off. God, I would pay so much money to know who that.

What, what is, what if you have two seconds, what is comedy like in these other cities? Oh, well, I just went on tour, so I can answer that it is. I mean, it's hard. I'm at the cellar. It's the best comics ever. It's an incredibly diverse group of people. And then you go to other cities. And I mean, a lot of it is uh men men are the worst women are the best and audiences actually do respond to that um I like that stuff I can't lie it's funny to me yeah there's a lot of there's a lot of that um I'm seeing a little bit I feel like I'm seeing a little bit less like just down and dirty sex stuff and way more like, um, I mean, way more, this is what

happened in my family that traumatized me and made me into the person that I am. That's like a big thing. And that's a little irritating for me. Cause sometimes I get to a point where I'm like, why don't you be a grownup and talk about who you are now, as opposed to the strong people that abused you as a child and made you into this weak little bitch. You know what I mean? So I do think that that's a common thing where people are like, oh, shit, I can like there's a lot of I hear this all the time. I've even said it. Who got hit growing up? Big, big trope. So, yeah, I feel like that's a common one. Delving into the childhood, blaming the parents for what they've done to make them into the shitty person that they are now. I have jokes like that as well, but that does feel like a common thread that's

happening. Well, Al Lubell had a funny joke where he said, you know, my parents are to blame, but I guess they can blame their parents. You know who I really blame? The Big Bang. Yeah. Have you seen the this is what did anybody see the Al Lubell documentary on Amazon Prime? I saw it. Boy, we interviewed him. You weren't here. He's so funny. He was great. I want to know from Kat, was the jokes that were being told,

was it a woman basically being like my pussy is rank and my boyfriend sucks? Was it just so stereotypical? Well, so it was like several people, you know, it was like 10 comedians or something i mean like one woman at the end of her set just started like talking about some like activist cause she was involved with and like this wasn't like an open mic comedy yeah

i don't know if that's a specific if that's a genre or something but it's where it doesn't like it doesn't make people laugh involuntarily but they snap at it because it's like yes girl i believe in your cause it's not fun yeah no yeah by the way if anyone wants which i unlocked my twitter for you guys so you can look at my deranged my please excuse what you see uh but yeah it was like not it was like a mix between like trying too hard to like appeal to a certain sensibility like there was a song about i don't know i don't even know if i should say this because it might reveal who it was uh but like lots of like i actually like small dicks kind of jokes which i also didn't find particularly uh funny and definitely not the way they were told yeah

oh so this is, so now you've unlocked your Twitter. Look at the people who follow you and explain to you why Luke, Nick, Nicholas Claremont, who I know he comes down and hangs out of theology. Barry Weiss. I know Jesse single.

I know Thomas Chatterton Williams. I don't know him personally, but I know people know him. Cause we have to say goodbye to Jordan. Thank you. Bye Jordan. I know. I'm see you soon.

Thank you so much. Bye cat. Very interesting. I'll make Coleman Hughes. I don't know if you know who he is but he plays in my band actually uh camille so all these people how do they know you how come wesley yang we've had him on our podcast how are you so well known um i i well i think from my writing i hope um i also have a podcast. Well, who am I kidding? No one listens to my podcast, but I think, I think these people follow me because of my, my writing.

I have to, I have to start reading your stuff and I apologize that I haven't. So tell us how you got in trouble with, uh, with Twitter. Uh, Oh God, it's such a boring story, but I, I tweeted something that got misinterpreted. That was like i should have put it in like a longer thread uh but like on its own it sounded really up my own ass i basically like accidentally said that i invented second wave feminism which obviously isn't true and then just thousands of people were you know calling me an idiot just all day so um i had to to lock it down a little bit i'm as you say i'm looking up what second wave feminism is i'm supposed to know that right

yeah i mean it's it's not even it's not even interesting i mean that's the thing i didn't say something i didn't accidentally say something racist or you know something like that it just was i was accidentally so smug that it transcended all politics, all class affiliations, and everyone wanted to take a, take a shot. All right. And, and are you okay? Are you, are you going to purpose, purpose, permanently disclose your Twitter again, or you're, you're, you're going to hide it again? Um, I might hide it for a little bit, but then I'll come back. You know, it's good to have the audience. All right.

So, Dan, so what do you think? What do you think about the state of comedy? Well, I'm not, you know, I don't necessarily have a good read on exactly what these jokes were, because she's just saying that they were kind of talking about, I don't know. But yeah, I mean, I get it. The state is, there's good, bad, and different types. And there's certain things I don't like. I don't like any jokes about women earning 70 cents on the dollar because I think the whole premise is bullshit.

What do you mean? Pardon? What do you mean the whole premise is bullshit? I don't believe women earn 70 cents on the dollar for the exact same job Bullshit. Pardon? What do you mean the whole premise is bullshit? I don't believe women earn 70 cents on the dollar for the exact same job because they're women. I do in my place. So any joke about that? I don't like,

you know, I do. I do. I do not find audiences particularly uptight in New York. I mean, everything's people ask me every day of comedy must be so like thrown off by this woke stuff. But I I don't find that the audiences really get offended. Do you? Well, yeah, I mean, I had that joke, like I said, about George Washington. And, you know, we talked about that and and and, and, and, and, you know,

They didn't get offended. They got a little uncomfortable because you were talking about slavery, but yeah, that joke might've put people a little cautious 10 years ago. It wasn't like, I mean, you know, it's, You're saying there's nothing new. Yeah. I don't, I don't, I don't think it's new. I don't know. I have a rape,

a joke about rape. And you say the word rape and everybody really sort of tightens up. I think that there's topics today that wouldn't fly 10 years ago that that flew 10 years ago that wouldn't fly today. Like Eddie Murphy coming on stage and saying, I don't want no faggots looking at my ass. Yeah, but yeah, but I don't, as un-woke as I am, I don't regard that as a negative. I'm happy that he's not telling that joke anymore, right? That's not,

I mean, not every movement is a movement for the worst. Certain sensitivities, even I will admit, I'm happy that we're more sensitive to certain things. No? Yes, no, I agree with you. I'm just saying that that audiences are sensitive to things they might have not been sensitive to 10 years ago. Maybe they're things 10 years ago that they were sensitive to that they would be less sensitive to

now. As overall, I don't think the state of comedy is in decline because of wokeness. So I'll agree with you there. Aren't there a lot of comics perhaps you're one of them but maybe not that i've heard say that they don't like going to college campuses no i i i don't uh no i'm not one of the people that have said that seinfeld said that others have said that it may well be i i typically don't get invited to colleges and yes they can be politically incorrect and they can politically correct and they can be difficult audiences but i never said i you know they pay well so i'll go you know and i'll figure it out um you know i'll do i'll give them the shit that they want uh katherine cat cat you there oh you're muted you there okay hi yeah i actually i actually did just read an

article that you wrote i didn't't even realize it was you, about these women writing these, like, homoerotic stories about characters and stuff like that. Yeah, yep. Slash fiction. I write a lot about, like, online fandom. So apparently there's a huge thing where people write, like, porn about, like, Captain Kirk or Mr. Spock and whatever.

You're like, you know, Jerry and George or what? I can't even imagine what it is. Jeez. I would love, I mean, not,

I would, I wouldn't love it, but I'd be curious to see who the Seinfeld fan fiction writers are. But yeah, it's mostly like, it's, it's stuff that's a little bit easier to eroticize like Harry Potter or Twilight or that kind of thing. Anime.

And it's a big thing now? I mean, it's been a big thing since the 70s. I never heard of this. Well, Noam, you know, he's not necessarily abreast of all the latest trends. I didn't know that on Reddit people will sometimes write stuff like that about like, I mean, somebody I know, like important CNN personalities or whatever. And I know that there's just like this creative writing thing where people will take a character and just, you know, use them in, in,

in fiction as it were. And I've seen that, but I didn't, I haven't seen this kind of like with two characters from, you know, like Murray and Mr. Grant or something. If you're old enough to even know that reference. She wrote it in Mary. No, we cannot see her image, but her voice does sound young. Well, let me guess before you answer the question. Her voice seems 20 something to me. That's right. I'm 29.

Okay. So I got in just, that would have been very impressive had I said 29, but definitely felt your voice was in the 20s. How old do you say I am given my, well, nevermind. You can see. She can see. She can see see me she can see the gray you know five years ago i had no gray at all then all of a sudden it just uh just uh started to take over you know i did i just to change the subject because we have no particular subject we do have some subjects noam that i had submitted to you go ahead go ahead you do something i'll can i well can i just do the thing i was? Yeah, go ahead. So I read an article today. Maybe it was in the Times. And it talked about Tarrytown, New York, which is a town near me and was lauding the fact that it was so diverse. You know, Tarrytown is very diverse. But the reality of Tarrytown and it struck me that that diversity, which can be very beautiful, is now meaning something different. So Tarrytown is a town which is kind of like, has like low income and high income in the same town.

And it's kind of like a town, in my opinion, right before like white flight takes over. Like we've seen this kind of thing before. It's not, it's not diverse in the sense you have people of all different races in a community together, socializing together, living as one and a community in that beautiful sense of the word is diverse only in the fact that within the geographical lines of, it's almost as if they're talking about like if, if the two sides of the railroad tracks are within the same town, that's diversity. Right. And I just and I just thought that was extremely shallow the way they they they're almost on the verge of saying that diversity is no different than a town which is quite segregated because tarrytown is quite

segregated even though and they call it diversity just because of a census kind of thing and it just it just struck me as a very um what the concept of diversity really should mean well were they saying it's a diverse town in in a positive sense or they're just simply stating a positive sense it's a mixed grill here yeah but that but that's not what I'm saying. The word diversity, to me, has a connotation which has to be beyond the fact that you can count up people of different races within a geographical area. It has to mean that these people are actually interacting with each other. That's diversity. I think that it depends on the context.

If they say we have a beautiful, diverse community, then you're right. If they say this is a demographically diverse community, then I think it can mean simply that there's different types of people here. Anyway, I'll show you the article. So I just, you see little things like this all the time. You just get the feeling more and more that these, these journalists are just desperate to, their own things through their articles. There was another article in the Times a couple of days ago about the crime rate, about the murder rate. It says like the

murder rate has tripled or gone up by 30%. And then the sub headline is, but other major crimes have gone down. And of course, not of course, but in the article, they never mention any of what the major crimes are. They put that down. They put it in the sub headline almost as if just just like to soften the idea that murder has gone up because, you know, right wing people mouth water to hear that murder has gone up because it makes their point for them. And then you read the article and it's and it says that and certainly this is because of the economic stress of the pandemic. But then the natural question would be, well, then why did the major crimes go down? Which are, I looked it up, it was like burglary and larceny and robberies. These all went down. So if the logic is that the pandemic caused all this economic anxiety, which led to murder, then how do you account for the fact that all these monetary crimes went down?

Wouldn't they go up? Right. So I'm saying it's just a stupid and there's no there's no data for it. There's no logic to it. It's just this reporter who just doesn't want to admit that maybe something is going on here with violent crime. Maybe it's related to police standing down. Maybe it's related to the BLM protests. Who knows what it is, but they, they're so nervous that any of these things might turn out to be true. They just start piling on nonsensical, you know, disclaim, I don't know, dilutions that, that don't even stand. A high school kid could look through these these things um it's just typical of what's going anyway go ahead dan what are your topics okay well for those cats still with us because you know uh so i'm always wondering if she's still

with us yeah i'm here okay as long as you guys today is uh i don't know if you've ever heard of greg giraldo he's a comedian that used to work here all the time. And we should mention that today as we tape, not as this airs, but as we tape the 29th of September 2021, it is 11 years since the death of Greg Giraldo, who died this day 11 years ago. Amazing how fast it goes. His death was ruled an accidental overdose. Anyway, he was a very important part of the comedy community and the comedy cellar community.

Kat, are you familiar with Greg at all? No, I'm not. The 29-year-olds, I guess, maybe wouldn't be. If you are a comedy fan, it might be worth your time to go on YouTube and check him out. But, Noam, what do you think would have become of Greg had he lived? Where do you think he'd be today if you cared? Well, I mean, if he had lived and and was healthy, you know, because he had he had. Bouts with substance abuse long before he overdosed.

I think he would have been hosting The Daily Show. I don't think anybody could touch him. He was funnier than anybody. And he went to Harvard Law School. He was politically intelligent and hilarious. I mean, just unbelievably hilarious off the top of his head. He was a rare talent, right?

You agree with that, don't you? I agree. To say that he'd be hosting The Daily Show is tricky because The Daily Show hires who they hire. They hired Trevor Noah. Nobody saw that coming. I don't think you would have ever predicted that.

But there was no logical, there was no heir apparent to Jon Stewart, but Geraldo would have been his heir apparent. Again, it's up to the powers that be at Comedy Central to say he would have been hosting The Daily Show, I think is, he certainly- And he's Hispanic, and he was Hispanic. So even if they were looking for diversity,

he would have qualified. Well, again, he might've been hosting The Daily Show, but I definitely think would have happened had he not gotten The Daily Show job., but I definitely think would have happened. Had he not gotten the daily show job? I think he died prior to podcasting. Actually, I was podcasting in those days. I was one of the pioneers of podcasting.

I began event is second wave podcast. I started podcasting in 2005 before they even called it podcasting. I just called it internet radio, but he, but he's, he died prior to most of that stuff. And I think he would have been, um, if, if not a star of, of TV and a star of film, and you never know, I mean, the powers that be,

they either give it to you or they don't. I think he would have been a successful podcaster. And I think he would have been a successful podcaster. And I think he would have been mentioned, you know, I Marin and Bill Burr and Rogan. I think he would have been in that league as a podcaster if he didn't have any other success because he didn't live long enough to, he didn't live into the era of podcasting where, wherein one could, you know, make millions, you know, as a podcaster.

So I think that he would have at a minimum been doing that. His death was unbelievably sad. Next topic. Then I want to have before we go, I want to ask Kat about feminism. Go ahead. Go ahead, Dan. Well, Brian Laundrie is still on the lam. Last I checked, that is the the boyfriend of Gabby Petito, who went missing and was found dead in Wyoming. And of course, there's been overwhelming attention paid to her.

And that in and of itself has caused backlash because why are we paying so much attention to the young white girl? And when there are so many people of color and people, American Indians that have gone missing anyway, he's still on the lam and dog. The bounty hunter thinks that he is still alive and his cloak dog. The bounty hunter claims that he is closing in on Brian laundry. Dan, I have to admit, I have absolutely no interest in these gossipy murder. Okay. So ask, ask. My wife lives for them.

My wife lives for these stories. Your wife could probably solve this. Well, I, I find it pretty interesting. I think there's a good chance that Brian Laundrie is dead. I think there's a good chance of it, but I wouldn't. Here's an interesting thing about this case.

If you notice, it's always journalists who are complaining about how the other murder cases don't get coverage, yet they are the ones with the power to pitch these other murder stories. That's right. Also, look, you can cover a story. That doesn't mean people are going to pay attention to it. So my big thing since this all began is everybody's people are saying, well, we should cover everybody. Well, the first point is, is that it's just not

enough time to cover everybody and people wouldn't pay attention to it. But how much does covering this, how much would it help to cover these cases? Especially if people aren't paying attention. You can't make people pay attention. People pay attention to this case. They're fascinated by it. No, but what was that show with John Walsh? Yeah, no, they caught a lot of people. What's it called? It was called Unsolved Mysteries. No, no. America's Most Wanted. Yeah, no, they caught a lot of people. What's it called? It was called Unsolved Mysteries. No, no, no.

America's Most Wanted. Yeah, America's Most Wanted. I mean, I think media attention helps a lot. It does help. But can you give every case attention? And is there enough people? No, but I don't think they're saying give every case attention. I think that they're saying there's overwhelming attention given to white girls that not even a fraction of that is given to the overwhelming number of girls of color that and boys probably that go missing.

I suppose. But I do wonder how much attention, even if every day at the at the 10 minutes at the end of every newscast, they did it. They talked about that. How many people would turn the channel? How many people would be interested? How come they stopped putting it on milk cart? Also, also, when you when you focus on crimes that are maybe in the black community, people, you can't win. You can't win. Like, you know, you can't win. But I will say this. I was sitting in the window of the Olive Tree the other day and I was watching the street. And New York's changed gradually, you know, and I noticed and I started to like pay attention to the various ethnicities that I saw on the street walking in groups. And, you know, there was so much just groups of mixed race people walking together, socializing together, laughing together. It was really heartwarming. It really was beautiful to see something that, you know,

that I've been worried about, but many people worry about, like, you know, can, will we be a multi-ethnic democracy? Can it really work, really work? And what I was seeing on the streets of New York, it really did seem to be working. And there's something about this constant focus on everything bad, which I'm not saying we shouldn't be aware

of the things that are bad, but we are missing. I don't think there's sufficient awareness of just how many good things there are in terms of relationships between people, at least in New York and, and, and, and many places, I'm sure it's things are not nearly as bad as you would think by just reading whatever the, you know, journalists are. I just quickly say something about unsolved mysteries. You're certainly correct, Noam. I don't mean to give that short shrift. I do a quick thing about unsolved mysteries. I mean, America's Most Wanted. I'm sorry. America's Most Wanted. I assume and I don't know this, that they culled various cases and picked ones they thought would be the most interesting to put on America's most wanted. I don't know this, and I don't know how John Walsh picked and chose the cases that

they highlighted, but they didn't highlight every case. And I assume they highlighted the ones that the public would find most interesting that were the juiciest or the most interesting cases. I don't know. But, you know, watched america's most wanted because they were interested in it so the bottom line is if people stopped watching it they would have yanked it off the air within seconds and so the question is is how much how much do people want to pay attention to stories about the missing and there's a limit i don't know what that limit is but at some point they're going to stop watching. Okay. I want to say that, no,

I can't believe how sentimental you're getting in your old age. I think it's very sweet. And I would propose to you that maybe you come up every show with a heartwarming story to share with our listeners. Did I mention I'm taking, I just took ecstasy. And the other thing I have a question about. Well, but is it, is it on topic? Because as I said, you're not authorized to change topics.

And Om had a question about feminism. I want to close it because so Kat, as a right winger, there's a very open-ended question here. What's your take on feminism? What does feminism mean to you and where has it gone wrong?

And then, and then Perrielle will disagree and then we'll go home. Go ahead. Geez. I mean, this is, this is a big question. I mean, I look, I think like feminism mostly has turned into like, it's, it's not, it's not specific to like women's needs. It's mostly about getting women into the workforce, which originally served its purpose, right? Because you need equal pay, you need equal mobility

to escape abusive situations, abusive families, abusive husbands. But now we've sort of restructured everything. So it's a woman's life is viewed through solely through this lens of like the professional rat race and it's we've deprioritized everything about everything that's unique to womanhood um we've deprioritized it or made it really hard to uh lean into excuse the excuse the language um but i mean like what's wrong with like feminism at large i mean that's a really difficult question right like there's a million things but there's also a million things that have gone right so who you know that's a i think that's a whole podcast am i am i wrong just

to feel that feminism now is seeming to stand for an extremely protective attitude about women that we just wouldn't have about men. It's almost like, for instance, this woman that Chris Cuomo apparently squeezed the butt of a woman at a bar in front of her husband 15 years ago. And you imagine if she had done that to him, he might've been annoyed by it, but he wouldn't be writing an op-ed about it 15 years later and demanding accountability he would be like you know uh it was it was in other words it's just like if we're supposed to treat women the same as men it seems like more than ever now we're protective of women you know purely because they're females even when they're not actually

threatened or like quote she, it wasn't sexual. She wasn't working with him anymore. It wasn't she wasn't nervous about anything. He was just she thought he overstepped. But women can overstep with men. Why 15 years later is the New York Times running this? That seems anti-feminist to me. No, I mean, I would agree with you. It is. I mean, I think it's bad for everyone. And why that happens. I mean, there's there's so many like potential explanations. You know, it could just be like, we don't have like, well drawn boundaries, right? Like, if you go down the rabbit hole of that situation, ultimately, you get to point where like we don't know what sex means to us in American society at all.

Right. Like we talk about like a consent based model. Like as long as you say it's OK, it's fine. As long as both parties say it's OK, it's fine. But that doesn't really hold up under scrutiny. So, I mean, I think it goes, this rabbit hole goes like way deeper than it seems on the surface, I think. And the thing is, ironically, to be perfectly honest and undercut my own argument, sort of, I actually am comfortable with being a little protective of women. It actually does bother me more when a man does it to a woman. I don't even, it doesn't bother me

at all when a woman does it to a man, but that's because I'm not that feminist. You know, it's like, so all of a sudden, feminism is coming into alignment with kind of a conservative view of sexuality. Nicole, do you have anything to add to that? What Noam just said? No comment. No comment, okay.

I mean, for the love of God. Yes. Yes, very well. I mean, I've talked about like missing the forest for the trees. Yes. Yes. I mean, first of all, we are a society that was created, you know, so deeply rooted in like patriarchy that, I mean, to even suggest like half of this is insane.

Can you, I mean, you want me to be more specific. It's like, no, no, I, I understand a hundred percent what you mean. You do. Of course not. You didn't say anything. I mean, I don't agree agree but that that's funny this is just like you know we start we start with a patriarchy yeah and and so you know in afghanistan i mean it goes back a little bit to to what you said dan you know about how like you don't like these jokes about how women get paid less than men which you may not like those jokes, but the truth is, is that, you know,

our rights are far from equal and women continue to experience, you know, things that would never happen to you guys. I mean, we've discussed this. Do you feel that if a woman squeezes a man's ass and a man squeezes a woman's ass, it's the same degree of moral transgression? Yeah, I think it's inappropriate across the board, frankly. But that doesn't mean.

So then so then so then just to put a put a fine point out, do you think it's ridiculous for the times to run an op-ed about this event 15 years later. Or do you think, or do you think it would be, you think it'd be appropriate to write a similar op-ed, even if a woman did it to a man, there's a man you're writing. I'm going to grab my ass 15 years ago and I want accountability. So here's the thing. I think that men, I don't know about this particular piece, but I, my aunt, I will say this. I think that men have been abusing their power since the beginning of time and are granted the kind of pass that, you know, it has put under a microscope because he's Chris Cuomo. But things like that happen all the time in much, you know, more egregious forms,

in much more aggressive and violent forms. And nobody says shit about it. And I think that's really the problem. And also this thing about protecting women. You know, you look at a lot of these companies for maternity leave. I mean, it's not existing. And what about paternity leave? I mean, if you want to level the playing field, I mean, men don't get any time off in this country. I think that's the point, right? Like it's there's we get distracted by these like he groped my ass and it was tantamount to sexual assault. And you find it happened 15 years ago and we're ignoring these larger problems. Like we don't consider that women want to be mothers when they're in the corporate world. And we don't have any sort of, we don't position the corporate world to accommodate that. And we focus on bullshit. Yeah. That's a huge problem too. I agree. I agree with you. I agree that it's a huge

issue, but I think also, you know, the assumption that men shouldn't don't get, you know, time off because the women are still the ones who are assumed to take care of the baby. Sure, I agree. I'm with you. All right. Well, listen, I mean, you know, I don't know why you never ask me what I think about feminism. I know what you think about feminism. Listen, we're all, I mean, well, I mean, I have such a cliche to say, man, I'll say, but I mean, I talk about this with my daughter.

I want to make sure she can do whatever she wants. And I also don't want her to think that, I don't want her to think that she- If you're anti-feminist, why do you want your daughter to do whatever she wants? Well, I'm not anti-feminist. I'm not anti-feminist. Why do you want your daughter to do whatever she wants? I'm not anti-feminist. I'm not anti-feminist, but I, I'm, I'm, I'm third wave feminism. No, I would be so proud. Listen, I'm for, I'm for equal rights for people.

And there was a time when that, I guess, would really mean feminism. And of course, I want my daughter to have. But what I don't want her to think is that she's a blank slate. I don't want her to imbibe this notion that men and women are the same and that there's no such thing as femininity. And if she is feminine, it's a social construct. And she'd be brainwashed and all this anti-scientific stuff, to tell you the truth. I don't. And she gets that pressure at school. You know, she's coming home with this stuff. So there's this fine line between feminism, which to me should mean the absolute right

for her to be and fulfill herself as a human in whatever way she wants. And feminism, which pressures her to make choices that she wouldn't naturally make. And that's where I see the issue. I mean, you're quite a bit younger than me, Kat. So I wonder what it was like for you going to school or growing up. I don't know, Where did you grow up? I grew up in South Florida. Okay. So, I mean, did you feel like, you know, there were certain things as a kid that, you know, you quote unquote, weren't supposed to do because you were a girl or

were there certain things that were for girls and certain things that were for boys? Or did you feel like that wasn't so much of an issue? I mean, for me, it felt like the issues in my community were like more based around class than they were around gender. I like didn't even, it didn't even like clock for me, you know, until I went through puberty that like I was a girl and that I'm somehow different because of my gender. You know, like there was no delineation. I do remember in elementary school in the band and in middle school, for some reason, the girls were there were no male male flute players in our

band. The women played the flute and the clarinet. And I played the trumpet. The men played the trumpet and the sax and the drums were all men. And I don't know if that's because the teachers pushed us in that direction or we naturally chose it. I suspect, I suspect we were pushed in those directions and I don't know if that would be the case in a school band today. And in high school, there was a Regina Balentizzi was a name she, and, and I think she became a professional

musician but she played the saxophone and i remember thinking what the hell is she doing playing a sax what does she think she is because i had never seen a female saxophone but but uh no my you're a musician are women pushed into certain instruments and is that changing i don't i don't know the i mean when i like I used to go to a classical music camp there were plenty of women who played the cello and played the violin but not so many women that played

the trumpet and there weren't that many men that played the flute but there were some but so I think yeah the higher the pitch does seem a little more feminine somehow I don't know there is something there's something, there is something to, to what you're saying. But I don't know if in school bands today, if it's any different, if it,

you know, or how that's played out. Cause I don't have kids, but. I mean, I mean, there are certain realities of instruments that some are harder to play. Sometimes you need bigger hands, things like that, like the string bass, double bass. You have to be very big to play that. So you wouldn't expect to see men. You do see some, but it's hard for a female, an average female to play that instrument, you know?

And so I don't know. Maybe that has something to do with some of them. I have no idea. But certainly violin. I do suspect that maybe some of the women were encouraged to play certain instruments that might have had something to do with some of them i have no idea but certainly violin i do suspect that maybe some of the women were encouraged to play certain instruments that might have had some something to do with it that that maybe wouldn't be the case today i don't know yeah and then when women play the piano i don't know but then i think you're right there's something to that anyway um all right well cat it's it's it's been nice to meet you but i think usually we do it either

in person or somehow when i zoom with people, I feel like I'm meeting them. But actually having just a blank, this is the first time we've ever done this, right? A blank Zoom screen. I didn't feel like I got to know you. Although as I'm Googling and everything you write, I would really like to get to know you. But you live in Chicago? Yeah. Feel free to reach out anytime. I'm going to come to Chicago. But anyway,

I will be in Chicago opening for Louis C.K. and I don't know how you feel about Louis C.K., but I will be there in November and I can let you know. No, but when you come to New York, I can get Coleman Hughes to come down. You should come hang out at the Comedy Cellar and meet everybody. It's funny when you say Louis C.K. Because the first thing I thought of when they wrote that article about Chris Cuomo squeezing this woman's ass,

my first thought was, well, Louis wouldn't have done that. And it's true. Like, Louis does what he did. But Louis would never put his hands on somebody aggressively like that, you know? So I don't know what's true. Like, Louis does what he did, but Louis would never put his hands on somebody aggressively like that, you know? So I don't know what's worse. It was just funny to me. Like, well, you know,

just it was the first thing I thought of. Like, well, Louis, you know, would be way too shy to have done something like that. I'll be there actually in December. I think it's the Vic Theater. Does that ring a bell? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I know where that is.

So anyway. All right. Catherine D on Twitter, theater does that ring a bell oh yeah yeah i know where that is so anyway okay katherine d on twitter when you can get her get her while she's hot on twitter because she's probably going to shut it down uh she writes uh articles online she's followed by some of the greatest minds in the world including tyler cowan do you know tyler cowan cat i don't know him personally but i definitely i know of him. Yeah. Yeah. And he knows of you. So these are, these are heavyweight thinkers that think that you're a heavyweight thinker. So that's should be very flattering to you. All right. Yeah. Wow.

That's it, right? Podcast at comedyseller.com for comments, suggestions, constructive criticism. And my book, Iris Spiro Before COVID, a novel, is available on Amazon. Only $4.99 in the Kindle version, $14.99 in paperback. That is it. Perrielle, her books, The Only Bush I Trust is My Own, and I forgot the name of the other one.

On My Knees. On My Knees. How could you forget that? Are available as well on Amazon. I need to go. My son Manny's practicing his piccolo. Okay, bye everybody. Piccolo, he says.