The Daily Beast Podcast - Guardian Angels' Thug Tactics Get Exposed in Times Square

Episode Date: February 11, 2024

The Guardian Angels have been meting out vigilante justice on New York City streets since 1979. Last week the red-bereted crime fighters appeared on Fox News when their leader, Curtis Sliwa, a recent GOP mayoral candidate, was interviewed by Sean Hannity about the “migrant crisis” in New York. While the interview was in progress, the Angels violently detained a man in Times Square that Sliwa told Hannity was a migrant shoplifter. Later Levy talks to Laurie Kilmartin, a stand-up comedian who wrote for Conan O'Brien for 11 years, has written two books, and now has a new comedy special Cis Woke Grief Slut available for purchase online. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits comfortably on the left. Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today, I'm an unapologetic, woke commentator on America's threats to democracy. And I'm producer Jesse Kedden, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. Our goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears. Hello, and welcome to another Sunday bonus episode of the new abnormal.

We thank you so much for being here. Today we have an extra special guest with Glory Kilmartin, who's a stand-up comedian who wrote for Conan O'Brien for 11 years, who has a brand new comedy special which you can rent right now online called Sis Woke Grief Slut. And she's going to talk to us all about that today. But first, let's have some fun. Are you guys ready to listen to some clips? No. Clips.

I was waiting to see if Danielle would jump in first. I was right. I know it's been a rough week. And, well, does my clip come with vodka? Like, does my... Vodka and clips? Vodka and clips. I'll see if HR at the Daily Beast allows such things, but I have a feeling I'm going to get that email with a really weird look.

Just as the look I would expect. You two to give me if we were in person right now, because I'm going to tell you a tale of what you would hope would be a fictitious character. Or really, you wouldn't hope for that either because it's a terrible character in any world. So there's a crazy cat man who lives in a 320 square foot studio with 15 cats. And when he's not there, he wears a stupid-looking comic book vigilante costume while being racist and harassing people. His name is Curtis Slewa, and he ran for mayor in the last cycle. Perhaps you guys have heard, because unfortunately he lives in our reality.

Well, Fox News had him on, one Sean Hannity, and live on air, you got to watch a hate crime occur. Let's take a listen. Guys right here on the corner, 42nd and 7th while all this is taken. Can you pan the camera? They've taken over. They've taken over. He'd light the camera over there for it all possible. Yep.

You got your key open, guys. He is out of control. Out of control. Members of the Guardian Angels apprehended a man right there in Times Square in New York City. Curtis, we couldn't exactly see what was going on. What was happening in front of you while you were on the air with us? Well, he had been shoplifting first. The Guardian Angels spotted them, stopped him. He resisted. And let's just say we gave him a little pain compliance. His mother back in Venezuela felt the vibrations. He's sucking concrete. The cops scraped him off the asphalt.

He's on his way to jail. But they'll cut him loose. We got to take 40 seconds street back, Sean. Eagles think they own this street. They think they rule the night. This is our country. If they can't abide by the rules, then we're going to kick them back from where they came. So just to give the listener some illustration, you literally watch this man and get beaten by the guardian angels live on air. Assaulted. Assaulted.

Yes. Yeah. But he was a migrant from the Bronx. Yes. And he was in Manhattan. So I understand where Curtis is coming from. But that's the unreal thing is that, first of all, the. people who assaulted this guy on live TV. As of the taping of this, they have not been charged with

a crime. I don't understand that. And I hope by time you're listening to this, that they have been charged with the crime because they assaulted him. You heard Curtis Sliwa say that the guy had been shoplifting. There is absolutely no evidence of that. Police have not said he was shoplifting. Afterwards, Slewa said he thought he was a migrant because he spoke Spanish. Are we fucking dumb here? Like, are we? I take coverage with the we because I don't want to. want to be associated with this man. I can't get over saying I thought someone in New York City was a migrant because they spoke Spanish.

What the fuck? Nobody in New York City speaks Spanish. I never hear it. Oh my God. But the crazy thing is, we're on like, what, the fourth decade of this asshole doing things like this? Yeah. I can remember having fucking baby teeth seeing this guy on the news doing shit like this.

Yeah. I mean, I was in college, but whatever. I may not have had baby teeth. But I sure was young. But I just, you mentioned that he ran for mayor. He was the Republican candidate. He was the Republican nominee for mayor of New York City. That's how shitty the Republican Party is in New York City.

This is also a guy who throughout the pandemic would go into board of education meetings without a mask in the height of the pandemic. Just to harass people who were vulnerable to stop doing anything about education. This guy's been a known menace. And I really hope this is the thing that finally. gets him walked up. Why isn't he in jail? I don't know. Yeah.

This is the shit that confuses me. And I know that it's a clip. So let me just ask an obvious question. Does his complexion protect him from prison? I will answer this for you, Daniel. He's about as white as dough, which is also what he resembles. Amazing. Okay.

Welcome to New York City, the place that is English only, evidently. Definitely. Okay. So on to other terrible people. Speaker Mike Johnson this week received accolades for his job, such as Congressman Matt Shorteyes Gates saying he misses Kevin McCarthy, who he ousted as Speaker. So when Mike Johnson had this embarrassing vote to impeach Secretary Mayorkas this week over his handling of the border, he had some interesting thoughts on why this vote didn't pass. What happened yesterday with the vote on Secretary Mayorkas? Why bring that to the floor if you didn't have the votes?

and will you hold another vote to impeach? Yeah, on impeachment, last night was a setback, but democracy is messy. We live in a time of divided government. We have a razor-thin margin here, and every vote counts. Sometimes when you're counting votes and people show up when they're not expected to be in the building, it changes the equation. But listen, we have a duty and a responsibility to take care of this issue. We have to hold the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security accountable.

Mayorkas needs to be held accountable. The Biden administration needs to be held accountable, and we will pass those articles of impeachment. We'll do it on the next round. What next round? Did he find votes under a cushion someplace? Where is he getting the numbers? Yeah, they have a razor thin margin.

So did fucking Nancy Pelosi when they passed health care. But guess what? She managed to do it. These fucking people, you know what else I hate about Republicans? Is the just celebration of ignorance and mediocrity? That is what they are. It's a fucking parade of ignorance over there. And I'm so just done with them.

This man, he doesn't know what he's doing, right? He got into the house off of the coattails of Donald Trump and Trumpism. They don't know how government works. They don't know how to work government. Oh, my God. Okay. Let me. I need to breathe.

I think you make a great point, Danielle. Like, one of the things like people are always like, oh, wow, you know, the media will grade Trump with such a curve and give him so much credit for so little. That's that whole fucking party. That's what it is. It's just like the idea that these people. are even elected into office. I said this the other day. I'm like, I worked on Capitol Hill.

I remember being there in the early 2000s, the reverence that you had for that place, the brilliance that you were surrounded with. The fact that these people hold public office is a fucking embarrassment. The fact that the classlessness, the celebration of ignorance that has taken over our government,

it is outrageous. I'm done. I'm done. I'm done. I'm done. I'm done. I have nothing to add to that. I will co-sponsor that bill.

Oh, yeah. That would actually pass on the floor because we know how to fucking count. All right. I'm a little worried. I kind of feel like I'm having a stroke as I'm reading this. So listen, if I am, you two, please stop me and call 911. So my notes say, based Louisiana congressman from the great state of Louisiana, Chip Roy is going to tell us why Trump is full of shit on the border.

Please help me if I'm going that. What? Not going to just pass the buck and say that, oh, any president could walk in and secure the border. I saw former President Trump make that allegation earlier today on one of his social media posts. All the president has to do is declare the border is closed and it's closed. Well, with all due respect, that didn't happen in 2017, 18, 19, and 20. There were millions of people who came into the United States during those four years. Somewhere on my computer, Jesse, I have a sound clip of you saying,

Baste. That's Betty Johnson and not me. Oh, I always thought it was you. Oh, yes, yes, yes, definitely. Oh, I have to relabel it. I don't think you're having a stroke. Oh, thank God. I am not a medical doctor, so, you know, I need to qualify that because Jesse is litigious.

It is a little weird to hear Chip Roy. saying the truth, which is that Donald Trump didn't close the border in the four years he's in because she can't close the border. But I don't think you're having a stroke. I just, I want to tap out. Do you know what I'm saying? Well, I have bad news because I think I'm losing it again. Oh, no. Here we have Fox News's Stuart Varney, who I like to think of as Alex Jones with a fancy accent.

Being taught sensed by, hold on, Carl Rove. About a conspiracy, I see a lot of people, even on the... And the left say. What Carl Rove says here sounds like what I often have to say, and that's making me really uncomfortable. Can you deal with this quickly? I keep hearing that Michelle Obama will be shifted into the, no, you're shaking the head. It's not going to happen? No, look, look, she hates politics.

You read her autobiography. She didn't want her husband to run for the state senate. She didn't want him to run for the president. She is not a political animal. And besides, look, Barack Obama was my charge at the White House. I dealt with him for three years. He's a smart guy. He would know that if Michelle Obama woke up tomorrow and said,

you know what, I've decided after a life ahead in politics, I want to be the vice presidential running mate or run for president, people would say, you know what, that's Barack trying to get a third term as president, and they wouldn't go for it. But the starting point is she hates politics. This is a weird obsession of a conspiratorial right, and it's just lunacy. I don't know what's happening anymore.

Carl Rove, go off, Kig. Oh, my God. Wow. Welcome to the resistance. Up is down and down is up. Turnblossom, our new resistance hero. Woke, Carl Rove. I'd wear that T-shirt.

Oh, God. You know a theory is unbelievably stupid when Carl Rove is telling you it's unbelievable. Yeah, but it is funny because this just takes some very cursory reading. Like Michelle Obama very famously was not really having the best time in the White House. I applaud her for saying what a lot of people are afraid to say is that a lot of people dream of that position and it wasn't that fun. No, you are in a beautiful, gilded cage. Yeah.

You cannot open windows. You can't really look out windows. You can't go anywhere. You can't pop into a place. You can't be a full-fledged human being. And she was doing that while trying to raise two small girls into some sense of normalcy. And oh, I'm sorry, I forgot the big. You know, they were black in a racist, white supremacist country where she needed to worry every single day if she was going to be made a widow.

To even think that she would say, oh, I gave this country eight years of my life, my husband, you know, and all of these things. let me go give one again for the team? Are you fucking crazy? No. No, it's true. I mean, it seems like a really glamorous thing to be president of the United States. But like you said, it's a lot like being a podcast host is what I'm trying to say. On the outside.

On the outside. Yeah, I can't even finish that. All right. Well, speaking of Ludacy, I got one last one to wrap us up this week. Here we have Congressman Steve Danes doing the latest revisionist history that the GOP he's been doing a lot of about how great an economy Biden inherited in 2021. He inherited record job growth, record job increases, record wage increases. What?

I seem to recall a lot of graphs that looked a lot different than that personally. Does he not know how to read a graph? Because we learned that in elementary school. Like, the numbers go up when you do things and down. Donald Trump was on the other side. I just, I think that they are banking on the fact that we're all illiterate. You know what I'm saying? Like, and that we don't rewatch shit.

They literally have learned that they can lie with impunity and they can say whatever they want and enough people will nod their heads so he can get up there and say all that shit and know that, you know, the people who are going to call him out on that are the people who are not going to vote for Donald Trump to begin. with, but there will be people on the fence who, you know, they don't pay attention to what year the numbers go up. And they will say, yeah, that sounds about right. I seem to remember under Trump at the end, everything started to get a lot better. So he knows he can do shit like that because that's the world we live in. I'm going to do my Fox News audition here. You guys ready for it?

Oh, yes. They did it because they figured after everyone got COVID, one of the side effects is brain fog and no one would remember. Oh. Okay. Strategy. Lori Kilmartin is a hilarious human being and stand-up comedian who wrote for Conan O'Brien for 11 years, has written two books, and has a brand new comedy special, ciswoke grief slut, available to buy on Apple TV, Amazon, or wherever you get your home goods.

I am beyond honor to have her join me now. Lori, thanks for being here. Andy, I'm thrilled to finally have a discussion with you. I'm also a longtime fan of your Twitter. I know. So this is really cool for me. Oh, well, thank you. Thank you for making that up.

It's true. So before we get into the special, which I watched last night and loved, I want to talk about something that happened to you a couple of years ago in 2022. You were on MSNBC shortly after the Supreme Court decision was leaked, the decision that would eventually overturn Roe. And you made a joke and, oh, boy, did some shit rain down on you. Yeah, I made a knock-grim. great joke, but that wasn't why the shit rained down on me. Like, if you had just said structurally, this is weak, I would have been like, yeah, you got me. I was just appearing as a guest on Aman. And you know, you're on Zoom, you're throwing things in. And it's whatever Zoom is on television.

And so I just made a little abortion joke about what I would do to a fetus fathered by a Republican. It got spread all over like right-wing Facebook channels. And then, you know, I got death threats. And I I got doxed on Monday. And then Monday night, Sean Hannity did a segment on me on his show. And then Tuesday and Wednesday were an absolute disaster anytime I opened up my email. And then Thursday, Friday, kind of went away. It was like being in the eye of a hurricane, a horrible hurricane that spells everything wrong and in all caps. But then it ended. How ironic is it, though, that Sean Hannity and people like that who they're always railing against cancel culture, but they went after you so hard for your joke. I know. It was so stupid. And here's the thing. The clip that enraged people,

I believe MSNBC gave it to Mediite. And then it was like captioned, guest says she had abort a Republican fetus. And so it was presented as I was like a Democratic spokesperson instead of a comment. Like, guys, what do you think I'm going to say on Mother's Day? evening about abortion laws. Come on. So, I looked it up last night because I was curious and I saw that the Fox News.com headline was MSNBC guest wants to make sweet love to Supreme Court leaker joyfully abort fetus if she gets pregnant. And I just thought if nothing else, you deserve the like presidential medal of freedom for forcing a headline like that to be written.

You know what? Thank you. It's a bad time. People start. Do that for me. Absolutely. All right, let's talk about the special. You've said of cis woke grief slut that you hope it makes good people laugh and dumb people mad. I just want to say that it made me laugh. So I hope I get a lot of ally points out of this. Yes, you are officially a good person.

I had my suspicions about you. I thought you were good, but it's now confirmed. I don't want to ask you how you came up with the title because that feels kind of hack. And my sense is that a lot of people, people have asked you this question because they maybe don't get it the way that I do. Yes, I think so. I think you and I are simpatico and so you absolutely understand what I'm talking about. That said, so what did make you come up with that title, which is great, by the way. Well, you know, I guess the woke part, I figure people tend to call me woke in comments. So I'm like,

I'll do it myself. And then, you know, we'll see what crazy insult you come up with. Grief. I talk about my mom, dying of COVID. Slet, that's what all these Christians called me for telling an abortion joke. And then SIS is because about cis women reacting, I guess, to trans women, right? And those, I kind of was, I would not have even written about trans women, but I couldn't believe all the dumb jokes. So many male comics were making. And I just wanted to come from the other side and be like, hey, they're great.

We love them. and, you know, we cis women, we should consider them our greatest allies. So that's the premise behind my jokes in that area. But I also wanted it to be about me and not them, you know, so that's why I put cis in there. And also just because it's now considered a slur on Twitter. I mean, how do you not lead with that? I know, absolutely. Yeah.

I mean, I'm sort of off Twitter now, but I would be afraid to even say that title on Twitter these days. I hired a, like, a web lady for a couple months, and she's like, we have to asterisk a slut because it's just associated with porn and sis. Otherwise, it'll get banned up Twitter. What's it? Right. The whole thing is just a bunch of asterisks. So, I don't know. That's amazing.

Okay. So I want to talk about some of the topics that you cover in the show. I don't want to spoil either punchlines. Obviously, you should feel free to do so if you want to. There's so many parts I enjoyed. But talk about your thoughts. about guys that claim some sort of feminism by saying as the father of a daughter. Yeah, I feel like I've heard a lot of men, like, defend women's rights or girls' rights by saying

as the father of a daughter, right? Like, which to me implies I only thought of women as fuckbags. And then I realized that my child was a fuck bag. So let me just roll back a little bit and try to undo the damage I did in my early, and be the world's most staunchest feminist. So it's kind of like, my dad never said that. You know, my dad was always on board with, you know, women are equal and deserve equal rights.

So I always, and the guys that I noticed that say it a lot on stage are, it's like, aren't you wanted for sex trafficking in four states? Like all of a sudden, Tom Hanks or something, give me a break. One of the loudest laughs that I had. watching the show was towards the end of this segment where you actually say something along the lines of you have a lot of experience with this because you work in stand-up comedy. Yeah. It's funny, a male comic who I was not thinking of when I was imagining a male comics that say the stuff was like, that's me because he's a father of a daughter. I'm like,

I think the guy I was thinking of was actually worse in his younger years than you were. You were just a normal cat. But it only takes one actually for me to go to visualize in my head while I'm doing a bit. I hope I hope all my friends that are fathers of daughters that just, you know, use that phrase, I don't think I'm secretly talking about them. But I don't know. So you start off the special by saying to the crowd, I hope you like dark comedy. And then you sort of acknowledge that, yeah, everybody says that, but then they all have that one topic that's too much for them. And I bring this up because later in the show, you have a fairly long chunk about your mom dying early in the pandemic. And by the way, I say chunk so that you know I'm friends with

Andy Kindler. But it's very funny. and it's also very brutal, and I'm really curious what vibe you get when you do it, you know, on stage. I couldn't really tell if I'm watching on TV. I always like to do it because, I mean, I guess I'll get sick of it soon, but I'm super COVID-conscious on stage. Like, I bring an air pier fire. And if I'm meeting people afterwards, I have a mask. And it actually helps people get off my back.

Like, they're like, oh, well, her mom died of COVID. She's kind of crazy. But, yeah, I mean, if people pull back from me, I'm just like, you're in public unmasked at an event. So you're over it. You know, you're not taking this super seriously. So why would you expect me to on stage as a comic? All right? So that's what I default to if people pull back too hard. But also, you know, she's my mom and these are my jokes about her. And I kind of felt the same way about my dad when my dad died. It's people do kind of pull back a little bit when you're talking about a parental death.

No matter what the circumstances, you have to keep reassuring them. I'm okay with it. It's my parents. And, you know, they raised me. So if you have a problem with how I handle their death, you can talk to them in the afterlife. I should say even before you got to the mom stuff,

you had a line about dogs where I was like, oh, she's in trouble now. That's right. Listen, I'm coming after people who call themselves dog moms, I guess, you know. They are animals. But I mean, I have a dog. I love her.

She's steering at me right now because we're laid on our walk. But please. At some point, you need to back off a little bit. I actually want to say the line that I'm thinking of, but I'm afraid to say it. But it's the one where you say dogs are replaceable. They are. And I'll just so your audience doesn't think you're horrific. I'll say my proof.

And this is like is that my dad over the course of his lifetime had five black labs named Pepsi. And every time a Pepsi died, my dad would go to pound. He'd pick out the new Pepsi and he'd take the collar off the dead Pepsi and put it on the new Pepsi. And we, our family had one red dog collar for 55 years with the same tags because the owner was Ron and the dog was Pepsi. Yeah, I just, I know how dog owners are. I know. And I just, when you said that line, I was like, oh, she had to have just lost them forever. Listen, oh, wait. My dad left me the ashes of Pepsi 4, and I still have them.

So all the Pepsi's were beloved members of our family, and 4 was probably the favorite. There's a fact, an actual fact that you bring up in the special, that is something I actually just learned in the last year or so, which is until 1974, banks could refuse to issue credit cards to women in their own names, like the bank. could say, well, we're not giving you a card unless your husband co-signs for it. And I feel like that's not a well-known fact and it sort of should be. Yeah, I know. Like in my lifetime, because I was born before 74, yeah, my mom was completely dependent on my dad. I kind of wonder how much that shaped me just watching her have to be connected to somebody else for money and how that made me, I don't know, never married and constantly fearful things will be taken from me. So I don't want to share. I don't know. I think a lot of young women don't realize that, that how recent it was and how your mother or your

grandmother that's still alive was really dependent on the kindness of her husband. I also was alive in 1974. And so it's like it is unbelievable to think, as you said, like in my lifetime, this is not like ancient history. This is not like people with weird beards and sideburns making these rules. This is 20th century people. And it just, it blew my mind when I read it. And I remember were asking my mom about it and she didn't remember that. Like, she didn't even remember that, but it was just, it's so wild to me. Oh, yeah. I mean, my mom signing her name as Mrs. Ron Kilmart and that was just defaults. It was so, and that's so weird to me now that anyone would do that, you know? Yeah. No, I know. It's so bizarre. You have an interesting theory as to why there are guys who

don't want trans women to be in women's bathrooms. Here's my theory. They come up with this BS about, you know, sexual attacks and salts. But my theory is that trans women, a lot of them, they have lived in both worlds and they know stuff that cis women don't know. And the reason that guys don't want them in there is because they're afraid trans women will show us their old pay stubs. All I have to do is look at one and see what someone was making, a man was making in 2017 and just start screaming. And that's what trans women possibly stands for salary transparency women. That, it's an absolutely amazing theory. And it makes a lot more sense than what they actually claim.

Yes, it does. Yes. If you are a rapist, are you really going to take the trouble to dress up as a woman to go into the women's bathroom? Those doors are open. Anyone could go in. I mean, it's ridiculous to think that, well, whatever. It's a very dark road to go down. But, you know, you're not in a lot of danger with trans women.

You're in extreme danger with cis men. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, what's the encyclopedia test that you gave to your son? I love this so much. I have to be honest, because my son doesn't like that joke, they have sort of removed it from my brain. I found out afterwards that he, like, comedy dynamics who produced my special just clip that joke out.

And I'm like, I'm going to sit on that one and not pass it around. Because my son's 17 now. And I guess, you know, he was like maybe 12 or 13 when I wrote it. and he wasn't paying attention, but he was at the special, and he's like, hmm. So, so she, he claims he likes dark comedy, but that's his line. We all have a line. Exactly.

Right. And I basically wanted him to learn how to use encyclopedias before he got on Google, because I think kids don't know how to use reference books. They definitely don't. My son doesn't. And in my act, he proved that he had no idea how to use a reference book. This is good, actually, because now people will be intrigued and they'll have to go by the special in order to hear the joke. When you hear the phrase cancel culture, and I've asked a lot of comedians this, what does that make you think of?

That's a way to make money. All of this is being critiqued. Before social media, if you had bad jokes, people just didn't laugh and they privately didn't like you, right? And now people reply. They tell you that they don't like a joke. And that's their right. I mean, a lot of, believe me, a lot of people don't like. my Trump COVID jokes and I'm hearing about it. I think they're dumb shits, but they are allowed to exist

and comment as they please. So Chad Daniels had a really funny bit. He talked about how comedians aren't when they're quote canceled. They're just changing their audience. And so their audience is getting more right wing because that's who they're going to appeal to the old, oh, the left is trying to cancel me. You're just going to shift your audience. I guess if you, and it's your choice. You know, you could go and say, you know what, I'm really sorry if you wanted to. When I was working on my trans jokes, like I had a joke in there that a trans comic was like, just so you know, that's a little inaccurate and does like, oh, okay, I want it to be accurate. I don't want that to be the thing that stops like a trans audience member from laughing.

So I took it out. Now, it wasn't like on a special, so I didn't have to do a gigantic. Oops, sorry. But I mean, it's just feedback, really. And it's how you respond to it. I don't know. It's such a lazy way to drum up support. And I think, you know, if you're a really good comic, you'll have a fan base based on your jokes and how funny you are. But I think there's another kind of fan base out there that wants to identify with a grievance. And it has nothing to do with stand-up

comedy and the quality of jokes. It's like, oh, you feel like you've been shit upon. Well, I feel like that at my job, too. So I'm your fan. It's like, okay, but what's that to do with him making you laugh? Did he make you laugh or did it make you cheer and make a fist and go, yeah? Like, what is stand-up comedy? We're supposed to get laughs from strangers. That's the whole job. And is that what's happening when you identify with a grievance cancellation comic? I don't think so. I think it's some different stuff, personally. I 100% agree with you. And it's just so interesting because what you said, to me, so much of this cancel culture nonsense is just, oh, we don't want feedback from certain kinds of people. And it used to be easier when, you know, we didn't get feedback from trans people and we didn't get feedback from

whatever X group you want to talk about. As you illustrated, it's just like, because you know trans people and a trans woman said something to you like, hey, this joke that you're doing is not accurate. You were like, oh, okay, cool, I'll stop making it. It's such an easy thing to do and it hurts no one and it maybe saves some people for being hurt, but it has to be turned into this whole thing. Yeah, I don't even think of it as hurting or not. I'm just like, I want laughs. So if my setup is inaccurate, I'm going to lose a certain chunk of the audience. So let me just either drop it or tweak it or rewrite it. All you have to do is rewrite stuff. It's really not that big of a deal unless you're a dumbass who can't write. That's a lot of popular comics, by the way.

Right. It's not like I'm trying to even be thoughtful and not hurt the audience. I'm like, I want a 95% laugh rate on this joke. And I'm at 60%. Okay, what's wrong? How do I fix it? How do I tweak it so I get that other 30% and not lose the 60 that's laughing? I mean, it's just a dance all the time when you're trying to figure out the best way to do a joke that maybe encompasses a larger topic. You know, that's it.

To me, it's always like these guys are going up with their first draft jokes that don't get a great response. And then they get mad. Like, no, most of the time your first draft joke is just okay. Every once in a while, you write a banger right off the bat, but most of the time, you got to tweak it. And it feels like there's a segment of comics that are like, I'm a genius, so my first draft must be a genius take. No, you're still a comic and you're still going to write shit and you still have to fix it. That's the whole job. Jeez.

Lori, thanks so much for being here and for admitting that you don't actually care about trans people. you just want to get the laughs. The special is this woke grief slot. It's available everywhere now. Like I said, I watched it last night. It's really funny. I encourage people to go out and buy it. I've been a fan of yours for so long,

and thanks so much for stopping by. Thank you so much, Andy. I've been a fan of yours as well, and this is a real treat. I appreciate it. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of the new abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday.

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