The Megyn Kelly Show - Tim Dillon on Comedy in the Trump Era, Out of Touch Celebrities, and Alex Jones | Summer Re-Release

Episode Date: June 21, 2022

Today we're re-releasing a favorite episode from February 2021, with comedian Tim Dillon. He and Megyn Kelly talked about the shift in comedy to serious and dark in the Trump Era, DC vs. NYC, Hollywoo...d and out of touch celebrities, Reddit and GameStop, Alex Jones, cancel culture and the "revenge of the mediocre," mental illness, Saturday Night Live, Chelsea Handler, Jimmy Kimmel, Ellen DeGeneres and more. Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at:https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Well, it's the first day of summer, and my family and I are on summer vacation this week. But we did not want to leave you hanging on your podcast feeds, so we are going to re-up a couple of very fun episodes from the early days of the show in case you missed them. We were just building an audience back then, so you might have. Up first today is my conversation with Tim Dillon. He is awesome. This is from February of 2021. Tim's hilarious and so perceptive on our culture and the state of comedy.
Starting point is 00:00:46 And he has blown up in the 15 months since the time he was on our show. I'm not taking credit. I'm just noting that he's a star. We talked about Hollywood, out of touch celebrities, cancel culture, and the revenge of the mediocre. Love that. Mental illness, Saturday Night Live, Jimmy Kimmel, Ellen DeGeneres. He has thoughts on all of them. Enjoy. Tim Dillon, how are you? Good morning, Megan. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Oh, the pleasure is all mine. I've been following you on Twitter and you're so funny. And just the chance to talk to you was obviously what I was
Starting point is 00:01:25 going to jump at. But then I started to read up on you and learn more about you. And I love this description. I love this. Conservative leaning gay man from Long Island who says the average citizen might describe his aesthetic as retired detective. Yeah, I think that's I think that might cover all the bases. What does that mean, retired detective? Like Lenny Briscoe kind of? I look like a guy who has left the force, but he's always been tortured by one case. And he sits at a bar and he just wants to get back in to solve that one cold case from 10 years ago that haunted him. I feel like that's the way I sound.
Starting point is 00:02:06 That's the way my voice sounds. That's the aesthetic I have. Just kind of that tortured Irish guy. I'm thinking of like Sipowitz, remember? Yeah, of course I do. I used to watch that show every day. I love that show. But I think we're being too unkind to you because you're actually a handsome guy.
Starting point is 00:02:22 You do not- Well, that's very sweet. A retired detective, I guess like maybe a little slovenly. unkind to you because you're actually a handsome guy you are you do that's very sweet a retired detective i guess like maybe a little slovenly i do the best i can for the irish you know the irish are a race of people we will never compete i think with the other races in just pure looks uh that's why we're funny and we tell stories and we're fun to be around and i think everybody's got so i think i try to do the best i can with what I have with fair skin that's prone to get red. And, you know, I mean, this is just, you got to do the best you can with the Irish aesthetic. I can relate to all of that. All of
Starting point is 00:02:55 that. I mean, thankfully I'm a gal, so, you know, I wear makeup and I can make myself look better, but there is sort of a curse that comes with the Irish heritage. But there's a balance in life. You're right. You tend to be funny. You tend to be a good storyteller. And if you can't laugh at yourself, you get kicked out of your family as an Irish kid. That's exactly right. You have to be able to roll with the punches.
Starting point is 00:03:17 And you have to be able to throw a lot of punches too. That's exactly right. And that's fine. I was joking the other day that Bridget Phetasy was on and we were talking about how no Irish person has ever gotten offended at anything. You'll never hear the Irish complaining about a joke at their expense because we're built to laugh at ourselves and to think stuff like that is funny. And I just I have yet to meet the Irish person who could be offended by anything.
Starting point is 00:03:42 Yes, that's true. I hope that stays true. I mean, my family, I remember that this was a tough family that loved each other, but would fight and would argue and they would debate. And there were people that were right wing people and left wing people and people that didn't believe at all in politics and people that were conspiracy theorists and it never mattered. So it's always strange to me in this new climate where if you disagree with someone, you're supposed to exile them from your life or your community. That doesn't hold water with me at all because I just remember growing up
Starting point is 00:04:24 in these crazy environments with these large families where no one agreed on anything and everything was still okay. So I think this idea that words are going to bruise you or they're going to do serious damage that you can't recover from, I don't understand that at all. I'm 36. That's probably generational. But a lot of it is my upbringing where it's like, you know, a lot of people said a lot of things and then everybody kind of made up and put it past them. Exactly right. And it's part of sort of it's linked to, I think, being on the Radical Honesty program where I wouldn't say no feeling is spared growing up, but it's pretty close. I think, being on the Radical Honesty Program, where I wouldn't say no feeling is spared growing
Starting point is 00:05:06 up, but it's pretty close. I mean, we definitely, my family and most of the Irish families I know, lean towards just saying it how it was. And I'll give you one example. Tell me if you can relate to this in your own upbringing. But my family wound up becoming a blended family as I lost my dad to a heart attack when I was in high school. And my mom got remarried four years later to a guy who had three kids and he had lost his wife to cancer. So the three kids on his side and the three kids on our side wind up together. And he had two sons and a daughter. And the daughter at the time was around 15 when she first came into our family. And she was a big talker. She liked to talk. They're Irish too. She talked a lot, a lot. My brother, my older brother,
Starting point is 00:05:52 sat next to her at dinner one night and he interrupts her and he says, why are you telling me this story? Then he says, look, if we're going to be in the same family, you're going to have to learn how to cut to the chase. And this one girl's looking at him like, what the hell? But you know what? He did her a favor because everyone's got to have that skill in life. Yeah. I mean, there's something beautiful about the Irish experience where it's like we feel like we're always underdogs.
Starting point is 00:06:19 And I think that's part of it, right? So I think part of the Irish experience and my family's really, you know, my grandfather came over from Cork and my nanny was from Galway. And they, I mean, he came over at four years old and they were tough and he grew up poor. And I mean, really poor, like they would move every time the rent was due. And I mean, he had a large family and, you know, he built a business. He ended up being a general contractor. It took him a long time, but he built a big, you know, beautiful built a business. He ended up being a general contractor. It took
Starting point is 00:06:45 him a long time, but he built a big, you know, beautiful house that he lived in in Long Island. He was a devoutly religious guy. He was very tough. He, you know, I remember my father got in a bar fight. I think this was in my father's nose. My father's nose is still a little crooked. He called my grandfather and he goes, you know, if you gave me $5,000, I could fix my nose. I think my grandfather was like, well, it's just a, if you gave me $5,000, I could fix my nose. I think my grandfather was like, well, it's just a good thing. You're not a model and hung up. So it was kind of like figure it out. You know, my grandfather had that attitude of like, he was a loving guy and he was generous, but he was also like, you gotta figure your life out. Like, I think he had six,
Starting point is 00:07:18 seven children. One of them died of cancer, sadly, but he was, it was old school. Like it wasn't, you, you weren't going to get your hand held uh you were loved and you were supported but you were also expected to kind of go out and fight the way that they fought for whatever you wanted and i think that that is you know kind of that enduring quality of like that underdog you know know, mentality that Irish people have, you know, and obviously we're not nearly, we weren't nearly as disadvantaged as African-Americans or other groups of people. But I mean, the Irish kind of had a little bit of a time of it when they came to this country. So I think that that is part of what makes us into these storytellers. We talk a little too much. We make a lot of jokes. We're
Starting point is 00:08:07 trying to get a seat at the table. And I think that the way we try to do that is by wrestling the attention away from who's ever speaking. And I mean, whatever we have to do, I mean, I have aunts that will stand up in the middle of a family party and start singing a song, forcing everyone to just stare at them. I mean, my aunt would sing memories from cats. And I mean, she's a horrible singer, but we would all just every year we knew memories was coming when she'd had a few drinks and we all just had to sit and listen to that. And she would just out of nowhere, start belting out, you know, midnight and we'd all, okay, here we go. So it really was just a fight for attention. I think part of that, I guess, is that we all kind of feel like we're underdogs in a way.
Starting point is 00:08:47 So do you have that? Do you love attention? I do. I mean, I do. When you look back at my kid video, it's embarrassing. When I was two or three years old, I would be hamming it up in front of the camera and doing everything I can. I'd dump ice cream on my head.
Starting point is 00:09:03 I'd do anything I could to get attention. You know, most comedians have that in them where they just wanted to be the center of attention and no matter, you know what, I mean, it's hard to watch because it's, they're just insufferable when you watch them because it's a kid who's just demanding everyone looks at him when he was two, three, just going, I want all the eyeballs on me. So, but how does that parlay from, oh, Tim's so funny. You know, he's a class clown. God, that guy's hilarious into, oh my God, he's trying to make a career out of it. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:09:35 Well, you fail at a lot of other things. So that's important. I think failure is important and we don't ever talk about failure. Every motivational speaker goes out and tells you how to succeed. And that's kind of maybe puts people at a disadvantage. I think you have to try the things that you're not suited for before you find the thing that you are suited for. And I tried a lot of things. I mean, I was in sales. I tried to be in finance. I was trying to live this life that wasn't for me. I love sales. Like I still like salespeople. I read about business and you know, but it wasn't for me. I wasn't as good at it as I could be because I didn't work hard at it. And the reason I didn't work hard at it is I didn't really love it. And then when I found comedy when I was 25, I started pretty late. I found the thing that I
Starting point is 00:10:21 loved enough to work so hard at that I would kind of sacrifice the rest of my life to just get good at this and to be good at it. Because when I was on stage, I felt like this is where I belonged. But it took a while to get there. It took, you know, community college and it took debate club and it took majoring in political science then dropping out because and no offense but all the people that were in politics and journalism were insufferable none of them were fun it was none of them were fun i remember we would go to these debate tournaments and i beat these two girls that were on their way to harvard and i was i was in a community college you know and they were crying afterwards and i was like you know all these guys just wanted to talk about
Starting point is 00:11:03 politics endlessly all night and i was like and i you me, I'm trying to make jokes. I'm trying to have fun. And everybody took themselves so seriously. And I was just turned off by it. I'm like, I don't want to spend my life with these people. And then God, listen, we know that they exist and there's a reason for them. But I was just totally like turned off by that. So I'm like, well, I don't want to be in. And I thought I was going to be in that. I thought I was a debate guy and I was good at debate. I was really good at being a debate. And I was like, I want to, I'm going to be in politics. I'm going to run a presidential campaign. I'm going to be, you know, whatever the case may be. And, uh, you know, I was running around, I was like, you know, 19 years old, uh, you know, talking about how we have to honor our commitment to the people of Iraq. I had no idea what I was talking about, but I'm like, this seems I was like hardcore evangelist of George W. Bush. You know, thought he was great, thought everything we were doing was phenomenal. Now I look back on it and I'm like, yes, some of that probably wasn't the move, but I really was going hardcore into politics.
Starting point is 00:12:04 And then I took a step back and I was like, all right, I'm going to do finance. I'm like, yes, some of that probably wasn't the move, but I really was going hardcore into politics. And then I took a step, took a step back and I was like, all right, I'm going to do finance. I'm going to be a business guy because I just want to make money. And then I realized like, I don't love money enough, sadly. Like I love making a good living, but like, I don't love money enough to make my life just about money. So then at 25 years old, after the, you know, 2008 2008 when the market had collapsed, I was like, let me just see if I'm funny and see if I can be funny professionally, which I didn't even know what the root to it was. There was no blueprint. So I got into it at 25 when I kind of had nothing
Starting point is 00:12:38 else going on. And I spent the last 10 years just getting as funny as I could on every platform that I could. That sounds terrifying. I mean, first of all, I can relate to the first part so much, your experience of politics and debate and media. And actually just listening to you explain it, I was like, oh my God, this is my life too. I just wasn't as smart as you were to get out.
Starting point is 00:13:04 I spent so many years in it thinking like, why is everyone looking at me like I'm being inappropriate again. You know, I just, I spent so many years in it thinking like, why is everyone looking at me like I'm being inappropriate again? You know, I just, I used to say like, I'm a bullet in a china shop, right? That's how you feel. I think you did well. I think in fact, I wasn't as smart as you were to keep going maybe. But feeling like a fish out of water is what I'm saying. Like you feel like, I don't know why, but I don't,
Starting point is 00:13:22 these people are looking at me like I'm inappropriate. And I think I'm hilarious. Right, right, right. I just remembered like going out after debate tournaments and we would like, you know, sit down at these restaurants and I was like, okay, so the debates are over. Right. And then they never would add, I mean, it would never end. It would never end. So I was like, does this ever, can we ever just goof around? Can we ever talk about anything else? Life is about more than politics. And this is something I tell people now. Life is about more. I mean, you know, my aunt called me the other day. She goes, now that, you know, cause she was like hardcore, like she would call me every day. Trump is the worst thing that's ever happened to us,
Starting point is 00:13:58 blah, blah, blah. And coronavirus is killing every human being that's ever lived. And I'm like, okay, thank you. I don't need this, you know, negativity, but I mean, every day she would call. And then finally Biden got inaugurated and she called me and she goes, you know, me and your uncle, we went birdwatching today and there were hawks in the trees. It was beautiful. And I'm like, you could have been doing that for the last four years. Like there were hawks in the trees. You chose to be miserable for four years. You chose that. And so to me, I'm like, there's just more to life than this endless, because most people, you're never going to meet Nancy Pelosi. Most of us, you know, I have uncles that, you know,
Starting point is 00:14:34 Nancy Pelosi is the center of everything that bothers them. And I'm like, this is, you'll never meet this woman. You're letting someone affect you who you'll never meet and who has some degree of control over you, but not nearly as much as you think. I mean, truly, there's a lot you can do completely that doesn't involve what Nancy Pelosi does or doesn't do or says or doesn't say. So to me, I've always been like there's more to life than politics. and the people that were deeply into politics never felt like that to me they were always like no this is the be all end all and i'm like this is so weird you get a certain amount of time on this planet and you choose one team and somebody
Starting point is 00:15:15 else chooses another team and you just fight forever and that's it that's the only experience you want to have and that that felt very empty to me and not fun. And I love having fun and that just wasn't fun. So it reminds me of when I lived in D.C. for a little while and I used to go out to the happy hours there. And this is, you know, I was much younger. I was, whatever, 30 around there. And you'd get these guys coming over to you in the bar. First of all, all the women would be wearing sweater sets with pearls. And I was like, what?
Starting point is 00:15:45 What? Right? And then all the guys would come over and like in their suits these are like young aides to congressmen on capitol hill and everyone would assume you knew who their congressman was it's like i never i never even heard of him i certainly never heard of you and i never even heard of your congressman so i'm not impressed and they would put their hand out and they to meet you and they would shake your hand or they they would shake it, you know, like they were trying to impress you with their muscle and say things like, and how are you enjoying Washington? I'm like, oh, my God, I am never letting this guy get on top of me ever. Right. DC is too much.
Starting point is 00:16:19 It's a great city to perform comedy in because it's like everyone there is just morally compromised. And it's great to just point out everybody in the audience and imagine you know what they do for a living it's a lot of fun to perform in that city but to me it was never a city that i could live in i was just like i love new york because people in new york talk about real estate and food i mean that's really what i knew everyone in new york talks about they go who got what apartment where and how much and why and how many roommates or no roommates and who's buying a condo and who's got the, and it's all about real estate. And it's all about where you live. And they talk about neighborhoods and they talk about food. They took up the, we have, you know, brutal debates about restaurants and, you know,
Starting point is 00:16:55 you got to go to this place. No, there's pizza Supreme is better. No, they were good six months ago. They changed the dough. It's all over now, the whole thing. And we just had these brutal fights about food and about neighborhoods. And that to me was very fun and very local and it affected you and and uh that's what people talked about in new york they took about money and dc is all about power and politics and everybody wants to have a prestige position and to me it was all like i don't know it was just it wasn't funny i don't like political comedy like i do a lot of social comedy right so like i took a lot about a lot of cultural things and I, I certainly touch on politics and stuff, but like that blatantly political comedy never really was my thing.
Starting point is 00:17:35 Like I, I respect the people who do it. It's very hard to do it right. But to me, it just divides audiences immediately. And I always look at like the larger truth that's buried under this kind of horse race political you know angle that ever that a lot of people are going for now so i i always was like not so much into dc but i love it's probably my fate and ironically it's my favorite city to perform stand-up comedy and because there's a lot of tension there and tension, releasing tension is what comedians should strive to do. And that city is always tense. And when you can break that tension, people are really grateful. Those poor people are desperate to laugh. They're not allowed to laugh at all anymore. Everything's
Starting point is 00:18:19 so deadly serious and most of all themselves. To your point about New York, I can tell you, it's the only city I've ever lived in or visited where it's like before somebody comes over to your house for the first time and before they leave, it's understood by all involved that they will be getting a full tour of your apartment. They will be looking at the master bedroom, the master bathroom. It's just understood. Of course, I want to see your real estate. Yes. You become a realtor. You talk about how much it costs. People have no problem in New York going, let me ask you what you pay. I mean, there's really no problem asking you what you paid. There's something fun about that to me. It's kind of fun. Real estate's hilarious to me. I always say, I think it's very funny. I think it's silly. I think a lot of my
Starting point is 00:19:00 videos that I do online are silly. They're goofy, right? And I mean, like, so to me, it's like, you know, the discussion of bedrooms and bathrooms and finishes and marble and granite and windows are very funny and kind of, they make me laugh. It's ultimately meaningless, right? It's utterly me. I've lived in big houses and small houses I've lived in. I've had really nice cars and I've driven beater cars and, you know, obviously it's better to have more money, but my actual day-to-day happiness doesn't really change. If I have good friends and I'm laughing and I feel like my career is going well, where you live doesn't, it's not as meaningful as people make it out to be. But I just love, you know, the way people make it into the most important thing in the world is, you know, your view.
Starting point is 00:19:47 Somehow you've arrived. So just hearing you talk and actually having seen you before, something that's standing out to me is you sound happy. Yes. I don't think of happy when I think of comedians. I think of more the sad clown and like they're wrestling and they're tortured and they sort of they're dark, but they're awesome and they're funny and they're clever and they're really witty about society and observers of it. But happy is not a word that comes to mind, I guess, maybe ironically, given what they do for a living. Do you think you're an anomaly in the comedy circuit? No, I think, well, I'm happy now things are going well. Like, I think I'm happy now that I'm in a good place creatively.
Starting point is 00:20:29 The things, I'm proud of what I make. I'm proud of the show I do every week, the podcast. I've gotten great opportunities to do some of the biggest podcasts in the world. And guys like Joe Rogan have helped me out tremendously. And so the happiness, I think, just comes from the idea that I worked really hard at something for a long time, but now it's starting to like come together and I have the freedom to do the things that I want to do. But like, I think comedians, I don't think it's that we're miserable, but I do think it's that we're all sensitive and we all are noticing things and we all feel things and we all have to convert that to funny. So if I
Starting point is 00:21:01 am upset, I convert it, try to convert it immediately to humor, which can be healthy, but it also cannot be because it's a great way to, it's a great way to just, you know, not acknowledge your problems and not fix them is by making them funny. And this is the real problem with a lot of comedians. It doesn't matter what the problem happens to be. You can easily make fun of it and not really address it. So there is that problem with comedians and that's just been forever, right? That could be your love life, your relationship to drugs, alcohol, food, depression, anything, your family, your past traumas. Like we make a living by making those things funny. And a lot of times that's just
Starting point is 00:21:43 putting a bandaid over them and not really addressing them. So I think that's where the like sad clown comes from is the idea that we make things that bother us funny. So, but they're still there. They still bother us, but that's kind of what we do. That's how we come to be funny. So I think I'm happy because I think I'm, I'm grateful. I'm lucky. I think a lot of us are, are, are lucky to do what we do So I think I'm happy because I think I'm grateful. I'm lucky. I think a lot of us are lucky to do what we do. I think I'm lucky. I worked very hard to have the job. I also feel lucky to have the job, right? So I feel like I'm lucky. I have all the qualifications to do what I want to do. And, you know, so that makes me, you know, when you see what people go through all the time, and this is what's really been lost in this new, you know, climate when you see what people go through all the time and this is what's really
Starting point is 00:22:25 been lost in this new you know uh climate that we're in where you know when you when you when you look at who's a real victim who's truly in trouble who deals with things with their own health or with their own family in these really tough situations uh the majority of people out there are very lucky. The majority of us, I don't care where you come from or what you're dealing with, the majority of us are just lucky to be here, to live here, to be in this time, to have our health, to have functioning brains, to be able to work and pursue things that we want to do. So we can't ever lose sight of that. Now, a lot of times we do lose sight of that because we're human beings. But I think I try to remind myself that at baseline here, I'm pretty lucky to be a
Starting point is 00:23:17 comedian for a living in the year 2021 and to be able to earn money while many people are in trouble and suffering because we have this horrible situation right now with a shutdown. And so I think that's where I try to derive the happiness from, just perspective. Back to Tim in one second. But first, you never thought COVID could cost you your home, right? Well, it could because cybercrime is up 75% in the midst of all these lockdowns. 75%, it's like the cybercriminals are bored and they found a new crime to commit and you're vulnerable. By far, the most serious cybercrime to worry about is home title theft. And most people have never heard of it. Cybercriminals, foreign and domestic, are now after our homes. And it's a lot easier to steal them than you think. No, not the bricks and mortar, but the title documents to our homes.
Starting point is 00:24:12 They're all online now. And these thieves will find your home's title and then forge your signature on a quick claim deed stating, oh, you sold your home to them. Then they'll take out loans on your home and leave you in debt. You don't even know any of this has happened until the late payment or eviction notices start arriving. Insurance doesn't cover you for this crime and neither do common identity theft programs. And that's why you need to protect your home with Home Title Lock. The instant Home Title Lock detects someone tampering with your home's title, they will help shut it down. You go to hometitleLock dot com.
Starting point is 00:25:09 So what do you make of all these late night comedians going exactly the opposite way? They turn themselves from people who make you laugh into people who make you upset and sad, angry. I haven't watched Colbert during the entire Trump presidency. I see the clips and Kimmel. God, they're so dark now.
Starting point is 00:25:26 Something happened. And I've talked to a lot of smart people out here in LA, which I'm getting out of soon, going right to Texas. But I talked to a lot of smart people here. Because I've always been interested in where this started. And I think that it might've started with when Tina Fey did that really brilliant and funny impression of Sarah Palin on SNL. And it may have also started with Jon Stewart, an equally brilliant guy who did a very funny show called The Daily Show. But what started to happen eventually, you know, was that people started to believe that their job was to be a teacher, was to be somebody who would affect
Starting point is 00:26:10 culture with political humor, and that it would not be for the sake of being funny. I mean, there's been political humor forever, and I'm sure some of it was written with the intent that it would, you know, affect people. But there became this idea, and it became rather explicit, that the job of a comedian was to move the needle in a meaningful way in the political world. And I don't know where that happened, but those are two good examples of where it may have began where it was that sarah palin because that nailed sarah palin that that impression was viral and people talked about it and people were saying that you know i don't know if she could recovered from that it was so good and it was kind of right on and then of course john stewart uh did did kind of a great
Starting point is 00:27:01 job at being this this this political comedian that did provide real information. But what has happened, like everything else, is that it has grown into a cottage industry of people who are putting their opinion in front of their comedy. And this is a big problem because it's not always funny. And in fact, it rarely is funny and that's why you just use the word dark which is a great word for it because when you're putting your
Starting point is 00:27:32 opinion out first and you're not worrying about the content the humor you're not recognizing the humanity of your opponents you're not seeing the other side, which is what comics should always do. It's how you can really be funny, especially about meaningful topics is looking at someone else's. I mean, there's not a great lawyer out there who can't argue the other side of their case. I mean, it's essential, right? It's the whole point of a great attorney, a great litigator is that they know what the other side is going to do and they understand the strengths of the other side. And I think he's a great comedian whose job is to make, you know, large numbers of strangers laugh. You have to kind of have some baseline respect for them as human beings. And when we turn everything into this endless, you know, festival of politics and politicized identities, we forget
Starting point is 00:28:32 that the people that disagree with us are human beings and that those people, you know, are not enemies. They're people that for whatever reason have a different experience than you. So when I watch those late night hosts, I go there, there at the, the, the best way to say it is they're not really doing their job and they're there. They've carved out this, you know, group of people that want to hear them say things they agree with, similar to somebody on maybe Fox or MSNBC. And to me, it's not interesting. And it does get dark and it gets sad because they don't want to do it.
Starting point is 00:29:12 You know, when you look at Jimmy Kimmel, he doesn't really want to do it. You're just making so much money and you become a cog in this Hollywood machine and you're getting $20 million, $30 million. You're expected to do it, but they don't want to do it. You could see it in their faces that nobody got into comedy to lecture people about who to vote for. Nobody. Are you surprised to see these guys being treated as these sage advisors in this serious suit?
Starting point is 00:29:38 I mean, to me, it's antithetical to what a comedian generally looks like and projects like and wants to be perceived as. Yeah. Well, what it is is also, you know, people have Google. People can remember that Chelsea Handler made a living doing race material. And now Chelsea Handler does documentaries about white privilege. Jimmy Kimmel had a show called The Man Show where they like, you know, did wet t-shirt contests. And now he's talking about health insurance. Stephen Colbert did a show where he was a very funny, you know, kind of guy that was impersonating Bill O'Reilly. And then now everything, you know,
Starting point is 00:30:13 and he got away with a lot of saying a lot of crazy things because it was satire and it was very funny. And now a lot of these same people exist. They act like satire doesn't exist. And if you say something, you're dead serious about it. And if you make a racial joke, you're a racist. Or if it's a homophobic joke, you're a homophober. If you make a joke about trans people, you're diminishing your trans identity. And all of these people are very Google-able. They've all had long careers. None of them felt this way years ago.
Starting point is 00:30:38 And I mean, you don't have to go back 10 years. You can go back right before trump got into the primaries like this is a new relatively new phenomenon in mass where all of these people are every day tweeting i mean i have comedian friends of mine that are tweeting about trade agreements all day and it's like what are you doing they're tweeting at mayor garcetti they're like you better these people have roommates they're on drugs it's like and're going, what's the budget of LA? The cops better be not getting more than this percentage of the budget. I'm like, the budget?
Starting point is 00:31:11 You can't afford a car. So it's a mind virus. Truly, it's a mind virus. And people like me have been, I think, pretty well-received, kind of pointing it out, because a lot of people are going like, oh, yeah, man, that's kind of the way I feel. They grew up watching these comics. These guys were very funny. Colbert, Kimmel, these guys were really, really funny people. But now I think they feel that for whatever reason that that isn't their job. They have to do what they're doing. I read something. It was you. It was a bit you were doing about him saying something like,
Starting point is 00:31:44 the comedians are the ones who get on stage and basically say, we're fucked up, we're fat, we can't stop doing horrible things. Only a psychopath would look at us and say, yes, show me the way. I mean, it's crazy. I mean, could you imagine going out to a nightclub and then asking the guy on stage for tax advice? We've lost our minds here. I mean, this is completely insane.
Starting point is 00:32:05 I don't go to my dentist laying in the chair and go, let's be funny now. People got to specialize in things. You can't be everything. And this flies in the face of a lot of the ethos of young people today who want to be everything. They're like, I want to be a YouTuber and a rapper and a stock mogul. And I want to start an app and I want to be a venture capitalist and I want to be an artist and write three books and I want to be a chef and have a line of, I mean, it's like, guys, we need to get good at a thing here and then we need to start there
Starting point is 00:32:33 and then maybe move on. But like this idea that you would ever look at the comedian, hopefully we say things that are smart. Hopefully we say things that are funny. Hopefully we make you think. I didn't tell anyone to vote. I got flack for this.
Starting point is 00:32:47 People go like this, to get a voting plan. Comedians were going on Twitter going, get a voting plan? What are we doing? What is a voting plan? Get to the poll and vote? I mean, you all got a Popeye's chicken sandwich. You can vote. Like this idea that no one knows how to vote. We got, you all got a Popeye's chicken sandwich. You can vote like this idea
Starting point is 00:33:05 that no one knows how to vote. We got to come up with a plan. We got to this. And the idea that I, who put on wigs and say crazy things and I'm funny and a goofball and admit all these embarrassing things about my life, I'm going to tell you who to vote for. It's just not my job. It's not my job. If you want me to do that, then go somewhere else. Go find another person who's going to tell you to vote and then it's so important to vote. It's just, to me,
Starting point is 00:33:31 it's patronizing. I'm not patronizing you. If you're going to vote, you're going to vote. If you're not going to vote, you're not going to vote. It's absolutely none of my business. You know, it would be insane.
Starting point is 00:33:38 It would be like me being on stage and like, you know, looking at my audience and pointing at a guy in the audience going, hey, why don't you call your brother? Have you spoken to your brother recently? Why don't you call him? What about your wife? Have you gone, have you taken her out? It's like, dude, what am I a life coach? I'm trying to be goofy. Yeah. You know, it, it reminds me of, um, it was talking to
Starting point is 00:34:00 my decorator the other day and he's amazing and he's awesome. And he was, he submitted this plan and I'm like, yeah, approved. And he and his team are looking at me like, really? And I'm like, look,
Starting point is 00:34:13 I'm going to be honest with you when it comes to decorating a house. I don't have very good taste. I don't know what I'm doing. You want to talk about Syria? We can talk about Syria, but that I know how to do, but I don't know how to decorate a house. And they said,
Starting point is 00:34:26 no one has ever said this to us in 30 years of doing this. Right. I don't need to be the expert. Yeah. I mean, if you leave it to us, I mean, we'll have lace curtains, everything will look like a funeral. You know, I'm very bad at it too because as an Irish person, I think everything should look like a wake. So I'm like, we should just have big curtains and big couches where everyone can sit down and cry. But yeah, everyone's a specialist in everything. So the problem is you said it and I said it, dude, I do it too. I go to, I'm one of
Starting point is 00:34:51 the only dudes who goes to a restaurant and I will go, you pick to the waiter or waitress. And they're like floored. I do this because you know why? I go, whatever you bring to the table, I'm going to eat it. Okay. And I'm going to say it's not good. So you just choose. I'm going to complain about it probably on my show. Not to you. I never do it to them, but I'm going to go, I'm going to trash it on my show. I'm going to tweet about it. I'm going to say I was very disappointed.
Starting point is 00:35:19 And then I'm going to come back next week and probably have the same thing. So it doesn't really matter. But I go to restaurants and I go, I love the chef tasting menu. In New York City, we just went out to dinner all the time, spent absorbent amounts of money, sat there for three hours, just drank martinis and ate food. I just have friends that we never went near clubs. We just sat in restaurants for three hours and they would just bring us food and we would just talk and drink. And I love the chef's tasting menu because I go, I don't know what he should make or she. You make it.
Starting point is 00:35:46 Bring it to me. I'll eat it. The idea of that is crazy now. Everybody now is a specialist in everything. And they're ready to tell you how you should do it. I mean, it'll be like me telling you how to be a journalist. I don't know the first thing about interviewing anybody, about doing research. To me, it would be like, for me to tell you how to do it,
Starting point is 00:36:08 it would be completely absurd. I did Red Eye. I did Red Eye. It was fun. And Red Eye at Fox, comedians would come on, and we'd sit next to John Bolton, and they'd go, Tim, what do you think about Syria? I'd go, Syria?
Starting point is 00:36:22 I don't have shows there. Like, I mean, it's just, I mean, it's like, I there like I mean it's just I mean it's like I can make fun of it and I will and maybe I have an intelligent take on it but I mean it's like I haven't done the research and neither is anyone else neither is Chelsea Handler they have also not done the research she's another one I don't want to hear from anymore I'm so over Chelsea I mean I was never under Chelsea Handler but I really would like her to be quiet um i can't stand her brand of quote humor which as you point out is really just lecturing all the rest of us on how we're pieces of shit and she's amazing yeah well she was also mean for a decade and now we're supposed she was like mean and she was like her
Starting point is 00:36:58 funniest was just being mean like so i get it like she was just like i I'm mean, I'm drunk. Every guy I've met's penis is too small, and no one has money like I do. And it's like, okay, we can get into this. And I thought that was bad. Now she's talking about the Gaza Strip. I'm like, oh, can you go back to that, please? That's exactly right. Well, there was an article over the weekend, I guess it came out on Monday, talking about the bomb premiere of SNL this week week and how it's just not funny, right? Because their king left Trump. They don't know what to do without him. It was in the LA Times saying something like it was uninspired.
Starting point is 00:37:38 They said it was unfunny, lazy, crude gags scattered about and forgettable sketches. They don't know what to do without him. And they don't want to touch, you know, the, the, you know, the, the, the king and queen Biden and Kamala Harris.
Starting point is 00:37:51 Kamala. Right. Yeah. Well, it's interesting about SNL is like every guy that I knew and gal that, that had like a working class background, never got hired for that show. That show's staffed with collegiate usually ivy league
Starting point is 00:38:06 northeastern liberal art school kids who aren't that where their sense of humor is very specific and you know i had really funny friends that like were garbage men that submitted packets to that show i mean great stand-ups make people laugh all over the country and they never got into that show uh and there's just this weird kind of the closed ranks around a specific type of person uh that can't have an opinion that i mean i remember i knew somebody that was on the show that wrote there for a year and he he brought up you know i i forget i think he was a kennedy assassination he brought up his yeah he's a lot of people think there was some shady there. And the whole room kind of looked at him and just kind of dismissed him.
Starting point is 00:38:47 And he was bringing it up in the context of like, there's something funny, but a joke. It wasn't, he wasn't launching into a, like who killed Kennedy thing, but it was just the idea that you would have any opinion outside of the very mainstream kind of establishment take of liberal politics was so alien to them that they're like they looked at him like he was a q anon lunatic they're like what are you talking
Starting point is 00:39:10 about so that show suffers from that problem of like they want a very specific group of people and that's why they're getting the type of comedy they get well that's interesting because remember they had trump he he was the guest host and back in 2015, and then they felt responsible for him winning. And Jimmy Kimmel, I mean, Jimmy Fallon gave him a normal late night, what used to be a normal late night interview and he messed up his hair and then spent the next four years self-flagellating over it because he got flack for it, the mainstream press, like, oh my God, you gave him a pass. He's the devil incarnate. And you just sat there next to him laughing. And then Jimmy Fallon tried to play this role of a Stephen Colbert type, which was
Starting point is 00:39:53 false and not believable. And he wasn't very good at it. And they're all like SNL. And some of these guys, they seem to bear this sort of guilt when it comes to trump and i don't know his rise to the top and now their responsibility to sort of give biden i guess a pass which so far is what snl has done well it's also this weird delusion it's like trump had trump's victory had nothing to do with snl it had nothing to do with jimmy found this is like again they're they continue to center themselves as the most important things in the universe. Trump's rise had to do with a lot of people who were very frustrated with business as usual politics. And Trump, in my estimation, is kind of a little bit of a huckster.
Starting point is 00:40:34 Had some good ideas. Didn't do much. But, you know, loved himself, loved Twitter, loved the rallies. But, like, his rise is kind of very easily explainable. It has nothing to do with like Jimmy Fallon tussling his hair. It was the idea that we had Jeb Bush going against Hillary Clinton. People like, is this an oligarchy? We're sick of Bushes and Clintons. And here is a bomb that we can kind of throw at this hopelessly corrupt system. And that bomb was Donald Trump, who was incredibly funny and would say things that nobody had ever heard a politician say. But this idea that no one really cares about
Starting point is 00:41:04 SNL, I think that's what terrifies these people, is that no one really cares. No one really cares about The Tonight Show. I mean, I can go on YouTube and find videos that have more views than SNL gets, and I could find them very, very quickly. I don't think that those places are near the bastions of influence that they used to be. And I don't think they're shaping culture in any way, really. No, you're right. We're seeing a sea change right now when it comes to comedy. And I've seen it in my business, too, news, where it's like the audience is moving from what used to be their only option, linear television, cable TV and so on, to digital, to online, where whatever your heart desires, it's there. You know, that's how I got to know you.
Starting point is 00:41:52 I didn't see you on television. I saw you online and then started watching your sketches. They were hilarious. So there's just this whole alternate universe that makes SNL less relevant. You'd think they'd be bending over backwards right now to reach out to your greater audience. They're like cruise ships, right? So when you steer a cruise ship, you can only move it a few degrees one way or another.
Starting point is 00:42:11 And then you have people that are coming into the game that are like speedboats. So it's like when the guy does a crazy capital riot, I have my producer, me and that producer can make a video lampooning that. We could do it within 24 hours, put it out and it's seen by a million people. It was literally the funniest thing I've ever seen. It was ever seen. I appreciate that. I appreciate you retweeting
Starting point is 00:42:28 it. But SNL then that same idea has to go to a writer's room and a meeting. It has to get approved. It has to go through sales and legal and marketing. Uh, every bud network people have to, okay. And it has to go through all of these channels and then it gets made at the end of the week, seven days afterwards, the new cycles kind of, you know, it doesn't hit as hard as if you can get. So especially when it comes to comedy, speed is important. Brevity is important. Putting out something that's quick and doing something in a few minutes that's just as funny and as shareable as something that people take a week to do. So I think that is really where things are heading. They're heading to these very, you know, kind of independent and obviously people always consolidate and it's human nature to kind of collaborate and consolidate. So I'm not saying that these shows will die per se, or maybe they'll emerge in other forms, but like, you know, you don't have a chance in hell to compete with people that are utilizing the internet in a smart way to build a fan base.
Starting point is 00:43:26 You just don't. I mean, you know, I think that's the real thing that they're reckoning with right now on TV and Comedy Central. All of these networks, they don't know what to do because they are completely being outflanked by digital creators every day. And speaking of SNL and your online sketches, one of the funniest things, I made my husband Doug watch it. It was so funny. I watched it twice. This is probably such pleasure was your bit on Hilaria Baldwin, who you say we're being far too tough on. We really need to go easier on Hilaria. Yeah. She wants to be fun. Let her have a little fun. Let her make up an accent. Nothing, and maybe this is the Irish thing,
Starting point is 00:44:08 I can't for the life of me, I don't understand why certain things bother people. So if this woman wants to pretend to be, again, a high-end Hispanic woman, like she's not saying like, I've had a rough life, and in fact, it's quite the opposite. She's going, going yes i'm rich
Starting point is 00:44:25 and i and and she just wants to tell these fake stories from spain that never happened where she went to the market with her grandmother and they got you know the jamon we got the jamon and then we make the the tapas you know let her do it like i mean to me i'm like let her do i look at everyone on tv and i'm like they've invented a version of themselves. Kamala Harris used to be Indian. Now she's black. She used to be a prosecutor. Now she's gone with the police. I don't know what the hell's going on.
Starting point is 00:44:52 So everybody's inventing versions of themselves in this country constantly. Why do I have to care about Hilaria Baldwin? She's not making laws, you know? Like, I'm more worried about Elizabeth Warren because I used to be a Native American. This is a problem. So, like, if everyone can just, these people all just invent things. Hillary Clinton's got hot sauce in her purse. She's getting shot at in Syria. I mean, it's like everybody's making stuff up all the time.
Starting point is 00:45:15 I think Hilaria Baldwin is, like, the least of our problems. Oh, that's so true. It's an alternate viewpoint. And that's another person that SNL can't make fun of because their other problem is they're beholden to celebrity celebrities oh yeah they love celebrities they want to go to the hamptons and you know everybody in snl just wants to hang out with the people that they make fun of and like i always make but listen my my stuff's good-hearted um i think that most people that we lampoon are fine with it i do think that i'm a ridiculous character. So I think, I mean, there are people, you know, Meghan McCain probably doesn't love me. I know that there's people that aren't
Starting point is 00:45:49 necessarily thrilled with, I don't think any woman loves seeing me put on a wig and be them. I mean, so, I mean, I get it, but it's also like, we are literally just having fun and we're making, we're doing funny things. And so whenever, but we also are not courting, like our goal, my goal is to be a really funny person. It's not to get invited to a party in the Hollywood Hills and have everyone like me. I think if that became my goal, my comedy suffers tremendously.
Starting point is 00:46:18 And I think SNL, a lot of the problem is they have celebrity hosts. They want celebrities to feel comfortable. They want big musicians to come in. And so they're playing that game now of like, we want to make fun of celebrities, but also we want to do it in a way that still makes them really love us and feel comfortable with us. And I just think that that's the route to something that's not really funny.
Starting point is 00:46:41 Well, and now they're, you know, SNL, you mentioned how they have a preference for these Northeastern, well-educated, advanced degree people. And, you know, that's true of NBC on a larger basis too. And NBC News, they don't hire the people from the B-tier schools. And I would suggest to you, the news product shows that in a way that's not so great for getting numbers. But now SNL and other comedians have to worry about the woke craziness going on right now because you know how it is you can't touch anything or you're a nist you're some sort of a nist racist sexist you know take your take your pick and i remember just just as like a small i remember something like i remember the stuff starting to creep into our language i don't know let's say 15 years ago or like you can't say that say that, or you can't do this. And I wasn't even trying to be funny. I didn't know this was considered a
Starting point is 00:47:29 derogatory term. But I got in trouble at one point on the air at Fox, because I referred to I said, you know, the guy committed the crime, and they took him away in the paddy wagon. And they're like, Oh, you can't say that. Like, after I got off the air, I'm like, why not? Like, it's, it's racist against Irish people. I'm like, back got off the air i'm like why not like it's it's racist against irish people i'm like back to our original point like no it isn't we're fine you know people get one email from an irish person but also how how is it and i learned at that time the paddy wagon is is like a reference to all the paddies who are out there boozing it up you know having their too many beers and causing trouble getting arrested okay so you can say, but now of course our world world has gone, has lost its ever love in
Starting point is 00:48:08 mind. And it's, it's crossed over the latest story that was in the news this week was, I don't know if you saw this, but how, how Bernie Sanders is getting attacked as it was his privilege, that photo of him with the big mittens that went viral. Yes. There's some San Francisco high school teacher who wrote a piece. Yes. I pulled a quote. Here it is. What she saw was a wealthy, incredibly well-educated
Starting point is 00:48:32 and privileged white man showing up for perhaps the most important ritual of the decade in a puffy jacket and huge mittens. It manifests privilege, white privilege, male privilege, and class privilege in ways her students could see and feel, Tim. Yeah, I mean, it's a, you know, the term is mind virus. You know, the term is it's a disease.
Starting point is 00:48:51 It's gone to the brain. It is spread. It is invasion of the body snatchers. It is a zombie movie. It is, I mean, it really truly is all of these things. The way I feel about when you look at entertainment, I go, people got to opt out, right? So if you're an entertainer and you're a funny person, you need to build your own fan base. You need to do it online until you're not able to do that. You know, you have to just opt out.
Starting point is 00:49:16 You can't play the game. You can't try to get on SNL. You can't try to get involved in mainstream comedy right now because it isn't funny. That's why a lot of people that have great thriving careers in mainstream comedy right now are not by their nature funny. They are, you know, careerists. They are people who know what to say, how to say it. They love office politics. They love virtue signaling. They love having the right positions and the right package. And those people do very well in writers rooms at NBC and CBS. And, and, and, uh, uh, those are the people who are, um, you know, running HBO and running Netflix. And those are the people that are, you know, for the most part, the, the dominant cultural mode is, you know, get, go along, get along, don't ruffle feathers, don't rock the boat. And wherever the prevailing winds of the
Starting point is 00:50:03 day are, you just got to have no opinions and not really, you got to be liquid. You got to take the shape of your container. So, and that's what Hollywood is. People don't realize that. Hollywood is people for the most part that don't have strong opinions. They are really able to con, they're very malleable and they're able to, you know, whichever way the wind is blowing. Okay. Are we unwoke this year? Are we woke this year? Is this year the year of elevating Asian people? Is it the year of elevating Middle Eastern people? Is it the gay year? Is it the trans year? They don't care. Their job is to buy a $10 million house in Beverly Hills and pay the mortgage. So whatever does that, but if you're a comedian, you're a digital creator, you're a podcaster, you're an independent person, you have
Starting point is 00:50:50 a voice, a perspective, you're funny, you need to just build your own fan base outside of that system because that system's collapsing. I talked to Barry about this and we were talking about rebuilding society or at least building a new thread in society so that normal people who don't want to live like this, as Douglas Murray put it, having to worry about secret trap doors opening up underneath you, no matter what you say and do. And the digital world is going to have to be a major part of that, right? Because I do think linear television has been overtaken by people like that. And most of us don't want to live like that or have to consume information or
Starting point is 00:51:23 entertainment like that. So but you know as well as I do that the digital world is not secure either. And we saw that after the whole Capitol Hill riot with Parler being taken down and Trump being booted off Twitter. And now all these YouTube videos get censored. And I worry. I mean I'm sure you do too about what about this lane? This lane is not secure either. I mean it's a lane where I'm trying to make money in three to five years and I'm trying to make enough money. That's part of
Starting point is 00:51:49 the move to Texas because, you know, if I live in Cali, listen, I love Cali. I think it's a great city. But like, you know, Cali is like, OK, so then you get a house in Malibu and then you got to get a house in Bel Air. It's like it's a no end to up, right? It's like, you got to constantly make more money every year and be bigger and bigger and you make more and more compromises and more and more sacrifices. And so the part of the move to Austin, Texas for me, other than the fact that I think Joe Rogan, who's a good friend of mine, is going to try to really build a thriving community down there, is that I want to really make my money now because I want to save it. I don't want to give it all to Gavin Newsom. I want to save my money for the exact reason you said. I don't know what's coming down the pike. I'm a cynical guy by nature. It terrifies me that a joke I make can be taken the wrong way
Starting point is 00:52:39 and I can lose. Yeah. So what I'm trying to do is build a digital infrastructure where I can have fans. I have an email list. I have a group of people that like what I do. And I'm living in a state where I don't have to give all of my money away and the cost of living is less. And all of that is really because I don't know what's coming down the pike. And it is terrifying for anybody whose career primarily exists online. That's why I try to just be funny. But again, is that going to be a defense, right? I mean, if you tweet, a man could not get pregnant today in 2021, you could lose your Twitter account, okay? I don't know what statement that's going to be in three years. So if you say, which was biological in the textbook and still is, if you tweet something like that, you could lose your entire Twitter. So I don't know what that statement's going to be in 24 months, 36 months, but my outlook isn't positive.
Starting point is 00:53:40 Yeah, I know. And now they're trying to crack down on podcasts too. Sure. Soon they're going to be going through the podcast with a fine tooth comb trying to find offensive stuff, which will be no problem whatsoever. But the tech space, there is a group of people that do not want this in tech. They are by no means the majority, but there is a group of people that love comedy, like comedians, understand freedom, know that people need freedom of expression. And I think for whatever reason, like they, they're, I hope they gain more power and I hope they get, uh, you know, more of a foothold on what's going on. I talked to some of these people, I know some of these people, I know billionaire founders of apps that text me, I love your video, this, that, the other thing. So there are people in that space that are very successful that love you,
Starting point is 00:54:31 that love, you know, people that we know and respect. And like, so I'm hoping that there's a fight. Like I'm, I'm hoping that there is some type of, you know, pushback against this. i just don't know how successful it'll be oh no no i mean there is a fight it's on it's on in many fronts not just on the digital world i don't like that um app you just mentioned what's it called again clubhouse clubhouse i don't like that because it makes me feel like i felt in high school when i didn't get invited to the cool party and you're like i know but i feel but i i did get invited i know screw you you know my friends tell me they're like i don't like the way it says about our society that you need an invite to get on because i didn't get invite i go okay
Starting point is 00:55:16 but it's it's very child it's very childish and sometimes we have to indulge our base carnal childish ridiculous id you know and that's but it's hilarious they'll let everyone on eventually and you could you can get on meggy kelly could clearly get on a clubhouse it's just a funny it's a it's a funny thing and what's funny is that you go on this and you are talking to these really and they invite me in the rooms because i'm funny so they talk about bitcoin or venture capitalism for eight minutes and I throw in a joke. So you need somebody to keep it light a little bit. But it is very interesting because the founder of Bumble was on the other night and she goes, we got to put up guardrails online. And as soon as I hear that, I get a little nervous
Starting point is 00:55:57 because I'm like, well, what is her idea of a guardrail? Yeah, she means me. Right. She means me. Every now and then when I hear like a white billionaire female talk, I get a little nervous because they talk like this and they go, we're really just trying to ensure that we're living in an era of respect. And I'm like, oh, she wants me in jail. Like immediately I go, this woman wants me in jail. I was hearing her talk going, she wants me in jail. But it's good to hear.
Starting point is 00:56:23 I don't think they're monsters i just think that like they want everyone to be nice that's their whole thing because they all have hundreds of millions of dollars they don't want to give you any of that but they go that's right well i want to be the good guys i want you to be nice everyone's got to be nice and that's terrifying so i mean i hope that there's some pushback and that it's you know it's successful i don't know i mean i think we are starting to get they've overplayed their hand and i hope that there's some pushback and that it's successful. I don't know. I mean, I think we are starting to get – they've overplayed their hand, and I do think there's going to be a massive blowback. And I think Trump being gone is – that's one good thing about him being gone is that they don't have him to blame anymore. Now we just got to fight.
Starting point is 00:56:56 Now the gloves are off. It's bare knuckle. Let's go. You don't have anybody to blame this on. Just you punch me in the face, and I'll punch you in the face face and we'll see who's stronger, who has more people on their side, who has a better argument, who wants to, you know, who's going to control
Starting point is 00:57:08 the direction of America, basically. Yes. But I, you know, this big versus little thing and what you're saying about the tech people who are on there, some people who are secretly
Starting point is 00:57:17 on our side is encouraging. But it made me think of what's going on this week with GameStop and AMC. And what's your take on that with GameStop and AMC. What's your take on that? Because I know you've been tweeting about it. I confess I don't totally understand it, but I guess I get that these are companies.
Starting point is 00:57:37 There's a Reddit called WallStreetBets, our WallStreetBets, which has got millions and millions of people in it. And all they do is discuss stocks. And basically, they were looking at all these hedge funds that were shorting companies like GameStop, which means that they're essentially betting that the stock will fail and betting that the fundamentals of the business aren't good. And they're aggressively shorting GameStop and they're aggressively shorting AMC Theaters. And a lot of these guys on Wall Street bet said, we could do a short squeeze here. Meaning that like we can pump the stock's price up by buying it, forcing a lot of these big institutional players to have to cover their shorts. And they're going to be out a lot of money and we're going to make a lot of money. And again, absolutely legal, not insider trading, absolutely 100% legal. It is collusion,
Starting point is 00:58:20 my favorite new word of the last three years, but they're doing it absolutely legally. This is what people do all the time. They go, here's a bet, here's a play, here's what we want to do. So they started to do that and they pushed the shares of GameStop 400%. Yeah, it was at 347 bucks last Wednesday. Amazing. So then what happened was Robinhood, which is the app that was a day trader app. A lot of the people were buying these shares of GameStop on this app called Robinhood, which is the app that was a day trader app. A lot of the people were buying these shares of GameStop on this app called Robinhood. Robinhood then stopped trading on GameStop and AMC. It stopped trading on those two stocks, which is illegal. Those companies are not being investigated by the FCC. There was no reason to limit trading, limit buying of those stocks. But when you look deeper into it, Robinhood sells all their user data to Citadel, which is a massive hedge fund. Citadel owns a lot
Starting point is 00:59:11 of Robinhood's data. So when you are using Robinhood, you think you're the customer, but you're actually the product. Somebody explained it like that. You're the product, your data, what you're buying, your information is being marketed to other hedge funds who are paying for the privilege of knowing what you do online in the information is being marketed to other hedge funds who are paying for the privilege of knowing what you do online in the market because they want to know what retail investors are doing. So it was very shady because Citadel also owned, I mean, coincidentally, they were doing a lot of the short squeezes on these companies. So they're losing billions of dollars. And then Robinhood, which again is one of Citadel's biggest clients in terms of selling data, they stopped trading on these stocks.
Starting point is 00:59:55 So it looks very bad. And then the CEO of Robinhood said, well, it has to do with capital requirements and this, that, and the other thing. But a lot of people, myself included, goes, this just looks very shady. It looks like you're protecting your guys who are losing a lot of money by stopping people from trading. So it became a big guy versus little guy thing. And of course, nothing is that simple because there was a lot of big guys like Mark Cuban or Elon Musk or Dave Portnoy, the head of Barstool Sports, who were very much in favor of this. And there were a lot of organizations that purportedly are for the little guy, quote unquote, that were saying that
Starting point is 01:00:33 this was chaotic and this was fueled by Trump or whatever. It's white supremacy. I don't know. But I mean, there was a lot of people that you would expect. What it really was is people saw an opportunity to make a little money. And what then happened was nobody is really satisfied with the explanation of the Robinhood app CEO, who basically changed the story a few times. And when you look at, so a lot of people felt like, hey, it's another thing. It's like, hey, you don't like Twitter, go on Parler. Okay gonna forget parlor okay hey how about we figure out a way to make money in the stock market and you know you know wrestle a little control back from these hedge fund guys and then all of a sudden they shut off your ability to purchase stocks so i it resonated with me on a level of like number one i thought it was funny because hedge fund billionaires are crying on CNBC. That's hilarious. Number two, it wasn't
Starting point is 01:01:27 the whole stock market was in trouble. It was big hedge funds that are in trouble. They'll be fine. And this was, to me, an example of the little guy causing a little bit of trouble. And I think that's good. I think that's okay to cause a little bit of trouble and to say, hey, we're alive, we're here. By the way, the election of Donald Trump is causing a little bit of trouble. It's people that are saying we still exist and we're going to do something that's a little crazy to get your attention. That to me is kind of what this GameStop AMC stock thing was. It was people going, we are alive, we exist, and we want you to notice us.
Starting point is 01:02:06 And they were very successful at that. It's interesting that you mentioned somebody like Mark Cuban or Dave Portnoy, because those are self-made guys. They didn't come from a bunch of dough where they had life made easy for them. They're scrappy. And it's probably no accident that they were like, yeah, this isn't bad. Let these guys, these amateur investors, let them do what they want to do. This is pretty cool. And score one for the little guys. But then you have people like Jimmy Kimmel, who also was a self-made guy, but we talked about him before, saying maybe this was Russian disruptors. I mean, you get these curveballs. It's sad, man.
Starting point is 01:02:40 It's sad to watch that. It's just the word, the term is like tragic when you watch him do that. Why? Because he doesn't want to say that. You can see it in his face that he doesn't want to say that. You know he doesn't want to say that. This is, he's in such a compromised position. I guess you just make so much money.
Starting point is 01:03:02 You start buying the things that money buys you. You're living a life now where you have to, you know, constantly, you know, please the overlords. But it's just sad to watch a comedian dismiss people making money on the stock market as Russian disruptors with absolutely no evidence. Like that is just sad to me. I go, man, that's rough. Cause that guy was really funny. And he just doesn't look like he has any life in his face anymore. When he talks, he doesn't look alive. And I think I tweeted like, he doesn't look like he has a soul, which was, that's a little extreme, but it really does. He looks like just somebody who's his, his sense of, of, of, of of of of of not only comedy but just being alive seems to have been robbed from him so that's that's what's sad to me he just feels like his reactions aren't
Starting point is 01:03:52 his own reactions his words aren't his own words he seems like a vessel and i don't know where he's getting this information from but i imagine it's from people that have an interest in putting it out there so well but to me to me it was scary interesting because you picked up, I heard you on Joe Rogan, you were talking a little bit about Ellen. And I think they're suffering from the same thing. Like you can get to the point where you've been so successful, you've made so much money and you travel in these circles that are so elite that you forget your humanity. You forget who you are.
Starting point is 01:04:22 Forget how to relate to real people and what matters to real people. And I agree with you. She seems like she's not a nice person. He seems like he's crossed over to this place where he just wants to preserve this empire he's built. You know, he says he won't even do, he doesn't want people who disagree with him
Starting point is 01:04:41 on things like the Second Amendment or healthcare watching his show. Okay, fine. Right. You know, we won't. And Ellen seems like she's in the same place. She's got like 75 houses all over the world, perfectly decorated. She probably spends one day every three years in each one.
Starting point is 01:04:57 And people are like, I don't know. She's really nice. It's like, well, guess what? I can tell you. She's not. The people who know her and work for her have told us. They've told us. The real story to me is always more interesting than the facade.
Starting point is 01:05:10 And I think that's why I'm a comic versus another type of person. Like, I don't buy. When I see somebody, I don't buy it always. And I'm like, what is, what's really going on there? And I know how hard it is to succeed or even on the small level that I have in the entertainment business. Very tough. Ellen's worked very, very hard to get where she has, but it's also like she hasn't spent a ton of time thinking about other people. This is not how you get to be Ellen DeGeneres, right? It's not how you get to be Chelsea Handler. It's not how you
Starting point is 01:05:40 get to be Matt Damon. How you get to be that is focusing on yourself. You focus on your career, your craft. I mean, this is really like nobody wants to talk about this, but like then you get to this position where you're thrust into the public spotlight and then you take on this role of like that everything you do is this altruistic pursuit and you're trying to help people and take care of people. But the reality is you don't really know how to do that. A lot more goes into that than you would imagine. A lot of your ideas aren't needed. You're not an expert. You've spent no real time doing research. You haven't met the people you purport to care about. That's the other thing. You haven't met
Starting point is 01:06:20 any of these people. You don't know what they need. And so it's this crazy idea. It's very patronizing to believe that just because you have succeeded in this business, you've made oodles of money, gobs of money that you somehow are in a better position to tell people what you need and here's who should give it to you. I don't have an interest in that, but I guess at a certain point when you've succeeded and you just, you know, and an interviewer asks you like, hey, how did you succeed? You can't give the answer. You can't be like, well, you know, I sacrificed so much for years and I really didn't speak to my friends or family and I just networked. I had to step on a bunch of people's heads. You know, I barely ate. I hollowed my soul out. I learned to deal with rejection. I turned off all my emotions. The term is probably sociopath,
Starting point is 01:07:15 or at least I was on the spectrum. You know, I didn't feel for many years. I would go to Christmas and look at all these simpletons and be disgusted by them. And I just started to be, you know, you can't do that. You have to go like, you know, it's really important to planet and global warming and the Green New Deal. So it's like, it's a lack of honesty. All of this comes from just a lack of honesty and who's willing to accept it. And a lot of people are willing to accept the version of Ellen
Starting point is 01:07:39 that she puts out to them because it's nicer and more comforting. But to me, I'm like, it's not interesting and it's certainly not funny. Can I ask you about who came to mind when you were saying that was Prince Harry? Because, you know, he married Meghan Markle. And then not long ago, he talked about how he'd had an awakening, an awakening on white privilege and racism that were living in a world created by white people for white people. Meanwhile, this is Prince Harry. He's talking to us from his castle, or at least had recently left it. And he's trying to lecture the rest of us on white privilege. By the way,
Starting point is 01:08:14 the guy was wearing a Nazi uniform for Halloween when he was a teenager. So it's like, okay, fine. He might've had a revelation, but maybe he's not the best person to be lecturing us on white privilege. It's also like these people are wrong like japan's doing great chinese like there are lots of countries that have been thriving like to say it's a world created by white people you're talking about the post-colonial era you're ignoring antiquity you're ignoring the ancient world you're ignoring like these vast amazing empires that existed with persians and assyrians and all these but it's the insane africa go back to africa like it's just this ignorance of history it's like all history starts in the period of european colonialism they're actually dumb like
Starting point is 01:08:57 i think that's also the problem they're like not that smart it's like it's really this whole thing i see cancel culture and all this is like, it's the revenge of the mediocre. These are mediocre thinkers. They're mediocre academics and they're, and they're just elevating themselves by, you know, they're not that smart. I mean, if you look, listen to somebody like Camille Paglia, listen to somebody who's actually intelligent, whether you agree with them or not, these people are actually, they have a command a command of history and what they're talking about. It's like to ignore the hundreds of years, thousands of years of history that predate all of your, you know, cute black and white assumptions about everything. It's absurd. It's just, it's again, it's an ignorance of history that's baffling. A lot of these people have it. To say that this is a world created by white people for white people, we all know that race is a major problem, you know, and has been forever. And it's not exclusive to white people, even though white people certainly in this part of the world have practiced it and limited people's rights. And we all know that that's bad and has to change.
Starting point is 01:10:01 But at the end of the day, are you diminishing the accomplishments of like the Sumerians? Like, what are you talking about? Like, are you diminishing the accomplishments of mathematics that were, you know, that were happening in the Fertile Crescent? Like these people are just, I don't know. I don't know where they went to school,
Starting point is 01:10:17 but I hope some of them get a refund. Do you run your own business? If you do, then you know that HR issues can kill you. Such a headache, right? It's just an area you know you have to deal with, but you don't really want to. Wrongful termination suits, minimum wage requirements, labor regulations, and HR manager salaries aren't cheap either. An average of 70,000 bucks a year. That's where Bambi comes in. B-A-M-B-E-E. This company was created specifically
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Starting point is 01:11:32 Month to month, no hidden fees. You can cancel anytime. How about that? You could cancel the HR manager who you've been using to cancel all the other people, but hopefully you won't have to. You know you didn't start your business because you wanted to spend time on HR compliance. So let Bambi help and get your free HR audit today. Go to Bambi.com slash MK right now to schedule your free HR audit. That's Bambi.com slash MK spelled BAM to the B E E.com slash MK. Check it out. Now, before we get back to Tim Dillon, I want to bring you a feature of the show we call Sound Up. This is where we bring you some sound that we feel you must hear. Today, our old friend Governor Andrew Cuomo is the star of Sound Up. We learned this week in the New York Times that nine top New York state health officials have quit
Starting point is 01:12:25 working for this guy in recent weeks. Why? Well, likely because of comments like this, which he made on Friday. Now take a listen. You may have heard the very short comment at the beginning of this soundbite we're going to play for you. It got some media play, but very little attention was paid to the full comment, which is about as smug and gross as, well, just about any of other of Andrew Cuomo's previous comments. Listen. When I say experts in air quotes, it sounds like I'm saying I don't really trust the experts.
Starting point is 01:13:02 Because I don't. Because I don't. You want to talk about making mistakes. How did COVID come here for three months and nobody knew? How did COVID leave China, go to Europe and come here? And all these federal watchdogs, nobody knew it. How did you let New York sit here for three months receiving passengers from Europe who had the virus and nobody knew? How did you tell us that to spread the disease you had to be symptomatic? Which meant the sneezing, the coughing, that's how it spread. Only to do a total 180 degrees later and say, oh, by the way, you can be asymptomatic and spread it.
Starting point is 01:14:01 What? That's all the difference in the world. It got into nursing homes because it was here before anyone knew. It was brought in by staff. It was brought in by visitors. Once it was here, they said it was spread by symptomatic people. That was untrue. It was also spread by symptomatic people. That was untrue. It was also spread by asymptomatic people.
Starting point is 01:14:29 But then to play politics with it the way they did, that was mean. That was mean. When the Trump administration was trying to divert blame, so they said, well, the state, the states, not just New York, by the way, they blamed all the Democratic states for the deaths in nursing homes. The politics wasn't just here in New York. It was all the Democratic governors.
Starting point is 01:15:02 It was New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, blame all the Democratic governors for It was New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania. Blame all the Democratic governors for the deaths in nursing homes. No, that was mean. Because if you lost someone in a nursing home, then it put a thought in your head, well, maybe it didn't have to be. Maybe my father died unnecessarily. And that was just cruel to do. OMG. Is this guy effing out to lunch? Are you freaking kidding me? He's got the nerve to try to speak on behalf of the families who lost people in nursing homes in New York State. I mean, I almost want to call up Janice Dean right now
Starting point is 01:15:45 and get her to participate in this. You know what she'd be thinking, what she'd be saying. She's coming back on soon, by the way. It was mean to play politics with it. It was mean to blame the nursing home deaths on, quote, Democratic governors. No, you, you, Governor Cuomo, you are to blame. You did sign an order requiring all the nursing homes in New York State to take COVID positive patients in,
Starting point is 01:16:14 even though the risks were highlighted for you and there were groups jumping up and down saying, are you insane? That's where the most vulnerable people are. It's not like they have tons and tons of room here in New York City. They're going to be stacked on top of each other, breathing all over one another, and it's the most vulnerable population. And he said, screw you, take them. And guess what? The early numbers were that 6,000 plus people died
Starting point is 01:16:36 in the nursing homes as a result. Janice Dean, my pal and Fox News meteorologist who lost both of her in-laws in New York nursing homes as a result of this order, was jumping up and down down for months saying it's more than 6,000. He didn't count all the patients who got transferred out of the nursing homes and sent to hospitals where they died. He's eliminated those from his numbers. And you know what his office said? She's not an expert in anything but the weather.
Starting point is 01:17:02 She's not an expert. Oh, my God. It's so infuriating. I want to punch his smug mouth. And guess what? She was proven correct. There was a attorney general report just last week confirming Janice was right. He way undercounted the deaths in the nursing homes. Why? To make himself look better. And now he's got the nerve to come out and play the victim. It's mean for anyone to say that he's responsible. And don't try to lump yourself in with all the Democratic governors. You did it. You, Mr. New York tough. So take responsibility
Starting point is 01:17:41 and stop acting like a baby. Because I don't. Because I don't. You don't believe the experts. You should have believed the people who are warning you about this one. This one you should have paid attention to, sir. There's now a push to get Janice to run for governor. Oh, my God.
Starting point is 01:18:00 It would be so amazing. It needs to happen. I've been ending every tweet about this with hashtag run Janice run. I mean, can you imagine him trying to take her on? She's the most sympathetic, kind, smart, funny, beloved figure. And he's exactly the opposite of all those things. Okay. I'm really in a tear now, but this guy is who he always was. He's a bully. He's self-pitying and self-aggrandizing at the same time. He's dishonest and he's got blood on his hands. All it would have taken early on was a simple apology and ownership of a massive mistake he made, but he refuses to this day, to this day. How would they know? It got into the homes before anyone knew.
Starting point is 01:18:45 Oh, no, they knew. You were the one who said, put it in the homes. Take the people who have COVID positive tests and put them in the nursing homes. We have it all figured out, sir. Don't play dumb and don't play the victim. Okay. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is our sunny feature we call Sound Up. Back to Tim Dillon. I was at that royal wedding covering it, not as a guest. And you could see the writing on the wall,
Starting point is 01:19:18 right? They had all these guests there. They had George Clooney. They had Oprah. They had all these people who you knew. They didn't know these people, right? They didn't know them. They got connected to them because of their celebrity. It's also like a statement because she's like, is she like half black or something? Is that, that's the whole game, right? Is that she's like diversity? Like, is that the whole thing? Well, good. I mean, good for her, but it's also like, you know, she's just an attractive actress. That's all I see. I'm like, you're marrying an attractive actress good for you that's you're a prince you're marrying attractive actress if you want to really do something marry me like you know like you're just marrying some hot who can't like that's a that's a seismic event that he married a hot actress what are we doing like it again it's like it's a
Starting point is 01:20:03 disease like it's people that i look at who are like intelligent in every other capacity lose their mind when they go like this is a really big day uh because he's marrying uh a woman who's not white and i'm like is that a big that doesn't i don't that's great i don't care who he marries i mean it's like i think it's great i don't i think people of different races should get married of course it's a strange and have been for right and it has been forever yes it's a weird like to me it's like odd it's i i don't know it's you know i'm 36 i'm like getting to the point now where i'm like you know in 10 years i don't think i'll understand anything that's what i'm like make the money now because in 10 years, I don't think I'll understand anything. That's what I'm like, make the money now. Because in 10 years, I'm going to be like, hey, man.
Starting point is 01:20:48 And someone's going to go, yeah, no good. Don't say, hey, man. Oh, totally. Yeah, it's it's coming. Well, that's like, you know, what we were talking about in San Francisco that like they've lost their ever loving minds, but they tend to be scarily a harbinger of things to come. Right. They've just got rid of the schools with the name George Washington, Abe Lincoln, even Dianne Feinstein had to go, right? While their schools are closed,
Starting point is 01:21:08 this is what they're prioritizing. How about getting the kids back in school? No, it's about getting rid of acronyms that they think acronyms are now a symbol of white supremacy, so they have to get rid of them. Gay people over a certain age don't understand any of this. It's like, truly, they don't get it. So what's very interesting about the trans movement is how political it is, because there's clearly, like, people that have gender dysphoria, people that are trans,
Starting point is 01:21:30 men that feel like they're women, women that feel like they're men, and they correct that, and that's a great modern scientific thing they were able to do. But then there's also this just large movement of people who are like, well, I'm a queer or this or that, and it's all about politics.
Starting point is 01:21:44 I mean, it's just, like, it has nothing to do with who they love or want to be in a relationship with or, or, or even sexually where they're at. It's really just this political movement where they're like, well, gender doesn't exist. And, and, and biology is, is a creation of the white male patriarchy and, uh, and also communism's good idea. And it's like, wait a minute, this comes with a lot. This doesn't seem to be solely about your gender expression. There's a lot in this bag here. And so to me, I talk to other gay people that are like completely confused,
Starting point is 01:22:17 especially older gay men, they have no idea. And I grew up gay people being very funny, very mean, very acerbic, said whatever they wanted. I mean, drag queens were hilarious. We now have politically correct drag queens. This is how insane we are. What is that? It's absurd to get out and start talking about health care.
Starting point is 01:22:38 It's absurd. Drag queens used to do these shows in New York City that Wall Street guys used to go to because drag queens were hilarious. It was a six foot, six foot three guy in dress like a woman who would be smoking a cigarette on stage and say whatever she wanted to, like whatever. And people would like be like, oh, my God, your head was in your hands. He'll point at members of the audience and destroy them. And it was just very funny. And the reality was, listen, you can't hurt me. These are just words. I'm a six foot three drag queen.
Starting point is 01:23:10 I take the subway home. And if you start a fight with me, you're going to get a fight. Because these were tough people. They're very, very tough. And the whole idea here was that words are cheap. They're funny. Life is short. It doesn't matter.
Starting point is 01:23:24 It was a generation that it just got done with AIDS. And, and, and now it's like, we're, we're injecting political correctness and sensitivity into, into even that where it's like, you have these, these crazy characters that are supposed to be by their nature over the top. They're not depicting women. They're depicting this crazy idea of drag. That's supposed to be really funny and inappropriate and, and not mainstream and, and outside of the lines by its very nature. And the most,
Starting point is 01:23:52 the funnest and coolest thing about it is that it's that, and we're making it this very boring mainstream, like drag queen soccer mom thing where like, they're supposed to be nice and they're supposed to be understanding and sensitive i'm just like how boring do we want planet earth to be that's my only question how boring do we want it to be and i mean that's that's my whole thing i'm like this is crazy do you think that we were getting to the place like i had when barry weiss was on the show we were talking about and the rise in anti-seemitism right now. And she was explaining to me why Jewish people, and I quote, don't rank.
Starting point is 01:24:29 Like in the field of perceived victims, right? In sort of the wokesters field of perceived victims, Jewish people don't rank. Notwithstanding that whole Holocaust thing and lifetime of anti-Semitism. But okay, fine. That's why. And I kind of feel like the same thing is happening to gays and lesbians. Like it's no longer exciting. They no longer rank. They have enough power now that they've been booted out of the sort of LGBTQ. It's also just about what, you know, once you have a group of people who've, you know, gone through something and they've attained some level of respect and success, they are no longer going to be an ally of your radical batshit crazy ideas, right? marginalized currently that have resentment for that. And those are the people you're able, you're going to be able to mold into radicals because people kind of lose that radical. They grow up, they get over it. They say, yeah, you know, I found a stable relationship or I
Starting point is 01:25:39 found acceptance and love in a community or I found whatever. And they're not, you know, you can't go to a gay man or woman who owns a home and has a job and is doing well and get them to believe a lot of the insanity that you can get a 17 year old to believe who's, you know, is just basically still figuring out who they are, what the world is. So a lot of these nefarious forces, they know that. So they are preying on people that may have issues psychologically. They may have trouble in their life for whatever reason. And those are the people who they're going to convince, yes, it's a great idea if we get rid of the police and cut everybody's mic,
Starting point is 01:26:23 not let everyone talk, de-platform everyone in mass, burn the books, take everyone's money. These are all great ideas. And when you're 17 years old and you have some issue with your sexuality or gender, that's probably, you're like, yeah, fuck it. Burn it all down. I don't want any part of that.
Starting point is 01:26:39 You can't come to me and say that. You can't come to me and say, we're going to destroy every part of society and replace it with this i'm gonna go no no no no no i don't think that's a good idea because i'm not an idiot so they got to find people that are in their larval stage of being it when i was 17 i was kind of an idiot so i was like you could come to me and go how about this how about we steal all your parents money take their you know and i might go yeah that's a good idea you know uh when you grow up you start going oh yeah we can't do that it's actually not going to work whatever's coming down the pike is worse you people terrify me more than
Starting point is 01:27:21 homophobes ever have uh and uh yeah no good so so that's what it is it's finding people that are really amenable to the message it's like how do we get this message in the heads of people that are most gay guys are having fun they don't really care they go out they drink they they hook up they have fun this is not they're not they don't they're not sitting there reading Karl Marx I mean it's like it's this weird sexless generation of asexual weirdos that just are you know rehashing these genocidal ideologies and saying that these are a good idea now and it's like you just need to go to Chili's and go to two for one margarita night, like meet another human being. Well, that's really what it is.
Starting point is 01:28:08 It's kind of a cure all. It's everywhere. And it's not it's not just, you know, the trans community, as you know, with this over the top stuff. And I know you've been critical of the hypocrisy when it comes to the riots, you know, in support of BLM, if that's what they were. Those are those are those are good riots. But the riot on the capital that's a bad riot yeah and i wanted to get your reaction because i like yeah well because i just saw um over the past couple of days that maybe you saw this but some norwegian guy made the nomination and black lives matter uh has been nominated for the nobel peace prize interesting yeah this is a movement that burned down police stations.
Starting point is 01:28:47 Yeah. Occupied one, tried to burn cops alive. Some of the protesters did in Seattle, the Antifa group that had infiltrated them. I mean, hundreds of people injured, 700 cops, people killed. Like the thought that peace, like prize yeah well i talked about this on rogan and me and rogan have discussed this a lot the biggest change and i'm again i'm 36 i haven't been around forever but the biggest change in my life has been uh watching people from the establishment from the media from academia, excuse and promote violence and say that this
Starting point is 01:29:26 is okay, that this is appropriate. This is a great way to get your point across, that you're allowed to riot and burn people's businesses and destroy their property and attack innocent people. That, I mean, you want to talk about a cultural shift. That was really not really like something that when I was growing up, you know, when people were violent for the most part, it was condemned. It might've been, people might've said it was okay.
Starting point is 01:29:50 And some fringe part of the, you know, but, but it was pretty much roundly condemned by people that should and did at that time. No better. Now watching that is been absurd to me. Watching people excuse Antifa blm uh on the
Starting point is 01:30:08 other side people say well the capital riot was cool and then uh what the proud boys do is whatever to me i i'm like we need to just establish something where it's like people beating each other in the streets attacking cops using and that's the thing, Rogan's a real fighter, and Rogan understands violence, right? Rogan actually understands violence. He's a fighter. The guy's a black belt. He commentates on fighting. It's what he's an expert at.
Starting point is 01:30:34 So when he sees these people that are LARPing, you know, live-action role-playing, and they're going out and pretending to be fighters, they can't fight, they're all beating each other up with hockey sticks, it's kind of embarrassing. They're like theater kids who are trying to fight or whatever's going on you know a guy like that looks at that and goes you don't understand that you're opening the gates how when you just when you use violence violence is becomes the language and that means you're going to get violence back and then it
Starting point is 01:30:58 just becomes an endless cycle of violence why nobody in the media or people that are writing articles at The Atlantic and places like that, why nobody can have that position stuns me. Like why no one can just go, should we be opening the door? Should we be legitimizing violence like this? Should we be saying this is an appropriate way to express a political idea? To me, that's the biggest shift. If you said to me, like, what's the biggest shift? It's like the idea that you could go burn down someone's business and then someone will write an article defending it in the New York Times.
Starting point is 01:31:33 That's the biggest cultural shift, and it's scary. Yeah, it was. Oh, God, the CEO of Parler came on the program, and shortly before he was on, he had interviewed with Kara Swisher, who is, you know, an established progressive, and she writes for the new york times and she's got a yeah i mean i like her i actually have a friendship with her because i can she's an interesting person i don't know much about her i heard her and sam harris and she's like she's a kick-ass person like i did i interviewed her at nbc and this is how i first met her and and uh i was saying you know there
Starting point is 01:32:04 are a lot of women out there who are suffering from, you know, a lecherous boss or whatever. And they just don't feel like they can speak up because they don't want to lose their job. I'm like, you know, and, and on the other side, I said, there's, there's a lot of men out there who still feel like they can get away with this crap with impunity. And what's your message? And she was like, um, I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you off. I like her. So she's strong. We disagree on most things political, but I like her anyway. But she was giving the CEO of Parler a hard time because he said that there had been a piece in the New York Times defending looting. She said, absolutely not. No, they didn't. No. And there was, there 100% was a piece in the New York Times talking
Starting point is 01:32:42 about defending looting. And you're right. It opens up a very slippery slope that then we saw people walk through. And I don't know whether suffered related deaths at the Capitol Hill riot. But, you know, the numbers on the BLM protests were awful. I mean, I just I was looking at it the other day after that Peace Prize nomination. It was the New York Post put the number at more than 700 cops injured. Forbes said just the first two weeks of June, 19 were killed, mostly black, could be higher than that. Hundreds of millions, maybe over a billion in property damage so it's like i'm not comparing them i'm just saying to say they have nothing to do with each other i think is too close-minded too oh of course they have they have everything to do with each other and then you know when afc goes i felt like i was going to die it's like okay but you excuse and promote the activities of people that you tell them to go into restaurants and threaten
Starting point is 01:33:44 congress people you tell them to threaten into restaurants and threaten Congress people. You tell them to threaten senators they disagree with. You don't mind when people show up outside of Tucker Carlson's house. You don't mind when people show up outside of the houses in Seattle and Portland. You're not vocal about that. You don't mind when people are harassed at their homes in front of their children.
Starting point is 01:33:59 So I don't take people like her seriously. And again, it's, you know, it's, it's unfortunate unless this changes and I don't see it like her seriously. And again, it's, you know, it's unfortunate unless this changes. And I don't see it's changing. I mean, we're living in the end here.
Starting point is 01:34:10 I mean, we're living in like, this is the end of reason. This is the end of all that. And the next step is just violence. The next step is like, unfortunately, a societal breakdown, which would be probably somewhat swift, where like you just have marauding groups of people that have problems with each other that want to fight it out. And cops are going to be like, the hell with this. And I totally understand that. They're going to be like, I'm not giving my life to get involved in this. So if people keep propping up this idea that the right kind of violence is acceptable, I can't think of a worse idea for the future of
Starting point is 01:34:46 this country than, hey, the right type of violence is good. I couldn't think of a worse idea. Like, yeah, and we'll let you make that decision. The right, just violence is good. Yeah. This is one of the problems I have with critical race theory, which is that that basically is the right type of racism is good. And it leads to a similar breakdown in society. I mean, if you think forcing all people of all races into these mandated sessions where they're told they're awful and they're supreme, they're supremacists, or so they believe just based on their pigmentation and that they have to lament and repent for sins of the father. Do you think that's going to make them feel good toward people of other races or not good? Let's be real. It's so divisive. It's going to lead to exactly the opposite result of the one that they want. But
Starting point is 01:35:35 people got their blinders on. They don't want to see that piece of the story. Yeah. Well, it's really the institutions. Nobody wants this, right? Nobody really wants this. It is truly academia. It's the media. It's now invading the courts. But people on the street, people that you talk to, people in their day-to-day lives have no use for this. They truly don't. Their concerns are largely economic. They want money. They want jobs. They want their kids to have a good life. And this identity, this rabid identity politics is, and people like Bernie Sanders, who were successful, you know, not using that. And even though he, you know, lost eventually, because I think that started to creep into his campaign more than it should have.
Starting point is 01:36:22 But he was all about like class and working people or whatever and then the minute that you know he went on rogan and then everyone turned on him and they were like he's an anti-trans guy he's it's racist you know and you're like wait what um so it's regular working people for the most part i don't think have a ton to gain from the adoption of critical race theory. A lot of this is about, I believe, people creating a hierarchy that they can kind of move up in, whether it's, you know, at a magazine, at a website, you know, in Hollywood, whatever they do, they want to just be agreeable and they want to be able to kind of push the fashionable ideas of the day. And critical race theory is one of them.
Starting point is 01:37:11 But again, this is really for upper middle class or upper class professionals who are trying to make lots of money. So what it really doesn't benefit at all is the people they purport to care about, which is working people that are working wage jobs. This doesn't help them get healthcare. It doesn't help them eventually be in a position to own a home or anything. This is just this weird way for someone to guilt other people into bettering their career. Let me ask you about Rogan because you went on there with Alex Jones, of all people, with whom I have some experience. I did. And so you went on there with him. And let me just start with what happened after because
Starting point is 01:38:00 there was some blowback. I would submit to the jury that he did not receive anywhere near the blowback for having Alex Jones on as I did for doing an interview piece with him. No, correct. But, okay. So you show up there. How did that happen? Wait, no. Let me start at the end.
Starting point is 01:38:16 Well, you're a woman. I mean, listen, you're a woman talking. So automatically there's blowback. You know what I mean? It's like you do get more. It is what it is, you know? Honestly, Tim, I've said this before, but I really mean it. All the blowback in the world what I mean? It's like, you do get more. It is what it is. Honestly, Tim, I've said this before, but I really mean it. All the blowback in the world is just fine by me. Every time they do that to me, I get stronger. That's just the truth.
Starting point is 01:38:34 If you can look at it that way and actually try to live it that way, it's fuel. It's fuel for your muscles. But I saw that blowback and I thought, OK, so what is happening with Joe Rogan at Spotify and can this relationship possibly last? Right. How can he last at Spotify by putting on folks like Alex Jones and then thumbing the middle finger, all of which I loved, at the people who objected. But what do you think? Can it last? Well, what is it? It's a three-year contract, I think. I mean, I'm sure it'll last with the contract. I mean, they paid them the money, right? I mean, they'll have meetings there. They'll talk about it. People will be upset. Employees will be upset. They'll have tummy aches. They'll need to have lie downs. They'll need to take naps. In kindergarten, we took naps. They'd put the mats out and we'd take a nap and then we'd go out and play kickball. So're going to have that you know people are going to have sad days I'm very sad
Starting point is 01:39:27 and they're going to have you know they're going to need to express themselves and be heard but at the end of the day I believe that they're going to keep their jobs because Spotify can get new people in there pretty you know these young kids that are upset about this that can you know what are they going to walk away from 150
Starting point is 01:39:44 grand a year I mean Spotify will get somebody else in there in a minute. So I think that it's going to be, you know, a lot of huffing and puffing, but they're not going to blow the house down. I mean, I don't think they're going to walk away from Joe. And obviously Joe will honor his commitment. And, you know, what's going on internally is very different, I think, than what's being reported.
Starting point is 01:40:04 I think what's being reported is, like, there's a lot of internal strife, and there's all these problems. But I think at the end of the day, it's like, Spotify's a company. They have a lot of meetings about a lot of things. I'm sure there are people with concerns. But I don't see any evidence that they censored Joe
Starting point is 01:40:20 or ever have. No. They stood by him. They stood by him, and I think that's what they're going to have to do. I think the CEO of Spotify, like, lives in Sweden or something. He,. They stood by him. They stood by him. And I think that's what they're going to have to do. I think the CEO of Spotify like lives in Sweden or something. He like doesn't care. He doesn't care.
Starting point is 01:40:31 It's amazing. It's like a mountain. If he can make it work, honestly, if he can make it work and like stand up to the cancel culture bullies there, it's a great model. And in the same way Joe Rogan's been on a lot of fronts, but it's a great model for other people, for other employers in particular. Like you can push back against the woke bullies and you're the one paying them. You're the one with the deep pocket. If you would just take a stand, we could seize back control of reasonable conversation. Right. And we hope that happens.
Starting point is 01:40:59 So how did you get to know Alex Jones? How did that relationship come about? Well, Alex is an interesting guy because I've listened to Alex for a very long time since I was like probably 13 or 14 years old. I would put Alex on, he was on the radio and, uh, you know, he was Alex Jones. He was, he was very entertaining. He was interesting. He was crazy. He was wild. I mean, he was, he's everything that he is now. And it's just, he's become more of a, a, a figure now. He wasn't really a figure then, but I mean, this was this guy with a bullhorn that was showing up at like, you know, doing 9-11 stuff. He was, you know, he was an enemy of the Bush administration. He was not loved by Republicans. And then
Starting point is 01:41:35 he was a critic of Obama. And then he infiltrated the Bohemian Grove where they have this elite weekend of all these big media guys or whatever government people they all hang out and run around. So he weekend of all these big media guys or whatever government people. They all hang out and run around. So he had done all these things, and he was always just kind of the thorn in the side of the establishment. He was kind of funny, kind of this weird grassroots Austin, Texas populist that was interesting. I mean, he was just a guy that was interesting. I'm a guy that I stay up late.
Starting point is 01:42:01 Me and other comics would smoke cigarettes at two o'clock in the morning. What are you going to watch? You watch Alex Jones. You watch somebody who is truly outside of. And then when Trump brought him in the fold and they started to he started to become more of a political figure. Really, there was a huge target on him. And obviously the Sandy Hook stuff, which, again again and this is not even a i always i know it sounds like i'm trying to like minimize my i didn't listen to him during that period so like i don't know how much he brought that up he said that he did it a few times he probably did it a lot more than that and i i know that when you are if you host a show about conspiracies and you look in every news story and you don't believe anything some of
Starting point is 01:42:45 your crazy fans are going to do horrible things and what they did was horrible and i'm i'm not defending what he did i'm certainly not defending what they did um but he's an he's a fascinating person it's like the only i don't know if he could have that job anywhere else other than america to be like a full-time conspiracy theorist and i mean the first time i met him was i was in austin doing cap city which was a comedy club there i was headlining that and i called joe and i said i was very curious you know i'd never you know i was just curious about all these things and um i was with my producer and i said let's go do alex jones's show so we did a show and it was, you know, again, he's a force of nature, very talented broadcaster,
Starting point is 01:43:28 complex dude. There's demons there. There's problems there. I mean, you know, as you can tell, you get it. And then Joe was like,
Starting point is 01:43:38 hey, why don't you do his podcast with me? And I was like, oh boy. I remember talking to Joe. I was like, this is going to be really something. And he goes,
Starting point is 01:43:44 yeah, you'll be great, mom. You'll be funny, be funny mom you know he talks very quick and like you know he's like hey mom it's gonna be good mom so I was like okay and I I did it it was this massive thing and I did did a good job I think being funny on it and trying to like direct Alex or whatever but you know wherever I am in life years from now I will be able to tell people during 2019, 2020, during one of the craziest periods in this country's history. And by the way, I hope so. I hope 10 years from now it's like this wasn't like the calm. But I hope I'm able to say that, like, yeah, I was very curious.
Starting point is 01:44:17 And like there was a media operation, you know, in the Valley of California, Joe Rogan, that I was on, you know, seven times. And I was on this other thing that this guy, Alex Jones was doing, who became like the guy and the public enemy number one. And I saw his lair, you know, I went down there to that studio and I talked to them. It's all endlessly fascinating watching the world change and watching it change and watching the evolution of media is very interesting to me. So I want to get up close and personal. I want to see these people, understand them, try to figure out what's going on. I think as a comedian and as somebody who does kind of dark comedy or comedy that, you know, is cognizant of what's going on, I do like to get, you know, in these spaces and
Starting point is 01:45:01 see these people. It doesn't mean I agree with Alex Jones, you know, about things. Some of the things he's been right about some of them he hasn't been but it's very interesting sitting in that little you know industrial park in austin and you know watching this little you know this this it's not little it's a pretty sizable operation you're probably down there i don't know where you interviewed him but like yeah watching. You've been there and you're seeing how much trouble you can get in with a few cameras. He's really wild. I got a lot of feelings about Alex Jones. He's the one person who I really get hung up on when it comes to deplatforming. I'm really right. I can I can argue to the cows come home about the importance of
Starting point is 01:45:45 free speech. And I've said before, I'm, I'm, I'm a near absolutist when it comes to the first amendment, free speech principles. Um, I've defended a lot of crazies, a lot of crazies in their right to say crazy stuff because this is America. But I will say I I'm it's, it's maybe ironic because some of the new town families were upset with me for interviewing him. Um, for the record, I've pointed this out because NBC wouldn't say it about me openly at the time, but there were 26 families, 26 Newtown families, six objected and all the others either openly supported me or had no objection to my interviewing him. Okay. So the, the six who objected to my interviewing him, even though they, you know, this had never been a thing prior when CNN
Starting point is 01:46:29 interviewed him or the New York times interviewed him or many other people. Um, you know, I, I knew that the right thing was to do the interview, even though these are the most sympathetic people in the world, because he, his presence and his sort of interference in business and lives had gone well beyond the Newtown families. And he had been extremely disruptive and destructive for a lot of groups, and it caused a lot of trouble, a lot of danger. And so I really thought it was time to shine a light on the guy. And now I'm actually good friends with one of the Newtown dads. His name is Neil Heslin, and he is a beautiful man, beautiful man. And that guy and he's a he's a Republican. He's, you know, he's not anti speech.
Starting point is 01:47:17 But Neil has said, like, on behalf of the other families, too, like this guy he needs, like what he's doing is causing real harm. All the messages put in about this being a false flag and it wasn't true and Sandy Hook didn't happen. And you know, he held his dead son. You know, it's like, I just can't, that's where my free speech absolutism stops. It's very sticky. It's very sticky. And I completely understand the rage at Alex Jones. I understand the anger at Alex Jones. I completely understand the danger of a guy like Alex Jones to say that he's not dangerous is absolutely, it would be minimizing it, right? That there's a danger in somebody being able to say whatever they want. The flip side of that is that there may be a greater danger allowing these tech platforms to unilaterally, without any process, without giving someone the ability to defend themselves, without any type of hearing, without any evidence presented, to eliminate people's ability to speak, to earn money, to unperson them, to act in a coordinated way where you have six or seven of these platforms
Starting point is 01:48:33 doing this essentially overnight at once, that also to me is dangerous. Now, what is the greater danger? Listen, this is a debate. This is a question. It's not, I'm, you know, when I read those things, I feel horrible. I got flack from some of my friends, not many of them, but there's a few of my friends that are like, you're better than that. You shouldn't have done his show.
Starting point is 01:48:58 I can't, you know, they, they, and these are good friends of mine. They weren't like, you know, the hell with you. But they were like, I'm disappointed. I don't know why you're choosing to sit down with somebody like this. I'm like, listen, man, people, and this is, again, this is not, nobody wants to hear this, right? Nobody wants to hear that people should not be necessarily defined by their biggest mistake. Now, obviously, when someone makes a horrible mistake and it affects the lives of other people,
Starting point is 01:49:32 it does define them, whether they like it or not. That will define Alex Jones forever. That is... Alex Jones has had a career for 30 years. He's said a lot of things. He said Jeffrey Epstein was bringing people to an island, have sex with them that were underage, and he was right about that. He was saying that years before anyone else said it.
Starting point is 01:49:51 He was saying things about NAFTA and the WTO and saying that a lot of these groups are going to be operating outside of the public view and making huge decisions and there's going to be massive you know, operating, you know, outside of the public view and making huge decisions. And there's going to be massive changes to the social and global structures and economic policy. And I mean, he was, you know, but yes, that is an indefensible part of whatever his legacy is going to be. And I don't think it should be defended.
Starting point is 01:50:20 I don't, I think it should just be a, he did the wrong thing. He made the wrong call and then his fans whom many of them are mentally unhinged people that's the other problem right that is his fan that is the other problem they're mentally unhinged people they did things that they should just go to jail forever for in my opinion i'm just like lock throw away the key it's like yeah you're harassing a family whose children died you you have as bob grant who i used to listen to on w uh wabc when i was a child used to say you've served notice on society like you have basically you have established who you are as a person if you're willing to do that i think alex regrets that i think towards the end of the episode with rogan i think it eats him
Starting point is 01:51:02 up i think it's why he's had issues with drinking and other substances. I think there's a lot of problems there. And I just think I've never in my wildest imagination would ever even defend anything, nor would anyone. My only thing is that I've always believed that if we give this power to tech, it doesn't stop with Alex Jones. It's not going to stop. It will continue. It will become a self-fulfilling prophecy and it will just spread like, like anything,
Starting point is 01:51:37 just like violence. I mean, I, but it is a tough one. In talking, in talking to the new town families after that whole thing, some of them, um, I was in favor of favor of his deplatforming.
Starting point is 01:51:49 I just was. I saw firsthand the pain, his hitting the subject, claiming it was false, that they made up the death of their children over and over and over. He did it repeatedly. What it caused in their lives. Some of them have to go in disguise because they get harassed nonstop. They've had death threats. One guy went to jail. It's just gotten so out of hand. And, and even in my interview with Alex Jones, he, he didn't fully own it. He kept waffling back and forth. And well, but there was evidence. It was like crazy stuff. And I did, even then I was a first amendment near absolutist. And I. And I still thought this guy should go. And I noticed at the time a lot of conservatives saying this is slippery slope because, you know, they always make bad policy in response to like the worst one.
Starting point is 01:52:36 You know, the worst one tugs at your heartstrings and you say, OK, let's change the policy. And then that comes back to haunt people who aren't anywhere near as controversial. And, you know, lo and behold, that's that's been true. So I don't have an answer. I think it's sad we can't establish universal lines that we can all say, yes, clearly that needs to not be there without completely bastardizing the principle and wind up saying, like, Trump can no longer tweet. Yeah, I would have felt better if there was some way that Alice could defend himself and then he was removed.
Starting point is 01:53:09 And then it was like, okay, he was removed. If he had a chance to say, here's what happened, and then they went, no, actually, here's what happened, and there was some process, I would just feel better about it if there was a process, that it wasn't just a unilateral decision. You know, at that point, it would have been window dressing anyway. They weren't interested in any defense he had.
Starting point is 01:53:30 Correct. You know, his goose was. And I think it's probably pretty defense, like that, that's where the crux of it is. It's like, it's kind of indefensible. So I don't know what his defense would have been. Right. So at the end of the day, it's like, it's as good a reason as any to to not be on social media right so but it's just i'm a little uncomfortable with like not there's no process no you know you know you know but it's a
Starting point is 01:53:56 tough tough one and he definitely he is suffering from some i think mental issues there's no question and um yeah you know that's a piece of this. And I actually, if you don't mind me asking, I noticed that you have some mental illness in your own family. Absolutely. And I wonder if you'd be willing to talk about it because I do think too many people are afraid to talk about mental illness. My mother is schizophrenic. She was diagnosed schizophrenic probably when I was in my late teens. She'd always been kind of an eccentric, fun person, behavior a little bit erratic,
Starting point is 01:54:28 but nothing to collecting Beanie Babies and McDonald's toys and Hess trucks and keeping on hours and worked very hard. But we'd get up at 4 or 5 a.m. because she ran a swim program, started very early in the morning and was kind of this person that was very fun. But there were real issues there.
Starting point is 01:54:47 And she, you know, was diagnosed as a schizophrenic, which means that she's got, you know, a few mental illnesses happening. There's synapses firing that are not really hitting the other side. And again, she's, you know, she's a person where we talk a lot about physical illness in this country. We don't talk a lot about mental illness, especially coming from an Irish Catholic family. Most people brush those things under the rug. They're not spoken about. But it's given me an appreciation for what I consider the Instagram mental illness, where it's like
Starting point is 01:55:28 people that are using terms like depression and anxiety, but not actually understanding what they mean. And they diagnose themselves off like a meme. And on Instagram, they don't really, they don't have any clinical diagnosis and they're not really, you know, and it's given me a little contempt for that because I think there's a fetishization of that. That's actually pretty political where people are like, if you disagree with me, I'm triggered. And I have to go lock myself in a room. And I'm like, that's not what this is like. My mom, my mother is real mental.
Starting point is 01:56:00 Like she wasn't afraid of like a discussion. This is like legit mental illness so when everybody when anybody co-ops mental illness and tries to use it as a way to get what they want or avoid uncomfortable conversations i'm like guys that's really not what it is or knowing what it is so many people today are declaring themselves right to be suffering 40 different illnesses and it's like correct you know what you're fine like you're fine you're yeah they just i talked about this with piers morgan and he had some great examples but it's like that's the other craze in today's day and age just declare yourself like suffering from this phobia or that disease or this disorder
Starting point is 01:56:39 or whatever because i mean i honestly i think it's because they've been told it's not cool to be like a normal kid. You got to find something. Yeah. Well, the other thing is, I mean, my friend who's not really succeeding at comedy and now is actually doing a lot better, sat down at lunch with his father one day and he goes, you know, I think I'm depressed. And his father says, you don't have a job, you don't have any money, and you don't have a woman. You should be depressed. So at the end of the day, there's some, you know, sometimes situational depression is situational and you got to put yourself in another situation. And it's like, but my mother legit, it does suffer. I do visit her. I talk to her. She's happy. I'm doing well in my career. She lives in an institution. You know, it's legit mental
Starting point is 01:57:21 illness. It's not like one man show mental illness or I get profiled in Rolling Stone mental. It's legit. She has issues. So I do have an appreciation for those struggles. And I do think a lot of people in comedy are crazy. I think a lot of the people I know, you know, are struggling with all kinds of things. And I think that's what makes a lot of them talented. And it's a double edged sword. A lot of the greatest artists throughout history have been people that have had these struggles and have been very sensitive people and have suffered and like that's you know part of you know people contain multitudes and a lot of the most talented people that talent you know you know and when you when you have people that are you know you know you look at a lot of the comedy that's coming out now a lot of
Starting point is 01:58:04 music or whatever it is and you go yeah this is this what healthy people make because if so let's go back to crazies because this is no good do you worry at all i mean do you worry for yourself given the genetic well i've asked doctors you know i've asked doctors they said that if i if i was going to have like a problem like that it would have probably made itself known in the latter part of my 20s or you know you know i'm 36 now i don't know that i'm super worried about that but like you know i don't drink i'm sober i've been sober 10 years a little over 10 years 11 or 12 years so i don't really do any drugs i don't smoke pot and i know that you know listen everyone loves weed but like weed can exacerbate those things.
Starting point is 01:58:45 I mean, nobody wants to admit that, but that is clinical fact. And I know that's not cool to say. Oh, I mean, I have tons of vices, right? I mean, I'm a stand-up comedian. You know, that's a vice, I think. I think of wanting people to look at you and laugh at you and validate you as a human being is probably the big vice. But yeah, I mean, food and, you know, occasionally I'll put a cigarette in my mouth. And like, there's, there are things that I, it's very, very hard to eat healthy and to exercise and to do the
Starting point is 01:59:15 right things and be honest all the time and a good person and caring and not think about yourself. And not, I mean, that's the thing when you, when you become a sober person, you realize that a lot of your issues were not actually because of booze and drugs. They were the result of, you know, just being an imperfect person. And the booze and the drugs were the medicine that actually kept those issues at bay. And so that when you sober up, you have all these things to deal with your own self-concept, how you treat yourself, what you think about yourself, what you think about other people. And I'm in a public business where people can say whatever they want about me. And I respect that right.
Starting point is 01:59:53 And I just have to deal with it. I have to ignore it or not listen to it or use what I think is useful and move on. And you're in that position too. It's like you lose the right to control what people think about you. People are going to say things that are completely untrue. They're going to say things that are somewhat true. They're going to say things that they don't have an understanding of. They're going to mischaracterize things you say and do.
Starting point is 02:00:15 And you just have to go with it and go, hey, that's cool. I know. I mean, Rogan is incredibly good at that. Totally sober is impressive. Like I have to say, I've joked with my brother, I'll never become an alcoholic because it's too important to me. I'll never refuse it to the point where it becomes a problem. Right, right. Because after that stressful day, if you have that glass of wine or you have a martini, it's like, okay, I genuinely do feel better.
Starting point is 02:00:39 And it is a vice. It's a crutch for sure. And if you ever do like the dry January or, you know, in my case with my husband, it's like the dry five days in a row, which is about how long we'll go. You realize I'm using it for sure. I use it to help me get through feelings of stress. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think that like people do use, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I just think it's like, there are those people that for whatever reason are unable to have a productive relationship
Starting point is 02:01:08 with it and that is the problem. You know, George Carlin said it perfectly. When you first start using drugs and alcohol, there's a lot of fun and a little bit of pain. There's a lot of fun, a little bit of pain. The hangovers don't even bother you. You know, you're 17. How are you supposed to be able to drink all night and get up
Starting point is 02:01:24 and go to work? You know, as a lifeguard. I have to work all day. Not a problem. And as you progress, it becomes more pain that offsets the fun. And the people that don't get off the train, by the end of it, when people are in the depths of an addiction, it's all pain and almost no fun. So it actually completely reverses. And that's the Carlin point about drugs, which is very fascinating, that it actually reverses itself completely from when you first start, where it's all fun, no pain, to then mid-ground, a lot of pain, a lot of fun,
Starting point is 02:01:56 to the end stage, all pain, very little fun. Yeah. I heard a saying about alcohol, wonderful servant, terrible master. Great, great saying. Yeah. I heard a saying about alcohol, wonderful servant, terrible master. Great, great saying. Yeah, there's a great book called Drinking Love Story by Carolyn Knapp, who ended up dying, but she was a writer. I think she was a journalist. I forget, maybe she wrote for the Boston Globe or something. She wrote this book called Drinking Love Story, and it was about that she was in love with booze. she's like the uncork of the wine bottle you know the sultry kind of seductive way that the wine would enter the glass you know she would just sit there and you know drink and then it was this amazing way to understand that it was an
Starting point is 02:02:36 amazing way to understand it and she articulated it beautifully as like that this is the great love story of her life was booze and she needs to get away from it. Sad. Well, I tip my hat to you for living in the comedy world without relying on vices. Cause I know it too often that becomes a thing. I want to ask you before I let you go, who are your favorite comedians?
Starting point is 02:02:56 Who are your, who would you say are your influences? Chelsea Hamlet? No. Patrice O'Neill, I think was one of the greatest comedians that's ever lived um uh greg giraldo was amazing uh people like bill hicks and george carlin and joan rivers were absolutely amazing people like eddie murphy and chris farley uh mike myers and you know people like uh adamler, you know, created the comedic world in which I
Starting point is 02:03:28 live, Jim Carrey. They created the world of which that's what I thought was funny, Will Ferrell. So there were standups that were brilliant. And then, you know, there were people that in the sketch comedy world created the things that I found really funny. And, you know, those people to me were brilliant. Woody Allen's brilliant. Woody Allen,
Starting point is 02:03:50 somebody that I grew up watching. Um, and there, there's just a lot of very, very funny people, even, you know, on SNL,
Starting point is 02:03:58 you had people like Gilda Radner and people like Jane Curtin and people, you know, that were incredibly funny. And again, helped form my ideas of what funny was. radner and people like jane curtain and people you know that were incredibly funny and again helped form my ideas of what funny was and and those people later on became like people like sherry or terry or marley shannon or anagasta like it was yeah really really funny people and then you know there's so many different comedic influences that are are out there and so many different funny people that
Starting point is 02:04:26 it's hard to really pinpoint but that's the you know the we'll grow up in a world of funny and i mean you know for my grandfather it was jackie gleason and jackie gleason's a genius and for me i can appreciate jackie gleason go this guy was amazing but my grandfather grew up in that world of like jackie gleason and ed sullivan and johnny cars it's like, we go, I grew up in a world of David Letterman and Conan O'Brien and, you know, all of these different, you know, people that have added something to what I consider funny.
Starting point is 02:04:54 I love all the names you just said. Most of those SNL characters, um, actors, whatever. Comedians. I watched first time around back in the seventies when I would hang out at my Nana's house and,
Starting point is 02:05:03 you know, she let me watch endless hours of television. After she went to bed, there was nothing on except for SNL, which was definitely inappropriate for me. And I didn't get much of the humor. But those are the people who were on back then in the 70s. And totally brilliant. And two points. Number one, not a single one of the ones you named are political.
Starting point is 02:05:20 They all managed to poke fun at both sides, which is one of the reasons why we love them. Why the whole country loved them. Somebody like Johnny Carson, he got it. He knew exactly how far to push it with both sides. And number two, I hope this is a compliment, but you remind me of Chris Farley. Yeah, well, I always take that as a compliment. You're as funny as he is. You are as funny as he is.
Starting point is 02:05:42 Well, I don't know about that. You are. He's a real force. We're very different types of comedy. We do different types of comedy, but he's one of the funniest people I think that's ever lived, I would say. And there's a few guys that are just really forces of nature
Starting point is 02:06:01 where their talent comes from somewhere else. It's like from another planet, you know, and it's like, you're in awe of them, whether it, you know, Robin Williams was probably one of those people. Chris Farley was one of those people. Eddie Murphy is one of those people where you look at them and you're just completely amazed by the level of talent they have. And it's just not something that we can, we can barely understand it. So, I mean, listen, it's a very big compliment. I don't think I'm worthy of it, but, you know, all of those guys are, you know, tremendous.
Starting point is 02:06:30 Dana Carvey, whoever, Chris Rock. I mean, you look, all these guys are tremendously funny. And you just hope to be good enough that you have some small part of that world and that somebody growing up will appreciate what I've done or what I'm trying to do. And, like, that's just a hope, you know, we're just trying to make people laugh here because life sucks. You know, life's hard. If you're looking to feel valued and validated,
Starting point is 02:06:54 I hope you feel it right now. I'm feeling it towards you and I have a feeling my audience. I appreciate it. You're the best, Megan. And thank you for having me. I'm a big fan and I hope that you continue to speak because you're an important voice out there and we really appreciate you doing what you're doing. Oh, thanks, Tim. And wait, before I let you go, how can people find you and support you? Tim J. Dillon, D-I-L-L-O-N on Twitter and Instagram. The Tim Dillon Show is a podcast that is weekly.
Starting point is 02:07:20 It's on YouTube. You can subscribe to the Tim Dillon Show on YouTube and find me on social media, Tim J. Dillon. And follow me on Clubhouse if you have the invite. Shut up, you. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear. Thank you.

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