#15 - Played Out w/Kevin Kautzman

#15 - Played Out w/Kevin Kautzman

Comedic playwright/podcaster…podwriter? It’s an emergent genre, and he’s doing it. Kevin Kautzman joins us from an undisclosed New Orleans Air BNB to talk about his talk about his new Podcast Play “Moderation” which can be found at moderationplay.com. We discuss that, but after Josh spends the first half of the podcast talking about his most recent failed legal endeavor, and what’s wrong with our newfound big brother legal system.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hey, everybody, just wanted toget this episode of the Darkest Hour out
to you for this week. Acouple housekeeping things on the show. You'll
notice that the feed of episodes skipsfrom episode thirteen to fifteen. Why is
that for episode fourteen or what Ithought was episode fourteen? I ended up
doing a solo episode which is nowgoing to be something called Solitary Confinement,

(00:25):
which will be only available on thevideo streams. So any of my solo
episodes you'll be able to watch onFacebook or YouTube on the live streams.
And so though there's sort of thisweird missing episode fourteen on the feed,
which is kind of cool because youhave to listen to this one to know
what happened to that one. Soyou can listen episode fourteen or watch episode

(00:47):
fourteen on YouTube dot com slash JoshDenny Comedy or Facebook dot com slash Josh
Denny Official. All of the SolitaryConfinement podcast episodes of The Darkest Hour,
which are just solo shows with me, will be available on those feeds,
and the regular episodes like this onewith Kevin Kottsman will be on the podcast

(01:08):
feed as well, and these willcome out going forward on Tuesdays, and
then the solitary confinements may drop whoknows many times throughout the week whenever the
mood strikes. So if you haven'talready subscribed to those two video channels,
whichever one you prefer, the feedgoes out live on both at the same
time via stream yard, so youcan follow along live when we do those

(01:30):
episodes. This episode, I wantto first off apologize with the audio.
For whatever reason, my mic soundedlike shit for this entire episode, and
we tried to it was funny.We spent a lot of time working on
trying to get Kevin's shit right,and then my shit ended up being terrible,
and it looked fine when we wererecording it, and then I went
back and played it back and theimport file the audio is shit. So

(01:53):
mine sounds a little tinny and echoe. You know, hopefully that that doesn't
can continue, or I shouldn't sayit's not. Hopefully it's not going to
continue, But unfortunately it's not somethingI can do to rectify, or not
something I can rectify for this episode. The other thing though, that it
is exciting is if you can bearthe audio of this one. This is

(02:13):
probably my favorite episode of the darkestHour We've done yet. Kevin, I've
been friends with on social media fora while. It's a very funny dude,
great Twitter commenter, always has funnyand incipful things to say, and
came on the podcast to promote thissort of play by podcast that they have
created, and the link is includedin the video links for this podcast.

(02:36):
We also talk about it on thepodcast. You can go check it out.
I encourage you guys to go listento it. But really just a
great conversation about where things are.You hear a little bit of an update
and some finality to some of thelegal battles I've been fighting over the last
year and a half. Not theresult we wanted, but hey, you
don't fight, you don't. Youdon't decide to fight if you only know

(03:00):
you're gonna win, If you knowyou're gonna win, it's not that much.
It's not much of a fight.What am I talking about? So
you know, we lost this one. Not thrilled about it, but you
know, we move ahead and that'sall we can do. And boy,
is America in for a fight rightnow. We talk a little bit about
that, and I think we didthis on Monday before the election, and

(03:24):
so you know, you're you're hearingall this sort of optimism and us not
knowing anything about what was about tohappen on Tuesday. As you you know,
you could also decipher from my soloepisode called The Election Special, Episode
fourteen. So enjoy this episode.New episodes on Tuesdays. If you're a

(03:46):
new listener to the podcast, Thankyou for tuning in and listening. Subscribe.
If you prefer the video format,subscribe over there. And as always,
we appreciate any likes, comments,and any positive feedback and negative feedback
you go fuck yourself. We don'tneed that. So I hope you guys
enjoyed this episode. Hello Darkness,smile friend. I've come to talk with

(04:12):
you again because a vision softly creepingleft it sees while I was sleeping,
and the vision that was planting madlystilling these There's two ways to see things

(04:34):
like in the world. One isto try to find a way to laugh
at it, and the other isto just live a miserable existence where you're
unhappy about everything. What the fuckis that you really adopted the duck I
was wanting it? That seems reallydark now, I was not darking misunderstanding
me, Bro, that is gonnaget dark for people? No, God,

(04:58):
please, no. Do you thinkthat anybody that does enjoy dark comedy
that it's indicative of a deeper evil? I'm nakah, do you understand.
I'm in nadak Kevin, thank youfor joining, Josh, thanks for having
me. Yeah, man, youwere just telling me, You're like,

(05:21):
uh, something is sort of parfor the course for your day. Have
you had a terrible day as wellgoing into the election. I have had
a week of and I'm not oneof these it's mercury retrograde or whatnot,
but it's it's definitely that vibe.Something's going on one thing after the n
accident. But it's been it's beenvery very high and very very low.

(05:44):
That's why. That's why I havethis lighting setup. This is we are
in the fucking ninth circle of hell. We are in the apocalypse, all
right, And uh, you knowthis is how my day has been so
far. Let's see, how didit start out? Um? It actually
started out okay, like I felt, I was like I woke up,

(06:05):
I Um, I was like Imade a commitment to like start working out
again this morning. So I wokeup at a decent hour, I got
a good full night's sleep last night, started working out, and then as
soon as my workout ended, likethe bad news just starts rolling in and
it kind of I guess it kindof started this weekend. So like,

(06:26):
first of all, I don't needto tell you that twenty twenty has been
the year for hell for most people. Um, I feel like it's been
an especial and it kind of likeour shitty years started in spring of twenty
nineteen, when I was working fora company that decided two days into me
working for them, didn't want meto work there anymore because of my career.

(06:47):
I read about this, right,so you you flame out of comedy
because you're you're offensive and then thenormy job cancels you as well. Is
that is that the yeah? Imean I say, flamed out a company
definitely out of definitely out of myability to work for companies like the Food
Network for sure, right yeah?Successful, Yeah, no, no,

(07:12):
I'm not let's not let's not gothat far. I'm working at it,
but it's but it's literally the lastlife raft on the Titanic for me is
like, well, now I haveno choice but to make it as a
comedian because the regular world is donewith me. Yeah, a couple of
different things. So, so Ihad worked for this boss for many,
many years. And some people haveheard this story, so they're probably tired

(07:33):
of it already. But I workedfor this bo. I've known this dude
since I was like nineteen years old. And I was a store manager in
Minnesota for Hollywood Video and then recruitedme to three other companies. This last
one recruited me there and uh,it did not pan out. Some girl,
you know, I had like aTwitter controversy in the spring of twenty

(07:55):
eighteen where I essentially condemned, youknow, the open level of racism that
we see every day towards white men. And I did it in the very
hyperbolic Josh any way of using anextreme to make my point, which people
didn't like. And then, ofcourse what the Internet does is they go
back and they find every time you'veever made a joke about people of color

(08:16):
or women or gay people, andthen they use that to build a case
that you are, in fact awhite supremacist. So this is the world
we live in now. So twodays into that job, I had a
girl that didn't even wasn't even gonnawork in my department, didn't work for
me, didn't report to me,report to HR that they had just hired

(08:39):
in a director position, a positionthey created for me, a racist,
homophobic comedian, and so they firedme two days in that job. I
have been in an arbitration case withthem for the last year and a half,
so since like they let me goin March of nineteen and and I

(09:01):
just found out today that we lostin summary job. So that's my great
news today, you know, souh, you know which, And it's
tough because, like, this isthe problem that you run into, right,
is that our our belief, ourcase was built around the idea that

(09:22):
what they didn't make the firing decisionbecause of the comedy. Everybody knew about
the comedy going in. Everyone knewI was a comedian. It was sort
of the same thing with Food Network. Food Network was never gonna come out
and be like, we didn't knowthat this guy did offensive comedy because they
do these massive background shows of allyour social and everything before you sign your

(09:43):
your futures contract with them, sothey knew about everything, so they had
no deniability. That's why they nevercommented on the Twitter controversy, and it
was like six months after they didn'trenew the contract for the show anyway,
But you know, we the interestingthing was all of the tweets and stuff

(10:03):
that they submitted as sort of theircause for terminating me were all political in
nature, all things about sort ofconservative viewpoints, and so in California,
you know, your political speech andsocial media is protected. You can't be
fired for those things. And thecase just basically came down to the company
going, well, we think he'sa racist, sexist, homophote based off

(10:26):
of all these podcasts and all thesetweets and everything else. And we tried
to prove that that wasn't the case, that they knew about all those things
when they hired me, and thatit wasn't until they uncovered some of the
political things that the girl who complainedset, like, particularly the fact that
I'm a pro life dude. Thatgot that was one of the things they

(10:48):
brought forward. And so I waslike, well, wait a minute,
was the decision made. Was thedecision made to fire me because I've said
inappropriate things as a comedian, whichyou knew when you hired me, or
was it made because you found outthe abortion. Yeah, and so that
that was essentially the angle we tookon the case, and we were not
victorious, and that happens. ButI will tell you this, I'm the
kind of guy it's like, you'llnever know how many are gonna win or

(11:11):
lose, but I'm never going tolet that keep me from fighting. And
the scary thing about stuff like thisis like every single job I've looked at
at a senior level since then,they all have these employment contracts for arbitration.
So the difference between the case Ihad in twenty thirteen that we settled
and I'd won some money from throughsettlement, was there was no contract for

(11:37):
arbitration. We sued them an opencourt and we settled out of court.
Now you basically can't get any executivelevel job anywhere without signing a contract for
arbitration, which means you forego yourright to sue your employer in open courts.
So you know, people have tobe very any who's watching this who

(12:01):
is like at a company that iseither recently instituted contracts for arbitration and employment
or you're looking at jobs and alot of people are turning over new jobs
right now because of COVID. Youhave to make sure that you're not signing
one of these agreements for arbitration,because arbitration and open court are very very
different, So like you don't havethe protections of the public court system at

(12:26):
your behest. And these large corporationsare defended by these massive law firms that
only defend corporations. They do waymore business with the companies the defendants than
they do with the plaintiffs, andso the arbitrators are incentivized to rule in
these sub ray judgments with the defensebecause they're going to get more work and

(12:50):
they're going to make more money fromthese large firms that defend companies versus people
that you know act as plaintiff attorneysfor people like you and I. So
you know, it's, uh,that's this is the nineteen eighty four world
we're living in there. It is. It's very Orwellian and strange and Stalinism.

(13:11):
Uh comes with a happy meal.Now, well yeah, and you
know it's not long before a guywho you know decides I'm going to make
a three act play in the formof a podcast and put it online and
next thing you know, your HRmanagers bringing it up in your day job,
go out, what the fuck isthis? Absolutely, and we're talking

(13:31):
about my new play, Moderation Moderationplay dot com and uh, it's a
podcast in three parts. Like likeJosh said, Uh, you're right.
And and there is that ugly tensionin American life. We know that we
don't support the arts. We're terribleat it in that sort of modest European
way where you imagine that you know, somebody the state will give you a

(13:52):
little bit of money. We don'teven bother to do that. It's it's
actually worse because we have this weirdkind of hyper calvinist idea and now every
everything you do, everything you say, is monitored and watched. And if
comedians can't have the long leash,nobody can. Yeah. The thing I've
always the thing I've always said inthis is like, you know, yes,
I'm fighting for you know, somerestitution in the term of in form

(14:18):
of money or whatever, but ultimately, in all these cases, I'm fighting
for the comedians right to not betaken seriously, you know. And like
I started doing comedy when I hada corporate job, Like I started doing
open mics, and you know,I was a district manager for Croc Shoes,
and I had a ton of stockmoney for that company everything else.

(14:39):
If if we lived in the worldthen in two thousand and six, that
we do today in twenty twenty,like, I would have never even been
able to keep that job, eveneven being an open micer. Yeah yeah,
wait wait, and you have aMinnesota connection. Yeah, well,
I graduated high school in Minnesota whereBoston. Oh yeah, ok, yeah,

(15:01):
Southern minister, right, you mightas well be in Iowa. Yeah
you pretty much? Are you prettymuch? Are all right? And did
you say Hollywood Video. I haven'tthought of Hollywood Video in years, No,
And I was so when I graduatedhigh school in two thousand and one,
I was working part time in HollywoodVideo, and then in the summer
after graduation, I ended up workingfull time, became an assistant manager,

(15:24):
store manager, training store manager,district manager, all within five years.
And then actually two of my formerco workers from Hollywood Video speak of the
Devil are in the chat right now, but catching up but yeah, we
uh you know. And then themanager from that company recruited me away,
the guy who kind of one ofthe guys who helped bring me through my

(15:45):
career, recruited me away to CROsand we built CROs Retail from the ground
up in two thousand and six.I stayed there until two twelve and then
left with him to Sean John,which was an all black company by the
way, so you know, youcan imagine how long I lasted there as
the white supremacist that I apparently am. And then we went to He went

(16:11):
worked at a couple different places.I went worked at another place, and
then a couple years later got theshow ginormous food. And then when that
came to an end, we hadkind of been talking about me going back
to work with him at his newcompany, and that finally happened for two
days. And then after about ayear of like the recruiting process and back
and forth and negotiating and meeting withthe president of the company, and you

(16:34):
know, like it's so funny,when I left, man, the this
will stick out of my mind forever. So the night Brodie Stevens passed away,
everybody was getting together to Comedy Storeto commemorate him, and I couldn't
go because I was doing this jobinterview. And this job interview was supposed

(16:55):
to last from like four in theafternoon to five. I was there till
seven, uh, like seven thirty, and it was all the way down
in Orange County and I'm in LAand um the uh. I wasn't gonna
say the um. On my wayout of the interview, the guy was
like, hey, start looking forhouses down here. And then I was

(17:18):
fired two days into that. Soit's just like, you know, like
what the fuck? And then toadd insult to injury, I couldn't even
go, you know, support myother friend. I wasn't really good friends
with Brodie. I knew Brodie prettywell and and I had done some podcasts
and some comedy store shows with him, but uh, some of my real
some of my really good buddies werereally good friends with him, and they

(17:42):
were all getting together to store,and I just I didn't even make it
back in time. I got backat like eleven o'clock at night. Everybody
was already gone, and you know, it was like, you know,
to add insult to injury, Iwas like sacrificing being supportive to people who
had really been there for me whenwhen I had a ship time. And
then on top of it, itwas for no reason, you know,

(18:03):
for a job that I ended upnot even getting or keep it. So
what a drag. And it wasit was because of your Twitter comments and
because of this trail of comedy thatyou left behind that they were able to
ask you for that. Yeah,I mean, well, you know,
and California companies can fire you forwhatever they want. You know, they
can. They can. This isthe problem, right, They can look
at your social media and unless it'sprotected political speech, unless it's about your

(18:29):
religion, or unless it's labor organizing, they can make hiring and firing decisions
based off of that, which Ithink is hilarious. Like, you know,
I was looking at a job postedby Netflix the other day and they
have this sort of optional section whichliterally you divulge everything identitarian about your existence.

(18:51):
So it's what is your sexual orientation, what is your ethnicity? How
do you identify gender wise? Basically, like what are your political leanings?
And p I don't know how manypeople are offering this up, probably everybody,
but people are literally just going goahead and discriminate against me in the
hiring process. And you know,we we're letting this slide as a country.

(19:14):
We're letting companies operate this way,and we're letting them decide who they
hire based off of shit that issupposed to be protected by our government and
our laws. Well, and sothese companies are risk averse. So they're
doing it because they know that thereis a litigiousness, you know, across
the land, and people want tosue in any any little move they'll make
to prevent somebody from doing that.And I'm not talking about a case like

(19:37):
girls. I'm talking about the moreobvious examples and come in. You basically
have entire classes of people who areunfiable now, absolutely, and everyone knows
it. And I'm a member ofI'm a member of none of them,
right of course. And it justthey'm a white guy who likes pussy,
I am, and no, butit's it's like, guy, it's like

(20:00):
you're playing, uh, the Legendof Zelda, right, you remember remember
that game on where the tiles keepfalling away and you have to run around
the room until you're still standing ona tile. Kind of what they're doing.
And then of course the whole roomrepresents the old the old dream,
you know, the MLK dream ofthe merit of the individual. Where did

(20:22):
that? Where did that go?I know, these are sort of talking
points in cliches. But it's reallytrue that we you know, we were
I really we really were brought upat least I was. I was raised
by school kids or school teachers inNorth Dakota and school children. I was
raised by school children. We didn'tkind of raise ourselves, no, but
my parents were were school teachers,and we really kind of were like,

(20:42):
Okay, well we judge everybody basedon the merit of there, this and
that, and now conduct we judgepeople how they conduct themselves. And I
know it's like we're not even allowedguys like us, you know, pussy,
you know team Uh, we're noteven allowed to say these because now
you sound awful. And it's like, well, wait a minute, that
really gonna have I'm gonna have tostart sucking dick just to protect my civil

(21:06):
rights. There you go, I'mjust gonna happen. I'm gonna have to
cut mine off and put other peoplesin my mouth just so that I can
live a normal life. Yeah,you know, I support that. Well,
you don't have a choice. Ifyou said you didn't support it,
Somebody five years from now would findthis and be like that Kevin is anti
trans is that's right, Well,you know it's fun is Uh. I

(21:29):
run my own company, so yeah, there you go. I mean,
you know, but again, thisthis group, if they really want to
come after you, I mean,I can't imagine what it's like. I
remember seeing it pop off for youand following you and kind of watching it
happen and thinking, wow, thisis I mean, this has got to
be difficult. I remember watching itand you know, we're it's it's twenty

(21:52):
twenty. That was in twenty eighteen. It's still affecting your life. You're
still in the wake of it.It will be you know. Uh.
It's funny because one of my goodfriends, uh she's an okay friend,
I guess one of my friends.Uh. This is a this is the
world we live in now where you'reconstantly questioning the validity of your friendships now
because you're like, well, youknow, this person did this one good

(22:15):
thing, but then they did twoother shitty things. So now where do
they? Where do I rate them? She's like a seven, she's a
seven friend. Um, but uh, she was like, I don't even
think this will be a thing goingforward. It's like it will never not
be a thing. It will alwaysbe a thing. And the hope is
eventually we get to a point whereeveryone has a thing and then it won't

(22:36):
be a thing because the idea ofit becoming not a thing we've jumped.
That's jumped the shark. We're waypast that point now. It's just got
to get to a point where theguy interviewing you got me too, and
you've got called a white supremacist,and they go, wow, fuck it,
let's work together. Yeah, it'sLouis right. Obama knows my thing.
Obama knows my thing. I mean, what a good that's a funny

(22:57):
punchline, of course. Yeah,yeah, it's just great. Yeah,
I mean, you know, andthat's the thing is, like I've made
I've made jokes about every group ofpeople on the internet. I haven't jerked
off at somebody with my you know, blocking the door. I mean,
and what scale? Where is thescale? You know what I mean?

(23:17):
Like, because it's kind of likeall the same now where it's like a
guy who makes uh jokes about differentraces and Cosby and I would think Cosby
is like clearly up here and peoplelike no, because of because of your
white privilege, Because of your whiteprivilege, you and Cosby are now equals.
Yeah, yeah, it's fun maththat No, yeah, that's that's

(23:41):
not not healthy healthy society that way. But you know, we we had
to squeeze this in today because wewere going to do it tomorrow and then
we were like, no, no, we can't tomorrow. It's the apocalypses
tomorrow. We're trying to get thisout. Well, there's still time.
Uh yeah. Being of which areyou occurred in somewhere in preparation. I

(24:02):
am in New Orleans, I livein I was living in New York.
My fiance and I found out wewere gonna have a baby. We you
know, we decided to move backto Minneapolis. Oh okay, yeah that
was fun. That has been afun year. You know. So December
find did you go to Minneapolis andthen the George Floyd thing happened? Yes,
okay, yeah, I've been thinkingof starting a Patreon where people paying

(24:23):
me to stay out of their town. Yeah, I just following you,
like the plague. It was brutalbecause we were like New York, Oh,
we're gonna enjoy one last spring inNew York and all the you know,
the birds, and we've got ababy coming up. Fine, and
then no Doom done and then Mayone, Minnesota, Saint Paul. Okay,
this is nice. Maybe it's gonnaopen up Helter skelter. Yeah,

(24:47):
that's that's insane. It really,it's really been a crazy year. Um,
but we're doing all right. We'rehappy, baby, and then the
Katrina too happens now that you guysare just was yeah what oh, I
can't remember, Felix, I can'tremember. There's too many of them now,
but how can They're never really ethnicnames, how Cole. It's never

(25:08):
like Hurricane Diamonique. You know whenwe talk about how come the hurricane people,
how come BLM is not campaigning formore diversity in the naming of hurricanes.
This is a good bit that you'reonto here. Well, you know,
it's just a question, doesn't haveto be a bit, but there
there's never been a hurricane Chaquiqua neverhad no no, Yeah, you're right,

(25:30):
even though most of the hurricanes aredirectly affecting the SEC. So you
know, you would think it wouldbe a naturally fitting. They have some
good teams down here, they do. Yeah, this is this is New
Orleans. It's my first time here. You're a food, you're a food.
Yeah. Yeah, one of myfavorite food one of my favorite episodes
of Gnomous Food was in New Orleansand the best pizza place in the country

(25:55):
in my opinion. Now I haven'teaten them all, but the best New
York style pizza place is actually inNew Orleans. It's a place called Pizza
Delicious, Okay, and you gotto check it out. I think it's
in the ninth Ward. I'm notsure, but it's like down the street
from a hipster record shop in themiddle of the woods. That sounds pretty
good to me. Oceana is killingit for us here. This is it's
so good good. I had alligatorfor the first time today. Yeah,

(26:19):
oh yeah, I love I lovealligators. Oh it was so good.
Have you been to dat dog yet? No? That dog's great? That
dog? And uh that dog?And what's the Bigner's place us day?
Yeah, there's a famous Bignets spot. Uh. Actually I can't remember that.

(26:41):
Yeah, it's it's like if youlook up New Orleans Bignats, it
will be the first. I don'twant to. Yeah. I was born
and raised in Philadelphia and then inhigh school moved to Minnesota. Oh,
Cafe Dumont yeah, yeah, we'regoing there tomorrow. Yeah, yeah,
yeah. And then if you yeah, it's yeah, it's New Orleans is
a great place. I mean asidefrom the physical you know, cities of

(27:06):
New parts of New Orleans, it'sgreat. Uh you know the when you
go that's the thing is like whenyou go down to like the French Quarter
and you go, you know throughwhere Marty grown everything happens, that's all
fun and nice and everything, andthen you get like six blocks off of
that, you're like, oh,this place is fucked up real, Yeah,
this is not this is the wire. We walked into our Airbnb and

(27:30):
the hostess who's lovely was cleaning itwith her hitherto tenant, her last renter,
who for lack of a better word, looks like a stripper who's on
the other side stripping, and she'sretired or needs she's retired into drifting Airbnb's.

(27:55):
So they're cleaning the place. Thiswoman who's loved the darling Southern hospitality
comes comes to us and goes,now, I see you have a baby.
You know, I've had to I'vehad to evict some people here just
here. He was talking a lotof shit. I called the police Uh
so, I just want you toknow, you know, if you if
you want to go, you cango. We're looking around. We're going,
you know, we'll be okay,We'll be okay every day. This

(28:18):
this woman has come knocking on thedoor. She's claimed her cell phone is
lost. This stripper looking woman,she clearly on some sort of upper you
know. She walks through the place, looks for her cell phone. I
walk her out the back, crazyand there are She's like, oh look,
I've found my cell phone. It'sright here inside your wallet under this
loose cash. It was crazy,but you know what, Happy Halloween from

(28:44):
New Orleans again. Little streets ofblood. We keep finding it. And
this is how I know, youknow, my fiancee, love her to
death, my soulmate, mother andmy child. Uh Like, she looks
at me and we keep finding streetsof lett and we're laughing together. This
is perfect. Yeah, you needWell, that's how you know when you
found the right one. Is whenyou guys can just look at blood stains

(29:06):
and go remember the good old days. I mean funny, yeah, exactly.
Yeah, that's the world we livein now, is where blood stained
Airbnb is like this, you know, at least I don't have to wear
a fucking mask. So yeah,yeah, yeah, but it's it's actually
a pretty cool place. But yeah, it's good. So well, it
sounds like you've got a lot ofgood exploring to do in New Orleans.

(29:27):
And you know, how does howdoes the constant change of scenery sort of
play into your work creatively? Imean, has the year contributed a lot
to the project? Well? Sookay, So Moderation is a new play
that's it's a podcast based on myplay. I wrote it last year in
the summer in New York City.It's something so pre apocalypse, pre apocalypse

(29:49):
when I saw the apocalypse coming,and so people people, Uh, it's
one of those funny things where youwrite this ugly play that gets a really
strong reaction for people like my girlfriendat the time, not not a fan,
but other people are like, she'sfucking gone, He's gone, He's
got your Your mutual friend. ChrissieMeyer is actually instrumental in in that breakup

(30:11):
because that night that Chrissie Meyer uhhad her show at the Westside Comedy Club
when Bill Burr popped in. Famously, that was the night that my X
and I broke up. We knewbecause she was not happy with the way
that went with Bill Burr walking thesewomen and all this, and that was
it. That that was the strawthat broke the camel's back. That was

(30:33):
awesome. Um but anyway, yeah, no, so, I mean,
we're so. I was writing itlast year. It's a play. It's
strange. It's very strange to bea play right in America period, Like
people think you're you know, youhave to be some sort of case,
right, it's a little think you'relooking for his homosexual right right, yes,
circle right indeed, Yeah, that'ssaying that. Um but uh,

(30:56):
you know, I love it.I love the theater and the reason I
write for theater is because so muchof it sucks. It's one of those
things where like, I love it. I've had great nights in the theater.
I spent some time in England andthe like the London theater is like
incredible, blah blah blah. Anyway, I wanted to write this play for
a while. It's it's about socialmedia content moderators losing their minds at work.

(31:18):
And I finally got around to itlast year. I was sort of
paying attention, you know, andfinally kind of history and the timing caught
up with it. And the momentwhen I knew I finally had to sit
down and write it is when Iread an article and I think it was
in the Verge. You could lookit up by if you just look up
Facebook Content Moderators PTSD, you'll findthese stories the content moderators. The story

(31:41):
goes something like it might have beenNPR. It kind of went something like,
oh no, Mark Zuckerberg and companyare employing tens of thousands of social
media content moderators and they're starting tobelieve the conspiracy theories. Yeah, And
that to me was like, whichis pretty gay? Yeah, right right,

(32:02):
No, It's like it's like thatyou think about like the scene in
a clockwork orange, you know,yeah, well, and it's also sort
of like, you know, howmuch I mean there is absolutely some truth
to the fact that like if yousee something over and over again, no
matter how much you know it's nottrue, you start to question reality,
you know. And it's that that'sthat's why propaganda works at all, is

(32:25):
because of the repetition and the frequencyand the amount of times you see something
and it's like I just watched thatepisode of Rogan's podcast where he had the
dude on from The Social Dilemma,you know, that documentary about the effects
social media has on society, andhe was kind of talking about that frequency

(32:45):
thing of like you know the YouTube, because you like looked at one thing,
they'll know that. Well, ninetythousand other people when shown a flat
Earth conspiracy video after seeing that,will click it and engage with it.
And it's like, you know,as absurd, I think, as something
like flat Earth is. You canwatch enough videos in the course of two

(33:07):
days, one hundred, two hundredwhere you start to go and so you
know, that's where you I thinkthese worlds like QAnon and everything else where
people go like how do people believethis stuff? And it's like, well,
they see it enough and it's it'sconstantly reflected at them that they start
to lose grip on what's real andwhat's not real, and it's and it

(33:29):
happens on both sides. Well,and there are absolutely it does Russia,
right, Yeah, I'm sure thatPutin has to fix in tomorrow, right,
or even just the racism, thewhite supremacy stuff, like Stephen Crowder
did a really good one that's onYouTube right now from the last couple of
days, where you know, hewould show people the good people on both
sides thing that Trump lay from charlottesor Charlottesville, and and you know,

(33:53):
everyone's like, yeah, I can'tbelieve he didn't condemned white supremacy, and
then would literally show them the otherhalf of the clip where he condemns assistant
neo Nazis and says, I'm nottalking about them. They should be condemned
totally. And then people are movedthe embassy to Jerusalem, I know,
and it's like he's he's jew He'sgot many Jewish people in his family,

(34:15):
this whole idea for landmark Middle Easternpeace deals in the past six months,
and it's like they don't even talkabout it. Yeah, and God and
God bless them, and God blessthem and fine, but it's like you
you really can't spend more than tenminutes really dipping past that final hurdle after
you pass the alt right and youget into the crazy pill. Yeah,

(34:37):
the area there, there's no wayhe's maybe he's dog whistling to them somewhat
for the vote, but there theircore plank is that whole thing. I
mean it's just it's cool, andthere's such a small faction of people,
like you know, when people go, well, you know, he's dog
whistling to white supremacists, it's like, Okay, let's assume that's really what's

(35:00):
happening. How many how many peopleis that? Okay, it might be
there might be white supremacists, theremight be. I'll be generous and say
there's a million. Okay, it'sokay. So you think he's dog whistling
to the million hardcore white supremacists inthe country. Meanwhile, Joe Biden is

(35:22):
having a sit down interview with Cardib and he's pandering how many Cardi Bee
fans are out there? I don'tknow. Is he dog whistling to the
hundred and fifty million Cardi Bee fans? Like nobody? It's just like thae
for a second. Yeah, no, And we assume we accept all of
this narrative just because it's the narrative, like it's it's because this is what

(35:45):
it is, and we don't.Yeah, but then we have conversations like
this and and things. Do youknow you kind of the brain lights up
a little bit and you're not youjust have to get you just have to
start to look at things a littledifferently, and then suddenly everything's you know,
blown wide open. Well, andyou know that it's just the last
I did a solo episode earlier todaybecause I had another guest that didn't show

(36:07):
up, so thank you for sumYeah, but I ended up doing a
solo episode and talking a little bitabout election stuff. And it's like,
it's sort of like Carlin said,like you have to realize the owners of
this country have made all of thesedecisions without your input long ago. And
you know, I think the awakeningthat's happening right now is that the American

(36:30):
people. I think, on allsides, no, we're all getting fucked
over. We're all getting a shortend of the stick. When when you
get through the rhetoric of it,the question is is now we're arguing over
who we'd rather be fucked by,the guy who's telling us he's fucking us
or the guy who's going to keeptrying to hide it. And so that

(36:51):
then becomes sort of an ideological difference, and well, I'd rather be face
to face, and the other guyslike I'd rather take it from behind,
you know, And everyone's basically justarguing over what position they like to be
fucked in. It is semantics atthis point, it really is. I
mean, and the only argument Iwould make where maybe I'm completely off base
in this thinking is like, isit weird that I trust a guy who

(37:15):
was already a billionaire has nothing reallyto gain by becoming president is almost fucking
dead Other than I believe yes,he did it because he wants to be
the greatest American story ever told.This wealthy, successful businessman who eventually became
president and became a very good president. I think he probably became president for

(37:37):
the same reason that Reagan did,not as like some let me line my
pockets, because this is a guywho could already do that. You know,
I think there is a little bitof like, maybe the guy just
wants to do something worthwhile before hekicks the bucket. Well, Biden is

(37:57):
China, well in government for fiftyyears, He's been enriched by government.
So you know, what I saidon a podcast earlier was like, Yo,
you've got to be concerned about thepeople who have been enriched by government,
continue to be enriched by government,and ultimately this system is fucked until
we get to a point where weno longer let elected representatives become enriched by

(38:22):
serving the people, you know,like you can't. We were talking in
the chat on the last podcast,like do you know how much money a
congressman mats in their first term?One hundred and seventy thousand dollars a year.
That's about four times the national medianincome, right, So why would
an elected official not make the medianincome for their area? And if you

(38:45):
want to make more, you gotto raise that number up. You have
to. In the case of thesenators and the congress people like they do
have bigger expenses, you'd have toaccount for that. But you could do
that, You could do that.But there but I'm talking about their salary.
I'm not talking about what they raisein campaigning. I'm not sorry,
any of that other money that theycan raise well, and then they they

(39:08):
are paid salaries one hundred It ispretty outrageous. And I think if they're
I think that once they get inthey have healthcare forever and yeah, yes,
yeah, I just make a veteranjust like a veteran. Yeah,
surreal, So they can serve onehealth care forever. I don't I think
they get a pension for a longtime after I don't know how many terms,

(39:29):
but I think this is one ofthe hidden stories of this UH of
this year, is that this classof people, I'm gonna go all in
and say, this parasite class ofpeople, but you know what, talk
this group of people have no incentiveto see the rest of us go back
to normal and to go back towork and to earth, because they're they're
making decisions on a country, ona world they don't have to live in.

(39:52):
Like this is the problem, andthis is what I say, why
you shouldn't listen to what Cardi bIs telling you about who to vote for
and everything else. You shouldn't listento any celebrity because these celebrities, these
very very wealthy elite celebrities, aswell as the politicians, are being the
architects of a world they will neverhave to live in. And the reason
term limits are so important is sothat these people actually have to go out

(40:15):
and be affected eventually by the legislationthat they pass or that they keep back,
and so they until we get tothat point where they have to face
the consequences of their decision making,you will never have them making decisions that
are actually in the best interests ofthe people. I mean, it seems

(40:37):
pretty sensible. The term limits thingI think makes sense potentially for the legislature.
The judiciary is it's a bit ofa different animal. But yeah,
well I think if you have termlimits for one, you should probably have
life appointments for the other, right, you know, or and whether it's
life appointments or it's a twenty yearappointment or whatever, I think, did

(40:59):
you radicial thing makes sense because interms of actually, you know, striking
things into law, those should bepeople with a ton of experience, who
have a life on the bench,who have sort of the the wherewithal not
to make decisions that blow in thewind. They can be affected by You

(41:20):
can have people that are affected bythe rhetoric of the day, and whereas
that really is kind of what drivespoliticians. And you know, in a
perfect world, I think at leastthe House would be people that are selected
like a jury duty process instead ofeven free and open elections. Well,
it should have to serve two yearsin Congress at some point and then go

(41:43):
back to your life and then ifyou want to, and then you can
either you can then you could say, actually, like government, I want
to run to be in the Senate, and then those people can run to
be president, but that there shouldbe a process to it. The fact
that somebody like Pelosi can be inthe House of Representatives for god knows how
long, just continuing to draw thisenormous salary, ripping off shits melting,

(42:06):
you know, and and be soflippant with her regard for the American people
to be like, oh, theytricked me into getting my hair done.
Are you out of your fucking mind? Woman? Terrific? Terrific? Wait
so wait, so wait, okay, so you're you were You're a Hollywood
guy. You know, you werean LA guy, right you you're from

(42:27):
Pennsylvania and Minnesota. You get ashow? You know, was there a
was there a big red pilling momentfor you? Was there a year where
it all kind of clicked or howdid that happen? No? I mean
I've always considered myself more of alibertarian, Like I voted for Garry Johnson
in twenty sixteen. You know,rip Gary Johnson? Yeah? Uh,
you know, the old Aleppo linekilled his chances. That was tough.

(42:51):
That was just brutal, you know, talking about a brutal foot in mouth
momentum, but you know, heran the wrong year. I mean,
Biden has that so many foot andmouth moments they don't even care. I
mean, Aleppo is nothing compared tosome of the fafs he's had. Yeah,
Biden is verily comparely coaching. IfI was to call myself a libertarian
and I and I don't now,nor nor have I ever, but if

(43:14):
I was, I would say thatI'm a Stanhope libertarian against I'd like the
Stanhope Libertarian school. I mean,that's honestly, Stanhopes no Refund special In
two thousand and seven or two thousandand eight was really when I started to
realize and understand that there's this otherparty, this other political party that is
more you know, socially liberal,fiscally conservative, leave me the fuck alone,

(43:37):
let me run my business, don'ttax me into oblivion, and so
you know that's kind of overregulation.And you know, so I'm definitely a
small government conservative, whether you consumethat libertarian or not. But I think
the thing that kind of rules meout from being a libertarian is being pro
life, and a lot of peopledon't think of that as a as a

(43:59):
liberal. Socially liberal point of view. But you know, as I went
into a whole thing about what Ithink the proper solution for that problem is,
and it's more of a series ofthings like free universal birth control and
preventing unwanted pregnancy and then drawing aline in the sand and saying, listen,
we have to value human life,whether it's convenient or inconvenient. And
I think it should get to apoint where we just draw a line in

(44:22):
the sand and say, listen,you don't get to kill people because their
existence makes life harder. And thereal I was never a pro life guy
until a conservative person pointed out tome as a libertarian, He's like,
you know, there are a lotof times when that decision is made to
terminate a pregnancy or terminate a life, people go, well, you know

(44:44):
the mother has to do that becausethe child may not have a good life.
Well, the aborted ones have azero percent chance of having a good
life. And then you look atpeople like Joe da Rosa, who was
adopted and a product of the adoptionsystem and has gone on to do great
things. And there's so many adoptedpeople who have gone on to do great
things, and so see, yes, Steve Jobs. I mean, you

(45:05):
could go to Marcus Lemonis was adopted. I mean, there are so many
people that wouldn't be here and wouldn'thave left their mark on the world if
if they were not adopted. Andso, and this is the thing.
Everyone wants to talk about rape orincest or sex cults or any of those
things, but we all know thatthe reality is most abortions are oops.
And I think we have to atsome point as a society say we value

(45:30):
life to where oops doesn't mean youget to end another person's life. And
I think we need to. Theonly way we're going to be we're going
to force people to be more sociallyresponsible and avoid unwanted pregnancy is to make
it illegal. I think I thinka lot about this issue a lot,
and I'm not havn't really come outpublicly with my The other end of that,

(45:50):
yeah, the other end of thatthought is I think you have to
have universally free birth control then aswell, right right. That's the thing
is like the conservatives would argue,well, we don't wan't free health care.
It's like, well, you haveto. You gotta pick your poison.
And if we're going to say thata life is a life, then
what you what you have to dois give people solution for unwanted pregnancy.
That means condoms, birth control,everything is all subsidized by the government.

(46:12):
Government pays it, and the governmentshould see it and all the American people
should see it as an investment inour future sustainability. Too many amounts of
fee means we will not survive.See now, Josh, you're you're into
that crazy territory where you're mixing ideas. You've had too much to think,
Josh, too much? Yeah,yeah, getting too clever. You know,
the it's you know, it's likethe what is the irs? You

(46:35):
know, the tax handbook is likethis thick right, it's this big.
But you just had too much tothink, trying to merge two positions you
know right well, and in realityis is If you've made that legislation in
the case, neither side could havean argument. You gave the conservatives through
life is life and precious win andyou've eliminated the excuse of choice. You

(46:57):
have a choice. You have achoice. There's no fine anchel bearrier to
making a choice. You can preventpregnancy all day long, and if you
choose not to do that, thenyou made your choice and you live with
the consequences. And you know,people, but what about the one percent
of what about the rapes and theincests which they believe is fifty percent of
abortions, And it's less than onepercent. And the argument I make there

(47:19):
is cool Plan B is part ofevery rape kit. If you don't want
to get pregnant from your rape,then I guess you better report it,
right, You better go report itand have a kit done. That solves
that problem. And then I saidearlier, you know what if you're part
of one of these sex cults andyou don't have a well then you lost
out on the lottery. Sorry aboutyour luck, but we don't make laws
for the one percent of one percentyou join the sex call. Yeah,

(47:42):
just you're in the sex cult.Yeah sorry, next year, I love
Yeah. I just finished. Ijust finished the valve. For a minute,
I was thinking about writing a playabout next um and like the whole
sex cult thing, because I'm veryinterested in um, the psychology of those
things, but particularly the women whoact as like the bait and then get

(48:07):
people in. I think that psychologyis fascinating. Did you watch the now
No is an HBO, so it'sentirely about Nexium. Okay, well,
and they go deep in with someof the people that were on the board
of Nexium, the people that endedup becoming whistleblowers, and um, you
know, it's got all the sortof sexy cultish things of like, oh

(48:29):
here, here are the breadcrumbs.You start to see where it starts to
like, this is clearly a cult. But the thing that was so interesting
to me is what these women inthat we're in this cult, we're willing
to go through in the name ofself improvement, and we definitely have you
know, social media exploits this alot, but we definitely have a crisis

(48:51):
of confidence with young women in ourcountry right now and our culture right now
with this CRUs This is an interestingthing that some of my more conservative friends
like Gavin mcinness will say, isif you take motherhood out of the equation
entirely, what fulfills that missing senseof purpose? And things like Nexium show

(49:14):
you that that purpose can be foundin horrible fucking places. And so as
much as people want to say womendon't have this void to fill if they
choose not to have children, thestories like the Vow and Nexium and some
of these cults will tell you there'ssomething there that is missing, and that
some of these women will look inthe most insane, crazy places to find

(49:36):
a sense of purpose, to finda sense of meaning, and to somehow
improve upon the way they feel aboutthemselves. Yeah, the Nexium, cauled.
I need to watch the Vow Ihad, I'd listen to some podcasts
about it. I think it's veryinteresting. The whole upstate New York connection
all day. Yeah, Yeah,that area has a spooky quality. There's
something to it. You know,Rochester, New York far from Albany,

(50:00):
but it's still in the general areathat was that was Silicon Valley one hundred
years ago with Kodak and uh andthen you have the spiritualists up there.
Um, there's a hippie there's abig hippie movement was up that was where
that's where it all was. Imean, you know, so and as
somebody who's not from the East tosort of have moved there a number of

(50:22):
years ago, then to kind ofencounter that area was very intense. I
may or may not have taken DMTand Rochester had a UFO land on my
head. Shout out to Brad Kelly. I really had a UFO land on
my head. It was this blueUFO saw the Devil was fantastic, big,
big, big ups to Rochester inthat energy and DMT. Yeah,

(50:45):
highly recommend if you're going to doit anywhere, do it in Rochester.
There's there's a there's a really gooddocumentary called American Mystic. I don't know
if you've heard of this, butit's it's a film that walks you through
three different American experiences. UM oneis a Lakota sue who does the sundance
where they they hoist themselves up ondon't I don't think he could get into

(51:10):
sundance. Yeah, no, exileexclusive. Yeah, he's not fancy enough.
No, but it's really awesome becauseit's it's sundance. And then there's
like this hippie, dippy Whole Foodspagan out in California who believes she's a
witch or whatever. And then thethird one is right, then the third
one is this African American guy whois really into this spiritualism laying on of

(51:36):
hands and that. Yeah, thathappens in lily Dale. Lily Dale,
which is this Upstate New York community, which is this old little village and
apparently like one of the first likeover like there was some rail connection between
Rochester and lily Dale. And there'sthis all this history around photography and spirit

(52:00):
ualism and seeing like shapes and spiritsand things. And anytime you have that
stuff, you also have the occultkind of creates into that as well.
Right, And that's all anyway,that's all up up in Rochester. I
don't know why I got on thatjag, but that's another movie, but
I have to watch that. Butnext to him was up there too,
right. And then recently, ifyou really want to get conspiratorial hunter Biden,
what's the tattoo on this guy's back. Yeah, I don't even said

(52:22):
anything about the tattoo. No,he is the tattoo of the Finger Lakes
of Upstate New York, the FingerLakes region. He's got this mysterious tattoo
of these lakes that are this wholeit's a whole thing, look at it.
Yeah. I mean when you startto get into the world of you
know, I always wonder, like, what is the thing I'm gonna see

(52:45):
that's gonna put me in a clocktower with a high powered rifle, and
I try to stay away from thosethings. Like, you know, I
am probably too honest with my thoughtsabout shit like that. On the podcaster,
it was like, yeah, we'veall thought about like you know.
I remember one time I had acomic named Nick Cobb on my uh on

(53:05):
the podcast, and I was jokingwith him, was like, yeah,
we've all thought about hitting our wives. And he's like what, and it
was just like come on, man, like let's and then of course he
didn't have my back. It waslike, Okay, obviously you don't do
it, but you're telling me you'venever it's never dawned on you. It's
like, I don't trust people likethat that have never had horrible evil thoughts.
I think that. I think it'sa differ between like having the thought

(53:25):
and then putting it down on thepad. Who cares? Yeah I don't.
Yeah, well I know. I'msorry. If I got to be
the most honest man in all ofhistory of podcasts, fine, I'll wear
the badge. I guess I'll bethe honest aid of the podcast. Yeah,
you know, honest to a fault. I guess that's me. Um,

(53:47):
you know, it's it's a weirdthing. It's like, if if
people believe everything you say is fullof shit, then why not just tell
the truth all the time. That'smy philosophy, because at least then you
never have to remember the story.It's just what really happened. It's just
the truth that is true. Youburn a lot fewer calories. Yeah,
I don't have to worry about it. And by the way, people think

(54:08):
half of the shit I say isgarbage and not true anyway, So why
would I go to the extra lengthof making things up. I'll just tell
you the fuck a truth. Ijust have the original idea, which is
rare for me. The how muchof modern loneliness do you think can be
accounted for by the fact that we'renot honest to each other? Oh?

(54:30):
All of it? I mean,all of it? Is that a metric?
How don't I all of it?You know? I mean? And
the things that people lie to eachother about are insane to me. I
mean, and listen, I'm notone of these guys that subscribes to like
even though the first the name ofmy first album is Honest Brutality in a
way, though I named it thatbecause I was coming out of the corporate

(54:52):
world doing comedy, like right intoit. I was a year into comedy,
and it was sort of a playon the concept of people going,
oh, brutally honest, they go, no, I think a lot of
people are more brutal than they arehonest, and so I don't I'm not
one of these guys that subscribe tolike hurting people's feelings in the name of
truth. I think you can stillbe honest with people, tell them the

(55:14):
truth in a way that isn't designedto destroy them, but is really in
a way that's constructive or helpful.And then if you don't give a fuck
about that person, be honest withyourself and don't waste your time on,
you know, telling them things thatyou claim or for their benefit, when
really it's for your own sadism ofhurting someone's feelings. And so I think

(55:37):
it's a fine line. But Ido think, yes, we do need
to be more honest with each other. And I think people think the alternative
to hurting someone's feelings is just nottelling them the truth, and that's not
true either, And so yeah,I would agree, how much of our
loneliness, Yeah, how much ofher loneliness is related to that, I
think a ton of it. Yeah, they just occurred to me. Yeah,

(55:59):
that's what you do to children,is you talk to them like children.
You know, you cide, youknow, sort of head constantly.
And if that's if that's where weare with people who are thirty, we
have serious problems. Well. Theonly way I ever succeeded in business with
being a guy without a degree andwithout a ton of experience. And I
was like maybe half the age ofmost of the people that reported to me.

(56:22):
So how do you, as atwenty one year old district manager make
forty five year old managers want towork for you. It all boils down
to a book I read when Iwas a young manager. It's a book
called The Seven Powers of Questions byDorothy Leeds, and she talks about the
importance of asking questions instead of tellingpeople what you think all the time,

(56:43):
because in driving their engagement and gettingthem getting buy in for what you're talking
about, it's important that you areactually genuinely asking for their input and involving
them in the process of formulating yourideas. And the other thing is is
the key to sales man and everythingis just talking in terms of what's important
to people. And if you don'ttake the time to get to know people

(57:06):
and if you don't really genuinely careabout what's important to them, you do
them a disservice by not being honestabout that. And so all of my
success as a business leader came fromdoing two things. Surrounding myself by with
people that I was interested in andgenuinely could care about what's important to them,
and then just listening to what wasimportant to them and making sure that

(57:27):
everything we had to do in thebusiness tied into that, and if it
didn't, I was just honest withthem that I'm like, I don't think
we want I don't think the thingsyou want can be accomplished here, or
I don't think the things you wantfor yourself fit in with what we're trying
to do here. That's it.There was no brutal, you know,
shitting on people. There was nohardcore corporate back and forth. It was
literally just talking in terms of what'simportant to people and understanding that you can't

(57:51):
fake it. We've all had thatboss that like pretends they're your best friend
or intends like they care, andthey're like, what are your kids' names?
Again, it's like, fuck you. Uh, you got to genuinely
care about people, and you've gotto be honest about it, and if
you don't, you just gotta go, hey, man, like I don't
care and I don't think we're agood fit to work together. It's the
same thing with your personal relationships.If you love your wife and you care

(58:15):
about her, you don't get anopinion on her perception of you, meaning
if you can disagree, but ifyou really care about that person, everything
you think about yourself has to bepushed to the side. And in terms
of how you effectively manage a relationship, you have to address the things that
are that she perceives and that sheholds true to reality. Yeah, like

(58:37):
I'm too confident, I'm too handsome, I'm too strong, those things.
Yeah, yeah, you gotta putthose thoughts aside. And if she says,
you know, this is a perfectlike what's the word A cliche example,
but like, I don't feel likeyou listen to me, And a
lot of guys will go, yeah, I fucking listen. I hear what
you say all the time. Earlierwhen you were talking about this bullshit,

(58:59):
I didn't care about her, heardeverything you said, instead of just going
what is it that I do thatmakes you feel like I don't listen to
you? Why do you feel likeI don't listen to you? And actually
listening to that and actually addressing theroot cause of it. It sounds fucking
easy for people. Don't do this. This is a guy who's been on
team pussy for a long time.Yes, yeah, you know, you

(59:21):
don't bring him in like I dowithout knowing the old manipulation time are you?
You're married, you been married.I'm not married, but I've been
with the same person for almost nineyears, so you know, we've we're
practiced, we're common law married,I guess, but but yeah, we
you know, we fight like everybodyelse, and it's very you know,
the toughest thing is is, youknow, on both sides of putting aside,

(59:45):
you know, sometimes how you feeland talking about, you know,
just addressing the behaviors that lead tothose feelings rather than just getting hung up
on the fact that I feel thisway. And you know, that's sort
of a me for for our entirecountry right now. It's like everybody wants
to how they feel to be addressed, and nobody wants to do the heavy

(01:00:07):
lifting to fix the behaviors that leadto us all feeling that way. Yeah,
agreed. I mean this is maybea clumsy non you know, non
sequitur, but I really think thatarts and creating things, you know,
podcasts and to come a play,you do these things in order to communicate

(01:00:29):
a way. There's just more There'smore time, right because I mean the
Twitter has reduced us all to this. I mean, I love Twitter.
I met the guy who produced thisreading that we did of moderation, Jeff
Easy. He followed Jeff on Twitter. I don't know if I do.
Mind is very interesting character. He'sa very very cool guy. He came

(01:00:50):
up with the concept of meme ofwarfare. In twenty fifteen, he wrote
a paper on the metic warfare forNATO and now he's associated with with that
concept. So he found his wayto my play, which is crazy because
if there was anybody I could meetwho would find the play, it's it's
this dude very He went to Stanford. Uh, you know, you could

(01:01:13):
look him up. He's a veryinteresting guy. You remember back in twenties,
I think after Trump won the deplorabledo you remember that. You see,
he was one of the guys whoput that together. So I'm one
of these fellows. And he showedup on my Twitter feed on this on
the dumb Bird website I like tocall it, and said, hey,
do you do you want to wantany money for art? Do you want

(01:01:34):
do you want to do anything?I'm like, listen to this, you
know, what do you think?And he listened to it and he said,
we're gonna turn this this, Weshould do that, the hacker thing,
hacker mentality. Let's get something outthere. We're gonna make this.
Yeah, there you go. We'regonna make moderation the play and do a
podcast. It's like ninety minutes.You sit, you listen. It came
from a reading that this theater companydid in DC. So it's very rough,

(01:01:57):
but in a good way, youknow. And uh, I think
it's better than ninety nine percent ofthe garbage that you're gonna get on Netflix
right now. Yeah, and Ithink some of those more I love.
Like I have it bookmarked in myphone to put on the next time I'm
jacked in and I can just listento something straight through because the biggest challenge
I have is like with podcasts andstuff, I've got to be doing a

(01:02:20):
specific thing to where I can reallyyou know, get into it and not
just like have it playing in thebackground, and particularly with you know,
moderation, because it's a play.I want to I want to have it
be at the singular thing I'm experiencingand not be you know, like I'll
play Tim Dillon or Joe Rogan inthe background while I'm doing a million other
things. Those guys you don't reallyI don't really have to pay attention to

(01:02:40):
it, right, Well, that'sthe whole point. I mean, yeah,
but I do really like this emergingspace of podcasting, almost like old
time radio shows, where I feellike that medium is coming back, where
a scripted podcasts are becoming more andmore popular and stuff like this. You
know a lot of people are umgravitating towards it because it gets it gets

(01:03:05):
them in a different place, itputs them. You know, what I
think it really is is it islike reading and that it forces you to
use imagination, and that's not somethingI think we use a lot anymore.
Look the podcast you mentioned, youknow, those are two of my favorite
Rogan Dylan, Tim Dylan. Idon't know what he did, but he
crossed over somehow I got to seehim at the comedy store at this Do

(01:03:28):
you know, do you know himpersonally from the story? No, I
don't know. I Uh, wehave a mutual friend in Sam Tripoli,
and we've we've sort of been likeships passing in the night at times at
the store. I've I've never gottento meet him personally, but he's a
guy I feel like, Uh,I probably have a lot to talk about.
You gotta get him on this show. We'll see you. Gotta gotta
get him on. Sam Tripoli gaveme a gave me a high five at

(01:03:49):
the front row of the store lastyear. I'm telling you, Sam Tripoli
is Uh. Sam Tripoli is oneof the best dudes in the entire business.
And he's I would say he is, uh one of my closest friends
in the world of comedy. Andfor all of the craziness that is Sam
Tripli in terms of like his energyand his energy behind conspiracy theories and and

(01:04:12):
the kind of heat that he bringsto subjects, and the fact that he's
just a fucking flamethrower of truth ina world of bullshit. Uh, It's
it's a it is a tiny fractionof the quality of human being that Sam
is. Sam is genuinely one ofthe most real good people in a fucking

(01:04:33):
world of slimy pieces of shit.And I don't think enough people say that
about Tripli and and to be honest, until I got to know him really
well, I didn't know any ofthat about him. But at a time
when I was at my lowest inmy life, he picked up the phone
and called me and pulled me outof the ship and made sure that I
knew, helped me come up witha plan and a path forward, and

(01:04:56):
still does, like he'll still pickup the phone and call me to go
what are you doing to drive yourpodcast? What are you doing to build
your pirate ship? Like? Youknow, he's a guy who, like
Rogan, invests a lot of himselfin up and coming comedians and stuff and
really trying to help people learn fromthe things he's experienced, learned from his
mistakes, learn from the things he'sdone. Well, you know, he's

(01:05:19):
a guy who is like a truemaster comedian, master entertainer, and somebody
who just genuinely with a good hearttries to pass on whatever he can to
other people. And there is sucha shortage of that in the world,
and especially a shortage of that inentertainment in Olivia. That's cool. It's

(01:05:40):
cool to hear. Yeah. Isaw him the tinfoil hat, you know,
the comedy night in La at thestore, and it was the it
was the way if he heard allthis stuff, this nice stuff I was
saying about me, call me afaggot to my face, of course,
of course, and rightfully. Soyeah, absolutely, and we always established

(01:06:01):
what we what we're doing it.Yeah, but you know, no,
but I saw that was the weekthat Tim Tim Dylan was talking about.
He this is the thing. That'show we got introduced to Tim Dylan.
He entered, he came on stageand he said, so this Halloween,
I'm gonna go as as Epstein's SexTemple for Halloween, right, And that
to me, that floored me.I thought, this is this guy's hilarious.

(01:06:23):
And then I flew back to NewYork and there he was dressed as
the sex Temple. I'm like,this fucker actually did it. He got
still yo. And not only didhe do it, he spent two thousand
dollars getting that costume made. Imean, that's the best money that he'll
ever spend because that is still,in my opinion, the funniest thing he's
ever done. It is that littletoo bitte clip is the funniest thing.

(01:06:44):
Yeah, yeah, just god,you know he's He's like, I never
thought i'd be here, right,I'm just I'm just a sex temple.
It out of word sex temple.Yeah. And then I think I think
one of the scenes is uh islike him in front of Epstein's place and
somebody goes, He's like, whereare you going? Don't act like you
don't know me. I know youLike, oh, dude, he's so

(01:07:08):
brilliant. Yeah, he's so brilliant. And the thing I think people love
about Tim is that he just destroysall the molds, right, Like,
you know, everyone has this ideaof what a gay comedian is supposed to
be, and Tim is none ofthem, right, And so I think
people like it and I think it'srefreshing, and I think Tim represents what
people are craving, which is atotal destruction of presumptive identity. Yeah right,

(01:07:32):
And and so you know, he'sa guy, he's he's he's all
these he's the opposite of all thethings he's supposed to be in this business
and he succeeding at it. Andhe's also he's been sober a good long
while. YEA clearly is huge ringbecause if he if he wasn't, I
think he meet dad, he wouldprobably tell you the same thing himself.
He's really communid about all that stuff. And he also lived through the garbage

(01:07:57):
of the recession, and he's veryold with his stories about buying the six
hundred thousand dollars house in Long Island, and I love talking of being on
the subprime mortgage industry. I actuallyenjoy him telling those stories more than I
enjoy his comedy. And that's nota slight against his comedy. It's just
how much I love and the factthat he really the thing I think more

(01:08:21):
than anybody or anything that's that's coolabout Tim Dillon is like, I feel
like he's really tapped into what isthe engine that drives human behavior in America?
What is like? What what arethe psychological things that fuel Western capitalism?
And I think he loves both theunderstanding of it and the destruction of

(01:08:45):
it. And uh, you know, I think there's some there's just there's
so much and they sort of gleefaway of like Oh, I could tell
you all the ways we used tofuck people over. Yeah, somebody who
grew up fast and you kind ofknow it, and it does give him
a bit of a and then youthrow in the the fact that he's gay.

(01:09:05):
It comes into the mid and hewas and he was a child actual
act. Yeah, it's just thisperfect Yeah anyway, Yeah, I'm a
big fan. Big it's and it'severybody. I mean, it's it's pretty
much like my brother's generation. Solike Tim is younger than me, My
brother is thirteen years older than me, but every one of his generation was

(01:09:27):
like Tim Dillon and that they weresort of the shit talking hucksters and just
bullshit artists. Just a total bullshitartist. And you know he's like a
throwback to that. And people fromthe East Coast and you spend some time
out there, we have such anaffinity for that because those guys who can
just talk shit all day. It'sthere's there's just big deals. They just

(01:09:48):
pulled twelve hundred dollars out of theair. Yeah, real estate thing over
here they sell this. Yeah.Yeah, it's just there's something there's something
to be said for people like that. I mean, and it's I grew
up. Everyone in my family islike that. Everyone in my family has
that gift to gab, where youknow, they'll talk all day. Our
thanksgivings used to be uproarious, likeyou couldn't get a word in edgewise.

(01:10:11):
And when when I tell people likeI was I grew up being one of
the most quiet people in my family, people are like, what, there's
no way, Yeah, this isthis has been an easy podcast to be
on it. Yeah, well,you know, I don't I don't shut
up. No, it's good though, I really well, and you know,
I'm a little you know, I'ma little wound up. But with
the whole we're headed into the unknowntomorrow. I'll tell you what. It

(01:10:34):
can't get much worse, you know. I mean, I've I've I've probably
probably had COVID at least once,maybe twice in the last year. Yeah,
And I know a lot of peoplesay that, and now it's become
this sort of cliche think well good, Everyone's like, oh, think I
had it. I'm pretty sure wedid have it. We were sick for

(01:10:56):
like twelve weeks at the beginning ofthe year. We really, yeah,
we really we were sick for likesix weeks, and then we got better
for a week, and then wewere sick for another four to five weeks
after that, So it was like, it's weird that you get, like
what And when we went in theywere just like, oh's just the flu.
It was like December January. Wewere like, yeah, they didn't
even know what They didn't know.They had no fucking clue what it was.
But it would have made sense becauseback then I was uber driving.

(01:11:17):
I was picking up people from fuckingChina all day from the airport, and
then my girlfriend was working this majorevent in downtown LA where they're seeing like
ten thousand people a day by StaplesCenter. So it's like if if it
was in the country in November December, we probably got That's what everybody said
too. I remember in March everybodywas saying, this thing's been here longer,

(01:11:39):
that's what That's what the word was. Oh yeah, I mean,
and it was just everybody. Iremember like getting sick and be like,
case anybody else got this fucking fluthat's going around, and a couple of
my friends were like, yeah,I had it. I was sick for
like eight weeks, and I normallydon't get sick. I might get the
sniffles or something for a couple ofdays, but I don't get the flu
ever. And to have had itthat add for fucking twelve almost you know,

(01:12:01):
two and it was like two anda half months we had it.
You want to know, uh,you know, an insult to injury.
So my fiance had um our babyin August, and uh, I think
I saw that we we nearly sharea birthday. I'm August nineteenth, tire,
I think you're August eighteenth, theday before. Yeah, there it
is. Yeah, and yeah,so but my son was uh well,

(01:12:23):
my fiance went into labor on theeighteenth and then delivered on the nineteenth,
on my birthday. So my wowbirthday is me. Yeah, and we
it was very long later. Youlike me to believe that you were pumping
away at Thanksgiving? You didn't havethat in your mind. Yeah, it's
going to be. He was conceivedin London. Yeah, we know,
we know that, you know,tmi, tmi. But Kevin, we

(01:12:46):
all know when you get so manyyears into a relationship, you can there
aren't a lot of muddy waters interms of conception times. It could have
been could have been any day betweenthe period of Marsha. That's not real,
Like there's a there's an outstanding yeswith mine, it would be like,
yeah, it was from the onetime we had the other three hundred

(01:13:08):
sixty four days we just try notto kill each other and got drunk.
I love him to death. He'sthe cutest little thing. He's the cutest
little cock block of all time.I mean, I went to my fiance
a couple of days ago, Isaid, I remember sex, and she
looked at me. She knows all. I know. I'm sorry, It's
just it is what it is.You have kids, it's like you know,
your whole and everything changes. Youjust kind of you almost don't care.

(01:13:30):
You just go, oh god,I just want to see. Yeah
you really don't care. Yeah,you do. Just we don't even have
a kid, and we're just likewe're nine years in. We don't fucking
you know, what what are wegonna Yeah, what are we gonna do?
Get all sweaty and have to showerand change our clothes again, and
you fucking ridiculous, We got shitto do. Do another load of laundry,
Yeah, exactly, Yeah, exactly, a load of laundry. Yeah,

(01:13:51):
there's a great bar a great pubin London called the Hunter Suh.
It's a Hunter S. Thompson themedbar, which is but in the best
way possible, right, Yeah,just awesome. And we have some of
those in la It's called Silver Lake. Oh yeah, the whole thing.
So the bartender though this that thisbar didn't know who Hunter S. Thompson

(01:14:15):
was, so I did give hima lecture and then before you knew it,
we were we were getting shots andall the rest um I had.
I had a punch under that store, but I've lost it. But anyway,
Yeah, so my son here heis. It'll come around. Yeah,
well, congratulations on that. Imean, it's nice to hear that.
You know, some good things arehappening this year for some people.

(01:14:36):
Yeah, it's not entirely it's notentirely lost. It's just been you know,
on our end, it's been nothingbut death and destruction. But I'm
glad to hear that on your end. You know, hopefully, hopefully some
of my dead relatives are being reincarnatedand all these babies that people had.
That that's quite a that. Yeah, that's a bit of a leap.
Yeah, But to be honest,you know, there's too many people and

(01:14:58):
if it's my family that's got togo to thin the herd, that we'll
do our service. That's the wayeverybody. Okay, oh my god.
No, We've had four deaths inthe past and none of them, none
of them related to COVID. Mybrother died in May. My cousin just
died this weekend in a horrendous caraccident. My grandfather passed away about a
year ago. And then we hadanother I think my second cousin killed in

(01:15:23):
a fatal car accident again this year. So you know, it's like,
uh, don't they say deaths comein threes for us, It's going to
be like in fives or sixes thisyear. So man, and we're not
even out of the year. Wegot a quarter left. I never even
entered Q four. Brother. Yeah, my older brother passed away to god,
what was it? Um, Yeah, it was complications related to uh

(01:15:49):
just long term health issues really jetprimarily related to addictions. So my dad,
my dad died from an overdose fromspot. Yeah that's uh, that's
yeah yo. Yeah, yeah,you must have been a nightmare of a
child that I really really had topop those bills. Yeah, man,

(01:16:10):
he say, I can't do Icannot do this. That addiction stuff is
rough. It's brutal, man,you know, and and uh, listen,
our bar bodies just can't hold upto the ship that we're facing these
days. I mean, you know, alcohol is one thing when you start
to when you start to pack onlike uh, opioid, painkillers, the

(01:16:30):
damage those things due to your liverand shit, it's a it's a it's
a Molotov cocktail for death. Andso you know, there's uh. Again,
the libertarian in me is like,let people do whatever the fuck they
want to do to their bodies.But I think, you know, there's
some shit on this planet that's prettygoddamn dangerous, and I don't think,
uh, I don't think most ofthe public knows how dangerous some of the

(01:16:51):
shit is before they put it intheir body or their fucking doctor prescribes it
to them. So well, thething that the thing that killed my father,
uh was an opioid and it's calledpropoxyphene. And in the seventies they
were they were saying in the UKthere where there were studies saying this,

(01:17:11):
this probably shouldn't make it to market. There you go, it comes to
market and it just killed thousands andthousands of people over the years until finally
they took it off the market inO five in the UK and then in
twenty ten in the US. Andhere's the kicker, because I did some
research when I could finally get hismedical records UM and it was like,

(01:17:32):
not a very effective painkiller, lethalin slightly higher than UM prescribed doses,
and or when mixed with alcohol,highly addictive. Yeah, what what do
you think is going to happen?Sure, it's sure, these are just
they're putting like little uh you know. Yeah. Well, and the big

(01:17:55):
one now is, uh, youknow, all these antidepressants and these ssri
is that people are doing. IsI think that's the biggest threat. Yeah,
everyone talks about opioids, but Ihonestly think we're about to enter this
epidemic of problems related to long termSSRI. I use. And you know
when people talk about human beings lackingempathy and understanding of each other, you

(01:18:19):
know, SSR eyes are like theprogramming language of getting people to that point.
And so you know, I'll usea trumpism, the be worse than
the disease. And I think inthe case of these SSR eyes, I
think we just got to teach peoplehow to fucking deal with sad times instead

(01:18:41):
of giving them these chemicals to regulatetheir brain and putting them in a state
of apathy to where they can walkinto a building and have no problem shooting
thirty people you know, or oror or have no problem walking into a
building and getting some comedian fired forsome jokes. Right. Yeah, I
don't know, and I don't knowif that bitch is on SSR eyes,

(01:19:01):
but let's uh, I can tellyou she's probably not a very happy person.
I mean, listen, you know, I don't know what it is,
uh that makes a woman decide ora man or whoever. I don't
know what it is that makes somebodygo like I'm gonna fucking hurt another person's
lively, like a person that Idon't know who hasn't done anything to me.

(01:19:24):
Um, but I don't like thattheir thoughts exist, and I'm going
to hurt them in a way thatI can. I don't know, Like
what you're you're taking, You're takingfood out of somebody's mouth. Yes,
yes, I mean that is shortof like a gun to the head.
I mean it's not. It's moretortuous in a way. Um it's tough

(01:19:45):
too because it's also you know,it's also just um, it's it's there's
no defend to it. There's noit's like the crane kick that if do
write, no can defend. That'suh, that's how it feels like if
somebody somebody, I mean, andthis is what's absurd about it, is

(01:20:06):
someone can just go into their joband go, Billy said something on Twitter
that offended me, and they go, well, we can't have that,
so I guess we gotta fire Billy, and and I guess his fucking children
get to start and and this isthe crazy thing about this is like,
uh, this the worst thing likeregardless of money or the financial thing,

(01:20:30):
this case, UH destroyed a twentyyear friendship with somebody, a nearly twenty
year friendship, Uh just gone completelygone because of this case. And because
you know, some woman couldn't justsee something on the Internet and go back
to living her fucking life and ignoringit. And what I don't understand and
where we will have to get clarificationas we continue to fight cases like this

(01:20:55):
and listen, I hope to bea champion for other people who deal with
this stuff and a resource. Youknow, if if I can do anything
with these stories, it's share themin a way that allows other people to
reach out and talk to me whenthey find themselves in the same situation,
so that they can talk to somebodywho has been there and has fought these
things legally, and you know,can provide a little bit of insight as

(01:21:20):
to how to maybe win not inthis case, but you know, we've
got to get to a point wherewe start to look at all of the
things you do outside of the workplaceas sacred as your religion. I mean,
think about the idea that I couldbe fired for things I say as
a comedian is as insane as youbeing fired for being a Yankees fan when

(01:21:43):
your boss is a fan of theMets. I mean, at what point
do we go, this is fuckingridiculous and you can't like at will is
one thing. But I think wecan say if people are firing you because
they just don't like your ideas,your personal beliefs about the world, you
know, at what point do wesee that as an invasion of the individual

(01:22:04):
And at what point do we saythat we can't let people make life altering
decisions for other people over a milddisagreement. And you wonder why we have
a country that's ready to go tocivil war, and it's because it's because
there are consequences to having the wrongideas in this country. Now it's the

(01:22:26):
first time we've ever faced at inour freedom democracy experiment. And so when
people talk about, well, wegot to get rid of Trump because we
don't live under a fascist regime,this identity politics cancel culture that we live
under is a fascist regime. Theidea that free speech is now no longer
free, and people love to usethis phrase. They go, freedom of

(01:22:47):
speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences,yes, but implied consequence is not free
speech. You know where they haveimplied consequences for speaking freely China, where
they execute you for speaking out againstthe government. That's consequence for freedom.
That's not freedom of speech. Right, And these same people will tell you,

(01:23:08):
oh, there's there's no real safetynet in America and people are falling
off the edge, and poverty lurksfor everybody. And by the way,
if you say one thing on Twitterthat we don't like, we're gonna get
you fired. And that's you're goingright to that place. Ye're going right
down into that pit. It's gonnait's gonna take one or two things.
It's gonna take a lot of kneesfighting these companies and these decisions legislatively one

(01:23:30):
at a time, or maybe atsome point in a class action situation,
or the more fun alternative, whichis when guys like in this, I
gotta be careful about how I werethis, but not everybody's retaliation is going
to be litigious like mine. There'sgonna be that guy who loses everything whose
family is now starving in front ofhim, and he goes, fuck the

(01:23:53):
law. I'm gonna grab an akand go into the office. I've seen
that, and that shit's gonna starthappening, and then and then people are
gonna go maybe we shouldn't like,maybe our social media policy should be to
mind our own fucking business and we'refocus on the workplace. I think.
I think, Josh, you knowthat that probably are probably already is happening.

(01:24:15):
I'm sure it is, and youknow, but it's not foregrounded in
the media for sure, right,I mean, and we may yeah,
we may be in for a long, hard road. Yeah, I mean,
and uh yeah, I feel you. I mean, you should the
rage that you feel is is legitimate, it's absurd. Well, I don't
I don't want those things to haveto happen for us to do the right

(01:24:38):
thing, just like I don't likenobody wants a police to have to get
uh murdered and and and shot uponfor there to be the right kind of
police reform either. But we allagree that there's got to be something done
to where the outcome is a littlebit different, right, Like, regardless

(01:24:59):
of all of the things that leadto this, If the public perception is
that there is a disproportionate amount ofpeople of color being gunned down by the
police, the only argument the conservativesI could make is no, a lot
of people of a lot of differentraces are gunned down by the police.
It's like, that's not better argument. Saying that the problem is bigger than
what we see. That's not betterhelpful. Yeah, yeah, so you

(01:25:20):
know, I something has to change. But like I said on my earlier
podcast, like you want you wouldlike to think that we can get to
the right kind of change through freeelections, through the systems of government,
through through the legal system, Andit might just take a war. It
might just take a war of ideasto get us to where we need to

(01:25:41):
be, and you know, likeI don't want it to go to that
place, but you know, atsome point it's like, at what level
are you willing to stand by andwatch injustice take place in front of you?
And I understand even though a lotof the Antifa shit I do not
agree with, and I don't thinkthey're in the right place. I don't
think they have a proper agenda.I don't think that there's any sort of

(01:26:04):
honesty or an integrity to what theirgoals are, what their stated goals are
versus what they're actually trying to do. But this unrest of the American people
of feeling like this shit ain't workingfor them anymore is legitimate. It's gone
for a while, it is,and it's what got Trump elected, It's
what I think will get him reelected. And you know, unless we really

(01:26:27):
start to make waves, you know, this unrest is not going to go
away. This, this feeling ofAmerican people feeling like they're being robbed of
the thing they were promised by beinghere, is not going to stand forever.
And the idea of the American dreambeing taken away because somebody else's version
of it is different from yours.Is it turns the dream into a nightmare?

(01:26:54):
Yeah, yes it does. So, you know, I think that
things are too damned expensive in America. That's that's crazy. You travel around
it and you begin to see that, like just the basic cost of living,
the stuff that you would need toprotect and secure if you behave you
you obey the law whatever that means, within within limits, you know,

(01:27:14):
and you you, uh, youknow, maybe you don't stand to inherit
a ton of money, but youwork hard, your spouse works hard.
You can't even in a lot ofcases, afford it anymore. It's I
mean Los Angeles, it's like,you know, so the law of economics
right generally states that your cost ofliving expense, your rent, or your
mortgage should be one week's pay.Uh. That's that is in Los Angeles,

(01:27:38):
that's nearly impossible for the average personto accomplish, I mean right,
For for that to be one week'spay for where we live, I would
have to make a minimally one hundredand four thousand dollars a year for my
cost to be the right ratio ofexpense to my income. For me to
be doing what's economically right, what'swhat's insane is that one oh four that

(01:28:02):
you you're making too. If youmake that, they're going to take forty
percent of it. Of course they'retaking four. Soit so in reality,
you got to make about one hundredand fifty eight uh for for you to
for you to be economically and theto come from like I did, to
come from a place like North Dakota, to go to Minnesota to live around

(01:28:24):
and then finally finally get to NewYork and then you know, I remember,
like I said, I run myown business. I do, okay,
And then to see that final billat the end of the year and
then to look around and go,oh oh no, yeah, this is
not good. Yeah, this isthis is not this. That's not what
anybody signed up for, not whatanybody wants. And by the way,

(01:28:44):
we we we live that way withoutany of the luxuries in countries of of
yale. You know, like Ihave friends in the UK who make like
thirty grand a year and they payalmost sixty percent in tax, but they
have universal healthcare. They have Yeah, no, the NHS. Anybody who
tells you the NHS is crummy,just don't listen. To them, they're

(01:29:09):
just wrong. It's not perfect,but it's a hell of a lot better
than whatever this crap is here.Well, and you know what's interesting too,
is like their their mentality. SoI'll give you an example. One
of my friends in the UK whois a long time listener in my podcast,
she makes maybe a third of theleast amount of money I ever made

(01:29:33):
or the job, and her qualityof life and her mental health right is
so much better because some of theshe might make a lot less money,
but she doesn't have to worry aboutcertain things like oh god, what happens
if I find out I have cancer? She's like, I just go to
the doctor. That's what you do. You go and you get your treatment,

(01:29:54):
and you're it's amazing, you know. And these these people that make
like thirty seven thousand pounds year,yeah, are taking they're taking fucking vacations
five times a year, Like howwow? Yeah, how in the world?
Thing of that? Of like Americais a rich country and it's like
on paper, but then you actuallygo walk around, go walk your beat

(01:30:17):
like it's like you were saying earlier, you go to the French quarter,
rich country, you walk five blocksthe wrong way, doesn't feel so,
you know, feels pretty different.Yeah, it's uh, you know.
And and what's the solution. Idon't think there's one waving of the lawn
that fixes at all. There's it'sit's a lot of little things. I

(01:30:38):
mean, I think you're gonna haveto overhaularm entire economic system. And if
you're going to really fix it andprovide some opportunity for advancement for people,
you're gonna have to have a threetiered system with where it starts out with
a ubi for people and extreme povertythat helps bring them up to at least
a livable standard. You're gonna haveto have no income tax on people within
the next bracket where they have theopportunity actually work harder, save and get

(01:31:01):
ahead. And then you're gonna haveto have a much higher tax on the
super high end of wealth. AndI also think the way you do that
is through a consumption tax. Soeven then those people have the freedom to
say, I guess I don't needa Bentley if I'm going to pay fifty
percent sales tax on it, Iguess I'll just buy a Ford or something
more economic. But if they dowant to bawl the fuck out, and

(01:31:25):
they do want to you know,spend and do whatever they want, they're
gonna pay a higher tax on luxurygoods. And so it's that second group
that you talked about that that hasthe most legs there, I think,
because that's the group that most peoplerelate to, right well, most I
think anybody. I think, honestly, I think anybody who makes between forty
thousand a year and one hundred thousanddollars a year shouldn't pay income tax.

(01:31:48):
I agree, and I think anybodywho makes less than forty thousand dollars a
year should have a supplemental ubi tohelp get them to that next level,
to the level where they're making enoughto then. But then we because the
problem is, you know, weused to talk about this in business,
is as you over tax people,as you jump up brackets. A good

(01:32:11):
example would be the salary from adistrict manager to a regional manager. When
I was twenty three. The differencewas about seventy five grand to one hundred
in ten, so you'd make aboutanother you know, let's call it forty.
You'd make another forty a year,thirty five to forty a year,

(01:32:31):
you'd make about one and a halftimes what you were making as a district
manager. But the tax increase whenyou crossed over that hundred thousand dollars threshold
in California was so significant at thetime, I was like, I might
as well not even do that job, because I'll be bringing home a little
bit more but not much, notmuch more harder, and all the rest.

(01:32:55):
It's it's I've never understood this system. I don't know who I'm Yeah,
explain it to me, but idon't know who it works for,
because I've come from a place whereagain I was, I was being raised
by school kids, school teachers,and you know, and I came to
the point where now I run myown business and I'm into that these higher
brackets, and you slowly, itslowly dawns on you as you're approaching forty,

(01:33:19):
how just how righteously fucked it is. When you realize your effective tax
rate, when you account for allof it in New York City is fifty
percent. Fifty percent. You gotyour three percent city tax, you have
your state tax, which is anotherfive six percent. You got your federal
tax, which before Trump was thirtypercent. You got it down to twenty

(01:33:41):
five. And then you have allthe other stuff that's hidden in your day
to day purchases. You realize thatall your life you've been told, oh,
we can't have socialism in America,and then you look and then every
other dollar goes to the government.It's absurd. Yeah, the problem is
is we're paying for socialism and we'regetting none of the benefits that we're paying
for corruption. Yes, well,the form of socialism we have right now

(01:34:06):
is instead of all of that taxmoney going back into services for the public,
they're enriching the fucking facilitators of thegovernment programs. Yeah. So it's
yeah, it's literally just it's it'sit's you know, it's no more corrupt
than the fucking monarchy. We've fledthe taxation without representation. We fled from

(01:34:27):
Great Britain. I mean, webasically felt like we were paying taxes and
not getting anything from it. Wewere being raped financially, and now all
we've done is create that in theUnited States. He were doing that end
mask. Do you do you listento Curtis Yarvin? Do you listen to
moulebug no stuff? Oh, youshould check out Curtis Yarvin. He's kind
of an ault right thinker. Um. He wrote under a pseudonym called Amenteis

(01:34:53):
Molebug. For a while, hehad a podcast, or not a podcast,
a blog called Unqualified Reservations is quitefamous, and now he's out under
his own name, Curtis Yarvin.But he he has these sort of unusual
philosophical theories that kind of shake upyour brain and make you think. As
soon as you mentioned the monarchy,I kind of thought about him. One

(01:35:14):
of his original ideas, one ofhis fun ideas is that like monarchies are
actually the best form of government.Well that is a very prevailing thought with
the alt right, and I haven'treally you know, I know of that.
I haven't really uh dove into itvery much. Yeah, see what
you know, what what validity thereis to it is. It's very interesting.

(01:35:35):
But he's he's been on some podcastsand hearing him speak is very interesting.
He's one of those guys like you'reyou're not supposed to listen to.
You know, it's kind of fun, you know, you can kind of
get it. Yeah, he's awrong thinker, like like Milo Unopolis or
he's he's much more intellectually rigorous thanthan Milo. Milo is more of a
provocateur. Yeah, he's a totalprovocateur. Yeah, Milo has his own

(01:35:56):
thing, um. But yeah,Yarvin's very interesting and he makes a great
point and about the family behind theNew York Times. How like the New
York Times as a paper functions asa voice for democracy, you know,
small d democracy, um. Butthen but then the actual paper as a
business functions as a hereditary monarchy.Yeah, they just passed it down to

(01:36:21):
the next son. You know,So what are we really doing here?
What is that paper really functioning todo? You know? Yeah, well,
for far too long we haven't questioned, you know. And this is
an interesting thing about like the wayhistory has taught I've talked about this on
this show a lot, where youknow, one of the real problems when

(01:36:42):
we have conversations about the history ofslavery in the United States is that there's
a lot left out of the teachingsthat people grow up with in school.
And when you start to understand thata big part of the abolitionist movement was
actually British nationalists with the intent toforce the United States back into debt with
the Bank of England, and youstart to realize that it wasn't like America

(01:37:05):
at that time had this crisis ofconscience of saying we need to do the
right thing. It was an economicwar of saying, you know, well,
slavery is the only way that theUS is economically independent. So if
we raised the question of morality withthat and we cripple the US economy,
it's intended ultimately, a lot ofit was intended to cripple us into debt

(01:37:29):
with the Bank of England. We'dhave to borrow money to keep functioning as
a country. And so that putsa little bit of tarnish on the idea
that we just got the right ideaat some point and wanted to do the
right thing. These well, thesefounding myths of America are really under attack
right now for a good reason becausethey're just that they're myths. I mean
that one the other. The othertranscendent myth is this myth of the heroic

(01:37:53):
rescue of Jewish people in World WarTwo, And of course it's just absolutely
just nonsense. Uh. You know, people were barely they didn't even know
that that it was a thing untilafter the war. But it's all reframed
as if it was the last goodwar. And all the rest. Um,
well, you look at like savingPrivate Ryan, that whole earned this

(01:38:15):
moment at the end of it,Like god, it's just so much American
sack. Pfice me. Meanwhile,we had no intention of getting brought into
that war until we were attacked.And a matter of fact, our political
leaders at the time were like this, Hitler's really got control on shit,
Like we probably learned something from that. This this whole idea that like somehow
that that war bought America, youknow, fifty years of sort of you

(01:38:42):
know, in faith, yeah something. It's just such garbage. I mean,
we're still the only country and Ilove America, you know, this
isn't whatever, but you know we'restill likewise, yeah, it's still the
best it's still the best option.Yeah yeah, but you know we're still
the only country to drop nuclear weaponson civilian And I mean, like also,
right, you say, you knowit's and then Waller Country was founded

(01:39:05):
on slaver. We were the onlyones to formally abolish it, or the
first to formally abolish it. Becauseit's just that you have to get over
this PBS sesame street level of historyand really start to talk like an adult.
If you're going to examine and you'reand then they're really no, there
are no good. America is notyour mom and dad, right, America

(01:39:28):
is grandmom and Grandpa. And whatI mean by that is grandmom and Grandpa
before you were alive, used tobeat the fuck out of each other,
and Grandpap used to get liquored upand fuck other girls in the neighborhood and
come back and smack Grandmam around.But you know what, they never got
divorced. They figured it out.They stayed together for your stupid ass to
be born many years down the road. So if you peel back the layers

(01:39:51):
of grandmom and Grandpap, you're notgonna like what you see. But you
wouldn't be here without it. Danny, I can. I can't stop that.
Yeah, I'm gonna go. That'sthough, that's a closer. I
gotta go with. Awesome man.This is awesome man, A great episode.
I'm gonna plug one more time beforeyou go. Moderation play dot com.

(01:40:13):
Everybody go check it out. Uhand Kevin, thanks so much for
being on the show. It's oneof my favorite episodes so far, so
we'll definitely have you back at somepoint. It's awesome. It's a lot
of fun. Josh, do itagain, all right? Thanks man to
talk to you. Take care,yeah, dot coin hand over hand all

(01:40:45):
too scared to look down. Kinhad distance between and I want to be

(01:41:06):
better time utily far. I don'tknow. Nothing can't be better lettle time.
If you live far, who youshould ask somebody? Because I've got
nothing to lose. Tonight I misplacedmy life to night. She started my

(01:41:29):
friends away tonight. I don't saythe right things. I thought blood the
right way. That's just not mean. I listen to my music too loud
and watch too much Stamp