[SPEAKER_01]: Hello and welcome to useful idiots.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Katie Helper.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm Erin Mattay.

[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you so much for being here our website as always is useful idiotspodcast.com.

[SPEAKER_03]: Go there to support the show and get bonus content.

[SPEAKER_03]: Let's get going with our four basic food groups.

[SPEAKER_03]: What do we have Katie for Democrats suck?

[SPEAKER_01]: So for Democrats, so let's take a listen to Democratic Senator Jean Shaheen of New Hampshire.

[SPEAKER_01]: Here she is speaking at an event held by Politico for their NATO summit.

[SPEAKER_01]: And let's hear what she has to say about Rokana for daring to speak out against war.

[SPEAKER_00]: I interviewed Congressman Rokana recently, who's been advocating for the Democratic Party to be the anti-war party.

[SPEAKER_00]: He said that the party has become too hawkish.

[SPEAKER_00]: In his opinion, is this an opportunity?

[SPEAKER_01]: First of all, look at her face.

[SPEAKER_01]: She's like already grimacing.

[SPEAKER_01]: She doesn't like what she's hearing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: for Democrats to move more in that direction as you're hearing from Americans that they don't want us.

[SPEAKER_00]: One of the reasons so much of the president's base is frustrated is because they voted for him because they felt that he was the anti-war president that he made promises that we would not be entangled in foreign conflicts.

[SPEAKER_00]: Is this an opportunity for Democrats, might you be missing that opportunity if you don't sort of look at that messaging as a path for the party?

[SPEAKER_04]: No.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I think Raukana is wrong.

[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_04]: The fact is, foreign policy isn't that easy.

[SPEAKER_04]: You can't just say, I'm against all conflicts because they're all going to be against America's interest or against global interest.

[SPEAKER_01]: What do you say to the end?

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so there you have a change to him making no bones about it and Aaron I want to of course should have offered you a trigger warning that you have a Delaware Senator Chris Cunes appearing who famously got you thrown off of an Amtrak.

[SPEAKER_01]: So are you feeling okay?

[SPEAKER_01]: Do you feel triggered?

[SPEAKER_03]: I triggered him.

[SPEAKER_03]: He didn't trigger me.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean he's the one about me throwing off a train.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, good.

[SPEAKER_01]: All right, you didn't internalize it.

[SPEAKER_01]: So there we have two senators saying that Rokana is wrong for both opposing war, but also politically wrong because they don't see it as strategic to outflank Donald Trump because as this person, this political interior points out very correctly, Donald Trump pretends to be anti war.

[SPEAKER_01]: His base is mad at him because he's not actually anti war and it would be very electronically smart.

[SPEAKER_01]: not to mention the moral thing to do to oppose war and be the party, the anti war party.

[SPEAKER_01]: But the Democrats just aren't interested in that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And in fact, I would appreciate how direct and honest they are about it.

[SPEAKER_01]: They don't give some kind of like B.S.A.

[SPEAKER_01]: Mealymouth, Diplomatic, [SPEAKER_01]: Uncommitted answer.

[SPEAKER_01]: They don't try to say nothing.

[SPEAKER_01]: They don't try to hide their thoughts.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're just like, no, not a good idea.

[SPEAKER_01]: Not going to be anti-war.

[SPEAKER_01]: Not going to do it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's the one I should.

[SPEAKER_03]: They don't try to equivocate on here.

[SPEAKER_03]: They're just like, yep, no.

[SPEAKER_03]: We support more a hundred percent.

[SPEAKER_03]: No dissent is tolerated.

[SPEAKER_03]: And by the way, Rokana, it's not as if he opposes even all wars.

[SPEAKER_03]: I wish he did, but he doesn't.

[SPEAKER_03]: They're even misrepresenting his own viewpoint.

[SPEAKER_03]: But that's just what they do as Democrats.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just going to manifest it and say I would love to have for O'Connor join us.

[SPEAKER_01]: Putting it out into the universe, we'll see what happens, but it would be great for him to come back on the show.

[SPEAKER_03]: Let's turn to Republican suck.

[SPEAKER_03]: Mehmed Oz, he is the former television show host turned administrator for the centers for Medicare and Medicaid services.

[SPEAKER_03]: Why not, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: Why not put somebody in charge of Medicare and Medicaid who's best known for being a TV personality?

[SPEAKER_03]: And he was asked recently by [SPEAKER_03]: Fox News, whether cutting Medicaid and thereby throwing millions of people off of their health insurance.

[SPEAKER_03]: could be a political problem for Republicans.

[SPEAKER_05]: Dr.

As I understand it, eleven million people would lose their coverage because of the changes to Medicaid.

[SPEAKER_05]: That's going to be a political problem for you, isn't it?

[SPEAKER_05]: I don't believe that numbers correct.

[SPEAKER_05]: In fact, the numbers are often offered by economists who look at numbers, statistics, but this is really a psychology question.

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't believe the numbers are correct, pause.

[SPEAKER_03]: By the way, those numbers are often [SPEAKER_03]: offered by people who look at numbers.

[SPEAKER_03]: So if you don't trust the numbers for the people who look at numbers, like who do you trust?

[SPEAKER_03]: If not the people who look at numbers professional.

[SPEAKER_01]: Aaron, you trust the psychology.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a psychology of trust.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is psychological.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I can't wait to hear his insights on what psychological issue I'm missing here as opposed to looking at the numbers, which include a low estimate, by the way, of eleven million people.

[SPEAKER_03]: Some estimates put it as high, seventeen million.

[SPEAKER_03]: But anyway, I guess [SPEAKER_03]: that doesn't matter because it's really about psychology as we're about to hear from Dr.

us.

[SPEAKER_05]: Here's the deal.

[SPEAKER_05]: You're sitting at home on average, by the way, able bodied people unmedicated.

[SPEAKER_05]: This is not the original Medicaid population.

[SPEAKER_05]: My way, sixteenth anniversary.

[SPEAKER_05]: I brought you a cake, sixteenth anniversary of a Medicaid.

[SPEAKER_05]: This is a Maha Medicaid.

[SPEAKER_05]: We'll take it.

[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you.

[SPEAKER_05]: But Medicaid was created and it's a very precious entity.

[SPEAKER_05]: Medicare Medicaid are the the backbone of the social safety in our country.

[SPEAKER_05]: We must preserve these entities.

[SPEAKER_05]: Medicare of course wasn't touched in the one big beautiful law, but Medicaid was addressed because just fraud wasted and abuse is Dr.

Brassel addressed.

[SPEAKER_05]: He's a physician by the way, in an excellent doctor.

[SPEAKER_05]: So he understands both sides is still legal side as well as the medical side.

[SPEAKER_05]: If you were able bodied [SPEAKER_03]: and able to work and you're not on average you're spending six point one hours a day watching television just hanging out video games out of the things who came up with that number so he says the number of eleven billion people kicked off Medicaid that that's not true because it comes from people who come up with numbers who look at numbers six point one hours a day are spent by all these able by the medicare recipients watching TV and doing anything so like we're to get those numbers from [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe from psychology, Aaron.

[SPEAKER_01]: What's up with the cake?

[SPEAKER_03]: What can be in that cake that makes it that makes a maha make America healthy again?

[SPEAKER_01]: Erin, wanna hear something creepy?

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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not leaving myself vulnerable and you shouldn't either.

[SPEAKER_01]: So for isn't that weird, we're going to turn to Don Jr.

[SPEAKER_01]: as in Donald Trump's son.

[SPEAKER_01]: The yesterday, the online firearm company, Grab a gun, digital holdings of which Don Jr.

[SPEAKER_01]: is a board member made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange.

[SPEAKER_01]: And here is Don Jr.

[SPEAKER_01]: making the very exciting announcement.

[SPEAKER_02]: to be able to come back to the New York Stock Exchange and actually take a gun company public feels like such a vindication of all of the insanity, all of the woke nonsense that we've been watching and facing for the last decade in America.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so I think it's an ultimate triumphant return.

[SPEAKER_02]: So we're just super excited about the opportunity.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't really understand what's so revolutionary, what's so exciting about this.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's not a good thing, but of course there are already gun companies on the stock market.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't get what's revolutionary.

[SPEAKER_01]: Is he describing how like the stock market works or how Wall Street works, but I don't honestly get the purpose of this whole stunt.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I guess it speaks to the base, the gun loving base.

[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe he's saying that all the other gun companies that have gone public, that they're woke, and his is the first non-woke gun company.

[SPEAKER_01]: So this is his story.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think it's the debut on the stock market.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right, maybe this is like an anti-DI defense company.

[SPEAKER_03]: The nation's first.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, first in that terrible, let's turn to the Ukraine proxy war.

[SPEAKER_03]: Some excitement that recently, where Trump has appeared to be getting tired of Vladimir Putin and saying that, you know, he said, he said things like, I felt we had a deal of Putin four times, but it never happened, which is weird because like, the US and Russia never even drafted a deal.

[SPEAKER_03]: So how can you feel you have a deal when you never even like try to work one out?

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, they've talked about it, but they've never worked one out.

[SPEAKER_03]: Anyway, the point is Trump has made a Vladimir Putin and, um, accordingly, he announced a shift.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's going to send weapons to Ukraine that he says are going to be paid for by NATO.

[SPEAKER_03]: I might even convince it's going to happen, but this certainly got a lot of war hawks excited.

[SPEAKER_03]: People like Lindsey Graham who's predicting [SPEAKER_03]: a turning point.

[SPEAKER_03]: Another thing that's gotten them excited is some leaked audio from last year.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're Trump met with a bunch of donors and told them that he told Vladimir Putin that he was threatened to bomb the shit out of Moscow if Russia ever invaded Ukraine.

[SPEAKER_07]: If you go in, you create the bomb.

[SPEAKER_07]: I'm telling you, I have interest to talk about.

[SPEAKER_07]: So he goes like, I don't believe him.

[SPEAKER_07]: He said, no way.

[SPEAKER_07]: I said, wait.

[SPEAKER_07]: And then he goes like, I don't believe you.

[SPEAKER_07]: But the truth is he believed me ten percent.

[SPEAKER_07]: I told you this.

[SPEAKER_07]: He believed me ten percent.

[SPEAKER_07]: Then I'm like, President Xi, which I know.

[SPEAKER_07]: But I said the same thing to them, I said, you know, you go into that one.

[SPEAKER_07]: I'm going to about the, the Beijing people are as crazy.

[SPEAKER_07]: He said, hey, you can hear the conflict.

[SPEAKER_07]: I said, I have no choice, I got something.

[SPEAKER_03]: So there is Trump bragging to much of donors in private that he threatened to bomb Beijing and bomb Moscow.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's very proud of himself for that.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he thinks that that was enough to get Putin to stand down and not invade Ukraine in his first term.

[SPEAKER_03]: waiting Trump out until Biden came in when Biden was so weak and then Putin took up a tuning.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's the Republican talking point now.

[SPEAKER_03]: Not that maybe, you know, we shouldn't be threatening to bomb anybody.

[SPEAKER_03]: We should be trying to make peace and they were putting up opportunities to do that in Ukraine.

[SPEAKER_03]: We can't even talk about that in mainstream politics in the U.S.

[SPEAKER_03]: But anyway, to their Trump, but this led to some new excitement after Trump announced these more weapons for Ukraine this week and there was even more porn and financial times saying that Trump had encouraged Zelensky [SPEAKER_03]: to bomb Moscow.

[SPEAKER_03]: But started to be a party Cooper for Warhawk's Trump put a damper on that talk when he was asked about it this week.

[SPEAKER_08]: The end of fifty days if we don't have a deal, it's going to be too bad.

[SPEAKER_08]: We're going to get more aggressive.

[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, the tariffs are going to go on and other sanctions go on.

[SPEAKER_06]: Should there be target Moscow?

[SPEAKER_06]: Should there be target Moscow, sir?

[SPEAKER_06]: should the lengthy target Moscow or deeper intervals should target Moscow?

[SPEAKER_07]: Is that why you gave him more weapons though?

[SPEAKER_03]: All right, let's give this a point to people who are really excited at this report that was in the financial times on the Washington Post saying that, you know, Trump and Zelensky talked about bombing Moscow.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I'm thankful personally that Trump is not encouraging Zelensky to do that and is not going to be providing at least for now the weapons to help you crane do that because we don't have World War III.

[SPEAKER_03]: But somebody who does want World War III is the aforementioned Lindsey Graham who still thinks that we are going to get World War III.

[SPEAKER_03]: This is what he said this week about Trump's announcement of a fifty-day deadline to Russia and also the announcement of new weapons to Ukraine.

[SPEAKER_03]: If Putin and others are wondering what happens on day, fifty-one, I would suggest they call the Iatola.

[SPEAKER_03]: So says Lindsey Graham, their Republican Senator of South Carolina.

[SPEAKER_03]: So Lindsey Graham still believes that after fifty days, after Trump's fifty-day deadline, he's given to Russia.

[SPEAKER_03]: If Russia doesn't take steps towards peace on U.S.

[SPEAKER_03]: terms by then, then Trump's going to bomb Russia just as he did Iran.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it makes me so sad that John McCain isn't around to see [SPEAKER_01]: his song, not only fulfilled a bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran, but kind of like a cover, not a cover, what a sample, a potential sample of that same song turned into bomb bomb bomb bomb musket musket.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I feel like, you know, if John became around, he'd have a much better rhyme than the one I just came up with, or maybe he would just use the different songs.

[SPEAKER_01]: And in his honor, Aaron, let's brainstorm for next week.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's have a good bomb Moscow song.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're trying to walk in the steps of a giant.

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think we can come up with something as clever as bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb around, especially for Moscow, but we can try.

[SPEAKER_03]: We can try.

[SPEAKER_01]: And those have been your four basic scoops.

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[SPEAKER_03]: For this week's interview I did this one solo because Katie is on the road and I sat down with Larry Charles he is a golden globe [SPEAKER_03]: in Emmy and Peabody award-winning writer and director, who's been involved in some of the most influential comedy projects of the last several decades, including Seinfeld, Kirby, enthusiasm, Borat, Bruno, and also, has been very outspoken and speaking out against Israel's genocide and Gaza, which is very rare for somebody in Hollywood, especially a Jewish guy in Hollywood.

[SPEAKER_03]: And one interesting aspect of the fact that Larry Charles has been involved in [SPEAKER_03]: So many influential comedy projects is that some of his key collaborators, people like Jerry Seinfeld, Sasha Baron Cohen, Bill Mar, are on the opposite side of him when it comes to Israel Palestine.

[SPEAKER_03]: They're vocal supporters of Israel, whereas he is [SPEAKER_03]: among those in Hollywood who have raised their voice to speak out against Israel's genocide and Gaza.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I talked to Larry Charles about that and a whole lot more.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's the author of a brand new memoir of his four decades in comedy.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's called Comedy Samurai, forty years of blood, guts, and laughter.

[SPEAKER_03]: Here is Manor V with Larry Charles.

[SPEAKER_03]: Larry Charles, thanks so much for joining me.

[SPEAKER_03]: My pleasure, man.

[SPEAKER_03]: Great to see you.

[SPEAKER_03]: Likewise, you've been a part of, you know, some of the biggest comedy projects and biggest, most influential comedy projects in history, sign-feld, borrott, Bruno, Kirby and Thurzieism.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now you have a memoir.

[SPEAKER_03]: All about it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Comedy Samurai, forty years of blood guts and laughter.

[SPEAKER_03]: So just talk to us first of all, but what compelled you finally to sit down and write a memoir about your decades in comedy?

[SPEAKER_09]: Well, I feel like, you know, I never thought of myself as having a career.

[SPEAKER_09]: I always thought of myself as just kind of trying to do cool things and just flailing about and at one point that I was going to call it stumbling through my life span.

[SPEAKER_09]: I mean, I really didn't have like a career goal in mind, but I was attracted to certain things.

[SPEAKER_09]: And I kind of inadvertently trusted my instincts and wound up doing a lot of interesting things.

[SPEAKER_09]: And I've read a lot of memoirs and people sort of have done like one really interesting thing or two interesting things.

[SPEAKER_09]: And I thought, wow, I have insights from all these different experiences that are fairly unique.

[SPEAKER_09]: And I've been keeping notes and I have a really good memory for some reason.

[SPEAKER_09]: And I started, I've been committing stuff to paper.

[SPEAKER_09]: memories, you know, memoir type of stuff for quite a while.

[SPEAKER_09]: And then the the COVID came along and I couldn't direct and I couldn't really get out to do stuff.

[SPEAKER_09]: So I started putting it on paper and I wanted to being a thousand page book.

[SPEAKER_09]: And I gave it to my agent who gave it to a publisher and they loved it.

[SPEAKER_09]: And but they said you can't write a thousand.

[SPEAKER_09]: You can't publish a thousand page book.

[SPEAKER_09]: So we decided that from like birth to my first gig, we would make that like a separate book.

[SPEAKER_09]: And so we cut that essentially.

[SPEAKER_09]: And so the book starts with Fridays in nineteen eighty.

[SPEAKER_09]: And that's basically the book.

[SPEAKER_09]: But there's a second book that will hopefully follow it that.

[SPEAKER_09]: Oh, wow.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_09]: It was my early life a little bit, which was also very surreal and weird.

[SPEAKER_09]: And, you know, worth reading, I think, in some way.

[SPEAKER_03]: I look forward to, and that's your early life growing up in Brooklyn.

[SPEAKER_09]: Growing up in Brooklyn, my dad was a failed comic.

[SPEAKER_09]: His stage name was Psycho, the exotic neurotic, and you know, I had a very bizarre childhood.

[SPEAKER_09]: It was fine.

[SPEAKER_09]: I mean, I survived it obviously, but it was weird and kind of one of a kind.

[SPEAKER_03]: I look forward to discussing that with you when the book comes up.

[SPEAKER_03]: So let's talk about this book.

[SPEAKER_03]: So as you mentioned, you got your start on Fridays, which was sort of like a, is it fair to call it a knock-off of Saturday Night Live back in the United States?

[SPEAKER_09]: What they wanted it to be, the network and the producers, the writers were like radicals that we wanted to really disrupt the medium, but you know, that was a tough battle that we probably lost, I would say.

[SPEAKER_03]: Was there pressure back then to fit into the like Reaganite dominance of the time, which is all about, you know, worshiping so-called free markets and the foreign policy of the Reagan administration, like did that ever, did you ever face that kind of pressure coming up on a major corporate network doing comedy or, or did you have free reign back then?

[SPEAKER_09]: Well, first of all, we started just before Reagan came into office.

[SPEAKER_09]: And when Carter was still president, before the Iranian crisis.

[SPEAKER_09]: And so we kind of covered the election cycle as well.

[SPEAKER_09]: And no, we never, it was surprisingly, which shows you how hard it is to really create revolutionary change on TV.

[SPEAKER_09]: I think someone once said, resistance is surrender.

[SPEAKER_09]: I mean, the networks, the corporations had resistance built into the equation.

[SPEAKER_09]: So they were okay with us as a late night show, reaching a small audience to say anything we wanted.

[SPEAKER_09]: And we, and we took advantage of that.

[SPEAKER_09]: And when as far as we possibly could, and we're extremely anti-rigged, and actually, but it didn't really have much impact, and we didn't get any pushback on that at all.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm sorry, I forgot that in the memoir on the issue of Jimmy Carter, you have a story in there about being tackled by Secret Service.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, because Jimmy Carter's sister was visiting the set.

[SPEAKER_09]: Well, Jimmy Carter's sister became, you know, it's weird now again, it's, but it's real, she became the spiritual advisor to Larry Flint.

[SPEAKER_09]: Larry Flint went through a born-again Christian phase [SPEAKER_09]: And after he, after his assassination attempt, and he was in a wheelchair, and he and his wife were very heavily medicated.

[SPEAKER_09]: I don't know how much was voluntary at, you know, I don't know what the details of that were, but they were very, very medicated, and they used to go around with an entourage of Hell's Angels [SPEAKER_09]: and Ruth Carter Stapleton, who was Jimmy Carter's sister, who was his spiritual advisor, and they came to see Friday's, and they were up in the green room, and I got the week-out, the writers down in the sub-base, but when we were kept, basically, we were told, oh, Larry Flint wants a joint, you know, and I volunteered, and I rolled a joint, because we were all drug-craised young writers ourselves, [SPEAKER_09]: And I ran upstairs, all my mates, so I would get there before the show started, and I'm running through the hall to the green room, and as I get to the door, I got tackles by these two guys, and they were super-service guys, and they're like, what do you think you're doing?

[SPEAKER_09]: Like, as if I was going to, you know, maybe kill Larry Flint or something, and I said, no, no, I have a joint for the president's sister, and they were like, okay, and they let me up, and I came in and delivered the joint, and they seemed very happy.

[SPEAKER_03]: and Larry Flant for those who don't know, he was the publisher of Hustler and became sort of a free speech, sort of seen as a free speech champion because of his resistance efforts to shut him down.

[SPEAKER_09]: Well, he also offered large rewards for anything that could prove the JFK assassination conspiracy.

[SPEAKER_09]: His daughter was actually killed in a very mysterious, even his assassination was connected to his attempts of free speech and pushing this political agenda.

[SPEAKER_09]: And his daughter was also killed in a very mysterious car accident.

[SPEAKER_09]: One of those kind of a chaperquitic type of car accidents.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, at Friday's, you meet Larry David, who goes on to co-create sidefeld, and also Michael Richards too, was a part of the cast of Friday's.

[SPEAKER_03]: How does Friday's for you lead into sidefeld?

[SPEAKER_09]: Well, mainly through those two guys.

[SPEAKER_09]: I mean, especially Larry.

[SPEAKER_09]: Larry sort of almost immediately, we were from the same neighborhood in Brooklyn.

[SPEAKER_09]: He was almost like ten years older than me, so he was already like an adult, and I was still like a kid.

[SPEAKER_09]: And he really kind of mentored me right off the bat.

[SPEAKER_09]: We really hit it off and connected.

[SPEAKER_09]: And he sort of showed me and taught me about integrity and not compromising and following your vision and trusting your instinct.

[SPEAKER_09]: And he never backed down from that on Fridays.

[SPEAKER_09]: And really taught me that lesson, taught me how to be a writer, taught me how to be a man to a large degree.

[SPEAKER_09]: And then we both, after the show ended, we both kind of drifted off, stayed friends, but we really went through many years of failure [SPEAKER_09]: And didn't have too many expectations.

[SPEAKER_09]: So, but he knew that I was a writer that he could count on.

[SPEAKER_09]: He liked my sensibility.

[SPEAKER_09]: He liked my originality, my vision of the world.

[SPEAKER_09]: And when he came time for him to do science field, he was looking for somebody to help him.

[SPEAKER_09]: He called me up and said, basically, you know, we'll do thirteen episodes to show, we'll fail.

[SPEAKER_09]: You know, we'll make a little bit of money and then we'll go about our lives, you know.

[SPEAKER_09]: And it was not like, you know, he was like promising me the world.

[SPEAKER_09]: He was offering me like a short-term gig.

[SPEAKER_09]: And I was at that time, I just been fired from the Arsenio Hall show.

[SPEAKER_09]: I was kind of desperate for a gig.

[SPEAKER_09]: And I said yes.

[SPEAKER_09]: And so that's how we connected.

[SPEAKER_09]: We always sort of were connected in some way from the very beginning.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, before we get more of a design field, I have to talk to you about their senior hall show, because for me, I was so excited to learn your right of their, because for me, I'm born in the nineteen seventy nine.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, nineteen eighty eight eighty nine, when our senior hall, I think first comes on there.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, that show was so influential for me.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that was a revolutionary show, not just because it's a black [SPEAKER_03]: post, but like it was political, you know, he would have on some, for example, minister of fairer con.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he also would have on wrestlers like it and play into all of the drama and wrestling too, but also ask them serious questions about steroids use and also musically.

[SPEAKER_03]: the artisty put on there at the time, which is exactly like, it's a music of my own childhood.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think so, just to me, there's so much of a loose sharing special about that show.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I'd love to hear your reflections on your time at our senior hall because to me, I'm like the history of late night TV to me, our senior just constantly gets overlooked.

[SPEAKER_09]: I completely agree with you and I think it is a very, and that's why I get into it and I devote a whole chapter to it because I really do think it is kind of underappreciated a period in TV history.

[SPEAKER_09]: He, you might want to see him.

[SPEAKER_09]: I said, you know, I'd be interested in writing like Richard prior type of monologues for you and he was really into that.

[SPEAKER_09]: And that's what I started writing when I first went to work there and he started doing that kind of material, very edgy material in his monologues.

[SPEAKER_09]: And immediately, one of the things I discovered was he was getting, this is before the internet, if you remember, it's that far back.

[SPEAKER_09]: But he was getting stacks and stacks of hate mail just because he was a black guy on TV.

[SPEAKER_09]: A black star was enough to engender hate mail.

[SPEAKER_09]: And I don't mean like, we don't like you.

[SPEAKER_09]: I mean like, [SPEAKER_09]: you know, violent sexual scenarios that they were writing to him, sometimes in crayon, literally, and really wanting to kill him, just wanting to kill him.

[SPEAKER_09]: I can't put it any other way, because that's the truth.

[SPEAKER_09]: We had metal screeners in the audience, you know, when the audience would come in, they had to walk through metal screeners and weapons would be taken off of people, because it was that dangerous, you know, [SPEAKER_09]: So if he, if he shook hands with, if he had a female guest who is white and he like just shook hands with her, the switchboard would go crazy, you know, and that's, you're not that long ago and I don't think things have changed that much actually.

[SPEAKER_09]: And like you say, he had Lewis Ferrican on, he had Clinton come on and play the saxophone, he had NWA and public enemy [SPEAKER_09]: And for me, it was a fascinating experience because I was one of the few white people working.

[SPEAKER_09]: I was like a minority on that show and I got to see black society in a microcosm that I would never be exposed to otherwise.

[SPEAKER_09]: And I really kind of think most people, most people would really benefit from being the minority in a situation and seeing what it's like.

[SPEAKER_09]: Realizing there's so much more nuance to black society we're always like generalizing black people need this black you know it's like it's not that simple you know black people came from all kinds of backgrounds all kinds of economic backgrounds regional backgrounds [SPEAKER_09]: They were, you know, educational backgrounds and they all had very different values and it was a very interesting world to be part of.

[SPEAKER_09]: But he couldn't do my jokes after a while because my jokes were too hard-edged.

[SPEAKER_09]: He had to go a little easier.

[SPEAKER_09]: And as a result, I didn't get a joke on for six months and when my contract was up, he had to let me go.

[SPEAKER_09]: Even though we've stayed friends and he's always, let me know how much he meant.

[SPEAKER_09]: I meant to him.

[SPEAKER_09]: and how much he enjoyed my jokes.

[SPEAKER_09]: He had no choice really, but to let me go and I understood, even though I was like concerned about what was going to happen next.

[SPEAKER_03]: He was working under just the constraints that people face in that studio system and Hollywood, especially as a prominent black comedian.

[SPEAKER_03]: By the way, when the first adversarial interviews I ever were called seeing was when he interviewed vanilla ice [SPEAKER_03]: And if it all lies with the time it was a darling because here was a white rap or having a lot of success, but yes, I think it all didn't buy into it and he held them to a can and that's actually the first time I can recall seeing someone, you know, being challenged in an adversarial but respectful way.

[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, he did a lot of he had he had people on both his guests and musical guests that the other talk shows would not touch.

[SPEAKER_09]: And he changed that landscape by doing that.

[SPEAKER_09]: And now it's expected to see offbeat people as guests and as musical guests.

[SPEAKER_09]: But at that time, Johnny Carson wasn't going to have public enemy on.

[SPEAKER_09]: And so it was really kind of a radical move.

[SPEAKER_09]: And as you said at the beginning, he has not gotten the respect for that that he deserves.

[SPEAKER_03]: What comes across, you know, in reading your book and just seeing you publicly, is you're very political.

[SPEAKER_03]: Without getting into like the specifics necessarily of your politics, although we can talk about it, but I'm just curious, like, does Jay ever struggle with making sure your politics don't get in the way of comedy, because just in my own personal life, and I love comedy so much, but I can't [SPEAKER_03]: When I try to make light of political things that I feel very strongly about, I struggle to do because I'm so outraged about all the horrors that I'm seeing.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I'm curious about your thoughts on the relationship between being so heavy, a very strong political point of view, also having a very strong comedic point of view and whether the two are ever in tension or basically if you want to be righteous politically, it's not going to be funny.

[SPEAKER_09]: Well, I think my bottom line is it needs to be funny, and I've been exploring that relationship between things that aren't supposed to be funny, that I would then rise to the challenge of trying to make funny.

[SPEAKER_09]: And of course, political issues are amongst them, working on Fridays as my first job [SPEAKER_09]: plunged us into the political world.

[SPEAKER_09]: And so we wrote a lot of political sketches.

[SPEAKER_09]: Some were more successful than others in terms of funniness or in terms of insight, but we were not at all censored.

[SPEAKER_09]: And I never have felt since that time that I was censored in terms of exploring politics through comedy.

[SPEAKER_09]: It's something that I love the idea of trying to bring those two worlds together even when they're not on the surface [SPEAKER_09]: supposedly funny because there's always an angle to every issue.

[SPEAKER_09]: There's always an angle that you can find humor in.

[SPEAKER_09]: I was a big political cartoonist fan and I did political cartoons like in high school and stuff.

[SPEAKER_09]: So I've always been looking for that juxtaposition that interesting synthesis between politics and humor.

[SPEAKER_03]: You have visited Palestine and you've been very vocal on it on the issue, especially since Israel started attacking Gaza after October seventh.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now you've worked with some people who have made some of the most influential comedies ever.

[SPEAKER_03]: on Seinfeld with Jerry Seinfeld and Borat and Bruno with Sasha Baron Cohen and others, too, I'm sure, just being in the Hollywood system, who have very different views than you when it comes to the issue of Palestine.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I'm curious how you navigate that.

[SPEAKER_03]: How incredibly creative partnerships can not transcend to being in alignment on really fundamental political issues.

[SPEAKER_03]: And to hear the rest of the interview, please go to useful idiotspodcast.com.

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