71: America Shits Itself with Andrew Callaghan | Soder Podcast | EP 69

Grand Rapids, Michigan.

I return to your beautiful city March 8th for Gilda's Fest.

Obviously, the festival dedicated to Gilda Radner.

I will be headlining a show there, March 8th.

One show.

Tickets are on sale now, danceoder.com.

I'll see you then.

Hopefully, it's not freezing cold, but it might be.

And if it is, whatever.

I'll wear a jacket.

See you March 8th, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

I don't think people understand.

I'm an alcoholic, so I like, I understand it.

In recovery, yeah, like I haven't drank it in 12 years, but

kind of the same problem as Kelly, where I smoked too much weed and fucking, it can kind of really bend your brain chemistry.

Yeah, I'm stoked to talk about that because that's like the low-key, most controversial part of the movie.

Is that he's like, well,

the problem, like, I think a big problem that's happening right now, we just start recording.

I'm really fascinated with things that are addictions that aren't treated like addictions like weed right which in the movie dear Kelly

go watch it now dear Kelly film dot dear kelly the film calm the film or just filmy film dear kelly film calm rent it or buy it I suggest buying it so you can watch it more than once my guy yeah dude fucking go give go give the man your money thank you um but it's fucking awesome but the thing that does

you know you do the great thing about him with the four-banger, him showing up.

First off, something that you and Kelly need credit for.

You guys go in situations that I would puss out so fast.

What do you think's the main situation in the film that would cause you to puss out?

When you go to the dude's office.

Oh, that scene.

Yeah, what the fuck, dude?

You're just up in a guy's office.

Yeah, you know what's a trip to is I'm being sued by Bill Joyner.

What's the most painful piece of truth that's hurt you?

A guy stealing my home.

His name's Bill Joyner.

Financially, he wanted to destroy me.

He destroyed my 25-year business, separated, and devastated my family.

So that answers your question.

So he really is, at the end of the movie, you say that Bill Joyner is suing you, but part of it was if you didn't release the movie, he wouldn't bring the lawsuit.

Yeah, so he sued us like way before it came out.

And it basically said there's like eight different counts we're going to slam you for.

Intentional infliction of emotional distress, defamation, civil stalking, a violation of the Federal Wiretap Act, like an insane litany of falsehoods.

You never got him on the phone.

Never.

But he's claiming that I actually tapped his phone lines.

but you didn't like the wire yeah no i didn't do shit but so check we gotta wire up we gotta wire up on

so this is gonna blow your mind so you know that scene in the film where i visit his office and i talked to like a bunch of random corporate white collar guys yeah where you're outside everyone's stoked for free lunch on a thursday yes who doesn't love a free lunch right so in the lawsuit it says that i interviewed one of his employees in the film

So one of those dudes on free lunch Thursday was actually a Bill Joyner cadet.

Was the guy that played in the major league related to Joyner?

I don't think so I think joyner is like a pretty common last name okay because I know that because I tried to find Bill Joyner for like two years so you spent time dude you put in time on shit like when you went back and watched the hundred hours of interviews you had with Kelly and his kids and you started going through Kelly's past life of being disbarred yeah him financial troubles his 44 animals his wife didn't want to name it but he sure did but at that point I'm like dude you know how much fucking work you have to put in to go and and re-watch stuff?

Yeah.

So Joyner, when I heard it,

when you're at the Starbucks and he's like, I know, so Will or whatever the guy, Joyner.

Bill Joyner.

Yeah.

Oh, Wally Joyner.

Wally Joyner.

Former MLB baseball player.

For the Tigers.

Immediately, that goes to the part where Kelly is talking about he's never seen him.

And I was.

High watching it being like, well, yo, if his brother is an MLB pitcher,

he's about to be a big boy.

So I was waiting to see.

I was waiting for this reveal.

So you think Bill Joyner is a big guy physically.

But then I realized that wasn't his brother.

Yeah.

And then I'm like, I don't even know if he exists.

Well, in Kelly's mind, Bill Joyner is like this tiny demonic guy, like some 4'11, like sniveling, evil billionaire who hides behind his lawyers and all this shit.

But I've been able to confirm through third parties that Bill Joyner is around like five foot nine.

So he's not like insanely small.

He's like Joe Rogan's height.

Yeah, but he's not an imposing figure.

He's not like giant and could fucking break his bones.

Break Kelly's bones.

Kelly, though, is jacked.

I mean, Kelly stays in shape for sure.

When they showed the video of him and his son riding bikes, you're like, that's an old, that's a jack-old man when he was behind him.

But the part that you bring up with Kelly that I thought was really interesting was the weed addiction that he was, because you don't really show him getting high.

You don't really make it.

a reference that Kelly's getting high.

But in the intervention, his kids bring it up.

They're like, you're high constantly.

I mean, that by far is the most controversial part of the documentary is, you know, spoiler alert, he goes to rehab after the intervention.

Yeah.

And he's diagnosed by this rehab facility as a cannabis addict, which, which, I mean, I'm not going to say that like.

I think it's true because, I mean, I would probably say as an addict, I am addicted to weed.

Yeah.

But I would also say.

It doesn't grab me as much as alcohol did.

So I think when it doesn't damage your life as much, you're kind of like, is it an addiction?

I think it's sort of like hijacked his dopamine reward systems.

You know what I mean?

So where he's like, he's having a good day or bad day.

It's not determined on like how his day is actually going.

But if he's high or not.

And then you take like the obviously we know that people who have obviously we know that people who are prone to schizophrenia sometimes they smoke some of this new high-grade shit like doing dabs and all that crazy

science experiments and they go a little bit off the rails because that shit is like dabs to me is drugs.

I mean, dude, dabs is, it's the crack of weed.

Dude, it is.

It is.

I shout out to the guy in Providence that owned, that worked at the head shop.

I was working the Comedy Connection, and one day he was like, This is like 10 years ago.

He's like, dude, come on out.

I'll give you a pipe.

You can get a DVD porn.

And I was like, sick.

And then he's like, and I go and I get this stuff.

And he's like, I've got a dab rig in the back.

And I took a dab.

And it fucked.

I've been smoking weed every day since I was like 15.

It fucked me up so bad.

I had to sit in my rental car for like 90 minutes to the point that he got done with his shift and walked out of the head shop.

And I was just chilling in my rental car and he went like

sweating bullets and fucking hands and attacks.

I just talked to my grandpa and I've never met him.

That's where I was mentally.

I was like, I'm so fucked up.

But it is, it's like dabs, fuck your shit up.

So people can get high in ways.

This isn't the 90s where it was like pick some seeds out, smoke a couple joints.

You feel a little like, your brain can get bent.

on powerful new weed.

The new weed is like bad.

That's where I'm at in my age.

I'm about to be 42.

Yeah.

When I go to dispensaries now, I make sure I get THC under 22%.

Like I don't want that fucking 29, 30%.

Give me an 18%

because then it feels like it used to.

Yeah, dude, what I do is I try to go for like more of a CBD ratio.

I probably smoke like maybe once a week.

I was just in Jamaica.

I was smoking like no exaggeration, like five splits a day.

That's sick, though.

And I wasn't getting that high because I was hanging out with these like Rastafarian dudes who actually grew the weed on their property.

So you know there's no chemicals

dude it was chill no paranoid thoughts i wasn't like going back into my past lives that's sick yeah you're just like hanging with rostas no paranoia no paranoia not at all they also created like a very chill environment yeah it's not a stereotype these dudes are like cooking ital which is like vegan jamaican food they're like frying up plantains making curried beans and lentils smoking weed on the beach you know what i mean i was like wow i love weed i come home i meet up with my homie elliot i hit his like dispensary weed one time, immediately day ruined.

Spiral.

Yeah.

Spiral.

Got to go lay down, put a blanket over it.

It makes me think it can't just be that they're like, the weed here is stronger.

I think that it's being like fucking manipulated.

Fucked with, augmented.

Find out.

Put channel five on it.

Next documentary.

You're the only journalist I trust.

Really?

I swear to God.

Hell yeah.

I have a journalism degree.

Really?

You do better journalism than

any of the networks.

That's sick that you have a journalism degree, though.

I mean, I just wanted, you know, something that I was doing stand-up in college, and I was like, well, I want to learn about the media.

I want to learn about the media and politics because I think so many people, and this movie does a great job of that, of how people are manipulated by media and politics.

Basically, Kelly's whole life.

His life is funneled into this like

Trump, the election was stolen.

Yeah.

Which, I mean, dude, I might jump all over the place in this interview because I've watched all your shit.

But they really, you see how they come in and go, like, they take a thing you made and they go, fuck this.

Yeah.

We need to put our own, we're going to put our own stuff on it.

And you go, but you didn't even make it.

And then they wonder why like YouTube and digital media is doing bigger numbers.

It's like, it's because we don't have to have this corporate oversight.

Because you're trying to make it like advertiser safe.

Yeah.

But real advertisers will take risks for like enjoyable controversial content.

So it's like, who is the advertiser you're talking about?

Is it Tepsi?

Is it Dasani?

It's someone that's disconnected.

It's usually when they're talking about someone that wants to edit it like that, it's someone who doesn't have any connection to the product.

Yeah.

And they're thinking about shareholders, profits.

They're not thinking, like, does this work?

Does this fit for it?

Because I liked your name way better than This Place Rules.

So for those who don't know, it was supposed to be called America Shits Itself, which is great.

America Shits Itself would have been the greatest title.

Everybody on the team was like, let's do this.

Even Jonah Hill was like going to bat.

He was like, he was telling HBO, he's like, we're calling it this.

I'm fucking drawing a line in the sand.

And they were just like, you got to change it or I can't go out.

America Shits Itself fucking rules super sick and this is such a great name they were like you know the s-word's gonna ruffle some feathers i was like come on dude it's everywhere now yeah is everywhere they say it on network television they say now they say i watch it on tv on tbs they say on all these networks they're saying you're like it's not a big deal anymore yeah they can see way worse like it's way worse well i think that's what's awesome about channel five is

Something that you have a superpower at is, which I'm trying to learn, is how to stay silent when people are talking.

Yeah.

And you fucking sit there.

Like I just watched, you were at the Trump inauguration.

You just do a bunch of stuff, but you let people say what they need to say,

which then

changes what you're making based on what they're saying.

You kind of like let them follow their own path.

Especially like somebody who goes through the process of going to Office Depot or Staples, getting markers, getting a cardboard sign, going home, writing shit on it that sounds funny, physically going to a location, holding it up and screaming yeah that's insane

no matter what you think so when i talk to somebody at like a protest like they're ready they're just waiting for the right person to ask them hey what's on your mind and as soon as you ask them that boom it's like shooting fish in a barrel in terms of content not saying that i want to shoot them yeah yeah yeah but i'm just playing when you do that because i mean you it's it's funny how you get these people that are like locked and loaded with their opinion yeah when the guy was like

We need to get rid of education at the Trump inauguration.

He's like, we need to get rid of education.

And then he turns around.

He's like, we're not educated enough.

And you're like, you just contradicted yourself.

Yeah, I cut a part of that interview out where I was talking to the guy because he was saying, like, we need to abolish public schools.

And I'm like, dude, what kind of school did you go to?

He's like, a public school.

And I'm like, did you like any of your teachers?

He's like, no, they fucking suck.

And I was like, which teacher in particular was the worst?

And he's like, my fucking wrestling coach.

I'm like, well, years ago.

He would like never let me get on varsity and like made me show up early to practice.

And now I'm showing him that I'm tough and strong.

Yeah, but no, I'm saying that is similar to the Kelly equation, which is like you take a tragic tragic personal situation, some political movement comes around that has this really binary view of the world, like good versus bad, angels versus demons, hardworking, red-blooded American patriots being robbed blind by this like nebulous dark force.

And you're like, you know what?

I know that my situation might not be electoral or presidential, but it fits.

Yes.

And they don't have that on the left.

Well, they did.

I think the left really did that back in like 2016, 2017.

And I saw a lot of comedians saw it where they were going like, no white guys on a show.

And you're like, that's ridiculous.

Yeah, right.

Like, how is that any better than the things that you're supposed to be fighting against?

Yeah, I think.

Where they're like, inclusive.

We got to be inclusive, but no white dudes.

And you're like, that's a weird.

They were actually saying that?

Oh, yeah.

I guess I was like in high school.

Yeah, we were saying like that.

Oh, this is.

What's interesting about this, this right-wing wave is it is a response to the mid-teens

when they were going like, fuck white dudes.

We don't need white dudes.

We don't need.

in fact I would even go as far as to argue that's what made Joe Rogan right-wing because you go back and you look

you look at him in 2013 2014 he's saying a lot of liberal viewpoints about like tax the rich do this do that and then with COVID which hurt a lot of people's brains yeah I think they just like banged on him of like oh you don't believe in vaccines and he just kept pushing him until finally he was like I fucking love Trump.

Elon's the man.

Elon's not doing nothing shady.

And you're like, that's wild.

Dude, it's crazy.

I really think like the best example of like actual solidarity that threatened the government itself was the Occupy movement.

Yeah.

Because that wasn't even necessarily, you know, left versus right.

It was like the collective people, working class people versus the richest in the country.

Which is always going to be the thing they're afraid of.

I think the last Occupy style point of solidarity was like the mid-1960s, civil rights movement, that time period where it was like, you know what, we're done with this shit.

You had almost every single movement that we see today, social movement, formed in the 60s.

Animal rights, Chicano rights, black, even white working-class union shit really started back then.

And if you look at it, the FBI strategically deployed like programs to take the leaders out, to disrupt the solidarity between a lot of these communities and kind of turn them against each other.

And it actually worked.

By the 80s, you had Reagan come in and be like, anyone complaining is a fucking pussy.

Pick yourself up.

Are you an American?

Go to work and you're going to become me one day.

And then now you're kind of seeing, I look at the period between 2012, Occupy Movement, and 2016 as our FBI infiltration moment.

Because all of a sudden 2016 comes around and there's like, you got these smart dudes who happen to be white and someone's like, can you please hold space for the people who are marginalized?

And they're like, what?

I have a great idea.

And someone's like, I know you have a great idea, but your heteronormative positioning is making you like unable to actually have a good idea.

And so I think that a lot of that is like, you're taking people when they're 18, 19, and they're kind of awkward.

They're trying to figure out who they are in the world.

you know whether they're black white man woman or whatever and you tell someone you can have an automatic leg up socially on like like all these fucking white dudes if you just posture yourself as like a super hardcore, like, it's my moment type of person.

You know what I mean?

Well, what you do is you see, you, you are literally handing someone a knife and they go stab people in the back, you'll get a head.

Of course.

Which is, which is an American thing.

A very American thing is to go like, break a treaty,

go profit.

Absolutely.

And if you look at the actual ownership structures, they're not changing.

No.

Like, if you look at, you know, all these colleges that are pushing this like hardcore, like rich leftist gentrifier agenda, like liberal agenda which is like you know what i mean put up a black lives matter yard sign give your cash app go move to bushwick and push people out of their area that's what they're doing but it's crazy because these people that claim to be like helping you're like you're hurting the neighborhood by putting up these i used to call them spaceships in in uh bushwick i'd be like you're building these spaceships and you're making all these poor people have to move because they can't afford the fucking rent anymore and that is like if not the most that is like the most pressing social class issue in the u.s right now it's 100 and like but it's the one thing they're not like canceling each other other for.

Well, they're also not going to be.

I mean, you know, my family's from the Bay Area, and watching, my dad lived there in the 90s, and I would go there a lot.

And watching what the Bay Area was in the 90s, it was very like people could afford it.

Everyone lived with each other.

You had like lawyers and artists living near each other.

And then now, because of the tech boom, they just pushed everyone out.

Dude, I'm from Seattle.

It's the exact same thing.

Yeah.

Well,

there's a piece of land in Seattle by the sound.

I think it's by the sound that

Bezos bought up and kicked people out.

Because I used to work in

Kirkland.

I would go to Kirkland and work this club.

And I remember one time I was going from T-Sac to the club and there was just homeless people like on the exit ramp in a way I had never seen.

And the club owner was like, oh, Amazon just bought a bunch of this like low-income area housing and fucking kicked people out.

Yeah, it's crazy, man.

Especially like I grew up in Capitol Hill.

Yeah.

And I like to say that I grew up like after Grunge and before tech.

Yeah.

So it's like that weird window where Seattle, in my opinion, had its like had its moment.

It was sick when I was growing up right on the hill.

And then Amazon moved their corporate campus to a neighborhood called South Lake Union in like 2013 when I was a sophomore in high school.

And they tore down that whole neighborhood, but it was like industrial before that.

So we're like, all right, you know what?

That might be the thing that he was actually talking about.

It's like, go ahead and build your corporate campus there.

It's totally fine.

But then the problem was they were importing all of these like

random remote workers and shit into Seattle.

So I think you had like a thousand Amazon employees move from somewhere else to Seattle every single week for like five years.

That's crazy.

And the average residency of an Amazon employee in Seattle was I think between 14 to 16 months because they would get promoted, then go somewhere else like Austin, Portland, wherever they're going.

And so it got to the point where all the Amazon employees had to have a place to live.

So they all moved to Capitol Hill.

So developers sold the city out, literally bulldozed the entire neighborhood.

So your neighborhood is 100% different than what it was when you grew up?

Every dope coffee shop like Bauhaus, so many like institutions just got bulldozed because the city wanted to give tax breaks to Bezos, which is 0% taxes, and stimulate the economy.

So the Capitol Hill neighborhood, the Central District, all that shit is totally gone.

And then, you know, COVID happens, all the workers start working remotely.

And they realize, dude, I can make my Amazon paycheck and move to Idaho and have some land full of chill ass people where no one's going to make fun of me for being a tech bro.

And they're like, they leave, I would too.

So now Seattle's a ghost town full of empty skyscrapers and the landlords won't lower the rents.

So we have this homelessness happening and half the city is vacant apartments.

It's exactly what San Francisco is.

Yeah.

And then you have fucking Republican pundits come in and be like, look at these liberals and their dumbass bullshit.

Yeah, look what happened to their city.

And you go, well, they had, because a lot of what would happen in the Bay Area was you'd get seed money, right, from tech.

These tech companies would get like angel investors that would drop seed money.

And so then these guys are getting like, oh, I can spend a million dollars on a penthouse because I got a fucking 17 million dollar seed for my fucking tech company.

Yeah, but then it fizzles out, there's no more money coming in after the 17 million, and now they're like, Well, fuck this, I'm gonna go take it where it's easier for me to live and develop my product.

And now, this million-dollar there's a comic named Tom Rhodes, yeah, old school comic, hilarious.

I love him to death.

We were talking about the bet, he used to live in San Francisco in the early 90s.

He bought an apartment in the Embarcadero for like

he told me, I forget what it was, something like $115,000, $130,000.

Yeah.

Bought an apartment.

He told me, this is in 2016.

He told me that apartment was worth like $7.5 million now.

And you're like, it's not a different apartment.

No, it's the exact same apartment.

It's the exact same apartment, exact same location.

San Francisco, for the most part, has all the same shit.

Yeah.

It's just because of that rent.

That's what I like about Channel 5: you do a great job of showing

that news uses millionaires and billionaires use the media in order to make people like Kelly feel like you're a soldier on our side

and you're fighting the darkness that it's like CNN bitches about Trump, but they made the most money they've ever made as a as a company when he was in office from 2016 to 2016.

Of course, it was their biggest cash cow.

And what they did is like they systematically fell in line with the DNC and disenfranchised Bernie Sanders in 2016.

Which is like calling him Bernie bros.

And that was our guy.

He was literally there to be like, no, dude, I want fucking, I want people to have livable wages.

The income disparity is getting too wide.

And everyone was like, what are you, a Bernie, bro?

And it made it sound like you were wearing Abercrombie and Fitch in 2004 with your collar popped being like,

and you're like, you're like, no, it's actually kind of some cool ideas.

Well, the thing that personally hit me that I've been sending a link to Channel 5 for for everybody, I grew up in Aurora, Colorado.

Oh, dude.

I grew up in Aurora.

So when the Venezuelan Venezuelan thing happened in the Trente de Agua, like it was amazing to me because I finally had something to give to my friends that were like in on the right wing being like, because I have fans that are both liberal and conservative.

I don't give a fuck what your political views are.

I truly think it's rich versus poor now.

Oh, it's yeah.

And that's what it's always been.

But it's especially, you know, prominent now.

Prominent.

It's very prominent now.

It's very obvious now with all the billionaires making moves the way they're doing where you're going like, you're either a bootlicker or you're trying to change shit.

But Aurora specifically, a lot of people that are indoctrined by these like

media sites, right-wing specifically right now are the ones that are doing it the most of it.

Yeah, they'd be like, dude, sorry Aurora's overrun.

Yeah.

Sorry that

was a robbery.

It was a real thing that, I mean, dude, you went.

Yeah.

The most fascinating part, please go watch channel five about the Aurora Venezuelan migrants because there is a moment you speak Spanish which to me is like the most valuable part of the entire documentary

because you are

you're there talking to them without anything lost in translation yeah and that moment where you're talking to that guy and you're like you're laughing why are you laughing and he's like do you know how fucking dangerous it was for me to get here yeah he's like not even the american border the south mexican border oh totally and he was like i lost all this shit he's like i fought to get here to send my money back to my family and you're calling me like a a gang member.

Yeah, just imagine you walk through the jungle, you leave Venezuela, into Colombia on foot, you walk through the Darien Gap, there's like crocodiles trying to eat you and shit.

People are dropping around you like flies, like it's Phoenix in the summertime.

Just dropping,

sorry, dead weight, we gotta keep going.

Keep going, put a t-shirt over here.

You take buses through Mexico for like two months.

Cartel fools are extorting you, taking advantage of migrants, holding the rich ones ransom.

Mexican police also are systematically extorting you at every single border checkpoint for your watch, your shoes.

You finally get to the U.S.

border.

For some reason, it's open.

Because Joseph R.

Biden and Kamala Harris.

There's all of a sudden some Texas Ranger pulls up and he's like, get in, Venezuelans.

We're going to Colorado, to the sanctuary cities.

You get there, you get to a shitty apartment.

There's a couple kids at the apartment.

One of them's named Cookie.

He robs an old lady.

And then fucking next thing you know, There's 150 YouTubers, live streamers, dudes with MAGA t-shirts and baseball helmets and ski goggles with gimbals on their back live streaming, being like, what's the craziest thing you've seen over here?

You have Sean Handy doing a walkthrough.

My ass pulls up out of nowhere.

I'm all fucking like, hey, I'm trying to tell the truth.

And people are just like, dude, what the fuck is going on?

When you got there,

was it a circus like that?

Was it just like uncontrollable?

And I mean, like, you have a gringo like you coming up and speaking Spanish to them.

Were they like...

They're automatically just like, oh, thank God.

They're excited.

Yeah.

You know, because Spanish is also just like a beautiful language.

So when you speak it to them, it just, it's, it's nicer.

Like, even if they spoke English, they'd prefer to be spoken to in Spanish.

Fuck yeah.

You know what I mean?

If I were in a Spanish-speaking country and someone came up to me and they're like, How you doing, dude?

I'd be like, oh, dude, I'm fucking good.

This is great.

I can talk to you in my native language that I feel the most comfortable with, and I can express myself the easiest through this language.

But what's funny, how I knew, because in the documentary or in the channel five segment, you do a great job of showing the owner of that apartment complex

fled, went down to Clearwater, Florida, fed that to a right-wing,

basically like a propaganda farm.

I mean, honestly, just a PR firm.

PR firm.

I don't even think they see themselves as political.

It's almost like a lawyer.

It's just like a necessary service.

You know what I mean?

You can pay the

union between lawyers, PR firms, and real estate agents is like something that's been ruining the country for like 200 years.

You know, because it's like, and they're just like, fuck, you know why?

We don't know where to put our retired hots.

Yeah.

We put all of our retired hots in there.

Where you go, like, you are so hot in your 20s.

please go sell the houses in your 40s and they're just like i'm gonna mark up the fuck out of this because these old guys want to fuck me yeah exactly it really is dude we have an old hot problem in this country especially in florida yo my god that's or arizona because i lived in tucson for a while and you go up to scottsdale and you'd be like oh it's like um It's like when they take like animals that were bred in captivity but want them to be outside, but they can't put them in nature because they'll get killed.

They put them in like Scottsdale.

Scottsdale, Arizona.

Yeah.

Scottsdale, Clearwater, just like places to die.

Yeah.

And they go, go be hot.

Yeah.

Cause all the damage you want right here.

But there, when the guy went down to Clearwater and did this like PR for him, you saw it.

And how I knew it was bullshit before Channel 5 came out, before any of this, how I knew it was bullshit was I read a news article, a news article, something came up on Twitter that I clicked on it, and it was like,

Venezuelans have taken over a quiet Colorado town.

Oh, Aurora.

And you're like, dog, Aurora's never been.

Watch my HBO special where I do the Aurora voice because it really is white dudes with X Games accents being like,

what's up, bro?

It's almost like Steve-O, where they're like, man, I don't even fucking know it, dude.

I was smoking a Newport.

Guy came through.

I fucking smashed his ass.

It really is like...

That's like how Aberdeen, Washington, and Eureka, California.

It's like this specific breed of like tweakers who are perpetually in recovery.

Yeah.

Like, I knew that.

When you found the rapper, you always find a rapper.

Shout out, Uncle Pill.

Shout out to my boy.

Uncle Pill dropping that end bomb though at that.

I was like, Uncle Pill, you're about to get punched in the face.

I know, dude.

Like, Pill made a new song because he was like, yo, dear Kelly's doing numbers, blood.

I'm about to come up with a new song.

Right?

His new song is just like, basically, like him, like, the lyrics are just him being like, Pill can't say the N-word.

Fuck you, bitch.

And the whole song, the whole song is just like, Pill's pill.

My name is, like, I'm just like, bro, this is not the market.

What I love is Chico and Stockton and all those areas around the Bay have the Bay accent.

Oh, yeah.

We're like, what's up, Buster?

And they're like, what's up, Mark-ass Buster?

And you like, hear that.

Like, that's why I love Marshawn Lynch.

Yeah.

Because he's got such a thick Bay Area accent that when you hear him talk, you're like, that dude is from Oakland.

Yeah.

Like, you can hear it.

And it's literally like, you can look at it like an earthquake spreading from San Francisco.

Like, all the Frisco natives live in Oakland, and all the Oakland fools are in like Sac and Stockton.

They're all out because people can't even afford Walnut Creek anymore.

Walnut Creek's always been rich, right?

It's always been kind of nice, but now it's.

Now it's like Aspen.

Yeah.

Now it's like you can't even fucking come close.

But Aurora growing up was always

middle class.

Like

middle to lower middle class with some very nice areas.

But the thing I know is everyone else from Denver would shit on it.

Dude, that's the thing is like, it's almost like they use certain buzzwords to program and get people upset.

Like, you know, Colorado is a place where everyone thinks it's just a bunch of white people.

So you say like, the average person thinks like, oh, Colorado, like, it is white.

It is very white.

There's a lot of white people there, but they say the same thing about Seattle washing.

Sure.

So it's like, you know, obviously they think like migrant gangs taking over.

Colorado hits a lot harder than like a migrant gang taking over a small Nevada town.

Everyone's like, ah, we'll let them do whatever the fuck they want to do.

So I think that worked pretty well.

But like, you know that like Colfax has always been like

blade.

It's a fucking rough.

Always been that way.

We have something like Colfax in Seattle called Aurora.

And it's like everybody from Seattle is like, yeah, watch yourself on Aurora.

And so if you were a migrant, you live somewhere that's cheap as fuck where they're not going to check for your papers.

And every single bad neighborhood in America has gangs.

Everyone.

Because it's a form of protection for a lot of people that live there.

And sometimes people just want to make quick money because they're in a bad fucking spot because they're living in a bad area.

When I moved out of Colorado and I would tell people I was from Aurora, their expression was always like.

Oh.

Yeah.

They were never like, if I was from Highlands Ranch, if I was from like Boulder, they probably would have been like, I love Boulder.

Like Pearl Street.

I love that.

Flatirons.

But Aurora, they were always like, oh,

that's why I made, I'm not joking.

I didn't mean to wear this, but I'm wearing a Rocket 225 shirt, dude.

Hell yeah, man.

Because that's what goes through Aurora.

Yeah.

Shout out to Aurora.

I love it down there.

Great people, strong people.

Yeah, just like regular people.

Doing their thing.

Yeah.

Being regular.

And then this Venice.

And then now I got people from Aurora sending me right-wing right-wing things one of the this guy that i was dming with he was from um he sent me like liberty news it was something like that or it was america first news right right and it was like yo bro i know you've been acting like nothing's going down in aurora but look at this and i wrote back i was like dude you got got

you got got and it's all good but you got got and he's like did i my car got broken into that happened in the 90s motherfucker yeah like that happened all the time that isn't a new thing but people love it's what kelly went through yeah people love to have a personal thing and to funnel it into a much larger thing where they feel like we're taking on evil dude exactly and like you they almost create these correlations in their mind yeah like it's a sequence of events that might not even be true to reality yeah like first this happens with my house in kelly's case and he's like and then this happens with the election like it's all theft like yeah honestly it is all theft i mean the world is based upon the exploitation of the poor yeah and i hate to break it to you the u.s is all theft yeah you can go to a couple reservations and have some talks with people where they're like you guys jacked all this shit 100 and speaking of gangs we also started those yeah like gangs began here even the gangs that people see as being like these central american threats like ms 13 and 18th street those started in la and and they all started they also started and grew in american prisons and then regan deported those people to el salvador these these poor el salvadorian people get basically taken over by American trained gangs.

Which is crazy.

They come back with their tattoos that are like an American tiger style on their whole chest.

And then we're like, bro, what the fuck is going on?

Get these foreigners out of the country.

I didn't even know that.

I didn't know that it goes back to Reagan.

Sending them to El Salvador.

MS-13 started in Koreatown in Los Angeles because the Salvadorians were getting bullied by the Mexicans who were living there.

So MS-13, the reason they go like this is because it started off as like a black metal like hangout club.

So these Salvadorian kids who would like do this, they'd listen to like Black Sabbath and talk about how they're tired of getting pushed around by Mexicans.

And then so like they just started getting more and more savage.

Just Mexicans just being like, yeah.

Oh, I don't want to fuck with these El Salvadorians, fools.

They're fucking nuts.

Literally.

And so I'm the devil.

Yo, you're fucking killing me, bro.

Yeah, and so they took it to the next level.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, man.

Fuck yeah.

Then they started.

going to jail and they were like, oh shit, Fulsink, we're actually satanic.

Because in Mexico, they're pretty scared of like people who are.

It's a a Catholic country.

Yeah.

It's a very Catholic country.

So they're thinking, like, how do we scare all these Mexicans?

Let's act like we're demons.

Yeah.

And so it worked.

And 18th Street formed as a rival Salvadorian gang because now these new Salvadorians came and they're like, we want to hang out with you guys.

MS was like, fuck you, Full.

We're the guys.

And it's still going.

I mean, it's still a big presence in, you know, California.

That's the thing about this idea about gangs.

Most people, especially like news consumers, don't even know how close they actually are to gangs.

There's gangs everywhere.

You might just not see them.

Sure.

But you got people who are like, I live in an upscale part of San Diego and I'm sick of these gangs coming across the border.

It's like, well, dude, if you actually knew what was going on in your city, you might realize there's some gangs.

There's gangs.

There's also crazy rich kid high school gangs.

Dude, which is going to bring up the thing I was just thinking about.

I'm obviously much older than you.

When Crips and Bloods in the 90s started spreading everywhere, I would be in Aurora.

Again,

it's not a horrible neighborhood.

It's mostly white.

There are black people, but it's mostly white.

And they'd be like, dude, my brother's a crip and you're like there's that's impossible i don't i don't think your brother's a rolling 66 i don't think he's repping out of compton but some stuff does spread where you'd be like there by the time i got to high school there were bloods that lived in aurora yeah that you were like oh that's my friend mike's cousin chance who's legitimately he's rapping like he only wears red doesn't use sees when he types

you know also too like with the rappers like lil wayne becoming famous especially you saw it in the South, people just would listen to Lil Wayne and be like, I'm a blood.

You know what I mean?

Like, it really happened.

Like, I knew some bloods in New Orleans, and I was like, how'd you guys become bloods?

They were like, back in the day, like 2009, like, my big bro was just connecting hella with that Carter III album.

You know what I mean?

He slaps it and he's like, I got my fucking

and then it's like at that point, it's like, that's your big homie.

Yeah.

I'm kind of scared of him and he fucks with Lil Wayne.

So I guess we're bloods now.

So we're bloods.

Only wear red.

Go buy Bulls jerseys.

Yeah.

And like gangs are pretty accepting if you're like from somewhere else.

So they probably go to LA like, what's up?

I'm a blood from New Orleans.

No one's going to be like, is it because of Lil Wayne?

How did you get there?

Yeah.

They do like a 23andMe.

Yeah.

Swamp me in this thing.

I want to find out how you got into this shit.

And those gangs were also started, you know, low-key by the FBI, too.

Oh, to ruin.

black communities,

specifically to dismantle the Black Panthers.

Well,

you know, when you really look into Fred Hampton and what they were doing,

they had a great social program running that was outside of the federal government with the breakfasts for kids.

They had neighborhood watch, they made the neighborhood safer.

Yeah, they actually protected like Oakland and Compton.

Yeah.

And that's also fascinating.

What I also think is what white people did before street gangs or whatever were motorcycle gangs.

Oh yeah, that's our shit.

That's our shit.

If you go reading the Hells Angels, the Hells Angels were created because a bunch of these Vietnam vets, and I think it was started as far back as like World War II vets, would come back and they would be fucked up because of PTSD and they'd be like I just want to get on a bike and ride yeah and then that became their gang so it's like you had like a lot of war vets yeah dude they were pretty nuts back in the day oh dude hunter s thompson's book hell's angels is a great read of what it was like when sunny barger yeah like the original og

the burdue chapter and then the oakland chapter yeah and then that's where my dad My dad was from Oakland.

And so he would have stories about like my grandma would be like, well, we got out of there pretty quick because like the Hell's Angels.

And then there was a black motorcycle gang called the dragons

which was for the black part of oakland yeah so like um my my dad was born in east oakland on like 21st and 20th so 21st street and 20th avenue and he said like the split from east oakland because you know it's close to berkeley you're like right next to berkeley of course which is like the most liberal hippie shit in the world but oakland was pretty much split black and white and you had like the hells angels and the dragons so if you were on like 24th and international in the 60s you're saying that was a white neighborhood I'm pretty sure it was like white working class, young parents.

Yeah, because I read Hell's Angels by Hunter S.

Thompson and just like ethnographically, I was like, wait, there's these like tough white fools from Oakland that like act white as fuck.

I mean, it's crazy.

They don't, yeah, they're not like walking around like, what's up, blood?

There's just guys like, how are you doing?

My father's name's Stanley.

My mother's Mary.

Yeah.

But that was.

My dad and my aunt were from that part of East Oakland.

And then they moved as my grandparents got divorced.

My grandma moved them out to like Pleasanton and Walnut Creek when she got married to a doctor.

Yeah, I feel like Cocoa County kind of absorbed like the last remnants of whatever that was.

Yes, exactly.

And now it's Oakland's just fucked.

So is the Bay.

It's just like, it's all fucked up because of this money.

But that's what's interesting because you're looking at a guy like Kelly and dear Kelly and you're going like, you're actually watching where the tipping point, where he falls off.

And now his kids, are detached from their father, which is going to cause a ton of issues.

Yeah.

And a lot of it has to do with like self-mythology.

I think that can be one of the most damaging things to people's life in recovery.

Is a lot of people think of themselves in a certain way that's not necessarily how they are, but the character of how they want to be perceived.

Sure.

Kelly has this idea of like, I never complain.

I never ask for help.

I am like an alpha buff businessman who gets it done and takes care of his family.

And so that kind of conflicted with the reality of like, I lost my house and I can't provide for them.

How do I maintain this bravado while simultaneously accepting my sort of downtrodden situation and he wasn't able to do that so he was able to channel that alpha mentality into the political shit sure do you think that

do you think the boomer generation specifically has a hard time with accountability i mean i just think they're i wouldn't say so much like accountability but the reagan era toxic positivity of like i'm doing great everything's totally fine i don't know if it's like a response to like their their parents being like i went to world war ii what the fuck do you have to complain about yeah i think part of it has to do with that of like any complaint complaint they leverage is like, well, your grandpa was at Omaha, so I don't know what you're complaining about.

Which is survivor's guilt.

Yeah, for sure.

It's like a way of

being like, you know, because I think you're absolutely right.

The boomer generation had to deal with their parents who went through World War II and the Great Depression.

Yeah.

And they were like, save your money.

Shit's about to go down.

At any moment, shit's about to go down.

And then shit never went down for the boomer.

I mean, Vietnam went down.

Yeah, but I mean, you know, Vietnam wasn't World War II.

No.

But I think part of the reason that the 60s became such like this fucking crazy moment is because World War II, we were like the good guys, you know, so you got home from World War II and everyone was like, thank you, man, you defeated the Nazis.

I think that from what my grandpa told me, he was in the Air Force.

He was wearing, he told me he was wearing his uniform on the subway in Philadelphia and there was these hippies like cursing at him, trying to spit on him.

And I think he still looks at that as one of his worst memories.

And it's because, you know, because he went and did all this shit

drafted.

Yeah.

And he was 19.

He comes home and these kids are baby killer.

They're looking at him like he is the manifestation of like imperialism,

unnecessary wars against communism.

But the reality is like we've came a long way since then.

I don't think that you still see protesters spiting service members.

Sure.

When you're against the Iraq war, you don't see a soldier in uniform and think like, fuck you.

Yeah.

You say, fuck George Bush.

Yeah, you go like, fuck the old guy that sent you to do that.

So I think that also like that really drove a generational wedge that made way for like that Reagan era.

What about these people that are so patriotic right,

for soldiers and like stand for the anthem?

Because as a 49er fan,

I grew up a 49er fan.

And when the Colin Kaepernick shit happened, where he was taking a knee,

they became like, you're being disrespectful to the flag, but then they're screaming during the national anthem.

I was at an Eagles game, and I was with Big J and Mike Vecchion and Shane.

And

Eric Reed, the safety for the Niners, was taking, Kaepernick was off the team, but Eric Reed was still taking a knee.

And they were like, that Philly accent.

They're like, yo, stand the fuck up.

Stand the fuck up.

Fuck during the national anthem.

And you're like, yo, isn't this worse than him taking a silent knee?

Isn't this like way more, I don't know, just in my head, it didn't compute.

Yeah.

Because I'm like, you're screaming.

It's like, hell no, stand the fuck up, you fucking piece of shit.

And you're like, this is, I can't even hear the national anthem because you're yelling at me.

But what's, what's strange to me and something that I don't understand is all these people, because dude, our servicemen, they have to go do the hardest shit.

They have to go to these places where people don't want them and like rep our country in a way that's fucking terrifying.

And a lot of times they're 18 to 23.

Totally.

My question is, is why is the treatment of soldiers after they serve so fucking terrible?

In terms of the VA benefits?

Well, the VA benefits, just the reception.

I mean, like the fact that someone can come back from like a Fallujah, have horrible PTSD, because that's my exact, I was 18 when 9-11 happened.

People that I went to high school with joined the army to go fight in Afghanistan, and then they're fucked up.

They come home and they have horrible PTSD.

And there really isn't a place that they can go.

And

instead, now they're homeless or they have problems and people are like, get the fuck away from me.

But then those same people that are saying, get the fuck away from me, are yelling at Kaepernick for not standing up during the anthems, yeah.

I mean, I will say there is like certain small town environments that I've been in: Freeport, Pennsylvania, Algona, Iowa, um, some outskirts of Duluth, Minnesota, yeah, where these are towns with like a thousand people or less.

Sure, you got veterans wearing their you know, full fatigues or whatever they wear in Iraq, and they walk around town and they are the shit.

Good.

They walk into a waffle house or a diner, and everyone stands up, they clap, they salute, they give them,

they salute, they give them free food, they go out to the bars at nighttime, the chicks are all over them.

Their life is awesome.

I think that sort of like coming home from war dream does exist in small-town America.

But I think in the major cities, there's just not that much understanding of the sacrifice that they made.

And that's something that a lot of people don't know about me is that like I have a lot of military family background.

Not my dad, but the generation before that, almost everybody was involved in the Army or Air Force in some way.

So I have a lot of respect for service members.

Fuck yeah.

And when I hear people talk shit about them, it pisses me off, especially some of these like, you know, rich-ass pampered college kids.

I don't know why it pissed me off so much, but you know, during the Free Palestine protests,

that was one of the most classic examples of the psychology of this new generation,

the Columbia protests.

Yeah, yeah.

Columbia is $75,000 a year.

It's insane.

So you have people at those protests who are saying like, this school is a demonic, hellish organization.

They give money to an apartheid ethnic state.

And you the first thing that comes to mind is oh why don't you drop out then yeah go to a different why don't you stop literally paying your money to this evil cabal right but that's off limits and no one even questions because my dad won't let me i want to have a career

you know yeah and those are the kind of people logically who see a service member and are like dude what nice would you do kill a kid out there yeah and you're like oh no bro i had no choice yeah no a kid tried to fucking kill me but i think that's what that's what's crazy yeah i know for real i now i'm scared of kids holding stuff yeah i can't you know what i mean I can't hear a book drop and not piss my pants because you fucking

want to come here and do communications at fucking Columbia.

But that is, that's the exact thing that I, that I love that you always focus in on everything you do through Channel 5.

I'd probably say it's your main thesis, which is the break of poor versus rich and how it trickles down to their family and how they have to deal with shit where you're getting stuff, a rich guy and a poor guy, but then you look at two generations displaced and you go, it's still there.

Oh, totally.

It's not like that leaves.

These are rich kids that grow.

Like we live in a very nice building.

I have a lot of contempt for the young people that live in my building.

I have a lot of contempt.

I got into it with a kid on the elevator and it was about like the NFL, but I told Katie I was being extra spicy because I was like, I fucking earned this apartment.

You know what I mean?

I wanted to ask him.

We were talking about sports and I was going to ask him if his dad pays the rent.

Yeah.

Because you're pretty sure they do.

do.

Yeah.

It's weird because I'm in like the reverse of that right now.

Like I just moved into a really nice neighborhood for the first time in California.

Yeah.

I only got a six-month lease.

I'm not going to say the neighborhood or that because it's going to make people hate me, but it's a fucking nice place.

You know, and I'm paying a six-month because I was like, I want to know what it's like to live like a rich person.

And on the reverse end, when it's too nice, people hate you no matter what if you're below 50 years old.

So my neighbors, like a lot of them are nice, but some of them, like, I'll leave the lights on at nighttime and they'll call the police.

Really?

You know what I mean?

Like, they'll email.

We're also the only renters, like, in the area for like two miles.

And so I'm about to move back into the RV.

I'm saying it right now.

I'm about to move back into the RV.

Like, I feel like I'm losing my touch with reality.

Because

you're just surrounded by nice stuff.

Yeah, dude.

Like, the more money you have, the less community there is.

For sure.

Because everyone wants your money.

Yeah.

And also there's this like fear of the outside and fear of the poor that kind of ruptures the brainwaves of a lot of the rich we're like all right i got my shit now i don't want anybody without shit to be near me dude the second i think that's a really important lesson for anyone that also comes from not a lot and does get a lot you will lose that connection if you're not careful yeah and i used to know what was going on everywhere bro i used to be in the rv surfing city to city like seeing what was cracking and now i don't know what's going on yeah you're like i had to get back out there i know what's going on online which is what i'm saying i'm kind of experiencing that echo chamber syndrome for the first time well what's crazy about it is you were boots you were the boots on the ground for everyone else yeah because we were like watching channel five and we're like that's actually what happened and so it's crazy to hear because i do think that's what happens the internet gets you and then they're able to like

convince you

that outside is horrible yeah definitely and also just the way that like being social media famous or whatever the fuck influences like personal interactions made me want to live in the hills away from everybody yeah because i'm like dude this augmented reality is really fucking with my perception of self.

I need to be more grounded, but now that I look at the differences, I'm like, all right, live in an RV and get recognized 10 times a day versus living around a bunch of rich people, I'll take the RV.

You know what I mean?

Because I'm like, all right, I can deal with that.

Well, rich people always worry about it going away, especially if they don't, like,

especially if they don't earn it.

Yeah.

Because if you earn it, you have this kind of feeling of like, well, I could lose it, but I can make it back again.

Yeah.

Because I made it.

That's why I lived under, I lived in Astoria, Queens for like 15 years.

Holy shit, that's a long time.

Yeah.

I loved it.

Yeah.

I loved it.

And I lived under a subway

and I was like, I lived under the train.

Like the train rode above our apartment.

I miss that apartment all the time.

Me and Veckie owned two 555 boys, dude, up on 31st Street.

But we,

people would be like make fun of me.

They'd be like, dude, you're on fucking a TV show and you've got a serious XM show and you live under the train.

And you're like, well, I don't pay attention to that.

I have a guy that handles my money and I don't even really talk to him.

I just make sure it's safe and all the taxes are paid because I don't want to lose that touch because I liked it.

I liked walking to the Dunkin' Donuts and Queens and seeing what was going on.

And like you kind of have a feel for it.

It's also too I have like employees for the first time.

I have like six people working for me.

So I'm like, dude, I got to be in the office to like teach them how to edit.

Like I'm training editors so I can like, you know, work less

behind a computer.

So I'm getting there soon.

Like, I just bought this new ambulance.

It's like a European ambulance, but so I like painted it white.

I might paint it like all kinds of crazy colors, but I'm going to hollow out the back of it and build like an editing studio with Starlink internet and shit with where I can sleep and there's like a backdrop so I can do like a mobile podcast.

That's fucking

I'm just trying to get back out there, bro.

Cause like so you didn't like getting off the road and settling down?

No, bro.

Oh God, I missed the road.

Fuck.

I wish I was at a gas station in Indiana right now.

You know what I mean?

No, I'm happy to be on this podcast.

Yeah, yeah, no.

I wish I was in a gas station in Indiana right now.

I'm just buying smokes.

Imagine people we could talk to.

Yeah.

And like we could find snacks and merchandise you can't find in other places.

I love that.

We're going to Alabama this weekend to do shows and we're going to the space center and just like we're going to go to the next one?

Yeah.

We're going to Huntsville.

Oh, even better.

Real Alabama.

Not that Birmingham's not real, but like up north, it's a little different.

Yeah, we're going to like, you know, we're just going to fuck around.

You should go to Gadsden.

Have you been there?

No.

Oh, but that's where Yellow Wolf's from.

Really?

Damn.

It's low-key the Aurora, Colorado of Alabama.

Yeah.

Dudes in sideways DC hats, snaping.

They're just like, yeah, what's up, man?

Yeah, same voice.

Just all that Steve-O voice.

Everybody's like Yellow Wolf's second cousin.

I know Yellow Wolf.

But I mean, you are one of the only people that I've talked to recently that's been everywhere and just been to places where you're like, no, America's the fucking best.

It's the goat.

It's the best.

And what sucks is the 24-hour news cycle has made us both Democrats and Republicans make it feel like

Americana and like American culture is the best.

The people and like the fucking mosaic of personalities and communities we have is the best.

However, we're one of the worst global presences and we have some of the most obnoxious, manipulative rich elites of anywhere else.

And they use the news machine as their like propaganda apparatus.

They just pump money into it and hypnotize the public.

But what's worse now is they're figuring out how to do it with independent media and podcasting.

And you're seeing a lot of these podcasters, I'm sure you've seen this, leaning into the mainstream media.

And I knew that was suspicious when I saw it.

Damn, it's fucking crazy.

You know, because I was like, wait a second, If you're saying, like, I don't want to shit on any podcast, sure.

But it's like, I'm fine with it.

You're saying, oh, fucking Fox News.

Fuck Fox News, yet you give Joe Rogan, Theo Vaughan, and Jake Paul a front row at the fucking inauguration.

Yeah.

And the Nilk Boys, I think, were there too, but they got snubbed.

But the point is, I'm saying it's like, that is, they used Trump and those people used the podcast fear to manipulate their way into the White House by like assuming this like, oh, I'm just your friend.

Trump, your buddy.

You know?

And what's funny is people get like so mad i don't like any politicians me either i've never liked anybody there's no point of them being a public servant they're all there for themselves and it's crazy because like you'll say that you'll be like i don't know man like i kind of feel weird with elon being an unelected uh you know foreigner fucking with our shit and they'll be like you what the fuck and biden you go fuck biden too yeah and they're like well uh AOC, fuck her.

I don't give a fuck.

Fuck all of them.

I don't give a shit about any of them.

And fuck Bill.

But I was trying to think, like, it's so funny when you go, like, I love Americans and I love America.

And I wish that these greedy, rich motherfuckers would let,

if we would have just finished Bernie's second term, we would have been in a much better position.

We'd be doing fantastic.

And also, like, back to the podcaster thing, I don't want to shit on them, but what I'm saying is I understand the appeal of the Trump's fear in like the post-cancel comedy world.

Sure.

Because, like, it obviously like the language policing and just like the hyper liberalization of like comedy that you were talking about in 2016 it was wild made shit not funny so it made it be like you would call shit gay yeah and they'd be like so you hate gays like no right it's it goes back to the louis joke he's like i would never call a gay man i don't know if you want to believe this because youtube might get mad he goes i would never call a gay man a

he goes maybe i'm watching two guys suck each other's dicks yeah and he pulls the dick out of his mouth he goes people from phoenix are called phoenicians phoenicians

it's like but it's like a point of that joke was so perfect about like the language is just sometimes unintentional and i understand that there's like historic and there's causes and there's people i get all that but you're right there was like this hyper like don't policing yeah and guess who doesn't care about language trump so it's like for example like i went to austin i went on shane and matt's podcast shout out to the dogs shout out to the homies yeah dude the the comedians there are hilarious like just like it was i was even just seeing like um i know people have their own i know stand-up's got its own like drama and class i don't care about that well it's because we're we're uh we try to act like we're tough boys but we're really theater girls yeah that's what i was seeing i was seeing live stand-up and i was like wow i haven't seen funny stand-up in person in a long time yeah this is actually funny not because they're doing like offensive just for the sake of shock like they're not scared to make funny jokes this is tight i don't see this too much in los angeles no you know what i mean i was like

it really is and like well i would say something i give credit to New York for.

New York out

like the alt scene obviously did, but the club scene, a lot of people didn't really bend.

You still had Louie, you still had Rock.

You still had Atel.

You still had like Colin Quinn.

You still had a lot of guys that were just doing funny shit.

And something that Shane never gets credit for, which I will always fucking yell from a mountaintop, is he got fired.

For a podcast clip

and didn't lean into it.

I was going to tell you, that is by far my favorite thing about Shane, and kind of why I look up to him in certain ways.

Yeah, is because a lot of people they go through a public controversy or a scandal and then they make their whole life this like vendetta about like I am the underdog, the righteous one who got done wrong.

I'm a free speech lion and a guardian of people being able to say retarded thing.

And then you have people who are like, oh, that sucked.

I'm just going to keep pushing forward and just keep doing their shit.

I watched him.

He was living in New York.

I was seeing him every day.

I had dinner with him him the night he got SNL.

I called him the next day.

He literally got fucking fired from when I left New York, flew to Portland.

I landed in Oregon and I called him and he goes, babe, people are mad at me.

I'm reading like a variety article before I call him.

I'm like, dude, you're fucking in trouble.

But he didn't do the thing where he was like, they canceled me.

And fuck, he just went like, you know what?

I'm just going to go be funny.

I'm going to go make my shit.

And then he's hosting SNL again March 2nd.

Yeah.

And there's a new pipeline now that I'm not sure was as prevalent then.

But if you go through a public scandal of any kind, people, the mainstream media tells you your career is over, but it actually means that you get to have a second career with like the worst people ever.

So as soon as I remember for me, like, dude, I was getting, I can't even tell you the job offers the case.

Like, I don't even want to say it be like, okay, I'm just going to say, I had InfoWars hit me up and be like, dude, you want a paid position?

And I was like, what the fuck is going on?

Dude, I want to sell your frog brain fucking pill.

It was like a one-to-one one-to-one ratio.

People being like, you're a piece of shit.

And people being like, bro, fuck liberals.

Come work with me.

And I was like, man, this is so crazy.

You know what's funny is Shane said something to me so offhand like maybe, so it happened in 2019.

And I remember hanging with him in like 2021.

He goes, dude.

I just started going back on Twitter.

He's like, I just was able to open Twitter, look at my notifications, and it wasn't racist.

You fucking piece of shit racist.

Like death threats and shit.

He was like, I'm just now being able to drunk tweet.

Deep throes are sick.

Send it out.

But I always really, really respected the fuck out of him for not doing that.

And also, he's world-class funny and it's paid off.

Absolutely.

But a lot of those like free speech movements, they do harvest anger after you've, when you're, when you're in like a traumatic state, it's actually pretty similar to the whole Kelly situation.

I mean, I really think,

dude, I fucking, I'm not even joking.

I talked to my therapist about what you were saying about Kelly, about like losing security, love, and significance.

You lose those things and you go to something.

And as someone who, you know, my dad and my sister died real close to each other when I was like 14 and 16.

And, you know, when he went to rehab, when Kelly went to rehab and he said, like, I went through those major things and it changed my personality.

Yeah.

I went from being a guy who was like, I'm not going to drink.

My dad died of cirrhosis.

I was like, I'm not going to drink.

I'm not going to.

I'm not going to be an alcoholic.

Like, because I knew my whole family was alcoholics.

And then that shit happened and I'm picking up a bottle.

Right.

And I'm right back to where he, you know, and I'm getting fucked up because you don't realize those.

Because I think baby boomers, having them as our parents, that my mom was like, you'll get through this.

Because that's kind of what her parents told her.

Yeah.

So I'm like, I'll get through this.

And then I get fucked up and I'm like, yeah, this rules.

I kind of want to just keep getting fucked up, even though I knew.

You see that slide.

And so watching Dear Kelly and watching how you document his slide, also realizing a lot of it's his own personal fault is like, for sure is very big and I think that was why the the weed segment was particularly controversial yeah because when he went to rehab that phone call that we had the first week where he was like dude I'm realizing I have these unprocessed consecutive traumatic events that I haven't dealt with I have to apologize to Bill Joyner I have to get right with my family and get right with God and all this good shit yeah by the third week of the of the treatment he was just like dude I've realized I'm an addict.

I have addiction.

It wasn't me.

It was the fact that I was just smoking so much.

So once I find God or my higher power, as they say in the 12th century, and I push that evil addiction to the side, I'm going to be fine.

So they externalize all accountability for their own role and shit.

And the next thing you know, they're replacing their conquest, not conquest, like their, whatever you want to call it.

Their holy mission is just back, but they're just sober.

Yeah.

And so I don't know how much

of that was the facility itself

incentivizing him to be like, you're an addict, you're broken, repent, find the higher power, you're going to be fine.

Which is very AA.

And also the recovery and rehab industry is predatory.

I mean,

listen, the Sacklers invented OxyContin.

Purdue Pharma pushed it.

They got everyone hooked on opiates.

An opiate epidemic hits the United States.

And then you find out they're turning around and they're making rehab places where they're given Suboxone, where they're given shit that's like getting people off of it.

And you go, you're the ones that put them on.

And psychologically, you teach someone that they're inherently broken to have super negative self-talk about their old self and create this old self thing like you ever go to an a meeting with someone's like i was such a piece of shit it's like well no you're still a piece you're the same guy you know what i mean and like i and listen man i think aa i have a lot of friends that worked at the steps i know a lot of people that are in recovery i never did it because of that yeah i read this book by this british guy named alan carr called the easy way to quit drinking and basically what it is is he's like

a is just going to tell you you're broken you're not broken you're addicted to a thing, but you learned.

What I liked about Alan Carr's book, The Easy Way to Quit Drinking, is he said you learned how to like it.

Now you have to learn how to unlike it.

And I mean, March 9th will be 12 years where I haven't drank because of that book.

And I haven't done AA, haven't done any meetings, but I also smoke weed.

So I understand the addiction.

just moved somewhere else.

So like last year, I quit smoking weed for like three months.

And I was like, oh, it's what Kelly said where he's like, I had a lot.

You take that thing off.

When you guys are in the intervention and the therapist goes, now you're going to see a lot of stuff come up that the weed's keeping down.

And you don't realize it's a lot of people.

Dude, straight up.

And back to the AA thing.

Dude, when I went to AA, which was like for a month and a half, every day wanted me, every day made me want to go on like a crazy bender.

Because all these people are telling these sick ass stories.

You know what I mean?

They're like, they're like, yeah, dude, I was, I was down bad.

It was like, I remember one time I spent, I won $100,000 at Blackjack, had like a threesome with like these two Brazilians, and I'm driving back in a Corvette.

And I stopped and get another beer.

And I crash my car, wake up in jail, end up being friends with the jail guy.

He lets me out early.

We go back to the strip club, anyways.

Dude, I'm so happy to be here with you guys.

And I'm like, fuck, I got to get out of here.

Cool.

Because there I am.

Willie Nelson's telling me to put it down.

And I said, Willie, you pussy.

We got, yeah, dude, that's so funny.

And they're just talking about alcohol so much.

I don't think about beer this much.

I stopped going to AA and I've never drank less.

Yeah.

But I want to say, though, shout out to AA.

I know for a lot of people for a lot of people, it really, really works.

And listen, the big book and all that stuff they use,

whatever can help you, it's kind of like fitness.

Whatever can help you, do it.

I'm not judging you if you do yoga, if you lift weights, run, just do it.

You're just trying to help yourself.

Yeah.

And with the Kelly shit, when he was at rehab, so what I was saying is I'm not sure if like they made him think he was an addict to weed, of weed, or if he realized he could get, kind of get out of the hard part by like, because he kind of picked up on the vibe of the service provider and was like, maybe if if i just tell her that like i don't spend 15 hours a day on q and on and like

i just like smoke too much she'll be like all right just stop smoking yeah and so obviously it was a bit disappointing after spoiler alert after he gets out of rehab he's kind of doing the same shit yeah well you see him that's actually the ending is because i mean i'm going to tell you there's there i was moved with how much you cared about kelly me yeah yeah in the intervention when you read him your letter you're like oh dude you can tell that you and kelly have a connection

that he was there for you, and you're down like that message he left you is lovely, yeah, it's great, and you care about him enough that you got his kids.

How excited his ex-wife was, yeah, when you guys were putting him in the car to go to rehab, and she was like, You know, divorces are tough, especially when you've lost everything, yeah, and you watch this woman be like excited for him, and she was like crying.

It's just go watch Dear Kelly film.

Go to dearkellyfilm.com, watch it, subscribe to channel five.

It's the best shit on YouTube.

Me and Mike both love it.

It's like every time you put out something new, it's awesome.

I just love watching it on the road.

Thanks for giving me a piece of information I could give to people to let them know that Venezuelans aren't running Aurora.

That's just a couple apartment buildings.

Just one or two apartment buildings, which honestly, they probably were before you even fucking gave a shit.

And that Target parking lot was after a Venezuelan election where they trashed it.

I texted one of my friends that lives in Aurora.

I was like, dude, did they trash the Target parking lot?

He was like, no, that was like years ago.

He's like, they're circulating that clip now.

Yeah.

And part of the, one of the main people who was spreading the

gang misinformation was a city council member herself named Danielle Jarinski, who's like trying to get re-elected.

And the crazy shit is that the city council, the Aurora city council member, Danielle Jarinski.

Well, let me back up a little bit.

So the property owner, Zev Baumgartner, hired the PR firm called Red Banyan Crisis Communications out of, I think it was Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to run the story about the gangs.

Sure.

They had her distribute the press release.

So it was like Lambda

PR firm,

crisis communications person giving information to the council member so it comes out officially.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

And then the family, the Romeros, who like, let's keep it real.

Why were they getting robbed?

Yeah, why are they the only people in the entire apartment building who all these kids are mad at?

Do you think maybe they could be involved business-wise with the gang members?

Who the fuck, can you imagine?

You know what I mean?

Come in with an AR-15.

I i mean they were strapped they had a reason and there's there's people in the hallway living in almost every other unit no one else's door is getting banged on except this one family that won't show their face you know what i mean they're like just look into this yeah i i really think that like but it is true that those gang members did beat up zeb the project sure and they did and they were there like a prison prison gangs were there yeah but when you're interviewing one of the guys he goes yeah and then they left They like immediately left after they robbed him.

Yeah.

There's also a pretty big connection between like, obviously, poorly maintained apartment buildings and gangs yeah pretty sure like project buildings that's where gangs start yeah dude go by queensboro yeah the queensboro projects dude i flew over that and i was like that is like a massive complex so what's crazy is when you drive down on 21st street uh because that's how i went home every night when i lived in queens you saw like dude when i first moved to queens in like 2007 you didn't go near queensboro projects you would take the train into the city from queen from queensboro you go over and you'd be like shit and then you saw them building like new buildings up until it hit 21st Street.

And then you drive down it and you're like, damn, they're like, they just want to cross over, but they can't.

What's it like in Queens?

It's great.

I love it.

He's from Queens.

It's great.

Does it look like Manhattan?

No, it's like a neighborhood.

It's like an actual neighborhood.

It's like North Jersey?

Looks more like Jersey City.

It looks more like a Jersey City or like a hobo city.

Does it look like Fishtown, Philadelphia?

A little bit, but not, that's more like Rohome kind of shit.

That That used to be like Astoria.

It used to have a lot of Row Homes, but now what they're doing is they're knocking, like the people that own the Row homes are knocking them down and building like dick buildings, like these like tall,

futuristic.

Like Salesforce Tower.

Yes.

The ultimate phallic monument.

It's exactly it.

It used to just be like a row of homes all the same with like balconies.

And then now there's just like a black metallic building that just fucking juts to the sky.

That's whack, dude.

Yeah, it sucks.

I'm scared in tall buildings.

I know we're in one right now.

Yeah.

Dude, we get high enough and my dog will freak out and I'll be like, the dog knows.

Dude.

The dog knows.

Like when it was windy last night, my dog was like, the fuck.

And then I'm like, my dog just knows how high up we are, right?

So as a viewer, going back to the weed thing, how much do you think weed actually played into what happened with Kelly?

I think it helped a lot.

I think it was a significant thing.

I think what it is, is you get high

and then you like read or watch something and your emotion

you're like parent it's like it's like you know how you get high and listen to an album yeah and you're like oh i fucking was vibing it's just like negative vibes you're like vibing with something that's like scary so then you go like it's fucking real dude it's real and then you're high again you're like dude i'm fucking telling you They're coming across the border.

They're just fucking raping women.

And you're just like high as fuck.

And then you're like done.

And you're like, I got to go do something about this.

But you know what I mean?

i didn't put this in the film yeah but the actual media source that kelly consumes 10 hours a day is called scott mccabe's patriot street fighter that's not even a serious xm radio show out of missouri where it's just like a dude like have you guys ever seen the movie hotel rwanda yeah you know

you know the guy who runs hutu power radio yeah it's like turn to kill the cockroaches yeah

Scott McCabe's Patriot Street Fighter was like, good morning, pussies.

You want to kick some Antifa ass?

Let me give you the news of the day.

Which, by the way, can I just say you do such a good job recording how both sides are filled with douchebags?

Yeah.

Because when you first meet Kelly and he's got the four bangers and there's that guy and what's so funny about you is you're down with everybody.

Yeah.

So they show up and they're like, what's up, bro?

What's up, bro?

But that guy's like mad.

He's like, I'll fucking kill you, bro.

Fuck your life.

He goes, fuck your life.

And then he goes, I fuck you, I hope you fucking die, homie.

Straight up.

Straight up.

Straight up was crazy.

And I was like, he practiced that in the mirror all morning.

And then he goes, straight up.

And then later you're talking to a guy and he adjusts his mask.

He goes, I'm just mad.

That's right in the beginning of the movie.

It's so funny.

He goes, I'm just fucking mad, dude.

And you're like, yeah, because you're like, getting, dude, we all are in little kennels, and the media is just running sticks along our sides.

And we're like,

and then you're like, oh, they're trying to do that.

They're trying to get us fucking riled up.

Yeah, it's a trip because, like, I'm sure that when Bill Gates thought of the internet, he's like, dude, people are going to be so smart.

They're going to

share info.

Yeah.

Now it's like made people like infinitely more retarded.

A thousand percent.

Yeah.

So stay off the internet go outside touch grass andrew callahan you are an american institution channel five news