Ep 156 | How to Laugh Through Depression & Homelessness | Jamie Kilstein | The Glenn Beck Podcast

Charlie Sheen is an icon of decadence.

I lit the fuse and my life turns into everything it wasn't supposed to be.

He's going the distance.

He was the highest paid TV star of all time.

When it started to change, it was quick.

He kept saying, no, no, no, I'm in the hospital now, but next week I'll be ready for the show.

Now, Charlie's sober.

He's going to tell you the truth.

How do I present this with any class?

I think we're past that, Charlie.

We're past that, yeah.

Somebody call action.

Yeah.

Aka Charlie Sheen, only on Netflix, September 10th.

Politics really sucks,

and it has been very complicated.

A stumbling block for the guests today, beginning with the community of uber, uber progressive comedians and writers who kicked him out of their tribe.

He was an uber, uber progressive.

Conservatives have always been good to him.

But he wants to move away from politics and focus on comedy.

Mental health is a big thing for him.

And he believes that his mental health and perhaps all of our mental health will be better if we just stop talking about politics all the time.

Now he's taking a chance for a very fresh start, literally moving from Washington, D.C.

to Austin, performing stand-up shows along the way.

He has no job.

He has no future.

He could be living under a bridge.

I don't think he's going to have to worry about that long.

He has been

very familiar with

fresh starts and big breaks.

His comedy career landed him spots on the Conan O'Brien Show, The Joe Rogan Experience, Burt Cast, ton of other major podcasts.

He's performed at the Montreal Comedy Festival, the Sydney Comedy Festival, the Melbourne Comedy Festival.

The legendary Robin Williams said that this guy you're going to meet in here in a second is, quote, amazing, and I'll be spreading the word.

He has the spark that energized my conscience.

We need more comedians kicking it hard the way he does every night, end quote.

Wow.

Does he have that framed on a wall somewhere?

Because I would.

Today, on the Glenbeck podcast, welcome Jamie Kilstein.

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So the last time you were here was 2019, I think right before the pandemic.

Yeah.

Lots changed.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Did we cause that?

Because we got together and God was like, you know what?

Don't love this.

So what's been going on?

A lot.

And I think,

you know, when I used to talk about it, it was in terms of

my livelihood.

So it was sort of, I spent years

just asking, what am I going to do?

Like, what is going to pay the bills?

And then I started asking kind of

deeper questions,

like, who am I as a man?

Which feels like probably a more important one that will lead to the other ones.

It's weird when you...

Because I got to there when I was 30.

Okay.

And

it's weird when you start because that

question changes your entire life.

Everything.

Everything.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, and especially

we're sort of deceived into thinking that

it

any of it is external.

And

And including, and I'm sure people who listen to you go through it, for me, it was always through the lens of politics.

So I thought by asking myself, am I a liberal?

Am I a conservative?

Am I a moderate?

Am I a libertarian?

That that was who am I as a man.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

And so

that was like phase two, I feel like phase one was, how am I going to survive?

How am I going to get money?

Phase two was, or the next phase was,

all right, well, I guess in order to figure that out, I need to figure out where I am politically.

And then where I'm at now is, oh, none of that matters at all.

It's all a lot.

And it's all just, how can you be a better person?

And

the more I follow that,

the more just things kind of start falling into place.

So, I mean, I was talking to my dad when I was driving here.

And I mean, I've been driving from New York for the last like week or two and stopping to do stand-up shows, but driving.

And

he goes, at some point, I must have said something self-hating without even noticing it it's just like a my OCD is self-hate it's just a tick and I said something about being you know unemployed and homeless and I'll be able to figure it out and he stopped me and me and him have a complicated relationship but he stopped me and was really sweet and he was like this is the least I've been worried about you because you sound the happiest.

I sound the most confident.

And I think that's because, you know, through all of the sort of rock bottoms and trying to define myself, it's like, oh, I actually have a purpose now.

I know what I want to do.

I know what I'm supposed to do for people.

I've started way more spiritual.

I mean, COVID was great for me.

I didn't listen.

I don't listen back to podcasts I do because that sounds like literally my hell.

But after we after we met,

COVID was literally, I know it was really hard for people and I

so much sympathy, but for me, it was the week before lockdown, my girlfriend left and my cat died.

And I was like, things can't get worse.

And then

COVID happened.

Yeah.

Noel, I could be locked in here.

Yeah, yeah, yes, exactly.

Locked in, but I had nowhere to run.

I had no

shows to do.

I had no bars to go to.

I had no

fake validation to fill the hole.

It was just me.

Wow.

Right.

And it was also the first.

For a guy who has, you know, you've been codependent.

Yeah, and also suicidal.

That is a recipe for death.

Well, and this is where,

this is where I sound,

no, I'm not even going to qualify it.

You have these choices when you are depressed or suicidal or have lost everything or go through a breakup or, you know, whatever it is.

I was so much more upset about the cat.

I mean, the girl was very sweet, but like,

I remember she would like, I would be crying

and she would come up to me and be like, hey, we're still going to be friends.

And I was like, what?

And like, I was crying like,

I still think about the cat.

And,

you know, you can frame things as, if I framed things as,

look at this, suicidal Jamie.

Of course, I'm going to get dumped before COVID.

Of course, the first time I'm ever single, literally the first time as an adult I have ever been single, because I have been codependent and have stayed in toxic relationships was during this really scary global outbreak.

Woe is me, woe is me.

But instead, like right away, and if I didn't right away, I would have been in trouble.

But right away, I was just like, how can I, what am I supposed to do with this?

And

if, let's take codependency, for example, right?

For the first,

I remember again, my dad, he was like, you know, I've been telling, because I was so happy six months in.

And he goes, I've been telling you, I've been telling you, all you got to do is be single and say no to girls and stuff like that.

And I didn't have the heart to tell him that, like, dad, it wasn't, it wasn't you.

It was literally God, a global outbreak stopped me from being codependent.

Like, I probably would have caved.

I probably would have, you know, I would, I would move in with girls like right when we met.

Like, I was just, part of it's me being romantic.

Part of me is just trying to fill that hole.

And I literally couldn't.

I wasn't allowed to go outside.

And

so what I did over quarantine was I started reading every day.

I started meditating every day.

I wasn't drinking.

I wasn't smoking pot.

I did psilocybin, which was also like, that was my sort of come to God moment.

What is psilocybin?

Mushrooms.

So it's a psychedelic.

And they're actually using it for, and microdosing too, for PTSD right now.

They're using it clinically now, which is really cool.

And they're using it for recovery, which is, I think, goes against some stuff.

But anyway,

a little bit.

A little bit.

And, but, but I mean, man, if it gets people to stop drinking, if you can do it once and stop drinking, like, I'm for it.

And,

and I just literally had the year to

figure out who I was.

And I, I'm not there yet, uh, at all, but it was, it was a really good starting point.

And

I moved to Austin.

I doubled down on stand-up.

Then I started doing stand-up and I go,

a lot of the health went out the window because, again, I was trying to define myself.

I go, okay, well, I'm a comic now.

And all the comics are like drinking.

I started smoking cigarettes for the first time since like I was like 16, Glenn, because everyone was smoking cigarettes.

And I go, I guess that's a little convenient.

That's what Bill Hicks did.

And I like, I do jiu-jitsu every day with UFC champions.

Like I fight with professionals and I'm like smoking cigarettes at these shows.

The first day I smoked a cigarette, I got so sick that I lied to the comics and I was like, oh, I must have drank too much.

And literally, I smoked one cigarette and I was like,

and I just felt horrible.

But then I kept doing it because,

you know, I think so much of addiction.

Maybe not even addiction, but just why we make these unhealthy choices.

It's, oh, I didn't think I was,

I mean, I'll just use high school language because that's the only thing I can think of right now.

I didn't think I was cool enough to fit in unless I was doing the things that everyone else is doing, which is totally antithetical to my on-stage persona, to the advice I give, to what I would tell someone in jiu-jitsu, to what I would tell someone in stand-up, to what I would tell someone in podcasting, whatever.

But

it's hard.

And I go, well, this is what comics do, right?

And so I was drinking more than I was ever drinking and smoking.

And

then,

you know, I started

being like, I guess I should talk about politics more because I was really, I was trying not to.

I was trying just to talk about mental health and I was trying to talk about just comedy.

And I was like, I can be political by making people laugh.

And

then when I was talking about politics, I was like, I don't know where I belong.

You know, I felt too liberal for some conservative places.

I felt too problematic for some liberal places.

And

it's so hard politically for people, for people listening to this show, for people who have listened to me before, to figure out who they are if both sides are telling them that they have to align 100% with them or they're just kind of not accepted.

And the left, I think, does that more than the right.

And so what most.

But the right right does do it too.

Yeah, oh, for sure.

I mean, you saw the whole Trump-non-Trump divide and it's so unhealthy.

And I think

to me, what really helped me more than anything was, you know, how they say you get more conservative as you get older?

If you look at where I've lived, I went from Brooklyn to LA to Arizona to Texas to now I'm 40 and was in West Virginia and I'm now going back to Texas.

And I was like, so geographically, I definitely kind of proved that.

I like, I took the road map,

not metaphorically.

And, you know, meeting non-political people, people who me and you don't follow on Twitter, people who aren't on Twitter, people who mean regular people.

Regular people, yeah, who when you're like, oh man, everyone's mad at Glenn Greenwald today, and they're like, I don't know who that is.

And you're just like, oh, what's that life like?

That's pretty sweet.

That sounds crazy.

That sounds great.

No hands to gun.

It's wonderful.

And

I didn't know if they were conservative or liberal.

And some of my best friends were conservative.

And I've seen the way they take care of their kids.

And, you know, they gave me couches to sleep on when I had nothing.

Whereas I remember a lot of my most 99% of my liberal friends bailed on me when there was trouble and I couldn't get them on MSNBC anymore.

And

that doesn't necessarily mean that suddenly I go, oh, I guess I'm a conservative.

But

it makes you go, well, if I respect them when we're training jiu-jitsu together, which is like very, you're trusting someone with your life, essentially.

If I admire their, the way they, they, they, they are to their family, the kind of husband they are, the kind of father they are, um, wife, et cetera,

then maybe I should actually ask them.

why they believe the things that I don't believe.

And so I would be like, I just go up to one of my poor jiu-jitsu friends and be like, can I ask you about abortion?

And they're like, what?

And because I was so curious, I was like, I know you're a good person.

Right.

And I know you're a good soul.

And

half, most of the time, they would give me their reasonings for, you know, whatever.

I was like, oh, that makes sense.

That makes a lot of sense.

And I think that.

And it doesn't necessarily mean you agree with it.

Nope.

You can just understand it.

You're like, oh.

And isn't that so much better?

Like, we fight every day on Twitter and we assume that the other side...

I made a tweet today where I was like, hey, just because someone disagrees with you doesn't mean they're either a Nazi or a groomer or a Russian asset or, you know, whatever.

They could just be like a dude who disagrees with you.

And

we get so worked up and those extremes are out there, but we get so worked up.

And when I try to tell people, when I go, hey, look, I know people on the left who are really cool.

And I know people on the right who are really cool.

And they're still like, well, no, but it's different when it's blank, when it's left or when it's right.

And I just want to be like, but don't you want to root for the world where the majority of people aren't Nazis or anti-fuck rumors or like, shouldn't we be pushing for that?

Like, shouldn't we be excited about that?

And I think right now, there are, and by the way, all the stand-up shows shows I've been doing have been, I just got back from Tennessee.

I'm mainly doing shows in Texas.

And the audiences are always pretty split, liberals and conservatives.

And I remind them at the end of the show, I go, Hey, we all laughed at the with the people, laughing, which is one of the most intimate things ever.

We're in a dark room laughing with people that I'm telling you disagree with you.

And if we could almost town haul this when the lights come up,

after experiencing that laughter together, we could probably find some gray area on these issues that supposedly we're not even supposed to talk about.

That's why I think our American and really Western narrative has been destroyed.

Yep.

Because we all agreed on that.

I know.

We all agreed on that.

And then once you take that cornerstone out and you say, nope, that's not what, that's not true.

Yeah.

But if we don't believe in that, then you don't know.

I mean, you're right.

These are new ideas.

That's a great point.

Yeah.

Like, it's the founding ideas.

Yes, it's all the founding ideas, but we have to discover them again for ourselves.

Yeah, and I don't understand why.

Well, no, I do.

I mean, I have, I have a,

unfortunately, nefarious theory, but I was going to say I don't understand why

nuance or moderation is

the bad thing or the edgy stance to take.

And it's because people profit off of divisiveness.

It's because literally.

And there are bad people on both sides.

Yes.

That want that.

Yes.

Yes.

And their whole, I mean, that's their whole marketing.

Yeah.

Their marketing budget goes into dividing and conquering.

Right.

And

if you really care about these issues,

I mean, that's the thing.

If you really want

less abortions, if you really want

safer schools, then

you want to talk to both sides.

You don't just want to scream to the point where nothing is getting accomplished.

You want, so the gun thing was a huge wake-up call for me because I used to be very anti-gun, which, as all of your listeners probably can assume, means that I've never shot a gun.

Right.

Hang on just a second.

But you also, you used to describe yourself as a male feminist.

And I've just read one of your tweets said that you were, you described yourself as

as a white woman with a gun.

Did I?

Yes.

I don't even remember that.

Oh, no.

God, oh, God, Twitter.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, and again, this was the label thing, right?

I've never,

I don't know if I've ever gone to a feminist march.

If I've told you that I've seen The Handmaid's Tale, I'm lying to you because I'm nervous and I've never seen it.

I think I bought a Belle Hooks book, but I didn't get it.

Like, I was like, I tried so hard.

And someone got mad at me because you're like,

you don't capitalize her letters because that's offensive.

And I was like, I don't know, man.

But I got labeled a male feminist because I was like, rape's bad

and treat women equally.

And, you know, there are certain things.

Just like there are certain things that women don't get about guys.

There are certain things that guys will never understand about I don't walk to my car late at night with the keys tucked between my knuckles.

I don't have to cover my drink at a bar.

And these are things that, you know, at the time I probably thought conservatives just didn't care about,

which is untrue.

But then suddenly I got labeled this male feminist because I would talk about issues like that.

And I think that

this is a thing in our industry is once you get labeled something, you kind of just have to go to the edge or you feel like you do.

So now suddenly any feminist issue that was brought to my podcast or to me, I was like, whoa, I don't want to be a bad feminist.

So I guess I believe that.

It would be the same if I was, you know, conservative.

Like I, back to the gun thing, I am much more of a Second Amendment guy than I ever thought I would be because I've met experts in the field, which I never did before.

Do I think you should arm teachers?

No.

I joke about this on stage because I'm like, teachers, they can't afford bullets.

They shouldn't have to be trained to be tactical.

And then I do a whole thing with them eventually snapping and pulling a gun with kids.

It's fine.

You have to see it.

Guys, it's fine.

Don't get me in trouble.

But the

you have to talk to people on the other.

If I didn't talk to

people who knew how to shoot firearms, I wouldn't.

know the things I now know because I would just be coming at that issue from an adversarial point of view.

I have to tell you, I have become such a

sock snob.

In fact, I'm wearing them today

because it's what I packed in the suitcase on the way home.

I was in Italy for a week with my wife, and I only packed one pair of grip sick socks.

And

I wore them.

two days in a row

because I didn't have any other socks.

I couldn't find really good quality socks.

You know, the like the no-show or the sneaker sock.

I couldn't find them anywhere.

Crip 6.

I've learned my lesson.

I'll be packing more of your socks.

I won't forget next time.

Grip 6.

I want you to check out their high, high-quality socks at gripsics.com/slash beck.

Grip6.com/slash beck.

Go there now.

American made.

Do you know a guy named Tim Kennedy?

Okay, so Tim became a friend of mine in Austin, and he's a special forces guy, was a UFC fighter, runs a sheepdog response, and he invited me down to sheepdog response.

And one of the things he was saying in front of no cameras, so I hope it's okay that I say this, but he was telling me that he wants more women, gay people, Muslims, Jews,

to train, to learn how to defend themselves.

And

I remember in that moment being like, oh,

even though, I mean, you go to his Instagram and you go, oh, this is one of the most conservative guys you'll ever see.

And I was like, oh, this guy actually wants to do more to empower and help the people that I thought I was defending with tweets.

And that, by the way, chances are a lot of my old liberal friends, if they saw

a minority getting held up at knife point, would maybe like post about it later or film it.

But like, Tim's running up there.

Like Tim would like get cut for it.

I would like to think I would as well.

And so when I had the chance to meet these sheepdog guys,

I remember just being, and I was still pretty anti-gun.

It was, it was before Uvalde, but,

and I remember just asking them, I go,

wait, why doesn't anyone ask you guys what to do for a school shooting?

When they're interviewed on, they are interviewed on TV, but they have to just defend, don't take our guns.

They're not giving tactical advice correct they will on their podcast tim did a podcast about tactically what they would do jocko did a podcast about that um but they're not really asked about that and so i asked these guys and um jeff gonzalez who's who's one of the guys and he's a big nra guy he goes because no one asks us so what happens is when the left after a tragedy just goes we're going to take everyone's guns The NRA guys, and you know how media works, they're brought on to the mainstream news.

They have like, what, like two minutes or something to talk in sound bites and they have to just say,

yeah, they're just there

on their feet, they're on their heels.

Instead of, hey, you were in Iraq, you've defended politicians, you've done all this.

Tactically,

how should we set up these schools to be safer?

Which is what I would want to ask them.

And now that I have asked them, I go, oh, okay, I want a gun,

but I want to train in it.

And I want, as by the way, they think that too.

They were like, of course they want people to train, you know, it's

so anyway, so I just, but I want to learn that.

And this sounds silly, but I want to learn that if I didn't talk to them, you know, and I don't want to just preach to the choir.

Just real quick, I'll give another example from the other side.

Me as someone who I guess is still

semi on the left.

I've been calling myself a bleeding hard centrist recently,

but probably more liberal than a lot of your listeners, I I guess.

I don't even know what that means anymore.

But

I, as someone who is considered liberal,

am pretty appalled by the children at drag shows, by the idea of

kids getting sex changes

before

they really know what's going on.

When I think about me as a kid, I'm horrified if I made any permanent decision.

I mean, God, me having a ponytail, I like burned those pictures and I was like, you know, ban.

You know what I mean?

Like, Like that was pretty bad.

I cut that off.

But then when I see, so I agree with that.

And I would get in a lot of trouble.

And I've tried to like

sort of tweet about it, but it's not worth it.

I've talked about it on my podcast because I can be a little more nuanced.

I think that.

And I think a lot of people on the left feel that way.

Now, what I'll see some conservatives do, though, is then they go, therefore,

the quiet gay couple that's married in the suburbs, they want to groom our kids.

And it's like, well, no, they're not the same, right?

To use

these extreme examples that I'm with you on,

as suddenly now we're going all the way back to pre-same-sex marriage and saying, all gay people want to groom our kids.

It's like, well, no, it's not that either.

And the conservatives I know who have gay relatives or, you know, they know that as well.

And again, it just comes down to, mean i have trans friends who are horrified by that stuff who don't want you know uh trans people competing in like mma and

etc but we don't get to hear from these people because they're normal people and they're not you know making a living again off of outrage

so

let me can i go back to the beginning yeah

so

What pieces have you put into place?

Forget about politics and all that stuff.

What pieces have you put into place on

who are you?

Well, I think the first thing you have to do, and that I did, was you have to get healthy.

I think that there's so much,

it's so easy.

Is this an AA thing?

I feel like every time I hear a good slogan, it comes from AA, but I never remember where people talk about a God-shaped hole.

in your heart.

Have you ever heard that quote?

I heard that quote.

I don't know if it comes from.

I'm like, is it Rob Doss or AA?

Anyway, it's someone.

But we're always trying to fill this God shape hole, right?

And for me, for a long time, it was with relationships.

For a lot of people, it can be with alcohol.

It can be with food.

I've struggled with food addiction.

It could be cigarettes.

It can be whatever.

It could be Twitter.

I've done that.

For me, it was validation.

It was retweets.

It was attention, attention, attention.

It was someone telling me I'm good because I didn't believe I was good.

And the more I hang out with religious people, and people are like, you know, God loves you no matter what.

And I was like, who is this God guy?

This is amazing.

Like, I didn't know that.

And,

like, I forget because, again, you only see caricatures.

I only thought of Christians as like, they're the ones like, don't like gay people, right?

Not all this, like beautiful things that Jesus said.

And anyway,

getting detracted.

So you have to take care of yourself.

And,

you know, I have addiction and I clearly have an addictive personality.

I have alcoholism in my family.

I don't like getting drunk.

So I never thought I was an alcoholic.

But I, so, and I felt stupid going to meetings.

I think I went to one meeting because I don't my rock bottom stories happened like sober

I was like no no no it's me it's not whatever but I noticed I just didn't like that every time I did a show I had to have a drink even if it was one drink

I didn't like

if I'm in a social situation if I'm going to a bar you know my dream relationship is we don't drink But if a girl wanted to meet at a bar, I'd go all right Well, I guess I have to drink so I don't seem weird to her instead of having the confidence confidence to go, no, I don't want to go on a date with someone, not just that, like, I don't even want to go on a date really with someone who wants to have a first date at a bar, if that's not the kind of relationship I want.

And so I stopped drinking.

This is pretty recent.

The meditation, making sure I'm working out every day, trying to like chill out with food.

All of these things.

They don't give you the answer, but it sort of it clears the

gas a little bit.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Have you gotten to the place yet in your drive from New York to Texas?

Yeah.

How much of it did you spend with no noise?

No radio, no podcast, nothing.

So this is, it's crazy you said that because I've never talked to anyone about this yet.

But

I always thought walking through nature,

you know, was one of the most meditative healing things you could do, which it is.

But I always had music on or a podcast.

And even if it was, no one was there.

And I did shows in Chattanooga.

I've never been to Chattanooga before.

It's not one of my favorite cities.

And I went hiking and it was raining.

And I listened to music for the beginning.

And then I just took it off.

And

dude, I've, I've, I felt like I was like on psychedelics.

Like there was a moment where I had to stop and I just got emotional.

Um,

not in a bad way, just in a, this is exactly where I'm supposed to be right now, taking in the beauty way.

And

now that you said that, that is my sign because I'm looking for those.

I feel like when you're aligned, whether you're spiritual or secular or whatever, I feel like when you're on the right path, you can kind of take inventory of these signs that are telling you, like, keep going this way, keep going this way.

And even little things like that.

There's also, it works in the other direction, too.

I think we're beacons.

Yeah.

That's a great way to put it.

You know, so we, whatever we're thinking or looking for, whatever, whatever, it will come to us.

Yes.

And we just don't necessarily notice or we dismiss the signs going the other way

as, well, just this once.

Or just this.

And you go down that way.

Yeah.

And then

when we get these signs going the other way, we dismiss them as coincidence.

Right.

No, stop.

Stop.

Both of those.

Yep.

Yep.

100%.

And

so now I'm going to, I'm going to make it a habit to do that more.

It's when I knew I was healthy.

Yeah.

You know,

when I could drive a long distance in a car by myself.

Yeah.

No radio, no nothing, no music, just alone with your thoughts.

Yeah.

Then I thought, because

if you're like, I am like you,

beating yourself up and thinking of things that you did.

And if you've ever been so,

I've been so embarrassed by myself yeah that you'll be all by yourself and to stop yourself from things you'll go like

yeah you do that i had a moment so the first book i read over quarantine when i was like okay i don't know anything about self-help or whatever and i was like everyone talks about tony robbins i was like so i went down this youtube rabbit hole of him i was like this guy is huge and he's yelling at me and i'm in and and i bought one of his books and he's talking about you know positive self-talk and kind of what you were saying, what we were talking about with like looking for signs, he said something like, you know, if I say look for a blue Jeep or a blue car, suddenly you're going to see them everywhere.

So if we can train ourselves to sort of

hone in on the vision of what we want, we'll start seeing the signs to go in that direction.

And

so I go, all right, I just got to think positive.

And this sounds like a bit, Glenn, and it's not.

It's not funny enough to be a bit.

It was so sad.

I caught myself,

I was trying to think positive and I I couldn't think positive.

And so then I started getting mad at myself for not being able to think positive.

And suddenly I'm going, just think positive, you idiot.

Why can't you think something positive?

You're so dumb.

Just one positive thing.

And that's when I was like, okay.

And I like, I remember I just stormed outside and like went for a walk out in the desert.

And that was sort of just like a private little moment.

It wasn't a biggie, but it was, it was definitely a things have to change.

And it it will

change you.

I actually want to ask you a question.

When you're driving like that, are you trying to treat it like a meditation in the sense that you're trying not to have thoughts, or when the thoughts come up, you don't judge them and you just let them be?

Are you trying to problem solve?

Or are you just trying to like watch the road, watch the scenery?

Could be any of those things.

Any.

It doesn't matter.

It says, I never could be alone with my thoughts because it would

spiral into what you just said, you know, you stupid idiot.

What are you, you know, or it would get so oppressive in there.

It's just so loud sometimes when you're not healthy.

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The last

relationship I had, it was this great girl

in Austin, and

she

our last email correspondence, which was pretty recently,

she said something along the lines of, you know, thank you for

she said that it was the safest she ever felt in a relationship.

And

I've heard that before, and you know,

it means so much to me.

And then I think about

random trolls or whatever on Twitter who will say stuff about me that's just completely untrue.

And

I let that carry weight sometimes.

And that's, you know, that's been a lot of the suicide stuff where you just feel trapped or helpless.

Or,

you know, when it really happens for me is when you go, I'm doing all the right things.

Like,

and you still feel like you can't catch a break, you know?

And, uh,

and so being in the public, you know, I don't know how you've dealt with this or, or whatever, but it's, it's crazy to me, you know, and in the last couple months, it's finally the first time I've accepted that, like, I know I'm a good person, I know I'm a good guy, blah, blah, blah.

But it's, it's crazy in the world we live in that sometimes even when you are by yourself with your thoughts, that's what made me think of this,

you can let people who

literally,

they don't exist.

They don't even have an avatar of their face.

They're just random people saying things to everybody on the internet.

You're not the only one.

They're not thinking about me right now.

And letting that go, oh, God, like there were years where I was like,

I guess I'm a bad guy.

So it's really interesting because

of course that happens.

And it's happened to me and happened to everybody that I know and people who i think are really really good people as well um

and i think where i've come to on this is um

that if it at some level

it doesn't bother you enough to go well

gosh am i that guy what have i said to make and how are they interpreting it Then you are a bad guy.

You know what I mean?

But it's like asking people who you disagree with.

how did you get there?

I've tried to spend, I went through about a three-year period of just saying,

so wait a minute, half the country believes this about me.

So what is it I've done and how could I do it differently?

Because that's not who I am.

Right.

And it's, it's, it's really tough.

But I will tell you, there's

the problems that you struggle with where people are saying things because you deserve it.

Yep.

And then there's this little magical period, at least for me, this little magical period where

you drop in.

It took me,

oh, I don't even know, eight years.

Yeah.

And this magical period where you drop in and it's like you're brand new.

Yeah.

And it's like, oh my gosh, this is fantastic.

And so you can put the mistakes of the past behind you.

But if you hold on to that period, and I think this is coming in your life this sounds like yes yes yes um if you hold on to that period and you don't compromise don't compromise yourself your belief don't smoke because everybody else is going to smoke because you want to you know

and you refuse to compromise for any reason because your

your relationship with yourself or your relationship with God is more important,

The same crap comes back

because now you're doing wrong, but now you're actually going against the grain of society of trying to do right.

And so people will start to attach themselves to you.

Well, you're only doing that because you want money.

You're only doing that because you're trying to appease.

No.

Yep.

No.

But perhaps that's you that's doing that.

Yeah.

And I think that that's one of the most

I don't want to use the word evil.

I want to use it kind of hyperbolically, but when people do that, I want to write about this

when they call you a grifter or they say you're just, you know, whatever.

This idea that the only reason somebody could try to change their mind or try to better themselves or try to, is for a paycheck or is for, you know, even with the feminist stuff, you know, I am years ahead of that.

It was like a decade ago.

And when people go, you know, well, were you just doing it to like get girls?

I'm like, no, I was doing it because I thought it was right.

And now I can go, oh, okay, well, this part was right, but like that part was a little ridiculous.

And like, oof, I let that get to my head.

And like, yeah, I probably should have worked on my marriage.

And, you know, you can go back and look at it.

But this idea that the only reason that you could change your mind or become friends with conservatives or talk to liberals is because of, you know, a paycheck.

It's like when people, you tell someone, I mean, this has happened to me a lot recently, where I tell people,

you know, I want to eat healthy and they're like, oh, but don't you want to have fun?

Or you tell people you're going to quit drinking and they're, you know, they get mad at you and you're like, hey, man, what's going on with you where you're upset if I, I didn't say you don't have to drink.

I'm just going to have like a topo chico.

Like we're fine.

Where people,

and I think if everybody listening to this, which is a lot of people, if everyone could just ask themselves, how can I make myself better every day instead of attacking other people, attacking other people?

And what I've noticed is the more I try to better myself,

whether it's spiritually, physically, mentally, politically, the more suddenly, and you probably noticed this too, your people start to find you, whether it's fans or just new friends.

It's the beacon.

It's the beacon.

And then you don't feel alone or crazy because I'll tell you, if you are listening to this and if you are struggling, you know, going on a diet, as simple as that sounds, you're going to feel alone.

Quitting drinking, you're going to feel alone.

Standing up for what's right.

No, no, no.

Just standing up for what you believe in.

Doesn't even have to be right.

Just what you believe in.

You feel crazy.

You feel crazy.

I mean, especially...

in someone like

for me

and you can choose the way you want to see it i can either go oh god i'm hated by the left and the right, or I can go,

oh, I'm speaking for people who aren't represented.

And that's actually really exciting.

And that's actually really cool.

That puts you into the category of Gandhi and Martin Luther King.

And

I mean, you know,

not necessarily that guy, but that's my new quote: Jamie is the new Martin Luther King from Glenn Beck.

That will be.

The left would love it.

It looks like I'm going to get hired somewhere, baby.

It has to be here.

Please hire me.

Yeah, no, I, but it's true.

it's it's it's so wild

that

this idea of trying to bring people together i mean this is a silly thing i never thought i would tell anybody but i emailed myself before i came on the show because whenever i would do other shows that are conservative or in the middle or whatever um

for me

for me the the the only way someone can sell out is if they say something they don't believe for profit.

And I had an opportunity to do that and I didn't do it.

And I would have been very, I would have had a lot more money.

I would have, I would have also been able to bring a sweater for the team.

It's cold in here.

This is all I have.

I'm so broke.

I'm just kidding.

But like

I had those opportunities.

And

so then there was a phase, you know, when I came on this show and where I go, okay, well, when I'm on right-wing shows, I'll probably make fun of the parts of the left I don't agree with, and that's cool.

And I can do that.

And I'll probably try to get at least some kind of liberal, like, hey, don't, this is Jamie Kilsing.

Don't beat up gay people or like, whatever.

Some like liberal thing.

That's pretty common sense that I'm sure all your listeners would agree with.

And that's it.

But there was no like mission statement.

And now

when I do comedy shows, the mission statement is be funny.

And that's it.

Whether I'm talking about politics, whether I'm talking about dating, make people laugh and bring people together that way.

And then when I do shows like this, what I emailed myself was I was like, bring people together.

And it's, ugh, I'm going to get killed for saying this, but when you said Martin Luther King, it's so funny you said that because I was in DC

and I went to the Lincoln Memorial for the first time.

I'd never been there.

I was, again, just a godless liberal and I was like, ah, that's a bunch of whatever.

And.

And I went to the Lincoln Memorial and I started reading the speeches and I'm like joking up.

I was like,

oh my God.

I was like, I understand patriotism.

I understand art.

Like I was like, why did it, why did it take me so long to come here?

And I go to leave and I call my brother,

who the,

my awesome liberal brother who keeps me in check like sometimes when I go, hey, I'm starting to feel this way.

Am I, am I?

And he's like, no, no, no, that you're fine.

I'm like, okay, thanks, but.

And

He goes, hey, not a lot of people know this because it's kind of dusted over.

But on the top of the steps,

the square is marked off where Martin Luther King gave the I Have a Dream speech.

And I go, what?

And so I was like running late.

I had to pee.

I was so hot.

I was sweating.

And I ran back and like double jumped the steps.

And I find it.

No one's there.

And I stand there and I like, you know, it takes your breath away.

And then this little tour group comes up.

And the leader of the tour groups, this Latino guy, and he's, you know, and there's like six people in his group.

And he starts giving parts of the speech, you know, doing his tour guide thing.

But it's still it's it's cool, it's cool because I wouldn't have said anything.

And then this girl, uh, in the group, this younger girl, points at the date and she goes, Oh my god, that's today.

Like, not even the tour guide realized it, none of us realized it.

And so, we were there on the anniversary, and so I get chills.

And

I'm not even, I have ADD, I'm not even a museum guy.

Like, I'm like, okay, I get it, and I go find snacks.

And,

and I, and I've just, I've been thinking about him

so much.

And, you know, I hear I conservatives get demonized every time they quote the I Have a Dream speech.

And even liberals do.

You know, I think now Martin Luther King Jr.

would probably be like a canceled moderate.

Oh, yeah.

No, he is he's not a

in favor.

Yeah.

And so.

But yeah, so when I emailed myself, I thought of him and I was like, why can't my mission statement just be bring people together?

Why when I can't i just when i go on liberal shows i can talk about all the great conservatives i know when i come on shows like this i can say like hey my friends aren't trying to groom your kids uh my liberal friends are like pretty cool and just want to do jiu-jitsu and make art and you know hang out too whether they're gay or straight or black or white or whatever i have black conservative friends you know i mean isn't that

I mean, that's what we should all be trying to do, but it's, it's so hard because even when I make a tweet about bringing people together,

the majority of people, and I have a lot of conservative followers now,

there's a lot of mega in screen names.

And

so many of them are saying, I agree, I agree.

And then there'll always be usually one from the left and one from the right who is like, I just can't.

If the other side wants that, blah, blah, blah.

And then talking point, talking point, talking point.

And I feel for them and I feel sad for them.

And I don't yell at them.

And I always try to write them back and go, hey, no, this is, we need this.

We need to stop this.

So then, so, so let me interject here.

Yeah.

Ask you a question.

Because

I hear this all the time too.

Yeah.

And

I know what my answer is.

Yeah.

How do

you

Martin Luther King did not compromise with what he felt was evil?

Yeah.

So if you actually feel like, I don't know, teaching my kids about sex changes and giving them hormone drugs and cutting me out of all of this.

Yeah, that's evil.

Yeah.

And if that's what you want to do, how do I compromise with you?

So

it's, I never thought I would say this on any show, and I'm not a scholar and I'm so new to it, and I wouldn't, but I think about

you know, God, I think about Jesus, and I try to the first thing I always do is I try to

feel compassion for everyone.

And so,

again,

the idea of,

you know, it's funny.

I get the most mad at people who, I don't get mad at the kid who got the sex change or thought there were a different gender.

I feel so much compassion.

Parents, I start to get,

but the, the, the, the, the liberals who just kind of cheer it on because they just go, well, this is the thing we're supposed to be cheering on this month, you know, that's when I get kind of upset.

And let me play the other side.

Conservatives that will not look at a person's,

I don't know, suffering.

Sex is suffering and will not recognize that

you don't have to have an answer for it.

Yeah.

You know, and all you have to do is recognize that that person, for whatever reason, is suffering.

Right.

And you may not be able to relate to it.

Nope.

And what I try to do is,

because I've never thought about, is I try to encourage honesty in conversation.

So if we can do that, right?

You don't, so with the trans issue, you don't have to be either on one side, which says,

give kids sex changes or then the other side is hate all trans people, right?

There's the middle ground where I'm in, which is

just like gay people, it's like, I don't understand it.

Like I'm, I'm, I'm not, I'm a straight cis dude, right?

But I can also say, hey, I disagree with the sex changes for kids.

And I think it's important for liberals who do disagree.

And I think most of them are scared to say that.

And I will get in trouble from the left for saying that.

But then I could also get in trouble from the right where it's like, what I want to say to the conservatives listening is

if you see a trans person walking down the street, that trans person could just be a person like you.

And they are.

Yeah, they are.

I mean, yeah.

And

that

just because they're trans doesn't mean they're even in favor of sex changes for kids.

Doesn't mean they even think about it.

They're just trying to survive and

are probably scared.

Like, you remember after 9-11, how

so many Muslims were just terrified and there were hate crimes.

And, you know, and even I have Muslim friends who, when the anniversary comes, they don't get to mourn, man, because they're just on edge.

Like, how sad is that?

And so, I can imagine that right now, since the trans conversation, you know, it's not just like trans bathrooms, it's literally these people want to groom our kids that trans people who don't are probably really on edge.

And just like

liberals think that anyone who owns a gun doesn't care about school shootings.

And they're, oh, they'll care more about, I've said stuff like this.

You care more about your toys to prove what a man you are than kids getting killed, right?

It's like, well, no, a lot of people own guns to actually protect people like us.

And a lot of trans people don't want to groom your kids.

And just like Republicans hate it when liberals, and I hate this too, say all conservatives are racist.

All right, well, if we don't like that, then we also shouldn't say that all LGBT people are groomers, right?

And then where it's our responsibility is when there are racists on the right, you guys call them out.

When there are creepy people on the left, we call them out.

I mean, how cool would it be if our own sides could weed out?

That's the way it used to be.

Yeah.

We're not supposed to have sides.

Right.

Our side is truth justice.

That's our side.

Yep.

I mean, you know, you know, the amount of cops that I've talked to, because what's cool about doing jiu-jitsu is like I have met a lot more military people cops than I ever would and you know they were horrified at what happened to George Floyd they were horrified at what the response to you volunteered I believe George Floyd that first day when that came out yeah that was one of the most uniting days in American history yeah because we all felt the same way yeah we all condemned it yeah and then 12 hours 18 hours into it it starts to spin yeah and then you have sides going well no wait a minute I mean it was, no, we all knew it was wrong.

We were all against it.

And then it was politicized and everything fell apart.

And again, just like I was talking about with 9-11, the fact that we don't even get to mourn, that suddenly like we're not even thinking about that guy's family.

It's just, what side are you on?

What, or no, it's more like we got to check, what side are my people on?

All right, they're on that side.

I guess I got to come up with my talking points for that side.

And it's just, you know, and it just goes on and on.

Instead of stepping out and being willing to,

and again you just if you lead with compassion that's it

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You and I are in a similar problem.

I just am

not in the position

yet to where I could be living under a bridge.

Right.

You know what I mean?

And, but we're in the same, we're in the same predicament.

I think we believe exactly the same thing.

And

I just don't care.

Oh,

you don't like what I believe.

Oh, well.

And I'm not saying that just to the left.

Yeah.

I'm saying that to my audience as well.

They like me, at least I think.

One of the reasons they like me is I say what I mean and I mean what I say, even if I disagree with you.

You know what I mean?

That's really important.

But to do that,

it means

I had a guy who wrote a book called The Pendulum.

And

it's about how authoritarianism and the me and we and how it swings back and forth.

And he said, you know, you don't win, right?

And I said,

what?

I was calling you for some hope and insight.

And he said, no, you don't win because you're out of step.

In these we swings, that's when people who believe in the individual and believe in

stop with the group think.

Let's have conversations.

He said, they don't win.

They win later,

but usually not when they're alive.

I know.

I think about that sometimes where

I was like, well, people are going to, if I survive this, I know I'm on the right side right now because I'm not on the side.

Right.

And I think, and you can feel.

The pendulum.

You can feel it swinging.

A lot of people are getting disgusted, I think, by tribalism, but they're too scared to speak up.

Correct.

We're at the apex of it at 2024.

It's an 80-year swing.

And we're at that apex.

It's going to start swinging back.

I think it already has.

People will whisper to me that they're a moderate, like they're about to tell me a racist joke.

They're like, hey.

And they'll like look around and they're like, I think both sides are full of it.

And I'm like, buddy, we shouldn't have to whisper that.

I think the majority of people feel that way.

But then the extremists on both sides are just screaming us down.

Shouldn't that

tell you everything that you need to know when you feel you

whisper it?

you know, and both sides are calling the other fascists.

Yeah.

Either side could become fascist

that fast.

And if you're whispering, That should tell you everything you need to know.

I'm part of building that authoritarian regime through my silence.

Yeah.

Well, and you know, I mean, I even think about that when I think about how to get my career on track.

I mean, stand-up's going great.

And that's definitely where I

feel the most like, okay, I'm doing something.

But, you know, even with like my podcast and stuff, I go, okay, well, if I truly think that this is the way a ton of people think, then obviously make a podcast about it.

But I've seen people, friends of mine, who, who, by the way, are much more successful than me.

You end up.

If I make a censurist podcast, now I'm still digging for articles to attack both sides.

I'm doing the centrist version of the same thing.

And so

then you go, well,

I guess I could just do a show about just like being a good person.

Then that's it.

Be you.

That's it.

Yeah.

And that's what it comes down to.

And, you know, a friend of mine said to me, he goes, why don't you just make comedy your tribe or comedy your language or comedy your

political, you know, whatever.

And if everything's filtered through the lens of laughter,

then it's, yeah, sometimes I'll make fun of the left, sometimes I'll make fun of the right, but most of the time I'm trying to bring people together through that.

And that should be the goal.

So how do you feel about Ricky Gervais?

I love him.

I love him too.

Yeah, I mean, I also love Stuart Lee, who just got in trouble for criticizing him just as a comedian.

But yeah, I mean,

I think because he's,

I heard him, I heard, did you watch his last?

No, I didn't watch that one.

No, you should watch it.

It was hysterical.

But he says, he's talking about cancel culture, and he said, you know, they're going back in time and finding things you said 10 years ago.

And he he said, one thing you're never going to find is,

you know, a tweet from somebody who said, you know,

no, I don't think that men can have babies

because we didn't think we needed to.

Okay.

And while you could look at all of this as divisive, there are certain things that are true that we all know are true.

And I mean, even Chappelle.

And is that divisive?

Right.

And even Chappelle,

you know, being known as like the number one transphobe, it's like his special,

when he told that beautiful story of his trans friend and it's like who died and it people didn't even give that a chance because they just made their decision.

And when

they got to it.

They never saw it.

And when I was coming up, this was at the height of Chappelle's popularity.

He would come by the club I was working at every night in front of 30 people.

And I mean, he was a darling of the left.

He was, you know, criticizing criticizing the war in Iraq and Bush and all this stuff.

And

now I remember when his last special came out being like, is Ben Shapiro the only guy saying something positive about Dave Chappelle?

I was like, horrified.

It was so bizarre.

It was like a time warp.

But, you know, Chappelle is just, he's going through the lens of comedy where he's like, all right, you guys are going to come after me.

I'm going to make jokes about it.

And, you know, that people forget that that's what comics are supposed to do.

If you look at my comedy trajectory, man, it's like the worst model of good business, man.

Criticize George Bush about the war in Iraq when everyone was very like pro-war in Iraq.

Then get on Conan, not invited back to Conan because I do a rant about drone strikes.

Because if I'm anti-war under Bush, I got to be anti-war under Obama, even though I think that guy's cooler.

It's the guest, the only guest, it's me and Kobe Bryant.

It's not really like an anti-Obama audience.

And

I do do a rant, an anti-drone rant under Obama.

Audience liked it, but woof, got in a little bit of trouble.

And then under Trump, when suddenly, oh, you can finally make political jokes.

Everyone's making political jokes.

I said, no, it's hacky.

Everyone's just calling Donald Trump orange.

I'd rather.

And I talked about relationships for the first time in my career.

And now.

that Trump's gone.

Yeah, same deal.

The political stand-up I'm doing in my act now

is about the kind of both side stuff.

But it was never

the marketable thing.

That's why I get mad when people say, you know, people say a lot of untrue things about me.

But when people say I did anything for profit, I was like, no, I did some stuff because I was an idiot.

But if I had the,

I'm a smart guy when I put my mind to things.

If I wanted to sell out, I could have sold out.

I've made this joke before on podcasts, but even after the whole feminism thing, if I wrote a book called From Feminist to Freedom Fighter, and it was like a picture of me with like a red pill and an American fly.

I'd be a billionaire.

I have so much money.

But I don't.

I want to be nuanced, which is not as catchy of a title.

Actually, nuanced sounds like a good title.

And yeah, man, it's harder and it's a bummer.

And the times I've gotten.

So can I ask you this?

Because this keeps coming to my mind.

Are you trying to be nuanced?

Or are you nuanced?

I'm not trying anything.

Okay.

Yeah.

Because that's a, because that is a huge, you know what what I'm asking.

I know exactly what's going on.

It's a huge difference if I'm, if I'm trying to do something as opposed to that's who I am.

That's who I am.

Well, and

by becoming more nuanced, I'm remembering times when I was forcing it.

And a lot of that was when I was on the left, where I would cover some story.

And then afterwards, I'd like ask someone, I'm like, hey,

are you sure?

You know,

this like seems a little, and they're like, ah, we got to, you know,

you know, I mean, I remember, I don't think I told this story last time, but I remember one time this kid wrote in, not kid, this man, he was like a father, and he was really overweight.

And I talked about mental health a lot.

And he said his doctor said, if he doesn't lose, you know, all this weight, he's going to die.

And he's like, I don't know what to do.

I, you know, I love my kids so much, blah, blah, blah.

So I emailed him back and I sent him a bunch of recipes because like I was, I've struggled with eating stuff, like binge eating stuff.

I guess I call it an eating disorder.

You can't do that because that's a girl thing, but like I've struggled with that.

And

I found him at jiu-jitsu gym in Baltimore.

So he writes me back like six months, eight months later, and he goes, dude, you're not going to believe this.

My doctor said like he's never seen such a quick recovery.

I'm entering my first white belt, like jiu-jitsu tournament.

I lost all this weight.

My kids are so proud of me.

So I read it on the air because at the time, I'm just like miserable and super depressed.

And I'm like, why am I doing this?

And I read it on the air feeling really good about myself.

And the next day, the show got like

eight or 10 emails from people that said, by reading his email, we were fat shaming them,

which is insane.

Like, I didn't say, if you're overweight, you're bad.

Or I just, we read a victorious story about someone who chose to get healthier.

And that was the first time where I was like, am I a conservative?

Like, this just, it seemed so insane to me.

It was the first time that I saw that sort of like victim mentality hurt someone else where I'm like, you would rather this dude die.

So have you ever thought that

you are a liberal, just

not this liberal?

Because that's not liberal.

I mean,

they've gone insane.

Yeah.

And so many people who have been in your position,

kind of went along with it for a while.

And then you're like, wait a minute, but that's not a liberal position.

These are not liberal ideas.

Yeah, and I mean, I think that if everybody, if you just look at

very broad generalizations, if everyone listening to this could take the compassion, and please, I'm not saying that either side doesn't have the other things, but the compassion that supposedly the liberals have, the discipline that supposedly the conservatives have, right?

If we just took these things that the other side is known for and then applied all of, I mean, I remember I used to think that whenever I'd hear someone talk about victimization or pull yourself up by your bootstraps, I would just be like, ugh, like that's, you know, that's so privileged or that's so this

until I was suicidal.

And I was like, I got to pull myself up on the future.

Now,

with that said, I will say, I will give my little progressive.

Well, what I was going to say is a lot of times it was politicians on either side who were born into privilege coasted through life who were saying that to like you know the single mom of five they're like pull yourself up by your bootstraps it's like all right well you stole the boots right

but that mentality in general isn't bad that mentality in general is great

here's what people um miss um when they think about a conservative is pull yourself up by the bootstraps means be personally responsible for the things that you are are personally responsible for.

Yes.

Pull yourself up by the bootstraps.

I would say that to Citibank and Fair Stearns and AIG and all these people who made all their own bed and then we freaking paid for it.

Yep.

You made the decision.

Yes.

You are responsible.

Yes.

Now.

Where were you at Occupy Wall Street?

Yeah.

That's what I was saying.

That's exactly what I was saying.

We were saying the same.

I've said this for years.

If we could just listen

to each other.

I know.

Because

we've made it about things that we all know are no freedom of speech.

You cancel people.

I mean, what makes you different than the people who locked Galileo up?

Right.

What are you talking about?

And the thing with canceling, too, is,

again, if you care about the issues.

That you say you care about.

You need a path for redemption.

Don't you want people to get better?

Don't you want people to learn instead of just now no one wants to talk about anything and everyone's just shelling up even more?

You know how many women have told me, like, man, I miss guys being like guys.

Everyone's just like super.

And these are like liberal women.

Like everyone's just so scared and so on edge.

And, you know, for me, again, something I cared about when I was like, I guess I'm a liberal was prison reform.

And now

liberals, it's like, guys, if we're pro prison reform, if we're pro using prison to rehabilitate instead of punish, you're the same person who wants a comedian to never work again because of a tweet, or you want Chris Pratt to get fired from Guardians of the Galaxy because he believes in God?

Like, are you out of your mind?

It's so against what I thought liberalism was.

So

I think what's happening in the country, and nobody's really talking about it, is

you know, when September 11th happened, we all kind of woke up, and then we all kind of got into a pocket.

And that was our first real, mmm, bad, good.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

And

since that time,

a lot of my friends have woken up and went, you know, this whole nation building thing, let's go to war and we're on the righteous side.

That's kind of bad.

Right.

You know what I mean?

And we woke up from that.

And

the system is is still kind of the Republican system is still kind of like that.

You know what I mean?

But the conservatives that I know are really repelled by that.

And we've learned so many things along the way that we're like, okay, I'm not that.

Right.

Okay.

But you don't really say it all the time.

And the same thing is happening with liberals is

you believe in the Bill of Rights.

And now they're all being violated.

and the system is saying, no, no, no, you will go to war when we say you go to war and you will stifle speech when we say it.

And the mass amount of people are just like, I, but that doesn't make sense.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And by the way, it's, you know, the extremes on both sides, but I can speak for the left, they're just pushing people away.

You know, I mean, you know how many new conservatives I saw who weren't conservatives, who went straight, like suddenly became like Trump dudes because liberals were the ones shutting down small businesses or jiu-jitsu gyms during COVID or because of the sex change stuff with kids or because of stuff that like, yeah, we didn't know were going to be issues under George Bush or whatever.

And they're just like, or the free speech thing.

The free speech thing is huge for people in my community, where it's all these comedians I know who, when you talk to them, I mean, dude, you still talk to Rogan and you're like, that guy's pretty liberal, and he is considered like an alt-right demigod.

That's that

again is the failure on the right.

We're so desperate for anybody.

They like us.

Okay.

So desperate.

But then the other thing is,

that's the refusal of the right

to say,

no,

they may not have changed.

Their side has gone so far far over.

They're just saying,

I'm not you guys.

Right.

But

I've always thought you guys were those people way

behind you.

You know what I mean?

And so we're finding ourselves

redefining who we are.

I'm a conservative.

Well, I don't know what that means.

I'm a liberal.

I don't know what that means.

It means what it's always meant.

The edges have tried to change.

Yeah.

No, that's a great point.

And, you know,

similar but not

is

when I will go on this show.

When I, I don't even know if I had the guts to post the picture me and you took together when we took a picture together, or maybe I looked bad in it.

I don't know.

I think I didn't realize how tall you were or how short I was.

And I was like, yeek.

But we'll do it again.

I will make a post.

But

I will get, if I go on this show, if I go on Tim Poole's show, if I go on Rogan's show, if I go on whoever,

I will get people who unsubscribe for my Patreon.

And I'm,

you know,

more confident than I've ever been, but I, if I lose one listener, I actually know who that listener, like I'm like, I, I, I need them.

Um,

and, uh, and

I'll write, I'll write back to them sometimes where they, you know, like, if you're on that show, you're supporting whatever.

And I have to go, you know, one, I mean, I stand by everything me and you have said during this conversation that if anyone said anything, I would be like, I challenge you to listen to it and tell me what you disagree with.

But also,

this is where I go, if you're not blindly just doing this because you think your tribe wants you to do this, if you truly are

liberal,

wouldn't you want me to

someone like me to talk in front of millions of people who may disagree with me about compassion or about, hey, not all liberals are psychopaths or about, you know, all this stuff.

Wouldn't conservatives want you to go on MSNBC and say what you said about Bear Stearns, right?

Like, wouldn't that give people hope?

Wouldn't that actually, again, if you care about the issues, isn't that actually really good for not just humanity, but like, if you're being selfish and if you are being tribal, isn't that good for your team, quote unquote?

And I think people are just so brainwashed where it's like, no, there is no talking to the other side.

There is no, and it's like, well, then we're screwed.

Well, I have great hope that we're not.

You're great.

We're getting there.

You're great.

Thank you.

You're great.

Thank you so much.

I have found once you stop worrying about it,

that's when it happens.

When you stop.

Yeah.

I mean, that's really.

That's what these last couple weeks have been.

And I don't know what it is because I don't have a gig lined up.

I got a couple stand-up dates.

You're the jamiekilson.com/slash tour.

I think

you have been offered jobs

recently that

you won't do because you're afraid you'll do more damage.

Yeah.

Or be part of damage.

Yeah.

Like

I'll get these offers sometimes, and

they sound good,

but

anything where

one, I don't want to be a prop, right?

And you don't want to be the, hey, he used to be a liberal, now he's a crazy conservative.

It is, right?

I'm just shooting gun.

It's a pretty bad thing, yeah.

Like, I want to be able to have conversations like this.

Like, these are the conversations that I want to have.

I mean, if I had a dream podcast,

it wouldn't even be labeled something political.

Politics is always going to come up because

I'm me and I care about people.

And, you know, politics obviously matters.

I think even if I did a strictly mental health podcast, politics would come up, but it would come up like this.

And it would come up in a, in

we're trying to find

a middle ground.

We're not trying to yell at each other or, you know, be the token liberal where I just go on and everything, you know, poor Sarah says, I just shout at her, like the opposite, where I'm like, I'm just a token liberal guy and I show up on the networks so you guys can fill your like, you know, hipster liberal quota or whatever.

Be like, we got someone from Austin.

And I'm like, hi, everybody.

I'm tattooed.

I used to, I have a vegan tattoo and I'm not even vegan anymore.

And

so I didn't want to do any of that.

But

on both the left and the right, there is just

dude so many of these places it's just divide divide divide divide it's coming apart it's that's coming apart and it's and i would rather

i would rather go on the road and do a stand-up you know

where

i mean look and it's it's it's

again if i'm being super candid it it's hard for me to get gigs um

whether it's because

i align with some conservatives now, whether it's because, you know, me having an affair was 10 years ago or eight years ago was

called sexual misconduct

online, whether it's because I don't know how to make my Wikipedia look better

to the and I've like literally had to have conversations with like girlfriends parents about it, um, which is horrible.

Um,

and there are people who say more hateful things than me.

And this is where I can't let myself get bitter

who were accused of things like way worse.

But they had a really big following.

And so clubs don't care.

But I didn't have a following because I alienated people because I was such a hardcore lefty.

And then when I had the affair and people were like, ha ha ha,

it was sort of, well, one side disowned me and the other side like laughed at me.

And so there wasn't, I wasn't famous enough to be able to get in trouble properly, you know,

where I could have a successful career.

But man, if I could just do stand-up every night and just, it felt so good to do stand-up in Houston and Nashville and Chattanooga and be in front of, and dude, most of the people coming up to me after the show were conservative.

And I still have some liberalist jokes in there.

And they were just like, man, we just needed that.

We just needed to laugh.

And you forget that that's a political statement, just doing comedy, you know, especially like I'm saying things that I'm not supposed to say on the left, but I'm also saying some views that I'm not supposed to say on the right.

And it's cool.

It actually feels dangerous.

What you're supposed to do.

I know.

That's what a comedian is supposed to do.

Lenny Bruce is like, hello.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And Carlin getting arrested with Lenny Bruce.

And, you know, Bill Hicks, all these guys that we looked up to.

I mean, Richard Pryor literally talked about being abusive.

And it was just so real and so honest and so raw.

And so, you know, I love doing that.

I think that,

you know, I never

say good things about me.

I was always so self-deprecating.

But I also think, I think there is a place on a show for me.

I think that someone talking about issues like this

is important.

I think someone who can laugh with a liberal and conservative is important.

I just, I haven't found where I can do it yet.

That's not going to either try to push me to be something I'm not.

Or like I said, even that moderate world where it's like, all right, we're still digging for people to trash.

Like that's kind of what everyone does every day.

And to be honest, I'm the happiest when I don't read the news that day.

I'm the happiest when I go for walks.

And I don't know what happened this week in the news, but me and you still had a good show, but I don't know what happened, but I can guess because it's probably very similar.

I didn't know what it was.

I didn't know what it was.

I was on vacation for 10 days right i didn't know it until about six hours ago yep and i was less happy right

much less happy yep yep

thank you thank you so much

just a reminder i'd love you to rate and subscribe to the podcast and pass this on to a friend so it can be discovered by other people