Ep. 62 - Staying Positive with Vic Berger

And I think a sign of knowing that you're doing something good that's resonating with people is when you have the people that hate you, that come for what you're doing. But I think that's an opportunity to talk to that person or to find out what their issues are. This, this is synchronicity. This is synchronicity. This is synchronicity. This is synchronicity. Welcome to Episode 62 of Synchronicity. My guest today features the return of the one and only, the God, Vic Burger. Vic was one of my first guests, Episode 7, I think. Pretty sure. Really, truthfully though, one of the best human beings I've ever met.

I've known him now for a few years. Just, I don't know if we've never met in person. I'm sure we will soon, Vic. But just, you know, you meet some people, whether it's online or in real life or wherever else. It's still real life online, right? And you just know that they're a great person. The more you get to know them, that's reinforced over time. And in addition to being a great person, Vic is supremely talented. We both went to Berkeley College of Music. We kind of understand the other trials and tribulations that are associated with going to a music college. Vic is a tremendous, tremendously gifted, as I'm like Donald Trump there, video editor though.

Truthfully, he is one of the most talented people I know right now. The work he does is not only brilliant, it's hilarious. Just go check out his stuff if you haven't seen it. He does a lot of stuff with the collective Super Deluxe. Really another, one of the true places I tune into quite frequently. I love Super Deluxe. A lot of the stuff they're putting together is really cool. But this episode isn't so much about his work. If you don't know who Vic is, I'm sure a lot of you do. But if you don't, go check out episode 7 to understand kind of what he does and how funny and great he is. This episode was kind of centered around, like I originally had this scheduled with Vic, I think, not too long after the election when Donald Trump was elected president.

We weren't anticipating that. And Vic, and I mentioned in another episode with Jay Wyngarden, like Jay, Vic was also kind of devastated that Donald Trump was elected president. Like a lot of people were. It was a shocking reality for a lot of people. It feels like we jumped into an alternative timeline. And now we just kind of have to deal with the ramifications. So we were speaking about that on and off. And eventually, could Joel Vic into coming on again? He was very receptive, a kid. But I got him back on and I was like, let's talk about this. You know, let's talk about how, A, what the fuck is going on? B, how difficult it can be for a comedian to be funny, especially someone who has satirized kind of the political process over the past year, especially now dealing with the reality that this person and the people who are surrounding himself are in power positions. You know, it doesn't really necessarily feel like a funny thing to joke about sometimes.

So we talk about that. We talk about staying positive. But the other thing we talk about, which took on a significant importance, especially in this past week, and this is December 21st, 2016, and this past week when this is being recorded. Vic got into kind of a Twitter spat with this alt-right figure whose name I won't mention. It's not worth it. People like him will come and go, no matter how important or powerful they seem because of social media. You know, when someone is basing their live and their message and their public persona in lives and, you know, hateful rhetoric and just, you know, that doesn't end well for that person.

It's hard. But anyway, here's the thing. A lot of this conversation we talk about here is how to deal with people who have so much hate, like truthfully, like when Donald Trump in one of the debates is like, you have a lot of hate in your heart. That was like a lot of people like, no, you do. And it's easy for people to see, but like how to deal with people who really do have a lot of hate in their heart and are expressing that and don't have any problems expressing that. How do you deal with that? And so we talk about that in this episode, but also, Vic has been dealing with the situation where this guy online basically unleashed his army of trolls to attack Vic on social media, to threaten him.

A terrible situation. Like, I know very few people who deserve this less than Vic. Like, there's no one what he's going through in the past week. He especially does not deserve. But anyway, the question comes up is, how do you deal with people like this? First of all, Vic has to do what he has to do to protect himself and his family. That becomes, before any philosophical debate about any of this shit, that's the most important thing. Let's be very clear about this. What this guy doing, it seems to me is illegal and should be dealt with in some way through the legal process. I'm sure that's going to happen. But what do you do philosophically when you have people attacking you, attacking your family, verbally, you know, escalating points, encouraging violence.

Like, how do you deal with that shit? Because the natural response, at least for me, is to get super angry, right? And I think a lot of people, when they read this and they hear about this, and there's links to what's specifically going on with Vic on mindpodnetwork.com, this episode and syncpodcast.com/vic and the number two. Because this is second appearance, you can find the link in New York Mag. Great article, which I highly recommend you check out. It's by Jesse Single. I hope you're saying your name right, Jesse. But go check that out for details on what I'm talking about. But the question is this, how do we meet people like this? Is it possible to even have a dialogue with these people? I don't know. Really, truthfully, I don't have an answer for that. I'm sorry I wish I had a better one.

But I think the only thing, what I know won't work is if we meet their shittiness with more shittiness. And whether that means disengaging and not just, you know, completely ignoring and not having to deal with it, that seems like a valid way. Whether it's actually reaching out and trying to deal with them, trying to crack through the stoicism and the armor and whatever the conditions are that allowed people to be like that, you know, I don't know. That's something that like Van Jones is doing and I think it's worthy. But these are big questions and I think what we can't do is just evolve into like hatred and fucking around with other people.

I think there is a level of authority that we need to impose. We can't let this shit go unchecked, right? That's for sure. There is definitely a level of this where we don't just lay down for shit like this when it happens. But I think there's another kind of middle ground, the middle way where we can try really trying to figure out like, what the fuck is going on? Why would someone do this? Why would this guy accuse Vic of the things he's accusing him of? Like, there's reasons for that, right? And he does it a lot just to be clear. This guy is going around accusing everyone of being a pedophile.

You know, we talked about Pizza Gate a little bit. I talked about it last week a little bit and like how this fake new stuff is just like a perversion of propaganda and preying on people's fears and horrible things. But it's actually motivating people to do fuck up shit. So this is an issue and there's a lot of other issues that are going to come up. But I think we got to be really smart about this one because when we see people like Vic getting harassed online because he did something that someone doesn't like, that's not cool. That's not cool. So support Vic. I've rambled on enough. I hope you enjoy this episode. I think it's going to come through. Like, we laugh a lot, even though we're talking about some serious shit.

Vic is just a great guy. Lots of love to him. Lots of love to everyone listening. Say that in the least mushy, corny way possible. Happy holidays. Christmas is coming up. I'm a big Jesus fan. I'm born Jewish. I'm a pantheist. I believe in a lot of different religions and the values they pulled. I especially think Jesus is a great figure to look at. Strip away all of the Christianity, church imposed, tithing and taxing and all of that stuff. And I think there's some really great messages in Christianity. So happy birthday, Jesus, even though we don't know if you were born then. I'm done. I'm done. I'm visually done. Thanks to everyone who has written, reviewed, synchronicity. Subscribe if you like the show. Without further ado, here is Vic Parker.

Thank you for coming back on. It's funny when I forget exactly when we had this scheduled last week or two weeks ago, when you hit me up and you're like, you know, man, listen, I don't know, I don't know if I can do this. And I told you, like Jay Winegarten, who I just had on again, he said the same exact thing. Oh, he's amazing. But he said the same thing. He was like, you know, I don't know, like I'm not feeling right, like I don't know how to process all this stuff. And what we're referring to is Trump being elected president and seemingly all of the horribleness that's happening. And I was like, I did the same thing with him that I basically did with you, which is half attempted to cajole you to still do it.

And then also just like, I totally get it and understand because this is like a, you know, revolutionary shift in how at least we perceive what's going on with our world because we, I'm sure you're like me. Whether I respect or like politicians, I like to believe that they have some semblance of an idea of what's going on. Because if not, it's going on. So this kind of disproved that. So I mean, I'd like to jump in there, man. Like, what's it been like you, because you, a big part of what you have done, you know, with your videos and, you know, your whole Trump Instagram was essentially try to, you know, make light of Trump running for president.

I remember when we first started getting to know each other, you're doing the Trump Repres stuff and Donald Trump actually retweeted one of your like ridiculous grotesque pictures that you made of him. And I was dying laughing at this. I'm like, how silly is this guy? And this is, I don't know, two years ago, we're probably laughing, picking this was a joke. And then lo and behold, he's elected president. So like, what does that do for your psyche, knowing this is someone you have like parodied and mocked basically for two years. And now he's the leader of the free world in a couple of months. Yeah, like two and a half years ago, it was just like, he was, it was like this running joke on his Twitter almost that like, you know, he's going to run for president. He's going to win.

And if he runs, he's definitely going to win. And I mean, I don't think anybody really believed it would be a possibility, even him, you know, and, and I just, you know, would do these things where I would just make this horrific photoshop of Trump's face with his neck all flared up and, you know, his eyes, whatever. And sometimes like his teeth would be upside down, you know, it's just like really gross stuff. And I would make his like cheeks real rosy. And of course, I would like turn up the saturation and make them all orange and everything, which like, by the way, that, like, I don't have to do much to make him look larger than he is, because like, all you do is just bump up the saturation. I'm not adding like an orange to you. Yeah, you or anything to him. That's, that's his natural skin tone. If you just saturated a little bit.

So I would, you know, I would make these things and then I would just attach a compliment, you know, like a really dumb compliment. Like, you know, if you run for president, you know, I'll vote for you. You got my vote and there would be misspellings and all these things. And so then I would send it to him. And then of course, you know, now and then he would accidentally retweet them. And, and, or, no, I don't know, or maybe he was just playing along. I don't know, like, he was fun to fuck with, you know, and he was just, because he was just like this joke. Like, he was a punchline for so many years. I mean, and I mean, it just like everything about him is, is, is funny and unintentionally funny. I think for him.

I mean, just looking at pictures of him in his home or, or, or how he, you know, he, he ran. He stopped on the day he came out saying he was going to run for president. He came down on an escalator. Right. You know, like how gaudy and like, this guy's clearly like his taste form in the eighties, you know, like, and, and they just never really went beyond that. So everything is just gold for him and, and, and just gaudy and embarrassing. You know, in a way, at least I think so. Even though he's got, you know, supposedly billions of dollars, his tastes are still, you know, stuck in the eighties and everything. And just, I don't, it's just, and it's just a joke and a clown.

And you would never, even until, you know, election night, like, I'm thinking, there's no way, it didn't even like cross my mind that this actually might happen. And, and, and, and then, and then it did. And, and I don't know how, you know, I didn't know how to deal with it. And so I, I got really drunk that night and just, I slept maybe 15 minutes, you know, that night. And I think a lot of people probably did the same thing, just processing it and, and just being like, just like, how could this happen? How, you know, like, you know, I've got, you know, you've got young kid too. And, you know, we've, you know, thinking of my, you know, my kids growing up in this world where the bully and the, and this horrible human being is in charge, you know, this, this disgusting vile creature has won.

And he, he proved everybody wrong. And, and he's, he's on top now. And he's the most powerful person on the planet. Right. So, and it seems like why I think it's such a shock for so many people, it seems like exactly what you said, like the bully one, like the person who's not supposed to win in the movie, the evil character who no one wants to win actually won. And that's like a really tough thing to have to try to process in the world because that's not every story we're ever pitched in, you know, in what we intuitively feel as well, that that's not how things work. Like, you're the hero of your own story. We, the good guys win. So, I mean, of course we know, on the other hand, that that's not exactly how life works.

Like, things aren't hunky-dory all the time. So, like, we know that that's not going to happen. So, what's interesting to me about this whole Trump thing, and one of the reasons I think I probably seem to a lot of people of like my friends who are still very, very upset about it, and I'm, like, I'm, I'm not delusional. I'm not happy that Trump is our president. But one of the reasons I think I was somewhat buffered by this is, well, I was just like you, I didn't think he was going to be president. It didn't actually even register as a possibility. Him actually being president doesn't surprise me that much.

And it's interesting over the past month, it's almost been a month since he was, you know, elected, seeing what's been happening. And, like, you know, a lot of people are, like, give him a chance, you know, we'll see what he does. And, like, let's be clear, like, his cabinet, you know, appointments, the people he's surrounding with himself, like, these are not good people. These aren't people who have our best interests, and a lot of the populace is interest and control. And he's really looking, like, less of a disruptor and more of just kind of an establishment, you know, basically another form of the establishment.

With, like, kind of a weird twist, you know, like a weird bizarre kind of, like, twist. Like, it's funny because, you know, we look back at, like, George W. Bush and, like, oh, God, you know, like, remember how much we disliked him. This is kind of what we imagine George W. Bush to be. That's who Donald Trump actually is. Like, he is this kind of blubbering, crazy, nonsensical, doesn't know what's going on. Like, I always remember the clip of George W. Bush playing those drums at that, like, African ceremony. Like, being a goofball. It's like one of the funniest things. I feel like that's how Donald Trump just, he's just always playing those drums. He's just always being a goofball. But there's this serious kind of sinister edge to him, which is a little darker that I think freaks people out.

So, the reason, I mean, when we were talking about this, I think last week when we were scheduling this one, you know, you were saying, like, listen man, like, you know, I just get so angry sometimes. And especially when you're thinking about, like, you just have, you have Ruby, you have Owen, your children, you have, I have Eli, like, it gets really weird when you start thinking about your children. Like, yourself, you can kind of put a buffer. Like, oh, it's okay. I'm going to figure it out. But when you're thinking about kids, it gets difficult. But one of the reasons I'm not super freaked out about it is, A, what I think this election really helped people process is, or people are still processing this, is, you know, it's interesting.

You know, it's easy to say there's 60 million racists, bigots, you know, deplorables, horrible people. But the fact of the matter is it's like, that's not the case. Like, people may have been tricked or cajoled or pitched a story that got them to vote for Trump. And what I'm seeing now, and this is the main thing that's kind of disturbing me a little bit about the whole Trump thing, is people on the left, people who don't agree with Trump because of his policies and the things he said. And clearly, I mean, there's, you know, he's, by all accounts, a misogynist and probably a bit of a racist and has no problem in flaming people.

But as much has been said about him, like, I hate to see the vitriol and hatred come up from the other side because this is my basic theory of how we get people like Donald Trump. And this has been fleshed out with some guests I've had on the podcast. I'm actually releasing one today that really is a very interesting thing. This guy's, this guy borrowed that on has this theory called boarding school culture. And this is essentially what he describes. And he went to a boarding school and he's like, listen, a lot of the wealthiest people from around the world send their children at a very young age to boarding schools and military schools, which is a very traumatic experience for most kids, right? You're getting stripped away from your parents.

You're getting stripped away from what you know. You're being told at the same time that this is such an amazing opportunity. Only the most privileged people get to go to these places. And lo and behold, you're stuck in a place where it's a bunch of other kids, young males, don't know what's going on. They've been ripped from their families. And of course, this culture emerges. That's very, you know, it doesn't help a young kid to develop emotionally and intuitively. And what it does foster is this kind of stiff upper lip having to be very stoic, you know, get what you want because you work hard.

You know, if you hurt other people, that's just a, you know, a cost of the price. It's a doggy dog world. You got to do what you want. So then look what happens. We're creating this culture at a very young age of these people who come from the elites of the world. Then what happens? Then they go to colleges. They go to the harvards. They go to the oxbirds. They go to the Princeton's. They go to the Yale's. Then what happens? They're carrying all this trauma with them, right? They've had fucked up lives, right? God knows this is generationally. It's a cyclical thing. Then what happens out of their college, they're placed into these institutions, right? These government institutions, business institutions, corporate institutions, all these things.

And these are the leaders of our society, whether we like it or not. These are the people. So there's twofold to this. That's a, that's a nice explanation of what's going on. But the other part of it is, it's like, if you saw a little boy, little boy Donald Trump, who've read his father was an asshole, you know, getting savaged by his dad. Just like emotionally. If it's like, you'd feel bad for him. You'd say, Oh my God, like this little, little boy, Donnie is like, I feel bad for him. It's hard for us to see when we see someone like Donald Trump saying the things he's saying, look at him as someone who's experienced a ton of trauma.

And I'm not saying let's be compassionate and nice to Donald Trump. Let's forgive everything he's done. But what the only antidote is I see it to all of this stuff is understanding number one, as much as he doesn't seem like a person, Donald Trump's a person to all of these sessions. All these people were just not great people. Let's just put it like that. They have a lot of things they're carrying around. We have to be able to get past that. And especially when it comes to like the people who voted for him and look at the reasons that they did. And sure, some of it may just be racism and horribleness. And, you know, they're just not, they just don't like other people.

And that's there's really not so much you can do there. But if we can kind of, this is always a reason. I've been a fan of your work since like the early days because you have a way of taking characters who are very unsavory. Sometimes just weird, but presenting them a just with their own words. You're not adding really too much outside of like an air horn here or there. You know, you're not adding too much to it. Yeah. Like I'd say like 95% of the time it's, it is what they're actually saying. That's right. So it's, you know, there's, and I remember our last conversation, you said something that really stuck out with me and still sticks with me to this day.

It says, you're not trying to be a hate based comedian. You know, your comedy isn't, it's based on reality being weird, which is funny. And you're tweaking it to show the weirdness. And I think that form of comedy, that form of art, whatever it is, is really like one of the biggest antidotes we have to this stuff. So like when I was checking in with you, I'm like, listen, man, I just got to make sure Vicks okay. I don't want him to lose that, that good natured lightheartedness. No, I know, I know. And I know like it must be like somewhat of a burden for you because like, I was talking about this with Jay.

He's like, you know, when I'm upset, when I'm depressed, I don't feel funny. Like I don't feel like being funny at that point. And it's really tough as a comedian to kind of get into that mindset. Yeah. Yeah. Like when they went after Trump, one, I took two weeks off. I couldn't, you know, I couldn't like find the funny in anything. And so I just, I really just needed a break, you know, from that. But, but I know you're saying like, you know, Trump is a person. And, but I will say like, and I've made videos of where he's like the pathetic loser. And, but those were the toughest to make because he does have this, you know, to use his phrase, a wall.

He has a wall up and it's, it's pretty powerful. And he doesn't break. He's pretty unflappable, you know, with, but he does have his, his flaws. And, and, and, and if you, like you're saying, like if you think about his youth and everything, I'm sure he's, he's a life that, that, you know, almost nobody really has, has had, you know. Right. And he has been, you know, abused or, or whatever it is that his parents may have done to him or not shown him enough love or whatever it is, you know. So you can look and see the person in there. But it's, he's, he's definitely the toughest for me to have empathy for.

Yeah. Just because of the way he, he reacts or, or like if somebody, you know, presses him or, or, you know, hurts him as he says, he's going to hurt them back. You know, and that's right. And he'll, he'll get, you know, he'll, he'll, he'll damage them even more than he damaged than they damaged him. I know. And this is one of the reasons I really like Donald Trump, which is what my wife, whenever she hears me say anything close to that freaks out and yells at me. Yeah. Yeah. It's because he is such a great mirror, not only for ourselves, but also for our collective society. Like there's this big theory going around that the reason Trump really came to prominence is because we live in a narcissistic society.

And this is a perfect reflection of that. And I, I tend to agree. Culture reinforces narcissism, materialism, and this is what we would naturally get. I don't think it's that crazy of a thing. But, you know, it's trying to figure out what makes, here's the thing. When I look at Donald Trump and he reacts to someone saying negative things about him, it's really easy to say, look at this jerk. Look at this, look at this, this idiot. Why is he being such an asshole? He's supposed to be presidential. He's supposed to be, come on. Well, you're not taking this seriously. And then, you know, then I look at my own life. And there's so many times where I've done Trump-like things.

No, I'm not a racist. No, I'm not a xenophobe. But sometimes someone will criticize me and I'll lose my fucking mind. Like I will just get really upset. I'll be like, no, like, what do you, what do you mean? And so it's, it's, this is, this is what I, no, no, no, no, please, please. No, I was, I was going to say, like, I mean, but you're not, you know, you're not president, you know, you're, of course. And I think, I mean, I, I would say, you know, he is human and he has his downfalls and everything. But I don't, is that a, no, no, it's not even a trait that we want to, you know, no, I totally get it. You know, so I look at it like this.

A, of course, my decisions and my temperament are not, they don't need to be better because I'm president. They need to be better because it's my life and I don't want to carry around that stuff. So there's the kind of mental games that I play with myself to kind of allow to make Trump presidency palatable. The first thing is, is that I think this needed to happen. I think if this wouldn't have happened, let's say Hillary would have been president who I voted for, didn't love her, but I voted for. We, we would have the status close to, but there still would have been 60 million people who were willing to vote for Trump and to dismiss that as a fact, it would be doing no, like, that's why everyone on the coast, right?

You live in Pennsylvania, so it's a little bit different, but like, you know, it's split depending on where you are regionally. But if you live on one of the coast, this is like a travesty that you can't comprehend. But if you're living in the middle of the country, this is a predictable thing that is necessary. Like, so that's one thing. So I think it's important that it happened because we have to start dealing with these deep seated issues. And it kind of, yeah, it kind of, it kind of brought out, you know, this, you know, I mean, he did, like, cater his message to those people, you know, that, that, that do think that there are, like, afraid of having a black president.

Or that he's given a voice to those that, you know, that work blue collar jobs or, or, or stuff like that. But even though he's, he's in sincere and, you know, generally, Democrats fight for union workers and laborers and, and those kind of people. But, but he, he gave them that voice. He, he sold this, you know, this thing that's basically a lie. Well, he pitched, he was a snake oil salesman. That's totally what he is. That's his job. It's been his job. If you look at his business endeavors, that's his best skill. That's what, you know, all, that's why giving him the platform of the TV show was, you know, such a big coup for him because he got to put out his brand that gave him mass consciousness.

I mean, it's, it's the whole thing. So that's, that's one aspect is that he's a person who's there. And I think it's a good thing. The other aspect of it that gives me like a lot of hope. So the day after he got elected, I'm here 15 minutes from DC. Um, and I was at Whole Foods getting some food, right? And the cashier was a black woman foreigner. Um, she had an accent and then she was saying something there, her and the other cashier were talking about something. And I was like, I thought it was about probably I was like, what are you guys talking about? And she got a little weird. She didn't know if I was like a Trump person or anything.

And I was just like, you know, we're talking about the election. I was like, yeah, like what, you know, it's just pretty crazy. I didn't expect this to happen. And this is someone who has literally every single reason to be terrified and scared for their like physical safety for their future safety, their security. And what she said to me was, you know, I'm really not upset at all. This is in my experience in my life. And she was like middle aged, not too old, but she's like, this is the time when people come together locally, family. And they start building and working things because this is an, this is a sign that things aren't the way we thought they were. And I'm like, sure.

If this lady who literally like, I'm a white dude, I could walk down the street pretty much anywhere and no one's going to give me any trouble. The only time I ever got trouble, you know, when I had dreadlocks as a white guy and I went down to the, to North Carolina and got yelled at by a few people. Like, that was it. Man, I can cut my hair. So I cut them off right there in front of them. So that gave me hope. But the reason it gave me hope is specifically what she said is like, listen, yes, Donald Trump is going to be sitting at Pennsylvania Avenue making horrible policy decisions. But what we can still control is how we approach our day to day lives, how we interact with our family members, how we interact with our friends, what we choose to do in the community.

And that always, like always, always, always promotes far more change than any nationwide federal policy that's enacted by some numb nuts who's sitting, you know, in the White House. So I take all of these things together and then I ask the question is like, okay, we're in a fucked up situation. We're clearly in this weird transitional point where no one has any idea what's going on. Like, I had an inkling that was the case in like school and high school and stuff like, I don't think anyone knows what's going on. Now we know for sure. No one has any idea what's going on, especially the people who say they do.

So I look at this, less is like a, you know, apocalyptic scenario and more of a scenario that allows us the ability to create what we want to create. It's a very uncertain time, but with the uncertainty provides a tremendous amount of opportunity. And I've been, you know, in the month since he's been elected, I have to say like, I've met so many incredible people because he was elected. A lot of the conversations center around Donald Trump and the things that, you know, he's doing. But the conversations are generally very, very positive, even if a little scary because of the state that we're in.

So it really leaves me hopeful. Like, there's a shit little work to do. Like, I don't want to say like, we're good. Like, Donald Trump is, you know, it's a great thing that happened. In the same way, like, this is another scenario, it gets to kind of highlight what I'm trying to get at. Like, if you experience the loss of a loved one, or if you experience the loss of a relationship, or if you lose your job and earn desperate straits, at the time, there's almost nothing worse than the suffering that you experience in those moments. It's like, it's almost impossible to see out of that situation. But when you look back, if, you know, assuming you got out of it, okay, and you're listening to this, you're probably okay.

But when you look back, often you'll say like, that really fucked up, horrible situation, that period of my life. Actually, I grew more than, learned more about myself and life and everything at that really difficult time than I did when everything was good, and everything was comfortable, and all my needs were met, and everything was great, and everything was happy, and everything was wonderful. You actually can grow a lot more during these difficult times. So I look at this kind of like a collective opportunity for us to like, put stuff out into the world. And, you know, that's, that's great.

And your positivity, hopefully it, you know, wears on me or works with me. You know, I think you let it rub off a bit. I really liked that, and I mean, thinking back, like, yeah, like when I was let go from a job, because they couldn't afford to pay me or whatever, like, yeah. Years ago, and then you get together and figure out what's important, what you want to do with your life. And like, it's kind of like a reset button in a way, I guess, or to get stronger. And I think, you know, I think Trump did expose a lot of this stuff that may have been, you know, under the surface and brought it up. And, and now we can, you know, it was burning.

So maybe we can hose it down and, you know, figure out a way to come out stronger. And I, yeah, so I think it's, it's good. It's not easy. It's not easy. And I think we should stay positive and more people like you need a voice. I get so like, like, just like letting, like, because I'm alone a lot during the day when I'm editing and everything. Yeah. So it festers, you know, in my head, like, I did, and it's not good to go on Twitter so much because I, like, I follow a lot of reporters. And they're, you know, they're, they're putting up, you know, everything, every, every little thing that Trump says, even though they're not little things anymore because he is present.

But like, so I read everything. It's like, oh, Jesus, you know, you said this, he's going to do this. And he appointed this person and everything. So it's just, so I do, like, I want to be able to find a way to stay positive. And I think, you know, you told me to, you know, when you're, when you're angry, say, you know, say to yourself that you are angry and then move on, you know, then, then recognize when you're angry. That's the only thing, right? I think that was a good tip that you gave me that helps me. But, but yeah, but collectively as a, as a, as a nation, we need to be able to do the same thing in a way.

That's the thing. And this is where I look to how do we enact large scale change, right? Because this is, this is something that everyone is concerned about. This is why we have government to run a large scale change and paradoxically what I found in my life that any time I've done something outside of my own little circle or done something that I think is, like, greater than myself, it typically has to start with yourself. You're not going, like, this is, this is the, the famous thing, like a peace rallies, right? It's like, you ever notice how many people you see at peace rallies screaming, peace, it's like, it's like, it's like, that's not actually how you do it.

That is never going to achieve peace. What you're bringing to the situation is not peace. That means you can't create it there. So this is why, and I totally hear you, like, I also am alone, you know, the majority of the day sitting, doing my work and I also have this influx of information. And I'm very careful about, you know, the people on my Facebook feed and my Twitter feed. But of course I have people who I admire and respect and they're putting out the stories and I don't need them. I read the stories and especially after like the first week, I remember the day after the election, I said, I'm not reading any more news.

I don't want to know about this. This is, I'm going to go back to when I didn't care about politics. What do I do every single day since then? Read every fucking story. I mean, I'm seeking this stuff out. I'm not even like going and letting it passively come to me. I'm going to my news app on my phone and reading. I'm like, he did this, Steve Bannon? Are you kidding? Like, it's like nonstop. So it's habitual and it's something that I think it's very difficult to combat the media consumption and how they can shape us. But what we can do in the same way like when I was saying like, you know, note that you're angry.

And that's not to say like, you note that you're angry and then you're not angry anymore. That is not how it works. Like anyone who thinks that that's like this, that's not how it works. But what it does is when you note how you're feeling, you build up a memory of all these times you noted that you were feeling like this. And then you get start to see these patterns. And then eventually, and this is why some people meditate, this is why people, psychedelics, this is why people do any number of things. Is eventually what happens. A teeny tiny little gap opens up. In between, you getting angry, you getting the source of the thing that makes you angry and actually getting angry.

And this is where I am in my life right now because I'm not a great meditator. I don't do this all the time as much as I talk about it. But when I'm like getting in an argument with my wife or someone, a friend, I can now notice myself getting angry as I'm getting angry. I can't stop it. Don't get it because I cannot stop it. But I notice it and it's a very interesting thing to have a part of your brain go, "You're getting angry." And then another part saying, "Shut the fuck up." But the thing is, over time, it's like a muscle. You develop the skill that when you find something like Donald Trump, and we all have our triggers, right?

And unfortunately, Donald Trump and the alt-right and all these people, and for good reason, get to a lot of people. It's just something that's so unpalatable that it stokes the inner fire in us. Now, the trick is because you were talking about how do we heal as a nation? How do we deal with this? The trick is, I have a hard time doing this in my personal relationships. When it comes to people like Donald Trump and political realm, it's easier for me to see it more as a game to be played. The stakes are very serious, but I can say, "Okay, I'm getting angry at Donald Trump. Do I really need to be angry at Donald Trump right now?"

Can I try exploring the possibility of what it's like not to be upset about this? That then opens up a ton of possibilities in terms of how do you want to approach it? Because let's be real, you've done this in your life, probably not very consciously, though. All of your comedy stuff, your videos around Donald Trump, is essentially doing that. There's the point where you look at the guy and you go, "Oh, fucking shit, this guy is doing it." Oh, my God. Then you say, "You know what? There's something there that I can amplify, make funny, and show people that this is not as serious as it needs to be."

Of course, it's below the threshold. To you, it's just a process. It's a protocol that you're running, but bringing it to the forefront. I think you'd see, you have a real, your skill and talent, your ability to take things that are dark, nefarious, and just immediately transfer them, kind of transmute them into something hilarious, funny, silly. We spoke about it in the last podcast we did together, but that's a magic trick. That's a real skill that not a lot of people possess, because what happens to most people, you and me included, when we see something that makes us angry, we get angry and we react.

But there's always other ways, and this is why I dwell on this so much, because this, what we're talking about now, this is how we fix problems in our own lives, in our friends' lives, in our community nationally. That's how you do it. You have to recognize there's other possibilities when you see something that's wrong. The other thing the caveat I'll put here is, when we're talking about things like compassion, empathy, non-judgment, if people hear those three terms in relation to the alt-right, to Nazism, to Steve Bannon, to Donald Trump, a tendency is to say, these are soft, mushy words that do not apply to these situations.

What I'm saying is, if you can shine that lens and look at Donald Trump as a wounded person, it doesn't mean you have to love him. It doesn't mean you have to think, "Oh, what a poor guy Donald Trump. Let's just let him do what he wants." His daddy was mean to him. What it means is, now I have more understanding of why this person is that way. Once you have more perspective on understanding, you get to figure out other little inroads. This is what Donald Trump did. He just did it the reverse. He figured out little things he could do and say and act a certain way to get people to do things. But if you flip it around and to do that in a way that gets through- Exactly.

That's it because you got to look at the people who are effectively able to do this. There's that famous Ku Klux Klan member, white supremacist. His name is escaping me. But then he became friends with the black guy. David Duke? No, not David Duke. He's horrible. But there was a guy who became friends with the black guy. Then basically realized that everything he had been taught, everything he grew up with, was just bullshit. It wasn't real. It didn't actually mean anything. It was not truthful in any way. And he then spent, and I think he's still alive today, spent his entire life saying this is wrong.

Racism is wrong. I met someone. My views have been shifted. This is why they say travel is the best cure for racism. When you go and meet other people and see that they're just people too, it's harder to say, "Well, you're not a human being anymore. Fuck you. I'm not a human being anymore." So it's hard. It's hard for us. What's funny is it's like Donald Trump's black people, Mexican people, women, that's who those people are to Donald Trump. Donald Trump is our black people, is our Mexicans. You know what I mean? He's the person who's our enemy, quote unquote. So we have to try to do the same things we would want him to do for those people.

It's really fucking hard. That's very tough. It's like one of the hardest things. This is why I'm so keyed in to this time where we are now is when something's hard that usually means there's something worthwhile there. It's not hard for no reason. It's not just like some difficult hopeless shitty situation. There is some kernel of truth to be pulled out of this. There is some positivity not because I'm an eternal optimist or delusional because I've seen this happen. I've seen enemies become friends. I've seen people hold very staunch rigid viewpoints of the world and people and have those change.

Right. That's what I'm wondering is there a way to have him sit down with more people that supposedly oppose him or that he doesn't like Al Gore went in. Right. You know what I mean? It's a global warming and Trump for years has said how it's a hoax by the Chinese government and all these wind farms are ugly. I don't want them on my property and stuff like that. But I think I didn't get to hear too much about what Gore said how the meeting went. But I think that is what is going to take to so just so Trump doesn't destroy all the progress that has been made and halt progress. Just conversations with people that are different than him.

Don't let him be in this bubble with Bannon in charge and all these other people. But it does scare me when he's appointing people like Bannon or, for instance, the head of the EPA is a guy that doesn't believe. Oh my God. So it's like this extreme, yeah, I forget what it is, yeah. So he's appointing these extreme people like the Secretary of Education is somebody that hates public education. And these people, they're not qualified. How about like Ben Carson? Ben Carson. He's a surgeon. He's got good hands. But what does he know about urban development? Like what does he know about that? He's black.

That's what he knows. Yeah, that's what it was, that Trump saw the word urban and he's like, "Oh, Ben, get Ben on the phone." So it is, I don't know what it would take. I mean, it just seems like he doesn't really want to do anything. Yeah, I mean, when you're looking at these appointments, so it's hard to do. So I look at it like this. This is my maneuver around that. I will help you out with that. Here's the thing. I don't think, I don't believe, I think it's possible, but I don't. I'm not very optimistic about this. I don't think we're going to see a lot of top down change over the next four potentially eight years.

I can't imagine he gets elected for two terms, but I don't think he elected one. I don't think he's going to want to run for a second. I don't think he's going to be like, "It's so much work." You pointed it out. We know he didn't want to be president. He doesn't want to be president. Yeah, there's that picture of him on election night that made me, that was like the first time when I saw that, I was like, "Oh my God." Maybe there is a little humor in it because everybody around him is celebrating the win. His son Eric is in the back with his hand, like pumping his arm and everyone's high-fiving.

And then you just see Trump with his hand on his face just staring at the screen. Like, "Holy shit, I probably just sat there cold for 10 minutes." Well, it's perfect karma for him. He's getting the job. He's never wanted. The worst job in the country. It's not fun. There's no real glamour to it. And now this is him. And he's going to live in this dump the White House. Melania doesn't baron don't even want to move there. Now this place sucks. I'm not going to say my gilded gazzle, please. Yeah. Here's the way I look at it. It was your way of going. Okay. So the top-down method of change, I think, is...

I don't want to say antiquated, but it's not suitable for where we are right now. So to think that, yes, I hope that Trump meets... One of the positive things I will say about Trump is he does seem that he takes on the character of people who he's around. Like, the meeting with Obama was a very great example of this. He became very deferential, very respectful, very active. He was admiring him. So I think his real character is one who wants to please people and be liked and respected. So that's kind of... That's why he has, on every issue that's out there, that's why he has both opposite ends. What he stands for.

It depends on the room he's in. That's right. But that's also scary, though, because it makes me think that Bannon is in charge. And you were saying about having some empathy for Trump. The only time I've been really feeling bad for Trump is thinking of him being used by all these people... And he is. He is. They're smarter than him. He's not as moron as we would like to think, but he's reactive and manipulated. Yeah, because he doesn't know he's not really qualified for the job, and he doesn't know enough about how the world works or the country especially. He doesn't even want to, either. He doesn't even want to.

He's like, "That sounds good, Steve, yeah." All right. Yeah. No, Jesus, whatever. Yeah, give me the pain. I'll sign. I don't care. Yeah, I mean, okay. So here's my point. Yeah, go ahead. That's good enough. No, no, I keep digressing. So the thing is this is it's not going to be a top-down change. I think this is like asking Wall Street to regulate themselves. That's not going to happen. They don't even regulate themselves when the government says, "Hey, you need to be regulated." They don't do it. So what I think that means is that again puts the onus on people like you and me. It says, "Listen, if we want something to change in our world, we need to start working towards that."

And it doesn't mean we become community activists overnight and we start doing all these things. We do what we can do. For you, that's making funny videos that are shining a light on various characters in our society that give people an opportunity to say, "Oh, what's really going on here?" For me, that's talking about this stuff with various people on my podcast and creating a network to talk about alternative things that aren't transient. That's everyone's job to continue to do what you do based on where you want to be. Like I said, I know that Trump is going to dismantle a lot of things that are social welfare programs, things that aren't going to actually affect me as much as other people.

It's going to be a shitty situation. But knowing that, this is why a lot of people, the alt-right, how does the alt-right deal with when people talk about how white men have privilege? They get furious. They say, "God damn it." No, but the way I look at it when they say white men have privilege, I go, "Definitely." I've been the beneficiary of that. But that also puts us in an incredible position to kind of work from the inside out on how to change some of these situations, how to promote dialogue between people who don't disagree. This is why I've been tremendously impressed with Van Jones, who's been going around because he gets it, man.

He gets it. He's tuned in to what is actually important. And I think his long-term view extends well past his lifetime. I mean, this is something he's talking about things where people have to come together and learn how to talk to people who disagree with them without making them an enemy. That's like, that's powerful stuff. When we did the election special in Cleveland, we were just walking down, looking to see what's going on on the main street. And on the side street, as we're passing by, people started to huddle around. It turns out it was Infowars confronting Van Jones in the middle of a street.

They yelled to him from across the street from a restaurant and just showed up with cameras. And we watched the whole thing. He knows these people hate him and he knows that they're crazy and they have all these conspiracy there. But he managed to, by the end, they shook hands and they were laughing. It's just going to take more people like that, I think, to be in charge and to bring people together. Yeah, and it's fascinating. I don't think I could pull that off, really. No, it's hard. But it really depends on the person. We've never met in person, but I've seen enough of you and we've spoken and we kind of have a good feeling.

The truth is, when you put someone who's a good, compassionate person in a difficult situation, typically that will come through their compassion and how they are. It's how, because that's your true colors. That's why someone at Van Jones, I mean, talk about the opposite of Van Jones is, what's his name? Infowars guy, Alex Jones. Yeah, I was going to say like him, because I was like face to face with him. And you could just see, he's a con man, he's a, he's just like Trump, he's like a snake man to sell and all these things. But he, you know, there is that human aspect to him where he does have a sense of humor.

He, I mean, he, he shared a couple of videos with him and, you know, with Tim, like crashing the Infowars set and everything. So I mean, he does have a sense of humor. And I think there is also what's kind of interesting, he is, he's a total synthhead. Do you know that he's a synthhead? I did not know that. Yeah, yeah. Is that true? Yeah. Yeah. He loves playing the synthesizer. He's shit. Yeah. There's like, if you look at his like YouTube comments, there, I'll send it to you later. There's a comment of him like commenting on some synth page, like, look at that, you know, what I forgot what it was like some vintage synth and, and it's like, what?

And then in one of his latest videos, it starts with him and a scrolls past his synths and he's like standing in front of his synth rack and there's all these like, it's a shit. Yeah. So I think we have a lot more in common than, you know, we think it was funny. And so, but I don't know why, why did I start talking? Well, I mean, it's because it's fascinating. Yeah. You're humanizing Alex Jones. Yeah. So I think there, yeah. I think we have more in common than, you know, it's, you know, and it's, it's one of these things like, because you look at like someone like Alex Jones, who's like, clearly like stoking fears and outrage and like, it's hard to believe that Alex Jones even believes like 80% of what he does.

Oh, he doesn't. He doesn't. He's just getting a reaction. Yeah. Right. So, but then we look at, you know, to, to delve into this a little bit, like, let's look at this. Pizza gate stuff. Right. Right. This is where we're crossing the boundary between, you know, disinformation and conspiracy theories and stoking people's irrational fears. Yeah. And it's bringing the like the internet, the internet culture or whatever that is on, on line into the, the real world. Well, do you know about the theory of this whole Keck thing and I don't understand what that is. Let me say that. Yeah. Let me explain this to you.

I know how so essentially the alt-right essentially formed on the internet, it's a combination of white supremacy, you know, radical European nationalism, white genocide, white genocide. And what it, what's really made up of is a lot of younger kind of, and obviously older people too, but like a lot of young people who understand how the internet works. But another facet of the alt-right, which is not spoken about a lot, comes from the occult world, comes from like the Alistair Crowley, magic, chaos magic stuff. And one of the theories, and one of the things that has been happening around the web, and you've seen this in memes like Pepe the Frog, who's been co-opted and all these things, what they were trying to summon, they were doing magic.

And this is spread through the alt-right. And they believe it worked. And maybe it did work. I mean, depending on how you view esoteric studies, what they were trying to do is summon an ancient Egyptian god of chaos called Keck, all right, K-E-K. And Keck was going to be summoned by the champion of Keck, Donald Trump. Donald Trump was the chaos-inducing figurehead, the symbol of Keck, that was going to revolutionize the entire world, the entire universe, bring back chaos into the universe. Now some people wanted to summon Keck because they felt that this was something that was going to be good for their particular cause.

Some people were doing it just because they wanted anarchy, and they wanted everything blown up, and you know, like an infantile teenager who's not happy with things. So if you look through, though, this actually becomes like a very scary insidious thing that actually has way more roots. Like if you hear about like some angry, you know, racist white person summoning an Egyptian god of chaos, you're like, eh, whatever. But this is actually like a very, very, very, very big movement. And in some ways you could say that it actually worked, and others you could say, well, these people are just insane, and it just happened to align with, you know, the current political climate and cultural climate.

But this whole Keck thing starts to coalesce you see things with like Pizza Gate. Pizza Gate is an obvious, false story about a child sex ring run out of a place called Comet Ping Pong, which is a pizza place in DC. It's not that far from where I am right now. And you know, I remember reading an article about two weeks ago from the guy who owns it. And he was saying, you know, I'm getting so much hate mail. And like, you know, he's like, what's so upsetting about this is like if people just did like really, really basic fact checking, like they would know, like he's like, you know, they're saying I run this out of my basement, like I don't have a basement here.

Like there's no basement. And so then, you know, a few days ago, a guy came from North Carolina with an assault rifle and a pistol and got arrested in DC because he thought he wanted to see the child sex ring. He wanted to confront the people. So, this to me is what scares me a little bit more than Donald Trump and policy and, you know, right wing zealots and white supremacists even being close to the White House. It's not the concept of fake news. Fake news has been around forever. Let's be clear where we get most of our news for immediate institutions. Like yeah, everyone notices this. You notice like the local news at night, everything is about murder, fear, death, raping, skin, that things, that's because a long time ago, media magnets figured out that that shit works.

It keeps people interested. It keeps people tuned in. So it's not like it's a new thing, but now what's happening, and this is why I really refuse to use the term post fact or post truth because what that does, it doesn't necessarily convince people of these stories, but it provides an element and a climate of enough distrust and misinformation that what people eventually start to do is go, oh, fuck it. Nothing is true. Nothing is important. Nothing matters. And that is the most dangerous thing that can happen. So, you know, it's going to, yeah, again, here's the antidote to that as I see it. A fake news and hate mongers and all this nasty stuff is coming out.

What do we do? Do the opposite. Do the opposite. What flood the world with things that are genuine, which are having artistic integrity that have journalistic integrity, but do it in a way that isn't antagonistic. Again, like this is why I'm sure this is why we became friends and why immediately I kind of got what you were doing however many years ago before you blew up in our internet famous now, man. But it's because like I saw the real, one of the conversations I've been having on this podcast over the past few weeks is what makes a piece of art meaningful? What is it? Because if someone draws a circle, two people draw a circle, one draws a circle, another draws a circle.

Circle looks almost the same. There is something that can make one person look at the circle and go, that's amazing. And the other one goes, that's just a circle. And so what we've been getting at in this podcast over for really like prominent creators who've done amazing stuff, it's the essence of what you're communicating as you're creating the artwork or media that actually is the art and the media. It's not the moving images, it's not the colors, it's not the audio, it's that of course. But what it really is, is the person communicating their experience, the essence distilled down. And that's what people resonate with.

I think so. I mean, when I'm working on this on these videos, like I do feel like I'm like almost like shaving a piece of my soul or whatever you would want to call it like often and not all of them. Right, right of course. But many of them, I do feel like I'm like drained after I work on them and I kind of like feel like I get such in the zone where I lose track of what time it is and what it could be in a three in the morning, it could be 10 at night or whatever or whatever. I just lose track of all time and I do think there's a personal way of what I do. There's like a piece of my mind and it's a different way of communicating I think too.

Rather than me writing out my thoughts, I'm able to use this to communicate and maybe reach people differently and communicate something on a different level or get people thinking certain way that I'm not able to with my words, like I'm doing right now. I'm probably not communicating as well. I should make a video about this, but yeah, I don't know, I don't have all the answers. But I think there's just finding a way to make, because I think a lot of stuff I do, I'm really making it for myself and it's a way of, yeah, it's a way of working through things or making sense of something that I don't totally understand or just making myself laugh and thankfully enough people have, it resonates with enough people that maybe it's for them too.

You know what I mean? I'm not really trying to gear my stuff towards the fans or audience or whoever is watching, but thankfully I think it resonates with them. Well, I mean, that's one of the reasons that I think Tim Heidecker really got what you were doing because I have always got the sense with Tim and Eric and everyone in the absolutely family's done, you know, they are not doing it because they think that people are going to like it. They may have a notion or an inkling that this is going to be enjoyed by other people, but they're doing it because it makes them laugh. It's funny to them and that is infectious when, especially if it's good, right?

I mean, people, if you have shitty taste, what makes you laugh, you know, he would make everyone else laugh, but the authenticity of what is being, I mean, because I always, I was like, you know, a lot of people, some very talented, some people, you know, emulate your style of video, you know, there's clearly an influence and there's some derivative stuff that's out there, but like, I think sometimes that's weird for me to watch, like, just like oh, it must be, right? They get the zooms and they could probably, you know, maybe edit better than me or whatever, but there's just something, something a little off, you know, that's right because that, and that's what I'm alluding to here is like, there's this thing that you're communicating through your videos and through your stuff, and especially the stuff where like I showed, I showed Alexis, my wife, your easy pass video, obviously the first one, which I remember, but then the one where you're talking about how it gets to 150,000 views on YouTube, and we're dying, laughing at it because like, you know, like, you can structurally break it down, why it's funny, but it's just hilarious, it's just like a really funny way of communicating and being so, I mean, that to me, like, you ask like, what do we do, like, how do we deal with this stuff?

You're naturally, I mean, I'm sure you know this, you're helping so many people process such a difficult thing in their lives, because when they see, like, and even if it's not Trump-related, like the backer videos, right, like that, I've watched that, the Jim Shory My Girl thing, which, did you even- Oh yeah, Kevin Shory, yeah, Kevin Shory, no, that was just straight, that was just straight, I didn't think so. That's insane. Oh God, that guy is just like, I just, I really want to get to know these people, like, I want to have them on this show, because like, it's just like, what? His, like, Jim, Jim Baker's grandson contacted me, like, six months ago, and he's a fan of my videos.

Amazing. And even the Jim Baker stuff of his grandfather, which is like, pretty nuts to find out. But he's, you know, it's just, yeah, it resonates, and I think there's, he liked the way that, you know, I'm able to comment on this crazy stuff, you know, through editing. Yeah, and it's really interesting, because it's just like, you're editing videos. Of people who, like, may or may not have, like, serious mental illness, I mean, because, like, the, the backers of, again, I, I put him a little bit, I mean, probably a lot of it in the Alex Jones camp where- Oh, totally. There is no way he believes everything he's saying he knows his base, he knows that people are interested, he knows he can sell these buckets and make them know it's awesome.

Yeah, I see him. I see him as like, very similar to, to Trump, how he's using fear and scaring his audience into letting him profit, you know, helping him profit and make money and, and Trump used it, you know, to, to become president and, and actually Jim Baker put a video out last week saying that Donald Trump called him and they had a 20 minute conversation and he thanked them for helping him win the presidency. Like, how much do you want to know if that's actually true? Oh, I believe it. He called, he called Jones, too. He called Alex Jones. That, I believe. That, I believe. Yeah, God, but, but also, but yeah, but yeah, is it true?

I mean, they could just be, you know, BSing, but, but anyway, there is that connection. They're, they're, they're. I believe it. You know, they're, Trump has never said, I disavow Alex Jones, he's, he's called him a great guy in fact. That's right. That's right. So, I mean, it's, it's, it's a way, it's a way of thinking about the world, right? If everything is just the tool in service of you getting something, then that will manifest in you selling buckets and you preaching religion that you may not actually believe in, that you have evidence of you violating, or you may, you know, do what Donald Trump is, which is just kind of make up everything and not need to tell the truth because it's a tool for you.

The problem is, as I see it, it's like anyone, granted, I don't know a ton of people who, I know, I've known some people though, who actually think of themselves, you know, think of the world like that, it is like a guaranteed recipe to being miserable. Oh, yeah. There's no ending to that except power and money and like look at the wealthiest people in the world. Like I've had the privilege of knowing really, really poor people and really, really rich people. Yeah. And I can tell you there's literally no correlation between, I mean, there is correlation between like, if you're totally poor, it's hard to be happy, but like once you're at this certain threshold, like, it doesn't matter how much you have, like if you're not focusing on the things that actually make you happy, it doesn't matter.

I mean, Trump's got to be miserable, I mean, he's upset. He really does. I mean, it's like, it's a cyclical thing, right? He thinks, well, I have all this money now, I grew up in privilege. You know what I need? I need power. And let's be clear. Like what I really think Trump wants more than anything, I just think he wants to be respected. I think he grew up in this gaudy, ostentatious family from Queens. He wanted to be accepted into the New York elite, you know, the Hoyty-Toady people who were always too good for him. And now he's muscled his way into the presidency, and now maybe this is opportunity.

And it's like, you feel bad for a guy. Oh, totally. And like, I don't see him having any friends. I don't like any real friends. I mean, he, thanksgiving, he had dinner, thanksgiving dinner with Don King and Fabio. I mean, are those his friends, you know, are those, where was his family? Why do you want to hear that dinner conversation? Apparently, he asked them who he should hire as secretary of state. Well, that's so Fabio might help us out here. Mitt Romney, right? I'm sure Fabio is a big, Mitt Romney fan. Yeah, he's a big, big Romney fan, totally. Yeah. It's, yeah. And I mean, he's, I mean, clearly Trump has these, these issues.

I mean, about the way he looks and, I mean, he had a scalp reduction surgery here. He's a co and he had like, you know, all this, this tanning stuff that he puts on his body and he's so concerned about his hands and the size of his genitalia and everything. And, and it's just, he's clearly got some issues. And I remember in the, like the, the 80s, he was calling People Magazine, you know, to get all these, these reports of him, he would be like, Hey, this is John Barron. Yes. Yes. John Trump, and it's clearly Trump himself, and he would say, like, Oh, I saw Trump out with Madonna last night and, you know, she didn't, she didn't want to fuck him, but or whatever.

It's just like, yeah. Just planning all these, like weird stories in there. So he's got some, some issues there that he, he wants to be respected or he wants to, I don't even know what it is. Like, when will he be happy? I mean, he's, he's won't be, you know, he's one, he's one at life right now. He's, he's the, the number one guy on the planet, but he's still kind of the year. The thing is, is that he, there's a whole in his heart. Yeah. I mean, he is today. Right. So there's a hole in his heart the size of his parents probably, you know, and that's, that's, by all accounts, Fred Trump was just the no-nonsense piece of shit asshole.

Totally. Like he just, you know, and, and you see the stories, like you hear the stories about Fred doing this to Donald, then you hear the story of Donald going, I think it was either Don Jr. or Eric, he went to his dorm and like, he wasn't ready for something and he like slapped him and made him cry and like getting your suit. So it's just like, it's. Totally. I mean, and that's, and I think that's with everybody. I mean, even for me, like, like, I, you know, I've had like some of my like comedy heroes, like, you know, say good things about my videos, like like, like Bob Odenkirk or whoever. Yeah.

He retweeted me the other day. Yeah. From a scene that, that was fucking nuts. I saw that. That's amazing. It's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. And still, at this point, concerned like, does my dad like my videos? You know. Yeah. So, so it's weird, like that, that happens, but you know, it does just the way we're programmed. I guess we were concerned about what our parents think of us and in some ways, man. Like, we're lucky that we're playing it out on our stages and we don't have to do this in the public eye. But obviously. Yeah. And there's no nooks involved with what we're doing. I know. I mean, here's the thing.

That prognostication. I don't think this is going to be a pleasant four years. I think it's going to really affect people negatively across the country, especially people who voted for him, unfortunately, because these economic policies are not meant to help them. And that's going to be, that's going to open up some real serious wounds in this country that I think is going to take a very long time to rectify. That said, as time, more and more time passes, we're only a month out. I do see some of the tempers getting a little more kind of evened out. It's not as vitriolic. It's not as panicky as it was because I think that's just also an impossible state to elect to remain in, always like a panic, fear, say, even though people do it.

But I think people will start to recognize, I'm hoping, you know, we look at the Van Jones, we're looking at the people, I look at people like you who really are just doing great stuff. And it's not, you know, no one would accuse you or say like, Vic is doing, you know, political work that's going to change the climate of the country. Oh, yeah. I would never say that, yeah. But the truth is, man, like, what helps someone more when they read an article about Steve Bannon's ties to the alt-right or when they watch a video of Trump, you know, saying his favor or a vine of Trump saying, oh, why do they get rid of Vine, Vic?

Oh, my God. Don't get me started. I'm so upset about it. Why did they do this? I don't know. It was a perfect way to, you know, to get your thoughts out there quickly and in six seconds, you know, you know, and the looping aspect of it could be like almost like you're meditating watching some of these. It really is. I know. You can watch them like over and over and over, but I just don't make, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know why they did that, but I forget what I was going to say. I was going to say something. All right. You got me thinking about Vine and now I'm all sad now because it was like the biggest blow. I thought it was a joke and like, I got to say, like, since they announced it however many like a couple months ago or something, like I have barely been on Vine because it's all like, how do you go to a platform that you know is about to be killed?

It's like, it's not good. It's not good. So sad. But yeah, I mean, essentially what I was saying is, is this is like when you look at a video that you're making, that, that feeling that people get from it, that actually affects people in a much more substantial and beneficial and practical way than reading a new story about something you have absolutely no control over because that's where I am just based on your concerns, what you say about Trump. I think the biggest thing it seems like you're concerned about is this guy, we don't, he's scary. We don't know what he's going to do. He potentially shows the inclination to want to fuck up a lot of our institutions in our country.

And that's terrifying. But we also don't have a tremendous amount of control over what he does. But what we do control is how we process the reactions towards what he does and what we do when we get up every morning. I'm sure you're like me. You get up, you look at your kids, you're super happy, you're incredibly grateful, it's hard to understand how this can even be your life. And then you go and do your work for the day and you do the things that you're accustomed to doing. It's sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes ups and downs. But that, if we all focus on that more than this external kind of scary, there's a quote that I use a lot.

And this I think is more applicable for this time than really any other quote I can think of. And it's by a great Tibetan teacher, Chogem Champa, who's dead, but incredibly, really awesome, interesting guy. But his quote is, the bad news is you're falling through the air with no parachute, nothing to hang on to. The good news is there's no ground. That really is what life, we like to think that there is a ground and that we're walking on it and everything is okay. And then we see something like Donald Trump happened or Brexit or some horrible thing in 9/11. Then we realize, holy shit, we're not on solid ground.

This isn't as real and tangible as we'd like to think. But then you get this amazing, this goes right back into the transitional times in our culture. This is the time of the most opportunity. This is when we get to start fleshing out the systems where we want the, like for our kids, like the truth is like, we're probably not going to change the world that much for the rest of our lives. But our kids and their grandkids, they're going to be living in completely different systems and completely different paradigms, right? God knows how the world is going to look. I mean, I always think about, think of now 2016, think of someone who's 85 years old and what the world was like.

Even five years, like that's fucking nuts. That's what it's going to be like for us, if not more so because of technology. So I always, right, I mean, I always just try to bring it back down. The only thing we can do to enact change outside in the world is to work on ourselves. That's it. That's literally it. And we do that in a number of ways. We do that, you know, by working with ourselves, trying to understand what our faults are, trying to understand what we can do, but also just doing exactly what you're doing, which is creating art and media and comedy that that shit is changing the world.

Like if you don't think like Tim has had, like how many lives do you think Tim has made better, right? Like I can count 100 just the people I know, hundreds, like that's real power. That's the real change. Yeah. I think a sign of knowing that you're doing something good that's resonating with people is when you have the people that hate you, for what you're doing. And I think that's an opportunity, I haven't figured out exactly how to go about it, but I think that's an opportunity to talk to that person or to find out what their issues are, you know, because like I get so much hate mail from people that, from my videos and even like the Jim Baker video and just so much that it's an opportunity to figure out what their issues are, you know, with me or with my views or whatever it is.

And then possibly move ahead and try to enlighten them or whatever it may be. Do you engage with them? Sometimes I do, sometimes it's hard not to. The ones that are personal attacks on me, like the way I look or just anything like, oh, I get some horrible gross, like- I think I saw someone call you a tub shit. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's not even that bad. There's like, there's some like real like horrible stuff that's just like all you can do is laugh at it really, but people like that are insulting on that level, I don't engage with them. But if somebody has like a legitimate like critique, like, like, why don't you go after Hillary for whatever it is, or why don't you make fun of Hillary or whatever.

And you know, I'll engage with them and say, I don't think that's funny or whatever it is like, or like, like the biggest one I got when I think it was the second debate video, or maybe it was the first one where, where Trump told Hillary that, you know, he's going to put her in jail, you know, when he's president, he's going to jail her. And like, and all these Trump supporters are like, why didn't you put that in there? That was the funniest line. I don't, you know, and I don't think that's funny. Not funny. It's scary. It's scary as hell and horrible. And I want to be glad of it. So that was just my choice, but, but yeah, so I mean, I think that's what we have to keep doing and moving ahead.

And as far as the people that, you know, come at me or other people, I don't know. Maybe you have a good solution for that. Well, I have, I mean, I don't have much. You're lucky. I mean, this is why, I mean, I really, you're a national treasure, my man. Because honestly, like you, doing what you do, you're naturally going to get push back and complaints from people who think you're, you know, making fun of or, you know, having a agenda rather than it's just being totally absurd and funny things that you're putting out there. But what's good is like, I know you, you're really good guy. A lot of other people when met with that type of stuff, would you say, like, fuck you, I don't care.

Or like they'll do what people do to you when they steal your stuff. And you say, hey, like, why did you steal my stuff and they'll be like, fuck you, what does it matter? This is the internet. This is how it works. It's like, what the fuck you talk about? What are you talking about? Right. This is not the internet. It's how it works. It's not how it's like, if I buy a car and put it in my driveway, you can't just come over and take it. It's not your commonly. If I can make it. So, yeah, I mean, what I would suggest is this, and I don't think this is something you actually have to do anytime soon, but you're, you're being given a tremendous opportunity because of who you are and the type of guy you are to actually get like a ton of contact with the quote unquote, other side over time, man, like you're going to hear more opinions.

Like, I think, I mean, this is, this would become a full time job if you just did this at a protocol. But like when you get the sense, when you get an email from someone who's just upset, but you sense that there's something real there and, you know, just talk to them, just say, like, hey, listen, like, I know what you mean, like, I would actually like to hear what you're really upset about because, like, you do that with, you know, five, ten people a year, you'll probably end up changing a lot of their minds. You feel like I'm not doing this to be a hateful, nasty guy. Like, I would like to see, you know, I don't think he's a horrible person deep down.

Like, I think there's a lot of good there. Maybe even if you don't believe it, but when you use those words and you meet people on common ground, it's amazing how quickly it's like Trump, right? Like, when Trump is saying, fuck Obama, Obama's the worst, he's not even a real citizen. Then he goes and meets him and now we get all these reports, he's calling him every day. Right? Because he met him. You can't say to someone so bored to say to someone's face, like, fuck you, you dumb shit. Like, when you're on an internet and behind a keyboard, sure, a lot easier. So, I mean, I think you, I mean, over, like, I will not try to prognesicate about your career all day.

I mean, I'm very confident, like, you're gonna have a very long and successful and fruitful career in a lot of ways I'm sure that we can't even imagine, but like, you are gonna be presented with the opportunity of engaging with people who maybe can be swayed a little bit, you know, not the people who are just, you know, hateful and, you know, just spewing rhetoric and just angry, but there are gonna be those people who generally, like, don't understand. Maybe they saw a video of yours before and they liked it, like a chubby checker thing and they saw a political one, they're like, oh, now I don't like him and they write to him.

Right. Yeah, that's a big thing, definitely. Honestly, more than me having any answers for this stuff, like, I'll just point to the people who I think are doing such a great job. And like, like we said before, Van Jones, man, that guy is so tuned in into exactly what we're supposed to be doing, not only from like a quote unquote spiritual level on how to approach this stuff, but also just like a very practical human. How do we deal with this difficult climate that we're in right now? And I mean, like, and I'll say this for anyone listening who experiences the same stuff that you and I do with the news and the social media, consciously try to seek out and curate what you consume on the web, who you hang out with, what you look at, try to, if for every, you know, two articles you read about some Trump thing, try to find three others that are uplifting or positive or some way that you can like give to a local charity or, you know, you know, donate some proceeds of something to this, like, is that naturally combats in negativity that's you?

Yeah, that's one thing that like has really, I think, kickstarted or like, you know, like giving to charities that need it, that that possibly will, you know, be affected by Trump or the, you know, just just giving money where possible, you know, volunteering wherever you can. I think that's something that is a positive, you know, because it really has, I've noticed a lot of people that are doing more of that now. That's right. Like the uptick in hate crimes exists too, but the uptick in generosity and passion also happens too. It's like, there's that Fred Rogers quote, Mr. Rogers who says, you know, in the time of crisis, oh God, he's so great, but he's like in the time of crises, you know, my mom always used to say, don't look at the crises, look at the people who are helping.

There's always people helping. There's always people who rally immediately. And if you just tune into those people, maybe you won't have such a bleak view of the world and that everything is going down this death spiral, but really like, this is maybe something that needed to happen. It needed, we needed to shine a light on this. And now like just like we all have to, I'm a big Carl Jung fan and one of his big things was the shadow side, everything has a shadow side. And if you don't pay attention to it and you don't acknowledge it, you're going to have a fuckload of problems individually, collectively, nationally, globally, and you better believe what we've been doing as a civilization for 2, 3,000, if not more, longer years, we've been ignoring this shit.

We like to pretend that everything is okay, so we put it under the rug. There's no problems. Everything's good. Like I see Trump as like, like, non, not like he's not a liberal, he's not a Democrat or a Republican, he's just, he's just Trump and he's everything's for himself and he's not really a part of any party. And I think that that that helps me to think about that, like the people that I know, like my parents' friends and my in-laws' friends and everything, that voted for Trump, usually just vote along party lines. They always vote Republican. And I think now they're kind of seeing why me and other people were so scared, because a lot of them just weren't paying attention to every little thing that happened in the news that Trump did.

They weren't aware of every horrible thing that Trump did. So I think that when it came time to vote, they're like, I can't vote Democrat, I can't vote for Hillary, I didn't like Bill or whatever, for whatever reason. So I'm just going to stick with what I do. So that's I think a large, I think way more than any of the racists or all those people. I think good people were just doing what they normally do. That's right. Right, right, and they just didn't differentiate Trump from a Republican. And the mechanism of culture and media makes it easier to coerce people than ever before. Sure. And I think a lot of people fell prey to that and continue to, which means like, right, the necessary antidote to that, just keep talking about other stuff, keep mentioning things like very few people, if you said, hey, we want to talk about Donald Trump, or do you want $100?

People want the $100, they don't give a shit about Donald Trump who compared $100, like, I don't care about this. So try to find things that are the equivalent to $100, whether that's a funny video, whether that's a really nice piece or a, you know, music piece, whatever it is, like, just, just get out there and create and do the thing. Exactly. And align your intention with what you're doing, whatever it is. So dude, this has been awesome. This has been fun, man. I love having these conversations, man. Yeah, we'll do it again sometime soon. There's always going to be enough fodder for us to talk about.

When he wins his second term with Trump, or his fourth term, we'll see when he's elected official emperor of the United States, Jesus Christ. Well, all right, before we wrap up, when I had you on last time, I didn't have this format I have at the end. So I have three quick questions for you and then one large one. So what's your favorite color? I guess orange would be, I prefer color combinations, I think. What's your favorite color combination? I think the color or the color of pet sounds, isn't that like orange and green? Yeah. I think there's some. I think that's what it would be. All right, the cover of pet sounds, your favorite color.

Yeah. That's awesome. That's a great answer, man. What's your favorite number? Well, I'm the VIC the fourth, I'm the fourth VIC, but I think I have to go with seven because as my dad always reminds me that I was born on August 7th, I was seven pounds, seven ounces, and I was seven, whatever the inches were, something's with a number seven. Yeah. That was my lucky number, lucky seven. That was my first favorite number. It's a very mystical number, yeah. Did yours change then? Yeah, yeah, mine has changed over the years. My favorite number are current, I might have a bunch, but 13 is my favorite.

Oh, interesting. Interesting. Yeah. That's a good one. I love it. Yeah. What is your favorite animal? Favorite animal? It's got to be the dog. Yeah. I like the dog. And I also weirdly have this weird fascination with miniature ponies. They're really goofy looking. Dude. Yeah. You ever see them run in there? We're moving. You're going to, so we're moving to the Hudson Valley. Yeah. A few weeks. Yeah. And when we move up there, we're basically in like rural farmland. My mom lives not too far in my aunt. My aunt has a farm, okay? Mm-hmm. And she has miniature ponies. That's all my god. When we move up there, you come up with the fam, dude.

I will have some. We'll hang out with some miniature ponies. Oh my god. It's so far. Yeah. I'm so ready. I got you. I'm way too excited about this. It's really going to be fun. It's great. He's got a lot of other animals too. I don't care about the miniature ponies. Yeah, not only miniature ponies. Yeah. Yeah. We'll get a pic. That's great, man. So, okay. Last question. What is a practical tip that has helped you in your life? Oh boy. A practical tip. I think just create things and create things for yourself. I mean, if you're artistic, do what you do and, you know, don't try to, try to please other people with what you create and just make yourself like, like, for instance, I make myself laugh.

I try to and create stuff for yourself and make yourself happy with what you do and hopefully people will resonate, you know? Oh man. Couldn't have said it better myself, dude. Thank you again so much for coming on. Sure, man. I'm glad you seem to be in pretty good spirits. I'm sure. Right now. Until I check the Twitter feed and... Hey, man. Kippy up whenever you're feeling down. I will. And I'll try to give you a pep up, man. Dude, thanks so much. Really appreciate it. Sure, buddy. Thank you, man. All right. You too, man. Take care. Bye. Peace. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Thank you to everyone who's listening past the music. I hope you enjoyed that episode with Vic, support him, go watch his videos over at superdeluxe.com, follow them on social media, follow them on social media, go do that. Follow Vic on social media too while you're at it. You can follow me on social media, huh? Just follow everyone on social media. Seriously, lots of love to everyone listening. Have very happy holidays. If this is in the future and the holidays have passed already, they're coming around again, so happy holidays to you too.

I will see you next week with some very cool guests. That's it. Bye bye.