The Most Unconservative Right-Wing Comedian: The Brent Pella Interview
On The Babylon Bee Interview Show, Ethan and Trevor talk to comedian Brent Pella. They talk about comedy without an agenda, cancel culture, and his hatred for Gavin Newsom. Brent Pella has performed stand-up comedy around the country and gained fame on YouTube doing sketch comedy. Some of his most popular impressions have been Eminem, Gavin Newsom, Joe Rogan, and many others. You can see when Brent is performing near you at his website. Be sure to check out The Babylon Bee YouTube Channel for more podcasts, podcast shorts, animation, and more. To watch or listen to the full podcast, become a subscriber at https://babylonbee.com/plans Topics Discussed Being without an agenda Being seen as a conservative comedian Mocking the left How Brent grew up Making fun of yourself Hanging out with J.P. Sears Wearing masks Getting canceled Nick Cannon Gina Carano Impressions Gov. Newsom Trying out different comedic personas Finding a political label Political party labels Georgia voting laws Intentions being assigned Having in-depth conversations Improv UCB and Groundlings Subscriber Portion Brent's origin into comedy Bombing on a cruise ship Best stand-up comics Actors 10 questions
When you scroll Facebook and you count on Facebook to give you the content that you want to read, it's like you're going up to Mark Zuckerberg every morning, knocking on his door and saying, Hey, Mark Zuckerberg, what should I read this morning?
Or you could just support the Babylon Bee.
Babylon B.com slash plans.
You can subscribe.
You get full-length podcasts, add-free podcasts.
You get ad-free web browsing on our site, premium content.
At certain levels, you even get access to a little social network that our friends at Not the Bee have created.
Yeah, be part of the community, the in-crowd, the B crowd.
Real people, real interviews.
I just have to say that I object strenuously to your use of the word hilarious.
Hard-hitting questions.
What do you think about feminism?
Do you like it?
Taking you to the cutting edge of truth.
Yeah, well, Last Jedi is one of the worst movies ever made, and it was very clear that Brian Johnson doesn't like Star Wars.
Kyle pulls no punches.
I want to ask how you're able to sleep at night.
Ethan brings bone-shattering common sense from the top rope.
If I may, how double dare you?
This is the Babylon Bee Interview Show.
Oh, hello there.
Well, where it is, everybody.
I'm all alone on this podcast.
Trevor is going to join me.
We're having comedian Brent Pella in today.
And you may know Brent if you're a JP Sears fan.
He does a lot of videos with JP Sears.
But a while back, I put a call out that I just wanted to have comedians on.
And Brent saw that I had said, you don't have to be a Christian, you know, you don't have to be a libertarian.
Because, you know, Kyle always wants all these libertarians all the time.
And so he's like, hey, I'm neither of those.
So we had him on.
We wanted to talk about the state of comedy.
And Brent, I think, fits with us well topically because Brent is a guy who was never that political.
But then suddenly when comedy became very one-sided politically, he's kind of going, there's all these jokes nobody's making on the other side.
And he started just making them.
So he's gotten somewhat more political.
But for him, we just talk about that weird empty space that's being left open by people that won't touch certain jokes.
And so we talked to him a lot about that.
We talked to him about working with JP Sears, state of comedy.
It was a fun conversation, and it was funny because he was very respectful about not swearing on the show until we let him know, oh, you can if you want to.
We'll just bleep it.
And then he just, he may have broken the record.
I don't know yet, but I know that he gave Patrick a lot of work.
So we're going to jump in here with Brent Pella.
And if you want to check out Brent Pella's work, you can go to his website, BrentPella.com.
He's on tour.
He's going all over the country, doing shows, doing stand-up comedy.
And he's also on Instagram and YouTube.
That's Brent Pella.
I'm sure the name will pop up on the screen here, and you can see him and check him out.
Let's get to that interview.
Oh, hello there.
Welcome to the Babylon Bee Interview Show.
Holy cow, Brent Pella's here in studio.
Hello, everybody.
Comedian Brett Pella.
And we have sitting in for Kyle because Kyle's busy.
He's the family doing something.
We got Trevor.
I remember to not call you Travis and I forgot your lazy name.
I appreciate that.
Thanks, Nathan.
I'm having a weird effort.
Yeah, mental block with Trevor's name right now.
I don't know why.
We're friends.
We hang out all the time.
Sure.
I have weird issues.
So welcome to the.
How did you end up here?
I think I put out a call for comedians.
Yeah.
Was it from that?
It was a couple months ago on Twitter.
Somebody, it must have been you.
Somebody wrote like the Babylon Bee is looking for comedians to join the podcast.
Interview, yeah.
Yeah.
And in the tweet was like, you don't have to be libertarian or Christian.
And I was like, cool.
I'm in.
Because I think you guys are hilarious.
The Babylon B concepts are so funny.
And I thought it would be a fun time.
Yeah.
Cool.
Yeah.
We'll see.
Yeah.
Who knows?
Who knows what we're in for here?
But yeah, I just thought, I mean, I think it's interesting to talk to comedians.
For one thing, because comedians have thoughts on everything because they're always trying to think about stuff.
And also the climate that we're in with comedy.
It's just interesting to talk to anybody who's trying to do comedy right now.
Yeah.
And so you definitely don't shy away from topics that might anger people.
Yeah.
I actually enjoy that because if everybody can be angry at me, then that means they're unified and I'm creating unification and uniform world.
Yeah.
Yeah, man.
It's it's been a weird kind of evolution of what I've been doing over the past year.
You know, as soon as the pandy hit back in the pandy, baby.
Back in like March 2020, I started like kind of my brain just started firing differently when I was seeing everything that was happening with like rules and regulations and people's hyper politicization of things was getting even more hyper.
And so throughout the past year, I just tried to like keep my mind open enough to have kind of an open season on whoever I thought deserved a little mocking or parody or whatever, you know, regardless of who got mad.
And there's like so many sacred cows you're allowed to make fun of right now.
Yeah, there's a lot.
But which does leave a huge opening for people that are willing to go there, which is how we've thrived.
Right.
That's right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like for me, it's, it's, it's a matter of, is it funny to me first and foremost?
And if it is, I'm going to do it.
And if it's, I'm not going to do something that's not funny to me just because I know it'll appeal to a certain demographic.
I'd rather do something that's funny to me.
And then whatever demo also think that's funny, I have faith that they'll find me.
So that's kind of kept me going throughout the past year as I make fun of, you know, people on the left that nobody's mocking or a couple people on the right that everybody seems to be mocking.
I'd never tried to like take a political side with it.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's one of the more infuriating things when you're in the arts and any kind of creative endeavor is you see those people that it feels like they're clearly pandering to the audience.
Yeah.
And they, I can't even bring myself to do that.
Like, I don't know how they do it.
And it makes me mad in one way that I wish I could, but also that it's working so well.
You know, I'm sure you've seen comedians like that.
They just, they, they know how to write the script that just gets the laughs, but you don't know that they're, I don't know, is it genuine?
I don't, are all, are there ungenuine?
Well, there's a lot of, you get claptor to the clapper.
That's bigger.
It's a nightmare.
I mean, you see that live on stage at stand-up shows I've done.
People will say certain things or like work in certain bits.
And it's cringy to me because I'm like, are they doing this just to get like polite applause for 10 seconds?
What's the agenda here?
Right.
So that's something I've just consciously tried to suppress is any type of agenda.
Besides, however, my own agenda of like, just laugh if something's funny, and like, look at the absurdity of the world, rather than the agenda of everyone on this side of the aisle is bad, or everyone on this side of the aisle is a commie or whatever these.
A lot of people are doing your shows like that.
I do, actually.
I do left side for fascists, right side for commies, and I have two seats for libertarians at every show and complimentary, complimentary.
Yeah, they get a joint and a bullet and that's.
I place them on the libertarian seats, But it's been, you know, it's been really interesting.
I've had a lot of really cool and strange and like mind-opening experiences talking to people about this kind of stuff over the past year.
And it's really, to me, the more people talk about how crazy stuff is, the less crazy it can become.
Right.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, I found that super helpful just with the, I mean, that helped me.
Joe Rogan podcast and George and Savior, all these guys, you know, just talking about it.
You know, that stuff you're not supposed to talk about.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's crazy how much trouble you can get in just for having a conversation too with like the right people.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
That's actually something I was wondering about.
Have you like, has this, you know, this new take that you have kind of pigeonholed you with some people?
Like they call you conservative.
Oh, right.
Dude, it's like, I've never, so you feel the energy coming out of me right now?
So, like, so prior to March 2020, I, I so didn't care about politics.
Yeah.
If you'd asked me for the definition of a liberal, conservative, and libertarian, I would have like flipped you off and ran away.
Like, I literally could not care less.
The only time I did politics was like a quick and silly Pete Buttigieg impression.
That was just like him with a hat that has the helicopter thing on it playing with toys.
You know what I mean?
Like that's the only deal.
That's the only way I get into politics.
Pete Buttigieg now.
Right.
I mean, that's the weirdo.
And so that's, I was like culturally relevant in all my work leading up to that with celebrity impressions or trending topics in the news.
And then 2020 hit and I started dipping into politics and things.
And as soon as I did, you know, my sense of humor just gravitated toward the things that were not being made fun of very much by late night shows, stand-up comics, character comics, video comedians, because I wanted to, I don't want to do the things that are already being done.
I want to challenge myself by finding new ways to point out the absurdities of the world.
And there were certain absurdities, in my opinion, that a lot of people weren't really touching on.
And most of them just happened to lean left.
So a majority.
No one's touching them.
Yeah, no one's touching them.
Like, you don't see people mocking.
No one has done a Gavin Newsome impression.
Besides Seth Meyer's brother on a Seth Meyers late night show months ago.
And it was like, it still kind of held him up.
Yeah, yeah.
Did you guys do an impression?
Oh, that's right.
I actually saw that.
Did you really?
Oh, cool.
Yeah, we had two of them.
One with the where the impractical jokers were telling him what to say for his speech.
Oh, that's funny.
And then the other where he's running around telling everybody in California that they can open now and there's like ghosts.
It's just like a ghost town.
Yeah.
So like I saw, you know, everybody and their mother is mocking Trump for being a loud orange idiot.
And like, he should be mocked, but it's already being done.
And everybody is just so hitting on the right, hitting on the right that there was no new avenue to pursue there.
So like, what aren't people mocking that I also think is absurd?
And it ended up being a lot of Gavin, a lot of Biden, a lot of policies that a lot of folks on the left were starting to put into action during COVID.
And so that's kind of how I, a lot of my content, and also like the stereotypical far left person.
It's easy to make fun of the stereotypical far right person.
You know, it's like, don't take my guns and blah, And it's like that.
A lot of people are mocking that.
And like, fine, but like, there's a whole other realm to pursue here.
But as soon as I started doing that, I would get comments and messages like, whoa, bro, you're conservative now?
Whoa, dude.
Whoa, didn't know you were so fringe, dude.
Hey, dude.
Where's the Trump rally tonight?
And I was just like, man, I'm a comedian, dude.
You know what I mean?
Like, yeah, some stuff is hitting on the left.
But you don't call someone who makes fun of Republicans a liberal comedian.
But now, as soon as you make fun of liberals, you're labeled as a conservative comedian.
And to me, that's just not fair unless you are very obviously doing unapologetically conservative content like the Hodge twins, right?
Yeah, the conservative comic, right?
And they're hilarious.
Like big props to those guys.
They're doing their thing.
It's great.
Like Steven Crowder and all those guys.
Yep.
Yeah.
And so, but like for me, I'm doing so much different stuff.
So I just found it like really frustrating.
But it's also been a great learning experience to see like, wow, people are so quick to label you these days just to avoid confrontation with their own like beliefs.
Right.
You know?
Well, that whole rant there just erased half of our questions.
What else?
What do you want to talk about?
What do you think it is?
Because I'm always curious about comedians like you, people that are kind of, they're kind of bubbling to the surface because the ones that are willing to joke about both sides and go hard on the left just as hard as they will on the right.
I'm curious what it is about either their personality or their upbringing.
I know some of them maybe grew up in, I don't know where you grew up.
You know, if you grew up around conservatives and you don't just blanketly hate them all and just think they're those bad people, they're Nazis.
Right.
Or what is it about your upbringing that made you like want to like willing to fight?
Sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's interesting.
You know, I was raised by a single mom.
You know, still have a great relationship with my dad, but my mom was very, my mom and my dad when I was growing up were both very left, very liberal, I guess.
I don't know if I'm still trying to come like learn about the terminology type stuff.
It shifts us around.
It doesn't really make sense.
It's weird, dude.
But they're very liberal.
You know, they voted green a lot.
My mom loved Hillary her whole life.
And dad like took me flyering for Nader when I was 10.
Wow.
You know what I mean?
So you were abused as a child.
So I grew up in a yurt.
It was wonderful.
No one wore clothes.
And I grew up in Davis, California, adjacent to Berkeley and its values and belief systems.
And it was great.
But my mom raised me without any specific religious ideology.
Instead, she allowed me to learn and take from different religious institutions and belief systems because she was raised Italian Catholic and did not end up bringing me to church, just kind of like gave me books to read and stuff like that.
Italian Catholic.
We got so much to talk about, buddy.
And so she kind of raised me to be really open-minded about things.
So now my belief system now is like I pull from all these different places.
And I think that foundation translated to now when I'm performing or thinking about topics or allowing ideas to enter my mind, it's not with a set path.
It's more open to anything.
So I think that's really helped, you know, just kind of that foundation of being so open-minded.
I think that's rare.
I found fascinating when we interviewed Larry the Cable guy.
Guys from the South or just Middle America, they love making fun of themselves.
Like that's their whole act.
Yeah.
They could go off on liberals, but they don't.
They go off on themselves.
Yeah.
And for liberal comedians, generally, they can't, they can't.
They can't make fun of themselves.
Yeah.
They can't go hard like those guys do.
I'm curious how do you, yeah, because I find it fascinating.
You came out of that world, but you were able to make fun of yourself or your own culture that you grew up in.
Yeah.
And it's also been cool in the past year hanging out with more people on the right because, you know, my whole life I'm around people that are like left-leaning or very liberal in this liberal community.
And it's a farm town, so there's your conservative families and like police families and folks like that.
But the past year, you know, I've been hanging out a lot with my buddy JP Sears, the red-haired comedian that I do a lot of videos with.
I'd start to brand him as just the red-haired guy.
You know, the guy with red hair.
He looks like a WWF wrestler from the 80s with like a Disney princess hair.
Oh, yeah.
I love that.
Yeah.
And he's got the voice of a guy who is not ripped.
He's got the voice of a guy who's got a very peaceful tone.
But then you see him and he's like, jacked.
Is he a robot?
That's actually something I need to know.
Not that I know of, but maybe.
But I love JP.
He's awesome.
And he, you know, we have our disagreements, we have our agreements, and we have talked at length about a ton of different things, especially during COVID times.
And that's given me this new avenue of thinking.
Like, oh, wow, maybe that is right.
These things, these distinct topics, you can have an opinion on those that's different than what I would have had if I had, you know, stayed in my hometown forever.
Yeah.
Totally.
What do you think JP Sears' wrestler persona would be if he was a WWF wrestler?
Yeah.
I think he'd be like that.
I imagine like a red flare kind of like well, he's always wearing the doing the hippie character with a true flower.
So I can just, yeah, maybe he would be like a vegan.
The fire vegan or something, something cool.
It's got to be like a cool name.
Yeah, the vegan.
I got to rhyme.
What rhymes with vegan?
The vegan.
Nothing good.
Tuskegee.
I guarantee you that's already a wrestler in some oh for sure in Tuskegee Yeah.
Right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, uh, so yeah.
Yeah.
What about uh it's it's been weird, man.
It's been a weird time.
It has been.
Yeah.
What do you think of people that are like we were talking about doing a skit or like some kind of a sketch about uh we can't steal this.
You know the show I didn't sign anything.
You know the show what's that one where the people do the drugs and the family surrounds them?
Intervention.
Oh, funny.
We do the intervention for a person that's like addicted to masks.
That's funny.
And they're just like, you know, they wear like three masks coming out like a foot.
They're in Alaska in the tundra and they have a mask.
What is that?
Six feet of masks that you have to wear just who just can't breathe.
You're slowly dying from lack of oxygen.
Yeah, that's, I don't know.
It keeps happening.
They had some runners.
Oh, that happened, right?
Yeah.
Somebody was wearing a mask while running, like running a race.
And it was like back to school.
Yeah, right.
Yeah.
Oh, man.
The craziest thing, dude, I can't believe that it's still around.
It's like they're making college, there were college basketball games, and the players were wearing a mask while they were playing.
And it's like, bro, you're like sweating on each other.
Yeah.
You're literally like exchanging bodily fluids and you're going to wear a mask.
And then in the NBA, the rule was: okay, you don't have to wear a mask when you're playing, but you have to wear it when you're sitting down.
That's what I understand.
What's going on?
What are we doing?
Do these like halfway measures work for a virus?
Is a virus like within 10?
I don't, you don't even have to be Fauci to understand that within 10 minutes, you're yelling at people on the right.
If the virus is present, Doing half of the stuff is not going to make it less likely.
Not to mention they all got tested an hour prior to the game.
And everybody's negative.
So what do you think?
It's just going to be like, oh, okay, the test is done.
You're positive now.
Like, what do we mean?
The logic is so not there.
And it's crazy.
I'm praying that it just starts dissolving this summer, though, because I'm so sick of that.
Everybody's been making rules for us to follow, but I don't know why they should start making rules for the virus.
The virus can't is no longer allowed on the basketball court.
Yeah, that way.
Dude, give the virus a curfew.
I want to go party again.
Tell the virus it can't come out until morning.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Why isn't Fauci on that one?
Yeah.
Yeah, it's weird, dude.
It's people just get so, so wrapped up into these beliefs just because they see it in a headline or because they're like extrapolating this one thought into like some big fake picture of, okay, well, two masks, probably.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, obviously, I mean, breathing would solve it.
Yeah.
I still see people walking their dog by themselves outside with masks on.
And it's just like it blows.
Freedom of choice for sure.
But also like, where's that choice coming from?
I heard somebody say that like their parent.
I don't know if I heard this on a show or on a friend or something.
I swear I heard it.
Someone said their parent got vaccinated, but they don't want to stop wearing their masks because they don't want people to think they're a Republican.
Dude.
That is mind-blowing.
That is sick.
That is so crazy.
I think that's a good, like one of the main reasons people are still wearing masks is to show people that they support the efforts or something.
I mean, it's got to be support.
Yeah.
The mask.
Once you start talking about the hypotheticals of the past year, the mask conversation is just so silly.
Cause at the beginning, you know, at the beginning, it was like, yeah, let's all wear masks.
We didn't know what the hell was going on, right?
We were just like, yeah, let's wear masks.
We're being told they work.
Let's wear them in stores.
Let's wear them around people.
And then by like June and July, we had so much data about who specifically the virus affects and like where people are getting it from and et cetera, et cetera.
And so then it was still being like the mask thing was enforced on a governmental level.
And I started being curious, like, why aren't we living it up to businesses to require the masks if they want?
And then like sharing more specific information about the demographics of who the virus affects and like helping people make better decisions for themselves so that we could ease out of this forced kind of like pseudo-totalitarian type thing.
I know that sounds extreme.
I'm not, no one was trying to like take over the country, but it's like, you know, these, these, these mandates, I just feel like we could have eased out of them sooner and still been on a good road.
But I'm not a politician.
I'm a dummy.
So I just get to vent on podcasts instead of make policies.
Yeah.
And that's why I like talking to comedians because the essence of comedy is to say the thing everybody's thinking, but they're afraid to say it or they shouldn't say it.
Or there's always that element of naughtiness to what you say in a joke, right?
You have to say that thing makes where you go like.
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
And that's why in this climate, you know, it's, there's so much to say or not if you're being careful.
Clearly, you're not being careful.
No.
I'm done being careful.
Cancel me, please.
That's a good question.
That's another question I actually, has anyone tried to cancel you?
No, I'm not big enough at all.
But I'm hoping to one day be One of my podcast clips out of context and try and ruin my life so that I can get more followers and actually have a career.
No, the cancel stuff, JP almost got canceled.
Well, people tried to, it didn't work.
I don't know if it's ever really worked unless somebody really deserved it.
But like for something silly, like saying something on a podcast, they try to cancel Joe Rogan every other day.
Yeah, and it's like, dude, he's just like talking on a podcast.
You know, don't listen if you don't want.
The cancel stuff is so it's borderline out of control, but I also think it's becoming a parody of itself at this point.
When people try to cancel something, they're immediately mocked.
You know, like they're kind of starting to be ignored.
And it's just such a small percentage of people online, but it's the loudest people.
So it's just like that whole, the whole cancel culture thing.
It's, it's starting, from my perspective, it's starting to become a parody of itself.
And it's like laughable.
You know, I think that the only people it's really been effective against are just regular people.
Like I remember one of the first people that were in the news for getting canceled, there was a lady who made a joke on her way to Africa.
And when she landed, she lost her job and everything.
Oh, yeah.
I don't know what that.
Yeah.
And she was just some lady.
And I, and, and, and so, I mean, she's not, she doesn't have a fan base that she can fall back on.
She's not, you know.
Right.
Yeah.
I wonder whatever came became of her.
She died.
I think she wrote a book.
She wrote a book.
Did she?
Yeah, and like did really well.
Yeah, there you go.
So that's actually canceled, write a book.
Yeah, so cancel me.
I don't know what I have to say, but I'll just repeat her joke.
And it's also like, in essence, when you boil cancel culture down to the fundamental element of it, people should be called out for doing objectively bad things, right?
But at what point, I think, the question becomes: at what point should somebody's life and career be fully over with no possibility of retribution?
Is that the right word to use in this sentence?
Or whatever.
Or like coming with no possibility of coming back, right?
So, like, for example, redemption, yeah, to be able to get forgiven or yeah.
Right.
Um, so an example is like Nick Cannon, right?
Uh, I don't know if you remember what happened with him.
He on his podcast, he said some things that were taken as very anti-Semitic and conspiratorial against uh Jewish people and against white people.
And he got his show taken away, and like all everybody hated him online.
But like within days, he issued an awesome heartfelt apology, which was one of the best ever.
And super, like, his apology wasn't selfish or like he didn't, he wasn't like saying, like, you know, screw you guys.
I did what I did and whatever.
It was like legit.
And then he had rabbis on his podcast to help him learn about what he said and why it could have been wrong or taken out of context or thought why his thoughts could have been misled.
And it was this wonderful thing.
And now he has a showback and it's like, that's a wonderful example of somebody being called out and then learning from it.
Right.
But then you got people that are trying to cancel you for like saying, you know, hey, I don't want to wear a mask at Whole Foods anymore.
And it's like, you're going to spend your time trying to hate this person for like a silly belief?
Like, just let them believe what they want to believe.
So that's why I found the Gina Carono situation so fascinating.
Yeah, that was another thing.
A lot of that is like because the basis of what really canceled her was taking her tweet, which, you know, about, I can't remember what was it, like the Nazi thing.
You know, we shouldn't all hate each other was basically what she was saying.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And just completely reading into it.
So it was insane.
And so he even apologized for a thing she wasn't even saying.
Right.
There's no apology to be made there.
I mean, she can just say, sorry, I didn't mean to, you know, whatever.
See, she's done that profusely.
Yeah.
And the, and on that, like, losing her job for a tweet, dude.
That was a stupid tweet that was clearly well-intentioned that was saying we shouldn't all hate each other was really what she was saying.
Sure.
And even so, even if the tweet hurt a lot of people or was offensive, if she issues an apology for it and the apology is heartfelt, let go.
It's a tweet.
Seriously.
What are we doing?
You know, clearly there's something else going on there.
That's the thing.
Those are the ones that kind of freak me out.
I'm also encouraged, though, like as I watch, you know, she didn't back down and just like, you know, I don't know what the caving would have been to say, like, I'm a horrible racist homophobe.
I'm sorry.
I shouldn't have been that way.
I don't know what I come to your side.
I'm going to vote for Joe Biden, whatever she would have to say to get everybody to let her back on the show.
Yeah.
But I saw that she they had like canceled her Bear Grylls episode that she was going to be on, and now they're uncanceling that.
That, yeah.
So there's all these kind of like steps.
I don't know.
Yeah.
People have to have to like admit, like, was it?
It was kind of crazy that we had canceled her for over that.
Right.
Well, and I've been hearing rumors from the YouTube, you know, the comics people are saying that Disney's trying to get her back now.
And yeah, I don't know if any of that is true, but it's probably getting clicks for sure.
Yeah, it gets clicks.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So how did you became you got into doing impressions?
Was that always something you sought to do, or something fell into, or how did you become an impression guy?
Dude, I was always terrible.
I still don't think I'm great at impressions, but they're really fun.
It's something I'm working on a lot.
But it was one of those things that I just wasn't good at.
And that's again, like, I wanted to explore that because I had never done it.
So it was a challenge.
And it started with celebrities and rappers, Eminem and GEZ, Post Malone, you know, all of your favorite musicians, I'm sure.
Yeah.
And it started there, and now it's politicians, which is fun to pick apart politicians because, you know, they're all terrible.
Yeah.
I mean, they're not all terrible.
I mean, they are.
But the impression thing was fun.
And the one that blew up recently was the Gavin Newsom one, which was really cool to see.
Yeah, he's definitely got a, yeah, because we were, you think, oh, we're in California, people here don't like Gavin Newsome, but outside of there, who cares about other people's governors?
But yeah, the anger at Gavin Newsom is nationwide enough at this point that those videos do really well.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
It was, I didn't know who he was a year and a half ago.
I didn't know my governor's name.
Dude, I've never voted in a governor election ever.
And now I got to worry about this guy, like not telling us data.
Like, what?
It just drove me crazy.
And so in the fall, I put out a bunch of impression videos, and they were, that was the one impression where I was like really aiming for him.
Like, I think almost every impression I've done is of people I really love and respect.
Rogan, Eminem, The Rock, you know, these people that I have an admiration for.
And then when I started doing Gavin, it was like, the admiration isn't quite there.
So this is definitely like loading one up and taking aim and firing.
But that was fun too, because I was like, how can I keep this funny and happy?
But at the same time, like, kind of, you know, there's some bites in those videos.
There's some lines that are written specifically to call him out.
And that's part of the shift in my comedy over the past year.
Is like, okay, there's if I'm going to have a message to this, it's going to be the message calling out absurdity.
It's not going to be the message calling out right-wing people for being stupid or calling out left-wing people for being extreme.
It's going to be like, what are stupid things that I see people doing specifically?
And how can I call out those behaviors and actions?
And that really came to life with the Gavin videos, which was fun.
Yeah.
And so now he's got a run against Bruce.
Oh, wait, Caitlin Jenner.
Caitlin Jenner.
Oh, you're not voting for Caitlin?
Oh, you're not?
I haven't decided.
You haven't decided yet?
Yeah, I haven't.
You know, somebody was saying that they went to her website or his or whatever.
I don't know what's going to get me in trouble with the fans of the Babylonian.
Say them both.
His website, it doesn't have policies.
It just has donations and a merch store.
Oh, my God.
I love the idea of a merch store.
That's hilarious.
That's so funny.
Yeah, dude.
I don't know who's, I don't even know the other candidates.
Yeah.
I mean, I do love the idea of the Republicans voting in the first trans elected official or governor just because I don't know what the left would do with that.
I want her to run with Kanye.
Some of those math gifts, you know?
Yeah, yeah.
With Kanye, yeah.
But who would be the vice governor?
I don't know.
Jenner?
No, I'm talking about president, baby.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
I want Caitlin and Kanye in the White House.
Jenner West.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, if you're going to ruin the country, just ruin it.
Oh, yeah.
Let's go.
Take it back to step one.
Have you ever thought about becoming a fat comic?
No.
Is that an option?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, Ralph Benet is dead, and so is John Pender.
I forget.
The lane is open.
Yeah, yeah, it's open.
Yeah.
No, I'm thinking of trying to become the first supermodel comic.
Yeah.
So plastic surgery is coming soon.
And I'm going to get an additional six pack installed.
So I have a 12 pack.
Have you ever thought about becoming a black comic?
Dude, I had a DM recently.
So sometimes I get people that feel like anybody who doesn't know.
Sometimes people will send me like sketch video ideas.
And somebody sent me one a couple of months ago in my DMs on Instagram.
And it said, like, hey, man, love your stuff.
Got a video idea for you.
Feel free to use it.
You don't need to credit me.
Anytime it starts with that, this is free.
Yeah.
I get that at the top of the free one for you.
He said, What if you were like a guy who owns an ice cream shop, but you're wearing blackface, and the ice cream shop is only open to white people, but the white people have to be wearing blackface so that you're like woke and supporting black culture, but also maintaining your whiteness.
IDK could be funny.
And I was like, dude, no more suggestions.
I'm not taking any more entries for video ideas.
If you want to get canceled.
Yeah, that's how to do it.
If I really want my following to go up with the wrong crowd, I have the concept that would do it.
That's the worst when you see the comment on your video from someone who's clearly a white supremacist.
You're like, no, we're not trying to get you on board here.
No, no, you missed the joke.
Yeah, man.
Let me ask you guys a question.
So you're both libertarians, yes?
Is that I'm not officially a libertarian.
Kyle's the more libertarian.
He's not here.
Yeah, Kyle is a libertarian.
I'm somewhere in between conservative.
Some kind of conservative guy.
Okay, so you don't necessarily label yourself one way or the other, like strongly.
I'd say conservative, but that has so much baggage to label myself anymore.
Everything keeps changing.
Interesting.
Because it's something, again, it's only been the past maybe 14 months that I've really dove headfirst into trying to have a better grasp on the political concepts of this country.
And, you know, if you're holding a gun to my head before they take them all away and you told me to choose, I don't know what I would choose.
I would choose, I'm in the middle of everything.
And in the middle to me is libertarian, or it seems to be because it's so based in freedom, but also has qualities of the liberal perspective.
Like Joe Jorgensen's campaign had something about ending the war on drugs and releasing a bunch of people from their charges of nonviolent drug-related crimes.
I love that.
I'm in 100%.
So I'm curious as two people who might not fully side with one specific side, what has it been like from your perspective watching all this hyper-politicization of everything?
Do you find it ridiculous?
Do you find more people moving toward the middle?
Or do you, from your perspective, do you see people gravitating toward one end of the spectrum?
It's yeah.
On one hand, it's like the slippery slope that everybody argued is coming true.
You know, when you're in the conservative side of things and do you feel like you're seeing the country coming this way where it's like, yeah, we really do want to arrest you or destroy your life for just having certain beliefs.
On the other hand, one thing I found fascinating in the Trump era was the way that the umbrella, what's the word?
The tent got bigger.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, you know, you're on a Christian podcast.
Yeah, it's pretty cool.
I've consciously been not cursing.
Oh, we've got some great, some great bleeps for you.
Yeah, we do like the cable TV thing where it puts a different word over your mouth.
Oh, that's kind of fun.
Yeah, so yeah, drop a couple of bombs.
We'll see how it goes.
Okay.
You guys are turnips.
You're going to have to hacks off.
Donkey.
Hacksaw.
Okay.
These poor guys, now they got their work cut up.
We just gave them a lot of donkey.
I see you back there.
I hope they let one slip through.
We've had that happen when I was like, oh, I missed one.
Is that a cuss word?
I don't know.
Somebody's grandma's going to be real mad.
Yeah, I don't know.
What do you think on the answer on that one?
That's a good question.
Let me ask you another one.
So I don't have an opinion.
It seems to me that the conservative tent you said is getting wider.
And I think that a lot of people who considered them considered themselves liberal are now having to consider themselves more right-wing just because that center has shifted further.
And so I think that a lot of the people who were supporting Trump were not conservatives.
I think a lot of them were liberals.
And I think that if conservatives and liberals ever defeat the leftists, that I think that'll probably go back to splitting up again.
But it seems like when you say leftist, you're talking about like the progressive liberals.
Yeah.
Far left.
Because liberals tend to believe in freedom more than traditional liberals.
Correct.
Yeah.
Like the Democrats from the root word liberal.
Yeah, right.
Right.
Well, not classic liberals because those are closer to libertarians.
But yeah, like the, yeah.
So I think that it's if we defeat the progressives and the critical race theory cultists, you know, then I think that we'll probably end up kind of dividing again to a more statement.
Hopefully we remember the Republican and Democrat kind of thing.
But I don't know if that'll ever happen, to be honest.
Yeah, it's interesting, man, because like you just said, you might typically say conservative, but in your words, it has a lot of baggage right now.
And it's just crazy that like one party has become demonized when really like let's demonize the far extent of that party, the dudes with tiki torches and all the people, you know what I mean?
The crazies.
Yeah, demonize them.
Demonize them because they're bad.
Yeah, demonize what I'm saying.
Demonize.
Flowerbed.
Donkey.
Donkey.
But it's just crazy because, yeah, I mean, the far right, the far left, yeah, demonize those people.
It's just so absurd that we've demonized this political party for their beliefs.
And that's throughout history, they've held pretty much the same beliefs.
And now all of those sudden, those beliefs are going to lead to the end of democracy.
Like, no, dude.
Just have the debate.
You know, like the most recent example is the Georgia voting law, right?
And how a lot of Republicans want to introduce IDs to require you to vote.
Now they don't have factual evidence to support that to necessitate ID voting.
I think we should evolve to a place where we have ID voting.
But statistically, anytime you require IDs, there's less voting that happens.
And then Republicans win that election.
That's just a statistic.
So it begs the question.
I think that's a great idea.
Well, that's the thing.
It's like, what's the real reason that they're requiring the IDs?
Is it because like really, really, really, they believe you should have to prove your citizenship?
Or is it because they know that statistically when you enforce ID voting, Republicans win those elections?
That's just a fact.
And so it begs that question.
But the immediate demonization of that to say, well, you hate immigrants.
Yeah.
Right.
Because that's what.
That's racism.
And it's racist to require IDs.
Like, no, it's not racist to require IDs.
And if we're going to evolve to a point, then let's make sure everybody can easily get IDs and then require them everywhere.
For sure.
But let's do it logically and don't call them racist for wanting citizens to prove that they're citizens.
Yeah.
So that they're allowed to vote.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's just like, it's this, there's no room for debate anymore.
It's like, who can have the snappiest headline, the snappiest tweet that's going to get them all?
It's usually us that has the snappiest headline.
It's true.
It's usually us.
You guys got some snappers.
Yeah.
So that's just one example.
And it's just interesting that we're so quick to hate.
So ID laws create Republican victories.
There's a study on.
But only in the U.S., though, because I mean, I imagine that in France where they require them, they don't get Republicans.
Right.
Also in France, everybody hates each other anyways.
So it'd be hilarious.
Ted Cruz got elected over there because of their ID laws.
Suck him up.
Ted Cruz is going to clean up these frogs.
It's a big demonization.
That's one thing I think about that freaks me out.
Like, I feel like if I honestly try to assess what I think a liberal, like my liberal counterpart or someone on the left is thinking, you know, my assessment of them is like, they have good intentions.
They want, you know, they're worried about women's rights.
They don't want them to be stuck with a baby they don't want.
Like things like that.
Like I feel like I'm being pretty honest about their intentions, but I feel like the assessment of me is like racism, homophobia, hate, like things like I can't even get out from under.
Like, I don't know how to bridge that.
Like my intentions have been assigned to me.
And that's the thing that I don't know how to, except for people like yourself who just seem to have a, and I don't know where you get it.
I wish more people had it.
And I actually, I think more people do have it.
I think it's the loud mouths on Twitter.
Yeah.
It's really suppressed.
But it makes people, it makes you think most people think like that.
If you lean left at all, then you think I'm a homophobe and a bigot and all that stuff.
Right.
And it just shuts down conversation.
Yeah, and it sucks because you can have disagreements with people and be civil.
It's fun to talk about it if you can talk about it.
Dude, I went back home recently up to Davis and I was doing shows up there like two weeks ago.
Davis, where?
California.
Oh, yeah.
I forgot you were from California.
Yeah, yeah.
It's up by Sacramento.
I thought it was like Idaho or something.
Berkeley adjacent.
That's right.
I just wasn't listening.
That's how most people don't.
You never hear left-wing things being adjacent.
I was just waiting for my turn to talk.
So I went back home and I saw a buddy of mine and we had this like hour, maybe hour too long conversation about our beliefs toward the vaccine regarding certain government mandates or certain personal freedoms and the ideologies of social responsibility versus individual responsibility.
And it was great because we like disagreed on so much within that narrow scope of conversational topic.
But at the end of the day, we're friends.
And we even said to each other, like, wow, this is great.
We haven't had the opportunity to have an in-depth conversation with context nuance face-to-face expression with anybody for over a year because we've been isolated in our echo chambers of friends and Twitter and Facebook.
And so now like me coming home to see this guy that I grew up with, and we probably agree on like 90% of things.
And then there's this 10% chunk that we just do not.
And we have very different approaches to it.
And both of us can reason our way into winning the conversation in our own minds.
So there's no like, but like it was great because that doesn't end our friendship, you know, that, and it shouldn't.
If somebody's pro-life and pro-choice, they can still have a good friendship.
Maybe they avoid that conversation so it doesn't rile up emotions.
Maybe they break it down so that they each understand where the other person is coming from.
But at the end of the day, everybody's different.
Everybody's got a different brain chemistry.
Everybody's got a different upbringing.
And there will never be a point where everybody's unified.
It will always be a system of checks and balances and conversation.
And yeah, so the more that, the better, I think.
The more you can just have that conversation with people.
Normalize face-to-face conversations because people don't usually disagree with you in person like they do on Twitter.
Right.
Yeah.
They would get punched.
Right.
Can you imagine having a Twitter conversation in person?
Yeah, it sounds like a sketch for the Babylon B.
Well, that would be as a Twitter conversation.
You're not talking to them.
You're talking to the whole room like this.
Like, oh, you retweet and talk.
Yeah.
Oh, that would be so annoying, too, if you were watching that in a bar and there's two guys arguing and everyone's shouting to you.
Yeah, they're like community theater guys.
Yeah.
And everybody monologues.
Oh, man.
That was, that's the worst thing, the kind of theater, the guerrilla improv or something like that.
Have you ever heard about that?
No.
Well, I came up in improv.
Yeah, I know.
I read that about you.
You went to comedy school.
Yeah, technically.
I paid my dues.
But yeah, for years ago, there was these groups that would go into like New York City subways and do improv.
No way.
They would force it on people.
They would like busk.
Yes.
Improvised.
Like they dance or something or whatever.
No, they would go and do improv comedy.
Yeah, they would do it.
Was it comedy?
Yeah, it was actually funny.
I doubt it.
It was improv.
Have you ever been to an improv show?
Yeah.
So I would imagine they do that in the subway and it's awful.
Yeah, I was like, hey, give us a word.
Turnip.
There's another one for you.
Write that down.
And then they have to be, they'll be like, turnip.
Okay, let's do it, guys.
Ready?
Hey, John.
Welcome to the mall.
Turnip.
And it's like, that's their scene.
And then they're asking for tips.
Somebody's like, can you give us a mundane everyday activity?
And I was like, improv!
God, that sounds awful.
Yeah.
So what was it like going to improv schools?
I had a great time.
It was so fun.
It was, I just moved to LA and I enrolled at UCB, the Upright Citizens Brigade, founded by Amy Poehler and a couple other people.
Went through that program, all improv.
And then I flipped over to Groundlings, which is a sketch-based character theater.
A lot of people came out of there.
Will Farrell, Molly Shannon, Phil Hartman, Sherry O'Terry.
And both were great.
Both are like comedy nerd-wise, they're both different parts of my brain as a writer performer.
One is more intellectual, one is more silly and clown.
And they both help me kind of develop comfort on stage and comfort in flowing through thoughts and ideas and creativity.
So it was great.
It was super fun.
But I will say, bad improv is like the worst thing to watch.
I would rather improv.
Oh, 100%.
Great improv to me is the funniest thing in the world.
When people are just coming up with something on the fly and it works beautifully and it's just, it's an explosion of like, oh my God, you never would have thought you would see or hear what you're watching.
It's the funniest thing.
But man, when it's bad, dude, it is bad.
It is bad.
It's like freestyle rap.
There's either no in between.
Yeah.
That's right.
It's either really good or really bad.
I watch a lot of freestyle rap.
Do you really?
No, I don't.
Okay.
Such a funny hobby.
It does seem like something you would do.
I don't know.
It does seem like.
I'm a freestyle rap connoisseur.
Enthusiast, yeah.
Can you freestyle as Eminem?
No.
Not well.
Not well.
All that stuff is written.
Okay.
I could try, but it would not be good.
Well, we want to die.
We're going to go into our subscriber portion, move over into the lounge, put on our smoking jackets.
We're going to ask you about some of the worst shows you've done, worst bombs.
We like getting those behind the scenes stories.
Yeah.
Road stories, things like that.
Who do you hate?
What comedian is a real Jim?
Let me pull out my notes.
Call them up.
So I'm going to dive into that.
And the rest of you, we'll see you.
You should subscribe.
BabylonB.com/slash plans.
You're missing out on this content.
Yep.
In a book.
Oh, yeah.
What a great book, too.
Thank you.
Welcome.
All right.
Goodbye.
Coming up next for Babylon B subscribers.
So then do you have like a worst bombing story?
Yeah.
So I did a cruise.
At what point did you realize you're going to be a comedian?
But I was wondering, what are some things you think that people just kind of don't get about?
A lot of people.
Enjoying this hard-hitting interview.
Become a Babylon B subscriber to hear the rest of this conversation.
Go to BabylonB.com slash plans for full-length ad-free podcasts.
Kyle and Ethan would like to thank Seth Dylan for paying the bills, Adam Ford for creating their job, the other writers for tirelessly pitching headlines, the subscribers, and you, the listener.