Behind The Bee Interview With Managing Editor Joel Berry
On The Babylon Bee Interview Show, Patrick Green interviews Babylon Bee's own Managing Editor, Joel Berry. They talk about his origin story before landing his dream job of helping to rule the world of satire with The Babylon Bee. Joel started off as a super fan of the Bee and worked his way up to being a full time writer for us. Besides writing articles, Joel is the co-author of The Babylon Bee Guide to Wokeness and The Post-Modern Pilgrim's Progress. This episode is also brought to you by Faithful Counseling. Go to http://betterhelp.com/babylonbee for 10% off!
This is Behind the Bee exclusive that I'm trying to name it now.
So I'm here.
Behind the Bee.
Behind the Bee with managing editor Joel Berry.
Yes.
Yeah.
So I know you're in California, so we're just trying to squeeze as much content in as we can.
Yeah, man.
Yeah, you picked a good morning for it.
I had to drag myself in here because you took me out for pastrami last night at like 11 o'clock at night, and it was amazing, by the way.
I'm getting the full like California, you know, cuisine tour of cuisine here.
But man, that stuff it took a while to digest.
I don't think I saw, I have a pastrami hangover.
Yeah, well, that leads my next thing.
So where did you grow up like originally?
Yeah, so I am not born in Ohio.
I was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and a very young age moved to Ohio.
Lived there pretty much my whole life.
So I'm a Midwest guy.
Yeah.
Right now I live in Northwest Ohio.
Northwest Ohio.
So what did your parents do when you like, what caused them to move from Boston to the Midwest?
Just my dad's job.
He's an architect and he chased a job down here.
And yeah, you know what?
It's funny.
I grew up my whole life so looking forward to escaping Ohio.
Really, I think every kid in Ohio, that's why we have so many astronauts.
Ohio, of all the states in the Union, produces the most astronauts.
Oh, interesting.
I think that's because everyone in Ohio just wants to get as far away from that state as they possibly can.
But, you know, I grew up, I got married, and your roots kind of dig down and you love it.
And it's a great place to have a family, a great place to raise kids.
So whole families there.
Yeah, is it like, I've heard like Montana described as like, like nobody ever wants to, like they're growing up, they love it, but then it's like they never stay.
They're in college, but they always end up moving back there.
Exactly.
Kind of similar.
I even have a little brother who has, he's a restless guy and he likes to live in cool cities and he lives in one now.
He and his wife are going to be moving back to Ohio next year.
So I'm like, how many siblings did you have growing up?
I was the oldest of six.
Oh, wow.
So big family.
You're the only, so you were like the one in charge of all of them?
Not really.
I don't know what I was doing.
We were all homeschooled.
So I grew up in a very, you know, kind of strict fundamentalist Christian homeschool family.
The Babylon Bee early on, you know, when they were telling those homeschool jokes and like the sports illustrated model Becky with the jean skirt.
Yeah.
I was like, these guys get me, man.
These guys get me.
Well, what was like homeschool like?
Because I mean, I was a public school kid, so I had no experience otherwise.
But I mean, what I heard from homeschool, the thought was it was like, oh, they're the non-sociable ones.
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah.
Oh, it was awesome, though.
I mean, you stay in your PJs all day.
You get your schoolwork done in two, three hours, and then it's just, you know, you can go outside and play.
It was awesome.
But then I ended up going to school starting my freshman year of high school.
Oh, so you did.
You were one of those where you kind of went in.
Yeah.
Was that your choice?
No.
I think my mom was sick of me being in the house and my angry, rebellious teenagerness.
They sent me to school.
And that was like my culture shock.
It was a nice, tame Christian school, too.
But I was like, whoa, like, you know, it was just, it was, I was blindsided by it.
And I was super, I'm still awkward, I think.
All of us, let's be real, all of us at the Babylon B are really awkward.
That's a shock for me coming in.
I imagine like a very outgoing people when I first came in.
We're all, I think, we're all somewhere on the spectrum.
Yeah, somewhere along the line.
What was like your like, I want to know what Rebellious Joel was like.
What was the rebellious homeschool kid?
Yeah, yeah.
Rebellious Joel would listen to Christian rock music, you know, with drums and electric guitar.
And, you know, we didn't have, you know, homeschool.
You don't have sex education in homeschool because that's, you know, your mom teaching sex, that would be a little awkward.
That would be fun.
So, you know, all my sex education came from Dr. Drew and Adam Loveline late at night without my parents' knowledge.
And if they're watching this now, then I remember feeling that was such a dumb show.
And then I remember listening to it one night and I was like, this is awesome.
It's horrible.
It's so, it's so, it's so, it's such a perverse show.
And that's how I learned about the birds and the bees.
Oh, interesting.
What was, so, and then that leads to the next thing, too.
Like, what was like, when did Christianity really like, was it, because you said fundamentals growing up.
Yeah.
And I obviously you probably came into more of it on your own.
When was that moment where it kind of like, did it come later in life?
It did.
It did for me.
Yeah.
I think, you know, you, when you grow up in that bubble, you kind of come of age and you start questioning, is any of this real?
Right.
Am I, do I believe this just because I've been conditioned this way since birth and I'm kind of brainwashed, you know?
And so I started to question a lot of that stuff.
I went to a Christian college after high school, didn't do very well.
I came within my freshman year, I came within like two or three demerits of being kicked out.
And I thought, you know, I just, this isn't going well.
So I kind of came back home to reevaluate.
I ended up joining the military.
So this is where I always tell people I found God, or God found me, rather, depending on what you're doing.
Could be both.
Yeah, exactly.
I joined the Marine Infantry and I was deployed overseas to Iraq.
Right.
What led to the infantry?
Because to me, like around here at least, it's like I know one guy who did it and everybody else was like, they were all trying to stay away from infantry.
Oh, it's a nightmare.
My friend who joined the Air Force, he said he listened to it and he was just like, that was just, I can't imagine being a part of that.
Yeah.
You know, and like, that's an intense thing to go into.
Well, yeah, I'll tell you, it was a very conscious decision because I did have the distinct sense that I knew I was a sheltered kid and I felt untested.
Like I felt like I really didn't know what I had in me and what I was capable of.
And I've always kind of been more of a softer guy.
I like poetry and music.
Yeah, I get that sense from you a lot.
And when I tell people I was in the Marines, they're always like, what?
Like, you don't strike me as the type, you know?
And so I felt that need to develop that side of myself.
Yeah.
Like, you know, get a little harder or tougher, I guess.
And so I joined.
Yeah, my grades were good.
And my ASVAP scores, that's like the score to do again.
Really, I could have done anything.
You know, they were suggesting all these technical jobs for me.
And I wanted infantry.
And so I did that.
We were deployed overseas.
I was in Fallujah from 06 to 07.
Were your parents like, like, were they supportive of that decision or were they pretty?
Well, they weren't in the beginning.
They were kind of terrified because I joined without asking or telling them.
Yeah.
Which I mean, you were like of age.
I was 19 years old.
I was still living at home.
And I just came home one day and told them that I joined the Marines and I ship off to boot camp in a few months.
And they kind of freaked out.
Understandably so, initially.
And my dad pulled all this stuff online about how the military deceives young men into, you know, tricks them into joining the war.
And like, he's like, have you been like, you know, have you been indoctrinated or something?
And did you have any family that were ever in military?
Yeah, yeah.
My grandfather on my mom's side was in the Army Air Corps.
He flew planes.
And actually, he met his wife, who was an Army nurse, on the plane that got in really close.
So there was a little bit of that in my family.
And so, yeah, so I over time, though, my parents warmed up to it.
And I think once they got the sense that I wasn't losing my faith, that I knew I was okay, they came around.
So while I was overseas, that's when I always tell everyone it became real for me.
And the reason why I say that is, you know, after a lifetime of going to church three times a week, doing all the stuff, learning all the things, knowing all the words, I spent a year overseas in like this barren wasteland.
Didn't go to church once all year because we patrolled every Sunday.
No way.
There was no church, no fellowship with any other Christians.
All I had was a little pocket Bible I kept in my flak jacket, and I would pull it out and read it every once in a while.
And God, He revealed Himself to me over there in that godless place.
Like through the Bible or just through seeing the hardship?
Everything.
Yeah, through the scriptures, just reading the scriptures.
We would rotate in and out.
We'd have a few weeks of patrol and then we'd get rotated into this guard post duty.
So we were in a forward operating base that was surrounded by walls and towers.
And you'd be a little safer.
You'd be in a watchtower for like 12, 14 hour shifts, just up there with nothing but my Bible.
And so I would read the Bible and pray.
And it's hard to describe.
The sense of the Holy Spirit revealing the truth through his scriptures without it being filtered through a pastor or a commentator.
Not that those are bad things.
But you're really like on your own just reading by yourself for hours and hours.
Exactly.
And the sense of peace and protection that I had over there in the midst of all the chaos and insanity, I slowly realized like this is real.
God is real.
Like he is here with me.
He came over here with me.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so, yeah, I came back from Iraq kind of renewed in two ways.
One, in the faith sense.
I knew what I believed.
I knew what I wanted to live for.
And then it was a little bit of a political awakening for me, too, because I suddenly realized how fragile and special what we have in America is, and how we take it for granted that our kids can go to school and they're not walking down the street where there are just bullets going off everywhere and explosions.
And it was amazing to see how in the midst of the war zone in Fallujah, there were still families trying to live normal lives.
It was interesting.
Yeah, I always thought that was interesting learning about that too, where it's like we think of them as like everything's just chaos, but more people just trying to live normally.
I mean, they want to eat good food and they want to watch fun things on TV.
They just want to have normal lives and they never get that.
And it made me really coming home made me want to understand what created this thing that we have and make me want to protect it.
Was politics ever like a thing you ever thought about doing before that?
Or was it really the military was what kind of really brought you really into it?
Yeah, I was never into politics, never interested in it.
And, you know, I'm still not like, I still kind of hate politics.
I think it's more of the worldview angle.
You know, I think our generation has really lost a cohesive worldview that gives people lives of meaning and purpose and justifies this whole thing that we've created.
Yeah, like I remember Ethan described it funny on the, I think it was on the live stream where he was just like, I don't know if I'd say a conservative, but I pretty much agree with everything they do.
Right.
It's like there's like a weird thing where it's like, you don't want to say you're a part of it, but also I probably agree with everything they say and do.
Well, since coming, I mean, since joining the B, the B has probably pulled me more a little bit to the libertarian side than I used to be.
Oh, interesting.
I kind of missed the whole Ron Paul revolution thing because I think that happened while I was overseas, while I was in infantry school and doing all the military stuff.
So it kind of passed by me a little bit.
But I'm definitely more libertarian.
Oh, interesting.
Okay.
I mean, almost to the point of just like, you know, Michael Malice blow it all up.
Like, I'm just so sick of it.
It's just such a mess.
I know it's probably not feasible, but it would be kind of nice.
Yeah, yeah.
So going back to the military, so you, how long were you in there for?
Eight years.
Eight years.
Okay.
And actually, because I think you had said before, it was like it was six years active and two years.
Yeah, yeah.
Reserve, right?
Yeah.
So I came back and did reserve, went to college, you know, met my wife.
So you went back to college even?
Yes.
What was that kind of thought process?
Like, were you what was your aim after the military to do?
I didn't know.
I just like find, you know, get an education so I can get a job, I guess.
I really had no idea.
What would you end up studying?
Aviation.
Oh, yeah, that's right.
That's right.
Which, you know, has come in so much handier, right?
Yeah.
Using it so much now.
Yeah, I got my pilot's license and got an aviation degree.
That led me to, and I met my wife.
My wife and I met the very first class on the very first day of my first year of going back to school.
Were you like thinking like, I got to find my wife at this place?
I was a little older.
I was like three years older than most of the.
I was a 21-year-old freshman.
Yeah, so it feels a little odd sometimes.
It felt weird.
It felt weird.
And my wife still gets me grief about it.
She's like, I was such a baby.
What were you thinking?
But yeah, so we met my freshman year and dated all through college and got married shortly after I graduated.
And kind of just by default, I ended up not flying planes.
Congress passed a law my senior year or junior year that tripled the minimum number of hours you needed to fly an air transition.
Did that build on the libertarian kind of stuff as well?
Yeah.
So it's like, you know, I can either get a job now in something else or I can stay here and fly as a flight instructor for minimum wage for like five years.
And you were just about to get married.
Yeah, it's like, I can't do that, you know, as I'm getting married.
So I ended up going into supply chain logistics and from there into sales.
So I did corporate supply chain sales.
So what was that like?
Because I've worked a lot of other jobs too.
Was it just like nothing close to what you wanted?
Yeah, just like soul crushing.
And there are people who really thrive in that environment and it's great, great for them.
I was so miserable.
And I always did have this sense that I was missing out, that I wasn't doing what I was supposed to be doing, that there was something else out there.
And, you know, I think maybe 10 years in, I really started to get intentional about figuring out what that was.
Was writing a part of that life too?
Like, were you always writing or was writing kind of starting to come up more as you were doing like the day in, day out kind of as a corporate job?
Yeah, I was always a pretty strong writer.
And I probably credit my homeschooling with that.
What built it from homeschooling?
But yeah, my mom was very adamant about writing and good grammar.
And I just remember afternoons of just like tears where I'm like diagramming the sentences.
Mom, I can't do it.
And she would just like, no, you got to do it.
And so I'm thankful for that.
It turned me into a proficient writer.
But I never thought of myself as a writer or thought of that as something that I could do or that you could do.
Like did you know anyone who was any kind of writer?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like, I mean, I lived in Ohio.
I mean, I'm sure out here in LA and in Hollywood, everyone's a writer, you know, but in Ohio, it's like it's something practical.
You go work for a factory, you go work, you know, in sales.
And so I always liked it.
I always knew I had a creative bent to me.
And it did feel so stifled in the corporate world.
I was very consistently butting heads with bosses because I was always coming up with all these out-of-the-box ideas and it would drive everyone crazy.
Right.
I had similar experience too where you're trying to be creative and they're like, no, no, like you're just in this box.
Just sit there.
And press the button.
And so, yeah, so I started to search it out more intently.
And then at one point, I got a brand new job for a manufacturer in my town.
I worked there for about a year and miserable as always, butting heads with my boss as always.
Is it any different type of job or is it just the same?
It was a step up.
It was like I was managing a global supply chain.
So you were like on the rise.
Right.
I was like, I was kind of stepping up the ladder, you know.
And my boss, a year in, and she was a Christian.
And to this day, I'm so thankful for her and her honesty with me.
She pulled me aside and said, you're miserable.
And you're making me miserable with your misery.
And I think that God has something else for you.
And I think you need to find it.
And that was her nice way of firing me.
Really?
Yeah, she said, I mean, they gave me plenty of time to figure out what to do and all that stuff.
But she's like, I think you need to figure something else out because this isn't good.
And you stayed in touch with her?
Or like, do you see that as it was a good thing?
Well, you know, I probably still, I don't know if she's watching this or not, but I do feel like I do need to go back at some point and like reconnect with her sometime and just thank her for everything.
But From there, I ended up applying for an even bigger job, like a huge, huge step up in Cincinnati at this, like a privately owned $2 billion company.
It was this huge salary raise, and they wanted me to start this new product for them.
And I accepted the job and was going to go down there.
And like two weeks out, I was just like up at night, like counting down the days.
Like, I'm going to have to go down and do this job.
And it just, I just was miserable.
Like one of those things where you're like sitting in the parking lot, angry that you have to go in.
Yeah.
It's horrible.
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And so my wife, she said, you know what?
Don't take this job.
Just drop out of everything.
She said, I'll take extra shifts at the hospital.
She's a nurse.
And she said, figure this out.
Take a year.
Give yourself like a time limit.
Wow.
And just take a year to find yourself.
Because you pretty much had just been going since high school, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I hadn't, like, it's like you got a family or anything.
Never took a moment to pause, you know.
And so that's what I did.
I started a blog.
I started a podcast.
What was the blog?
The blog was called The Petty Prophet.
Okay.
And I think I may have borrowed alliteration from the Babylon B a little bit.
Oh, really?
Okay.
At that point, I was already a huge B fan, you know.
And so the Petty Prophet had, I would write a couple of serious op-ed essay pieces a week.
I would write some satire.
Was it all about politics?
No, politics, culture, worldview, Christianity.
Just kind of whatever you're feeling.
I wrote some satire, you know, B-style satire pieces.
I had the podcast.
You started a podcast too at that point?
Yep, I started a podcast and it did really well.
I really enjoyed it.
Well, was that the same sort of thing, like interviews or what?
Once a week, I would do kind of an essay that would have a lot of production value to it.
So I'd have like, you know, music and sounds and interviews.
Were you the one doing all this?
Yep.
So I was doing everything.
And as you know, editing is just a nightmare, you know, so it's a lot.
So I'd do one of those a week.
And then the second episode each week would be a group discussion between me and my two brothers.
Oh, cool.
So Aaron and Samuel, I don't know if I'm supposed to mention their names here, but I love them.
And we had this great chemistry, the three of us.
And we would just talk like the news of the day, culture.
Okay.
You know, politics and things like that.
Were you the ones planning how the discussion would go or is it just very like freeform?
No, we'd always kind of have an agenda each week and we try to be structured with it.
And it did pretty well.
I mean, for an upstart podcast, it did pretty well.
You don't do that?
Do you do that still?
Or is that?
I want to get back to it.
It has fans that are always asking, like, people on Not the Bee are always asking, like, when is the Petty Profit coming back?
Oh, man.
So, so, yeah, if you're watching, I know I'm going to get to it.
I promise.
I really do want to revive it at some point, maybe.
So, I did that.
I wrote some pieces for Discern.
I wrote for some local newspapers, the Cleveland Sun.
Oh, so you were just all in on the writing?
Yeah, I was writing op-eds and I was sending them the newspapers and different blogs.
I wrote for Christian Post and lots of things.
So, I was just kind of, but I found that I was really enjoying it.
And so, you, at that point, when you got that year, your first thought was writer.
That was the first thing you thought of.
Yeah, it's something creative.
Something creative.
I tried blacksmithing for a while.
Oh, you mean like where?
Yeah, on a big anvil.
Like, I knew I just wanted to make something, whether it was writing or working with my hands.
I went to a technical college and I looked at some skilled trades, like, you know, just working with the hands.
So, all that to say, yeah, so I started writing for the Bee in my part-time.
I joined as a subscriber.
The Bee was on your radar, or when did it?
I loved it from day one.
I mean, and I think a lot of people can relate to that.
It's just, it's for the first time, I think millions of people were reading this, and it's like, wow, these are people who get me.
They have the same background as I do, and they're really funny.
It was just such an amazing experience to share those first Babylon Bee articles.
It was just so fun.
And that's, you know, it's a shame.
That was part of the fun of the Bee that has kind of been squashed by social media, sadly, that a lot of the fun was in the sharing of it and the comment sections underneath.
Or of your own.
Yeah, and so a lot of that has been squashed by Facebook, sadly.
So yeah, I joined as a subscriber when they first started the forum.
Just your first paid subscriber, be a part of the forum.
Yep.
And so I was submitting four headlines a day.
The very first headline that I got published was the reversible bumper sticker that you saw.
Oh, yeah.
So the headline was something to the effect of a new bumper sticker released that says coexist on one side and resist on the other side.
Depending on who the president is.
So that got published, and I was so, so, so excited that I went ahead and I found a supplier in Australia that made double-sided magnets that were thin enough to actually stick.
And I had those made up at Kinkos and I sent them to Kyle to just kind of thank him for publishing my headline.
Oh, wow.
So you were like the first, like, not the first, but you were a super fan just sent him right now.
Heck yeah, man.
Yeah.
So that progressed from there.
I got a few more published and eventually joined the writer's group and would pitch my spare time and it just grew from there.
What was your feeling?
Was it early on that you kind of figured out a formula for a headline?
Or like, is it case by case?
Like, what was your kind of like process for writing those headlines?
What would Kyle say?
Really?
Yeah, it was, it was like, what would, you know, it was really just trying to duplicate what Kyle was doing.
You know, a lot of the B, I don't know if a lot of people realize those first few years, I mean, Adam Ford did a lot of writing for sight.
But then he moved on to doing Discern and Not the Bee.
And really, 90% of the B from day one has been Kyle's sense of humor and Kyle's brain.
And he, over those years, really developed what was a very distinct voice for the B. Did you have trouble trying to figure out what that voice was?
Or do you enjoy kind of learning what Kyle's voice is?
Yeah, I feel like I got it.
Kyle and I kind of po fun at each other a lot that I'm kind of another version of him a little bit.
It feels like I'm the Kmart brand version of Kyle Mann.
I'm what happens when you order Kyle Mann on Wish.com.
Because it feels similar to like the Cohen brothers I hear.
It's like I almost feel like you guys are like this kind of two-sided monster sort of thing.
Like we both have the similar view.
We do have these funny moments when sometimes we'll have the same thoughts for exactly how to punch up a certain headline.
We kind of have the same sensibilities and what does well and what doesn't.
That's something that you develop over time.
The sense for what's going to do well goes beyond just knowing what's funny.
Yeah, I hear Kyle a lot of times just talking where he's just like, someone will have a funny thing.
They'll be like, that's funny, but that'll be like five shares or something.
Exactly.
It's sad to kind of have to balance those.
As a comedy writer, you'd love to just go for what do you think is the most funny thing of all time.
But you also have to remember that you're serving an audience and you have to keep in mind how it's going to be received and how much it's going to be shared.
And so there are a lot of things to take into consideration with it.
Yeah.
So what was the journey, though, from part-time or even forum writer to then managing editor?
Like speaking of the managing editor before, I don't think there was.
No, no, it was really, I just took the approach that I wanted to help out as much as possible anytime I could, you know, and do it for free, you know.
Right.
You know, just, and I think at some point, Kyle and Seth were just kind of like, well, he's doing all this stuff.
Maybe we should give him some money for it.
And that's, okay, maybe we should give him a title too.
So it's, you know, I'm really a charity case.
I pulled me in off the street.
I just started volunteering all this work.
They felt bad.
So they were like, okay, all right, we'll keep them around.
We'll give him some money.
All right.
Did you feel like, did you have any comedy influences growing up too that kind of shaped a little bit of comedy writing?
Or like, did you even have that thought?
Or was it all just like kind of being swept up in it?
That's interesting because, you know, as a homeschooled kid, you know, I didn't grow up with the, you know, you know, watching, you know, the great late night comedy.
Yeah, like Seinfeld or something.
Or yeah, or the sitcoms or the brilliant satire of The Simpsons.
You know, that was like, you know, Simpsons.
Uh-uh.
Christians don't watch The Simpsons.
And so a lot of my comedy influences, you know, we would watch old-timey cartoons, Looney Tunes, Warner Brothers, the Three Stooges.
I mean, to me, like my favorite comedy is just silliness.
Just anarchy, silliness, you know, Mel Brooks movies.
You know, people falling down, people get pies in the face.
Yeah.
I feel like people look, like I heard our like writer Ehrlich Weetz thing kind of talk about that where he's all about silly.
And I feel like that is a lot more of Kyle's thing too, because I think sometimes it can be seen as like very, I don't know, like serious or church, but there's a very big silly aspect to it.
Absolutely.
Yeah, I think you kind of have to be willing as a comedian, you have to be willing to be the idiot and not take yourself too seriously.
A lot of our what people get confused a lot about with our with our comedy is that it's not strictly comedy.
I mean, it's technically, it's satire.
And sometimes satire is funny, and sometimes it's more so making a point.
Right.
Kind of like I've heard Kyle talk about like abortion, where it's like making a satire piece on abortion is not really that laugh out loud funny, but it's kind of like that cutting deep.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Exactly.
So we try to have a good balance of that.
It can't be all Looney Tunes.
It can't be all super serious and grave.
But I think we always kind of have that underlying silliness to us, you know, which hopefully translates in the way we write and gives a sense that we're having fun.
You know, we're joyful people.
We're not just dour, like scolding the culture all the time.
Yeah, I think there's not this kind of this underlying like serious Christian, which I think is what a lot of people thought of, especially like in the 90s, I feel.
It was like, you know, where it's almost like flipped on its head, you know?
Like, I had this weird moment where we were doing a sketch and we were talking to these people who were very about Christians there.
And they're just like, oh, man, the left just can't take any jokes.
And I was like, because I grew up with like Simpsons and South Park and Thanes where it's like it was the complete opposite.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
It's like, it's very odd watching the transition, like everything's kind of flipping on its head, you know?
It really, really is.
And it's fun.
You know, it actually, that part has helped me quite a bit because having grown up in a very strict fundamentalist Christian world that couldn't take a joke, I feel like I know the left like the back of my hand.
Right.
You know, like, I mean, the people who are sold out to this ideology and take it so seriously, it's like, guys, I know exactly.
I've been there.
Okay.
You know, not the same ideology, but I've been there.
But it's like the same thing, just different, it's like just different clothes almost.
Exactly right.
And that's what makes it so fun to make fun of because I, in a sense, I'm making fun of like my world, my background, even though it's a different ideology.
I've been trained to do it.
It's like Bane, you know, I was born in the darkness, raised in it.
You know, I know these guys.
So what do you see too, like future-wise, too?
Like, do you have other writing aspirations from this?
Or were you always kind of like just satire?
Well, I'm having a lot of fun now.
You know, I could probably do this forever and be completely happy.
My aspirations, I think, are just the same as the B's aspirations are, that I think that there's more out there to do, more that we can create, whether that be, you know, TV, movies.
You know, we're doing books now.
Right.
So I saw you and Kyle had been working on like a manuscript recently for like another book, right?
Besides this woke book.
Yeah, so right after we finished the woke book, we finished up a novel that we're working on, which was really fun.
It was a nice change of pace for us.
And what it is, it's called the Post-Spondered Pilgrim's Progress.
And our pitch to the publisher was that it was Pilgrim's Progress meets Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Oh, man.
So it's a little bit of satire, some sci-fi, a lot of silliness.
But it has this really cool arc, you know, hero's journey arc to it that really, I think, hopefully communicates some profound truths about the Christian life, especially in what it's like being a Christian in modern America.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so we love making it.
I think it's planned to be released in the spring.
Yeah, I know books kind of take, I mean, besides the woke book, most books take a little while from turning into publishing, right?
Yeah, so we're still working on, you know, we're working on illustrations and some, you know, we're going to have a little fantasy map that so it's going to be cool.
And that was really fun.
I would love to do more of that stuff.
Yeah, because I think we had talked the other night too how like sci-fi was kind of like your genre.
Did you grow up like Star Trek, Star Wars?
Star Wars, man.
Okay, so Star Wars.
My introduction to Star Wars was in the theater when they re-released it in theater.
I had never seen Star Wars before.
And I remember we were at Pizza Hut.
And do you remember Book It?
Did you do Book It when you were little?
You might be a little young for Book It.
Yeah, I mean, I don't know.
Okay, does anybody remember Book It?
I'm the old man.
Okay, so maybe this is just an Ohio thing too.
I don't know.
Back when I was a young, young lad, school programs had these things called Book It, where if you read so many books, you would get this little card punched and you could exchange it for a personal pan pizza at Pizza Hut.
And Pizza Hut was really cool back then because you had like Pac-Man and Street Fighter machines and a jukebox and it was like a place to hang out.
And so we would, you know, we would all go when our book it program was over and we would get our pizza.
And I remember they were doing the Star Wars promotion and all the Star Wars pictures were on the cups that we were drinking out of.
And I said, I want to go see Star Wars, mom.
Let's go see Star Wars.
And my dad, you know, my mom and dad, who were very strict.
We typically didn't see movies.
Okay.
All right.
I guess you can go see Star Wars, you know.
So that was my first experience of Star Wars was in the theaters.
Yeah.
So that like jealous of that experience.
That was like, I mean, Revelato is like, oh my gosh.
Blue mind, yeah.
Yeah, I feel like I can relate to the kids in 1977 who said it changed their life.
Yeah, because that was like 20 years later, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So yeah, I've always loved sci-fi and I like how it can be, it can be fun, but it can also be social commentary.
There's a lot of satire to it in a way because it's futuristic.
So you kind of like say what, you kind of decide where your future will go.
It is.
It is, you know, our art, the satire that we write for the B is futuristic, but we're only looking at like two weeks in the future.
You know, whereas a lot of sci-fi is the exact same thing, 10,000 years in the future.
Yeah, it's like Black Mirror, I heard, is like very similar, like 15 minutes into the future.
Black Mirror is great.
It's highly disturbing.
What do you think of satire that isn't exactly comedy, too?
Is there any I love it.
Black Mirror is a great example.
It is biting satire with extremely black, dark humor.
And it's really good.
I love that stuff.
Yeah.
I like really dour, dark, depressing things.
Yeah, no, I've been into that too.
I think there's kind of a sense.
I think we talked a little bit about this too.
I'm kind of trying to get into Andrew Clavin for that reason.
Because it's like trying to find media that doesn't just have this overarching message.
Yeah.
And kind of things that are darker, because I feel like there's a lot more points and a lot more good human questions that can come out of it.
There are, I mean, this is where Christians really screw up in making media and movies and works of art, I think, is that we really fail to acknowledge the horrific things that happen in this world.
Existence can be dark.
And a lot of times there's not an answer to it that is ever revealed to us.
And horrible things happen.
And it's not always a good ending.
Yeah, that's why I always love the book of Job.
It's always been my favorite book of the Bible because it's just, it's so like, there's like a reply, but not necessarily an answer.
Well, and that's why shows like Game of Thrones were so resonant because they were so honest about how the world is.
And if George R. Martin hadn't been so dedicated to his atheistic nihilism, it could have been a beautiful story if he had introduced some kind of hope or redemption in it.
But the part where he's just portraying the world, this harsh world, it was so resonant to people because it was honest.
And Christians could stand to be a lot more honest in the stuff that they write and make.
I feel like that's what also attracted me to the B too in a way because there is a lot of honesty and a lot of the headlines too.
And it doesn't really shy away from like, you know, Joel Alstein or even like, you know, things like where it's like, like, it's similar to what I've heard Caltech, but like anywhere.
Even if it made fun of Christians or like Catholics, for me, it's like it's very honest and the portrayal of it, too.
I absolutely enjoy it.
You have to.
I mean, that's the only way comedy can work.
You have to just be honest.
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I know because I was just there.
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What would be like advice too you'd give to like writers in general too?
Like, is that like why Andrew Clavin was so like why he's one of your favorite influencers on that?