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June 1, 2022 - Babylon Bee
30:34
God and Ayahuasca With Neal Brennan | A Bee Interview

Comedian Neal Brennan, who co-created and co-wrote Chappelle's Show, joined The Babylon Bee to talk about doing comedy, believing in God after doing ayahuasca, and how cancel culture is totally fake-so stop crying about it. You can check out Neal Brennan on his show Neal Brennan: Unacceptable or his Netflix special 3 Mics or simply go to Neal Brennan's website for upcoming shows.

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Hey guys, we have a great guest on the podcast today, and I have a great co-host, Emma, is here.
Hello.
Today we're talking to Neil Brennan.
He's a comedian.
He was the co-creator of Chappelle's show.
He has a fantastic Netflix special called Three Mics, which you may have seen.
He has another Netflix special that'll be coming out soon.
And he's on tour right now with his one-man show.
It's called Neil Brennan Unacceptable.
You can check out tickets for it on his website, NeilBrennan.com.
And we had a great conversation with him about drugs.
Comedy that are magic.
Comedy getting canceled, cancel culture.
Drugs.
More drugs.
Whether he believes in God because of drugs.
Yes.
Medicine.
Medicine.
Yeah.
And yeah, here it is.
So thanks for being here.
Are you a fan of the Babylon B?
Are you like familiar with what we do here?
Of course.
I very much am.
Cool.
Because we get some people that are like afraid to come on because we're kind of more right-leaning sometimes.
We have like our sort of our conservative Christian audience.
And then we also try to do kind of general, you know, news satire and stuff that kind of lots of people will pick up on.
But I'm never sure like how familiar people are with what we do.
I'm not mad at, I'm not like, I like when people on the West LA like don't want to say they're Christian or Republican.
So they just go like, I'm libertarian and spiritual.
And you're like, you can say, like, I grew up in Philadelphia.
Like, I know, I know living, my mother is a living Christian lady who goes to church and is probably Republican.
And like, you just don't talk about it.
My dad was a tax attorney.
Uh-huh.
I'm assuming he was, you know, pretty Republican.
Yeah.
He wasn't fighting to pay more taxes.
I'll say that.
That's a funny thing now because a lot of people are afraid to say which side they're on in certain contexts.
So you try to figure it out by like what they do and the kind of other things they're saying.
You're like, oh, I bet.
Yeah, it's like, well, you're a hunter.
I bet you.
Exactly.
So yeah.
So you're a writer, director, comedian, a podcast host.
You now have a one-man show that you're doing and you're taking on tour, right?
Yes.
I'm going some places.
It'll all be on sale probably by the time this airs.
Oh, now NeilBrennan.com.
Sounds good.
But I'm going to like, you know, decent cities.
Yeah.
Cities that I was interested in going to.
All the ones you like and you crossed the bad one.
Basically.
Yeah.
I was like, no, they don't want me there.
Charlotte, I'm good.
They don't need me in Charlotte.
Me and Charlotte never really hit it off, you know?
Did you ever give Charlotte a chance?
I did.
And it was a one-third full.
Oh, man.
So thank you, Charlotte.
Who do you lesson learned?
As a comic, who do you blame when the audience is one-third full?
Do you blame yourself?
Do you been the promoter?
Yeah, I blame myself.
I don't, I'm not.
It's like blaming the crowd.
It's like, well, you're never going to get better blaming the crowd.
Yeah.
So my thing with like a place like Charlotte is like, how would they know who I am?
Uh-huh.
They're not like that big into like checking the credits or, you know, I mean, now I'm on Netflix, so it's like different.
I haven't been actually, I have been back since Netflix.
I think even my special, the three mics special did better in cities.
Oh, like anyone that wants to see an adult man be a little emotional, which is not that many cities.
Charlotte doesn't like the adult.
Charlotte, you didn't make a list and I don't think you care.
No, that's interesting.
Since Three Mics came out, you know, and you're working on, is your new special based on the one-man show?
The one that you're going to be taping?
It's based, I mean, it's a one-man show.
It's a little emo.
Uh-huh.
I call it stand-up traumed.
Yeah, it's like a little emo, but it's not like, you know, eviscerating like three mics, where like even I cried when I watched three mics.
But, but this one's just like more about, it's more just about the, about isolation.
It's just all the ways that I don't quite match.
I don't really fit into any.
I don't, I'm like, I'm, I'm in my 40s, not married, no kids, never been married, don't have kids, don't drink, don't smoke weed, don't eat meat.
Career-wise, am I a writer or a comedian?
Why am I hanging out with more black people than white people?
Like, there's just all these ways that generationally, like the only guy who's like my age peer is Dave Chappelle.
And it's like, well, we have pretty different lives.
You don't think you guys just have the same experience everywhere you go?
Yeah, exactly.
So we have pretty different lives.
So it's just a lot of ways in which like I don't have like, I don't have that many peers.
And I don't mean that as like, cause no one's good to me.
It's just like, no one is all those things I just listed.
Yeah.
And I'm like, there's a bad, I have like a whole section about being liberal, but like not good, not a good liberal.
Like I got sections.
So do you think that doing that show over and over again, like helps you come to terms with that?
Or does it make it more like emotionally draining?
I don't mind.
You know what's interesting about like doing emo shows is I've never, I almost never think about my dad.
And that's, he's like the linchpin of three mics.
And I never like, I'm not preoccupied.
I don't, it used to be like a, a open wound and now it's like a barely visible scar.
And with this, the isolation thing or the unacceptability thing, I don't know.
I mean, I feel like I've gotten better with it somehow and whether it's age, it's like so many, we all do so many things.
It's hard to say like, that's what did it.
You know what I mean?
Like age, ayahuasca considerate, like just doing the show.
I don't know.
Just we, you know, people change.
Yeah.
I'm really excited to see it because I relate to a lot of that stuff.
I'll be 40 next year.
The only difference is I eat a lot of meat and drink a lot of alcohol.
That's fine.
That's how I heal my wounds.
That's fine.
They're both carcinogens.
That's all I'm going to say.
I think it's ironic that you don't smoke weed, but you'll try ayahuasca.
That's like smoking ayahuasca.
Ayahuasca not habit forming because it's not consistent.
So you can't really do ayahuasca very often.
How often can you do it?
Like monthly.
I mean, it's like not, I mean, some people do it once a year.
You know what I mean?
At like when I went through a phase during COVID where I was doing it probably once every six weeks, once every eight weeks.
Now, did they say, does ayahuasca fight the COVID?
Is it dude?
I can't even get into all that.
Now I want to get into it.
The levels of silliness where people ascribe like, I mean, ayahuasca is magic.
And I say that with a straight face.
The science has determined its magic.
I mean, I was an atheist before, and now I believe in God.
That's right up there.
That's so good then.
Yeah, exactly.
Now you like it, don't you?
Now the Babylon B is officially pro-Ayahuasca.
Except for the magic part.
Yeah, no, I did that to my mom.
She was, I told her something nice, and I told her why it was like, I, it was a thought I had when I was drinking ayahuasca, and she was like, and three days later, she texted me, like, do you think the whole family could do it?
So it helped her.
So she's like, this is a good, I like this, this drink.
It's like a tea.
It's like, just like you sip it.
And so, yeah.
I like that.
Like, that's the, that's the only, that's the only, I, I, technically, it's a drug, but I'm so deep into it.
I call it a medicine.
Who wants to punch me in the face first?
Is it considered a psychedelic?
Is that like the catalog?
I think the word is entheogen.
I see.
Because I've never tried anything, but I've always said the only drugs that ever interests me were like mushrooms.
Like if I was going to try something, the sort of psychedelic experience that like fascinates me, I would say, about using any sort of drug.
That's the only thing that's worth that can help you.
I mean, like people are curing their depression with mushrooms.
Yeah, they're doing a lot of research on like psychosocians.
And it's like way more effective than any pharmaceutical.
So I think it's like, it's all, you know, if you watch that movie Fantastic Fungy, it's all, it's all something, you know?
I think they, they say that having a psychedelic experience will cure your depression for three months or six months.
So my whole family allegedly did mushrooms together to try to see if it would work.
But they didn't do enough to have like a whole psychedelic experience.
I was there as a moderator to like chaperone to chaperone.
That's like, that was almost a really, you were almost really cool.
And then it turned out.
I didn't do it.
You were, you were, it turns out, well, I was a pro, I was a proctor at the orgy.
Oh, filming.
Yeah, I filmed.
I was a timekeeper.
Well, it's not as sexy as I thought.
Yeah, I get drug tested, so I can't try a lot of you really?
Yeah, I do.
Yeah, she's in the army.
I'm in the Army Reserve.
Oh, got it.
Yeah.
Oh, great.
Thank you for doing that.
Oh, thank you.
I have a joke that's too mean where I'd say when they were talking about heroes during COVID, all the heroes.
Hero is what we call you in America when your job sucks and you make less than 35 grand a year.
Then you're a hero.
But like, we're going to pay you in compliments.
Now you're seeing why it's too mean.
That's not too mean.
Okay.
Like that sums up the Army Reserve and everything.
You probably can relate to that.
Yeah, I don't make 35,000.
Not even.
Yeah.
I make like six.
Got it.
All right.
And we pay her even less here.
Yeah, I make we pair less and don't even call her a hero.
I get free coffee.
Yeah.
You should call it a hero.
Yes.
Emma, you made the coffee today.
You're a hero.
Yeah, you're our heroes.
Give it up for the heroes.
I want to open every, I open every show with that.
That's a great pandering way to get the applause when you're going to.
Give it up for the troops.
Yeah, no, but heroes, troops, you at least know it's troops, but heroes fucking could be anybody.
That's true.
You could be an evil person in thinking that it's the you know, just the worst people in the audience are your heroes.
You don't know or it could be the it could be the Russian troops, so yeah, I mean, all the troops everywhere, yeah, all any troop now.
So, where you're at in your career right now, are you experiencing like do you get do you get recognized a lot?
Is your profile rising, or do you still can you kind of still write and do stand-up and maintain somebody?
I don't really want to work for people, so uh you know, I'll like I'll directed Seth Meyer's special and gave him it's like people that I'm actually friends with, uh, but I'll work on like Chris Rock special or Seth, it's people that I'm friends with.
I direct commercials, and that's like pretty lucrative, so I just do that, and then was it always your dream to direct a chase freedom commercial when you got in Freedom Unlimited, you mean?
Yes, um, uh, guys, before we go any further, make more of what's yours, of course.
It goes without saying, give it up for making more of what's yours.
Um, uh, that's no, but that's as I know what you're getting at, it's it's fun to see Kevin, yeah.
It's like I haven't I like know the guy for almost 20 years, I'm not gonna spend that much time with him unless I do a movie with him, yeah, or a commercial.
And it's like we both get paid well, he gets paid a little better than me, and uh, and it's fun to hang out.
And I did, I just did one with Snoop and Samberg for Corona, and I like had to go get the beat for Corona.
And like, I do ones that are uh like genuine comedy sometimes, some are just charmity, uh-huh.
Some I say this is gonna fit right in between uh, right in the pocket between cute and good job, uh-huh.
Uh, but they're they're fun.
I enjoyed the uh, the Kevin Hart and uh, the Chase commercial unit.
I wasn't trying to get at anything negative there, I was just no, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, it's interesting the way, yeah, to be able to do that also.
Because what where I was going when I was asking about you know, if you're if you're getting recognized more, if you still have your anonymity, what I've always liked about your career is when I got into comedy, the guys who I thought like had like ideal careers were like a Robert Smeigel, where it's like your name means something, and he's worked on all these projects, but he's not like a celebrity where he's like walking down the street and everybody recognizes him.
It's like it's like your name and your creative work, and you make people laugh, but um, you know, it's like you can still maintain some semblance of a normal life, I feel like it's it's one of those things that sounds good in theory, it sounds some sort of level of purity, yeah.
But I, I'm, I'm, I always say I'm like somewhere between famous and I call my, I'm like, I'm not unknown, yeah, um, so a girl I dated recently said dating me was like having a cute dog in that, like everywhere we went, someone would come up and want to interact with her cute dog.
Uh, so like, I don't know, like, I, I, it's one of these things where like some places I can sell a lot of New York, I sold 12,000 tickets, you know, some places I can sell a lot of tickets, some that's what it comes down to.
It's like, put I would like more people to come see me do stand-up, yeah, no, and I bet you Smeigel would rather be famous too, more famous.
Um, so these are not what you see as our success, we see as our failures.
That's I feel like comedians go through that a lot.
Uh, that's what one person's success is another one's failure, yeah.
Well, it's just a, it's a, you know, I know a lot of uh I know people that are actually famous.
Yeah.
So it's a little, it depends on who I'm with, but sometimes it's like, it's like not even, you know, they don't see me at all.
I, you know, it just varies.
And also it doesn't, all I want from it is people to come see the show and or I'm single.
So I want women to want to sue me.
That's it.
That's eventually.
That's where it eventually leads to.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, if it's going, if it goes, Ted Turner one time said that you're not successful in business until the government intervenes.
And that's like kind of similar.
Like, well, if it goes really well.
So, yeah.
I've watched your podcast a few times.
You said a segment.
Do you still do these segment?
What's it called?
Dumb purchases?
Oh, yeah.
I haven't even done the podcast in like eight months because I was in New York doing the show.
Yeah.
They're tough.
It's time consuming.
They're like way more time consuming than you'd believe.
Yeah.
Like, I don't want to say it's like the Army Reserves, but Neil, you're a hero for making a podcast.
No, I'm a hero.
I heard most of what you said that being a podcast host is harder.
I listen to it.
Yeah, dumb purchases.
I'm trying to think of what I've done.
Have you?
Yeah, I was going to ask, have you gotten any goodbyes on that?
I just bought a house in LA or Texas.
So what could be dumber?
Yes.
I did have a funny thing with the house where it was, the house was like 1.8 or something.
And they were like, you know, but there's a few bidders.
So maybe write a letter about how much you love the house.
So I was like, that sounds stupid, but sure.
And so I write a letter, like a very like treakily, corny, you know, maudlin ass.
The person had a sick son.
So I mentioned just, you know, I was manipulative.
Anyhow, long story short, it turns out my writing ability isn't as good as $100,000 more than what I paid.
Like I couldn't overcome $100,000 that the other person outbid me by.
But they'll always have your letter to hang on the refrigerator.
Well, they'll always assign.
You get to keep the letter.
That's yours to keep.
Yeah.
You put a ticket to your, to your one-man show in there.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I mean, they could sell the letter as an NFT.
So is this an NFT, by the way?
I have to ask, am I an NFT?
We could be in an NFT right now and not know it.
I don't understand.
I don't know.
Yeah.
I don't.
Did you take it?
Is there a rapid NFT test I can make?
I think if it sells for way less than what we think it's worth, it makes it an NFT.
Then it's an NFT.
Well, then I've got some good news.
I like the dumb purchase segments you did because during the pandemic, I had a dumb purchase that I made.
I think I was at home drinking one night when everything was kind of shut down.
And I went on Amazon and in one shopping cart order, I bought a squatty potty and a piece of the Hindenburg.
That's what we're doing.
That's pretty great.
That's a pickup basket.
That's a good sojourn.
Yeah.
Also, the Hindenburg all burnt.
There's, it said it was a piece.
It was a tiny, it's a little fragment of metal.
It's an NFT.
With frame with a picture of the burning blimp behind it and a certificate of authenticity.
It could be a piece of any metal thing in the universe.
Yeah, it sure could.
But it's a bit of a Guizenberg.
It is.
It is just a piece of metal from the universe.
It might be a paperclip.
Yeah.
It very well could be.
Yeah.
Yeah, what I just bought a whiteboard at Staples.
I bought a big one, a little one.
And I do, I put my jokes on magnets.
It's pretty cool.
Because I don't want to lift a piece of paper up.
I don't have to explain myself to you guys.
It's good you're getting some use out of it.
That's like a useful thing.
Yeah, it's going to be pretty great.
Another one of your podcast episodes that I like, you mentioned conspiracy theories.
You discussed a little bit on there.
Are there any conspiracy theories that you either believe or are particularly fascinated by?
Well, I loathe conspiracy theories because they're true.
They're because they're so true.
No, because it's like it's a it's a way for it's it's it's a way for an uneducated person to seem they think it's a sign of intelligence when it's the exact opposite.
Yeah.
Did the people tell you to say that?
Yeah, yeah, the QAnon people.
Like I've said on the podcast, I'm sure I don't know how much about it, but it's like, you ever meet a very successful person, they're very stressed out and very busy, and they're not trying to eat a baby or like, they're not trying to implant shit.
Bill Gates already implanted you with some.
Like it's already, it's on your laptop.
Because you got a vaccine.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like, yeah.
So like I just had, and I've been, I've been sort of tangentially involved in conspiracy theories and I find them so dumb.
There was a conspiracy theory there where like where Bill Cosby told Dave to leave the Chappelle show and he appeared to him on a television and just like, this is so insultingly stupid.
And brought him like tabernacles and things.
I mean, he wrote a book about it.
Well, now we're getting into Joseph Smith, but and I didn't want to do that.
I promised them I wouldn't do it.
Your favorite conspiracy theory is Mormonism.
That was the original.
Yeah.
I mean, if the shoe fits, if the gold plates are translated through a sheet.
But yeah, but yeah, religion is a conspiracy theory.
It's just they're believable.
Interesting.
Because I always, I had that same experience where when I was working at Ellen, she was like involved often in theory in the conspiracy theorist.
They would also always target her.
And then I would try to offend her to people I knew that like I have a in all my network of friends, I probably had two friends that were like deep into the QAnon stuff, like 100% believed it.
They would go to these rallies and stuff.
And they would tell me that Ellen was going to get arrested and that she was wearing an ankle monitor and stuff.
I'd text them, I'd be like, I'm in the room with Ellen.
She doesn't have an ankle monitor.
Yeah.
And then I became, I'm covering for her.
I'm part of the media.
I'm part of the, you know, I'm trying to cover it up.
And I would tell them exactly what you just said, where some of these people, they're so busy.
They're so invested.
They're invested in their own thing.
Like you give them too much credit to think that they're orchestrating this global conspiracy theory.
To say nothing of keeping a secret, to say nothing of, like, you know what I mean?
Like, it's silly.
I think you can like do sexual stuff for a while and get away with it.
We'll see.
Right, Dan?
You haven't gotten sued yet.
Yeah.
No, there's certain things you can, you can, like, steal money for a little while.
Like you're eventually that you can't involve.
It's like somebody told me one time, if you want to keep a secret, don't tell anyone.
Don't tell anyone.
Don't tell one person.
Don't tell, don't tell anyone.
So conspiracy theories are so aggravating because to your point, you can't disprove them.
Yes.
It always just becomes a bigger part of the conspiracy.
Yeah.
And it's like, okay.
And then they never go, man, I was wrong.
Yeah.
I'm really sorry that it's like where Bill Gates is implanting chips in people, yet he couldn't keep his affairs out of the New York Post.
You don't test that out with your magnets, like see if it sticks on your arm or.
And look, if you guys want to just stay away from my ayahuasca, hands off my ayahuasca.
Yeah, like the, yeah.
So the conspiracy theory idea is so, I mean, you know, what's funny is I, with the Chris Rock and Will Smith thing, somebody was telling me how it was fake.
And I was like, no, I just talked to Chris.
And they kept going.
Oh, like, well, no, you don't.
I'm like, no, I just talked to him.
Well, yeah, but I'm like, are you, I literally was like, lady, are you listening to me?
I just spoke to him.
And then she finally admitted, like, oh, yeah, all right.
And then finally, Ellen admitted, like, oh, yeah, I guess you did just speak to him.
Okay.
The lady with that one.
So, yeah.
So people are aggravating.
Yeah.
So a lot of the discussion around like modern comedy is focused on, you know, a lot of people discuss the sort of polarization of political comedy right now and things like cancel culture.
Do you have any take on where you feel things got right now?
Yeah.
My take is that it's mostly a fake argument to create, to generate sort of light and heat.
I mean, it's like, I literally, you know what a good analogy is?
It's like Jordan Peterson.
Jordan Peterson is so famous now from not wanting to use pronouns five years ago.
And then it's all this like, he's anti, he's a, he's a big, all this other stuff.
And you're like, what are you talking about?
He's just a social scientist.
It's like, you, I watch the videos and I'm like, what's the problem?
Yeah.
With somebody like Dave or, I mean, all the canceled comedians I know are doing arenas.
So they've kind of bounced back from, you know, it seems like it affect them for a little while.
But what I've always experienced is I find like cancel culture is something real and it has been used against people, I think, in an unfair way.
But then there's also in the backlash against it, there's two things.
Some people will claim that they're canceled to gain more attention because then all those people rush to your defense.
So they say, oh, you know, some unknown comedian will say, oh, I'm being canceled.
Right.
It's like, are you really?
Or did you say something either genuinely funny or just not great?
Are you just a middle?
Yes.
And that, that's the other angle is people, I know a lot of comedians, especially like right-leaning comedians who are kind of getting started.
And they'll say, oh, I can't get booked on things.
I can't, you know, get a Netflix special.
I can't do this because cancel culture.
It's like, yeah, but even if there was no cancel culture, would you really have a Netflix culture?
I mean, I can tell you firsthand, Netflix is booked a hell out of anyone who's popular.
You know what I mean?
Like if it's popular, it's not like I remember watching Nate Bargazi and Theo bellyache for 10 years about how there's like this conspiracy against southerners.
And then as soon as they, either one of them got a sliver of daylight, it was just like, because no one, there are no southern comedians.
Yeah.
Virtually no, I mean, other than like Engvall and Ron White who stopped drinking because of ayahuasca.
That's a true story.
And blue collar guys.
But like, there are no, I mean, they tend to like liberal people.
I mean, I think networks, all that stuff, there, it's mostly liberals.
Yeah, I mean, it's two different things.
It's like, is there a bias?
Is there a content bias?
Yes.
Like, I think that's unequivocal.
Is there a program to, I mean, who are canceled comedians that are currently can't?
I think there's one.
I mean, that's the thing.
It's like Joe, Dave both do arenas.
Yeah.
Kevin does arenas.
Rock does.
You know what I mean?
Like, I don't know, even where people go, there's been some canceled comedians.
Like, who?
The kid got kicked off of Columbia.
Like, do you think some of them lost work for a while, though?
And then I know that they are not.
Really?
You think they're consistently working the whole time?
No, none of them lost any work.
Kevin, Kevin quit the Oscars.
Uh-huh.
He didn't get kicked off.
Yeah.
He stopped.
He resigned because it was like not fun.
So that's, and you're a comedian and you don't know that.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, you're, you're like, I'm telling you something you may not know.
And it's like, dog, they weren't canceled.
The ones that I'm thinking of, though, more is like a Louis C.K., I know his situation was a little different, but he lost, he lost a lot of work.
And now he's, now he's back again.
And then you have like Roseanne, who was kicked off of her show.
I don't know.
Has she tried or gotten any sort of Roseanne's still making money on that show and she's just not on it.
Yeah.
So, I mean, canceled.
It's like, was Jimmy the Greek canceled?
Jimmy the Greek?
Like, I don't know.
Yeah, I guess he got canceled because if you say the N-word in public, people don't like it.
It's like, you know what I mean?
Like, all of these like, Roseanne isn't a special case.
Louis got, Louie got canceled for being a hypocrite.
I mean, Louis's reduced.
You just get reduced.
Like, he's never going to be on NPR.
He's never going to be at, I mean, maybe he'll be at the Emmys.
His new special is excellent.
Yeah.
Not even the one that won the Emmy or the Grammy.
He has a new one, but like, yeah, he's reduced, but he still makes, he's still got a better career than me.
Coming up next for Babylon B subscribers.
It was something where when they were talking about Spotify, like quote unquote, canceling Joe Rogan and removing episodes and stuff, it said something about they were taking off like 72 hours of program.
I was like, what is that?
Like two interviews?
Yeah, exactly.
I've been doing a joke about Joe's podcast where the worst I've ever had to piss is every time I've done that podcast.
It's like getting a colonoscopy where I have to stop drinking fluids 6 p.m. the night before I do Joe's podcast.
This has been another interview on the Babylon B from the dedicated team of certified fake news journalists you can trust here at the Babylon B, reminding you that someone out there knows something about Carmen.
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