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Dec. 25, 2010 - Jimmy Dore Show
57:14
20101225_JDS_12-23-10
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It's the Jimmy Dore Show.
The show for...
The kind of people that are.
It's the show that makes Anderson Cooper say.
In charge of talking to your TV.
So sit back or sit up or keep driving.
Because it's the Jimmy Dore show.
And now, here's a guy who sounds a lot like me.
It's Jimmy Dore.
Hi, everybody.
Welcome to the Jimmy Door Show.
I am in the small studio with the better microphones this week.
Happy holidays and Merry Christmas.
Happy Hanukkah, Kwanzaa.
I don't know what else happens around this time, but I'm going to let you know who we're in studio with.
We're all sitting in single file.
Isn't that weird?
This is nice.
Is this what Europe is like?
I think so.
This is how they do their radio in Europe.
Red line.
Sure.
It's kind of like we're at the lunch counter, maybe.
That is to my left from Dinner at a movie on TBS and askarepublican.com.
It's Paul Gilmartin.
And remember, when you go to askarepublican.com, he's not really a Republican.
Satire.
Satire.
Next to him is Robert Yasumura from teamyasumura.com.
And I'm going to say one of the best Twitterers around, Robert Yasumura.
Thank you.
He was up there.
Look at his thumbs.
You can tell.
I didn't know that was a thumb.
Wordplay.
Very muscular.
Next to him is Ben Zalovansky from Ben and Alex.tv and the writer, Hilarious Guy Extraordinaire.
Hi, Ben.
How are you?
Hi, Jim.
It's nice to be here.
Let me let people know what's coming up on today's show.
Why?
Because people like to know what's coming up.
WikiSecrets.
Julian Assange, the Australian behind the controversial WikiLeaks website, is set to write a memoir to be published in 2011.
But we've got a guy on the inside who says he's got some inside documents and he's going to dump them on the internet soon.
Doesn't anybody anybody respect privacy anymore?
Julian Assange.
This is the billboard.
What do you call a conservative who doesn't hate the gays?
An independent.
And now they have an even newer name.
It's called the No Labels Party.
That's right.
It's the new political party in America that tries to bridge the divide between Democrats and Republicans.
And it doesn't matter if you're a conservative Republican or a conservative Democrat or even a conservative independent.
If you're willing to drop your party identity and embrace conservative ideas, we can let you into the No Labels Party.
No labels, no convictions, no passion, no problem.
And the Tea Party gets taken.
Newly elected Tea Partiers meeting with lobbyists, even hiring lobbyists to run their offices.
Hey, the least informed political movement in history has been totally duped by the people they elected.
Who saw that coming?
And net neutrality.
Proponents say it's the single most important issue facing the free people everywhere.
Opponents of net neutrality say, shut up and pay me more money, or you won't even get to read your email anymore.
Don't know what net neutrality means?
Don't worry.
There's a conservative Facebook page dedicated to defeating net neutrality and none of those people over there know what it is either.
But that doesn't stop them from being against it or from being incredibly afraid of it.
We're going to read some of our favorite anti-net neutrality posts from the conservative Facebook page.
Plus, we have an interview with Colin Quinn, the star of the new Broadway hit.
Long story short, Colin Quinn is here.
Long story short.
Long story.
Long story short.
And moron calls in to let us know what he bought Therese for Christmas.
That's this week on the Jimmy Dore Show.
And now the Joe Scarborough Institute for Moderate Thinking presents great moments in centrist history.
June 1776, a group of centrist colonials known as the Floundering Fathers sign the Declaration of Getting Along, which they send to England for the king's approval.
They include a self-addressed stamped envelope for the document's return.
This has been Great Moments in Centrist History.
Brought to you by the Joe Scarborough Institute for Moderate Thinking.
Would like to remind you, whatever you do, try not to stand for anything.
Okay, and that's our first topic of today.
We're going to talk about the new party, the No Labels Party.
The No Labels, let's just think about it for a second.
I mean, I agree that we have to stop picking sides, stop all the posturing, choose solutions over partisanship.
Like, for instance, with the gays in the military.
One side thinks they should have equal rights.
The other side thinks they shouldn't.
And, you know, for the longest time, we had a great solution.
It was called Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
It was a perfect way to demean gay people who want to serve our country while at the same time allowing bigots to live in a fantasy world where gays don't exist.
And then a bunch of partisan postures had to come along and ruin everything.
But now we have the No Labels Party where they're going to drop everybody's label.
And Paul, have you heard about the No Labels Party?
It's headed up by Joe Scarborough.
If it's not headed up, he's certainly the champion.
He's the no labels Glenn Beck, put it that way.
What Glenn Beck is at the Tea Party, Joel Scarborough is to the No Labels Party.
And do you think that that's ever going to work, people who call themselves no labels?
Can we drop our identities?
I don't know.
On the surface, it sounds a little bit boring.
No labels.
You know, how do you how do you get anything done if you don't stand for anything?
I don't know what they stand for.
I really don't.
Are they saying they don't label people or they don't want to be don't label them?
No, they stand for like the world where unicorns and fairies rule the planet.
Because they're like, well, we should be, we should have civilized discussion in the middle.
It's like, where are you living?
Do you live in a world without Fox News?
Like, okay, yeah, we're going to have a civilized discussion.
The Swedes have civilized discussions.
We have this.
We have a two-party system where people get at each other's throats.
It's nonsense.
I think we should leave it up to the power of the corporations because they have our interest at heart.
Yeah, I really do, too.
Oh, and by the way, is that what it takes to form a party now?
It's like one guy mouthing off on television and a website?
That's the party now.
Seems to be.
Now, but Ben, if, if, if people, Nobody wants to call themselves a Republican anymore.
So now they were tea partiers.
Now they're no labels.
It's like nobody wants to be hooked up with those crazies.
Isn't that what it really is?
Well, I think so.
I mean, first of all, I think no labels, that's a great label for a party.
So I give them credit for that.
But I think, you know, I'm on board, but I am on board with a lot of this no labels stuff, but only when it comes to t-shirts.
Isn't this the kind of thinking that led Europe to think that Esperanto would be a viable language?
First of all.
Yeah, I still speak Esperanto.
Wow, did you get all hoity-toity on all of us all of a sudden?
Hey, listen, I don't want to go start talking all onomatopoeia on you, but the thing is— What does that mean, Esperanto?
It was a language that was supposed to unify Europe.
It was supposed to be a common perfect language.
Yeah.
It was made up.
It was a made-up language.
It never caught hold.
Much like the metric system in America.
Oh, made-up language, unlike the other languages we found buried under a rock that God planted here.
Or, you know, most languages evolved organically.
Esperanto was created like the metric system.
Oh, and the metric system, it certainly works in the rest of the world.
Yeah.
But it doesn't seem to work here.
We don't like it here.
It's commie.
You know what?
I've had a gallon full of that metric system.
I got your base 10 rich here.
He's with me, Dora.
So let me just say, Frank Rich was talking about the No Labels Party.
He wrote a column on it on Sunday, and I'll just read you one sentence from it.
He said, No labels ends up being a damning indictment of just how alarmingly out of touch the mainstream political media elite remains with the grievances that have driven Americans to cynicism and despair in the 21st century's gilded age.
So he's saying that the no labels party is just not a response to how out of touch the media elite is.
It's a symbol.
Right.
It's a clue.
But it's better than their original name, which was the Shut Up and Take It Party.
Yeah.
They're not going to get anybody on board with that.
It's started by, it's Joe Scarborough and that McKinnon, who was George Bush's old campaign guy.
And so they're the new.
And Evan Bay is another one of the guys.
And it's like, yeah, we're all with no labels.
No, you guys are all conservatives.
You're all conservative.
There's not one liberal.
There wasn't even a black that was in the party, their big launch day.
They didn't have one African-American.
Can I say one of the things I really resented, I really resented on the website is that they make it sound like, you know, the real problem with politics is that people are not bringing reason to the table of their beliefs.
And I'm like, you know what?
I arrived at my beliefs through reason.
You guys can go to hell.
It is reasonable that everybody should have health care.
It is reasonable after the entire economy collapsed that maybe it needs re-regulation.
These are reasonable positions that I came to through logic.
Very nice.
That's right, exactly.
Because they do.
That's why I'm playing our centrist pieces where we make fun of centrists because that's all the no labels party is.
They're a bunch of people who think because they don't feel passionately about certain issues that they're somehow more mature than you are.
And they're more reasonable than you because they don't raise their voice when they talk about it.
Let's not yell about the destruction of the middle class.
Yes.
Let's just watch it happen and then we'll talk about it.
Well, they have nothing approaching any policy proposals either.
It's really just a like, you guys stop.
Yes.
You guys stop party.
We're going to talk more about these about the noble labels coming up.
I'm not going to leave this.
Please people alone.
And now the Joe Scarborough Institute for Moderate Thinking presents great moments in centrist history.
October 1863.
Abraham Lincoln fires speechwriter Zachary Scarborough after Scarborough submits a first draft of the Gettysburg Address that begins.
Listen, the South has some pretty good ideas.
This has been Great Moments in Centrist History.
Brought to you by the Joe Scarborough Institute for Moderate Thinking.
Who would like to remind you, whatever you do, try not to stand for anything.
Okay, that was, and that's how we feel about Centrist at the Jimmy Door.
Great job on that, Ben Zalovansky.
And now we're going to move on and change subjects.
We're going to talk about the Tea Party.
Now, the Tea Party, God bless them.
They mean well.
They are going to be tragically misinformed and perennially misinformed, continuously, constantly misinformed.
Isn't it cute that they have their own idea of what the Constitution says?
It really is.
Isn't that kind of?
Where does it say that Christine O'Donnell launched into that?
The First Amendment.
The First Amendment?
I wanted to pet her.
Well, Dana Milbank, who I'm not a fan of from the Washington Post, he writes a lot about the goings-on the football game, you know, the in-between the lines game of politics.
And he wrote a pretty good column about how the Tea Party has turned their back on the people who support them.
And I'm going to read a little bit from it, and then we'll talk about it.
He said, because they're all going against what they stood for.
He said, since he's talking about Christy Noam, she won.
She's a Republican from South Dakota.
And she defeated Democrat Representative Stephanie Sandlin in part by making an issue of Sandlin's marriage to a lobbyist.
She then, Noam, she then hired her new chief of staff from a lobbying firm.
And on Tuesday afternoon, she was the guest of honor at a meet and greet with Washington high rollers at a powerhouse lobbying firm called Barbara Griffith Rogers.
Oh boy.
Yes.
It was inevitable that the Tea Party activists would be betrayed, but the speed with which congressional Republicans have reverted to business as usual has been impressive.
But here's a few more facts before we get to it.
A House Republican leader rejected a Tea Party-backed candidate as the new chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, instead installing Hell Rogers of Kentucky.
Hell Rogers of Kentucky is known as the Prince of Pork.
And who once said pork is a bad word for making good things happen.
So that's who the Republicans just put in charge of the Appropriations Committee.
And that's one of their signature issues for the Tea Partyers.
No more earmarks.
They put a guy called the Prince of Pork.
And here's the last paragraph I'll read to you from Dana Milbank's column.
He says, Many Tea Party favorites, meanwhile, have discovered the appeal of Washington lobbyist cash and advice.
South Dakota's Gnome is one of at least 13 incoming Republican lawmakers who have hired lobbyists to run their offices.
As the Washington Post Dan Eggin reported last week, dozens of freshmen lawmakers have already had fundraisers to collect millions of dollars from lobbyists and other deep-pocketed interests.
In the month since the election day, new Republican members have had more than a dozen such debt retirement events.
They call them debt retirement events.
They should just call them retirement events.
Color me shocked, by the way.
So let's start with.
So, Robert, are you surprised at the speed at which the Tea Party has so completely abandoned everything they said?
I'm truly, truly shocked that they can't go against 200 years of partisan politics as it has been.
I can't believe it that these people who, by the way, were Republican candidates.
Yes.
They call themselves Tea Parties, but they're.
I just love the idea that it's a Tea Party.
And I would say probably 90% of the people in the Tea Party probably think if you drink tea, you're a fag.
We just lost an affiliate on that one because every time we throw out ironic bigotry, we lose an affiliate, just letting you know.
Would you stop it all right?
I'm not familiar with any of these words for the record.
How do you describe somebody's homophobia without yourself being insulting?
That's what I'm saying.
It's tough.
It's tough.
It's in the Constitution.
It's in the...
It's really...
It's a queer section.
I was just about to.
Oh, sorry.
So listen, the Tea Partiers are having a tough time, and they're kind of going against everything they ran on.
So I sat down with George Leslie, who is the spokesperson for the Tea Partiers, and he answered some of these questions.
I'm talking with Tea Party spokesperson George Leslie.
Hi, George.
How are you doing today?
How you doing?
I'm doing great.
Listen, I wanted to speak to you about what a lot of people are considering the reversal of the Tea Parties or the co-opting of the Tea Partiers into the Republican Party.
Let's start with Christy Noam.
In fact, Christy Noam ran as a reformer who was there to clean out all the lobbyists in Washington who were, quote, throwing money at the feet of congressmen, end quote.
That's right.
Great quote, too.
But she seems to be doing the exact opposite now that she's in Washington.
How so?
Well, she's meeting with lobbyists, isn't she, for starters?
Hell no.
Okay, well, let me just point to you that she was the guest of honor at a meet and greet with a lot of high Washington high rollers at the powerhouse lobbying firm of Barbara Griffith Rogers.
Do you know about that?
Oh, that.
Jimmy, she only met with them to tell them how much she hates them.
Really?
Oh, sure.
In fact, her opposition to lobby groups is so strong that she has scheduled a recurring monthly meeting just to make sure they get the message.
She is vowed to keep meeting with them, too, until they get the point that she works for the people, not lobbyists.
Wow.
Okay, well, if she works for the people and not the lobbyists, then why has she been in meeting after meeting with lobbyists and smoozing the money special interests at Shindigs at places like the Four Seasons and dining with lobbyists at Spago?
To show those guys that she can't be bought.
That doesn't make any sense.
Look, she is proving that just because you throw Gourmand Niels at her in a four-day, three-night island cruise and maybe a BMW, it doesn't matter.
She is here to do the people's business.
What happens?
Can you just tell me what happens at these meetings?
Sure.
She keeps laying down that law.
She dares them to throw money at her.
Dares them.
You know, George, you talk a good game, but there is a glaring hypocrisy happening here.
Just how do you explain the fact that her whole campaign hinged on the fact that her opponent was too cozy with lobbyists?
And then after she gets elected, we learn that she's hired a lobbyist to be her chief of staff.
Now, come on, Mr. Leslie.
How do you explain that?
Well, Jimmy, keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
Am I right?
Did you just quote the Godfather?
Movies are the books of our day.
You know, I just think that Republicans have really already co-opted the Tea Party, and you guys are turning out to be a bunch of phonies.
Okay, how so?
Well, how about the Tea Party?
They have a pledge to America in which the Republicans pledge to get rid of pork, better known as earmarks.
We have.
So how about the Republicans' choice for the new chairman of the House Appropriations Committee?
Oh, Congressman Hal Rogers, great American.
What's the problem?
Hal Rogers of Kentucky?
He's the biggest earmarker in Congress.
He's known as the Prince of Pork.
Ah, remember, pork is the other white meat.
That's your response, George, really?
Okay, it could have been much worse.
All right, we went with the Prince of Pork, but a lot of people wanted to go with the Earl of Earmarks.
And we stood up to that and said, no, we don't like Earls.
Sounds European.
Kind of creepy.
So you guys signed a pledge that said you were against pork, and then you appoint the guy who's called the Prince of Pork to be in charge of the Appropriations Committee.
And then, whereas most Americans thought the banks were there to serve the people and our economy, but according to the new Republican chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, he says that Washington and regulators are there to serve the banks.
Yeah, serve them a can of whoop ass.
Okay.
And let me just, before I let you go, Mr. Leslie, you know, by the way, this tax deal, the tax deal that you guys are crowing about.
Oh, yeah, it's great.
Well, it breaks like six of the promises you made in the Pledge to America.
You guys haven't even taken office yet, and you've already broken six of the promises in the Pledge to America.
Yeah, Jimmy, well, a lot of people didn't read the preamble to the pledge, where we reversed the definition of the word pledge.
The preamble to the pledge?
That's right, reversed it.
Hell, some Republicans are now calling it the pledgemets to America.
And, you know, that rhymes.
But, George, this kind of betrayal to the people who put you in office, doesn't it scare you that the Tea Partiers are going to find out about it and then just throw you guys out next election?
Jimmy, are you kidding me?
They only find out what we tell them, you know, or what Rush tells them.
I mean, let's face it, Jimmy, the Tea Partiers are pretty uninformed.
All right, they're never going to know any of this stuff.
It's kind of like a comedian making fun of the Amish.
They ain't never going to find out.
Okay.
Okay, well, that's George Leslie, spokesperson for the Tea Partiers.
I appreciate you taking time with us today, George.
All right, I'll see you later.
I'm going to go shoot something.
I got to tell you, you know, they're not afraid to.
He didn't come off well on that.
No, they're letting their guard down, I think.
They're not afraid to expose themselves on public radio, is what I'm finding out.
Their Tea Partiers aren't listening.
Okay, now we're going to talk about net neutrality is in the news.
The FCC just issued a ruling that was kind of lukewarm.
It kind of protected some of the internet and it didn't protect others.
Like if the internet you use on your phone, not protected.
And that, everywhere, as everyone knows, that's where the real internet is, okay?
So let me just explain what net neutrality is to people, okay?
Net neutrality is when you go on the internet and you want to go to Facebook or you go to YouTube or you want to go to JimmyDoorComedy.com.
As we all do.
As we all do, to watch some videos of me being hilarious.
You go there.
If you go there.
Now, each page loads at the same time.
It all comes up at the same time.
I can get to each page.
It's like a telephone call.
It's the same rate for everybody.
No matter if I'm the president of AT ⁇ T or if I'm a regular person, we all get the same access.
That sounds a little disgustingly Democratic, Jimmy.
I hope there's something out there that's going to put an end to that.
Well, they have.
They have a new thing.
It's called tiered billing.
So if you pay more money to your internet service provider, say Comcast or Charter, what they'll do is they'll make all your web pages come up quicker.
You can go to certain things.
If you pay them more money and you have a web page, now they'll make your web page load quicker.
And if you pay them more money, so now it'll load at the rate it loads now.
Right, okay.
And when this tiered system comes in, your pages, if you don't pay that premium, will load slow.
That's what I mean.
So yes, that's what I wasn't being clear, but thank you.
And they're paying more money for the same or worse service.
Yes, that's what's there.
Is there a problem?
It's reciprocal because also the providers, such as, let's say, Netflix, are going to have to pay more as well.
Yeah.
So people are getting Rogered on both ends.
Right.
Just to be clear.
So there was already a thing that happened with Netflix, right?
From what I understand, is it Comcast who has their own service that's kind of like Netflix?
So what happened was they were starting to charge people extra money to watch streaming video through their Netflix, right?
And Comcast also offers a service that's free.
That was going to be free.
could watch their streaming stuff for free.
So that was...
If you really want to know how oligarchy stifles innovation, watch the Spanish sitcom.
That is where we are headed with the internet.
No me gusta.
Yeah.
A guy dressed like a bumblebee, riding a bathtub around scantily clad women.
You know what?
It doesn't sound bad.
I have a question.
Is there anything in the net neutrality bill that will make MySpace less sad?
People still use MySpace.
Whenever I get a message from somebody that's from MySpace, I think, really?
Wouldn't CB Radio be more dignified?
They split that bill in the worst possible way.
Net neutrality?
Yeah, because what happened was FCC didn't want to touch it, regulating the internet for a long time.
And then when they came in, they regulated it, but they regulated it wrong.
Like, I mean, the FCC still doesn't touch cable.
And they can, but they've stayed hands off.
And so all the problems with you getting your cable come from the fact that it's not regulated properly.
It's not regulated at all.
So what the FCC did was they came in, they're going to regulate it, but they're going to regulate it badly.
Yes, they're regulating it horribly.
And they're not going to regulate broadband.
I mean, you know, wireless.
So if you get your internet wirelessly, you're not going to be able, they're going to be able to screw you over, basically.
I hope they can let Robert Rubin regulate it because he has a good sense.
Or how about Larry Summers?
And you know, the important thing.
Somebody from an Ivy League school.
Please.
The important thing to remember here is that the people who are against net neutrality are dummies.
Unless you own one of these big corporations that are going to provide people with internet service, it's going to be a lose for everybody.
And I went over to this.
Of course, I'm a friend with a conservative website.
There's one person who it would not be a lose for is somebody with embarrassing video of themselves.
That's the only person that would win in this.
That's right.
Fewer people would be able to see it.
So maybe David Hasselhoff is going to be able to, he's excited that we're losing net neutrality.
No, Gil Martin has a 91 set that's online that you probably don't want to see.
I got a 2018.
I got a 2008 I'd like to show you.
Hello.
I don't know.
But so I'm over at, I go on Facebook, and I like to engage in what I call unconstructive debate on Facebook.
And I like a page called this, it's called Conservative.
That's the name of the Facebook page, Conservative.
That's it, just conservative.
And there's a picture of Ronald Reagan as the modicom.
So talking about net neutrality, they don't get it.
They don't understand what it is.
And I'm going to read you a few of my favorite posts.
Not that they're hilarious, but they'd show you the depth of ignorance that exists in a movement called the Tea Party.
And I won't stand for anybody saying, hey, they're just concerned Americans.
They're dumb, ignorant, on purpose, dumb and ignorant, uninformed, and often misinformed like they are on this.
Okay, here.
They get points for being angry.
And they're angry.
Right.
So I don't mind people being angry.
I mind it when they're angry and wrong.
Those are the two things.
You better move to Canada.
Okay, this is from Angela over at the Conservative Facebook page.
She goes, anytime in history that the government has gotten involved in the free market, it kills the free market.
You know, like when the government got out of regulating the banks.
Remember, you see how it really helped them?
Also, all that poison food that we eat all the time.
Yeah.
Oh, I wish they would just stay out of the free market, right?
Sure.
You know, and then, you know, and I would say get the cops off the street too, because we don't need traffic lights.
We don't need speed limits.
Yes.
You remember what a disaster that was?
Yeah, you mean how it got us out of that depression and set us on a course to awful the economic prosperity?
Do you guys remember the good old days in the coal mine at the end of the 19th century?
How fun and freewheeling it was before the government stepped in.
Before Teddy Roosevelt came in and broke up all the trusts.
That was a good way for families to spend time together down there in the Coleman.
Yes.
I'm going to read you one more of these.
She goes, here it is.
Here it comes, folks.
The last frontier that the government can trample and destroy.
And you thought the libs were actually against Big Brother?
Ha, they are Big Brother.
If you don't change, if you don't change and the government keeps taking over everything, we won't have any freedom much longer.
America better pray.
Yeah, better pray that morons like you don't vote.
How about that?
Here's a couple.
I am kind of confused about how this happened.
Where are our leaders on this issue?
Prayer changes things.
I encourage us all who will to pray and ask the Lord to still raise up the righteous to lead America to protect our U.S. Constitution.
So instead of praying, maybe you want to crack open a Wikipedia page and find out what net neutrality means, you freaking moron.
This is from Stella Honeycutt on Facebook.
That will not be all they want to control.
They want to control all of us, and we had better get him and his demons out of Washington in 2012.
He's the beginning of one world government.
And unless God's people pray and pray hard, it is right upon us.
Take heed.
God is not to be mocked.
The USA will reap what they have sown.
Mark my words.
Pray that this will be put off for many generations.
With internet control, look up to the mark of the beast is not far away.
Pray it is not in your lifetime, knowing your children's, nor your children's children.
Wait, hold on.
Just give me a minute.
I'm just going to mark those words.
That is the lady I want protesting my funeral.
Yes.
Yes.
Just saying if that is possible, the earmarker for that, I want her.
I was picturing her giving that speech and her skin turning to scales.
Can I just say one of the things that infuriates me about this is that the reason why the deregulation of the phone companies worked is because the government owned the phone lines.
Okay, very good.
Yes.
And the reason why this is not cool is because they own the phone lines.
Comcast owns the phone lines.
Charter.
Copyright.
own the phone lines.
So we're not...
It's not leading to decentralization.
And the reason they're going to be able to get away with it is because people like these letters I'm reading are uninformed.
It's like they're interested enough in current events to get informed, but they're not interested enough to actually...
It's almost as if there's TV and radio stations that have corporate interests at heart that are feeding these people misinformation on a daily basis and making it sound as if it's patriotism.
We're going to come back to this idea much more in more future episodes.
But right now, you're listening to The Jimmy Dore Show on Pacifica.
The Jimmy Dore Show on Pacifica.
Okay, welcome back to the Jimmy Dorse show.
I am in studio with Paul Gilmartin, Robert Yesemer, and Ben Zalavansky.
I want to let you know what's coming up on today's show, but before I do, next Tuesday, December 28th, that's right.
It's Poppin' Politics at the UCB Theater in Los Angeles on Franklin and Bronson.
That's right, the UCB Theater, Poppin' Politics.
Paul Gilmartin, are you going to be there?
The 28th?
Yes, a Tuesday.
And one of my one of Richard Martin's wives is hopefully going to appear with me.
Oh.
Oh, so possibly.
You might do a musical number.
Oh, so you're Maria.
That's a possible from Maria Bamboo.
No, not Maria.
Different wife.
That Richard Martin really married well.
And often he did.
Really?
Married well enough.
So you got your other wife, bringing your other wife with you.
Special guest is Bill Burr.
Gonna be this Tuesday.
So that's Tuesday, 8 p.m. at the UCB Theater.
You can go to UCBTheater.com.
I'll see you there.
It's always a fun show.
And what's coming up on the rest of the show?
Moron calls in to let us know what he bought Terese for Christmas.
Colin Quinn has a new Broadway playout called Slong Story.
It's called Long Story Short.
We talked to him about it.
And right now, Jim Hightower drops by to bum us out in a folksy voice.
Of all the groups in America that need the U.S. president on their side, you'd think the last to win a pledge of support would be the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
After all, this outfit, which is largely funded and run by a handful of America's biggest corporations, has become the most powerful lobbying force in Washington and one of the richest front groups funneling secret corporate cash into our elections.
Indeed, it poured tens of millions of dollars into campaign ads this fall to demonize the president and turn the U.S. House over to anti-Obama Republicans.
Yet, the day after the election, the chamber found itself being wooed by the White House.
The president even dispatched his treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, to the chamber's opulent headquarters to eat crow and promise that henceforth, Obama and team would be more corporate friendly.
Good grief.
Friendlier than Obama's Wall Street reform that coddled the big banksters?
Or his health care reform that further entrenches profiteering insurance giants inside the system?
Or the tax bill cave-in that needlessly awards billions of dollars in special breaks for corporations and rich CEOs.
Yes, so friendly that Obama is now holding an ongoing series of closed-door policy meetings with assorted chief executives.
So friendly that he's already delayed regulations that would strengthen anti-pollution rules.
So friendly that his deficit reduction panel proposes cutting the corporate tax rate from 35% to 26%.
So friendly that he's planning to put a high-powered CEO right inside the White House with him, as demanded by the whining corporate powers who say they're not getting enough love from the president.
This is Jim Hightower saying, why should these corporate elites get a special presidential slot in the White House?
Why not one for labor, small farmers, consumers, the unemployed?
Remind me again, is this guy a Democrat?
Okay, thanks, Jim.
I appreciate the info and keeping us abreast of what's happening inside the Obama administration.
Right now, Colin Quinn has a new one-person show directed by Jerry Seinfeld called Long Story Short.
It's running at the Helen Hayes Theater on Broadway, and we sat down to talk about it and a bunch of other stuff with Colin.
Okay, if anybody listens to this show, you know who I'm talking to.
You know him from his work on Saturday Night Live, all the way back from Remote Control on MTV, from Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn on Comedy Central.
He's got a new show on Broadway.
Look at that.
Called Colin Quinn, Long Story Short, and it was directed by Jerry Seinfeld.
And it's running at the Helen Hayes Theater.
And I understand it just got extended.
Is that true, Colin?
Yeah, sure.
Sure it is.
You see, I'm trolled by that, right, Jimmy?
Yeah, it's wow.
Try to control yourself, buddy.
Well, you know, Jerry, Jimmy, there's two kinds of guys in this business.
There's the enthusiastic Broadway people, I mean, in Broadway.
There's the young singer dancers, and there's the aging comedians.
So really, can you imagine?
Wouldn't it be more obnoxious if I was like, yeah, it got extended, Jimmy?
It's fantastic.
That's how people I thought were supposed to react to the show.
Jimmy, we're thrilled.
We're absolutely thrilled.
I heard, yeah, I heard Al Pacito's Twittering everybody.
He's across the street from you.
I know.
That's actually the part that really does kind of excite me.
It makes me feel like right, like I'm doing something.
I'm across the street from Al Pacino.
Now tell people about the show, long story short.
What is it about?
Well, it's really about the fall of empires.
You might call it a meditation on empire decline, which sounds kind of boring, but you know, hey, what do I care?
The show's extended anyway.
No, it's not boring.
It's just about, you know, it's comedy, but it's based on everybody's empire, everybody's ethnicity, you know, and how everything correlates with human behavior and, you know, how individuals and empires behave the same.
And we all have the same behavior in our lives as every country has and, you know, that kind of stuff.
Well, so are you, it sounds like you read a history book.
Oh, I read a book or two, Jimmy.
I read a book or two.
Wow.
That's more like that.
I could read a good, you know, I'm a magazine reader.
Yeah, you're the guy that you're dreaming when you kid.
You were the one smart brother that went to Loyola out there in Chicago and the rest of you.
That's right.
That's right.
So where did you get the idea for the show?
That's how it is.
It's like, you know, it's a stand-up.
You know what it is.
It's like I'm sitting there doing stand-up.
It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But people don't, I mean, you know, people don't realize what, I mean, to me, stand-ups in general, and this doesn't go for every stand-up.
There's a lot of morons, too.
But stand-ups have a million bad qualities, which we can talk about.
But one of the good qualities is they're smart.
And it's like, sometimes doing stand-up, it's like, I feel like we need to be more thematic.
You know what I'm saying?
Yes.
Because I feel like when it's thematic, then people go, oh, they really are smart.
It's like sometimes we listen to somebody doing stand-up, and I go, that's a great joke, but it's a great idea behind it.
Like, I really do feel like stand-ups are very smart people, you know?
Of course, you know, I'm biased and prejudiced in that.
I agree with you.
You know, I think.
Yeah, me too, of course.
You have to be.
It benefits me to think that.
I think comedians are the smartest.
I think that instead of these worldly, these so-called world leaders, if they would just come and get us, you know, but I do feel like comedians are smart.
And I do feel like that, you know, that there's definitely something to be said for trying to trying to work different ways.
Because we work the same way, all of us, all the time.
And not only does it get a little bit, it gets lost in the source, you know what I mean?
Yeah, so you had the idea to do, originally, did you think it was going to go to Broadway?
Or was it just going to be a...
I did it a couple of comedy clubs and it worked well enough there.
I was like, wow, I could do it.
You know, I've done plays before.
I mean, I've done like a one-man show called Irish Wake.
Then I did another one a couple of years ago about the economy and called My Two Cents.
So I like, you know what I mean?
So this one was just the next one.
It was about the empires.
And, you know, I just, I didn't want to go back to the other two, even though I love doing them.
I think it's things, you know, it's like, so I just wrote another one, and then I was like, Seinfeld guy.
the only reason I got anywhere, Seinfeld, he agreed to produce it, you know.
So what was your problem?
How come you couldn't get Jerry in on the other two?
I didn't need Jerry on the first one.
That went to Broadway on its own.
And I cut it short, which was a mistake in retrospect, many years later.
No, tell me about that.
Why would you mean you cut the run short?
It was still going strong.
I cut the run short because I was on SNL at the time.
I was like, oh, I should go back to SNL.
But really, when I look about it, the way it was selling on Broadway, I should have just stayed with it, you know.
Oh, well.
But, I mean, of course, it's hindsight.
At the time, nobody would have blamed what I did, you know.
Right, yeah.
But, I mean, or I should have put it right back up.
But I just didn't, you know what I mean?
I was like, things were going so good, that was just another great thing at the time to me.
I was like, oh, this is great.
I can do this all day.
But, you know, you don't realize.
And then the second one, I was in the middle of doing it way off, off Broadway.
So, I mean, that was only a couple of weeks.
That was only going to be a couple of weeks.
You know, I would have had to, like, you know, raise more money or whatever.
And, you know.
So, I mean, those two, you know.
But that was only two years.
That's about the economy and the economic collapse and all that.
So, it was kind of a show that really is just getting more and more relevant, unfortunately.
Yeah.
I'd like to see that show.
Is there videos of that up somewhere?
No, no, no.
But I'm planning on, after this, to put it back up in some form because it's really one of those shows.
It's about, it starts with people coming over here at the beginning, the immigrants coming over at the beginning of the 20th century, working with your hands.
And a guy in an office literally selling the idea of some possibility of not even paper.
By the end, not even, it's not even, you know, it's not even virtual.
It's not even in space.
It's an idea in space that we've come to.
So, it's not even like 10 years ago was about, you know, we're going to transfer funds, but they don't exist.
But now, it really became, right by the end, we're going to transfer the idea of funds that don't exist.
So, it's just that, how we came from being guys working with our hands, getting paid in actual tangible money to becoming this, you know what I mean?
So, like a move through electronic transfers to money to now just being an idea.
Right, right.
Okay, okay.
Electronic transfers, and then it just became the promise of an idea of electronic transfers.
So, people are selling futures.
Yes.
Literally, futures, it doesn't even exist.
There's no such thing.
At least electronic transfer of money.
The electricity exists.
But this was a concept in someone's head of what's going to exist.
You know what I mean?
Yes, I never thought of it like that.
I mean, I wish you would do that show again.
Yeah, I really wish I would, too.
I think I need to.
It's sorely needed.
I think, you know, when I watch the network news, right, where most people get their news from, it may be the least informative place to get your news.
It seems like they never ask themselves, like Brian Williams never comes into work and asking himself, what do my viewers need to know today?
He never asks himself that question.
What does he say?
What's that?
He would never ask himself, what do my viewers need to know today?
Right.
And it seems like your show, like that show, just the little bit you told me about, it sounds like one of those things.
Hey, here's what you need to know about the economy you live in.
Right.
It's like, exactly.
And people want to, look, I don't choose to do, what am I going to do about it?
But at least let's admit where we're living in this surreal space.
And then maybe we can go, okay, maybe the problem is this, and maybe it's not.
You know what I mean?
What do I know about economics?
Nothing.
But I do know that it's like, that's what I'm saying about comedians.
Like, for some reason, comedians to me, in the humor part, you always get a little thing where you're like, wait a minute, this doesn't even make any sense on the level of surreal.
It's like, it's so much beyond, like, Dr. Strange Love, you know what I mean?
Yes.
You know, it's supposed to be like this thing where you're like, it doesn't make, but this is 20 times weirder.
It's not even, it's not even an intangible.
And it's a guy saying there's an intangible coming down the pike someday or something.
You know what I mean?
Yes.
Now, you know, you talk about comedians being, you know, intelligent.
I like to think that, you know, comedians are just, you know, better observers than other people, which makes us more, a little bit more informed, which makes us seem a lot more intelligent than other people because we're more informed.
And if you, you know, obviously you're a student of history.
And if you notice, do you see any correlations between what is happening right now with the banks kind of controlling?
What's happening?
Okay, go ahead.
And do you want to talk about that?
What's happening with us in the other?
Yeah.
Well, what I did was, the show started, I was like, everybody always says, oh, we're like the Roman Empire.
But really, the way I look at it, America has to combine all the things because we're like the Costco of Empire declines.
So we have to combine Romans decline, Greeks decline.
I started looking at the decline of all the empires, you know what I mean?
And, you know, you have to have quality in each one.
Right.
Because we're, you know, we have to supersize it.
So I started looking at it that way.
And then, you know, of course, once you try to look at something, you know, as a comedian, it fits right in anytime you want, you know.
Right, right.
You're right.
It's not that we're more intelligent than other people.
It's that we have more time on our hands to actually research this stuff.
Because we only work for an hour a day.
Right, right.
So every comedian, you go, did you see that?
Yeah.
Did you see that?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because all we do is sit there while they're reading.
Yeah, I saw that.
I saw all that stuff.
Exactly.
So like in the 20s, you know, the roaring 20s seemed to, I noticed a parallel between them and like the late 90s and the early 2000s.
Sure.
Where the banks kind of, you know.
Oh, that whole.
Yeah.
They got, you know, when the, I heard an anecdote about somebody knew that the boom of the 20s was over when a shoeshine boy was giving him a stock tip.
Wow.
And that, you know, that whenever, whenever, yeah.
And, you know, the whole trick is when the bankers make regular people like bartenders and waitresses and truck drivers think that they can get rich.
And when they start investing into the stock market, that's when it's all over.
And they did it again, you know, but they did it with mortgages, you know.
Right, right.
And so as soon as, you know, like FDR came along and he put in Glass-Steagall, he split up the banks and he got some regulations in there.
And we had a nice economy for about 70 years.
And then as soon as they got in, Bill Clinton reveals that Glass-Steagall Act in 1999.
And within a decade, everything goes belly up.
Right.
And here we are serving the banks again.
And I just, I guess my question is, have you been in to get a loan lately?
I have not.
I have not.
Like I said, I'm with Jerry.
Yeah.
He's my bank.
Oh, that's right.
But I mean, yeah, I haven't been in there lately.
Now they're just, I mean, it really was one of those things.
I mean, the banks, but that was my other show was about that.
Yeah.
The show is more about like historical stuff.
Yes.
But the historical parallels are also there.
You know, like the tulips.
Did you ever hear about that tulip thing in Belgium?
Yes.
In Holland.
You know, they had this tulip way.
where tulips were worth at one point you know like six months pay for a tulip uh-huh because just because they had the distorted inflation of a tulip for some reason right it became popular around the world with all these kings so tulips and then their whole economy crashed because of tulips and suddenly tulips were worthless and the same things it happens, obviously, with mortgages.
And the other thing was the French Revolution.
Another little fun fact I found during my little researching, which is me Googling for five minutes and calling somebody up and comedian research.
And then, but it was that the French Revolution had a very similar thing, a very similar economic thing right before our fall with the whole banks and everything.
You know what I mean?
Uh-huh, yeah.
And the kind of disconnected plutocracy, which was exemplified by Maria Antoinette saying, let them eat cake.
Sure.
And I kind of get that feeling that same kind of thing is happening in America right now, don't you?
Where we're ramping up a war that nobody really believes in.
But at the same time, we're laying off teachers and firemen and cops.
Well, yeah, I mean, it seems like it's always this way.
Is there a parallel from history that you see?
Like, is there what else that we're doing?
Overdeveloping.
Everything's everything overdeveloping.
Everything, it's all about this show is about doing the same thing when it stops working.
So, for example, in America, spending, spending, you know, just keep spending, keep dissent debates.
These are all things that work for us.
None of them work anymore, and we still do them the exact same way when they stop working.
So it's about not thinking.
So it's like everybody just has this idea of what America is to, and everybody just is doing this.
None of it works.
So instead of somebody sitting down and being like, okay, nothing we're doing is working.
Let's figure out something else, you know, which would be horrible and hard.
And probably nobody would get elected thinking like that, obviously.
But I'm just saying, instead, everybody just keeps doing the same thing.
You're like, you can't stop doing it.
So the Greeks, you know, it's about philosophy.
It's about the Romans overdeveloped like us.
You know, England went into other countries and tried to colonialize and tried to make that work and tried to franchise and all this different stuff that works.
That doesn't work, you know?
But that is interesting, but it's like, but how do you stop it?
I mean, nobody can really, nobody can really figure out, everybody knows what's wrong, but nobody could really figure out an answer.
You know what I mean?
Yes.
No system has worked on earth yet.
Right, right.
Correct.
The only one that sort of would work is a benign dictatorship like that guy, Sue Harto, the original Indonesian guy.
And even he fell.
This guy had like a great system.
He lived in a little house.
He ran the whole country.
Everybody loved him.
But he let his wife and all of his relatives and friends be in power, and they robbed all the money.
He didn't even rob it.
Oh, really?
Okay.
Well, you know, someone made recently, I was watching one of those Sunday talk shows, and somebody said that, you know, our system in America is only capable of producing sub-optimal answers to our problems.
And it kind of, you know, what does suboptimal mean, first of all?
Let's take this one piece at a time.
I don't even know what suboptimal means.
You're listening to the Jimmy Door show, and we're in the middle of a conversation with Colin Quinn, who stars the new Broadway hit, Colin Quinn, long story short, at the Helen Hayes Theater on Broadway, which was just extended.
It was directed by Jerry Seinfeld, which is very impressive.
All right, now let's get back to our conversation with Colin Quinn.
I'm guessing that we can only come up with half measures to fix our problems and that at this point, that our system is broken to the point where we're never going to have a true fix for it.
But the point is, what country, they say in America, like it's an American thing, it's a world thing.
Nobody has an answer.
I haven't seen an answer yet in history and any time.
And that's, you know what I mean?
What is the answer?
Nobody has an answer.
Well, China's answer seems to be...
I don't know.
I know, I know.
So do you feel, so do you feel like are you optimistic about the future of America?
Are you cynical about what's happening right now?
So where do you see us going in the next 10 years in America?
Well, I don't look at it as America anymore.
I just look at it like the whole world where it's going, you know what I mean?
Because it's so global and connected, you know?
So, I mean, America, I mean, yeah, I think we're in for a lot of, I mean, I'm an optimistic person, sadly enough.
So I actually don't see it as being, I see us in like, you know, just one of those things where it's, you know, for every time something great happens, something terrible happens, you know what I mean?
So I don't know.
I mean, I have no idea.
I mean, we could, I mean, to me, it just seems like it's not going to crack.
I have to admit, a couple of years ago when I first started, right before the election, I was like, holy Christ, this could be it.
I was like, looking, I was like, damn, this really could be it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I mean, you know, obviously, you know, but like I said, what's, you know, if we live, if we live through an apocalypse of hours right now, it would be what like a quarter of the world deals with every day anyway.
I mean, that's just the way the world is.
Wow.
That's a great thing.
We just haven't.
Yeah, that's quite a perspective right here in America.
We're like, oh, we're going to have to live like the rest of the world does, everyone.
Yeah.
Like about one-third of the world already lives like that.
You're going to go to this.
I mean, you know, so it's like, I mean, I don't want it, believe me.
I mean, I don't love it.
You know, I want it to stay the way the way it is, you know.
Well, I. But I mean, but too bad, you know, just because that's what I want doesn't mean it's going to happen.
Well, I hope so.
You know, it seems like we're losing the middle class in America, and I hope somebody can come along with some ideas to fix it again.
You know, when my dad, you know, I grew up with 12 kids in my family, and my dad was a cop, and my mom didn't work.
How could she?
She had 12 kids.
So, I mean, you couldn't do that today.
Nobody can.
The real Irish telephone.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, I mean, yeah, you couldn't do that today.
Everybody's got to have.
New York started 22,000.
Oh, you're kidding.
No.
Yeah.
So, and I, and I, I don't know.
It's just, it's, it's, it's, uh, I wish we could find a program, a GI bill for the rest of the country.
Maybe that's.
Colin Quinn, long story short, directed by Jerry Seinfeld at New York's Helen Hayes Theater, extended through February.
He's not making any money on it, so maybe you wait till he comes to your town with it.
That's right.
Colin, thank you very much for being our guest.
It was a pleasure and a delight.
Thanks, Jimmy.
You too, man.
Take care.
Okay, take care, pal.
Bye.
*Bell rings*
Hey, it's Jimmy.
Who's this?
Hey, Jimmy, how you doing?
It's Moron.
Hey, Moron, what's going on, buddy?
Well, Jim, I got a couple things on my mind this week.
And the first thing is, I'm so glad that they didn't let the Democrats raise the taxes on the rich millionaires.
Why is that?
Well, because why, Moron?
Do you think that they deserve it?
Because if they would, if they did raise taxes and the millionaires, then the millionaires wouldn't Go out and hire people.
We all know that, that it causes jobs.
Well, I would disagree that it causes jobs, as you would say.
Of course, you would.
We've already talked about this, but the tax cuts that are in place right now, they've been in place for 10 years.
Good.
And we don't have any jobs right now.
So do you see what I'm saying?
No.
They didn't.
Okay, I'm just going to move on.
You don't want to raise taxes in a bad economy on nobody.
Moron, did you see what?
First of all, do you know about the net neutrality thing?
Oh, my God, Jim.
I'm so glad you brought that up.
Oh, I say keep the government out of the internet.
Oh, Dead Obama.
He's protecting consumers.
No, he's trying to take my rights away.
Is there any freedom left in this country, Jim?
You know, Moron, you don't.
It's very disheartening because you don't understand what net neutrality means.
Yes, I do.
It just means that the government is going to regulate and make sure everything's fair.
Government screws it up.
You get some good corporations in there, and they're going to make sure that we get all the information we need.
You really think corporations are going to make sure you're going to get the information you need?
Just like they did make sure we get all the information we need right now on the TV and on the radio.
Well, I know that's not true, Moron.
What do you mean?
Because if they did give you all the information you needed, you would know that net neutrality is actually a good thing that protects your interests.
Get out.
But because you only listen to the corporate media, of course you don't know these things, and you're going to continue to act against your own interests.
Can't say I agree.
Okay, Moron.
Hey, what did you get trees for Christmas?
Oh, well, I'm getting her, you know, I get her a few things.
She likes clothes, so I got her some pajama jeans.
Did you say pajama jeans?
Yeah, looks like denim, but feels like PJs.
Oh, yeah.
she's going to love him.
How did you...
And you know, Jim, just because you're busy doesn't mean you can't look sharp.
Okay, what else did you get her, Moron?
Oh, I got her the cami lace.
A candy lace?
A cami lace.
A cami?
You know, if you don't want too much cleavage showing, you don't want to wear a bulky camisole.
It's the cami lace.
It attaches quickly and easily, and it gives you a camisole look and coverage.
I got you.
But you know, it's just a little piece of a camisole.
It's like a bib, but it hips right to your bra straps.
It's fantastic.
I love it.
Did you get her anything else, buddy?
Is that it?
I got her a slanket.
A what?
A slanket.
And what is that?
No, it's like a cover, but it has sleeves.
Oh, yeah.
So when you're sitting on the couch, you can sit up and read something, and the cover will stay on you.
Hmm.
Sounds like a snuggie to me.
No, they're very different.
Well, how can you, what's the difference?
Snuggies is much better.
Well, was that it?
Did you get her anything else?
Yeah, you know, I got her the gluggle jug.
The what?
And the what?
The gluggle jug.
Did you say it?
And the gluttle, and the gluggle mini goggle jug, too.
So get it for free as a bonus.
The gluggy gluggle jug.
You're saying gluggle jug is the thing.
It's uh, it's great.
What is it?
Well, it's like a pitcher for water, but you know, when you it's shaped like a fish.
The water pitcher?
Yeah, and then it gurgles when you pour it.
It's fun to hear the gurgle as you serve your favorite memories.
So a gurgling pitcher, this is what gets you going.
I find it fascinating.
Yeah, you know what?
I bet we went.
I'm taking Ed's character to our home.
We'll find out on Christmas.
I guess we will if Terese likes it.
I guess we'll find out.
Okay, Moron.
Well, listen, it was good talking to you, but happy holidays.
Merry Christmas.
Yes.
Oh, Merry Christmas.
Okay, Merry Christmas, Jim.
Okay, buddy.
We'll talk to you.
Bye-bye.
Okay, that was Moron.
Wow.
You know, I can't wait to get a look at Therese in those pajama jeans.
Especially by the glow of the light-up doormat.
That's going to be a little bit more.
Oh, the lighted doormat.
Yeah, that's right.
I can't wait to get over to Moron.
He went all out this year.
He really.
He really loves her.
These are tough times, but he shows his love.
Yeah.
I want to thank everybody who helps make this show possible.
I want to thank Paul Gilmartin, Robert Yasimura, Ben Zalavansky, Steph Zamorano, and Ron Babcock doing a great job as George Leslie.
And my producer, Ali Lexa, doing a great job.
And I want to thank everybody who showed up at the Flappers last Thursday.
That was a great time.
And I'll see you all this Tuesday, the 28th, at the UCB Theater for Poppin' Politics with special guest Phil Burr.
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