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July 18, 2015 - Louder with Crowder
22:16
Anthony Cumia on Political Correctness | Louder With Crowder
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You can't do that on cable news.
You have to sit there and hear Karl Rove say that Romney didn't actually lose the election for like a good hour.
Rove.
I know.
I can't get that MC Rove thing out of my head from years ago when he was doing that.
The MC Rogue.
And like anything he says now, he could be spouting the most intelligent, articulate analysis of something, which I haven't seen, but he could.
And still, I'd just be thinking, I'm MC Rogue!
This compound you're doing now, so you're off on your own, doing the podcast, and it's sort of like this agricultural, your own plot of land.
Are you happy?
Are you glad doing this deal?
It seems like, I mean, you just brought on Gavin.
It seems like it's going gangbusters.
Yeah, it's already gone leaps and bounds from where I thought it was going to go.
I was just kind of grabbing at straws a year ago when I got the boot from SiriusXM.
And I figured, hey, I got a facility in my house for whatever it's worth.
I might as well give it a whirl.
And a year later...
We're all realizing, everybody that's contributed to this project is realizing that there's a lot more that we didn't even see as far as getting a network together.
Other shows that are just really clamoring to get a platform.
It's nearly impossible to build something from the ground floor up in this medium right now.
It's just happening.
It's kind of...
Like open prairie, the Wild West.
I mean, you don't even know what to build or what to do or how to present what you want to put out there.
It's so new.
So a lot of people really don't have the resources to just kind of start it out of nowhere.
I was kind of forced into that situation, thank God, through the luck and...
Life that I've had doing radio over the years, it gave me the resources to be able to kind of build my own little empire that I'm building at this point.
And people are coming on board, and I really have a good feeling about where this is headed and this type of entertainment that people want without...
Restrictions and without...
Speaking of restrictions, I have to get us to a break.
Keep the lights...
Of course.
And then we'll bring you back and then you'll have none.
Anthony Cumia, Lauder with Crowder.
or stay tuned.
Just as Anthony was making the brilliant point that it's the Wild West and you can hear all of this online if you're listening terrestrially.
By the way, we also have the extended version at loudowithcrader.com Anthony will go off the reservation.
We had to take a break.
We're back.
Anthony, you know, it's interesting you say that.
Bill Whittle had a great point about that, how we've sort of gone back to the agricultural revolution where everyone had their own little plot of land and wealth.
And then with the industrial revolution, you had sort of the super wealthy and the working class.
And now we're going to a digital version of the agricultural revolution.
And I think you're going to see far fewer like billionaires, you know, far fewer maybe Roger Ailes or Murdoch's, but far more millionaires or people who make good six figures.
with their own kind of deal, like you're doing or like Gavin...
Do you see it going that way?
Yeah, absolutely.
People are tired of just being force-fed entertainment, whether it's news or just comedy shows, whatever it is.
They're tired of paying attention to other people's schedules, other people's idea of what's appropriate or funny or whatnot.
And this really opens up quality programming for everybody.
It really is an astounding revolution going on right now.
No, I think you're absolutely right.
And then you have Jerry Seinfeld, who's right.
He says there's also the big trash can that is YouTube where you have people who are hacks.
And I understand where he's coming from.
But also as someone who started in stand-up comedy, did the festivals, and that was how I started.
From 18, I just toured for years.
I also realized that not always the best person is the person who gets seen.
You can probably talk with Jimmy Norton about that or Patrice O'Neill when you look at Last Comic Standing.
I remember Last Comic Standing is a perfect example.
I don't know if you remember the first season.
Oh, that fan.
Yeah.
Okay.
Because I remember Kathleen Madigan goes in.
And I'm a kid.
You have to understand, I actually built stages at the Just for Laughs.
I worked as a grip for a couple years.
And I was going, okay, what do I need to learn?
My mom was a wardrobe stylist there at this festival.
And then I ended up eventually making it to the stage.
But I remember Kathleen Madigan rolls out on Last Comic Standing.
I'm going, that's Kathleen Madigan.
And then I was like, well, just wrap it up, go home, and Patrice.
And then Dat Fam wins.
Dat Fam wins.
Dat fan or dat fam?
I don't want to be racist.
No, I think it was dat fan.
Oh.
It doesn't matter at this point.
I mean, nobody really remembers him except for the fact that he won that and shouldn't have, I guess.
But it's odd that you bring up stand-up comedy because...
Back in the 80s, especially when Seinfeld was just kind of hitting, you could not turn on a channel, especially on the weekends, and not see some brick wall and some schmuck up in front of it trying to do comedy.
There was a lot of comics back then.
Right.
I think the cream rose to the top.
Some people got lucky, but a lot dropped to the wayside, and I think that's what you're going to see in this digital renaissance that's happening.
I mean, you know, sometimes I watch stuff on Vine, and I'm like, what is it?
Why does this person have, like, a million views on this?
And it's literally nothing.
Yeah, you're throwing a potato at the ceiling fan.
Yeah.
Yeah, and, you know, that crap kind of drops off and the stuff that's good, I guess, hangs in there.
So, you know, we're hoping to make something that lasts.
Yeah.
Well, I think you have obviously an advantage of this sort of, you know, you've had to hit breaks before.
You have experience in a professional realm, and so you carry that into what you're doing online.
And I did that when I started doing web videos.
If you watched the first web videos, I mean, that's how I met Andrew Breitbart.
It was just stand-up to a camera.
And then I realized, this is kind of awkward.
There's not really a live audience, and it didn't really work.
And I was saying, well, I'm talking, you know, my stand-up had a lot of sort of personalities and characters, and I was never, you know, not the greatest set-up punchline.
It was more so storytelling.
And I said, okay, well, now online I can actually just dress up and act this out.
And then it was a little more dynamic, and I sort of adapted professional years of experience to the medium, whereas you see some people who just start out with this, where...
There are no constraints.
They never learn the rules to learn how to break them, if that makes sense.
Yeah, there's a weird thing going on where having the freedom to do whatever you want, audio or video-wise, as far as a podcast goes, or a web show, doesn't mean there aren't some basic rules to stick to.
Maybe formatics or logistically, just for the comfort of people watching or listening.
There are a few rules that you have to stick to.
It can't just be complete anarchy.
Right.
This is true.
Well, OK, speaking of that, I never really knew this about you.
I don't want to mischaracterize you.
Would you consider yourself conservative, libertarian, right-leaning?
More so libertarian than anything, but I do believe in certain rules.
Certain rules and regulations.
A lot of libertarians Come off more like anarchists than libertarian.
But I do have some right-leaning ideology, but I also, believe it or not, have some left-leaning ideologies.
I really don't fit into...
I hate to sound like that because it's like...
I don't fit into your box.
I'm so unique, man.
But, you know, I... I like certain things.
I appreciate certain things.
I like certain freedoms.
And then I like certain order and restrictions in certain places.
Believe it or not, I consider myself reasonable.
I know many would argue that.
Well, what's funny is the second you appear on Fox News, I'm sure all your left-leaning sort of comedian friends thought there's no way you could be reasonable.
You have a lot of people who just, oh, they write you off if you do that.
Oh, of course.
Oh, you went on faux news.
Right, yeah, exactly.
So, yeah, they'll think that, but then I'll talk about other issues that are definitely liberal issues, and I'll agree with some of them.
I've been called a bleeding-heart liberal on the O&A show once, and that was hilarious, because the whole place, everyone just started laughing, and then Jimmy, of course, throws me under the bus, and he's like, oh, yeah, I can't stand his liberal ideology.
So...
The problem with today, and I don't even know if it's today.
I think it was always.
If you have one thing that falls into a category, people just want to say, well, that's who you are.
I guess you match up with every other side of the right or the left or libertarian.
But to pick and choose, that's kind of where I'm at.
Yeah, well, I think that's most people.
It's funny enough, you know, you mentioned Jim Norton, who everyone thinks of as this, I guess some people, not everyone, think of him as this shock comic.
Yeah.
And he's incredibly thoughtful.
I mean, if you read through the books and you get through the kind of, you know, the hooker stuff and everything, there's some insight there that I think a lot of people miss.
And I even had just a great conversation with him at the Comedy Cellar once about sort of the separation of church and state.
And we talked about the drug war.
And there were a couple of times where he said, huh.
Well, you know, I hadn't thought about that.
That's a good point.
And I was going, wait a second.
You're supposed to be an ass.
You're a comic.
You're not supposed to relinquish any territory.
And it was a really great back and forth.
And I think maybe people got that with you a little bit because obviously the show was sort of bombastic and it was revolutionary.
There wasn't anything like it when it came out, you know, Opie and Anthony.
Do you think maybe sometimes people are surprised that there's sort of Anthony on air and then Anthony the person who's willing to reason?
Yeah, that's one of the pitfalls.
You've got to take it with everything else that comes with having any type of success in, I guess, any business.
People are going to pigeonhole you, say that that's who you are.
Jimmy's a great example because I think Jimmy started off with that kind of shock comedy thing.
Just to get attention.
I think, you know, I don't think Jimmy thought he was good enough to go out and actually talk about issues and things.
A lot of comics are that way.
So as he's grown as a comic, he's gotten so much better.
And he's just amazing now.
But yeah, people will pigeonhole me.
He even hated, I remember we were talking about the Just, have you ever been to the Just for Laughs there in Montreal, the big festival?
Oh yeah, yeah.
Okay.
So, you know, they have The Nasty Show.
It was like one of their shows.
And I remember Jimmy was sitting there.
He goes, oh, The Nasty Show.
It's so stupid.
Those guys are dopes.
They're just dummies.
They're sitting there.
Oh, we did something dirty.
Be an effing good comic.
And he was like sitting there.
And I was going, no one would expect to hear this from Jimmy Norton.
And he doesn't like the gimmickry of selling dirty, even though he would be considered a blue comic.
And I have a lot of respect for that.
Yeah, because it is kind of gimmick if that's what you're depending on.
But yeah, Jimmy's very smart, very insightful.
I've listened to his advice show when I was driving home when I was working there, and some of the stuff he comes out with, it's really kind of very well thought out for such a psychopath.
Yeah.
Well, I feel like you're the same way.
I mean, I even listened to you on Joe Rogan's show, who I also think is another guy who...
Yeah, Rogan's great.
Rogan's great.
He's like a guy who gets it right, I would say, like 99% of the time.
I have a lot of respect for him.
And then when he gets into the 9-11s and inside job thing, I'm like, eh, okay, I get off the train, you know?
He's a great example of somebody, though, that you can listen to like that, and then he'll just take a left turn, and you're like, what?
Joe, what?
He'd be like, you know, sitting there, he'd be like, you know, the pharmaceutical industry and this and the way drugs work.
And I'm like, okay, I understand.
And he goes, and we never landed on the moon.
Wait, hold on, hold on, hold on.
Wait, what?
Let's back it up.
Building 7, what?
Bilderberg!
I know.
We get that all the time.
But like you said, you take the good with the bad.
The good thing is I can just skim ahead.
You can't do that on cable news.
You have to sit there and hear Karl Rove say that Romney didn't actually lose the election for like a good hour.
Rove.
I know.
I can't get that MC Rove thing out of my head from years ago when he was doing that.
The MC Rogue.
And like anything he says now, he could be spouting the most intelligent, articulate analysis of something, which I haven't seen, but he could.
And still, I'd just be thinking, I'm MC Rogue!
And I cannot look at that man and listen to what he's saying with any credibility.
That was like a cross between Karl Rove and if Jesse Jackson, not Jesse Jackson, Jesse Ventura had his nards cut off.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm MC Rove.
MC Rove.
I was an underwater demolitions unit.
If you took that moment, should be right up there with, and then we're going to go to Washington!
Yeah!
It's one of those moments that you're just like, oh no, I can't look.
Right.
It's terrible and someone's life has just now been ruined because of that.
It's really, I hate to say it, but we're all sort of a part of that where we feel terrible and we see someone's life ruined like Star Wars kid.
Remember when that started?
Oh, yeah.
And you're like, oh, man, the kid had to go to a different school because he was bullied so hard, but...
Let me Photoshop this a little bit more.
And you still want to be a part of it.
It's sick.
Yeah, yeah.
Always fun.
Well, you know, it helps when you don't know the person because that's where we're at today.
You know, with social media, you don't know these people.
You're bullying some picture or just a...
I think a lot of people...
They're so separated that they don't realize that at times they make a huge impact on somebody and they take that with them.
Maybe the technology is just too new for us to realize as dumb meatbags.
We have to go to one more break.
I want to bring you on one more segment and then we'll go to thelaudowithcrowder.com exclusive web version.
Stay tuned.
Anthony Cumia.
Andy Kumeya back.
Before we got there, you got into, you know, there was some earnest conversation there, which I don't think a lot of people, I mean, people who are subscribed to your podcast, right?
Full disclosure, I'm not.
I don't have the money.
They know, but a lot of people just hear the highlights, right?
They go on YouTube and they hear the highlights.
Mm-hmm.
Let's be real talk here, because you've been, I don't want to say the victim of cyberbullying, you're not a victim, but you have definitely had some wrath sent your way, particularly from the social justice warrior left.
I've even seen you get into feuds with good friends of yours, people who even I've been on panels with at Fox.
I don't want to speak for you, kind of throw you under the bus the way some viewers saw it.
Do you, as someone who's been in the public eye for so long, you're told you have a thick skin, does it ever bother you?
Does it get to you?
Yeah, I think it's impossible for it to not get to you in some capacity.
It's how much you let it get to you.
Early on, especially when me and Opie were still in Boston, Chat rooms and certain websites where you could get feedback on what you're doing started popping up.
And it was like, oh, this is great.
And then you look and realize, oh, wait.
I'm so distracted now by stuff that's coming in during the show that this is changing the whole dynamic of how we do a show.
Aside from the phone call, which you had control over...
When it came in, who it was, a screener, things like that, or a fax that would roll up on the floor and hit the ground during your show.
You really didn't have much interaction with your fans, especially negative interaction.
With the advent of the internet and social media and even early on, people were able to just be really nasty to you.
As you're trying to do the show.
And it became very distracting.
So I think in that aspect, you had to build up a tough, thick skin and just kind of plow through it.
Okay.
Well, there's so much.
I want to go back to that as we do the extended web version because on this, people on the radio are like, let's talk politics, boy.
That's boring to me.
Opie and Anthony was never, ever, ever meant to be any kind of a political show or anything like that.
It was just meant to be funny.
I mean, people talking, which you didn't hear on radio.
That was pretty new.
The other morning shows were all like, oh, hey, what do you think, Anthony?
And I've done those shows.
I don't know if you've ever been sucker-punched into someone who says, hey, we have you in a press thing, you appear in some show, and you never get a word in.
It kind of morphed into that, though.
Yeah, I think it's a bunch of things.
It's just evolution.
Evolution of a show, of us as individuals, of different formats of radio, you know, going from terrestrial to satellite.
All that...
When you put it all together, you kind of grow as a show.
I think we all grew in kind of different directions, but it worked.
And myself, I started looking around and thinking like, my God, things are really...
Getting screwed up.
And I felt it was so hard not to talk about it.
Yeah, I would love to just, you know, hey, let's talk about Kim Kardashian's ass today.
Wow.
You know, and I'm thinking, really?
When, you know, things like...
A nuclear deal being brokered with Iran and Iraq just falling to pieces, Syria, Israel, here in the United States, the Confederate flag issues, Ferguson, Baltimore, all these issues.
And I'm supposed to sit there and worry about Kim Kardashian's ass?
It became something that I couldn't not talk about.
And much to a lot of people's chagrin.
A lot of people are just like, hey, shut up, be more funny, be more...
It's like, you know, I try to inject some humor into it, but some things are just not funny, and they're so in your face that you have to talk about them.
Right.
And do you feel like on the flip side, you have conservatives who don't want you to be funny at all sometimes, and they just want the red meat, and you're like, I'm a complete person.
Sometimes I'm going to be funny.
Sometimes I want to make a point.
Right.
Yeah, I think sometimes you get people that think if you're being funny, you're not taking the point seriously.
And that's not the case.
I'm by nature.
I've always tried to inject a little levity, especially into a tense situation.
If for nothing else, my own insecurities, which have been pointed out many times that I can't just let a real moment go.
I have to make a joke or laugh or something.
So it doesn't mean I'm any less passionate about the subject I'm talking about.
I just don't like sitting there and pontificating on a soapbox instead of making it a little more fun, a little more relatable to people that are just casually listening or casually getting involved in the subject that we're talking about.
No, I think you're right.
I think it was Phyllis Diller who said, comedy is a rubber-tipped sword.
It's a way to make a point without drawing blood.
The truth is, actually, you can draw incredible blood with comedy, or you can have it drawn from you.
If you look at the Kramer situation, it's a very, very...
It's a touchy area when you enter into it, especially because everyone has a different opinion on what they think is funny.
But I think the audience has spoken.
They think you're funny.
They like your show, anthonycumia.com.
If people want to subscribe, is that just where they go, or iTunes?
Yeah, go to anthonycumia.com.
Click on subscribe.
You can check out some clips and stuff.
See if it's your cup of tea, as they say.
But, oh my god, it's so economical.
What is it, like seven bucks a month?
And then it's cheaper for six months and cheaper even still for a year.
All the entertainment all packaged right here.
There you go.
Mere pittance.
AnthonyCumia.com.
Again, for those listening terrestrially, we're going to let him go, but you can go to loudearthcrowder.com or he might have this up on his YouTube channel to find an extended, non-FCC monitored version.
Anthony, thank you so much.
Hey, subscribe by clicking my face or watch one of these videos next to me because...
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