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May 4, 2025 - On Brand

17:25

Weekend Update & Chatting w/Will Weldon [PREVIEW]

Al gives a brief update on Russell's legal situation, and then gets to a fun chat from last week with Will Weldon! Want to hear the rest of this episode? Head to https://patreon.com/OnBrand

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	This is propaganda live.
	I only suggest how to think and how to vote.
	An extraordinary cultural moment, already iconic, already iconic.
	We love you, you're welcome here.
	I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but it's a bit late now.
	They don't want to have a conversation in the debate, but they're lying.
	And this is a matter now of fact and record.
	Trump is like Hitler.
	Let me count the ways.
	I'm a Nazi, actually.
	I'm an arse, actually, and I've kept it now till now, but this is my chance.
	God is propaganda.
	Did you guess it?
	Did you guess it?
	I feel that Christ may have had a better vision.
	Bastards, aren't they?
	I mean, you can't watch them after this without realising they're absolute bastards.
	Let's go full screen on Russell.
	This is On Brand!
	I mentioned that I might or might not provide a little weekend update for everyone regarding Russell's legal situation and whatnot.
	And while there's not too much to update you on, I realize that as I'm putting out previews of Patreon content on the main feed now, I might as well update you all here first, and then get into the Patreon content, which this week will be more of me and Will Weldon having a chat about politics, food, and everything in between.
	Honestly, it might be a problem.
	We were chatting for 40 minutes before I even hit the record button last week, and then we had half an hour of extra chat at the start, which you'll see here, and an extra 10 minutes from the middle of the show as well.
	It's eventually gonna get to the point where I'll need to schedule five hours out of the day for me and Will to do a show together.
	Not that I'm complaining, mind you.
	I had a great time, as you will see.
	Before we get to that, as for Russell's legal situation, well, he did, in fact, show up to court in the UK on Friday, which is no small feat.
	He stopped broadcasting live from Florida sometime around 6pm UK time on the Thursday, and then he got what was an 8-hour flight from Florida, possibly quicker if he travelled via private jet, which seems probable, to be here in court in the UK at around 8pm.
	45 Friday morning.
	The hearing was at a magistrate's court, so very much a lower court.
	It was something of a preliminary bail hearing deciding where, like, the criminal trial will be held, etc.
	And it'll be at London's Crown Court, otherwise known as the Old Bailey.
	It's a pretty serious place with a lot of history.
	Though I'm quite sure it being held there is more a reflection of geographical jurisdiction than severity of the crime necessarily, though it is pretty severe, obviously.
	And in terms of his freedoms, Russell has been allowed to stay free for now on bail and on provision of both his UK and US addresses to the court.
	And yeah, he's not commented much about it yet.
	He's been pretty quiet, but I'd be surprised if he doesn't say something on Monday's show.
	So that may end up what we're...
	That said, though he has been more or less silent, barring tweeting out a quote from Exodus about how the Lord will fight for you on the day of the court hearing, he did retweet something from Tucker Carlson that same day, who said, Russell Brand was once a famous left-wing actor celebrated by the British establishment.
	Then he criticized the government for using COVID to turn the UK into a totalitarian state.
	The accolades abruptly stopped.
	A government TV station accused Brand of committing sex crimes against anonymous women they refused to name.
	Government officials called for his opinions to be scrubbed from the internet.
	Last month, British prosecutors charged Brand with rape and sexual assault.
	None of the charges are backed by hard evidence.
	All of them supposedly took place more than 20 years ago, one of them in the 1990s.
	The entire case is transparently political and absurd, a near-identical replay of the fake rape charges authorities brought against Julian Assange 15 years ago.
	He has no shot at a fair trial because Britain is no longer a free country.
	Over the last few years, millions of foreigners have applied for asylum in the United States.
	Russell Brand actually deserves it.
	Say a prayer that the Trump administration comes to his rescue.
	Unquote.
	There's a lot wrong in that.
	Channel 4 is not a government TV station for a start.
	Government officials didn't call for his opinions to be scrubbed from the internet, right?
	And how would he know whether the charges against Russell are backed by hard evidence?
	Like, I'm quite sure there is at least some hard evidence of this, otherwise it wouldn't be going to court.
	Because, you know...
	They're pretty finicky about that whole thing, to the degree of it being kind of an issue.
	You know, only 1% of these cases ever end up actually resulting in someone getting charged.
	So, hey!
	Anyway, people are...
	Welcome to say what they want about my speculation that Russell may attempt to avoid extradition by remaining in Florida in the US.
	I know a couple of people have suggested the notion is crazy, but Tucker Carlson seems to already think Russell should be some sort of political refugee protected and granted asylum by President Donald Trump.
	You know, that guy who gave Russell the Global Defender of Freedom Award at Mar-a-Lago a few months ago, who...
	Can legally be described as a rapist as well.
	And I'm like, hmm.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Also, I don't know.
	My instincts are generally pretty solid.
	And I've spent two years watching everything that this guy's done.
	And just got a feeling.
	Just got a feeling.
	At any rate, Russell is due to appear in court at the Old Bailey on May 30th, though I'm unclear if there are any more procedural matters to address before the trial begins proper.
	I don't know whether that's the proper beginning of the trial or whether there's another thing, but we'll see what happens then.
	In the meantime...
	I'll keep on covering this guy.
	And until Thursday, enjoy this 40 minutes or so of me and Will Weldon shooting the shit and having a chat.
	We'll begin with the 10-minute segment that I plucked from the middle of the show, and then we'll move to the half an hour of chat before we started recording properly.
	Enjoy.
	I'm so uncharitable in how much I tend to believe what people say about their beliefs, like these kinds of guys.
	I'm so uncharitable in taking them at face value.
	I do...
	It is like, and you told me about that before, there is a single fruit fly in this room and it is driving me insane.
	What you've told me, if you're watching this and you're seeing my hand doing this a lot, I'm trying to find a spot I can get it.
	Like, you know, that kind of like incredibly difficult childhood.
	It's, you know, and then, like, the fame and the drug problems and, like, all of the money and his being an accused serial rapist.
	It is all of those things, like, it, I guess, charitably, it does, it doesn't seem so difficult.
	It is easier than I suppose I give him credit for that.
	Like, for me, I think it's the health stuff.
	I do sincerely believe.
	He believes the health stuff.
	It is not hard for me to imagine he is an anti-vax guy who truly believes in homeopathic stuff.
	He's taken that same blue dye that RFK Jr. has.
	He's taken that every day, apparently.
	Colloidal silver?
	No, no, there's like a methylene blue, something like that.
	It's literally blue dye, where if you have too much of it, it can make you severely ill.
	But Russell's taking it every day.
	Some people in his chat were like, oh, that's too much, you shouldn't have that much.
	I cannot stress this enough about RFK Jr.
	A worm ate a part of his brain, and then the worm died.
	Like, that guy's mind is so fucked up that it killed a parasite.
	The corpse of the worm is still there.
	He lived.
	And the worm couldn't, like...
	Listen, I understand that might come off as ableist.
	I don't think people who have had brain damage, intellectual disabilities, they shouldn't be...
	Excommunicated from normal life.
	But, like, when a guy is like a worm ate a part of my brain and then talks about the things he does and believes the things he does, it's like, well, there are certain responsibilities this man should not have.
	Well, here's the thing.
	If it was just the worm in isolation, we'd all be like, okay, that's a bit crazy.
	When he's also saying, yeah, I took a dead bear and put it in Central Park and, like, also, like, I fucking, you know, stuck my fist in a dead whale and, like, all this other crazy shit.
	Strap the whale, the dead whale's head to the top of their car and, like, bile was going everywhere.
	The way his daughter talks about the smell.
	And that man, that man apparently is going to have figured out the cause of autism by September, did you know?
	Like, beyond the parasite thing, I am just skeptical that Kennedys should be allowed to participate in daily public life.
	I believe being raised as a Kennedy is like a poisonous thing to happen to one's mind.
	This guy, like...
	All this other stuff.
	And like, I can't believe there were multiple.
	So I thought it was colloidal silver because if you take too much colloidal silver, it'll turn your skin permanently blue.
	I didn't know there were multiple blue dye-esque things circulating around.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	I think it was methyl something blue.
	And yeah, yeah, because there was a picture of RFK Jr., I think, on Air Force One, having some.
	And yeah, Russell's been taking it every day.
	I'd also like to apologize to the people of the United Kingdom for thinking Bear Grylls was American.
	I was thinking of the Dirty Jobs guy.
	No, no!
	Who I was thinking of.
	Americans are welcome to have him as far as we're concerned.
	I think we've taken enough of those sorts of British figures, if I can be honest.
	Yeah, again, you can have James Corden back as well.
	He keeps doing stuff over here again.
	I'm like, nope, fuck off back to L.A. Fuck off back to L.A., James.
	I can't even think of any.
	I can't even.
	Who are the ones you guys have taken?
	Not many.
	I don't think we generally do.
	I don't think we take Americans over here anymore.
	I think we have a rule.
	There might be some sort of middle-rate, not-great stand-up comedians, and that's it.
	Those are the only Americans who end up permanently in the UK with any kind of fame around them.
	It's truly infuriating.
	It's infuriating because America gets the best Canadians Entertainment, media is a little dicey, but entertainment broadly, like, people here will be like, Canadians are so funny.
	And it's like, no, no.
	You guys just get the funny Americans.
	Like, you guys get John Doerr.
	You don't get a bunch of the guys I was featuring for as I toured through Saskatchewan with Yuck Yucks.
	Like, those guys don't end up here, so you don't know how bad it can be.
	Whereas the UK, it's like, these guys we get, it's like...
	Stop this.
	Don't let this happen, man.
	Yeah, we're a country of exports.
	That's what we do.
	But that's how America was founded, you know?
	We came across a bunch of people we thought were really fucking annoying, you know, the Puritans, and we were like, okay, you go over there, you go over to this other place, and there you go, America happened.
	I can't remember his name, but there's this Irish comedian who's here, and he has a bit about how America got all of the worst Irish people, like, coming from Ireland.
	You know, Ireland fought on the side of Mexico during the Mexico-America War.
	You know, in Ireland, there's a general pride over the idea of, like, you know, civil rights and, like, persecuted people.
	There's a general idea of solidarity.
	And then you come here and it's a bunch of, like, Irish-American cops being like, I don't want some freaking gay guy marching in my parade, you know?
	Like, why did we get those guys, man?
	It's horrible.
	Yeah, yeah, again, it's because we sent them to you.
	When I found out Piers Morgan, when I found out his dad was Irish, I was like, of course, because he lives here now.
	Of course his dad was Irish.
	Of course that's like the Irish guy.
	That's the type of Irish guy who ends up here.
	It's like Piers Morgan.
	That completely tracks.
	I'll tell you what we have kept is Jeremy Clarkson.
	He's still here.
	That just doesn't translate the same way.
	I've watched a little bit of Top Gear, and I'm like, this is very British.
	There is something very British about Top Gear.
	Here's the thing.
	Jeremy Clarkson's a massive prick, but he can at least be funny.
	You know, like, he does at least have that capacity.
	Whereas Piers Morgan, very much not.
	And plus, Jeremy Clarkson famously punched Piers Morgan in the face.
	So, like, you know, he has redeeming qualities.
	I will say that.
	Yeah, there's a stand-up comic here who's very famous, who I'm like, God, he's bad.
	But there is a story about him punching out another comic who's even worse for stealing material from him.
	So I'm like...
	You know, he's not the worst guy in the world.
	Yeah, the guy he punched is.
	There you go.
	Done.
	It's the same.
	I mean, I like George Lopez all right, but he also famously punched out Carlos Mencia backstage too one time.
	Right.
	That used to be the way it went.
	If you did stand-up comedy and you stole jokes from somebody well-liked enough, they would beat the shit out of you for doing it.
	I mean, I'm not against it.
	You know?
	I'm like, that's...
	Sometimes these things exist for a reason.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Do I think every unwritten rule, and I think a lot of them are like, particularly in sports, are weird and sort of like old-fashioned, like coded racist.
	But there are some unwritten rules where it's like, yeah, it's better when nobody does that, you know?
	It's good when people are doing that.
	Like, you're stealing?
	Like, yeah, you might get punched.
	Like, that's just kind of the way that goes.
	Like, every single artist in the world has the right to punch anyone who has been involved with OpenAI and ChatGPT, you know?
	Oh my gosh.
	How much better would the world, like, would the world be if people were able to get their hands on these guys?
	If the consequences were like, okay, you can do this, but...
	Everyone who is affected can punch you at any time.
	I feel like the world would be a better place.
	Yeah, if some very small illustrator with a DeviantArt account, if they could get their hand, or some small online illustrator could get their hands on a guy with a DeviantArt account...
	Deviant art account that is just filled with thousands of pictures of AI-generated pictures of celebrities topless.
	If that cartoonist could just get their hands on that guy for 15 minutes, I just don't think that would be a bad thing.
	Especially since they're an illustrator.
	They're probably not going to be able to do that much damage to him anyway.
	I don't know, dude.
	Those Copic markers can do some serious damage if you know what you're dealing with.
	God, I love shit like that.
	Because also, presidential marriages and stuff, they are a lot of the time akin to a business partnership towards later years especially.
	It just becomes more traditional.
	I don't think Bill and Hillary particularly like each other.
	No.
	No.
	Though, I did have a moment where it did kind of feel like they were in love again in 2008 when Bill Clinton was being racist during the Democratic primary.
	Oh, that'll unite them.
	Yeah, I could see that.
	Yeah, I remember watching him have an absolute meltdown.
	I was like, oh, I think this guy actually cares about his wife.
	This is crazy.
	I've not seen this before.
	Also, they should pull him off the campaign trail because he should not be saying these things.
	Yeah, yeah.
	It's crazy that Bill Clinton cares about his wife.
	You would not think.
	Really.
	Literally no one imagined this day would come.
	No, no, I always assumed he cared more about the saxophone than Hillary, but all right.
	Any number of things I assumed he cared about more.
	All right, I'm going to finish now because I'm hungry and I want to eat something.

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