 You're listening to highlights from The David Feldman Show, heard nationwide on Pacifica Radio, or as a podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, and now YouTube. Please subscribe to this channel. For more information, go to davidfeldmanshow.com. Thank you for listening. The David Feldman radio program is made possible by listeners like you. You sad, pathetic humps. Joining us from Hollywood, Rick Overton, Emmy Award-winning writer, and he's in the new series on Showtime every Sunday night, I'm dying up here. Hello there, Rick Overton. Hey, David. Thanks for having me on, man. Thank you for doing this. First up, we have to talk about I'm Dying Up Here. This is a series that Jim Carrey's producing, and it's about the early years of the modern-day stand-up comedy explosion. 1973, the sunset strip. It's a fictitious comedy club called Goldies. It's not the comedy store, but it's like the comedy store. It's not the improv, but it's nearby, and we have things that are like those different clubs. Comedians that they're using on the show, some of whom were around for the original scene, are playing roles not as comedians all the time, but as other roles on the show that are wonderful. And it takes a great look at how the comedy business started. When you say it takes a good look or a great look at how the comedy business started, why 1970? The boom. The boom started in 1973. Is that what you're saying? It's before the boom. It's showing how it built to the boom. It's pre-boom. 73 isn't the boom. When is the boom? It's not time yet. I'd say later 70s, late 70s. It's when the explosion of other clubs opened. Without giving too much away here, and I did read that book and I loved it. It's based on that book, right? Yeah. Loosely, loosely based on the book, but it's really more about the comedy scene in general. It's about the entire, you know, the way vinyl was for the record industry. This is for the comedy industry and on the other side of the exact same time frame. And I would say if there was a distinction between vinyl and between I'm dying up here, it's that you didn't, as much as I wanted to care about all those people on vinyl, I couldn't attach to their crisis. But I think the people and I'm dying up here are very relatable and sympathetic. And I think that's a big part of it, you know. The boom started in the late 70s. I've got a little something in my throat. I've got Rick Overton on and I can't make the joke that I want to make because I have too much respect for you, Rick Overton, so I'm going to move on. But you know, and my audience knows, that it's semen. But I'm not going to do a joke about having semen on my throat because I want to impress you. We're going high brow on my show. High brow here. So I have to apologize to my listeners for one quick second and brag to Rick Overton and tell him that in the past three weeks, Congressman Alan Grayson has done this show twice. Yes, I love Alan. Before we get back to I'm dying up here, explain to our listeners why it is such a major coup to have Alan Grayson on the show. You might remember a very famous piece of business on the floor of Congress where, you know, this is even before Bernie was speaking out as boldly. Alan kind of was the first guy to just completely not just rock the boat, but capsize it. Then they had to write it again with ropes and other boats and stuff. He knocked it completely sideways when he came on and said, here's the Republican health care plan. If you get sick, hurry up and die. And there wasn't, you know, all the proper people were outraged. And all the ones you would want to be outraged were outraged. And so I was very impressed with all of that and I went on to get to know them and help them with his campaign and stuff. And yeah, you know, you can tell when someone's really shaking up the boat is suddenly there's all these weird out of nowhere, only just found out now controversies about the person. How convenient that you only just found out now. What do you mean? Oh, that kind of crap. What do you mean? Oh, they're always finding things about Bernie. Suddenly there's something about Bernie now that he's so popular. Oh, suddenly it's a problem of property, even though lots of people do it. Suddenly there's an investigation and oh, they're trying to do things to Alan Grayson saying about his, you know, he was abusing his wife when I am a personal friend and I happen to know what the truth is that it was quite the contrary. And there's video tapes. And there was video. Yeah. I'm the one that told him to tape. Said bring a video. Video tells the truth. I did two interviews with him and then we talked after the show and he brought up the stuff with the ex-wife and I didn't even know about it. I knew that there was something but I never clicked on it because I wasn't interested. Right. And most Americans aren't and it's as a smear tactic it's been a catastrophic and abject failure. I'll tell you why character does matter. And then I want to get back to Alan Grayson and 1973 in the comedy boom and I want to impress Rick Overton because if you don't like me, I'm in trouble. And by the way, I was explaining that to my shrink and he didn't understand that there are certain people in other people's lives who you have to live up to their expectations. And if you fail them, you fail yourself. And you're one of those people who if you know, no pressure there. If you're one of those. I'll be honored though. I'm glad that you would think that your joke, your joke, if you got me to laugh would be a big deal because your jokes always do. Well, it's not only the jokes. It's how I live my life. I have to live my life. I can't have you not approve of the way I live my life. And I've been told that's the wrong way to live. But Rick Overton seems like I don't know that much about him. It seems like you're having a good time back there in New York and liking your world. And do you like your world back in New York right now, Dave? Well, given that we both went to Dwight Morrow High School. That's right. You can actually go visit every now and then inexpensively. There are moments and you don't get these in Los Angeles where I'm driving through New Jersey to visit my sister or my mother. And there's cut grass and I get high school wood. I look down and I'm going, wait a second. How is the smell of cut grass giving me high school boner? You have a memory boner, a nostalgia boner. What is that about? It's about back when we could get boners. Listen, honey, stay right here. I can't afford the Viagra. Pasquale is going to come in with a leaf blower. Yeah, I just need you to lean up against these wooden arrows from the lawn of Dwight Morrow High School. It's the first place I got laid and now it's the only place I can get laid. It only happens here. Yes, there was something about the grass at Dwight Morrow. Is that what you did? There were these arrows that everybody kept trying. It's a fiction joke to use a landmark to help block it down for others. That's not where it happened. But it's just for the joke. What about rewriting the past? Not rewriting as in writing but make it right. That Gatsby-esque need to go back in time and make something right. Do you have that urge? Yeah, I just told a story. Let me go back in time and fix what you did. Fix what you did or reword it to everyone else. But go back and see that person or whatever. Oh, go back and someone you had a conflict with and see if now with your... Uzi. Yeah, you're Uzi. No, I was talking about my penis actually. Oh, it's Uzi. Oh, actually. Yeah, well, it oozes. Oh, God. Yes, there are people I want to go back... How did I forget who I was talking to for a second? My penis is Uzi. I'm on the phone with David. Yay, I'm back. 1973 is when stand-up, the boom, the seeds were planted. Still, you had to go through basically the Tonight Show. You had to go through that... I don't know what that would not be forever and not that much longer. Would the title be held as the only gate through which to go to success was the Carson Show? Because a merve wouldn't do it. Would a Carson do it or is that a myth? I mean, back then, Freddie Prinze happened. Not every comic got one, but it doesn't have to be every one. If suddenly two or three get them, then it's a rule. Or it's the potential for a rule. Before Carson, it was the Ed Sullivan Show. Comics wanted to get on the Ed Sullivan Show and they would go from playing clubs to playing nicer clubs. Then it was Carson, but there were a lot of guys like Steve Martin did Carson for many years. Then Carson didn't like him anymore. He fell out of favor with Carson. He was only doing it with guest hosts. And then he came... Oh, well, yeah, I have my own story of that history. Please. I'm Joan's last comic on her last show. With Johnny. Yeah. For the night of the blow-up when they said, why are you going off to another network and cutting one half hour into my base and building your base off of my show? What was the tension like when you did that? There was an okay set, but then I found out it was the night that they said, you're never going to be back on this show again. To Joan. Yeah. And I was her comic she fought for. Oh, so there was guilt by association. Right. Right. So now I'm playing the guy who picks the comics. You know, that's the cosmic joke of it. Macaulay. The court of Macaulay. It's a lot of people at once. It's like an amalgam, because we live in a fictitious group where Goldie's is in place of the store. Yet there is a store. And yet there is an improv. So this guy will plus the other clubs that we may name. So we just say the universe slightly larger. So you're playing the guy who picks the comics. Yeah. And his name in this universe is Mitch Bombardier. Is that his real name? Oh, yes. That's his real name. Bombardier. Wow. Mitch Bombardier. That's so funny because Bombardier is the guy who drops the bombs on the cities. Right. Destroys. He destroys. Right. Destroys things. They used to go over the Tonight Show sets with a fine tooth comb. Was that to protect the comedian or to protect the guy who was putting the comedian on? How much of Macaulay and LaSalle and Decordiva, how much of their input was more about protecting their ass than the... Well, I'd say a win-win was the only true protection. Where the audience... A great comic. Yeah, the audience liked it. Johnny liked it. The comic wanted to come back. That's win-win-win. And that's generally the objective so that your tenuous hanging by a sinew existence isn't threatened by having made a mistake. Somewhere that you don't think is a big one now, but that comes to get you later. And if you're a comic and you're young, you do want somebody who understands that specific audience to guide you and tell you what the parameters are. Right. Too much freedom is a scary thing if you're young. Well, and you can take that too far in the other direction. You can crush art. You can snuff it out like a matchette. I don't know if you want to go in this direction so you don't have to answer this question. All right. There are some people who felt that Johnny Carson unnecessarily censored his comics because he wanted to be the political guy. He also unnecessarily censored female comics that while he helped Roseanne and a few female comics for the most part, you don't have to address this, but he helped Joan Rivers, but a lot of female comics thought he didn't... Right. I'd heard that. Support them enough. Right. It's a good thing we don't have any female comics who can talk about that so we can. Well, I mean, I have over the years heard that complaint. And certainly my own dynamic is that I... You know, I have my own story that can certainly see that there is politics involved, even though I don't have the same exact dynamic. Why? There are politics involved. It isn't just purely for its own sake. Well, you're talking about the politics of Joan Rivers Fox, Barry Diller, and disloyalty to Johnny and you're being associated with that. That's politics. What about the politics of going after the president, going after a specific party? They really don't want on The Tonight Show. No, they don't want to lose the demographic. It's, you know, for us, the comedian, we're only talking about losing 12 to 20 people. But to Johnny, that would be losing how many millions when there weren't other things. It was in the millions. The Nielsen's were in the millions back then. You lost, you know, 700,000 of this or whatever. And it was all that there was. You go click, click, click five times and you're done watching TV. Was it different back then? I'm told that this country has never been as polarized as it is now. How many times have you heard that phrase? Since the Civil War. Yeah. And it's always never been as much as every single time because otherwise you can't sell your publication. No one wants to say, well, it's not as bad as headline. Right, right. So in the 70s and the 80s, you were alienating audiences if you were a liberal making fun of conservatives. If I'm a conservative and I see a comedian on the Carson show making fun of Reagan and Bush, do I say that's it? I'm never watching Johnny Carson again or are you adult enough to say, well, it's a it's a big world and that happens to be a liberal comic who's making fun of my belief system. I'll have to wait an extra three minutes for him to be off and then I'll continue watching. How much of that is true when they say a political satirist is going to lose millions of viewers for us? Well, I think now there's a sensitivity that wasn't there before. I think now it's a minefield in a way that is relatively in the last couple of few years new. And the behavior of a true attack on, but I don't think it'll last forever. I think we're we're living through a storm and you hunker in for the storm and you'll see some important shit in your life fly by. It'll uproot some things you thought wouldn't be uprooted. But if we're still here at the end of it, we'll we know we're impriver. We're improvisers. We'll just go yes and then make what's next. Like we always do. That's what that's an America is. It's an improv. Is the divisiveness good? There was a time when if you brought your girlfriend home or your boyfriend and he wasn't your religion, the parents would disapprove. Now more people are willing to accept their child marrying out of the religion than they are their child marrying out of the party. And I think that's a good thing. I think that's healthy because the party that you're affiliated with truly reveals who you are as opposed to the religion. If you're a Democrat, I kind of know who you are. I know you're a tribe. And if you're a Republican, I kind of know that you're a sexual deviant and a racist and a liar and a cheat and a scoundrel and a scamp. And you're not going to be good to my daughter as opposed to finding out that she's marrying a Jew or a Muslim or a Roman Catholic. That doesn't tell me anything. But if you tell me my daughter's marrying a Republican, I'd say be careful with the sex. It's going to get dangerous. Right? Well, I'm at a point where I'm not really looking at those sides anymore because the Democrats have not been terrific this round and I'm open to a third party and I'm not going to lionize one side completely. I'd say they've blown it monstrously. They've acted horrifically while covering how they've blown it. But if any more fingers get pointed, we're all going to have to wear OSHA-approved eyewear to protect ourselves from losing our eyesight. Look, once you blame one thing for your loss, I go, okay, maybe that's true. Oh, you're blaming seven, eight things for your loss. No, it's you, motherfucker. You lying motherfucker. You deflecting lying motherfucker. The reason you're the motherfucker is you're dressed like us. You're not the opposition. You're pretending to be us and you're a spy. Hang yourself. And that's what they've done. They've hung themselves. They've hung themselves by trying to school us and scold us and shame us for wanting Bernie. Say fuck them. You don't have to say fuck them. They fucked themselves. It's sit back and watch. They pulled the wrong stick out of the Jenga game and it came down on them. That's why every catastrophic failure just stacks upon the next for them now. They can't hold on to the ball for one second without dropping it. And you get no apology out of me for that. They fucked this up. And I accept zero blame for that. We go no further in this conversation if that's how it continues. I remember when the Occupy Wall Street movement started. That's right. You wore a jacket till it actually became part of your skin that said 99%. That's correct, Sarah. That's right. And to be bossed around and told that we'd better go back and be a Democrat now you better listen to us. No, there are more of us. You listen to us. It's the other way around. There are more of us. We outnumber you. You take our suggestions now for fuck's sake. I'm so fed up with the false accusation blaming that we led to this catastrophe of Trump. The CNN set him up. He's friends with the opposition. They have dinner together. There's no photos of Bernie hanging out with Trump all over the fucking place with his wedding and golf course. There's none of that. He was the only one that would have gotten us out of this and everything else about that is a corporate funded lie. Zero apology for having said so. Is somebody cutting grass because I have a massive erection. All right, man, I can hear it. That's how loud your boner is. I can hear it on the phone. It's causing interference on the line. It's like an antenna. They're going to dock the Hindenburg to it in Jersey and then it's going to blow up. Yeah, I agree with everything. This is music to me. Yeah, both of us are pragmatic, but we're not incrementalists. Okay, I'll vote for Hillary because she's better than Trump, but she better than... Yeah, less than, not as at least, doesn't work anymore. Not when the environment has given us 10 years and Stephen Hawking, who knows more than any mother fucker, says we have 100 years of all life on earth. Right. So all these little inconsequential little nitpicky fucking things, fuck all of them. They can go to the tar pit, start being something useful like fuel. Become tar, hurry up and be extinct then because you're killing the rest of us. If it isn't about the environment first, and that's all that really matters, that every one of them is just some distraction, some pointless money grabbing distraction. It's all that really matters. The water supply, the air supply, the food supply. Anyone that stands for it, stay with. Anyone that hurts it, get away from. Anybody who thinks that the other side, that the Republicans are incrementalists, take a look at what they're doing. Take a look at what they're doing right now. They are going for everything. They have to. They're out of time. Well, so are we. Our side though, it's always, let's do things incrementally. Let's take our time. We don't want to ruffle any feathers. It's got to be total war. That's what the Democrats completely miss the boat on. It's total war. The Republicans are fighting total war. They're working with them. They're the weak, fake opponent. It's that prize fighter. You go down in round three. Make it look good, but you go down a trail. We'll find you and we'll fucking kill you. Right. We got you. We got the footage on you. You got to do what we say. Well, it's got to change. The mob deal. Yeah. Naomi, it is a mob deal. It's a bust out. It's exactly what it is. It's a bust out. They're busting out the government. They look at our health care and they say, one sixth of the economy is making people live. How do we bust this out like the mafia does and get our cut of one sixth of the economy? It's not about saving lives. It's about the health insurers. The thing that really is upsetting that Medicare for all is not on the table. This is just the slow march to oblivion. Yeah. This is what our system. Well, now maybe down the line, we can look at a third party once we completely established the Democrats back in place. We can think about that. I got a lot of those emails. So I mean, posts rather on social media from total fucking strangers who think I can't figure out when you look at their page and their posts go immediately to 2013 that they're a shill. Everything's a photo of them with their head turned around or a dog. Fucking insult. Amateurs. One part of me says our slave holding misogynistic white male founding fathers were geniuses and they gave us this constitution that allows us to have these many revolutions without killing each other except for the Civil War and some political assassinations. So if we cling to the Constitution, which I'm not so sure, I'm not so sure the Constitution can deal with climate change with the Internet, with separate facts. But let's say we stick to the Constitution. Gerrymandering notwithstanding, how much blame do the American people have? How much blame can we direct at the 99%? And again, I know I said... No, none. Zero. New topic. New topic. Wow. That is the biggest motherfucking lie of all. That is to say it's always putting it on the people. It's a deflection. It's a lie. And it's the wrong button, brother. Okay. I'll change the topic, but do you mind if I... That's right. I do. I say I'm all with it. Let's change it up right now. Let's do that. Okay. That fucking... I am so angry at that accusation. So false. So off the mark. Anyone that defends that completely leaves out, and I guarantee you that's the case, in real time. Everyone who says, oh, there was no tampering of the primary voting system. All of the magical tampering showed up just for the president part, not the midterm part. And so it's completely the millennial's fault. It's completely the 99%'s fault. Another one of those false accusatory gouging out of nowhere fingers from the fur balls, spinning around, trying to save itself. So it'd be like saying slavery, why didn't the black people rise up and end slavery? Why do we have to fight a civil war? If slavery is so bad, why don't the blacks bring an end to it in the South? Why do we have to have a civil war to end it? That's basically what you're saying. There are some people... What? What is about the blacks? What? What about blacks in the South? No. They didn't have any advantage. They didn't have any firearms. It's completely Second Amendment armed people. There's no way to do it. No, I'm saying... There's no way to fucking do it. No, I'm saying blaming the 99%. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly this. When I speak loudly, I'm not shouting at you. I'm shouting at it. I'm shouting at the fact that you're pointing out a thing that you also agree is fucking bullshit, right? To blame the victim. That is our culture. We agree. I'm agreeing with you. That's fucking bullshit, man. I'm passionate about this now. I'm passionate that we are being lied to and about. Boy, don't zoom me, motherfucker. I know when I'm being zoomed. Don't play me. I'll turn it back. I'll destroy the trick so you can't use it again. I'll break your toy. I'll make it. You use the toy on me. You'll never get it back. It is a culture... I'm changing the topic. It is a culture that has been trained to accept the lie and then lie to ourselves about whatever condition we're in. What was I wearing? It's the what was I wearing? Not just rape, it's you get your credit card bill and what was I wearing? Well, I shouldn't have bought... Exactly. I should have gone to Old Navy instead of the Gap. It's my fault that I paid an extra $5 for these pants. Right. It's always your fault under the... Always your fault. Yeah. You have choice and you have freedom. And the same thing is... Oh, sir. Sir, what did you do wrong with your VCR, sir? Oh, no, I'm on the phone. What's wrong with your computer, sir? What did you hit wrong, sir? No, I didn't do anything wrong. I'm doing everything you said. Well, obviously you just think wrong because I gave you all the right advice, sir. It's them protecting the fact that they're supposed to be the ones who are right and they don't have all the answers, not even remotely. Everyone's looking like the authority and no one knows what the fuck is next. You lose your job if you don't act like you look like what's next. You can't keep your office going with a shrug. Who knows? It's the who knows office. You don't hear about that, you know? No one wants to pay for that. They want to pay for answers. No one has them now, so they're all faking it. So accusation's one of the first go-to moves. Blame something else because then at least it takes them that much longer to get back to you. Let's get back to comedy. And I'm dying up here. Yeah, let's do it. Do you think comedians more than anybody else in America learned quicker about corporate fraud? Do you think we learn early? Doing corporate dates. That helps. That helps? Yeah. Oh, that'll send the message home. About waste, right? I mean, you do your corporate gig and you get... Well, you have to have them look through your act, have them fine-tune, fine-tooth coma and act for you. Ever have them nitpick through your act? Yes. It's pretty rough, man. And what do you learn about corporate waste being a corporate comedian when you go do a set? They pay in excess of actual value. I'm just speaking for myself. But they pay more if you just say everything they want to hear. And the money goes up the more you just simply agree with them. Right, so you're in your 20s and you got 20 clean... You got 20 clean minutes. I'm speaking to how smart comedians are just through experience. You're in your 20s, you get a necktie, you get booked for a corporate gig and you believe at the time, before you do your corporate gig, that government is inefficient, but corporations don't waste money. And then you get this check to do this corporate event that's at the Plaza Hotel and they're serving shrimp and lobster and Rod Stewart is coming on in an hour. Hmm, this must cost a couple of million dollars. The ones you get everybody fed. Who is benefiting from this? Because this is a computer company. I don't think the people in this room are going to buy computers. If the stockholders knew about this, this seems like fraud and inefficiency. So you learn that in your 20s. You learn, right? Yeah, absolutely. And you learn to see how the sort of pecking order humans like the comics are kind of a don't tell me what to do bunch, right? We can say that. And then you see humans who are completely in the pecking order of things acting like their strata and no further. Just looking at how other people, how their brains work to get, to gain success. It's our fierce independence at first is the thing that we mark all our comedy territory with. And then later as time goes on or you start doing corporate dates, it's the acquiescence to external instructions. And what did we learn early on? This is because I'm getting to a larger point and I think you're already there, but I've been fighting this for years about how important comedians are. Alex Brazell produces this show and he's in his late 20s and he insists that Rick Overton, for example, is a guru that all knowledge can come from comedians. That's all you have to do is listen to comedians and I keep saying, what the F are you talking about? But the longer I stay in this game, especially the podcasting and talk to comedians, the more I realize they're the last honest intellectual out there. So Mike, what you learned in your 20s about the necktie, and I don't mean David Carradine or the guy from In Excess, that's a whole other story, but you learned the power of a necktie, the power of a suit. I remember being told... Even a suit with the sleeves pushed up. And the necktie pulled down and skinny in leather like the knack. Remember when we wore those with the pushed up sleeves? Yeah. And so you and I fought this. We said it only matters what I say and how I say it in front of an audience and somebody explained, no. You have to pick a side, get a uniform. The audience will only listen to you if the uniform matches what you're saying and how you're saying it. That so was born Feldo the Clown. The ultimate rebellion to a principle. So we saw through the suit. We're in our 20s and all of a sudden we're being told what we wear is just as important as what we think and how we say it. So when we meet our girlfriend's boss and he's wearing a suit, we go, what are you hiding? Right. Right? Yeah. Well, that's what I get from Pence. I get, oh, that you look like you look like a Ken doll, G.I. Joe doll kind of thing. There's some shit in your basement. There's some freaky shit going on. That's covering something. I guess, look how normal I am, America. I'm hiding something huge because this is way too trying to look normal. The only thing I can control is my whiskers, my ear hair, my toenails and my fingernails and how sharply pressed my suit is. The rest I can't control because my little boys are swimming in my head. Oh, right, right. Liar, liar, Pence on fire. The more well-groomed you are, the more you're trying to control something that you cannot control, right? Look, I get if some fella does the ocean liners or whatever and they want to tidy up a look to make a certain thing happen like Ted Talk or whatever. You know, if that's what they have. And also, that's for guys that don't really have a lot to say. You'll notice the more opinionated they are, the less it's about a uniformity of look. The less opinionated means their material is going to kind of go into, well, that's their version of saying something I've kind of heard before. But we'll enjoy his rendition of these things. But you won't walk out remembering it. You will talk about how nicely he was dressed. Oh, who was that very nice man in the suit? I liked that young boy. Which one was he? The suit one. I don't remember the suit one, you know. Oh, yeah, yeah, he was nice. He'll make a girl happy. And that's how you know he's not funny. Because when you know he'll make a girl happy. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Well, I've had the greatest sets of my life and the only compliment I ever get afterwards is you were hysterical. My wife hated you. Great. You know, I always describe your style as the arrow strike. The David Feldman style is you go, you get hit halfway through your thigh with a hunter's arrow, big barbed deer hunting arrow. Now there's two ways to remove it. You could try to pull it out backwards, but it just leaves a conical shotgun hole in your leg after that. So what you have to do instead is put a rope between your teeth, get really drunk, and have a friend shove it completely through the other way and pull it out for you while you curse at them and try to fight them. And that's what you do with a joke. You take a joke and you go, whoa, that's a harsh entry. And rather than apologize for the out, you just go, ah! You shock them into a laugh, you know? And then you got them after that, but it's great. I always loved that style. I have an addendum to that, because I've thought about this. Because you always say if Feldman pulls the arrow out, he's going to do more organ damage than going all the way through. I also think... The other way, yeah, clean through. I also think about getting lost in the woods. There you go. Whenever I'm on stage and I've lost the audience, I'm not going to retrace my steps, because I don't even remember what they were. Oh yeah, that's great. Keep going in the same direction. Eventually I'm going to hit the end of the woods. Yeah, that's right. That's great. Thanks to Donald Trump's environmental policy, it's going to get harder and harder to get lost in the woods. There won't be that many woods. Just turn right at Oil Derek 7. The one that's leaking. The issue of our time is the environment. And water. And as comedians... I'm going to get back to comedians. Okay. We understand business better than anybody. Now I have friends, because I'm back in New York, they look at me and they don't think I understand business because I'm not rich. And I'll go out with them and I'll say, F you, just because I don't have money doesn't mean I don't understand business. I understand exactly how business works. The 99% we understand how business works. That's right, baby. You're fucking right. I hate being lectured about that by people who aren't in the same economic category. They're kind of talking me into something that would be great for them, but not for me. Yeah. I know how business works. And I wasn't cut out to sell my soul the way you are. I don't want to be as miserable as you are. That doesn't mean I don't understand that Exxon is going to just gobble up all the profits and leak methane into the air and destroy our planet because that's what they do unless you regulate them. I know exactly how business works. Yeah, right. And you're right. But they're smarter than we are and then they invent amortization, words like that. So you go, huh? I see I'm smarter than you. I know something you don't know. Right. It's the same reason Parisian French is so difficult so that royalty could always spot royalty. Really? You could tell when the language is made so complex in nuance that it was spoken poorly that you could then go off. You're not aristocracy because only one group gets trained correctly on how to say all this. I thought it's easier to spot aristocracy by not being able to stop the bleeding. The hemophilia was the tell. Yeah, the inbred hemophilia. Your Majesty, your eyes look much further apart today. In the 70s, there was this thing called FM Radio where jocks talked to musicians. Do you remember this? Yeah, of course I do. They'd have them on. They'd have them on the show. And I can remember through my opiate haze thinking, you know, I like Eric Clapton. I like Alton John. I want to hear them sing. I really don't want to hear them talk. They're not as articulate as they think they are. But they served a function and that was it gave the illusion of political talk. It gave the illusion of wisdom. But the truth is that John Lennon, you know, we love him. He was a wife beater, but we love John Lennon and he spoke the truth cryptically. Spoke it cryptically. And that's what FM Radio was in the 70s and the 80s. It was musicians nibbling around the edges of important issues. Jackson Brown, very important wife beater. But Jackson Brown, very important. He beat up Daryl Hannah. I read something about that. Yeah, but great guy, you know, his politics are great. But he nibbled around the edges and through poetry we had to figure out what he was saying. I'm discovering, kicking and screaming because I can't accept the fact that comedians are this smart. That podcasting with comedians, certain comedians is far more dangerous than letting rock stars talk about politics. It's far more dangerous to have Rick Overton talk about the environment than Sting. Everybody was OK with Sting going on talk shows to talk about the environment. But when you get Rick Overton talking about it, better be a podcast because it gets too true. Wow, well, it's the same with you, man. You are getting a lot of truth out to people and you're mixing it with humor, which is the classic spoonful of sugar to help that medicine go down, you know. I think so much of the baby boomers' problems stem from listening to musicians who played Woodstock instead of the comedians. I think had we listened to Dick Gregory and Mort Saul instead of Roger Daltree and Donovan and Joe Cocker, we might be a smarter generation. And this new generation... If you're saying if we'd stayed a jazz crowd rather than a rock crowd, because a jazz crowd is where you would go to see the opening comedian and maybe even then later another night that week at a jazz club, see Lenny Bruce. And you see one of the early comedians who are just laying the truth out with some embellishment of humor around it. Right. The millennials. I hate them for their youth and I hate them for their looks and their sex. They have sex and they have fun and they're happy. That's all valid reasons. I hate them. The legitimate reasons right there. They're better than we are because they listen to comedians. They listen to comedians. That's right. They do. They listen to Stan Hope who has a crazy millennial following which is good news. That's very good news. And you have an awesome following with the youngins. Yeah. Yeah. You got the kids following you. We really... Our generation, the baby boomers, we deserve everything that's going to happen to us. We are horrible. I don't think we all are. I don't think a lot. All of us are. Some are. Look, and I also think there's the crop rotation. It's this giant pizza pie but cut into only four slices and only three segments of it is green and there's that one brown dirt segment. The fallow field, they call that. The fallow field is a... I guess that... What would you say? The 80s people, right? The selfish 80s people that came in at the lowest point of the evolution for the species but they are the shit that makes all these other plants grow. They're so shitty that that shit makes fertilizer and they're actually boosting a generation to be the opposite because when you grow corn, it's not shit. It's the opposite of shit. It's good. Or you grow any crop out of it. It comes out of shit. Right. But it turns into something good and this shit is going to manufacture some good people are showing up now and that you're not hearing all. They're not getting the credit they deserve but they're out there and you're one of them. If I could just get past saying to you what if there's corn in my shit? What is that? See, if I could stop making those jokes I could be one of them. Oh, you know David that's the pentamento of life. Under the surface. Just under the surface. It's right there. You just get your little plastic spoon and your McDonald's spoon and just scuff it back and there's the corn. There it is. You got it. It's like a scratch and win. One. You got three kernels. You win. Here's the problem. I'll let you go. I promise. The problem is I have... I don't want to stop. Okay, I have... I miss you, buddy. I don't want to stop. I like talking. I love you. It's like the old days. It's like the old days, man. I love it. I love you. Here's the problem. You said corn and shit and I know my listeners are thinking is David going to ruin the conversation by doing that? No, but there's a way to do it. There's a way to very subtly ruin it. No. Just ruin it just right. Just perfectly. Let me get back to millennials because... All right, damn it. All right, god damn it. All right. So I'm like really resentful about the millennials. For totally legitimate reasons. Like they're younger and they have erections and their bowels are regular. Wait a second. You said they have erections. Doesn't that imply that their bowels are... I was going to make a bad joke. I wouldn't want it to be corny. All right. All right. All right, god damn it. All right. I'm a millennial because it takes me a thousand years to take a dump. So the thing that I have said to some millennials because I'm offended by their certitude, their political and moral certitude and I go, what if you're wrong? What if you're wrong? And I just realized they can't afford to be wrong because the clock is ticking. We were wrong. The baby boomers were wrong. Some were. Some were. Yes. A lot were right. Once again, a huge demographic is not being given credit for what actually happened and we go to that sick parent of a media to get approval for it to say it loves us, but it won't. It doesn't know how. It's our sickness for going back to it. Expecting in madness the answer that we know recidivistically we never have gotten before. Won't come this time, but we do it anyway. And the same thing with the truth and the media on that and there's millions of people who agree with you and agree with me, but they're not getting the due in the media. Name names. The 99% they're called the 99%. They didn't evaporate. They renamed themselves. They would put pink pussy hats on when it was called for, but that did not define them and they weren't there to say, oh yeah, and we're playing along with all of it. There's a gigantic demographic we belong to. That 99% it is it doesn't meet in the streets so you don't know they're there. They figured out you don't need the streets as long as we have the internet. So I suppose we'd have to keep a close eye on the internet just as many other people are keeping a hand out to try and grab it from us. All right, we have four minutes left. We have four minutes left. I want to end on an optimistic note. Fair enough. Okay. The July 4th weekend is coming up. People need to relax. You can't keep fighting. That's right. You got to replenish the soul. How important is it to take a vacation from Trump? How long a vacation can you take from Trump and what's going on in Washington? Or if you just continue to fight, fight, fight and never take a break will you succeed? Your father worked with a lot of African-American jazz musicians. That's right. What have black people taught Americans about the fight, when to fight and when not to fight and speak to that in terms of getting permission from you to take July 4th off and not be angry? I'm not angry now. No, I'm talking about me. Oh, okay. All right. Then let's, let's, here's a lesson I think we got is the the deadly hazard of comfort, the danger of comfort and how it cripples a culture when potentially required to step outside of it to get something necessary done. The addiction to comfort that will stop what would be a logical move to step outside it to save yourself but you'd rather be comfortable and die than discomfort it and live. I guess it's like the only thing worse than going to the dentist is not going to the dentist. One hurts and the other will eventually kill you. Right. So step out of your comfort zone. Yeah. Because that's all they've been forced to do pretty much the entire time. We have a comfort zone that certainly back in my dad's time was unheard of for the African-American community and is not in a very good place right now. We're in some ways returning back to it. I don't think it'll work correctly because they didn't have a previous reference to anything before that and now they do. A progress, a reference point to progress but I think you'll try to undo it just won't go right. We're seeing the first few months of something like an experiment but are we seeing those experiments all succeed? I don't think we are. I don't think most, I think lots of these things are failing now. I think a lot of oligarchy is going face down. All over the place. And I think some of the smart ones are trying to, you know, be a progressive version of that just to survive this because they know their version, their original plan version isn't going well. And that's all of it. You have a black belt, right? I just do kung fu. They don't give you a belt. They just let you keep doing it. So it's Krav Maga. Now later down the road I'm level 2-3 on Krav Maga right now. That's for me, you know. Before I did kung fu, Wing Chun and you didn't get a belt. You just work on, try to be good. Try to do good at it. Chinese don't give a belt. You get in that system and Wing Chun you just practice. So the teacher says you're good. Didn't you ask for a belt and they said no substitutions? It doesn't go with the shoes, right? So Yeah, I recommend everyone study it now because it's a crazy, unpredictably violent, weirdly out of nowhere random selected chaos violent world and everyone just have a little bit of a skill set. You know, I mean they may catch you where you can't use it, but it's better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. So in the martial arts Yeah. Trump fatigue sets in where you pick up the paper and you say, oh, I just can't keep fighting. I can't keep fighting. I pick up the paper, I go, where did I find a paper? I got Hey! Someone's still making a paper, everyone! Yeah. You pick up the kindle and you say, I can't take this anymore, right? Okay, right. What do you do and how long do you do it for? Are you entitled to take a break? How do you replenish? How do you, Rick Overton, replenish and then get back into the fight? I actively try and do my comedy somewhere and improv, improv gets me out of the slump. Improv. I get to laugh too because it's the first time I heard it and not just everybody else but I'm just hearing it for the first time too. So, I need some of that. Some cheering up, go do an improv. Great. Because it's about you surprising yourself. Because when there's uncertain times we're mostly feeling self-doubt. And that's what the uncertainty of uncertain times is. How can I, will I be able to manage in a crisis time? And that leads to... Well, yeah, if you're lost, unless you're... you have a skill set that goes no, yes and push forward. Start seeing it as a puzzle to solve. Start liking solving puzzles to the point where it becomes sport. Right. It doesn't always work, but the more I treat it like that, the more it's manageable. I won't always say it's fun but it's certainly a survivable. Great. How do people reach you, sir? Uh, at Rick Overton. On Twitter. On Twitter and Rick Overton's page on Facebook. I love you, buddy. Love you right back, old school. Let's talk what you hang this up. I want to keep on the line and see what your world's about, buddy. Everybody makes fun of me now because on the show when I wrap up a call I say stay on the line so I can do that. It's become my catchphrase stay on the line and you just Yeah, I want to. Okay, stay on the line. I want to hear what's next. You're listening to highlights from The David Feldman Show heard nationwide on Pacifica Radio or as a podcast on iTunes, Stitcher and now YouTube. Please subscribe to this channel for more information go to davidfeldmanshow.com Thank you for listening. 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