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Caloroga Shark Media, and there are another bonus episode. My
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guest is Jason Zenniman, friend of the show from the
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New York Times. Jason is critic at large for the
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Culture section of The New York Times. If you listen
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to this podcast, you hear me regularly cite him. I'm
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gonna flip overrom my cards here. Of all the podcasts
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I've done over the last seven years, I think this
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is my favorite episode, and I said it to Jason
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at the end of the interview. We just had a
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fantastic discussion, respectful, deep dive, serious issues, disagreed as friends do.
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I just want to be clear, we both had a
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big smile on our face throughout the entire thing. Everything
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here is friendly, even if sometimes we get into a
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little jousting. But this was a fantastic, smart interview. As
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I host this podcast, and you know, answer the question, well,
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why do you thank you hosted? You've heard me talk
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about what my resume is, and I always say I
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know more about comedy than most people. But the people
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that know more about it than I do know a
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lot more about it. And I will put Jason in
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that camp. I respect all his opinions, as you'll hear
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me say during the interview, and I've said in the
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past he always helps me sort my feelings about things.
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So in this discussion we sure get into the kimmel
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of it all. We get into some other comedy topics
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at the end, like John Marco Siasi. But I asked
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him first hear about the comedy Festival that maybe, like
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a lot of things, I'm the Ralph Kiner of comedy.
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I apparently mispronounced a lot of things. But let's jump in.
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Hey everybody, it's friend of the show. Jason's innoment from
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The New York Times, how you been tired?
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Good time to run a daily comedy news podcast. You've
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picked the right line of work.
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It's been incredible. I've been putting out two three a day,
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and I just I've learned. Yesterday I spoke with Mark
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Malkoff from Inside late night, and I deliberately time stamped
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it because my spidey sense was telling me that the
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news would change five times, and it did before I
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even could publish the darn thing. So I just want
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to let everyone know Jason and I are speaking on
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Tuesday at around ten thirty a m. So if we
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say something, you're like, how cub and I are responding
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to the thing. That's why so much going on. We'll
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get into the kimmel of it all, but that you
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know that new story has changed. Even since I booked you,
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you have helped me in the past sort my feelings.
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And I don't know how I feel about the Rio
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Odd Comedy Festival. I know I'm making crinkly face, and
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usually when I make crinkly face, something is troubling me.
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But to catch the audience up, there's a big festival
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starting on Friday. Some big names performing at the Riodd
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Comedy Festival, including Bill Burr, Mark Norman, Kevin hort Sebastian Manascalco,
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Dave Chappelle, Luis ci K, Gave Iglesias, Jimmy Carr, Whnney Cummings,
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Tom Sigora, Andrew Schiltz, and Jim Jeffries. Normally I wouldn't
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qualify somebody with their sexuality, but it is interesting to
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me that Jessica Curson is performing there. Tim Dillon was
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booked there and was uninvited, and you know the Pete
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Davidson is appearing there and his father notably killed on
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nine to eleven. I don't know how I feel about
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this thing. I like a good paycheck and I'm trying
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to buy a property up at a lake. So I've
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been joking with my business partner that right now, you know,
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Daily Comedy News is brought to you by insert horrible
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joke here. So I don't want to be holier than now.
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You know how much Dylan money?
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How much money were you offered to go and podcast
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at the Rahadi Comedy Festival.
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Oh wait, you're pronouncing it better than me. Say that again.
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Well, I'm proud of wrong. I'm sure. I'm sure that
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at the I'll be there. How the it is? It
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re odd?
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That's how I say it. But I get half the
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comedian names wrong. So what do I know?
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Saudi? Let's all, It's called Saudi. Yeah, you know?
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So what is my price? I don't know? And I
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think that's what I'm struggling with, is the first of all,
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should you even have a price? Is it wrong that
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the comedians are going? There is a paycheck? A paycheck?
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This is I'm struggling with this. And I saw you
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wrote a piece about it. You wrote that the optics
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were never great, but they're and I'm paraphrasing. They're very
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interesting now in light of everybody being a free speech
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warrior over the weekend.
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Yeah, the optics were never were never I mean, the
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optics are never great. But now that although you know,
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and now that free speech is the big issue that
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we're grappling with, now they look even worse. At the
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same time, it's sort of like, who I imagine what
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they could claim or the comedians doing this. And I'm
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also not overly righteous about I think there's these are there.
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It depends what you do. Part One thing is interesting
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is what they do once they're there. But it's also
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you know this, I would say, what's happened in our
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country over the past you know, weeks and months could
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make some people say, who are we to talk the UH?
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And but I mean, of course the I mean for me,
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you know, the bones saw of a journalist who disagreed
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with him, you know, the Washington Post writer kashowge by
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the same people who are sponsoring this festival, would be
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a deal breaker for me to show up at this festival.
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The they're obviously the UH. These people are being offered
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huge amounts of money, and the broader context here is
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that the Saudi government has been doing a kind of
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full court press, not just with comedians, but with athletes
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and golfing events, sporting events. There's all sorts of people
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there and they're making solved. You know, there's some movements
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that they're starting to be you know, shipt a little
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bit in their policies. And so this is just an
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elaborate pr campaign where there is trying to use American
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popular culture and entertainment to you know, make people think
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of them not as the place where they chop up
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people who criticize the government and cracked down on minorities
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and limit women's free speech, but as the new Saudi Arabia.
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And so if you were offered a million dollars, I
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know Tim Dillon was offered, what he said, three hundred
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and seventy five thousand dollars for one show, one night,
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and I think he's on the low end. So if
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you were offered one million dollars to go, would you
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do it? If you if you went and you criticized
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the Saudi government when you were there, would that change
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the calculus. I know you want some guidance from me,
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but I'm afraid I might just give you more anguish
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and confusion. But I think I think it's I say
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I wouldn't do it, but I'm not want to judge.
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That's a lot of money.
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Yeah, so several thoughts there at a personal level. When
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this was first announced, if they had come to me
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and said, hey, I heard you have this really awesome podcast,
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do you want to come cover it, I would have
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said yes and not thought about it. As I've gotten
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deeper into the story and talked about some of the
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news threads and pulling on those, I think I would
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be afraid to go now, even taking the money out
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of it. And I don't know if that's spic about
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the location personally, when I was at Sirius and million
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years ago when the Olympics were in China, there was
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light talk of us doing some radio work over there,
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and people were afraid to go to China. And my
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attitude twenty years ago was I'll go. They're not going
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to lock me up. I'll go. I'll produce it. That'd
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be great. You know, I get to go to China
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on your dime, that'd be awesome. As I continue to
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cover this as a story, I don't you know, I
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don't know, like, yeah, you're some stupid podcaster who cares,
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or you know, when somebody look at me, you know,
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with a sad face. I don't know if I would
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be comfortable going in terms of just pure finances of
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here's a check, want to cover this comedy festival. You know,
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I'll go to the Vancouver Comedy Festival. Yeah. I like money,
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of course I like money. A separate story, I know,
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maybe like third party, but I know of somebody who
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was asked to work at I live golf event and
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the paycheck was crazy, and I said, you know what,
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hold your nose. That's life changing money and you can
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pay off, you know, your college bills and whatever. So
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I'm not taking the moral high ground, but I'm finding
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I think you nailed it as usual. The optics are
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just interesting. I don't know what to do with this.
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I'm really struggling with what's really fascinating about it is
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it's so related to what we're going through. Because on
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one level, you know this, there's the government policies and
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the corporate actors who are being spineless in this country
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about standing up for speech or standing up for their artists.
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But there's another level, and I know a little bit
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of this. You know, I'm the child of a foreign
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service officer. You know I grew up someone in a
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qual and poor right next to Singapore, which has very
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different attitude towards free speech that we do. You know,
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I have Vietnamese members my family. There's all sorts of
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attitudes about government censorship and crack downs are very different.
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That doesn't mean I don't go to the I haven't
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gone to these places, but it makes you think, and
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we're now here, what about from the point of view
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of the artist, of the individual, of the ordinary person
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who's trying to get by is trying to figure out
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that do you try to play within the rules that set?
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Do you play along? Do you cut a deal or
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do you push back? Do you fight? Do you fight?
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Do you draw a line? You know where do if
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you draw a line? Where do you draw a line?
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These were once academic questions. They're no longer academic questions.
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If you work for a law firm in this country
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that cut a deal with Trump, what are you going
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to do? If you work for a university that just
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took away research for cancer, are you going to put
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pressure on your administration? Are you going to write a letter?
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Are you going to say nothing? Are you going to
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try to do what you can in a small way?
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And now our little silly world of comedy, we have
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this great you know, the piece that I talked about
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the Saudi Arabian Festival, you know, was primarily about looking
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at the difference between Kimmel and Fallon. You have late
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night hosts. All right, Clearly there is an attack, you know,
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a government led attack against late night that is you know,
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I would argue unprecedented. You know, there obviously have been
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previous late night shows that have been you know, in
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Broiland controversy, but this is something new. And what do
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you do? Do you push back? Do you do you
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criticize your bosses on air and fear getting taken off?
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Do you try to play along? Do you try to
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make your show more a political These are real question.
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We're in it now and so this looking at what
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these guys trying to figure out with the Saudi Festival,
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it's like a microcosm for what's going on in our country. Yeah.
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And I've worked at places like Serious where the we're
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all sorts of radio stations that covered some things, and
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there might be a radio station that was not aligned
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with your personal views. Do you just not work there?
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Do you take the paycheck? I'm also looking at the
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individual artists. You know, if you're Sebastian Manuscalco, you just
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go and you do your thing. You're gab Iglesias, you
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just go and do your thing.
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If you're Dave.
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Chappelle, well, your thing kind of is political and you
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have been known to do a big chunk about LGBTQ
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plus are you doing it? Are you're not doing it?
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What's Dave's act there?
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You know?
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This is all This is just such a fascinating topic.
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It got a little covered by Kimmelgate, but I think
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this is going to be a comedy thing.
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Oh I would love to cover this festival. I mean,
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it'd be fascinating. I'll be honest with you. I was
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shocked that they I wasn't shocked, but I was. I
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was surprised that they fired Tim Dollan because if on
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the Saudis let them say whatever they want to say,
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you get the pr win. You know, if you the
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fact that you get to show Dave Chappelle or criticizement,
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you could, I think. But it shows you how different
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it is that they that they fired Tim Dillon, and
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it does what I think, It puts more pressure on
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the Dave Chappelle's and the Luisy Kays. We should say,
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you know, you you were talking earlier about if you
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got to feed your family. These are not comedians strongly
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to feed their family.
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Yeah, Kevin Hart doesn't need another paycheck. He's got enough work.
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Like they did not, Like almost all of them. I
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would say, it's clear they did not need to do
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this festival. That is also plays into the calculus. I