Theory of Change #055: Lisa Curry on comedians crying "cancel culture"

Comedian Ricky Gervais performs onstage, November 3, 2020. Photo: Raph_PH, CC BY 2.0

Episode Summary

Comedy has always been about pointing out the absurd and unjust things in life, but lately, a lot of veteran comedians have taken to complaining about their business more than anything else. Long-time standup comics like Dave Chapelle and Ricky Gervais are oftentimes at war with their own audiences, accusing them of being intolerant of dissent and killing off comedy.

Is there anything at all to that critique? Or is it mostly about older comedians not wanting to update their material? In this episode, I’m joined by Lisa Curry, she’s a standup comedian who’s performed in 13 different countries, written on Comedy Central’s Jiff Jeffries Show, and she’s the host of “Long Story Long,” a weekly show on SiriusXM. You can also find her on Instagram and Twitter.

The full transcript, audio, and video of this episode are below.

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Transcript

MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: Welcome to Theory of Change, Lisa.

LISA CURRY: Hey, thanks for having me.

SHEFFIELD: All right, well, so. So you, you, how, first, I guess let’s just talk briefly. So how long have you been in the comedy business, quote unquote?

CURRY: I would say 14 years, because I, I started Second City. I started improv in 2008, and I’ve been doing standup for like, 11 years. And it is my full-time job. I tour around do you know, I write for TV when I, whenever I get a TV writing job.

And other than that my entire living comes from standup.

SHEFFIELD: Okay, cool. All right, well, so, and I guess this whole– it’s, it’s, it’s really weird because I mean I used to work in a very strange form of right wing comedy. We’ll have to talk about that another time.

But like, the thing about comedians is that comedy’s always about complaining about stuff, but on the other hand, usually it’s not complaining about your own business. Like when do you think this all really got started as a common complaint? A public thing that they were whining at the audience?

CURRY: I don’t know. I don’t really remember because I know at first I just tried to ignore it. And I was like, oh, this is so stupid. And I do still think it is so stupid, and maybe even more so now that it continues to go on. Here’s the thing, being a woman in comedy, I have heard, I don’t know how many times, countless times: ‘Well, I don’t think women are funny,’ or ‘I don’t think women are funny, but you’re funny,’ which is also not a compliment, guys. If you’re going to a comedy show and you see a female comedian, don’t then go up to her afterwards and tell her all the female comics you don’t like, and that you actually like her.

It’s not a compliment. A lot of us are friends, it’s rude. And I’ve forever heard nonsense criticisms. And I’ve had people that don’t like my material. Matter of fact, my entire family doesn’t like my material. And you know what? I don’t care. That’s what I cannot understand is the number of grown men in comedy that are crying about people not liking their comedy, and then they have the nerve to say, well, they’re too sensitive.

I’m like, well, you are the one that’s sensitive. People don’t like my comedy. I don’t care. I keep it moving. I’m still working. I’m still writing jokes that I like to write. I don’t pay them any attention. And so it’s, it’s so silly to me to hear people complain that people don’t like what they have to say, and then accuse those people of being too sensitive.

Who cares? You’re a millionaire. Just do your fucking comedy and keep it moving.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And I think, if you listen to Chappelle or you listen to Gervais or some of these other, kind of 50 something plus comedians, they will claim that this is all, they seem to think that it’s all about, trans people.

But I don’t think that’s right. I think it’s more that people are just tired of the same joke. I mean, and especially like a lot of these guys, they have been telling the same damn jokes for 20 years, like Adam Carrolla.

CURRY: Yeah. There’s also this thing of, yeah, people don’t like when you just attack trans people. Look, and I’m somebody that I like mean jokes. I like really fucked up jokes, but also write a joke, first of all.

And secondly, a lot of what happens with these older comics is they’re in their fifties or whatever and they’ve stopped watching other comics, so they don’t realize all the quote unquote jokes they’re making are being said at open mics.

It’s like, you have to be better than that. I’m sorry. If you’re 20, 30 years into comedy, you need to be better than a random open miker.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and it’s not just that, it’s also that a lot of, I feel like a lot of comics they got by for a long time with sort of stereotype jokes.

CURRY: Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: Which are really not that more creative than ‘what’s the deal with airline food?’

CURRY: Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: From my standpoint. Because again, while people might say: ‘Oh, well, I’m not meaning everyone, I’m just making generalizations and it’s funny.’

It’s like, well, how is that funny to make the same generalization, even if it’s not mean-spirited? Do we need to hear it for the 20th or 30th time?

CURRY: Yeah. It’s just tired.

SHEFFIELD: It’s not fresh. It’s not new.

CURRY: And there are people doing jokes like that still and making, I guess, a living. But they’re just like people that are just kind of dying out on the road, nobody knows of them. And if you look up these, there’s some of, like the lower level comedy clubs, if you look up their lineups, it’s like, who are these guys?

And then you see them and you’re like, oh, this is really bad. But there’s still pockets of the country that, that they find that really entertaining and God bless, let them, let them have it.

SHEFFIELD: Mm-hmm.

CURRY: I guess I just, it’s just not for me. I think– Kat Williams did this interview and he’s fantastic, and he, he did an interview not too long ago where he spoke on it and he’s like, yeah, what’s good about comedy is there are sometimes parameters. Like, parameters make you better because it makes you work within a certain space and it challenges you.

And it’s not, it’s not hurting you to do that. It’s the notion that it’s hurting you is absolutely absurd. And also, a lot of these people are crying about free speech, which they conflate with– they don’t understand what freedom of speech actually means. It doesn’t mean freedom from backlash.

It also means we have the free market. So if somebody doesn’t like my comedy, and they stop coming to my shows, that doesn’t mean that I’m being silenced. That means that people don’t want to buy tickets for my show? Cause I don’t like what they’re doing–

SHEFFIELD: Someone thinks you suck.

CURRY: Okay?

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

CURRY: Yeah. It’s like, I think Spirit Airlines sucks. I’m not buying tickets from Spirit Airlines, and that doesn’t mean I am infringing on their rights to run a business, it’s like that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.

We are running a business. If you’re a comedian, you’re a business, you’re, you’re a performer, you are the product, you are selling your product.

And if people don’t want to buy your product, I don’t know, update it, refurbish it or, or go away.

You know what I mean? We don’t have rotary dial phones anymore because we updated. So why wouldn’t you update it?

SHEFFIELD: Were they canceled? It was canceled.

CURRY: They were canceled.

SHEFFIELD: For the rotary phones. .

CURRY: Yeah. And if you look in the Constitution, there is something that says that we need to use rotary phones. And we are all just, I can’t believe Congress is ignoring this. So we, we should take it to court.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, I guess so. The other thing also though, I think, is that to some extent comedy, especially as it sort of grew as an industry, because it, it never was real an industry until like the seventies basically.

CURRY: Um mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: Like that didn’t exist as a commercial for profit thing.

CURRY: Yeah. Not stand up as much, yeah.

SHEFFIELD: But it was, there are two things that are interesting about it is that in the seventies up until like, maybe the early two thousands, the political issues that existed, they were kind of, they kind of had a religious undertone. In other words, at that time in the seventies, Lenny Bruce and all those guys and

CURRY: Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: The controversies that existed were kind of about can you say bad words on tv. Mm-hmm. , can you say the f word in public? Or

CURRY: even, yeah, just even in a, in a bar. I mean, Lenny Bruce was getting arrested–

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

CURRY: –for saying curse words just in front of people, which it’s like that he was fighting for people’s freedom of speech.

We’re not anymore. You can say whatever. You can say any kind of insane shit you want whenever. If people don’t like it, they’re not infringing on your rights. And these are people who think of themselves and sell themselves as the biggest brained people in the industry.

And it’s like, you’re, you, you are either knowingly misleading people or you are stupid as hell. That’s, those are the options. There’s no in between.

SHEFFIELD: Well, okay, so, but what do you mean when you say they’ve sold themselves as the biggest brain? What do you mean by that?

CURRY: I mean the– a lot of times some, when someone is a contrarian or when somebody is saying, simply saying rude shit or stupid shit, there’s like this thing, this phenomenon that’s happened now with the internet now that everyone has a public voice. Everyone can hold court in the public square essentially on Twitter or whatever service. There’s now this thing where when somebody says something wild, they present it as though, oh, I’m saying this because this is something no one else has thought of because I’m just so smart.

And it’s like, or no one else is saying it because it’s dumb and it doesn’t make sense. People will say the most offensive things and then they’re like, ‘I’m just saying the thing everyone else is thinking.’

And I’m like, no, we’re not all that stupid. We’re not all thinking that. We’re thinking of better things actually.

SHEFFIELD: Mm. Yeah. I think there is, that’s definitely a lot to it. And the other thing also though is that I think a lot of comics, they’re used to criticizing other people

CURRY: Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: But they’re not used to being criticized themselves because that’s different from music or art. I mean for hundreds of years, there have been art critics and music critics.

CURRY: Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: People who will go to a concert and be like: ‘Well you know what? This thing sucked. And the musicians were terrible and the composition was trash.’ And whatever.

Like people have trashed performing arts outside of comedy for hundreds of years. People are used to it. Like if you’re a musician, everyone has been used to this idea that there will be people who think your shit is horrible.

CURRY: Mm-hmm. And well, I think the difference is like people, I think comics are used to, up until Twitter and everything, comics are used to all of the criticism remaining in the room.

And you don’t have people following you home and telling you that you’re an asshole. Where now you open up your phone, and it’s like, oh, everyone thinks I’m an asshole, wow!

(Laughs)

CURRY: And there’s, there is also this thing I will, I will give people this. There’s also this thing where like, if somebody starts screaming, oh, I don’t like this person because they said this and this, there are a lot of people that will glom onto that and say, yeah, that’s right. I don’t like them either. And I never did.

And it’s like, did you think of them before this or did you want to be part of this conversation? And there’s definitely some people, I have some notes for them, but I’m not thinking of everyone all the time. I don’t care.

Like, I just don’t care.

SHEFFIELD: Mm-hmm.

CURRY: So, so much of this, if it doesn’t affect me personally, I’m like, well I can’t waste my time obsessing over this, and other people’s careers and what they’re doing or thinking.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Also is there something to the idea that, to the extent that there was criticism before Twitter and whatnot, it was, as you said, it was people in the room. It was, it was the heckler.

CURRY: Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: And like for a comic, that type of criticism, that is bad faith criticism. Some drunken shithead standing up, oh, yeah, you’re a sh you’re a dumbass. Get off the stage. And they’re not used to this idea that, well, no, actually we’re thinking about your ideas and they suck.

CURRY: Yeah. . Yeah. Or like, we just don’t like this. And we don’t want to see it. And wait, what do you mean? In what, in what way?

SHEFFIELD: Well, I mean, in other words that, so I mean, if you do stand up, anyone who’s done standup will have gotten heckled, like,

CURRY: Oh yeah, absolutely.

SHEFFIELD: Like you have to understand how to handle it. Right? I mean,

CURRY: I only have perfect sets, so I don’t understand what that feels like.

SHEFFIELD: Sure. But no, what I’m saying though is like, when you’re dealing with the heckler, it’s like, it’s bad faith.

Everyone knows it’s in bad faith, including the person doing it, right?

CURRY: Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: And so that’s the only kind of criticism that a lot of comics, especially older ones are used to, is just, some drunken moron screaming at them.

CURRY: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: And they, it’s hard for them to understand that no, these are people who are not people high out of their mind just trying to be a jerk. Like, these are people actually who may have a point.

CURRY: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: And I mean, so that’s what I’m saying in, in other words, they got the habit of just saying, oh, anyone who criticizes me is a asshole.

CURRY: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: Do you think there’s anything to that?

CURRY: I mean, look, there are people that criticize you, they are assholes. I mean, I’ve definitely had some weird shit go down in shows. But also, I have people that just straight up don’t like my jokes and I don’t care. I’m doing just fine without you. I can’t imagine spending five minutes of my time caring. If somebody doesn’t want to come to my show, because they don’t– if somebody were to write me an email and personally say, I don’t like your jokes. You’re an asshole, you’re a hack, whatever. I’d be like, okay, have a great day. Maybe I just have a thicker skin than these guys?

And I think that there was also like this really unfortunate resurgence in like, comedians are being attacked and like that, that narrative after Dave Chappelle was attacked at the Hollywood Bowl, which was fucked up, that was not okay. That was awful. And I’m sure it was scary for everyone involved and everyone around and on the periphery, especially like, everyone’s on , at least I, at least I’m on edge when shit goes down because I’m like, oh, there could also be a shooting.

So, but there was this like resurgence of that conversation in that people were saying like, oh, and now comedians are being attacked for what they’re saying.

And I’m like, I don’t think he was attacked for what he was saying. It was a, it was a mentally unstable person who maybe, maybe something Dave said triggered it, but it’s not, it wasn’t a normal person that was like, I have to, I have to fix this.

And, and also, and also, he’s not the first, second, or even 100th comedian to be attacked on stage. The comedians have been attacked on stage since there have been comedians on stage. It’s not anyone, and it hasn’t always been publicized. It hasn’t always been filmed. I mean, there was this woman, Ariel Elias, who recently, and she’s very funny.

She was on stage and she happened to be filming and this guy chucked a beer at her. Like, meaning to hit her. And then she made a joke about it and she picked it up and she chugged the beer. And anyway, she posted the clip online and it went viral when that happened.

She’s attacked in the middle of nowhere, there’s no security, no one comes to help her. She’s a young woman, attacked by a fully grown man in his forties or fifties or whatever, none the people that were crying this whole time about. And it went very public. Like she, it was very viral. She ended up performing on Jimmy Kimmel after that. Like she got all these big opportunities.

Her, her followers shot through the roof, and great, good for her. But all these people that were like, but everyone’s getting attacked on stage now, none of them had anything to say about it. None of them, because she wasn’t, it’s like she was just doing her set and she’s a woman and she’s not famous.

She wasn’t in the midst of saying something offensive and it’s– I have so many, I have so many– I haven’t been attacked on stage, but I have so many friends that have been like, somebody will just rush the stage and slap them or push them down or whatever. And it’s, nobody’s crying about it.

It’s something that happened and it sucks, but it’s not like now we’re in danger because we’re truth tellers. It’s just so corny. I can’t take it.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, now the whole political dimension to all this, because

CURRY: Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: I mean, standup has always had a political component certainly.

CURRY: Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: Lenny Bruce, as I mentioned earlier, I mean, George Carlin obviously big–

CURRY: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: Political guy, certainly. So like–

CURRY: Elaine Boosler.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. I mean politics has always been a thing that was there in the mix. But do you think that comedy has become more politicized?

I mean, to some degree I think you could say that given that like, you look at all these tv comedy shows that were launched on the air, I mean all these, Daily Show imitators basically. And they’re all very political and, even the broadcast network ones have gotten more political.

CURRY: Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: I mean, do you think that that’s maybe has made people more attuned to some of this stuff or, I don’t know, what’s your take?

CURRY: I think maybe the political comedy is coming from more people being engaged politically. I mean it feels to me, from my perspective, because growing up I wasn’t, I mean, I was aware of politics because my parents are really politically engaged, and so I was always, I always had an interest in it, and I was always informed to a degree as a teenager, where almost none of my friends. Well my friends that did like mock government and stuff with me did, but outside of that, there wasn’t just like this general awareness where I think like now because of social media, we have the opportunity to be aware of what other people are going through and just more aware of things in general.

And Gen Z is very politically engaged, and I think because of that, there’s just, I think there’s just an interest in general with people.

And so comedy can be a reflection of where people are at right now, or what people are thinking of. And I think that that’s– politics are something that is, that is really on people’s minds. I mean, especially after Trump, because that was just such an absolutely wild, I still cannot believe he was actually the president of the United States of America.

Every day. I’m like, that’s the most insane thought I’ve ever had. And then I’m like, wait, that’s reality–

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And so it was literally

CURRY: –that sucks a lot of people in.

SHEFFIELD: A Simpsons joke. It was a Simpsons joke.

CURRY: Yeah. That’s, yeah. I mean, The Simpsons, I’m tired of them predicting bad stuff and it coming true. I wish they would predict good things that come true.

But yeah, I think, I think politics is entertainment to a degree and to, I mean, to a large degree and became more so with Trump. I mean, he’s, he’s a brand. It’s fucking psychotic. I hate it so much. We needed our president to be pretty boring, actually. I, I don’t want a president that’s bombastic and loud and selling merch and flags.

It’s so stupid.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

CURRY: But I think that, that, that kind of trickles into entertainment.

SHEFFIELD: Mm-hmm. Well, and also I think to some degree you could argue that, I mean, Trump himself, his, he has a shtick. He’s the first president who ever had a comedic pose. And you watch his speeches, I mean, it’s usually kind of the same jokes, but, like this is a guy who will get up and he has a sense of physical timing.

He has a sense of, when to raise or lower his voice for comedic effect. And I mean, he’s got the insult, Don Rickles shtick kind of down pretty well. Like, he, he knows how to–

CURRY: I mean, that’s, I wouldn’t say Don Rickles, because I don’t think he’s that smart. And Don Rickles was also notoriously kind. And was only saying things as jokes. Like yeah, sometimes Trump says stuff that is funny. Unfortunately. I hate to say that, but I’m not, I’m, I can’t pretend like nothing he says is funny.

That’s absurd. I’m not a liar, but I don’t think he knows how to craft a joke, really. And I don’t– I think when he says mean things to people, it’s because he means it, it’s not, he’s not calling Rosie O’Donnell a pig, but he actually thinks she’s a beautiful woman. He’s saying that because that’s what he actually believes, which is fucked up and rude.

And, not to, I’m not, I’m not saying that, I’m saying that, that’s what he says.

SHEFFIELD: Mm-hmm. I guess the other thing, he even will make fun of himself sometimes. So like recently, or I guess it was earlier in December he had this absurd campaign of selling NFTs of himself, right?

CURRY: Yeah. I couldn’t believe that it’s real.

SHEFFIELD: His own trading real trading cards. And I watched the video of him announcing this, and I’ll play it here for the audience.

(Begin video clip)

DONALD TRUMP: Hello everyone. This is Donald Trump, hopefully your favorite president of all time– better than Lincoln, better than Washington– with an important announcement to make. I’m doing my first official Donald J. Trump NFT collection right here and right now. They’re called Trump Digital Trading Cards.

These cards feature some of the really incredible artwork pertaining to my life and my career. It’s been very exciting.

You can collect your Trump digital cards just like a baseball card or other collectables.

Here’s one of the best parts: Each card comes with an automatic chance to win amazing prizes like dinner with me.

I don’t know if that’s an amazing prize, but it’s what we have, or golf with you and a group of your friends at one of my beautiful golf courses, and they are beautiful. I’m also doing Zoom calls, a one-on-one meeting, autographing memorabilia, and so much more. We’re doing a lot.

My official Trump digital trading cards are $99, which doesn’t sound like very much for what you’re getting. Buy one and you will join a very exclusive community. It’s my community and I think it’s something you’re going to like, and you’re gonna like it a lot.

They also make perfect gifts, so you can buy them with your credit card or crypto. All you need is an email address. Go to collecttrumpcards.com and buy your Trump digital trading cards right now before they are all gone and they will be gone. This is my official Trump Trading Card NFT Collection, and you get a chance to meet me, go to collecttrumpcards.com right now and remember, Christmas is coming and this makes a great Christmas gift.

(End video clip)

SHEFFIELD: In the video, one of the things that did strike me about it though, is that he actually is making fun of himself a little bit.

CURRY: Yeah?

SHEFFIELD: So one of the things he says in the video is that if you buy the NFT, the fake cards, you’ll be entered into a sweepstakes to have dinner with him. And he says ‘I don’t know if that’s a good prize, but it’s the best we can do.’ So he’s actually making fun of himself a little bit in there.

Because you know what? That is a stupid prize. Who wants to have dinner with this guy?

CURRY: People do. They’re lunatics.

SHEFFIELD: If you’re, if you’re trying to do an investment, I’m sorry. Like, yeah. Mm-hmm. , if they’re his like super ultra fan, then obviously.

CURRY: I don’t think anybody take– I think, first of all, I think, I think NFTs are bullshit. Don’t tell anyone I said that.

SHEFFIELD: Oh hell. We, we did a whole episode on Theory of Change about them, so–

CURRY: Oh.

SHEFFIELD: I I, I’m not sure that the audience for this episode would want to watch it, but I’ll put it in the show notes.

CURRY: Yeah. I can’t imagine there’s serious investors. I think that that’s another one of his snake oil things where they’re the same people that collect commemorative coins and stamps. God bless ’em.

But that same genre of person that it’s like, oh, this is an investment. That’s not an actual investment. 50 years from now, you can make six extra dollars on those stamps. That’s not a real investment. Neither are these NFTs. People buying them are just nuts.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, what’s even more messed up about his in particular is, so there’s two things. One is if you sell it to someone, and Trump actually is not the owner of these. It’s a company that paid him actually.

CURRY: Amazing.

SHEFFIELD: If you bought one and then you sold it, the company gets 10% of whatever your sale price was.

CURRY: Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: Right off the top.

CURRY: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: So you automatically get that taken away. And then the other thing is that, one of the selling points, quote unquote of NFTs is that ‘It’s there in the blockchain. No one can take it away from you. It’s always there. It’s always yours forever.’

But that’s actually not how his are structured. The JPEG is literally linked in the NFT, so they could actually delete it. And you wouldn’t even be able to see it or if their server went down or whatever.

Like, it’s not even stored.

CURRY: Of course

SHEFFIELD: In your crypto wallet, ever. So you actually, at some point in the future, I’m sure they will go away. Because a lot of people’s NFTs have gone away. It’s funny, there was a guy he made a joke, NFT that if you bought it, before you bought it, it would look like something else. But then after you bought it, it would be like, ‘you’re an asshole.’

CURRY: I did love the Banksy prank. Did you see that? This reminds me of that, where he sold a painting and the second the person won the bid, it shredded itself in the, in the frame. I was like, I love that. Cool. Yeah. Yeah.

Just fuck with millionaires. Any kind of prank on the rich, unless they want to send me money, my Venmo is the same as my Instagram. Feel free .

SHEFFIELD: And it’s right there on the screen.

CURRY: Those are the only millionaires I like.

SHEFFIELD: Well, it, it, I guess it’s not working for you though, huh?

CURRY: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: Not yet. Not yet, but we’ll see.

But yeah. Okay. But I guess, but I’m, and maybe is that another thing though, that I think to some degree, and this, I have told this, this idea other comic comics that I know that to a certain degree, Donald Trump is living out the fantasy of some standup comics. Because his 2016 campaign, he didn’t think he was gonna win.

He literally had said this in public multiple times, including after he won. I think it was December 27th or something of 2016, he got up and gave a ‘thank you America, Merry Christmas’ speech rallies. And he got up there at one of them and was like, yeah, I told Melania I thought I wasn’t gonna win on election day. But you know what? Wow. I did look at that.

So it was like his campaign in 2016 was almost like Brewster’s Millions in a certain degree.

CURRY: Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: And people voted for the absurd scenario, just like in the show.

CURRY: Crazy. It’s crazy. Yeah. I, I don’t know. I, I, I think I I would’ve to disagree that he’s living comedians’ dreams. Because even the fucking weirdest comedians, I think all they want– well, I mean, maybe now where he wants to command like stadiums and some people would.

Listen, do I want to run a cult? Of course. Do I want to be surrounded by people that are susceptible to being in a cult? No, I don’t want to be anywhere near those kind of people.

So it’s really a Catch 22. If I could just get really smart, attractive people, dynamic talented people to follow me as a cult leader, I would love that. That’s not gonna happen.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. What a dilemma. What a dilemma. Well, okay, so, but now what about this whole — one of the other things about kind of the sort of increasing interest in politics in comedy is that you have seen this proliferation– and, and I think it did start with Trump of people saying that, well, I’m a conservative comedian.

Have you ever seen any of these people when you’ve gone out in your travels on stages? Have you ever seen anyone who presented as that?

I’m just curious.

CURRY: Yeah. And I don’t think– listen, this is, I’m gonna piss people off, but as I said, I don’t care if people don’t like me, it’s fine. I don’t think there really is such a thing as conservative comedy, because there’s no joke. I’ve watched, I watched from time to time because I want to hurt my brain. I’ve watched Mike Huckabee’s show.

SHEFFIELD: And Wait, wait, wait. And who is Mike Huckabee? You have to say for people who don’t know who that is, some people don’t know.

CURRY: Oh, Mike Huckabee is, he’s a lunatic. He was a, he’s a former presidential candidate. He thinks he’s doing jokes, and he is not. God, God bless him.

But his thing will be like I can’t even make I’m trying to think of, of what would be a stupid joke example. He’d be like: ‘Gen Z, they won’t drink milk unless cows start, unless cows start lactating oat milk.’

It’s like , what? It doesn’t make. How, how are you gonna milk oats? What?

It’s shit like that where there’s no joke. And the thing is there’s a lot to make fun of with progressives. There’s a gold mine there. You can make fun of us all day. But they don’t know how to craft a joke. They think that saying something, saying something that somebody agrees with, there’s a difference between generating laughter and agreement and nodding and it’s a huge difference.

And they’re, they’re doing the latter.

SHEFFIELD: Mm-hmm. Well, yeah. Although, I would say that, especially in his later years, that John Stewart at The Daily Show pretty much did that almost every joke I felt like

CURRY: Sure, sure. I think at the end of his run there, he was more angry than funny.

Sorry, Jon. Not that you’re listening to this. But you know, I think that he just got pissed, which it’s like sometimes there’s, I’ve had a– my jokes start with anger. So when you first see them, when you first see like the beginning of a, of a new bit I’m working on, it’s way more commentary than jokes.

And then as I kind of find my way and work it out, then there’s more jokes. But yeah, I mean, I think everyone’s susceptible to doing that. There’s a thing comedians will call clapter, which is where you’re not getting laughter, but you say something the audience agrees with, and so they clap.

And a lot of comedians mistake that for doing well as a comedian. And it’s like, no, you’re saying something everyone agrees with. You’re not, you didn’t write a joke. There’s a difference. If you’re a comedian, you need to be writing jokes.

And I see this, progressive comics are really guilty of that, of clapter, where they’ll just go out in a really progressive neighborhood and they’ll go on stage and say like, women’s rights are human rights.

And everyone’s like, yeah. And it’s like, what?

That wasn’t, what are you doing? Yeah, you have to say a joke now. You can’t just end with that.

‘Rape is bad.’

‘Yeah, that’s right.’

It’s like, yes. No, I hope we’re all starting from there.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, am I supposed to laugh at that?

CURRY: But that can’t be the end, that can’t be the beginning, middle, and end. That’s not, you need more than that.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Is there something also though that, I mean, one of the things that I’ve always kind of been afraid of in terms of like career paths is that as we expand the number of people interested in various careers, Do the professions get better or do they get worse?

So in other words, like if you had at one point in time, let’s say lawyers, like let’s say you only had a hundred thousand lawyers in the country at one point.

CURRY: Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: And then over time, and this is true, the United States has had this dramatic explosion in lawyers in law schools. Like then you go from a hundred thousand to 500,000.

Are those 400,000 new lawyers as good as a hundred thousand?

CURRY: It depends on, it depends on, I mean, it’s not, it depends on the circumstances. Are the standards still as high or are there new law schools where?

SHEFFIELD: But what if there are no standards, officially?

CURRY: Oh, then there are, that’s not necessarily, and that’s the thing with like comedy now, kind of anyone can do it.

It used to be you have to be in a major city. And so that would filter out a lot of people, maybe not even necessarily for good, that would just filter people because they didn’t have access, and then you’re in a major city, and it’s super cutthroat, and there’s no social media and it’s, you kind of live and die by the stage time you get.

And now, anyone can start comedy from anywhere. Which I think is also, it can be frustrating, because you don’t know. You can not know where to put your energy. But then it’s also great because it’s just given people more access.

I mean, there was a guy, this guy, I believe his name is Brian Donaldson, I hope I’m getting it right. He’s so, so, so funny and was just hilarious on Twitter for years. He lived somewhere like Nebraska or so, just in the middle of fucking nowhere. And got invited to submit a writing packet to Seth Myers and got staffed.

And that would have been– 20 years ago, that would’ve been impossible. That would not have happened.

You wouldn’t get discovered from the middle of Nebraska. But it was like, if you’re on Twitter and you’re proving you’re funny day after day, and other TV writers are seeing it, they’re gonna say, oh, we want, I wonder if he’s able to write jokes in a way that also works for the show.

SHEFFIELD: That is a very different thing.

CURRY: Yeah, yeah. Like, oh, totally. And there’s people that are funny on Twitter that are abysmal in a room or abysmal at standup. I mean, it’s because it is a different style of joke writing.

SHEFFIELD: Well, and then writing for TV is also different than writing for the stage. These are all different things.

Well, okay. But I guess one of the other sort of political aspects of this is that this whole idea of older comedians complaining about their audiences, which seems like a really bad business model, but maybe that’s just me.

CURRY: Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: But of these older comedians, people will say in response to them that, well, the problem is your jokes, not only are they old, but they are punching down, quote unquote, the phrase goes.

And I think there’s something to that critique, because I mean, if you look at the history of comedy, public performed comedy, it really was kind of these, these Punch and Judy puppets that were doing– hitting each other on the heads.

And some of them looked like the king , or the duke, or the queen, or whatever. And the queen was having sex with a dog.

Like, that was literally things that happened in some of these puppet shows. And people liked them for that reason, because it was, that was the only time they could go after publicly criticize the people that were higher status than them in the society.

CURRY: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: But now a lot of this stuff, like I see a lot of the, especially like the people who defend Elon Musk, like, why the hell would you try to make jokes to defend this rich troll who is–

CURRY: It’s really sycophantic.

It’s so weird. It’s sad and it’s just, it’s like poor people that love Trump.

If you are poor, he hates you. He would spit on your grave. He would drown you with his own hands. These people that if it could, and I under, it’s, it’s like this fucked up form of like, it’s aspirational in a way. I think the seat of it is aspirational. Anyway, I’m getting away from it.

But like I don’t think punching down is good. That said, if somebody else wants to do it, okay, but write a joke. Just write a fucking joke. Because there is like, I mean, if you’re gonna make fun of marginalized people, it better be really good, because it’s also like you don’t need to beat down people that have already been beat down.

You just don’t, they’re already getting it. And it’s like, if you’re these people, what also kills me is the people that will quote, unquote punch down and we’ll just insult marginalized groups, and then they say, oh, this is my freedom of speech. I’m a truth teller. I’m speaking truth to power.

That’s not any of those things. It’s just you’re a bully. You’re just a bully with a microphone. That’s it. And, and okay, by all means, do that. But let’s not put yourself up on a pedestal as though you are saving free speech in some way. Fuck off, we’re fine. And then it’s like when people really are fighting for free speech ,they’re not acknowledged because a lot of times it’s women that have to fight anyway. That’s a whole, that’s a separate thing.

SHEFFIELD: Well, you go, go, go into it. Tell, tell me what you mean by that.

CURRY: These, the same people that are crying about, criticism, they’ve no interest in what’s going on in Iran right now. Not zero. They could care less because it’s women fighting for their own rights.

It’s like, okay. Or, or, or anywhere. These people that are like, oh, we’re being silenced. We’re 50 year old men and we’re being silenced. We’re 50 year old white men and we’re being silenced. It’s like, who’s being silenced?

People that literally don’t get hired because they’re women, because they’re black, because they’re disabled. That’s who’s, if you’re, if you’re claiming people are being silenced because they’re not being hired, that’s who’s being silenced, by the way. Because you walk into any writer’s room and it’s 80% straight white guys.

So who’s, who’s really being silenced? The people who literally have a microphone that literally have multiple Netflix specials, that are making a living from their words, it’s so stupid.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

CURRY: And that’s also, that’s not to say I do think people are more sensitive now, but people being more sensitive, and people silencing you are two different things. And I think some people are too sensitive. I have people, my whole family I think is too sensitive.

They’re not progressive. But they don’t want to hear anything about religion for example, or they don’t want to be– they don’t want anyone to call them out for being racist and I think there’s also a lot of progressives that can be too sensitive that take a joke out of context and they run with it and they just hear one buzzword and they’re like, this is terrible.

Like, you should never joke about rape. And it’s like, or let people joke about the worst things that happen in the world, it’s, it’s so, so, so I don’t, I do, I will give people that, I will give the people that are complaining about audiences, but that’s not what they’re saying.

They’re saying I’m being silenced. Perfect example, Jerry Seinfeld, this is probably a couple years ago already that he gave this interview, and he goes, oh, I can’t do colleges anymore because college kids these days are super sensitive and they are also, Jerry Seinfeld hasn’t been doing colleges in 40 fucking years.

He, he doesn’t, they don’t have the budget for Jerry Seinfeld. Jerry Seinfeld is making $75,000 a show. Purdue University does not have a budget to have Jerry Seinfeld perform in the cafeteria for $75,000. That’s not happening.

But there are comedians also that will do colleges. There’s people I know of and that I know that they, you have to be super careful with your wording, because again, they will hear one word and they flip out.

Does that mean that person doesn’t have freedom of speech? No. That means that fucking audience is annoying. That’s it. Audience is annoying.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

CURRY: And it’s difficult to perform for them.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, I, I, yeah, I mean, I mean, look, like Bill Cosby said he’s gonna go on a comedy tour in early 2023.

CURRY: I hope somebody shows up and hits him in the head with a fucking hammer. I’m not requesting anyone do that. I’m just putting a wish out.

SHEFFIELD: Well, or, or at the very least, get served for this latest lawsuit. Because he just got sued for five more women as I understand it.

CURRY: He’s a, he a serial rapist and if whoever he has working with him that’s putting this tour together, I hope they all get hit by a bus. I hope. As a matter of fact, I hope they all get on a bus and it starts on fire. I’ve had it. I have had it with rapists making millions of dollars. I can’t, I can’t take it anymore.

And even like, Harvey Weinstein was finally convicted. Yes. He’s finally in prison now. He has what? 86 Oscars. And he’s in prison now. What? That’s not right

SHEFFIELD: After raping, like literally, we, we don’t even know how many women did he do?

CURRY: Just the amount of, of wealth and privilege and access he’s had his whole life. Oh, so what now? He’s 75 and he’s being punished?

Well, what’s there to celebrate? He’s, he got away with so much for so long, and destroyed people’s lives. It’s like, sorry. Now I’m getting off topic.

SHEFFIELD: Bill Cosby, I don’t think he even served two years in, in jail. I mean, what is OJ Simpson gonna be the opening act? I mean, what the hell?

CURRY: People follow him on Twitter. People love him. I don’t understand. It’s, it’s

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, okay. But, but you know what though? It is interesting though, speaking of OJ Simpson, that like, I think the other thing about Trump that isn’t talked about enough as a cultural figure is that he’s kind of like this sort of magnet for terrible people. They’re drawn to him and like they see that he can get away with anything.

And so they were like, well, so all I have to do is just say I support him, and I can also get away with anything. Like that guy that guy who just got elected out of New York that faked being Jewish. He faked his entire professional resume. He faked his education.

CURRY: Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: But, and, and he doesn’t want to resign. And it’s just insane.

CURRY: But it is crazy because no one, there’s no such thing as shame anymore apparently. But the same people, the same mindset behind ‘Trump says wild shit, so I’m gonna say I support him,’ it’s the same mindset as religious people that have shit opinions.

And they say, oh, well I’m just following the Bible. It’s like, no, I’m not homophobic . It’s God . It’s not me. It’s just God.

And it’s like the same thing that are like, well, I’m not, I’m not racist, but I just love Trump. He’s a racist. You are a racist. You like him because he says racist shit, and you feel that you can’t say it in public, and he gets to be your mouthpiece.

That’s why you like him because you’re a racist. You’re a sexist, you’re a fucking asshole. Like, that’s it. There’s no, there, there’s absolutely no excusing that.

SHEFFIELD: You, you remind me of another thing I was gonna ask you. Because you were saying how a lot of people don’t want to hear jokes about religion.

CURRY: Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: I think that’s true. And this is where it goes to a political component, because when you look at when standup emerged as an industry, so seventies, eighties, nineties, a lot of the sort of cultural controversies in those days were about what bad words you could say in public.

CURRY: Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: But it was also about whether the Bible was true.

CURRY: Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: And whether you could be an open atheist in public, and whether you could be lesbian or gay openly. Those were the real sort of cultural flashpoints, if you will, that whether, atheists and lesbians and gays had to be in the closet.

So at that moment, there were people, I think a lot of people who were libertarian, kind of low-information libertarian, who they thought they were liberal.

Because those were the controversies of the day. And the Democratic Party with Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, they were all about decentralizing things, and privatize this and that.

So they were conservative. The Democratic Party was pretty conservative in a lot of ways in terms of economics. So the only things that Democrats and Republicans kind of disagreed on were, were religious issues.

And now basically where we are at this point now where most people support overwhelmingly, including Republicans, support drug legalization, support same sex marriage.

CURRY: Mm-hmm. ,

SHEFFIELD: Now these people who had kind of thought of themselves as, ‘Oh, well I’m on the left.’

Well, no, you were just a libertarian, right wing libertarian. That’s what you were. And like a lot of comics, I think who came up in that environment, who had libertarian viewpoints are suddenly realizing, oh, wait, I’m different than these, than these progressives.

I don’t agree with them and they don’t like me. What’s wrong with the Democrats? I think there’s some of that too there. I mean, what do you think?

CURRY: Yeah. Sure. I didn’t, I hadn’t thought of it. I hadn’t, I don’t know. I hadn’t thought of it that way.

SHEFFIELD: Well, like, I’ll, I’ll give you an example. Joe Rogan.

CURRY: Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: He’s the, he is the ur-example of that, that–

CURRY: Yeah. He claims to be libertarian .

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, but he also was claiming that he was liberal for a while. And Bill Maher is, is another example of that. Like Bill Maher is very anti-religious, and he loves telling anti-religion jokes.

CURRY: Bill Maher is exhausting. I. He’s in, sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt. I spoofed his show, if anybody wants to check it out on YouTube. When he took a week, when he took two weeks off last year, my friends and I wrote an episode of his show that I hosted.

It turned out pretty well. And I watched his show ahead of time. I mean, I did his show format in my voice and then I watched his show ahead of time just to check it out. And he’s so– his jokes are so lazy, God bless. And I am friends with one of his writers, and I think that writer specifically is very funny.

But I mean, he did a joke where he did the setup and then he was like, ah, today, the new iPhone 14 is out. And then there’s like a pause and he goes, ah, You get where I’m going with this.

And then he just went on, he didn’t even, he literally just didn’t even tell a joke. And I was like, you’re getting paid millions of dollars to have this show. It’s so frustrating to watch. But yeah, Joe Rogan also, I think he’s just, his brain is toasted because he just gets high for three hours and then he thinks whatever he’s saying is an epiphany.

Listen, I smoke weed and when I’m stoned, I also think I’m having epiphany after epiphany. And you know what? I write them down in my little notes app and then I wake up the next morning and I’m like, what the fuck is this? This is nonsense.

And I wish he would do the same. I wish he would just say these things quietly to no one and maybe record them, and then listen back when he’s sober. Because then he would realize, oh, this is stupid. I am a moron.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, but it turns out there’s a lot of morons out there .

CURRY: So many, so many. And that goes back to what I was saying earlier, where somebody just says something wild then, then people just think they’re a genius because they’re like, wow, I never thought of it that way before.

Sometimes you didn’t think of it that way because it just didn’t occur to you, and sometimes you didn’t think of it that way because it doesn’t make any fucking sense.

That would be like me saying, you could just, you don’t even need four tires on your car. You could just drive with the front left one and the back right one.

That doesn’t mean that’s a brilliant idea. No one has said that before because it’s fucking stupid. It’s not because I’m a genius and I was the first to think of it. And I think people largely can’t tell the difference between those two concepts.

SHEFFIELD: Huh. Yeah, I think that’s, that’s a good point.

CURRY: I mean, I’m right about everything so.

SHEFFIELD: Well, okay. So you tour in a lot of different states. You just came back from performing in Colorado.

CURRY: Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: Are people as because I think one of the other things that when you work in media like I do, and especially if you live in New York or DC where things are a lot more politicized there.

Like they think that just regular Americans are on pins and needles thinking about politics all the time.

CURRY: No.

SHEFFIELD: And I don’t think that’s right and, and like, but you tell me, I mean, you’re, you’re interacting with a lot more people on a regular basis.

CURRY: I think people outside of New York and LA are largely thinking of survival.

I mean, I grew up in rural Indiana and everyone I know there, I mean their, their political engagement begins and ends with the evening news on their local station. I mean, some of them watch Fox, and that’s really unfortunate, because their brains have turned to scrambled eggs, rotten scrambled eggs.

But so many people, most everyone I know outside of major cities are living week to week, if not day to day. And their entire focus is, how do I get through this week? How do I get through this month? How do I see my family more? That’s it.

And people are in such a stranglehold right now economically, that it’s frustrating to see the way people vote against their own interests.

But also, politicians know people don’t have time to research them. So when somebody goes on TV and they say, I’m bringing your coal mining job back, or I’m bringing rotary phones back, or whatever, if that’s what somebody wants, they’re gonna say, fantastic. I’m voting for them. You know what I mean?

They’re not going to take the time to research. They’re not doing deep dives. They’re not reading all these AP articles. They’re not watching Frontline. Maybe they are to an extent, but a lot of these people do not. I think a lot of people just across the country do not have time to research.

Who does? Unless you have like a, a major fascination with it, there’s people that just don’t care. And that I think is irresponsible that don’t care and do have time. But people I know personally in the Midwest are surviving. And they, if they’re told, I’m gonna do this for you, or I’m gonna give this to you, even if it is an absolute lie, they’re just gonna vote for that person.

Because they’re like, okay, great. That’s, they said they’re going to deliver pizza to my house every Friday, and I need that.

SHEFFIELD: Hey, that’s a good promise.

CURRY: Listen, that said, if anyone wants to deliver pizza to my house every Friday, I will vote for you.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, but you know what though? Like, that actually is a, is a really good point in terms of when you actually look at why Donald Trump lost in 2020. So he actually got more Hispanic votes, he got more Black votes than in 2016. The one group that turned against him was non-college educated white people.

CURRY: Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: The majority of them still voted for him, but a sizable enough percentage of them who had voted for him before were like, you know what? I just can’t do it this time.

CURRY: Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: Because I, and I think for a lot of them it was like he was, he was the fresh face. He was the non-politician. He was the outsider. He was offering something new. He was doing things different. He was making jokes. Like he was a different kind of a guy.

And he also actually said: ‘I’m gonna have a healthcare plan that will take care of everyone. And the Republican party lied to you about Iraq, and they lied to you about this and that.’

CURRY: Well, that’s the thing too, when he was like, didn’t he say like, Hillary voted for the Iraq war? It’s like, yeah.

SHEFFIELD: Mm-hmm.

CURRY: Yeah. And, and, and also I voted for her, I also don’t buy for a fucking second that she didn’t know what she was voting for when, because when she later said like, oh, I just didn’t realize or whatever. I, I mean, listen, I’m not remembering her wording and I’m not gonna pretend I am, but it’s like, you can’t, you can’t be as smart as you are and as connected as you are, and also a dumb-dumb.

You’re one or the other. You were not naive. I don’t buy it.

So it’s like, well, yeah, he’s right when he says that.

SHEFFIELD: That’s the paradox of Trump in 2016 was that he actually won because he was telling the truth. About a few things. Like that’s the curse.

CURRY: It’s just, yeah. It’s like when he’s like, politics is corrupt. Yeah, it is. And it’s frustrating that Democrats won’t admit that and they won’t say what’s really going on, and they won’t tell you the motivations behind things.

They just pretend that everything’s– I mean, God, I’m so, I get so frustrated, but it’s, it’s not doing us any favors is all.

SHEFFIELD: Mm-hmm.

CURRY: And yeah, he said those things, but also he was a con artist as well.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And if you only paid attention to some things and not others, well then that’s unfortunate for you, and you made the wrong decision. And that ultimately was why enough people realized, oh, well I guess I got tricked last time.

CURRY: Yeah. And also he told people to not vote because voting is a scam or whatever. He said that it’s not legitimate.

It’s like, all right, man, you just told your whole base to not vote. What you expect? What the fuck?

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. No. Well that’s true. The Trump of 2022 is literally doing all the opposite things of what he did right in 2016. Because you’re right, because like, he literally has been saying ever since.

And even before the 2020 election. Only vote on Election Day. Don’t vote early, don’t vote by mail.

CURRY: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: Because your vote will be stolen. But for some reason, even though you would vote on the same machine 10 days before the election, you vote the same machine, it won’t get stolen on this one day of the year.

CURRY: Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: Like it makes absolutely no sense. And it’s totally stupid. And finally, actually the Republican elites, they actually have had enough of that.

And it’s funny. Because like, they don’t openly defy him. But what they’ve done instead is so he tells people not to vote by mail, but instead what they’ve done is they’ve just ignoring him.

And actually will go and send emails to their voting list or, mailing list: ‘Hey, make sure to vote early, make sure to vote by mail.’

And like in the states where they did that and ignored what Trump said, so that was Florida and New York and California, well, golly, those were the only states that Republicans did very well in, in 2022.

SHEFFIELD: That is the hilarious thing about Trump is that he’s got sort of a, a, he’s got a sense of what the Republican voter likes in a lot of ways.

CURRY: Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: Like he’s, he’s a great Republican primary candidate, but he has no touch with the regular just average person who’s not a Republican primary voter.

CURRY: Nuh-uh. That’s the thing. It’s just, I will never understand how a man who literally has a gold toilet got poor and working class people to get on his side. I don’t, I’m, I’ll never get it.

SHEFFIELD: Well, some of that’s gotta be religion and–

CURRY: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: But you were saying though, like a lot of people feel like they can’t, they don’t like to hear that. Why don’t they want to hear jokes about that? I mean, what’s your take?

CURRY: Yeah, no idea. Well, my family doesn’t, because my family’s deep, or half my family is very Catholic. So that’s off limits for them.

But they’re also. And I’m making a big blanket statement. It’s not all of them, it’s not every single one of them, but they’re also really hateful and homophobic, and racist, and xenophobic, and they’re just awful in a lot of ways.

And so I don’t really care. I think that’s a lot. A big reason I’m not religious is because I was raised Catholic around a bunch of hypocritical Catholics that were just awful, awful people. And just, hid behind the Bible.

And they’re like, well, I go to church every Sunday. It’s like, well, you go to church every Sunday.

You don’t, you don’t donate money to charity. You don’t donate, you don’t, volunteer your time. You’re not kind to people. You say horrible racial slurs. You bully other people in the family. Okay, so you go to church, you’re in a cult? Great, cool!

SHEFFIELD: And you want people to respect your opinions at the same time, like

CURRY: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: And we’re just coming out of the holidays here as we’re taping this, and I don’t know if you saw, but there was this guy named Dennis Prager, who’s a right wing radio show host.

CURRY: Oh Lord in heaven. Yes. He’s about as dumb as a person can get.

SHEFFIELD: And he wrote yeah. Well, and he wrote a call saying, he was saying that, mil, hundreds of thousands of conservatives will not be with their family this year because of leftists.

Because they don’t like our opinions. They’ve canceled us. They don’t want to be around us. And–

CURRY: Yeah, because you’re fucking rude. Not you, you know that. It’s like,

SHEFFIELD: No, that’s what I’m saying. Like, like

CURRY: Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: A lot of, a lot of people who have these, very Trumpy, reactionary opinions, they can’t shut up about them.

CURRY: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: They have to talk about them all the time. Like you can’t have a conversation about– and actually Trump actually gave the best example of what I’m talking about here. So he was talking about Kari Lake, the loser Republican who ran for–

CURRY: Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: Arizona governor.

CURRY: Yeah. Loser.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And he said, and he said he, he, he was giving advice to another guy and he was like, so the thing I like about her is if you ask her: ‘Hey, how’s your family?’ She’ll say the election was stolen.

And that’s what he wants his regular followers to do. Like, you can’t have a conversation:

‘Hey, how’s your kids?’ Or ‘how’s the weather?’

‘Well, Biden is destroying America.’

Okay, but what do you, how do you go from that? You can’t go anywhere from that.

CURRY: There’s no, well, and they do this arguing that’s like whack-a-mole. I’ve had these conversations with people about COVID most recently, where they’re like: ‘This is a government conspiracy.’ I’m like: ‘Okay. How do you suppose that everyone in the government is keeping a conspiracy secret together?’

Then they’ll say, well, the vaccine has a microchip.

And it’s like, how do you think a micro– and just straight up asking calmly, how do you think a microchip fits in the needle? And then they say, well, it started in a lab.

And it’s like they’re never answering the question when you counter their argument, they don’t reply to that counter.

They jump onto a new, they start a new argument. They start a new thing because they don’t have an answer. They’re full of shit. They’ve never thought of it. So it jumps around to something else.

I had an argument with an aunt before about gay marriage and she said, well, it’s just in the Bible. And I said, well, it’s actually to my knowledge, I’m not a Bible-ologist here. ,

I said, I don’t believe it is. And also, don’t you believe in people’s human rights? And then instead of answering that, she started talking about something else. And that’s a lot of what they do. And it’s just, it’s nauseating.

And, and also, and also thank you Fox News. I get an, I’ll get in arguments with my family because we are argumentative. Just, I just like to argue.

And I’ll get in arguments with them where I had a cousin one time tell me, well, what do you think about there’s all these white people being dragged out of their house in South Africa and they’re just being beaten by black people?

And I’m like, what? And I’m like, I haven’t heard this. That sounds, sounds like a lie, but this is nothing I’ve ever heard of. So it stops the conversation dead in its tracks because I’m like, I’ve literally never heard this, so I can’t say confidently, definitively, this isn’t happening.

I know it’s not happening, but my style of having an argument with somebody or discussion or whatever is, I need facts before I can just tell you that this is the truth.

And then later I’m like, what the fuck was he even referencing? What was he, where did he get this idea? And then I come to find out that this was a fable made up when apartheid ended, when white people were pissed about apartheid ending.

So they made up this, this lie that just white people were just being dragged out of their homes and beaten over a apartheid ending. Not true. It was a lie. But I’m like, now we’re already several days past this conversation I have with my cousin.

So now he’s moving forward with his life thinking that that is the truth and I’m not going to reach out to him to say, Hey, you were wrong.

But it, it’s, it’s a lot of that where it’s like, well, didn’t you hear this is happening? And you’re like, huh, well shit, is it? Not that I ever thought that was happening, but like, just as an example, they present something that is wild and that is not true. And you can’t counter the argument.

There’s nothing you– because it’s insane. Because it’s nothing you’ve ever heard of. Because it didn’t happen.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, exactly. And the other thing also though is that that sort of mentality, it also makes it hard to do comedy. Like if that’s how you think about the world, it’s sort of these mishmash of, nonsense basically.

If you’re gonna do political comedy, that comes from drilling down deep–

CURRY: Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: –into an idea set or to a person, the things that they say, you actually have to understand it. And what they’re talking about. And if you don’t understand what, what Fauci has been saying, or you don’t understand what Biden thinks about this policy or that, then you can’t really make fun of it.

CURRY: That’s the thing. And like with, Fauci, when people say, well, he said this, and then he said that, I’m like, did you miss all of science class? Science is fluid.

You present the information you have, you get new information, you adjust, and present again with the new information. That doesn’t mean that the person was lying in the first place.

That means you have more information now, and you’ve recalibrated it’s, and that doesn’t mean that everyone’s telling the truth all the time either. It’s, it’s– the nuance is gone. Nuance doesn’t exist anymore. There’s four people on earth that understand nuance. It’s like two things can be true. And also you can be a moron.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. All right. Well, it’s been a fun conversation. So you are on Instagram. I actually do not even get your reference. Olympian Lisa Curry.

CURRY: Olympian. Lisa Curry is my Instagram. TikTok, Venmo, all of it. And that comes from there’s an Olympic gold medalist named Lisa Curry in Australia, and she took our name on socials. So I took Olympian.

SHEFFIELD: Ah, I you got back. Alright, well, thank you for being here today, Lisa.

CURRY: Thanks so much for having me. This is really fun. I I love to talk so any time.

SHEFFIELD: All right, awesome. All right, we’ll definitely put up all those links as well that you mentioned as well.

All right. So that’s our program for today. Thank you for being here