Usually when I tour, I head into the Mid-West and the South. People get concerned about that, because I’m an immigrant an there’s certain stereotypes in that region that one needs to be concerned about. But I love the South and the Midwest! Because for as many right wing, super conservative folks that are down there, there’s just as many progressives and liberals down there.
You just gotta look hard enough to find em! It’s like the Hunt For Red October, but it’s more for the so called Blue Wave. You can go out there and put out the call of the left! “UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE! FUND PUBLIC EDUCATION! UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME! CRITICAL THINKING! SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE” And they all march towards the venue!
What’s really awesome about the liberals and progressives in the South is the fact that they’re just as aggressive as the conservatives about their beliefs! “HEY! Why y’all fuckin’ with that queer! Love ain’t no goddam political argument! Let ‘em love who they want to! And for that matter neither is abortion! That’s between a woman, her partner and their doctor! Get your signs and hate outta here before I beat your ass with biology book!” I appreciate passion of all forms! That means you give a shit about something! And we need more of give a shits in our society.
But people do get nervous though. Especially now, with this administration, people get concerned about touring the south and the Mid-west! People ask me if there’s a lot of Trump supporters that come to my show or if I get into arguments with Trump supporters a lot. The truth is I don’t. Maybe 1 or 2 every once in a while. And they’ve been fine folks. They look like we do and speak English as proficient as most of us. At the 4th Grade Level.
To be honest, I feel bad for Trump, and follow me on this. I know there are few lefties that just had an aneurysm. Look, that’s a 73-year old man, that ran for the highest office in the country to make some friends! That’s why he did it. He didn’t want to be President to run the country, he knew it’d make him popular and have people to ask him to dance with him! Boy it has not worked out! He’s popular in the terms that people know who he is but not in the terms that he’s invited to a lot of parties.
73 years old and he doesn’t have friends! That’s depressing! That’s so sad! I think people befriend him, he says some wild shit, they disagree and he fires them from his friendship. That’s sad! He doesn’t know how to retain friends!
“Look, you’re fired!”
“Donald you can’t fire friends, that’s not what this is about. You can’t say that stuff about Mexicans. As your friend...”
“NO! You’re fired! Give me the bracelet with my name on it back! I’m going on twitter to look for a different friend!”
73 years old. He’s one of the oldest presidents. Why don’t we have an age cap for the Presidency! You have to a minimum of 35 to run for office, and I think after 50 you should sit down and relax. You’ve done enough. It’s too old. It’s like your grandfather! Do you really want your grandfather running a country, dealing with diplomatic affairs?! Look, my grandfather is 92 now. When he was 73 he was afraid of the cordless telephone! Is that someone you want in charge of healthcare? If he doesn’t get the cordless telephone, giving citizens the right of health isn’t really going on the progressive docket. “Get the leeches back!?” No, that’s a bad idea. Don’t do that, grandpa.
And look I know I’m shooting myself in the foot here because I’m a big Bernie Sanders guy. But Bernie is like a thousand years old! He’s got stories about how he helped Lincoln figure out slavery was wrong because when Bernie was hanging out with Pharaohs he knew it would come back to bite them in the ass! He’s old! Every speech he gave the only thing I wanted him to do was sit down! GET HIM A CHAIR! He was always hunched over because he was literally carrying the weight of the Middle Class on his back! The weight of all the working class folks on his shoulders and it was crushing him and eventually he’ll get crushed into the most beautiful Democratic Socialist diamond! And then maybe we’ll finally have enough money to pay for healthcare.
I have had a lot of people ask me why we do this. Why do you go on tour so much? Why do you drive everywhere? The idea that I get into my car go city to city, telling jokes and philosophizing on stage is out of the depths of reality to some people. But it’s one of the best things you can do!
If you ever get the chance to travel, I recommend it to everyone. If you have the opportunity then you should do it. It’s also astounding to people that we drove through the whole country. Here’s the thing, flying is awful!
The idea of flight is amazing and beautiful and we took that idea and added security, TSA and an indoor mall and ruined it. We’re one of the only mammals that have figured out flying. It’s us and Bats. And for a long time Bats used that against us. “Sure you can pick stuff but can you even reach your God?” they’d taunt. And now we can say yes, and we discovered they’re not in the Clouds. It’s just the atmosphere we’re destroying, so suck on that bats. Seriously if you suck on that, it will probably render you extinct.
Everything leading up to the miracle is flight is awful. I have to be groped without anyone buying me dinner! I have to deal with racism and classism and those things definitely don’t come dinner. By the time we take off, I don’t even care that we’re doing something the birds have accomplished.
I knew I was done with flying when I was at O’Hare in Chicago a few years ago and saw an older woman that was cursing out and aggressively trying to attack a flight attendant. She had be carried out by 2 Chicago Police Officers. They had her by the armpits and when she started kicking the cops so one of them just restrained her legs and they carried her out like a pig on a spit. At that point I was like “Yeah, I don’t think this is bringing out the best of us!”
I love driving across the country. You see so much and you meet so many people from different walks of life. You get to understand things a little bit better! The way I see it, this is all like a jigsaw puzzle. We all start with like 10 pieces. And every place we go, every person we meet, every interaction we have, story we hear, we gain a few more puzzle piece. Some that fit the pieces we have others start a whole new section. But with each piece we get the puzzle gets a little clearer.
And the people that aren’t looking to listen to another person’s perspective or see how someone else lives, think their 10 puzzle pieces is the world. That arrogance isn’t going to help us figure each other or this world out. And the reality is we probably won’t ever finish the puzzle, but we might get close. And that’s amazing to me. That’s why you should leave and go see someplace new every once in a while, talk to someone different, listen to a oppositional point of view. Collect your puzzle pieces. I hope this has added a piece to your puzzle.
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