ANDREW CHAPADOS | Ben Bankas: How to Fix Canadian Comedy
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Summary
Ben Banks is back! We talk about the removal of the mask mandate in Canada, his trip to Texas to do open mics, and what it's like to live in a liberal city without the mask.
Transcript
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welcome to another episode of andrew says i don't know what number this is but ben banks is here
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he's back how are you young benjamin you don't know what number episode this is 60 something i
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think would it be 69 for you maybe we can delay it to be 69 we just make this episode 69 and then
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if it's episode 66 you'll just do i'll work backwards 68 and then you'll skip 69 we'll see
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what we can do i think it's possible i'm not sure what i'm not sure anybody else will laugh except
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what's going on rebel media viewers rebel news it's been a while ben um you took a big trip to
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texas to do some open mics i guess um a couple podcasts here and there i saw i watched you on
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kill tony um how was it compared to canada i'm sure everybody's asking you that but the restrictions
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are leaving now we finally have a mask mandate ending date uh so just tell everybody what it
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was like being free for a while while everybody else wasn't uh it was amazing i tell everybody
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that like how was austin i'm like it was amazing i mean you didn't have to wear a mask people are
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like in texas people like austin it's so it's such a liberal city but compared to canada it's like
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you know the the most conservative well whatever we think is conservative now which is of course
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just the idea that you don't want to wear a mask that means you're conservative even if you want to
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like give money to like children that's charities you could be like you give to charities and and and
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be like a philanthropist and if you walk into your condo building without a mask on people will just
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assume that you are um an alt-right maniac well you are uh maybe you should move a bit closer here
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so when you're down there what me to look at you i don't want to look at you well you don't have to
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look at you on the screen that's fine that's fine you look very cool like a pilot almost a pilot from
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like 1993 who got it never works out when i try to be the funny one so i'll stop sounds like you're
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coming on to me a bit but that's okay you look like a pilot a pilot you look like i feel like i'm
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watching top gun which still hasn't come out by the way the new one there's a new top gun yeah he filmed
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it like a couple years ago what's it about just uh giving ukrainians old planes trying to train
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random farmers to fly fighter jets i think he fly migs i think he flies in one of those jets that can
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go hypersonic into space like into the ionosphere or whatever it is but tom cruise actually flew jets
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in this one well okay well i'll finish telling you about austin okay because we could get into all
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kinds of tom ukrainian bulgarian the war in bulgaria is it in bulgaria no um yeah austin's a
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great place to go uh it's not as big as toronto i don't think i think it has its disadvantages like
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people you know want you to just be like it's a the best thing ever like it does have its disadvantages
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toronto has a better transit system toronto has more options to for food more uh it's i think toronto
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is actually almost cheaper in some ways uh when you consider how many people are moving to austin but
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yeah it's living in a place that doesn't have restrictions feels normal and people are going
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to realize that once i already see it on people's faces they're walking around with their mask off
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and they're wow everybody's out and we're just walking along bloor street or we're walking along
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young street wow and it's like yeah that's why you were insane and depressed for the last two years
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because you didn't have that um it's important to live a normal life it's important to not be worried
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it's not that you know wearing a mask is whatever it's just the idea that you're constantly in fear
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of if i don't put my mask on somebody's going to say something because that's 90 of people who wear
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the mask are wearing it because they don't want to get in trouble they don't want somebody to
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be annoying towards them they're not wearing it because they're like oh my god i care so much
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about my neighbor and i care about you know i'm really worried about what could happen if i don't
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wear my no it's just because like i don't want to get in a confrontation at the lcbo so i gotta have
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it on david manz he's no stranger to that i don't know if you've been watching lcbo's
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okay because it's green screen david manz he's loves excursions to the lcbo leave that in don't cut
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that out okay that's fine we'll leave the water bottle in for for what reason i don't know
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no foto puzzles um did you get a lot of those typical questions oh what's it like being
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canadian oh do you love justin trudeau what's the number one thing somebody from texas is asking a
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canadian uh mostly people be like where are you from and be like canada be like oh sorry about that
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they like felt bad for me yeah honestly that's what if that's literally what it was they're like oh
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yikes so i saw you on uh kill tony one of my nobody cares about canada people are like what was
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nobody's like what's canada like they were just like oh you have legal weed that's great we also
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have that in certain states but not here something i was thinking about was well first of all the guy
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you brought down there with you what was his name the guy you did the special needs guy i'll say
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you did skits with and he was jared nathan jared nathan i didn't uh bring him down no you didn't
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well i mean i so when i did the park shows if people don't know anything about me which you
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probably don't um i the reason i'm sitting here is because i did something illegal and uh i i did
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comedy shows in parks when we had our most intense lockdowns in 2020 and um yeah we had thousands of
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people come out to the park shows whatever so i put jared jared i knew for a long time jared nathan
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um and he did the park shows and that's where he met jason rouse who's a canadian comic long time
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comic he's been on just for laughs he's done all the festivals he's toured the world doing comedy
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now lives in austin hangs out with tony hinchcliffe and and brian redband and um yeah so jared met him
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at those park shows and jason brought me actually last year down to texas and then this year he brought
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down um jared nathan and jared killed it jared did a week uh the first time it was going to be only for
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a week but then he he got on kill tony his first time the same night i got on actually except he got
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to go on 12 times after that um because you know they were just like this guy is um awesome you know
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he's you know his deal he's got a stutter um and uh some potential special needs but he's also uh you
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know just a hilarious dude um so he really impressed everybody down there and he had a
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great time and uh yeah i think he i think he's still there the first time he raised money on a
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gofundme he raised like 10 grand and then trudeau took it yeah trudeau took his gofundme because he
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wore didn't wear a mask no uh he got the money it was a legitimate gofundme and so he stayed an
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extra week and now he's staying there a month i stayed there for four months i mean it's expensive
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you know what i mean i went with my girlfriend and uh you know she doesn't want to stay in uh
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you know like a room in some guy's house so it's not exactly cheap when you think about and i've
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been thinking about this a lot lately when you think about doing work down there or potentially
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moving there in the future to do work do you think it's better to go down to someplace like that
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and be part of something and try to you know whether it's building it up with a group of people
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other comics or doing something on your own do you think it's better to go down there and do that
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or do you think it is almost better to try to stay around here and like be the guy because you have
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that potential i think if if you're here to be the guy whereas if you go back down to texas permanently
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then there's this whole other scene where you're like you've got the tony hinchcliffs and the rogans
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and all these people who are into the stratosphere almost now would you rather almost be here and
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and you know be the guy well i think there's an opportunity to be the guy uh in both places i think
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even both places at once i mean if you know if you can freely move between the two places there's no
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reason that you know it's not that expensive of a flight uh i mean the pcr obviously but i think
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they're going to be getting rid of that soon um so and it's not that long of a flight to go down to
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austin uh or most of the states for that matter so you know i think there's a potential to be the guy
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in austin too um obviously i'm not going to be rogan or i'm not going to be uh tony hinchcliff those
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are established names but um you know working with tony or you know working with rogan is a
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possibility there and you know that can kind of establish you as like the guy on like a lower
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level than them like obviously you're not that the guy but um you're the guy that's also still doing
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other people's shows because you know tony and rogan they're probably not going to come out and do
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some show for 30 bucks but if you're opening for rogan you might come and do that show so there's
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still that potential to be the guy and and as far as toronto the problem here is that we don't have
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any tourism right now and i think a lot of comedy really uh you know benefits from tourism and and the
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you know people coming to the city for a night they go to a show they have fun and then they leave
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right right now we just basically you can only pull locals to come to shows or like people are
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driving like i've had a couple people drive like two hours actually to come to my shows which is
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awesome thank you for doing that but you see what i'm saying like we don't have like in new york city
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or or in austin this constant flow of tourists being like what do we do tonight what do we do tonight
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going on event event bright type websites and finding comedy shows and like people are packing them out
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there and they're charging like you know people who don't have huge followings but are good at
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stand-up are charging 30 bucks uh for showcase shows where it's like seven or eight comics doing
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10 minutes each um charging 30 bucks us for that and that's why if you want to come see me you know
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it's i'm charging 30 bucks canadian which is only like 23 us when you think about it so people will be
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like it's 30 bucks i know that like the dollar's crashing my hair looks weird for a second um my
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girlfriend's gonna watch this and be like you didn't do your hair properly you didn't shave your
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beard um you wore your jacket insert you wore my jacket insert no this isn't a jacket insert it's like
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uh it's supposed to look like it is i don't know it's from two years ago i don't know what's in style
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anymore i'm gonna go to dufferin mall after this and uh get kicked out go to go to champs without a
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mask on and learn about style again no but anyway uh comedy in toronto is hard to sell uh in the same
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way that you can do it in a town where people want to come to all the time and now if toronto becomes
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open more and we start having tourists again because i remember when i started comedy in toronto a lot of
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my shows were doing stand-up for people who had hostels and like or there was just people from you
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know all over the place from australia from europe you know spain spain from mexico and then there's
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all the exchange students that would come here i don't think that's happening right now just with
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you know with with everything that's happened in the last while so to answer your question i think you
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can become the guy in both places but toronto is is not as easy to do because in toronto like the
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equivalent of getting on rogan it's like i guess like maybe like this like or like doing ezra's
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show like i don't know who has the biggest podcast in canada my friend jack denmo has a big podcast
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he's got like a million subscribers on youtube he's he does videos kind of like nelt boys where he
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you know goes up to girls and i don't know he says something funny and they do something and or
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whatever you know we don't have a rogan we don't have anybody and and if you want to get on cbc
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um you obviously have to adhere to some sort of rules which you know i kind of thought about it and
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i was like why if okay the cbc knows i exist you know they know that i'm funny they know i have a
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following i had to gain it back because instagram literally deleted it but they could you know they
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could be like hey do you want to do something but maybe you have to you know not say this or not
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say that or you know and maybe i could have that decision do i want to work with them or do i not
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but i don't think it doesn't work like that you literally have to virtue signal your way into it
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it's not like you can be talented enough that they'd be like hey i know you said some stuff
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you know like if it was norm or something you know like canada missed out on a lot of uh has
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missed out on a lot of talent because they just went we can't have him on he's too much and then
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they just go to the states and become famous so yeah there really isn't a thing here there really
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isn't like a giant podcast here and i would hope to definitely not this one oh you're gonna make me
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swear on my own show i usually reserve my cursing for other hair looks incredible though thank you
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my girlfriend told me i look like a cart 3d animation the way my hair is uh right now um
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you look like a hockey coach in the gthl or something just yelling at kids um asking for
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vaccine passports uh the the other thing i wanted to ask you about is trudeau obviously in the news a
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lot the last like let's say three four months for his trucker convoy stuff um he'll never get out of
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style for blackface um and then of course the previous election behind that and now we're still
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behind in the western world in terms of all lockdowns hawaii is the only other one in there
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lifting everything uh before us in terms of restrictions how much of your content do you
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want to continue to be political or do you just want does it matter do you want to just go back to
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being a comedian like you were before all this happened or do you see like your trudeau stuff i think
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the doug ford one is the best stuff you do politically of all of them do you want to keep
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doing that forever because that would be a thing that you would think that one of these shows would
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want you to do for them it's a good question uh hawaii what about hawaii they just lifted their mask
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mandate before us oh i see and they were the last state to do so the last state okay i see okay um
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what was the last part of the question again um this would like doing all the political comedy
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would be a way to get on one of these shows um well yes and no i mean i grew up with political
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comedy i grew up watching you know this is going to sound whatever but i grew up watching colbert
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rapport i grew up watching the daily show um you know when i was a kid it was on after south park i think
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or like before south park or something like that it was on comedy central it was kind of uncensored
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compared to now and it was basically making fun of the government's lies at the time about iraq and
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the iraq war and like all kinds of stuff that was going on completely you know what we have now is
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like this similar thing but like on the other end of the spectrum right um so and i was making political
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jokes like before the pandemic you know i was i was doing bits about the wet sueton protesters and
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how it was all like white people doing it and then there was also like teachers protesting at the same
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time and it was like are the teachers anyway so i was doing bits about anything that i think that is
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people are thinking and talking about i think is worth joking about now am i i think specifically
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maybe the question would be like are you going to continue doing covid bits or like uh stuff about
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the pandemic eventually no like as it gets older i mean i'm still doing jokes about kobe's death
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so i mean but i'm trying to get rid of like i i've been working like it takes a long time to work on
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stand-up jokes takes a year takes uh two years till it's like so good that you're like this now is
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perfect to be seen by like the masses on instagram right and sometimes i'll take a chance and i'll
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just be like let's just post this version of it i had a i had a video where i said that i had a joke
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where i was like um especially after like what happened with joe rogan i was like well i guess
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you know i guess white people still can't say the n-word you know and then the joke was well even
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though we you know kind of created it or whatever and then i was like you know it's kind of cultural
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appropriation whatever it's a joke and um it worked really well and there was like a guy in
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the crowd who was like didn't know what to do and he was kind of he was like a black dude and we were
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kind of and then he just loved it and i made fun of him anyway the video got like 500 000 views
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um on instagram so i think it's like there is you know you whatever's popular like i think it got
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those views because of the rogan thing but i already had that joke i don't know if that makes me
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look bad or not but uh i already had that joke but at the time it's just like that the timing of
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that's good right so i think it's less about how political you are and more just the timing of stuff
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now and i think it's unfortunate in some ways because i feel like a lot of comics are catching
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on to that and a lot of comics are becoming kind of um critics of the times but i think that that's
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indicative of the times we need people to make fun of shit because it's so crazy
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that if we don't then people will lose their minds if you just go on stage and you just totally
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pretend like the last two years didn't happen the audience picks up on that um or if you have like
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an opinion of the last two years that's very all about being safe and you know we were making sure
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to be safe and it's not really funny and it's mostly just about how you are safe the audience will
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hate it um so does that answer the question yeah i don't know was there a difference in
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what offended audiences down there as opposed to here or vice versa were you able to be less safe
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down there it's funny like i don't know the people there get i i had one guy get triggered triggered
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um he was like i don't know but he had like tattoos on his face so i don't know if he was the best judge
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of what the general populace he was upset because i have a joke about kobe and whatever and he he was
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like don't you ever like what happened to kobe and his daughter like you should never make fun of it
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and i was like whatever um but people are pretty open to laughing at things and i think the woke like
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woke people in austin who think they're woke aren't woke like they'll laugh at things that are
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bad and be like but they'll be like oh that's horrible like you know obviously i wouldn't say
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that at work or whatever but i can laugh at it at a comedy show whereas here people are like i can't
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say it at work so i won't be laughing at it at a show and i won't be enjoying myself and i won't see
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through the you know no and then there's people that won't like i was just in oshawa and people had an
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amazing time somebody i had a few messages people are like thank thank you so much you know i've done
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i've been to so many shows that are so politically correct recently i didn't even i thought i lost
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faith in comedy i was so happy that you weren't politically correct and you know so people want
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it there's an appetite for it it's just becoming like you know it's like gasoline it's like that's
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why i have to make it expensive more expensive to come see me than to see somebody else because
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of putin that's why my shows are more expensive what's the comedic take on russia and ukraine
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now what is what what are you working on for that did you put it out there have there been any
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putin voiceovers why don't you you should really do this this is why this looks better what do you
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want me to do here this and then this up and under pull it down is that yeah and then all right up
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and under now like a regular microphone first the funniest thing to say i think was that it's fake
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um that was the funniest thing you could say for like a week it was like this is fake um which is
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it was the same with covid that was like the funniest thing you could say for like a few weeks at the
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beginning um just in general conversation or on stage obviously it's bad i think the comedic take
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is kind of uh like i said with with covid it's like you have to like ingrain it in the bit it's
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like because it's part of what's happening right now you kind of have to just mention it within
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whatever else is happening but i've seen a lot of comics go on stage going like russia's at war
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audiences you know you got to have something like the punchline has to be that like i made fun of
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there was like this big fat like ukrainian guy in the audience and i was like this guy looks like
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the whole ukrainian army right now and like it was so funny because he was sitting at the front and
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you if you're behind him you could just see the most ukrainian looking back and like head
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so everybody laughed um it's not really making fun of the war it's just adding it in it's do you see
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as much this is my take on it people have made the ukrainian bride joke a million times like that's
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like well it's gonna be a lot of ukrainian mail order but it's cheap do you see as much virtue
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signaling about it as i see about like supporting ukraine in what sense that this is the greatest
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travesty in the world and ukraine's completely innocent uh well i mean like this is like no
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country's innocent but like the people are innocent of course yeah but the people like who are getting
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like injured i think are innocent or the people who are having to flee are innocent um yeah but
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there's a lot of i mean the virtue signaling it's just the same with blm like people don't even they'll
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put a black square up and you'll be like you know that like eight white dudes got like murdered today
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by blm people in like some random city riot and they'll be like yeah well i'm gonna still keep
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the blm square up you know what i mean so it doesn't matter uh people are doing what they're told this is
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this is just what the you know they're told to care about it they care about it now there's a lot of
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ukrainians in canada and there's a lot of russians and i'm sure a lot of them watch rebel and you know
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they know for a fact that this is uh horrific and you know it's horrific for ukrainians and russians who
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are in the diaspora on both sides because they want to watch russians want to watch russian tv if they
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live in uh you know steals and bathurst or whatever and grandma babushka wants to watch
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her regular russian tv and now it's banned right so that's not great um you know is she a threat like
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is she gonna watch an rt video and be like no so like you know and then on the other side like
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the ukrainians like now it's like they're worried about their family members probably
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family's moving here there's all this i think one of the funny takes that i've done on it is that um
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we kind of realize that canada is a racist country because nobody on either side has said like let's
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not take in these ukrainians you know what i mean like whenever they're like oh there's a war in yemen
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like let's take in yemeni and then like some people on one side will be like well you know some of those
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guys they're kind of battle-hardened and you know they might they know how to use guns and they might
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be they might be terrorists and the ukrainian refugees everybody like people on both sides
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like yeah yeah yeah that's great more pierogies so i think that's a funny take that you can have
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that you can have if you're allowed to i think that a lot of this stuff isn't allowed right now and
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that's why there it's become another thing where i think that you're not allowed to have a
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conversation about it i mean we are right here i think we're doing it and we're doing it but you're
00:24:45.860
not going to find it anywhere else in canada i think you can't name me one other not on the news
00:24:53.020
not on the news it's like yeah not on uh regular tv you can't tune in and have some they'll be like
00:24:59.660
we have a comedian in who what do you think of ukraine and i'm just like well it's fake
00:25:03.680
no they can't have that but obviously i'm joking about that but even if i said that they'd be so like
00:25:09.420
oh my god like alarm bells it's like i'm joking obviously it's not fake it's funny to say think
00:25:13.880
that it's fake and if anything that's almost a left-wing joke because i'm like making fun of
00:25:18.980
the people who said that uh the the pandemic was fake you know what i mean so i think there is i think
00:25:26.100
the ukraine thing is bringing both sides i think it's get like lessening the polarization
00:25:33.080
and whether that's done intentionally or not and you can argue all kinds of conspiracies but at the
00:25:39.200
end of i think a war with anybody right now especially a white on white war which i think
00:25:46.460
a lot of people young people are seeing for the first time they haven't seen a white on white war
00:25:52.220
they've seen you know us going into iraq us going into afghanistan going into all these
00:25:57.440
countries of people of different races and just being like you know now you have just white people
00:26:04.380
look almost identical i know some ukrainians we look nothing they look almost identical and they're
00:26:11.240
just blowing each other up so i think that it kind of makes everybody who is like covid crazy on one
00:26:17.620
side and on the other side they're like let's get rid of you know let's go back to normal i think
00:26:21.720
they're kind of coming slowly we're going to come back to um the two sides not being as polarized
00:26:30.720
you know i know in the states there's a push for why you know some people some far right people are
00:26:36.300
like we shouldn't give them any money and we shouldn't and it's like well i don't know like
00:26:40.700
i'm not a politician i just know how it's affecting me if i was getting blown up right now and maybe
00:26:46.900
that's why covid gave everybody this opportunity to really have an opinion everybody's like you're
00:26:52.660
not a doctor you're not yeah but i'm being affected by it personally you wouldn't say that to
00:26:56.980
somebody in in the ukraine who's getting bombs uh dropped on them and you're like well you're not
00:27:02.180
a general so you don't really know what's you know what i mean like and like i know that there will be
00:27:07.060
people out there being like hopefully they do over that comedian makes comparison to bombs being dropped
00:27:11.680
to having to be in covid lockdown for two years yeah well it was pretty bad people did take their own
00:27:16.180
lives so you know just because war is worse than being in lockdown for the majority of two years and
00:27:23.540
losing all your money and your business doesn't mean that that wasn't all so bad
00:27:28.540
and luckily people in ukraine didn't even really do that i don't even think they even have a lockdown
00:27:34.600
nobody wears a mask there they have like one of the lowest vaccination rates in all of europe
00:27:40.020
what are the odds we get uh a new sketch comedy show or something in canada well i think you should
00:27:47.780
start that well i'm working on some stuff oh really yeah i'm working on putting out a special
00:27:55.320
i'm working on uh putting out some more content some more filmed content but the thing is you know
00:28:04.020
it's tough if it's like okay you make a bunch of stuff on your iphone or you have a little bit more
00:28:10.300
quality i feel like if you have a little bit more quality when people come to see you there's a little
00:28:14.100
bit more you know it's not just i just watch this guy make videos on his iphone every day which is
00:28:19.240
great and you can you can get a bajillion followers from that i don't know maybe i should do that maybe
00:28:23.660
i should just be like gary v style but you know some days i wake up i'm like do you know i don't want
00:28:29.780
to force funny all you know and at the same time i'm always working on something whether it's my podcast
00:28:38.160
which you can listen to for free uh on all platforms the ben bankers podcast or you can find
00:28:43.440
at ben bankers.com whether it's my patreon bonus episodes which i give to people so that they
00:28:48.380
i can have eat food so you can pay me five dollars a month which is at patreon.com slash ben bankers
00:28:53.960
which you can go sign up right now or i'm working on uh my show my physical shows live shows or i'm
00:29:02.220
working on um doing like a silly dub video i like doing videos where my face isn't in it like i really
00:29:08.540
wish i was like became like had a cartoonist friend who could draw me i'd love to do a cartoon
00:29:13.320
um because it's so fun to do little silly voices over images and videos versus you know um having to
00:29:21.500
actually act and then you need lights and stuff you need all this stuff um which is great you know i have
00:29:28.860
some good sketches out there i think i would watch a political cartoon of all the like the world
00:29:34.580
leaders that'd be interesting i think um well the the ryan long method seems to be both a new and
00:29:42.600
workable method where like you have this online following from all these sketches and then you turn
00:29:49.620
that into i am pretty sure he was doing stand-up before his sketches got big but that's turned into
00:29:56.380
you know him being this huge name and uh his special just came out and it seems like he can
00:30:02.240
he can get a good tour going so i think there's merit in putting out all these sketches or an iphone
00:30:08.620
video or whatever we're getting together with other people and uh gaining a following that way having said
00:30:13.780
that i'm back going back to my question about whether it's better to be here or to be down there i think
00:30:21.020
there's a real opportunity here and i know i'm fathering you here a little bit to do that sort
00:30:26.160
of stuff because i don't think there's any other people doing anything like that here there's no
00:30:30.340
sketch comedy show that anybody watches there's no kids in the hall nobody watches this hour is 22
00:30:35.740
minutes there's i don't even know what the last show there is like some cvc all women sketch comedy
00:30:43.120
show the last i think i talked about that like two years ago do you remember what that was called
00:30:47.260
no but the thing is nobody i don't think anybody watches anything here um you know another problem
00:30:53.500
people just watch they go home they scroll instagram until they're cross-eyed or they watch netflix some
00:30:59.380
horrible show that they get into for because they hate their lives and or they watch this or they
00:31:07.300
watch rebel and they just you know they got they get angry and they they go why is everything so bad
00:31:12.900
or they watch and then they go watch cbc after and they go ah i hate this i hate everything
00:31:16.900
um not a lot of you know there's no not like when i grew up and i watched comedy now and it was like
00:31:23.140
and it was like comics doing stand-up for you know that were canadians they used to get some money for
00:31:32.500
it like i know it wasn't a lot it was probably like two or five grand to do that special but that's how
00:31:37.920
that's how russell peters that special went viral on youtube for him um so without that like if if he had
00:31:44.860
been doing it now he would have had to make like now youtube is so far along that it's it's not like
00:31:51.180
when russell peters went viral on youtube that was just youtube was new it was it was a new thing to
00:31:56.900
do to go viral now people are going viral every five seconds with you know i just listened to mr
00:32:02.460
beast on joe rogan and all the guy does everything's like we're giving away a thousand puppies to like
00:32:08.100
a hundred people in like 10 seconds you know it's like how what am i supposed to compete with that
00:32:12.080
like all i'm doing is giving social commentary uh on uh on what's going on i'm not you know or making
00:32:19.100
fun of my own life or talking about funny things you know i'm not and like uh anyway there is an
00:32:27.680
opportunity here for sure i am going to be starting more of that but even ryan's stuff is higher quality
00:32:34.520
like he films it edits it every week there's a there's a sketch you know he's not just doing like the
00:32:40.760
you know yeah i'm this guy now i'm this guy and then i'm this guy you can't find a cameraman
00:32:45.080
no i can't exactly um and i have a cameraman but we're working we're working on the podcast first
00:32:53.280
so we've done my new producer shout out to my new producer mike uh and he
00:33:03.880
um and we're slow we're we're doing this comedy special he's starting to film my stand-up
00:33:10.280
and now we're going to start writing sketches and and and doing those sketches but this you know
00:33:15.620
it's it's a you you want to pick a week and film like two or three i think just to get ahead of
00:33:23.680
yourself and then the next week you only have to film one and then you can kind of work at that pace
00:33:28.920
i think that's a good way to really get the ball rolling and i think i'm in a good position to
00:33:32.860
really move towards that i know you call it the ryan long model it's um you know i think that it's
00:33:38.280
just it's really a lot of comics have you know andrew schultz came out with it for you know the
00:33:45.040
idea of just putting out content and then you know gaining your following to the point where then
00:33:50.600
people want to watch your stand-up and that's that's really how you have to do it now it's the
00:33:54.760
modern comedy way i know there's a lot of comics in canada that are like well if i can just get with
00:34:00.480
yuck yucks and then if i can just get and it's like yeah but you need to you know yuck yucks will
00:34:05.800
sell out for you on their brand right like they'll be like here's the sold out show you you have to go
00:34:11.680
kill now and that's what makes you can make you so good and so strong at stand-up in canada is that
00:34:16.880
people go to stand-up don't care who it is people do that in the states too but not not like
00:34:24.280
like they have the option to be like or we could go see rogan or we could go see you know jerry
00:34:29.200
seinfeld's in town or tim dillon or whatever you know like we have those those acts come through
00:34:33.800
town once in a while we haven't you know but that's not they don't live here right so
00:34:39.600
yes it's important to get it with yuck yucks and become a headliner and that's how you get really
00:34:45.900
good at stand-up but you also have to have that online you you want to get to the point where
00:34:50.020
half the people at yuck yucks got sold out right away because they're your fans or or the whole
00:34:54.980
thing's getting sold out because it's your fans if you can do that the only comics that have been
00:35:00.020
able to do that in canada sell out yucks consistently for people coming to see specifically them is really
00:35:06.380
russell peters like he's like the last person to be able to sell out uh yuck yucks across the country
00:35:14.520
based on when he had those videos going viral and people like how do we see this guy right so
00:35:19.780
it's it's part of the game it's nuanced and you have to have uh you have to become like a
00:35:26.760
phenomenon i think the teresa um tam videos kind of became a phenomenon a bit and the doug ford
00:35:33.580
videos like you said and yeah they can always come back but if if really those videos are meant to make
00:35:40.100
them like screw off and like let us live our lives they should watch those videos and be embarrassed and
00:35:46.620
be like this is funny what are we doing they shouldn't be like ah this is horrible how can
00:35:50.900
this guy make fun of us it should be like no i look like a dork this is stupid why are we uh we're
00:35:56.180
obviously upsetting people and uh if they stop bothering us then i don't think you know we can
00:36:03.660
move on to make whoever fun of whoever is pissing off pissing us off that day all right now that we're
00:36:09.100
behind the paywall ben um is this uncensored now it always was but now we can say the extra
00:36:15.060
youtube illegal things and twitter is that gender what this is uncensored now not like fully obviously
00:36:24.160
well i don't care but um uh yeah well yeah we try to keep it clean enough that it'll go on youtube
00:36:30.920
and then the only thing you can't do on twitter i think is i feel like the cbc wants like they
00:36:39.740
benefit off of play things like rebel not getting money from the government because then you have to
00:36:44.560
go out of your way to get money from people that watch and i think they use that against you to try
00:36:50.900
to sit like they try to like delegitimize being like they have to have like you know they have to
00:36:56.220
have people like donate to them it's like you guys get 600 700 million or billion or how exactly
00:37:03.160
what a patreon is we could open a patreon page and it'd be the same thing and like everybody's got
00:37:08.860
but they use it against you to be like oh well they're just you know and it's like well yeah but
00:37:13.420
you like they could be doing such cooler stuff like what's what does cbc do they get us they get
00:37:18.380
uh the the chinese guy to talk to theresa tam on a tv and then they get like four angles of it
00:37:24.300
and she's just on a tv it's like how is this in any way like good like i don't know where the
00:37:31.180
taxpayer money she's not even there how do we even know she's a real person if she's never actually in
00:37:36.100
the room the funding i think just goes to these buildings i interned at ctv news and they get
00:37:41.160
government money now ever since trudeau and the size of the building that they share with tsn is just
00:37:48.180
insane it's owned by bell like so much of their entire budget must go into just maintain this building
00:37:53.880
we can accomplish the same thing as the ctv newsroom in the back room back and when they not
00:37:58.980
allow you to build your building because something rbc something oh yeah rbc didn't let us buy won't
00:38:06.360
give us a loan for a building in calgary it was in calgary yeah even though the loan itself looked
00:38:13.600
perfect the guy said i'm paraphrasing but the guy from rbc told us for that the loan's amazing can we
00:38:19.040
give can we give you a couple more loans if you want are you guys building stuff here um
00:38:24.080
are you allowed to talk about it we can i can talk we can talk about it there's we're still trying
00:38:28.620
to like the donations for the building we're we've been still this whole time trying to get a building
00:38:33.140
people are going to look at buildings this week um wherever that may be in calgary i don't know i've
00:38:37.600
never been to calgary but as of here uh no not right now we're not building anything i don't think
00:38:42.640
unless that's a way above my head which it could be yeah no i i think that canadian the canadian
00:38:51.340
people are being starved of like good entertainment good uh funny talented people who are canadian
00:39:03.860
getting ahead i mean there's there's a guy there's this show on on amazon prime right now that's like
00:39:10.740
a bunch of canadian yeah the one with tom green and tom green and like tom green's like apparently
00:39:15.560
he's pretty good in it whatever but there's like one guy he was like a young guy his name's brandon
00:39:20.120
ash muhammad and um you know he's gay he's muslim and he got the show because of like it's not you
00:39:31.420
know he's not it's not people nobody ever watched him murder and was like oh my god this guy literally
00:39:36.280
shook the foundation of this room with how funny that was they just go well he he's funny enough
00:39:41.320
and he fits these things which is fine and you know good for him but i'm just saying that that's
00:39:46.920
depriving canada of because i think 70 of people are going to watch that or more are going to watch
00:39:54.300
that show and go this guy's here because of that and that makes the show less funny and i'm not saying
00:39:59.640
you need a white guy instead but just pick i have funny friends who are uh of all different
00:40:04.020
backgrounds racist jared nathan he's he's a he's literally a jew special needs jew i mean you know
00:40:11.460
like who else is on that colin mockery that giant woman um and it's probably okay like i mean i'm
00:40:18.860
just saying no i have amazon and i haven't watched it i'm just jealous that other people are getting
00:40:22.940
paid to do comedy but they're not actually doing it they just get to like stand around and be told
00:40:29.160
they're a comedian and not actually say anything funny well they went with people that have name
00:40:35.200
recognition but they're also the same people we've been seeing for 20 years like colin mockery god
00:40:40.180
bless him is so old tom green i don't think he wants to do anything i'm surprised he was on that
00:40:45.320
is all i ever see him do is like camping out like in an rv well it's just embarrassing that they're like
00:40:50.680
canada the funniest comedians in canada we're gonna pull uh you know washed up guys from the u.s
00:40:56.880
and uh you know colin mockery who you know just automatically gets like probably a hundred
00:41:02.240
thousand dollars a year from royalties and all the shows that he did what was it wasn't he on the
00:41:08.320
show with wayne wayne brady wayne brady is it anyway whose line is it anyway and he was funny as
00:41:15.180
hell on that show and he is funny but what are you gonna are young people gonna watch this and go
00:41:21.800
colin mockery wow i want to check out his pot does he have a podcast does he talk about anything
00:41:27.680
relevant or young that young people know and if he did it would be a censored podcast nowadays
00:41:32.560
he would be he would have to be on a certain side to be part of cbc and all that if they had somebody
00:41:38.500
like me on there who was a troublemaker who was a who was a shit disturber who made people laugh who
00:41:43.100
was younger so that the younger generation they what are when i was 15 uh i only looked up to
00:41:52.440
american comics i'm trying to think of any canadian comic you know i like norm i liked uh you know
00:41:57.420
russell peters but i wasn't there they weren't around and there was no even then there was no
00:42:02.840
canadian we had we used to have a thing on much music there was a show called video on trial right
00:42:07.660
right and that that was the big show for a lot of canadian comics to get on to make a little bit
00:42:13.300
extra money you know they do it a couple times a week they get like maybe a grand or whatever it was
00:42:18.620
and they got some exposure but none of them used that to do anything on their own they only used it to
00:42:28.860
you know like the one guy darren he became went into mtv darren jones darren jones oh god he turned
00:42:35.160
into such a he well he went i used to love him but man did he turn he went into that realm though of
00:42:42.840
guys who were like white guys who were like kind of edgy in like 2008 or two or whatever and then
00:42:49.440
they are 2010 and then when the woke movement happened they were like well good i'm glad i didn't
00:42:55.920
really do that much stand up or put any albums out because i won't get in trouble and i'll just keep
00:43:00.140
playing this character of i'm just a innocent little white man who believes everything i'm told
00:43:05.800
went right to kiss 92.5 or whatever it was right but i'm saying that anybody who did those video on
00:43:11.920
trial things basically used it to either get further within the establishment career so like deborah
00:43:18.100
giovanni and stuff like that like they'll use it to be on you know part of match game and cbc but nobody
00:43:23.840
watches these shows seriously they just know they exist they go yeah canada has some show called match
00:43:29.140
game who's watching that maybe people in seniors homes who uh you know have uh dementia and don't
00:43:34.460
know what's going on is it just nobody's watching that and being like this is this amazing even the
00:43:38.740
family feud the new family feud with uh jerry d are people watching that i haven't i haven't seen a lot
00:43:44.160
of clips about it i don't even think they filmed that much of it well is it just a case of like this
00:43:49.540
government money coming in let's circulate it to the people that we like then are dedicate and are
00:43:54.380
willing to be a soldier in our political cause yeah like obviously not overtly it's like the
00:44:01.940
hollywood model it's like the hollywood model except they have like complete control where you
00:44:08.480
know in hollywood like somebody one guy could be like hey i don't agree with this like here if you
00:44:14.080
say you don't agree or you say you support anything that's not what's happening you know like say
00:44:21.120
somebody at this hours and 22 minutes was just like stood up and was like that actually happened
00:44:25.560
i spoke to kathy jones there's an episode of kathy jones is on my podcast and she didn't really talk
00:44:30.880
about that but you know she kind of was like hey like i don't like the direction this is going in
00:44:36.840
it's not as funny as it was uh it's too woke everything's about like racist you know why the
00:44:43.400
white guys are racist and like that's every sketch and uh they basically said well like okay yeah
00:44:48.380
like we'll just give you money and just don't work here anymore but we'll pay you to like not
00:44:53.860
complain basically so um that wouldn't happen uh you know now like with anybody else like if you
00:45:03.480
were a new guy there like she'd been there for so long that they had she had seniority that they'd be
00:45:07.500
like okay we'll pay you off kind of like sorry it's so it's such a bad show but we have to do it like
00:45:12.380
this because this is what they're telling us to do but if i started there and a week in somebody sent
00:45:17.560
them a theresa tam they'd be like he's fucked like they'd just be like he's fired and it's like
00:45:21.180
he's fired for what doing comedy that maybe was too offensive but it was still comedy and so now
00:45:27.140
what now you're going to give money to all these you know they basically want you to quit
00:45:32.560
they want me to quit comedy delete everything i've ever made and go like disappear and like go
00:45:40.440
live in like uh sarnia and work in like a factory or something that's that would like that
00:45:44.880
would be best case scenario did you see their rebel news sketch a couple years ago
00:45:48.520
yeah with the key and bexty yeah that was kind of funny it was kind of funny but like at the end
00:45:54.560
of some of their stuff's getting better actually i watched a sketch recently and they they did it
00:45:58.540
against masks or something and it was actually kind of funny are you sure that wasn't uh snl no it
00:46:04.280
was them they did something against i don't know people are worried i don't know what it was but
00:46:08.160
look their quality is so good the quality is so good on their stuff that you know they have the
00:46:14.580
potential to be doing so much more and you know hey if they're watching this there's no reason that
00:46:21.660
they shouldn't like reach out to me like they don't have to like it's not like oh they reach out to me
00:46:25.460
and like now they're gonna get canceled for reaching out to me they'd be like hey you're funny but we you
00:46:29.600
know well you know exactly what would happen here's a post from cbc where this hour is 22 minutes
00:46:35.600
with ben bagus in it hey did you know he worked with rebel news and he was anti-lockdown and he
00:46:41.440
did illegal shows and he was against all this that and the other and then three people say that and
00:46:46.680
they're like oh we apologize he'll never work here again but even if that happened like that could be
00:46:52.040
like my shane gillis moment you know what i mean like so you want to get canceled is what you're
00:46:56.180
saying well even if i did i'm saying that if they hired me and then they fired me because of uh teresa
00:47:00.600
tam video or because i was at that would be headline news and then everybody would go who the hell is
00:47:05.500
this guy he got hired for two seconds got fired whereas i mean that happened to be actually at
00:47:11.660
rebel and nobody cared two seconds i don't know about that no i was here for what a couple months
00:47:17.420
yeah i'm like always i'm always i'll hire you back i'll be your assistant always lurking in the
00:47:23.340
background final question um what clip went the most viral my favorite one is the doug ford
00:47:31.100
tim beebs one i watched it a hundred times that's the best one you know i tried to go out and get
00:47:37.900
tim beebs merchandise and none of the tim hortons had it i wanted to show up for work in the tim
00:47:43.100
beebs fanny pack and i think toke no tim hortons had them i don't think they have the products ever
00:47:50.360
existed awful um honestly the video of me doing the stand-up bit about saying the n-word uh yeah
00:47:59.520
with the 500 000 views uh best friends with a black guy skit no those videos did okay i mean i'm
00:48:07.100
consistently hitting like above 10k for most videos some are like 40k some of the better like trudeau
00:48:13.020
dubs are like 80 100 but my biggest video right now is that on my old account and my old tiktok i
00:48:20.160
had a million views on the first or one of the first doug ford ones i did where he had a mask on
00:48:25.360
and he was like we're closing her down boys tell six bus boys we're we don't know what's going on
00:48:30.880
here anymore yeah you want to do a voiceover right now we'll put doug ford over it sure can you do that
00:48:36.420
on the screen well not right now but we can put doug ford's image up but i don't know if we could
00:48:41.280
oh okay okay yeah deep fake you okay well okay introduce doug ford and then ladies and gentlemen
00:48:46.800
the premier of ontario doug ford well how's it going there uh really happy we're opening up and
00:48:53.580
saved a lot of money by not spending it on health care there boys anything else you want to say we
00:48:59.700
can cut any clip for you and it's going to get at least 50k i'll promise you if you want to well
00:49:06.280
one of your bits or do a a joke from your routine just talk to me like i'm doug ford and i'll pretend
00:49:13.600
to be doug ford right now and then put up my his image over half of the screen and pretend like you're
00:49:18.720
interviewing him uh premier ford what took so long to lift the mask mandate well we had a lot of these
00:49:25.360
uh soccer moms and karens out there in etobicoke and uh a couple of them there in sarnia and they
00:49:31.240
they just kept calling every day and emailing us and saying you know we're really worried about the
00:49:36.180
masks and we need we think we need to keep them on the kids and uh you know we listen to them and
00:49:41.100
we listen to the people on twitter who are uh really super far left and that's pretty much how
00:49:46.240
we make our decisions but premier you've been photographed so many times not wearing masks
00:49:51.340
not following capacity limits going to weddings how do you explain all that well you know uh yeah when
00:49:57.640
you're out having a good time sometimes you forget you know we all remember my brother he'd like to
00:50:02.320
have a good time sometimes forget what he would do and you know uh you know next thing you know you're
00:50:06.860
you're smoking a little bit of crack uh you know but i never did that so at least we had that but i
00:50:12.040
would be at a party and sometimes we take it off and we all we knew everybody there was tested negative
00:50:16.960
or uh how to uh you know how to negative pcr or triple double vaccinated so we never really got that
00:50:24.640
upset last question to you premier your daughters are notoriously come out against a lot of your
00:50:30.720
policies do you have any message for them how do you feel about that well uh you know i don't talk
00:50:36.360
to her anymore that's uh safe to say that i moved her out of the basement she thought she could live
00:50:40.840
down there and do her little yoga studio and have a have a little cookie store down the street there
00:50:45.540
in etobicoke i said uh you know no way uh you're either getting vaccinated or you're getting the hell out
00:50:50.380
of my house so uh that's that's that's what we do there and uh you know we don't talk to her
00:50:55.100
anywhere all right thank you good sir um that's fun all right uh no i pass you over to treese time
00:51:04.680
trisha i call her trisha tam now why is that because it's just more when you i just said i've
00:51:11.980
said her name so many times treese tam but it becomes yeah it becomes trish tam trish tam
00:51:17.780
what's trisha talking about on tv there oh don't go aside again that was pretty much
00:51:26.960
that'd be hilarious if they did covet all over again like every time i'm just gonna get more
00:51:31.600
and more famous because all i do is make fun of this one person no it's racist comedian please
00:51:35.440
check out my podcast benbankus.com and i will cut the clip of you telling me i have great hair
00:51:41.540
over and over again thanks for coming in um i'm gonna try to get you
00:51:45.500
you look like you coach grade 11 soccer i wish you know uh when i was a youtube when i was just
00:51:53.740
doing youtube and i had bet you wish zero dollars in my bank account i was like maybe i need to go
00:51:59.140
back to my high school and become assistant basketball coach or something wow i play basketball
00:52:04.920
am i getting paid for this um you can have any food in the kitchen you want there's cake
00:52:09.860
fuck i'm on a diet there's i'll eat the cake there's cake there's there's cake like what kind
00:52:17.220
of cake just cake there is actually an ice cream cake from ezra's birthday still and somebody just
00:52:22.920
brought in a cake today i'm not sure i might have ezra's birthday cake i think i want that
00:52:28.400
it's a power move everybody thanks for watching thanks for being a rebel news plus subscriber go to
00:52:34.140
ben bankus's website and watch his podcast ben bankus podcast on patreon and of course go to
00:52:40.980
his instagram channel and watch his content any final words you look like you're going to cry
00:52:45.800
god bless canada god bless justin trudeau thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak
00:52:55.780
we're at the cbc right this is on the cbc yeah uh cbc radio one with john gamesh i should be less
00:53:05.300
bitter but i am kind of the i'm like the white patrice o'neill of canadian comedy right now i love
00:53:10.380
patrice o'neill i think i've listened to everything he's ever self-proclaimed event nobody no
00:53:16.100
comedian's gonna watch this this is behind a paywall that's true i can say anything you all suck
00:53:21.740
every comedian canada sucks except for me and uh come see my show with kyle kyle doesn't suck
00:53:30.440
kyle's good i mean like i mean the established well the comedy establishment are they they are
00:53:36.420
there's i they're on my facebook i'd like you to name one of them i follow i'll say again i don't
00:53:42.020
know who that is i follow he's a guy with a big afro that's like if you looked him up right now like
00:53:45.980
every single one of his videos is like professionally done at like a gala performance at just for laughs
00:53:50.900
he makes like sixty thousand dollars a year from uh sound exchange for his one of his albums being
00:53:57.180
on uh uh on sirius xm that's how the majority the the upper echelon of canadian comedy the way they
00:54:02.760
make money is they make somehow they're getting 60k a year to have uh their album on sound exchange
00:54:09.480
that's played by one guy that makes all these decisions his name's ben minor he makes all these
00:54:15.200
decisions and he gets to decide who makes how much money and whose album gets to get played and all this
00:54:20.080
kind of shit and uh and then on and then those people also get to do all the like gala canadian
00:54:26.100
gala performances like the three six mafia of the canadian comedy so i can't do that because i'm
00:54:31.220
illegal my comedy is illegal so you have to go to patreon.com slash ben bankus and give me money
00:54:35.940
give me money instead of i mean if you're giving him money you better give me money they do all right
00:54:41.380
see you next week i know they do they're watching it bye guys