Bankas Podcast - Planes, Trains and Blackhawk Helicopters ｜ Bankas Podcast - #081

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Bankist Podcast, everybody. It's me, Ben Bankist. I'm in the grand room of my

00:00:09.040 extravagant hotel provided by the great River Cree Casino and Hotel, the River Cree people. 0.99

00:00:21.840 Thank you. Thank you. Comedy shows are a little better in Canada on native land,

00:00:26.740 I have to admit. They really do treat you properly on native land, I guess.

00:00:36.320 No wonder why people took so much of it. It's just, it's amazing.

00:00:42.080 But yes, just did a great show in Edmonton in about a 1500 person theater, pretty much the

00:00:53.660 biggest theater I've ever done. Very cool. And people were really nice. They liked it.

00:01:00.560 Only a couple fucking boys, good old boys from Edmonton there. Fucking, they fucking, you know, 1.00

00:01:06.800 a couple hecklers there, buddy. But thank you, Edmonton and people listening from Edmonton. 1.00

00:01:15.840 Very, very cool. People braved a snowstorm. There's a horrible snowstorm. It's still going

00:01:22.020 on. I don't even know if I'm going to be able to get out of here, if my flight's going

00:01:26.580 to be on time. But yeah, all I can say is to these pilots, could you look both ways before

00:01:37.240 landing the plane? Is that so much to ask? Just a little bit of this, a little bit of that,

00:01:46.040 a little bit of that, a little bit of this, and then maybe figure it out from there what

00:01:52.280 you should probably do. 1.00

00:01:57.600 Shit, we got a Black Hawk coming in hot, a motherfucker, a pull-up, motherfucker. Shit. 1.00

00:02:06.600 Shit, why does it always got to be a Black Hawk? Why can't it be a White Hawk? 1.00

00:02:10.440 Unbelievable. Unbelievable tragedy. At first, there was a misinformation. There was mis- or

00:02:24.720 disinformation going around that the pilot of the helicopter was transgender. And I mean,

00:02:33.400 it wasn't true, but it would have been, it would have been nice if it was true. Wouldn't it just

00:02:40.520 felt good to just, oh yeah, yeah, it was, wasn't it? We were right.

00:02:46.920 Interesting morning. This is Joe Ellis. I am a Black Hawk pilot with the Virginia Army National

00:02:53.320 Guard. I understand some people have associated me with a, the crash in DC, and that is false.

00:03:04.760 It is insulting to the families to try to tie this to some sort of political agenda. They don't deserve

00:03:11.400 that. I don't deserve this. And I hope that you all know that I am alive and well, and this should be

00:03:17.880 sufficient for you all to end all the rumors. I also have a statement. The Department of Defense

00:03:26.200 is responsible for casualty notifications. There were no Virginia National Guard personnel

00:03:31.880 on that Black Hawk that collided with the jetliner Wednesday evening. Thank you.

00:03:36.360 But I see people coming to my shows and, you know, take it for granted, man. This is a dangerous job

00:03:49.080 being a comedian. I got to fly. I flew into DC two days ago before this shit happened. And my pilot was

00:03:57.240 doing some weird shit. Like we were like 500 feet from the ground and he just went full sideways and 0.99

00:04:02.680 like pull, like did that and then fucking landed it in two seconds. And I don't know. Was he, 0.68

00:04:09.560 was he dodging a Black Hawk? Was he, what the fuck is, yeah, let's put the Black Hawk training facility 0.98

00:04:17.000 right in front of the commercial airport. Can we do that? Can we put, 0.99

00:04:26.200 can we make sure that we have untrained Black Hawk helicopter pilots flying in the direct line of

00:04:36.280 the runway about 500 feet above the runway? Can we have that going on at all times? Who's,

00:04:44.200 who's in charge of that? Whose idea is that? Is that like, is that supposed to be response ready?

00:04:49.320 Like I get it, but bro, that's crazy. What, what was the training mission? Like try not to

00:04:58.600 take out an airliner and then they, it's very scary, very scary. Whole family's just wiped out.

00:05:09.240 Is it bad that I feel worse about that one plane crash than all of Gaza? Is that bad? 1.00

00:05:23.080 Beautiful country, Canada flew in a bit on tour, uh, since the last time we checked in was the 0.94

00:05:29.400 Rochester show when I had Ari shield, the retarded Jewish guy. We had, we had a retarded Jew on the 1.00

00:05:41.560 show who made everybody more antisemitic and no, he's a good kid. So I brought him to New Jersey. 0.96

00:05:51.080 We did the New Jersey show and this camera, by the way, this camera is amazing for podcasts,

00:05:55.560 as you can see. But for some reason, this lens did not work super well in, um, New Jersey and,

00:06:02.760 in, um, Rochester. So working on it. Also Washington, I had a guy beg me,

00:06:12.120 beg me to film my set. And then he, I go, okay, fine. And he goes, here's my pricing. He goes,

00:06:19.800 two dollars a minute, four dollars a minute for this camera. I'm like, four dollars a minute.

00:06:25.880 I've never, I've had videographers a lot of times. I've never had somebody go, yeah,

00:06:30.200 it's four dollars a minute. Give me a fucking price. 200 for the night, 400 for the night. 1.00

00:06:36.520 No, it's just crazy. And then he cut, um, half of my head is cut off in the video.

00:06:41.800 How crazy is that? But it was a good deal. It was a good deal. 200 bucks. Get some half usable

00:06:52.680 footage. And, uh, he took some nice pictures of me, which is nice. No, he's a good guy, but

00:07:00.840 that's what happened. That's what happened in Washington, DC was a great show. Washington

00:07:06.120 I've never performed in DC before. And DC is a special place. Of course, it's a historical place.

00:07:14.040 It's, it's interesting place. It's, it's, it's a capital city of America. It's important.

00:07:22.600 And got to walk around there, which was really cool. Couldn't really get close to the white house. 0.68

00:07:27.400 There was some guy talking to the cops in front of the white house, like a homeless guy with two dogs. 0.99

00:07:33.400 He's like, yeah, the fucking secret service fucking near killed my dogs. 0.99

00:07:37.560 You got, we just walked away from that situation. He was yelling at the cops in front of the white house. 1.00

00:07:46.520 But the show is at this great club, uh, called the DC comedy loft. And it really is a loft. It's like a bar.

00:07:53.800 It's, it's cool. It's a, it's like a U shaped comedy club and you perform at the bottom of the U.

00:07:59.640 And so it's just like, there's wings that go out. One wing has a bar and it was just a really great show.

00:08:07.000 I had two comics on the show, random comics from, uh, from DC who are comics that fucking,

00:08:15.240 I don't know who they are, but I met them and they were nice and they did a good job.

00:08:19.240 They warmed up the crowd and I got to go out there and have some, some fun, man.

00:08:24.440 It was really, really fun. One of the most fun sets I've had in a long time. I really just

00:08:29.800 was on that night in DC and was just vibing, vibing with the crowd. My friend drove up,

00:08:37.640 my friend drove nine hours to be there from Toronto, which is really special thing.

00:08:43.000 And then nine hours back the next day and, uh, come came and hang out, hung out in DC.

00:08:53.000 That was a nice hotel too. I mean, it wasn't the hotel itself. Wasn't that nice, but the,

00:08:57.160 the room, the room was nice. So that was a beautiful time in, in Washington, DC. That's why I was,

00:09:04.200 I was so saddened by that fucking Jesus Christ. Fucking Blackhawk bullshit. 1.00

00:09:09.960 Tell you what, after that accident, I'm always going to be taking the pretzels now or the cookies 1.00

00:09:21.240 or both on the plane. Cause I was right before that, the DC thing happened. I was on a plane

00:09:28.120 and I'm, you know, and they're like pretzels, cookies. I'm like, no, that has seed oils. Okay.

00:09:34.840 I know a thing or two here. That's, that's going to cause a slow, debilitating

00:09:40.680 death in my late seventies or eighties. So I'm going to say no to that. And then I saw the DC thing

00:09:48.280 where it's just like, and I'm like, well, maybe I'll take the cookie. You know what I mean? Maybe

00:09:54.360 I'll, maybe I'll get a double vodka, even though I have to pay for it. Maybe I will.

00:09:58.520 That's your last thought. If you're in economy and the, and, and something happens is you're

00:10:05.560 thinking should have fucking done first class. This is and the first class people are thinking 0.86

00:10:12.920 I should have done basic and very bad cause only chance of, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, 0.66

00:10:20.360 even the pilots of that plane looked a little gay. I'm not going to lie. The pilots, there's a 1.00

00:10:26.680 picture of them. I saw it. They, they, it looked like they made flight attendance pilots. I'm not

00:10:30.520 going to lie. Not going to lie to you guys. I'm being vulnerable and being honest. I'm telling you

00:10:35.880 how I see it. I saw a picture of the pilots and they look too gay to figure it out. 1.00

00:10:44.920 So that's just how I feel. Sorry. Sorry to everybody out there. Sorry to the, I mean, 0.96

00:10:54.760 the victims families, it's just horrific. There's guys, I just can't even imagine, but also

00:10:59.560 you got to laugh again. Maybe it's too, give me a week. Well, the quicker you laugh, the quicker,

00:11:07.480 uh, you know, yeah, I guess, uh, I guess America's not going to be getting too many medals and finger

00:11:17.640 skating the next Olympics, but, uh, wow. These jokes are, these not going over well, even though

00:11:27.400 I'm in a room with an empty room, I can tell the bombing, I can tell, or you're laughing, but you have 0.99

00:11:33.480 to laugh because yeah, it's fucked up. It's fucked up, but you have to, what do you, life is fucked up. 1.00

00:11:40.440 This is what the, you know, no offense, the Palestinians, this is what the Palestinians 1.00

00:11:45.480 need to have maybe a laugh instead. They're like, oh, uh, the ceasefire instead of like doing comedy

00:11:50.360 and laughing there, they're parading around Jewish women in the streets. And it looks like there's more 0.52

00:11:57.560 of them than there were before the fucking war. Jesus Christ. Everybody's just blit blindly supporting 0.99

00:12:06.120 them. Interesting. Interesting that Egypt doesn't support them. Trump said he's going to send them

00:12:14.680 all to Egypt and the Egypt's pro they're protesting against it. It's just crazy that a lot of comics

00:12:22.440 are, are super, they, they, they want to make it known that they're like Jews. You guys, it's,

00:12:30.360 it's getting a little crazy. Like I'm doing a Chinese accent that's frowned upon, but I'm not like,

00:12:37.640 look, you guys actually see causing all the problems. I mean, well, maybe I am, maybe I'm,

00:12:43.960 but you could say that about anybody that when, that, when they say about Jews, I could say it about 0.83

00:12:48.440 blacks. I could say it about, oh, the Chinese people are causing all the problems or Indians 1.00

00:12:52.520 are causing all the problems. You can blame it on anybody. The problems are your problems 0.98

00:12:57.320 at the end of the day. If you, if you have some sort of mental problem or you, you're not fulfilled

00:13:04.600 enough, you're not happy enough and you got to look to, uh,

00:13:09.320 to really blame somebody. You can, you'll be able to blame somebody. That's for sure.

00:13:21.400 But look, the Israelis, they are, you know, you meet an Israeli and you're like, okay, I get it. 0.97

00:13:25.240 They're out of their minds. They've, you know, served the equivalent of, you know, six tours in Iraq

00:13:31.800 before they were 18. It's, you know, it's people want to act like it's like, oh, the Israelis, 0.93

00:13:37.320 they're so privileged. And then they, they're fucking warriors too. They fought for that land. 0.99

00:13:42.760 And everybody goes, oh, well, yeah, the Jews from the Ashkenazis, they just came down to, 1.00

00:13:48.840 to, to, to Israel. It's like, bro, they were in the Holocaust. They were,

00:13:55.240 they had nowhere to go. They didn't want to go to Israel. That's what people don't realize is most

00:13:59.400 Jews like didn't after the world war II, they didn't, they weren't like, oh, Israel, let's go. 0.97

00:14:03.640 They were like, we have to go because everybody's trying to kill us and nobody wants us around.

00:14:12.760 So anyway, that's my two cents. I know people get really pissed. Like, I love your podcast.

00:14:17.320 And then you mentioned Israel and I get upset and it's like, well, sorry, but I'm offering a

00:14:22.920 slightly different perspective and people go, oh no, that's the perspective of Ben Shapiro. 0.99

00:14:27.480 Dude, I'm not wearing a fucking yarmulke eating kosher. Okay. I'm just standing up for like, 0.99

00:14:34.200 yo, like Jews created social media without, they created TV Jews. Like there's comics who are just 1.00

00:14:41.240 like open about saying like free Palestine, which I'm not like against them saying it. Like it's,

00:14:46.440 I think it's funny actually, but they'll say free Palestine. And it's like, yo, you're a comedian.

00:14:53.480 You know who invented that? Like your job was invented by a Jew. 1.00

00:15:00.040 Lenny Bruce, Mort Saul, the first comedians, and then all the Jews who surrounded those guys who 0.74

00:15:05.320 thought of, okay, what if, what if you did that thing where you, you stood in front of the people

00:15:09.640 and the mic and you talk and then we'll sell tickets and then we'll make money and then we'll

00:15:13.960 put you on the road. And then the, you know, the bush belt and we'll get the, you know, we'll

00:15:17.960 organize a bunch of places. And then, you know, the first comedy clubs that were opened by Jews,

00:15:23.080 the improv, the comedy store, right? I mean, my apologies for that slight,

00:15:31.960 slight interruption. I had a fucking full card. You spend fucking $2,000 on a camera and then you 0.98

00:15:37.800 fucking still, you still, you still doing it yourself. You know, you still gotta 1.00

00:15:41.400 still gotta make sure that cards fucking got room in it. It's a tough job, man. Comedy, 0.98

00:15:53.000 really tough job. Listen to that feedback. You know why comedy is such a tough job? Because

00:16:04.040 it's not, it's not, it's one of the best jobs in the world. I'm going to be honest with you. It's the

00:16:07.880 best job in the world. I feel super blessed to be able to do it. And this is the other part of

00:16:18.760 comedy. You have to, you can't just be a comedian now. You can't just do standup. You have to be

00:16:23.960 somebody that, you know, you have to like read an audio book to people every once a week or twice a

00:16:30.040 week. You got to read them a little, a little behind the scenes. I didn't gamble at all,

00:16:37.720 while I was here, which was nice. Usually I would just gamble tons, but I just didn't want to. And I

00:16:44.600 felt great not gambling at the river Creek casino. It's fucking whiteout conditions outside. I mean, 0.99

00:16:53.800 it's just terrifying. It's terrifying. Got to fly from here to Denver, Denver to Austin, two days off.

00:17:00.920 And then I go to Florida, which is going to be a great Edmonton. And then Florida is kind of

00:17:07.640 a nice balance. You get to see true winter, the real raw winter. And then you get to go back

00:17:14.600 and, and just be in a tropical wonderland. I can't wait to be in Florida. Florida is amazing. I love

00:17:21.800 Florida and we're going to sell out shows in Florida. It's very cool because

00:17:27.800 when I started doing shows,

00:17:32.200 there was nobody coming. I mean, there was a, you know, even when I, even last year,

00:17:36.920 some of the shows that I did in the States had like nobody come, you know, like Tampa last year,

00:17:45.560 we had, you know, 50 people, maybe 40 people, something like that in a, in a big room,

00:17:54.600 a room that fits like 400. And I did 40 people. It's a little alarming. I would, I mean, as an

00:18:02.680 immigrant to a new country, I mean, not as bad as doing Uber Eats, but 1.00

00:18:06.120 other immigrants are like, it's very hard to work here. I, uh, do not have to do a Uber Eats.

00:18:16.360 I have to do a Uber. I, uh, I'm on a test rabbit. I do a fixing the painting on the wall.

00:18:24.280 And I'm here like, yeah, last, it's a tough transition. I came first time in Tampa. Only

00:18:29.560 40 people knew who I was. It's true. But one of those people was head coach of the Tampa Bay

00:18:37.480 Lightning. And, um, he was really nice to me, John, really fucking nice. And now we just sold it out. 0.94

00:18:52.840 We sold out Tampa. We got a late show coming for Tampa.

00:19:00.040 This is, that's, I mean, this, you can't ask for much more than that. You can't ask for much more

00:19:04.760 than that. It doesn't get better than that. The feeling that you sold it out, the relief,

00:19:11.160 right? And I mean, I'm, I'm on the road a lot and I have a family. I have a beautiful

00:19:16.600 fiance and child, two year old child. I have a two year old child. Okay.

00:19:23.080 I have a fucking two year old child. Sign up for patreon.com. Patreon.com. 1.00

00:19:31.640 And we're about to have another child. And I get to go to all these cool places. Well,

00:19:36.360 she just stays at home with the kid as it should be. That's how it should be. How do you think these

00:19:43.080 people had families before you think men in the fucking in the 30s and the 40s? They think they 0.98

00:19:50.760 were fucking, you think they even saw their kids or their wife? No. The ones who were making good 1.00

00:19:58.840 money? Rarely. Or they brought their kids and wife around to do stuff. Wasn't everything

00:20:06.520 wasn't as strict. It wasn't, I mean, I don't know. I'm completely making this up, but I just feel like

00:20:14.200 you should bring your kids to work. You know what I mean? Like you should be able to,

00:20:18.840 I mean, not if you work like a shitty job, you want to take my kid to Uber, but you want to take your 0.99

00:20:25.640 kid to fucking like, you know, if you have a business, you want to take your kid and show 0.99

00:20:29.560 your how your business is run and stuff like that might be more. That might be better 0.99

00:20:36.040 than going to school. I feel like schools sucks, especially now. Imagine going to school as like 0.99

00:20:42.840 a kid brought up normally. And then you get to the school. There's a bunch of sketchy

00:20:47.800 shit going on. There's a bunch of shitty kids. There's a bunch of woke teachers who look past all of 1.00

00:20:54.040 these shitty kids and all they care about is transgender bullshit. It's, it's terrifying. 1.00

00:21:00.680 The idea of sending a child to school nowadays.

00:21:09.320 Put my kid in figure skating. That's it.

00:21:11.240 I gotta say there was a lot of gay figure skaters on that plane. I mean, I'm just saying 0.94

00:21:29.400 there is a God. Thank you. Amen.

00:21:32.200 I'm joking, guys. I don't know. Is that too far to say my man that my manager is going to call me

00:21:41.960 and be like, you can't post that clip. It's a bad clip. You're doing another hail Haley. You

00:21:45.480 can't do a hail Haley. You can't do. What if I want to fucking him? 0.99

00:21:50.440 Incredible. Incredible to fly around the country. It's a beautiful country. America is a beautiful 1.00

00:22:00.600 country. I'd say in some ways more beautiful than Canada. Canada is beautiful, but we just have so

00:22:07.240 much empty bullshit land that it's like, yeah, okay, that's beautiful, but there's nothing there. 0.99

00:22:12.280 There's nothing over here. There's nothing over there. 0.98

00:22:13.960 America has shit pretty much everywhere. If they have vacant land, that's like, okay, 1.00

00:22:20.840 somebody's going to move there. Somebody's going to open a farm. Somebody's going to have a house in

00:22:25.720 the middle of the woods, some cool thing. So many cool areas. So much to discover and so much

00:22:35.160 to discover about yourself in America. Whereas in Canada,

00:22:39.880 the most profound thing that you can discover in Canada is that you want to go to America.

00:22:43.960 Let's be real here. There are no Canadians that do great things that don't end up moving to

00:22:53.160 America. The ones that don't, Canada has to pretend that they're doing great things when they're really

00:23:00.280 not like Rick Mercer or other random Canadian icons that never left the country, didn't try,

00:23:11.320 got a good, good enough job, made a couple hundred grand Canadian, which is like 50 grand U.S. after taxes

00:23:22.120 for, to work for CBC and get trapped here and do it's, it's, that's a terrifying existence to me. 0.98

00:23:28.760 That, that, that, that, that is fucking scary. So what I do is just brilliant. It's just beautiful.

00:23:34.760 It's beautiful to be able to fucking explore. We got pictures of fucking Indians on the one, 1.00

00:23:40.280 old school, old school Indians. I'm talking those. It's a residential school graduation photo to my left. 1.00

00:23:50.280 Beautiful. Beautiful. Absolutely. Stunning.

00:23:56.440 Just nice to relax. You know, when I'm on tour, I mean, I'm around my wife, fiance, whatever. But

00:24:11.000 you know, I'm relaxed when I'm at home for a little bit, she lets me relax, but then it become,

00:24:16.360 you know, well, we just moved. Right. So it's a lot of doing shit. That's dumb that when you're rich,

00:24:25.240 you want to be, that's the goal. You want to be rich enough that when you move, you don't even know 1.00

00:24:29.000 that you moved. You just dial a number and they go, yeah, it's this. And you go, okay, here's the

00:24:33.720 thing. Do it. Or you don't even do it. You tell another guy that, Hey, I'm moving. Can you figure

00:24:41.060 everything out? And I just show up and it's all there. And they go, yes. And they already have all

00:24:45.980 your credit cards and shit. That's the goal. The goal in life is to make enough money that you don't 0.99

00:24:54.080 have to lift a finger. That's the whole point. People go, what's the point of life? Oh, what's the

00:25:01.100 purpose of life? To get enough money that you don't have to lift a finger.

00:25:09.640 You don't have to go anywhere. Honestly, I mean, people, Oh, I want to, I want to be rich so I can

00:25:15.240 go on vacation and I can travel. I don't even, I mean, rich people travel, but like sometimes,

00:25:21.520 you know, it's nice to just chill. And by chill, I mean like for a couple of months, I'm not talking

00:25:27.660 like years. I guess that is still traveling, but you own the home. So you're traveling to a place

00:25:32.440 that you own. Just sounds nice. It sounds nice. Some guy last night they did. So the place here did

00:25:41.320 the meet and greet before the show, which is kind of weird. And it was only 20 people. Cause like they

00:25:48.000 made like a thing where it's like only 20 people can fucking come to the meet and greet and they did 0.95

00:26:03.040 it nice and quick, nice and quick. And then one white guy comes in and he shakes my hand. He's like, 0.98

00:26:08.780 Oh, I bet you fucking like this part. Don't you fucking take the fucking picture? Of course that's 1.00

00:26:14.760 the goal. I don't even want, you know, stand up. I just know. I just show up and we do a couple

00:26:21.240 of pictures and I leave. I got a hundred million dollars. I'd love a hundred million dollars.

00:26:30.600 I want a hundred million dollars. Let it be said on the internet that Ben Bankus will make a hundred

00:26:38.920 million dollars. There was somebody, I almost didn't even want to be their friend. Cause I was

00:26:48.320 like, I want to make a hundred million or 200 million. And they were like, that's not possible.

00:26:52.940 I was like, uh, excuse me, excuse me. Kendrick Lamar is worth $80 million and he's five foot two

00:27:00.460 Drake's worth $250 million. And he, we all know what he does. He gives, he gives comics a hundred

00:27:14.160 thousand dollars to keep taking my act. What a life, what a life, what a beautiful life.

00:27:26.140 Yeah. Got to get out of here soon. I mean, I, maybe we won't do the full, um, to full hour

00:27:32.720 today, which is fine, but, or this is just going to transition into a new podcast, but short and

00:27:41.060 sweet. I'm going back home. I've set up a great podcast studio in my house and that's going to be

00:27:49.700 where the podcast is going to happen when I'm, if I'm not on the road, you know what I mean?

00:27:56.340 And, uh, I love you guys. Thank you for listening. Patreon.com slash Ben Bankus. There is a bonus

00:28:02.240 episode out right now. It's about an hour and 10 minutes. There will be another episode very soon

00:28:08.680 from my home studio that I'm probably going to do tomorrow or the next day. So this will come out and

00:28:12.740 then there'll be another one in a day or two. So thank you. Come out to my shows. If you're new to the

00:28:19.080 podcast, don't worry about it. You don't have to listen to 700 episodes before understanding

00:28:24.800 what's going on. This is not like a fucking Netflix series here. This is an update. This 0.99

00:28:29.860 is, this is a fun way to, to, to hang out with me and your favorite comic. And we're going to have

00:28:36.220 guests on the show soon. Like I said, the new setup is going to be sweet. Let me know in the

00:28:42.480 comments what you guys want to hear more of. Maybe some of you still want me to do news articles.

00:28:46.640 We will do that if we have to, but we need to get a producer. So we're looking for an,

00:28:53.280 um, an Indian guy to underpay. Anyway, guys, I love you so much. Thank you. 1.00

00:28:58.960 Thank you.

00:29:03.600 Thank you.

Bankas Podcast - February 01, 2025

Planes, Trains and Blackhawk Helicopters ｜ Bankas Podcast - #081

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