Get Off My Lawn - Gavin McInnes - Get Off My Lawn Podcast #8 | It Sucks Being Famous

00:00:01.000 Ah, it sucks being famous. 0.99

00:00:03.000 I don't like it at all. 0.98

00:00:04.000 I remember when I first met David Cross.

00:00:07.000 He was very famous.

00:00:09.000 This was probably 2000, right?

00:00:11.000 And, uh, it's funny.

00:00:12.000 He was so famous you could sort of gauge where you were in New York by the reactions you got.

00:00:17.000 Like, if he was that Scary Movie 2 nigga, you knew you were in the hood. 1.00

00:00:23.000 If he was the guy from Mr. Show, you knew you were near a college area.

00:00:28.000 If he was the guy from that dream movie with Jim Carrey, then you know the one where they go back in time?

00:00:37.000 What's it called?

00:00:37.000 The guy who does the thing?

00:00:42.000 You know, you were in a sort of gentrified neighborhood.

00:00:45.000 So he was sort of like a little, a little GPS where you could tell how safe you were.

00:00:52.000 If people, if you're with David Cross and people knew that he was from Scary Movie 2, you should probably get out of there before midnight.

00:01:00.000 I remember when I first met him, I was kind of naive about celebrity, and I said to people, they would go, yo, David, you're my biggest, and I'd say, he's your biggest hero?

00:01:11.000 You love him?

00:01:13.000 You can't buy your hero a beer?

00:01:15.000 And his friend a beer?

00:01:17.000 And I would get like a couple beers.

00:01:19.000 And then of course, nothing's free in life.

00:01:22.000 So that was engaging.

00:01:25.000 And then engaging means we have to sit and talk.

00:01:30.000 For at least, you know, a beer's worth. 0.99

00:01:31.000 So that was dumb. 0.77

00:01:33.000 Sarah Silverman always said that the best thing to do is just sort of say, hello, yeah, thank you, yeah, right on. 0.96

00:01:38.000 Even if they hate you and they're being sarcastic, like, hey, Sarah Silverman, just go, hey, yeah, yep, yep.

00:01:45.000 Just keep it going.

00:01:47.000 It's not cool.

00:01:49.000 And, you know, if they want selfies... This might sound annoying to you, because if you haven't been, you know, privy to it, it sounds like I'm bragging, and you go... I can't imagine you wanting to be famous, though.

00:02:04.000 Do you want to be famous?

00:02:05.000 You want to be rich.

00:02:06.000 It's like Bill Murray said.

00:02:08.000 Someone told him, uh, I want to be rich and famous, and he goes, uh, be rich and then get back to me for a little while.

00:02:14.000 Just try that out first.

00:02:17.000 So I don't really think you want to be famous, do you?

00:02:20.000 It's not like people come up to you and they go, hey, in episode 29 of Get Off My Lawn, you were talking to Cassandra Fairbanks, and she was talking about a secret service agent.

00:02:32.000 Who was that secret service agent?

00:02:34.000 Like, that's interesting, but you never get that.

00:02:36.000 It's just like, hey!

00:02:38.000 People yelling from cars and they want a selfie, but their phones are never ready, so you stand there and they're like, oh, sorry, hold on, hold on. 0.97

00:02:45.000 And they've got some Galaxy 500 piece of Google crap. 0.86

00:02:49.000 And they're getting into pictures and... Ugh. 0.97

00:02:54.000 Just a waste of time.

00:02:55.000 If you see me in public and you recognize me, please don't say a word.

00:02:59.000 If you see me in a bar, please buy me a Bud.

00:03:02.000 And if I'm alone, I'm happy to talk to you. 0.99

00:03:05.000 But, man, being famous sucks. 0.98

00:03:08.000 And I've known, over the years, pretty darn famous people. 0.95

00:03:13.000 I went to a game with Will Ferrell.

00:03:19.000 That was fun.

00:03:21.000 He was constantly harassed.

00:03:22.000 And he was harassed by the

00:03:24.000 Owners of the stadium.

00:03:26.000 Yankee Stadium.

00:03:27.000 They said, can you... It was during Land of the Lost.

00:03:31.000 And they said, can you say, hey, Land of the Lost and Citi Field and Yankees and blah, blah, blah.

00:03:35.000 And he goes, no, I'm just trying to have my beer, thanks.

00:03:38.000 And then she got kind of pissy with him.

00:03:40.000 This is like the head of PR relations.

00:03:42.000 And she goes, well, we just showed a promo for Land of the Lost.

00:03:46.000 And he goes, yeah, that's great.

00:03:47.000 Appreciate it.

00:03:48.000 But I'm just going to try to enjoy the game.

00:03:49.000 Thanks.

00:03:51.000 And she was mad at him because, of course, he owns shares in Land of the Lost.

00:03:56.000 Or Justin Theroux.

00:03:58.000 And I were bros.

00:03:59.000 Jennifer Aniston's husband now.

00:04:03.000 And, uh, great guy.

00:04:05.000 Nothing bad to say about either of them.

00:04:07.000 We'll say, visiting celebrities who sleep in until, say, 10 a.m., which is normal, right?

00:04:14.000 Normal L.A.

00:04:15.000 time.

00:04:16.000 If you're a New Yorker, you go and stay at their house. 1.00

00:04:20.000 You're used to getting up at 7 with the kids in New York.

00:04:24.000 That's 4 a.m.

00:04:25.000 in L.A. 0.71

00:04:26.000 So say you sleep in like a lunatic, you could probably make it till 6 a.m.

00:04:31.000 So you wake up at 6am. 0.95

00:04:33.000 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, sometimes 11.

00:04:36.000 You're basically wandering around a mansion for five hours.

00:04:39.000 Just looking at coffee table books and watching a movie.

00:04:42.000 It's not that fun.

00:04:44.000 Not great.

00:04:47.000 But, uh, yeah, Justin Theroux, uh,

00:04:51.000 You know, I can't... Towards the end of our relationship, he dumped me for being a Trump guy, basically, but he couldn't... Like, we couldn't go to a bar in L.A.

00:05:00.000 We could go to Smile in New York.

00:05:02.000 New York was pretty good about that kind of stuff, but we couldn't go to a bar in L.A.

00:05:06.000 because he was a freak. 0.77

00:05:10.000 And it got crazier than that.

00:05:11.000 Did I ever tell you this story?

00:05:13.000 He's on his motorbike, and someone pulls up next to him as he's driving.

00:05:20.000 And starts hitting him with the door of their car, hoping to get him to crash. 1.00

00:05:26.000 Hoping that they can get a shot of him going, What the fuck?! 1.00

00:05:31.000 You know, the kind of thing you say when someone tries to kill you?

00:05:36.000 And, uh, so eventually he pulls over.

00:05:39.000 He has crazy motorbikes.

00:05:40.000 He has three motorbikes and they all go to 10 billion miles an hour.

00:05:45.000 I don't like that.

00:05:46.000 I purposely buy crappy motorbikes because I don't like, uh, and I'm sure you Americans say motorcycle.

00:05:54.000 Sorry about that.

00:05:56.000 I like to be rattled and stuff when you get up to a hundred.

00:05:59.000 Problem with BMWs with these big fairings is you're just like,

00:06:04.000 And then you look down at the speedometer and you go, oh, I'm going 200 miles an hour.

00:06:09.000 If I were to fall or be surprised by anything, I would be turned to sand.

00:06:14.000 Anyway, sorry, tangent.

00:06:16.000 He's got fancy motorbikes and they're hitting him with the car door.

00:06:21.000 And so he pulls over, and he's fine.

00:06:23.000 He doesn't let it get to that.

00:06:24.000 He doesn't show them.

00:06:25.000 He said the secret to paparazzi is you just smile.

00:06:28.000 Hello.

00:06:29.000 So they'll say, hey, your mother has cancer.

00:06:31.000 And you go, hee.

00:06:33.000 Because they're trying to get you to go, uh.

00:06:35.000 And so they can have their shot.

00:06:37.000 So you have to keep smiling no matter what they say, no matter how personal it is.

00:06:40.000 But get this.

00:06:43.000 So it was thugs who were doing this, like basically Bloods and Crips were doing that to him.

00:06:49.000 Hitting him with their door.

00:06:51.000 And guess who called the cops on those guys and had them busted?

00:06:56.000 TMZ! 0.81

00:06:57.000 I know, crazy right?

00:07:00.000 So apparently, TMZ

00:07:03.000 I think?

00:07:19.000 Who will hire thugs for, you know, whatever.

00:07:23.000 I'll give you a hundred bucks if you can make Justin Theroux mad.

00:07:27.000 They're throwing these bones and there's no connection, it's all cash.

00:07:33.000 And they try to get pictures that they can sell to, you know, people or whatever.

00:07:39.000 I find the whole thing incredibly disgusting.

00:07:42.000 They're banned from my house.

00:07:46.000 It's not that my wife's dying to read celebrity mags, but I really think they're unethical. 1.00

00:07:52.000 Like, I saw this picture, and it was Katie Holmes holding her daughter with Tom Cruise, and it said, uh, whatever her name is, Suri, uh, Suri, uh, struggling with the divorce of Tom and Katie.

00:08:06.000 It was a big two-page spread.

00:08:08.000 And I thought, no, she's struggling with the fact that you're running at this little child with a camera, and her mother is doing that, like, running from a fire hold, where the hand is below the butt, and the other hand is on the back,

00:08:22.000 Like holding the child close to you, like the way you would hold a child if you were running down a mountain?

00:08:27.000 That kind of hold.

00:08:28.000 And they pretend it's about Tom Cruise?

00:08:32.000 I'm no fan of divorce, don't get me wrong, but being attacked by paps is wrong.

00:08:38.000 And that's what us famous people, by the way, call paparazzi.

00:08:40.000 We call them paps.

00:08:44.000 So I thought, yeah, I don't want those magazines in my house.

00:08:47.000 They're morally wrong. 0.98

00:08:48.000 And these people are disgusting human beings. 1.00

00:08:51.000 Like, paying these thugs to attack someone on a motorcycle so you can get a frown emoji from Jennifer Aniston's husband is just depraved. 1.00

00:09:01.000 So, um... The word on the street is that TMZ 0.54

00:09:08.000 Call the cops on those guys because it's like within crime, you know, like the mob doesn't like certain mobsters to certain gangs to behave a certain way.

00:09:19.000 Like I've heard that about the Westies in Hell's Kitchen. 1.00

00:09:23.000 The Italian mob goes, we can't deal with these guys. 1.00

00:09:26.000 I threatened his mother and he said, go ahead, fucking kill her. 1.00

00:09:29.000 So I don't know how to deal with someone who doesn't want their mother to die. 1.00

00:09:33.000 It's almost like ISIS. 0.67

00:09:36.000 A lot of these teams are ISIS.

00:09:37.000 So within these, you know, these Thick Like Thieves groups, there's a hierarchy. 0.93

00:09:46.000 And TMZ didn't like hitting celebs with cars.

00:09:50.000 We don't hit celebs with cars, guys.

00:09:52.000 I kind of feel like that with the Proud Boys.

00:09:54.000 I feel like I'm part of this group where we're ensconced in conflict against our will, and we have to say, don't do this, don't do that, but do punch back.

00:10:06.000 It's like the Terminator.

00:10:08.000 But anyway.

00:10:12.000 Being famous blows, because Justin and Jen are in a beautiful castle that they can't leave.

00:10:20.000 That's no fun.

00:10:21.000 I remember I went to jail for four hours for headbutting a guy, allegedly, who beat up a woman.

00:10:29.000 And when the bars went clunk, I felt something primordial.

00:10:38.000 I felt a cave pain.

00:10:43.000 It was just wrong.

00:10:45.000 And it was, uh, it was me being robbed of my freedom.

00:10:50.000 And this isn't me, this is you.

00:10:53.000 I mean, we think of, you know, prison for ten years is terrible, but everything else, I don't know.

00:11:01.000 I'm fine.

00:11:01.000 No, no.

00:11:02.000 You need maximum freedom.

00:11:04.000 Liberty is ingrained in our DNA.

00:11:07.000 And if you're prevented from even, like, say you can't go to that side of the park ever,

00:11:12.000 And your kids go that way and you have to stand back as they walk the dog.

00:11:16.000 That will chip away at your soul.

00:11:18.000 And when the bars, and again, I'm not saying I'm an ex-con like Jim Gode spent two and a half years in prison.

00:11:25.000 I was in there for four hours.

00:11:27.000 It's called jail.

00:11:28.000 But there's something about the...

00:11:32.000 Where you feel in your chest as the lock locks and you go, I can't get out no matter what.

00:11:41.000 I could burst into flames right now and I can't get out.

00:11:45.000 I'm not strong enough to ever get out of this.

00:11:48.000 Someone else is conducting my safety and my freedom and I feel that way with a lot of celebrities.

00:11:55.000 I feel like they're not safe.

00:11:58.000 Now,

00:11:59.000 I'm obviously safe when I walk around and go to Grand Central and blah blah blah, but God, it's just annoying.

00:12:05.000 I wish I was like that blue chick in X-Men.

00:12:12.000 Commercial break.

00:12:16.000 Yeah, so celebrities have a weird life, and I don't envy them.

00:12:19.000 And they make tons of money, yes.

00:12:22.000 But not that much money.

00:12:24.000 Like, they'll make like three million bucks for a celebrity endorsement.

00:12:29.000 I don't know.

00:12:30.000 How are you spending money?

00:12:32.000 You have a chef?

00:12:34.000 A live-in chef?

00:12:35.000 I have a live-in chef.

00:12:36.000 It's called my wife.

00:12:39.000 I don't know.

00:12:41.000 You don't really need that much money.

00:12:43.000 Tom Shalhoub talks about that.

00:12:45.000 Him and Jim Gaffigan are both in the same business.

00:12:48.000 Tom opens up for Jim Gaffigan.

00:12:51.000 Jim Gaffigan's rich.

00:12:52.000 Tom Shalhoub is middle class.

00:12:54.000 Tom Shalhoub lives in Queens.

00:12:56.000 Jim Gaffigan lives in, you know, Manhattan.

00:13:01.000 They have the same size house, basically.

00:13:04.000 But Jim Gaffigan's is worth ten times as much because it's, you know, in downtown Manhattan.

00:13:11.000 It both takes them the same amount of time to get to Times Square.

00:13:14.000 He said, you know, one goes to private school in Manhattan, but when you're out of Manhattan, public schools are pretty good.

00:13:25.000 So they end up having basically the same life.

00:13:27.000 And that's what I say to people who go, I can't have kids, it's too expensive.

00:13:30.000 I go,

00:13:31.000 No, they're not expensive.

00:13:33.000 I was middle class in Canada in the 70s.

00:13:37.000 We had no TV.

00:13:38.000 We didn't go on holiday.

00:13:39.000 Getting a babysitter was considered wildly extravagant.

00:13:42.000 We didn't really do that.

00:13:44.000 I had one a couple of times, but it was like, that was like going to the Oscars.

00:13:50.000 My mom made all our food.

00:13:52.000 We didn't go out for dinner.

00:13:54.000 And we were middle class.

00:13:57.000 And it was fun.

00:13:57.000 And I never was for want of anything.

00:14:01.000 I had a bike, which I thought was awesome.

00:14:09.000 Scottish people are the worst with presents. 1.00

00:14:12.000 I didn't get the Bionic Man, I got Oscar Goldman, his boss.

00:14:15.000 I got very few presents.

00:14:17.000 Sorry, Mom, if you're listening, but you were terrible with presents.

00:14:20.000 But you didn't want presents that much.

00:14:22.000 My wife buys my kids a present a day.

00:14:26.000 Every time I come home, they've got a new, like, game or something.

00:14:30.000 Oh, it's called baseball, and it's a little sheet with, like, baseball players, and you roll a dice.

00:14:35.000 And they'll use that for

00:14:37.000 I'm going to say an hour and we'll never see it again.

00:14:41.000 You know, cards against humanity and that thing where you flick the ants in.

00:14:47.000 Anyway, I'm sorry.

00:14:48.000 I got to pick up the pace here. 0.99

00:14:49.000 So yeah, being a celebrity sucks. 1.00

00:14:52.000 Sucks being famous. 1.00

00:14:54.000 So speaking of being famous, your life is constantly under scrutiny and hot topic this past few days is my sex life. 0.99

00:15:03.000 When I was 24,

00:15:07.000 And Vice Magazine, Vice Media is under the gun right now because there's been all these allegations about sexual misconduct.

00:15:17.000 Now I should say I left in 08 and I have no clue what went on there.

00:15:23.000 Could have been Caligula, could have been a hippie commune.

00:15:26.000 I can tell you what I suspect.

00:15:29.000 And I have no allegiance to my co-founders, Sue Shalvey and Shane Smith.

00:15:33.000 I'm not a fan.

00:15:36.000 So I'm not defending them.

00:15:36.000 They could have had their own little nefarious things going on.

00:15:40.000 But, um...

00:15:42.000 I suspect that it's just politically correct claptrap and it was women saying, you know, I wrote an article and they didn't like it, and that was sexist.

00:15:51.000 I don't know.

00:15:52.000 Now, I'm not denying that something more valid will come up, but from what I've seen, it seems like a bunch of BS.

00:16:01.000 But I can tell what journalists are doing with this. 0.92

00:16:04.000 They're taking Shane and my stories from being pigs. 0.55

00:16:08.000 And again, not a fan of Shane at all. 0.75

00:16:13.000 But they're taking our stories of being in our early 20s and they're saying that creates a culture of sexual harassment.

00:16:21.000 And then that leads to what we hear today.

00:16:25.000 And that's lazy journalism, basically.

00:16:34.000 What exactly happened was, they're talking about a 2003, I don't know if you've seen this, but page six in the New York Post.

00:16:39.000 I'm gonna have to open a Red Bull so I can stay focused.

00:16:43.000 It's not a Budweiser at all, obviously.

00:16:48.000 What happened in, uh, 2003, we launched this book, The Vice Guide to Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll, and it was a compilation of all our craziest stuff over the past, uh, ten years.

00:17:00.000 So, obviously went back to 1994.

00:17:04.000 And in the interview, we talked about sex we had had when we were in our early 20s.

00:17:12.000 By the way, if you were in your early 20s and you're in Montreal, which is basically France, which is basically sex-positive heaven, and you have anything going on, you're going to be attractive to women.

00:17:24.000 Women are attracted to ambition. 1.00

00:17:26.000 We had ambition.

00:17:27.000 We had our own magazine.

00:17:28.000 Granted, it was a 16-page black-and-white newsprint, but at least it was something.

00:17:33.000 Most guys our age had nothing going on.

00:17:36.000 There was DJs like Tiga.

00:17:40.000 There was promoters like Crazy Eddie.

00:17:44.000 But very few guys had anything going on at that age, especially in Montreal.

00:17:49.000 So we did very well with the ladies.

00:17:52.000 And I wrote about it in the Vice Guide to Sex and Drugs from Rock and Roll in this interview section.

00:17:57.000 So we're talking about sex we had in 1994.

00:18:00.000 And I'm not sure how candid I can be here with this particular lady, but I think it's worth mentioning.

00:18:06.000 Because you're 24, so I'm a young man, and when we would print the newspaper, it was done with a company called Quebecor, and this guy was a French-Canadian rep.

00:18:23.000 Biggest wimps on earth, the French-Canadians. 1.00

00:18:26.000 I mean, they call their mothers every day. 1.00

00:18:28.000 They're horrible.

00:18:31.000 And he goes, yes, I was with this woman.

00:18:33.000 She's from Malta.

00:18:34.000 And I was playing house music in the car.

00:18:38.000 And she became so horny when I was playing the music that she grabbed my friend's hand. 1.00

00:18:44.000 It sounds like the wild and crazy guys. 1.00

00:18:49.000 And she put it on her vagina. 1.00

00:18:51.000 And I mean, I was just so disgusted. 1.00

00:18:53.000 And I go, uh,

00:18:55.000 Uh, Cyril, I need to meet her.

00:18:59.000 I need to have her.

00:19:00.000 I need her in my life.

00:19:02.000 If she's that libidinous, like, that's me, but as a chick. 1.00

00:19:07.000 She goes, oh, she's disgusting. 1.00

00:19:08.000 Anyway, he, he hooked me up with her and I met her and her name was Amma and she was from Malta. 0.78

00:19:14.000 Now Malta is a very Catholic island off of Sicily.

00:19:19.000 And you're not allowed to divorce there unless you leave the country for a year.

00:19:23.000 So she had left the country for a year and come to Montreal.

00:19:27.000 And she was just on a sexual rampage. 0.99

00:19:30.000 So, um... 0.94

00:19:34.000 I met her.

00:19:35.000 We did E. You know, this is back in the early 90s.

00:19:39.000 And we horsed around and then my roommate was Shane.

00:19:43.000 We both lived in a loft in Montreal.

00:19:45.000 That was our office.

00:19:46.000 See, the thing about these angles where they go, Vice used to be a sexist place. 0.99

00:19:50.000 Vice was just me, Shane and Saroosh in a room.

00:19:54.000 For a decade.

00:19:56.000 We had a couple interns, Eric Lavoie and this British kid with funny teeth, whose name I forget. 0.99

00:20:01.000 We called them the faggots. 1.00

00:20:03.000 Which was, I think, a good way to sort of initiate a pair. 1.00

00:20:07.000 Eric Lavoie ended up, you know, paying my rent after all that abuse.

00:20:11.000 He was essentially my boss.

00:20:17.000 So it's not like it was a workplace, per se.

00:20:19.000 It was just a place where three guys, Shane did sales, Sroosh did music and editing, and I did content and graphic design.

00:20:29.000 So it wasn't really a work environment.

00:20:31.000 It was just a guy's loft.

00:20:33.000 And then Richard Sawinski found us and thought we were... He appreciates shame bravado when Shane said that Richard Sawinski was interested when Richard had never even heard of us.

00:20:43.000 Anyway, this is all in my book, The Death of Cool.

00:20:45.000 So, uh... We start fooling around with, uh, Amma.

00:20:50.000 And, uh, we have threesomes.

00:20:53.000 About three, I'd say.

00:20:55.000 Probably three or four.

00:20:56.000 And they get quite rude.

00:20:59.000 Um... And, uh...

00:21:03.000 I don't regret them at all.

00:21:04.000 I'm very proud of them, actually.

00:21:05.000 It was a fun time. 0.99

00:21:07.000 And I've had people say to me, isn't that gay if you're with a dude and you have sex with a chick? 0.99

00:21:13.000 And I go, hmm, you'd think of that, you know, from the outside. 0.99

00:21:18.000 But it's sort of like two mobsters digging a hole for a body.

00:21:22.000 I've said this metaphor many times, so if you're familiar with my work, you're familiar with this story.

00:21:26.000 But if two guys were digging a hole for a body, right, and their shovels were to clink, clink!

00:21:33.000 Anyway, um... 0.69

00:21:55.000 So in the Vice Guide to Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll, Shane called those encounters orgies, which whatever, you know, when you have a sales guy, you let him be hyperbolic. 0.91

00:22:07.000 But that is somehow in modern media, and when I say modern media, I mean these past three days, become this like culture of sex and orgies.

00:22:17.000 And then they're conflating that with allegations from 2015,

00:22:23.000 And, of course, Louis C.K.

00:22:24.000 and everything else.

00:22:26.000 And saying that the sort of template of sex that started back in 1994 has spread to today. 0.94

00:22:34.000 Which, as I said to a New York Post reporter, is like saying Adam Yauch from the Beastie Boys, during his Tibet stuff, is a sexist because during License to Ill, in 1985, did a giant inflatable penis on stage. 0.98

00:22:52.000 I mean, it's that nuts. 0.96

00:22:54.000 People change.

00:22:55.000 People change!

00:22:58.000 And companies change.

00:23:00.000 So, maybe I should take a moment to sort of explain my old company, which I rarely talk about because I feel like it's talking about my ex-wife.

00:23:08.000 1994, I started the company with Saroosh Alvi.

00:23:11.000 We went about a year or two.

00:23:16.000 He was, had been hired by this Haitian group

00:23:20.000 whose job was, I don't know, they had some fake scam grant to promote diversity.

00:23:25.000 And we're supposed to do, he's supposed to do a newspaper on like the local parades.

00:23:29.000 There's a Polish parade on Thursday, then there's this parade on Friday, just like a multicultural calendar really was his job.

00:23:38.000 And so he pulls me and I go, let's do cartoons in it.

00:23:41.000 I was a cartoonist at the time.

00:23:42.000 I did a mini comic called Pervert.

00:23:45.000 And, uh,

00:23:47.000 So we started doing that, and then we both had the same background.

00:23:50.000 We both liked punk rock and stuff.

00:23:52.000 He was a Minneapolis kid, I was, you know, Canadian hardcore or whatever.

00:23:57.000 And we were both into skateboarding and all that rap.

00:24:01.000 You know, youth culture. 0.99

00:24:03.000 So we started, we just basically abandoned the stupid calendar idea. 0.99

00:24:07.000 They didn't care. 0.98

00:24:08.000 And we were doing that, we were plugging along, and we had 16 pages.

00:24:12.000 And I would send them to my friend Shane, childhood friend I knew since I was 12, who was teaching English in Budapest, I believe, at the time.

00:24:21.000 And so him and his friends over there would make fun of us because the magazine sucked, and it kind of did suck, but whatever.

00:24:28.000 How's your 16-page newsprint paper coming along?

00:24:32.000 So he comes over, and I go, I want you to be head of sales.

00:24:37.000 Make this thing a thing.

00:24:38.000 So he goes, no problem.

00:24:39.000 And he had said, first thing we have to do is, you know, bundle it up, put it in an envelope, and send it to potential advertisers.

00:24:45.000 And our bosses at the time go, no, that's too expensive.

00:24:48.000 Too much postage.

00:24:49.000 And that's when we realized something fishy is going on here.

00:24:53.000 These guys don't want us to grow.

00:24:56.000 So, uh, we split.

00:24:59.000 We left.

00:25:01.000 And we changed the name from Voice of Montreal.

00:25:03.000 I changed it to Vice.

00:25:06.000 And, uh, this is all in my book.

00:25:08.000 And, uh, we got a loft together.

00:25:11.000 Shane and I, uh,

00:25:13.000 Lived at the office.

00:25:14.000 Sroosh got a separate place.

00:25:16.000 He didn't drink so there was kind of a major shift there, you know?

00:25:19.000 Like, I like to do cocaine and pot and stuff and I didn't want to be around a sober guy.

00:25:25.000 As James Stockbauer says, sober people make me uncomfortable.

00:25:28.000 He actually made a t-shirt of that.

00:25:30.000 So...

00:25:33.000 We built that and we had to pay them tons of money.

00:25:37.000 And people go, oh, so let me get this straight.

00:25:40.000 You started your company with a government program.

00:25:42.000 And we did have to, I had to go on welfare.

00:25:44.000 I think Saroosh did too.

00:25:45.000 Maybe Shane did too.

00:25:46.000 Yeah, we all had to go on welfare because it was, the jobs were provided to get you out of welfare.

00:25:51.000 But to say that welfare created our company,

00:25:55.000 It was like living in Russia. 0.93

00:25:56.000 You had to be French, you had to be part of the government to have anything going on. 0.91

00:26:04.000 You know, they literally went to stores.

00:26:07.000 If you had Joe's shoes, and that was a big sign, and there was a smaller sign that said, Chaussure de Joe, you would get fined.

00:26:15.000 They thwarted non-Francophone entrepreneurs. 0.52

00:26:20.000 It's not a great place to be an entrepreneur, Montreal.

00:26:22.000 So anyway.

00:26:24.000 We didn't survive.

00:26:26.000 We didn't start our company because of welfare and the Quebec government.

00:26:31.000 We started our company despite of welfare and the Quebec government.

00:26:36.000 It was like the Terminator where you had to pretend to be a robot to be able to walk the streets.

00:26:42.000 It's like a zombie movie.

00:26:45.000 So we do that, and by the way, to these journalists that are trying to talk about these orgies and that chick from Malta as some sort of pattern, this is just still three dudes.

00:26:55.000 There's no one in the office.

00:26:58.000 It's, we're alone.

00:27:00.000 in there.

00:27:01.000 There's no office.

00:27:01.000 There's no staff.

00:27:03.000 It's not like Vice starts with a million typewriters and well starting a company now.

00:27:09.000 Maybe the people have been brainwashed by the dot-com thing but you don't just start a company back then.

00:27:15.000 This is the 90s.

00:27:16.000 We were just we were taking out the garbage.

00:27:18.000 I had the provincial tax in a red shoe box.

00:27:22.000 I had the federal tax in a green shoe box.

00:27:25.000 I mean this was

00:27:27.000 Bootstraps stuff.

00:27:29.000 I knew when the junk day was, I knew when recycling was, I knew when the normal garbage day was.

00:27:33.000 I mean, even interns came much later. 0.76

00:27:39.000 So, to extrapolate anything that went on back then, the drug use and everything, was, to bring that to now is ridiculous. 0.96

00:27:49.000 Totally ridiculous. 0.84

00:27:51.000 And I remember, 0.99

00:27:53.000 Women in marketing, they sexually harassed us. 1.00

00:27:59.000 They said, we will give you ads. 1.00

00:28:02.000 They were hideous women. 1.00

00:28:04.000 And I'm not going to name names, but the person involved in sales would have to sleep with them. 0.96

00:28:10.000 We would have to placate them.

00:28:11.000 We'd all have to placate them in many ways and flatter them and stuff.

00:28:14.000 But power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

00:28:19.000 And these women were abusive. 1.00

00:28:22.000 No, it sounds crazy.

00:28:23.000 And here's the thing.

00:28:25.000 It wasn't that bad.

00:28:27.000 I mean, being abused as a woman is much worse than being abused as a man. 0.94

00:28:32.000 It's kind of gross to be abused as a man. 1.00

00:28:35.000 To have to sleep with a woman just to get ads or to get something for your company, it sucks. 0.99

00:28:43.000 But it's not that bad. 1.00

00:28:44.000 It's like getting punched in the arm. 0.97

00:28:46.000 Being violated as a woman is much worse.

00:28:49.000 And that's the problem, by the way, with equality.

00:28:51.000 That's the problem with feminism, is we say, no, it's all the same. 1.00

00:28:54.000 Sorry, no, it's not. 0.91

00:28:55.000 In fact, I would argue that genitalia makes it different. 0.98

00:28:59.000 Having something go inside you

00:29:02.000 That must be a lot more invasive than just having the thing that's outside of you have to do stuff.

00:29:09.000 Know what I mean?

00:29:11.000 Like, what would you rather do? 0.74

00:29:13.000 Spit into something or have someone push a pencil into your ear hole?

00:29:19.000 Okay, maybe that's not the best analogy on Earth, but you get what I'm saying.

00:29:22.000 Plus, men are different than women. 1.00

00:29:24.000 Anyway, back then, there was a graphic design firm called Heliozilla.

00:29:30.000 And they go, yeah, we have had to sleep with women to get ads, to get design contracts. 1.00

00:29:36.000 And we call them, here at work, we call them cougars.

00:29:41.000 Yeah, you heard me.

00:29:42.000 This is the year

00:29:45.000 I'm gonna say 1996.

00:29:48.000 Heliozilla Felix was his name in Toronto.

00:29:53.000 And he came up with the word cougar.

00:29:56.000 He invented the word cougar.

00:29:59.000 Yeah, you heard it here first, folks.

00:30:02.000 So anyway, orgy culture is a non-existent thing at Vice.

00:30:07.000 At 1999, we get this billionaire, Richard Sawinski, and he says, he didn't say anything.

00:30:16.000 Shane says he wants to buy us because we're so awesome.

00:30:20.000 Richard hears this, appreciates our bravado, and appreciates our lies. 0.84

00:30:26.000 Basically the same as saying four threesomes was an orgy.

00:30:31.000 And he says, you know what?

00:30:32.000 I will buy you if you come up with a contract in one day.

00:30:37.000 So we did.

00:30:39.000 And we said, give us, I think, a quarter million for 25% or something.

00:30:44.000 And he says, let's move to New York.

00:30:47.000 And we said, no problem, dude.

00:30:49.000 Lots of companies, by the way, he had bought didn't want to.

00:30:52.000 I think there was a Toronto magazine called Shift and they go, I don't want to move to New York.

00:30:56.000 I have a girlfriend. 1.00

00:30:58.000 And I just thought, God, what a pussy you are. 1.00

00:31:02.000 So we moved down there and we were rich beyond our wildest dreams from 1999 in New York City till 2001. 0.99

00:31:10.000 We were so rich.

00:31:12.000 I was making 80 grand a year, which I'd never even thought of before.

00:31:15.000 I didn't know that was possible.

00:31:18.000 That was just amazing and endless drugs and partying and not screwing co-workers by the way. 0.99

00:31:24.000 There was enough people at Max Fish to fornicate with.

00:31:29.000 We didn't really need to. 0.99

00:31:31.000 There was no sex going on at work.

00:31:32.000 The work was graphic design and stuff.

00:31:36.000 I don't know.

00:31:38.000 You hear a lot of these other stories about, like, Blockbuster, uh, what's... what are they called?

00:31:43.000 Tower Records.

00:31:44.000 Partying at work.

00:31:45.000 I just, like, did my work at work.

00:31:48.000 From 11am till 8pm.

00:31:50.000 And then I went and partied at clubs.

00:31:52.000 I don't want to do coke at work.

00:31:54.000 Anyway, so that went on and then Richard Swinsky was, it turned out, had some nefarious business going on and there was bankruptcy going on and we were nothing.

00:32:06.000 Overnight, we literally were, we came in and they shut the power off and they were removing the mirrors from the bathroom.

00:32:14.000 So we moved to Triple Five Soul's storage space.

00:32:18.000 In Williamsburg, which was a desolate wasteland at the time, 2001.

00:32:22.000 Horrible place to be.

00:32:23.000 I remember my friend Curtis was talking to someone on Bedford Avenue on North 7th.

00:32:31.000 No ATMs, nothing, cabs wouldn't go there.

00:32:33.000 He's talking to his friend and some Puerto Rican eight-year-old comes up and brains him with a golf driver. 0.99

00:32:40.000 Knocks him out.

00:32:41.000 That's what it was like then.

00:32:42.000 There was maybe four bars.

00:32:45.000 And so we moved there, and I would argue we built it up into the Williamsburg it is now.

00:32:50.000 We sort of created the culture there.

00:32:53.000 We gentrified it.

00:32:54.000 I've made a lot of movements over the years.

00:32:56.000 It's not just hipsters.

00:32:58.000 I created Williamsburg.

00:33:00.000 I created Vice.

00:33:01.000 I created Proud Boys.

00:33:03.000 I created the New Right.

00:33:05.000 I red-pilled an entire generation. 0.54

00:33:07.000 I'm sorry to be egotistical, but I've made a lot of stuff.

00:33:12.000 I might be the chosen one.

00:33:14.000 I might be the prophet.

00:33:17.000 So, we're bankrupt at that point.

00:33:21.000 And, by the way, the orgies, as Shane put it in 1994, were a couple of threesomes back when we were rockin' in 1994.

00:33:30.000 That has nothing to do with hustling to get bought by that billionaire.

00:33:35.000 Nothing to do with life

00:33:38.000 In New York, after we moved there, it was just like, I think that we had a staff of maybe six.

00:33:44.000 It was me, Shane Saroosh, there was that ugly-toothed guy, there was Eric Lavoie, and there was this chick, Heather.

00:33:51.000 There was one chick, and she was just sort of like the office manager. 1.00

00:33:54.000 We were not molesting her.

00:33:55.000 There was no orgies there.

00:33:57.000 That's the weird thing about these journalists.

00:33:59.000 They go, I'm going to take your company now and just sort of backdate it such that there's a massive audience, you know, a massive staff working in 1994 in Montreal.

00:34:11.000 Or they say, well, there was that pupus, that larvae of sexism and it slowly grew over the years.

00:34:18.000 They do that with Proud Boys.

00:34:19.000 They go, we know you're not racist.

00:34:21.000 We know that you're multicultural and you don't care about Jews or anything, but 1.00

00:34:26.000 I sense a seed of discontent.

00:34:30.000 I sense something bad there.

00:34:33.000 And that grew into that.

00:34:34.000 That's, by the way, someone with a terrible theory. 0.99

00:34:37.000 Hey, Dad, you're gay. 0.99

00:34:39.000 What? 0.99

00:34:40.000 I've been married to your mother for 50 years.

00:34:44.000 Yes, but there's a seed in there, Dad. 0.99

00:34:47.000 There's a seed of gayness. 0.99

00:34:48.000 What are you talking about? 0.96

00:34:50.000 Well, you were seen with a gay man two years ago.

00:34:55.000 Andy?

00:34:55.000 Who?

00:34:56.000 Andy's my brother. 0.75

00:34:58.000 Yes, but he's gay. 0.84

00:35:01.000 You know what, pal? 0.95

00:35:03.000 You're right.

00:35:04.000 You're good at this, by the way.

00:35:07.000 You've got a skill.

00:35:08.000 You're great at conflation.

00:35:11.000 You're congregation.

00:35:15.000 So, there's all these different vices, and again,

00:35:21.000 I can only defend where I was and what I did.

00:35:24.000 I don't know what's going on.

00:35:25.000 So I'm not saying nothing bad ever happened to Vice.

00:35:28.000 What I am saying is there was no culture of sexual harassment.

00:35:33.000 That's BS.

00:35:35.000 If someone strayed from the path and got up to hanky-panky, that's none of my beeswax.

00:35:41.000 And of course it's terrible if they did that. 0.99

00:35:44.000 So, there was the bankruptcy, there was 2002, and then we started rebuilding the company, and I got to hand it to Shane and Saroosh, they busted their asses, and I didn't bust my ass at all. 0.99

00:35:56.000 In fact, I liked it. 0.97

00:35:57.000 I liked that we were no longer owned by a billionaire, and I could go back to hanging out with weirdos and finding a guy who bought a dirty bomb in Paris, and I would just scour New York with my little notepad. 0.97

00:36:09.000 And find someone who was like a black supremacist or a white supremacist or a lesbian supremacist and find all these weirdos. 0.97

00:36:16.000 It was awesome! 0.98

00:36:18.000 I was doing my job again, and I wasn't beholden to a corporation.

00:36:22.000 Great. 0.99

00:36:23.000 Those poor bastards had to deal with debt collectors and everything. 1.00

00:36:26.000 And I think that's why they started to build their resentment towards me, because they thought, he gets to do the fun stuff, meet girls and shit, and we have to sit here dealing with debt collectors. 0.99

00:36:37.000 But eventually, big investors started noticing that we had survived this, and they got interested again.

00:36:44.000 And then we got more money.

00:36:46.000 So 2005 MTV started calling and Viacom 2006 we started going back to where we were with Richard Sawinski and I sold my shares in 2008.

00:37:01.000 Not the best departure.

00:37:05.000 It really is.

00:37:06.000 You know divorces are never smooth.

00:37:08.000 And I would say when I left, like 2008 I left, but by 2007, there was an office again.

00:37:15.000 2006, there was an office again with tons of people working there.

00:37:19.000 2003 to 2006, it was a pretty small little community.

00:37:24.000 And again, my business plan has always been, and would continue to be, ad sales go on this side of the room, editorial goes on this side of the room.

00:37:33.000 They should be at odds.

00:37:36.000 And I noticed this with the Brits.

00:37:38.000 When we sold to Vice UK, and we started Vice UK, they'd go, no, we're doing a four-page feature on Tiger Beer.

00:37:47.000 And I'd go, Andrew, how is that?

00:37:50.000 How do readers read that and think it's genuinely about Tiger Beer?

00:37:55.000 I don't know, but it's what people do here.

00:37:57.000 They all do advertorials, and if we didn't do it, we'd go bankrupt.

00:38:02.000 What's more obvious than an advertorial?

00:38:05.000 Hey guys, 4-page feature on Tiger Beer.

00:38:08.000 Please read it.

00:38:09.000 Is there a soul on earth who reads an advertorial that says Tiger Beer?

00:38:15.000 Anyway...

00:38:19.000 So I left in 08 and they went on their merry way.

00:38:25.000 They may have become rape central for all I know.

00:38:27.000 They could have become feminist central for all I know. 0.99

00:38:30.000 I have no clue.

00:38:31.000 I cannot talk about vice after I left in 08.

00:38:35.000 And I purposely avoided it.

00:38:37.000 I've never seen the show.

00:38:38.000 I've never been to the website.

00:38:40.000 I know that sounds crazy but

00:38:42.000 When you're divorced, you don't check in on your ex-wife.

00:38:46.000 It just feels weird.

00:38:47.000 And talk to anyone who's been through this.

00:38:49.000 Talk to like someone who was an executive at Walmart.

00:38:52.000 They probably don't go to Walmart anymore.

00:38:54.000 They don't like to see that stuff.

00:38:56.000 And it's not like you're hurt and you regret it.

00:38:58.000 You just, that part of your life is done and you move on.

00:39:05.000 So

00:39:09.000 If there is going to be a big expose on how my threesomes and various sexual escapades, and by the way, tons of drug use and heroin and all kinds of rude stuff, that was some sort of template that links to sexual assault allegations in 2016, 2017.

00:39:30.000 That's just lazy journalism, is what it is.

00:39:35.000 That's just really bad journalism.

00:39:38.000 And

00:39:40.000 It just shows why young people are bored of dinosaur media.

00:39:47.000 Because they don't try.

00:39:49.000 Like, do the math.

00:39:51.000 Do you really think a sexual encounter I had personally when I was 24 would affect a company I left 10 years ago and had sexual assault allegations this year?

00:40:07.000 Now, again,

00:40:09.000 I'm not saying that sexual assault allegations are not valid. 1.00

00:40:13.000 What I'm saying is that if you're linking them to my fucking sex life when I was a little kid, you're insane! 1.00

00:40:23.000 Just, like, do your homework. 1.00

00:40:26.000 Anyway.

00:40:30.000 We've still got some time, and I thought...

00:40:32.000 Would it bore you to tears if I was to describe my life after I left Vice?

00:40:39.000 If it would, hang up now.

00:40:41.000 Move on with your life.

00:40:42.000 But I... I'm headed to Restoration Weekend this weekend.

00:40:47.000 Sebastian Gorka, Ann Coulter, Ezra Levant, Laura Loomer, myself... We're all going to be doing talks about the Resistance.

00:40:58.000 Fighting the Resistance.

00:41:02.000 Which sounds kind of Darth Vader-y, doesn't it?

00:41:04.000 Fighting Jedis.

00:41:05.000 Okay, fine.

00:41:06.000 I don't like Mark Hamill. 1.00

00:41:08.000 He's a shitty cokehead. 1.00

00:41:13.000 But I am looking forward to seeing these talks. 0.99

00:41:15.000 I love Robert Spencer.

00:41:18.000 He's an intellectual.

00:41:23.000 So I... I'm going to get lazy with this podcast and just talk about my life, just do an autobiography.

00:41:30.000 But, uh, 2008 I left.

00:41:33.000 I got a boatload of money.

00:41:35.000 More money than I could ever spend.

00:41:38.000 And I put some of it in the stock market, some of it in real estate, which then doubled.

00:41:45.000 I'm sure a lot of people don't enjoy hearing that.

00:41:51.000 And then I made a lot of money on my own.

00:41:53.000 I mean, I started an ad agency with nothing and sold that for a boatload before it was shut down for my transphobic bullies.

00:42:02.000 But I started a weird career after that, which was selling comedy pilots.

00:42:10.000 So I'd go to L.A., and I'd go to Comedy Central and all these FX and stuff, and I'd just dazzle them in the pitch with an idea for a show.

00:42:21.000 And I have all these PDFs of these pilots.

00:42:23.000 I should probably send them to you, but there was like... One was three guys who are straight, but they learn to become hairdressers to get laid.

00:42:32.000 That was called Blowed or something?

00:42:35.000 Blowout?

00:42:37.000 I did one about a secretary, where a guy doesn't like the fact that he's called secretary, but he is the president's right-hand man, and he's a machismo dude who's known as a secretary.

00:42:52.000 I'm not pitching these very well.

00:42:53.000 There was an aging hipster, which was basically my life, and this was a guy who had made tons of money selling a hipster company, and now he's still trying to get something else going, but all his friends are 22, and he's 40, and his wife's disgusted by it, and she's acquiesced beautifully into the upper middle class echelons of society, and he can't seem to let go of his hipster past.

00:43:17.000 Okay, no Nobel Peace Prizes for creativity there, but you can imagine, knowing how incredibly funny I am, that the actual content was great.

00:43:29.000 I actually wrote a great one with Jay Johnson from Mr. Show called The Two Bennies, and it was an update to the Benny Hill Show, but it was two Benny Hills.

00:43:42.000 And it was just like a really exaggerated version of Benny Hill.

00:43:46.000 So when a woman, like he did something rude to a woman like, oh, ha ha. 0.97

00:43:51.000 And of course, this will be linked to the rapes advice.

00:43:55.000 The woman wouldn't just like hit them with a purse the way they did Benny Hill. 1.00

00:43:59.000 They'd beat him with the purse until his head was a pulp.

00:44:02.000 That's sort of a Jay Johnson thing. 0.90

00:44:04.000 Like he had that show, Monster Hunter, where this guy would, you know, beat the living crap out of monsters till they were just jam.

00:44:14.000 He had a great James Bond parody that he did where James Bond would go to rescue someone and just destroy, you know, the whole village trying to save this woman.

00:44:23.000 Anyway, it was that kind of thing meets Benny Hill.

00:44:28.000 And that was a weird job I had for a while.

00:44:30.000 It pays great.

00:44:32.000 You get 40 grand to write a pilot, but then they don't run it.

00:44:37.000 They don't use it.

00:44:38.000 So it goes in the garbage and you can't show it to anyone.

00:44:42.000 And if someone else wants it, they have to pay the 40 grand to the Comedy Central or FX or whatever.

00:44:50.000 And so they'd rather just like, can you just write a new one, dude?

00:44:52.000 I don't want to pay them.

00:44:54.000 They're my competitor. 0.69

00:44:56.000 So I was writing shows for the garbage and I did that for two years.

00:45:00.000 I wrote, honestly, like 10 pilots where I dazzled them in the pitch, wrote the thing, and then I didn't make it through.

00:45:09.000 And, you know, Comedy Central, I believe at that time, was saying yes to 85 pilots and then

00:45:16.000 I don't like making things for the garbage.

00:45:24.000 I like it if I fart to have that documented and then make a watercolor and for everyone to have a copy on Instagram.

00:45:31.000 I'm very selfish that way.

00:45:34.000 So that wasn't fun.

00:45:35.000 But as I was doing that, I met this guy, Sebastian, and he goes, let's do more than just pitch TV.

00:45:43.000 Let's make videos.

00:45:45.000 Let's make comedy videos.

00:45:46.000 And I started making comedy videos with these kids, Brian Gaynor and Chad, who my kids call Mouse, because he looks like a mouse.

00:45:56.000 I'm reluctant to name names, too, because I'm such a pariah now, I can ruin people's careers just by indicating there's a link.

00:46:03.000 But Chad and Brian said, you're funny, let's do funny videos.

00:46:07.000 And we did Sophie Can Walk, and we did Working Out With Kids, and we eventually did How to Fight a Baby with 13 million views.

00:46:14.000 So that was going okay, but there was no money in that.

00:46:17.000 And Sebastian said, let's get money for it.

00:46:19.000 So eventually we started an ad agency called Rooster, and we were getting like between five and twenty grand to do sketches.

00:46:28.000 And that's how much they cost, by the way.

00:46:30.000 People say to me, why don't you do more sketches?

00:46:31.000 And I go, I don't know, because you have to do casting, and lighting, and location, and each one of those is $5,000.

00:46:40.000 So, unless you have a boatload of money, I don't want to do it.

00:46:43.000 And still, even then, even with all the money, like say you gave me $50,000 to do a hilarious comedy sketch.

00:46:51.000 Which, by the way, I have an amazing idea for.

00:46:56.000 I gotta get up in the dark.

00:46:58.000 It's a 13-hour day.

00:47:00.000 It's not fun acting.

00:47:01.000 Going back to those celebrities like Justin Theroux and Jennifer Aniston, you're just sitting around all day.

00:47:07.000 I've done a few movies.

00:47:08.000 I did Creative Control, How to Be a Man. 0.99

00:47:12.000 You're just really sitting around waiting to shoot, and it's four hours of sitting on your ass for every 10 minutes of shooting. 0.99

00:47:21.000 That's not amusing. 1.00

00:47:22.000 That's another shitty job.

00:47:25.000 Anyway, so we did the ad agency for a while and we kept building up and Vans was really generous and we did some great videos with them. 0.84

00:47:35.000 And I was also freelance writing at the time.

00:47:37.000 I started, I was always writing for Tacky Meg, but then this dude at Thought Catalog, I think his name's Chris, maybe Rob, you know, a normal dude name.

00:47:46.000 He goes, hey, I've been reading your stuff for a while.

00:47:49.000 I'm very inspired.

00:47:50.000 I'm really impressed by your mentor, Jim Goad.

00:47:54.000 I'm hiring him and I want to make Thought Catalog an actual Thought Catalog, as is my business plan.

00:48:03.000 So it's not just normal thoughts that all these millennials have, but weird thoughts.

00:48:08.000 Stuff out of the box, you know, that will challenge people.

00:48:11.000 That's what a Thought Catalog should be.

00:48:13.000 And they go, cool, I'm in. 0.93

00:48:16.000 So I start saying things like, short hair is rape. 0.94

00:48:20.000 Now, this is in a culture where they think everything is rape, so I say, if a lady has short hair, and you're doing her from behind, you look down and you see a woman's body with short hair, you see a 12 year old boy.

00:48:34.000 So you switched you out with a 12-year-old boy. 0.99

00:48:38.000 You just raped me. 0.99

00:48:39.000 Now obviously that's not literally true. 0.99

00:48:41.000 You don't want the woman to go to jail for 15 years, but it's a thought catalog. 0.97

00:48:45.000 It's a dumb, weird, Jonathan Swift kind of the, you know, the poor should eat their young kind of a thought game. 1.00

00:48:53.000 And the shit hit the fan. 1.00

00:48:55.000 And the shit kept hitting the fan. 1.00

00:48:59.000 And I think he started realizing he's in over his head. 1.00

00:49:02.000 And I haven't talked to him.

00:49:03.000 He won't respond to my calls.

00:49:04.000 But I think he lost a boatload of cash from this idea of taking himself seriously.

00:49:12.000 Because I did an article called Transphobia is Perfectly Natural. 1.00

00:49:20.000 And I had a lot of stuff going on when I wrote that article.

00:49:23.000 I had the ad agency.

00:49:24.000 I was doing a comedy night at Brooklyn Brewery.

00:49:29.000 I had a show I was doing with Discovery UK that was called Man vs Myth, where we would bust myths.

00:49:36.000 And we had already shot about six episodes.

00:49:39.000 We shot me beating tracking dogs.

00:49:43.000 You know, like if you escape from prison, it's very easy to beat them.

00:49:46.000 You just jump back and over a fence, and you throw your clothes in a bush, and you go through a river.

00:49:51.000 Like, they're not that hard to beat.

00:49:53.000 I beat polygraphs, and that's where I met my polygraph buddy, Doug.

00:50:01.000 And so we shot all these episodes and we had a big staff, you know, they're all British, obviously Discover UK, and we had a staff of like 15 and everywhere we went, we'd have a staff of another 15 of locals.

00:50:13.000 To be honest, it's hard to remember all the stuff I had going on then.

00:50:17.000 As an entrepreneur in New York, you have 15 spinning plates at all time.

00:50:21.000 So when one goes, you don't even notice it.

00:50:24.000 Now in LA, they have one spinning plate,

00:50:28.000 It falls, smashes, and they go, oh, that plate smashed.

00:50:32.000 That plate, by the way, was spinning for three years, solo.

00:50:35.000 And then they go, oh, my pilot didn't get picked up.

00:50:38.000 All right, well, soon enough, I should get a plate back up and start spinning.

00:50:45.000 Meanwhile, by the way, back in 08, I had started this website called Street Carnage.

00:50:50.000 And I thought, me and Derek Beckles, my buddy,

00:50:53.000 Best pal.

00:50:55.000 We're going to become the new Tim and Eric.

00:50:57.000 He had no work ethic.

00:50:58.000 That went nowhere.

00:51:00.000 And I realized I'm just really doing a Vice 2.

00:51:05.000 And I don't think you can do Vice 2.

00:51:08.000 If you're in Motley Crue and you start, you get pushed out or you quit, you can't start Motley Crue 2.

00:51:16.000 It's not going to work.

00:51:18.000 So Street Carnage was a complete failure.

00:51:20.000 It's still up, I believe.

00:51:22.000 It's like a... I haven't... I check it pretty rarely.

00:51:26.000 But that was sad.

00:51:27.000 Now, of course, Derek and I eventually split because I'm a Nazi.

00:51:32.000 So anyway, had all these things going on, but that... When I said transphobia is perfectly natural, and I said if your dad cut his dick off and stuff, you'd be freaked out. 1.00

00:51:41.000 Which isn't true, of course. 1.00

00:51:43.000 You'd be totally relaxed if your dad cut his dick off. 1.00

00:51:47.000 You just say, hi mom. 1.00

00:51:50.000 You wouldn't be nervous.

00:51:51.000 So transphobia isn't perfectly normal.

00:51:55.000 Right, guys?

00:51:57.000 I mean, that's where we're at now.

00:51:58.000 When I say boring platitudes that are clearly true, I'm pilloried. 0.99

00:52:02.000 But anyway, um... Shit, it's a fan. 1.00

00:52:07.000 Major apocalypse. 0.99

00:52:09.000 My ad agency had just been bought by Havas, which is a French ad agency.

00:52:15.000 And, um, they, I think they were looking for a reason to kill us because, um, we were making just, like, good profits, 20% or something, and that's not good.

00:52:30.000 When you buy an ad agency for several million dollars, you want them to make 20 million dollars. 0.97

00:52:36.000 It's like jackass. 0.86

00:52:37.000 Everyone wants jackass or Blair Witch Project 0.97

00:52:40.000 Where I think Jackass cost 5 million and it grossed something like 200 million, I'm not sure.

00:52:46.000 But Blair Witch Project cost nothing to make and it made something like, I don't know, 20 million.

00:52:51.000 I'm getting these numbers wrong, but it's shocking how much they spent and how much they made.

00:52:56.000 And the funny thing about executives, also in book publishing by the way, they hear that and they go, I want that.

00:53:03.000 But at the end of the day, most indie films lose money, most blockbusters sort of do okay, and, you know, books make twenty grand or something.

00:53:13.000 Less than the Advance, is the truth of it.

00:53:16.000 And then, you know, the Fifty Shades of Grey pays for everything else.

00:53:22.000 Am I being interesting or am I sounding too negative here?

00:53:25.000 So, uh, the ad agency was, Havas, was waiting for a chance to shut us down, and this trans thing was a perfect opportunity, so they shut us down. 0.99

00:53:34.000 But here's what I'll never forget about all those things.

00:53:37.000 Everything in my life was completely extinguished by the trans article. 1.00

00:53:43.000 Everything.

00:53:45.000 Over.

00:53:47.000 I'll never forget, I was in Atlanta where we were doing a thing about running from attack dogs, like search dogs.

00:53:57.000 And there was a guy, a sound guy, a local who had been hired.

00:54:01.000 And he had these ear things in his ear that just were super small, but I noticed them because I'm incredibly perceptive.

00:54:08.000 And he said they cost him $7,000.

00:54:10.000 And I go, what's that in your ear?

00:54:11.000 Is that like a hearing aid?

00:54:12.000 And he goes, yeah.

00:54:13.000 These saved my marriage. 1.00

00:54:15.000 Because my wife was so sick of screaming shit at me. 1.00

00:54:15.000 These little puppies. 1.00

00:54:19.000 Then I got these and, you know, she could talk to me normal again.

00:54:22.000 Seven grand.

00:54:24.000 And I saw him the next day.

00:54:27.000 And he was loading up his truck with all the sound equipment.

00:54:32.000 And he just looked dazed.

00:54:35.000 He looked like he had a flashbulb in his face.

00:54:38.000 And I go, hey man!

00:54:39.000 And he goes, hey.

00:54:42.000 And all he knew was that the host of the show had done something so terrible, it shut down the entire show. 0.99

00:54:49.000 And it was like I had fucked a kid, obviously. 0.98

00:54:55.000 I mean, it was really, I use that analogy a lot, but it's shocking how common it is. 1.00

00:55:02.000 People had trouble looking me in the eyes, and all I had said is, it's normal to be uncomfortable about your dad cutting his dick off. 0.99

00:55:12.000 And by the way, even if I had said, like, I don't know, I'm a pedophile, how does that affect the show? 0.99

00:55:17.000 Okay, that's a bad analogy, because obviously that would affect the show.

00:55:22.000 Discover UK cancelled Man vs Myth.

00:55:24.000 There's three great episodes floating around in the digital abyss out there.

00:55:29.000 And I'll never forget the guy, the sound guy, with his crates, piling them up into the back of his own truck.

00:55:38.000 Just piling up these crates of chords and booms and mics and lavs and whatever.

00:55:44.000 And he'd only ever heard of a tranny as a transmission from a car, but because of the host's opinions on trans people, he's out of a job.

00:55:58.000 Isn't that insane? 0.88

00:56:01.000 So anyway, I'm a pariah.

00:56:06.000 I'm out of comedy.

00:56:07.000 I can't pitch comedy anymore. 1.00

00:56:09.000 That stupid writing pilots for the garbage job is done. 1.00

00:56:12.000 My advertising career is over. 1.00

00:56:14.000 Our entire ad agency is shut down.

00:56:16.000 Havas dumped us. 1.00

00:56:18.000 Those guys all moved on and actually started their own company after that without me and did a great job Good.

00:56:24.000 I mean, I love those guys.

00:56:25.000 I still talk to them all the time, but I'll tell you with advertising I've never seen people with less talent make more money.

00:56:30.000 I do not miss advertising at all, but the money was mental

00:56:35.000 Um, and then I'm sort of floating around in the abyss and then Ezra Levant says, you can do a show with me.

00:56:43.000 Do me a video a week for 500 bucks.

00:56:45.000 I do such incredibly good work that I end up getting three or four videos a week.

00:56:52.000 And then I talked to Anthony Kumi and he says, you can come on here.

00:56:55.000 We're actually a pariah network of outcasts, the Island of Misfit Toys.

00:57:00.000 He's very generous and he says, you know, whatever you want, dude.

00:57:03.000 I'm not going to censor anything at all.

00:57:06.000 You can Holocaust deny. 0.80

00:57:07.000 I mean, he didn't say that, but that's that was the implication.

00:57:12.000 So I go do those things and I basically start a new career focusing more on sort of right wing politics. 0.98

00:57:22.000 And a lot of my old friends like Sean Reverend from Cult and I forget all his stupid companies. 0.98

00:57:30.000 This black guy I used to be friends with that stabbed me in the back. 1.00

00:57:36.000 They go, you're a sellout, you bigot. 1.00

00:57:38.000 Now you gotta be right-wing to make money?

00:57:40.000 And I go, actually it's the opposite of that.

00:57:43.000 I've been constantly painted into a corner by you creative types saying you can't do this and you can't do that.

00:57:50.000 That I'm sort of stuck doing right-wing news, which I'm fine with, by the way.

00:57:54.000 You could stick me with juggling.

00:57:56.000 You could stick me with carpentry.

00:58:00.000 And I would enthusiastically do it.

00:58:02.000 So...

00:58:05.000 I didn't go there to make money.

00:58:07.000 I went there after I lost money and figured out how to make money there.

00:58:13.000 And what's ironic, by the way, Mr. Creative Pants, is you couldn't do the same. 0.99

00:58:18.000 If I ostracized you, you Rastafarian, who clearly must hate gays because that's part of Rastafarian culture, if I painted you into a corner, you would have to blow your head off because you'd have no idea what to do because you're a loser. 1.00

00:58:33.000 Yes, that was me leaving the podcast and getting into my own id for a moment. 0.97

00:58:41.000 So yeah, so I did Kumia for a while, and I started getting so many followers, and I mean that in the best of ways, that I thought I could do this by myself.

00:58:49.000 I could probably get 10,000 guys to spend $4 a month.

00:58:53.000 And while this was going on, by the way, I said, let's start a men's club. 0.60

00:58:59.000 Just a place where guys can be guys, and guys can be alone, away from chicks, and just do normal stuff like the Shriners used to do. 0.98

00:59:06.000 And I joined the Knights of Columbus, and I loved it.

00:59:11.000 Uh, you know, I don't really belong with these guys in Hell's Kitchen.

00:59:15.000 I couldn't have a more different background.

00:59:16.000 I'm an English middle class kid who moved to Canada when I was five and made a bunch of money in New York.

00:59:25.000 And now I am, you know, taking the train into Hell's Kitchen to talk to these blue collar dudes.

00:59:31.000 About their lives and about growing up with the Westies in Hell's Kitchen. 1.00

00:59:35.000 Fascinating to me.

00:59:37.000 But, uh, I realized, you know, the first degree, second degree, third degree, fourth degree process here...

00:59:43.000 This is a lot of fun, and I feel a real camaraderie.

00:59:46.000 Like, if someone called me right now and said, yeah, there's a Knights of Columbus in Albany.

00:59:50.000 He needs your help.

00:59:51.000 I would, like, wake up my wife and say, sorry, I gotta go somewhere.

00:59:54.000 And I would go do it, and I wouldn't be mad or sad or happy or angry.

00:59:58.000 I would feel nothing.

00:59:59.000 It's just something I have to do.

01:00:00.000 It'd be like if my daughter was sick.

01:00:02.000 It's a family thing.

01:00:04.000 So I go, let's do a similar thing.

01:00:06.000 I mean, this used to be the fabric of society.

01:00:10.000 We used to have men's clubs. 0.81

01:00:12.000 We used to have the Know Nothings.

01:00:14.000 We used to have the Bowery Boys with Bill the Butcher, Daniel Day-Lewis and Gangs of New York.

01:00:20.000 Why can't we have that again?

01:00:22.000 Ann Coulter talks about her father being in these groups.

01:00:25.000 I said, I'd love you to come to one of our meetings, but you're a woman. 1.00

01:00:29.000 And she goes, I don't want to come to one of your meetings.

01:00:31.000 I totally revere this concept of men's clubs, and I wouldn't want to tarnish it.

01:00:38.000 She said, finally, conservatives are punching back.

01:00:42.000 But we weren't really meant to be violent.

01:00:45.000 I mean, we were just guys who would meet every third Saturday and drink beer.

01:00:50.000 And then I was doing a talk at NYU.

01:00:53.000 And this is, by the way, this is way after advertising is over and being banished from comedy. 0.99

01:01:01.000 And I'm stuck on the Kumia Network, but I bust my ass. 0.91

01:01:08.000 I get there every day at 10 o'clock. 0.99

01:01:12.000 I do an hour and a half show.

01:01:14.000 I get tons of guests on my own. 0.77

01:01:16.000 New guests no one's ever heard of and regular guests people have heard of and introduce new concepts and you know I just I don't sit on my ass and the story I'm trying to tell today on this podcast is not that I'm special though I am.

01:01:34.000 The thing I'm trying to get across today is I know you're gonna be ostracized if you like Trump, if you're a right-winger, you're going to be banished if you like Bannon, but the beauty of this country is you just keep plugging away, and you will succeed. 0.55

01:01:51.000 You will make money.

01:01:52.000 I don't care what you want to do.

01:01:54.000 I honestly don't.

01:01:56.000 If you want to make children's wood puppets,

01:02:01.000 Where they're marionettes, and you use fishing line for the wires, and there are little wood guys that dance around, and you practice and practice and practice.

01:02:11.000 You can do a funny little dance with them.

01:02:13.000 I guarantee you, you'll make 50 grand a year after three years. 1.00

01:02:18.000 Now, I usually say two years, but I said three years because you chose such a stupid profession. 1.00

01:02:23.000 Dancing puppets, what the hell's the matter with you? 1.00

01:02:25.000 But still, you'll do a good job. 0.90

01:02:31.000 No, sorry, you'll get paid if you do a good job.

01:02:34.000 So, one little side project was this Proud Boys thing.

01:02:38.000 And, um, I go to NYU and I have no plan.

01:02:43.000 Actually, I did have one funny plan.

01:02:45.000 I was going to go up on stage and say, and I did actually end up doing this.

01:02:49.000 Uh, I said, um, there are three problems with America today.

01:02:57.000 As the woman, 0.93

01:03:01.000 The Negro and the Jew. 0.98

01:03:05.000 That's what I said. 0.99

01:03:07.000 And, uh, Jaws hit the floor.

01:03:10.000 And I let it breathe for about ten seconds, and I go... No, I'm just kidding.

01:03:16.000 Um, but seriously, do you think that's a guy?

01:03:19.000 Like, do you think that's a guy that would do a talk at NYU?

01:03:21.000 Is that why you're here?

01:03:22.000 Is that why you're protesting?

01:03:24.000 And the fact that their jaws dropped when I was that fake guy for those, you know, five seconds, shows that they don't really think that that's a guy either.

01:03:33.000 They just like, like, we don't like you. 0.99

01:03:35.000 You're a poo. 1.00

01:03:36.000 You go poo-poo in my poo. 1.00

01:03:39.000 They don't, they don't really, their heart's not in it.

01:03:41.000 And when you present the guy they're screaming about, they go, wait, what?

01:03:46.000 You are that guy?

01:03:47.000 I didn't know that guy existed.

01:03:48.000 Yeah, he doesn't exist.

01:03:50.000 Dummies. 1.00

01:03:51.000 You fools. 1.00

01:03:54.000 So, uh, 1.00

01:03:57.000 It was the same night as a Proud Boys meetup.

01:03:59.000 So I go, come with us.

01:04:00.000 Come with me.

01:04:01.000 And let's, you know, they gave me a secret door in the back.

01:04:05.000 And I thought if I was there to talk about how sexy babies are, I would understand.

01:04:09.000 Yes, I will go in the back door.

01:04:10.000 That is an unusual belief.

01:04:12.000 I don't have unusual beliefs at all.

01:04:14.000 So I go, we're going through the front.

01:04:15.000 So we walk through the front and we sing, Proud of your boy from Aladdin, Aladdin.

01:04:22.000 And all these rich kids, yes, they're all rich white kids, start attacking us. 0.64

01:04:28.000 And then the front doors of NYU say, no, only you can come in.

01:04:33.000 So, and one other guy.

01:04:34.000 So my guys are left there, Proud Boys, fighting this mob of Antifa.

01:04:40.000 And, uh, eight Antifa get arrested.

01:04:42.000 Two of my guys do.

01:04:44.000 By the way, our two Proud Boys were non-white, and all of Antifa people were white.

01:04:49.000 That says a lot right there.

01:04:51.000 They all go to jail.

01:04:52.000 And, our guys were joking around.

01:04:54.000 They'd been arrested before.

01:04:56.000 The Antifa guys were panicking in the paddy wagon.

01:04:59.000 Freaking out.

01:04:59.000 They'd never been there before.

01:05:00.000 They didn't know what to do.

01:05:01.000 Their parents are gonna be so mad.

01:05:03.000 So I did the talk with these crunched up eyes. 1.00

01:05:07.000 I call them baby vaginas. 1.00

01:05:09.000 And finished it, and then Proud Boys became this thing where it was like they must be racist or something if they don't agree with the left. 0.99

01:05:18.000 I actually had Alan Foyer, a journalist at New York Times, he said, why don't you just lie there and take a beating?

01:05:24.000 It would mean so much.

01:05:25.000 It would be like the Freedom Riders.

01:05:27.000 It would be like Martin Luther King.

01:05:29.000 And I go, yeah, no.

01:05:32.000 I don't want to do that, thank you.

01:05:33.000 That's a nice thank you for the tip, but I don't want to do that.

01:05:39.000 So what is this all?

01:05:40.000 How does this all come together?

01:05:42.000 Well... In 1994, I was a cartoonist.

01:05:48.000 I was in a bunch of punk... I just left a bunch of punk bands.

01:05:51.000 And Sue Shalvey said, uh, why don't you join me in this thing?

01:05:56.000 And we'll just make it like a cool fanzine.

01:05:58.000 And you seem to like fanzines.

01:05:59.000 You do a mini-comic.

01:06:01.000 Yeah, that's exciting.

01:06:02.000 And then when I realized we weren't going anywhere, I brought in my childhood friend Shane.

01:06:06.000 I said, let's make some money.

01:06:09.000 Um, we started generating cash.

01:06:12.000 You know, that, more money, more problems.

01:06:15.000 Eventually it led to a split with all of us.

01:06:17.000 Started my own thing.

01:06:19.000 And I've always been offensive.

01:06:20.000 I think I've always been punk rock.

01:06:22.000 I've always been wanting to, you know, push the boundaries.

01:06:27.000 And that led to my demise in comedy.

01:06:30.000 That led to my demise in advertising.

01:06:32.000 It led me to where I am now, which is clearly not selling out, but it's still lucrative.

01:06:38.000 Very lucrative.

01:06:40.000 And there's been some serious downs over the years.

01:06:44.000 Serious bankruptcy, serious borderline divorce, serious, you know, hemorrhaging cash, serious a year with zero money at all coming in, eating away at savings, losing savings, you know, having to move in with friends over the years, crash on couches.

01:07:06.000 There's been all of that, but the beauty of the Western world is you keep plugging away at no matter what it is.

01:07:15.000 I don't care if it's being a mime. 0.93

01:07:17.000 You keep plugging away and eventually you get back up to a very healthy salary in America.

01:07:28.000 Now you got to get up on a Monday at 7 a.m. 1.00

01:07:32.000 You know, I don't care how stupid your profession is, you gotta get up early. 1.00

01:07:36.000 You can't be hungover, you can't take a day off. 1.00

01:07:40.000 40 hours a week's a bare minimum.

01:07:44.000 If you're in your 20s, it should be more like 80.

01:07:47.000 You should never be not working. 0.97

01:07:49.000 Always be hustling, as the blacks in Harlem say. 0.95

01:07:52.000 Always have something going on. 0.96

01:07:56.000 But if you have that correct attitude, then you'll make cash.

01:08:00.000 And you don't have that in, uh...

01:08:04.000 The East.

01:08:05.000 You don't have that in Russia, in China.

01:08:09.000 You don't really have it in Taiwan.

01:08:12.000 You don't have that in India.

01:08:15.000 You don't have that in a lot of European countries, to be honest.

01:08:19.000 They are so mired in socialism that they don't reward entrepreneurs the correct way.

01:08:25.000 Canada has a huge problem with that, crapping on entrepreneurs and discouraging them from being independent.

01:08:32.000 But America

01:08:33.000 Still rewards the entrepreneur.

01:08:37.000 They still, I mean Shark Tank is a popular show for a reason because as John Steinbeck said, the poor in America vote Republican because they see themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. 0.92

01:08:52.000 So I started this podcast to say that these journalists that are trying to imply that my rampant sexual encounters when I was a young man in 1984 are somehow linked to an inexorable culture of sexism in 2016 is retarded. 0.92

01:09:13.000 Similarly, to say that Proud Boys, a men's club where we happen to defend our friends if our friends get attacked,

01:09:22.000 is somehow a gateway drug to Nazism is also lazy journalism.

01:09:28.000 And you might like lazy journalism because your editors comply and they go, good job.

01:09:34.000 But young people don't appreciate that.

01:09:38.000 They're savvy. 0.99

01:09:39.000 And they go, yeah, yeah, I've read this kind of crap before. 0.99

01:09:42.000 You're lying. 0.94

01:09:43.000 And I'm actually never going to this site again or this show again.

01:09:48.000 So, you may get in under the wire and pay your bills and temporarily appease your employers, but lying doesn't work in America, because America is ultimately a meritocracy.

01:10:04.000 And you can be a pariah, you can go against the grain, you can be a witch during Salem, you can be a communist during McCarthyism, you can be a truth teller during political correctness. 0.99

01:10:15.000 But eventually, if you bust your ass in the West, you will succeed. 0.99

01:10:22.000 I know it's frustrating being ostracized. 0.99

01:10:25.000 I've seen being a Trump supporter ruin marriages, get people fired, get bricks thrown through windows, believe it or not.

01:10:33.000 That's probably a whole other podcast.

01:10:35.000 But the big picture is the West is still the best. 1.00

01:10:39.000 And this is still the only part of the world where you get rewarded for busting your ass. 0.94

01:10:47.000 It's still the only place in the world where if you persevere, if you get up early, if you're not hungover, and if you GIVER from dawn till dusk, you'll get paid, you'll have two cars, you'll have a house you own, you'll have a happy wife, and you'll have a bunch of kids. 0.98

01:11:05.000 Who else can say that?

01:11:08.000 And I think it's time that we look at the situation we're in with these kind of rewards and say, thank you.

01:11:17.000 Thank you, America.

01:11:19.000 God bless America.

01:11:21.000 God bless the West.

01:11:23.000 And thank you, God.

01:11:26.000 To quote the guy in Animal House who had the naked lady fall into his room, thanks, God. 1.00

Get Off My Lawn - Gavin McInnes - November 17, 2017

Get Off My Lawn Podcast #8 | It Sucks Being Famous

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