Robert the Flame Berenstain joins the gang to talk about his life growing up in the 60's and 70's, his time in the gay community, and what it's like to be gay in the 80's and 90's.
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00:00:13.880We are live. Welcome, everybody, to the ninth episode of the Tower Gang podcast. Today, we have a very special guest, Robert the Flame Berenstain. Is that any relation to the Berenstain Bears, the children's books?
00:00:36.420You're close, dude. You're very close. They're like my grandparents, you know? There's a couple generations until you actually get to me. We changed our name to blend in with people. And in the gay community, I am what's known as a bear, so I do feel like I can't see you in my room.
00:00:58.280By chance, did your last name change over the past 30 years from Berenstain to Berenstain?
00:01:05.000Are we in the parallel? Did you call us the parallel universe?
00:01:07.280I think I did. When I was a kid, I always thought that book had my name on it. It is a weird thing that we all are collectively retarded.
00:01:17.200It's not weird for us. This is actually totally normal.
00:01:19.840That's like the definition of Tower Gang. We're all collectively retarded. That's like part of the blame.
00:01:23.640Well, and gay as well, and bears always hit on me, so that explains why Robbie was hitting on me in pre.
00:01:32.980That's why he asked for that tissue bug.
00:01:39.460You know, I'll play around with most of these, but I'm going to have to deny that allegation.
00:01:44.320I'm more of a fan of Fat Dave. He's got the pretty hair.
00:01:48.080I already bring the bald thing to the table, and I'm still convinced that gay men can procreate,
00:01:52.460so I'm looking for someone that can balance out my gene pool.
00:01:57.400You just look like me after more Little Debbie cream pies, so I apologize, but you're not my taste.
00:02:08.560You don't like to fuck yourself? We know you do.
00:02:10.640Speaking of the gay thing, was it an AIDS flare-up? That's why you couldn't come on yesterday?
00:02:18.060Was it just the AIDS came up, and you just kind of had to take a day off is what it was?
00:02:23.000That's the way it works with AIDS. You have good days, and you've got bad days, and you know, you just got to roll with it.
00:02:28.580I'm pot committed at this point. You can't undo the AIDS, but you can accept it and just acknowledge that you're going to have good and bad days.
00:02:35.500By the way, I cannot—the fact that my friend decided to make the world's loudest fire behind me just as I was going to start a podcast,
00:02:45.000it sounds like I brought Christmas gifts to an orphanage.
00:19:58.400I'm doing the Portland, whatever it is.
00:20:04.180I'm doing, I'm basically showing up trying to get Mises people to come out and actually vote in, you know, some representatives.
00:20:10.640So I'm flying out there, me and my friend Kyle Ruff are doing a comedy show.
00:20:15.140I'm curious to see, because for me, I really got to work out my shit on stage.
00:20:18.620Like, I can tell you, when I have a good joke, it takes exactly a month of getting up, for the most part.
00:20:23.100Like, there's some exceptions where, like, you just write it and it works.
00:20:26.040But a lot of my stuff, it takes a month from start to finish to, like, hone it out.
00:20:30.840And the nice thing is when you go up on the road and you've worked out every single minute of your act, you're getting up in front of your crowd, and you just, you know you're good.
00:20:37.800Like, you've done the homework over the last six months.
00:20:39.900It's like, I mean, I wasn't a good student, but I guess that's the equivalent of when the smart kids showed up for finals and they'd actually studied, and they're like, hey, I'm good to go.
00:20:47.300I was never that person my whole life.
00:20:49.820So now I got these gigs coming up, and, like, I've got some stuff I'm really interested in and passionate about, but it's not – I mean, I think I'm a better performer, actually, from all the podcasting I've done for the last couple months.
00:21:01.000But my act is not as tight and just sharp as it was, you know, a year ago when I was honing it every night.
00:21:25.160Was it like – were you like, I'm still – were you like, I'm going to go a lot in on COVID stuff, or was it kind of what you were doing before?
00:21:34.100Man, I'm really getting the 60-minute treatment.
00:21:53.420And I will say my comedy is – when I was getting up late at night in front of a bunch of drunks that don't show the same politics as me, firstly, if I'm doing a political joke, I kind of have to disguise my approach quite a bit to make it relatable.
00:22:07.760But also, I tell a lot of dick, fart, drug jokes because that's my lifestyle.
00:22:12.780I'm hanging out with people late at night.
00:22:14.180I got jokes about fucking just filth and nonsense.
00:22:16.860And being home and writing more for my audience allows me to be a little bit smarter with my comedy, a little bit more political.
00:22:24.900So I have – here's what I'm finding is really interesting.
00:22:28.040You guys can cut me off if this starts getting boring.
00:22:30.440And I'm kind of curious to see how it plays out.
00:22:32.740But in front of my own audience, I can be a little –
00:22:38.460No, I can be a little bit more long form and kind of like get into topics for like a longer period of time versus in the New York City Comedy Club.
00:22:58.440The Grateful Dead, like they had their radio versions, which would be three minutes, and then you'd see them live and the same thing could be seven or eight minutes.
00:23:05.700It's – I'm starting to find my stand-up is a little bit like an accordion in that way where if I'm in front of my crowd, what would be a three-minute club bit because I got to keep it real tight to what's relatable to them.
00:23:17.080I can actually have more fun with it in front of my audience and turn it into like a seven-minute thing, and then it becomes a little bit more nuanced.
00:23:23.980I actually think it's more interesting as the seven-minute version, but I can't really do that in a New York City club.
00:24:24.720I think at the after party we hang pretty good.
00:24:26.900But before the shows, I try and keep it – when I was getting up and – I mean, dude, I've done shows like fucking blitzed out of my mind.
00:24:34.080I've done shows like 2 in the morning, Times Square, where I was like 10 or 12 drinks.
00:24:38.580And I've done bumps and gone up on stage, which is not great to be honest.
00:51:05.640This is a lab of troll by Michael Malice from years ago.
00:51:09.440And he set this up and then he's just to get us all.
00:51:12.300Yeah, I don't know if we actually know who Sam is.
00:51:15.100So maybe even though I think he actually might have a podcast or something.
00:51:18.260But the other thing that throws a wrench into this metric here is let's say just hypothetically your dick has like a curvature to it and it like curves upward.
01:01:24.660Yeah, if you would tell that same person, I know one black guy that robbed someone, then that doesn't give you an excuse to be fucking racist.
01:01:31.220Oh, I was going to say the guy that died was probably also like 500 pounds or some shit.
01:03:45.900I'm not even saying that they were – like I'm not anti-science.
01:03:49.060I actually think like – and I'm not anti-profit motives of private companies.
01:03:52.880Like in my opinion, objectively, if we didn't have the FDA, I do think scientific companies could probably come up with really, really good cures for a lot of diseases.
01:04:02.080I'm not like against the fact that fucking Johnson & Johnson – it's when government gets involved and starts telling us that we have to have these things.
01:04:09.860And that like – and they go to fucking loony world.
01:04:11.860Like here's the biggest example of this being in loony world.
01:04:14.620If we think that this thing is a risk to us and there's a vaccine that will make you not at risk for it, then whoever is concerned about it can get the vaccine, and whoever is not concerned about it cannot, and we can be done with this.
01:04:27.680And people like me, if you're really convinced, if the government is really convinced that I'm being a fucking stupid idiot by not getting their vaccine, then good.
01:05:42.900I'm just saying if you were going to create one argument for government, it would say, hey, we've got a free rider problem that one guy can get away – pollute – whatever.
01:05:50.420Whatever the fuck example you want to come up with.
01:05:57.380In a year from now, if we find out that mRNAs are actually good for your health, then fucking we should all go get them and we'll go, oh, look.
01:06:11.860I mean I'm a somewhat healthy, bold, alcoholic 30-year-old, so I don't know that I can put myself in the health category.
01:06:17.260I'm sorry, but I'm just saying it's like your risk – by the way, the other thing that they don't talk about in terms of corona risk of death, the equation must have changed since they invented whatever the fuck they gave Donald Trump.
01:06:30.880Donald Trump they treated with corona with these – I almost forget what the drugs were.
01:06:43.620There's these other – when I first said, hey, we're past corona, man, fuck, I got to stop drinking because I used to have this on the tip of my fucking brain.
01:06:54.260Donald Trump was not treated with the vaccines that we're all getting.
01:06:58.600He was in the hospital for exactly two days, and they have treatments that I actually know one of – my great uncle, he got sick with corona, ended up in the hospital.
01:07:07.580They gave him the shit, and he's completely fine.
01:07:18.880There's a different course of treatment now outside of the vaccines that probably drops the death rate into nothing zone, and nobody's talking about that.
01:07:28.880So you as a healthy 30-year-old, what's your risk of death or your risk of serious – like for most people, right?
01:07:37.240Like how many people get corona and never even experience a symptom?
01:07:41.980And then how many people are getting two Moderna shots and then having three or four days where – or two or three days where they're sick, right?
01:07:48.020And what's your risk of death from getting corona versus your risk of death of potentially – like it seems to me like you're putting more risk on your plate by taking the mRNA, which is a unknown vaccine.
01:08:02.700I'm just saying if you're having a conversation about risk versus reward as a healthy 30-year-old, the risk you're putting on your plate by taking this unknown vaccine versus possibly getting corona again, possibly getting symptoms, and possibly being in that 0.0 whatever that actually doesn't just have symptoms but has serious health complications.
01:08:25.860Now your risk of death compared to the beginning of the virus versus post-Donald Trump where they have these other things that they will only give you in the hospital.
01:08:35.200Nobody – and here's the craziest part where I just – as the bullshit guy just going, that's a very – like I'm not that smart and I'm just laying out to you.
01:08:44.220Here's what the conversation should be.
01:08:46.580There isn't a single CNN, Fox News, Vox.
01:08:49.640There's not one person who will have a conversation around the numbers and go, here's what actually makes sense, which makes me go, hey, the entire system is fucking lying to me.
01:08:59.620We can all come up with ideas for what the agenda is, why they're lying to me.
01:09:04.200I'm just telling you I'm really good at sniffing out bullshit, and when it comes to these vaccines, there's a lot of bullshit.
01:09:09.300And that's basically what Joe Rogan was talking about, and that's what he got fucking slammed for.
01:09:14.100And it's so crazy that – and the other – oh, by the way, did you ever – because you mentioned it on the part of the problem about the – if the vaccine just improves your chances.
01:09:26.180Like if you have like – you're like 95% going to get – if you get COVID, you're going to be fine, and the vaccine just adds another 4%.
01:09:32.880So I'm not – I got to be honest about that one.
01:09:35.600I read that, and it makes sense to me.
01:09:38.420I've yet to be able to validate it, and I've spoken to a couple of health experts on Run Your Mouth, and I've specifically asked them about that.
01:09:45.180And the response from everyone I've asked is I'm not sure.
01:09:49.080From what I understand – I'll just explain the argument.
01:09:51.340From what I understand, I understand marketing.
01:09:54.300Pfizer, Moderna, they're trying to tell you the total amount that the – that being vaccinated will help you in terms of fighting off coronavirus.
01:10:06.440What they don't want to tell you is that you have a built-in immunity of let's say 60, 70, 80, or even 90% if like you're a super healthy Olympian or whatever the fuck you are, right?
01:10:18.240So when they tell you that like the Moderna shot is giving you a 95% immunity, what they're not telling you is that, well, 70% is your natural immunity and we're boosting you by another 25%, right?
01:10:30.700So that distorts the – this just goes back to that no one is doing real journalism.
01:11:06.880And if anything, that's what's great about the market is you get the hive mind.
01:11:09.700Nobody is reporting on the fact of what is my natural immunity versus my immunity by getting this, and that will create a very different calculation for – because am I going from zero to 95 or am I – or is this increasing my body's efficiency of killing this thing by 20%?
01:11:31.300That's a very different equation for deciding whether or not it's worth putting the risk under plate of that these things are largely unstudied, and we don't have a very good idea of the health complications that might come.
01:11:44.340And now – all right, again, I'm ranting, and I'll cut myself off in a minute.
01:11:47.960All right, let's also understand that they have said that AstraZeneca is safe.
01:11:54.960AstraZeneca has caused a lot of fucking blood clots.
01:11:57.380There were three days where Johnson & Johnson was causing blood clots and people were going to the hospital and they were going safe and effective.
01:12:03.060You look at the – I think it's called the Versa thing, right?
01:12:06.500Now, versus the amount more people that have gotten vaccines this year, the jump in vaccine deaths that have been reported is not astronomical.
01:12:15.980If you understand statistics, they're like – I'm saying the 2,000 people that might have been – that might have died as the result of vaccines versus the amount of people that got it, we're not talking about a large number.
01:12:26.760But we are talking about there have been 2,000 deaths at least.
01:12:31.620The only thing that could have caused those deaths is the coronavirus vaccine, and there's no news reporting about that.
01:12:39.660How is it possible that we've got a vaccine that's pretty clearly killing people, and that's going off of at least what I understand of being the CDC's reporting of fucking deaths related to vaccines, which obviously is going to be understated.
01:12:54.820There's no question that that thing is going to be understated, and there's no – but what happened since the beginning of – since the end of 2020 and 2021, there's a skyrocket in vaccine deaths.
01:13:05.980Now, granted, not a statistically significant number of deaths.
01:13:11.280There still is a major jump in deaths that were correlating to vaccines.
01:13:15.940We also know that that number is going to be understated, and there's zero reporting on it.
01:13:20.560So me, once again, not the smartest person in the room.
01:13:25.960I'm just saying where is the media machine, and here's one more element.
01:13:30.020For years, we've talked about fucking big pharma.
01:13:31.980Well, that's been left's biggest talking point is the fucking profits of big pharma and the way these medical companies work.
01:13:38.020Why are the pharmaceutical companies making all this profit?
01:13:40.680How is there not a conversation about the fact that big pharma is fucking killing people through a vaccine that's been un-fucking-researched?
01:13:47.880And if this is an insulin – if this is a fucking insulin deal, people will be all over it with the profits that they're going to be making inevitably from it, trying to push everybody to get it.
01:13:57.220And we've seen things where they're saying you might have to get another extra booster shot each year after you've done it.
01:14:02.880It's like this is a very, very gigantic money-making operation just like the Endless Wars, just like anything else that a good leftist would be able to recognize in any other circumstance.
01:14:11.220But the thing is about the 2000 deaths is like it's not – sure, statistically insignificant, unless you are a young, healthy person that got this vaccine that would otherwise be alive today.
01:14:23.220I mean, you just have to be able to make the risk assessment on your own, and that's why the mandate discussion appalled me in a way that was like I was ready to go to war over it.
01:14:32.920Because you just can't force this, particularly with something we don't have double-blind studies on to even know if it's efficacious, to know if it's safe.
01:14:41.320So fuck you if you think you're going to put it in me.
01:14:43.520By the way, just on that point that you made, which is so funny, it seems that the risk – the age group that seems to be having complications because of the vaccine is healthy 30-year-olds.
01:14:55.300Now, the irony of that is, wow, we actually have a perfect vaccine here that the at-risk categories are the people that are protected by taking the vaccine.
01:15:04.580Holy shit, that is a fucking act of God.
01:15:07.800Who would have thought that we invented a vaccine that actually only works for the at-risk categories?
01:15:12.880The problem is you won't know that until you fucking run the fucking studies.
01:15:17.200And so you've got – there was a Reuters article in Israel.
01:15:19.360Healthy 30-year-olds are starting – they're seeing an abnormal amount of cases of heart inflammation.
01:15:24.820I don't even know what the fuck that means.
01:15:26.760All of the cases of people that – the women who Johnson & Johnson killed, they were all 30-year-olds, all those blood clots, 30-year-olds, which is exactly what Clint's pointing out.
01:15:38.520It's like there's an oddity that it seems to be killing 30-year-olds, but then the risk calculation is, well, then maybe 30-year-olds are the group of people that shouldn't get this.
01:15:47.020They can't – they don't know that yet, which is the type of thing – that's what I was saying with the free rider.
01:16:22.280And he was just like, that's why we don't have to worry about – that's when the mask mandate is going to go away, when all the kids in the United States get this vaccine that –
01:16:30.820Literally the least vulnerable demographic for this fucking virus.
01:16:38.680But if you're under 40 and healthy – if you're under 60 and healthy, it's basically 0% chance you're going to die.
01:16:43.760So I don't even understand why we're doing this.
01:16:46.020I don't understand why we locked down.
01:16:47.240It should have been just the old and infirmed being protected from the get-go.
01:16:53.260And now we have a vaccine that only the old and the infirmed should be getting because those are the ones that are at risk for the life of me.
01:16:59.640That's what makes me lean towards a conspiracy type shit because it just doesn't make sense.
01:17:04.520Well, it's all about where there's money to be made.
01:17:06.260Like there's no money for big pharma in saying, well, you have natural immunity to this or that ivermectin is very effective against it or something like that.
01:17:17.900But that's – my point is like where is the left on this topic?
01:17:21.120If they are opposed to profiteering, particularly predatory profiteering by getting people to inject something that they don't need into their body to make money, then they should be fucking – where are the guillotines?