Jimmy Stewart joins us on the pod to talk about his thoughts on the current political climate, his views on vaccines, and why he thinks we should be encouraging more people to have dreams and aspirations. We also talk about the importance of mental health and why we should all be encouraging people to do the same.
00:01:54.000I have, I can't, lots of my degree was politics and sociology and kind of, you know, studying Foucault and Marcuse and Adorno and Lyotard and all those kind of guys.
00:02:05.000Right kind of, you know, in the 90s when that stuff was really taken off.
00:02:11.000The kind of cultural Marxist thing. And I don't know, it's a very strange world now where sort of Marxism and the left have left, they've left economics behind.
00:02:20.000And it strikes me that the most important factor is money in the modern world in terms of, you know, the equality of opportunity.
00:02:27.000I mean, the idea that there'll be equality of outcome just seems like a nonsense to me.
00:02:32.000It's just never going to happen because we're not, you know, equality of effort doesn't exist and we're all given different gifts.
00:02:38.000You know, I think we, so much of it is, is, is, is nature.
00:02:42.000You know, and so much of nurture is nature.
00:02:44.000So much of it is just, it's our factory settings.
00:02:48.000I mean, what you want to do is, is give people agency.
00:02:51.000That seems to be the, the, the, the great sort of freeing factor.
00:02:54.000So I don't know about, you know, politics I never really comment on, but it strikes me that the great, the saddest thing in my life was when universities started charging.
00:03:02.000That for me was the, was just the, the, the end in terms of going, that was the, that was the ability to move from class to class.
00:03:50.000It's, it's interesting that you say that because there's the way that you present and the way that you appear are two very different things.
00:03:59.000Well, I think you have to be aware in the world about, um, it's character and reputation, isn't it?
00:07:24.000It's about that kind of authority from above.
00:07:26.000And do you think part of this is, Jimmy, that we've, in the West particularly, we've just got so comfortable that a lot of these crazy ideas now just, they're quite tempting because we've sort of got nothing better to think about.
00:07:37.000I think, I mean, I think gratitude is the mother of all virtues.
00:07:41.000And I think the more gratitude you have, the better your life is.
00:07:45.000But from a political standpoint, I think the thing about gratitude is we can't even see the freedoms that we've had.
00:07:52.000We don't even conceive of, it's kind of the Chesterton's fence.
00:07:56.000The idea that we don't know what the U.S. Navy is for because we've so taken it for granted the last 70 years.
00:08:03.000And really, it's only when, I mean, if you look at kind of the sweep of what's going on in the world today, I'm sure your listeners and viewers are very aware, but the idea that really since the fall of the Berlin Wall, America has become more isolationist with every single president, right?
00:08:19.000So they're pulling back and they're spending less on their navy.
00:08:21.000And I'm sure lots of people would go, well, good, good.
00:11:12.000But we've left an incredible sort of gift to the world in our language and in our culture.
00:11:19.000And I think we could, I mean, broadly speaking, I think we should have bitten America's arm off when they offered us a trade deal post-Brexit.
00:11:36.000They're going to have the most incredible 20 years.
00:11:38.000The next 20 years for America, they can afford to have a terrible political system because the gifts that they have geographically and demographically, they are just in the sweet spot, the absolute sweet spot.
00:12:05.000It's going to be a boom time for the states.
00:12:07.000I think we should, you know, pin ourselves to that.
00:12:11.000You're not worried about the states because we get loads of people coming on who are saying, you know, this is the end time for the United States, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, et cetera, et cetera.
00:13:16.000We have no God-given right to rule over people.
00:13:20.000Well, you start with that and you very quickly get to the rights of man.
00:13:24.000And the idea that, you know, we can rule, but it has to be by consensus and it has to be just.
00:13:29.000And when people need rights and they need the right to free speech and they need the right to protest is very important and the right to petition.
00:13:35.000All of these things come from that sort of initial premise.
00:13:38.000And that document is just, it's genius.
00:13:40.000And yeah, America's got its problems, but they're all fixable.
00:13:44.000Well, this is the thing that I think people are concerned about in terms of America.
00:13:57.000I mean, the thing, I kind of think that thing about the certain, there's a certain sort of, certain people that are just so shocked by the state of the world.
00:14:05.000You go, have you never read any history?
00:14:20.000You know, it's that, that, I think I picked up the fact from the show actually, the, the idea that we did, we did a Hiroshima every six weeks in Europe.
00:14:29.000Yeah, that was something I talked about.
00:14:30.000Throughout the last two years of the war.
00:18:53.000And I feel that sometimes at comedy shows.
00:18:55.000I feel sometimes like, why are people obsessed by going to comedy shows or going to Glastonbury and feeling part of this big thing and they all want to be part of a group.
00:19:02.000I saw a couple of bands recently play live.
00:19:04.000I saw the Peche Mode in Paris last week and it was genuinely religious.
00:19:07.000It was like this incredible experience of like being part of a group and all sort of singing together.
00:19:13.000We've kind of lost a little bit of that.
00:19:14.000And that's why, you know, when I don't watch as much football as I used to, but when people go, oh, I don't understand why people are football fans.
00:24:33.000And the idea that we're telling people now to have a portfolio approach to life and to have lots of different things going on and different side hustles.
00:26:57.000Like even now, if someone sort of sees my notes or handwriting, I'm, I'm embarrassed by it.
00:27:02.000I, you know, it's very, uh, childlike and, uh, it's, it's difficult for me.
00:27:05.000I don't really think in what I sort of do a letter at a time.
00:27:08.000Uh, but that's, I suppose that thing of like getting into Cambridge was a big deal for me because I didn't want to be a dummy.
00:27:15.000I, I, I sort of, I'm very aware you are a story you tell yourself.
00:27:19.000And so I changed schools when I was 16 and I would really recommend this if you have kids or if you're listening to this and you're young and you have a narrative that you don't like.
00:27:29.000Oh, I'm the guy that messes around and I'm a loose cannon and I'm badly behaved.
00:27:34.000Just put yourself in a new environment and reinvent yourself.
00:27:39.000Because when you travel on your own, you get to, you kind of arrive and you can kind of go, well, I could tell any story I want.
00:27:44.000And it's not bullshit. You're just kind of, you're just changing it slightly and going, well, I could, I could be this now.
00:27:49.000And I remember changing schools and you know, it's often, it's often the way my, uh, a guy called Mr. Clay and a guy called Mr. File, first name, not pedo.
00:27:58.000Very good guy. Sort of saw us on the first day at this new school.
00:28:02.000And I sort of went, oh, I'd quite like to go to Cambridge.
00:28:04.000And he went, yeah, okay. You seem bright enough. Very good at writing, but we'll get around that.
00:28:10.000And then that was about pattern recognition, which is really one of the gifts of standup comedy.
00:28:15.000What are standups good at? What are jokes? It's pattern recognition.
00:28:17.000A lot of it's pattern recognition. So it's that thing of like going, you don't copy someone's essay, but you read a couple of A grade essays and you figure out, okay, well, that's how they look.
00:28:25.000I could do that. You figure out how jokes work and then different types of jokes and you figure out how to reverse engineer.
00:28:32.000I think comedians, I think our minds are quite, quite similar to detectives in that most people are thinking about what's next.
00:28:39.000And we're thinking about, well, this is what's going on. What just happened?
00:28:42.000It's quite an interesting way of thinking.
00:28:44.000But that way of thinking can sometimes lead you to being distracted and unfocused because you're going, well, this is going on, but what's over there?
00:28:53.000And that makes for a good joke with that kind of tangential thinking, but also as well, it can lead to a kind of unfocusedness when it comes to...
00:29:02.000I don't know, maybe I got lucky as well in the timing.
00:29:05.000You know, I came to comedy in my mid twenties and it felt like Indiana Jones getting his hat back.
00:29:10.000It felt like I had one shot at this for a life less ordinary.
00:29:17.000So I went from working for a big oil company to going, well, yo ho ho, a pirate's life for me.
00:29:22.000I'm off doing this thing. And the people that I met, I found it incredibly inspiring, the world of standup comedy,
00:29:27.000because it's a great community out for ourselves, but in it together.
00:29:32.000You know, we're all kind of, you know, lone wolves, but we all sort of come together and it's a great community.
00:29:39.000So one of the things that everyone I've spoken to who knew you in your early days in standup says is that you were just a level above everybody in terms of professionalism.
00:29:49.000You'd turn up and you'd say, here's my business card. What's your phone number? You'd write it all down.
00:29:53.000You'd write it all down. This might be the faintest praise there's ever been.
00:29:57.000The most professional comedian is like being the tallest dwarf.
00:29:59.000Well, right. It's the best looking guy in the burns unit, right?
00:30:02.000It's like, yeah, yeah, okay. But, but that thing of like going, taking it very seriously from the jump and being,
00:30:08.000I mean, my first Edinburgh show was called Barefaced Ambition, because I knew I'd entered this world.
00:30:12.000I went, I want this. This is amazing. And really, I walked into a graveyard.
00:30:16.000There was nothing going on in comedy 25 years ago. It was not a career. Now I think it's a career.
00:30:21.000Really? So even 25 years ago, it wasn't a career.
00:30:23.000There was not much going on. There was no one really touring when I started touring.
00:30:27.000I remember us kind of booking the rooms and it was like, it was very old school comics would be maybe playing that room or someone had played it a few years before, but there weren't.
00:30:34.000I mean, now you get any theatre in the UK and we're blessed with this incredible number of theatres around the country.
00:30:40.000And you look at them and four nights a week, there's a comedy show. It's amazing. It's amazing how many people are out there touring now.
00:30:46.000It's become, the industry has grown hugely during the time I've been in it.
00:30:52.000And I've kind of ridden that wave. I think it's been, it's been like a, comedy's very new.
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00:31:28.000If you think about it, really, you could sort of trace it back, I mean, you can trace it back to ancient times, obviously.
00:31:33.000There's always been trickster guards and all of that, but really, George Carlin and Richard Pryor, Billy Connolly over here,
00:31:42.000the idea of these guys in the early 70s being on stage for an hour or more, talking, and people paying to see them.
00:31:49.000And there being a couple of amps, that's it. That's really quite new.
00:31:54.000And really, when you think about what that means for guys like me, it feels like you get to be the Beatles.
00:32:01.000You get, you know, George Carlin and Billy Connolly, they're kind of John the Baptist, and you kind of created this thing,
00:32:06.000and then there's more and more people getting into it. I think comedy should be taught in our schools.
00:32:09.000I'm a huge advocate for this, because you think about, like, learning music.
00:32:13.000Music's nonverbal communication, and there's a huge value in teaching kids music.
00:32:17.000But how much practical application is there for grade three piano in life? I'd argue not much.
00:32:23.000But comedy, what does it teach you? Well, I suppose it teaches you how to write down and order your thoughts,
00:32:29.000and it teaches you how to sort of discover your own voice, and it teaches you how to communicate,
00:32:34.000and it teaches you some public speaking. They're all pretty useful things in pretty much any life.
00:32:39.000I mean, the great tragedy is most people live and die, and they never get to hear their own voice.
00:32:45.000And really, just doing a short stand-up course, it will kind of, it teaches you kind of, you become who you are.
00:32:51.000And there's something great about finding your voice in comedy, because you kind of don't know.
00:32:57.000I mean, I used to love, I love storytelling comedians. I mean, I love all different types of comedy,
00:33:01.000but storytellers I adore, and I'm not one. I sort of don't, I'm trying to work on that.
00:33:07.000I've got a fastball, and I'm trying to work on my knuckleball, and especially in the new special,
00:33:11.000I'm trying to do some different things. But it's really interesting that you go, you come out kind of fully formed.
00:33:15.000You go, oh, I'm a one-liner guy. I wouldn't have necessarily predicted that when I got into comedy,
00:33:19.000that one-liners would be my love language.
00:33:22.000Because when you started, you used to do musical comedy, didn't you?
00:33:25.000I did a couple of things with guitars and songs early on, just kind of trying some different stuff,
00:33:31.000and telling some stories, and doing other stuff. It was interesting.
00:33:34.000But then I pretty quickly, I suppose it's that thing of the feedback loop of comedy is so valuable.
00:33:39.000It's so, it's such an easy job, really, compared to music. People, musicians, go away for 18 months,
00:33:44.000and they make a record, and they release it, and I wonder, will people like it?
00:33:47.000Whereas me, I wrote some jokes yesterday, I was on stage in Cardiff last night,
00:33:51.000I read them off a piece of paper, but laugh, laugh, no laugh, no laugh, laugh, laugh.
00:33:56.000Great. They tell me. The audience is a genius. It's a wonderful thing.
00:34:00.000It is a wonderful thing. And we're looking at comedy.
00:34:03.000So I started comedy in 2009, and 2009 was kind of the apex of pretty much the Frankie Boyle era of stand-up comedy,
00:34:12.000where he was on Mock the Week. And the more offensive you could be, the better.
00:34:17.000But if you didn't tell a rape joke on stage, you were kind of this sort of left-wing cuck figure,
00:34:22.000that everyone would kind of look down on you, particularly in the open mic.
00:34:26.000And now, we went through a period where it felt like it was very restrictive.
00:34:31.000Do you think we're still in that period now? Or are you going to disagree with my analysis?
00:34:36.000Which you're more than welcome to. I think I would disagree with your analysis.
00:42:43.000Well, there's an Overton window in politics, right?
00:42:45.000We talk about what is and what is an acceptable policy, and that moves through time.
00:42:49.000There's also an Overton window in society, where what's acceptable to talk about and what isn't acceptable to talk about in society.
00:42:55.000And I think comedy plays a big part in that.
00:42:57.000So both on the edgy stuff, the super edgy, well, we can talk about these political things, because the comedian started the conversation.
00:43:05.000So when Dave Chappelle talks about stuff, and it becomes a huge issue, well, that's culturally very relevant.
00:43:10.000But also, when, you know, someone at Edinburgh might start talking about mental health, and then the paper do a big article about this young guy talking about his mental health struggles.
00:43:18.000And you go, oh, that's very interesting.
00:43:19.000And it opens that Overton window of conversation.
00:43:22.000That's a very, very healthy, good thing for society, in my view.
00:43:26.000And that's, that's really, and I think comedy's got that ability to kind of, it sugars the pill.
00:43:31.000You can talk about these incredibly difficult things.
00:43:34.000I mean, there's a whole bit at the end of the new special, The Natural Born Killer, where I have the talk with a young man.
00:43:41.000And basically school him on consent, and sex, and what you should do, and what you should ask for, and what's okay, and what's not okay.
00:43:48.000And it's fucking hilarious, and super rude, like crazy rude.
00:43:52.000But I'm not wrong about anything, innit?
00:43:54.000And it's, it feels like it's a really valuable thing, because they might just listen to me.
00:43:58.000Whereas, you know, I don't know how else they're, what, no one else is doing that messaging.
00:44:03.000People are far too keen on going, oh, well, that's obvious, we don't need to talk about that.
00:44:08.000Do you see yourself almost as kind of a release valve?
00:44:11.000So people who, maybe in their own personal lives, they can't talk about certain things, or they feel constrained at work, yet they come to watch you.
00:44:19.000The lights go down, it's a darkened room, you make jokes about all these different topics, and that's a cathartic experience.
00:44:27.000Yeah, I think there's a, I think there's a real truth to that.
00:44:29.000I think it's a very, I mean, it's interesting, actually, the, you talk about Christianity, doing that stuff in America felt much edgier than doing it here.
00:44:36.000And actually, as you travel around, you sort of notice, oh, wow, that was much edgier in South Africa than it was in the UK.
00:44:42.000Because, you know, it's, it's, religion's much bigger.
00:44:47.000Yeah, well, they're actually religious in America, and that's what I was going to ask you, because my sense is that the conversation we started earlier,
00:44:54.000which was about God and belief, and the lack of purpose and the lack of meaning that increasingly in our societies people experience,
00:45:01.000is pretty, like, Jordan Peterson is on tour now, and I'm going to be joining him because he wants to have a conversation about his last book,
00:45:08.000his latest book is called We Who Struggle With God.
00:45:11.000And my sense is, this is going to become a big talking, not a talking point, it's a wrong phrase, but like, this is a big thing that people are going to be talking about,
00:45:20.000and comedians stop making fun of Christianity, really, in the way that they did during the Carlin and Hicks era.
00:45:26.000Have you, have you seen the new special?
00:45:35.000Well, I'm excited, I, look, I'm excited for you, mate.
00:45:37.000I'm excited to see how you, I'm excited to see how your show does in Alabama.
00:45:42.000But my point is something else, which is, I think, I don't know if you agree with me on this, but I sense that there is a God conversation coming.
00:45:51.000Um, as you mentioned, the God-shaped hole in everybody.
00:45:54.000Um, and it just feels like this is the moment when we're going to have a different take on it going forward.
00:45:59.000Do you see what I'm talking about, or does this make no sense to you?
00:46:02.000I think there's, there's, um, listen, there's, there's, there's always going to be, there's a, there's a movement and then there's a counter movement.
00:46:08.000And the, the new atheist movement sort of came along, and now there's kind of a counter movement against it going, well, don't throw it all away.
00:46:14.000But I don't think that's about saying, well, necessarily subscribe to this religion.
00:46:37.000Because it's, it's all self-help is prioritized later.
00:46:39.000Every self-help book, that's the core prioritized later.
00:46:42.000And God is, well, do, do this now for a better life later.
00:46:47.000And the issue is they're promising heaven.
00:46:49.000So when you're promising heaven, well, by any means necessary, because it's heaven we're talking about here, it's perfection.
00:46:56.000And I think there's something about Marxism, which is very similar because Marxism promises, albeit in a, in a very secular way, they promise perfection.
00:48:31.000All of the COP 23 aims, all of the stuff, all of the, we're going to bring down CO2, all of the, we're going to, we're going to decrease the amount of fuel that we use at the expense of poor people.
01:04:32.000Because you're just starting out, and you're kind of finding your feet, and you're kind of machete through the jungle, trying to find your way.
01:07:10.000And there are difficulties that occur.
01:07:12.000What are some of the most useful strategies that you've discovered in addition to the one you were just talking about for being effective and being happy and being successful in life?
01:11:05.000No, I was going to say the interesting thing with Chris Rock is, is that Chris Rock is actually very controversial, but he's not controversial in a way because of the topics he tackles, but rather in the way he tackles them.
01:11:17.000That he's, he doesn't, when people think of what Chris Rock is going to say, a lot of the time they can't predict it.
01:11:25.000And when he actually talks about a subject, you actually find yourself thinking, I've never actually thought of it like that.
01:11:32.000I think he's, he's very classically dialectical because he'll set up a thing.
01:11:37.000He'll say his premise will be, and he'll get the whole audience will boo the premise.
01:11:42.000And then 10 minutes later that this fucking guy, it's, I mean, he's incredible, but it's that thing where you go to be in that industry, to be, to be able to be on the same bill as someone like that.
01:11:59.000It's, I mean, pressure is a privilege.
01:12:21.000To be in that room, to be in that company, it's like, it's, it's, you're breathing kind of rarefied air and every day is a school day.
01:12:28.000You know, it's a great thing with comedy where you go, and sometimes it's the greats.
01:12:32.000And sometimes you're with kind of relatively new people and, you know, at a festival, whatever, you're watching someone and get something out of that too.
01:12:38.000You know, it's like, the great thing about comedy is anyone can come up with something fantastic.
01:12:46.000I love that what you said there, the pressure is a privilege.
01:12:49.000And it's so true, because when you feel pressure, that's a moment where you're in those defining periods of your life, where you know that...
01:13:36.000And I think it's one of the reasons that Jordan Peterson became as big as he did, because he was telling people, go out and slay the dragon effectively, which is basically what you're saying.
01:13:44.000And I'm curious, with your attitude about agency, which I completely agree with, it's interesting that we do seem to live in an age where a lot of people are being counseled to go in the opposite direction and see themselves as a victim of circumstance, victim of the political system, victim of this, victim of that.
01:16:05.000Pretty much every comic I know had a sick parent, either physically or mentally.
01:16:09.000My mother was, uh, suffered with depression.
01:16:11.000And so being able to change the mood and to make her happy and make her laugh was something that, so I became the thermostat mood-wise in the house.
01:16:22.000I was able to do that, to make people laugh, to make things okay.