Comedy Centered Live

Hello. Hello, everyone. Okay, I'm rolling. Cool. Hi, welcome on in to Comedy Centered. Hi, Sherry. I'm in a different venue. I'm sitting outside. It's too, pardon my language. It's too freaking hot in my house right now. And there's some breeze out here, so hopefully the sound isn't like, terrible, terrible. So let me know if you're having a hard time hearing me in the jet. I live next to a freeway, so there's quite a bit of brown noise. Other people find that really annoying. Annoying. I like it.

My mother comes to visit and it freaks her out. She does not like hearing the sound of the freeway. I. I don't know. I've lived in a city for a long time. It doesn't bother me at all. But, hey, welcome in. For those of you joining for the first time Comedy Centered Live. Basically we get together at about six o' clock every Sunday and we kind of wrap. Usually I bring up a topic that has hit me or something I'm working on or something that's happened in the most recent. And we kind of talk about whether.

How can we navigate change more effectively. Oh, hey, Ms. Jules. Hello. Hello. I'm on my porch. It's too hot. I don't have central air, guys. That's a really like, first world problem to complain about. But I do not have central air. And my little window unit is not, not thrilled with me at the moment. So I'm sitting outside, so hopefully you guys can hear me. Welcome on in, Andy. So, but each week I just kind of bring something that's. That has been either stuck on my own personal mind or I'm hearing a lot of people express the feelings about.

And, you know, there was a. There's always. I mean, my God, there's a million things we could talk about each week. Right. And the change is coming in hot and fast for all of us, no matter what. Right. But I will say this. I don't think I've ever spent any time explaining how disorienting it is. At least for me, it was when you start working on yourself and when you start working on. What are the roots of some of my reactions to things, my coping mechanisms, where do these stem? Right. And a lot of it goes back to as we talk every week about, you know, your original family, you know, you were raised to do the things the way that they did them, and they did them the way that they were raised to do them and da, da, da, da.

Right. No, Right. No, wrong. We're not throwing anybody under the Bus. Just saying, right? That's, that's, that's how we learn as humans. Right? But the Internet, of course, has changed a lot of that. We don't get all of our information from just our family anymore. Right. Which can be a good thing. In the instance of somebody like myself, that is a good thing. Right. So the reason why I bring it up. So. And I'm not gonna go deep into politics, what I'm gonna go into is when you are, when you begin questioning things that you were told to just accept at face value from your family.

Okay. Not saying this is happening to any, any of you at the moment, but I'm gonna share this story because I, I feel like it's. Well, it makes sense. So I was raised in a very strict Irish Catholic family. My family is fourth generation on one side and fifth generation American on the other. So no one is, you know, an immigrant. Right. Directly. But as we know from generational stuff, that, that still plays it right. But both sides of that family, they were able to rise above poverty and get out of.

Because they all came through via New York City. And I don't know if you ever saw them. We gangs in New York, but not far off some of the living conditions. And, you know, especially on my one side, that was here a little bit earlier, Right. Fifth generation. So what they learned was the ones that survived, there was a lot of my family members who didn't make it. They learned you assimilate, you put your head down, you follow the law, you know, you listen to the man. And all of them joined the military.

Everybody went into the military. Everybody became a cop. Most of my relatives that are still New York are cops or firemen. Everybody. And I'm not saying they're being like that. They're like they're conditioned into that. I'm just saying that's been the family way. Right. And often what happens is when you're deciding to do something for yourself that's not the family way. The family reacts in very strange ways. At least I felt that they were strange. And as I've shared in the past, my training in school was law enforcement.

Never became a police officer, but I was raised in a very Republican household. A very pro military, pro Republican, excuse me, patriotic to the hilt. To the hilt. About America and Ireland. It wasn't, we love Ireland, we love America. Right? That was. That was our credo as a family. And it was about the early 2000s that some of my programming that I had received from my parents started to really contradict what I knew to be true. I'm not going to go into the politics of why I made that decision.

I'm just going to tell you when you start, and I say it all the time, but when you start showing up for yourself, for yourself, as yourself, and you start acting differently, you start questioning, questioning things that maybe you never questioned before, went along with before, or never fully understood before. You're gonna upset people, so just be prepared for it. I don't say it as a reason to prevent you from doing it. I'm just saying so you know you're not going to be alone. Okay, so along comes and I started doing stand up comedy full time in 2007.

Through the course of that, I meet a lot of different people from a lot, a variety of different walks of life. Shortly thereafter, I get a job at a radio station as an intern working for a hip hop station. And I worked on a hip hop morning show where our cast was black, the production staff was black for the most part. Management, of course, was still white, and so was sales. But, you know, it was good representation. And as, you know, much as I thought I understood as a white person, you know, about another person's culture, you know, I learned a lot, I learned a lot from that experience.

A lot of stuff that I didn't necessarily realize was kind of in there. I'd always got out of my way to try to view people equally, you know, but we do have unconscious stuff and it's, it's. We don't bring up unconscious bias to make you feel bad. But I mean, it's there. You know, we all have it to varying degrees. There is not a human being. And why do we have that? Why do we have bias towards one narrative or another? It's science. We're monkeys. We. There are over a hundred thousand pieces of information that are coming in at your, into your brain and your eyes and all this stuff to process at any given point.

Pretty much like you can't see it right now, but I can look outside my window. There's trees everywhere. And each one of those trees has thousands of leaves. My brain can perceive all of that and make sense out of that. So that's why we use stereotypes. It quickens and hastens the whether we have to go fight or flight on something. But as we talk about with CPTSD and ptsd, you start focusing on this, this bias that it's gonna be bad or that these stereotypes are always true. You can see where you can get into some faulty logic pretty early on.

Okay, so around 2008 it was. You know, as someone who had previously voted for Republicans, every other presidential election up until 2008, I didn't necessarily dislike John McCain, but Barack Obama spoke to me. And so I cast a vote for a Democrat and I told my family, here comes some language. Holy s***. I was not ready for that. Not ready, not ready in a million years for the reaction to that, the vitriol, the fury. My friends from college, we were all Republicans, we talked about it all the time.

I told them I was voting for a Democrat, they lost their minds. I, I, I, I didn't realize how much we like to act like politics doesn't really matter, but say you've changed your politics or you've changed your mind about an ideal. Wow. Wow. And so I bring this up and I think it's timely. You know, it's the one year anniversary of the assassination attempt on what was then candidate Trump's life, now President Trump. Right. And that day, I mean, one year ago today, the day after, I mean, I was in full PTSD meltdown.

I'm like, this is it. I mean, like, you know, like we've had assassination attempts many times, pardon the language, right, in, in, in our history. But you know, Kennedy and all that stuff, that all happened before I was born. So, you know, we were all scared, we were all scared to death about what was going on. Right? And so because of that, and I wanted to honor that and I also didn't want to be disrespectful to the Republicans in my life and the people that were supporting Donald Trump. You know, I felt like for the rest of that campaign it wasn't okay for me to even really talk about it.

So I did it. I did it. And why am I bringing this all up now? So I'm a TikTok lurker. I like to lurk on Tick Tock. I don't, I don't post things on there generally anymore, but I will go into rooms and listen. And the disappointment that I'm hearing in people that supported this candidate, that supported Donald Trump, and part of the reason why they supported him was because they believed he was going to expose some of the untruths and lies that our government tells us. And I'm here to tell you, yeah, I'm not here to tell you that the government doesn't lie to us.

Of course they do. Otherwise they can't control us. Of course they have to. You just like you have to control a toddler. You can't tell a toddler everything you can't, you know, human beings are smart, but people, groups of people, we're stupid. We're monkeys. Yeah, no, they can't tell us everything. You know, and I'm not saying that we can't handle the truth and that it should be all like, that it's all a cover up. But I'm seeing cracks in the brainwashing on some of these ideals and people are finally starting to recognize that maybe the reason why some of this reporting has never ever come out or these files don't come out or these things don't ever happen, it's because they just want to keep us fighting.

You know, they want to he want, you know, they want to keep us divided. I'm seeing, I'm seeing the cracks and I know how disorienting that is. And I don't know if my last point was really a good one or not, but I don't know that I really threaded that one well. But I'm not saying that's not why. I mean, you know, most people, the reason why. So the reason why nothing comes out for anything is because they screwed up or they don't want people to admit it, or they don't want to go to jail, or they don't want people to judge them or they don't want to find out they were wrong.

I mean, that's, that's always why people lie. People always lie for the same reason. It's self preservation. You know, it's because it's better, it's faster, it's quicker, it's less painless. It's a shortcut that is actually a long cut in disguise. But a lot of people don't know that. So you try it. But, but hearing some of, in real time in some of these rooms that I have spent a lot of time in, listening in the background that have been vehement supporters of the, of the current administration.

The handling of the flood in Texas, that horrible, horrible devastation, the lack of empathy about that, you know, the campaign promise that all of these secrets are going to be revealed and then secrets aren't revealed. I'm not a, even though I consider myself in some ways an amateur theologian because I do like studying a lot of world religions, mostly because I just like understanding how people tick and more importantly, how people justify hypocrisy. But I really want to relish this moment today, one year ago, after that terrible, terrible, terrible scene and that firefighter lost his life protecting his family.

You know, let's not forget, you know, and, but I think there has been this narrative that only the current president, he's the only politician that tells the truth. The other ones never do. And I think you're, you know, we're seeing in real time that all human beings, it's a little column a, little column B. No one's ever always truthful, and no one's ever always dishonest. There is truth in everything. You know, there's an admission in, in almost everything. And so regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum, again, I want to walk this back because it's really not about the candidate.

How do we feel about that candidate? What I've come to understand, at least in the dynamics of my family, others feel to chime in if you've different opinions, but because my, my family grew up in a very regimented, regimented. You follow the rules, keep your head down, blend in, be polite, be nice, not too nice. You know, don't be a jerk, don't be a sucker. But really, just, you know, just stay in your lane, Keep your mouth shut. If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.

Right. Because of that mindset. Having me as a child was awful for them. Awful. I can see that now. I, I, I have no compliance. Although, actually, I am in charge of compliance partly during my day job, but, but like, I mean, I'm not a, I'm not, I wasn't like that. I, I question things. I'm, I'm the annoying kid. Why? Why, why, why, why? You ever seen the movie Bad Santa? The kid keeps asking questions like, that was me. Right? And I still do, and I still keep asking questions. I will just say, though, that when those, I will call it a crack in the conditioning that you've received, when that starts happening and you start questioning more and more, I'm here to hold your hand.

I'm here to let you know if it's disor, Disorienting and icky and awful. Yeah, well, then you're probably doing it right. I know you don't want to hear that, but, but yeah, I mean, the, the topic of politics has broken my family apart. Everybody still, even right now, today, everybody's soul, you know, supports it. And, you know, they've been mocking me for about 10 years, sometimes to my face, mostly behind my back, but, I mean, are we gonna live our lives for what other people think about us? You don't have to think what I think.

You don't have to do what I do. Right. Right. Okay. I'm gonna catch up in the Chat. Okay. Yeah. Good. Oh, Jules. Yeah. That's how we come together as a collective. Yes, absolutely. You know, I mean, this is not good. I'm not trying to alienate anybody. I'm not trying to draw on cheap parallels, but it is one that's been talked about quite a bit. So I'm going to use it, and I hope in an appropriate way and not. And not in any kind of a. A demeaning way. But when they describe. And I've spent a lot of time studying this again, when they describe the end days of a movement, okay, not calling it a call a movement that.

When it's a sudden and abrupt end to a movement like that, where everybody just kind of packs up and drops their tool, goes home, right? They're like, huh? Right. When that happens, it doesn't always. It doesn't happen often. Where does that energy go? That energy we're putting into that. Cause that energy you were putting into that belief system, that energy that you were putting into what you believe truly in your heart was probably the right thing. And what we've seen in these situations where the promises of the leader don't come true and it fizzles out, not everybody's going to give up that.

Not everybody's going to move on and go home, right? But when that fails to happen and they start looking at the person that they have been defending for 10 years against people like me, they think they're helping their leader. They think they've helped him. They think keeping, you know, his reputation good is. Is. Is their job and defending, you know, against any. Any negativity towards him and any criticism towards him, and. And I will just throw it out there, but does that kind of sound like a little bit when we talk about having a malignant parent, a malignant narcissistic parent, and you're the golden child in the dynamic, in the relationship, and you're sh.

Everybody fine. Everybody fine. No, no, no, no, no, no. Everything. Everything they do is good. I'm the golden child. I'm the cheerleader, right? And I think a lot of people are starting to realize they really thought that they were this man's cheerleader, that they really. They really did care about them. And because he cared about them so much, he was going to be the first politician in history to really pull back the curtains and expose all the bullshits, which would be great. But a lot of people have.

Have. Have. Have already attached their. Themselves and in their mind to this outcome. That there are other people on those tapes that they don't like that will be implicated. So they don't mind if, if, if stories come out about the, the president, as long as they also come out about people they don't like politically. No, this doesn't sound like a dysfunctional family at all. There's one kid who is the golden child, and there's other kids that are like. And, you know, anytime something bad happens, the other one grabs a knife, fork starts cutting up like a steak.

Dining on it. Come on. Okay, I'll catch up here. Sometimes people have to agree to disagree because everyone has the right to their own opinion. They do. Everybody has the right to their own opinion. However, I find, and this is where I personally get upset, you know, my opinion. I am not shy. I don't mean you personally, Jules. I love you, but I mean, like the people in my life, you know, I'm, you know where I'm at, you know, exactly what I believe. They still bring it up because, see, that's a little.

Can I reel you into a conversation where I get to discharge anger at you? Liberal. They're mad they can't fight with their other friends, so they try to troll a liberal. This is, and I again, this is behavior I've been seeing over and over again as a female comic online, online for a year. Ever since Kamal Harris was listed or made the nominee. I've had non stop, non stop misogynistic trolling attacks. And they usually leave with their tail between their legs or block me, which is always my favorite because that's how I know I won.

But my point being is, yes, everybody's entitled their opinion, but when you're purposely going to someone who you know does not agree with you, and you're right, well, you know, oh, agree to disagree. You're picking a fight. And you know what? You're picking a fight. You know, you want something out of that. What do you want? What do you want? You want dopamine? We're all dopamine starved. You don't you get dopamine from wine. You can get it from, you know, adult relations, a lot of things. A runner's high.

You can also get it from fighting. You also get a lot of adrenaline too, you know, so it's about actually respecting someone when they say, I do not agree with you and then leaving it alone. That's the part where people are missing. And I'm not saying it's on only on one side. Have you ever seen, you know, comic. A lot of my friends are considered liberals. They cannot let things go either, believe me. This is human stuff. It's not political stuff. But they distract us by saying it's about this policy, this politician, or this party.

No, it's not. Most Americans who are mad have every single right to be mad, but they're not mad at the people they think. You're not mad at the barista with the blue hair. You're not really mad at the queer kid with the backpack. That's not what you're really mad about. You're mad because your dad never loved you. You're mad cuz your mom always ignored you. You're mad because you weren't the favorite. You're mad because the rent's too. You're mad because you, you've never gotten a fair shake. These are all real legitimate problems that, that you, that are probably in your life and weighing you down.

And they're legitimate. We got to talk about those. But to skip over our own personal responsibility and to only point fingers and never use the thumb and look at what the common denominator is. And all of our problems is us. And how are we walking out into the world with our problems? You know, if. I know I have friends, I have a couple dear friends that I work with in real estate. We both know that we do not agree politically. You've never had a conversation about not talking about it. I don't bring it up.

They don't either. That's how that works. When something good happens for their guy, they don't bring up the topic. When something good happens for my guy or what, a girl or whatever, I don't bring it up. That's actually how you agree to disagree. You know, I grew up in a family where they always said, no religion, no politics. Yes, those are good rules for social situations. Yes, those are good rules. Especially if you're in a bar. Don't talk religion to politics. In any bar ever, anywhere there's alcohol, Please.

It's not safe. But that doesn't mean we, we should never talk about it. Everybody hides behind all these hurt feelings and all this anger. And they say, but it's my personal politics. Yeah, but you're taking it out on everybody around you. So now it's not just your personal space when you go out to the world and, you know, put it out there. And so I offer this. Not to be mean, but I'm tired of not. I'm tired of adults not taking ownership of what else could be going on besides just that? You like that?

I mean, you know, I mean, I'm a, I'm a Football fan. I like my team, but it doesn't mean I can't appreciate other teams talent. Doesn't mean I don't watch the super bowl unless my team is in it. You know, there's nothing more personal than politics. It's the most human thing we do. It's how we decide as strangers, as people that are all vastly different from vastly different walks of life, from different needs, different desires, different hopes. And we get together as a group and figure out how to govern each other so we don't literally treat each other like monkeys.

So how are we going to do better about that? You know, that's a question for all of us. Me too. You know, I get very much stuck in life, in my lane of this is what's right and this is what's wrong. But I also have to back down and go, well, yeah, but that's also, you're, you're also rebelling a little bit. You know, no one likes being wrong. I will say this though, the quickest way to feel better about yourself and to end it, if you, if you've changed your mind about something, like to really get over it quick, you go to anybody, you're really vocal about it, go, you know what?

I changed my mind. I wasn't right about that. I was wrong about that. I wanted you to know that because I told you I was right and I don't think I'm right about that. You will instantly open a conversation, and probably a really good one, because that's all anybody is waiting for, the other person to do. Every relationship you have, your spouse, your kid, your mom, your dad, your aunt, your uncle, your boss, your co worker, you just want somebody to say they were wrong, they were sorry, and they apologize.

If we can master that, we can get all, we can get over all of this stuff so much quicker and get back to work and doing what we're all supposed to do as Americans, which is, you know, be the leaders of democracy for the world and show people how that no matter what our differences is our. No matter how bad it gets, no matter how divided it seems, no matter how on the brink it seems we are now. Not, we're not any more in the brink than we've been in the past. We just have video for it now. As long as we choose to fight for it, as long as we choose to do it.

That's my, that's my two cents. I know it was a rant. Hopefully everybody could hear me okay with the outside and that, but okay, let me just see if I missed anything in the chat yet? I retired. I spent three years sending emails. I'm very tired. Yeah, Yeah, I. I mean, you know, here's the thing. You know, I. Again, you guys know I'm neurodivergent, right? When I was really in my. I was really in an attack. I was an attack face, I. I went to chat gbt, and I started doing a bunch of research, and I did the numbers.

I actually added up how many members there are in the entire US Military stationed here and abroad, plus all of the state, local, federal officers that we have, including private police officers, which there are over a million private police officers in this country. Didn't know you could hire your own police officer. Oh, yeah, you can, right? It's still 68 to 1. 68Americans to everyone. And, you know, so again, it is we the people. It really is us. But if half the 68, if each of us are just gonna sit and keep fighting, then, you know, then there won't ever be accountability.

There won't ever be real transparency. And isn't that what we're all trying to work on? Everybody in the AA community, everybody in the recovery community, everybody in the mental health community, all we're really trying to do is crack this door open on all this generational stuff. We're not saying get rid of your traditions. We're not saying get rid of your values and your background and your pride. But just look. Just look and see if there's other ways to consider. Just give it a shot, that maybe, just maybe, other people aren't that scary.

They're not that different from. From you. And. And. And you don't have to understand their language to be able to look and see they're doing the same thing you are. They're trying to raise their family. They're trying to go to work. They want to come home on a Friday, put their feet up, cook a nice dinner, get up on Saturday morning and wash the truck like everybody else. You know, we're not that different. We're really, really not. You know, so. All right, everybody. We stay centered. Navigating change.

Hey, that's what we're all here for. You know, that's. We're all here for Ms. Jules, YouTube and, you know, I love meeting up with you guys. And, yeah, if there's ever anything you want to rap about or talk about, always hit me up in the. The. The. The Cadre. Why can't I think of the app? Why can't I think of words? Now, all of a sudden, a motorcycle went by. I got distracted. Sorry. Shiny. Anyway. All right, you guys have a good night. Happy Sunday. We will see you next week. Oh.