Free Speech Show - "Advice for the Candidates"

James Tripp, Pat Devine, Cathy Ladman, Carol Ann Leif, Mike O'Connell, Carrie Snow, and Steve Tatham join host Bill Bronner to give "Advice for the Candidates."
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Free Speech Show 15th Anniversary

James Tripp, Cathy Ladman, January Thomas, Bil Dwyer, Sean Green, Laurie Buckley and Steve Gelder join host Bill Bronner to celebrate the "Free Speech 15th Anniversary."
 
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"Free Speech Show" - My Life Is A Hobby

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Trippitorial - "Royalty"

As people were celebrating the sixtieth anniversary jubilee of the queen of England, you might have been wondering, “Why does England still have a Queen?”---especially since Freddy Mercury died. And why are peasants so mesmerized by their oppressors? Because they’re stupid peasants, but that’s not really the point I’m trying to make. Stupid peasant Royalists.

And who paid for that party? The taxpayers? “Yea! We’ve been oppressed for sixty years!” Listen, you don’t have to put these assholes up against a wall, but get them off the public dole. You can tell kings and queens are assholes, because they wear crowns. I don’t even own a hat.

Saudi Arabia has a king, Jordan has a king. Monaco is still fucked up. Royalty is what happens when cousins marry. That’s how the royal line stays pure. “God save our incestry…”

You know why royalty has existed for so long? Because there were no super Pac’s until now. Now that there are super Pac’s, I will be able to defeat any monarch in their own kingdom. The only question I have to answer is, “Which kingdom do I want?” Actually, there is a second question: does anyone have Sheldon Adelson’s phone number?

It’s time to put an end to monarchies, or to make me your King, although I prefer the title, “Emperor.” I’m James Tripp and I’ll be back next week with another Trippitorial.

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"Free Speech Show" - Spirituality, Atheists and Religion

Here's today's podcast with me, Laurie Buckley, Dave Plunkett and host Bill Bronner:

Panelists discuss spirituality, atheists, religion and my soon to be published book, The Hierophant.

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Trippitorial - "Polls" - May 4, 2012

Trippitorial - "Zoos" - April 27, 2012

"Free Speech Show" - The United States, Peace Keeper or Bully?

Here's today's podcast with panelists Laurie Buckley, Dave Plunkett, James Tripp and host Bill Bronner:

Panelists discuss the role of the United States in global politics.

"Comedy Nation This Week" - April 27, 2012

Here's today's podcast with panelists Laurie Buckley, Dave Plunkett, James Tripp and host Bill Bronner:

Panelists discuss the U.S. Presidential race, asteroid mining, the TSA, Egypt and more.

Trippitorial - Zoos

When I was a kid, I went to see an African lion in its natural habitat---the Bronx Zoo. I remember thinking that the Bronx was a weird place to find an African lion, but hey, we all came from Africa, right? What was I doing in the Bronx?

All those animals in all those cages---I wondered what they did to wind up behind bars. Did the monkeys in the monkey house fail to pay their taxes on all those bananas? Were the snakes in the snake house paying for some sin of their fathers? Were the elephants in some kind of an ivory smuggling ring? They must have done something.

Last week scientists found a rare white killer whale off the coast of Russia. My question of course was, “But what can he do with a beach ball?”

I feel bad for animals. They get captured and put in a cage without ever being charged. Try to imagine if somebody did that to you and shipped you off to some distant cage---say in Cuba. You wouldn’t like that would you? Wild animals deserve habeas corpus, even if people don’t. Bad people!

Zoos do a lousy job rehabilitating animals…if that’s even what they’re trying to do. Most of them are no more domesticated by the time they’ve served out their sentence, than when they began, but that doesn’t really matter because they’re never getting out anyway. Bogus zoo parole board!

Still, you’re not gonna get rid of zoos. Zoos are an entrenched interest. If they released all the animals, what would happen to the Zookeepers? They’d be out of jobs. Maybe they could join the prison guard’s union and start guarding human animals. Of course, they’re not as cute.

Even if the animals were liberated, most of them probably wouldn’t be able to adjust to jungle society and they’d just end up right back in a cage anyway.

 Zoos are obsolete. We don’t have to put animals in cages to see them. Most people have cable.

"Comedy Nation This Week" - April 20, 2012

Here's today's podcast with panelists Laurie Buckley, Dave Plunkett, James Tripp and host Bill Bronner:

Panelists discuss the War On Women, Citibank, Argentina's natinalization of YPF and more,

Trippitorial - Words

I don’t trust words or the people who use them. Nobody ever lied to me before I could speak. I should never have listened.

When you’re a baby, you can get a lot more by crying than by using complete sentences. Of course, it’s a simpler world with simpler wants. You either want to eat or evacuate what you’ve eaten. And only the first part requires any real effort. But once you learn how to speak, instead of people just giving you things, people start wanting things from you.

Once you learn a language, it’s hard to feign ignorance, unless you’re in Congress. The only reason my parents taught me to speak was so they could say, “eat your broccoli!” And I’d know what they mean. Before I had a facility with words, a perfectly acceptable answer was “Ba ba ba.” But as soon as you use words like, “I don’t like broccoli,” it sets up a confrontation, especially if you say it like that. I blame words.

Before I could speak, a simple facial expression could communicate, “Do I look like I like broccoli?” Of course, the same expression could indicate a buildup of gas, which broccoli can exasperate. That’s still no reason to use words. Why do you think that swear words are always the first words that kids want to learn in a new language? Because that’s what words do to you. The first thing you want to learn how to say is, “Fuck!”

Parents teach you how to speak to try to convince you that their view of reality is the correct one. People who already speak have stopped listening to them so they’ll talk to you until you stop listening, which will probably be sometime soon after you understand what they’re saying.

Once they have you listening, it isn’t long before they have you believing in Santa Claus and God and that the United States is a democracy. Do you really think you’d believe in Santa Claus if they didn’t use words to lie to you? It’s not like you’d be walking down the street one day and suddenly think, “Hey, I’ll bet there’s some fat, old guy in a red suit who’s going to climb down my chimney in the dead of a cold, dark winter’s night. Maybe I should call the police.”

Words. Who needs them? Next time you think, don’t use words. How would you think if you didn’t use words? How would you communicate? Maybe we’d develop telepathic powers if people would just shut up. Nobody would have to talk. Everybody would know what everyone else was thinking--- not much.

Trippitorial - "The War On Women" - April 13, 2012

"Free Speech Show" - The War On Drugs

Here's today's podcast with panelists Laurie Buckley, Dave Plunkett, James Tripp and host Bill Bronner:

Panelists discuss the War On Drugs

"Comedy Nation This Week" - April 13, 2012

Here's today's podcast with panelists Laurie Buckley, Dave Plunkett, James Tripp and host Bill Bronner:

Panelists discuss the 2012 election, ALEC, the War on Women, and Communists!

Trippitorial - The War on Women

Men bother me. If I’ve learned anything from women, it’s that men are pigs, especially when they hold erected office.

Why do some men want to tell all women what to do with their bodies, especially when these are the very men that most women don’t want anywhere near their bodies? Most of these men wouldn’t know what to do with a woman’s body. They don’t even know how to touch themselves, which would be a sin in their church if they did, especially if they did it in their church.

A man telling a woman what to do with her body is like a priest giving marriage counseling. Those who can’t do, preach.

It’s always stupid people who think they’re smarter than everyone else. These people think they know better than you do what you should do. It’s people who do what they’re told to do that want to tell you what to do. “I’m doing what I was told to do! You should too!”

These are the types of people who, when they were kids, ran home screaming and crying, “Mommy, he’s not following the rules!” That’s because he’s not a sucker. They’re not his rules. They’re not even your rules. They’re somebody else’s rules written to control you and you’re letting them control you. Sucker. And now you want to write some rules to control somebody else, you big bully!

I have nothing against the religion that most of these erected politicians follow except that most of them follow the religion. I’m not a big fan of followers. Religions are usually misogynistic with sex laws that are thousands of years old that pre-date birth control and feminism. Religious rules want to lock you into a marriage and they want you to have as many kids as you can to make the religion bigger.

If that’s what you want to do, that’s what you should do. If you don’t want to drink or smoke or have sex, that’s great, don’t. Me, I’m gonna do all those things. In fact, I’m probably going to do all those things with your daughter.

But that’s not the point I’m trying to make.  The point I’m trying to make is that just because the Declaration of Independence says, “All men are created equal,” it doesn’t mean these erected politicians should get cocky.

Anyway, the Declaration of Independence was written on hemp and that can’t be good. And most of these suckers never read it anyway. Another document most of them never read that was also written on hemp is the Constitution, the blunt that can be amended.

Remember the Equal Rights Amendment? Remember how it almost passed? They did a pretty good job defeating it when there was no internet or social media, but how do you think they’d fair today if women made passage of an Equal Rights Amendment part of the 2012 election? I think it’s a war they would lose.

Of course, women shouldn’t take this war too personally. These same pricks also want to tell men what they can do with their bodies. “Don’t smoke this, and don’t drink that and why would you want to put a needle in your arm?” Well, why wouldn’t you want to put a needle in your arm? Maybe I’m getting off the point.

Here’s a good thing to consider if you ever find yourself in a state house or Congress: if you don’t have a uterus, you don’t get to make laws about them.

Trippitorial - "Editorials" - April 6, 2012

"Comedy Nation this Week" - April 6, 2012

Here’s today’s podcast with me, Laurie Buckley, Dave Plunkett and host Bill Bronner:

Panelists discuss strip searches, CISPA, cell phone tracking, Oaksterdam and more.

Trippitorial - Editorials

I am so tired of people who write editorials. Every week they whine on and on about what they believe and they think that’s what you should believe and if you don’t believe what they believe then you’re an idiot, when all along they’re the idiot.

Who do these people think they are? And why would anybody listen to them? I hope you’re listening.

You don’t see me giving my opinion…unless you’re watching this. And you don’t hear me give my opinion unless you’re listening.

Nobody wants to hear anybody else's opinion. When’s the last time you woke up and thought, “Gee, I wonder what somebody else is thinking?”

Probably never. In fact, most people woke up this morning hoping the person sleeping next to them would just shut-up.

Sure, maybe you have an opinion. Does that mean I want to hear it? No.

Maybe I have an opinion. Does that mean you want to hear it? Of course not.

What do you care what I think? You don’t care what I think? What do I care?

What do I care what you think? If you were thinking, you wouldn’t be listening to me hoping I’d tell you what to think.

Maybe you’re not even listening. How do I know there’s anybody out there? Maybe I’m talking into a microphone for no reason. Maybe somebody ought to write an editorial about that!

What makes somebody think that other people want their opinions? I can’t think of what makes them think that. Maybe that’s something I ought to think about.

"Free Speech Show" - Loss of Privacy in the Digital Age

Here's today's podcast with me, Laurie Buckley, Dave Plunkett and host Bill Bronner:

The panel discuss the loss of privacy in the modern world.

Trippitorial - "Southern Strategy" - March 16, 2012

"Comedy Nation This Week" - March 16, 2012

Here's today's podcast with me, Laurie Buckley, Dave Plunkett and host Bill Bronner:

The panel discuss the recent GOP primaries, the War on Women, Sudan and more.

Trippitorial - Southern Strategy

I have never eaten grits. I’m not opposed to eating grits, but I’m not going out of my way to eat grits. And I’m certainly not going to eat cheese grits. With all apologies to my farming constituency, dairy is not always my friend, but that’s another story.

I don’t even know…what are grits? I know what “true grit” is, but I don’t think that applies in this situation, although in the movie, I think there was a scene where somebody was eating grits, but it might have been just mush, although then it would have been “True Mush,” and that’s a different movie altogether. I never had mush either. Is there a mush constituency? I know mush has a consistency.

Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that I don’t have a southern strategy. I have nothing against saying y’all, as a matter of fact, I just said it. It’s just that I typically don’t say it. I once said, “Blimey,” but that was in southern England. “Blimey!” It was kind of a Dick Van Dyke interpretation. But if I was to run for president, and I want to make it perfectly clear, I am not running, I don’t think I would change who I am.

Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich like to pander. Newt’s better at it, probably because he looks like a panda. When Mitt panders, you just don’t believe him. If a presidential candidate talks to you like you're a redneck and it doesn’t bother you, you might be a redneck. If you know the Ten Commandments better than you know the bill of rights, you might be a redneck. Wait a minute. That’s not my act. That’s an act?

The Republican candidates in the race I am not in have had their fun in the South and now they’re on to Missouri, Puerto Rico and Illinois. I wonder if Mitt Romney knows the owner of the Cubs. Rick Santorum, on the other hand, is not too good at pandering. He told a newspaper in Puerto Rico that if the territory wants to become a state, they’re going to have to speak English, just like Jesus.  I guess that’s one way to court the Catholic vote.

Of course, maybe his real audience for that remarkable remark was in the States. Maybe he’s not as dumb as his religious beliefs. Of course, you have to be dope to listen to a Pope.

It’s like LBJ said when he signed civil rights legislation, “we’re gonna lose the south until the 2012 election.