[00:00.000 --> 00:01.200]  For our keynote.
[00:02.800 --> 00:03.840]  Just a couple of updates.
[00:04.020 --> 00:05.240]  Things are going exceedingly well.
[00:05.420 --> 00:08.560]  Everybody seems to be having fun, both here and on the second floor.
[00:09.340 --> 00:10.760]  No major incidents at all.
[00:10.920 --> 00:13.700]  Everybody is being really good to the hotel.
[00:13.820 --> 00:14.840]  The hotel is being good to us.
[00:15.040 --> 00:19.320]  And I want to thank everybody for attending and for making this a really successful conference.
[00:20.840 --> 00:21.240]  Thanks.
[00:25.570 --> 00:28.610]  For those who don't know, we have Jello Biafra here as well.
[00:28.710 --> 00:30.570]  He'll be speaking at 9 o'clock.
[00:34.100 --> 00:41.520]  And just to give you an idea of how much fun this place is, Jello was our keynote last time and he came back because he had so much fun.
[00:41.800 --> 00:44.580]  And he wants to speak again on the state of the world.
[00:44.660 --> 00:45.520]  That's tonight at 9.
[00:46.120 --> 00:51.460]  We also have Mark Hosler from Negativland, who actually right now is selling Negativland paraphernalia in the hallway.
[00:51.740 --> 00:54.440]  And will be presenting at 7 p.m.
[00:54.500 --> 00:57.540]  over in Area D, Negativland Past, Present and Future.
[00:58.200 --> 01:04.640]  Plus, we have a whole lot of other hacker-related talks, panels and films that we'll be showing today and tomorrow.
[01:05.160 --> 01:06.640]  And Freedom Downtime, of course, tonight at 10.
[01:07.420 --> 01:16.260]  And with that, I'd like to introduce someone I have great respect for, who manages to get his words and thoughts into mainstream newspapers every single day.
[01:16.420 --> 01:18.500]  And if that's not a hack, I don't know what is.
[01:18.500 --> 01:26.820]  It's unbelievable, some of the things that Aaron is able to get away with, including getting technical things right, such as DeCSS.
[01:27.100 --> 01:28.400]  I was blown away by that.
[01:29.620 --> 01:35.120]  No columnist, no newspaper reporter was able to actually understand what DeCSS was.
[01:35.420 --> 01:40.780]  But it took a comic book character, a comic strip character in Boondocks to actually get it right.
[01:40.960 --> 01:42.860]  And I think it woke up a lot of people.
[01:43.380 --> 01:45.540]  With that, I want to introduce Aaron McGruder.
[01:55.600 --> 01:56.240]  Thank you.
[01:59.240 --> 02:00.120]  Oh, boy.
[02:00.960 --> 02:02.000]  Hey, folks, how you doing?
[02:03.780 --> 02:04.220]  Fine!
[02:05.540 --> 02:06.340]  There we go.
[02:07.480 --> 02:08.920]  I appreciate the invitation.
[02:09.520 --> 02:11.060]  I'm very happy to be here, actually.
[02:12.080 --> 02:17.160]  I don't get a chance to do a lot of lectures, because I do seven strips a week.
[02:18.200 --> 02:20.900]  And the traveling and all of that can be tough.
[02:20.900 --> 02:23.840]  But, you know, I've actually...
[02:23.840 --> 02:24.500]  I mean, it was interesting.
[02:24.640 --> 02:37.020]  I usually speak at colleges and universities and, you know, a bunch of, you know, drunk 20-year-olds who don't feel like going to class.
[02:37.280 --> 02:38.440]  They come hear me.
[02:40.340 --> 02:41.460]  This was interesting.
[02:41.840 --> 02:43.500]  You know, I got the invitation.
[02:45.760 --> 02:50.400]  And the first thing was, all right, do I want to say no to a bunch of hackers?
[02:53.980 --> 02:59.660]  Those of us in the normal world, which is, let me define my terms.
[02:59.660 --> 03:01.700]  Not the world you guys are in.
[03:02.720 --> 03:06.820]  The other world, where people don't know shit about what you guys are talking about.
[03:08.520 --> 03:09.380]  Yeah, that world.
[03:09.520 --> 03:15.940]  Those of us in that world who are halfway intelligent understand that you people are to be feared and respected.
[03:17.000 --> 03:18.480]  So I didn't want to make you guys mad.
[03:19.340 --> 03:21.000]  So I kind of didn't have a choice.
[03:22.180 --> 03:23.100]  Okay, I'll come.
[03:24.000 --> 03:25.880]  Just don't break into my AOL account.
[03:33.360 --> 03:40.540]  And so, you know, over the past couple weeks, my close friends have been, you're going to New York for a while.
[03:40.700 --> 03:42.440]  You're speaking to a bunch of hackers.
[03:44.700 --> 03:45.760]  What do they want to talk to you for?
[03:47.960 --> 03:53.000]  Which, you know, loosely translated means, what do a bunch of smart people want to talk to your dumb ass?
[03:54.320 --> 03:54.720]  Why?
[03:55.160 --> 03:56.800]  What could you possibly have to say to them?
[03:57.920 --> 03:59.840]  Which, quietly, I've been asking myself.
[04:01.700 --> 04:02.100]  I...
[04:02.520 --> 04:03.940]  I know how to use Photoshop.
[04:06.460 --> 04:07.100]  Thank you.
[04:11.040 --> 04:16.780]  I mean, it was a big deal, because I was, I think, one of the first cartoonists to do the whole strip digitally.
[04:17.740 --> 04:18.980]  I used to draw on paper.
[04:19.300 --> 04:23.020]  I know no one cares about this, but this is my only technological reference, so bear with me.
[04:24.200 --> 04:28.040]  I used to draw on paper, but then Sony came out with those vials where you can draw on the screen.
[04:28.980 --> 04:29.280]  I don't know.
[04:29.440 --> 04:29.640]  It's okay.
[04:29.800 --> 04:31.840]  So anyway, that's what I do the strip digitally.
[04:32.020 --> 04:34.340]  And I email it to the syndicate.
[04:34.760 --> 04:36.500]  I'm trying to connect with you folks.
[04:39.100 --> 04:39.440]  No.
[04:39.900 --> 04:40.520]  But anyway.
[04:41.920 --> 04:43.330]  You know, it's...
[04:44.380 --> 04:45.440]  And let me say something.
[04:45.440 --> 04:48.150]  When I speak, I hate lectures.
[04:48.330 --> 04:49.480]  I hate boring people.
[04:49.800 --> 05:02.440]  And because I'm a syndicated cartoonist, and what I do sort of spans the length of journalism to politics, to, you know, social criticism and all of these things, I never know exactly what people want me to talk about.
[05:02.940 --> 05:04.320]  So I'm very...
[05:04.320 --> 05:08.200]  I have no problem with people just yelling out questions as I go.
[05:08.200 --> 05:10.880]  And we can just have one long-ass Q&A.
[05:11.120 --> 05:14.120]  But they tell me you do have to go to the mic so they can get you on record.
[05:14.820 --> 05:20.020]  But other than that, seriously, feel free to stand up and ask whatever question you want to ask.
[05:20.400 --> 05:23.920]  And we can take the discussion in any direction you want to go.
[05:25.300 --> 05:27.030]  A little background on me.
[05:27.940 --> 05:29.160]  I just turned 28.
[05:29.160 --> 05:30.840]  I graduated from the University of Maryland.
[05:33.160 --> 05:41.360]  I started playing with the idea of doing a syndicated comic because I was trying to break into comic books.
[05:41.460 --> 05:45.860]  I wanted to be a comic book illustrator and draw for Marvel or DC or whatever.
[05:46.440 --> 05:47.460]  It wasn't working.
[05:48.560 --> 05:49.780]  And I needed a job.
[05:50.080 --> 05:53.960]  And so I played with the idea of doing the strip while I was at the University of Maryland.
[05:53.960 --> 05:54.660]  I was a major.
[05:54.980 --> 05:56.640]  I was an Afro-American studies major.
[05:57.840 --> 06:08.060]  I got a contract with Universal Press Syndicate immediately before the start of my final semester at college.
[06:09.580 --> 06:17.200]  It's important because, you know, like I was just asked, you know, how did you make this happen?
[06:17.560 --> 06:27.120]  You know, how are you managed to get such, you know, a voice that is usually out in the margins into the mainstream?
[06:28.160 --> 06:37.700]  And it happened for, you know, it happened because, one, I didn't know at the time what I was trying to do was essentially impossible.
[06:38.240 --> 06:42.020]  So, you know, to a certain degree, ignorance can help.
[06:42.780 --> 06:47.280]  When you're not aware of limitations, you can actually do things you're not supposed to be able to do.
[06:48.340 --> 06:52.100]  And I knew very little about the industry I was trying to get into.
[06:52.280 --> 06:55.080]  I just knew, hey, I can kind of draw and I can kind of tell a joke.
[06:56.020 --> 06:56.720]  What the hell?
[06:57.780 --> 06:58.520]  Beats law school.
[07:02.960 --> 07:11.740]  And so I proceeded on this path not really knowing that, you know, nobody in the world would ever print this thing in a national newspaper.
[07:13.840 --> 07:17.300]  And by the time I found that out, it was already too late.
[07:17.300 --> 07:18.280]  I had already done the work.
[07:19.920 --> 07:21.740]  So I was like, damn, I did all this for nothing.
[07:21.740 --> 07:27.980]  So I had done this series of this, about six weeks of strips that you do when you're trying to sell a feature.
[07:28.740 --> 07:34.640]  They had run at my university paper to some limited degree of success.
[07:36.620 --> 07:38.960]  And so I sent them to the syndicates.
[07:39.060 --> 07:46.580]  And for those who don't know, basically, like every other form of entertainment, there are five people who run the world and they're distributors.
[07:48.320 --> 07:55.020]  And, you know, in Hollywood, those distributors are, you know, Warner Brothers and Paramount and whatever.
[07:55.380 --> 07:58.740]  And in the comic strip world, there's syndicates and there's King Features.
[07:59.040 --> 08:07.940]  There's those little, they're the people that own the little copyright behind any of the comics you may have read, except mine, because they, I own my own copyright.
[08:08.120 --> 08:08.460]  Fuck that.
[08:16.430 --> 08:19.270]  But, but, so there's like five syndicates.
[08:19.390 --> 08:20.330]  So you come up with this idea.
[08:20.410 --> 08:21.550]  Oh, this would be a really funny strip.
[08:21.790 --> 08:22.210]  Okay.
[08:22.570 --> 08:24.070]  You got five people to show it to.
[08:24.630 --> 08:27.310]  Once those five people say no, you're out of options.
[08:27.430 --> 08:28.870]  You have to come up with another idea.
[08:30.170 --> 08:31.930]  I was getting no's quick.
[08:32.090 --> 08:33.490]  The rejection letters were piling up.
[08:34.470 --> 08:37.950]  And then I bumped into someone from Universal Press.
[08:38.450 --> 08:43.010]  And Universal Press is important to the equation because they've syndicated Gary Trudeau for 30 years.
[08:45.450 --> 08:56.170]  And out of, you know, all of the cowardly punk ass distributors out there, Universal Press actually understood that there's some value in making people mad.
[08:56.830 --> 09:04.630]  That there's, that there's money to be made in, you know, messing with people's heads and getting them to think differently than they normally think.
[09:04.850 --> 09:07.490]  Because that's essentially what Gary Trudeau has done for decades.
[09:08.470 --> 09:12.870]  And, and done it with, you know, a great deal of success in a Pulitzer or two.
[09:12.990 --> 09:13.330]  I don't know.
[09:15.590 --> 09:18.370]  So, they looked at the work that I had submitted.
[09:18.710 --> 09:27.730]  And, and I think basically saw something, you know, very similar in terms of what role this could play in contemporary American culture.
[09:28.330 --> 09:33.570]  Just being that voice of, that voice that nobody wants to hear, but you can't really stop listening.
[09:36.110 --> 09:39.350]  And, and so they, they like, yeah, go ahead.
[09:39.490 --> 09:41.030]  Well, you know, they signed me to a contract.
[09:42.250 --> 09:45.190]  They were respectful of all my creator rights.
[09:47.170 --> 09:49.510]  We really gave them very little.
[09:49.510 --> 09:57.850]  And, you know, in response, they sold me to 160 newspapers at the launch of the strip in 1999.
[09:58.470 --> 10:05.430]  That's the, that's the biggest launch of a comic strip ever, except for zits.
[10:08.030 --> 10:09.870]  Which, hey, zits.
[10:10.450 --> 10:11.870]  I can't mess with zits.
[10:12.350 --> 10:15.170]  But it was a huge, I mean, it was, it was a huge deal.
[10:15.790 --> 10:18.650]  I was, I thought I was gonna launch in like 30 papers and launch in 160.
[10:18.830 --> 10:21.110]  Now it's in like 260, three years later.
[10:24.830 --> 10:36.170]  And, you know, even though I have, you know, the, probably the worst working habits of any professional cartoonist, you know, they, I'm, I'm still in those papers.
[10:36.170 --> 10:41.370]  And, and nobody bothers me.
[10:41.650 --> 10:42.030]  Really.
[10:42.310 --> 10:44.590]  I mean, no one, no one, no one that I care about.
[10:46.090 --> 10:55.750]  I mean, you know, one of the great things about Universal Press is that they've never, they've never said, look, we're not putting this out.
[10:56.390 --> 10:57.850]  We can't send this out.
[10:57.930 --> 10:58.990]  There's no way we're gonna do it.
[10:59.450 --> 11:03.910]  They have called me and said, okay, if we send this out, this will be the repercussions.
[11:03.910 --> 11:06.750]  You'll lose Philadelphia and New York and Chicago.
[11:07.350 --> 11:08.350]  But it's up to you.
[11:10.210 --> 11:12.410]  Then I rethink, you know, that joke really wasn't that funny.
[11:17.020 --> 11:18.680]  Nobody knows who Ronald Reagan is anyway.
[11:24.840 --> 11:32.520]  But that's a brief sort of summary of, you know, how, how this strip came to pass.
[11:33.660 --> 11:36.940]  And, you know, it's, it's, and for those of you, I don't, how many people read it?
[11:37.080 --> 11:37.560]  I don't know.
[11:37.680 --> 11:38.000]  It's okay.
[11:38.060 --> 11:38.480]  Don't lie.
[11:38.660 --> 11:39.240]  Don't lie.
[11:39.460 --> 11:40.220]  Live liars.
[11:40.860 --> 11:41.080]  Thank you.
[11:42.080 --> 11:50.240]  For those who don't, you know, it's, it's basically, I mean, it's more politics and social commentary than anything else.
[11:50.660 --> 12:00.540]  It's just, you know, a way for me to sit around and be sort of a curmudgeon who hates everything and everybody and, and complain about it and get paid to do so.
[12:01.720 --> 12:06.760]  Uh, which makes it actually a really good job except even I don't have something to complain about every day.
[12:08.080 --> 12:12.720]  So it, it, it can be a tough space to fill.
[12:13.000 --> 12:19.460]  Uh, you know, I, I often say I have far more opportunities to say something profound and I have profound things to say.
[12:22.400 --> 12:29.320]  The, I mean, there, there's been some, I guess, sort of, you know, landmark moments in my short career.
[12:29.760 --> 12:39.480]  Um, I guess when the strip launched, uh, people were not accustomed to seeing a frank and overt discussion of race in, in, in American newspapers.
[12:39.680 --> 12:40.480]  That was a big deal.
[12:41.200 --> 12:49.120]  Uh, about a year or so later, I started attacking, um, Bob Johnson, the CEO of black entertainment television.
[12:50.000 --> 12:52.600]  Um, Bob didn't.
[12:52.700 --> 12:52.880]  Yeah.
[12:52.980 --> 12:53.300]  Thank you.
[12:55.360 --> 12:57.340]  Uh, Bob didn't appreciate it.
[13:00.180 --> 13:00.920]  That's okay.
[13:01.540 --> 13:01.720]  Um,
[13:04.960 --> 13:12.800]  and, and I'm sure there's some other things I don't remember, but, you know, things really took off after 9-11.
[13:13.420 --> 13:16.200]  That's when suddenly I had a job for real.
[13:16.420 --> 13:17.300]  I had a purpose.
[13:18.200 --> 13:21.300]  Uh, you know, because everyone just got stupid all of a sudden.
[13:21.640 --> 13:22.760]  Like, everybody.
[13:29.960 --> 13:30.400]  Everybody.
[13:30.680 --> 13:37.540]  And what's, you know, what's, you know, people ask me, like, wow, you're so brave.
[13:38.260 --> 13:39.100]  How do you do it?
[13:39.380 --> 13:42.340]  How do you say these things that, you know, could get you in trouble and all?
[13:43.440 --> 13:49.120]  Look, you know, I still work like I'm in college, which means, you know, I have two deadlines a week.
[13:49.260 --> 13:51.300]  One for the Monday through Saturday strips, one for the Sunday strips.
[13:51.460 --> 13:58.560]  The Monday through Saturday strips are all done at one time at the very, very, very last minute.
[14:03.580 --> 14:07.180]  Allow me to give you context as to exactly what the last minute is.
[14:07.180 --> 14:15.500]  Charles Schultz, God bless him, spent his whole life, literally, two months ahead of deadline.
[14:17.300 --> 14:21.320]  He turned in his, he turned in his, uh, his strips about eight weeks ahead.
[14:22.100 --> 14:26.800]  The syndicate would like me to turn in my strips ideally six weeks ahead.
[14:26.980 --> 14:30.700]  That way, if something happens, I fall, I break my arm, we're covered.
[14:32.080 --> 14:38.060]  However, if, if that's too much to ask, they would like them 10 days ahead.
[14:38.260 --> 14:42.880]  That's, that's about the bare minimum, 10 day lead to the dailies.
[14:43.360 --> 14:50.460]  Um, my lead for the past two, two and a half years has been five to six days.
[14:52.820 --> 14:55.780]  Thank you for that support.
[14:57.300 --> 15:02.940]  And I like to say, well, you know, I'm topical, but no one ever, ever has to be that topical.
[15:07.420 --> 15:19.300]  Um, so, you know, I, you know, I, I, I, God, I'm sorry, I lost track just thinking about, I've got strips to do, like, I've got to think of some jokes.
[15:23.040 --> 15:24.120]  Fox is back.
[15:26.540 --> 15:28.040]  I love Bill Amend, by the way.
[15:28.320 --> 15:28.620]  FoxTrot.
[15:28.920 --> 15:30.040]  How many people read FoxTrot?
[15:30.640 --> 15:34.000]  He was mad because I got to the, uh, the DeCSS before he did.
[15:34.140 --> 15:37.180]  He actually had, yes, he had strips in the work.
[15:37.320 --> 15:43.940]  What, what he was going to do was actually run the whole code through, through a few weeks.
[15:47.300 --> 15:49.420]  And try to see if he could get away with breaking the law.
[15:51.760 --> 15:52.080]  Right.
[15:52.480 --> 15:55.640]  I know everyone's mad now, like, oh, Aaron, you suck.
[15:56.660 --> 15:57.860]  You should have let him do that.
[15:57.960 --> 15:58.920]  Well, I didn't know.
[16:00.780 --> 16:01.680]  We don't talk.
[16:02.140 --> 16:04.040]  Uh, but we're with the same syndicate.
[16:04.140 --> 16:04.480]  I like Bill.
[16:04.880 --> 16:06.300]  Uh, what was that time?
[16:06.300 --> 16:07.480]  I was talking about, uh, 9-11.
[16:07.680 --> 16:07.760]  Yeah.
[16:07.820 --> 16:08.540]  Everyone got dumb.
[16:09.080 --> 16:13.300]  So, um, yeah, so it happened.
[16:13.460 --> 16:15.320]  It happened on a deadline day.
[16:15.480 --> 16:19.080]  On the day I had to wake up and do, you know, six strips in a hurry.
[16:20.020 --> 16:28.880]  And, you know, I woke up is, you know, you know something huge in the world has happened when you wake up with 13 messages and it's 6 a.m.
[16:30.100 --> 16:30.740]  in LA.
[16:32.420 --> 16:35.000]  And, um, you know, I turned on the TV.
[16:35.240 --> 16:36.220]  I checked the messages.
[16:36.220 --> 16:38.420]  I'm, I'm watching the towers burn.
[16:38.640 --> 16:41.680]  And my, my editor is like, don't worry about the strips today.
[16:41.980 --> 16:44.540]  Cause the World Trade Towers are gone.
[16:44.540 --> 16:45.180]  I'm like, no, they're not.
[16:45.300 --> 16:45.820]  They're still there.
[16:45.920 --> 16:47.000]  Oh, they're on fire.
[16:48.580 --> 16:49.440]  He's like, no, no, no.
[16:49.500 --> 16:50.400]  You're looking at old footage.
[16:51.720 --> 16:52.040]  Shit.
[16:57.050 --> 16:59.330]  So the good news was I got, I had a week off.
[17:00.690 --> 17:05.030]  Um, the bad news was the world just gone to hell.
[17:06.130 --> 17:10.810]  Um, so I, I sat around literally for five days watching the news.
[17:11.870 --> 17:14.110]  Cause I didn't know if I had a career at that point.
[17:14.510 --> 17:17.950]  I mean, it really felt like, oh, everything's changed for real.
[17:20.430 --> 17:24.070]  Like this actually is unprecedented in the history of America.
[17:24.710 --> 17:28.910]  And I don't know if anyone wants to hear from the smart ass who doesn't like the government.
[17:31.190 --> 17:32.230]  But there is a great thing.
[17:32.390 --> 17:38.290]  This is, this was the point I was going to make, which is, you know, when, when people say, how, how is it that you do this?
[17:38.470 --> 17:39.790]  How is it that you have the courage?
[17:40.550 --> 17:40.710]  No.
[17:42.170 --> 17:49.510]  Six strips all done at the same time at the very last minute is a tremendous amount of stress.
[17:50.430 --> 17:52.170]  And it's always an all nighter.
[17:53.090 --> 17:55.450]  So sometimes I do one or two all nighters a week.
[17:56.110 --> 17:59.030]  So at around four in the morning, nothing's funny.
[17:59.830 --> 18:02.150]  And more importantly, I don't want to be a cartoonist anymore.
[18:05.510 --> 18:12.890]  So then the only things I can come up with are usually the things that are sort of, I feel are so left field that I'm the only person that's going to think they're funny.
[18:13.030 --> 18:15.850]  And they're usually very subversive and controversial.
[18:16.430 --> 18:21.090]  And then I think, well, you know, there's no way I can put this in the newspaper, because if I do, I'll lose my job.
[18:21.350 --> 18:22.890]  But at this point, it's six in the morning.
[18:23.190 --> 18:24.110]  And I haven't slept.
[18:24.750 --> 18:26.230]  And I don't really want this job anymore.
[18:27.710 --> 18:28.430]  I swear.
[18:31.630 --> 18:32.850]  This is how it happens.
[18:34.010 --> 18:43.510]  So I say, okay, I can either go with this idea that will allow me to get to bed within, you know, four to six hours if I start now.
[18:44.830 --> 18:48.050]  And meet my deadline, and great, people will get off my back.
[18:49.070 --> 18:56.210]  Or, you know, and either, you know, they will like it, or I'll lose my job.
[18:56.350 --> 18:56.510]  Great.
[18:56.630 --> 18:57.550]  I'll never have to do this again.
[18:58.930 --> 19:00.590]  Either way, I get to sleep, eventually.
[19:02.350 --> 19:07.150]  And that's how all of these sort of irrational things make it into the newspaper.
[19:07.270 --> 19:11.630]  Because there isn't a lot of responsible thought going into it.
[19:11.630 --> 19:16.190]  And when I say responsible, I mean this sort of, you know, classically responsible.
[19:16.190 --> 19:18.170]  How do I keep my paychecks coming?
[19:18.510 --> 19:20.810]  How do I make sure I can pay my rent from week to week?
[19:21.270 --> 19:22.330]  That type of response.
[19:22.610 --> 19:25.790]  Everything I do from that perspective is incredibly irrational.
[19:26.150 --> 19:27.950]  And just plain dumb.
[19:28.710 --> 19:29.430]  It's dumb.
[19:31.130 --> 19:37.390]  So, I was sitting there for five days trying to figure out what I was going to do about September 11th.
[19:37.690 --> 19:40.590]  And then I called the syndicate and said, what did Gary do?
[19:40.950 --> 19:41.590]  Gary Trudeau.
[19:42.330 --> 19:43.690]  And they were like, oh, he stayed away from me.
[19:43.750 --> 19:44.230]  He didn't touch it.
[19:44.530 --> 19:46.030]  Oh, really?
[19:47.070 --> 19:48.270]  Maybe I should stay away from it.
[19:48.530 --> 19:53.150]  But see, Gary gets his strips in a couple days ahead of me.
[19:53.150 --> 19:54.930]  So, I had a little bit longer to think about it.
[19:58.010 --> 20:03.010]  And, you know, I just said, you know, hey, I just don't care.
[20:03.390 --> 20:06.010]  And so, I went hard from jump.
[20:06.450 --> 20:10.490]  I mean, I started with the media and then by week two I got into Bush.
[20:15.090 --> 20:17.250]  And then I went for about four months.
[20:19.090 --> 20:23.850]  Most of which you guys didn't see here because it got banned pretty quickly in the New York Daily News.
[20:25.390 --> 20:26.610]  Yes, it's always... well, that's right.
[20:26.990 --> 20:27.970]  All y'all saw it.
[20:28.030 --> 20:28.510]  I'm sorry.
[20:29.410 --> 20:30.450]  What was I thinking?
[20:31.350 --> 20:32.870]  I thought I was talking to normal people.
[20:35.570 --> 20:36.890]  Y'all didn't even know it got banned.
[20:38.050 --> 20:38.930]  It got banned.
[20:38.930 --> 20:43.110]  I got banned in the New York Daily News for about at least a good month and a half, two months.
[20:43.910 --> 20:46.030]  It started with the Reagan strip, actually.
[20:47.730 --> 20:48.930]  Where Huey calls...
[20:49.770 --> 20:50.870]  I don't even remember.
[20:51.470 --> 20:53.850]  I think he calls the FBI terrorist hotline to turn in Reagan.
[20:55.670 --> 20:56.690]  That's what it was.
[20:59.850 --> 21:06.190]  Because he, you know, had funded and supported the Afghan rebels against the Soviet Union in the 80s.
[21:06.410 --> 21:06.950]  So, hey.
[21:08.270 --> 21:13.430]  And, you know, then the Bush administration gave the Taliban $43 million in May of 2001.
[21:13.950 --> 21:15.350]  It was all this stuff.
[21:16.570 --> 21:29.390]  And, you know, outside of the world of wackos and conspiracy theorists and all of that, very few people in the mainstream have been willing to say what I'm about to say.
[21:30.570 --> 21:35.390]  Which is, I really and truthfully believe that George W.
[21:35.590 --> 21:42.930]  Bush is somehow involved, either directly or indirectly, in the attacks on New York City on September 11th.
[21:52.080 --> 21:55.120]  But what's even worse, he stole the election.
[21:59.240 --> 22:00.160]  I mean, look.
[22:03.480 --> 22:08.300]  Obviously, thousands of people dying is a really, really bad thing.
[22:09.360 --> 22:14.140]  But as a nation, you know, nations survive attacks.
[22:14.560 --> 22:16.620]  Nations survive wars.
[22:17.340 --> 22:18.760]  They survive death.
[22:18.960 --> 22:21.020]  They survive disease, destruction.
[22:21.560 --> 22:23.720]  People get together.
[22:23.720 --> 22:24.580]  They rebuild.
[22:24.880 --> 22:25.980]  The country moves forward.
[22:27.040 --> 22:30.400]  Nations don't often survive coups.
[22:33.160 --> 22:39.760]  You know, when you just shred up the constitution of a nation, that's a much more serious offense.
[22:51.080 --> 22:53.960]  And it's not like I'm the only guy who knows this.
[22:55.920 --> 23:04.240]  I mean, what's scary to me is we, at this point, are at a loss for what to do.
[23:06.140 --> 23:08.420]  We don't know what to do about our politicians.
[23:09.320 --> 23:11.640]  You know, we don't know what to do about foreign policy.
[23:11.880 --> 23:15.820]  First of all, there's a few things that you should think about.
[23:15.960 --> 23:20.340]  One, I mean, I remember at September 11th, all these people were like, let's go get them.
[23:21.100 --> 23:21.880]  Let's go fight them.
[23:21.940 --> 23:22.520]  Let's go do this.
[23:22.600 --> 23:23.160]  Let's go do that.
[23:23.340 --> 23:23.560]  Oh, yeah.
[23:23.620 --> 23:24.240]  Like it's up to you.
[23:24.340 --> 23:24.620]  Shut up.
[23:26.440 --> 23:27.640]  All these people in coffee shops.
[23:27.740 --> 23:28.180]  I hate that.
[23:28.380 --> 23:32.040]  I hate people talking about foreign policy in coffee.
[23:32.140 --> 23:32.380]  You know what?
[23:33.960 --> 23:34.280]  Why?
[23:36.040 --> 23:37.060]  You have no say.
[23:37.060 --> 23:38.260]  Shut up.
[23:42.180 --> 23:43.860]  First of all, you don't know anything.
[23:46.540 --> 23:48.620]  Americans, I just wish...
[23:48.620 --> 23:49.720]  See, I'm the guy to say, you know what?
[23:49.720 --> 23:50.620]  I don't know anything.
[23:50.960 --> 23:52.860]  I'm standing in front of a room of people.
[23:53.020 --> 23:58.900]  You all know a lot more than I do about a lot of stuff that's actually practical uses in the world.
[23:58.900 --> 24:00.260]  God bless you for it.
[24:00.720 --> 24:01.960]  Me, I know nothing.
[24:02.180 --> 24:03.520]  But at least I admit to that.
[24:03.640 --> 24:04.340]  I tell jokes.
[24:04.760 --> 24:07.800]  I have a halfway clever sense of humor if you catch me on the right day.
[24:08.080 --> 24:08.780]  That's it.
[24:09.460 --> 24:10.160]  And you know what?
[24:10.260 --> 24:11.880]  Most Americans are just like me.
[24:12.040 --> 24:12.720]  They don't know anything.
[24:13.540 --> 24:14.980]  So shut up.
[24:18.210 --> 24:24.910]  You are an idiot who has been raised by advertising since you were two and a half years old.
[24:25.370 --> 24:26.790]  You don't know anything.
[24:31.800 --> 24:37.120]  Americans, they watch The O'Reilly Factor and feel educated.
[24:39.340 --> 24:41.980]  And talk about things as though they knew.
[24:42.300 --> 24:44.380]  Like, you know what the problem is with Cuba?
[24:44.620 --> 24:46.020]  No, and you don't either.
[24:47.280 --> 24:49.300]  Because you've never been there and neither have I.
[24:51.280 --> 24:53.660]  Cuba could be like Nirvana for all I know.
[24:54.900 --> 24:55.840]  You don't know about Cuba.
[24:55.980 --> 24:56.780]  You don't know about Iraq.
[24:56.780 --> 24:58.380]  You know, like...
[24:58.840 --> 25:00.140]  So that really angers me.
[25:00.920 --> 25:02.500]  I was having a discussion about September 11.
[25:02.920 --> 25:04.740]  I can't believe we need to go kill them.
[25:04.960 --> 25:05.320]  Why?
[25:05.960 --> 25:07.220]  They took out our buildings.
[25:07.620 --> 25:08.020]  Ours?
[25:10.200 --> 25:12.060]  I didn't own any of those buildings.
[25:15.420 --> 25:16.900]  Well, they killed a bunch of our people.
[25:17.380 --> 25:20.620]  Well, you know, we killed half a million Iraqis.
[25:21.300 --> 25:22.100]  No, we didn't.
[25:22.900 --> 25:23.600]  Yes, we did.
[25:25.060 --> 25:25.860]  How many...
[25:26.400 --> 25:30.760]  How many people you think died over there while we was dropping all them bobs day in and day out?
[25:31.900 --> 25:34.400]  Ah, not as many as we got killed.
[25:36.940 --> 25:40.880]  Yeah, that doesn't count even like the million or so that have died after.
[25:41.120 --> 25:42.460]  Because of the sanctions and all that.
[25:43.020 --> 25:44.560]  You know, it's...
[25:45.660 --> 25:46.060]  Americans...
[25:46.060 --> 25:46.960]  Look, the world is ignorant.
[25:46.960 --> 25:53.020]  Look, you know, people in oppressed dictatorships, communist countries, whatever.
[25:53.500 --> 25:54.020]  You know what?
[25:54.100 --> 25:55.460]  They don't know what's going on in the world.
[25:55.980 --> 25:57.560]  Because their media is controlled.
[25:57.980 --> 25:58.720]  And you know what?
[25:58.940 --> 25:59.840]  Neither do we.
[26:00.200 --> 26:01.640]  Our media is controlled.
[26:03.280 --> 26:04.360]  But you know what?
[26:06.340 --> 26:07.440]  If you go...
[26:07.440 --> 26:10.460]  If you go to Iraq and ask somebody...
[26:10.460 --> 26:12.160]  And I haven't done it, but I figure.
[26:12.460 --> 26:15.300]  If you go to Iraq and ask somebody and say, What's going on in the world?
[26:15.380 --> 26:16.280]  They probably say, I don't know.
[26:16.400 --> 26:17.660]  Saddam doesn't let us watch anything.
[26:19.280 --> 26:21.620]  But the difference over here, we think we know.
[26:22.500 --> 26:24.100]  We have the illusion of wisdom.
[26:25.720 --> 26:27.740]  We swear we know about what's going on in the world.
[26:27.760 --> 26:28.220]  And we don't.
[26:29.160 --> 26:31.900]  So, just like we swear we live in a democratic society.
[26:31.900 --> 26:35.200]  So we say these things to each other like, Yeah, we need to go over there and do that.
[26:35.260 --> 26:36.220]  I'm gonna write my congressman.
[26:37.080 --> 26:37.800]  Nobody cares.
[26:38.440 --> 26:39.480]  You have no say.
[26:39.620 --> 26:40.320]  You're not important.
[26:41.700 --> 26:42.580]  Who'd you vote for?
[26:43.280 --> 26:43.640]  Gore.
[26:43.640 --> 26:43.720]  Gore.
[26:43.860 --> 26:45.400]  No, it doesn't.
[26:45.520 --> 26:45.980]  That's the thing.
[26:46.180 --> 26:48.540]  But if you voted for Gore, you know what?
[26:48.800 --> 26:49.680]  You should just leave.
[26:51.780 --> 26:53.480]  Like, at least I voted for Nader.
[26:53.600 --> 26:54.500]  He didn't have a chance.
[27:01.210 --> 27:10.650]  But if I lived in a democratic society, and I voted for the guy that actually won, and he wasn't in office, I'd leave.
[27:13.330 --> 27:14.390]  The hell with this.
[27:18.310 --> 27:20.990]  And if you voted for Bush, you're just a goddamn moron.
[27:22.510 --> 27:24.210]  I feel sick of this.
[27:26.490 --> 27:27.490]  So here's the problem.
[27:27.730 --> 27:27.990]  All right.
[27:28.230 --> 27:34.070]  We got criminals and prostitutes in the District of Columbia.
[27:38.270 --> 27:39.190]  I'm not talking...
[27:39.190 --> 27:39.770]  Yeah, I know.
[27:40.490 --> 27:40.910]  Hose.
[27:41.030 --> 27:41.530]  They just hose.
[27:45.770 --> 27:48.910]  But here's how I know there's something seriously wrong with America.
[27:49.510 --> 27:55.510]  Bush gets on television and says, I'm gonna crack down on corporate America.
[27:58.870 --> 28:00.570]  And nobody laughs.
[28:00.930 --> 28:02.390]  Like, the anchors don't...
[28:02.390 --> 28:03.470]  They don't laugh.
[28:04.350 --> 28:05.310]  They don't...
[28:05.310 --> 28:06.410]  They don't smile.
[28:07.030 --> 28:08.290]  They don't snicker.
[28:11.850 --> 28:13.350]  And they'll say...
[28:13.350 --> 28:14.290]  And it's interesting.
[28:14.570 --> 28:15.370]  You know, and they say...
[28:15.370 --> 28:16.670]  You know, it's not in what they tell you.
[28:16.730 --> 28:17.050]  It's in...
[28:17.050 --> 28:18.450]  It's the way in which they tell you.
[28:19.530 --> 28:22.970]  They say, yeah, Bush decided he's gonna crack down on corporate America.
[28:23.190 --> 28:25.250]  And that he's gonna ban, you know...
[28:25.890 --> 28:28.250]  He's gonna ban board members from taking loans from their own company.
[28:28.610 --> 28:33.890]  Interestingly enough, he accepted some of these loans that he's actually himself trying to ban when he was running a company a few years ago.
[28:34.110 --> 28:34.750]  Isn't that interesting?
[28:34.990 --> 28:36.030]  And now in sports?
[28:37.330 --> 28:37.770]  Huh?
[28:38.550 --> 28:39.630]  And now sports?
[28:39.870 --> 28:41.010]  No, let's go back.
[28:41.990 --> 28:45.330]  Let's dwell on that little thing that you just decided to mention real quick.
[28:48.500 --> 28:49.660]  The man's a criminal.
[28:50.640 --> 28:51.920]  They're all criminals though.
[28:52.020 --> 28:52.540]  They're criminals.
[28:52.760 --> 28:54.080]  They're not like...
[28:54.080 --> 28:56.320]  But it used to be...
[28:56.980 --> 28:58.860]  It used to be like...
[28:58.860 --> 29:02.700]  You would say, oh, you know, the guys in Washington are crooked.
[29:02.920 --> 29:04.260]  It's as a general rule.
[29:04.680 --> 29:05.800]  Just, you know, in theory.
[29:06.520 --> 29:08.180]  Like, I know they've done something somewhere.
[29:08.180 --> 29:09.100]  They had to.
[29:09.820 --> 29:12.920]  But these guys are actually criminals.
[29:13.520 --> 29:15.440]  Like, you can find what they did.
[29:17.280 --> 29:18.240]  It ain't hard.
[29:18.360 --> 29:19.100]  It's not even a secret.
[29:19.540 --> 29:19.900]  We...
[29:20.420 --> 29:21.720]  It's not a secret.
[29:22.600 --> 29:23.960]  They've broken the law.
[29:27.810 --> 29:29.690]  And nobody's doing anything.
[29:35.150 --> 29:38.470]  Yeah, but you know, we don't all get rich like they do.
[29:42.590 --> 29:43.090]  Like...
[29:43.580 --> 29:44.170]  You know what?
[29:44.170 --> 29:50.830]  If I could get away with insider trading, you know, maybe I wouldn't be mad at them.
[29:52.170 --> 29:53.510]  It's supposed to be...
[29:53.510 --> 29:54.950]  You know, we're all supposed to be the same.
[29:56.290 --> 29:57.010]  That's the thing.
[29:57.110 --> 30:00.630]  I mean, what bothers me is Americans, we're at a loss for what to do.
[30:00.990 --> 30:01.970]  We tried to vote.
[30:02.090 --> 30:02.590]  That didn't work.
[30:05.030 --> 30:06.130]  Campaign finance reform.
[30:06.350 --> 30:07.430]  It's not gonna work.
[30:10.630 --> 30:11.890]  You know, it...
[30:11.890 --> 30:13.090]  We're at a loss.
[30:13.290 --> 30:14.710]  And I tell you why we're at a loss.
[30:16.650 --> 30:17.670]  I'll tell you why.
[30:21.070 --> 30:21.950]  Without trying...
[30:21.950 --> 30:23.710]  Without sounding overly dramatic...
[30:25.950 --> 30:35.450]  The only thing left to do as Americans, as laid out very clearly in our Declaration of Independence, is to overthrow the government.
[30:38.650 --> 30:42.650]  And I don't say that lightly, and I don't say that as empty rhetoric, because you know what?
[30:42.710 --> 30:44.270]  I'll tell you now, I'm not gonna do it.
[30:45.910 --> 30:47.670]  Way before that, I'm moving to Canada.
[30:52.530 --> 30:56.990]  However, I'm just talking, you know, we smart folks, we can discuss something in the abstract.
[30:59.750 --> 31:10.050]  I'm just saying, if you look at the Declaration of Independence, which, you know, predates the Constitution, it tells you that, you know what?
[31:10.050 --> 31:17.670]  When the government is doing the type of stuff it's doing now, it is your obligation to overthrow that government and create a new government.
[31:25.540 --> 31:31.140]  Now, how that's realistically supposed to happen, I personally don't know.
[31:31.520 --> 31:35.820]  Because, you know, it certainly won't work physically.
[31:36.920 --> 31:40.680]  I mean, they've got enough jails for all of us.
[31:43.280 --> 31:47.960]  So, you know, I'm not the guy that's gonna say, look, 60s are over.
[31:48.740 --> 31:50.100]  Black Panther movement is done.
[31:50.380 --> 31:56.320]  I'm not the guy standing up saying, you know, pick up a rifle and march into a state capitol and shoot somebody.
[31:56.940 --> 31:57.160]  No.
[31:57.400 --> 32:00.380]  You'll only maybe get one or two and then you'll spend the rest of your life in jail.
[32:02.460 --> 32:03.520]  Unless you're in Texas.
[32:03.520 --> 32:03.880]  Yeah.
[32:07.140 --> 32:22.560]  But what I am saying is that the reason why we don't know what to do is because we, as citizens, are still trying to figure out the legal, sane, and rational way to make change against illegal, insane, irrational individuals who are running the world.
[32:28.770 --> 32:31.850]  And we're frightened and rightfully so.
[32:33.170 --> 32:42.710]  You know, after the 60s, when they killed JFK, RFK, they killed King and they killed X.
[32:44.050 --> 32:52.490]  And then they exiled and jailed and killed a whole bunch of the Black Panthers and people participating in the Black Power Movement in the early 70s.
[32:53.350 --> 33:00.630]  It sent a very, very clear message to America that institutionalized change will not be tolerated.
[33:01.950 --> 33:03.590]  That's why everyone say, ooh, you know what?
[33:04.210 --> 33:10.250]  You know, after Robert Kennedy and King got killed, people are like, you know what?
[33:10.350 --> 33:12.430]  I think I'm going to do some community service, thanks.
[33:13.670 --> 33:15.530]  I think I'm going to go mentor a child.
[33:17.290 --> 33:18.830]  You have fun with all that revolution.
[33:20.870 --> 33:24.210]  Because the American government, you just let everyone know.
[33:24.370 --> 33:25.430]  You put everybody on notice.
[33:25.450 --> 33:27.090]  It's not going to be tolerated.
[33:27.250 --> 33:28.930]  You will be dealt with.
[33:29.170 --> 33:30.390]  There's no question.
[33:31.110 --> 33:34.690]  And as mean as those people were, J.
[33:34.770 --> 33:38.370]  Edgar Hoover, all those people, nothing compared to Condoleezza Rice.
[33:39.170 --> 33:39.810]  Nothing.
[33:41.910 --> 33:44.410]  Let me tell you how crazy this administration is.
[33:45.170 --> 33:47.610]  The general, Colin Powell.
[33:48.870 --> 33:54.870]  The guy who, you know, is responsible for half a million deaths, at least, in that one war alone.
[33:55.610 --> 33:57.710]  Now, who knows how many people he personally killed in Vietnam?
[33:58.050 --> 33:58.330]  Who knows?
[33:59.570 --> 34:00.810]  He's the voice of reason.
[34:03.920 --> 34:06.860]  He's the guy that's in there like, hey, you guys are going a little too far.
[34:07.760 --> 34:08.680]  He is.
[34:08.920 --> 34:15.680]  As much as, you know, I have a problem with Colin Powell just because he serves an illegal dictator.
[34:16.300 --> 34:19.120]  You know, he serves the guy who staged a coup.
[34:19.840 --> 34:24.180]  You know, he's the guy that, hey, I thought I was mean.
[34:25.000 --> 34:33.160]  But, like, Rumsfeld and Cheney and Condoleezza Rice and Bush, they're just mean.
[34:33.460 --> 34:34.960]  They're mean and really evil.
[34:35.540 --> 34:40.440]  And so, if you look at what happened in the 60s, imagine what they do to you today.
[34:44.310 --> 34:45.210]  It's very scary.
[34:45.390 --> 34:47.650]  So, I don't know how it's going to happen.
[34:47.730 --> 34:48.850]  I don't know how it's supposed to happen.
[34:50.570 --> 34:57.950]  But, you know, my only frame of reference to show you how ignorant I am is Hollywood.
[35:03.250 --> 35:09.470]  And, you know, revolutions in the 60s and the 70s used to be kind of like Star Wars.
[35:10.470 --> 35:11.510]  The first Star Wars.
[35:11.510 --> 35:13.750]  I'm talking about that crap that Lucas is putting out today.
[35:17.420 --> 35:19.040]  Don't even get me started on that.
[35:19.820 --> 35:32.900]  No, but you had a small group of freedom fighters, generally with some type of vague religious affiliation, fighting against an overwhelming colonial power who was technologically and militarily superior.
[35:33.740 --> 35:40.480]  That's what happened in the anti-colonial movements in Africa and Asia, even here.
[35:40.660 --> 35:42.680]  I mean, that was the model.
[35:43.240 --> 35:44.780]  That model is outdated.
[35:46.600 --> 35:49.160]  But the new parable for our times is the matrix.
[35:52.420 --> 35:53.300]  Five people.
[35:53.960 --> 35:55.720]  But five people who, you know what?
[35:55.880 --> 35:57.040]  Who are really good at computers.
[35:59.120 --> 35:59.940]  I'm serious.
[36:01.380 --> 36:08.560]  That seems to be the only remote battlefield that the revolution can actually be won.
[36:10.660 --> 36:12.700]  They got smart guys, you guys are smart guys.
[36:13.300 --> 36:14.760]  They got people, you got people.
[36:14.760 --> 36:16.880]  They got computers, you got computers.
[36:19.420 --> 36:20.880]  There you go, you can move.
[36:23.850 --> 36:26.610]  Now get a laptop and a bulletproof Porsche.
[36:29.010 --> 36:30.410]  And you'll be unstoppable.
[36:33.790 --> 36:35.730]  I have no idea how long I've been talking.
[36:35.730 --> 36:39.210]  And again, I ask people to come up and ask questions, but no one has.
[36:39.710 --> 36:40.210]  So...
[36:41.430 --> 36:46.250]  But to me, that's what's interesting about this whole world that you guys exist in that I know nothing about.
[36:46.710 --> 36:50.570]  Which is that you guys can really hurt people.
[36:51.730 --> 36:53.330]  And real, I mean real bad.
[36:55.390 --> 36:57.770]  And yeah, you can go to jail for it.
[36:58.430 --> 37:01.930]  But like, you could actually get something accomplished before going to jail.
[37:02.090 --> 37:03.250]  I can't even get anything accomplished.
[37:04.790 --> 37:09.790]  I can just tell jokes and be like the crazy guy on the rooftop with a sniper rifle.
[37:11.290 --> 37:12.710]  And I have no aim.
[37:15.530 --> 37:22.970]  So if I decided today I'm going to go hard and fight for the freedom of America, I can't get anything done.
[37:24.650 --> 37:30.330]  But something tells me in the abstract, you guys out there that know all this computer stuff.
[37:33.050 --> 37:37.730]  Theoretically, you know, if you got together and you were willing to go to jail.
[37:40.770 --> 37:42.330]  How many people here are willing to go to jail?
[37:42.630 --> 37:44.170]  I'm not talking about the people that already have.
[37:46.390 --> 37:47.210]  You don't count.
[37:47.570 --> 37:48.290]  You don't count.
[37:50.070 --> 37:51.370]  How many people are willing to die?
[37:51.570 --> 37:52.130]  See, that's the thing.
[37:52.230 --> 37:53.010]  I'm willing to die.
[37:54.870 --> 37:55.230]  Jail...
[38:01.330 --> 38:07.090]  Because, look, eventually, at this rate, you're going to end up in jail anyway.
[38:08.150 --> 38:09.110]  What was the year?
[38:09.190 --> 38:09.990]  Does anyone know the year?
[38:10.750 --> 38:20.290]  At the rate of incarceration, the current rate of incarceration, someone actually pinpointed the year by which every American would either be in jail or working for a jail.
[38:21.450 --> 38:23.330]  And I think it was like 2150.
[38:24.810 --> 38:26.310]  Yeah, ooh, that's not funny.
[38:29.130 --> 38:30.790]  I mean, I don't know.
[38:30.950 --> 38:31.830]  I'm just saying this.
[38:31.830 --> 38:44.410]  I mean, you guys are probably smart enough where, you know, when everyone else is in concentration camps, you'll just, like, type yourselves in as already been, like, incarcerated and released on good behavior.
[38:44.650 --> 38:50.610]  And you guys will probably navigate the new world pretty much okay.
[38:52.630 --> 39:00.830]  But, you know, I, you know, after the jokes are told, I'm often left wondering, no, seriously, how does this mess get fixed?
[39:00.990 --> 39:01.710]  And I don't know.
[39:02.870 --> 39:03.950]  I really don't know.
[39:05.890 --> 39:09.490]  But the scary thing to me is how few people are even asking that question.
[39:11.010 --> 39:15.910]  Which is, you know, what can we do to make our society free again?
[39:16.190 --> 39:19.890]  And to rescue our government from the people who have hijacked it.
[39:21.150 --> 39:23.850]  And it ain't, you know, it ain't voter registration.
[39:24.990 --> 39:27.810]  You know, it's, it's, you know, it's not picket signs.
[39:28.150 --> 39:29.710]  And, you know, it's not Jesse Jackson.
[39:30.270 --> 39:33.970]  And, you know, I don't, I don't know.
[39:34.610 --> 39:38.450]  So if anyone has any ideas, you know, this would be the time to come to the microphone.
[39:39.590 --> 39:40.330]  How long has it been?
[39:40.450 --> 39:40.650]  How long?
[39:41.410 --> 39:41.770]  45?
[39:42.230 --> 39:42.710]  So that's great.
[39:42.850 --> 39:43.010]  That's good.
[39:43.110 --> 39:44.310]  Now we need 15 minutes of questions.
[39:45.430 --> 39:46.690]  If anyone has any questions.
[39:48.610 --> 39:50.830]  But you, at the rule, they say you got to go to the microphone.
[39:52.190 --> 39:53.990]  Is this, I guess this is the microphone.
[39:54.310 --> 39:57.950]  Um, I had a bunch of questions for you.
[39:58.050 --> 40:00.250]  Then you kind of went going down the topic.
[40:00.650 --> 40:07.390]  Um, as a cartoonist, I was going to ask you who your favorite comic strip artist of all time is.
[40:07.390 --> 40:08.890]  Bill Watterson.
[40:08.910 --> 40:09.310]  Bill Watterson?
[40:09.390 --> 40:09.850]  Me too.
[40:10.050 --> 40:10.510]  Oh, yeah.
[40:12.410 --> 40:15.090]  I mean, you know, there's, there's Charles Schultz.
[40:15.650 --> 40:20.530]  But the reality is that, that, you know, the Peanuts actually just transcended the medium.
[40:20.770 --> 40:24.090]  It just became so much more than that.
[40:24.790 --> 40:28.750]  And, you know, Charles Schultz's legacy is in, is in more than his comic strip.
[40:29.030 --> 40:33.270]  It's actually in the TV shows, which I, I really like this, the little Christmas special and all that stuff.
[40:33.270 --> 40:41.510]  I mean, but in, in terms of who I felt was, is the best cartoonist day in and day out, it's Bill Watterson.
[40:42.230 --> 40:45.570]  Um, do you have published books similar to Bill Watterson's?
[40:45.570 --> 40:52.830]  I've got two and a third on the way in the spring, which the third one will actually be a hardcover collection of all three years of the strip.
[40:53.030 --> 40:53.050]  Sweet.
[40:54.390 --> 40:54.830]  Cool.
[40:54.990 --> 40:55.630]  I guess that's it.
[40:55.670 --> 40:56.450]  Well, thank you very kindly.
[40:59.070 --> 41:01.670]  Hi, I'd just like to thank you for coming out today.
[41:01.930 --> 41:03.950]  I'm sorry you got to talk in that tall-ass microphone.
[41:04.390 --> 41:06.170]  Um, thank you.
[41:06.430 --> 41:08.570]  I, I just want to thank you for coming out today.
[41:08.790 --> 41:11.330]  And I have one question, which is semi-personal.
[41:11.970 --> 41:14.610]  And I just wonder if you, uh, smoke marijuana.
[41:29.860 --> 41:33.440]  I've just been notified that this room is full of federal agents.
[41:38.080 --> 41:39.620]  So I'll talk a little, here's the thing.
[41:40.640 --> 41:48.080]  We all know how, look, again, the United States government gave the Taliban $43 million because they were helping on the war on drugs.
[41:51.360 --> 41:56.080]  In 2150, when we're all in jail, it'll be because of drugs.
[41:56.980 --> 42:00.120]  It'll be because they've made everything we like to put in our bodies illegal.
[42:02.460 --> 42:04.180]  All that to say, I'm not answering the question.
[42:09.060 --> 42:10.680]  But I do think, thank you.
[42:11.580 --> 42:17.260]  But I, but I do think that, that, that prohibition is absolutely the dumbest thing in the world.
[42:18.080 --> 42:23.720]  Um, and, and it really will, it really will be the downfall of this nation.
[42:23.950 --> 42:25.460]  And, and it, and that won't be by accident.
[42:26.240 --> 42:27.880]  Um, but anyway.
[42:29.300 --> 42:30.100]  Next question.
[42:32.000 --> 42:34.040]  Well, again, I would like to thank you.
[42:34.160 --> 42:36.040]  I've really been enjoying your talk.
[42:36.280 --> 42:36.540]  Thank you.
[42:36.540 --> 42:42.700]  Um, you make your living finding those things that would bother you and publicizing them.
[42:42.900 --> 42:45.380]  And you, you talk about how things need to change.
[42:45.680 --> 42:46.930]  Or you feel that they need to change.
[42:47.780 --> 42:48.800]  Do you feel hopeful?
[42:49.640 --> 42:50.240]  Well, it's tight.
[42:50.430 --> 42:51.280]  That's a, that's a tough question.
[42:51.800 --> 42:52.000]  Um.
[42:52.000 --> 42:59.950]  Um, you know, it, you, you, you grow up, you see society the way it is.
[43:00.180 --> 43:03.660]  And, and you think, you know, well, this is life.
[43:03.800 --> 43:04.640]  This is what it is.
[43:05.140 --> 43:06.660]  These are the means of making change.
[43:06.780 --> 43:07.740]  These are the people in charge.
[43:08.020 --> 43:10.460]  And eventually it feels like you can't do anything.
[43:11.480 --> 43:18.640]  And then every now and then, you know, the system, you know, is caught unaware.
[43:20.020 --> 43:24.020]  Um, I, I, I, you know, I woke up and, and there were no towers.
[43:24.430 --> 43:25.760]  Uh, that's not supposed to happen.
[43:26.240 --> 43:26.980]  Didn't see that coming.
[43:27.680 --> 43:29.460]  Which is not a good thing at all.
[43:29.460 --> 43:37.380]  But, it, it just tells me that, you know, a handful of people in the world can make some very, some very extreme things happen.
[43:37.780 --> 43:40.320]  Now, I do believe that the government facilitated that.
[43:41.960 --> 43:47.700]  But, I guess it's just, you know, we live through an unprecedented event.
[43:48.720 --> 43:50.120]  That's like a big deal.
[43:50.620 --> 43:55.560]  And the only thing I can say is, at the end of the day, the world and life is unpredictable.
[43:56.340 --> 43:59.380]  And while, to me, I feel hopeless sometimes.
[43:59.380 --> 44:00.600]  I feel like we're in a rut.
[44:00.680 --> 44:02.800]  I feel like there's nothing that can happen.
[44:03.960 --> 44:06.720]  You know, I don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow.
[44:07.200 --> 44:10.220]  And we all, I'm like, you know, we're all just playing this by ear.
[44:10.600 --> 44:13.520]  And you know, there, there's a thing.
[44:13.640 --> 44:15.960]  I'm, I, I really am, I, I believe.
[44:16.360 --> 44:19.840]  And I think, to a certain degree, I, I would have to be this way.
[44:20.360 --> 44:23.560]  To, to do some things I've done and say some things that I've said.
[44:23.560 --> 44:27.320]  Not just in the newspaper, but I've met Condoleezza Rice.
[44:28.460 --> 44:30.560]  I am prepared to die.
[44:31.940 --> 44:33.360]  I don't mean I want to die.
[44:34.160 --> 44:34.620]  No.
[44:36.500 --> 44:37.660]  I want to live.
[44:40.660 --> 44:42.020]  And no, I don't want to go to jail.
[44:42.940 --> 44:51.500]  But, you know, but I, I think, you know, that's how change used to be brought forth.
[44:51.920 --> 44:53.300]  People dying for their beliefs.
[44:53.720 --> 44:55.200]  And that's the civil rights movement.
[44:55.380 --> 45:05.400]  I mean, you know, we're talking about, you know, very, very recently in American history, people were dying for an ideological cause.
[45:06.080 --> 45:09.680]  That created significant and lasting change.
[45:11.040 --> 45:13.720]  And that's the only way that was going to happen.
[45:17.660 --> 45:24.320]  And, you know, and I, I have to believe that there will always be a handful of people willing to make that sacrifice.
[45:28.490 --> 45:37.850]  I would like to hear more about your copyright situation with your distributor or publisher or whatever and how you came to that with them.
[45:38.490 --> 45:43.390]  Well, look, Universal Press is a very, like, they're just, they're nice people.
[45:43.390 --> 45:50.190]  They had a, they had a, you know, a 10-year fight with Bill Watterson about his, his, his merchandising rights.
[45:51.170 --> 45:57.430]  Because they wanted to put out a whole bunch of Calvin and Hobbes stuff and Bill Watterson didn't want to do any of it.
[45:57.950 --> 46:01.350]  Bill Watterson signed away his rights when he initially signed his contract.
[46:01.490 --> 46:02.510]  He really didn't have a choice.
[46:03.470 --> 46:07.510]  Universal Press could have made a billion dollars off of a signature.
[46:10.270 --> 46:16.450]  And Watterson was so vehement about them not doing it that they never, they never did it.
[46:17.530 --> 46:25.670]  And at that point, they just learned, like, you know, if you're, if you're gonna respect creators to that level, you might as well just give them what they want in the contract.
[46:26.430 --> 46:31.150]  Instead of taking everything in the contract and then fighting about it later and still having the same result.
[46:31.490 --> 46:32.790]  And I applaud them for that.
[46:33.050 --> 46:34.730]  I mean, Bill Watterson was really rough on them.
[46:35.610 --> 46:38.330]  I mean, he bad-mouthed them in books that they published.
[46:40.650 --> 46:41.490]  It's like, whoa.
[46:42.450 --> 46:50.770]  But, you know, they, they would have been within their rights to do a zillion Calvin and Hobbes t-shirts and stuffed dolls and TV shows.
[46:50.950 --> 46:53.690]  And, you know, they never did it.
[46:54.010 --> 46:56.630]  And that's a lot of money to turn up for a corporation.
[46:58.110 --> 46:59.770]  So I have, I have respect for them.
[46:59.770 --> 47:03.670]  And, um, so when I, when I came to them initially and said, like, I want to own my copyright.
[47:04.110 --> 47:05.170]  I want to own the licensing.
[47:05.310 --> 47:06.070]  I want to own the merchandise.
[47:06.230 --> 47:07.290]  And I want to own the TV and film.
[47:08.110 --> 47:08.790]  They were like, fine.
[47:09.670 --> 47:13.330]  Um, they asked for the, the strip collection rights.
[47:14.930 --> 47:15.870]  Uh, they got them.
[47:16.470 --> 47:17.790]  Uh, and that was it.
[47:17.910 --> 47:19.430]  It wasn't, it wasn't even really a big fight.
[47:19.530 --> 47:20.030]  It wasn't a big deal.
[47:22.610 --> 47:27.730]  Do you have any strips you've written at your holding contingency?
[47:28.050 --> 47:29.890]  And if so, what are the topics?
[47:30.790 --> 47:31.650]  Uh, no.
[47:32.030 --> 47:33.730]  And if I did, I'd be able to go on vacation.
[47:35.150 --> 47:39.530]  Um, there, there have been a handful of strips that, that never ran because of content.
[47:40.450 --> 47:42.010]  But that's only like a couple.
[47:43.210 --> 47:43.690]  No.
[47:45.370 --> 47:46.750]  I don't even know where they are now.
[47:48.730 --> 47:50.730]  It was, it has something to do with police officers.
[47:54.810 --> 47:56.870]  There's so much you can't say in the newspaper.
[47:57.550 --> 47:59.070]  You can't talk about...
[48:01.750 --> 48:02.470]  And say what?
[48:03.330 --> 48:04.190]  If I can find them.
[48:04.930 --> 48:05.750]  You know, if I, what, you know.
[48:06.490 --> 48:08.570]  I, I, I delete stuff pretty quickly.
[48:08.770 --> 48:09.430]  I throw it away.
[48:09.610 --> 48:10.810]  So I, I have to dig it up.
[48:11.290 --> 48:17.930]  Um, but I, the, the book that's coming out in the spring is, I am going to try to have absolutely everything that's ever been created.
[48:18.510 --> 48:21.010]  Um, in there, if I can find it all.
[48:21.150 --> 48:25.050]  There were, there were, uh, a handful of strips that ran in the source magazine.
[48:25.990 --> 48:35.350]  And there were the initial 14 Boondocks strips that ran from February 1996 to December 1996 on, on a website.
[48:35.710 --> 48:38.390]  Um, that virtually no one has ever seen.
[48:39.530 --> 48:41.970]  Uh, and we're going to try to find all that stuff put in the book.
[48:43.050 --> 48:43.710]  How are you doing?
[48:43.750 --> 48:44.210]  What's up, man?
[48:44.610 --> 48:48.330]  Um, first thing I wanted to say is, love your comics.
[48:48.450 --> 48:51.470]  And then the one thing I like about them is when you make fun of the rich thugs.
[48:51.850 --> 48:53.190]  We need someone to say that.
[48:53.610 --> 48:58.390]  But, the, my question is, alright, I'm from Togo, in Africa.
[48:58.390 --> 48:58.910]  Uh huh.
[48:58.910 --> 49:00.770]  And, I know about censorship.
[49:01.170 --> 49:04.270]  We've had the same president for more than the past 30 years.
[49:04.550 --> 49:05.410]  That's not censorship.
[49:05.670 --> 49:06.350]  I don't know what it is.
[49:07.010 --> 49:09.850]  The, we just got the internet like a year or two ago.
[49:11.450 --> 49:19.470]  And, I know for my country, we're not, we're not, the censorship is going to be there until we have a new president.
[49:20.230 --> 49:29.770]  And, I want to ask you, do you think that like, the, you were saying that you want us to become, you want us to become free again.
[49:30.170 --> 49:31.730]  Do you think that's going to happen?
[49:32.050 --> 49:37.550]  And, did you ever think that there was a point in the American history where we were free?
[49:37.870 --> 49:41.690]  Like, did you ever think at one point where we really knew everything that was going on?
[49:42.190 --> 49:42.430]  No.
[49:43.470 --> 49:51.210]  Um, it's, it's, it's tough because, you know, I'm not, I'm not an expert on American history.
[49:52.130 --> 49:57.530]  Um, I, I, I do know that, I mean, here's the thing.
[49:57.710 --> 50:06.210]  I mean, when you talk about freedom in the true sense, you know, the framers of the Constitution are the ones that put the Electoral College in place.
[50:06.210 --> 50:11.570]  The Electoral College is in place because they inherently did not trust you to pick your own leadership.
[50:12.550 --> 50:17.750]  And so, from the very beginning, there has been limitations on freedom.
[50:18.510 --> 50:22.550]  As a black man, we've never been free, we've never even gotten close to it.
[50:23.490 --> 50:29.530]  And so, you know, I'm especially jaded on this whole idea of freedom in America.
[50:31.390 --> 50:39.650]  But, you know, I, again, you know, it's, I, I hate to be the guy to comment on a lot of things that went on before I was four.
[50:40.450 --> 50:42.590]  Which is most of this country's history.
[50:43.230 --> 50:49.630]  Um, but I, you know, it just seems like, um, the, the answer would be no.
[50:49.850 --> 50:55.810]  But the, the question is, I mean, people in power are always going to limit freedoms in order to stay in power.
[50:55.810 --> 50:57.010]  I, I get that.
[50:57.690 --> 51:05.370]  Uh, and, and I'm not even going to say, you know, there's a, there's this place in the world and they're doing things better.
[51:05.810 --> 51:07.650]  Because I haven't traveled enough to say that.
[51:09.310 --> 51:14.630]  But, that whole argument of, well, you know, you don't like America, go someplace else.
[51:15.730 --> 51:16.390]  That's dumb.
[51:17.870 --> 51:20.870]  Like, just because the rest of the world is messed up, we gotta be messed up too?
[51:20.870 --> 51:22.950]  I thought that was the whole point of America.
[51:23.930 --> 51:25.410]  That we would not be messed up.
[51:27.610 --> 51:29.850]  Just, you know, I hate to be the common sense guy.
[51:31.370 --> 51:37.250]  So, um, so, the question, the question, I, I, but I would say this.
[51:39.150 --> 51:44.130]  That we are less free now, I would say, you know, in a lot of ways than Americans ever have been.
[51:44.130 --> 51:46.970]  But it's in such subtle and insidious ways.
[51:47.630 --> 51:49.010]  Ways that we don't even think about.
[51:50.990 --> 51:53.390]  Because mass media is consolidating.
[51:53.850 --> 51:56.410]  People are getting their information from fewer and fewer sources.
[51:56.850 --> 51:59.450]  Aside from you folks who are on the net and all over the world.
[52:00.250 --> 52:06.550]  But average folks, you know, are, you know, growing up and dying with Ted Koppel.
[52:07.350 --> 52:10.070]  You know, as their single source of information.
[52:11.370 --> 52:14.530]  And that, that right there is incredibly frightening.
[52:16.070 --> 52:17.730]  Advertisers control the way we think.
[52:18.010 --> 52:22.370]  You know, the government, corporations, these people are running America.
[52:22.530 --> 52:23.390]  And that's really scary.
[52:24.830 --> 52:28.770]  Because, you know, the avenues, like if, you know, if Martin Luther King were alive today.
[52:29.830 --> 52:33.330]  If he were, if he were 23 today, trying to start a movement.
[52:34.850 --> 52:36.190]  Nobody would know his name.
[52:37.910 --> 52:39.250]  Nobody would know who he was.
[52:41.190 --> 52:46.170]  The civil rights movement as it existed happened because there were community organizations.
[52:47.170 --> 52:52.550]  That existed, that people went to, to find information, to find out what was going on.
[52:53.030 --> 52:55.890]  To organize with their fellow citizens and make change.
[52:57.210 --> 52:59.310]  My generation has grown up on television.
[52:59.570 --> 53:00.270]  We don't go to church.
[53:01.290 --> 53:10.270]  You know, we, we, we are jaded and cynical for good reasons about, about the institutions in this country.
[53:10.710 --> 53:15.690]  So, if you're not on TV, we don't know who you are.
[53:18.610 --> 53:20.130]  And nobody reads, I know that.
[53:22.230 --> 53:27.090]  So, I guess what I'm saying is that our limitations to our freedom are in ways that people don't normally think about.
[53:27.810 --> 53:31.030]  You know, where, where is the next freedom movement going to come from?
[53:31.970 --> 53:34.050]  You know, probably nowhere.
[53:34.430 --> 53:35.850]  Where are the next leaders going to be?
[53:36.490 --> 53:38.770]  If you know their name, they're probably already dead.
[53:40.150 --> 53:41.910]  That's how I know I'm not a threat.
[53:44.450 --> 53:46.110]  As long as I'm here, I'm cool.
[53:48.190 --> 53:52.230]  So, it's a, you know, it's a very murky, you know, scary situation that we're facing.
[53:52.430 --> 54:05.930]  And the, the important thing is that, again, like, like the, like the reference to Star Wars versus the Matrix, which is the nature of power changes and the nature of the struggle for, for, for freedom has to change with it.
[54:05.930 --> 54:06.990]  It has to keep up.
[54:08.890 --> 54:09.630]  There you go.
[54:12.600 --> 54:13.220]  Thank you.
[54:19.680 --> 54:26.500]  On a different note, you spoke about this six o'clock in the morning feeling, I don't even want to be a cartoonist anymore.
[54:26.500 --> 54:26.840]  Yeah.
[54:27.080 --> 54:27.420]  Oh my God.
[54:30.040 --> 54:43.080]  There's, there's basically two scenarios that I see, looking at, at your future, and that's either you make some money and then you buy a really nice house, or you get suckered into buying a really nice house on money you're still supposed to be making.
[54:43.500 --> 54:43.740]  Yes.
[54:45.880 --> 54:47.220]  I haven't bought the house yet.
[54:48.400 --> 54:49.360]  Very good, very good.
[54:49.420 --> 54:49.980]  This is my point.
[54:50.260 --> 54:52.820]  How do you see your own future?
[54:52.960 --> 54:58.200]  How do you see, at some point, there might be something coming after that thought, I don't want to be a cartoonist anymore.
[54:58.260 --> 55:00.000]  Oh yeah, there's a lot that comes after that thought.
[55:00.260 --> 55:01.680]  But I can't afford not to be one.
[55:01.960 --> 55:02.900]  Yes, that's where I'm at now.
[55:04.560 --> 55:05.660]  And mostly my own fault.
[55:05.760 --> 55:07.640]  I didn't buy the house, but I did buy the bulletproof Porsche.
[55:09.940 --> 55:11.120]  Okay, it's not really bulletproof.
[55:11.660 --> 55:12.520]  But here's the thing.
[55:13.540 --> 55:18.980]  Yeah, I mean, there are people who do this job because they love comic strips.
[55:19.560 --> 55:21.860]  I mean, Bill Watterson was one of those people.
[55:22.260 --> 55:24.440]  Gary Trudeau is one of those people.
[55:25.160 --> 55:26.620]  Charles Schultz was obviously one of those people.
[55:26.680 --> 55:27.520]  They love the medium.
[55:27.920 --> 55:29.560]  They want to be cartoonists.
[55:31.200 --> 55:34.560]  Me, I really ain't a big fan of comic strips, to be honest.
[55:35.280 --> 55:36.780]  I like the voice.
[55:36.880 --> 55:39.060]  I like having the ability to say something.
[55:39.060 --> 55:45.560]  And this seemed like a way I could sort of sneak in and get a huge message out while nobody was looking.
[55:45.680 --> 55:46.080]  And it worked.
[55:47.260 --> 55:53.680]  But to do a daily syndicated comic, you really have to love the medium, which I don't.
[55:56.260 --> 56:01.740]  So I think, which is not to say I'm going to quit because I love the voice and it's a very unique thing.
[56:01.740 --> 56:04.440]  And you don't give something like that up lightly.
[56:05.380 --> 56:07.940]  But it's an incredibly difficult job.
[56:08.100 --> 56:09.560]  It does wear on me physically.
[56:11.440 --> 56:17.340]  And I think, you know, next for me is television and film.
[56:17.820 --> 56:22.700]  I'm doing a few pilots now and writing a few movies.
[56:23.460 --> 56:25.060]  I mean, Hollywood is a mess.
[56:28.760 --> 56:30.900]  But again, it goes to my point earlier.
[56:31.440 --> 56:32.800]  You know, nobody reads.
[56:33.480 --> 56:39.260]  And if you're trying to get a message out nowadays, you better be able to beam it directly into somebody's eyes.
[56:39.880 --> 56:51.500]  And so, you know, without saying definitively what's going to happen to the strip year in and year out, I will say that my focus now is towards television and film.
[56:53.900 --> 56:54.960]  But no music.
[56:55.600 --> 56:56.960]  I'm not trying to rap.
[56:58.260 --> 57:00.140]  I'm not making beats.
[57:00.460 --> 57:02.020]  I'm not going into a studio.
[57:02.420 --> 57:03.460]  I'm not signing with Puffy.
[57:04.940 --> 57:05.820]  No ice.
[57:06.720 --> 57:07.240]  Hi.
[57:07.840 --> 57:16.940]  First of all, I wanted to thank you for coming out and for being one of the regrettably small amount of people in the mainstream media who doesn't assume they're writing for a bunch of idiots.
[57:18.640 --> 57:21.280]  Or at least assumes he's an idiot with everyone else.
[57:21.520 --> 57:21.600]  Yeah.
[57:22.720 --> 57:27.540]  So, I wanted to ask exactly how hard was that a decision to make?
[57:27.880 --> 57:30.780]  Like, what pushed you in the direction that you decided to take?
[57:31.020 --> 57:32.180]  Well, that was actually the easy part.
[57:32.440 --> 57:35.760]  I actually do what... I mean, I tell the jokes I like to tell.
[57:36.000 --> 57:38.320]  I tell the jokes that are funny to me.
[57:39.180 --> 57:41.220]  And to everyone else, it's a big deal.
[57:41.220 --> 57:43.640]  But to me, this is just what I think is funny.
[57:44.620 --> 57:48.280]  And so, that part is the easy part.
[57:48.540 --> 57:51.220]  It doesn't get hard until you realize the whole world is looking.
[57:51.400 --> 57:52.840]  And you start getting death threats.
[57:53.480 --> 57:56.020]  And it's like, hey, maybe these jokes ain't that funny anymore.
[57:56.120 --> 58:00.800]  You know, it's like, that's when you start really understanding the impact of what you're doing.
[58:00.800 --> 58:13.020]  The actual work itself is easy in terms of, not the deadlines, but the concept, coming up with the concept, coming up with the characters, and saying, okay, this is the direction I want to go.
[58:13.240 --> 58:14.120]  That's the easy part.
[58:15.120 --> 58:22.840]  The hard part is when, you know, you're at the Image Awards and you're sitting four seats down from Condoleezza Rice, and she can remove you and your whole family from the face of the planet.
[58:23.660 --> 58:25.800]  And you have to go up there and make a joke about her.
[58:27.060 --> 58:28.980]  Well, you don't have to, but I wanted to.
[58:30.860 --> 58:33.000]  And it's like, alright, it's dangerous.
[58:33.320 --> 58:36.420]  You know, so, that's the tough part.
[58:36.520 --> 58:37.100]  And it's scary.
[58:37.240 --> 58:41.780]  It's really scary to be in the public eye and to get death threats and to know that people hate you.
[58:41.780 --> 58:56.560]  And to know that, you know, fortunately, you know, the Bush administration, if Condoleezza Rice is any gauge, and I'd say she'd be a good one, you know, they're not worried about me.
[58:58.360 --> 59:01.060]  And, you know, realistically, nor should they be.
[59:01.560 --> 59:02.960]  I'm just a cartoonist.
[59:04.600 --> 59:09.140]  But, you know, there are frightening moments.
[59:10.860 --> 59:13.900]  I'm just wondering, Yara, were you influenced at all by Bloom County?
[59:14.140 --> 59:15.000]  Yeah, I love Bloom County.
[59:15.380 --> 59:20.080]  Bloom County, I think Bill Watterson is the best cartoonist, but Bloom County is actually, I think, my favorite strip.
[59:20.460 --> 59:20.640]  Really?
[59:21.500 --> 59:23.040]  Gary Trudeau would not like to hear me say that.
[59:23.040 --> 59:25.400]  In particular, what do you think of Oliver Wendell Jones?
[59:27.900 --> 59:30.140]  That's right, Oliver Wendell Jones was a hacker, wasn't he?
[59:30.240 --> 59:30.400]  Yeah.
[59:32.080 --> 59:33.860]  I liked Oliver Wendell Jones.
[59:36.840 --> 59:37.400]  Wow.
[59:38.020 --> 59:40.840]  Yeah, I actually really liked Oliver Wendell Jones.
[59:41.460 --> 59:44.820]  I mean, you know, Burke was really clever.
[59:46.780 --> 59:53.820]  Think about the black characters in Bloom County, because there was Oliver Wendell Jones and then there was Ronald Ann, who was named after Ronald Reagan.
[59:54.600 --> 59:55.520]  That's a joke.
[59:57.020 --> 59:58.020]  The headless doll.
[59:58.100 --> 01:00:04.120]  They weren't, I mean, Burke really didn't get into racial politics very often, because I think...
[01:00:04.120 --> 01:00:06.640]  Did they ever make any Oliver Wendell Jones dolls?
[01:00:06.860 --> 01:00:07.840]  I know they did Opus.
[01:00:08.320 --> 01:00:08.540]  No.
[01:00:10.220 --> 01:00:10.760]  How well.
[01:00:11.680 --> 01:00:13.420]  I'm a ringer, I'm not actually a hacker.
[01:00:13.600 --> 01:00:16.900]  I work with a group of, sort of an association for independent magazines.
[01:00:16.900 --> 01:00:17.160]  Gotcha.
[01:00:17.160 --> 01:00:18.380]  And so I think about publishing a lot.
[01:00:19.020 --> 01:00:29.220]  But my question is, how do you see, what do you see that the internet, or not the internet, but people who work with the internet, what can they do to break the kind of syndications that you're talking about with comics?
[01:00:29.220 --> 01:00:31.460]  Like, what can the people in this room do for comics?
[01:00:33.100 --> 01:00:36.980]  I just think if you're gonna do something, don't worry about comics.
[01:00:37.580 --> 01:00:38.340]  Comics are a...
[01:00:38.340 --> 01:00:39.440]  Or other publishing, too.
[01:00:39.720 --> 01:00:43.700]  Well, I, I, I, look, comics are... a lot of print is dying.
[01:00:44.280 --> 01:00:44.680]  Slowly.
[01:00:45.140 --> 01:00:46.140]  But it's going away.
[01:00:47.300 --> 01:00:50.960]  Um, you know, I'm on, I'm at the tail end of this, of this industry.
[01:00:51.280 --> 01:00:56.260]  And we know when newspapers go away, comics are gonna go away as we know them.
[01:00:56.260 --> 01:00:59.020]  And that they'll, they'll metamorphosize into something else.
[01:01:00.040 --> 01:01:06.580]  You know, the, the problem with the internet is that people still haven't figured out how to make any money off online, online comics.
[01:01:06.860 --> 01:01:08.820]  And I know I'm not doing it for free.
[01:01:09.560 --> 01:01:13.480]  I mean, I did it for free early on, because I had to, but then, like, no.
[01:01:13.640 --> 01:01:14.260]  It's too much work.
[01:01:16.080 --> 01:01:16.800]  So, um...
[01:01:16.800 --> 01:01:21.420]  I'm thinking, like, in terms of the syndication, though, and the large monopolies, what can, what can be done?
[01:01:22.000 --> 01:01:32.280]  Well, you know, the reason why the syndicates have all the power is because they have all the connections, and resources, um, you know, with, with the major newspapers.
[01:01:32.500 --> 01:01:35.900]  And the major newspapers, I mean, there used to be two or three dailies in every city.
[01:01:36.000 --> 01:01:37.460]  Now there's maybe, now there's maybe one.
[01:01:38.040 --> 01:01:43.480]  So, I, I briefly toyed with the idea of self-syndicating, the strip, and found out it was impossible.
[01:01:43.960 --> 01:01:49.100]  Literally, there, some newspapers hide the individual who handles comics.
[01:01:49.560 --> 01:01:51.240]  So, no one will know who he is.
[01:01:51.400 --> 01:01:54.880]  So, they won't get flooded with all these submissions for comic strips and angry letters.
[01:01:55.720 --> 01:01:57.220]  You know, so...
[01:01:57.220 --> 01:02:04.100]  And, and the other problem is, I, I don't know enough about the, the hacking world to know what you guys can really do.
[01:02:05.560 --> 01:02:06.420]  I wish I did.
[01:02:07.000 --> 01:02:09.680]  I hear stories, and I know what I see in movies.
[01:02:09.680 --> 01:02:10.680]  I saw war games.
[01:02:12.760 --> 01:02:13.900]  Can you guys do that?
[01:02:15.460 --> 01:02:15.840]  No?
[01:02:17.280 --> 01:02:18.020]  You can't.
[01:02:18.400 --> 01:02:19.240]  No telling about it.
[01:02:19.920 --> 01:02:21.740]  Um, so, I, I don't know.
[01:02:21.840 --> 01:02:23.100]  I mean, that's, that's an interesting question.
[01:02:23.200 --> 01:02:28.040]  The other thing is, you know, I, I don't even, I mean, the syndication thing.
[01:02:28.200 --> 01:02:31.460]  I mean, there's a reason why they get half my money, because they literally think about that.
[01:02:31.540 --> 01:02:32.500]  I never think about it.
[01:02:33.080 --> 01:02:37.360]  I never, I just, I do the strip, and then I try to worry about other things.
[01:02:37.520 --> 01:02:41.820]  I never actually think about the business side of, of comic syndication.
[01:02:41.980 --> 01:02:44.420]  Because, quite frankly, it's dull, and there's not a lot of money in it.
[01:02:47.660 --> 01:02:52.400]  Do you believe it's possible to use violence to combat violence?
[01:02:52.600 --> 01:02:53.320]  Yes, I do.
[01:02:53.480 --> 01:02:56.000]  Like, as in, without becoming the same oppressive force?
[01:02:56.140 --> 01:02:56.260]  Yes.
[01:02:56.480 --> 01:02:58.320]  That you're trying to, would you like to elaborate on that?
[01:02:58.320 --> 01:02:59.440]  That's the American Revolution.
[01:03:04.320 --> 01:03:07.320]  I mean, you know, I mean, it's, yes.
[01:03:08.120 --> 01:03:11.160]  I, I do believe you can use violence to combat violence.
[01:03:11.780 --> 01:03:19.040]  What I don't believe is that you need to bomb a whole country of people because someone blew up the World Trade Towers.
[01:03:23.810 --> 01:03:31.730]  I, I, I mean, you know, my thing about violence is, you know, it's, there's usually only a couple bad guys.
[01:03:32.530 --> 01:03:33.990]  Everyone else is just taking orders.
[01:03:35.650 --> 01:03:41.350]  Everyone else is just, you know, you know, they don't know anything about what's going on in the world.
[01:03:41.590 --> 01:03:42.070]  Neither do we.
[01:03:42.150 --> 01:03:42.850]  This is like I said before.
[01:03:43.170 --> 01:03:45.750]  We're off fighting an enemy that somebody told us was bad.
[01:03:45.950 --> 01:03:48.450]  They're coming to fight us because someone told them that we were bad.
[01:03:49.230 --> 01:03:51.250]  You just really got to get to the guys at the top.
[01:03:51.390 --> 01:03:57.310]  And I have to say something, for legal reasons, I'm in no way advocating any violence against any, any American leader.
[01:03:59.830 --> 01:04:01.930]  No, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not even joking.
[01:04:02.050 --> 01:04:02.770]  I'm not ending up in jail.
[01:04:02.970 --> 01:04:04.230]  No, I'm not, I'm not playing around.
[01:04:05.090 --> 01:04:08.730]  Because here, well, I mean, the, the thing about violence is you also have to be smart about it.
[01:04:09.250 --> 01:04:16.830]  The attacks, I mean, let's say for a second that there was no American affiliation with the attacks of September 11th.
[01:04:16.830 --> 01:04:21.610]  Let's just say it was Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden and they had a mission and they pulled it off.
[01:04:22.070 --> 01:04:33.070]  And the FCC and, not the FCC, the, the FAA, the Air Force, the CIA, the FBI, they all just happened to fail at the same time.
[01:04:33.750 --> 01:04:34.830]  On the same day.
[01:04:35.910 --> 01:04:43.070]  Let's just assume for a second that every system set up in place to protect us went down at exactly the same time.
[01:04:43.070 --> 01:04:47.470]  So that it was 40 minutes before a fighter lifted off from the ground.
[01:04:47.650 --> 01:04:48.710]  Let's just theoretically say that.
[01:04:48.870 --> 01:04:48.970]  Okay.
[01:04:50.630 --> 01:04:56.790]  And these terrorists, they were going to, I heard they did a, they, they flew by the White House, but like missed it.
[01:04:57.110 --> 01:05:00.890]  And were turning around to, and then turn around and hit the Pentagon.
[01:05:01.310 --> 01:05:02.170]  This is what I heard.
[01:05:02.950 --> 01:05:05.970]  You're going to try to, you're going to fly a jet into the White House.
[01:05:06.230 --> 01:05:06.310]  Why?
[01:05:07.410 --> 01:05:08.610]  To try to kill Bush.
[01:05:10.550 --> 01:05:12.450]  And you're left with Cheney.
[01:05:15.760 --> 01:05:17.360]  I, that's what I don't get.
[01:05:17.940 --> 01:05:19.700]  I don't get that logic either.
[01:05:19.960 --> 01:05:21.760]  As much as I like to criticize the U.S. government, I don't really get if the terrorists were not affiliated.
[01:05:26.900 --> 01:05:27.720]  What were they thinking?
[01:05:28.600 --> 01:05:31.280]  You're going to kill Bush and lead the world with Cheney?
[01:05:33.340 --> 01:05:38.580]  You know what happens if someone rams a plane into the White House and kills the president?
[01:05:40.760 --> 01:05:46.140]  Afghanistan, and Iraq, and a few other countries just for good measure.
[01:05:46.460 --> 01:05:48.460]  They just become sheets of glass.
[01:05:49.940 --> 01:05:51.620]  Big sheets of glass.
[01:05:51.940 --> 01:05:55.460]  And all the countries neighboring, they get courtesy calls.
[01:05:57.040 --> 01:06:07.140]  They get like, hey look, I know there ain't a lot of time for you to like evacuate millions of people away from the borders, but you guys got like 30 minutes.
[01:06:10.100 --> 01:06:11.740]  We just thought you'd want to know.
[01:06:15.460 --> 01:06:17.680]  So, you know, I believe in self-defense.
[01:06:18.960 --> 01:06:22.580]  You know, I believe that people have the right to defend themselves physically.
[01:06:22.860 --> 01:06:26.760]  And I believe that really, really bad people, like Hitler, should die.
[01:06:27.280 --> 01:06:28.160]  Hitler deserved to die.
[01:06:28.660 --> 01:06:30.800]  There's a lot of really bad people in the world who deserve to die.
[01:06:30.800 --> 01:06:35.560]  So I do believe that, you know, you can kill people for a good cause.
[01:06:36.400 --> 01:06:40.140]  But the problem is, who has the moral authority to make those decisions?
[01:06:41.360 --> 01:06:42.740]  It's usually the people in charge.
[01:06:43.540 --> 01:06:46.300]  Usually the people in charge got to be in charge because they're bad people.
[01:06:47.540 --> 01:06:53.400]  So you've got bad people making the calls about, you know, who deserves violence and who doesn't.
[01:06:54.160 --> 01:06:55.560]  That's inherently the problem.
[01:06:57.220 --> 01:06:58.960]  One last question because we're out of time.
[01:06:59.120 --> 01:07:05.060]  Some people wanted to know why you decided to do the strip about the DeCSS and how you became aware of it.
[01:07:07.540 --> 01:07:09.100]  Why did I decide to do it?
[01:07:09.100 --> 01:07:13.260]  I think, you know, I pay a lot of attention to what's going on in Hollywood.
[01:07:13.960 --> 01:07:16.940]  And I think that's probably how I found out about it.
[01:07:19.260 --> 01:07:21.440]  You know, just through that.
[01:07:21.580 --> 01:07:28.040]  I mean, I did a lot about Napster and I did a lot about the RIAA and the music industry and all that.
[01:07:28.120 --> 01:07:28.960]  Which is great.
[01:07:29.120 --> 01:07:31.800]  People keep destroying the music industry if you can.
[01:07:32.580 --> 01:07:33.620]  Just tear it down.
[01:07:34.000 --> 01:07:36.700]  Just get rid of it.
[01:07:37.240 --> 01:07:38.000]  Let it go.
[01:07:38.160 --> 01:07:40.560]  First of all, none of these people are any good.
[01:07:41.960 --> 01:07:43.260]  Like, I watch MTV.
[01:07:43.560 --> 01:07:44.580]  None of these people are good.
[01:07:44.580 --> 01:07:46.220]  So, yeah, you know.
[01:07:48.080 --> 01:07:51.000]  And you know, it would be great when the bottom falls out of the music industry.
[01:07:52.120 --> 01:07:53.460]  There will be no money in it.
[01:07:53.740 --> 01:07:57.120]  Which means the only people making music will be people who really want to make music.
[01:07:57.900 --> 01:07:58.800]  And it'll be good.
[01:07:59.020 --> 01:07:59.200]  And it'll be good.
[01:08:00.540 --> 01:08:01.200]  But I'm sorry.
[01:08:01.200 --> 01:08:04.780]  So, the DeCSS thing, I read about it somewhere.
[01:08:04.840 --> 01:08:06.300]  I thought it was silly.
[01:08:06.660 --> 01:08:14.020]  I thought it was, I mean, you know, ridiculous that, you know, again, our Constitution was being, you know, just, you know, crapped on.
[01:08:14.340 --> 01:08:14.740]  Yes.
[01:08:15.040 --> 01:08:16.640]  And did the jokes.
[01:08:18.520 --> 01:08:21.240]  And again, it doesn't get that deep.
[01:08:21.300 --> 01:08:23.540]  And to be honest, I don't know a lot about it.
[01:08:23.880 --> 01:08:25.360]  I just read an article or two.
[01:08:25.560 --> 01:08:26.100]  I'm sorry.
[01:08:26.340 --> 01:08:27.120]  I'm a fraud.
[01:08:27.400 --> 01:08:28.460]  Well, thank you for doing it.
[01:08:29.500 --> 01:08:32.740]  We actually have one final question from a gentleman named Jello Biafra.
[01:08:33.080 --> 01:08:33.200]  Okay.
[01:08:39.220 --> 01:08:41.140]  I'll see you guys later, hopefully.
[01:08:41.320 --> 01:08:44.280]  But back to 9-1-1 for a minute.
[01:08:44.540 --> 01:08:44.780]  Sorry.
[01:08:45.060 --> 01:08:45.400]  Yeah, no problem.
[01:08:45.940 --> 01:08:58.140]  Considering all the Bush administration would need as an excuse to launch the same kind of war they have launched today would be another attack the size of the attack on the SS coal, the boat in Yemen, or whatever.
[01:08:58.760 --> 01:09:04.640]  What do you think the government complicity was in the September 11 attacks and why?
[01:09:04.920 --> 01:09:07.120]  Well, first of all, I don't think another...
[01:09:07.120 --> 01:09:12.120]  I don't think bombing the coal or another ship like the coal would have given them...
[01:09:12.120 --> 01:09:14.860]  would have given Bush the type of approval rating that he has now.
[01:09:15.340 --> 01:09:19.140]  I don't think anything short of what they did would...
[01:09:19.740 --> 01:09:20.540]  Not saying they did it.
[01:09:20.580 --> 01:09:21.000]  I don't know.
[01:09:21.000 --> 01:09:21.800]  I'm suspecting.
[01:09:23.100 --> 01:09:27.560]  You know, it follows along the same theories of Pearl Harbor and World War II.
[01:09:28.480 --> 01:09:29.520]  I mean...
[01:09:29.520 --> 01:09:30.160]  No, come on.
[01:09:30.400 --> 01:09:32.160]  Because I know you're not feeling me on this.
[01:09:33.060 --> 01:09:33.560]  And I'm not saying...
[01:09:33.560 --> 01:09:42.160]  Except that the World Trade Center was such a valuable piece of real estate to them, including a CIA station inside it and everything.
[01:09:42.160 --> 01:09:50.220]  Why not bomb something smaller if there's government complicity and not waste valuable real estate and Morgan Stanley employees?
[01:09:50.900 --> 01:09:51.420]  Because...
[01:09:51.420 --> 01:09:52.160]  But the thing is...
[01:09:52.160 --> 01:09:52.940]  But you just said it.
[01:09:53.000 --> 01:09:56.120]  I mean, it's valuable and that's why it works.
[01:09:56.280 --> 01:09:58.780]  I mean, it's valuable because it's valuable to us.
[01:09:58.920 --> 01:09:59.920]  It's valuable to everybody.
[01:10:00.220 --> 01:10:02.380]  Like, people know people that worked in those buildings.
[01:10:02.560 --> 01:10:04.720]  It was a huge, symbolic target.
[01:10:04.980 --> 01:10:06.320]  One that had already been attacked.
[01:10:06.700 --> 01:10:07.680]  So, logic...
[01:10:07.680 --> 01:10:09.580]  You know, logic flows that they would attack it again.
[01:10:09.580 --> 01:10:13.980]  But more importantly, I just feel like if I were them...
[01:10:14.430 --> 01:10:15.800]  Not that I think along these lines.
[01:10:17.880 --> 01:10:18.760]  That's what I'd do.
[01:10:19.840 --> 01:10:23.520]  I mean, hitting Oklahoma City...
[01:10:23.960 --> 01:10:25.520]  No, that's a whole separate thing.
[01:10:25.580 --> 01:10:30.460]  But if they went and blew up something small in the Midwest, it's not going to have the impact.
[01:10:30.880 --> 01:10:37.080]  I feel like, you know, that's the problem with these guys is that they know what they have to do and they'll actually do it.
[01:10:38.800 --> 01:10:40.840]  But, you know, what's the reason why?
[01:10:41.520 --> 01:10:44.580]  Well, again, I'm not going to pretend to know.
[01:10:44.980 --> 01:10:45.840]  I'm going to say, look.
[01:10:46.080 --> 01:10:53.060]  There's plenty of evidence pointing to the fact that the government knew and allowed Pearl Harbor to be attacked.
[01:10:54.740 --> 01:10:56.820]  There was a reason that they did it.
[01:10:56.980 --> 01:11:04.280]  If the reason was to stop Hitler, then, you know, history might look back and say at the end of the day, it was a noble cause.
[01:11:05.180 --> 01:11:07.640]  But, you know, they still sent 1,500 people off to die.
[01:11:07.820 --> 01:11:08.360]  Now, in this situation...
[01:11:08.860 --> 01:11:13.580]  For those who haven't heard about it in this room, what do you think was the government complicity in Pearl Harbor?
[01:11:13.780 --> 01:11:15.720]  I've heard several different ones.
[01:11:15.840 --> 01:11:20.060]  Well, yeah, and again, this is why I don't really like to get into conspiracy theories.
[01:11:21.420 --> 01:11:24.760]  One, because I never actually have the documents in front of me when I talk about it.
[01:11:24.880 --> 01:11:26.180]  So I was like, oh, you just made that up.
[01:11:26.620 --> 01:11:38.560]  No, but, you know, from what I've read, you know, what I remember most of the evidence pointing to was that there was plenty of intelligence that knew exactly where the Japanese fleet was.
[01:11:40.280 --> 01:11:46.920]  And that the commanders in Pearl Harbor were deliberately misinformed, which makes people say, well, why?
[01:11:47.160 --> 01:11:52.360]  And again, if the goal was to get support to get America into the war, well, it worked.
[01:11:53.000 --> 01:11:57.280]  And, you know, maybe it was the right thing to do in a broad historical sense.
[01:11:57.320 --> 01:11:57.840]  I don't know.
[01:11:57.840 --> 01:12:00.540]  It's the wrong thing, obviously, to do constitutionally.
[01:12:00.720 --> 01:12:03.420]  In this situation, we don't know what the motivations are.
[01:12:03.900 --> 01:12:10.020]  I do know that there's something about gas pipelines going through Afghanistan.
[01:12:10.860 --> 01:12:12.540]  I heard something about that.
[01:12:13.480 --> 01:12:17.180]  I don't buy that because there's too many mountains to have to put them over.
[01:12:17.400 --> 01:12:19.580]  Well, I don't think that's even being contested.
[01:12:19.580 --> 01:12:24.540]  I don't even think that's a conspiracy that they needed to put pipelines through Afghanistan.
[01:12:24.540 --> 01:12:26.340]  They couldn't do it because the Taliban government was there.
[01:12:26.340 --> 01:12:30.960]  But, you know, whether or not 9-1-1 has anything to do with that is the question mark.
[01:12:32.480 --> 01:12:42.060]  But, you know, to me, I'm not one of these people that thinks people are innocent until proven guilty.
[01:12:42.480 --> 01:12:44.400]  Aaron, we're going to have to bring this to a close.
[01:12:44.540 --> 01:12:45.560]  We have another panel coming up.
[01:12:45.560 --> 01:12:46.600]  At least not the Bush family.
[01:13:09.140 --> 01:13:10.360]  Thank you very much, Aaron.
[01:13:11.820 --> 01:13:19.160]  If you would like to mob Aaron and harass him with weird questions, we're going to be taking him to the back over by the Negativland area.
[01:13:19.500 --> 01:13:21.220]  So, let's just head that way.