Latest / Drawn of History / Ari Matti Tells Theo What Estonia is Like(M4A_128K)

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Ari Matti Tells Theo What Estonia is Like(M4A_128K) · Drawn of History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Dude, so you're from Estonia. So let's bring up Estonia
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: because to a lot of people, or I'm not going
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: to say that. I've always, it sounded like a fictional place.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Like I remember when I was a kid, I heard
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: the word Kalamazoo, right? And it sounds like a place Dr.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Seuss would have made up or something. Is it a place?
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: It's a place in Michigan, but I didn't know that. Kalamazoo. Kalamazoo, right?
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: It sounds like. Yeah, that sounds like a candy. Yes.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: It sounds like a candy that pops in your mouth. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: the Kalamazoo. And- But then I was in an airport
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: one time, I was probably 16 years old, I'm in
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: the airport and I saw Kalamazoo and I was like,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: no way, it's a real place. Never had an idea.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: So Estonia seems like a place that almost seems like
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: something out of, I guess it's- Game of Thrones or something. Yes.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Do we get that a lot? But it gets confusing
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: because I can't, if somebody said describe Estonia, I'd have
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: no idea what it is. How to spend a weekend
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: in Tallinn, is that the capital? Yeah. Wow.
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  Speaker 2: It's like Kalamazoo is like my subway. You know the
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: sandwich shop subway?
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes. We had one Subway in Estonia.
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  Speaker 2: When I was like 16, I went there every day,
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  Speaker 2: and I thought, so cool of a family restaurant. Name
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  Speaker 2: it Subway, because the sandwich looks like a Subway. I
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: did my birthday there, and then I went for a
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: trip to Sweden, and I saw another Subway.
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  Speaker 1: It broke my fucking heart. I thought this was like
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  Speaker 1: a family restaurant. Yeah. Oh, dude, it's beautiful. I mean,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: just picturing somebody doing their birthday there. In a Subway, yeah.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: It's beautiful, dude. Yeah. I'll say this, too. I dated
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: a girl that worked at a Subway, and I remember
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: I'd go in there, and she'd hug me. She'd have
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: those hand covers on, and she would hug me when
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: she had them on. Did she smell after her shift?
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: She smelled the Subway a bit. Oh, beautiful. The Asiago,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: when they came out with that Asiago bread, people didn't
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: know what to do. What brought you here from Estonia
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: to the USA? Like, why did you come? Well, stand-up,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: of course. Okay, so you were doing stand-up there. I
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: was doing it in Estonia. Where?
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  Speaker 2: Estonia in the capital, Tallinn. I did it in Australia, Melbourne.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: I did it in Bangkok for a year. I was
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: the feature on the road in Asia with a lot
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: of guys. I met Ari Shaffir that way. I met
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Sam Talent in Estonia because he came through. I did
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: it in Canada, Vancouver.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: He came through Estonia? Yeah, I invited him, yeah. I
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  Speaker 1: put some gigs up for him. It was awesome, yeah.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: So were you running your own show there? Yeah, yeah,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: we have like our own comedy club. Okay. Me and
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: my friends, like eight of us basically own. And it's
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: still active? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice. Absolutely. Summer tour, they're
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: all killing it. How big is Tallinn? 600,000, I think.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: That's big. Yeah, it's pretty big. How big is Estonia? 1.4.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: But, you know, when you say 1.4 population, what is
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: it really? Like actually online voting people who know what's
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: happening in the world, maybe 60,000.
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  Speaker 1: 60,000. You know, it's like when you say, how much
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: is in America? It's like a big number, right?
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  Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, but how much of those people are actually
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: consumers and they go to shows, they go to like
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  Speaker 2: online people?
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  Speaker 1: I see what you're saying. Right, like America, I think
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: the population now, what is the population now? I bet
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: it's about 350 million. That's crazy. Wow. The U.S. population
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: is approximately 342 to 349 million. But yeah, what percent
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: are like.
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  Speaker 2: So out of those 350 million, I reckon actual people,
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  Speaker 2: it's maybe 3 million.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Right. A lot of bots. A lot of bots, a
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  Speaker 1: lot of NPCs. I think that could be right. Did you,
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  Speaker 1: the people there, is comedy different there? Would they get
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: our comedy? What is humor like there?
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: Well, you see, that's why stand-up had such an explosion
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  Speaker 2: as well, is that the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: That's when Estonia became a country. Again, we were a
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: country in the 40s before Soviet Union rocked around. And
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: we were Soviet Union basically all the time. You know,
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: Estonians get really offended when you call us Russian, you know,
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: because we're like Estonian. But it's a very they-them behavior.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: You know, it's like you were Mike last week. It's
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  Speaker 2: like most of our history, we've been Russia. So I
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  Speaker 2: don't get offended when people say that. But it's a
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  Speaker 2: thing we have.
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  Speaker 1: So there's a lot of pride in Estonia right now
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  Speaker 1: for being Estonian. We have our own language, everything, you know.
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  Speaker 1: It's a beautiful place. It is.
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  Speaker 2: You would, because you seem like a guy, America's very loud.
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  Speaker 1: It's loud. It's a lot. The highways are loud. There's
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  Speaker 1: a lot of pollution. It's loud. It's a lot. I agree.
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  Speaker 2: That's why you guys are also like culturally like the
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  Speaker 2: leaders because there's a lot of tension and a lot
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  Speaker 2: of push and pull. A lot of push and pull
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  Speaker 2: creates beautiful art. A lot of tension creates beautiful art.
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  Speaker 2: So that's why you guys do that. But Estonia, very serene, calm, sauna,
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  Speaker 2: the sea, the ocean, quiet, space, space. We love space.
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  Speaker 2: We love quiet. It's not a lot of people. So
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  Speaker 2: when the Soviet Union collapses, we'd like rap, music, culture, movies,
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  Speaker 2: stand-up comedy. The more, you know, to control, what communism
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  Speaker 2: does really well when it works is to control people,
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  Speaker 2: you control their subconscious, their mind. So that's why there
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: was all this, you can't speak bad about the government.
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  Speaker 1: There's all this censorship. Right.
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  Speaker 2: You can't say bad words, no sexual stuff. You have
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  Speaker 2: to keep people subconscious, subdued to control them, just like
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  Speaker 2: they're doing now in North Korea. That's what you have
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  Speaker 2: to do.
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  Speaker 1: Well, just like even that's happening now, I think in America,
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  Speaker 1: the way that they sedate us with certain things you
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: can and can't say online, that sort of thing. No,
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  Speaker 1: that's what you do.
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  Speaker 2: But the more tension creates, the bigger the release when
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: you get to say it. like that's how standup started
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: in America. So much tension with the government, racial tensions, everything.
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  Speaker 2: And then a guy named Lenny Bruce starts riffing with
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: a cigarette in his mouth and start saying crazy shit.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: And people go into this room like, holy fuck, this
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: is where you can talk off the record. This is
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  Speaker 2: how I talk with my friends when the government isn't listening,
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: you know, that's why communism.
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  Speaker 1: So that's, that's how it, you know, like that's how
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  Speaker 1: whispering started even exactly.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: And, um, literature back in the day, why Russian literature
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: is so beautiful, it's because it's out of all this
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  Speaker 2: poverty and you have to speak through the flowers. That
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  Speaker 2: means I can't say fuck the government, but I can
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  Speaker 2: say it in a different way.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: That's why, you know.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: So parameters, like having parameters also create beautiful art. And
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: then when the Soviet Union collapsed, all the floodgates are open.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: We get South Park, Chappelle's show, Knight Rider, MacGyver, Grey's Anatomy, Felicity, Friends.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's all like coming into our consciousness. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: And then me and another friend, Sander, and another group
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  Speaker 2: of guys, the Comedy Estonia guys used to be on
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  Speaker 2: our organization back in the days. We were the first
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  Speaker 2: generation of comedians. So now we're the first adults talking
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  Speaker 2: about stuff that American entertainment talks about. Potty mouth stuff,
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  Speaker 2: sexual stuff. So they didn't have it before?
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  Speaker 1: Not at all. So you didn't, when you were a kid,
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  Speaker 1: they didn't have like an Estonian comedian?
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  Speaker 2: We had comedic influences, but it's all controlled by the fucking,
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  Speaker 2: it's all mainstream. It's all, ta-da-da-da, good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
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  Speaker 1: Like Big Bird or something?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, like Tonight Show, Johnny Carter, like stuff like that.
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  Speaker 2: It's not, so then when we started, we were like
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: first ones at the well. You know, the first ones
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  Speaker 2: at the well of creativity. Now that there's no lines,
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: the internet keeps everything open. So it was a big explosion.
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  Speaker 2: Open mics would have hundreds of people.
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  Speaker 1: In Estonia?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, open mics, literally people squeezing in just to see
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  Speaker 2: this new art form. So it was a beautiful explosion.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: It's like fucking the Beatles shit, you know? Yeah, so
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  Speaker 2: it was amazing for us, you know?
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  Speaker 1: Dude, that's so cool. It's so incredible, man.
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  Speaker 2: The first hours of material, let's be honest, they're not
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  Speaker 2: the most original just because, as I said, We're the
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  Speaker 2: first ones at the well. I just got the first
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: cup of water. No one's ever made an airplane joke.
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  Speaker 2: I'm going to do a fucking 12-minute closer. That would
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  Speaker 2: be so hacky here. But it's the first time anyone's
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: talked about this.
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  Speaker 1: Wow, dude. That's so wild. Yeah, there is something that's
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: so thankful about, like, let me say something. That's why
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  Speaker 1: I think we're in a spot now where comedians sometimes
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: are the people that are the only ones and the
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: few podcasters that are saying something that's like not the
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  Speaker 1: mainstream narrative. Well, exactly.
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  Speaker 2: And that's how, that's how podcasts basically took over the media.
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  Speaker 2: It's just because that, the more you subdue the subconsciousness,
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  Speaker 2: the bigger the release.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: What's that movie? This movie is great. If you've ever
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: seen it, it was the movie. Titanic. Huh? Titanic. Titanic.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: So good, huh? They had it in your country? Late,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: but I had it.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: I think we're getting, I think we're getting Avatar next year,
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  Speaker 2: so I'm very excited about that.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: Dude, yeah, I remember being in Vietnam and they had
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: just gotten Stand By Me when I was over there. Wow.
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  Speaker 1: And they were fucking crazy. You had all these Vietnamese
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: people dressing up like the characters from Stand By Me
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  Speaker 1: and singing that song. When the night, it come, the
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: land is gone. We all dressed up as Blade when
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: we got Blade. Remember Blade? Oh, yeah. Dude, everybody had
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: sunglasses and a leather suit.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: If you go to a nightclub, it was the, The
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: bouncer was Blade, the guy was Blade. It was Blade
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: IDing Blade. Everyone was fucking, dude, leather sales skyrocketed. I
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: reckon the leather industry in Italy was like, man, what's
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: happening in Estonia?
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  Speaker 1: Blade was, this was me. This was all of Estonia
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: for like three years. And do they have a lot
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: of black people in Estonia? Three. Good. Yeah. And how's
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: that been? If we interviewed them, what would they say?
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: Do you think it's been good? Yeah. Okay. So it's
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: been hit or miss. It's been hit or miss. It's
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: been hit or miss for sure.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: But I would say Estonians, Eastern Europeans, Northern Europeans, you know,
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: it's not... See, racism is embedded in you having a
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  Speaker 2: preconceived notion about a certain group of people. And I
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: would say living in America, it probably gets validated in
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: an echo chamber. If you grow up in a white neighborhood...
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  Speaker 2: and it's a racist neighborhood, you're gonna have this notion,
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  Speaker 2: and then you're gonna grow up and.
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  Speaker 1: Understand, okay, that was just my childhood.
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  Speaker 2: In Estonia, if you don't really have black people around,
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  Speaker 2: the racism is kind of, it's firing into darkness.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know exactly what you're saying. Yeah. I'll be
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: in Canada, and I'll see black people in some Canadian places,
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  Speaker 1: and it doesn't feel like there's any of the tension
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: and weird shit that there is in America. And I'm
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: not saying that there are It feel it's so fucking different.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: You're like, oh, this is how things are supposed to be.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: And they also keep like repeating this same narrative in America.
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  Speaker 1: Like it's getting beat. It's gotten like it's like we
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: should be able to, I think, at some point start
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: to move past some of this stuff. It's like. what
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: are we still doing? I know. Yeah, exactly. You know
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  Speaker 1: what I'm saying? If I'm still chewing a piece of
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: gum from fucking 150 years ago. Yeah. And after, and
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: there's a taste in my mouth after a while, it's
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: because at a certain point you got to, you know,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: somebody let that gum go. Yeah. Or just get, you know, yeah.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: Take part of it out of your mouth, you know,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: or give it a little bit of a rest sometimes. Yeah.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: But there's some people that just want to chew like
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: some of the same gum and maybe that's messed up
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: for me to say, but I just, it blew my
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: mind when I was in Canada and I was like, oh,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: there's not this racial tension here at all.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and absolutely, there's people who are, you know, it's
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: racism due to ignorance is one thing, you know?
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. I'm not saying that doesn't exist, but... And it's.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: Like, you know, Estonians, we drop N-bombs, but it doesn't
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: have the history you have here, you know?
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: Like, we have. We don't even say black people. We
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: just drop the word. What? But... You guys have, you know,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: you guys, like, we don't have the word you have. Right.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: We say, like, negro, which you guys say, too, and
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: it's not a good word, you know? Right. Well, especially
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: being from the South, some of it, it's like, yeah,
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: it's all, like, I agree. There's such a history with it, like,
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: certain terms here that you don't want to, like, it's
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: not cool. Exactly.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: So, but there's none of that weight attached to that word. So,
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: if a white guy will be drunk and yell it
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: at a black guy, it's just because he's a fucking
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: baboon brain. But there's no deep conceived fucking hatred behind it.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: Right. But if a white guy gets drunk and yells
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: at a black guy, that's fucking kind of racist. No,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: it's racist.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: The action is racist for sure. But what I'm trying
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: to say is he makes it out of ignorance. It's not,
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: there's no like, you know, and it's like.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I think our media over time kind of
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: perpetuates it or wants to keep that flame burning because
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: it also keeps a lot of fucking anger in certain communities.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: Unity has zero dollars in it. Division has the bank.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: Amen.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: There's no reason for people to get along. There's no
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: money in us having an open conversation and being happy
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: with our lives. There's no money in that.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Think about that.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: I fucking hate your ass, and I need to be
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: better than you, and you want to be better than me.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: That creates revenue.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, there's no revenue in peace.