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Premium: When Josh Met Russell Brand · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

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  G'day, this is an abridged version of the episode that you can hear in full by signing up
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  at uncomfortableconversations.substac.com slash subscribe. Enjoy the freebie.
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  G'day, humans. Welcome to SafeSpace with dangerous ideas.
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  Russell brand. One of the funniest, most unpredictable,
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  most unexpected, fast-thinking guests I've ever spoken with.
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  This is, you could really divide Josh Zeppes' short, exciting life into before the interview
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  that you're about to hear and after the interview. The year was 2013. The television show that I
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  was doing in New York City was going gangbusters. The bookers were booking the biggest stars on the
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  planet and Russell brand was on a promotional tour. What I didn't know at the time,
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  this was for his world tour of a new one-man show called The Messiah Complex. What I didn't know
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  was that he'd just come off, I think it was the same day, the set of the popular morning show
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  Morning Joe on MSNBC, where he had completely annihilated and intimidated and devastated
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  Mika Brzynski, the host. Joe Scarborough, the co-host, was off that day. It was Mika,
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  Caddy Kaye, and Brian Shaqman. Russell brand showed up with wearing his necklaces and
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  baubles, his open neck shirt, his chest hair, protruding, his gigantic cowboy boots. Mika
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  Brzynski had no idea who he was. He did a reasonably condescending introduction, saying as much.
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  And he sat there, pensively, contemplatively, copying it, looking down, obviously, on these
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  boobish American talk show hosts, as they talked about him right in front of him, sort of
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  snidely demeaned him. They were talking about Bradley Manning, and Julian Assange, and Wiki
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  regarded him as being this light pop culture interlude on the show. And when Russell brand
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  wants to bring you down, Russell brand will bring you down with a smile and a quip.
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  It's unfortunate that you can't hear in the clip I'm about to show you, that you can't see
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  rather what Mika Brzynski's posture is like, as her face becomes ashen, and she physically moves
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  away from him towards the other end of the desk. Flustered, seemingly, erotically charged,
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  flushed, and speechless, ultimately. Before this clip begins, Brian Shackman, who's there as a
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  kind of interloc- a joc- a jocular interlocutor with Caddy Kay across the desk from Mika,
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  has been saying that he cannot understand Russell brand's accent when he listens to Russell
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  on the radio. He can't understand a word he's saying, and they misname him at one point in this
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  interview. They call him Willie brand instead of Russell brand. I don't know if that's a gag that I'm
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  not getting, or what. Anyway, have a listen to a few minutes of how this interview went in order
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  to understand the mindset of Russell brand when he walked onto my set. Here he is on Morning Joe.
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  I think, this is my first brand experience. Yeah, I think it's not listening to him, it's
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  experienced. It's just sort of taking it all in. You are talking about me, I'm not here,
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  and this is if I'm an extraterrestrial. You know I'm from a country that's near to you.
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  No dummy, we're just sort of admiring the whole thing. Well, thank you for your
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  casual objectification experience. I'm glad that it's positive for you. It's very positive,
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  absolutely. Any other questions? You've become nervous. You're a powerful woman,
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  you've got lovely Joe. What seems to be the trouble? I don't know. You've got a hair-like princess
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  Diana. Oh wow, okay. I've never seen this in my life. Here's a little subtext. I'm petrified of
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  her. She just moved down there. I absolutely love this. Willie, what seems to be the trouble?
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  No, I'm good. Now we're going to have a therapy. Would you do therapy with Willie Brandt?
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  With who? Willie Brandt? Would you do therapy with him? That's where he's heading.
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  Okay, I'm all right. You shouldn't say he when a person is present. You should refer to
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  the person I don't know, and that's basically good manners. This is where Willie is heading.
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  Who is Willie? I don't know. Okay, Russell Brandt. Is this what you all do for a living?
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  Yes. Okay, but I'm here to ask you not. Okay, well let me help you. I'm here to
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  promote a tour called Missile Complex. It's here for the people of America. I want the people
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  of America to come and see me do stand up. Go to Russellbrandt.tv where you can purchase tickets
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  to see me. These people, I'm sure, are typically very, very good at it. What is it? You're conveying
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  news to the people of America. People of America, we're going to be okay. Everything's all right.
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  These are your trusted anguacus. Is that a news link? Give us that. That's a good pen.
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  You need a pen. Okay, coming up later. Thank you very much, Cap. We're going to be talking about
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  the situation with Edward Snowden. This whistle blower. Is it good? What is done for America?
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  Or are our secrets being jeopardized by his intentions? We're going to be talking about that.
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  Also Bradley Manning. Is Bradley Manning an American hero? Or is he compromising the safety
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  of American troops? We care about your views here on Morning Joe. We'll be talking about those
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  later. Here with me, a Brian and Cap. Brian, nice time. What do you think about Edward Snowden?
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  What do you think about the situation with Snowden? Do we, if you got anything to hide,
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  should we be concerned about the revelations, Karen? I don't know what's wrong with you. I understand
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  everything. You're looking at him. When you don't see him and you don't see them, let's
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  put the score. Stop saying he, a thresan, rustle. That's wrong with your manners. You're good.
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  Being polite. I'm calling it tomorrow with a big necklace and I'm opening it up. Look,
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  beyond the superficial. That's the problem with current affairs. You forget about what's
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  important. You allow the agenda to be decided by superficial information. What am I saying?
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  What am I talking about? Don't think about what I'm wearing. These things are redundant.
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  I'm just superficial. Okay. These are distracted. What do you think that gesture means the way
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  you're touching that bowl? What does that indicate? What is that? What's the subtext of that?
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  I don't think I've got a break. You need to lose that ring me, Cap. It doesn't mean nothing to you.
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  She's a sharp. So that was Russell Brand's most recent television appearance when he showed up
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  at my studio to do a full half hour interview with me. Now, I wish you could see what happens in
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  this interview. Suffice it to say that at one point he unbuttons my shirt and tweaks my nipples.
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  At another point he paused his mug of water all over my laptop computer. Much to the subsequent
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  chagrin of the IT people who were working on the show who had to replace my broken laptop.
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  But it was one of those interviews where I was reasonably new at this and I realized a few minutes
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  in. Okay. Well, either I'm going to get on to this bucking bronto and I'm going to ride this ride
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  or I'm going to get steamroll and flattened and it's going to be the most humiliating thing
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  of my life. This was an interview that got a lot of traction in the United States and was one of
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  probably only two or three interviews segments shows that I ever did that really sort of punctured
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  the cultural zeitgeist and got me noticed among the likes of Joe Rogan and so on. I hope you
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  enjoy this adventure with the one the only Russell. He's one of the biggest British comics in the
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  world. One of the few who've successfully made the leap to stateside super stardom thanks to films
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  like Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get Into The Greek. He's now embarking on his first world
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  stand-up tour. He's one of the most innovative and her suit I would say of English comics.
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  Russell Brand is here. Russell the tour. Your first global tour I was a little surprised to learn
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  because I feel like you've been at the top of the stand-up scene for so long. I feel like you
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  must have done one before. I've done lots of tours but I've never gone out of my way to do an entire
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  global tour. You're going to Iceland. You're going to Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi Iceland, Israel, Palestine,
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  South Africa, all over Europe, this country that we're in now which is called America.
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  The air is all the United States of America to be correct. You could call it a number of
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  things USA. USA. I mean these kind of labels ultimately are transitory. I mean it probably
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  have another name in the hundred years. Why doesn't the world come together all as one?
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  All as one would be nice wouldn't it? I've read you but the Messiah complex why would a man
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  as bashful and unassuming as you select a name so self-aggrandizing and grand use Russell?
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  You like to use understated irony as part of your technique. Pre-written of course.
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  Yes. Pre-written by me though. That's okay. Pre-composed irony. So the question is why is it called
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  Messiah complex? Well really because it's a nice linguistic pun Messiah complex. It's a disorder
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  where people think that they are the Messiah but what I'm talking about in this show is
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  messianic figures or figures that have qualities and attributes that can advance humanity.
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  I talk about Malcolm X, Che Guevara, Gandhi and Jesus Christ, all those four figures have been
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  posthumously re-designated in their meanings. What do icons mean? What did people represent in
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  their lifetimes? How do we use meaning? What is the function of icons and heroes? Who's
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  some of the questions that I'm asking and then answering in a sort of essay, a comedic essay?
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  All in an hour and a half. Well I mean obviously it's not a historical document like it like if
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  you're sort of like a serious scholar, it will take a long time. I don't think he covered
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  all of Black American history correctly. Who are your icons? Those people. Actually that's why
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  yeah that's why I chose them obviously there's others as well. France of Assisi's good, Bill Hixie's
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  good, then like George Best. So like you know lots of different people but like those are the ones
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  I thought will be good for this show. And how, when you write a show like that, since you're
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  doing it in all these disparate places, how do you do stick that's going to work in Palestine as
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  well as it works in Iceland? Try to watch stick for a start, because stick implies derivative, lazy,
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  preconceived, pre-written, subpar irony for example would fall into the stick category. No,
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  what I'll be doing is spontaneous work but also considered, I mean there are some themes
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  that's universal in there mate, certain ideas. I mean that's the function of a hero that's,
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  you know like Joseph Campbell, the mythologist and anthropologist, well he identifies that certain
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  stories, narratives occur throughout the mythologies of different countries of the world, that the hero
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  has certain credentials and criteria that uniformly appear. And my argument is that these four
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  characters have many of those attributes. So it's like by that logic, you don't matter if you're
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  performing in Abu Dhabi or Iceland or here, you're going to find human traits that are provoked
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  and engaged by those facets. What do you think of the way the world is at? It means since we're
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  talking so philosophically about coming together and having the power of myth that brings us all
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  together. Are you upset at the level of divisiveness that exists in the world? I've been about upset,
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  Josh. I mean it's, you know, no, not upset. I've been very optimistic about humanity, things
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  are changing, things are going in a positive direction. People I think evolving and becoming
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  more and more enlightened, and this is a wonderful time to be alive. I feel very, very positive.
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  Of course there are things that we have to be considerate of and aware of, but I'm not a person
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  that worries too much about that stuff. That's good. What about you? How do you feel about it, mate?
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  I feel mildly, I feel worried. I'm obviously an optimist in the long run. Right. But I feel
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  mildly pessimistic in the short run. What are you worried about, mate? A bit worried that our
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  culture is becoming more coarse, that our political discourse is getting more dysfunctional,
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  that's getting harder to bring people together, harder to get things done, harder to compromise on
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  what really matters to us as people. Yes. There are kind of institutional obstructions that make it,
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  that incentivizes us to be bad and self-interested and don't incentivize people to do anything.
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  I agree with absolutely everything that you said. Absolutely everything you said is true, but as
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  Joghan Anders said, it don't matter if a cave has been in darkness for 10,000 years, once the light
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  comes, the light comes. And as you said yourself, these are institutions. That means they're
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  fabricated. They have to fabricate that mentality because our natural inclination is towards communion
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  and towards compassion. Now you can also say, like a social Darwinism, people say, no, no,
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  human beings are very, very selfish. Well, maybe if these are the attributes that elevated,
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  escalated, rewarded and stimulated, we live in a culture that likes to stimulate our fear,
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  that likes to promote desire, who's sexuality, and they're barely a product advertised,
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  it doesn't use some gorgeous legs or boobies somewhere in it. So because these are the
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  characteristics that are encouraged, these are the characteristics that prevail in our culture,
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  but ultimately it is our culture and we can decide to change it, Josh, whenever we want to,
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  that's why they have to have a domestic army. That's why they have to have a domestic
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  police force. That's why the media has to be so stringently controlled. That's why debate has
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  to be stifled and contained within a small area because it can change at any moment. It's just a
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  change, it's just a moment. Well said. That's why the optimism, mate, I like it. I mean,
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  speaking of sexuality, speaking of the way that we interact with sexuality, that's always been
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  an important part of who you are. And everyone. Yeah. I know a few Republican conservatives
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  who'd say that. I bet they're perverts. Yeah, they probably are. Of course they are.
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  That's why I'm saying it. People shouldn't be able to do that. They're dead in a hotel room,
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  but also it's fixation of some kind. Yeah, that's right. They've lived in a six-marriage