Twenty nineteen when there was a young scamp coming to town. He had this little YouTube channel that was growing by leaps and bounds as he made fun of people doing yoga and eating vegan food, and I thought he was hilarious.
Well I was right.
America now knows that JP's ears is hilarious and he's back to go to comedy works Awaken with JP. Yes, Awaken, that's an awfully full of yourself sort of title to give your program, like.
I'm here to open your eyes.
Well, you know, I maybe I'm a narcissist, and if so, it's a condition and I need people to cater to my condition. I'm a victim, even though narcissist victimize other people.
So yeah, I'm pretty great, Mandy.
I see that on your YouTube channel consistently. You're very consistent with your own greatness. Well, I want to ask you a question about how you evolved over time on YouTube because when you started, as I said, you would kind of pick a topic and a lot of times it was like the sensitive, snowflaky kind of thing. But you've really and you giving really sharp but very funny political commentary is part of what you do.
How did that process happen.
Yeah, it's it's a really a dramatic evolution and none of it was planned and basically it just happened. Like the shortest answer is what was most important to me was changing. So when I was doing like the New Age making fun of this spiritual stuff, you know, that's what my life was.
I was very in that.
I lived in southern California for a while, spent a fair bit of time in Boulder.
Oh gosh.
I was immersed in that kind of New Age life. And after a while I realized that there's a lot of b es in it. There's a lot of egotistical nature that hides behind these like better than Thou hiding spots. So even though I was getting a lot of value from that kind of community, I said, well, nobody's calling out this like shadows side, so I'm going to do I see the shadow side and me, I'm going to do that, and I.
Want to make it funny.
And then you know, a little time goes on and COVID happens, and I think a lot of people changed with COVID. We woke up to different things, and part of that was I woke up to what's most meaningful to me, and for the first time in my life, I realized, well, freedom is my number one value. I didn't know that before because I just always taken it for granted. That's part of the blessing and living such
a beautiful country. But I was ignorant to it. And then with COVID, I'm like, I'm not taking this for granted anymore. And I had never been remotely interested in politics, but you know, freedom and so many other things, like literally everything became a political issue.
So wanting to use my comedy.
As a way to speak what I see as truth, it just so happened to be, well, the political arena is where that's at right now. So thus in twenty twenty, I kind of woke up and found myself, I guess I'm interested in poulolitics right now.
You know, there's an old saying that even if you're not interested in politics, politics is interested in you, right So it's always funny when I especially young people, when I meet them and they're like, I just don't follow politics, and I'm like, you know what, that's your prerogative, but know that someone right now, somewhere else is making decisions for your life that you don't get to participate in because you don't.
Have time to follow politics.
It's sad because it's such a kind of thing to have to follow, but it's so incredibly important.
I agree, and I think, you know, you can see I have more gray here hairs on my beard than I used to. But even just five years ago, I would have thought the same thing, like a politics that doesn't affect me, right, you know, I don't see a different space on who's president, where the Senate's at, where the House is, and what's going on. And that's because
I wasn't seeing the difference. I wasn't looking for it, but realizing, you know, the government's spending They don't spend their money because they don't have money, they're spending our money, and laws and regulations like a new one passed.
You probably don't notice that, but.
It moves things an inch in one direction or better or worse. So when that happens over and over and over again, you.
Realize things have slid a mile. Yeah, and it's happened so slowly. I haven't paid attentions.
So I do very much value the idea of whatever age you are.
Don't lose yourself in politics. Don't take it too seriously.
Correct, don't get self identity with being with one group, but pay attention and get involved in a way that you can sustainably do, because you know, we're we the people shape the course of this country.
It must have been.
I'm sure you've lost some friends along the way as you were part of this sort of spiritual awakening, sort of holistic community.
Have you lost friends over this?
Have there been things that you've done where they just said, that's it, that's too far.
I haven't in that shock, suh, that's it.
That's fantastic though. That's good to hear.
And there's you know, all of my close friends. What I got to realize during this weird divided Olympic cycle we went through since twenty twenty is all of my friends they were heart based relationships. They weren't based on this superficial we have to agree with each other to
be in proximity with each other. But certainly what I did lose is like people on the periphery were you know, a friend'll say, hey, you know so and so they're saying bad things about you, and I'm like, I actually I don't care, and that's okay, And So are.
You getting text messages in all caps JP, because that's really when you know you've you've driven someone absolutely crazy. What are some of the topics that you find just get incredible engagement, either positive or negative.
Yeah, for a good.
While, like men competing in women's got incredible engagement, you know, talking about the you know, the shots that everybody was trying to push on you.
That was getting incredible engagement.
And you know the unfortunately during the time over the summer when assassination attempts were coming at Trump, those were getting incredible engagement. And the common denominator I find with like any given topic that gets really good engagement is that's the topics that are most emotionally provoking for people.
So you get you know, parents and they whether they have a daughter or not, they can imagine having a daughter because they know that parental feel an idea of a grown man changing in the locker room with them, let alone, potentially creating physical harm and at the very least taking away opportunity for them in the sporting world. Parents can relate to that and they get so a lot of emotion. And then you know, with assassination attempt
I mean that is very emotionally provoking. You realize this is a man, a human being, a father, a grandfather. They just try to kill, let alone a president, let alone the front runner for the next presidency. So anything that really universally moves people. And then there's little things that interest me and I'm like, well, I want to do a video on this, or I stand up on this. It's not like the mega emotional provoking thing, but.
I call it my self indulgences. I have them on the show as well. I have been following Venezuela since two thousand and five on my radio programs all over the country because I knew we were gonna I knew what was coming, and we were gonna get to watch it play out in real time. And I'm not happy about what's happened to Venezuela, but I tell people all the time, I'm like, you want to see the end result of what some of the people in this country want.
It just happened and people are eating zoo animals. Yeah, so that's what you want, Like by your year long past to the zoo, because you're gonna need it to get into the monkey cage to get a snack.
At some point, if you pursue this.
Yeah, I love that.
You know, Venezuela wasn't on my map until a few years ago, but I love that because you had it on your map, and it is a preview. Is unfortunate what happens to those people, but it's a preview for what will happen if certain political ideologies in this country get extrapolated.
So what are your what are your self indulgences?
My self indulgences? Jeez?
You know, most recently the Jake Paul like Tyson, Oh my god, Okay, nothing, there's no meaning in it, no purpose, but it was so fascinating.
Okay. So, first of all, I love boxing.
I have enjoyed it since I was a kid, when my parents used to watch the Muhammad Ali fights on, like, you know, Sunday Sunday while Sunday what is it?
Wide world just wants on Sunday. Yeah. But and did you watch the undercards?
I did.
Those were fantastic. Those were two phenomenal fights. But the Jake Paul like Tyson thing, I just felt like I was watching somebody beat up somebody's grandpa and it was awful.
It was it was like, oh.
It was awful. It didn't surprise me.
I was truly blown away by the undercard fights, especially the women's fight.
Holy lower.
I wasn't sure about chick fighting, like because I saw enough of that in high school. I grew up in a redneck high school. A lot of chick fighting where I grew up.
But they were They beat the crap out of each other.
They did it.
I mean, man, I'm sure the misogynists love it. They're like, well, they both deserve it. But it was a hell of a fight. And one of the things that fascinates me about the Mike Tyson Jake Paul matchup is just the mysterious thinking behind it. You know, they first of all masterful marketing. Yep, the numbers I hear.
Sixty million is what Netflix reported right, Well, for the people that could actually watch it, yeah, it'd.
See a lot of buffering.
And apparently from what I hear, Jake Paul walked away with forty million, Mike Tyson twenty million. And good for them, they deserve it. This is a free market. Amazing for them, and I think it relied on unethical marketing because you know, it was hyped to be a certain thing.
What was delivered was.
From what it was hype to be. I don't think anybody on the inside would have thought that, yeah, we're going to deliver a real fight, having a twenty seven year old guy fight a fifty eight year old guy.
There's an ethical question.
Again.
It was consensual, it was good, but.
That was like watching somebody beat up your grandpa, and it was it was just I. At one point I was texting with my husband. He was somewhere else. We were watching it together, far apart, and I was just like, I this hurts me to watch this, and.
It was Hopefully Jake Paul did hold up. He could have beaten the crap out of an old man.
He really did, and it would have been awful.
And the thing that fascinates me the most, like Jake Paul kind of universally got a lot of hate for that, I think, and that works for Jake Paul because now more people are interested. I want to see what he does next, so I get that's exactly.
What Ja Paul was.
He's the consummate villain.
And the other thing that fascinates me is, you know, the world's showing love for Mike Tyson, just wanting him to do well and nobody remembers he's convicted of one of the most vile crimes imaginable he has had.
He's one of those kind of tragic anti heroes almost in our culture.
And his backstory.
I think a lot of people, you know, his backstory is just so sad. And the fact that he's pretty much been exploited as a brute since he was like fifteen years old.
Yeah, a horrible time.
Yeah, you know, I think that.
You know, in America, I think we want to forgive people, we want we want to see them do better, we want to see them kind of rise above. And I feel like there was a lot of that at Mike Tyson in that situation. What can people expect from the show, Like we're just chatting about the news, But what can people expect when they come to see you at Landmark Comedy Works this weekend?
Yeah?
Well, first off, Comedy Works the best club in the country. I always love being here. I think this is my fourth or fifth time Denver. The crowds are always the best. Denver's always treated me well.
Because everybody's high.
Every Yeah, everyone's high.
That's all it is. Just make a pot joke and they're like, Okay, there you go.
Yeah, they so you can expect one stupid pot joke, that's all.
There you go, No excuse me.
I'll be doing an hour long stand up performance, and there's there's comedy on some politicals topics naturally, and then you know, I'm a father.
I've got a four year old boy, so there's.
Some of that five is the best age for children, like if we can freeze them because they have no edit button, right, they just have no edit. But but they're also old enough to form their own independent thoughts for the first time. Loved that age for my daughter. So I'm jealous of you because you've just entered it four to five years.
Right.
My little boy, what he's doing now that amuses me the most is saying the F word with no idea what it means. He's seeing it in the cutest, happiest way, and I'm doing my best to not like make a big deal of it, but not like feed in.
Yeah, yeah, I just.
Say it's better to not use that word. Yeah, is there? I am a hypocrite? Like where do you learn that?
Well, I because I'm on the radio, I have this ability to flip that switch to Curson switch. So I never cursed around my daughter. Ever, now she's fifteen, that has changed. Yeah, because now on occasion I will have to unfurnil the phrasing that gets her attention.
Let me just say that.
And the first time I actually cursed, she was like, oh, oh, you know, and I was proud at that moment. My husband, on the other hand, doesn't have that switch. So we have those same situations. Well, we have freedom of speech, so I know, but I'm not the government, but I can shut you down in my house.
So that's that's the rules, mom rules.
JP is going to be at Comedy Works and Landmark all weekend long. You got shows Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Yeah, okay, I've got a link on the blog for people to buy tickets if you want to. Actually and this is one of those things where most of the time I would say, I don't want to speculate that, I'd say eighty five percent of comedians lean left and I will in a show and eventually there's that one joke that I'm like, Okay, that's that's my shot. You know you're
gonna take it. It's nice to know that they are funny people out there that are making fun of everyone. Yeah, and it's just nice to know that I'm probably not going to be viciously.
Insulted when I come to your show.
Yeah, you'll be insulted.
Because you know that's what you do, Aileen right as well. But if I can't make fun of myself from what I believe my side, then I'm a hypocrite. And so I think the self deprecating my own views. That's important too. And of course, uh, you know, plenty of punches thrown to the other side too.
Are you talking at all about some of the cabinet picks that President Trump has made, because.
Some of these have been I raising, eyebrow raising, you have to say they they're.
Fascinating to me.
And obviously the Matt Gates saga, that's all please out now.
I don't know if you saw he did pull himself out of contention, which I thought was going to happen.
Yeah, I probably with a lot of people. Elon fascinates me the most because here's the guy A lot of us look at him like a savior. You know, we're living in a world where we're afraid of these globalists like taking too much control over people. So here comes Elon.
He's done so much for free speech. And you know, he controls a major portion of the automobile industry with Tesla, major corner of free speech with Twitter, he controls space travel with SpaceX, human health with Neurlink, and now he's got a major position in the government, giving this man all that control. To save us from the people that just want to control us, we need to think about that.
I have a massive non sexual crush on Elon Musk, like he is my dream interview because I just want to know what is it in him that makes him have no fear of failure, think about everything He's thrown against the wall like crazy. Some dude goes, you know what, I think we should have a private space company that uses reusable rockets. Elon Musk is the guy that goes,
let's do it like rock and roll, you know. And I'm dying to interview him, to talk to him about that aspect of his personality, because if you can explain that, teach it or harness it alone, you'd be the richest person in the world, because that's what so many.
Of us lack.
Yeah, I agree, And if you look at like an extreme sports guy like Travis Pastroana motocross guy doing flips on dirt bikes.
Just that makes my son the card. I can't watch that.
So they've looked at him, and apparently he lacks like the stimulation in the brain center that should feel fear.
That's why he does all this crazy stuff. But I would speculate.
Maybe Elon like has that disconnect too, Like the amount of risk he takes yep. And not only the failure that could happen, but the guy's gone through so many failures yep, which you hear about the successes.
JP is going to be at comedy works this weekend at Landmark JP. Every at the end of every show, we play this really dumb game. Can I throw you on the spot and you play the game with us?
I love dumb game. I'm a dumb guy. You're not gonna win.
But nobody ever does on the first try. Okay, And I've been playing this for twenty years, and now it's time for the most siding segment on the radio of its.
Guide, the Word of the day, all right.
In this segment, we do a couple of things. First, we do dad joke of the Day, a rod which you don't have to.
Laugh if it's just bad. You can say it's bad. Yeah, what is our dad joke?
Well, what did the earthquake say when it was done?
I don't know.
Sorry, my fault, all right, And that was not one of the better ones that we have on the show. Sometimes they're actually a little bit better than that. I'm just I'm letting you know, what is our word of the day, and we.
Guess the definition of adjective adjective eden tate e d e n t A t e wait.
And d e and t a t.
Not that that helped me out what adjective adjective edentate. I'm going to say that that is something blissfully wonderful.
It's a kind of wrong.
The opposite, Okay, what I think the opposite.
I'm getting like crap energy from the Garden of Eden.
Take That's where I was going. That's not an adjective though.
You know, like the name of the dragon from How to Train Your Dragon, it means toothless or having only a few teeth.
I'd rather just stay toothless. Now.
In this section JP, we play Jeopardy okay with our fake Jeopardy music, so we can party a question.
First, Oh trivia question, can hell I gotta have a calendar for this, all right.
Today's trivia question is in eighteen eighty five, the American Kennel Club registered its first beagle.
What was the beagles name? I'm gonna go Snoopy because why not?
I mean, you know, you.
Want to take a shot.
I gotta go Sam.
Oh, well, we're all wrong Blunder, which is kind of a good name for a dog. Beagles were first imported to the United States from Europe in the years after the Civil War.
There you go, Okay, Now.
In this you have to say your name if you want to answer the question, and then you answer the form of a question, just like in Jeopardy. But we don't wait till the end of the question.
It's a plus.
You have to because it's I will.
I will wait till the end of the question, because you're a guest and I'm nice.
All right, here we go. What is our category? Category is four letter friends? Four letter answer, four letters, four letters musically cool?
Had one?
Mandy?
What's the gang correst?
Now you're getting yeah, huh yeah.
We love your best These also where flowers spring from?
We love you? What is the garden?
What's a four letter word? Mandy, what is JRK?
No?
What are buds?
Oh?
But Mandy, I thought was a four letter word.
Well, you're doing great?
It is?
Does that make you feel better?
I identify as literate? Okay.
Milwaukee's MLB team is sometimes referred to as the.
Brew This, Mandy, what is the crew?
Correct?
Rest easy? Tunisia's on our side. In twenty fifteen, it was even designated as a major non NATO this.
Non NATO JP ally correct. I don't give it you.
Even though you did not say it in the form of a question.
That's okay because you're a guest.
No, you're what's what's your what's the score?
It's one to zero right now?
You go one zero, he's got he's not a chance right now. This word for a friend can also mean bait to attract sharks.
Many correct, and that's.
It, JP. It is such a pleasure. I'm you're you in person.
I hope you have a fantastic weekend and we'll see you next time you come to dock.
Thank you, man, You're amazing.