HALKIAS It’s not calculated. It’s just that a lot of stand-up comics happened, in the last couple years, to have some of the dumbest opinions on earth, and they are my friends, and I’m like, all right, guys, can we [expletive] talk about this?
COSCARELLI You get the “comedian pass” — you like an offensive joke as much as the next guy. I think that makes you an acceptable vessel for these political conversations, especially because I think the main thing a lot of comedians were reacting to was the feeling that people were trying to silence them.
HALKIAS And it’s so clear they were wrong.
COSCARELLI You were one of the comedians who came out and said “I’m not going to perform in Saudi Arabia” last year, when the Riyadh Comedy Festival offered what I can only assume was boatloads of money. When you see people like Dave Chappelle, or Louis C.K., titans of the field, who took the money, does that make you doubt yourself at all?
HALKIAS No, [expletive] no. And look, let’s be honest: When you’re at the top, you think that’s the most evil place some of these guys have performed? On record, I would never do any of that [expletive]. But I think when you’re at the highest levels, you probably start to get a little comfortable with pure evil, because that’s where all the money leads, right?
You can’t wash your hands of it if you exist in this society. And the more successful you get, the closer you get to whoever the Illuminati is. I could see how it just becomes normalized. But it doesn’t make me doubt myself at all, because I know it was wrong to do that. I don’t care what the counterarguments are.
COSCARELLI Is this a remaining divide in your community — is it a red line and some people are on one side of it and some on the other? Or was it an isolated event?
