Patton Oswalt
speaker
1,066 appearances
7 recordings
4 series
first heard Jan 2025
last heard 8 Jun
Patton Oswalt’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 5 in all, peaking in Dec 2025 with 2.
Appearances
You don't want the responsibility because I understand wanting to be- It's not that I don't want the responsibility, but why is it all on, how is it switched so badly that it's the comedians that are pointing out the truth more than, yeah, I mean, by the way, there were people, you know, Lenny Bruce and George Carlin were also pointing out
the truth, but they were doing it in a world where then you know that that was the setup for, and then the press and government will also step in and hopefully try to right these wrongs. And that's completely reversed now.
The government just openly, people in power just openly bragging about, oh, we're absolutely breaking the laws. Do a funny joke about it to make these people feel better while we do it to them. I feel like I'm abetting them screwing people over by giving people a temporary laugh. But it's like I'm not equipped to affect policy and make change.
I know how to tell really good jokes, and that should be where my responsibility begins and ends. It's still a responsibility, but we've become so skewed. I don't know. I was thinking about that this morning while I was getting ready to come here. I was just like, why are we the truth? Somebody, I think they wrote on Blue Sky, like, the comedians are the last truth tellers.
I'm like, we should be the first truth tellers and then eight other truth tellers pick up the, take the ball from us and run it into the end zone. And that's not happening anymore.
But in his defense, he kept screaming at the top of his lungs, you should not be getting your news from me. You should be watching whatever news you can, however good it is, however bad it is. It was never great. And then I should be Eric Severide who comes on after Walter Cronkite and go, here's what all this means. But I shouldn't be your source of news.
But yeah, it became the source of news and the news had to become entertaining and funny.
yeah there's days i'm completely hopeless but and and i instead of it hopelessness is like a day that you cheat on your diet you can't throw it all away because you had one bad day like okay i had a bad day i sank there i'll show up again tomorrow with something um you it's weird you mentioned mark because i text him all the time about the state of comedy and i'm way more wound up and angry about it and he's like you just sit and
stew about this and make yourself get angry. He's hit this level. I wouldn't say it's despair, but it's like this, I know what I can do in the world, and I also know what I can't do in the absence make me throw the whole thing out the window. I show up and do what I can.
What was the thing that Cory Booker, I'm sure he was paraphrasing somebody, but he said, just because you can't do everything shouldn't mean that you don't do anything. Do something. Obviously, no one can do everything. but show up, just in terms of it being a life force of like, I'm still alive and I'm still here.
And yeah, some days I feel like Steve McQueen floating on the coconut at the end of Papillon, just, I'm still alive, you bastards. But sometimes just being alive is a victory.
I think he actually gave us longer. I think when I was in Miami, especially, that was two months after the election. I think I said, when society does collapse, and let's be honest, February, I think I gave it like two months. I mean, I had no hope at that point. He still has. I think the reason he's saying seven to eight years is because I think he wants to give himself time to,
buy property up in Canada and get out of here, you know? Where I'm just like, I think it's just too late. We're all going to be stuck at the border trying to get out.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you want some hope, listen to Maren. Because my timeline is way harsher.
I enjoy the fact that I know, again, you can't, how do I put this? I think a lot of people in this business destroy themselves because they're like, why aren't I at this level or why aren't I this person? Why aren't I filling this arena? And they forget the fact that if you are making a living just by telling jokes, you have won. You have absolutely won life's lottery.
And so you see these people that go insane, or like, I was going to be a movie star, like I was leading a movie and it tanked. It's like, okay, then go be a character actor. Getting character actor and sidekick roles in movies is fantastic. Still 99% of people don't get to do that. So I don't know why you are eating yourself alive. Like you still get to
You get to live a creative life that, I mean, when, again, I'm only saying this now because when I was younger, I was absolutely wound up. I was going to say, it's interesting that I would burn myself down because of that. And now I'm like 56 years old. I get to, I was, I got to do an episode of star Trek. I get to go on the road and do shows.
My friends are all comedians or writers or creative people. My life is books and movies and cups of tea. I'm happy. I don't know why, you know, like I'm trying to be as happy as I can and then also try to give a little bit back to like, This society, this whatever you want to call it, this country has been very good to me. Why not give a little bit back because I've got something good here.
You wake up in the morning and you open up that phone screen It's like, let me invite chaos and despair into my morning. I haven't even had, I haven't bitten a single strawberry, but I have consumed 8,000 megabytes of chaos. What kind of morning is that?
Yeah, I mean, I think that especially to younger comedians, if you are going, if you're comparing and despairing and getting on the, I kind of, and I know this is going to sound kind of mean, I think you actually have to go through that. I think you have to, like, go through the drink too much, smoke too much, realize how bad it is so that you can come out to the other side. Right.
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