Russell Brand

It feels so thin.

It feels so thin and empty.

um but you know these cycles are easily perpetuated you can get people in a real rhythm in them mazes dropping a pellet to the rack keeping them going round and round and round so when i go back what i felt like in the associated press building is oh i know these places news internationals offices in southeast london where the times and the sun and virgin radio and talk sport radio are all housed i know these turnstiles these chrome anonymous turnstiles where the fodder of a person is

Like the cogs in Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times, we're cogs in this machine, this simulation, this counterfeit thing.

We're cogs in this machine.

We're being made machine-like.

And then there are them kind of elevators where there's no button, but you're allocated an elevator.

Go to elevator C16, and it will take you to where you've got to go, and then they're all windowless rooms.

No people.

One person, Peter, I think he was called like a person that worked for the AP, who was actually a really sweet person who actually eventually ended up getting me some water.

The ninth time of asking for the living water, praying like Elijah for that water to come.

Eventually it turned up.

And as you see, when I even went to the bathroom prior to doing it,

You walk past associated press photographic imagery.

And these images, if you're like me and you're raised to worship the culture, you'll see them almost as if you're looking at an exhibition from Man Ray, black and white prestigious images, serious photography from serious journalists.

But only afterwards, Matt, I thought, hold on a minute, these are images of execution and brutality, that famous Vietnamese man captive having his head blown off.

Mm-hmm.

And it made me sort of question the real neutrality of the way that media and the word and the etymology of the word just means conduit for information, communication.

There is no neutrality except for perhaps that type of neutrality that always metastasizes into sin.

So I felt very uncomfortable, but I always felt uncomfortable when I'm doing the MTV VMAs.