The protein wisdom reborn! interview: Stephen Colbert

Part 1.

Stephen Tyrone Colbert is an American comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actor, and television host. He currently hosts the CBS talk program The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

protein wisdom: “First of all, let me say thank you for doing this, Stephen. It’s not often I have the opportunity to speak with prominent members of the political left who are also quite culturally visible — in the past my interviews have been with the likes of Ted Kennedy, or Noam Chomsky, or a dissembling gay porn cock — so I think it’s important to make the most of these exchanges.”

Stephen Colbert: “Yes sir. I’d really like to say I agree.”

protein wisdom:

protein wisdom:

protein wisdom: “Awesome. So, tell me, what does a typical ‘Stephen Colbert day’ look like?”

Stephen Colbert: “What does it ‘look like’? Or do you want me to describe my typical day to you? I mean, if I had to tell you what my day ‘looked like’ I’d probably say something like, very very white.”

protein wisdom: “You mean white because of the whole arrhythmic dancing syringe thing you did for Pfizer, or…?”

Stephen Colbert: “Well, I was more thinking because I’m very white, but I suppose the dancing maybe reinforced that point —”

protein wisdom: “Oh, it did. It so very did —”

Stephen Colbert: “— though I don’t think it was that bad —”

protein wisdom: “— I threw up a little in my mouth, then punched a Corgi in the ribs, is how bad it was —”

Stephen Colbert: “ — But no, a typical day. Well, I go to work. I get in the car about 8:15 — it takes me an hour, and hour and fifteen minutes to get into the city, I live in the New York ‘area’ — and, uh, on the way in, I’m reading the news breakdown somebody has made the night before, or gotten up early that morning to give me, essentially what the national conversation is today, what the major stories are, or what they could be — what the speculation will sort of grow as the day goes on. Um, I read scripts that are sent to me the night before. I’ll read — well, I’ll probably listen to ‘The Daily,’ if I haven’t already listened to it when I’m sort of getting ready for my day —”

protein wisdom: “‘The Daily’ being the ‘The Daily Show’ —”

Stephen Colbert: “Right, ‘The Daily Show.’ Um, I’ll maybe listen to ‘Up First’. I’ll read Drudge, see what’s on the main page of Drudge, what’s on the main page of HuffPo, I’ll look at the cover of the Times —”

protein wisdom: “— New York or Los Angeles —?”

Stephen Colbert: “— The New York Times — I probably shouldn’t say this out loud but there’s really only one Times. Sorry, City of Angels, it’s not you, it’s me!

“Uh, then, I might look at the Post, the politics page of Reddit — the, what’s it called, the sort of rising links thing on the front page of Reddit to see what’s popular that morning. Then I’ll call, right before I get to the office, I’ll call my executive producer Tom Purcell and I’ll say, ‘what’s you got, Chief?’

protein wisdom: “And this is all in that first car ride?”

Stephen Colbert: “Well it takes an hour, hour and fifteen minutes, something like that —”

protein wisdom: “— Sure, still: that’s a lot of reading and scrolling and listening to be doing while you’re behind the wheel of a car —”

Stephen Colbert: “— well, no, I’m not driving. I’m being driven. The show sends a car for me, which is how I’m able to do those things like reading, y’know, and not simultaneously perish in a some twisted wreckage of, of, metal, with all the flames and the screaming and the regret and so forth.”

protein wisdom: “I see. Though I didn’t hear you mention talking at all with your driver as part of the commute —”

Stephen Colbert: “— well obviously there’s that. Right? I mean, yes, I talk to my driver, because sometimes I’ll want him to, you know, stop at a bodega and fetch me some of those, what are they called? The kinda — they’re, like, outrageously-sized marshmallow treats covered in shredded pink coconut —”

protein wisdom: “— Sno-balls —”

Stephen Colbert: “— Sno-balls, right, the Hostess kind, though — not the Tastykake kind with the, you know, the normative spelling and the cream filling. Though I suppose allowing the ‘w’ to contribute is more inclusive. That’s really a question for our HR Department. But In my defense, heavy cream tends to repeat on me, unfortunately. So anyway, a pack of Sno-balls, and maybe a Diet Coke, or a coffee, or some of those Dr Scholl’s foot pillow insoles, which I find really do keep my feet feeling fresh and comfortable all day.”

protein wisdom: “Naturally. So you get into a car the show sends to collect you each morning, you do a lot of reading, scrolling through online media, listening to left-of-center podcasts, deploying slave labor, talking to your executive producer —”

Stephen Colbert: “— I see what you did there! I see what you did there, Mister Trickyface. No, my driver is paid handsomely, trust me. I’m sure he makes more than you do. And he chooses to work a job that has him driving a white man around and running errands for him —”

protein wisdom: “— so wait, you have a black driver?”

Stephen Colbert: “I never said that. My driver happens to be white, I’m fairly certain, just like you and I are. He’s just not as successful as I am, is what I’m saying.”

protein wisdom: “Well, except at fetching you snacks and beverages. Which he excels at.”

Stephen Colbert: “And shoe inserts.”

protein wisdom: “And shoe inserts, yes. Sounds like a real professional. What’s his name, your driver, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Stephen Colbert: “My driver?”

protein wisdom: “Yes.”

Stephen Colbert: “What’s his name?”

protein wisdom: “Yes.”

Stephen Colbert:

Stephen Colbert:

Stephen Colbert: “His name is Keith.”

protein wisdom: “Keith?”

Stephen Colbert: “Keith. Wonderful guy, Keith. Powerful man. Can probably lift heavy things. With grace and stoicism. Never a complaint, even if I do sometimes overreact when the temperature of the Diet Coke is off. Who wants to drink a goddamn tepid Diet Coke, right?”

protein wisdom: “You don’t seem convinced about his name, I have to say —”

Stephen Colbert: “No, it’s Keith. Or Kevin. Something with a ‘k’ sound. Kerry. Ken. Conrad. Does it matter? As long as the Sno-balls and the Diet Coke make it behind the partition, he can call himself Dr. Doolittle and I’d be perfectly fine with it.”

protein wisdom: “And the shoe inserts. Don’t forget those.”

Stephen Colbert: “And the shoe inserts. Yes. ‘You did a fine job fetching those pillowy shoe inserts, Dr. Doolittle! I applaud your pluck and perserverence.’ Then he returns to his space, which is behind the wheel, his being, like, a driver, and I stay put in the back, enjoying the spongy, sweet, nutty, refreshing — and comfortable! — fruits of his manual labor. We call that ‘capitalism,’ for you on the right who may not know that.”

protein wisdom: “I think it’s less that conservatives like myself are unfamiliar with capitalism and how it works than it it is we’re kind of stunned when we see people on the left who actively embrace it.”

Stephen Colbert: “Well, mostly when it suits our needs. We’re a very transactional ideology —”

protein wisdom: “— I realize you’re wanting to make light of it, but from what I understand about the leftist worldview, your having a driver who makes far less money than you do and who shuttles you around and does your snack shopping for you —”

Stephen Colbert: “— not always snacks exclusively. Sometimes I’ll want a bagel with some white fish and a tomato slice. And a nice schmear —”

protein wisdom: “— okay, but this is an example of power dynamics at play, fitting quite neatly into the oppressor-oppressed discourse, as Foucault would have it — obviously drawing on Hegel’s analysis of the master-slave dialectic, only without what in Hegel’s view would be the life or death struggle. Here, it’s far worse, in fact. It’s almost like a kind of resigned servitude. Something very Alfred about it.

Stephen Colbert:

Stephen Colbert: “Was that a question?”

protein wisdom: “Not really. You said ‘bagel’ and Hegel for some reason popped into my head. I can make it into a question for you, though. So. It’s fair to say we’re living in a social paradigm that has foregrounded applied postmodern thought — everything is a construct, right down to the most basic biological binaries of male and female, who can get pregnant, ‘chest feeding,’ ‘pregnant person,’ that sort of, you know, intentional blurring of lines and eradication of category qua category as a kind of legitimate delimiting mental conception — which means that, for you to have a personal driver — Keith or Conrad, what have you — you’d be participating in that very form of subjugation, and in fact you’d be more than simply complicit, you’d be an actual master or oppressor, depending on which trope you wish to use.”

Stephen Colbert: “Kevin. And still not a question.”

protein wisdom: “How do you reconcile all that?”

Stephen Colbert: “Did I mention capers? I want capers on that doughy Jew donut, too.”

protein wisdom: “Respect.”

Stephen Colbert: “No, so not to be glib, but you have to understand that hypocrisy is something you fellas on the right side struggle with. I’m blissfully unaffected by it — and when people on your side call it out on people like me, the people on my side reject the criticism outright, then sprint to my aid in literal droves. So let me ask you a question: which side would you rather be on?”

protein wisdom: “In terms of…?”

Stephen Colbert: “Well in terms of having to navigate charges of hypocrisy all the time, or not having to worry about such charges. In terms of having a support network that literally swarms to your aid when you make a public blunder, rather than one that will happily point out your flaws and shortcomings when you introduce a different take, or offer an out-of-favor approach to political activism. It must be so exhausting being you. I mean, I was no booster of Tucker Carlson, but that’s because I’m essentially paid to hate him. And hate you, if I’m being honest. But look at what Fox has done since they fired him. They want him destroyed. And your side accuses us of cancel culture.”

protein wisdom: “Well, it’s not just Fox. Media Matters is suddenly perfectly fine working with Fox — who they were ostensibly formed to monitor and discredit — which suggests to me that it’s people like Tucker who make people at both Fox and Media Matters clench their ass cheeks.”

Stephen Colbert: “So you’re saying Tucker is a violent gay rapist.”

protein wisdom: “Potentially, but only in a metaphorical and federal prison-sense.”

Stephen Colbert: “I’m not sure I would have chosen that particular metaphor.”

protein wisdom: “Fair. But to your question about what side I’d rather be on, I get that being on the left has staggering advantages in the current cultural zeitgeist. Power comes from claiming victimhood, and the more victimhood you can claim the more power you accrue. Kids are being taught to be activists, to support the new thing, to fight ‘fascism’ and ‘racism’ and ‘transphobia,’ whatever that is —”

Stephen Colbert: “— fear of trans people. From the Latin. And why are you doing that with your fingers —?”

protein wisdom: “— those are air quotes, Stephen —”

Stephen Colbert: “— wait. So you’re saying facism, racism, and transphobia don’t exist? Because I imagine that would come as a shock to blacks and trans people and, you know, people who’ve been, sort of, like, fascized-ed —”

protein wisdom: “— I’m not saying those things don’t exist. I’m saying that the way the left defines them and deploys them as rhetorical cudgels and political weapons is not based at all on the way those things actually exist. For instance, claiming you are ‘intolerant of intolerance’ simply means that you are intolerant of speech you have defined as intolerant for purposes of shutting it down, marginalizing it, or rejecting it out of hand. So then, talking about race-based affirmative action in a way critical of the legal practice becomes, under such rules, tantamount to a hate crime.”

Stephen Colbert: “Okay. So I’m white. Right?”

protein wisdom: “Like a bizzaro Erkel, yes. Were you any whiter you’d have legit Klansmen freaked out.”

Stephen Colbert: “Sure. So then — and this is important, because I think it’s where liberals and conservatives split on issues of race — but. As a white man, I believe in providing help to those less fortunate than myself, especially those who have suffered the yoke of White Supremacy — and I’m calling myself out as taking part in that treatment, too, because as a white man I cannot escape my own complicity in an ongoing, systemically racist system — and one way of doing that is by being gracious enough to give those who’ve been oppressed historically a leg up in life. Opportunity. And if that happens to get me the occasional piece of black ass, well, what can I tell you? I’m really really famous.”

protein wisdom: “But we’re talking Bakke in ‘78 and Grutter in 2003. The Civil Rights Act passed under Lyndon Johnson — over a Democrat-led filibuster — who launches The War on Poverty in 1964 and The Great Society programs in 1965. We’re going on 60 years of racial preferences being used as a supposed corrective for black suffering, which under Jim Crow lasted about 75 years. Nearly a century and a half of successive racial preference laws in a country whose legal mandate is meant to provide equal protection for all citizens under its aegis. Wouldn’t the best way to stop racism, as Justice Roberts once said, be to stop doing racism?”

Stephen Colbert: “I can’t answer that right now, I’m afraid.”

protein wisdom: “Can’t? Or you have no answer?”

Stephen Colbert: “Both. There’s an ongoing writer’s strike.

protein wisdom: “Got ya.”

Stephen Colbert: “So I’m kind of screwed. But what I will say is that I think Oprah is a fabulous, powerful, full-figured woman of enormous emotional talent who has done very very well for herself. Also, there’s that one rapper. There’s Lebron. There are ‘The View’ ladies of color. And Denzel Washington. He’s always seemed like a very grounded fellow when I’ve spoken to him. Good people, the blacks! They’d probably make better drivers than Kendall, too — if he is white, and I’m almost certain he is — given the chance. Which is why systemic racism is so profoundly evil.”

protein wisdom: “Okay, we can circle back to that later. But for now, tell me about that ear. It’s all, like, bent and shit — and I can look at you and know you weren’t no wrestler. So what happened, and did it have anything to do with pliers? Or a horny Chimpanzee?”

[Become a paid subscriber and read part 2 tomorrow! Please note: this interview is parody. It’s indicative of where we are in this country at this time that I have to say that. But here we are.]

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