Hello and welcome to the political orphanage, a podcast for political misfits of all stripes, proudly desegregated since 1952.

I'm your host, Andrew Heaton. Race Unknown.

And shortly before I left New York City, a few years back, I performed stand-up comedy in a cool

alt room in Brooklyn. How cool was it, you ask? I think it might have been a hostel.

Because at various points throughout the night, people would surround the stage and be drinking

and laughing and all that.

Then just a random door would open and a European and a bathrobe would squeeze through the

crowd and go brush their teeth in the bathroom, which for a comedy

club had an awful lot of toothbrushes and towels in it. So maybe it wasn't even a hostile,

maybe it was a squatting situation. I don't know, but I do know that really cool places

tend to be very ambiguous and have Europeans on them.

In any case, it was a fun, fun show.

Full House, good audience, good comics.

It might be...

It's certainly one of the very, very, very rare instances of my life where I knew I was just in the thick of something edgy and cool.

That might be the only time I've ever been in the thick of something truly edgy and cool.

Anyway, one time at this particular comedy night, I did a set there, and later on, so did

the comedian Hannibal Boresse.

You might know him as the guy who took out Cosby,

but he's a brilliantly funny comedian in his own right.

And as he started doing his set, he said something to this effect.

I'm going to mangle the joke.

...