Hey guys welcome to episode 227 of the podcast recorded live at the

2017 16th annual us of Sketchfest presented by audible. It has some wonderful guests on it. I hope you enjoyed. I think you probably

will. And I just wanted to, gosh, wish everyone a happy February. I wanted to thank everybody

for those of you who came out to the festival and

saw any show at all. I met many of you. I saw some familiar faces and we so

appreciated it. We had a wonderful festival. Of course these are strange times and there

may be people who have not heard this podcast before who are tuning in for the

first time because they love Matt or they love John or they love Rachel but I did get an

email from a very sweet listener and you know who you are it was a very thoughtful

sweet email but essentially in essence it was asking me why I wasn't

being more vocal and sort of being more political in my public actions in the

current climate and all I can say is I have to commit so much of my heart and

soul to the festival and it was so important to us that we be able to frankly be artists and be presenters of art and do a good job and give people some respite from what's been going on.

That has really been my full focus.

That doesn't mean that I haven't marched. It doesn't mean that I haven't made

statements that have got me hate mail about the president of the United States.

And it doesn't mean that I haven't written letters

and frankly contributed to places that I think will do a good job with my money of making my voice hurt as well.

So I encourage everyone to get active on whatever level that means for you.

And if you are excited and optimistic about the future, I encourage you to share that optimism and share

it in the form of optimism instead of anger. I'm trying to be as stalwart as I can and try to understand and all that kind of good stuff.

So everybody knows that's sort of where I come from but please rest assured I have very

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