Larry Charles' Dangerous World of Comedy (2019) s01e02 Episode Script
Part 2: War - The Soldiers
1 About the most dangerous thing in life is death.
It's unequivocal and unambiguous.
You don't recover.
So it stands to reason that anyone in close proximity to death and somehow making comedy from it would indeed be performing dangerous comedy.
Who faces death every day and somehow makes it a joke? Soldiers.
They fight, they kill, they die.
But increasingly, if they live, they tell jokes about it.
That's the fact, Jack! No matter the country, cause or ideology, no matter what side you're on, all soldiers in action essentially experience the same things.
The horror and intensity of war, but also the boredom and mundanity of war too.
Stayed for a while in a safe house there.
We just jerked off like eight times a day.
Must've been a very safe house.
- Extremely safe.
- Yeah.
Learned how to play volleyball really well.
Sometimes when we are on a mission and my friends fall asleep, I take their picture.
Jerking off in a port-a-potty.
It's necessary for daily function.
Let's meet the soldier comedians.
Bobby Henline burned over 40% of his body in an attack in Iraq on his fourth tour of duty.
You know what it's like being married.
The nagging, the yelling, the questioning.
I don't know about you, sir, but I've had enough third degree.
Donny O'Malley, the multi-talented, multi-tasking auteur behind an entire channel of programming for and by veterans.
This is PissPig.
That's right.
PissPig.
PissPig Granddad.
Are you telling me that being a soldierÃÂ is very overrated? I'm telling you no offense to these guys, not that hard.
So you think these guys kind of blew it then? Well, obviously.
If Thom Tran had not been shot in the head in Iraq, he probably wouldn't be a comedian.
I took a 7.
62 round from an AK-47 in the back of the skull.
Honest, God's truth, that's why I retired.
It screwed up my short-term memory and I can't remember a lot of things.
People are like "It's terrible you don't have a good memory.
" And it's not, because I live with a woman; it could be the best fucking thing that's happened in my life.
Because I have a built-in excuse to forget everything.
She can't get mad at me, because that would be unpatriotic.
Amazingly, these soldiers have notÃÂ turned to therapy, or family, or God.
They've turned to comedy.
Face! Oh! I'm Larry Charles and this is the dangerous world of comedy.
I love messing with people.
I love going to CVS or Walgreens.
I'll get a hand basket and fill it full of scar removal.
I just want to see the look on the cashier's face.
"You think that's enough?" Though Bobby lives in Texas, he spends a lot of time here at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.
Take us through the attack, and the accident, if you don't mind.
Yeah.
So we're at a fab war horse, just north of Baghdad.
Okay.
- You've got the Surge going on in '07.
- Right.
So we're 82nd Airborne.
We're attached to the 1st Cav.
Being the transportation guy, I go in there to bring them round the different FOBs, change out people, equipment, different things like that.
The first day on the road, we found eight daisy-chained IEDs.
Just a real dangerous area.
My unit ended up losing 22 guys that one year.
Wow.
Wow.
A couple of days later, the guy in front of me gets hit.
No one dies, everybody's okay.
A couple of minor injuries.
It was probablyÃÂ just a few days after that when I go out.
You know, I remember assembling and going over safety stuff before we left, stuff like that.
But after we leave the gate, I don't remember anything.
Right.
This is 7, 8 o'cock in the morning.
This happened, our Humvee got hit at 5, 6 o'clock in the evening.
- Wow.
- When I finally wake up it's two weeks later.
They weren't sure, they said medically they can't explain why I was still alive.
They didn'tÃÂ understand, you know, when all the four other guys died.
- Yes.
- Two of us were Medevac'd.
One didn't make it out of Iraq.
And then me having 30% burns over my body, my head was burnt to the skull.
I had my left hand for a couple years.
We tried working on that.
You can do all kinds of cool things with it.
It took me three years to get used to my face, where I felt, "This is me.
" Now I look at old pictures, I'm like, "I'm better-looking now.
" If I'd have known,ÃÂ I'd haveÃÂ burnt my face a long time ago.
I don't think girls know this, but once you go cooked, you're hooked.
But it took me a while.
And it was hard for my kids at first.
I had to make light of it.
I had to break that awkwardness up.
For me too, and them.
So the first thing I ever did was I bought a fart machine.
A remote control fart machine.
So if I caught someone staring at me at the store or something, I would just push the button and go, "Oh, excuse me.
" And their eyes would just light up.
And just walk away real fast.
One of my favorites was, four years ago, they remade Nightmare On Elm Street.
You guys see that? I went to the movies and I waited till the lights came on at the end.
Sweet dreams, everybody.
I always used that humor.
I'd joke around with physical therapy, occupational therapy.
That's how I dealt with the pain.
How I dealt mentally with it.
I'd joke around with the other veterans, the staff.
21, 22, 23.
Oh, snap! For Bobby, laughter literally hurts.
But he wouldn't have it any other way.
I loved my job.
You know, I'd do it again.
I had a great time.
But I've got to tell you, that last tour was aÃÂ real blast.
VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS People ask all the time, "Do I haveÃÂ to have served to understand your jokes?" No.
We're comics just the way every other comic is a comic.
We talkÃÂ about our lives.
We're brothers, fathers, husbands.
Hockey fans, baseball fans, guitarists, nerds, whatever.
The military just happened.
Hey, hey, there's a couple of nerds.
You talking about yourself! - I literally just described myself.
- That's all he did right there.
Thom is sort of the commanding officer of a group called the GIs of Comedy.
These veterans have turned to performing stand-up to share their experiences with soldiers and civilians alike around the country and around the world.
They are PJ Walsh, James Connolly and Ralph Figueroa.
I think all humor in the Marine Corps starts and ends with the drill instructor.
Do you suck dicks? Sir, no, Sir! Bullshit.
I'll bet you could suck a golf ball through a garden hose.
They were the most entertaining, sadistic individuals.
The hard part was to obey and not get highlighted and yet not laugh.
What is that? D&G.
What is D&G? Dolce and Gabbana.
Hello? Hello? Front leaning rest position! Before I went into the Marine Corps, my father took me to see Full Metal Jacket.
Hell, I like you.
You can come over to my house and fuck my sister.
So we're sitting there and we're watching the boot camp scene and he leans over to me and goes, He leans over and he goes, "That's exactly what it's like.
" You had best unfuck yourself or I will unscrew your head and shit down your neck.
The first time I heard Thom's mellifluous voice was not on stage, but in traffic.
solid delays on the northbound side Tell you about my day job.
I'm a traffic reporter on the radio here.
I'm the guy on the radio who tells people how to drive.
Which is ironic, I understand.
If you're shot in the head, right, - you finished your tour, right? - Yeah.
How were you able to do that? Um, adrenaline and anger, I'm assuming.
Because I was back on duty the next day.
You wanted to stay? I wanted to stay, because I was a 25-year-old sergeant who had 18 and 19-year-old kids and if I on the day, would have let them see how scared I later realized I was, these 18 and 19-year-old kids had no hope of making it through this deployment.
So I squashed it all down.
- Right.
- And I say convinced myself, I lied to myself that I was okay.
- Right.
- Until I came home and realized I wasn't.
That gun fight where I got shot, I have it on video.
I'm bleeding.
Where? Where are you hit? Listen to my words of inspiration after I realize I've been shot.
It looks It looks pretty small.
Fuck.
Yeah.
That was all that I could think to say.
The first time my father saw it My father was a prisoner of war in Vietnam from 1975 to 1978.
The hardest, toughest man I ever met.
He watched that video, saw the blood coming down his son's neck.
He looks me back in the eyes and he says "Do you know how much pussy you're going to get with this video?" Two weeks before we redeployed on December 19th, 2003, was the day my roommate was killed by an improvised explosive device.
And he asked what our worst experience was and it was not getting shot in the head.
It was knowing thatÃÂ two weeks before we came home, 11 and a half months into this deployment I didn't do my job as a leader.
And a soldier didn't come home.
And I did.
I hated that feeling and I hated beingÃÂ a survivor when I shouldn't have survived.
I was already in one war.
I volunteered for a second war.
knowing I was going to war, and these poor young kids died in my vehicle and I didn't.
- Yeah.
- Why? That bothered me.
"Why am I here?ÃÂ I can't do anything.
" So every night, for over a year, I'd pray to God just to take me.
I got back on a Thursday.
Processed out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
Went back home to Buffalo, New York, started college that Monday.
So literally within four days, I'd gone from combat to 21 credit hours to finish my college degree.
No processing at all.
No time to process it, because I didn't want to process it.
The day of my graduation, my family was inside, celebrating, and I was outside in tears, because I didn't have a war left.
I literally did not.
I had I had no mission left.
From the moment I got back from Iraq, all I did was drink, all I did was smoke, all I did was eat.
All I did was try to forget that I didn't have a mission any more.
I'll never forgetÃÂ what this doctor said; "When was the last time you smiled?" And I said, "2002, before the war started.
" Because ever since then it's been high, up tempo, trying to keep myself and my friends alive.
And that was the moment that I realized I didn't love anything.
And he said, "You have to enjoy life.
You have to find something that you're going to love again.
" And that was comedy.
She loves the fact that I still wear a parachute rigger's belt.
If you don't know what that is, it's just a velcro belt.
It's all it is.
This turns her on.
I don't know if you know, but this noise least sexy thing you can hear right before sex.
My occupational therapistÃÂ actually told me I should do stand-up comedy.
- Wow.
- And I told her she was crazy.
Yeah, yeah.
There's no wayÃÂ I can go to the general public and make them laugh about me getting blown up in Iraq and the way I look today, my disfigurement.
It's not going to work.
We're here with veterans.
Veterans have a sick sense of humor.
That's how we deal with the job we do.
Hospital staff, sick sense of humor.
We all match there.
But the general public won't be able to laugh at this.
I'm really cheap.
I'm retired military, trying to be a comedian.
There's not a lot of money there.
I'm so cheap I expect a discount in my cremation.
And so she just kept nagging me to try stand-up comedy.
So I was like, "You know, alright.
" "If you stop nagging me, I will try it.
" And I was actually coming out to LA for an operation on my hand here at UCLA for the first time to see the doctors.
- Where we are now.
- Right here right now.
I came here to see my first consultation to do some plastic surgery out here on my face.
So I go down the Comedy Store.
The open mic at this time, you sign up on a piece of paper.
I go, "Alright, I promised I would do it.
" So now I'm nervous and start writing this stuff down in my hotel room.
"How will I do this? How much time do I get?" - I don't know how this works.
- Yeah.
Obviously, I had to address what was wrong withÃÂ me and the burns, but I didn't want to say I was a veteran, I didn't want to get a sympathy laugh; "This poor wounded veteran.
" So I wrote a joke about my mom having to work in the circus, during her pregnancy, as a fire-eater.
You see, this is a rare birth defect.
Unfortunately, my mother had to work through her pregnancy.
In the circus as a fire-eater.
So that was like the first major joke I kind of put together.
Yeah.
And so then I went, "Okay, maybe I can do this.
" I went back to San Antonio found out where open mics were, it's another way for me to get out.
It's me venting.
It's my sense of humor.
The hospital came out, all the staff wouldÃÂ come out and watch me do open mics and stuff.
And I just started working on my material.
I've had so many skin grafts,ÃÂ I can't even tell my ass from my elbow these days.
It's the feeling I get when I tell a good joke and people laugh.
It's the fear in my knees when I go on stage with a new joke, not knowing if it's going to work or it's going to eat a bag of shit.
And I've compared it to the only other thing that it's ever felt like to me, which is jumping out of an airplane as a paratrooper.
That's how I feel when I'm on stage with a new joke.
- That rush, that adrenaline.
- Yes.
If that joke doesn't work, I've got to pull my reserve shoot and hope I don't go 200 miles an hour into the ground, which I have done with jokes.
Please finish that sentence.
So comedy was healing because my soul needed to be healed.
This guy came up to me, "You're the guy on the radio, right? You're really good.
I listen to you every day.
You don't sound Asian at all on the radio.
" Is that a compliment? How am I supposed to sound? "Don't takeÃÂ 405, No 1, they all fuck up!" There's no thought behind a good laugh.
It either touches you or it doesn't.
And the only thing that's ever wounded my soul is coming home without everybody that I should have come home with.
You'll have your bad days,ÃÂ of course.
But you've got to be able to laugh at stuff.
Mentally, it's where it helps you.
You will go insane if you constantlyÃÂ think about, "I might die tomorrow.
" Even if you know, if you're terminal and you know, "Hey, I've got six months, two years," whatever it is you're not going to live the rest of your life if you're not using humor in it.
I won't lie to you.
I will use the term "hero" if it gets me out of trouble.
Like I got pulled over for speeding one day.
The cop was like, "Do you know why I pulled you over?" "I was speeding officer?" "You weren't speeding.
You were flying.
" "Of course I was flying.
That's what heroes do.
" Apparently heroes can still get tickets.
This guy's name is PissPig Granddad.
His real name is weird too.
Brace.
Brace Beldon.
As we will soon find out, although Brace has fought against ISIS in Syria, he is not technically a veteran since he did not fight with the American military but with a ragtag group of international volunteers.
He's part of a new generation.
Posting his exploits from the front for laughs.
So how did PissPig come along? Tell us the story of PissPig.
I, well As we all know, pisspigs are guys, or girls, anyone who drinks piss, - guzzles it.
- Right.
So there's a festival every year on Folsom Street in San Francisco.
I go check it out, you know.
There's a guy in a kiddy pool with a funnel in his mouth.
There's a long line of people just pissing in it.
I tried to.
I don't, I'm not courageous.
I couldn't get any out.
But, yeah, it just stuck in my head.
I find it amazing you would say you're not courageous, because my next question's going to be about you fighting against ISIS.
Ducking mostly.
- Ducking ISIS.
- Yeah.
So tell me about the journey that gets you to Iraq and finally Syria and fighting ISIS.
Tell us that story.
I'm going to have to leave some of it kind of vague.
Okay, that's fine.
But I had contacts over there, and I'd been reading news stories about it for a while and following sort of the general, I guess, conflict in the region for a while, and kind of psyching myself up to go.
Excuse me.
And then made it to Syria.
So I go through training for about a month.
It turns out I am fucking great at it.
Ha ha! Did you know that beforehand? Just a ton of cardio in me.
Teaches us how to use guns, which are pretty easy to use.
What was the worst thing you saw? What was the most horrific or horrible, If there was one? Season 8, Seinfeld.
Great.
What? Was there a moment of humor about it, ever? I mean, was it so absurd - Well, it depends.
- Okay.
It depends, because sometimes it's like a sad situation where the guy just died, but if they've been dead for over, like, two days, it's okay to make fun of it.
Kind of do the little thing over him and stuff.
Um There's only so much you can do without touching it.
- Right, right.
- But generally you try to leave it alone.
- And that's taboo? - Yeah, you don't want, it's, you know - Even if it's a bad guy, it's fucked up.
- Right.
You can make a joke about it, but I'm not going to like, you know - teabag him.
- Right.
There's a lot of crazy humor going on there.
One guy we saw had a face; this I should have known this too when you look back.
He looked like he had a plastic face.
The way his smile was and the wrinkles on his face.
So we said, "Hey, that's Plastic Face," and I would do this character, Plastic Face.
"I've got a plastic face.
It's too hot in Iraq, my face is melting in these port-a-potties.
I can't help my smile.
" So Plastic Face became this funny character everybody kept asking me to do.
Who knew, right? But I've read you talked about the war crime you committed.
Tell us about that.
Accidental.
- Okay.
- Accidental.
It was a busy time.
You have to relieve yourselfÃÂ and I did it, and then somebody was like, "Hey, why did you piss all over that skeleton?" But it was a skeleton of someone in ISIS, so Right.
That kind of makes it okay.
- I'll be forgiven.
- Yeah, yeah.
Okay, we talkedÃÂ about the people you saw who were killed or wounded or being shot at, stuff like that.
We've talked about that aspect of it.
What's up? But it's not really a war crime at all.
Are you a veteran, sir? Yes.
And we're talking about your time in service in Syria? Yes, yes.
He's had battle experience fighting ISIS and he's telling his experiences.
Yes, sometimes they are irreverent, but they're real.
I'm sorry, we're pulling.
I still don't think we've done anything wrong by the way, but I respect your feelings.
Contact from the west! It's called VET TV, where you can laugh or be horrified, but preferably both, by programs such as Department Of Offense.
Was it you? Oh, you were in on this too? And Kill, Die, Laugh.
Fucking Wagner.
I bet he's faking it.
Thank God.
I thought it was one of our key players.
Scared me too, sir.
Thank God it's just Wagner.
I've wondered how to get rid of this kid for months.
Think of all the ass pain he just saved us.
I am an oddball of a man who has a very difficult time taking serious things seriously.
It got to such a low point that I really considered killing myself.
Oh, wow.
And it was at that moment that Yeah, dude.
that's some fucking, That's some good trash right there, dude.
- Dude, it was great meeting you.
- Yeah.
Good talking to you.
Of course, bro.
Of course.
Thank you.
Oh, no.
I joined the military when I was 25.
- 25? - Yeah.
25 seems lateÃÂ to be going into the military.
Why was that? There was a whole bunch of stuff I wanted to do before I joined, because I figured when I joined, I was going to die.
Because I knew I was going to war and I know I'm a nut, so I'm probably going to die.
I had to knock off a bunch of stuff from my bucket list.
You know, before I blew my legs off or died.
And then I went in on my terms and it worked out great.
Right, so you were kind of more mature once you went in.
- I wouldn't go that far.
- Okay, sorry.
Donny's sick, dark sense of humor was without focus until he started spending time with the disabled veterans of the Wounded Warrior Project.
They had suffered the most horrific physical, mental and emotional trauma, but he discovered that humor was instrumental to their survival.
The guys who were shot up and blown up, who had been to combat, completely isolated themselves from everyone else.
They would stay in their barracks rooms and drink and sit around the room and say the most horrendous things to each other.
One guy in a wheelchair, who lost his legs, would say - Am I allowed to curse, by the way? - Of course.
Oh, sure! I've been holding back this whole time.
- It feels weird.
- No, please do.
He would I'll never forget it.
He looks at this other dude, He says, "You're such a fucking idiot.
You got your whole squad fucked up.
" The guy really did.
He walkedÃÂ into an ambush.
He was a squad leader.
"You got your whole fucking squad fucked up, bitch.
How do you live with yourself?" And the other guy goes; "You're so stupid, you stepped on the fucking IED, because you can't keep your fucking eyes open on patrol.
" And they're going back and forth.
Then they start wrestling.
Then, next thing you know, another guy holds down the guy in the wheelchair, pushes him out of his wheelchair and someone else is humping his face as they're holding him down.
And then they all erupt into laughter that I can only describe as therapeutic.
So tell us about VET TV.
You've got plenty to be proud of over there.
That's a nice-looking cock.
Is your neck constantly sore from all of the choking? The Night Terror neck brace is here.
I don't need to remind you that we're surrounded by fucking scumbags.
So VET TV uses the same logic and philosophy that Irreverent Warriors had, which is using humor and camaraderie to heal and bring veterans together and hopefully less guys kill themselves.
Roughly 20 veterans commit suicide every day.
This is a photo essay by the Veterans Vision Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing military suicide through research and treatment.
So I make a video and my video was titled The First Female To Graduate Infantry Officer Course Discovered To Have Penis.
And this is out of anger and frustration from allowing women in the Infantry.
So I channelled my anger.
I wrote this sketch, filmed it and it went viral amongst the veteran community immediately.
And I'm like, "Oh, okay.
ÃÂ I guessÃÂ I'm a better filmmaker than I thought.
" So I made another one.
That video was a hit.
So the Marines were really great.
They were polite and respectful and took a genuine interest in me and my future.
They seemed like the kind of guys that I would trust around my mother.
I think I did four or five total.
And each of my videosÃÂ was something that had never been made before.
I was toeing the line between reality and parody.
If we find any IEDs in this compound We'll kill the men, rape the women enslave the children, steal everything and burn the compound to the ground.
That works.
Your humor, which is what I love about it, is about things that wouldn't normally be considered funny.
But it's completely appropriate as a therapeutic tool to get you through these experiences.
So I wonder if there was just something that stood out along those lines.
Um No, I mean the reality is that when dudes get hurt, you know, no-one's laughing.
Right.
Even the enemy? Even when the enemy is hurt? Oh, no, no, that's hilarious.
You know, there are few things that we hold sacred in the military, where it's things that you cannot joke about.
And I'm like "But I really want to joke about that.
" I really do.
Hey, bro.
Why are you crying? Because I didn't fucking bring him home, man.
Yeah.
But it's all good, because he was kind of a bitch, dude.
You want to do a line? Kind of.
Remember, our target is infantrymen.
Infantrymen have the worst humor, because they see the worst stuff.
They're the actual hunters, so they come back the most fucked-up.
Right, okay.
And I make a point of saying that the way you are now is a natural reaction to your experiences.
And the way your mind, the wiring inÃÂ your brain has been twisted a little bit to make you better able to handle war.
And not just war, but any sort of pain, suffering, tragedy and trauma.
The laughter is just a start.
That's it.
It's just like a catalyst.
The long-lasting therapy is when people connect and create a friendship.
He may not necessarily have been a hero in combat, but Donny O'Malley is a military hero nevertheless.
American GIs have been through a lot.
As much as any soldier anywhere ever.
And as much as we all might agree more needs to be done for veterans, they are coming home to America.
If you want to process your pain and experiences through comedy in America, there are many opportunities.
For instance, every large city has a comedy club.
Thom, Bobby and Donny tour.
Donny started a Kickstarter campaign to raise money to produce a TV series, VET TV.
Our baseline goal is $250,000, which will enable us to create four months' worth of shows.
The long-term vision is one show for every MOS in every branch of the military.
In countries that have no money, no economy, no jobs, no nothing, veterans can't monetize their comedy.
It's not an option.
When you do it under these circumstances, because you have to, it's a calling.
We are back in Monrovia, Liberia.
This is Michael and Diallo, ex-child soldiers, damaged, traumatized, addicted and left on the street to fend for themselves.
They live here in this abandoned cemetery and it is here that they perform comical sketches that help them and their fellow strung-out ex-soldiers laugh and forget for a moment.
So how old were you when you guys became soldiers? Do you remember? I was 14 years when I started holding a gun for LURD forces.
How about you, Michael?ÃÂ How old were you when you became a soldier? I was 17 years old.
- 17 years old.
- Yeah.
Excuse me, Daddy, I want to explain something to you.
Uh-huh.
We were in the video club and we came outside to look at the poster.
Then soldiers came, they catch and put us in the pickup and carry us to a certain place called Foya.
They carry you across the water, so you'veÃÂ got no way of escaping to come back.
- Right.
- So we're forced to be soldier.
But we're not willingÃÂ to say we carry ourselves to be soldier.
Right, right.
So we're the child soldiers.
We hold guns for an advantage.
Because, me, if I see that person that killed my ma and pa, I really want to make show on that person or dissolve their government.
How long after the war ended did you start doing this? Oh, we started doing this after the war because there was nothing to do.
We were "SUSUKUU".
- SUSUKUU is a disarmament program.
- Okay.
- They came in with the help of the UN.
- Okay.
So performing for people to laugh, you know.
Do a little bit of war drama and things for the people.
Uh-huh.
Well, after SUSUKUU abandoned us, we decided to do it here.
Where's my dog? Where's my dog I gave you? They say you killed my dog.
I never did that! The only thing I did with the dog, they didn't want to eat it, so I dried it on the dryer and ate it.
Oh, you dry my dog on the dryer and eat Was there any time for you to be funny while you were soldiers? Yes, I used to make my friends laugh and things when we'd get our guns and things.
You know, we'd say we'd capture Center Street and things.
When we're hosting the area, we can have our own show and things, making people laugh.
And now, this thing that we're doing, we're doing it for a living and things.
I cannot pay 160 US or what you are trying to say.
Look, here, you have stepped on some poo poo already.
Seems like it's very hard for a Liberian artist to make money.
- It's tough.
- Thank you.
It's just pocket change.
Just to eat.
Yeah, yeah.
To have a meal and eat.
So I wonder how you'd be able to make a little more money.
You could play some other places besides here.
Except we've got help.
So now we get help and things and more money.
- You know, that small, small.
- Yeah, yeah.
- For the basket.
- If God blesses us, people look at us, we're going to get more people interested in us.
I want somebody to take me from the habit, but I've got no hand and things.
I don't want to smoke drugs no more.
I want to change, but, You can't change from the habit without taking pills, taking the drip, because it will give youÃÂ a lotÃÂ of things, your stomach will run.
Different, different things are going to happen.
So that's the reason we're afraid to leave the drugs.
Sure.
Sure.
Just outside the cemetery, we met another ex-child soldier.
Archie Tuolee, known in Monrovia as Special Forces.
What he is is easy to understand.
What he does defies labels.
But we are in Liberia in front of a graveyard with a one-eyed, emotionally traumatized ex-child soldier who does a routineÃÂ for the amusement and delight of onlookers.
Who nicknamed you Special Forces? Yes, most of my friends call me Special Forces, because I perform like Special Forces.
- Right, right.
- They always call me Special Forces.
I was ten years old when I became a soldier in 1983.
When the war started, you know, my father was executed by the NPFL rebels, the Charles Taylor forces.
So I saw it in my presence where he was killed.
Right.
I was nine years old.
But by ten years of age, I was able to go and join to retaliate.
My brain was traumatized, you know? - Your brain was traumatized.
- Traumatized.
And how do you feel now? Do you feel Now I'm alright.
Okay, yeah, you seem alright.
You seem good.
When did you start coming out in the street and doing your thing? Oh, I stay long on the street, you know.
It's the only way that I've found that I can help myself.
Do you make money that way? - Yes, I get my money to eat.
- Okay.
And you have a place to live? I don't have my own personal area, but just managing.
How Is your mother still alive? Yes, yes.
When she sees me, sometimes she cries.
Sometimes she give me money.
I receive it.
And I say, "Don't worry.
Nothing's going to happen to me.
" - She just wants you to be okay? - Yes.
- And you want her to be okay.
- Yes.
Yes.
Of course.
Is there anything you'd like to do besides do this? Are you okay? I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to upset you.
I'm sorry.
I understand.
I understand.
Are you alright? Okay? Pray for better changes.
Yeah.
For every country.
Because people, most of them are not wise.
They are blind to the system.
So I'm praying for better changes for the next generation.
- Yes.
- Not for our own.
Because we are getting old now.
But our children that are coming up, give them a good foundation for tomorrow.
As I've said, my search for dangerous comedy had to include dangerous people and what they found funny.
People who would never be asked that question, yet would have an answer.
I'd written to Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, and Carlos The Jackal.
I've never heard back, but, frankly, I don't open my mailbox anymore.
I wanted to talk to a terrorist about comedy.
Are their tastes in comedy as extreme as their political ideology? And, of course, could this be done without getting killed? The search for dangerous comedy is a treacherous one and, if I was beheaded, I'd be in violation of my contract with Netflix.
But, amazingly, I was told I could speak to a member of ISIS.
He had been captured and was now a prisoner of war.
As it happened, the Battle of Mosul was taking place the day this was arranged.
You want to talk about traffic? Checkpoints were clogged.
There was no order, no respect for lanes.
Just like merging for a toll in New York.
Our drivers, former soldiers themselves, created a new lane.
- There's a soldier coming over there.
- Copy.
Kirkuk itself had been ravaged by various waves of the war and, like a tsunami of violence, it left its marks on the city and the people.
Right at the edge of townÃÂ lies theÃÂ prison that housed captured ISIS members.
After much negotiation, including agreeing to speak to the general in charge of the prison first, we made our way in.
The general was a big personality who was more than happy to share his comic tales of war with me.
Call General Fatah inside to have a seat here.
We in America are very confused about what to call this terrorist organization.
Sometimes they're called ISIS, sometimes they're ISIL, sometimes they're called IS, sometimes they're called Daesh.
What should we in America be calling them? Uh-oh.
Do you think it's important to be able to have a sense of humor during these very dark times? It happens, and there have been some incidents.
For instance, we were looking for a terrorist who killed many citizens.
When we captured him, he was wearing a long skirt and it was something to laugh about.
Or when we found them hiding in a fridge or hiding under a blanket, holding a baby, pretending to be a woman who just gave birth to a baby.
These are things to laugh at.
Yes.
To be honest, we laugh a lot.
We laugh when we win a battle, but no two laughs are the same.
In all our battles we lost people we love.
In all our battles,ÃÂ sadly, many people got wounded.
Sometimes crying and laughing happen at the same time, because, within a minute, you win a war, but you lose many friends.
And that's very touching and very hard to accept.
It isÃÂ true you won a war, but the price is your friend's blood.
The price is a great effort and struggle.
Sure.
They go together.
Crying and laughing go together.
Yes, exactly.
I appreciate it.
Thank you.
Now, General Fatah will introduce you to the Daesh prisoner.
Wow, this guy was in ISIS.
He was a terrorist and I was talking to him.
You have to admit he doesn't look very evil.
He didn't seem proud.
He didn't seem like an extremist or fanatic.
He seemed ashamed, embarrassed even.
He said he was a farmer that was reluctantly recruited against his will.
Maybe he was lying.
But either way, without the black hoods and the beheadings and the scary rhetoric, this is the face of ISIS.
Tell us your name, please.
Excuse me for a moment.
You can write down his first and last name but don't speak it.
He has family members here, I don'tÃÂ want to cause him problems.
Okay.
Let's put his name as Bahr.
We can't use his real name.
That's fine, that's fine.
No problem.
How did he get involved in ISIS? How did you join ISIS? When they arrived.
When they arrived, we followed them.
Would it be accurate to say that ISIS has no sense of humor? No, no, definitely not.
While the videos made by ISIS tend to be more dramatic, there are no shortage of comedy videos in which ISIS is the target.
ERETZ NEHEDERE Boomzi boom, boomzi bam Hello Europe, wake up ALBASHEER SHOW Could you describe life in prison here? Is there ever any opportunity at all for anyone to smile or laugh in that situation? Yes, yes.
Most of the time, we have two guys, they don't sit down, they are always kidding around.
So the guards, alwaysÃÂ they jive with them, and kid around with them.
So they make the guards laugh.
That's right, we're bad.
Uh-huh.
That's right.
I mean, they lighten the mood.
They make the prisoners laugh.
Almost like it's not prison.
We don't want no shit either.
Was there something as a kid that he remembers that made him laugh? No.
No.
Okay.
Um So when you were a child, did you ever watch TV or? What shows did you like most on TV? Turkish films.
Were there any favorites? Anything thatÃÂ you really enjoyed? The love stories.
Love stories.
Uh-huh, uh-huh.
Um Was everything very serious in in your village? Did the people in the village have a sense of humor? Is there such a thing as someone who does not like fun? Everybody likes having fun.
How did Turkish love films and a fun-loving village lead him to ISIS? Looks like I wouldn't find out.
We were able to enter Iraq, but there were certain countries we weren'tÃÂ allowed into for security reasons.
And it made sense to me.
In fact, I was relieved.
My theory was I would ask to go to the craziest, most dangerous country and they would just say no and I'd be off the hook.
But then they said yes.
Welcome.
Welcome to Mogadishu Somalia.
Is there anything funny about Somalia? When you think of comedy, you don't think of Somalia.
Black Hawk Down? No.
I mean, it had some funny parts but I wouldn't call it comedy.
One could argue that Somalia is the least funny place on Earth.
Its ruins are ruined.
When I'd been in LA and asked myself, "Where will I be most afraid for my life?" it was definitely Somalia.
- These guys are with us, right? - Yes.
So why are they jumping out? There's the Mogadishu Improv.
Destroyed by an improvised device.
Okay, sorry.
It was amazing to imagine that Somalia had a comedy scene.
And it wasn't like did you ever notice"ÃÂ humor or girlfriend jokes.
ironically, the continuing survival of Somalian comedy depended on Al-Shabaab.
Yes, the terrorist organization Al-Shabaab.
Al-Shabaab was the target, no pun intended, of most of the comedy being made in Somalia.
Every comedian we spoke to had long-standing feuds, death threats and violent confrontations with Al-Shabaab as a result of their comedy.
Yet, they remain undeterred.
While killing everything else, Al-Shabaab was keeping Somalian comedy alive.
You're from the Bush.
Is that correct? Are you from the Bush? Bush? - What exactly do you mean by "Bush"? - Bush? That's what I was told.
I don't know.
I was going to ask him.
I came from my house.
What is the Bush? Great.
What are the difficulties of being a comedian in Mogadishu? The biggest problem in Mogadishu is that you might be killed.
Al-Shabaab caught me once, and a pistol was directed at my head; while this microphone was destroyed and I ran.
I ran fast and that's how I escaped.
Al-Shabaab would call on my radio show, "You infidel," and,"You infidel.
" I used to say, "Come on.
You see me all the time, and I can see you, too.
You say you'll kill me? I'll kill you.
" That is what we used to interchange.
Do you think Al-Shabaab has a sense of humor? In my honest opinion, I'm of the opinion that Al-Shabaab is a program designed for people to kill each other.
Al-Shabaab is that.
I'm Somali and in Somali language we say the words, "Shaabab daalinyaro," meaning lads, or "barbaar," meaning youngsters.
But the word itself is from Arabic.
It is imported from outside.
It's a political confusion and we have no way to trace it.
So no.
ÃÂ They don't have a sense of humor.
No sense of humor.
We spoke to Somalia's most popular surviving comedian.
Ajakis.
Would you say you're the most controversial comedian in Somalia? Yes, yes! - Yes.
- Alright, cool, cool.
Look now.
Google it.
Please Google it.
"Ajakis Fakis.
" Alright.
Good, good.
In the name of Allah, the most gracious, the most merciful, the most deficient.
Respected viewers, listeners, watchers, lookers fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, uncles Four men kidnapped me and took me to Taleh village.
It was the most amazing kidnapping for me.
They took me around 4 p.
m.
They took me to the highest floor in a tall building.
I stayed there one night and they shaved my head.
Also I heard that you were arrested too.
Is that true? That you were actually arrested because you were making fun of the president of Somaliland? The whole world strongly condemned the act on Facebook.
They got afraid and released me in the morning.
So you've been kidnapped and you've been arrested, yet you can smile about that.
Ultimately you can look back and they were sort of funny incidents? Yes, why not? I am happy about it.
If I was not famous, who would have arrested me? Who would have kidnapped me? Who would have shaved me? So I understood I was famous at that time.
That's a sign, in Mogadishu, of being famous.
Getting locked up and kidnapped.
Yes, definitely.
ÃÂ And we are OK with it.
This is my country.
She wants me to bathe the kids, cook the food.
Do you Wash the kids? My wife makes me wash her grandmother, too.
One comedian wasn't so lucky.
His name was Abdi Jeylani Malak, but he was known as Marshale.
Marshale pushed his luck with Al-Shabaab.
He knew the response from them wouldn't be laughter and applause, but a hail of gunfire.
Yet he kept upping the ante.
He wasn't a politician or a soldier.
He was a comedianÃÂ and that was all he could do to fight back.
Doing routines that made fun of them or doing things that offended their extreme religious values or beliefs or just coming right out and being critical of them, as he did here.
I'm glad we have a new president to drive out the hyenas who have been preying on our people.
Which may very wellÃÂ have been the catalyst to his assassination on that very day.
His last day, it was Ramadan.
At 5 p.
m.
we leftÃÂ and said goodbye.
I had some sandwiches as I was leaving home.
I received a call, "Hello?" "Marshale is dead.
" I was just crying.
Crying for almost four days.
I did not eat.
I did not drink.
Instead of laughter and applause, his continuing comedic confrontations with the terrorist organization ended in tragedy when he was shot to death.
silencing one of the few critical voices in Somalia.
I was so sorry for Marshale.
He was killed mercilessly.
In Mogadishu, it seems whoever isn't in Al-Shabaab was or will be or was killed by them.
Amazingly, we could not book an Al-Shabaab soldier.
Apparently, they have a very busy schedule.
But more amazingly, we did find an Al-Shabaab defector.
We found a secure location.
Not easy to do in Mogadishu.
And promised not to reveal his face or identity.
So tell me, why did you join Al-Shabaab? I joined because they misled me with the wrong belief.
While I was in the rural areas, they told me, "We will act according to God's religion.
" They said, "Let's go," and they convinced me.
I was with them for four years of struggle.
And so why did you decide to leave? The thing that made me leave was they were lying about the religion and takingÃÂ human lives.
Then, I decided to leave.
Okay.
So tell us about daily life in the organization.
You can understand the situation of someone whoÃÂ is in the militia, living in the jungle.
We slept in the jungle.
We were guerrillas in the forest.
Were there ever any moments that you can remember that were more light, where there was some laughter or some humor involved? When five or six of us were killed is when we felt happy.
Why? They said they were lucky because they'd attained martyrdom.
There was no humor allowed.
Only convincing others to join Jihad.
And when a person died in a war, everyone would feel happy and say, "He is in paradise.
" But there were no other funny aspects.
So it was considered lucky to die and go to heaven? Yes.
Yeah.
And when you would kill somebody from the other side, were you allowed to smile about that? Yes.
We used to drag their bodies.
- What? - We used to drag them and laugh at them.
Drag them and laugh at them? Yes, we used to drag them and laugh at them.
He said the only time they'd laugh was when they had a dead body of the enemy Yeah.
They'd drag it alongÃÂ on the truck and it made them - We never did that.
- Right.
That's generally frowned upon.
I talked to an ex-Al-Shabaab guy.
He said that the biggest laughs they got in Al-Shabaab was when they had a dead enemy, and they tied him up to the back of the truck and then drive along and they just thought that was hilarious.
Yep, unfortunately, we didn't get to do that.
It's a real bummer.
I'd love to hang out with these guys.
Have a couple of beerswith them.
Do you use humor at all to help you heal or to help you survive now? People laugh about how I was brainwashed.
That's what they laugh about.
So they laugh about the fact that, as a grown man, I was tricked.
In our country, deserting or defecting isn't really a big story.
People don't want to desert America.
Maybe it is to do with the image or the illusion of America we sell people.
I am Army strong! There was a long, chequered history of entertaining the troops.
It used to be Bob Hope and a bunch of scantily clad women.
Things were going great.
We won a couple of wars and got real cocky.
We created large-scale entertainments to commemorate our victories.
Songs were sung, movies made and jokes were cracked and laughter had in abundance at the expense of our enemies.
Rule the North! It was all in good fun until we lost.
Then suddenly Bob Hope seemed like a Pied Piper and a shill for the pro-war hawks of the American government.
Well, I hope I look that good when I'm your age.
Recently, we realized that no matter what, whether you agree or not, war is perpetual and there are people who put their lives on the line around the world every day for us.
Whoever we are.
That change from the ra-ra of Bob Hope Can you imagine those peaceniks back home burning their draft cards? Why don't they come over here and Charlie will burn them for them? to compassion and connection is best exemplified by Jeff Ross.
What kind of ladies do you like? - All kinds.
- All kinds? Alright.
I like your style, dude.
Not literally, but I mean you're a nice guy When Bob Hope died, I didn't know anything about Bob Hope.
I didn't really care about his comedy very much.
- It was a different generation.
- Sure.
But I was going through, I had a little bit of a hole in my heart.
Like, "What am I really doing?" I was a little lost, you know.
I remember seeing Bob Hope's picture on the front of The New York Times.
A big, beautiful color picture of Bob Hope and I was like "He's a comedian.
That guy's not an ambassador or He's a comedian.
He's got the most prominent obituary I've ever seen.
" As it's not because he lived to 100.
It's because of what he did.
I just want you boysÃÂ toÃÂ see what you're fighting for, that's all.
Thank you very much.
I'm very thrilled to be here.
Where are we? I don't know what you guys did to get here, but let that be a lesson to you.
I don't get the Arabs in the M.
East.
Who'd think men with as many wives as they want would have the energy to go to war? I'm looking at this.
Like, "Wow, that's real cred That's a life.
What am I doing? Worrying about my marquee and how many Getting half off the steak and and hecklers and" I'm on the Jersey Turnpike last week with my friend who's not from Jersey.
He's like, "What the hell is that? What is that? Toxic waste? Garbage?" I'm like "Waffles.
" And I was at the Improv on Melrose a short time laterand Drew Carey; You asked if I started it.
Drew Carey started it.
Okay.
Drew Carey's a Marine.
I always say the Marines love Drew Carey because they love blondes with big tits.
A big Iron Horse welcome for Drew Carey! You know what's great about this place? Everywhere you look, you can see how fucked you are.
Man! I'm talking left, right, up, down.
Fucked, fucked, man.
And he said to me, "I'm going to Iraq in a month and a half.
I'm going to take a bunch of comedians.
Would you want to come?" I went.
And I was really nervous, man.
- I was really, really nervous.
- Yeah.
- I'm a Jew, you know, in Iraq.
- Right.
Alright.
Now we're geared up, ready to go.
And as I was doing the shows I was really just doing my regular nightclub act at that point, but everybody kept thanking me for coming.
I was like, "Wow.
You don't really see that.
" You know, you do a general audience, they don't thank me for coming.
They go, "You were good.
The other guy was good.
I liked what you said about that.
I'm not a lout" They give you a whole crit.
They were just like, "Thank you for coming.
" - Yeah.
- They loved it.
- Yeah.
- And I realized on the flight home, I should be thanking them.
I did a show about five years ago for the locals here in Tikrit.
That was a rough crowd, man.
Afterwards, a guy walked up to me, he's like, "Oh, I laughed so hard I nearly Shiite my pants.
" The Ba'ath Party? Nobody here takes a fucking bath.
It's about making people laugh that are in a fucked-up situation.
But you make those jokes penetrate that Kevlar or that helmet, you get someone to laugh who looks like they want to die.
- Yeah.
- It's a real - That's - Some who will die.
What I wanted to do was get people to laugh at things that make them incredibly uncomfortable.
And if we can get them to laugh just a little about that which might be the most sacred, then we might get them to open up a little bit.
And that's where the therapy comes in.
I get a lot of mail from soldiers.
Some people will stop me in the airport.
Shake me, you know.
"Baklawa, two, two" They'll search for it.
"2003.
" You know what I mean? "You remember? You got my buddy on stage.
" And it's not even sad anymore.
It's like, "You know, he died four days later.
He was laughing.
It was the last time we hung out.
" They don't always have an ending, these stories, but you know that it was a moment in time that they'll never forget, and it made life a little easier.
The war broke me.
I will not be ashamed to say the war broke me.
Coming home when some of my friends couldn't broke me.
But goddammit, comedy When I hear that laughter and it's not even that it's a joke that I wrote.
It's a joke that I wrote that made these people laugh.
- I healed their souls for 30 seconds.
- Right.
Whether they're a soldier or a policeman or a doctor or a guy at fucking Domino's who just hadÃÂ a bad night delivering pizzas.
That joke, for 30 seconds, healed someone's soul.
And that heals me.
It's death.
- It's comedy in the middle of death.
- Yes.
These feelings are real.
You're going to feel sorry for yourself and you've got to give yourself a pity pot time out to accept those.
- Yes.
- Whether it's anger, Go in your closet and punch your clothes.
Go in front of the mirror and cry and be mad at the situation.
But have those reminders taped to the mirror that say, "My family is here.
I want to have fun with them before I leave.
" "I want my children, or so-and-so, to enjoy the time I'm here.
" "What haven't I done yet?" Do that bucket list.
Something.
Enjoy life and laugh.
For those of us who weren't around for the last Civil War, or won't be around for the next one we don't know what it's like to laugh at a war that's beingÃÂ fought outside your front door.
For me, dangerous comedy is that thin, ever-blurring line between what's funny and what shouldn't be funny.
In the next episode, we look to another war producing dangerous comedy.
The race war.
Okay, that's good.
Subtitle translation byMetia Bethell
It's unequivocal and unambiguous.
You don't recover.
So it stands to reason that anyone in close proximity to death and somehow making comedy from it would indeed be performing dangerous comedy.
Who faces death every day and somehow makes it a joke? Soldiers.
They fight, they kill, they die.
But increasingly, if they live, they tell jokes about it.
That's the fact, Jack! No matter the country, cause or ideology, no matter what side you're on, all soldiers in action essentially experience the same things.
The horror and intensity of war, but also the boredom and mundanity of war too.
Stayed for a while in a safe house there.
We just jerked off like eight times a day.
Must've been a very safe house.
- Extremely safe.
- Yeah.
Learned how to play volleyball really well.
Sometimes when we are on a mission and my friends fall asleep, I take their picture.
Jerking off in a port-a-potty.
It's necessary for daily function.
Let's meet the soldier comedians.
Bobby Henline burned over 40% of his body in an attack in Iraq on his fourth tour of duty.
You know what it's like being married.
The nagging, the yelling, the questioning.
I don't know about you, sir, but I've had enough third degree.
Donny O'Malley, the multi-talented, multi-tasking auteur behind an entire channel of programming for and by veterans.
This is PissPig.
That's right.
PissPig.
PissPig Granddad.
Are you telling me that being a soldierÃÂ is very overrated? I'm telling you no offense to these guys, not that hard.
So you think these guys kind of blew it then? Well, obviously.
If Thom Tran had not been shot in the head in Iraq, he probably wouldn't be a comedian.
I took a 7.
62 round from an AK-47 in the back of the skull.
Honest, God's truth, that's why I retired.
It screwed up my short-term memory and I can't remember a lot of things.
People are like "It's terrible you don't have a good memory.
" And it's not, because I live with a woman; it could be the best fucking thing that's happened in my life.
Because I have a built-in excuse to forget everything.
She can't get mad at me, because that would be unpatriotic.
Amazingly, these soldiers have notÃÂ turned to therapy, or family, or God.
They've turned to comedy.
Face! Oh! I'm Larry Charles and this is the dangerous world of comedy.
I love messing with people.
I love going to CVS or Walgreens.
I'll get a hand basket and fill it full of scar removal.
I just want to see the look on the cashier's face.
"You think that's enough?" Though Bobby lives in Texas, he spends a lot of time here at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.
Take us through the attack, and the accident, if you don't mind.
Yeah.
So we're at a fab war horse, just north of Baghdad.
Okay.
- You've got the Surge going on in '07.
- Right.
So we're 82nd Airborne.
We're attached to the 1st Cav.
Being the transportation guy, I go in there to bring them round the different FOBs, change out people, equipment, different things like that.
The first day on the road, we found eight daisy-chained IEDs.
Just a real dangerous area.
My unit ended up losing 22 guys that one year.
Wow.
Wow.
A couple of days later, the guy in front of me gets hit.
No one dies, everybody's okay.
A couple of minor injuries.
It was probablyÃÂ just a few days after that when I go out.
You know, I remember assembling and going over safety stuff before we left, stuff like that.
But after we leave the gate, I don't remember anything.
Right.
This is 7, 8 o'cock in the morning.
This happened, our Humvee got hit at 5, 6 o'clock in the evening.
- Wow.
- When I finally wake up it's two weeks later.
They weren't sure, they said medically they can't explain why I was still alive.
They didn'tÃÂ understand, you know, when all the four other guys died.
- Yes.
- Two of us were Medevac'd.
One didn't make it out of Iraq.
And then me having 30% burns over my body, my head was burnt to the skull.
I had my left hand for a couple years.
We tried working on that.
You can do all kinds of cool things with it.
It took me three years to get used to my face, where I felt, "This is me.
" Now I look at old pictures, I'm like, "I'm better-looking now.
" If I'd have known,ÃÂ I'd haveÃÂ burnt my face a long time ago.
I don't think girls know this, but once you go cooked, you're hooked.
But it took me a while.
And it was hard for my kids at first.
I had to make light of it.
I had to break that awkwardness up.
For me too, and them.
So the first thing I ever did was I bought a fart machine.
A remote control fart machine.
So if I caught someone staring at me at the store or something, I would just push the button and go, "Oh, excuse me.
" And their eyes would just light up.
And just walk away real fast.
One of my favorites was, four years ago, they remade Nightmare On Elm Street.
You guys see that? I went to the movies and I waited till the lights came on at the end.
Sweet dreams, everybody.
I always used that humor.
I'd joke around with physical therapy, occupational therapy.
That's how I dealt with the pain.
How I dealt mentally with it.
I'd joke around with the other veterans, the staff.
21, 22, 23.
Oh, snap! For Bobby, laughter literally hurts.
But he wouldn't have it any other way.
I loved my job.
You know, I'd do it again.
I had a great time.
But I've got to tell you, that last tour was aÃÂ real blast.
VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS People ask all the time, "Do I haveÃÂ to have served to understand your jokes?" No.
We're comics just the way every other comic is a comic.
We talkÃÂ about our lives.
We're brothers, fathers, husbands.
Hockey fans, baseball fans, guitarists, nerds, whatever.
The military just happened.
Hey, hey, there's a couple of nerds.
You talking about yourself! - I literally just described myself.
- That's all he did right there.
Thom is sort of the commanding officer of a group called the GIs of Comedy.
These veterans have turned to performing stand-up to share their experiences with soldiers and civilians alike around the country and around the world.
They are PJ Walsh, James Connolly and Ralph Figueroa.
I think all humor in the Marine Corps starts and ends with the drill instructor.
Do you suck dicks? Sir, no, Sir! Bullshit.
I'll bet you could suck a golf ball through a garden hose.
They were the most entertaining, sadistic individuals.
The hard part was to obey and not get highlighted and yet not laugh.
What is that? D&G.
What is D&G? Dolce and Gabbana.
Hello? Hello? Front leaning rest position! Before I went into the Marine Corps, my father took me to see Full Metal Jacket.
Hell, I like you.
You can come over to my house and fuck my sister.
So we're sitting there and we're watching the boot camp scene and he leans over to me and goes, He leans over and he goes, "That's exactly what it's like.
" You had best unfuck yourself or I will unscrew your head and shit down your neck.
The first time I heard Thom's mellifluous voice was not on stage, but in traffic.
solid delays on the northbound side Tell you about my day job.
I'm a traffic reporter on the radio here.
I'm the guy on the radio who tells people how to drive.
Which is ironic, I understand.
If you're shot in the head, right, - you finished your tour, right? - Yeah.
How were you able to do that? Um, adrenaline and anger, I'm assuming.
Because I was back on duty the next day.
You wanted to stay? I wanted to stay, because I was a 25-year-old sergeant who had 18 and 19-year-old kids and if I on the day, would have let them see how scared I later realized I was, these 18 and 19-year-old kids had no hope of making it through this deployment.
So I squashed it all down.
- Right.
- And I say convinced myself, I lied to myself that I was okay.
- Right.
- Until I came home and realized I wasn't.
That gun fight where I got shot, I have it on video.
I'm bleeding.
Where? Where are you hit? Listen to my words of inspiration after I realize I've been shot.
It looks It looks pretty small.
Fuck.
Yeah.
That was all that I could think to say.
The first time my father saw it My father was a prisoner of war in Vietnam from 1975 to 1978.
The hardest, toughest man I ever met.
He watched that video, saw the blood coming down his son's neck.
He looks me back in the eyes and he says "Do you know how much pussy you're going to get with this video?" Two weeks before we redeployed on December 19th, 2003, was the day my roommate was killed by an improvised explosive device.
And he asked what our worst experience was and it was not getting shot in the head.
It was knowing thatÃÂ two weeks before we came home, 11 and a half months into this deployment I didn't do my job as a leader.
And a soldier didn't come home.
And I did.
I hated that feeling and I hated beingÃÂ a survivor when I shouldn't have survived.
I was already in one war.
I volunteered for a second war.
knowing I was going to war, and these poor young kids died in my vehicle and I didn't.
- Yeah.
- Why? That bothered me.
"Why am I here?ÃÂ I can't do anything.
" So every night, for over a year, I'd pray to God just to take me.
I got back on a Thursday.
Processed out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
Went back home to Buffalo, New York, started college that Monday.
So literally within four days, I'd gone from combat to 21 credit hours to finish my college degree.
No processing at all.
No time to process it, because I didn't want to process it.
The day of my graduation, my family was inside, celebrating, and I was outside in tears, because I didn't have a war left.
I literally did not.
I had I had no mission left.
From the moment I got back from Iraq, all I did was drink, all I did was smoke, all I did was eat.
All I did was try to forget that I didn't have a mission any more.
I'll never forgetÃÂ what this doctor said; "When was the last time you smiled?" And I said, "2002, before the war started.
" Because ever since then it's been high, up tempo, trying to keep myself and my friends alive.
And that was the moment that I realized I didn't love anything.
And he said, "You have to enjoy life.
You have to find something that you're going to love again.
" And that was comedy.
She loves the fact that I still wear a parachute rigger's belt.
If you don't know what that is, it's just a velcro belt.
It's all it is.
This turns her on.
I don't know if you know, but this noise least sexy thing you can hear right before sex.
My occupational therapistÃÂ actually told me I should do stand-up comedy.
- Wow.
- And I told her she was crazy.
Yeah, yeah.
There's no wayÃÂ I can go to the general public and make them laugh about me getting blown up in Iraq and the way I look today, my disfigurement.
It's not going to work.
We're here with veterans.
Veterans have a sick sense of humor.
That's how we deal with the job we do.
Hospital staff, sick sense of humor.
We all match there.
But the general public won't be able to laugh at this.
I'm really cheap.
I'm retired military, trying to be a comedian.
There's not a lot of money there.
I'm so cheap I expect a discount in my cremation.
And so she just kept nagging me to try stand-up comedy.
So I was like, "You know, alright.
" "If you stop nagging me, I will try it.
" And I was actually coming out to LA for an operation on my hand here at UCLA for the first time to see the doctors.
- Where we are now.
- Right here right now.
I came here to see my first consultation to do some plastic surgery out here on my face.
So I go down the Comedy Store.
The open mic at this time, you sign up on a piece of paper.
I go, "Alright, I promised I would do it.
" So now I'm nervous and start writing this stuff down in my hotel room.
"How will I do this? How much time do I get?" - I don't know how this works.
- Yeah.
Obviously, I had to address what was wrong withÃÂ me and the burns, but I didn't want to say I was a veteran, I didn't want to get a sympathy laugh; "This poor wounded veteran.
" So I wrote a joke about my mom having to work in the circus, during her pregnancy, as a fire-eater.
You see, this is a rare birth defect.
Unfortunately, my mother had to work through her pregnancy.
In the circus as a fire-eater.
So that was like the first major joke I kind of put together.
Yeah.
And so then I went, "Okay, maybe I can do this.
" I went back to San Antonio found out where open mics were, it's another way for me to get out.
It's me venting.
It's my sense of humor.
The hospital came out, all the staff wouldÃÂ come out and watch me do open mics and stuff.
And I just started working on my material.
I've had so many skin grafts,ÃÂ I can't even tell my ass from my elbow these days.
It's the feeling I get when I tell a good joke and people laugh.
It's the fear in my knees when I go on stage with a new joke, not knowing if it's going to work or it's going to eat a bag of shit.
And I've compared it to the only other thing that it's ever felt like to me, which is jumping out of an airplane as a paratrooper.
That's how I feel when I'm on stage with a new joke.
- That rush, that adrenaline.
- Yes.
If that joke doesn't work, I've got to pull my reserve shoot and hope I don't go 200 miles an hour into the ground, which I have done with jokes.
Please finish that sentence.
So comedy was healing because my soul needed to be healed.
This guy came up to me, "You're the guy on the radio, right? You're really good.
I listen to you every day.
You don't sound Asian at all on the radio.
" Is that a compliment? How am I supposed to sound? "Don't takeÃÂ 405, No 1, they all fuck up!" There's no thought behind a good laugh.
It either touches you or it doesn't.
And the only thing that's ever wounded my soul is coming home without everybody that I should have come home with.
You'll have your bad days,ÃÂ of course.
But you've got to be able to laugh at stuff.
Mentally, it's where it helps you.
You will go insane if you constantlyÃÂ think about, "I might die tomorrow.
" Even if you know, if you're terminal and you know, "Hey, I've got six months, two years," whatever it is you're not going to live the rest of your life if you're not using humor in it.
I won't lie to you.
I will use the term "hero" if it gets me out of trouble.
Like I got pulled over for speeding one day.
The cop was like, "Do you know why I pulled you over?" "I was speeding officer?" "You weren't speeding.
You were flying.
" "Of course I was flying.
That's what heroes do.
" Apparently heroes can still get tickets.
This guy's name is PissPig Granddad.
His real name is weird too.
Brace.
Brace Beldon.
As we will soon find out, although Brace has fought against ISIS in Syria, he is not technically a veteran since he did not fight with the American military but with a ragtag group of international volunteers.
He's part of a new generation.
Posting his exploits from the front for laughs.
So how did PissPig come along? Tell us the story of PissPig.
I, well As we all know, pisspigs are guys, or girls, anyone who drinks piss, - guzzles it.
- Right.
So there's a festival every year on Folsom Street in San Francisco.
I go check it out, you know.
There's a guy in a kiddy pool with a funnel in his mouth.
There's a long line of people just pissing in it.
I tried to.
I don't, I'm not courageous.
I couldn't get any out.
But, yeah, it just stuck in my head.
I find it amazing you would say you're not courageous, because my next question's going to be about you fighting against ISIS.
Ducking mostly.
- Ducking ISIS.
- Yeah.
So tell me about the journey that gets you to Iraq and finally Syria and fighting ISIS.
Tell us that story.
I'm going to have to leave some of it kind of vague.
Okay, that's fine.
But I had contacts over there, and I'd been reading news stories about it for a while and following sort of the general, I guess, conflict in the region for a while, and kind of psyching myself up to go.
Excuse me.
And then made it to Syria.
So I go through training for about a month.
It turns out I am fucking great at it.
Ha ha! Did you know that beforehand? Just a ton of cardio in me.
Teaches us how to use guns, which are pretty easy to use.
What was the worst thing you saw? What was the most horrific or horrible, If there was one? Season 8, Seinfeld.
Great.
What? Was there a moment of humor about it, ever? I mean, was it so absurd - Well, it depends.
- Okay.
It depends, because sometimes it's like a sad situation where the guy just died, but if they've been dead for over, like, two days, it's okay to make fun of it.
Kind of do the little thing over him and stuff.
Um There's only so much you can do without touching it.
- Right, right.
- But generally you try to leave it alone.
- And that's taboo? - Yeah, you don't want, it's, you know - Even if it's a bad guy, it's fucked up.
- Right.
You can make a joke about it, but I'm not going to like, you know - teabag him.
- Right.
There's a lot of crazy humor going on there.
One guy we saw had a face; this I should have known this too when you look back.
He looked like he had a plastic face.
The way his smile was and the wrinkles on his face.
So we said, "Hey, that's Plastic Face," and I would do this character, Plastic Face.
"I've got a plastic face.
It's too hot in Iraq, my face is melting in these port-a-potties.
I can't help my smile.
" So Plastic Face became this funny character everybody kept asking me to do.
Who knew, right? But I've read you talked about the war crime you committed.
Tell us about that.
Accidental.
- Okay.
- Accidental.
It was a busy time.
You have to relieve yourselfÃÂ and I did it, and then somebody was like, "Hey, why did you piss all over that skeleton?" But it was a skeleton of someone in ISIS, so Right.
That kind of makes it okay.
- I'll be forgiven.
- Yeah, yeah.
Okay, we talkedÃÂ about the people you saw who were killed or wounded or being shot at, stuff like that.
We've talked about that aspect of it.
What's up? But it's not really a war crime at all.
Are you a veteran, sir? Yes.
And we're talking about your time in service in Syria? Yes, yes.
He's had battle experience fighting ISIS and he's telling his experiences.
Yes, sometimes they are irreverent, but they're real.
I'm sorry, we're pulling.
I still don't think we've done anything wrong by the way, but I respect your feelings.
Contact from the west! It's called VET TV, where you can laugh or be horrified, but preferably both, by programs such as Department Of Offense.
Was it you? Oh, you were in on this too? And Kill, Die, Laugh.
Fucking Wagner.
I bet he's faking it.
Thank God.
I thought it was one of our key players.
Scared me too, sir.
Thank God it's just Wagner.
I've wondered how to get rid of this kid for months.
Think of all the ass pain he just saved us.
I am an oddball of a man who has a very difficult time taking serious things seriously.
It got to such a low point that I really considered killing myself.
Oh, wow.
And it was at that moment that Yeah, dude.
that's some fucking, That's some good trash right there, dude.
- Dude, it was great meeting you.
- Yeah.
Good talking to you.
Of course, bro.
Of course.
Thank you.
Oh, no.
I joined the military when I was 25.
- 25? - Yeah.
25 seems lateÃÂ to be going into the military.
Why was that? There was a whole bunch of stuff I wanted to do before I joined, because I figured when I joined, I was going to die.
Because I knew I was going to war and I know I'm a nut, so I'm probably going to die.
I had to knock off a bunch of stuff from my bucket list.
You know, before I blew my legs off or died.
And then I went in on my terms and it worked out great.
Right, so you were kind of more mature once you went in.
- I wouldn't go that far.
- Okay, sorry.
Donny's sick, dark sense of humor was without focus until he started spending time with the disabled veterans of the Wounded Warrior Project.
They had suffered the most horrific physical, mental and emotional trauma, but he discovered that humor was instrumental to their survival.
The guys who were shot up and blown up, who had been to combat, completely isolated themselves from everyone else.
They would stay in their barracks rooms and drink and sit around the room and say the most horrendous things to each other.
One guy in a wheelchair, who lost his legs, would say - Am I allowed to curse, by the way? - Of course.
Oh, sure! I've been holding back this whole time.
- It feels weird.
- No, please do.
He would I'll never forget it.
He looks at this other dude, He says, "You're such a fucking idiot.
You got your whole squad fucked up.
" The guy really did.
He walkedÃÂ into an ambush.
He was a squad leader.
"You got your whole fucking squad fucked up, bitch.
How do you live with yourself?" And the other guy goes; "You're so stupid, you stepped on the fucking IED, because you can't keep your fucking eyes open on patrol.
" And they're going back and forth.
Then they start wrestling.
Then, next thing you know, another guy holds down the guy in the wheelchair, pushes him out of his wheelchair and someone else is humping his face as they're holding him down.
And then they all erupt into laughter that I can only describe as therapeutic.
So tell us about VET TV.
You've got plenty to be proud of over there.
That's a nice-looking cock.
Is your neck constantly sore from all of the choking? The Night Terror neck brace is here.
I don't need to remind you that we're surrounded by fucking scumbags.
So VET TV uses the same logic and philosophy that Irreverent Warriors had, which is using humor and camaraderie to heal and bring veterans together and hopefully less guys kill themselves.
Roughly 20 veterans commit suicide every day.
This is a photo essay by the Veterans Vision Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing military suicide through research and treatment.
So I make a video and my video was titled The First Female To Graduate Infantry Officer Course Discovered To Have Penis.
And this is out of anger and frustration from allowing women in the Infantry.
So I channelled my anger.
I wrote this sketch, filmed it and it went viral amongst the veteran community immediately.
And I'm like, "Oh, okay.
ÃÂ I guessÃÂ I'm a better filmmaker than I thought.
" So I made another one.
That video was a hit.
So the Marines were really great.
They were polite and respectful and took a genuine interest in me and my future.
They seemed like the kind of guys that I would trust around my mother.
I think I did four or five total.
And each of my videosÃÂ was something that had never been made before.
I was toeing the line between reality and parody.
If we find any IEDs in this compound We'll kill the men, rape the women enslave the children, steal everything and burn the compound to the ground.
That works.
Your humor, which is what I love about it, is about things that wouldn't normally be considered funny.
But it's completely appropriate as a therapeutic tool to get you through these experiences.
So I wonder if there was just something that stood out along those lines.
Um No, I mean the reality is that when dudes get hurt, you know, no-one's laughing.
Right.
Even the enemy? Even when the enemy is hurt? Oh, no, no, that's hilarious.
You know, there are few things that we hold sacred in the military, where it's things that you cannot joke about.
And I'm like "But I really want to joke about that.
" I really do.
Hey, bro.
Why are you crying? Because I didn't fucking bring him home, man.
Yeah.
But it's all good, because he was kind of a bitch, dude.
You want to do a line? Kind of.
Remember, our target is infantrymen.
Infantrymen have the worst humor, because they see the worst stuff.
They're the actual hunters, so they come back the most fucked-up.
Right, okay.
And I make a point of saying that the way you are now is a natural reaction to your experiences.
And the way your mind, the wiring inÃÂ your brain has been twisted a little bit to make you better able to handle war.
And not just war, but any sort of pain, suffering, tragedy and trauma.
The laughter is just a start.
That's it.
It's just like a catalyst.
The long-lasting therapy is when people connect and create a friendship.
He may not necessarily have been a hero in combat, but Donny O'Malley is a military hero nevertheless.
American GIs have been through a lot.
As much as any soldier anywhere ever.
And as much as we all might agree more needs to be done for veterans, they are coming home to America.
If you want to process your pain and experiences through comedy in America, there are many opportunities.
For instance, every large city has a comedy club.
Thom, Bobby and Donny tour.
Donny started a Kickstarter campaign to raise money to produce a TV series, VET TV.
Our baseline goal is $250,000, which will enable us to create four months' worth of shows.
The long-term vision is one show for every MOS in every branch of the military.
In countries that have no money, no economy, no jobs, no nothing, veterans can't monetize their comedy.
It's not an option.
When you do it under these circumstances, because you have to, it's a calling.
We are back in Monrovia, Liberia.
This is Michael and Diallo, ex-child soldiers, damaged, traumatized, addicted and left on the street to fend for themselves.
They live here in this abandoned cemetery and it is here that they perform comical sketches that help them and their fellow strung-out ex-soldiers laugh and forget for a moment.
So how old were you when you guys became soldiers? Do you remember? I was 14 years when I started holding a gun for LURD forces.
How about you, Michael?ÃÂ How old were you when you became a soldier? I was 17 years old.
- 17 years old.
- Yeah.
Excuse me, Daddy, I want to explain something to you.
Uh-huh.
We were in the video club and we came outside to look at the poster.
Then soldiers came, they catch and put us in the pickup and carry us to a certain place called Foya.
They carry you across the water, so you'veÃÂ got no way of escaping to come back.
- Right.
- So we're forced to be soldier.
But we're not willingÃÂ to say we carry ourselves to be soldier.
Right, right.
So we're the child soldiers.
We hold guns for an advantage.
Because, me, if I see that person that killed my ma and pa, I really want to make show on that person or dissolve their government.
How long after the war ended did you start doing this? Oh, we started doing this after the war because there was nothing to do.
We were "SUSUKUU".
- SUSUKUU is a disarmament program.
- Okay.
- They came in with the help of the UN.
- Okay.
So performing for people to laugh, you know.
Do a little bit of war drama and things for the people.
Uh-huh.
Well, after SUSUKUU abandoned us, we decided to do it here.
Where's my dog? Where's my dog I gave you? They say you killed my dog.
I never did that! The only thing I did with the dog, they didn't want to eat it, so I dried it on the dryer and ate it.
Oh, you dry my dog on the dryer and eat Was there any time for you to be funny while you were soldiers? Yes, I used to make my friends laugh and things when we'd get our guns and things.
You know, we'd say we'd capture Center Street and things.
When we're hosting the area, we can have our own show and things, making people laugh.
And now, this thing that we're doing, we're doing it for a living and things.
I cannot pay 160 US or what you are trying to say.
Look, here, you have stepped on some poo poo already.
Seems like it's very hard for a Liberian artist to make money.
- It's tough.
- Thank you.
It's just pocket change.
Just to eat.
Yeah, yeah.
To have a meal and eat.
So I wonder how you'd be able to make a little more money.
You could play some other places besides here.
Except we've got help.
So now we get help and things and more money.
- You know, that small, small.
- Yeah, yeah.
- For the basket.
- If God blesses us, people look at us, we're going to get more people interested in us.
I want somebody to take me from the habit, but I've got no hand and things.
I don't want to smoke drugs no more.
I want to change, but, You can't change from the habit without taking pills, taking the drip, because it will give youÃÂ a lotÃÂ of things, your stomach will run.
Different, different things are going to happen.
So that's the reason we're afraid to leave the drugs.
Sure.
Sure.
Just outside the cemetery, we met another ex-child soldier.
Archie Tuolee, known in Monrovia as Special Forces.
What he is is easy to understand.
What he does defies labels.
But we are in Liberia in front of a graveyard with a one-eyed, emotionally traumatized ex-child soldier who does a routineÃÂ for the amusement and delight of onlookers.
Who nicknamed you Special Forces? Yes, most of my friends call me Special Forces, because I perform like Special Forces.
- Right, right.
- They always call me Special Forces.
I was ten years old when I became a soldier in 1983.
When the war started, you know, my father was executed by the NPFL rebels, the Charles Taylor forces.
So I saw it in my presence where he was killed.
Right.
I was nine years old.
But by ten years of age, I was able to go and join to retaliate.
My brain was traumatized, you know? - Your brain was traumatized.
- Traumatized.
And how do you feel now? Do you feel Now I'm alright.
Okay, yeah, you seem alright.
You seem good.
When did you start coming out in the street and doing your thing? Oh, I stay long on the street, you know.
It's the only way that I've found that I can help myself.
Do you make money that way? - Yes, I get my money to eat.
- Okay.
And you have a place to live? I don't have my own personal area, but just managing.
How Is your mother still alive? Yes, yes.
When she sees me, sometimes she cries.
Sometimes she give me money.
I receive it.
And I say, "Don't worry.
Nothing's going to happen to me.
" - She just wants you to be okay? - Yes.
- And you want her to be okay.
- Yes.
Yes.
Of course.
Is there anything you'd like to do besides do this? Are you okay? I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to upset you.
I'm sorry.
I understand.
I understand.
Are you alright? Okay? Pray for better changes.
Yeah.
For every country.
Because people, most of them are not wise.
They are blind to the system.
So I'm praying for better changes for the next generation.
- Yes.
- Not for our own.
Because we are getting old now.
But our children that are coming up, give them a good foundation for tomorrow.
As I've said, my search for dangerous comedy had to include dangerous people and what they found funny.
People who would never be asked that question, yet would have an answer.
I'd written to Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, and Carlos The Jackal.
I've never heard back, but, frankly, I don't open my mailbox anymore.
I wanted to talk to a terrorist about comedy.
Are their tastes in comedy as extreme as their political ideology? And, of course, could this be done without getting killed? The search for dangerous comedy is a treacherous one and, if I was beheaded, I'd be in violation of my contract with Netflix.
But, amazingly, I was told I could speak to a member of ISIS.
He had been captured and was now a prisoner of war.
As it happened, the Battle of Mosul was taking place the day this was arranged.
You want to talk about traffic? Checkpoints were clogged.
There was no order, no respect for lanes.
Just like merging for a toll in New York.
Our drivers, former soldiers themselves, created a new lane.
- There's a soldier coming over there.
- Copy.
Kirkuk itself had been ravaged by various waves of the war and, like a tsunami of violence, it left its marks on the city and the people.
Right at the edge of townÃÂ lies theÃÂ prison that housed captured ISIS members.
After much negotiation, including agreeing to speak to the general in charge of the prison first, we made our way in.
The general was a big personality who was more than happy to share his comic tales of war with me.
Call General Fatah inside to have a seat here.
We in America are very confused about what to call this terrorist organization.
Sometimes they're called ISIS, sometimes they're ISIL, sometimes they're called IS, sometimes they're called Daesh.
What should we in America be calling them? Uh-oh.
Do you think it's important to be able to have a sense of humor during these very dark times? It happens, and there have been some incidents.
For instance, we were looking for a terrorist who killed many citizens.
When we captured him, he was wearing a long skirt and it was something to laugh about.
Or when we found them hiding in a fridge or hiding under a blanket, holding a baby, pretending to be a woman who just gave birth to a baby.
These are things to laugh at.
Yes.
To be honest, we laugh a lot.
We laugh when we win a battle, but no two laughs are the same.
In all our battles we lost people we love.
In all our battles,ÃÂ sadly, many people got wounded.
Sometimes crying and laughing happen at the same time, because, within a minute, you win a war, but you lose many friends.
And that's very touching and very hard to accept.
It isÃÂ true you won a war, but the price is your friend's blood.
The price is a great effort and struggle.
Sure.
They go together.
Crying and laughing go together.
Yes, exactly.
I appreciate it.
Thank you.
Now, General Fatah will introduce you to the Daesh prisoner.
Wow, this guy was in ISIS.
He was a terrorist and I was talking to him.
You have to admit he doesn't look very evil.
He didn't seem proud.
He didn't seem like an extremist or fanatic.
He seemed ashamed, embarrassed even.
He said he was a farmer that was reluctantly recruited against his will.
Maybe he was lying.
But either way, without the black hoods and the beheadings and the scary rhetoric, this is the face of ISIS.
Tell us your name, please.
Excuse me for a moment.
You can write down his first and last name but don't speak it.
He has family members here, I don'tÃÂ want to cause him problems.
Okay.
Let's put his name as Bahr.
We can't use his real name.
That's fine, that's fine.
No problem.
How did he get involved in ISIS? How did you join ISIS? When they arrived.
When they arrived, we followed them.
Would it be accurate to say that ISIS has no sense of humor? No, no, definitely not.
While the videos made by ISIS tend to be more dramatic, there are no shortage of comedy videos in which ISIS is the target.
ERETZ NEHEDERE Boomzi boom, boomzi bam Hello Europe, wake up ALBASHEER SHOW Could you describe life in prison here? Is there ever any opportunity at all for anyone to smile or laugh in that situation? Yes, yes.
Most of the time, we have two guys, they don't sit down, they are always kidding around.
So the guards, alwaysÃÂ they jive with them, and kid around with them.
So they make the guards laugh.
That's right, we're bad.
Uh-huh.
That's right.
I mean, they lighten the mood.
They make the prisoners laugh.
Almost like it's not prison.
We don't want no shit either.
Was there something as a kid that he remembers that made him laugh? No.
No.
Okay.
Um So when you were a child, did you ever watch TV or? What shows did you like most on TV? Turkish films.
Were there any favorites? Anything thatÃÂ you really enjoyed? The love stories.
Love stories.
Uh-huh, uh-huh.
Um Was everything very serious in in your village? Did the people in the village have a sense of humor? Is there such a thing as someone who does not like fun? Everybody likes having fun.
How did Turkish love films and a fun-loving village lead him to ISIS? Looks like I wouldn't find out.
We were able to enter Iraq, but there were certain countries we weren'tÃÂ allowed into for security reasons.
And it made sense to me.
In fact, I was relieved.
My theory was I would ask to go to the craziest, most dangerous country and they would just say no and I'd be off the hook.
But then they said yes.
Welcome.
Welcome to Mogadishu Somalia.
Is there anything funny about Somalia? When you think of comedy, you don't think of Somalia.
Black Hawk Down? No.
I mean, it had some funny parts but I wouldn't call it comedy.
One could argue that Somalia is the least funny place on Earth.
Its ruins are ruined.
When I'd been in LA and asked myself, "Where will I be most afraid for my life?" it was definitely Somalia.
- These guys are with us, right? - Yes.
So why are they jumping out? There's the Mogadishu Improv.
Destroyed by an improvised device.
Okay, sorry.
It was amazing to imagine that Somalia had a comedy scene.
And it wasn't like did you ever notice"ÃÂ humor or girlfriend jokes.
ironically, the continuing survival of Somalian comedy depended on Al-Shabaab.
Yes, the terrorist organization Al-Shabaab.
Al-Shabaab was the target, no pun intended, of most of the comedy being made in Somalia.
Every comedian we spoke to had long-standing feuds, death threats and violent confrontations with Al-Shabaab as a result of their comedy.
Yet, they remain undeterred.
While killing everything else, Al-Shabaab was keeping Somalian comedy alive.
You're from the Bush.
Is that correct? Are you from the Bush? Bush? - What exactly do you mean by "Bush"? - Bush? That's what I was told.
I don't know.
I was going to ask him.
I came from my house.
What is the Bush? Great.
What are the difficulties of being a comedian in Mogadishu? The biggest problem in Mogadishu is that you might be killed.
Al-Shabaab caught me once, and a pistol was directed at my head; while this microphone was destroyed and I ran.
I ran fast and that's how I escaped.
Al-Shabaab would call on my radio show, "You infidel," and,"You infidel.
" I used to say, "Come on.
You see me all the time, and I can see you, too.
You say you'll kill me? I'll kill you.
" That is what we used to interchange.
Do you think Al-Shabaab has a sense of humor? In my honest opinion, I'm of the opinion that Al-Shabaab is a program designed for people to kill each other.
Al-Shabaab is that.
I'm Somali and in Somali language we say the words, "Shaabab daalinyaro," meaning lads, or "barbaar," meaning youngsters.
But the word itself is from Arabic.
It is imported from outside.
It's a political confusion and we have no way to trace it.
So no.
ÃÂ They don't have a sense of humor.
No sense of humor.
We spoke to Somalia's most popular surviving comedian.
Ajakis.
Would you say you're the most controversial comedian in Somalia? Yes, yes! - Yes.
- Alright, cool, cool.
Look now.
Google it.
Please Google it.
"Ajakis Fakis.
" Alright.
Good, good.
In the name of Allah, the most gracious, the most merciful, the most deficient.
Respected viewers, listeners, watchers, lookers fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, uncles Four men kidnapped me and took me to Taleh village.
It was the most amazing kidnapping for me.
They took me around 4 p.
m.
They took me to the highest floor in a tall building.
I stayed there one night and they shaved my head.
Also I heard that you were arrested too.
Is that true? That you were actually arrested because you were making fun of the president of Somaliland? The whole world strongly condemned the act on Facebook.
They got afraid and released me in the morning.
So you've been kidnapped and you've been arrested, yet you can smile about that.
Ultimately you can look back and they were sort of funny incidents? Yes, why not? I am happy about it.
If I was not famous, who would have arrested me? Who would have kidnapped me? Who would have shaved me? So I understood I was famous at that time.
That's a sign, in Mogadishu, of being famous.
Getting locked up and kidnapped.
Yes, definitely.
ÃÂ And we are OK with it.
This is my country.
She wants me to bathe the kids, cook the food.
Do you Wash the kids? My wife makes me wash her grandmother, too.
One comedian wasn't so lucky.
His name was Abdi Jeylani Malak, but he was known as Marshale.
Marshale pushed his luck with Al-Shabaab.
He knew the response from them wouldn't be laughter and applause, but a hail of gunfire.
Yet he kept upping the ante.
He wasn't a politician or a soldier.
He was a comedianÃÂ and that was all he could do to fight back.
Doing routines that made fun of them or doing things that offended their extreme religious values or beliefs or just coming right out and being critical of them, as he did here.
I'm glad we have a new president to drive out the hyenas who have been preying on our people.
Which may very wellÃÂ have been the catalyst to his assassination on that very day.
His last day, it was Ramadan.
At 5 p.
m.
we leftÃÂ and said goodbye.
I had some sandwiches as I was leaving home.
I received a call, "Hello?" "Marshale is dead.
" I was just crying.
Crying for almost four days.
I did not eat.
I did not drink.
Instead of laughter and applause, his continuing comedic confrontations with the terrorist organization ended in tragedy when he was shot to death.
silencing one of the few critical voices in Somalia.
I was so sorry for Marshale.
He was killed mercilessly.
In Mogadishu, it seems whoever isn't in Al-Shabaab was or will be or was killed by them.
Amazingly, we could not book an Al-Shabaab soldier.
Apparently, they have a very busy schedule.
But more amazingly, we did find an Al-Shabaab defector.
We found a secure location.
Not easy to do in Mogadishu.
And promised not to reveal his face or identity.
So tell me, why did you join Al-Shabaab? I joined because they misled me with the wrong belief.
While I was in the rural areas, they told me, "We will act according to God's religion.
" They said, "Let's go," and they convinced me.
I was with them for four years of struggle.
And so why did you decide to leave? The thing that made me leave was they were lying about the religion and takingÃÂ human lives.
Then, I decided to leave.
Okay.
So tell us about daily life in the organization.
You can understand the situation of someone whoÃÂ is in the militia, living in the jungle.
We slept in the jungle.
We were guerrillas in the forest.
Were there ever any moments that you can remember that were more light, where there was some laughter or some humor involved? When five or six of us were killed is when we felt happy.
Why? They said they were lucky because they'd attained martyrdom.
There was no humor allowed.
Only convincing others to join Jihad.
And when a person died in a war, everyone would feel happy and say, "He is in paradise.
" But there were no other funny aspects.
So it was considered lucky to die and go to heaven? Yes.
Yeah.
And when you would kill somebody from the other side, were you allowed to smile about that? Yes.
We used to drag their bodies.
- What? - We used to drag them and laugh at them.
Drag them and laugh at them? Yes, we used to drag them and laugh at them.
He said the only time they'd laugh was when they had a dead body of the enemy Yeah.
They'd drag it alongÃÂ on the truck and it made them - We never did that.
- Right.
That's generally frowned upon.
I talked to an ex-Al-Shabaab guy.
He said that the biggest laughs they got in Al-Shabaab was when they had a dead enemy, and they tied him up to the back of the truck and then drive along and they just thought that was hilarious.
Yep, unfortunately, we didn't get to do that.
It's a real bummer.
I'd love to hang out with these guys.
Have a couple of beerswith them.
Do you use humor at all to help you heal or to help you survive now? People laugh about how I was brainwashed.
That's what they laugh about.
So they laugh about the fact that, as a grown man, I was tricked.
In our country, deserting or defecting isn't really a big story.
People don't want to desert America.
Maybe it is to do with the image or the illusion of America we sell people.
I am Army strong! There was a long, chequered history of entertaining the troops.
It used to be Bob Hope and a bunch of scantily clad women.
Things were going great.
We won a couple of wars and got real cocky.
We created large-scale entertainments to commemorate our victories.
Songs were sung, movies made and jokes were cracked and laughter had in abundance at the expense of our enemies.
Rule the North! It was all in good fun until we lost.
Then suddenly Bob Hope seemed like a Pied Piper and a shill for the pro-war hawks of the American government.
Well, I hope I look that good when I'm your age.
Recently, we realized that no matter what, whether you agree or not, war is perpetual and there are people who put their lives on the line around the world every day for us.
Whoever we are.
That change from the ra-ra of Bob Hope Can you imagine those peaceniks back home burning their draft cards? Why don't they come over here and Charlie will burn them for them? to compassion and connection is best exemplified by Jeff Ross.
What kind of ladies do you like? - All kinds.
- All kinds? Alright.
I like your style, dude.
Not literally, but I mean you're a nice guy When Bob Hope died, I didn't know anything about Bob Hope.
I didn't really care about his comedy very much.
- It was a different generation.
- Sure.
But I was going through, I had a little bit of a hole in my heart.
Like, "What am I really doing?" I was a little lost, you know.
I remember seeing Bob Hope's picture on the front of The New York Times.
A big, beautiful color picture of Bob Hope and I was like "He's a comedian.
That guy's not an ambassador or He's a comedian.
He's got the most prominent obituary I've ever seen.
" As it's not because he lived to 100.
It's because of what he did.
I just want you boysÃÂ toÃÂ see what you're fighting for, that's all.
Thank you very much.
I'm very thrilled to be here.
Where are we? I don't know what you guys did to get here, but let that be a lesson to you.
I don't get the Arabs in the M.
East.
Who'd think men with as many wives as they want would have the energy to go to war? I'm looking at this.
Like, "Wow, that's real cred That's a life.
What am I doing? Worrying about my marquee and how many Getting half off the steak and and hecklers and" I'm on the Jersey Turnpike last week with my friend who's not from Jersey.
He's like, "What the hell is that? What is that? Toxic waste? Garbage?" I'm like "Waffles.
" And I was at the Improv on Melrose a short time laterand Drew Carey; You asked if I started it.
Drew Carey started it.
Okay.
Drew Carey's a Marine.
I always say the Marines love Drew Carey because they love blondes with big tits.
A big Iron Horse welcome for Drew Carey! You know what's great about this place? Everywhere you look, you can see how fucked you are.
Man! I'm talking left, right, up, down.
Fucked, fucked, man.
And he said to me, "I'm going to Iraq in a month and a half.
I'm going to take a bunch of comedians.
Would you want to come?" I went.
And I was really nervous, man.
- I was really, really nervous.
- Yeah.
- I'm a Jew, you know, in Iraq.
- Right.
Alright.
Now we're geared up, ready to go.
And as I was doing the shows I was really just doing my regular nightclub act at that point, but everybody kept thanking me for coming.
I was like, "Wow.
You don't really see that.
" You know, you do a general audience, they don't thank me for coming.
They go, "You were good.
The other guy was good.
I liked what you said about that.
I'm not a lout" They give you a whole crit.
They were just like, "Thank you for coming.
" - Yeah.
- They loved it.
- Yeah.
- And I realized on the flight home, I should be thanking them.
I did a show about five years ago for the locals here in Tikrit.
That was a rough crowd, man.
Afterwards, a guy walked up to me, he's like, "Oh, I laughed so hard I nearly Shiite my pants.
" The Ba'ath Party? Nobody here takes a fucking bath.
It's about making people laugh that are in a fucked-up situation.
But you make those jokes penetrate that Kevlar or that helmet, you get someone to laugh who looks like they want to die.
- Yeah.
- It's a real - That's - Some who will die.
What I wanted to do was get people to laugh at things that make them incredibly uncomfortable.
And if we can get them to laugh just a little about that which might be the most sacred, then we might get them to open up a little bit.
And that's where the therapy comes in.
I get a lot of mail from soldiers.
Some people will stop me in the airport.
Shake me, you know.
"Baklawa, two, two" They'll search for it.
"2003.
" You know what I mean? "You remember? You got my buddy on stage.
" And it's not even sad anymore.
It's like, "You know, he died four days later.
He was laughing.
It was the last time we hung out.
" They don't always have an ending, these stories, but you know that it was a moment in time that they'll never forget, and it made life a little easier.
The war broke me.
I will not be ashamed to say the war broke me.
Coming home when some of my friends couldn't broke me.
But goddammit, comedy When I hear that laughter and it's not even that it's a joke that I wrote.
It's a joke that I wrote that made these people laugh.
- I healed their souls for 30 seconds.
- Right.
Whether they're a soldier or a policeman or a doctor or a guy at fucking Domino's who just hadÃÂ a bad night delivering pizzas.
That joke, for 30 seconds, healed someone's soul.
And that heals me.
It's death.
- It's comedy in the middle of death.
- Yes.
These feelings are real.
You're going to feel sorry for yourself and you've got to give yourself a pity pot time out to accept those.
- Yes.
- Whether it's anger, Go in your closet and punch your clothes.
Go in front of the mirror and cry and be mad at the situation.
But have those reminders taped to the mirror that say, "My family is here.
I want to have fun with them before I leave.
" "I want my children, or so-and-so, to enjoy the time I'm here.
" "What haven't I done yet?" Do that bucket list.
Something.
Enjoy life and laugh.
For those of us who weren't around for the last Civil War, or won't be around for the next one we don't know what it's like to laugh at a war that's beingÃÂ fought outside your front door.
For me, dangerous comedy is that thin, ever-blurring line between what's funny and what shouldn't be funny.
In the next episode, we look to another war producing dangerous comedy.
The race war.
Okay, that's good.
Subtitle translation byMetia Bethell