#2573 - Legion of Skanks

Bob Levy built a career around a disgusting bit, and I still wonder how often that guy got pink eye. Keep the dressing sealed, dude.

A specialist sees the cases landing in front of them. A gynecologist, like a cop, can start thinking the whole world is broken because they only see damage.

You picture a teenager becoming a pussy doctor for porn-star appointments, then remember it takes eight years of school. That’s a hell of a long con.

Doctors are people. Some abuse drugs, some make catastrophic mistakes; I know a woman who went in to lose one kidney and lost the healthy one. Every job has bad people at it.

A lot of jobs reward whoever will do them, great or not. I won’t volunteer if I know I’ll suck, but plenty of people say, “I’ll figure it out.”

Medical school is scary because somebody can scrape through and become a doctor. Hospitals make enough mistakes that everybody has a “what the fuck?” story.

Organ donation saves lives—I know people alive because of donated hearts and lungs—but organs need oxygen and fast preservation. It gets unsettling when someone has to decide recovery is over.

My brother-in-law has two transplanted lungs. Canadian wildfire smoke made him miss a huge family show because anti-rejection drugs leave him wide open to illness.

Not every near-death case is the same; some people recover. The nightmare is getting that call wrong, then a hospital profits after someone who might have survived is gone.

I checked the donor box thinking I’d be dead after a wreck and could help somebody. Then you imagine gray areas and think, sorry, bro, maybe I’m removing that.

Tibetan sky burial returns a body to nature for vultures. It sounds brutal, but the person is gone and the remains feed an ecosystem. I could do it; I just couldn’t cut up someone I loved.

I tried cleaning a fish and made a crime scene. I hacked at it, nearly cut my hand, and pulverized dinner. Filleting is apparently gentle work.

If survival depended on fish, you’d learn. But catch-and-release bass fishing bothers me: I love it, yet we trick fish and put them through hell without eating them.

Freshwater fish can carry mercury, PCBs, PFAS, and runoff contaminants. They’re not all poison, but water, species, and how often you eat them matter.

In Puerto Rico, guides warned us not to keep big reef-feeding fish because they could become toxic. That’ll make you throw dinner back.

Fear Factor taught me gross eating is mostly mental. Sheep eyeball was manageable; a live Madagascar hissing roach was awful because it was a roach. Survival would make you eat it.

Real survival isn’t TV tricks. Les Stroud was alone, filming himself and deteriorating. Bear Grylls knows his stuff, but demonstrating survival and sleeping in a hotel can both be true.

On Alone, you’re isolated in brutal cold with no clue who remains. You can tap for extraction, but the real insanity is sitting with your thoughts, outlasting invisible people.

Wild animals stop being cute fast. A badger puffed up and marched at me in Utah, and I ran to the truck like a little girl. Confidence disappears when something charges.

I wouldn’t identify an otter in time. If one ran at me, my legs would quit and I’d person-fight it. That’s not strategy; that’s accepting death.

Animals near towns learn nobody shoots them. Elk stroll Colorado streets, then vanish in hunting country. Predators fix too many deer, until they start eating pets.

A deer got tangled in my batting-cage net. A cop wrestled it down, my wife cut the expensive net, and he warned the stress might still kill it. We looked it up: apparently true.

Motorcycles look freeing until a deer jumps out at seventy. Momentum, bones, antlers, no reaction time. Declining a bike isn’t cowardice; it’s reality.

Road rage hits because you’re already keyed up. Somebody cuts me off and I imagine their car cartwheeling. I’m trying to stop that, because it’s insane.

Driving puts you at a seven, especially in traffic, so a tiny mistake feels personal. Say “fuck you” if needed, but don’t chase anybody. Escalating can ruin your life.

I escalated a parking-lot fight until somebody flashed what looked like a gun. Cops shut down the block; it was a black dildo with a pistol grip. Somehow, worse.

Cars are built toward automation. I love Tesla self-driving for late rides home, but hate subscriptions that activate equipment already inside the car.

My Tesla has over a hundred thousand miles and regenerative braking does most of the work. Range dropped, but overnight charging makes daily driving ridiculously convenient.

Autonomous taxis are impressive until they stop stupidly or enter traffic too hard. If a blind person is using voice controls, navigation better understand them more reliably than it understands us.

Radio had limited morning slots, so everyone fought over one meal. Podcasts opened it up: people still want loose, funny conversation, not lectures about approved language.

We’re descendants of Opie and Anthony: comics walk in, roast each other, and nobody controls the hang. Patrice could own a room instantly. That’s the energy.

I loved Stern and get aging out of porn-star stunts. Still, it’s weird seeing a guy who attacked everybody become a gentle dinner-party interviewer. The internet gave performers instant audience feedback.

Legion of Skanks made the deal early: most offensive show, subscription-first, no pretending otherwise. The audience opts into chaos, stupid punishments, and Ari being a maniac.

Ari designs his own happiness. He disappears, travels alone, ignores career rules, and builds around what he wants. Jew showed how focused he gets on one idea.

Skankfest is ten years old, and this is the last New Orleans one for a while. No industry people get special treatment; everybody comes for comedy and unexplained chaos.

It’s the best comedy festival because it’s wild, free, and built to make people laugh. It sells out because people know exactly what it is. You guys are killing it.