Why Alex Edelman Went To A White Nationalist Meeting | Conan O'Brien Needs A Friend

I think you came on the show twice to do stand-up comedy and obviously I thought you were terrific and you have flourished and then you do this show just for us and it is quite spectacular uh oneman show where you really tell this amazing story and I encourage everyone listening to to watch it what amazed me is that the heart of the story without I don't think giving too much away you want okay you decide to attend a meeting you found out about on on Twitter I think M and it's in uh is it it's in uh Queens it's in Queens it's a group of people who were trying to preserve yeah pride and white identity white identity yeah and so yeah they're not crazy about Jews so not to spoil too much you guys are you preserve white identity you're being so kind about they're white they're white nationalist Nazi some sons of well I know but listen we have a lot of people listening right now and I don't want to offend anyone this is we've got to keep everybody Under the Tent you know Michael Michael Jordan said white National byy sneakers too you you know some of our spon who knows you know I just got to be careful white nationalists sleep on Brooklyn and two yeah they wear it over their heads they say they you know I'm sure white nationalists are eating up the better better help if you're a white nationalist and you're listening you're welcome too if you want sheets to cut holes in brck Lin in sorry but here's what's amazing to me you you go to this it's a true story of you in 2018 I think going to this meeting uh you show up um you you don't really announce your full identity and you're accepted into the group although one guy has his eye on you but you act this whole thing out and there's lots of terrific wonderful asides and cult tox it's not all just about this this one night but to me the the feat which really blew my mind is that the show is very funny and it is not angry that you know what I mean there's something about it which is which I thought was kind of um you go and you experience these people and you bring them to life and I completely I disagree with their beliefs violently but you give them their humanity and you're not ranting and raving about them you're experiencing them as human beings and it's it's very funny and delightful and not I don't know how to say it not not toxic empathetic empathetic yeah so there's a so what I did when I started I wrote I started writing the show and I had help um my director a lovely man named Adam brace and we were talking once my best friend for a long time Adam and uh and Adam would always reference what the worst version of the joke would be and so one day I was bored on a train to like a tour stop for this show early on like literally February of 2020 like right before the pandemic and I started writing the worst version of the show I was already doing and I was like what would be the worst and dumbest version of these jokes one that was like um desirous of victimhood and really angry and really tacky and really Earnest or really cynical and I wrote this like shitty version of the show like the sort of dark side crap version of it and every so often when the show would change the show would change every day I would compare against the version sorry to curse if that I know no no no we lost our deal with Nickelodeon you know who doesn't like cursing is the white nationalist yeah well you guys um hey phone Line's lighting up said Conan not understanding podcasts wait don't you have a podcast where you talk to the fans on the phone like isn't that that's another one yeah fine okay but so I so I would compare this thing but yeah I always I wanted a show that wasn't going to be a about like do you know paulen kale is yes Pauling kale for any one of the great film critics of all time yeah I was reading a book of her reviews and she get and there was like little Snippets of things you only done a paragraph on and she gave a review to this movie about the nberg trials called um judgement at nberg yes judgement at nberg and she says I hate this movie because it takes a brave stance against being a Nazi yeah and I wanted to make sure that I never did a show about neo-nazis that took a brave stance against being a Neo-Nazi cuz I assume that most people watching my show are aware that it's not amazing to be a Neo-Nazi so instead of being like what is a what does a version of this look like where instead of being like an early like The Daily Show in that like when I was in high school and college did this tremendous job of being of sort of like Goa comedy with like exposing the hypocrisy of you know like powerful figures politicians exactly and folks and and even regular people who were supporting those folks sycophantically and and I was watching some of those clips um and I was and wow they've really lost their Zing because we know it now like we know there's no surprise being like Oh a trump supporter has double standards on morality kills shock you know like it's really yeah and so I wanted to ask more interesting questions uh with that like you know that unique opportunity and also want to reckon with the difficult truth there which is that I am in some ways like uh like some of those people or share a point of view on one or two of the things that they're saying or think that like and so like thought that would be a more interesting show and a more Humane show especially given the like rancorous present that we live in yeah think uh it's also that kind of Comedy to me is more durable that's I always think is the is the prize to be shooting for so I thought this was really nicely done there was a bunch of things that I I noticed which is your physicality on stage you have a lot of energy and you're uh running around and you have sort of a comedic way of moving around the stage that uh was really making me laugh do you know what I mean you know what I'm talking do you know what I'm talking about it's kind of this um I mean I don't even know what uh it's called ADHD Conan is that it sorry but uh but yeah you know there it is yeah but you know the funny thing is that I realized um some of that's a bad H some of that's intentional and some of that's a bad habit and I don't know any other way to to to bring this up but Adam brace who is who was who and I know it's coming because he he helped you bring this to life yeah he's my director and and and uh and like I said my closest pal we work together on three solo shows and he passed away right before we started on Broadway and so you know um and so that sucked yeah and and he passed away very suddenly it was a shock yeah it was very surprising and um I think actually very inconsiderate of him given he had work to do but uh it's okay really not commensurate with his theatrical responsibilities but but uh but brace he told me when it was okay to move and when it was okay not to move like there are moments in the show that are very that are very anchored and still and then there are moments where you run around and it's good because it puts a contrast on the moments where you're still because they're like oh wow that guy sure moves a lot and they like oh wait he's really standing still for this I guess I guess this part's important but like I've always had help from other people and I've always like wanted also that's the other thing the show was socialized with like a million comedians like every comedian who came I would I would interrogate them for notes like Seinfeld came and I was like give me a note was SE note bass notes in between scenes cuz I found that to be offputting yeah yeah The Michael Richards Cameo doesn't really fit but we did have to cut around it and I realized they were all anti-semites they're all anti-semites although I remember when seille came I remember thinking how did ever kill Abe Lincoln cuz the whole time the crowd wasn't watching me they're watching Seinfeld and I was like are you wasn't there wasn't there like most of the people at the play were like is Lincoln enjoying the show yeah what ises Linc what does Lincoln think of our American cousin oh no but look out like but the weird thing is most of them would have known John wil's Booth so they would have just been like I think about that they would have literally thought like oh there's the president and um you know there's George behind him hey what did George Clooney just do that's genuinely I think about a console but the thing is it's like it's his brother it was like his brother was Edwin booth and Ed star and there's a theater on Broadway still named after Edwin Booth which is like how talented does that guy have to be it's like you know welcome welcome to the mark Bin Laden theater you know and afterwards we afterwards we'll all hit the uh we all hit Oswald's for a steak damn I hate what his brother did but this is fantastic