Episode 198 · The Ben Avery Era
#198 - I'm A Hero | The Tim Dillon Show
May 3, 2020 · 1:18:58 · 370,000 views · 23 segments, 146 moments indexed
Tim has a confrontation with a cop, goes in on celebrity quarantine shows, and gives the real graduation speech everyone now deserves.
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- 1 min
Cold Open: Sunburn, Not a Relapse
#Tim jokes that his red nose is a sunburn, not a return to drinking, even though current events might justify one.
2moments
- Tim opens the show with a red nose from sunburn, not alcohol relapse
- He jokes that throwing away a decade of sobriety would be justified given current events, but he's not doing that
- 2 min
Manhattan Beach Mask Confusion and Domestic Violence Spikes
#Tim describes walking around a busted-at-the-seams Manhattan Beach with chin-strap masks, then pivots to bafflement that domestic violence is spiking, arguing abuse should be a fixed personality trait unrelated to lockdown stress.
4moments
- Tim walks through Manhattan Beach and observes people wearing face masks on their chins rather than over their faces.
- He argues that wearing a mask in 90-degree heat prevents you from breathing, which shouldn't be part of a strategy to help with sickness.
- Tim notes that the California lockdown is busting at the seams—people have been in their houses and spent money to live in a nice place, so they've had enough.
- Domestic violence is skyrocketing during lockdown, which surprises Tim because he assumed being a domestic abuser was a fixed personality trait unrelated to how much time someone spent at home.
- 4 min
Lockdown Costs, Suicide, and Pre-Existing Conditions
#He weighs the economic devastation and mental health costs of lockdown against real deaths in New York, mocking people who dismiss deaths by citing "pre-existing conditions" while being obese themselves.
7moments
- Tim describes how lockdown isolation with kids and spouses increased domestic violence, noting men are primarily responsible though women also participate.
- Domestic abuse is spiking during lockdown, which people blame alongside suicide and the economic collapse.
- Tim acknowledges the economy is genuinely heading toward a Great Depression but insists he's not being entirely negative.
- When people discuss lockdown costs, they bring up suicide and domestic violence as inevitable consequences of confinement.
- Tim defends initial lockdown understanding given the severity in New York, where young people were dying from COVID.
- People on Facebook dismiss COVID deaths by citing pre-existing conditions, while ignoring they themselves qualify as pre-existing conditions from obesity.
- You can criticize the lockdown without denying that real people died and ended up in body bags.
- 4 min
Brown Shirts, Hero Inflation, and the Overuse of "Hero"
#Tim argues human nature turns people into eager rule-enforcers and citizen informants during crises, then rants about the word "hero" being devalued the way it was after 9/11, with everyone from delivery drivers to doormen now branded heroic.
10moments
- Tim's initial moral stance: he didn't want to infect vulnerable people during lockdown, viewing refusal to comply as a character issue.
- People ran out of money after the government gave only $1,200, with no additional funds available.
- Tim on human nature: people will justify atrocities if convinced they're serving the greater good, turning into informants and enforcers.
- Citizens became brown shirts and Stasi enforcers, yelling at kids on skateboards and pointing out maskless people in public.
- Within weeks, people relished their new roles as quarantine enforcers, calling police on neighbors and yelling at children standing too close.
- Tim on post-9/11 America: doormen and security guards began thinking they were part of Homeland Security, inflating their own importance.
- The "essential worker" and "hero" labels have gotten out of control—everyone from nurses to grocery store workers is now called a hero.
- Tim's critique: calling people heroes for ordinary work doesn't make sense, and the point about nurses working hard has been belabored.
- You shouldn't call your kids heroes because they turn into monsters; instead of praising Bobby as a hero for sharing, you just say good job.
- TikToks of nurses blowing off steam are highly inappropriate, and many nurses themselves agree with Tim's criticism of the behavior.
StasiHome Depot
- 6 min
The Go-Kart Cop of Manhattan Beach
#He tells the story of jaywalking in empty Manhattan Beach and being confronted by a self-important cop on a go-kart who forced him back across the street for crossing on a red hand signal.
9moments
- After 9/11, every cop and firefighter was branded a hero, then they started choking Black people over cigarettes—be careful with that word.
- Tim encounters a go-kart cop in Manhattan Beach guarding a wealthy hamlet where the biggest crime is aggressive seagulls.
- A shack in Manhattan Beach costs six million dollars; Tim likes the area because they can't legally keep him out.
- No cars on the road, red hand signal to not cross, but Tim makes a real-time judgment call that the rule doesn't apply.
- The go-kart cop pulls up looking like he barely got the job, angry because he doesn't have a real car.
- Tim explains the rule doesn't matter with no cars around, but the cop insists: rules are rules.
- The cop makes Tim walk back to the other side of the street and stand there, sizing him up as if considering jail.
- Calling everyone heroes has turned these people into brownshirts who love authority and power over civilians.
- Most cops Tim knows became cops because they're insecure people, often failed athletes now driving around in go-carts.
Manhattan BeachFishing with Dynamite
- 2 min
Ice Cream for the Heroes and Health Privilege
#Tim recounts buying melting ice cream intended for ER workers, then predicts "health privilege" will become the next identity-politics battleground, mocking the idea of competing over who has the most comorbidities.
7moments
- Tim went to Manhattan Beach Creamery to find vegan and keto ice cream flavors for nurses and doctors in the ER.
- The ice cream melted in 90-degree heat, so Tim had to eat it himself despite buying it for the heroes.
- Tim senses something bad happening with the way people scowl at those without masks and young-looking healthy people.
- Tim claims he looks 17 at 35 and presents as healthy, drawing scowls from people who see him as flaunting health privilege.
- Health privilege is the next form of discrimination coming after white privilege and male privilege.
- Tim predicts that soon only people with serious illnesses will be allowed to speak, and having tumors will become the new Nanette-style performance art.
- The future of identity politics will involve people on stage discussing their multiple tumors and comorbidities.
health privilegeManhattan Beach Creamery
- 2 min
Molestation and Domestic Violence Riff Continued
#He continues riffing darkly on the idea that lockdown stress is supposedly turning ordinary people into abusers overnight, joking about men threatening Gavin Newsom over restrictions.
5moments
- Tim says he could be dead in a week from the virus but people shouldn't use that to justify endless lockdowns and public closures.
- The mental health effects of closing public spaces and preventing people from exercising and being in nature for years are severe and unaccounted for.
- Domestic violence stations report rising abuse cases, but Tim questions whether lockdown actually causes men to suddenly become abusers who weren't before.
- Tim jokes that guys are threatening violence against their families as a negotiating tactic to lift COVID restrictions, as if they'd never hurt anyone without the lockdown incentive.
- The implication that domestic violence is a situational choice rather than a fixed personality trait disturbs Tim — suggesting lockdowns can turn ordinary men into abusers.
- 2 min
The Perfect Backyard Burger and Get a Friend for Quarantine
#Tim describes the ideal simple backyard cheeseburger experience, then tells listeners to reconnect with old contacts and "get a friend" for socially-distanced summer hangouts.
5moments
- The gourmet burger trend has gone too far—the perfect burger is simple: American cheese, potato bun, ketchup, grilled in a backyard.
- The ideal scene is eating that burger while toweling off after a pool swim, barefoot in the grass, maybe in someone else's yard you've befriended your way into.
- Summer barbecues and house parties are coming back, but smaller groups—this is the summer to make friends if you don't have them.
- Tim's prescription: scroll Facebook, message people you haven't spoken to in six years, claim you want to pray for them about coronavirus, whatever it takes to get invited to a pool.
- You have two months before summer—the time to secure a friend is now.
burgershouse parties
- 4 min
A sponsor read for Sheath Underwear's two-pouch design, veteran founder, and promo code, drifting into jokes about the phrase "twig and berries" and Wesley Snipes' Blade.
8moments
- Sheath underwear's two-pouch compartment keeps your twig and berries from sticking to your inner thigh.
- Tim compares Sheath underwear's support to a mama gorilla cradling her precious newborn baby.
- Before Black Panther, there was Blade, the half-human, half-vampire superhero played by Wesley Snipes.
- Sheath underwear combines the best powers of boxer briefs and a jockstrap with none of their weaknesses, like Blade the Day Walker.
- Sheath's founder Robert Patton is a US Army soldier who developed it during his second tour in Iraq.
- Tim questions the term 'twig and berries' as demeaning, since twig suggests something small.
- Go to sheath underwear dot com with promo code TIM to get 20% off your first order.
- Tim argues this is a safe way to buy underwear online during lockdown without entering a store and endangering yourself or others.
- 5 min
A sponsor read for ExpressVPN about streaming foreign content and privacy, drifting into a bit about wanting Saudi/Pakistani shows, then pivoting to teasing co-host Ben for cancelling his wedding and not getting gifts.
5moments
- Tim admits he doesn't actually know what a VPN is, just that it's a virtual private network so people can't see what you're doing.
- He wants to start watching more shows from Pakistan, and notes that VPNs are useful for journalists wanting to avoid government watch lists.
- Tim describes getting into a physical fight with someone from DoorDash and having an existential crisis about what that means.
- The government is collecting all information and tracking every minute—reason enough to protect your privacy with a VPN before things get more totalitarian.
- Ben's wedding was scheduled for April 25th, but he chose to cancel it and "surrender his civil rights" during the lockdown.
- 6 min
Tim reacts to news of Fox's "Celebrity Watch Party" show, ridiculing its cast list and premise, then spins a conspiracy theory that Hollywood elites secretly want Trump re-elected because their industries have thrived under him.
7moments
- Tim explains the wedding present rule: you don't get one without actually having a wedding, just like you don't get a birthday present without a birthday.
- Studio heads in Hollywood are either closet Republicans or deliberately trolling with absurd new shows designed to help Trump's reelection campaign.
- Fox greenlit 'Celebrity Watch Party,' an unscripted series featuring celebrities discussing TV and news from their mansions during a pandemic with 30 million unemployed.
- Tim questions whether Hollywood actually wants Trump out of office, given they're launching shows that seem designed to make people vote for him.
- He's considering giving serious money to Candace Owens and bringing her on the program based on this moment.
- The show's producers claim TV is indispensable to the fabric of people's lives, oblivious to the fact that nobody cares what Raven Symoné thinks about COVID-19.
- Tim proposes there may have been a high-level Illuminati meeting in Hollywood where executives realized Trump's presidency made all their properties more successful.
FoxDonald TrumpCandace OwensJoe BidenHollywood ReporterRaven SymoneCurtis StoneMaster P+5 more
- 3 min
The Illuminati Meeting Bit Continued and Candace Owens Joke
#He continues the bit imagining the Hollywood boardroom scheme behind the show, and jokes about funding Candace Owens' anti-lockdown tour in protest.
7moments
- Tim describes a hypothetical celebrity news show where Raven Symoné, Rob Lowe, and Master P discuss coronavirus from a mansion.
- The show's formula: unscripted celebrities without handlers spouting offensive, completely out-of-touch liberal takes week after week.
- Tim claims the show is a Republican conspiracy to guarantee Donald Trump's return to office.
- If this is a Bravo production, Tim says he'd sponsor Candace Owens to tour calling the virus fake after seeing it.
- George W. Bush learned from his mistakes and now paints silently in Texas, occasionally appearing at football stadiums to pass messages to Ellen.
- TV doesn't have the cultural power it once did—most people are online now, though shows like The Masked Singer still resonate in Middle America.
- Tim ends on a grim note: we'll all make it through this, meaning 18% of us.
Donald TrumpCandace OwensRaven SymoneBravoGeorge W. BushMaster PRob LoweEllen DeGeneres
- 4 min
Fat People Don't Learn Their Lesson and Cheesecake Culture
#Tim riffs on fat people never learning lessons because of too much choice, then argues America's abundance of trivial choices (400 kinds of cheesecake) explains why so much of its art and TV is garbage, citing Santa Clarita Diet.
8moments
- Fat people don't learn their lesson and stay fat because they make wrong choices.
- Fat people should have no choice in what they eat, like children in workhouses who ate gruel and stayed thin.
- America produces garbage art because there are 400 kinds of cheesecake available, destroying cultural depth.
- People can name 80 kinds of cheesecake in ten minutes but can barely name one healthcare company.
- All good things in this country happen by accident; everything else should be Santa Clarita Diet.
- Occasionally by accident Hollywood makes The Sopranos or Breaking Bad instead of zombie shows.
- Hollywood dumps down ideas because their opinion of Americans is that they're shapeless blobs who can't move or speak.
- Hollywood's image of the American viewer is a 600-pound blob of flesh sitting on a throne made of fast-food wrappers.
Santa Clarita DietBreaking BadThe AmericansThe SopranosThe WireDrew Barrymore
- 2 min
Better Call Saul and Missing Out on Coronavirus Benefits
#He briefly discusses liking Better Call Saul and a failed lunch meeting, then complains he was never asked to do coronavirus charity benefits like other comedians.
5moments
- Tim got into Better Call Saul during quarantine and thinks it's as good as Breaking Bad.
- Tim lunched with the guy who runs Bob Odenkirk's production company, but nothing came of it.
- People like the idea of Tim and want to go out with him to talk about ideas, then back away when it's time to actually do something.
- Tim wasn't asked to do any of the coronavirus benefits, even though they asked Norman and Sam Morril.
- If Tim were asked to a coronavirus benefit, his recurring bit would be that the virus is fake, the nurses are actors, and they should storm the hospital with weapons.
Bob OdenkirkBetter Call SaulSam MorrilSanta Clarita DietBreaking Bad
- 1 min
The Nurse-Actors Bit He Wishes He'd Done
#Tim describes the benefit bit he imagines doing: questioning whether nurses' mask marks are real or makeup, and suggesting the pandemic is staged, as a comedic routine.
3moments
- Tim pitches his missed opportunity: a bit questioning whether nurses' face marks from masks could actually be makeup.
- He extends the bit by asking why hospitals don't have bodies burning on the street if the pandemic is real.
- Tim laments that nobody can have fun anymore, reducing existence to just being a goof while the economy crumbles.
- 5 min
A sponsor read for Ridge Wallet's minimalist, easy-to-sanitize design, drifting into jokes about his "cancel your family" tour name and mock claims of being a multi-trillionaire.
10moments
- Tim pitches life transformation through hustle and winning, with a Ridge Wallet as the key tool.
- Ridge Wallet forces you to carry only essentials like credit cards, debit cards, lawyers cards, and maybe a hundred dollar bill.
- The wallet comes in titanium, carbon fiber, and aluminum, and doesn't get wet or develop mold like leather.
- You can sanitize the Ridge Wallet by holding it between both hands while sanitizing, killing two birds with one stone.
- Tim's father bought Ridge Wallets but didn't use the promo code because everyone in his family tries to destroy him.
- Tim's next tour is called "Cancel Your Family," which he describes as literally worse than a disease.
- Tim claims he doesn't use a wallet because he's above that—he has people wiring him money from the Cayman Islands and maintains bank accounts on small islands.
- Tim tries to name a number larger than quadrillion and settles on "zillion," which Ben points out is fictitious.
- Doc's nose runs during the show, and Tim blames it on the carpet and suggests it might be covetousness coursing through his body.
- Tim endorses the Ridge Wallet as genuinely good for simplifying your life and sanitizing during the pandemic.
- 4 min
The Homeless Vietnam Vet Commencement Speech Bit
#Tim proposes replacing celebrity graduation speeches with a harrowing, graphic monologue from a fictional homeless Vietnam veteran, delivering a long dark story ending in "onward and upward."
10moments
- Graduation speeches have never meant less in American society, with information democratized and college becoming a scam.
- Celebrity commencement speakers like Jimmy Fallon aren't equipped to prepare kids for the world that's actually coming.
- Colleges should hire a homeless Vietnam vet to give the real talk—a dirty, exhausted man asking for a cigarette before he starts.
- The homeless vet tells the graduates his actual story: Vietnam, returned home, married a hooker who was molested by her deacon father.
- His wife had a psychotic break due to lack of mental healthcare and burned their house down in the middle of the night.
- He was on a three-day coke bender and drunk when the flames woke him; he pulled his kids out but his wife died in the fire.
- Running into the street half-naked with his kids while their mother burned, the fire department ignored the Bronx house for hours.
- His Christian neighbor took the kids in that night, but the state put them in foster care and destroyed their lives—one's in jail, one's homeless.
- The vet's closing message to the class of 2020: just say fuck it, onward and upward, brighter things ahead—then he lights a cigarette and leaves.
- The graduation ends with stunned, soulless silence from the tick-tock youth watching in their rooms.
- 2 min
Bill Gates Vaccine Needle Fantasy and China Conflict
#He imagines a Bill Gates commencement speech about secret vaccine needles, then turns to genuine skepticism about a fast vaccine timeline and predicts future conflict with China over manufacturing.
4moments
- Tim imagines Bill Gates giving a commencement speech where a needle under every chair has already injected the audience during the talk.
- The more he reads about it, the more a vaccine to this virus in any reasonable timeframe seems like a fantasy.
- Tim thinks the virus might be something we have to live with and mitigate like a seasonal flu, with doctors eventually learning how to treat it.
- An inevitable conflict with China is coming, though he's unsure how it will manifest.
- 4 min
Incest Porn Quarantine Bit and Eating Ribeye Out of a Tin
#Tim jokes about a father snapping during quarantine and playing incest porn for his kids, then pivots to insisting food should be eaten properly at a table, not out of delivery tins, mocking Mastro's takeout.
8moments
- Tim pitches having a homeless Vietnam veteran give the same speech at every college orientation.
- During week three of quarantine, Tim's dad started playing incest porn on the family TV and beating them if they didn't like it.
- Tim argues that people aren't meant to eat ribeye out of a tin—food should go from pan to plate to mouth like a civilized person.
- Mastro's steakhouse in Beverly Hills is running a human trafficking ring, Tim claims.
- Swingers restaurant is done for, replaced with vegan nuggets and embarrassing tattooed staff pretending to be cool LA musicians.
- Tim tells LA restaurant staff their lives aren't like movies and to stop being brooding and dark—they've got no thoughts in their heads.
- Tim was at war with Swingers and bad things happen to restaurants when he goes to war with them.
- Craig's in Beverly Hills has a bright future because they treat people nicely and have been delivering phenomenal food.
- 6 min
Swingers Diner Closes and the Burka Restaurant Pitch
#Tim recounts his grudge against the LA diner Swingers over a "big booth" rule, celebrates its closing, and pitches his own restaurant concept featuring genderless staff in head-to-toe burkas and gay icon wall art.
6moments
- Tim recalled getting kicked out of Swingers Diner for wanting a bigger booth without six people, comparing the staff to a Nazi enforcer.
- He pitched opening a restaurant in LA and claimed he could have saved Swingers if they'd asked for his advice.
- Tim's restaurant concept: staff in full black burkas head-to-toe, no gendered language, halal food, and gay icons on the walls as an homage to Islam.
- The key to restaurant success is an Instagram-worthy dish that white women will photograph and spread online, or you'll fail.
- Boomers discovering TikTok during the pandemic now spend time figuring out how to express their racist and Catholic views through themed dances.
- Life's final stage is the spectator phase, where work and family arrangements are locked in and you kill time until disease kills you first.
- 1 min
Instagrammable Dishes and Restaurant Failure
#He argues restaurants fail without a photogenic "Instagram" dish that white women will photograph and share.
1moment
- Tim discusses the different stages of life and their relationship to food and dining experiences
- 4 min
Boomers Doing Racist TikToks and the Stages of Life
#Tim imagines his aunt discovering TikTok and expressing racist, pro-Trump, anti-abortion views through dance routines, then expands into a theory of life's stages ending in a passive "spectator phase" epitomized by pointless Facebook political fights.
9moments
- Young people in late teens exist in a dream-like wonder phase where anything seems possible, even though most possibilities aren't real.
- Tim thought he'd become a Navy SEAL or work in government because he liked debate team, not realizing he hated physical work.
- The 20s are the working phase where jobs feel exciting and you're figuring out who you are and what you want.
- By your 30s you figure out who you're not—you won't work that hard, won't be nice to your brother, won't call your parents enough.
- Eventually people become spectators; life distills into clever posts, and people on Facebook fight about nothing.
- Tim mocks people who think voting is the answer, joking about drag queens showing you the polling location at the library.
- After your candidate wins, you sit in glory like you rode into town on horseback, murdered all the men, and stole all the gold.
- Smart people claim Facebook fighting is fun, but Tim argues it's not that fun and suggests getting a different hobby.
- Three hundred comments in a Facebook thread change no one's mind and nobody cares about the outcome.
- 3 min
Closing Riff: Live Disconnected and the Hero Cop Again
#He closes by urging listeners to disconnect from algorithm-driven online life and have real friends, returns to mocking the Manhattan Beach go-kart cop as a fake hero, and signs off joking about pandemic incest.
6moments
- Tim argues the happiest people are disconnected from algorithms and Silicon Valley, living lives not designed by technocrats.
- The Manhattan Beach cop stopping a fat guy from crossing the street is positioned as a hero despite working in an idyllic paradise instead of dangerous areas like Compton or Watts.
- Tim criticizes the cop driving around Manhattan Beach on a go-cart guarding an ice cream shop while thinking he's protecting society during dissolution.
- Living with the virus is necessary because Tim can't accept a cop in a beautiful seaside town eating a popsicle and believing he's a hero.
- Tim questions what society should do for non-heroes and whether they might be heroes in training who just need acknowledgment to become actual heroes.
- If the lockdown doesn't end, Tim predicts a lot of women will become pregnant with their fathers' babies.