0:04

I don't know how much more absurd,

0:07

you know, comedy can become to to to overlap

0:09

that of what how absurd reality has become.

0:17

Welcome back to Ozzy Confidential.

0:20

I am your host, Eugene

0:23

S. Robinson as

0:26

the next version. It's kind of

0:28

an interesting one. In the age of snow

0:31

flakes and the culture of outrage and

0:34

nervous Nellie's and stuttering

0:37

muttering approaches to campus

0:40

comedy, people dancing

0:42

tento hooks and walking on eggshells.

0:45

We're gonna meet a guy named

0:48

high and Wreck who

0:50

would like you to think what he does is

0:52

funny, but fundamentally doesn't

0:55

give a funk whether you do or not listen.

0:57

Where the

1:00

confessional professional EUGENEUS Robertson,

1:03

that's me. Here. We are in the tender Loin in

1:05

San Francisco, walking up to a guy named

1:07

Heinrich. Now, just those

1:09

of you who are listening and not watching

1:11

this like we are. Heinrich is dressed

1:14

in full SS officer gear,

1:17

swastika regalia, the whole

1:19

bit in the middle of the tender Loin, which

1:21

is like New York City ninety eight. So

1:24

this has gotta be gotta be epic

1:26

and if there's a story there's got to be told. I

1:28

imagine he might be the one to tell it. Heinrich.

1:31

First off, I don't have any money to give to

1:34

your black lives amount of movement Creek.

1:38

Heinrich came to San Francisco

1:40

from from where do you hail? They're originally

1:43

I'm from Munich, but I was living in ze Berlin

1:45

for the last ten years or so. Yeah,

1:48

okay, so

1:51

it's it's been kind of rough going for you in

1:53

in San Francisco. I think you said

1:55

that you went to uh Halloween

1:58

gathering. Oh yeah,

2:00

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, fair. Uh

2:02

there's many supporters to the Fourth Strike,

2:05

and I was very surprised, you know a lot

2:07

of people. They seemed very happy to

2:09

have me there. And uh

2:12

they're the very attractive women

2:14

there buying me the drinks. I'm

2:16

not used to this. It's usually the young Arian boys.

2:19

But also there's very many people giving

2:21

me the difficulty.

2:23

Did I read something online that you had some kind

2:25

of problem, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, this is

2:27

true. Then I was going

2:30

through the restroom to uh,

2:32

you know, do the business as the man does.

2:35

Uh. There was the boy he

2:37

looked to me like the Arian boys. So

2:39

this is why it's the most surprising. Owned.

2:43

He says to me, how dare you do this?

2:45

How dare you come here looking

2:47

like you do? I said, what, looking

2:50

so perfect and beautiful? He said no, my

2:53

my cousin's, uncle's, cousins,

2:55

brothers, friends, grandmother knew.

2:57

Somebody's asked with an Auschwitz, how dares

2:59

you come here looking like this? And I said, look,

3:01

my friend, I don't find any problems. Just let

3:03

me do my business. But he would not leave

3:05

me alone. I was at the urinal trying

3:08

to do my business and he would keep talking

3:10

to my back. Finally I gave himself owning.

3:12

If you keep bothering my way I'm doing my business,

3:15

I will have to assort you in a very physical vey.

3:17

He would not stop, so I was forced

3:20

to do what I had to do. So I threw the

3:22

eirbow into his chin and then

3:24

even to sleep like the little girl. Yeah

3:27

where I'm thinking, what if somebody

3:29

comes in right now and they sees me? Heinrich is

3:31

a perfect arian over the body

3:33

of the of the dead little boy. Yeah,

3:36

so I grabbed him by the boy. How

3:38

old was he? I don't own maybe twenties?

3:42

Who so I grabbed him by Swans whom

3:44

I grabbed him unto the stoll. The

3:47

problem is, even after I closed the door, you could

3:49

still see his little weak legs. He has

3:51

a very small quad reception, no have

3:54

muscles whatsoever on. So

3:56

at that point I said that I'm going to leave wounds.

3:59

Let's let's authorities figure outs the rest.

4:04

Alright, So now now we've gotten in off the street.

4:07

We're in uh Heinrichs Mountain

4:09

Redoubt. Let's call it that. Maybe

4:12

I want to call it uh

4:14

cos Heinrich. Thanks, right, House

4:17

Heinrich. Okay, alright, alright, house

4:20

House Heinrich. Here we are at

4:22

House Heinrich. And why don't you you know? All

4:25

right, Eugene fucking cut this ship, dude,

4:27

Seriously, I've been doing this, as you're

4:29

well aware of, for almost twelve years.

4:32

Now you come up here to my apartment. You want to

4:34

keep making a joke about this. You want to interview me a what?

4:40

Alright? So the line

4:42

between acting like

4:44

something and being something,

4:47

maybe like acting crazy and being crazy

4:50

starts to get blurry

4:53

if you do either too long. I guess

4:56

Damien north Bosh

4:59

well out. He might have discovered

5:02

the truth to that. I've

5:11

I've been doing this. I have the

5:14

uniforms, I have the scripts. I'm

5:16

making infomercials. I've lost

5:18

friends, I've I've alienated acquaintances.

5:21

Well you, I mean you've been You've gotten into

5:23

people have attacked you on the streets. But

5:26

you, I mean, what what what's the endgame

5:28

look like? Have you at some point though, what's

5:31

the payoff for you? Have you been able to pitch this to people

5:33

or what's uh well,

5:35

I mean, first off, this hasn't been twelve years,

5:37

you know, continuous. I am

5:40

you know, I'm embarrassed to admit that though

5:42

I had the most sincere ambitions

5:44

with the Heinrich project from the beginning. Um,

5:47

I did abandon it, but you know I did

5:49

make a very conscious decision to bring

5:52

it back about a year ago with Trump

5:54

coming into office and everything

5:56

else associated with him.

5:58

But there is no endgame. Is there an endgame to comedy?

6:01

Is there an endgame to any any you know artistic

6:04

Uh? Yeah, when you sell it, well

6:06

that'd be nice.

6:10

I was born in nineteen eighty in

6:12

the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, which

6:15

at that time was you know, a more prestigious

6:17

area of you know, of l A. My

6:20

father, Um, he's Iranian.

6:23

He left Iran at the age of sixteen,

6:25

which was kind of unheard of at that time. That

6:28

was, you know, pre revolution, that was still during

6:30

the Shah's time. I've

6:32

never been though. I'm unfortunately and

6:34

I'm sorry to admit this, I'm scared to go. He left

6:37

at the time that that people just didn't leave,

6:39

and he did it, as he told me, because he

6:41

just didn't feel comfortable there. He left

6:43

before the revolution. He left before the revolution.

6:46

First he went to England. Uh. Then

6:48

he went to Italy. He met my mom,

6:50

who is an American, Um,

6:53

a Midwestern American who was on vacation.

6:56

She's white, she's white. Yeah. Um.

6:58

They got married and then they they came to the

7:00

U. S. Which I can assume

7:03

that was my dad's ultimate goal, which was to come to the

7:05

US. So did you grow up with extended

7:07

family from Iran?

7:10

Uh? Yes

7:12

and no. Um, you know, my dad in the

7:14

eighties brought over a lot of his relatives,

7:16

but we were never that close. Even though

7:18

they lived in the in l A. M. We were

7:21

never that close. Uh. My dad

7:23

purposely didn't want to teach me farcie just

7:25

because he wanted me to be the all American

7:28

you know. My dad had too, uh kind of high

7:30

end leather retail stores. It was

7:32

called Leather Conspiracy. One

7:34

was in the Promenade Mall in Woodland

7:37

Hills. Uh. The other was in Westwood

7:39

and uh,

7:42

the Westwood Store, not the

7:44

Westrood, not their store, but all the stores

7:46

around them. There was a rash of burglaries, and

7:49

my dad said, you know, funk that we're not gonna

7:51

let anybody rob the store. So both

7:54

he and my mom were in the Westwood

7:56

store while I was in my mom's belly

7:58

pregnant, to make sure nobody,

8:00

you know, burglarized the place. And that's where

8:02

my mom started giving birth in the Westwood store,

8:05

and my dad held out to the last minute. Are

8:08

you sure? Are

8:10

you sure it's coming? Because those motherfucker's

8:12

they could be anywhere right now. Now.

8:16

Damien is not just gallivant

8:18

about the streets of San Francisco doing this for

8:20

the amusement of onlookers and friends. He

8:23

actually has put together several

8:25

pilots of TV shows, most notably

8:27

ones of which he pitched to Dave Chappelle.

8:31

You're about to hear a clip of

8:33

Damien as Heinrich watching

8:36

the video of young

8:38

Arian boys shirtlessly

8:41

wrestling oil

8:43

and and the dirt of

8:46

of his pilot. Enter

8:48

the fourth right everything

8:50

menu. Well, hello, boys, who are you

8:52

fighting for? Yeah? Grab him? Grab

8:55

him by them? Yeah

8:57

yeah, grab his schnitze, y'all, y'all

9:00

so funny. I love this video. Yeah,

9:02

anyway, right now we are experiencing

9:05

uh Nazi recreation, which

9:07

includes mayor to mayor

9:09

wrestling, which is my personal favorite.

9:12

Yeah, yeah, you get all these handsome

9:14

young Aryan boys are

9:17

trying to be the best for your Look what

9:19

a great time this was. Yeah,

9:22

yeah, I'm going to go to the restroom for little

9:24

beat y'all got you in his sac mel

9:31

Brooks pulled it off. Bob

9:33

Crane. Hogan's Heroes World

9:36

War Two is not exactly bereft

9:38

of comedic potential, but

9:41

if sig Hiler is your punchline, you might

9:43

find it a hard

9:46

road. The whole you

9:48

have to understand that politically, politically,

9:51

this has gotta be like probably the most uncomfortable

9:54

form of comedy ever that you're that's

9:57

that's the whole point. Tell me, so

9:59

what what what is the point? The whole point

10:02

is that, look, you know, no matter, no

10:04

matter what the state of affairs is, even

10:06

if things are as honkey dorry as as

10:09

they might seem on the surface. And right

10:11

now, I think the collective

10:13

opinion is that things are not honkey dorry

10:15

in this country, in this state,

10:17

in this on this planet. There's a lot of

10:20

a lot of issues going on right now. Right

10:22

everything's cool on the surface. Everything is

10:25

not cool on the surface. You know, there's

10:27

always gonna be issues politically, There's

10:29

always gonna be issues racially, There's

10:31

always gonna be issues with religion

10:33

and gender and and everything

10:35

else that people constantly you know, taking

10:38

opinions. You my

10:41

dad who left Iran in when

10:43

he was sixteen, you know, way before the revolution,

10:46

before Omani all those guys, though

10:49

he never felt comfortable in Iran. Though

10:51

he never you know, had this. Though

10:54

he was never a Muslim, nor was

10:56

the rest of my family, he still obviously

10:58

had pride for being Persian. So,

11:00

you know, fast forward to the late seventies,

11:03

early eighties, you know, we have the

11:05

Iranian hostage

11:07

crisis, etcetera, etcetera.

11:10

And he told me a story that in the early eighties,

11:12

one day, um, two white women

11:15

walk into the store and uh,

11:18

you know my dad. My dad had lived in Florence

11:20

before that, and he was by all accounts, a player

11:23

and he sucked as many

11:25

women as he possibly could. Hats

11:27

off, you know, and he said, even

11:29

by that time, he's married, he has a young kid, he's

11:31

still getting a lot of you know, you got a lot of attention

11:33

at least. So these these two white women

11:35

walking and they say, oh my god, you have such an exotic

11:38

look. Where are you from?

11:40

And he had no issues, even though this is post

11:42

hostage crisis situation.

11:45

He's not gonna lie. He said, Well on Persian, he

11:47

said, oh my god. And these these women said, my god, that's

11:49

so interesting because we went

11:52

to the store right down the street

11:54

and we thought that those two guys that owned

11:56

that store were Persian also, but they

11:58

said their Egyptian. And my

12:00

dad became so upset because he said, those two fucking

12:02

assholes there are Ranians also, but

12:05

now they're afraid of losing business, so

12:08

conveniently, all of a sudden, there Egyptians. And

12:11

you know, even from a young age, I was

12:13

kind of in a in a weird circumstance where

12:16

I was white and I was

12:18

living around whites, but I think I

12:21

felt this. Everyone didn't see me as being

12:23

white. Um. And albeit you know,

12:25

in in the Center Final Valley in the early

12:27

eighties, you had a lot of Jews, you had a lot

12:29

of Persians, you had people you know, from all

12:32

over the place, but the predominant

12:34

group were Wasps. And

12:36

I was half Wasps and I was half something

12:38

else but close enough that people still

12:41

recognize me as being white. But I

12:43

wasn't quite wasn't quite there, Okay,

12:45

so I was other close

12:48

enough but not. Um.

12:51

So, you know, my dad, who was very

12:53

much turned off by the l A scene, he

12:55

wanted the exact opposite, and we ended

12:57

up moving up to Mendicino County, which

13:00

which was, for all intense of purposes,

13:02

the exact opposite. And for me that

13:05

that was culture shocked. Even though everybody

13:07

everybody spoke English, it was still culture

13:09

shocked. Um. But there was

13:11

still that that weird kind of phenomena going

13:13

on where people

13:16

kind of recognize me as being white, but it was

13:18

still always that question what are

13:20

you? And if your hair grows out, is it curly or is

13:22

it straight? Oh it's cruely fucking

13:24

Persian. Come on, I gotta shave

13:27

that ship. Every day of my life. And

13:29

the thing is this, I don't I don't reap

13:31

the rewards of being white. And

13:33

I know this is this is a weird thing to

13:35

say, and people, oh my god, what does that mean? But

13:38

think about it. You're white, but you're

13:40

not white. It's like being it's like being

13:42

a celebrity but not really being famous,

13:45

not being rich. Yeah, it's like me exactly.

13:48

And I guess that's why you and me or friends

13:51

here you go. Just

13:55

because it's immersive comedy

13:58

actually doesn't mean it's

14:01

funny comedic.

14:05

You know, there's a sense listening to

14:07

Heinrich that you're in on

14:09

an in joke that you're not quite

14:12

willing to be in on the

14:16

whole point of Heinrich, and the whole point of Heinrich

14:18

twelve years ago, and the whole point of Heinrich right now

14:20

is to show that the absolute absurdity

14:23

of taking an extreme stance on

14:25

things, but also the extreme danger

14:28

of extremes, the absurdity,

14:30

and through the absurdity, also the uncomfortable

14:33

humor. You know, in extremes. You're

14:42

you're twelve years in um,

14:45

we're in the midst of the

14:47

first Trump administration at

14:49

the very least, and um,

14:54

do you feel more or less emboldened

14:56

to try to continue on which what

14:58

seems to many to be kind of a exotic

15:00

thing. I mean, we'll still the underlying question

15:02

about why you think it's funny and

15:04

why how you expect this to work?

15:07

And that's that's the interesting thing that you know, when

15:09

when I started the Hinwrich project, um,

15:12

you know, over a decade ago.

15:14

At that time, that seemed like

15:17

the most extreme thing to do. Uh

15:19

mind you I live in San Francisco. Um.

15:22

I mean, the whole, the whole genesis of this Hirich

15:24

character came about in in

15:26

the mid two thousand's or early two thousands.

15:28

I'm sorry, when when I was living

15:30

in Japantown, San Francisco, which at

15:33

that time and still is, for all intensive purposes,

15:35

a very kind of residential quiet,

15:38

you know, peaceful neighborhood of San Francisco. You have

15:40

a lot of tourists, you have you know, a family,

15:42

senior citizens. Um.

15:44

One day, it was like the middle of a week, middle

15:47

of the day, maybe one in the afternoon, I'm

15:49

walking up Post Street and I see,

15:51

uh to two middle aged white

15:53

guys walking down the street wearing nothing

15:56

but cock rings and

15:58

uh boots and that's

16:00

it. And uh,

16:03

nobody gave them a second look. There was

16:05

there was kids, there was families,

16:07

there were senior citizens. Nobody gave

16:09

these guys walking around naked in the middle

16:11

of the day a second look. And mind you,

16:13

it wasn't you know, Fulsome Street

16:16

Week. It wasn't Pride Week. You know, when

16:18

you have Fulsome and gave Pride Week, you

16:20

get stragglers that will wander off to other neighborhoods

16:23

and whatnot. Um, this was none

16:25

of that. It was just two guys that were

16:27

walking around naked in the middle of the japan

16:30

town of all places. And that was kind

16:32

of the impetus this to this whole thing where

16:34

I thought, is there anything

16:37

that can really shock anybody in San

16:39

Francisco? And I really put a lot of fun

16:41

into this. Is there anything, I mean, aside

16:43

from the obvious and an act of violence or

16:45

a car wreck or something like that, is

16:47

there anything that that

16:49

can shock somebody in San Francisco? And

16:52

I kind of joking, I said to myself, well, maybe with the exception

16:55

of a guy dressed in full Nazi uniform

16:57

walking down the street, and that's that's kind

16:59

of how the whole thing started out. So

17:01

at that time, dressing

17:04

up like an s S officer, you

17:06

know, from the forties, walking on the street,

17:08

that was the most absurd, ludicrous,

17:11

taboo and extreme thing I can think of. Now

17:14

now we're in the era of you know, Steve

17:17

Bannon, Richard Spencer,

17:19

the right Milo, all these

17:21

other guys dressing

17:24

up like a like a Nazi in San Francisco, it

17:26

doesn't really have the same I

17:29

have to magic that that it did ten years

17:31

ago. I have to say, we we walked

17:33

to get here, and I expected that there

17:36

would be a greater amount of notice

17:39

uh uh that

17:41

you were dressed like an SS officer.

17:43

Um, but there was very little until we passed

17:46

those German guys and

17:48

you know, and that's that's unfortunately, that's

17:51

that's a bad sign of times where what

17:53

has for the past fifty sixty years at

17:55

least been known as the most

17:58

extreme thing you can do, which

18:00

even ten years ago was the most extreme thing

18:02

I could do, that no longer has

18:05

the same It doesn't resonate the same way. UM.

18:08

So you know, to answer your your overall

18:11

question, I don't

18:13

know, I really don't know. I don't know what

18:15

the endgame to the Heinrich project is. You

18:17

know, I don't I don't know how much

18:19

more absurd you know, comedy

18:22

can become to to to overlap that of

18:24

what how absurd reality has become. So

18:31

there we go Henrich

18:34

Uh. Coming up next on

18:37

Ozzy Confidential,

18:40

Karen Barnes and

18:42

herson Dylan. They

18:45

had a secret. They

18:47

had a secret about

18:52

Dylan's life as a woman.

18:55

Tune in next time for Ozzy Confidential.

18:58

We go deep, deep, deep into

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the heart of the trans experience

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in America.

19:18

Ozzy Confidential is

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produced by who Else Nay

19:23

Eugene S. Robinson, an executive produced

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by Robert Coolos and this

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episode was sound designed, edited

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and mixed by Jamie con and

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Nick Johnson. For

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