The Atlantic Current, Ep. 50: Comedian Butch Bradley On Standup, Vegas, And Trump In Atlantic City
Vince catches up with close friend and standout comic Butch Bradley for a winding, enjoyable discussion
With Tull out, standup comedian Butch Bradley joins the podcast for an uproarious global tour. Vince and Butch catch up on their time on the stage together and why Irish descent provides an edge in the comedy business. Butch also discusses his Durty travels across the world, the impact of Donald Trump on Atlantic City, and why the Irish should have pity on their American cousins.
Episode Links:
Where To See Butch Bradley’s Under the Cosmic Halo
Check out the Laugh After Dark app for free standup, including Butch’s recent release of Under the Cosmic Halo. You can follow Butch on Instagram as well — as he said in the pod, reach out via that app for comp tickets to shows at The STRAT.
Durty Nelly’s!
Many Irish listeners will know Durty Nelly’s in Bunratty, Co. Clare. It reportedly claims to be the most famous pub in Ireland after all — and it recently celebrated its 400th birthday. As Butch noted, it is right next to Bunratty Castle:
The fame of the pub (or at least its namesake, who according to legend invented poitín, also known as “Irish moonshine” has spread to the US, where there are several pubs with the same name. One is in San Antonio, Texas, a long-standing institution on the city’s Riverwalk.
Update, Ep. 39: On $200 Crude
One continuing aspect of the US/Israeli attacks on Iran (which continued Tuesday) is that experts largely have been too pessimistic on oil prices (or, from the standpoint of companies in the industry, overly optimistic). As Tull and Vince discussed in Ep. 39 at the beginning of May, there was a belief that crude prices could eventually reach $200.
Yet even the Strait of Hormuz still essentially closed, and by one estimate about 1,000 ships stranded as a result, the worst-case scenario for oil simply hasn’t played out:
But there still is a case for yet another spike. As a noted energy analyst told US public television broadcaster PBS this weekend, the core reason why crude prices haven’t soared has been a willingness to deplete inventories in both the U.S. and China.
The concern is that those inventories are getting perilously low. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported on Tuesday that inventories in OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries are at their lowest point since 2003. Even the EIA sees the potential for a huge spike in crude prices this summer; the consensus seems to be that recovery of the industry (which in turn relies on the opening of the Strait) needs to start within a matter of weeks before irreparable damage is done. It increasingly looks like that target may not be hit.
Update: Riko Kardamow, an excellent writer here on Substack, went into this issue in much more detail just after we published this:
Listen To Ep. 39 (which still holds up, and includes more on the still-pending indictment of James Comey and more) here:
Update, Ep. 7: Europe’s Venezuela
Sticking with the oil theme, back in January Tull and Vince covered the surprising capture by the US of Venezuela’s then-President, Nicolás Maduro. Even President Donald Trump himself admitted that part of the rationale for the invasion was to access Venezuela’s oil reserves.
But Vince argued at the time that the idea of riches — and lower global oil prices — from access to the country’s admittedly largely reserves was essentially a fantasy. And despite early optimism from the industry, that skepticism largely has been validated. Late last month, Mike Wirth, the chief executive officer of Chevron (the US major with the largest and longest-standing presence in Venezuela) told financial outlet Bloomberg that the current tax regime in the country makes drilling uneconomic. That is true even with crude nearing (and occasionally exceeding) $100 per barrel.
Chevron does plan to increase production regardless, but the vast amount of infrastructure spending required suggests a massive jump in output from the country remains unrealistic. So, too, does one of the explicit goals of Trump’s daring capture of Maduro.
Listen to Ep. 7 (which too holds up) here:
Des Bishop
Butch talked up his work with American-Irish (he was born in London but raised in the US before moving to Ireland in his teens) comedian Des Bishop, who indeed has developed two fascinating shows.
In 2007, Bishop moved to the Connemara Gaeltacht to learn Gaelige (Irish) and eventually perform a stand-up show in the language. His successful effort was documented in the RTE series In The Name of the Fada. (The title is a pun; a fada is the accent mark used in the Irish language.)
In 2013, Bishop executed the same plan, but in China (this is where he and Butch met). Here, too, he succeeded in launching a standup show in a different language. It is impossible to convey how remarkably difficult that would be to do just once, let alone twice.
Wisconsin In The Pandemic
Vince noted that the Wisconsin Supreme Court significantly affected policy toward the novel coronavirus pandemic in the state in 2020. He was correct. On May 13, the court ruled that a “stay at home” order instituted by state health officials was unconstitutional. Per the Court, such orders (with the exception of school closures) had to be implemented via the state legislature. And given that the legislature at the time was dominated by conservatives who were less likely to supoprt such closures, the decision effectively meant the end of the state’s intervention in the pandemic.
And so bars opened — immediately. The effect seemed to be to accelerate the pandemic in the state’s counties closest to Illinois (one of which was home to Vince and his family at the time) as Illinois residents crossed state lines to eat and drink. But overall, the state fared better than most in terms of COVID deaths, albeit in a country whose overall response to the pandemic was somewhat uneven.