“Really, it's just been the dancing days of the dirtbag left” —Senator John Fetterman (D-Pa)
When it comes to rowdy, off-the-wall history and crime podcasts, I am well traveled and a big fan of the genre. Whether it’s the American history-focused The Dollop by Dave Anthony and Gareth (Not Gary) Reynolds, or my Oklahoma-raised king, Robert Evans, and his motley crew of Behind the Bastards, or even the more NPR-after-dark styling of Sarah Marshall with the well-researched and often crushingly dark You're Wrong About podcast, I like my history loud and honest. Each of these has its own levels of crassness, research, and dickbutt jokes, as well as controversies (except you, Robert, keep being based).
With that in mind: Last Podcast on the Left’s live podcast at Cain’s Ballroom was a mess, but not necessarily a miss.
As I drove up to the venue, I saw a swarm of flannel, ModCloth dresses, and impressive moustaches. I won't be so reductive as to say these were all former hipsters, but it sure seemed the dream of the ‘90s was alive in this line. While the crowd was generationally mixed, Last Podcast on the Left is definitely a big hit with my fellow millennials.
I arrived on an empty stomach, so I hit the line for a BBQ Frito pie. I looked down at my meal: it was doing way too much, messy, kinda gross, yet I ate the whole thing and felt equal parts nourished and poisoned. Turns out, it was a cheese-covered harbinger of the night ahead. As my partner and I found our seats, I texted my friend Jenna, a writer and horror podcast aficionado. I asked if she had heard of these guys, and after some not-so-optimistic replies, she said, “Maybe you’ll love? Idk! You are a mystery crafted by God's deceitful hand.”
As the three men of Last Podcast on the Left came on stage, I was taken by surprise by the sheer volume of the crowd. Everyone rose from their seats to ecstatically greet the trio—Marcus Parks, Ed Larson, and Henry Zebrowski—who were more than happy to eat it up. A wild-eyed Zebrowski asked, “Which one of you cowboys is gonna give me a kiss?” to many woos.
As the bits began, something in my stomach twisted. Mostly because of the Frito pie … but as I watched these guys hump the floor and be upfront about the amount of pedophile jokes there were going to be tonight, I gleaned the general vibe: macabre meets dirtbag left comedy.
This term—the dirtbag left—has been gaining traction to describe the sort of populist leftism you get when you mix being woke with not wanting to be all California about it. It's heading to the dive to pound Hamm's after a successful mutual aid drive. It's going to the gun range after explaining Medicare for All to your meemaw. It's robbing a bank to pay for your partner's transition. You know, country boy shit, but you do it for Hasan Piker. To be frank, it's a little Johnny Cash.
That was not necessarily the side Tulsa got with this live episode of Last Podcast on the Left. This was a far clumsier rendition of the dirtbag left, with lots of punching down and oh so many molestation jokes. The whole episode was about how the Jesuit Order of the Catholic Church, to which Pope Francis belonged, has been pulling strings behind many of history's great tragedies for their own benefit. While many of the things brought up have many conspiracies surrounding them—such as the sinking of the Titanic, the creation of the Federal Reserve, the origins of WWI, and Benito Mussolini's supposed gifting of a UFO wreck to the United States government—none of them are satisfyingly tied to the Jesuit Order. Usually the smoking gun connection was just that someone involved had a connection or a family connection to it.
I watched them piece these puzzles together, enjoying the odd historical details, but the show constantly slowed to a crawl so the bits could interrupt. Parks would tell the next few lines of prepared material, which would then be followed by extended back and forth riffs between Larson and Zebrowski that usually involved altar boys and some form of bodily substance.
These extended bits would often also come with a short, fiery political speech by Parks. Whether decrying fascism, capitalism, or abuses by organized religion, these speeches usually tied each segment to a great message of giving a shit while not taking any shit. Very dirtbag left. However, in one bit the guys went through a slideshow of AI images to showcase how generative AI is terrible at getting the right number of smokestacks on the Titanic. This was followed by another big speech about the evils of data centers, which just felt undercut by the generated images still being on the screen behind Parks.
Here's the thing, though: in my ambivalence, I was in a distinct minority. The crowd was howling with laughter, and as the trio said goodbye, a standing ovation bid them farewell. I sat in my chair, holding my empty bowl of Frito pie, left wondering, was it really that bad? My partner flashed me a Simpsons reference of Principal Skinner looking pensive, asking himself, “Am I so out of touch?”
But this time, maybe the children aren't so wrong. I did have fun, even if I winced more than laughed. There were some banger jokes on stage, and Larson and Zebrowski have excellent physical comedy presence. To be fair, the boys noted at the start that this show would be a terrible entry into their podcast, and they were clear about the at least 15 pedophilia jokes they had prepared and would deliver (I stopped counting after 20). Without the built-in goodwill of being an avid fan and watching their arc over the years, it's hard to jump into the deep end. Additionally, maybe my Catholic-raised self needed this ham-fisted exploration of Catholicism to admit to myself the harm it has done to others when it's largely been a place of peace for me. I didn't love it when Parks insinuated that Papa Francis had done some really gross things, but also, this was part of the show's larger ethos on those with wealth and power: No one is too big to be off limits.
Last Podcast on the Left is not going to be for everyone. They lean hard into what they do and how they do it, and there is absolutely a crowd for it here in Tulsa. The comedy wing of the dirtbag left is honest, crass, and can be just as offensive as its counterweight in the Joe Rogan-sphere, but I dig it. Searching for truth in dark topics and being brave enough to laugh at power is admirable, and Parks, Larson, and Zebrowski certainly brought that energy to Cain’s, which they called “the best venue we've ever been to.”
While I found some of the stories they cooked up to be a little on the raw side, the wild experience certainly made it memorable. Even now, I can still see them pretending to jack off on stage beneath that old burgundy Bob Wills banner.
