Transcription
Because I get a lot of anti-Semitism across social media—a lot of them are really horrible Holocaust jokes—I have a meme of Hitler saluting, doing the Nazi salute, and underneath it says, "I've had it up to here with your insensitive jokes," and it's like I win the battle.
This episode of the Colon No War podcast is brought to you by Veter Holsters. Welcome to another episode of the CN podcast. Joining me today is the legend himself, the Pew Pew Jew. How you doing?
Doing pretty good. Well, okay, let's just jump right in because you handed me this book. All right, and so on the cover, for those of you who are just on the audio version, his new book says it's called *Bullet Points: Reasons Why America Should Embrace Common Sense Gun Laws*. Something you want to talk about?
So I was sitting by the pool with my kids, and my brain's always working. I was trying to come up with new and creative ideas to not just troll people, but, let's be honest, our industry takes itself way too seriously. I like to mess with people, so I recently bought Michael Knowles's book. And from there, I was like, "You know what? I think I can do my own version of this book." Three months later, *Bullet Points* came out.
Yeah, I mean, you got reviews on the back of this book from Brandon Herrera, Antonia Okafor, Kevin Dixie—all kinds of people. And it's empty. Yeah, it was great. I had—there are no reasons. But anyway, I had to call a friend of mine, Jill McDaniel. I don't know if you're familiar with her. So she's Moms...um, you know what's crazy? Moms at Arms. You know how good—sorry, I didn't mean to go on a different track real quick—but the other side has done such a great job with capturing different words that anytime I hear "moms," the first thing that comes to my head is Moms Demand Action. Absolutely, they've done such a good job at that, and I hate them for it. No, they know how to manipulate words and steal those words from us. But Jill McDaniel at Moms at Arms single-handedly took on Moms Demand Action, and she's a great investigative journalist. I called her up. I'm like, "Hey, this is my idea. I don't want you to hear rumors that I sold out." So she loved the book. She's like, "What can I do?" Yeah, so she started writing little pieces, little not hit pieces, but like, "Did the Pew Pew Jew sell out?" Kind of to build buzz, and all of a sudden, people in the industry started calling me. They're like, "What's going on?" And I'm like, "Okay, listen, this is my eighth book. You guys have seen my other seven books. Do you trust me?" They're like, "Yeah, we trust you," but still, you know, I'm like, "Give it—the book comes out in two weeks. I promise you, not only will you see what the book is, you will jump on the bandwagon and support this book on common sense gun laws." And they're like, "We don't think so, but we'll wait till the book comes out." And the minute the book came out, I mean, it drove the industry crazy because there are so many people that got played. And they got mad. Oh, because of their sense of humor, right? Like they got played. Um, and then there are other people who were like, "We got played, but this—hey, well, welled." Yeah, so the book was fantastic. It was—it—I'm still getting into trouble with it. You know, I still get reviews on it, even though on my website and on Amazon, it literally says underneath the description, "P.S. For those that can't take a joke, this book is blank." But the idea of "don't judge a book by its cover" literally is this book.
I love it, man. I remember you first showed it to me. I was like, "What?" I was like, and then the first single time, like, "Are you trolling me?" And then I was like, "Ah, this is brilliant. This is absolutely brilliant."
Thank you. Oh, man, this is that good job. So I've got to give a quick shout-out to Veter Holsters. They're now sponsoring the podcast. I've been using their Light Tuck Kydex inside-the-waistband holster, and what I really like is how adjustable it is. You can tweak the ride height and cant to get it exactly how you want. Plus, they've got holsters for over 450 gun models in 75 different colors, so you can pretty much find whatever you need. But here's the thing that really sets them apart: their customer service. I've heard so many stories about how they've gone above and beyond to make sure you're happy with your holster. And with a lifetime warranty and a 30-day money-back guarantee, it's clear they stand behind their products. If you're in the market for a great holster, check them out at betterholsters.com.
So how did you—how did you start doing what you do? Like, how did—where did Pew Pew come from?
So I began when my first book came out. My parents found out—I was married, out of the house with a baby—my parents found out that I owned a gun. It was in California, in LA. So it was a Glock 19 Gen 3. I was on the roster. My parents found out and they went like full-on Chernobyl—we're talking about like a nuclear meltdown—you know, calling me every name under the book, irresponsible, and everything else. Yeah, and it kind of hit me like, "If I'm going to be a gun owner, not only do I have to really understand firearms, but I want my kids to be educated as well." So I went to the NRA's website, found the Eddie Eagle program, but realized that it doesn't go far enough. Right? All they do is talk about what to do if you find a gun somewhere it's not supposed to be. So I was like, "Hey, I've always loved creative writing," so I sat down on my iPhone and I threw together my first book, sent it to a buddy of mine in the LAPD, and he—constructive criticism—tore it to shreds, walked me through the whole process, and educated me really well. Yeah, and you know, worked it out, and my first book came out, which was a book on gun safety for children. And then from there, I just have eight other books. But the Pew Pew Jew came about when I was working on my book about the history of the Second Amendment for children. It's called *27 Words*, so kind of a breakdown of the 27—you know, what's a—what's—well, what militia? And I was talking to a friend of mine. He's like, "Man, you're like the Pew Pew Jew." And the little business light bulb, you know, goes off. And the next thing I know, I call my illustrator. I'm like, "Dude, I need a logo that has a Star of David, a gun, and the words 'Pew Pew Jew' all wrapped in one." And then, you know, three days later—three days later—it was born. And even then, I never thought I'd be where I am today. Like that was never—that was never part of the plan. Yeah, uh, but people like what I have to say. People started following me, and companies wanted to work with me, and now here I am.
So what made you—when you got that Glock 19, what made you—made you get the gun in the first place?
Okay, so my close buddy in LA, he called me up. When he said, "Let's go shooting," I'm like, "All right, great. Sounds like my story—of every story," right? Yeah. And I wasn't anti-gun, but I always thought that firearms were owned by police, military—you literally sound like the Jewish version of me. It's uncanny. But go ahead. You're just better-looking. Um, no, but uh, he—we went to the range, and it was like right out of a movie. He took out like this—at least this is what—how I remember—like this big leather case and kind of unraveled it, unrolled it. It was like shotgun, shotgun, AR, AR, pistol. Right? Like, and I'm like, "Who the hell are you? Like, where have you come from? Like, you've been keeping this a secret." But again, I always thought that military, law enforcement, and bad guys own guns. I never thought civilians could own firearms because, again, I didn't—I was a spoiled LA boy. I didn't—I didn't care about the Constitution. I didn't care about politics, and—I was 20 years old. I just didn't care about any of that stuff. So I didn't even know what the Second Amendment was. And he's like, "No, man, you can own these." And I'm like, "Okay." So I shot, and like, just—I got that bug. A few years later, I bought my first gun, and you know, tried out a bunch of different guns. But back then—we're talking about—talking about 17 years ago—there wasn't the same variety that we have today. The roster was a lot smaller, too. A lot smaller. So really, it came down to the Glock 19 just was that perfect fit for me, and that's how I got it, man.
That's literally textbook. The only difference is I started buying guns within that first—within that same month, like after I—I shot, and I was like, "Oh, yeah, this is—this is—yeah, I like this." Like, and it was a—I just went that rabbit hole. I followed it all the way down—all the way down. Yeah, man. And so, but what's interesting is, so let's—let's go 30,000 feet and then go back down to 15, back and forth in sense of—so is that a pervasive—is—the kind of anti—because the way your parents reacted, is that common amongst Jewish families?
So I think—and I know it can kind of be all over—right?—I think it was—I think post-October 7th, the mindset has changed drastically. But you know, I always—you always hear that all Jews are Democrats, right? So that's what I grew up believing until, you know, I—I realized one day—yeah, I'm not a Democrat. I'm not a Republican. I'm like a 3% Tea Party—you know, abolish the ATF, burn the Fed down—right?—like that's—that's right. One day I woke up and realized that. But yeah, Jews in—in the past—and I mean this is a long conversation—Jews tend to be, in many cases, anti-gun. But again, that breaks down by like Orthodox Judaism versus Reform Judaism, which tend to be more like liberal.
MH: So because you tend to be more liberal…
Gotcha. So you think—so you think the anti-gun sentiment is born from just the inherent liberal—liberalism ideology that they—
No, no. So the anti-gun sentiment, what I believe is you have to look at two things. First off, Jews in Eastern Europe in the early 1800s, late 1800s, had all these antisemitic attacks, pogroms, you know, massacres. All this—fast forward to—so but back then, they would just kind of dig their—dig their heads into the sand and just let whatever happens, happens. We're not going to fight back. They lived in these little ghettos, and that was it. Fast forward to America. Jews in America in the early 1900s would vote Democrat, would vote Republican, didn't make a difference. It was kind of wherever you were located, whatever was beneficial for the community at the time. FDR passed his New Deal. The Holocaust happens. Now you have hundreds of thousands of refugees coming over from Eastern Europe to America to start a new life, but they had all of these social welfare programs. MH: So they become devoted to the Democratic Party because all these programs help them. On top of that—and this is something most people don't think of—a lot of these Jews just went through the Holocaust; they don't want to see another gun again for the rest of their life. They saw what guns can do.
Were they not aware of the gun culture in America?
No, no. At least I don't think they—why would they be?
I guess that is true. It's not like they had social media back then, right?
Exactly right. Have Jews and…cols. Exactly. So so then you have, you know, they move to America, they become beholden to the Democratic Party, and then, you know, it's like, "Oh, my grandparents were Democrats, so I'm a Democrat." And so the Black people—but anyway, yeah, I mean, it's very similar. It's very similar. There's a lot of similarity between Blacks and Jews and the way we grew up.
Yeah, no, no, absolutely. I know for me, like you pointed out for me, like the idea of having a gun was entirely foreign. It was like only, you know, drug dealers and gang bangers and the cops had, right? My first rifle, I would hide it under my bed just so my mom wouldn't find it. Not that I was really scared of my mom. Sorry, Mom, I'm not scared of you, but I didn't—I didn't want to upset her. Right? Exactly right. I didn't—I didn't want her to think that I've just become this wayward child, cuz she was—she was working so hard to raise me, you know, by herself. As you know, raising—raising—raising a man, it's not easy. And so, um, I would hide it under my bed, and I did that for a long time. In terms of—I think I was—which was funny because I wasn't young. I was—I was in my 20s, but you know, I'm still at home, you know what I'm saying? I'm in college and in law school, so it's like I didn't want to—I didn't want to freak her out.
Fair. So, um, so that—so I—I relate to that on a deep level because that was—that was me. Yeah, that was definitely me.
So then from this—so you—the kids—the kids' books, what is the motivation behind that? So like, I know you started off initially, you're saying you love creative writing, right? Um, and so it's a very specific niche, right? Right. And so the two—just married—just like that—like it wasn't—yeah, pretty much. Okay, again, I wanted to kind of shut my parents up when they found out that I had a gun, and I was going to do that by educating myself and my children on firearm safety, even though again, I knew I—I owned a gun, but I was still at my early stages, so I didn't know what I know now.
Gotcha. So I was like, "I want to shut my parents up by saying, 'Hey, no luck, here's a book that I wrote. I'm taking it seriously.'" And then I realized, no one in our industry is writing children's books. I mean, maybe, you know, like Julie Golob came out with one, which is a great book, a little younger than my uh, demographic, but still a great book. And there might be one or two there, but no one is writing children's books—children's books—I'm sorry—on education. And not all—not all my books are education. Like people will go to my website, have a lot of satire, too. Um, but but no one's writing it. So I was like, "Hey, I'm going to write my first book," and again, never think I—I was a one-and-done. Like I was going to write my first book. I've always wanted—always wanted to be a published author, was because I grew up reading—my parents took away the TV when I was five—so a big fan of writing. Um, and then from there, it just kind of was like, "Wait, I—a published author, I can actually do this." And then I released four books in one year. I've been working on my book for years. Right? For you to release four in a year is crazy.
Yeah, it was—it was 2017. Mhm. And between January of 2017 and January of 2018, I released four books.
That's impressive.
I hustled. I—I mean, I—I didn't sleep. I was up late working, early mornings, and—all the while living life, raising children, stuff like that. So—Goa—so have you seen any pushback from not just the—the—the children's book side of things, but just being the Pew Pew Jew? And if so, where—like where—where—I mean, I get—I get pushed back. I get—um, you know, I had one—apparently a Jewish guy on social media say that I can't be a real Jew because I support the Second Amendment. And I asked him if he wants me to drop my pants to prove it, but um, he didn't answer me. But—but um, that's one way to go. But yeah, I mean, I've got some—I've got some uh—that all good. Okay, but uh, no, I—I've had—I've had some—some kickback. I—I've had—I've had uh—some people—you know, a lot of anti-Semitism uh, from the left and from the right—you know, the ultra-right—now—people can't believe that I'm actually pro-Second Amendment. They think that I automatically am anti-gun and I'm a faker because I'm Jewish. It's like that simple. But—but it's fun. It's fun because I did—I did create a—I did create a meme, and—and this is a great meme that—because I get a lot of anti-Semitism across social media—a lot of them are like these really horrible Holocaust jokes—so I have a meme of Hitler saluting, you know, doing the Nazi salute, and underneath it says, "I've had it up to here with your insensitive jokes," and—and it's like I win the battle.
Sorry, sorry. It just—when you said it, I understood it conceptually, which was funny to me, and then the image came in like underneath, right? And—and—and—and it's great because like, "You win the battle," like that person disappears cuz the person realizes like there's nothing I can say to this guy that will get under my skin. So I—I have—I have a lot of—I have a lot of fun. See, so like, okay, it's interesting how you said that a lot of the Jews from the Holocaust who came over here were like, they want—another—new guns because they didn't want to see another gun, considering what they were going through, right? And for me, I look at—I go, wouldn't it be the opposite? Like, wouldn't they want to embrace the idea of having the ability to fight back if they had, you know, access to firearms and so forth and so on? Now, granted, that's for my limited understanding and perception, right? All right. Like I don't even—experienced it, so I can't empathize with—with what happened. Um, so why do—why do you think it kind of gone—and I—I know I'm asking you to speak for an entire group of people, but like, why do you think the mindset went towards that direction of, you know, "We don't even want to see guns" versus "Give us all the guns so that this can never happen again" type situation? Cuz I've even made that argument before, right? In videos.
So I—I mean, I really think that it's—again, first—first off, we can't judge them, right? I mean, that—that's—that's for things. Um, but it could just be—we're spoiled. We—we have never gone through a trauma like that, right? Maybe our ancestors did, but we've never been through that trauma. How do we know how we're going to react in a situation?
Yeah, we don't—we don't. Yeah. It could just be—they came over from America—they came over to America, and the idea of firearms only had a negative connotation, right? They—again, like we said, they didn't know about a Second Amendment. Yeah, so like, no, we just—just stay—we're going to do our thing, stay away, keep our heads down, and try to start our lives again. They just didn't grasp what—what they could have had.
Yeah, and I noticed that too in—in some immigrant families, right? Like—like you can see the distinction. It's like the parents are like, "No guns, keep them away. We don't want anything to do with them," but then their kids are kind of like—they embrace the idea, right? Because they're born here, right? So that concept is—is kind of instilling them because they were born here, right? And they're learning about the Second Amendment, they're learning about what it stands for, what—what we—the real reason why we have the Second Amendment, and they realize that, you know, to protect ourselves from tyranny, you know, it's like I say, "People with ARs don't get in cattle cars," right? Like that's true. That's what it comes down to. But I wonder if it's, you know, like—and my parents are immigrants, so I went through it. I know exactly—you know exactly how it feels. And I think some of it has to—has to be because they come from a place where they—they have—they have no ability to check their government, right? Right. So the idea—and the concept is foreign. It's kind of like the government is the government. There's nothing you can do about it. That's a big bad wolf—big bad dog in the room.
It is what it is.
Exactly right. And we just hope that they don't screw us, whereas then here, you know, I grew up and I'm like, "Government, who?" Right? Right.
Know, but that's exactly what it is. They—they—they are coming from a society, from a—a generation where no one—no one outside of America had a Second Amendment, right? It's either the government is all-powerful, and you either obey or die. I mean, it's literally that simple. But they come over to America, and they just don't—they rather just be—between the two—coming from the Holocaust and dealing with all the trauma and seeing, you know, the Nazis killing their loved ones—just, "No guns are inherently evil. We do not want to be part of it." Yeah. And I think also, too, during that time period, I think the idea of firearm ownership here in the country was so ingrained that Americans didn't even talk about it. It was just kind of understood.
Yeah, right. So there wasn't this push to be like, "Embrace the Second Amendment." Right? We weren't—we weren't fighting for the Second Amendment like we were today.
Exactly. It was—it was even people in government embraced the Second Amendment, which—weird. I was like, "Where did we go wrong?"
So what—so what—so what do you—what's—what's next for you? What do you—what do you have planned after—after—
So well, I—no, okay, actually, I forgot—forgot about this guy here: *Spot Gilly*. Yeah, so talk to me—story about this—is basically Where's Waldo for guns.
Yeah, that's pretty much what it is. Um, I—I'm kind of an—I don't want to say a neat freak, but like, I like to have my house clean. They call it a knat freak.
Oh, they call it a neat freak. Okay, fine. So okay, there we go. So so I'm a neat freak, and um, I went out of my room one day, and my kids had made a mess, and right there in like the center of the hallway, laying by itself on the floor, was a Where's Waldo. And first, I cursed out my kids for not putting it away. Yeah, but then it hit me. I'm like, "You know how much fun would it be to make a gun version of Where's Waldo?" I'm like, "But who would—who would you find?" And I'm like, "Okay, the one person you always—you always see on Instagram or you see on social media, like, 'Can you spot the sniper in like this—the thick,' right? You know, I'm talking about, right? Like, 'Where's the Finnish sniper in—in all the snow?' Right? And I was like, "You know what? You're going to have to find a sniper." So I immediately called one of my good friends who—I call him my creative director—I'm like, "Dude, this is—this is it," and um, if you—if you see, it's—it's besides finding the sniper, um, it—it's great because there are 10 other characters you get to search for—from the vet bro, the fud who has a shirt that says, "I support the Second Amendment," the angry RSO, an ATF agent, a gun bunny—oh, AA made it in here. AA made it in there. I called her—M made it in there. Oh, her—her dog did, too. Yeah, a Peaches. And there's a tactical Rabbi in there. Yeah, there go Brandon Herrera. Yeah. And then just on every page is just, you know, a full-on action scene. This is a zombie apocalypse. This has done incredibly well. Yeah, my—my illustrator is truly—I mean, mind-blowing. He—he's done almost all my books, and his—his range of—of ability to do different types of illustration is—is—is just insane. Yeah, this is when I tell you this is done extremely well. Like, holy—and there are some Easter eggs on, you know, and like this one has a big Easter egg. Uh-huh. You know, uh, over there you have the Red October. And if you remember the movie, where's the one state—sorry, where's the one state that the guy kept wanting to go to? He goes, "I never—I never saw Montana." Oh, so so that's okay, so that's the state of Mont—the state of Mont—so there's, you know, and I asked him to put Navy SEALs in, and he actually put a Navy—a Navy SEAL. Yeah, um, so I love working with this guy because what I do is I'm like, "Here is my vision," but this guy—but this guy is like a million times more creative than I am. So I'm like, "This is what I want to see in the book," other than that, you—you put your—and he just—he has—there—the bows and arrows against the guns. This is—I—I like this. Yeah, this is supposed to be a—you know, I'm not copying Bass Pro Shop, but it's inspired.
Ah, okay. All right. I see it now. And of course, space. Yeah, this one—yeah, I mean, this—yeah, they're—they're all just really fun. And so how—how long does it take him to do something like this?
So usually takes about three weeks to do one image.
Oh, one image being like this—this one spread—one spread. Yeah, um, he originally starts off with a very blurry picture. Nothing is—nothing is sharp at all. It's like, "This is kind of the setting," and then if I approve it, then we get down to the nitty-gritty, and uh, we will clarify all of it. So this is—yeah, cuz this looks—so it looked like this would be incredibly tedious.
It is. And—and I've talked to him about it, but he—he loves it, you know? He—he thinks it's a lot of fun. Things you can do with passion, I swear. Yeah. So this one—so every page is uh, sponsored by a certain brand, so this one sponsored by Avidity Arms. Okay. So Rob Pinkos asked me if he can—if I can get him inside the book. He's like, "Hey, can you put me in the book?" I'm like, "Sure, Rob, I'll do that for you." So you know, but like uh, this is of course—Rob wants to be in—of course. Yeah, yeah, of course. So wrong, but this is like the case Diner, right? You know, from uh, *Independence Day*, right? And that's why it has to—established 7496 is when the movie came out. So you know, small Easter eggs that you get to have fun with, and—and um, this is awesome. Yeah, I didn't—honestly, I like this. I loved—this is—this is genuinely loved. I didn't think I would enjoy flipping through—is this for children?
Yeah, I mean, it's tech—it's technically for children, except I've had some adults tell me that they have a hard time finding the people, so maybe it's for—well, I—I haven't found anyone.
Okay, but I'm enjoying—honestly, I don't give—I don't care about finding anyone because I'm enjoying just looking at the illustrations—like the—the—the—the minor aspects of the illustrations and the different people—like I'm just enjoying it. It's just—I—visual eye candy for me in a way that is—like making my brain go like—and it's funny because as a creative person, I'm really able to use my creative outlet by telling my guy, I'm like, "Okay, I want to see people doing this, people doing that." Now you—you bring it to life, and—and it's—it's really cool when he sends me—when he sends me a—a finished page and—like seeing it alive—what I envision in my head. And it's a really cool process. This is—this is freaking—like I'm enjoy—so this one—you—you'll like this one. So here, if you look in the top corner…Mhm. [Music] Wait—little DeLorean action from *Back to the Future*. Love it. See, that's—and it's like the little things like that that just makes it so enjoyable to look at. Like I can see this being a phenomenal bathroom book.
Yeah, that—or—I know—I know when I got it, my—my two of my kids were sitting on the couch for like two hours, literally meticulously going through every page.
Yeah, no, seriously. Like I could do that all day long. And the colors are so vibrant and just so detailed.
That's good job.
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, so—me—check it out. So this—I feel like Oprah now, right? You're going to be my Pew Pew Dr. Phil. This is—so we have *Bullet Points*: All the reasons why you should support gun control or common sense gun laws, and this is *Spot Gilly*, Volume 1. Where can I go—where can I go and find them?
So you can go on Amazon. My all my books are on Amazon. If you think my autograph is worth eight dollars, you can go to my website and uh, you know, get it on there.
Fair enough. Fair enough. Well, appreciate it, man. I really—really enjoyed it, man. Got to have you back on, man, cuz this is—yeah, when you come out with Volume 2—when you getting ready to do Volume 2, let me know.
I have some ideas.
Okay. Yeah, we can—I have some raw—raw Pinkos ideas.
Okay.