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'It's the right thing to do.'
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Pat Stedman was released from federal prison on October 27, 2024, after serving a year behind bars for his presence in the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Stedman was in Washington, D.C., that day to protest 2020 election fraud and to petition Congress to vote against certifying the election prematurely in order to give the various swing states the opportunity to investigate voting irregularities, as was requested by numerous members of their legislatures.
While Stedman followed the crowd into the Capitol and shouted along with them, he did not engage in any violence.
Nonetheless, he was sentenced to 48 months for a felony offense, obstruction of an official proceeding — an Enron-era financial crimes law that theJustice Department weaponized against January 6 protesters.
Stedman was released early following the Supreme Court's ruling that prosecutors had applied the obstruction law — originally meant to target the destruction of evidence — too broadly.
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Just under two weeks ago I was released from federal prison, one year to the day that I came in. Here are 10 things I learned in this crucible.
1. Your opinion doesn’t matter
In the civilian world, everyone feels entitled to say what they want, and most people take offense when others don’t agree with them. We live in an outrage culture that thrives on people spouting off on each other. This is basically X.
In prison, this kind of behavior isn’t wise. Unless asked, you keep quiet about your opinions and learn to tolerate others. You don’t provoke them. Arguments turn violent frequently. If you want to be right, prepare to fight.
And don’t get me started on the knives people make. The human mind placed under pressure is capable of incredible ingenuity.
2. Respect is paramount
Prison was one of the most respectful environments I’ve been in. More respectful than a country club.
Everyone says “excuse me” or “my bad” when passing by someone or interrupting a conversation. You hold doors for others. Entitled behavior is punished. The higher security the prison, the more dangerous it gets. Even moving someone’s chair without asking can lead to violence.
But it's easy to avoid conflict. If you stay out of ego and treat people with respect, you will have few problems.
3. Necessity is truly the mother of invention
No lighter and want to smoke a cigarette? Two batteries and a wire will do the trick. Want to cook but no stove or microwave? You can boil water in a bucket with two cables wrapped around a metal slab plugged into an outlet.
I’ve even seen a convection oven built out of soda cans and loose wires. And don’t get me started on the knives people make. The human mind placed under pressure is capable of incredible ingenuity.
4. Prisons are mental institutions
After long stretches in prison, even strong men start to lose it. In some cases it’s obvious — people talking to themselves. But in most cases it’s more subtle. Looping conversations. Pacing the room back and forth constantly. Hoarding junk. Easily stressed by inconveniences. Paranoid.
Long lockdowns, boring routines, and constant assaults on humanity by guards can bring you down to an animal-like level. Some people come in like this. But most are made this way by the conditions. There's a term for it: "institutionalized."
5. Paperwork matters
The two classes of offenders at the bottom of the totem pole in prison are chomos (“child molesters,” used as a catch-all term for all sex offenders) and rats. It is very important that you have your prisoner "paperwork" to prove that you're not one of them.
Fort Dix is a dumping ground for these types of prisoners, so they are allowed on the yard, unlike in higher-security prisons. But they are still the bottom of the totem pole and are disproportionately targeted for extortion and robbery.
Rats in particular are despised, which is understandable considering that most inmates are in prison because of them. Have your paperwork ready, or keep a low profile and stick to where you're allowed.
6. Race is real and relevant
Prison is a tribal environment. You are categorized immediately based on your ethnicity and filtered accordingly into “cars.”
White guys have their table. Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Mexicans, etc. each have their own as well.
Black guys organize based on geography, i.e. New York, Pennsylvania, Carolina. You can join their car even if you aren’t black, but it only happens rarely, usually if the guy in question also came from “the hood.”
The separation creates stability; the differences are apparent and universally recognized.
But respect is color-blind. There are dirtbags in every race as well as honorable men. The good men are friendly with each other regardless of background. Conflict between cars is uncommon and avoided at all costs. It's called "crashing out," and gets ugly. To avoid this, troublemakers are policed by their own.
7. Everything is relative
Fort Dix was real prison to me. But to guys who came from the higher-security institutions, it wasn’t.
You could go outside regularly. There weren’t bars on your cell doors. Even during lockdowns, you could still move around the building, use phones and computers, sometimes even watch TV.
I came to appreciate little things a lot. Being able to go to the gym, a little extra food at the chow hall, getting your comissary early, an unlocked door so you could move around easier — these all felt like “freedom.”
The abundance we have on the outside is amazing. After this year, something as simple as bread with butter and jam tasted like heaven to me.
8. Our information overload is extreme
After two days back in the “real world,” I was absolutely overwhelmed by the amount of information we receive. In prison, I had no access to the internet and limited communication with the outside world.
I didn’t scroll through feeds or messages. I talked to people or read. I was focused and present, had real conversations, actually learned some things. I can already feel the siren song of distraction calling me since I’ve been back.
Honestly, I prefer the clarity I had in there to the deluge of nonsense out here. There is something wrong with the way we are living. It's not healthy or natural, and that explains so much of our growing social dysfunction.
9. You really notice women
Being around high-testosterone men 24/7, you become very attuned to even the slightest amount of feminine energy in the environment. Everyone notices female guards, even if they don’t gawk at them.
Little flourishes of femininity go a long way. You can almost smell it before you see it. I remember staring at my wife during visits, intoxicated by her presence. This was about more than just sex. The way her hair fell on her shoulder, the way she moved. Everything about her was refreshing — I just wanted to take it all in.
10. You can adjust to anything
My first few weeks in prison were tough. There were a lot of rules I didn’t understand that I had to learn. And to put it lightly, it was a very different environment to get used to, with very different types of people.
But then all of a sudden, all this newness became normal. I was living in a ghetto behind barbed-wire fences, and there wasn’t anything weird about it. I’d fist-bump gangsters and sneak apples out of the chow hall in my socks, as if this was just a part of life.
It’s still surreal for me to look back on it. I just left this world. And it already feels like a dream.
Exclusive: Hollywood 'hypocrisy' over harsh Jan. 6 sentence for 'Bob's Burgers' actor: 'The whole LA comedy scene piled on'
“‘Bob’s Burgers’ Actor Sentenced to One Year in Prison for Role in Jan. 6 Riot” crowed the New York Times as the funniest man I’ve ever met was leaving D.C. and heading back to L.A. to pack up his life.
Jay Johnston wasn’t just Bob’s rival Jimmy Pesto; he was the officer on the "Sarah Silverman Program" who said, “As a cop, I’ve seen things that would make you crap a book on how to puke.”
I hate that Jay is going to prison for a year, but I love this story because it is a perfect example of the brutal hypocrisy of Hollywood, the left, and everyone who thinks they’re 'creative.'
True comedy fans know him more for his incredible performances on "Mr. Show," including “The Story of Everest,” where he knocks down his parents' thimble collection eight times.
Slapstick is his forte. The guy is about a hundred feet tall or, as Andy Dick once called him, “a legal giant,” so when he falls, it’s hilarious.
Jeepers cheapers
I wrote a TV pilot with him once called “The Two Bennies,” where we updated the slapstick of Benny Hill with over-the-top lunacy. Instead of a woman slapping one of us for being fresh, she chopped our heads off with a chainsaw.
I remember pitching him certain ideas and ending with, “Do you think that’s funny?” to which he would pause and say, “Let me ask you something … do you think that’s funny?”
I’ve known this guy for a quarter of a century, and he was never political.
He was a hard-drinking, heavy-smoking madman who drove a Jeep with no sides or windshield so that when you got in, he’d hand you a coat and goggles to stay alive.
He’s Hunter S. Thompson meets RanXerox but he’s also an incredibly moral and courageous person who will run down the street chasing a purse snatcher into hell.
We’d go on vacation together every year with a bunch of other people in the funny community, and the discussions were always retarded.
Once when I picked Jay up at the airport in Saint Martin, we got lost trying to get out of the airport. He said, “This parking lot was originally designed by the infamous municipal planner William P. Nillard, known to his friends as Willy Nilly.”
Jay often mocked me for being a typical Scottish cheap-ass. On one trip, he went to open the door for me, but it only went halfway because it got stuck on a rock.
“Sorry,” he said insincerely. “I’m cheap too.” I pulled it shut hard over the pebble, and the loud bang led Jay to add, “Take it easy, Slammy Davis Jr.”
Blind man's baseball
I remember in Jamaica in 2003, David Cross ("Mr. Show") was giving me s**t for being a Republican, and Jay asked, “You’re a Republican? Why? Don’t you see that diversity is ultimately better for everyone and all that?”
This was one of the only remotely political things I ever heard him say, and his response was typical of the L.A. comedy scene back then. They talk about politics the way British people talk about baseball: blindly.
The next time politics came out of his big mouth was in 2016 when Trump was running for president. He was at Starburns Industries, and Dan Harmon ("Rick and Morty") was talking about how important it was that Hillary win.
Johnston dared to disagree and said that he liked the idea of Trump shaking things up.
It was as if he had said, “I don’t know. You have to admit at least SOME toddlers are sexy.”
Everyone in the room was gobsmacked, and Dan turned purple with rage before giving Jay a screaming diatribe that sounded like Mussolini in a bad mood.
I spoke to Jay soon after that and worried that one incident was going to get him blackballed, because Harmon basically runs comedy over there.
“I don’t think it’ll be that bad” he replied. “Maybe brownballed.”
Refusing to embrace Trump derangement syndrome was Jay’s first scarlet letter, but it wasn’t the end of his career — possibly because he wasn’t politically active. Yes, he dared to blaspheme Hillary, but to hang out with this guy was 99% workshopping comedy bits.
Transformers convention
I used to grab drinks with him and other people way funnier than me, like Jeff B. Davis and Dino Stamatopoulos at the Rustic Inn in L.A. “I just flew back from a Transformers convention, and boy are my arms tires,” one of them would quip.
The table became incredibly serious after that as each guy tried to outdo the other. “George W. Bush just flew back from seeing the devastation Katrina caused, and boy are his farms mired” got some groans before someone added, “Bush just flew back from Afghanistan, and boy are his armies tired.”
I think it was Jay who ended the volley by saying he just flew back from a Hitler convention, and boy is his arm tired.
Little did he know that joke would become reality in Biden’s America and that he’d be going to prison for an arm that wasn’t even tired because it didn’t even do anything.
Social distancing
Jay’s 2016 transgression remained a minor black cloud above his career until Dino had a party in 2021 at the tail end of COVID. Johnston arrived with no mask and was hugging everyone and shaking hands like it wasn’t an instant death sentence.
The lefties of La La Land had moved on from Hillary and had focused all their attention on health protocol. Jay’s negligent behavior confirmed their worst fears about him. This guy is a right-winger after all.
This wave of ostracism annoyed Jay and made him more interested in what the “evil” right had been up to all these years. He started to follow Trump more closely. When he heard of the January 6 rally, he texted me. “Are you going to check this out?” he asked.
“F**k no,” I responded. “I will be avoiding it like the plague.” This exchange ended up in court.
When the big day arrived, Jay was curious. Again, this is a British person at a baseball game, so he wasn’t experienced enough to know how these things usually go. At the ripe old age of 53, this was his first rally.
Giant injustice
During the chaos, Jay was handed a police shield because he’s 6’4” and could easily get it out of there. His girlfriend later joked that Jay was on trial for "being tall." He passed it over his head to police.
In the footage, however, he could just as easily have been using it to attack police. You can’t tell. The FBI began circulating his image and asking the public if they knew who he was.
The sh**bags in L.A. couldn’t wait to respond. This is why I hate those people so much. They have no honor. They don’t just lack the courage of their convictions. They lack courage.
Tim Heidecker (known to many as the guy who got Sam Hyde canceled) couldn’t wait to point out Jay’s involvement. Jeff B. Davis went a step farther and actually spoke to the FBI himself, sharing texts that included Jay saying, “The news has presented it as an attack. It actually wasn’t. Though, it kind of turned into that. It was a mess. Got maced and tear gassed and I found it quite untastic.”
Jeff and Jay must have spent a thousand hours together. I think Jeff is the one who came up with “boy are his farms mired.” I always suspected Jeff was jealous of Jay’s sense of humor, and the backstabbing confirms it.
It wasn’t just Jeff and Tim who couldn’t wait to string up the kindest guy I’ve ever known. The whole L.A. comedy scene piled on. Jay’s 13-year-old daughter was taking an improv class because she wanted to be like her dad. Unfortunately, what got her into the class also got her out, because she was sent home for the sins of her father. "Bob’s Burgers" fired him, his new film "Wing Dad" was shelved, and his entire career came to a screeching halt.
Rat pack
This was going way past brownlisted. A friend of mine was at David Cross’ 60th birthday party recently (David and I were very close, but we broke up after he got TDS). This guest is still friends with Jay and me, but he hates Trump, so he still gets invited to parties. He was pleading with everyone there to see Jay’s side.
"You don’t think it's insane that he’s facing serious jail time?” he kept asking.
Do you think they gave a s**t about the nuance of the police shield? Do you think any of them had even heard about the shield?
They all — to a man — shrugged their shoulders and harrumphed, “F**k around and find out.” Not one of them showed any sympathy (or dared let anyone else know they felt sympathy) despite knowing Jay for almost 30 years — funny, that.
Three years after Jay’s visit to D.C., he was charged with violation of 18 USC 231, “Obstructing law enforcement officers during a civil disorder,” and sentenced to 366 days in prison as well as two years of supervised release.
I hate that Jay is going to prison for a year, but I love this story because it is a perfect example of the brutal hypocrisy of Hollywood, the left, and everyone who thinks they’re “creative.”
The drama-club nerds don’t grow up with empathy and the ability to see outcasts for the human beings they really are. They grow up to be bitter victims hell-bent on revenge. If that means throwing your buddy in a cage for disagreeing with you, so be it. These are the neighbors who will rat you out to the Stasi if communism ever takes over.
This is why it’s so important that we win this election. The other side is so immoral that it’s not funny.
I donated to Jay’s GiveSendGo. You should too.
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