2 Bears, 1 Cave with Tom Segura & Bert Kreischer - Louis C.K. on Writing His First Novel and Returning to Stage | 2 Bears, 1 Cave

Episode Date: November 24, 2025

SPONSORS: - Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get your free quote at https://ethos.com/bears - Eat smart at https://FactorMeals.com/bears50off and use code bears50off to get 50% off your first box, plus Free Breakfast for 1 Year. - Don’t miss out on all the action this week at DraftKings! Download the DraftKings app today! Sign-up using https://dkng.co/bears or through my promo code BEARS. - Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at https://shopify.com/bears. ‌ In this powerful and surprisingly emotional episode of 2 Bears 1 Cave, Tom Segura sits down with Louis C.K. to discuss his new novel Ingram, the creative process behind writing fiction, and the brutal emotional reality of loneliness and childhood struggle. Louis explains why he quit stand-up for over a year, how stepping away from the stage changed his life, and what ultimately pulled him back into comedy. The conversation dives deep into fear, pain, trauma, comedy philosophy, empathy, war stories, emotional burnout, and why the darkest moments in life can shape the most powerful art. Tom reveals that reading Ingram made him cry, and Louis talks about the deeply disturbing next book he’s finishing—including a scene that shocked even him while writing it. They also explore the controversial idea of “punching down” in comedy, the ethics of humor, and why Louis believes the funniest material comes from the messy truth of being human. 2 Bears, 1 Cave Ep. 316 https://tomsegura.com/tour https://www.bertbertbert.com/tour https://store.ymhstudios.com Gambling problem? Call one eight hundred Gambler. In New York, call 8778-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369). In Connecticut, Help is available for problem gambling. Call eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or visit https://ccpg.org. Please play responsibly. On behalf of Boot Hill Casino & Resort (Kansas). Pass-thru of per wager tax may apply in Illinois. Twenty-one plus age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario. Restrictions apply. Bet must win to receive Bonus Bets which expire in 7 days. Minimum odds required. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see https://dkng.co/audio. Limited time offer. Chapters 00:00:00 - Intro 00:01:00 - Becoming A Novelist, Eastern Europe, & Russian Literature 00:05:12 - Quitting Stand Up & Daily Rituals 00:08:47 - Writing Ingram & Why Tom Teared Up 00:19:38 - Loneliness, Street Kids, & the Human Threshold for Empathy 00:34:27 - Trauma, War & Emotional Damage 00:39:17 - Coming Back to Stand-Up & Rebuilding Material 00:46:22 - Upsetting Audiences, Articulating Thoughts, & Punching Down 00:59:59 - Touring Burnout & The Future of Live Comedy 01:06:42 - Final Thoughts & Tom Praises Ingram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alabama and South Carolina. What's up? This December, I'll be bringing my come-together tour to Huntsville on the 4th, and on Friday, December 5th, I'll be performing at the Alabama Theater in Birmingham. After that, on Saturday, December 6th, I'll be in Columbia, South Carolina, at the Township Auditorium. I can't wait to see you there. Get your tickets now at tomsegura.com slash tour. Welcome to a special episode of Two Bears One Cave. Live, not live. Recorded from New York City with our special guest, Louis C.K., who has a new book called Ingram. Lewis, welcome to the program. Thank you.

Oh, by the way, I have another copy of that to give you because I signed it. Oh, fuck yeah. So that one's for you. Oh, thank you. Dedicated to you. Thank you so much. That copy is not the book itself. Okay, great.

Appreciate this very much. I very much enjoyed reading this. actually visited you, and I was in your office. Yeah. And you, I think you had already written this. It was going to be, it was like coming out soon or, yeah, several months later. And you were working on a different book. Yeah, I have another novel I just finished a draft of.

A draft of. Yeah. And you are loving being a novel writer. I love it. Yeah. So much. I love it. Writing every day?

Yeah, every day. And that went, did this, you had. aspirations of this right like did you always want to write when i was a little kid i wanted to be a writer like that was a dream to me yeah like it was like being an athlete or something like i wanted to be a novelist did you romanticize the smoking and the drinking oh yeah of course because i got into russian literature when i was a kid like kind of young you know and um i would put um i would open the windows in the winter of my bedroom uh-huh to feel russian yeah yeah Yeah, that's great.

Yeah, I just loved the, being able to write how horrible things could be. And somehow it was sweet to read that it was awful. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, sure. And the Russians are really good at that. Yes, and they're funny. They're funny. And they're not trying to be funny at all.

They just say how awful something is and you laugh. That's where I kind of learned that. Yeah, I had a joke about it where I was in some Eastern European country. And I always asked like about, you know, I like to say, please thank you, greetings. I try to learn in different languages. I've always just enjoyed it. And in one of them, I was like,

what's the whatever greeting here? And they told me that it translates to, hopefully today is our last. And that was the straight face. I wonder where that was. I was like, huh. Well, yeah, I mean, the best shows, to me, the best shows that I ever,

ever had have been in Eastern Europe. Really? And Bucharest. In Romania? Sophia. Yeah. Romania and Bulgaria. Yeah.

And Bratislav. Slava in one place I played that was torn down like a week after I played it. There's some Soviet feelings theater. But they really get into comedy there and they're, I've been to Russia and haven't been to Russia. It's really crazy. This book, the new book actually takes place in Russia. Oh, really? And I kind of went back to that, romanticizing that. Yeah. When I did Budapest last, you know, my wife's, both of her parents are Hungarian. I'm hung Hungarian. My dad's. Yeah, on your dad's side. And so I've picked up phrases just from all these years together.

And I, in Hungarian, said the only bad part, this is to the audience, the only part of the city that sucks. And I said in Hungarian, we're the rotten gypsies. And it was like a minute-long applause break. Oh, yeah, they hate their gypsies, though. They were like, this is a good guy. We like you. He gets us. Yeah.

Yeah, Budapest is pretty gnarly. place. My grandfather lived there when he was, whatever, he grew up there, but but yeah, and I also just love, I used to really struggle with writing because I always felt like I was in trouble with it, like

I haven't done enough or I'm not, you know what I mean? And writing television and movies, it was always really hard to generate the scripts because work habits and ADHD or whatever, just like being constantly distracted and wanting to eat.

eat all the time and other stuff that's not really helpful and and uh just hard to get my ass in the seat and to look at the fucking thing yeah and um so that kept me from really enjoying writing and i would write to make tv or movies like write something just so you can produce it yeah so the actual writing wasn't that fun and then i got into uh fiction right like writing short stories again And also, I had a big change in my life of getting rid of a lot of distraction and kind of calming my spirit down, which actually worked.

And then I took like a year and a half off of stand-up between the last tour. This is a fascinating point. For comedians, is that, like, I don't know if everyone understands that there's a general kind of feeling amongst comics is like a couple weeks away from the stage, you kind of got to get your sea legs back again oh yeah you're out you're out and you're like

i don't you know i remember like taking vacations and then coming back and doing it actually being scared to go back on stage yeah yeah it really is like being a ballerina or something like it's that level of discipline like to really be that good at it i remember talking to greg fitz simmons who i always think of as just such a he's got such a great work ethic and um i love his comedy he's so funny he is great fits is hilarious been a friend of mine for you know eons but um we were talking about a common friend we have a comedian and I was like what where has he been and he said well he his wife was ill and he took a year off and he said many and then he he he got out of line he stepped out of line yeah it's like you're waiting for your to order your

coffee and you step out of line he had to get so he's having a hard time getting back on the road and there's always that fear because of how many years it took yeah that I can't fuck around like that but the reason I was able to do it was because I decided I wasn't going to do it comedy anymore i just decided i was gonna quit you really yeah i was like i'm done it wasn't a decision like this yeah it was a letting go it was like i don't have to do this anymore and so every day felt great because i wasn't like counting the days to coming back i was just like fuck it fuck all of that i did it enough and every time i would remember being a comedian and it felt great i would say yeah that's why you did it for so long but it wasn't drawing me back right and so during that time i took

like sculpture classes and painting classes and I just sort of let my life unravel and it created this space and I started writing Ingram and I found out it felt like being a guy that come off of Tommy John surgery that all of a sudden you have new capabilities like I was able

to sit down every morning and really focus and feel like I'm just here with this book and write every single day and how many hours would you make yourself right? It doesn't matter to the time. As long as I sit down and I start. I have certain tricks in terms of trying to get in when I don't feel in. I have a very basic ritual every morning of like wake up. I have a little spiritual moment

and then I meditate and then I make coffee. It's the greatest thing in the world to me. And my French press put makes two good cups. The first cup I read the newspaper and stuff. Yeah. Second cup I take it to my desk and I sit down and if I'm not in it, I go look back at the last couple of pages I wrote and I just read them and make little tweaks and then I'm working. Yeah. And then I keep going.

And I go until I don't want to. It's like a very gentle thing. I go until some moment I look up and I go like, you know, it would be nice just to go do something else or whatever. Or I feel hungry. Yeah. A trick I had when I'm upstate, I have a machine that makes my oatmeal.

It's a rice maker, but it makes oatmeal for me. Mm-hmm. I said it to like two hours. So the smell of oatmeal, you kind of go, I go, let's go eat. Just go eat, yeah. And then me and the dog go eat. And then we go walk. And the day, I'm done.

I wrote that morning. So the whole day feels great. That's great. I love it. I love it. Makes my whole life better. When you write Ingram or this other book, do you do the, because there's different, obviously, approaches to writing different people have.

Do you do an outline and know what you're doing? Or do you just kind of see where the writing takes you? Yeah, not so far. I mean, Ingram was supposed to be, I thought it was a short story. I thought it might even just be a paragraph. I just got this voice in my head of this kind of like American kid. Yeah. And I just started writing a description of his life in his voice.

Yeah. I just wanted to see what it would feel like. And he felt living to me. Yeah. So once I started describing his life, I just thought I would have him describe in the first chapter. And it might make the first chapter a little funny because it wasn't supposed to be the first chapter of a book. It wasn't like, how do I get people into this book? It was just like, here's this kid talking.

So he's describing his life. And I feel like I'm just hearing it and taking it down. I'm helping him say it. And then he starts telling a story. he says and then my father left yeah and i'm like oh so you're telling me what something that happened and then his mother tells him to leave because she can't take care of him anymore yeah and i got really emotional i was like what the fuck's going to happen to him and i sort of felt this sense of mission to take care of him so every day i would sit down and go like what's going on with you

and i got scared for him and the only thing that was making me feel okay about it all all is that it was in the past tense. It's just the way it happened. And I was like, well, at least I know he's alive. Yeah. So I just kept following him through a really hard. I couldn't make his life easier. I didn't feel like I was deciding what would happen to him in terms of like, how do I want his life to go? That's what an outline would have been like. Yeah. What do I want to happen? So I just followed him chapter by chapter. And did your new book have a same kind of thing? Yeah, similar. That one is really fucked up. It's really crazy. And it's more closer to

my other work in terms of that it gets really it's disgusting in some places. Oh, nice. And yeah, and it's... So I'll really consume this book. Oh, it's really fucked up. I don't know if one person has read it. And he said it made him

laugh out loud sometimes. And he said, there's a few times he wanted to throw it across the room. And I said to him, he's not a guy I know well, but I got him to read it. I said, thanks for reading it and he said i wish i could help you i wish i could thank you for writing it that's great yeah that's what he said that's great it made me happy it made me feel like it made his face hot yeah so it's good that's great it's good bad doesn't matter it's something

it's something that has makes you react that's all i care about is you hit it some kind of spike and yeah and every day i would write that book i'd be like you know there's these two characters meeting that I had done so, I worked so hard on that book. It's like 450 pages. Jesus. And it's on a typewriter. I wrote on a typewriter. So I was on the road and I was bringing this Italian typewriter with me everywhere in typing. The inevitable is inevitable. One day you will not be here and you need to make sure your family is taking care of. I know it's a horrible thing to think about. You know me and you know I don't like thinking about that. But you know what I do like thinking about? The fact that when I am gone, my girls are taking care of. This show is sponsored by

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The code is bears to save up. up to $600. Hydro.com code bears. And when I'm traveling with the pages, I get anxious because they're, you know, I could lose them. And, uh, but I would be, there's one, two characters and they meet in the woods. And I work so hard. And I'm not even sure I'm going to keep any of it.

Like some of it, I'm like, this does, this is not good. Yeah. But keep writing it. Keep writing. The great thing about writing fiction is that no one ever, no one might read that book. Right. Besides that one guy. I don't know.

but I get to these two characters and then I was like oh they're gonna fuck I don't that's crazy they're gonna fuck but that's what it is that's what happens so I described their sex and the jiz and everything like extremely as as literarily as I could like with as much I put a as much into that as I would into like describing a woman dying

with her son crying next to her something you know so I can't wait to read this I think you'll like that one. I really enjoy it. Okay, so I'll tell you what, man. So I was, it's in right away. Like I'm reading it and just like following the story. But when you read, I think when you read literature or a script,

your mind has a tendency to cast. You know, you cast. Sure. Right. And so sometimes when you read something, your mind conjures up kind of a fictional face. and a person sometimes you read something and you for some reason you cast like an actor like somebody comes in you you go that's how you imagine it yeah and then in some cases

you put like a real person in it and man i i couldn't help as i'm reading this i just was i cast it with my eldest son oh my god wow and that was it made it like wow i mean i cried when reading it because i was i was like picture my for some reason like you know once that happened you can't get it out of you like i couldn't right shift it to another person whoa and he's he's nine and he's lanky and sweet and like and i just was like every time something was happening to especially like being a you know a band like mother telling him to leave and and like alone and sleeping in these places and like you know you're just you're like he hasn't eaten it like it would fuck me up i was really hard but also like

every time he had some triumph or somebody takes him in then he'd be like and I just thinking of my boy the whole time so it was very emotional. I had an experience like that writing it because I really got to love the kid and because when he was met with hard things he analyzed them and he'd have different feelings about them he'd feel pain but he'd also like learn from it

and not in a wisdom way but just like I guess that's what that's like. And yeah I mean A lot of feedback I get about Ingram is, like, mothers really like the book. And they really connect with the kid. They really, and they worry about it. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a book that just makes you worry. Yeah.

And that, I don't know, there's something, I guess, there's something about worrying about a, about a character. And it makes you see them more clearly. It makes you see, honey, worry is the right thing. And then there's, you know, something about worrying about a child is different. You know, it's different than worrying about an adult. It is. There's like this question, and I sort of, as the second book asks this question, is like, when does somebody go from being our responsibility as humans to being on the fuck them? You know what I mean? Yeah. Like when someone, a kid is born, people are so invested in the rights of a child or the social responsibility for a child. Yeah. It's a big deal. All the way back to we want to make sure we know when they become, you know. with the abortion debate

will go on forever and ever because everybody's wondering when does it become important? Yeah. When do we become responsible for someone? Yeah. When does that responsibility start? When does it stop being just their parents?

And become... When do they become a protectorate? Or I guess somebody to be protected. But then where is that second line? When do they fuck them? When can we actually kill them? Yeah. When is it okay to kill them?

because they're one of us or they're on this side of that line. Yeah. And a boy is a really is a very tender part of that spectrum, a boy because boys start to flex their bodies a little bit more and boys can wreak havoc.

Yeah. Oh, for sure. But also they're tender and they're vulnerable. So it's a problem for everybody yeah and it's um no it definitely there's an emotional connection reading this book i think anyone you don't have to have a kid to feel it i think anyone just has empathy in them feels for a child yeah worry is empathy so if you you know it's like uh there's a super version of every feeling do you know what i mean like um like anger if you don't work through it and maybe express it and deal with it becomes resentment resentment to me is like anger

that didn't get addressed yeah so it kind of um caught it not codifies it cauterizes like a you know it gets yeah scuzzy and then it like sits in the person yeah that's resentment yeah sadness becomes like depression like sadness that doesn't get like okay I'm gonna feel this sad you know what I mean yeah um and then there probably there's something about if you're dealing with happy feelings they become like a mania do you know what i mean like there's just these big versions big versions of the feelings of the feelings that and so worry is like empathy that just you know what i mean and i think a lot of literature movies and stuff is we we amp up you know you take love and you make it romance right you know you take pain you make it torture yeah and so you you take empathy you make it

worry. It would have been interesting to write a book about a kid who nothing special happens to. It's just that life is really hard by itself. If you write a book about a kid who goes to school and he has some friends and his parents are both home, he's still going to have a really hard time. Yeah. And you could really empathize with that. That's true. So I always get a little suspicious of drama like and then there was a tornado but that's what i wrote yeah i do i do think too one of the things you think about when you're reading uh ingram is you can't help but go like man that era that's not that long ago yeah was tough to live in you know what i mean like that was just like like when there's when they're he's running into people and they're like you know

where are your folks like and he's like I don't know yeah and part of you go is like yeah this is a book that you wrote you also go oh that happened for sure all the time of course it did there's just kids around and people will be like I don't know I don't know and when you hear from anybody like I don't have anybody taking care of me yeah your inner feeling or mine is I'll just cop to it myself I go like okay yeah like when you see a homeless person yeah you might give them money and try to go like this but you want to keep them away from you. Right. Because they need too much.

And that's scary. It's too much. I'm going to get dragged into that. It's going to drag me out of my ego. It's going to drag me out of my day. Yeah. And a kid, even more so. Oh, my God.

I mean, if you go to another, like, I remember going to, um, being in Mexico city once in, uh, the Zocalo, the, the, um, it's a big plaza where the government buildings are. And a lot of tourists go there. so children come there to get money from them they're kids that are just like street kids and one of the things they do is they blow fire

so what they do is they have these torches and they have like a milk gallon container filled with gasoline and they just take a mouth full of gasoline and they blow on the and they blow fire and they just do it and you just see that there's

like this bad stain of dead flesh around their lips and whatever is going I mean imagine all day doing this trick they're blowing mouthfuls of gasoline onto a and you see it licked back on to them a little bit and also whatever's happened in their mouths I bet their teeth aren't great no and and they're wearing shit you know whatever sometimes it's like a a t-shirt like Philadelphia Phillies or something you know what I mean yeah and uh uh you know whatever not them people adults just sort of watch and they might throw them some dirty pesos or something yeah i mean yeah but they don't go like let me get you to with somebody who can help you they don't like well the the get involved the volume of kids in

that situation there is like so much more extreme that it's like stray dogs or something you know Yeah, you just go whatever. Whatever, man. But every one of those kids is a whole profound experience. Of course. They are a whole human being equal to you. Yeah. And so I wanted to get in the head of a kid who's dealing with this kind of shit.

And the experience I had with it, and when I was a kid, I was raised by a single mom, and she worked all day. So I was alone a lot. And we lived right near the Massachusetts Turnpike. and I just walked next to it a lot and I walked along this fence for hours that had like shit like dirt I used to pick up can't like broken cans and I don't know I had a weird childhood

and we had times where like I remember saying to my mom that I'm hungry and she'd say drink a lot of water like there were times where there wasn't like a lot around so we touched that and I certainly wasn't like this and there's a trillion kids that have been poorer than me But I remember that feeling of like, you know, there's not a lot.

Yeah. And I'm on my own. And I was okay, you know. You didn't go like, what's going on here? You just went like, okay, what do I do now? And sometimes we're better than others. And my mom worked really hard. And we went to a good school, you know.

We lived that way so that we could live near a good school, good public school. But I remember seeing this documentary about kids riding the rails. I think it's called Riding the Rails. It was during the Depression, a ton of families told their kids to leave. This show is sponsored by Draft Kings. Do you know the three teas of Thanksgiving, turkey for eating, table for gathering, and touchdowns for winning with Draft King Sportsbook and official sports betting partner of the NFL?

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Shopify.com slash bears cha-chang usually they choose one like somebody has five kids and they go we can't feed five and this one guy in the documentary tells the story he says my parents told me

my brothers and sisters he was the strongest one so you go get out good luck and so he just hit the road but they found and those times other kids there was like gangs

of kids and they'd camp together and they'd live on trains and the train companies weren't like oh they were like they'd beat the shit out of them yeah yeah so this guy he did but this guy telling the story this is part of what got me to this

book he didn't talk about the violence or starving he said well I guess the hardest part he's just telling like this i guess the hardest part was like sometimes when it would just be me in a train car for hours and hours and then he he said i got so lonely and then he covered his mouth and he couldn't talk anymore and he's like 90 now like it's still hurts the loneliness how lonely he got

and that that's the level i think of um that's a threshold a lot of people can't handle yeah is if you're in it. I think the loneliness epidemic is one that's not discussed a lot. No doubt. And sometimes you know you meet people in life. Yeah.

And you kind of discover through knowing them that you're meeting someone who is lonely, who doesn't have a lot of friends, doesn't have romance. And it, I think it has had an impact on me when I've befriended someone and then it

occurs to me. I'm like, oh, I think I might be this person's only friend. Yes. And it really affects you, I think, emotionally. It does. And it can sometimes have the effect that it does to see a kid who's or a homeless person who needs so much that you can't even handle it. Yeah. That can be like that emotionally. Like if I get to be your friend, you're going to swallow me whole. Yeah. Because you got nothing. And Ingram keeps meeting people. that feel bad for him, but they just have a limit on how much they can do. They give him a minute. They might give him a bed for the night. Yeah. But at some point, they go, I can't do this, dude. Yeah. And I mean, I've experienced that in life of different parts of my life where I'm really lonely, where I feel really isolated, and where I realize that I'm a problem for other people.

Really? Really? I realize that, yes. I'm the needy one. I'm too much in need for a lot of people. And I see people that are good people. turn and go like, I can't. That's too much now. And because of how much you need, they need to do less. Yeah. And I get it. And I've done it myself.

Sure. So he sees that a lot. And luckily, the good thing about a kid is that they're malleable and that they can grow. They adapt. Yeah. Unless they're being like literally starved. Yeah. It's like there is no, there's, you know, this all the things that we say to each other,

like everything that might nothing that kills you makes you stronger yeah yeah but also it can give you like diseases and it can break your spine sure it can really fuck you up yeah yeah life is not as a zero-sum game for some people that is so dude i remember when you're talking about mexico that it hit just the memory flashback that i used to spend a lot of time in lima peru right growing for my summers and the when i was like a teen it's very um eye-opening to see that the levels of poverty in like Latin American countries and other parts of the world too where you're like it's not like the poverty we see here no and I was out at some place in Lima somewhere with a cousin and I'm probably like 12 13 and one of the street kids comes up tattered ripped clothes filthy

and it's like a little girl you know she's maybe like five or six and she's like you know puts her hands out And I was like, oh, my God, like, what do we do? Yeah. And so I had, like, French fries we had ordered, and I just give them to her. And I have, like, some cash. And then my cousin, who's Peruvian sitting across from me, he's like, oh, he's like, good, very proud of you. And then he goes, George Bush would be so proud of you. I go, what?

He's like, I go, we got to help. And he's, like, turns and he shows me, like, this hillside of, like, you know, tin roof, shanty town. He's like, there's fucking two million of them here. Yeah. Like, he had no reaction to it, you know. No. And he was like, yeah, you just got here. I get it.

Like, you're shaken by this. Right. He's like, this is normal, you know. It's so weird. What are you supposed to do? Are you supposed to not give a shit? Are you supposed to? They, they have, you know, it's kind of changes between men and women.

I think the men kind of go like, yeah, this is what it is. The women are, you know, have a little more, like, warmth to it. But it is like, what are you supposed to do? do if you see it every day. Like, how do you react? I remember seeing this like 60 minutes piece on I think like the homicide problem in Louisiana. It might have been in like New Orleans or something.

And how this really, you know, young and sincere prosecutor, I think was a prosecutor, was talking about like how the first case comes and how much you feel and how you're going to do. And then she's like, then they just start rolling out. You just go, huh? Yeah, okay. They're like, yeah, another murder. And then they go like, yeah, year later, I was like, yeah, murders happen.

Like, I just, it's just what I do. Yeah, I was thinking once about how life is about, like, seashores, different things in life. Like, that's where we feel the most. Yeah. Is, you know, the ocean is unthinkably massive. Yeah. And when you're in the middle of it, you're just in it. Like, if you're on a boat.

or if you're on land, you're just living your life. But when you're on a seashore, you get this wild sense of this massive thing because you're touching the lip of the thing. And you're seeing that you're not in the ocean and that there it is. And it even can give you a sense of how big it is where you live. Or if you look at stars and stuff like that. So it's like these borders. So if you're like fully in, I live here.

I see these people every day. And if you're fully out, you're like, I don't know. But if you taught, if you, when you have those, those junctures, you freak out and your body shivers. I mean, what you're supposed to do, I don't think is supposed to be based on how you feel. You're not supposed to just react to your sudden empathy. Yeah. By giving. Yeah.

It's supposed to be something else. And I don't really know what it is. I don't know either. Yeah. If there's always a part of me that thinks. that if I was really a moral person, I'd change absolutely everything about the way I live. And then it wouldn't make any difference.

Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. I'd just be doing it as a big vanity. Yeah. So I don't know. I mean, what I try to do is be, um,

sort of handle myself well with people around me. That's all I can do. I mean, I think that's with the society I've, I'm part of. Yeah, that's kind of the best thing that I think most people can do. If you're trying,

if everyone's trying to do that, it's a pretty good world. That it's, it is, it's like a retail version of, You know what I mean? Yeah, yes. The big picture of like what we're supposed to do is countries or whatever.

Who fucking knows? I mean, it's, it feels overwhelming in that whatever change someone tries to make doesn't really have, it doesn't feel like anything really changes. No, not that much. But there is a funny thing about seeing that like when there's a bunch of people suffering, you can just go like, well, that's the way it is. You don't boil it down to like, well, that person's a shit ton of pain. Yeah, yeah.

And what if it was. You. I mean, there's no qualitative difference between my grandmother and an old lady in Gaza or an old lady in Ukraine. There's none. There's no difference. They all have the same value. But I can look at it. I can just be sort of have CNN on and see like people hurting and I can go. And if it's my grandmother, they're both dead. But if it was one of my grandmothers to get the fuck on a plane go, they're fucking rally the troops. Let's get go. Let's do something about it. Well, like, I always think about, like, how war is so unnatural for a human being to experience and how much that skews your whole emotional landscape for the rest of your, like, once you're a part of, like, atrocities and you survive. Yeah. I mean, everything shifts for you. I don't think you're ever able to react to things the same way.

No, I don't think so. You mean, if you're in one, if you're in anything, yeah, yeah. Who knows? Yeah. I don't know. I never experienced it. Well, just like being like my dad was a Vietnam vet. And like a very well-adjusted guy and one of the guys who like, you're like, you're in Vietnam, he'd be like, yeah, like, what do you want to know? He'd tell stories. You know, he's in combat. And then when he was like 72, one day we were just talking and he goes, you know, this is the first time you ever said this. He goes, you know, I think the war really affected me. Huh. I was like, yeah? He was like, yeah. He was like, yeah, I think about those guys every day. And I was like. Every day? He goes, every day. I think about the guys I lost and stuff. And I'm like, yeah.

like are you just like you're just realizing this right now he was like yeah I never really thought about it I was like yeah that's you've been traumatized but it took you fucking 50 years to process it that's what trauma is that he says I think about this every day and I never really ever thought about that yeah it's just this thing that you just live with and it's you're constant yeah so you go oh this has been here been here because you get I know what made him i wonder what made him yeah realize it maybe because he was dying so he started to think about things yeah yeah yeah yeah he died yeah he died yeah sorry yeah well it's the way it goes yeah wish mine would he's still kicking huh yeah he's in the hospital right now so i shouldn't say

that but your wish is going to come true yes it will yeah at some point it's the one thing you can count on yeah for sure now the um by the way i i saw your new hour which is fantastic thanks it's so good man thanks it's been a really fun one to do you i wanted to ask you this because when we initially started talking you were like when i stepped away from stand up to right you're like year and a half and you weren't counting the days you're like i'm done with that so how what made you go back on stage so i was uh really i think when i passed a year like some about a year because it contains all the routines of your life

all the holidays and birthdays and everything I did a whole year without it and then when I started doing a second year I started to smell a little rot you know what I mean? Yeah and I started come up with jokes it just was like I started thinking of jokes and it felt like I had to pee after

I was like filling up you know what I mean? Yeah like I gotta get rid of these or I got to just do them once yeah and so I went to the comedy seller one night and I had been on stage and like I don't know a year in three four months something like that and I just went to have a steak and hang out with some friends and they somebody didn't show up and they're like do you want to go on so I said yeah fuck it it doesn't mean I'm coming back to stand up I just want to go on yeah and so I got a waitress to give me her her her pad and I just wrote a list of the jokes I had in my head it was like five or six jokes

and I went on and I started doing them and it was so fun and I felt like I was sitting at a piano yeah and just going like this and I was like I'm good at this like I'm good at it like the pleasure of knowing that like if I leave if I say something and there's a laugh there and I know the next thing and I just know right when to come back in you know what I mean like that those skills of being able to like, here's the thing, look at them, here's the next. Boom. Like, I know how to do that. Yeah.

And they were so pleased. And I really looked at them. It's something that hasn't gone away in this whole tour. For some reason, for the first time, I really, there's always been a bit of a cage up with the audience, but I was just like really looking at them and watching them enjoying it, like seeing really specific faces laughing. And the bits were really kind of either really dumb or very audacious. So people were kind of going like, what? Yeah.

And I was really enjoying that face. Yeah. This face going like, what are you talking about? Yeah, yeah. And so I came back. I did a set like a couple of nights later. I thought, I'm just doing it for fun. But all the audience I was facing were pretty good.

I came in one night and it was a really bad crowd. And because I just have no, I'm not, I hadn't, hadn't been doing it for so long. I didn't know chops. Yeah. I had a really rough set. And I realized this is not a, this is not a, this is. a dangerous hobby you got to go in or out in or out was the was the thought so i i didn't do it for like a month i mean because everything slowed down for me and though my whole life i was like i could take a

month and think about this and i took a month just to think about it and then i went let's let's get into routine started doing three or four sets a night started seeing what is this what are these jokes what are they what's the new feeling yeah and i felt a new uh thing kind of like what i was saying was writing the book that like I had a new ability which is that I don't get emotionally involved with my own person in other words I'm not I don't take it personally if they like the joke or not or how they feel about the joke and I'm okay with any outcome yeah what that kind of gives me is the ability to do a joke that we always think binary as comedians yeah laugh no laugh but no laugh doesn't

mean nothing happened right something happened So when you're in that space, because I think you have like one of the best at like perspective on these things is like if it doesn't get a laugh, which is like, you know, the goal, let's say of obviously doing jokes is to get a laugh. You won't abandon this. No. Well, you'd go like, I need to hone it more or just it is this? Sometimes it's just sticking with it. Like, I think I have, I wrote rules. this time for the no I didn't bring my notebook I wrote this rule on my notebook that said don't bail if it's not working you know yeah that's one of the toughest things to do yes if you do something in the crowd goes uh yeah you just created a new feeling in the room the the thing is that we go in a circle on stage with stand-up we tell a joke and it gets a laugh and it leaves the room feeling pretty much exactly the way you found it And then you tell another joke, you just, you're, they're laughing and they just laughed.

And they just, and they're laughing again. And they, but if you piss them off or confuse them, you've got a new stir in the room. You've got a new chemical, a new gas. And then when you light the next match, the flames a different color. Yeah. And now you're off in a new path. And now, which is exciting, too. It's very exciting.

People will laugh at a joke that. they're kept at a neutral like this guy's good is the feeling we want to give them all the time yeah and they like me is sort of important to us but i'm having a good time we want them to think they're having a good time but if but people that are pissed off laugh differently yeah and for different reasons so you just created a new spectrum of it's like finding another it's like carving out another key on the piano that's not black or white it's a new thing yeah And they go like, what? And you go like, huh?

Well, now I'll just play you a Beatles song. Right, right. Oh, God, that song sounds so good. It's not just about relieving them, but it's like, I just think that laughs are one thing. They're one thing, but there's a lot of things. And the laughs are the backstop, and there are the clay, they're where you're, what you're really working in. It's important. Yeah.

But there's so much, if you just, I'm talking about a fraction of an inch. it's terrifying to not be getting a laugh for 3.8 seconds is too long like if you go like let's go 5 this 5s you tell a joke it doesn't get a laugh for 5 seconds starting now that's dead

I'll put a gun in my mouth yeah yeah yeah yeah but if you're able to have it it's not that long I know You're able to have it and then, and you're okay with it. You're not going like this. You just going, all right, you guys are really tense, but it's okay. I know it's okay because I control the future.

Yeah. I'm on the one on stage. I love the feeling of upsetting an audience and then getting to a joke that they can't help but laugh at. It's great. It's the best feeling. Yes. Yes. Well, I was at the cellar, because I was working, so I've been working on this set anyway,

whatever, I got back into it, and I was just like, I'm in. Yeah. So I started to do more sets per night and do the usual process I did of, you know, but trying to keep in mind this idea that there is more room to play. And also to just be, I called the show ridiculous, because I just wanted to be just ridiculous. And I'm not, I don't want to make any points. I think that I've done, I'm really tired of certain things I've done for a long time.

And this thing I got in my head when I quit before, which was like, you don't have to do this anymore. I just said, I'm going to keep that idea. I don't know, there's a bunch of things I don't have to do anymore. Rants, like where I'm like, do you see how this is, you know. Like I had a big bit in the set that was the center of the set because it was killing so hard about how people talk on the news. and use certain buzzwords it was a little it wasn't like anti-PC but it was like you know like dissecting

the speech hypocrisy yeah it's enough with that shit like i'm so bored with that but it was killing and it was fucking with my set because everything around it was kind of ethereal and pointless yeah and so when i was in omaha nebraska i remember one night i was like what if i just don't do the bit at all it's like a 15-minute chunk i was like what if i just leave it out and i never did it again Because the show I left it out, everything else kind of rose and got better. Yeah. And then I decided the integrity isn't keeping that stuff being important to me. Like the stuff that means nothing.

Yeah. But I think it means everything. Yeah, yeah. And being really convinced of this dumb fucking idea, you know, and believing in it. Yeah. And I see guys going like, why are you on this right now? But they're enjoying it. It's exciting to them.

It's so much more fun than like, right? and them going, yeah. You know what I mean? Yes. And also that's the most traded commodity and comedy right now. Yeah. And I also hate that type of that way of like in movie making when a film is like a film about like this is just the, things should be like smoking is bad. Yeah.

And it's a movie about you. You're like, yeah, I really know. Like there's no. I don't like this ride. No, it's no fun. It's no fun. No, the best to me, the things I enjoy the most movies and stuff are things that confuse me. that make me go like, but I thought this and now I don't know or just like, or, you know.

So I'm not making any points on stage and that's been the fun thing. But so I started doing the bigger theaters like 2,500 seats, the ones that we do a lot. Yeah. And the bits, the set started to feel like it was sagging because I can't really see them anymore. And I missed the clubs where I would do this thing. I'd say something really convinced in my voice about this stupid thing and then I'd stop talking

and I feel that all their heads go like this and then one guy would go and he'd laugh and then everybody would look at him and I would look at him and then somebody else would laugh and I'd look at them and then I'd play in that area and say something that's how the whole set was created.

Really? Yeah, was just like really seeing them and there's one joke in the set that's like my favorite one and when I do it there's always one person that's dying harder than everybody and I always look at them

and I nod at them and I want to say to them that's my favorite yeah yeah I don't want to say that because it's not a great thing to say in 13 minutes into a set yeah yeah

this is as good as this is the best it's all shit yeah but that I'd lost that when I was doing the 2,500 seat theaters so during the last couple of weeks of the or like month of the tour i started going back to the cellar and fucking around and just doing jokes that aren't in the set and doing just being reckless really yeah and i started doing tons of sets

and then i went back up to pekipsy and did the laugh laugh it up this club in the it's upstairs of a pub yeah i love it in there really yeah and just going up there with a notebook and just trashing through an hour there you know i went down to side splitters in tampa oh yeah on my way to a big gig in Puerto Rico and in Puerto Rico I did a local club there like I was just doing local I want to do Puerto Rico I really want to go love it I really want to go do that you'll love it yeah I was telling us we were talking about stand up and about like you know certain comics have certain gifts like you go like this guy is so good at the economy of words like he just knows how to get and I was saying I was like you know I think one of Louie's gifts as a comic is that every hour

you have you have this capacity to say things that are like I feel like it's a people go like it's a universal like I feel like I've had this thought but for some reason I've never heard it articulated and I don't know how you do it over and over I'm always like god damn it like I know this thought right I can't believe I no one's ever said it I've never heard someone say it and it feels like I don't that to me is like one of your community gifts oh thanks yeah that's a good my mom told me that i could do that my mom said that i could take simple things and explain them yeah it didn't seem complicated but that's true my favorite compliment i ever got is i'm gonna like a repeat a compliment i got yeah was from chris rock and he said to me that i'm i'm like thor because what i'm doing is not it's not mysterious i've got a huge hammer and i'm just destroying shit yeah but nobody else can pick up that hammer I'm the only guy who it'll do it for That feels like a good one

I like thinking that about my I like to take that compliment And just bathe in it Yeah I just like to yeah because I was trying to tell somebody This too about as a comedian They were like you know How do you feel about like yourself as a comedian

And I go well it's not this You don't it's not I feel this way all the time Right it's I get off stage sometimes And I go I'm pretty fucking good at this I think a thing And then it goes fucking That's right Up and down.

I think a thing that you do that's great is that you take your harder feelings like anger and you wear them very comfortably and you give them a really great voice because you're not I mean, what I've seen of you, you're not like, you're just saying, I hate this. And there's something about that that's very powerful because that's interesting. People have a hard time with feelings like anger and stuff and spite. Yeah. Spite, which is not even an emotion. It's just like, fuck that. Yeah, yeah.

You can have guilt about that. That's true. But it's real. And, you know, going back to Russian literature, a lot of it is just like people are shit. Yeah. And it's not a moral judgment. It's just... It's a form of love is like, how much do we hate people in this way?

Yes. I love people at their worst. It's my favorite part of people. That feels like a very lewy statement. I love people at their worst. Yeah. I do. That's what I love about them.

is when they're useless, when they have no control, it would have no self-awareness. You got to love somebody like that. When you really meet a Buddha, you're like, I could spend four minutes with you. That's about it. Otherwise, you really stink as a person to hang out with.

I want to meet a mess. I want to meet somebody who's just a fucking, my best friends are. I just sit there and I go, man. They're interesting, though. Yes, they are. But there's something about, like, my favorite joke of yours is the,

and I'll just, even though you know it, I'll tell it the way I remember it, which is that you're in a movie theater, and there's a baby, a couple has a baby. Yes. I'll do it in the first person behind me who is, and the baby's making these horrible screaming noises. Yes. And so I turned to the couple. I said, are you stabbing your baby?

And the woman said, no. And I said, well, could you? Yeah, that's true. That's good, man. That's fun. It's a great joke. Oh, thanks, man. Thank you.

told calmly but you can feel it's a it's a really heavy spite yes and it's justified you don't bring your fucking baby at the same time it's like they have no they can't go to movies without their baby that's true they got no money so it's like what do we do but it sucks for you it sucks for me in that situation it doesn't not suck for you yeah but so you know like the thing it's great about comedy is uh breaking those rules like not being fair comedy's not supposed to be fair. Right. So I remember back when people were saying this thing a lot that comedy should never punch

down. Yeah. So everyone just said, comedy should never punch down. So you did it wrong. Well, no, no, that's not true. That you shouldn't never punch down. Yeah. You don't like comedy or you're pretending you don't like comedy.

Exactly. Yes. Down. But it's the funniest. So I was explaining this to somebody once who didn't understand what it meant. And I said, well, the idea with don't punch down. with comedy is this. If you have

a maid or like, you know, a cleaning lady in an office building who has like five jobs and she sees the boss walk by who's a billionaire and she says, you know, fuck that guy.

You're like, yeah. But if a billionaire goes up to a little cleaning lady and like spills coffee on her head and goes, ha ha, I was like, I was telling this person, that's not funny. But of course, it's a trillion times

funnier. So much funnier. It's way funnier. Of course. Then somebody punching up is crusading and it's like, punching down is horrible. And it's hysterically funny. This is like, I've had this exact conversation

with someone who one time we were like, they were talking about my special that had come out and then they would go, you know, you did this and you do that. But ultimately it's like, he goes, you know as far as like kind of like going over like the rules of comedy he's like but like don't be a dick right and I go no are you nuts I go what do you mean yeah and he's like well you know it's it was like basically don't punch down and I go but being a dick can be the funniest thing like

yes of course dick heads are funny yes and and saying something smar me and shitty to someone might be the funniest fucking thing yes it's not polite and it's not nice but it's still funny of course it is what's his name chance Langton he's the guy from Boston when I started chance was one of the big comics in Boston. And his whole act, he had like a theme, which was, because that's the way I am. Uh-huh. And so you just say an awful thing about himself.

And then, because that's the way I am. And one of them was, whenever I see a pay toilet, back when they used to, I don't think I've seen that in years, but it used to be in some public places, the stall would have a coin thing in it to get in. Uh-huh. He said, every time I see a paid toilet, I crawl underneath and I shit on the floor.

Because that's the way I am. And, you know, someone has to clean as shit. Yeah. And that's the funniest thing in the world. Yeah, that's the funniest part of that. Yeah, no, it's, it's the whole point to comedy to me is what you're not supposed to do. Yeah. It's not real.

You're not really saying it. You're making jokes. Shut up, you know. Yeah, it's like someone getting mad at a tweet. you're like well it's not real yeah well they used to be that was the thing I think Twitter kind of fucked with the line yeah because some comedians would tweet a joke

and then they'd tweet an opinion oh so they're going like so then people would say well that's an opinion they go no fuck you is a joke well well which that's true one is which if you want to be taken seriously what do you want to be taken seriously for yeah please don't let's not I mean that's that's in terms of what I enjoy in what I like out of life.

I think so, too. People can do whatever they want. Right. I know the moral crusading comedians are exhausting. And they probably got something that's cool about what they do that I'm not seeing. I like a certain thing. Other people like other things. Whenever there's a movement that I find really annoying, it usually will stray into something

really cool. They'll make something I wouldn't have made. The whole point of the reason I like the way I do comedy and the kind of comedy that you do that I like, which is saying things you shouldn't say, is you're finding shit other people weren't looking for. And some of it's a value, some of it isn't. Hopefully it's all funny. Yeah.

But so what they're doing of like, let's keep it fair. I mean, that'll find something that comedy hasn't looked for. Do you know what I mean? Of course. Because it does get to be all one thing too much. So I'm not, it's not the kind of thing I do and not, I'm like, I'm a blues guy, their electronic dance music, whatever it is, but they're gonna find some shit.

They probably have. I don't watch that enough to... Yeah, that's probably good. To judge it. Yeah, yeah. So will you... You're on this massive tour right now. Do you think you're going to hang it up again when you're done with this tour?

Yep. Yep. At least a year and a half off. Well, the thing I didn't know was going to happen is that, you know, it's just like the... God, I was such a slob. I'm just seeing myself. That, uh... The denial of age, you know?

when the year's going by, it's like, it's fucking hard to be on the road. And I know I did it, the only way I know I did a good show now is if I'm in a lot, I need to get in a bathtub of salt. Because your body hurts. It hurt too much. Yeah. And it's not because I'm particularly physical, but because I'm pushing, I'm really trying. Yeah.

And what it takes for me to be is, like, it takes a lot of repetition and pushing to be the kind of comic I think I'm supposed. to be. And I don't think I could do that anymore. I don't think I can do it physically. And also, I really enjoy life offstage. I really, I learned to love it. And I love writing novels. Like that's, I didn't know I would love that so much. And so, and maybe three people will read that where 300,000 used to come to the shows. Yeah. And I'm okay with that. I really don't need the attention. I don't, I'm not interested in it. It's nice. It's nice to have your work scene. but I don't like being paid attention to anymore.

I like being private, and I have a, I feel good in my life, so. That's great. But I still love to create. I think what I probably do after this is not do a full scale tour anymore. I don't want to tell, I don't want to book a year of shows again. I'm in the same like world as you. Like every time I finish a tour, I call my agent and I go,

hey, so for this next one, yeah, let's rethink how, we do this. Yes. And as this one's about to end, I shot a special over the weekend. It comes out Christmas Eve on Netflix. And I'm already like, hey, when I do my next tour, which is not going to be for a while. Yeah. I'm like, let's like reimagine how we do. And basically all I'm doing is like, hey, let's pair this stuff down. I think it's a good idea. I think it's a good idea artistically. I think it's a good idea for your head, you know. I think about comedians like Stephen Wright, you know, who's one of my favorites of all time. Yeah.

And Stephen, he goes, I mean, I don't want to tell his life, but he goes off and he'll do a couple of like a couple of theaters. Yeah. And come home. And then two weeks, months go by. He goes, does. Yeah. Never does more than like two nights in a row.

And his, the markets that he plays at are still fresh. He's been doing this. He's been big since 1980, like 85. Yeah. And it's 40 years later, as long as I've been doing comedy. And he's still got a really. healthy following and he gets and he loves doing it so I think that's the move and the other thing is like we talked about is like you don't have to announce this crazy out you can just do the thing where

you go up with dates yeah like here's some dates and then time goes by you can go up with some more dates go up with some more you could just like go hey can I do what what's the next open date at town hall in New York or something and just do it and then and then really work on this stuff and a different kind of like yeah I was like looking out the window the other day and thinking about this and I saw this crazy flock of there is a flock of pigeons that live in Washington Square Park and once in a while you see them and they just create these these uh tornadoes of bird uh and they they land behind these buildings that I look out onto so I see those pigeons all the time and I was watching them do this thing and I thought I want my work to be like that like just like this

instead of like let's get through this almost fucking military campaign yeah it's very musk it's very economic it's very about the economy yeah the whole thing of how we structure this shit the fact that we do a full hour all the time is just so that we can sell tickets to a theater audience everything's about money and uh career and all this nonsense so um i think when this one's over i'll just like i'll probably take a good year off or longer without performing yeah and then when i get back to it i'll just just let it feel like this little more it feels like this little more it It feels like it's like so aggressive. Yes.

And like I already feel the difference. I'm 46 now of like when I was touring really hard five, six years ago. I feel a huge difference on the toll it takes. And I'm healthier now. Yeah. And like, you know, eating better and working out more, but it still wears you the fuck down. It does. And I had a sense of it when I started this one.

And it's kind of a contrary action. I did the opposite of what I wanted for that. that I decided I'm going to make as much of this tour as I can because I'm not going to do this again. Like I kind of knew it right away. So I packed in a trillion shows. And I put in, I'm going to India. I'm going to China.

I'm going to Japan. I've always wanted to perform in these places. And I'm doing them all now because I know I'll never do this again. I'll never do this scale ever again. So I'm doing everywhere. And I'm also trying to make as much money as I can. So that you don't have to do it. So that I can cool it for as long as I can.

The last time I did that, it lasted a year and a half. Another big reason I came back to it. Yeah. I ran out of fucking money. Yeah. I was out. I mean, this is like a fair thing to say. People don't consider that too.

Like, it costs money to do. Like, you can run out of money. You can. And also, I did, like, even though I just didn't have, I stopped having the income I used to have, I kept making projects with my own money. Yeah. I made a whole movie with my own money. Everybody really saw it.

And so I started to deplete. And then I got like a friend of mine, told me, a friend of mine was on his way up, he said, he said, I had that big moment today. I looked in the mirror and I said, I have a million dollars. First time in his life, he said, I'm a millionaire. I have a million dollars. That was a big moment. And I said to him, I had that moment twice.

First time it was good news, second time it was bad. That's very funny. First time, they were about 10 years apart. First time I was like, I have a million dollars. Then I was like, I have a million dollars. That's great. I need to get back to work, but this tour hopefully will get me at least a few more years without, you know, pushing that hard.

And at the end, when you've done all these shows and you have this money, I hope you're going to get like a huge diamond chain with a medallion. Oh, yeah. That's what I'm working on, yeah. Dude, I have a good guy for you. He's going to hook you up. Good. And he'll give you a good price.

Probably like 150 grand. It's fucking tight. Nice. Yeah, you'll like it. Nice. Very nice. Good. Ingram is the book.

Yes, it is. This is fucking awesome. Thanks, man. I'm telling you, real emotion. It's impressive, man. You were really talented at this. Thanks. Yeah.

I hope you also make another movie, though. Someday, yeah. I have a few ideas someday. You have one that you told me about in detail. I don't remember that one. You don't remember that one? The Jesus thing? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's fucking great. Yeah, that's a hard one. Yeah, that'd be great. We'll see. Yeah, it'd be awesome. Congrats on this. Thanks, man.

And thanks for doing the podcast. Thank you. All right, we'll see you guys next week. and Bert, one goes top and swath the other wears a shirt. Tom tells stories and birds the machine. There's not a chance in hell that they'll keep it clean. Here's what we call two bears one cave.