Berner Phone - Doug Smith: Circumcision & Armageddon

Episode Date: July 15, 2020

Comedian Doug Smith explains why men like mustaches, the art of dog walking, dealing with acne, his heroic fight in the subway, social anxiety, and what it’s actually like to be a Jehovah’s witness,--- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/appSupport this podcast: https://anchor.fm/berninginhell/support Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Burning Hell. What's up, guys? We are in the fiery, fiery, scary depths of hell. We are with comedian Doug Smith. You know I'm from This Is Not Happening? Conan, Brooklyn Ball Barber, and his debut album Barely Regals available on all platforms now. now also you're about to go on cordon in like a second he's going on my podcast to warm up cross

the street yeah just to warm up a little bit welcome thank you thanks for having me this is fun because i normally like know people who come on my podcast but i don't know you so we're gonna go from zero to 100 real quick all right let's do it and i'm excited wait where are you from i grew up in connecticut richfield connecticut it's like an hour north of the city uh born and raised there 20 years but I've been here for 15. Okay. So. How long have you had your mustache, more importantly?

Like eight years now, maybe nine. Why did you get it? I think it's here to stay now. This is fascinating to me. Why did you get it? Well, I attempted to grow a full beard, and I could not do that. But stash came in strong, and I, I'm 37. I feel like I actually look 37 now, but I felt I looked like a fucking 12-year-old.

You don't think so? No. What would you guess? 32 yeah all right that's cool yeah um but you know what do i look like oh you're making that face 40 no i'm kidding just immediately put you on the spot 29 i'm 28 that's fucked 28 anyway continue it's gonna be a long podcast it's because you're so mature um said nobody ever I literally have people on Twitter every day going,

it's like a seven-year-old. But thank you for that. So, yeah, why did you get? Because I looked 12 when I started out in comedy, and I just had people tell me all the time. You look so young, which I guess now is a good thing, but at the time I hated it. So I just wanted to look older.

Yeah. So. Do you feel like it's helped your humor to be like the mustache guy? No, because there's a lot of us now. But I feel like I got to hold on. Like copycats. Just out of spite.

It's like Doug Smith got a massage, so I want to get a mustache. And you had like the curls, too sometimes. No, I'd ever have the curls. You didn't? How dare you spread such lies. Really? You didn't? No, I never had the curls. Oh, sorry.

I don't know why I said that. Why am I spreading false rumors about you? But now it's at the point where I've had it. My son is four, so I've had it his whole life. And I'm pretty positive if I was to shave now, he would probably not come near me. You'd be scared. I've asked him a few times. I was like, should I get rid of the mustache?

He's like, no, please don't. When you met your wife, did you have your mustache? I did not. No, I did not. And then one day you were like, look who you're dating now. Yeah, she's stuck with me through a lot because I did not. I also was not doing comedy when we met. So she went from having me around all the time to I started comedy three years into us dating.

What were you doing before? We had a dog walking service. together yeah which i actually just um let crumble about a year ago i was like losing clients one by one it was it was just kind of like it was subsidizing the comedy thing for a while yeah um did you hire dog walkers or you two were just like rampantly it was just us just us too yeah that's do you find it made you guys closer or it caused more issues no it was awful it was awful let's go from living together to riding into the city together and work and like working together all day was not good and then there's just like there is too much

time spent together and spoiled new york city dogs in between oh yeah yeah it's probably i imagine it like teaching where it's like the kids are they have their issues whatever but it's the parents that are really the most annoying right and you're probably to deal with some fucking annoying new york city people yeah yeah these french bulldogs right outside the door here reminded me they they were very triggering as I walked these uh I these two French bulldogs one of them was perfectly healthy the other one has had a degenerative spinal disorder so his back his back legs were useless he was he was basically paralyzed from the waist down you got him when he was paralyzed though uh yes yeah or did you paralyzed him

I was like I don't like you fucking Frenchies so he the owner brought us in she was like listen, I know this is, this is, you know, difficult circumstances, but he's my baby. You can charge me more. So we were like, okay, we'll definitely charge you more. So we, because we had to walk the one and roll the other one. He had a wheelchair strapped to him. And he couldn't, he couldn't go to the bathroom on his own. So this dog wore toddler diapers.

So I would show up and he would be wearing like Buzz Lightyear diapers. And I would have to take his diaper off and squeeze him out onto a wee-wee pad. What? Yeah. You had to squeeze him? I'd like wrap my hands around his waist and squeeze his bladder on a wheelie pad. I wish that's how I peed on a random dudes like, squeeze me. Every time you get a hug, you're like, whoops.

So I want to know, I'm fascinated by the mustache. Are you actually related to Ulysses S. Grant? I am, yeah. You have that like pure white bread look to. you where like your features are very delicate and like um what's the word symmetrical feminine oh okay because you have pretty eyes you're like i need to get a mustache you can see him through these i just got transition lenses yeah i didn't want to make fun of you on that but yeah i feel like i look like a mobster in a retirement home with these things yeah you walked in shades on and i was like

i wonder if he's going to take them off the the transitionals are they're those look nice Yeah, I've never had a pair before I'm still, I'm fine with them It's watching other people watch them transition That is still, I'm still wrapping my head around My dad had them had them They were just always like in the between phase And I was like, are you good?

I feel like they're kind of like, remember mood rings? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like mood rings for glasses. Right, right, right. I'm like, oh, he hates me right now. You're like, don't look at me. I like to delve in on people's insecurities but sounds like was your insecurity being looking like you were young physically what's your biggest

physical insecurity yeah i i had like terrible terrible acne for shit like 15 years wow like really bad did you ever go into acutane or anything two cycles of acutane wow you just burn your uterus that's yeah my kidneys are fucking fried everyone's like you can't have a baby if you go on it and i'm like okay were you on it no i wasn't You've seen the pill packs with the cone head babies on the back, right? Yeah, that shit's intense. Yeah. Even as a man, it's like, I don't want to be putting this in my body.

If it does that too, it sure is doing something else to me. Yeah, something's getting burned. Yeah, exactly. And scorched. Yeah. And, but I feel like it helps you get a personality when your face has like actual sores coming out of all the time. You got to soften the interaction. Go into hiding all the time.

I remember everyone has their like acme stage. I just would always be like, I'd always get the one. right in the middle. Oh, yeah. Like, give me a side cheek. Right,

and then whenever you engage with anyone, it's like with your glasses, you're like just watching them engage with your pimple. Oh, God. I know, say, call it out.

Like, I know it's bleeding. I picked it before I got it. Yeah. I know it's bleeding. The plasma bubble is slowly forming. Yeah. It was bad.

Does your wife like your mustache is what I've been trying to get at this whole time? She's fine with it. She could go either way. I shave for our wedding. Is kissing fun? Like, is it more fun with the mustache or worse? I would, I mean, I think she would probably say no. I think when I, when I haven't just trimmed it, it's fine. But when I've just trimmed it, she says it's like, make it out with a walrus.

Yeah, it's very spiky. Yeah. So, yeah, grossly enough, I think she prefers it, like, longer. Oh, yeah, because it's, do you put oil in it? No, no. But, you know, I moisturized my whole face. I have a full, like, skin care regimen now as a result of it. I just had Jordan Fisher on, and he was talking about how he had terrible acne, how he's, like, obsessed with, like, masks and, like, has a full regimen.

Yeah. Do you use, like, serums and shit? I use, I use something called hibic cleanse to wash my face, which is a surgical hand scrub. Oh, shit. Yeah, like, when they're doing surgeries, it must be really clean. It's, like, this pink shit that smell, it just smells like a hospital. Okay. Um, which apparently you're not supposed to use it in your face.

They're like, whatever you do, put it anywhere. Yeah. I didn't ruin myself with acutane. I'm gunning for it with the hippoclans. So I use that. And then I just use this moisturizer called Love Your Face Cream. Adorable. By this company called Indian Meadow Herbils.

Big shout out to Indian Meadow Herbils. The fact that you know all these products make me feel like you're a skin influencer right now. Have you done a tutorial on your face? I have it. I mean, that's all I use. And then I like, I still, well, here's the thing. I went on two cycles of acutane. It worked at the time, and then it would come back full throttle.

And then I tried all sorts of different diets. Like I cut out gluten for a little while. I was vegan for a month last year. Oh, wow. Did it help your skin? I told everybody like three days into it. Of course. But it's also like people make fun of people for talking about it, but it's like if you

don't say it, you're not going to do it. Like you've got to hold yourself accountable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because if you in the beginning of the night, you're like, I'm vegan and then you're like chowing down on a burger, people will just. you and you're trying to avoid that yeah yeah exactly why did you only last a month um because i just i couldn't do it i was on the road a bunch that month and i was like it just got sad i was like packing cooler bags with me to bring on the road so i had like you know peppers and hummus and granola

almond milk just eating these sad meals alone and all you want when you're alone is like to indulge yeah yeah yeah room service that's naughty that no one can see right is that just me i'm like that's the only orgasm, I'm having autotums alone. Yeah, you draw the blinds before you start chowing down. And when the people come, you're like, yeah, there's people meeting me here.

Yeah, leave the extra forks. We're going to need it. Thank you. I think it would be so funny, though, on Instagram to have a video where, like, we show guys getting ready because the dichotomy of guys getting ready for girls,

especially before a date is insane. Yeah, yeah. You will never know the pain of, like, putting a full face of makeup on and a dude last minute being like hey can we actually do tomorrow and you're like we actually can't we actually can't yeah we can't yeah we can actually hang out tomorrow but you need to come and see this shit now yeah it's a lot but I appreciate men who know what it's like to have to put a little effort into

their face because these fucking dudes who you just like we're all to bed and they fucking look perfect it's like let's just let's comment I don't like it I turned to Robert De Niro on my face I'm like a moment um but I want to address when I Google I googled you. Yeah. Because I, I, it's like a first day.

Like, I need to know what I'm dealing with. Okay. And I got a little unsettled when I Googled you. I'm re-googling. Let me find it.

A little unsettled. I'm trying to think. Okay, Doug Smith, I put in Doug Smith comedian. There's a Doug Smith classical guitar player who I'm now competing with on Spotify.

Yeah, he's fucking up all my streams. Doug Smith is such a fucking. Oh, my God. I had to do one thing over in comedy, it would be create a stage name. Yeah. Also, are you Douglas. I am, yeah.

That is the, like, you are the Civil War. Douglas Graham Smith. Okay. Could have gone by Graham. It says, slashing victim turns our worst nightmare into comedy. It's like you on the street. It's like a blurry face of you. Oh, that's what the fuck happened to you?

That's a web series I did. So I did, I, uh, 2011. I was Slashed in the face as one does Yeah you know You know typical New York City initiation It was in the 2nd Avenue subway station Which is still the just the shittiest grossest

Station in the city if you ask me It's just an abomination So I was I went I was leaving a show And I swiped my card I went through the turnstile And on the mezzanine there Before you go down the stairs

A woman was screaming And a guy was had her pinned up against the wall and nobody was doing anything but everybody was just you know blowing past and i stopped and i was kind of surveying the situation and then he hauled off what was the guy like wearing like did you look like he was a light skin black guy wearing like a windbreaker and a bucket hat and uh should have known he was off with the bucket head you can't trust a dude in a bucket i it's like are they having like a drug moment where like they're like they look really homeless or like he looked

he sounds like he looked pretty fashionable yeah it was school boy cue actually it was he he didn't he did I found out later he was a homeless guy but he didn't look terribly beat up or anything and she was like a young petite blonde girl in her 20s oh god but it says a lot about the style nowadays that like he just picked up anything

he could wear and that can pass as fashionable yeah right yeah the bucket hat needs to stop she should have known when she saw a bucket hat that she should have turned around. Yeah, she wasn't even threatened by the being choke slammed against the wall. She was like, gross, get that off your head. So he's attacking her. Yeah.

Was he like, he was just physically trying to? He had her by the throat, slanded up against the wall, and he was basically, he was trying to rip her clothes off. Oh, no. She was trying to rip her purse away, and he got her purse off, and then he was. Was this at nighttime? Yeah, it was like 10 o'clock on a Thursday. Okay.

And then he, she was putting up a fight, and then he hauled off, and he punched her, her in the face and um i i mean i did a whole thing about it on comedy central but i i swear to god i said hey buddy that's a lady that's what i said to the guy hey buddy hey buddy that's a lady and uh so he's funny you never know how you're going to act in those moments of like stress and tension and fear and the fact that you turned into like this the white as possible Dude, you can be. Say, bub, who do you think you are? Did he respond?

Yeah, he gave me a very kind of quizzical look like, what, what? And then I, you know, and then I kind of up the end. I was like, get your fucking hands off or let's go. Throw an F bomb. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he saw that I wasn't going anywhere and he took her hand off, his hand off of her. She ran out of the station. And then he came at me and he had like a crazy look in his eye.

And he was like, what are you going to do, motherfucker? Were you going to run? No, because I had never been in a fight in my life and I had always kind of wanted to get in a fight Just to see what I was made of? Yeah, I was like, what better time than now, right? But he seemed kind of scary Yeah, he was terrified. He was not, yeah, he was like wait for like a drunk dude at a bar who like you drank his fireball shot accidentally Like that's a good first to fight and get it's almost that like false confidence. It's like the first time I went on stage with comedy like I didn't know I could bomb Right, so I was just like this is fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't know. what could happen.

Exactly. So you're innocently standing there with your false-ass confidence and your mustache. Yeah, I'm like, I'm pumped up, I feel the adrenaline surge. I'm gonna lay this guy out.

I was. I had like two PBRs at this bar show nearby. Did your set go well? Like, what was the mood? I was in a good mood, yeah. Well, I was headed back to Brooklyn and meet up with a friend for more drinks.

If it wasn't for that friend asking me for drinks, never would have happened. That fucking asshole. the fuck up so this guy you just saved a girl's life uh yeah i mean i mean she's gonna need years of therapy from that but it could have been more years of therapy so he came at me and he had a terrifying look at his eye just you know no hint of fear in his face whatsoever he didn't want to have to do this yeah any hole will do any hole do at this point you you're my plan B at this

You look pretty, too. Your face looks smooth. Yeah, this was pretty mustache. She was like, you look like a 23-year-old lady. You just look like a lesbian. And you start talking shit about his bucket hat, I assume. You gotta use your words as a comic. Yeah, can't hit a man with glasses.

Can't hit a man with a bucket hat. I was like, sir, you got to take the hat off. So he came at me and I stepped in and I stepped in and I swung on him, and I was still, like, eight feet away when I swung. So, like... You think when you swing, like, you'll hit something at these. Just like, go-go gadget arm. Were you working out at the time?

How was your physical prowess? No, I was not. I was not working at at all, drinking a lot. So I was, like, kind of skinny fat. And, yeah, no physical prowess whatsoever whatsoever. Was he taller than you? He's about the exact same build as me. Okay.

So I thought I had a chance, you know? So I swung, missed, and that was the most terrifying part of the whole thing, which was watching my fist fly past his face, like, and then. So you came at him first with the punch? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have my papa, I'm from Brooklyn originally, and he's like this tough Italian guy. And he always has this story that he's like, I'm always like, have you ever punched anyone in the face?

he's like I've broken a guy's nose before and I'm like what happened he goes I was walking down the subway and some guy was looking at me and you know when you just know he's gonna rob you and I was like no but continue he goes so he's walking he's walking he's acting kind of way he's walking towards me and I just broke his fucking nose and then I went on the subway I go what if that man was just trying to get home to his family like the family just like accepts that story and I'm like what the fuck he didn't do anything but it's so funny how you're like How am I going to get you? Oh, yeah.

I'd love to see your Papa run in one of those dudes from Greenpeace on the street. Excuse me, sir. Pow! I want to do it every day. They corner you. There's like three of them. And they see you from afar and they're like you. Yeah.

And I'm like, we don't fucking know each other. But yeah, there's New York ways to avoid that shit. Right, right. So, yeah, I didn't have to swing on. I'm like, I could have run away. You could easily run away. But I was like, no, I'm not running from this. Was this like you're, you found like an animalistic like,

like how guys have to spread their seeds suddenly you had you just had to like punch a dude in the face yeah yeah yeah cool and I still never have so you miss so I missed and then he stepped in and clobbered me with a punch with a punch in the face and I didn't go down you know my he was already warmed up too like yeah he was warmed up yeah a couple of jabs in already and then so he hit me in the face so I had no confidence in my punching ability yeah so I came back and I just kicked him in the stomach and he went running out of the station and I felt like a big shot I was like yeah I fucking showed him you're not going to mess with me bitch and he went running out and uh I should mention too when I kicked him he gave me a look a look of kind of concern

that I now later know what it was but at the time I was like I just thought of it as fear yeah I squeezed his bladder on a wee wee bad with my foot yeah so he runs out and then I turn to get on the train to go home and a woman comes up from the stairs and she looks at me and she goes oh my god you have a massive laceration on your face and then I look down and there's just blood just pouring down my jacket and I was like oh he didn't he didn't punch me he had some kind of a blade in his hand so she reached in her purse handed me a wad of napkins slapped napkins on my face and I don't feel I don't feel anything at this point you know But when it hit, something hurt? I mean, I had never been punched in the face before either, so I was like, that's it. That's no big deal. You know, like, it kind of rattled me a little bit, but it didn't hurt. When your adrenaline's going, like, I've like sprained my ankle during like a tennis match and like you don't even feel it.

Right, right. And then the next day you can't walk. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So how deep was this cut? So it didn't go all the way through. It's not like it could stick my tongue out at the side of my mouth, but it was, it looked like I could probably, I could probably, I could find. find a picture of it to show you it looked like i like really bad it looked like a second mouth you know you look like a joker yeah so luckily i didn't see it i didn't see it until i saw a picture

that the so he like knew that he like assaulted you yeah yeah yeah i think he ran yeah he ran away because he was like all right just slice this guy open there's blood everywhere there's gonna be cops on the scene soon yeah so he took off and a chameleon cops on the scene within like two minutes ambulance took like 20 minutes to get there and so I just have this wad of napkins on my face and all the cops that I'm talking to they want to see the wound and so I take the napkins off and I could just feel the blood surging out and all the I knew it was bad because because all the cops had like a visceral reaction too they're all like oh okay okay okay like put the napkins back but who called the cops this woman that gave me the napkins okay so she's the real

hero in this story yes yeah started as you and then it went real down also it's funny because like you know I was lauded with all this like hero praise afterward and it's like you were on like time out New York or something not not quite didn't get a key to the city fucking Bloomberg really blew it did you get New York Post at least no daily news no no none of that okay no continue um what was I saying oh the uh wait like who was calling you a hero um there was a there was like a couple of publications yeah it got like written up on like a couple of comedy like it was the best thing for my comedy career yeah yeah yeah yeah but it was like that's all it takes to be a hero is just like stick your nose or it doesn't belong

get your ass kicked like if i had kicked the dude's ass and pinned him now until the cops came up came to get him yeah nobody would have even known what happened yeah you know what mean but because you got your face slice open yeah yeah yeah yeah that's all it takes is just getting I guess that happens in war too You get your fucking leg blown off Because you didn't see the landmine And you're a hero But the guy who like actually

Made sure not to get blown up Was like, yeah, it's a pussy Do people ask you about your scar a lot? No, very rarely It's kind of you can't see it It kind of looks like your mustache That's why you think it's cruel yet Yeah, it does a little bit

So how did it help your comedy career? Well, because that's all I was Talking about on stage for a while. I mean, it was, I had my own weekly show at the time, and I went back on stage like two weeks after it happened, and the wound was still very, like, just got my stitches out, like, that morning, so it was just gross for anybody to look at. So I had to talk about it. I had to address it on stage. It's like that pimple. Yeah, right? So I was, I was talking about that a lot for a few weeks and, like, getting like, it went well, you know, I was just, and that, and that

night i didn't even have anything written i was just kind of like spitballing and i kept doing this story and it i don't know it kind of like earned a reputation and i kept doing the story telling the story around the city and then um and comics are always talking so it's like have you seen that crazy bit that this guy's doing about his face pink part the best thing though was doing it at like doing it at shows not just like mics or shows where other comics are hanging out but doing it like legit shows and having people come up to me after and be like, is that true? Is that true that happened?

You're like, no, there's just some makeup. The fly fishing accident, but I made up a great heroic story. It's such a great story. But also, I love that the reason you did it wasn't like, you know, I just always am taught to do the right thing. You were like, I wanted to punch a dude in the face

and that was a good time. I'm surprised that in all your life at a bar, especially growing up with Connecticut, there's so many dicks there. No one said something. that made you want to punch him in the face? More surprisingly is the fact that I never got punched in the face before because when I first moved to New York, I got kicked out of every bar on St. Mark's place.

So the fact that I wasn't punching the face numerous times is insane. But yet, some of the best stories are when you want someone to have something really intense and like a severe accent. They're like, I sneezed in the shower and yeah, I broke my arm in my leg. Yeah, damn it. Anyway, but it's, it's cool that did you, like, gain confidence in your comedy career? Like, was there actually a big, like, bump in the variety? Well, doing this is not happening was, like, a huge thing for me.

Oh, yeah. So, Comedy Central. How does that even happen? Because I feel like so many people have interesting stories. Right. How did you get connected to them? So I had, you know, I had been doing this story for a couple of months. And then I kind of, I kind of strayed from it because I didn't want to just be pegged as, like, the scar comic who was talking about his own.

It's so specific to. Yeah, yeah. So I moved on from it. and I didn't talk about it at all anymore. So I stopped talking about other people's scars. I had a whole bit. You're like, have you heard of this guy and his scar? I don't know how I feel about it.

Which was, it was still weird, though, to not, because it has faded a lot, but, you know, a year afterward, it was still pretty apparent. Were you with your girlfriend at the time? I was, yeah, yeah. So she, she showed up to the hospital and saw me. She, the timing was crazy. She showed up to the hospital and saw me right as they were,

because they had wrapped my face up in the ambulance. Like, you know, you remember those old cartoons And somebody has a toothache And they just wrapped their whole fucking head in gauze So they had done that to me And she walked into the ER Right as they were unwrapping the gauze And right as the final sheet came off my cheek

That's when she walked in So she just saw full gaping And she just went, oh And I still hadn't seen it at that point So I didn't know how bad it was Do you think it brought you two closer together Having like a traumatic No, I think she's still repulsed by me honestly

it's funny because I feel like in a relationship you'll always think like if I knock on wood like ran into a fire and my face was gone would you still want to fuck me yeah yeah yeah and it's one of those moments where you're like I don't want to know the answer to this oh good it's just the side of his mouth yeah like if you lost your eye and had to have a glass eye I'm like barbis-striza and I can only be looked at from this side honestly everyone has one side that they look incredible in There's some theory that, like, everyone has a masculine and a feminine side of their face, like, an X, Y chromosome thing. I think I heard it from someone who is not a good source, but I've, like, taken it and set it confidently to people.

So now it's, like, going around. Do you feel like that's true? Do you look at yourself in the way? Like, you're on my bad side right now. That's why I'm, like, hoping this conversation, you're not, like, repulsed by me. This side of my face is so much better than this side. Yeah. For many reasons.

But, um, and since I've been doing, no one knows this until you do more, like, entertainment stuff. And then you start seeing yourself in different ways. And then you start to just learn naturally, like, how you should stand. Right. Getting some fights with people over standing on your good side. And that's called being a divin. That's what happens in this industry when you're doing well. Anyway, so in terms of your, obviously you have a lot of physical issues, but mentally,

do you have any mental, like, insecurities or like your personality or how you care of yourself or just you as a person? Oh, yeah. I mean, yes, absolutely. I mean yeah you want to take a deep dive we'll go real deep I was raised as Jehovah's Witness Oh my God I totally forgot about that 20 years of my life was as a Jehovah's Witness so between So between so between so between that and living a very sheltered life to begin with and then Right as right as I was leaving the religion that's when the acne really kicked in so it's just like a really Double Whammy yeah actually I don't even I don't know anything about religion I was my grandpa was

Jewish and he got punched in the face by a rabbi when he was young it was like fuck religion and it was very like unique to be an atheist at that point and then the other half is like Italian they're just like their religion's eating they're like Catholic but they just eat and talk shit um so all I know about Jehovah's Witnesses is that growing up in Brooklyn it was like occasionally you'd get an ox on the door my dad's like don't answer the door and I was like why did they keep coming to her door that's all I know about Jehovah's Witness but you had them coming to your door in Brooklyn yeah yeah they still do go door to door occasionally, but the thing that really... Was that you?

I was going to door to door since I was six years old. You'd be fucking great salesman. When you're that young, you're just, you know, you just rely on cuteness and you just bat your eyelashes and what is the goal to give them the pamphlets? The ultimate goal is to convert them. And you have some fucking nerve to make fun of the people with the clipboards in the subway. Because what you were doing was way more invasive. I'm coming to your house.

I wake you up at 8 a.m. on a Sunday. Yeah, it was always the weirdest times. Telling you about the end of times. Because also in Brooklyn, like, people don't come to your house. Right, right. Unless if it's like the milkman, which like that stopped happening when I got older. Right. No one's knocking on your door unless it's a friend or someone trying to rob you.

Yeah. Or murder you. Yeah. I mean, we're not, the Jehovah's Witnesses are not received well at all. I mean, even as a kid, in Connecticut, in a fairly, like, wealthy part of Connecticut, I had people threatened to pull their gun. Was there a community of you guys there? Yeah, there was a Jehovah's Witness congregation.

I had, I ran, I had a run from a German shepherd that was sicked on me. Yeah, people would, people did not like it at all. And how did your parents explain to you why the people didn't like it? Was like they haven't found God or something? Yeah, pretty much, pretty much. Like, it's okay, the rejection's all part of it. You know, you just keep trying until you find somebody who's receptive. I also, I'm a very open to talking about religion, whatever.

I think like when it helps you, it helps you in any form. But it's just, it's like going to date with the guy who the whole time is just trying to like sell you why you should date him. And you're like, I feel like, why are you trying so hard? Right. It's like, why were you guys trying so hard to convert everyone? Yeah, why do we care? Why can't it just be this elite club? Why can't you just enjoy it?

We're in with a J man. Why can it just be us? Did you feel like you were competing with other religions to like over? turn them um no but it's more of like it's not even like this thing of you're spreading love to get number yeah it's it's it's it's it's really like they the way they look at it is they think they're trying to they think they're saving people so they think that armageddon is very real they think that anybody that is not a uh a faithful servant of jehovah is going to be destroyed at armaged who is jehovah just that's what they call god okay yeah and is which is bible based as our god or like

other people's gods um yeah i mean in the in the bible in the hebrew yahway you've heard yaway right so yahweh jehovah i mean it's all the same it's all the same god yeah sure that's why i left i was like i believe in allah it's i actually don't know shit about religion because i like grew up with none of it um so that's great the the the fact that you should like i don't even know what question should not be forced into a religion that should be something that you come to on your own later in life. Do you think you should be circumcised as a child? I had my son circumcised. Are you circumcised?

I am, yeah. Did you get it when you were younger? I did, yeah. Do you believe that you should have waited to get a choice in your service? This has nothing to do with the other. If you had a choice, I mean. Some people are like really against it. They're like, you should let the kids up.

You know, there's people that try to reverse it. There's like dudes that wear weights on their foreskin. You didn't know this? Why? Yeah. Why? There was like a whole, uh, I remember seeing a, a whole cover story in the village voice like eight years ago about dudes that feel like

they were mutilated as children and forced into something against their will and something was taken away from them as a um sexually active 28 year old i've dealt with both yeah i've i've dated a british guy for a while who wasn't circumcised the circumcised guys i'll be like do you know the the guy who isn't circumcised was like there's more um nerve and endings and it's like you're more like it makes blowjobs feel better and whatever and then the ones who aren't are like oh but there's like schmegma and all this shit and you could get and like honestly but he's fine yeah like there's millions and millions of guys who aren't circumcised who don't like die of schmegma poisoning or like whatever they're trying it's just such a great

word I know I just wanted to say it sounds like it comes out of a volcano lava magma smegma came out of your pimple in third grade you are born into a it's like being a democrat or republican like you're born into how your parents think right at what point were you like i don't know about this so my uh my mom died when i was 17 and she's the one who she was like you know she was like the boss of the family witness yeah she was the witness she's the one who started the whole thing how did she passed away she had a brain aneurism so just out of nowhere i'm so um i mean thank you and Honestly, that, like, gave me the courage to leave because I was doing it for her, you know.

All my siblings had already left. They're all much older than me. They had already left. And it, like, broke her heart every time because it was so important to her. Yeah. So I was like, I was like her last hope, you know. So when she. How many siblings do you have?

Three. When they left, did they talk to you? Like, did they say why? No. No, not really. They were much older. They're 14, 16, and 18 years older than me. So I pretty much grew up like a little child.

Yeah, totally. She was 47 when she had me. Honestly, that's a Jehovah Miracle. Yeah, right? I used to try to do a joke about it that did not fly. My mom had me when she was 47. The odds of having a child that late in life with no birth defects is pretty slim. And I'm the only person who have ever made a full recovery from Down syndrome.

I think because people are just like, there's just so many questions in that but you don't immediately get the laugh there's so much confusion in that sense it was just too much information at once yeah we're not offended we're just confused so before she passed away though

were you getting like well my why did my brothers and sisters leave yeah it was more like it was more like seeing some friends of mine in the congregation that kind of had one foot out the door And like, because it's so restrictive, like there's no, you know, you, did you say you're not, I know you're not religious, but your family is Catholic, I'm assuming. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Or half is Catholic. Half. So it's not, it's not uncommon for religions to frown upon like premarital sex or drug use or drinking or anything like that. But Jehovah's Witnesses, it is like, it is like enforced. Yes, you can't drink caffeine. Yeah. I'm trying to rank you with like, who are the Utah people?

Who are the what? Utah people I'd even try to think of what it was called the what is it Mormons yeah there's like Mormonism the entire state of Utah ruined by these

coffee denying monsters and like college is just insane I went to university and we went to Utah played tennis there and they were like they don't have sex with each other and they can't even drink coffee and we were like what what no coffee so you guys aren't

as intensive as the Mormons? It, uh, no. It's, it's kind of like somewhere in the middle between Mormons and honestly like Hasidic Jews. Like I, did you ever watch that documentary, one of us?

I actually have to, but I grew up like near Crown Heights. Yeah, I grew up around it. Yeah. The similarities are, it was, I was like sobbing watching that movie because it was like, I had like PTSD. Well, they say with the Hasidic Jews,

it's to the point that they like don't want to change with society around them where like they get all these diseases they like have sex with like cousins because it's not big enough and then there's deformities and there's health issues and it's like it's when do we say was this what jesus really wanted right you see you can see it on the train you see these families with like six kids and the all the kids look like the banjo player from deliverance you're like all right break it up you a sister fucker But it's true that they don't let them have Internet. Oh, yeah.

They're crippled because they don't want them entering the outside world. But did you go to school with the kids who weren't Jehovah? I did, yeah. So I went to public school, but I grew up with a lot of kids that were homeschooled. Because, again, like they call anything outside of the religion is, they refer to as worldly people, people that are part of the outside world. So a lot of Jehovah's Witnesses, homeschool their kids. Is it worldly kind of a thing that you might want to be? Yeah, you would think so, right?

Yeah, it's like, oh, those darn cultured people. Yeah. Snow about other cultures. Like anything, anything, like education is not really valued at all. So, like, I didn't give a shit in school because the idea of going to college was a completely foreign concept. They don't go to college? No, no. Because that's like really, especially if you go away to college, you're living on campus.

That is so fucked. Like I love when religion enables people to like get out of depression or like connect with family or connect with people. But it's when like it inhibits love or it inhibits education or it starts wars where it's like, what is the meaning of this? Like why did we do this? Sorry, I'm getting worked up. I'm not getting real worked up. It just doesn't make sense. You're going to go dig my mom up.

What did you do to this guy? But one thing about Jehovah's Witness, which I've, growing up in New York City, you witness a lot of extreme things. Yeah. They always, they're the ones with, like, the pamphlets, and they're like, they always look so happy and arguably so normal. Like, it looks like, like, my teacher. Right, right. A second grade teacher who's just standing there on the subway with these pamphlets talking to their friend. Yeah.

And the Jehovah seems so happy all the time. But that's the thing that pisses me off more than anything is knowing that I went. around going door to door for fucking 14 years and now they just sit in the subway station expecting people to come up to them. It's like I ran away from fucking attack dogs and you're just sitting here with your pamphlet holder. How often would you do this?

Every weekend. Every weekend. Yeah, it was always the fucking weekend too that they would come. And in the summertime, my mom made me do it. She made me choose a month, July or August, to, they have people that they're not, they have, they do have, missionaries that travel to foreign lands to spread the good word or whatever but they also have

pioneers which are people which are people that put in an allotted an allotted number of hours going door to door every month so she made me do she made me put in 60 hours as a kid during one month of my summer vacation so one month of my summer vacation was just gone how did you just going door to door every day oh i fucking hated it oh so you you weren't like necessarily drink the kool-aid i mean like you no you believed it but you knew it felt like work yeah i I had a pretty miserable existence. It sounds like almost abusive to have to have a kid get, like, yelled at by adults or, like, rejected or, like, the door slammed in their face by adults. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

As an adorable little kid where that's pretty much the only time you can get away with most stuff and just be cute. Right, right. It's traumatizing. Have you been to therapy? Yeah. Okay, good. But it made me, you know, it built a good foundation for the comedy biz. Oh, 100%.

I can handle rejection all fucking day. that is why it's almost it sounds a little Scientology esk where like they start giving you jobs yeah yeah and like it is yeah it is and it's like you're more respected in the community but the more hours you put in or the more stuff you accomplish right and just the far-fetched nature of it too

like there's Armageddon is a fairly commonplace in like ancient religion yeah it means that like everything goes to shit it basically means like God destroys the current system of things with like fire and brimstone and just wipes the face

of the planet clean. Yeah. Yeah. We're doing it anyway. It's happening. It's happening. But they believe that that after Armageddon, all those faithful servants of Jehovah will survive Armageddon. So like say I was still a Jehovah's witness today and Armageddon happened this afternoon. You'd be like, bye bitches, I'm good.

Yeah, there would be like fireballs raining down and I would be untouched and I would just watch the world crumble around me. So do they talk about that specific situation like the fire won't affect you or they're just like we don't know how it happens but we're going to be good you'll be fine yeah yeah yeah yes exactly you're Gucci what i'm sorry psalm's 4812 you'll be Gucci to me but then they believe even crazier that that after armageddon that god will transform the earth into a paradise earth where of course where everything is perfect again and beautiful and so they have these pamphlets with pictures of kids like rolling around in a field with

the panda bear. It's like you want to have to go door to door to door bears if you go to door door enough. Right. So they think that like man and beast will live as one and live forever on a perfect paradise. I have a very, very important question for you. Yeah. Have you ever converted someone to being a Jehovah's Jehovah's. No, not even close.

Never. I had people that would like placate me because I was a kid and be like, oh, thanks. Yeah. But see, that's the most insane thing to me. Yeah. That like I totally understand if like people, some people, convert but it's like literally bombing every night right for years yeah yeah yeah actually getting kicked out of the club like during the joke they're like no no no you need to leave and

you keep doing it yeah yeah totally and I don't know how I forgot to mention this the congregation the Jehovah's Witness congregation you know in the Catholic Church they have one priest or pastor whatever in the Jehovah's Witness congregation everybody is encouraged to basically get a sermon so there are there are like elders in the congregation that dude with the bucket hat showed up yeah it was like I got shit to talk about this crazy shit happened to me on the subway yeah so you're just listening to each other's crazy well you have to be kind of be like vetted to some degree I guess but you can you can volunteer to give a talk as they call them and they basically

basically give you so I think my first talk I was like eight years old so they gave me a adorable they gave me a chunk of Bible passage that I would read aloud so I'd have to stand at the podium I wasn't even tall enough to reach the podium I had to stand on a fucking apple crate wearing a suit and tie and read this Bible passage and then and then basically give commentary on this Bible passage that my parents helped me write and I did this from the time I was eight years old. By the time I was like 12, I was doing it on my own, and I was good at it. I never really had a fear of public speaking. Your public speaking was in full force in early age. It's funny because at first when I think of that concept, I'm like maybe it could be like a cool AA meeting where

people come up and just talk about their issues, but it's not. They stick it to the Bible and then what you think about what it means. Basically, I mean, the Bible, the terminology in the Bible can really go over your head. So it's kind of just breaking it down in layman's terms. and kind of relating it to uh theme you know modern themes or whatever but it's still like a game of telephone exactly like what do you really think it means but it's also uh religion is fascinating to me because

it's like when it gets to the point of an idea that was so old and then how people understand it to this day and what things they decide are still relevant but what things are not still relevant sure i always joke about the bible says like yeah you should like gay people should die or whatever the fuck it says and then it also is like they still believe that and then it's like you shouldn't you shouldn't wear like cloth of different ways or like you have to

shave your like there's so many crazy things in the bible like you pick and choose what i guess works now yeah or what feeds your hate for people right but if when you're choosing the love it's a different experience and your mom was raised jehovah no she converted so she converted when someone came to her door. My dad was in the Marines. He was stationed in Camp Lejeune in South Carolina. Your dad's like, I leave you for two months. Yeah.

Wait, this is, this is wild. So she was alone. She wasn't alone. He was out of the Marines, so they were still living near his base or whatever. Okay. And someone came to their door. Yeah, alcoholic parents raised, like,

I think she was raised Protestant, very disillusioned by the Protestant. in church. She's feeling empty. So, yeah, the Jehovah's Witnesses, they, they, 99%, no, all of them, really. Anybody who isn't born into it, who gravitates toward it as an adult, they're damaged in some degree. They're looking for a community.

They're looking for a family. And I totally get that. Right. I like that about it. Well, it's, but it's also like, don't ruin everyone's brunch. But I do like that it's a place that, like, people can turn when they're having a hard time. but it's it's like what would you rather be like face your dealing with your demons and face it in a healthy way or like just kind of ignoring the world as it is and like hiding in a place of I guess they feel safe yeah um but it's also like maybe some people would have committed suicide or like hurt someone else if they didn't join sure so there is beauty in that yeah yeah and I don't honestly I don't have I mean I've I've been in years of therapy I've had like a lot of resentment over the years toward my mom and a religion.

Yeah. But at the same time, there are a lot of Jehovah's Witnesses out there. Like you said, the ones that you see in the subway station are wonderful, extremely moral, honest people. Like I always tell people,

if you have an opportunity to employ a Jehovah's Witness, do it because they're fucking honest to a fault. Like they... What differentiates their beliefs from like a Christian? I mean, it is a sect of Christianity. Yeah. Yeah. I think the difference is, I don't really know, I mean, Catholics don't really believe in Armageddon or any of that, right?

No, I guess it's the Armageddon part. I just, I hate when there's, it's almost like as an athlete, I hated being coached through fear. Yeah. And I feel like sometimes religions use fear to, like, control people. Oh, it's entirely fear based. And fear based is why you're in therapy too, probably, because you always had this, like, guilt and fear in you. that like honestly a six-year-old should not even know about Armageddon. Yeah. Like the idea of God deciding like, let's go fuck everyone up. Like that's not cool.

It's even like, supposed to be watching cartoons and eating sugary cereal. Yeah, which is hilarious that you bring that up because I remember one time when I was nine or ten knocking on someone's door on a Sunday morning and this woman answered the door and my mom was with me at the time. So I gave her my whole spiel like, are you prepared for Jehovah's? return and yada yada and i give her my whole spiel and she's very polite she's just kind of smiling and nodding through the whole thing and then i finish and she she kind of takes a pause and she's like it's a beautiful sunday morning what are you about nine 10 years old i was like yeah she's

like shouldn't you be uh you know playing with your friends or outside playing football or playing video games like what are you doing here and i just i didn't have anything to say and i just kind looked at my mom and my mom was like have a good day when we just walked away my mom was just completely speechless as well she didn't know what to say she didn't have a comeback for that yeah um what was your dad doing he was uh he just kind of like he just kind of like he just kind of went along with the whole thing so he was a jovea witness too he wasn't like uh as active as my mom was he became later it was kind of like if he can't beat him join him situation yeah um because that's another thing like catholics they baptize babies jehovah's witnesses they choose to get baptized um as adults

oh cool yeah so i did it when i was 16 um just because i knew it would make my mom happy it wasn't anything so you choose it to become an official yeah yeah so my dad also did that he did it a few years before i did um but it was kind yeah it was kind of if you can't beat him join him situation and he had already lived his life you know he was married with kids it's not like all the restrictions of the religion had an impact on his daily life how was their relationship did it make it better during jehovah witnessing uh no i wouldn't say no i wouldn't say so i mean she had she was happier as a result of it because she had this community and a purpose yeah yeah and it is like it is an incredibly tight-knit community similar to Hasidic jews like yeah like you are

part of the family like if she had there's any health issues they all rally behind you bring you meals or drive you to your doctor's appointment or take care of your kids or whatever but the second you stray you are fucking dead to them so when i left and when my siblings left it's basically like hitting the reset button so this whole world that you're living in your whole life this this bubble that you're living in pops and then you're just in the world with no resources to adapt to the world what age did you do that when i was 20 so i kept my dad and i kept it up for another three years after my mom died because we didn't know anything else yeah We didn't know anything outside of that

And also you probably wanted to keep a little bit of her around Yeah, out of yeah, out of respect for her Yeah And then you were like I'm like as she flatlines We're like yeah Wait so then you go to New York City To do comedy So

I skipped a couple things really I'm like then you're at the crispy pair I was like this sucks I'm going back to the Joe of his witnesses You use your stand up as Jehovah witness. They're like, wait a second. You're supposed to do jokes. And you're like, when are we getting caught? Now that I have your attention. You're like, I get 10 people at once. Yeah, right? Lock the doors. Um, so she died around

17. We kept it up for another three years, you know, still go into meetings, not as active, but still go into meetings and, you know, giving talks and whatever. And I, so I told you that you're, you're not supposed to go to college. So college was never on the table for me. But once, my mom died, I kind of made an appeal to my dad. I was like, listen, I really, I was an artist my whole life, fine artist. So I always wanted to go to art school. And I was like, I really want to go to art school. I applied to the School of Visual Arts without him even knowing.

I got accepted. And I was like, listen, I got into this school. It's a great school. I really want to go. And he's like, I was like, I'll even commute from home. I don't even have to live on campus. I'll commute from home. Yeah.

So he was like, all right, all right, all right. You can go, you can, you can, you can go to school. What did he and your mom do for a living? He worked in insurance. He was like the vice president of a local insurance company and she was, you know, housewife. So he lets you go to college,

which is crazy, which is awful. Can I please go to college? I was just one of those fucking Metro North commuter grunts every day, which was worse than being a Jehovah. It was like, like you want to have that college experience

and I wasn't having it. You weren't having it. I mean, art school alone is not a real college. experience. I mean, lots of girls. They're all Korean girls. Nothing against Korean girls, but they're all like... I envision, like, a ton of, like, artsy, just like... Yeah. And gay guys, I guess.

Yeah, gay guys. It's like 95% Korean girls, smattering of goth chicks and gay guys. I didn't know that it was so big in Korea to do fine art. It was animation. I went to, I went for animation. Animation. Okay. So... Did you play video games? A little bit. bit a little bit sometimes you were nodding and you'd be like oh no go play mario cart yeah yeah but that was

another thing i had like all my video game systems taken away like my my siblings would buy me them on the sly oh my god you're like in jail i i was big into uh in a rap music too and my mom found i went i went on a trip with some friends one weekend and my mom found all my rap CDs and she confronted me when i came back she's like how dare you listen to this filth and she made me throw them all in the guard like $400 worth of CDs all my after school job money spent on these CDs she wouldn't let me resell the rain I just had to dump them all in the trash just tears streaming down my face like can I keep the DMX CD please just this one the one with him with the fucking blood all over him she's like no he is Armageddon yeah yeah oh my god so then

you do the visual arts school right how many years uh almost two years but it was it was awful just that commute every day because I wasn't you know I wasn't like living half hour outside the city in Westchester I mean it's so close but it's it's like two hours door to door a different state yeah two hours door to door each way and I hated it so I dropped that art school my dad was still holds it against me to this day like he didn't want me going in the first place and I just have him spend all this money and I don't even get my fucking degree yeah and so then I just needed to get out of the house. I needed to get out of Ridgefield.

I needed to get out of my hometown. It's just too many horrible memories associated with my hometown and just the way I grew up. So I moved down to D.C. to live with my brother for a little while. I just needed to get out. So I was like, he was like, you can live with us. He was married with three kids at the time. He was like, you can live with us for a few months while you get your own place, which that sucked even worse. Because I was like living in this guest.

room and I love my nieces and nephews but it was just like mayhem yeah and then I got my own place in DC and I hated D I always wanted to live in New York but I just didn't feel like I had enough of a foundation to move here yet it's so pricey so then finally after a year in DC I made the move here and then was just a fucking just degenerate drunk for four years before I ever tried stand-up I moved here to do stand-up but I didn't do for four years what's that I didn't do it for four years I dabbled with some improv yeah but I just felt like I had so much making up. I had to make up for so much lost time. I didn't lose my virginity until I was 21. I didn't, uh, I was drinking since the time my mom died because my dad also started drinking.

He was a dry drunk my whole life. And then when she died, he was like, let's fucking out. Yeah. I feel like a lot of people lose their virginity at 21 just because like for a variety of reasons. You had like a legitimate reason. Like you weren't allowed to. Yeah. That's that's, but also I could totally see like being a drunk for four years because you were so, like, enclosed in such a safe environment. Yeah. You had to let some steam out. Yeah. When did you, what interested you about comedy?

What made you think you could be a good stand-up? I always, I watched a ton of, like, Comedy Central presents as a teenager, and I always really enjoyed watching comedy, and I always, believe it or not, even though I was done with the whole Jehovah's Witness thing, I actually really enjoyed being on a stage and giving those talks. It all happens for a reason. Yeah. And when I was in art school, I took a storytelling class as part of my animation program. And I had never done any creative writing before. And I wrote a couple of like weird like sketches. We would read aloud everything that we wrote at the end of class. And my teacher was a screenwriter. And he pulled me aside after like the

second class. And he was like, hey, I know you're here for fine art. But like you, you hear everybody laughing at what you're reading. Like you're, you're a really good comedic writer. He's like, should give that some thought. And I never had anybody give me any encouragement in that regard in any sort of direction. You're so good at knocking on doors. Yeah. And you're like, come on. Give me something else.

So that really kind of stuck in my head. And I was like, yeah, maybe I, maybe that's something I could do. Because I was done with, I was good at art, but it wasn't like a passion of mine. It's funny. Yeah. Like, I actually love art. I love painting. I love sculpting.

I love creating. Yeah. But I also love writing. I love humor and it's like I think it's the creating that's ultimately Yeah Really fulfilling exactly yeah This has been so interesting We're gonna end with one final game

I also love that you're doing burning in hell with me Because this is a satanic podcast We do love the devil This is Armageddon for us Oh the word Armageddon too is so fucking cool I know right It's like Armageddon It's just scary

Yeah I wanted it to happen I hope I live long of life I think it was going to happen. That's the thing. That's what they're slick about. They make it seem like it's around the corner. Yeah. They've been making it seem like it's around the corner for, you know, almost 100 years.

They're like, that one's looking hot. Yeah. Just a normal one. Never mind. It's headed this way. It's looking big this morning. It's getting bigger. It's time to play The Seven Deadly Sins.

Okay. your whole life you have trained yourself to not sin and today we're going to talk about all of them what are you greedy about what am I greedy about I'm greedy about my alone time and my personal space cool uh to a bit of a bit to a detriment yeah you're like you can come near me right now yeah and we live in a one and a half bedroom apartment so I'm always trying to find my own bait you know like is she does she like alone time also no do it do any women like alone time do you yeah but i think it's because i was like tennis player stand up it's very lonely things but then also i feel like if i really like someone though then i i'm trying to be cool

right now but i probably turned to fucking koala and i'm like hold me i'm like yeah i'd like to be Yeah, I could see girls like the affection. I shouldn't say she doesn't like alone time. Everybody likes alone time to some degree, but I, I think it's, I don't think it's a good thing. You also have three cats. Yeah. You're never alone. No.

But cats are, kids are chill. Cats, you're like, you feel like you're alone. And then when they give you attention, you're like, oh, I don't know if I deserved it. Thank you. I'm not worthy. That's not a very juicy answer. Oh, no, that was, that was, it's good. Yeah.

Who were you envious of? I'm envious of people that do not seem to have any sort of social anxiety. People that are 100% comfortable in their own skin because I feel like, I don't know. I feel like I'm still, I feel like there's two chapters in my life. I feel like there's, from when I was born until I, when I turned 20 and left, and then that time until now. So I kind of feel like a 17-year-old in a lot of ways. I feel like I've only been in the world for 17 years. It's also crazy to me that you like have a family.

Yeah. Because I'm, I hate to compare to who was witness to tennis. But I was like, I was kind of a freak where like every day I'd go to practice. And on weekends I'd play tennis. And like it was just my life was tennis till I'm 22. People get annoyed because I talk about on the podcast so much. But it's like, that was my life until I was 22. Right.

And the second I quit tennis, I was like rebirthed. And I was like, and I had to figure out, like, the world and what it was like. Because all, like, had to do is wake up when, wake up when. And now I was like, wait, I have to listen to my own voice of what I actually want to do. Right. Or, like, I have to meet people. Even, like, dating, I think I'm, like, a little behind, too. Because I wasn't, at 14, I wasn't, like, at house parties, like, giving hand jobs.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I wish I was. I would have even given hand jobs just to feel like I was a part of something. So do you think. just to get an invite to a party just to hold something do you feel like you have social anxiety um yeah yeah it's it's i wouldn't say it's bad considering what the the amount of seclusion

i went through but but also it's traumatizing like social interaction was like abusive at sometimes for you like it's abuse to have to like against your really your will Jesus, I never even thought of that. Yeah, being forced to talk to people that do not want you talking to them. It makes complete sense that you have some form of like triggering when you have to talk to people. Yeah, anytime I open my mouth, I just think someone's like, get the fuck off my property. Well, I was doing cold calling sales for a while. And I remember after I'd leave the office, it was so nice to talk to someone when I wasn't asking them for something.

Yeah. It just felt like so nice. Wait, you grew up here. Did you ever have, I think they still do it. These guys that come up to you on the street. Are you Jewish? No, that's where you get your hair done and then they try to sell you the spot packages. I did that for like four months before I moved, right when I dropped out of art school.

Can you explain what it actually is? So it actually, it is legitimate. But you have to pay at that moment. You have to pay on the spot. 50, 60% off. It's a $60 certificate at a salon in the city. Yeah. I don't know how good they are.

I never went to any of these places, but they are, they do exist. Yeah. And you basically get a haircut, facial, massage, manicure, all this shit for $60. Yeah. Which sounds too good to be true. Yeah. And I'm sure some of these services are, you probably walk out of there with bedbugs and scabies. But, you know, like they are legit.

But yeah, you have to approach women on the street. And it happens to me all the time. It still happens. They're still out and about? Yeah. Yeah. I'm like the kind of girl that you should go up to and they go, I love your hair. Where do you get it done?

Yeah. I do it all the time. And I've, I've. actually got into it where like if I'm in a nicer mood when I was younger like I would talk to him because some of the guys were like kind of hot or some of them would just seem like a funny gay guy like you don't look like a homeless person yeah I didn't understand like I was trying to figure out what was happening and then it would get to a point where it's like a credit card and I'm like I'm not giving you my money yeah and then it would be oh it's an insane thing to expect someone

to be able to do that like you're helping the salons get immediate cash like what do what is it um Yeah, pretty much like this, this is, I don't even know what you would call it. Yeah, this company has these, he has these various accounts with salons all over the city. They buy up these packages. They bring them business. And they say like it'll put them in the door. So if they like you, they'll come again and stuff. Right, right.

And it's, it's a, and from my perspective, it's a completely commission based job. So if I didn't sell anything, I didn't make anything. Yeah. How often would you sell? I would have days where I sold nothing. I would have the, the thing is when you got a, you got a, show up at an office every day you've seen the movie boiler room yeah it's kind of like that you know how they get they have like a morning meeting to get them all amped up listening to like

fucking new metal and like everybody's doing jumping jacks getting pumped up it's like this weird fucking crazy subculture of this urgent salesperson after doing jehovah's witness it was just like normal to you yeah absolutely yeah it really was so you get your number of certificates or whatever and then you can go wherever you want so you can go to union square You can walk down Fifth Avenue. The best thing to do was be to take a train to a local college and just sneak into the, on the campus, and then you get all these girls with their dad's credit card that just fucking, they gather up all their friends.

So I remember I went to Fairley Dickinson University one day, and I snuck into a dorm and I had this one girl jump on it immediately. She gathered up all her friends. She brought in like 20 girls. I made $1,000 in like five minutes. It was insane. But you would get a percent. edge of the 60?

Yeah, yeah. That is fucking crazy. But yeah, there's something about it where I'm like, this isn't fully sketchy, but like, it's sketchy. It's a definition of rip off, but it's, it's, you get something out of it. Yeah, that is, your eyebrows removed entirely. Oh my God, that's so fascinating. This is fascinating.

Okay, what do you gluttonous about? My gluttonous about? You're like, what do you, like, like, Armageddon's not coming. What am I going to eat? or am again it is coming what am i going to eat in the next two minutes because i'm going down with the world i mean i still like it can be gluttonous about weed i just quit drink i just quit drinking five months ago which has been great but i'm like smoking a lot more weed now and i don't know if that's good no that is that is gluttony yeah right does your wife smoke she doesn't she doesn't

and it's almost like you know what it is i i enjoy smoking weed but it's almost like i have to have something in my life that I'm doing that would have been frowned upon I was about to say for you like what are you 36 37 37 it's a very like what a 27 year guy's like kind of doing yeah yeah I want to smoke weed right right feel kind of naughty yeah and I'm being kind of bad yeah but like there's probably other parts of your life that you're like highly emotionally intelligent with it's like I just want to smoke a duby yeah I mean some area of like dirt bag and there are 37 years I know last well I'm comics at least her 307 who still smoke weed yeah it's it's hard to find comics that don't i know when

was the last time you experienced extreme wrath or anger extreme wrath or anger oh my god i mean every day i have i have tremendous anger issues i love how you said that with a smile you're like i will freak i hate everything um especially since getting a car i mean getting a car It's been a complete game changer, but I'm a fucking maniac behind the wheel. Put it this way. My son, a couple months ago, he's four. He was like, I'm going to start calling you Daddy freak out. Do you start cursing?

Yeah, and I try to do it under my breath, like hoping he doesn't hear me, but he hears everything. So he's like, I'm going to start calling you Daddy freak out. And I was like, oh, yeah, why is that? He's like, because you're always freaking out and yelling about stuff. And I was like, yeah? And he's like, yeah, when you're driving. And I was like, well, yeah, I do do that. I was like, what do I say?

And he goes, he, like, imitating me to a T. She just goes, ah, fucking shit. I'll never forget my papa, the one who punched the guy's nose. He always goes, this fucking meatball head. This meatball head. I'm like, can we be any more Italian at all? I think of anything. Fucking spaghetti head.

When was the last time you were a sloth? Are you ever lazy? Oh, yeah, absolutely. When was the last time I was a sloth? I mean that's any free time I have is spent just lying down same I mean I love being horizontal I love being horizontal I nap I'm the same I have a studio so like I have a little couch but like I'm not spending time on that couch I go and I eat there I work on my bed I sleep on that bed when my cat naps I'm like I guess we're napping yeah when you're with your cat your cat makes you never feel like you should get up they're like we're fucking chilling Stop being so productive. Yeah, they do this 22 hours a day.

Let's spare a few minutes here and there, right? Exactly. When was the last time you lusted over someone? So who's your, like, celebrity crush since you're married? Who's my celebrity crush? I've always had a big thing for Julianne Moore, actually. Oh. Ever since I saw Boogie Nights.

Oh, yeah. I have a thing for older woman. My wife is eight and a half years. older than me she's 45 wow um i've always had a thing for older women where did you meet again we met dog walking oh she was just a fellow dog walker in the neighborhood then we started dating and we started a business together wow yeah that's wild you guys are wild um who did you have a crush on when you were like in your jehovah witness like who is your secret so this is nuts when you think of her you're like no uh have you ever seen the charlie's angels television show i don't know i know who you

about Farah Fawcett, right? Okay. So Farah Fawcett was only on that show for one season. And she's like the most famous Angel, even though she was only on for one season. The show was on like six seasons. She got kicked off. She, I don't even know what happened to. I think she quit the show for some reason. She left. And her replacement as the, as the, you know, the Bucksum blonde was this woman, Cheryl Ladd, who I remember seeing on a, you know, a rerun of Charlie's Angels at like 1130 one night and just, like, like, you know, the Bucson Blonde was this woman. And just, you know, like immediately falling in love and this was a 70s television show I'm 17 years old to watch that um yeah but it was like after my parents went to bed so it was like you know like television and music was my portal to the outside world yeah entertainment yeah exactly so she at in real in real time this is like a 50 year old woman who I'm lusting over as like in her mid 20s and the 70s and I became so infatuated with this. woman that I couldn't this was like before the days my parents wouldn't let me have the internet either so my sister tried to like hook up the internet but I would have to like well you

meant you have you have to like plug it into the phone jack or whatever and then it would just get disrupted all the time yeah so I couldn't like look at internet porn or anything like that so I would go on eBay for like an hour every night and I would bid on all these like posters of Sherrill Ladd from the 70s and I spent like $400 on like Cheryl Ladd memorabilia of like these posters these framed eight autographed eight by tens I basically had a happened when you make you you have to withhold so much exactly yeah it's like you do stupid crazy things because you've been so like yeah what's the word guarded or yeah sheltered restricted 100% yeah so I had a shrine to Cheryl ladd in my bedroom were you allowed to this is

after my mom died right after she died and my dad my dad would just walk into my room he never even said anything about it he just kind of would look at it like i don't even know where to begin i know he doesn't want to unpack any of that my dad's like this is who i used to jerk off to what is this so tell me about before we wrap it up tell me about um your special that's out uh my album yeah your album it's a special album it's a it's an album that I recorded in July at Union Hall, came out in December. I've been doing stand-up for 11 years,

so I was, you know, I was hearing all about these people making money off albums, and I'd kind of been shitting on the whole idea of doing an album. Like, who's going to fucking buy that? But it's not about that. People don't buy albums, but you make money off these streams. So I thought, yeah, that'd be nice. That'd be nice to get some of that.

Hell yeah. So, yeah, it's out. It's out now. It's called Barely Regal. And, like I said, I have no idea how it's doing. so give it a listen You are truly fascinating One final question

What advice Because you've been through Armageddon and back What advice would you give to people On how to cope with your hell Like when you're going through it How to cope with your hell Just knowing that

The human spirit is very resilient And you can go through Time really does heal everything Like you can be in the lowest possible place in your life. I mean, my, my mom, not to get too sappy, but my mom was my world. She had built this world for me that I was trying to thrive in, even though I didn't, it didn't really feel true to me.

And then this person that was like the linchpin of my life and my community died. So not only did my mom die, but like my community. Your purpose. I was questioning my, yeah, my purpose in this community, whether I wanted to be a part of it anymore. I mean that that chunk of time from 17 to 20 that three years the fact that I made it through that is is kind of remarkable to me so and I think I have a level of PTSD to some degree I think about horrible things happening to my family all the time so I think just knowing that regardless of what happens to you just kind of keep going and things will get better. I like what you said.

Yeah, believe in the human spirit. Like have some confidence that you will be okay. Yeah. And that's what humans can do. That's like our special thing, despite all the demons that we have to deal with. Doug Smith, you're amazing. Where can people follow you? You can follow me on Instagram and Twitter at who Doug Smith.

I'll talk to you guys later. Thank you so much for coming to hell. Bye.