Blocks w/ Neal Brennan - Sebastian Maniscalco

Episode Date: January 12, 2023

Neal Brennan interviews Sebastian Maniscalco about the things that make him feel lonely, isolated, and like something's wrong - and how he is persevering despite these blocks. Sebastian's Blocks: 00:00 Intro 03:47 High Anxiety/Stress 11:46 Family 21:33 Scorsese 27:09 Overthinking 34:52 Hypersensitivity 36:29 Avoiding Confrontation 45:28 People Who Have Self-Portraits Of Themselves As Artwork In Their Homes 49:18 Oversharing 53:15 Death Watch Neal Brennan: Blocks on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81036234 Theme song by Electric Guest (unreleased) Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/2Lf6yvE Neal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nealbrennan Twitter: https://twitter.com/nealbrennan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Because the Skip app saves you so much time by delivering stuff like your favorite cool treats, groceries, and bevies, you get more time to have the best summer ever. Like riding roller coasters. Learning to water ski. Applying sunscreen to your dad's back. Yep, definitely the best summer ever. Squeeze more summer out of summer with skip did somebody say skip hey everybody it's me neil brennan i have a netflix special called blocks where i talk about the things that make me feel like something's wrong with me make me feel isolated

alone in the world and jimmy carr had the idea have friends of mine on and they can talk about their blocks and uh people will thank us for our vulnerability my guest today i'm actually more shocked that i got you than letterman not because i don't know you it's because i don't think you like talking about this stuff. Now, having said that, Sebastian Maniscalco, everybody, fake round of applause, very good. I've known you 15 years. I used to open for you a bunch down there in La Jolla.

The show wouldn't always sell out, which made me laugh then that you and I were doing a show wouldn't always sell out which always made me laugh then that you and i were doing a show couldn't sell it i like when when you do shows at the comedy store during the weekend they don't sell it still makes me laugh you do arenas everywhere else but la um they should do no that's yeah you did you sure did you did the forum and uh and the weekend came i saw that that was pretty fun for you so you don't strike me as a very open guy but you must be you were in a relationship married father of two yeah so you must talk about these things with somebody yeah so when you

reached out to me about your podcast uh i want to take a big long sip of water because i feel like this is a you're gonna talk for 40 seconds nah i i do i do uh little bites it's not much editing with me um so i like the fact that you're doing this because you're coming to the table with something to speak about a lot of these podcasts are kind of like we were talking before. You sit down and kind of shoot the shit. Where do you get your shoes? Yeah.

I'm like, how many shoes do you got? And oh, I got, you know. And I'm not really good on podcasts, to be honest with you. I don't particularly like doing them just because, you know, it's like a crap shoot. But I guess from what i understand in the podcast world you have to do other podcasts if you have a podcast right i have two and to kind of like cross-pollinate the audience what are your two podcasts i have the pete and sebastian show which

i've been doing for nine years with pete correale no guests just us kind of talking you two on a good zoom it's a zoom the camera but the camera where it looks it's good good lighting well i appreciate you uh you noticing yeah the production production goes and you and pete got a real nice italian chemistry which i think is the plan we do and we've been that's just kind of like a passion project of ours that we just love doing and then i started this other one with my pediatrician dr Dr. Scott Cohen, which is kind of like a love line type show where we take people's questions in regards. Oh, you know what's funny?

I thought I saw it. I thought you were a guest on it. No, no, no, no. Okay. Well, that's, that's good that you, uh, no, that's what's great about it. Cause I don't, his name's first, right? Uh, it's daddy versus doctor. That's all right.

So you're daddy. I'm daddy and he's the doctor okay so good to know so we just started that one so anyway coming on here when you said oh you know and i saw the letterman was on burke kreischer and it's like kind of formatted yeah and you know we have said we have something to talk about yeah so we're not gonna be grasping for things to small talk about yeah and i'm not nobody asks these questions so it's not like i'm not open yeah no but i've known you for 15 years we've never the first one let's go with our first block right you ready yeah high anxiety stress yeah i've known you for 15 years. You seem not uptight. You like things a certain way. So tell me about high anxiety and

stress. My problem is I'm constantly thinking. I'm never in the moment. I've been trying to do meditation over the last five years to kind of calm my mind down. But especially with kids, I'm always thinking if they could get hurt doing that or i'm thinking six months 18 months ahead career wise never really enjoying being present right so the anxiety comes from it's like a lot of worry for me yeah so that's what the anxiety is not like i'm stressed out it's more that i wish i could stop thinking so much and just being well that's knowing what i know about from your act and a little bit i know about your life you you are how old's your dad 76 and your mom's around 76 yeah yeah so uh they didn't enjoy anything you know what i mean it's like you're it's that joke you do about your dad like i've been

depressed since i was 12 yeah or whatever like that wasn't a thing that they had like as a as a way to be my parents didn't enjoy anything enjoy it what are you talking about i mean you know what i mean so like you then have by all accounts how things could not be going better for you yes uh they're going really well but hold on there is a better i hear a better with all that's going on see i enjoyed the kind of ride to where i'm at right now more than where i'm at right now because oh interesting feel a lot of pressure because when you go to a comedy club and no one knows who you are the expectations aren't high you're just going you're doing your comedy you know i was surprised that i started to sell out i go wow we sold out or does it now it's a little bit more of a pressure to get the people to come and to sustain that and

i put a lot of pressure on myself to try and do that and uh i am now just taking some time off are you really yeah because how much time are you gonna take off like a year and a half i'm just gonna do las vegas uh for a little bit i don't have any more material really i mean the stuff i'm doing in in las vegas is some of the stuff that i've been working on some of my older stuff i'm doing some crowd work so you by the way could do a best of show i had thought about that you really could jimmy carr did a best of show oh he did yeah he toured on his jokes are really short though so people go that's not best you've never done that like his jokes are all 20 seconds so you could do i mean i you could you know the you could do yeah no i i've thought about that and uh i might start peppering in some bits that people really related to like the doorbell

bit or chipotle or whatever whatever the bits are but ross ross just realized i haven't done that i don't even think here's one you know you you come up with some jokes that are kind of your staples in your act right and then you know you just don't do them anymore just because you've moved on as a performer but it's like i often wonder the people that are coming to see me now are coming to see you now are they aware of some of that material that maybe i've often thought i could just do my comedy central hour yeah no one's it's like there's like 10 people who've you know what i mean like you could absolutely i mean i don't i love that ross bit i don't all i remember is the throwing downtown beirut and throwing i'm assuming there's more to it yeah there's i'm in

this i'm shopping in the jean section and i'm finding forks and yeah there you go there's there's a lot to the bit but i don't you know it's like i haven't done that bit in whatever 15 years i'm wondering if i brought it back out and blew some dust off it if it would uh people go oh i didn't know you had that sprayed the rims sprayed the rim shine it up a little bit some new stuff okay so when did you realize you had anxiety like what kind of kid were you i was a shy kid i really am kind of shy i wouldn't say shy but like a little bit more reserved i'm not like the life of the party i'm not really talking a lot i'm listening more but i was i was never the class clown i think yeah it was more judgment

a lot of judging and uh i was just like a sweet little kid i was i wasn't i didn't get in trouble right i was very obedient listened to my elders yeah it was was you know just a a good kid never got in trouble but okay so you that the the anxiety stress is it from expectations you put on yourself yeah it's not from childhood it's not it's not and but my my mother is a little she's a worry wart kind of grew up i i take after my mother that way but the anxiety came more from here here in a nutshell. It's like you're successful, you make money, right? I've never been in this position before in my entire life as far as, you know, when I was making $70,000 a year at the Four Seasons Hotel as a waiter, I knew every year I generally will make around that amount of money i had my rent

i had oh i could go to a dinner that was maybe expensive but i could only do that once in a while all right by the way heard nothing but good things about you as a waiter well i mean that's uh i gotta i could go i could go back to waiting tables right now yeah no i i believe it uh if you got any shifts that you need picked up uh the greater la i mean a certain level we need a certain level of establishment um so now i'm dealing with money that i really never dealt with before and it's like sometimes you don't know and I'm very conservative with it yeah just because I don't know how tomorrow could be my last show right and then what I got's gonna last 30 years yeah so that's kind of the challenge for me right now is to not pine so much over money and where it's spent. And it's not like I'm tight.

It's just like, what's enough? You know, like what's enough to spend or save? What am I saving for? The fuck am I saving for? I don't know. I i mean like i could die tomorrow or yeah i mean yeah those are the things that you have buckets no i'm with you like what am what what am i doing why am i what why am i doing this yeah some people save for like oh they're gonna pass it on retirement or their kids or whatnot i just i gotta figure out what

the hell my goal is in regards to socking money away yeah i guess for me right now it's more of a safety blanket than anything else yeah didn't you think that once you got to a certain level you would relax no i'm getting to this level now of like just thinking about it because I was working so much. I just put my head down when the pandemic hit. I was like, all right, you know, I just bought a house. I'm like, I got two plus kids too. It's another thing. And there's another block on there, which relates to kids.

But once you have a family, a wife and two kids, you know, it's just ain't me anymore. You know, people are relying on me so that puts another level of stress on top of of what what's going on and is it as much i would think that's more about behavior meaning like the thing that your kids aren't like where's the money well what happens with kids is and this is something also i pine over is i grew up working middle class in the northwest suburbs of chicago and obviously i'm living a different life than how i grew up however i'm very conscious of the lifestyle and i don't want to pollute my kids with a lot of excess value i'm surprised you live here yeah i like i like i know where you live and i'm like that not again this i say this with no

judgment i'm surprised that you you must have thought about la values as like because alana's not from here either right so did you guys think about like should we get the fuck out of here yeah no that was definitely a thought and you decided to stay yeah see it's not so a lot of these guys picked up and left over the pandemic yeah i'm not saying we're all going to austin you and i are not playing yeah yeah yeah but wherever you decide to go i'm talking about before that oh so even before like i just thought like if you're having kids i know that you you like the Midwestern part of yourself. I do. But I would never move back there.

Nothing against the people. It's just lifestyle. Just not my vibe. It's too cold. The cold, the weather. It just doesn't fit for where I am at right now. But I got a sister here. I got my mother's here.

In LA? Yeah. I got like a family here. So it's not like you just pick up. I didn't know they came sister here. I got, my mother's here. In LA? Yeah. I got like a family here. So it's not like, you know, you just pick up. I didn't know they came out here. Yeah. My mother's been out here for 14 years. My sister moved out shortly after I did.

Oh, all right. I didn't know that. Like, yeah, we kind of have like an ecosystem of family and friends. Like, you know, do I want to get up and move somewhere? I don't know no one and we're gonna like what start our life over at 50 i ain't doing that you know yeah the the crime is high here the streets are screwed up but uh well who knows at any moment today you never know what's gonna happen in this city so um we decided you know to stay here but i i believe it starts with inside the home

regardless right so do you have do you want a lot do you want to talk about like the rules yeah there's definitely you know like i got my kids making their bed they're five and three and i i give them an allowance and they know when they do more work they get a little bit more money when they don't they don't get you know so i'm trying to instill some type of like structure in their life where you know they i've talked about this before when i went to my first chicago bulls game i was obstructed view third we're the same age i people used to smoke at blackhawks games in chicago my brother was a was an usher at the stadium so i used to go obstructed view people smoke they would open the fire exit and smoke near the door that's crazy at the stadium yeah i saw we saw it i lived i've i'm old enough to have smoked a cigarette in a

theater in new york city. I was 14 or something. Um, so yeah, you go, you've obstructed view. Yeah. And, uh,

I was just, I was seeing Michael Jordan. I was just happy to be there. So now, you know, I sit closer, but I have a perspective. Like I know,

like when I used to sit there and now I sit here and how lucky I am to get the opportunity to sit here. Now with kids, right? I want to enjoy the fruits of my labor, right? But you don't want them to. What are you going to hire a poor guy to hang out with your kids to show them like a poor boot camp and show them how things were for you yeah you know what i mean that's where a brother or something would come in handy like a sort of dirtbag brother like a like a poor uncle yeah like a paulie from rocky um yeah so that's been one of my things that i'm again completely aware of trying to and yeah we're

going to enjoy things we're not gonna we're not gonna go sit up in the third balcony but i'm very aware of the surroundings that my kids are in and i'm gonna park far away you're gonna park at like a far away lot park ten dollars you walk half a mile remember at the stadium there'd be guys in the neighborhood that would watch your car for you oh yeah they gotta watch your car and i didn't i was 10 what does that mean that my brother was like it's so they don't they don't steal it yeah yeah but that doesn't exist anymore no and so did you reach like a bottom of anxiety was there a moment where you were like this is not fun yeah yeah was it like recently like last year i'm like all right i gotta like i gotta dial dial this

back a little bit and just and that's what i told my wife and i go i'm just i'm not gonna tour you're doing a sitcom right i'm doing a uh single camera with chuck lorry in town starting february 21st for hbo max so it's nice you start shooting february yeah because you're saying it like it's gonna start airing for no no it's gonna first day sebastian has to go to work yes yes so remember february 21st sebastian's going to work that day i start working but i like that it's in town because i did a movie last year in alabama for six seven weeks and i was like what am i doing what kind of father am i seven weeks away from my kids they need me there and i didn't really particularly like being away that long so i was looking for something to stay home relax and uh and be with my family i would like to

point out who who said you should do a sitcom 2008 we were working on something we were working on a little something fell through felder you have one of my favorite um i said to sebastian i said uh i go how would you describe your comedy if it was like a premise for a show and and you go i don't like a lot of the changes that i see going on in the world which is your that's who you are but i'm glad that chuck lori finally because i i pitched you to ca and they're like the fuck out of here. Like, who the fuck is this? I mean, again, no one would believe that. I remember you were like, one of the first times I talked to you,

you go, I'm doing birthday parties in the Middle East. Yeah. I don't even know what that is. Yeah. You were doing birthday parties in the Middle East. I remember one night you said that you had auditioned to play the part of a wizard i don't know what that was but it was touch and go yeah well i mean all of these things that you do

early on in your career are just you know it's just the cycle of what you have to there's no it was no like at that point i had no choices i was literally i don't know if i ever said this i said stop saying you're italian and start saying you're persian because they don't have italians out here okay so did so there was no you don't have an anxiety attack you didn't like no no it wasn't like no it was just a little bit more like a little bit more anxious than I would want to be. Yeah, got it. If I'm too booked in a day of just things, I can't remember half of it or any of it. I don't like doing that many things. I read some book.

Somebody was saying in the 70s, people in showbiz would do one thing a day. Yeah, I went to the post office, and that was Monday. you just i yeah i went to the i went to the post office and that was monday i think there is a pressure though for people like ourselves to do everything yeah you know and i don't think you really need to it's just there might be a little pressure to like okay what's the next move yeah what are we doing i think you got to slow down a little bit and maybe just kind of do some calculated decisions of what you actually feel passionate doing and just so the show you're going to do February 21st are you uh did they come to you or did you sort of make yourself available like hey if there's a show I would do it uh well

I was looking to do something and then I said you know know, why don't we reach out to Chuck Lorre, have a meeting with him. Had you met him before? I had met him at the Superbowl last year in LA and just briefly talked, but nothing business. But I was just like, okay, this guy has a kind of a lockdown on this, this whole genre. And, uh, I just like to sit down, down talk with him see if he's got any ideas even if he's interested in doing something and then he came to me with i was going to do something a little bit more based on my life but then he came to me with this idea of uh how to be a bookie and i loved it just because it takes me i'm not playing myself which are you doing voiceover uh no no voice are

you anything to camera no i want that for you you want that i'll touch up i want i want that for you no i feel like you could whenever there's a how-to movie i'm or a tv show like give me a voiceover give me a montage i want like casino so whatever i'll call scorsese uh while we're on scorsese real quick what was your direction in that movie meaning what's the sebastian's in the irishman and is very funny and very it's a broad performance it's like when you entered i laughed out loud when i was watching it because somebody somebody i'm not gonna say who said it someone said and sebastian maniscalco as himself which i don't agree with because you play like a like a frankie valley kind of like sunglasses inside, like you move,

were you, did you try it out before you did it on camera? Did you guys rehearse? What did you discuss with him before the first take? There was no discussion. So you just, that was the first scene, your entrance?

The first. Did they shoot it in order? No, the first scene was me, De Niro and Pesci at the copacabana where i come up to him and i'm flicking uh joe pesci's like me and me and pesci get into a little something and then de niro and i he pulls me aside yeah so that was like the first day of shooting and then de niro or they said cut scorsese came out De Niro Pesci Scorsese got in

a huddle and started to talk and I was over here with the with the bodyguard I was with in the scene and I'm thinking that's it yeah that's over they're telling yeah they're they're getting rid of me because I was I mean i was extremely nervous it's weirdly a good first scene though to because you're not you can't be nervous and you are the you you're they're seated right yeah yeah and you're standing already good yeah for you and then you're flicking shit well katherine narducci who was in the scene playing Joe Pesci's wife had come to me in the middle of the all that and said man Joe's getting kind of upset that you're flicking his lapel like not not in the scene I think he was getting upset you know yeah which was good for his character

yeah I'm like oh shit should you know should I pull back on it no no just keep keep doing it so yeah the acting world for me is very new yeah a lot of these things i haven't really seen before so that was a a lesson and that's also the hardest it's gonna be yeah i mean you're not like it's that's the most scared you're ever gonna be yeah and and I, and I keep that in the back of my head when I go into other things going, all right, I already did the scariest thing you could possibly do for an Italian. You, you're Mount Vesuvius.

I would say Olympus, but I went to Italy. Um, what did they, when they came out of the huddle, were they even talking about you? No, they just said,

you know, we'll do it again. You know, I think they were just kind of maybe discussing things on their part that, yeah, these they even talking about you? No, they just said, you know, we'll do it again. You know, I think they were just kind of maybe discussing things on their part that, yeah, these guys have been working together for 40 years. So, um,

yeah, I mean, not, not a lot of direction, um, from Scorsese. He would come out and there was a point where, um,

I was in the Copa Cabana and Don Rickles was on stage. Uh, Norton played yeah and when i got up to throw the champagne bottle i was going to i had some direction on how to do that or right what but uh and in the court scene when i came in you know with the glasses on scorsese had kind of directed me when i was sitting at the table with the craps the crap but that entrance i mean what do you want i love the entrance for myself because i've always wanted to be in a movie what's on west is that fucking quit don't do it literally don't do another one that's that was for me was like

the pinnacle of success if i could just it's the pin i laughed out loud it's like are you laughing because i'm laughing out loud because i know you and i quit i knew you were in the movie and then i'm like did you stop doing the joke because i kind of stole it in my special oh great um not exactly the thing where you're at a club and you're and the girl goes in the club goes you're hilarious and you go yeah i know oh yeah did you do it it was like that sunglass performance was that joke to me yeah i know like i so i do a joke where i'm like guys are hilarious but i don't it's whatever that's it that's the that's that's the crossover yeah uh the acknowledgement that men are no that's a good that's a good parallel that that that joke could be put yeah it's like that's that character that

joke if it was a character like well this guy was a cocky guy it was a real guy yeah so so he you know i talked to a few people who kind of were around him during that time and said, this guy was, you know, he owned a tiger in his basement. He was like a, you know, he hired black people to work with him, which back then. Yeah. And the mob was, you couldn't do that. He was going against all rules. Right.

He killed a mob. He put a hit on a Columboombo so yeah there was a lot of things that he was doing that were really out of the box so yeah so hence the entrance yeah um all right so so overthinking so you worry about we've got an overthinking block do you overthink it's funny that you're worried about people coming out to see you you're still worried about it oh i mean i yeah i'm with you it's never you're not worried about selling tickets i'm always worried about something that's why i'm doing this that's why i'm doing this podcast because it helps a but but it really is there really is no guarantee they'll come back no like that it's that money it's that thing of like you

may never get another dime i don't know if it's possible to sustain people coming out to arenas well that's what i wonder how often do you expect people to come what do you think every other tour you know what i mean like come once because i'm, I was just out last year and now I'm coming back to, is it the same people? Is it new people? I have no idea. I'm wondering in the audience who's coming back a fourth or fifth time. I'm wondering how many people is the first time they're seeing me live. It's a lot.

It's a lot. Do you ever do the thing? How many people have been seen? Do you do that? No, I don't, I don't do that. no,

I don't. Maybe throw some sunglasses on, do that. Oh God, I'm'm gonna perform my next special on a sunglass it wouldn't hurt um but you once said and i think it's right a lot of people come back to see you yeah and you also said i this is probably 10 years ago when you first started doing good in clubs i said who's coming to see you and you go immigrants in sweatsuits who's coming to see you which still makes you laugh um you remember a lot that i said because you have a cadence it's hard to fucking forget um the uh now tell me some of the things i've said to you i'm kidding um okay so and how what about overthinking have you done anything to help yourself with that?

So I, uh, I'm in therapy, which I've never really considered. I mean, not that I've never considered it, but, uh, you know, again, growing up where I grew up, therapy was no, no one I knew went to therapy. Nor should they have. and nor should they have and uh it's nice just to have and it's it's a half hour a week on the phone you only are doing a half hour i've never heard of anyone doing a half hour in small doses this episode is sponsored by better help sebastian is to my right can't see him but he just started going to therapy maybe he'll do a walk therapy. Maybe he'll do a walkthrough. Here he comes, going to do a walkthrough. I'm sorry. You can hear him laughing.

Oh, wait, he found his phone. He just started. He only goes for a half hour. Therapy is great. It can legitimately help you. You can talk about your problems with an unbiased person, and you can get out of your own head and actually help yourself feel better. The thing I would say is you got to tell on yourself.

You got to say the worst possible truth about yourself, and that's where the good nougat is in therapy. If you want to live a more empowered life, therapy can get you there. Visit betterhelp.com slash neal today to get 10% off your first month. That's b-e-t-t-e-r-h-e-l-p dot com slash neal. Go get some therapy. You deserve it and you need it. Get some therapy. You deserve it. And you need it. You want to hear a story about therapy? And it's Italian. Jeff Cesario, great comedian, once told me that he would go to therapy and do three-hour sessions.

Wow. And I was like, three hours? And he goes, we're comics. We can bullshit for an hour and a half. So keep that in mind be both i mean the point with therapy is you have to tell on yourself yeah you have to make yourself look bad because if you're trying to just like do pr it's not it's a waste of money yeah and do you find it helpful it's nice uh it's nice for me it's it's nice and this is the type of, not necessarily that we're dissecting a lot of things. It's just more like me talking some of my,

what's going on in my life out, getting it out in the open, just talking about it, throwing it up to someone who doesn't really have a stake in the game. Yeah. And regardless of what the therapist says to me, I just find it therapeutic to throw up

of course do you and lana fight a lot no there's not a lot of fighting there's some disagreements just because of just kind of how we come from two economic backgrounds, two different economic backgrounds. So sometimes it's just the way she grew up, the way I grew up. Now that you have kids, it kind of reflects sometimes that way. But my relationship is very, very, very good. She's great.

I mean, we have a really solid relationship. I mean, everybody's going to have disagreements and arguments along the way it's just are you do you yell i get uh loud but lana has you know doesn't really respond to volume yeah uh so i've learned to uh suppress that's a hard one huh isn't that hard when someone when someone goes why are you yelling you're like i'm just talking like like people in chicago and philadelphia and new york talk and boston yeah it's kind of like loud very loud and and it it for me it it it shows the other person that i'm not necessarily happy about what's going on right now so you throw a little volume in there and that kind of changes, but it takes me a lot to get really, really, really angry.

I haven't really shown that side of me, but maybe once or twice. Would you ever yell at your kids? Do you think it's wrong to yell at your kids? No. You would never yell or you don't think it's wrong? No, I've yelled at them oh all right and how do they like it very stern they know so i don't do it a lot but when i do it they know break it out yeah so yeah give me a scenario can you give me a scenario you hate to break

their confidence the children's confidence but caruso is one of the kids caruso great man yeah thank you he he uh he's got what i remember jet black hair he's got great hair yeah it's not black but it's it's wonderful it's really it's pretty jealous of the kid's hair i can't remember a instance off the top of my head but i don't do it a lot do they cry is it one of those things no so they just know like all right i gotta they're apologetic great yeah sorry these sound like good these are well i went yesterday to a little camp where other kids were at, older kids. So it was my kids who are five and three, and there was like a nine-year-old there. And this kid was bothering me right from the get-go because he just was one of these spastic kids that didn't realize that there was a three-year-old there. Right.

And it was sports and whatnot. You're a big fan of self-awareness even in nine-year-olds and when they don't got it it's gonna be a problem i was talking when my mother was with me last yesterday well and we and she felt the same way i did i can can't, like, this is the problem with comedians, I think, at least for myself. I have hypersensitivity to everything around me, and that's how I draw material. Right. But it's almost, like, bittersweet, because also that plays in a negative,

where you're so hypersensitive that you see that, and you just can't let that go. Yeah, you can look over here, and you're still, all of your attention is at this kid i'm telling you the kid's gonna do something but nobody else i'm sitting there yeah going is anybody else seeing this yeah or are they blind are they blind to it um so that's the question with me so well that's what but that's the yes the joke i don't know if i've ever done this joke to you me and brett ernst used to talk about uh sebastian's gotta go run errands or as he calls it writing like that's your act is like i went to the grocery store that and then something aggravated the shit

out of you yeah and then you got 10 minutes well this is what i guess why i'm taking time off i have to go to universal studios i have to go bowling to draw right material i just i can't come up with material i'm not a guy sitting right yeah jokes i'm just not that guy there's nothing don't don't don't you know look down on it i'm not looking down it's's just I don't have that skill set. Yeah, you're hilarious. What are you? I know. So how did you resolve it with the nine-year-old kid? He left. He left in the middle of the thing, thank God, because I didn't.

There's no resolving, and there's a block on there, and I hate to skip your. No, no, no. I was going to bring it up because they're all sort of the same thing, which is avoiding confrontation. That's what I'm curious about with all of this stuff is it never occurred to me that you avoided confrontation. Because when you come to the comedy store, you now enter... I don't know how you enter. You've got a system worked out where you're dealing with almost no one.

And it's unbelievable. I don't know if you have a rope that you climb up the side of the building, go on the roof, rappel down. You're not. And I thought you were just trying to avoid weirdos, which may be part of it. But you're also trying to avoid confrontation generally. Not necessarily at the comedy store confrontation it's more like getting i just want to go and do my thing uh and leave that's all i want to do i don't necessarily want to sit in the back and there's been moments where i'm like let

me hang out a little bit here and just talk to a few guys and you regret it every time and then i get in the kind of fuck did i do that uh no but it's uh i felt like you know the comedy store great place i felt like i did a lot of that hanging out yeah you know yeah for years i would hang out there but the way i got it set up now i just slip in slip out sometimes i don't even know some someone like if you were there sometimes i don't know you're there until i'm running to my car yeah and i'll like tap and you're like hey you gotta get a bodyguard um so the confrontation avoidance that's what i realized i mean a lot of stand-up is our rebuttal to a to a situation that we didn't like and now that i see it on your list i was like oh you're not gonna yell at cvs you're gonna write a bit about it yeah yeah which is it was under my nose the whole time but so you're very passive in life. Yeah, I don't rock the boat.

Like if I got a problem with somebody, I don't address the problem. I just like, they pass away to me. Like in my head, I have a funeral. And we no longer talk to people. Eulogies? What do you have? I have a hard time expressing myself when I feel like there's been a wrong. How's that for work? That can't be great for work.

It's not good. That's another thing I'm working on, trying to be a little bit more. The problem is when I am honest and open, it's little bit uh abrupt and aggressive um and i don't know how to like like sometimes sugarcoat the the message i i often do it with humor i try and i try and like if i try to weave it in with a little with a little humor so it doesn't come off as abrupt. What I think a great plan is is to never say anything. And then when it does come out, it's got so much force that you really hurt a lot of people. That's the best way to approach problems.

And then you resent them for you not having said anything because they somehow made you feel like they that you weren't allowed to say anything even though they never said they didn't know what was happening how many funerals you have in a year there's a lot well that's what's funny is i had no i'm like i think sebastian likes me but there's a point but i also do recognize the party that i'm like oh that guy could have buried me years ago and i have no i would have never known um do people ever say do you got a problem with me and you then will address it or you just go no and you slip out yeah no you're good yeah you're good and then you slip out

then i go out the back door um what about work stuff you got you know when you're on the tour that's you got 50 people at least yeah yeah i mean and do you have somebody that you'll sort of whisper and then they'll take care of it for you yeah i have a i have somebody that i could rely on for you know fixing problems that i see but you know i mean it's not so much in the everyday minutiae of work that i have a problem addressing things it's more like larger personality issues how do you do that with lana how do you how do you figure that out with her it's just you know with the people close to me i don't have a problem with it we got it With the people that, you know, I have maybe a business relationship with or a friend that's not so close to me, a family member that's not so close to me, I tend to draw, draw away,

not address certain problems. It's just better that way. No, I mean like you seem like a guy that way no i mean like you seem like a guy that would um you have a like for example i'm gonna i'm gonna give you an example of how i interpret a few things that you have said great all right i love it this is perfect i'm sure i've offended you three times there are three moments where i yeah go ahead when you said earlier when i walked in in the movie right and you said i'm going to tell you what somebody said right i'm not going to tell you who it is yeah oh that's sebastian walking in i interpreted that as there was nobody that was you saying that. Okay. Great. No, great. It could be right.

It could be wrong. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sometimes that's how I filter information that someone is telling me. Right. And just knowing you, there's things that you say sometimes that we go, is that, was that a compliment or did this guy just give me a dick? Right. So there's no digs with you. I hope like you're one of my favorite comedians ever. I'm not saying we have a bad relationship.

Yeah. I like you. You like me, but sometimes you've had me on life support. You've had me on, you called funeral homes and check for availabilities, I'm sure. Well, I'm just saying sometimes my filter, whether you mean it or not... Right.

Oh, yes. Will it misinterpret the... Yes. Well, that's another comedy thing where we take the worst possible interpretation of things by the way sometimes we're right 70 of the time i would say we were right somebody did say it and i i didn't i will i'll tell you after i just don't want to say it on this no no i don't care who it was but what i'm saying is sometimes i misconstrue right things just because i'm filtering it a completely different way than

you're a monster and you assume everybody else is but does that make you does that give you like stomach pains you know what I mean or you just put it you just file it away no I just like it goes in I and when you said that I thought that okay okay and then I just I just let it go and we moved on to the conversation. But I was actually thinking about saying that in the moment. Yeah. I go, what? Was that you? But then I'm like, eh.

I got a conversation going on in my head half of the time. Of course. I'm still listening and I'm still present. But there's an internal dialogue. It's like in editing. When you edit video and there's the, and then there's the graphics, and then there's the sound. Yeah. We all got, I think most human beings have at least two or three tracks.

We probably got six or seven. I'm overthinking that. I should have just said that and be done with it, and then we move on. But like, I'll think it, I won't say it i'll suppress it and then and then you'll resent me for it maybe and then i'll walk out of here and i'll call my wife and go you believe what this motherfucker said yeah yeah yes yes and that's life he i come on his podcast and he tells me i'm not active no but that's you're not wrong. I mean, look, I get it. I'm doing the same thing over here.

All right. Guy wears a black turtleneck to my. I also like that you married, I like that you married an artist in that. Because you are an artist, but you kind of masquerade as like, I'm just a regular guy. Yeah. But you're not. You're an artist but you kind of masquerade as like i'm just a regular guy yeah but you're not you're an art you're a comedian you're an overthinker you're neurotic

you did all the stuff you're but you're like no i'm just this kid of immigrants and i just haven't but it's like no you're an artist we're black you should uh this made me laugh very hard out loud for real uh and i wasn't laughing at you i was laughing with you one of your blocks is people who have self-portraits of themselves as artwork in their homes that is very funny because we're both in show business people give us posters of ourselves or things and you just go and then all everyone i know has pictures of themselves but what is that what is that i never understood i walked into homes i think it's just ego do they know that though they think that's cool i think it's one of those things where everyone does it so it's acceptable but it's ego it's got to be ego you know what i've been doing

and this might be ego also if someone sends me a nice text like someone like a you know an icon so to speak sends me a nice text about um like my special blocks on netflix and you've got uh what's yours is called why would you is it me is it me when i will print the text out and frame it it just seems i want to remember a nice moment of somebody being nice to me okay so i but i but the thing of having artwork of yourself is insane yeah and you're not talking about a guy with a greyhound like an oil painting like a bank i'm talking like a like a nine foot by 12 foot foot self-portrait in the living room you know like you've been to kevin hart's house what are you telling me no no i've never been to zl he kevin's got like eddie murphy and pry at one of his houses i think

he's moved but like he had him like in the and i was like the fact that his wife allowed this to happen i feel like guys have a completely different way of decorating the home and and and i used to have shit before alana met me i had these like i don't know if you remember i'm like it would be like a a playing card but it would be like almost like a salvatore doll i thought this was beautiful like in the living room absolutely and she's like you know get rid of this shit i was looking today i mean not an hour ago at murals you can get murals you can make your own mural but also like wallpaper nature wallpaper you can get mountains you can get forests you can get uh something to think about is that is that where you're going are you going with a name i got a decorator that i don't think

is going to let it happen i can't pitch it like i real but just between you and me. Where does that go? A desert? A whole wall. But what, in the living room? Maybe. I mean, the dining room? Something to think about. That's a lot to think about. You had the, how many cards you had up? Cards?

The card, the playing cards, the Salvador Dali. Oh, no. Yeah, it was like a bunch and then it would be dice that were like i think this guy's name was godard g-o-d-a-r-d it was just you know you saw him at the mall yeah you know no i knew where he saw him it's just like there's something to be said about having an understated... If you want a room with your accolades and your trophies or whatever you got, just to remind yourself of what you've accomplished. You know who likes having it?

Athletes. Not just a room. They'll go living room. Like kitchen. A little picture. A little something nice for the kitchen yeah i i just i don't know i i have a block about uh i guess oversharing or you like you humility is a virtue yeah just a little bit you know you know for me i don't know i mean the whole text message

thing in framing it for yourself not necessarily you're looking for someone somebody would have to go up and look at and they would you know oh it's this it's like subtle i'm just talking like in your face and like wow that's you yeah it's like are you trying to get the word out about yourself to your family yeah i've never talked with anybody that that had that on the wall and like asked them what that was but i i don't know i think it started i first of all it's always guys it a hundred percent of the time it is guys women will not have it i've never i can't think of it ever also while we're on the subject of things only guys do that there are no female juniors there are none alice june it's all male ego like i gotta have him in the reminder of me when people think of him they think me that he's came

from me and it's like all right dude just let the let the kid have a life um do you guys have like a photo uh i sometimes i think of married houses the photo it's like a museum of when we used to be in love like oh we were really in love here look at that oh yeah this is when we went to cancun oh man we were really in love and then it just becomes you get further and further away from each other in the photos and the kids are between you it just looks like a like a corporation that's funny no i got i got pictures of the family up but they're in my own like they're in my like closet like my dressing room they're like you know they're not out for people to see do you have alana's lana's a really good painter do they do you have her stuff displayed we have a few pieces

and she's in the process of making a large one for the living room um we're in the process of trying to figure out what we're going to do with the house so yeah we're i heard you paying an ungodly amount of uh insurance on that house insurance is pretty pretty i i there was a big bill for fire right fire insurance because it's in the mountains where i actually got got the quote and i'm like god i i could i can have my own fire department no i somebody i don't know how i heard a number but it's wild i don't know how you heard it i don't know somebody else that lives in that in the thing oh like you guys all paying ungodly amount yeah well it was really far it was even hard to find insurance company can't even get into an insurer uh because at that particular point in time that

was when that was fired right at the getty center and whatnot it has come down significantly oh it has all right good uh but yeah i was like i was lighting candles i was worried about you i was hoping you'd add shows book me for uh the fire insurance show yeah the uh and what are you going to do with the house you're going to stay up there oh yeah no we're going to stay it's just you know we got to figure out kind of the we want to remodel a few things and and put some things on the wall in regards to like Lana's paintings. They're like, oh, maybe one would go here. And then the kids are starting to, their kids are very creative too and starting to paint and whatnot.

So we have some of their stuff hanging on them. A fridge. Keep it on the fridge. Yeah. It's in their room. Yeah. Don't even, it's not ready for the fridge. We got a block here called death yeah talk to me uh always a huge hypochondriac always thought i was passing

away i thought i still you go to the you i mean not go to the gym i'm sure you have some kind of gym in your house but yeah i have a trainer i i uh how many days a week uh five this is turning into a real podcast um so when you when you lift it do you eat meat where you getting your protein um five days a week training that's good yeah um and uh so do you do it for So do you do it for vanity or you do it purely to longevity? I do it to look good, try and look good. Done. I have major sciatica running through my right leg,

which this has been going on for almost two years. So it's really hampered my ability. I used to love playing pickleball and basketball, but golf, can't do any of that anymore i mean i don't want to do surgery i'm just exhausting all avenues prior to me sciatica is just a pain that comes up and you're there's nothing you can do or like they use well you could do physical therapy i have a thing called spinal stenosis where the uh canal of the spine which houses the nerves is constricted and it's pushing on the nerve and when that happens it shoots down the leg into the calf and it's brutal pain i bet brutal pain so

you ever tried painkillers you'd like that uh i've tried uh anti-inflammatories okay i don't like drugs. Yeah. Pills, nothing. I didn't particularly like those. They didn't help. But first and foremost, it's for longevity. I had kids later in life. I'm 49.

I'm going to be 50 this year. Do you think there's something to the old dad thing of like it's worse being an old dad? Not worse. thing of like it's worse being an old dad not worse it's just what i'm looking at for me is when my kid is you know 21 i'll be in my 70s right so i'm like wow am i gonna see my kid get married am i gonna see grandkids right and that that's kind of where my worry are you gonna have money i'm gonna be poor people aren't coming anymore so yeah that's that's the biggest thing for me is to be around as long as i possibly can for just enjoy those chapters of my family that i'd like to enjoy so yeah i mean there is a definite

fear of of dying just because of you know shit i'm 50 i was just talking to my trainer today this morning about it like in 20 years how old are you 49 okay so we're the same age we're gonna be 70 in 20 years now do you remember you know what's funny is I hear that. I hear that. And I understand that it's true. I could not relate to anything less than, than I'm going to be 70. Cause I'm the youngest of 10. So I've always been the youngest. I was the youngest of 10. I was like the little guy in comedy.

I was like work the door when I was like 18, 19. I'm younger than Louie and Marin and that and that class of guys. So like the fact that even now saying I'm 49, I don't, it makes no sense to me. How do you feel about it? It makes no sense. How? Like you never. It's like how?

How am I that old i understand that i am but it just seems like it it's like i don't identify i need trans age surgery or something i don't identify as a 49 year old yeah yeah yeah i guess i have the same like i i know i'm 49 yeah you're 50 but i'm gonna be 50 you're not 49 are you 49 all right you called yourself 50 well i mean yeah i don't do i don't play that why would enjoy it fucking give yourself yeah i know but when you're talking 50 sounds like a little bit more like oh you're authoritative yeah you know what it is because when you were 30 when you're 30 35 there's no real difference right in your look and in your health i think we get to 50 and 55 things start like happening going okay you're falling apart a little bit here and aesthetically and you have hypertension and your

arteries now clogged like that don't really happen in five years when you're 30 yeah i just think more things could go wrong yeah this is not a great time it's not a great i mean i'll just explain to my body that i don't identify with it and i'm sure my body will do the right thing and what do you i mean that's the good part about having money is you can just do all kinds of goofy i got ozone therapy just to they what's that they pull your blood they then put oxygen ozone in it spin it pump it back into you some like berry bonds shit oh so it's like uh is it supposed to keep you awake or good for the uh it's good for well they just give you the list even longevity you even know what the alertness and you go yeah that's great anti-aging antioxidants are great love antioxidants somebody tell you to do this or somebody did tell me to do

it and i was like all right i'll try anything like i don't have a wife or kids so i'm like yeah instead of private school go get some oz i mean it's not wasn't it's pretty expensive but it wasn't like you know it's pretty expensive i'm never i'm not gonna say how much it was okay but does it does it did you feel a difference not yet but give it time and i love one of the nurses like this worked for me for like a year and a half and i'm kind of in the back of my head i'm like okay and now i did i'm like a year and a half for that okay so and then other people go did nothing so there's a thing called nad that's another one anti--aging, I'm sure you've heard that. Yeah. There's all these spas out here. I just bought a tub, like an ice tub.

Everybody's been dipping themselves in ice. Yeah, dipping in ice. Yeah, put it on ice. Let me see what this does. I got to tell you, I've only had it for three weeks. I've spit laughed on you like five times. Have you tried it? No.

Okay. It's tried it? No. Okay. It's, it's, it's, it's something. It's like a mental caffeine. As soon as you go in there in the morning, it just gets you,

it gets you going. I recommend it. So it's something. It's something. I feel it. I do. I like things that could feel. No.

Yeah. I'm going to get the ozone. I want to walk out of there going, Oh, wow. This is, this is unbelievable. You want to be wearing a

robe even if you're not wearing a rope yeah i'm with you i'm not there i'm not against those i'm not i'm not i'm gonna give it a week before i before i look i'll update i'll text it so death have you made your p you just want to see how long you can go and and you just don't want to die i don't think you believe in god i believe in god okay great yeah i i think i overthink it again overthinking it more than i i should i should just be you know worried about other things than passing away i mean well it's happening either way it's happening either way it's just what i i'm just doing all i can to be as healthy as i can yeah that's all you that's it you still eat like a maniac every once i love eating i really enjoy

eating and uh i i really gotta you know over the holidays i'm very you never blew up though i'll say this for you you never you never disappointed me well i'm good i'm glad and i never showed up the comic store you go easy this guy you seen sebastian well you seem like i feel like you've been the same way for the last 40 years i mean like 40 yeah yeah there's really no no there's no no i mean there's like five or five aren't you vegan yeah up five i mean look on sundays it's sugar day we'll turn the other we'll look the other way we'll have some ice cream but but yeah it's around 150 it's been around 150 for a long time uh we're out of uh time exactly but i want to bring up a couple things oh well a couple things you this is one of my favorite stories it's like a great sometimes you'll see like what would be in a biopic

in person john legend and chrissy have a fourth of july party eight years ago nine years ago you and i are both there they were early sebastian fans and you and i go to the party we're the last two there uh couldn't take a hint um stuck around this is there's there's a guy there it's me you john chrissy and a uh a young black singer and i overhear you talking to him and you go what kind of name is frank ocean i didn't say that what did you I said, that's a fantastic name. Frank Ocean. Okay, then I might have tuned. I would have never said that.

No, no, no, no. You didn't say what kind of. You said, I mean, how do you even get a name like that? Yeah. It was just, when I met this guy, I was like, eh, damn. Not famous at all, Frank Ocean. He didn't have an album out. He didn't have anything out out he didn't have anything

no he had nothing out i think he had that song out he i promise you he didn't the next year at the party he was like famous but that year he had nothing out he had a song lost it wasn't out yet okay but i remembered when i heard it i go this is the guy this is the name but i haven't heard uh i don't know what he's doing now but i haven't heard a lot of the he's got a he's got a jewelry company it's a kind of a tragedy oh really i mean he'll come he's probably sitting on an album he makes his albums are excellent yeah um very quickly you got mad at me one time you started you started measuring me for the casket because you told me that off stage you told me that you had a fart towel on a date i then brought you up saying this guy's got a fart tower towel and you were like pissed because you didn't want the

audience you didn't think it was a bit and i said like this next guy's got a fart towel and you got mad you like kind of stormed the stage and yanked the mic from me i did yeah and i knew what i knew what was going to be a hot bit i wasn't doing that bit at that time no you would just hold us in the hallway yeah and you told me yeah so i mean those of you just the listening or watching this neil has been a very instrumental in in suggesting bits and and tags and whatnot in my career so sitcoms that go nowhere by the way speaking of projects i remember being a part of a project that you and dove david offered yeah for showtime did that ever go no okay they went for seven seasons you didn't hear about you then you never got too resentful of hollywood people huh like because you never it was funny

watching somebody like you or nate bargazzi you guys kind of be a little bit ignored and then once the audience got their hands in you it was like game over and you never got like resentful or you probably resented them a little bit i mean i just i wasn't doing anything but stand-up comedy so i don't know like i didn't really have really big aspirations to do film or TV. It was just something that, oh, it happened. Great. But as I started to do those projects, I'm like, oh, I really, literally love standup. So I just knew if I did standup and people came out to see me that, you know, Hollywood really didn't concern me at all.

Not yet. Still don't. Sebastian Maniscalco. I'd say go see him on the road but he ain't gonna be there no i'm going listen i'm in vegas at the wind so how often are you there i'm gonna be there four weekends over this year i think the next day is march 2nd through the 3rd what are they throwing you for that oh a lot of money yeah not this year they give you a lot of money but they look you start they cut back on shows

and that maybe there's a something happens in the theater sebastian maniscalco everybody one of the greats he's got five on netflix uh i think i got uh four four five and then you want then you'll license one i got four on netflix i got one on amazon and two on amazon this guy owns two of his own specials he licensed them out he'll license it. I got four on Netflix. I got one on Amazon and two on Amazon. This guy owns two of his own specials. He licensed them out. He'll license it to you. You got a network. Name your price.

Thanks, buddy. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. Bye.