Breaking Bread with Tom Papa - Episode 283 - Tim Heidecker

Episode Date: September 23, 2025

Today Tim Heidecker joins us at the table! He's here to address the topic on everyone's minds: his transitional lenses. Tim and Tom also discuss the relationship between wine and storytelling, things that make them laugh, and if you have to be a stoner to create stoner content. FactorMeals.com/papa50off and use code papa50off to get 50% off your first box, plus Free Breakfast for 1 Year. *Offer only valid for new Factor customers with code and qualifying auto-renewing subscription purchase. Get 50% Off Monarch Money, the all-in-one financial tool at www.monarchmoney.com/PAPA ------------------ 0:00:00 Intro 0:01:02 Tour and Nambe Shoutout  0:02:39 Factor Ad 0:05:01 Monarch Money Ad 0:07:08 Patreon Shoutout  0:07:39 Transitional glasses and getting discovered  0:12:38 Uncomfortable moment and AI 0:22:38 Wine and relationships  0:23:17 Fans of each other 0:26:13 Getting into music 0:33:56 Laughing at things you make 0:36:25 Directing 0:40:08 Magic Castle  0:41:29 Finding time to write 0:43:49 Colin Hanks  0:45:27 Stoner content  0:50:40 Reminiscing on bit 0:52:00 Office Hours Podcast 0:59:51 Big boy podcasters and Riot Comedy Festival 1:17:30 Speed funny round 1:20:00 Touring 1:22:40 Group chat ------------------ Tom Papa is a celebrated stand-up comedian with over 20 years in the industry. Watch Tom's new special "Home Free" out NOW on Netflix! Patreon - Patreon.com/BreakingBreadwithTomPapa  Radio, Podcasts and more: https://linktr.ee/tompapa/ Website - http://tompapa.com/ Instagram -  https://www.instagram.com/tompapa Tiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@tompapa Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/comediantompapa Twitter - https://www.twitter.com/tompapa #tompapa #breakingbread #comedy #standup #standupcomedy #bread Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Yeah. They've been seduced. Yeah. Because I knew all of them before saying, no, no, no, never. And then when it came around, it was the promise of big numbers. Yeah. And holy shit stuff. Yeah.

Mansouradis. And you get seduced by it. Yeah. You know? And then you probably convince yourself that it's okay. Right. Yeah. You paint your own thing.

And now to see it on the other end of it where they're all going, oh, I didn't sign up for this part. Right. I didn't think they were going to do this. Yeah. They're arresting people in Home Depot? Wait, what? You said the files were going to come out. Now they're not.

Yeah. I mean, I didn't vote for this. No, you did. Right. And you gave it a platform. Yeah. And to say that you didn't see it coming. That's ridiculous.

Either means... It's breaking bread. Everybody, I'm out on tour on the Grateful Bread Tour. Make sure you go to tompapa.com and it will lead you to all of the dates. We just announced a whole bunch of dates going through next year even. We're going everywhere. San Francisco, Austin, Oklahoma City, Stuart, Florida. We have a run in New York.

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and join up. It's a great way to support us and expand the community and have some fun. And that's it. Yeah, I'm just going to do the podcast now. Transitional lenses. Oh, my gosh. God, you're going there, because are you wearing them? No, but I saw your kerfuffle.

And you were describing the trouble of being a glasses person and having to carry your glasses and switch from sunglasses, which is my life. Yeah, but you don't wear a transition. And I was thinking about transitional glasses, but it seems like... It caused a lot of trouble. I didn't realize there was any kind of, you know, negative kind of, I don't know, I don't know, some kind of. stigma with these. That's not a fun, right? I don't know, I was at the

Warby Parker and they upsold me on the transition lenses. I was like curious. I was trans curious. And I was like, I don't know it does, because I'm always, you're doing the two-handed and I've got the clip-ons, the clip-ons kind of looked dumb. Clip-ons feel stupid when you're in the 7-Eleven buying them. And anyway,

she said, try the transitional thing. Maybe you'll like them. And I did. And then so I go to this, I go to Odencirk. Bob Odenkirk has this movie out. And I'm not here to promote that. Yeah. The angry man too. Nobody, angry man.

Nobody too. And I get invited. And I assume Eric got invited, but I don't know. But I say, Eric, let's go together. Because we don't do a lot of things together in public. And it's been a little while since we've done stuff together in public. And Bob is, I don't know if you know this or if your audience doesn't know this, but Bob's the reason we have careers. Bob discovered us.

Right. And has been, you know, has been a friend through this for 20 years. And a mentor. A mentor, but also, yeah, just also like has become a good friend and like almost a, he's like my Hollywood dad. You know what I mean? I'm going to ask the question, even though I really more interested in the transitional lenses, but where did he find you guys? we sent him a DVD in 2003 and just we were fans of Mr.

show and we put together this little package and just threw it out into the wind you know and he loved it that's so great anyway so all these years later all these years later I thought you know it'd be nice Eric and I will go to this thing

we'll walk the red carpet we'll get a bunch of fun pictures taken yeah because you know those red carpets that's all they're for is like maybe you'll get in that one good picture or if you'd put on something nice Yeah. And we'll do some silly things. Maybe we'll do a little interview or something.

Yeah. And I'm wearing, I don't even think about it, but I'm wearing these. And now they've gone half dark on the red carpet. They've gone so you can see the eyeballs. Uh-huh. And we post for these pictures. And on the Tim and Eric read it. Boom.

Headline. Tim Heideker has now gone with transitional lenses and he can no longer be funny. There's nothing funny about him anymore. And he can no. I was like, what? What a bummer. But then Matt, my producer's like, yeah, you went belzer. This is like the full, the bells are.

The full bells. Come on, man. But whatever. It's just all about, I'm 50, almost 50 years old, and I don't want to be dealing with taking off things for sunglasses. So you're going to stick with it. I'm holding strong and I'm just going to try to reshape the way you think of transitional lens. Hate aside, are they as? as convenient as they sound?

Not really, because guess what? They don't really work in the car. Oh. Because they're UV dependent or they're triggered by the car glass. Oh. Jeez. What a bummer. Yeah.

There's nothing, well, can we agree? Nothing works. Nothing work. That's my catchphrase at my house with my wife. Anytime she's like the insurance company or the car thing or the pool thing. Yeah, no. Nothing works. Nothing works.

I tried like a simple, I'm trying, you know, trying to stay away from using the AI because it doesn't, it doesn't seem to work and it seems to be bad for very, on multiple levels. Yeah. But I was like, maybe it could do like really simple things. Like Google has Gemini. That's their AI interface. And I was like, can I, I get all these emails from Substack because I signed up for Substack ones. And they just, they're all in my inbox. You know, everybody's all this stuff.

And I was like, hey, can you just move, can you start sending all those into like a promotional folders? You know, the other junk folders or something. Yeah. No. No. Can't. I can't. Like, it was just like, I can't.

Can't do that. Sorry. Like, that seems really easy to do. Yeah, you work for me. Well, we do a thing on this show called an uncomfortable moment, which I usually save for later. because you brought up the subject. I'm going to, if you don't mind, I'm going to jump right to it. Yeah, go ahead.

I wasn't sure what your viewpoint on AI was going to be. Oh. So in order to get your reactions, I asked AI, my AI, who's pretty obedient. Yeah. Doesn't sound as surly as yours. Who's your guy? I call him Scoots. Okay.

and I he fails me once in a while he goes quiet once in a while but for the most part he's pretty responsive but anyway I like by the way you have a piece a legal pad in front of you with nothing on it oh yeah I never use this

I literally never use this I never it's so funny you bring it up I literally you know it's funny I never write on it I know I was think because I'm sort of like why is it here I have a couple of like writing projects that I've been really

negligent on and really procrastinating doing. And in my, I swear to God, in my mind, I go, I wonder if I got a legal pad. If I could see, I keep fantasizing. Yeah. About that pad, but a yellow one. Right. You know, the classic yellow.

Yeah. If I had that yellow pad, that's where I could start working things out. Like, this fantasy that there's, first of all, why am I just going out and getting one? Yeah. It'd be easy to get it on Amazon. It'll be the house before. Yeah. Yeah. And there's just something every, the past couple of weeks I've been thinking about the legal pad that is the answer to my problem, but I'm not doing anything about it.

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Yeah, it's what I would write material and stuff. And I kind of got away from it a little bit when I got not as picky. But whenever I'm jammed, I take that pad out. Okay. It does work. All right. Well, then I'm going to stop on the way home and pick up a legal pad. This is the other end of the legal pad.

I said, I said, Scoots, make me a cartoon of Tim with everything that he does. Okay. All the media. This is all the media. All the media. All I said was all. the things he does. Oh, wow. Okay. And it came back with that. Which is cute. Which is kind of cute. Ideas. It's got, uh, yeah, no legal pad, but it's got cameras and

microphones, ideas. I invent a lot of things. Yeah, you're always coming up with stuff. It's very impressive. And then I asked it, okay, but wait. I didn't know what your view would be. So I said, what if Tim is anti-AI? And then he came back with this. Oh, that's a very common. It feels like a Stalin. I look like Stalin. Right. This is kind of cool. Wow.

Yeah. Can I tell you a quick story about that? Maybe you've heard, maybe you know about this, but it's hard. Thoughts on AI is difficult, right? Yeah. And I went to this party that this Natasha Leone was throwing for this company she was starting. Uh-huh. That was supposed to be, or is supposed to be this ethical AI thing.

Right. And it's like you're working with artists to like develop the materials or that you're not like going and like fishing for content elsewhere. Right. And copyrighted stuff and protecting art. Yeah. So it seems like pretty noble, but maybe, who knows? So I go to this thing, but I don't really know much about it. And I'm waiting in line for a drink and this woman comes up.

And she's like, hey, Tim, we've met. I'm so and so. I wonder if I'm writing this thing about this for Vulture. And I wonder if you would. if I can interview quickly about AI. And I'm in line to get a drink at a party. And I'm like, I don't know. I think, you know, my, if you don't mind,

like my thoughts on AI is way too complicated for a conversation at a party. Right. You know, just basically like, no, thank you. Yeah. So like a month later, I get this email from the research folks at Vulture. Uh-huh. Hey, just confirming that you spoke to a reporter and that you said my thoughts were too complicated for AI. My thoughts were too complicated to talk about AI at a party.

And I said, well, I think I just said I didn't want to talk about it. So I'd rather, because I don't want to be in this article. Yeah. I don't know. Leave me out of this. I don't want to talk about it. And that's kind of what I said. Like I don't remember.

I even said, I don't remember. So I'd rather just not be in the article. I'm like the quote on the Instagram thing that says, my thoughts are too complicated on AI to talk about at a party. That's... Thank you. Jeez, Louise. Fuck you, right?

So I guess the theme of that is humans are worse. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And of course, of course, like the people that are, the perfect people go, it's not complicated. Oh, God. You know. Right.

Now you're in it. Yeah. So anyways. That's ridiculous. Just to say that my thoughts are too complicated for AI. It's ridiculous. So then what did you say? Then I said, what if Tim was, what about as K-pop?

Okay. And it gave me this. Cute. But I was, I was me, because I wanted to get away from the communist one. Yeah. I was like, lighten him up. And then I said, no, he's anti-A-I. I, they're misunderstanding, buddies, K-pop.

And it's kind of like the middle ground. Yeah. Well, I think you're, what's his name again? Scoots. He's getting a little tired of you. You think he's mailing it in? Yeah, I think so. Kind of insane, though.

I mean, we were just having a conversation when we got here about songwriting. Oh, my God. It's like within 10 seconds. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't sound, None of it sounds like any, like there's still the, this little element of crap to it that doesn't seem like any. Soulless. Like if I go to the pool or I go to like a public space or something, generally the music I'm hearing, I wouldn't know if I would be able to tell the difference because of pop music to me, modern pop music is very inauthentic and manufactured. Yeah, it feels digital anyway.

Yeah, but that's just me and you because we're old farts. Is it? I think so. I don't know. I mean, I always hear my grandfather talking about the Beatles and how they were terrible, you know? Right. But I don't know. My daughter likes some good stuff.

She's 11 and she likes Nirvana and stuff like that's cool again. Right. And Weezer and stuff. But she also likes like very crazy. like Japanese techno stuff that isn't all the anime because they all watch anime now. And it's just like,

really? Yeah, but that feels like it could easily be programmed. Yeah, no, exactly. It probably is. Yeah. But music is, to be honest with you, though, music is like 90%

and people are going to probably be mad about this, but music is like 90% math. Right. Right. Like there's a programming language. Yeah. Because there's only so many notes and only so many things that go together. And it does seem like an easy thing.

From what I understand about, like the Suno, I think is the big company that does it. I mean, it's math. And then it's just them, again, like just scraping through Spotify and like grabbing, literally grabbing the sounds of things. because you can take in logic, the software that Apple has for music, you can now take a song, put it in there, and press a button, and it breaks,

it separates all the tracks. Whoa. So you can isolate the vocals or the bass or the drums. And so they can, of course, that's what they're doing is just taking like, you know, I want to sound like Led Zeppelin. They're just like literally grabbing Led Zeppelin and going on, oh, here's the drums

from this song. Let's match it with this, you know. Yeah, yeah. So, but what do you think is the, is it the soul? Is that what separates, like a real artist from? The point of view, I think having a point of view and a singular perspective on any subject, any subject you want to talk about. Right. Yeah. If it's 90% math.

10%. Yeah. And that's a bad ratio. That's probably the wrong ratio. Yeah. I'm being extreme. But, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Again, someone's going to say that's actually not the, it's actually more like 73%. Yeah. But I don't know. It's also the, for me, I always feel like there's the music and then there's the person behind it. And I want to, the more, the more that person is interesting and the story is interesting. Right. You know, the drama.

Yeah. You know, I'm a big Beatles guy. And like, that story of that band is as good as, yeah. It goes with the music and, you know, the context of their dynamics and drama and they're so funny. And, you know, there's lots of artists like that that I care about probably because I like learn. I like the history and I like the stories. Yeah. That go along with the music.

It's interesting that the same is for, for like, food and wine. And I'm not just saying that because we have a bunch of wine over there. if someone gives me a bottle of wine and tells me a story behind it, that they had it or that they got it from a certain place for a certain reason, the story changes my entire relationship with the thing, with the experience. Sure, yeah. No, I have good, I have good wine relationships with specific places. Right. You know, memories of being somewhere, oh, I got, I had this kind of wine and this one restaurant in Italy. Yeah. That's what I, if I can find it. I, you know, if I can find it. You know, If I can find that, I would try to get it.

Yeah. Stories are powerful. They're really, really powerful. Well, I disagree. I mean, they're pretty inconsequential. You started getting really into music. Of what age did you start getting into music? Because what you've been doing lately is so good.

Your summer playlist. Oh, thank you. Was that this summer? Or was that from? Probably last summer. Last summer. Yeah. It's so good.

Thank you. And your music weaves into. it really well. Yeah. Really, you're a very good singer-songwriter. Oh, thank you very much, Tom. Gary. Let me get a blanket compliment off before we go on, because rather than, rather than noodle

around with it, I'm very impressed with you. You've made me laugh for years. And I'm so really excited that we're even here because I know. Well, well, kind of crossed paths at times. Yeah. Very briefly. And I've just been a huge fan and I can't believe the output that you put out. And when you talk about the stories of artists and stuff, you are kind of one of those people for me.

Well, you, thank you very much. And I've got to know you a little bit, but I'm a fan of yours. And people always think that I'm a anti-comedy guy or that I don't, which is not true, but like I have some kind of thing against stand-up or something. but you're like one of the greats. And I just love, I've seen you a few times. I've seen you, you're special and, yeah, I'm like, God, that's a fucking master of the art. Well, if I.

This art of stand-up. And that's- Probably eight years ago, I was at UCB and you tweeted, I did a set and you tweeted something very kind about stand-up. And I was always intimidated going to UCB because all the cool kids were around. Yeah. And that you kind of, gave a nice little nod to the stand-up that I was doing.

It really meant a lot. Oh, thank you. Well, I just recently met Bill Burr, who I just also agree. Also another one who I think is just operating on a very high level. Yeah. You know, and he was like, oh, man, I'm a big fan of yours. Like, he knew all my stuff. Yeah.

And he was like, I didn't know if you, I thought you might not like me like me. Right. Because I'm like a club comic, you know? And I'm like, and you're like an alt, alt guy. And I'm like, dude, I like. good shit. Yeah. And whatever that, you know, there's, there's a lot of hack in my world.

There's a lot of hack in your world. Right. There's hack and crap all over the place. But there are masters of, there are people that are doing things on a high level. And I'm always, I'm always impressed by when I see somebody like you who does something I could never do. Right. Is that funny? I mean, that's where the mutual thing comes.

Because I love, like, I couldn't do what you do either. Yeah. And, but I love it so much. And you wish that you could do it. Yeah. Well, like I'm a baseball fan and I love watching great baseball players, you know, like I can never do it. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm a big fan. And so back to the music. So this has become like a whole other offshoot of the myriad of stuff that you make. But did you have music in your youth? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I thought, I think music was maybe even first. I mean, there was, I don't know about you, but I don't know about you, but I don't. a lot of the creative people I know, we were all just trying to do anything that was, you know,

expression of creativity. We was making plays or making little videos or playing music. There's a lot of music in my house. My grandmother played music or could play the piano and by ear, so she could sit down and just kind of like figure out songs on her own, mostly like gospel music and stuff. Oh, nice. Where'd you grow up? Down south? Downs. I grew up in Latvia in 1923. Oh. Yeah.

There was gospel there? No, she was like a, you know, Jim and Tammy Faye Baker type. Oh, yeah. Evangelical? Evangelical. Oh, wow. But yeah, so my dad was a big classic rock guy. I grew up, like, loving that era and just took piano lessons, took some guitar lessons.

but also my friends all like either played music or started bands or wanted to start bands and everyone kind of had bands. Oh, cool. And so that was just one of the things we did over the summer. Nice. You know, you go to the music store and buy like a little amp like this. Yeah. A $100 base guitar and like, you know, just put bands together.

That's cool. Yeah. That's cool. What was your big hit when you were, when you were, when you were. you were like in school, like if you were with your guys and wanted to break out, I'm going to show off with this. Oh, no. I mean, well, we didn't have any hits, believe me. But we would play out. Like, we would play at these like all ages shows. Yeah, yeah. And very rarely did we have a drummer. Every once in a while, we'd have a drummer. And he'd usually be like an older guy that had his own

place. Yeah. There was one guy. There was definitely one guy now that I'm thinking about. about it was like a little inappropriate. Like what do you? Like we're 16 years old and like three guys are going over to this guy's house playing drunk, you know. Giving your beers. Yeah. And we would make tapes.

We'd make, you know, we'd go to the photo of the kinkos and make, make the covers. Yeah. You know, all pre-computer stuff. That's cool. Yeah. So what was the big one? Like if you're at the teen thing and you're playing it, would it be like a Zeppelin cover or would it be?

We did a lot of originals. Oh, yeah? Yeah. We used to do rain by the Beatles. Oh, okay. You know the song Rain? Yeah. We kind of, you know, in the 90s, late 90s, there was that sort of 60s revival thing going on.

And we were kind of little hippie kids, little fish loving guys. But I didn't, I didn't really like any of that stuff. It was just that was the crowd we were in. Right, right. How crazy was that documentary on the Beatles doing? To get back? Yeah. that end when there's all the acrimony and the fighting and the whatever and the yokeo and the things

and when they start just putting that together like song after song yeah yeah the thing that really broke my or just i'm a kind of i don't know this is broke my heart but made me really feel for john lennon was they're doing that thing on the roof and i saw that they did a re-release of that in iMacs where it was just the rooftop concert and it was It was just overwhelmingly. It was just loud and awesome. It's huge. And what I noticed was, okay, think about this. They had just written these songs like a week ago, like within the week. Right. So they're just writing these and going like, all right, what are the words? Right. Like, what are the words again? Yeah. And what are the, everyone, and they have to play it live. And Paul is, like, Paul McCartney is such a natural. He's, it's like a Mozart.

Yeah. Mozart. Mozart. Mozart. I think a. But he's so giff, everything is so easy. Yeah. It seems at least. Right. So easy. And they're out there in like 45 degree weather. Mm-hmm.

And freezing cold. Fur coats. And Paul's just being bado do do do, do, bo, boo. Everything's flowing. Yeah. And I could see John and he's probably like either trying to stop doing heroin, which I think is true. Oh yeah. He's at a phase where he's either.

on heroin or trying to stop doing heroin. Right. Right. And he's got a lot of problems. Yeah. And he's just gone through this month of like trying to figure, showing up and trying to make this thing work. Yeah. And he's up there on the roof and you just, and he succeeds. He succeeds, but you see the struggle. And the fingers are, you see all the fingers on the IMAX screen are 12 feet, you know, long. And you just see how hard it must have been. and just looking over at your fucking guy. Who's just not a cat in the little tiptoe. It's a bit warm up here, isn't it?

Get a little tired of the song. I joke about Paul was like, he plays bass left-handed. He was like, he switches over. Oh, this is actually easier. Oh, man. That was so, it was like, it was like watching something like, I don't know, like a natural occurrence, like a tsunami or a hurricane. I had a weird feeling watching it because it's very long.

And there was a moment where I really felt like I was just that, like, not in a sort of. Submersive. I was like, oh, I'm not there. I'm actually not there. Yeah. Oh, just the little conversation, the way the sound was done. It was really insane. I just got, I was over in London and it was so not interesting.

but I was doing these shows and a guy who works for Peter Jackson who's a huge fan of On Cinema came to the show and he gave me the Blu-ray signed by Peter Jackson. Really? Very sweet. Now you've got to get a Blu-ray thing. I know. How long have you been doing on Cinema? 13 years.

Wow. We just shot our 16th season last weekend. Amazing. And still like, this is. There's nothing else that makes me cry, laughing. It's so funny. I did a thing with, do you know Mark Proch? You do know Mark Proch.

I do. He's on what we do in the shadows. And he's, oh, yeah. Kenny, the yo-yo guy. Your audience will know who he is. You know who he is. We were doing this thing on Sunday for this thing. I can't really give anything away, but it's sort of a public function.

And he was escorting me. me and he's sort of my like, like I'm Mo and he's curly in the relationship. And we were crying, laughing at what we were doing. And just breaking takes, ruining takes, heading to start over again. And everyone understood. Everyone knew, like, yeah, whatever you guys need to do. Because we get it. It's hysterically funny to us still.

It's really, you feel like children getting away with murder. That's some of my favorite. videos on YouTube is when you and Eric are watching yourselves and laughing. I know there is those videos. It's just so, I really, the joy that you're so happy watching the dumb shit that you made. So it's such a great, great thing. Well, you know, like the Steve Martin thing about like, I don't know how famous this is, but him trying to figure out the comedy he wanted to do was to find the, do the kind of comedy

that was the kind of comedy him and his friends would do when they were just sitting around and where you were laughing and you forgot what you were even laughing out. You didn't even know what was funny about it anymore and like, is there a way to like break that out into the third dimension

for other people to have? That's always been our thing. Yeah, so we're always the best audience for our stuff. And there's the key to that finding somebody, not even that you were looking, it seems to have happened, but the person that makes you laugh like that. Oh, yeah. And that you both then laugh at the similar things. Yeah. Like that's a, yeah. I mean, it's amazing. I've been so lucky. Everybody I've worked with has been, I've just been such a fan of. Yeah. Yeah. They're fans of mine. Right. You know, they're into what I'm

doing. Yeah. It's, we feed off each other. Yeah. Yeah, like those periods when you would work with Zach a lot. Yeah. I mean. Yeah. Yeah, we're just like, I can't believe. And you're just like, yeah. Or Will Forte, we did a lot with Will Forte on the show. Yeah. And we would write a very brief synopsis of what this is going to be. You know, we're just like, here is your, here are the rules and the boundaries.

Yeah. And have fun. And if you ever get lost, we'll help you. Right. And throw you some ideas. But he always would come in and be like, this was like therapy for me. Like he would come in because he would go real intense and dark and scream. just go nuts. Yeah, go nuts. But it was like, you know, supported in a way. It was controlled.

Yeah. But yeah, we're just like, oh, we're just coasting off this major talent here. Yeah. Or John Riley and, you know, people like that where you're just like. So good. We set, we gave them like the, the space to be as, you know, crazy as they want to be. Right. And they felt, they felt like comfortable being, doing that with us, you know. And just getting as crazy and weird. Yeah. But then you direct stuff, right? Like you direct commercials and things.

Yeah. Which are pretty more mainstream, but yours aren't really mainstream. They, do you feel like? Well, they are by the fact that they aired, they show up in like my daughter's YouTube feed. Right. But they're, yeah, they're, you know, I'm very grateful because it's been like a nice bridging the gap between projects or whatever. Yeah.

And, you know, you're a work for hire. It's a work for hire kind of thing. You're being asked to, you know, contribute, but this is not your baby or anything. So it's nice and it's fun to make stuff. It's fun to go to a set with cameras and lights. You'd be like, you know, this is neat. It's still neat, you know? Yeah, that's one of the things I always think about watching you guys is it seemed like you always were able to pull together.

what other people would just think of like, how did you get like people down to the beach and a crew and start and the giant glass and do that? And then you're doing music and you're cranking that out and then you're doing these commercials and doing that. Like you seem to mobilize a lot of crew. Yeah. Well, yeah. It's not a small thing. It's like no. It's gotten harder. There was a time I feel like 10 years ago when it was we were we had the engine of. the actual shows, you know, the TV shows to like keep everybody close and keep us on a schedule and the budget and all that stuff. Now it's a little more, you know, commercials are good and, but the smaller projects are like, they're, they're not self-funded, but they're independently funded and sometimes crowd-supported and that becomes harder. And then I get, you know, I get cast in a movie and I have to go to Arkansas for a month. Right. You know, it's hard to hold it all together.

It's harder, but. Yeah. Yeah. And having to get people that aren't like in your camp all the time. Yeah. And then everybody gets... Pull them from what they're doing. Yeah.

Everybody in our camp, you know, that's definitely the first or second generation of people that worked with us or for us in different, you know, editors and art people and stuff. Yeah. They've all prospered. They've all gotten great jobs doing other people. stuff. Yeah. You know. Yeah. So we're proud of that. But yeah, it's also like, I think you're the metabolism, creative metabolism slows a little bit. Do you not agree with that? I do. And I, no, and you have a great song about that. Yeah. Which one is that? Oh, Wells Running Dry. Yes. That is,

it's so great because it is about that thing you're talking about how it's it but there's even it comes through even in the music is that it's um it's not the narrator of this yeah you uh you get the idea this is an artist who's slowing down a little bit but still has it and is self-aware of it happening which means that things are intact anyway and it's going to change the way yeah He does things, but he's still always going to do things. Yes. Well, we're like, I mean, I'm sure you feel this way. We're kind of, we're lifers, right?

Right. We're not doing anything else. No, and there's no retirement idea. No. No. Or you're just going to keep going. No. Yeah. So we got to figure out different ways of doing it.

And like, yeah. I was at the Magic Castle for the first time last week. For the first time last week? I'd never been. Okay. And, yeah, people were always surprised that I'd never been. And it was my wife. Well, people are now only becoming surprised that you've never been there until last week.

This is a new development. Yeah, it is new. And there was a host, an emcee of the big show. And he was an older guy with a big belly and had a hat and Southern drawl. And he just stretched out one trick. Yeah, yeah. Right? Just patted it out.

Yeah. And my daughter, who's 20, turned to me when he was done. And she said, I just saw what your future is. Which is really pretty great. I was like, I respect that. Well, you said something earlier about your pad where you say, well, now I'm not so picky. And I noted that.

Like, what do you mean by that? You're not so picky about what you're writing. Oh, no, about how I'm writing. Oh, okay. I used to be restrictive of like I can only be in this pad. Right. I got to write like this and the computer doesn't work. And then I, at a certain point, got whatever it takes.

Right. on your phone and a pad. A little voice memo. On your computer. Right, right. Pages, Microsoft Word, whatever. I took that superstition, really, off of it. Do you set up time to do the organizing of that?

Or do you have to just, like, do you, do you schedule time for yourself to do that? Yeah. Yeah. That's a good idea. Yeah. Because, yeah, especially just with the act. Yeah. With, you know, I'm always out on tour and I'm always have like an hour,

10, 15, whatever act that I'm working on. It's constantly. Yeah. So it's always, yeah, taking from, this is boring. No, it's not to me. It comes from, uh, in my phone, yeah, this funny, which is just where I write down a thing, you know, a note. Your notes app? Yeah, in the notes app. Right. You have some of you have a, a note called funny. It's called funny. And it is just a list of bad ideas. Right, right. And that's like the, that's the crudest. part, right, is just an idea. And then I'll move them to the computer. I'll write them out in the pad. And then they're just, they're in a couple different

places. Right. And then they get put into new, which is paragraph form of like the new stuff that could now get into the act. And then there's one other file, which is the act. And if it gets pulled off the bench, it gets, it gets to go into that. So can I ask you one more question about this? Sure.

I love the detail, the weeds of this. Are when you're writing, are you writing it as you will say it then? Like in the conversational tone? Yeah. The language of what you'll say? Yeah, pretty much. It's interesting. Sometimes I'll look at the, you know, I don't look at it constantly, but like if I'm going

out that weekend, I'll look at it. And I'll look at a joke that's just been in there for a while. and it's changed. It's not written the way I say it now. Because it changes naturally when you're out there. Exactly. Exactly. Okay, moving on.

Yeah. I got it. I don't want to take too much of your secrets. I just wanted to say maybe I could read one thing from mine because I have, of course, have the same stupid folder. Are you happy I made you bread? Yeah, of course. Stand up, like these are just,

Colin Hanks, I've written down. I mean, I love puns, you know? So I was thinking, like, what if they're like casting directors are like, what should we do? I don't know, Colin Hanks. I'm like, all right, we'll get Tom on the phone. As if they're saying call in Tom Hanks. Like, no, I'm saying Colin Hanks. Who?

Oh. Okay. Call in Hanks. He says Colin Hanks. Yeah, let's call in Hanks. That just made me laugh. That is funny. But if I didn't write that down, there's no way I would have remembered that.

And I might not do anything with that. And it's not, I'm not proud of that joke. Yeah, but you laughed. So maybe there's something to it. It is something to it. But in the context of like five other things like that. Yeah. So you do, I do have to be, where we, you do have to write shit down because it will just get lost. Yeah. No, absolutely. I yeah, there's so many times. Sometimes I'll, my daughter said something funny and I didn't write it down. I think it was at the Magic Castle. and I didn't write it down. And I had to replay at the end of the night where we were, what the conversation was.

What was that line that she gave me? And she said that the food at the Magic Castle, because you have to eat dinner there before you go into the thing. And she said the pasta at the Magic Castle was worse than anything she's had at Goofy's Kitchen. There's something else here now, something new. From exclusively on Paramount Plus. It's the series Stephen King calls Scary as Hell. Everything here is impossible, but it's also real. Sci-fi vision calls it the best show streaming right now.

We're running out of time and we still don't know the rules. Don't miss what the movie blog calls something you need to watch. Saving those children is how we all go home. From binge all episodes exclusively on Paramount Plus. Yeah. And it was like, but it took me all night to cut it. I should have just written it down. Right, right.

Just to save it. But it was funny. Can I ask you a question? Yeah, yeah. That's what's what I'm here to do. Do you have to be a stoner to make stoner content? No, I don't think so. I'm not.

I don't, I've not, not that I'm fully, I don't really smoke weed. I have in the past, but it's not like. Wasn't your thing. It wasn't really my thing. Yeah. It doesn't sit well with me. And yet you made stuff that. made stoners very happy for years.

Yeah, yeah, I guess so. The people always tell me that. Yeah. And we didn't, we laughed without any kind of substance going on. But it was trippy. It was, a lot of it was sort of making fun of trippy things, more than tripping things itself. Right, right.

But, yeah, we feel like you could enjoy it on or off the stuff. Right, right. That's good. Have you heard from Bill Maher? No. What's your relationship with Bill Maher? I don't have one. I'll tell you my relationship with Bill Maher.

Really? Let me tell you. We went to the same high school. Oh, my God. He's probably 50 years older than I. I was going to say. But we went to the same high school. And the one time I met him, I was hosting some show.

And I was like, pass. Saskatch Hills. Right. We went to the thing. He was like, okay. And you were established as a comedian? Yeah, I was hosting the show on television that he was on. And he was just like, really?

And he really just blew me off. And I was like, oh, that was mean. I thought we were, I mean, if anybody said to me, like when you came in and you're like, John, our editor, you're like, yeah, I went to that school too. Oh, you know, you go, oh, cool. Yeah, just a little something. Hopefully it dies there. doesn't keep going.

He's not a good answer for your email on the way out. I won't know. Yeah. But yeah, he was really very, very dismissive. I did hear from, because we did, if the context here is I did a parody of his club random show. Oh. And with Fred Armisen. Yeah.

And I love that you didn't do it for five minutes. No, we did it for an hour. And it was so good. But yeah. And I just found. I was like, oh, I didn't really know I had a take on him until he did that club random show. Whereas I couldn't believe I'd dismissive and kind of arrogant. I guess it was always there on the HBO show, but to really see it in stark relief in his basement or wherever that is.

And just the smoking of his joints and the touching of things. It was very like specific really bothered me. It really angered me. Right. And I just thought, oh, we could do a really. really good parody of this, you know. So good. Fred is the best, he's one of my

really good friends and like just a great improviser and a great dialer iner of awkwardness and subtlety. Soutilty. And also genuinely such a nice guy that was like, you just have to be yourself.

Right. Let's just see where this goes. But it came out and we dressed it up just like his plays and everything. And then I heard months later. Yeah. The camera, yeah, all of you think about it, these like, because you guys have these neat little stationary cameras, but it looks like they just literally put them behind a column, you know,

without realizing that you can't see through columns. Yeah, there's like a bottle. What are you guys doing? Yeah. And, but I did hear through the grapevine, somebody that worked for him or worked for, they said, like, when that hit, he was fucking pissed. Really? And was like, who is this Tim Heidecker? Did you see that?

What the fuck is that about? You know, like really neat. Really? And that just goes to show you, like, you know, look it. You know, if you're that level, like, and you're doing something that distinctive, somebody's going to goof on it. Yeah, exactly. I'd be kind of touched in a way.

Yeah. If you're a comic, you're going to laugh at yourself. Yeah, but he'd see, like. Unless you're not. He doesn't, yeah. Unless it's not funny. He did that, he had that guy who's that Matt Friend, is that his name? He does the impressions.

Yeah. And he does a Bill Mar to Bill Maher and Bill Maher and Bill Ma'am, that doesn't sound like me. Oh, yeah. I've seen that guy. Shut out. I know, exactly. Just roll with it. Yeah.

What are you hanging on to? What is this thing you think that you're hiding that all of us see? Yeah. Weird. Oh, Fred was so good in it because you would say things that were so obnoxious. Mm-hmm. And then he had such a real response of just thinking about it. Yeah.

Oh. Like I think he was, because Fred doesn't drink. And I was like, come on. You're not going to have like one. drink? Like, is it that big a deal? You're so sanctimonious. You're like, I don't know. Like, you know, that's such a hard thing for me to like to push because it's so unreasonable to push somebody to drink who doesn't drink. Yeah. And at one point, I think he says something like, well, there's some people, well, there's some people that can't drink. He's like, no, I don't buy

that either. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Oh, come on. Yeah. The early one that you did with, uh, just just on office hours just of talking about about when Jeff Ross was on the show Oh my God The clove cigarette It's not weed It's a clove cigarette

I feel bad for Jeff Ross Just look like I'm sorry I'm your guest And you're treating me like shit Am I in trouble? Or he goes Oh you what does Jeff say He likes some band

You like punk rock That's what he goes I like punk You like really You like punk rock That is the worst music. I'm like, all right, grandpa. Like, it's so embarrassing.

He likes, I like Green Day. Right. That's about as punk as I get. No, Bill, you shouldn't be saying any of this in public. He's really embarrassing, man. I only like... He likes the sex, that's what he's... Jeff Rob's like, I like the sex pistol.

Right. And he's like, mm, no, sex pieces are terrible, actually. You're wrong. Green Day is where it's at. He said, Something about, about gun. Do you have a gun? And Jeff's like, no, I don't have a gun.

Well, that's stupid. Look, as a comedian, you don't want a couple of comedians laughing at you like us, right? Right. I mean, that's not a good sign. No, exactly. And if he laughed at your thing and was in on it. Right. And, you know, we're not even having the conversation.

That's like a chicken or egg thing. Because then if he's that kind of guy, probably wouldn't have made that in the first place. Right. It wouldn't have gotten to that point. Oh, what a treat. What a treat. Office hours is great. Thank you.

You really kind of evolved that thing. It's got such a nice feel to it. Thanks. I mean, I appreciate that. We started, I started just doing it myself on Facebook Live, like eight years ago. When Facebook Live just came out, it was like you could go live. And I thought of it as like a radio station, you know, like you could just broadcast. and talk and people would listen and write.

So I did that for a few years. And then we just, once the pandemic hit, it was like, there's nothing else to do. Yeah. Let's set this up in my garage and do it with my friends. And yeah, it does feel like it doesn't get the numbers that, you know, some of the other big boys get. Right. It does. I was always such a fan of early lettermen.

Mm-hmm. and even Carson to some degree where it felt like this isn't rehearsed and this isn't that well thought out. Well, it is. That's not to say it. It is well thought out. But there's a sense of chaos to it. Right. I mean, Howard Stern for sure, where it's just like you feel like you're getting to hang out with some people for a couple hours.

Yeah. And there's not a lot of structure to it. But you do have, it seems like you do have mile markers that you want to hit. Yeah. Yeah. we have a loose plan. Yeah. We do have a weekly meeting to talk about what's going to be the show, you know.

It's great. Kyle, I know this will air later, but Kyle Mooney is going to come by again tomorrow for me. And we always just kind of have this awkward, intentionally awkward, uncomfortable, you know, play that we do that's been going on and on. He does a great job on there. Yeah. It really is like, what are you doing? Like growing up watching Charles Grotin when he would come up. on Letterman or Carson, you're like, I can't wait because this is going to be, I don't know what

they've got cooked up, but they're going to get into some weird stuff, you know, and not to sound like Carson himself by saying that. No, but it is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It just has these personalities there that you want to check in with. Totally.

And they all have their own thing. And it's, yeah, it's really evolved into this. It's really cool to look at. Like I never, this is why I always say this is why show business works so well is that I would never say that was in your garage. Like in my mind watching it, you're in a cool place somewhere in California. Yeah. It's a little bit of looking behind.

If you went there, you'd be like, oh, this is really small. Which is what happened when I went to the, I never had been on the Howard Stern show, but I went to the studio there because people there are fans of ours and I visited. And it's the thing where you walk in there, oh my God, this is it? Right. This is the space? Yeah. This is crazy.

And I don't know. The illusion. I always think those late night shows, I know they're going through some tough times right now. Yeah. But it's like you don't need the infrastructure of those shows anymore. And I can't bear to watch them, you know. No, I know. From an audience perspective, it just feels like very dead.

Yeah. If I can have somebody like Kyle or somebody like Zach or Bob, anybody that I have a good, you know, back and forth with. Yeah. And they can come in and there isn't this structure of like, well, we got to go with, thanks for being here five minutes, you know. Yeah. And do you have a quick story? We got it because we can make it quick. Yeah.

Talking like two producers. Yeah. Before you get out. So I hope, I don't know. I hope people just go, well, we, you know, it's a podcast, but I'm like, I always say it's a TV show. Calm down. You know, it's like it's on YouTube and it's a TV show. It's a TV show for sure.

Yeah. No, it's great. It really is so good. Do you remember Uncle Floyd? I know the name. I think it was before my time. Yeah. He was on UHF on a television set.

Oh, really? In the Jersey area? New York area? Yeah. Yeah. And it was so like low budget stuff, but he treated it. There was a respect that he had for the forum. Right.

But he had zero money. Yeah. And he just had this funny puppet. I'm sure it's on you. Was it for kids or for adults? No, it's for adults. Right. But it was just weird.

And it was, you just wanted to show, like, you know, Demento or something. Like, you want to go because it's going to be surprising. It's not going to be that. Yeah, and ours is live. It airs live. So there is a total, there are things that go wrong. There are calls that go not the way we want them to. Yeah.

You know, like last week I was doing it. And I really lost my temper with the guys. Because my boys, Doug and Vic, play drops throughout the whole show. They make sound effects and they say, and they're like children, you know, in the best possible way, but also in sort of like they're, they're, you know, ADHD or whatever is sometimes they're a little trigger happy sometimes. Yeah, I'm very proud of themselves too. Yeah. Yeah. They're very quick.

They're very good at it. Yeah, they are. But sometimes it's not where I'm at and I'm getting it blasted. And I was trying to tell some story. Yeah. And it probably wasn't the best story. Uh-huh. It was probably about my transition lenses or something.

And they hit me with the snore sound effect, you know? And I really, Tom, I wanted to go home. I wanted to, you know what I mean? I was home because it was in my garage. This is funny. I was like, all right. I don't like being here right now. And it was live and I was kind of stuck because I was just like.

So yeah, the other thing I like about is there's a little tension there. There's a lot of love, but there's also this feeling of like, people are like, when is Tim going to actually turn around and punch Vic in the nose because of the snore sound effects? And who's the other guy with the red mic? Matt, our producer. Matt, I've known since college, and he's like one of my oldest close, basically a family

member. And he doesn't really, he had done some radio and stuff, but I just asked him to come in and figure this shit out. Yeah. because I was doing it on my own. Yeah. And he's become a big part of the show, too. Yeah.

He has a good persona of maybe I'm a fan of the show. Maybe I'm not. Yeah, yeah. He's trying to just get out of here on time, you know? Yeah, really funny. It is a weird, it is a strange thing when you talk to the numbers of the big boys kind of thing. Yeah. It seems like it seems like so all over.

There's no way to make sense of. I know. Of things. Well, I mean, with Rogan, obviously, being the top guy there, I always think, is anyone, has anyone listened to an ending of one of those shows? Right. Like, who was the time in like, three hours? I think a lot of that maybe it was just like that sort of second screen background,

like it's on while you're doing things. Right, right. And then that sort of, you get that in the algorithm and stuff. Right. Who knows? I mean, I know he's got a massive audience and the, you know, you can fill the, the Madison Square Garden with these people and stuff. Yeah.

But maybe there's some, maybe it's going to change, turn or change. I was very happy with Maren. You know, I mean, geez, like, I love Mark and... He's been killing it. Know him quite well over the years. And just this little warpath he's been on the podcast. Because he's been so articulate. Yeah, he's good and he's passionate about it.

He's like a lifer for this, this vocation that we have. here and it's just like very, uh, no, burning the bridges down or whatever. Maybe he's not. I don't know. He's just like being very candid about how he feels about the state of things. Yeah. It's nice to have somebody out there doing that. Yeah, it was really very, uh, very refreshing. Yeah. Very on the nose, you know. Would you do the Riyadh Comedy Festival? That's the, that's the, that's fast. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. Yeah, I only know it from your show. Oh. It was like they threw, they must have thrown big money.

Yeah. At these guys to go tell jokes in Rion. Yeah. But you do get like you do, you do, I'm sure you do corporate gigs and like, and I don't have no, you know, no judgment at all. You have to say no to some things. You would have to say no to that probably, right? Yeah.

Yeah. A hundred percent. No, there's, uh. But there's a people on that list are, you're like. Whoa. Well, there's a, there is a, the big picture I see of all this stuff of the podcasts with the president and, yeah. And those kind of things is I kept saying they've been seduced. Yeah. They've been seduced.

Yeah. Because I knew all of them before saying, right. No, no, no, never. And then when it came around, it was the promise of big numbers. Yeah. And holy shit stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

And. And you get seduced by it. Yeah. You know? And then you probably convince yourself that it's okay. Right. Yeah. You paint your own thing.

And now to see it on the other end of it where they're all going, oh, I didn't sign up for this part. Right. I didn't think they were going to do this. Yeah. They're arresting people in Home Depot? Wait, what? You said the files were going to come out.

Now they're not. Yeah. I mean, I didn't vote for this. No, you did. Right. And you gave it a platform. Yeah. And to say that you didn't see it coming, that's ridiculous.

Either means, disingenuous. Yeah. If it's true, then it's, well, you're not that bright. Yeah. And if you are trying to bend it because it was self-serving, you know, I get. It's despicable too. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It was very, it was very kind of upsetting. But do you run into that in out there doing, doing the road and like working clubs? Like, are you running into guys that are kind of have crossed over into that world and then are like kind of being just a surface polite? But I don't know, I guess in one regard. And like the performers or the audience? You do like the comedy store.

And then let's say you run into like somebody that you would say ideologically, you feel like have crossed the line. And you just try not to get it. It's like talking to your uncle who's a. Right. Maga guy. Right. I'm not really going to get into the details.

Exactly. How are you? Yeah. You're hot, right? How was traffic? Yeah, you've been on the road? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, no, it's... Because you have to live in the world. Yeah. You have to behave like a normal person. Yeah. And it's like this very weird thing. Like, that's kind of the impressive thing about Mark is that he's kind of articulating what I've been trying to kind of figure out.

Like, it's happening in real time and you're like, yeah. It seems like this weird kind of... thing in comedy, which is so bizarre. And not to say that people can't have different points of view and different values and stuff, but when you see it being kind of exploited and being used by those people, like they clearly were strategically using those guys to seize power. Absolutely.

And you see people at the top, you know, doing it and getting results. And then you have a bunch of acolytes that. start mimicking it. Yeah. And then all of a sudden it seems like a movement. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? But yeah, but I think that's, I don't think it sustains because it's, I think, I don't

think comedy is built that way. Yeah. I think comedy is built on whether it's funny or not. Yeah, yeah. And if you keep making people laugh and they show up. Right. If you keep preaching, you've seen like other comics, like on, and on other side of the aisle, know, once they start preaching, it gets pretty tiresome.

Yeah. You know what I mean? I'm very political, I guess, on the social media. And sometimes on office hours, I will talk about what I think. But I always feel like with the social media, it's like, this is just this free thing that I am using. Yeah. Right. Right.

This is not to be considered my work. Right. Because like, my work is, I hope you will, is what I hope you will pay for at some point. you know, like, like, it's not like, if I'm going to post something about, you know, an anti-ice raid or something like that, it's like, don't treat this as like, well, you don't, you're not, why have you stopped being funny? Right. Why did you give up comedy? I wasn't trying to be funny when I said, stop bringing tanks on my street. Yeah, this is just like my personal page that you can ignore or don't follow me. I don't know. Yeah.

But, yeah, I try not to be preachy, but sometimes it's hard to ignore all this stuff going on. It's very overwhelming. It's really overwhelming. And, you know, when people say, like, you know, stay in your lane or do whatever or entertainers, if you say something, you're going to lose 50% of your audience. Right. That old way of thinking was, I think, valid at one point. But what we're going through now is unprecedented. Right. You know, that you have the scariest part of it to me at the moment is that you have these troops that you're going to put on the ground in cities. Yeah, yeah.

In American cities. Yeah. And they do that in D.C. Yeah. And, you know, from. being here that the response is so out of whack for what's happening on the ground. But the rest of the country buys it and thinks, well, you live in L.A., what's it like? And it's like, no, no, no.

So you know the same thing's happening in D.C. Yeah, yeah. The scary part recently is that so these other states are sending their troop to D.C. Yeah. And when I was, when in earlier days, when people would say, would there would be civil war in the United States. I always said, no, because these guys are going to start trouble against what, the government. Yeah, the government's going to stop that. Yeah, drop a B-52. I never thought, and what seems, what scares me about these movements now is that, oh, I never thought that the government would

start it. Yeah. That's scary. Yeah. That those, that they're the ones that are, so you're all going to send troops here and then garner a response from people. Yeah, yeah. And you're going to do it in different cities. And they're going to react at some point. Sure. And then where are we? There's going to be an activist movement that is going to form and protest and as they should. And then you've got... Well, I mean, and you could, I always say this because I, I'm on the road a lot and you're on the road a lot. We can attest, I think you and I can both attest that out there in the world, everything's not terrible. No. Like, not to say that there are problems and there's wealth inequality and there are people that should, you know, there's lots of problems. Yeah.

But these cities across America are, there's like people going to lunch, getting coffee, walking into their offices, driving around, going to movies, living their lives. Living their lives all over the country. I know. Especially in the big cities, the perception that somebody in, you know, central Florida has about New York City has got to be so out of whack from the reality that it's, they'll make your head spin. And, like, I was, you know, I was there last, in the spring. And it's like, oh, my God, this place is like killing it right now. Everyone's out. Everyone's happy.

Yeah. There's people in the park. I know. You know, and is there homelessness? Yes, of course. There are problems. There's crime. That's always going to be the case.

Right. Right. But anywhere you go, I've been so many cities that where you're like, oh, man, Portland. I wish they could figure out the homeless problems. problem and I wish they could do this. I wish this could be better. But at the same time, restaurants are full, people are shopping, people are going to the farmers market. So far from, we have to put troops in there. Troops. Troops on our streets. The fucking troops out of there. In our streets. Send them home. I knew this was bullshit when the first, during the

first Trump administration, he was going off about Portland. Yeah. And how it was, this is right after a war zone. A war zone. Yeah. On fire. I burned it to the ground. Right? Yeah. And my daughter and I had plane tickets to go do my first spot out of COVID at Helium. Yeah. Comedy Club.

And we were like, do we go? It seems like it's on fire. Yeah. And I said, you know what? We should go. Yeah. Let's go see. Right.

Let's go. Yeah. And we were going crazy being in our house anyway. So we went and she needed a haircut. Yeah. And we got there. And you can only get that in Portland. And Tim, within 20 minutes, we're at a food truck eating tacos.

Yeah. Yeah. And there's all these beautiful people and they're coming to the show. Yeah. And there was protests on two blocks around City Hall. And the rest was just trying to get along with their lives. Yeah, yeah. And to impose from the outside some other narrative,

it could end up being really dangerous to people. So from that point on, I realized the power of, you know, and we were watching the news nonstop because we were in COVID. Now that it's all been out and whatever, there's still people. Yeah, yeah. That are watching the news 24-7. Sure. And the way that you can control them is pretty scary.

Well, I remember like just the other earlier this year with the fires in L.A., you know, I was driving my three or four days after the fires, I was driving my dad back to the airport. And if you would have, if you didn't watch the news for a week, you would have not known anything happened. Right. Just from Glendale to L.A.X. You just looked around and it was just like just another Sunday in the Southland. And that's not the perception that was, and it was terrible for many, many people.

It was tragic. But yeah, these are big places with lots of complicated levels of things going on. It does not warrant the National Guard on any level. It's absurd. And we all know what's going on. He just wants, he's addicted to violence and power and control. And he's seeing how much you can get away with and testing the limits. And that's why it's unprecedented.

And it's like, so it feels like if you don't, Mark saying stuff, I was thinking about this last night, Mark's saying stuff, you know, you always get to the thing of like, should you ever say anything. Right. And there's a lot of self-censoring going on now because people are scared to say things. And is there value in a comedian saying something? Well, if this guy says something and then more other people start parroting it. and then more people keep saying it. And then eventually everybody's saying it. And then eventually it's called to light and then change can happen. Yeah. So there is a real value in it.

Yeah. Oh, you're saying Mark Marin. Yeah. Yeah. Or anybody that's going to speak. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

No, that's why I try to be open about how I feel about it on these kind of things because it does provide a little oxygen for other people to feel like it's okay. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, this is supposed to be, all of these efforts are supposed to rise us all up. Yes. This is, we do live in one, this is our house. Yeah, yeah. The United States is we all live here.

Yeah. This isn't about, I'm going to succeed by you being devastated. Right. This is supposed to be, you fight and you have a more conservative idea and a liberal idea, and they're too far and they balance each other out. Hopefully this is also. So our kids can go to school and just be happy little creatures. Yeah, it's a great, great chunk of land here.

That element of the togetherness to try and make it know is the thing that's been lost. It would be a shame if we broke it. Yeah. Yeah. It's, you know, when I tour and, yeah, they just want to enjoy themselves. Yeah, I feel like, and people give me crap for that too about like, oh, it's nice out there. Because, again, I understand that there are inequities and problems out there. and things could be better, but it is not, there's no invasion.

That's what, it kills me. There's no invasion of any, there's, you know, there are drugs in the streets, of course. Were there drugs in the streets in the 70s? Seemed like it. Yeah. Were they, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

There are problems, but again, yeah. And there are communities that are up against it that are suffering more. Yeah. But the way to help them is to help them. Yeah. Yes. That's the crime is, you know, they're going into DC and they're, you know, arresting homeless people and stuff.

It's like, you broke these windows, right? That's right. You cause this problem. You like fix it. We caused this problem. Fix it through like, you know, creating affordable housing and reasonable wages. Yeah. And strong unions, you know, and a support, a safety net.

So people, you know, it's like all these problems can be solved. But they're not going to be solved by some fucking weekend warrior National Guard dude. who's, you know, on too much, you know, sterolids or whatever. Yeah. The weakest of the week. Yeah. The people who are suffering. Some of the videos are sick, you know, just sick the way they're just, you could feel

them. And I've seen a few of these that, have you seen this video? This guy, there's like a bunch of these seem like newly deputized guys walking through a train station. And one of these guys doesn't seem like he'd be passing any physicals anytime soon. If you catch my drift. He's a little bit too much... A little big dude?

Too much bread. Yes. And like, I think he's like in sweatpants. And he's like, but he's wearing one of those tactical vests that is not closing properly, you know. And it's like, the goons are going to be coming out of the woodwork, you know, that are like thirsty for... Yeah, let's go kick some ass. Yeah. And spooky.

These are the, I mean, you know, you see these people that are just, you know, the weakest of the, of us all. Yeah. And to not have compassion for them is just sick. It's just sick. And, you know, any time that this happens throughout history, you don't, no one looks back and says, oh, that worked. That was a good time. When we went after those people that didn't speak English and we beat the crap out of them or we chase the Jews or whatever. It's never looked as like, oh, that, that worked.

Yeah, yeah. It's, yeah. You want to hear the funniest thing I just heard on. I'd love to hear something funny. Yeah. Well, it's about Hitler. Oh, good. I'm a big history buff, and I was watching this history interview about the last 48 hours of Hitler.

Oh, yeah. I'm, are you familiar with all that? It's fascinating, the bunker. Yeah, what are the, the orgies going on? Oh, really? And not with Hitler, but like just the staff and everybody. And Hitler knew, you know, him and Ava Braun, decided they were going to kill each other. They were going to kill themselves, and they got married, and then they took cyanide and shot themselves, and he shot him.

himself in the temple. Funny so far, right? Hilarious. But the plan was he wanted to be burned out in the garden because he didn't want the Russians to get the body. And he didn't want to be torn apart like Mussolini or anything like that. So they had a plan to get their bodies out into the garden out above, which had been shellacked with artillery and bombs and everything from the Russians because the Russians are like 500 yards away. And he, they get him up there and they get some, some gasoline. They siphoned from a car, like his assistants or his secretaries or whatever. And they burn the body, probably not all the way because they don't have that much gasoline. And then they go back in. And they come back later.

And in the meantime, the bodies had been burnt, but then had also been bombed. A bomb at like wily coyote. Yeah, exactly. And so like, They're just like this mess of body parts in this crater. And it feels like, you know, the end of the naked gun where the guy falls over and the things running over, the marching band comes over. It's like, that's where you end up when you pull these moves. You know. Right, exactly. You're shot in the head, burned and bombed.

And then an elephant sits on you. Oh, yeah, hopefully it'll clear out. I can't sustain. Are you really friends with Kurt Vile? Yeah. Not the old 30s playwright songwriter. The Philadelphia. The cool Philadelphia songwriter?

Yeah, I am. He's great. Oh, yeah. I love him. Like Kurt stayed at my house when he was making his new album. Oh, really? Oh, man. He's cool.

Who else are you friends with that's cool like that? Can we go through my phone? It's like the Chris Farley? Yeah. Oh, that's so cool. Funny. Are these things funny? Okay.

Farts. When my kids do them, yeah. We stayed away from farts on Tim and Eric. We went right to diarrhea. I think diarrhea is the funniest thing ever. Funny than farts. The word itself, the pain that you experience when you have it. Where you end up?

Yeah. Fat guys falling down. Anybody falling down. Fat guys getting up. Definitely, yeah. Monty Python. Oh, yeah. Ernest.

From the camp movies? Yeah. I don't probably, maybe not. I don't think so. Yeah. I don't think that stays. We had a funny thing on office hours where I was wondering if there's anyone's had sexual fantasies about Ernest.

If there's any woman that thought of herself has burned. I'd say yes. Okay. Do you remember your dreams? Oh, yes. You do? Yeah. I mean, like, they fade then. You know, I don't remember them, right? A lot of plane crashes.

Oh, yeah? Not a lot, but. When you're on planes or just in? No, just like the other night, I was like on a plane. I was like, oh, fuck, here we go. When I'm on a plane and fall asleep, I sometimes have dreams that were like street level. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right?

Yeah. You get that? Yeah, those are weird. Yeah. Going like through a bridge, like, should we be doing this? Totally. Yeah, those are weird. Do you ever have dreams come true?

Like, small dreams, like, oh, the green grapes. No. That kind of thing. No. Not that I remember, no. Yeah. Sorry. I can do it.

It's all right. It's all right. Manifesting. Yeah. What is scarier to you? A dark city alleyway? or a cabin in the woods? Geez.

I probably would go with a cabin in the woods. Yeah. Too isolating. Yeah. Mosquitoes. RBC Training Ground has discovered potential in over 20,000 Canadian athletes and counting. Your story could be next.

If you've got the drive, they'll help you find your path to the Olympics. Let's see what you've got. Sign up for free at rbc training ground. See ya. Mosquitoes are coming. Yeah. We never had mosquitoes here in L.A.

I know. Now the past few years, they're getting me every, on the ankles, the ankle biters. Yeah. They're the worst. Yeah.

You don't hear them or see them. You just start itching. Yeah. Yeah. Son of a bitch. Yeah. I mean, both seem pretty scary to me. Yeah.

Yeah. Tell me about your tour. What's going on with your tour? No tour. Aren't you touring? Aren't you doing gigs? I'm doing this stuff this weekend. Oh, just this weekend.

This probably isn't coming out. Right. Yeah. Right. I think, no, nothing to promote. Do you like to tour with a band? I love it. You do?

I love it. I think I'll probably have to take a break for a while, though. Yeah. I think it kind of got oversaturated, as they say. There was a dip this last tour. Too much Tim? Maybe. Yeah.

People get things. It happens, right? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you got to space it out. You got to space it out and pick your spots. I think we'll probably do it. We did on cinema in London last year. I'm sorry, not last year, like three weeks ago.

And that was crazy. We played at this great, you just got to do this theater, the Soho Theater in Wathamstow. It's brand new. Oh, yeah. It's an old, like, classic Victorian 900 cedar, but all new facility, like a new stage, new sound, backstage, beautiful. Wow. And we did three shows.

Nice. Pretty much sold out. Wow. And that show's very niche and very specific. But it felt over there, it felt like we were like doing a mainstream comedy show. Really? It was a, you know, a great, just laughs where they're supposed to be. Yeah.

You know, like, it's just very rewarding feeling. That's so great. So I think we'll probably do a U.S. tour next year of that. Oh, that'd be great. It's really fun. That's really good. Do you go overseas a lot? I try to go overseas like once a month. Oh, wow. That's a lot. Is that a lot? That seems like a lot. Over to seize candy at the Americana. I go overseas, over to the seas.

They give you a free sample. I go overseas. I'm going to use that now, Tom. I go overseas. I go overseas candy. It's good. Colin Hanks. Yeah. your music is really great. I'd like to see you guys live. Oh, yeah. Well, we are playing at the lodge room this Friday, but I'm sure this will air some other time. Well, screw them. Is there one that's more satisfied? Where's your head at now? You do from the outside. You're creating a lot of stuff all the time.

Yeah. What are you creating the most of now? Is it office hours? Office hours are the most steady gig in terms of we really have committed to this. like once a week thing. Yeah. Even if I'm shooting something, we find a way to zoom me in or, you know, figure it out. The On Cinema World will never end, it feels like. Yeah.

There's no reason for it to end. It feels like it's this alternate reality of my life, this character is just on this journey. Yeah. But we're able to do those, like we do a season in a weekend. A whole season? Yeah. How many is that? Ten.

Uh-huh. But we, it takes us a while to write it and come. come to the place we're ready to do that weekend, you know? So every year we'll try to do that. That's great. Other little things in that world. Nice. Have you written a book? Not yet.

Not yet. Hmm. A book? Like a non-fiction book. A pop-up. Yeah. Coloring book. Eric and I put out a book about five or six, seven years ago or something.

No, more than that. Oh, yeah. The zone theory. It's like a self-help. book? You'd love that. I'll try to get you. I would love that. That would be great. You know about that book? Yeah. Yeah. It's like, they got rid of it?

No, I didn't. We put a thing in the beginning of that book that it's for men only. It's like a self-help book for men and women aren't allowed to buy it. That's great. That's really limited the amount of copies we could sell. Oh, fine. Yeah, there's some talk of book. I'm doing here I'll promote something specific.

Okay. That might not make sense at first, but Mark Proach, who I mentioned earlier, and Greg Turkington, yeah. Who I do on cinema with, who you know is Neil Hammer. For over 10 years, we've had a text thread going. That is, it is, if it is truly the funniest thing in my life that I've ever been a part of. Yeah. It is the thing that like at the end of the night, I'll be in bed and in the middle of it and be like

crying and my wife is like, what is, are you with Mark and, are you off with Mark and Greg now, you know? And it's very wrong and raunchy and not public, you know? Yeah. Yeah. But we've amassed like thousands of these. Amazing. And there's always these little, there's always these little stories that kind of have a middle, beginning, middle and end, you know, and they kind of peter out. Yeah. And so we put it out in 2020, we put out like a little bit of it as like a book, a e-book, called Marion's Wish. And it's the short version, we're trying to get Mark.

It's always Greg and I trying to get Mark to do something. And I think this was to meet the granddaughter of Mo Howard. And then it turned into this, like sending nude pictures of Mark to her and this funeral that he had to arrange for her and seeing the dead corpse of Mo Howard and the proof. You know, it gets really dark and gross. Well, we have like thousands of these.

Amazing. And we said, why don't we put them out as like a weekly serialized newsletter, essentially. Substack. Like a substack. We're not doing substack because they're Nazis apparently now. So we found this other thing called ghost, but you'll basically sign up for this thing. And every week you're going to get a new little short story from us.

That's from the archives. That's cool. And so we've got this 2000 page document. We're now going through from back to 2013. Yeah. We're going through and going, this is the one where I said Mark should be in a Ken Burns documentary about hair. And where does this go?

And how many times do we say things we should get arrested for? Are you pulling things out? We're trying to figure out what the line is. Yeah, yeah. Because there are some things that really you don't have it if you don't have this element to it. Yeah, yeah. But we hope people will be just open-minded to the, no, this isn't real. Yeah.

We're not advocating for anything. Yeah. Or making fun of anything particular. It's just this abuse of this guy that we're using. So that we love. Yes. Lazzangue sur-goled, Pucance-Moyerned for 15 minutes.

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