Breaking Bread with Tom Papa - Episode 3 - Duncan Trussell

Episode Date: May 26, 2020

Tom breaks bread with the hilarious Duncan Trussell. While becoming fast friends, Duncan talks about the spiritual act of sharing food and his love of Southern Rice. Watch Duncan's new show The Midnight Gospel streaming on Netflix. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hey, don't you know, it's also a show. Hey! Hey, everybody, welcome to another edition of Breaking Bread with Tom Papa. I'm very excited because on this episode, I break bread with the very funny comedian, Duncan Trussle. Hilarious. I really love this guy, and our comedy paths are just starting to cross recently. We've known of each other for a long time, but this was a really great opportunity to sit down and really get to know Duncan.

You probably know him from his podcast, The Duncan Trussell Family Hour, as many appearances on Joe Rogan. He also has this amazing new show streaming on Netflix right now called The Midnight Gospel. If you like trippy, colorful, hilarious, yet smart shows, I think I just described some of the something that doesn't really exist until now. The Midnight Gospel with Duncan Truzzle. It's so great. I really, I really, really highly, highly recommend it. So I got to bring Duncan some bread, some of my homemade bread,

and he gave me some of his beautiful grapefruits from his tree. We did a little swap, and then we got a chance to lay down this podcast together. So great. Really got to explain. a lot of great stuff, how he grew up, what he ate, where he came from, and what's made him such a delight. He really is. I really, really like him a lot. And this podcast just confirmed not only what I was thinking about Duncan that we are going to be fast friends, but also confirmed the whole concept for this podcast, which sit, break bread with somebody,

share your stories. You get to know them in a brand new way. So enjoy it. This is the great Duncan Trussell. Well, this is very exciting because I have to say, as we are friendly, and we know of each other, there's, we, we're not friends yet. No. But I will say that we've had this little flurry of interaction over the short period when you came up my radio show. and then through Joe when you jumped on his show and then you sent me to Midnight Gospel, your new show on Netflix, and then we started texting back and forth. And, you know, there are just times in your life when you meet people and you're like, oh, no, we're going to be friends.

That's what I thought. Thank you for saying that. Thank you for saying that. Because, you know what, you get that feeling when you're afraid to articulate it. You're afraid to say it because you don't want to sound, I don't want to sound like a jerk or a weirdo. Or, you know, I think we're going to be friends, man. But that's exactly what I thought. But it's not, but this kind of thing is not just where you think, oh, I think we're going to be friends.

It's even weird for me. It's weirder than that because you're like, we're already friends. I know. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. That's exactly where I'm at. And I was like, I don't want to just keep texting him because he's going to think I'm a weirdo.

But I think what we've both established is we are weirdos and thinking each other as the weirdos probably going to be the best way to go. That's the best way. for sure to go. Weirdos. Definitely weirdos. And yeah, man, thank you again for that bread. I really appreciate it.

That's a really sweet thing to get. And, you know, it's a wonderful, it's wonderful to just for someone to show up at your house with bread. It's old school. Wonderful. Yeah. Well, I'm glad. I'm happy to do it. And it was actually, it was funny because I was thinking about it.

You know, when we'll do this show again, when we can actually sit. and actually eat bread together and drink wine and cheese and whatever else we're going to do. But I wanted to get you bread before we actually talk. And I was like, I was thinking like, does my wife think I'm crazy that I'm like, I've got a podcast. I've got to deliver bread. And I like run off into the car and take off. And she must be thinking, well, he used to be a comedian. He used to be.

And now he's making bread deliveries. But I have to say every single time, it's worth it. It's always a good thing to do. When I started stand-up comedy and I was like trying to figure out like, should I go to this horrible open mic or should I go to this thing? And somebody, Darryl Hammond actually gave me from Saturday Night Live gave me great advice. He said, always go. Something good always happens when you go. And it's true.

Like you'd go and if I got on stage, it would be great. If I met someone, just being there was a good thing. And the same thing holds for doing the bread delivery. I, every time you go, you give it to somebody. They get to have bread. They send me a picture of them eating it with their family. It's just, it just is like planting a seed. It's crazy.

This is one of the sayings of Ram Dass's guru. I consider it to be my guru, which he's people were always like, the hippies were coming to him. in the 60s and they wanted to learn how to do like crazy shit like psychic stuff Ashley Project telepathy all that stuff that gurus could do right which is called um oh god what's the word they use for it uh cities it's called a city which is like a basically a word for like that you know there's a million versions of it but being able to heal people or stuff that it these days is called woo-woo and uh he said if you want to gather those powers

the best thing you can do is feed people. Just start feeding people. Really? Yeah, yeah. Really? Isn't that weird? Together what powers? What do you mean?

Cities, like, you know, telepathy, the various things you hear about people being able to do, levitation, flying, able, like the ability to, like, touch someone and put them into, like, the state called Samadhi, as it's called, which is like this weird. You see it, the evangelicals, actually. You see it at tent revivals and the Pentecostals when they start. like that state, you know. Yeah, that's called the S-I-D-D-H-I-City. And his advice was not like, you know, meditate.

It was feed people. And the times I've done what you're doing, which is I bring food to anybody. Because, you know, a lot of people take what he said and they try to turn it into something deeper. Like, oh, you must mean, like, feed people with my art or feed people with a, no. What if it literally, you just start bringing

food to people, the moment you do that, you put yourself in a weird, dreamy state, man. It's like, you know what I'm saying? Enough to the point where you thought you felt, oh, fuck, am I going crazy? Yeah, yeah. You know, it immediately throws you into the most bizarre self-questioning place. Anytime I've done it, I'm like, God, man, I hope I'm not like losing it right now that I'm going to bring food to people. But would you do that? Do you do like do it with that idea? in mind or was it just kind of matched what you already were doing in a way? No, man, I don't do it as much as I don't do it that. I mean, you know, I feed my family in the sense that I cook for, I try to cook for them every, in the mornings. And even that is an amazing

thing. I mean, just the act of like making food for someone and then giving them food and just doing that with no strings attached is a great intoxicant. It makes me high as a kite. I know. That, you know, I just love that. That's that feeling, because otherwise, I'm not saying like, I'll feed people because they're hungry or any of that. I think there's a lot. There's, even though what you're doing is reaching outside yourself, you're allowed to

have self-interest. Self-interest does not, like, make it so that the act of giving is no longer valid. Right. No, that's, it's true. It's like, I've gotten over that kind of thinking for myself. It's like, you know what? Everything that I do, that I always enjoy or feel like. like I'm getting worth from, even if it's helping other people.

I always get something from it. And it was like, for a while when I was younger, I was like, well, then maybe there's no value in that because I'm really doing it because I'm selfish. But no, I think, I think my spirit is telling me to go and do this thing. It's not about, it's not, it's not, it's, it's almost like feeding your own soul that way. And it's like, so why shouldn't this one be fed so I can keep feeding others in a way? Yeah, man. I mean, like, you know, I remember the way I got out of that trap and it's a real trap.

And I think it's a sweet trap to get into you because you have a version of the universe that you wish existed that maybe at least doesn't exist for us. But you're also feeling like, you know, that's like the super ego. You're trying to be Gandhi or some shit. And I'm not that. But the thing that got me out of is I realized how insane it would be if like I was on fire. And a firefighter came to put out the fire. And I was like, you're not doing this because you want to be a hero, are you? You're doing this out of, you know what I mean?

It's madness. On the other side of the thing is a person who's probably just going to enjoy the food you give them, regardless of whatever your weird neurotic reasoning is for doing it. And yeah. Yeah, it definitely, I mean, as far as the act of literally like feeding them, like as soon as you sit and as soon as you eat, you are, you're shifted. You're calming down because it takes up so much of your being, right? It takes up just the act of chewing, swallowing, and what's that doing to your system, you're all of a sudden, you're different from the person that was like scurrying into the house. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Yeah. It makes you a little more, a little more present. And I have to say thank you for, I just was thinking I was dropping off bread and you gave me these sweet, sweet grapefruits. These grow in your yard? Yeah, they sure do. We've got this wonderful grapefruit tree. I've been squeezing that into vodka. Oh, really.

Really good for you. Now, when we talked last, you were talking about how you were going to kind of step up your drinking game. I have since we talked. You say that with a little sound of regret in your life. Oh, I didn't mean for there to be that regret. I'm nervous because I've moved past the regret that I was feeling, and now I'm just enjoying it. And now I'm like, oh, my God, you're, there's no. I'm having like guilt-free drinking.

I haven't felt this for a, it's rare for me because generally anything that's bringing me pleasure, I like try to put some thread of guilt inside of it, you know? But in this case, I've just been really just enjoying drinking. And it's probably bad news. I know. I actually, this week was the first time since we've been in stay at home where I was like, maybe I should take a couple days off. Maybe I should, and not even like I've been drinking that much.

I mean, when we were talking about it, I was selling my method of the one cocktail, the one cocktail a day method where at 5 o'clock, 5.30, when everything is wind down as a gentleman would, you get a cocktail and you sit with your martini and you enjoy yourself and you enjoy that moment. And then you sit back and think for a minute, like, well, I'm pretty buzzed right now. I probably don't need another. very difficult to pull off. Yes. Very difficult because you stop talking. And as my friend's mother says, the martini starts talking. And they're like, let's go get another one. Yes.

Which is okay, which is fine. But I feel like I've been going at it pretty hard for a good couple of months now that we've been in this situation. And I feel like maybe I should take a week off just to kind of recalibrate. Well, I think that's got to be, if you're going to be a true. hedonist. You know, you don't just get to be a hedonist. You actually have to have this strange discipline that goes along with it. Unfortunately, you know, this is the problem of tolerance. You know, this is a, it's a nightmare that our bodies are so clever in resisting high states of pleasure to the point where they began punishing us. And then the thing becomes no longer

even a pleasurable experience from the beginning. And so I think, you know, there's something to be said for spiritualized hedonism where you're accepting your impermanence as a human on the planet, you're rejoicing in the ability to amplify certain states of consciousness, whatever they may be. And also recognizing that if you do this every single day, it's not, yeah, okay, we're melting our body with poison. Great, whatever. But really, it's just we're not enjoying it anymore. And at that point, because I would say, what is that wonderful?

Stanhope joke about drugs. Some things are better than living. I love that. And it's such a, it's such an unspeakable truth. But, you know, if the thing is actually not better than living anymore, then now you're just addicted, you know, and that sucks. I get addicted to stuff all the time, though, but I can always kick it. Right, right. Have you, have you, have you had those moments where you've, it's gotten a little way away from you or you were always kind of in control of it. Oh, man, I got addicted to Xanax. I did this Benzo. It's like my dad gave me, you know, my dad gave me this like VA PTSD sleep medication called

Restoral. Oh, boy. The best. You go to, oh, my God. Oh, my God. This is stuff for people who have, like, bad PTSD and you, you fall asleep. You don't just fall asleep. It's not like, um, ambient, which just turns you off and then you, like, turn back on.

For me, I just feel as tired as I was when I went to sleep. Yeah. You feel like whatever you're laying on suddenly just feels like just a king's pillow. Like you're on a cloud. You're laying there just this sense of like pure euphoria in peace. You drift off into this glorious sleep and you get real sleep. And so you wake up in the morning and you still feel a little of that sweet benz-o softness. You know, oh, it's nice.

Oh, geez. But then being really a dummy because, you know, it's like, dude, diligence. If you're going to do drugs, man, you need to research what you're taking. I was just like, this stuff's great. But on top of that, I was doing this tour through Australia. And so I was also taking Xanax. So I was doubling up benzos. I, and like I wouldn't, like I would say I was addicted in the sense, yeah, I was addicted. I wanted to take them every day. But then I got home after this tour. And I've been taking them for about, I'd say, three weeks, something like that. And then I got home. And, you know, I'm like, I don't want to be in one flu over the cuckoo's nest anymore.

Like, I'm, I'm, like, doing the, like, nurse ratchet giving you pills thing. I'm all fuzzy and foggy, and my body feels, like, thick with, with, like, the drug, you know? And I'm like, I don't want to do this. So I'm like, I'll just stop taking him. And so then I'm like, I remember I had to go, for some reason, I had to go to the store. I'm standing in line at the store. And I get simultaneously, I get a headache. And then my arm starts.

starts twitching. Like, you know that thing where you're like sleeping and your leg twitches? My arm starts twitching. And so now I'm like, what the fuck is happening? Like, this is really scary and weird. By the time I got home, I had this horrible headache. I was twitching a little bit. Any amount of twitching is bad.

Then I went and lay in bed. And my mind was telling me, you know, all you got to do. And I had pills left from this tour. They were just take another Xanax and this is going to go away. and I knew that if I did that, I would become a full-time benz-o addict. So I spent 24, 30 hours in bed, sicker than shit, having to throw up. These are with physical withdrawals. I've never had that before.

And then I stopped taking them. And I have taken them since, but only like once or twice or, you know, a little bit in a row. But I don't, you know, but that was scary. that's crazy that's all that's in the three week period that's in oh you can here's the thing after so after all this is happening and after it's happened I start looking up with the danger I was in because I just didn't know and if you look it up thank God it didn't happen to me some for some people the withdrawal never stops so yeah it does they're neurologically permanently changed like the thing that they say can happen with that baldness medication that can make you permanently

impotent. And with Benzos, you can be permanently in a state. There's a name for it. I can't remember the name for it. But it can get you for, yeah. Oh, my God. I would be disturbed by that if I didn't just hear what you just said about the baldness medication. Which ballness medication does that? Because I took some. I wasn't impotent. But that's terrifying. If I never would have taken it if I knew that you could be impotent. Yeah, it's the stuff. I think it's the stuff that they put in propitia. If you look it up, there's all these laws. lawsuits and stuff related to it. Permanent impotence.

Oh. Yeah, I was taking that stuff. And one of the things they say it could happen. I mean, all this stuff is, I think unverified is testicular cancer. I was taking this a long time ago and I ended up getting testicular cancer. I don't know if there's a connection, but I know that I took the stuff they say maybe can give you that. And then I got that. It also could be that I was keeping a laptop on my, when I was addicted to World of Warcraft.

I would play with a laptop right on my dick, you know? Just frying my balls. I don't know what it was, man. But that stuff's dangerous. Isn't that weird, though, the baldness medication? It's like you can't just have a baldness cure. Like, you've got to like give up fucking. Oh, my God.

But it didn't happen to you. How vain. How vain. You know what I mean? Like you, oh, especially when you're in a relationship and you already have somebody who's happy with you. Yeah. And then the idea that I'm going to, I'm going to try and look better. For what?

For what? Yeah. You look great, by the way, man. You look great. Do you? You're a beautiful. Yeah. Hell yeah, man. You've got like, you should, like, it would, it would, it would, honestly, people would be annoyed if you grew your hair back. Like, if all of a sudden, you grew it back, it would be like, people would feel, like, kind of let down. If I just had a hair line down here all of a sudden? Yeah. All of a sudden, just long locks that, like, just suddenly you've got this beautiful, long, flowing hair. People would be so sad. What have you done? I know. You know what? You know what?

been concerned with recently with uh with it is i'll see um i'll see uh guys like in the news or something like uh supreme court uh roberts right he's the the supreme justice yeah uh and they there was a shot from behind he was like talking to the president and he was a shot from behind and it was like you could tell like from him looking in the mirror he's keeping this little part going because that frames his face but from the back it's just bald and then this little Look, look. Tell me when you can see it. All right.

Yep, I see it. That. I got the old fries. Yeah. You know, and I'm really enjoying this era of like performance online because I, you don't see the old thing back there. It's all said. It's the best. I love it.

That being said, it's like I gave up. I remember when it used to bother me. And now it's like, you know, I'm just going to let that thing sit back there because that's who I am and what are you going to do? Honestly, I would change it though. I don't want to sound like I'm from life. I would immediately grow up back if I could, but I can't. I know, I know. It's such a silly thing. Just let it be. I look at Larry David as like the pioneer. It's like that guy looks so good. Yeah. He's totally bald. He's got a little thing coming off the back. He doesn't grow that much facial. It's just like you can do it. You just got to, it's like wearing a hat. It's like if

be own wearing a hat, you're going to look good in a hat. I know. What is more sad, and by the way, for all the folks in a battle with their baldness, but I used to, when I was in the battle, I would go online and look up YouTube videos, like I think I could find some, you know, unknown recipe out there. And these guys, man, you see these guys who've, like, attached their entire value to, like, the proteins trans coming out of the top of their body. I know.

And it makes no sense. It's sad. It's terrible. And, you know, they're like taking a cock. They're taking like the level of drug cocktails that people with like really, really bad disorders are taking. They're taking propitia, but they're rubbing in weird creams. I know. But then they're also taking other shit as well that you've never heard of and mixing all this shit together just so they could have hair again.

I know. I know. That's what, that's what really knocked me off of trying. was when I got the drops. I got the... Roe game. The Roe game. And just the act of looking in the mirror and putting drops on my head,

knowing my wife is waiting for me in the bedroom, by the way. Putting drops out and then like rubbing it and then like scampering back. I was like, I can't. I caught myself doing this and was like, I'm out. I can't do this. This is more humiliating than walking around with no hair. Yes, friend. And you look at that greasy ball.

after you rub the Rogaine in because it gets a sheen. It's not like it's like an oil slick up there, this greasy, sad puddle of chemicals, which on the product, you know, I remember reading it. It's like they really tiptoe around the efficacy of this stuff. You know, it's not like they're like one out of maybe six people could possibly have some result over six months. I know, really. But if you stop, it's, you're done.

Yeah. And if you stop it, it makes all the rest of your hair leave. Yeah. Oh, this stuff is the worst. Don't touch pregnant people with it. I mean, that's, I think that's on there, too, meaning it's some, like, if it's fucking up babies in the womb, what's it doing to your body? Yeah, just get a cap, you jackass.

Oh, my God. It's weird people used to wear, um, toupees, though. Like, I know they still do, but remember, I was more accepted. Like, if you were going bald, you could get away with a wig. You just wore a wig. Men just wore wigs. Yeah. That is weird.

That is really so bizarre. To think like you would go in your bathroom and on a little round little head would be your pick of the day and you'd put a little wig on and then just go out into the world. No one would make fun of you. Are you out of your mind? What the fuck are you, George Washington? It was just like, oh yeah, he wears a wig. Yeah, oh, that's just Bob. Yeah, it's totally, totally wig.

And no one would say it out loud. They just say it like kind of behind your back. Like, yeah, he's got a wig. Yeah. It's so weird. Weird. Oh, my God. So you grew up in North Carolina.

Is that where you grew up or just where you were born? No, I was born in Brunswick, Georgia. And then I traveled around the country up until my, like, the fifth grade. And then landed in North Carolina. And then, you know, went from North Carolina to Maryland. back to North Carolina. I didn't grow up in any one place. I traveled around a bunch, but I say North Carolina as like a convenience. Right. Okay. Okay. And this is for your dad's work, right? Well, yeah, I guess, yeah, my dad was, you know, we ended up wandering. I had one of those

wandering families, you know what I mean? Like one of those is, which is a lot of people don't realize they're gypsies. I think that's one of the weird things about American culture is the people who just happen to be the people who are always moving from one place to the next for, for whatever the reason may be, they always pretend the next place they land is going to be where their home is. That's where they're going to grow up or whatever. And for some folks, that's just not the case. So you're always like having this bizarre attachment to a place because you've diluted yourself

into imagining that even though you've had 15 addresses, this is going to be the last one. Right. And then you go to a new place and try to forget all the addresses you had instead of celebrating that gypsy lifestyle. I think that's what's cool about gypsies is they just are no people who celebrate their movement, whereas we somehow attach a lot to our address and to staying at a place a long time. But it might be, that might be a heady thing, though, to tell your kids that you're

constantly moving, because I feel like, I don't know. Do you think if you had been told when you were, when you were young, like, okay, hey, we're here in, we're here in Virginia now, but don't get used to it because at any moment, we're going. The caravan, well, I think in the gypsy culture, the thing that they have is a massive traveling caravan. So they're not really leaving because they're always with that group of people. And that's their neighborhood.

They're in a moving neighborhood with folks in the United States who have this situation, which is often, like for me, you know, I think my dad was struggling with PTSD. And I think that their marriage wasn't really working out. And so they were doing a very classic move, which is to move, thinking, oh, if we go to this new place, that's where it's going to work out. When it just, you know, this never, this is one of the great mistakes people make. And so, yeah, man, no, I think like the, for me, with my son, you know, we, we want to buy a house somewhere and we want to stay there and have a real family there. Yeah. Because I, thank God, don't have PTSD.

You know, I'm not running away from helicopters or whatever people who have that are. But, yeah, I think ideally it would be nice. I think that is the best situation. Yeah, to be settled, do you mean? Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. And not just, I mean, I'm not saying for the individual. I like the whole Camus, existentialist, romantic wandering in your youth thing all over the world, even.

I have friends who do that, who just have no address. And I know comics who are like that. like Tom Rhodes, he just, you know, wanders the world. It's a beautiful thing, I think, and something, travelers, the travelers, I'm sure you've run into them. They don't even address. They just, they just travel. That's cool. But, you know, now that I'm a dad and I'm experiencing that level of tranquility and joy that comes from being a parent and that weird, almost narcotic, like, like, I don't know, I don't know what it is. It's just like an elemental happiness from having a kid. I definitely want to lay.

down roots. I'm just, you know, right now I'm up in the air about staying in L.A. You know, now that we're all telecommuting. You know what I'm saying? Like, the industry, the landscape is changing so dramatically right now. I keep wondering, like, if we're not going to be able to, if the clubs aren't going to really open up for a few years, and if they're all going to be at half capacity, and if like the city is just going to be sort of in this liminal pandemic state. I don't understand how the property value is justified. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, but it's because it's close to the beach. It's still a beautiful state. I didn't realize when this went down that how many people travel here. I thought Hollywood was the thing that really made this economy, but it's in a large part it just purely tourism. People just want to come here and get to the beach

and see those cliffs and all of that part of it. But, I mean, I totally get you for our, for what we do. You know, I know really successful comics that just broke out and went to Tennessee or Maine or a place like that. But I don't know. I don't know. I wrestle with it, too. Like, I go through places and I think, well, this is so cool. This is such a small town.

And this is a nice little breath of fresh air. But then I get itchy and need to be around energy. I need to be around action. And it's weird kind of like mix. I'm down with, I agree with you. This is the reason I love this city. Like my wife and I have a deep attachment to the city. I've been here for, oh God, 19, 18 years now.

And I left to go to New York for a year and then came back. And coming back was so sweet. And I love that just the vibe here is so beautiful. Yeah. And I know, I know what you mean. It's like there is something incredibly special about this place and we all feel like a deep nostalgia for. And I feel a little bit of guilty.

I feel like I'm betraying the city, even contemplating moving, you know, and even thinking about leaving her, I'm like, you know, I'm making a mistake in that way. But then I go on, Trulia. And then I look at property and coastal Georgia. And I look at these mansions, literal mansions on the marsh. Just with, like, what do they call them? When it's a mansion, like, uh, coach houses or I don't know like it's it's equestrian terminology yeah you know like that that

you're looking at it you're like I could for that house in L.A. That's a hundred million dollar house. I know. You know I could I could get there now. I could go and get that right now. Yeah. I know. I know and it's hard. It's a I mean you just have to really fall in love with a place and I feel like where you're at now, it's such a weird thing too. This is a strange thing. When my kids were really little, I always thought, well, we're a little tribe now. You can put us in Wisconsin. You can put us in Manhattan. It doesn't matter because it's all happening in here. And we're not going out. We're not doing all these crazy things that you do when you're young. But now my kids are quickly through that. And now they're going to be taking off and going places. And then it's back

to my wife and I. So now we're like, well, this is back to, you know, we're not that tribe anymore. We are, we can go back to being a little born nomadic if we wanted to. Yeah, that's cool. That's cool. You did it. I mean, that's beautiful. And that's an incredible thing.

And that, what you just described, though, that's the realization I've been having. Yeah. This is our family. Wherever we are is home. And I've never felt anything like that. uh you know except when i was a very little kid and it's just the most beautiful thing and it reminds me of um god have you ever seen 28 days later that zombie movie oh yeah yeah fuck it's good but there's this part where this father and his daughter are on top of this van and they're laughing and that you just

they're just they're like in the middle of a zombie apocalypse and some other survivors or whatever make this commentary they're like look they're fine because they've got their family. Right. And that is one of the weird things I didn't expect. I might have distantly imagined it when I was, when my wife was pregnant and I knew I was going to be a dad. But wow. And then also you reprioritize.

It's like, shit. Aside, I mean, okay, I love the vibe here. And specifically, I like going to the comedy store. And, you know, that's the beach and stuff. I love the opportunity to go to the beach. But that is not my. I love being close to Big Sur. I love being close to San Francisco.

I love California, but when you've got a kid, you reprioritized to the point where it's like, who gives a shit if I want to go to the comedy store on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays? I know. And get hammered. It's kind of like, yeah, it's kind of like the bald conversation. It's like, what am I an idiot? What do I care about that stuff for? Yeah. It's not real.

Exactly. This is his childhood. I did my childhood. bring him to a place where there's lots of land that he can wander around on get lost on you know where i could have to worry about him like wandering in the woods or whatever go go go do that and then when you know when i when it's time come back here if i if i want to enjoy the wildness and the vibe of the city but god what an embarrassing dull thing it's like what have I've become.

I know. I know. I've got somewhere safe to rise my kids. I know. I know. This is a, it's just a, it's a big conundrum. Who's feeding?

Who feeds you guys when you're home? Who does the cooking? Oh, well, right now, my wife will cook. I will cook. There's no, there's no primary feeder. Or we order in.

We order in. You know, and I, I, I'm trying to, like, relieve my wife of the, uh, I think she gets guilty because she thinks she's supposed to be cooking more or something like that. And like, I'm trying to like, I don't want her to, I think that's the worst meal. You know, a meal cooked by a person who's making it because they're trying to be something that they don't want to be. Right.

I hate that. Just out of obligation. Just out of some like weird, like, I don't know what. And honestly, I mean, it's embarrassing. Like, there was a time when I'm like, well, you know, I'm the, I'm making the money. so it would be nice. And I just realized, like, where did I get that idea from? And also, man, I really like to cook.

Like, it's fun to cook. And also, she cooks and it's delicious. And then we order in. I think we've got a pretty, right now, like, we've got a pretty nice harmony happening in the house. Because while I'm doing, like, doing this and getting have the, like, podcast and make art and stuff, she's cooking lunch for the baby and taking care of the baby. And, you know. Right. And is doing a great job at that.

So, you know, I don't know. I think we share the cooking responsibility and we order out a lot. What do you like that she cooks? Oh, man. She makes this really incredible noki with this vodka sauce that she makes. And then sometimes she'll mix some lamb in there. And it's really good. Potato?

Potato. Yeah. No key. Yes, that's it. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't know that's what it was. but yeah, that's it.

And she'll, but what I love about it is she, when she's making it, you know, so weird, the heart Christians have this idea. They say don't go out to eat because you don't know the psychic state of the chef. And that in the same way when people are painting, you can, like, you look at a disturbed painter's painting, you feel that depression. Like when you look, you know, you can feel it. It's like when you look at some paintings from Van Gogh, or like when you listen to Elliot Smith, You know, captured inside of their art is their sorrow, and it's powerful.

But you don't want that when you're eating a steak. And, you know. Right. No. That's got to be filled with joy and love. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And like when, so this is, so like, yeah, when, like, that's the other cool thing about being,

having a family is like when you're tasting that, that food that was made by someone he was like in love with you and in love with being a mom. Oh, man. That's pretty cool. That's like Tolkien level. That's like elf food from the Hobbit or something. You know, it's like, it's delicious. It's really true.

It's really true. You know, I did this show on the Food Network for a while where I was visiting bakeries around the country. And each one was like, of course, like the kick-ass one in the town or several. and the places that had a great reputation were very successful, they all came from the person or people who ran the place who were doing it out of pure love.

They just, you know, now they're running a business, so it may have changed somewhat, but they still just loved what they were making and loved what they were doing. And that, as mystical as it sounds, that's the thing that separated them being successful from the other people that opened up a bakery and went out of business in a year. That's so cool.

Yeah. It's weird. It's unquantifiable. It's the problem. I mean, what are you going to put that in a recipe? Like you have some transcendent primordial elemental love about cooking this food and add, you know, a cup of that. I know. You can't quantify it.

It's a problematic situation. And I think because of that, it gets left out of conversations regarding creation in general. Yeah. No, I mean, think about it. I mean, that kind of explains, you know, why people are successful in all parts of the arts. I mean, if you have a comedian that's phoning it in and not really in love with what they're talking about. I remember Kinnison had some great quote, like, why should the audience care about what you're talking about if you don't? Oh, yeah. And, you know, just watching other comics just phone it in. And that's kind of the same concept. I quit comedy for a year because of that. When I went to New York, I was on stage and I realized I'm, I'm, you know, I'm phoning this in. I don't like what I'm saying. I don't like any of my jokes. I'm taking up stage time for people who want to, who love what they're doing. And this is just fucked.

Like, I can't do this. Like, I could do it, but what am I getting out of it? Like, there's nothing I'm getting. And I'm certainly not giving the audience anything. And if I am, it's a sham thing I'm giving them. If they're enjoying it, they're enjoying a trick that's not what I, you know. Yeah. I don't, I don't, I, so I took a year off until I really wanted to do it again.

And then, and then, and then I started loving it again. And at that point, you know, it becomes a whole different ball of wax. But, uh, and then the pandemic happened. And now we're, we're fucking stuck again. But yeah, man, that's a, but you, don't you think it's a weird, it's a little bit of a, you have to be careful with this line of thinking. But like in the spiritual world, there's something called spiritual bypass, which is, you can pretend you're being spiritual when you're being a coward and you need to confront something,

but you're tricking yourself into imagining that you're being a, you're being nonviolent, non-aggressive when really inside you're furious, but you're using your like imaginary spiritual platform to not react to something that needs to be taken care of. But similarly, if we get too caught up in the idea of like you have to love what you're doing at every moment, then you know I mean, sometimes, no, matter what it is, you're not going to love doing it. No, no, no. I totally, I totally agree. And there's, it's, it's the, um, the mistake I think that I've made is thinking that you have to be in those moments like all the time.

Like whenever I would, whenever, uh, I would read about Buddhists and being in, in the present and living in the present and all that kind of stuff. And I was like, yeah, I guess I'm just not going to. to achieve that because I am an American running in a career, trying my best to make money for my family, doing all this other stuff. So I guess I'm just not going to be a part of that present moment. But then when I started to meditate and stuff when, as I was going along, I just kind of came to the settling part where, aside from the meditation, if you're present five minutes in your day, just that is remarkably more than normally you have where most people have. So I kind of let myself off the hook.

It was like I don't have to be grateful and walk around thinking like, oh, zippity do die. Everything's wonderful and try and maintain that. But I should allow myself five minutes, not in a hard time, but five minutes of being grateful, take a deep breath, think, okay, this is cool that I get to do this podcast and talk to you. We had this funny capered doing this thing today. That was cool. And just kind of like really feel it for a second and then go back to the race. And I think as an American, I think that's probably good enough.

It does recalibrate your brain. It does make you think, it does make you more grateful without thinking that, like you were saying, like, it has to be all the time. Yeah, right. Yeah, I love that. That's it. that's the way I've been taught, is that very thing. Just, yeah, just, well, especially when you sort of play around with the time frame that Buddhism and some of the Eastern philosophies are dealing with, you know, they're talking,

some of them have, not all forms of Buddhism, but some forms of Buddhism have within it reincarnation. And certainly in Hinduism, we have this. And even in like Christianity, if you go and read some of the gospels, weirdly, there's this implication of some kind of reincarnation, and it's almost across the board. But so if that's the idea, and then you take the philosophies that say, well, the thing we're in is kind of like a rock polisher for the soul or whatever, a very slow polishing process that takes place over millennia, then the idea of achieving any type of equanimity for even a few seconds. And this never-ending series of incarnations is amazing. Right.

Just a few seconds of it in a lifetime is incredible. But then like a daily meditation practice, that's beyond the beyond. And then, you know, to achieve, you know, something more than that, well, great. But it's always great, I guess is what they're saying. There's no rush. Yeah, yeah. No, I could totally get that. I mean, that's why it's so funny about this pandemic thing.

where people are, like, being forced to just cook for themselves, like, just stay at home and actually make food in their house because, you know, everything got so frightful. And then can I take out? And is it going to be in the package? And all of a sudden, everybody's just bringing food and, like, cooking. And it's like, that is something we should be doing all the time. It's like we should be just that slowing down. Like when you say, like, you know that your wife is making something in the other room and then it's going to be your turn to slide in there. and now you're doing that thing.

Like, that's a present moment, you know? And that's something like we've kind of, we kind of lost track of. Like, when you think about this of being, all of a sudden being at home, for me, it's the travel. When I look at, like, what I was doing just four months ago, the travel was insanely fast. Yeah. The pace of the daily life was crazy fast. And that we were eating just, like, garbage just to keep going because we couldn't even have time to sit and actually make food for your family.

Like those are the three big, uh, adjustments, I think for me. Yeah, man. This is what this is what, this to me, the conspiracy theorist side of me, this is what I think is the great secret that they never wanted us to find out. But you know, you're not supposed to know that. Like they were, if you ever seen the century of the self on YouTube? No. Oh, it's great.

It's a documentary about, oh, I can't remember his name. he's Freud's cousin, which is really bizarre, but he's one of the people that was behind marketing. And so it's, you know, this incredible documentary on this guy who was completely unapologetic and his voodoo that he was using to get people to buy shit. And that later became essentially the methodology of all marketing campaigns. So, for example, there was a problem, which was smoking was associated with masculinity.

So only got Bernays. That's his name. I think it's Edward Bernays. Smoking was associated with masculinity. And so the cigarette manufacturers, you know, that's half the population. We've got to get the other half to smoke. They go to Bernays and like, what can we do?

How do we get half the, how do we get the women to start smoking? Because it's seemingly what only dudes do. So what they did is they gathered, together women who were for women's right to vote. Suffrage. Is that what they call it? Yeah.

And so what are they called? Suffragettes or something. There was a name for it back then. But they are, so he gathered them together during, I think, a Macy's Day parade and told the press that they were going to, you know, protest against, you know, men, like, what do you call?

The Patriarchs. by smoking during the Macy's Day parade. And they, so the press came, they took pictures of them pulling up their skirts and they had cigarette packs and their garters or whatever and smoking. So what he did there is a, now a classic move, which is he attached a brand to a social movement. And if you successfully do that so that as a representation of the social movement, you're consuming this brand, then you're going to make all kinds of.

of money because people are buying your shit to show that they are part of whatever it may be the Pepsi generation, right? So this this idea that was an used to be the way it was I think in early America, which is you took pride in your ability to cook and you took pride in your ability to sew your own clothes and to make your own butter and to do your own it was good. It was like considered a really wonderful, powerful thing gradually because in the culture that we're in, you can't have people fixing their shit. If you do that,

they're not going to buy new shit. This is that planned obsolescence thing. You know, you want to have stuff that's going to break down so people will buy more stuff. And for this all to work, you need to have everyone running at a breakneck speed

so that they really think, fuck, I don't have time to fix that. Just get a new one. And now that we've all slowed down and we're hanging our own life, We're doing our own work. We're painting our own shit. We're cooking our own shit.

We're growing our own stuff. It's not that we're doing this and suddenly we're like, God, this sucks. I see why I was buying new stuff and ordering and food and getting other people to fix it because it sucks. We're realizing, this is amazing. I love it. I like making my own food. I like learning how to do new stuff around the house. And I don't want to have people do this for me anymore.

Holy shit, man. That's the part that makes me think the economy as we know it might be in for some trouble. Because when they start stuff up, I don't know if everyone's going to be like, yeah, let's get going again. I know. I know. And, you know, look, I think it's, I think we just got too much of everything. And, well, I love, love a good restaurant, sitting with a nice cocktail with a friend, sitting, you know, going out and having great meal. did there have to be thousands of restaurants every two feet?

Like when we were kids, it was a big deal if you went out to eat in a restaurant. There weren't that many around. My wife was just saying the other day, do you remember when we were kids and mom decided we're getting pizza tonight? It was like, it must be someone's birthday. Like, this is unheard of. And now there's so many. I think you're right. I think when it comes back, unfortunately, we are going to lose a number of them.

but it might be the right number. Well, it's, yeah, I mean, yeah, I think that's going to, I mean, you know, I think I am a little bit, maybe we're both being a little idealistic because in our minds we do have this fantasy that people are all connecting with some kind of, you know, but maybe the reality, my friend said the creepiest thing. I was talking to him and, you know, thinking of post-pandemic or just trying to, we're creeping each other out. And I've talked, I'm friends with him. comics. So I've read all kinds of creepy scenarios, you know, running the, all of them. This is to get us ready for an asteroid impact. This is because, what's the weird one? Bill Gates

wants to put microchips inside of us. That one's wild. Yeah, the Gates Foundation wants to lower human population and inject us with nanobots. What's the other one? I've heard a lot of different scenarios that are all equally creepy. It's so creepy My friend told me the creepiest one He's like No I think what happens Is just everything goes back to the way it was

And nobody thinks about this that much I think he's right That's the darkest I know But he's right Yeah I know We just forget about it We just go back

Yeah that thing There was that pandemic whatever I gotta get to work I'm running late No He's right though I mean because anytime there's like an earthquake And everyone's like freaks out

We need water. We need paper towels. We need all this stuff. And everyone goes and gets it. And then as soon as it's over, no one buys that stuff. No one thinks about it. They just, yeah. No, I think he's, I think he's totally right. I do too. What did, what did, when you said when you were, when you were really little and you thought, when you said earlier that it wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't, it was when I was really little, really little that I thought about being in a permanent state of what you're creating now with your, with your, with your, your family. How little are you talking? How old were you? Oh, I think I was probably, probably, I'm going to say like six or five. Like I, we, we had this beautiful child, like first few years, uh, growing up in coastal Georgia, um, where, uh, you know, like, I think my parents, their marriage was still working at the time. And I don't think my dad had like I think you know PTSD is I don't know if you have any people who you know who have it but no good Lord it is one of the great plagues of our society man because you know the United States has been at war for 93% of its history and isn't that insane and that's crazy isn't that

crazy so yeah we've got this like uh endemic PTSD situation that you know you hear about like how more vets are killing themselves than dying at war you know you'd and we're we've become weirdly accustomed to this high rate of suicide among veterans. Like, it's just something we kind of accept. Well, the reason they're killing themselves is because they have this disorder, which is a problem of short term memory. And it's tied into some people theorize there's some kind of evolutionary reason for, which is if you experience some awful, awful, awful thing, it's better to keep it in

short term memory all the time so that it doesn't happen. again. So you get this flash bulb effect with memory where these people see awful things. They do awful things. And it just hangs right there in short-term memory and it just doesn't get filed. Right. And because they're always in this, in the state of like either sedating themselves or like, you know, with booze or pills or just in a state of literally reliving this horrible event over and over and over again, they kill themselves. Because they'd rather be dead. And so my dad had that from Vietnam, and I think he was medicating, self-medicating, with alcohol. And I think that that ended up with us having a really, really turbulent

childhood where he was trying, you know, now I was a dad, man, all this stuff went out before I became a dad where you judge your parents. Now I'm like, Jesus Christ, they were doing their best. No matter what it was. They were doing their best. But fuck, he really- He was probably young, too, right? Yeah, man, he's this young, handsome kid from Viet, you know, just like, charismatic and like, but man, he just, I think he lost control. And his older, when he got older, he like became way more peaceful and, you know, way more, a real wonderful being to be around, which was always inside of him, but shit, fuck. Yeah. We went through a rough patch, man. And so, but before the grand tour of the United States happened, we were in coastal,

Georgia, man, and it was just beautiful. Because when you're a kid that age, you're not thinking like, well, I bet my parents end up getting into a toxic relationship where it's impossible for anybody to find any real stability because of my dad's trauma from being in a stupid war. You're just like, we'll always go to the beach. Right. Yeah, this is amazing. Mom's making peanut butter and jelly again.

Yeah. Wow, these flowers smell so good. You know, well, that's the Garden of Eden experience. You know, it's like, that's it. And then you end up in one way, shape, or form. You're not there anymore. And that's, I think, you know, for, I mean, look, I know I'm anomalous in the sense that when you hear about most comedians, childhoods, usually what you hear is stability, love,

one, like not a lot of anything weird at all, you know? Most comments you talk to have had a really wonderful childhood. But I think I'm anomalous in the sense that my childhood was a little, it wasn't fucked, it wasn't terrible. Obviously, I don't know if my sarcasm was being lost on you. Or you're just ignoring a shitty joke on purpose. Actually, I literally was, I literally was trying to see if you were, I couldn't get if you were being sarcastic or not,

because I just had this conversation with somebody that, uh who was it it was another comedian who said that you know that most people think that comedians always have so much to deal with and they're always dark and and fucked up but when you talk to them it's not really the case and i was making the argument that uh it may not be the case that that's where they are now but comedians are very clever so whatever they've started whether it was blissful and they had stability or they had chaos, they've crafted a way to get here where it's kind of okay now. Yeah. That's the cool part about their clever little beings. Yeah, that is the coolest part, man. I mean, that's the alchemy of the thing. Yeah. And I, you know, yeah, and I always, like,

I definitely, like, my, you know, my growing up compared to other people was wonderful. I'm not saying, Like, I mean, look at like, I mean, there's, I'm not trying to compare myself to one of the greatest comics that ever fucking lived. Maybe he was an alien. Richard Pryor. But you look at his childhood and it is, you know, it's incomprehensible. No, it's a heavy life for a 50-year-old man and he's a child living it. Yeah, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. And then you look at like his ability to take that and talk about it. I mean, only after I started doing comedy and really started thinking about some of his jokes. Yeah. You know, the joke about them like scrubbing his skin off after he incinerated himself, smoking crack. I don't know if you remember that joke. But when I think about how not only was he able to somehow make that funny, but he's able to say it without sounding like a victim. Yeah.

Yeah. You know what I mean? He was able to say it so the audience was comfortable even hearing it at all is unreal. How could you do that? Like insane that the audience is like somehow forgetting he's he's talking about something that really happened to him. Yeah. But I think I think what's interesting about it and it kind of makes sense with you too is that it's more than talking about it. It's more than what he's talking about.

Like on paper you write that out and you're like, ooh. But the person standing up there has this is a whole being. and you're getting the childlike vulnerability that you're rooting for him while you're talking to him. And again, not to compare you to any other artists, but you have that thing. You have that when you talk about your childhood and bouncing around and stuff, I don't see it as a story that's 30-something years old or whatever it is old. It's present. you are still childlike. You are still that kid.

You are somebody who you know is, again, in this clever way, has kind of crafted himself to here to have a family and be doing his thing and growing grapefruits. But there's still, when you tell stories of being on Coastal Georgia, yeah, I totally see it. I don't have to paint that childhood for it in my head. Oh, man, that's cool. Yeah, I think that's it, right?

I've never thought of it before, but damn. man, that's really, really cool. Yeah. It's like you're, it's not like you're up there seething or something, you know? Right. It's like, yeah, you're not like bleeding. Or being bitter. Yeah, no.

Yeah, that's cool. And then somehow just that alone is as positive as you can get, even though the thing you might be recounting is, yeah, brutal. That's brilliant, man. I've never thought of that. That's cool. That is definitely cool. It's, it's, it's an interesting thing, too.

And when you say, like, when you're a kid and you look around, you're like, this isn't going to change. You know, like, there were times when my kids were little and we were in, like, in New York apartment and we had them, like, downstairs in this, like, under this spiral staircase, which, like, as an adult, you'd be like, ooh, is this going to scare the hell out of them? Like, why they're, like, in a windowless room right now underneath the staircase. And they're like, we want to go back to that magical place.

You know what I mean? You just kind of, like, you paint that. Do you remember any, do you remember who was cooking for you when you were? were at that age when you were was mom doing it was there was there yeah it was my mom was a great cook oh yeah grandmother could was would cook for us she had this old school southern pantry with like big bags of rice you know flour uh grits uh what those cookies god what are they called something charles uh charles they're these southern cookies, man, that we always had around the house.

Ritz crackers, you know, like, infinite writs. The best. And always the smell of rice. Like, because that was like my, both my mom and my grandmother and my wife. This was one of the, just because this was one of the things where I didn't even think about it, but the first time my wife, who was also from the South, cooked me, cooked rice for us. And I'm a rice snob, man, because. My, my, my, I, I, like, I, I have generational rice recipes.

And this is hypocritical because I can't cook rice for shit. But my mom and my dad and my grandmother would make the best rice of all time. Like, what kind of? The, well, I mean, well, I'm not talking about any specific variety of rice. No, no, but I mean like jumbalaya kind of rice dishes or is it like a, rice with butter and like the way they cooked it at the perfect. You know, you know, it sounds dumb and, you know, maybe. No.

I don't know if this is a placebo rice. or something, sentimental placebo rice. But oh, damn, they could make some great rice. And they knew how to not cook it too long. Yeah. They knew not to take the top off. You know, all these specific things about making rice. And my wife makes the best southern rice of all the time.

And I remember realizing, like, oh, my God. I remember saying her, are you not, this is southern rice? She's like, I grew up in the South. Of course I could cook rice. Oh, that's amazing. Yeah. It's the best, man. Oh, that's so amazing.

That's so, yeah, because if she, oh, man, if she didn't, if she was, if she was a Yankee, just trying to make hard white rice, you might not be together right now. Watery rice, you know, or also if she didn't have that, like, thing, I know it sounds cheesy, but she's proud of the fact she can make really great rice. She knows it's no joke to have, to have that. And now I get to watch my son eat something. Southern rice and grits because I've learned how to make great grits. And now that's hard, it's not hard.

But I love making grits. And like feeding my son grits in the morning. Yeah. He eats. He goes, ooh, wow. Wow. It's the best. Yes.

I'm doing it. I'm doing it. Yeah. That's amazing. Southern cooking is, you know, I didn't grow up with. it. So to me, it's like, yeah, I have to go visit Southern cooking because I don't have, I don't have Southern folk in my, in my family. You know, we're from New Jersey and New York and Italian and, you know, all that kind of stuff. And my wife has some Arabic and there's like, all that

kind of stuff. So Southern cooking to me is just like, it's just like going to Disney world. It's like, I don't. So the, and it's so joyful and it's so intense and, you know, so unique that it really kind of makes it kind of makes sense that we're different people because if you're fueled with that, you've got to be a different kind of person. Well, look, for sure. I mean, for like, yeah, like somebody's not afraid to eat a stick of butter with a meal. Yeah. You just, this is with the other day, you know, I've been getting into the, uh,

We have an Instapot. And the other day I realized, which is an amazing device. Do you have one of these things, the pressure? No, I don't know. It's interesting. I'm just learning all the stuff. But it also functions as a slow cooker. And so my wife's dad sent us all this like when the pandemic was starting.

He sent us $500 worth of frozen meat. Like it just showed up at the door like steaks and burgers. And it was a terrifying thing to get because the message. behind it is like strapping. Oh, no. I'm sending you survival meat. But, you know what I mean? That's pretty heavy.

Heavy, man. But within the meat was frozen chicken and dumplings for a slow cooker. Easiest thing in the world to make, just dump it in, start the slow cooker. So my wife, this is, she always is surprising me of this stuff. So she, the slow, it's almost done. She goes and looks in the slow cooker, and she's like, you got to add butter to that. And she goes and just gets a stick of butter, drops it in the slow cooker. And I'm like, oh, my, I guess.

Oh, it's so delicious. So incredible. But she said, like, a sudden thing, like, you can't just make chicken and dumplings without a stick of butter, honey. It's the coolest thing. Who are you? You've never mentioned to me this rule about chicken and dumplings. She's a big Southern mama.

Yeah. Oh, that's a good thing to be married to. It sure is. What was your grandma? How long was your grandma around? 98. Whoa. Yes, she lived in 98.

How great is that, by the way? What kind of segue is that? You come from a culture that puts sticks of butter and stuff, and she lived to 98. Yeah, 98, and she was, you know, she was not the way you would expect someone had been eating butter for their entire lives to look. You know, she was like very healthy and, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, she was an amazing person. She told me something really creepy when I was 13 or 14. I'll never forget it.

She said, when I look in the mirror, I see an old person. Uh-huh. But inside, I still feel like I'm 16. Wow. Yeah, I get that. Oh, that was a mind fuck for me. That was like a Zen co-on. That was just, I've thought about it my whole life, that thing.

Oh, man, when I hang out, like, with my nephew or something and they're, you know, like, young in the early 20s and they're all, like, hanging out and drinking and stuff. And I'm, like, looking around and I'm like, on the inside, I'm the same as them. I'm like, we're all, like, in this together. And then you realize they're looking at a total different being. I don't, you're not, they don't see the 20-year-old that. thinks he's steering the ship. I totally get that. Yeah.

Oh, man. Did she make fried chicken? I always picture Southern Holmes having fried chicken. I'm going to be, I don't recall fried chicken. I recall some pies. I recall chicken, but not fried chicken. I'm sorry, Mi Ma Ma. Yeah.

I don't remember your fried chicken. I can remember my, there's a famous story that my family would tell about my brother when we went to visit my, dad and his mother. Grandmother Clyde was her name. Very Southern name. She made us fried chicken. And my brother in the middle of the meal said,

Grandmother Clyde, thank you so much. This is just the way I like my chicken, dry and tough. And it was like my dad never felt laughter. And my poor grandmother's mortified expression, you know, experiencing that unadulterated honesty from a kid. You know that. He, yeah, yeah, but that's my, that's my grandmother fried chicken memory. I can't remember, you know, I know that my grandmother had,

this was a southern thing is China, familial China. Did you all have that? No, well, yeah, but it was, it would come out like only on like Christmas. Yeah, that, that thing. Do you still have if your family's china? No, I don't have. I think my sister has it. I think she has it.

And there was like a drawer and had like a separation for all the utensils, like all the silverware, which was really silver. You know, that was like something passed down and like all the spoons and then they would have to like shine the silver and get the plates out and set it for like just for Christmas. That, that, yeah, man. So that, my dad. My dad left that for me. My mom left. So we have this now. And I'll feed the baby on the china and like grits on the china is the coolest thing, man.

And it's like, I don't know how many trussles ate off of that, you know, but it's like I get it. When I was a kid, I used to think, who gives a, why are we doing this magical plate bullshit? You know, we barely ever use it. You know, it's like, what is it? Now I get it. It's like, you know, like I have my dad's cast iron skillets. which is really cool because I don't know how many meals he cooked on that, but I'm going to leave that to my kids.

And there is something cool about that, like, you know, pragmatic tools getting passed down. That's amazing. You say that. I never really thought of it that way. Really, that's because I always saw it as like this bougie kind of a thing. It's like, oh, so we just have this China. And it's like, what's the point? But that, yeah, that you, because my sister has this old percolator that, like,

my grandparents used to make coffee out of. And it always strikes me that this is amazing. We're doing the same thing, hearing the same sounds come from this thing, the same smells, and we're drinking from this. And just as they did when they were even younger than I am now sitting around doing it, that is, that makes a ton of sense. I have my uncle's butt plug collection. Is what?

I know, man. I was trying to make this stupid joke. and it's like the spirit of my uncles flew into my body and fucked it up and I deserved it. It couldn't get a bug plug out normally. There was no way to make it fun. Like, listen, man, we're having this great chat and I had to ruin it with a butt plug joke. I'm so sorry. It's all right.

Listen, this to me is like, this is the, you know, this is part of the cool thing when you get to have a family is you start realizing that all the shit, I have realized that all the stuff that I used to judge. And I, you know, from, because I got into existentialism. I love the idea of the outsider. And I love this idea, this like looking at the family. There were times where I was so stupid. And I think so probably angry about my own broken family in the past that I looked at the family as an aberration or the, you know, making babies. And, you know, I would non-ironically use the term breeder, you know, and like mean it. And really, I felt a lot of anger, I think, towards families.

I looked at them as a mundane, mediocre failure. If you found yourself in a family, then you were failing. You fucked up. Now, you know, what have you done? You're just another person. Oh, yeah. And I would refer to neighborhoods as breeding grids. You know, like the places.

Terrible and dumb. And when Rogan was taking me on the road, I remember I was on stage working out some, you know, I don't know, either an anti-baby joke or an anti-family joke. And I remember, and he very rarely did this with, like that was a cool thing about when he decides to take you under his wing. Yeah. He rarely gives you notes about your jokes except to improve them, you know, or he's got a tag and that doesn't even happen much. He just lets you do your thing. Yeah. But he, I remember he took me aside. He's like, man, you got to stop doing that. Like, that's, people don't want to hear that that's and it was at the time i thought oh yeah that's coming from

someone with a family he just right but now i realize like oh my god it was just wrong it was like logically not the joke wasn't wrong yeah logic my my angle was wrong it was a tortured premise in general now you know but i could i really uh that's one of the cool things is suddenly i'm getting this backstage past to reality. You don't realize it until you're in it that it actually, even artistically, just for the selfish part of that, is so rewarding. And I remember we actually had that moment when we were thinking, like, are we going to do this?

Are we going to try and make a family? And it was like, well, you know, as comedians, as people that are all about new experiences, why are we going to pass on the biggest experience you can have on the planet? Yeah. Yeah. It makes no sense. God, I love that. I love that.

You know what you just did? You just burnt away the residual guilt that I still was feeling about having a family. Thank you. You're welcome. It's one of the most profoundly psychedelic, primordial experiences. I have ever had, I've taken acid at least 200 times, man. I have taken almost every psychedelic, if not every psychedelic, except for the new experimental ones, which I'll get to eventually.

And nothing has come close to this. And yeah, I, like, is yes. And so, but, you know, I do, you know, I do understand how there is the potential within it to lose your edge a little bit, I guess, or to like reprioritize to the point where you're not working hard enough on your material. yeah yeah but i you know it's kind of a strange thing because i feel like i think feel like age does that also yeah you know and then you end up having to replace age uh edge you have to start replacing edge with uh with craft in a way like you have you end up just having to i don't know deliver

stuff in a different way i don't know what you just said so much i think it is one of the i don't know that you meant it this way but i think it is one of them i don't know that you meant it this way but i think it's a great, it felt like, not at me, but in general, the edgy comic, it felt like one of the most well-crafted digs. I've heard in a long time. And it was beautiful. And as someone who has relied on edge, like when I look back at some of my jokes and I realize how lazy the writing was in the sense that I was leaning into my perceived edge. Right, right. Instead of telling the truth, which is as edgy as you can get. But you know what I mean, trying to find where the cultural edge was and then

hanging out there and then articulating what appeared to be blasphemies from that edge. That's not really, that's no craft at all. That's just going on Twitter, looking at what offends people and then trying to step over that line about shit you don't even care about.

Well, if you don't, then it's the thing for sure. But if it, yeah, I mean, you end up handing yourself into a bit of a box. I love it. I love when people can go off, go to that and then like make people laugh off, of stuff that is taboo or you didn't or you open their eyes

to something that's not and I think you can still have that for sure but it's if it becomes your only pitch and you don't and like you say like you all of a sudden don't care about all this stuff but you have to throw that pitch then it's like then you gotta throw some

you're kind of faking it but if you have that with all this other stuff that you're now being being exposed to all this other deeper stuff. And now you mix that, that edge stuff that you have and your love of all that with all of this real deep rooted stuff. Oh, man. How, how healthy is that tree? That's so cool, man. Yeah, that's, that, that is beautiful. It's like, you're making me think of, it's like,

you have to speak from your, your own edge. Like, there's a, in the Bhagavagita, there's a verse which goes, it's better to be an honest street sweeper than a dishonest king. and it's it's you know so so yeah your edge it might not be on paper it might seem like the most I don't know square mundane thing but for you it's like that's where you're at and yeah that's the only edge that matters absolutely and I always I because because I don't live there you know and I dabbled in it when I was starting out and you know I don't think that I think the edge can exist in every we always can think well edge must mean

of the at the edge of the darkness of the underbelly of what the culture no it also means if you want to talk about being a mom go to the very edge of that just go just be as thoughtful

and as go to the edge of talking about being a father or go to the edge about talking about being an accountant I mean really just go further than the other people are going in whatever, but whatever's true to you. To me, I think that's what the definition of edge is.

Love it, man. Yeah. You know, I saw George Carlin at the Comedy Store in the main room, and getting ready for one of his last HBO specials when I was the talent coordinator there. And I remember going in and having that feeling of like, man, I hope he's still George Carlin. And he started with the worst, dumbest joke, man.

It was like a, it was a stock joke about weather veins and cocks or something. I can't remember what it was, but it was like, it was, I can remember the sinking feeling in my chest as I'm thinking like, oh, my God. He's, he's, like, age got him. He's, and then I remember like 20 minutes in, he's talking about his wife's cancer screams. And the audience is locked in to that thing he could do. You're stuck now. He got you. He started off as soft as soft could be.

And then just, I've never felt a more, I've never felt anything like that in comedy. I've never felt anything more. And it sounds like I'm saying he was evil, which he definitely wasn't, but anything more like black magic than what he did. Wow. You know, just like this like death metal. I've gone to one show where of this band called. sleep where it's just drums and this bass guitar that's the most prime and like you don't the guys like chanting or so and the energy is so heavy man and beautiful but heavy it was like that just the audience

was frozen and I think there were people in there who wanted to leave but were paralyzed yeah yeah that was pretty cool man but it was like powerful powerful. But his craft, I think, was starting off in this light way. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my God. And then, yeah, it was cool. That's pretty cool. Yeah. And then how old was he at that, at that point? I don't know his age. I don't know. I know. I know this was one, maybe his second to last special. So I don't know what the age was there. He's not a young man. No. Oh, no. He's not a young man. And he's still, and he's still edgy after going through all of that, right? Beyond, yeah, edgier than I I think anybody even, and not edgier than anyone would have wanted him to be, because he started doing this like, I don't know if you, when I watch his specials, it's there, but I don't think that's other thing that happens when you go see live stand up. There's something else where he was like doing this weird, I don't know, it's like he's this termite and he's eating away at the paradigm and breaking everything up right there in the moment and you find yourself all of a

sudden looking for something to hold on to. Yeah. You know what it reminds me of, man, there's a saying someone, like I saw this documentary on this Tibetan teacher, Dilgo Kinsey Rinpoche, who was one of the Dalai Lama's teachers. And they said, like, somebody like that can look, like if you're hanging out with them, they could say a thing to you like, be kinder. And it changes your life forever. Whereas, you know, something you read on a fucking cereal box doesn't mean anything.

It's a bumper sticker. It's meaningless. but when it comes from a person like that, the energy behind the words sinks into your heart and you're never going to be the same. Wow. I think that's what Carlin was like where his jokes had inside of them this kind of,

I don't know what you would call it. I don't want to call it a poison because it wasn't like toxic. Right, it wasn't negative, right. But what's the word for it? Like the stuff, like, I don't know, like it. Like the weight of it? Acidic. Yeah.

Costic. It was dissolving, like, I think a lot of places in the culture that people were like all sharing as being like, well, at least this is true. And I know this is like all comics do that to some degree. But man, his ability to do that was really, really magical. No, like we were saying earlier with prior, it's like there's that, there's the essence of the person. On paper, those words could mean something. But because it's coming through that, through that person, through that vehicle. It's, it, it becomes magical.

Hey, before we, before we break and you get to go eat more of my bread. Yes, French. Which, I can't wait for you to, to give me more reviews on. Seeing your son eat, it was so great. Ah, great. And my wife, too, who was like, she looked at it and she goes, that's sour. Is that sourdough? And then took a bite and goes, that's sourdough.

That's awesome. I just want to, I want to make sure that people, are are watching your show on Netflix because it's so good and this is how I don't know if I might have said this to you in text but this is how good it is first of all it's just so fun to watch and it's just a joyride it's just the animation is so great it's the Rick and Morty is it's a who's the uh animator Pendleton Ward adventure time adventure time Justin Royal Royal in is a brilliant human as Rick and Morty yeah but Adventure Time it makes total sense that it came from that. It just has this

craziness to it. But this is how cool it is that as a father in my age, sitting with a 17-year-old who sees everything and knows everything, that that was a meeting point of like, this is cool. Like when I dropped, after we watched the first

episode, and then I dropped to her, yeah, I'm friends with him. It was like, huh, really. That's the coolest thing I ever heard. It gave her a little moment of who are you exactly? Dude, let me tell you something. We shared a moment because when I gave that your bread to my wife, I said, this is from one of the great comics.

We're winning. Yeah, man. It's so great. Yeah, but everybody has to watch it. It's so damn good. And I'm not even through it all. It's one of those little treats where it's like I know I have more in the bank that I get to go see. Oh, man, I hope you keep making them.

Then me too. Yeah. Well, I have to say, I think both of our instinct is correct. Yes. I think when we came into this and we said we are friends, I think we just confirmed it. Yeah, we confirmed it. And I cannot wait to have a social distancing event with you and your wife if you guys are ready. I think we're allowed to if we wear masks or I don't know what the rules are.

but I think there's a safe way to do it right now. Let's hang out, man. All right, absolutely. We'll do it. And when you stop recording, I want to tell you something. All right, cool. Thanks, man. Thank you.