Danny Jones Podcast - #85 - Humiliating Billionaires | Alex Hooper

Episode Date: April 2, 2021

Alex Hooper is a stand-up comic, professional roaster, and human cartoon. He has appeared on two seasons of Americas Got Talent,  and has a weekly podcast called “Achilles heel” which explores the darkest parts of peoples lives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello world. Today we talk to the stand-up comic, professional roaster, and human cartoon Alex Hooper. Alex has appeared on two seasons of America's Got Talent. He also has a weekly podcast called Achilles Heel,

which explores the darkest parts of people's lives. Alex is truly one of the most genuine, kind, and hilarious motherfuckers I've ever met, and his voice is so therapeutic to listen to. Alex is currently on tour in Florida and is performing at Side Splitters Comedy Club

tonight Friday, April 2nd, and tomorrow, Saturday, April 3rd. So go check them out. Without further ado, please welcome Alex Hooper. Alex Hooper. Hi. Hi. Welcome. How are you doing, sir?

I'm great. How are you guys? I'm great. Tell our audience who doesn't know who you are, who don't know who you are. Tell them a little bit about, blah, easy for you to say. A little bit about yourself and where you came from and what you do. Okay. So, wow, that's a lot in the first 30 seconds. Just give us the whole story.

Let's really some. So when my mom expelled me from her vagina, should we start there? No. I'm a comedian. I live in Los Angeles. I've been there for 12 years, doing stand-up at the same amount of time. Most people that do know who I am know me from America's Got Talent. I've been on two seasons of that, 2018 and 2020. This year, last year I was a quarter-finalist. And most people know me because I roast the judges on there. I go on there and very flamboyant. peacocking outfits and I just with full machismo bravado just talk shit to billionaires. And where everyone else tries to get the judges to love them, I do the exact opposite of that. I think of myself as a heel

on that show. I come in to shake things up. And the same thing I did on Comedy Central's roast battle a few years ago too. But now I'm just torn around as a stand-up. Fuck yeah, dude. I love the robe that you have. Thank you very much. It's fucking beautiful. And what is the what is like the little robot? It's actually a gift from Burning Man. In 2018, I went for the first time. I'd been building up to it for years.

And the theme that year was I-Robot. So a friend of mine that goes every year gave me this necklace and I just love it. And yeah. And then yeah, the kimonos are just my fiancee makes them for me. I have a lot of, she makes a lot of like weird festival clothing just for fun. So I try to put as much of that part of my life into myself on stage and, you know. So festivals are a big part of your life? I love them. They're the best. Like, in just all the, anything, like when I started going, I think I started going like 2011, really, to like bigger ones. Like, I first started going to, like, Coachella and stuff like that.

And I just realized, like, this is the most fun any human can have. I'm listening to all of my favorite music in a single weekend. I'm running around stuffing drugs in my face and with all of my friends. And what could be more fun than this? And the more I started going, the more I realized people really were wearing stuff at festivals that they would. where in the normal world. And I realized, like, that's a place where you can really express yourself. Like, anyone you want to be, like, one of the, Burning Man has 10 principles, and one of them

is radical self-expression. What do you want to be right now? And so I realize that the freest form of myself is when I'm out there, because I don't give a fuck. I have unlimited energy, and I just want to be silly and just dance around like a puppet. And the more I started incorporating that stuff into my comedy, the more I really started figuring out who I wanted to be on stage and in the regular world. So did you take a lot of mushrooms and acid before you went to your first festival?

Allegedly, sure. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I started doing, I started smoking pot when I was like 14. I first did mushrooms when I was 16. And I didn't, like, I started like, I just ate a full eighth when I was 16 at a party where all my friends were getting drunk. Nice. This other friend and I were like, well, we have the. we don't feel like drinking

and they just, we just did that and I was, that was, this sounds so cliche to say, but it was the first time I was like, oh, like trees are like real. They're alive.

And I really started looking at like the world differently and I realized then that I just really like psychedelics and that they would influence me in a lot of ways as long as I use them properly. Hell yeah. That's scary. Dude,

I heard a story from the kids. the kid who, he's a YouTube channel called All Gas, No Breaks, where he goes around and he actually did an episode at Burning Man. And he's just like this goofy kid named Andrew Calligan. And he goes around and interviews people in like these bum fuck places around the world, around the country mainly in the travels in this like Winnebago. And he told the story about when he was like 15, 16, he took a lot of acid and a lot of mushrooms. And now he's like perma tripping. Yeah. And he says he sees shit, like constantly every day.

Like, he'll see things floating around in his vision all the time. He's like, yeah, I just wish I would have done so much drugs when I was young. I think, yeah. I mean, I think, like, I definitely, like, I didn't go hard when I was young. Like, I think I really, like, I experimented here and there. But when I was, like, 25, that's when I was like, okay, I can kind of, like, level this up a little bit more. Like, I think I know how to do it in a responsible way so I don't destroy my brain. But I remember growing up, like, you would hear the same stories again and again.

Like, if you eat acid one time, it's going to be in your spinal fluid forever. Yeah. And you're going to sneeze. And all of a sudden, you're going to be tripping, dude, in the middle of work at a consulting center. And I was like, oh, no. And then you hear the other people like, did you hear about the one girl that was in the insane asylum? Because she ate too many mushrooms. And she thought she was a glass of orange juice.

And she started trying to peel herself to get the juice out. And I was like, and when you're a kid, you're like, oh, my God, I can't believe that. That's so I'm never going to do those things. But I was also just like, that can't really be. a thing, right? Something else was wrong with that person if there was, if anything like that were to occur. So that's my whole thing is like, I only do drugs that are fun and I only do them to make already fun situations more fun.

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concrete at checkout. Please don't be a fucking nerd. Get a Ridge wallet today. Right, right. That makes a lot of sense. Don't, yeah, don't do them when you don't feel good, do them when you do feel good to make it better. Yeah.

There's a great line from Otto on the Simpsons when they're watching this meteor shower and he just goes, I don't even. I need drugs to enjoy this just to enhance it. And I'm like, bam, you just nailed it. That's exactly what it's for. That's a fucking great. That's a great quote. Yeah.

Yeah, I've never taken any kind of LSD or mushrooms, but I want to. I've always been. I've had so many people on here recently who have just been taught. Like I had, like last week I had a guy or two weeks ago, I had these people on here that, they're filmmakers. And they, once they start taking mushrooms, now everything they make is about tripping. Like every single project they do that are working on a project now called, uh, I figure what it's called. It's supposed to be like the American trip or something like that

where he's going to get like a couple families together in the woods where they take mushrooms and like an intervention type thing. Okay. Because his whole life has revolved around taking mushrooms now. You know, that's what I'm afraid of. No, see, I mean, that happens to people, but I think part of him probably wanted that to happen in some way. Like, maybe he needed a thing to be able to really, like,

create his art and stuff like that. And you realize that's an avenue. Because, like, I also, I use the, I've used them medicinally, too. Like, once a year I will do a psychedelic, at least once a year, completely by myself, where I just shut myself in, like, a room and, like, you know, put on great music and some cool lighting. And I just let it do whatever it wants to me. And I, like, I will cry for hours on end. I'll just cuddle my dogs.

Like, it's one of those things where, like, I've seen what psychedelics can do to really be used as medicine. and so I think they're great for everything. Like you can either do them as just, hey, I'm dancing at a festival with 9,000 people right now, and I just want to just see butterflies everywhere. Or I need this deep-rooted trauma to come out of me in some way. And I don't want to use prescription pills or 20 years of therapy to do it. So I'm going to take an eighth of mushrooms or do an ayahuasca ceremony and just and then buy. Really?

Like it can have that kind of effect. Sure. Yeah. There's millions of stories of people like that. I mean, that's why, you know, psychedelics have been around for as long as humans have been around. And you hear these stories of people using them, you know, like, you know, the trips, the, what I call them, the spiritual journeys that, like, the Native Americans used to go on and things like that, where they would just, you have to go find yourself. And all you would have is, like, a pile of peyote and they just drop you naked in the woods for a few days.

and you come back a man. And this is like a thing that has been around forever. So it's all about just like using them in a very smart way and not trying to push them on other people. Like people come to them when they're ready. You know what I mean? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah.

Maybe you're not ready. I've already stumped you. I'm not ready. I mean, JJ Abrams, who flunked out of skateboarding, is already stumped everybody. J.J.A. Fuck yeah, dude. Sorry, I just have it.

I hate you with a little one. I hope there's more to come. Sure. So how could you compare Florida so far to L.A.? So right now it is a very different place because L.A. is still very much closed. I think we're only at 25% capacity right now for things. So immediately when you get to,

I mean, Florida always has this air of recklessness to it. And, you know, Florida is the butt of a lot of people's jokes and people wonder like, why does so much crazy shit happen in Florida? And I've always just thought, dude, this humidity fucks you up in ways that you don't begin to understand until you live in it for a long time.

And I really think that's why you see all these stories of like, Florida man tries to wrestle an alligator in the middle of a Starbucks. And you're like, well, why would he do that? And it's like, because eventually, like, you know, I do think this heat and this stickiness just gets to you. It feels like a warm sock here. And I do love Florida just because it's a different type of people here. They are, it is kind of more free, even though it is a lot more religious at the same time.

But that's what I think is so funny about, like, people here that don't want to wear masks, because so many of them are super religious. And I'm like, you love God, yet you seem to defy every message he sends to you through the universe. Yeah, I'm just like, I don't really get where it all comes from, but, you know, I was just in Miami, and it's, I mean, Miami is, somebody said to me in Miami, they were like, I feel like my, this guy was from Germany, he was visiting Miami and he goes, I think Miami is the real America. And I was just like, oh, this is the furthest thing in the world from what America is. Yeah. This is a, this is a Btha. We're in the, like, we're in the middle of the, like, we're in the middle of the, like, we're in the middle of the.

French Riviera or something right now. This is not fucking America by any means. Yeah. But I thought that's so fun. That's what he thought. I was like, nah, you got to go to Kansas or something.

It's the furthest thing from fucking America. Yeah. But it's the furthest thing. It's fun here, dude. Like, you know, it's, I always have a good time when I come here.

I like the people here. I like the crowds at all my shows. And I like just like running around Florida. It's a good time. Yeah. Well, this part of Florida is so much different than Miami. Miami's so Miami's almost like L.A.

As far as like the amount of people there and how about how bad traffic. is. Oh, yeah. And how, like, everyone, like, I mean, L.A. is not full of people on the streets like Miami, but. Yeah, it's very, there's this, there's this, there's a very vain section. Miami's weird because you're either, like, a billionaire or you are the poorest person I've ever seen in my entire life. Like, I didn't, like, I don't know the area, right? So I'm just, like, exploring, and I get off it, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just, I get off a train to walk to this area called Winwood, which is, uh, known, it's the Winwood walls. You ever heard of those? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Super cool. They're just these giant murals for like six square blocks. And so I'm using my Google Maps and it says, get off the train here and walk 20 minutes to Winwood. And I'm like, okay, I get off the train and I immediately see a guy shooting up into his wrist. He was vaccinating himself? That's, yeah, I guess so, dude. Self-vaccination. That's the thing.

I mean, I felt so bad for him. I was like, I got to help this guy. So I showed him a bigger vein on his leg. It's like, this is easier. Come on, man. Your wrist. But like that's, it was one of those things where I was, I was walking, I don't, look, I don't, I don't, I grew up in Baltimore and I have been in downtown Baltimore often. I used to skate down there when I was 17. People were like, why did you do that? Weren't you afraid? I was like, a 17 year old white kid on rollerblades is the last thing anybody thinks has money. So, no, I was never afraid. But like walking through that area of Miami and I was wearing, this is the, I was wearing, like, rainbow bathing suit and a fanny pack and I had my headphones on and I was like I'm a fucking mark right now like you wouldn't believe and I'm looking around it all I'm like do not make eye contact do not engage anyone just walk through here as quickly as possible but I and then you know and then five minutes later you're like at South Beach and you would never know that that area was right there because most people just avoid it but and I'm just you live you learn yeah it's a beautiful place here Florida what about the keys you're spending

time in the Keys? Only time in the Keys? Only once. I went to this place called, I vacationed when I was like in 10 years old, maybe, a place called Ducks Key. Duckske. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember I spent like a week in, like, a resort there. Mostly, though, like when I used to come down here, my grandma lived in St. Pete in this little town called Gulfport. So we would go down there and stay in her senior living apartment building, you know, where we are, like, it's my brother and I and my sister and we're all, you know, like, you know, between five and 11 years old and everyone else in the building is 90. Like, everyone has plastic on their couches and their apartments all smell the exact same. They all have that mothball. Like, yeah, just, but I used to love coming down here just

because when you grow up in place like Maryland and then you come to Florida, you're like, oh, this is tropical. This is like so different. It's cool. Yeah. Especially in an old folks home. I mean, I mean, that's, that's, that is Florida. Florida. That's 90% of the people here. Yeah. Except I heard, I heard not, well, recently that Florida has like the lowest rates of all the coronavirus statistics, like low death, least amount of deaths, least amount of infections, least amount of, all that crap.

Did you get that from Fox News? What are you watching here? I didn't fact check it. Breitbart is like, hey, we see you. That's how we get in Florida's Fox and Breitbart. Dude, I mean, I went, this was my fiancé before I came out here. She's like, hey, Alex, just, I've been on the road this month. And I've, you know, she knows that I've been partying because I haven't been in so long.

And, you know, sometimes, like, locals or comedians will take me out afterwards. And she was like, just do me a favor. Don't, like, invite people back to your hotel rooms. Just, like, be smart. And I know you're, I know you're going to be partying and stuff. Just be smart. And then the other day, I was like, I found an all you can eat sushi buffet. And I was like, well, I am not going to tell her that I'm coming here.

I like, dude, Chinese buffets used to be one of my vices. I like Chinese buffets. I love them, dude. They're one of those things where it's just like, I work, I keep, take pretty good care of my body. Because I destroy it in certain different ways, I really try to be good to my body and my brain. Like, I read a lot. I meditate. I exercise every day.

You can't be like a fat piece of shit smoking cigarettes and just being a moron if you're going to do those things that I do. So there's a balance to it. You get to balance it out. Yeah, balances everything for me. But, like, I told her I was going to be doing, like, that all you can eat buffet, I was like, oh, my God. Like, I thought this would never have come back again. Yeah. I really thought I would never eat at one of those for the rest of time.

And then I come to Florida, I'm like, oh, they're open? They never closed. Yeah, and you can just go and get food. And they're like, you must wear gloves. And I was like, that's the only thing to change. You have to put on little plastic gloves. Like, yeah. Perfect.

Now you can eat with your hands. That's it, dude, everyone in Florida is trying to give me a plastic bag. I bought, like, one drink and they put it in a bag. I'm like, I don't want this bag. And I was, like, realize I was like, wait a man, I can go to L.A. And, like, sell these for, like, $40 each. Like, we can't have those in L.A. Oh, really?

There's a rare out there? Oh, yeah, you can't. They're illegal in Los Angeles. Yeah, you can't give a plastic bag for, like, almost anything. Oh, shit. Yeah, at least not those super, super cheap ones that you find here. Yeah, those are, I guess, yeah, I mean, I mean, it's really hard for a baby to suffocate.

It's like right now. You go to Quickey Mart, you get the nice black ones where you can't see what's in the bags. Oh, my fuck. Are all your friends leaving L.A.? All I hear everywhere online is all these podcasts, all the comedians are talking about leaving L.A. Everyone's leaving. A lot of people left. Most of my friends are still there.

I have a very good, I have a very good community outside of comedians of people that, you know, they're my friends that I travel. with and festival with and all this other stuff go to concerts together. So we have a very pretty good group and no one was ever thinking like we got to get out of here because we just love the city and we love the community that we've built there

and so I really didn't never like the thought crossed my mind but honestly the more people that left L.A. I was watching my time slots at comedy clubs tick up up up and I was just like oh cool instead of being at 1245 I just got to 1115. Aren't they all closed?

Right now, but they're going to open. Like, you know, they're starting to do, like, patio stuff and, like, outdoors things are coming back. And so the thing is, they're not going to be closed forever. And some people think that L.A. is, like, they're like, L.A. is done. It's never going to come back. Of course it will. Like, Los Angeles is a thriving city in so many ways other than just entertainment. And the people that live there like to go do things.

It's one of the reasons I like living there is because, like, if your favorite band is going on tour, they might go to Tampa. Maybe. Right. That's a chance. They're definitely going to go to Los Angeles. So, like, that's my, like, honestly, like, some of the hardest decisions I've had to make in L.A. are like, oh, my God, these two bands are playing on the exact same night.

How are, how, do we catch half of one and go to the other? Like, yeah, I mean, you know, it's first world problems for sure. But, I mean, that's why I love living there is because there's never a shortage of shit to do. It's so fun. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Last time I was there, I was jogging on the highway.

to in and out and the highway was on fire and people were just casually the cars were just casually going around it, not even looking, not even batting an eye. And a block down the street, there was new construction going up, they were building these wooden apartments apartment buildings.

It's every day in L.A. Well, that's how I felt about Miami too, is I see these brand new high rises getting built on Miami Beach. I'm like, aren't these going to sink in 12 years? Like, you're building this giant building. Oh, yeah. Did you have fun when you visited at L.A.?

The last time I went, well, I was, I stayed in Joshua Tree. Oh, okay. That's very different than L.A. So on the way home, I stayed in L.A. for one night before I left. And you didn't do psychedelics out there. No. That's why most people go out there. To Joshua Tree? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I know.

I know. I just found that out. But I went there for a friend's wedding. Oh, cool. So he was just getting married out there. We stayed out there for probably a week and just hung out and kicked it and did his little wedding. Did you enjoy the desert? I did enjoy the desert. I did enjoy the desert. I love the desert. I love how the fact, I love the fact that it's like, it's freezing at night.

Yes. And it gets like pretty fucking hot during the day. Like it's such a difference, contrasts from the hot and the cold during the time of day. Yeah, it's one of those things where I never thought, I would like, you, because growing up, when you think of the desert, you just think of this endless sand pit with nothing there. And I didn't realize that, no, like, the desert's actually a beautiful, calm, like, very peaceful place. and it's filled with beauty just because, like, I mean, the sunsets out there are so amazing. Oh, yeah. And there is really cool landscapes and things like that going on.

And anything that lives in the desert is resilient as fuck. So, like, it's really cool going out to those places. California is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. I mean, all the way down from, like, San Diego, Chula Vista, even up north, like, Santa Cruz. I love all those places. The one thing I noticed about Joshua Tree, though, recently when I was there is the whole place, I don't know if you've ever spent any time, like, in the water and the ocean like diving or anything like that but the whole entire desert

looks exactly like the ocean floor like it looks like it used to be underwater yeah i don't know i mean that part probably was at some point i'm guessing i've been on a lot of like dry lake beds and things like that yeah definitely like you know hundreds of millions of years ago this was a fully formed lake i mean the thing about north america is most of it at one point was under water And there were like hundreds of thousands of lakes and things like that that are now dried up just because as the land rose, as the land topography rose up, the water was forced down. And so then places emerged that were suddenly not underwater anymore. Right. I've heard of like there's been like crazy cataclysmic events that happen where like half of the United States was underwater because of a some sort of asteroid would hit and would cause an iceberg to fly across the country and one would melt somewhere and end up underwater.

and then now it's not. Yeah, I mean, I can't really talk anymore on that. That is not my area. I know enough to be like, yeah, I used to be underwater. Sounds good. Okay, cool. But it looks just like the ocean floor, like exactly like the ocean floor, especially with like all little trees everywhere.

They all, it looks just identical. Yeah, what I realized, I couldn't imagine tripping and being out there. It's a lot. What I remember when I first went to Joshua Tree, and really when I went to California as a whole, is that I used to grow up like, like all of us did, reading Dr. Seuss books. And I always thought, like,

well, these trees that I'm seeing in Dr. Seuss books aren't real. They're not, I know, right? But they're not real trees. Like, there's no trees that look like that in Maryland. So I just thought, like, they're not real. And then I came to California. I was like, they're all real trees.

They're just all out here. We just don't have that type where we live. But, yeah, I mean, don't even get me started on the Dr. Seuss thing. I don't know. But, I mean, there's definitely a lot of Joshua trees in his books, for sure. I think he lived there. Yeah, that would make sense.

He definitely had a house somewhere. I know he had one house in California. I remember being there one time and someone was like, we were out surfing somewhere and someone's like, see that house in the cliff, that's Dr. Seuss's house.

Interesting. And there was like an elevator going down. Where was that? He's from Connecticut or New Hampshire. I remember because where was it? I flew into, I was doing shows in like Missouri, in Springfield, Massachusetts.

I think that's where he's somewhere around there. And I flew into Connecticut and they had all this Dr. Seuss stuff because I guess that's his hometown. But I'm sure eventually he made the track to California. He had to have been ball in. Yeah.

If you have, dude, if you have money, California is the greatest place. Like, you know, if you don't, it's fine. It's hard. But if you do, it's wonderful. Just money to burn. Yeah, go out there. Literally burn. Literally burn.

On the side of the freeway while everyone drives around it, not giving a fuck. Oh my God. Are there still any fires out there? It's not fire season right now. Okay. Right now, I don't believe so. I don't think anything's burning, but ask me in six months. Yeah.

And yeah, it gets, I mean, there's, it gets really bad. I mean, dude, there were some days early on. When the pandemic first started, if for, first of all, in L.A., it rained for a straight week, which is very rare for it to rain that much in L.A. And it was really, we all kind of felt like, okay, we're really just supposed to stay inside right now. Like, they really, the world, the universe does not want us to go outside right now. So just stay inside. But then there were a few days over the summer where the fires were so bad that literally, like, if you opened your phone, it said, like, close your windows, don't exercise outside.

Don't be out there for prolonged periods of time. And, I mean, I couldn't, like, for exercise, like, I usually, I play tennis, I hike, and I slack line. And I couldn't do any of those things because they all required being outside for a long period of time. So it was, that period was rough for, because it was like a couple of times. couple weeks, like, I don't go to gyms anyway, but nobody could go to gyms and nobody could be outside. So I was just in my, I was like doing prison workouts in my home, like in my one-bedroom apartment, just like doing as many push-ups as I could all day. Like, just like, I swear to God when I'm out, man, I'm going to kill a little poochie. Like I'm like, you get all juiced

up. Yeah, man. I had nothing better to do. I was like, I saw, I started looking at videos of people that put, they put up slack lines in their own apartments. And I was slacklining. It's like tight rope walking So it's like you take a piece of climbing webbing and you tie it between two trees And then you like you can walk on it You can bounce on it some people do like tricks on it There's a lot of different disciplines for it But it's essentially you're balancing on a one inch piece of rope

I can see you doing that Yeah I love it Yeah when people learn that I do that they're like yeah that makes sense And yeah That's the thing like Grove in Baltimore I kind of always knew I wanted to live in California California. So I went to school in Pittsburgh and I started doing acting stuff and I started getting in like a couple like small movies and things like that. So I joined the Screen Actors Guild and I was like, dude, I got a, I'm 22 years old. I'm going to L.A. I'm going to try and see what happens. Instead of being, you know, maybe in one thing a year in Pittsburgh in a really small part, let me go try to go do this thing. And I got there and I always knew I wanted to live in California. There was something about it. I mean, maybe I was a skater for a long time.

And, like, you just, there's a lifestyle element to, like, living there that was always just so attractive to me. And I have, I love Baltimore. I loved Pittsburgh, but I knew I wasn't going to stay in either of those places my whole life, you know? Yeah. No, I always felt the same way. Called me.

And then I just let it. Now I'm just like, oh, yeah, does anyone want to do a sound bath later? Like, what are we doing, guys? Let's go out to the desert and just rig up some slack lines. And, you know, I'm just, I let it take me. over, man. I don't care. I'm unashamed. That's awesome. Yeah. What is it, what is it with stand-up comics and

acting? Why are they all stand-up comics? It seems like majority of them going to acting or the or vice versa. So the thing is like I, I I was born to be a stand-up comic and I understand that now. But growing up, I really didn't know what I wanted to do

and I was a, I was a really piece of shit kid. I had like, so I grew up with really horrible eczema. Like, I mean, like, I would go to doctors and they would basically just apologize to me. I was hospitalized multiple times as a child because my skin would break out in like staff infections.

And I mean like, I looked like a decrepit leper. Like my skin was falling off me. It would be like oozing pus and stuff like that. Like it was really just uncomfortable, painful. And I was against the world because I thought the world

was against me. And so my mom kind of started getting me into acting stuff. Like as I got older, skin got a little bit better, but it still had a lot of problems, but it figured out ways to make it more manageable. There were new drugs coming out that made it a little better. And so my grandmother was an actress, and she's like, I know you're so animated and you're so, have so much energy. We just need to do something with it. So I started doing acting stuff, and it was okay, but I liked it. But when I found stand-up, it was like, oh, like this.

And now I get to control the words that I say. All of these thoughts that I have, I can actually craft them into things that they're hopefully funny that I want to tell the world. And I think that's why, like, standers become actors because we are good at just being realistic and improvisational. And we're good at being ourselves. And we can act as well. Like, a lot of, not everyone can. But actors that become stand-ups usually are not good stand-ups. I'll say that.

That's really, they're completely different disciplines. So most actors that try stand-up are 10. terrible, but most stand-ups that try acting are kind of fall into it a little bit. And maybe it's because we're used to saying the same shit again and again. Like, you know, I mean, I have jokes that I've been doing for a couple years just because I haven't been able to lay them down into something yet. And some of these jokes I've said hundreds of times, you know? And so we learn how to say this shit, but make it feel fresh. And I think people see that and realize like, oh, yeah, you'd be good to act in this part that I have, you know?

Yeah. So a lot of people in L.A., a lot of actors are told to do stand-up because they're like, you got to go do something else. Like, you got to, you know, they want to know what you're doing improv. You're doing stand-up. You're doing sketch. You're a writer. So people try to put on all these different hats.

And for me, as soon as I became a stand-up, there was a very clear, like, line for me where I was like, I'm an actor who does stand-up. And I remember there was a very specific day where I was like, I'm not an actor anymore. Like, I will act when it's called for. but I'm a fucking comic and this is what I want. I realize that that was the group I wanted to be associated with.

These degenerates who just, you know, are brilliant thinkers and like live their own lives and run their own race and they really, they collaborate but they don't rely on other people to give them work. That's kind of the beauty of it. Like acting,

you have to wait till you can create your own projects but really you're waiting to get booked on something until you make, get that role. And otherwise you go in, like I've done guest stars on sitcoms and shit like that. And I go in there, I have like two lines. It's not fulfilling to do that. You know, it's a good paycheck and it's fun to see yourself on TV. And people see it and they're like, oh my gosh.

But like, it's way better to be like, oh, yeah, I wrote this entire thing that you're about to see and I'm going to perform it for you. And then I'm going to travel around and I can change it as I see fit. There's just so much more to it that lets my creative juice just fly. Yeah, especially not. I mean, I feel like so many people just have their bios. You'll see just like actor, comedian, entrepreneur. They have all these fucking things. And it's insane. I feel like being a stand-up comic would be like the holy grail. And like acting gigs would just be like icing on the cake or something like that. That's how I look at it. Like I mean, the thing about like, like, again, LA does that to you. They make you think that you're never doing enough. Because no matter what, they're like, okay, so I see you have a podcast. You have a pilot script written. You're in a sketch group. You do stand up. You act.

What else are you doing with, uh, it's it? Yeah. And it's just like one of the things where you, there's this huge like, I mean, everyone is trying so hard to just figure out their place in, in, in, out there. And the thing is that you just, it just takes time. And you can't for so many years. Like we started talking about festivals and things like that. There was a lot of years where I was going to festivals, but I was like, I was like, I

will never put my festival self into my comedy self. Like, I'm keeping these things separated because I can't go on stage wearing these crazy outfits and like, you know, like, there were so many reasons why I didn't want to show that side of myself to like the world where I was like, this is who I am in these specific weekends and it's my freedom. I'm cage free. And then one day I did it in 2016, I was at a really small festival. doing comedy. Like my friends put it together. It's like 500

people on a dry lake bed like out in the Mojave Desert. And I was wearing this outfit that was a red Unitarred with fur that I'd found a goodwill and a tail. And I looked at my friend and I was like, dude, what if I like

went on stage like this? And he was just like, would you? And I was like, I mean, I would roast battle in this. And at the time you guys know what roast battle is? is that what you're talking about with like what uh what uh what's what's the kid's name uh david lucas does yeah david lucas does it sure um but like so it mainly known like

started the comedy store um as with tony hinchcliff hinchcliff has done it a bunch of times and has judged it a lot um but yeah he's a roaster obviously jeff ross is a big part of it he's the one that got the show on comedy central but basically two comedians go head to head talking shit on each other right and then the audience decides or judges decide who wins and I kind of fell into doing that in a really backwards way where I never I saw I used to go to the show and watch it

I was like this is insane the energy is out off the hook people at a normal comedy show will laugh they might hit the table a little bit they might clap they might woo at roast battle people were slamming the fucking walls when a Joe kid they would chop his fucking out of finish him and I was like this is nuts dude and this is happening Tuesday night at midnight So I was like, how did Tuesday become the best fucking night of the week?

This is incredible. So I started doing it and very quickly realized that I was good at it. I was a good joke writer. And so for over a year, I was the number, there's rankings, right? Top 50 rankings. I was number one for over a year. And I started to get bored because the analogy that I always use is like, I was really good at Mario Kart as a kid. It was really good.

I played like all the time as my favorite video. but I was always in the lead. So the only thing I would ever do was just toss a banana peel behind me and just keep trying to be in the lead. But it's not fun to be in the lead. It's fun to chase. You want someone ahead of you

that you can be a gunning for. So I started thinking of all these ways where it's like, how can I make this, how can I not set myself up to lose, but how can I just increase the difficulty level and change the game?

And so I had a title bout against my friend Pat Barker and this is like November of 2016 and I was out at this festival and I was like dude I'm gonna fucking battle wearing this and my friend that's a huge my friend Jeff Chung who loves the show was like do it the gift fuck yeah do it so you're just handing him ammunition exactly well that's the way I looked at it right I was like I'm gonna go out there like an animal and I went out there in a trench coat had with electronic music playing and I have this and I had all my friends like throw glow sticks at me from the audience and shit as soon as I dropped the trench coat and I'm standing there wearing this Unitard that is so form-fitting and this blue glow-in-the-dark tail that I put lights on and everyone was like, what the fuck is this? Because everyone knew who I was.

Like, I've done this so many times. And Pat Barker was, it's such a good joke writer, we're still very good friends, he was flabbergasted. He had no idea what to do. And I threw him off so much, because I also, I wasn't talking like this. I was like, ooh, it's Pat.

Barker, everyone. Look at him. Fat Porker. What's your name again? Like doing this, like, stupid voice. And I beat him. And people didn't expect me. Like, he didn't expect me to. And even Jeff Ross was like, Pat, take a second. Just fucking look at him right now. Just stop. Don't worry about your jokes. Look at this fucking asshole and what he's wearing right now. And people thought half the community was like, that was the most brilliant thing I've ever seen in Roast Battle. You just. You just. who leveled up what we're allowed to do here and half the people were like, you cheated. That wasn't you. And I was like, 100%. That's actually, and what I realized is that's the most fucking me I've ever been on that show. I was just

having fun and being silly. There was no aggression or anything like that. And then, right after I did that, Jeff, I got a call from Comedy Central, literally a month later saying that I was going to be on season two of Roast Battle, like I was one of the 16 people's selected to go to the main show.

And that was this moment where I was like, okay, so I do this thing. Two months later, I'm on Comedy Central. I'm going to do whatever the fuck I want from now on. And I'm going to start incorporating all this silly world shit that I play, that people don't really know about into my comedy. And I don't go on stage all the time, like wearing that shit. Like, the really extravagant costumes, like what I wear on AGT and stuff like that. That's very much like just for that.

But I will go on stage wearing like, you know, kimonos and things and just like, and I was scared for a long time to do it. I was really scared because I thought, how is anyone going to take me seriously if I'm wearing this shit? And what I realized is people actually find me more authentic and more genuine because even if you wouldn't wear this, you're looking at a person who very much knows who they are

and is very comfortable with themselves. So you listen to them because you're like, okay, well, whatever this guy's doing, he knows who he is. So he's coming from a place where of truth. And that's everything in comedy. Once, and that's when I figured out

like I can do whatever I want, I can be whatever I want as long as it comes from my heart. And then bam, from that day on, I was like, this is game over, everybody. Wow. I'm running. I'm running. Order the kimonos now. But yeah, dude, it was such a

defining moment for me. And yeah, and then it also, though, for the show. Because it also, like, if you watch season two of Roast Battle, every single person on there is pretty much, you know, a couple people wore some fun outfits and stuff. But I was like, I'm going to play a different game here. And this is going to be, you know, I showed people that, like, it doesn't have to be two fat guys wearing flannel calling each other rapists.

Like, we can do better than this, guys. And so, yeah, I think of the show. I just think of, like, how do you make the show better? And the more entertaining I am, the better the show is. That's incredible. That's awesome. So what is like the, is there a different mindset or preparation when it comes to like roast battles versus like regular standup? Yeah, it's so different because like roast battle is so specific.

Like, you know, if I, you know, if I look at you guys, I have to start really like looking at you. Do they remind me of anybody? Like that's why I drop like J.J. Abrams if he flunked out of skateboarding, you know? Honestly, you look like if Colorado opened the meth dispensary. And I just, you know, it's, it's just one of those quick, I have to kind of just, I look at you and I sum you up as quick as possible. But then what really good roasters do is you learn about the person. I would start researching you. I would listen to your podcast.

I would figure out little tips that other people would have no idea of knowing because then I can make it even more personal. And the jokes are very specifically catered. And the whole thing is you want them to hit hard and you want them to be fast for the most part. Like word economy is everything. Make it as short as possible. But stand-up is totally different than that because you're not writing about a specific person. Well, you are. I mean, yourself a lot, but you're in your relationship to the world.

But what Roast Battle did for me is it made me go every, I need to have so many more jokes in my stand-up. Like I don't ever want to, if I say a line, the next line has to be a joke. And even if the bit is five minutes long, it needs to contain 20. 20 jokes within that five minutes, instead of building to just one thing over the course of a story or something like that. Right. So it made me such a better writer,

and then I was able to incorporate that into my stand-up. And anyone will tell you, just because you're a good stand-up doesn't mean you're a good roaster, and just because you're a roaster doesn't mean you're a good stand-up. I happen to have found that I can use my skills for both, but if I turn on my roasting brain, it is a little different than me just doing stand-up. end up mainly because I really like I consider myself very empathetic, compassionate kind.

I really come from a place of love. So if I don't know that I have the okay to like roast you guys a little bit, I'm not going to do it because most people don't want to be made fun of. It's like their worst nightmare. For me, I fucking love it. It made me love myself. Hearing of myself be called a billion different names has, and I can tell you, I mean, I'll give you some good ones like,

my very first roast battle ever. This one hurt me the most. This guy, and this guy, Jason Van Glass, was my first roast battle, said, Alex looks like Two-Face, if Two-Face was one face. And I stood there, and I thought I would be okay with it.

But here's the thing. It's not that you don't know what you look like. It's the moment when a hundred people laugh at you. Yeah, yeah. because of it. And you're standing on stage being laughed at. It is such a different beast than what stand-up is. Because, yeah, they're laughing with you.

You're making jokes. Roast battle, I tell everyone this before they do it, you're going to be laughed at. And you need to understand that you're about to be bullied. And yes, you can fight back. You can have redemption. You can rebuttal and get them back even harder. But just understand, you're about to have the fucking guts pulled out of you.

in front of people. And I've had that done on live television. Like, it is brutal. So it made me really go like, okay, who can hurt me then? Who can hurt me? Right. After doing something like that. And dude, I don't know.

So if you've never watched what I've done on America's Got Talent, in 2018, they recruited, they went to roast battle and they said, we want someone to come and roast the judges. And so they had a few of us audition. And I said, look, I want to do it. But let me show you how I want to do it. do it. And I showed them the character with wearing my tail and all that. And I was like, look, for a show like this, this is how it's going to work. You can't just have me looking like an angry, fucking, you know, retired porn director. Come up there just like, hey, Heidi Klum,

you're fucking dumb, bitch. Like, it's going to look awful. But if you do it like this and make it really silly, it might work. And so I went out there and it's a theater of 3,000 people, right? And you know, this is the biggest. stage I've ever been on. This is the biggest show pretty much in the world, essentially. And I went out there and had my ass handed to me harder than any person I pretty much know has ever had on stage. For seven straight minutes, the audience booed and screamed at me violently to get off the stage. And the judges are pressing their buzzers one by one. And I start with Tyra Banks, and I'm just going down the line and after every single person

they're just like buzz and the people are like I can see everybody and they're all holding their hands up in giant X's they're screaming at me I can't even hear myself think but Simon is laughing his ass off and won't press his buzzer so I'm up there you're supposed to be up there for two minutes I was up there for seven

it was awful and I walked off stage and finally like you know it was all over I got through it and I just like walked off stage and I was like what is that going to look like I was so, I cried on the way home because that level of negative energy is impossible to avoid. It was swirling through me

like I had done the worst drug I've ever done in my life. I felt sick. Like I thought I was gonna throw up and it took days to get it out of me. And I, for, it didn't air for two and a half months. And for two and a half months, I'm going, what the fuck am I gonna do?

What is, this is, if they air this, I'm fucking finished. Like, I'm gonna look terrible. People are going to think I don't know what it's going to look like And then it aired And the internet Fucking spoke up And they were like this is legendary

This is the coolest fucking thing We've ever seen on this show Because it got it's not for the people that watch the show Yeah It's for the people that don't watch the show And those people on the internet So they started sharing the clip going Dude look what he did to these people

He went out there and shoved it in their face. So these people are just in love with the judges or something? Yeah, 100% dude. Yeah, they're like, they're those kind of crowd where like, the people that love that show

love it so much. Right. They don't want you to talk down on it and make it look bad. They're idols, dude. They're icons. And so I was like, and so suddenly realized,

and the thing is the show really respected what I did because they understood the value of it. You have to either kill on that show or do something extremely memorable at a really different way. You can't be middle of the road because middle of the road

doesn't make good TV. And they realized that what I had done had never been done on that show before and next thing you knew, like they edited in a way where I just look like I know exactly what I'm doing.

You can't tell that I'm freaking the fuck out inside of me. Yeah. So, man, I got off that show. But like, so then all of a sudden the views started popping and I mean, it's now,

I think all of my clips on that show have like over 100 million views in total. That's awesome. Yeah, because that show is so, it's so big. But that clip got passed around to all the people that don't watch it. But then this year they invited me back to do it all over again because they realized there

was merit in it. And the judges were like, I was like, they'll know what's coming this time. They can handle it. So the judges that were hitting the buzzer, why were they hitting the buzzer? Because they thought, because I'm talking shit, dude. I did. I started the very first thing I said was to Tyra Banks, who was the host. And first of all, I come out there.

with, and I say, I'm here to inspire the world through happiness, positivity, and comedy. And they're all cheering. Like, everybody's like, yeah. Mel B, the Spice Girls, like, I love this, yes. And then I turned to Tyra Banks and I said, Tyra, you have so much courage.

It must be so difficult to host a show like this and still find a way to make it about you. And everything from there. Oh, they just flipped. Yeah, then everything from that point on was like, oh, fuck. Like it was, you know, Mel B, I said, like, Miss Scary Spice. The only thing's scary than you is your solo career. And then the one I got the most flack for, which is one of my favorite jokes I've ever written, I said, Heidi Klum, you are magical.

Four children, yet your body appears that you haven't paid attention to any of them. And she looked at me and just went, bam, and buzzed so quick. But Simon was ready for it. He was just ready to take it. Yeah. That's awesome. He talks shit on people. Right.

He does that. I was like, these people ruin people's dreams all day. These people come out on stage thinking that they're about to have their life change and they just look at him go, you're terrible. Yeah. That's soul crushing if you're not expecting that. But someone like me who's had, who'd been through the ringer of Rose Battle so many times,

I was like, you know. Can't hurt. I'm all right. You know. It hurt. It hurt. No, yeah. But to, it also, I was like, oh, well, now I'm resilient.

Like, nothing like that is ever going to happen again. Who, what I think about is, like, who can say they've been booed by that many people, like, individually? Because even, like, as sports teams, you're with a team of people. You go to another city, and that city, like, hates you, but you're with your team. Right. You and all your boys. Right. I was by myself.

Oh, God, dude. That's got to be an insane feeling. Oh, the worst. That's got to be insane. But to get that comeback this year and be able to do it again, even though I didn't have an audience. And then I made the quarterfinals this year. I was in the top 25. That's awesome.

So, like, it was one of those things where it's like, I got mine. Yeah. And I made people understand that this is something to be valued. And that's really what happened when I hit the internet is people said, like, don't, all these people, like, these celebrities shouldn't be upset. Who is this guy? They've had 40-year careers of nil. nothing but success. They have so much money.

They have everything. Why do they care that this little fucking a tail is saying these things to them? You know? And that's that's kind of the beauty of it. And kind of like sparked conversation of like, you know, shake things up, dude. Is it going to be the same judge, uh, judges this time when you go? I already did it. Oh, you already did it.

Yeah, I did it. Yeah, I did. I ended up doing, um, two performances. But my first one was on March 14th, which is when lockdown started. So now I'm in the exact same theater And now I'm looking at instead of Heidi Kloom was sick So she wasn't there

Mel B had been cut off a couple years ago So now I'm looking at Howie Mandel Sophia Vergara Who I fucking love More than any I'm like she is my dream woman And Simon And in the same 3,000 seat theater

There are now three people Looking at me And I'm doing the same thing That's weird too Awful Right yeah just again Like I'm like This is this is

I was ready for this experience. I was ready for these people again. I was ready to take it. I was ready to laugh in their goddamn face and flip my fucking tail at them. And because they weren't there, though, they also could really understand what I was doing. And they could hear the jokes properly.

And really it made it. So they were all like, this is really funny. This is great. And so then I just kept moving through. And the final performance that I did on that show for the live shows was one of the, the things I'm most proud of in my comedy career. And I read, I won't ruin it, but I basically, I read a storybook of roast jokes to them

with illustrations of the jokes popping up on a giant screen behind me. And it's, I'm so proud of it. And I really feel like I got mine and that show, as many people, like a good thing, as many people shouldn't go on that show, you have to make it work for you. And I found a way to make it work for what I wanted to do without having to compromise who I was. Right. Yeah. I was very long-winded. I'm sorry I took all that time.

That was fucking great. Yeah, that was good. What a great fucking story, man. What, so what is your process of coming up with new shit? Do you, I mean, how much do you recycle old shit when you go around? Like, you're on tour right now? Yeah. Like, are you going basically to every single club? Are you doing, like, basically the same set?

Or? A lot of similar jokes, just because, like, obviously I can't write new things for every city, but I do, I, the first, like, my, usually I throw things about the city somewhere in there. Like, right now I have a few jokes about Miami. and stuff like that. Like, I'll be honest with you guys. Flora is an easy target, right? Yeah, it is.

But when I said, like, when I said that thing about the guy shooting up into his wrists, I showed him a bigger vein on his leg, I wrote, as soon as I saw that happening, I wrote that joke. And I was like, I'm going to use this for the rest of my Florida shows. Yeah. And probably just for the rest of shows for a while, just because I liked the joke. So I will come up with new stuff. And I do, it's really a matter of, like, is this working right now?

Or do I need to pivot into some other things that aren't working? because sometimes you are within a crowd and they're not picking up what you're throwing down. So you have to figure out how to shift and move. But I've done comedy in a bunch of different countries, so I'm used to having to pivot. Like, you know, what works in L.A. wasn't necessarily going to work in Bangkok.

Wasn't going to work in Buenos Aires. Did you really do a show in Bangkok? I did, yeah. What the fuck was the story behind it? How did you do that? I was going to Thailand. and I hit up a friend of mine, Tom Rhodes, who has done comedy all over the world.

He's been doing it like 37 years. And he basically just told me he's like, he's like, if you ever are in a place in the world and you want to do a show, ask me who to talk to. And so he hit me up and I was like, and I was going there with my fiancee and a couple friends. And I was like, let's, I was like, we're going to do this show. So let's fucking rage and figure out what it's like to do comedy in Thailand.

Wow. It's all expats. It's like people from all over the world, all different age groups. But I mean, there are people in the crowd from Germany, from Thailand, from the UK, from France, from America. And, you know, sometimes you have to explain a little bit more about a reference or something like that. But for the most part, you just try to be funny and you just do it. And when a joke is really good, it should be universal. It should be ubiquitous.

You shouldn't have to cater specifically. Like, what I just did in Nebraska three weeks ago should still work here in Florida. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Otherwise, it's really not that good of a joke. Wow, that's gotta be crazy.

Yeah, I never even thought about going to different countries and dealing with, like, different cultures and that kind of stuff. But Thailand, you're right, it's like a melting pot of,

it's kind of like Vegas. Yeah, Vegas is difficult to play. Like, I've only done, I did a week there once. And literally, I mean,

everything from a 22-year-old bachelor's party to 75-year-old, like, people, like, you know, from New York, from people from Dubai,

And they're all sitting at the exact same table. And you're like, this is hard. But it also makes you better. You know? And I put out a special this past year from London because I went there in 2019. He did a bunch of shows and strung together a bunch of sets and put together like a documentary style special. And it's on YouTube. It's called When Does the Club Shut?

And it just shows me running all over London, just doing a bunch of shows. And I'm not changing my material. I mean, I do a few local things, obviously. But I'm just showing that comedy. will work anywhere if you have good enough jokes. Do you use another thing, like I was saying how like acting and stand-up comics, they kind of like go hand in hand with those two careers. What do you think is so appealing to comics?

Why do you think podcasting is so appealing to comics? So I feel like especially in L.A., every fucking comedian has a podcast. Honestly, there's a few things. One, long form conversation is very fun. I tell people that's all the time, like, I ask people that haven't done a podcast. before. When was the last time you sat with someone didn't look at your phone and had a conversation for 90 minutes? And most people are like, I've never fucking done that in my life.

What are you nuts? With another person? In the room? In the same room? Yeah, what are you crazy, dude? Psychopaths do that. And no, you so you can put so much of yourself in it. You can figure out what kind of show you would like to have.

And then also, you can build a fan base that really understands who you are. At this day and age, it used to be that celebrities were, you would see them in magazines or in paparazzi and stuff like that, but you didn't know what was going on

in their private lives. And these days, people want to know. They want to know more than ever, and we're allowing them to know as much as they would like, kind of. And, you know, we have to decide what parts of ourselves we want to keep private.

You know, like my, like, you know, my girl, she stays out of all my comedy stuff for the most part. People know that I'm in a relationship, but I don't, I don't, like, put her in videos or anything like that. Like, she doesn't want to be a part of it. So she stays out of it. But so there's that part of it where people can really learn who you are and learn your

personality. But there's also the analytics, right? Is it you guys can know, you guys have had this podcast for a couple of years. You know where your major markets are. Obviously, Florida. But you could be like, whoa, why do so many people in Minneapolis download our podcast? If we went to Minneapolis and through a live show, we could plug it on the podcast and probably sell out this show.

So as you start to build a fan base, the podcast becomes really important because you can then figure out where to focus on touring and things like that. For me, I wanted to do a podcast for a long time, but I didn't want to just do an interview podcast because I didn't think I could be interesting enough. Like I wanted a hook for it. And eventually I came up with this idea

What do you mean you didn't want to do an interview podcast Were you interviewed guests? Yeah, look, I knew I wanted to interview people But I wanted to make, I didn't was want to be like, I didn't want to, so many people have a comedy podcast Where it's just like, so like tell me about how you got started in comedy And this is this, this, this is this. You guys are not as comedy related, you're comedy adjacent, right?

Which is why I'm happy to talk about all my comedy stuff on here. But two comedians just talking a lot, It becomes very inside baseball And it becomes a thing that you do for other comedians a lot of times more so than I wanted to diversify. I wanted to find a way to talk about to different kinds of people and different kinds of things.

So what I figured out was, what is people, people only knew me, mostly people knew me, the world knew me as this roasting, fucking bizarro head that just like, you know, they didn't know who the real me is,

who is very loving and very open and, you know, very kind. And they all think I'm this professional asshole, which is fine. That's fine. But I growing up with this horrible eczema, I was like, man, like this is, this has affected my entire life. This is like my thing that I have to get over. This is what I battle. Well, what other people battle? So then I realized I can ask other people what their biggest flaw in life is. What is the hurdle that they have had to get over? They've had to learn how to live with, whether it's physical, emotional, spiritual, a traumatic event, mental, whatever it may be. what do you deal with that fucks you up the most, and let's talk about it and normalize it and laugh at it. And that's when I came up with Achilles heel.

And then I started talking to people about things. Like my tagline for my podcast is the first thing we discuss is the last thing you want to talk about. Really? And so people come on there and talk about, you know, very dark things. Suicide attempts. Their parents being in jail. You know, I just talked to someone.

about their process of transitioning into a woman. And they just started like seven months ago. And these are things that people want to hear. These are stories people want to hear. But for the most part, unless you really know them, you're not going to get to find out what's going on in somebody's head. But because I am, you know, who I am, like as far as my personality goes, people are willing to open up to me.

And not everybody is. I've had good friends go, I'm not fucking doing that podcast, dude. I don't want to put my shit out there. but people that realize that we all go through shit every single day are more than willing to talk about it openly and the very first episode I did was with my friend Josh out of Myers who was a great comedian he created the goddamn comedy jam which was on Comedy Central and he talked about

his everything was social anxiety and it was all about him he got in a car accident with his best friend who was a comic that I knew as well his best friend they got they were hit by a drunk driver his best friend died and he became severely addicted to opiates because of it and was afraid to be around people unless he was hopped up on a shit ton of opiates and this is episode one right

so I'm realizing like I think this is you got something there yeah but more so like I enjoy having these very real conversations and I enjoy talking letting people know who I am but also laughing about these things you know like talking to people about the mistakes that they've made because every fucking person does it. We all have something.

And I love, my favorite thing is a lot of times my fans will be like, Alex, like, because of you, I figured out what my Achilles heel is because I've listened to these episodes and I resonate with so many of them. But it made me think, well, what is my thing? And at first, all I was thinking was like things like, oh, like, you know, obviously depression, anxiety, diabetes, like, cancer. Like those are the things I was thinking But then episode two

My friend Chase Bernstein comes at me with indecision And I was like That's your Achilles heel She's like oh I can't It traumatizes me When I have to if somebody says what restaurant do you want to go to I shut down And I can't like think anymore And I was like

That's when I was like whoa Like people are going to come at me with all kinds of shit That I don't even think about And I always tell people like If you're going to listen to my podcast And you don't know where to start Because at this point there's over Almost 100 episodes of it

look for either a guest that you know or a topic that's interesting to you because you'll definitely find one of those things and you know people have done episodes on control on you know sugar was an episode there's so compulsive lying

was the one that I released this week which is such a good episode violated which was a girl telling a story about being raped and her talking about it And like there are things, but the thing is like it sounds dark and it can be. But because they know I'm a comedian, we also just laugh about shit. I had a fashion model on there that was telling me about her thing was first generation immigrant. And her parents were from Iran, I think it was Iran. If it was Iraq, I'm so sorry.

But it was, and they were basically drilling it into her. Like, you need to be this kind of successful. You need to be this. And it destroyed her to the point where she started trying to. take her own life. And she's opening up about it. And she goes, okay, so those are the first two. On the third one, and I was like, okay, how'd you do it this time?

And she goes, well, the same way I tried the first two times, pills. And I was like, don't you know that doesn't work by now? Jump off a fucking building, dude. Fucking tie some bricks to yourself and throw yourself off a boat. The pills aren't going to work for you. And most people would be like, that's so harsh. How could you say that to a person? Because they know what kind of podcast they're on.

And that's how you break the text. and normalize this shit. I know very few people who have not gone through serious depressive episodes, especially in the past 12 months, who, but people are afraid to talk. And when you listen to other people talking about their problems, especially when it's somebody that you might know who they are, that means the world to them. And then they go, oh, I'm like that person. I'm not weird.

There's nothing wrong with me. And that's why I like, I love doing it, man. It's like, it's literally like, it's my own form of therapy every single week to talk to the shit. So you do you do one a week? Yeah. Nice. How do you find most of your, do most your guests reach out to you? Like, hey, can I do an episode or do you seek out certain people?

I mostly seek out people, like, because it started as a ton of comedians. And then I got some, like, some writers and some DJs and like models and people, like just people that are kind of of the field, basically, like in the, because most people, most normal people, they don't know how, they don't want to talk about this stuff for the most part. And also, I've had a few friends on there. It has been their first podcast and stuff like that. And it's been harder for them because you can hear when someone just really doesn't know how to talk into a microphone, when they don't really know how to answer a question honestly. But that's why comedians, musicians, writers, like people that generally talk anyway are very good about it. And so I just kind of think, well, who do I like?

And after like I listen to the Chappelle Lacey episode of your eyes podcast today of your podcast to get ready for this and I immediately reached out to Chappelle and I was like dude we have so much in common with the way we do the world and how many things we are in touch with and so he was like yeah I can't do it right now but hit me up in a few weeks and we'll put them together and I don't know what his Achilles heel is yet or anything like that but you know that's I just think about who do I want to have a conversation with and who do I think will really give themselves to this experience and that's the thing the more you're willing to divulge the better the episodes are, the more we can laugh about it.

And there's been so many hilarious fucking moments mixed in to these super soul-crushing, excruciating pain. And I think that's, like, somebody, one of my fans recently just said, you're like the roasting Oprah. I was like, that is a huge... I'll take it. Yeah, I'll take that all day, dude.

I'll be roast, bro. Roast. Roast. That's good, man. But yeah, I was like, that's a huge compliment. And so that's why the roasting thing is so fun for me is because if you don't know who I am, you don't realize that I'm this completely paradoxical person

to what I present myself as on stage. And that's just this flamboyant character that I'm just having fun and being silly with. But the real truth is I fucking love everyone. I have so much compassion for humanity and I'm so hopeful for our existence. And that's what I really want. want to convey and I think that's what comes off in my podcast and why people are willing to

talk to me about this shit. That's fucking amazing. Have you ever heard of soft white underbelly? No. He's a guy. His name's Mark Leda. He's a professional photographer. He used to be like working in the advertising world and then he used to work for like big ad

agencies. He takes like all like the product photos for Apple, that kind of shit. And, uh, and then, uh, basically he quit doing that. And then he opened up, he bought this little studio in on Skid Row and he just takes in homeless people and he just sits there and interviews them for. 30 minutes. Whoa. And his channel, he started it, I think he started like maybe last year, beginning of last year, and it's already got almost two million subscribers. And he is like blowing up. Like he gets like these people on there that just tell these stories. And it's for some reason,

it really connects to people. Like these, like he asks these people how they ended up where they are. Like a lot of them homeless. One guy had like a gun of shotgun wound through his face. He had half of his face missing. Jesus. And like the worst most fucked up people on earth. And he said the number one common denominator with all those people is fucked up parents. Yeah. It's a big one. It's huge. I mean, the thing is, those are such informative years on you that, you know, from one until like nine is your parents are your biggest influences in your life.

And if they are abusive, if they're dismissive, if they're absent, if they're too much of one thing, that is all. getting directed toward you in a way that you don't know how to cope with yet. And that's so difficult. And so these people learn terrible habits and they don't feel enough love early on. And that is a big thing. One of the things I love doing when I'm on the road is I walk. I just walk around cities, right? That's how I ended up in that shitty area of Miami is because I'm just like, well,

I don't know where I'm going. I'll just walk. So, but I love, if I realize the homeless person is not at all threatening, like they go, hey man, can I get a, can I get a dollar? him, I'm like, why don't, do you want to, do you want some food? Like, oh, you want, there's a hamburger place right here. You want to sit outside and just have a burger? I'll buy you a burger.

And then I just talk to them because most people, they're, the biggest thing that they're missing, I mean, other than pants and, you know, clean clothes and things like that. It's communication. Yeah. They don't have a core of people to talk to. Like, Shane, if you had a problem, you would have a couple people that you're like, I know exactly who I need to call right now and I got to talk this shit out and I got buddies or I got family that I can be like, okay, I'm calling you.

you up and I need you for 20 minutes or whatever. These people don't have that shit. And so sometimes I'll just be a voice to them. And what I find is when I'm on the road and I talk to people, because I'm good at asking questions, that people know that I'm a fleeting moment of their life, that I'm not sticking around. I don't live where you are. So they tell me a lot of things that people normally wouldn't tell you.

I've had, so I've been in Florida for a week now. I have had two women tell me the story of how they were widowed in a week. And I'm just drinking. I'm just having a beer with them after a show. And they feel, the thing is, they feel this comfort with me because they know that I'm going to be gone. Right. You're not judging them. No, I'm just listening to them.

Right. And so things that would be very, that would take a long time for them to tell someone that they wanted to be in a relationship with and of any kind, they will put out on me because I'm about to leave. So there's this trust in strangers That you kind of just like will tell people things So that's why I think that that's why that's so successful Is because these are human interest stories that people don't Seek out otherwise It's hard to listen to a homeless person

Talk about when their kids were taken away Because they got too fucked up on drugs And then they lost their job And then the house mortgage turned and flipped on them And the stories of how those people got there Are heartbreaking And for a lot of people, they can't stand to listen to them. But so for someone who is taking the time to look for them and to interview them

and to just spend some time really talking to them like a person, that's the most beautiful thing. When I see a homeless person, I'm not always going to give them money. Sometimes I give them a dollar, some change, whatever. You know, I can't give it to everybody. I'm not bawling out like that. But what I will always do is I will look them in the eye and wish them the best. I'll just say like, I can't, but, you know, I really hope you, I hope you get someone today, you know, because most people, they don't want to look at them.

Because it reminds them of this part of themselves that maybe they're too afraid that they could, they're one step, one bad decision away from getting there themselves. And it's scary to look at a person who is very sick and very poor and very needy, because, especially when you are opulent in so many ways. and I think what most people what those people need more than anything else is a meal and a conversation and if I have the time dude and you're not completely crazy which I have

I have I mean I've encountered too man I mean one guy I was just like talking about a story and he's like well if the fucking aliens in the government didn't fucking come in and take my brain and I was like oh this is a whole other level I can't help you

at all my God well that's most people homeless are not in Florida. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And you're like, do you want some of these mushrooms? Right? Dude, I mean, I saw when I got off, I got, I got off a bus yesterday.

And I immediately saw a guy that was clearly on, you know, a hardcore drug addict. He's like, do you have any money? I was like, I don't have any cash, but I'd have a fresh gatorade in my bag. And you can totally have that. Like, that's one. And he just looked at it like, oh, yes. A cold beverage? like on a hot day in Florida.

I never expected that. Dude, one time a guy was like, a guy I pushed me an intersection in L.A., he was like, do you have any money on you? And I was like, no, because I didn't. But I had a bottle of hand lotion, of cream. And I was like, dude, and I gave him in this. This guy looked at it like it was a fucking $100 bill.

Was he ashy? He was very ashy. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Which, another great roast joke about me. Thank you, Fifi Dosh, said, Alex is the ashyest man from Baltimore from a city that was burned by crackheads or something like that. Great fucking Joe.

Really good. But yeah, he was basically because if you're homeless, that is the last thing you're going to spend money on is loachshed. You're thinking of so many other things. You're not thinking of your skin even though it hurts to be that dry. And that was one of those things where it's like it's those little things. Giving someone a pair of socks is worth so much more than giving them a dollar. sometimes because it's the things that they wouldn't buy. And, you know, again, I can't do it for everybody.

But if I have the time and a little bit of extra, I'm more than happy to give it away. I have this philosophy that, and it's a lot of people's like, it, Caden, it's a lot of people think like this. I didn't come up with this. But whatever you give out will come back to you twofold eventually. So if I give a homeless person a dollar, somewhere along the way, I will be rewarded with $2. I don't know how.

I don't know where. I don't know when, but that, but it's going to happen. And if you think like that, then it's so much easier to give it. You know, I don't need to hoard a dollar. Right. That means the world to this person. It means nothing to me, you know? So I just try to think like that as much as I can.

That's amazing, man. Have you ever done a podcast with David Lucas before? We've never done a podcast together. He's a funny motherfucker. He would be great for your Achilles heel, I feel like. Yeah, he would be. I know him very well. we've spent a lot of time at the comedy store together.

We've never battled, unfortunately, because David Lucas was a rising star in roast battle, was killing it. But his thing, his Achilles heel in roast battle anyway, was he wouldn't write. He would only go off the top of the dome. Really? So when people realized,

he started out destroying motherfuckers. Nobody knew what to do. But then, as you get better, you start to battle people who are good at it, who have been doing it a long time. And look, you can go off the top of the dome all day. But if someone writes a very well-crafted joke about you personally, you calling them, look at you, you assistant nurse-looking motherfucker,

like it's not going to the same damage that this person who clearly learned about you. And so David and then David started writing jokes and his writing got so much better. And his comedy also started getting so much better. Because he realized that, yes, I do have the power to go off the dome, but now I have the know-how that I need to come and prepared because that's what's really going to do it. Yeah, that was, he was, I think he was the first comedian we ever had on this. Yeah, I think so.

Oh, cool. Yeah. See, it was super fun, man. I never thought it would be so fucking fun to having an interview with a comedian before him. And then we got him, we got Chappelle and then we got you. That's, you know, the thing about us is like, look, I've interviewed people that are not comedians, too. And sometimes it's, they're great to talk to and they're very, you know, they have a lot of knowledge about a certain subject.

But they might not necessarily be very fun to talk to because not everyone is just cracking jokes and being silly and lighthearted. And we really try to do that as much as possible. So if we can make you laugh, which is in daily conversation, all I want to do is make people laugh. My whole thing of existence is when you come into my life, I want you to walk away feeling a little bit better than when we came in. to contact with each other. That's my goal every time I do a thing. If you came into this room and you weren't in the best mood, maybe you had a shit day at work or whatever,

I want you to leave feeling a little more elevated than when you came in. And when you think about it like that, it just becomes easier to just have more fun. And that's my whole thing is give love, have fun. That's, I think about that every day. Give love, have fun. And if I'm doing both of those things,

I'm leaving a fucking really good life. And I, you know, I have my moments. I get fucking angry. I get depressed. I have all that shit going through me too because there's parts of me that still will never get over that angry little kid that I was, no matter how much work that I do,

there's still part of him in me, but I just use him to fuel me, and that's when I roast, that's when he gets to come out. Oh, yeah. You know, all those evil thoughts that are brewing inside me, I talk about some dark shit on stage.

Like, I have some dark fucking jokes. But I get away with them because everyone knows when you watch my set, they come from a place of love. And when you lead with that, you're fine. So do you think that shit you went through when you were a kid with the Exma and all that? That fuel, that's like part of your drive to do what you do?

Oh, 100%. Dude, that's what, like, I was always funny because it was my only coping mechanism. It was the only thing I had going for me was that I knew I was funny. And I was funny because I was angry and because I was trying to get this energy out of me of this pain. And I always had so much energy, but I never had a way to channel it into anything. And when I found stand-up comedy, the very first time I did a set on March 13th, 2009, I know that anniversary very well. I don't know my relationship anniversary. I couldn't tell you.

I know the important one. She's not going to listen to this. She, but it's one of those things where... Yeah, we're an hour and a half inch, not listening. Oh, God, no. We're in the clear now. Very much so. I figured, but I figured, I was like, it was this moment of clarity where I go, oh,

I found it. I found it. This is what I've needed for so many years to learn, to explore myself, to get over my bullshit and to give my energy out to people instead of containing it within me and lashing out on the world and its people. And that's when I realized, like, stand-up comedy, if you really do it well and you really try, it is a deep exploration of your relationship to humanity and the world around you. And the way you get better at that is you learn as much as you can about yourself.

And the more I allow myself to dive deep and figure out, pull out all this shit that's been lodged inside of my fucking guts for so many years, the more I get rid of it, the freer I become, the happier I become, the happier I can make other people now. And I did an ayahuasca ceremony a week before the pandemic. You guys know what ayahuasca is. So I did that. I've never done it before. He's done it a couple times. You have. Okay.

So did you throw up? Did you purge and everything? Not crazy, but a little bit at the first time, yeah. Did it pull some shit out of you, though? Definitely. Yeah. Definitely. It's, I had never done it, but I'd done a lot of other psychedelics.

And it was, I did two-night ceremony, and I did not vomit. In fact, I didn't have any bad experiences. I was, it was beautiful, it was profound, I saw gorgeous creatures running through the, running through there. I've done, I did it thinking it's going to find some more shit in me and it didn't pull anything out. And at first I was like disappointed and then I was really proud of myself because I realized that's how much work I've done over the years to do not let this little boy fucking control the man that I am now. And there's a quote that changed my fucking life when I heard it. and it's from Alan Watts, who's this great British philosopher,

and it was, you have no obligation to be the person you were five minutes ago. When I think about that quote, you have no obligation to be the person you were five minutes ago, I realized so much of what I was holding on to was from this little, angry,

rashed child that hated himself and the world around him. But I'm not that person anymore. So why am I still holding on to any of that? Wow. I got to ask, what did you learn about yourself after doing it? Or, like, what was your takeaway?

It was, it was just, like, a lot of release in it. It was real similar to, like, the first time doing mushrooms. Like you said, it opens up a very different perspective on the world and everything. So it was, like, for that, it was very similar to that type of experience. It wasn't like it brought out a lot of stuff I've been burying, but it was like, it just felt like a very peaceful release of everything. He smokes a very calming feeling. He smokes an enormous amount of weed So I think, I don't think it

You probably didn't take enough, right? He's like a high tolerance Oh no You don't need too much You don't need a lot of ayahuasca, dude That's such a, it's so different Really? Oh my God, yeah

I mean it is like, yeah It's such a different experience And it is six straight hours of blasting Into another universe And the thing is you do it usually in a room With like, there were like 20 people in the room That I did it in You know

And it's still very much like an illegal thing for the most part. Like there's ceremonies that you can kind of find if you know the right person. But most people vomit their fucking brains out or they purge in some way

and you listen to 20 people in this room just like, and the next day they're like, man, all this guilt and shame was just coming up and I realized that I was a piece of shit

to my first wife and then I shouldn't have treated her like that. And I'm sorry, Susan. I'm sorry. I listen to a girl. I was a girl talk about a woman say she was going. I could hear her going through some shit because you can hear people crying, people screaming, people, you know, having this, whatever experience it's giving them. This woman the next day, because you sit around a group and you talked about it, do you guys do the same thing?

Yeah, we spent a couple days with, it was just me, my buddy and the guy who was like a shaman who put the whole ceremony on it. It was just us three. Oh, gotcha. And we spent a couple days in the woods with him where he lives out there and then did it one night before we left. And so it was a cool experience. I mean, we just hang out and fucking played the guitar in the bongos for a couple hours and fucking just chilled. But this, we were talking about the next day in group in a circle and you go through every, you don't, you're not allowed to comment on anybody else's experience. You just listen and then you talk about your own experience.

You don't compare yourself to others or anything like that. You know, it's very open. It's very non-judgmental. But this woman, I knew, I could hear her having a rough time. She kept asking for help from the shaman. She was crying a lot. And when she talked about what happened to her, she said that she was stuck in the Holocaust

where her grandmother had been persecuted and killed. And she was in basically a concentration camp experiencing everything her grandmother went through. And this generational trauma that had been stuck in her from her grandmother to her mother to now her was coming out of her in this very, you know, almost violent way because that shit had been stuck in her for years since birth basically and then she got to release that and I drove her home she didn't have a ride home I drove her home

the next day and we talked I was like I mean she was like she was she was still very heavy but you could tell like weight had been lifted you know from just having this experience and that's the thing is people you people have all kinds of different things the experience is on it. But if you give yourself to a psychedelic and you allow it to take the work, that's the whole thing is you can't fight whatever it's trying to show you. You have to just give yourself and allow it to come and know that it's not going to kill you.

You are going to be okay. Just sit down and hold tight and breathe your way through it. You're going to be fine. I always say there's no such thing as a bad trip. There's challenging trips. I mean, it's a bad trip if you fucking decide to get in your car and do something really Like, you know You bite your friend's fucking face off.

Is this a hot, is this gun, a hot dog? Let me try to eat it. You know, like, yeah, then you're having a bad trip. But as long as you're in a safe situation challenging, you're going to go through some shit, but it's going to teach you about yourself. And I think that's the most important thing to take away from all of that is just like, you know, allow the experience to happen,

be open, and try not to be afraid of it if possible. You just got to go with the, flow and that's everything in life. So how did this girl inherit this trauma from her grandmother? Was it because her grandmother, like, talked to her mother about it, who talked to her about it, or was it? Generational trauma is a very real thing. You know, if you, there's so much of what we are is passed down in our genetics.

And if you're a person who is holding on to these horrible things that have happened to you or your family, there is a big part of that that is inside of you. And a lot of that will inherently get transferred into your kin and into other people that you, just because of just in the same way that you, you know, that I have blue eyes, that person was like, had part of her grandmother's Holocaust experience within her. And that is a terrifying thing, especially if you don't know what it is. And that's the thing. Without ayahuasca, she probably never.

would have learned that she was holding on to that. She's like, she's just walking around thinking like, why am I unhappy? Why are things not, you know, going the way I want them to? Why this? Because that is part of what's going on inside of you. If you talk to a lot of, a lot of minorities feel this, right? Is they have like, like, talk to black people about, they are direct descendants of slavery and stuff like that.

And there is this part of them that will never feel completely free because they have this, because they came from that. And it's, it's just this weird thing that we, as humans, like we, you know, that's what we get. We get, we get, we get some of the stuff that they look like, but we get a lot of their personality, too. And part of their personality is going to be wrapped up in the experiences they've been through. And if they didn't deal with their shit, they're fucking going to give it to you. Wow, I had no idea that could happen. Yeah, dude.

That's insane. Aren't you wondering now, what's going on in there? Yeah. What's going on? Anytime you get sad, it's because your dad actually killed someone with his car. With his mail truck. No, I mean, that's, yeah, it's, dude, that's, you know, you got to use them properly, that stuff. Especially that one.

That is a, I mean, that's, you know, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, it's a, that's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a crazy 10 minutes. 10 minutes from hell? No, I mean, it can be. I saw the face of the devil in there once. That was kind of scary. Oh, fuck. But, I mean, I also don't believe in the devil. So I was like, well, I'm not.

Yeah, right. Show me his blood Nikes. But no, I mean, yes, DMT. I've talked to a lot of people who have never done a psychedelic. They're like, I only want to do DMT because it's 10 minutes. I was like, bro. It's intense. It's not.

Yeah. Those 10 minutes are a lot if you've never been through anything like that before. Because, yeah, you straight up, you go to another dimension. And there is no coming back for those 10 minutes. And that 10 minutes can feel like a lifetime. And you're going to see things that you're not going to be able to explain. And you're going to see. And if you talk to other people who've done DMT,

you're going to learn that you see a lot of very similar things. There's, you know, a lot of people see elves working machines and stuff like that. I've seen, I have seen that. Like, I'm the first time I did it. I saw walls literally melt down with this green slime. And there were a bunch of these little tiny guys. eyes just working like it looked like in the inside of a clock or something. They were just grinding these wheels that were just going.

And I was like, what am I looking at right now? What is this? A lot of people see the woman in there. You know, Mother Ayahuasca, like this very sensual kind of bluish woman is kind of beckoning you to come. And like there's, if you look at like DMT inspired art, like Alex Gray and like people that do that kind of thing, you see so much of the same thing. again and again and again.

And it's because you can't really explain what you're seeing, but you can try to remember very specific. I don't remember whole DMT trips at all. I remember about two seconds from individual ones where I'm like, oh yeah, I remember that moment and thinking like, where am I, what is this? But for the most part, there's no way to explain it except through art. And that's why you see so many of the same images.

It's a crazy shit, dude. I mean, if you're going to do anything, don't start with that one. That's what I said. Start with a couple mushroom caps. Yeah, a couple caps. Yeah. I eat a 5 milligram gummy and I'm fucking gripping the chair like I'm not the black stuff. But the thing is Danny, then you know that.

Then maybe drugs aren't your thing. Drugs are bad. Right? And that's you and there are plenty of people who have taken drugs to go, that is not what I need or what I want. I get it. For me, drugs, I have a connection with them and I, again, Use them very responsibly and where in sentence setting is so important for it. And if you do that with the right people and the right situations, for the most part, you're going to have a positive experience.

Right. And, you know, you just have to know that about yourself and be ready to face some shit that might come up. Yeah. Do you ever get fucked, like super fucked up on like whatever it is? Like any of those psychedelics can do stand up or do you always, are you like stone cold sober? God, no. I mean, not stone cold sober. I mean, I've definitely had a few drinks or been a little stone sometimes and things.

But the thing is like, so there's a show in Los Angeles, and there's been a lot of different iterations of the show in other places. In Los Angeles, it was called Performing Under the Influence, P-U-I. And you do a set completely sober, and then you go out back, you get fucked up on the drug of your choice, and then you come back and you do another set. And so people, I did this show. That's pretty cool.

Yeah. And I did the show, and people were like, oh, my God, Alex, what fucking drug are you doing? I was like, I have this joint. I'm just going to smoke this thing. They're like, you? And I was like, yeah, I respect drugs too much to perform comedy on them. And they were like, don't you respect comedy too much?

I was like, I know what I said. No, and that's, I do. I've talked to plenty of people who have like, I took acid and I went on stage. I don't want to do that. Yeah. I don't want to entertain you. When I'm on acid. Yeah.

This is my time. Right. I feel like, especially, dude, if I started, like, if I started having any negativity of all, all I want to do is go to myself, go by myself for a little bit and just sit and let it do what's doing to me and just kind of like get myself through it. I don't want to be on stage

in front of people who are laughing at me or even if it is like you could set yourself up for some really bad shit. And I know people who've had great sets on acid and mushrooms and on Molly and all kinds. That's the one drug if I was if I was ever forced to do it on drug. Molly? I would do it on Molly because Molly

because I'm not actually going to Like, my head is still very much. I can talk to you just like I am right now. My body is just feeling like a million fucking bucks. And it's just like flowing through me with all the happiness. But I would be able to perform. If I was on mushrooms and I just would lose myself, I don't want people staring at me. That just seems so uncomfortable.

This may seem like a really stupid question, but do you know Mitch Hedberg? Of course. Yeah. He was like the one of the first comedians I ever listened to when I was really young. Yeah. He seems like he was always stoned out of his mind when he was doing sets. He was on a lot of stuff. I mean, you know, he died of an overdose,

and he was, I mean, he had a lot of demons and a lot of addictions. But yeah, he was, he would definitely get fucked up and do shows a lot. I mean, I know people who were very close to him. Do you really? Yeah. I mean, Tom Rhodes,

when I mentioned earlier, they were roommates for a long time. Yeah. And he, you know, he had to watch Mitch, like, you know, they used to, you know, piles of cocaine and things like that. And I'm not speaking out of place here because they have talked

about, he's talked about us very openly on other things. Right. But like, yeah, they would, but people kind of knew, like, Mitch started to get into harder stuff and people were trying to pull him back. Like, you don't need that. And he was kind of in the place of like, well, you don't know what I need. You don't know this. And he really, you know, he had bigger demons to face that were some,

that were probably not drug related and the drugs were not helping him at some point. And that's, that's one trap that, well, I'm, I very, very, very seldom talk about this. but like I have a half-brother who died of an accidental overdose. And we were, and he left behind two kids and a wife. And it was a horrible situation for the family. What did he overdose on? We think alcohol and pills. We think he was taking like some kind of opiate for pain.

And we think he just drank too much one night. And, you know, it was the surprise phone call of your life that you never fucking see coming. And one thing. Because I looked at him and I thought about myself a lot because I, you know, people know me as a drug guy. My album that I put out in 2018 is called hugs, drugs, pugs. I talk about drugs. Like it's what I do. But opiates, I don't, like I said, I don't do those type of drugs.

I don't do those. And I wrote, when I went to Burning Man in 2018, I, there's a place called the temple at Burning Man, which is one of the effigies that they burn. It's this beautiful structure. And people go in there with letters to their loved ones that they've lost or people that are sick or their pictures of their pets are in there. People write letters to people that have raped them and things. I mean, it is so emotional to walk through the temple and read these things.

And one of the things that I wrote in the temple was a message to my brother that said, basically, like, I'm so sorry that what happened to you happened to you, but you've taught me exactly what not to do as a drug user. And because of that, I thank you for it. and you know, I'm standing in there just fucking bawling my eyes out as I write this with a Sharpie on a piece of wood and people are just walking up and hugging you because they just read that that's what Burning Man is.

People see you in distress and they'll just walk up and they'll put your hand on your shoulder and be like, you know, is this okay? And if you turn to them, they'll give you the fucking hug that you just, you, I've cried, you know, I had a woman cry into me about the death of her sister that same week too. She literally just like found, she just needed somebody.

And she just cried all over me for like an hour. And I was like, I just sat there and let her do it and just kind of like, you know, stroked her hair. And it was just like, all I can do is be here. And you just have to, you know, those moments teach you things. And I know, I know where I'm not going with this. My place is not to be a zombie walking around. My place is to be silly and lighthearted and fun and loving. And those drugs are not that at all.

Yeah. You know? I didn't see. When I first started listening to him, I didn't know anything about. I was still in high school, and it was like my first introduction to comedy. And it just seemed like everything was a punchline. Everything was so fucking funny. And he was just like, I could tell like this guy, I knew instantly, this guy's fucked up.

I remember the first time I heard an escalator can never be broken. It can only temporarily become stairs. Yeah. Sorry for the convenience. I was like, that's the funny fucking thing ever rid of my life. And the way he like draws out the word. Yeah. Convenience.

Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. He was a fucking, he was a prophetic genius in the way that he was a prophetic genius in the way that wrote one-liners because they weren't you understood who he was but he wasn't really giving enough too much of himself it was very beautiful you know I love

the ducks at subway I went to subway I order a sandwich and it was for the ducks outside like oh don't worry man it's on the house there are five ducks out there and they all want sun chips my favorite headberg joke is people honk their horn too much I think people should only be allowed to honk their horn three

times a month that way If somebody cuts you off and you go to press it and no sound comes out, you're like, damn it, I wish I hadn't seen Ricky on the sidewalk. That shit kills me. I fucking love that, dude. Yeah. Oh, my God. You know, a lot of greats are gone too soon and it's unfortunate, but we have to learn from those. You have to look at a person like that and say, well, what did he need that he wasn't getting?

And how can we see a person that we think is falling into a trap like that, how can we help them? and maybe we can pull him out maybe we can't but at least we have to give the effort and I know a lot of his friends really fucking tried and he was a person who he had too much going on inside him

that wasn't going to let himself be pulled away and that sucks and I think my brother was probably the same way no matter what even with his family and all that it wasn't enough to truly pull him away fuck could you imagine a podcasting was around when he was alive

oh my God yeah fuck crazy I would love yeah I would love to hear Like him and a tell just go off for like two hours, dude? Oh, my God. That'd be just, it'd be like the fastest jokes session. Yeah, yeah.

Your life. It'd be amazing. Oh, man. Well, cool, man. We just did like two hours. I appreciate you doing this. I don't want to take up too much of your night. No, this was so fun, dude.

I really appreciate you guys having me. It's been amazing talking to you and you're fascinating, dude. You're funny as fuck. We were probably supposed to promote side splitters, right? Or do you do that at the front of the podcast. Oh, yeah. Let's talk about that now. Let's talk about that.

You're here doing side spoilers. You're here doing side spoilers. Talk about that. Yeah, real quick. If you are listening to this, and it is either April 2nd or third, come to side splitters. I'll be opening for Dom Auraa on the early shows, headlining the late shows. And I don't know, do you do a little thing at the front of this podcast usually, or does it just start? Yeah, I do that little intro.

Cool, because that club would be like, we sent you there for a reason, dude. Come on. All you did was talk about drugs and your dead brother. Only 1% of the people get two hours into that podcast. But yeah, so, yeah, come see me. Hoopercomedy.com. Yeah, talk about all your social media and all that stuff. I'm very easy to find, everybody. Hoopercomedy.com and at Hooper Hairpuff, one word, my last name, and then Hairpuff on all social media.

And you can go to my website, you can listen to my podcast, you can buy my book, roast yourself to happiness, you can listen to my album, you can see where my tour dates are. Follow me on social media. There's, you know, blah, bad, bad, bad, bad, self-important bullshit. I don't care. Just go laugh at something. Awesome, dude. Thank you so much. I appreciate you being here, brother.