Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 528: Luis J. Gomez

Episode Date: September 17, 2022

Luis J. Gomez, hilarious comedian, joins the DTFH! Check out Luis' podcasts, Legion of Skanks and the Real Ass Podcast, wherever you listen to your podcasts! You can also learn more about Luis and see his upcoming tour dates on his website, LuisOfSkanks.com. He's on Youtube, Twitter, and Facebook too! Original music by Aaron Michael Goldberg. This episode is brought to you by: Lumi Labs - Visit MicroDose.com and use code DUNCAN at checkout for 30% Off and FREE Shipping on your first order! Herb Stomp - Use code DUNC15 at checkout to receive 15% OFF your first order! Athletic Greens - Visit AthleticGreens.com/Duncan for a FREE 1-year supply of vitamin D and 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase!

Ghost Towns, Dirty Angel, out now. You can get Dirty Angel anywhere you get your music. Ghost Towns, Dirty Angel, out now. New album and tour date coming this summer. This is Gayle Bench stepping in for Duncan Trussell, who is currently in a deep underground military bunker. I don't have the evidence of this. It's just a gut instinct getting his testosterone drained.

When he comes back, I'm sure he'll be a different person. Uh-uh, but for now you have me, and that means you have the truth. A truth they've been trying to suppress. They don't like it that I know what they're doing with their mosquitoes. They don't like it that I know their mosquitoes now are no longer taking blood, folks. They're taking testosterone. They want a low-T nation. They want a nation of simps.

They want a nation of people who walk around with back pain, stomach pains, and listening to grimes. More than anything, what they want is for you to masturbate. They want you to be staring at the screen, looking at pornography, and coming over and over again. That's your most vital liquid, and they want you to eject that, eject that. They want you to pour it out. They want you to pour your jizz out into every gym sock you have.

They want you to keep making that come out of your body. It's your most precious, delicious nectar, and they want to take it from you. They want to take it from your children. They want to take it from everyone until we are just emaciated, thin glasses, wearing Steven Colbert loving people. And then once they've achieved that, they can reach their final phase, their final plan. The great reset has started. It started with the death of the queen.

The queen did not die. That's just what they want you to think. The queen has gone into a chrysalis phase. They're going to take her, they put her body in a special lead line box, they're dropping it down below the earth, and they're going to fill it up with American man, Sheeman. That Sheeman will resurrect the queen. She's going to become a warlock queen, a lich queen.

Then they're going to open that box in the same way. You open up a parakeet cage when you're ready to let the parakeet fly out. Your cat can play with it. There's not going to be a cat that can stop this lich. She's going to join Zelensky and the Ukraine, and she is going to lead Zelensky into Israel, where he is going to wage war against the people of God. This is coming, folks.

This is on the menu. This is on the prescription written by the devil himself. And while everybody is obsessed with the queen, while everybody is obsessed with the new game of thrones, while everyone is watching this horrible little mermaid remake, the queen is molting, and she will rise again. It's coming. We'll be right back after this commercial break.

This episode of the DTFH has been brought to you by the geniuses at Loomy Labs. There is no need for you, when you eat an edible, to suddenly have the feeling that all of your deceased ancestors are following you and hiding in the bushes, watching you as you walk. No, that means you took too much. Loomy Labs has created the perfect micro-dose gummy. Thank you, Loomy Labs.

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And now you can experience the glory of Loomy Labs micro-dose gummy. To learn more about micro-dosing THC, go to micro-dose.com. Use code Duncan to get free shipping and 30% off your first order. Links can be found in the show description. But again, that's micro-dose.com code Duncan. Greetings, friends. It's me, Duncan. And I just want to thank Gail Bench for coming in and being the host while I was getting my procedure.

I had my testosterone removed in a deep underground military bunker. If I seem a little out of it, it's just because I woke up from a two hour nap. But I still have the energy to do the... I still have the energy to do this part of the podcast. And then after that, I'm going to go down for another nap. I call it an afternoon double when I take two naps in the afternoon. I sure would love it if you'd come on out to see me in San Francisco. I'm going to be there 23rd and 24th of September.

Then after that, I'm going to be at Salt Lake City, Utah with Johnny Pemberton. And in San Francisco, I'm going to be there with William Montgomery. If you'd like commercial free episodes of this podcast, you can find them at patreon.com. Now everybody with us here today is a hilarious comedian. You probably know him from... Sorry, I nodded off there. You probably know him from the Legion of Skanks podcast or the Real Ass podcast. Or maybe you've seen his awesome stand up, which is incredible.

All the links you need to find Lewis J. Gomez will be at DuncanTrustle.com. But now please welcome back to the DTFH Lewis J. Gomez. Welcome back to the DTFH. How are you doing, man? I'm doing great, dude. I'm happy to be back on the show. The great Duncan Trussell, the legendary Duncan Trussell. We've reconnected randomly in Austin, Texas. And now you're back in my life and I love it. You're one of the most positive forces in comedy that I've ever met.

Yeah, you're so sweet. Look, I got to tell you, man. You know, like you see comics do stand up and you think they're funny, but you don't remember their bits. You know what I mean? You're just like, that was a good set. Dude, I think about your set sometime just randomly. I think about some of your jokes.

I'm like, fuck, man. I don't know, man. Let me pat ourselves on the back. But you know, man, sometimes when you see really good comedy, it truly is therapeutic in this weird way. It gives you this extra, I don't know, glow for a long time, man. I really loved watching you perform. Well, I really appreciate that.

It's a, you know, it's a long process. I have a weird with stand up. I have just this weird sense of humility and like I have like no ego with it. I just came from like the New York comedy scene. You have to say you suck. Yes. Right. You spend, you spend a decade like, dude, I suck.

I'm terrible. I'm not Patrice. I'm not David Tal. And then like I've like, so when people compliment my stand up, I'm going like, dude, I'm a fucking fraud. What are you talking about? Dude, I'm no, because I really just look at like those guys, the Louis and the Bill Burris and it's like, you know,

we're all sort of striving to be that good. And I think it's what makes us good is because we're probably never going to get there. So we're constantly running that race and constantly trying to expand and grow and be better. But it's, I really do appreciate it. And then, you know, when I have people that I have a ton of respect for like you that compliment my comedy, it really does mean the world to me. It truly does.

Well, dude, I mean, it's like, you know, it's, I've, when I was in New York, I saw your stand up. It's super fucking funny, but like you're, you've clearly like you're, you're evolving. Like you didn't, you have not plateaued. I mean, that happens sometimes. It's like some comics, they hit a ceiling. If you ever talk to like a tell or any of those comics about this imposter syndrome thing,

like you ever heard their take on it? What do they say? Like did they probably get it too? Right? They're probably like, I don't, I'm just doing jokes. Well, it tells like, it tells like comes off stage and he's like, oh, I suck. I'm a hack. I'm terrible.

And you're like, Dave, you're the greatest living comedian. What the fuck are you talking about? So that's just sort of a New York attitude, I think. I think a lot of guys, there's a humility here and we all sort of think we stink until we don't. And then at that point we die. I think, yeah. Well, I mean, I think it's just like maybe it's necessary or something like, or maybe

just because comedy is like any other art form, like the deeper you get into it, the more you realize you don't understand it. Like, you know what I mean? Like a young, like when I was a younger comic, I went through a fucking horrible phase where I was like, oh, I got this. You know what I mean? That's when you're really fucked. When you're like, God, no, no, no, no, I know what that is.

And if I meet comics who seem to have that, not like, you know, some comics have a great work ethic and all that. And I, you know, shop talk about that I get. But if you run into someone who like seems to think that they've got it all figured out with standup, I, I hope it's true, but I'm usually pretty suspicious of that because it's how do you figure it out? Well, I don't think you ever really, it's like, dude, it's like jiu-jitsu, right? And, you know, you hear guys say that it's like they don't really start learning jiu-jitsu

until they get their black belt. Right. And I think you, when you first go in, you're like, oh, I got my blue belt. I got, you know, I get some classes and kick some guys' asses. And then you start to get more and more into it. And you realize exactly how little you know and how much room there is to grow. You, you roll with a black belt and you're like, what the, there's a world of difference between me and that guy.

And I think standup is sort of the, the same thing. And the beginning, you know, you first learned how to kill, you know, the first, the first couple of years, like I learned how to kill pretty quickly. Um, but then you realize exactly how much you actually stink. At one point you look back and go, oh, shit, all those jokes suck. I'm not doing them anymore. They were terrible. If you watch old videos from when you first started, it's so fucking cringy.

Um, so yeah, but I think it's, um, you know, dude, it's, this is like, I think the comics that are good, they sort of hate themselves a little bit. They're not, you know, you see the guys that love themselves. You see the guys that have nice clothes and nice cars and like, it's just, they like themselves a little bit too much. And I think it shows in their comedy. The guys that hate themselves a little bit, they're fucking a little darker. They're a little more fucked up.

They're coming at it from a little bit of a different angle. And by the way, you should love yourself. It's not good for anybody else out there. It's not a good thing. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I, you know, yeah, but it's, it's like, I imagine if we're talking about like a human

predicament out there, probably more people hate themselves than love themselves sadly. Right. And if you're going to be relatable on stage, one way to not be relatable would be someone who loves themselves and from a comedy audience. You're like, great. What are you? Don't be the Dalai Lama or something. What the fuck?

Well, that's the difference between standup comedy and like, you know, you know, what do they call it? Like, you know, like self-help gurus that go out and they do public speaking. It's like, you know, I think that's the biggest difference is like comics. Like, yeah, dude, I hate myself. I stink. Look at how much I stink and laugh at that. Whereas some other, you know, otherwise you're literally just up there and you're doing a fucking,

you know, Gary V thing where you're trying to like motivate people to go be, you know, become a motivational speaker. So, you know, I am a better place. I love myself more today than I did the last time I did this show and more than I did a decade ago and more than I did 20 years ago. You know, that's that's a part of the process of growing into yourself and life as well as sort of stepping back and, you know, just smelling the roses and saying, fuck it, dude, life isn't as bad as it seemed.

Lewis, when I started going to these spiritual retreats where motivational like spiritual teachers speak as a comic, it was really interesting because you realize they have fucking jokes, but it's not jokes like we have jokes. Their punchlines are like, you know, like moments where the audience is like, oh, you know, it's not laughter, but they, you realize, holy fuck, it's the same rhythm almost. It's the same like setup. It's usually some kind of anecdote, some personal story. The punchline is like a thing that makes you go, oh my God, I get it.

That like aha moment. Yeah, yeah. And I'm sure it's just as choreographed and just as rehearsed as stand up as well. I'm sure if you go and watch one of these motivational speakers, one set when he does that set in fucking Tucson, it's probably a very similar set as in Houston, right? And the setups and the punchlines are probably all similar and also serve sort of a similar purpose. You're making people feel good.

So I'm not knocking motivational speakers. I'm just saying comedians are just a little bit darker. Yeah. I agree. You know, it is the same purpose. Yeah. They will fuck. Yeah, they are.

Definitely. And you know, all of it is just a form of entertainment, no matter what you want to call it. Like everyone's got punchlines. Even the fucking president when he's doing speeches, there's punchlines in there. They're not funny punchlines, but there's like moments where he's delivering something. They should. I was just in Italy with my son a few weeks ago and I went to the Vatican, which was one of the coolest fucking experiences in my life.

I grew up Catholic and, you know, I really like I'm not religious at all anymore. I'm not spiritual really at all. But the way that they put those stories together, like our tour guide was just fucking so dope and the way I'm just like talking about how the Sistine Chapel was painted with Michelangelo and just the story of Jesus and his 12 disciples. And it's all how it all fitted in. I was like, dude, if they would have made this entertaining as a kid, like I would have really been into this.

They could have gotten me. And for some reason, religion, when they when they try to tell these stories and they try to recreate these stories, it's never fucking interesting, dude. But they just need they really, they need a comedian or a motivational speaker to come in and lead these churches because you can get people really engaged because the stories are pretty incredible and really fun if they're done the right way. Right. Yeah.

It's so weird. The fact that you do have like all these stories that definitely are transformative, but they're articulated in the most dry, fucked up way. You know what else is fucked up? And I think that the problem I would have at the Vatican is, you know, you're the whole the whole kid, the fact that they fuck, you know, the kid fucking stuff, you know what I mean? You're at this beautiful place.

It's incredible. You probably are filled with awe inspired. But then also, I mean, didn't you think about that, especially since you were there with your kid? Wasn't there like in your mind like, God, they, they move pedophiles around. They protect pedophiles and this is the base where they do it from like this is like the Paw Patrol base, but for pedophiles, I mean, it didn't really like, no, it didn't really come into my head too much.

I don't, I don't really know how much. I like honestly, it's sort of like a mystery. Like there's a, there's a darker side to that whole world that I'm not super familiar with. Um, so yeah, I, you hear about that, but I mean, how much did the, does the Vatican actually protect and move pedophile? I have no idea. Do they really do that?

Yeah. I mean, Google search it just to make sure, sorry, my Catholic, I mean, I think Catholicism is quite beautiful. It's just that, that one little thing. Let me look, let me look it up, uh, Vatican, I mean, I, you hear that all the time and you know, I've heard about priests and I've heard about the coverups and sort of them. So I'm sure it is. I just, that wasn't the thing that was sort of like standing out to me as I'm walking

through this fucking crazy sort of historical, you know, buildings with crazy art. It's like the biggest art museum in the world. Um, so yeah, I mean, the reality is, you know, sure, it was built on the, the butts and bones of molested children, the pope ignored them, alleged abuse of deaf children on two continents. That fucking children points to Vatican failings. This is the Washington Post, uh, when investigators swept in and raided the religious Antonio Provolo Institute for the death, they uncovered one of the worst cases yet among the global abuse scandals plaguing the Catholic church, a place of silent torment where prosecutors

say pedophiles preyed on the most isolated and submissive children. And yeah, they were deaf. They weren't mute. Jesus fucking Christ. Man, uh, you know, what do you like in comedy? You have all these genres of comedy and, you know, and that's another quality. When you've done stand up long enough, you might not like certain styles of comedy, but you can recognize in it like that's good.

It's not making me, it's not my thing. That's people like us. We like a certain style of comedy, which, you know, current, like people call it, it's edgy is what they say. And I think about that a lot, like the edge, um, you know, which is changes all the time, like the edge in the fifties or the edge in the sixties versus the edge. Now that's a completely different edge. The edge used to be, you couldn't say fuck on stage or you could get arrested.

Lenny Bruce gets arrested just for like cursing on stage. Now we have this new edge. So, but sometimes I think, is that really the edge? You know, you know what I mean? Like sometimes I feel like comics think that they have like found the edge, but it's really they, it's like a false edge that's being presented to us in the news by creating like, you know, narratives, uh, uh, about like whatever the current thing, maybe trans people or, um, uh, I don't know, politics or whatever.

But do you ever wonder about that? Like maybe there's an undiscovered edge, which I think when comics find that place, it's the most powerful thing ever because they start talking about something that's so off the charts, so off the radar, and yet somehow familiar to people that it creates like true drama, true shifts in culture. You know, I'm talking about, do you ever wonder about that? Like right now, what's the edge that people have yet to even approach in comedy? I'm here to tell you about Herbstomp, the only place to grab top quality cratum,

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That's H-E-R-B-S-T-O-M-P dot com. Don't forget, you can now get 25% off your next order of cratum. When you use the coupon code DUNK25, that's no spaces, D-U-N-C-25. When you check out at Herbstomp.com, free shipping for orders over 100 bucks. Herbstomp, America's most trusted cratum. Do you ever wonder about that, like, right now, what's the edge that people have yet to even approach in comedy? Yeah, you know, I don't know what it is, but I think about it all the time. You know, we, you know, lead you to Skanks and what we've done with Gas Digital and Skankfest.

You know, we, you know, I think we pride ourselves in creating edgy comedy. Now, it's not really edgy. You're right about that, because I don't think people are really offended by anything that we do. I don't think that there's real offense. I think that there's a, you know, being offended has become a currency. It's become a talk. Mr. Gomez, check the comments section of this podcast after you're fucking pedophile joke. I don't, but, but I don't think they'll be really offended.

They'll be outraged and they'll be, they're addicted to the attention that they get from, from fake outrage. Right. And you get to have an, it's a part of people's identity to be offended. You're saying there's a part of people's identity. There's a difference between outrage and offense. They're like, it's almost like fake outrage. I don't know how many people hear a joke about a dead baby or a pedophile or a trans person that go, I'm, I'm appalled. I'm genuinely offended.

I don't know how many people feel that way. I don't think that people are empathetic enough. I think people are too narcissistic to really be offended for something so trivial, especially when they know it's a joke. I think the human mind, we know, and we go, all right, that is a joke. I think people aren't that dumb. You know, I'm not saying that nothing can be offensive. I think you can genuinely offend people. Like, you know, I just feel like the, the, what has become sort of like edgy is not necessarily doing jokes like that, but sort of like being kind of unique at this point and standing out in another way.

Like if you, when I watch David Tal pull out a recorder and do a, and do a song on the recorder, like, you know, the flute that you did in the fourth grade. Yeah. And it's so fucking funny. And it's like a legitimate risk. And you go, like, dude, this could fucking crash and burn and be the dumbest thing anybody's ever seen. But I think that's like almost edgy in its own way. Right. Sure.

I love that. I think, yeah, sort of why. It's so, it's so, it's so nice when you see somebody who's like legitimately unique and doing something different and trying something that could crash and burn. I think that's really it. What's edgy is being risky, right? Right. And when you can, when you can fail, I mean, typically it should be just bombing, right? But that's sort of like walking that, that, that risky tightrope.

That's why we do the jokes that we do on Legion of Skanks. It's not so much like, oh my God, that's just so much funnier. It's almost like we're walking on like an edgy tightrope. Right. If we fuck up and slip, we could fucking get in real trouble for it. It feels like the, the stakes are a lot higher when you do jokes like that. So that riskiness, it's almost like watching like, you know, watching an MMA fighter, watching somebody, you know, do a sort of stunt. You're like, oh shit, they could die.

They could really get hurt here. And that's where I think Legion of Skanks stands out and why people really like it. Cause they go, oh shit, these guys are fucking putting themselves up on a tightrope and they could fall and hit the ground pretty hard. And I kind of want to watch it if it happens. Right. That's brilliant. That's brilliant. Yeah.

It's like literally, if we're talking about edges, it's like you need, if it's truly an edge, there's danger standing as close as you can get to it. Because just like what you're saying, fuck, fuck, man. I mean, when you look at like mini comics who've gotten into trouble for jokes, you realize it's not just that they said this thing that caused outrage. It's that it wasn't funny enough. You see, you know what I mean? A lot of the times you'll see in the composition of the joke itself that it was an okay joke. And if you're going to do shit like that, it needs to be super funny.

And even if there's still outrage and even if you're still in trouble, it needs to be so undeniably funny that people are forced to be like, okay, it was, it was fucking funny. They did their job. Stand up. That's easy, right? Because with stand up, you know, you go into the clubs, put your cell phones in a, you know, a little lock away bag. Let us figure out what's funny. Let's figure out what's not going to be funny. Right.

With podcasting is different because very often you're improvising with three or four people on microphones and you guys are just trying to one up each other. Right. And if you're doing edgier stuff, you're not going to know it's not funny until you say it and nobody laughs. Right. Right. And that's really it. You, you put it out there, but we're on a recording.

We're on a podcast. We're on video. We could be taken out of context. And you watched that happen with Shane. I thought what Shane said was funny, right? When he, when he said that he got him canceled from SNL. You know, I forget exactly what the riff was, but he, you know, he used, he used the word chink. But in a, he was doing like,

um, he was almost like doing like a character being like, you know, like a racist character, right? It was sort of riffing it from the perspective of a racist character. He wasn't just, if you listen to it, he was being funny. And it's very obvious. I haven't seen the joke, but I heard it was taken out of context. Just what you're saying. He was trying to embody something bad. Like he was trying to, he was trying to embody some, he wasn't the bad.

He was trying to show like, and even all of those no-no words, like the reality is, like the reason they have an impact is because we all know that you're not supposed to say them, right? That's sort of what's funny. It's not, nobody's saying like, nobody listens to fucking a Hitler speech and goes, this is some hilarious shit. You know, that's crazy. Like all of those, you use those words, you know, in a funny way, um, to try to,

you know, create a moment of shock. It's, it's misdirection because most people wouldn't use those words. You're not expecting it. It's, there's a skill set involved there, but with podcasting in particular, you don't know until you know, you don't know until you try it out. And we, you know, in order to find real funny, I think you have to constantly, it's trial and error. And you know, this is a standup.

And you know, this is a podcaster and as an entertainer, you have to constantly throw shit against the wall and see what works, see what doesn't work. And you, the good, you rise to the top and it works. And the bad, you throw away, right? Right. But if you are constantly thinking, overthinking, like, oh shit, I don't want to get in trouble. You're not really shooting from the gut, right? And the funniest I've ever been in my entire life is not when I'm on stage

or not when I'm doing a podcast. It was when I was in the eighth grade and I was in the lunch room and nobody was listening except my five best friends. And we were just fucking being, just being fun, like truly funny, you know, just letting go. And I think pod, the reason podcasts have gotten a little bit stale and a lot of standup is really, really stale is because they're unwilling to even take the risk and to, to try these things out. And I think you have to figure out what's going to work and figure out what's not going to work.

Like if you're painting pictures, dude, you have to go on and, you know, go through thousands of canvases before you master your craft. Yes. And you have to fail. There's a bunch of shit that's just sitting in a dumpster somewhere because it's not really ready for consumption. It's true for sex. Like, you know, like the worst sex you're going to have is scared sex.

Like if you're fucking and you're not willing to like go for like what you want to do or what you're into or you're like concealing all that, it's going to be so lame. Like, you know what I mean? It's like we're talking about like it applies to literally everything. It's, you know, and, you know, in audio, it's latency. We're talking about latency. Like even in, like if we had a millisecond latency right now, which we don't, thank God, in a podcast, that little extra electronic whatever in between talking fucks a conversation.

It destroys. And if you're, you know, trying to be in the moment on stage, but you've added even an extra millisecond filter between you shooting from the gut, as you say, and your articulation of that. It's getting filtered just by a millisecond. That is going to really show. Like people might not know why it's weird, but it's why we all fell in love with comedy in the nineties because nobody really gave a shit.

Everyone was like, we're just in the clubs. Nobody's got a cell phone. Nobody's getting in trouble for making any jokes. And people were just firing off the funniest shit in the world. When I became a comic, I would go to a club. Dude, the club comics in New York, doggy, they were so fucking fun. They were all murderers. Everybody at the club murdered.

You go to a club now, couple murderers, a few young bucks that are just getting chuckles, a few people that are getting some claps and applause and they're sort of woke and whatever else it is. But it's not like, do you go to the, just the, even the shittiest comedy club in 1999, you go to danger fields or you go to a comic ship live or the New York comedy club. The lineup was just stacked with seven or eight absolute fucking murderers. They were not household names. They were not people that people would even know about today.

I can start naming names. You're not even going to know who they are, but they were all killers. And I think it was just the, the structure was built for everyone was trying whatever they could do to get the, the, the most laughter as possible. That was the most important thing in the world was how fucking funny you were. And I don't think that's the same thing today. I don't think how funny you are is the number one concern of any comedians that are coming out now. Man, you know, obviously like we're thinking about New York comics,

you, you have to talk about Patrice and like, you know, anytime I revisit any of his jokes, like I find it to be weirdly intimidating. Like I, you, you watch it and you're just like, what the fuck, what the fuck? You know, and this is, I'm probably, this is going to be a tortured connection here. Probably so forgive me, but like, you know, in Buddhism, like the idea is that you are no longer clinging to the material to the shit. You're not clinging to anything anymore. You are no longer like reactive.

You're not grabbed by all the little things, whatever they, the big things, the little things, all those things that ruin a person's day or ruin a person's life. You're no longer clinging to it. Now, when I, this produces the effect of like, I don't know how to put it. This is a weird fucking analogy, but like, I don't know. A shark fin coming up out of the water or something. It's like you, instead of being like pushed and pulled and swirled around or something by, by all the little things that all of us are pushed around by, you have this like,

I don't know how to put it. You're not being blown around by the same winds. And when I see like someone like Patrice talking about edgy, that's what you're looking at. You're looking at like a person who is like taking on a form that is just truth. Like that shit that he would, his jokes were so fucking funny, but they're also like weirdly like, they are spiritual teachings, a lot of them. You know what I mean?

They are like potentially liberating for people in the audience, hearing him say out loud these things that have maybe imprisoned some of the people. You know what I'm talking about? Like he's saying shit. He's pointing out forms that appear in culture that many of us are just locked into. You know what I mean? Like the joke I just watched of his, I'll fuck it up. Is the joke about how like when a girl asks you, do you love me?

And you have to say, yes, he's, I think he called it like that's female rape. That's like, do you remember that joke? Like you're raping my time. I think it is. It's just like, what the fuck? That's so now is it actually, obviously it's not. But Jesus, you know, like pointing out that thing that can appear where like when someone's like, do you love me?

And in the moment you might not feel it, you want to be like, ah, not this second. I mean, I don't love myself most of the time. So probably not going to love you, but you got to say it and you feel a little deceitful or something, but you don't want to go through the rigamarole of anyway, things like that. They present, you're right about that. And Patrice, like, you know, I look at Patrice related to a fighter analogy. Again, it's like Patrice, dude, he's just like, when you see, you see an MMA fighter, like a, like a Diego Sanchez type of guy, right?

Who just would bite down on his mouthpiece and go to war. He didn't give a fuck. What was not protecting himself, not a George St. Pierre, not a safe fighter, like a guy, there's certain guys who just go in, they're like, I am fucking fearless. I'm going to knock this motherfucker out. And Patrice came at it with that, that fearlessness. He was not afraid to lose things. You know, you hear stories about Patrice going on to like, you know, television sets

and he just fucking had this attitude. Like it didn't, he knew he was the funniest guy there. And that's truly all that mattered. Patrice was true comic, dude, true comic through and through. It was like, and I said it before, it's like all that mattered back then was who's the funniest and he was truly the funniest. And he knew it, dude, you know, it's a great moment in like podcasting history. And I call it podcasting, even though it's radio, but you can look this up,

go listen to Patrice O'Neill's first appearance on Opie and Anthony. It's incredible. What happened? It's incredible. Rich Vols brings him in, right? And you know, I've lost, I love Rich Vols, I love him to death. And within, I mean, two minutes, he's on Opie and Anthony, which is the biggest, it's like, besides starting the biggest radio show in like the history of the world,

right? This was such a massive show and it set its peak. And within a minute, Patrice takes over the room to the point where he is the alpha dog in the room within one minute. And then they ask him, they ask him if he's funnier than Rich. And he just goes, he was like, ask Rich if I'm funnier than Rich. It was so fucking funny, dude. And it's just such a fucking great moment of sort of like how to own that space,

own that moment, just have some confidence, creating a moment. It's very inspirational as like a comedian and a podcaster because I listen to that. I'm like, you don't want to come in timid and fearful. He was himself from that first moment right up until the very, very end. So yeah, tons of respect. The reason comedians in New York love Patrice so much, it's because it's that fearlessness. And when we're talking about shooting from the hip and that flow state and like you know, he had that and he personified that I think more than any other comic in the world.

I don't think anybody gave a fuck less about what the industry thought than Patrice O'Neill. And yeah, I mean, I was lucky enough to know him casually. Like I've been to his house a few times and obviously, you know, I'm very close with Bobby Kelly and Big J and those guys were, you know, really, really close with Patrice. So I got to sort of watch him from a distance. I was just such a, I was such a young scared comedian when Patrice was like around taking center court that I would be like three rows back from people and being like,

please just do not sort of trashing me. You just got to put your head down, look at your feet. But all right, Patrice is here. I can't say shit. I love our next partner because I'm too disorganized to do the thing that the vitamin people do. You know what I'm talking about? The people who every week arrange their vitamins and weird little vitamin dispensers or bags and then they end up taking too many before they eat and then they vomit all over the Uber.

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around taking center court that I would be like three rows back from people and be like, please just do not start trashing me. You just got to put your head down, look at your feet. But Patrice is here. I can't say shit. That's smart. I think that's smart. That's another thing I love that shows up in comedy is even though it is obviously an

anarchic art form, these really natural forms emerge in it where there is hierarchy, whether you like it or not. If you're smart, then you recognize that. It's not like it's bad necessarily. But yeah, you certainly wouldn't want to be the young comic trying to be the funny guy when that's happening because you're probably setting yourself up for just a thrashing of sorts that will haunt you for the rest of your life. Well, I think that it's built into it naturally.

That's an old-school way of thinking as well. I respect my elders. I've been in comedy for 16, 17 years. Maybe even more. I don't even know how long at this point. At least 16 years, maybe 17 years. There are guys that started, when I started, that they were already doing it for a while. Like I said before, you wouldn't even know who these people are.

But I will always look at them as being above me. I sort of bend the knee and go, these guys are veterans. They were around guys that they don't have any followings. Maybe they don't even do comedy anymore. In a weird way, I just kind of bend the knee and I show respect to my elders. It's such a humbling thing. Stand-up comedy, maybe more so than other arts just because you practice and you're in it. You go through so much shit in the beginning of just sort of sucking and not having anything

and not making any money. You invest so much of yourself just for the sake of being funny and getting on stage that it's kind of like, yeah, I don't know. Like I always just sort of had respect for the guys that were there before me. I go, yeah, do you know exactly what it's like and I can learn from you? Even if they're a person that isn't doing a ton of crazy things, you can still learn from those people. Yeah, absolutely.

And the shit they've seen too, like the crazy, their experiences that they've had on the road, all the stories they've got, yeah, there is that element to it. I mean, maybe it is old school, but I hope that never goes away because I'm getting fucking old. Hey, when was the last time you got offended? Offended. Do you remember? When was the last time you got offended?

Offended by a piece of content that wasn't meant to offend me particularly. Doesn't have to be comedy. Doesn't have to be just, can you recall the last time in your life where you experienced offense where you were like, you might not have been outraged, but a moment where you were like, oh. It's a little, so you're not saying like we're a friend kisses you off because I've been offended by friends, right? Because they say something that annoys me or that I don't like, you know.

I think that counts. The last time I was offended, the last time Ian Finance was on the Legion of Skanks podcast. Okay. Because he just kept on just like almost like heckling me in real time, right? And then big J, Ian wasn't even saying funny things. He was just being a dick. But then big J started cheerleading the crowd to be against me. So then every time Ian would say something stupid, the crowd would explode and big J would

start to cheer at it. And I was just like, I'm fucking annoyed and offended. And I was offended because I invited Ian. This is what offended me because nobody else wanted Ian Finance on the podcast. Nobody else was like, you got to call Ian today. I was the one was like, let me fucking help out Ian. He's a fucking killer. He's a young buck.

Love the kid. We do hilarious. And he comes in and throws it right in my fucking face. Well, big J was supposed to be my friend cheerleaders and entire crap. So I remember feeling genuine like, fuck you, Ian. I'm not going to fucking. And of course it passed within five minutes and we started making fun of each other again. But that was the last time I was like that, like legitimately I felt offended that that

my friends would gang up against me. God, that's a good. Okay. I get it. That's, that's amazing. That's amazing. Very, very funny and also horrible. God, I hate that, especially publicly because now you're offended and you know how sensitive

audiences are. So they know you're offended and then you know your own. Oh, they love it. And they're eating it up and fucking then they make a clip. My, my producers make a clip out of it. But Ian Finance destroying Louis J Gomez on his own part. I'm like, all right, guys, fuck's going on here. Yeah.

But I don't get offended by like, like a movie or something like that. Like, you know, and I don't want to shit on the comics because I do, I don't think this is really the comics fault, right? But something else like it didn't offend me, but it was too much. Right. I watched it on my podcast. It's kind of a viral thing going on right now. It was Tiffany Haddish and Erie Spears.

They, they see this. Oh, I did. Yeah. And I saw. So, you know, they were like, they're accused of being grooming. Well, just stupid. Okay. But they, they did a video and I guess they had these kids in this video and it was,

I only saw the one, but the video was, you know, they had a little kid and the idea, the bit was leaving your kid with like his pedophile uncle, right? Yeah. And Erie Spears played this pedophile uncle. Now, I'm not offended at all by the concept and I'm not offended at all. Honestly, at the attempt of the joke, who gives a shit? The reason I had to turn the video off was because the way it was produced, they did have a real little kid in the video.

It was a real like five year old kid and they had a shirt off and they were doing like close ups of his butt and his crotch and like, and I remember just feeling really uncomfortable. Yeah. Because I had a boner. No, I felt really uncomfortable. I felt uncomfortable to the point where I had to turn it off and I was like, I don't want to look at this kid's body. Like it was just kind of weirded me out.

Yeah. That that they were using this kid as a prop. Now, here's the thing. I don't know Erie's while I've met him before. I've met Tiffany. They're not grooming fucking kids. They're not pedophiles. It seems like they got caught up in a production that was just,

it was ill conceived. It wasn't executed right. They could have had an adult play the kid and executed it in a funny way. Right. Yeah. It just seems like it was a fucking just ill conceived bit that sort of got out of hand. But watching it, I remember seeing this like kid and them doing close ups of the kid's body. And I was like, yeah, I don't really want to.

It seemed to me like you were, you know, a little kid was being used as a sexual prop. And the point of it was to be funny, but it still sort of doesn't matter. I was still kind of like, hey, you know what? That's a little bit too much for me. Yeah. So I turned it. I literally couldn't finish watching the bit. But I also don't want to pile on Erie Spears or Tiffany Haddish because that's not what the

fuck's going on there. For people to say that it's, you know, you know, it's just a little bit irresponsible because that's a very big fucking charge. You call somebody a groomer or a pedophile. That's crazy. That's a really, really fucked up credit. It's one of the lowest things you could be in the entire world. So it's not exactly that.

But I do understand why people were like, yeah, that shouldn't be on video. If I'm that parent, I'm like, yeah, that's not going out into the world. Dude, I mean, well, and also like, I think that they like, you could call it exploitation. Like it's, you know, grooming is implies the intent to like rape a kid. And yeah, you're right. There's no fucking way that's what they're doing. But was it exploitation? Yeah, they took a kid and they like the child probably, I think the parents weren't aware

of what they were doing. And the kid obviously has no idea that they're like, dude, how they're going to edit it or whatever. So, you know, if you want to call it what it is, that's probably a better word for it than grooming. Also, think of like, do you remember Cape Fear? Did you ever see Cape Fear? Yeah.

Remember the controversy around De Niro and Juliette Lewis? Juliette Lewis, yeah. Because they had this fucking hot scene. She was too young at the time. Like it's like Robert De Niro fucking ripped stalker Robert De Niro. He's smoking a joint with her in like the school theater. I think he like, I think they might have improv a little of it, you know what I mean? And like, it was like, you know, two good actors really committing to this fucking role

where he how old was she in the movie? I think she was like, she was supposed to be like 15, like in the movie, the character, but how old was she actually when it was spelled? Let me look at it. I think she was like that was the controversy as she was underage. But let me look it up. I just remember when like it caused all kinds of controversy.

Juliette Lewis, Cape Fear. Let's look it up here. How old? First thing that comes up. Oh, she was 18. She's saying I was 18 when I did Cape Fear playing a 14-year-old. And so many people thought that Scorsese had just found me and that I really was that girl. But I wasn't said Lewis.

Addition for it. The character is based on a young girl I met in a park who was holding a kitten. Oh, OK. Well, shit, she was fucking 18. And it caused controversy. Which is so funny, like 18. Now that I'm 40, 18 is still so fucking young. If you speak to an 18-year-old, they seem like children now.

Yeah. But look, though, you know, though as an age, she's an adult, she's on a set. There should really be much of a controversy there. Do you remember there was that movie that just came on a Netflix, that French movie about like the preteen dancers? Cuties. Oh, fuck. That was super controversial.

And if you watched it, that was another time. Offended is a weird word, because it's not a I'm not offended. You know, that was probably the last time I was offended. Cuties. Cuties. Yeah. Did you watch it? I don't watch the whole movie.

We watched the scene on skanks to see it. And I was like, OK, this is fucking like. Because they are children. I've watched it nine times. I've watched it nine times. So it's screen safe, right? I just just understand why I was offended. I just kept watching and watching and watching.

It's very offensive. You take a little kid and they don't realize what these kids want to be in a movie, right? And they're I mean, for all intents and purposes, good dancers. I'm assuming that they I don't know the whole history of the movie, but I'm assuming they got kids that were part of real dance teams. But you're taking fucking shots. This is a child's ass and you're putting a camera right up against it and she's thrusting it.

That's kind of crazy. I don't give a fuck what stories really being told. Same. At that point you are, you know, you're using this kid for to tell a very provocative story. You're doing it with a real kid. Maybe, you know, so that that's sort of like I understand the controversy. And I always defend sort of the attempt at creating art and I defend the attempt to. But this whole child thing starts to be especially now that my kids older.

He's nine years old. I once you have a kid, it just changes the perspective and people get very, very passionate about either the kids or their dogs. You can't fuck with kids and you can't fuck with dogs these days. That's right. But you can definitely you're going to get in less trouble for fucking a dog. Rightfully so. And dude, here's the thing.

As a parent, it's like this is like opened up something for me where it's like I don't even want to. I can't watch date lines that have children getting killed in them or date lines where their parents have been killed. Like it kills me. I don't know if that's a fence necessarily, but maybe that's what it is. I mean, I think it's comics. I don't know about you, but I go numb and like part I could just be numb and not sometimes

not feel anything. And when I was really in phases of my life where I thought I was trying to be edgy, it was just some articulation of numbness more than anything. But when dude, yeah, man, anything that's like fucking with a kid, including this new like, you know, where they're like people are putting their children on Instagram or TikTok like channels for you're watching like videos, infinite videos, kidding breakfast, kid drinking a smoothie, kid at the playground. And you realize like this kid's life is the fucking Truman show.

Like they are just the child. Maybe I'm just reading into it because I always look for the worst of things, but there's always like a weird like innuendo or implication in a lot of these videos. It's like, you know, little girl spills milk all over her face or fucking dude, right. That it's an entire cucumber. Like what's going on right now? Right. Yeah.

Yeah. What the fuck is happening? Like you do you and it's like that's the that's where it gets real dark. I mean, do you remember this happened on YouTube sometime ago? They fixed it somehow. I think they fixed it. But I think I don't remember what they said. It created new Elcigate.

Elcigate we can get into because it's one of my favorite. That's what I thought you were talking about. It's Elcigate adjacent. But what was happening is like pedophiles were leaving in the comments time code. So two minutes, 22 seconds, you go to that and it's like for a second, you can see like a flash of the kids underwear. And so they were like sharing with other pedophiles like shit that so they don't have to watch the whole fucking video of the kid at the playground.

They just cut. I was like, now they put in they put in like time stamps to skip our podcast reads. Yeah, I did a goal. Yes. Exactly this. Exactly. And so like the parents, they must be aware that the viewership of people watching their children on fucking playgrounds is probably 3 percent.

People are like, boy, nothing I love more than watching kids at playgrounds. And 97 percent fucking dude to the fat kid. There's a lot of this because my niece is seven and my son's nine, right? And they watch YouTube on my television regularly, right? So there's a sect of a big portion of who's watching these kids like dudes just do shit or other kids, little kids like to watch little kids. That's your presence. And so I think a lot of them are just little kids.

But then I think another large percentage of them are fucking weird ass adults. Yeah, I remember we discovered this on real ass podcast a while ago. But there was like a mommy blogger. And it was just like, you know, her at the park with her kids and then her at the supermarket with the kids, her going to Disney with her kids. And the one video she had was bath time. It was called bath time with Susie or whatever the fuck it was, right? And it was her just taking her four year old daughter in the bath and washing her hair, right?

Now, all of her videos had like 5,000 to 10,000 views. Bath time video had like 2 million views. This is also the only video that had the comments turned off. But she kept it up and she kept monetizing it. And at one point you go like, well, I mean, the parent more than anything else is the fucking problem there. And my sister, you know, my niece is obsessed with YouTube and she's like, oh, she won't start a YouTube channel.

And I'm like, Jenny, trust me, put your fucking daughter on YouTube. There's going to be creepy old men that are jerking off watching her fucking put her shoes on. If you're OK with that and just knowing that that's happening in the fucking world, yeah, then go ahead. But I have I have a lot. I pretend I put my son on my Instagram stories here and there. I really try to minimize even just keeping pictures up just because it's sort of a crazy world out there, right?

And I don't know who the fuck like we have fan bases that are a little bit fucking crazy. People get obsessed with shit. So I really do try to I try to minimize it, you know, and I also don't want him to be obsessed with like that lifestyle. That's like the new I want to be a rock star or baseball players. I want to be a Twitch streamer or an Instagram celebrity or a TikToker. And I just think that kids, you know, I want my kid to want to be a lawyer or a doctor or want to, you know, just something fucking normal.

He doesn't need to want attention or need attention. I do this because I didn't get enough attention as a kid. He's got plenty of fucking attention. Right. But I bet he's funny. Is your kid funny? He's super funny, very smart. Crazy when you say he wants to be a comedian.

He said he wants to be a comedian. He wants he likes to act. He plays piano and drums and he's in musical theater and he's very really into performing. And by the way, I would never tell him that he couldn't, but I'm not going to try to put him to work. And that's what it is when you have a monetized YouTube channel, right? Well, my son, my son's doing, you know, he just was in a little mermaid and he was in a production of Susie with the Musical and he's auditioning for the new Shrek

Musical in like the local town production, like a pretty big production now. But I would not, if he wanted to go audition for Broadway and actually become a working Broadway kid actor, I wouldn't allow him to do that. Yeah. I think that that's a decent thing. I mean, I, you know, I think that is part of like being in entertainment is like you understand how, how fucked up that can get. All the like the elite like creepy shit that people talk about aside,

just the like you're, you're, you're pulling your child out of default reality and plopping them into this bizarre world, man. And it's like, yeah, I want my kids to have like a normal childhood when they're old enough. And if they want to go do that, fantastic. But when they're kids, I want them to be kids. I don't want them to be kids. They shouldn't be image obsessed. They shouldn't be worrying about how, you know, you know, people in the masses are viewing

them. They shouldn't know what a fucking algorithm is. My nine-year-old should not understand what an algorithm is. That's crazy, right? Right. And I don't think that, and you'll hear on the other side of it, like you'll hear parents be like, oh, well, you know, they're, they're going into a very technologically driven world. Like my son doesn't have an iPad.

I got him a phone for a trip to Europe because I wanted him to take his own photos. And God forbid if I lost him, I wanted to be able to call him, but he doesn't have it. It's in my room now. Right. He has it if we go to the mall or, you know, we're doing something special. But I think that, you know, it's really lost. How old are your kids now, Duncan? I've got a one and a half year old and a three and a half year old.

Yeah. I mean, you know, I keep my kid away from all of that bullshit because I want them to be able to have a conversation with people. I want them to make eye contact. You see little kids when they sit down at dinner and they're on a pad. The whole family's at a restaurant and then you have a six-year-old on a pad the whole time. Well, everyone else is engaging in conversation. Yeah.

And this kid is just, it's not going to happen. I'm telling you right now, like we're going to have a bunch of fucking weird, you know, no eye contact making fucking people that have no social skills. And I want to make sure my kid has that advantage over everybody else because the technology is becoming intuitive. Having interpersonal skills is not intuitive. It actually goes against your instinct, right? Like my son, he started a new school and like he's just so good, dude.

Like if I go, we're online at the new school the other day and I'm like, James, you know that kid's name? He's like, no, he's in my class. I don't know his name. I was like, go ask him his name. And without a beat, he just goes, hey, what's going on? I'm James. What's your name?

Michael Cole. And they start talking and now they're in the middle of a conversation. Same thing when we were in Italy. Like it was just me and him. It was a father-son trip. So I was like, yeah, go introduce yourself to some other kids. You'll get a pen pal from fucking Germany or Italy or France or wherever. These are kids from all over the world.

And he was just introducing himself to all these people. And even me, and I'm a pretty, you know, outgoing dude, when I was a kid, if I had to go introduce myself to a brand new person, I would feel this anxiety. Same. I'm kind of shut down and go like, oh, fuck dude. You know, I'd have to really force myself to do it. And I think he's exercising a muscle that will be a massive advantage over 99% of the other people that are going for job, school, whatever else it is.

Well, dude, I don't know if you've probably haven't, you're not experiencing this, but because your kids are a little older. So right now, all the COVID shutdown kids are like going to preschool. And the teachers have been telling us that they've never seen anything like it. Like these kids, like the way they're behaving, the way they're interacting is totally fucking different from the way that they're used to, because they've been shut down so much. Add to that what you're talking about.

Technology, the, you know, and I get it, man. Any parent that is doing the iPad hypnosis thing. This is like, it's so alluring in the sense that you want to go out to dinner and you don't want to have to deal with your squirmy yelling kid, like climbing up on the table, going under the table, you know, doing all this stuff. And what's the best thing? Give them a fucking hypno rectangle and lights out.

They're just going to stare into that thing the whole time. And you get to have a normal dinner. Like I understand why parents do it. I'm on the same page with you, man. I'm not like, we're not doing that. We're going to, we suffer through it. We work with it, try to like, you know, get them to focus and all that stuff. But fuck, man.

Do you ever just think about like, what are we looking at? What are these generations going to look like? Who are they going to be? Kids who know what an algorithm is. Kids who, whenever anything cool is happening, they're not seeing their parents face. They're seeing a phone in front of their parents face as they get filmed to make money to afford the house that they're living in.

What is it going to look like? We're going to have the weirdest generation of kids that the world has ever seen. And I, it's such a unique time, right? Like this specific time, this technology that came out. Like, you know, we, we were also unique in that like, technology is completely ingrained in our lives, our careers. Like we use it in a pretty high, high level way, right? Like I'm using social media and I'm using these platforms.

Right now we're on this, you know, platform so we can have a conversation like this across the country from each other, right? So we use it, but we also remember a time when there was none of this. And like, through our entire lives, like we saw sort of before it, we saw exactly how, you know, dependent everybody became on it. And I think we're going to watch, you know, people roll back a little bit, the dependency, because I think it's dangerous. And I do think when you have people that are, it's creating a very reactionary society,

right? Reactionary. I used that word wrong recently. I think that's a right word. Reactive. Yeah. Well, I guess reactionary and I was like politicized, right? So, but, but very, like, you know, overreactive, we are, you know, we, we pile onto things that sort of like built within our, within the culture, right?

When they say cancel culture, it's, it's everything we're talking about. And I, the cancel culture debate is so much bigger and so much more intricate than simply like, he said a bad word and now he can't work on that TV show. It's, you're talking about changing the way people think and changing the reaction and what, what happens when they feel offended or when they feel a mild bit of offense, right? Right. Or when we're talking about in comedy or art, like you're talking about not, you know, sort of killing the flow state and making people not really be in the moment, right?

You know, that's, that in my opinion is the biggest drawback of cancel culture is you've probably completely killed that real time creative process because people are overthinking every single little thing. And they're, you know, so yeah, I think that, you know, our kids, I'm hoping, I legitimately hope that we fucking have more restrictions on what we can do with technology and how much, you know, you shouldn't be able to reach that many people that quickly and share ideas that quickly. We should have some time to think about the ideas. Every time I've ever just reacted, anytime I'm arguing with a girlfriend or a friend and I just react, I always come off

shittier. I always come off less intelligent. I always come off like I haven't put any thought into it because I really haven't, right? But anytime I maybe have something with somebody and then I say, let me step away from this for a minute and let me, you know, how many times you sent a text message or an email like, God damn it, I shouldn't have sent that. I'm a fucking idiot. One out of four. Yeah. Yes. And that, that side of it, I think is like, as a society, we're very like, let's react. Let's get it out there as quickly as possible, as opposed to sitting down, thinking about it, meditating. When's the last time? I mean, you probably meditate because you're a lunatic. I did. But, but most people don't. Most people were forced to meditate.

Most people would drive to work, right? A lot of people didn't even have a radio in their car. In the 80s, like you were just forced to be alone with your thoughts, right? You were staring at the road. You almost hypnotize yourself and you're in a flow state of thinking where your mind goes clear and you realize that, oh shit, I just worked out a bunch of problems in my head on my way to work. I used to do this when I, when I work out, I sort of meditate when I'm in a steam room. Yeah. I love the steam room, dude, because the steam room I'm forced to sit there with my thoughts. Yeah. And that's it. You can't, I can't have technology. It'll melt my fucking phone, right? Right. You know, I don't leave headphones on. I just sit there and I'm

alone with my thoughts and I'll come up with solutions. Even if I'm running and I'm listening to music, I just start thinking about things, right? I get emotional sometimes when I run because I'll start thinking about my problems, dude. Yes. And I'll fucking get really like, I'll be like, I'm like, why am I fucking, why do I want to cry right now? And it's because I'm just alone with my thoughts and I'm not being distracted by my phone or my son or my job or my podcast or any of these other things. So I think, you know, we're, we're less and less often people are doing that even when they work in, they're watching Peloton, they need a screen and they need somebody to tell them in the exact moment. Or, you know, I don't know how often people are just sitting on

a toilet bowl without their phone. I used to be a meditative, they used to take a shit and be like, all right, I'm going to think about my problems for the day. You know, this is like, no one wants to address this reality, man, which is like, if I had to guess, like when I shit now, if I don't have my phone, it's a real weird moment. You know what I mean? It's like, it's like weird. You want your phone when I'm like mixed in to the human shit ritual. I don't know if ritual is the right word for it is this advanced technology. Before you go use the bathroom, where's my fucking phone? Oh, fuck, I don't have my phone. What am I going to do? I'm going to have to face this moment fully without anything to distract myself from the reality. Yeah, you're just shitting.

You have to be reminded no matter who you think you are, you got to do this. Everyone has to do this. No way to like, look at, I don't, I've been watching like self help videos while shitting, you know, like self improvement while the point you're right, man, like those, those moments, those very human moments, we're being, we're intentionally distracting ourselves from them. And it's like, it's going to create some new form of humanity. And maybe it's better. Maybe we're not supposed to focus on shitting. Maybe it is a normal thing, but you know, meditation is, meditate, you are like, when you say I don't, like you do meditate, you meditate. If you're in the steam room and you're being with yourself, you're meditating. If your meditation is,

it's one of the spiritual things that gets so hyped up. And because of that, people don't even realize they're doing it or even try to do it because they think they need candles, weird statues. That's really not what it is. It's like, just what you're saying, which is being with yourself, go home, go home in Tibetan Buddhism as the name for, one of the names for meditation, which means familiarity with oneself. That's it. Most people don't even know how they feel because they are trying to avoid those feelings that make you cry because, you know, it makes sense. It hurts. We don't, we're paying adverse creatures. And so generally the way to deal with things that hurt is to get away from them. That's smart. Don't touch the grill. Don't

touch the fire. Don't, don't fuck that person. Don't, you know, because that's going to hurt. But the pain we all carry around with us, the way to deal with that is not avoidance. It's, at least according to Buddhism, as I understand it, it's just being with it and not even being with it to fix it, not even being with it to like understand it, to like re label it or to judge it or shift it around. But just, if you just sit with it, that's it. Something in that just by itself has the quality of bringing more peace. And yeah, man, that definitely is something that technology helps you not do. Yeah. No, and I think you're right. And I think that, yeah, when I say don't meditate, you're right. I do meditate. I think, you know, when you're writing jokes,

you're sort of meditating. You're right. You're thinking about these, you know, these darker, for me anyway, I think about these darker things and trying to turn them on its head and come up with something funny or, you know, something positive on the other side. There's so much time spent thinking about yourself and so much time spent thinking about like, you know, it's almost like looking at yourself through a different lens. And you're just trying to turn something maybe dark or something normal into something really funny. I think it's a very, you know, a powerful moment you could have. I do you ever do yoga? God damn it, dude. I don't and I need to my body. I think you'd love it, dude. You do yoga. So I do I have done a bunch of yoga, right? And I really like

hot yoga. I really like as we're just sort of talking about sort of being with yourself, what I think I like about yoga specifically, more than other, you know, working out and any other sort of exercise is that your super focused sort of on the movement, your super focus on like it's a mind body thing, right? Where you go like, you have to really be hyper focused on what your body's doing in that moment and it sort of makes you clear your mind, right? And I find myself when I'm doing yoga, I'm like just at the end of it, I feel really just emotionally better. I feel like legitimately just sort of like and I think it's just because you you're so like you're focused on form, right? You're focused on like maybe I have to get into this pose and get deeper into this

post stretch a little bit and you're looking at your yogi or your yoga instructor and they're doing it. You're like, I have to like sort of like push myself a little bit further and you're hyper focused and you realize like I haven't thought about any problems for this hour. I haven't thought about anything except for like my mind connecting with what my body is doing in that moment. And that clarity is it's just I think really refreshing. It feels like a fucking shower at the end of it. I walk out of it and I go like fuck dude. I just feel like, you know, emotionally cleaner as the best way to describe it. Yeah, dude. Well, I mean, one of the many things I like about you, I love earlier, I know I'm not spiritual. You're actually one of the more spiritual people

I know. Oh, you I know. But look, whether you think it or not, spiritual even the word, what the fuck does that even mean? Is there a more confusing, stupid word floating around right now than spiritual? What does that even fucking mean? Like a lot of people who call themselves spiritual, they haven't even like looked at that word. Like, what do you when you're saying you're spiritual, what do you mean? Like, think about the word itself. It's almost meaningless. It's almost like a word that has no more meaning because it's been used in so many ways that at this point, you might as well be like, I'm filming that. It's not it's a non word. So, you know, the way I've been taught is what you were saying about the edge, what you were saying about, you know, if you want to be edgy,

really, it's like being as unique on as you are the thing you are as it is. That's fucking edgy. And that if you ask me, that's spiritual. It's like, it's not you're wearing beads. It's not that you know mantras. It's not that you spend all this fucking time meditating or whatever. Some of those people, if you ask me, and this is my own personal feeling, some of those people are the least spiritual people that you'll run into. It's actually it's called spiritual materialism is the name given to it, which is like all that's happened is you've like found a new costume to wear and you've become very proud of the costume and you will like tell people, oh man, I've done ayahuasca 500 times or I went to this retreat for four months in the mountains of wherever and there's no difference

between the way they're describing themselves and somebody who's like, I've got a Ferrari. I, you know, look at this new watch I got. Check out like how good my skin looks. It's like you're the same thing. The symbols you're filling in are just like spiritual symbols, but right. So, you know, I think a lot of people use seem like one of them. Maybe it's better that you don't think you're spiritual or that you don't meditate or whatever because none of that shit really matters. I mean, truly none of it matter. It's not the point. It's not the thing. It's just something else to cling to, you know, which is why meditation is so frustrating. And if you get a good meditation teacher, it's like my meditation teacher, the reason I started working with him is because

when we formally sat down to talk about it, he goes, this, I'm going to tell you what my teacher told me any minute. This is hopeless. I was like, dude, I love you. That's the coolest thing I ever heard. He's like, this is hopeless. You're not really going to get anything out of this. It's just hopeless, hopeless. And that is a really good place to be if you ask me, you know, hopeless, because hope is just another desire. You know, it's when you want things to be different than they are. Hopelessness is actually in this sense great. I don't mean hopeless, like you're like depressed. No, I understand completely what you mean. Like, you know, I find myself there. It's like hopeless in terms of like letting go of worry and letting go of like the bullshit once in a

while, like, you know, wait, let me add let me let me let me add a plug something in there. Letting go of the idea that you're at some point not going to be worried, letting go of the idea that as you are right now, at some point is going to be better, different change, letting go of any hope, any hope, any sense that as you are, Lewis Gomez, as you are somewhere down the road, there's going to be a thing that happens. And oh, now you'll be the real Gomez right now. You're a fucking project. You're like a project that you've been working on your whole life. Keep doing the seminars, keep doing the mantra. Lewis, I'm telling you, it's coming, baby, it's coming. Let go of that. Let go of that. And just be. Yeah, you didn't just be and people like people who are really into

their egos and want to want metals, points, money, score, all that they this is where they stop. This is where they're like, fuck that. Wait, you're going to tell me the way I'm in. I am right now is perfect. Fuck you. No, it's not if I'm fine right now with all of it. But then that means there's nothing else to do. That means then what am I going to do? What's left? That's where you end up in the place where you want to look at your phone. That's where you want to go. Well, you know, you can also like sort of because like it goes against my instincts, right? Because it's, you know, we talk about with comedy, like, I'll never feel as if I'm good enough. I'll never feel as if I have enough with, you know, success in life with love,

relationships with anything, you know, but if you can stop and just be, you can move the focus off of yourself and what you want. And you can focus more on what the actual steps are in order to achieve those things without emotion, without being upset, without, without having your ego bruised or being offended. You can step back. It's like watching two people play chess. Like I can watch two people play chess and be like, oh, I see what they're doing right there. When I'm playing chess, I'm an idiot. For some reason, I get distracted by the pieces and it's such a, you know, like whatever it is, but just having that bird's eye view of yourself, I think that's sort of what, and that's when I find myself in those meditative states,

whether I'm exercising or I'm, you know, I'm in a, you know, a steam room or a sauna and sort of like with my thoughts, I sort of, there's a moment where I go like, I'm not in a bad mood. I'm not worried about this thing happening. I'm just sort of like really looking at things from like, almost like a bird's eye view. And the reality is you have all the answers right now, currently it's turning very self-help, but it's, I really believe this stuff, right? Like if, if, like you, when I say you, Duncan or anybody listening to this, if you were to really sit down and list out all your problems in your life, financially, love wise, health wise, you know, your, your problems with work, your interpersonal problems, everything that's going on, right? And you were just to look

at every sort of department and go, you'd be able to give yourself a genuine solution for everything. Sure. We know, we know the answers. We don't apply them. You know what I'm saying? But right now, health wise, I know exactly what I have to do in order to be as healthy as possible. Right. I know exactly what I have to do in order to have great relationships with my friends. I know the answers. I don't always do it. I don't always follow it, you know, but the reality is if you can get yourself to the place where you start to look at things objectively a little bit, you probably know the answers and it becomes a little easier to apply those, those things. Right. Yeah. You know, just like the idea is you like, it's been, you know, I just ordered this fucking tonal thing that they

put on your wall. It's some kind of like magnetic, like it's amazing. It like it's Peloton, but for weights, I can't wait for it. But I'm only prefacing to say like, I mean, I know you're looking at me, lots of people look at me and I'm like, Jesus Christ, man, do you work out every day? Like how do you do that? What are you eating meat all the time? Like how is this happening to you? I don't know. It's genetic, but I haven't worked out in a while, but I love working out. And when I was working out, the difference between a workout where you're thinking, fuck, I need to like do this program for the next year. If I'm going to see any change in myself and the workout where you're just working out, that's a whole different thing. You know, like if you go in there thinking

about like, I'm doing this because in six months, I want to be in this place. I'm not saying you shouldn't have goals. It's going to dilute that incredible like basic experience of just lifting heavy shit and be like being in your body and feeling it. And so I guess if you want to create some connection with like the idea of meditation, it's like, it's like that. Like in fact, one of the sayings that I've been taught when it comes to meditation is abandon all hopes of fruition, meaning don't sit down with any thought that this is going to make you enlightened, more peaceful, that you're going to experience any change at all, zero expectations at all of anything. Get rid of all that bullshit. And then just be just the way you are, just that thing.

It's talk about walking a fucking tightrope, man. That's a tightrope. As it relates to, you know, exercising, like the, it's almost like a peripheral benefit should be getting abs, right? That shouldn't be the goal, right? The goal, if you say you want your goal to be, I want to be able to increase my vertical leap by six inches. The peripheral benefit of that is going to be, you're going to have abs. You're going to lose a ton of fat. You're going to, you're going to strengthen your glutes and the muscles in your body, you know what I'm saying? So it's sort of like looking at a different goal, right? And this is why I think, you know, you see athletes are in some of the best shape in the world because the goal isn't to look good.

The goal is to be functionally good at this sport. And then a side benefit of that happens to be that they look fucking great and feel great, right? Right. So yeah, I think that sort of, you know, psychologically, it's very similar. If your goal is to increase your personal wealth or to feel, you know, enlightened, you're probably not going to get there. But if your goal is to simply be and understand who you are and find, find your own happiness through simply being happy with yourself, although I think those benefits are going to really start to come out and you see people look happier people typically are a little bit more successful. I don't think it's because they're successful. I think it's because they're happy. That's the reality.

Well, and yeah, it's like, you know, what you're saying about the gym, you know, hopefully you find yourself in a, like if you, as I'm sure you have, I certainly have, you might find yourself in a life where the side benefits are your fat, your liver hurts, your friends, you're disconnected from your friends, your family, you know, this is like you want the side benefit of whatever it is you're doing to be. You've got good friends. You know what I mean? You feel good. Your body feels good. You're like, you know, that's important to look at. Like what are the side benefits of the series of decisions you're making every day? Fuck, dude, we got to go on tour. Lewis and Trussell's motivational tour. Dude, we don't have to write jokes anymore.

Do you realize how awesome that would be? You don't have to write jokes. You don't have to come up with jokes. We'll just get up there, man and fucking like pump everybody up. Dude, think of it. Yoga retreat. We'll do a fucking, oh dude. Legion of Skanks self-help tour. Fuck. I bet you do, man, because like you're so deep in this thing, but you, you know, and I mean it, and when I say cult, I don't mean it in the negative. I'm not talking Jonestown or whatever, but come on, man, let's face it. You and the Skanks, you're kind of cult leaders. You kind of have a cult. It's a culture. Yeah. That's what every cult leader says. That's a culture. Every cult leader across the board. This is the first thing they'll say to address the obvious. They're like, look,

it's like the Freemasons. You know what they say? We're not a secret society. We're a society with secrets. In cults, they go, whoa, come on. It's culture. We're talking about, and I don't mean it in the negative. And you know, like I've actually said, I've tried to make cult jokes to some of my friends who like do retreats and stuff, and they're like, come on Duncan, there's no mind control, a cult, an authentic cult. You know, you're like, you're making people do shit. You're taking over their minds. You're making people do shit. But holy shit, dude. I, some of my favorite comedy memories are like Legion of Skanks show. When I came and did your show, I didn't know it. I'd heard of Legion of Skanks, but I'd never seen it. And I love Burning Man.

I love like counterculture shit. It was, I was astounded. My jaw dropped when I realized like, what the fuck? It's like some kind of- More than other comedy audiences. Our audience feels a real connection with the brand. I think podcasting sort of does that in itself. But you know, once again, like, I think it's the risk. I think people see the risk that we take and the type of comedy that we do. And they go, you know what, these guys, you know, you said something to me when I saw you in Austin. And the sort of, it really did stick with me, right? Cause it was a joke that I'm doing that'll never be on an album, right? It's just not going to go on a special. And you said that to me. You're like, dude, that is like the purest type of comedy. Like there's no monetary upside to

it. Like you're just being funny to be funny, which is so rare these days. We're constantly creating content that we're trying to monetize in whatever way, right? Whether it's a stand-up special or on a YouTube video or a podcast advertiser or whatever. And I think that that, I think Legion of Skanks, that sort of person, we personify that idea where it's like, there's not, and don't, we make money, right? We do make money on the show. We do have sponsors in spite of it though. And I think that people look at that risk and they go, Oh shit, like they're doing this for the right reason, which is to be funny first. And luckily we get to make a career and, you know, tour and get to make a little bit of cash while doing it. But I think people have a

genuine appreciation for it. Cause they go, you know what, these guys are risking something. It is edgier. It is like an MMA fighter risking his life every time he goes into the cage. It is like a, you know, evil can evil jumping across, you know, 20 buses on a dirt, on a dirt bike. It's like, what are we going to fucking watch right here? And there's like an appreciation for that danger. And I think that's why our audience, they get obsessed with it. They defend us like it's a fucking, like they're going to war for us. Um, you know, I get that. I get that part because it's like, you know, if people are pissed off at you guys, they're pissed off because they haven't been to your shows. They're pissed off because they haven't seen what it actually is. I mean,

this is like, to me, one of the, you know, what's funny about Burning Man is like, you'll hear people talk shit about it justifiably. You've never been there because they've seen the Instagram pics of like, I don't know, hot girls and fucking face masks or whatever with glow sticks and like, that looks like the cheesiest shit I've ever seen in my life or it looks douchey or it looks like too like cheesy psychedelic spiritual. That looks, but when you go there and experience what it actually is, you realize that shit acted as a kind of force field keeping out judgmental assholes. And you know what I mean? I think Legion of Skanks, it has its own force field, which is the name, like your, your rep, your reputation. If people haven't seen your comedy, they're like, I'm not

going to that. Oh, that's Legion of Skanks. It's going to be like bikers. They're going to beat me up. I'm going to get my ass kicked there. They're going to be mean. There's going to be violence or it's the sweetest. You guys have the sweetest fan base, man. They're like the sweetest fan base. They're the biggest comedy fans in the world. They're like, you know, we do a lot of music at Skankfest now as well. You know, the girls talk about, yeah, it's so funny because I just heard on the, I was listening to, I want to say Serious XM yesterday. I was in the car and there was somebody telling a story about the opening band for Rage Against the Machine. There was a band, I guess that opened up and the lead singer

had a moment where he stopped the audience and he was like, you know, look around you. There's, you know, it was like huge, like 60,000 people, 70,000 people, big festival. And he was like, you know, there's a lot of girls out here who've never been able to crowd surf because they're afraid that the guys are going to touch him inappropriately. And he was like, you know, right now we're going to have a moment where every girl here can crowd surf. And it was like, nobody's going to fucking touch anybody because if you do, I'll personally jump down there and beat your fucking ass, right? And then they played the song, the song dropped and you know, 20,000 girls are crowd surfing, right? And you know, I'm sure they were all getting fingered by the way,

but it was a trap. But the point of it, it made me think, I was like at Skankfest, people crowd surfed during the music. And one of the things that all the girls say is like, dude, like Kim Kong, he was saying this, she was like, she was like, you could feel the hands on everywhere, but her butt everywhere. But like, the fans are so respectful. And they're, they, they, especially considering the reputation, like we're chauvinist or sexist or whatever else it is, they're so respectful and it's such a safe space for like chicks that every year we've done Skankfest, it's been more and more and more girls there. It's like, it's a time we've never had a fight, we've never had an argument, nobody's ever been kicked out. You know, maybe a couple people got

a little too drunk, but it's never been, it's literally just couldn't be any more of a sweet audience who genuinely just wants to have a good time, genuinely just wants to laugh and support really good comedy. And when people are exposed to it, they go, holy fucking shit, that is so different than I thought it was going to be. And honestly, that's a powerful thing. Honestly, it's a good thing because sometimes people expect it to be one way and then they're surprised. And you know, maybe the power of that sort of like contradictory thing like actually helps us out a little bit. And maybe it's why we haven't really gotten in any trouble. We talk about it like we're like getting canceled. We're not getting canceled. We're like, we keep on trying.

Nobody fucking cares. I grew up on like Marilyn Manson, like being like banned from stadiums and entire cities. Like, and it's like, we lost like, we lost better help as a sponsor at one point, because we made fun of some TikTok, bitch, you know, better help should have never been our small tour to begin with. Let's get real. That's hilarious. I didn't, I think, yeah, that's so funny. I gotta go back and listen to your better help ad reads. That's so cool, man. Well, I like better. I use better help currently. I'm in therapy and I use better help. I think it's a great product. But the reality is like, yeah, I mean, they didn't really know who they were representing. And as soon as better help got out, we had three other sponsors that were

literally competing to be the sponsor for that slot because we're sold out on ads. So it's, you know, we like to complain. We act like we're, you know, things are, they're not really that tough. When I say cancel culture, it's more like everything that we discussed on today's show. It's not so much that things are being taken away from me. Yeah, more or less, you know, it's just the, you know, we're changing the culture of how we create. And I think that that isn't for the better. And I, yeah, I think that's a great way to talk about what it is, like what it actually is versus like the shit you read on Twitter. And that's a perfect articulation of it. Man, I'm so bummed. I can't join you all in Vegas. I was like excited. What are you doing? Look, man, I'll explain it to

you after the show. You're going to be disappointed with me. I'll explain it to you. I think you'll understand though. Not even Thursday for the kickoff party. I can't. I'm going to explain the whole thing to you, man. But when is that? When are you all going to be out there? October 14th through 16th. The biggest lineup we've ever done. More people than we've ever done before. It's going to be in a little early live in Vegas sold out in two minutes before we announced a single comic. Yeah, we sell out every year at this point in advance. Hopefully the next Skankfest at this Skankfest in the new location. So yeah, it's going to be great. But yeah, people can, if you want to get tickets still, if you go to the Legion or the Skankfest Networking Group

on Facebook, there's just a handful of people that are always just trying to sell an extra ticket. So you can get it. If you get out there, we do not allow scalpers. They can't increase the price at all. If you want to buy it from somebody, they have to transfer the ticket directly through the festival. So you're not going to be charged more money than they paid for it. Awesome. Well, probably most of you can't go to Skankfest. I just fucking built it up. I should have asked if it was sold out first. That was pointless. But if you can get tickets, if you're out there in Vegas, and you can make it, even if you can't get tickets, maybe you can find a place to hang out with some after party or something. You should definitely participate. Well, every night, what's crazy,

it's on Fremont Street. And if you know downtown Vegas, it's a party, dude. So the shows will be out around one o'clock in the morning, but everyone's going to go out into Fremont Street, and it's just pure chaos. Like there's so much going on after midnight. So please come out and hang out in Vegas, take some pictures, shoot the shit with us. Keep on listening to Legion of Skank's real-ass podcast. Follow me on Twitch. We're doing ticket giveaways leading up to the, we're a month away. So we're doing ticket giveaways essentially every week. All the links you need to find, Lewis Gomez will be at dunkertrustle.com. Thank you so much, man. I love hanging out with you. Wish you lived in Austin. Love you, Duncan. You're the man, dude.

That was Lewis Jay Gomez, everybody. All the links you need to find them will be at dunkertrustle.com. A big thank you to our sponsors. Please come see me. I'll be in San Francisco and Salt Lake City. And I'll see you next week. You can get Dirty Angel anywhere you get your music. Ghost Hounds, Dirty Angel Out Now. New album and tour date coming this summer. BMW, Freightliner, Ford, and many more of the world's leading brands hire Universal Technical Institute grads. And now we're expanding to new industries. Since 1965, UTI has become known for

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