Fitzdog Radio - Alonzo Bodden - Episode 1109

Episode Date: August 27, 2025

From NPR’s Wait Wait don’t tell me, my good friend Alonzo Bodden comes by for a few laughs. Follow Alonzo Bodden on Instagram @zofunny Watch my special "You Know Me" on YouTube! ⁠⁠⁠⁠��⁠http://bit.ly/FitzYouKnowMe⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@GREGFITZSHOW⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Instagram ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@GREGFITZSIMMONS⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠FITZDOG.COM⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Neutral. Welcome to Fitzdog Radio. The summer is wrapping up. Trying to spend a lot of time at the beach, trying to ride my bike. You can see the tan. The tan's unbelievable. It doesn't matter anymore.

I went to the beach yesterday. I sat in the sun. No shirt, shorts on, no sunblocks. for an hour and a half, barely pink. It just, it reflects off of me. I don't even burn anymore. Even the sun looks at me and goes, eh, not worth it. The sun is like Hollywood to me.

It just, I just saw, can I talk about this? No, I can't. I'll talk about this later. We get some work stuff brewing, which is good. Alonzo Bowden is my guest today. dear friend and he is a guy who respects so much and he just he's so funny and so fucking cool and solid so that's fun we talked last week had a great weekend i took my daughter my daughter got a turntable as a gift i don't know for what no it was her birthday yeah she just had her

birthday she just had her birthday she got a turntable and realized she has no records Coincidentally, a listener reached out to me who runs like a, his name is Kobe, and he runs a thing called VinylCom. Vinylcom? Vinyl con. Not com. Vinyl con. And it's a huge record fair. I guess that's what we'd call it, a record meets.

And he gave us some free tickets. So I took my daughter, jumped in the Mustang, drove downtown. went up to this. It was so much bigger and better than I imagine. It had a, it had a, I'm not a DJ guy. I'm not into DJs, but they had a DJ who was so fucking good. And it was like 10,000 square feet of just different little indie record sellers. Like some guys had one folding table in 10 boxes. Other people had like a whole corner section. Amiba records had a big section. And they had discount boxes for $5 all the way up to the Beatles. I don't know if you know this, but the Beatles white album, it was numbered.

I think a lot of records are, but the white album, I think in particular, might be one of the most expensive albums of all time. And they had the seventh, the seventh numbered white album. And it was going for $70,000. Sitting right on the wall, $70,000 record. And I looked it up. And the number, I was curious who has number one, and it's Ringo. And it just sold for $790,000, almost a million dollars for a record.

That's the number one pressing. The first mono pressing, serial number 0-0-0-0-0-1. So if you got yourself an old white album, you may want to get it checked out. I think they're all numbered. We bought her. So basically we had to build her collection. So I bought her a bunch of records. We got Axis Bold is Love by Jimmy Hendricks,

which is my top four albums of all time. Top albums, Astral Weeks by Van Morrison. Blue by Joni Mitchell. Blood in the tracks by Bob Dylan. Axis Bold Is Love by Hendry. and uh that's i think those are my top four anyway i bought her some dylan i bought her some joan bias because that's my mother's favorite artist of all time she used to go see her in greenwich village in the 60s uh got her some neal young some beach boys little george jones uh i forget

we bought a bunch and uh she came home and started playing records it was it was really fun it was a great day It was a great. We have some nice dad-daughter days. We always have since she was little. I used to take her out of school and take her snowboarding. And she's the best. I fucking love Jojo. And then I did a podcast, I guess I taped it a month ago when I was in New York. And it just came out. It's the We Might Be Drunk podcast with Sam, Morel and Mark Norman. and it just came out and you know I try not to be the guy

that looks at comments because they can just be so fucking mean and random and people have agendas but so I had to look at the comments because I felt like this was a particularly good episode and that's how at the end of it they were like wow that was fucking great

so I looked at the comments there's hundreds of comments they're fucking glowing it was so nice it made my day so many people saying, you know, this guy kills it on every podcast, and I was so happy. He was so funny.

It was just really fucking nice. And then there's like, just like maybe three or four out of hundreds that said, he's a liberal. Fuck, fuck, I'm not listening to this one. Really? The one where we don't talk about politics once for an hour and a half that, so I'm disqualified from listening to because of how I pull a lever. in a fucking voting booth once every four years. Is that it?

Is that what this country's come down to? You just can't tolerate somebody who doesn't agree. It's a fucking demogger. You're supposed to have different points of view and listen to people. And if they're intelligent, maybe you learn something. There's intelligent people on both sides. You know?

Anyway, we had a great time. we talked did we talk about Epstein I feel like we talked about Epstein anyway the whole Epstein thing can everybody just oh by the way

this t-shirt they gave me they gave us a free t-shirt at the record at the vinyl con I walked in and I swear to God I got recognized

so many times by people which also made me like it even more because I'm with my daughter and everybody's like dude I'm such a big fan and then the lady with the t-shirts recognize me and she gave me and Jojo free t-shirts.

And it was just good people. These were like cool nerds, you know, vinyl people. They don't spend a lot. They spend their money on vinyl, not haircuts or new sneakers. Easy to get into a conversation with people. You know, you're flipping through a bin. Somebody's next to you. You pull up an album.

You're, oh, man, have you fucking heard this one? And then they give you trivia about it. And it's just like a lot of smart, interesting people. Really fun. I think they're going to do another one in six months. So I'll announce it because I want everybody to go. Maybe we'll get a promo code from Kobe. Maybe he'll give us a promo code for listeners. Let's see. Anyway, Epstein, forget about it. It's over. It's done. Island's gone. No one's going to jail. There's no files. I mean, there are, but they will never see the light of day. So just stop. Just fucking stop. There's so much more. important shit that's going on right now. There's things happening on a global scale that will impact you so much more. There is no fairness. Stop with the fucking I want justice.

There's no justice. Bill Cosby's free right now. Enron happened. Nobody went to jail. The 2008 banking crisis. Nobody went to jail. Priest didn't go to jail for fucking centuries. Clinton assaulted women.

OJ went free. Come on. Stop. If you have money and you got power, you're not fucking going to jail. It just comes. People don't mind when billionaires can not pay taxes or, you know, rewrite the legislature.

But if they don't get caught, when there's hundreds of the most powerful men in the world colluding to keep things from going public. You think they're going to go public because you're fucking blogging about it? Just stop. There's other shit going on. What happened in your child? Did you have a big brother and he took your toys and mommy and daddy didn't make it right? Go to therapy. Stop fucking. The news is only about Epstein. Big business is fucking running away with this country. Your health coverage will be gone. Your Medicare, your Medicaid, your voting rights, it's all going to be gone.

And you're getting distracted by Epstein. Epstein's dead. And if anybody is going to put the files out, they'll be dead too. Go play with your kid. Go take a walk with your wife. Jerk off. You know, it's always an option. I was just thinking today about college.

college i was just looking at the news like a lot of schools are now 90 000 90 so almost a half a million dollars to put your kid through four years of school and what do they do i just read the new yorker has this whole article about how everybody in college is using AI for all their assignments and that the teachers are using AI to grade the assignments. So for $90, for a half a million dollars, for four years, your kid will spend 20 minutes inputting prompts to AI for work that would have taken weeks to research and write, handing it in to the teacher who then could hand it back 20 minutes later

because they fucking scan it through AI themselves so that they can graduate with a degree and then fill out a resume, using AI to companies that will read it with AI and so you can get a job where you use I mean when did this happen so fucking fast it's blowing my mind don't spend your money on college teach your kid to be an electrician or a fucking hairstylist a plumber everything's being replaced I saw this fucking woman singing a song with music. It was a pop song that was as good as Duolipa or any of these other

fucking talentless models. It was the same kind of music. And it's getting millions of views and they're monetizing it. This guy, I just did a gig in Houston. I did a private party in Houston Friday night. And the guy that ran it and booked me, who's kind of a friend, he took a still photo of me like a headshot and he made it move he made it a video he made me moving my face and hands in the video where it would be it would have been impossible for me to tell you that that was not what do they call automatron automatron maybe whatever it's not real and the next election there's going to be a lot of politicians saying some crazy shit they didn't really say and no one's going to know the difference.

Fucking crazy. So, all right, that's it. Let's get to it. Tour dates coming up. I will be in La Jolla at the Comedy Store this weekend, August 29 through 31. One of the best clubs in the country. San Diego come out. Denver Comedy Works, September 18 through 20.

Connecticut at Comics at the casino, September 26th and 27th. Is that Mohegan Sun, I think? Banks, Alaska, multiple venues between October 1st and 4th in the Fairbanks area, Vegas at Brad Garrett's October 13th through 19, Chicago at the Den Theater of November 8th, New Orleans at Skankfest, November 14 through 16. Also coming to San Francisco, Hasbrook Heights, New Jersey, Cleveland, Atlanta, go to Fitzdog.com, get some tickets, come out and say hi. My guest today, is a regular panelist on NPR's Wait, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. He's kind of blown up from that.

Been doing it for 25 years. He's got specials all over the place. He didn't, I think he won last comic standing. I think he won it. Yeah. And he just tore. He's like a monster. He fucking tours more than I do.

He's out there. He's got out of a bunch of TV shows. he was on Jay Leno's garage. Anyway, I had a great talk with him the last week. Here he is, my friend Alonzo Bowden. My guest, my guest is Alonzo Bowden, B-O-D-D-E-N, people probably spell it wrong all the time. All the time. I will tell you the story of that, because grammatically, it is Bauden. but my dad's from Honduras from the islands you see Boudin man

nobody in the island where they care about grammar right right Honduras yeah I know I guess there's a there's a whole Honduras is Spanish speaking

but it's in the Caribbean is that it? Yeah it was just south of the Caribbean so where he was from was Spanish Honduras which is now known as Belize because they used to be Honduras and Spanish Honduras

And now, I don't even know when it happened, I think, in the 70s. Yeah. Spanish Honduras became Belize. The island he grew up on is an island called Rotan, who at some point they discovered one of the greatest diving areas like in the world. Yeah. Oddly enough, there are no black people owning land in Rotan. Oh, that's interesting. Interesting.

Wow. Suddenly the resorts just seemed to, you know. Yeah. Yeah, right, right. Meanwhile, the people that can't be in the sun that long have taken over all the best beach spots. It's getting these black people out of this spot. Yeah. So, um, it believes is, isn't Honduras where Carlos Macea is from? Yes, I believe so. Yeah, I'm pretty sure he is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because there was that whole thing of him not being Mexican. Right. Like, like they're basically disavowed everything about Mensia. Yes. Yeah. I know we were talking about him yesterday. constructed he was like it was one of those things where in america if you are a little bit

latino you're latino you know you could be 60% Swedish and 20% Latino and you're Latino and on the east coast you're Puerto Rican right west you're Mexican right and nobody well like if you're in New York they go deeper yeah well yeah Colombian Cuban right no Dominican but most places yeah it's one or the other we're not digging any deeper no no and it's amazing because my kids went to a Spanish immersion school and they got to know kids and they got they they got to the point where they could do the accents of the different El Salvadorians Mexican they all had a different and then we went to Spain where they were around the people from Barcelona who do the Bartholona yeah Lorenzo

Yeah, yeah. Have you been over to Spain? Yes. Absolutely beautiful. Yeah. And the lifestyle, I will never forget one afternoon, it was either Madrid or Barcelona, I think it was Madrid, and I'm getting a hot chocolate, it's about 4 in the afternoon. And their hot chocolate is basically Hershey syrup heated up. Oh, really?

It's super thick, super sweet. And this guy just looked at me and he said, you Americans live to work we work to live and I was like dude you got it figured out you win you win

you're at 4 o'clock in the afternoon you're not sitting drinking hot chocolate doing absolutely nothing no you're drinking coffee because you're about to start the third section of your work day you're just entering act 3 at 4 Right, right, right. And, you know, and it's amazing is not only do they work to live, but work is not, nobody defines themselves. Like people, our first question is, so what do you do? Right. You know? And over there, it's like, you know, what do you do when you're not working? Right. You know? Like, I cook. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. And they will talk about their salaries. You can ask somebody in France, what do you make it? You're like, oh, yeah. And they'll be like, I cook. Yeah, yeah, right, right. I play football. And they will talk about their salaries. You can ask somebody in France, what do you make it? You're like, oh, oh, It's not, here there's this weird thing about keeping secret what you make.

And I don't understand that because you roughly know what somebody makes. I bet I could guess what you make within $30,000. I bet I could guess what you make. And you could probably guess what I make. The great thing about that, the funny thing I should say about that in comedy, when we were doing last comic standing, Kathleen Madigan, who absolutely loved, She said, you know, it's ridiculous that comics don't tell each other what we're getting paid. Exactly.

Because the club owner knows what every one of us gets paid. And they know what every, like especially there's one club that does ticketing. They came out with a ticketing service that all the other clubs started using. And so that club that does the ticketing service knows exactly how many tickets each comic is selling in each city. Right. They got a database. And how much to pay them and how much. Right.

so and so works for this you know yep they know you're getting paid and she was like yeah and we don't tell each other that's right we don't tell each so weird yeah yeah and I know also like I'll go into like we're both working the den theater this fall and we're probably making different amounts of money but like I usually sell it out I do one show and I sell it out but I guarantee you're making more money than I am at the den theater I don't think so I I'm close to a sellout yeah you know I've sold it out a couple of times and I having a couple of times right i am uh i'm a well-paid working comic yeah yeah yeah but i'm not a draw right you know i mean like it's which can be frustrating yes when you get off a plane in

chicago and i'm doing the den theater and christier tells me he's doing the united center another guy's doing the chicago theater which is three thousand right you could have just said high right yeah but you know what you and i are in that same category of like you know we get some we get some hot weekends where you hit some sellouts because people don't know like we get a bonus if you hit a sell out then you get an extra i'll say it five hundred dollars sometimes sometimes if it's a great club and it's really big you get a thousand but usually it's 500 so you do five shows in a weekend if you hit all your bonuses it's a really nice extra but um but there's weeks where you don't hit any bonuses well in some of these clubs

now, especially like improvs, which I don't work many improvs, but some of them are four to 600 seats. I know. And you're like, well, if someone's selling that out, they're going to a theater. Exactly. Who's going to come back? If you sell out even three, if you sell out three, 500 seat shows, you're crazy to go back to that club and not move into a theater.

Yeah, a theater where 1,500 seats, you're going to walk away with 20 grand. Right. For one show. Yeah, right, right, right. But, you know, it's funny, I've been grinding probably as long as you. What do you have, how many years you've been doing? 93, yes, starting 89. And, you know, it's funny, like, every year, if you were to ask me, how much more,

how much longer do you think you'll be doing stand-up? I would have always said a couple years maybe they're going to figure it out. You know, it's going to end. And yet 35 years later, like, I look at my calendar and I'm like, even sometimes I'll be like, I got nothing in the fall. And it's the middle of the summer, and then shit trickles in, you know, you get some fall. But like at the end of the year, I make pretty close to the same amount every year. And I'm like you, I pick up some TV stuff here.

You grab a voiceover job there, you know, maybe a corporate date. The corporate dates pay a lot. Like you can go in and do a corporate date and get 15, 20 grand for one show. And so it all adds up. You know, do you do Rogan's Club? It's a little bit of everything. Yeah. Rogan, you know, everyone hates Joe.

Joe takes care of us comics. Takes great care. You know? Well, I wouldn't say everybody hates Joe. I think there's a movement to react to people that don't fall in with your line of thinking. Right. Like if somebody, this country is supposed to be a free, free speech doesn't just mean legally. It means I want some dialogue.

I want to hear some opinions from other people. And Joe, here's the thing about Joe, not to believe me, like a Joe defender, but he happens to be one of my best friends. No, I'm going to, I'm going to comment on that when you get done. But, you know, Joe is a guy that puts out points of view. During the pandemic, he was saying we don't need to wear masks as much as we do. Turns out, he's right. He said that the virus probably came out of that lab in Wuhan. If you said that, then you were a racist. Now they're saying, yeah, that's probably right. There's a bunch of stuff he was saying. Now that the, the, uh, the, the, uh, the Vaccine stuff, I don't necessarily agree with. But at least he was putting ideas out there. So when I say everybody hates Joe, I'm kidding. I love Joe. I've known Joe, you know, when I meet Joe.

I know he loves you. I met Joe in like 98. Yeah. And people asked me about Joe, I said, look, first of all, forget all the hype and the press, you see. Joe's been the same guy with me ever since I known him. Right. Joe's always been Joe. He has his opinions.

Yep. They're not shaped by any. anything but what he learns, reads, thinks, et cetera. You know, he's not trying to fit in. And when it came to all the vaccine and the medical stuff, I was like, ever since I've known Joe, Joe's taking all kind of supplements and vitamin. And this is like, I'm not taking what Joe takes.

But I never did. You know what I mean? Joe's always been into trying these different things and this and that, man. So it's funny to me because when people start talking about, Joe, I said, yeah, man, listen, about about every six months, he's the worst guy in the world for two weeks, and then they leave him alone. You know what, you know what

I mean? It's like, it's, it's But here's the thing, Joe. People don't it's, and you know this, like, like I tell people, like I know it on a small level, I see it, you see it on your level. Who the person is and who they're portrayed is

seldom the same. Right. You know, so he, I mean, he's a big platform, right? He's a big, so, As far as the public, the media, whatever you want to call it, anything bro-related, they just, that's Joe Rogan. Yeah. You know what I mean? Even, I mean, now he's got AI, right? Now they're doing AI posts.

Oh, are they? Yeah. So they got him saying all kind of, you know. Well, the thing is like, you know, like you said, Joe, everything he says is organic. He does not think about who he's trying to appeal. You look at Network TV. It's all about what's the demographic we're trying to reach. How do we give them what they want?

Joe is exactly the polar opposite. He says, what fascinates me? He overreacts. You know, he definitely was out in L.A. He had some experiences of quote-unquote wokeness, of DEI stuff. There's stuff about that rubbed him the wrong way and made him angry, which pushed him to the right. But the thing is, he's indicative of a lot of the country.

There's a reason why Donald Trump is president. I mean, the reasons are not that he's a rational thinker, that he has policy points, that he's consistent. No, it's emotion. It's all emotion. And the emotion was we're angry about how the left is telling us to think and feel and speak. And so that drove people, especially creative people, far right. Now, Joe has said recently that the pendulum swung too far. He's stepping back.

Again, it's not strategic. Right. It's just. Emotionally, he's not, he's starting to feel as angry with the other side now. He's seeing a different point of view or maybe a bigger picture or whatever. You know, it's interesting the whole thing of freedom and put, like, I've never felt that way, but my perspective's going to be different than Joe. Yeah. You know what I mean? Because I've never felt restricted or like, you know,

wokeness is making me say something. It's like, no, man, my life is. But my life is different. I remember talking to one, one of the conservative comic. They wanted to do this debate thing. Ben, I'm blanking on everything. Shapiro? No, no, no, not that big. Gleep. Ben Gleaf wanted to do this debate kind of show. So this right-wing comic was talking all this stuff about cops and blah blah blah i said you have a cop scared of you point a gun at you because i have yeah so my view of the police is completely you couldn't imagine that experience right you know and he actually he did admit he was like dude i don't even know right it's like yeah yeah that's so maybe shut up and listen to people who've had that experience right rather than say that that doesn't

exists you know what I mean yeah it's so you know it's again it's the terminology the thing about being woke is like so funny to me it's like oh you mean like empathy like caring about other people yeah ooh that's horrible that scares the shit out of me you know and and I'm not applying this to Joe I'm just applying this to in general they use these trigger words because they know how to manipulate emotion yeah to control people or to get what they want from people or whatever and it and it really is it really is a joke like newsome right now is using it all against them yeah he's playing some chess yeah yeah and and it really is like if the right is so upset that they're not being allowed to say what they which first of all

is is a complete fallacy you're allowed to say whatever the fuck you're right exactly but if that's their point why is it that if you speak like you know unlike them If you're a liberal, you're immediately dismissed as a lib-tard. Like, nothing you say. Like, if you were to speak out on trans rights in any way, if you were to say, what can we do to try to minimize the amount of suicide of trans students in high school? Immediately, like, oh, like, they just go zero to six. But can we engage in a, can we acknowledge that some people in our country are just quantifiable?

not doing as well and address that as our problem? Okay, first of all, I don't know if you realize it, but trans people are gone. Right. They're gone. We're on to ICE and the immigrants. Like, you know, I mean, I talk about it in my act, like where'd they all go? Yeah.

Because three months ago, they were out to get me. They were out to get me, Fitz. Yeah, they were going to indoctrine. They're gone now. Where'd they all, they all just packed up the show. I don't know what happened to the trans people. They were in the bathroom. They were using pronouns.

They were out to get the kids. They're gone. Right, right. Now the book readings have to be done by ICE agents. Gone. Yeah, yeah. It's so the shift in hate in America, like the way it shifts groups, is just so comical to me.

It always has. One thing about being black, we always know it'll get back to us. We'll always be number one. The blacks and the Jews are always going to be at the baseline. Everyone else is just clowning around. Yeah, right. But you're really. Right. I'm in Vegas now. I live in Vegas.

Oh, you do? Yeah, I moved last year. So how do you have a motorcycle out here? I rode. From Vegas? Yeah. To do this podcast? Well, a couple other things, but I told you, I told you I wanted to do it while I was in town.

Yeah, I wanted to do it while I was in town. Wait, did I reach out to you or did you reach out to me? I don't know who, who hit who. You hit me. You said that I hadn't been on in a while and I was like, yeah, I'm going to be around this particular weekend so it worked out oh good good it worked out perfect but my point being so Vegas is you know purple right somewhere in between depends on where you go I'm at the gym this guy had on a jersey and on the front it said freedom and on the back was a number two and where his name is it says amendment you know and I'm like it's Las Vegas gambling gambling gambling gambling

sex you can shoot machine guns what freedom don't you have like what what is it you want to do that you cannot do in Las Vegas Nevada I yeah what freedom like kids that's the only thing you won and yet you're still angry and the victim every day it's like dude that there's literally nothing you can't do in Vegas legally yeah kids God bless you know I forbid that happens but yeah no now it's like a bar fight happened your group kicked the shit out of those guys they're down and now you're kicking them it's like no you won the fight just have a beer now it's victory time celebrate yeah it's uh well Vegas is funny because um people end up there that it's kind of like a florida place where you kind of fucked up your life somewhere else

and i'm not talking about you no you're right You're right. A buddy of mine who's lived there, like he settled there, I don't know, 20-something years ago. He said, whenever you see someone walking in Vegas, they're fucked up. He said, if you see someone walking, you know, off the strip. If you see someone walking, yeah, they got a story to tell. Something horrible has happened. Right. They're walking away from something, not towards something. Yeah. If you're walking in Vegas, you got problems. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't even have a destination. nation. You're just walking because you stood still for too long. You got caught somewhere and

they said, get out of here. So now you're walking. You're walking into you. Yeah. It's a cool little city though. Once you get like away from the strip. Where are you in like Henderson? I'm in Summerland, which is the opposite side. Like Summerland Henderson are just east west of the strip. I'm up near the Red Rock mountains or whatever. But it's got a lot of like infrastructure money. They're still building like crazy. I got parks, man. I walk my dog everywhere and just hang out. It's just easier, you know?

Dude, they're building, but it's fucking empty. Like occupancy rates are down 30%. MGM is closing a whole wing of the casino. Yeah. Well, the casinos are, but there's two things that I think are hurting the casinos talking to people who work there. One, tourism is down, right? Because everyone's mad at America. So you've lost all the foreign tourists.

Yeah. The other thing is the prices are insane. I've said this for years. Like, how old are your kids? 24 and 21. Okay, so they're prime. Yep. I don't know if you're rich enough for your kids to party in Vegas.

I know. I said, if I was 25 today, I'd be a lonely guy. Yeah. You know, $100 cover charge to get in, $25 bucks a drink. Some woman, can I buy you a drink? No. Right, right, right. I'd love to buy your drink.

I ain't got that kind of money. Yeah, I need to. We need a contract on the trick. Can we share one? Can we get your straw? So, but I mean, they're finally killing themselves with that. You know, they started, they started charging for parking. Yeah.

The $40 resort fee, you know. The resort fee. People don't understand this. There's a resort fee, which I checked into the hotel and I go, what's this on the bill? It's $40. dollars. That's the resort. What do I get with that? Your Wi-Fi. I said, Wi-Fi's free. Well, no, you also get to go to the pool. Pool's free. Like, what? Yeah. But if you argue the resort fee, they will, if you got it, you got to dig in. If you fight it, they will drop it. And one of the,

I think it's resorts ironically stopped charging it. Yeah. But yeah, they're in trouble. But it's so much money, you know, like their demographic is Gen Z. And they're broke. Gen Z doesn't have any money. Right, right. You know, and they say they're not drinking as much. And where, I mean, you've been out, you know, table service set up of $2,500. You know, it's like, yeah, thanks, I'm not that funny.

Right, right, yeah. I have bar service. Right, right. Where I sit on a stool and sip something. Yeah, I'm going there in October. I hope you're in town because I'm there. I'm at Brad Garrett's for seven nights. And last time I did it, I was close to suicide.

Text me, man. Oh, good. And we'll get off the strip. Do you play golf? No. I've tried golf, but I don't have the patience to be a golfer. Well, what are we going to do when we hang out? I'll go eat somewhere.

I'll get you off the strip. I'll just pick you up. I'll get you off the strip. On the motorcycle? Nah. Nah, it's a little too intimate. You're married, man. We don't want you getting any ideas.

Actually, when I asked, I was kind of hoping you would say no. I don't want to put my arms around you, but only when I say hello for like three seconds. We have a thing, you know, in the motorcycle world. The only time two straight guys can ride a bike is when you were riding together, one guy's bike broke down and you're just getting them home. Yeah.

It's a very special. specific time that it's okay beyond that yeah you don't see a lot of two dudes on a bike it just occurred to me like when i asked you i think i just said it without thinking but i don't know that i've ever seen two dudes on a bike it's it's it you know you want to call us homophobic we'll we'll take that okay if that's what it is because it's just a little awkward to have a straight man behind you with with his arms around i think you take the phobic right out of it it's just a homo just yeah

you know but you love having a girl back there that's got to feel pretty cool yeah a woman on the back is great yeah especially when she's wearing Daisy dukes they love it

yeah they just relax it it bikes have been like from when I was a kid I had an interview once and someone asked me and I always thought

this was a great question he said is there anything you loved as a kid you still do and I was like yeah motorcycles like when I was a kid I always wanted one and I still just love it. It's for a hundred reasons. Sometimes I'm like, I got to breathe.

I got to go for a ride. I cannot drive. Yeah, yeah. I feel like that with masturbation. Like there's never been a time. It didn't even wane. It never even dipped. There you go. It still works. It still works. You think you'd be tired of each other by now, but no. No, we have a great relationship. If only, you know, and it's, and it's funny because you're a little bit ashamed every time. but yet you're no less excited every time and it occurs to you it's pretty rare you plan one yeah but once in a while you're just bored and it occurs to you i have nothing to do and you go oh i know a great thing i can do right now oh man see i got to be careful you're like a wait wait wait don't tell me guys so i know you don't like to get too dirty no because this is so this is

the fun thing about doing weight weight i'm the opposite of a wait wait wait guy on wait wait yeah so whenever we have the guests like we had um uh again i'm blanking on names he was the he was on sons of anarchy was the dad he did beauty and the beast he played hellboy i have no idea what ron perlman ron perlman was a guest yeah and they want to talk to him about beauty and the beast and the art of it right and i said to him so dude when you're doing sons of anarchy you ride and he was like, finally, someone I could talk to. And we talked about it. And we talked about Hellboy. Yeah. And then George Clinton from Parliament Funkadelic was on.

And I was the funk to Harvard translator for Peter Sagal. It's so, yeah. And then we did one. I did one not too long ago. In Florida, we had a guy who played for the Orlando Magic. And, you know, so those are the people where it's like, yeah, I could talk like some the highbrow art especially when they start talking highbrow television yeah british period dramas you're right right you don't really think i'd watch one of those do you like you you don't even look over here i got nothing i got british period dramas i have nothing right right yeah yeah um all right now i watched an interview with you i prepare for my interviews i'm not like one of these podcasters that i appreciate it man

Hey, let's hang out. You know, and you and I can hang out for hours and talk because we've known each other for so long. But I also feel like it's my duty as a host to. I did a little talk radio the same way. You got to have some preparation. So not that I feel like I need it, but this came up, you being interviewed. So I thought I would, I had something fun I want to do. I watched an interview with you with Chicago.

Yeah, they're whatever good day, Chicago. It's like, you know, the sort of. candy-ish hosts. Yeah. And they ask you questions, and you're sitting in your living room on a Zoom call. You probably got no pants on.

And they asked you, and I want to re-ask you the questions they asked you, but I want you to give me the real answers. These are literally questions that were prepared by a producer. They have comedians on all the time. And these are literally the questions that you were asked.

What can people expect when they see? I, you know, they always ask that, and what do I, you want to say, fucking comedy, you know, I'm going to talk, you're going to laugh. That's, that's my act. Right, right. You know, like, yeah, it's such an open-ended thing. It's like, well, they're really shocked when I pull out the flame thrower. They didn't see that coming at all.

Right, right. And I just blaze the front row. Yeah, the little people doing YMCA during my closing. They're like, where did those eight guys come from? yeah that's always uh that's always the that's like uh did you ever bomb you know yeah yeah all right let me get to the next question fire away um is there a moment you've performed that stands out to you like i've been doing it for 30 fucking years yeah yeah i'll you you know i didn't say this to them you know what moments stood out when last comic standing told me okay we canceled the episode but you still get

the check. That was a great day. That was a great day in common. That's the range of emotion all in one. Well, we're not going to show it, but we're still going to pay you. Right, right. And we're good, NBC. We're still friends. You can't say that on Good Day, Chicago. The next question they asked you was, what's Jay Leno like? I imagine being a car nut with unlimited money. I mean, You know what? I love when people say, you know, Jay's a really nice guy. Why wouldn't he be?

Yeah, yeah. Why wouldn't you, you have $300 million or so. You got the greatest car collection in the world. You want to go somewhere, NBC loans you the jet. All right. What, you're going to be an asshole? I hate people. Really?

Everyone loves you, like anywhere you go. Yeah, right. And he's one of those people. because he's never been, like, political or polarizing or anyone just likes him, you know, except the most polarizing people who want him to be. Yeah. You know, so, yeah, what's Jay Leno like, like somebody who won? Yeah, right, right.

What's it like to be Denzel Washington? Pretty good, I imagine. Yeah, yeah. From where I'm standing. Yeah, but then you got Bill Maher. I'm doing the Den Theater on Sunday. Come on. I think Denzel's picking up another Oscar with Spike.

So, yeah, I think you're right, though. Yeah, some people, you know who's the worst for that? You know, I will say I feel sorry for having met her, Roseanne. Yeah, she's not happy. She's not only is she miserable, like mentally, she's out there. Yeah, yeah. It was something I was doing with Adam Carolla, who's a cartoon I did. I did a voiceover in a cartoon.

and she was in it and we were doing like some premier interview thing and they went to her and she started talking about Barack Obama and middle class Iranian women and just one of the and the look on your face was the entire place and I'm like you have hundreds of millions of dollars and she's not that old like she's in her 60 you know what I mean like you're in a place where you should be living life like you know having one of those super yachts and going on palatial cruises or something and you're she's lost her mind and she's lost her mind in an angry hateful way and it's like and she had a person with her they have a person with her because she says the wrong shit like they don't like we can't

allow you to talk well they probably lock her Twitter after that tweet yeah yeah a lot of this anger I mean look she was always off I get that um but what put her over the edge is she was on Ambien, supposedly, who knows what she was really on, and she wrote that thing calling some black woman, like, something horrible. Right, yeah, she went on a racist tirade. And that was

at the height of people getting canceled. So they really came down harder, and she never came back from that. I got to say, this is what made me wonder about it. Hearing her, I was like, I wonder if they just knew she was crazy and they just used this as a reason to get rid of her.

Like, she's, you know, she's, out there. So, yeah, so the sitcom winners, for the most part, are cool. Yeah, there's a few that aren't, but, you know. Ray Romano's the most thankful, humble. Niceest guy, Brad. Brad, Garrett, I can't even describe. I mean, it's literally like, stop already. You know, he's got the charity he's been running for 30 years. His club is all staffed with his friend died, and it's his children that staffed the club and he you hear like he gave me a bonus out of nowhere like a big bonus and he's the guy like when a comic gets hurt and there's a go fund me on facebook yeah and suddenly there's this one huge donation yeah and he's that guy and he meets with everybody after the show

and takes pictures and me it was valentine's day when i was there and my wife came out he got us a reservation in a private room at the best restaurant on the MGM, picked up the check. Yeah. Unbelievable. And so I would like to think that if I won, I would be one of those guys. So getting back to the original question, what's Jay Leno like? Well, he's like a guy who won. Yeah.

How did you explain Bill Maher? He set a show on the air for 30 years. Tons of money. What else do you want? Like, who you met at? Right. Well, the conspiracies are the things that come in. make people. But I think when you go too far in conspiracy theories, it means that you have some

childhood shit about trust that you think you're being taken advantage of. You think that people are lying to you and you're very angry about it. But you, I wouldn't call you a conspiracy theorist, but you are politically, you don't take things at face value. Oh, no, no. You challenge ideas that are out there a long time ago part of it's growing up in new york yeah because when you grow up in new york you're just a natural cynic right what's what do you what do you really but then you get to i think you realize like okay they say this in crime it's true and everything follow the money yeah who's who's who's behind this who's and then you find out oh so and so is connected to this and that you know and and my big my the group i'm mad at is the media that there's no one who's

drop the ball more. They were the ones. And because I lived at a time, I always tell people like they, you, I don't even know if you're old enough to remember, but when you went on 60 minutes, they used to have a camera in the alley because people would literally run out the back door, like when 60, you know what I mean? Like, they would get in your shit, you know? And it was like, yeah, that's what a reporter's job is. And, and, you know, if you ask the president about tariffs and he starts talking about windmills, it's the reporter's job to say, what the fuck? What? What is wrong with this guy? This guy is not fit to me. You know what I mean? Like that's

literally, that's their job and they don't do it. And it drives me nuts. I don't blame Donald Trump for being Donald Trump. I blame NBC for allowing him to exist. Yeah, why are you covering? Yeah, don't cover one of his press conferences if he is, exactly, if he's not talking about what he's what does he call it when he weaves yeah we don't need weaving on NBC news right right these are the things that used to be I don't know the inquirer or something might cover it but you don't because you legitimize it I think they also need to put a stamp when he comes up with alligator alley or he comes up with naming it the Gulf of America have a something in the corner that a stamp that just says this is a distraction

yeah because nine out of ten things that he brings up are trying to keep us from even epstein is a distraction you know at the end of the day epstein island is gone epstein's dead whatever they did we're never going to find out anyway take it out of the fucking news and let's follow the money of the tax breaks for the wealthy that are coming out of medicare that's the story that's the story i mean the thing with the epstein thing it's like you know here's the thing being a pedophile isn't even the worst thing about him right yeah yeah you know i mean like you said like we're snatching health care from the elderly yeah this is this is dick dastardly shit this is stuff in a cartoon the guy who would tie people

to the railroad tracks like this is there's always a bag of money that has money on the side of it this is that kind of shit you know um we're paying 900 million dollars to retrofit an airplane that he's going to keep and there's not one reporter raised in like I say it in my act. There's one question I want to report to ask, the fuck! Like, literally, like, that is the question. That should be your new podcast.

That is the question. The fuck! It's unreal. And like you said, it's all distraction, right? So, yeah. So that, obviously, that stuff gets me wired up. And I'll tell you the other stuff, like I've been trying to do some personal stuff

only because our social world that we're living in, issues, they don't change. I mean, my health care jokes from 10 years ago still apply, you know, and the racism stuff, like I say, we just switch what group we're going to hate.

You know, it's going to be Muslims or gays or transgender people or immigrants, which is cold for Mexicans, by the way. It's Mexicans. There are no Eastern Europeans. You are looking at immigrants, and you're in MacArthur Park, and like, Glendale's

right behind you. I got a feeling there's some Eastern Europeans in Glendale may not have their paperwork in order. That's right. Yeah, yeah. I know. Well, I think when it comes to conspiracy theories, it really is like they are so necessary because they just are a bunch of people stirring shit up and trying to unearth things. But it's a media's job to decipher which is conspiracy and which is, hey, maybe there is something with the pharmaceutical companies getting huge cash payments from the government for making the vaccines. Right. Like, you know, that doesn't mean I don't think vaccines are healthy and that obviously shit

like measles should be mandatory right now to get into school. You should have your measles shot. You should have your small pock shot, all that shit. But let's also check on who's making all the money. Are there monopolies here? I was just reading about the connection between pharmaceutical companies and CVS specifically, where CVS is going to put all the other drugstores out of business. Because the pharmaceutical companies are dealing direct with CVS, even bypassing insurance,

to where even the insurance has to, like, they have to pay that. You know what I mean? No, my insurance company will only let me use Walgreens right now. Yeah. I'm at Blue Cross. I'm with Blue Cross There are connections And you're right

These are the things that need to be investigated And again When it comes to pharmaceutical companies Okay so how come this drug is $300 a month here And $24 In Canada Right

Like who's making that money You know like there's a funny one You've probably seen this at Chevron gas stations They have that sign about The gas tax Like this California tax is raised It's like, didn't you make $80 billion last year? Like, somehow, I don't think California tax is as much of a problem as your $9 billion salary plus bonuses.

Right, right, right. I know. And then during like the, during the pandemic, they're giving a billion dollar PPO forgiveness to these corporations. But God forbid your student loan. Yeah, right, right. I know. All right, let me ask you more of these questions from your Fox interview in Chicago. How do you prepare to go on stage?

Like, they're picturing you shadow boxing. Yeah, I generally show up, kind of in the mood. I might, you know, I might read a set list a few times. I don't know about you, but so now I've switched and everything's on my iPad mini. Like, that's my gadget. I love that thing. You bring it to the show? Yeah, it's the right side.

eyes I can carry you know and and I'll bring it on stage never look at it right never never look at it right but it's there so how do I but you look at it before the shell sometimes if I'm working something newer if I'm I'm trying to remember a set order you know how it is because when you walk off the first thing you remember first thing you think is what you forgot yeah so I try to I try to keep track of those so I remember them the next show and then because something else at the end of the day people have to realize like when we do shows in LA or New York, or you probably do these kinds of spots in Vegas, you're doing 15 minutes,

maybe you're making 50 bucks. So you're doing it to try a new material. That's 90% of it. So if I go up there and I mail it in and I don't do, and I've just driven, you know, a half hour from Venice to get to sunset bowl, like, what are you doing? You know? Right. Do a little work before you go on.

Yeah, yeah. You want to have an idea. Or sometimes it's like, you know, when it's just an idea and you just want to get up and talk. Right. and then see what comes out of the idea. So that's part of my preparation. A good cup of coffee is good. Caffeination is key.

Real coffee. I don't need club coffee. Oh, here was an idea that I had yesterday because I was walking down Venice Beach and I saw a friend of mine but I was going to meet another friend of mine and I was late. And you ever see like a good friend

like maybe in the airport but you're going to your gate? Yeah. And you ignore them? you ever do that and then you worry what if they see you and they go dude i know you saw me you just fucking walk past me that's where it's great like the relationship comics have because we don't give a shit yeah you know what i mean it's not like hey man you you you ignored me so and you if a comic said that you're looking i'm like yeah what are you talking about like i was catching a

flight yeah what's wrong with you dude we hang out backstage at the comedy store three nights a week i don't need to talk to you at the fucking dallas airport right right and if i don't It's not personal. Yeah, yeah. All right. All right, here's the next question that she asked you. Do you feel like you're getting older? Like, that's existential.

Are you kidding? Did you notice I just moved my knee under the table because it's been in one position too long? Yeah, right. Of course I'm getting older. What the hell is wrong with you? Dude, I make a noise. When I bend over to pick something,

I have to make a noise now. I will say this, though, and you're in the same category. we're still relevant. Yeah. We're still getting spots in Hollywood. Like that's, you know, some guys have just aged out of it. And I don't know what they're doing now, where they're doing it. Yeah.

You know, but we're still, like, as long as I'm still getting spots at the factory or improv or whatever, then I'm like, okay, I'm still in the game. And, you know, the next generation's coming along, the next two generations. And I don't know a lot of them by name. but I'm like good for them because I got to remember I was them. Yep. Like I pushed someone out, you know? Yep, yeah.

So as long as I'm still hanging, but where you're getting older, like physically, hell yeah, your body is like, the body's like, dude, I've been doing this shit a long time. And we live an abusive lifestyle. You know what I mean? Like traveling, eating at the wrong time, you can't get good food and this or that. And that's, like I was working with this trainer. nutritionist. And I said, dude, I'm a comic. So there's just going to be times where, yeah, it's going to be pizza at 1 a.m. A lot of cheat days on the road. Nothing else is open.

I eat fucking half the time I'm eating dinner in the green room at the club, which means like chicken strips or, you know, nachos. I don't, I don't like when clubs want to get fancy. You know, Joe's Chuckle Hut. Would you like the scampy? No, Joe. Now, how about we stick to the chicken sandwich? Joe. How about we just grill that chicken sandwich and we... That's hilarious. Oh, yeah, you've seen that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They have a full

menu and they're like, yeah, now I'm going to pass on the big plant parm. Yeah, anything with cheese, I'm okay. Unless it's on top of a burger. I'll stay away from any cheese dishes you're making. Yeah, no, give me the Mediterranean platter. I love when clubs have that. Just some hummus and some carrots and some

pita bread. That's my dinner a lot of times. It's the only healthy thing on the menu. Yeah, it's always funny when they try to get fancy yeah yeah we're trying to be a restaurant yeah how about don't although there is the exceptions are hilarities in cleveland oh nick is the best dude nick is the best costis is the greatest and uh their food their restaurant is one of the best restaurants in cleveland well yeah but it's a restaurant yeah like the club is and he he's running a restaurant that you get to eat at yeah because you're at the club yeah is a whole different thing comedy magic

does pretty good. Yeah, County Magic you get a nice steak there. Yeah, they do pretty good. I mean, there's a few, but for the most part, you know, especially when they start getting into sauces. Like, hmm, do you want the red sauce or the white sauce? You know what? Hold the sauce.

You know what? And when you're given that question, always go at the red sauce, because you know what jar that came out of. Yeah. I don't know what jar the white sauce came out. All right, then she asked you, How would you sum up your comedic voice in one line? Oh, man.

I remember that question, and I told it observational. Like, I look at stupid shit and I talk about. Well, I make fun of shit. That's what I do. Right. That's everyone's comedic voice in one line, I would hope. Yeah. You know?

Right, right. Yeah, say something funny. Yeah. I don't know. But, I don't know. I guess mine is sarcastic. Yeah. but but any of them like i do sarcasm you do observations like you know what i mean like that's just

it's what we all do is very seldom someone who is so focused on one thing that they could say this is exactly well like yeah you look at like gaffigan you know um uh jesselnick some people that really fucking hone in yeah yeah man i love that guy's writing yeah yeah it's really great it's like it's like a puzzle like when you watch him you're trying to figure out where he's going it would really be fun to watch a psychologist or a psychiatrist talk to him because they would cry he'd be fine they would end up crying like it would be it's like okay think of the darkest thing you could think of he's darker the most the most twisted shit you can think of he's more i think it would have to be group therapy where it's him and five therapists yeah yeah yeah

Take a, yeah, they'd have to tag team. Yeah, yeah. They'd tag out. If they had to do an hour, they'd each tag out after 10 minutes. The other one is Harland. Yeah. Because his mind works in a way that no one, there's no explaining. There's no understanding.

Harlan Williams-Binot was listening. You want to look him up? Yeah. I love him. It's so funny when you think about, we talked about guys that are playing arenas and, you know, Madison Square Garden. And then you go like, all right, you know, these guys are all great performers. They've earned it.

But what's different from them in Harlan Williams? Like I think of Harlan as a guy who like, because Harlan is, you know, he hasn't blown up. Right. And you go, why? But now it's so much. And even then, it's always been, but marketing is such a big part of it. Yeah, I don't see him doing a lot of marketing. You know, I tell like young comics, right?

I tell them, and it's one thing, I've never been good and I've never been big on the marketing. And I tell him, dude, you've got to learn it. You have to do, it's part of your job now. Like, you can't get by just writing jokes. You have to work on marketing. And then you see some people like Fluffy, like Gabe, who's just a marketing genius.

And he's funny, and I'm not saying he's not, I'm not a knock. I love the guy, always have. But he's come up with ideas and stuff that built who he is, you know, yeah um that have been brilliant and these a lot of these guys who are big they do they build each other yeah you know what i mean they're on each other's podcast they're hyping each other oh yeah bird sigora a lot of those rogan guys kind of like cross-pollinate yeah yeah well let's do that for each other more you're on the fuck you'll be you named it you named it you need the t-shirts alone would be six figures a year

Who's your closest friend? In life or in comedy? In life. That's a tough one. My brother is one of my closest friends. Old or younger? He's three years older. And then I got a buddy.

And again, it's a tough one to narrow down. But I got a buddy named Julian Lewis. And I've known Julian since our sophomore year in high school. And we're having lunch tomorrow. Yeah. So I would put him in there. Right. And then there have been a couple of women who have been not lovers, not exes or anything, just my friend Ava, I always say, closer to my sister would ever be.

Like she knows me back with him. We met my first year in L.A. and friends. Yeah, dude, I love female friends. Yeah. My friend Mary Fitzgerald, I've been friends with since sophomore year. college and and she is a soulmate we just played pickleball this week we had lunch and women care more they care about your life they will pick up on whatever happened with so-and-so how you feeling about that and they can read us yeah they can read your emotion like always say when I didn't know what

my feelings were it was women who told me yeah you know right and they know when something's off You're okay? Right. You know, like, I didn't know I wasn't okay, but I guess now I do. And it's not the lovers. It's the ones who know you. Me and Mary never once had any romantic. And she's an attractive woman, but we just never.

Sometimes it just, that vibe doesn't. I fucked her sister. Yeah. Well, there you go. It's close enough. Yeah. It's close enough. Yeah.

You know what's crazy is I fucked her sister. And then years later, uh she ended up marrying a kid i went to high school with different cities i'm from new york they're from boston and the sister met up with this guy anyway not about me i'm not one of those guys that has a podcast adam carola and then they talk i just did his show yesterday man you got a fight for airtime oh my god i did his podcast yesterday and i'm the most frequent guest in the history of the show i've done it like 104 times now and i fucking i go on people go why do you go on his show so much And I go, because I show up with five or six premises,

and then we riff, and I go home with bits. Yeah. He is the best at that. They asked me about doing it, I think last time I was in L.A., but he wasn't available. You've done it, though. Yeah, I've done. I used to do Adams a lot.

I think, you know what, where we hit it off? You know, I used to be a mechanic. I was an airplane mechanic, and he loved that. Yeah. Like, this was 20 years ago. He couldn't believe. He's like, really? and we would literally talk about tools and shit

like he loves that stuff so you know and he's another one so as he goes right right wing like I don't even get into that with him like I'm not going to argue that with him I've talked politics with him twice in 104 appearances we talk cars or life or whatever else and you know and I tell people that

that's when people like well how do you get along with it's like I can get along with people who I don't agree with politically but I'm not going to argue with them. Right. I'm not going to try to change their mind. They're not going to change mine, you know. But now we have people who are so defined by it,

like you were saying, like when, you know, you say one thing, oh, you're woke, you know. I don't know who the kid is who had this joke. Someone sent it to me where he talked about, well, if libtards are, you know, liberal, what does that make, Republicans? but the way he did it that's a premise but the way he did the joke was brilliant and it was like how did no one else think of it this is great yeah i love that i'm doing that tonight um all right now

we're at time of the show we play a thing called fast dog fastballs with fits uh-oh what do you think of the name fits dog radio by the way i love it i love it it's always been you okay because my guest yesterday gave me a hard time about it i don't even know if there are other Fitz is or Fitzgerald or fits this or that but in comedy your fits I'm fits I don't know and nobody else known as fits I'm talking about the dog part I think I think I should have just been fits I don't know what's wrong with Fitz dog well it sounds like either complaining are you have you offended have you offended the canines damn you fitz well it's it's the pit bulls I didn't mind offending the poodles but um all right this is fastball's fits I'm

to ask you some questions real quick you're going to answer them yeah just like npr yeah see i just ruined it for you no fire away this will be different because i'll be able to answer them is is wait wait don't tell me in danger because of the funding made cut for i haven't talked to them about it because last time i was on so they were funded for this year yeah so the question i think what is this i think their fiscal year it's september whatever the government operates on so i think they're looking at next year npr has a lot of money though like they have a lot of donor money right i don't know that i don't know that cutting them will put them out of business it's funny when you hear the sponsors for npr and it's all these people trying to whitewash their images and sometimes it's like the sackler foundation you're like

what on npr they'll take money from anybody anybody yeah you know you want to leave them give them a few million they're like all right well yeah but i will say this they don't change their voice no they But it's not, you know, it's not like they get the Sackler money. And then they're like, you know, opioids weren't that bad. Right. Opioids, smokey. Or the Ray Kroc Foundation, you know what? Yeah.

Max are good for you. Like, at least they don't do that. They haven't sold the name yet. Now. Who knows, you know. Yeah, you worry about that, but I have never seen signs of it. But do you get paid okay for that show? Yeah, they pay after money.

They do. Like, it's not after, but they pay that. I wonder if they're going to cut it with it if they get loose funding. Wait, wait, don't pay me. I don't, I don't know. You know, here's a funny thing with wait, wait, wait. When I first did it, and now I don't know how long that is, 12, 13 years, whatever. Never heard the show, never listened, didn't know anything about it.

You know, my agent was like, yeah, it's, it's, you know, some kind of news comedy show, just a panel. I'm like, okay, and I got there. I literally, I never, I said, oh, all I got to do is be funnier than Tom Baudet, you know? I was like, I think I, no disrespect to Tom, but I was like, I think I got the gig. But those crowds are fucking good. Oh, they're fantastic. Well, you know who they love, who the queen is Paula. Yeah, Paula Pounceon is the best.

Yeah, she really is. I didn't know how big it was until Carl Castle, the original announcer retired, and they invited me to the party. And I'm like, why would I go to Carl? And then they were like, oh, yeah, Katie Couric was there, and Obama sent his regards, and Tom Hanks dropped by. And I'm like, what kind of show? What is this shit? And that's when I found out how big it was.

Wow. How often do you go on? Now about every quarter. I had a long run where I was doing it like once a month. But now, they brought, over the last four or five years, I'll say over the last four years, post-pandemic, They brought in a lot of new panelists. They're using a lot more comics and different voices.

Sweet. All right, here's Fastballs with Fits. Who's the worst opener that you ever had? Like, you show up at a club. You didn't bring your own opener. I can't remember names. No, I don't want the names. It's the ones who are trying to make a name for themselves.

Yeah. Or they want to do crowd work, or they want to be loud. Those are the ones that, you know. I got a standing rule. I say to the club when I get there, no, all I ask is openers don't do crowd work. That's it. That's not your job. I hate when they wear out premises with no joke.

Yeah. Donald Trump, right? Right. And that's the whole joke, right? Or there's a new pope, you know, and it's like the week after there's a new pope, and you've got five solid bits you polished. And they just go, new pope, Jesus Christ. Yeah. American, an American pope?

Yeah. That is, those are annoying. I try, I go for different than me. I love working with women comics. Same with me. Love working with women comics. Erica Rhodes, I bring on the road with me a lot. Erica is, well, you won't be for long.

I know, that's the problem. Every club I bring her to to feature, they hire her back as a headliner. She's too good. I got that with Mal Hall. Mal used to travel with me a lot. He'll still travel with Angela Johnson. Uh-huh. because she pays them a hell of a lot more.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, some bitch got good. Right, right. I picked you up when you were an open micer. I know. How dare you? Dude, you see some guys that feature for, you know, some of the bigger acts, they feature for them for 10, 15 years.

Like the guys that opened for Seinfeld have been open and formed for 15, 20 years. Mario Joyner. He pays him that much. Pays him well. You know, I guess. Liz Mealy was another one. Yeah, she's great. Liz used to feature for me, you know.

Mario Joyner, I'm. love Mario. I don't understand how he's not a big name in his own right. Well, I started with him in New York and he was blowing up. He had his own show on MTV. I remember he had the MTV show. He did the movie, that movie where him and his guys were in the subway or something. Yeah. Yeah. Good looking guy. Niceest guy in the world. It's just random. This business is fucking random. It really is. It really is. Yeah. Mario's a good guy. Yeah. My, you know, who used to open for me? Jimmy, Jimmy Fallon. I used to bring him on the road with me.

Really? Yeah, yeah. Now you can't get on the show. Now I can't get on the show. Fits who? He does what to dogs? We can't have him on. Have you ever

not finished a set on stage? Ah, no. But the closest, I'll tell you the closest I came to not finishing a set. I was in Pakistan. and I went to Pakistan because there was this promoter who did Asia and I'd done Singapore for him and hung. He said, you want to go to Pakistan?

And I was like, when in my life am I going to get to go to Pakistan? Right, right. I'll go. Right. Man, they put us in this, like, they called it a country club, but basically it's like a private hotel and where the rich people hang out behind a wall so the poor people can't see how rich they are, blah, blah, blah, you know. And they said the water is okay.

I was like, I'm not trying it. So I'm drinking bottled water, this or that. And the only thing I could think of, I must have brushed my teeth. But when I headed for that stage, I had Pakistan coming out of both sides. And they had a bucket on each end of the stage.

And they had a guy come backstage, right? So in Pakistan, anyone who speaks English is a doctor. I swear, I've never seen so many people, you know, they're all doctors, right? And he said, listen, man, he said, It's a 24-hour thing. I can give you fluids. I can give you an IV.

It's just going to last 24 hours and you'll be fine. And he was correct almost to the minute. But I made it through the show. And I think it's just that thing in comics with comics that we know we have to. Yep. So it's like, all right, listen, I can throw up a ton. But for these 45 minutes, I can't. Yep.

Yep. And you do the show. And then it's like, all right, back to bed. I'm dying again. Yeah, we're like soldiers. Yeah. You know, I have lost my voice on stage, you know, because sometimes you fly from L.A. to Atlanta, so your voice is all dry. And then you're doing two shows that night. And by the second show, you just got nothing left.

You know, the sound system sucks. And I've gotten through the set by, you know, I whispered the last 15 minutes, but you get more animated and you just, you know, you make it. Yeah, I think where the epitome of the show must go on. Yeah. Which is why I have little patience for people who don't. don't do their job, you know, and it took me a while to realize that, like, I'm not mean to, you know, clerical people, service people, or this. But I do ask, like, come on, man, do your job. Like, I can never just, I don't feel like it, and do a bad job. Right. You know what I mean? Like, you're renting the cars, man, rent me the car. Do, do whatever.

That's right. We both know, you know, what you got to do. Just get it done. And I, I'm defying about it. Like, I, sometimes if it's, It's a really bad crowd, I dig in twice as hard. And I go, I'm going to squeeze something out of this fucking limit, you know, because I got to go to sleep tonight. I got to put my head on the pillow and deal with the emotions that I just experienced. And the emotions of I gave it 100% even though I didn't have a great show are better than I, if you feel like you gave up, that's the thing I can't live with. Yeah, it's, well, like this morning. So I did a corporate at 8.30 this morning, which is insane.

but it's what they wanted. I was like, you're sure? And they're like, yeah, we, you know, and it was like, okay, so, you know, of course I opened up with, there's no way this should be done. Yeah, right? Yeah. And I was,

and it's at the Long Beach Convention Center. I'm like, there's a comedy club across the street that's going to be open 8 o'clock tonight when you're supposed to do this. And they laughed at that. And then I just plowed through it. And it went okay. But yeah, we do it no matter what.

like no matter what situation we do our job right so all i ask i'm not asking you to do an extraordinary job just your job right do your job uh when's the last time you apologized ooh um i did a woman wrong yeah sounds like a blue song it was a girl um i dated and i heard her and it was it didn't turn out as bad as as as i thought but it could have been so I apologize for it. Like, I put her in a weird situation, and it was like, it was just awkward, you know. So did you pay for the abortion?

Well, I always do. I actually. And tip. Actually, I didn't pay for that one because it was the 10th. I had my card, I had punched nine stamps, and then they give you the 10th one, so that was okay. You never want to walk in and they go, hey, Alonzo. Finally, what is the hackiest bit that?

you've ever done oh man the hackiest bit i ever done you you're actually gonna yeah and and i hate this because i remember you asked oh in this question i remember this question and i thought about it so i have the answer for you god i'm i'm ashamed to admit ton of shequa it was a fat girl bit and that was her name ton of chicua oh it was it was horrible ton of shequa and i probably traveled you know a couple of years in my early career it was bad yeah it was and you knew you were going to get a big laugh so you couldn't drop it yeah it worked every time and it was like this is you got a tough crowd you're not doing well and you know you got the tunica you know you got it right in your fucking hip pocket like a grenade man that kind of stuff yeah and you got to let it go yeah i had a guy

Danny Mora, who I heard sadly is not doing well health-wise, but early on he used to do this thing like mentor, new comics, and somehow I got in his orbit. And I remember him saying something that really helped me. He said, change the order of your act. He said, because if you develop a closer, you're going to depend on that closure, you're going to do that one better.

And Tuna Shikwa was closing for a while. I was like, all right, I got to, I got to let her go. We're going to free her. We're going to free Tanikra. In 20 years, I can't be talking about. Yeah. All right.

Well, listen, so great having you on every time. Great to see you. Great to do this. Congrats on the new digs. Thank you. This is a cool little neighborhood. You know, I like it besides the underground, which, as you pointed out, the black-owned coffee shop,

on the corner here, you have a real hardware store. Yes. Those things are gone where the old guys work there who know how to fix everything. You go in and say, I got blah, blah, blah, and they show you what you need and how to do. That's gone. Yeah, I know. And YouTube will never replace those guys. That's right.

I have to say the black-owned coffee place, though. I always feel bad because I go there usually after every show. And it's all black people working there. And it says black-owned on the front. And then I always ask for cream in my black coffee. It's okay. All right. You're going to be performing at the Studebaker Theater in Chicago.

That's going to be a wait, wait, wait, don't tell me on September 4th. And then three nights later at the Den Theater in Chicago. I'm looking forward to it. And you know this from work in Chicago. You always want to work Chicago before winter. Yes, September is nice. You want to avoid it. Yeah, yeah.

Then it's like it's cooling off some. People are getting back to normal, but it's not that bitter cold. Dude, grab a baseball game while you're in town. Yeah, it's going to be a good weekend. That's nice, and it really is one of the best places to perform in the country. Yeah. You're going to be in the Atlanta Punchline in November. You're going to be at the comedy seller in Rio.

No, at the Rio. Oh, at the Rio, in Bay. Oh, got it. Okay. And then Cobb's Comedy Club in San Francisco, December 3rd. Right. Okay. Have you just side note, have you been to Rio?

South America is the one place I haven't been that I want to see. Have you been anywhere in South America? I bit to Chile, and I was shooting a pilot for Fox, and they crunched the numbers, and they said, it's cheaper for us to fly 50 people to Chile where they have studios, where we can shoot. It was a game show pilot. So we fly in, and it turns out the studio is like from the 70s,

and it's analog. It's like a joke. And they had this family, and it was a game show where you had to know things about other family members and they were going to quiz you about what you knew. And so it was this black family from Compton. We're in Chile where they literally have never seen a black person. We would go to restaurants and like it was just a needle scratch.

And they loved them. They were so nice to them. Anyway, so they would put them in this soundproof booth on the stage, which they did not air condition. so they'd be in there for 10 minutes and the whole family would come pouring out drenched and sweat the camera the camera guy didn't speak English

so you know the director's in his ear trying to tell him which camera shot to get he didn't know and then the teleprompter guy didn't speak English so he was show not hit fish how is this show not on the yet well how are you not doing your 25th season well what it should have been is I wanted to write a sitcom

about the making a I'm already a sitcom about a studio that moved down to South America to save money and it's just chaos yeah um zo funny zio funny is your tag on Instagram

alonzo bodin on dot com is your website and uh you know can't wait to see in Vegas I'm gonna hit you yeah man hit me up um it's you know like I said once you get away from the strip

it's great but yeah working that's part of how this happened I went to Vegas. I was doing Brad's Club, and I brought my dog. Yeah. And I got an Airbnb and just lived in Summerland for a week. And I was like, wow. Okay.

It's kind of nice, maybe, you know. But, yeah, seven days on the strip. I mean, I used to become immune to it where I just didn't hear the machines and this and that. Like, I'm fortunate that gambling has no appeal to me. Yeah, yeah. But it's just sensory overload to be on the strip for seven days. And they're not good. looking people. Like you walk around

L.A. America's not good looking. No, it's not. America. You know, Vegas I've always said if you want to show someone in America in four days, take them to Vegas. Yeah, yeah. And then just take them from like one end of the strip together, like show them circus circus and then show them to Bellagio

show them to Cosmo, you know, but then bring them to New York, New York, bring them and let them know like, this is all America folks. This is America where you go to a place. place where they have a New York, New York, and a Paris. Don't go to Paris.

No. Don't go to New York. Go to a place where they're going to charge you $23 drinks and see a cardboard cut out of the city. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. But stop in the Cosmo where the Young, Beautiful are. Oh, yeah? Yeah, that's where they, I think that's still where they hang.

Is that in the MGM? No, the Cosmopolitan, the Cosmopolitan casino. I think that's still, like, the youngest. I'm sure there's other clubs, but that one has just seemed to be the overall. They're changing the Golden Nugget, which is my favorite place to go gamble. That's the old Vegas and actually affordable tables where it's a $5 minimum instead of $25. But now they're doing electronic dealers. They're not going to have actual tables anymore.

Well, you know, the thing with downtown Vegas, right, they've been gentrifying for a while. And parts of it are cool. know if you're familiar with the arts district which is kind of the hipster part okay it's kind of cool it's between it's it's just outside of downtown yeah you know but there's still a few too many motels it's like you know you know you still got a few too many no tell motels around here that once you leave that fremont street like little mall area you're still like i don't know where do i park yeah yeah right right you got people on lawn chairs outside the motel and he realize, oh, they're saving up for a couple days to get a room for a night. All right, buddy. Thanks

again. Thank you.