Fitzdog Radio - Ben Bailey - Episode 1076

Episode Date: November 13, 2024

From Cash Cab and The Tonight Show, my old pal Ben Bailey breaks down what a great street joke is and how he is best friends with Bobby Lee. Watch his new special, "Ben Bailey: Please Tell Me What I Said" on YouTube.Follow Ben Bailey on Instagram @RealBenBaileyMy Bookie: https://mybookie.website/FITZWatch my special "You Know Me" on YouTube! http://bit.ly/FitzYouKnowMeAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Welcome to FitzDog Radio, the post-election edition. Will you hear a lot of politics? No, you will not. And I've gotten shit from listeners who write in and go, how dare you not speak out right now? Is that why you listen? Is that why you've tuned in over the years to Fitts Dogg Radio to hear my pithy political insights? I hope not. I don't know enough about it. I know that my friend Kyle McGovern is now a state Supreme Court Justice in New York. Congratulations and shout out. I mentioned him last week he won I got friends and I got friend in high places friend period and God knows

I'm gonna start speeding on the Hutchinson River Parkway and the Major Deegan fuck them I know I know Judge McGo No, I'm very happy for him. I'm very proud of him. He's a dear friend and a good man. Otherwise, I don't know. I went to Philly the day after the election and I did shows there all weekend. And, you know, I told them, I said, look Philly, Pennsylvania is a swing state and you guys didn't really you didn't swing they didn't swing at all they just dangled like flaccid like a flaccid penis they just dangled and I've just watched the Democrats this week point fingers a lot of blaming how could we lose against this guy? Well, because we didn't have a message. You know, there was a failure to math. There was a there was a failure to

understand that there's no Latino vote period. It's not a vote. It is millions of people. Many of them have been here for generations and they own businesses. And then you got people that showed up on Tuesday. And guess what the older Latinos want? No new fucking Latinos. Did we not figure that out? Did we not figure that out when the Irish did it in the late 19th century, when the Italians did it

in the early 20th century, the Jews German Jews got here and then they later kept out the non-Jewish Jews they didn't want the Russian Jews that's America we get here and fucking slam the door behind us and we did women didn't vote, they didn't. Is that what Democrats are saying? Half the country didn't vote? No, women voted. They didn't vote as one. It's not one paintbrush or brush stroke,

whatever the phrase is. There's older women, young women are pro-choice, for the most part, and then older women you know little more conservative not as pro-choice I think once once you hit menopause little less concerned about that choice a little more concerned about want grandkids they're pro grandkids that that's why they move that way they don't want their fucking daughters getting rid of the baby. They want that goddamn cute little baby with the little fuzz on his head.

Let's get that baby smell. That's what they want. Not a sad ride to a clinic and back again. They'll take care of the goddamn thing. They're bored. They thought they thought retirement would be filled with pickleball and viagra sex but no it's just sitting around watching the news complaining about doctors appointments. Yeah Pennsylvania's pro-choice but I told them it's last call. Last call. Get them in, get knocked up, get rid of it, be a part of history. Know that you, you spoke up, you legged up, you angled up. This whole idea of making people have their babies when they don't want them is so weird. You know, it's like people that... most parents suck. I suck. I'm considered a good parent by

everybody that knows me. I don't think I am. I think I sucked. I think most parents think that. And most parents do suck. and Now take two people that Categorically do not want to be involved do not want the gig you're forcing them to go to a job They fucking hate and guess how that guess how guess how the underlings the children are gonna turn out in that job situation Not so hot Forcing them situation not so hot forcing them it's like I started think of a metaphor of like it's like if you are anti-gun and then semiotic weapons semi-automatic weapons are legalized they don't force the anti-gun people to walk around with an AK with an AK 47 for nine months

Where's your gun? Pick up your gun love love your gun Anyway other stuff Was in Phil I had a great time in Philly I hung out with the boys I was in Philly, I had a great time in Philly. I hung out with the boys. My BU boys were there, Johnny Sorelli, Dan Bickner, the great Pete Scott. Went out to a nice restaurant and Dan's wife, of course,

who I love. And then another guy who is Pete's nephew, who's a good dude. Anyway, we had fun. Philly, you know, a good dude anyway we had fun Philly you know Dan might give in shits on Philly I fucking love it I love the people they're loud they're boisterous they're caring they're very I don't know they're very supportive I think some of the best crowds in the country I think it's the the hilarities in Philly is my hilarities. Now the helium in Philly is my second

favorite club in the country. I'll just leave it at that you guys get it. Went on Preston and Steve, which is my favorite radio show in the country. And they they hooked me up to an IV because they knew I had flown in the day before and I was exhausted Because I had to get up so early So they brought in three nurses and they administered an IV and they gave me B12 a bunch of different B vitamins Got me all jacked up. We had a blast

They brought in a whole platter. They know that I like locs So they brought in bagels and locs on a platter from like the best place in Philly they're the best so much fun what else and then on the flight home I can't almost got into an incident with a guy I got on the plane and I walk over and there's a guy sitting in my row and I asked him to move so I can sit down at the I have the window seat coach yeah I'm flying coach and so the guy gets up I sit down I have I'm just getting my buckle on and I've got my my seat my backpack in the middle seat and the guy is standing in the aisle and he's wearing a mask and he's eyeballing me like staring right into my not saying anything not moving

His head just fucking stare me. I go. What do I go? What are you looking at and then he and then he goes your bag is in my seat I said well, I said don't stand there fucking eyeballing me. I go tell me that my bags in your seat And so he says something else and I move the bag and he sits down It's a little awkward and he's you know the I was expecting there to be some tussling over the armrest but there was none of that. That was fine. But there was a bad energy and any of that thick filly. I like people from Philly don't like your accent at all. Could live without that. so then about an hour in I said I not an

hour in now it was a six-hour flight was probably about three hours in four hours and I said I got to go to the bathroom and the guy had his laptop open and he goes he goes no I'm working on something right now and I said what I said you're not gonna get up he goes I I'm not getting up right now and I said I need to go to the bathroom. And so he said something else. And then I just hit the call button. I was like, I could punch this guy in the face.

And I realized why fights happen on planes. Because normally, if you have a conflict with another human being, they're four, five, six feet away from you. But when you're an inch from somebody and they're being a fucking douche, you wanna punch them so so bad like I had to physically restrain myself

I was all I was thinking about was taking my left elbow and crushing his jaw and Instead I hit the call button and the flight attendant came over and I said, excuse me. This gentleman will not get up I need to use the restroom and then he he got up, he muttered something, and I, oh, and I forgot to mention, on the flight, the, I was fucking, I hadn't had breakfast, it was, the only food available on American Airlines was a cheese box.

So I eat a cheese box about an hour before, it had cheddar, it had provola, and all like four different kinds of cheese, and I don't even like cheese, because I'm lactose intolerant but I eat it anyway I was like fuck it so I go to the bathroom and I come back he gets up and when I'm walking to sit down as I passed his seat I fucking rip a fart like deep from my belly. A lactose intolerant fart. cheesy with with undertones of sulfur. And

I just let it hang there and then I just sat down I buckled up I put my head down I went right to sleep. It was amazing. Yeah, so I'm back back back in LA, coming off. Oh, by the way, if you've seen the special, it's called You Know Me. If you have not seen it, I would love for you to watch my new special. I'm very proud of it.

I think it turned out great. The feedback has been insanely good. And I'd love for you to see it. If you haven't seen it, if you have, go turn it on, give it a click anyway. We're trying to keep building the numbers we're at like 435,000 views trying to get to half a million by the end of the year so give it a click let it run while you're doing the dishes or taking a nap whatever it's

on YouTube it's easy also if you're in Eugene Oregon I will be there on November 13th which I guess will be tonight when you listen to this. Tacoma, Washington at the Tacoma Comedy Club November 14-16. Tempe Improv November 22-24. San Francisco Punchline December 5-7. The next week I'm in Cleveland. And then starting in January, Janesville, Wisconsin, Nyack, New York, Raleigh, North Carolina, Milwaukee, Vegas, Fontana, California,

Atlanta, Ontario, Toronto, Pittsburgh, Tampa, La Jolla. Go to FitzDawg.com, get yourself some tickets, see some live comedy before it sells out for the love of God. My guest who I spoke to just a few days ago is an old dear friend from New York who achieved stardom as the host of Cash Cab on I don't know what channel that was but I think was it True TV? I don't know. Whatever it was it was huge and he also hosted Who's Still Standing on NBC. He won a bunch of daytime Emmy Awards. He's done some acting on 30 Rock, Blue

Bloods, did stand-up on Carson Daly, Craig Ferguson, Leno. He's done it all. He's a funny dude. We had a really great hang. Please enjoy Mr. Ben Bailey. Ben Bailey? Ben, I gotta be late Bailey cuz I gotta go do Bert's podcast first. Sorry man, I apologize. Look, I don't. It's Bert, Bert did it to me, really. I get it, just don't give me that fucking B stuff. Don't bring the B stuff.

Dude, I told Bert that we were coming here next, and so he drew things out. He took everything? Yeah, well he was like, we're gonna take our time, I'm gonna make you late to go see Fitz. Did you go? No, no, just blatantly lying. I just actually had a great conversation

with Burt for a while, man. I haven't talked to him in a while. Burt is something very special in this world. Like he is, he's a guy that like puts out a whole, people go like, oh, his persona's wild. It's not a persona. Yeah, it's Burt. It's just Burt.

Yeah. Yeah. And he's always been that way. Yeah. Right from his heart all the time, you know? And I always loved that about him. Yeah, and it's- We've been friends for 25 years or something.

Really? Yeah, yeah. Since he came to New York. Yeah. I mean, because so many comics trying to crack the code with how to get famous and big, and it's like, it's really not a code. It's like, you're either somebody that 15,000 people

wanna see in an arena, or you're somebody who's like, and not to say you're not funny, like we were talking about Dan Natterman before, like Dan Natterman is one of the funniest people I've ever met, but he's not playing arenas. Right, well neither am I, are you? I do, but I'm opening for Burt when I do it. Okay.

Yeah. And you know what? Not that fun. Not that fun playing arena. We talked about it, I was like, the thought of that is kind of terrifying to me. It's kind of. Like I love where I'm at right now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But what's the biggest venue you've ever been on stage at? The biggest crowd I've ever had was 10,000 and that was at a college Long time ago when cash cab was kind of at its peak. Do you mean you had 10,000 to see you? Yeah, get out of here Yeah, really? Yeah, and it was like I'm sorry Thousands a lot a lot of people have that reaction How much did you get paid for the gig? Oh? Good amount. A good amount of money.

Yeah. Good amount. Wow. Ten thousand. But that was literally one time. It was in like an arena on a college campus. Yeah, it was a college show. So it was like cost them like nothing or five bucks or something.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's great. And it was terrifying to me. Yeah. It ended up fine, but like, and I didn't have to sell tickets for that. That's the part that's scary. Yeah. I was saying earlier, like if I have a theater that holds a thousand people, I'm like, I gotta sell, I gotta like, you know, do everything I can to try to put asses in these seats. Right. Well, you're here. Yeah. But so 20,000 or what? Like, I guess it's it's really scary.

Night after night. And that's not one. That's like Orlando Wednesday, Tampa Thursday. Well, you know, Bert was saying they did. I mean, a couple of guys did like the same one four nights in a row in the same town. No kidding. I'm just like, that is scary to me. And the lack of the intimacy of a show that I really enjoy now.

Like I love to be in a place that's 400 seats, that's tight and everybody's right there with you. I feel like, and I don't know, I don't have enough experience with it, but like part of that's gonna be lost in a huge venue that's wide open. I always like, the analogy I always make is like, it's like being on a cruise ship versus being on a jet ski.

When you're in that arena, it's gonna move. It's got inertia, it's moving, you're up there, you're a part of it, but you don't feel like you're driving it, you're just on it. Right. As opposed to like a small club. That's a very different feeling, yeah. Small club, you can pick and move, you can do a little crowd work,

you can take a drink, you can fuck around, try some new shit, come back. That's where I feel like I would run into like a little bit of a like, oh fuck. Is because like if I'm doing a show and I don't feel like I'm really connecting with them, then I'll go into the crowd a little. I don't often, I'd often have to do it,

but if I need to, I can. Now, if you're on a stage in an arena, you can't talk to the, oh, look at this guy with his, like everyone's like, we can't see that guy, dude. We can't see you. Yeah, what do you do for a living? Oh, really? Yeah, just total silence.

We don't know either. No crowd work, dude. Just do the bits. I'll tell you what. Crowd work to me, here's what crowd work is. It's the whipped cream on top of the cheesecake and you share a dessert and then one asshole comes in and scoops up the whole dollop of whipped cream. That's what a crowd work comic is.

We all want to have a little bit of whipped cream with our bite. Right, you wanna, if you need it, you wanna have it then. Yes, yes. Because others, how else do you pull them in if they're just like zoned? Which sometimes they are, you can't. Right, and if you ate all the whipped cream,

now I can't get any. You know there's no whipped cream. I'm gonna try to eat some of the whipped cream that you ate can't get any. And there's no whipped cream. I'm gonna try to eat some of the whipped cream that you ate already. Right. And that's disgusting. You gotta hope they got a little on the tip of their nose. Give me that, come here.

Yeah. Yeah. I think we took that as far as we could with the whipped cream analogy. Yeah, I think that analogy. Not as far as you took your fucking windbreaker bit on your new special. Jesus Christ, half the special.

Just a warning, Ben's got a great new special out that you should watch, but if you don't like windbreakers, fast forward to about 22 minutes in. Or if you do like them, if you do like them. That's so funny, man, because that bit, to this day, if I go to the cellar, Esty is like, you know what bit I'd really like of yours?

The windbreaker. Do you still do the windbreaker? And it just evolved into this, I mean that's kind of my thing anyway, is I try to ring every last bit I can. And that bit, I actually, it's an old bit. I recorded it on my Comedy Central Presents a long time ago, which got hacked.

They edited it to bits. Yeah, they did a horrible job. Messed up all the timing. And no one can watch that anymore. It's like buried in their archives. I can't share it. Cause they own the recording, not the material, right? So I'm like, I'm gonna put some of my old bits.

I'm gonna put some of my old bits on new specials to get them out there. Right. Yeah, and also with Sirius XM, people don't realize this is real inside baseball stuff, but if you put your material on Sirius XM, you get paid as a producer and you get paid as a performer. Unless Comedy Central recorded that set

and then they get the producer end of it. So you only get half of your money, but if you could put it out and re-record it, it's what Taylor Swift did with her catalog. Maybe one of her albums or was it a catalog? I don't know, I have no idea. She basically got screwed by this guy. Oh, so she just re-recorded,

like he owned the recordings and she didn't get any of the money from that? Yeah. I mean, that's a classic record company, record industry screw over, right? Right, so she just re-did it and she got all the money. Yeah. I gotta get some of my stuff on series.

I don't think I have anything on there. Are you serious? Yes, I am serious. That's crazy also because the real money on series is if you're clean and a lot of your stuff isn't dirty. Yeah, I don't swear too much. No. Do you swear on this?

Yeah. Okay, I like to say fuck. No, I don't say Jesus Christ. Oh, sure. I say Jesus Christ. Yes, you did say that. I don't say the F word. Oh, I'm sorry.

I misunderstood. I thought this was for grownups. That was a real cunt move that you just did. I like to say it. I remember Riptorn. Yeah. Like Riptorn really knew how to say fuck. Yeah.

Right, on Larry Sanders. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like, oh fuck. And I'm like, I relish that. Fuck you, Larry. Yeah, like fuck you. Like there's something that you get out of that word that doesn't come from any other word.

Yes. And I like to, I don't do it all the time, but I like to, you know. It's the only thing we have over the children. Yeah. That we can swear. Yeah, I remember swearing at my daughter once. It was actually Halloween. Oh, wow.

She was about 10. And her and her friends, we all went to this area of Venice called the canals. Have you ever been to the canals in Venice Beach? No. There's a grid of actual canals like Venice. It's so funny, people don't know about this more.

I've been to Venice, I spent some time there too. There's all these like incredible houses. A lot of architects buy houses there and they redo them and they're literally on a canal. Oh, that's pretty cool. And there's a grid of like three, three by three square blocks. And you live in Venice, right?

Yeah. And so we go to this house, it's a friend of hers has a house on a canal. And so we're like, all right, Halloween night on the canals, like you just walk down the, you know, along the canals, you go to each house and they're all decorated.

So we go there and she and her friends go out. Those houses and those that never been in movies and stuff. Oh, lots of times. Okay, I know exactly what you're talking about, Ben. And so they go out for 20 minutes and they come back like, we're bored. We're bored. Meanwhile, the mom had made like an eight course,

you know, fun meal for Halloween for everybody. And the parents are there. There's a chocolate fountain. There's a stripper. and so we're bored. And we go, well, deal with it, we're gonna go back out. So they go back out again. Maybe they were 12 because they were old enough that we let them out on their own.

And so then all of a sudden we get a call from our friend Nancy in Santa Monica, which is, you know, 15, 20 minutes away. That's a ways away, yeah. And she goes, your daughter and her friends are in front of Bob's Market. Did you know that? And we're like, no, we thought they were outside

trick or treating. They had gone outside. One of them somehow, there was like five of them. One of them had an Uber account and they called an Uber and they went to see their other friends in Santa Monica. And I was so pissed, I went probably 11, 11 years old. And first of all, I'm pissed at the Uber driver who picks up five 11 year old girls on, you know?

Yeah, not me. So I scry. I'm not touching that. Not even in cash cap? If I pulled up in the cash cap, I'd be like, I don't know. Do we have questions for this age bracket? And how far are you going, ladies? Was there ever any nudity on cash cap?

No, just me. I took my shirt off once. You did? Yeah. It was before Burt was doing it. Oh, okay. It was a top gun question. I don't know if you remember how much you've seen, but we would do what we call the postscript

at the end of a game that people would get out and they would come back to me and I'd say a little wrap up thing. And we started getting carried away with those. A lot of them didn't make it to air. One of them I was wearing a Wookiee suit. A lot of times we had stuff going on outside in the background, and they were really fun.

And we were all creative people who wanted to make movies and stuff. So we overdid it with those. But one of them we had a Top Gun question that they got thrown out on. So when they cut to me I was shirtless and I had on glasses and I was all sweaty. That's great, I love it.

Because I don't know if you've seen Top Gun anytime in recent years, but like, it's the sweatiest movie. Everyone is just naked and sweaty in that whole thing. So, I think that's the only nudity in the cash cab. One girl was like falling out of her tube top, which I think is probably the YouTube cash cab clip that has the most views.

Oh, of course. But she never actually does. Well, because then there was this show on HBO, which was Tax Cab Confections. That was actually before Cash Cab. Oh, no kidding. I think so, yeah. I think it was, yeah.

Wow. And yeah, that was because it definitely was, because we had people get in and go, oh, is this, you know, and start telling me stuff. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, nope, that's not, that's a different show. That show went deep. People talked about some of the darkest things I've ever heard.

And they would have sex in the back of the cab, and you know, that was wild. We had the same guys did our hidden cameras. Oh, really? These kind of kooky, I'll call them kooky kind of guys. Street Visions is the name of the company. Guy liked all of them.

They're in their own kind of little realm though. Yeah. Yeah. They also did To Catch a Predator. They set up, they did all the cameras for that. Wow. Yeah. You could have combined all three shows.

Taxi cab, taxi, cab, catch a predator. Yeah. Did you ever get pulled over by people that didn't want a taxi but they were Nazis? I don't think so. They were just standing by the side of the road like this? John Lovitz was driving. I don't know who I was talking about that with. Rat Race, that whole, you remember that movie Rat Race? It's a really kind of underrated movie. It's like the old like Cannonball Run.

Before that it was Gumball Rally. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. And before all of them was the, it's a- Dom DeLuis. Yeah, yeah, but way before those was, it's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. So like the, we were talking about those the other night, and somehow we went through the whole iterations of it,

and Rat Race was the most recent one. It wasn't a huge hit, but John Lovitz has a part that's hilarious in it. They go to a Nazi museum, and he ends up in the, he's dressed like Hitler, I guess, basically you're a Nazi officer, and he's driving this old car, and he's up in the, he's dressed like Hitler, I guess, basically, you're a Nazi officer, and he's driving this old car, and he's waving to people.

It's really funny, man. Oh, that's great. I remember I was coming down on mushrooms once, and I turned that TV on just to relax, and that movie came on, and I was like, this is the greatest movie I've ever seen in my life. It was a perfect match. Oh, there's some really funny stuff in that.

Like John Cleese's part where he's running the people that are betting on it and they're already in the hotel, like that shit just cracked me up. You know what else is a great one? Funny thing happened on the way to the forum. You ever see that? I have not seen that. That had Zero Mustelle in it.

Right. And it was- Right, from producers. From the producers. He's hilarious at that. Yeah, yeah, he's a genius. But there's a lot of, and Sid Caesar was in it, and Buster Keaton was in it.

Oh, no way. Yeah. Well, I'm gonna have to watch that. Yeah, it's really good. Take mushrooms first. Mushrooms first. Do you take mushrooms? I never do, I did once in college.

That's it? Yeah. Wow. It was fun, it was kind of crazy, but I never did it again. Do you smoke pot? I do. Yeah. Oh. Why you want to smoke up? Can you imagine if we did that before the show? I don't know how I would be on an interview on pot.

I think I might be maybe for 420 this year, I'll do an episode where I smoke pot with somebody. Yeah. Have Doug Benson on. Well, but that's been done. I think I gotta get somebody like me that's like not a big pothead. It's gotta be somebody who's like a little neurotic, like Andy Kindler.

Oh, there you go, yeah. That'd be good. State of the industry with Andy Kindler. Hi, with hi Andy Kindler. Yeah, by the way, speaking of your producers on Cash Cap, they did a series, I hosted a series. With Lion, Lion TV? Yep.

Oh nice, okay. And it was called. I love those guys. It was called Pumped, and it was, people would pull up to a gas station, and it was hidden cameras, and then they would start to fill their tank, and as soon as they started, I would ask them trivia questions for as long as it took to fill

their tank. And you're just standing outside the car or you're like yeah yeah yeah oh shit I didn't know that yeah we like I think we did two seasons it was on it was on fuel TV cuz like yeah yeah yeah but so like after cash cab kind of hit right then there was like where else could we do? What other crazy location could we do a game show in? I know you did it at a gas station. I had people pitching me all kinds of ideas. Like a public bathroom.

You got to answer questions to get toilet paper. Cash can. An elevator. A guy actually pitched me a show that I thought was a pretty good idea. I like that. It was called Rise to the Prize. That's good.

And you answer questions, you gotta get to the floor, you can like, you know, stop on different floors and get off and do stuff. Yeah. Yeah, there was like this like rage, like where can we do a game show now? I had this pitch for a dating show called Love in the Elevator,

where you start in the lobby and then if it goes well, then you keep going up. The key is to get to the penthouse with one other person. But they can kick you out on any given floor. So it's like a lobby or like a bank of like six elevators. And you've got like 20 people all trying to get to the to the top. I didn't figure out the details. Right, right. That's similar except you're winning money instead of like having a successful date. Well once you have the money though.

Yeah. Dates easy. Rise to the prize. Yeah. I thought it was a pretty good idea. Yeah. Never happened. Yeah. Have you ever pitched a show and sold it? Nope. No. No. I've pitched a few. Yeah. Never happened. Yeah. Have you ever pitched a show and sold it? Nope. No. No. I've pitched a few. Yeah. Couple of them, I've pitched more than a few. And then some of them ended up getting made without me. You know, you watch, I'm like, watch.

Oh yeah, yeah. I had this show idea that I really loved where it was called, what would really happen? And we would take a famous scene from an action movie and then I would reenact it, but in reality. So like Indiana Jones just gets fucking flattened by the boulder, or like all the amazing stunt things that action heroes pull off, they would get killed.

And then someone made it for a very similar idea for Spike TV or something. So you would go into the desert and have a ball. Yeah, we'd like reshoot it. So the idea was like, this is early on when all the big studios were getting into producing their own stuff, leading up to streaming and all that. So it was like, they would have access.

We could use all the movies that they owned, if it was Paramount or MGM or whatever, and then we could reshoot, you know. I was inspired by this movie. I can't remember what the movie was. It was a movie where Colin Farrell was playing a guy. It's an old West movie and he's on a train. And there's a scene where it's like eight guys against him

in a train car. And he would be dead six times over. And then I was like, you know what? That'd be fun to make that. Like show the actual scene. And here's the first time he would die in reality. Soon as he walks in the door, they'll just fucking shoot him, you know?

Somebody made something similar later. I still like the idea, it'd be fun to make. Yeah, I think it's expensive, but it's big. But they want big now these days. They don't make a lot, but what they make, they want it big and expensive. Yeah, yeah. And I tried to never hinder my,

sounds haughty of me, creative process. Like, I wanna write what comes, Yes. What I'm inspired to write. And we'll figure the rest of it out later. Yep, exactly. Like a guy that I was to write what comes, what I'm inspired to write. And we'll figure the rest of it out later. Like a guy that I was gonna write some stuff with, he goes, as soon as I started into my first idea, he's like, oh, that's ridiculous.

How could we afford to make that? I'm like, this isn't gonna work. Cause you're just like chopping off. I'm trying desperately to find this road. And you're like, you can't go down there. And I'm like, no, I found the road. I want to ride it to the end, whether we could ever make it or not.

Like it's not. No, think about like survivor. You know how expensive and insane that pitch must have been. Right, or the amazing race. Yeah, right, right. Wait, what? Yeah. Get the fuck out of here. Yeah. But I mean,

how many seasons are those two shows? Like crazy. So let me ask you some questions. We always do, I always try to do some of the same questions for comedians because I'm interested that like the different takes on them. Okay, cool, yeah. But.

I'll try to do my best to answer them honestly. All right, yeah. So who's your best Asian friend? My best Asian friend? Yeah. Like who's the Asian person you're closest to or have known the best in your life? Wow, that is really interesting.

interesting. Did anyone ever just go, I don't know any Asian people? That's the point of the question. Yeah. I do know some Asian people. I'm sorry, man, it's not interactive. I thought of CS, I'm friends with a guy named CS Lee, who's an actor, he lives here in LA. Yeah.

I don't know if he's my closest Asian friend. Right, right. I've been friends with Steve Byrne for a long time. Steve Byrne is good, a lot of people bring up Steve Byrne. Kind of friends with Bobby Lee. Steve Byrne and Bobby Lee are the two go-to Asian friends, everybody pulls up. But I don't know how close anybody really is.

Bobby Lee I love very much, but I don't feel close to him. He climbs on me every time I see him, jumps like jumps on my back yeah well I mean most of my friends are other than like the people I grew up with are gonna be comedians at this point you know people I worked with on something yeah there's a guy named Stan Sue who worked on cash cab okay time he's a writer and an EP. Yeah, and now he's like one of the execs at Y and TV He's a great guy. Okay I feel like I'm leaving someone out What about uh?

What's your name? Oh Yeah You have someone in mind You're just trying to help me find it It's, whatever. I don't know a lot either. It's an interesting question. I mean, who's your closest gay friend?

I'd have to say Steve Byrne or Bobby Lee again. He is jumping on you, yeah. My closest gay friend, jeez, I don't know, man. Interesting, you have a very certain type of friend. I hang out with, when I'm not working, I hang out with like the dudes that I grew up with. Yeah, in New Jersey. Yeah, because I live back to where I used to live.

New Jersey people hang out with New Jersey people. So I have like my buddies, they were my buddies all the way through. Right, right. And none of them are gay? No, I guess a couple of those guys are gay, but like didn't know back then, and they don't pop into my head.

But a couple of those guys are pretty close, good friends. I don't want to say their name. They're like, they're not in the business. Right, right. But again, I feel like there's someone that I'm leaving out. Yeah. Maybe it's the same guy, Stan Sue from,

he's like, wait, what? You thought I was gay all these years? Yeah. Have you ever joined any clubs in your life? I came to the conclusion that I'm not a join a club kind of guy. Most comics are not. At a certain point. Yeah.

I almost joined a couple of different, I joined a golf club, a country club. You did? Yeah. Well there you go. Back where, in Jersey where I live. It's a nine hole, super chill, laid back, like, everyone's like, it's a blue collar. People call it a beer club with a golf problem. Because when you sign up, there's always a keg or two

and you can go and drink and like, it's way laid back. The country club thing was never kind of my thing. I remember going to play at a buddy's country club and some guys like yelling at me for putting my golf shoes on in the parking lot. And I'm like, this is not for me, man. Like I don't put my shoes on wherever. Like, why are you so worried about that shit? Yeah, I know. I'm going to Philly this weekend and my friend from college, one of my dear

friends invited me to play golf at a country club. And now I'm like texting him today like, I gotta bring shoes, like do I need a college shirt? Oh yeah, no cargo shorts, tuck your shirt in, college shirt. Yeah, there's a lot of that. That stuff doesn't bother me like it did in that first story when I was like 20.

And I was like, what the fuck? Yeah. You told me where to put my shoes. Yeah, yeah, right, right. Now I get it. Yeah, I mean if Rich Voss can play on country clubs, anybody can figure it out. Yeah, you're right.

You ever golf with him? Oh, many times. I stopped golfing with him. You did? Yeah. Because of the gambling? No, just because, all right, it's kind of funny. So you've golfed with him, you know how angry he gets.

Yes. Like he literally bites his own arm. Yeah. And leaves tooth marks, teeth marks in his arm. By the end of a run, he's got bite imprints all the way up his fuckin' arm and you're outta your mind. Like, what's wrong with you?

And I was like, we played, for a while, we played a lot of golf together. And he's a ball buster, as you know, and he's competitive. I have a lot of funny. Passive aggressive competitive. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely.

I have a lot of funny stories about golf and with Voss. And when you lose money to him, he asks you at the end, are we paying? Yeah, we're fucking paying. I would never bet. I would never bet with him. Oh. I stopped betting because it was ruining the game.

Yeah, yeah. I have a weird approach to golf. I love golf, but I don't like, like I just wanna do as well as I can do. And I don't care how well you do or how well you don't. And I wanna enjoy the day. It's five hours. Right.

Like I don't wanna be out here angry or stressed. Yeah, yeah. It just defeats the whole point. Like I wanna enjoy it. Right. Now I got a friend, Dennis Gubbins, who I talk about quite a bit on the podcast. He's redheaded Irishman who is just,

he's a child, he's a man child, you know? Worse than Voss? Oh my God, so much worse. Throws clubs. Voss throws clubs. Yells about, like, will you give me this putt? And the putt's like this far, you're like, no. And then he'll talk about it for three holes. Oh, you didn't you give me this putt and the putt's like this far? You're like, no, and then he'll talk about it

for three holes, oh, you didn't give me that fucking putt. And it's like, dude, I'm trying to, like you said, I'm trying to relax. It's a day off, it's a time commitment. Right, right. That's supposed to be about me relaxing and enjoying this. Yeah, you're right. So, okay, so a couple of lost things.

One day, we're both in the bunker, in a bunker, and he hits first and it rolls about, I don't know, six feet past the cup, and onto the apron. And he goes, ah, fuck, he's furious, I can't hit anything today. And I go, dude, this is the practice green. We haven't even started golfing yet,

calm down, you know, like what are you doing? Like, so one day we get paired up with, we're playing a public course, we get paired up with two guys, or older guys, and at the end of the day, the old guys pull me aside and they go, you shouldn't play with that guy. And I go, what do you mean? They're like, he's ruining golf for you.

He gets angry, it makes you angry, this whole thing. And I was like, I thought about it for a second and I was like, oh my God, they're absolutely right. And then Voss comes out of the bathroom, wherever, and I go, dude, I'm never playing golf with you again. And he goes, what? What do you mean? I go, these guys just told me, and they're so right,

you're ruining this fucking game for me. I go, I'm never playing with you again. And he goes, one of my favorite things he ever said, he goes, come on, I'll be good. And I was like, no, you won't. You can't, you won't be good. You can't be good. I felt every guess.

Come on, I'll be good. Every couple of years he calls me, he's like, you wanna play? I'm like, no. Yeah, no, I like that you stick to your guns because with Dennis, I walk off. I'll be mad by the third hole. I'd be like, god damn it, how did I do this again?

Yeah, you just paid $100 in greens fees. No, I will walk off the course with Dennis and I'll say, I'm not playing with you anymore. And then six months later, I'm out on the third hole and he's yelling about a putt and I'm going like, I said I wouldn't do this and I didn't. What am I doing? You're like sleeping with your ex-boyfriend.

Oh my, ex-boyfriend? What? Well, it seems like girls do that more often. Oh, I thought you meant I'm sleeping with my ex-boyfriend. No, no, it's like a woman that keeps going. Oh, I thought you meant I'm sleeping with my boyfriend. No, no, it's like, you know, it's like a woman that keeps going back to her. I guess a guy could do it too, but it seems more often the other way around.

The girls go back with the guys. Like, stop doing that, the dude is bad for you. Stop going back to him. Voss is the abusive boyfriend. Yes, totally, and he knows it. Yep, he knows it. And how the fuck Bonnie, and look, obviously Rich is gonna listen to this podcast

because somebody's gonna tell him and he gets so little press that he'll have to listen to it just to hear his name. And then you think about Bonnie who is this, you know, seems like a strong woman with boundaries and how she can possibly be married to this guy for long. There's another side to Rich Voss we're not seeing. I think you're probably right.

Yes. Yeah, a sweet side. It's a sweet side, and he's able to sit on some of his base impulses that he doesn't sit on around us. I think the golf course is his safe place to let all that out. Right. Right. Yeah. Right.

It's not to say I never get frustrated by the game. No. Because I mean, anyone that plays never get frustrated by the game. No. Because I mean, anyone that plays it gets frustrated by it. Well, we play in these tournaments sometimes that are like charity tournaments where they'll have- Yeah, I've done a bunch out here. We've done some together in the past.

Yeah, we've done some together. And they'll get a foursome of guys and these guys are paying like 10 grand for their foursome and they raise money for charity. And then they'll add one comedian to each foursome and we'll play as the fifth player. And so, which is tough because now you feel like I gotta be, I don't wanna be funny on the golf course.

No, I wanna golf. I wanna golf. I mean, if it gets funny, great, but I'm not there to entertain four guys from Merrill Lynch. Right. You know? Exactly, I 100% agree with you. So you go out and 98% of the time,

it's a great experience, because people are there for the right reason. And I think people are a little more evolved than maybe they were before in terms of what they expect from a comedian. Yeah, they're more aware of it a little bit. Yeah, we have a dark side, and we don't want to be funny all the time.

Or tortured souls. Yes, but then the payoff is, we'll have the lunch or the dinner, whatever they have, and then they'll have a joke-telling contest afterwards on each comic, so if there's 18 groups, then there's 18 comedians, not always comedians, but maybe some will be actors, like Joe Montagna plays in a lot of these.

Or athletes. Athletes, what's his name, is always playing in it. Actors, Vinny Jones plays in those a lot. Vinny Jones, Joe Pesci sometimes plays. Pesci, yep. And so then you get to go up and each comic tells one joke after dinner and they have a contest and they pick a winner.

And you have won, I know at least once, I think you won twice that I saw. I think I've won three in a row. Three in a row, okay. And then I ran the joke telling contest the year after that. Smart, smart. Because you have to see, you have to understand

that I love joke jokes. Yes. Like I've loved them since I was a kid. Yeah. And they're so interesting to me because like, who wrote those? Where do they come from? They've evolved, you know, you could find like,

they branch out. So this person, it's the same joke, but they've heard it a little differently. And that's just so interesting to me. It's like the etymology of these things. And it gets better and better as it's told. It gets sanded down and it gets defined. Yeah, like a bit, right?

Yeah, right. But with different people. So it evolves in a really unique way. It's pretty cool. Yeah, and that's the one thing AI can't do is write a fucking joke. Oh, have you tried to get it to you? A lot of people have.

I mean, it can give you a premise that might be okay, but it's never sharp. Well, that's worth something. If then you can take it from there, I guess. I guess so, and I'm sure there's a lot of young comics coming up that are using AI to generate it. Sure, but they're using it for everything else.

Yes, using it for their PR and their marketing and their social media and their editing of their videos. And so why not use it to create jokes? I gotta get in on that, I think. Cause I do everything myself and it's too much to do. You do? Yeah, pretty much. Oh, I thought you, cause we talked to Beth.

Beth Hoops. Yes, we do. Who's awesome. She's great. She's gonna listen to this and be like, what do you mean you're driving yourself into something? I know, that's why I saved you. That's why I had to save you.

I'm thinking about editing the special, but yeah, she actually set this up. She advances my dates and she cuts and captions all my shit for social media. But you do it all yourself. I do everything myself, Greg, everything. Except for what, Beth and her team. Chris Denman.

And Jonathan, and there's a whole fucking, it's all me, man, there's nobody doing this but me. Yeah, it's amazing what you can do at your age. It's almost like, you're like a team. You always feel like a team working. But so the joke jokes thing. Yeah. I've always loved them.

And so when I first got invited to one of those, I didn't know there was gonna be a joke-telling contest. Yeah. And if I had known, I would have been so nervous. I would have been more nervous about that than meeting like these. Bet MGM, authorized gaming partner of the NBA has your back all season long.

From tip-off to the final buzzer, you're always taken care of with the sportsbook Born in Vegas. That's a feeling you can only get with Bet MGM. And no matter your team, your favorite player, or your style, there's something every NBA fan will love about BetMGM. Download the app today and discover why BetMGM is your basketball home for the season. Raise your game to the next level this year with BetMGM, a sportsbook worth a slam dunk, and authorized gaming partner of the NBA.

sportsbook worth a slam dunk and authorized gaming partner of the NBA. bitmgm.com for terms and conditions must be 19 years of age or older to wager Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you please contact Conox Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BitMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Big Hollywood stars who are often at those things. Yeah. Cause it just means a lot to me.

Yeah. So the first one I ever did, I came in second, I think. Uh-huh. And I was like, Yeah. And I spent the next year. That's ridiculous. Going through joke jokes and choosing which one,

like what am I gonna do? I'm gonna be right here again next year, what fucking joke am I gonna tell? So you can win a head cover. Or a bag, I don't care about the prize, you know, it's all. And so then you came in the next year, do you remember, was it the monkey joke? Was that the one that you told?

The gorilla. The told? The gorilla? The gorilla? The gorilla extractor? That was to me your coup de gras. That was your apex of your career. That's the first one that I won. That fucking joke destroys. Is there somewhere people can see you'd tell it?

I don't think so. No. Cause I was gonna make a documentary about it. Yeah. Cause like I've studied them and I want to, the goal was to study them and then write the greatest one of all time. Yeah. But someone kind of already did that.

Well there was the aristocrats. Well the aristocrats to me, and forgive me, Paul Prevents, I think it was his thing. I was like, if you're gonna make a movie where everybody's telling the same joke, get a better fucking joke. Pick a really great joke, the gorilla joke. There's a handful. Death by Booga Booga.

Yeah. I mean, it was great. It was really cool and innovative and all that. But I'm like, I wanna hear a different joke than that one. But so no, all that. But I'm like, I wanna hear a different joke than that one. Yeah. But so no, not that, but it never, I don't think it ever got made or made its way out there, but a guy, I think his name was Ron Shock. Yeah, Ron Shock.

Was a comic from Florida. Naturally. Who studied the joke jokes and tried to write the best one ever. And I think he did it. And so I was just kind of dead in my tracks. Really? Yeah, it's the lion chasing the rabbit.

Oh. Tell it. The lion chasing a rabbit. Rabbit runs through a hollowed out old log. Lion tries to go in after him, he gets his head stuck. He can't get out. So now his ass is sticking up in the air. A gorilla comes along, climbs up on top of him

and fucks him in the ass for 15 solid minutes. Yeah, yeah. He finishes up, he climbs off, and he's like, man, this lion's gonna be pissed whenever he gets out of there. So he takes off into the woods, comes to a clearing, there's a house, and he walks up to the porch, he sees there's a cigar and an ashtray,

pair of sunglasses, a robe, some slippers, and an ashtray pair of sunglasses a robe some slippers and a newspaper so he puts on the robe and slippers and sunglasses and lights the cigar and starts reading the paper few minutes later the lion comes running up and he goes I'm looking for a big black gorilla and the gorilla goes is it the gorilla that just fucked you in the ass for 15 minutes and the lion says it's already in the paper. It's the perfect joke. It's so good. It's so good. Because it's always an animal getting fucked in the ass in the woods. It's like its own genre of jokes. You know there's the hunter that goes into the woods. Oh yeah. Right? And he shoots at a bear and misses and the bear runs over and knocks the gun out of the

guy's hand and fucks him up the ass. And so the guy's holding his ass, he crawls out of the woods and he comes back the next day. And this time he's got on camo and he's walking quieter, takes a shot at the bear, misses. Bear runs over, knocks him down, pulls his pants down, fucks him up the ass. The guy is now bleeding down his legs, he's pulling himself out of the woods. Comes back the next day, this time he's got the wide brim camouflage hat, he's got the special shoes, combat shoes, and he gets up and he's trying to find the bear.

He's looking in the woods and then the bear taps him on the shoulder. And the guy looks over and the bear goes, this isn't about hunting, is it? Okay, that's a perfect example. That's a fucking great joke. And I don't know what you put in or what you didn't, but like his escalating levels of camouflage and gear. I just made that up. That's a fucking great joke. And I don't know what you put in or what you didn't, but like his escalating levels of camouflage and gear.

I just made that up. You just did that now? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, well that's the beauty of it. Cause that's a great addition. Yeah, well cause once you know the joke, you can be adding shit in. Yeah, you keep tweaking it.

Because especially since you and I are used to going up and if we're in the city, we're doing 15 minutes. If we're on the road, we're doing an hour. And now you're doing one to two minutes. So you wanna beef up the joke with as much as you can get into it. Bring them in, yeah. Yeah, wait, can you tell the gorilla joke?

The gorilla joke, okay, so a guy comes home from work. He goes upstairs, he's changing out of his work clothes, and he hears a noise outside the window he's on. The second floor, he's like, what could that be's like what could that be yeah he keeps getting dressed and he hears it again and he goes over and he pulls up the blind and there's a gorilla in the tree right outside his window he's like holy shit there's a gorilla in my tree he runs to the phone book he flips to the G's and he finds gorilla extraction calls a calls a number. Gorilla extraction.

Calls a number. Not even animal extraction. Gorilla. Specifically gorilla extraction. Gorilla extraction. Yeah, yeah. Which is, I shouldn't do this in the middle of the joke, but that's one of my favorite things about these jokes,

is what everyone is willing to accept when you start teleguiding. Everyone goes, okay, yeah, yeah. There's two nuns and a rabbi and a priest and a giraffe are on a boat. Yeah, okay, then what? Like I just fucking love that. So he flips to the G's, he finds gorilla extraction,

he calls a number. The guy says, what seems to be the problem? He says, I got a gorilla in my tree. The guy says, give me the address, I'll be right over. He's all right. A few minutes later, he opens the door, or doorbell, knock at the door. Opens the door, the guy's standing there,

and he's got, I gotta remember everything that he's got. He's got a two by a four, a shotgun, a pair of handcuffs, and a Mexican hairless chihuahua. And he goes, all right, where's the gorilla? And the guy says, whoa, whoa, whoa. First you gotta tell me what all this stuff is for. What are you gonna do? He says, well, I'm gonna climb up in the tree

with the gorilla. He goes, I'm gonna hit him as hard as I can with the two by four. When he falls down on the ground, by natural instinct, the Mexican hairless chihuahua will run over and bite him on the balls. He goes, when he puts his hands down to grab the chihuahua you slap the handcuffs on him and we got him Okay, but what's the shotgun for because if I fall out of the tree before the gorilla you have to shoot the dog

Love that joke for so many reasons. Well, here's what I love about it. Alright, here's one reason why you might love that joke. This guy goes to work every day. He's a grill extractor. So he's got his equipment. He's got the board, he's got the handcuffs, and he's got this cute little hairless tuawa. And in a millisecond, he is ready to have that thing's

brains blown all over the place. He has killed his tongue. Yeah. So it doesn't play back. Yeah, right, right, right. That's the choice he's making. It's just so far removed from reality. Well, it's sort of like a...

But in that realm, you go, okay, okay. It's a cartoon. What's the line, what's the line? Yeah, like I don't care, whatever the setup is. Yep. And that to me is the brilliance of those. Well, that's why we all love the Road Runner. You know, he'd come up with some crazy Acme invention

that was gonna catch the Road Runner. Right, that's right. And it never worked. Yeah, you're right, it's cartoon, it's cartoon land. Right, right. All right, here's the next question. Oh, okay, more questions. Well, look, man, you's cartoon, it's cartoon land. Right, right. All right, here's the next question. Oh, okay, more questions. Well, look, man, you wanted to come on a fucking podcast.

It's all about questions. No judgment, man, I'm just. You know, some comics, they bring you out and they sit barefoot in their goddamn living room with no shirt on. That's not how I do it. And are you talking about anyone specific there? No, no.

Marin? If you were gonna be trans. If I was going to be trans. Say you were a trans person, would you prefer to have been born a man and currently a woman or born a woman and currently a man? I feel like if you were a woman first, you might always wonder what it was like to have a penis. Right.

So I would say maybe that. Yeah. Maybe that way. But I, you know, I can't say. A man, well, although men do wonder about tucking the penis between them. What do you mean, like hiding the cock? Put the lotion in the basket? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that kind of thing, yeah.

It puts the lotion on the chin. The one that cuts the hose again. I don't know, man. That's, who writes your questions? Are these your questions? We got a whole staff. These are tricky. What's the greatest comedy performance

you've ever had in your life? My own? Yeah, when you look back on it, and you just go like, man, that was the night where we were on stage going like, I'm floating on air. This is it. And then getting off and being like, that was the greatest. I've had a lot of shows at the old cellar, still there, the McDougall Street one,

where I've had transcendent moments. And I've had that kind of moment in a few other things that I do have done a lot. Like someday, once in a great, great while, I'll have a day where I'm playing golf and it's just everything is working. And it's like, it's so rare. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But it's like, what, what? Something's just different that day. I've had, I play hockey and I've had moments where I'm playing hockey and I'm like. You're not even thinking. I'm splitting the D and scoring a goal. And it's like it's happening to me. I've had a handful, maybe more than a handful of moments

like that on different stages. But when you asked me that question, the first night that came to mind for me was Patrice O'Neill's roast. Really? Yeah. Was it at the cellar? It was at the old Boston.

Okay. And nobody saw me coming. Oh, that whole crew, the whole everybody. Yeah. And like I'm not even on the promos for it. Uh-huh. But they asked me if I would do it and I immediately started writing.

And then the night of the roast, they kept pushing me back. Uh-huh. And then the night of the roast, they kept pushing me back. And every time they pushed me back, I would drink another beer, and I was getting angrier, but they kept pushing me back. And so I just went up and unloaded on the entire comedy business. Nice.

And it was great. It was like, if Colin Quinn were here, he'd be like, he still brings it up every time I see him. He'd be like, I remember the night you made your bones in this business, Ben Bailey. Cause it was kind of like that. Cause everybody was there and I took them by surprise. And if you're doing well on a roast,

it's like once you nail like your second or third joke, they're all in. Now you've got, unlike standup where you're still living joke to joke a little bit. But once you get them in, you're at it, because jokes, roasts are attitude. And if you can go up there with attitude and they buy it, you could say whatever the fuck you want

and it all comes to you. Then I was genuinely angry by them because they kept bumping me, pushing me back. And then I only did a couple. I think I did Norton's roast at Caroline's maybe a year later or something like that. And then I only did a couple, I think I did Norton's Roast at Caroline's maybe a year later or something like that. And I didn't do any more. But that night stands out as a night

that I was kinda walking on air. And people are like, okay, I kinda showed the New York comedy scene what I can do. And it was cool. And what about, has there ever been a set you didn't finish where you got off stage and you didn't finish the set? Out of the gate, I would say no. I don't think I've ever done that.

But there is one time also at the old Boston Comedy Club where there was no bouncer, you know? It was like, if you're hosting, you're basically managing the club, like on a Wednesday. Yeah, yeah, you're parking on the sidewalk. You gotta open the club, you gotta like, you're basically running the club and the show. And so it was one of those nights,

I wasn't actually hosting, but there was no one in the club but me that actually was like representative of the club. There was like 15 people in the audience. Yeah, no other comics no management The MC was out. It was probably Louis Schaeffer outside trying to bring people in so I was alone in the In the room so to speak other than the audience. Yeah, and this British woman Started like berating me from the crowd. You're not funny. You shouldn't do this started berating me from the crowd. You're not funny, you shouldn't do this. No, no, I'm sorry, but this is not what you should do.

You should find something else. And I go, do you think you could do any better? And she goes, I do. And I go, well, come on up then, lady. And she walked up on the stage and I fucking left. I did not wait around to see how she did. I left and went to the cellar. That's the greatest.

That might be the only one I ever just walked out on. I don't remember who it was. Somebody came, I saw them like hours later at the end of the night. And they were like, dude, what? You just left that woman on the stage. What happened? they were like, dude, what? You just left that woman on the stage? Yeah. What happened?

I'm like, I don't know, I left. She had to stretch. Yeah. Lewis was in the back going like this, J. Moore is not here yet. She was up there. Oh, that's great. Feeling it.

I'm like, she felt what I was feeling. That was my, that's what I wanted to do to her. There was a dude, you ever heard of Frank Santarelli? Oh yeah. Yeah, great comic. I remember Frank. He was on The Sopranos, and anyway, he was the bartender on The Sopranos that Tony used to beat up all the time.

Yeah. And so he was booked to do a bachelor party out in Worcester, Mass, about an hour west of Boston. Yeah. Fucking dilapidated. Worcester. Post-industrial factory town. Everybody's out of work. And then they're Holy Cross.

Yeah. It's the only thing keeping that town going. Clark College and Holy Cross. Oh, Clark, yeah, I did show at Clark too. Yeah. And so he gets booked on a bachelor party and he shows up and there's- That alone is slightly terrifying.

Oh yeah, there's two strippers and he's going on in between the two strippers. What could go wrong? What could go wrong? Oh my God. And so the first stripper goes up, and I mean, she's working ping pong balls, and she's grabbing guys crotches.

She's a real pro. She's a pro, she's down and dirty. She's a- Working the ping pong balls. Yeah. Like shooting them. Working the ping pong balls. Yeah. Like shooting them. Shooting the ping pong balls. I mean she had to go right back to the docks.

You know, there's no docks in Worcester. They had to find docks to bring her back to. And so she finishes and then they bring the guy up. They bring up Frank Santarelli. And I mean he is dying a horrible death and now it becomes funny to these guys to just shit on him, you know? Because you know, it's a dozen buddies.

And so they're shitting on him, there's no sound system, he's standing up there, and he goes, you guys like props? And they're like, uh-huh, uh-huh. Yeah, we, us like props. And he goes, oh, he goes, OK. And his car is right in front. He goes, my car is right there. I got my props in the trunk.

Let me run out and grab my props and I'll be right back. And he fucking gets his car. He gives him the finger and he gets in and he just fucking drives off. No chance. No money. He just get me the fuck out of here. Oh, that's fantastic. Yeah, I heard the other girl closed strong though. Yeah, she finished big.

Yeah, she finished. She did his closer. That's fucking awesome. Yeah, yeah. That reminds me of an unrelated but funny story. A friend of mine hired some guys to like, he bought a house and the floor was dirt in the basement. Yeah. And he hired some guys to like fit, he had a, he bought a house and the floor was dirt in the basement. Yeah.

And he hired some guys to come in and put an actual concrete floor in the basement. And he had to go to work and he came back after one day and it was a fucking mess. Like part of the floor was kind of done. There was like chunks of concrete that were like setting, but not smooth. Like it was a fucking mess

And the guys were gone, right? So the next day is waiting for them to come back. They don't come back day after that. They don't come back Finally calls him gets him on the phone and says what's what's the deal? You guys got to come back and finish the floor What the fuck? And the guys said, okay. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We're coming back today So he comes the guys to come back and he lets him in and they're like we're really sorry we're really sorry man we're gonna make it right and their tools are still in the basement sitting there and and he goes okay okay thank God I thought you guys are gonna leave me high and dry no no no no no he

goes and he gets in the shower and he can see from his window he can see how they go in the basement and they get their tools and they run to their They swore up and down. Dude, me and my brother had a business. My brother's 13 months older than me. We're Irish twins. Right, I think I'm- You met Bobby? I think I met him. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you guys look quite a bit alike, right? He's a very good looking version of me. I should have said better looking version, but a good looking version of me. I think I met him at a party at DC Benny's party or something. He's good friends with DC Benny. A lot of years ago. Yeah, yeah, right. So anyway, he and I go out to Newport, Rhode Island

one summer. Right. And you know, it's one of those things where it's like, I'm in college, he's in college, and we're just gonna go out there and we're gonna work some shitty jobs. And then the summer before- Not comedy, just like working.

No, I wasn't in comedy yet. There's a lot of money in that town. Oh yeah, but the summer before we had been in the Hamptons and this kid lived across the street and he had this business where he had a bunch of kids working for him and he would get all kinds of jobs and he would send these kids out on the jobs and he was like the contractor.

Just doing stuff for rich people. Right, and he didn't do shit. So we said, we're doing that next summer. So me and my brother, we head out, and we got a 76 Volare station wagon, the Slant Six, and we drive up there, and we got shirts and ties, and we go into every real estate office in Newport with our shirts and that, and we're fucking,

yeah, we're cute, we're college kids, we come in. You look alike. We look alike. We're the fucking Bobzies twins. We got the Bob, yeah, we got pitter-patter. We're like the Sklar brothers. And so we sell them all. We got, you know, three color flyers and business cards.

And we really prepped over the winter to do this. And we go in and we sell them. And so we're back at the, and there's no cell phones back then. We got an answering machine and a phone. And we got a desk we set up in the house. We got 17 kids living in a converted horse barn in Newport. So it's chaos.

There's kids everywhere, there's drinking everywhere, and we've got the basement that had skunks in it. And a phone and a desk. And the phone is ringing off the hook. Because in Newport, you go to wealthy places like that, there's no poor people to hire because they can't afford to live there. So if you will do, we said we will do landscaping,

we will do pool cleaning, we'll do housekeeping, we'll drive you to Boston, to the airport, do it all. So we got 17 employees living in our house, right? So we say to them, we'll pay you guys 10 bucks an hour, we're charging 15 bucks an hour, right? Right. Great plan! Ha ha ha!

And all of a sudden the phone's ringing off the hook. Seems pretty good. We got a landscaping job, these two gay guys owned a bed and breakfast, and they had this hedge that ran around an acre of property, and it was about a 15-foot hedge. We got a hedge clipper that's about this long with five indoor extension cords. I got my friend Chris out there on a step stool, teetering.

By the time he would finish the end, it had already grown over in the beginning again. It was like Sisyphus, it was like the myth of Sisyphus, he just kept working on the, and then we had a pool, and my other friend Tommy was supposed to open up the pool, which I don't know if you know anything about pool maintenance, but you gotta shock it, you gotta clean the filters, there's a lot of stuff to get it up and running at the beginning of summer. Depending on how well they did when they closed the pool. They did shit, they left the water in. Then There's a lot of stuff to get it up and running at the beginning of the summer. There's a lot to do, depending on how well they did

when they closed the pool. They did shit. They left the water in. Then you have a lot to do. So I actually had a pool cleaning company myself. No, you did it. Really? When I was like 15, yeah.

We could have used you that summer. Well, I didn't know much then either. I was a mess. Now I know, because I have a pool and I do it myself. We get hired on Memorial Day. And every few days my brother goes by and it's just mold and it's slime. And it goes by the 4th of July, it's still not open.

And now the guy, Mr. Schindelman starts, no, Dr. Schindelman started suing us. And he sued us all summer. And we kept like dodging out of paperwork. And then I had sealed, and it got to the point where none of our friends were working for us anymore because they were all fucking drunks and they didn't care, you know?

They got waitering jobs or whatever. They're like, you guys give us hardly any hours and there's shit jobs. So now all of a sudden me and my brother are getting in the Velare and we're going out to do the jobs. I'm cleaning toilets. It's not the summer I pictured.

And then this woman hired us to seal her driveway. I'm cleaning toilets. It's not the summer I pictured. Right. And then this woman hired us to seal her driveway. So I don't know if you about sealing a driveway, but you know, you put it. That I haven't done. You put a layer over the asphalt, it seals the asphalt. It's a black coating stuff. Yeah.

You got a few more years out of it. Yeah. Before you have to redo it. Yes, because it keeps, you seal the cracks. So I go off to the hardware store and I get this big tub of sealant and I put it all on, I mop it all, I got a broom and I'm pushing it around

and it looks good and the lady pays me. And then it rains the next day and all of the sealant came right, oh I put the wrong sealant on, and it ran into this Japanese garden and it killed like $10,000 worth of expensive plants. And so she sued us. And so by the end of the summer, by late August,

we had so many lawsuits and so many people we owed money to that we just, we packed up the lawnmower and the hedge clipper into the back of the car. Middle of the night, just fucking got out of Newport. And we called ourselves SureThing Home Services. S-H-O-R-E. Yes. With SureThing.

You get marketing, you get marketing. It's funny man, because I started a pool cleaning business when I was like 15 and I only got one customer. But I would like open their pool for them and close it for them, they're my neighbors. And then they would let me swim in the pool. Nice. So it was awesome.

Wow. I did that for a couple of years with them. Yeah, you gotta shock it? Yeah, well, it depends. If you close it right, then the water's gonna be clean still when you open it up. Yeah.

You know? Because you gotta, you put some stuff in it, you make sure there's no organic material in the water. If there is, and there's any amount of sunlight getting through, it's gonna be a disaster in the spring. But if your cover is impervious and you don't leave any leaves or anything in it, it'll be a piece of cake. You basically open it and turn on the filter and put some chlorine in and you know check your levels. It's pretty simple if you do it right when you're closing.

If you don't, it's an absolute nightmare. Yeah my brother-in-law, my sister's husband, they have a next door neighbor who has a pool and he empties it at the end of the summer. And then at the beginning of the new year, my brother-in-law is kind of, he's a construction guy, but everything is, stuff falls off the back of the truck. Like he brings stuff home that fell off the back of a truck.

And like he- I didn't know that expression was still out in the world there. falls off the back of the truck. Like he brings stuff home that fell off the back of a truck. Right. I didn't know that expression was still out in the world there. I got a set of speakers that way in the mid-80s. Right, right. Fell off the back. Yeah. Yeah. And so what he would do is in the middle of the night,

he would go out to, because the water bill to fill a pool is exorbitant. You got to get a truck. So he got a truck to come in and fill the, sometimes it'll take two trucks depending on how fill a pool is exorbitant. You gotta get a truck. So he get a truck to come in. Right, right. Fill the, sometimes it'll take two trucks depending on how big your pool is. So he goes out in the middle of the night

and he hooks up a hose to the fire hydrant and he fills the pool in the middle of the night. Wow. Yeah. That's balls, man. Yeah, yeah. But they live on a quiet street. Right.

Which happens to be not that far from the fire hydrant. Yeah, I think probably nobody would notice, I guess. Unless their brother-in-law talks about it on a quiet street. Right. Which happens to be not that far from the fire hydrant. Yeah, probably nobody noticed, I guess. Unless their brother-in-law talks about it on a podcast. Well, this was years ago. It was a long time ago. Actually, yeah, the guy moved. He doesn't know the next door neighbors now. So they used, but it was the same deal.

They got to use the pool all summer if Rob took care of the pool. Right, if you open it and keep it going. Yeah, right. I was always starting some kind of business. Yeah. My friends were always making fun of me. I started a house painting business.

You did? Yeah. Did you hire your friends? Called A1 House Painting, because it would be first in the phone book. First in the phone book. And I actually got a job. This guy said, I have two other quotes.

And I go, oh, what were those? Because I had no fucking idea how much to tell him. And I just put my number in between them. He hired me. Wow. And then like a week later I went back and I was like, I don't know how to do this at all. I can't, you should call one of the other guys.

I never paid it out. Although if you are looking. I started the company, I put it in the phone book. Yeah, that's hilarious. I made flyers and handed them out. I got a job and then I just didn't do it. You should've said, by the way, if you know anyone who's looking for a salesman,

I think I am good at that. I think that's what I can do, yeah. Yeah, I started with you. But no, I would've frowned on that. I don't wanna be a salesman. Dude, we were entrepreneurs. When it snowed out in the winter, we were up. Every other kid was sleigh riding.

We were fucking going door to door with shovels. Shoveling the snow. Good morning in the day. 20 bucks a driveway. Yeah. For the big ones, $10 for the small driveways. And then in the fall, we would rake leaves for people. Yep.

And we would charge by the bag. Ooh, that's smart. Well, it was very smart because we would just- Like a lunch bag? We would just fill that. We put about eight handfuls of leaves into a bag, close it up, and so we did this guy, Mr. Schaefer's lawn one day, and we fill it all up,

and there's a big pile of bags, 25 cents a bag we were getting. So we had about 20 bags, and then the wind kicked up, and the bags just started rolling down. I hadn't even counted them yet. But they had a very little amount of waves each. They had no weight. They had no weight.

That's hilarious. I went on this trip one time, some friends and I were like, we're going to go up to Canada to go camping. Yeah. And so we drive all the way to this place up in Canada. It takes way longer than we thought. And it's just like a, you know, one disaster after another this trip.

Like it's a mess. We get there so late that the only camping slot that they have left is right next to the highway. So we drove like 12 and a half hours into Canada to camp right next to a road. That's great. And so then we go up to this little house where they're selling stuff and they're like,

it says all the firewood you can carry, $3. So we're like, well, I guess we'll get all. So my friend and I, another pretty big guy, we load up, we got like a half of their wood in our hands. And the girl goes, no, no, it's all the firewood you can carry in this she holds up this like little like strap we're like dropped all the wood like fuck that's hilarious

then you go to the all you can eat place no on this plate yeah you can eat on this plate dude that oh can eat on this plate. Dude, that, oh, what's the name of that movie? That gag is in this crazy movie. I think you and I talked about it once. It's like this horror film comedy from the 80s. It's so weird, it's so bizarre. Weird science?

No, no, like a much more obscure one. It might be earlier, it might be 70s. The only thing I remember about the movie is that there's a part where six cheerleaders get impaled by a javelin. At a track and field event. It sounds familiar. And it's a crazy movie, but one of them is like,

all you can eat for a dollar. And they bring out this huge plate of food and the guy takes one bite and they're like, that's all you can eat for a dollar. And they take it back. Oh, what is that movie? That's like one of those. That's like, Kevin Meaney used to have this joke.

He's like, you know, you go to an all you can eat buffet. You're not supposed to eat all you can eat. Right, right and then, what's his name? John Panett. John Panett. Yeah. You've been here four hours. Yeah. You leave now.

Yeah, you don't eat no more. That's hilarious fucking bit. Oh, I wish I could remember the name of that movie. Well. That's super obscure, that one. Yeah, I'll figure it out. You know, I just watched Repo Man with my kids. I have seen it in college. Oh, no way.

I hadn't seen it since college. Wow. What a fucking movie. It's Emilio Estevez? Emilio Estevez. Who else is in that? I haven't seen it since it was like on cable in 1985. It's got, hold on, I'll look it up. Emilio Estevez.

Jonathan's mouthing someone's name. He's not allowed to talk. Repo man. Repo man. Repo man. Yeah, I think another Brad Packer was in that. Yeah, it's a good movie. Yeah, it's a great movie. All right, one more question.

Did Tarantino have anything to do with that movie? It seems like it, it feels like a Tarantino movie, or almost like. But it didn't have anything to do with it? No, I don't think so. I thought it had something to do with that movie for some reason. All right.

What have you turned down recently? Career wise? Yeah. Like... Could be anything, no, could be personal. Okay, what have I turned down? Since the pandemic, this is a question not a lot of people have answered.

Nothing, I took everything. I mean, I've turned down some standup gigs. You have. Yeah. I had an agent who, he was actually pretty smart in one way that he was like, all right, it looks like you go out and do Friday, Saturday. He goes, I want to bookend your stuff,

so I'll book you on Thursday and Sunday. So you fly in on one end, and you travel a little bit in between. It was really good, actually really smart. But the places that he would book me in, in order to fill those, like he would take any fucking, so I've turned down a couple gigs that looked like those.

Yeah, I just got one where I'm working in Pittsburgh and then my agent's like, hey, I got you something to bookend it. I was like, okay, great. I'm thinking, you know, EREPA, Toronto. I'm like, what? Toronto? You're like.

And then. That's like really far. And then he emails me yesterday, he's like, hey, I got something to book in the Toronto gig and it's another one in another part of Canada. I'm like, and then the election happened, I was like, yeah, get me the fuck out of this country.

I'll go to Canada. I'll go to Hungaria right now. You're like, am I flying private? That's an 11 hour drive. You want me to drive 11 hours and then do a standup show? Are you out of your fucking mind? But I'm taking it, I'm taking it. I mean, you know, you gotta get out there.

It's like- You do, yeah. I go through periods where I just wanna work. I wanna like, I got a new hour, cause I just did, I also just did a new hour. And so like- Nice, congrats man. Thanks man, so I'm building a new hour as I'm sure you are. Yeah, I'm like three quarters of the way through cause it's, I had the old one for so long. Yeah, same with me. Without doing it, so I'm building the new hours, I'm sure you are. Yeah, I'm like three quarters of the way through because I had the old one for so long.

Yeah, same with me. Without doing it, so I could like tape another one next week almost. But it feels good to be out doing the new shit, doesn't it? To be doing new material that I really like is there's not a better feeling in comedy than that, I think. Until somebody yells out, do the windbreaker bit. That happens, it swoops on.

Do you get that? Do people wanna? It's always flattering, but you're like, I'm like, I don't even remember that fucking thing. Well, mine aren't like big epic pieces like yours. Mine are more like, not summer stories, but it's more standalone joke. Right, you have chunks of one boom, boom, boom, boom,

one after the other. Yeah, whereas you're like a great storyteller, or a great joke teller. Well, thank you. I like to do, it's kind of like, have you ever, so you do interviews, right? And people say to you like, how would you describe your Oh, God.

Standup, it's the worst question. I'm like, I don't know. I'm seeing it from the inside, I don't know. So like, how do you answer that? I always say I'm a guy that, because of what I look like, get away with saying, heinous shit. That's a fantastic answer. I like to say, a friend of mine called my stuff

surreal observational. Yeah. And I was like, okay, that's kind of cool. Yeah. Someone else likened it to the far side, which was a huge, huge compliment to me. Like the comic strip, the far side, because that was my favorite shit ever. That was my go to gift for birthdays and Christmas for 10 years of my life. Everybody got me far side calendars and books

and all that stuff. Cause I loved it. So that was flattering. But I never know how to, yeah, Gary Larson. I never know how to classify it. I would say, you know, I would say you're like a, you're like a weirder Brian Regan. Like you have a Brian Regan way of like,

you know, your presence on stage is kinda like his, like you're very much like inviting people to play with your ideas, kind of. Yeah. Oh, that's flattering, thanks man. Yeah, I don't mean it, I never know. No, no, you're like, I hate Regan, he's the worst. I hate him.

If I could remove one person from the history of this fucking business, it would be him and you. I said you're inviting people to play. I didn't say they want to. I didn't say they showed up for the play date. Well, I'm sorry that I took it as a compliment, Greg. That's such a comedian thing. But it's true though.

And I wouldn't have put those same words to my own description of what I do. But you're right, it's playful. It's like, hey, you've come to this silly, and that way it's kind of like joke jokes, that it's like ridiculous sort of realm, let's all go there together, and then we can do whatever the fuck we want.

We don't have to play by the rules of this reality or whatever. They just had a contest in England where they tried to find the best joke in the world. Did you hear about this? I heard, I did. So they took submissions for like five years. I can't believe the joke.

And people voted online, they submitted online, it was all computer generated. And do you wanna know what the winning joke? I think I do, but- I think it's a good joke. I actually like the joke. Guy goes to the doctor's office, gets a checkup. Doctor comes in, he goes out to look at the test,

he comes in, he goes, it's not good. And the guy goes, well, how bad is it? The doctor goes, it's real bad. And the guy's like, well, how much time do I have left? And the doctor goes, 10, and he goes, years, months? And the doctor goes, nine, eight, seven. That's a great joke. That's a great joke, I love it.

Yeah, I thought I'd be disappointed because it was done by a computer, and because it's done by the Brits. The computer wrote that or chose that? No, it chose, well, the people chose it people chose it like you know you log into the website you upload a joke and it's a forum. Nine. Here's the key to telling that joke is people will get it if you say how much time do I have left and he says 10 and then you go what months you months? You just gotta be like, 10, what, months? Because if you give him that second to put it together,

they'll know he's gonna say nine, eight, seven. Right, yeah, you don't wanna give him a chance. You gotta clip it. To catch up, yeah. Yeah. All right, last question. Final, this is the final question. Final question.

I'm gonna go double or nothing. What's the hackiest bit you've ever done? The hackiest bit I've ever done, okay. Fierce competition for that. Maybe we should start a website for this. Ben Bailey's hackiest bit. Thousands of people writing in. When I started I was hacky,

but I didn't really understand that I was. Well you're from Jersey. Well, and we're actually talking about this on Burt's thing. By the time I was doing stand-up comedy, I started when I was 22. I had already been a funny guy getting laughs with my friends and family and doing stuff that I thought of as my funny stuff that I do, but some of it was actually stuff I had heard comedians do when I was like in middle school. You know?

So, I mean, I had a bit about what number did you dial, which I thought was this great bit of mine, but then it was like, Bill Hicks did that. Yeah. But I didn't really, you know, if someone called, if you call the wrong number and they say, what number did you dial? What number did you dial?

You're like, well, the phone rang at your house, right? So like I did that for a long time and then kind of figured out like, oh, that's Bill Hicks did this. I saw him do it when I was 12 and I can't do that. And I did a thing with a Jake Joe Hanson bit about- Well, so did Ellen for her whole career. Oh, really? Oh, Jesus. She for her whole career. Oh, really?

Oh, Jesus. She stole his whole persona. Oh, God. Oh, God, yeah. I loved him when I was, when she had the long hair. And I've talked to him about this too. And he was so gracious about it. He was like, dude, forget it.

Cause I don't like to be, I want to set things right if I can. And when I, you know. But I also, this is interesting because I also had my dad telling me like, no, no, you do whatever it's your take. You do whatever you want. Yeah, you go up. How it used to be.

It's how it used to be. Yeah. And I would argue with him and he would convince me and the Zach. But, you know, if I'm being totally honest, I knew I was just I was doing whatever I could to get laughs. So it's probably that. What number did you dial? Yeah, yeah, that's funny.

Or it was a nicotine gum bit, I think, of Jake's. Oh, what's that? I weaned myself off the gum with these things called camel lights. It was a great little flip, you know? Well, I was kind of deluded about the fact that it was his bit and I was doing it. My first standup was other people.

I was at a high school talent show and I did a Cosby bit and I did, and then I did my own stuff, but I closed it out with a Cosby bit. Right. About the dentist. It was like, fuck it, these kids have never heard this bit. Right, and that, and like,

if you're in a situation where maybe you're not, things aren't going that well, or you're nervous or whatever, I would kind of fall back on some stuff that wasn't my writing, but was something that I knew was gonna get a laugh. I had gotten laughs with it, not on a stage necessarily, but many, many times before.

It's funny, I was in, I did the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Did you ever do that? No. It's pretty crazy. It's a month, right? It's a month. One man show every night, an hour, just you.

No host, no nothing. And then you gotta promote it all day, right? Yeah. So it was going well. I was doing well. I was getting a crowd every night. 120, my little room held or something. I was getting good reviews.

And then I'm walking. I had to climb the fucking mountain to get to my gig. I had to walk like two miles up, basically up a mountain, stairs, some of it, you know. And I walk into the gig, and there's a guy walking next to me, and I'm like, keep kind of glancing to my side. I look over and I see that it's Rich Hall,

who I just loved. I thought he was just so hilarious. I still do. Yeah, and he did that festival every year. He was Rich Hall, who I just loved. I thought he was just so hilarious. I still do. Yeah, and he did that festival every year. He was always there. He's just such a great guy. And I said, oh, hey, Rich Hall, I'm Ben Bailey. And he goes, I know, I'm coming to your show.

Oh, nice. And I was like, I got so fucking nervous that I went back to doing some hacky shit. And I still to this day, I'm like, oh man, if I could go back and just do what was my real stuff. But I so was, wanted to impress him. And I just like reverted to some hacky shit. And he just was looking at me like,

why are you getting noticed here? No, anytime David Tell comes into the back of the Comedy Cell when I'm on, I'm just like, why are you getting noticed here? You know? Yeah, no, anytime David Tell comes into the back of the comedy cell when I'm on, I'm just like, I immediately turn into like, just the worst version of myself. Dude, I looked down at Caroline's one weekend and Peter Boyle was sitting in the front row. And I'm like, holy shit, it's fucking Peter Boyle.

I'm gonna make, I have to make this guy laugh. You know? I'm just immediately seeing putting on the writs from young Frankenstein. And same thing, I got nervous. I didn't go hacky, but I just did like a whole bunch of shit jokes. And then I talked to him afterward.

He came into the green room. And he goes, you're a funny man, Ben. And you know a lot about shit. That's great. And I laughed hysterically. You should have had him sign something that said that. Well, dude, so then we talked for a little like it eventually it dawned on me that he had come to see me. Yeah. Which is like mind blowing at that. Like what? Okay. And I was so flattered and so pumped by that.

And do you know Buddy Fitzpatrick? Yeah, of course. So Buddy was opening. And so the two of us were in the green room when he came back and we sat and talked with him for 15 minutes. He told us all, he was such a great guy. He told us all about shooting young Frankenstein

and how everybody hated him on the set because they all had these long monologues to learn and memorize and really sell. And all they ever had to do was go, Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr and making him take a picture like that. Right, yeah, he just does that with everyone, yeah. But he said a funny thing about that, one more, I know we gotta wrap up, but Gene Hackman in Young Frankenstein is so good. And a lot of times you say that and people are like,

you mean Gene Wilder? I'm like, no, I mean Gene Hackman plays the blind old man, which is like one of the best scenes in the movie. Hackman didn't get paid. It was supposed to take a half a day. They'll just come out, we'll shoot it in half a day and you'll be done. Took three days to get it. Wow. He didn't get paid. Oh, that's wild.

And he improvised the, uh, I was going to make espresso. At the very last line of it. Oh, really? Yeah, he threw that in himself. And was that before Blazing Saddles or after? Because he had a nice role in Blazing Saddles. Oh, I threw that at himself. And was that before Blazing Saddles or after? Cause he had a nice role in Blazing Saddles. Oh, I think that's before.

And High Anxiety was definitely after that. Oh, I gotta re-watch some of those. He was great in High Anxiety. You can't find, they're hard to find. I know. You can't find Young Frankenstein anywhere. One night, I got on a plane to come out here and it was like, as soon as we took off,

I turned on the little TV and the, you know, young Frankenstein starting. I was like, oh shit. I'm like, let me get a, I ordered a beer. And I'm like, woohoo! I laughed all the way. And then the pilot starts trying to sell you a fucking credit card.

You're like, this is the best part, shut up! God, I can't take that shit. All right, listen, if you go to the real Ben Bailey, you can find out how to get tickets to Ben's shows in St. Louis, where Beth Hoops lives. That's right. At a festival.

That's part of the festival. Oh, the Flyover Festival. Flyover Fest, yeah. Then he'll be in Pittsburgh, not Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Kansas, which is, I would imagine, some kind of a bookend on another. Wichita, Kansas, Detroit, Michigan, Holland, Michigan, or is that the same place?

No, that's the Sunday night bookend at a nice theater in Holland, Michigan. It's out toward Grand Rapids. And again, the real Ben Bailey, one of the best comics working in the country. I always love watching. You're just a heavy hitter every time. Dude, thank you so much.

And don't forget, the special is out now. It's called Please Tell Me What I Did. It's on YouTube. Please Tell Me What I Said. Please Tell Me What I Said. Yeah, sorry, I didn't correct you. Oh, that's better. I was thinking, when you're telling me what I did, it doesn't make sense.

Please tell me what I did. It's all about my struggle with memory loss. That's on Ben Bailey comedy is my YouTube channel. That's the only place you can watch it. Oh really? Yeah. Okay. And it's a freebie.

So go check it out. Beautiful. Like it, share it, please. Dude, thanks man. This is awesome. Thanks for having me. Thanks for coming by. You bet.

All right. Continued good luck and success and good stories. Yes, I can't wait to see you at the next golf tournament. I'm gonna be planning all year for it. Dude, I already know which joke I'm gonna do. I know, you're gonna steal my joke about the doctor. 10, nine. All right, thanks man.

Thank you, buddy. Did you know that more than 50% of food waste in Toronto homes is avoidable? By cutting down on food waste, you can help protect the environment and save money. Simple actions like planning your meals, storing food correctly, and using everything you purchase make a big difference. Learn how to make every bite count at toronto.ca slash food waste.