Fitzdog Radio - Dana Gould - Episode 1115

Episode Date: November 5, 2025

One of the greats, my pal Dana Gould talks about or gay old days in San Francisco. Tempo is offering my listeners 60% OFF your first box! ⁠http://TempoMeals.com/FITZDOG⁠ Follow Dana Gould on Instagram ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@danagould Watch my special "You Know Me" on YouTube! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bit.ly/FitzYouKnowMe⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@GREGFITZSHOW⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Instagram ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@GREGFITZSIMMONS⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠FITZDOG.COM⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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19 plus Ontario only. Please play responsibly. Concerned by your gambling or that if someone close, you call 1866-3-3-1-2-60 or visit comixonterio.ca. Welcome to Fitzdog Radio. I am your host who's a little bit drugged up right now. I got knee surgery this morning. No big deal. Thank you. Thank you for reaching out.

Now, I had a torn meniscus and they went in arthroscopically. I had to get up at 5 o'clock in the morning and get there, and they drug me up, cut me up, and gave me some painkillers, which I'm on right now. So this is going to be a short intro, if I can even stay conscious. And here's the best part is I went under, and all I'm thinking before I went under is, All right. Make sure you ask them about physical therapy later. Ask them. I woke up, and apparently the first thing I said was, did I fart? Did I fart at all? That was my concern. Yeah. Apparently, I didn't. But I had the night before, so I was thinking about it. But yeah, so I'll be up and running. Tomorrow I'll be on an exercise bike for 10 minutes, no resistance. And I'm supposed to add to. minutes every day until I hit 30 minutes and then I can start doing fucking squats, baby. Get

back. Get my ass back. Obviously, it was a big day here. This weekend, we won the World Series. Just so great. Look, I'm not going to lie to you. I don't sit around watching Dodgers games year round, I've always been a postseason everything. Football is the only thing I really watch all season. But otherwise, postseason, so exciting, such a great team. And just, you know, being in L.A. when it happened, I had three shows on Saturday night. And so I got to my first show and the game was in the ninth inning when I went on stage. And then I got off stage and it had gone to.

to extra innings, and then I got to my next show, and we were down, and then I got to my final show, and I was actually had, I had like a half an hour before I went on where I watched the thrilling conclusion. It was so great. I was at the comedy store, and there's this patio out front on sunset, and it was hundreds of people packed around this TV set, and went bananas, and, yeah, it was great. It was a great weekend for, um, For sports in L.A., we won the Chargers won, the Rams won, the Ducks won in hockey. We won the fucking World Series. And, you know, and again, like, I'm from New York.

I grew up a Giants, Mets fan, and, but I'm, I've been here 25 years. I'm not, I'm not the guy that's going to stay a Giants fan when they only telecast two Giants game a season. No, I'm going to watch the team. I get to watch. I'm going to be a fan of the team that's on every Sunday. So, yeah, all right, we'll get through this. Let's get through this. I also, big shout out to Best Buddies, which is the group I work with. They help people with intellectual disabilities. Donate money there. If you have some at the end of the year, best buddies.org. I did a lot of fundraising for them this year to the

point where I was a champion candidate, which means, well, we did our best buddy's benefit show last Sunday. I can't remember if I, I must talk to you guys after that. But then we had a gala event on Wednesday night where they honor the top 10 fundraisers, and I was one of them. And so we went and Annie Letterman came out. My buddy, the guy that I mentor, the comedian that I, help who's a buddy he was there with his family and uh chris tennie and it was just a great night it was a great night and it was just funny seeing like the celebrities that have emerged from love on the spectrum like because there was a lot of there's a lot of people with disabilities that were there um but some of them get up and speak and they were on love on the spectrum and like

the place goes bananas and uh you know and you know if you watch the show it's an amazing show. You have to watch it. Some of the big names from that were there. It was very, it was very cute. And then there's a woman named Franny Shinebeck, I think her name was, but she calls herself Flava Fran. And she has Asperger's and she is a rapper. She calls herself the rapping Jew. And she got up and she did a rap. And I talked to her after the show for a long time and she was just so fucking funny like really funny and sharp and she was making some some dark I won't repeat the dark joke she was making but I was I was uh really glad to meet her and we've been DMing each other I'm gonna try to get her on stage doing stand-up at some

point um what else uh I had a whole bunch of like bits I was going to try to do but I'm gonna save him for next week because I can I don't feel it I feel like I need to sit in front of the TV. All right. So dates coming up this weekend. I'll be fine. I'll be 100% in Chicago at the Den Theater on November 8th. Appleton, Wisconsin at Skyline Comedy Club November 9th.

Lafayette, Louisiana, Club 337 on November 12th. Then I'll be in Skankfest that week. Phoenix coming up. San Francisco, Hasbrook Heights, New Jersey, Cleveland, in Atlanta. Go to Fitzdog.com, get some tickets, come out, see some live comedy. Also, the holidays are coming up. And I like to think that I give you guys some good leads on things. But this particular Christmas, I want to talk about a company that is called Uncommon Goods. And it's basically a lot of handcrafted, independently owned. It's, you know, like little artists that make stuff that's one of a

kind where you buy a gift for a family member where they're not going to it's not from Banana Republic they know you thought about them you got them something very specific um they have these bound books that give the history of different sports teams and my brother-in-law is a Jets fanatic so i got him this Jets book and they engrave it with his name and it makes them feel you know they remember you which you know that I'm so tired of giving disposable gifts so So they got all different categories of stuff. If you are a foodie, if you are a mixologist, I mean, moms, dads, kids, everything, book lovers. They got stuff for everybody.

But because it is limited supplies, because these are from artists, you should get on it sooner than later. I got something really nice for my daughter that I'll talk about later. because I think she's in the next room. I don't know if she can hear me. So anyway, Uncommon Goods also gives back a dollar to a nonprofit partner of your choice. When you buy something, they've donated more than $3 million to date. So you can feel good about that as well. Don't get pushed into that last minute thing where you're rushed and you're just buying gift starts to feel like it's a to-do list,

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Uncommon goods. We're all out of the ordnation. Okay. Let's get to it. My guest this week is a guy that, you know, he hails from Boston like me. And I think there's a certain brotherhood when you started comedy in the same town, especially when it's Boston at the time when we started. And he is just truly, he's a comics comic. I don't mean that to sound like he's not a club comic. He's both. He's a guy that, you know, has been doing it for, God, longer than I have. And, you know, HBO specials, comedy central specials, he was a writer for The Simpsons for a long time and created a show called Stan Against Evil on IFC, which I loved. But just really a guy that I respect so much. I always so happy to have him back on the show. He's a dear friend, and we had a really good talk last week. So here he is, Mr. Dana Gould.

My guest right now is the incomparable, always funny, sad man, Dana Gold. How are you? Good. You have to excuse me, Eddie Pepitone just was here. here two hours ago. So I'm dark. I'm dark right now. Somebody said to me, like,

pull that mic a little closer. Somebody said to me on a, a comment on something, thank you for starting your HBO special with, hello, I'm Dana Gould and I'm in a lot of pain that helped me a great deal. And I don't remember that.

And I'm just like, oh, okay. Like, it's like when I do, Maron's podcast. I did Marron and he was like, you and Maria Bamford are really the two that like openly dealt with mental health issues. Right. And kind of beat it.

And I'm like, what? Beat it? But I didn't realize like it was that. I just thought everybody was like that. Yeah, no, it was, I was, I didn't know I was that singular. I'll put it that way. Well, you are, but I'm trying. I want to think of like, I mean. I think of myself as somewhat normal now. Well, now you're doing

a lot of politics, which is a regular guy with three nipples. Right. Like Christopher Lee and the band of the Golding. I'm just a regular guy with a monkey talk show. What's up with you, Greg? Yeah, the monkey talk show. I think I saw the incarnation of that. I think the first time you did it, we were going up to San Francisco. Yeah, that's what it was. To do sketch fest. And you had it. And you were very nervous. about what is this going to work and yeah so explain what that is to people okay for that i have this thing it's a it's not a side it's like a side career no it's just a hobby it's like golf i don't like you know it's like it's people paint you know you have people like stephen king is in a terrible garage band called the rock bottom remainder oh i didn't know that he and or like

other people like Kormick McCarthy painted. Like it's just my hobby is creative and we had this idea a hundred years ago I had this idea when I was writing on the Ben Stiller show for the Dumont Network

to do Planet of the Apes the musical as a sketch. Yeah. And it was just a commercial for it like when Rent comes to the Amundsen and they have the commercial and it would have been easy to shoot and because I wanted to

get in the makeup because I was a fan of the movies and I knew Ben was a fan of the movie so sketch would get made. We got canceled before we could do it. The other sketch was because you have to, if you're going to spend that much money on a sketch, you've got to get some other, you've got to milk it. Right. So there was a second sketch was from the producers of Planet of the Apes the Musical, Dr. Zeyas is Mark Twain tonight and, you know, shoot it at once you get two sketch. Yeah. And then 10, 15 years go by and I was talking to John Hodgman, and it came up in conversation and you went, oh, would you do that on my show at SketchFest?

And I was about to say, no. Wait, do it because you still had the costume? I never had the costume. I never had the costume. You know, Ben Stiller show had a makeup guy. Yeah. But I'm friends with a lot of those people because I'm a monster movie nerd. Yeah.

And I said, I was about to say no. And then I said, let me, give me a minute. Because I did think, I'll tell you the idea. I call Greg Nicotero, who is the executive producer of The Walking Dead. He does all of Quentin Tarantino's makeup in those movies. He does, you know, he's a huge, huge guy, huge makeup effects guy. And I call him up and I was like, this was the conversation. Hey, do you have anybody over there that can do like a movie quality Dr. Zeyas makeup on me in San Francisco?

go like we'll fly them up and put them up and pay them and everything hang on yeah and he'll do it that was it that was it and uh and so i did it and what i thought was this is pretty inside baseball but like i knew when i came out the idea would get a laugh like just the idea but then i thought when they see that it's not just a mask that it's actually exactly what they think of in the movies and I actually know

how to do Mark Twain I'm going to get a much deeper bigger laugh and I literally wanted to see if I was

correct yeah yeah and I was and that was that was really good it was quite an extensive and then I did it

a couple more times in like a political benefit somebody wanted me to do something and then during the pandemic Rob Cohen who was my office part

partner at the Ben Stiller show said, Jill Lieterman's husband. Jill Lieterman's husband. I was with them last night. Yeah. Said, why don't we do this as a talk show during lockdown? Because we were going insane. So we did it like Space Ghost with people on a TV and did it. Oh, great.

Yeah. And that was the origin of that. And now you go all over the country doing it. I do. Yeah. I now have a like a, I now have a very, very expensive mask that I can do that looks like makeup it works like makeup how does the mask travel in a very large uh like equipment case yeah like a like an accordion case you know like a big case yeah um and there's glue and there's paint there's makeup and glue and wigs involved and you do all that yourself i when if i'm filming it i do regular makeup still but if i'm on the road i have that yeah And I don't think you would be able to tell the difference.

So I can tell the difference. Do you get picked up from the hotel wearing the mask and makeup? No, no, no, no. And they say like, when I was in Moon Tower, yeah. Colleen was like, just put the makeup on it. No. Absolutely not.

I'm not walking through a lobby. I'm not walking around Texas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's, and yeah, it's just, it's one of the, I don't know. I mean, I have so many conversations with my manager that begin with him. Like, I tell them what I'm doing and it just starts with, but I, I like that. Like, I like, are you, do you watch the chair company? No.

It's by the guy that did I think you should leave. Oh, okay. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Andy. Yeah. Whatever's name is. He's great. Thank you.

Tim Robinson. Yeah. He's so good. Yeah. And I know that a lot of people look at that and go, ugh, it makes me uncomfortable. Uh-huh. But I love it so much. I love him so much.

Yeah. And it's just I don't mind. Like when Joel Hodgson came up with Mystery Science Theater. Yeah. I was with him when he came up, when he pitched it to Comedy Central. Uh-huh. And he said, like, not everybody will get it. but the right people will get it.

And I've taken that to an obscene degree. Who is the person who gets it? Describe them. Andy Kindler summed it up. My audience is men my age who are me. Yeah. And then you do your regular stand-up, which you hope appeals to more people.

But your audience grows with you, you know. Oh, you're saying you dress. up as this guy and then do your regular stand-up? No, no, no. Then when I do my regular state-up, it's a different thing. It's a bigger audience. Yeah. But it's still, but your audience still stays with you. Right. Like, I love

Elvis Costello. Yeah. And I've moved to L.A. in 1989, and I see Elvis Costello every time he comes to town. Yeah. And it's the same people in the audience. And you see, oh, that guy got fat. Oh, that guy goes, oh, that guy goes, oh, that guy. Oh, he looks good. He must have, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it's just like, it's the same.

audience yeah best alvis costello album mine yeah favorite one uh well there's i think king of america is his greatest album but if you were introducing somebody to him i would give them this year's model yeah this year's model yeah i mean it's it's like a jukebox of great pop songs yeah and all of them just like a line drive yes like no filler on that yeah yeah tight tight hard album you know i saw him the first time I saw him, I saw him in 1985 or six in Boston at the beacon. Yeah.

And they came out. They played the first song. I don't want to go to Chelsea. And then they played 19 other songs and they never said a word and they walked off. Yeah. And I thought that's how you do that.

Yeah. I think the Ramones were the first ones to do that. Yeah. And just like boom. And that is why like even with like I was never one of those people that remember when stand-up was like, I did seven hours.

Like Dane Cook and Dave Chappelle were saying, like, I did the most stand up before infinity. No, do it. Get off at 60 minutes. Exactly. Hit him in the face and leave. I do 50. Yeah. If I'm killing and it's a magic crowd, I'll do 60.

Yeah. But 50 is the right amount. Yeah. I also think Elvis Costello has the best between song patter of any performer. But this was, there was nothing. You know, who was pretty great also. Did you ever see Tom Wait? Oh, yeah, yeah.

Tom Waits is hilarious. Tom Waits is hilarious. I saw him do a show where it was just him and there was dust on the stage. I saw that show, too. And the overhead light. Was that at the Wiltern? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I saw that show. Yeah, the mule variations to her.

Yeah, that was amazing. Yeah, and there was a woman in the front that was like doing hippie dancing. I mean, you're the wrong concert. This is like the audience for the show is like off-duty organ grinders. It's like, just guys, I hope the monkey's okay. Yeah, right, right. Yeah, guys, they put a resume together to work as a carny. Yeah, but I love that.

I mean, I love that era of show business, like the big old blocky microphone or a bullhorn. Yeah. Like, I love, you know, stand up is a gutter art form, you know, and I like to keep it that way. That's why stand up works best where it doesn't below it. long. Stand-up works best in a bookstore. Yeah, right. Or, you know, I mean, you need physical things, a low ceiling and stuff.

But, you know, you get these diamond vision screens and you're working in the enormous, like, these rooms are as, as Drake Sather used to say, you can't see the back of the room because of the curvature of the earth. You know, and it's just like, yeah, no, but these guys that are doing arena shows, and I've done shows with Bert Kreischer, where it's 15,000 people. and you walk on stage and there's a huge screen behind you and you start doing your act and you know you got to give it a little more time for them to all

and then they laugh and then you do another joke and then they laugh and then you go for 15 minutes or whatever you're supposed to do and then you say good night and they cheer and you walk off and you feel like like you're floating like there was no contact at any moment whatsoever I've only the I mean, I've done outdoor shows like festival shows with a lot of people

but I've never done anything like that. And what is in, yeah, I like a golf wait open for Adam Sandler and the last person, the last show in the venue was the who. Yeah. And then it was Adam Sandler.

I don't know how to, how, you know, but I'm, those guys are used to it. I guess it's fine for them. But even at their peak, like Steve Martin, George Carlin, Richard Pryor, who were, to me, like, the biggest, I couldn't imagine being bigger than that. Their peak was like 3,000 people in the theater.

Right, right. You know, that was the most that those guys did. And the ticket prices were reasonable for them. Yeah, there was like 15 bucks. People paying 100 bucks to sit in an arena and watch and act. And, you know, to me, it's like, all right, you think about, like, Eddie Pepitone I was just talking to, and I was like, you know, I was kind of busting his balls. Like, you're one of the best comedians around, and yet you're playing his, his, his, his, his, as I'm playing his dates, it was like the Elks Club in Oregon. I was like, and then you look at why is it that some people can play arenas and some people play the Elks Club and it has almost inverse to do with how good of a comedian you are sometimes.

I'm not knocking Burt. No, Bert's great. Yeah, Bert is great. They're all great. I don't like, I'm not jealous of anybody. I like, God bless. No, I know you're not either. I'm just trying to deconstruct what it is and you think about it as it's not always what's

happening on stage. It's what's happening in the crowd. Yeah. Is there a collective something that happens where people go, this guy makes me feel good or this guy makes me feel like an outlaw or this one makes me. Yeah, I don't know Matt Rife. I've never met Matt Rive. If he walked in here, I probably wouldn't recognize it.

I think that people go to his shows because it's a community thing. Like, we are angry guys that feel aggrieved. And we don't want to have to be polite to people. We miss that. And it's sort of bias confirmation more than a stand-up show. Yeah. And, you know, in terms of the crowds, I always imagine, like, How did Leonard Cohen feel looking at where Kiss was playing?

Right, right, right. Yeah, but I mean, it's like you and Eddie, I think, are similar in the sense that you're very specific in what you do. You're very true to yourselves. And I think that for me, you're the kind of comics I want to see more than anybody else because there's something so raw about it. And yet there's the craftsmanship of having done it for as many years. Yeah, that's the other thing. And I don't know. And you're in this category, too.

It's always great when I see somebody new that really knows how to do it. Yes. And there are people, and they will go nameless, that are young comedians, that I really like, that I'm friends with, that I support. And I look at them and I go, you don't know how to do this. Yeah. But it's okay because the audience doesn't know it. Right. You know, the audience is a different, you know, it's...

You mean they like, the audience likes them. Yeah, the audience is fine. But it's just like, I could see where that joke was. Yeah. And you didn't make the joke. It's like, you had a bowl of flour with an egg in it, and you said it was a cake. But no, it's not. You have what you need to make a cake, but this is not a cake.

And, but people love it anyway. So it's like, you know, more power to you. Yes. But it's really like when you see somebody who comes along, like, you know, I saw this kid. Marcello, he's on SNL now. And I saw him do stand up. And I mean, I think he'd been doing it for four years. And I was just like, fuck you, man.

You can't be this good. But the thing was, he said to me, dude, I love you. I love that special you did. Life on stage, blah, blah. And then the night he knew everybody in the room. Yes, there are students of it. They're students of it. Yeah, I know.

I have met those people, too. you can tell. Yeah. Like, you know how to write a, you know how to structure a joke. You know how to write a joke. Right. And that's, you know, it's so funny making a weird. And now, that's what the song, Who Are You is about.

Oh, yeah? Yeah. It's about when Pete Townsend met the clash. No shit. Yeah. And he, because he met the clash. It got drunk and passed out and was woken out the next day by a cop. Oh, no shit.

And he was like, but thank, you know, thank God somebody out there and knows what this is and is still doing it. Wow. Yeah. That's so funny. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that I would like coming up in Boston, which you do, how much time did you spend as a comic in Boston? A lot. I mean, 82 to 86. Okay. So we were brought up. And then back there every other month. But it was comedy university because it was a closed system. The thing that was unusual about Boston didn't bring in outside headliners. Very multicultural. I'm kidding. Yeah. It looked like somebody spilled a bag of marshmallows. Yeah, and they were all male marshmallows.

Yeah, right. But the comedy that you were exposed to, and you were held accountable for your act in Boston. No kidding. Like you, yeah, and if you stole somebody's joke. You get beat up physically. You get beat up. You know the, you can swear on this. Sure. There was a fight, a fist fight between, I believe.

Correct me. if I'm wrong, Jay Charbonneau and DJ Hazard. Nice. Over this joke. Are you ready? Yeah. Is your funny belt?

Is your hilarity harness tight? Is it just me? Or does E.T. look like a piece of shit? Physical damage. Perpetuated on people. That's great. And there was another one. there was a yeah but it was like you had to be good and if you yeah it god help you if you stole

somebody no there was a guy named kevin nox do i remember noxie do i remember noxie and noxie had this joke that somebody stole from him and he beat him up and the joke was do you know what aides infected dick sucker that was not kevin's oh no that was kevin's and someone stole it someone stole it from and Kevin beat him out. I don't remember the kids saying. And that's the thing, because I've, that was the joke that I was citing the other day. There was stuff in Boston in the 80s

that was comedy that today would just be hate speech. Yeah, right. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Do you know Charbonneau's joke about eight? No. This was a joke. Yeah. Anybody who would rather

stick his dick in shit than a pussy deserves to die. And people are like, ha, yeah. And even at the time, I was like, well, that's harsh. But it was just like, it was such a different world. But it was a different world, but it also had different worlds in it. Like you had Nick's comedy stop. And by the way, I just want to say, I don't necessarily agree with that.

We do not endorse the views held. by Jay Charbonneau. But it had different sections to it. Like, Nick's Comedy Stop was basically, it was run by the mob, and there were... Absolutely. The mob depicted in the movie The Departed. Yes. And the cops would stand in the back, and hookers would come in and out because it was

in the Red Light District. And those were the jokes that got told there. But then across town in Cambridge... The Red Light District, which was called... The Combat Zone. The Combat Zone. I don't know why. Yeah. Because it's actually not the combat zone.

It's actually the affectionate zone. Exactly. Unless you refuse to be affectionate, that is the combat zone. But then across town at Harvard Yard, you've got Catch Rising Star, which is being curated by this guy, Robin Horton. And it's all very esoteric. It's political. It's experimental. It's where David Cross.

Basically, Mr. Show started in this club. With Paul Kislauski. Paul Kislauski. And who else was it? Part of that. Jim DeCrotto. Dave Waterman. Yep.

Jim DeCrotto was a part of that. Laura Kightlinger, maybe. Kittlinger was. Marin was in and out of that. Garofalo was in and out of it. So anyway, it was the opposite of that world. And it was really like one side, really, you know, shit on the other side. Yeah.

And then there were guys like us. I did both. I did both, too. I did both, too. was kind of gone by that time i that was like 87 88 i was already in san francisco okay but i did that when i came down here when jeanine and i got the alternative scene on cabaret yeah and that's kind of started before in cabaret it was big and tall books uh-huh and it was me jeanine colinquin no before call before any of those people me jeanine colin stiller and a couple other people

that was it. Yeah. At big and tall books, Andy Dick and Dino Stampinopoulos. Oh, wow. And that was at Big and Tall. And then Margaret and Moon Zappa was around. That was at Big and Tall books. And then it branched into Uncaburay.

But I was also, and that was in response to the improv, because this was at the time where people forget at the end of the 80s comedy boom. Stand-up comedy was so, people were so exhausted by it that had. Hack stand-up comedians was a sketch on SNL. Remember Tom Hanks and those guys, Here she comes. And there she goes. And it was making fun of Jerry Seinfeld.

Before the show, Seinfeld. It was making fun of that. The suit jacket rolled up to your elbows and the sneakers and everything, the piano tie, everything. And that was like a hackneyed stereotype. that they made fun of on that show. And so we, Janine, it's so funny, this is full circle, Janine and I went to see Elvis Costello

at the Universal Amphitheater, and we were looking at all those people saying, why aren't these people in comedy clubs? And it's because they'd been chased out of comedy clubs with a stick. Right. And so we said, we have to go to where the audience is. The audience isn't coming to us anymore.

So we went into this hipster bookstore and started doing shows, and that was the beginning of it. but at the same time I was hanging out with Kevin Rooney all the time and Kevin Rooney and Bill Maher and Larry David and all those guys

so I went I was the only person in the alt scene quote unquote that did both and you were also going on the road and you were headlining A rooms or by then I was middling for Rooney a lot

really? Yeah and the weird thing is because of that like I belonged to two classes like larry david and billmore and all those guys think that i'm in their class yeah and jeanine and patten and those guys think that i'm in their class and i am socially yeah and age wise but uh i was the only one that went back and forth and when a lot of the guys that started off in the alt scene that kind of got known in the alt scene then they would go on the road and they would

come back with like two black guys yeah no you can't talk about your audition in Cincinnati. They don't care. I know. They don't care. It's interesting because and you know, there's guys that have been,

and some women that were part of that scene that are still fucking going, you know? Well, the person that, the person that took what they, I mean, I absolutely became the comedian that I am today

in that scene. Like I learned how to do what I do. Get personal. Yeah. And, just not talk yeah exactly but the person that really perfected it that went from they were fully formed and they were looking for an outlet and then they found it there and then were able to take it out into the masses without changing a goddamn thing Kathy Griffin yeah right Kathy walked into that

fully formed as Kathy Griffin and it was just was just looking for the right vehicle and then bang and then she took off. Right. Yeah. Well, I think Garoflo, to some extent, too, because, you know, people don't realize Janine was a club comic before she was an alternative comic. She was a successful headlining, like, joke out of Boston comic. Absolutely, yeah.

And then she started hitting these rooms that were a little more esoteric and changed her style and then went back on the road and started doing theaters. The whole thing was her idea. Yeah, was that right? Yeah, me and her and Colin. Yeah. She's great. I love Janine.

Yeah. And still doing it. Yeah. Yeah. She's in New York, banging it out. Yeah. She had one of my favorite jokes. And Janine has one of the most sophisticated senses of humor. Yeah.

You know, like we loved Albert Brooks, but not even like Albert Brooks, like the most obscure bit from one of his albums. Like the weird minor look or thing, like that is the stuff that we would laugh at. And I'll, to this day, if I see her, I'll say, like, the most obscure line from an Albert Brooks album, and she'll break up. She used to have a joke, like, when you do this and people go, the time? No, what bone is this? And that joke's from 1990, and it still makes me laugh. Yeah, it still makes me laugh.

Yeah, I remember she had a joke where she was talking. talking about it's one of those movies where like halfway through Robert Deval has to wake the president she had to think I don't even remember what the joke was but it was it was about the warrant video for the song Cherry Pie

and at one point it invoked the phrase down at Warrant H.Q hilarious all right so let's talk about you now you're writing you're doing what's it called Captain

who's your who's your mask character I am such not a nerd Dr. Dr. Z Hello no yeah I have two I have I have I have

yeah I have Dr. Z but that's my hobby that's my fun and I have my little podcast and stuff that and then uh you're a little podcast it's like a kind of a piece of art like you put more effort into your podcast than anybody does but i feel like it's like bob dillan's radio but for no reason yeah because no one cares but you know no it's completely stolen from theme time radio yeah it's completely stolen from right and and a guy named uh jo frank who passed okay joe frank had a show on

NPR here in L.A. in the early 90s called In the Dark. And it was on Sunday mornings. And everybody listened to In the Dark. And he would use these sound loops, just like, not just like music. And he has his very hypnotic voice and he would tell a story about five men that had been working and sales. And they felt, and they started to decide that they were going to climb on Everest. And they, and then it's, and then it's like, and he's.

goes and it is fascinating and you just you're listening and then like you know four days into the trip you know mike and call realized they couldn't go on stopped at the place and opened up a small gift shop and then it would just slowly unravel and he's like brilliant like so brilliant and so great so it's just him narrating and then different sound effects and yeah and and People would come on it. David Cross went on and a lot because he went to uncabouret a lot and you kind of like...

But the story, you can hear them still in the dark, Joe Frank. They were really, like Tom Waits kind of stories, like really brilliant and would unspool so slowly. Yeah.

But he had these music beds under it that looped you in. Uh-huh. You couldn't turn it up. And he did like a crazy play-by-play of the OJ. Like he would do like the OJ trial. Oh, really? And he would do like, he would like do recreations of the OJ trial and interview people involved in the trial.

Yeah. No, it's just like, and again, it was, it was a lot like Phil Hendry. Like, if you didn't know it was a joke when you first turned it on, you were like, what? Right, right. And when I first, when Marin's podcast went big, everyone's gone now. RIP. You know, here's, here's that. when mine ends you'll know because I didn't show up and it's not in the feed I'm not going to have a party I'm not going to have the president on we get it you got the president on he got the president on for his last podcast I mean if you have that kind of energy just keep doing the fucking podcast what are you doing what are you doing I'll know the end is on when I have uh you know when I sleep in yeah it's when I just stop yeah stop no it it's amazing but people just just

to say you should do a podcast like Marins. Yeah. To which I would say why? What is the point of doing something like that? Right. I want to so I eventually came up with the idea of what I did. I like the idea the original idea was do an

interview, cut it up into segments, put music underneath it and then scramble the segments. Yeah. So you're just like walking through a party overhearing snatches of conversation. Yeah. And then it got very confusing for people so I put them in linearly, but I still break it up with

music, and I have like, it's like 10 segments, and then it kind of grew into its own monster. But it's just like, you wanted to be special, you want it to be something, and yes, my, like, my current podcast is four hours and ten minutes. Is it really? The current

episode, the Halloween episode, always has. Really? It's two very long interviews and two 25-minute deep dives into topics, and I don't know, I have no, I, again, Do you edit it? Q my manager.

Yeah. Right. Yeah, I do. You edit it all yourself. But I have two people put it together for me. But I go through the interviews and edit them. Wow. But then somebody, and there's audio draw.

I don't know why. I just, I can't do it any of it. It's like stand-up. Why do you do? I don't know why. It's the only thing I do. Interesting. And then I write to make actual money because none of that stuff makes money.

People ask me like, what's the deal with Dr. Z? I'm going to do it until I make a profit, and then I'll stop. Well, now you're working with the same agency. Yeah, I'm excited about it. I'm excited about it. Well, you should be excited about the Midwest in January and February, because that seems to be his gift. He's got this talent for getting me in the Midwest in January and January.

I am so happy, and this sounds like really sweaty, but like I'm so grateful that I'm so grateful that I still get to do it. Yes. Because there are not a ton of people from our class that are still out there, you could say a lot of people escaped. But other people are like, no, I love that I can still put people in seats in Cincinnati or Acme or someplace like that. Yeah. And I feel, and I know you feel the same way, like when I get off stage after an hour or 50 minutes, I'm like, that is as good as that can be that are that craft right like i'm not the greatest but that nobody walked out of that going i don't think right you know it's like nope that's like that's as good as that is well and i know that a lot of these clubs because you see the flyers and the posters about who's coming up and you find out

who was just there and i do walk off stage going like what i just did is i'm not saying better it's different than anything else that those people are doing And I feel like I'm doing it at a level that I'm proud of. Yeah. And that's always been my barometer. Like, I've always felt like I want my peers to respect me. I want to do material that people don't ever call hacky. Right.

But in the same time, it's equally shared with I want these people to walk out happy. I don't want to, you know, like, I think there's a way to do politics and talk about culture anywhere. If it's funny enough, it works anywhere. what I do as I always I don't talk about Trump or the Republican I talk about my brother right because everybody has a brother that they drives them crazy yeah so I'm not going to talk about anti-vaxxers but I will talk about my brother does want to get vaccinated and if I talk about guns I say I have a gun I have a hilarious hilarious joke to a knock I say, before anybody gets, I have a gun because I live in a big, scary city, and I'm afraid the day might come when I have to kill my family.

Or somebody I meet that I disagree with or a guy likes a band that I don't, and it escalates, I want a gun. But so you kind of like, but then that puts people at ease. Because even if you are a political troglodyte, if you paid to get into a club, I don't want you to feel bad. Yeah. I don't, you know, that might be my bad. Right. But, like, I don't want you to feel. And it is, and this is a larger issue, you know, people do have more in common than they are, have differences.

Yes. Yes. But there's no money in it. Right. And all of the things that we are fed during the day are designed for confirmation bias and to provoke conflict because conflict keeps you on the app. And the longer you're on the app, the higher their ad rates. It's called conflict entrepreneurship. And it is a cancer in our culture.

It really is. Yeah. and stand-up has become an extension of podcasting now everything has but i think the podcasting has affected the kind of comedy you're seeing especially with the bigger acts you know it's an extension of they've got five million listeners and now they're going to come to your town right and do stand-up now they're going to want you to do the kind of opinionated in your face of i'm so right yeah i want to go on stage and go i'm questioning some shit here's some things i know But I'm not going to fucking pontificate and shove anything down your throat.

Right. Right. Yeah. And that's the whole. And that's an aspect of comedy that I don't get when I feel like I was talking to Goldthwa. Like sometimes I feel like I should be performing in a museum. I just, did you see the document about John Candy? No. Okay. It's really brilliant. And it'll make you cry. Uh-huh. You know, John Candy was hilarious. So funny. And his whole person. was of a guy that was out of shape felt bad about it doubted himself

made mistakes was a loser and owned it and tried to do better he was and that's who he was in life he was so human yeah right that to me is what comedy is a person that

is vulnerable and you can relate to them because like richard of you know all that first concert movie of talking about all of things that he's effed up in his life yeah and like and that's the whole muscle thing it's like there's nothing funny about a guy with jack muscles yeah there's nothing vulnerable but yeah it's not vulnerable it's not relatable it's not you can do that but you're not funny yeah right you know know, and I remember Keenan Wayans, like going on stage at the improv of these polo shirts on and just a giant ham biceps. And guys don't laugh. Right. Because it's threatening. Right. I think Eddie Murphy went down that road too. I mean, when he was young enough to not have an ego about how he looked. And then he started to think how beautifully was. And he only made movies.

where he played a super cool guy. Yeah. And all of a sudden it was like, this guy's not interesting at all. At all. But he corrected. Yeah. Oh, did he?

Yeah. Well, I think so. I think Dolomite is my name. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was great. That was great. Yeah. I mean, I will see, I'm a, I love Eddie Murphy.

Yeah. I will see, even as bad movies I go see. But those movies like the clumps and the nutty professor, uh-huh. He should have an Academy Award. Yeah. Like, you sit at a. table in seven different makeups and do seven completely specific unique characters that

I can still quote I mean he is like Peter Sellers he wow he's bringing something down from outer space yeah yeah it's just too it's too good right yeah yeah um yeah I thought because like the when he did SNL the last one that was the 50th anniversary show it was very funny yeah The one before that, he came out and he just talked like a cool guy and didn't even try to be funny. And you're like, dude, come back. I also think he hates Lorne and he didn't want to do anything funny for Lorne. That's my guess. Did you ever audition for SNL?

Oh, my SNL audition story is funny. Really? Yeah. And this has been confirmed on other podcasts by the other two participants. Okay. I was brought to Chicago, flown with two other comics, to audition for S&L. From San Francisco? From L.A.

Uh-huh. And we performed along with Stephen Leo. If you remember, Stephen Leo. Yeah, Leo Allen and... Steve Rudnick and Leo Benvenuti. Oh, no, I'm thinking of a different... They went on to write the Santa Claus movies for Tim. Oh, okay.

But there was like, Stephen Leo, and then us three. Yeah. And I had the set of the night. I had characters whittled to a full. fine point and everything was just like and the response was like

Stephen Leo, the other guy, me and the other guy. Don Nott? It was just one of the, everything. Yeah. Everything. My God. It was just and we all walked out of there thinking I got it. Yeah. All of us.

And I in my head was immediately thinking about like, do I get rid of my apartment? Do I sublet my apartment? What kind of boxes do I buy? I get him in my car. And I'm looking at these two other guys. We went out after for a drink. And nobody, you know, we all, like,

we're keeping our cards close to our chest. But we all thought I had. And I'm looking at these guys going, Chris Rock, Adam Sandler, this is my time. You guys will get your chance. Don't get too close. I'm burning too brightly right now.

and what happened happened yeah 10 years later my first wife was an executive and she goes to New York and she meets with Chris Rock about something and she comes back and she says you know that story you tell about SNL and I go yeah she goes it's true

what did you killed I go what do you mean she goes that like you killed and thought you got it and that he did too because Chris just said told me that same story really and I was like well so you think I've been lying for 10 years oh my god but i think it but again it all worked out like that's why whenever

terrible things happen i'm like eh you don't know how this is going to work out if i got in that show yeah i would not have my kids oh okay because we wouldn't have we hadn't been dating long enough for to survive that and yeah then we wouldn't have our kids. And you probably wouldn't have been on the Simpsons. And I probably wouldn't have done well on the show because I don't do well in that kind of cutthroat. Yeah. Nobody comes out the other side feeling good. Even like Will Farrell talks about how intensely anxious he was the whole time and miserable. And it's like, but you did it for like 15 years or something. No, haters said he wouldn't sleep. Like starting like on Thursday, he would stop sleeping. Yeah. And he wouldn't

sleep until the show was over and yet he stayed on the show forever too yeah i wouldn't have survived that at all god what is that i wonder how many people even watch the show anymore you know i think they i mean i'm i'm sure with clips it's but i think they watch the special thing is where the ironically named special yeah right right um that like i remember like when having a special and having an album was like you made it yeah and now you the mc has an album yeah you know right right just a different. And they're all selling it after the show. Yeah.

Hey, do you mind if I sell my doilies after the show? And then the other guy goes, do you mind if I got welcome mats? And you're like, okay, so by the time I pitch my pins, it's going to sound like we've got a fucking bizarre going in a lobby. You're like, Mr. Haney from Green Acres. I have no stick pans. Can I sell those? Yeah, no, I know. It's, but I mean, everything is changed, like our business.

has changed drastically with everybody else's. Yeah. And like, I thought I had social media down. I don't know 10% of what I should know. Well, you were a big Twitter guy. I used to read your tweets. You always had great tweets. Yeah.

Do you still do Twitter? No, I left when he took it. Oh, you did. When he put the X on the building, I was out. Because he used to work in that building in San Francisco. Yeah, it was a live 105 was downstairs. And it was just so gross. And it's, you know, and it was just like, I don't want to be a part of this.

I don't want to funnel any more money into this jerk's pocket. Right. I'm on blue sky and threads, but it's not the same. And neither is X anymore. It's a cesspool. But just in terms of like posting clips and Instagram and, like, I thought I had it good, but it is no. No, it's a full-time job. If you're not waking up every morning.

You have to walk around like this. Yeah. All right. Buying plums. Plum life. You know, it's like, Jesus Christ. you know i know it's like i sometimes look up and i go oh my god i i mean i post the podcast every week like there's a little thumbnail about the podcast yeah other than that sometimes a month

ago by oh i didn't post anything yeah like nothing and you realize like the way we used to fight to get on late night tv like you said like it meant something or to get a special like that's that energy should be shifted over to something that i'm not interested at all Like, doing late night TV was playing the sport that I play. Yeah, yeah, yeah, well put. Yeah. Yeah. And now I got to be a producer and an editor and a marketer.

Yeah. Yeah, and you've got to do it all. We're so close to going to the club, like, you have a mic, right? Yeah, right, right, right. I know. They don't do anything. Are you bringing your own, you're bringing your feature? No.

Yeah. No, actually, they're coming around. People. They're realizing how stupid that was. And there was a period where they did that. finding now, you know, because I have a Google alert set for my name, and I'll see every day there'll be five or six, you know, social media posts from the clubs that I have coming up, which is brand new. Right. It's like, why is that brand new? And meanwhile, when you work the

club, if you get a percentage of the door, it always says minus expenses. Right. So you get a percentage of the net. And the, and they'll take out sometimes, $15, $20,000 in expenses, and you go to your agent. Well, what are they spending? Marketing. I haven't seen a fucking tweet. I haven't seen. There's no newspaper articles.

They've got no radio lined up for me. What's the $15,000? Yeah. But now they start to spend it. If it goes, it goes. Yeah. So, yeah, you got to promote your own shit, and then you got to do the kind of shows that people,

nothing's ever going to beat you killing, and then coming back with friends. to see you next time. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. And that's the kind of what I've been counting on all these years, is just do good shows. Yeah.

Well, what, you know, it's interesting of what has happened. In the financial crisis in 2008, you know, this giant pile of money was taken out of the economy. And it was never put back. and then an attempt to... In other words, it was given a bankers who just put it in there... Well, it was the bankers set it on fire. Yeah.

And that whole crash. Yeah. And then they were bailed out. Yeah. But the money was never put back in. Right. So everybody is fighting for a smaller pile of money. Yeah.

And then to spur the economy to regrow that pile, we gave them all of these tax breaks that we had to pay for, and then they took that and they kept that too. Right. Which is why now, one thing that we have now that we didn't have that, are... a lot of billionaires. We didn't have billionaires before. Now we have it. And everybody is fighting over a smaller and smaller

and smaller pile of money. Now to that, then you add the rise of social media where everybody is the star of their own movie. And there is no more universal entertainment. We don't all go to watch Letterman

or it's like appointment television, all that stuff is by and large gone. So we are doing fewer people are going out because they have less money. You know, and if you want to prove it, like, look, you're, you didn't have to also be a cab driver. Yeah. You know, you didn't, you know, it's like, you know, your, your car is a cab, your house is a hotel, and the great new restaurant is a truck. Yeah. That's not coincidence.

Right, right. And so it's left for you to, you are not only fighting harder for less money, but you have to pick up all that slack and do all of this stuff yourself. Yeah. So it's just the result of the fact that we are fighting harder for less money because of what happened. Well, I think all well said, and I think it all... That's my pickup. If you were a woman, I would have just closed it.

with the mask on yeah as Mark Twain the hands the hands are the worst part it's not even the mask because they still have to use the bathroom but I think it's the same for jobs like as AI replaces jobs and as corporations squeeze they bring in consultants and then they say well this you know what this person could actually do

both those jobs yeah and then you suddenly you're working longer hours for less money. Yeah. And you're having a somehow like waitress on the weekends because you're getting paid less to do more. Yeah. And again, George Carlin saw all this 30 years ago and has a bit about it. It's like, you know, they don't want, you know, if you watch this bit about education,

because there's a reason your education is not going to get better. They don't want you smart. it. And I'm not a conspiracy guy. I'm not. But I do believe that people have the same interests. And corporations do better with a workforce that is not hampered by critical thinking. And just do it. Yeah. And shut up. And I do agree that even if it's not spoken, there's no motivation to have really smart, well-adjusted people that can see through the bullshit. Are you saying the appointment of the wife

of professional wrestling to the head of education was not meant to improve it in some way? If only this started, yes, I think she is a good person. But she looks like somebody who, like

an alien had just taken all of the liquid out of their body. You know? It's like, I, the missing link between man and crouton. But this started in the 80s, with the Reagan, when the Reagan, when they started to defund public education. Right, right. And now the latest shell game is school vouchers.

Yeah. What that does is give your tax breaks to wealthy people. Yeah, because they give $10,000 to a family to send their kid to private school, which costs $50,000 a year, which means none of the poor people can do anything with that $10,000, but the rich person who was already sending their kids. Saves $10,000. They're saving $10,000 off the 50. Yeah.

And meanwhile, resources are allocated to the public schools based on the number of kids in that school. So now you take 20 kids out of that school, there's $200,000 less that the public school gets. Yeah. I don't know where this ends. Yeah. I don't. I mean, there's, we are at a. weird i think we're at the we're at the beginning of the end of the end of the beginning of

a either a a a good tip or a bad a a good tip or a bad tip you know yeah but the changes happen you know every time we put a new president and they go well look his economy and his it's like no this is a this is not a sailboat a small sailboat that cuts back and forth it's a giant oil anchor. And it moves very, it turns very slowly and it's very hard to turn it back and get it back on course again. Rick Overton used to say that the country is a Mack truck in every four years. We put like an eagle or a bulldog on the hood. But I actually think there's more to it than that as recent events have shown. But yeah, no, it is. And, you know, I don't know if you know, there's such, it's interesting, it'll be interesting to see what happens in New York

if Zara Mondani is elected mayor and if he does a really good job and people might realize you know because people like socialism like well do you like the army in the post office yeah do you like to retire? Yeah yeah exactly

you know there's there's you know again like keep your filthy hands off keep your government hands out of my Medicare you know it's like people don't even and they've just been instructed to right right

it'll be it'll be interesting to see because i don't understand as a henry ford paid his workers enough to buy the car they made yeah you can't do that now right right all right listen danigal let's get to fastballs with fits he's going to say this is like you don't get this on phallon let's get back to blindfolded ginnipgnop Alan Dershowitz for $20. All right. Have you ever joined a club? Like an organization? Any kind of organization.

I'm a member of a tennis club. Are you? Well, yeah, but it's more of a... Athletic. I use the gym. Yeah, right. Because it's me and a bunch of 80-year-old guys. And I'm sunny.

I love that. Yeah. Yeah, I joined the Friars Club in New York for that reason. I was the youngest guy. That was the best. I got, like, poached to do the Friott. I had lunch with Milton Burl. You did?

Yeah, at the L.A. Friars Club. Bud Friedman took me over. That's really cool. And it was, I couldn't wait to get out of there. Oh, yeah, yeah. The L.A. one was horrible. I smelled like his cigar. Yeah.

And it was the weak, Nevermind came out. Uh-huh. And it was so, like, full. of youth and energy and then it's like you know Duke Mitchell that's a singer you know and I got out of there and I was like blow

blasting that music and trying to get the cigar out of my hair yeah somebody was asking me about the LA one it's it was the opposite of the New York one yeah what what project do you regret that I did yeah

I offered to be in the, to be a good guy. I agreed to be in the documentary about Apu and then was edited to look like an asshole. No shit. Yeah. In an asshole in what way? The same question was asked of me 11 times until I, I finally went, I don't know. And then that's what they use.

Yeah, yeah. Because they needed a villain. So why not use this guy that's doing us a favor? Uh-huh. Oh, that's great. Yeah, it worked out really well. What's the closest he ever got to a fight on stage? Oh, at Cobb's Comedy Club in San Francisco, I literally stopped the show.

And the police had to come to get rid of this person. person. And I looked back on that. I got to the point where I was like, did that really happen? You know, have you ever done that? Like, did that happen? Did that happen? I imagine that. And then about a month ago, a guy said, I was there. I was there one night. And I was so excited. I was in San Francisco for one night. And I went to a comedy club, and then you stopped it. And the police came. So, yeah, it sounds like me. It sounds like me. Yeah, I was in Tampa Bay at the Tampa Bay Improv, which is one of my least favorite clubs in the country. Yeah, I did that. I didn't like that. Oh. And it's one of these things where, again, somebody came up to me years later and reconfirmed what I thought was a dream.

Two dwarfs had a fight in the audience and were thrown out by the bouncers. Thrown out. And was that the origin of dwarf throwing? I think so. That was the first place. Wow. Was it like a fight because one was pressuring the other to join the lollipop guild? Yeah, he said you're looking down on me. Who's the worst opener that you ever had on the road? Perry Kurtz. Who's that? He's now dead.

He was, he looked like Mark Mothersbaugh from Devo, but he would strip. And he had a motorcycle called the Perry cycle. And he was this, you'd have to look him up. He got killed, like crossing the street. a couple years ago, but we're staying in the condo in Florida or South Carolina

someplace and he's got herpes medication other things like and he goes yeah I have herpes and I'm like how's that how is that you know like I'm sorry and then he's trying to pick up this waitress who's like 18

and I say be careful he has herpes You dole her. Hell, yes. And he was furious. Of course he was. He's trying to spread the love. Yeah, she's a kid.

You'll ruin her life. Oh, my God. And he was, and then he was purportedly, while I was on stage, calling the booker going, he can't follow me. You're really going to flip the order. I was like, great, I can do less time. I can do my guess. But, yeah, no, he was just.

It was just terrible. It was terrible. And, you know, it's funny because you see these guys that are just back in the day, these guys would be like, go on stage and they're terrible. Yeah. But nine times out of ten, they're fine. Yep. You know, they're just dumb.

Yep. You know, it was like, yeah, we can go see fatal attraction together at the mall. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. No, anybody, anybody's better than alone sometimes on the road. Yeah.

Who do you want to give your eulogy? I was going to ask you I'll be dead before you I don't know about that not with my enemies who do I want to give my eulogy my daughters know God that's a great question

I don't really want one really you're Irish you got to have an Irish funeral I know maybe my people tell you funny stories Maybe, yeah, somebody that, my friend Candice would do it. Okay. Yeah.

I thought you were going to say Bob Cat or Tom Kenny. Oh, yeah, maybe Bob. Bob would be good. Yeah. Yeah, Bob would be good. He'd be really good. Yeah, he'd be funny. Yeah.

Yeah. I just did a thing. A friend of mine had a birthday and they said, do you want to do a video tribute to Maria? And I was like, what the hell happened? She was, no, it's her birthday. I was like, oh, Jesus Christ. So my video tribute was.

I thought she had died, so I did write a eulogy. I'm just going to do that. That's great. I talked about how she was killed by a bear. And I'm not saying that bears can't be our friends, but this bear will suffer swift retribution. And you're probably asking yourselves, how will I know? It's the bear. I won't.

And I don't think it matters. I think any bear sends a message. To that end, it's probably easier. for me to just go to a zoo and kill one there, which I'm going to do. That's good. Yeah.

Or somebody that never met me would be fun. I heard he was nice. There's two types of people in the world. Go. Father, and this is, I'm quoting, Jim Vallali, and you can also take this

to the other gender. Fathers and sons, there are people who take care of people, and there are people who wait to be taken care of. Okay. There's two kinds of people in the world.

I like that. And you don't have to have children to be one or the other. Right. You're like, my friend Candace, who I just mentioned, is a mother. She's not a daughter. Right. She is there to take care of people. And you're a father.

I am a father, yeah. I'm, in fact, I'm so averse to like, when my wife will hug me, I'll tense up. She's like, oh, look at him. He wants to go change a light bulb. He wants to go fix something. Yeah. All right. Last question.

You're a father, too. Thank you. You're not a, you're not expecting to be taken care of. No, it's actually to a fault. I wish I could. In the same way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wish I could accept more.

Yeah. But, you know, I feel like I'm locked in at this point, and I was sent here to be a father, and I'm just going to keep being a father. I don't think I can change it at this point. No, I won't sit still for a blowjob. I'm like, I got to get out of here. This feels too good. Something's wrong. Yeah.

Oh, my God. Although I am good on vacations. You pull me over to give me a ticket and now this. I will talk to your boss, sir. Highlands feed your supervisor. I am good on vacations, though. Like, I can get into being taken care of on a vacation. But what do you want to do on your vacation?

I want to do things. I want to go somewhere like interesting Central America, Europe, explore. I'm not a sit-on-a-beach chair guy. Ah, that's what I want to do nothing. Oh, interesting. I want to go, because I do every day. High to the pandemic, I was up at eight, dressed, wearing a belt, to do list.

Shaving, yeah. To do list every day. Yeah. Created the show. Dr. Z came out of the pandemic. Like, I can't not. Yeah. But on vacation, I was like, I just want to sit.

Nice. Read a book. Yeah. Walk around. That's great. You can do that. I don't, yeah, I can on vacation. I don't want to win vacation.

Right. But. Okay. We should not vacation together. No. My wife is like, just got to just do it. Yeah.

Like, I'd love to go explore an abandoned mine. I do. I really do. I did in Norway. Great. And if the elevator gets stuck, we're dead, right? That's where we die. Because we're a mile underground and no one's coming.

No, just checking. So if this door doesn't open, we're rolling the dice. And then tomorrow jet skis? Okay, great. That was really, that was the most fun. I've ever had. In a mine shaft? I, we went, my first wife and I went to Bora Bora in French Polynesia.

And we got jet skis. And we're just tooling around Bora Bora on jet skis. And it was euphoric. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I've never, and it's impossible for me to be on a jet ski and not in my head go, I can't do it And it was just heavily And we got back from that vacation

And I was like, oh my God, I'm so relaxed I'm going to be like rubber for weeks In fact, let me write down the date Because I want to find out when I get tense again September 10th, 2001 Okay, I'm going to be so relaxed for so long September 10th, 2001 Yeah

I'm going to be so relaxed for so long next morning. Turn on the TV. Oh, God. And so that happens, and I was working on the Simpsons at the time, and no one's going in, no one's going in. So finally, I just said, well, everybody come over to my house because I was kind of centrally located. So by now it's like two in the afternoon, everything. it happened. My wife

and the Simpson staff is coming over to my house and I was like we don't have any food because we had just been on vacation. So I said all right

I'll go to the store and I went to rock and roll Ralphs because we lived up behind the Chateau Marmont and I just bought a bunch of hot dogs and buns

and potato chips because quick food for a bunch of people and the guy goes you're having a party and I was like Like, yes and no. But I could have been profiled.

Like, what? Who is this? Yeah. Final question. And then we'll plug your dates. And we'll let you go. What's the hackiest bit you've ever done? I think I'm doing it now.

No, I am. I came up with this bit. I'm going to do the bit. Okay. I'm going to do the bit, and my wife went, no, it starts off super hacky. Okay. What I like about Halloween, this is really hacky, but it's got a good structure to it. But I like about Halloween is it's the first time kids are professionally lied to.

Fun-sized candy bars. It's a lot less candy than you thought you were going to get. that means it's more fun explain that seems to me it would be less fun for your convenience we now have self-checkout how is me doing your job for free convenient for me that's the definition of less convenient. And my favorite, due to larger than normal call volumes, you may experience extended wait times. You've had larger than normal call volumes for 25 years.

Your call volumes are your call volumes. Due to the larger than normal greed of your boss, you won't hire enough people to answer the phone. so why don't you self-check out a fun-sized candy bar and go fuck yourself but it's pretty those are three three turds well put together look you know they're well-trod areas but you bring it all together with a point of you if i didn't have well if i didn't have the ending yeah it would be pretty creepy now that's going to be a closer at some point yeah not now but i do it's just a carlin bit by the way. It's a complete

that math at the end is just just a Carlin bit. Yeah. You can see that bit at the comedy studio in Boston on November 8th where he'll be doing two shows. San Francisco Punchline maybe my favorite club in the country.

First time we met. That's right. I opened for you. Uh-huh. How the mighty have fallen. You were nice enough to go, you had to do radio in the morning to promote the show and you go do you want to come and do a radio show and I'd never done a radio show before I was so excited how did you thank me so so we do the radio show and we get into taxi to come home and we're talking to our driver the whole time and he's Muslim and we pull up and you and I go you want to come up to our room and party it's 8 o'clock in the morning but it was you're so like pretty handsome guy. Like, it wasn't a drug. It wasn't a drug party.

That's right. I told me he was a good looking guy. Yeah, a good looking guy. You would come to room party with us? And he'd the morning. And then, and he got out. Do you remember what he did? No.

He got out and did it bowed toward Mecca on the sidewalk. That's right. And by the way, I'm not making that up. That's the part I remember. That's right. I remember two things. I remember two things about that. He had one of those beaded things on the back of his chair

that cab drivers used to have with wooden beads to keep your back from getting sore. I remember that, yeah. And then he took out his dad. And we were walking to the hotel, and you went, and then at the final night of the gig, you gave me a gift.

And it was a dime store novel called Hollywood Homo, which is on my bookshelf right now. Dana Gould. Oh, also Solana Beach on December 22nd. Dana gole. Thank you for reminding me of that gig. It wasn't on your website. I had to find it on another source.

Do you know that? Yeah. Nine times out of ten. I don't mean to keep interrupting you, but like I will find out I have a gig by I get tagged on Instagram. I'm like, oh, is that tonight? Exactly. That's how you found out about this podcast today.

No, I remembered this one. Danagold.com and also. Check out Dana on local shows all the time. Yeah. All right, man. Thank you so much. I love these. All right, these great.

Yeah. Yeah. Shout out to Paul Roman and the Green Lab Studios. Where are you going? On the road? Where are your gigs? I got the Den Theater coming up in Chicago in a couple weeks. And then I'm going to Skank Fest in New Orleans for the weekend.

And then I've got the punchline December 11th to the 13th. There you go. Then I'll be at bananas in Hasbrook Heights, New Jersey, the week of Christmas. I think I've been there. The week of Christmas. Cleveland after that. You're going to be sitting at a toe with a gun in your mouth. That's right. Praying to whatever Lord there is out there. Yeah.

Cleveland, hilarities, Atlanta Punch Line, Sacramento Punch Line. No, those are, those are, I like Sacramento, Philellia. Those are all good gigs. Yeah, it's going to be a busy winter. I don't work in the summer. So I push all my gigs together. in the winter because nobody comes to see me in the summer. The clubs

are empty. Everybody's at the beach. It gets dark at 9 o'clock at night. Nobody's coming inside. And then the club owner goes, yeah, we got to give you 30% less next time because you can't draw. Yeah. I'm interested in what's going to happen now because usually where I

was before it was like a lot of my gigs happened like two weeks before I left. It's like, oh, who canceled? Yeah. Right. Yeah, and then you get a crowd of black people. You're like, oh, was it Ari Spears? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. All right, man. Thank you.

Great to see you, buddy. Great to see you too. Happy Halloween. Happy Halloween. Our only holiday. Oh, we should have dressed up for this. Shit. I have to dress up tonight. Okay. Thank you.