Fitzdog Radio - Sam Tallent - Running the Light, BRUT & Life on the Road | Greg Fitzsimmons

Episode Date: September 23, 2026

Greg sits down with comedian and novelist Sam Tallent for a deep dive into stand-up, life on the road, sobriety, terrible openers, indie comedy clubs, marriage, writing and knowing when to stop chasing the next thing. Sam talks about his acclaimed novel Running the Light and his brand-new book, BRUT, a violent new thriller about an American hitman sent to Paris for one last impossible job. Greg and Sam also get into the strange psychology of performing, learning stand-up sober, the economics of comedy clubs, officiating weddings and why gratitude might be the only thing keeping comics sane. Plus, Greg remembers Bald Bryan, gets an unexpected call from Andrew Santino and reports back from a wild weekend at the Comedy Store in La Jolla. Get Sam Tallent's new novel BRUT:BRUT by Sam Tallent - Penguin Random House More Sam Tallent:SamTallent.comInstagram - @samtallentYouTube - Sam Tallent SPONSOR: QuinceUpgrade your wardrobe and home with high-quality essentials at radically lower prices. Go to Quince.com/fitzdog for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns.Quince For Greg's tour dates, podcasts and more:FitzDog.com This show is produced by Gotham Production Studios and part of the Gotham Network. https://www.gothamproductionstudios.com/studios/ Follow Greg Fitzsimmons: Facebook: https://facebook.com/FitzdogRadio Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregfitzsimmons Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregfitzshow Official Website: http://gregfitzsimmons.com Tour Dates: https://bit.ly/GregFitzTour Merch: https://bit.ly/GregFitzMerch “Dear Mrs. Fitzsimmons” Book: https://amzn.to/2Z2bB82 “Life on Stage” Comedy Special: https://bit.ly/GregFitzSpecial Listen to Greg Fitzsimmons: Fitzdog Radio: https://bit.ly/FitzdogRadio Sunday Papers: http://bit.ly/SundayPapersPod Childish: http://childishpod.com Watch more Greg Fitzsimmons: Latest Uploads: https://bit.ly/latestGregFitz Fitzdog Radio: https://bit.ly/radioGregFitz Sunday Papers: https://bit.ly/sundayGregFitz Stand Up Comedy: https://bit.ly/comedyGregFitz Popular Videos: https://bit.ly/popGregFitz About Greg Fitzsimmons: Mixing an incisive wit with scathing sarcasm, Greg Fitzsimmons is an accomplished stand-up, an Emmy Award winning writer, and a host on TV, radio and his own podcasts. Greg is host of the popular “FitzDog Radio” podcast (https://bit.ly/FitzdogRadio), as well as “Sunday Papers” with co-host Mike Gibbons (http://bit.ly/SundayPapersPod) and “Childish” with co-host Alison Rosen (http://childishpod.com). A regular with Conan O’Brien and Jimmy Kimmel, Greg also frequents “The Joe Rogan Experience,” “Lights Out with David Spade,” and has made more than 50 visits to “The Howard Stern Show.” Howard gave Greg his own show on Sirius/XM which lasted more than 10 years. Greg’s one-hour standup special, “Life On Stage,” was named a Top 10 Comedy Release by LA Weekly. The special premiered on Comedy Central and is now available on Amazon Prime, as a DVD, or a download (https://bit.ly/GregFitzSpecial). Greg’s 2011 book, Dear Mrs. Fitzsimmons (https://amzn.to/2Z2bB82), climbed the best-seller charts and garnered outstanding reviews from NPR and Vanity Fair. Greg appeared in the Netflix series “Santa Clarita Diet,” the Emmy-winning FX series “Louie,” spent five years as a panelist on VH1’s “Best Week Ever,” was a reoccurring panelist on “Chelsea Lately,” and starred in two half-hour stand-up specials on Comedy Central. Greg wrote and appeared on the Judd Apatow HBO series “Crashing.” Writing credits include HBO’s “Lucky Louie,” “Cedric the Entertainer Presents,” “Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher,” “The Man Show” and many others. On his mantle beside the four Daytime Emmys he won as a writer and producer on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” sit “The Jury Award for Best Comedian” from The HBO Comedy Arts Festival and a Cable Ace Award for hosting the MTV game show "Idiot Savants." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Good day. Good day on Fitzdog Radio. Thanks for joining us, my friend Sam Talent. My new friend, didn't know him before. One of the great things about, there's a lot of great things about doing this podcast.

One of them is that I get to meet people that I knew of and respected, and it's a reason to sit down for an hour, undisturbed, and just get deep, just talk about shit, get to know each other. I've got so many new friends from the last 15 years from doing this, 16 years of doing this podcast. And then the other weeks I'm bringing in old friends that I'm happy to sit down with again. So anyway, welcome to the show. Trump is in China right now.

And do you know that the president of China identifies as she? I'll give you a second to Google that. I'm not talking about Trump. He has banned certain news outlets from the press corps. And so I guess the press pool or whatever they call it, but a lot of the other news outlets have stood in solidarity and are not covering the White House. So we'll see what happens.

I mean, this is fucking constitutional shit, man. This is deep. This is First Amendment stuff. Let's notice. Sad news this week, Bald Brian, who you know, from the Adam Carolla show, who is a good friend, a guy that I've known for over 20 years, and absolutely love this guy.

And he's battled cancer for 18 years. He's had brain cancer. And he's gone through remissions and recurrences and so many cycles of chemo and radiation and everything. And he passed this weekend. And it's very sad. My heart is heavy. It hit me a lot,

harder than I thought it would because, you know, we'd been expecting it. But when it actually happened, it just really hits you. All the good times. That guy was so fast and creative. And I really think that Adam's absolute best riffs have been with Ball Brian. And he was a big part of the show. He would always pick a clip. Whatever you said during the interview, he would clip it. And then at the end of the show, he would just drop it in. And you would always wait because it was always something that would make you cringe like, oh my God, because you say shit on Carolla.

You shouldn't say and wouldn't say, but it just sort of comes out. And one time I talked about when I was a teenager and I first started pleasuring myself, I used to put a number two pencil in my ass. All right. Maybe that could have flown under the radar, But he grabbed it and he made it a soundbite.

And every time I did the show for 20 years, he would play it again. And now I do shows and Corolla fans just scream out. They've never, actually, some people have brought pencils to shows. Yes. So anyway, my love to. And if you want to go, if you want to support Ball, Brian, there is a documentary about him that will be playing this weekend, Friday and Saturday night, September 25th and 26th, the Da Vinci International Film Festival. It'll be at the Grove, at the AMC Theater.

If you want to get tickets, just go ahead and go to, where am I sending you to get tickets? I guess just go to Divinche International Film Festival, and you can get tickets right now. Let's sell it out. Let's show his wife how much we care about her. and their child, and you'll really enjoy the film. I think I'm in it. I think I did an interview in it. Anyway, there's that.

That was Ball Bryant, and then I had lunch on Wednesday with my friend Blind Rita, who's blind, and I've known for, oh, let's say 35 years since I started doing stand-up. She used to book a club in Boston, and we were very close friends. I hadn't seen her in a long time. It was great to see her. I picked her up at work, and she got in the car, and she said, what kind of car is it? And I told her it was a Maserati. And she said, wow, that's amazing.

It really does. It feels good. I said, yeah. And then we went to get sushi, and I said, I'm taking you to Nozawa, which is the fanciest sushi place in L.A. and I just took her to like an okay sushi place and she loved it and she believes then that I took her to Nizawa and a Maserati. But you know, that's the beauty of being blind is life can be so much better than the reality of it. If you can just hang out with liars. Spent the weekend in La Jolla at the comedy store, absolute.

My second favorite club in the country. It is amazing. The people that come out, it's, you know, it's La Jolla, which is like guys, like men in their 50s who wear puka shells, a tremendous amount of plastic surgery. Somebody was explained to me after the show that she had had buttox, which is Botox in your anus. And I said, why would somebody do that? and she said, well, it's for anal sex. It makes it more comfortable. And I thought, I don't know if comfort is what you're going for with anal sex.

I think of a guy is having anal sex with you and you're comfortable. That's going to make him uncomfortable because that means he's got a really small penis. He wants you to moan loud and be in a little bit of pain. Let's be honest. It shouldn't be comfortable. Anyway, that happened. We had a lot of drunks coming to the show. We had this Saturday night I was sell.

I sell pins after the show. And people came, come out, and I'm at the table selling the pins. And there's this drunk couple. And this woman is just telling me that I'm not funny. I just had a great fucking show. But she was wasted. And she was just trying to, like, get a reaction out of me.

And I just said, look, you're being annoying. and she's like, buy some pins. Why don't you buy some? And I go, look, you're killing me. Like, you're ruining. Like, you're ruining. Can you walk away? And then I turn my back to her.

And she loses her shit. She and her boyfriend are yelling at me. I got to call security. They take them away. They come back. Oh, not it's Andrew Santino. Let's get them on the podcast. You're on Fitzdog Radio right now on my podcast.

Fuck, this is the only way you could get me on. It's true. It's true. I've never heard somebody come up with more weird excuses for my back is out. Yeah. It's still out, by the way. Yeah. All right.

We're all praying for you. Dude, I wanted to text you, but now I'm on your show. Yeah. Who's on the show? It's the intro. Sam Talent is the guest, but I'm recording. Sam is the best. He's the best.

And his book is incredible. His book, Brutus, really good, and he's much more intellectual than you, so you're going to have a tough time keeping up that, I know, for sure. Well, what if I interviewed him last week and it went extremely well? How about that? I'll ask him. I'll text him right now and ask him. I bet you you bombed.

Yeah. He started giving me the light. Is that a weird? Is that a bad sign? No, it's a good sign. I wanted to tell you, sadly, I'm going to be out of town for your event, but I'm sorry. I did last year. You did, and you killed.

And I appreciated it. And you know what? I don't think I'm doing it. I mean, nobody wants to do benefits. No, no, no, I do. I love them. Well, I'm going to ask you the opposite. I do Special Olympics Southern California every year,

home run derby. You've got to come for that December 5th if you're in town. I would imagine you win. Yeah, I beat the shit out of those guys. It's nuts. Can you bet on it? Can you get on Cal Sheet and put some money on you? Yeah, yeah.

Fendell is taking odds right now. It's heavy, heavy, heavy. All right, I'm going back to set. I just want to call you on chat. All right, buddy. I'm going to call you later and talk. I love you, buddy. I love you, too.

Bye. Well, this Best Buddies benefit, I'm going to have to keep you guys posted. It's in like three weeks, and I have asked, oh, nine comedians to do it so far, and nobody's available, and I'm starting to panic and freak out, and it doesn't feel good.

because it's a big room at the comedy story that we're trying to fill. So I'll let you know who the guests are. So far, we don't have anybody. And I hope we have a show, to be honest. We'll see. I don't know. Maybe I'll ask Jay Leno.

Does anyone care? Jay Leno does it? I'd love to have Jay Leno on. Anyway, other shows coming up besides that, we go. Oh, let me finish that story. So they're annoying me. They're yelling at me. start calling the manager later in the night and complaining about me.

She said I called her an asshole. All I said was, you're annoying, get away from me. That's it. Anyway, so then Sunday night, I'm like, you know what? I'm not selling pins. I don't need this shit. I don't need people tag me.

So I go outside, and I've got about 50 pins left. And this guy walks out of the show, and he goes, how many he got? I go 50. He goes, he gives me 500 bucks. He goes, I'm buying all the pins, and I'm giving them out. And everybody that left the show got a free pin. And it was like a party. People were cheering outside.

This guy was like a hero. So I'm back. I'm back in the pin business. It was a rocky weekend, but I'm back. Other dates, I'm going to Fairbanks, Alaska, September 30th through October 3rd at various venues. The store benefit, best buddies, October 14th. I'll keep you posted. Batavia, Illinois, at the Comedy Vault, October 15 through 17.

Then I'm coming to Toronto. I'm doing St. Catharines, Hamilton, Waterloo, and then downtown, a place called the, I forget. It's on my website. But in downtown on the 27th of October. And then Phoenix, New Orleans, Skankfest. Go to Fitzdog.com, get some tickets, and come on out. You know what else I want you to do? I want you to think hard about what you're wearing and whether or not.

not you get there's that Japanese woman says does this bring you joy are you putting on pants and sweatshirts and cashmere that makes you feel good well quince is a company that my my my wife was wearing a quince sweater I go where'd you get I go did you she goes I love quince I go I'm doing an ad for them she goes you got to be kidding me I got these sweatpants from them I live in them they're the softest best made everything fitted teas breathable active wear cashmere sweat is for like 60 bucks like everything is about 50 to 80 percent cheaper than you would get for a similar product and I'm telling you this is good stuff it's uh they cut out the middleman there's no factory there's no brand markup and I I can't I cannot say more good things

I hate shopping and I can get online and I can check it out and if I love it great if I don't They've got a 365 day return. How about that? And free shipping. So, you know, it's not just clothing. They make hotel quality bedding, bath products, kitchen utensils, furniture for all your fall favorites. Go to quince.com. Download the quince app for app exclusive offers.

Go to quince.com slash fits dog. Get free shipping to your order and 365 days. returns now available in Canada and the UK too that's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash Fitzdog make sure you put in the code let them know we're sending you my guest today as we just talked about with Santino is Sam Talent he's a writer as well as a stand-up he did a novel that I read called what is it called run the light or something what the hell's called. I've got to look it up. Running the Light, which I read and I loved. He's got a new book out. He gave me a copy called Brute, and I haven't read it yet, but Santino just said it's great. He had a travel

dock where he traveled to Tokyo, Paris, Colorado, Rome, New Zealand, and you can see those on his YouTube channel. He's been on Matt McCusker and Shane's podcast. He's been on Kill Tony, Joe Rogan, Mark Marin, Tim Dillon. He's a very unique voice. He's very smart. He's very interesting. I had a great talk with him. So kick back and enjoy a little Sam Talon. My guest today is an award-winning novelist, an innovative, really solid stand-up comedian. He's got sort of, uh, uh, Hunter S. Thompson vibe. Is that fair to say? I mean, it's flattering to hear that because I'm a huge fan of his, but, you know, I don't have a firearm or a suitcase full of drugs. And I'm, like, right now too high on pot from hanging out with another degenerate. So I'm now being on Hunter.

I mean, here's the thing is I don't require it on my podcast, but when a guest can show up high, I feel like it just gets us. Yeah, we're in the right place. And I have such immense respect for you, so I'm like not stoked this is our first impression I'm like geeked and surprised that this is ceramic as soon as I said the ceramic thing I was like all right hey seed

back on the truck don't say cool cups you were blown away that it was ceramic I was like oh I think I said no this is fun like a baby but yeah man

I appreciate all the nice things you said and I'm glad to be here yeah well We're going to talk about your book in a moment that I just read this weekend. It didn't arrive until Saturday night. Okay. And I just, I couldn't put it down. Oh, man, good.

So it's called Running the Light, forward by Doug Stanhope, who, you know, obviously his spirit is in this book. I think he's, you know, he's the archetype of your protagonist. Yeah, but there's also like Ollie Joe Prater, like, you know, Fox. John Fox. Yeah, yeah. And all those Denver guys. Two firemen are fucking in a smoke-filled room. Yeah.

And everyone's... The chief walks in. Right. What the hell's going on here? Well, this guy was, uh, had smoke inhalation. Well, why didn't you give him mouth to mouth? How do you think this started? Yes.

Literally opened his show with that joke every night for 25 years. Yeah, and people would fall out of their seats. They loved it. They did the worm. The man killed. Yeah. Yeah, I was lucky coming up in Colorado because, like, like I had such immense respect for road dogs, like people who could do the job in like adverse

settings where I never became precious and like judgmental about people who could, you know, they weren't darlings in the bookstore shows that me and my dumb friends would do. But man, if you, you'd never wanted to follow them in Wyoming. Like, God, they would decimate in an oil field in North Dakota. And you were like, okay, so they're also really good at this. Yes, they're not like cute or coy or doing characters or like wig stuff. But they're still really good at this thing we do. Well, I think that's what you kind of nail with the character in this book, is that, and we're going to talk about the new book, but I just read the old book.

I'm so glad you read it, man. Yeah, that's awesome. But he's a guy who, and I got to say, I had a very profound reaction to it as a guy who's been doing it for 34 years, 36 years. Wow. as a guy who goes on the road, not always in places I want to be, not always in front of crowds I want to be in front of, not always in the mindset to do a show. But then they introduce you and you talk about this moment where he's backstage and he's been doing blow. He's been drinking all day. And as they start his intro, he starts shaking his hands. He does a figure eight with his neck.

and then his head goes up straight and something happens and he walks on stage and for that 60 minutes he is a fucking tiger it doesn't matter what state he's in it doesn't matter how much is getting paid for the show how bad they it's like

everything else in this guy's life he's let fall apart his physical health his sobriety his wife his kids but for that hour there's something in him that has to burn. It's all he has left. Yeah. You know?

Yeah, it's like that muscle memory. It's the same way like when you're sick and then you go on stage and you're lightning for an hour. And then you get off and you're like, I need fluids. Put a bag in my arm. Right, right. Like you just see people who I've seen dudes literally go from like loose neck, like don't know where they are drunk to, all right, who's ready for their feature act? Ladies and gentlemen, all the way from Coral Gables.

And then they just come out of it and they go on. great and then they sit back down and they're just a loose bag of human skin. Right. And it's like, and I'm so flattered because I was so nervous that comics would read this and they'd be like, oh, that's not true. There's no verse of military. Yeah, yeah. So the hardest thing to write in here was like the bits he did because you want him to be hacky. Like he has to be hacky. Yeah. But you also have to read it as, oh, this guy's still killing. Like this is still doing well in the room. Like he's a competent performer, despite as comics knowing all the tricks he's using. All the the stuff we've seen people do. Right. Well, it's all a trick. I mean, stand up as a trick.

You know, like, I was thinking about, it would be funny to bring a woman on stage with me as an assistant the way magicians have. It'd be very funny. Hand me my jokes. Yeah. Turn the page in your joke book. Yeah, right, right, right. And she dressed in, you know, black tights, black tights with a bow tie. She humps the stool on your behalf. Yeah. It's like when you have a sign language interpreter. Yeah, right, right. Or like. Or like, Fannie, what do you think of this guy in the front row? Where are you from? She does the crowd work and you just sit on the stool.

You're just, yeah, that'd be great. It's called Phil in the Hour. Yeah, you start getting, I feel tight. She starts rubbing your shoulders, gets you another drink. That'd be hilarious. Wait, but I want. Where do they work? Find out where they work. Are they Chinese or Cambodian?

Yeah, that would be a blast. Yeah. Wait, but I wanted to get back to the. that character for a second. There's something about being a journeyman. Because, you know, comics who call themselves artists, it's like, come on. It's a craft, man. It's a fucking craft and you're a journeyman.

You go out there and you take, I'm not into the comic that goes, fuck them, they're a bad crowd. There's no bad crowds. I'm in service. There's tough situations. Yeah. Yeah, I'm absurd. You go up there and you, because. Because the thing is, how many times you had a crowd that sucks and you didn't give up?

And at the end of the show, they walk out and go, I loved you. That was great. Oh, yeah. The physical, the actual emitting of laughter is a weird thing, and not everybody's capable of it. And it becomes a group dynamic. It devolves. It's very primal. Right.

It's like a bunch of chimps, like, clapping in a cage. They threw another watermelon in. Right. And that's the same thing that you share. That's why Gallagher used to smash the watermelons. Man, and guess what? He's got a house somewhere. He does.

For sure. So does his brother. Well, on certain days of the week. In certain markets, he has the house, I think. So there's like, it's just, it's, I am so glad they're there, anyone who comes to the show. And you've been doing it for 36 years. I've been doing it for 21, but I've been doing it longer than I haven't because I started when I was 18. Yeah.

So, like, my whole life is devoted to this thing. I'm so fucking happy that there's people there that are, like, eager to see me. Because I did the Wichita Looney bin papered five nights in a row. Like, I've done all that shit. Yeah. And now I know. And, like, I was in Syracuse and the future was like, sorry there aren't more people here. And I was like, I've never headlined in Syracuse.

We sold 600 tickets over four shows. Right. But still, like, imagine if you came to town for the first time and 600 people showed up. Like, that's a huge victory. I know. And just maintaining perspective is so difficult in staying up. I always say look down, don't look up. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, if I think about, like, I'll be in a city where I'm, yeah, sold 600 tickets and there's an arena where the guy who's got 15,000. Yeah. I can't look at that. Oh, no. I got to think about the comic who's back in L.A. trying to get on the road. Yeah. You know?

Or when I was 10 years ago, I'd be like 600 people know that I do stand up in any city in America. Syracuse. I mean, it's just all my dreams are coming true and I'm so happy. Who's booking that? by the way? Man, I think the devil himself. I think the fallen star,

the wicked one. I did it in July, dude. It was fucked. God bless them. Nice people. People came, but boy,

howdy. Yeah. His teeth on the curb. Oh, my God. It's one of those things where it's like, can you just combine the shows? And they're like,

oh, we can talk about it. And I'm like, no, all four into one. I'll go home tomorrow. That's one sold out. That'd be great, right? Yeah, I got a combo. show coming up on Saturday. I'm in Vancouver for two shows. Make that one show.

Okay. Come on out, people. Due to limited demand. We haven't even sold out the one show. And I think part of it, I'm going to blame Trump on this one. Please. They don't want to see Americans right now. No, man. They fucking hate us. He's stifling American art. Yep. I know, man. Also, everyone's in a kayak right now because it's the summer.

That's true. That's what you're up against. Yeah, I'm up against a lot in Vancouver this way. Plus, probably what's his name, Nate Bergots? He's probably playing two nights at an arena. He's actually doing like an aircraft container just off the side. So it's international water, so he doesn't have to worry about health codes. So it's actually 120,000 at sea.

It's great. He can kill people. There's no law. Oh, he will. He will kill. Uh-huh. That'd be great. And he's not going to curse once.

No, no. He won't be hard at all. No. He sees the light leave your eyes. As he extinguishes the flame inside of you. He's not going to swear or be hard. What happened? You have to get another camera because I'm so wide?

Yeah. How tall are you? I'm 6'4. Are you really? Yeah, yeah. I was measured at 6.4 at a football camp, so I know I was 6'4 once. I think that gravity has smushed me, obviously. Yeah, that'll happen.

I lost a bunch of weight, too, so my posture now is fucked because, like, my whole life I haven't, I've had to, like, pull myself back because my gut was enormous. Right. So now I just find myself, like, hunched and lurching, like a ghoul everywhere. Have you considered exercise? Yeah, I do. Oh, you do? I ride a bike.

I play drums for, like, hours a day. No shit. Yeah, yeah. Like, I do shit, man. Damn that I can, yeah. Yeah. I lost 110, and I'm, like, very outdoors and stuff. Yeah.

Not sedentary any longer. You still live in Colorado? No, I live in Detroit. I live in a suburb of Detroit. Why? All my wife's from there, and we could, like, buy a house there because... You bought a house? Yeah, I bought a house, man.

How much was it? It was like right under half a million dollars. How many rooms? It has four bedrooms. Yard? Oh, beautiful garden with a greenhouse. As a neighborhood. Immaculate.

Schools? I don't know. I don't have a dog in that fight. So you're pro-choice? Oh, yeah, 100%. My wife's a provider. No, she's not. She's an abortion provider.

No. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Oh, my God. That must take the pressure off when you're dating. It's like being an alcoholic and your wife is a bartender. It's like the hamburger being married to Mary McChief. It's perfect. Yeah, yeah.

It really took a lot of pressure off when we were learning each other's bodies. No, man, when we met, she was like, you know, she was kind of a college dropout. and I was effectively homeless, so we've come a long way. Wow, no kidding. Yeah, it's cool. So what kind of a clinic does she work in? Is it a Planned Parenthood or something? No, no, so she doesn't currently at her current job provide,

but I know that during her residency she did, and that she's active in whether you want to call it, you know, family planning or... Extraction? Well, just rights to a human's own body and the freedom to operate it. Well, is that... What's Michigan stance on that? They love it. They have abortions in Michigan.

They do. They say crank it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because states around there, they, it's always weird, though. There's always like some states where they go like, oh, no, no, you can have an abortion, but you got to pretty much have sex and then sprint to the clinic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have like five minutes to get the abortion.

Yeah, exactly. As soon as he comes, you have to go. Yeah. Call an Uber. Yeah, for sure. You have to have sex in the bathroom of the clinic. That's right. She is still running down your leg and you run into the operating room.

It's not running. You have to pay. Right. If it's still thick, then we're good. And you must have quit. I remember the trial. No, I think in Colorado, it's in the state constitution. I think that we protected that right.

Oh, that's right. That's great. Yeah, I'm a thank you. And then what kind of a doctor is she now? Oh, she's a attending at a residency program at a hospital in Detroit. Oh, so she just finished medical school? No, so she was a resident become, is when you're, like, after you finish medical school, then you go to residency for three years.

She did that, and then she did rural medicine for like two years, and it was fucking brutal and scary. What kind of medicine? Rural. She was in rural Colorado in this hospital that, like, provided care for like 50,000 people spread out over like, you know, an area the size of like most of New England. Did you have to go to, she had to have to go to them or they came to the plant? Oh, yeah, yeah.

She worked in a hospital there. And I lived there, man. I was like a cowboy. Yeah. It was insane because we went from, you know, Fort Collins, which is a population center to the middle of nowhere, like Rocky Ford, LaHunta. And one day there wasn't a man my size walking along the side of the road. And then the next day when we moved there, all of a sudden I was just a new, like,

cryptid, just walking. Uh-huh. And, man, there were so many loose fucking dogs. man. Yeah. And I was just fighting dogs all the time. No shit. I almost drowned in mud, bro. Like, it was a weird time. Yeah. Damn. And then she was just getting butt fucked by the American healthcare system while she was trying to like give dignity to super poor people. Yeah. Wow. It was gnarly. And so these people did they were all on Medicaid probably. Oh yeah. Nobody was paying a bill. Large undocumented population do like meat processing and like the agricultural aspects of that region. So yeah,

it was. So like like factory accidents? Well, no. More like like like. like in the field. Like fresher shit. You know. Like, fucking drowning in soybeans, grain engulfment. You know about grain engulfment?

No. Oh, you drown in the silo? You're just like crushed. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. And when you drown in the soil. So it's like quicksand.

Yeah, because like there's this crust, right? So like kids will get on top of the silo. They'll crawl in and they play on top. Oh, look at all these kernels of corn. We're going to go tromp around. It's fun.

And then they get on there. And the crust break. and there's air pockets, and then they're just sucked down like quicksand. And it's like the scariest thing to consider, and like that kind of shit would happen. Damn. Yeah. I wonder if you could eat your way out. No, no.

You can't. I mean, you want to get into the nitty gritty because I thought about this a lot. I tried to ride it into a thing. It's every time you breathe out, it occupies more space. Oh. So it's like a straight jacket, right? So every time you breathe out, you... more grain comes in and then

so you're just slowly crushed to death. Damn. So, I mean, I should have yes-anded you, but no, like it's so horrific that you just get... Right, right. Damn. Sorry about this. You were stoked, though.

You were fired up to talk about grain engulfment. I had flashbacks to college having sex with fat chicks. Oh, yeah. Always go on top. Always go on top. You can't stress that enough with the young people. Yeah. Well, they need more sexual exploration. The young people?

Like with intergenerational. Because they're like swinging and having fun. But like I remember hooking up with like old ladies. Yes. And like you learned a lot. Loved old ladies. It's pretty cool. Yep.

But then like you couldn't use that wisdom like on the young women that you were hooking up with. Yeah. Because they'd be like, what the fuck are you doing? You'd be like the bus driver loved it. You know? Like it. So it wouldn't work, you know? Right, right.

The young ones are like, How about some foreplay? You're like, what are you talking about? You're just like fucking mashing and clit? Like, no. The young ones are like, why are you starting with my asshole? This is what the bailiff wanted. Yeah, man.

Yeah, when I was 19, I was dating a 40-year-old. Sick. And it was amazing. No expectations, nothing but experience to bring to the table. But you have that like, you're just so hard at 19. And if you do blow it, give you 45 minutes and you're right back in the South. So yeah, it's just like that forgiveness. Did you used to blow it? Oh yeah.

Really? Used to. Bro. I blow it. Every like fourth time my wife and I, you know, commune that way. No way. Yeah, because like you'll get backed up, right? And I don't like to spill my seat alone.

I like to save it for my wife. because like there's those times where you get home and you've been jerking off all weekend, you know, at the Syracuse Funny Bone. And then she's like, hey, you know, you're like, oh, I dumped so many loads. Right. Because I was in, like, existential hell for the last, like, two days. Right. I don't have it in me right now.

And then you try anyway because, like, God forbid you don't. You know, you never wanted to feel unloved. Yeah. And you're in there and you're not doing a good job. So, yeah, but then that creates the reverse problem. You know you're jerking off a lot when you're like, you're in the gym at the gym at the the hotel and you're grabbing that hand towel because you ran out. Yeah, yeah. Or you're like, you learn Spanish so you can ask for more towels and like a specific like dialect of like Ecuadorian

Spanish so you're not embarrassed. The reason is when you run out a lotion and it's one of the big ones that's strapped to the wall. I should be doing lotion more. I've never really treated myself all the time. It's going to change your life. They call me mountain. I've dabbled. You want a thin viscous though. Yeah, you don't want the thick almost conditioner. No. Yeah. Yeah, because that gets in your, I think they call it the pee hole. Oh, yeah, I guess it would, wouldn't it? You don't want a throbbing situation. Yeah.

Yeah, no, I always just went in there like a coal miner's daughter. Yeah. And I didn't want to enjoy it too much. That's like MMA. Yeah, yeah. I was, I was like butterbeam. It was just pounding it. That's good, though.

I think psychically it's really good to only release with your wife. Because it's also, I think when you watch porn, you start to, it's an overload on your senses. And I think it can kind of like numb you to real intimacy. Oh yeah. Yeah. It disconnects you from this like one of the few sacred acts on earth. Yeah. And I don't, I don't want to blow it like that.

And I've been pounded it my whole life. I know. I know. Let's try something else. I know. Yeah. I mean, Jesus Christ, sometimes I finish and I go like, again? Again?

Yeah. It used to be like, that was pretty cool. Yeah. And now it's kind of like, uh, once more. Yeah, you got to stop at a certain age. I think there should be. You still pounding it? I am.

That a boy. Not a ton. But. It's like a health thing for a man of your generation. Right. It keeps you from getting prostate issues. You have to wheeze the Jews. as Dr. Shore said.

Weese the juice? Yeah, yeah. The great Pauli. Dr. Shore. I think there should be a line. You should be born with a line. And when your jizz doesn't go above the line. Look a clear bag.

If you can't clear that, you shouldn't jerk off anymore. I think that if God was real, that would have been designed into us. It's more proof of his absence. You don't think God is real? No, I don't think so. What about like on a sort of a macro sense of the universe? Do you think there's an order to it? No, absolute chaos.

It's all chaos. Yeah, yeah. Interesting. You don't talk to a lot of people that believe that. You don't talk to scientists? Well, I think scientists still believed in a sort of... The gravitational order and like the truth of magnets I believe in. Yeah, for sure.

Right. Yeah, I would concur that, you know, that stuff's true. But where do you think those laws came? from because they exist within on a cellular level and also in a universal level. Yeah. What do you think, where do you think those laws came from? And I'm not trying, I'm not trying to fight for. No, no, no.

But are you talking about like ionic binding? Yes. Oh, I think that when something, whatever the Big Bang, when something creates that out of nowhere, which again is like impossible, right, how do you create energy? but like something did come from nothing they say and when it exploded it created this whole new like relationship of where it was like if this is the the big bang and it blows apart like i think that the electrons and neutrons are part of like the relationship to their initial location within the universe and they replicate that on a different level no i think that like since matter can not be

destroyed or created like those bonds have always been i don't really i don't really I don't know, dude, but if I had to guess your insane question, that would be my insane answer. Right. I mean, you're high. That's why I'm asking you. Well, yeah, I know. Do you know how I answered it? Like, fucking Stevie Wonder?

It's like I was playing a bass solo and on the piano. I mean, what an awful thing that has to do. Yeah. I mean, Ionic bonds, man. I said neutrons. I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. Your producer's shoeless. Yeah, my producer's shoelist.

Yeah. You should call this the shoeless podcast. Whatever you do, you should change the name. Yeah, Fifth Dog Radio is bad. It's really bad. It's iconic. It's a brand people trust. You know what?

You know, it's like RC Cola. No one wants to be RC Cola, but everyone would be stoked to be R.C. Cola. Yeah, yeah. Right, right. Because Coke and Pepsi for one and two. And then all of a sudden, R.C. came along. I feel like RC in the regionality, like, I bet it did dominate more than Coke did in certain markets. Yeah.

You know, I bet like Tennessee was like ardent RC cola. Oh, it was the Paps Blue Ribbon of colas. Bingo, you got Schlitz. There was a lot of competitors back there. Schaefer. Oh, Schaefer. Yeah. Sure.

Neathe. Neathe is the one beer to have when you're, literally what their slogan was. Yeah. It's the one beer to have when you're having more than one. Okay. All right. It's good in quantity. Yeah.

As an individual being. it's not very good. Schaefer. A gallon's good. Yeah. I was in Dublin last year doing shows and Heineken's trying to compete with Guinness Zero. Yeah.

So the N.A. Heineken. And their whole ad pitch was like, hey, no more lying to your wife. It's like, now you don't have to lie to her. That's good. Yeah. I like that.

Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. Do you drink? No, I quit 36 years ago. Nice. Yeah. I've been, I've divorced myself from alcohol

for like three years. Oh, good for you, man. I've had a glass of wine when, like, the wine maker's telling me to, like, that kind of thing. It was more of a... It had to do more with stand-up because stand-up's really scary. Yeah. It was an enormous pressure. So I was, like, drinking a bunch of light beer every weekend, I think, to try and, like, buffer that.

I always wonder about guys that do that because then what if there's a second show? Yeah. Because you sort of get yourself to dig the exact right spot before the show. No, it's like this weird delicate dance. And then it's like, what did I eat? Like, did I, you know, was I super sweaty? I remember asking myself, like, how sweaty am I? Like, I can probably have an extra beer before the late show.

Yeah. Because I sweat it out. You're like a chemist for your own body. Yeah. And it's like, that's super dangerous. And I always tell comics now, like, learn it sober. Because, like, you're going to have to unwire your brain if you learn it stoned or drunk. Right.

And that's a really hard thing to do after 10, 15, 20 years. Yeah. There was a guy. Oh, there was a Florida comic. I won't say his name. But, like, when I first started, I used to feature for him. And if there was a second show, like, it was bad. Yeah.

It was like, you know, this guy would just sit there mumbling and half the crowd would leave. Yeah. No, I always had like a commitment to the show. Yeah. There were times where I was like, I remember getting off stage one time. My buddy Nathan Lund do I do the pod with and he opens for me. I was like, man, I've had a couple too many. I think I was slurring out there.

That's never happened before. And he was like, it has. What do you mean? And I was like, oh, fuck. Yeah, yeah. I am unaware of the fact that, like, I might not be doing the best I can. Was there ever a night where you really felt like it was too much? No, nothing like that.

I mean, there's definitely shows where you get off and you're like, man, because I improvise a lot. So, like, there would be, like, going over the game film in my head of being like, man, it would have been fucking funny if you explored that more. And, like, if you weren't, like, drunk, you could have given more energy to this thing. And you took, it's more about, like, when can I identify when I'm being lazy on stage? and then trying to correct that behavior. Well, I think that's, I've been thinking about that in terms of life in general. Like when I see, I have such as low tolerance for drunkenness now.

Like buzzed, great, no problem. But as soon as you get drunk, I'm gone. It's very hard. And I think about most people, because I'm very intelligent. That's the sign of intelligence is saying it into a microphone on Fitzdog. Only the best and brightest get to make that statement. on Fitzhawk. You know, as I was saying on the Greg Gutfeld show.

Yeah, yeah. Do you do Gutfeld? No. Of course not, right? Nothing smart has ever been said on the Greg Gutfeld show. It's the number one show in late night. I know. Well, they say that, but it's on at 10 o'clock.

And the other shows are on at like 11.30 midnight. Yeah, yeah. So you can't really compare. You're right. Fallon still is king. No, but guess what? No. Guess what?

What? With summer reruns, Byron Allen's show is number one in late night this summer. Undefeated. I want to do that show just because it's old-timey show business to me. Really? Yeah, not even ironically. I think it'd be a fun thing to be like, oh, yeah, like looking back. I can get you on there.

I think that he could get me on there. I think this ceramic mug. I think it's just a phone number you call. I think everyone can get that wig over there could get me on there. I appreciate it. I think it's like Kill Tony. You just show up and they put your name in a hat. That's right, yeah.

But you don't have to fight to the death, like, on kill Tony. You don't have to be humiliated after you're set. Yeah. Do I do panel on there and then you just see people's, like, dreams die live? Like, they go out there with, like, this huge, like, energy of, like, this is everything I've ever wanted, and then they fucking bomb. Yeah. And then you just have to, like, make fun of them for 10 minutes. It's brutal.

And so many of them come out fucked up. Oh, yeah. Because there's a bar next door where they wait and they sit there doing shots, and it's like, All right, so now millions of people are going to watch you like and never want to see you again. Yep. Anyway, I was thinking about like being drunk in general, like people that aren't that bright. Like I'm, I don't consider myself to be a smart person. And then I think like, I'm dumber if I drink.

Why am I going out in social situations? And all people go is, that guy's a moron. Dude, you're so fucking stupid. And we make ourselves in that condition. Yeah, I know. It just made me dumb and reckless. And it's like, why would I want to go to a room full of people who are chasing dumb and reckless? Yeah.

So it's really... You ever get a DUI or anything? No, never know anything like that. I definitely drove drunk. Like, you know, I was... Yeah, I've... Yeah, terrible. Terrible decisions were made.

Fist fights? No, man, I was never a violent guy, but I was, um... The only two or... The only three physical confrontations I have been in as an adult with like a fully formed brain were all under the influence of alcohol. But there were also like valorous acts in my opinion. Okay. Yeah. That's fair.

Yeah. But man, like I was all drunk one time coming home from my show in Denver. And like I was wasted and I was walking to my buddy's house. And there was this like young man and there was an old woman. And it's like, no, we're going this way. Like we have to go this way. And she just keeps saying, oh, Lordy, oh, Lordy. you know, oh, lordy, you know, a woman of color.

So, and her, and it was a young man was also a young man of color. And it seems like he's hassling her at 2 a.m. So I walked over and was like, hey man, leave her alone. And he was like, mind your own fucking business. And I was like, no, you know. And then he was like, get out the fuck out of here. And so I socked him in the stomach. And then I socked him like one of these down.

And then he fell down. And he's like, you know, out on the ground. I've caoed someone. never done this. But then, dude, I'm walking the old lady to her door, and she clearly is just an old woman who has dementia, and I realize she's wearing a housecoat, and that's probably her grandson or nephew who was, like, out trying to shepherd her back in, because she just kept saying to me, like, oh, Lord, Lord, you're such a big boy, you're such a big boy, like, she had no idea what the fuck was going on. Damn. So, like, this thing that I thought was, like, valid,

no, it was just a reckless act of, like, drunken machismo. Meanwhile, you love it when an old lady says you're such a big boy. Yeah, of course, yeah. It's the only way I can, you know. Yeah. Yeah. So did you, did the guy come after you? No.

He was down. Like, it was, it was, there was another time where our friend Jim's getting hassled at this comedy festival and he owns the bar we're in. And then, like, next thing I know, I'm like on top of the guy hassling him saying, you're going to get up and walk the fuck away. And everyone's like, oh, my God. Like, what a cool thing. Yeah.

It's like, I only did it because I thought it was cool. Yeah. I didn't at all do it. Like, there's no. altruism. It was all ego. It's gross. Right, right, right. And then I should have been beaten up many a time, but I just happened to be six-four and, like, for most of it, I was 350. Damn. Yeah, yeah. It was huge. I was mega-fanta. It would be nice to go through life that big.

I mean, that sounds obese, but like big. It must feel good. Yeah. Not your knees, you know. Your knees were fat? I don't think they were fat enough. Yeah. Yeah. I think that there was a war between the fat and the sinew. Oh, oh, oh, oh, in your knees. It's from varying the weight. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. And now, like, I'm in the water. I have to learn how to float again. Yeah.

Wow. How did you do it? Did you, I was Zempic or anything? I quit drinking, you know? And then, like, we changed our diet at home and it was, like, very plant-based. And then after, like, not losing weight after really trying, my wife, who's a doctor, was like, all right, you're going on the shot. You got, like, metabolic syndrome. And I lost another 60 pounds.

Damn. So do you stay? How does it work? Do you stay on the shot? for the rest of your life once you start it? I'm on like a maintenance dose of the shot. Once a month? No, every month or every week.

Yeah. But it's kind of like a vibe thing. It's like, okay, this last week I felt either more or less hungry. Okay. But there's also like a lack of groginess. It's a real weird like brain thing too. Like when I first started taking it, it felt like a limitless style drug where I was like achieving more and had more ambition and like wasn't sports gambling, like wasn't

whacking off. Like all of this kind of like dopamine. behavior, like, cessated right around the same time I started injecting myself. I hear also your desire, yeah, your desire for alcohol goes down. Yeah, smoking. Yeah, zins. I'm on so many less zins than I was. Yeah.

You sound like a shell of yourself. Yeah, no, but I'm like happy now and I'm gardening, you know. No, I'm kidding. Like, I'm just thinking about this book. So I wasn't a Coke guy, though. But the research that went into this book. Yeah. Like, did you find your.

while you were writing it, sort of like trying to find the darkness a little bit to explore it? I've always thought that stand-up, especially like the lore stand-up that I really have always liked,

is the dark, like, you know, it was like a mob-tied kind of like playboy club. Like, it was a filthy thing that people did in a room that they didn't tell people they went to. Yeah. And I always like that, you know? And I like the kind of,

I loved when I started stand-up that there were so many freaks. Especially in Denver, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But, like, even at the open mics, like, anywhere you start, you're just in a bar now with mutants, and you're all allowed to go up there for five minutes and say whatever the fuck you want. Yeah.

So you heard some insane shit. And, like, I loved that initially. And also, I was really good at it right away or else my lazy, you know, 18-year-old stoner ass wouldn't have stuck it out if it was at all arduous. Like, I wasn't tough. But, yeah, so, like, I don't think I really had to think too much. about what my nightmare would look like. Like, this is a cautionary tale.

This is a horror story to me. Like, it was easy to write what I'm afraid of. Yes. Yeah. That's why I had a hard time reading it at certain points. I had to walk away because I would go like, I'm so close to being this guy. Yeah, there for the grace of God, man. All it takes is one bad decision.

This guy getting caught cheating changed a marriage that he felt great in, you know. He felt great. He felt great. He always feels pretty. about his decisions. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, it can all, the world can just shift.

You see people getting canceled. And this is, I mean, in a sense, he's canceled in this book. But he really cancels himself. The world doesn't cancel him. Yeah. But, you know, I can see a world where I either have to decide to retire or I have to, you know, just relegate myself to this. these C rooms and these D rooms to keep working.

Yeah, but I feel like you're probably fiscally responsible, right? No, I'm fine. Yeah, yeah. So like, no, I mean, if I wanted to keep doing it for the sport. Sure, for the love of the game. Yeah. I don't know, man. Like, I think that reassessing what you actually want out of stand-up is something you can

do after success in it. Because like... Excellent points. You know what I mean? Yeah, I don't think people think about that enough. Why am I up here right now? It's like Mitch Hedberg, like, couldn't say no. And that's what Stanhope said.

killed him. He told me that once. His inability to say no because for so long, all the clubs that he wanted to work wouldn't book him. And then now all these clubs wanted him. So he was like, he worked himself. It was much of a symptom of his calendar as it was his addiction. Right. So it's like, I would love to do 200 to 300 person rooms, one show Friday and then drive to, you know, do Omaha, then drive to Des Moines and just do 600, two sold out, maybe maybe two a night, two a night. And actually think about what the fuck I want from stand-up as opposed to just being on this wheel and chasing this imaginary tail and emulating behavior that like isn't portable it's like a completely unique lightning striking and all of us are like well they did that online I'm gonna do

too and then everyone's doing something embarrassing and no one can call it out anymore because we're all guilty or even like you're with your agent taking incoming calls like I did two corporate dates this summer and it was fucking awful I was so stressed out because I'm not a clean comic. I didn't have a good experience. And yeah, I made more money, but, like, who cares? Like, that's not where I should be spending my energy and time. No, but again, it's like, okay, what is the cost-benefit analysis of that lump of change in my bank account versus, like, the pain and anguish of maybe not being funny for an hour?

Right. So that's the thing is, like, even when it sucks, it's like you're not in a field digging post-tolls in the sun. That's true. Like, you're still, like, doing the thing you love, and it's just not. going as good as you know it can. I think I took it way too seriously. Yeah. I think you've been doing it a lot longer.

So I understand it being more arduous for you than for me. Yeah. I don't know. I just think it's, I think I was reacting too much to what the check was. And going like, no, it's still, it's 60 minutes of me doing my best. That's it. The money doesn't make me try harder. I'm already, if I try harder, I do worse.

I'm not beholden to you either. There's that part of me too where it's like I'm not your chimp as I'm like actively their chimp I know I'm their chimp and I like threw myself there to be their chimp and I'm like fuck you You know, just read the Wikipedia That's the corporate trick my friend Rob Gleason taught me that when we used to do like college shows You just like have the Wikipedia and be like oh wow founded in Muncie Indiana sounds like Munchy Indiana and everyone's like Sure does It sure does man like you just you don't have to do comedy right right right

You just say Wayne's got a big head and they're like, thank God someone said it. I know. They gave me a list of names, which was the best I did in the set was just going through the names. Of course. Yeah. That's why they're there. And then I went to my material and it just went. Yeah.

Boo. Talk about Gabby's abortion some more. Doug's cheating. Shut up. Oh, he's bombing. I'm helping. Of course he's cheating. She had an abortion with his child.

Bring it all together at the end. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so Now, we've never met before, right? No, sir, but, you know, I'm 39 years old. Yeah. So as long as I've been aware of stand-up, you've been in it. It's like really cool to meet you.

Yeah, oh, thanks, man. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Especially in the Denver scene, like, and I love in the book you do, you do put in all the guys, Rick and Kevin and all the Denver comics that I love, yeah. And Phil Palisol and Nora. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's such a great scene, and I love that Wendy still supports these guys throughout all these years. It's still a lot of the same guys in the lineup.

Wendy never changes, and neither are they're acts. But, you know, it's... I'm kidding. They're all very good comics. Yeah. But, I mean, Josh Blue is one of the best club comics alive. Like, we had a lot of great behavior to emulate in Denver. Right.

And Wendy's like a mom to me. We had my mom's wake at the downtown club. Oh, really? I hold a very special place in my heart for her. She's, you know, this business has a lot of chain clubs in it where you really can walk in and out of that place and feel like, yeah, I don't know if anyone's even going to remember me on that staff. And then you have these indie clubs that have been around for 30.

I mean, that close probably been around for 40 years. Yeah, yeah. 45 this year. And then you go in and you, the weight staff doesn't change. It's like a family. They've been there forever. I know. And they really just, they just, it's a week that you remember.

And it's also a week you write new material. 100%. You know, when I go to San Francisco Punchline or Denver, like, I know I'm coming home with, yeah, hilarities. Oh, yeah. You know, there's a, if I could only work indie clubs, that's what I would do. Dude, 100%. And also, now that I'm kind of new to like selling tickets, you know, and like the, phenomenon of like success and um I've I've you get butt fucked fucked by these chains man and it's like

so close like you're so like 13 tickets from a bonus yeah yeah yeah yeah like can I just buy those tickets and they're like well we couldn't we lost the drink revenue on those 13 tickets it's like I'll give you the drink revenue right it's a difference between like $3,500 and $12,000 yeah yeah yeah come on right right so like that kind of thing is like you just feel so small yes and like disrespected. Well, it feels corporate. And we're artists. Well, that's not fair. But I came as an independent contractor and I did my job, which was selling X amount of tickets. Which means you did the social media. You did the podcast. You did the banner ads. I buy boosts on Facebook. If I'm not doing well, I'll spend another hundred bucks or two hundred bucks buying ads. They should be

buying the ads. Why am I buying the ads? Well, they are, though, because they're charging you a thousand dollars for marketing. Right. And that equates to three Instagram posts. Yeah. So it's like, come on. Not to be too inside baseball, but basically what we're talking about, and I'm going to look right down the barrel of the camera, is that before we get our bonuses, they deduct

their expenses, and they will claim a thousand is modest. They'll charge $5,000 in expenses saying there's marketing that they paid. And meanwhile, there's a stoner who is the barback who sends out a couple tweets. That's the marketing. That's the whole budget. Yeah. Yeah, is just, hey, this guy will be here. And it's also you're in a post that's like buried with the entire month's calendar.

Yeah, yeah, right. So it's like you have to scroll through to see that Sam Towns coming to hilarities in Cleveland in September. It's like, yeah, take your money, you know. I'm so glad to be here. What a great opportunity. Right. So gratitude's helpful so you don't, you know, kill yourself. You got to have gratitude.

Look down. Don't look up. Mm-hmm. And always be writing. I find that like when I get into a rut and I'm not enjoying my time on the road, it's because I'm reciting my act instead of like creating something new. You're a robot. And I just this week I started like usually in the fall I try to really develop a lot of new

material because I don't work much in the summer. Smart. I'm not going to next year. Yeah. The clubs are half empty. No one's there. So. Competing with nature?

Yeah. It's me or sunshine. Exactly. Me or a fucking grill. The river. Yeah, me and a grill by the river. It's me versus fireworks. There's a chick and Daisy Duke cut off shorts.

She's got bare feet. She just got a pedicure. She has three weeks to live. She's going out on top. And she's pro-choice. She's blowing everybody. Yes. Or you can come see me.

Talk about luggage. It really is unappealing, especially when the show starts at 7. And the sun goes down at 840. And they do the thing. where they try and shut the curtains, but they can't shut them all the way. So there's still a sliver of glaring. Yeah.

It's like a, it's a sort of light cutting the room in half. So it's like they know that they could still be doing anything outside. Yeah. You're not doing well, and they're just craning their necks, looking at that one slit of light coming through. They're like bats.

They're like what if? Yeah. Yeah. So will you, what's your friend's name? That's Jake over there. Jacob, will you grab the piece of paper out of that black bag and bring it over to me? Uh-oh.

It's a list of people to kill. Who would you kill if you could kill anybody? Thank you so much. Oh, man. Shit. Oh, man. I've never considered it sincerely. I don't think I would want to.

You wouldn't kill anybody? I would not like to kill anyone. I think it would change me forever more than it would change the world. That's true. I don't know. If it was like someone who was like guilty of a lot of like, you know, provable evil against children, I think you could. could probably like feel okay about that.

I could do that. Yeah, but like, I don't know, like a political figure, you're going to end a life so you can like feel superior in that moment. You still killed someone. Right. If you're a decent person, I think the toll mentally of killing someone is like not the juice worth. There's a show called Carnival that kind of slipped under the radar on HBO. About the cruise line? You think your comic had a hard time. No, it's about a carnival side show in the 19th. It travels around. It's a really very rich environment.

But a guy there has this power where it's got some supernatural. It's sort of like magical realism. And this guy has the ability to put hands on people and bring them back to life. But when he does, somebody else dies. Okay. I want it and one out. Yeah. So he's got to make a decision about it, which is, and, you know, he finds his old homeless guy and he's going to choke him and he just can't do it. Yeah. But no, I think child molester is for sure. Well, there we go off the air. algorithm. We're just talking about John Reap.

Oh, right. Whatever happened with that? He reaped what he sowed. He reaped what he raped. There we go. Did he go to jail? I don't know. I'm sorry.

I know you guys were close friends and collaborators. I think I, no, first time I was going to meet him, he was going to be on my podcast the week after he got arrested. He would have broke the news on here. Yes. That would have been good for clicks. Oh my God. It would have been like Oprah. I would have opened him up like a fucking can of tuna.

That was one of my favorite bits after that came out was I would call someone and be like here by Jean Reap and they'd be like, oh yeah. And then I would say, I'm really sorry. I know that you guys were like longtime friends. That he was like amused to you. Also, there's another fun bit to do at weddings, if I may, bestow a fun gag. You go to a wedding. During the ceremony, you look around and you see all the women who are crying, right?

And then you go up to him and you say, hey, I saw you were crying. crying during the wedding. Is that because you're incredibly jealous of the bride and you want to be with the groom? Is that? That's what I got from it. It's like you're in love with him? That's a really fun gag to do. You got to do it while they're still crying. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're crying because you like love him and you always have. You like hate your sister right now. Yeah. Yeah. You ruined their moment. You had an affair with him. Yeah, because you guys are hooking up all the time. Yeah. Yeah. All right. That one's a hoot. I've been to a wedding in a long time. I'm at that age where I'm between and my kids and their friends getting married and my friend's kids getting married.

Yeah. It's kind of a nice respite, you know? That's cool. I'm in the opposite. I'm in all weddings all the time. I've officiated four weddings this year, including one on Sunday. Really? Yeah, yeah.

Shout out David Borey. Very funny. He's getting married. Okay. So you got to get certified to do that to perform the wedding? I've done so many. I did it online. Oh.

Like the Universal Church of Colorado or whatever. Right. Yeah, I don't know how, like, strictly they adhere to. I did one, and I had to go down to City Hall in L.A. and, like, put my hand on a Bible, which, by the way, when are we going to wrap up the hand on the Bible when half of us don't believe it's fucking... Church and state, yeah. You know? Interesting facet. And so I got sworn in, and one of the things I had to say was that I would defend the state if there was any kind of civil uprising.

You're going to be robocop on behalf of your snake blitzkin? Yeah. I can swear people in and I can take their life with my left hand. Yeah. I hope I have to make that oath. All right. Yeah, maybe I'll look into it and pledge allegiance to the great state of California. So are you, do you get an out on buying a gift if you're performing the wedding?

Or you still have to buy the gift. You do, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that is the gift. Yeah. And then if they try and pay you, you say no. Right. Yeah.

That's the whole gift. What was your ceremony with your wife? Oh, classic beautiful ceremony, evergreen lakehouse in Colorado, right on the water. Nice. The entire time. Just sobbed as soon as she came out. Like I was, and then her dad, you know, gives her away and he was like, you know, just treat her nice. And I was like, fuck, I will, dude.

I will. And I just cried the whole time. Yeah. Like during my vows, during her vows, like ugly snot, sobbing, like fat red face, ruined every picture. Yeah. Totally heinous blueberry behavior. Yeah. But like, that's how I felt in that way.

No, I sobbed also. As soon as they fucking, uh, uh, uh, goosh. Yeah, yeah. And so ours was like, it was 100 degrees out. We were in New York and I'd in a stone church. So it was like a pizza oven. Yeah. So I'm standing on the altar with, you know, the guys.

And then she was in a limo with the air conditioner running. And her father was supposed to call her to come in. Oh, shit. And he didn't. So they played like four fucking verses of Here Comes the Bride. Did you do crowd warm up during the time? I'm throwing T-shirts out of the canon. We're still getting married, folks.

YMCA. This is show business, y'all. Ellen DeGeneres comes out, dances. Church explodes. So it kept playing and I kept crying. I was a disaster, but... It's good, though. It is good, because if you're not doing that, what are you doing?

I don't know. I go to weddings now, and I just weep the whole time. I'm so happy for people. Yeah. Yeah, the whole time. Yeah. It's nice. It's cool, too, to officiate, because, like, I can't cry when I'm up there.

I cried a little bit at my cousin's wedding, so I was so happy for him. Yeah. But then I had all these, like, great jokes. I was crushing. I crushed so hard at Henry's wedding. Yeah. Because he was, he had stage fright, right? So he was like, I don't want to talk, and I don't want to talk, and I don't

want any attention. And I was like, bro, I got you. Bullet sponged it, crushed, all these great bits. I think my favorite one was about, I wish my mom was here. I would live to see this, you know, because I can imagine if I told her, you know, hey, Henry, Henry found someone and he's getting married. I think my mom would say, to a woman? Yeah. Yeah. That was a heater. Yeah. I did one for my friend Mike Dugan and I was up there and he was a big producer at MTV and I was like a you know comic on my way but you know and I and I get there and the whole audience is like MTV executives HBO executives it was like an industry showcase it sucks man that's so unfair yeah so I basically just didn't try to be funny I just did be if it had been a lay crowd I would have been funny

but I didn't want to feel like I was earning anything for myself. Or making it about you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What a fucking monster you'd look like in front of the bride if you were up there. And another thing about Trisha, she always knows exactly how to navigate the airport. What is the deal with airports? I love going to the airport with Trisha because she knows where the bag goes. You know what you're putting the bag in?

It's like, God forbid you touch someone else's bag, you know. There's executives. I got stuck inside of Jennifer for about two hours last week. Yeah. Her mom's crying. You know what I'm talking about, lady? Oh, God. Vamping very old.

I'm thinking about re-I shouldn't say it on this show. My wife doesn't watch the podcast. Okay. I'm thinking about redoing the vows with her because I'm all about holidays and ceremonies. I think that in life, you know, I think it's important to bring the community together sometimes and like affirm things in front of people that, you know, mean something to you. Speaking my language. I feel like doing it.

Will you, will you officiate my wedding? Sorry. Who do I talk to? CAA. Yeah. I'll give you a good rate. Yeah. Yeah.

All right, listen. I just did my 10-year anniversary with my wife, and we got everyone together in Detroit. You did. And I love that stuff. Wow. You need to maintain those bonds. And as you get older, like for my 40th next year, we're going to get together. we do all these like group trips because it's like what else is the fucking point yeah you know right yeah

there's nothing more nourishing than that so make the time and put it together where'd you grow up uh eastern colorado eastern yeah what what does that border on uh Kansas it's like the high plains you ever read in cold blood yes imagine that house where the murder happened yeah that's effectively like where I grew up like same house like middle of nowhere scary yellow yeah it was bad just farms Yeah, like a lot of hay Not necessarily agricultural But a lot of like silage and shit Right, right

Horses, that kind of thing Yeah You like Cormick McCarthy I would guess Adore, adore I think he's the best I think Blood Meridian's like The best American novel And I'll hear you out if you say

Moby Dick But I think it's Blood Meridian As I like dying is up there 100% valid argument Yeah I was an English major So that was, that book meant a lot to me. The more I studied it, the more I understood what was in it.

But Blood Meridian, I think, is the most visceral response I've had to a book in my life. I mean, that one, you've got to put down. Oh, yeah, it's heavy duty. You've got to stop sometimes. It's confrontational. Yeah, and it's, just imagining a world where there's that much lawlessness just makes you shudder. Yeah, and, I mean, anyway, we're really in the weeds, but I think the only way you can do that movie

adaptation is a cartoon. Yes. They're doing a live action right now, I've been told, but I think that if they could do a carton, because like how are you going to have... You can't shop babies' heads off. You're going to have him smashing heads against the rocks.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But no country for old men was him, wasn't it? Yeah. Anything else he write turned into a movie? Yeah, the road. Oh, right. The road was his. Who starred in that?

Do you remember? Yeah, I think it was Vigo Morton. Oh, okay. It's like a post-apocalypse with his son. It was a love letter to his son who he abandoned throughout his youth. Yeah. They're like, write stuff. Right.

Yeah. But yeah, I think he's, I don't know. He's truly phenomenal. Yeah. He is. Who are your favorites? I would say, Kurt Vonnegut. We had a big impact on my comedy, I think, starting out.

Hemingway, and I noticed, like, hints of Hemingway in your writing is that you don't lean on adjectives and adverbs, lot. Yeah, for sure. They're good, strong sentences. Thank you. Yeah. I very much am focused on the lyricism and the prose, because I read literature, so I wanted it to, you know, be on the right shelves, you know. Yeah, yeah. I didn't want it to fall into the humor shelves. Right. Yeah. There's a writer named Rachel Kushner right now, who I like a lot. Yeah, yeah. Um, who I just read somebody that I really liked, a new author. Um, I can't remember. Mm-hmm. I, my memory. is so fucking bad now.

I know. My mind is mush. The last guest came in. With what? You already told me you're dealing with memory issues. No, I didn't. Yeah, we have it.

Don't do that. I'm the devil now. I'm booking the Syracuse funny vote now. It's seven nights, 14 shows. That's Vegas. I lived there for two years.

Did you? Yeah, my wife went to med school there. It was so bad. So bad. God bless him. All right. So the new book is called Brut. Let's talk about that real quick.

It is... Hitman in Paris doing one last job. And he fucks up a job. And now he knows that his life depends on the success of this next job. Yeah, yeah. It's either deliver or be destroyed. Right. Yeah.

It's cool. I'm really proud of it. Now, it seems like a book like this would require some research because it's about a very specific world. Is this all from your imagination or do you sort of, because isn't it set in Paris or something? Yeah, I mean, it's about a gay hitman who loves banging guys and like, you know, violence. So for me, it was kind of like a fantasy. It just poured out of me. I didn't, it was like a channeled it. Yeah, yeah. It was all in there. It's crazy. Yeah. Like getting fucked in the ass in a bathroom. Like, okay. They're like 12 page scenes. Twist my arm. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's actually just 200 pages.

about him blowing eight guys, and one of the guys has a knife. It's like Bukaki meets Honorable Japanese suicide. But man, Sickler gave me such bad cotton mouth. I look like Ashley Larry over here. Fucking Sickler. But yeah, it's cool, man. I was reading a lot of French crime, like Jean-Patrick Manchette, and I was like, fuck, I want to write a book like this.

And Random House said, yeah, brother. Now September 22nd. They give you an advance on the book? They did, man. And I'm like, I really want to be on the bestseller list, you know, because I'm competing with Mr. Beast. Have you heard about Mr. Beast in James Patterson's novel? James Patterson isn't even a person anymore.

You know, there's a team of writers? Yeah, yeah. There's a team of people who put his wig on every morning, too. Have you seen his hair? Right. It's like crazy. But, yeah, no, so they got together to save male reading. Oh, my God.

Yeah, they're saving mail reading. Uh-huh. And that means that my book is up against, again, the devil himself, Mr. Beast. Yeah, yeah. It was written. So, yeah, please order my book because I want to go on victory. And the thing is, if you order it now, don't wait for it to come out because the key is to get it on the bestseller's list is to bulk up all the pre-orders. I know.

And in that first week you get on the list. I need to allegedly hit 15,000 to break the top 10. In the first week? Yeah. We can do that. Well, we have 16,000 that listen to this show. Hey, every one of you, mandatory, you have to buy it. Or else you can't at all hang out on Fitzdog Island anymore.

How's that? Can I make that mandate? Fitzdog Island is better than Fitzdog Radio. Yeah. But it's worse than Epstein's Island. It is worse. Do you think that Trump was ever on Epstein's Island? Oh, my God.

Yeah. That guy wanted to be in those, like, he wanted to hang out with those people so bad. Yeah. That's why I think his whole thing is like spite, because, like, he was a rich kid, but his dad was a slumlord. So, like, even rich people didn't respect him. And now people have to reckon with him because he's the president of the United States. So, like, yeah. Yeah. What about him says that he wouldn't want to go to the, you know, very exclusive fuck island full of models from all over? Owned by one of his best friends. Yeah, yeah. Where, by the way, I've heard said that he might. met Melania on that island. Yeah, I heard that she was, I've heard recently that she is a Russian

intelligence asset and that her history is very fascinating if you delve into it. No kidding. Yeah, yeah, that she's been like manicured to be put in in place by the Kremlin for a long time. Whoa. Like specifically like grown in like a girl lab to like, I mean, that's a bit hyperbolic. And how did they get her to him? Through the island? Through. So Epstein had connections to Russia and he paired them up on the island. Well, she's like a model. But. But from, I think she's from Bratislava, I think. So, yeah, like, she, the modeling school or the agency that she worked for, like, has, like, a lot of connections to some very shady enterprises. And, yeah, that's, like, the new cool hypothesis that psychos are talking about.

But they might be right. They're being right and right more often, which is, like, an indictment of society, but also pretty cool for. Well, the rumor I heard involves Russell Simmons, who was very close to. Trump and has been arrested for underage girls. Hey. So. Rustling around. Russell some feathers.

Yeah. Here's. Russell Simmons of like deaf. Yeah. Wow. Is he in jail or was he? Remember Greg said that. We check on that.

He allegedly committed acts against women that were illegal. They were a bummer. They were a bummer. They were frowned upon. That's a charge? Yeah. Major bummer. Felity bummer.

Yeah. Vibe crusher. Yeah, you didn't actually do anything wrong, but you crushed vibes. Yeah, yeah. And you bum people out. It was a harsh hang. First degree. He was my boss.

Oh, wow. He was your boss? We're at the butt fuck factory? Come on. All right. See if you can find anything on him because I don't want to get sued. I don't see him in the news. No, but he did, he got canceled.

He was definitely canceled. He was definitely canceled. He bummed people out. He bummed them. 20 women came forward. Well, at least they were women. You know, that's a victory in this day and age. Right. Yeah.

Well, if it was men, they wouldn't come forward. They'd come back. No, I meant children. Oh, right, right, right. We've got to count our blessings, you know. At least the people he terrorized sexually were full grown. Yes. Oh, no.

It's time for. You're going to love this. What's that smell? No. That's pretty good, though. May I have some more water? That's fucking great. What's that smell?

Yeah, that'd be great. What's that smell on the show? Yeah. So what you have to do is you have to have a candle like secretly lit or an air freshener the entire time. Yeah. And then at the end you say, by the way, what's that smell? And then they're like cedar and leather. And you're like, hey, thanks for watching.

No, no. I think we brand it Sam Talents. What's that smell? And we bring out, I have things in baggies. It could be mustard seed. Nutritional yeast. It could be yeast. Wasabi.

And then it could be used condom. Sure. I think people are going to know, unless they're blindfolded, and no one wants to whiff with a blindfold on. Yeah. Yeah. That's like a primal fear. Oh, really? Yeah, I can see that.

Well, I mean, maybe not primal, but hey, I'm going to put a blindfold on you, then you're going to smell something. Yeah. No, thank you. All right. That'd be my. I think I would take a condom and I would just fill it with mayonnaise and cover the inside of the bag with mayonnaise. Like wasabi mayonnaise.

Yeah. This is called fastballs with fits. Dun, dun, done. All right. There's two types of people in this world. Go. Right and wrong. Isn't that kind of subjective?

You're the one asking, man. Who's the worst opener you ever had? Oh my God Great question Shit Becker Do you have He sells on my merch

He's on the road with me every week Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah Oh shit Fuck Okay I just The issue is like recently

My buddy Nathan opens for me So I haven't had any Oh shit Dude No, it's too recent No, come on You don't have to say the name Well the poor guy

No no was just having a tough weekend. What happened? Well, this guy gets... I'll just ask you. Okay. All right. I was in...

I was in... It was Virginia Beach, I think, or Richmond at the Funny Bone there. This was like two weeks ago. And I get there. There's a woman hosting. She's nice. I know her from online. And there's another guy, middling.

And she's supposed to do 15. He's supposed to do 20. I'm going to do 55 to an hour. We're good, right? So the middle gets there. and he's a black gentleman, you know, and he says, I got a bunch of new stuff tonight. I got some real good new stuff to work on. And the host who knows him says, oh, yeah, like, that's good.

And he's like, you just wait, you just wait. So she does her time on the nose. He gets up there, and he saunters to the stage. Like the music is bumping. He's really soaking it in, like he's the undertaker, you know? And he gets up there, and he opens with how he's getting divorced. So these are all your kids. context clues. Given all of this that you know, how much time do you think he did? He was supposed

to do 20. How long do you think he went? Well, if he's going into divorce, he's taking it down out of the gate, which means he's got to try to pull it back out. And if he can't pull it back out, he's going to chase it. And that can lead to extra time. I'm going to say he did 32 minutes. 36. 36 minutes. And it wasn't, you know, too bombastic of applause. I'll put it that way. And again, nice guy, having a tough one. Tough week. First time on stage during a tough week.

I have empathy, but fuck. Wow. And then I had to get up there, you know, and not talk about how I'm also getting divorced from my wife. You're getting divorced? No, I'm kidding. Wouldn't that have been a bummer? You did all the getting divorced?

The whole interview was a sham. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You pull a bottle out, start jerking off. Yeah, yeah. Start slurring. But yeah, I think that was the most recent hiccup I had as far as an opener. Yeah. Yeah.

No, that's the thing as a feature. You're really, your number one job. And I think we talked about this one. Don't go into the crowd. Well, that's the number one thing. But Kelsey Cook was just on who sends her love and says that she's a huge fan of your book and you. Yeah, same. And her now husband.

I was just in Key West with both. of them for the Tom Dustin affair. Yeah. And yeah, they're both excellent people. Very admirable. Yeah. But we were talking about your job as a feature is to set up the headliner number one. Right, yeah.

And that doesn't mean opening your chest up about your new divorce. It can mean, though, headhunting and trying to bury the headliner, like, that's totally fine. That's fine. I'd much rather someone go up there and swing at me. Yep. Then go up there and try and work some shit out in front of the people who are so stoked to come see me. Yeah. And then it's just like, don't do 36 minutes, man.

Yeah. My other rule is, and it's not hard and fast. It's more of a suggestion. I suggest you not sell merch on the show since I'm selling merch. I never say no because I was so desperate, like, riding megabuses back in the day. Yeah, yeah. Selling homemade merch that, like, if anyone wants to sell me, if I can't sell more merch than you, that's on me. Right.

Yeah. But I get those size. No, I feel guilty about it. I really do. But it's not so much that they're going to sell more. it's that they're going to spend five or six minutes of their 20 minutes propping up the sale. That's shameful.

You shouldn't do that. And they always end with it. Yeah, they always end with it. It's always like, now these panties fit in your mouth. Right, right, right. And it's always less funny than their act. Oh, it's horrible. Yeah.

And as a comic, you're watching it and you're just watching someone mortgage their soul. Yes. For like $80. Right. Yeah, it's pretty brutal. And then when I'm mortgaging my soul, it feels even cheaper because I'm the second person to do it on the show. I know, but I'm such like a fucking hardo about it that I made all my own shirts for a long time. Yeah. I felt bad selling a shirt that I didn't make for like

30 bucks. And now I can sell books that like I don't mind selling this at the merch table. I'm very right. Right. You know, I'm not embarrassed. You bring a suitcase of these to the show? I'll get them shipped ahead now or like booksellers are come. But like yeah. When I first self-published this, I sold like 40,000 of these like in the mail and like out of the trunk. No shit. Really? I sold so many of these It's on the road. Yeah, it was nuts. I was like Scarface. It was cool.

All cash in your pocket. Yeah, yeah. So 15,000 of the first week. Let's get that done, people. Go online right now. It's not for the money. Let me just tell you. It's for my ego.

As a guy who writes books, I want to be a bestseller so I can say that I was a New York Times bestseller. That's what it is. It's not a cash grab. Doesn't need the money. His wife is a doctor. It's not even that. You don't make any money off the advance.

They give you an advance and then you get like $1.30, for books sold. After you sell a certain amount. Yeah, exactly. So it's not like I'm like, please get me out of the hole. It's like they were already very nice. They gave me some money. Now I want my ego to explode.

That's all. I'll be completely transparent. Let's explode as ego. You can go to any... It's good for business. I don't go to Amazon. Local bookstore. Go to your local bookstore.

And then they'll probably order another copy, which is so it's helpful for me. Yeah. And when you're in the bookstore, take it off of... Please. The shelf and bring it over, bring two copies over to... staff selections. That's right. Put it over there. Write your own card. You know? Yep. If you're horny for dudes or violence, this book's for you. My friend, it's so great to see you. If you want to see this guy live, also, he's coming to Cleveland,

September 24th and 25th at the aforementioned hilarities. October 1st and 2nd in Indies, then St. Louis, Kansas City, Levittown, Brooklyn, Manchester, Connecticut, comedy works in Denver, in November 27th, 28th. Go to Sam Talent with 2Ls.com to get tickets and books. And thank you, man. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Yeah, this is so nice. Yeah, this is great.

Appreciate you. All right. Fitzdog Radio loves you. Fitzdog Island forever. This family is on the brink of Civil War. Mobland. The hit original series is now streaming on Paramount Plus. We are the Harrogans. Don't know the app? And Google us.

From the underworld of Guy Ritchie. Do you want to step up the ladder? I won't comment dead. Starring Tom Hardy, Pierce Brosnan, and Helen Mirren. Do I have to do everything myself? You want to want? Hurtive. Moblad.

New season is now streaming on Paramount Plus.