Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum - Dane Cook

Episode Date: October 22, 2019

Dane Cook (Good Luck Chuck, Employee of the Month) joins us to talk about the major successes he’s had in his career as a comic and actor while sharing stories he’s had along the way with legends like Rodney Dangerfield, Eddie Murphy, Mitch Hedberg, and more. Dane also talks about overcoming deep issues with anxiety to make it where he has, shares arguments he’s had with other comedians like Joe Rogan over content, and opens up a little more on the darkest hour in his life.... the period of time where he lost his parents and had to simultaneously handle the imprisonment of his brother for embezzling millions of his own life savings. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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tables, or join a live dealer game to feel the thrill of real-time action, all from the comfort of your own devices. Why settle for less when you can go for the gold at Golden Nugget Online Casino. Gambling problem call Connects Ontario 1866531-260. 19 and over, physically present in Ontario. Eligibility restrictions apply. See Golden Nuggett Casino.com for details. Please play responsibly. You're listening to Insidy with Michael Rosenbaum. Hey, guys. I hope you had a great weekend. Ryan, thanks for being here with me.

Oh, thanks for having me. You've actually been here like the whole day with me. It's been a day. We've done a couple episodes. Yeah, I was like, well, you can go home or you're like, I can just stay here. So I got some lunch and I took a nap. It was like we're roommates. I know.

Yeah, I didn't care. I liked having you around, Ryan. That's kind of nice. That's great. You got to take out the trash still. That's on the calendar. Well, you're doing the laundry. I want to say thank you again for listening to the show.

we've been doing this a while now and I keep trying to bring you guys great guests and you keep listening and again we're just trying to grow this show so anything you can do I try to answer your tweets I try to answer any questions and I thank you from the bottom of my heart

the new podcast in love with Michael Rosemann and Chris Sullivan is out we have some great guests coming up on that one too so keep listening to that if you're not check it out and my band left on Laurel the album is out folks saved by the ground order it on iTunes you could listen

on any platform the merch store you can go to inside of you store actually and we're selling the merch there's vinyl that are numbered there are uh there's just so much cool shit so listen to the band i think you like the music we're going to play a song at the end of this episode from the album and uh i i hope you guys are uh you're digging it and i think that's about it the guest today though is i knew dain cook i knew a little bit about him we see each other at like some parties in the past and you know I just you know I didn't I didn't know but after this interview I can tell you I'm telling you he's so open and I could tell I always like when I feel like Ryan I felt like he liked the interview like he was really enjoying it you guys got along you had you made a friend today I made a friend he's like he was like I was thinking that I really just like the guy he's been through a lot he talks about everything was there anything he just didn't talk about his parents dying his his brother embezzling shit I mean I just like him I feel like he's just like he's just like he's just a genuine guy he's been through a shit ton you know you knock him down he gets back up he's the definition

of resiliency in a lot of ways and um i just had really a lot of fun with this one so let's get inside of dain cook it's my point of you you're listening to inside of you with michael Rosenbaum Inside of you with Michael Rosenbaum Was not recorded in front of a live studio audience I know you've gone out with pretty women I've dated a couple Isn't that nice?

Isn't that nice to be you know You come from like I guess nothing you were just you know trying to find your way Nothing and then all of a sudden you know You make it you do some good things And you date some pretty girls Does that little Dane kind of go hey big dane the the the kid in high school that didn't feel like anybody cared or

paid any attention certainly loved that lane that was nice it is but so much comes with it's tricky it's a it's a crazy place to date hollywood because as creative people there's a lot of stuff that comes with people that are living in that left side of their brain so you end up sometimes in something that you think is going to be mutual like a simpatico we get each other and it's more fiery. I'm more simple. Have you ever stayed in something that's just like, God, I'm just, she's too gorgeous. I'm too, or I'm too sexually attracted to this person to let them go. I think I probably went through a couple of, uh, yeah, I definitely early in my career held on too tight because the scared kid was like, this is all going to win. You're never going to have this again.

I think that there's that like thing where you go, am I just going to end up back in like ninth grade at the end of this whole thing is this like a simulation where it's like every day right every day so i certainly jumped in uh with a plum uh and enjoyed those relationships but at the same time i always had my i was always looking for somebody who was um i'm like a home body i'm simple i love the work to be kind of crazy and that's where the attention is but the minute i'm off stage i don't want somebody chasing it you know i like somebody who's like knows how to turn it off do you do you can you absolutely like do you get home and go oh you know this happened and this happened i felt like this or you're just like i don't want to talk about it i don't need to talk about it let's just

fucking watch suicide squad i can tell you don't watch that uh maybe the second one i don't know when the new one comes out yeah the new already anticipated yeah yeah let's read deadline about the new one together um i am i think i'm kind of a rare uh individual in that the moment my foot steps off stage 20 000 people madison square garden 20 people local comedy club I don't care about equaling that feeling I am very content to methodically think

of how I want to perform do it by the time I high five the last person I'm already in like mediocre chill mode my heart is not racing I'm not like what now so your heart is racing right before you get on stage heart's racing you're excited nervous not nervous never been a nervous perform

you told me that before I was going to perform because I you know I started doing stand up a little bit and I remember talking to you and you were so humble and you sat there with me and you were like I remember asking you that question you're like no no and it intimidated me I'm like I shouldn't get nervous

Dane's not nervous Dane's been doing it I shouldn't get nervous why am I nervous you're nervous because you've never done this he's been doing this his whole life you fucking idiot I was such a scared kid

and I had so much fucking anxiety and I was so self-deprecating and downright cruel to myself that comedy became this weird safe haven where I was never as scared on stage as I was in life dealing with people in a real capacity. That to me was terrifying and it took a lot of years to finally be able to have an equal measure of both.

Well, wait a minute. So you said as a kid, you had anxiety. You were freaking out. So as a young kid, you were the opposite of sort of how you feel now. Like if you had to do some of that stuff now as a kid, that kid wouldn't have made that. You were too out of control? It was like a riddle. Wait.

If I had to do that stuff. Wait, if I don't even know what I said. I don't know what I said. It was like Inception. It's V Vance. That was the treatment for inception. I think it was. I'm on V Vance.

Um, if, wait, say it again. Let's break that down. That was if I knew now what I, sort of what I'm saying is if that little boy. Is this a time travel? If you were, could you have made it right now. If that, if you had those feelings, that anxiety as a boy, that, it would have, how old were you? All, all through my teens. Okay.

So if you were that kid now, so you probably wouldn't have taken success and all the stuff. Oh, no. No way. If I never stepped foot on any stage, I don't know how it would have gotten right with myself. It really took a long time before I realized, oh, stand up is me. That guy on stage in the, um, in being somebody who, uh, can speak up for themselves and is brave and believes in himself, all the things that I didn't believe or feel offstage. I finally realized, oh shit, this, this character is me.

That guy is me. I need to be him and pull some of that into my regular life. So I would start waking up in the morning kind of in that mode of like performance. And that helped me to be assertive. I didn't have any assertive. I had no spine, man. For a lot of years, I was the most beta, beta you would ever meet. And now I'm the most alpha alpha you'll probably know.

All right. Okay. I want you to explain the difference to me. Okay. Explain the beta, beta, beta, alpha, alpha, alpha where you're like, leader, let's go. I know what I'm doing. I'm happy. I know what to do.

Let me get on stage. I wish I had a fucking whiteboard. Okay. Dad athlete. Dad, uh, old school Boston hard ass. Pocky, you get your ass up. Get the fuck out of here.

Shoulders that like scrape the fucking hallway as he walked down. Just a force. Fraud Street bully. Just yeah. Was he a big dude, right? Fought in Korea. Fucking probably could have done the whole thing himself kind of guy. You intimidated by him?

Intimidated by him. But at the same time felt an abundance of love and belief. from him but he wanted me to be that thing that he was now other side mom sensitive phobic very phobic had multiple phobias anxiety attacks even when I was you know in the womb I grew up in fear in a womb and so I'm born with my dad's physicality and and to look at me you would say oh he probably you know plays ball or something no no no ability to be collaborative sit like this talk it out with people. I was the sensitive side. I was the scared side. And it took me a ton of years to finally kind of meet in the middle. Was there one big thing that you said, okay, I got to change this.

You know, there are people saying certain things? Are your parents saying things? Or your relationships? Are you noticing? I don't like myself. What a great question. I've never really thought of the turning point, but I know that when I was doing stand-up in Boston and I started to feel like it was my thing. Like I started to be like, okay, I want to do this. I want to do this. I want to. like live in this world once I started experiencing what it meant to be in a competitive environment with you know creative people right then I had to really snap into it and realize oh this this business side of it what it's not fun just comedy and then you go home and everybody high fives it's not it's not that I had to learn how to be brave and stand up for

myself and you know get get paid for the gig or whatever it was when somebody was being shady so that was the moment where I started to try to blend the two sides of myself together so you became sort of like a businessman like this is what I want to be and and maybe it was a respect thing you wanted them to respect you I'm not going to get shit on if I'm supposed to go up right now I'm going up you're not going to push me to whatever I mean of course that just depends that happens now right yeah I mean everybody gets yeah that's that's that wasn't still happen to you to me yeah never now right no no no but yeah because if I'm in a club and they say hey hey, you're on at 10, the totem pole of comedy is like, if somebody above you in terms of like their graduating class comes in, if Eddie Murphy walks in, he's going before me. And I'm not even going to complain about that. He's fucking Eddie Murphy. But even if Sandler, who was graduating class ahead of me, when I was on the road, he was already SNL and in killing it at colleges, if Sandler walked into a club, you wouldn't need to

say, hey, can he go next? I'd be like, dude, Sandler's on now. I'll hang out. and even though that that to this day irks some performers that part of it never bothered me it was the offstage antics and there's an intimidation factor in fact i had only done it for about a year i wanted you know because my buddy harlan our friend harlan yeah and a few others bobby lee they were like hey get on stage do it do it and i was scared the fuck of me i think you know what's bucketless shit let me just do it let me just and even though people weren't mean and they were actually really friendly and there was a lot of guys that were just supported it's just intimidating and i It can get ugly. I'll tell you why it gets ugly, though, when somebody like you steps in. And it's always been like this, nothing personal. Sketch guys don't like comedians.

They don't respect them. They don't really believe that they're on the same playing field because they think, oh, you're mainstream. You're trying to cater or pander. Comedians don't like actors that step into the fray. So I saw David Arquette come in to the factory one night, and he got roasted without even knowing that we were all just off to the side of the stage, just like destroying him and that was part for the course it wasn't anything about him it was more

about we're going to hammer you because we've seen a lot i'm not going to name anymore name our cat i have a lot of respect for it and i hope that he would understand of bringing him up with love and my heart but he was a guy that like many others thought i can just do this because i'm known i know how to walk a red carpet and banter with the camera crews and they think they can just do that and they don't see that it's a fucking process of years did you watch him eat shit did he oh god he he he he he he um he had maybe one of the top five worst sets i'd ever seen in my life what kind of material is a bad say i know it's delivery i know it's it's how you present the confidence he didn't have confidence anything can be funny and anything could be unfunny and he picked all the stuff that was

did you know it um i think he knew it but it's tough to tell with him what do you think you know i mean if you're bombing he's a stammering kind of guy and he's kind of like that whole character was very like skittish so it was tough to read like is he nervous because he knows he's you know taking a hot one or does he is he the guy from screen how it is like does he just is he oblivious but but does there any sort of like afterwards like did he want sort of like appraisal like or you know no everybody probably was like good set man good set hey great job you didn't but but that's but that's not to say by the way there's a lot of uh you know great comedians that have become actors and actor you know somebody like yourself it's not to say that just because you're an actor you can't that's

not true at all it's like i know comics that are even better actors sometimes than they are comedians it's the fact that everybody thinks that they can but not everybody's meant to do it that's true and it's also it takes there's something deeper than like to become an actor to become whatever a public speaker that there's a certain level of of confidence but to be a stand a comedian until you do it until you're on stage at the comedy store in front of a pat crowd then you realize you're you're in charge now there's nobody on stage playing backup vocals for you right nobody like shown video unless you're going to do sticky stuff there's the you're up there for 15 20 25 minutes and it's you right and that's it right and if you're bombing you're going to continue to bomb because

you have to do the rest of your set and you can watch your guy though you can watch your comic bombing and it's still funny. And how is that possible? It's because ultimately, if you're in your own truth, whether that's I'm bombing truth or I'm killing it or this just happened now, but I'm making it sound like I've been working on this piece of material for a year, it really just all comes down to, I was with, you know, Jay Davis? Jay, I know the name.

Jay Davis. So he's been a friend of mine, he books for years. He said something really unbelievable and it pertains to this. One time we were at the grove and thousands of people were watching the fountain show. the water goes like a mini bellagio and j david's turn to me and he goes like he goes look at all these people he goes people will believe anything that's confident even water and that's the key it's not so much about the joke or the timing or anything it's about the confidence do you have your fucking cool because even if you're bombing i bombed and it's like even in my bombing i have a certain

cool and i know how to find laughs even on myself to say this is bad and i'm going to tell you why it's bad that's that's can you keep your cool in the pocket kind of shit is that alpha for me but it doesn't mean that it's for whitney cummings or eliza slessinger or you know pick pick a name everybody has their own version of like the thing they can lean into and for me it was leaning into the swagger of my father and the scariness i grew up loving guys that were i like jerry louis and i knew jerry i had a close personal relationship last six years of his life he's scary dude and i like somebody with a little bit of that in their eyes. And so I just put that into my into my repertoire of comedy to lean into when I'm starting

to feel like I don't have control. That probably took a lot of time. I mean, right? Forever. I'm 29 years in and the last eight have been. I think I'm really starting to get good. Wow. Yeah.

And this last two years. But yeah, but you had a career. Like, I mean, you were the main guy. Right. With pieces that weren't complete, I was fortunate because I focused on some. pieces that I knew were advantageous to the generation I was coming up with, but I also was honest enough because I had done the work on myself to go, oh, I'm fucking, I'm, I'd be bonkers to say, I'm the man, I know exactly how to always handle this. I just knew I was doing some

things right and that I needed to partition those and build off of those things. And at that stage, were you still, obviously, you were confident. Yeah, I mean, confident and then still dealing with the anxiety at that time. I'd get off stage, you know, any arena, you name it. And then I'd go to do the meet and greet. And from the time in between the tens of thousands of people to meeting the 70 people, I'd probably have like a bit of a breakdown. I still had a will they like me mentality when it was like something like this.

Like you're talking to them. I know what you're talking about. Tell me if I'm right. You perform. And then afterwards, you're talking to them and you feel the tingle in your arm. You feel this overwhelming. Like, but did you like that? what I was doing.

It's almost like the sense of approval. Let's need, the self-esteem. Fill me up, fill me up, fill me up. Or even don't hurt me. Don't hate me. And don't treat me how I was treated by other kids when I was a kid. It was that thing of, and by the way, not just after the show. I could walk by the line with my hat down before the show.

And I could convince me and you, none of these people would come to see me. That guy, look at that guy with the hat. He's not going to laugh. He's not going to laugh. Oh, I'm really good at doing that stuff. God, how many people are going to laugh for God, I hope they get drunk. right I hope they just drink do you ever think oh my god good good crowd a little drunk yeah I need drunk early on of my career it was like that would help if they just buy them drinks on me i don't give a fuck

pay them what you're paying me give them the money I'm making they black out when they wake up you're like the show was great you loved it and you you were picked on as a kid I wasn't picked on I was worse I was ignored which made me wonder why am I not being picked on I felt like ghosted it was really weird and I knew people kind of back talked about me and I hear things once in a while but What would you hear? Really bad stuff, mean stuff. I had bad horrible cystic acne when I was in like seventh grade. And I'd hear stuff.

Sometimes people, you know, you're around the corner and I'd hear certain people like talking about my face or... People can still do that. They do. I'm sorry. Wait, it's amazing how they heard. It's so funny that people used to be so mean in this world. And now, Ryan, that's Ryan. Silent Ryan.

I met Ryan at the very beginning of the show. Yeah, you did. But I was even looking at some stuff today on Twitter and I was like, you know, oh, that's really nice. That's really nice. Why am I looking at this? It's going to be, I'm looking for a bad one. Right. I'm looking for a bad one.

Oh, there it is. Be careful. You're playing in a dangerous territory. You're something, you know, start calling me out on things. And how do you, do you even look at Twitter? Do you look at Instagram? I don't, I rarely dig into any feedback unless it's like something directly related to something I posted. Like, here's a picture from the show the other night.

And then if I see some nice comments, I'll write back. but I'm not looking for something. I'm not going into another page that I have no stake in to wonder, what do these people think about me? Yeah, because you're going to find it. You're going to find the bad stuff. Oh, yeah. It's a terrible world we live in.

Well, you've dealt with it. Dude, you have, let me tell you something. The one thing I, I mean, I commend you on a lot of things, but you're a survivor in a lot of ways because, you know, for a kid to, you know, what you went through. And by the way, you lost your parents, right? Well, not just lost them in the mall. They died.

They did? Yes. People say you lost your parents. I always think I wish I lost them. I wish that I could just... Well, Dangerfield had something, right? He was like, I'll tell you what, my parents were always moving. When I was seven, I found them.

You know, I loved him. I used to host shows for him at the factory. Are you kidding me? He'd pop in, and I'd bring Rodney up, and it was some of the greatest... Hey, thanks, Dan. I appreciate it. All right. How about this, kid, huh?

If you remember my name... Nobody even knows him, huh? I don't even talks about him, huh? He's being ghosted, that I tell you this cook. Cook! hey speaking of cook why don't you go make me something huh i'll tell you go on forever it was awesome man did that it's my favorite comedian of all time obviously i just go on and on legend i mean just you know when you say let like the standing ovation couldn't be quick enough for somebody like him

you're like this is the guy he's been fucking doing it for eons and he's still as funny whenever i said 80 that he was when he was in his prime what did he see you kill it did he ever see you and go hey dang you were great i tell you know he was a You know, it's interesting. When we talk about, like, what people bring to, you know, their own kind of anxieties. Rodney would come into the club. He'd sit in the booth. And the rigamar would be, I would go on stage and I'd have to say, and this is from Rodney himself.

I'd have to say, ladies and gentlemen, we have a true legend of comedy here tonight. He wanted you to say that. That's what you had to say. And you have to go, Mr. Rodney Dangerfield. And the place would go, fucking ape shit. And then he'd do a half stand up kind of wave. And then I'd have to say, or the host would have to say, Rodney, would you come up here and share a few. minutes with us and then I'd say to the crowd do you guys want to see Rodney and they'd go even

crazier and then please come on Rodney come on up and then he'd come up through the crowd and do his set and when I finally found out after about a year and a half of doing that with him is he needed that he needed that self-approval he needed to hear them that they wanted to see him I read that but I read his book did you read his book and they're so sad because a lot of similarities I don't know if you had to deal with that I'm sure we I think a lot of kids do but there's There's always that, you know, for me, it's making my dad laugh. Just, if I can make him laugh, it's like he's, you know, I feel like, I'm doing something right. Yeah, I was like that with my mom.

I just always wanted, like, because I didn't get that. And I don't want to talk about it, but like, I didn't get the, you're great, all that stuff. I love you. Just, but if I could just get him to laugh, then a little smile. I remember I used to, we used to stay at the Knights Inn hotel, you know, the nights in, it's a chain. And it'd be the whole family in the bit, you know, we sleep it. And I would just crank out these armpit farts. And they were killer.

Like they were professional. I auditioned for America's funniest videos with my armpits. I thought I said, I'm going to win it. I didn't even make a show. Didn't even make the show. And I remember my dad's like, that's it. That's it. Go to sleep.

What I do? God, God, he's laughing in his bed. I'm like, yeah, fuck it. I'm making him laugh. You're killing. I'm killing right now. That's all I want to do is make him laugh. I knew that was approval for me.

That was just a little small. mile yep and you felt that way with your mom I felt that way with my mom I felt that way with in comedy just you know can I make my heroes laugh the people I'm trying to emulate can I make them laugh for me the greatest laugh I've ever gotten from a fellow performer was I was in a film called good luck chuck and Eddie Murphy showed up out of the blue to my movie he came up and he said something really sweet to me on the red carpet why he was there which was really really really wonderful and then we're in the theater and the very first kind of gag of the movie right across the aisle

and the dark eye here I just hear Eddie laughing and I almost I think I may have like actually got emotional right there Do that laugh again I've never heard someone do

I can't falpano banana I'm a tailpipe Isn't that the best line You know what that's from quiet Ryan? Beverly Hills cop I ain't gonna fall for a banana tailpipe Who you're supposed to do you just your life

Did you ever see the movie Life with Martin Lawrence? One of my favorite movies, underrated movie. Ted Demme directed it. Such a funny movie. He goes, who are you supposed to be, Harry Barifante? Dude, that movie's so funny. It is funny. It really is underrated.

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tougher my mom was also tough but she was she was sensitive she was compassionate she was empathetic whereas my dad was like strict and scary did he say i love you dame oh yeah yeah definitely we definitely had a good relationship but because of alcoholism it was like two guys it was like the guy that who could be a great solid close father figure and then there was a guy who was lost in his own life and he hadn't completed some things that he wishes that he had closure on and that bothered him and he resented it so you didn't know who you're going to get sometimes you know the dr jekyll hide kind of thing and that made it hard so he was he was he was intimidating because you didn't know what you're going to get you're hoping he was going to be in a good

but if he wasn't and he wasn't a lot then you had to kind of figure that out well he got to see a lot of your success though and we bonded very much so over the last many years of his life and we could finally speak as men and I could forgive him for certain things and and and then I learned why he was who he was in the things that he'd experienced and suddenly there was a moment of like true forgiveness because you start to once you realize why hurt people hurt people who hurt them it's hard to hold on to anger if you're truly a person who's interested in upgrading and moving on in your life so we had a we had a closeness so something happened to him along the way that made you go oh but now now obviously that doesn't make it right for him to project that

on you right it doesn't make it right but you know i don't know i'm 47 i've started to learn even more and more in life that like everybody is a product of their environment and not everybody is out to get you because they want to be. Some people just don't know any other way to scavenge. And so I'm not saying I'm a person that, like, says, stab me. I'm good with it. But I am remarkable in the terms of resilience after things that I've had to endure to where I can kind of roll with a lot of fucking bullshit now.

A lot of hooey, I'm really good at going, like, I'll take it. Keep going. Because I know this is you. I know this isn't me. So you can shit on me. You can do whatever you want. And someday you'll call or someday you'll write and say, I finally owned who I am

and I remember that moment I remember how you treated me with class or with sometimes I'm abrasive but with honesty I'm not going to commit somebody just to hurt them but I will fucking tell you the truth

if you ask me to tell you the truth and you invite me into your life I'm going to tell you the fucking most truthful truth you've ever heard about yourself that's intense yeah and I'll make you laugh too maybe with some armpit books

I think that's probably where a lot of it comes from man I mean you got to go through some dark shit to get to some funny shit I think I can't you're not just born with like everything's fucking pretty no you know greatest moments in my life are sometimes the things that were the absolute most atrocious because from that you get tools you get tools that you can then implement sometimes into your work just sometimes into something funny a funny story or are a performance you know those things that like oh I lived through that I studied the the steps the empathy the anger I allowed myself to kind

I don't drink. I don't do drugs. I've never done anything in my life. I feel feelings and then I get to put that and share it in stories and performance. So there's nothing that comes bad from weakness sometimes in myself or in people around me that I have to cohabitate with. What's the, when you say atrocious, you probably don't want to talk about any of this. But if you do, what's one thing you will talk about that you're like, you know, this happening in my life. And as bad as it is, I learned so much from that and how did you get through it well for me it was putting my brother in jail i'd put my embezzlement yeah so once that happened and i don't i i i i pick and choose where i talk about it because i um it was a cataclysmic betrayal in my life that almost sent me into a an abyss of

depression so sometimes if and forgive me if i say to you like i just don't want to keep going down this rabbit hole but to look at down from the cusp of it for a minute yeah i can tell you tell you that it was like everything that I thought my life was up until the day that that happened and then the year to follow of how bad it got, it capsized me. And it made me a person that was very difficult to be around because I was encumbered and sad. So I didn't, I had to, you know, go back over the years because I probably didn't always treat people fairly because I was mortified. I was humiliated by my brother publicly. At a time when I was hitting a level, an echelon of superstardom that I should have fucking been enjoying 24-7 and I couldn't.

It was like somebody's just dragging you, pulling you down when you're trying to get up. I said a couple of times in previous interviews, I said, I felt like I was surviving the piranhas of Hollywood so well, only to find out my brother was the devil. It was nuts. Would I change it now? Zero, would I change? Zero. Everything that I became from that as a person and performer, I value myself even more from that experience. In the end, it's just his loss.

The only person who lost is him. Not because of just jail, but he's missing out on an extraordinary ride. It's amazing when you give so much to someone and be like, hey, all you have to do is love me. That's it. Just give me back. Give me back love. And that's, I've talked about that before. Isn't that crazy how if I take my friends out to dinner, if I treat him to whatever, if I take him to whatever, if I take.

them to on a trip i don't want you to buy me things i don't you don't need to do that right all i want you to do is just be good to me be honest with me uh just show me respect that's it just love me and don't talk just i need someone who's supportive and loves me unconditionally that's all we want the problem is we don't realize because i'm i'm i'm a pretty uh generous person i'm not i'm not frugal you know i'm i'm i'm not a spendthrift but i'm a person that likes to take my friends out and all that but what we start to unfortunately learn about people is sometimes they don't have the capacity to love you because you like to do a generous thing truly they're wired to resent you because they want to be in that situation they're not looking at you as the person who's generous they're

looking at why do you get to do that and why can't i so we're damned if we do and damned if we don't and we don't know who those people are or maybe we do if we really like listen to our pretty Okay, I think I do. I think we do. I think I get a better spighty sense from that whole experience with my bro. But hindsight, man, you know, it's like, I look back now and I'm like, fuck, I definitely allowed myself sometimes to be victimized because I wasn't a whole person. I hadn't done all the work on myself anyway. That forced me to, that moment in my life.

Jesus. Yeah. And it's amazing, too, the hurt that you feel. There's nothing worse. The hurt can't be worse than when you. give everything to someone and just love them and want them to be happy and successful. And then you find out they're doing this to you. I was so hurt that I would listen to REMs, everybody hurts just to be in a better mood.

I'd be like, let me put on something snappy. Oh. How about a little bit of, I talked to my therapist. I go, I asked her this question. This wasn't that long ago. This is like maybe two weeks ago. I said, hey, um, is it okay to listen to? sad songs she goes uh well how many do you listen to and i go well you know um it's usually the same

five over and over yeah well how many times you over and over i go you know i could listen to you know um suzanne vegas luca maybe five or six times in a row that's not one that i go to i get that one really good that's that's really dark that's dark yeah mine's like um saved by zero by the fix maybe someday Save by You know what Saved by Zero means Yes I do I want to say it

Say it to say it I fucking Googled it once I believe Of course Saved by Zero no tell me I don't want to Well so I have a new album Pitch I have to throw it out there It's called Left on Laurel

Saved by the Ground is the name of the album And I stole it because The song Saved by Zero When I was a little boy I used to sit in my attic So much dysfunction around me That I just sit there and play that 45 Saved by Zero

And I didn't know what it meant but I played it something haunting something comforting yeah I was embracing the sadness as my therapist said okay and I just played it over and over and I was kind of a sad little boy in a lot of ways so it took me so all these years later then one day I looked it up like you did but you couldn't remember I googled it because I was just really into it what a saved by zero the fix song mean I do also know that the fix they wanted it f I X but they wouldn't let them at that time because that's like drugs the fix so they made a mad an X just so you know that all right but but I also

It was already sticks So sticks and fix Well sticks with STW Yeah YX so But it says When you're saved by zero You're saved by the ground Ground zero

You can't go any lower than zero So essentially you're saved by the ground You can't go lower than you already are Supposedly that's what it means Okay That's pretty fucked up right Yeah Yeah

But there is a lower I used to call the lower than the saved by zero, I watched a documentary about submarines because I'm an exciting guy. Sure. And there was a term that they described when a submarine goes, you know, too deep into the abyss. It's called hull crush depth. And I said, oh, that's me. Whole crush depth.

That's when it's too much pressure. You're down too low. You shouldn't be there. Yes. And that's where I was. Just combusts. My literal reaction when the, when the documentarium was like, they call, this hull crush depth and I was sitting by myself and I go oh I know that feeling like I meant it

I was like yeah my my bones almost shattered inward yeah and for me by the way till Tuesday voices carry oh yeah do you know wait hush hush keep it down now voices carry I always thought it like some I think I originally thought like carry voices or opinion yeah voices carry yeah I thought it was voice is scary for a lot of years. There's another one. There's so many of those songs, everybody talks about. Oh, this song, I thought it was this. God, what's another good one of those?

Voice is scary. Hush. Do you know she says this if you really listen? Hush, hush. Shut up. Yeah. That makes you cry? What's that song that makes you just, if you hear it, you're like, you know,

if you leave me now by Chicago, that will kind of fuck me out. T-tun-tun-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-ch-oh, yeah. If you leave me now. Oh, God, that will fuck me up. You know what? Sailing Christopher Cross will get me. Anything Christopher Cross. Oh, my God.

Even Arthur's theme. Arthur's theme? Yeah. Arthur is one of the most underrated movies. That scene when, when, when, what's a fucking genius. I die. Yeah. I cry every time.

Yeah. I'll cry every time. That has to be in the top ten funniest movies of all time. Plains Trains gets me like that. I'm laughing and then suddenly they're yelling at each other in the motel room and it's the meanest most truthful conversation about how shitty the other one is to each other and I love it. I like the minutiaa. I like Rodney coming in because there was something about Rodney.

Rodney was scary. I always like those comics that could bring flex of something beyond just the joke, you know? And I think that's the storyteller in me because I love joke tellers and I have so much of an affinity. for them, but I love storytellers more because it's like you can yell in a character. You can be like, yeah, my father came in and you're telling this, you know, oh, he served in Korea. He used to say his tears could grow crops. And then all of a sudden he'd be like, where the fuck were you?

Where the fuck were you? And I'm really my dad in that moment. And I'm really telling you, this is how scary it was. And now you're relating on the comedic level, the absurdity that I'm yelling in this crazy voice level, but you're feeling some truth that I used to feel that from my father. I love that kind of performance. You've been a storyteller for a long time. Yeah. And you never, honestly, never been, never been a joke guy. And I noticed that. Like, I remember at the improv, I think we were at when, you know, and I just remember you got up there and you just start going and you tell the story. And

it's like, it's, you just go into it. It's like, I'm telling the story. And I, you're either in or out. And people are forced to listen. They're forced. You force them to listen without saying fucking listen to me. I'm telling you a story. You can listen and enjoy it or you can't. But that's tough. Do you think it's tougher than the one-liners? Because the stories have to be interesting.

They have to be fun. They have to go somewhere. I don't think there's one that you could consider. Like I did a lot of shows, especially near the end of his life with Mitch Headberg. I love Mitch Headward. I mean, you talk about in Stephen Wright. I came up in Boston watching Steve. So I couldn't sit here and say, no, it's harder to be a story.

No, that's being a one-liner, now you have to write like 300 more jokes per 10-minute period because you're rifling through everything. And Hedgeburg, Hedgeburg. A lot of people do that. Everything was a one-liner. It was like, rice is the kind of snack you could have if you're in the mood for 2,000 of something.

Right. And it's just like one after another. Yeah. So you can't really qualify and say is storytelling. I mean, all of it's hard because it, regardless of your one-liner or physical comic or anything, you just have to be interesting. Here's the difference.

Yeah. I'm telling you the difference. Okay. Like, I don't know the fucking difference. I'm still a student of the game. I don't know what I'm talking about, but I will say this. It seems to me, like with a, seems to me you live your life like a candle in the wind. I threw a little harmony on it.

You did. I like, I like you did. I stayed away from it. I'll let you go. But it seems to me like the one-liners, at least you can go hey quiet Ryan over there hey are you doing buddy oh good i got i got this one liner great hit me i'll tell you my you know i went to my dentist i said my teeth are going yellow he said get a brown tie huh does that work but with a story you can't what do you go up and say hey listen

to this 15 minute story tell me if it's funny do you go over material with people you just go I'm going to tell this story up there. Yeah, my girlfriend sometimes is like, you just told a 15 minute story that I don't, I remember the day that that happened, but where did you, how did you piece all that together? And it's just like,

I just do it on stage. That's where I edit. That's where I figure it out. So wait, whoa, whoa, because you told me, I remember this too.

You don't write down jokes. Never. You don't write. If you have an idea, you don't write it down. Never, ever. Never. It's not funny once it's,

once I see something I've written down, oh, I would never perform it. Do you ever go up on stage? I just go, you know what, I'm going to talk about the time my mother waxed my back. That never happened. I know, I'm spitballing hair. Shut up now.

But you know what I mean? That's how you do it. I hit the dump switch after I record a special or an album, and then I'm a new comic, and I'm back to my, you know, five or ten minutes of what ifs. And then I get up there, I do that. I just yammer, and I just try to figure it out, and I play around the crowd. And then my whole system of comedy, which it's interesting. because every comic has a different, you know, formula.

I need to figure out the four points of a sandbox. And once I have the four laughs, I then want to improvise and play in the middle. And I just keep swirling around in there because I know I can go to any point for the laugh if I need it, if I need to go to one side. And then I just keep playing in that middle part until I feel like I have a well-runner story. So you can embellish, enjoy, tell this story and know that there's the joke right here. There's another joke here. There's a big joke at the end. end. I've got three jokes. This could be five minutes if I wanted to, or it could be 10 if I feel, I'm feeling it.

Sure. I mean, you know, the whole system for me is like, yeah, you're going to get to a laugh. There's going to be something in there that's going to incite a, you know, a gaffa. But I just think it's more interesting when it's when there's more to it than just one layer of comedy. I like when there's a bunch of stuff in there. Like Carlin, Carlin's the guy that probably more than anybody. I wanted to emulate because it was like voices. Uh, intellect, uh, dirty. Lists. Fucking lists. Uh, political. Faces. Saying one word slowly. I just fucking love.

And anybody who ever starts to pick on comics and comedy, I go, watch Carling, you fuck. He did everything. He fucking farted. He, he was political. He said shit that to this day makes you go, that's the smartest thing in comedy. Then he could be a goof.

He could talk about dumb shit that we all do. That's comedy. Who's your least favorite comedian? My least? Of all time. In terms of a big, big comedian that everybody loved, that you're like, I just never thought he was funny. Oh, boy.

I don't, oh, that's hard, man. It's also probably not a great question to answer, right? Well, I'm just trying to think if anybody's wronged me. Well, of course they have. No, it's like, it's hard because I truly feel like I grew up as a student of comedy, and I could watch anybody from Emo Phillips to, Richard Lewis to David Brenner to Bob Newhart I mean I could name so many people that I didn't necessarily laugh at them Michael I wasn't sitting there going this is my thing right but I could

appreciate anybody that got out there and was putting their whole heart into it so I don't really have a men over Godfrey Gilbert no I love Gilbert very hilarious people just if you don't know Gilbert Godfrey and that documentary that guy the documentary did you see that on him that story by the way killed me I was on a date and I go you want to watch the Gilbert Godfrey documentary First time day, she's our second date. She's like, uh, and we watched and I remember, maybe because I'm Jewish, he tells that joke about this Jewish grandmother is on the beach and her grandson goes into the water. And this story's 20 minutes long. And he's, and he's drowning.

And a man runs out and he, he goes through the water and he beats off a shark. He doesn't actually beat off a shark. He swims around the shark and he grabs that. brings him back he gives him CPR everyone's clapping and the grandmother the jewish she comes over and she says he had a hat and i lost my shit yeah and this girl's looking at me like uh it's not funny yes it is you've never had a favorite hat it's more about the hat it's more about the hat right it's like um but there's no real comedians to stand out that you're like yeah i just never got it no no no there wasn't comedians that i was not

not a prude about you like clean stuff you like dirty stuff everybody any physical comedy you know martin short had a you know even john ritter like comedic actors and stuff i just uh anybody who really could put themselves out there you know judy tunna it wasn't like my style of comedy but i would watch all her stuff i just was you know dites joan rivers joan rivers all you know anybody i just loved comedians it was the only people that i really wanted to watch or listen to on an album or I just had an insatiable appetite for all things comedy. So I've seen bad comics and I've, you know, over the years a lot, but never, you know, never with a feeling of like, I'm going to remember hating this person.

Do you always just remember, hey, good for them at least. They got up there and they did it. Sure. Yeah. With some people, you're like, okay, this fulfilled something in them, but it's a grind. Do you always know it? Do you look at somebody go, there's no way this will ever become a comedian. Or do you ever go, if they got better material, they've got a good presence.

Yeah, I mean, sometimes you just see that one little glimmer of something. You know, I've done comedy camp for so many years at The Laugh Factory. Tiffany Haddish was in there when she was 14. And I'm not going to take full credit, but me and a lot of people looked at her and said, yep, big star if she can figure it out. I went on the view like 15 years ago. And I showed her picture. And I said, she was still like 17, 18. I said, this is Tiffany Haddish.

You're all going to know her someday. Wow. So sometimes you see it and you're like, oh, if they can just figure it out. And then sometimes you see it and you go, okay, this is like, this person does want to do the work. All right. So tell it like it is, this tour. Yeah. Right.

That's the tour I'm on right now, man. I know. I see all these cities come up. You look up Dane Cook. It's like these are the cities. I don't know if you just see, just see Sacramento or something. I just, uh, let's see, where was I just now? I did the Ryman in Nashville, one of the most amazing.

I called the Radio City of Nashville because I had just come from Radio City for my first gig ever playing Radio City in New York. How many people in Nashville at this? At the Ryman? a few thousand I played it like three or four times And how many on this tour How many have you done so far? How many nights?

I've probably done about 40 nights And I have another eight weeks of touring Forty nights in how many days And how many months? Started in March I think So pretty much every Thursday, Friday, Saturday For most of the year

In a different city? Yeah Has there been What's been if you've had a bad time? There was just one show somewhere where it was just every kind of technical problem from bad lighting to bad mics to everything. And that's just like, you know what you do? You go like, it's funny because everything you learn in those formative shit years of like,

I played a college where I had to do a hallway. They actually booked me and put me in a fucking hallway. Not a big hallway, a regular sized hall where students would be walking to class and they hired me to entertain you as you walked. And it was mortifying. I remember calling my manager who's still my comedy tour manager, Matt. I said, dude, this was the most fucking terrible thing, and there was no mic, and I'm standing

on a little platform, and people, nobody knew I was there. There was no introduction. I'm just standing. Well, all of a sudden, my mic goes out on this tour date, and I'm in front of 5,000 people, and I just got to do comedy in the park. And thank God I had those early gigs where I was in hallways in fucking shitty, you know, in a frat house standing on a pool table, you know, billiard table, dude, comedy, no mic, no light. because I didn't have it that night

and I was fucking fine I was like all right and they loved it because they were like this is no that was nothing no no no no no I would have been so sad if that happened at the rhyme because the rhyme and it's like

you're you're in the Johnny Cash room you're literally in his dressing room so you want to do well at the rhyme but you're having technical difficulties at another gig yeah right now when you're at that gig do you know how to embrace it by this point are you just kind of like fine

or you're like what the fuck do you kind of lose your shit every once in a while like guys come the fuck on No, I mean, there's definitely times where you come off stage and you're like, can we prevent that from happening again? You know, you just don't want it to happen again. But where the proof is in the pudding is if you're, can you be on stage and handle any and every anomaly possible and still be a pro, you know? Even Bill Burr, when he went off on that Philly crowd, the brilliance and the beauty of that is he really was reacting to like how they were. were, you know, treating him, what they were yelling in the vitriol and whatever. And that dude, who I started with, and I saw him at the very formative years with me,

I watched everything he'd ever learned from all those early Boston hardcore, hard ass gags, use all of it. And in one night, it probably changed the course of his career because it made him a staple. Like, dude, you can't, he's unfuckable with. Are you unfuckable with? I think I'm pretty impenetrable at this point as a stand-up. I feel like I've hit every gear. I'm definitely learning more,

and I feel like I'm getting more introspective, which has been really fun. You meditate? I'm not great at it, but I play all of video games, and that's weirdly like my thing. You play a lot of video games. Yeah.

What do you play? Right now I'm playing PubGy, play around Known Battleground. It's like a Battle Royale game. I'm very competitive. so video gaming calms me down i don't think about anything except it's like chess i play chess too but that seems like the most non-calming thing because it's so much stimulation that the point is to get your mind and your heart to talk to each other relax breathe and you're going fuck you come on

motherfucker die yeah i do sometimes do that but it's like it's weird it pulls me out of um ruminating on other things because i'm thinking all the time i'm always coming up with ideas and I'm designing the poster. I'm making the font. I'm like, I love being hands on with every element of my career. And when I play a video game, it's the one thing, only thing that I can do outside of exercise. I don't think too much about other stuff. I just compete and have fun. Do you still love doing movies? I do, but I don't want to do the kind of movies that I had done because I felt like it was starting to get a little derivative. And I I liked when I had opportunities to play parts that were risky and unexpected.

So now I, it takes a little longer, but I wait for those opportunities. So you just wait, you're like, hey, you know what, I'd like to grow a beard for this one. I'd like to, I'd like to do something. I want an eye patch for this. I want an eye patch. Are you one of those guys? Like, you'd like to just kind of dive in. We're like, is that, who is that?

Is that Dan Cook? No, I don't think it is. I got to do that on a couple of roles where, you know, I gained a lot of weight or I looked like a fucking scrub. And I liked, um, I, see, I like, doing that work. I like putting the pieces together of a of a character and the origin and I dig

in. Did you ever really think you're going to become an actor? Yes, because I started in theater in high school. So I was doing theater and I was already looking at like film with comedians in those films, i.e. Jerry Lewis King of Comedy and I already I was telling people in 1990

I said if I can figure out how to make this comedy thing work, that's my going to be my back door into film. I'm going to do it like the comedians Steve Martin the jerk so I always I always looked at it as like if I can make this work either I'm gonna fail and I'm gonna do none of it or I'm gonna be able to like domino this in one thing after another you ever let the critics get to you do you ever like hear so much shit like I know you were on stern right yeah I know you had a whole bunch of shit you know

you had a thing where Joe you and Joe Rogan kind of talked about stuff and you got became friends and he said oh he stole this shit he stole my lines it's like it's the same thing with movies oh he read he wrote that movie I did that movie I had that idea it happens in stand-up comedy as well right so people would say oh dain took this yes comedy every single day there's two comedians having the exact same conversation that ours was splashed onto the internet right so to people who went what it's like no this is like we all fucking do this every day oh dude I'm doing a thing about blah blah blah it's like it's it's in the ether it's just part of it did it infuriate you and a lot of shit went down no

You're like, what the fuck? Because, believe it or not, the rest of the world doesn't care. Because everybody who goes, aren't you infuriated? It's like, I'm going out in front of 20,000 people tonight. Do you think I'm infuriated? You think I'm upset that he said I stole his lines? Knowing that every comic, everywhere, all the time is going, hey, can we talk about something? But the only difference is, those two people are not famous and nobody gives a fuck.

When Joe and I had a problem in 1997, about one bit, this is what we're talking about. This is 20, this is how funny it is. 1997, one bit with the same kind of. premise we used to play a quake three arena we were video gamers together we would compete and joe called me up he's like dude and he he talked about it he was bummed about it and i was like all right cool and like most comics i acquiesk and i go yeah i won't do it anymore i didn't i didn't realize i didn't know you thought it was too close and that's how it's usually handled unfortunately sometimes those things get regurgitated and then people want to talk and add stuff oh well i heard this happen

and so-and-so said you're a fucking asshole yeah yeah that's the last is it at a jealousy you think what a jealousy like something happened his career took off mind and is it usually that well i don't think with joe it was because i think joe and i have always kind of been uh neck and neck in terms of like we've known our audiences at certain points of our life and we we knew how to cater to them and so i you know he's he's a very entrepreneurial like joe is a fucking smart guy i'm not the one who needs to say that we all know but for me personally it was like being on the receiving end of those kinds of conversations just makes me go oh yeah like every other comic i know and i could name 15 20 names right now in the last month that have called me

and said you know who's doing my bit fucking so-and-so dude it's like you're we're hearing this stuff all the time yeah that makes perfect sense i remember i had this script and someone sold that idea and it was just so right in front of you that i was like uh the first page is exactly like my pilot the character's name I don't know and then you know I was like

what do I do and my buddy Dax I always see he has some good advice I didn't play the month with him yeah he had some advice

for me he said is this the only script you're going to write and I go what is this the only script you're going to write I go no I don't think this is the only script

because if it was the only script then I would go sue I'd sue whatever sue everybody yeah but if you're going to do something else he's like come on

you think two plumbers are talking about a plumber has an idea and he says oh well i have it's people have ideas you're an actor you're going to have ideas about this you're right scientists have cross hypotheses that they both rappers have beats that they it's it's um these conversations to me seem so superfluous there's no weight to them because it's just silly but it's interesting if you're a person outside of the spectrum going oh these two comedians or scientists or rappers have a beef or problem with each other that's more fun right but to me it's like it's maybe one of the least most interesting conversations because we've just heard i've heard it for

almost 30 years these exact same things well let me ask you this yeah you're at the height of your career everything's going right the thing with the brother happens my family stuff happens family stuff mom dad everything everything brother embezzlement all this shit you're at the height and then boom boom boom and now what year is it 2008 yep and you're like i'm coming off like a eight year run into a brick wall of that brick wall i've lost a lot of money i've lost family i've lost trust how did you get out of that and did you really how long did you feel it for and did you think i don't know if i want to do stand-up again oh man okay so i never ever thought i didn't want to do stand-up again stand-up was the very first thing that i did on probably the first night that i picked myself up off the floor um it felt the same

exact way that it always feels where when i'm on stage nothing um nothing gets in and hurts it's kind of the adrenaline like when you play through pain if you ever played sports and so immediately i felt like i had a safe haven i hadn't started therapy yet at that point in my life but for me that was a bit of therapy before i started you know really doing the the work and then my fans just completely saved my life and i meant that literally because during the year that I'd lost, you know, pretty much my life savings. I just went on the road and I played. Your life savings that much.

Yeah. Like I heard like it was a couple of million dollars. Oh, no, no, no, no. This was everything you've worked hard for is gone. This is like we're talking in the possibly tens of millions of dollars. I would kill myself. I didn't think about that. No, I wouldn't.

No, no, no, it's not that. No, go ahead. Go ahead. I'm sorry. No, you don't be sorry. I don't know if I would kill myself. I don't want to. No, that was definitely not an option.

If anything, what it was going to be is how can I show the people that love me and that are here still with me that I'm a resilient fucking dude? And the one thing that I always believed in, I didn't believe in a lot of things of myself and I was pretty mean to myself for a lot of years, pretty self-loathing. But I knew I could make people laugh. And I got out on stage for that next year and I did 100 arenas. I think I rented them myself with a little bit of money. that I had in stocks that he couldn't take because you can't just pull stock money out.

But once I liquidated all that and did like a forensics audit, this is all really boring. I did a forensics audit, liquefied, and I took the remaining parcels of funds and I rented arenas myself, like halls. How much of this cost you? You know, a B arena somewhere cost me about like, you know, 70 grand for an off night, no basketball game, no hockey game. So you had to make a big A arena over 70 grand. Yeah, but I'm setting the ticket price and I'm taking the door. I'm taking the door. I'm getting the merch.

I'm doing it all because I'm renting it. So I'm paying my crew and then I'm pocketing 84% of each arena. And how much would each arena make, could it make? Could it be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, everything from... And you took a chance because you might not have. You're like, well, nobody's there or whatever. You know, it's ever... We're talking 2010 as well, which is like worst possible time for the economy.

everything and years after you've already had you you and i peaked i'd already i'd already bottomed out and i hit the eight year crest which you know you know it's gonna settle at some point and so i'm coming down the other side of it thinking now i'm just gonna have to like i've got my nest egg until the next wave hits or whenever i come up with a fucking good idea and so every night i would go out i play these arenas i sold them out everywhere i went you name an arena in u.s and canada i played it and by the end of that year I made back everything he'd stolen from me pretty much in like 14 or 15 months oh my god how good does that feel the best changed my life because now i don't do shows michael i don't perform anything or anywhere i don't take any gig i say no to a lot

i have problems sometimes with my team because i said i'm not doing anything that i can't let those fans that save my life know that this is important to me and i want you to be a part of it so if that means I do less work but when I do do work or a tour it's higher quality which is what's happening with the tell like it is tour fucking people are going I saw you 10 times over 20 years I didn't think you could exceed my expectations after and then they name a favorite show and they're like you fucking blew me away tonight and that's that's all I'm going to continue to do do you think that uh you're better than ever now like do you feel do you feel like your shit you're proud of your shit you obviously were evolving we evolve and you're going to

gets better and better. You always think I'm not as good as I will be. Do you think you're better than you were at the height? I think I'm better because I now have that ability to not only the energy I have on stage is not a put on. It's not a fake energy. It's not like part of a character. I've always had that real excitable, you know, fantastical. Once it starts going, that's me on stage. So to have that coupled with the ability to now have stillness and tell a story that really, like I'm talking about my brother.

I'm talking about my parents. I'm talking about stalkers. I'm being more introspective. And the only way you can be truly introspective is to let somebody look into your eyes. It's not about, whew, at that point. So I want to go there and I want to be able to prowl

and have the physicality. Interspection. It's the thing I've strived for for 15 years. I want to be more introspective. I want to be there. You know, I always thought of it as a weakness. You know, my father was really, you know, this macho guy, never talked about his emotions. I just felt like I was kind of pretending for so many years.

I'm confident. Fucking, I got my shit together. I'm the leader. I'm the alpha. I'm going to organize this and I'm going to go do a series and I'm doing a movie. I've got my shit together. And then it wasn't until probably in the last, it was this podcast. Believe it or not, where I saw.

suddenly started because if you if you keep this microphone all long enough the truth will come out sure and i started to say things that anyone normally say but i was being vulnerable and talking about my anxiety and my life and my some sadness and just and all of this and the conversations got deeper it wasn't me just going oh i have a podcast i'm an actor it was it just gave me purpose of course and it was then i realized people are connecting to that are you kidding me they like that They don't want strong, pretend cool guy. They want fucking real down-to-earth fucking scared little Michael, you know? I think don't people, they want somebody who can be at the helm, but care.

Yeah. If you can be the team leader and care, I think that you're going to be able to have a really strong career and whatever it is that you do and whatever. Because some people are really good at being a team leader, but they have no bedside manner. Oh, yeah. You know, they're callous, they're procedural. And then some people are very caring, but that's all they are. They're caring and they're delicate and they're great for a hug or an intimate chat. But they're not the person that is going to say, now, come on, let's go.

Get the fuck up. We've had our sad day. Now let's make a plan and work it. And to be able to be that in life for the people that I love and that love me. And then to be able to provide that for my fans in comedy. or in performance. I feel like I'm going to say something very cheesy, but it's the first thing that popped into my head,

so forgive me. It's like I'm living my best life by doing that. I think it's great. I think it's beautiful. You know? I do. Not without, you know, listen, man, sometimes those, the old tapes play and things that happen to me from my family,

you know, missing my mom and dad. Like I definitely still go and I drop. I go into my, I don't have depression, but I, you know, I, I, situational depression maybe? Fall apart, man, you know. Do cry? I do.

Oh, yeah. If you cry in front of other people or you're a lonesome cry. No, I'll cry in front of other people. Did you cry in front of me? Not now. Oh, shit, okay. I'm sorry.

Can you be tough intentor? Sure. Okay, then in that case, you might be tough intender. I'll squeeze the tear out. You know what? I keep thinking, I like you. Thank you. I do.

But you don't want to? Listen, no, it's not that. I didn't know you other than we'd see each other at all. You know, I'd see a Lakers game or game night. And I was like, Yeah, you were always nice. Hey, dude, how are you? But I didn't know you.

You didn't know me. You're like, oh, yeah, that guy. I don't know who that guy is, man, whatever. I just thought you were an evil genius. Oh, yeah. That's true. I was, buddy. I was good.

Right? It's like we see people for what we project and then we get to know them and hopefully. And I know people always have preconceived notions about me, but I also know that I've had some preconceived notions about other people and then I meet them and it's like, and I'm trying not to do that anymore because, you know, what's good is, I think you care more when you believe what they're saying. It's that's the thing. If you believe, no money can tell me that I'm not a good guy.

If anybody out there saying, oh, he's not a good guy. Right. You're not, I'm never going to believe that. Because I really think I'm a genuinely good guy. I do the wrong things. I say the wrong shit. I am a big mouth. I can be selfish.

But genuinely, underneath all that shit, I think I am really a good person. Right. And so when you know that, it doesn't hurt as much. when other people are saying shit that, you know, isn't true. You know, if you can have the kind. It's, look, it's never good to hear it, you know, but you have to have compassion for you.

But again, growing up as somebody who heard them talking terribly about me around the corner in, you know, fifth grade, sixth grade, I was, you know, conditioned for, unfortunately, people aren't always kind. And so when success hit and I saw, oh, it's just more of that. Weirdly, I was like, okay, I made it through that.

I can, I can hang with that. Tell me. What other people think of you as none of your business is a really great. It really is. It's a shitty t-shirt that somebody made. But the truth is, it's like you got it. You have to live your life with that. Isn't that something that?

You ever hear that quote, Quiet Ryan? This is a thing now, isn't it? That's quiet Ryan, it is. Oh, this just happened today. Jason Muse was a guest. From Silent Bob. Silent Bob, yeah. Ryan, do you normally jump in more?

No, you know, it's... He's new. Brand new. Especially when I cut him off. How was he going to jump? No, it's about you guys. I'm here. I got a microphone just in case. Okay. I thought maybe Ryan didn't like me and the jury was still out on Ryan. Michael made a decision that it's okay to like me and Ryan's still like, you know what? No. No, he likes you. I think. Do you

like him? Yeah, I like it. Yeah. I like what I'm saying, so Ryan is sort of new. He's come in like the last, I guess, you have like five or six episodes. This is like my fifth one, I think. Fifth one. Yeah. And so it's all, it's all new. Happy anniversary. Happy anniversary, Ryan. Happy fifth. Quiet Ryan. But Jason. Yeah. Anyway. Do you have any questions for either of us? This will be edited. I'm kidding. I love Ryan.

I'm a friend. He's a friend. And then he's like, yeah, you know, I engineer. I go, dude, I go, dude, I go, dude, I actually need a new engineer. Do you want to, I want to do it? So he figured it out. And that's it's new. Well, welcome aboard.

Yeah. Well, thank you. Yeah, welcome aboard, Ryan. What are we going to ask? What? Were you going to ask something? I don't even know. All right.

But what I will say is this. Before you go, just tell me the story. Because when we were, before we started filming, you know, you know, recording i showed you my shee stadium seats and my giant seats yeah and you told me this story about you and your dad and it really touched me and i i almost cut you off because i didn't want you to tell it to me then i wanted it to be just tell a story so uh i'm from boston and i grew up basically doing my homework at fenway park and the reason that i or fenway pack as we're supposed to say um my dad was a baseball player and he wanted to see them break the curse you know the curse of

the Bambino, which had been looming over us for so many years. So there I was at Fenway most of my life or always hearing my dad, you know, ranting about what the Red Sox need to do. And he just said is in the last several years of his life, he was fighting cancer and he's like, I just want to see the Red Sox break this curse before I fucking kick the bucket. So, oh four, they're in the series with St. Louis. And what will potentially be the, you know, curse breaking game. I found a, the guy that sells tickets on the street a scalper right scalper who was online and for uh two he had two tickets

they were both $4,000 and he said if you bring me cash in an envelope you can have my two tickets for fourth row behind the Red Sox dugout called my dad up who's pretty sick at the time I was in L.A. I said dad um I got us two tickets to see the Red Sox tomorrow night in uh St. Louis and I'll never forget man you want to talk about like bringing a tear to my my dad i could hear him on the other end of the phone whatever time it was in

boston was pretty late and he was already getting he was like i'm up i'm up what do you i'm getting where you need me to go yeah so got him a car met him in st louis met the guy outside which stadium shady dude i said listen i go man i go are these real please i go this is my you know i'm taking my dad and i'm like this guy could be just you know he's got cancer for god's sake don't Fuck me. Tickets are real. We get in. We watch the game. Um, it was the first time in my entire life that I ever saw my dad jump up and down when we won. I never see. He was old school. He was tough. And to see him like, ah, was weird. Tears in his eye. Oh, just everything. We're screaming and hollering. I actually put it on video my, my phone or, um, whatever camera I had.

I got the video, me and my dad kissing each other and fucking jumping up and down. And a year later, they were tearing down Bush to rebuild. the stadium. I got in touch with the owners and I said, my dad had passed and I said, could I buy the two seats that my dad and I sat in? Greatest day my dad and I had in a tricky life that worked up to an amazing moment that we shared together. And then even more than that weirdly, even though breaking the curse that night, I remember us just being up all night in our little twin beds in the whatever motel we got and just talking all night, talking about life in baseball and he was laughing a lot and it was so beautiful because he he just didn't allow himself

to do that but he did that night and i got the two seats so i have the two seats that my dad and i sat in for the greatest day in sports for a couple of bostonians my god ryan quite ryan is that like the best story you've ever heard no it's really nice what a beautiful fucking story man thank you sorry to end with effing i didn't have to say that it's just it's a beautiful story All right, the tour is tell it like it is. Yeah, people can check out Danecook.com, all the tickets, all that stuff's on there. Danecook. Where are you in Twitter and Instagram?

It's just Dincook. It handles Dane Cook. Mostly Instagram. I do a little twittering, but mostly DMs and stuff through Instagram. Do you follow me on Instagram? I don't think you do, will you? Yeah, of course. Because then you can maybe post this when it comes out because it's a great interview.

We should. I like that. Not because I was a great interviewer, but you were great. But I feel like as we've chatted and we've gotten to know each other even more that we should be friends. I was hoping. you'd say that i don't want to say that because that'd be creepy like i'd love for the next time if you would invite me back i'd love to be able to say like hey remember we were talking about some other shit like i'd love you to come back i love this because it's it's really interesting hearing your perspective and how i don't know we just talked about all this but yes so of course

we're friends i will uh i'll get your number you'll follow me on instagram yeah if that's not friendship why don't we drive around and listen to a little uh uh till tuesday i name that tune ready Well, it's not fought down to paradise In least it's not for me But if the wind is right You can find joy Find serenity Oh, the canvas can do miracles

Just you wait and see Believe me I just want you to sing it It's beautiful Sailing Take me away To wherever I'm come on it's the best that song comes on and immediately i'm just like he uses a word that i didn't

i still don't know what it means i my go-to would still probably be though toto is reigns of africa oh dude toto's a good one isn't it if you want to put if you want to switch your mood back into something uh real mellow that's the song really yeah i don't even know all the words that i see the and then bobby mcfarin's uh don't worry be happy are you like that song yeah don't worry be happy it just goes on and on the same thing it's oh oh oh oh oh don't worry and then at the end he goes it will soon pass whatever it is this two shall pass all cut up in the reverie oh reverie every word is a symphony won't you believe me come on cross he killed it

Cross killed it. Dan Cook, thank you for allowing to be inside of you. Thanks, man. Great. Awesome. Someone's heart is breaking But don't you be mistaken

You'll always have the key to my soul And baby, let's get ready to roll Well, I'm just hanging on To a love that is pure as known Hi, I'm Joe Sal C. Hi, host of the stacking Benjamins podcast. Today, we're going to talk about what if you came across $50,000. What would you do? Put it into a tax advantage retirement account. The mortgage. That's what we do. Make a down payment on a home. Something nice. Buying a vehicle. A separate bucket for this addition that we're adding. $50,000. I'll buy.

a new podcast partner. You'll buy new friends. And we're done. Thanks for playing everybody. We're out of here. Stacking Benjamin's, follow and listen on your favorite platform.